Harold Titus's Blog - Posts Tagged "j-t-johnson"
Civil Rights Events -- Grenada County Freedom Movement -- Giving No Quarter
As you drive through Grenada's paved, tree-shaded streets past red-brick homes and lush green lawns you know you are in Grenada's white world. Grenada's Negro world exists on dusty dirt roads, with small, weather-beaten "shotgun" shacks crammed side by side into every available inch of land. Negroes still sit in the rear of the four Greyhound busses that briefly pause each day at the bus depot. Negroes are not permitted to enter the library. White women work behind the desks and cash registers of downtown Grenada, Negro women push the mops and scrub the floors (Hartford 1).
When the marchers arrived in Grenada on June 15, 1966, City Manager John McEachin explained the situation to a reporter: “All we want is to get these people through town and out of here. Good niggers don’t want anything to do with this march. And there are more good niggers than sorry niggers.”
It didn’t work. The morning after an impassioned sermon by Dr. King, 200 people marched to the courthouse to register to vote. An American flag was set up next to the Civil War Memorial on the square. When the March Against Fear continued south, the registration fight continued (Bean 1).
When the Meredith March ends in Jackson on June 26th, SCLC sends additional staff bcak to Grenada as King had promised — including national-level SCLC leaders like Hosea Williams, Andrew Young, and Dr. King himself who splits his time between Grenada and the Chicago Freedom Movement's ferocious battle for open housing.
A cramped and busy Freedom Movement office is set up in Belle Flower Missionary Baptist Church on Pearl Street close by Highway-51. Belle Flower (sometimes referred to as Bellflower or Belle Flowers) is said to be the 3rd oldest Black church in Mississippi. As the newly-formed GCFM battles against adamant opposition from whites who are determined to return the Jim Crow racial order of the past, Belle Flower becomes the site of nightly, sometimes twice-daily, mass meetings.
And with City Manager McEachin's scheme to ease the Meredith March through town without any local challenges to white authority now proven to be an utter failure, the hardliners who favor Mississippi's traditional "knock 'em in the head and toss 'em in jail" methods of social control regain ascendance. Violence, arrests, and billy clubs are the new order of the day.
On July 4th, SCLC workers and local activists are invited to a barbecue in the rural Sweethome area by an Afro-American woman posing as a Movement supporter. Once they arrive, she calls Sheriff Suggs Ingram and 27 are arrested for "trespass" in what is obviously a set-up. Three days later, on Thursday July 7, a march protesting those arrests is broken up by the cops and more than 40 are arrested for violating a local "parade ordinance" (SCLC 1-2).
Thursday, July 7. At a mass meeting in Vincent Chapel, it is decided to stage a protest march that evening. The march is broken up by the police and 43 are arrested for violation of a parade ordinance (Hartford 3).
With most of its staff now languishing in jail, SCLC calls in reinforcements. By early July, the number of SCLC staff in Grenada is fluctuating between 10 and 15, almost all of whom are Afro-American. At a mass meeting on Saturday the 9th, the GCFM votes overwhelmingly for a campaign to make Grenada an "open city" — the terminology of the day that means a complete end to all forms of segregation. The GCFM presents 51 demands to the white power structure including desegregation of public facilities, Afro-American voter registrars with evening and neighborhood registration, and equal employment by government and private business.
Testing teams of Black high school students are sent to lunch counters & restaurants, the public library, the city swimming pool, and other previously segregated facilities. Most comply with the Civil Rights Act and serve these new Afro-American customers, but the swimming pool permanently closes rather then integrate. Sporadic heckling and threats of violence from white bystanders breaks out at a couple of locations.
The open city campaign continues for weeks with integration testing and lawsuits filed under the Civil Rights Act against non-complying establishments. The swimming pool remains closed because the thought of white girls and Black boys in close proximity to each other while wearing nothing but swimsuits is simply unacceptable to white adults. Other than that, the campaign is largely successful — at least in the technical sense that Afro-Americans willing to defy white hostility and the threat of later retaliation can demand, and receive, service at most establishments without being arrested. As a practical matter, however, most Blacks choose not to run such risks, so the custom of race segregation in Grenada remains largely — though not entirely — intact.
Later that Saturday afternoon, after the mass July 9th meeting, a white man in a pickup truck opens fire with a machinegun on a pair of civil rights workers who are talking to a Justice Department official next to Belle Flower church. They drop to the ground and the assassin misses, though the official's car is shot full of holes. The shooter is arrested a few blocks away and eventually tried on an unrelated minor charge. He is later acquitted by yet another all-white jury.
On Sunday the 10th, small integrated groups try to attend Sunday services at various white churches. Not a single Christian church allows an Afro-American inside to pray. None of the white SCLC staff accompanying them are allowed to enter either. Similar integration attempts are made on following Sundays for several weeks — all to no avail. No Blacks (or white Freedom Movement supporters) are allowed to worship with white Grenadans.
Meanwhile, most of the activists arrested on the July 7th march are still incarcerated and awaiting bail, so after church services a support rally is held outside the county lockup. Since the parade ordinance still bars organized protests, 50 or so demonstrators "drift" toward the jail in small groups from Belle Flower church. When the signal is given they quickly gather around the flagpole flying the "stars and bars" of the Mississippi state flag and begin singing freedom songs as loud as then can so the prisoners inside can hear them. The jail is adjacent to the Northside Black community, and a couple hundred Afro-American onlookers cheer the protesters from the sidelines.
Black kids too young to risk arrest as demonstrators act as freedom scouts. They report that a big force of Mississippi State Troopers in full riot gear are forming up behind the building. The rally quickly disperses, some participants returning back to Belle Flower, others joining the bystanders observing from across the street. When the platoon of shotgun-armed Troopers charge around the corner they find no protesters to attack. So they turn their fury on the crowd of bystanders peacefully observing from across the way, brutally assaulting them with rifle-butts and billy clubs — many are injured (SCLC 2-3).
Bruce Hartford, SCLC leader observed: (As a general rule in Grenada, the troopers preferred to beat folk with their rifles, while the city cops and sheriffs favored the more traditional billy clubs.) (Hartford 4).
At the Monday evening mass meeting on July 11, the GCFM votes to declare a "Blackout" (boycott) of Grenada's white merchants to protest the beatings, the arrests, and to enforce the 51 demands.
…
On Tuesday the 12th, civil rights lawyers persuade Judge Clayton of the federal district court in Oxford MS to declare the parade ordinance unconstitutional. Both Afro-Americans and whites see this as a Freedom Movement victory. Blacks respond with joy, whites with fury at federal "meddling" in their affairs. With the ordinance struck down, small teams begin picketing and leafletting the downtown stores to enforce the Blackout.
White political leaders publish the Movement's 51 demands in the local paper with a statement claiming that no one in Grenada racially discriminates and asserting that: "Demands, threats and intimidation are not proper, appropriate, or acceptable means of accomplishing anything, and any and all such tactics will be ignored. There will be no concessions of any type whatsoever, likewise there will be no acceding to any such demands."
On Wednesday the 13th, a large boycott picket line is mounted in the downtown area. All 45 of the protesters are quickly arrested on charges which are not explained. One activist comments, "It's like the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, arrest first, figure out charges later." Though the protesters are eventually bailed out, SCLC is short of funds so large picket lines are discontinued in favor of small picket teams. Small groups might be harassed or attacked by whites but they're not always arrested. And even if they are jailed, the amount needed to bail them out is less.
In response to the escalating repression, an afternoon mass meeting is held on Thursday the 14th — followed by a mass march.
[Large marches were an important Movement tactic. While enraged whites might spontaneously assault a small picket line, the social psychology was such that big marches were — for the most part — only vulnerable to attack by even bigger mobs incited to violence by Klan or Council leaders with the cooperation, or at least acquiescence, of the cops and courts. And Blacks who had good reason to fear that public support for the Freedom Movement put them at risk of economic retaliation by whites were often more willing to participate in a mass action where they were just one more face among many than in smaller more individually visible actions.]
Led by Hosea Williams of SCLC, some 220 Black Grenadans march from Belle Flower church up to the square to protest the Trooper attack and the increasing number of arrests. By some measures 220 people may seem small, but for a small town with only few thousand Afro-Americans of high school age or older, that so many defy a century of social conditioning and the very real threats of economic retaliation, police repression, and Klan violence is significant.
