Introduction

Home , Abraham Woods, Albert Boutwell, Carry Me Home (book), David Vann (mayor), Diane McWhorter, Oscar Adams

Notes

Introduction

1 . Carl Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined: Birmingham Movement Grows,” Southern Patriot, September 1972, 1; Portions of the introduction and section IV of this book appeared previously in Robert W. Widell, Jr., “‘The Power Belongs to Us and We Belong to the Revolutionary Age’: The Alabama Black Liberation Front and the Long Reach of the Black Panther Party” in Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams, eds., Liberated Territory: Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008). 2 . I b i d . , 7 . 3 . The events leading up to and surrounding 1963 are described in detail in a number of works. Among the most important are Glenn Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); J. Mills Thornton, Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002); Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988); David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 1955–1968 (New York: W. Morrow, 1986); Garrow, ed. Birmingham, Alabama, 1956–1963: The Black Struggle for Civil Rights (Brooklyn: Carlson, 1989); Andrew Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000). 4 . There are works that discuss post-1963 Birmingham but none that focus on that period and its connection to the movement. Eskew’s treatment of the period is an epilogue and relies mainly on census data from 1980 to make its assessment. His central focus, of course, is the 1963 demonstrations so the point is not to fault his work, but rather to simply note what it does not address. Eskew, But for Birmingham; Thornton, too, includes some discussion of post-1963 Birmingham, but his interest after about 1966 is primarily in electoral politics. Thornton, Dividing Lines; Much of Jimmie Lewis 192 NOTES

Franklin’s biography of Richard Arrington is set in post-1963 Birmingham, but it is centered, necessarily, on Arrington. Robin D. G. Kelley has published two chapters on black activism in Birmingham that extend into this period, but although they are largely correct in their characterization, they are not full-length studies. See Jimmie Lewis Franklin, Back to Birmingham: Richard Arrington, Jr. and His Times (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989); Robin D. G. Kelley, “Birmingham’s Untouchables: The Black Poor in the Age of Civil Rights,” in his Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York: Free Press, 1994), 77–100; Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition in a New South City, 1929–1970,” in Michael B. Katz, ed., The Underclass Debate: Views from History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 293–333. 5 . On the Arrington campaign and its effect on the black community, see Franklin, Back to Birmingham , esp. 144. 6 . Braden, “Birmingham Movement Grows,” 7. 7 . Jeanne Theoharis, for example, has noted the ways in which the Birmingham campaign overlapped with and offered inspiration to the civil rights movement in Los Angeles. Jeanne Theoharis, “Alabama on Avalon: Rethinking the Watts Uprising and the Character of Black Protest in Los Angeles,” in Peniel Joseph, ed., The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights- Black Power Era (New York: Routledge, 2006). 8 . E s k e w , But for Birmingham, Chapter 9; idem., “‘The Classes and the Masses’: Fred Shuttlesworth’s Movement and Birmingham’s Black Middle Class,” in Marjorie L. White and Andrew M. Manis, eds., Birmingham Revolutionaries: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000); Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out , 397, including note 12. 9 . The best source for exploring the intersection of the national and local movements in 1963 is Eskew, But for Birmingham . On the limited gains of the 1963 campaign see especially chapter 9. Citing the overly limited goals of that effort as well as its leaders’ “bourgeois values” and overabundance of faith in the American system, Eskew writes, “Paradoxically, the national victory won in the streets of Birmingham did little for many black folk back home.” Eskew, But for Birmingham, 128, 312. J. Mills Thornton writes of the 1963 demonstrations, “Whether or not they greatly accelerated racial progress in any area other than the integration of the lunch counters in the downtown department and variety stores is . . . distinctly debatable.” Thornton, Dividing Lines , 378; See also Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out , 379–390. In his survey of the problems facing Birmingham’s black poor, Robin D. G. Kelley also notes the “contradiction between the goals of the civil rights movement to desegregate public space and the daily struggles of the black poor.” Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition”; Kelley, “Birmingham’s Untouchables.” An early source that points to the national gains outweighing the local ones is Harry Holloway, “Birmingham, Alabama: Urbanism and a Politics of Race,” in The Politics of the Southern Negro (New York: Random House, 1969). A more detailed overview of black Birmingham in the 1970s and 1980s, at least NOTES 193

statistically, is an essay by Ernest Porterfield. Citing, among other figures, a 28 percent poverty level among African Americans, as well as a significant income gap between black and white families, Porterfield concludes that “[b]lack Birmingham in the 1980s suffer[ed] from many of the same problems that plagued it in the 1960s.” Ernest Porterfield, “Birmingham: A Magic City,” in Robert Bullard, ed, In Search of the New South: The Black Urban Experience in the 1970s and 1980s (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989), 135. 1 0 . T h o r n t o n , Dividing Lines , 370–371. The intractability of Birmingham’s racial dilemmas had been made evident even before the end of 1963. That September four young girls lost their lives when segregationists bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. As Glenn Eskew has noted, the bombing revealed “how little had really changed in the city.” Eskew, But for Birmingham , 318. 11 . For Birmingham’s traditional leadership class (many of whom had been dis- mayed by the confrontational style of Fred Shuttlesworth) the post-1963 period was an opportunity to capitalize on their newfound access to Birmingham’s white civic and business class. Efforts to pursue behind-the-scenes negotiations and gain access to the levers of city and county government were at the center of this group’s vision for racial progress. For Shuttlesworth and his followers, though, the lesson of 1963 was that white Birmingham had to be coerced into any concessions. As a result, they retained faith in the types of direct action that characterized the 1963 campaign, believing that such protest and agitation were necessary to effect racial change. Several times in the mid-1960s, whether concerned about issues like the hiring of black police officers, voter registration, or police brutality, they would attempt to renew demonstrations that mirrored those of 1963. For a detailed discussion of such conflicts in the wake of 1963, see Thornton, Dividing Lines . On Shuttlesworth in particular, see Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out . 12 . As discussed later, intraracial conflict was nothing new in Birmingham. For discussion of such intraracial conflicts in earlier periods, see Brian Kelly, “Beyond the ‘Talented Tenth’: Black Elites, Black Workers, and the Limits of Accommodation in Industrial Birmingham, 1900–1921,” in Charles M. Payne and Adam Green, eds., Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850–1950 (New York: NYU Press, 2003); Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition.” 13 . When they were covered by the mainstream press, these efforts were not explored extensively. In fact, most contemporary news stories related to the efforts of black activists during this period were focused on run-ins with law enforcement or disruptions caused by their marches, protests, or other actions. This is a fact that historians must acknowledge lest the police and other officials (who provided most of the information in such coverage) suc- ceed in distorting the historical record to reflect their view of activists as law- less and concerned mostly with disruption. 14 . At times such sources offer only hints of protest activity or do not elaborate beyond references to activist organizations. Yet, rather than leave particular people and groups out because their complete story cannot be determined, 194 NOTES

this study instead errs deliberately on the side of inclusion, presenting as much as possible. 15 . The continuing effort to implement Brown v. Board of Education should be included, too. In Birmingham, one might also add efforts at independent black electoral politics in that such efforts were aimed primarily at opening up the electoral process, specifically the Democratic Party, and increasing the involvement of African Americans. See Hardy Frye, Black Parties and Political Power: A Case Study (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980) 16 . Police brutality was raised, for example, at the March on Washington—as is evidenced by the placards carried by participants. In the late 1960s and 1970s, though, police brutality—at least in Birmingham—became the specific focus of protests and the motivating factor in the formation of certain protest organizations. 17 . Perhaps a more accurate way to describe this phenomenon was a negative reaction to the nation’s response to the movement. Such a description allows for an acknowledgment that later activists took inspiration from the movement while at the same time coming to the conclusion that it had not gone far enough, was overly reliant on the goodwill of whites, or suffered from some other limitation. 18 . Though often grouped together as part of the black power movement, such efforts were not the beginning of that movement. Indeed, many of the better known black power organizations of the late 1960s had roots in earlier organizations and events. See Peniel Joseph, Waiting ’Til The Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006); Robert O. Self, “The Black Panther Party and the Long Civil Rights Era,” in Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams, eds., In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006). 19 . Although organized thematically, there is a rough chronology to the chapters as a consequence of the fact that these perspectives often emerged out of one another. Implementation efforts often revealed that, in order to take full advantage of gains already secured, activism around additional areas of concern was necessary. As a result, African Americans initiated efforts to expand the agenda of the movement to address those concerns. When both these implementation and expansion efforts continued to encounter opposition, the cumulative effect of decades of resistance to black concerns in turn gave way to a resurgent radicalism. Thus, although distinct in many ways, each of these perspectives overlapped and intersected with the others. 20 . When Maggard lost his job in the steel mills and was unable to feed his family for four days, he marched to the welfare office, demanded assistance, and left with a check to purchase food. Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition,” 298–299. 21 . Robert J. Norrell, “Caste in Steel: Jim Crow Careers in Birmingham, Alabama,” Journal of American History, Vol. 73, No. 3 (December 1986): 669–694; Robert Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein, “Opportunities Found and Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement,” Journal NOTES 195

of American History , Vol. 75, No. 3 (December 1988): 786–811; Alan Draper, “The New Southern Labor History Revisited: The Success of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union in Birmingham, 1934–1938,” Journal of Southern History ,Vol. 62, No. 1 (February 1996): 87–108. 22 . Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990); Nell Irvin Painter, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: The Life and Times of a Black Radical (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993). 23 . On early Birmingham see Kelly, “Beyond the ‘Talented Tenth’”; Charles Connerly, “The Most Segregated City in America”: City Planning and Civil Rights in Birmingham, 1920–1980 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005); Thornton, Dividing Lines; Kelley, Hammer and Hoe; Henry J. McKiven, Iron & Steel: Class, Race, and Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); Edward Shannon LaMonte, Politics & Welfare in Birmingham, 1900– 1975 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995); Norrell, “Caste in Steel.” 24 . Far from exclusive to the oft-invoked image of the white, working-class rube, racial violence was pervasive across all strata of white society in Birmingham, including both white elites and local law enforcement. Diane McWhorter, for example, describes how white industrial elites would “delegate political intermediaries to oversee strategic racial violence.” McWhorter, Carry Me Home , 45; Regarding the police, Glenn Eskew has noted, “Officers regularly beat black suspects in an exercise of authority to show who ruled the streets . . . Police brutality like vigilante bombings represented manifesta- tions of community-sanctioned violence in defense of racial norms.” Eskew, But for Birmingham, 92 25 . On early Birmingham see Brian Kelly, “Beyond the ‘Talented Tenth’”; Connerly, “The Most Segregated City in America”; Thornton, Dividing Lines; Kelley, Hammer and Hoe; Henry J. McKiven, Iron & Steel; LaMonte, Politics & Welfare in Birmingham ; Norrell, “Caste in Steel.” 26 . Kelley makes this point in “The Politics of Opposition,” 308. 27 . Kelly also writes, “Borrowing from both the legacy of antebellum slavery and contemporary models of welfare capitalism imported from the North, leading operators embraced a strategy of racial paternalism that aimed to cultivate low-paid, defenseless black workers as a wedge against labor agitation. And in this project they enjoyed the cooperation of black conserva- tives, deferring to the new status quo.” Kelly, “Beyond the ‘Talented Tenth,’” 280; What should not be ignored, of course, is that such a compromise also depended on the racism of white workers. In fact, it was in part when white workers sublimated their notions of race that working-class activism in Birmingham became possible. 28 . Ibid., 282.; Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition,” 303. 29 . Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition,” 296–304; Thornton, Dividing Lines, 147–152; McWhorter, Carry Me Home , Chapter 2 ; Painter, The Narrative of the Life of Hosea Hudson. 196 NOTES

30 . Kelly, “Beyond the ‘Talented Tenth’,” esp. 286–287 and 290–293. Kelly main- tains that within the coal mines a certain level of interracial solidarity had been present since the late nineteenth century; McWhorter, Carry Me Home , 45; Norrell, “Caste in Steel.” 31 . “Riotous spirit” quote taken from Oscar Adams as appeared in the Birmingham Reporter and cited in Kelly, “Beyond the Talented Tenth,” note 54. Kelly rightly points out that Birmingham’s black middle class was by no means supportive of Jim Crow—or immune from its humiliations. Instead they were driven both by a sense of “racial uplift” that prioritized the individual failings of those who “fell between the cracks of society” and by the fact that they owed much of their social and economic stand- ing within the black community to the racially separate order. Moreover, many of them were dependent on the patronage of white industrialists for funding to support schools, newspapers, welfare programs, and other institutions. Overly militant racial protest risked jeopardizing such support, a familiar if no less lamentable dilemma for black leaders during the Age of Jim Crow. 32 . Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition,” 296–304. 33 . My understanding of Birmingham’s municipal politics is culled largely from the exhaustive survey of that issue in three Alabama cities in Thornton, Dividing Lines . McWhorter, Carry Me Home is also a valuable resource for understanding the racial scene in Birmingham, particularly for its discussion of the pre-1963 period. See also Connerly, “The Most Segregated City in America” ; LaMonte, Politics & Welfare in Birmingham. 3 4 . T h o r n t o n , Dividing Lines, 152–158; McWhorter, Carry Me Home , 37–39; Eskew, But for Birmingham , 91. 3 5 . M c W h o r t e r , Carry Me Home , 49–51; Eskew, But for Birmingham , 91. 3 6 . T h o r n t o n , Dividing Lines , 153. 37 . Thornton places Shores at the center of “the early stirrings of civil rights activism among the city’s blacks,” noting the significance of the fact that “for the first time in the twentieth century, [the black community] had gained a lawyer.” Shores, with the assistance of the NAACP, would file case after case challenging various aspects of racial discrimination. Thornton, Dividing Lines , 154–155; Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition,” 304. 3 8 . T h o r n t o n , Dividing Lines , 315–316. 3 9 . I b i d . 40 . Thornton argues that because of events related to housing, specifically increased African American demands for the ability to build homes in the Smithfield section of the city and the violent white response such efforts pro- voked, a small group of business progressives had begun to seek some sort of interracial compromise in the 1950s. Their hope was that by avoiding racial unrest, Birmingham could attract significant investment as, for example, had been happening in places like Atlanta. The progressives’ willingness to make some racial accommodations in the name of improving Birmingham’s investment climate, however, violated the white supremacist bargain between NOTES 197

workers and business leaders creating a split that black activists were able to exploit. Ibid., 158–166. 41 . Ibid., 161–165; Glenn Eskew, “‘Bombingham’: Black Protest in Postwar Birmingham, Alabama,” Historian , Vol. 59 (December 1997): 371–390. 4 2 . M a n i s , A Fire You Can’t Put Out . 4 3 . I b i d . , 1 0 6 – 1 1 1 . 44 . Shuttlesworth’s wife, Ruby, was stabbed during the incident as well. Ibid., 150–153. 4 5 . I b i d . , 1 9 9 . 46 . Ibid., 147; Thornton, Dividing Lines , 216. 47 . The specific local goals of the campaign were to desegregate public accommodations in Birmingham and force downtown stores to hire African Americans. More broadly, the campaign sought to secure a victory for the SCLC after humiliation in Albany, Georgia, and prove that if a place like Birmingham could be forced to desegregate, then most anywhere could. See Eskew, But for Birmingham. 48 . Although he does not explore the idea as explicitly as I do here, Timothy Minchin does use the idea of a new “phase” to describe post-1965 civil rights activity. I agree with this assessment and have extended the concept further. Timothy J. Minchin, “Black Activism, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry,” Journal of Southern History , Vol. 65 (November 1999): 809–844. 49 . Minchin describes this phase as the “heroic period” of the movement. Minchin, “Black Activism,” 809. Placing the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr., at center stage, Taylor Branch extends the period to 1968 and refers to it as “The King Years.” See Branch, Parting the Waters ; Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–65 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998); and Branch, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965–68 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006); Borrowing from Bayard Rustin, Jacquelyn Hall refers to the period from 1955 to 1965 as the “classical phase” of the movement. See Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” Journal of American History , Vol. 91 (March 2005): 1251–1254. 50 . The tendency to mark these landmark successes as the endpoints of the movement reflects a tendency to assess political movements by their tangible outcomes. It remains possible, in fact more common, to have a movement that does not achieve a measurable amount of success. Because there were fewer landmark court decisions or pieces of legislation after 1965 does not mean that people stopped organizing. Successes, perceived or real, are, of course, essential to a movement’s ability to maintain commitment and momentum. That these successes were fewer and further between in the late 1960s and 1970s likely contributed—not exclusively, though—to the movement’s difficulties in these years. 51 . Too often this period is referred to in terms of declension rather than a shift. I hope that this study will contribute to a less negative view of the period. I also 198 NOTES

hope this study will demonstrate that, although the emergence of various identity-based movements was a significant aspect of the late 1960s and early 1970s, “civil rights,” at least as shorthand for issues related to black opportunity, continued to be a concern, as well. In short, although other efforts emerged out of the black freedom struggle, such developments did not mean that the struggle ceased. 52 . Although most historians know better, the emphasis that has been placed on the “heroic phase” of the movement has created the impression that African Americans suddenly realized in the 1950s that they could stand up to Jim Crow. Thus, students are often surprised to hear that Ida Wells refused to give up her seat some sixty years prior to Rosa Parks, that Charles Hamilton Houston was using the court system to challenge Jim Crow well before Thurgood Marshall, or that the Harlem Renaissance promoted a sense of black pride and identity well before the black arts movement of the 1960s. 53 . Of course, one could argue that the black freedom struggle has been an ever-present phenomenon in American life. Such a perspective, though, does not emphasize sufficiently the break that Reconstruction represented. Although it is undeniable that African Americans have organized themselves and resisted throughout their history—or that they drew on traditions that stretched across the divide of the Civil War and Reconstruction—there are real differences, the existence of slavery and the slave trade chief among them, between the twentieth century and the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. See Hasan Jeffries’ discussion of “freedom rights” in Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt (New York and London: New York University Press, 2009). 54 . This point is derived from Thornton’s observations about the movement in Alabama in Thornton, Dividing Lines . 5 5 . R o b e r t K o r s t a d , Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 9. 56 . Historians of the modern black freedom struggle should also resist the temp- tation to gauge the significance of protest activity according to its success in altering the social or political conditions at which it is aimed. Casual observ- ers are most often captivated by stories of success and tangible progress, a standard that allows one to see evidence of “movement activity” only when some sort of breakthrough occurs. Yet, there exist any number of examples of “movements” that did not achieve their goals. In fact it could be argued that the great majority of movements fit this description. Much as historians have not concluded that the persistence of slavery in the United States signified that there was no resistance by African Americans, so too should they not conclude that the absence of breakthroughs in “civil rights” meant that there was no activism among African Americans. As Robin D. G. Kelley has further reminded us, “too often our standards for evaluating social movements NOTES 199

pivot around whether or not they ‘succeeded’ in realizing their visions rather than on the merits or power of the visions themselves. By such a measure, virtually every radical movement failed because the basic power relations they sought to change remain pretty much intact. And yet it is precisely these alternative visions and dreams that inspire new generations to continue to struggle for social change.” Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), ix. 57 . Thornton has pointed out that the movement could only be said to have ended in 1968 if it is seen exclusively from a national and white perspective. He writes: “Whether it ended with the triumphant statutory vindication of America’s faith in individual liberty or merely transmuted itself into rancor- ous disputes over the racial definition of privileges, the civil rights movement in this conception existed within a clearly defined historical moment, marked off by reasonably precise chronological boundaries: when the problem of southern segregation began to trouble the white national conscience significantly, at one end, and when the white national conscience could consider the problem no longer really a discrete one, at the other.” Thornton, Dividing Lines , 501. 58 . It is here that my perspective diverges somewhat from Thornton’s in that I believe that direct action of the type that characterized the more well-known phase of the movement continued into the 1970s. Although arguably less suc- cessful than the direct action of 1955–1965, it nevertheless was present. Ibid., 500–502. See also Stephen Tuck, “‘We Are Taking Up Where the Movement of the 1960s Left Off’: The Proliferation and Power of African American Protest during the 1970s,” Journal of Contemporary History , Vol. 43, No. 4 (October 2008): 637–654. 59 . The answer also lies in how one answers a related set of questions: Should we apply a chronology predicated on the achievement of such successes as Brown and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts? Or, should we instead look to both the activism on which those achievements were predicated and the continued activism that they, in turn, inspired? 60 . One might also argue that the modern black freedom struggle truly began with the decline of support for Booker T. Washington’s approach to Jim Crow. Certainly there were activists who had not fully subscribed to Washington’s ideas from the beginning—Ida B. Wells, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and William Monroe Trotter come immediately to mind—but once the predominant belief among black activists became that protest, and protest that included claims of social equality, was necessary, the wheels were set in motion that would lead to the civil rights and black power movements. 61 . Timothy Minchin even cites an essay by C. Vann Woodward that speaks of the movement in the past tense as early as 1966. C. Vann Woodward, “What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement,” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 234 (January 1967): 29–37 cited in Minchin, “Black Activism,” 814; One notable exception is Tuck, “We Are Taking Up Where the Movement of the 1960s Left Off.” 200 NOTES

62 . Emilye Crosby, “Introduction: The Politics of Writing and Teaching Movement History,” Civil Rights History from the Ground Up (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2011); Hasan Jeffries’ work on Lowndes County is the best recent example of this locally based work and a benchmark against which future studies will be measured. Jeffries, Bloody Lowndes. 6 3 . W r i t i n g i n The Journal of Southern History in 2000, for example, Charles Eagles called for a “different chronological conception of the freedom struggle,” noting specifically that “more attention needs to be paid to the period after 1968 and the legacies or ramifications of the movement.” Although his use of the term “legacies” suggested that he too regarded the years after 1968 as the “postmovement” period, Eagles correctly called for further research into “the results [of the movement] in jobs, health care, law enforcement, housing, and many other areas of community life.” These were precisely the issues around which Birmingham’s black community continued to organize as it entered the 1970s. See Charles W. Eagles, “Toward New Histories of the Civil Rights Era,” Journal of Southern History , Vol. 66 (2000): 837–838. 64 . Such studies should also consider whether the activism and organizing that took place in the 1970s were less a by-product or consequence of the “civil rights movement” and more a new chapter in that same effort. Jacquelyn Dowd Hall has written of the need for studies with just such a perspective, referring to the civil rights movement as an “undefeated but unfinished revolution” and urging historians to take a longer view of its history. Hall calls on scholars to explore the “post-1960s” period with a similar “nuance and complexity” as has been applied to the familiar civil rights era. In particular, she notes the need to move past the declension narrative that has dominated much of the existing work on those years, writing that, “(i)n the dominant narrative, the decline of the movement follows hard on the heels of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, and the popular struggles of the 1970s become nothing more than identity politics.” Such a view, she continues, “erases from popular memory the way the victories of the early 1960s coalesced into a last- ing social revolution, as thousands of ordinary people pushed through the doors the movement had opened.” Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement,” esp. 1254–1263; For a counterbalance to Hall, see Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua and Clarence Lang, “The ‘Long Movement’ as Vampire: Temporal and Spatial Fallacies in Recent Black Freedom Studies,” Journal of African American History , Vol. 92, No. 4 (Fall 2007): 265–288. I argue that the notion of “phases” presented here addresses many of their concerns.

