Durham Residents Call Race Relations Key for City

Friday, January 19, 2001

Durham is at a crossroads in its civil rights history as it struggles to determine what is needed to improve local race relations, a panel of Durham community members told a campus audience Monday. Perhaps the most important thing that Durham leaders could do would be to adopt concrete goals for addressing the continuing race-related obstacles, added the Rev. Joseph Harvard, the minister at First Presbyterian Church in Durham. Ideas need to be proposed, discussed and adopted so that resources can be put behind them. Titled "Civil Rights in Durham: Race and Reconciliation," the discussion - co-moderated by Duke history professor Raymond Gavins and William Chafe, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences and vice provost for undergraduate education - was part of the university's 12 annual commemoration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. While billed as a review of the role that Durham and Duke played in the 1960s-era civil rights movement, the discussion quickly moved to the racial challenges of today once audience members began asking questions. Retired attorney Nathan Garrett, who has been an active member of the civil rights movement for 40 years, recalled Duke's decision in the mid-1980s to divest from companies doing business in South Africa. Then a member of Duke's Board of Trustees, Garrett noted that the board's executive committee had voted against the move. But the next day the tide turned as the entire board discussed the issue. "It was almost like the finger of God moving around that board room," said Garrett, who now teaches accounting and law at North Carolina Central University. "That said a lot about this institution, I think, to the whole world." Duke has continued to make significant improvements in race relations, especially under the direction of President Nannerl O. Keohane, he added. "It is doing a lot of the right things now. I think that needs to be recognized in this community," Garrett said. While more improvements are needed, that recent past gives promise for the future. On Sunday, World Bank managing director Mamphela Ramphele reviewed King's conviction that an individual could change the course of history. Speaking to approximately 400 people in Duke Chapel as part of the annual Service of Celebration and Commemoration, Ramphele said that individuals who want to emulate King must be willing to follow three basic precepts in their lives:

Embrace a larger purpose of life beyond the individual self. "The determination to go ahead and to do what is right, even if one is the only one doing what is right, is what courage is about," she said.
Act to the best of one's ability, refusing to accept mediocrity. "Poor people cannot afford mediocrity," Ramphele said. "They have few second chances."
Welcome loneliness, because challenging accepted views will often put one at odds with others. "The world would be a much better place if we were true to the dictates of our consciences, being able to speak truth to power, being able to risk losing those very dear relationships one has with others in pursuit of the dictates of one's conscience."

Ramphele knows personally about the costs - and rewards - of such a pursuit.

While a medical student at the University of Natal in the late 1960s and early 1970s, she joined the Black Consciousness Movement led by Steve Biko and fought apartheid. She was imprisoned and banned by the white-dominated South African government for her activism. While in internal exile and pregnant with Biko's child, she learned of his murder in police custody.

During her six-year banishment, Ramphele set up a health clinic and began her life's work addressing the medical needs of the rural poor. She rejoined her country's academic community in 1984 after her banishment was lifted, working as a research fellow and earning her Ph.D. in social anthropology in 1991 from the University of Cape Town. In 1996, Ramphele became the first black and first woman named vice chancellor - equivalent to a U.S. college presidency - of a South African university.

Duke's celebration of King this year focused on South Africa and the "three R's": remembrance, reconciliation and restitution. The programs, which extend through the spring semester, were aimed at looking at how South Africa has dealt with its racially divided past in an attempt to find a fresh perspective on current U.S. racial issues.

The university's official four-day observance of King's birthday began Friday with a noon candlelight vigil service in Duke Chapel attended by about 100 university employees, faculty and students. Other commemoration events included a Friday student/faculty roundtable discussion, a Saturday night gospel concert, a Sunday sermon in Duke Chapel by former U.S. ambassador to South Africa James A. Joseph, a Monday cultural extravaganza featuring student groups and a Monday night dramatic reading by critically lauded actors and civil rights activists Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.