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AUTHOR Bullard, Sara, Ed. TITLE Free at Last. A History of the and Those Who Died in the Struggle. INSTITUTION Southern Poverty Center, Montgomery, AL. PUB DATE 1989-00-00 NOTE 107p. AVAILABLE FROM "Teaching Tolerance," The Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Avenue, Montgomery, AL 36104 (1-9 copies, $2.75 each; 10-19 copies, $2.25 each; 20-99 copies, $1.75 each; 100 or more copies, $1.50 each). PUB TYPE Reports Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC05 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Biographies; *Black History; Black Leadership; *Civil Rights; Demonstrations (Civil); Elementary Secondary Education; Profiles; Racial Discrimination; *; ; *School Desegregation; Student Rights; History; Urban Schools

ABSTRACT Along with the history of the civil rights movement, this publication, which is well suited for classroom use, tells the stories of those who died during that struggle. Their lives serve as examples of the many personal tragedies suffered for a movement that transformed America from a society in which blacks were routinely excluded from full citizenship to one that now recognizes, even if it has not fully realized, the equal rights of all citizens. The following sections are included: (1) "Early Struggles" through slavery: (2) "A Movement of the People," the and the Little Rock crisis; (3) "Confrontations," the efforts of and civil rights marchers; (4) "Fighting for the Ballot," the struggle for rights in and ; and (5)"Days of Rage," urban rioting and the of Martin Jr. Profiles are provided for 40 prominent and less well known people who gave their lives in the civil rights movement. The booklet is liberally illustrated with photographs from the civil rights struggle.(SLD)

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'441111111...Z U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND Office of Educations/ Researchand Improvement DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION HAS BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) wir his document has been reproducedas received from the person or organization originating it sie GJiMoms Minor changes have been madeto improve reprOCIUCtiOn Quality Teochpy rFerar)u

Points of view or opinions statedinttuadocu- ment do not necessarily represent official TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OERI position or policy INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)

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Executive Editor Sara Bullard

Civil Rights History Editor

Manuscript Editors J. Richard Cohen Preface Steve Fiffer

Design Director Susan Hulme/Wright, One day the South In Montgomery, Alabama, groundswell of support from in 1989, a memorial was built ordinary people who had will recognize its Senior Researcher to commemorate the achieve- never before been politically Joseph T. Roy Sr. real heroes. ments of the civil rights era involved. Researchers Martin Luther King Jr., in and to honor those who died The actions of politicians Jeff Richburg Charles Blevins "Letter From Birmingham City Jail" during that struggle. A few of and judges helped speed the Cathy Lane the victims were well known transformation that occurred Nancy Britnell , Martin Luther during those 14 years. But it Barbara Blank King Jr. but there were was the courage of people like Pre-Production Manager many whose names you could Wharlest Jackson who lost Betty Powell not find in the history books: their lives in the struggle that Proofreader John Earl Reese, Willie made that transformation Gayle Bryant Edwards, Clarence Triggs. inevitable. Along with a history of Some of these the civil rights movement, the were not killed because of stories of those who died are anything they personally did, told here. Their lives serve as but because they represented, examples of the many personal by their color, the movement tragedies suffered for a move- that was threatening the segre- ment that transformed America gationists' way of life. Lemuel

Published by: from a society in which blacks Penn, driving through Teaching Tolerance were routinely excluded from on his way home from Army 400 Washington Ave. full citizenship into one that reserve training; Willie Montgomery, AL 36104 now recognizes, if it has not Brewster, a foundry worker Bulk copies of this magazine may be entirely realized, the equal driving home from work; ordered at cost for classroom use, rights of all citizens. by writing to: Teaching Tolerance, The Virgil Ware, a boy on a bicycle Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Although civil rights activi- all were killed by members Washington Ave.. ty has been a potent force in of large Klan and neo-Nazi Montgomery, AL 36104 American political life since the organizations whose members Copyright © 1989 by the Southern Abolitionists battled slavery thought terrorizing blacks Poverty Law Center. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. and continues in many forms would halt civil rights efforts. No part of this publication may be today, the civil rights move- But terrorism did not reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ment which overturned segre- break the movement. Time or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, gation in the South during the after time, inhuman acts of vio- photocopying, recording, or otherwise. 1950s and was a unique lence only strengthened the without the prior permission of the publisher. phenomenon character- dedication of those whose lives ized by were bound to the struggle. and fueled by an enormous When and Mack Parker were lynched in

FREE AT LAST 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Invaluable assistance and advice were given by:

Steve Suitts and Marge Manderson Southern Regional Council, , Ga. , author of Parting the Waters Rickey Hill, Chair, Department of Political Science, Mississippi, when four girls Maybelle Mahone, a 30- unidentified teen-age boy South Carolina State College died in a Birmingham church year -old mother of six, was whose body was found in Department of Political explosion, people all over the shot and killed by a white man September 1964 in the Big Science, City University of world paid attention to the at her home in Zebulon, Black River near Canton, and author of movement that was changing Georgia, in 1956 because she Mississippi. Several books Arlie Schardt, Editor America, and the national will "sassed" him. noted his death in passing Foundation News , author of for reform grew. Frank Morris, a 51-year- because he was found wearing Those whose deaths old shoe repairman and radio a Congress of Racial Equality Jeff Flannery spurred the movement on, host, was fatally burned when T-shirt, and other documents Manuscript Division those who were killed by orga-white men bombed his shop in listed his death as the last in a Washington, D.C. nized white terrorists trying to Ferriday, , on Decem- long summer of violence in Robert Lane, Director Air University Library "set an example," and those ber 10, 1964. Mississippi. But nothing else Montgomery, Ala. who were murdered for their Similar acts of racist vio- was known about him, and it Mary Futrell, Past President National Education Association own acts of courage these lence have victimized blacks seemed his name had been Dr. Daniel T. Williams, Director are the heroes of the civil throughout history, and they forgotten. the Tuskegee Institute Archives rights struggle who are profiled have not ended. In 1981, a After months of reading Staffs of: Mississippi and Alabama State Archives, the Birmingham in the following pages. black man was randomly documents, a researcher scan- Public Library, the Center for the But they are not the only selected and lynched by the ning microfilm at the Library of Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, and the victims of the era. There are Klan in Mobile, Alabama. In Congress found a memo that Martin Luther King Center for countless others who can only 1988, neo-Nazi Skinheads mur- noted the discovery of a body Nonviolent Social Change be characterized as victims of dered an Ethiopian man in a 14-year-old boy, wearing in Atlanta. Members of the Civil Rights random, senseless Portland, Oregon, simply a CORE T-shirt, found in the Memorial Advisory racism so perverse it allowed because he was black. Big Black River. His name was Committee whites to blacks for lit- The research for the Civil Herbert Oarsby. tle or no reason: Rights Memorial was conduct- The full story of Herbert Clinton Melton, a ed over a one-year period and Oarsby's death, and of racist Sumner, Mississippi, service sta- included detailed searches violence in the civil rights era, tion worker, was killed in 1955 through newspapers, state may never he known. There SPECIAL THANKS: by a white man who objected archives, Library of Congress were many deaths never inves- To the many relatives and to the price of his gasoline. holdings, and papers of civil tigated, many killers never friends of those who died dur- L.G. Baldwin, a 79-year- rights organizations, as well as identified, and many victims ing the movement, for provid- ing us with valuable letters, old minister, was leading a numerous personal interviews whose names have been lost. photographs, documents and cow along a roadside in and hundreds of letters solicit- This book is dedicated to remembrances. Huntsville, Alabama, in the ing information. the memory of Herbert Oarsby spring of 1956 when a young From time to time during and the unknown martyrs of white man threw a 10-pound that research, a glimpse of a the civil rights movement. stone from a passing car "as a story kept appearing, in vari- prank," killing Baldwin. ous forms, of the death of an

FREE AT LAST 5 3 Contents

2 PREFACE

PART 1/EARLYSTRUGGLES From the time they were first brought to this country as slaves, blacks chal- lenged America to live up to its promise of democracy.

12 PART 2/AMOVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE With the Montgomery bus boycott and the Little Rock school crisis, the Civil Rights Movement was born.

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18 PART3/CONFRONTATIONS Freedom riders were beaten and civil rights marchers were attacked by police dogs and fire hoses, but the movement only grew stronger 6

FREE AT LAST 4 26 PART4 /FIGHTING FOR THE 36 PROFILES Forty People Who Gave Their Lives BALLOT Rev. George Lee 36 In Mississippi and Alabama, civil rights Lamar.Smith 38 workers battled unfair voter registra- Emmett 40 tion procedures to win voting rights John Earl Reese 42 Willie Edwards Jr 44 for blacks. Mack Charles Parker 46 & 48 Cpl. Roman Ducksworth Jr 50 Paul Guihard 52 5/DAYS OF RAGE 32 PART 54 Urban rioting and an assassin's bullet Medgar Evers 56 chilled the momentum of the civil Addie Mae Collins, Denise rights movement, but it did not end the McNair, Carole Robertson, & Cynthia Wesley 58 struggle for equality. 60 Rev. Bruce Klunder 62 Henry Hezekiah Dee & Charles Eddie Moore 64 , Andrew Goodman, & 66 Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn 70 Jimmie Lee Jackson 72 Rev. 74 Viola Gregg Liuzzo 76 Oneal Moore 78 Willie Wallace Brewster 80 Hgp 82 Samuel Younge Jr 84 86 88 .A41 Clarence Triggs 89 /t2k.Rag Wharlest Jackson 90 S ESMGATEDV:1:61:64:1? Benjamin Brown 92 Samuel Hammond Jr, Delano 41/8MGER Middleton, & Henry Smith 94 ER()Pg 'TION Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 96

F: ,y00 jT,k2 100 CIVIL RIGHTS TIMELINE

7 the South to end its peculiar system of legalized segrega- tion. They succeeded because, in a democracy, when the peo- ple speak, the government must listen. Str Historians usually trace the modern civil rights move- Imagine being unable to people in the Southern part of Through two ment from May 17, 1954, when eat or sleep in most restaurants the United States as recently as the Supreme Court outlawed centuries of or hotels; being unable to sit 1960. They were citizens of a segregation in public schools, slavery and 90 where you wanted in a movie country founded on the princi- to April 4, 1968, when Dr. theater; having to sit in the ple that all men are created years of legalized Martin Luther King Jr. was back when you boarded a bus, equal. Yet, they were treated assassinated in Memphis. But even an empty one; being segregation, black unequally and declared just as the death of the move- forced to attend an inferior risked unequal by law. ment's most famous leader did school; and even being forbid- In the middle 1950s, a not mark the end of the strug- their lives for the den to drink from certain water movement of ordinary women gle for racial equality, the story fountains. and men arose to challenge cause of freedom. and the struggle began These were the facts of this way of life. Using boycotts, much earlier. everyday life for all black marches, and other forms of protest, they ultimately forced

