Harold Titus's Blog, page 27
March 24, 2019
Cvil Rights Events -- Mississippi 1962 -- James Meredith
James Meredith was born June 25, 1933, in Kosciusko, Mississippi. He was one of ten children of Roxy Patterson Meredith and Moses Cap, a poor farmer in Kosciusko. As a young child, Meredith became aware of racism. He would refuse the nickels and dimes that a local white man regularly gave to black children, calling the gifts degrading. More painful was the realization he made as a young man on a trip to visit relatives in Detroit, where he saw blacks and whites sharing the same public facilities. He rode the train home from this brush with integration, and when he arrived in Memphis, the conductor told him to leave the whites-only car. "I cried all the way home," Meredith later recalled, "and vowed to devote myself to changing the degrading conditions of black people." He also had other ambitions and goals. Ever since a childhood visit to a white doctor's office, he had harbored a dream of attending the University of Mississippi, the physician's alma mater.
After high school, in 1951, Meredith joined the U.S. Air Force. He rose to the rank of staff sergeant, earned credits toward a college degree, and served in the KOREAN WAR. Following his discharge in 1960, he attended the all-black Jackson State College, but the courses he wanted to take were offered only at the state university. As a 28-year-old, he followed with hopefulness the speeches of President John F. Kennedy, which promised greater enjoyment of opportunity for all U.S. citizens. Change was in the air, and many African Americans were heartened by the portents in Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address. On the same day that Kennedy became president, Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi.
The school turned down his application. Mississippi still practiced SEGREGATION, and that meant that no African Americans could attend the all-white university. Even seven years after BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION, southern states resisted complying with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that compulsory segregation was unconstitutional. Knowing that he had a constitutional right that the state refused to recognize, Meredith turned to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. This arm of the civil rights organization, accustomed to fighting segregation cases, extended help to him. Meredith and his attorneys fought some 30 court actions against the state.
At last, a federal court ruled that a qualified student could not be denied admission on the ground of race. Meredith had won, but the court order infuriated segregationists. Playing to popular sentiment, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett promised to stop Meredith. Barnett pressured the state legislature to give him authority over university admissions, a power that usually was exercised by the state college board (James 1-2).
In a TV address to the state, Governor Ross Barnett declares: "There is no case in history where the Caucasian race has survived social integration. We will not drink from the cup of genocide. ... We must either submit to the unlawful dictates of the federal government or stand up like men and tell them never! ... No school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your Governor!" The state legislature and local officials across the state (all of them white, of course) echo and intensify his position.
Meredith has no illusions. He later explains: "I was engaged in a war. I considered myself engaged in a war from day one. And my objective was to force the federal government — the Kennedy administration at that time — into a position where they would have to use the United States military force to enforce my rights as a citizen." (James Integrates 1).
By September of 1962, the situation had escalated to the point where President John F. Kennedy had to get involved. While not overly concerned with civil rights before 1960, JFK had won his election largely thanks to African American support and was quickly taking a greater interest in desegregation. He sent Chief U.S. Marshal J.P. McShane to escort James Meredith into the school. Three times J.P. McShane and a small group of unarmed deputies tried to enroll Meredith at Ole Miss. Three times they were blocked by armed state troopers sent by Ross Barnett (James Enrollment 1).
Cars driven by whites parade through Mississippi towns with confederate flags waving and bumper stickers proclaiming: "The South shall rise again!" Retaliatory violence against Blacks flares across the state as Black men, women, and children are attacked, beaten, and shot at. Armed students are posted at Tougaloo to defend the campus from KKK nightriders. Despite the terror, Blacks are inspired by Meredith's courage and defiance. His struggle to integrate 'Ole Miss becomes a state-wide confrontation between whites intent on maintaining the old order of racial segregation and Blacks determined to be free and equal citizens (James Integrates 2).
In a series of telephone calls in late September 1962 President Kennedy tried to convince Governor Barnett to let James Meredith enter the campus to register for classes. … If Kennedy couldn't sway Barnett with words, he would have to use federal troops, a move that could provoke violence and cost Kennedy precious votes in the South.
The stand-off had a Civil War flavor. An old-style Southern Democrat, Ross Barnett declared that Mississippi segregation laws trumped Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. President Kennedy was also a Democrat, but a young, bred-in-the-bone Yankee from Massachusetts. Having won the presidency by a tiny margin, Kennedy needed the continued loyalty of Southern Democrats. But Barnett's repeated defiance of federal law forced JFK into a risky confrontation.
From September 15 to September 30, Bobby Kennedy and Ross Barnett had more than a dozen phone conversations.
Historian Bill Doyle, author of American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962, says that Ross Barnett knew integration was inevitable, but needed a way to let James Meredith into Ole' Miss without losing face with his white, pro-segregation supporters. "Ross Barnett desperately wanted the Kennedys to flood Mississippi with combat troops because that's the only way Ross Barnett could tell his white segregationist backers, 'Hey I did everything I could, I fought them, but to prevent bloodshed in the end I made a deal,'" Doyle says.
On September 27, 1962 Bobby Kennedy and Ross Barnett agreed on an extraordinary plan: James Meredith would arrive at the Ole' Miss campus in Oxford accompanied by at least 25 armed Federal Marshals (at the time, Marshals were Justice Department agents normally used to transport prisoners, not trained for combat). Ross Barnett would make a show of blocking Meredith, but be forced to step aside when the Marshals drew their guns.
Robert F. Kennedy: I will send the Marshals that I have available up there in Memphis and there will be about 25 or 30 of them and they will come with Mr. Meredith and they will arrive at wherever the gate is and I will have the head Marshal pull a gun and I will have the rest of them have their hands on their guns and their holsters. And then as I understand it, they will go through and get in and you will make sure that law and order is preserved and that no harm will be done to Mr. McShane and Mr. Meredith.
Ross Barnett: Oh, yes.
RFK: And then I think you will see that’s accomplished?
RB: … I was under the impression that they were all going to pull their guns. This could be very embarrassing. We got a big crowd here and if one pulls his gun and we all turn it would be very embarrassing. Isn’t it possible to have them all pull their guns?
RFK: I hate to have them all draw their guns, as I think it could create harsh feelings. Isn't it sufficient if I have one man draw his gun and the others keep their hands on their holsters?
RB: They must all draw their guns. Then they should point their guns at us and then we could step aside. This could be very embarrassing down here for us. It is necessary.
By the end of the day, the Mississippi governor and the attorney general decided to scrap their plan because it was too dangerous. A mob had gotten word of Meredith's imminent arrival and had begun to descend on Oxford. Barnett and Kennedy feared the staged showdown would spark a riot.
When Bobby Kennedy could not get Governor Barnett to comply with the order of the Supreme Court, President Kennedy stepped in. On September 29 and 30, 1962, JFK had a series of conversations with Governor Barnett. He hoped to manage the crisis by telephone. Their first call took place at 2 p.m. on Friday, September 29.
President Kennedy apparently thought Barnett was a pushover. After the call, he turned to his brother and said, "You've been fighting a sofa pillow all week." But JFK was wrong. According to civil rights historian Taylor Branch, Ross Barnett had the president and attorney general wrapped around his finger.
“They're never sure whether he's making a fool of them or they're making a fool of him. But they know as the evenings go on, they feel less and less in control, so the suspicion starts to rise that maybe Barnett's making a fool of them."
While Barnett and Kennedy were secretly negotiating by phone, radio stations across the South were blaring bulletins about the situation. White racists were grabbing their guns and heading for Oxford.
Rather than send army troops to escort Meredith to Ole' Miss, President Kennedy dispatched scores of Federal Marshals to Mississippi - lightly armed men clad awkwardly in suits, ties and gas masks. At the same time, JFK wanted Ross Barnett to assure him that Mississippi patrolmen would help maintain law and order as the threat of a race riot on the university campus in Oxford grew.
Despite Governor Barnett's promise [that highway patrolmen would maintain order], he did not maintain order. Though he'd been privately negotiating with the White House, Barnett made a defiant speech at a Saturday night Ole' Miss football game. He was cheered on by some 40,000 fans.
The next day, September 30, 1962, hundreds of outraged protestors flooded Oxford to block Meredith's expected arrival. At 12:45 p.m., Bobby Kennedy made an angry call to Barnett. The attorney general warned that if Barnett didn't let Meredith register, President Kennedy would expose their secret telephone negotiations in a televised speech scheduled that evening.
The attorney general's threat worked. Barnett knew that if his segregationist supporters learned he had made a covert deal with the Kennedys, his political career would be over. So, to keep the secret, Barnett agreed to the Kennedy plan: get Meredith safely lodged on campus that evening so he could register for classes Monday morning.
On Sunday, September 30, 1962 at 6 p.m., James Meredith was escorted onto the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford by a convoy of Federal Marshals. While he got settled in one of the school dorms, more than 2,500 angry students and outside agitators swarmed around the main campus building, the Lyceum. President Kennedy was informed of Meredith's arrival and went on national television that night to announce this apparent victory and explain that it had been achieved without the use of federal soldiers. He reminded viewers that, "Americans are free, in short, to disagree with the law but not to disobey it." Kennedy continued: "For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob, however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law" (John 1-6).
White students surround Meredith's dorm and the registration office. They chant: "Two-four-one-three, we hate Kennedy! Kill the nigger-loving bastards!" Determined to lynch Meredith, armed Klansmen from around the state and as far away as Selma and Birmingham Alabama swarm into Oxford. The crowd, a volatile mixture of KKK, students, and townsmen, grows to more than 2,000. The mob is led by former Army Major-General Edwin Walker, who had been forced to retire when he refused to stop distributing racist hate literature to his soldiers. They attack the Marshals guarding Meredith with bricks, bottles, guns, and fire bombs. Mississippi state troopers charged with maintaining "law and order" disappear, leaving the Marshals to face the horde alone.
The Marshals desperately try to hold back the lynch mob with tear gas. Half of them are wounded, 30 of them are shot. The crowd lashes out at journalists — they murder French reporter Paul Guihard. A second man [a local jukebox repairman] is also killed under circumstances that remain unclear to this day. With tear gas running low and the raging horde closing in, the Marshals plea for reinforcements. President Kennedy calls up Troop E of the Mississippi National Guard, but only 67 men respond. Led by Captain "Chooky" Falkner (nephew of author William Faulkner) they try to rescue the Marshals and Meredith. They are not enough.
As the battle rages, Kennedy finally — at long last — sends in the United States Army to restore order. An officer later recalled:
“As we were marching up there, they would throw rocks at us and call us nigger lovers. Wanted to know if we were there to put our nigger brother in college. There was a lot of gasoline burning, a lot of automobiles burning on campus. Every concrete bench was broken, being thrown at us. I spent time in Vietnam. I'll take that any time over 'Ole Miss.”
To appease southern whites, Attorney General Robert Kennedy secretly orders that the units assigned to 'Ole Miss be re-segregated so that armed Black GIs won't be patrolling the streets of Oxford. Some 4,000 Black soldiers are humiliated, disarmed, removed from their units, and reassigned to KP and garbage duty. Black soldiers can be sent to fight and die in Vietnam, but they are not allowed to protect Black citizens in Mississippi from mob violence (James Integrates 3-5).
Though President Kennedy and Governor Barnett talked several more times, the rioting in Oxford forced both men to do what they wanted most to avoid: Barnett had to step aside without his valiant last stand, and Kennedy had to storm Mississippi with U.S. Army troops. (John 6-7).
Being for integration meant being on the wrong side of the powerful White Citizens' Councils, the Ku Klux Klan and the State Sovereignty Commission, a spy agency.
White professors on campus who supported Meredith's admission faced intimidation. Marleah Kaufman Hobbs' husband, a political science professor, got death threats. She was a fine arts grad student at the time. Now 89 years old, she remembers when the riots broke out.
"That night the cracking of the guns, the planes flying overhead bringing in more National Guard — we didn't sleep at all that night. It was the changing of the world," she says.
Bishop Duncan Gray Jr., then an Episcopal priest in Oxford, tried to squelch a mob that had gathered atop a Confederate monument on campus.
"Of course, they grabbed me and pulled me down. I'd been hit a few times before, but that's when I took the roughest beating," says Gray, who is white.
Gray says the night forever changed the dynamics in Mississippi's struggle to preserve white supremacy.
"It was a horrible thing, and I'm sorry we had to go through that, but it certainly marked a very definite turning point. And maybe a learning experience for some people," he says. "I think even the ardent segregationists didn't want to see violence like that again" (Elliott 1-2).
The French journalist Paul Guihard, on assignment for the London Daily Sketch … was found dead behind the Lyceum building with a gunshot wound to the back. One hundred-sixty US Marshals, one-third of the group, were injured in the melee, and 40 soldiers and National Guardsmen were wounded.
On Monday morning, October 1, 1962, Meredith walked across the battered campus and registered for classes.
The US government fined Barnett $10,000 and sentenced him to jail for contempt, but the charges were later dismissed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Many students harassed Meredith during his two semesters on campus but others accepted him.
According to first-person accounts chronicled in Nadine Cohodas’ book The Band Played Dixie (1997), students living in Meredith’s dorm bounced basketballs on the floor just above his room through all hours of the night. Other students ostracized him: when Meredith walked into the cafeteria for meals, the students eating would turn their backs. If Meredith sat at a table with other students, all of whom were white, the students would immediately get up and go to another table (Denise 1-2).
Hunter Bear wrote: Meredith had a terrible time up there. Medgar [Evers] was on the phone constantly bolstering him. I was sitting in Medgar's office while he was doing that. Meredith was befriended by a few courageous white people on the campus, — notably Jim Silver of the History Department, who later became a very good friend of ours and wrote the book Mississippi, the Closed Society. (Interview 19).
When Meredith graduated from Ole Miss in August 1963 (with a BA in political science), he wore a segregationist's "Never" button upside down on his black gown.
He later wrote: “I noticed in the hallway a black janitor and I wondered why he was standing there. And he had a mop under his arm. And as I passed him, he turned his body, twisted his body, and touched me with the mop handle. Now this delivered a message, and the message was clear: ‘We are looking after you while you are here’" (James Integrates 6).
Works cited:
Denise, Carletta. “October 1, 1962: James Meredith Enters The University Of Mississippi.” Black Then: Discovering Our History. October 1, 2018. Web. https://blackthen.com/%E2%80%8Boctobe...
Elliott, Debbie. “Integrating Ole Miss: A Transformative, Deadly Riot.” NPR. October 1, 2012. Web. https://www.npr.org/2012/10/01/161573...
“Interview: Hunter Bear (John Salter).” Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/nars/hunteri.htm
“James Howard Meredith - Further Readings.” University of Mississippi Free Legal Encyclopedia. Web. http://law.jrank.org/pages/8541/Mered...
“James Meredith Integrates 'Ole Miss (Sept-Oct).” Civil Rights Movement History 1962. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.h...
“James Meredith's Enrollment in Ole Miss: Riot & Reaction.” Study.com. Web. https://study.com/academy/lesson/jame...
“John F. Kennedy: The Mississippi Crisis.” American Public Media. Web. http://americanradioworks.publicradio...
After high school, in 1951, Meredith joined the U.S. Air Force. He rose to the rank of staff sergeant, earned credits toward a college degree, and served in the KOREAN WAR. Following his discharge in 1960, he attended the all-black Jackson State College, but the courses he wanted to take were offered only at the state university. As a 28-year-old, he followed with hopefulness the speeches of President John F. Kennedy, which promised greater enjoyment of opportunity for all U.S. citizens. Change was in the air, and many African Americans were heartened by the portents in Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address. On the same day that Kennedy became president, Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi.
The school turned down his application. Mississippi still practiced SEGREGATION, and that meant that no African Americans could attend the all-white university. Even seven years after BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION, southern states resisted complying with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that compulsory segregation was unconstitutional. Knowing that he had a constitutional right that the state refused to recognize, Meredith turned to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. This arm of the civil rights organization, accustomed to fighting segregation cases, extended help to him. Meredith and his attorneys fought some 30 court actions against the state.
At last, a federal court ruled that a qualified student could not be denied admission on the ground of race. Meredith had won, but the court order infuriated segregationists. Playing to popular sentiment, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett promised to stop Meredith. Barnett pressured the state legislature to give him authority over university admissions, a power that usually was exercised by the state college board (James 1-2).
In a TV address to the state, Governor Ross Barnett declares: "There is no case in history where the Caucasian race has survived social integration. We will not drink from the cup of genocide. ... We must either submit to the unlawful dictates of the federal government or stand up like men and tell them never! ... No school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your Governor!" The state legislature and local officials across the state (all of them white, of course) echo and intensify his position.
Meredith has no illusions. He later explains: "I was engaged in a war. I considered myself engaged in a war from day one. And my objective was to force the federal government — the Kennedy administration at that time — into a position where they would have to use the United States military force to enforce my rights as a citizen." (James Integrates 1).
By September of 1962, the situation had escalated to the point where President John F. Kennedy had to get involved. While not overly concerned with civil rights before 1960, JFK had won his election largely thanks to African American support and was quickly taking a greater interest in desegregation. He sent Chief U.S. Marshal J.P. McShane to escort James Meredith into the school. Three times J.P. McShane and a small group of unarmed deputies tried to enroll Meredith at Ole Miss. Three times they were blocked by armed state troopers sent by Ross Barnett (James Enrollment 1).
Cars driven by whites parade through Mississippi towns with confederate flags waving and bumper stickers proclaiming: "The South shall rise again!" Retaliatory violence against Blacks flares across the state as Black men, women, and children are attacked, beaten, and shot at. Armed students are posted at Tougaloo to defend the campus from KKK nightriders. Despite the terror, Blacks are inspired by Meredith's courage and defiance. His struggle to integrate 'Ole Miss becomes a state-wide confrontation between whites intent on maintaining the old order of racial segregation and Blacks determined to be free and equal citizens (James Integrates 2).
In a series of telephone calls in late September 1962 President Kennedy tried to convince Governor Barnett to let James Meredith enter the campus to register for classes. … If Kennedy couldn't sway Barnett with words, he would have to use federal troops, a move that could provoke violence and cost Kennedy precious votes in the South.
The stand-off had a Civil War flavor. An old-style Southern Democrat, Ross Barnett declared that Mississippi segregation laws trumped Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. President Kennedy was also a Democrat, but a young, bred-in-the-bone Yankee from Massachusetts. Having won the presidency by a tiny margin, Kennedy needed the continued loyalty of Southern Democrats. But Barnett's repeated defiance of federal law forced JFK into a risky confrontation.
From September 15 to September 30, Bobby Kennedy and Ross Barnett had more than a dozen phone conversations.
Historian Bill Doyle, author of American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962, says that Ross Barnett knew integration was inevitable, but needed a way to let James Meredith into Ole' Miss without losing face with his white, pro-segregation supporters. "Ross Barnett desperately wanted the Kennedys to flood Mississippi with combat troops because that's the only way Ross Barnett could tell his white segregationist backers, 'Hey I did everything I could, I fought them, but to prevent bloodshed in the end I made a deal,'" Doyle says.
On September 27, 1962 Bobby Kennedy and Ross Barnett agreed on an extraordinary plan: James Meredith would arrive at the Ole' Miss campus in Oxford accompanied by at least 25 armed Federal Marshals (at the time, Marshals were Justice Department agents normally used to transport prisoners, not trained for combat). Ross Barnett would make a show of blocking Meredith, but be forced to step aside when the Marshals drew their guns.
Robert F. Kennedy: I will send the Marshals that I have available up there in Memphis and there will be about 25 or 30 of them and they will come with Mr. Meredith and they will arrive at wherever the gate is and I will have the head Marshal pull a gun and I will have the rest of them have their hands on their guns and their holsters. And then as I understand it, they will go through and get in and you will make sure that law and order is preserved and that no harm will be done to Mr. McShane and Mr. Meredith.
Ross Barnett: Oh, yes.
RFK: And then I think you will see that’s accomplished?
RB: … I was under the impression that they were all going to pull their guns. This could be very embarrassing. We got a big crowd here and if one pulls his gun and we all turn it would be very embarrassing. Isn’t it possible to have them all pull their guns?
RFK: I hate to have them all draw their guns, as I think it could create harsh feelings. Isn't it sufficient if I have one man draw his gun and the others keep their hands on their holsters?
RB: They must all draw their guns. Then they should point their guns at us and then we could step aside. This could be very embarrassing down here for us. It is necessary.
By the end of the day, the Mississippi governor and the attorney general decided to scrap their plan because it was too dangerous. A mob had gotten word of Meredith's imminent arrival and had begun to descend on Oxford. Barnett and Kennedy feared the staged showdown would spark a riot.
When Bobby Kennedy could not get Governor Barnett to comply with the order of the Supreme Court, President Kennedy stepped in. On September 29 and 30, 1962, JFK had a series of conversations with Governor Barnett. He hoped to manage the crisis by telephone. Their first call took place at 2 p.m. on Friday, September 29.
President Kennedy apparently thought Barnett was a pushover. After the call, he turned to his brother and said, "You've been fighting a sofa pillow all week." But JFK was wrong. According to civil rights historian Taylor Branch, Ross Barnett had the president and attorney general wrapped around his finger.
“They're never sure whether he's making a fool of them or they're making a fool of him. But they know as the evenings go on, they feel less and less in control, so the suspicion starts to rise that maybe Barnett's making a fool of them."
While Barnett and Kennedy were secretly negotiating by phone, radio stations across the South were blaring bulletins about the situation. White racists were grabbing their guns and heading for Oxford.
Rather than send army troops to escort Meredith to Ole' Miss, President Kennedy dispatched scores of Federal Marshals to Mississippi - lightly armed men clad awkwardly in suits, ties and gas masks. At the same time, JFK wanted Ross Barnett to assure him that Mississippi patrolmen would help maintain law and order as the threat of a race riot on the university campus in Oxford grew.
Despite Governor Barnett's promise [that highway patrolmen would maintain order], he did not maintain order. Though he'd been privately negotiating with the White House, Barnett made a defiant speech at a Saturday night Ole' Miss football game. He was cheered on by some 40,000 fans.
The next day, September 30, 1962, hundreds of outraged protestors flooded Oxford to block Meredith's expected arrival. At 12:45 p.m., Bobby Kennedy made an angry call to Barnett. The attorney general warned that if Barnett didn't let Meredith register, President Kennedy would expose their secret telephone negotiations in a televised speech scheduled that evening.
The attorney general's threat worked. Barnett knew that if his segregationist supporters learned he had made a covert deal with the Kennedys, his political career would be over. So, to keep the secret, Barnett agreed to the Kennedy plan: get Meredith safely lodged on campus that evening so he could register for classes Monday morning.
On Sunday, September 30, 1962 at 6 p.m., James Meredith was escorted onto the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford by a convoy of Federal Marshals. While he got settled in one of the school dorms, more than 2,500 angry students and outside agitators swarmed around the main campus building, the Lyceum. President Kennedy was informed of Meredith's arrival and went on national television that night to announce this apparent victory and explain that it had been achieved without the use of federal soldiers. He reminded viewers that, "Americans are free, in short, to disagree with the law but not to disobey it." Kennedy continued: "For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob, however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law" (John 1-6).
White students surround Meredith's dorm and the registration office. They chant: "Two-four-one-three, we hate Kennedy! Kill the nigger-loving bastards!" Determined to lynch Meredith, armed Klansmen from around the state and as far away as Selma and Birmingham Alabama swarm into Oxford. The crowd, a volatile mixture of KKK, students, and townsmen, grows to more than 2,000. The mob is led by former Army Major-General Edwin Walker, who had been forced to retire when he refused to stop distributing racist hate literature to his soldiers. They attack the Marshals guarding Meredith with bricks, bottles, guns, and fire bombs. Mississippi state troopers charged with maintaining "law and order" disappear, leaving the Marshals to face the horde alone.
The Marshals desperately try to hold back the lynch mob with tear gas. Half of them are wounded, 30 of them are shot. The crowd lashes out at journalists — they murder French reporter Paul Guihard. A second man [a local jukebox repairman] is also killed under circumstances that remain unclear to this day. With tear gas running low and the raging horde closing in, the Marshals plea for reinforcements. President Kennedy calls up Troop E of the Mississippi National Guard, but only 67 men respond. Led by Captain "Chooky" Falkner (nephew of author William Faulkner) they try to rescue the Marshals and Meredith. They are not enough.
As the battle rages, Kennedy finally — at long last — sends in the United States Army to restore order. An officer later recalled:
“As we were marching up there, they would throw rocks at us and call us nigger lovers. Wanted to know if we were there to put our nigger brother in college. There was a lot of gasoline burning, a lot of automobiles burning on campus. Every concrete bench was broken, being thrown at us. I spent time in Vietnam. I'll take that any time over 'Ole Miss.”
To appease southern whites, Attorney General Robert Kennedy secretly orders that the units assigned to 'Ole Miss be re-segregated so that armed Black GIs won't be patrolling the streets of Oxford. Some 4,000 Black soldiers are humiliated, disarmed, removed from their units, and reassigned to KP and garbage duty. Black soldiers can be sent to fight and die in Vietnam, but they are not allowed to protect Black citizens in Mississippi from mob violence (James Integrates 3-5).
Though President Kennedy and Governor Barnett talked several more times, the rioting in Oxford forced both men to do what they wanted most to avoid: Barnett had to step aside without his valiant last stand, and Kennedy had to storm Mississippi with U.S. Army troops. (John 6-7).
Being for integration meant being on the wrong side of the powerful White Citizens' Councils, the Ku Klux Klan and the State Sovereignty Commission, a spy agency.
White professors on campus who supported Meredith's admission faced intimidation. Marleah Kaufman Hobbs' husband, a political science professor, got death threats. She was a fine arts grad student at the time. Now 89 years old, she remembers when the riots broke out.
"That night the cracking of the guns, the planes flying overhead bringing in more National Guard — we didn't sleep at all that night. It was the changing of the world," she says.
Bishop Duncan Gray Jr., then an Episcopal priest in Oxford, tried to squelch a mob that had gathered atop a Confederate monument on campus.
"Of course, they grabbed me and pulled me down. I'd been hit a few times before, but that's when I took the roughest beating," says Gray, who is white.
Gray says the night forever changed the dynamics in Mississippi's struggle to preserve white supremacy.
"It was a horrible thing, and I'm sorry we had to go through that, but it certainly marked a very definite turning point. And maybe a learning experience for some people," he says. "I think even the ardent segregationists didn't want to see violence like that again" (Elliott 1-2).
The French journalist Paul Guihard, on assignment for the London Daily Sketch … was found dead behind the Lyceum building with a gunshot wound to the back. One hundred-sixty US Marshals, one-third of the group, were injured in the melee, and 40 soldiers and National Guardsmen were wounded.
On Monday morning, October 1, 1962, Meredith walked across the battered campus and registered for classes.
The US government fined Barnett $10,000 and sentenced him to jail for contempt, but the charges were later dismissed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Many students harassed Meredith during his two semesters on campus but others accepted him.
According to first-person accounts chronicled in Nadine Cohodas’ book The Band Played Dixie (1997), students living in Meredith’s dorm bounced basketballs on the floor just above his room through all hours of the night. Other students ostracized him: when Meredith walked into the cafeteria for meals, the students eating would turn their backs. If Meredith sat at a table with other students, all of whom were white, the students would immediately get up and go to another table (Denise 1-2).
Hunter Bear wrote: Meredith had a terrible time up there. Medgar [Evers] was on the phone constantly bolstering him. I was sitting in Medgar's office while he was doing that. Meredith was befriended by a few courageous white people on the campus, — notably Jim Silver of the History Department, who later became a very good friend of ours and wrote the book Mississippi, the Closed Society. (Interview 19).
When Meredith graduated from Ole Miss in August 1963 (with a BA in political science), he wore a segregationist's "Never" button upside down on his black gown.
He later wrote: “I noticed in the hallway a black janitor and I wondered why he was standing there. And he had a mop under his arm. And as I passed him, he turned his body, twisted his body, and touched me with the mop handle. Now this delivered a message, and the message was clear: ‘We are looking after you while you are here’" (James Integrates 6).
Works cited:
Denise, Carletta. “October 1, 1962: James Meredith Enters The University Of Mississippi.” Black Then: Discovering Our History. October 1, 2018. Web. https://blackthen.com/%E2%80%8Boctobe...
Elliott, Debbie. “Integrating Ole Miss: A Transformative, Deadly Riot.” NPR. October 1, 2012. Web. https://www.npr.org/2012/10/01/161573...
“Interview: Hunter Bear (John Salter).” Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/nars/hunteri.htm
“James Howard Meredith - Further Readings.” University of Mississippi Free Legal Encyclopedia. Web. http://law.jrank.org/pages/8541/Mered...
“James Meredith Integrates 'Ole Miss (Sept-Oct).” Civil Rights Movement History 1962. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.h...
“James Meredith's Enrollment in Ole Miss: Riot & Reaction.” Study.com. Web. https://study.com/academy/lesson/jame...
“John F. Kennedy: The Mississippi Crisis.” American Public Media. Web. http://americanradioworks.publicradio...
March 17, 2019
Civil Rights Events -- Mississippi 1962 -- Diane Nash Defies Court Sentence
By 1962 the Freedom Movement fight against segregation is slowly grinding to a halt. Two years of sit-ins have managed to desegregate some public facilities in some college-towns of the Mid- and Upper-South, and after the Freedom Rides all bus terminals serving interstate commerce are now no longer segregated — in theory. But across the region most public facilities remain segregated by local law and the very few Afro-Americans who dare sit at the front of a bus still face both vigilante violence and likely arrest on trumped up charges of "disorderly conduct" or "disturbing the peace." And by 1962 most student integration campaigns in the Deep South have been crushed by intensified police repression and Klan terrorism. In Albany Georgia, for example, public facilities are still segregated despite a powerful SNCC-organized movement with deep support in the Afro-American community and mass marches led by Dr. King resulting in over 750 arrests.
It is 100 years since the Civil War (or the "War of Northern Aggression" as some southern politicians refer to it). The years 1960 to 1965 mark the centennial of that war. On the national level, Centennial programs and ceremonies are conducted with maximum deference to the sensitivities of southern whites and little mention of slavery as the conflict's defining issue. Nor is there much acknowledgement of Black suffering under ante- bellum slavery, or Reconstruction, or the realities of ongoing segregation and denial of basic human rights in the current-day South of the 1960s. And in the South itself, commemorations glorify the "lost cause," exalt the sanctity and purity of white womanhood, and praise the "southern way of life" and its defenders such as the White Citizens Councils and the Ku Klux Klan.
During the 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy assured Afro-American voters and northern liberals that he would address equality of opportunity with the "stroke of the president's pen." But once in office JFK's priority is foreign affairs and Cold War anti-communism. Unwilling to offend southern segregationists in Congress who he needs for his military and diplomatic initiatives, JFK offers little public support for the student sit-ins and minimal federal action in defense of Black voting rights.
When forced by public pressure to take action against mob violence during the Freedom Rides and the Meredith-'Ole Miss crises, Kennedy's assertion of federal authority is reluctant and tepid. Civil rights supporters and northern liberals press him to enact new civil rights legislation but he declines, arguing that there is no chance at all of doing so in the 87th Congress (1961-1962) against the united and adamant opposition of the Southern Bloc of Senators. And as a practical politician he knows that no Democrat can be elected president — or reelected — without the political support of the "Solid South" (Campaign 1).
By the fall of 1961, a year and a half of nonviolent sit-in and freedom ride campaigns by SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP have managed to desegregate some public facilities in some college-towns of the Mid- and Upper-South. But in the Deep South states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, direct action campaigns have been brought to a standstill by legal assaults, mass arrests and police brutality — at least for the moment.
