Thomas Gaither

SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — For nearly 40 years Thomas Gaither planned biology lessons, not civil acts of disobedience.

But the retired Slippery Rock University professor and civil rights hero said Thursday night that the lessons of civil disobedience and nonviolence are an important part of helping to shape America's future.

“The more we know about each other, perhaps the more civil to each other we can be,” he said Thursday in front of a crowd of hundreds at SRU's Smith Student Center.

Gaither, who retired from SRU in 2007, still remembers helping to organize marches and watching police arrest hundreds of people protesting for equal rights in the early 1960s.

In 1961, Gaither and eight other students from Friendship Junior College gained national notoriety after staging a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Rock Hill, S.C. The sit-in was a common form of nonviolent protest at the time, but the group's decision not to post bail and instead serve their sentence of 30 days of hard labor, helped to reinvigorate a civil rights movement that was struggling with the financial burdens of posting bail for protesters.

On Thursday Gaither spoke at a kickoff event for SRU's Black History Month, which will focus on the theme of “understanding the past to help shape the future.”

College officials said events would include discussions on the 13th Amendment, the origin of black history, a soul food tasting and a poetry slam, among others.

Gaither spoke briefly about the United States' history of slavery — a “cruel and inhumane” institution — but focused pointedly on recent history, from the modern Civil Rights movement's ascension under Martin Luther King Jr. to the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008 — a moment Gaither said prompted the country to backslide on its commitment to remember how deeply race is ingrained in the national consciousness.

“A nation founded on racial considerations suddenly lost its ability to see race,” he said of how Obama's presidency affected racial considerations across the country.

The problem, Gaither continued, was that institutions like the nation's criminal justice system continued to operate on racially-charged foundations.

Today, with Americans deeply divided along political lines, Gaither said he believes the solution to polarization won't be found in Washington, D.C., or with elected officials in general.

“Politicians are not going to get us together. We can get ourselves together,” he said. “Once we're sure of what we believe in, we can kind of kiss the politicians off, and get around to doing things we can be proud of as Americans.”

Part of that search for truth and belief is engaging with our own history, he said — even if it's painful. Gaither said that people often forget that every American has a part to play when it comes to Black History Month.

“The history of black people in this country is the history of everybody else — including white people,” he said. “We are all intertwined and interdependent.”

Though Gaither celebrates the progress that's been made since he and his eight compatriots from Friendship Junior College made a stand in Rock Hill, his message to young people and teachers at SRU was to be vigilant and engaged.

He shied away from answering questions from students who asked what he thought their biggest obstacles would be, and told them it's their responsibility to set the agenda for change going forward.

“Find your passion and go about it,” Gaither said. “There are lots of things out there that need to get done.”