The Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955

The Washington Post, April 25, 1956 Montgomery Sticks to Bus Segregation An order to stop segregation on city buses brought angry threats of reprisal today from city and state officials who vowed to keep the races apart as long as possible... City and state officials insisted Alabama's segregation laws are still in effect despite the Supreme Court action of yesterday. That applied directly only to South Carolina, and Alabama officials contended segregation laws here will remain intact until a court order is directed specifically at them. Until the city and state laws are knocked down, Police Commissioner Clyde Sellers and other city officials and President Jack Owen of the Alabama Public Service Commission declared segregation will be rigidly maintained. The City Commission, all three of whose members belong to the White Citizens Council, issued a statement saying it "does not consider that the Supreme Court construes Alabama laws or city ordinances by which we are governed." The council is dedicated to preservation of racial segregation...... Sellers said he would order the arrest of any passenger or bus driver who permits or indulges in desegregation. ..."As far as I'm concerned, this damn thing (the Supreme Court action) applies only to South Carolina," Sellers said. "Until they tell us in this suit filed here that it applies to us, I'm going to enforce all city laws to maintain segregation."... The New York Times, April 26, 1956 Plessy Nears Its End ...A succession of cases dealing with both transportation and education in recent years has brought the judicial doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson to its grave. Burial took place on May 17, 1954, when the decisions rejecting the constitutionality of "separate but equal" school facilities were handed down. The tombstone was set when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond last July ruled against enforced segregation even on city buses, asserting that -- in the light of the school decision -- "we do not think the separate but equal doctrine ... can any longer be regarded as a correct statement of law."...... This conclusion will come hard to some states and cities where segregation of public transport has been practiced for generations. "I hereby defy the ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court," grandiloquently declared the president of the Alabama Public Service Commission, in whose state capital, Montgomery, a Negro boycott of segregated bus lines has been going on since December...... Too much must not be demanded too soon. Friends of the Negro in the North will do him no service in the South by exacerbating what is already an extremely difficult situation. In a social upheaval of this magnitude it is neither wise nor just to issue hot-headed statements quivering with self-righteousness, as so many of us in this part of the world are wont to do when it comes to segregation. But the law must and will be enforced, though the process can be expected to take time. The New York Times, December 22, 1956 Bus Integration in Alabama Calm Montgomery Quiet on First Day -- Slapping of Negro Woman Only Incident ...For the first time in this "cradle of the Confederacy" all the Negroes entered buses through the front door. They sat in the first empty seats they saw, in the front of the buses and in the rear. They did not get up to give a white passenger a seat. And whites sat with Negroes...... A Negro turned in one bus to ask a white passenger sitting behind him -- the mark of the new order -- what time it was and got a quick and courteous reply...... Two white men in one bus today found themselves sitting behind a Negro, and one of the whites said, loudly: "I see this isn't going to be a white Christmas." The Negro looked up, and smiled. He said, with good humor but firmness: "Yes, sir, that's right." Everybody in the bus smiled, and all rancor seemed to evaporate... There was no mass turnout of Negroes today to exploit their victory. For the most part, only those who had planned already to go to town took the buses. They made nothing special of it, simply abandoned their year-long custom of walking, or joining in a car pool, and quietly boarded the bus. The Birmingham Post-Herald, December 22, 1956 White Boycott Of Buses Talked An Alabama Citizens Council leader proposed a white boycott of city lines buses today after lambasting two federal judges who ruled originally against segregated buses. State Sen. Sam Engelhardt of Macon County, executive secretary of the Alabama Association of White Citizens Councils urged the "real white people of Alabama" never to forget the names "[Richard T.] Rives and [Frank M.] Johnson"... "Nothing they can ever do would rectify this great wrong they have done to the good people of this state," said Englehardt. "Already more hate has been generated on this day than any day since the days of the carpetbag Legislature." Engelhardt represents one of Alabama's heaviest Negro populated counties and site of famed Tuskegee Institute, in the state Legislature.