Following SNCC's decision to pursue both direct action and voter registration, in the fall of '61 Diane Nash, James Bevel (the two of them newly married), Bernard Lafayette, Paul Brooks, and other direct action proponents begin organizing a "Move On Mississippi" (MOM) campaign in Jackson. With its large Afro-American population and two Black colleges they hope to build a nonviolent student-led protest movement that can both challenge segregation and register voters as was done in Nashville.
But Mississippi is not Tennessee. Fear lays heavy over the Afro-American community and it's tough going. Half a year earlier, the Tougaloo Nine, had been immediately arrested for the "crime" of trying to read in the white-only public library. When Jackson State College students attempted to hold a support vigil and march they were brutally dispersed by club-swinging police using tear gas and attack-dogs — as were adult supporters outside the courthouse when the nine were arraigned. The arrival of the Freedom Riders in May inspired the community with hope, but after the riders were incarcerated in the notorious Parchman Prison the state's lesson regarding the price of protest was not lost on Jackson's Black community.
Nevertheless the MOM organizers dig in and begin holding workshops for Black students on nonviolent strategies and tactics. But before they have a chance to mount their first protest the Jackson police hit them with a preemptive strike. Nash, Bevel, and Lafayette are arrested on felony charges of "Contributing to the Delinquency of Minors." Though the students attending the seminars have not violated any laws the city prosecutor claims that merely teaching them about nonviolent resistance constitutes "contributing" to their future "delinquency" — a police-state legal ploy that utterly tramples underfoot the First Amendment right of freedom of speech and association
The felony charges come with high bail amounts that SNCC can ill-afford. If they or others continue teaching nonviolent resistance they'll be arrested again and have to sit in jail awaiting trial and appeal — a lengthy process. As a practical matter, the arrests stifle MOM's effort to build a direct action movement in Jackson.
In municipal court the three are quickly convicted on the "contributing" charges. In addition to $2,000 fines (equal to $16,000 each in 2016) Bernard and James are sentenced to three years in prison, Diane to two years. They remain free on bond while their convictions are appealed. But under the legal rules they first have to appeal up through the various levels of Mississippi courts — all of which will certainly ignore the unconstitutionality of their arrest and conviction. Only after the state Supreme Court rejects their appeal (as everyone knows it will) can they appeal to federal court where, after more time-consuming and costly hearings at various levels they expect that the charges will be dismissed on constitutional grounds. The Mississippi authorities know the convictions will eventually be overturned in federal court, but meanwhile they prevent SNCC workers from organizing protests in Jackson — perhaps for years if the court proceedings can be strung out long enough.
Late in April of 1962, Diane declares that her commitment to nonviolence precludes any further cooperation with the biased and corrupt Mississippi judicial system. Though she is pregnant with her and Bevel's first child, she withdraws her appeal and appears before the sentencing judge to turn herself in and begin serving her two-year prison sentence.
“To appeal further would necessitate my sitting through another trial in a Mississippi court, and I have reached the conclusion that I can no longer cooperate with the evil and unjust court system of this state. I subscribe to the philosophy of nonviolence; this is one of the basic tenets of nonviolence — that you refuse to cooperate with evil. The only condition under which I will leave jail will be if the unjust and untrue charges against me are completely dropped.
“The southern courts in which we are being tried are completely corrupt. ... The immorality of these courts involves several factors. They are completely lacking in integrity because we are being arrested and tried on charges that have nothing to do with the real issues. The real reason we are arrested is that we are opposing segregation, but the courts are not honest enough to state this frankly and charge us with this. Instead they hide behind phony charges — breach of peace in Jackson, criminal anarchy in Louisiana, conspiracy to violate trespass laws in Talledega, Alabama.
“But over and above the immorality of cooperating with this evil court system, there is an even larger reason why we must begin to stay in jail. If we do not do so, we lose our opportunity to reach the community and society with a great moral appeal and thus bring about basic change in people and in society.
“[My child] will be a black child born in Mississippi and thus wherever he is born he will be in prison. I believe that if I go to jail now it may help hasten that day when my child and all children will be free — not only on the day of their birth but for all of their lives.”
Meanwhile, Bevel and Bernard continue their appeal so as to overturn the legal fiction that teaching nonviolence to students amounts to a form of contributing to their delinquency.
The bold defiance of Diane Nash places the authorities in an uncomfortable position. The municipal court convictions and prison sentences were accomplished with little notice by the press and appeals through the state judiciary are unlikely to attract much media attention. But incarcerating a young mother-to-be in state prison on bogus "contributing" charges that are utterly without legal merit risks a national publicity backlash of exactly the kind that the Freedom Movement is proving itself adept at provoking (Diane 1-3).
“When I surrendered, I sat in the front seat of the courtroom and the bailiff told me to move back and I thought ‘I [might be here] for two years, I’m not moving anywhere,’” she says. “So they charged me with contempt of court for refusing to move to the back.”
The contempt of court sentence lasted for 10 days. While in jail, the only thing on Nash’s mind was her unborn child. She was determined to do everything she could so that her child would enter a world that was equal for all Americans, regardless of race.
After serving out her sentence for contempt, the judge declined to hear Nash’s other case. Nash believes the federal government tapped her telephone line and listened in when she told organizations in the Civil Rights Movement that she was pregnant and headed to jail for up to two years. On the heels of the horrific imagery of the bloodied and beaten Freedom Riders that had been spread far and wide, they surmised that Mississippi didn’t want to find itself, once again, at the center of a national political debate.
As a result, the government reduced Nash’s sentence for “contributing to the delinquency of minors” without formally addressing it. This left Nash in a predicament. She didn’t want the prejudiced justice system she had been fighting against to think that she was indebted to it. She was ready and willing to serve her full sentence, after all.
“When I got home, I wrote Judge Moore a certified return-receipt letter. I said, ‘In case you should change your mind and you want me, here’s where you can reach me,’” Nash recalls. And though the judge never took her up on the offer, Nash was always ready to do what was necessary to make a mark. To change the world, she says with a laugh, “sometimes you have to be bad” (Morgan 7-9).
The Bevel’s daughter Sherrilynn is born later that year while her parents continue their Freedom Movement organizing in the Deep South, her mother with SNCC and her father with SCLC — soon they will be in Birmingham leading a decisive direct action campaign against segregation. Bernard Lafayette marries NAACP youth leader Colia Lidell and together they move into Selma, Alabama, where they begin organizing what eventually becomes the Selma Voting Rights Campaign and The March to Montgomery, the capstone voting-rights campaign of the 1960s. And that fall, a few months after Diane forces Mississippi to suspend her sentence, students working with the North Jackson NAACP Youth Council pick up the direct action torch by first organizing a Black boycott of the Jackson State Fair and then a Christmas boycott of the city's white merchants (Diane 4).
Works cited:
“Diane Nash Defies the Mississippi Judicial System (April-May).” Civil Rights Movement History 1962. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.h...
Morgan, Thad. “How Freedom Rider Diane Nash Risked Her Life to Desegregate the South.” History. March 8, 2018. Web. https://www.history.com/news/diane-na....
“The Campaign for a Second Emancipation Proclamation.” Civil Rights Movement History 1962. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.h...
It is 100 years since the Civil War (or the "War of Northern Aggression" as some southern politicians refer to it). The years 1960 to 1965 mark the centennial of that war. On the national level, Centennial programs and ceremonies are conducted with maximum deference to the sensitivities of southern whites and little mention of slavery as the conflict's defining issue. Nor is there much acknowledgement of Black suffering under ante- bellum slavery, or Reconstruction, or the realities of ongoing segregation and denial of basic human rights in the current-day South of the 1960s. And in the South itself, commemorations glorify the "lost cause," exalt the sanctity and purity of white womanhood, and praise the "southern way of life" and its defenders such as the White Citizens Councils and the Ku Klux Klan.
During the 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy assured Afro-American voters and northern liberals that he would address equality of opportunity with the "stroke of the president's pen." But once in office JFK's priority is foreign affairs and Cold War anti-communism. Unwilling to offend southern segregationists in Congress who he needs for his military and diplomatic initiatives, JFK offers little public support for the student sit-ins and minimal federal action in defense of Black voting rights.
When forced by public pressure to take action against mob violence during the Freedom Rides and the Meredith-'Ole Miss crises, Kennedy's assertion of federal authority is reluctant and tepid. Civil rights supporters and northern liberals press him to enact new civil rights legislation but he declines, arguing that there is no chance at all of doing so in the 87th Congress (1961-1962) against the united and adamant opposition of the Southern Bloc of Senators. And as a practical politician he knows that no Democrat can be elected president — or reelected — without the political support of the "Solid South" (Campaign 1).
By the fall of 1961, a year and a half of nonviolent sit-in and freedom ride campaigns by SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP have managed to desegregate some public facilities in some college-towns of the Mid- and Upper-South. But in the Deep South states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, direct action campaigns have been brought to a standstill by legal assaults, mass arrests and police brutality — at least for the moment.
Following SNCC's decision to pursue both direct action and voter registration, in the fall of '61 Diane Nash, James Bevel (the two of them newly married), Bernard Lafayette, Paul Brooks, and other direct action proponents begin organizing a "Move On Mississippi" (MOM) campaign in Jackson. With its large Afro-American population and two Black colleges they hope to build a nonviolent student-led protest movement that can both challenge segregation and register voters as was done in Nashville.
But Mississippi is not Tennessee. Fear lays heavy over the Afro-American community and it's tough going. Half a year earlier, the Tougaloo Nine, had been immediately arrested for the "crime" of trying to read in the white-only public library. When Jackson State College students attempted to hold a support vigil and march they were brutally dispersed by club-swinging police using tear gas and attack-dogs — as were adult supporters outside the courthouse when the nine were arraigned. The arrival of the Freedom Riders in May inspired the community with hope, but after the riders were incarcerated in the notorious Parchman Prison the state's lesson regarding the price of protest was not lost on Jackson's Black community.
Nevertheless the MOM organizers dig in and begin holding workshops for Black students on nonviolent strategies and tactics. But before they have a chance to mount their first protest the Jackson police hit them with a preemptive strike. Nash, Bevel, and Lafayette are arrested on felony charges of "Contributing to the Delinquency of Minors." Though the students attending the seminars have not violated any laws the city prosecutor claims that merely teaching them about nonviolent resistance constitutes "contributing" to their future "delinquency" — a police-state legal ploy that utterly tramples underfoot the First Amendment right of freedom of speech and association
The felony charges come with high bail amounts that SNCC can ill-afford. If they or others continue teaching nonviolent resistance they'll be arrested again and have to sit in jail awaiting trial and appeal — a lengthy process. As a practical matter, the arrests stifle MOM's effort to build a direct action movement in Jackson.
In municipal court the three are quickly convicted on the "contributing" charges. In addition to $2,000 fines (equal to $16,000 each in 2016) Bernard and James are sentenced to three years in prison, Diane to two years. They remain free on bond while their convictions are appealed. But under the legal rules they first have to appeal up through the various levels of Mississippi courts — all of which will certainly ignore the unconstitutionality of their arrest and conviction. Only after the state Supreme Court rejects their appeal (as everyone knows it will) can they appeal to federal court where, after more time-consuming and costly hearings at various levels they expect that the charges will be dismissed on constitutional grounds. The Mississippi authorities know the convictions will eventually be overturned in federal court, but meanwhile they prevent SNCC workers from organizing protests in Jackson — perhaps for years if the court proceedings can be strung out long enough.
Late in April of 1962, Diane declares that her commitment to nonviolence precludes any further cooperation with the biased and corrupt Mississippi judicial system. Though she is pregnant with her and Bevel's first child, she withdraws her appeal and appears before the sentencing judge to turn herself in and begin serving her two-year prison sentence.
“To appeal further would necessitate my sitting through another trial in a Mississippi court, and I have reached the conclusion that I can no longer cooperate with the evil and unjust court system of this state. I subscribe to the philosophy of nonviolence; this is one of the basic tenets of nonviolence — that you refuse to cooperate with evil. The only condition under which I will leave jail will be if the unjust and untrue charges against me are completely dropped.
“The southern courts in which we are being tried are completely corrupt. ... The immorality of these courts involves several factors. They are completely lacking in integrity because we are being arrested and tried on charges that have nothing to do with the real issues. The real reason we are arrested is that we are opposing segregation, but the courts are not honest enough to state this frankly and charge us with this. Instead they hide behind phony charges — breach of peace in Jackson, criminal anarchy in Louisiana, conspiracy to violate trespass laws in Talledega, Alabama.
“But over and above the immorality of cooperating with this evil court system, there is an even larger reason why we must begin to stay in jail. If we do not do so, we lose our opportunity to reach the community and society with a great moral appeal and thus bring about basic change in people and in society.
“[My child] will be a black child born in Mississippi and thus wherever he is born he will be in prison. I believe that if I go to jail now it may help hasten that day when my child and all children will be free — not only on the day of their birth but for all of their lives.”
Meanwhile, Bevel and Bernard continue their appeal so as to overturn the legal fiction that teaching nonviolence to students amounts to a form of contributing to their delinquency.
The bold defiance of Diane Nash places the authorities in an uncomfortable position. The municipal court convictions and prison sentences were accomplished with little notice by the press and appeals through the state judiciary are unlikely to attract much media attention. But incarcerating a young mother-to-be in state prison on bogus "contributing" charges that are utterly without legal merit risks a national publicity backlash of exactly the kind that the Freedom Movement is proving itself adept at provoking (Diane 1-3).
“When I surrendered, I sat in the front seat of the courtroom and the bailiff told me to move back and I thought ‘I [might be here] for two years, I’m not moving anywhere,’” she says. “So they charged me with contempt of court for refusing to move to the back.”
The contempt of court sentence lasted for 10 days. While in jail, the only thing on Nash’s mind was her unborn child. She was determined to do everything she could so that her child would enter a world that was equal for all Americans, regardless of race.
After serving out her sentence for contempt, the judge declined to hear Nash’s other case. Nash believes the federal government tapped her telephone line and listened in when she told organizations in the Civil Rights Movement that she was pregnant and headed to jail for up to two years. On the heels of the horrific imagery of the bloodied and beaten Freedom Riders that had been spread far and wide, they surmised that Mississippi didn’t want to find itself, once again, at the center of a national political debate.
As a result, the government reduced Nash’s sentence for “contributing to the delinquency of minors” without formally addressing it. This left Nash in a predicament. She didn’t want the prejudiced justice system she had been fighting against to think that she was indebted to it. She was ready and willing to serve her full sentence, after all.
“When I got home, I wrote Judge Moore a certified return-receipt letter. I said, ‘In case you should change your mind and you want me, here’s where you can reach me,’” Nash recalls. And though the judge never took her up on the offer, Nash was always ready to do what was necessary to make a mark. To change the world, she says with a laugh, “sometimes you have to be bad” (Morgan 7-9).
The Bevel’s daughter Sherrilynn is born later that year while her parents continue their Freedom Movement organizing in the Deep South, her mother with SNCC and her father with SCLC — soon they will be in Birmingham leading a decisive direct action campaign against segregation. Bernard Lafayette marries NAACP youth leader Colia Lidell and together they move into Selma, Alabama, where they begin organizing what eventually becomes the Selma Voting Rights Campaign and The March to Montgomery, the capstone voting-rights campaign of the 1960s. And that fall, a few months after Diane forces Mississippi to suspend her sentence, students working with the North Jackson NAACP Youth Council pick up the direct action torch by first organizing a Black boycott of the Jackson State Fair and then a Christmas boycott of the city's white merchants (Diane 4).
Works cited:
“Diane Nash Defies the Mississippi Judicial System (April-May).” Civil Rights Movement History 1962. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.h...
Morgan, Thad. “How Freedom Rider Diane Nash Risked Her Life to Desegregate the South.” History. March 8, 2018. Web. https://www.history.com/news/diane-na....
“The Campaign for a Second Emancipation Proclamation.” Civil Rights Movement History 1962. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.h...
March 10, 2019
Civil Rights Events -- Mississippi 1961 -- McComb Project Fails
Here is a useful map of Mississippi. https://socketize.com/7124/no7141/
Who was Bob Moses?
With an M.A. in philosophy from Harvard and a job teaching mathematics at the prestigious Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, I was a part of what W. E. B. DuBois termed "the talented tenth"--a black man who could succeed in the white world playing by white rules. I had had an elitist education since I was eleven, passing a citywide competitive exam to attend Stuyvesant High School in downtown Manhattan. President of my senior class, I received an academic scholarship to Hamilton, where I was one of three black students at the college.
It was at Hamilton, thanks to my French professor, that I discovered Camus. I read The Rebel and The Plague and began asking hard political questions: "Can revolution be humane?" "Can the `victim' overthrow the `executioner' without assuming his office?" For a time I believed that the only change worth working for was a change of heart, and so I joined a group of campus Pentecostals who traveled on weekends to Times Square to testify to the coming of the Kingdom. I considered becoming a preacher like my grandfather, but my father had his doubts. "That's not just any job," he said. "You've got to be called." …
In the fall of 1956 I began graduate work in philosophy at Harvard. … Before long, however, I tired of thinking about thinking and the meaning of meaning. In that remote realm of tautologies, indexes, and surds, I was in danger of forgetting that the meaning of life was no abstract speculation but my immediate and concrete concern. …
Then in the spring of 1958 my forty-three-year-old mother died of cancer; my father was so distraught he had to be hospitalized at Bellevue for several months. I dropped out of Harvard, accepted a job teaching math at Horace Mann High School, and moved back to Harlem to look after him. My father and I had always been close; we used to have long talks about what America denied and offered. Like many of his generation, he had been hamstrung by the depression. Intelligent, articulate, and handsome, he sacrificed his talents for the sake of his family, accepting a low-paying job as a security guard at Harlem's 369th Division Armory. He and my mother scrimped and saved to ensure that my brothers and I would get ahead. The stress and strain took their toll: my mother once suffered a minor breakdown, and my father would sometimes slip into fantasies that his name was not Gregory Moses but Gary Cooper--a man brave enough, in spite of his cowardly town, to stand up for what was right.
My only civil rights activity at that time was to participate in the Youth March for Integrated Schools that Bayard Rustin sponsored in Washington. Then, one day in February 1960, I saw a picture in the New York Times of the sit-ins that had just begun in Greensboro, North Carolina: a row of neatly dressed black students sat at a Woolworth's lunch counter, while a crowd of white toughs in duck-tails and sleeveless T-shirts waved a Confederate flag and shouted at their backs. Some of the students tried to read books, others stared calmly at the camera. I was struck to the core by the determination on their faces. They weren't cowed, and they weren't apathetic--they meant to finish what they had begun. Here was something that could be done. I simply had to get involved.
Over spring break, I visited my father's brother, a teacher at Hampton Institute in Virginia. One day I saw some students picketing stores in Newport News. I slipped into the line of march and suddenly felt a great release. All my life I had repressed my resentments and played it cool. Now the sense of affirmation and the surge of energy that came from this mere gesture at protesting were exhilarating. I had had a taste of action and wanted more. That evening I went to a mass meeting where Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference spoke. He talked about the need to collect money to defend the Reverend Martin Luther King from legal harassment, mentioning that Bayard Rustin was directing a fund drive in New York.
When I got back to Harlem, I volunteered my services to the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King, and so every day after school, I devoted time to organizing a Harry Belafonte fundraising rally at the armory where my father worked. But I didn't feel right licking envelopes while others were putting their lives on the line. I confided my discontent to Bayard Rustin, whose advice I respected.
"Go down to Atlanta, Bob," he told me. "I'll write to Ella Baker to tell her you're coming. She and Martin will find something for you to do."
As soon as my teaching duties were over for the summer, I packed my bags and took a bus headed south (Heath 1-3).
“The sits-in woke me up,” recalled Harlem, New York-native Robert “Bob” Moses, discussing how his involvement with southern struggle began. When he first arrived in Mississippi in the summer of 1960, there was no student movement in the state. Moses was sent by Ella Baker to find students from the Deep South to participate in a SNCC conference that October in Atlanta. SNCC’s voter registration efforts began when Bob Moses met Cleveland, Mississippi NAACP president Amzie Moore, one of the people Miss Baker had put him in contact with. Moore decided to attend the October conference and placed the idea of voter registration on SNCC’s table.
Moses learned of the denial of Black voting rights from his discussions with Amzie Moore. “I was taught about the denial of the right to vote behind the Iron Curtain in Europe; I never knew that there was denial of the right to vote behind a Cotton Curtain here in the United States.” Moore also told Moses that he wanted to use the energy of the student activists in SNCC for voter registration. The young math teacher promised to come back the following summer after his classes at the Horace Mann school were out.
When Moses returned in 1961, Moore told him he was not quite ready to begin organizing in the Delta and sent him to his NAACP colleague, C.C. Bryant, in McComb. There, with other local community leaders, Bob Moses began SNCC’s first voter registration organizing effort.
What SNCC workers learned while working in that small Southwest Mississippi city, and the surrounding rural counties, forever shaped SNCC’s organizing style. Moses nurtured the development of local grassroots leaders, and he recognized the untapped potential power and unheard voice of locals who spoke up at meetings and participated in voter registration efforts. ‘‘Leadership is there in the people,’’ he said. ‘‘You don’t have to worry about where your leaders are, how are we going to get some leaders…If you go out and work with your people, then the leadership will emerge” (Bob Moses 1-2).
Herbert Lee
A Wisconsin Republican, John Doar had been asked to stay on in the Kennedy Justice Department partly because he had pioneered a go-out-and-poke-around-for-yourself approach to civil rights lawsuits, which made him unusual among Washington desk-bound lawyers. With Moses, Doar visited Negro farmers who were afraid to come to registration meetings because of the intangible reality of rural life—ominous messages maids and sharecroppers were hearing—and several were particularly worried about signs of anger on the part of E. H. Hurst, a state representative of local influence, against Herbert Lee, an NAACP farmer who attended Moses’ registration meetings. Doar promised to drive out to Lee’s farm on his next trip, but he found waiting at his office the next day a message from Moses that Hurst had just shot Lee to death in full public view outside the Liberty cotton gin (Branch 50-51).
Herbert Lee had played a key role in supporting the Amite County voter registration movement. He helped found the Amite branch of the NAACP along with E.W. Steptoe in 1953, and he was an active member even after law enforcement began cracking down on the organization in 1954. As a prosperous independent dairy farmer, Lee could sell his goods across state lines where he would get a better price and protect himself from the economic pressures from local whites for his civil rights work. When SNCC came to Amite to help Steptoe register blacks to vote, Lee offered to ferry activists around the county as they canvassed the area to recruit registration applicants. Because of his economic independence, Lee had the freedom to openly fight the area’s oppressive racial policies, but this would draw the ire of his white neighbors (Ramsey-Smith 68).
Herbert Lee was the first local person to be killed because of his involvement with SNCC. On September 25, 1961, Lee drove to the cotton gin in Liberty, Mississippi. State legislator E.H. Hurst approached Lee with a gun in his hand saying he wanted to talk. “I won’t talk to you unless you put the gun down,” Lee said. Hurst ran towards Lee’s truck and shot him.
The murder took place in broad daylight in front of a dozen people. “Lee’s body lay on the ground that morning for two hours, uncovered, until they finally got a funeral home in McComb to take it in,” Bob Moses remembered. Hurst claimed that Lee had attacked him with a tire iron, and the sheriff coerced the Black witnesses into corroborating his story. Hurst was acquitted by an all-white coroner’s jury that same afternoon.
Lee and Hurst lived on adjoining farms and played together as boys. Through adulthood they maintained a cordial relationship. At one point, Hurst had helped Lee apply for a loan for his farm. Hurst’s affections towards Lee changed when he started attending voter registration classes and driving Bob Moses around the county. His association with SNCC made him a target.
The murder was devastating to SNCC. At Lee’s funeral, his wife approached Moses and said, “You killed my husband! You killed my husband!” “I had no answer,” he remembered, “It is one thing to get beaten, quite another to be responsible, even indirectly, for a death.”
Lee’s death forced SNCC to confront its inability to protect local people from white retaliatory violence. Before Lee was killed, the Department of Justice sent Assistant Attorney General John Doar to Amite County. E.W. Steptoe and Bob Moses spoke with Doar and told him that Hurst had threatened Lee because of his involvement with the Movement. The Department of Justice refused to offer Lee any protection.
After Lee’s death, Doar asked the FBI to open a federal investigation. The local FBI rejected his request three times before they finally looked into Lee’s death. Meanwhile, SNCC tried to find a witness who could testify in a federal case. A man named Louis Allen recanted and offered to testify against E.H. Hurst. But word got out about Allen’s offer. For three years, Allen faced harassment and economic reprisals for his willingness to testify and on April 7, 1964, the night before he planned to leave Mississippi, he was killed outside his home (Herbert 1-2).
Interviewed several years later by Eyes on the Prize, Moses said: … the Citizens Councils and the Klans in Mississippi, they were in back of the action which resulted in those kind of murders. Because what we knew was that there were meetings in Liberty drawing cars and license plates from all across the southern part of Mississippi, and on up into the middle part of Mississippi. People coming and sitting down talking, what are they going to do about this voter registration drive. Now, we don't know what they planned, but we do know that after the meetings there's violence began to break out, direct attacks on us as the voter registration workers and then these murders. First Herbert Lee and then a couple years later Lewis Allan, both killed right there in Liberty, Mississippi (Interview 2).
One girl in particular was affected by Moses’ condition, as he wrote, “At the mass meeting, a young girl kept staring at me… I think the sight of my battered and bandaged head registered some great outrage in Brenda [Travis].” The next day, August 30th, high school student Brenda Travis, along with recent graduates Bobbie Talbert and Ike Lewis, organized a sit-in at the white section of the Greyhound bus terminal in McComb. Just as in the sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter, police quickly arrested the young activists and sent them to jail for roughly one month (Ramsey-Smith 67).
On October 2, the NAACP and the SCLC paid for the bond of the five young activists, including the high school students Brenda Travis and Isaac Lewis. While Watkins, Hayes, and the others could risk their safety by continuing their civil rights work, Travis and Lewis wanted to further organize their classmates to build a larger nonviolent student movement. This presented a difficult problem for the black Burglund High School, where school administrators had little appetite for the chaos that would be brought on by open civil rights work. The murder of Herbert Lee made the issue especially sensitive, as students would no doubt use him as a symbol to continue rebelling. Commodore Dewey Higgins, principal of the high school, expelled the two students in hopes that the rest of the student body would be too afraid to continue organizing with SNCC (Ramsey-Smith 70).
… more than 100 Black high-school students led by Hollis Watkins and Curtis Hayes ditch school and march in McComb to protest Lee's killing and the expulsion of Brenda Travis. When they kneel in prayer at City Hall, they are arrested, as are the SNCC staff who are with them. Bob Moses, Chuck McDew, and Bob Zellner (SNCC's first white field secretary) are beaten. The SNCC workers are charged with "Contributing to the delinquency of minors," a serious felony.
More than 100 students boycott the segregated Burgland High School rather than sign a mandatory pledge that they will not participate in civil rights activity. SNCC sets up "Nonviolent High" for the boycotting students with Moses teaching math, Dion Diamond teaching science, and Chuck McDew teaching history. Nonviolent High is one of the seeds from which grow the "Freedom Schools" that spread across the state three years later in the summer of '64.
Late in October, an all-white jury convicts the SNCC members on the "Contributing" charge. Their attorneys appeal, but bail is set at $14,000 each (equal to $107,000 in 2012 dollars). Unable to raise such a huge amount, they languish in prison. With their SNCC teachers in jail, Nonviolent High cannot continue, and the boycotting students are accepted by Campbell Junior College in Jackson.
Meanwhile, arrests, beatings, and shootings continue. CORE Freedom Riders are brutally attacked by a white mob when they try to integrate the McComb Greyhound station. Paul Potter and Tom Hayden of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) are dragged from their car and beaten in the street when they come to McComb to support the Movement. Shotgun blasts from a Klan nightrider almost kill Dion Diamond and John Hardy.
Despite their repeated promises of protection for voter registration, Kennedy, the Justice Department, and the FBI do nothing. The DOJ's legal efforts are feeble and ineffective. The arrests, the reign of terror, and the brazen murder of Herbert Lee by a state official, all take their toll. The McComb-area voter registration drive is suppressed — for the moment.
Finally, in December, SNCC manages to raise the bail money and the jailed SNCC staff are released on appeal.
In a narrow sense, McComb is a defeat for SNCC — the project is suppressed and driven out by arrests, brutality, and murder. But in a broader sense it is an important milestone; the crucial lessons learned in McComb form the foundation for years of organizing to come, not just in Mississippi but in hard places across the South — places like Selma Alabama and Southwest Georgia. In McComb they discover that courage is contagious and that local people — particularly young people — will respond to outside organizers. They discover that as student activists they have much to teach, but also much to learn from the community, and that if they respect the community the community will in turn protect, feed, and nurture them. And from the community will come new leaders and new organizers to expand and sustain the struggle.
Bob Moses wrote: One of the things that we learned out here [in Amite County] was that we could find family in Mississippi. We could go anyplace in Mississippi before we were through, and we knew that somewhere down some road there was family. And we could show up there unannounced with no money or no anything and there were people there ready to take care of us. That's what we had here in Amite. One of the things that happened in the movement was that there was a joining of a young generation of people with an older generation that nurtured and sustained them. ... It was an amazing experience (McComb 4-7).
Veteran activist Tom Hayden says a key to Moses's success as an organizer was his hunger to learn from local people. "Bob listened," Hayden wrote in The Nation. "When people asked him what to do, he asked them what they thought. At mass meetings, he usually sat in the back. In group discussions, he mostly spoke last. He slept on floors, wore sharecroppers' overalls, shared the risks, took the blows, went to jail, dug in deeply" (Speech 1).
Works cited:
“Bob Moses.” SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University. Web. https://snccdigital.org/people/bob-mo...
Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters. Digital Education Systems. Web. https://library.duke.edu/digitalcolle...
Heath, William. “The Children Bob Moses Led.” The Washington Post. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/...
“Herbert Lee Murdered.” SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/herber...
“Interview with Bob Moses.” Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries. May 19, 1986. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/t...
“The McComb Project.” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
Ramsey-Smith, Alec. “A Tremor in the Middle of the Iceberg”: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Local Voting Rights Activism in McComb, Mississippi, 1928-1964. Department of History, University of Michigan. Web. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstr...
“Speech on Freedom Summer at Stanford University." Say It Loud, Say It Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches. Web. http://americanradioworks.publicradio...
Who was Bob Moses?
With an M.A. in philosophy from Harvard and a job teaching mathematics at the prestigious Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, I was a part of what W. E. B. DuBois termed "the talented tenth"--a black man who could succeed in the white world playing by white rules. I had had an elitist education since I was eleven, passing a citywide competitive exam to attend Stuyvesant High School in downtown Manhattan. President of my senior class, I received an academic scholarship to Hamilton, where I was one of three black students at the college.