This is the first big march since the parade ordinance was struck down. Previous actions with 40 or 50 participants resulted in arrests and the demonstrators are tense, expecting at any moment to be confronted by the cops. But it turns out to be the first large action since the Meredith March that is not broken up by police violence or arrests.
When the marchers reach the town square and move on to the central green they discover that a dozen or so Black inmates from the notorious Parchman Prison have been brought in to "protect" the Confederate Memorial statue from "defilement" and "desecration."
Carefully watched by heavily-armed white prison guards, the inmates are under orders to physically assault any civil rights protester who approaches the monument. The prison guards, local cops, and white bystanders smile, and grin, and joke in anticipation of seeing Black prisoners compelled to attack Afro-American freedom marchers in defense of a memorial to Confederate soldiers who had died fighting to maintain slavery.
Understanding the terrible punishment that would be inflicted on the inmates if they refused to do as ordered, march leader Hosea Williams instructs the protesters to leave them and the statue alone. The rally is held at a distance from the memorial and its coerced defenders.
…
After another large afternoon march on Friday, a meeting of Grenada's tiny Black business & professional strata pledges to endorse the GCFM. As in other rural areas of the Deep South, the Afro-American middle class is made up mostly of teachers, ministers, and small business men & women (store owners, morticians, insurance agents, barbers & beauticians, and so on). While most local freedom movements in the south have backing from some members of the Black elite, such broad support among those who have the most to lose from economic retaliation by whites is unusual, attributable perhaps to both the breadth and power of the Grenada Movement and the influence of SCLC leaders — all of whom are themselves from that class.
As is the case elsewhere in the South, formal leadership positions in the Grenada Freedom Movement are held by men, but most of the actual leadership work is done by women outside the spotlight. Day after day, local leader Rev. Sharper Cunningham and senior SCLC staff like J.T. Johnson lead the marches, but women and children form the bulk of the protesters. As is also the case elsewhere in the South, the majority of those marching are high school students with girls outnumbering the boys (Square 1-4).
Bruce Hartford: July 15 we hold our first successful night march. We know that night marches are dangerous because racists can attack from cover of darkness — but more people can participate because it's after working hours. We start with 250 from Bellflower, go up around the courthouse, and then over to Union Street in the Negro section near Bellflower. There we hold a street rally. By the time we get back to the church there are more than 600 people on the march.
This establishes a pattern that is followed every day for the next three months: A mass meeting in the evening, then a night march to the square with either a rally at the courthouse or on the green (Hartford 9).
Day after day the marches and organizing continue. The cops are no longer blocking the big marches but they're continuing to harass and arrest boycott pickets. On Wednesday the 20th, Freedom Movement lawyers appear before Judge Clayton in Federal District court asking that police interference with lawful picketing and protests be halted. Two days later on Friday the 22nd, the judge issues a sweeping injunction commanding the white power-structure to accept that Afro-Americans have First Amendment rights, ordering the cops to stop interfering with legal protests, and instructing them to protect demonstrators from terrorist attack.
At the same time, the judge also issues a set of conduct rules that Movement protesters must obey. Under his order, singing is not allowed in residential areas, marchers have to walk two-by-two on the sidewalks or by the side the road, and obey all traffic rules. Large marches have to be broken into groups of 20 people with 20 feet separating each section. Since the marches were already obeying traffic rules GCFM leaders and lawyers accept his order without demurral — except when a march comes under mob attack at which point everyone closes up tight for protection and the judge be damned.
The white community reacts in fury to Judge Clayton's injunction. It's hard to tell who they hate more, the "Damn Yankee" federal government daring to tell them how to treat their "nigrahs," or the racial troublemakers challenging the tranquility of the Jim Crow "southern way of life." The judge and other federals, however, are distant targets protected by armed law enforcement. Protesters from the GCFM are not only nonviolent, but near at hand.
On Saturday evening, July 23rd, a large mob of 700 or more angry whites gather on the square to attack the nightly freedom march. Young Movement scouts spot cars with license plates from known KKK strongholds like Neshoba County and the Pearl River & Natchez areas of Mississippi and Louisiana. Such large mobs don't form spontaneously, someone with political clout has to organize and mobilize them, though no one takes public responsibility for doing so. The mob is made up almost entirely of white men who are visibly armed with clubs, baseball bats, steel pipes, chains, and knives.
Though the mob members are not brandishing firearms, the freedom scouts reporting back to Movement leaders in Belle Flower church assume they have hidden guns. Everyone gathered for the evening mass meeting understands that Grenada County Sheriff Suggs Ingram has no intention of protecting them from white racists who are his voting constituents. Not on that night. Not ever.
The normal Mississippi practice is to station one or two State Troopers in each rural county, but since the beginning of July the Grenada contingent has been reinforced to a couple of dozen troopers who had been ordered to suppress protests and enforce the recently overturned parade ordinance. Now under court order to guard rather than attack Black marchers, the Trooper commander tells Movement leaders he has been "caught by surprise" at this "unexpected" hostile mob. He claims he doesn't have enough men to protect a march, but he promises that if this night's protest is canceled he will bring in reinforcements to protect demonstrations on the following nights.
Movement leaders don't trust him, but they agree to cancel the march for this night only. When the mob realizes no one is going to walk into their ambush they began advancing down Pearl and Cherry Streets toward Belle Flower church where the mass meeting is being held. To their credit, the Troopers hold them a block away so they can't attack the church.
On Sunday the 24th, another huge mob of whites is mobilized by persons unknown to throng the square. Estimated by newsmen at over 1,000, again they are armed with clubs, bats, and chains. Again the Troopers claim they don't have enough men on hand and ask that this march too be canceled. Knowing that continued surrender to intimidation will simply encourage more mob threats, Movement leaders refuse.
Some 200 frightened but determined protesters march two-by-two out of Belle Flower church into the darkness. Demonstrators in Grenada normally sing exuberantly, but on this night they are uncharacteristically silent as they proceed up the dark, unlit Pearl Street towards the downtown square and the violent mob that awaits them.
As the lead marchers turn down Green Street and enter the square they are greeted with furious shouts of "Niggers! Coons! Commies!" and "White Power!" Only a handful of Troopers plus a few cops and deputies are visible. Many of the local lawmen are socializing with members of the white mob whose screams of hate intensify as more and more of the protesters come into view. The lack of strong police presence — and the attitude of those few who are present — is itself an eloquent invitation to mob violence.
But instead of crossing the street onto the central green for the usual rally, the marchers take the whites by surprise, quickly striding past the courthouse and then turning right on 1st Street to exit the square before the mob realizes what's happening. The racist throng gives chase, but again — and again to their credit — a thin line of Troopers block them from following and attacking Belle Flower church. Furious, the mob turns its hate on the newsmedia, attacking reporters, photographers, and TV crews with clubs and chains and smashing cameras. Which results in a new wave of negative publicity for Grenada and Mississippi in the Monday morning press and news broadcasts (Square 5-6).
As is typical for most Grenada marches, the majority of the demonstrators are students (usually about half the total number) and a third are adult women, along with a handful of adult men and SCLC staff members. Though men — ministers mostly — form the visible leadership of the movement, its backbone and core are women and kids (Hartford 9).
In reaction to Monday's bad press, state and local "racial moderates" demand that the state enforce law and order against violent white mobs. An entire company of Troopers is sent to Grenada. They announce that mob rule won't be tolerated. "Moderate" local white leaders chime in, urging whites to avoid the square and ignore Freedom Movement protests. They tell their constituents that if they deprive the press of dramatic newsworthy events — such as mob violence against reporters and cameramen — the media will leave. And they promise that without national publicity in the northern media, Afro-American protests in Grenada will dwindle away to nothing — leaving the old order of tranquil white-supremacy restored.
By that evening, the new "no audience" strategy has begun to take hold — the white mob in the square waiting to attack the freedom marchers is no bigger than 500 — less than half the number of the previous evening. With the Troopers out in force and clearly on guard, some 220 or so protesters are able to march around the green under aerial bombardment of rocks and bottles but without being physically assaulted by bat-wielding thugs.
On Tuesday the 26th, no more than 100 whites show up and the Grenada Freedom Movement resumes nightly rallies on the green. By Wednesday the general pattern of daytime boycott picketing, nightly marches to a square now empty of hostile whites, followed by a rally on the green or a voter registration rally in a Black neighborhood reasserts itself (Square 6-8).