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Left Above: The life of Africans in runaway slave could be sent to 17th century America began at prison. the slave market, where they Yet many people risked were sold to white masters. Left Below: Henry Brown escaped death in their yearning for free- his Virginia slave masters by dom. A freed black man hiding in a box bound for named Daniel Payne estab- Philadelphia. lished a clandestine school for Above: helped slaves in South Carolina. Teen- more than 300 slaves escape age slave Ann Wood turned from the South on the back an armed white posse . with her shotgun and led a justify owning their fellow men group of escaped slaves to and women by claiming that freedom in Maryland. Former blacks were less than human, slave Harriet Tubman secretly SLAVES IN THE NEW WORLD first Africans were brought to unfit for civilization. guided 300 slaves out of the The first settlers came to America and forced into a Legalized brutality kept South on the "Underground the New World seeking eco- cruel system of slavery which slaves in their place. Slaves Railroad." nomic and religious freedom. was to flourish for 250 years. who revolted or tried to escape fought In their yearning for power, As slavery grew, so did were beaten or hanged. It was off a cruel master and fled to however, they forced Native deep-seated feelings of racial against the law in many states freedom when he was a teen- Americans from their land. superiority. Whites tried to to teach a slave to read or ager. He taught himself to read Then in the early 1600s, the write. Anyone caught helping a and write and became the

FREE AT LAST 7 leading spokesman for the Representatives between 1870 accused of murder in Georgia. Abolitionist movement. and 1876.It seemed for a Hose was publicly mutilated Another former slave, short time as if American soci- then burned alive while a , routinely ety would live up to its found- crowd of 2,000 cheered. defied segregation by ing principles. Special trains were scheduled refusing to leave white sections But the promise of so whites from across the state of trains and streetcars. democracy was once again could come to the . In demonstrating a will- broken. Most Southern whites By 1910, blacks were ingness to risk everything for were determined to keep caught in a degrading system freedom, these early civil rights blacks poor, uneducated, and of total segregation throughout activists set an example that poWerless. White reactionary the South. Through "Jim Crow" would inspire others a full cen- politicians used corruption and laws (named after a black min- SOJOURNER TRUTH tury later. Their heroism also force to re-establish their strel in a popular song), blacks awakened many white power in the South, and they were ordered to use separate Americans to the inhumanity of met little opposition from the restrooms, water fountains, slavery. Northern whites in the federal government. The restaurants, waiting rooms, Abolitionist movement provid- reforms of Reconstruction swimming pools, libraries, and ed shelter for escaping slaves began to erode. bus seats. and helped elect a president The , formed The United States who would free the slaves. by a group of Confederate Supreme Court gave its After President Lincoln Army veterans, used terrorism approval to Jim Crow segrega- signed the Emancipation and violence to re-establish the tion in the 1896 case of Plessy Proclamation in 1863, more reign of . v. Ferguson. The Court said than 200,000 Southern blacks Between 1882 and 1901, separate facilities were legal as left their masters to fight along- nearly 2,000 blacks were long as they were equal. In UNION SOLDIER side Union troops in the Civil lynched. One of the most practice, Southern states never War. Former slaves also served widely publicized atrocities provided equal facili- as Union spies, ship pilots, and was the killing in ties to black nurses. Twenty of them won April 1899 of the country's highest military Sam Hose, a award, the Medal of Honor. black man

BROKEN PROMISES The end of the Civil War brought a brief glimpse of freedom. The Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment out- lawed slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment protected the rights of the newly freed slaves; and the Fifteenth Amendment gave black citi- zens the right to vote. In many Southern states blacks were elected to high offices, and black legislators helped write new state consti- tutions. Fourteen blacks served in the U.S. House of 1

FREE AT LAST 8 people only separate ones. Frederick Douglass tried to expose the inherent contra- dictions in the law of the land: "So far as the colored people of the country are concerned," he said, "the Constitution is but a stupendous sham...fair with- out and foul within, keeping -is II THIS IVIIIZAVON the promise to the eye and breaking it to the heart." Despite Douglass' elo- quent arguments, it would be generations before the nation lived up to its promises.

FIGHTING JIM CROW Just as slaves had revolted against being someone else's property, the newly freed blacks revolted peacefully against the forces of racism. Ida B. Wells began a crusade against lynching at age 19 that inspired a national gathering of black leaders in 1893 to call for an anti-lynch law. George Henry White, the DuBois said American society Opposite page. Former slave only black U.S. congressman at had to be transformed if blacks Frederick Douglass spoke boldly the turn of the century, was a were to achieve full equality. and eloquently in favor of equal rights for blacks. bold spokesman for equal DuBois, along with other Above. In the early 20th century, rights. The former slave from black and white leaders, estab- blacks marched in the streets of North Carolina sponsored the lished the National Association Washington, D.C., to show sup- first anti-lynching bill and for the Advancement of port for an anti-lynching bill. The insisted that the federal gov- Colored People in 1910. The bill was never passed. ernment enforce the constitu- NAACP launched a legal cam- tional amendments. In a paign against racial injustice, speech to his fellow congress- began documenting racist vio- men, White asked, "How long lence, and published a maga- will you sit in your seats and zine called Crisis. By 1940, hear and see the principles that NAACP membership reached underlie the foundations of this 50,000. government sapped away little As blacks were organizing by little?" for reform, white supremacists One of the strongest cri- were organizing to stop them. tiques of American racism was By the time the NAACP was 10 offered by W.E.B. DuBois, a years old, two million whites Harvard-educated sociologist. belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. In The Souls of Black Folk, During the 1920s, Klansmen

FREE AT LAST 9 held high positions in govern- ment throughout the country. In the South, Klan vio- lence surged. Blacks moved p-- North in record numbers, hop- ing to escape racial terrorism and to find better jobs. 'Pr' Although they faced poverty, unequal education, and dis- crimination in the North as well, racial restrictions there 'II were less harsh. Blacks could even vote in Northern states. Indeed, by 1944, the black , vote was a significant factor in 0 0 e 16 states outside the South.

Below. A black soldier who lost a BRINGING DEMOCRACY leg in overseas combat during HOME views a parade of segregated U.S. Army troops in With the of in 1919. President Franklin Delano Right. Signs designating "col- Roosevelt, black Americans ored" facilities were - finally had an ally in the White place throughout the South House. Black leaders were during the first half of the 20th century. included among the president's

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advisers. Roosevelt's New Deal Executive Order banning racial made welfare and jobs avail- discrimination in all defense able to blacks as well as industries. whites. A more liberal Supreme The demand for equal Court issued rulings against rights surged after World War bus segregation and II, when black soldiers all-white political primaries. returned from battling the Black labor leader A. Philip racist horrors of Nazi Germany Randolph scored a major vic- only to find they remained tory when he convinced victims of racism at home. President Roosevelt to issue an

FREE AT LAST 10 through the South and endured harassment without retaliating. While the sit-ins and free- dom rides of the 1940s served as models for the next genera- tion of civil rights activists, they did not capture the broad sup- port that was necessary to overturn segregation. The CORE victories were quiet ones, representing the determi- nation of relatively few people. The major battles against segregation were being fought in courtrooms and legislatures. Growing pressure from black leaders after World War II forced President Harry Truman to integrate the armed forces and to establish a civil rights commission. In 1947, that com- mission issued a report called To Secure These Rights that exposed racial injustices and called for the elimination of segregation in America. By that time, half a million blacks belonged to the NAACP. Lawsuits brought by the NAACP had forced many I school districts to improve black schools. Then, in 1950, NAACP lawyers began building the case that would force the Supreme Court to outlaw seg- regated schools and mark the beginning of the modern civil Determined to bring After much training and persistent demonstrations suc- rights movement. democracy to America, blacks discussion, black and white ceeded in integrating some sought new strategies. Seeing members of CORE entered seg- restaurants. lead the regated restaurants, quietly sat After the Supreme Court Indian masses in peaceful down, and refused to leave outlawed segregation on inter- demonstrations for indepen- until they were served. They state buses in 1946, CORE dence, the Congress of Racial did not raise their voices in members set out on a "Journey Equality decided to put the anger or strike back if attacked. of Reconciliation" to test philosophy of to In a few Northern cities, their whether the laws were being work in America. obeyed. Blacks and whites rode together on buses

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ovementwalking to their neighborhood high school in Claymont. In Farmville, Virginia, 16-year-old Barbara Johns led her fellow high school students on a strike for a better school. O The All over the country, black students and parents were angered over the conditions of their schools. NAACP lawyers studied their grievances and decided that it was not enough to keep fighting for equal facil- eo e ities. They wanted all schools Blacks in Linda Brown's parents children had to attend schools integrated. Montgomery and could not understand why which operated on one-fourth A team of NAACP lawyers their 7-year-old daughter the amount of money given to used the Topeka, Clarendon, Little Rock faced should have to ride long dis- white schools. Ethel Belton Claymont and Farmville exam- down powerful tances each day to a rundown took her complaints to the ples to argue that segregation when there was a Delaware Board of Education itself was unconstitutional. white resistance much better white school in when her children were forced They lost in the lower courts, to win the rights their own neighborhood of to ride a bus for nearly two but when they took their cause Topeka, . Harry Briggs hours each day instead of to the Supreme Court, the jus- promised them by of Clarendon, South Carolina, tices ruled they were right. the Constitution. was outraged that his five I4.