Freedom Riders 1961 The Washington Post, May 16, 1961 Editorial: Darkest Alabama Alabama calls itself, presumably with pride, the "heart of Dixie" -- which must mean that it cherishes the traditions of the old South, chivalry, hospitality, kindness. But some of its citizens showed precious little understanding of those traditions on Sunday when they burned and stoned two buses, one in Birmingham and the other just outside of Anniston...... The "Freedom Riders" engaged in no disorderly conduct and did nothing to provoke violence -- save to exercise a constitutional right. The police dispersed the crowds after one of the buses had been destroyed by fire and after several of the passengers had been injured. But no arrests were made...... The plain fact is that Americans cannot be assured in Alabama of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment... The Chicago Tribune, May 23, 1961 Editorial: The Alabama Riots ...Two hundred more deputy marshals have now been sent to Montgomery. We hope that the grievously misguided governor of Alabama will not try to use his militia as a counter to the federal government's men. If that should be attempted, President Kennedy will have to do, as President Eisenhower did in Little Rock: order the militia into federal service to take it away from the governor...... Although the freedom riders were likely to give offense to many people in Alabama and knew it when they boarded their buses, the trips were lawful, the riders conducted themselves peaceably, and no statute of the state of Alabama that would have forbidden the trip is valid. The federal law in these matters is supreme, as the governor well knows, and it is his sworn duty to enforce it... The New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 31, 1961 Letter to the Editor: Plenty of Nerve The psychology behind the so-called "freedom riders" completely escapes me. The United States has been "preaching" for 15 years that non-intervention is the thing. The "freedom riders" are intervening in the internal affairs of a state... What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Non-intervention in Cuba, non-intervention in Alabama. I think we look pretty silly, tiptoeing [sic] around Castro and throwing the federal weight around in Montgomery. My, my, this big country; afraid of its own shadow around the whole world, but with plenty of nerve to come into a state and tell the officials of that state exactly how to conduct their duties... I would leave the South to solve its own racial problems. P. W. P. The New York Times, June 4, 1961 Editorial: Injunction in Alabama ...The Freedom Riders ought not to be enjoined by the courts from exercising their Constitutional rights. But, as we have urged before, the Freedom Riders should realize they have made their point and voluntarily cease their activities for a period during which the passions aroused by their recent efforts may subside. A similar position on this issue was taken last week by the Southern Regional Council, which is composed of both white and Negro liberals. The Council is entirely correct in advocating that the advantages gained be not pressed too far. The issue of desegregation can ultimately be solved only in the South and primarily by Southerners, white and Negro. Neither violence nor the steadily insistent provocation of violence can bring about the solution...

Greensboro 4 1960 Virginia-Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 5, 1960 Behind the Headlines: Sit-Down Protest Should Always Be Non-Violent by Gordon B. Hancock As a means of protest against segregation and its evil concomitants, the current sit-down movement among Negro students is quite understandable...... Nothing would be more disastrous than a cessation of protest against the unchristian and the undemocratic. These sit-down students have been taught in our great American history that resistance to tyranny is honorable and righteous... The New York Times, April 18, 1960 Nashville Issue is Full Equality Sit-in Movement Is Prelude to Campaign by Negroes ...Seven weeks after the Negro student sit-in movement struck the city that proudly boasts the title "Athens of the South" no solution of the problem appeared on the horizon...... But vigorous, imaginative and energetic citizens -- both white and black -- were striving to resolve the food-service issue...... Not that Nashville citizens feel especially proud of their record thus far. "I'm sorry for what brings you here," said a professional man. And a woman wrote to The Nashville Banner saying: "Nashville, the eyes of the country are upon you. Are you proud of what they are seeing? Until now I could look anyone anywhere straight in the eye and say gladly, 'I'm from Nashville, Tenn.'" The letter was inspired by new outbreaks of minor violence that have flared up sporadically as a counterpoint to the sit-in movement... The Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1960 Bomb Blasts Integration Leader's Home Nashville, April 19 -- A dynamite bomb shattered the home of a Negro integration leader in Nashville today and touched off a protest march on City Hall by 2,500 Negroes demanding an end to racial intimidation and violence. Mayor Ben West told the Nashville marchers that "you also have a responsibility. You all have the power to destroy this city so let's don't have any mobs." West drew cheers when he said "I appeal to all citizens to end discrimination, to have no bigotry, no bias, no discrimination." The Negro marchers, led by students, marched in columns three and four abreast, circling the Davidson County Courthouse. Then they held a prayer session on the Courthouse steps. They dispersed quietly after West's remarks. The Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1960 Negroes Win Dining Rights in Nashville Secret Parleys Bring Lunch Counter Peace Six downtown Nashville department, dime, and drug stores opened their lunch counters to Negroes for the first time Tuesday and served them without incident under terms of a bi-racial agreement reached after weeks of secret negotiations...... The agreement... included a local news blackout by radio and television stations and newspapers. No word of the desegregation was broadcast or published locally. Merchants and Negro leaders hoped the local blackout would forestall incidents...... "It's a gamble," [a Nashville] store manager said. "But we felt the community is better prepared for integration than it has ever been." Among the stores which desegregated lunch counters, one official said: "There's no turning back now. There's no trial period or anything. This is it."

