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Hosted by Princeton Theological Seminary President Jonathan Lee Walton, Expanding the Table gathers leading voices in history, theology, and public life to explore questions of faith, leadership, and justice.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 00:06
Welcome to Expanding the Table. A Princeton Theological Seminary series from the Office of the President. I'm Jonathan Lee Walton, 8th President of the Seminary. And at this table, We gather leading voices in history, theology, and public life to explore questions of faith, leadership, justice Well, today's guest is one whose intellectual contributions and public voice can certainly help us live into these commitments. Professor Peniel Joseph is a distinguished historian and author who's emerged as a leading chronicler of the civil rights movement and Black freedom struggle in America. He is the founding director for the study of race and democracy. At the University of Texas in Austin. And here he holds a joint appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Department of History. He is one of our leading voices in helping this nation to wrestle with its long struggle for a multiracial democracy. A few of his books, such as Stokely, A Life, is a field defining treatment of the late Stokely Carmichael, and his book, The Sword and Shield, The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., These books have already shaped how we think about leaders and movements that altered the moral landscape of this nation. And now, with his eighth book. Freedom season. How 1963 Transformed America's Civil Rights Revolution Professor Joseph revisits a pivotal year in the American story. When ordinary citizens and extraordinary leaders helped bend the long arc of history toward justice. Professor Joseph, it is such a joy to have you joining us today. Thank you for being with Listen, you have described your work as exploring the duality of America, both its democratic promise and its unfulfilled struggles for equality.
Peniel Joseph | 02:09
Us. Jonathan, it's my honor. I'm really happy to be here.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 02:26
I was wondering if you could unpack this kind of narrative arc that's really shaped your work.
Peniel Joseph | 02:32
Well, when we think about America has always been two things simultaneously. So on one level, there's the America of multiracial democracy, and I call this Reconstructionist America. And that's the America of Sojourner Truth, of Ida B. Wells, of Frederick Douglass, but the America of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker. But there's a redemptionist America as well. And that's the America of... The Confederacy, the America of racial segregation, the America of separate but equal. And in certain ways, when we think about this long journey of the American story, sometimes we get it wrong. We either say America's one thing or the other.
So it's either this great place, President Obama said it on the night he was elected in 2008, America was a place where all things were possible, right? Or we vilify the country and say America is a place of colonialism. It's a place of racism. It's a place of deep misogyny and sexism.
Well, these are really more juxtapositions. Than anything, right? They're not aberrations, they're juxtapositions. And I think, Our task as scholars is to allow that story to unfold and to see what lessons we learn from that story. And so the arc of my work has really been about watching that story unfold in the 19th and 20th century and really seeing the way in which these juxtapositions offer at times real opportunities for not just insight, but for transformation.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 04:11
The noble and the sublime, the horrific and the tragic.
Peniel Joseph | 04:14
100%. Absolutely.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 04:17
Now, why 1963? I mean, of all the years and all of the pivotal events of the civil rights struggle, you decided to focus in on this particular year. Why 1963?
Peniel Joseph | 04:27
The archive. So my research really led me to revisit 1963. I've done these different books on the Black Power Movement, done biographies of Stokely and Martin King and Malcolm X. I've done books on what I call the Third Reconstruction that link 19th and 20th century to contemporary history in the 21st century, including the Black Lives Matter movement. And the year that always kept standing out to me was 1963. And this is unusual because in certain ways, as a young man, when I came into, as a student of the 60s, I was certainly enamored with the late '60s.
So, 1968, you know, Black Panthers, the King assassination, Stokely Carmichael, Kwame Ture, Huey Newton, Kathleen Cleaver. So many of these folks and these events. And as I've gotten deeper into the archive, I saw that 1963 was the pivotal year. I saw that 1963 was the year that America. Came undone and remade itself. And '63 becomes the high point of the heroic period of the civil rights movement, but it really becomes the first year of a 50-year racial justice consensus.
So when we think about from 1963 to 2013, we have a 50-year racial justice consensus in the United States It's not a perfect consensus, but the way in which we get African Americans in the Ivy Leagues, the way in which we get the most African American presidents of universities, Most African Americans in corporate America who are elected officials, who are able to have home ownership, send their kids to the schools they want to, That is because of 1963.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 06:15
So you say so those are the results of so say a little bit more about the consensus, what you mean by this kind of consensus that was formed and shaped and grew out of this.
