Juanita Morrow Nelson Quotes

(While living in Cincinnati) somebody said to us, "The birds and the bees don't live together; why should the blacks and the whites live together?"

Cleveland was no bastion of freedom-sometimes you couldn't-there were theaters you couldn't go to; we tested restaurants, all that sort of thing. It wasn't quite as blatant as it was in the south.

I remembered almost excruciatingly an experience in the Cincinnati County jail on a charge of disorderly conduct for trying to gain admission to an amusement park which barred Negroes. I did not eat during the nine days. I would not wear the prison uniform. But, thinking I was exercising what degree of freedom I had, I wandered about the floor at will and bounced downstairs to see visitors.

It is, as far as I can see, an unpleasant fact that we cannot avoid decision-making. We are not absolved by following the dictates of a mentor or of a majority. For we then have made the decision to do that-have concluded because of belief or of fear or of apathy that this is the thing which we should do or cannot avoid doing. And we then share in the consequences of any such action. Are we doing more than trying to hide our nakedness with a fig leaf when we take the view expressed by a friend who belonged to a fundamental religious sect?

I would not do anything, only suffer what was done to me.

Here was I, still struggling with the meaning of my own life and standing, it seemed sometimes, on dead center. How, then, did I have the effrontery to question a whole way of life that had been evolved slowly and painfully through the ages by the accumulated wisdom of mankind? How could I presume to have so much of the truth that I would defy constituted authority? What made me so certain of myself in this regard? I was not certain. But it seemed to me that if I could see only one thing clearly, it was not necessary to see all things clearly in order to act on that one thing.

Let me first excise the horns from my own head, since it was made, I think, for something besides butting.

I did go to Howard University, and that was where I was arrested for the first time. I went with two of my friends who were undergrad coeds, downtown in Washington, DC, which was about as segregated as anyplace in the United States at that time. I went to Howard in 1941. This was in '43 though, at the beginning of the year, I think. And we went to a drugstore that had a lunch counter-asked for some hot chocolate. We were told, "We don't serve Negroes." We said, "Well, we'd like to see the manager." "The manager isn't in." And we said, "Well, we have plenty of time. We'll just sit here." And finally they brought the hot chocolate, but they gave us tickets, bills for 25 cents, when it clearly stated on the board that hot chocolate was ten cents a cup, so that's what we put down. And I always like to say that's probably all we had anyway. But, then we walked out and were met by-my recollection is-seven of DC's finest, that is, the police. And they put us in the paddy wagon and took us to jail. After we had this incident, a woman who became a very dear friend, Pauli Murray, was there. She was about ten years older than us coeds. She was in law school, and she knew about CORE that had started. And we formed the Howard's—I think it was called "Civil Rights Committee" and actually opened up a restaurant on the edge of campus in one week, less than a week. I never had such a quick victory, never since that time. It was just a sort of a greasy spoon restaurant, but it was a heady victory for us. We had a picket line; we had a sit–in; lots of people agreed with us, and he capitulated. (By "opened up") I mean we desegregated it.

We were interested in how we lived every day, not just going out to a demonstration, not just voting, and not just writing letters.

If I could choose a title for myself, I think I would be a 'want to be' practitioner of non-violence.

My respect and admiration for Gandhi, though not uncritical, was deep.

I would do whatever job to keep body and soul together, that was good work, or at least not bad work, let's put it that way; at least wasn't bad work. And that I would just live my life and do the things that I believe in.

We never made much money, but we never spent much. As a matter of fact, we used to lend money to friends sometimes [chuckle] because we so hated this interest thing anyway, that if somebody needed to buy a car—I don't mean we had tons of money—maybe a friend would, we would lend him some money, obviously at no interest. And the other thing is I don't like having money hanging around; what's the use of having it doing nothing?

Clarence Jordan was very, very funny. I know that during those days before we came down there, somebody came around, like some of the Ku Klux Klanners came around and, once they came and—?cause blacks worked on the farm even before anybody moved there, and so they would eat lunch together, and one of these guys came and said, "Preacher, I don't wanna see the sun set on you havin' niggers here anymore." And Clarence reached out his hand and said, "Well, I'm so glad to know you, I'm so glad to know somebody who can keep the sun from setting." He was funny.

I'm not an activist in the sense that most people talk about, I'm not even sure exactly what that means...I like this thing a friend of mine inCalifornia does: she’s been a tax-refuser for quite some time. ‘And she goes to demonstrations, but instead of walking, she Just stands there with a sign: “Don’t like war? Then don’t pay for it! Refuse to pay war-taxes! I haven’t bought a bomb since 1971!” That’s more my style.