Dr. Ira Harkavy

My interview with Ira Harkavy, the Director of the Center for Community Partnerships, took place on Nov.2, 2001. I heard about Harkavy through Winnie Smart- Mapp the class' community liaison and his colleague.

IH: …and then very highly emotive songs like " We shall Overcome" um "We Shall Not be Moved." Which was really a believers song, a…spiritual…uh, so music was really very central. So was Philadelphia. There certainly was an active, uh, I was here in 1966. The activism I was involved in engaged both anti-war and civil rights struggles, but I was not rooted in civil rights groups here nor when I was younger in New York[Mmm,Hmm]. I just know about national trends. Um, so I can't speak to the musical impact here on the struggle. I imagine though it was similar to what one listened to and sang around the country and there was a kind of progressive folk scene here. The roles of African American music in that, um, beyond its national impact, that is, whether there was a Philly translation I just don't know. I wasn't close enough.

AW: Mmm hmm, so what was your involvement in general in the movement or your understanding-

IH: Mmm, well, personally my family was involved with-in certain ways, as a college student I was one of the leaders of the struggle against Penn's expansion ineot West Philadelphia and I worked with black leadership[Mm hmm] on those issues. I was active in the anti-war movement. Um, I was the leader of a very, the largest peaceful protest that Penn ever had in 1969. So I worked very closely with African American leadership…

AW: So, um, what kind of organizations were you---

IH: A number of them. Community Involvement Council [Mm hmm] Um…these are my main organization… I was involved, local community, I was involved in the mobilization of groups to-against the war. Political types-in '68 I was head of a canvasing ---of students for McCarthy. So I spend my life, my time, working on issues related to ending war in Vietnam and trying to end American racism.
So I don't know if that answers your…
AW : So how did they intersect with different organizations, like, how did different organizations work together from your understanding.

IH It depends on what the issue is…There's a lot of division[Mm hmm]. The left became increasingly schismatic from '68 on. So there was a lot of schisms among progressive organizations, um, who'd unite at some times and then there were the extreme left organizations, the violent ones, like the Weather people or the labor community, STS Labor Community in Philly which was just horrific , ahh, in my judgement, Umm, and uhh, …those schisms… the dominant progressive groups worked together pretty well but there were a lot of schisms too so it depended. Um, so there was a white-black alliance for a variety of reasons….uh, did a lot of work on those questions and those issues. There was a big concern among-the groups of students I worked with had particularly close ties to black leadership.

AW And what were the issues that were most divisive, like, in terms of groups.

IH: Well that's, that's the, well with the civil rights, the anti-war movement, I mean, this was a student that were combined. Everyone hod their own way to the Revolution. Their own way to change America. Everyone wanted to be-their own way to make it and end the war. So there were different schisms. One were issues of, um, how left to be and how-whether to be violent or whether to be, ah, build coalitions-whether to work through the electoral process. I mean all these different-Whether there was counter culture drug culture, drug schisms…S o all these divisions that were just, ah rife in the movement. In terms of the African American Civil Rights Movement that obviously the reason that [Wyatt riots] was a crucial issue. Philadelphia, I don't think we experienced that much. We had pretty good ties to African American leadership. But I think clearly nationally the whole issue of Black Power turned different ways[Mm hmm]and included And included in the black movement the reaction against the Afro-American civil leadership reactions-some of them against passive resistance-against Dr. King. There's another schism.

AW Yeah I, uh, think- I've been reading about how, ah, there was a shift in ideology from alliances to, sort of, solidarity. I don't know-

IH: That's probably true. It depends on how its taken. And there are different cuts to that. Um, in '67, I believe, some national conference Black Power became schismatic within American White left, Um, I just don't remember my history. Um, and then some people who really believed strongly in Black identity issues, that, uh, still felt the need for alliance. And there were others who were not at all linked to that. Um, so that was one of the issues but it depends how that played out so I don't know how to do the full band of positions but clearly elements that Stokeley Carmichael who went …very …for[Mmm hmm] Pan Africanist orientation. Then you had members of the Black Panther party. So--most of whom believed in alliances. Some of them were quite violent, others weren't. Uhh, then you had a kind of progressive group. The largest around Dr. King who clearly had the greatest influence. And, um, the-with his killing things became increasingly problematic[Mm hm]in some areas…but, ah, some of it was a reaction against Dr. King because of his dominant role I'm sure. And ah, also his philosophy of non-violent passive resistance which in my judgement was brilliant, was brilliant. King really represents the best traditions of struggle and one of the example are-is what have those others produced…King produced-has resonance all over the world. See it in Nelson Mandela---Who's a lot like, in many ways, Dr. King. Well, certainly Mandela may be more oriented toward nationalism than Dr. King was-It was a different country. He believed very strongly in many of the precepts Dr. King believed.