I Implementation

1 . Flyers advertising the event were part of the surveillance files that Birmingham police maintained and shared with Mayor George Seibels. Throughout this study I have relied on information obtained from files created by the Birmingham Police Department, which surveiled people, NOTES 201

groups, and events deemed to be associated with agitation, especially agitation related to racial matters. These files are available in several collections in the Department of Archives and History at the Birmingham Public Library (BPL), Birmingham, Alabama. I have used such police files, wher- ever possible, along with related materials, as a means of piecing together events and uncovering names of participants in those events. Historians must treat such sources critically, of course. At the same time, such sources are invaluable for the detail they provide about meetings, rallies, and other events—detail unavailable from traditional sources such as newspapers. Moreover, much of what is contained within such files is material produced by the activists themselves and simply confiscated by police. The files are also valuable in illuminating the environment in which particular protest groups operated—namely, in an environment of police repression. See Seibels Papers, 37.45. 2 . Judith Stein’s work on the steel industry details the role of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company (TCI) and the United Steelworkers (USWA), among other Birmingham institutions, in the shaping of the Civil Rights Act’s Title VII. In particular, she emphasizes the importance of the steel industry-wide consent decree that emerged from a Birmingham courtroom in 1974. Her larger emphasis, however, is less on the details of local black activism than on the larger impact of Title VII, particularly the ways in which its application revealed the limitations of both the civil rights movement and, most especially, post–World War II liberalism. Judith Stein, Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). See also Nancy MacLean, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 3 . Interview, Harvey Henley, January 31, 2004. Unless otherwise noted, all interviews were completed by the author. Tapes and interview transcripts are in the author’s possession, except in those instances in which the interview was not recorded. 4 . T i m o t h y M i n c h i n , The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Minchin, Hiring the Black Worker: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry, 1960–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Minchin, “Black Activism, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry,” Journal of Southern History , Vol. 65, No. 4 (November 1999): 809–844.

1 Origins of the Committee for Equal Job Opportunity

1 . H e n r y J . M c K i v e n , Iron & Steel: Class, Race, and Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 116. 202 NOTES

2 . Ibid., 113–131. A January 1916 article in the Christian Science Monitor claimed that the “increased efficiency of the employees brought about by their living under favorable housing conditions and by their witnessing a desire on the part of the officials to use them fairly will more than compen- sate the company for the loss of interest in its invested capital.” “Alabama Plant Takes Steps to House Workers,” Christian Science Monitor, January 18, 1916, 10. 3 . “Workers Found Reaping Benefit under Dry Rule,” Christian Science Monitor, January 28, 1933, 4. 4 . John T. Burks, Claudia Cook et al. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company , US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, No. 99–12191, May 31, 2000. 5 . David Barrow and Lowell Bergman, “A Family’s Fortune, a Legacy of Blood and Tears,” New York Times , January 9, 2003, A1. 6 . I b i d . 7 . M c K i v e n , Iron & Steel , 121. 8 . Lloyd Harper, interview in Horace Huntley and David Montgomery, eds., Black Workers’ Struggle for Equality in Birmingham (Chicago and Urbana: University of Illinois Press: 2004), 56–57. 9 . Rush Pettway et al. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company , No. 66–315, US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division, November 21, 1972. There were a series of opinions in the Pettway v. ACIPCO case. They will be referred to by their date. 10 . Here again the dilemma posed by Jim Crow reared its head—whether to seek improvement in one’s circumstances by taking advantage of available opportunities or to make a principled stand when such opportunities required def- erence to segregation. 11 . According to McKiven, of the 103 employees who filed World War I draft registration cards in 1917–1918, whites comprised 100 percent of the skilled workforce at ACIPCO, while blacks held 100 percent of the unskilled positions and 90 percent of the semiskilled jobs. A survey of the company’s per- sonnel records corroborated such figures and confirmed a pattern of racial division. McKiven, Iron & Steel , 123–124, including footnote 25. 1 2 . Pettway v. ACIPCO , January 21, 1970. 13 . Ibid.; Reflecting nativist attitudes about race, representatives were also required to be American citizens. 14 . Ibid.; The initial Auxiliary Board was created from the board of directors of the ACIPCO Colored YMCA. 15 . There were few, if any, black employees in clerical or professional positions at the company either; Interview, Davis Jordan and Edward Hicks, May 11, 2003. 16 . In an unsuccessful attempt to find a job at ACIPCO in 1958, Hicks endured such an experience; ibid,. 1 7 . I b i d . 18 . Jordan’s tenure at ACIPCO started in the summer of 1954 when, at age sev- enteen, he took a job as a table loader; ibid. NOTES 203

19 . Ibid.; Davis Jordan, conversation with author, April 14, 2003; See also Davis Jordan testimony at trial. Except for the opinions, documents related to the court case are to be found, unsorted, in boxes stored in the basement of the Hugo Black Federal Courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama. The Clerk’s office was kind enough to supply access and a workspace to me so that I could use them. Citations that refer to the testimony of workers are in reference to the trial transcript located in these boxes. I also have a photocopied transcript in my possession. 2 0 . J o r d a n t e s t i m o n y , 2 0 8 – 2 0 9 . 21 . Interview, Jordan and Hicks; Jordan also recalled repeated requests to be assigned to a different shift, one that would accommodate his desire to go back to school. According to Jordan’s testimony, he was refused any shift change despite the fact that there was a precedent for such accommodations involving white employees. When he confronted his foreman with this observation, Jordan recalled once again being told that he could quit and find a job elsewhere. See Jordan testimony, 181. 22 . Huntley and Montgomery, eds., Black Workers’ Struggle for Equality in Birmingham , 56. Emphasis added. 2 3 . P o w e l l t e s t i m o n y , 2 4 5 24 . Huntley and Montgomery, eds., Black Workers’ Struggle for Equality in Birmingham , 57. 25 . Black plaintiffs from ACIPCO were asked to fill out grids that documented the types of discrimination they had endured at the company. These documents are labeled “Appendix B” and are located among the case files at the Hugo Black Courthouse in Birmingham. 26 . Booker testimony, 295 2 7 . C a s e f i l e s , Pettway v. ACIPCO . 28 . Such complaints were similar to those expressed by African American workers at other industrial plants in Birmingham and discussed in chapter 3 . The ubiquity of such practices in 1940s and 1950s Birmingham would contribute to the widespread activism that ACIPCO workers led in the 1960s and 1970s. See Robert J. Norrell, “Caste in Steel: Jim Crow Careers in Birmingham, Alabama,” Journal of American History, Vol. 73, No. 3 (December 1986): 669–694. 29 . According to Wrenn, Murry had been engaged in a brief conversation with “an old guard who was examining the bulletin board” in the main lobby. As the two men talked, “some sheets of paper slipped from the bulletin board or the hands of the guard to the floor.” One of those papers was a “yellowish sheet which had written on it ‘Equal Job Opportunity.’” See “Objection to the Court’s Order Entered on 30 May 1985,” Pettway v. ACIPCO. Located in case files at Hugo Black Federal Courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama. 30 . A copy of the order may be found at http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/history/35th /thelaw/eo-10925.html 31 . “Objection to the Court’s Order Entered on 30 May 1985,” Pettway v. ACIPCO 204 NOTES

32 . Wrenn recalled, “When I was confronted for my signature to the letter and learned how the function of the Auxiliary Board was set up, I said to our secretary (Robert Bolden), ‘Bull.’ It was hard for me to believe what I had learned and what I was confronted with just shocked my conscious [ sic ].” See “Notice of Intent to Appear and Object to Proposed Consent Decree,” Filed April 22, 1983 in US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division. This view would be validated by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit when it noted in a May 22, 1969, opinion that “the Auxiliary Board does not have a meaningful voice in matters of management.” 33 . Baskerville testimony, 259 3 4 . I n t e r v i e w , J o r d a n a n d H i c k s . 35 . Although Wrenn would identify the initial participants differently on separate occasions, what was consistent in his and others’ accounts of the origins of CEJO was that this original group had included at least he and Jordan, Luther Cooper, and Joseph Marbury. In an April 1983 deposition, Wrenn identifies only himself and these three men. See “Notice of Intent to Appear and Object to Proposed Consent Decree,” Pettway v. ACIPCO ; Two years later he also seems to identify Alex Fitts and Melvin Story as part of the original group. See “Objection to the Court’s Order Entered on 30 May 1985,” Pettway v. ACIPCO ; Davis Jordan told me the following in 2003: “It was myself, Edward Hicks, Henry Booker, Peter Wrenn, Alex Fitts, and Rush Pettway . . . and another fellow by the name of Luther Cooper. Those guys were the original fellows that helped set up the committee at that time. We started off with just somewhat like a five man committee.” See Interview, Jordan and Hicks; The conflicting accounts are likely the result of confusion about who was part of the very first group of petitioners and who was part of the original twelve that were selected as representatives following the Committee’s official founding in 1965. An October 1965 letter sent by the Committee to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., of the EEOC had ten signatures: Wrenn, Hicks, Marbury, Jordan, and Booker with the addition of Jesse Blackmon, James Baskerville, Isaiah Pasley, Jr., and John J. Fillmore. A later letter from the EEOC also includes Henry Goodgame and Alex Fitts. In 1964 the committee expanded to include eight others— John Fillmore, James Elmore, Jesse Blackmon, Isaiah Pasley, Jr., Rush Pettway, Alex Fitts, Edward Hicks, and Henry F. Booker, Jr. See Rush Pettway et al. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co . “Notice of Intent to Appear and Object to Proposed Consent Decree,” Filed April 22, 1983, in US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division. 3 6 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, May 22, 1969. 37 . Ibid.; “Objection to the Court’s Order Entered on 30 May 1985,” Pettway v. ACIPCO 3 8 . I n t e r v i e w , J o r d a n a n d H i c k s . 39 . “Objection to the Court’s Order Entered on 30 May 1985,” Pettway v. ACIPCO 40 . Ibid.; Wrenn specifically noted that he had been fearful of reprisal “even though I was a single man” and, therefore, did not have a wife and family depending on his ability to keep his job. Wrenn’s comment underscores the NOTES 205

risks with which the workers had to contend by virtue of their activism and makes Brimm’s warnings that much more egregious. 41 . Driving their persistence was a sense that the federal government could ulti- mately be counted on as an ally. Wrenn recalled, “One of us said, ‘We cannot stop now. There must be something more to this; otherwise they would not have put out the various publications declaring job discrimination illegal.’” Ibid. 4 2 . I b i d . 4 3 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, May 22, 1969; Jordan recalled that the President’s Committee, in response to these repeated complaints, had sent other investigators to Birmingham, but they too had filed findings of no-cause. The opinions in the case do not mention such additional investigations; instead they noted simply that the men continued to file petitions up until the passage of the Civil Rights Act at which point they began utilizing the EEOC. Interview, Jordan and Hicks. 4 4 . I n t e r v i e w , J o r d a n a n d H i c k s . 4 5 . I b i d . 46 . This difference underscored the importance of a cooperative federal government as noted by numerous others with regard to the success of black protest. See, for example, Minchin, Hiring the Black Worker; Minchin, The Color of Work; Alan Draper, “The New Southern Labor History Revisited: The Success of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union in Birmingham, 1934–1938,” Journal of Southern History, Vol. 62, No. 1. (February 1996): 87–108. 47 . Letter included with affidavit of Peter J. Wrenn. Rush Pettway et al. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co. “Notice of Intent to Appear and Object to Proposed Consent Decree.” 4 8 . I b i d . 49 . Interview, Henley, January 31, 2004; Henry Booker also remembered, “Well in all we have had around 1200 different complaints being filed at Equal Job Opportunity Commission [EEOC] . . . but just to say charges filed, we have about 718.” See Booker testimony, 299. 50 . Unfortunately, the case files from the law offices of Oscar Adams, Jr., and U. W. Clemon, who represented the Committee in their lawsuit, have been destroyed. A word of appreciation is due to Judge Clemon for his willingness to have shared such files had they been available. 51 . CEJO’s efforts were also frustrated by the inaction of federal investigators and bureaucratic roadblocks related to the fact that equal employment grievance procedures, at least in their contemporary incarnation, were still in their infancy.

2 Delay, Retaliation, and the Legal Process

1 . Rush Pettway et al. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company (Pettway v. ACIPCO ). The April 29, 1974, and July 24, 1978, decisions of the Fifth Circuit provide a clear, relatively concise overview of the case’s history. 206 NOTES

2 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, January 8, 1969. 3 . The court determined that the Title VII statutes indicated a preference for voluntary conciliation, but fell short of requiring such conciliation. More specifically, the court found that the definition of being “unable” to broker a negotiated settlement prior to court action was broad enough to include not just failed attempts, but also the inability to make any such attempts due to such circumstances as budgetary constraints or inadequate staff. The court also stated that the intent of the law was to “create a right of action” for aggrieved employees, and that the failure of the EEOC to conciliate—something beyond the employees’ control——should not be cause for taking away that right. James C. Dent et al. v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company, et. al. January 8, 1969. Nos. 24810, 24789, 24811, 24812, 24813. US Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit. 4 . To this day, the case remains active as relatives and heirs of former employees continue to make claims for back-pay and other tangential matters requiring action. 5 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, April 29, 1974. 6 . J u d i t h S t e i n , Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 157–161. 7 . J. Mills Thornton, Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002), 218–222. 8 . Ibid., 222. 9 . Ibid., 371; In fact, Lynne declined to recuse himself from the case despite the fact that he maintained a seat on the board of directors of the Exchange Security Bank, a prominent supporter of the restaurant’s effort to challenge the new law. See Glenn Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), note 52, p. 396. 10 . According to the opinion written by Justice Tuttle of the Fifth Circuit, ACIPCO had actually made an effort to comply with Kennedy’s order, albeit much more in letter than in spirit. Tuttle noted that until 1961 ACIPCO had “formally maintained exclusively black and exclusively white jobs,” but had ceased to do so when such practices became unlawful. ACIPCO, though, was able to maintain a “segregated profile” through a series of layoffs and rehires made possible by wider economic conditions. (Because black employees were always the ones with the least seniority, they bore the brunt of these layoffs.) Once economic conditions began to improve in 1964—and in all likelihood, once the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, the company could no longer pursue this strategy. At that point, it turned to a new tactic to achieve the same goal: the use of testing and educational requirements. See Pettway v. ACIPCO , April 29, 1974. 11 . Harvey Henley interview, January 31, 2004. 12 . Jordan testimony, 183; Booker testimony, 302. Testimony is available in Pettway v. ACIPCO case files at Hugo Black Courthouse, Birmingham, Alabama. NOTES 207

1 3 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, November 21, 1972; Such differences reflected the fact that ACIPCO had no intention of promoting black workers into jobs that necessitated more than the ability to perform hard labor. 14 . In December 1964, the company selected the California Survey of Mental Maturity Test, but it determined that the national scoring percentiles were an overly high standard for the jobs ACIPCO workers were to perform. As a result, the company attempted to establish its own standards by selecting one hundred company-identified “average performers” to take the test and establish the company norms; Pettway v. ACIPCO, May 22, 1969. 1 5 . P o w e l l t e s t i m o n y , 2 5 4 . 1 6 . I b i d . 17 . Baskerville testified first that he would have had his hourly rate increased from $2.78 to $3.35 per hour. He later said that it would have been raised to $3.75 per hour. Baskerville testimony, 260–262. 1 8 . I b i d . , 2 6 3 . 1 9 . H e n l e y i n t e r v i e w . 20 . “Appendix B” in Pettway v. ACIPCO case files. 2 1 . I b i d . 2 2 . I b i d . 2 3 . I b i d . 2 4 . I b i d . 2 5 . B a s k e r v i l l e t e s t i m o n y , 2 6 4 . 26 . Henry Booker, for example, described such practices in his testimony. Booker testimony, 303. 2 7 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, April 29, 1974; A subsequent decision in an employment discrimination case that originated at the Pullman-Standard plant in nearby Bessemer summed up the ways in which ACIPCO continued to maintain a segregated workforce. Writing for the court, US District Court Judge Sam Pointer noted that when the ACIPCO case went to trial in 1971, 81 percent of black workers were in the seven departments with the lowest average wage. Further, in 1969, 75 percent of the job classifications remained segregated. Of the most significance to Pointer was that the remaining 25 percent of job classifications that could be described as integrated had achieved that status as a result of “the influx of whites into black jobs, without a ‘sign of movement of blacks into higher paying jobs.’” See Louis Swint, Willie James Johnson, on behalf of themselves, etc. v. Pullman-Standard, Civil Action No. 71–955, US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division, September 13, 1974, note 25. 28 . The new test requirement in hiring, for example, led to a decrease in black employees from 869 to 791 and an increase in white employees from 923 to 2,162. Black workers also testified that the testing requirements bore little correlation to the actual on-the-job skills demanded. Pettway v. ACIPCO case files. 2 9 . J o r d a n t e s t i m o n y , 1 9 7 – 1 9 8 . 30 . Jordan and Hicks interview. 3 1 . I b i d . 208 NOTES

32 . “Case Won By ‘Legal Defense,’” Birmingham World, March 20, 1971. The actual case was that of Griggs v. Duke Power . 33 . Harvey Henley pointed out that ACIPCO was pursuing strategies similar to other companies seeking to forestall meaningful changes in their policies. “A lot of the suits were filed in court and it still took years before the climax of some of those suits because all of these companies, they fought the same way” he recalled. Interview, Henley. 34 . Jordan and Hicks interview 3 5 . I b i d . 36 . See, for example, Baskerville testimony, 266–267. The story was repeated in numerous other testimonies as well, although the company disputed the claim. Such threats, although lacking written documentation, were nevertheless consistent with other behaviors. 3 7 . H i c k s t e s t i m o n y , 3 8 8 . 3 8 . I b i d . 3 9 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, May 22, 1969. 40 . This belief, of course, was likely influenced by the committee’s earlier experi- ences with the President’s Committee and Hugh Brimm. 4 1 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, May 22, 1969, note 5. 4 2 . I b i d . 4 3 . I b i d . 4 4 . I b i d . 4 5 . I b i d . 46 . Title VII, the court added, protects “assistance and participation” in employee challenges, a protection that would be meaningless if employ- ers could retaliate for participation in an EEOC proceeding. Regarding the details of Wrenn’s letter, the court noted that the claims in the other parts of the letter were both good and direct enough that they should not have been thrown out even if a different portion of the letter may have contained false or malicious statements. 4 7 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, March 18, 1970. 4 8 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, January 21, 1970. The need for such decisions underscored the inadequacy of the court system in granting quick relief while, at the same time, highlighted the importance of an active federal government and judiciary in pressing discrimination cases. 49 . Indeed, Lynne even argued that, although the testing measures that ACIPCO had instituted did not pass muster and that those measures had produced adverse effects for black employees, black employees were nevertheless not entitled to any relief save attorney’s fees and other legal costs. Pettway v. ACIPCO, November 21, 1972. The Supreme Court had established guidelines for assessing such tests in its decision in Griggs. v. Duke Power . 5 0 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, April 29, 1974. 5 1 . I b i d . 5 2 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, July 24, 1978. NOTES 209

53 . Ibid.; At other points Goldberg would refer to portions of the case’s story as “Entering the Twilight Zone” and to its “seemingly Methuselean duration.” 5 4 . I b i d .

3 Staying Active and Branching Out

1 . Quote taken from James Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1996). Patterson cites Nicholas Lemann, “The Lawyer as Hero,” New Republic, September 13, 1993, 36–21. 2 . On the Montgomery Bus Boycott, see J. Mills Thornton, Dividing Lines ; Stewart Burns, Daybreak of Freedom. On the relationship between the legal process and protest, see David J. Garrow, “Hopelessly Hollow History: Revisionist Devaluing of Brown v. Board of Education,” Virginia Law Review , Vol. 80, No. 1 (February 1994): 151–160. 3 . P o w e l l t e s t i m o n y , 2 4 2 . Rush Pettway et al. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company (Pettway v. ACIPCO), Case Files at Hugo Black Courthouse, Birmingham, Alabama. 4 . Henley interview, January 31, 2004. 5 . Ibid.; Davis Jordan and Edward Hicks interview, May 11, 2003; Carl Braden, “Birmingham Movement Grows,” Southern Patriot , September 1972. 6 . Henley also noted that even “after we got the hearing date, then they wore us out with motions, filing motions and things.” Henley interview. 7 . Marie A. Jones, “Unsung Heroes: Civil Rights Foot Soldiers Worked for Change, Not for Fame,” Birmingham News , February 10, 2002. 8 . Henley quoted in Huntley and Montgomery, eds., Black Workers’ Struggle for Equality in Birmingham , 111. 9 . I b i d . 1 0 . A r m s t r o n g t e s t i m o n y , 2 7 9 – 2 8 0 . 1 1 . I b i d . 1 2 . H i c k s t e s t i m o n y , 3 8 2 – 3 8 3 . 1 3 . I b i d , 3 8 4 . 1 4 . I b i d . , 3 8 4 . 1 5 . I b i d , 3 8 5 . 1 6 . I b i d , 3 8 5 . 17 . Such stories appear repeatedly in the workers’ testimony. Pettway v. ACIPCO case files. 1 8 . Pettway v. ACIPCO, January 21, 1970. 19 . Letter from Marie Wilson to Equal Job Opportunity Committee, March 10, 1967, in “Notice of Intent to Appear and Object to Proposed Consent Decree,” Pettway v. ACIPCO, May 12, 1983. 2 0 . I b i d . 2 1 . B o o k e r t e s t i m o n y , 2 9 8 . 22 . Jordan and Hicks interview. 210 NOTES

2 3 . I b i d . 24 . Davis Jordan had to testify at trial that he and the other members of the committee had at least five hundred signatures attesting to their legitimacy as the legal representatives of the entire plaintiff class. Jordan testimony, 175–176. 2 5 . I b i d . 2 6 . B o o k e r t e s t i m o n y , 2 9 8 . 27 . Jordan and Hicks interview 2 8 . I b i d . 2 9 . I b i d . 30 . Henley interview; Simmie Lavender interview, April 17, 2003. 3 1 . H e n l e y i n t e r v i e w . 3 2 . L a v e n d e r i n t e r v i e w . 33 . For discussion of the steel industry cases in particular, see Stein, Running Steel, Running America , especially Chapters 6 and 7 ; Ruth Needleman, Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: The Struggle for Democratic Unionism (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003); Nancy MacLean, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 34 . “NAACP Have 500 Workers,” Birmingham World , March 18, 1972. 35 . “Atty. Hood Wins Lawsuit for Equal Jobs in Gadsden,” Birmingham World , March 18, 1972. 36 . Norrell, “Caste in Steel: Jim Crow Careers in Birmingham, Alabama,” Journal of American History, Vol. 73, No. 3 (December 1986): 680–681. 3 7 . I b i d . 38 . Norrell argues that in the short term the decision actually had a negative impact by spurring greater white resistance as a result of heightened fears of black protest. Ibid., 680–681. 3 9 . I b i d . 6 8 9 – 6 9 0 . 4 0 . I b i d . 4 1 . I b i d , 6 6 9 . 4 2 . Evans v. U.S. Pipe & Foundry Company , No. 81–7125, January 24, 1983. 4 3 . Pinkard et al. v. Pullman-Standard , No. 79–2890, June 10, 1982 4 4 . I b i d . 45 . Norrell notes that grievance committeeman was “the only significant union office that blacks regularly held . . . and that happened only in predominantly black departments.” Norrell, “Caste in Steel,” 682. 4 6 . I b i d . 47 . Company letter quoted in Pinkard et al. v. Pullman-Standard . 4 8 . I b i d . 4 9 . Goodgame v. ACIPCO , US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, No. 94–6504, February 28, 1996. 50 . Hospital desegregation efforts are discussed in chapter 5. 51 . On the NDPA see Hardy T. Frye, Black Parties and Political Power: A Case Study (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980). 5 2 . I n t e r v i e w , H e n l e y 5 3 . I b i d . NOTES 211

5 4 . I b i d . 55 . On this point see Peter Irons, A People’s History of the Supreme Court (New York: Viking Press, 2000); Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality (New York: Vintage Books, 1975); Garrow, “Hopelessly Hollow History.” 56 . John D. Moorhead, “The South’s Growing Economic Clout,” Christian Science Monitor , September 1, 1976, 14. 57 . I first encountered the phrase “when the marching stopped” in the Hanes Walton book of the same name. It was also the title of a conference spon- sored by the Urban League in 1972, a fact that supports the notion that by the early 1970s there was a growing, if flawed, consensus that the protest days of the civil rights movement had come to an end. Hanes Walton, When the Marching Stopped: The Politics of Civil Rights Regulatory Agencies (New York: State University of New York Press, 1988); “When the Marching Stopped: An Analysis of Black Issues in the ’70s,” Collected Works published by National Urban League, 1973. 5 8 . M i n c h i n , Hiring the Black Worker, 64–65; 268; Ruth Needleman, Black Freedom Fighters in Steel .

