Speaking Back to the Speaker Ban: Oral History Practice And Free Speech Activism

Courage of Convictions

Each time I write or present on some aspect of this era of student activism at the University, I am startled to rediscover how essential student resolve and action was to have the Speaker Ban law repealed. More than that, I am surprised how well the students seemed to know the significance of what they were doing as they made their plans for the lawsuit, organizing with each other, administrators, and faculty to bring about the confrontation. “Everything was carefully orchestrated, we knew we were participating in a political theater,” David Kiel told me, describing the organizing that went into Herbert Aptheker’s speech on March 6th, 1966.[1] Though Kiel’s memory references only one day in particular, as I return to other interviewees’ recollections, I hear a sense of self-importance--not of arrogance or conceit--but assuredness. For many students, getting involved in the protests was risky if they wished to enter the state’s legal and political worlds, as many would go on to do.

Almost every interviewee speaks about either the group of plaintiffs or another actor in the struggle holding to the courage of their convictions. The phrase is idiomatic, but interviewees use it to describe both the risk that circulated around their actions and the assuredness they held that the law was unconstitutional and they were acting ethically by breaking it. “I have to say that I think an awful lot of kids go through college and never really think about that,” John Greenbacker said, designating the plaintiffs as separate from many other students. “Plus the fact, an awful lot of people—and I don’t care who they are—do not have the courage of their convictions. And that’s the one thing, some other people ask me about, you know, Dickson, it’s been a long time ago, and I said, Paul had the courage of his convictions, and he really did, he knew, he knew, how important this was.”[2] Though almost fifty years of hindsight separates the actions from their actor’s recollections, interviewees’ sureness and conviction emanates through the oral histories.
[1] Kiel, David, Personal Interview, April 2013.
[2] Interview with John E. Greenbacker Jr. by Charlotte Fryar and Alexa Lytle, March 2, 2013, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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