Katie McWatt

Education, social justice issues. Del: What is your definition of the Civil Rights Movement? Katie: I think it was the sixties. Part of the Civil Rights Movement was a determination to make a fair society. The coming together of a people and society to make a change in this country. It was African-Americans and those who agreed with them, saying enough is enough, and we will be free, and we will have those rights that are ours. In other words, we were putting the finishing touches on a democracy that was denied us all those years, our fair and equal rights. Del: How did you participate in activism during the Civil Rights Movement? Katie: I believe that if you are alert and aware in this society you are born into the struggle. None of us can escape that struggle, the society defines us as it has and puts roadblocks and obstacles in our way, so that we don't achieve all we can achieve. I became aware of the difference in my first couple of days of elementary school when I was called names, and so on. It wasn't a fancy school, the area wasnÕt desegregated. We just happen to live in the area where we were one of two black families. So, the school that I went to was predominately white, and I was the only black student there at that time. No one would take my hand at games and during playtime and I was attacked on the way home from school by some school boys. I always tell this story, because it left a lasting impression on me. These kids took my jump rope and said they were going to hang me, lynch me. Perhaps they were playing or saying something they heard their parents say. I'm unsure how I got out of it, but it made a lasting impression on me, and that is when I realized that I was not of the same culture and ethnic group as the other children in my school. So, I think right then is when I determined that something was wrong and something had to change. I remember in junior high serving on panels and debates about the need to give rights and citizenship to African Americans. I remember trying out for different groups and organizations because, I wanted to show I could do those things to, even though there wasn't anyone there that looked like me. My biggest thrill was being able to go the Central High School where there were other African American students that looked like me that I felt I had a chance with, that I could be friends with. I loved it because there were other African American children there and it was all a wonderful experience. More currently, I belong to the League of Women's Voters and they do different issues every year. They have an agenda that they put together every year and I thought it would be great to put human rights on the agenda. We all got together many people who agreed and we worked for that. I became interested in the Urban League Guild after I got married. I worked in the Urban League Guild and we did a variety of things. I was a member of the NAACP. Those are things you just automatically would do. It's what you did if you were black. You automatically realized that outside of your life there were things that you would have to do to make change. We could not stand, any more, not having any bus drivers, any teachers, very few, if any clerks in the department stores, you had one doctor, one dentist or two, who would have to be an African-American. Something had to change, even here in Minnesota. That became the focus of what I was trying to help with. Del: In your opinion with the public protest and boycotts of past be an effective way to make the change today? Katie: I think they should always be in the freedom arsenal. You should always have those things available. I don't know how much difference those things make but you don't know until you try. We protested last year and had a good effort to make sure the mayor of St. Paul did not destroy the human rights commission which he was doing by cutting half the staff and so forth and so on. So we did organize again and we did go in with the procedure. You meet with the person and tell them things they must do. Tell them the things you think they're doing are wrong and then we lobbied the different people on the council to see where they were to try to persuade them not to make those cuts and in the human rights department. We wrote letters and I think any kind of effort, action for change involves many things, the most obvious of course is to march or the public display of disagreement of what is happening. But, before that there are a variety of things that need to be done. I think when they built the new prison in Rush City, Minnesota many of us in MN wondered why in the world were they building a prison in Rush City. When we know that amazing numbers of black people are in prison in Minnesota. Minnesota has one of the highest rates of black people in prison in the country and so we knew that this was probably an economic thing to build a prison in Rush City to give the people in Rush City jobs. This a very far distance from the Twin Cities it is not very easy to get there. I think at that point we should have had a more vocal, verbal protest. You can see now there's that prison in Rush City and they are beginning to fill it up. You can see, and you wonder who will be there. And so protest is good and boycotts are fine. We participated in the General Mills boycott years ago and what did they do-they hired a black vice-president, but they had gotten used to African Americans working in a variety of levels at General Mills. Del: What do you think is the most important issue African-Americans need to address today? Katie: I think we can't back down and that we have to continue to work and to learn and to do all those things we need to do it as people. But we can never forget that we all really stand or fall together. And that we can't forget the lessons of the past. To do that is to become very vulnerable. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. I think you can see some of the gains we have made, the most obvious is affirmative action. There are actually black people who are vocally oppose to it , in California there is a black man who was one of the leaders against affirmative action. We need to always remember the past and be aware of the changes in the progress that we have made. I think the major thing is to continue to work, but to always remember past and to always pay attention and to always take nothing for granted. Del: Are you aware of the Black Arts Movement? Katie: Yes, I think I am. Del: How would you define the relationship between a Black Arts Movement in the Civil Rights Movement? Katie: I think they face some of the same obstacles. The Black Arts Movement: the painter's, sculptors, the actors, the writers, they are not recognized as much as they should be. It appears to me they are facing obstacles, they are facing non acceptance. Where do they display things? They are not recognized. They are not as invisible as black people were in the south that worked in the Civil Rights Movement. They face, in many ways, all the problems that most artists do. They face the same struggle because this country does not value its artist of any kind. They do not give them the support and help that they need. We should have been there demanding something for the Celebration of Life mural that was torn down. Not just the artists, but the community, because artist help spawn the community. Del: How do you participate in activism today? Katie: I am vice president of the St. Paul branch of the NAACP and we still get many individual calls from people who have a problem or feel they have a problem. We go and investigate. We were active in reaching an agreement two years ago with the police on racial profiling. So they have to carry cards now that give their names and so on, when they stop people. We will be working hard to get out the vote to make sure that people vote in the city and then eventually the presidential election which is so crucial. I am on the board of KMOJ an African-American community radio station which was having some difficulty but it is recovering. So we're trying to keep going. There should be at least one station operated with the African-American slant. I'm on a few other boards. I keep a hand in things. I am always available to help out. Del: What do you think of the Civil Rights Movement today? I'm not sure thereÕs a real movement. I think there are some organizations who are committed to continuing the struggle and to making sure that we donÕt further back than we have. That's the important part, not to go backwards. I mean a couple of years ago the Ku Klux Klan came to the capitol. I never thought I would see that during my lifetime. People organized and went down to object to that. I think that people work together in their neighborhood to try to keep things positive in the neighborhood in terms of neighborhood block groups etc. They are trying to solve problems of some violence, crime, etc. So, I think those things go on. It's not the clear effort that it was in the sixties. It was clearly a moral and a legal effort. And everyone that believed that there should be a change was able to put something into it. I don't know that we have quite that focus anymore. Del: Control Katie: We need to have more control over our lives in our neighborhoods and community. We as in African Americans. Del: Dehumanize Katie: There is an effort in this society to dehumanize groups that are not like the majority and I understand what that is. I think that most African Americans would understand with that means. I certainly feel that is a dreadful action. Del: Stigma Katie: This society attaches stigma to certain groups in society. For example what you see on television, I don't know where African-Americans are going to end up on that. With all that time, and effort, with the many creative things we have. It seems to me that they are not used and they further the stigma that is attached to us as being jokingly, happy people. Del: Traumatized Katie: We were traumatized by procedures, practices, and propaganda in the sixties. The history of our whole time here. The trauma that many of us face now perhaps comes from the conditions of poverty, neglect, ect., and what happens from that. Del: Loss Katie: Loss of opportunities. Loss of dignity and regard for human beings. I don't think this society really regards human beings of all kinds with the same sense and that's a loss. Del: Identity Katie: It is very important to have your identity. To have your culture, to know what is part of your culture and to be able to practice certain rituals and practices that give us our identity. Del: Survival Katie: I think it's very important to survive. I think Americans throughout our history have shown fantastic ability to survive just about everything that has been put upon us and I think it would be good to move beyond that. I don't know how far we are from basic survival. But it's important and has a special meaning when it comes to us. Del: Inspire Katie: Families, people inspire other people. Actions can help inspire and that was the Civil Rights Movement obviously, because you could be inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. as easily as you could by the youngsters in the voting rights projects in the South. We can inspire each other with remembering our past and the things we've done. Your mother can inspire you, your friends. It's important to have the inspiration, because it takes us out of just the everyday life of perhaps going to the store, or just going along. We need inspiration. Del: Hope Katie: Hope is always important. There was always the hope of the Civil Rights Movement both in the south and here that someday we would see some black teachers in the schools. I never had a black teacher in the public schools in Minnesota. But we need teaches very much. Good teachers-we need more African-American teachers and the hope is always more doctors. And the hope is that they will make a difference, because they do when they are good folks and they're inspired. We know that they can make a difference. There's a group of young men that came out of a tough neighborhood and became doctors and that's an inspiring story. We have to always have hope. Del: Closure Katie: I hate that word. Everyone uses that. I think it is a good word, but I think they use it like it's in vogue or something. I'm thinking of when I hear victims of a crime or who may have had a death saying if I could just find the person who did it IÕll have closure. I believe that when you lose someone violently or not you donÕt exactly ever have closure, because you will always remember that person. I will always remember my mother. I wouldn't think of having closure on the fact she is dead. Instead, I would want to have good memories of her. I will always have memories of her. Perhaps they want a different kind of memory. But closure means that it is over. Maybe, that's not what it means. But, I think itÕs used the wrong way. I assume closure means the end and there's no end to the struggle for African Americans. There's no end, it continues on because this society has not changed that much. The struggle continues and it will for years.

Click Here to Close Window