Viewing page 12 of 102

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

FREEDOMWAYS
FOURTH QUARTER 1966

of the movement as well as those experiences we share with other people.  The Negro Freedom Movement in the United States is presently immersed in just such a moment in its life.  Its slogans and programs have been put to the test before.  What is qualitatively new is that the very definitions and assumptions upon which the Civil Rights movement proceeded and upon which previous programs rested are now demanding a reappraisal in the light of the realities of life. Such moments in the life of a freedom movement are rare indeed for they often take generations of time and experience to come to maturity.  In order to address itself fully to the challenge of such a moment a freedom movement often as to sum up its experience over just such a long span of time.  It is out of such moments that movements of protest and reform mature into movements of a revolutionary dimension, effecting changes in society so fundamental that they affect the very course of the history of that society and become a frame of reference for future generations.

The importance of such moments to Freedom Fighters rests in the fact that these moments re pregnant with freedom itself and if the period is not correctly understood and the definitions or tools of the struggle are faulty, then what was meant to be a new birth of freedom will be aborted.  For example, the Declaration of Independence penned by Thomas Jefferson was a redefinition of the relationships and assumptions of British America toward the Crown.  It was out of this process of reappraisal and redefinition that the political ideas of American revolution took shape and came to life.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was a redefinition not only of strategies involved in the military defeat of the Confederacy but of the assumptions which had prevailed in the country, that the slavery institutions could be made harmonious with the free democratic institutions simply by employing enough "compromises."  In each instance the bitter experience of the people themselves and the rising humanism of the particular age were major factors pushing the society towards revolutionary change.

And so it is with the embattled organizations of the Negro Freedom Movement.  Perhaps the central problem (and the most urgent) now facing us is that of developing an adequate theoretical framework--a sound system of ideas and definitions to guide the Movement in this complex period.  There has already been too long a delay in tackling this problem with the Freedom Movement.  The result is that our Movement has temporarily lost hundreds of talented, dedicated people in recent months who "just got tired getting beat over

298