Lanterns

by Marian Wright Edelman

  Another flip of the pages and I read your impression of meeting Martin Luther King. I asked Harry to look at the name on the front. (I could make out only Elizabeth Wright.) “It says Marian Elizabeth Wright,” he noted. Then suddenly: “It must be Marian Wright Edelman!” We were both overjoyed at this discovery.

  I felt sudden guilt for having read parts of something so private. However, I am glad I did. It is truly providential.

  Sincerely,

  Manette Adams

  (Mrs. Harry Baker Adams)

  The diary of my senior year at Spelman chronicles my youthful struggles to re-enter the segregated world of America’s South and of Spelman’s gated gentility after Europe. And it shows how the Civil Rights Movement gave powerful and timely voice to my yearning to be free.

  I did not return home the same person who had left. The new wine of freedom and self-confidence could not be poured back into the old wineskin of the Jim Crow South or into the traditional confines of what a Black woman could aspire to in America. I did not know how I would make the metamorphosis into the new person laboring to be born, as the ensuing diary excerpts attest, but I knew I would.

  No words have been changed from the excerpted diary portions that appear throughout this chapter. However, many pages describing my infatuation with a Morehouse man who I can now barely remember have been mercifully omitted!

  I apologize if I embarrass any of my mentors here with my heartfelt youthful feelings. Rereading my diary after nearly forty years reaffirmed for me how much adults really matter to young people and the power they have to mold them for good or ill in ways they cannot foresee. Parents, teachers, leaders: pay attention. In an era in which mentoring has become increasingly professionalized or left to volunteers, these important supplemental programs and individual efforts are not substitutes for the daily adult examples in children’s lives. The most important mentoring is not primarily about a few hours a week or month of volunteer time with a child. It is who we are and what we do and say every day in our homes, classrooms, work places, congregations, cultural, civic, and political lives that children absorb to develop their sense of worth.

  The following portions of the diary from November 1959 through April 1960 reflect a period of (occasionally self-absorbed!) torment and topsy-turvy emotions and mood changes. I had spent the early fall reporting on my fellowship year to my college community, starting a mentoring program for younger Spelman sisters, and frantically trying to decide on a major and a minor. I had a number of hours in international relations, which Spelman did not offer as a major, and in other courses like Russian history that I had enjoyed in Europe, but not enough in a single subject to meet Spelman’s requirements. I decided on social science as a major and English as a minor and had a wonderful time reading novels alone in a cozy third-floor dorm room without a roommate. And I’m sure I hold Spelman’s record for most games bowled in a week. After my junior year abroad, I had to make up two of the six required semesters in physical education before graduation. So I took bowling and swimming. The latter was compulsory. Although I was not a swimmer as a result of a childhood experience of nearly drowning, I did what I had to do to pass Spelman’s swimming test. I do love water aerobics in shallow pools. I do not swim.

  My diary of these first few months back at Spelman show me casting about for my calling and a cause. Both would become dramatically clear to me soon into the new year.

  NOVEMBER 20, 1959

  I’ve gotten away from the old me so I have been left to create and find a new me. What must God think of me? I’ve stopped going to church for the first time in my life—the services bore me. There’s not enough challenge. I’ve been spending the time praying, reading, and meditating alone…. I wish I knew what I was looking for…. I wish I had a great, great mind—one that would create me a real world that I could flee to. As it is, I am left at the mercy of the common fold. I’ve thought about suicide but what would Mama do? Made Who’s Who—wanted to—now it seems so unimportant. What petty things we crave. What lowly loads weigh our minds and lives down.

  What a turn my life has taken. What a difference Europe has made. What a new world of possibility and destination has opened up to me. It’ll be interesting to watch it unfolding.

  DECEMBER 4, 1959

  I spoke in Morehouse’s Chapel and it went very well. What a pleasant shock I got just before going up to the rostrum. In walked Harry, Chequita, and Debbie [my brother, his wife, and baby daughter]. I was thunderstruck. Father and Mama Scott were there and Dr. Barksdale was there and Sam Cook came. [The Scotts published the Atlanta Daily World, Dr. Barksdale taught English at Morehouse, and Sam Cook was a professor at Atlanta University.] Got a very warm reception and was not in the least nervous astoundingly enough.