Peniel Joseph | 06:25
Year. So when we think about consensus, 63 is going to be the first time in American history where there's a consensus around multiracial democracy. The key is black dignity and citizenship. When we think about Black dignity and citizenship, there's a long arc of a struggle for Black dignity and citizenship. When we think about David Walker, when we think about Sojourner Truth, when we think about all these different movements for dignity and citizenship. '63 is the first time that an American president since Abraham Lincoln, this is John F. Kennedy, gonna robustly come out for Black dignity and citizenship. It's the first time that there's a groundswell of movement activism, including ordinary young people from the South, from the North, from the Midwest, who organize and put their bodies on the line. 63 is when Birmingham, Alabama, the spring of 63 is a revolution. And I'll say that word again. A revolution occurs where children as young as 7, 8, 9, 10, over 3,000 of them, are gonna be imprisoned in jails. And they're making a moral stand for the humanity of Black people. But they're arguing, and this is very important, that if we recognize the humanity of Black people, we're gonna recognize the humanity of all people.
So it's a struggle for citizenship and dignity that's not isolated towards Black people. And that's what's so key. And remarkably, through assassinations, through death, through police brutality, We come from One side of the equation at the start of '63, by the end of the year, everyone, There's a consensus that's built that we have to have Black dignity and citizenship if the nation is to move forward, and if the nation is to remain, this beacon of liberty in the eyes of the world.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 08:17
- Yeah. So one thing that you mentioned Birmingham, you mentioned, you know, we know Jackson, all of these kind of pivotal moments that you write about in the book. One of the things that we think about, particularly as it relates to this kind of consensus is the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. You've described the March on Washington as this kind of large mass church gathering, right? Or kind of, you know, a secular expression of civic faith. I was wondering if you could touch on some of the kind of sacred themes or transcendent themes that you were able to pull from this March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that.
Peniel Joseph | 08:58
Year. I think the March on Washington is one of the most important events in American history. It's a founding event. When we think about '63, there is a third American republic that's founded in '63. After the Civil War, a second American republic is founded, but Civil rights activists lose the narrative war after the Civil War. And they lose the narrative war in the sense of saying that Black dignity and citizenship should be the beating heart of a new multiracial democracy. And that's how we have separate but equal. And that's how we have segregation, Black codes, convict leasing. What's so extraordinary about 1963, and this connects to the March on Washington-- Exactly 100 - A century later, 100 years, so it's so poetic.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 09:39
Years after the emancipation of that.
Peniel Joseph | 09:45
We get a new civic faith in what multiracial democracy means. And one of the themes that I've drawn out of the March on Washington is this theme of human dignity that Dr. King speaks about. This theme of renewal of the American promise that Dr. King speaks about.
So when we think about the March on Washington, it is a mass church meeting. It's a secular meeting. The movement, the civil rights movement is a church-led and church-based movement. And the March on Washington, August 28th, 1963, is the first time both President Kennedy, the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, they attend a mass movement meeting. And it's a mass movement meeting that's multiracial, but that's ecumenical. We have rabbis, we have people from the Catholic faith and Presbyterians and numerous faith leaders there, but what we see And to me, this idea of human dignity, when Dr. King says, "Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy." That's what he starts that speech with. Throughout, he invokes a notion of American history tied to multiracial democracy, but tied to the dignity of Black people everywhere, right? And so that's where he says, he talks about, let freedom ring, from, all these different mountains in New Hampshire and California. - Lookout Mountain, Stone Mountain, Georgia. - But then he goes to Georgia and he goes to the South and it says it has to ring everywhere.
So I think the big things that I've taken out of the March on Washington in Freedom Season is the way the March on Washington really forces the country to re-examine its own belief system and expand that belief system. That's what's so dramatic.
So King becomes, at the March on Washington, a new founding father of the country, but the Black women and men at the March on Washington become the same thing. So the march is the first time in American history where the notion of multiracial democracy reverberates loud enough for the entire nation to hear, including its political class, political leadership class.
So the march rearranges our institutions and our processes for citizenship connected to human dignity.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 12:15
Now, this takes place in August. I want to rewind a little bit because one of my favorite documents to teach is the letter from a Birmingham City Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. You dedicate an incredible chapter on the content and context of the production of this letter. I am unapologetic. I think it's one of the most profound spiritual epistles ever written in human history. I would love to hear you unpack it a little bit, particularly juxtaposing the explicit Christian themes of the document versus this kind of clarion call for a multiracial democracy that you tease out so.
Peniel Joseph | 12:57
Eloquently. I teach Letter from Birmingham Jail every semester. I think Letter from Birmingham Jail is one of the signal documents ever produced in human history. And I think it shows, it illustrates King's political and theological genius and intellectual genius.