II Familiar Issues, New Directions

1 . See, for example, the discussion of the rules governing black domestics riding on segregated streetcars in Blair L. M. Kelly, Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v Ferguson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). 2 . African Americans’ attacks on segregation and issues of access were an important means of undermining the entire rationale for Jim Crow. Simply removing such barriers, though, was not sufficient to undo the totality of Jim Crow’s impact, especially after decades of exclusion. 3 . Robin D. G. Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition in a New South City, 1929–1970,” in Michael B. Katz, ed., The Underclass Debate: Views from History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 308. 4 . Carter’s claim to not want “social equality” seems less a true expression of his sentiments and more an effort to assuage the fears of whites in attendance. Carter is quoted in Charles Connerly, “The Most Segregated City in America:” Civil Rights and City Planning in Birmingham, 1920–1980 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005), 117.

4 Poverty and Welfare Rights

1 . “Chapter Two of ‘Poor’ Drive to Begin in State—Abernathy,” Birmingham News, April 8, 1969. The press conference included SCLC leaders Ralph Abernathy and Hosea Williams, along with Ed Gardner, the vice president and soon-to-be president of the ACMHR. In 1967, SCLC had also established 212 NOTES

a Birmingham branch that was separate from the ACMHR and headed ini- tially by Joseph Lowery. See Andrew Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000), 428–429. 2 . Among those changes were an overall increase in benefits, the elimination of qualifications for assistance other than need, free food stamps for families with an income under $3000, and the institution of a statewide free lunch program. See “Chapter Two of ‘Poor’ Drive to Begin in State,” Birmingham News ; Alabama was also among the states with residency requirements, a burden that the Supreme Court would declare unconstitutional that same month, and so-called substitute father restrictions on welfare benefits. “Court Ruling No Problem, Says King,” Birmingham News , April 22, 1969. 3 . “Chapter Two of ‘Poor’ Drive to Begin in State,” Birmingham News . 4 . The police report on the SCLC campaign is located in the papers of city councilman and later mayor George Seibels. See Untitled police surveillance memo, May 2, 1969, Seibels Papers 37.28, BPL. 5 . Untitled police notes about an April 15 meeting of “negro leaders,” Seibels 37.25. 6 . On the Charleston strike, see Leon Fink and Brian Greenberg, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of the Hospital Workers’ Union Local 1199 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), Chapter 7; Charleston would also beat out Birmingham as the site of the SCLC’s annual meeting in 1969. On at least one occasion, as well, an event planned in Birmingham had to be canceled because Abernathy had been jailed in Charleston. See “Mule Train Tour of City Called Off,” Birmingham News , April 26, 1969 7 . “ W e l f a r e M a r c h e s C o n t i n u e , ” Birmingham News , April 12, 1969; “Notes,” April 11, 1969, Seibels 37.25 8 . “Notes,” April 11, 1969, Seibels 37.25 9 . Ibid; “Welfare Marches to Continue,” Birmingham News ; “Rogers Talk Part of SCLC Local Drive,” Birmingham News , April 14, 1969; “SCLC Protests Alleged Job Bias,” Birmingham News, April 16, 1969; “Police Arrest 3 SCLC Members,” Birmingham News , April 20, 1969; Police Report, May 16, 1969, Seibels 37.25 10 . “SCLC Protests Alleged Job Bias,” Birmingham News , April 16, 1969. 11 . “Birmingham Police Department, Inter-office Communication,” April 17, 1969, Seibels 37.25. 12 . Police did not identify the church, but its address was on a flyer produced by the marchers that is also in the Seibels papers. Seibels 20.25. 13 . Ibid.; “Memorandum,” April 21, 1969, Seibels 37.25. 14 . “Memorandum,” April 22, 1969, Seibels 37.26. 15 . “Memo,” April 14, 1969, Seibels 37.25. 16 . “Memo Notes,” April 28, 1969, Seibels, 37.27. 17 . Ibid.; Police reports give no indication of the substance of these workshops. 1 8 . I b i d . 19 . Confrontations with the police were exacerbated by the fact that tensions remained high because court action related to an incident in Ensley coincided NOTES 213

with the beginning of the SCLC campaign. See the section on police brutality for a discussion of this incident. 20 . “Inter-office Communication,” April 17, 1969, Seibels 37.25. 21 . Surveillance files are full of arrest reports and mug shots of protestors arrested on April 21. 22 . “Memorandum,” April 21, 1969. 2 3 . I b i d . 24 . “Police Arrest 3 SCLC Members,” Birmingham News . 25 . On April 25 at least twenty-nine people were arrested for their actions at the food stamp office, including once again blocking the streets. See “Mule Train Tour of City Called Off”; The next day, fourteen marchers were arrested. See “Police Arrest 14 Negroes during March.” On May 13, Robert Johnson and an unnamed black male were arrested on the respective charges of “assaulting an officer” and “interfering [sic ] with an officer.” See Lieutenant T. L. Jones and Sergeant Thomas Cook to Chief Jamie Moore, “SCLC Mass Meeting and March of May 13, 1969,” Seibels 37.28; A May 19, 1969, memo refers to twenty-four arrests being made the previous Friday, with twenty-one still in jail. “Notes,” May 19, 1969, Seibels 37.29. 26 . “SCLC Protests Alleged Job Bias,” Birmingham News , April 16, 1969; see also multiple police surveillance memos in Seibels 37.25. 27 . “Notes,” April 16, 1969, Seibels 37.25. 28 . Carol Nunnelley, “Two Groups Active: Negro Efforts Focus on Police Attitude and Welfare Program,” Birmingham News , April 25, 1969. 2 9 . P r e m i l l a N a d a s e n , Welfare Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the United States (New York: Routledge, 2005), xvii. 30 . Rita Anthony told me such stories in an interview in May 2003. Anthony even seemed to find unremarkable the number of neighborhood efforts in which she got involved, seeing it as simply a natural consequence of her activist work. Interview, Rita Anthony [Merulrine Watkins], May 7, 2003. 31 . “Memorandum,” April 16, 1969, Seibels 37.25. 32 . Interview, Rita Anthony [Merulrine Watkins], May 7, 2003. 33 . “Memorandum,” April 16, 1969, Seibels 37.25 34 . Ibid.; The story also reveals the bureaucratic hurdles that welfare recipients had to surmount. 3 5 . I b i d . 3 6 . I b i d . 37 . On this point in another Southern city see Christina Greene, Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). 38 . Premilla Nadasen writes of a “racially defined gender script” that dominated views of welfare in the 1960s in which “good white mothers should stay at home, and good black mothers must go to work.” Nadasen, Welfare Warriors , xvi. 39 . In May, Mayor Seibels would actually request that additional manpower be devoted to such surveillance. He instructed Police Chief Jamie Moore to “assign whatever number of men you feel it is necessary to be able to keep 214 NOTES

constant watch on the conditions that face us in connection with the demonstrations and marches.” Seibels also expressed his wish that his executive secretary, Mr. Ricker, be kept up-to-date with as much information as possible, even going so far as to instruct Ricker to keep the city’s switchboard and radio operator “aware of his location at all times.” Seibels to Moore, May 1, 1969, Seibels 39.4. 40 . “Memorandum, April 15, 1969,” Seibels 37.27. 41 . “Memorandum—April 29, 1969,” Seibels 37.27. 4 2 . I b i d . 43 . “Memorandum,” May 16, 1969, Seibels 37.28. 44 . “Memorandum,” April 23, 1969, Seibels 37.27. 4 5 . I b i d . 46 . Thomas Cook and SJ Bryant to George Wall, April 24, 1969, Seibels 37.27. 47 . Police memo, April 25, 1969, Seibels 37.27. 48 . Another source of conflict was the perceived lack of support by AG Gaston in terms of office space and rooms for participants from out of town. At an all-night strategy session reported on by police, there had been discussions of extending the picketing to several of his businesses. “Memo Notes,” April 28, 1969, Seibels 37.27. 49 . Police memo, May 13, 1969, Seibels 37.28. 5 0 . I b i d . 5 1 . I b i d . 52 . Ibid.; Smithfield is a black neighborhood in Birmingham located west of downtown. Eventually, Reverend Sam Davis opened up his church to the protestors as a gathering place prior to their marches downtown. Seibels 37.29; Interview, Rita Anthony. 53 . Nunnelley, “Two Groups Active,” Birmingham News . 54 . J. Mills Thornton, Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002), 378. 55 . “Search for Summer Jobs,” Birmingham World , May 17, 1969. 56 . Such an assessment would seem to be consistent with remarks made by Fred Shuttlesworth in 1972. In July of that year, Shuttlesworth addressed a group of approximately two hundred people at an ACMHR meeting and, according to police surveillance, told them that, “in the sixties, the Negro people had to take to the streets and demonstrate to get what they wanted, but in the seventies, this is different . . . (N)ow the Negro people must go to the table to bargain and talk, to give and take.” Shuttlesworth allegedly also referred to the 1970s as “the days of table conferences and strength at the polls.” Given the subject, he was likely taken out of context or not quoted completely, but it is also interesting that Shuttlesworth seemed to have backpedaled on the issue of police brutality (or at least been influenced by the “law and order” rhetoric of the day.) “Police brutality,” he told the crowd, “was brought on by the Negro brutality . . . Lots of brutality was brought on by the black approach to the police. They must change their approach and understand the need for law enforcement and let it go at that.” “Memorandum,” July 27, 1972, Seibels 37.46. NOTES 215

57 . Police identified Gaston as having first become active during the 1963 demonstrations and then lending his support to a demonstration at a Birmingham A&P store around 1967. Others listed as affiliated with the UNIA were “the Flemmings, Burrell, a Cline woman and others.” Burrell was likely Johnny Burrell, also active in the welfare campaign and soon to emerge as one of its critics. In 1970, police alleged that Gaston and Williams were “in direct contact with Perry Carlisle, who is one of the leaders of the Black Panther Party.” The connections to Carlisle, of course, dated to at least 1969 when he accompanied Williams to court following her arrest during the SCLC’s food stamp demonstrations. “Memo Notes,” September 17, 1970, Seibels 37.31. 58 . “Memo Notes,” April 12, 1971, Seibels 37.34; Later memos state that Reverend Burrell had a barbershop at 6th Street and Graymont Ave. He had also led a March in January of about thirty-five people. See Seibels 37.39. 59 . Many of these figures, at least by outward appearances, had been influenced by black power rhetoric and ideas. Police, for example, had already taken specific note of the prominence of Perry Carlisle at the marches and meetings, usually noting the “black power fist” he wore around his neck. Carlisle would emerge as a major supporter of the ABLF the following year, a group that was modeled explicitly after the BPP. This trend would continue into the 1970s, paving the way for the emergence of such groups. 60 . The all-night strategy session at which police had an informant included discussion of setting up new offices across the city under the name SCLC- Birmingham Units, both to establish the campaign as a locally based effort and because there had evidently been a perceived lack of cooperation from the SCLC’s main office. “Memo Notes,” April 28, 1969, Seibels 37.27. There were also allegations by the more militant figures that funds were being withheld or mishandled by people affiliated with the ACMHR. See also the various police intelligence reports in Seibels 37.28. 61 . “Memorandum,” May 16, 1969, Seibels 37.28. 62 . “Notes,” May 19, 1969, Seibels 37.29. 63 . Ibid.; Gardner and others expressed the belief that some of the figures who had taken over the campaign were former SNCC workers “who had run all the white people from [that] organization” and referred to them as “anti- white” and “gangsters.” 64 . Police report, May 28, 1969, Seibels 37.29. 65 . “Memo Notes,” June 9, 1969, Seibels 37.30. Abernathy appears to have been upset at the inability to generate publicity for the campaign. Lack of national publicity, though, should not be equated, as it apparently was in Abernathy’s mind, with lack of local support. 66 . Untitled police report dated June 11, 1969, Seibels 37.30; “Memorandum,” June 20, 1969, Seibels 37.30. 67 . The fact that the campaign had not succeeded in extracting concessions from state and local officials should not be allowed to obscure this fact either. 6 8 . A n n e l i s e O r l e c k , Storming Caesar’s Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty (Boston: Beaon Press, 2006). 216 NOTES

69 . Police Report, April 15, 1969, Seibels 37.25. 70 . Felecia Kornbluh, The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Poverty in Modern America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). 71 . This fact makes tracking the groups somewhat difficult. I have relied primarily on police surveillance reports, although I was also able to speak with some activists who were connected to welfare rights organizing. Others declined the opportunity to talk about their involvement. Rita Anthony, interview; Conversation, Jessie Burrell; 72 . The 1969 information came from a “colored minister” who had agreed to pass on any information that he heard. The minister had learned of WRO activity upon being approached by two white Miles College students ask- ing for assistance in upcoming demonstrations. See “Notes,” June 27, 1969, and “Memo Notes,” June 30, 1969, Seibels 37.30. In March of 1980 an “Action Bulletin” issued by the SOC announced a statewide march in Montgomery to protest Governor Fob James’ proposed cuts in funding for the Department of Pensions and Securities. Listed among the sponsors of the march were the Alabama SCLC, the Alabama Coalition against Hunger, and the AWRO. “Alabamians Say No to Cutbacks,” Southern Organizing Committee Action Bulletin , March 3, 1980, SOC Papers, Box 2, “Action Bulletins” Folder, WHS. 73 . Ibid.; On James and Wiley see Premilla Nadasen, Welfare Warriors, 41; See also Nick Kotz and Mary Lynn Kotz, A Passion for Equality: George Wiley and the Movement (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977). 7 4 . N a d a s e n , Welfare Warriors, 38–43. 75 . The police informant reported that King had been a minister only a short time, having been ordained by Reverend Abraham Woods in an effort to “get more power and prestige” for himself as an activist. “Memo Notes,” June 30, 1969, Seibels 37.30. 76 . It is unclear how this position was different from King’s. “Notes,” June 27, 1969, Seibels 37.30; Police also noted that King was receiving organizing help from a woman out of Chicago name W. Coleman and a man identified as Mr. Bone. King also mentioned a Mr. H. L. Parker as being in charge of the Pratt City office 77 . When the 60 lost cards are combined with the remaining 160 cards, the figures are close to the police estimate of 250 members. “Memo Notes,” June 30, 1969. Seibels 37.30 78 . “Notes,” June 27, 1969 and “Memo Notes,” June 30, 1969, Seibels 37.30 79 . Interview, Floyd King, Jr., March 2004. 80 . “Notes,” June 27, 1969. Seibels 37.30 81 . Outside of countering any public protests, police appear to have been most interested in possible rifts in the organization. They noted, for example, that King complained to James that Evans utilized the word “MF” too often and was not a good church speaker. King also was reported to be upset that the group had received no assistance from the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Reverend King was also reported to be seeking reimbursement NOTES 217

for a number of expenses that he and his “main assistant,” a Reverend Rogers, had incurred in organizing the group. King claimed to be out over $200 and behind on his rent. He also noted that his wife was “raising hell because there is not enough to eat in the house.” He also reported to Washington that he could get early morning airtime on radio station WJLD for just over forty dollars and that he owed WENN $500 for another program. In addition to being reimbursed, King had reportedly requested a “1968 station wagon with National Welfare’s name on the side.” See “Memo Notes,” June 30, 1969, Seibels 37.30 82 . The NWRO’s papers are located in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Library at Howard University, but they had not yet been processed when the research was completed for this project. Hopefully they may yield additional information regarding local welfare rights activity in Birmingham and elsewhere. 83 . It is unclear from these papers what the acronym WRDA stood for. See George Wiley Papers, Box 8. 84 . Records that appear to date from 1971 list the Birmingham WRDA chapter with 294 members in 1969, 236 of whom had paid dues. George Wiley Papers, Box 8, Folder 4. 85 . Williams to Wiley, June 23, 1972. George Wiley Papers, Box 24, Folder 12. 86 . Coleman to Wiley, January 29, 1973. Wiley Papers, Box 40, Folder 12, WHS. In his own letter to Wiley, written in May of 1972, Dennis Manzini of Miles College offered criticisms of the national organization, charg- ing that NWRO representative Tyrone Chapman had been overly “brash” in his dealings with people around Alabama and had treated Manzini rudely on the phone. Manzini further informed Wiley that, in his view, the NWRO seemed more concerned with establishing a group to add to its national strength than with the actual plight of Alabama welfare recipients. Finally, Manzini complained that the NWRO seemed interested only in organizing black welfare recipients even though “half of the people on welfare are white.” Manzini cited the actions of NWRO organizers who had traveled to Alabama in June of 1971 in response to a state cut in benefits. The organizers had allegedly “disregarded the opinions, abilities, and authority of local welfare groups,” “failed to honor some of its previous commitments” including the promise to bring thirty organizers rather than six, and been guilty of “irresponsible communication and sloppy organization” in its dealings with Alabama. Manzini went on to caution the committee about attempts to forge links between Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and the NWRO. A VISTA volunteer might find himself caught between the local and national WRO groups. See Manzini to Wiley. May 26, 1972, George Wiley Papers, Box 24, Folder 12. 87 . “State Shorts: Birmingham, Alabama Organizes City Wide,” Welfare Fighter , Vol. 2, No. 6 (April–May 1971). 88 . Other members of the coalition were “representatives of a number of labor unions and the Young Workers Liberation League.” See “Alabama Power Rate Increase Fought,” Southern Patriot , March 1971. 218 NOTES

89 . “People in the News,” Welfare Fighter , Vol. 2, No. 6, April-May, 1971. 9 0 . “ S t a t e S h o r t s . ” 91 . Rita Anthony would tell similar stories in an interview with the author; Interview, Rita Anthony. 92 . “WRO Is Picketing the Capitol,” Welfare Fighter, Vol. 2, No. 7 (August 1971). According to the article, Alabama had changed the way it computed grants. Under the old system, the state established a “standard of need,” subtracted any outside income, and then paid a third of the remainder. Under the new system, the state first divided the standard of need by three and then subtracted any outside income. As a result, some welfare recipients were reduced to payments as low as one dollar. 9 3 . I b i d . 94 . “Cuts Are Coming—Cuts Are Here,” Welfare Fighter, Vol. 2, No. 8 (October 1971). 95 . “Sixteen Cities Join National Crusade for Children’s Rights: Montgomery,” Welfare Fighter (April 1972). 96 . “Memorandum,” September 20, 1972, Seibels 38.1. 97 . Chris Conway, “19 SCLC Marchers Land in City Jail,” Birmingham Post- Herald, July 28, 1976, Sunrise Edition. Cutting of article found in the SOC papers, Box 3, Folder 6; Ruby Williams was photographed being arrested and was identified as the Birmingham coordinator of the march. 98 . Information about the program may be found on a typed document dated July 15, 1971, in the folder labeled “Raw Materials” in Box 2 of the SOC papers. 99 . “News in Brief,” Southern Fight-Back (August 1978). I am grateful to Judy Hand-Truitt for sharing her personal archive of SOC material, including a back catalog of the Southern Fight-Back . 1 0 0 . “ G r a s s - R o o t s A c t i o n — A N e w s R o u n d - U p , ” Southern Fight-Back (June 1976). 101 . “Memorandum,” September 28, 1971, Seibels 37.35. 102 . “Memorandum,” October 5, 1971, Seibels 37.36. 103 . In December, police reported that McLean had been in contact with several local real estate agents. See “Memorandum,” December 7, 1971, Seibels 37.38. 104 . Flyer attached to October 5, 1971, memo, Seibels 37.36.