FREE AT LAST 12 On May 17, 1954, the they were eager for expanded percent of Montgomery's bus Supreme Court unanimously rights in other areas as well. riders, were forced to enter the ruled that segregated schools buses in front, pay the driver, "are inherently unequal." The WALKING FOR JUSTICE and re-enter the bus from the Opposite page. The hopes of black Court explained that even if Four days after the rear, where they could only sit Americans everywhere were Supreme Court handed down in designated "colored" seats. If separate schools for blacks and hanging on the Supreme Court's whites had the same physical the Brown ruling, JoAnn all the "white" seats were full, decision in the Brown v. Board of facilities, there could be no Robinson wrote a letter as blacks had to give up their Education case. Hours before true equality as long as segre- president of the Women's seats. the hearings began, people lined gation itself existed. To sepa- Political Council to the mayor Women and children had up to hear the arguments. Finally, on May 17, 1954, the Court ruled rate black children "solely of Montgomery, Alabama. She been arrested for refusing to segregated schools were uncon- represented a large group of give up their seats. Others who because of their race," the stitutional. Court wrote, "generates a feel- black women, she said, and challenged the bus drivers Below. Black protests against seg- ing of inferiority as to their sta- was asking for fair treatment were slapped or beaten. regation, which had been voiced tus in the community that may on city buses. Hilliard Brooks, 22, was shot for centuries, were finally being affect their hearts and minds in Blacks, who made up 75 dead by police in 1952 after an heard in the mid-1950s. a way very unlikely ever to be undone." The Brown v. Board of Education ruling enraged many Southern whites who did not believe blacks deserved the same education as whites and didn't want their children attending schools with black children. Southern governors announced they would not abide by the court's ruling, and White Citizens' Councils were organized to oppose school integration. Mississippi legisla- 0 tors passed a law abolishing compulsory school attendance. A declaration called the Southern Manifesto was issued by 96 Southern congressmen, demanding that the Court reverse the Brown decision. Despite the opposition by many whites, the Brown deci- sion gave great hope to blacks. Even when the Supreme Court refused to order immediate inte- gration (calling instead for schools to act "with all deliberate speed"), black Americans knew that times were changing. And

FREE AT LAST 13 15 Above. The Montgomery bus argument with a bus driver. The mayor said segrega- kept her seat and was arrested. boycott succeeded because Every day, black house- tion was the law and he could and the black women who depended keepers rode home not change it. Women's Political Council on the buses for transporta- after work, jammed together in On December 1, 1955, tion refused to ride until they immediately began to organize were granted fair seating. For the aisles, while 10 rows of was riding home a bus boycott with the support more than a year, they took "white" seats remained empty. from her job as a department of NAACP leader E.D. Nixon. taxis, carpooled, walked and Blacks could shut down store seamstress. The bus was Prominent blacks hurriedly hitchhiked. the city's bus system if they full when a white man board- formed the Montgomery wanted to, Jo Ann Robinson ed. The driver stopped the bus Improvement Association and told the mayor. "More and and ordered Mrs. Parks along selected a newcomer in town, more of our people are already with three other blacks to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to arranging with neighbors and vacate a row so the white man be their leader. friends to ride to keep from could sit down. Three of the On the night of December being insulted and humiliated blacks stood up. Rosa Parks 5, a crowd of 15,000 gathered by bus drivers." at Holt Street Church to hear

FREE AT LAST 14 ,st Lett.Montgomery blacks continued their boycott despite harassment and physical attacks by angry whites. Below.Segregated bus seating forced blacks to sit in the back and give up their seats to on the orders of the driver.

Leadership Conference, that raised funds for integration campaigns throughout the South. Black Southern minis- ters, following the example of King in Montgomery, became

row the spiritual force behind the nonviolent movement. Using the lessons of Montgomery, blacks challenged bus segrega- "If we are wrong, the Supreme On December 21, 1956, tion in Tallahassee and Atlanta. Court of this nation is wrong. If blacks returned to the buses in But when they tried to DK. we are wrong, God Almighty is triumph. The U.S. Supreme integrate schools and other wrong!" Court had outlawed bus segre- public facilities, blacks discov- If the bus boycott was gation in Montgomery in ered the lengths to which peaceful and guided by love, response to a lawsuit brought King said, justice would be by the boycotters with the help won. Historians in future gen- of the NAACP. The boycotters' erations, King predicted, "Will victory showed the entire have to pause and say, 'There white South that all blacks, not lived a great people a black just civil rights leaders, were the young preacher speak. people who injected new opposed to segregation. It "There comes a time that peo- meaning and dignity into the demonstrated that poor and ple get tired," King told the veins of civilization.' " middle class blacks could unite crowd. "We are here this For 381 days, black peo- to launch a successful protest evening to say to those who ple did not ride the buses in movement, overcoming both have mistreated us so long that Montgomery. They organized official counterattacks and we are tired tired of being car pools and walked long dis- racist terror. And it showed the segregated and humiliated; tances, remaining nonviolent world that nonviolent resis- tired of being kicked about by even when harassed and beat- tance could work even in the brutal feet of oppression. en by angry whites. When Dr. Montgomery, the capital of the ...We have no alternative but King's home was bombed, Confederate States during the whites would go to preserve to protest. they only became more deter- Civil War. white supremacy. A black stu- "And we are not wrong in mined. City officials tried to King went on to establish dent admitted to the University what we are doing," he said. outlaw the boycott, but still the an organization of black clergy, of Alabama by federal court buses traveled empty. called the Southern Christian

FREE AT LAST BEST COPY AVAILABLE 15 17 Governor Faubus was deter- gave the black children no pro- mined to keep the schools seg- tection. The nine black children regated. made it to their first class, but That afternoon, a federal had to be sent home when a judge ordered Faubus to let theviolent white mob gathered out- black students attend the white side the school. Faubus said the school. The next day, when disturbance proved the school 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckforcl should not be integrated. set out for class, she was President Eisenhower had mobbed, spit upon and cursed a choice: he could either send by angry whites. When she in federal troops to protect the finally made her way to the children or allow a governor to front steps of Central High, defy the Constitution. Saying Above. Rosa Parks finally takes order was promptly expelled. National Guard soldiers turned "our personal opinions have a seat in the front of the bus The State of Virginia closed all her away. after the Supreme Court ruled no bearing on the matter of public schools in Prince bus segregation illegal. An outraged federal judge enforcement," the president Edward County to avoid inte- Right. Governor George again ordered the governor to ordered in troops. For the rest gration. Some communities Wallace stood in the door of let the children go to school. of the school year, U.S. soldiers the to filled in their public swimming Faubus removed the troops but walked alongside the Little demonstrate his refusal to pools and closed their tennis admit a black student to the courts, and others removed school. library seats, rather than let blacks and whites share the facilities. Blacks who challenged segregation received little help from the federal government. President Eisenhower had no enthusiasm for the Brown deci- sion, and he desperately want- ed to avoid segregation disputes. Finally, in 1957, a crisis in Little Rock, , forced k Eisenhower to act. r

NINE PIONEERS IN LITTLE ROCK On September 4, 1957, Governor ordered troops to surround Central High Shool in Little Rock, to keep nine black teen- agers from entering. Despite the Brown ruling which said black students had a right to attend integrated schools, r

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FREE Al LAST 16 Rock nine as they went from example for President John F. class to class. Kennedy who in 1962 ordered The next year, Governor federal troops to protect James Faubus shut down all the pub- Meredith as he became the first lic schools rather than integrate black student to attend the A them. A year later, the U.S. University of Mississippi.

Supreme Court ruled that "eva- 1 sive schemes" could not be used to avoid integration, and the Little Rock schools were finally opened to black and white students, Although the Little Rock case did not end the long bat- tle for school integration, it proved the federal government would not tolerate brazen defi- ance of federal law by state officials.It also served as an

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0OVERNOR FA UB us is er, re __fiRIS'714A1 1 AMERICA

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Top. braved the angry white crowds by herself on the first day that nine black youths were admitted to Little Rock High. Above.Many whites supported the official defiance of integration laws, and they elected politicians who voiced the strongest resis- tance to civil rights.

FREE AT LAST 9 BEST COPS AVAILABLE 17 By inviting confrontation but remaining nonviolent, civil rights activists demonstrated Confront the justice of One Monday afternoon in serve colored here," the wait- whites, were sitting in shifts at their cause and 1960, four black college stu- ress told them. The four young the Woolworth's lunch counter. dents walked into a Wool- men kept their seats until the The following week, sit-ins exposed the worth's store in Greensboro, store closed. were taking place in seven brutalities of North Carolina. They bought a The next day, they were North Carolina cities. tube of toothpaste and some joined by 19 other black stu- No previous sit-in had racism. school supplies, then sat down dents. By the week's end, 400 captured the attention of at the lunch counter and students, including a few young Americans like those in ordered coffee. "We don't North Carolina. Youth in more

FREE AT LAST 18 Black students in Nashville sat patiently at all-white lunch counters for hours, enduring harassment and violence and sometimes boredom in their determination to break down the walls of segregation.

youth into the front lines of the The young members of civil rights movement. Most of SNCC were heavily influenced them were only children when by , a Nashville the Supreme Court outlawed theology student who had school segregation and they studied the nonviolent philoso- had grown into adulthood with phy of Gandhi. Like Martin the great hope that their rights Luther King Jr., Lawson ations would be fulfilled. When they believed the power of Christian than 100 Southern cities con- integrating lunch counters qui- saw how slow change was love could overcome the ducted sit-ins against segregat- etly and easily. But in the occurring, they became impa- forces of hatred. Lawson ed restaurants, parks, , they were beaten, tient with the established civil taught students how to sit swimming pools, libraries and kicked, sprayed with food, and rights organizations. Seeking peacefully while being theaters. Within a year, about burned with cigarettes. Many independence from the older screamed at and spit upon, 70,000 people had participated were arrested or expelled from generation, they formed a and how to fall into a position in sit-ins and 3,600 had been school. group called the Student Non- that protected their head and arrested. In some border states, The sit-ins brought black violent Coordinating Commit- internal organs from beatings. young protesters succeeded in tee (SNCC).

FREE AT LAST 19 21 He told them it was honorable to go to jail for the cause of equality. Even those who did not share the religious beliefs of Lawson and King saw the effectiveness of nonviolence. Over and over again, peaceful protesters were battered by fists and clubs simply for trying to exercise their rights. These spectacles of undeserved bru- tality tore at the consciences of nals. Many of them belonged Alabama. Waiting for it was a most Americans and forced the to the revitalized Congress of mob of white men carrying federal government into action. Racial Equality (CORE), which pipes, clubs, bricks and knives. had tested integration laws The bus driver quickly drove FREEDOM RIDES during the 1940s. They called off, but the mob caught up On May 4, 1961, a group themselves Freedom Riders. with the bus again outside the of blacks and whites set out on Ten days into their jour- city. They smashed the win- a highly publicized trip to test ney, on Mother's Day, the first dows and tossed a firebomb a Supreme Court order outlaw- bus of Freedom Riders pulled ing segregation in bus termi- into the terminal at Anniston,

FREI: AT LAsT 20 into the bus. As the bus went arranged for the wounded around the world. To avoid up in flames, the riders rushed Freedom Riders to fly out of further bloodletting, the federal out into the hands of the mob Alabama, students in Nashville government had to act. and were brutally beaten. made plans to finish the Free- Having failed to stop the When the second busload dom Ride. Federal officials Freedom Riders, President of Freedom Riders pulled into tried to discourage them, but Kennedy decided to protect Anniston, eight white men the students were determined. them. Attorney General Robert boarded the bus and beat the They drove to Birmingham, Kennedy told Mississippi offi- occupants from the front to the but were arrested at the bus cials they could continue to rear. The most seriously station and then driven back to enforce their segregation laws if injured was Walter Bergman, the Alabama-Tennessee line, they would guarantee the Free- who was thrown to the floor where they were left on a dom Riders' safety. From then and kicked unconscious. He lonely highway late at night. on, the Freedom Riders traveled Opposite page, above. Freedom suffered a stroke as a result of They made their way back to unharmed into Jackson, Riders rest after being attacked by members of a white mob. The Riders were beaten and their bus was burned outside Anniston, Alabama. Opposite page, below. (left) and Jim Zwerg were wounded in the attack on Freedom Riders in Montgomery. Left. Troops were finally brought 4, in to protect the Freedom Riders after the series of attacks in Alabama. Many of the Riders were arrested and jailed in M Jackson, Mississippi, at the end of their journey.

the beating and was confined Birmingham and finally man- Mississippi, where they were to a wheelchair for life. aged to get a bus to Mont- promptly arrested and put in When the second group gomery. When their bus jail. By the end of the summer, of Freedom Riders stepped off arrived in Montgomery, it was 328 Freedom Riders had served their bus in Birmingham, they met by a mob of more than time in Mississippi prisons. were attacked by another 1,000 whites who beat the Determined to put an end white mob. Not a policeman Freedom Riders without police to the dangerous Freedom was in sight to protect them. interference. This time, a presi- Rides, Attorney General For ten minutes, the mob wild- dential aide assigned to moni- Kennedy took the unusual step ly beat the already-battered tor the crisis was injured in the of asking the Interstate Com- Freedom Riders. Several were melee. merce Commission to issue hospitalized. Jim Peck, a long- The unchecked mob vio- regulations against segregated time CORE activist, required 53 lence was headline news terminals. In September, the stitches to close his wounds. Commission complied, As top federal officials BEST COPYAVALTASLE 23 FREE AT LAST 21 Luther King Jr., the Freedom Rides demonstrated "the real meaning of the movement: that students had faith in the future. That the movement was based on hope, that this movement had something within it that says somehow even though the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice." King took that hope with him to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.