It was at Hamilton, thanks to my French professor, that I discovered Camus. I read The Rebel and The Plague and began asking hard political questions: "Can revolution be humane?" "Can the `victim' overthrow the `executioner' without assuming his office?" For a time I believed that the only change worth working for was a change of heart, and so I joined a group of campus Pentecostals who traveled on weekends to Times Square to testify to the coming of the Kingdom. I considered becoming a preacher like my grandfather, but my father had his doubts. "That's not just any job," he said. "You've got to be called." …
In the fall of 1956 I began graduate work in philosophy at Harvard. … Before long, however, I tired of thinking about thinking and the meaning of meaning. In that remote realm of tautologies, indexes, and surds, I was in danger of forgetting that the meaning of life was no abstract speculation but my immediate and concrete concern. …
Then in the spring of 1958 my forty-three-year-old mother died of cancer; my father was so distraught he had to be hospitalized at Bellevue for several months. I dropped out of Harvard, accepted a job teaching math at Horace Mann High School, and moved back to Harlem to look after him. My father and I had always been close; we used to have long talks about what America denied and offered. Like many of his generation, he had been hamstrung by the depression. Intelligent, articulate, and handsome, he sacrificed his talents for the sake of his family, accepting a low-paying job as a security guard at Harlem's 369th Division Armory. He and my mother scrimped and saved to ensure that my brothers and I would get ahead. The stress and strain took their toll: my mother once suffered a minor breakdown, and my father would sometimes slip into fantasies that his name was not Gregory Moses but Gary Cooper--a man brave enough, in spite of his cowardly town, to stand up for what was right.
My only civil rights activity at that time was to participate in the Youth March for Integrated Schools that Bayard Rustin sponsored in Washington. Then, one day in February 1960, I saw a picture in the New York Times of the sit-ins that had just begun in Greensboro, North Carolina: a row of neatly dressed black students sat at a Woolworth's lunch counter, while a crowd of white toughs in duck-tails and sleeveless T-shirts waved a Confederate flag and shouted at their backs. Some of the students tried to read books, others stared calmly at the camera. I was struck to the core by the determination on their faces. They weren't cowed, and they weren't apathetic--they meant to finish what they had begun. Here was something that could be done. I simply had to get involved.
Over spring break, I visited my father's brother, a teacher at Hampton Institute in Virginia. One day I saw some students picketing stores in Newport News. I slipped into the line of march and suddenly felt a great release. All my life I had repressed my resentments and played it cool. Now the sense of affirmation and the surge of energy that came from this mere gesture at protesting were exhilarating. I had had a taste of action and wanted more. That evening I went to a mass meeting where Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference spoke. He talked about the need to collect money to defend the Reverend Martin Luther King from legal harassment, mentioning that Bayard Rustin was directing a fund drive in New York.
When I got back to Harlem, I volunteered my services to the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King, and so every day after school, I devoted time to organizing a Harry Belafonte fundraising rally at the armory where my father worked. But I didn't feel right licking envelopes while others were putting their lives on the line. I confided my discontent to Bayard Rustin, whose advice I respected.
"Go down to Atlanta, Bob," he told me. "I'll write to Ella Baker to tell her you're coming. She and Martin will find something for you to do."
As soon as my teaching duties were over for the summer, I packed my bags and took a bus headed south (Heath 1-3).
“The sits-in woke me up,” recalled Harlem, New York-native Robert “Bob” Moses, discussing how his involvement with southern struggle began. When he first arrived in Mississippi in the summer of 1960, there was no student movement in the state. Moses was sent by Ella Baker to find students from the Deep South to participate in a SNCC conference that October in Atlanta. SNCC’s voter registration efforts began when Bob Moses met Cleveland, Mississippi NAACP president Amzie Moore, one of the people Miss Baker had put him in contact with. Moore decided to attend the October conference and placed the idea of voter registration on SNCC’s table.
Moses learned of the denial of Black voting rights from his discussions with Amzie Moore. “I was taught about the denial of the right to vote behind the Iron Curtain in Europe; I never knew that there was denial of the right to vote behind a Cotton Curtain here in the United States.” Moore also told Moses that he wanted to use the energy of the student activists in SNCC for voter registration. The young math teacher promised to come back the following summer after his classes at the Horace Mann school were out.
When Moses returned in 1961, Moore told him he was not quite ready to begin organizing in the Delta and sent him to his NAACP colleague, C.C. Bryant, in McComb. There, with other local community leaders, Bob Moses began SNCC’s first voter registration organizing effort.
What SNCC workers learned while working in that small Southwest Mississippi city, and the surrounding rural counties, forever shaped SNCC’s organizing style. Moses nurtured the development of local grassroots leaders, and he recognized the untapped potential power and unheard voice of locals who spoke up at meetings and participated in voter registration efforts. ‘‘Leadership is there in the people,’’ he said. ‘‘You don’t have to worry about where your leaders are, how are we going to get some leaders…If you go out and work with your people, then the leadership will emerge” (Bob Moses 1-2).
Herbert Lee
A Wisconsin Republican, John Doar had been asked to stay on in the Kennedy Justice Department partly because he had pioneered a go-out-and-poke-around-for-yourself approach to civil rights lawsuits, which made him unusual among Washington desk-bound lawyers. With Moses, Doar visited Negro farmers who were afraid to come to registration meetings because of the intangible reality of rural life—ominous messages maids and sharecroppers were hearing—and several were particularly worried about signs of anger on the part of E. H. Hurst, a state representative of local influence, against Herbert Lee, an NAACP farmer who attended Moses’ registration meetings. Doar promised to drive out to Lee’s farm on his next trip, but he found waiting at his office the next day a message from Moses that Hurst had just shot Lee to death in full public view outside the Liberty cotton gin (Branch 50-51).
Herbert Lee had played a key role in supporting the Amite County voter registration movement. He helped found the Amite branch of the NAACP along with E.W. Steptoe in 1953, and he was an active member even after law enforcement began cracking down on the organization in 1954. As a prosperous independent dairy farmer, Lee could sell his goods across state lines where he would get a better price and protect himself from the economic pressures from local whites for his civil rights work. When SNCC came to Amite to help Steptoe register blacks to vote, Lee offered to ferry activists around the county as they canvassed the area to recruit registration applicants. Because of his economic independence, Lee had the freedom to openly fight the area’s oppressive racial policies, but this would draw the ire of his white neighbors (Ramsey-Smith 68).
Herbert Lee was the first local person to be killed because of his involvement with SNCC. On September 25, 1961, Lee drove to the cotton gin in Liberty, Mississippi. State legislator E.H. Hurst approached Lee with a gun in his hand saying he wanted to talk. “I won’t talk to you unless you put the gun down,” Lee said. Hurst ran towards Lee’s truck and shot him.
The murder took place in broad daylight in front of a dozen people. “Lee’s body lay on the ground that morning for two hours, uncovered, until they finally got a funeral home in McComb to take it in,” Bob Moses remembered. Hurst claimed that Lee had attacked him with a tire iron, and the sheriff coerced the Black witnesses into corroborating his story. Hurst was acquitted by an all-white coroner’s jury that same afternoon.
Lee and Hurst lived on adjoining farms and played together as boys. Through adulthood they maintained a cordial relationship. At one point, Hurst had helped Lee apply for a loan for his farm. Hurst’s affections towards Lee changed when he started attending voter registration classes and driving Bob Moses around the county. His association with SNCC made him a target.
The murder was devastating to SNCC. At Lee’s funeral, his wife approached Moses and said, “You killed my husband! You killed my husband!” “I had no answer,” he remembered, “It is one thing to get beaten, quite another to be responsible, even indirectly, for a death.”
Lee’s death forced SNCC to confront its inability to protect local people from white retaliatory violence. Before Lee was killed, the Department of Justice sent Assistant Attorney General John Doar to Amite County. E.W. Steptoe and Bob Moses spoke with Doar and told him that Hurst had threatened Lee because of his involvement with the Movement. The Department of Justice refused to offer Lee any protection.
After Lee’s death, Doar asked the FBI to open a federal investigation. The local FBI rejected his request three times before they finally looked into Lee’s death. Meanwhile, SNCC tried to find a witness who could testify in a federal case. A man named Louis Allen recanted and offered to testify against E.H. Hurst. But word got out about Allen’s offer. For three years, Allen faced harassment and economic reprisals for his willingness to testify and on April 7, 1964, the night before he planned to leave Mississippi, he was killed outside his home (Herbert 1-2).
Interviewed several years later by Eyes on the Prize, Moses said: … the Citizens Councils and the Klans in Mississippi, they were in back of the action which resulted in those kind of murders. Because what we knew was that there were meetings in Liberty drawing cars and license plates from all across the southern part of Mississippi, and on up into the middle part of Mississippi. People coming and sitting down talking, what are they going to do about this voter registration drive. Now, we don't know what they planned, but we do know that after the meetings there's violence began to break out, direct attacks on us as the voter registration workers and then these murders. First Herbert Lee and then a couple years later Lewis Allan, both killed right there in Liberty, Mississippi (Interview 2).
One girl in particular was affected by Moses’ condition, as he wrote, “At the mass meeting, a young girl kept staring at me… I think the sight of my battered and bandaged head registered some great outrage in Brenda [Travis].” The next day, August 30th, high school student Brenda Travis, along with recent graduates Bobbie Talbert and Ike Lewis, organized a sit-in at the white section of the Greyhound bus terminal in McComb. Just as in the sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter, police quickly arrested the young activists and sent them to jail for roughly one month (Ramsey-Smith 67).
On October 2, the NAACP and the SCLC paid for the bond of the five young activists, including the high school students Brenda Travis and Isaac Lewis. While Watkins, Hayes, and the others could risk their safety by continuing their civil rights work, Travis and Lewis wanted to further organize their classmates to build a larger nonviolent student movement. This presented a difficult problem for the black Burglund High School, where school administrators had little appetite for the chaos that would be brought on by open civil rights work. The murder of Herbert Lee made the issue especially sensitive, as students would no doubt use him as a symbol to continue rebelling. Commodore Dewey Higgins, principal of the high school, expelled the two students in hopes that the rest of the student body would be too afraid to continue organizing with SNCC (Ramsey-Smith 70).
… more than 100 Black high-school students led by Hollis Watkins and Curtis Hayes ditch school and march in McComb to protest Lee's killing and the expulsion of Brenda Travis. When they kneel in prayer at City Hall, they are arrested, as are the SNCC staff who are with them. Bob Moses, Chuck McDew, and Bob Zellner (SNCC's first white field secretary) are beaten. The SNCC workers are charged with "Contributing to the delinquency of minors," a serious felony.
More than 100 students boycott the segregated Burgland High School rather than sign a mandatory pledge that they will not participate in civil rights activity. SNCC sets up "Nonviolent High" for the boycotting students with Moses teaching math, Dion Diamond teaching science, and Chuck McDew teaching history. Nonviolent High is one of the seeds from which grow the "Freedom Schools" that spread across the state three years later in the summer of '64.
Late in October, an all-white jury convicts the SNCC members on the "Contributing" charge. Their attorneys appeal, but bail is set at $14,000 each (equal to $107,000 in 2012 dollars). Unable to raise such a huge amount, they languish in prison. With their SNCC teachers in jail, Nonviolent High cannot continue, and the boycotting students are accepted by Campbell Junior College in Jackson.
Meanwhile, arrests, beatings, and shootings continue. CORE Freedom Riders are brutally attacked by a white mob when they try to integrate the McComb Greyhound station. Paul Potter and Tom Hayden of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) are dragged from their car and beaten in the street when they come to McComb to support the Movement. Shotgun blasts from a Klan nightrider almost kill Dion Diamond and John Hardy.
Despite their repeated promises of protection for voter registration, Kennedy, the Justice Department, and the FBI do nothing. The DOJ's legal efforts are feeble and ineffective. The arrests, the reign of terror, and the brazen murder of Herbert Lee by a state official, all take their toll. The McComb-area voter registration drive is suppressed — for the moment.
Finally, in December, SNCC manages to raise the bail money and the jailed SNCC staff are released on appeal.
In a narrow sense, McComb is a defeat for SNCC — the project is suppressed and driven out by arrests, brutality, and murder. But in a broader sense it is an important milestone; the crucial lessons learned in McComb form the foundation for years of organizing to come, not just in Mississippi but in hard places across the South — places like Selma Alabama and Southwest Georgia. In McComb they discover that courage is contagious and that local people — particularly young people — will respond to outside organizers. They discover that as student activists they have much to teach, but also much to learn from the community, and that if they respect the community the community will in turn protect, feed, and nurture them. And from the community will come new leaders and new organizers to expand and sustain the struggle.
Bob Moses wrote: One of the things that we learned out here [in Amite County] was that we could find family in Mississippi. We could go anyplace in Mississippi before we were through, and we knew that somewhere down some road there was family. And we could show up there unannounced with no money or no anything and there were people there ready to take care of us. That's what we had here in Amite. One of the things that happened in the movement was that there was a joining of a young generation of people with an older generation that nurtured and sustained them. ... It was an amazing experience (McComb 4-7).
Veteran activist Tom Hayden says a key to Moses's success as an organizer was his hunger to learn from local people. "Bob listened," Hayden wrote in The Nation. "When people asked him what to do, he asked them what they thought. At mass meetings, he usually sat in the back. In group discussions, he mostly spoke last. He slept on floors, wore sharecroppers' overalls, shared the risks, took the blows, went to jail, dug in deeply" (Speech 1).
Works cited:
“Bob Moses.” SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University. Web. https://snccdigital.org/people/bob-mo...
Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters. Digital Education Systems. Web. https://library.duke.edu/digitalcolle...
Heath, William. “The Children Bob Moses Led.” The Washington Post. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/...
“Herbert Lee Murdered.” SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/herber...
“Interview with Bob Moses.” Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries. May 19, 1986. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/t...
“The McComb Project.” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
Ramsey-Smith, Alec. “A Tremor in the Middle of the Iceberg”: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Local Voting Rights Activism in McComb, Mississippi, 1928-1964. Department of History, University of Michigan. Web. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstr...
“Speech on Freedom Summer at Stanford University." Say It Loud, Say It Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches. Web. http://americanradioworks.publicradio...
March 4, 2019
Civil Rights Events -- Mississippi 1961-1962 -- Bob Moses, Voter Registration, and McComb
Here is a useful map of Mississippi.
https://socketize.com/7124/no7141/
It is a truism of the era that the further south you travel the more intense grows the racism, the worse becomes the poverty, and the more brutal is the repression. In the mental geography of the Freedom Movement, the South is divided into zones according to the virulence of bigotry and oppression: the "Border States" (Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and portions of Maryland); the "Upper South" (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida, Texas); and the "Deep South" (the Eastern Shore of Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana). And then there is Mississippi, in a class by itself — the absolute deepest pit of racism, violence, and poverty.
Duing the post-Depression decades of the 1940s and 1950s, most of the South experiences enormous economic changes. "King Cotton" declines as agriculture diversifies and mechanizes. In 1920, almost a million southern Blacks work in agriculture, by 1960 that number has declined by 75% to around 250,000 — resulting in a huge migration off the land into the cities both North and South. By 1960, almost 60% of southern Blacks live in urban areas (compared to roughly 30% in 1930).
But those economic changes come slowly, if at all, to Mississippi and the Black Belt areas of Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. In 1960, almost 70% of Mississippi Blacks still live in rural areas, and more than a third (twice the percentage in the rest of the South) work the land as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and farm laborers. In 1960, the median income for Afro-Americans in Mississippi is just $1,444 (equal to a bit over $11,000 in 2013), the median income for Mississippi whites is three times higher. More than four out of every five Mississippi Blacks (85%) exist below the official federal poverty line.
Education for Blacks is totally segregated and severely limited. The average funding for Afro-American schools is less than a quarter of that spent to educate white students, and in rural areas the ratio is even more skewed. In 1960, for example, Pike County spends $30.89 to educate each white pupil and only $0.76 cents per Black student. It is no surprise then that only 7% of Mississippi Blacks finish high school, and in the rural areas where children are sent to the fields early in life, functional illiteracy is widespread.
Mississippi is still dominated — economically and politically — by less than 100 plantation barons who lord it over vast cotton fields worked by Black hand-labor using hoes and fingers the way it was done in slavery times. They are determined to keep their labor force cheap and docile. The arch-segregationist Senator James Eastland provides a good example of the economic riches reaped by racism in Mississippi. His huge plantation in Sunflower County produces 5,394 bales of cotton in 1961. He sells that cotton for $890,000 (equal to almost $7,000,000 in 2013 dollars). It costs Eastland $566,000 to produce his cotton for a profit of $324,000 (equal to a bit over $2,500,000 in 2013). The Black men and women who labor in his fields under the blazing sun — plowing, planting, hoeing, and picking — are paid 30 cents an hour (equal to $2.34 in 2013). That's $3.00 for a 10-hour day, $18.00 for a six-day, 60-hour week. The children sent to labor in the fields are paid even less.
This system of agricultural feudalism is maintained by Jim Crow laws, state repression, white terrorism, and the systematic disenfranchisement of Afro-Americans. Overall, whites outnumber Blacks in Mississippi, but the ratio of Blacks to whites is higher than any other state in the union. And in a number of rural counties, Blacks outnumber whites, in some cases by large majorities. Given these demographic realities, the power-elites know white-supremacy can only be maintained if they prevent Afro-Americans from voting. And in that they are ruthless — using rigged "literacy" tests, white-only primaries, poll taxes, arrests, and economic retaliation. And also Klan violence, and even assassinations, which over decades have become an accepted part of Mississippi's southern way of life. On average, six Blacks have been, and are, lynched or killed in racial-murders every year in Mississippi since the 1880s.
According to the 1960 Census, 41% of the Mississippi population is Black, but in 1961 no more than 5% of them are registered to vote. In many of the Black-majority counties not a single Afro-American citizen is registered, not even decorated military veterans. Across the state, of those few Blacks on the voter rolls, only a handful dare to actually cast a ballot. This systematic denial of Black voting rights is replicated in the Black Belt areas of Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, and Southwest Georgia (Mississippi 1-3).
Back in the summer of 1960, Amzie Moore, Medgar Evers, and other local Black leaders in Mississippi told Bob Moses that they needed help with voter registration more than demonstrations against segregation. He promised he would return in the summer of '61, and in July he begins voter registration work in McComb. Staunch, long-time, Movement supporters such as Harry Belafonte and many of SNCC's student leaders also believe that SNCC should focus on voter registration rather than direct action such as sit-ins and Freedom Rides. They argue that poor, rural Blacks have no money for lunch counters or other public facilities and what they need most is political power that in Mississippi has to begin with winning the right to vote.
Other SNCC leaders — many just released from Parchman Prison and Hinds County Jail — argue that the Freedom Rides and other forms of direct action must continue. The protests are gaining momentum and bringing the Movement into the darkest corners of the Deep South, raising awareness, building courage, and inspiring young and old. They are deeply suspicious of Kennedy's demand that they switch from demonstrations to voter registration, and they are unwilling to abandon the tactics that have brought the Movement so far in so short a time.
In August, the issue comes to a head when SNCC meets at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. After three days of passionate debate, SNCC is split right down the middle — half favor continuing direct action, the other half favor switching to voter registration. Ella Baker proposes a compromise — do both. Her suggestion is adopted. Diane Nash is chosen to head direct action efforts and Charles Jones is chosen to head voter registration activity. Both groups send activists to join Bob Moses in McComb.
Amid the fires of the Freedom Rides and the heat of debate, SNCC as an organization is rapidly evolving away from its campus/student roots. More and more SNCC activists are leaving school to become full-time freedom fighters. With money raised by Belafonte, first Charles Sherrod, then Bob Moses, then others are hired as SNCC "field secretaries," devoting their lives to the struggle in the rural areas and small towns of the south. In September, James Forman becomes SNCC's Executive Director to coordinate and lead far-flung projects and a growing staff. Increasingly, it will be the SNCC field staff from projects in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Virginia and Maryland who will shape and lead SNCC in the years to come (Direct 1-2).
Black voter registration in the Deep South is entirely controlled by the white power-structure. For decades they have maintained a savage system of oppression, repression, retaliation, and legal restrictions to keep Blacks politically disenfranchised. The "Jim Crow" schools and school attendance laws systematically and deliberately keep Blacks illiterate and ignorant of government and their political rights while at the same time literacy and civics are made the essential requirements for voter registration through the so-called "literacy tests." Brutal violence, often deadly, and swift economic reprisal are used to deter and punish Black men or women who dare attempt to gain the political franchise.
Voter registration procedures in the Deep South — which vary from state to state and county to county — are based on a voter application and a so-called "literacy test" that prospective voters must pass in order to be registered. The system is designed to allow the county Voter Registrars (all of whom are white, of course) to rig the outcome however they wish. Whites are encouraged to register regardless of their education (or lack thereof), while applications from most Blacks are denied even if they answer every question correctly.
In McComb, for example, the "literacy test" consists in part of the Registrar choosing one of the 285 sections of the Mississippi constitution and asking the applicant to read it aloud and interpret it to his satisfaction. He can assign an easy section, or a dense block of legal baffelgab that even law professors cannot agree on. Then it is entirely up to the Registrar to decide if the applicant's reading and interpretation are adequate. Voters are also required to be of "good moral character," and again the Registrar has sole authority to decide who does, or does not, posses sufficient "moral character."
Blacks who attempt to register in defiance of the white power-structure are harassed and threatened. They are fired from their jobs and evicted from their homes. Many are beaten. Some are murdered. …
In urban areas of the Deep South, a few token Blacks — usually ministers, teachers, doctors, and other professionals — are allowed to register, but never enough to affect the outcome of an election. In the rural counties, particularly those with large Black populations, only a handful — or none at all — are permitted to register (Voter 1-3).
With 12,000 residents, McComb is the largest city in Pike County, Mississippi. … Financed by a wealthy oilman, Klavern #700 of the United Klans of America has over 100 members. McComb's mayor is Chairman of the White Citizens Council, the police chief heads the local chapter of Americans for the Preservation of the White Race (APWR), a virulently racist white-supremacy organization, and the county sheriff participates in their meetings.
According to the 1960 Census, Blacks comprise 42% of McComb's 12,000 residents. The railroad, now part of the Illinois Central, is still a major employer of both Blacks and whites, and because they are protected by union contract, Black railroad workers cannot be summarily fired for opposing segregation or advocating Black voting rights. From these union ranks emerge activists and leaders of the Pike County Voters League and the local NAACP chapter.
In July of 1961, NAACP leader Reverend C.C. Bryant invites Bob Moses to begin a voter registration project in McComb. Moses is soon joined by SNCC members John Hardy of the Nashville Student Movement and Reginald Robinson from the Civic Interest Group in Baltimore. Webb Owens, a retired railroad man and Treasurer of the local NAACP chapter introduces the SNCC organizers to people in the Black community and urges them to support the voter-registration project with donations of food, money, and housing for the civil rights workers. He takes them to the South of the Border Cafe owned by Aylene Quinn, "Whenever any of [the SNCC workers] come by, you feed 'em, you feed 'em whether they got money or not" he tells her.
Before beginning work, Bob Moses writes to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) asking what the federal response will be if Blacks are prevented from registering. In line with the Kennedy administration's promise to defend voting rights if the students will turn away from direct action, the DOJ replies that it will "vigorously enforce" federal statutes forbidding the use of intimidation, threats, and coercion against voter aspirants (McComb 1-2).
Bryant, a brusque, energetic man with a high-pitched voice and a warm handshake, was one of the stalwarts of the Movement. He ran a barbershop in front of his house in Baertown, a small black community the city fathers had deliberately zoned outside the town limits. He also operated a loading crane for the Illinois Central, whose tracks, along with the Gulf, Western & Ohio, cut right through the heart of McComb. On the west side of town were paved streets; a few blocks of retail stores, and the white suburbs, spread out under a canopy of shade trees and embroidered with flowers. On the east, Burgland, the all-black town with its shabby stores, ramshackle houses, and dirt roads. The general air of grinding poverty was broken by the occasional brick house of somebody who worked for the railroad (Heath 4).
C. C. Bryant wasted no time plugging Moses into McComb’s black community. One of the first people he introduced Moses to was retired railroad man and NAACP membership chair, Webb Owens. Every morning for the rest of July, Webb picked Moses up and took him around town, introducing him to key figures in the community. They secured enough support from McComb’s Black community—in $5 and $10 contributions—to support the project.
House to house canvassing began at the start of August. Some honor students from the local high school that Webb had recruited accompanied Moses as he worked his way through McComb’s neighborhoods (Bob Moses 1).
At first, children stopped playing hopscotch and huddled together as I walked by. "He's a Freedom Rider," they whispered. Their wary parents would pass me on the road without meeting my eyes, but I could feel their stares and questions jabbing into my back. Many were frightened; I meant nothing but trouble. I would tell them, "Get ready, the Movement is coming your way," but that wasn't anything they wanted to hear. One man stooped down behind the tomato plants in his garden to avoid me. Another time, a little girl came to the front door and said, "Mama say she not here" (Heath 5).
He often introduced himself as “C. C. Bryant’s voter registration man.” At each house, he would show a voter registration form and ask if the person had ever tried to fill it out. Then, as a way to cut through people’s fear about registering, Moses asked if they wanted to try filling it out right there in their home (Bob Moses 1).
People listened and gave what they could--a nickle, a dime, a quarter--to support a handful of SNCC workers. Soon I was joined by John Hardy, Reggie Robinson, Travis Britt, and a few others who had been in jail in Jackson for taking part in the Freedom Rides. Also, several of the local students got involved. One in particular, Brenda Travis, always bright-eyed and brimming with questions, would sit on a family's porch talking to them for hours if necessary until they were convinced of the need to register. Thanks to Curtis Bryant, who, in addition to being head of the local NAACP, a deacon in his church, a Sunday school teacher, and a scoutmaster, was also a high official in the Freemasons, we were able to set up a Freedom School in the Masonic Hall over the Burgland grocery store. Saint Paul's Methodist Church, across the street, agreed to let us hold meetings there too.
The people flocked to our school. All 21 questions on the application form have to be understood. All 285 sections of the Mississippi constitution have to be mastered. When we explained the power of the vote, they squirmed in their chairs and glanced at each other. One heavyset woman up front fanned herself harder every time I mentioned the word freedom. Within a few days we sent several students to the Pike County courthouse in Magnolia. When they learned that they had passed, we held a party that lasted long into the night. It seemed for the moment as if everything would be easy. Then the local paper, the Enterprise-Journal, ran an article on what we were trying to do. Whites became alarmed. The next day, the registrar rejected our students, and that evening one of them, in an incident apparently unrelated to voter registration, was shot at. As the news spread, I noted the panic in people's eyes; they saw a connection. Fewer and fewer came to the Freedom School. (Heath 6-7).
More SNCC workers arrive in McComb direct from the Highlander meeting: Ruby Doris Smith, Marion Barry, Charles Jones, and others. In late August, after training in the tactics of Nonviolent Resistance by the SNCC direct action veterans, two local teenagers — Hollis Watkins and Curtis Hayes (Muhammad), both of whom go on to become SNCC field secretaries of renown — sit-in at the local Woolworth's lunch counter. They are arrested (McComb 3).
News of the voter registration efforts in McComb spread, and farmers from neighboring Amite and Walthall County reached out to Moses about starting voter registration schools in their areas. These rural areas of Southwest Mississippi were notoriously violent and poor. The Ku Klux Klan was stronger here than in any other part of the state. Many locals in McComb feared SNCC workers would be killed and tried to discourage SNCC from attempting a voter registration campaign. But Moses felt like he had little choice: “You can’t be in the position of turning down the tough areas because the people, then, I think would lose confidence in you” (Bob Moses 3).
Rev. Bryant introduced Moses to Amite County NAACP leader E.W. Steptoe, and the project spread to cover Amite and Walthall Counties. On August 15, Moses accompanied three local people to the Amite County courthouse in Liberty. The registrar forced them to wait in the courthouse for six hours before they were allowed to fill out the forms. As the group drove from the courthouse, a highway patrolman followed them, pulled them over, and arrested Moses. While in custody, Moses placed a loud collect call to John Doar in the U.S. Justice Department and then spent two nights in jail for refusing to pay $5 in court costs.
Two weeks later, Billy Jack Caston, the cousin of the local sheriff [and son-in-law of E. H. Hurst the State Representative], attacked Moses with the blunt end of a knife after he accompanied two more people to the courthouse (Voter Expands 2).
"I remember very sharply that I didn't want to go immediately back into McComb because my shirt was very bloody and I figured that if we went back in we would probably frighten everybody," he recalls. So, Moses washed up before heading back to McComb. He later required eight stitches to close his head wound (Lake 2).
Steptoe didn’t even recognize Moses, when he returned bloodied to the farm with three gashes in his head that required eight stitches. The next day, in an unprecedented move, Moses pressed charges against Caston. Caston was quickly acquitted, but the case drew even more attention to SNCC’s work. White people underestimated the power of Black organizing when SNCC first arrived in McComb. But by the end of August, they realized that SNCC’s campaign wasn’t about helping a handful a Black people vote but ushering in systemic change that would upset the white power structure (Voter Expands 2).
That night in McComb, more than 200 Blacks attend the first Civil Rights Movement mass meeting in the town's history to protest the arrest of the students and the beating of Moses. They vow to continue the struggle.
Brenda Travis, a 15 year old high school student in McComb, canvasses the streets with the SNCC voter-registration workers. To awaken and inspire the adults, she leads other students on a sit-in. For the crime of ordering a hamburger, she is sentenced to a year in the state juvenile prison. She is also expelled from Burgland High School. In response, McComb's Black students form the Pike County Nonviolent Movement — Hollis Watkins is President, Curtis Hayes is Vice President.
The Klan, the Citizens Council, and racist whites in general react violently to Blacks beginning to assert their rights. White "night riders" armed with rifles and shotguns cruise through the Black community at night (McComb 4).
… more SNCC activists came to Southwest Mississippi as the line between direct action and voter registration blurred. SNCC activists like Ruby Doris Smith, Charles Sherrod, Charles Jones, and Marion Barry, many fresh off of a prison stint from the Freedom Rides, recruited high school students and began training them in non-violence. With these young people, the Movement in McComb grew to include direct action protests as well as voter registration.
But those SNCC workers in the rural areas focused solely on voter registration and that work only became more dangerous. A week after Moses’s beating, a white man attacked SNCC’s Travis Britt at the courthouse Amite County, choking and punching him “into a semi-conscious state” as he and Moses took people to register. Two days later, the Wathall County registrar smashed a pistol against the head of John Hardy in his office, and when Hardy stumbled outside, law enforcement arrested him for disturbing the peace (Voter Expands 3).
In late September in Amite County, Herbert Lee, a local volunteer working with Moses. was murdered.
Works cited:
“Bob Moses Goes to McComb.” SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and uke University. Web. https://snccdigital.org/citation-copy...
“Direct Action or Voter Registration?” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
Heath, William. “The Children Bob Moses Led.” The Washington Post. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/...
Lake, Ellen. “Bob Moses.” The Harvard Crimson. December 4, 1964. Web. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/19...
“Mississippi — the Eye of the Storm.” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
“The McComb Project.” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
“Voter Registration & Direct Action in McComb MS (Aug-Oct).” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
“Voter Registration Expands in Southwest Mississippi.” SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and uke University. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/voter-...
https://socketize.com/7124/no7141/
It is a truism of the era that the further south you travel the more intense grows the racism, the worse becomes the poverty, and the more brutal is the repression. In the mental geography of the Freedom Movement, the South is divided into zones according to the virulence of bigotry and oppression: the "Border States" (Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and portions of Maryland); the "Upper South" (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida, Texas); and the "Deep South" (the Eastern Shore of Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana). And then there is Mississippi, in a class by itself — the absolute deepest pit of racism, violence, and poverty.
Duing the post-Depression decades of the 1940s and 1950s, most of the South experiences enormous economic changes. "King Cotton" declines as agriculture diversifies and mechanizes. In 1920, almost a million southern Blacks work in agriculture, by 1960 that number has declined by 75% to around 250,000 — resulting in a huge migration off the land into the cities both North and South. By 1960, almost 60% of southern Blacks live in urban areas (compared to roughly 30% in 1930).