So whatever we can say about King, Dr. King wrote from Birmingham jail on pieces of paper. He did this... Extemporaneously with no notes.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 13:25
No library there. No.
Peniel Joseph | 13:27
Library, no notes. No chat GPT. No chat GPT.
So you could see Dr. King was a genius. And so what's so extraordinary about Letter from Birmingham Jail is the way in which he imbues these themes of Christian redemption, these themes of a moral vision of American democracy, but these themes of confrontation. Because what he does in Letter from Birmingham Jail is he's responding to clergy in Birmingham who are saying the movement should wait. And he's saying in Letter from Birmingham Jail why we can't wait, but he's saying things like, He's discovered through his faith that he should not be required to obey any law that is immoral. He's taking stances. He's criticizing would-be allies who aren't willing to take the same moral stance as King and the movement.
So when we think about Letter from Birmingham Jail, he connects a fundamentally... Moral reimagining of American democracy, but he connects it to the history of the United States.
So he says that the young people in Birmingham who are being arrested, and the quote for King is saying, "One day they're going to be regarded as heroes for bringing this nation back to the great wells of democracy that were dug deep by the founding fathers." And so when we think about Letter from Birmingham Jail, it's a signal document in this second American republic. And I do think there's something biblical and there's something providential about Letter from Birmingham Jail in the sense that this happens in one year. That these children are risking their lives and going to jail by the thousands, that Medgar Evers, even before the assassination, is leading the most robust movement for democracy in the history of Jackson, Mississippi, which is saying something, 'cause it's got such a rich history. When we're seeing people like Lorraine Hansberry and James Baldwin and the thought leadership of these folks around issues of Black dignity and citizenship, right? For that to happen in one single year is extraordinarily providential. And I think King realizes how critical his role is in 1963.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 15:44
So we you talked about the young people that were on the front lines. And again, these weren't just college students. We're talking about children, even here.
Peniel Joseph | 15:52
Right. Elementary school, elementary third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 15:56
We are preparing people here at the seminary for vocations in ministry, preparing them for what we say is our mission statement, ministries marked by faith, scholarship, integrity, competence, compassion, and joy. I wonder... I would love to hear you. Reflect on what are some lessons from 1963. From some of the many scenes and different settings where people were, as we said, working to bend that arc of the universe toward.
Peniel Joseph | 16:26
Justice? Absolutely. There's, you know, I would say three lessons. One of the lessons is this lesson of solidarity, right? What you see throughout 1963 is real solidarity among young people that crosses racial lines, that crosses class backgrounds, that cross divisions and polarization.
So there's deep solidarity. But it's a solidarity based in a deep, understanding of dignity, and that's the second lesson. When we think about this idea of dignity, what is it? What we see people like James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Martin King, Malcolm X, they define dignity as something that is God-given, and all human beings have it from birth, right? But they juxtapose dignity vis-a-vis citizenship. Citizenship for them is merely the external recognition of dignity. And so when we think about this idea, this relationship between dignity and citizenship, in 1963, we have a generation, generations of people who argue that every person in the United States, whether they're citizens or not, have human dignity and institutions have to recognize that human dignity. That's the key. And when we think about how we're living in 2025, that continues to be the key.
And then finally, I think the third lesson is one of coalitions. There's deep coalitions in 1963, coalitions that cross religion, ...labor, people who are incarcerated, coalitions of people who are straight, who are queer, who are white, who are Asian, who are Black, coalitions that really transcend the boundaries of the United States.
So these are coalitions with people who are in Africa, who are in the Middle East, who are in Europe, right? So we see that together we are stronger in that sense, right?
So I'd say the lessons of solidarity, the lessons of human dignity, and the lessons of coalitions. And coalitions that are political, intellectual, and cultural, but that allow you to commit yourself towards service-oriented leadership, because that's what you see with these young people, not just in Birmingham and Jackson, but throughout - 1963.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 18:43
- So what is the relationship then between consensus and coalition. Because I mean, it seems like they're tied together, but you touched on the moment we're living in right now, where one might argue, it seems that we're in a post-consensus era, if you will, that seems to work against or belie commitments to coalition building.
Peniel Joseph | 19:05
I believe we are in a post-consensus era. I think that after 2013 and the Shelby v. Holder Supreme Court decision 5-4 that takes away Section 5 preclearance from the Voting Rights Act, we've been in a post-consensus United States society with all the divisions and polarizations. Consensus is connected to coalition. I think what's extraordinary about 63 is that we finally have a consensus around the meaning of Black dignity and citizenship and how that connects with American because multi-racial democratic project. It doesn't mean we have unanimity. It doesn't mean we-- It means we have consensus. And the way in which we could see that consensus is through our institutional, legal, legislative, and cultural processes, right? Where we upheld the dignity of a Black woman like Fannie Lou Hamer. Because Fannie Lou Hamer is not allowed that seat at the 1964 Democratic Convention, but she speaks before the Credentials Committee in August of '64, and she says, "Is this America, land of the free, home of the brave, where we are beaten and threatened for wanting to vote and live like decent human One of the greatest speeches of all time.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 20:12
Beings?" One of the greatest speeches of the period.