BIRMINGHAM Birmingham was known as the South's most segregated city. The best schools and restaurants were closed to blacks. The better paying jobs in business and government were withheld from blacks. Terrorists had bombed 60 black homes and churches since the end of World War II, yet no one had been arrested. The city police were notorious for their brutality and racism. When King came to Bir- mingham to lead anti-segrega- tion boycotts and mass marches, Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor ordered his police offi- cers to respond with force. Americans saw nightly news coverage of the Birmingham demonstrators being struck by police clubs, bitten by dogs, and ordering bus companies to movement, which had knocked down by torrents of obey the earlier Supreme Court slumped after the lunch water strong enough to rip bark ruling. counter sit-ins had ended. And from trees. Once again, young they attracted fresh troops Hundreds of demonstra- protesters had exposed the many of them white and tors, including King, were injustices of segregation and Northern into the Southern arrested. While in jail, King forced the federal government civil rights movement. responded to white ministers to defend consitutional rights. Above all, said Martin who urged him to be more Their courage also served to patient in his demands. In his revive the student protest 24

FREE AT LAST 22 walked bravely through the Opposite page. Soaked from the police dogs and fire hoses and fire hoses used by Birmingham were arrested. Going to jail police, civil rights activists strug- gled to contain their anger. Their was their badge of honor. protests remained nonviolent The jailing of children through continual attacks by horrified Americans, including police during the spring of 1963. Kennedy administration offi- Above. Demonstrators huddled cials. Federal mediators were for protection under the force of water powerful enough to rip dispatched to Birmingham with bark from the trees. orders to work out a settlement J i. Left. Police used fierce attack between King's forces and the dogs against the Birmingham city's business community. In civil rights marchers. Imo- the end, the businessmen agreed to integrate downtown famous "Letter from a Many in the Birmingham facilities and to hire more Birmingham Jail," King wrote, movement were school chil- blacks. "I guess it is easy for those dren. For weeks, they begged who have never felt the sting- to be allowed to with A DREAM SHARED ing darts of segregation to say, the other civil rights demon- The victory in Birming- `Wait.' " But, he said, "freedom strators. Finally, on May 3, ham fueled the movement, is never voluntarily given by 1963, thousands of children the oppressor; it must be some as young as six years old demanded by the .oppressed." .

FREE AT LAST B.EST COPYAVAIILAiil, 23 25 and civil rights activities spread satisfied until justice rolls down throughout the United States. like waters and righteousness Even in the White House, the like a mighty stream." support for reform was grow- The crowd cheered in ing. jubilation as King's speech On June 11, 1963, Presi- came to a close: "When we dent Kennedy delivered his allow freedom to ring, when strongest civil rights message we let it ring from every village ever. "We face... a moral cri- and every hamlet, from every sis," he said. "A great change is state and city, we will be able at hand, and our task, our obli- to speed up that day when all gation, is to make that revolu- of God's children black tion...peaceful and construc- men and white men, and tive for all." Only days later, Gentiles, Catholics and Protes- Kennedy sent a comprehensive tants will be able to join civil. rights bill to Congress. hands and sing in the words of In August, a huge hopeful the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at crowd of 250,000 blacks and last, free at last; thank God whites marched on Washing- Almighty, we are free at last!' " ton to show support for the King's "" proposed bill. Martin Luther speech would be remembered King Jr. addressed the crowd as a high point of the civil from the front of the Lincoln rights movement. Two weeks Memorial. The successes of later, a dynamite explosion 1963, he said, were "not an killed four Sunday School stu- end, but a beginning. dents at Birmingham's Six- "There will be neither rest teenth Street Baptist Church. nor tranquility in America until The Birmingham bombing the Negro is granted his citi- and the assassination of Presi- zenship rights... We will not be dent Kennedy two months

FREE AT LAST 26 24 later created increased public support for a comprehensive civil rights law. The following summer, Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. By out- lawing segregation in public accommodations, the new fed- eral law validated the cause of the Freedom Rides and student sit-ins, and ensured the end of Birmingham-style segregation. But it did not address the prob- lem of voting rights that struggle was taking place on another bloody battleground. 0

Martin Luther King Jr. (in robe) prepares to speak to the massive crowd (right) that gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.

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Despite the elaborate restrictions The 'or days earlier, he had become designed to keep the first black person since the blacks from voting turn of the century to fill out a form in in the South, Holmes County. many risked their For blacks in the South, voting had always been dan- lives to vote. It was gerous business. Elaborate reg- not until 1965, after a ulations limited black voting, violent 'Freedom and anyone who tried to defeat the system was pun- Summer' that black ished. In 1958, for example, Southerners won Less than a week after the house, Turnbow had to fight black farmer Izell Henry voted children marched in Birming- off a gang Of white men who in a Democratic primary in full voting rights. ham, two firebombs crashed were waiting outside. Greensburg, Louisiana. The into the Mississippi farmhouse The firebombing was next morning, he was beaten of . Before Hartman Turnbow's punish- by white men and left for he could lead his wife and ment for trying to vote. A few dead. Henry lived, but suffered daughter out of the burning permanent brain damage.

FREE KU LAST 28 26 or had their rents doubled. To Opposite page. An elderly man make the job of voter intimida- takes his turn at the voter regis- tion easier, Mississippi newspa- trar's table in Selma, Alabama. Until 1965, it was difficult and pers printed the names of all dangerous for blacks to vote in voter applicants. the South. One of the cruelest official Above left. Voting rights demon- actions against black voters strators were attacked by state BallAttacks on black voters At the whim of local offi- was the food cut-off in LeFlore troopers at the Edmund Pettus were common, but they were cials, voting lists could be County, Mississippi, in the win- Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Above. Violence against South- not the only tactics used to "purged" of unqualified voters. ter of 1962. In retaliation for ern voting activists attracted the keep blacks away from the In four Louisiana parishes an intense voter registration attention of Northern protesters. polls. State legislatures had between 1961 and 1963, 90 drive, county officials ended more sophisticated tools. Until percent of registered black vot-the government food surplus the mid-1960s, most Southern ers were taken off the roles program that poor blacks states had laws requiring voters while only a handful of whites depended on to get them to pay poll taxes, pass were removed. through the winter. Voter regis- tests, or read and interpret any Whites also used econom- tration workers organized a section of the state constitu- ic weapons against black vot- substitute relief program with tion. Voter registrars applied ers. A voter registration worker nationwide support. the tests unequally. Blacks in Southwest Georgia wrote in If terrorism, legal obsta- were rejected for mispronounc- 1963 that "any [black person] cles, and economic reprisals ing a word while whites were who works for a white man in were not enough to stop black approved who could not read Terrell County and registers to voter activity, there was also at all. vote can expect to lose his jail. Police arrested voter regis- job." Others were denied loanstration workers throughout the

FREE AT LAST 27 South for charges such as dis- tributing handbills without a license, inciting to riot, con- tributing to the delinquency of minors, and disturbing the peace. When Hartman Turnbow's house was firebombed, 158111111MIMIMISIMIT-F"Pumm- Amite County, he was arrested for interfering with an officer and spent three nights in jail. The second time, he was beat- en. Moses' friend Herbert Lee was killed for helping in the voter registration drive. Against such odds, Moses and others made slow progress in registering voters. And they had a long way to go. Although blacks made up near- ly half the population in Mississippi, only five percent were registered to vote. In some counties, not a single black person was registered.

Turnbow and voter registration had been worker Bob Moses were arrest- working for SNCC in Black voting became a ed for arson. The sheriff said Southwest Mississippi since crucial goal of the civil rights they set the fire themselves to 1961 and was no stranger to movement. Civil rights activists draw sympathy for their voting intimidation. The first time he knew that a few highly publi- rights campaign. accompanied black voter cized integration campaigns applicants to the courthouse in

FREE AT LAST 30 28 Opposite page, left. Voter registration forms in Mississippi required applicants to interpret a section of the state constitution before they were allowed to vote. Opposite page, right. Student volunteers for Freedom Summer were trained in techniques of nonviolence, including how to fall under the blows of an attacker. Left. Preparing to leave for Mississippi, Northern college students join hands and sing. Below. Veteran activist Bob Moses educates a group of students about the dangers they will face as civil rights volunteers in Mississippi. would not sustain the move- ed by the complicated require- the country might take notice. ment. Only by building signifi- ments of registration. COFO No one anticipated the cant voting strength would activists became more and magnitude of the violence that Southern blacks be able to more frustrated. Instead of would follow. On the first day keep pressure on the govern- teaching blacks how to comply of Freedom Summer, three ment to protect their rights. with unconstitutional laws, workers Michael Schwerner, Several leading civil rights they wanted the laws changed Andrew Goodman, groups combined forces to altogether. Yet their demands and James Chaney establish the Council of for new federal legislation were kidnapped Federated Organizations went unanswered. and killed, and their (COFO) voter registration proj- In 1964, COFO launched a bodies were buried ect. COFO workers helped campaign called Freedom deep in an earthen blacks fill out the complicated Summer to bring attention to dam. By the end of voter registration forms. They the voting abuses. A thousand the summer, 37 black also helped poor people get college students most of churches had been government assistance and them white were brought to burned, 30 homes taught black children how to Mississippi to register voters bombed, 80 civil read and write. and teach in . rights workers beaten, As a result of COFO Black voters had suffered years and more than 1,000 efforts, the number of black of repression, and the barriers arrested. voters in the South rose steadi- to voting remained. If the The brutal white ly. But it was a long uphill bat- white volunteers were beaten response to Freedom tle against a harsh set of or arrested for voting activites, Summer brought obstacles. Many blacks were civil rights leaders reasoned, national attention to afraid of reprisals or intimidat- racism in Mississippi and