But those economic changes come slowly, if at all, to Mississippi and the Black Belt areas of Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. In 1960, almost 70% of Mississippi Blacks still live in rural areas, and more than a third (twice the percentage in the rest of the South) work the land as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and farm laborers. In 1960, the median income for Afro-Americans in Mississippi is just $1,444 (equal to a bit over $11,000 in 2013), the median income for Mississippi whites is three times higher. More than four out of every five Mississippi Blacks (85%) exist below the official federal poverty line.
Education for Blacks is totally segregated and severely limited. The average funding for Afro-American schools is less than a quarter of that spent to educate white students, and in rural areas the ratio is even more skewed. In 1960, for example, Pike County spends $30.89 to educate each white pupil and only $0.76 cents per Black student. It is no surprise then that only 7% of Mississippi Blacks finish high school, and in the rural areas where children are sent to the fields early in life, functional illiteracy is widespread.
Mississippi is still dominated — economically and politically — by less than 100 plantation barons who lord it over vast cotton fields worked by Black hand-labor using hoes and fingers the way it was done in slavery times. They are determined to keep their labor force cheap and docile. The arch-segregationist Senator James Eastland provides a good example of the economic riches reaped by racism in Mississippi. His huge plantation in Sunflower County produces 5,394 bales of cotton in 1961. He sells that cotton for $890,000 (equal to almost $7,000,000 in 2013 dollars). It costs Eastland $566,000 to produce his cotton for a profit of $324,000 (equal to a bit over $2,500,000 in 2013). The Black men and women who labor in his fields under the blazing sun — plowing, planting, hoeing, and picking — are paid 30 cents an hour (equal to $2.34 in 2013). That's $3.00 for a 10-hour day, $18.00 for a six-day, 60-hour week. The children sent to labor in the fields are paid even less.
This system of agricultural feudalism is maintained by Jim Crow laws, state repression, white terrorism, and the systematic disenfranchisement of Afro-Americans. Overall, whites outnumber Blacks in Mississippi, but the ratio of Blacks to whites is higher than any other state in the union. And in a number of rural counties, Blacks outnumber whites, in some cases by large majorities. Given these demographic realities, the power-elites know white-supremacy can only be maintained if they prevent Afro-Americans from voting. And in that they are ruthless — using rigged "literacy" tests, white-only primaries, poll taxes, arrests, and economic retaliation. And also Klan violence, and even assassinations, which over decades have become an accepted part of Mississippi's southern way of life. On average, six Blacks have been, and are, lynched or killed in racial-murders every year in Mississippi since the 1880s.
According to the 1960 Census, 41% of the Mississippi population is Black, but in 1961 no more than 5% of them are registered to vote. In many of the Black-majority counties not a single Afro-American citizen is registered, not even decorated military veterans. Across the state, of those few Blacks on the voter rolls, only a handful dare to actually cast a ballot. This systematic denial of Black voting rights is replicated in the Black Belt areas of Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, and Southwest Georgia (Mississippi 1-3).
Back in the summer of 1960, Amzie Moore, Medgar Evers, and other local Black leaders in Mississippi told Bob Moses that they needed help with voter registration more than demonstrations against segregation. He promised he would return in the summer of '61, and in July he begins voter registration work in McComb. Staunch, long-time, Movement supporters such as Harry Belafonte and many of SNCC's student leaders also believe that SNCC should focus on voter registration rather than direct action such as sit-ins and Freedom Rides. They argue that poor, rural Blacks have no money for lunch counters or other public facilities and what they need most is political power that in Mississippi has to begin with winning the right to vote.
Other SNCC leaders — many just released from Parchman Prison and Hinds County Jail — argue that the Freedom Rides and other forms of direct action must continue. The protests are gaining momentum and bringing the Movement into the darkest corners of the Deep South, raising awareness, building courage, and inspiring young and old. They are deeply suspicious of Kennedy's demand that they switch from demonstrations to voter registration, and they are unwilling to abandon the tactics that have brought the Movement so far in so short a time.
In August, the issue comes to a head when SNCC meets at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. After three days of passionate debate, SNCC is split right down the middle — half favor continuing direct action, the other half favor switching to voter registration. Ella Baker proposes a compromise — do both. Her suggestion is adopted. Diane Nash is chosen to head direct action efforts and Charles Jones is chosen to head voter registration activity. Both groups send activists to join Bob Moses in McComb.
Amid the fires of the Freedom Rides and the heat of debate, SNCC as an organization is rapidly evolving away from its campus/student roots. More and more SNCC activists are leaving school to become full-time freedom fighters. With money raised by Belafonte, first Charles Sherrod, then Bob Moses, then others are hired as SNCC "field secretaries," devoting their lives to the struggle in the rural areas and small towns of the south. In September, James Forman becomes SNCC's Executive Director to coordinate and lead far-flung projects and a growing staff. Increasingly, it will be the SNCC field staff from projects in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Virginia and Maryland who will shape and lead SNCC in the years to come (Direct 1-2).
Black voter registration in the Deep South is entirely controlled by the white power-structure. For decades they have maintained a savage system of oppression, repression, retaliation, and legal restrictions to keep Blacks politically disenfranchised. The "Jim Crow" schools and school attendance laws systematically and deliberately keep Blacks illiterate and ignorant of government and their political rights while at the same time literacy and civics are made the essential requirements for voter registration through the so-called "literacy tests." Brutal violence, often deadly, and swift economic reprisal are used to deter and punish Black men or women who dare attempt to gain the political franchise.
Voter registration procedures in the Deep South — which vary from state to state and county to county — are based on a voter application and a so-called "literacy test" that prospective voters must pass in order to be registered. The system is designed to allow the county Voter Registrars (all of whom are white, of course) to rig the outcome however they wish. Whites are encouraged to register regardless of their education (or lack thereof), while applications from most Blacks are denied even if they answer every question correctly.
In McComb, for example, the "literacy test" consists in part of the Registrar choosing one of the 285 sections of the Mississippi constitution and asking the applicant to read it aloud and interpret it to his satisfaction. He can assign an easy section, or a dense block of legal baffelgab that even law professors cannot agree on. Then it is entirely up to the Registrar to decide if the applicant's reading and interpretation are adequate. Voters are also required to be of "good moral character," and again the Registrar has sole authority to decide who does, or does not, posses sufficient "moral character."
Blacks who attempt to register in defiance of the white power-structure are harassed and threatened. They are fired from their jobs and evicted from their homes. Many are beaten. Some are murdered. …
In urban areas of the Deep South, a few token Blacks — usually ministers, teachers, doctors, and other professionals — are allowed to register, but never enough to affect the outcome of an election. In the rural counties, particularly those with large Black populations, only a handful — or none at all — are permitted to register (Voter 1-3).
With 12,000 residents, McComb is the largest city in Pike County, Mississippi. … Financed by a wealthy oilman, Klavern #700 of the United Klans of America has over 100 members. McComb's mayor is Chairman of the White Citizens Council, the police chief heads the local chapter of Americans for the Preservation of the White Race (APWR), a virulently racist white-supremacy organization, and the county sheriff participates in their meetings.
According to the 1960 Census, Blacks comprise 42% of McComb's 12,000 residents. The railroad, now part of the Illinois Central, is still a major employer of both Blacks and whites, and because they are protected by union contract, Black railroad workers cannot be summarily fired for opposing segregation or advocating Black voting rights. From these union ranks emerge activists and leaders of the Pike County Voters League and the local NAACP chapter.
In July of 1961, NAACP leader Reverend C.C. Bryant invites Bob Moses to begin a voter registration project in McComb. Moses is soon joined by SNCC members John Hardy of the Nashville Student Movement and Reginald Robinson from the Civic Interest Group in Baltimore. Webb Owens, a retired railroad man and Treasurer of the local NAACP chapter introduces the SNCC organizers to people in the Black community and urges them to support the voter-registration project with donations of food, money, and housing for the civil rights workers. He takes them to the South of the Border Cafe owned by Aylene Quinn, "Whenever any of [the SNCC workers] come by, you feed 'em, you feed 'em whether they got money or not" he tells her.
Before beginning work, Bob Moses writes to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) asking what the federal response will be if Blacks are prevented from registering. In line with the Kennedy administration's promise to defend voting rights if the students will turn away from direct action, the DOJ replies that it will "vigorously enforce" federal statutes forbidding the use of intimidation, threats, and coercion against voter aspirants (McComb 1-2).
Bryant, a brusque, energetic man with a high-pitched voice and a warm handshake, was one of the stalwarts of the Movement. He ran a barbershop in front of his house in Baertown, a small black community the city fathers had deliberately zoned outside the town limits. He also operated a loading crane for the Illinois Central, whose tracks, along with the Gulf, Western & Ohio, cut right through the heart of McComb. On the west side of town were paved streets; a few blocks of retail stores, and the white suburbs, spread out under a canopy of shade trees and embroidered with flowers. On the east, Burgland, the all-black town with its shabby stores, ramshackle houses, and dirt roads. The general air of grinding poverty was broken by the occasional brick house of somebody who worked for the railroad (Heath 4).
C. C. Bryant wasted no time plugging Moses into McComb’s black community. One of the first people he introduced Moses to was retired railroad man and NAACP membership chair, Webb Owens. Every morning for the rest of July, Webb picked Moses up and took him around town, introducing him to key figures in the community. They secured enough support from McComb’s Black community—in $5 and $10 contributions—to support the project.
House to house canvassing began at the start of August. Some honor students from the local high school that Webb had recruited accompanied Moses as he worked his way through McComb’s neighborhoods (Bob Moses 1).
At first, children stopped playing hopscotch and huddled together as I walked by. "He's a Freedom Rider," they whispered. Their wary parents would pass me on the road without meeting my eyes, but I could feel their stares and questions jabbing into my back. Many were frightened; I meant nothing but trouble. I would tell them, "Get ready, the Movement is coming your way," but that wasn't anything they wanted to hear. One man stooped down behind the tomato plants in his garden to avoid me. Another time, a little girl came to the front door and said, "Mama say she not here" (Heath 5).
He often introduced himself as “C. C. Bryant’s voter registration man.” At each house, he would show a voter registration form and ask if the person had ever tried to fill it out. Then, as a way to cut through people’s fear about registering, Moses asked if they wanted to try filling it out right there in their home (Bob Moses 1).
People listened and gave what they could--a nickle, a dime, a quarter--to support a handful of SNCC workers. Soon I was joined by John Hardy, Reggie Robinson, Travis Britt, and a few others who had been in jail in Jackson for taking part in the Freedom Rides. Also, several of the local students got involved. One in particular, Brenda Travis, always bright-eyed and brimming with questions, would sit on a family's porch talking to them for hours if necessary until they were convinced of the need to register. Thanks to Curtis Bryant, who, in addition to being head of the local NAACP, a deacon in his church, a Sunday school teacher, and a scoutmaster, was also a high official in the Freemasons, we were able to set up a Freedom School in the Masonic Hall over the Burgland grocery store. Saint Paul's Methodist Church, across the street, agreed to let us hold meetings there too.
The people flocked to our school. All 21 questions on the application form have to be understood. All 285 sections of the Mississippi constitution have to be mastered. When we explained the power of the vote, they squirmed in their chairs and glanced at each other. One heavyset woman up front fanned herself harder every time I mentioned the word freedom. Within a few days we sent several students to the Pike County courthouse in Magnolia. When they learned that they had passed, we held a party that lasted long into the night. It seemed for the moment as if everything would be easy. Then the local paper, the Enterprise-Journal, ran an article on what we were trying to do. Whites became alarmed. The next day, the registrar rejected our students, and that evening one of them, in an incident apparently unrelated to voter registration, was shot at. As the news spread, I noted the panic in people's eyes; they saw a connection. Fewer and fewer came to the Freedom School. (Heath 6-7).
More SNCC workers arrive in McComb direct from the Highlander meeting: Ruby Doris Smith, Marion Barry, Charles Jones, and others. In late August, after training in the tactics of Nonviolent Resistance by the SNCC direct action veterans, two local teenagers — Hollis Watkins and Curtis Hayes (Muhammad), both of whom go on to become SNCC field secretaries of renown — sit-in at the local Woolworth's lunch counter. They are arrested (McComb 3).
News of the voter registration efforts in McComb spread, and farmers from neighboring Amite and Walthall County reached out to Moses about starting voter registration schools in their areas. These rural areas of Southwest Mississippi were notoriously violent and poor. The Ku Klux Klan was stronger here than in any other part of the state. Many locals in McComb feared SNCC workers would be killed and tried to discourage SNCC from attempting a voter registration campaign. But Moses felt like he had little choice: “You can’t be in the position of turning down the tough areas because the people, then, I think would lose confidence in you” (Bob Moses 3).
Rev. Bryant introduced Moses to Amite County NAACP leader E.W. Steptoe, and the project spread to cover Amite and Walthall Counties. On August 15, Moses accompanied three local people to the Amite County courthouse in Liberty. The registrar forced them to wait in the courthouse for six hours before they were allowed to fill out the forms. As the group drove from the courthouse, a highway patrolman followed them, pulled them over, and arrested Moses. While in custody, Moses placed a loud collect call to John Doar in the U.S. Justice Department and then spent two nights in jail for refusing to pay $5 in court costs.
Two weeks later, Billy Jack Caston, the cousin of the local sheriff [and son-in-law of E. H. Hurst the State Representative], attacked Moses with the blunt end of a knife after he accompanied two more people to the courthouse (Voter Expands 2).
"I remember very sharply that I didn't want to go immediately back into McComb because my shirt was very bloody and I figured that if we went back in we would probably frighten everybody," he recalls. So, Moses washed up before heading back to McComb. He later required eight stitches to close his head wound (Lake 2).
Steptoe didn’t even recognize Moses, when he returned bloodied to the farm with three gashes in his head that required eight stitches. The next day, in an unprecedented move, Moses pressed charges against Caston. Caston was quickly acquitted, but the case drew even more attention to SNCC’s work. White people underestimated the power of Black organizing when SNCC first arrived in McComb. But by the end of August, they realized that SNCC’s campaign wasn’t about helping a handful a Black people vote but ushering in systemic change that would upset the white power structure (Voter Expands 2).
That night in McComb, more than 200 Blacks attend the first Civil Rights Movement mass meeting in the town's history to protest the arrest of the students and the beating of Moses. They vow to continue the struggle.
Brenda Travis, a 15 year old high school student in McComb, canvasses the streets with the SNCC voter-registration workers. To awaken and inspire the adults, she leads other students on a sit-in. For the crime of ordering a hamburger, she is sentenced to a year in the state juvenile prison. She is also expelled from Burgland High School. In response, McComb's Black students form the Pike County Nonviolent Movement — Hollis Watkins is President, Curtis Hayes is Vice President.
The Klan, the Citizens Council, and racist whites in general react violently to Blacks beginning to assert their rights. White "night riders" armed with rifles and shotguns cruise through the Black community at night (McComb 4).
… more SNCC activists came to Southwest Mississippi as the line between direct action and voter registration blurred. SNCC activists like Ruby Doris Smith, Charles Sherrod, Charles Jones, and Marion Barry, many fresh off of a prison stint from the Freedom Rides, recruited high school students and began training them in non-violence. With these young people, the Movement in McComb grew to include direct action protests as well as voter registration.
But those SNCC workers in the rural areas focused solely on voter registration and that work only became more dangerous. A week after Moses’s beating, a white man attacked SNCC’s Travis Britt at the courthouse Amite County, choking and punching him “into a semi-conscious state” as he and Moses took people to register. Two days later, the Wathall County registrar smashed a pistol against the head of John Hardy in his office, and when Hardy stumbled outside, law enforcement arrested him for disturbing the peace (Voter Expands 3).
In late September in Amite County, Herbert Lee, a local volunteer working with Moses. was murdered.
Works cited:
“Bob Moses Goes to McComb.” SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and uke University. Web. https://snccdigital.org/citation-copy...
“Direct Action or Voter Registration?” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
Heath, William. “The Children Bob Moses Led.” The Washington Post. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/...
Lake, Ellen. “Bob Moses.” The Harvard Crimson. December 4, 1964. Web. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/19...
“Mississippi — the Eye of the Storm.” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
“The McComb Project.” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
“Voter Registration & Direct Action in McComb MS (Aug-Oct).” Civil Rights Movement History 1961. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.h...
“Voter Registration Expands in Southwest Mississippi.” SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and uke University. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/voter-...
February 21, 2019
Civil Rights Events -- Albany Movement -- Defeat
Judge A. N. Durden set Martin Luther King’s sentencing for July 10, 1962. Local leaders began fomenting interest among the community, scheduling mass meetings in Shiloh and Mount Zion in the days leading up to the decision. King and Abernathy were given the option of 45 days in prison and labor, or a $178 fine. Both men elected to serve the time, which brought a renewal of support for the Movement. Bill Hansen, a SNCC staff member, described the effect King’s incarceration had upon the community: “As much as we may disagree with MLK about the way him [sic] and SCLC do things, one has to admit that he can cause more hell to be raised by being in jail in one night than anyone else could if they bombed city hall” (Nelligan 32).
King explained from jail, “We chose to serve our time because we feel so deeply about the plight of more than 700 others who have yet to be tried…. We have experienced the racist tactics of attempting to bankrupt the movement in the South through excessive bail and extended court fights. The time has now come when we must practice civil disobedience in a true sense or delay our freedom thrust for long years” (Albany 4).
However, this enthusiasm did not translate well into community action. Despite pleading and exhortation from Sherrod and Reagon, only 32 out of over five hundred people assembled in the churches volunteered to march the next day. While attendance at mass meetings remained high, increasingly smaller numbers volunteered for jail. Support was high, but the dedication necessary to send hundreds of people to jail remained absent. The memory of long stays in dirty, crowded jail cells weighed heavily on the local population, who now realized that the strategy of mass marches would only be successful if they agreed to extended stays in jail, something that very few people were willing to do. Yet the Movement continued to press the strategy of mass marches despite the fact that anything less than total involvement of the black community rendered any arrests meaningless
The inability of the Movement to translate support into dedicated action led to increased frustration in the community. This frustration boiled over on the night of July 11, with over two hundred Albany blacks rioting outside a mass meeting held in Shiloh Baptist. Seeking an outlet for their anger, the mob settled on Albany policemen monitoring the situation, hurling rocks and debris at the assembled officers. Only the quick thinking of Pritchett saved the situation from escalating any further. The incident revealed that the Movement strategy of nonviolence, despite widespread education, was not being universally abided by..
…
Although Pritchett had maintained control due to his swift action, the white establishment realized that having King imprisoned in Albany represented a source of strength for the Movement. The city was putting tremendous resources into maintaining segregation, keeping the police force on duty for weeks at a time. The outbreak of mob violence against police the night before had reinforced the siege mentality in the minds of the city council. Mayor Kelley and his close allies in the business community knew that if King remained in jail for the duration of his sentence, it would make Albany a national arena for civil rights, something they could not allow. As a result, the city council arranged for B.C. Gardner, a black partner in Mayor Kelley’s law firm, to pay King and Abernathy’s fines anonymously. Although Pritchett expressed no knowledge of the event at the time, he later admitted that a coalition of city councilmen and blacks had come up with the scheme to get King out of jail. On July 12, a “well dressed Negro gentleman” arrived at the Albany city jail, paid the $175 fines for King and Abernathy and left. King recalled being told to dress in civilian clothes and being led to Pritchett’s office, who informed them that they were free to go. When King protested that he had no desire to do so, Pritchett replied “God knows, Reverend, I don’t want you in my jail.” King declared his displeasure at being released from jail, but did not immediately seek re-arrest. To the community, King had again promised to stay in jail, only to emerge after a short time. Some people still remained in prisons in Albany, Camilla, Americus, and other surrounding towns, unable to afford bail or the ability to post security bond. The reaction among the black community was overwhelmingly negative. Pritchett himself noted that King suffered a great loss of respect in the black community as a result of his inability to stay in jail. Although his release was beyond his control, King had again said one thing and done another. Andrew Young reveals that “the talk going through all the Negro community was that Martin Luther King was going ‘chicken’.”
For King, the situation was becoming critical. … Mass dedication, in the form of jail volunteers and marchers, remained absent. All attempts to puncture the fortress of segregation, fortified by the stalling tactics of the City Council, failed. The Movement had reached a critical juncture. It had zero leverage with which to bargain. …
… King threatened on July 15 to resume mass marches and mass arrests if the city did not meet the movement’s minimum demands of dropping the charges against the original December marchers. Unless the week produced significant progress, King threatened to resume the direct action protests that had characterized the initial December protests. Mayor Kelley fired back harshly, reflecting the critical juncture the fight for segregation had reached. Labeling demonstrators as “law violatorsm,” Kelley summarily refused to negotiate with the Movement. This time, the city meant it. All negotiations … were halted. The rhetoric used by the city marked a change from earlier promises to “consider” and “look over” settlements. The city was openly calling King and the Movement’s hand, leaving them only one choice. The city realized that whatever ensued would prove a “decisive test” for King and the Movement. King responded that he saw no choice but to commence direct action protest.
Protests began the next day, with attempted integration of public facilities and sit-ins occurring at downtown drugstores. In response to this, Mayor Kelley began to strengthen his position, requesting an injunction barring King, Abernathy, Anderson, and other prominent Movement leaders from marching. … Returning to Albany on the night of July 20, King addressed a mass meeting, declaring his intent to march on city hall and face arrest again if need be. …
The following morning, Judge Elliot handed down his injunction against the Movement. Naming prominent leaders, the order barred those named from marching or engaging in protest activity in Albany. …
After intense consideration, King decided to obey the injunction and seek a reversal in a higher court. It is possible that King’s decision to honor the injunction demonstrated his hope that through the federal courts, the Movement could salvage some semblance of victory from Albany. This would take time, however, and SCLC attorney William Kunstler began working on an appeal. King’s decision not to march was met with outrage with the members of SNCC, who held little confidence in the government’s ability to do anything beneficial to the movement. SNCC was furious with King’s decision, and let him know it. Sherrod, Reagon, and other young SNCC workers verbally castigated King for his decision, accusing him of supplanting their local movement, making it a nationalized struggle for his personal gain. For his part, King told the SNCC secretaries he would wait for the order to be overturned by a higher court. Later, Sherrod would state he was never angry at King, only annoyed in the way that King’s methods upset his ability to organize. The SNCC staffer realized that King had de facto control, as it was obvious that Anderson received all of his direction from King. Wyatt T. Walker expressed his annoyance with SNCC’s constant attempts to undermine King’s power in the Movement. King made clear his intention to wait for the injunction to be overturned in a higher court.
July 25, 1961 marked the resumption of protest in Albany, as William Kunstler and Movement attorneys convinced appellate Judge Elbert P. Tuttle, Elliot’s direct superior, to overturn the injunction. King and the Movement announced plans to march the next day, calling on the black community to join them. Earlier that same day, however, the first instance of outstanding police brutality had incensed the community. Marion King, the wife of Albany Movement leader C.B. King, had visited a Camilla jail along with a friend, whose daughter was imprisoned there. Standing outside the jail fence trying to speak to those in the jail cell, a local sheriff ordered her to back away from the fence. When she did not comply fast enough, the sheriff and his deputy pushed her back, slapping and kicking her to the ground.
That evening, as King spoke to a crowd in Shiloh, a young Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) worker, Marvin Rich, began to exhort young blacks to march on city hall that very night to protest the beating. Tensions were extremely high, as news of the beating carried a force the injunction overruling did not. … The anger of the community was impossible to quell, and as police attempted to arrest the marchers as they crossed Ogelthorpe Avenue, onlookers turned violent and began throwing bricks and rocks at police. The absence of Movement leaders, who were occupied holding mass meetings, meant they could not control the crowd. A policeman was injured, his jaw broken on a rock thrown by a black man. As the meeting in Shiloh let out, leaders attempted to stop the riot, but the damage had already been done. The violence again revealed the frustration in the community with nonviolent protest. Anger and opposition to segregation was widespread, but support for the Movement’s method of attacking it was not.
… The outbreak of violence further deteriorated the position of the Movement, who now risked being labeled the offending parties, even though many of those rioting were not part of the actual Movement … [which] was forced into reconciliatory measures, King calling off protests the following day in a “day of penance” for the violence of the previous night. …
Following the “day of penance,” King toured the local pool halls and bars, speaking of the need for nonviolence in the black community as a whole. He planned for marches two days later, and tried to enlist volunteers at a mass meeting held that night in Shiloh. He was only able to convince twenty six volunteers to march with him to city hall the following day. After asking to speak with the city council and being refused, the marchers kneeled and were arrested. This did not create the upswell of potential marchers the Movement had hope for, as only thirty seven volunteered for jail the following day. …In the days following King’s arrest, fewer and fewer people attended the mass meetings, with marches virtually halting. The city council sensed that the other side was close to surrender, and brought contempt charges against King, alleging that the demonstrations that defied the injunctions implicated him. Silence to requests for talks continued.
…
Virtually no protest occurred in the week leading up to King’s trial, set for August 10. On the trial date, King, Anderson, Abernathy, and Slater King were convicted of creating a disturbance. The white establishment took no chances, and all were fined $200 and given suspended jail sentences, meaning King could not use his punishment to garner outside support for the Movement. In response, the two planned marches were cancelled. King announced that he would be leaving Albany “to give the City Commission a chance to open ‘good faith’ negotiations with local Negro leaders” (Nelligan 32-46).
King agreed on 10 August 1962 to leave Albany and announce a halt to demonstrations, effectively ending his involvement in the Albany Movement. Although local efforts continued in conjunction with SNCC, the ultimate goals of the Movement were not met by the time of King’s departure. King blamed much of the failure on the campaign’s wide scope, stating in a 1965 interview, “The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it. Our protest was so vague that we got nothing, and the people were left very depressed and in despair.” The experiences in Albany, however, helped inform the strategy for the Birmingham Campaign that followed less than a year later. King acknowledged that “what we learned from our mistakes in Albany helped our later campaigns in other cities to be more effective” (Albany 5).
King recognized that an area that had little SCLC support would not welcome SCLC help; also that the authorities within the South could not be trusted and that a political approach would be less effective that a financial one – boycotts which would affect the financial well being of the white community (Trueman 3).
King and the civil rights movement were not the only ones to come out of Albany with lessons learned. The stubborn Albany Police Chief had taught the rest of the South how to successfully stave off the mighty nonviolence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Pritchett proved that if one commits to appearing to be nonviolent in front of the cameras one can use repressive violence behind the scenes and still exude an image of nonviolence. Emphasizing his use of mass arrests as a tactic instead of mass beatings, Pritchett preached to the nation how one can use nonviolence to combat nonviolence (Albany Campaigns 3).
Was the Albany campaign a flat out failure?
Charles Sherrod did not think so. He has stated that its greatest success was instilling in black people pride. "As many people as I know … now believe in themselves, … look at their children and see genius. They are no longer afraid to speak face to face with a white man or a white woman and look them dead in the eye like I'm looking at you as a human being" (Recalling 4).
Dr. Anderson declared the campaign “a qualified success.” Qualified in that at the time the movement came to an end, and it didn't come to an abrupt end. It was sort of phased out, the phasing out was marked by the cessation of the mass demonstration and the picketing. At that time, none of the facilities had been desegregated. The buses had become desegregated, the train station, the bus station. But these were being desegregated by federal edict. And it was not a voluntary move on the part of the people of Albany. But the lunch counters, there were no blacks employed as clerks in the stores. The parks and other public accommodations were not desegregated at the time the Albany Movement came to an end, end in the sense of no more mass demonstrations. But the Albany Movement was an overwhelming success in that first of all there was a change in the attitude of the people. The people who were involved in the movement, the people involved in the demonstrations because they had made a determination within their own minds that they would never accept that segregated society as it was, anymore. There was a change in attitude of the kids who saw their parents step into the forefront and lead the demonstrations and they were determined that they would never go through what their parents went through to get the recognition that they should have as citizens. Secondly, I think that the Albany Movement was a success in that it served as a trial or as a proving ground for subsequent civil rights movements. There would be those from all over the world that would look at Albany, they would look at the Albany Movement and how the people responded when they were… were led, and how they were able to identify the problems and address those problems in a very affirmative manner. So that we—we think that the Albany Movement was very meaningful in the total picture of the civil rights movement in that it gave some direction. The mistakes were not to be repeated that were made in Albany, for example, that settlement on a handshake if you would. That would never be repeated anytime in the future (Interview 15).
The Albany Movement began before King arrived and persisted long after King’s departure in defeat. Its history is not one of failure simply because King failed in southwest Georgia, but one of persistence and ultimately some success. Often forgotten is that the Albany Movement was the first mass movement of the modern civil rights era to have as its goal the desegregation of an entire community. Mass meetings, protest marches and arrests continued in Albany in 1963. Sherrod and his integrated teams of SNCC workers expanded their efforts beyond Albany into the rural counties of Terrell, Lee, Sumter, Baker, and the rest of southwest Georgia, where they faced some of the worst white racist terrorism in the South. SNCC workers were beaten by law officers, shot at and wounded by night riders, and churches associated with their voter registration efforts were firebombed.
The story of the movement is not a linear tale. It was a hodgepodge of many local movements, each with its own beginning and its moment in the sun of national media attention. There are many threads connecting these movements besides the involvement of Martin Luther King (Interview: Re-evaluating 4).
Police chief Laurie Pritchett asked Dr. Anderson this question late during the Albany Movement campaign.
"Dr. Anderson, do you think this is the way to get white people to accept you?" And I said to him, "You will never know whether or not I would be acceptable to you if somehow we are not given the opportunity to get together." I believe that a lot of white people feared, mixing with blacks because they had never had the experience. And they had been taught all of their lives that blacks were somehow inferior, dirty, smelly, unintelligible and all of the bad things that could be spoken about any person. They had been told this. They were brought up in that environment; that blacks should be totally segregated. They should be denied access to public accommodations. And I think that blacks were more afraid of the unknown. Not of actually having experienced being in the presence of blacks as equals (Interview 14).
That problem persists.
Works cited:
“The Albany Movement Campaigns for Full Integration in Georgia (Fall 1961- Summer 1962).” Global Nonviolent Acyion Database. Web. https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/con...
“Albany Movement.” Stanford: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Web. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/en...
“Interview:Re-evaluating the Albany Civil Rights Movement: Interview with Lee Formwalt.” DailyHistory.org. Web. https://dailyhistory.org/Interview:Re...
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
“Recalling the History of the Albany Movement.” WALB10News. November 11, 2015. Web. http://www.walb.com/story/16047367/re...
Trueman, C. N. “Albany 1961.” historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site. March 27, 2015. Web. https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk...
King explained from jail, “We chose to serve our time because we feel so deeply about the plight of more than 700 others who have yet to be tried…. We have experienced the racist tactics of attempting to bankrupt the movement in the South through excessive bail and extended court fights. The time has now come when we must practice civil disobedience in a true sense or delay our freedom thrust for long years” (Albany 4).
However, this enthusiasm did not translate well into community action. Despite pleading and exhortation from Sherrod and Reagon, only 32 out of over five hundred people assembled in the churches volunteered to march the next day. While attendance at mass meetings remained high, increasingly smaller numbers volunteered for jail. Support was high, but the dedication necessary to send hundreds of people to jail remained absent. The memory of long stays in dirty, crowded jail cells weighed heavily on the local population, who now realized that the strategy of mass marches would only be successful if they agreed to extended stays in jail, something that very few people were willing to do. Yet the Movement continued to press the strategy of mass marches despite the fact that anything less than total involvement of the black community rendered any arrests meaningless
The inability of the Movement to translate support into dedicated action led to increased frustration in the community. This frustration boiled over on the night of July 11, with over two hundred Albany blacks rioting outside a mass meeting held in Shiloh Baptist. Seeking an outlet for their anger, the mob settled on Albany policemen monitoring the situation, hurling rocks and debris at the assembled officers. Only the quick thinking of Pritchett saved the situation from escalating any further. The incident revealed that the Movement strategy of nonviolence, despite widespread education, was not being universally abided by..