Peniel Joseph | 20:16
And so, when we think about that, that's part of the consensus. So, what we need now, I would argue, is... To build that consensus. King talks about he was not just somebody who was interested in an easy consensus. He was a molder of consensus because he was willing to bear witness, like James Baldwin.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 20:34
Like James Baldwin. Bearing witness. Yes. When we talk about James Baldwin bearing witness, right? Earlier, we had this incredible conversation in the office, right?
That's why I'm sitting here getting goosebumps thinking about it. Because so many people, you know, I say James Baldwin's like Jesus. People use him and quote him for whatever purpose they want, right? But you touch on something about Baldwin in your work and focus on a feature of his bearing witness that, like The prophet Jeremiah, he was a weeping prophet. He was full of lament, but that lament was always - It always led to a place of hope.
Peniel Joseph | 21:09
It always led to a place of hope. - absolutely.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 21:15
Thinking about the moment that we're in right now and thinking about, you know, people who are receiving their education, students on this campus right now, this period of deep division that we're in where cynicism is high, it feels like that.
Peniel Joseph | 21:32
Hope.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 21:33
Is just is to quote Brandon Terry, it's just a shattered dream. It's just... What lessons? Of resilience and hope. Do you think that we can pull from 1963?
Peniel Joseph | 21:50
I think we have tremendous lessons. I think Baldwin's a great example. I think what Baldwin's work does, and it's his thought leadership, It's his intellectual leadership, but it's him bearing witness. What Baldwin does throughout, especially between 1957 and '63, is he embeds himself into the civil rights movement. He visits with these young people. He is in Tallahassee, Florida. He's in Birmingham, Alabama. He befriends Martin Luther King Jr., not just for the Harper's Magazine profile, but because he believes. -He befriends Luther King Jr., yeah.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 22:22
Malcolm X. -The Harper's Magazine profile. The dangerous role before Martin Luther King Jr. Martin - Extraordinary piece.
Peniel Joseph | 22:27
- Extraordinary piece. And it's published in 1960. And when we think about James Baldwin, he believes blacks and whites and all races in the United States are a strange kin, a strange family. And he feels that the way in which we get together is by confronting the histories that have pulled us apart, right? And so Baldwin finds hope in a confrontation, hope in speaking truth to power, but hope, and we see this in Fire Next Time, in delving deep Personally and politically, he thinks the politics is personal and the personal is political. To find out What in our own lives requires scapegoats? Whether those scapegoats are Black people, whether they're queer folks, whoever they might be. And to... Really eradicate that Drew. Sometimes people say it's as simple as love, but what Baldwin thought was that Justice was what love looked like in public. Right. And so when you think about the fire next time and Baldwin's thought leadership doing these political tours for the Congress of Racial Equality, being in New Orleans and North Carolina, lifting up babies who've been abandoned. In these cities, what Baldwin was trying to do in a really profound way was a moral reimagining and a moral reckoning with the society. But he was very clear-eyed and articulate in the aftermath of Birmingham and the six children who are killed, that America needed to have this confrontation or things were going to get worse, right?
So Baldwin always retained hope, a battered hope, right? Sometimes an unhopeful hope, right? Hope hope.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 24:26
Against.
Peniel Joseph | 24:27
Hope against hope because he was in Selma in October of 1963 and is witnessing Sheriff Jim Clark and the brutality of not allowing black people to have food or water while they're trying to register to vote. This is before 1965 and Dr. King gets to Selma. He's there with SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
So Baldwin He tells those young people he's never gonna betray them. -He bears witness-- - At Howard University. At Howard University in 1962. He bears witness to... The nation's pain, but he's bearing witness to the efforts to what Dr. King calls redeem the soul of America.
So Baldwin provides huge hope, but it's hope and resilience by doing work. Baldwin never abandons the struggle. He never abandons his activism and thought leadership, but he doesn't think of himself as a Negro leader. -He thinks of-- - Or a spokesperson. -No, or a spokesperson. - Or a spokesperson. He thinks of himself as bearing witness, and the act of bearing witness is to really plumb the nation's pain, while getting to the depths of your own. And in doing that, We. Find salvation in each other. Baldwin writes in Nothing Personal, the book he did with Richard Avedon, which he writes in '63, which is published in '64, that the only thing that can save ourselves as each other.