5 Community Health, Municipal Services, and Police Brutality

1 . For a full account of the conflict see Charles Connerly, “The Most S e g re gate d Cit y in Am e r i c a”: Cit y Pl a nning a n d Civ i l R ig ht s in Bir ming h a m , 1920–1980 (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2005), Chapter 4 . 2 . Black doctors had not even been allowed to practice medicine at the new facility. Ibid., 119. NOTES 219

3 . Tim L. Pennycuff, “‘Offering Inferior Service to Negro Patients’: Unequal Healthcare in Birmingham, Alabama.” Paper presented at the “Race & Place III” Conference at the University of Alabama, March 2004. Hard copy in author’s possession. 4 . The clinic opened in 1939, but after World War II federal funding dried up and local leaders were unwilling to keep the facility running. Pennycuff, “Offering Inferior Service to Negro Patients.” 5 . Seibels to McNulty, March 30, 1964. Seibels Papers 1.2. 6 . Even if this had been the only medical care that poor African Americans ever sought, Seibels’ views meant that such services were unworthy of public funds. 7 . Similar suits were filed across the state and region. Pennycuff, “‘Offering Inferior Service’” 8 . Davis Jordan and Edward Hicks, May 11, 2003 9 . I b i d . 1 0 . I b i d . 1 1 . I b i d . 1 2 . I b i d . 13 . Ibid.; Worth noting is that a February 19, 1969, editorial in the Birmingham World noted that mental health institutions in Alabama remained segregated as well. 14 . Pages attached to notes from phone conversations involving Candy Jones on July 15, 1978, and Ruby Williams on July 16, 1978, can be found within the files of the SOC. The pages were a rough copy of an article intended for publication that traced the history of the conflict over the clinic. Unless otherwise noted, the information about the clinic is taken from these pages. SOC Papers, Box 2, “Raw Materials” Folder, WHS. 15 . “Action at the Grass-Roots,” Southern Fight-Back , February, 1978. 1 6 . I b i d . 17 . “Roosevelt City, Ala.: Setting an Example,” Southern Patriot, November 1970. 18 . The sources do not offer any details as to the substance of these allegations. 19 . Rohling’s agency had been involved with the clinic through its responsibility for making recommendations to HEW for a seven-county area in Alabama that included Birmingham. 20 . Such was the case, for example, with the Head Start program in Mississippi. John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995.) 21 . “Action at the Grass-Roots,” Southern Fight-Back (February 1978): 3; On Head Start see Dittmer, Local People . 22 . The use of federal and other public funds to pursue such efforts in the 1970s should be explored further. 23 . “Roosevelt City, Ala.: Setting an Example.” 2 4 . I b i d . 220 NOTES

25 . Benjamin Phillips, “500 People March in B’ham to Protest Police Brutality,” Southern Courier, October 20, 1968. 26 . Seibels 35.31. Lola City was approximately thirteen miles east of Birmingham. 27 . Mr. and Mrs. Robert James to George Seibels, October 19, 1970, Seibels 35.31. 28 . Carol Nunnelley, “In New Thrust—Urban League Helps Negroes to Help Selves,” Birmingham News , May 5, 1969. 29 . The average family income in the area was only $2,500. Ibid. 30 . Nichols, Jr., “The Evolution of an All-Black Town” 31 . Woodrow W. Nichols, Jr., “The Evolution of an All-Black Town: The Case of Roosevelt City, Alabama,” Professional Geographer, Vol. 26, No. 3 (August 1974): 298–302 32 . Ibid, 298–302; The article Nichols cites is Cynthia Barnett Ray, “A Study of Community Action in Roosevelt City, Alabama,” unpublished paper, January 28, 1971, 8. 33 . “Roosevelt City, Ala.: Setting an Example.” Other black areas were planning similar action. 34 . Nichols, Jr., “The Evolution of an All-Black Town”; Hobson City, located near Anniston, had pursued a similar strategy, securing a $600,000 Housing and Urban Development loan to begin construction on forty low-rent housing units. “Construction Due on Low Rent Housing Units in Mid-January,” Birmingham World , January 8, 1969. 35 . “Roosevelt City, Ala.: Setting an Example.” 36 . Ibid.; Roosevelt City was one of three municipalities in Alabama that had a black mayor in 1969. The others were Hobson City and Triana, a town about ninety miles north of Birmingham. “Construction Due on Low Rent Housing Units,” Birmingham World . 3 7 . Birmingham World , May 9, 1970, 7. 38 . “Roosevelt City, Ala.: Setting an Example.” 39 . Andrew Moody to George Seibels, Seibels 1.2; George Seibels to Andrew Moody, June 9, 1964, Seibels 1.3; Mayor Albert Boutwell to Jamie Moore, June 12, 1964, Seibels 1.3; Seibels to Andrew Moody, June 23, 1964, Seibels 1.4. 4 0 . I b i d . 41 . Diane McWhorter offers an effective portrait of the Klan’s ties to both the police and major industrialists in the Birmingham area. Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001). 42 . Police Chief Jamie Moore did at one point seem to acknowledge that elimi- nating criminal activity in black neighborhoods was “a long-range program that [would] necessitate better housing, better education, and better chances for employment for the lower economic group in our city, which generally speaking are Negro people.” His recognition came in the context of a letter exchange regarding illegal “shot” houses. Moore’s remedies, though, did not include better city services, increased funding for schools, or other ideas that NOTES 221

African Americans had advanced. Instead, he advocated increasing fines for whiskey law violations, outlawing “rockolas” in residential areas, and an effort to convince the state to “see fit to put ABC stores in the neighborhoods where the lower income people live.” Moore to Seibels, June 17, 1971, Seibels 39.10 43 . “Remarks by Chief Jamie Moore at the Police Survey Meeting,” May 1, 1968, Seibels 38.33. 4 4 . I b i d . 45 . Emory O. Jackson, “The Tip-Off,” Birmingham World, January 29 and February 1, 1969. 46 . Thompson interview with Hardy Frye. Hardy T. Frye Oral History Collection, Auburn University Archives. 4 7 . I b i d . 48 . See, for example, “Two Police Shootings Are Ruled ‘Justifiable,’” Birmingham World, May 16, 1970. 49 . Letter from Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance et al. to County Commission et al., February 22, 1967, “Birmingham, AL Misc.,” “Box 6,” “Social Action Vertical File,” WHS 5 0 . I b i d . 51 . “NEGROES Are Calling a 60-Day Period of Mourning for the Dead!,” “Birmingham, AL Misc.,” “Box 6,” “Social Action Vertical File,” WHS. 52 . Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, “Opening Statement to Statewide Civil Rights Leaders’ Meeting on Law Enforcement,” March 13, 1967, “Birmingham, AL, Misc.,” “Box 6,” “Social Action Vertical File, WHS. 53 . Phillips, “500 People March in B’ham to Protest Police Brutality.” 54 . Benjamin Phillips, “‘B’ham Cop Shot Him While His Hands Were in the Air,’” Southern Courier , December 7–8, 1968; Although Sanders’ circumstances are not explored in detail, it seems telling that he was stealing clothing given the persistence of poverty in black Birmingham in these years. 55 . “Woman Bound over on Assault Charge,” Birmingham News , April 11, 1969; “Editorial Notes,” Birmingham World , April 19, 1969. 56 . This telegram was contrasted with the SCLC campaign in the Birmingham News article about black leadership. It was also the one that SCLC leaders had pushed unsuccessfully to include concerns related to welfare. 57 . “Woman Bound over on Assault Charge.” 58 . Tom Gibson, “No Indictments: Jury Urges Change in Police Attitudes,” Birmingham News , May 15, 1969. 59 . Grand Jury report quoted in Gibson, “No Indictments.” 60 . “An Open Message . . . ,” File 12.37, David Vann Papers. 61 . “Digest of Report of Mr. W.C. Bauer on Meeting with Riley Station Committee, March 13, 1972, 3:30 P.M. City Council Chamber,” Seibels 37.43. 62 . The committee was reported to consist of Mayor Seibels, Judson Hodges, Bob Olson, Dr. Gaston, and the Riley Station Community Committee, along with acting police chief Jack Warren and then-councilman Arrington. 63 . Ware had been the object of similar accusations during the SCLC’s 1969 welfare campaign when he refused to allow his church to be used for mass meetings. “Memorandum,” July 5, 1972, Seibels 37.46. 222 NOTES

64 . Among these figures were Victor Woods and Joe Hammonds. See “Memorandum,” July 5, 1972, Seibels 37.46 65 . St. Paul’s was a key church among those hoping to continue protest activity in Birmingham. It had been one of the few places willing to open its doors for meetings during the 1969 food stamp protests, and it was also a site where groups like the CCJ, working on behalf of political prisoners, held meetings. 66 . Watkins related that story in 2003; Rita Anthony, interview. 67 . “Memorandum,” April 11, 1972, Seibels 37.44. 68 . Flemming was described by police as “a black woman who has long been a demonstrator for numerous civil rights issue[s] in Birmingham.” She had also been among those identified as offering a challenge to the SCLC leadership in 1969. 69 . Ibid.; Among the marchers, police noted the presence of about six or eight whites, including Jim Baines, a local Communist Party leader. 70 . At the April 11 meeting, the organization heard from Patterson and voted to meet with the store manager and demand her rehiring. “Memorandum,” April 11, 1972, Seibels 37.44. 71 . “Memorandum,” April 13, 1972, Seibels 37.44. 72 . “Memorandum,” April 18, 1972, Seibels 37.44. 73 . “Memorandum,” April 19, 1972, Seibels 37.44. Both Harris and Hammonds had been in Birmingham for the 1969 food stamp demonstrations. 74 . Ibid.; A fourth speaker was identified as “a black man named Wright who works at National Biscuit Company.” Police reported that Wright’s comments were aimed exclusively at Reverend Gardner, calling him an Uncle Tom who did not represent SCLC. If blacks wanted freedom, he said, they would have to rally behind McKinney. 75 . The “food stamp days” was a reference to the 1969 SCLC poverty campaign. 76 . “Memorandum,” April 20, 1972, Seibels 37.44. 77 . “Memorandum,” April 21, 1972, Seibels 37.33. 78 . Braden, “Birmingham Movement Grows.” 79 . Melvin Bailey to Honorable William Baxley, August 31, 1972, Seibels 31.30. The letter has several attached documents, including a report on McKinney that Major David Orange had filed with Sheriff Bailey.

III A New “Civil Rights Unionism”

1 . The phrase “civil rights unionism” is taken from Robert Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid- Twentieth Century South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005); On the 1930s and 1940s see Robert Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein, “Opportunities Found and Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of American History, Vol. 75, No. 3 (December 1988): 786–811; Alan Draper, “The New Southern Labor History Revisited: The Success of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union in Birmingham, NOTES 223

1934–1938,” Journal of Southern History, Vol. 62, No. 1 (February 1996): 87–108; Brian Kelly, “Beyond the ‘Talented Tenth’: Black Elites, Black Workers, and the Limits of Accommodation in Industrial Birmingham, 1900–1921,” in Charles M. Payne and Adam Green, eds., Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850–1950 (New York: NYU Press, 2003) 2 . K o r s t a d , Civil Rights Unionism , 1–2. 3 . I b i d . , 4 . 4 . For another exploration of this new civil rights unionism, see Kieran Taylor, Turn to the Working Class: The New Left, Black Liberation, and the U.S. Labor Movement (1967–1981) , PhD Dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2007.

6 The Public Employees Organizing Committee

1 . “Memorandum, May 6, 1971” Lionel C. Skaggs to Dr. W. Paul Brann et. al., Series 2.1.3, Folder 24.8, UAB Archives, University of Alabama at Birmingham. (Hereafter UAB Archives) 2 . I b i d . 3 . Much of my knowledge of the early days of the PEOC comes from an address given by James Farrior at one of the group’s mass rallies on March 2, 1972. Police recorded the rally and a copy of the tape may be found at the Birmingham Public Library in Police Surveillance Files, File 13.9, Cassette 9; A program from the rally, with speakers identified, is available in Police Surveillance Files, File 6.20. 4 . Southern cities that experienced such strikes included Memphis, Atlanta, Durham, and Charleston. See Interview with Bruce Carr by Jordan McGee, January, 13, 2005, Interview U-0441 in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Hereafter Carr, SOHP Interview). 5 . Dorothy Farrior declined an invitation to speak with the author. She did speak with the SOHP in 2007. Interview with Dorothy Farrior by Kim Hill, June 20, 2007, Interview U-0173 in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Hereafter Farrior, SOHP Interview); Hurder spoke with the author via phone in the spring of 2003. 6 . Hurder, phone interview. 7 . Farrior history, Police Files, 13.9; The first issue of the PEOC’s newsletter, Getting It Together , was published in December 1971 and placed the initial gatherings as seven months prior. Other documents suggest it may have begun as early as January 1971. See “PEOC Grows,” Getting It Together , December 1971, Seibels 38.1. There are selected copies of Getting It Together throughout the various surveillance files. 8 . “Next Time, It’ll Be the Workers,” Southern Patriot , April 1974. 224 NOTES

9 . Farrior history, Police Surveillance Files, 13.9; “PEOC Grows,” Getting It Together , Seibels 38.1 1 0 . R u t h N e e d l e m a n , Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: The Struggle for Democratic Unionism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), Chapter 6 ; The Ad-Hoc Committee allowed the PEOC to use its letterhead and lent support in various other ways. Its support demonstrated again that activist efforts in Birmingham’s black community, whether aimed at implementation, expansion, or otherwise, overlapped with and intersected one another. Black activists shared similar goals, but had different priorities and/or tactics for achieving those goals. 11 . “Memorandum, July 16, 1971,” Lionel C. Skaggs to Dr. W. Paul Brann, Series 2.1.3, Folder 26.5, UAB Archives. 1 2 . I b i d . 13 . “Memorandum, March 16, 1972 From J. Rufus Beale to Richard A. Thigpen, et al,” UAB Archives, Collection 2.1.3, Folder 31.46. 14 . Seibels to Moore, “City of Birmingham Inter-Office Communication,” July 22, 1970, Seibels Papers 37.31 1 5 . I b i d . 16 . Seibels to Moore, “Agitating Groups of Unskilled Laborers in Birmingham,” September 9, 1970, Seibels Papers 37.31. 17 . UAB officials also referenced a union at Lloyd Noland, but there does not appear to have been any connection to the PEOC, at least as would have been evident from any of the other documents. UAB officials noted the union at Lloyd Noland almost in passing in a report about the first PEOC meeting to which they had sent informants. The report noted simply that “Lloyd Noland Hospital was used as an example of what unions can do for hospital employees.” “Memorandum, July 16, 1971,” UAB Archives, Collection 2.1.3, Folder 26.5. 18 . “Memo [handwritten date of 6–11–71],” Seibels Papers, 37.35 19 . John H. Walker to Dr. W. Paul Brann, “Memorandum Re: Union Activities— Week of October 30–November 4,” UAB Archives, Collection 2.1.3, Folder 31.46; “PEOC Grows,” Getting It Together , December 1971, Seibels 38.1 20 . “Benefit Party” and “PEOC Grows,” Getting It Together , December 1971, Seibels 38.1 21 . Farrior history, Police Files 13.9. 22 . Dorothy Farrior SOHP interview. 2 3 . I b i d . 2 4 . I b i d . 25 . “Memorandum,” December 23, 1971, Seibels 37.38. 26 . “PEOC Grows,” Getting It Together , December 1971, Seibels 38.1; Police were also aware of these links. On January 13, 1972, they reported that a meeting of hospital workers had taken place the day before, but “only a handful” of people were there, all of whom were either SCLC fieldworkers or “others who have attached themselves to this project,” not hospital employees. Such comments also read as though police hoped to characterize the protests as the NOTES 225

illegitimate product of rabble-rousing by the familiar bogeymen: “outside agitators.” 27 . Carl Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined: Birmingham Movement Grows,” Southern Patriot , September 1972. 2 8 . “ N o t e s , ” S e i b e l s 3 7 . 3 9 . 29 . “Carl Farris: ‘It’s the Same Struggle,’” Southern Patriot , September 1972, 7. 30 . Quote from Carl Farris in Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined: Birmingham Movement Grows”; See also comments by Alex Hurder to the SCEF Board, “Report to the SCEF Board from the Labor Workshop,” in “SCEF Minutes & Reports (Board & Interim Committee) 1970–1974,” Southern Conference Educational Fund Records, 1958–1985, Southern Labor Archives, Special Collections Department, Pullen Library, Georgia State University. Hereafter SCEF Records. 31 . “Report to the SCEF Board from the Labor Workshop,” in “SCEF Minutes & Reports (Board & Interim Committee) 1970–1974,” SCEF Records. 32 . An early handout produced by the PEOC suggests that the AFSCME may also have been involved with the organizing drive, but it is unclear exactly what the relationship between the union and the workers actually was. AFSCME had been active in Alabama, helping lead an unsuccessful challenge to the state’s prohibition on unionization among public employees in the 1950s in the case AFSCME v. Dawkins , No. 3 Div. 821, 268 Ala. 13; 104 So. 2d 827. There were also periodic mentions in various documents of the 1199 Union in connection with organizing efforts in Birmingham. NLRB documents indicate that Alex Hurder assumed the position of president of Local 1318 in May 1972. 33 . Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined.” 34 . Confiscated copies of these publications can be found in both police files and University Hospital files. 35 . “Hear Carl Farris . . . ,” 10/27/71, Seibels 37.37; According to informants who attended meetings in the summer of 1971, job security, wages, and the right to organize had also been the main topics of discussion in those venues as well. Such concerns were cited, as well, in an article included in the first issue of the PEOC’s newsletter. The article informed readers that “[i]ssues such as job security, higher wages and the enforcement of petty rules [had] provided the catalyst for [the group’s initial] action.” The article went on to provide specific examples of why these issues had been raised. It highlighted, for example, the fact that some employees were earning $1.63 per hour, a wage rate that would still result in poverty despite working a forty-hour week. It also cited UAB’s policy for new employees as an example of how administra- tors were able to control employees unfairly. That policy mandated that any employee could be fired for no reason during his or her first six months of work and that, following this six-month period, the only grievance proce- dure in place gave the last word to Dr. Joseph Volker, the hospital’s chief administrator. Finally, it cited just one of the “petty rules” that both insulted hospital workers and cost them financially—a policy that failure to bring a 226 NOTES

doctor’s slip for even a one-day absence from work would result in lost pay for that day. See “PEOC Grows,” Getting It Together , December 1971, Seibels 38.1. 36 . Ibid.; In addition, the group hoped to force area hospitals to recognize it as the bargaining representative for workers and provide such benefits as check-off union dues. 37 . “Public Employees Organizing Committee: Do Something About It—Go Union,” Seibels 37.39 38 . “Public Employee,” UAB Archives, Collection 2.1.3, Folder 26.5. The date 11/9/71 is handwritten on the flyer along with a note to “Copy to Dr. Brann.” 39 . “Organize!!! Why We Must Organize!,” February 2, 1972, Seibels 37.39. 40 . “Be Aware,” Getting It Together , January 1972, Seibels 37.39. 41 . The December 1971 edition is in Seibels 38.1 and the January 1972 issue is in Seibels 37.39. 42 . “She’ll Be Back!,” Getting It Together , December 1971, Seibels 38.1. 43 . Skaggs was chairman of the board. “UAB Still Unfair,” Getting It Together , January 1972, Seibels 37.39; Various community leaders, including Thomas Johnson of the Ad-Hoc Committee, Ed Gardner of ACMHR, and Freddie Rogers, the mayor of Roosevelt City, were reported to be writing appeals on her behalf. 4 4 . “ G r i e v a n c e s , ” Getting It Together , January 1972, Seibels 37.39. 45 . Police Files 13.9, Cassette 9. 4 6 . I b i d . 47 . “Memo, 6–11–71,” File 37.35, Seibels Papers; Police identified the person hand- ing out flyers as Susan Hamerquist, a student at UAB who was already known to officers from her involvement with a variety of radical organizations. 48 . Flyer attached to “Memo [handwritten date of 6–11–71],” Seibels Papers 37.35. 4 9 . H u r d e r , t e l e p h o n e i n t e r v i e w . 5 0 . I b i d . 51 . The Charleston strike had also included struggles to balance issues of race with issues of class, a fact that was revealed in the slogan “Union Power, Soul Power.” Leon Fink and Brian Greenberg, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of the Hospital Workers’ Union Local 1199 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), Chapter 7 . 52 . Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined.” 53 . Emphasis added. “Public Employee,” handwritten date 11/9/71 Copy to Dr. Brann, UAB Archives Series/Collection 2.1.3, Folder 26.5. 54 . “Organize!!! Why We Must Organize!,” Seibels 37.39. 55 . SCLC Press Release, February 2, 1972, Seibels 37.39 and Memo February 2, 1972, Seibels 37.39. 56 . SCLC Press Release. Seibels 37.39. 57 . Anticipating Farris’ premature death in 1979, Anne Braden drafted an obitu- ary that spoke of Farris’ efforts to connect not only the goals, but also the strategies of the two movements. Farris sought, Braden wrote, “to combine NOTES 227

the community-mobilizing techniques and spirit of the civil rights movement with traditional labor organizing methods.” See Anne Braden to Judy Hand, October 1, 1979. SOC Papers, Box 3, Folder 8 58 . Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined.” 5 9 . I b i d . 60 . “Fairview Nursing Home and Public Employees Organizing Committee and Quenten Oliver Varner” Cases 10-CA-9482 and 10-CA-9663, National Labor Relations Board Decision and Order, March 9, 1973. (Hereafter “NLRB decision March 9, 1973.”) 6 1 . I b i d . 62 . Ibid.; Mrs. Johnston also threatened other employees with reductions in their scheduled hours and, as a result, the size of their paychecks. See “This is An Information Picket,” flyer distributed by the PEOC, Seibels 37.43; Among those who had lost their jobs were a nursing assistant, Mrs. Cummings, who had hosted a union meeting in her home, two white LPN’s, and three black orderlies. See: “Memorandum,” March 8, 1972, Seibels 37.43; Again, police were always highly attuned to the race of the people they were watching. 63 . NLRB decision March 9, 1973. 64 . “Memorandum,” March 6, 1972 and “Fairview Nursing Home Is Unfair . . . ” (attached), Seibels 37.43. 65 . Protestors also passed out a packet with information about the organizing drive. It also included a circular with calls for “respect and decency on our jobs” and recognition of “our rights as a human being, as a worker, and as an American.” See “Fairview Is Unfair,” PEOC circular, Seibels 37.43. “Memorandum,” March 6, 1972 and “Fairview Nursing Home Is Unfair . . .” (attached), Seibels 37.43. 66 . The need to make this distinction suggests the hostility that the public har- bored toward strikers and the need to court public opinion. It was also a crucial distinction when it came to adhering to state and federal laws regarding the rights of health care providers to go out on strike. “Memorandum,” March 7, 1972, Seibels 37.43. In an interesting side note, police felt the need to point out that among the marchers was “the retarded Reynolds, who always marches with any demonstration.” Evidently there were still enough marches and demonstrations, even in 1972, that there were recognizable attendees. Such a fact would only seem to confirm this study’s claim that protest continued long after 1963. See “This Is An Information Picket,” Seibels 37.43. 67 . “Memorandum,” March 7, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 68 . NLRB decision, March 9, 1973. 69 . “Fairview is Unfair,” PEOC flyer, March 11, 1972, Seibels 37.43; NLRB decision, March 9, 1973. 70 . NLRB decision, March 9, 1973. 7 1 . I b i d . 7 2 . I b i d . 73 . “Memorandum,” March 13, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 74 . “Memorandum,” March 9, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 75 . NLRB decision, March 9, 1973. 228 NOTES

76 . Hurder and Veneziano to Dean, March 14, 1972. Seibels 37.43. 7 7 . I b i d . 78 . “Memorandum,” March 28, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 79 . “Memorandum,” March 22, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 80 . “Memorandum,” March 28, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 81 . “Memorandum,” March 30, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 82 . “Memorandum,” March 29, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 83 . “Memorandum,” March 28, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 84 . The NLRB decision details several such incidents. NLRB decision, March 9, 1973. 8 5 . I b i d . 8 6 . I b i d . 87 . Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined: Birmingham Movement Grows”; “NLRB Takes Fairview,” Getting It Together , September 1972; NLRB decision, March 9, 1973. 88 . The police likely meant Medicaid. “Memorandum,” March 29, 1972, Seibels 37.43. 89 . “Memorandum,” March 9, 1972, Seibels 37.43; In the September 1972 edition of Getting It Together, a photo of Farris and other organizers is identified as being from January 1972 and the caption reads that “three months later the workers voted to affiliate with the Laborers’ International Union.” Getting It Together, September 1972; “NLRB Takes Fairview,” Getting It Together , September 1972. 90 . “Memorandum,” March 13, 1972, and “Memorandum,” March 14, 1972, Seibels 37.43. Hanover House noted in Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined: Birmingham Movement Grows”; Tompkins in “ Tompkins Votes LIU,” Getting It Together , September 1972. 91 . Union officials thought that an exception might have to be made for five workers who had been fired for specific on-the-job incidents. The five employees were two white women, Cuming and Porter, and three “colored porters,” Crenshaw, Edwards, and West. These incidents included “sleeping [and] improper medical procedures,” as well as carrying a gun on the job (Edwards). 92 . NLRB decision, March 9, 1973. 9 3 . I b i d . 94 . “Around the Town,” Birmingham World , December 16, 1972. 95 . “Mayors Office 1 May 10:50,” Seibels 37.44. 96 . In fact, it was at the same meeting in which it was announced that Fairview had secured the requisite signatures to form a union, that James Farrior had announced a May 24, 1972, meeting for employees of UAB and University Hospital that helped kickoff the summer recruitment drive. 97 . “Report to the SCEF Board from the Labor Workshop,” in “SCEF Minutes & Reports (Board & Interim Committee) 1970–1974,” SCEF Records. 9 8 . I b i d . 9 9 . F a r r i o r S O H P i n t e r v i e w . NOTES 229