During the week following the resumption of rallies on the square and the power structure's "no audience" campaign, the police make a series of harassment arrests for alleged traffic violations, disturbing the peace, and other trumped up charges. SCLC staff member R.B. Cottenreader is arrested for "touching" a white lady while picketing, four people in a car are arrested for being in the intersection when the light changes to yellow, and so on.
During this period, bogus "Boycott Over" leaflets mysteriously appear in the Negro communities. People are not fooled, and the Blackout continues.
It becomes clear that although our numbers decreased slightly, the "no audience" campaign has failed to stop our marches. The power structure apparently decides to go back to violence (Hartford 10).
Works cited:
Bean, Alan. “Making a stand in Grenada.” Friends of Justice. Web. https://friendsofjustice.blog/2010/12...
Hartford, Bruce. “Grenada Mississippi—Chronology of a Movement.” Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/info/grenada.htm
“On the Square (July 11-August 6).” ).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
“SCLC Returns to Grenada (June 26-July 10).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
When the marchers arrived in Grenada on June 15, 1966, City Manager John McEachin explained the situation to a reporter: “All we want is to get these people through town and out of here. Good niggers don’t want anything to do with this march. And there are more good niggers than sorry niggers.”
It didn’t work. The morning after an impassioned sermon by Dr. King, 200 people marched to the courthouse to register to vote. An American flag was set up next to the Civil War Memorial on the square. When the March Against Fear continued south, the registration fight continued (Bean 1).
When the Meredith March ends in Jackson on June 26th, SCLC sends additional staff bcak to Grenada as King had promised — including national-level SCLC leaders like Hosea Williams, Andrew Young, and Dr. King himself who splits his time between Grenada and the Chicago Freedom Movement's ferocious battle for open housing.
A cramped and busy Freedom Movement office is set up in Belle Flower Missionary Baptist Church on Pearl Street close by Highway-51. Belle Flower (sometimes referred to as Bellflower or Belle Flowers) is said to be the 3rd oldest Black church in Mississippi. As the newly-formed GCFM battles against adamant opposition from whites who are determined to return the Jim Crow racial order of the past, Belle Flower becomes the site of nightly, sometimes twice-daily, mass meetings.
And with City Manager McEachin's scheme to ease the Meredith March through town without any local challenges to white authority now proven to be an utter failure, the hardliners who favor Mississippi's traditional "knock 'em in the head and toss 'em in jail" methods of social control regain ascendance. Violence, arrests, and billy clubs are the new order of the day.
On July 4th, SCLC workers and local activists are invited to a barbecue in the rural Sweethome area by an Afro-American woman posing as a Movement supporter. Once they arrive, she calls Sheriff Suggs Ingram and 27 are arrested for "trespass" in what is obviously a set-up. Three days later, on Thursday July 7, a march protesting those arrests is broken up by the cops and more than 40 are arrested for violating a local "parade ordinance" (SCLC 1-2).
Thursday, July 7. At a mass meeting in Vincent Chapel, it is decided to stage a protest march that evening. The march is broken up by the police and 43 are arrested for violation of a parade ordinance (Hartford 3).
With most of its staff now languishing in jail, SCLC calls in reinforcements. By early July, the number of SCLC staff in Grenada is fluctuating between 10 and 15, almost all of whom are Afro-American. At a mass meeting on Saturday the 9th, the GCFM votes overwhelmingly for a campaign to make Grenada an "open city" — the terminology of the day that means a complete end to all forms of segregation. The GCFM presents 51 demands to the white power structure including desegregation of public facilities, Afro-American voter registrars with evening and neighborhood registration, and equal employment by government and private business.
Testing teams of Black high school students are sent to lunch counters & restaurants, the public library, the city swimming pool, and other previously segregated facilities. Most comply with the Civil Rights Act and serve these new Afro-American customers, but the swimming pool permanently closes rather then integrate. Sporadic heckling and threats of violence from white bystanders breaks out at a couple of locations.
The open city campaign continues for weeks with integration testing and lawsuits filed under the Civil Rights Act against non-complying establishments. The swimming pool remains closed because the thought of white girls and Black boys in close proximity to each other while wearing nothing but swimsuits is simply unacceptable to white adults. Other than that, the campaign is largely successful — at least in the technical sense that Afro-Americans willing to defy white hostility and the threat of later retaliation can demand, and receive, service at most establishments without being arrested. As a practical matter, however, most Blacks choose not to run such risks, so the custom of race segregation in Grenada remains largely — though not entirely — intact.
Later that Saturday afternoon, after the mass July 9th meeting, a white man in a pickup truck opens fire with a machinegun on a pair of civil rights workers who are talking to a Justice Department official next to Belle Flower church. They drop to the ground and the assassin misses, though the official's car is shot full of holes. The shooter is arrested a few blocks away and eventually tried on an unrelated minor charge. He is later acquitted by yet another all-white jury.
On Sunday the 10th, small integrated groups try to attend Sunday services at various white churches. Not a single Christian church allows an Afro-American inside to pray. None of the white SCLC staff accompanying them are allowed to enter either. Similar integration attempts are made on following Sundays for several weeks — all to no avail. No Blacks (or white Freedom Movement supporters) are allowed to worship with white Grenadans.
Meanwhile, most of the activists arrested on the July 7th march are still incarcerated and awaiting bail, so after church services a support rally is held outside the county lockup. Since the parade ordinance still bars organized protests, 50 or so demonstrators "drift" toward the jail in small groups from Belle Flower church. When the signal is given they quickly gather around the flagpole flying the "stars and bars" of the Mississippi state flag and begin singing freedom songs as loud as then can so the prisoners inside can hear them. The jail is adjacent to the Northside Black community, and a couple hundred Afro-American onlookers cheer the protesters from the sidelines.
Black kids too young to risk arrest as demonstrators act as freedom scouts. They report that a big force of Mississippi State Troopers in full riot gear are forming up behind the building. The rally quickly disperses, some participants returning back to Belle Flower, others joining the bystanders observing from across the street. When the platoon of shotgun-armed Troopers charge around the corner they find no protesters to attack. So they turn their fury on the crowd of bystanders peacefully observing from across the way, brutally assaulting them with rifle-butts and billy clubs — many are injured (SCLC 2-3).
Bruce Hartford, SCLC leader observed: (As a general rule in Grenada, the troopers preferred to beat folk with their rifles, while the city cops and sheriffs favored the more traditional billy clubs.) (Hartford 4).
At the Monday evening mass meeting on July 11, the GCFM votes to declare a "Blackout" (boycott) of Grenada's white merchants to protest the beatings, the arrests, and to enforce the 51 demands.
…
On Tuesday the 12th, civil rights lawyers persuade Judge Clayton of the federal district court in Oxford MS to declare the parade ordinance unconstitutional. Both Afro-Americans and whites see this as a Freedom Movement victory. Blacks respond with joy, whites with fury at federal "meddling" in their affairs. With the ordinance struck down, small teams begin picketing and leafletting the downtown stores to enforce the Blackout.
White political leaders publish the Movement's 51 demands in the local paper with a statement claiming that no one in Grenada racially discriminates and asserting that: "Demands, threats and intimidation are not proper, appropriate, or acceptable means of accomplishing anything, and any and all such tactics will be ignored. There will be no concessions of any type whatsoever, likewise there will be no acceding to any such demands."
On Wednesday the 13th, a large boycott picket line is mounted in the downtown area. All 45 of the protesters are quickly arrested on charges which are not explained. One activist comments, "It's like the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, arrest first, figure out charges later." Though the protesters are eventually bailed out, SCLC is short of funds so large picket lines are discontinued in favor of small picket teams. Small groups might be harassed or attacked by whites but they're not always arrested. And even if they are jailed, the amount needed to bail them out is less.
In response to the escalating repression, an afternoon mass meeting is held on Thursday the 14th — followed by a mass march.
[Large marches were an important Movement tactic. While enraged whites might spontaneously assault a small picket line, the social psychology was such that big marches were — for the most part — only vulnerable to attack by even bigger mobs incited to violence by Klan or Council leaders with the cooperation, or at least acquiescence, of the cops and courts. And Blacks who had good reason to fear that public support for the Freedom Movement put them at risk of economic retaliation by whites were often more willing to participate in a mass action where they were just one more face among many than in smaller more individually visible actions.]