…
Although Pritchett had maintained control due to his swift action, the white establishment realized that having King imprisoned in Albany represented a source of strength for the Movement. The city was putting tremendous resources into maintaining segregation, keeping the police force on duty for weeks at a time. The outbreak of mob violence against police the night before had reinforced the siege mentality in the minds of the city council. Mayor Kelley and his close allies in the business community knew that if King remained in jail for the duration of his sentence, it would make Albany a national arena for civil rights, something they could not allow. As a result, the city council arranged for B.C. Gardner, a black partner in Mayor Kelley’s law firm, to pay King and Abernathy’s fines anonymously. Although Pritchett expressed no knowledge of the event at the time, he later admitted that a coalition of city councilmen and blacks had come up with the scheme to get King out of jail. On July 12, a “well dressed Negro gentleman” arrived at the Albany city jail, paid the $175 fines for King and Abernathy and left. King recalled being told to dress in civilian clothes and being led to Pritchett’s office, who informed them that they were free to go. When King protested that he had no desire to do so, Pritchett replied “God knows, Reverend, I don’t want you in my jail.” King declared his displeasure at being released from jail, but did not immediately seek re-arrest. To the community, King had again promised to stay in jail, only to emerge after a short time. Some people still remained in prisons in Albany, Camilla, Americus, and other surrounding towns, unable to afford bail or the ability to post security bond. The reaction among the black community was overwhelmingly negative. Pritchett himself noted that King suffered a great loss of respect in the black community as a result of his inability to stay in jail. Although his release was beyond his control, King had again said one thing and done another. Andrew Young reveals that “the talk going through all the Negro community was that Martin Luther King was going ‘chicken’.”
For King, the situation was becoming critical. … Mass dedication, in the form of jail volunteers and marchers, remained absent. All attempts to puncture the fortress of segregation, fortified by the stalling tactics of the City Council, failed. The Movement had reached a critical juncture. It had zero leverage with which to bargain. …
… King threatened on July 15 to resume mass marches and mass arrests if the city did not meet the movement’s minimum demands of dropping the charges against the original December marchers. Unless the week produced significant progress, King threatened to resume the direct action protests that had characterized the initial December protests. Mayor Kelley fired back harshly, reflecting the critical juncture the fight for segregation had reached. Labeling demonstrators as “law violatorsm,” Kelley summarily refused to negotiate with the Movement. This time, the city meant it. All negotiations … were halted. The rhetoric used by the city marked a change from earlier promises to “consider” and “look over” settlements. The city was openly calling King and the Movement’s hand, leaving them only one choice. The city realized that whatever ensued would prove a “decisive test” for King and the Movement. King responded that he saw no choice but to commence direct action protest.
Protests began the next day, with attempted integration of public facilities and sit-ins occurring at downtown drugstores. In response to this, Mayor Kelley began to strengthen his position, requesting an injunction barring King, Abernathy, Anderson, and other prominent Movement leaders from marching. … Returning to Albany on the night of July 20, King addressed a mass meeting, declaring his intent to march on city hall and face arrest again if need be. …
The following morning, Judge Elliot handed down his injunction against the Movement. Naming prominent leaders, the order barred those named from marching or engaging in protest activity in Albany. …
After intense consideration, King decided to obey the injunction and seek a reversal in a higher court. It is possible that King’s decision to honor the injunction demonstrated his hope that through the federal courts, the Movement could salvage some semblance of victory from Albany. This would take time, however, and SCLC attorney William Kunstler began working on an appeal. King’s decision not to march was met with outrage with the members of SNCC, who held little confidence in the government’s ability to do anything beneficial to the movement. SNCC was furious with King’s decision, and let him know it. Sherrod, Reagon, and other young SNCC workers verbally castigated King for his decision, accusing him of supplanting their local movement, making it a nationalized struggle for his personal gain. For his part, King told the SNCC secretaries he would wait for the order to be overturned by a higher court. Later, Sherrod would state he was never angry at King, only annoyed in the way that King’s methods upset his ability to organize. The SNCC staffer realized that King had de facto control, as it was obvious that Anderson received all of his direction from King. Wyatt T. Walker expressed his annoyance with SNCC’s constant attempts to undermine King’s power in the Movement. King made clear his intention to wait for the injunction to be overturned in a higher court.
July 25, 1961 marked the resumption of protest in Albany, as William Kunstler and Movement attorneys convinced appellate Judge Elbert P. Tuttle, Elliot’s direct superior, to overturn the injunction. King and the Movement announced plans to march the next day, calling on the black community to join them. Earlier that same day, however, the first instance of outstanding police brutality had incensed the community. Marion King, the wife of Albany Movement leader C.B. King, had visited a Camilla jail along with a friend, whose daughter was imprisoned there. Standing outside the jail fence trying to speak to those in the jail cell, a local sheriff ordered her to back away from the fence. When she did not comply fast enough, the sheriff and his deputy pushed her back, slapping and kicking her to the ground.
That evening, as King spoke to a crowd in Shiloh, a young Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) worker, Marvin Rich, began to exhort young blacks to march on city hall that very night to protest the beating. Tensions were extremely high, as news of the beating carried a force the injunction overruling did not. … The anger of the community was impossible to quell, and as police attempted to arrest the marchers as they crossed Ogelthorpe Avenue, onlookers turned violent and began throwing bricks and rocks at police. The absence of Movement leaders, who were occupied holding mass meetings, meant they could not control the crowd. A policeman was injured, his jaw broken on a rock thrown by a black man. As the meeting in Shiloh let out, leaders attempted to stop the riot, but the damage had already been done. The violence again revealed the frustration in the community with nonviolent protest. Anger and opposition to segregation was widespread, but support for the Movement’s method of attacking it was not.
… The outbreak of violence further deteriorated the position of the Movement, who now risked being labeled the offending parties, even though many of those rioting were not part of the actual Movement … [which] was forced into reconciliatory measures, King calling off protests the following day in a “day of penance” for the violence of the previous night. …
Following the “day of penance,” King toured the local pool halls and bars, speaking of the need for nonviolence in the black community as a whole. He planned for marches two days later, and tried to enlist volunteers at a mass meeting held that night in Shiloh. He was only able to convince twenty six volunteers to march with him to city hall the following day. After asking to speak with the city council and being refused, the marchers kneeled and were arrested. This did not create the upswell of potential marchers the Movement had hope for, as only thirty seven volunteered for jail the following day. …In the days following King’s arrest, fewer and fewer people attended the mass meetings, with marches virtually halting. The city council sensed that the other side was close to surrender, and brought contempt charges against King, alleging that the demonstrations that defied the injunctions implicated him. Silence to requests for talks continued.
…
Virtually no protest occurred in the week leading up to King’s trial, set for August 10. On the trial date, King, Anderson, Abernathy, and Slater King were convicted of creating a disturbance. The white establishment took no chances, and all were fined $200 and given suspended jail sentences, meaning King could not use his punishment to garner outside support for the Movement. In response, the two planned marches were cancelled. King announced that he would be leaving Albany “to give the City Commission a chance to open ‘good faith’ negotiations with local Negro leaders” (Nelligan 32-46).
King agreed on 10 August 1962 to leave Albany and announce a halt to demonstrations, effectively ending his involvement in the Albany Movement. Although local efforts continued in conjunction with SNCC, the ultimate goals of the Movement were not met by the time of King’s departure. King blamed much of the failure on the campaign’s wide scope, stating in a 1965 interview, “The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it. Our protest was so vague that we got nothing, and the people were left very depressed and in despair.” The experiences in Albany, however, helped inform the strategy for the Birmingham Campaign that followed less than a year later. King acknowledged that “what we learned from our mistakes in Albany helped our later campaigns in other cities to be more effective” (Albany 5).
King recognized that an area that had little SCLC support would not welcome SCLC help; also that the authorities within the South could not be trusted and that a political approach would be less effective that a financial one – boycotts which would affect the financial well being of the white community (Trueman 3).
King and the civil rights movement were not the only ones to come out of Albany with lessons learned. The stubborn Albany Police Chief had taught the rest of the South how to successfully stave off the mighty nonviolence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Pritchett proved that if one commits to appearing to be nonviolent in front of the cameras one can use repressive violence behind the scenes and still exude an image of nonviolence. Emphasizing his use of mass arrests as a tactic instead of mass beatings, Pritchett preached to the nation how one can use nonviolence to combat nonviolence (Albany Campaigns 3).
Was the Albany campaign a flat out failure?
Charles Sherrod did not think so. He has stated that its greatest success was instilling in black people pride. "As many people as I know … now believe in themselves, … look at their children and see genius. They are no longer afraid to speak face to face with a white man or a white woman and look them dead in the eye like I'm looking at you as a human being" (Recalling 4).
Dr. Anderson declared the campaign “a qualified success.” Qualified in that at the time the movement came to an end, and it didn't come to an abrupt end. It was sort of phased out, the phasing out was marked by the cessation of the mass demonstration and the picketing. At that time, none of the facilities had been desegregated. The buses had become desegregated, the train station, the bus station. But these were being desegregated by federal edict. And it was not a voluntary move on the part of the people of Albany. But the lunch counters, there were no blacks employed as clerks in the stores. The parks and other public accommodations were not desegregated at the time the Albany Movement came to an end, end in the sense of no more mass demonstrations. But the Albany Movement was an overwhelming success in that first of all there was a change in the attitude of the people. The people who were involved in the movement, the people involved in the demonstrations because they had made a determination within their own minds that they would never accept that segregated society as it was, anymore. There was a change in attitude of the kids who saw their parents step into the forefront and lead the demonstrations and they were determined that they would never go through what their parents went through to get the recognition that they should have as citizens. Secondly, I think that the Albany Movement was a success in that it served as a trial or as a proving ground for subsequent civil rights movements. There would be those from all over the world that would look at Albany, they would look at the Albany Movement and how the people responded when they were… were led, and how they were able to identify the problems and address those problems in a very affirmative manner. So that we—we think that the Albany Movement was very meaningful in the total picture of the civil rights movement in that it gave some direction. The mistakes were not to be repeated that were made in Albany, for example, that settlement on a handshake if you would. That would never be repeated anytime in the future (Interview 15).
The Albany Movement began before King arrived and persisted long after King’s departure in defeat. Its history is not one of failure simply because King failed in southwest Georgia, but one of persistence and ultimately some success. Often forgotten is that the Albany Movement was the first mass movement of the modern civil rights era to have as its goal the desegregation of an entire community. Mass meetings, protest marches and arrests continued in Albany in 1963. Sherrod and his integrated teams of SNCC workers expanded their efforts beyond Albany into the rural counties of Terrell, Lee, Sumter, Baker, and the rest of southwest Georgia, where they faced some of the worst white racist terrorism in the South. SNCC workers were beaten by law officers, shot at and wounded by night riders, and churches associated with their voter registration efforts were firebombed.
The story of the movement is not a linear tale. It was a hodgepodge of many local movements, each with its own beginning and its moment in the sun of national media attention. There are many threads connecting these movements besides the involvement of Martin Luther King (Interview: Re-evaluating 4).
Police chief Laurie Pritchett asked Dr. Anderson this question late during the Albany Movement campaign.
"Dr. Anderson, do you think this is the way to get white people to accept you?" And I said to him, "You will never know whether or not I would be acceptable to you if somehow we are not given the opportunity to get together." I believe that a lot of white people feared, mixing with blacks because they had never had the experience. And they had been taught all of their lives that blacks were somehow inferior, dirty, smelly, unintelligible and all of the bad things that could be spoken about any person. They had been told this. They were brought up in that environment; that blacks should be totally segregated. They should be denied access to public accommodations. And I think that blacks were more afraid of the unknown. Not of actually having experienced being in the presence of blacks as equals (Interview 14).
That problem persists.
Works cited:
“The Albany Movement Campaigns for Full Integration in Georgia (Fall 1961- Summer 1962).” Global Nonviolent Acyion Database. Web. https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/con...
“Albany Movement.” Stanford: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Web. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/en...
“Interview:Re-evaluating the Albany Civil Rights Movement: Interview with Lee Formwalt.” DailyHistory.org. Web. https://dailyhistory.org/Interview:Re...
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
“Recalling the History of the Albany Movement.” WALB10News. November 11, 2015. Web. http://www.walb.com/story/16047367/re...
Trueman, C. N. “Albany 1961.” historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site. March 27, 2015. Web. https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk...
February 17, 2019
Civil Rights Events -- Albany Movement -- Surmountable Difficulties?
Ain't gonna let nobody, Lordy, turn me 'round,
turn me round, turn me 'round.
Ain't gonna let nobody, Lordy, turn me 'round.
I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', Lord,
marching up to freedom land (Mt. Zion 1).
Since the Albany Movement envisioned total desegregation, their tactics were diverse. Protestors held meetings, gave speeches, marched, held sit-ins, and organized rallies. Of all the tactics, however, there was one that became surprisingly effective, and that was singing. Singing, largely inspired by the role of music in African American Baptist churches, proved to be an extremely effective way to galvanize protestors, keep energy and morale high, and present a very non-threatening form of nonviolent protest (Muscato 1).
Rev. Prathia Hall participated in many mass meetings held at Albany's churches, and she describes her moving experience as follows:
"I was profoundly impacted by the Albany movement and the southwest Georgia project conducted by SNCC. It was my first experience of the deep South…the very first night, there was a mass meeting. The mass meeting itself was just pure power…you could hear the rhythm of the feet, and the clapping of the hands from the old prayer meeting tradition…people singing the old prayer songs…there was something about hearing those songs, and hearing that singing in Albany in the midst of a struggle for life against death, that was just the most powerful thing I'd ever experienced" (Faith 1).
Charles Sherrod described such a scene: “Tears filled the eyes of hard, grown men who had seen with their own eyes merciless atrocities committed…when we rose to sing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ nobody could imagine what kept the church on four corners” (Nelligan 19).
The a cappella singing that became the trademark and the unifying force of the civil rights movement was introduced at this church by three student "Freedom Singers"--Ruth A. Harris, Bernice Johnson, and Cordell Reagon (Mt. Zion 1).
Locally raised Rutha Harris described how she became a founding member of the Freedom Singers after discovering that she was” not free.”
My skills as a singer were discovered by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (“SNCC”) member, Cordell Reagon. Cordell heard me sing during a mass meeting and thought I was very good. Cordell was a field secretary for SNCC, and also a very gifted singer. He was trying to form a singing group to raise money for SNCC. We were called The Freedom Singers. We sang a cappella. The original group consisted of Cordell Reagon, Bernice Johnson (later Bernice Johnson Reagon), Charles Neblett and yours truly – me!
I joined the Albany Movement through SNCC. I was 21 and I was home in Albany for the summer. SNCC was organizing people to register to vote. I went to a meeting to learn about what they were doing.
Cordell met me while I was walking down the street and asked me if I wanted to be free. I said “What do you mean, do I want to be free? I am free.” I said this because my father, Reverend I. A. Harris, sheltered us from segregation. He built the house that I am living in now in 1932. He was a strong man and a respected member of the Black community. He was also respected by white people in town. As we said back then, “he didn’t take no wooden nickels.”
Well, he controlled what we were exposed to. He was a minister, so he told us that we could not go to the movies at all because he did not like the content. That meant we never went to a segregated movie theatre. If we wanted to go out to eat, he said, “No, we have a refrigerator, stove, kitchen table and good food right here. I am not spending money on eating out when you can eat right here.” That meant that we didn’t see any segregated restaurants.
If we couldn’t use the bathroom at a gas station, he took off and refused to buy gas there. I really thought I was free until I learned about the voter registration numbers in Albany. I thought, “I know there are more than 28 Black people who want to vote in this town.” That motivated me to start working with SNCC.
When I learned from the SNCC workers that people in Albany were afraid to register to vote, for fear of death, violence or losing their jobs, I realized that things were not as I thought they were in my life in Albany either. As I got more involved in the movement I came to understand that I could not go to the white areas of places that we marched to, like segregated waiting rooms in bus stations, bathrooms, and segregated restaurants. It brought it all home and I knew I wasn’t free either.
My mother agreed to let me travel with the Freedom Singers after I promised that I’d finish college once I was done working with SNCC. I left Florida A&M for the movement. I fulfilled my promise to my mother in 1970, when I graduated from Albany College.
…
Without the songs of the Civil Rights movement, there would not have been a movement in my opinion.
Yes, we were afraid. There was fear. If you are marching for voter registration and the police say halt, and you don’t, you know you will be arrested. After you were arrested, who knew what would happen? The police might kill you or harm you. We were afraid, but we kept going and sang freedom songs.
The songs directly addressed the situation we were facing and helped us move forward. The police said halt. These songs kept us moving (Stayed 1-3).
King returned to Albany on February 27, 1962, to stand trial for his arrest in December. The trial was a quick one, and despite the predetermined outcome, Judge A.N. Durden announced that he would issue a decision within the next six months. Meanwhile, King left Albany to resume his duties with the SCLC. In Albany, boycotts and sporadic arrests continued. The Albany Movement kept trying to talk and bargain with the city council and the police department with little success. The white establishment had little reason to consider any of the Movement’s proposals, as the boycott threat had already proved surmountable, and it appeared that the community was not eager to resume mass marches any time soon. Sporadic arrests did continued, but these were largely the result of so-called “test” arrests of protestors attempting to integrate public facilities (Nelligan 32).
The two leaders of the white supremacists were the police chief Laurie Pritchett and James H. Gray, “who owned Albany’s only newspaper, the Albany Herald, its only television station, a radio station, and who was a key member of its city commission. Although historians give Pritchett the lion’s share of credit for beating King at his own game, it was Gray who called the shots in Albany, and it was his media empire that played events up or down as he saw fit.”
Pritchett was the city’s point man, and he confounded both the press and the demonstrators. According to The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibhanoff, he looked every bit the Southern bubba cop and enjoyed playing the role for cameras. Large in stature and big bellied, he often addressed demonstrators while chewing on a piece of straw, and he liked to cock a smile at them before taking them politely to jail.
But the comparison ends there. Pritchett was also smart. He knew King was committed to non-violence, and he had spent time in the library studying Gandhian philosophy and tactics. He understood that if King could not provoke a confrontation, he would gain no moral ground in Albany. Pritchett was also mean. Once he told a reporter over beer that “There are three things I like to do: drink buttermilk, put niggers in jail, and kick reporters’ asses. …”
Behind Pritchett’s power was James H. Gray. Gray grew up affluent in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where his father was a lawyer and one of his neighbors was Norman Rockwell. He graduated from elite Dartmouth College, where he befriended a Harvard University basketball rival, Joseph Kennedy. According to The Race Beat, Gray sometimes visited the Kennedys and, after Joseph Kennedy died in World War II, he became close to the next oldest son, John. After leaving Dartmouth he wrote for the Hartford (Connecticut) Courant and later the New York Herald.
By then he had set his sights on Albany because of his wealthy wife, Dorothy Ellis, who was from the small Georgia city and whose father owned the Albany Herald and a plantation. … When he returned home [after World War II] he moved to Albany, purchased its only newspaper and began to build a media empire. He was also prominent in Georgia’s arch segregationist Democratic Party, where he became chair in 1958. That year he hosted his friends, then-Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife, for a weekend in Albany.
Although only a transplanted Southerner, Gray earned a reputation for his rabid defense of racial segregation. In the late 1950s, following the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregated public schools, he was one of a number of Southern editors openly hostile to any news coverage portraying the South in a negative light. Following the decision, moreover, a new organization known as the White Citizens Council (WCC) formed in Mississippi to fight segregation; chapters soon formed in every Deep South state. Unlike the Ku Klux Klan–whose members, by then, were typically working class or marginalized whites–the WCC was middle class. Its members were professional men, including bankers, lawyers, business owners, and some newspaper publishers.
…
When the Albany demonstrations began in late 1961, Gray knew what to do. He contacted the city’s mayor, Asa Carter, and Police Chief Pritchett to coordinate a strategy whose main principal was to avoid violence. Arrests yes, force no.
When King sat in jail a week before Christmas, Gray addressed the public through his own television station and announced that the movement was under the influence of a “cell of professional agitators” and Communists. He affirmed further that Albany’s racial system was one that “over the years has been peaceful and rewarding.” He called Pritchett and insisted that he negotiate King’s release, then phoned his friends in the Kennedy Administration to make sure there would be no federal intervention in Albany (King 1-3).
One of the major issues surrounding the Albany Movement’s 1961-1962 campaign was the lack of aid from the federal government. President John F. Kennedy and his administration promised that they were watching the situation in Albany closely; however, because of Pritchett’s use of arrests and avoidance of public violence, the federal government never felt enough pressure from American citizens to intervene. The lack of intervention by the Kennedy administration in this case reinforced the frustration and distrust that many civil rights demonstrators had for the federal government (Albany 2).
Dr. Anderson was definitely critical of Kennedy and the Justice Department.
Needless to say we were in constant contact with the federal government. Even from the time Dr. King initially came into Albany. Contact had been made with Attorney General Bob Kennedy, and he had sort of turned us over to Burke Marshall. And when Dr. King was coming in we requested some protection for him coming into town. Laurie Pritchett, I understand was contacted by Burke Marshall, and was requested to provide security for Dr. King, and initially Laurie Pritchett said that he couldn't do it. He couldn't guarantee the safety of Dr. King coming into town. So Burke Marshall indicated, if you can't then I'll send in enough federal marshals to do it, whereupon Laurie Pritchett decided, well maybe I can. But even we—we never at any time got any of the Justice Department officials to come in to my knowledge. Even as observers during the arrest or during the court hearings. There were FBI agents on the scene, but no one from the Justice Department that we thought would be there to protect our civil rights. We didn't have that.
I would have expected a representative from the Justice Department to be on the scene as an observer if nothing else because civil rights were being violated. For example, we were not permitted to—to demonstrate at all, even following all the guidelines that had been set forth by the city, we attempted picketing of—of selected stores in small numbers, widely spaced. Not blocking any ingress or egress, all the guidelines that were given, so that you could picket, we would do that and still got arrested. I was arrested on several occasions just walking down the street holding a piece of paper in my hand and under the pretense of passing out literature without a permit or something to that effect. I'm saying that Justice officials were not there as observers, and if they were there mind you they were not identified as such, and to my knowledge no action was taken relative to the violation of our civil right— (Interview 10).
When King and his supporters once again confronted the racists--most famously in this period in Albany, Ga., and Birmingham, Ala.--the president and his advisers responded by calling for the maintenance of "law and order" and investigating King's alleged Communist Party ties, rather than by attacking Jim Crow.
Despite their promises, the Kennedys claimed the government had no jurisdiction over the Jim Crow laws of Southern cities, and they told King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to await Congressional action.
…
King was blamed for the deal made with the city council in December that temporarily halted demonstrations, an agreement that the council did not honor. Albany Mayor Asa Kelly gloated he had forced an end to the protests with Jim Crow still intact. Even more humiliating, the Kennedy administration phoned Kelly to congratulate him on his handling of the crisis.
The administration's only words to King were warnings that two of his advisers, Jack O'Dell and Stanley Levison, were linked to the Communist Party and should be dropped. King bowed to pressure and asked O'Dell for his resignation as a paid SCLC staff member. O'Dell continued to be active in the organization as a volunteer.
King [later] criticized President Kennedy for his "lack of leadership" in civil rights issues. But King maintained his position that federal support was key to the movement's success--a position that would contribute to the final defeat at Albany (Sustar 1, 3-4).
Works cited:
“A Faith Forged in Albany.” This Far by Faith. Web. https://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/jo...
“The Albany Movement campaigns for full integration in Georgia (Fall 1961- Summer 1962).” Global Nonviolent Acyion Database. Web. https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/con...
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
King, Pamela Sterne. “From Albany to Birmingham.” Weld: Birmingham’s Newspaper. December 19, 2012. Web. https://weldbham.com/blog/2012/12/19/...
“Mt. Zion Baptist Church.” We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement. Nps.gov. Web. https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilri...
Muscato, Christopher. “The Albany Movement: History, Events & Significance.” Study.com. Web. https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-...
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
“She’s Still ‘Stayed on Freedom’: An Interview With Civil Rights Activist and Freedom Singer, Rutha Harris.” BlackHer Movement. Web. http://blackher.us/shes-still-stayed-...
Sustar, Lee. “King, nonviolence and the Albany Movement.” SocialistWorker.org. November 9, 2012. Web. https://socialistworker.org/2012/11/0...
turn me round, turn me 'round.
Ain't gonna let nobody, Lordy, turn me 'round.
I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', Lord,
marching up to freedom land (Mt. Zion 1).
Since the Albany Movement envisioned total desegregation, their tactics were diverse. Protestors held meetings, gave speeches, marched, held sit-ins, and organized rallies. Of all the tactics, however, there was one that became surprisingly effective, and that was singing. Singing, largely inspired by the role of music in African American Baptist churches, proved to be an extremely effective way to galvanize protestors, keep energy and morale high, and present a very non-threatening form of nonviolent protest (Muscato 1).
Rev. Prathia Hall participated in many mass meetings held at Albany's churches, and she describes her moving experience as follows:
"I was profoundly impacted by the Albany movement and the southwest Georgia project conducted by SNCC. It was my first experience of the deep South…the very first night, there was a mass meeting. The mass meeting itself was just pure power…you could hear the rhythm of the feet, and the clapping of the hands from the old prayer meeting tradition…people singing the old prayer songs…there was something about hearing those songs, and hearing that singing in Albany in the midst of a struggle for life against death, that was just the most powerful thing I'd ever experienced" (Faith 1).
Charles Sherrod described such a scene: “Tears filled the eyes of hard, grown men who had seen with their own eyes merciless atrocities committed…when we rose to sing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ nobody could imagine what kept the church on four corners” (Nelligan 19).
The a cappella singing that became the trademark and the unifying force of the civil rights movement was introduced at this church by three student "Freedom Singers"--Ruth A. Harris, Bernice Johnson, and Cordell Reagon (Mt. Zion 1).
Locally raised Rutha Harris described how she became a founding member of the Freedom Singers after discovering that she was” not free.”
My skills as a singer were discovered by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (“SNCC”) member, Cordell Reagon. Cordell heard me sing during a mass meeting and thought I was very good. Cordell was a field secretary for SNCC, and also a very gifted singer. He was trying to form a singing group to raise money for SNCC. We were called The Freedom Singers. We sang a cappella. The original group consisted of Cordell Reagon, Bernice Johnson (later Bernice Johnson Reagon), Charles Neblett and yours truly – me!
I joined the Albany Movement through SNCC. I was 21 and I was home in Albany for the summer. SNCC was organizing people to register to vote. I went to a meeting to learn about what they were doing.
Cordell met me while I was walking down the street and asked me if I wanted to be free. I said “What do you mean, do I want to be free? I am free.” I said this because my father, Reverend I. A. Harris, sheltered us from segregation. He built the house that I am living in now in 1932. He was a strong man and a respected member of the Black community. He was also respected by white people in town. As we said back then, “he didn’t take no wooden nickels.”
Well, he controlled what we were exposed to. He was a minister, so he told us that we could not go to the movies at all because he did not like the content. That meant we never went to a segregated movie theatre. If we wanted to go out to eat, he said, “No, we have a refrigerator, stove, kitchen table and good food right here. I am not spending money on eating out when you can eat right here.” That meant that we didn’t see any segregated restaurants.
If we couldn’t use the bathroom at a gas station, he took off and refused to buy gas there. I really thought I was free until I learned about the voter registration numbers in Albany. I thought, “I know there are more than 28 Black people who want to vote in this town.” That motivated me to start working with SNCC.
When I learned from the SNCC workers that people in Albany were afraid to register to vote, for fear of death, violence or losing their jobs, I realized that things were not as I thought they were in my life in Albany either. As I got more involved in the movement I came to understand that I could not go to the white areas of places that we marched to, like segregated waiting rooms in bus stations, bathrooms, and segregated restaurants. It brought it all home and I knew I wasn’t free either.
My mother agreed to let me travel with the Freedom Singers after I promised that I’d finish college once I was done working with SNCC. I left Florida A&M for the movement. I fulfilled my promise to my mother in 1970, when I graduated from Albany College.
…
Without the songs of the Civil Rights movement, there would not have been a movement in my opinion.
Yes, we were afraid. There was fear. If you are marching for voter registration and the police say halt, and you don’t, you know you will be arrested. After you were arrested, who knew what would happen? The police might kill you or harm you. We were afraid, but we kept going and sang freedom songs.
The songs directly addressed the situation we were facing and helped us move forward. The police said halt. These songs kept us moving (Stayed 1-3).
King returned to Albany on February 27, 1962, to stand trial for his arrest in December. The trial was a quick one, and despite the predetermined outcome, Judge A.N. Durden announced that he would issue a decision within the next six months. Meanwhile, King left Albany to resume his duties with the SCLC. In Albany, boycotts and sporadic arrests continued. The Albany Movement kept trying to talk and bargain with the city council and the police department with little success. The white establishment had little reason to consider any of the Movement’s proposals, as the boycott threat had already proved surmountable, and it appeared that the community was not eager to resume mass marches any time soon. Sporadic arrests did continued, but these were largely the result of so-called “test” arrests of protestors attempting to integrate public facilities (Nelligan 32).
The two leaders of the white supremacists were the police chief Laurie Pritchett and James H. Gray, “who owned Albany’s only newspaper, the Albany Herald, its only television station, a radio station, and who was a key member of its city commission. Although historians give Pritchett the lion’s share of credit for beating King at his own game, it was Gray who called the shots in Albany, and it was his media empire that played events up or down as he saw fit.”
Pritchett was the city’s point man, and he confounded both the press and the demonstrators. According to The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibhanoff, he looked every bit the Southern bubba cop and enjoyed playing the role for cameras. Large in stature and big bellied, he often addressed demonstrators while chewing on a piece of straw, and he liked to cock a smile at them before taking them politely to jail.
But the comparison ends there. Pritchett was also smart. He knew King was committed to non-violence, and he had spent time in the library studying Gandhian philosophy and tactics. He understood that if King could not provoke a confrontation, he would gain no moral ground in Albany. Pritchett was also mean. Once he told a reporter over beer that “There are three things I like to do: drink buttermilk, put niggers in jail, and kick reporters’ asses. …”
Behind Pritchett’s power was James H. Gray. Gray grew up affluent in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where his father was a lawyer and one of his neighbors was Norman Rockwell. He graduated from elite Dartmouth College, where he befriended a Harvard University basketball rival, Joseph Kennedy. According to The Race Beat, Gray sometimes visited the Kennedys and, after Joseph Kennedy died in World War II, he became close to the next oldest son, John. After leaving Dartmouth he wrote for the Hartford (Connecticut) Courant and later the New York Herald.
By then he had set his sights on Albany because of his wealthy wife, Dorothy Ellis, who was from the small Georgia city and whose father owned the Albany Herald and a plantation. … When he returned home [after World War II] he moved to Albany, purchased its only newspaper and began to build a media empire. He was also prominent in Georgia’s arch segregationist Democratic Party, where he became chair in 1958. That year he hosted his friends, then-Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife, for a weekend in Albany.
Although only a transplanted Southerner, Gray earned a reputation for his rabid defense of racial segregation. In the late 1950s, following the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregated public schools, he was one of a number of Southern editors openly hostile to any news coverage portraying the South in a negative light. Following the decision, moreover, a new organization known as the White Citizens Council (WCC) formed in Mississippi to fight segregation; chapters soon formed in every Deep South state. Unlike the Ku Klux Klan–whose members, by then, were typically working class or marginalized whites–the WCC was middle class. Its members were professional men, including bankers, lawyers, business owners, and some newspaper publishers.
…
When the Albany demonstrations began in late 1961, Gray knew what to do. He contacted the city’s mayor, Asa Carter, and Police Chief Pritchett to coordinate a strategy whose main principal was to avoid violence. Arrests yes, force no.
When King sat in jail a week before Christmas, Gray addressed the public through his own television station and announced that the movement was under the influence of a “cell of professional agitators” and Communists. He affirmed further that Albany’s racial system was one that “over the years has been peaceful and rewarding.” He called Pritchett and insisted that he negotiate King’s release, then phoned his friends in the Kennedy Administration to make sure there would be no federal intervention in Albany (King 1-3).
One of the major issues surrounding the Albany Movement’s 1961-1962 campaign was the lack of aid from the federal government. President John F. Kennedy and his administration promised that they were watching the situation in Albany closely; however, because of Pritchett’s use of arrests and avoidance of public violence, the federal government never felt enough pressure from American citizens to intervene. The lack of intervention by the Kennedy administration in this case reinforced the frustration and distrust that many civil rights demonstrators had for the federal government (Albany 2).
Dr. Anderson was definitely critical of Kennedy and the Justice Department.
Needless to say we were in constant contact with the federal government. Even from the time Dr. King initially came into Albany. Contact had been made with Attorney General Bob Kennedy, and he had sort of turned us over to Burke Marshall. And when Dr. King was coming in we requested some protection for him coming into town. Laurie Pritchett, I understand was contacted by Burke Marshall, and was requested to provide security for Dr. King, and initially Laurie Pritchett said that he couldn't do it. He couldn't guarantee the safety of Dr. King coming into town. So Burke Marshall indicated, if you can't then I'll send in enough federal marshals to do it, whereupon Laurie Pritchett decided, well maybe I can. But even we—we never at any time got any of the Justice Department officials to come in to my knowledge. Even as observers during the arrest or during the court hearings. There were FBI agents on the scene, but no one from the Justice Department that we thought would be there to protect our civil rights. We didn't have that.
I would have expected a representative from the Justice Department to be on the scene as an observer if nothing else because civil rights were being violated. For example, we were not permitted to—to demonstrate at all, even following all the guidelines that had been set forth by the city, we attempted picketing of—of selected stores in small numbers, widely spaced. Not blocking any ingress or egress, all the guidelines that were given, so that you could picket, we would do that and still got arrested. I was arrested on several occasions just walking down the street holding a piece of paper in my hand and under the pretense of passing out literature without a permit or something to that effect. I'm saying that Justice officials were not there as observers, and if they were there mind you they were not identified as such, and to my knowledge no action was taken relative to the violation of our civil right— (Interview 10).
When King and his supporters once again confronted the racists--most famously in this period in Albany, Ga., and Birmingham, Ala.--the president and his advisers responded by calling for the maintenance of "law and order" and investigating King's alleged Communist Party ties, rather than by attacking Jim Crow.
Despite their promises, the Kennedys claimed the government had no jurisdiction over the Jim Crow laws of Southern cities, and they told King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to await Congressional action.
…
King was blamed for the deal made with the city council in December that temporarily halted demonstrations, an agreement that the council did not honor. Albany Mayor Asa Kelly gloated he had forced an end to the protests with Jim Crow still intact. Even more humiliating, the Kennedy administration phoned Kelly to congratulate him on his handling of the crisis.
The administration's only words to King were warnings that two of his advisers, Jack O'Dell and Stanley Levison, were linked to the Communist Party and should be dropped. King bowed to pressure and asked O'Dell for his resignation as a paid SCLC staff member. O'Dell continued to be active in the organization as a volunteer.
King [later] criticized President Kennedy for his "lack of leadership" in civil rights issues. But King maintained his position that federal support was key to the movement's success--a position that would contribute to the final defeat at Albany (Sustar 1, 3-4).
Works cited:
“A Faith Forged in Albany.” This Far by Faith. Web. https://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/jo...
“The Albany Movement campaigns for full integration in Georgia (Fall 1961- Summer 1962).” Global Nonviolent Acyion Database. Web. https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/con...
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
King, Pamela Sterne. “From Albany to Birmingham.” Weld: Birmingham’s Newspaper. December 19, 2012. Web. https://weldbham.com/blog/2012/12/19/...
“Mt. Zion Baptist Church.” We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement. Nps.gov. Web. https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilri...
Muscato, Christopher. “The Albany Movement: History, Events & Significance.” Study.com. Web. https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-...
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
“She’s Still ‘Stayed on Freedom’: An Interview With Civil Rights Activist and Freedom Singer, Rutha Harris.” BlackHer Movement. Web. http://blackher.us/shes-still-stayed-...
Sustar, Lee. “King, nonviolence and the Albany Movement.” SocialistWorker.org. November 9, 2012. Web. https://socialistworker.org/2012/11/0...
February 10, 2019
Civil Rights Events -- Albany Movement -- MLK Comes to Help
Dr. Anderson, President of the Albany Movement, interviewed in 1985 by Eyes on the Prize, explained why Martin Luther King, Jr. was asked to come to Albany.
When we got to the point that we had this many people in jail… When we had this many people in jail, we had a meeting of the Albany Movement that night and we all recognized that we had no experience in what we were doing. We had never been involved in mass demonstrations, mass arrests. We had no provisions for bonding. No provisions for taking care of families of people who were in jail. And recognize that this was not a select group. These were common, ordinary, everyday people, housewives, cooks, maids, laborers, children out of school. We had made no provisions for these people going to jail because we did not anticipate the mass arrests. So we concluded that night that we are into something that really we need some expert help in someone who has had the experience. And I knew Dr. King from years earlier. Ah, my wife and Dr. King had been high school schoolmates, and my wife's brother and Dr. King were classmates and very close friends at David D. Howard High School here in Atlanta. And I indicated that I felt that I knew Dr. King well enough that if I were to call him he would come down and help us. Needless to say, there was not total agreement initially with issuing this call. Because recognizing that now SNCC was on the scene and by virtue of the Freedom Riders coming through CORE was on the scene, and they did also have established organizations. They wanted to protect the integrity—integrity of those organizations. We also recognize that to the extent that they received some publicity it helped to further their cause and they would be able to raise money to continue their activities. But anyway, we were able to get unanimous decision of the Albany Movement to call in Dr. King. So that night I tracked down Dr. King. I don't remember where he was at the time. But I called him personally. And he— he merely asked of me if this is the desire of all involved. And I said, "Yes it is." And he asked that I send him a telegram to that extent. And I did. … I indicated on the telegram all the organizations that were represented now in the Albany Movement. And, he responded to that call.
… Dr. King, right, he came there with not even an overnight bag or a toothbrush. Responded to my call, And I do not anticipate that he expected to get as intimately involved with the Albany Movement as he did (interview 6).
Accompanied by his close friend Ralph Abernathy, King arrived in Albany [December 15] prepared to deliver a speech to the local population …. The news of King’s arrival packed Shiloh and Mount Zion [Churches]; even people from surrounding towns traveled to Albany to hear the famous preacher speak. King delivered his speech to an enthusiastic audience, emphasizing the strengthening of community resolve. King urged those gathered to “keep moving,” opining that they would overcome segregation “with the power of our capacity to endure.”
After Dr. King spoke, Dr. Anderson took the pulpit and informed the congregation that King would remain in Albany and would lead a march on city hall the next morning. Although not planning on marching in Albany, King claimed he was moved by the spirit he felt in the Albany population. “I cannot rest, I cannot stand idly by, while these people are suffering for us so that we can obtain a better social order.” This ran counter to SCLC executive Andrew Young’s assessment, who noted that “Martin had no intention of going to jail in Albany.”
…
On December 16, 1961, Albany policemen arrested King, Abernathy, Anderson, and 265 Albany residents without incident for parading without a permit in front of city hall. Refusing bail, King vowed to remain in jail until the city made concessions to the Movement’s requests for limited desegregation. However, three days after making this promise, King reneged, as Anderson began suffering severe anxiety attacks, perhaps brought on by his own admitted fear of jail. He absolutely refused bail by himself, and as a result, King accepted bail on December 18 (Nelligan 21-26).
Dr, Anderson recounts: Dr. King and I had met with the masses of people at an early morning rally. By the end of the week there were regular demonstrations going on practically everyday. And Dr. King, Dr. Abernathy, along with my wife led a demonstration that involved several hundreds of people. And we were arrested and dispersed throughout Southwest Georgia (Interview 7).
Interviewed March 9, 2013, for the Civil Rights History Project, Mary Jones spoke of her first arrest and incarceration.
The children [students] had marched first. … [The local newspaper said] “The grownups – they too scared to march so they pushed the children out to do that work. … My oldest daughter was locked up too, 11 years old. …. “No, that aint going to go, So we organized right there to the mass meeting. And who wanted to march? All the hands went up. … We marched … by the old jail … about 700 of us. … The thing that we had to straighten out because they said we sent Martin Luther King to come do our job. We didn’t say for him to come march.
I was in there [jail] from Monday, about 11 o’clock to Thursday when my father came and bond me out. … We was in every jail around here. I went to Baker County jail. … They had the billy club. “Get on in here. You marching.” They had warned us one time: “If you don’t stop that singing and go home, you gonna be locked up.” And we got louder then. “Aint gonna let nobody turn me around.” And so we marched around about two more times and sure enough they told us we was under arrest. And back then the jail was so small it had a little place in the back. … That’s where they put 700 of us. We was all on top of each other almost. They let us stood out there about 3 or 4 hours and it was pouring down rain out then. Then they finally let us come in and they booked us. And then sent us different places.
The Baker County [jail] would hold like about 8 or 10 and they put 25 in there. One bed, the mattress was split in the middle and on the floor, the sink was running, the water had wet the mattress. And that was where we had to stay, sit on the floor. … And pray and cry. Every night they would come out with some German shepherd dogs and they would put them all almost two to the window but they had a fence around … and they would make them dogs so mad they would be barking going on and they said, “We ought to be going in there. We ought to open the gate and let these dogs go in there and eat ‘em up. So what they do then?” … Boy, we would sing louder and pray and everything.
When they feed you food, … the peas was so hard you could hardly cut them, couldn’t eat them. Grits the same way. They take the butter and put it right in the middle of the greens and throw the bread right on top of it. …. Grits and bread and peas, black-eyed peas, like that, and we were so tired that we just … I tell you the truth it was rough and tough, but if I had to do it again I would have done that (Mary 1-2).
Dr. Anderson would relate: There was not a major newspaper in the world that was not represented in Albany. Not a major television station in the United States or a television network in the United States that was not represented in Albany. And having been there before Dr. King came and knowing of the activity that we had before Dr. King, and having seen the results of his coming there in terms of the increase in the number of media people present, I know that they came there because Dr. King was there. He was a media event. We felt as though we needed the media attention because we thought that we could not get what we were looking for by appealing to the local people. There would have to be outside pressure, and the only way we could get the outside pressure would be that the media would have to call to the attention of those outside people what was happening in Albany.
…
On Monday morning following these arrests we were carried to the courthouse in Albany, and negotiating teams were identified and charged with the responsibility of meeting with us as leaders of the movement and meeting with members of the City Council to see if we could somehow resolve our differences. And end these mass demonstrations and arrests.
The negotiators reported to us. And I was seated in the court at the time with Dr. King and Dr. Abernathy [;] a tacit agreement had been reached with the city whereby they would set into place mechanisms whereby our concerns would be answered. And certain specific changes would take place in the city. And they included things like desegregation of the bus station. Desegregation of some of the public facilities like lunch counters, the bus station, the train station and some of the other facilities. We asked that this be placed in writing, and Dr. King was quite emphatic with requesting that—that this agreement be placed in writing. But we were given the assurance through the intermediaries that these were honorable people who were making this agreement and it would be given to the press in the form of a statement. And we felt as though there was a certain amount of security in having such an agreement made public knowledge, and being given to what we considered a sympathetic press. And we accepted the agreement. There were some who were uncomfortable with it. Dr. King was uncomfortable with it. Attorney C.B. King was uncomfortable with it. But we all agreed that we—that it was in the best interests of the people of Albany to have the matter resolved and to accept the agreement, with it being publicized.
They reneged 100 percent. Oh, part of the agreement was that—that all of the people who were in jail and there were several hundred in jail at the time, would be permitted to—to post straw bonds—no money—straw bonds. And those who had placed up cash bonds, the money would be returned and these cases would never be brought to trial. They reneged on each and every one of those commitments (Interview 8-9).
King was released on bond the day after his appearance in court and left the city, not to reappear until his trial commenced in February. His departure from Albany … strengthened his claim of wishing to remain a non-factor in continued discussion between the Council and the Movement. Independent of community opinion, King’s actions seem logical, especially given the fact that he had not been aware of the true nature of the settlement. However, King and the SCLC’s lack of understanding regarding community opinion and expectations meant his actions had a much more negative effect on the Movement than either would have thought.
Albany blacks met the settlement with a mixture of anger and disappointment. Worked into a frenzy by King and other leaders, black citizens faced a settlement that failed to reward them for their days in rural Georgian jails. For those who had gone to jail and lost their jobs, the settlement was unacceptable. As Howard Zinn, reporting on Albany for the Southern Regional Council, concluded “many of those jailed for protesting viewed the settlement as ‘pitifully small payment for weeks of protest, for centuries of waiting.’” Few in the community would forget that they had lost their jobs and endured terrible conditions in jail only to be granted petty concessions. This loss of interest and morale severely compromised the Movement’s ability to increase support. Even among the leadership, there was little optimism. As an anonymous leader within the Albany Movement remarked, “It’s nothing to shout to the rafters about.” Few would forget that they had marched to prison with a man who had now bailed out and left town, leaving them in prison with no semblance of progress.
The transition to economic boycotts and selective buying campaigns in the period between King’s release in December and his trial in February demonstrate that black Albany retained interest in fighting segregation, as long as that support did not necessitate arrest. Perhaps the most successful aspect of economic protest revolved around the boycott of the city bus system. Busing was provided by a private company, and blacks comprised an overwhelming majority of those that patronized the service. The boycott hit the bus company hard, with the owners openly admitting that they needed help. They met with members of the city council who, using their influence among wealthy businessmen in town, were able to subsidize the company in order to keep it afloat, to the tune of $3,000 a day. By doing this, the Albany white community signaled that it was willing to pay the price to maintain segregation in Albany.
When Anderson and other leaders brought concerns over transportation desegregation to the City Council, Mayor Kelley brushed aside the requests, asked for ten days to consider it, and then adjourned the meeting. While personally in favor of at least considering some conciliatory reforms, Kelley found no support among other members of the City council, who uniformly opposed any altering of segregation laws, knowing that as long as they refused to yield, the Movement was virtually powerless to stop them. Despite his own personally moderate opinion, Kelley did not allow any semblance of division to reach the press or the black community, realizing that any sign of division would weaken the segregationist cause.
Continued boycotting of the bus system paid off in early February, when the bus company was forced to shut down. Black participation rates, estimated to be over ninety percent, made the boycott quite effective. But the effect of this shutdown was worse for the black community than it was for the white. Wyatt T. Walker [executive director of SCLC] stated: “the bus company went bankrupt, and the black people who made up seventy percent of its ridership were inconvenienced and the Albany Movement had no semblance of victory.” Unlike in Montgomery, Albany leaders had no plans to deal with the logistical difficulties arising from lack of transportation for the community. The protest had hurt the white community, but not to the point of forcing concessions. The wealthy members of the community who sat on the City Council and held economic power were unaffected as a whole as a result of the boycott. Again, blacks were sacrificing without any tangible result.
The boycott against white businesses also proved effective, although not as successful as the bus boycott. Some white businessmen lost over fifty percent of their business as a result of these selective buying campaigns. At city council meetings held over the next few weeks, local merchants responded to the economic pressure by urging members of the city council to accept token reforms, such as integrating the bus system, hoping that if these demands were met, the boycott would cease. Unlike the busing crisis the vocal support of the merchants for race reform represented positive pressure against the City Council. However, desegregation could not happen without a city council vote to change segregation laws, something the council refused to do. In order to bolster support for their decision, council members framed the vote as a defense of the city’s law-making ability. “This is a struggle to decide who makes the policy in this city,” said council member C.B. Pritchett. Criticism from local white merchants continued, but in the end many of the merchants accepted the losses. Pritchett recounts being told by a group of merchants that “we’re losing money, but we know what this is. And we’re going to stand back; we’re not going to put any pressure. Just go ahead.” “This” was a war over segregation and the status quo in Albany. Even though they were hurting economically, the portion of the white community most adversely affected by civil rights protest held the interests of segregation over their own economic success, revealing the solidarity the white community had in fighting segregation. Although the black community participated and supported in large numbers, far larger than had been involved in marches, economic protest would have little tangible effect upon the overall Albany Movement (Nelligan 27-31).
Works cited:
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
“Mary Jones Oral History Interview Conducted by Will Griffin in Albany, GA, 2013-03-09.” Civil Rights History Project. Library of Congress. Web. https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil...
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
When we got to the point that we had this many people in jail… When we had this many people in jail, we had a meeting of the Albany Movement that night and we all recognized that we had no experience in what we were doing. We had never been involved in mass demonstrations, mass arrests. We had no provisions for bonding. No provisions for taking care of families of people who were in jail. And recognize that this was not a select group. These were common, ordinary, everyday people, housewives, cooks, maids, laborers, children out of school. We had made no provisions for these people going to jail because we did not anticipate the mass arrests. So we concluded that night that we are into something that really we need some expert help in someone who has had the experience. And I knew Dr. King from years earlier. Ah, my wife and Dr. King had been high school schoolmates, and my wife's brother and Dr. King were classmates and very close friends at David D. Howard High School here in Atlanta. And I indicated that I felt that I knew Dr. King well enough that if I were to call him he would come down and help us. Needless to say, there was not total agreement initially with issuing this call. Because recognizing that now SNCC was on the scene and by virtue of the Freedom Riders coming through CORE was on the scene, and they did also have established organizations. They wanted to protect the integrity—integrity of those organizations. We also recognize that to the extent that they received some publicity it helped to further their cause and they would be able to raise money to continue their activities. But anyway, we were able to get unanimous decision of the Albany Movement to call in Dr. King. So that night I tracked down Dr. King. I don't remember where he was at the time. But I called him personally. And he— he merely asked of me if this is the desire of all involved. And I said, "Yes it is." And he asked that I send him a telegram to that extent. And I did. … I indicated on the telegram all the organizations that were represented now in the Albany Movement. And, he responded to that call.
… Dr. King, right, he came there with not even an overnight bag or a toothbrush. Responded to my call, And I do not anticipate that he expected to get as intimately involved with the Albany Movement as he did (interview 6).
Accompanied by his close friend Ralph Abernathy, King arrived in Albany [December 15] prepared to deliver a speech to the local population …. The news of King’s arrival packed Shiloh and Mount Zion [Churches]; even people from surrounding towns traveled to Albany to hear the famous preacher speak. King delivered his speech to an enthusiastic audience, emphasizing the strengthening of community resolve. King urged those gathered to “keep moving,” opining that they would overcome segregation “with the power of our capacity to endure.”
After Dr. King spoke, Dr. Anderson took the pulpit and informed the congregation that King would remain in Albany and would lead a march on city hall the next morning. Although not planning on marching in Albany, King claimed he was moved by the spirit he felt in the Albany population. “I cannot rest, I cannot stand idly by, while these people are suffering for us so that we can obtain a better social order.” This ran counter to SCLC executive Andrew Young’s assessment, who noted that “Martin had no intention of going to jail in Albany.”
…
On December 16, 1961, Albany policemen arrested King, Abernathy, Anderson, and 265 Albany residents without incident for parading without a permit in front of city hall. Refusing bail, King vowed to remain in jail until the city made concessions to the Movement’s requests for limited desegregation. However, three days after making this promise, King reneged, as Anderson began suffering severe anxiety attacks, perhaps brought on by his own admitted fear of jail. He absolutely refused bail by himself, and as a result, King accepted bail on December 18 (Nelligan 21-26).
Dr, Anderson recounts: Dr. King and I had met with the masses of people at an early morning rally. By the end of the week there were regular demonstrations going on practically everyday. And Dr. King, Dr. Abernathy, along with my wife led a demonstration that involved several hundreds of people. And we were arrested and dispersed throughout Southwest Georgia (Interview 7).
Interviewed March 9, 2013, for the Civil Rights History Project, Mary Jones spoke of her first arrest and incarceration.
The children [students] had marched first. … [The local newspaper said] “The grownups – they too scared to march so they pushed the children out to do that work. … My oldest daughter was locked up too, 11 years old. …. “No, that aint going to go, So we organized right there to the mass meeting. And who wanted to march? All the hands went up. … We marched … by the old jail … about 700 of us. … The thing that we had to straighten out because they said we sent Martin Luther King to come do our job. We didn’t say for him to come march.
I was in there [jail] from Monday, about 11 o’clock to Thursday when my father came and bond me out. … We was in every jail around here. I went to Baker County jail. … They had the billy club. “Get on in here. You marching.” They had warned us one time: “If you don’t stop that singing and go home, you gonna be locked up.” And we got louder then. “Aint gonna let nobody turn me around.” And so we marched around about two more times and sure enough they told us we was under arrest. And back then the jail was so small it had a little place in the back. … That’s where they put 700 of us. We was all on top of each other almost. They let us stood out there about 3 or 4 hours and it was pouring down rain out then. Then they finally let us come in and they booked us. And then sent us different places.
The Baker County [jail] would hold like about 8 or 10 and they put 25 in there. One bed, the mattress was split in the middle and on the floor, the sink was running, the water had wet the mattress. And that was where we had to stay, sit on the floor. … And pray and cry. Every night they would come out with some German shepherd dogs and they would put them all almost two to the window but they had a fence around … and they would make them dogs so mad they would be barking going on and they said, “We ought to be going in there. We ought to open the gate and let these dogs go in there and eat ‘em up. So what they do then?” … Boy, we would sing louder and pray and everything.
When they feed you food, … the peas was so hard you could hardly cut them, couldn’t eat them. Grits the same way. They take the butter and put it right in the middle of the greens and throw the bread right on top of it. …. Grits and bread and peas, black-eyed peas, like that, and we were so tired that we just … I tell you the truth it was rough and tough, but if I had to do it again I would have done that (Mary 1-2).
Dr. Anderson would relate: There was not a major newspaper in the world that was not represented in Albany. Not a major television station in the United States or a television network in the United States that was not represented in Albany. And having been there before Dr. King came and knowing of the activity that we had before Dr. King, and having seen the results of his coming there in terms of the increase in the number of media people present, I know that they came there because Dr. King was there. He was a media event. We felt as though we needed the media attention because we thought that we could not get what we were looking for by appealing to the local people. There would have to be outside pressure, and the only way we could get the outside pressure would be that the media would have to call to the attention of those outside people what was happening in Albany.
…
On Monday morning following these arrests we were carried to the courthouse in Albany, and negotiating teams were identified and charged with the responsibility of meeting with us as leaders of the movement and meeting with members of the City Council to see if we could somehow resolve our differences. And end these mass demonstrations and arrests.
The negotiators reported to us. And I was seated in the court at the time with Dr. King and Dr. Abernathy [;] a tacit agreement had been reached with the city whereby they would set into place mechanisms whereby our concerns would be answered. And certain specific changes would take place in the city. And they included things like desegregation of the bus station. Desegregation of some of the public facilities like lunch counters, the bus station, the train station and some of the other facilities. We asked that this be placed in writing, and Dr. King was quite emphatic with requesting that—that this agreement be placed in writing. But we were given the assurance through the intermediaries that these were honorable people who were making this agreement and it would be given to the press in the form of a statement. And we felt as though there was a certain amount of security in having such an agreement made public knowledge, and being given to what we considered a sympathetic press. And we accepted the agreement. There were some who were uncomfortable with it. Dr. King was uncomfortable with it. Attorney C.B. King was uncomfortable with it. But we all agreed that we—that it was in the best interests of the people of Albany to have the matter resolved and to accept the agreement, with it being publicized.
They reneged 100 percent. Oh, part of the agreement was that—that all of the people who were in jail and there were several hundred in jail at the time, would be permitted to—to post straw bonds—no money—straw bonds. And those who had placed up cash bonds, the money would be returned and these cases would never be brought to trial. They reneged on each and every one of those commitments (Interview 8-9).
King was released on bond the day after his appearance in court and left the city, not to reappear until his trial commenced in February. His departure from Albany … strengthened his claim of wishing to remain a non-factor in continued discussion between the Council and the Movement. Independent of community opinion, King’s actions seem logical, especially given the fact that he had not been aware of the true nature of the settlement. However, King and the SCLC’s lack of understanding regarding community opinion and expectations meant his actions had a much more negative effect on the Movement than either would have thought.
Albany blacks met the settlement with a mixture of anger and disappointment. Worked into a frenzy by King and other leaders, black citizens faced a settlement that failed to reward them for their days in rural Georgian jails. For those who had gone to jail and lost their jobs, the settlement was unacceptable. As Howard Zinn, reporting on Albany for the Southern Regional Council, concluded “many of those jailed for protesting viewed the settlement as ‘pitifully small payment for weeks of protest, for centuries of waiting.’” Few in the community would forget that they had lost their jobs and endured terrible conditions in jail only to be granted petty concessions. This loss of interest and morale severely compromised the Movement’s ability to increase support. Even among the leadership, there was little optimism. As an anonymous leader within the Albany Movement remarked, “It’s nothing to shout to the rafters about.” Few would forget that they had marched to prison with a man who had now bailed out and left town, leaving them in prison with no semblance of progress.
The transition to economic boycotts and selective buying campaigns in the period between King’s release in December and his trial in February demonstrate that black Albany retained interest in fighting segregation, as long as that support did not necessitate arrest. Perhaps the most successful aspect of economic protest revolved around the boycott of the city bus system. Busing was provided by a private company, and blacks comprised an overwhelming majority of those that patronized the service. The boycott hit the bus company hard, with the owners openly admitting that they needed help. They met with members of the city council who, using their influence among wealthy businessmen in town, were able to subsidize the company in order to keep it afloat, to the tune of $3,000 a day. By doing this, the Albany white community signaled that it was willing to pay the price to maintain segregation in Albany.
When Anderson and other leaders brought concerns over transportation desegregation to the City Council, Mayor Kelley brushed aside the requests, asked for ten days to consider it, and then adjourned the meeting. While personally in favor of at least considering some conciliatory reforms, Kelley found no support among other members of the City council, who uniformly opposed any altering of segregation laws, knowing that as long as they refused to yield, the Movement was virtually powerless to stop them. Despite his own personally moderate opinion, Kelley did not allow any semblance of division to reach the press or the black community, realizing that any sign of division would weaken the segregationist cause.
Continued boycotting of the bus system paid off in early February, when the bus company was forced to shut down. Black participation rates, estimated to be over ninety percent, made the boycott quite effective. But the effect of this shutdown was worse for the black community than it was for the white. Wyatt T. Walker [executive director of SCLC] stated: “the bus company went bankrupt, and the black people who made up seventy percent of its ridership were inconvenienced and the Albany Movement had no semblance of victory.” Unlike in Montgomery, Albany leaders had no plans to deal with the logistical difficulties arising from lack of transportation for the community. The protest had hurt the white community, but not to the point of forcing concessions. The wealthy members of the community who sat on the City Council and held economic power were unaffected as a whole as a result of the boycott. Again, blacks were sacrificing without any tangible result.
The boycott against white businesses also proved effective, although not as successful as the bus boycott. Some white businessmen lost over fifty percent of their business as a result of these selective buying campaigns. At city council meetings held over the next few weeks, local merchants responded to the economic pressure by urging members of the city council to accept token reforms, such as integrating the bus system, hoping that if these demands were met, the boycott would cease. Unlike the busing crisis the vocal support of the merchants for race reform represented positive pressure against the City Council. However, desegregation could not happen without a city council vote to change segregation laws, something the council refused to do. In order to bolster support for their decision, council members framed the vote as a defense of the city’s law-making ability. “This is a struggle to decide who makes the policy in this city,” said council member C.B. Pritchett. Criticism from local white merchants continued, but in the end many of the merchants accepted the losses. Pritchett recounts being told by a group of merchants that “we’re losing money, but we know what this is. And we’re going to stand back; we’re not going to put any pressure. Just go ahead.” “This” was a war over segregation and the status quo in Albany. Even though they were hurting economically, the portion of the white community most adversely affected by civil rights protest held the interests of segregation over their own economic success, revealing the solidarity the white community had in fighting segregation. Although the black community participated and supported in large numbers, far larger than had been involved in marches, economic protest would have little tangible effect upon the overall Albany Movement (Nelligan 27-31).
Works cited:
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
“Mary Jones Oral History Interview Conducted by Will Griffin in Albany, GA, 2013-03-09.” Civil Rights History Project. Library of Congress. Web. https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil...
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
February 3, 2019
Civil Rights Events, Albany Movement -- Filling the Jails
Students at the local Black college, Albany State, were anxious to launch protests against segregation. They were in a rebellious mood toward the conservative campus administration and pushed the college president to address their demands about conditions on campus.
Sherrod and Reagon concluded that it was important to create a mass movement in the regional metropolis before working in the rurals where Black people made up a majority of the population. The duo from SNCC began conversations with students on Albany State’s campus but were quickly kicked out by a nervous school administration. But it was too late, Sherrod wrote, “We delivered the idea that would disrupt the system” (October 4).
Charles Sherrod ... slowly gained the confidence of the people by living with them, working in the community, and giving voice to the aspirations of the people. His work there, along with Charles Jones and Cordell Reagon, was a model of the way an "outside" group works with a community anywhere in the South. Never in a hurry, the task was to lift fear that engulfed the Albany Negroes, continue the momentum of the previous spring, and teach the people what their rights and potentialities might be. The leadership was one of encouragement from the middle, rather than a take charge one (Browning 1).
On November 1, Sherrod and Reagon went to the Greyhound terminal to witness the results of an attempt made by Albany State College students to integrate waiting room facilities.
When the SNCC pair arrived, however, they saw only a small group of Albany policemen, headed by Chief Pritchett. The pair was confused over the lack of student support. The absence of student protestors resulted from a Youth Council decision to postpone the test without informing Sherrod or Reagon. As a result, the SNCC secretaries quietly slipped out of the terminal.
Leaving the station, Sherrod and Reagon found the Albany community in a state of chaos. … The fear of openly defying the status quo of segregation motivated inaction in the community, even among supposed student supporters. Sherrod and Reagon eventually prodded nine students back to the Trailways bus station, but only with intense cajoling. Arriving at the station, the nine students attempted to seat themselves in the white waiting room. Almost immediately, Chief Pritchett ordered the students to disperse. Obeying, the students retreated back to town to confer with Sherrod and Reagon. Though extremely minor by later standards of protest, the students’ attempt to desegregate the station led to widespread black interest in protest activities, even among adults who had previously shunned the methods of the SNCC secretaries. The SNCC workers’ organizing had elicited fear and panic, but the students’ action led to black community support that was otherwise absent. In order to challenge the city from a legal standpoint, the NAACP and other Albany adults agreed to support a test arrest at the station.
Realizing the need to organize the community, the leaders of SNCC, the NAACP, and other groups met on November 17, 1961, to form what became known as the Albany Movement. The Movement selected William G. Anderson, a local doctor, to head the Movement as its president, recommended by C.B. King, a well-respected black lawyer. C.B. King may have been motivated by the fact that Anderson “was a relative newcomer and had not had the opportunity to make a lot of enemies around town” (Nelligan 7-9).
Interviewed in 1985, Dr. Anderson recalled: “A number of the civic and social organizations sort of got together and—and decided all in one night—the people in the community apparently are ready for whatever is happening. We are their leaders. And we are not ready for what the people appear to be ready for. So we decided at that time it would be better for us local leaders to give some direction to whatever is happening than for these outsiders to give that direction. So we decided … then that we representatives of the established civic and social organizations of the city of Albany should bind ourselves together. And we should become a part of what was happening, because the people apparently are ready for a change, and we their leaders have not taken the lead in this endeavor. And so after a good deal of conversation about what shall we call ourselves? And naturally we tossed around all sorts of names, but when the … words ‘Albany Movement’ were spoken it sort of took hold at that time” (Interview 3).
Up to this point, protest in Albany remained limited to actions by students trained and counseled by Sherrod and Reagon. The small scale protest that resulted at the Trailways terminal on November 1 and the ensuing student enthusiasm made many blacks feel obligated to support their own children by joining in on protest activities.
“The kids were going to do it anyway,” local parent and later activist Irene Wright stated. “They were holding their own mass meetings and making plans…we didn’t want them to have to do it alone.” While many black adults favored the legal action and negotiation promulgated by the NAACP to direct positive action, they nevertheless supported SNCC protest because of their children’s involvement in it. As a result, a committee was formed that]“petitioned the City Council to set into place some mechanism…of desegregating the City of Albany,” as well as preparing for more positive action, such as demonstrations and arrests. The support of the parents was important, but there existed a great divide between support and dedication. More reluctant members of the community now supported the Movement. The question now would be whether that support would translate into action.
…
Headed by Mayor Asa Kelley, the City Council had a notable history of ignoring any and every complaint brought before it by the black community. Prior to the Albany Movement, most of these complaints centered around maintenance of public works in African-American communities, such as unpaved streets and sidewalks. The pattern of ignoring black community issues continued, as Anderson’s initial audience with the City Council ended in him being told that the council “determined that there is no common ground for discussion, and did not deem it appropriate to have it as an agenda item.” The next day the local newspaper, the Albany Herald, answered for the white establishment even more emphatically. The paper characterized Anderson as a hothead, and decried any attempt to change the status quo in Albany, going so far as to list Anderson’s address and telephone number for any “interested” party, which would be used by whites to threaten and bother Anderson throughout his time as president of the Albany Movement (Nelligan 10, 12-13).
On November 22, just a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday, three young people from the NAACP youth council and two SNCC volunteers from Albany State were arrested in the Trailways terminal. The NAACP youth council members were released on bond immediately after their arrest. However, SNCC volunteers Bertha Gober and Blanton Hall declined bail and chose to remain in jail over the holidays to dramatize their demand for justice.
After the holiday [November 25], more than 100 Albany State students marched from campus to the courthouse where they protested the arrest of Gober and Hall. A mass meeting–the first in Albany’s history–occurred at Mt. Zion Baptist church to protest the arrests, segregation, and decades of racial discrimination. The music, especially, was powerful, mirroring the Movement that had begun to emerge. Reflecting on this moment, Bernice Johnson Reagon [Cordell Reagon’s future wife] said, “When I opened my mouth and began to sing, there was a force and power within myself I had never heard before. Somehow this music … released a kind of power and required a level of concentrated energy I did not know I had” (Albany 2).
The meeting and the march were held after the SNCC notified the Department of Justice that the city of Albany did not follow the Interstate Commerce Commission ruling which prohibited discrimination in interstate bus and railway stations (Movement 1).
With the community now energized, recently arrived SNCC field secretary Charles Jones met with Sherrod and Reagon to discuss their next move. The challenge faced now by the organizers was how best to maintain the assault upon Albany’s segregation without alienating more cautious and conservative members of the movement, who still favored petitioning the city council. Should SNCC push too hard, they feared being branded as agitators. Community support was not yet so strong as to permit the SNCC members to call for demonstrations that required mass arrests and filling the jail. On the other hand, the men did worry that if they did not push hard enough, the Movement would lose enthusiasm rapidly. Sherrod, Reagon, and Jones decided to appeal for outside support. … The SNCC workers settled on the solution of asking James Forman, executive director of SNCC, to organize a Freedom Ride to Albany in an attempt to raise and maintain community support. Forman agreed, and enlisted eight others to join him in integrating Albany’s interstate terminal. By using the Freedom Riders, Sherrod, Reagon, and Jones hoped to avoid charges of provocation, while maintaining the enthusiasm for protest in the Albany community. …
On December 10, 1961, nine Freedom Riders from Atlanta arrived at the Albany Trailways bus terminal and were met by a crowd of approximately three hundred black onlookers and a squad of Albany policemen. Chief Pritchett arrested the riders without incident, telling the press that white Albany would “not stand for these troublemakers coming into our city for the sole purpose of disturbing the peace and quiet in the city of Albany,” framing the city’s opposition in domestic rather than racial rhetoric. The arrests resulted in the desired galvanization of the black community. The following day, mass meetings filled Shiloh Baptist and Mount Zion Churches. With the continuation of support, movement leaders, specifically the SNCC secretaries, began implementing their ultimate strategy of filling the jail in order to force the city into negotiations (Nelligan 13-14).
That night we had a meeting of the Albany Movement at which time we decided that we would not let these people stay in jail alone, we would fill up the jails. That next morning, at breakfast, I [Dr. Anderson] was advising my wife and my kids that their father and husband would very likely wind up in jail before the week was out, because the Albany Movement had decided that the best way to respond to first ignoring the petition of the Albany Movement, and secondly to arresting these Freedom Riders, the… the most appropriate response would be mass demonstrations. And I said, "I'll probably wind up in jail, and I want you kids to understand why this is being done" (Interview 4).
Leaders called for volunteers to march on city hall the following morning. Privately, Sherrod recognized the importance of getting people into jail and keeping them there, and evidence suggests that he told his closest supporters of this fact. This “jail, no bail” strategy, however, was evidently not shared with the masses assembled in Shiloh and Mount Zion, or even with other members of the movement. Anderson, while fully expecting to be arrested himself, stated “we had no provisions for these people going to jail because we did not anticipate mass arrests.” While Anderson acknowledged the strategy of filling the jails, he also was not prepared for mass arrests. It is likely Anderson believed that few arrests would be necessary in order to completely swamp the jail facilities, and that the arrest of the movement leaders and a few others would compromise the Albany police department’s ability to make arrests. It is unclear how many of those preparing to march were aware that they might be arrested. The last time the black community marched to city hall, the police arrested no one, and it is possible that many assumed that the same would be true.
This is significant because for African Americans living in Albany, and in southwest Georgia in general, arrest and jail represented personal endangerment. Anderson communicated the public opinion of jailing, stating “You have to understand that going to jail was probably one of the most feared things in rural Georgia. There were many blacks who were arrested in small towns in Georgia never to be heard from again… going to jail was no small thing.” Horrible conditions in local jails were well known to many, and it is important that many who agreed to march initially may have done so without preparation for extended stays in jail, which placed strain upon people economically, families especially. … the Movement was poised to test the resolve of the community through a baptism of fire, namely by sending hundreds of supporters to prison.
The following day, over four hundred people marched to city hall in downtown Albany, protesting the arrest of the Freedom Riders. The city gave the marchers permission to circle the block twice, and when the marchers refused to stop after the allotted distance, Pritchett ordered the protestors arrested. Herding the protestors into the alley between police headquarters, Pritchett arrested 267 protestors, including Sherrod and Reagon, and many of their young supporters (Nelligan 15-16).
Dr. Anderson narrated: But on this Monday morning following the arrests on Sunday, we met at a church, and we started a march downtown, and we were going to walk around the courthouse and go back to the church. We made it around the first time and I was at the head of the line with my wife. But after we made it around the first time not getting arrested I went on to my office, but the group went around a second time to make this impression that we are united behind these people that you have unjustly arrested. But the second time around they were arrested. And some 700 were arrested before they stopped (Interview 5).
The Movement continued to hold meetings in Shiloh and Mount Zion, sending two hundred and two protestors to jail the following day. In response to these marches, Pritchett informed the press that “We can’t tolerate the NAACP or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or any other ‘nigger’ organization to take over this town with mass demonstrations.”
Despite almost five hundred arrests since the Freedom Ride, the Albany jail was not full. This presented a problem for the “jail, no bail” strategy of the Movement. Pritchett had not been forced to turn away those whom he had arrested and therefore would not soon be forced into concessions. Pritchett, who had been warned of the possibility of mass marches, had devised a plan to ensure that his jail would never be full. Pritchett planned to use jails in the surrounding counties to house Albany prisoners should their number threaten to swamp his facilities. As he stated, “plans had been made where we had the capability of 10,000 prisoners, and never put one in our city jail.” As Pritchett himself attested, the protestors “were to be shipped out to surrounding cities in a circle…we had fifteen miles, twenty five miles, forty five miles, on up to about seventy miles that we could ship prisoners to.” Pritchett had seen to it that Albany would not be required to pay for the prisoners to be housed in other jails, as local law enforcement had agreed to absorb the cost so as to protect the segregationist cause. Pritchett did insist that his own men police the jails themselves, however, in order to maintain control over Albany prisoners. This maneuver dealt the Movement a significant setback, as no one conceived of Pritchett’s ability to increase his jail capacity this drastically.
For many of those arrested the realization that they were going to jail not in their hometown of Albany but rather in outlying areas such as “Bad” Baker County struck terror into their hearts. Prison conditions were harsh, with jail cells packed to many times their intended capacity. One woman described her cell in the Camilla jail designed to accommodate twenty prisoners being packed with over eighty-eight women. Andrew Young, describing Albany jail conditions as “harrowing,” described jailors refusing to heat the jail in the winter, and raising the heat and closing the windows on hot days. James Forman reported that many of those jailed spent most of their time “wondering when they would get out of jail,” suggesting that the expectation of staying in jail was not one most people were aware of. Some voiced their astonishment when they werearrested. One young woman stated “I didn’t expect to go to jail for kneeling and praying at city hall.” The misery of sitting in jail cells far from home sapped the resolve of many of those who initially agreed to march and risk arrest. Along with the fact that many of those arrested did not expect to be, the mass jailing of Albany blacks presented the Movement with an enormous strategic problem. The infeasibility of filling the Albany jail meant that the basic strategy proposed by SNCC and supported by the Movement could not be successful. While admirable, the suffering of Albany residents in jail accomplished little and represented an exercise in futility. This lack of concrete result would have a profound effect on the consciousness of the Albany African-American community (Nelligan 16-18).
Works cited:
“Albany Movement formed.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/albany...
Browning, Joan C. “Conflicting Memories of the Albany Freedom Ride and Albany Movement: An excerpt from: Who, What, When, Where? — Success or Failure?” Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/comm/00albany.htm
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
“The Albany Movement.” African American Civil Rights Movement. Web. http://www.african-american-civil-rig...
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
“October 1961: SNCC Arrives in Albany.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/sncc-a...
Sherrod and Reagon concluded that it was important to create a mass movement in the regional metropolis before working in the rurals where Black people made up a majority of the population. The duo from SNCC began conversations with students on Albany State’s campus but were quickly kicked out by a nervous school administration. But it was too late, Sherrod wrote, “We delivered the idea that would disrupt the system” (October 4).
Charles Sherrod ... slowly gained the confidence of the people by living with them, working in the community, and giving voice to the aspirations of the people. His work there, along with Charles Jones and Cordell Reagon, was a model of the way an "outside" group works with a community anywhere in the South. Never in a hurry, the task was to lift fear that engulfed the Albany Negroes, continue the momentum of the previous spring, and teach the people what their rights and potentialities might be. The leadership was one of encouragement from the middle, rather than a take charge one (Browning 1).
On November 1, Sherrod and Reagon went to the Greyhound terminal to witness the results of an attempt made by Albany State College students to integrate waiting room facilities.
When the SNCC pair arrived, however, they saw only a small group of Albany policemen, headed by Chief Pritchett. The pair was confused over the lack of student support. The absence of student protestors resulted from a Youth Council decision to postpone the test without informing Sherrod or Reagon. As a result, the SNCC secretaries quietly slipped out of the terminal.
Leaving the station, Sherrod and Reagon found the Albany community in a state of chaos. … The fear of openly defying the status quo of segregation motivated inaction in the community, even among supposed student supporters. Sherrod and Reagon eventually prodded nine students back to the Trailways bus station, but only with intense cajoling. Arriving at the station, the nine students attempted to seat themselves in the white waiting room. Almost immediately, Chief Pritchett ordered the students to disperse. Obeying, the students retreated back to town to confer with Sherrod and Reagon. Though extremely minor by later standards of protest, the students’ attempt to desegregate the station led to widespread black interest in protest activities, even among adults who had previously shunned the methods of the SNCC secretaries. The SNCC workers’ organizing had elicited fear and panic, but the students’ action led to black community support that was otherwise absent. In order to challenge the city from a legal standpoint, the NAACP and other Albany adults agreed to support a test arrest at the station.
Realizing the need to organize the community, the leaders of SNCC, the NAACP, and other groups met on November 17, 1961, to form what became known as the Albany Movement. The Movement selected William G. Anderson, a local doctor, to head the Movement as its president, recommended by C.B. King, a well-respected black lawyer. C.B. King may have been motivated by the fact that Anderson “was a relative newcomer and had not had the opportunity to make a lot of enemies around town” (Nelligan 7-9).
Interviewed in 1985, Dr. Anderson recalled: “A number of the civic and social organizations sort of got together and—and decided all in one night—the people in the community apparently are ready for whatever is happening. We are their leaders. And we are not ready for what the people appear to be ready for. So we decided at that time it would be better for us local leaders to give some direction to whatever is happening than for these outsiders to give that direction. So we decided … then that we representatives of the established civic and social organizations of the city of Albany should bind ourselves together. And we should become a part of what was happening, because the people apparently are ready for a change, and we their leaders have not taken the lead in this endeavor. And so after a good deal of conversation about what shall we call ourselves? And naturally we tossed around all sorts of names, but when the … words ‘Albany Movement’ were spoken it sort of took hold at that time” (Interview 3).
Up to this point, protest in Albany remained limited to actions by students trained and counseled by Sherrod and Reagon. The small scale protest that resulted at the Trailways terminal on November 1 and the ensuing student enthusiasm made many blacks feel obligated to support their own children by joining in on protest activities.
“The kids were going to do it anyway,” local parent and later activist Irene Wright stated. “They were holding their own mass meetings and making plans…we didn’t want them to have to do it alone.” While many black adults favored the legal action and negotiation promulgated by the NAACP to direct positive action, they nevertheless supported SNCC protest because of their children’s involvement in it. As a result, a committee was formed that]“petitioned the City Council to set into place some mechanism…of desegregating the City of Albany,” as well as preparing for more positive action, such as demonstrations and arrests. The support of the parents was important, but there existed a great divide between support and dedication. More reluctant members of the community now supported the Movement. The question now would be whether that support would translate into action.
…
Headed by Mayor Asa Kelley, the City Council had a notable history of ignoring any and every complaint brought before it by the black community. Prior to the Albany Movement, most of these complaints centered around maintenance of public works in African-American communities, such as unpaved streets and sidewalks. The pattern of ignoring black community issues continued, as Anderson’s initial audience with the City Council ended in him being told that the council “determined that there is no common ground for discussion, and did not deem it appropriate to have it as an agenda item.” The next day the local newspaper, the Albany Herald, answered for the white establishment even more emphatically. The paper characterized Anderson as a hothead, and decried any attempt to change the status quo in Albany, going so far as to list Anderson’s address and telephone number for any “interested” party, which would be used by whites to threaten and bother Anderson throughout his time as president of the Albany Movement (Nelligan 10, 12-13).
On November 22, just a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday, three young people from the NAACP youth council and two SNCC volunteers from Albany State were arrested in the Trailways terminal. The NAACP youth council members were released on bond immediately after their arrest. However, SNCC volunteers Bertha Gober and Blanton Hall declined bail and chose to remain in jail over the holidays to dramatize their demand for justice.
After the holiday [November 25], more than 100 Albany State students marched from campus to the courthouse where they protested the arrest of Gober and Hall. A mass meeting–the first in Albany’s history–occurred at Mt. Zion Baptist church to protest the arrests, segregation, and decades of racial discrimination. The music, especially, was powerful, mirroring the Movement that had begun to emerge. Reflecting on this moment, Bernice Johnson Reagon [Cordell Reagon’s future wife] said, “When I opened my mouth and began to sing, there was a force and power within myself I had never heard before. Somehow this music … released a kind of power and required a level of concentrated energy I did not know I had” (Albany 2).
The meeting and the march were held after the SNCC notified the Department of Justice that the city of Albany did not follow the Interstate Commerce Commission ruling which prohibited discrimination in interstate bus and railway stations (Movement 1).
With the community now energized, recently arrived SNCC field secretary Charles Jones met with Sherrod and Reagon to discuss their next move. The challenge faced now by the organizers was how best to maintain the assault upon Albany’s segregation without alienating more cautious and conservative members of the movement, who still favored petitioning the city council. Should SNCC push too hard, they feared being branded as agitators. Community support was not yet so strong as to permit the SNCC members to call for demonstrations that required mass arrests and filling the jail. On the other hand, the men did worry that if they did not push hard enough, the Movement would lose enthusiasm rapidly. Sherrod, Reagon, and Jones decided to appeal for outside support. … The SNCC workers settled on the solution of asking James Forman, executive director of SNCC, to organize a Freedom Ride to Albany in an attempt to raise and maintain community support. Forman agreed, and enlisted eight others to join him in integrating Albany’s interstate terminal. By using the Freedom Riders, Sherrod, Reagon, and Jones hoped to avoid charges of provocation, while maintaining the enthusiasm for protest in the Albany community. …
On December 10, 1961, nine Freedom Riders from Atlanta arrived at the Albany Trailways bus terminal and were met by a crowd of approximately three hundred black onlookers and a squad of Albany policemen. Chief Pritchett arrested the riders without incident, telling the press that white Albany would “not stand for these troublemakers coming into our city for the sole purpose of disturbing the peace and quiet in the city of Albany,” framing the city’s opposition in domestic rather than racial rhetoric. The arrests resulted in the desired galvanization of the black community. The following day, mass meetings filled Shiloh Baptist and Mount Zion Churches. With the continuation of support, movement leaders, specifically the SNCC secretaries, began implementing their ultimate strategy of filling the jail in order to force the city into negotiations (Nelligan 13-14).
That night we had a meeting of the Albany Movement at which time we decided that we would not let these people stay in jail alone, we would fill up the jails. That next morning, at breakfast, I [Dr. Anderson] was advising my wife and my kids that their father and husband would very likely wind up in jail before the week was out, because the Albany Movement had decided that the best way to respond to first ignoring the petition of the Albany Movement, and secondly to arresting these Freedom Riders, the… the most appropriate response would be mass demonstrations. And I said, "I'll probably wind up in jail, and I want you kids to understand why this is being done" (Interview 4).
Leaders called for volunteers to march on city hall the following morning. Privately, Sherrod recognized the importance of getting people into jail and keeping them there, and evidence suggests that he told his closest supporters of this fact. This “jail, no bail” strategy, however, was evidently not shared with the masses assembled in Shiloh and Mount Zion, or even with other members of the movement. Anderson, while fully expecting to be arrested himself, stated “we had no provisions for these people going to jail because we did not anticipate mass arrests.” While Anderson acknowledged the strategy of filling the jails, he also was not prepared for mass arrests. It is likely Anderson believed that few arrests would be necessary in order to completely swamp the jail facilities, and that the arrest of the movement leaders and a few others would compromise the Albany police department’s ability to make arrests. It is unclear how many of those preparing to march were aware that they might be arrested. The last time the black community marched to city hall, the police arrested no one, and it is possible that many assumed that the same would be true.
This is significant because for African Americans living in Albany, and in southwest Georgia in general, arrest and jail represented personal endangerment. Anderson communicated the public opinion of jailing, stating “You have to understand that going to jail was probably one of the most feared things in rural Georgia. There were many blacks who were arrested in small towns in Georgia never to be heard from again… going to jail was no small thing.” Horrible conditions in local jails were well known to many, and it is important that many who agreed to march initially may have done so without preparation for extended stays in jail, which placed strain upon people economically, families especially. … the Movement was poised to test the resolve of the community through a baptism of fire, namely by sending hundreds of supporters to prison.
The following day, over four hundred people marched to city hall in downtown Albany, protesting the arrest of the Freedom Riders. The city gave the marchers permission to circle the block twice, and when the marchers refused to stop after the allotted distance, Pritchett ordered the protestors arrested. Herding the protestors into the alley between police headquarters, Pritchett arrested 267 protestors, including Sherrod and Reagon, and many of their young supporters (Nelligan 15-16).
Dr. Anderson narrated: But on this Monday morning following the arrests on Sunday, we met at a church, and we started a march downtown, and we were going to walk around the courthouse and go back to the church. We made it around the first time and I was at the head of the line with my wife. But after we made it around the first time not getting arrested I went on to my office, but the group went around a second time to make this impression that we are united behind these people that you have unjustly arrested. But the second time around they were arrested. And some 700 were arrested before they stopped (Interview 5).
The Movement continued to hold meetings in Shiloh and Mount Zion, sending two hundred and two protestors to jail the following day. In response to these marches, Pritchett informed the press that “We can’t tolerate the NAACP or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or any other ‘nigger’ organization to take over this town with mass demonstrations.”
Despite almost five hundred arrests since the Freedom Ride, the Albany jail was not full. This presented a problem for the “jail, no bail” strategy of the Movement. Pritchett had not been forced to turn away those whom he had arrested and therefore would not soon be forced into concessions. Pritchett, who had been warned of the possibility of mass marches, had devised a plan to ensure that his jail would never be full. Pritchett planned to use jails in the surrounding counties to house Albany prisoners should their number threaten to swamp his facilities. As he stated, “plans had been made where we had the capability of 10,000 prisoners, and never put one in our city jail.” As Pritchett himself attested, the protestors “were to be shipped out to surrounding cities in a circle…we had fifteen miles, twenty five miles, forty five miles, on up to about seventy miles that we could ship prisoners to.” Pritchett had seen to it that Albany would not be required to pay for the prisoners to be housed in other jails, as local law enforcement had agreed to absorb the cost so as to protect the segregationist cause. Pritchett did insist that his own men police the jails themselves, however, in order to maintain control over Albany prisoners. This maneuver dealt the Movement a significant setback, as no one conceived of Pritchett’s ability to increase his jail capacity this drastically.
For many of those arrested the realization that they were going to jail not in their hometown of Albany but rather in outlying areas such as “Bad” Baker County struck terror into their hearts. Prison conditions were harsh, with jail cells packed to many times their intended capacity. One woman described her cell in the Camilla jail designed to accommodate twenty prisoners being packed with over eighty-eight women. Andrew Young, describing Albany jail conditions as “harrowing,” described jailors refusing to heat the jail in the winter, and raising the heat and closing the windows on hot days. James Forman reported that many of those jailed spent most of their time “wondering when they would get out of jail,” suggesting that the expectation of staying in jail was not one most people were aware of. Some voiced their astonishment when they werearrested. One young woman stated “I didn’t expect to go to jail for kneeling and praying at city hall.” The misery of sitting in jail cells far from home sapped the resolve of many of those who initially agreed to march and risk arrest. Along with the fact that many of those arrested did not expect to be, the mass jailing of Albany blacks presented the Movement with an enormous strategic problem. The infeasibility of filling the Albany jail meant that the basic strategy proposed by SNCC and supported by the Movement could not be successful. While admirable, the suffering of Albany residents in jail accomplished little and represented an exercise in futility. This lack of concrete result would have a profound effect on the consciousness of the Albany African-American community (Nelligan 16-18).
Works cited:
“Albany Movement formed.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/albany...
Browning, Joan C. “Conflicting Memories of the Albany Freedom Ride and Albany Movement: An excerpt from: Who, What, When, Where? — Success or Failure?” Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/comm/00albany.htm
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
“The Albany Movement.” African American Civil Rights Movement. Web. http://www.african-american-civil-rig...
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
“October 1961: SNCC Arrives in Albany.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/sncc-a...
January 27, 2019
Civil Rights -- Albany Movement -- SNCC Comes to Town
By 1961 SNCC, still practically brand new, was trying to craft its identity and find its footing following the sit-in movement. Some wanted to keep with the tradition of the sit-ins and focus the organization’s energies on nonviolent direct action. Others wanted to focus on voter registration, especially in the Black Belt, where disenfranchised Blacks made up the majority of the population. Despite intense internal debates, there was a broad consensus among activists that, in the words of James Forman, it was “important then to just do, to act, as a means of overcoming the lethargy and hopelessness of so many Black people.” Rather than establish rigid definitions of goals and tactics, “it seemed best then to experiment and learn and experiment some more.”
W.E.B. DuBois described Southwest Georgia as “a great fertile land, luxuriant with forests of pine, oak, ash, hickory, and poplar, hot with the sun and damp with the rich black swampland; and here the Cotton Kingdom was laid.” It was as violent and resistant to civil rights as Mississippi. With names like “Terrible Terrell,” “Unbearable Baker,” and “Unworthy Worth,” the counties of Southwest Georgia were notorious strongholds of white supremacy and the oppression of Black people. Carolyn Daniels, a beautician who housed SNCC workers, remembers growing up in Terrell County and hearing stories about people she knew getting beaten and lynched.
In the middle of the region sat Albany, a city of 60,000 and roughly 40% Black. Albany tried to cultivate an image distinct from the racial violence that characterized the counties that surrounded it. The city was still racially segregated, however, and Black residents were often subjected to humiliation at the hands of whites (October 1-2).
Doctor William Anderson, president of the Albany Movement, interviewed by Eyes on the Prize, characterized Albany as a semi-rural community with a lot of the industry at least in part dependent upon farming. There was very little industry. It was a rather close-knit town in that people knew each other. It was a totally segregated town. Blacks held no positions in any of the stores downtown as salespersons, clerks or what have you. Of course, there were no black policemen, blacks held no political office. As a matter of fact they weren't even called blacks. They were called negroes by the ones who were more liberal and benevolent, and they were called more unsavory things by others. You couldn't say that it was a community where you could experience racial harmony. The interplay or interaction was non-existent. And most of the people who had lived in Albany all of their lives had sort of come to accept things as they were. Or at least there was no outward expression of opposition to things as they were. So Albany was not unlike thousands of other towns of that size or smaller, dotted throughout the south, where you had a total segregation of the—of the races. You had a community that was, that primarily was dependent upon the farm industry to some extent or another. You had a community that blacks who were employed were employed in the service industries with very few professionals. The only professionals you could find would be school teachers, ministers and very few doctors. At the time that the Albany Movement started there was fortunately a black lawyer. This was a rarity of course in a town of that size in Georgia (Interview 1).
Albany was just as violent as other, better known areas, such as southern Mississippi, which Ralph Abernathy would characterize as the worst area for race relations in America. Chief of Police Laurie Pritchett admitted that rampant Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party activity existed in the area surrounding Albany. … Comparing it to his own hometown of Thomasville, Georgia, Andrew Young attested that “Albany was one of the reasons black folk in Thomasville hadn’t complained too much- they had only to Albany to consider their own status bearable.” Contrary to popular depiction, it is clear that Albany did not represent an anomaly in regards to the violence of the Deep South. If anything, it represented a stellar example of violent repression, as Birmingham and Selma would later become.
Cordell Reagon and Charles Sherrod descended into this environment in October of 1961. Neither man was from Georgia, hailing from Nashville, Tennessee and Petersburg, Virginia, respectively. Both were Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) field secretaries, dispatched to begin voter registration and civil rights work in the area (Nelligan 3-4).
In June 1961, Sherrod became SNCC’s first full-time field secretary. When the sit-in began, Sherrod was a student of religion at Virginia Union University, thirty miles away from his home in Petersburg. He helped staged local sit-ins at department stores in Richmond. He participated in SNCC’s founding conference, and after being arrested in Rock Hill, South Carolina with fellow student activists Diane Nash, Ruby Doris Smith, and Charles Jones, they pioneered SNCC’s Jail-No-Bail strategy, serving out the full 30-day sentence (Charles 1).
Reagon was a 16-year-old high school student in Nashville, Tennessee when he impulsively joined a SNCC march in his city, simply because it “looked exciting.” His hasty decision grew into a life-time commitment to SNCC’s organizing efforts. … Reagon was stewarded into SNCC’s field organizing by James Forman. His first assignment was working with Bob Moses on voter registration efforts in McComb, Mississippi. Soon after, he joined Charles Sherrod’s organizing in Albany, Georgia. SNCC workers referred to Reagon as “the baby of the Movement” when he became SNCC’s youngest staff member in 1961 (Cordell 1).
Sherrod and Reagon began their work in surrounding counties, attempting to register the large number of African-Americans living there, as well as bolster community support. However, the two found the nearby areas of “Terrible” Terrell and “Bad” Baker counties too hostile for voter registration work, resulting in a move back to Albany in late October. Hoping to capitalize on the resentment of segregation and “a lot of brutality from police going on,” the two began tapping into the community. Sherrod explained their strategy: “We would go into a town and find out where the children hung out, the high school kids, the college kids. And find out what was happening…what was the main issue in the various communities. …After observing that, [we would] move the young people toward that, and deal with it.” The presence of Albany State College encouraged the SNCC activists who believed that the student population would help form a solid base for their activities.
Luckily for SNCC, Sherrod and Reagon found a number of students receptive to their message at the College. Many of these students had been previously involved in the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Youth Council. The SNCC secretaries began holding meetings to teach nonviolent principles to young students and to encourage voter registration. From the beginning, the two made clear their desire to build a movement with its “strength…in the people.” As in many communities across the South, voter registration proved difficult. The registrar had a habit of taking lunch breaks for days at a time, and upon returning, enjoyed quizzing African-American applicants on complex sections of the Constitution. At times, his questions strayed from the material. Rev. Horace C. Boyd remembers being asked to name how many bubbles were on a bar of soap. Through conscious effort, the white establishment sought to keep African-Americans disenfranchised and politically impotent. Despite this, civil rights activities found initial support among some local students.
In contrast to their reception among the young, the arrival of the SNCC activist elicited a far chillier response from the black adult community. Sherrod attributed the less than welcoming environment to rampant fear. People “didn’t want to be connected to us in any way.” Revealing the attitude many African-American adults held, Dr. William G. Anderson, a local osteopath, stated the SNCC secretaries “infiltrated the community” (Nelligan 4-6).
Years later in an interview Anderson was measured in his characterization of Sherrod.
Charlie looked like the typical college kid, who had been caught up with the excitement of the time. He was very dedicated, very well motivated and nothing would suit him better than to make a reputation for himself and his organization and Albany looked like the perfect place to do that.
I believe collectively that was our reaction. He was received very well. He was a very dynamic individual—presented himself very well, spoke fluently, and I think the community at large kind of perceived him as a person who was assuming a position in life that would somehow enough somehow sooner or later make an indelible imprint not only on Albany, but on the nation, He seemed to be destined for that (Interview 2).
Sherrod and Reagon did little to assuage the worry of the African-American community, openly declaring their intention to turn the town on its head. The local chapter of the NAACP “regarded the coming of SNCC with horror,” viewing Sherrod’s and Reagon’s actions as a challenge to their more conservative, legal-based methods of civil rights protest and local control. NAACP leader Thomas Chatmon’s apparently unfounded assertion that Sherrod and Reagon were communists led other members of the community to express their discomfort with having the two SNCC workers in Albany. Wild claims of communist sympathies and suicidal demonstration tactics suggest that many adult members of the [black] community felt uncomfortable with SNCC’s presence in Albany. Far from garnering a broad base of community support, the SNCC secretaries were alienating key members of the black community due to their openly disruptive tactics (Nelligan 6).