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Above. Sheriff 's strengthened support for vot- THE SELMA MARCH posse, armed with clubs, ing rights legislation. People In Alabama, too, blacks faced down the Selma everywhere saw that black had been demonstrating for marchers. The standoff lasted people in Mississippi were until a federal court permitted voting rights. Since 1963, the march to go on. determined to win their rights, blacks in Marion and Selma Right. A Selma marcher com- even if it meant risking their had been marching to the forts an injured companion lives. courthouse to register, only to after they were attacked by By August, 80,000 blacks be turned back by police. state troopers using tear gas in Mississippi had joined the Then in early 1965, Martin and clubs. Mississippi Freedom Luther King Jr. came to Selma, Democratic Party in a direct bringing with him the attention challenge to the state's segre- of national media. King's night- gationist Democratic party. Led ly mass meetings inspired by veteran activists Fannie Lou more blacks to join the strug- attempting to march from Hamer, Victoria Gray, Annie gle, and the marches were Selma to the state capitol in Divine, and , 64 stepped up. Hundreds were Montgomery were brutally delegates from the Freedom arrested. beaten back by state troopers. Democratic Party attended the Once again, it was the Days later, Rev. James Reeb, a Democratic National Con- spectacle of senseless violence civil rights volunteer from vention. Although it was not that caused the nation to , was beaten to death officially recognized, the dele- respond. On February 26, on a Selma street. gation brought worldwide 1965, Jimmy Lee Jackson was King issued a nationwide attention to the cause of voting shot and killed by a state appeal for support, and thou- rights in Mississippi. trooper in nearby Marion. On sands came from all over the March 7, demonstrators country to join in the march to 32 FREE AT IAST 30 \N LL

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Above left. Children took their turn to march and go to jail during the long series of voting rights demonstrations in Selma during 1965. Above right. A lone white voices her support for the Selma stop the movement. "We must marchers. keep going." Left. Martin Luther King Jr. walks Later that day, Viola Gregg beside SNCC representative Liuzzo, a Michigan mother of (in overalls and five, was shot and killed by tie) at the start of the Selma to Montgomery march. Klansmen as she was helping to transport Selma marchers. In response to the Selma march and the of Jackson, Reel) and Liuzzo, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act on July 9, 1965. The bill out- lawed obstacles to black voting

Montgomery. On , 1964 gave Negroes some part and authorized federal officials after four days of walking, a of their rightful dignity, but to enforce fair voting practices. huge crowd gathered at the without the vote it was dignity All over the South, thousands state capitol. without strength. of blacks were registered to King spoke to them about "We are still in for a sea- vote the next year. the importance of being able son of suffering," King warned to vote. "The Civil Rights Act ofthem. But violence would not

COPYMAILABLE FREE AT LAST BEST 31 33 r Days Of The civil rights movement ended legal apartheid in the Rage South and forever changed By 1965, the civil rights forced a federal government to for devoting resources to mass movement had won broad recognize its responsibilities. relations marches instead of grassroots new legislation protecting the They had established their own political organizing. Some between blacks rights of black citizens. After political strength. They had questioned the doctrine of and whites. It the passage of the 1964 Civil seen the rise of new and pow- nonviolence. Others objected Rights Act and the 1965 Voting erful black leaders. They had to the role played by whites in continues today Rights Act, the federal govern- witnessed the structures of seg- the movement and said blacks in the battle ment took a much greater role regation dismantled by the should build their own inde- in monitoring school integra- courageous acts of ordinary pendent political structures. against tion, registering black voters, people like themselves. The raised inequalities and and prosecuting racially moti- Yet the exhilarating suc- another point of contention vated crimes. cesses of the movement were injustices that some civil rights activists The movement gave black accompanied by tensions with- argued that the war drained remain. people throughout America a in its ranks. Some of the national resources from the renewed pride. They had younger civil rights activists struggle against poverty and criticized Martin Luther King Jr. injustice at home; others

FREE Al' LAST 32 34 thought civil rights and foreign gained popu- urban youth whose lives were Opposite page. Violence erupted policy should remain separate. larity as a nationwide not affected by the successes during a protest in Memphis, a The more militant activists spokesman for . A of the civil rights movement. week before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated there. became increasingly frustrated Black Muslim, Malcolm criti- They lived in the midstof Above. Two young girls run from with the slow pace of change cized the strategy of nonvio- crime and poverty, they attend- police during the second day of_ and the politics of the more lence, saying "it is criminal to ed inadequate schools and rioting in New York City. conservative leaders. The stu- teach a man not to defend dropped out early, and they dents in SNCC asked whites to himself when he is the con- had little chance to get decent leave their organization and stant victim of brutal attacks." jobs. New civil rights laws chose black militant Stokely (Malcom renounced violence could not change the fact that Carmichael as their leader. and urged blacks not to hate their own futures were dim. They took up the phrase whites shortly before his assas- Frustrated by a movement "black power" to describe their sination on February 21, 1965.) that seemed to be passing new focus on building black- The message of black mil- them by, many young blacks led political organizations in itancy struck a chord in many took their fury to.the streets. the South. Cities erupted all across

FREE AT LAST 33 35BEST COPYMAU America during four consecu- moving toward two societies, Poor People's March to go to tive summers. In 1964, black one black and one white Memphis, where striking sani- areas of New York City, separate and unequal." tation workers had asked for and Philadelphia were his support. There, he was shot torn by rioting. The next sum- NEW DIRECTIONS and killed by mer, the worst riot in decades The riots dismayed civil on the balcony of the Lorraine destroyed the Watts section of rights activists, both militant Motel on April 4, 1968. leaving 34 peo- and conservative, and awak- King's dream of a move- ple dead, 5,000 under arrest, ened them to the enormous ment rejuvenated by poor peo- and millions of dollars of prop- problems faced by urban ple never came true. Black erty burned. The rioting con- blacks problems that called anger erupted again after his tinued through the summer of for something more than sit-ins assassination, and many cities 1967. By the time it was over, and mass marches. imposed curfews to halt further more than 17,000 people had Seeking a new direction outbreaks of violence. By that time, the weight of public opinion had turned against the militant factions in the movement. The federal government, through the FBI, began a campaign to destroy groups like CORE and SNCC by using illegal wiretaps and informers and by spreading false information about them. Their movement divided by philosophy and by sabotage, traditional civil rights leadership took up the task of crisis man- agement. They worked to ease tensions in the ghettos and maintain calm during tense school desegregation battles. At the same time they began to address the complex racial problems that remained including inequalities in hous- ing, education, job opportuni- ties, and health care. Those been arrested, nearly 100 were for the movement and an alter- inequalities are still the concerns dead, and over 4,000 were native to violence, Martin of civil rights activists today. injured. Luther King Jr. planned a Poor That summer, President People's March on Washington THE CIVIL RIGHTS LEGACY Johnson appointed a special for 1968. He hoped to revital- From Montgomery to commission to study the caus- ize the movement by bringing Memphis, the civil rights move- es of urban race rioting. On together all poor people ment won great changes in March 2, 1968, the Kerner black and white. American life. It ended legal Commission released its report, In March 1968, King took apartheid in the American and warned that America "is a break from planning the

FREE AT LAsT 34 whelming that blacks and whites do not have equal chances in America. While the most degrading structures of discrimination were brought down, many of the attitudes that supported those structures still exist. Those attitudes are seen in the hundreds of cross burnings, vandalisms, and attacks that victimize minorities each year. They are advertised by the thousands of young neo-Nazi Skinheads who listen to racist rock music, brand themselves Opposite page. A North Carolina with swastikas, and boast woman carries homemade sign about 'bashing' minorites. And in protest. Above left. Civil rights activists they are seen daily in racial launched a mass march in an all- slurs scrawled on school lock- white Georgia county in January of 1987 a week after an earlier ers or shouted at the football march was attacked by games, racist jokes told among Klansmen. friends, and voluntary segrega- Below left. Demonstrators wave American flags at the Alabama tion in school cafeterias. State Capitol. As long as inequalities and racial prejudice remain, the work of the civil rights move- ment our work will not be finished. But we know it can be accomplished, because the civil rights movement of the past has proved that ordi- nary people can change their world. The victories of the movement were won by a South and forever changed years after the Montgomery largely anonymous mass of cit- relations between blacks and bus boycott, blacks in America izens, black and white, many whites. It emboldened black are still more likely than whites of them young, who dared to and other non-white Ameri- to die in infancy, live in pover- risk life and limb for freedom's cans. In the process, it gave ty, and drop out of school. cause. And they were won new life to the movement for Blacks earn less money than because the strength of our women's rights and to the whites and work at lower democratic form of govern- yearnings of other disadvan- skilled jobs. Most live in segre- ment is its ability to respond to taged groups. gated neighborhoods, and the people. That is why, as But two decades of many still attend schools that long as we have injustice progress could not erase cen- are poorer and predominantly and people willing to make it turies of oppression. Statistics black. The evidence is over- their cause the movement show that more than thirty will continue on. 0