Led by Hosea Williams of SCLC, some 220 Black Grenadans march from Belle Flower church up to the square to protest the Trooper attack and the increasing number of arrests. By some measures 220 people may seem small, but for a small town with only few thousand Afro-Americans of high school age or older, that so many defy a century of social conditioning and the very real threats of economic retaliation, police repression, and Klan violence is significant.
This is the first big march since the parade ordinance was struck down. Previous actions with 40 or 50 participants resulted in arrests and the demonstrators are tense, expecting at any moment to be confronted by the cops. But it turns out to be the first large action since the Meredith March that is not broken up by police violence or arrests.
When the marchers reach the town square and move on to the central green they discover that a dozen or so Black inmates from the notorious Parchman Prison have been brought in to "protect" the Confederate Memorial statue from "defilement" and "desecration."
Carefully watched by heavily-armed white prison guards, the inmates are under orders to physically assault any civil rights protester who approaches the monument. The prison guards, local cops, and white bystanders smile, and grin, and joke in anticipation of seeing Black prisoners compelled to attack Afro-American freedom marchers in defense of a memorial to Confederate soldiers who had died fighting to maintain slavery.
Understanding the terrible punishment that would be inflicted on the inmates if they refused to do as ordered, march leader Hosea Williams instructs the protesters to leave them and the statue alone. The rally is held at a distance from the memorial and its coerced defenders.
…
After another large afternoon march on Friday, a meeting of Grenada's tiny Black business & professional strata pledges to endorse the GCFM. As in other rural areas of the Deep South, the Afro-American middle class is made up mostly of teachers, ministers, and small business men & women (store owners, morticians, insurance agents, barbers & beauticians, and so on). While most local freedom movements in the south have backing from some members of the Black elite, such broad support among those who have the most to lose from economic retaliation by whites is unusual, attributable perhaps to both the breadth and power of the Grenada Movement and the influence of SCLC leaders — all of whom are themselves from that class.
As is the case elsewhere in the South, formal leadership positions in the Grenada Freedom Movement are held by men, but most of the actual leadership work is done by women outside the spotlight. Day after day, local leader Rev. Sharper Cunningham and senior SCLC staff like J.T. Johnson lead the marches, but women and children form the bulk of the protesters. As is also the case elsewhere in the South, the majority of those marching are high school students with girls outnumbering the boys (Square 1-4).
Bruce Hartford: July 15 we hold our first successful night march. We know that night marches are dangerous because racists can attack from cover of darkness — but more people can participate because it's after working hours. We start with 250 from Bellflower, go up around the courthouse, and then over to Union Street in the Negro section near Bellflower. There we hold a street rally. By the time we get back to the church there are more than 600 people on the march.
This establishes a pattern that is followed every day for the next three months: A mass meeting in the evening, then a night march to the square with either a rally at the courthouse or on the green (Hartford 9).
Day after day the marches and organizing continue. The cops are no longer blocking the big marches but they're continuing to harass and arrest boycott pickets. On Wednesday the 20th, Freedom Movement lawyers appear before Judge Clayton in Federal District court asking that police interference with lawful picketing and protests be halted. Two days later on Friday the 22nd, the judge issues a sweeping injunction commanding the white power-structure to accept that Afro-Americans have First Amendment rights, ordering the cops to stop interfering with legal protests, and instructing them to protect demonstrators from terrorist attack.
At the same time, the judge also issues a set of conduct rules that Movement protesters must obey. Under his order, singing is not allowed in residential areas, marchers have to walk two-by-two on the sidewalks or by the side the road, and obey all traffic rules. Large marches have to be broken into groups of 20 people with 20 feet separating each section. Since the marches were already obeying traffic rules GCFM leaders and lawyers accept his order without demurral — except when a march comes under mob attack at which point everyone closes up tight for protection and the judge be damned.
The white community reacts in fury to Judge Clayton's injunction. It's hard to tell who they hate more, the "Damn Yankee" federal government daring to tell them how to treat their "nigrahs," or the racial troublemakers challenging the tranquility of the Jim Crow "southern way of life." The judge and other federals, however, are distant targets protected by armed law enforcement. Protesters from the GCFM are not only nonviolent, but near at hand.
On Saturday evening, July 23rd, a large mob of 700 or more angry whites gather on the square to attack the nightly freedom march. Young Movement scouts spot cars with license plates from known KKK strongholds like Neshoba County and the Pearl River & Natchez areas of Mississippi and Louisiana. Such large mobs don't form spontaneously, someone with political clout has to organize and mobilize them, though no one takes public responsibility for doing so. The mob is made up almost entirely of white men who are visibly armed with clubs, baseball bats, steel pipes, chains, and knives.
Though the mob members are not brandishing firearms, the freedom scouts reporting back to Movement leaders in Belle Flower church assume they have hidden guns. Everyone gathered for the evening mass meeting understands that Grenada County Sheriff Suggs Ingram has no intention of protecting them from white racists who are his voting constituents. Not on that night. Not ever.
The normal Mississippi practice is to station one or two State Troopers in each rural county, but since the beginning of July the Grenada contingent has been reinforced to a couple of dozen troopers who had been ordered to suppress protests and enforce the recently overturned parade ordinance. Now under court order to guard rather than attack Black marchers, the Trooper commander tells Movement leaders he has been "caught by surprise" at this "unexpected" hostile mob. He claims he doesn't have enough men to protect a march, but he promises that if this night's protest is canceled he will bring in reinforcements to protect demonstrations on the following nights.
Movement leaders don't trust him, but they agree to cancel the march for this night only. When the mob realizes no one is going to walk into their ambush they began advancing down Pearl and Cherry Streets toward Belle Flower church where the mass meeting is being held. To their credit, the Troopers hold them a block away so they can't attack the church.
On Sunday the 24th, another huge mob of whites is mobilized by persons unknown to throng the square. Estimated by newsmen at over 1,000, again they are armed with clubs, bats, and chains. Again the Troopers claim they don't have enough men on hand and ask that this march too be canceled. Knowing that continued surrender to intimidation will simply encourage more mob threats, Movement leaders refuse.
Some 200 frightened but determined protesters march two-by-two out of Belle Flower church into the darkness. Demonstrators in Grenada normally sing exuberantly, but on this night they are uncharacteristically silent as they proceed up the dark, unlit Pearl Street towards the downtown square and the violent mob that awaits them.
As the lead marchers turn down Green Street and enter the square they are greeted with furious shouts of "Niggers! Coons! Commies!" and "White Power!" Only a handful of Troopers plus a few cops and deputies are visible. Many of the local lawmen are socializing with members of the white mob whose screams of hate intensify as more and more of the protesters come into view. The lack of strong police presence — and the attitude of those few who are present — is itself an eloquent invitation to mob violence.
But instead of crossing the street onto the central green for the usual rally, the marchers take the whites by surprise, quickly striding past the courthouse and then turning right on 1st Street to exit the square before the mob realizes what's happening. The racist throng gives chase, but again — and again to their credit — a thin line of Troopers block them from following and attacking Belle Flower church. Furious, the mob turns its hate on the newsmedia, attacking reporters, photographers, and TV crews with clubs and chains and smashing cameras. Which results in a new wave of negative publicity for Grenada and Mississippi in the Monday morning press and news broadcasts (Square 5-6).
As is typical for most Grenada marches, the majority of the demonstrators are students (usually about half the total number) and a third are adult women, along with a handful of adult men and SCLC staff members. Though men — ministers mostly — form the visible leadership of the movement, its backbone and core are women and kids (Hartford 9).
In reaction to Monday's bad press, state and local "racial moderates" demand that the state enforce law and order against violent white mobs. An entire company of Troopers is sent to Grenada. They announce that mob rule won't be tolerated. "Moderate" local white leaders chime in, urging whites to avoid the square and ignore Freedom Movement protests. They tell their constituents that if they deprive the press of dramatic newsworthy events — such as mob violence against reporters and cameramen — the media will leave. And they promise that without national publicity in the northern media, Afro-American protests in Grenada will dwindle away to nothing — leaving the old order of tranquil white-supremacy restored.
By that evening, the new "no audience" strategy has begun to take hold — the white mob in the square waiting to attack the freedom marchers is no bigger than 500 — less than half the number of the previous evening. With the Troopers out in force and clearly on guard, some 220 or so protesters are able to march around the green under aerial bombardment of rocks and bottles but without being physically assaulted by bat-wielding thugs.