100 . Ibid.; Such comments of course, further reveal the ways in which Hurder would be caught between the demands of veteran PEOC organizers and officials of the LIU. 101 . “Next Time It’ll Be the Workers,” Southern Patriot .. 102 . The specific union is not identified, but it was almost certainly LIU. 1 0 3 . I b i d . 104 . “Next Time It’ll Be the Workers.” 1 0 5 . S t e v e W h i t m a n , “ In Birmingham Hospital Workers Still Out,” Southern Patriot , December 1974. 1 0 6 . I b i d . 107 . This date was around the same time that the Fairview election was taking place and that UAB was opening a new charity facility, Mercy Hospital. 108 . “Next Time, It’ll Be the Workers.” 109 . “Memorandum,” September 29, 1972, Police Files 6.20. 110 . Police also identified Alfred Wrenn as one of the leaders. 111 . “Memorandum,” October 3, 1972, Police Files 6.20. 112 . “UAB Refuses Talks,” Getting It Together , Police Files 6.20. 1 1 3 . I b i d . 114 . “Alex Hurder and Bruce Carr to Lionel C. Skaggs,” August 28, 1972, and “Lionel C. Skaggs to Alex Hurder,” September 7, 1972, UAB Archives, Collection 2.1.3, Folder 31.46. 115 . “Next Time, It’ll Be the Workers.” 1 1 6 . I b i d . 1 1 7 . I b i d . 1 1 8 . I b i d . 1 1 9 . “ Birmingham Foundry: Workers’ Story of a Strike,” Southern Patriot , April 1974, 7. 120 . “Annual Report, 1971–72,” UAB Archives, File 2.1.3; Police memos from the same time indicated that the LIU, along with the SCLC’s Carl Farris, was involved in a strike with maintenance workers at the University of Alabama’s main campus in Tuscaloosa. As of September 29, when the work stoppages at University Hospital were taking place, the maintenance workers in Tuscaloosa had been off the job for two or three weeks. 121 . Police confiscated an LIU publication titled the “Banner of Progress in Alabama” that listed all the efforts in the state with which LIU was involved. In addition to the various medical facilities in Birmingham and Jefferson County, the list included fourteen different efforts from Montgomery to Tuscaloosa. Police Files 6.20. 122 . “Memorandum, Re: Union Activities—Week of October 30–November 4,” UAB Archives, Collection 2.1.3, Folder 31.46. 123 . Ibid.; The memo also referenced “competition” within Local 1318 between Hurder and Alfred Wrenn—the two people police had identified as leaders of the September walkout. According to their sources, Wrenn had been actively attempting to win support to replace Hurder as the leader who determined the direction of the local. 230 NOTES

1 2 4 . I b i d . 1 2 5 . I b i d . 126 . “Memorandum,” September 20, 1972, Police Files, 6.20. 127 . “Madison Brown, M.D., Acting President to Member Institutions,” August 30, 1972. Letter contained in Police Files 6.20. Under the current law, the hospitals were protected from such labor tactics because of the public interest in maintaining continuous service. The amendment had passed the House in January and was now the subject of hearings of the Senate’s Subcommittee on Labor. AHA representatives testified against the bill based on the need to avoid work stoppages in life-or-death situations. The organization also claimed that bringing nonprofit hospitals under the Taft-Hartley Act would only lead to further fragmentation of health care employees. Hearings were set for September 6 under the chairmanship of Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr. 128 . “Memorandum,” October 6, 1972, Police Files, 6.20. 1 2 9 . I b i d . 130 . “Memorandum,” October 17, 1972, Police Files 6.20. 131 . The October issue of Getting It Together claimed that organizing drives were underway at “every hospital in the city.” “Hospitals Resist Union Demands,” Getting It Together , October 1972, Police Files 6.20. 132 . “Carraway Workers Take Strike Vote,” Getting It Together, September 1972, Police Files 6.20. 1 3 3 . I b i d . 134 . “Children’s Workers Have Majority,” Getting It Together , September 1972, Police Files 6.20. 1 3 5 . “ S o u t h H i g h l a n d V o t e s , ” Getting It Together , October 1972, Police Files 6.20. 136 . “Dear South Highlands Employee,” October 5, 1972, Police Files 6.20. 137 . “Memorandum,” October 20, 1972, Police Files 6.20. 138 . “Memorandum,” October 17, 1972, Police Files 6.20. 139 . “Memorandum,” October 12, 1972, Police Files 6.20; It is unclear why a strike would have been acceptable at South Highland and not at University Hospital except that South Highland was not part of the UAB system and, therefore, not subject to the same restrictions in state law. The same would have held for Fairview, Hanover House, and other nursing homes. Leaders also seemed supportive of a possible strike at Carraway Methodist Hospital. 140 . “Memorandum,” October 20, 1972, Police Files, 6.20. 141 . “Attention Hospital Workers!” Police Files, 6.20. 142 . According to police, 7 people out of the 250 people at the meeting were white, 5 women and 2 men. “Memorandum,” October 24, 1972, Police Files, 6.20. 143 . Ibid.; Gardner mentioned that the union had helped secure a 5 percent pay increase and an increase in hospital insurance for city employees. Gardner also reminded the group that the city had made a number of false claims, NOTES 231

including that there was no money available and that city employees were prohibited from joining a union. 1 4 4 . I b i d . 145 . Ibid.; Adams also took a moment to mention the cable television controversy in which he was involved. In short, a group of black investors were attempting to challenge the cable monopoly in Birmingham. For further discussion see Jimmie Lewis Franklin, Back to Birmingham: Richard Arrington, Jr. and His Times (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989). 146 . “Memorandum,” October 24, 1972, Police Files 6.20. 147 . “Looking It Up ‘Hospital Workers Rally,’” Birmingham World, November 4, 1972. 148 . Ibid.; Additional remarks ranged from the need for poor people to fight for better housing and living conditions to Watergate to the need for police to better control “whiskey and dope.” 149 . “Memorandum,” October 24, 1972, Police Files 6.20. 150 . Ibid.; It was at this meeting that Hurder mentioned having seen a national union strike near Mercy Hospital the day before, but that this union was not affiliated with the Local 1318. 151 . Ibid.; He also claimed that Children’s Hospital, like Carraway, was 90 percent union. 152 . Ibid.; The memo actually says “Thompson” Nursing Home, but such errors were common enough that it seems likely the police meant Tompkins. 153 . Ibid.; Farris also noted some of the proposed goals of any strike. These included “union check-off dues, more than eleven per cent salary increase, and places for the poor on the boards and hospital administration.” 154 . Ibid.; As a final note, police observed that Carl Braden of SCEF was at the meeting. They reported rumors that hospital workers were prepared to support efforts by SCEF to set up a fund-raising campaign for members of the ABLF who were facing trials. 155 . “Next Time, It’ll Be the Workers,” Southern Patriot . 1 5 6 . I b i d . 1 5 7 . W h i t m a n , “ In Birmingham Hospital Workers Still Out.” 158 . Ibid.; The article claimed that only thirty-five of the strikers were white, all of them from BMCP. 159 . Ibid.; The situation suggests that black workers were the most willing to utilize protest tactics and to take to the streets to challenge injustice. 160 . By 1974, the mood locally and nationally, at least among whites and in the media, was one that questioned the need for additional disruption. Moreover, the perceived excesses of the black power movement influenced negatively the reception that black protest received in particular. As explored in section IV, Birmingham area law enforcement officials had recently engaged in a media campaign to portray black power advocates as cop killers, and a confrontation between sheriff’s deputies and the ABLF was likely still fresh in people’s minds. 1 6 1 . W h i t m a n , “ In Birmingham Hospital Workers Still Out.” 232 NOTES

162 . Chuck Michellini, “Nonstrikers Show Anger at Violence,” Birmingham Post-Herald, undated. A copy of the article, along with another with a handwritten date of September 5, 1974, is contained in the Police Files, 6.20 1 6 3 . I b i d . 1 6 4 . I b i d . 165 . Ibid. In what may have been a veiled threat to others considering a strike, Kerns also noted that 155 employees—all of them among the original strikers—had lost their jobs. 166 . It is unclear what became of the police reports after they were filed or whether any of the charges contained in then were validated. This fact applies to both the charges against strikers and nonstrikers. 167 . Incident report found in Police Files 6.20. 1 6 8 . I b i d 169 . Incident Report from November 25, 1974, Police Files 6.20. 170 . At least one headline portrayed the event as the most recent in a series of violent episodes. It read, “Van Burning, Chase Latest Acts Plaguing Hospital Strike Since Beginning of Strike.” See BPH from April 23, 1974. The headline was contained within clippings related to the strike in the Police Files, 6.20. 171 . The van belonged to the Mountain Brook Baptist Church. It is unclear, beyond the Baptist connection, why a church would be willing to use its van to help workers cross a picket line, but such a development is suggestive of the general hostility toward strikes in the area. 172 . Sanders had also been active with the SCLC in Birmingham. 173 . Arrest report signed and dated April 21, 1974, contained in Police Files, 6.20. 174 . In fact the reports filed from those incidents were included in the Surveillance Files because there was believed to be such a connection. 175 . Sgt. T. W. McDonald to Lt. H. M. Hayes, Inter-office Communication, April 23, 1974. 1 7 6 . I b i d . 1 7 7 . C a r r S O H P i n t e r v i e w . 178 . Police Files, 6.20. 1 7 9 . C a r r S O H P i n t e r v i e w . 1 8 0 . I b i d . 181 . “Probation Denied in Bus Burning,” Birmingham News, November 24, 1974; Police Files, 6.20. 182 . “A Call For Help!!!,” date stamped May 10, 1974, Police Files 6.20. 183 . The hospitals later claimed that only one hundred workers had been fired and that the rest had returned to their jobs. See Bill Crowe, “Arrington Will Offer Resolution,” Birmingham News, November 23, 1974. Clipping in Police Files 6.20; NLRB documents indicate that the disputed workers were allowed to vote but that their votes were subject to challenge. If the vote went in favor of the hospital, of course, such a challenge would be unneces- sary. NLRB Case 10-RC-10135, February 7, 1975. NOTES 233

1 8 4 . W h i t m a n , “ In Birmingham Hospital Workers Still Out”; “!!Don’t Shop!!,” in Police Files 6.20. 185 . This point was even made explicitly in the Southern Patriot . 186 . “!!Don’t Shop!!” Police Files, 6.20. 1 8 7 . W h i t m a n , “ In Birmingham Hospital Workers Still Out” 1 8 8 . “ L a w M a y A f f e c t H o s p i t a l S t r i k e , ” Birmingham Post-Herald, September 5, 1974; Anita Smith, “Hearing Soon on BMC Union Vote,” Birmingham News , December 15, 1974, in Police Files 6.20. 189 . Smith, “Hearing Soon on BMC Union Vote,” in Police Files 6.20 1 9 0 . I b i d . 1 9 1 . I b i d . 192 . Bill Crowe, “Negotiations Have Vital Role in BMC Labor Trouble,” Birmingham News , December 14, 1974 in Police Files, 6.20 193 . Crowe, “Arrington Will Offer Resolution,” Police Files 6.20. 194 . Crowe, “Negotiations Have Vital Role in BMC Labor Trouble,” Police Files, 6.20 1 9 5 . I b i d . 1 9 6 . I b i d . 197 . “Birmingham Builds Movement in Support of Framed Worker,” Southern Fight Back , March 1977. SOC Papers. 198 . “Hospital Worker Fired in Birmingham,” SOC Action Bulletin, January 21, 1977, SOC Papers, Box 2, “Action Bulletins” Folder. 1 9 9 . I b i d . 200 . “Birmingham Movement Grows: Hospital Worker Fights for His Job,” Southern Fight-Back , June 1977, SOC Papers. 201 . “Birmingham Builds Movement in Support of Framed Worker,” SFB March 1977. 202 . “Birmingham Movement Grows,” SFB June 1977. 203 . “Birmingham Hospital Workers Support Co-worker,” SFB September 1977, SOC Papers. 204 . “Action at the Grass-Roots,” SFB , February, 1978, 3. 205 . “News In Brief,” SFB, November 1979. 206 . “Holiday Season Party” flyer, SOC Papers, Box 2, “Raw Materials” Folder. 207 . Braden, “Labor and Civil Rights Joined”

IV Black Power in the Deep South

1 . “Memo Notes, Re: Birmingham Coalition against War, Racism, and Repression,” George Seibels Papers, Birmingham Public Library, File 37.32; Portions of this section appeared previously in the Duke University Press collection, Liberated Territory . See Widell, “‘The Power Belongs to Us and We Belong to the Revolutionary Age’: The Alabama Black Liberation Front and the Long Reach of the Black Panther Party,” in Jama Lazerow and 234 NOTES

Yohuru Williams, eds., Liberated Territory: Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009). 2 . For a brief discussion of the ABLF, see Robin D. G. Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition in a New South City: Birmingham, Alabama, 1929–1970,” in Michael B. Katz, ed., The Underclass Debate: Views from History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 293–333; Kelley, “Birmingham’s Untouchables: The Black Poor in the Age of Civil Rights,” in Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York: Free Press, 1994), 77–100 3 . “[Bryant and Williams] admitted taking an Italian make rifle to Mrs. Turner’s home with ammunition, but denied there had been any discussion as to an ambush of any police officers. They further testified they had Brenda Griffin go by and pick up a shotgun which was brought to the premises in question . . . Examination of the shotgun and rifle indicated that neither had been fired.” Wayland Earl Bryant and Ronald Elliott Williams v. State, Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, No. 6 Div. 339, 21 November 1972 (hereafter, Bryant & Williams v. State ) 4 . Jack Drake, an attorney who helped represent Bryant and Williams, characterized the event in an unrecorded interview with the author in 2002. Jack Drake interview, 2002; Flyers and handbills produced at the time expressed similar sentiments; Anne E. Braden, “‘Law and Order in Birmingham’: Two Black Liberation Front Leaders Jailed,” Southern Patriot , March 1971; “Ronald Williams & Doc Bryant,” Box 14, “Concerned Citizens for Justice” folder, Social Action Vertical File, WHS, Madison, Wisconsin; “Birmingham Police Stage ‘Shoot-In’ against Alabama Black Liberation Front,” Great Speckled Bird, March 22, 1971; An editorial in the African American paper, the Birmingham World, also questioned the characterization of the event as a “shoot-out,” raising questions about the precise manner in which Bryant and Williams were involved in the shooting. “What Is a ‘Shoot-Out,’” Birmingham World , September 26, 1970. 5 . SCEF News, March 18, 1971, File 1. 28, “David Vann Papers,” BPL (hereafter, Vann Papers). 6 . Prosecutors later reduced the charges against Bryant and Williams to assault with a deadly weapon rather than assault with intent to murder. 7 . “Open Letter on the Case of Members of the Alabama Black Liberation Front Unjustly Imprisoned in the County Jail: Birmingham, ALA,” Birmingham Police Files, 2.15. 8 . The Alabama prison system would eventually be declared in violation of the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Larry Yackle, Reform and Regret: The Story of Federal Judicial Involvement in the Alabama Prison System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 9 . There does not appear to have been a precise moment when the ABLF ceased to exist. Some members either remained in Birmingham or returned later in the decade, often participating in various activist efforts. Others went under- ground or lent their support to efforts in other places. NOTES 235

10 . The Black Power movement was not based simply on disillusionment and anger, although those emotions were certainly part of the equation. African Americans who were drawn to groups like the ABLF were also motivated by a desire for more effective strategies and tactics and new understand- ings of the way American society functioned. The scholarship on Black Power is burgeoning. For early overviews, see “Black Power Studies: A New Scholarship,” Peniel E. Joseph, guest editor, The Black Scholar , Vol. 31, Nos. 3–4 (Fall/Winter 2001); citation is to the entire issue of the journal. Peniel Joseph, ed., The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era (New York: Routledge, 2006); William Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965–1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Other overviews include Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Peniel Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2007); and Timothy Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); More recently, Hasan Jeffries has traced the roots of black power through Lowndes County, Alabama. Hasan Jeffries, Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt (New York: New York University Press, 2009). 11 . Winston A. Grady-Willis, “A Changing Tide: Black Politics and Activism in Atlanta, Georgia, 1960–1977” (PhD Dissertation, Emory University, 1998). 12 . On the southern roots of black power see Tyson, Radio Free Dixie ; Jeffries, Bloody Lowndes; Donna Murch, Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). 13 . Examples include Jeanne F. Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, eds., Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940–1980 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Theoharis and Woodard, Groundwork: Local Black Freedom Movements in America (New York: New York University Press, 2005).

7 The Emergence of the Alabama Black Liberation Front

1 . “Georgia Black Liberation Front,” Birmingham Police Files, 2.17, Birmingham Public Library (BPL). On Vine City, see Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (orig. publ., 1981; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Winston A. Grady-Willis, “A Changing Tide: Black Politics and Activism in Atlanta, Georgia, 1960–1977” (PhD Dissertation, Emory University, 1998) 2 . Atlanta police also described the GBLF as an organization whose “philoso- phy” was to “live off the land and raise an army.” Police Chief Jamie Moore Papers, File 1.24, BPL; Birmingham police repeated such characterizations in 236 NOTES

their own documents. “Memorandum Re: Alabama Black Liberation Front, located at #9 Center Street South . . . ” Police Files, 2.18. 3 . Although the GBLF certainly had an interest in presenting itself in a favorable light, there is little question that law enforcement around the country made a habit of misrepresenting radical groups. The ABLF would experience similar misrepresentation in Birmingham. 4 . “Georgia Black Liberation Front,” Police Files, 2.18. 5 . Ibid.; Police identified the other two arrested men as Cedric Wayne Sims and M. L. Lindsey. “Memorandum Re: Alabama Black Liberation Front, located at #9 Center Street South . . . ” Police Files, 2.18. 6 . Information on Bryant’s activities in Greensboro and his connection to the BPP were found in the FBI Documents titled, “Black Panther Party— Winston-Salem, NC,” downloaded from the FBI’s Electronic Reading Room. Section and page numbers of these files refer to the downloaded PDF document (hereafter “Black Panther Party—Winston Salem, NC”) 7 . Anne E. Braden, “‘Law and Order in Birmingham’: Two Black Liberation Front Leaders Jailed,” Southern Patriot , March 1971. 8 . Police Files, 2.18; “Letter to Jamie Moore,” Police Files, 2.15. 9 . Police Files, 8.28. 10 . “It was determined that W. E. M. Bryant, Jr. has opened a Black-African store on the corner of Market and Benbo[r?] Road in Greensboro and calls his place the ‘house of Umivesimoja.’ This is supposed to be an African term; and Bryant has artifacts, publications, books, and African regalia for sale.” See “Black Panther Party—Winston Salem, NC,” Section 2b, p. 15 11 . Ibid., Section 2b, p. 18. 12 . Ibid., Section 2a, p. 30. The terms appear to have been taken from ones associated with the Kwanzaa celebration and translate literally to “blackness” and “unity.” 13 . Ibid., Section 1a, p. 45; Section 2b, p. 18. 14 . Ibid., Section 2b, p. 18. 15 . According to FBI documents, the greeting card was attached to a Naval Intelligence Service (NIS) Information Report from the Marine base at Camp Lejuene, North Carolina on January 26, 1970, but the Naval Report has been removed from the FBI folder. “Black Panther Party—Winston Salem, NC,” Section 4b, pp. 23–25; During the same period, federal officials were express- ing concern about charges that poverty agencies had been infiltrated by Black Power groups. See, for example, Birmingham News , October 13, 1970. 16 . Evidently Neblett was traveling to a number of cities in North Carolina— Fayetteville and Durham were also mentioned—and speaking about the BPP. “Black Panther Party—Winston Salem, NC,” Section 1, p. 57 and Section 2b, p. 17; Neblett, a founding member of the Boston chapter would shortly be purged from the party. See Jama Lazerow, “The Black Panthers at the Water’s Edge: Oakland, Boston, and the New Bedford ‘Riots’ of 1970,” in Lazerow and Yohuru Williams, eds., Liberated Territory: Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008). 17 . “Memorandum, Re: Alabama Black Liberation Front . . . ” Polie Files, 2.18. NOTES 237

18 . The information came from what the reporting officer called “a source that we have never received information from before.” “Memorandum, Re: Alabama Black Liberation League, 10/19/70,” Police Files, 2.18. 19 . The fact that the Panthers were the most feared of all black radical groups of the era offers the possibility that authorities sought to make someone appear more dangerous than he was—a kind of “bad jacketing” in reverse. 2 0 . I b i d . 21 . Reese gave the reason for their move in an interview with the Southern Patriot ; “Fellow Prisoner Responds,” Southern Patriot , April 1972. 22 . In October 1972, for example, police noted that Bryant, out of prison, “is now in Greenville, South Carolina, running the South Carolina Black Liberation League there.” “Memorandum, 10/19/72,” Police Files, 1.8; references to contact with the GBLF, particularly member Josh Lewis Stevens, are included throughout the Birmingham Police Files. 23 . At least one document in the police records indicates that two other members of the GBLF may have accompanied Bryant and Reese. That document—a June 30, 1970, letter from Lieutenant Carl L. Limbaugh to Police Chief Jamie Moore—states that the FBI Office in Atlanta had warned Birmingham police of the impending arrival of the GBLF members and identifies a Tim Johnson and a Sedrick Wayne Sims as the two additional organizers. Letter found in Police Files, File 2.18. 24 . Documents confiscated from Bryant’s briefcase are among the materials under the heading “Black Nationalists” in the police surveillance files at the BPL. Police Files, 2.17. 25 . Bryant also noted a desire for local maps, including land use maps that showed housing values, locations of public facilities such as sewage and gas, and census data. Other necessary materials included tapes and tape record- ers, a short-wave radio, a record player, and everyday items like dishes, pots, and a hot plate; ibid. 26 . Colin A. Beckles, “Black Bookstores, Black Power, and the F.B.I.: The Case of Drum and Spear,” Western Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2 (1996): 63–71. 27 . Info regarding the relationship between Carlisle and the ABLF appears throughout the Birmingham Police Files. Police had been watching Carlisle and his store since at least May of 1969 when he was associated with the SCLC’s welfare protests. They repeatedly took note of his penchant for wear- ing a Black Power fist around his neck. For example, see “Memo 5/16/69,” Seibels Papers, File 37.28. The specific information included here is from “9/10/70 Memo,” Police Files, 2.18. 28 . Bryant notebook, File 2.17, Birmingham Police Files. 29 . Booker related the story of his return to Birmingham in a January 5, 1995, interview with Dr. Horace Huntley, now in the Archives Division of the Civil Rights Institute, Birmingham, Alabama. Booker also completed two interviews with the author in September and November 2002. 3 0 . I b i d . 31 . Booker interview, September 2002. 238 NOTES