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n 1954, blacks in Belzoni, Missis- businessmen who retaliated by firing them sippi outnumbered whites two to from their jobs, denying them credit and one. But like all Southern blacks, raising their rent. they were not allowed to attend white In the face of white resistance, George schools. They were forbidden to eat in Lee was a clever diplomat. At a meeting of white restaurants. They would be arrested county officials, Lee thanked the white if they sat in bus seats reserved for whites. leadership for its "generosity," and then And they did not vote. gently suggested: "Whereas all the border- Rev. George Lee Integration would be a long time com- ing counties are permitting Negroes to pay ing to the small Delta town on the banks poll taxes, register and vote without any ill 1903 -1955 of the . Rev. George Lee, a effects, we feel sure that the same could black minister who also ran a local grocery happen in this county....We respectfully store and printing press, had no illusions ask that you will at this time endorse and that it would come in his lifetime or that it support our efforts to become full-fledged would come without a struggle. citizens in this county." But Lee knew where the change would have to begin: at the ballot box. COULDN'T BE BOUGHT Despite the Supreme Court's recent ruling The white men who ran Belzoni were that outlawed school segregation, Lee not interested in giving the power of the knew there would be no equality for ballot to a black population which out- blacks in Belzoni until they could vote. numbered them and could easily out-vote them. They decided George Lee had to be FULLFLEDGED CITIZENSHIP stopped. George Lee was born and raised in One day a few of the white leaders "Rev. Lee did not poverty on a Mississippi plantation. His came to visit Lee, and told him they had just tell the people only education came from the segregated decided to let him and his wife vote as plantation school. By the time he came to long as he stopped trying to get other what they ought to Belzoni, he possessed two valuable skills blacks to vote. "George told them he typesetting and preaching and he appreciated that," his widow remembered, do. He gave them planned to use both to help blacks "but he wanted everyone to have a improve their lives. chance. And then they knew that he an example...He When he began preaching about vot- couldn't be bought." fought for equality ing at black Baptist churches in and Within a year, Lee and Courts con- around Belzoni in the early 1950s, it was vinced 92 black people to register. Then and first class as if he were advocating revolution. Not the white resistance turned violent. Blacks citizenship and he only were there no black voters in found their car windshields busted out. A Humphreys County, but "they weren't black club was ransacked, and a note was asked them to even thinking about it," said Rosebud Lee left behind reading, "This is what will hap- Henson, Lee's widow. follow him." pen to Negroes who try to vote." It would be another 10 years before Lee and Courts regularly received , civil rights workers launched a massive death threats. Lee tried to take precautions, NAACP Executive Director. campaign to win voting rights in Mississippi. but he knew his days were numbered. Throughout the 1960s, they would suffer Rose begged him to slow down his activi- beatings and arrests. For a black man to ties. But, she remembered, "He said some- raise his voice against discrimination in 1954 body had to lead." was an unimaginable risk. Lee knew that. On the Saturday before Mother's Day With the help of his friend Gus in 1955, Lee was driving toward home Courts, Lee started a chapter of the Nation- when he was hit by gunfire from a al Association for the Advancement of Col- passing car. With half his face blown apart, ored People (NAACP). They printed Lee pulled himself out of the car leaflets and held meetings, urging blacks to and made his way to a cab stand. Two pay the poll tax (a fee for voting that was black drivers took him to the hospital later ruled illegal) and to register to vote. where he died. Whites in town immediately organized a White Citizens Council to fight back. The HE GAVE THEM AN EXAMPLE names of blacks registered to vote were Without conducting an investigation, put on a list and circulated to white the sheriff concluded that Lee was fatally 38 FREE AT LAST 36 A 1955

It took great courage for a black person to register to vote in Mississippi in the 1950s. Many, like George Lee, were willing to risk their jobs, their homes and their own lives in order to exercise their constitutional right.

injured in a traffic accident. When doctors struggle that Lee began in Belzoni. Many pointed out the lead pellets taken from were so terrified by Lee's murder that they Lee's head and face, the sheriff said they removed their names from the voter rolls, were probably dental fillings. Even after he but was determined not to was informed that dentists didn't use lead back down. Then, six months after Lee's for fillings, the sheriff refused to investigate. death, Courts was hit by shots from a pass- In the end, a 's jury ignored the evi- ing car. He recovered from his injuries but dence that Lee was murdered and ruled his assailants were never caught. Finally, that he died of unknown causes. yielding to the fears of his family, Courts NAACP officials called Lee's murder abandoned his voter registration efforts and the most brutal act in a campaign of terror- moved to Chicago. ism against black people who tried to vote. A celebration of the first anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision was turned into a memorial service for Lee. NAACP Executive Director Roy Wilkins addressed the capaci- ty crowd: "Rev. Lee did not just tell the people what they ought to do. He gave them an example: he did these things himself. He fought for equality and first class citizen- BEST COPYAVAILA6L.t.. ship and he asked them to follow him." Wilkins urged blacks to continue the

I. FREE AT LAST 37 X4r6amd Tor Oilmining Mack Voter@ Bgapkbelv@gt ° MigeBeppl

amar Smith, a 63-year-old World coln County, campaigned for candidates War II veteran, commanded he judged to be fair, and even helped unusual wealth and respect for a organize absentee-ballot drives among black Mississippian in the 1950s. He ran a blacks. (It was common practice among profitable farm, belonged to several presti- whites in the county to misuse absentee gious black lodges, and enjoyed fishing ballots.) and hunting with whites as well as blacks. Blacks still only made up a small per- Nevertheless, Smith was shot dead by centage of the total vote, but with Lamar a white man in broad daylight, while a Smith's efforts, their strength was grow- crowd of people watched. And no one ing. They might not be able to elect a 1892 -1955 was ever tried for his murder because not black candidate, but they could at least a single eyewitness would testify that they make the white politicians pay attention saw a white man kill a black man. to them. Lamar Smith's murder remains largely Lamar Smith was one man who was a mystery. But there is little doubt that it not afraid to make his voice heard. In July had to do with politics. 1955, he campaigned hard against an incumbent county supervisor. He cast his FEARLESS CAMPAIGNER own vote in the August 2nd primary elec- At a time when Mississippi law and tion, and was spending the final days white threats kept most blacks from voting, before the run-off election campaigning Lamar Smith was determined that his peo- among black voters. ple would have a say in local government. On Saturday, August 13 nine days He fearlessly organized black voters in Lin- before the run-off Smith went down to

At a time when Mississippi law and white threats kept t_ most blacks from 4' voting, Lamar Smith was determined that his people would have a say in local government.

FREE AT LAST 38 the county courthouse on business. As he somebody has done a good job of trying AUGUST 13 stood on the lawn, he was approached by to cover up the evidence in this case...." several white men who began arguing with No evidence has survived to shed light him. The courthouse lawn was a popular on why Lamar Smith was killed. Prosecutor weekend gathering place, and a number of E.C. Barlow characterized the murder as people watched as one of the white men political, rather than racial. It was "the direct result of local disputes, local politics 1955 pulled out a .38-caliber pistol and shot Lamar Smith at close range. in the race for Supervisor...." Brookhaven Sheriff Robert Case was An NAACP investigation showed that close enough to hear the gunshot and see Lamar Smith "had received several threats a blood-splattered white man leave the on his life if he did not slow down on his scene. But it was eight days before he political activities." NAACP Special Counsel arrested three men for the murder. (who 12 years later became the nation's first black Supreme SILENT WITNESSES Court justice) wrote that Smith's murder Although many people had witnessed was part of ongoing black voter intimida- the argument and the shooting, no one tion in Mississippi and noted that Smith was willing to testify to what they saw on was killed three months after voter registra- the courthouse lawn that Saturday. With- tion organizer George Lee was murdered in out evidence, the grand jury could return Belzoni. no indictments, and the three white men One white man who had known Smith went free. for nearly 15 years and considered himself The grand jury's report noted that a friend said Lamar Smith was killed for "although it was generally known or one simple reason: he refused to accept alleged to be known who the parties were second-class citizenship as a black man. in the shooting, yet people standing within "I'm sure if there was any reason for the 20 or 30 feet at the time claim to know shooting it was that Smith thought he was nothing about it, and most assuredly as good as any white man."

In rural areas where blacks made up a large percentage of the population, whites in power went to extremes to prevent them from voting. Leaders like Lamar Smith helped blacks file absentee ballots so they wouldn't have to risk going to the polls to vote. When blacks in the South finally won the ballot in the mid-1960s, their votes became a significant factor in all .

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7: BEVCOPYMAIL4-"` 41 FREE AT LAST 39 Tbuth Rimod@vgd 7(pg Sp@alag Whit@ Mbmga Na my 0 Niae@gippi

amie Till was a devoted, well-edu- Till, shot him in the head, wired a 75- cated mother who taught her son pound cotton gin fan to his neck and that a person's worth did not dumped his body in the Tallahatchie depend on the color of his or her skin. River. Nevertheless, when she put 14-year-old When asked why he did it, Milam Emmett on a train bound for Mississippi in responded: "Well, what else could I do? the summer of 1955, she warned him: "If He thought he was as good as any white you have to get down on your knees and man." bow when a white person goes past, do it Emmett Louis Till willingly." 1941-1955 It was not in Emmett Till to bow SO THE WORLD COULD SEE down. Raised in a working-class section of Till's body was found three days later Chicago, he was bold and self-assured. He a bullet in the skull, one eye gouged didn't understand the timid attitude of his Southern cousins toward whites. He even tried to impress them by showing them a photo of some white Chicago youths, claiming the girl in the picture was his girlfriend. One day he took the photo out of his wallet and showed it to a group of boys "The fact that standing outside a country Emmett Till, a young store in Money, Mississippi. The boys dared him to speak 4 black man, could be to a white woman in the store. Emmett walked in con- found floating down fidently, bought some candy the river in from Carolyn Bryant, the wife of the store owner, and said Mississippi just set in "Bye baby" on his way out. Within hours, nearly every- concrete the one in town had heard at least 400101..."' determination of the one version of the incident. Some said Emmett had asked people to move Mrs. Bryant for a date; others said he whistled at her. Whatev- ." er the details were, Roy Bryant was outraged that a black youth had been disrespectful to his wife. That weekend, Bryant and his half-brother J. W. Milam went looking for Till. They came to the cotton field shack that belonged to Mose Wright, a 64-year-old farmer and grandfa- ther of Emmett Till's cousin. Bryant demanded to see "the boy that did the out and the head crushed in on one side. talking." Wright reluctantly got Till out of bed. The face was unrecognizable. Mose As the white men took Emmett Till away, Wright knew it was Till only because of a they told Wright not to cause any trouble or signet ring that remained on one finger. he'd "never live to be 65." The ring had belonged to Emmett's father A magazine writer later paid Milam Louis, who had died ten years earlier, and to describe what happened that night. bore his initials L.T. Milam said he and Bryant beat Emmett demanded the body of her

MTATLAST 40 son be sent back to Chicago. Then she Wright's act of courage didn't convince A ordered an open-casket so the the all-white jury. After deliberating just world could see what had been done to over an hour, the jury returned a verdict of Emmett. Jet magazine published a picture not guilty. of the horribly disfigured corpse. Thou- The murder of Emmett Till was the sands viewed the body and attended the spark that set the civil rights movement on funeral. fire. For those who would become leaders 1955 All over the country, blacks and sym- of that movement, the martyred 14-year-old pathetic whites were horrified by the was a symbol of the struggle for equality. killing. Thousands of people sent money to the NAACP to support its legal efforts on behalf of black victims. In the meantime, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant faced murder charges. They admit- ted they kidnapped and beat Emmett Till, but claimed they left him alive. Ignoring nationwide criticism, white Mississippians raised $10,000 to pay the legal expenses

"The Emmett Till case shook the foun- Left. The all-white jury listened dations of Mississippi," said Myrlie Evers, to the evidence against 4.4*- ,44:t widow of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Emmett Till's murderers, then "...because it said even a child was not took little more than an hour to safe from racism and bigotry and death." find them not guilty. NAACP Executive Director Roy Wilkins Above. Mamie Till was over- said white Mississippians "had to prove they were superior...by taking away a 14- come with grief when the year -old boy." body of her son arrived at the Fred Shuttlesworth, who eight years Chicago train station. later would lead the fight for integration in Birmingham, said, "The fact that Emmett Till, a young black man, could he found floating down the river in Mississippi just set in concrete the determination of the people to move forward...only God can know how many Negroes have come up missing, dead and killed under this system with which we live." for Milam and Bryant. Five white local lawyers volunteered to represent them at the murder trial. Mose Wright risked his life to testify against the men. In a courtroom filled with reporters and white spectators, the frail black farmer stood and identified Bryant and Mil- am as the men who took Emmett away.