Little Rock 9 1957

The Denver Post, September 5, 1957 Editorial: The Arkansas Trampler The governor of Arkansas, in defiance of a federal court order, is attempting to bar Negroes from attending a Little Rock high school... He has denied that he is defying Federal District Judge Ronald N. Davies, who has ordered integration of the Little Rock high school on a gradual and limited basis. The governor insists that he is, rather, only using the Arkansas national guard to keep "peace and order..." ...From the facts now at hand, the governor's actions appear to have been impulsive, unwarranted and deliberately provocative. He has revealed himself as a stooge of militant minorities aligned with bigots to trample civil rights in a phony defense against imaginary evils. Arkansas deserves better. The Birmingham Post-Herald, September 5, 1957 Editorial: An Inevitable Clash Important, far-reaching legal precedents could come out of the action of the governor of Arkansas in calling out the National Guard to block integration of a Little Rock school. Governor Faubus says the guardsmen are on duty to preserve peace and maintain order. Certainly that is one of his responsibilities as governor. There is little room for doubt that public sentiment in Arkansas supports Governor Faubus. A majority of the people not only in Arkansas but throughout the South are opposed to the integration of the schools...... Their attitude is not one of revolt or arbitrary refusal to bow to authority which always they have respected and upheld. But underlying it is a deep sense of injustice and a determination too often underestimated and widely misunderstood...... As the President pointed out, you do not change people's hearts merely by laws. He might have added, nor by mere law can you expect to change overnight a region's deep-rooted way of life. The Boston Globe, mid-September, 1957 Editorial: The Ordeal at Little Rock The situation in Little Rock has put a hard line around the amorphous but firm resistance of the South to the Federal court order for integration into the hitherto all-white schools. Perhaps, in the long run, the blundering procedure of Gov. Orval Faubus may precipitate resolution of the remaining legal questions delaying the inevitable death of segregation in public schools...... Of course the Federal government is not going to arrest the governor, nor march in troops to force a high school doorway. The South, as well as the North, is a country of law and its respect for the law will prevail... The Cleveland Call and Post, September 21, 1957 The People Have a Right to Know Last Saturday, Sept. 14, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States and Orval E. Faubus, Governor of Arkansas, met in conference on what has been declared by many, as one of the most serious problems facing this government since the Civil War. At the conclusion of this conference, both participants issued statements, but, in neither of these statements was there any revelation to the American people as to what decisions, if any, they arrived at...... The American people are just as much in the dark about the defiance of Federal authority as they were before the Newport conference. As we go to press, the soldiers are still preventing Negro children from going to Central High School in Little Rock. Gov. Faubus has not retreated or retracted one inch or one word...... Gov. Faubus has deliberately chosen to defy the Federal Government. He therefore, should be treated like any other state official who disobeys a court order and willfully invades the constitutional rights of citizens...... The question involved at Little Rock is the supremacy of the laws of the land over the personal prejudiced whims of a duly elected official. Gov. Faubus had nothing whatsoever to do with ordering the integration of the public schools in Arkansas, this was the responsibility of the Little Rock School Board and the Federal Judge. The question now, however, is, did President Eisenhower compromise away the rights of the American people in his talk with Gov. Faubus?...

