Mary Frances Berry wrote her first book on Black citizenship and the Constitution in 1977. Since then, she’s been a part of civil rights history, serving as assistant secretary for education in the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for 24 years; and as the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania since 1987.
Now emeritus, Berry reflected on the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in conversation with Marcia Chatelain, the Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies, on Oct. 10 as part of the Africana Lecture Series.
In his introduction, Wale Adebanwi, the Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies and director of the Center for Africana Studies, said, “Reflecting on the struggle for civil rights and the successes and challenges since 1964, we have the opportunity today to hear from someone who has dedicated her life to fighting injustice. Berry’s contributions to human rights, civil rights, and academia have won numerous awards, including the NAACP’s Roy Wilkins Award and the Rosa Parks award from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.”
Berry noted that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was important, and so were the laws that it helped usher in, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the Education Amendments of 1972. Berry noted that she was in policy positions as well as a scholar and advocate during this period in American history. While she was optimistic at the time, the reality of American civil rights has fallen short of her hopes.
“The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been presented as a gain or a victory,” Chatelain said. “I’m curious, for the folks who were on the ground in those pivotal moments, how did you understand it in that period of time, and what were the perhaps differing or conflicting conversations about it?”
“I thought—all of us thought—well, this is great,” Berry said, “and I used to make speeches about how some of us got through ‘the window of opportunity.’ What has happened since is the opportunity has been steadily closed, and we haven’t been aware of all the ways in which it has been closed,” she said. “People have not been sensitive to things sliding.”
Berry cited the end of affirmative action, the numerous laws pertaining to transgender people, as well as restrictive voting laws.
The Black freedom struggle starts to stand in for a lot of ideas and a lot of fights, Chatelain said, referring to of the expansion of protected classes, including women and people with disabilities.
“It’s about making historical connections around disparate groups among audiences and populations that does not believe in civil or human rights to begin with,” Chatelain said. “How have those conversations been how are they initiated, and then, how do they become permanently entrenched in our conceptualization of what the law can do?”
“The blunt answer is politics,” Berry said. “The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and the folks who found the longest-sustained financial campaigns and protests in fact get the attention and their issue gets the attention because politicians are about two things, primarily. Number 1 is what? Getting elected. And Number 2 is getting reelected.
“That’s what politicians are about,” Berry said. “Follow the money.” The economics of politics are what pushes issues forward, she said, not appeals to moral character. Advocacy takes structure, she said. Everything needs to work in harmony. In addition to money, you need a campaign that puts important cases forward at opportune times, she said.
“You need the work and you need the research and you need the data and you need to argue your case,” Berry said. “A nice report by itself is not enough.”
At the close of the conversation, a student asked Berry how to sustain both advocacy and policy work simultaneously. What’s the balance between having enough power to make change while being removed enough to be radical? she asked.
“What you do at first, until you learn the ins and outs of what people are doing, is you slide through everything,” Berry said. “And people think you’re just some person who doesn’t know what they’re talking about and just sit there.”
Wait to see what’s going on and how to make change before speaking up, Berry said.
“A lot of young people I know—and when I was younger, I was tempted to do this—want to make aggressive objections to things when they’re not in power,” Berry said. “They’re not empowered that they can protect themselves and use it for people. It doesn’t help to take risks where you end up failing, and you don’t do anything with people, and you don’t do anything with yourself. You got to be smart about it. You pick your shots, and you learn how people do things.”
Berry also noted that she got some of the most valuable information by talking with janitors and secretaries. “You can learn from people who have the information. You listen, and you watch,” she said. “You can’t be up front and say, ‘I’m going to challenge the system!’ You’ll get your head chopped off.”
When asked about her thoughts regarding the upcoming presidential election, Berry said that that the situation isn’t as dire as some people make out. Regardless of the outcome, “America’s not going to be over,” she said. “I believe we’re too strong to be destroyed, no matter what happens.”
