We’re on the road to freedom

We’re on the road to freedom

Ten years ago Bruce Springsteen came to Belfast as part of the Seegar Sessions – named after Pete Seegar the great American singer songwriter - and played to a packed Odyssey Arena. I was there. It was an unforgettable night. Springsteen and his band were on fire. The music, and the energy had the thousands packed into the arena singing loudly too.

On that night Springsteen sang one of Pete Seegar’s most enduring songs. It is a song which has a strong historical and emotional connection with the civil rights movements in the USA and the civil rights campaign here in the north of Ireland. Pete Seeger tells how he got the original tune from an old Negro gospel hymn and rewrote it.  

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, someday

Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand, some day

Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

Ian Paisley jnr was there that night also. I have a vague recollection of him telling a journalist as he left the concert how much he enjoyed the evening.  I always wondered what he thought of Springsteen’s rendition and of the progressive politics behind both Seegar and Springsteen’s playing of that song and of others which advocate equality and rights.

I was reminded of all of this when it was mentioned to me that this week sees the 50^th anniversary of the killing on 4 April 1968, of Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tennessee. The Civil Rights leader was there in solidarity with sanitation workers who were on strike for higher pay and better conditions after two of their colleagues were crushed to death in the back of a truck. King will forever be linked to the civil rights movement in the USA and speaking out against the Vietnam War, but his campaigning went beyond achieving the right to vote or ending segregation. He understood that real civil rights had to include economic rights, as well as social rights. That poverty and unemployment had to be tackled just as strongly as racism. That’s why he argued for an economic Bill of Rights.

In 2001 RG and I visited Atlanta where Martin Luther King was born and spent much of his life preaching. We visited the Martin Luther King centre, where he is buried, and which also houses a section dedicated to Rosa Parks – whose refusal to sit at the back of the bus caught the imagination of civil rights activists in the United States and Ireland. We also visited the Ebenezer Baptist Church where King preached. At one point I sat quietly in a pew contemplating those in the USA who marched for civil rights 50 years ago and the inspiration they gave those of us who marched for civil rights in the north at the same time.

In 1994 I had the opportunity to meet Rosa Parks, and in later years I also met separately with Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young, the only two still alive who were with Martin Luther King when he was shot. Much has changed in the USA since those dark days. The courage of Martin Luther King and others has brought about enormous change in that society but intolerance, racism and inequality still exist. They continue to exist also in our own society in sectarianism, inequality, bigotry and intolerance.

King recognised the stubbornness of the status quo in resisting change.Speaking in Montgomery in December 1956 King told his audience that change is not inevitable. He said: “History has proven that social systems have a great last-minute breathing power, and the guardians of a status quo are always on hand with their oxygen tents to keep the old order alive… Freedom has always been an expensive thing. History is a fit testimony to the fact that freedom is rarely gained without sacrifice and self-denial.”

He was right. Resistance to change in the USA means that racism remains a toxic issue. Resistance to change in our own place has seen key commitments in the Good Friday Agreement not honoured and the political institutions of the Good Friday Agreement suspended for over a year.

That is the great truth of all such struggles for freedom and equality and justice. It is a constant battle between those who would deny change and those who demand it. It is true in the United States of America. It is true in the Middle East, where the international community stands mute to the horrors inflicted daily by the Israeli state on the Palestinian people. And it is true in Ireland.

The peace process has brought about many changes and the island of Ireland is a place in transition but at this Easter time 2018 we know that there is still a long road ahead before we achieve the Republic and the freedom and equality envisaged by the leaders of 1916 in the Proclamation.

50 years ago “We shall Overcome” was the anthem of a generation demanding change. But it wasn’t the only gospel song that captured the mood of the time and which became an anthem for change. Another song which also has words by Pete Seegar, was called “We shall not be moved”. It spoke of young and old, black and white, rural and urban, straight and gay, standing together, “just like a tree that’s planted by the water, we shall not be moved.”

In other versions of the song the word “water” becomes “water side” and there is an additional verse about freedom. At Easter as Irish republicans remember our patriot dead and look to the accomplishment of our goals these words resonate.

“We’re on the road to freedom
We shall not be moved
On the road to freedom
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that's standing by the water side
We shall not be moved”

The struggle goes on.