Freedom Summer 1964

The New York Times, May 30, 1964 Mississippi is Gripped by Fear of Violence in Civil Rights Drive Mississippi has assumed the air of a besieged fortress in the face of an impending civil rights campaign...... Law-enforcement agencies have joined in a program of para-military preparations. White residents are being urged to ignore civil rights demonstrations with the assurance that officials will deal firmly with any challenge to the state's racial codes and customs. The Legislature has passed a series of bills aimed at defeating what many whites refer to as "the coming invasion..." ..."There's something badly wrong here," observed E. W. Steptoe, Sr., as he sat in the neat though unpainted living room of his tar-papered home on his 240-acre farm in Amite County, on the Louisiana state line. "I don't know what the Negro could be doing to displease the white people," he continued. "Looks like they're trying to do everything to satisfy them." "They're not asking for nothing out of reason -- just the vote," he said...... The abundance of official steps taken to oppose the Freedom Summer campaign has failed to satisfy many white Mississippians. Their concern was apparent at a meeting this week of Americans for the Preservation of the White Race, held in the courtroom of the Rankin County Courthouse in Brandon. The main speaker...was Shelby Brewer, a manufacturer of automobile tire boots. Mr. Brewer fingered a small black Bible as he told two jokes about Negroes. He then attacked President [Lyndon] Johnson, saying that, while the President had asked for $125 million to fight Communism in South Vietnam, he had done nothing to fight Communism in the South...... "He has encouraged Martin Luther King, the nigger general who has declared war on all white people, to continue his fight..." ...Both Mr. Brewer and Mr. [Arsene] Dick stressed nonviolence. However, Mr. Dick said, "A man today who hasn't got a gun in his house is a fool." A grim-faced mechanic standing nearby broke in to say of Negroes, "We ought to get shed of all of 'em. We ought to shoot 'em all..." ...Mr. [Archie C.] Curtis was asked what he thought was behind the violence in southwestern Mississippi. "They are trying to cower Negroes down so that they won't take part in demonstrations," he replied. "The colored people here are not free," he continued. "They don't feel free to go to public meetings at night..." The New York Times, June 14, 1964 South Girds for Crisis Massive Assault on Racial Barriers Planned for This Summer Creates Atmosphere of Tension ...Even the assurance of repressive law enforcement has failed to calm the fears of whites in some areas. Much of their anxiety results from rumor and misunderstanding. But it is nonetheless real. The depth of this misunderstanding and apprehension is reflected in the reaction of many white Mississippians to the coming "Freedom Summer" operation. The project calls for a statewide program of voter registration drives, special academic training for Negro youths, adult citizenship classes, political action, a survey of the state's political and economic structure and a study of white attitudes...... Probably the best that can by hoped for realistically in the Deep South's pockets of defiance...is a peaceful stalemate. There can be no substantial, lasting progress here so long as whites see signs of hope elsewhere that the nation will eventually tire of the civil rights controversy and leave them to resolve the issue in their own way, as was done in 1877. The Birmingham Post-Herald, August 7, 1964 5 Bullets in 3 Bodies Study Shows, Shot From Front FBI agents fanned out around Old Jolly farm today, questioning residents for clues to who killed three civil rights workers and buried them in a red dirt dam. The FBI said it believed the three were victims of abduction and murder but steadfastly refused to confirm or deny widespread rumors of imminent arrests... Private pathologists in Jackson identified the bodies of Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, both white New Yorkers. The third body is apparently their Negro companion, James Chaney, but sufficient scientific background on Chaney has not yet permitted the FBI to confirm the identity officially... The Boston Globe, August 7, 1964 Editorial: Mississippi's Conscience Some Mississippians who knew better mocked the search for the three missing civil rights workers, saying it was only a hoax. Now a nation horrified by mass racial violence in the North is stunned anew by the finding of the three bodes. This was cold-blooded vicious murder, the ultimate act of extremists...... The next step must be the capture of the killers and their conviction by a jury -- in a state whose concept of proper justice in such cases has often been less than reassuring...... It is hard to believe that the majority of the white community in Mississippi and its neighboring states are so monolithic that they are not torn by guilt. The three were slain for helping Negroes make a reality of the right to vote. It was a lynching, in an atmosphere that only the people of Mississippi themselves can purge. The crime is on their conscience. They will have to live with it, and face the condemnation of an outraged world.

Freedom (Selma) March 1965

The Montgomery Advertiser, March 10, 1965 Rights March Turned Back Selma -- State troopers quietly turned back a massive right-to-vote march led Tuesday by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had begun the pilgrimage to Alabama's capital in defiance of a federal court ruling and a plea by President [Lyndon] Johnson...... The march he made brought him face to face with a stern Maj. John Cloud, commanding a force of more than 100 blue-helmeted troopers, armed with billy clubs. Five hundred troopers had poured into Selma in advance of the march. "This march is not conducive to the safety of those using the highways," said Cloud. He spoke as he stood at the head of a line of troopers massed across the pavement. He ordered the marchers to return to their church... The Selma Times-Journal, March 11, 1965 Alabama is Disfigured (Reprinted from The Anniston Star) ...The confrontation of Negro ambitions and the power of the law was provocative, but in that moment's surrender to the heady application of overwhelming force we lost the opportunity to show that we are equal to the sharpest demand of courage -- the courage of restraint. Governor [George] Wallace was absolutely correct in directing that the protest march planned by the Negro leadership be stopped...... Disagreement with the governor's instructions could have been expressed more sensibly by appeal to the injunctive powers of the law, not be flouting the law, or by some more sane public expression not endangering lives and property...... We will never know, now, because of the hasty swinging of clubs and lashes, the hurried use of tear gas, the angry pursuit by mounted possemen that portrayed Alabama as the home of Cossacks and head-crackers unable to cope with a situation like this without losing control. Those who planned this march did not act wisely, but proud and decent Alabamians cannot endorse the reckless brute force used against it Sunday... The Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1965 Letters to the Editor: The March at Selma ...Tear gas, whips, and clubs were used to implement the charge by the troopers to disperse the Negroes. The actions of the troopers were those of a police state effecting its will upon the populace by brute force and terrorism...... It's the duty of the federal government and President [Lyndon] Johnson to intervene and restore civilization to the south. John Charles Moore Wheaton, IL Some say the police did not have to use tear gas and nightsticks on the marchers at Selma, Ala. How else were the police going to get the marchers out of the way? Those people got exactly that they deserved and what they expected. They were looking for publicity and sympathy. David W. Shiflet Wilmette, IL