3 2 . I b i d . 33 . Details of Reese’s life are from “Fellow Prisoner Responds,” Southern Patriot , April 1972. 3 4 . I b i d . 35 . It is unclear what Reese meant by the “building of black liberation fronts” or what his experience with them had been. One resource on this topic is Akinyele Umoja, “Repression Breeds Resistance: The Black Liberation Army and the Radical Legacy of the Black Panther Party,” in Cleaver and Katsiaficas, Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party . 36 . African Americans participated in every major military conflict that the United States undertook. After each of these conflicts, they returned home determined to claim their full citizenship rights. For example, see Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); George Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition revised edition (orig. publ., 1988; Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995); Timothy Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Tyson, Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story (New York: Crown, 2004); Steve Estes, I Am A Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005) 37 . Booker interview, September 2002. 3 8 . I b i d . 39 . “Fellow Prisoner Responds,” Southern Patriot . 40 . “Southern Conference Educational Fund Record Papers, 1958–1985,” Box 3389, Folder 1, “SCEF Political Prisoners, 1972–1980,” Southern Labor Archives, Special Collections Department, Pullen Library, Georgia State University (Hereafter SCEF Records). 41 . Ibid.; A July 1970 police memo identified ABLF member Cleveland Carlton as a Vietnam veteran, as well. “Memorandum, July 30, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 42 . “Black Power Movement Blamed for GI Brawl,” Birmingham World, January 30, 1971. 43 . Booker interview, September 2002; Wallace Terry, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (New York: Random House, 1984), 42. 44 . Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon. 4 5 . T e r r y , Bloods, 38. 46 . Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon , 102. 4 7 . I b i d . , 1 0 3 . 48 . Suzanne Crowell, “Southern GI Movement Spreads,” Southern Patriot , March 1969. 4 9 . I b i d . 50 . Booker interview, September 2002; Van Deburg writes that black soldiers “selected their own wartime culture heroes” including “figures such as Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali.” Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon , 104. NOTES 239

51 . Booker Interview, September 2002. 5 2 . T e r r y , Bloods, 105; Citing Terry’s earlier articles, Van Deburg notes that “some 30 percent of Wallace Terry’s respondents planned to join a militant group like the Black Panthers upon their release from the service,” Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, 105. 5 3 . T e r r y , Bloods , 13–14. 54 . Ibid., 25; Booker interview, September 2002. 55 . “L o u i s i a n a N e g r o e s t o S t o p R e i g n o f T e r r o r , ” Birmingham World , August 1, 1970. 56 . Darrell Garwood, “Pentagon Officials Told: Discrimination Irks Blacks in Armed Forces,” Birmingham World , December 26, 1970. Emphasis added. 57 . “Memo Notes May 14, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 5 8 . T y s o n , Blood Done Sign My Name , 220–224. 59 . “Memorandum, July 20, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 60 . Booker interview, September 2002. 6 1 . I b i d . 62 . Robert Olmos, “Prisoner Fears Death If Returned to Face Alabama Charge,” Oregonian , November 4, 1973. 6 3 . L a r r y W a t k i n s i n t e r v i e w . 64 . James “Jap” Moseley and Cleveland “Cleve” Carlton appear regularly in early police files, as well, suggesting that they too were active members. Charles Cannon was prominent following his arrest in 1972, but I have been unable to determine when he joined the organization. 65 . Throughout their files on the ABLF, police regularly cite names outside of those considered the ABLF’s core. Numerous others, for example, would spend a week or two in training with the organization, participate in specific efforts, or offer other means of support. Unfortunately, at least for historians, precise membership numbers are hard to assess as any central record-keeping system that might have existed was not part of the materials confiscated by Birmingham police. An additional complicating factor in determining the number of people involved with the ABLF is the desire by the original members to differentiate themselves from others as the only “true” members of the group. The closest thing to a membership list in the police files is a memo in which Birmingham police reference letters written by ABLF and GBLF member Joshua Louis Stephens and sent to the “West Coast headquarters of the Black Panther Party.” The memo claims that Stephens listed himself as “Deputy Co-ordinator of Finance” and the other officers as follows: “Weyland “Doc” Bryant—Co-ordinator of Information and Education; Ronald Williams—Co-ordinator of Finance; Harold Robertson—Co-ordinator of Culture; Michael Rease—Minister of Defense; James Colbutt—Field Worker; Willie Hamilton—Field Worker.” That memo, though, is dated December 1970—three months after the September shootout and at least six months after the ABLF appeared in Birmingham—making it difficult to know how long such a leadership structure had been in place or how many others were active but unlisted. See “Memo Notes December 16, 1970,” Seibels 37.32; At a July 1970 news conference, Jefferson County Sheriff Mel Bailey estimated 240 NOTES

that, by then, the ABLF had recruited some twenty-five–thirty members, although separating such claims from other deliberate distortions is difficult. In conversations about their participation, both Booker and Watkins also recalled a steady stream of supporters, whether official members or not, suggesting, as well, that the reach of the organization had been more exten- sive than its official membership; Booker and Watkins conversations with author. 66 . “Memo Notes, July 28, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 67 . “Memo, July 7, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 68 . The efforts of the ABLF to emulate the BPP offers evidence of the central- ity of the Panthers to the larger historical moment, even in an area where there was no official chapter, and in a region—the Deep South—not often associated with the party’s history. Scholarship on the BPP, like that of Black Power, is burgeoning. See, for example, Charles E. Jones, ed., The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered] (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998); Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, eds., Liberation, Imagination, And the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy (New York: Routledge Press, 2001); Ogbar, Black Power; Murch, Living for the City ; Lazerow and Williams, eds., Liberated Territory; Lazerow and Williams, In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006); Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon (New York: New Press, 2007); Yohuru Williams, Black Politics/White Power: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Black Panthers in New Haven (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008); Paul Alkebulan, Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2012). 69 . Charles Jones, “Introduction: Reconsidering Panther History: The Untold Story,” in The Black Panther Party (Reconsidered). 70 . Charles Jones and Judson Jeffries cite a peak circulation of the BPP newspaper at over one hundred thousand copies per week on average from 1968 to 1972. Charles E. Jones and Judson L. Jeffries, “‘Don’t Believe the Hype’: Debunking the Panther Mythology,” in The Black Panther Party (Reconsidered), 29. 71 . Booker interview, November 2002; Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers . 72 . George Katsiaficas, “Introduction,” in Cleaver and Katsiaficas, Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party . 73 . Report dated August 26, 1970, Police Files, 2.17. 74 . ”Memorandum,” September 2, 1971, Police Files, 4.23. 75 . ”Memorandum, undated,” Police Files, 2.18. Other information in the memo dates it as being from late August/early September 1970. 76 . Likely a reference to Donald Cox, the note also included, in different hand- writing, an address and phone number for the BPP in New York with the name “Brother D.C.,” Police Files, 2.18. 77 . Phone logs are contained in Police Files, 2.18; An August 1970 memo also reports phone contact with the BPP’s “Minister of Information” in San Francisco. “Memorandum, August 28, 1970,” ibid. NOTES 241

78 . One such report read, “[t]he Black Panther Newspaper is being distributed by [Bryant, Watkins, and ‘Milinzi’] to small teenage negro boys who have been selling them in downtown negro areas, Southtown Project, Loveman’s Village Project, and at Roosevelt City.” The memo also noted that “This organization has received the following shipments of the Black Panther newspaper. These were sent from national distributors. 1336—Fillmore Street, San Francisco, California . . . On Saturday July 11 . . . there was ninety pounds of newspapers received and signed for by Perry Carlisle . . . On Thursday July 23 . . . one hundred fifty pounds of newspapers were received by Mike Milinzi [an alternative name used by Reese.” “Memo, Re: Alabama Black Liberation Front,” Police Files 1.8. 79 . For example, another report noted that “[a]t 10 A.M. Friday, August 21, 1970, Weyland(Doc) Bryant, Ronald Williams, and two other black males . . . picked up 90 pounds of the Black Panther Newspapers at Delta Airlines Freight Office.” August 21, 1970, Police Files, 2.17. 80 . Reese confirmed his trip to California in Braden, “Fellow Prisoner Responds.” 81 . According to the source, Bryant, having been in contact with BPP headquarters, had sent Reese and at least one other member to learn how to form an official chapter. The second man reportedly returned to Birmingham after only a few days. “Memo Notes, Alabama Black Liberation Front, Re: Black Panther Newspaper,” September 25, 1970. 8 2 . I b i d . 83 . “Memo, August 28, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18; A final document located within the Birmingham police surveillance files is an undated, unsigned, and handwritten sheet that lists six names and notes: “In the no. B’ham area these people have been soliciting for the Black Panthers. They have petitioned for a charter for the Black Panthers.” None of the six names listed was among the core membership of the ABLF. Police Files, 2.18. 8 4 . B r a d e n , “ F e l l o w P r i s o n e r R e s p o n d s . ” 85 . “Memo, August 28, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18; “Memorandum, undated,” Police Files, 2.18. “Memo Notes Re: Anthony Williams possibly a member of the Alabama Black Liberation Front, February 8, 1971,” Police Files, 2.18; “Memo Notes, Alabama Black Liberation Front, Re: Black Panther Newspaper,” September 25, 1970. 86 . Black Guard Organizers Manual, Police Files, 2.13. 87 . Police alleged that a “known black moslem” with a record for “civil disobedi- ence” and a desire to be “much more militant” had conducted RAM meetings at his home, as well as in other predominantly black sections of Birmingham, including Collegeville, Acipco, and Titusville. “Black Liberation Army,” Police Files, 2.14; Police were also watching a man identified as William McCluskey. In February of 1968, an internal police memo identified McCluskey as a RAM leader in Birmingham and took note of both the car he was known to drive and the address where that car could be found during the day. Police Files, 2.17. 242 NOTES

88 . “Memo Notes, January 29, 1970,” Police Files, 2.17. 8 9 . I b i d . 90 . The meeting was purported to be one of a series of twice monthly such gatherings. The informer also reported that membership in the group required a $25 payment, at which time one received “a jacket, scraf [sic ] and barette [sic ].” The scarf was described as having “a picture of two eyes of the panther stamped on it.” “Memo Notes, 2–4–70” submitted by Marcus Jones, Police Files, 2.18. 9 1 . I b i d . 92 . An August 6, 1973, “Intelligence Summary Log” written by Sergeant Harry Deal included information about a Chevrolet Caprice displaying a “‘Black Liberation Army’ flag” on its rear windshield. A similar report from August 8, 1974, identified a Ford Torino with a BLA sticker on the front bumper. Police Files, 2.14. 93 . Deal to Myers and Spivey, February 20, 1975, Police Files 4.39. 94 . Booker interview, November 2002. 95 . Ibid.; Rita Anthony, for example, recalled that the ABLF was well known in the black community. Although she did not support their tactics, Anthony remembers holding meetings with Bryant and Williams and notes that the Front and activist groups with which she was involved offered each other mutual support. Rita Anthony, Interview, May 7, 2003. 96 . “What Is a ‘Shoot-Out,’” Birmingham World , September 26, 1970.

8 Black Power at the Local Level

1 . Booker interview, September 24, 2002. 2 . “Memo Notes, December 15, 1970,” George Seibels Papers, File 37.32, Birmingham Public Library (BPL). 3 . Bryant notebook, Birmingham Police Surveillance Files, 2.17, BPL. 4 . I b i d . 5 . I b i d . 6 . I b i d . 7 . “Memo Notes, 12/22/70, ‘Re: Personal writings of Joshua Louis Stephens, Alias Josh Louis,’” Police Files, 1.9. 8 . I’ve reproduced here the original versions, that is, grammar, spelling, and other errors in quotes have not been corrected. 9 . Report dated August 21, 1970, Police Files, 2.17. 1 0 . I b i d . 11 . “Memorandum, Re: Alabama Black Liberation Front located at #9 Center Street South,” Police Files, 2.18. 12 . A copy of the ABLF’s list of “What We Want” from September to October 1970 can be found in “Background of the Situation,” Police Files, 1.8. 13 . Taken from an early membership application confiscated from Bryant. Police Files, 2.17. NOTES 243

14 . Bryant notebook, Police Files, 2.17. 15 . Police Chief Jamie Moore Papers, File 1.24, BPL. 16 . Bryant used the phrase in his notebook. Bryant notebook, Police Files, 2.17; It also appeared on ABLF flyers. See “Information Is the Raw Material for New Ideas” and “From the People to the People,” Police Files, 1.8. 17 . “Combat Liberalism,” Police Files, 2.18. 1 8 . I b i d . 19 . “Unity Is Power, Unity Is Black Action. What Is Alabama Unity?” Police Files, 2.18. 2 0 . I b i d . 21 . “Alabama Black Community News Service . . . What Is the Black Liberation Front?” Police Files, 2.18. 2 2 . I b i d . 2 3 . I b i d . 24 . “Alabama Black Liberation Front: Of the People, By the People, For the People,” Police Files, 2.18. 25 . Bob Ostertag, People’s Movements, People’s Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007). 2 6 . P o l i c e F i l e s , 1 . 8 . 27 . Police Files, 2.18. 2 8 . I b i d . 2 9 . I b i d . 30 . “Weyland (Doc) Bryant, who is their leader, has an oceanic portable radio which he uses to monitor police calls.” “Memorandum, 8/20/70,” Police Files, 2.18; A memo from a week later noted that the ABLF had acquired a “police monitor, a six channel citizens band radio, and 2 Army type radio telephones.” “Memorandum, August 28, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18; an earlier memo reported, “The Black Panthers had a police radio that they have constantly going inside and sometimes at night they have it on the porch monitoring police calls. We have received information that the reason for this is to be able to go to any place where police may be having trouble on call and they can take advantage of this.” “Memorandum Re: Alabama Black Liberation Front located at #9 Center Street South . . . ” Police Files, 2.18. 3 1 . B o o k e r c o n v e r s a t i o n , N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 2 32 . “Memo, 7/25/70,” Police Files, 1.8. 33 . Bryant Notebook, Police Files, 2.17. 3 4 . I b i d . 3 5 . I b i d . 36 . Booker interview, September 2002. 37 . Seibels Papers, File 37.31. 38 . Booker conversation, November 2002. 39 . Booker interview with Horace Huntley, January 5, 1995; A letter from April 1971 references an incident in which two police officers were locked in the trunk of a car by the Black Panthers. No further information appears in 244 NOTES

the files, though. “C.W. Culpepper to Sgt. Herman Evers, Communications Division,” stamped April 29, 1971, Seibels Papers, File 37.34. 40 . Jamie Moore Papers, File 1.24. 41 . “Memo,” August 4, 1970, Police Files, 1.8. 42 . Memo,” August 5, 1970, Police Files, 1.8. 43 . “Inter-office Communication” from Sgt. C. M. Cates to Deputy Chief W. J. Haley, April 30, 1972, Police Files, 2.18. 4 4 . I b i d . 45 . The ABLF also recommended that all African Americans “travel in two’s or more” in “Unity Is Power, Unity Is Black Action. What Is Alabama Unity?” Police Files, 2.18. 46 . Booker conversation, November 2002. 47 . “Memorandum,” undated, Police Files, 2.18. 48 . Booker interview with Horace Huntley, January 1995. 49 . Both Arrington’s and Vann’s papers are housed at the BPL. 50 . ”Memo, July 15, 1970,” Seibels Papers, File 37.31. 51 . Police Files, 2.17. 52 . “Self-Defense for Power—the People!” Police Files, 2.18. 53 . Police Files, 2.17. 54 . “Revolutionary Consciousness Rises with Revolutionary Suicide,” Police Files, 1.8. 55 . “Memo Notes, Sept. 4, 1970 Re: Burglary of Western Auto,” Seibels Papers, File 37.31. 56 . “Alabama Black Liberation Front Investigates Cases of Pig Brutality; Also Starts Drive for Defense Funds,” Black Panther , August 15, 1970. 57 . “Alabama Black Liberation Front Starts Drive for Defense Funds,” Alabama Black Community News Service , Police Files, 2.17. 58 . “Memo Notes,” September 10, 1970, Police Files, 2.18. 59 . “Dare to Struggle Dare to Win,” Seibels Papers, File 37.32. 60 . At a meeting of the Loveman’s Village Citizens Committee for Community Improvement, for example, members raised concerns about recreational programs. Jamie Moore Papers, File 1.24. 61 . “From the People to the People,” Police Files, 2.17. 62 . Police Files, 2.18. 6 3 . P o l i c e F i l e s , 1 . 8 . 6 4 . “ A l a b a m a B l a c k L i b e r a t i o n F r o n t . 65 . On September 25, 1970, twenty-one kids had been served at 130 Harding Court Way. “Memo Notes, the Free Breakfast Program,” September 28, 1970, Police Files, 2.18. 66 . Bryant notebook, July 3, 1970, Police Files, 2.17. 67 . “Alabama Black Liberation Front Opens Free Breakfast for the Children Program,” Seibels Papers, File 38.2. 6 8 . I b i d . 69 . “Memorandum, February 25, 1972,” Seibels Papers, File 37.39. 70 . WJLD broadcast, tape available as part of the Birmingham Police Files. NOTES 245

71 . “Memo 8/6/70,” Police Files, 1.8; “Activity Report from #9 Center Street So., August 6, 1970” from Lt. R. E. Townes to acting Chief W. J. Haley, Jamie Moore Papers, File 1.24. 72 . Bryant notebook, Police Files, 2.17.

9 Repression and Backlash

1 . Oregon State Archives, Governor Tom McCall Records, Extradition Records, 1973–1974. 2 . Lt. C. L. Limbaugh to Chief Jamie Moore, June 18, 1970, “Black Panther Investigation,” Birmingham Police Surveillance Files, File 2.18, Birmingham Public Library (BPL). 3 . David Orange reported to Sheriff Mel Bailey that he, Frank Rogers, and Earl Robins had attended the convention. “Memo,” September 14, 1970, Police Files, 1.8. 4 . George Seibels Papers, File 37.32, BPL. 5 . I b i d . 6 . Police Files, 2.14. 7 . “C.W. Culpepper to Sgt. Herman Evers, Communications Division,” stamped April 29, 1971, Seibels Papers, File 37.34. 8 . “Memo Notes, September 28, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 9 . On July 23, 1970, Birmingham Police Chief Jamie Moore wrote a letter to the Atlanta Police Chief stating that they had been tracking the ABLF since June 15. Police Files, 2.15. 1 0 . E l a i n e H . M i l l e r , “ P a n t h e r T h r e a t H e r e — — B a i l e y , ” Birmingham Post-Herald , July 28, 1970. 11 . July 29, 1970, letter from Atlanta Police to Jamie Moore, Police Files, 2.15. 12 . “Memorandum, July 20, 1970” and “Memorandum, Re: Alabama Black Liberation Front,” Police Files, 2.18. 13 . August 26, 1970 report, Police Files, 2.17; Fears regarding the identity of the informant are in “Memo 7/28/20,” Police Files, 2.18. 14 . The memo referred to a statement by Bryant that “some of the so called friends left him in time of need and followed Michael Reese” and went on to surmise that “Reese might be in trouble if he is released from jail.” “Memorandum, Re: Alabama Black Liberation League, 10/19/70,” Police Files, 2.18. (Upon his return to Birmingham Reese was arrested and sent to jail on weapons charges. For details of that arrest, see below.) 15 . “Memorandum Re: Alabama Black Liberation League 10/19/70,” Police Files, 2.17. I have not been able to confirm the existence of such a split or of competing factions within the organization. The connection between these reports and the police, however, would be consistent with how law enforcement approached the BPP in other areas of the country. That is, if such a split developed, police informants were likely involved in their instigation. 246 NOTES

16 . “RE: Alabama Black Liberation League. It is a branch from the Black Panther Party,” October 13, 1970, Seibels Papers, File 37.31. 17 . Larry Watkins, conversation with author, Spring 2004. 18 . “Memo Notes,” December 16, 1970, Seibels Papers, File 37.32. 19 . Ralph J. Miles to Jamie Moore, July 13, 1970, Police Files, 2.18. 2 0 . M i l l e r , “ P a n t h e r T h r e a t H e r e . ” 21 . “Alabama Black Liberation Front and News Service,” Police Files, 2.18. 22 . “Memo Notes, September 25, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 23 . “Memorandum, Re: Alabama Black Liberation Front,” Police Files, 1.8. 24 . Memorandum from San Francisco Field Office to FBI Headquarters cited in Charles E. Jones and Judson L. Jeffries, “‘Don’t Believe the Hype’: Debunking the Panther Mythology,” Black Panther Party (Reconsidered), 29. 25 . Flyer signed by Steve Suitts, Police Files, 2.17. 26 . Arrest records in Police Files, 2.17. 27 . Kirk to Haley, November 17, 1970, Police Files 2.17. 28 . “Black Panther Activity Revealed,” Birmingham News , July 28, 1970. 29 . Police likely were referring to Huey Newton who had been charged in the death of John Frey. 30 . “Memo Notes, September 25, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 31 . “Dare to Struggle Dare to Win,” Seibels Papers, File 37.32. 3 2 . M i l l e r , “ P a n t h e r T h r e a t H e r e . ” 33 . Anne E. Braden, “‘Law and Order in Birmingham’: Two Black Liberation Front Leaders Jailed,” Southern Patriot , March 1971 3 4 . M i l l e r , “ P a n t h e r T h r e a t H e r e . ” 35 . “Memo Notes, September 28, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 36 . “Notes, July 17, 1970,” Police Files, 2.18. 37 . “Memorandum Re: [ABLF] Located at # 9 Center Street South and #18 Center Avenue, Roosevelt City,” Police Files, 1.8. 3 8 . I b i d . 39 . Testimony of Ms. Bernice Turner, Bryant & Williams v. State; Turner had purchased the small house in 1960, taking out two mortgages that totaled $4,100. Over the next ten years, in addition to adding three rooms to the original structure, Turner made mortgage payments that totaled $7,983. Thus, she told the Southern Patriot, she was surprised to have received notice in 1970 that she still owed $1,400, especially since in 1967, during an earlier eviction threat, she had been told that the mortgage could be paid off for just $884. Details regarding Turner’s payments are taken from Braden, “Law and Order in Birmingham”; “News from [SCEF],” March 18, 1971, David Vann Papers, File 1.28, BPL. 40 . Braden, “Law and Order in Birmingham.” 4 1 . T u r n e r ’ s t e s t i m o n y f r o m Bryant & Williams v. State; On August 12, 1970, Lt. C. V. Garrett had reported that Officer Moss suspected that the ABLF was aware of the police affiliation of “Merriwether.” “Merriwether” evidently reported to police sergeant Harry Deal. “Memo, 7/28/70,” Police Files, 2.18. NOTES 247

42 . That the police had detailed information regarding Turner’s meeting with Shores indicates further that Merriweather had been an informer as he was the one who had accompanied her to Shores’ office. “Memorandum, 9/15/70,” Police Files, 2.18. 4 3 . I b i d . 4 4 . Bryant & Williams v. State . 45 . “9/15/70 Memorandum,” Police Files, 2.18. 4 6 . I b i d . 4 7 . A f f i d a v i t r e p r o d u c e d i n Bryant & Williams v. State. Orange specifically swore that the two officers told him that the ABLF was “planning to ambush two officers who were going to execute [the] court order of eviction.” 48 . Ibid.; According to both police surveillance and Bryant’s memory of the events, Turner had been in contact with the ABLF some two weeks prior to receiving the actual eviction notice. Bryant and three others had been to the house on at least one prior occasion, an August 30 visit that included “a snap- per fish supper” and discussion of the situation. See “Memorandum, August 28, 1970,” Seibels Papers, File 37.31; Braden, “Law and Order in Birmingham.” A handwritten note is located within the items police confiscated from the ABLF and appears to have been some sort of statement intended to document Turner’s attempts to receive assistance form various local attorneys. Statement located in Police Files, 2.17. 49 . Braden, “Law and Order in Birmingham.” 5 0 . I b i d . 5 1 . Bryant & Williams v. State . 52 . Ibid.; Braden, “Law and Order in Birmingham.” 5 3 . Bryant & Williams v. State 54 . The three others besides Bryant and Williams were Harold Robertson (or Robinson), Robert Jakes, and Brenda Joyce Griffin. Ibid.; Braden, “Law and Order in Birmingham.” 5 5 . H a r o l d K e n n e d y , “ N e g r o e s H e l d a f t e r C i t y S h o o t o u t , ” Birmingham News , September 16, 1970. Bailey’s assistant, David Orange, testified that Sergeant C. C. Gillespie of the Sheriff’s Department and Sergeant Marcus Jones of the Birmingham Police Department had alerted him to the ABLF’s presence in Turner’s home; A September 16, 1970, memo confirms that Sheriff’s deputies were aware that the ABLF was at Turner’s house. That memo reads, “The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office . . . had received advance information that members of the Black Liberation Front were going to be present and armed to resist the eviction.” “Memo Notes, September 26, 1970,” File 37.31, Seibels Papers. 5 6 . Bryant & Williams v. State . 5 7 . I b i d . 5 8 . I b i d . 59 . Booker interview, September 2002. 60 . ABLF defense fund flyer, Police Files, 2.17. 61 . Quote cited in Braden, “Law and Order in Birmingham.” 248 NOTES