On Tuesday the 26th, no more than 100 whites show up and the Grenada Freedom Movement resumes nightly rallies on the green. By Wednesday the general pattern of daytime boycott picketing, nightly marches to a square now empty of hostile whites, followed by a rally on the green or a voter registration rally in a Black neighborhood reasserts itself (Square 6-8).
During the week following the resumption of rallies on the square and the power structure's "no audience" campaign, the police make a series of harassment arrests for alleged traffic violations, disturbing the peace, and other trumped up charges. SCLC staff member R.B. Cottenreader is arrested for "touching" a white lady while picketing, four people in a car are arrested for being in the intersection when the light changes to yellow, and so on.
During this period, bogus "Boycott Over" leaflets mysteriously appear in the Negro communities. People are not fooled, and the Blackout continues.
It becomes clear that although our numbers decreased slightly, the "no audience" campaign has failed to stop our marches. The power structure apparently decides to go back to violence (Hartford 10).
Works cited:
Bean, Alan. “Making a stand in Grenada.” Friends of Justice. Web. https://friendsofjustice.blog/2010/12...
Hartford, Bruce. “Grenada Mississippi—Chronology of a Movement.” Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/info/grenada.htm
“On the Square (July 11-August 6).” ).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
“SCLC Returns to Grenada (June 26-July 10).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
Civil Rights Events -- Mississippi -- Grenada County Freedom Movement -- School Integration Rages On
Movement leaders put out the word that no Afro-American students are to walk to school on their own. The next morning, Tuesday the 13th, more than 100 courageous Afro-American elementary and high school students gather at Belle Flower church to be driven by Black adults willing to risk mob assault and damage to their cars. Again the white mob has the schools surrounded and again they attack any Blacks who approach, smashing car windows with baseball bats and steel pipes. State Troopers, local lawmen, and FBI agents again watch the violence and again do nothing to stop it. At least 10 kids are seriously injured and many vehicles are damaged. Yet despite the violence, a good portion of the students manage to defiantly enter the two school buildings.
A swarm of journalists and TV crews from around the world are now recording the mob's actions, and law-enforcement's inaction. Again reporters and photographers are attacked. And again the cops do finally bestir themselves to arrest someone — SCLC staff member Major Wright who is on the sidelines, observing and reporting back to Movement leaders. He's busted for "trespass." A civil rights lawyer, also there to observe, begins speaking to Constable Grady Carroll who calls down an "action team" to beat him with fists and clubs.
Meanwhile, out in the world, reports and TV footage of Monday's mob attack on school kids are being printed and broadcast across the globe. Intense political pressure from business interests both inside and outside the state is coming down on Mississippi and its Governor. Around noon, word begins to circulate that he has finally ordered the Troopers to actually protect the children. That word is passed to the mob leaders. More often than not throughout the South, violent white mobs are mobilized, influenced, and directed by the white power-structure rather than occurring as spontaneous outbursts of emotion. Such is the case in Grenada.
Obedient to command from on high, the violent throng around the schools quickly begins to dwindle down to a few disgruntled diehards.
Classes end around 3pm. Led by Dr. King who had flown down from Chicago, a hundred or so Black adults and civil rights workers march out of Belle Flower church to escort the students through the mob they assume is still lurking in ambush. Rifle-armed Troopers stop them at the barricade a couple of blocks from the two schools. They say their orders are that no one but students and parents are allowed through and promise that from now on they will prevent attacks on children. The marchers have no reason to believe them (and every reason not to), but there is no way they can force their way through the heavily-armed blockade.
The adults wait until the kids safely come out through the barricade and report that the mob has dispersed. Everyone marches back to Belle Flower together singing freedom songs and feeling victorious at having survived a second day of integrated school with pride and dignity.
That night the evening march is small, only 170 or so and as usual mostly women and children. Wounds and injuries prevent some of the regular protesters from participating and others have been frightened away by the mob. Those who do march conceal their fear behind a shield of spirited singing. When they reach the square a mob of 500 or more whites are waiting with rocks, bottles, bats, and pipes. No cops or troopers are visible. None at all — a silent but eloquent invitation to mob violence. As the demonstrators circle the green they're bombarded by a hail of thrown missiles and links of steel chain shot from slingshots.
Singing their hearts out, the marchers circle the green two or three times. Soon many are bleeding from stones and chain links. A gang of enraged whites charge into the front of the line, swinging clubs and fists. The tightly packed protesters take the blows on their shoulders and the arms they raise to protect their heads as they keep on marching. A squad of Troopers finally comes around the corner to push the attackers away and hold them back.
…
On Wednesday morning, September 14, there are still 86 children of all ages willing to brave the mob and the implacable hostility of white students and teachers. They are determined to win at all cost, to defeat their white racist enemies and not give an inch. This is not, of course, because they have some great burning desire to sit next to white children in class. Rather they are simply fed up with being treated as inferior, being told they aren't "good enough." They understand, respect, and deeply appreciate the academic fundamentals and self-pride that courageous Black teachers surreptitiously impart to their students in defiance of Mississippi's white education authorities. But they're sick and tired of having to endure the kind of "sharecropper education" that the state forces upon the segregated Colored schools.
On Tuesday, while the mob was attacking cars carrying Afro-American kids the police were carefully noting down the license plates of those driving children to school. For the rest of the day the cops harassed them with bogus citations for imaginary traffic infractions. So GCFM adopts a new strategy of marching the kids to school from Belle Flower. The march is stopped at the Trooper barricade two blocks from the schools. There are some white hecklers nearby, but no mob. None of the children are attacked as they approach the school doors. The small march to the square that night is well protected by Troopers and the waiting mob is subdued, limiting themselves for the most part to verbal abuse.
Movement lawyers had, of course, immediately complained to Judge Clayton in Oxford about mob violence thwarting his desegregation order. Classes are canceled on Thursday so that school officials can appear in federal court. The next day the judge issues a sweeping injunction ordering the county and city of Grenada and the state of Mississippi to protect children on their way to and from school. For this "intrusive federal interference with states rights" he is roundly condemned and vilified by local white politicians.
That evening there is no mob in the square waiting for the night march. It's unclear to Movement activists whether the white power-structure has gone back to its "no audience strategy" or they're having trouble keeping their mobs mobilized.
A powerful sense of achievement buoys the Movement and the Afro-American community at large. Black Grenadans have defied and endured daily assaults from raging Klan-led mobs. Now the racist mobs are gone while the Movement is still marching and Afro-American kids are still attending the white schools. On Sunday, Dr. King addresses a mass meeting jam-packed with more than 650 people. Three times the normal 200 or so participate in the night march to the square including many adults who have never marched before. Afro-Americans see it as a victory march — and so do many whites.
Over the following week some of those sent back from the white school because of paper technicalities are able to get enrolled, others aren't. As it finally settles down, out of the 450 Afro-Americans who had first asked for Freedom of Choice transfers in September about 150 end up attending the two white schools. While 150 is only a third of the original number, it is far greater than the number of Blacks attending any other integrated school in Mississippi.
On Saturday, September 18, the FBI finally arrests 13 whites on conspiracy charges for organizing and leading the mob attack on the first day of school. One of them is Judge Ayers who has jurisdiction over many of the civil rights arrest cases in Grenada.
A year later, in 1967, they are tried in federal court for mobbing school children. The evidence is overwhelming. The kids identify their attackers from the witness stand. Under oath, two white policemen give reluctant testimony against the defendants, as does the principal of the white high school. The defense arguments offered to refute the charges are pathetic, some claim they weren't there that day despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. One man who is accused of kicking a Black child in the face tells the court "The boy fell down at my feet and grabbed at my breeches — when the boy grabbed my leg I fell backward and my leg went up."
It takes only 30 minutes for an all-white, all-male jury to acquit each and every defendant on every single charge (Mob Terror 6-9).
Bruce Hartford:
Over the next week, we continue to march the kids to school (some of whom are always turned away on various excuses), and pick them up with a return march. We hear that 300 local whites have signed a statement calling for an "end to violence" — and also calling for an end to demonstrations and the Blackout of white-owned businesses.
Thursday, September 29. Pak n Sak market sues SCLC, the GCFM, three Negro churches, and all of the Negro taxi drivers for $960,000 of "lost business" due to the Blackout. They get an injunction against the Blackout.
Thursday, October 6. The 100th mass march of the Grenada Movement. We hold a rally at the courthouse in defiance of the ordinance forbidding rallies there. We leave when the police prepare to arrest us. J. McEachin is rehired as City Manager.
