The Movement Made Us: A Father, A Son, and the Legacy of a Freedom Ride by David J. Dennis Jr. in collaboration with David J. Dennis Sr.

 Book Discussion of The Movement Made Us by David Dennis Jr. and David Dennis Sr.  

Discussion date: December 30, 2023 

Nine of us met for our last book discussion of 2023 on the last Saturday of December. The book, The Movement Made Us: A Father, A Son, and The Legacy of a Freedom Ride. This book chronicles Dave Dennis Sr.’s Movement stories from 1961 to 1964. The stories are transcribed by his son Dave Dennis Jr.  

 

Meghan: He (the son) was like translating an oral history that he had broken down through interviews. I like the wordplay he used but I also questioned how much of this is the son kind of creating literature and not necessarily the father’s voice? But at the same time, I appreciated it because it’s so inter-generational because the Movement is about family and passing down activism. 

Janice: There is a YouTube video about this book recorded at MDAH. (Mississippi Department of Archives and History.) The video features both David Dennis Sr. And David Dennis Jr. In an interview.  

History Is Lunch: David J. Dennis Jr. and David J. Dennis Sr., "The Movement Made Us" - YouTube

Barb M. started us off, saying, "I think it was one story among many. I was very pleased that he later in the book said that there were women’s stories that are parallel to those of the men. I thought that the father had made the choice to be magnanimous and give himself to the world and the son just had to endure the sacrifice because the movement was so important. I often wondered what happened to all the Civil Rights icons. It was very popular to become founders of nonprofits after it was all over. During the 70s and 80s there was a lot of poverty pimping. I had some issues with that. A lot of people made a lot of money heading those organizations and some still do. The Movement Made Us was a good story, it was written well, some things were unclear, so you had to figure out who was speaking."

Wendy shared, "He talked about how important women were in the movement. It was mainly women who were holding people’s feet to the fire to get what they really wanted. It reiterated the truth of these times especially at the very end of the book: the whole piece about how a law would be made, and people became hopeful and then those in power would just find ways around following those laws. I’m thinking about the continuation of that now."

David Dennis Sr. Carried a lot of guilt about the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. James Chaney was Black and a resident of Mississippi. Goodman and Schwerner were white volunteers from New York. Their bodies were missing for seven weeks. During the search for their bodies, the bodies of scores of Black people were found who had been missing previously.  

Bonnie told us bluntly, “The reason they were looking so hard is because two of them were white. The mother of Goodman gave a talk at the synagogue in Hamden a number of years ago at the synagogue Mishkan Israel on Ridge Road n Hamden.  

Wendy added that she knew about that synagogue as well: “Dr. Martin Luther King had some connection. He spoke there. The New Havn Historical Society holds the letters between MLK and the rabbi there.” 

Janice offered, "I was very much focused on the father-son relationship. I thought Jr. was very strategic in his decision to write this book about his father. He was on this journey toward understanding, forgiveness and healing. I think he was intentional about approaching it that way and I think he accomplished that through the process. But I’m not so sure that it takes a certain kind of person to have been so active in the Civil Rights Movement. That’s the life of a politician. All of these choices are at the expense of family, so I don’t think it’s that unique necessarily."

Wendy rebutted, “But the one difference is the level of danger.”  

Bonnie asked, “How do you have people like Schwerner and Goodman and then you have people that are in the KKK? How does this happen? We were talking about Goodman’s mother being at Mishkan Israel. She wrote this book called My Mantlelpiece. She described how Andy walked up to her and said, “Mom, I’d like to go to Mississippi,” and she said, “How could I deny him? Our lives’ values would have a hollow ring, talking about how hypocritical it would be.” 

 

Marian added, "There was a group called the Deacons of Defense. This proves that everyone in the South was not onboard with the non-violent stance. Certain things in history get elevated. Every elementary school student knows about the non-violence movement, but no one knows about the Deacons of Defense. It’s almost like deliberate censoring. "

Janice said, "I think the elevation of Dr. King was very intentional. There were many Civil Rights workers who were his peers, but there was an intentional choice to elevate Dr. King because the packaging was acceptable."

Barb:M. elaborated further, "They packaged him. He was a comfortable package to hate and love. All the other people were ignored. The people doing the work. The Fannie Lou Hamers. There were so many distinct groups doing different things. It was important to play down the Jewish-Black connection. There were all these different movements within the movement.'

Meghan told us, "There’s a part in the book where they are in a meeting together and they're determining what’s going to happen next. David Dennis steps up and defends Dr. King but his views seem to have changed when he became friends with Medgar Evers. I think I read this book about a month ago. And then recently I read Freedom is a constant struggle by Angela Davis and now I’m seeing everything through that lens. She talked about how MLK just became the voice of this movement. She said, 'the movement is not over.'" 

Judy said, "One thing that really impressed me in this book was how careful Dave Dennis Sr. was to say that when they came to these cities, there was already work going on and how important it was to build on what the residents there had already established. I never heard of David Dennis Sr. He was a field officer for CORE (The Congress of Racial Equality.) 

He talked about that organization COFO (The Council of Federated Organizations) that combined all the Civil Rights groups working in Mississippi. I saw that movie Rustin. Then, just last night I watched this documentary about Rustin, called Brother Outsider. Both the feature film and the documentary show how important Bayard Rustin was in organizing the March on Washington, but he never received credit for it because he was gay, and he had a history of communism. This book emphasized that there were many things going on and some of the groups were competing for recognition. Dennis was careful to give credit to all the people who had been doing the work and taking the risks. And I also thought about what we are doing now. There’s resistance work going on now that doesn’t always get recognition."

Laura was so proud of Dave Sr. for saying, “We didn’t start the movement, it was already there, and we were building on what was already there." He didn’t find out until ten years after his mother died that she had been one of the beauticians that were pushing for people to vote.  

Bonnie called our attention to p. 179 the scene with the tear gas: 

“What in the world just happened?” 

“They ain’t tell you Mister Dave? That’s the sheriff and them. They come ‘round here every Saturday night since Mr. Moore an’ ‘em started raising a fuss. They ride their horses firing tear gas into our houses...It gets smoky in here. But you get used to it and them towels over your head make it not burn too bad. If you okay, Mister Dave, I’m gonna go back and finish my homework.” 

Laura shared with us that “Because it was so difficult for David Dennis Sr. to talk about some of these experiences that his son was having him talk about in terms of just the PTSD, it made me think of Winfred Rembert’s book: Chasing Me to My Grave. Rembert's wife was having him continue to do the artwork that brought up memories of what he had gone through. The reality of seeing what a struggle it was for Dennis Sr. to talk about these things.” 

Judy pointed out how surprised Dennis Sr. Was when they brutalized white kids too. He believed that the Klan would not go after white kids from the north. He thought that if they were harmed then the press would go after them. Dennis Sr said on p. 260 

“I entered Freedom Summer with the belief that once this country saw white victims of white supremacy, it would see the error in its violence and change. I learned too late that white supremacy values whiteness over even white people...” 

 

Wendy called our attention to p. 265: 

 "A central tenet of America’s particular anti-Black terror is separating Black families from one another.p.266...My dad was supposed to end up as the head of a shattered family full of resentment, distance, and misery...I’ve had to learn to forgive the parts of Dave Dennis that became my father and love the parts of my father that were shaped by the Movement.”