A Country Not Yet Born: Remembering Vincent
Vincent Harding has been on my heart these last few days. July 25 marks the passing of 87 years since he was born. Many know him as a theologian, an historian, a friend and collaborator of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was the primary author of the 1967 speech delivered at Riverside Church where Dr. King denounced the war in Vietnam, identified the U.S. as the greatest “purveyor of violence” on the globe called for a “radical revolution in values against racism, materialism, and militarism.” Vincent thought it was that speech that marked King for destruction by the white power structure. Its vision was too expansive, too challenging, too inclusive, to be allowed to stand.
I first met Vincent in the mid-1970s through his work with the Institute of the Black World (IBW). Based in Atlanta, Vincent was the primary energy in bringing together a group of activist intellectuals to develop analysis and new ideas to further the Black Freedom Struggles. In the course of its life from 1969 to 1983 IBW developed the foundation of African American and African Studies departments in Universities and colleges throughout the country, helped create a larger consciousness about the breadth and depth of thinking among the African diaspora, and encouraged the works of intellectuals such as C.L.R. James, Walter Rodney, Julius Lester, Sylvia Wynter, and Robert Hill.
In 1976, as part of this commitment, Vincent had agreed to publish a conversation between James Boggs and Xavier Nicholas entitled “Questions of the American Revolution.” It was in connection with publishing this work that I met Vincent and his family as they traveled to Detroit to further their relationship with James and Grace Boggs.
My last conversation with Vincent was in April of 2014. I was helping arrange a speaking engagement for him in Detroit as part of the Twisted Storytellers series. Shortly before he was to come, he became ill and died a few weeks later on May 19 at the age of 82.
Over the course of those years, I saw Vincent frequently, often in Detroit when he visited to speak, especially against war, weapons, and violence. We attended conferences and gatherings together. Vincent always asked the hard questions, and always reminded us that we had much to learn from the struggles of those who had gone before us, those ordinary people called to do extraordinary things. In the early part of the 21st Century, we worked closely with the Beloved Communities Initiative, looking for the places and spaces where people were creating the future as they put principles of love, compassion, joy, and productivity into practice. This search for what we came to call “spirit-rooted activism.” It was guided by the web of relationships Vincent had created across this land over decades of quiet organizing.
I have many lessons from him, and many questions still linger with the sound of his voice. But for me today, his greatest gift was the understanding of how complicated and complex movement times are. They are never the simple, clear, bold efforts of sure-sighted people, as conventional history wants us to think they are. Rather they are the results of people filled with doubts, but finding their ways to action, of people singing themselves into courage. They are moments of creativity and compassion, as well as moments of conniving and self-interest. But it is this movement of people, trying to work out what democracy really can look like, that has been the best promise of America. This week as many of us gather to remember his life and legacy, his basic question of how we live as citizens in a country not yet born remains as crucial as it was more than half a century ago. This is the only path of hope.