Separate but Equal: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 Titus 1:15. To the pure all things are pure to them there are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure. See the people that have a good conscience and want to do right when they act they try to do everything with that consciousness of right. But when you have that conscience seared and hardened so much that you’re just doing evil then you don’t see any reason. To act in what is naturally right. Whatever you believe is right is right to you. But even their mind and their conscience is defiled and that’s what he’s telling he said you know their conscience whether they’re Christians or whether they’re non-Christians their conscience is what defiled it’s corrupt it’s evil it’s harmful they’re thinking their conscience is harmful.

▶ 1:04 They profess they know God here’s the Christian part. But in works they deny him. And in Revelation were they judged by their faith or were they judged by their works before the great white throne judgment works your behavior the way you treat people. Being an abominable that means detestable disobedient and unto every good work reprobate or undisciplined. Now. In 1951. My dad took me. To town the bigger town I didn’t go to the bigger town very many times but my dad took me to the bigger town and we were there for some reason I think they were buying something in the big town but anyway I got thirsty and I said dad I need a drink of water he says okay so he took me over to this place where there were public drinking fountains the one on the left says whites only.

▶ 2:10 The one on the right said colored. Now I can read I’m I’m an eight nine year old kid do you know I can read and I and I go why why is there two fountains he said well that’s for the colored people and this is for the white people and in my little child mind this is honest this is honest to goodness truth I thought they must have a disease. And so the whites didn’t want to drink after them because they had some kind of d because I had been taught in school that disease was passed on by you know if you drink out of the same dipper we had to stop drinking on the same dipper down south we had to get our own glass and my so so mind goes they got a disease and I said well dad did they got a disease he got no disease I said well why can’t we drink out of that fountain he says we can’t he took me over there he reached down and drunk out of that fountain and then I drank out of the fountain my dad taught me by his action.

▶ 3:11 How to treat other people. Later that evening we went to the theater now in my local town there’s no balcony in the theater. And this theater there was a balcony and I was excited man I wanted to sit in the balcony that’s the place to sit man that’s that’s the chief’s seats. And I we walked by the stairs it went up to the back and said dad let’s set up in the balcony he goes no that’s for colored people I said well what do they have the best seats. How come they got the privilege of sitting in the balcony I said why can’t we sit there he said we can he took me by the handle we walked up to that balcony I got up to the balcony no one was there. But graffiti was all over the walls the seats have been ripped and torn there was trash everywhere where the theater people hadn’t even cleaned up.

▶ 4:12 And I go wow I don’t want to sit in the balcony. I said dad why would these people do this he said son and I’ll never forget it he says that someone forced you to do things you didn’t want to do if someone restricted your uh liberty your your behavior the freedom the way you want to live he said you would retaliate to and my little nine-year-old brain got it. Deep my dad taught me by his actions a little later that same year down south when you had a car and people walking beside the road you picked them up you took them into town well one day we were going down the road and there was a black man walking down the road my dad pulled over and asked him do you want to ride the guy got in and that was my first time I’d been that close.

▶ 5:11 To african-American. And they were just people we got into town. And my dad parked right in front of the senior man the old man sitting there whittling and talking about the things of the world the things of the you know the issues of the world like they do in those southern towns. We got out of the car and that gentleman went his way and my dad went to put the money in the meter and we were going to go across the road to the store where my dad was taking me and one of those old men said willie that was the name of my dad you need to be more particular who rides in your car. My dad without missing a beat said who gets rides in my car is my business and just kept walking what does that do as a nine-year-old I learned.

▶ 6:09 My dad didn’t have to sit down and lecture me he showed me by his actions now it just so happens in that same year 1951 the NAACP. Had filed a lawsuit in Topeka Kansas Virginia. And a town in south Carolina. And in the south Carolina suit they were they were trying to show that separate but equal was not equal because the public schools gave. Like 30 dollars a month to the black schools and they gave 120 a month to the white schools and they were trying to show this is not equal but they put another little statement in there that said black children.

▶ 7:01 Are being harmed by the separation. In the public schools. And because they put that clause in there the judge said this has got to go to a higher court so they went to a higher court and they lost. Then they took it to the supreme court. And folks this is a it’s a tremendous story. The attorney for the NAACP was called Marshall. Who later became a chief justice of the supreme court. And uh. 1952. The supreme court heard the case. And then they were deliberating on it. Ike Eisenhower was voted into presidency that year they were still delivering on it in 1953 but the chief justice and the supreme court had a heart attack and died.

▶ 8:04 So Eisenhower appointed the governor of california. Who had never been in the judicial system at all as the new justice of the supreme court and the chief justice. Now these supreme court people were arguing and saying it’s all and their attorney Davis who never lost a case in the supreme court. Now Marshall was a black lawyer and Davis was a wildlife and Davis had never lost the case in the supreme court they called him the lawyer of lawyer. So they couldn’t get anywhere they were saying you know we got a the 14th amendment doesn’t. Allow this the law has been a law for 60 years now and the supreme court has upheld it as it’s not a law it was a ruling it wasn’t a law you got to get this in your head it was a ruling by the supreme court been that way for 60 years.

▶ 9:08 And they said we just can’t change it you know and and they were split and so they said you know we need another hearing and we want the attorneys to tell us what in the 14th amendment gives us the right to change this ruling and so they had another hearing in the meantime Warren. The governor of california. He started telling them this has got nothing to do with the 14th amendment. This has nothing to do because it’s been a ruling for 60 years. This is a moral. Decision. And he wrote a summary and presented it to them to make a long story short. The supreme court unanimously every one of them voted.

▶ 10:02 That yes not only is separation. Equal but separate not only the school. Was wrong for not having the same quality of education but equal but separate was wrong and folks he used the moral argument he won all the supreme court justices over and they unanimously voted and overruled the 1896 ruling of separate but equal they did say we got him to have time to figure out how to implement this and then they came back I think in 1954 or so and they said this has to be implemented implemented. Quickly right now.

▶ 10:55 Now as you know the supreme court doesn’t make a law they make a ruling and so especially the whites down south. They are just up in errors about this in 1956 a survey that I found only 49 of Americans. Believed. That blacks and whites should be together. Mixed together integrated 49 and although 49 percent the minority of Americans believed it it won in the supreme court and I’m telling you that that we have when it doesn’t look like we have hope folks we got hope amen. Powerful well of course the southern states fought it I mean these people their houses were burned they they were killed they lost their jobs these people whether white or black paid a big price just like in the days when whites helped slaves be free they paid a big price they paid a price during that time.

▶ 12:05 Finally. And this went on for several years and I grew up in this. We were a moral nation but we were wrong. 1964 as you know they passed the civil rights act. Which stated that everyone can vote everyone can be employed everyone can go to a theater a restaurant of their choice any established place any public place. Regardless of the race their color or their national origin in other words if you’re born I don’t even care if you’re a one of these inbred we had inbred people down south and I remember our dad answering the door in the middle of the night this.

▶ 12:59 People that lived up in the hollow were inbred their features were distorted their children it it was horrible I mean you looked at them and oh it was it was good it was gross even as a child they were totally different and their son was sick and dying and my dad got up in the middle of the night who was a coal miner and worked hard and took this guy’s child down to the doctor and the boy died he found he did die and my parents went to that funeral what I’m telling you is I had parents that showed me how to treat other people because they treated other people right. Could that be an amen. And Christians in America should be treating other people right. And showing the Bible. Truth.