Over the following week we continue to hold nightly marches, but our numbers dwindle down to around 100 or so — less than half what they had been during the September school crises. People are tired, worn out.
Saturday, October 8. For the first time, not enough people show up at the mass meeting to hold a march. The march is canceled.
Over the next ten days, small marches of less than 100 are held, but twice there is no march because too few people show up.
Tuesday, October 18. Instead of a mass meeting and march there is an emergency meeting of parents to discuss what to do about the harassment the Negro children are enduring at the white schools. They are no longer being attacked by mobs outside the schools, but inside it is a daily struggle for survival and dignity. Almost half of the 150 or so who had managed to get enrolled have been driven out by physical attacks and indignities from the white students, harassment by teachers and Principals, and economic retaliation against their parents (loss of jobs, evictions, foreclosures, and so on) (Hartford 19-20).
White kids freely kick and push Black kids in the halls, throw objects at them, curse them, and call them "nigger," "jigaboo," "coon," and other insults. School authorities do nothing to curtail student behavior or protect Afro-American children. White boys are allowed to carry knives, saps, and other weapons but nonwhites are suspended for doing the same. Whenever an Afro-American student has any kind of conflict with a white, the Black is punished — by mid-October 40 have already been suspended or expelled as "troublemakers" — while the white kids get a wink and a nod from administrators and teachers.
Knowing what they face, the young Afro-American school integrators dread going to school each day. By mid-October, 60 of the 150 or so who had managed to enroll at the beginning of the term have been expelled or driven out by indignities, physical attacks, harassment by teachers and administrators, or economic retaliation against their parents. But with raw courage and determined grit some 90 or so Black children still hold out. They pick up their books each morning and walk into what has for them become the halls of hell.
Two new incidents occur on Tuesday, October 18. At Horn Elementary an Afro-American boy is sitting in the cafeteria with some white students. The principal orders him to move and sit with the other Black kids. When he refuses, the principal yanks him from his seat, ripping his jacket. At Rundle High the same day, Dorothy Allen — one of the most courageous and dedicated of the young freedom marchers — is punched by a white boy. She hits him back and is taken to the principal who orders her to bring her mother to school the following day — an indication that she is about to be expelled.
That evening, an emergency meeting of more than 100 parents discusses what to do about the violence and harassment at the white schools. They decide to send a delegation to accompany Dorothy's mother to see the principal and to ask for formal meetings between parents and teachers. Twenty of those present courageously agree to be part of the delegation. (Grit 2-3).
Wednesday, October 19. The Principal refuses to talk to the delegation or set up any future meeting. He says he will talk to any individual parent about any individual problem, but he will not meet with any group. He refuses to admit that there is any sort of continuing problem.
The mass meeting that night is well attended. It decides to try again the next day and, if there is no success, to stage a protest walkout of the school on Friday. More than 200 join the night march to the square.
Thursday, October 20. The parents again try to talk to the Principal. He refuses.
Friday, October 21. At 10am the remaining 70 or so Negro students of the white schools walk out to protest the continuing harassment. A number of students at Negro schools walk out in sympathy. Later, another delegation of parents tries to talk to the Principal and superintendent but state troopers prevent them from reaching the campus.
Saturday, October 22. All of the children who walked out are suspended from school for ten days until Nov 1st.
Monday, October 24. We stage a morning protest march of more than 200 to the white schools. When stopped by state troopers the marchers kneel down to pray. All are arrested when they refuse to disperse. Those over 15 years of age are forced into open cattle trucks and taken to Parchman Prison an hour's drive away. Some of the younger kids are shipped to Greenville jail, an hour and a half away, while others are locked up in Grenada City and County jails. The very young kids are released. More kids walk out and start boycotting the Negro schools in solidarity.
After their arrest, SCLC staff members J.T. Johnson, Lester Hankerson, Major Wright, Herman Dozier, and Bill Harris are beaten by the troopers while in custody. The boycott of the Negro schools continues to grow.
Tuesday, October 25. Another 30 people are arrested when they try to picket the white schools. Some arrestees are shipped to Batesville and Oxford jails. School boycott grows.
Wednesday, October 26. Parents make protest march to the square. Less than 100 march because so many of the activists are now in various jails: Grenada City & County, Greenville, Batesville, Watervalley, Oxford, and Parchman Prison. School boycott continues.
Thursday, October 27. Parents again march in protest. 17 pickets are arrested. Federal Judge Clayton refuses to release the detainees on a Habeas Corpus motion but indicates a deal is being worked out. School boycott continues.
Friday, October 28. Police release all those under 18 years old on their own recognizance (that is, without bail). Others have been bailed out, leaving about 15 still in jail. The SCLC staff who were arrested remain in jail.
By now, all but a few hundred of the 2600 Negro students in Grenada County are boycotting school in sympathy (Hartford 19-21).
By this time, 2200 of the 2600 Afro-American students enrolled in the Colored schools are boycotting classes. White school officials are, of course, pleased that the 90 remaining school integrators are both refusing to attend and under suspension. But having over two thousand Black kids out of school is a serious problem because funding from the state is based on average daily attendance so the student strike is costing them money. And having such a large number of angry youth roaming free on the streets and potentially joining the ongoing protests and marches worries local authorities.
On Saturday, October 29, all those remaining in jail are finally bailed out but white terrorism is again on the rise. SCLC project director J.T. Johnson and SCLC staff member Robert Johnson are shot at by a hidden sniper — fortunately his aim is poor and no one is hit. Some 160 people participate in the march to the square that night. …
…
On Monday, October 31st, Judge Clayton begins hearing the GCFM complaint about the school situation. …
…
… on Monday, November 7, Clayton issues his order. Parents and students are prohibited from demonstrating at the schools or organizing boycotts. Under threat of contempt, the school system is ordered to treat everyone equal regardless of race and to protect children from "violence, intimidation, or abuse." The superintendent is ordered to set up meetings between parents and teachers. A complaint system is put in place to handle disputes. While this is not a total triumph, it is seen by both Blacks and whites as a victory for the Freedom Movement.
On paper, Clayton's ruling appears fair and reasonable but as with so many federal court orders in the South it fails to take into account the grim realities of racism, violence and intimidation that Afro-Americans in Grenada face. Under the details of his order, before Black parents can bring a complaint to him they have to first meet with the teacher to ask for resolution, then if that fails meet with the principal, and after that the superintendent. In real life, however, it requires an act of defiance and courage (and time off from work) for an Afro-American parent to confront any white person in authority over any complaint or grievance. And complainers are marked by whites as "troublemakers" and "shit-disturbers" who become targets for retaliation.
So as a practical matter, Clayton's fine words have only limited effect on reducing abuse in the white schools. The harassment continues. On December 20, Freedom Movement lawyers Iris & Paul Brest and Marian Wright send a report to the parents of the school integrators:
Lawyers from our office spent Friday and Saturday speaking to many of the children still attending the formerly white schools in Grenada. And this is what we found. The Court's order requires the schools to protect your children "from violence, intimidation, or abuse." Your children tell us that in the last month-and-a-half, they have been subjected to all sorts of violence, intimidation, and abuse:
•Every day white students kick and push your children, throw papers and spitballs at them, curse at them and call them names. Often this happens when a teacher is present, but the teacher does nothing to stop it.
•One child was so badly injured when a white boy threw a metal object at him that he was hospitalized at Mound Bayou, and may require further treatment.
•White students bring knives, brass knuckles, and other weapons to school. At least one white boy has actually pulled a knife on a Negro child. Some teachers and other school official continue to abuse the Negro students by calling them "niggers," and by making other derogatory comments.
•At least one teacher has explicitly urged the white students to inflict physical harm on the Negro students.
•Some teachers continue to make the Negro students sit together, in a segregated group.
•Some teachers refuse to allow Negro students to recite in Class, and ignore them when their hands are raised.
•Some teachers grade the Negro students unfairly, giving them low grades even when they do well.
•Several Negro students have been suspended because of arguments or fights with white students; the whites were not suspended.
•All the Negro children who were suspended from school during the week of October 24, were failed in all their courses for the second six-week period.
…
At the end of November, all of the Afro-American school integrators who had walked out of the white schools and been suspended in October are given "Failing" grades for that period. But criminal charges against those under age 13 who had been arrested for marching or picketing are dropped. Those over 13 plead "Not Guilty," with no date set for trial.
By the end of the school year in June of 1967, additional Black students have been forced out but Grenada still has more Afro-Americans attending formerly white schools than any other rural county in Mississippi.