The Washington Post, March 17, 1965 Letters to the Editor: Reactions to Selma The good people of a great state have been sullied with shame. What on earth has become of the hundreds of thousands of educated, intelligent and basically brave citizens of Alabama? Where are its Senators, Representatives, public officials sworn to uphold the Constitution...... How long must the Nation and the world wait for the Americanism, Christianity, respect for law and for fellow human beings of the great majority of the people of Alabama to rescue that State from the infamy into which it has fallen? James P. Davis Falls Church, VA The picture of Alabama State Troopers using clubs, tear gas, and, some say, bull whips on men, women and children was enough to make any decent person feel sick, revolted and furious. If the caption was missing... one might almost think this was a photo from Nazi Germany... Florence Sherman Washington, DC The Washington Post, March 31, 1965 Letter to the Editor: Publicity and Protest Alabama has been invaded by thousands of civil rights demonstrators... in the biggest publicity stunt of the Twentieth Century -- the Selma to Montgomery March...... It should be apparent by now that this latest and greatest publicity stunt is all part of a campaign to remove government by law and substitute government by demonstration. The specter these demonstrations in Alabama and elsewhere create is nothing less than the threat of anarchy. Our officials are being blackmailed by sit-ins, mass marchers, traffic obstruction and business stoppage to force them to give in to the unending demands of power-hungry demonstration leaders. John Railami Silver Spring, MD

Chicago Freedom March 1966 Chicago Tribune, July 31, 1966 Letter to the Editor: Violence and Civil Rights ...it is high time for Negro rioters and those who incite and condone their actions to look at some facts...... Up to a very few years ago, even in the northern states, Jim Crow was an ever-present reality to the Negro. Today we share the theater, train, bus, plane, and restaurant. We are guests in the same hotel and we worship in the same church...... And not one of these long denied rights has been attained by violence on the part of the Negro!...... And let no one forget that without the aid and sympathy of millions of whites, civil rights might still be nothing more than a hope for the future. It would seem that the responsible Negro community should raise its voices against the looting, burning, and shooting of the recent riots, not only because law and order have been outraged, but because history has shown that violence brings hatred, not reform. Norman T. Leiber Lakeside, Michigan The Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1966 Whites Jeer as Negroes Stage March Chicago -- More than 1,000 white persons hooted, jeered and shouted insults and obscenities at 300 white and Negro civil rights marchers Tuesday as the Chicago Freedom Movement staged an hour-long march on a northwest-side real estate office in an all-white neighborhood...... The demonstrators were led by the Revs. James Bevel and Jesse Jackson of Dr. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference...... Bevel said the real estate firm was chosen merely as a symbol of what he called discriminatory practices by all real estate firms in the neighborhood...... When the marchers reached the real estate company and kneeled on the sidewalk in front of it to pray, the white mob, kept to the opposite side of the street by police, began shouting, "Nigger," "White power," "The white man rules," "Go home, filth." The crowd, mostly young men, taunted the police and shouted threats to go into the Negro ghettos of the city and stir trouble...... [Rev.] Jackson said... that the SCLC would keep up its campaign to open up all-white neighborhoods to Negroes in the area of housing and jobs. The Chicago Tribune, August 21, 1966 Letter to the Editor: Cleaning Up Slums ...One can understand the frustrations of the good Negro families and citizens who find it difficult if not impossible to rent or purchase property where they would like to live. On the other hand, one can also understand the fears of home owners that they will suffer financial losses and be subjected to unpleasant situations as Negroes move into a neighborhood. The fact that areas deteriorate as Negroes take over is evident to anyone who will drive thru those sections of the city that have changed in the past 10 or 20 years. This deterioration is evident also in housing built with government money and assistance for low income families. ...Martin Luther King and the other leaders in the civil rights movement could make a great contribution toward the elimination of slums by activating their people to clean up the yards, streets, homes, and buildings in the areas where they live. Also by teaching them to have appreciation and regard for property and its care and maintenance... Sanford Rubin Skokie, Illinois The Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1966 Chicago Group Seeks Negroes for Relocation Committee in Search for 250 Families to Move Into All-White Neighborhoods ...Dr. Martin Luther King, co-chairman of the Freedom Movement, had called off his Cicero march scheduled for Aug. 28 as a show of "good faith" in the racial agreement reached Aug. 26 [by a special citizens committee negotiating for open housing]. But Robert L. Lucas, Chicago chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, was dissatisfied with the agreement and Sunday led about 250 marchers through a hail of curses, bricks, rocks, and bottles from crowds of hostile whites. Albert A. Raby, the co-chairman with Dr. King of the Freedom Movement, was asked after attending the committee meeting if he thought Sunday's march had helped the civil rights cause here. "I don't think it helped it or hurt it," he said. "I think it is unfortunate that it took place. It's too bad the purpose of the march was not clearer." Though a member of the Freedom Movement, CORE is not represented on the movement's policymaking steering committee...... [Raby said]... "We welcome anyone, but everyone must follow the discipline of the movement." He referred to the fact Lucas had staged his own march with demonstrators who, in some cases, retaliated against the heckling crowd...