FREE AT LAST 43 41 Slain By Mishtridera Oppaged to Black School Impr@vemnta Mayflower ° Temaa

ear midnight in a small cafe, John a black school and a school bus. Their Reese and his cousin, Joyce Faye gunfire barely missed a black woman Nelson, were dancing to a song on kneeling by her bedside praying. By the the radio and drinking sodas. There was time it was all over, 27 bullets had ripped little else for black teen-agers to do on Sat- through the community of Mayflower, urday night in the tiny East town of leaving its black citizens terrified and a 16- Mayflower. year -old boy dead. John Earl Reese This night, the party at the Mayflower cafe was shattered by a sudden burst of SCARE TACTICS (photo unavailable) gunfire. Nine bullets crashed through the It wasn't the first night of terror in 1939-1955 walls and windows of the cafe. The force Mayflower. In the months since voters had of one bullet slammed John to the floor. approved funds for a new black school, He grabbed instinctively for his cousin, angry whites had repeatedly driven then fell dead. A second bullet struck through town, firing into black homes and Joyce Nelson in the arm, and a third vehicles. "They're trying to scare the wounded her sister sitting in a nearby Negroes out of their citizenship," said the booth. white school superintendent. The gunmen drove quickly past the For years, blacks throughout the coun- cafe and on to other targets. They shot into try had fought for better school conditions

FREE AT LAST 42 for their children, under the "separate but In an editorial headlined "Justice Would be OCTOBER 22 equal" doctrine. Then the Supreme Court a Miracle," Dugger wrote: in 1954 recognized that "separate" black "It is a hideous and sub-human crime schools were never "equal" to white that has been committed...Mhat happened schools, and ordered all public schools before Oct. 22 the shootings that were not integrated. But whites throughout the stopped is a disgrace to the civilized con- science. What happened Oct. 22 the 1955 South were determined to keep their schools segregated, even if that meant murder and wounding of innocents breaking the law. seems but another consequence of the nur- Blacks in Mayflower knew that full ture of prejudice in the incubus of commu- integration was still impossible, so they con- nity. But what has happened since Oct. 22 tinued their struggle for improved segregat- the initial suppression by the press, the ed facilities in the face of white violence. insupportable denials of the most obvious It was common knowledge that white motive theory, the spectacle of the Attorney men from Tatum were responsible for the General willing to mouth these denials with- nighttime shooting sprees in Mayflower. out making his own inquiry these things After the first raid, however, police protect- are a blot on the honor of this free state." ed the whites from prosecution by arresting Officials tried to silence Dugger by two black men for the shootings. The sus- accusing him of interfering with the investi- pects, afraid of being jailed or beaten, gation, but they could not ignore the infor- pleaded guilty and were fined $15. The mation he published. investigation was closed. Even after the second raid and the `IRRESPONSIBLE BOYS' murder of Reese, prosecutors continued to After three months, police arrested ignore the pattern of harassment. The Dean Ross and Joe Simpson for the murder police failed to do tests on of John Reese. In announcing the arrests, any of the bullet slugs and the prosecutor characterized Reese's mur- Under the "separate but refused to interview the der as "a case of two irresponsible boys equal" doctrine, black schools man most suspected of fir- attempting to have some fun by scaring were allowed to deteriorate ing the shots: a 22-year-old Negroes." while white schools received rowdy named Dean Ross. Dean Ross admitted to the earlier raids the bulk of school funds. for which the two black men had been Blacks in rural areas had to A PERSISTENT EDITOR charged and he gave detailed descriptions fight for improvements in their One man refused to let of the October 22 shootings as well. He schools even after the the story die. Ronnie Dug- was convicted of murder, but received only ger, the white editor of The a brief suspended sentence and served no Supreme Court ruled school Texas Observer newspaper time. The prosecutor dismissed the case segregation unconstitutional. in Austin, drove to Mayflow- against Joe Simpson. er, located bullet slugs, The official disregard for justice in the interviewed Dean Ross and murder of John Reese disturbed both talked to blacks who had whites and blacks in Texas. One white been terrorized by the man, a Methodist minister, wrote in The shootings. Texas Observer that John Reese was a vic- Dugger wrote a series tim of a racist society. of stories detailing the There is "a general lack of regard for crimes and criticizing the Negroes in East Texas," wrote Rev. Guston official investigation. His H. Browning. "A Negro is considered by articles attracted the atten- many as something just a little less than tion of Washington journal- human...Whether or not a direct connec- ist Sarah McClendon, who tion between this murder and the conflict wrote in her nationally syn- over the Negro school can be positively dicated column that established, I do not know. But that a Mayflower "now has a shameful, non-Christian feeling of racial record far surpassing the Till superiority is at the base of it all, I would ." bet my life...." Although people like Dugger and McClendon wanted the U.S. Justice Department to take over the BEST COPYAVI investigation, officials in Washington declined. Dugger did not give up.

FREE AT LAST 43 Eill@c1 3 E.16,211 Wkatipm@Ty ° Algbam

very victory of the civil rights school segregation and two years before -'struggle brought a backlash of bru- Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery tality. When blacks in Montgomery for refusing to give up her seat on a bus. finally won the right to fair seating on city He and his wife Sarah Jean and their three buses in December 1956, they were young children lived in Montgomery but harassed and beaten by angry whites. kept their distance from the dangerous Klansmen marched in robes through the business of civil rights. Edwards had never city streets to intimidate black bus riders. A participated in the boycott and he had few Willie Edwards Jr. white gang attacked a teen-age girl as she ambitions beyond providing for his family got off the bus. And a pregnant woman and contributing to the work of his church. 1932 -1957 was shot in the leg by white snipers. The night Willie Edwards was called in Then, early one Sunday morning, to substitute for his co-worker, a carload of dynamite bombs ripped through four Klansmen was waiting near the Mont- churches and several homes belonging to gomery County line for a black driver in a ministers sympathetic to the bus boy- Winn Dixie truck who they heard was dat- cotters. Two Klansmen Sonny Kyle Liv- ing a white woman. When Edwards ingston and Raymond York were appeared, they stopped him and ordered arrested. Martin Luther King Jr. was among him to get in their car. Not knowing their the spectators who packed the courtroom intended victim by sight, they assumed when they went to trial. Edwards was the driver who had called in King wrote later: "The defense attor- sick. neys spent two days...arguing that the According to later testimony, the bombings had been carried out by the Klansmen "slapped him around a hit," and MIA (the Montgomery Improvement threatened to castrate Edwards, but he "Jump," they said. Association, which sponsored the boy- consistently denied having made advances Edwards saw his cott) in order to inspire new outside to any white woman. They drove Edwards donations for their dwindling trea- through the countryside for most of the only chance of sury...On the other hand (the prosecu- night, harassing him until he was nearly tor) had an excellent case. The men had paralyzed with fear. survival in the dark signed confessions. But in spite of all the Then they took Edwards to the Tyler Alabama River evidence, the jury returned a verdict of Goodwyn Bridge in Montgomery County not guilty...Raymond D. York and Sonny and pulled a gun on him. Edwards cried below him, and he Kyle Livingston walked grinning out of and begged for his life. the courtroom." "Jump," they said. Edwards saw his jumped. Years later, in a dramatic confession to only chance of survival in the dark Alaba- authorities, a Klansman described a mur- ma River below him, and he jumped. der which had taken place in the after- A fisherman found the decomposed math of the Montgomery bus boycott. body of Willie Edwards floating in the river Since the bombings had left no victims, he three months later. said, several Klan members decided to kill a black man. They picked a black truck A CASE TWICE CLOSED driver who they suspected was dating a A brief investigation turned up no white woman. Instead, they killed Willie murder suspects, and the case was closed. Edwards Jr. by mistake. Then, 19 years later, Alabama Attorney General William Baxley was investigating MISTAKEN IDENTITY several other civil rights cases, and he On January 23, Edwards came home learned about the murder of Willie tired from his job as a truck driver for Edwards. Winn Dixie supermarkets. Less than an After hearing a confession from Ray- hour after he got home, a supervisor tele- mond Britt, one of the Klansmen at the phoned and asked him to come back to scene of the crime, Baxley charged Sonny work. Another driver had called in sick, Kyle Livingston, Henry Alexander, and and Edwards was needed to drive his James York with first degree murder. route. The case never made it to trial. Alaba- Willie Edwards had begun driving a ma Judge Frank Embry twice quashed the delivery route for Winn Dixie in 1953 a indictments, ruling that they did not speci- year before the Supreme Court outlawed fy a cause of death. "Merely forcing a per-

FREE AT LAST 44 46 I 4, 139214kantei, %VI oca 1957

411

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-

***' PA - Above. Dynamite bombs ripped

k through four churches one Sunday morning after Montgomery buses were ordered integrated. No one was hurt in the explosions. Below. Klansmen tried to intimidate boycotters by walking down Montgomery sidewalks in 1956, but the boycott continued until blacks finally won the right to sit where they chose on the buses.

1st

,SEIV

Its son to jump from a bridge does not natu- decomposed to determine an official cause rally and probably lead to the death of of death. But the judge stuck to his deci- such person," he said. sion; and the case,was dropped. The prosecutors objected to the judge's ruling, pointing out that the body was too COPY.AVALik6t..,.... FREE AT LAST BEST 45 47 Tialk@n rzon Jan And b chord Poplarvilla ° Mi@gio@ippi

hen Mack Parker was arrested for innocent or guilty of the crime. the rape of a white woman in 1959, a Mississippi state trooper PRESUMED GUILTY offered his pistol to the woman's hus- Most white people in Poplarville were band so he could shoot Parker on the convinced Parker was the rapist. A former spot. Jimmy Walters recoiled at the sug- deputy sheriff was among many who gestion. His wife was not even certain believed Parker did not even deserve a that Parker was her attacker, he reminded , and he recruited a lynch mob the officer. from men attending a prayer meeting. Mack Charles Few white people in Poplarville, Mis- Three days before Parker was to stand Parker sissippi shared the Walters' sense of justice. trial, eight masked white men dragged him 1936 -1959 So strong was the cry for revenge against from his jail cell, beat him, shot him in the Parker that a judge said he couldn't guar- heart and threw his body in the Pearl Riv- antee Parker's safety, and the county jailer er, where it was found 10 days later. In started burying the jail keys in his back- addition to the former sheriff, the lynch yard at night. A local newspaper editor mob included a Baptist preacher and the wrote, "We have never believed in mob jailer (who had been persuaded after all to violence, but if M.C. Parker is found guilty give up his keys). of this crime no treatment is too bad for Within hours, most white people in him." Poplarville knew Parker had been killed, Mack Charles Parker, at 23, had and they knew who did it. But when FBI served two years in the Army and was agents began investigating the lynching, no

"If we set back and waited for the government to prosecute and punish Mack Parker, it would never happen. So we did it ourselves."

