He lived history he now teaches

But four decades ago, Dr. Paul Murray was embroiled in a much more crucial struggle: the civil rights movement.

The sociology professor at Siena College in Loudonville spent a summer in Madison County, Mississippi, helping local civil rights organizers while also doing home repairs for local residents. He refers to it as "the turning point in my life."

History in class

Today's students, he noted, have little or no understanding of what the term "civil rights" actually means.

"If you talk to young people today, they'll certainly be able to tell you something about Martin Luther King or who Rosa Parks was," he explained. "Because of the Spike Lee film, people know Malcolm X. But there is a great deal people do not know or understand. One of the objectives of my course is to keep the memories and lessons of that time alive."

Not having grown up with civil rights as a "current event," 20- and 30-somethings often give the impression "that Martin Luther King started the civil rights movement singlehandedly," he said. "But he joined a movement that was already under way."

Personal touch

"For many people coming of age in the '60s, there was a sense that you were part of an historic change," he observed. "There was a major shift happening in our society. You had the choice of being a part of it or sitting on the sidelines, letting history pass you by."

A parishioner of St. Vincent de Paul parish in Albany, the professor was brought up in a suburb of Detroit. He said while that location put him in contact with a broad cross-section of society, it was in a Catholic high school that his passion about civil rights began to take shape.

"I was approached in my junior year by one of the sisters who taught us," he explained. "She said, `There's going to be this conference in downtown Detroit, and we'd like you to represent our school.' It was sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, to promote brotherhood among people of different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds."

At the conference, Dr. Murray met a black college student. "He was one of the most intelligent and articulate people I had the fortune to meet," he remembered. "That made a big impression on me, caused me to question many of the stereotypes I had."

Joining up

Other team members were involved with organizations like the NAACP and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and many participated in sympathy demonstrations. Dr. Murray joined them for a march to promote open housing.

"Everybody was very pleasant and welcoming...and the community continued to remain segregated for years after that," he said wryly.

Inspired

The Detroit event awed the student, who described well over 100,000 people marching down the main street, led by Dr. King -- who sounded many of the same themes of racial equality he would later echo in Washington.

BY the following summer, Dr. Murray had taken a job in a ramshackle office in downtown Detroit that was operated by the Friends of the SNCC, raising money to send to those the South fighting for civil rights. The same group organized the Northern Student Movement to tutor students in inner-city Detroit schools.

"There was a feeling of excitement, of participation in something that was important," Dr. Murray stated. "I had strong feelings of admiration for people my age who were actually in the South, participating in the civil rights movement."

Tensions

On at least one occasion, Dr. Murray thought his work might even endanger his parents.

"I was picketing at a local bank; I think it had to do with their lending practices and mortgages. I remember coming home and seeing a message on a notepad that mentioned the bank and our mortgage," he said. "It turned out to be a coincidence, but the first thing that went through my mind was, `reprisal.'"

The opportunity to travel south finally came after college. In 1966, Dr. Murray joined the Quaker-sponsored American Friends Service Committee and prepared to go to Mississippi to combine volunteer work with demonstrating for civil rights.

"Before I left, I sat down and wrote out a will," he said. "My girlfriend was in tears, very concerned about what was going to happen to me. There was a lot of fear; you knew about people who had been killed. But the idea was that what was being done was something that was morally right."

Mississippi

"When we arrived in Mississippi, there was a civil rights march going on," he recalled. "The leaders began to use the phrase `black power' as a slogan. It definitely indicated a more militant turn in the movement."

Still, he added, "among the people we worked with was great and unquestioning acceptance, I guess because there had been other white people who had been volunteers in the civil rights movement, and they had demonstrated their commitment to the cause of racial equality."

Dr. Murray worked with African-Americans in poor, rural areas, many of whom were farmers. Despite the fact that most only had a sixth-grade education, "they were the most knowledgeable people in their community," he stated. "They just had a great commitment and ability to mobilize people, and willingness to put it all on the line."

Changes

He was also moved when, after being arrested during a civil rights demonstration, his new friends used their property as security to bail him out of jail.

Heading north again at the end of the summer didn't end Dr. Murray's passion for civil rights. He earned his master's degree with a thesis on "Negro Leadership in a Southern Town" and later wrote his doctoral thesis on "Blacks and the Draft: An Analysis of Institutional Racism." He was an expert witness in federal voting-rights trials in Mississippi and Alabama.

Life-long commitment

"That is one of the ways in which my life has been different: I made choices that said, `This is how we want to live,'" he stated. "Teaching [at Siena] and in other schools, I try to promote more diversity in the curriculum."

Even having added two courses to Siena's offerings -- "The Civil Rights Movement" and "Making Sense of the '60s" -- the professor continues to wrestle with his theories on the future of race relations in the U.S. He even debates how much of a success the civil rights movement of the '60s was.

"In the 1960s, we were very optimistic about our ability to produce changes in society. It's difficult now not to be just a tad cynical," he remarked. "There's been a lot of superficial change, but not a lot of real, thorough, going-deep change.

"If you look at the persistent problems of poverty in this country, you have to realize the civil rights movement did not have a very good strategy for dealing with the underlying economic problems," he added. "Look at the achievement gap between white and black students, and you wonder to what extent we've really been successful in achieving equal educational opportunities."

More to do

But the professor now tries to encourage his students to take up the cause that changed the course of his own life.

"One of the seeds I try to place," he said with a smile, "is that there is no reason why a similar type of social movement can't flourish in the next decade."

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