The March on Washington 1963 The Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1963 Editorial: A Right and a Responsibility There is no more basic right guaranteed by the Constitution than the freedom of "the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." In less than 24 hours, tens of thousands of Americans will exercise that right in a massive civil rights demonstration in Washington. Leaders of the extraordinary march on the nation's capital call it a "living petition." The vast majority of their countrymen concur in demands for equality by Negroes and other minorities, and they deplore the inequities that have led to the civil rights march. But they are concerned -- as apparently are demonstration officials -- that the march could somehow miscarry, that the very numbers participating will make it vulnerable to disorder...... A demonstration that falls into violence would be disastrous, but even a well-ordered march is not likely to change the position of Congress members, pro or con, on the President's civil rights proposals. And although proper federal legislation will be helpful, the main fight to end discrimination must still be waged at the local and state level. The New York Times, August 29, 1963 Editorial: Equality is Their Right The huge assemblage of Negro and white citizens in Washington yesterday to demand equality in all aspects of American life embodied, in concept and in execution, the noblest tradition of our democracy. It reflected their conviction that, if enough of the people demonstrate that they care enough, no force in the United States is more powerful than an appeal to conscience and basic morality. They massed, 200,000 strong, at the Lincoln Memorial beside the seated figure of the President who signed the Emancipation Proclamation a century ago...... The discipline maintained by the civil rights pilgrims was as impressive as their dedication. That so vast a movement could be carried out with such decorum is a tribute to the responsibility of both leaders and followers... The New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 30, 1963 Editorial: Massing Precedent Negroes in and out of Washington who assembled in the estimated number of 200,000 in the capital are to be congratulated for their orderliness, and celerity of departure. There was, however, no telling, at any time, what might happen; there is no telling to what extent similar massive gatherings, with or without governmental encouragement, with or without peaceful intent, to whatever end or with whatever motive, will become a fixture in the mechanics of trying to get what you want in the way of legislation... The New York Times, August 30, 1963 Editorial: After the March is Over ...The national conscience, most potent of all spurs to social action, has been stirred in ways that will find expression in laws and in community practice. The only question is whether the translation of attitude into action will come fast enough to prevent new explosions of interracial violence. The unity of Negro and white citizens in the leadership of the march and in its rank and file demonstrated the indivisibility of the fight for genuine equality in all phases of American affairs. It was a rebuke to those in both races -- the White Citizens Councils and the Black Muslims -- who favor a pulling-apart instead of a pulling-together... The Chicago Tribune, September 4, 1963 Letters to the Editor: The March ...Without exception, this was the most outstanding, finest, most wonderful group of Americans which ever assembled voluntarily for anything. They were of the stuff which made this country great. John J. Walsh Chicago The litter and debris thrown about the grounds near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington is a disgrace and certainly no credit to the freedom marchers. If these people want to be accepted, they must also show some responsibility. Disgusted Taxpayer Chicago