  DECEMBER 9, 1959

  This has been a wonderfully enjoyable and enlightening day—wish all days were like this! Had two-hour talk with Mr. Peterson—a colored from South Africa touring the states on an education exchange between our two countries. After he spoke in chapel, I went backstage to arrange an appointment and was not impressed by his speech and was outraged by what he did not say. Mentioned next to nothing about South Africa. Today I went to jump down his throat—and what a lesson I learned! He taught me a profound lesson in tactics—about not committing suicide when there’s a job to be done: to let your reason, not your emotions, govern. He has made headway in South Africa not by unleashed radicalism but by careful and subtle calculations—knowing the enemies and rendering their tools impotent. Had recently won prize for writing and had great faith in pen. He told me when I get furious with myself and the world—to sit down and let the pen fly. One sublimates—can fight—in secret with self and here is where one can hide from the world. Also advised, “Never speak in absolutes. Keep the opponent guessing—be wise in what you say by not having to say it!”

  Mr. Merrill in town, hope I can see him before we meet formally at the Manleys. [Dr. Albert E. Manley was president of Spelman.]

  Yesterday, I and several others in social science club went down to court. Case of segregation with Dobbs House restaurant in the airport was being contested. We were to serve as witnesses for we’d surveilled it, counting Negro frequenters of airport. I was not expecting to be a witness but my name was called to stand by. Howie says case looks good for us but one never knows …

  Bless Mama and make me fit for whatever Thou would have me do Lord.

  DECEMBER 11, 1959

  I just came back from Morehouse’s chapel where I heard Mr. Merrill speak. He’s a shy and modest man. Strode up to the stage head down, hands folded behind his back. He seems always to be in deep thought. He reminisced about postwar Europe and the Nuremberg Trials and the utter chaos all around him. Recalled walking down Nuremberg streets where all the buildings had been desolated and seeing several women coming out of building talking about teatime and finding it unimaginable that anybody could occupy themselves with such trivia. He came to realize later the worth of it—for two human beings to maintain the sense of dailiness amid destruction—the courage to keep going—pretend until the reality around you can be rebuilt. Education, why education, he asked? To make you more fit to live, to share, to help find oneself. “Because life’s a one-way street—a one-time job. You must make the very best of it.” And he abruptly sat.

  Dr. Mays got up and announced that Morehouse was going to honor Mr. Merrill for his thirteen years of service to Morehouse. Went up afterwards to shake hands with him. Dr. Mays presented me and mentioned my town meeting report on Russia. Mr. Merrill affirmed he knew it was fine because those last two letters were as fine as anything he’d ever read by anybody. I was overwhelmed. I am going to write him to ask about my current thoughts and problems because I know he’ll understand. Please, God, help him to understand how grateful I am to him for what he’s done for me but above that, for what he is.

  DECEMBER 12, 1959

  I had a talk with Mr. Merrill at Dr. Mays’ house this morning. We talked for an
hour and he walked me back to Spelman. I told him about what I want to do and asked his advice. He saw the need for leadership. I told him about my dilemma of choosing between law and international relations. I can see he seemed inclined towards international work and tried to wrangle a way that I could possibly combine both.

  I asked him about the medium or gradient level to be established between serving self and others. My fear and scorn of all humanity and desire to run away from it—withdraw. He told me a little story whose essence was: take the best of humanity—pick out the part that is changeable and susceptible to betterment and change it. Overlook the rest. Grab the thread of hope from the whole cloth and make it one of quality—work with whatever there is to work with and let the rest go.

  I learned more about him this morning. That he’d quit Harvard after his second year because he couldn’t stand the regularities of life while the war was on. He worked on a collective farm in Mississippi; knows how others feel because he’s made it a point to get down with them and share their suffering. He feels very deeply. Talked about his impressions of Thurgood Marshall whom he had heard speak in Boston. Personally, he dislikes his manner which is theatrical and gushing and overfamiliar, but when Thurgood Marshall began to speak, his persona, ability, and knowledge commanded unsurmounted respect. He’s a man whose knowledge is thoroughly based in the scope of American history.

  When I asked about continuing to correspond with him because I felt he understands me and I wanted to use him as a sounding board—he immediately and very graciously assented.

  What more need one ask of life than to be made aware of the earth underneath, towering trees overhead, songs of birds which fill the air—of the grass bending with the sway of the wind—of the sky with its curtains of clouds drawn partially to show the rising moon for the night, and which play the scenes of the setting colors of the sun as it gives its last bloody breath. What more could one ask than to feel the throb of his fellow man and to share his brothers’ misery—feel his problems to be his own—sing with him. Fall astray and wander back amid the thorn and thistles of life to the clearing together—to struggle to be sensitive to the needs of others—to feel life every second—to stay away from commonplaces—lethargy—to never be caught one minute unthinking—to feel deeply—have a highly developed inner life—to find self so that I can commune with me—to love—to have a self that can’t be taken away—undergirded with the precepts of our Lord Jesus Christ. To be caring, venturesome, questing, brave, fearless, pugnacious, persisting, unrelenting, humble, grateful—to be genuine, sincere, grateful, honest and truthful. Thank you God for a Charles Merrill, Howard Zinn, and Benjamin Mays.

  DECEMBER 14, 1959

  God, what am I to do? This morning I definitely decided to become a civil rights lawyer and I’ve been thinking about it fiercely the whole day. Worrying about getting into Yale where I definitely want to go. I talked to Mama tonight and she threw any hints of the idea down the drain—wants me to get my masters and work. I owe her a lot—but also my people. “You can do whatever you will after I’m gone.” She feels she won’t live long and wants to see me settled. She understands me not at all! There is no source of intellectual, spiritual, and emotional help in my family. They don’t seem to realize what a fiercely competitive world we live in. What am I to do Lord? How can I show her what I must do without hurting Mama? God, how can I expose to her the bigness and necessity of my vision? I see now that the only way I’ll go to law school is by scholarship and work beginning this summer. Europe’s over and hard grim reality is now in. You ve got such a fight. To whom do I owe my life? To Mama, to self, to Howard Zinn, to Spelman, to Charles Merrill, the Negro, to my country, to Thee? All of these I must please but ultimately—and above all—Thee. God make me strong in purpose, will, and goodness. Show me what I must do and help me to unfalteringly do it. Help my family to understand.

  DECEMBER 17, 1959

  Got a card from Mr. Merrill thanking me for the record and saying how much he enjoyed the visit. Gave such a lift to my day! To think that he takes time out to write and so promptly. I hope we will be really good friends later on.

  My freshman group is to put on several performances at the federal penitentiary tomorrow evening. God, please help us to reach the audience—to entertain as well as relay a message. Keep us safe.

  DECEMBER 24, 1959

  Christmas Eve at home. I’ve been thinking this evening of my last Christmas Eve. I had left Geneva with M.T., Sue, and Lucie for the Riviera and we spent the night at Les Baux en Provence—the coldest and clearest night of my life. How good God has been to me. How much He lets me see, hear, and feel. How much more is there promise of. What a big wide diverse world this is. He has allowed me to be relieved of the regular small town rut and made me see what life can be like. I’m craving—shimmering—expectant—excited about what life holds. I want to seek its very essences. I want to be good in it and to it.

  DECEMBER 25, 1959

  It is Christmas. What do I feel? Christ—where art Thou? Where is love and peace and understanding? We are so unworthy. Help us to be fit and clean for Thee. Right in our seeking, pure in our thoughts, and loving in our actions.

  Thank you for Jesus Christ. Help me to be worthy of Thy great gift, my Mama, sister, and brothers.

  Mama and I argued about my career. She isn’t taken with the notion of law school but will let me do what I want to do. I’m on my own.

