July 21, 2020
C.T. Vivian, Remembering a Civil Icon Who Put His Life on the Line Because He “Loved,” His People
By Hamil R. Harris
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Rev. C.T. Vivian once said, “Leadership is found in the action to defeat that which would defeat you… You are made by the struggles you choose.”
During the turbulent years of the Civil Rights movement, it was Vivian’s job, as director of affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to poke at racists and set up confrontations in hopes of shaming their actions on the national news.
And it was dangerous.
“I almost got killed in St. Augustine,” said Vivian in an interview with this reporter for the Washington Post while He was being honored at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that was sponsored by the DC Choral Arts Society.
Cordy Tindell Vivian, 95, died July 17 at his home in Atlanta. He closed his eyed on the same day that Rep. John Lewis, 80 , lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. It is almost ironic that both men would die of natural causes because of the battles they waged against racism and hate so long ago.
Former UN Ambassador said in an ABC TV interview that Vivian and Lewis were, “men of courage who risked death constantly. They came up with me and Martin Luther King and one thing that Martin King did before he died was to preach our funerals. It was like Richard Pryor, he had us laughing at the possibility of death.”
But Young went onto say that what Vivian did was no laughing matter because many Civil Rights activist would make the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.
On June 22, 1964- Vivian and other Civil Rights workers staged a “wade-in” on a segregated beach in St. Augustine. Fl. He said in an 2015 interview backstage at the Kennedy Center. He said after being confronted by an angry mob wielding clubs. “I almost drowned.”
Three days earlier, a man poured what was thought to be acid into the pool at Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine after his group of Blacks and White protesters jumped in. These two incidents would focus national attention on St. Augustine and helped to convinced uncommitted members of Congress to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1964.
Vivian said the protest was all part of strategy that he and King’s other aides learned from disciples of Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian activist about that used, “nonviolent direct action,” to affect change.
“Martin King was the leader and without a doubt he had brought us a new method. Before [nonviolent direct action] nothing was happening,” said Vivian, who during his acceptance speech at the Kennedy in 2015 had people laughing when he said, “We owe Alabama more than any place else. You have to go to the worst places to come up with the best stuff.”
Vivian is a distinguished minister, author, and organizer. A leader in the Civil Rights Movement and friend to Martin Luther King, Jr., he participated in Freedom Rides and sit-ins across our country. Vivian also helped found numerous civil rights organizations, including Vision, the National Anti-Klan Network, and the Center for Democratic Renewal.
“Whether you are talking about Rep. John Lewis or Rev. C.T. Vivian, what is amazing is their life long consistency,” Rev. Tony Lee, Pastor of the Community of Hope, in Temple Hills Maryland. “Those guys went the distance even until their dying breath.”
Lee, whose ministry is located just miles from the US Capitol, said “ a few years ago Dr. Vivian was in his 90’s and he was taking part in a campaign that I was part of called Real Men vote. Even with John Lewis it wasn’t about them but serving people.”
Vivian was born in Boonville, Missouri. As a child he and his mother moved to Macomb, Illinois, where he attended Lincoln Grade School, Edison Junior High School and Macomb High School, graduating in 1942.
Vivian attended Western Illinois University in Macomb, where he worked as the sports editor for the school newspaper.. He also served recreation director for the Carver Community Center in Peoria, Illinois. There, he participated in his first sit-in demonstrations, which successfully integrated Barton's Cafeteria in 1947.
Vivian studied at the American Baptist College in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1959, he met James Lawson, who was teaching Gandhi's nonviolent direct action strategy to the Nashville Student Movement.
Other Civil Rights activist learning from Lawson included Diane Nash, Bernard Lafayette, James Bevel, John Lewis who were students at Fisk University and Tennessee State University. They would go on to organize nonviolent sit-ins at lunch counters in Nashville.
On April 19, 1960 more than 4000 people took part in a demonstration at Nashville's City Hall, where Vivian and Diane Nash confronted Nashville Mayor Ben West who agreed in principle that racial discrimination was morally wrong.
As a result, Vivian and Nash took on major leadership roles in both the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1961, He participated in Freedom Rides And went on to work with Martin Luther King Jr. as the national director of affiliates for the SCLC.
In 1979 he co-founded, with Anne Braden, the Center for Democratic Renewal (initially as the National Anti-Klan Network), an organization where blacks and whites worked together in response to white supremacist activity.
In 1984 he served in Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign, as the national deputy director for clergy. In 1994 he helped to establish, and served on the board of Capitol City Bank and Trust Co., a black-owned Atlanta bank. He also served on the board of Every Church a Peace Church.
In 2008, Vivian founded and incorporated the C. T. Vivian Leadership Institute that developed the "Yes, We Care" campaign after the City of Atlanta turned the water off at Morris Brown College. He mobilized the Atlanta community and raised$500,000 for Morris Brown
“John Lewis and C.T. Vivian represented the heart for us,” said Dr. Paula Matabane, a retired Howard University Professor and filmmaker who has moved back home to Atlanta.
“They exuded love and I will never forget I was 13 years old and Wyatt T Walker came to our church in Atlanta, Providence Baptist Church and I remember sitting there and realized that somebody loved us enough to put their lives on the line.”
Going forward Bishop Jamal Bryant, pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, , “In C.T. Vivian's hour the church was leading the Civil Rights movement, today the church is supporting the movement which puts us in a different position.”
“The first Civil Rights movement was birthed out of the church,” Bryant said. “I think that the church is as strong as ever. Pastor Tony Lee is feeding thousands, Look what Pastor Huber Brown is doing in Baltimore with urban gardens. Look at Pastor Mike McBride giving out 100,000 items. They are working in silos and not in front of a camera.”
In terms of the upcoming election, Bryant said “We have always done souls to the polls but there has been a paradigm ship because of Covid-19 in that we are pushing for early voting.”
On August 8, 2013. President Barack Obama awarded Vivian the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The White House citation began by saying:
“C. T. Vivian is a distinguished minister, author, and organizer. A leader in the Civil Rights Movement and friend to Martin Luther King, Jr., he participated in Freedom Rides and sit-ins across our country.
Vivian also helped found numerous civil rights organizations, including Vision, the National Anti-Klan Network, and the Center for Democratic Renewal. In 2012, he returned to serve as interim President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “