An Interview with Ossie Davis

On November 5, 2002, Donna Hardwick talked with We Shall Not Be Moved narrator, Ossie Davis.

Q: WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED is the story of how southern African-American congregations and their ministers forged a non-violent revolution to "redeem the very soul of America" in the '50s and early '60s. Why do you think the demonstrations by these congregations were so influential during the Civil Rights Movement?

A: The churches were influential in the Civil Rights Movement but that was only part of the history of the long support that the churches have given to whatever was going on in the black community. The church is still the one institution owned and completely controlled by black folks. We have no other venue in which we are involved which is totally ours but the church. Having said that, let me hasten to add that this has been a great benefit to us. It has been the arc of covenant and refuge for us in which we could always run and find a sanctuary. It also represented us not only in spiritual matters and cultural matters, but in economic and social matters. The churches were at the very head of the struggle to achieve freedom for us.

In the 1800s when Gabriel Prosser led one of the first major rebellions against slavery, Gabriel Prosser was a preacher. In 1822 when Denmark Vesey did the same thing in South Carolina, organizing the slaves into a rebellion, Denmark Vesey was a preacher. When Nat Turner led the largest rebellion, Nat Turner was a preacher. So the church has been the core of the black experience. It was the counter to the cultural and legal degradation imposed on us by those infamous laws that prevented us from being educated, which made it against the law for us to be taught to read.

We could not have not coalesced as a people, could not have established ourselves as a nation within a nation without the black Church. And so it was that the Church would have led us into these struggles. When the Civil Rights revolution came, the Church was at the forefront of that struggle because that's where it had always been. That's where we expected it to be.

The first time I heard of the NAACP was in a church. The first time I met Mary McCleod Bethune was in a church. So it was a natural instrument of leadership available to us at that time. And it performed its function brilliantly by coming up with people like Martin Luther King Jr. Even Malcolm X, you know, was a religious man. And although the black Muslims were not as indigenous in the faith and ideology as we were, they were still basically black people in America suffering the same indignities. So Malcolm's church was not all that different from the other churches.

Q: Do you feel that the church has the same influence today as it did during the Civil Rights Movement?

A: I don't think the church, at this moment, has the same influence today. One of the reasons being that the church achieved its objective. You know, there's a certain amount of demobilization after any war is over, when the troops disassemble and the general staff goes home. So the church gave us victories and we're still in the process of celebrating those victories. We don't need them for the same purpose and they don't come to the fore for the same purpose.

What I feel about the church now, is that it is there in a support position, lying sometimes dormant but ready to be summoned into the struggle whenever we need it. I don't look upon the church now as having the same leadership responsibilities as it had, but it could have them again. It is not there in the same way it was, but it is still there and we can summon it back to life whenever we need it.

Q: Do you think it's important to continue to air programs like WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED on television for new audiences – even though the Civil Rights Act was established nearly 40 years ago?

A: I feel it's important but only because television and the media have established such commanding positions as cultural opportunists. They have moved into a situation where they are gradually replacing the teachers and the preachers in our society – whether we will it that way or not. Therefore, in order to be viable at all, in order to be validated now, you need to speak television - you need to speak electronically to the people. We need to let the people know through television that the things we care about are still paramount to us.

Just as the whole culture changed when books where introduced back yonder, so the whole culture may be changing now that the Internet has been introduced. But, all of these things are instrumentalities which were invented for the human experience. It is up to us to bring them under control and to use them for our purposes. As long as television has the public's attention then we must use television to tell our story. Therefore, it is important for us to be there (on television). But when that time comes when we throw television aside as we're beginning to throw aside books and other prints, you know we'll go on to whatever it is that's there. The thing is to be alive and the language being spoken at the moment.

Q: Thank you so much for your time… I know you are extremely busy right now. What is it that you're currently working on?

A: Recently I've been working on a play for the past 35-40 years and this month we'll present it to the public. My wife is playing the lead and I'm functioning as the playwright. And that's one of the many things that we're continually involved in. Our life has been a plethora of involvement. There are many things in which we have a finger or toe or whatever we can spare out there. We're involved in the mess with everyone else, however it shows itself. The next thing will be the play and after that Ruby's piece, and after that we're trying to get to work with our son who is a blues guitarist. And after that, and after that, and after that – we've even got some things planned after we're dead but we'll keep that a secret for the time being. We want to surprise the people!