62 . CCJ letter, June 21, 1971, Police Files, 4.23. 63 . “Application for Extradition, State of Alabama, Jefferson County,” Item 5, Carton 6, Extradition Records, Governor Tom McCall Records, Oregon State Archives, Salem, Oregon. 64 . Unfortunately, although Attorney Jack Drake was willing to share them, the files maintained by him and Bryant and Williams’ other attorneys were destroyed several years prior to the beginning of my research. Jack Drake conversation, Spring 2002. 65 . Letter dated November 25, 1971, Vann Papers, File 1.28; Members of CCJ included a broad cross section of Birmingham, including many activists from other organizations profiled in this study. Among these were Davis Jordan, a founding member of the CEJO; Asbury Howard, a Bessemer activists and son of the famous labor organizer of the same name; Alex Hurder, a SCEF member who was instrumental in organizing hospital and nursing home workers in Birmingham; Jim Baines, a local white Communist Party organizer; and Merulrine Watkins, also known by her married name Rita Anthony, a leader in the WRO and other local efforts. 66 . “Dear Friend,” December 1971 letter from CCJ, Vann Papers, File 1.28. 67 . “Memorandum,” August 31, 1971, Police Files, 4.23. 6 8 . Birmingham Post-Herald , September 2, 1971. 69 . “Memorandum,” September 2, 1971, Police Files, 4.23. 70 . “CCJ Press Release, 1 September 1971,” Police Files, 4.23. 7 1 . Birmingham Post-Herald , September 2, 1971. 72 . “Dear Friend: Good News!” Vann Papers, File 1.28. 73 . Police letter (with handwritten note to Capt. House), February 23, 1972. 74 . “2 State Officials Refuse to Testify as Federal Rights Group Is Told of Sordid Conditions in Alabama’s Prison System,” Mobile Press-Register, March 1973 (clipping located in McCall Papers); see also numerous letters in the McCall files detailing Williams’ prison reform work. 75 . “Application for Extradition,” McCall Papers. 76 . Letters from legal counsel Bob Oliver to District Attorney Carl Haas, November 16, 1973, and from Steve Whitman to Tom McCall. McCall Papers. 77 . Among Mayor Arrington’s papers is a document titled “Research Report C” that Bryant produced in 1979. Bryant described the report as a “Study of Police Reports Not Publicly Released to All Citizens of Birmingham, Alabama” and included detailed information regarding shootings and other incidents of police brutality. “Research Report C,” in File 51.32, Richard Arrington Papers; See also File 51.33, “Operation Human Rights, 1980–81.” 7 8 . United States of America v. James Andrew Colbert and Michael Beryl Reese , US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, No. 71–2097, February 14, 1973. (Hereafter U.S. v. Colbert & Reese); 7 9 . I b i d . 8 0 . B r a d e n , “ F e l l o w P r i s o n e r R e s p o n d s . ” 8 1 . U.S. v. Colbert & Reese . NOTES 249

8 2 . I b i d . 83 . Braden, “Fellow Prisoner Responds” 8 4 . I b i d . 8 5 . Charles William Cannon v. State of Alabama, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, No. 76–2118, 558 F.2d 1211, September 12, 1977. 8 6 . I b i d . 87 . Adaway had walked to the station from her car to procure a can of gas. During the time between when she purchased the can and when she drove back to the station to return the can, the shooting took place. Adaway testimony cited in Cannon v. State , 53 Ala. App. 509; 301 So. 2d 272, August 13, 1974. 88 . Ibid.; The defense also placed a ten-year-old girl named Terry Ferguson on the stand. Ferguson had witnessed the incident and testified that Cannon was not the assailant, changing her story from when she had been questioned originally by police. Ferguson claimed to have been frightened when she first identified Cannon. 89 . In particular, the prosecution could no longer produce a pay stub that lent credence to Stephens’ claim that he had been in North Carolina at the time of the shooting. Ex parte: Charles William Cannon, (Re: Ex parte: State of Alabama, ex rel. Attorney General In re: State of Alabama v. Charles William Cannon) , Supreme Court of Alabama, No. 77–675, 369 So. 2d 32, February 9, 1979. 9 0 . Charles William Cannon v. State of Alabama . 9 1 . I b i d . 92 . Ibid.; Defense attorneys had also cast doubt on Eleanor Adaway’s testimony because it contradicted that of every other witness at the trial. Unlike every other witness, Adaway claimed to have seen three men in the beige car, not two, and that Cannon had been in the rear seat, not the front passenger’s seat. Furthermore, she had been unable to identify Cannon when shown a photograph in the weeks following the incident, despite stating that she would recognize the passenger if ever saw him gain. Adaway would posi- tively identify Cannon only after his trial had already begun—some nine months after the actual crime—and after she had been brought to the courthouse, told to look through a window into the courtroom, and asked if she saw anybody she recognized. Adaway’s identification of Cannon appeared to possibly have been tainted by suggestion, but was unconstitutional, as well, because Cannon should have had a right to counsel during the identification process. 9 3 . I b i d . 94 . Steve Whitman, telephone conversation with author, Fall 2003. 95 . Police Files, 2.18. 96 . “Sgt. C.M. Gates to Deputy Chief W.J. Haley,” April 30, 1972, Police Files, 2.18. 97 . “The Alabama Black Liberation Front Black Community News Bulletin,” Police Files, 2.18; Whitman conversation. 98 . Whitman conversation. 250 NOTES

10 Conclusion: The “Long” Movement and the South

1 . “Mrs. Ruth Hawkins to Mr. M.E. Wiggins,” December 19, 1964, Seibels Papers, File 1.2, Birmingham Public Library (BPL). 2 . “Mrs. Ruth M. Hawkins to Mr. George Seibels,” June 8, 1965, Seibels Papers, File 5.22. 3 . Related to these sentiments was the assumption by Hawkins and other whites that the municipal government could be counted on to protect their interests, a perception that was not shared by the black community. 4 . “Mrs. T.L. Sellers to Mr. George Seibels, Jr.,” June 18, 1964, Seibels Papers, File 1.3. 5 . The belief that law enforcement was necessary to “protect” people from black protest would factor into efforts by such officials to discredit a number of organizations that would appear in the late 1960s and 1970s. 6 . For examples of black women engaged in similar battles on Birmingham buses and streetcars, see Robin D. G. Kelley, “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition in a New South City: Birmingham, Alabama, 1929–1970,” in Michael B. Katz, ed., The Underclass Debate: Views from History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 304–309. 7 . Although the 1199 Union was not the lead union attempting to affiliate with the PEOC, a report produced by Alice L. Ahmuty of the American Nurses’ Association—and circulated among UAB officials who had obtained a copy—noted that Elliot Godoff, the vice president for organization, of the 1199 Union, had commented on Birmingham in a seminar meeting in New York. The report indicated that “Mr. Godoff said 1199 has purposely and intentionally selected to organize hospitals in the South. Birmingham, Alabama is one of its next target cities.” See “Alice L. Ahmuty to Executive Directors and Presidents, State Nurses Associations,” March 10, 1972, UAB Archives, Collection 2.1.3, Folder 31.46. 8 . T i m o t h y M i n c h i n , Hiring the Black Worker: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry, 1960–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Minchin, The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). 9 . Timothy Minchin, “Black Activism, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry,” Journal of Southern History , Vol. 65, No. 4 (November 1999): 843. 10 . Leon Fink and Brian Greenberg, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of the Hospital Workers’ Union, Local 1199 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 134. 1 1 . I b i d . 1 2 . I b i d . , 1 3 5 . 1 3 . I b i d . 14 . See, for example, Karen Sacks’ book-length study of the Durham, North Carolina, strike. Karen Brodkin Sacks, Caring by the Hour: Women, Work, NOTES 251

and Organizing at Duke Medical Center (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988); On organizing among women hospital workers in particular, see Patricia Cayo Sexton, The New Nightingales: Hospital Workers, Unions, New Women’s Issues (New York: Enquiry Press, 1982). 15 . For new perspectives on North Carolina, see the essay by Devin Fergus in Lazerow and Williams, eds., Liberated Territory: Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008); On Atlanta, see Winston A. Grady-Willis, “A Changing Tide: Black Politics and Activism in Atlanta, Georgia, 1960–1977” (PhD Dissertation, Emory University, 1998) 16 . Preston F. Kirk, “Black Militants Battle Police in Ghetto Gun Fight in Texas,” Birmingham World , August 1, 1970. 17 . Fink and Greenberg, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone, 132–133. 1 8 . I b i d . 19 . “Memo Notes, 4/12/71,” Police Files, 1.8. 20 . Ibid.; The Florida Black Front also appeared in a memo sent to Mayor Seibels at the end of 1970. Seibels Papers, File 37.32. 21 . “Memo, January 11, 1971,” Seibels Papers, File 37.33. 22 . For material related to the Black Panthers in Louisville, see Box 6, “Black Panther Party” folder, Social Action Vertical File, Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) 23 . “NEWS from Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF) and Louisville Sevel [sic ] Defense Fund,” September 29, 1972. SCEF Papers, Box 2, Folder 8, WHS. 2 4 . I b i d . 2 5 . I b i d . 26 . “NEWS from Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF),” December 14, 1972, SCEF Records, Box 2, Folder 8, WHS. 2 7 . I b i d . 2 8 . I b i d . 2 9 . S t e v e E s t e s , I Am a Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).

Bibliography

Manuscript Collections

Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama

Alabama Legislature: Commission to Preserve the Peace Records Clippings Files Attorney General’s Office: Prisoner’s Civil Rights Case Files

Auburn University Archives, Auburn, Alabama

Hardy T. Frye Oral History Collection

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Birmingham, Alabama

Oral History Collection

Birmingham Public Library, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham, Alabama, City Council Papers, 1963– Birmingham, Alabama, Police Department Surveillance Files, 1947–1980 Birmingham World Office Files City of Birmingham Law Department, Civil Rights Files and Related Material David Vann Papers, 1959–1979 George Seibels Papers, 1963–1975 Police Chief (Jamie Moore) Papers, 1970–1973 Richard Arrington Papers

Hugo Black Federal Court House, Birmingham, Alabama

Case Files: Rush Pettway, et. al. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company 254 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Martin Luther King, Jr. Library and Archives, Atlanta, Georgia

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference Records, 1954–1970

Oregon State Archives, Salem, Oregon

Governor Tom McCall Records, Extradition Records

Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia

Southern Conference Educational Fund Records, 1958–1985

Southern Oral History Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Bass-Devries Interviews

Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Long Civil Rights Movement Initiative

Interview with Bruce Carr by Jordan McGee, January 13, 2005, U-0441 Interview with Dorothy Farrior by Kimberly Hill, June 20, 2007, U-0173

University of Alabama-Birmingham Archives, Birmingham, Alabama

UAB Records

Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin

George Wiley Papers Social Action Vertical File Southern Conference Educational Fund Records Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Society Justice Records

G o v e r n m e n t P u b l i c a t i o n s

Federal Bureau of Investigation

“Black Panther Party—Winston-Salem, NC” Records BIBLIOGRAPHY 255

National Labor Relations Board

Baptist Medical Center-Princeton and Hospital Employees Local 1318 of Laborers International Union of North America, AFL-CIO, Case 10-RC- 10135, February 7, 1975 Fairview Nursing Home and Public Employees Organizing Committee and Quenten Oliver Varner. Cases 10-CA-9482 and 10-CA-9663, March 9, 1973.

Newspapers and Periodicals

Alabama Black Community News Service (Birmingham, Alabama) Birmingham Mirror (Birmingham, Alabama) Birmingham News (Birmingham, Alabama) Birmingham Post-Herald (Birmingham, Alabama) Birmingham World (Birmingham, Alabama) The Black Panther (Oakland, California) Christian Science Monitor Getting It Together (Birmingham, Alabama) The Great Speckled Bird (Atlanta, Georgia) New York Times (New York, New York) Southern Courier (Montgomery, Alabama) Southern Fight-Back (Birmingham, Alabama) Southern Patriot (Louisville, Kentucky) The Welfare Fighter (Washington, D.C.)

Court Cases

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees v. Dawkins Evans v. U.S. Pipe & Foundry Company Charles William Cannon v. State of Alabama Ex parte: Charles William Cannon, Re: Ex parte: State of Alabama, ex rel. Attorney General in re: State of Alabama v. Charles William Cannon Goodgame v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company Griggs v. Duke Power James C. Dent, et al. v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company, et al. John T. Burks, Claudia Cook, et al. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company Louis Swint, Willie James Johnson, on behalf of themselves, etc. v. Pullman- Standard Pinkard, et al. v. Pullman-Standard Rush Pettway, et al. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company United States of America v. James Andrew Colbert and Michael Beryl Reese Wayland Earl Bryant and Ronald Elliott Williams v. State 256 BIBLIOGRAPHY

I n t e r v i e w s b y A u t h o r

Rita Anthony/Merulrine Watkins Washington Booker, III Jessie Burrell U. W. Clemon Jack Drake Davis Jordan Davis Jordan and Edward Hicks Harvey Henley Alex Hurder Colonel Stone Johnson Floyd King, Jr. Simmie Lavender Larry Watkins Steve Whitman

B o o k s

Alkebulan, Paul, Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007) Biondi, Martha, To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). Branch, Taylor, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965–68 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006). ———, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988) ———, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–65 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998). Burns, Stewart, Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997) Carson, Clayborne, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). Cleaver, Kathleen and George Katsiaficas, eds., Liberation, Imagination, And the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and their Legacy (New York: Routledge Press, 2001). Connerly, Charles, “The Most Segregated City in America”: City Planning and Civil Rights in Birmingham, 1920–1980 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005). Crosbye, Emily, ed., Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, A National Movement (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011). Dittmer, John, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995). BIBLIOGRAPHY 257

Eskew, Glenn, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). Estes, Steve, I Am A Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). Fink, Leon and Brian Greenberg, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of the Hospital Workers’ Union, Local 1199 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989). Franklin, Jimmie Lewis, Back to Birmingham: Richard Arrington, Jr. and His Times (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989). Frye, Hardy, Black Parties and Political Power: A Case Study (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980). Garrow, David J., Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 1955–1968 (New York: W. Morrow, 1986). ———, ed., Birmingham, Alabama, 1956–1963: The Black Struggle for Civil Rights (Brooklyn: Carlson, 1989). Greene, Christina, Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). Haeberle, Steven, Planting the Grassroots: Structuring Citizen Participation (New York: Praeger, 1989). Huntley, Horace and David Montgomery, eds., Black Workers’ Struggle for Equality in Birmingham (Chicago and Urbana: University of Illinois Press: 2004). Irons, Peter, A People’s History of the Supreme Court (New York: Viking Press, 2000). Jeffries, Hasan Kwame, Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt (New York: New York University Press, 2009). Jones, Charles E., ed., The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered] (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998). Joseph, Peniel, The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era (New York: Routledge, 2006). ———, Waiting ’Til The Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006). Kelley, Blair L. M., Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Kelley, Robin D. G., Freedom Dreams:The Black Radical Imagination (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002). ———, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). ———, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York: Free Press, 1994). Kluger, Richard, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality (New York: Vintage, 2004). 258 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kornbluh, Felicia, The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Poverty in Modern America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). Kotz, Nick and Mary Lynn Kotz, A Passion for Equality: George Wiley and the Movement (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977). LaMonte, Edward Shannon, Politics & Welfare in Birmingham, 1900–1975 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995). Lazerow, Jama and Yohuru Williams, eds., In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006). ———, Liberated Territory: Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008). Lipsitz, George, A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition, revised edition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995). MacLean, Nancy, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). Manis, Andrew, A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000). McKiven, Henry J., Iron & Steel: Class, Race, and Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). McWhorter, Diane, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001). Minchin, Timothy, The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). ———, Hiring the Black Worker: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry, 1960–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999). Murch, Donna, Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Nadasen, Premilla, Welfare Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the United States (New York: Routledge, 2005). Needleman, Ruth, Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: The Struggle for Democratic Unionism (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003). Ogbar, Jeffrey O. G., Black Power:Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). Orleck, Annelise, Storming Caesar’s Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005). Ostertag, Bob, People’s Movements, People’s Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007). Painter, Nell Irvin, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: The Life and Times of a Black Radical (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993). Patterson, James, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). BIBLIOGRAPHY 259

Payne, Charles, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). Rhodes, Jane, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon (New York: Free Press, 2007). Sacks, Karen Brodkin, Caring by the Hour: Women, Work, and Organizing at Duke Medical Center (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988). Scribner, Christopher Macgregor, Renewing Birmingham: Federal Funding and the Promise of Change, 1929–1979 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002). Sexton, Patricia Cayo, The New Nightingales: Hospital Workers, Unions, New Women’s Issues (New York: Enquiry Press, 1982). Stein, Judith, Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). Terry, Wallace, Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An Oral History (New York: Ballantine, 1984). Theoharis, Jeanne F. and Komozi Woodard, eds., Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940–1980 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). ———, Groundwork: Local Black Freedom Movements in America (New York: New York University Press, 2005). Thornton, J. Mills, Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery Birmingham, and Selma (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002). Tyson, Timothy, Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story (New York: Crown, 2004). ———, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999). Van Deburg, William L., New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture 1965–1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Walton, Hanes, When the Marching Stopped: The Politics of Civil Rights Regulatory Agencies (New York: State University of New York Press, 1988). Williams, Yohuru, Black Politics/White Power: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Black Panthers in New Haven (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008). Yackle, Larry, Reform and Regret: The Story of Federal Judicial Involvement in the Alabama Prison System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

Articles and Book Chapters

Beckles, Colin A., “Black Bookstores, Black Power, and the F.B.I.: The Case of Drum and Spear,” Western Journal of Black Studies , Vol. 20, No. 2 (1996): 63–71. Cha-Jua, Sundiata Keita and Clarence Lang, “The ‘Long Movement’ as Vampire: Temporal and Spatial Fallacies in Recent Black Freedom Studies,” Journal of African American History, Vol. 92, No. 4 (Fall 2007): 265–288. 260 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Connerly, Charles E., “‘One Great City’ or Colonial Economy? Explaining Birmingham’s Annexation Struggles, 1945–1990,” Journal of Urban History , Vol. 26, No. 1 (November 1999): 44–73. Draper, Alan, “The New Southern Labor History Revisited: The Success of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union in Birmingham, 1934–1938,” Journal of Southern History , Vol. 62, No. 1. (February 1996): 87–108. Eagles, Charles W., “Toward New Histories of the Civil Rights Era,” Journal of Southern History , Vol. 66 (2000): 815–848. Eskew, Glenn, “‘Bombingham’: Black Protest in Postwar Birmingham, Alabama,” Historian , Vol. 59, No. 2 (Winter 1997): 371–391. ———, “‘The Classes a nd t he Masses’: Fred Shut t leswor t h ’s Movement a nd Birmingham’s Black Middle Class,” in Marjorie L. White and Andrew M. Manis, eds., Birmingham Revolutionaries: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000). Fly, Jerry W. and George R. Reinhart, “Racial Separation during the 1970s: The Case of Birmingham,” Social Forces , Vol. 58, No. 4 (June 1980): 1255–1262. Garrow, David J., “Hopelessly Hollow History: Revisionist Devaluing of Brown v. Board of Education,” Virginia Law Review, Vol. 80, No. 1 (February 1994): 151–160 Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” Journal of American History, Vol. 91 (March 2005): 1233–1263. Holloway, Harry, “Birmingham, Alabama: Urbanism and a Politics of Race,” in The Politics of the Southern Negro (New York: Random House, 1969). Joseph, Peniel, “Black Liberation Without Apology,” Black Scholar, Vol. 31, Nos. 3–4 (Fall/Winter 2001): 2–17. Kelley, Robin D. G., “The Black Poor and the Politics of Opposition in a New South City, 1929–1970,” in Michael B. Katz, ed., The Underclass Debate: Views from History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 293–333. Kelly, Brian, “Beyond the ‘Talented Tenth’: Black Elites, Black Workers, and the Limits of Accommodation in Industrial Birmingham, 1900–1921,” in Charles M. Payne and Adam Green, eds., Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850–1950 (New York: NYU Press, 2003). Korstad, Robert and Nelson Lichtenstein, “Opportunities Found and Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of American History, Vol. 75, No. 3 (December 1988): 786–811. Lewis, Cora E., James M. Raczynski, Greg W. Heath, Richard Levinson, and Gary R. Cutter, “Physical Activity of Public Housing Residents in Birmingham, Alabama,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 83, No. 7 (July 1993): 1016–1020. Minchin, Timothy, “Black Activism, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry,” Journal of Southern History, Vol. 65 (November 1999): 809–844. BIBLIOGRAPHY 261

Nichols, Jr., Woodrow W., “The Evolution of an All-Black Town: The Case of Roosevelt City, Alabama,” Professional Geographer , Vol. 26, No. 3 (August 1974): 298–302. Norrell, Robert J., “Caste in Steel: Jim Crow Careers in Birmingham, Alabama,” Journal of American History , Vol. 73, No. 3 (December 1986): 669–694. Porterfield, Ernest, “Birmingham: A Magic City,” in Robert Bullard, ed., In Search of the New South: The Black Urban Experience in the 1970s and 1980s (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989). Tuck, Stephen, “‘We Are Picking Up Where the Movement of the 1960s Left Off’: The Proliferation and Power of African American Protest during the 1970s,” Journal of Contemporary History , Vol. 3, No. 4 (2008): 636–654. “When the Marching Stopped: An Analysis of Black Issues in the ’70s,” Collected Works published by National Urban League, 1973. Woodward, C. Vann, “What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement,” Harper’s Magazine , Vol. 234 (January 1967): 29–37.

Unpublished Works

Grady-Willis, Winston A., “A Changing Tide: Black Politics and Activism in Atlanta, Georgia, 1960–1977” (PhD Dissertation, Emory University, 1998). Pennycuff, Tim L., “‘Offering Inferior Service to Negro Patients’: Unequal Healthcare in Birmingham, Alabama.” Paper presented at the “Race & Place III” Conference at the University of Alabama, March 2004. (Hard copy in author’s possession.) Ray, Cynthia Barnett, “A Study of Community Action in Roosevelt City, Alabama,” unpublished paper, January 28, 1971, p. 8. Taylor, Kieran, “Turn to the Working Class: The New Left, Black Liberation, and the U.S. Labor Movement (1967–1981)” (PhD Dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2007).

