James Forman Quotes
If we can’t sit at the table of democracy, then we’ll knock the fucking legs off. But before we tear it completely down, they will move to build a better one, rather than see this one destroyed.
James Forman, 1928–2005, Civil Rights Leader, Executive Secretary, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Speech, Montgomery, Alabama, March 1965
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This phrase was also to be used over 100 years later by Malcolm X. See {624101} and {38291}.
In the middle of WWII where Black soldiers were fighting and dying on the war front, there were fears of racists that the Blacks would return and demand full equality and an end to segregation. There were threats in the South of armed attacks against any returning serviceman who would push for desegregation.
Note the technique of labeling any attempt to obtain equal rights for Blacks communistic. The communists were exploiting the racism and hypocrisy of American race relations and supported most civil rights efforts. However Randolph and most other Black Civil Rights Leaders were not communists although some were.
There was a March on Washington planned for 1942. However, the leaders were persuaded to call it off as the United States was in the midst of the Second World War. The military was segregated and so were the defense plants. FDR made some concessions regarding defense jobs but discrimination was still rampant. It would be 20 years later when the March actually took place with some of the same leaders organizing it.
King and his associates along with a large number of students were arrested for protesting racial discrimination in Selma. The Chief of police was told that this is just what King wanted. His was a deliberate attempt to get publicity by arresting and prosecuting a group of ministers and school children. So Chief Baker told King that they were not under arrest. So King went outside the jail where many journalists had congregated, hastily called a press conference, and publicly admitted to deliberately drawing attention to the conditions.
James Forman was a prominent African-American leader in the civil rights movement. He was active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. As the executive secretary of SNCC from 1961 to 1966, Forman played a significant role in the freedom rides, the Albany movement, the Birmingham campaign, and the Selma to Montgomery marches.
