God give me the strength to explain this clearly.
Cardinal O’Boyle was an extraordinary man, but one of his
best moments is generally forgotten, and when it is remembered, it is more
often than not by people who resented what he did. In August, 50 years ago, he threw away a
large portion of his fan club, because he had to get a job done. The civil rights movement was wrestling
toward real strength, but could still be undermined and destroyed from within. He saw the threat, confronted it, and
prevailed – pretty much alone – and he was reviled for it.
The problem was violence within the civil rights
movement. To this day, after the world
has seen nonviolence prevail in Gandhi’s India, in the American civil rights
movement, in Solidarity’s Poland, in Aquino’s Philippines, in Mandela’s South
Africa – still! still! after a list of stunning victories – most people are
blissfully ignorant about how this thing works, totally unaware of the
fragility of a campaign of nonviolence.
A huge campaign of nonviolence can be destroyed from within, by violence
within.
Years ago, there was a great movie produced about Gandhi,
entitled simply Gandhi. In it, there’s a scene in which the British
governor is confronted by civil disobedience all over the country, and asks a
subordinate if there has been any violence.
The officer goes over a very short list of incidents in which the police
had cracked a few heads. No, stupid, the
governor responds contemptuously, I’m asking about violence on the Indian side! The officer responds with some embarrassment
that there has not been a single incident of violence among Gandhi’s
followers. This is a disaster for the
British rulers. A little violence
amongst the Indians would justify a military response. They didn’t need much violence, but they
needed a little, and Gandhi’s campaign had maintained discipline nationwide. One incident of violence on the Indian side
would have been a sweet gift to the British rulers, a bitter defeat in India’s
drive toward independence.
One generation later, O’Boyle showed that he had absorbed
the lessons from India. When the March
on Washington was taking shape, there was a broad coalition making things
happen, and some of them were ready for riot – or at least ready to threaten
riots. One of the speakers for the event
was a young hero, a courageous leader, articulate and fiery John Lewis. He had led lunch-counter sit-ins in Nashville
in 1960, and he had been one of the Freedom Riders in 1961. In 1963, Lewis became the chairman of SNCC (Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). Now
he was on his way to Washington, and he had earned a spot on the program. But in the speech he had prepared, he seemed
to threaten that if nonviolence failed, civil rights activists would move on to
violence. (And in fact, in 1969, after
King’s assassination, SNCC changed its name, replacing “Nonviolent” with “National.”)
O’Boyle confronted the challenge, and demanded that Lewis
tone his words down. O’Boyle had
desegregated the Catholic churches of Washington, and he understood how
poisonous a threat could be. O’Boyle had
the credibility to intervene, and he prevailed.
Had he not done so, it is possible that Lewis would have dominated the
event. It was possible that Lewis’s
threat would have overshadowed King’s dream.
If O’Boyle had not made Lewis back off a little, the whole event, King’s
speech included, could have disappeared into the sands of history. Sure, historians would remember that there
was a march, but no one would remember or celebrate the transformative spirit
of that great day.
Years later, Lewis was still annoyed at the arrogance of
that white guy who demanded moderation in the middle of a revolution.
But the list of nonviolent campaigns that have failed is far,
far longer than the list of campaigns that have succeeded. A campaign of nonviolence cannot be destroyed
from outside; you can kill every single participant, and still their blood
cries out eloquently from the grave. But
from within, it doesn’t take much violence to poison the whole body.
I make this claim based in part on personal experience. I helped to build a campaign of civil
disobedience that was larger than King’s, if you measure by arrests. But the campaign I was in turned sour and
failed. I helped build the rescue
movement, protecting unborn children and their vulnerable mothers by a campaign
of nonviolent action. Gandhi said that
nonviolence is never a failure: it is measured by fidelity, not results. And even judging by the results, it had
measurable success. Not a total failure:
we saved many lives. Not a total
failure: the story is not over yet. But it
was a campaign that involved hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands –
and then disappeared.
Many observers and even participants and even leaders would
argue that the rescue movement was defeated by FACE, which increased the
penalties for rescues dramatically. That’s
nonsense. Are Americans congenitally
weaker than Indians, Poles, Filipinos, South Africans? We could have continued a campaign in the
face of long jail terms. But we could
not continue when the violence in our midst scrubbed our claim to nonviolence. In the 1990s, across the country, rescue
leaders blurred the difference between violence and nonviolence.
When one well known activist shot and killed an abortionist,
pro-lifers tut-tutted; but not one leader had the grit, the guts, the
self-sacrificial determination, to demand a solid front movement-wide against
the drift into violence. And the rescue
movement sank into obscurity.
My hat is off to O’Boyle.
He was smart and tough and effective.
And when he was tested, he held his ground.
On August 28, remember Cardinal O’Boyle’s
work, and celebrate his courage. Rev. Martin Luther King’s speech fired the nation, and King
deserves the credit he gets. But remember that we met him astride the
shoulders of giants, including Cardinal O’Boyle.