  I walked the streets of Bennettsville the other night up through the square and read the inscriptions of the monuments—the big statue to Johnny Reb and others who died to maintain another people in bondage and are praised for it. We worship our death and corruption. The very things that bring us low we cherish. What strange and wayward creatures we men are.

  I hope that Mama and I might understand each other. She’s done an awful lot for me. God help me to repay her tenfold in accomplishments.

  America—what mean you to me? I long and pine for Europe—to abandon all restraint, to think all thoughts, express all ideas; to be me—any kind of me I feel the need to be; to wrangle forcefully—to fight over opinions and to judge. I finished Sartre’s L’Age de Raison. Powerful. Depressing. Life can be so ugly, yet it can be so fine, full, and worthwhile. This is what we seek.

  JANUARY 7, 1960

  Went to hear May Sarton talk about her writing. Have been rather happy these last few days. Reading and sticking to myself. Yesterday began reading Gide’s The Immoralist. Finished it this morning. “The writer does not write to tell but to learn, to search. A novelist should feel rather than know.”

  Getting into and living yourself the life of the characters is great. Am going to read Ruskin this week. Must prepare diligently for my exams. God help my mind to be true and craving always—set at awe in the light of truth—always looking and searching to know about everything.

  Make my will like iron, Lord—ever drumming against the hard facade of reality. Make me honest and persistent in my quest for life—always seeking the deep—the high while not overlooking the simple. I feel as if I am a stranger to myself these days. I startle myself at my audacity and am outraged by my timidity. I hate my weaknesses. I am frustrated by my limitations. I fear my thoughts of Thee. Without You I dare not nor desire to live. Man is not enough. I fear that I am losing Thee God. I am drifting. I feel guilty and lost. Forgive my waywardness and show me the way back to Thee.

  JANUARY 20, 1960

  Try to be worthy, Marian. Never fear. Never worry. Think on God and His will. You are nothing without Him. Seek His guidance and make your ears susceptible to His biddings. “In all Thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct Thy path.” God is good to me. Far above my desert. He has allowed me the presence of a Benjamin Mays and Charles Merrill, a Peterson from South Africa; a Poole from Holland. Look high. Gaze amidst the stars and be dazzled by their light. Temptations have beset me on all sides—I am forced to flee from my self’s vanities and deceits. I have seen mass hypocrisy and devastating sha
llowness. Help me to be high in thought, high in deed, Lord. Fear nothing and realize that our whole duty and privilege is to Thee.

  My yearnings and confusions coalesced powerfully by spring of 1960 in the student sit-in movement. Although Dr. Martin Luther King had entered my consciousness and heart in 1955 and 1956 as the voice of the Montgomery bus boycott, I personally heard him speak for the first time on April 19, 1960 in Spelman’s Sisters Chapel during my senior year. His mother and sister Christine King Farris had attended Spelman and Christine taught at Spelman for many years. Dr. King had graduated from nearby Morehouse College, whose president, during his college days and mine, was the indomitable Benjamin Elijah Mays.

  The profound impact on me of hearing Dr. King that first time is evident in my diary where I repeated long portions of his speech that had vibrated the chords of my freedom-and justice-hungry soul.

  It is not often that great leaders and great turning points in history converge and sweep us up in a movement. My generation was blessed beyond measure to be in the right places at the right times to experience and help bring transforming change to the South and to America in partnership with mentor-leaders like Dr. King, seeking to serve God and a cause bigger than ourselves.

  Black students had been galvanized by the February 1, 1960 sit-down demonstration by four Black A&T (Agricultural and Technical State College) students at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. They had nonviolently withstood the abusive behavior of White hooligans with dignity and persistence as they returned each day. Many Black students in Atlanta and elsewhere were equally ready to strike our blow for freedom.

  In March, student leaders and the student body president from each of the Black colleges making up the Atlanta University Center—Morehouse, Spelman, Clark, Morris Brown, Atlanta University, and the Interdenominational Theological Center—signed “An Appeal for Human Rights.” It was published in full-page ads on March 9, 1960 in the Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta Journal, and Atlanta Daily World.