The history of humanity has experienced oppressive and violent authoritarian movements for decades. Every era of oppression and tyranny have built on the seeds of rebellion and emancipation that have passed from generation to generation, regardless of the victories and failures. Although it is difficult to find a period in the history of mankind as impoverishing and as gray as the dehumanizing of humans yet it’s nearly impossible to find one as powerful as the civil rights movement. The River of No Return, the “eyewitness” of the fight for racial justice in the South is a autobiography that serves as evidence of the civil rights struggle and social change.
Cleveland Sellers was born in “Black Denmark” South Carolina in 1944 at the wrong time and wrong place which reflected poorly on his life. He got a slap in the face the moment he was born because he was black yet his parents slapped him harder by raising him with virtues and self-confidence. To him, white people were not a threat nor did they flaunt their powers to the blacks. For a while he was just another black kid from the block until he heard about Emmett Till’s brutal death which impacted his life from that moment and many years after. When the sit-ins came to Denmark, Cleveland had an immense desire to join the movement of civil rights. He helped plan the first sit- in in Denmark when he was only 15 years old despite his parent’s opposition. The sit-in marked the change, young black kids started taking matters into their hands joining people like Martin Luther King Jr and Ella Baker. Young blacks started forming their own organization called the SNCC growing apart from the organization they parents participated in such as NAACP and SCLC. Cleveland attended Howard University because of the high involvement of students in the movement and he joined the Nonviolent Action Group during his time there. After that his life began to take turns quickly. He was imprisoned for participating in the 1964 demonstrations in Cambridge, Maryland, he began working with the SNCC in Holly Springs, Mississippi the summer of 1964 where he saw first-hand the ineffable racism, friends tormented and killed. Summer of 1964 was nothing but a summer of violence and death. It didn’t stop him, he continued his work on voter registration drives in Mississippi and in 1965 he was elected program director of SNCC working towards his goal. That was the year two of the major campaigns happened, the Mississippi Challenge and the Selma to Montgomery March. In the summer of 1966 he joined the march across Mississippi along Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and that marked the first time when the term “black power” was used. Cleveland refused to be drafted into the US military because his focus was the movement. Unfortunately for him, shortly after the Orangeburg Massacre occurred where many blacks were killed cold blooded by the police force and Cleveland was the only one accused for allegedly instigating the protests and was unjustly imprisoned. It was during that time, he started writing the book chronicling every life event that unfolded in front of his eyes. He never stopped fighting for his basic human rights even after SNCC ended and Martin Luther King was assassinated. Always stood driven by the same inexorable force and burning desire of changing the future of his people that past generations had not been able to. Years later, he was pardoned by the governor of South Carolina.
The River of No Return demonstrated the ugliness, the violence, abuse and the brutality of human beings towards others, simply said, a dark world. The situation took place in a period where discrimination against dark “race” was common which showed the darkest aspects of the society. The brutality was uncalled for such. Cleveland witnessed one time, “deputies surged forward and attacked- with cubs, chains, and electric cattle prods. Police are beating people on the streets. Oh man, they’re just picking them up and putting the in ambulances. People are getting hurt, pretty bad.”. Cleveland’s narrative went beyond the simple condemn of the horror blacks went through treated with cruelty, like animals when even animals do not deserve to be treated in such ways. Human basic rights were being violated, Samuel Young Jr was killed for using a “whites only” toilet. That shows how low the white society was falling, killing a man for doing something natural. The historical events of this memoir along with life elements together form a masterful autobiography in which a young black boy witnesses the oppression and discovers his own identity spending years fighting for equality among all, despite race or color.