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics denote figures

Abernathy, Ralph, 55, 57, 63–6, 87, Adams, Jr., Oscar, 27, 36, 120–1 105, 118, 120, 126 Adaway, Eleanor, 180–2, 249n. 92 ABLF, 4, 5, 48, 83, 84, 133–83, 187, Agee, Rosie, 68 231n. 160 Alabama Black Community News appeal, 149–52, 239–40n. 65, Service (ABCNS), 156, 157, 162–3 240n. 68 Alabama Black Liberation Front, association with BPP, 146–9, see ABLF 168–74, 215n. 59, 240n. 68 Alabama Christian Improvement community work, 163–5 Association (ACIA), 150–1 demise, 179–83, 234n. 9 Alabama Christian Movement for free breakfast programs, 138, 148, Human Rights, see ACMHR 157, 164, 173, 183 Alabama Economic Action free clothing programs, 164 Committee, 1, 85–9 news service (ABCNS), 156, see also McKinney, Robert 157, 162–3 Alabama Power, 69, 126, 159 origins, 137–52 Alabama State Tenants Organization policing of police, 159–63 (ASTO), 49, 71 political education, 153–9 American Cast Iron Pipe Company, suppression, 133–5, 165, 167–83 see ACIPCO ACIPCO, 1, 4, 13, 15, 17–25, 27–36, Amnesty International, 167 37–45, 46, 50, 51, 74, 75 Anthony, Rita, see Watkins, Auxiliary Board, 19, 22, 33, 35, 41 Merulrine (Rita Anthony) Board of Management, 19, 22–3 Armstrong, Edward, 39–40 Board of Operatives, 19, 22, 35, 41 Armstrong, James, 88 history of, 17–21 Arrington, Richard, 2, 84, 128, 161, intimidation of black employees, 167, 178 23–4, 32–6 Atlanta (GA), 87, 134, 137–40, 168, segregation at, 18–21, 28–32, 202n. 170, 185, 189, 190 11, 207nn. 13, 27 Atmore-Holman Brothers, 126 testing, 28–9, 31–2, 40–1, 207nn. 13, Attica, 174 28, 208n. 49 ACMHR, 2, 8, 58, 64–6, 82–3, 87, 88, Bailey, Hugh, 129 97, 118, 120, 214n. 56, 226n. 43 Bailey, Mel, 89, 133, 170, 172–3, 177 264 INDEX

Baptist Medical Centers, see hospitals Black Guard, 150, 151 Baskerville, James, 22, 24, 30, 31 black leadership, see Birmingham, AL Baskin, Robert, 83 Black Liberation Army, 151, 169 Bauer, W.C., 85 Black Liberation Front(s) Baxley, Bill, 89, 129 Florida, 169 Bessemer, AL, 67, 68, 78, 79, 82, 96, 97, South Carolina, 140 151, 178 see also ABLF; GBLF Billingsley, Orzell, 79 Black Panther newspaper, see Black Birmingham, AL Panthers black activism (history), 5–9, Black Panthers, 5, 133, 135, 137, 138, 139, 193nn. 11–12 140, 142, 144–5, 146, 147–50, 152, black leadership conflict, 3, 5–9, 153, 157–9, 163–4, 165, 168–74, 178, 62–5, 69, 85–9, 193n. 12, 195n. 27, 183, 187, 189, 215n. 59 196n. 31, 214n. 56 appeal, 147–50, 239n. 52, 240n. 68 civil rights narrative ,1–2, 183, Arkansas, 189 185–90, 187 Houston, 189 racial violence, 5, 6–8, 80–90, 142, Louisville, 189–90 159–63, 195n. 24, 196n. 40 New Orleans, 189 self-defense, 5, 151–2 newspaper (Black Panther), 139, see also 1963 campaign 153–9, 162–3, 240n. 68 Birmingham News, 63, 126, 128, North Carolina, 138–9, 145, 149, 173, 177 189–90 Birmingham Post-Herald, 123, 124, survival programs, 148, 163–5 172, 177 Tennessee, 189 Birmingham Stove & Range, 44, 115 Ten-Point Program, 148, 155, Birmingham World, 45, 64, 80, 81–2, 157–9, 162 110, 143, 151, 189 black power, 4, 5, 56, 133–83, 187, black freedom struggle, 1–15, 51–2, 53, 194nn. 17–18, 215n. 59, 231n. 160, 72, 99, 104, 130–1, 134–5, 185–90 235n. 10 chronology, 9–12, 185–90, 197n. local level, 135, 153–65 48–50, 197–8n. 51, 198nn. 52–3, south, 134–5, 141–6, 149–52, 189, 199n. 57, 59–61, 200nn. 63–4, 240n. 68 211n. 57 Vietnam, 143–6 courts, 27–36, 37–40, 45–52, 208n. Blanton, Fannie, 100–1 48, 211n. 55 Booker, Henry, 21, 43 federal support, 24–5, 43–4, Booker III, Washington, 141–3, 144–6, 205n. 46 151, 153, 155–6, 159, 160–1, 176 geography, 185–90 bookstores, black, 138–9, 140–1 local vs. national, 2–3, 66, 186–7, Boone, Richard, 84 200n. 62, 215n. 65 BPP, see Black Panthers phases, 2–5, 9–12, 14–15, 53–4, 56, Braden, Anne, 226–7n. 57 73, 91–2, 130–1, 133–5, 183, 187, Braden, Carl, 104, 231n. 154 197nn. 48–9 Brann, W. Paul, 95, 116 “success”, 2–3, 198n. 56, 199n. 59 Brimm, Hugh, 23–4, 32, 34 see also organizing perspectives Browder v. Gayle, 28, 37, 50 (third phase) Brown, Eugene, 160, 162 INDEX 265

Brown, James, 48 Colbert, James, 146, 172, 179, 180 Bryant, Harold, 145 Cold War, 104 Bryant, Wayland “Doc”, 133–4, Coleman, Mattie, 68 137–40, 140–1, 142, 146–9, 154, Collegeville, 88, 161, 164 155, 159–60, 163, 164, 165, 167, Collins, Walter, 180 170–1, 172, 174–5, 176, 177–8, Committee for Equal Job 179, 180, 189 Opportunity, see CEJO Burrell, Johnny, 65, 215n. 57 Concerned Citizens for Justice (CCJ), 177–9, 222n. 65, 248n. 65 Cannon, Charles, 143, 146, 164, 178, Connor, Eugene “Bull”, 7, 129 180–3, 249n. 92 Crenshaw, Minnie, 101–2 Carlisle, Perry “Mobile Fats”, 141, 148, 170, 215nn. 57, 59, 237n. 27 Davis, Angela, 129, 178, 189 Carr, Bruce, 114, 125–6 Davis, Sam (Rev.), 65, 85, 214n. 52 Carter, J.B., 54 Diamond, Ledger, 111, 120 CEJO, 4, 5, 13, 15, 19, 21, 25, 27, 32, 33, Douglas, Jesse (Rev.), 104, 177 35, 36, 37–45, 46, 48–9, 50, 51, 74, Drake, Jack, 177 80, 91, 92, 120, 183, 187–8, 204n. 35, 248n. 65 Eagan, John J., 17, 19 Center Street, 164, 170, 173 East End Hospital, 121 Central City Housing Project, 126 Edwards, Reginald “Malik”, 145 Chambers, Willis, 82 EEOC, 25, 27, 33–4, 42, 45, 46, 48, Charleston, SC (Hospital Strike), 188, 205n. 43, 206n. 3, 208n. 46 55–6, 96, 97, 120–1, 188–9, Enberg, Ilena, 68 212n. 6, 226n. 51 Ensley, AL, 67, 78, 83, 147, 155, 162, churches 170, 172, 173 Greater New Peace Baptist, 126 equal employment cases Mountain Brook Baptist, 124 Dent v. St. Louis-San Francisco New Hope Baptist, 120 Railway, 27 St. Mark CME, 58 Goodgame v. ACIPCO, 48 St. Paul’s AME, 85, 88, 117, 177, Griggs v. Duke Power, 32n. 32, 222n. 65 208n. 49 Sixteenth Street Baptist, 84 Pettway v. ACIPCO, 27–36 Thirgood Methodist, 56 Steele v. L&N Railroad, 45–6 Trinity Baptist, 63 steel industry, 210n. 33 Civil Rights Act (1964), 3, 4, 10, 11, 13, Equal Employment Opportunity 24–5, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 44, Commission, see EEOC 46, 48, 49, 50–1, 53, 74, 80, 92, Eskew, Glenn, 191nn. 3–4, 192n. 9, 187–8, 199n. 59, 206n. 10 195n. 24 Title VII, 25, 36, 44, 50, 51, 188, Evans, Eloise, 59–60, 67 201n. 2, 206n. 3, 208n. 46 Executive Order, 10925, 21–2, 23, civil rights unionism, 5, 90, 91–2, 28–9, 46, 206n. 10 102–3, 130–1, 187, 222–3nn. 1, 4 Cleaver, Eldridge, 154 Fairfield, AL, 97, 125 Clements, Lanny T., 108 Fairview Nursing Home, 1, 101–2, Clemon, U.W., 27 105–11, 113, 121 266 INDEX

Fanon, Frantz, 153, 157, 180 Hicks, Edward, 20, 32, 33, 40–1, 42, Farrior, Dorothy, 94, 97, 112, 223n. 5 43, 51, 74–5, 80 Farrior, James, 94, 117–18, 128–9, Hicks, John, 46 223n. 3 Holman, Irma, 83 Farris, Carl, 97–8, 103, 104, 109, Hospital Employees Local 1318, 99, 117–22, 226–7n. 57, 229n. 120 105, 110, 111, 116–17, 119 FBI, 133, 138–9, 168, 169, 170, 171 see also PEOC Federal Bureau of Investigation, hospitals see FBI Baptist Medical Centers, 97, 105, Fifth Circuit Court, 27, 33, 35, 39 117, 122–8 food stamps, 57–8, 60, 61, 71 Carraway Methodist Medical see also welfare and welfare policy; Center, 75–6, 97, 101, 119, 122 welfare rights Children’s Hospital, 119, 122 Ford, Richard, 143, 144 Lloyd Noland, 96, 224n. 17 Medical Center East, 97 Gardner, Ed, 58, 65, 88, 118, 120 St. Vincent, 121 Gaston, A.G., 63 South Highland Hospital, 74–5 Gaston, Carter, 65, 215n. 57 University, 73, 74, 94, 95, 96, 102, 105, GBLF, 137–40, 142, 154, 164, 109, 111–22, 113–14, 128–9, 146 235–6n. 2 see also nursing homes Georgia Black Liberation Front, see hospital workers (and nursing home), GBLF 3, 48, 55–6, 85, 91–2, 93–131, Getting It Together (PEOC newsletter), 187, 188 100–1, 113, 114, 119, 120, 121 Baltimore, MD, 188 Goldberg, Irving Loeb (Fifth Circuit), Charleston, SC, 55–6, 96, 97, 120–1, 179–80, 182 188–9, 212n. 6, 226n. 51 Goldwire Street, 161 dietary/food service, 93, 94 Goodgame, Henry, 48 Durham, NC, 188 Green, Easie Mae, 60 housekeeping, 94, 100–1 Griffin, Brenda, 175, 176 maintenance, 93, 101 Pittsburgh, PA, 188 Hamerquist, Susan, 178 strikes, 105–28, 223n. 4, 230n. 139 Hammonds, Joe, 87–8, 89 housing, 3, 9, 54, 56, 134, 135, 148, Hampton, Fred, 174 183, 196n. 40 Harper, Lloyd, 18, 20, 21 Hurder, Alex, 94, 98, 103, 105, 108, Harris, Collis, 87–8, 89 109, 112, 114, 117, 118, 121–2, Harris, Johnny “Imani”, 82 229n. 123, 248n. 65 Hawkins, Ruth, 185–6, 187 Hutchins, Lizzie, 68 Health, Education, and Welfare, Dept. Hutchison, Charles (Rev.), 177 of, see HEW health care, 3, 4, 9, 36, 51, 54, implementation, 3–4, 13–15, 36, 51–2, 73–8, 148 74, 76, 187, 190 Henley, Harvey, 13, 25, 29, 30, 32, Ivey, George Washington, 124–6 38–9, 44, 49, 51, 208n. 33, 209n. 6 Henson, Howard, 111 Jackson, Emory O., 81–2 HEW, 76–7, 101 Jackson, Jesse, 56–7, 66, 118 INDEX 267

Jackson, Yvonne, 83 Louisville, KY, 67, 189–90 Jakes, Robert, 176 Loveman’s Village, 60, 141, 147, 159, James, Hulbert, 67 164–5 Jim Crow, 6, 7, 10, 18, 54, 78, 185–7, Lowery, Joseph, 120–1 211n. 1 Lynne, Seybourne, 25, 27, 33, 35–6, 39, Johnson, Robert, 63 206n. 9, 208n. 49 Johnson, Lyndon, 42, 97 Johnson, Willie, 80–1 Malcolm X, 139, 144, 154, 157 Johnston, Ronnie, 105 Marshall, Eugene, 101, 102 Johnston, Esther, 105, 106–9 Marshall, Thurgood, 37 Jones, Marcus (Det.), 150, 175 Martin Luther King Workers Jordan, Davis, 1, 2, 20, 22–3, 24, 29, Conferences, 97 31, 32, 42, 43–4, 48, 51, 74–5, 80, Mayes, W.L., 76, 77 190, 203n. 21, 205n. 43, 210n. 24, McCall, Tom (Gov.), 167–8, 178 248n. 65 McKinney, Robert, 85–90 McWane Pipe, 18 Kelley, Robin D.G., 54, 192nn. 4, 9, medical care, see health care 198–9n. 56 medical center expansion, 73 Kelly, Brian, 195n. 27, 196n. 31 medical centers, see hospitals Kelly Ingram Park, 58, 87, 133, 164 Meriweather, Steve, 246n. 41, 247n. 42 Kennedy, John F., 3, 21, 23, 28, 46 Minchin, Timothy, 187–8, 197nn. Kennedy, Luvenia, 105 48–9 Kennedy, Mattie, 105 Mobile, AL, 67, 70 King, Floyd, 67–8, 216–17n. 81 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 10, 28, 37, King, Jr., Floyd, 67 46, 49–50 King, Jr., Martin Luther, 1, 49, 55, 57, Moore, Annie, 129 84, 190 Moore, Jamie, 63, 81, 87, 95–6, 159, Kirkland, Haywood, 144–5 171, 213–14n. 39, 220–1n. 42 Knowles, Ralph, 177 Morgan, Earl, 172, 173 Korstad, Robert, 10–11, 91 municipal services, 3, 4, 9, 49, 53–4, Kraus, Annie, 178 78–80 Kraus, Frederick, 178 Murry, Reverend, 21–2, 203n. 29 Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 81 NAACP, 13, 24, 45, 51, 73, 74, 83, 167 Laborers International Union-North Nadasen, Premilla, 60, 213n. 38 America, see LIUNA Napier, Sam, 148 labor movement, 91, 97–8, 102–3, National Association for the 112, 127 Advancement of Colored People, Lavender, Simmie, 44, 45 see NAACP LIUNA, 94, 99, 110–16, 119, 120, 124, National Democratic Party of 125, 127–8, 229n. 121 Alabaman (DPA), 48 Lola City, AL, 78 National Labor Relations Board, see Long Civil Rights Movement, see NLRB black freedom struggle Neblett, Chico, 139, 236n. 16 Louis, Josh, see Stephens, Josh New Orleans, LA, 134 (Josh Louis) Newton, Huey, 148, 156, 157, 162, 178 268 INDEX

Nichols, Jr., Woodrow W., 79 Pettigrew, Samuel (Rev.), 126, 128 1963 campaign, 1–3, 9–10, 13, 23, 39, Pettway v. ACIPCO, 27–36 53–4, 55, 81, 88, 103–4, 141, 152, Pinkard, Louis, 47 175, 183, 185–6, 192n. 9, 215n. 57 Pizitz, Richard, 126 goals, 197n. 47 police brutality, 1, 4, 9, 36, 51, 53–4, historiography, 191n. 3 78, 80–90, 126–7, 134, 135, 142, impact, 1–3, 186–7, 191–2n. 4, 192n. 147–8, 153, 159–63, 183, 214n. 56 9, 227n. 66 police surveillance, 3, 62, 95–6, 133–5, Nixon, John, 24, 64, 75 137–40, 167–83, 200–1n. 1, NLRB, 109, 110, 119, 126, 127–8 213–14n. 39 North Carolina, 138–9, 145, 149, 189 Poor People’s Campaign, 4, 54, 55–66 Nunnelley, Carol, 63–4 Posey, Willie, 108 nursing homes poverty, 55–72, 134, 135, 138, 148, Civic Center, 129 153, 183 Essex, 110 Powell, Booker, 20, 29–30, 38 Fairview, see separate entry Pratt City, AL, 68, 83 Hanover House, 110, 121 President’s Committee on Equal Northway, 129 Employment Opportunity, 23, St. Luke’s, 129 32, 44 strikes, 230n. 139 prison system (AL), 134 Tompkins, 110, 119, 122 public employees, 5 municipal, 95–6, 97, 99, 116, 119, 1199 Union, 56, 96, 129–30, 188, 229n. 120 250n. 7 local 1317, 119–20 Operation Human Rights (OHR), 178 unionization, 91–3, 95–6, 225n. 32, Operation New Birmingham, 64, 85 227n. 66 Orange, David (Maj.), 168, 173, 175–6, see also PEOC 177, 247n. 55 Public Employees Organizing organizing perspectives (third phase), Committee, see PEOC 2–5, 55, 56, 89–90, 91–2, 102, 106, Pullman-Standard, 47, 207n. 27 194n. 19 black power, 133–5, 187, 190 Reese, Michael, 137–8, 140, 141, 142–6, expansion, 54, 90, 91–2, 130–1, 147, 149, 170–1, 172, 179, 180, 182 187, 190 Revolutionary Action Movement implementation, 13–15, 51–2, 53–4 (RAM), 150, 151, 241n. 87 Robertson, Harold, 176 PEOC, 4, 5, 91–2, 93–131, 183, 187, Rogers, Freddie, 78, 80, 90, 226n. 43 188–9, 225–6n. 35 see also Roosevelt City “civil rights”, 102–5 Roosevelt City, AL, 67, 68, 70, 76–80, issues, 99–105 90, 147, 159, 168 organizing drives, 105–31 see also Rogers, Freddie origins, 93–9 significance, 91–2, 130–1 Sanders, Eddie, 85–6, 124–6 surveillance of, 93–4, 95–6 Sanders, James “Soap”, 83 see also Hospital Employees SCEF, 1, 94, 97, 98, 112, 178, 180, Local 1318 189–90, 231n. 154, 248n. 65 INDEX 269

SCLC, 1, 3, 4, 24, 55–66, 97–8, 104, 106, Turner, Bernice, 133, 139, 174–5, 246n. 111, 120, 121, 126, 127, 128, 189 39, 247n. 48 Seale, Bobby, 172 Tyson, Timothy, 145 Seibels, George, 70, 74, 78, 81, 86, 89, 95–6, 97, 161, 164, 169, 185, UAB, 77, 93, 95, 100, 111–22 213–14n. 39 UNIA, 64–5, 68, 72 Selma, AL, 87 United Steelworkers (USWA), 109 Sheriff’s Department (Jefferson Ad-Hoc Committee, 46, 80, 95, County), 167, 168, 174–6 96–7, 102 Shores, Arthur, 45, 88, 174, 196n. 37 University Hospital, see hospitals Shuttlesworth, Fred, 1, 8, 9, 83, 126, University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa), 127, 193n. 11, 214n. 56 115, 120 Skaggs, Lionel, 93, 95, 100, 114 University of Alabama at Slossfield Community Center, 73 Birmingham, see UAB Solomon Act, 113 Urban League, 64, 79, 167 Southern Christian Leadership Urban Renewal, 73 Conference, see SCLC U.S. Pipe, 18, 25, 43, 46–7 Southern Conference Educational U.S. Steel, 17, 43, 44, 45, 76 Fund, see SCEF Southern Courier, 83 Van Deburg, William, 143–4 Southern Fight-Back, 129 Vann, David, 84, 161 Southern Organizing Committee Vaughn, Warren, 149 (for Economic & Social Veneziano, Ola, 105, 106, 108 Justice), 49 Vietnam, 3, 94, 103, 137, 141, 142–6, Southern Patriot, 1, 2, 80, 89, 94, 147, 153, 187 98, 109, 112–13, 115, 122, 126, Vine City (Atlanta), 137–8 127, 131, 138, 142, 143, 149, 175, Volker, Joseph, 114, 118 179, 190 Voting Rights Act (1965), 4, 10, 11, Spain Rehab Center (UAB), 94, 199n. 59 97, 122 Spears, Carolyn, 124–6 Ware, J.L., 63, 65, 85, 221n. 63 Stein, Judith, 27, 201n. 2 Warren, Jr., Jack, 180, 183 Stephens, Josh (Josh Louis), 149, Washington, Caliph, 82, 178 154, 164, 172, 177, 178, 180–1, Watkins, Larry, 143, 146, 148, 155, 249n. 89 160, 170–1 Stockham Valve, 25, 43, 44 Watkins, Merulrine (Rita Anthony), 1, 2, 61, 69, 70, 71, 86, 97, Taft-Hartley Act, 117, 126, 230n. 127 190, 213n. 30, 214n. 52, Tarrant City, 133, 149, 167, 169, 171, 242n. 95, 248n. 65 174–9 Weatherly, John, 30 Terry, Wallace, 143 Weaver, Jr., Robert, 21, 30 testing, employment, see ACIPCO Webb, Willie, 21 Thompson, Perry, 82 Webster, Jimmie L., 31 Thornton, J. Mills, 8, 28, 196nn. 33, welfare and welfare policy, 55, 57, 60, 37, 40, 199nn. 57–8 69–70, 212n. 2, 213n. 38, 218n. 92 Tiller, Inella, 68 see also food stamps 270 INDEX

Welfare Fighter, 68–9 Williams, Hosea, 56–8, 57, 63, 65–6 welfare rights, 4, 60–1, 66–72, 94, 97, Williams, Robert F., 150 194n. 20 Williams, Roddrick, 30–1 welfare rights organization (WRO), Williams, Ronnie, 133–4, 146, 164, 4, 5, 59, 67, 71, 77, 80, 90, 97, 183, 167, 172, 175, 176, 177–8, 179, 180 187, 248n. 65 Williams, Ruby, 65, 68, 80, 84, 90, 150 national welfare rights organization Woods, Calvin, 88 (NWRO), 66–7, 216–17nn. 81–6 Wrenn, Alfred, 117–18, 229n. 123 Alabama welfare rights Wrenn, Peter, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 33–5, organization (AWRO), 68, 42, 51, 203n. 29, 204–5nn. 32, 35, 69–70, 84 40–1, 208n. 46 Wheeler, Sammy, 180–2 Wiggins, Jr., Robert L., 36 Yarbrough, Russ, 84 Wiggins, M.E., 185 YMCA, 18, 43 Wiley, George, 67, 68, 217n. 86 Yow, Hasty Kim, 69, 70