Bob Moses – “who wields power and what shape is it?”

So, Bob Moses (who died a little while back) was a very big deal in the early 1960s as part of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee – a black-led activist group trying to fight for Civil Rights in the Deep South (which was a very very dangerous thing to do).

This below is a clip from David Harris’s book “Dreams Die Hard”. There’s an earlier pen portrait of Moses (on page 33, since you ask), but this sums up Moses’ message.

Moses was even quieter than he had been the one time I’d seen him before. Mostly he answered questions. He listened intently, and he never spoke without sorting through his thoughts for several moments. His words carried an air of integrity and self-control, as though much rested on being as honest as possible. The tone and mannerisms were all traits I would eventually see reflected in Dennis Sweeney.I remember only a few of the themes Moses hit upon that day. It was not just who wielded power that mattered, he said, but the shape of the power they exercised. Domination remained substantially the same, no matter who exercised it. There was a need for people to construct a new society from the ground up. The changes incumbent on us were impossible through the old notions of liberal democracy.Bob Moses sat on the grass talking like that for two hours, and then left. Allard held his tongue throughout.(Harris, 1982:122-113)