So Baldwin's very much interested in this human connection that we have that absolutely transcends race, but he says we have to confront why institutions have made race a barrier for that human connection, right? So we can't ignore it. We can't just say, "Hey, we don't see color," right? But he knows we're deeper than just.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 26:17
Color. So it's interesting, 'cause you can be a spokesperson or be a voice of. And not have empathy. It's impossible to bear witness without empathy. - Absolutely. - Right. - Yes. - And that's where Baldwin his intervention in the movement. He resisted, "I'm not a Negro leader. I'm not a spokesperson." Right. But I show up and I'm present. And I can give voice to the pain, the problems. Of these people whom I identify with their humanity.
Peniel Joseph | 26:47
And the deep empathy transcends race because he says in the letter to his nephew that you've gotta love these white people who... Need to be much more politically mature than they are, right?
So he's got deep empathy and compassion for Black people, but for white people, despite what's happening and despite the imbalance in power relations. But Baldwin is critical of Power. In 1963.
So he becomes really the most vocal and I think the most eloquent speaker about power in 1963, which really shifts how we think about that year because we, you know, Malcolm X is there speaking truth to power. Dr. King is often thought of as the biggest moral spokesperson in the country in 63. I actually think it's James Baldwin. I actually think when you follow 1963, the impact of Fire Next Time, bestseller for 41 weeks, the impact of Another Country, which has sold over a million copies, the impact of what he's able to do in Paris and lead a March on Washington demonstration there, the impact on what he's able to do at the March on Washington. But he's the person who impacts John F. Kennedy's June 11th, 1963 speech, I think more than anybody, he just had the confrontation with Bobby Kennedy, the Attorney General on May 24th, 1963. And he's saying you and your brother are falling short unless you say that civil rights is the moral issue of our time. You Kennedy brothers think that the Cold War is gonna be your brother's legacy? Black dignity is gonna be the legacy of this administration and Baldwin was right.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 28:26
So of all these we've talked about again, and this is why the book is so extraordinary great Fannie Lou Hamer James Baldwin Lorraine Hansberry Martin Luther King jr. Of all of these figures And we talk about empathy and bearing witness. Is there one lesson that you might Want us to gain or glean from this book? From these figures about seeing the world differently.
Peniel Joseph | 28:54
Absolutely. I think somebody like Gloria Richardson is a great example of this.
Somebody who's 42 years old, Howard University graduate, Cambridge, Maryland activist, and from one of the best Black families in Cambridge, and really puts that all aside to lead this movement for human rights and civil rights in Cambridge. So it's really this idea, a lesson that all of us can be change makers and change agents, but it's about being inspired enough to do the work.
So Gloria Richardson didn't have to do what she did, and she becomes this indefatigable leader who Malcolm X is leading standing ovations for when she appears at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit in November of 1963, when he's giving the message to the grassroots speech. So I think this-- what's so extraordinary is the-- the hope that you find in doing the work and the work is leadership that is in service to an idea that's bigger than you.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 29:56
- Greater than yourself.
Peniel Joseph | 29:57
- Greater than yourself, absolutely. And there's a hope mixed with so much faith that year in '63. And so that's why when we think about March on Washington, Jackson, Mississippi, when we think about even the Emancipation Proclamation Centennial, so much of this is hope mixed with faith, both civic faith, but religious faith.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 30:18
I'm reminded of that line from a letter from a Birmingham jail where Martin Luther King Jr. And he's largely quoting Benjamin Elijah Mays, where he says, we are all inextricably linked by a common fabric of humanity and garment of destiny. Or it's what, as you know, James Baldwin says. Describes us as we're all strange kin. - Yes. - And that is the connection. - Yes. - And this, my friend, is the gift that you've given us and freedom season. How 1963 transformed America's civil rights revolution. Peniel Joseph, we're so blessed to have had you with us Thank you for joining us for Expanding the Table.
Peniel Joseph | 30:57
Today. Thank you. It's been my honor. Thank you so much.
Jonathan Lee Walton | 31:04
A Princeton Theological Seminary series from the Office of the President. These conversations are one of the ways we live into our mission. Cultivating leaders shaped by faith, scholarship, and compassion. And as well as opening our community to the world. On behalf of all of us at Princeton Seminary, thank you for being a part of this gathering. And until next time. May you continue to find ways to expand the table in your own communities. With faith, integrity, competence, compassion, and joy. One love.