The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee volunteer's vision of racial inclusion seemed so radical that many blacks in town literally were afraid to come close to him. "Albany was the kind of town where everybody knew their place," Sherrod said. "Black people were afraid to talk to me. Some were even so fearful that if I was walking on one side of the street, they would go on the other side" (Fletcher 1).
Despite opposition from adults, student support for Sherrod and Reagon grew slowly. As this support spread, the SNCC secretaries began planning the first direct challenge to segregation in Albany. Both men agreed to test the Interstate Commerce Commission’s ruling banning segregation in interstate bus terminals, which was to go into effect November 1, 1961. Along with the approval of the Youth Council, the test plan called for Sherrod and Reagon to test the bus terminals’ facilities. Albany students would integrate the waiting rooms when interstate travelers disembarked (Nellligan 7).
Works cited:
“Charles Sherrod.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/people/charle...
“Cordell Reagon.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/people/cordel...
Fletcher, Michael A. “Vetrerans of the Movement Find Time Outstripping Its Gains.” The Washington Post. July 17, 1996. Web. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archiv...
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
Morgan, Thad. “How Freedom Rider Diane Nash Risked Her Life to Desegregate the South.” History. March 8, 2018. Web. https://www.history.com/news/diane-na....
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
“October 1961: SNCC Arrives in Albany.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/sncc-a...
W.E.B. DuBois described Southwest Georgia as “a great fertile land, luxuriant with forests of pine, oak, ash, hickory, and poplar, hot with the sun and damp with the rich black swampland; and here the Cotton Kingdom was laid.” It was as violent and resistant to civil rights as Mississippi. With names like “Terrible Terrell,” “Unbearable Baker,” and “Unworthy Worth,” the counties of Southwest Georgia were notorious strongholds of white supremacy and the oppression of Black people. Carolyn Daniels, a beautician who housed SNCC workers, remembers growing up in Terrell County and hearing stories about people she knew getting beaten and lynched.
In the middle of the region sat Albany, a city of 60,000 and roughly 40% Black. Albany tried to cultivate an image distinct from the racial violence that characterized the counties that surrounded it. The city was still racially segregated, however, and Black residents were often subjected to humiliation at the hands of whites (October 1-2).
Doctor William Anderson, president of the Albany Movement, interviewed by Eyes on the Prize, characterized Albany as a semi-rural community with a lot of the industry at least in part dependent upon farming. There was very little industry. It was a rather close-knit town in that people knew each other. It was a totally segregated town. Blacks held no positions in any of the stores downtown as salespersons, clerks or what have you. Of course, there were no black policemen, blacks held no political office. As a matter of fact they weren't even called blacks. They were called negroes by the ones who were more liberal and benevolent, and they were called more unsavory things by others. You couldn't say that it was a community where you could experience racial harmony. The interplay or interaction was non-existent. And most of the people who had lived in Albany all of their lives had sort of come to accept things as they were. Or at least there was no outward expression of opposition to things as they were. So Albany was not unlike thousands of other towns of that size or smaller, dotted throughout the south, where you had a total segregation of the—of the races. You had a community that was, that primarily was dependent upon the farm industry to some extent or another. You had a community that blacks who were employed were employed in the service industries with very few professionals. The only professionals you could find would be school teachers, ministers and very few doctors. At the time that the Albany Movement started there was fortunately a black lawyer. This was a rarity of course in a town of that size in Georgia (Interview 1).
Albany was just as violent as other, better known areas, such as southern Mississippi, which Ralph Abernathy would characterize as the worst area for race relations in America. Chief of Police Laurie Pritchett admitted that rampant Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party activity existed in the area surrounding Albany. … Comparing it to his own hometown of Thomasville, Georgia, Andrew Young attested that “Albany was one of the reasons black folk in Thomasville hadn’t complained too much- they had only to Albany to consider their own status bearable.” Contrary to popular depiction, it is clear that Albany did not represent an anomaly in regards to the violence of the Deep South. If anything, it represented a stellar example of violent repression, as Birmingham and Selma would later become.
Cordell Reagon and Charles Sherrod descended into this environment in October of 1961. Neither man was from Georgia, hailing from Nashville, Tennessee and Petersburg, Virginia, respectively. Both were Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) field secretaries, dispatched to begin voter registration and civil rights work in the area (Nelligan 3-4).
In June 1961, Sherrod became SNCC’s first full-time field secretary. When the sit-in began, Sherrod was a student of religion at Virginia Union University, thirty miles away from his home in Petersburg. He helped staged local sit-ins at department stores in Richmond. He participated in SNCC’s founding conference, and after being arrested in Rock Hill, South Carolina with fellow student activists Diane Nash, Ruby Doris Smith, and Charles Jones, they pioneered SNCC’s Jail-No-Bail strategy, serving out the full 30-day sentence (Charles 1).
Reagon was a 16-year-old high school student in Nashville, Tennessee when he impulsively joined a SNCC march in his city, simply because it “looked exciting.” His hasty decision grew into a life-time commitment to SNCC’s organizing efforts. … Reagon was stewarded into SNCC’s field organizing by James Forman. His first assignment was working with Bob Moses on voter registration efforts in McComb, Mississippi. Soon after, he joined Charles Sherrod’s organizing in Albany, Georgia. SNCC workers referred to Reagon as “the baby of the Movement” when he became SNCC’s youngest staff member in 1961 (Cordell 1).
Sherrod and Reagon began their work in surrounding counties, attempting to register the large number of African-Americans living there, as well as bolster community support. However, the two found the nearby areas of “Terrible” Terrell and “Bad” Baker counties too hostile for voter registration work, resulting in a move back to Albany in late October. Hoping to capitalize on the resentment of segregation and “a lot of brutality from police going on,” the two began tapping into the community. Sherrod explained their strategy: “We would go into a town and find out where the children hung out, the high school kids, the college kids. And find out what was happening…what was the main issue in the various communities. …After observing that, [we would] move the young people toward that, and deal with it.” The presence of Albany State College encouraged the SNCC activists who believed that the student population would help form a solid base for their activities.
Luckily for SNCC, Sherrod and Reagon found a number of students receptive to their message at the College. Many of these students had been previously involved in the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Youth Council. The SNCC secretaries began holding meetings to teach nonviolent principles to young students and to encourage voter registration. From the beginning, the two made clear their desire to build a movement with its “strength…in the people.” As in many communities across the South, voter registration proved difficult. The registrar had a habit of taking lunch breaks for days at a time, and upon returning, enjoyed quizzing African-American applicants on complex sections of the Constitution. At times, his questions strayed from the material. Rev. Horace C. Boyd remembers being asked to name how many bubbles were on a bar of soap. Through conscious effort, the white establishment sought to keep African-Americans disenfranchised and politically impotent. Despite this, civil rights activities found initial support among some local students.
In contrast to their reception among the young, the arrival of the SNCC activist elicited a far chillier response from the black adult community. Sherrod attributed the less than welcoming environment to rampant fear. People “didn’t want to be connected to us in any way.” Revealing the attitude many African-American adults held, Dr. William G. Anderson, a local osteopath, stated the SNCC secretaries “infiltrated the community” (Nelligan 4-6).
Years later in an interview Anderson was measured in his characterization of Sherrod.
Charlie looked like the typical college kid, who had been caught up with the excitement of the time. He was very dedicated, very well motivated and nothing would suit him better than to make a reputation for himself and his organization and Albany looked like the perfect place to do that.
I believe collectively that was our reaction. He was received very well. He was a very dynamic individual—presented himself very well, spoke fluently, and I think the community at large kind of perceived him as a person who was assuming a position in life that would somehow enough somehow sooner or later make an indelible imprint not only on Albany, but on the nation, He seemed to be destined for that (Interview 2).
Sherrod and Reagon did little to assuage the worry of the African-American community, openly declaring their intention to turn the town on its head. The local chapter of the NAACP “regarded the coming of SNCC with horror,” viewing Sherrod’s and Reagon’s actions as a challenge to their more conservative, legal-based methods of civil rights protest and local control. NAACP leader Thomas Chatmon’s apparently unfounded assertion that Sherrod and Reagon were communists led other members of the community to express their discomfort with having the two SNCC workers in Albany. Wild claims of communist sympathies and suicidal demonstration tactics suggest that many adult members of the [black] community felt uncomfortable with SNCC’s presence in Albany. Far from garnering a broad base of community support, the SNCC secretaries were alienating key members of the black community due to their openly disruptive tactics (Nelligan 6).
The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee volunteer's vision of racial inclusion seemed so radical that many blacks in town literally were afraid to come close to him. "Albany was the kind of town where everybody knew their place," Sherrod said. "Black people were afraid to talk to me. Some were even so fearful that if I was walking on one side of the street, they would go on the other side" (Fletcher 1).
Despite opposition from adults, student support for Sherrod and Reagon grew slowly. As this support spread, the SNCC secretaries began planning the first direct challenge to segregation in Albany. Both men agreed to test the Interstate Commerce Commission’s ruling banning segregation in interstate bus terminals, which was to go into effect November 1, 1961. Along with the approval of the Youth Council, the test plan called for Sherrod and Reagon to test the bus terminals’ facilities. Albany students would integrate the waiting rooms when interstate travelers disembarked (Nellligan 7).
Works cited:
“Charles Sherrod.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/people/charle...
“Cordell Reagon.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/people/cordel...
Fletcher, Michael A. “Vetrerans of the Movement Find Time Outstripping Its Gains.” The Washington Post. July 17, 1996. Web. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archiv...
“Interview with Dr. William Anderson.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. November 7, 1985. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...
Morgan, Thad. “How Freedom Rider Diane Nash Risked Her Life to Desegregate the South.” History. March 8, 2018. Web. https://www.history.com/news/diane-na....
Nelligan, Brendan Kevin. “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.” Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence. Fall 2009. Web. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu...
“October 1961: SNCC Arrives in Albany.” SNCC Digital Gateway. Web. https://snccdigital.org/events/sncc-a...
January 20, 2019
Civil Rights -- Freedom Rides -- Jackson, Mississippi, Parchman State Prison
Robert Kennedy was a close friend of Governor John Patterson of Alabama. I had this long relationship with John Patterson …. He was our great pal in the South. So he was doubly exercised at me – who was his friend and pal – to have involved him with suddenly surrounding this church with marshals and having marshals descend with no authority, he felt, on his cities… He couldn’t understand why the Kennedys were doing this to him.” (Simkin 7).
Recognizing that previous and new Freedom Riders were adamant about traveling by bus to Jackson, Mississippi, the next city along the original route that ended at New Orleans, Kennedy, talking over the telephone “seven or eight or twelve times each day” (Simkin 8), with Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland, reached a deal. Kennedy would use no federal forces if Eastland would ensure that the Riders would not suffer mob violence.
Interviewed in 1998, James Farmer, director of CORE, said this about the Kennedys.
The Kennedys meant well, but they did not feel it. They didn't know any blacks growing up - there were no blacks in their communities or going to their schools. But their inclinations were good. I had the impression in those years that Bobby was doing what had to be done for political reasons. He was very conscious of the fact that they had won a narrow election and he was afraid that if they antagonized the South, the Dixiecrats would cost them the next election. And he was found to be very, very cautious and very careful not to do that. But we changed the equation down there, so it became dangerous for him not to do anything (Simkin 9).
Two buses, a Greyhound and a Trailways, departed Montgomery for Jackson, Mississippi, May 24. Rider William Mahoney, a nineteen-year-old black student at Howard University, observed:
Once across the (Mississippi) state line we passed a couple of police cars, which began to follow us. At our first stop the station was cordoned off a block in every direction. A police officer jumped on the bus and forbade anyone to move. One woman, who was a regular passenger, frantically tried to convince the police that she was not involved with us. After checking her ticket the police let her get off.
As we rolled toward Jackson, every blocked-off street, every back road taken, every change in speed caused our hearts to leap. Our arrival and speedy arrest in the white bus station in Jackson, when we refused to obey a policeman's order to move on, was a relief (Simkin 10).
They were given good protection as they entered the state, and no mob greeted them at the Jackson bus terminal. "As we walked through, the police just said, `Keep moving' and let us go through the white side," recalled Frederick Leonard. "We never got stopped. They just said `Keep moving,' and they passed us right on through the white terminal into the paddy wagon and into jail" (Cozzens 12).
Peter Ackerberg, white, 22, Antioch College student, interviewed years later, recalled his motivation and experience.
While he’d always talked a “big radical game,” he had never acted on his convictions. “What am I going to tell my children when they ask me about this time?” he recalled thinking. Boarding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, “I was pretty scared … The black guys and girls were singing....They were so spirited and so unafraid. They were really prepared to risk their lives.” Today, Ackerberg recalls acquiescing and saying “sir” to a jail official who was “pounding a blackjack.” Soon after, “I could hear the blackjack strike [rider C.T. Vivian’s] head and him shrieking; I don’t think he ever said ‘sir.’”
When activists arrived at the Jackson bus depot, police arrested blacks who refused to heed orders to stay out of white restrooms or vacate the white waiting room. And whites were arrested if they used “colored” facilities. Officials charged the riders with breach of peace, rather than breaking segregation laws. Freedom Riders responded with a strategy they called “jail, no bail”—a deliberate effort to clog the penal facilities
The dehumanizing process started as soon as we got there,” said Hank Thomas, [black, 19] a Marriott hotel franchise owner in Atlanta, who was then a sophomore at Howard University in Washington, D.C. “We were told to strip naked and then walked down this long corridor.... I’ll never forget [CORE director] Jim Farmer, a very dignified man ...walking down this long corridor naked...that is dehumanizing. And that was the whole point.” (Holmes 2-4).
The May 24 Freedom Riders were at the mercy of the local courts. On May 25, they were tried. As their attorney defended them, the judge turned his back. Once the attorney finished, he turned around and sentenced them to 60 days in the state penitentiary.
Using buses, planes, and trains, more Freedom Riders arrived in Jackson to continue the Freedom Ride, and they were arrested to, not under local or state segregation laws, but on charges of incitement to riot, breach of peace and failure to obey a police officer. Freedom Riders continued to arrive in the South, and by the end of the summer, more than 300 had been arrested (Cozzens 13).
Convicted of violating the law, each Rider was fined $200. Refusal to pay the fine brought each individual a sentence of 90 days in jail.
In an effort to intimidate the marchers, Mississippi officials transferred the now nearly one hundred men and women freedom riders to the state penitentiary at Parchman where they were subject to beatings and inedible food and repeatedly strip searched. Prison officials confiscated the blankets and mattresses of all of the activists. When other demonstrators arrived in Jackson they were also arrested and sent to Parchman where they faced similar conditions (Mack 3).
Jean Thompson, then a 19-year-old CORE worker, said she was one of the riders slapped by a penal official for failing to call him “sir.” An FBI investigation into the incident concluded that “no one was beaten …. “That said a lot to me about what actually happens in this country. It was eye-opening.” When prisoners were transferred from one facility to another, unexplained stops on remote dirt roads or the sight of curious onlookers peering into the transport trucks heightened fears. “We imagined every horror including an ambush by the KKK,” [said] rider Carol Silver …. To keep up their spirits, the prisoners sang freedom songs (Holmes 5).
The reputation of Parchman is that it’s a place that a lot of people get sent...and don’t come back,” former Freedom Rider Carol Ruth [later] told (Oprah] Winfrey. … The struggles of the Freedom Riders garnered nationwide publicity. Rather than intimidate other activists, however, the brutality the riders encountered inspired others to take up the cause. Before long, dozens of Americans were volunteering to travel on Freedom Rides. In the end, an estimated 436 people took such rides (Nittle 2).
One such individual was Pauline Knight. Part of the May 28 wave of Freedom Riders from the Nashville Student Movement, Pauline … escaped the violence of the earlier rides. Pauline Knight was a 20-year-old Tennessee State student when she was arrested in Jackson, MS. After being transferred to Hinds County Jail, she led a brief hunger strike among the female Riders.
"I got up one morning in May and I said to my folks at home, ‘I won't be back today because I am a Freedom Rider. … It was like a wave or a wind, and you didn't know where it was coming from but you knew you were supposed to be there. Nobody asked me, nobody told me."
Another individual was Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. A 19-year-old white Duke University student and part-time secretary in the Washington office of Senator Clair Engle of California, Joan Trumpauer arrived in Jackson, MS by train from New Orleans, LA as part of the June 4, 1961 Mississippi Freedom Ride.
The group was promptly ushered by Jackson police to a waiting paddy wagon; all nine Riders refused bail. Trumpauer was transferred to Parchman State Prison Farm.
In her interview for Freedom Riders, she recalls the harrowing conditions at Parchman, which included forced vaginal examinations used as a tactic to humiliate and terrorize female prisoners (Meet 6-7).
Out of her experience as a Freedom Rider, it is the memory of the rabbi who faithfully visited the jail that still moves her today. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland of Arlington, Va., joined the rides just in time for the fill-the-jails strategy in Mississippi. Volunteers from across the country began arriving in the South in waves and getting arrested, thus burdening the criminal justice system and bringing more focus to their cause. More than 300 riders were jailed that summer. Mulholland spent three months in jail, much of it at Mississippi’s Parchman Prison.
“We were down, we calculated, to less than three square feet of floor space for the prisoners in the white women’s cells,” she said. “That’s pretty crowded; that means you have to sleep underneath the bunks and things.”
Perry Nussbaum, a rabbi in the Jackson area, drove in weekly, like clockwork, to visit the riders, said Mulholland. This was no small gesture during that time and place, she says, pointing out that his routine made him an easy target for the Ku Klux Klan members who probably were watching.
Nussbaum would ask riders to call out their jail cell numbers if they wanted him to pray with them, and Mulholland always took him up on the offer. “He would start praying in Hebrew and get a nice cadence going, and sort of lull the guards, and then he would slip in little tidbits of news, like what was happening in the world, and baseball scores and stuff. And then he’d slip back to Hebrew,” she said. He would also write to their parents letting them know how the riders were faring.
She also recalls an underground network of church women in Jackson who secretly collected money to help the imprisoned riders purchase necessities such as shower shoes and toiletries.
A few years later, there was the moment of kindness from a hairdresser in Jackson who walked Mulholland and other women over to her salon to give them a shampoo after patrons had covered the demonstrators with condiments and spray paint during a Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in in 1963.
“There were always people who were supporting you,” she said, “people to drive you down to the demonstrations and take you back . . . as crucial as those out there demonstrating, and usually more numerous.”
A retired teaching assistant for Arlington Public Schools, Mulholland hopes the new monument will remind Americans of the power in organizing for change (Colvin 11-15).
Notable riders who did time at Parchman included James Farmer, John Lewis, Catherine Burks, Bernard Lafayette Jr., Frederick Leonard, Henry “Hank” Thomas, James Bevel, David Dennis, David Paul, James Lawson, Doris Jean Castle, and John Moody.
Though the Freedom Rides dramatically demonstrated that some Southern states were ignoring the U.S. Supreme Court’s mandate to desegregate bus terminals, it would take a petition from U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy to spur the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to issue tough new regulations, backed by fines up to $500, that would eventually end segregated bus facilities. Even after the order went into effect, on November 1, 1961, hard-core segregation persisted; still, the “white” and “colored” signs in bus stations across the South began to come down. The New York Times, which had earlier criticized the Freedom Riders’ “incitement and provocation,” acknowledged that they “started the chain of events which resulted in the new I.C.C. order” (Holmes 6).
The Freedom Rides illuminated the courage of black and white youth and highlighted the leadership of Diane Nash. The Freedom Rides also inspired rural southern blacks to embrace civil disobedience as a strategy for regaining their civil rights. That inspiration would be seen in subsequent campaigns such as Mississippi’s Freedom Summer in 1964 and the Selma Movement in 1965 as well as in dozens of much less heralded efforts to register to vote or to integrate the region’s public schools (Mack 4).
Segregation was unfair. It was wrong, morally, religiously. As a Southerner – a white Southerner – I felt that we should do what we could to make the South better and to rid ourselves of this evil” (Freedom 2).
~ Joan Mulholland, Activist
Works cited:
Colvin, Rhonda. “As Trump attacks John Lewis, here’s how freedom riders broke the chains of segregation.” The Washington Post. January 15, 2017. Web. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...
Cozzens, Lisa. “Freedom Rides.” Watson.org. Web. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhist...
“Freedom Rides Quotes.” Uen.org. Web. https://www.uen.org/freedomrides/down...
Holmes, Marian Smith. “The Freedom Riders, Then and Now.” Smithsonian Magazine. February 2009. Web. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...
Mack, Dwayne. “Freedom Rides (1961).” BlackPast.org. Web. https://blackpast.org/aah/freedom-rid...
“Meet the Players: Freedom Riders.” American Experience. Web. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexper...
Nittle, Nadra Kareem. “How the Freedom Riders Movement Began.” ThoughtCo. March 18, 2017. Web. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-freedom...
Simkin, John. “Freedom Riders.” Spartacus Educational. August 2014. Web. https://spartacus-educational.com/USA...
Recognizing that previous and new Freedom Riders were adamant about traveling by bus to Jackson, Mississippi, the next city along the original route that ended at New Orleans, Kennedy, talking over the telephone “seven or eight or twelve times each day” (Simkin 8), with Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland, reached a deal. Kennedy would use no federal forces if Eastland would ensure that the Riders would not suffer mob violence.
Interviewed in 1998, James Farmer, director of CORE, said this about the Kennedys.
The Kennedys meant well, but they did not feel it. They didn't know any blacks growing up - there were no blacks in their communities or going to their schools. But their inclinations were good. I had the impression in those years that Bobby was doing what had to be done for political reasons. He was very conscious of the fact that they had won a narrow election and he was afraid that if they antagonized the South, the Dixiecrats would cost them the next election. And he was found to be very, very cautious and very careful not to do that. But we changed the equation down there, so it became dangerous for him not to do anything (Simkin 9).
Two buses, a Greyhound and a Trailways, departed Montgomery for Jackson, Mississippi, May 24. Rider William Mahoney, a nineteen-year-old black student at Howard University, observed:
Once across the (Mississippi) state line we passed a couple of police cars, which began to follow us. At our first stop the station was cordoned off a block in every direction. A police officer jumped on the bus and forbade anyone to move. One woman, who was a regular passenger, frantically tried to convince the police that she was not involved with us. After checking her ticket the police let her get off.
As we rolled toward Jackson, every blocked-off street, every back road taken, every change in speed caused our hearts to leap. Our arrival and speedy arrest in the white bus station in Jackson, when we refused to obey a policeman's order to move on, was a relief (Simkin 10).
They were given good protection as they entered the state, and no mob greeted them at the Jackson bus terminal. "As we walked through, the police just said, `Keep moving' and let us go through the white side," recalled Frederick Leonard. "We never got stopped. They just said `Keep moving,' and they passed us right on through the white terminal into the paddy wagon and into jail" (Cozzens 12).
Peter Ackerberg, white, 22, Antioch College student, interviewed years later, recalled his motivation and experience.
While he’d always talked a “big radical game,” he had never acted on his convictions. “What am I going to tell my children when they ask me about this time?” he recalled thinking. Boarding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, “I was pretty scared … The black guys and girls were singing....They were so spirited and so unafraid. They were really prepared to risk their lives.” Today, Ackerberg recalls acquiescing and saying “sir” to a jail official who was “pounding a blackjack.” Soon after, “I could hear the blackjack strike [rider C.T. Vivian’s] head and him shrieking; I don’t think he ever said ‘sir.’”
When activists arrived at the Jackson bus depot, police arrested blacks who refused to heed orders to stay out of white restrooms or vacate the white waiting room. And whites were arrested if they used “colored” facilities. Officials charged the riders with breach of peace, rather than breaking segregation laws. Freedom Riders responded with a strategy they called “jail, no bail”—a deliberate effort to clog the penal facilities
The dehumanizing process started as soon as we got there,” said Hank Thomas, [black, 19] a Marriott hotel franchise owner in Atlanta, who was then a sophomore at Howard University in Washington, D.C. “We were told to strip naked and then walked down this long corridor.... I’ll never forget [CORE director] Jim Farmer, a very dignified man ...walking down this long corridor naked...that is dehumanizing. And that was the whole point.” (Holmes 2-4).
The May 24 Freedom Riders were at the mercy of the local courts. On May 25, they were tried. As their attorney defended them, the judge turned his back. Once the attorney finished, he turned around and sentenced them to 60 days in the state penitentiary.
Using buses, planes, and trains, more Freedom Riders arrived in Jackson to continue the Freedom Ride, and they were arrested to, not under local or state segregation laws, but on charges of incitement to riot, breach of peace and failure to obey a police officer. Freedom Riders continued to arrive in the South, and by the end of the summer, more than 300 had been arrested (Cozzens 13).
Convicted of violating the law, each Rider was fined $200. Refusal to pay the fine brought each individual a sentence of 90 days in jail.
In an effort to intimidate the marchers, Mississippi officials transferred the now nearly one hundred men and women freedom riders to the state penitentiary at Parchman where they were subject to beatings and inedible food and repeatedly strip searched. Prison officials confiscated the blankets and mattresses of all of the activists. When other demonstrators arrived in Jackson they were also arrested and sent to Parchman where they faced similar conditions (Mack 3).
Jean Thompson, then a 19-year-old CORE worker, said she was one of the riders slapped by a penal official for failing to call him “sir.” An FBI investigation into the incident concluded that “no one was beaten …. “That said a lot to me about what actually happens in this country. It was eye-opening.” When prisoners were transferred from one facility to another, unexplained stops on remote dirt roads or the sight of curious onlookers peering into the transport trucks heightened fears. “We imagined every horror including an ambush by the KKK,” [said] rider Carol Silver …. To keep up their spirits, the prisoners sang freedom songs (Holmes 5).
The reputation of Parchman is that it’s a place that a lot of people get sent...and don’t come back,” former Freedom Rider Carol Ruth [later] told (Oprah] Winfrey. … The struggles of the Freedom Riders garnered nationwide publicity. Rather than intimidate other activists, however, the brutality the riders encountered inspired others to take up the cause. Before long, dozens of Americans were volunteering to travel on Freedom Rides. In the end, an estimated 436 people took such rides (Nittle 2).
One such individual was Pauline Knight. Part of the May 28 wave of Freedom Riders from the Nashville Student Movement, Pauline … escaped the violence of the earlier rides. Pauline Knight was a 20-year-old Tennessee State student when she was arrested in Jackson, MS. After being transferred to Hinds County Jail, she led a brief hunger strike among the female Riders.
"I got up one morning in May and I said to my folks at home, ‘I won't be back today because I am a Freedom Rider. … It was like a wave or a wind, and you didn't know where it was coming from but you knew you were supposed to be there. Nobody asked me, nobody told me."
Another individual was Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. A 19-year-old white Duke University student and part-time secretary in the Washington office of Senator Clair Engle of California, Joan Trumpauer arrived in Jackson, MS by train from New Orleans, LA as part of the June 4, 1961 Mississippi Freedom Ride.
The group was promptly ushered by Jackson police to a waiting paddy wagon; all nine Riders refused bail. Trumpauer was transferred to Parchman State Prison Farm.
In her interview for Freedom Riders, she recalls the harrowing conditions at Parchman, which included forced vaginal examinations used as a tactic to humiliate and terrorize female prisoners (Meet 6-7).
Out of her experience as a Freedom Rider, it is the memory of the rabbi who faithfully visited the jail that still moves her today. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland of Arlington, Va., joined the rides just in time for the fill-the-jails strategy in Mississippi. Volunteers from across the country began arriving in the South in waves and getting arrested, thus burdening the criminal justice system and bringing more focus to their cause. More than 300 riders were jailed that summer. Mulholland spent three months in jail, much of it at Mississippi’s Parchman Prison.
“We were down, we calculated, to less than three square feet of floor space for the prisoners in the white women’s cells,” she said. “That’s pretty crowded; that means you have to sleep underneath the bunks and things.”
Perry Nussbaum, a rabbi in the Jackson area, drove in weekly, like clockwork, to visit the riders, said Mulholland. This was no small gesture during that time and place, she says, pointing out that his routine made him an easy target for the Ku Klux Klan members who probably were watching.
Nussbaum would ask riders to call out their jail cell numbers if they wanted him to pray with them, and Mulholland always took him up on the offer. “He would start praying in Hebrew and get a nice cadence going, and sort of lull the guards, and then he would slip in little tidbits of news, like what was happening in the world, and baseball scores and stuff. And then he’d slip back to Hebrew,” she said. He would also write to their parents letting them know how the riders were faring.
She also recalls an underground network of church women in Jackson who secretly collected money to help the imprisoned riders purchase necessities such as shower shoes and toiletries.
A few years later, there was the moment of kindness from a hairdresser in Jackson who walked Mulholland and other women over to her salon to give them a shampoo after patrons had covered the demonstrators with condiments and spray paint during a Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in in 1963.
“There were always people who were supporting you,” she said, “people to drive you down to the demonstrations and take you back . . . as crucial as those out there demonstrating, and usually more numerous.”
A retired teaching assistant for Arlington Public Schools, Mulholland hopes the new monument will remind Americans of the power in organizing for change (Colvin 11-15).
Notable riders who did time at Parchman included James Farmer, John Lewis, Catherine Burks, Bernard Lafayette Jr., Frederick Leonard, Henry “Hank” Thomas, James Bevel, David Dennis, David Paul, James Lawson, Doris Jean Castle, and John Moody.
Though the Freedom Rides dramatically demonstrated that some Southern states were ignoring the U.S. Supreme Court’s mandate to desegregate bus terminals, it would take a petition from U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy to spur the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to issue tough new regulations, backed by fines up to $500, that would eventually end segregated bus facilities. Even after the order went into effect, on November 1, 1961, hard-core segregation persisted; still, the “white” and “colored” signs in bus stations across the South began to come down. The New York Times, which had earlier criticized the Freedom Riders’ “incitement and provocation,” acknowledged that they “started the chain of events which resulted in the new I.C.C. order” (Holmes 6).
The Freedom Rides illuminated the courage of black and white youth and highlighted the leadership of Diane Nash. The Freedom Rides also inspired rural southern blacks to embrace civil disobedience as a strategy for regaining their civil rights. That inspiration would be seen in subsequent campaigns such as Mississippi’s Freedom Summer in 1964 and the Selma Movement in 1965 as well as in dozens of much less heralded efforts to register to vote or to integrate the region’s public schools (Mack 4).
Segregation was unfair. It was wrong, morally, religiously. As a Southerner – a white Southerner – I felt that we should do what we could to make the South better and to rid ourselves of this evil” (Freedom 2).
~ Joan Mulholland, Activist
Works cited:
Colvin, Rhonda. “As Trump attacks John Lewis, here’s how freedom riders broke the chains of segregation.” The Washington Post. January 15, 2017. Web. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...
Cozzens, Lisa. “Freedom Rides.” Watson.org. Web. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhist...
“Freedom Rides Quotes.” Uen.org. Web. https://www.uen.org/freedomrides/down...
Holmes, Marian Smith. “The Freedom Riders, Then and Now.” Smithsonian Magazine. February 2009. Web. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...
Mack, Dwayne. “Freedom Rides (1961).” BlackPast.org. Web. https://blackpast.org/aah/freedom-rid...
“Meet the Players: Freedom Riders.” American Experience. Web. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexper...
Nittle, Nadra Kareem. “How the Freedom Riders Movement Began.” ThoughtCo. March 18, 2017. Web. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-freedom...
Simkin, John. “Freedom Riders.” Spartacus Educational. August 2014. Web. https://spartacus-educational.com/USA...