At the same time, over the winter, arrests, sporadic violence, and intimidation continue in Grenada but at a much lower level than during the summer and fall. Occasional marches to the square are held with 75-200 people, but daily, sustained direct action protests are no longer feasible. The SCLC staff and the hard core of local activists are physically and emotionally exhausted from long hours, constant tension, little sleep, and no small amount of fear. They try to keep going on raw rage, grit, determination, and an utter refusal to let each other down, but by the end of 1966 they are debilitated and "running on fumes" as the saying goes. A description that equally applies across the Deep South to most of the other long-term freedom riders from SCLC, SNCC, and CORE who are still doing Movement work and just barely hanging on (Grit 8-9).
Works cited:
“Grit & Determination, Courage & Pride (October 6-November 7).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
“Mob Terror and the Courage of Children (September 12-19).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
A swarm of journalists and TV crews from around the world are now recording the mob's actions, and law-enforcement's inaction. Again reporters and photographers are attacked. And again the cops do finally bestir themselves to arrest someone — SCLC staff member Major Wright who is on the sidelines, observing and reporting back to Movement leaders. He's busted for "trespass." A civil rights lawyer, also there to observe, begins speaking to Constable Grady Carroll who calls down an "action team" to beat him with fists and clubs.
Meanwhile, out in the world, reports and TV footage of Monday's mob attack on school kids are being printed and broadcast across the globe. Intense political pressure from business interests both inside and outside the state is coming down on Mississippi and its Governor. Around noon, word begins to circulate that he has finally ordered the Troopers to actually protect the children. That word is passed to the mob leaders. More often than not throughout the South, violent white mobs are mobilized, influenced, and directed by the white power-structure rather than occurring as spontaneous outbursts of emotion. Such is the case in Grenada.
Obedient to command from on high, the violent throng around the schools quickly begins to dwindle down to a few disgruntled diehards.
Classes end around 3pm. Led by Dr. King who had flown down from Chicago, a hundred or so Black adults and civil rights workers march out of Belle Flower church to escort the students through the mob they assume is still lurking in ambush. Rifle-armed Troopers stop them at the barricade a couple of blocks from the two schools. They say their orders are that no one but students and parents are allowed through and promise that from now on they will prevent attacks on children. The marchers have no reason to believe them (and every reason not to), but there is no way they can force their way through the heavily-armed blockade.
The adults wait until the kids safely come out through the barricade and report that the mob has dispersed. Everyone marches back to Belle Flower together singing freedom songs and feeling victorious at having survived a second day of integrated school with pride and dignity.
That night the evening march is small, only 170 or so and as usual mostly women and children. Wounds and injuries prevent some of the regular protesters from participating and others have been frightened away by the mob. Those who do march conceal their fear behind a shield of spirited singing. When they reach the square a mob of 500 or more whites are waiting with rocks, bottles, bats, and pipes. No cops or troopers are visible. None at all — a silent but eloquent invitation to mob violence. As the demonstrators circle the green they're bombarded by a hail of thrown missiles and links of steel chain shot from slingshots.
Singing their hearts out, the marchers circle the green two or three times. Soon many are bleeding from stones and chain links. A gang of enraged whites charge into the front of the line, swinging clubs and fists. The tightly packed protesters take the blows on their shoulders and the arms they raise to protect their heads as they keep on marching. A squad of Troopers finally comes around the corner to push the attackers away and hold them back.
…
On Wednesday morning, September 14, there are still 86 children of all ages willing to brave the mob and the implacable hostility of white students and teachers. They are determined to win at all cost, to defeat their white racist enemies and not give an inch. This is not, of course, because they have some great burning desire to sit next to white children in class. Rather they are simply fed up with being treated as inferior, being told they aren't "good enough." They understand, respect, and deeply appreciate the academic fundamentals and self-pride that courageous Black teachers surreptitiously impart to their students in defiance of Mississippi's white education authorities. But they're sick and tired of having to endure the kind of "sharecropper education" that the state forces upon the segregated Colored schools.
On Tuesday, while the mob was attacking cars carrying Afro-American kids the police were carefully noting down the license plates of those driving children to school. For the rest of the day the cops harassed them with bogus citations for imaginary traffic infractions. So GCFM adopts a new strategy of marching the kids to school from Belle Flower. The march is stopped at the Trooper barricade two blocks from the schools. There are some white hecklers nearby, but no mob. None of the children are attacked as they approach the school doors. The small march to the square that night is well protected by Troopers and the waiting mob is subdued, limiting themselves for the most part to verbal abuse.
Movement lawyers had, of course, immediately complained to Judge Clayton in Oxford about mob violence thwarting his desegregation order. Classes are canceled on Thursday so that school officials can appear in federal court. The next day the judge issues a sweeping injunction ordering the county and city of Grenada and the state of Mississippi to protect children on their way to and from school. For this "intrusive federal interference with states rights" he is roundly condemned and vilified by local white politicians.
That evening there is no mob in the square waiting for the night march. It's unclear to Movement activists whether the white power-structure has gone back to its "no audience strategy" or they're having trouble keeping their mobs mobilized.
A powerful sense of achievement buoys the Movement and the Afro-American community at large. Black Grenadans have defied and endured daily assaults from raging Klan-led mobs. Now the racist mobs are gone while the Movement is still marching and Afro-American kids are still attending the white schools. On Sunday, Dr. King addresses a mass meeting jam-packed with more than 650 people. Three times the normal 200 or so participate in the night march to the square including many adults who have never marched before. Afro-Americans see it as a victory march — and so do many whites.
Over the following week some of those sent back from the white school because of paper technicalities are able to get enrolled, others aren't. As it finally settles down, out of the 450 Afro-Americans who had first asked for Freedom of Choice transfers in September about 150 end up attending the two white schools. While 150 is only a third of the original number, it is far greater than the number of Blacks attending any other integrated school in Mississippi.
On Saturday, September 18, the FBI finally arrests 13 whites on conspiracy charges for organizing and leading the mob attack on the first day of school. One of them is Judge Ayers who has jurisdiction over many of the civil rights arrest cases in Grenada.
A year later, in 1967, they are tried in federal court for mobbing school children. The evidence is overwhelming. The kids identify their attackers from the witness stand. Under oath, two white policemen give reluctant testimony against the defendants, as does the principal of the white high school. The defense arguments offered to refute the charges are pathetic, some claim they weren't there that day despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. One man who is accused of kicking a Black child in the face tells the court "The boy fell down at my feet and grabbed at my breeches — when the boy grabbed my leg I fell backward and my leg went up."
It takes only 30 minutes for an all-white, all-male jury to acquit each and every defendant on every single charge (Mob Terror 6-9).
Bruce Hartford:
Over the next week, we continue to march the kids to school (some of whom are always turned away on various excuses), and pick them up with a return march. We hear that 300 local whites have signed a statement calling for an "end to violence" — and also calling for an end to demonstrations and the Blackout of white-owned businesses.
Thursday, September 29. Pak n Sak market sues SCLC, the GCFM, three Negro churches, and all of the Negro taxi drivers for $960,000 of "lost business" due to the Blackout. They get an injunction against the Blackout.
Thursday, October 6. The 100th mass march of the Grenada Movement. We hold a rally at the courthouse in defiance of the ordinance forbidding rallies there. We leave when the police prepare to arrest us. J. McEachin is rehired as City Manager.
Over the following week we continue to hold nightly marches, but our numbers dwindle down to around 100 or so — less than half what they had been during the September school crises. People are tired, worn out.
Saturday, October 8. For the first time, not enough people show up at the mass meeting to hold a march. The march is canceled.
Over the next ten days, small marches of less than 100 are held, but twice there is no march because too few people show up.
Tuesday, October 18. Instead of a mass meeting and march there is an emergency meeting of parents to discuss what to do about the harassment the Negro children are enduring at the white schools. They are no longer being attacked by mobs outside the schools, but inside it is a daily struggle for survival and dignity. Almost half of the 150 or so who had managed to get enrolled have been driven out by physical attacks and indignities from the white students, harassment by teachers and Principals, and economic retaliation against their parents (loss of jobs, evictions, foreclosures, and so on) (Hartford 19-20).