The new generation, including Cleveland were less afraid of the racial struggle and ready to fight for a social change, ready to protest because they realized change was viable and it was time to deal with “the problem” blacks had been facing throughout history. Cleveland had a burning desire to get involved to annul discrimination. The youngins did not have the same fearful eyes their elderlies had, patience was not a thing anymore, change and only that was their vision. That was their life. Cleveland states, “The adults, my parents included, were always afraid that we young people would take white racism too lightly.” No, this new generation had more will to change their destiny than their parents ever had, Cleveland’s life represented the struggle for civil rights freedom of the individual and, in the case of this memoir, the freedom of equality of all African Americans throughout United States. After all, the American Declaration of Independence states, “All men are created equal,” yet blacks were nearly non-existent compared to white privilege in the 1960s. For the blacks, the 60s were like living in an unjust world. They spent years of dehumanization and slavery and even though they were freed, they could not enjoy life like the white. Civil rights movement was all about the clashing of the two races with the hope of all becoming one, meaning all having the same rights. The memoir gives candid and truthful statements of facts repeating the story of Cleveland’s life without holding back the smallest detail nor exaggerating all the turns he had to take to continue fighting for his beliefs and dreams.
The book evidences fine detail showing the loss of human sensitivity every time a white officer had to deal with the blacks. One thing which was very surprising while reading the book was that many times, blacks just stood there, ate everything whites threw their way remaining calm. That’s power. The kind of power that whites lacked, it made them look stupid because they could not get under the skin of blacks like they used too during the era of slavery. For years, blacks had so much taken away from them, including life itself, yet their power to think and believe never died. Believing is like a muscle that the greater the effort and work, the greater the space it occupies, it is not bought nor sold, it exists and yes, believing can change the world. Cleveland and his buddies never stopped believing the black world was going to change some day. Along the way, there were obstacles, but nothing great comes easy. Cleveland recalls, “We knew it was right. To our mind, lunch-counter segregation was the greatest evil facing black people in the country and if we could eliminate it, we would be like gods.” The SNCC was not just a temporary group making changes. It was hard work that started with other organizations and continued with young blacks during a long bumpy road. They converted into the leaders of a great movement to stop the unethical treatment white supremacy had imposed over the black society.
The movement was the first and for some the only priority. They lived and some even died defending that priority with dignity. Once Cleveland got involved with SNCC there was no going back just like he mentions in his book, “we are on a boat float and that it must be changed to stay afloat, and that it must stay afloat to be changed. There are some who say that they don’t get the metaphor. Well, let me further confuse the picture by saying that we are on a river of no return.” The river only goes one way following divergent paths, but it could never go back to where it started. Same with Cleveland and the rest of the civil rights movement activists like Martin Luther King Jr, once they started the long journey, nothing could make look back. Every day something changed, every day was further from where they started and a bit closer to their ultimate destination. The struggles they went through gave them the strength they needed for the next day, next month and next year. The one major theme in this book is “never give up” and they didn’t, they fought until the end, until it “the problem” was gone. The road might have been long but it was headed towards justice. Sitting back and waiting for a change was no longer working. Crying about what was happening was out of the door like the poem by Fay Bellamy says, “How many people will have to die before we can make it a two-way street? I would rather us die fighting to defend ourselves, since we die all the time anyway. I want to cry but am not able to do so. With each death we cry a little less. Soon, we will not cry at all.” Beautifully written, this stanza goes beyond the written words, it hits the deepest parts of non-racist human beings, only they can understand the power of those words. It was the kind of words that made the movement worth it. Although things took a dive after all, especially in the Orangeburg Massacre where many were killed and Cleveland was the one who was blamed for it all. Yet another unjust punishment for him living with such baggage over his shoulders even though he was innocent. Later on, even with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, SNCC did not cease right away but it definitely wounded it and caused many to stop fighting for what they believed was right, until came a time that life became parlous and Cleveland’s life was being threatened, again. Life got tough for him and even though he enjoyed the little victories along the stretched bumpy road, he spent years in prison unjustly until he was pardoned years after which does not matter anymore. No amount of forgiveness will ever bring back all the years he spent in prison and all the brutality and inhumane treatment him and all blacks throughout United States lived for years.
The book is a whole dance for freedom, human rights and their morals as human beings. It is a way of telling whites that you could press the cruelest reality against black people but can never dominate their spirits thanks to their hopes and fights toward freedom. It is in each of us, fighting to change things, to keep thinking and thinking, non-stop questioning everything and criticize everything that comes given; because we must realize that if there is something wrong we have to fight for it to change. After all without struggle there is no progress.