White kids freely kick and push Black kids in the halls, throw objects at them, curse them, and call them "nigger," "jigaboo," "coon," and other insults. School authorities do nothing to curtail student behavior or protect Afro-American children. White boys are allowed to carry knives, saps, and other weapons but nonwhites are suspended for doing the same. Whenever an Afro-American student has any kind of conflict with a white, the Black is punished — by mid-October 40 have already been suspended or expelled as "troublemakers" — while the white kids get a wink and a nod from administrators and teachers.
Knowing what they face, the young Afro-American school integrators dread going to school each day. By mid-October, 60 of the 150 or so who had managed to enroll at the beginning of the term have been expelled or driven out by indignities, physical attacks, harassment by teachers and administrators, or economic retaliation against their parents. But with raw courage and determined grit some 90 or so Black children still hold out. They pick up their books each morning and walk into what has for them become the halls of hell.
Two new incidents occur on Tuesday, October 18. At Horn Elementary an Afro-American boy is sitting in the cafeteria with some white students. The principal orders him to move and sit with the other Black kids. When he refuses, the principal yanks him from his seat, ripping his jacket. At Rundle High the same day, Dorothy Allen — one of the most courageous and dedicated of the young freedom marchers — is punched by a white boy. She hits him back and is taken to the principal who orders her to bring her mother to school the following day — an indication that she is about to be expelled.
That evening, an emergency meeting of more than 100 parents discusses what to do about the violence and harassment at the white schools. They decide to send a delegation to accompany Dorothy's mother to see the principal and to ask for formal meetings between parents and teachers. Twenty of those present courageously agree to be part of the delegation. (Grit 2-3).
Wednesday, October 19. The Principal refuses to talk to the delegation or set up any future meeting. He says he will talk to any individual parent about any individual problem, but he will not meet with any group. He refuses to admit that there is any sort of continuing problem.
The mass meeting that night is well attended. It decides to try again the next day and, if there is no success, to stage a protest walkout of the school on Friday. More than 200 join the night march to the square.
Thursday, October 20. The parents again try to talk to the Principal. He refuses.
Friday, October 21. At 10am the remaining 70 or so Negro students of the white schools walk out to protest the continuing harassment. A number of students at Negro schools walk out in sympathy. Later, another delegation of parents tries to talk to the Principal and superintendent but state troopers prevent them from reaching the campus.
Saturday, October 22. All of the children who walked out are suspended from school for ten days until Nov 1st.
Monday, October 24. We stage a morning protest march of more than 200 to the white schools. When stopped by state troopers the marchers kneel down to pray. All are arrested when they refuse to disperse. Those over 15 years of age are forced into open cattle trucks and taken to Parchman Prison an hour's drive away. Some of the younger kids are shipped to Greenville jail, an hour and a half away, while others are locked up in Grenada City and County jails. The very young kids are released. More kids walk out and start boycotting the Negro schools in solidarity.
After their arrest, SCLC staff members J.T. Johnson, Lester Hankerson, Major Wright, Herman Dozier, and Bill Harris are beaten by the troopers while in custody. The boycott of the Negro schools continues to grow.
Tuesday, October 25. Another 30 people are arrested when they try to picket the white schools. Some arrestees are shipped to Batesville and Oxford jails. School boycott grows.
Wednesday, October 26. Parents make protest march to the square. Less than 100 march because so many of the activists are now in various jails: Grenada City & County, Greenville, Batesville, Watervalley, Oxford, and Parchman Prison. School boycott continues.
Thursday, October 27. Parents again march in protest. 17 pickets are arrested. Federal Judge Clayton refuses to release the detainees on a Habeas Corpus motion but indicates a deal is being worked out. School boycott continues.
Friday, October 28. Police release all those under 18 years old on their own recognizance (that is, without bail). Others have been bailed out, leaving about 15 still in jail. The SCLC staff who were arrested remain in jail.
By now, all but a few hundred of the 2600 Negro students in Grenada County are boycotting school in sympathy (Hartford 19-21).
By this time, 2200 of the 2600 Afro-American students enrolled in the Colored schools are boycotting classes. White school officials are, of course, pleased that the 90 remaining school integrators are both refusing to attend and under suspension. But having over two thousand Black kids out of school is a serious problem because funding from the state is based on average daily attendance so the student strike is costing them money. And having such a large number of angry youth roaming free on the streets and potentially joining the ongoing protests and marches worries local authorities.
On Saturday, October 29, all those remaining in jail are finally bailed out but white terrorism is again on the rise. SCLC project director J.T. Johnson and SCLC staff member Robert Johnson are shot at by a hidden sniper — fortunately his aim is poor and no one is hit. Some 160 people participate in the march to the square that night. …
…
On Monday, October 31st, Judge Clayton begins hearing the GCFM complaint about the school situation. …
…
… on Monday, November 7, Clayton issues his order. Parents and students are prohibited from demonstrating at the schools or organizing boycotts. Under threat of contempt, the school system is ordered to treat everyone equal regardless of race and to protect children from "violence, intimidation, or abuse." The superintendent is ordered to set up meetings between parents and teachers. A complaint system is put in place to handle disputes. While this is not a total triumph, it is seen by both Blacks and whites as a victory for the Freedom Movement.
On paper, Clayton's ruling appears fair and reasonable but as with so many federal court orders in the South it fails to take into account the grim realities of racism, violence and intimidation that Afro-Americans in Grenada face. Under the details of his order, before Black parents can bring a complaint to him they have to first meet with the teacher to ask for resolution, then if that fails meet with the principal, and after that the superintendent. In real life, however, it requires an act of defiance and courage (and time off from work) for an Afro-American parent to confront any white person in authority over any complaint or grievance. And complainers are marked by whites as "troublemakers" and "shit-disturbers" who become targets for retaliation.
So as a practical matter, Clayton's fine words have only limited effect on reducing abuse in the white schools. The harassment continues. On December 20, Freedom Movement lawyers Iris & Paul Brest and Marian Wright send a report to the parents of the school integrators:
Lawyers from our office spent Friday and Saturday speaking to many of the children still attending the formerly white schools in Grenada. And this is what we found. The Court's order requires the schools to protect your children "from violence, intimidation, or abuse." Your children tell us that in the last month-and-a-half, they have been subjected to all sorts of violence, intimidation, and abuse:
•Every day white students kick and push your children, throw papers and spitballs at them, curse at them and call them names. Often this happens when a teacher is present, but the teacher does nothing to stop it.
•One child was so badly injured when a white boy threw a metal object at him that he was hospitalized at Mound Bayou, and may require further treatment.
•White students bring knives, brass knuckles, and other weapons to school. At least one white boy has actually pulled a knife on a Negro child. Some teachers and other school official continue to abuse the Negro students by calling them "niggers," and by making other derogatory comments.
•At least one teacher has explicitly urged the white students to inflict physical harm on the Negro students.
•Some teachers continue to make the Negro students sit together, in a segregated group.
•Some teachers refuse to allow Negro students to recite in Class, and ignore them when their hands are raised.
•Some teachers grade the Negro students unfairly, giving them low grades even when they do well.
•Several Negro students have been suspended because of arguments or fights with white students; the whites were not suspended.
•All the Negro children who were suspended from school during the week of October 24, were failed in all their courses for the second six-week period.
…
At the end of November, all of the Afro-American school integrators who had walked out of the white schools and been suspended in October are given "Failing" grades for that period. But criminal charges against those under age 13 who had been arrested for marching or picketing are dropped. Those over 13 plead "Not Guilty," with no date set for trial.
By the end of the school year in June of 1967, additional Black students have been forced out but Grenada still has more Afro-Americans attending formerly white schools than any other rural county in Mississippi.
At the same time, over the winter, arrests, sporadic violence, and intimidation continue in Grenada but at a much lower level than during the summer and fall. Occasional marches to the square are held with 75-200 people, but daily, sustained direct action protests are no longer feasible. The SCLC staff and the hard core of local activists are physically and emotionally exhausted from long hours, constant tension, little sleep, and no small amount of fear. They try to keep going on raw rage, grit, determination, and an utter refusal to let each other down, but by the end of 1966 they are debilitated and "running on fumes" as the saying goes. A description that equally applies across the Deep South to most of the other long-term freedom riders from SCLC, SNCC, and CORE who are still doing Movement work and just barely hanging on (Grit 8-9).
Works cited:
“Grit & Determination, Courage & Pride (October 6-November 7).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
“Mob Terror and the Courage of Children (September 12-19).” The Grenada Freedom Movement (June-December). Civil Rights Movement History: 1966 (July-December). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