Mississippi state official

working as a truck driver when he was one in town would tell them anything. arrested for the rape of June Walters. He Many were afraid of the mob; others sim- lived with his mother, brother, sister and ply believed the lynching was justified. nephew in a poor black section of Lum- The county prosecutor himself praised the berton, Mississippi. He spent most of his lynching and said he would refuse to pros- wages on the family. On the night of the ecute anyone arrested for the crime. rape, he had been out with friends. It Elsewhere, officials were not so ready will never be known whether he was to set aside the standards of justice. U.S.

FREE AT LAST 48 46 Attorney General William Rogers called the the state's action "a travesty of justice," and lynching a "reprehensible act," and ordered the Justice Department to build a pledged a full investigation. Civil rights federal civil rights case. But a federal grand leaders said the South's tolerance of vigi- jury also refused to indict. The lynch mob lante violence proved the need for national went free. legislation against racist killings. Newspa- The verdict was more than a victory per editorialists throughout the country for the killers of Mack Parker; it was a vic- 1959 denounced the lynching. tory for the white South over federal inter- The negative publicity only enraged ference. Since 1954, Mississippi had led the whites in Poplarville, and they took their South in white resistance to integration. anger out on Mack Parker's family. After The state even had a Sovereignty Commis- receiving a barrage of death threats, Park- sion to combat "encroachment...by the er's mother Liza fled in fear to . federal government." Soon after Parker's

She was on a bus heading west when her death, Governor J.P. Coleman said he Opposite Page. Mack Parker's son's body was found. After an American hoped Mississippi would not be "punished service in the U.S. Army enti- flag was used to drape Mack Parker's cof- by civil rights legislation" as a result of the fin, whites raised such an uproar that the incident. tled him to be buried in a flag- Veteran's Administration, which had issued Some plainly viewed the lynching as draped coffin, but whites the flag, ordered Parker's sister to return it. an act of heroism against a federal govern- reacted with such outrage that ment that was slowly destroying the South-the Veteran's Administration MURDER CONDONED ern way of life. As a Mississippi State ordered Parker's sister to return Finally, persistent FBI agents came up Sovereignty Commission official put it: "If the flag they had given her. with hard evidence against members of the we set back and waited for the governmentAbove. Liza Parker and her lynch mob, including several confessions. to prosecute and punish Mack Parker, it young children mourned the The evidence was turned over to state would never happen. So we did it our- death of her son Mack, shortly prosecutors so they could bring murder selves." before she was forced to leave charges. True to his word, the county prosecu- Mississippi to escape white tor refused to present FBI evidence to the harassment. state grand jury, and there were no indict- ments. U.S. Attorney General Rogers called AVA1LM5LE FREE AT LAST BEST COPY 47 4 9 Voter Reglotreitim Vbrkigr railed Bj Mite Loglemt@r Liberty ° Nitg@iggippl

erbert Lee at age 50 was a small, attacks to , an attorney with the graying man who had worked U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. hard to build his cotton farm and Doar was so disturbed by the accounts that dairy into a business that would support he came to Amite County in September his wife and their nine children. He had lit- 1961 to investigate for himself. Moses took tle formal education and could barely read. Doar to E.W. Steptoe's farm and Doar asked His wife taught him how to sign his name Steptoe for the names of people whose after they were married. lives were in danger because of their voting Lee was a quiet man. Even those who rights activities. Herbert Lee was first on the Herbert Lee knew him well do not recall hearing him list Steptoe gave him. Doar looked for Lee, 1912 -1961 talk about civil rights. But his actions but Lee was away from his farm on busi- spoke: he attended NAACP meetings at a ness. Doar flew back to Washington. neighboring farm without fail, even when The next morning, Herbert Lee pulled threats and harassment kept many others up to a cotton gin outside Liberty with a away. truckload of cotton. Several people Lee's perseverance was one thing that watched as Mississippi State Representative made him valuable to the civil rights E.H. Hurst approached Lee and began to movement. Another was his automobile shout. Lee got out of the truck and Hurst he was one of the few local blacks with a ran around in front of the vehicle. Hurst car of his own. When Bob Moses of the then took a gun out of his shirt and shot Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commit- Lee in the head. tee (SNCC) came to Mississippi in 1961 to register black voters, Herbert Lee was his TROUBLED WITNESS constant companion. Lee spent hours driv- As Lee's body lay on the ground, a ing Moses and E.W. Steptoe, the local white man walked up to Louis Allen, a NAACP president, from farm to farm so black farmer and timber worker who had they could talk to blacks about voting. seen the shooting. "They found a tire iron In all of Amite County, there was only in that nigger's hand," the man said to one black registered to vote, and that per- Allen. Louis Allen knew Lee had no son had never actually voted. Most of the weapon, but he also knew he would be people Moses talked to were not enthusias- risking his life to say otherwise. So when tic about trying to register, and he quickly he was taken to the courthouse to testify learned why. The first time Moses accom- before a coroner's jury, Louis Allen lied, panied three blacks to the courthouse to fill and said he saw Lee threaten Hurst with a out registration forms, he was arrested and tire iron. spent several days in jail. On his next trip Those who knew about Lee's voter to the courthouse, Moses was beaten by a registration efforts had no doubt that he cousin of the Amite County sheriff. Then was murdered. Ten days after his death, another SNCC worker was pistol-whipped 115 black high school students marched and arrested for bringing blacks to a neigh- through the streets of McComb, Mississippi, boring county courthouse. to protest the killing. After the beatings, no black person Louis Allen was tormented by guilt. was willing to go to the courthouse to reg- The 42-year-old father of four told his wife ister. Most of them also stopped coming to Elizabeth and Bob Moses that he lied NAACP meetings. Still, Herbert Lee and about the tire iron to protect himself and Bob Moses kept traveling and encouraging his family, but now he wanted to tell the blacks to vote. Prince Estella Lee told her truth. "He didn't want to tell no story about husband over and over again to be careful. the dead," said Elizabeth Allen, "because She recalled later, "he never said anything, he couldn't ask them for forgiveness." he kept on going. A lot dropped out but Moses told a Justice Department offi- he kept on going." cial that if they could give Allen protec- Moses sent detailed reports on the tion, he would testify to what he saw. The

Vitno@olo arclor Of Civp Meat@ vorlt@t o Agmg@ingted Louis Allen Liberty Nloolg@ipi 1919 -1964

FREE AT LAST 48 50 When Bob Moses (left) first came to Mississippi in 1961 to register black voters, he depended on Herbert Lee to be his guide Moses and Lee spent hours traveling from farm to farm talking to blacks about voting Although he was anguished by the deaths of Lee and Louis Allen, Moses continued his efforts to register black voters in Mississippi

k,' A

government could offer no protection, the way home he was followed by two cars. official said, and Hurst would probably he At the bottom of his long gravel drive- acquitted even if Allen did tell the truth. way, Allen stopped to unlatch the gate. As Allen remained silent to protect his fam- soon as he got out of his truck, he saw or ily. And for two years, he lived in constant heard something that frightened him, and fear. White customers quit buying logs from he immediately dove under the truck. He him and businessmen cut off his credit. He was hit with two loads of buckshot in the was beaten in jail after being arrested on face. Allen's son Henry discovered the false charges. He was told countless times body of his father when he returned home that his children's lives were in danger. He that night from a dance. JANUARY 31 stayed in Amite County only because his No one was ever arrested for the mur- mother was ailing and needed him. der of Louis Allen. A reporter later asked a Then, only days after his mother died, SNCC worker if Allen had been active in Allen began making plans to take his family the movement. The worker said, "He had and move to , where his brother tried to register once, and he had seen a lived. The day before he was set to leave white man murder a Negro who tried. In January 31, 1964 Allen went to a local south Mississippi, that made him active." a 64 farmer to obtain a work reference. On his

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pl. Roman Ducksworth was wor- to do), he was shot. ried and exhausted, but his 950 During the previous summer, blacks mile bus ride was almost over. and whites had ridden bravely together Within hours, he expected to see his wife on interstate buses and sat side by side in and their newborn child. The birth had "whites only" waiting rooms and coffee been difficult and his wife and the baby shops. In Alabama, they walked peaceful- (their sixth) were still in the hospital. ly into the midst of white mobs who bru- Ducksworth, a military policeman, had tally attacked them while police stood by. Cpl. Roman obtained emergency leave from his post In Jackson, Mississippi, they were taken at Fort Ritchie, Maryland. He was sleeping straight from the bus into police custody. Ducksworth Jr. in his seat as the bus finally pulled into Roman Ducksworth boarded the bus 1934 -1962 his hometown of Taylorsville, Mississippi. in Jackson after traveling the same roads Minutes later, Ducksworth was dead the Freedom Riders had taken through from a gunshot in the heart. Several differ- North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alaba- ent accounts of the killing have survived; ma and Mississippi at a time when the none of them fully explain what happened Freedom Riders were the most hated of all or why. civil rights activists. But he had little inter- A few facts are clear: Ducksworth was est in civil rights issues the day he was asleep when the bus stopped and a Tay- killed. He was simply a soldier in a hurry lorsville police officer, William Kelly, came to get back home. aboard. Kelly woke Ducksworth by slap- ping or hitting him, and ordered Duck- THE YOUNGEST SON sworth off the bus. Then he hit him several Ducksworth was an achiever, but not more times and shot him. an activist. He was the youngest of 12 chil- dren nine boys and three girls NO FREEDOM RIDER whose father was known as a generous Officially, the killing was ruled "justifi- friend to both blacks and whites. Roman able homicide." Officer Kelly claimed Ducksworth Sr. farmed 80 acres of land, Ducksworth attacked him, forcing him to had served as superintendent of the Cherry shoot in self- defense, and the grand jury cleared Kelly of any wrong- doing. However, according to an at NAACP investiga- tion, Ducksworth was killed "because he insisted on his rights to sit where he chose on a bus." In fact, Ducksworth may never have had the chance to argue about his bus seat. He was attacked because "they thought he was a Freedom Rider," Grove Baptist Sunday School for four speculated Ducksworth's older brother decades, and was a reliable source of Lee. When he finally tried to defend him- financial help in bad times. self (instead of passively absorbing the Eight of the Ducksworth children blows as the Freedom Riders were taught served in the armed forces. Between

FREE AT LAST 50 52 them, Lee Ducksworth recalled, they to Roman Ducksworth Sr., saying, "If I'd APRIL 9 served all around the globe, but after their known it was your son I wouldn't have tours were over, "we all wanted to come shot him." back" to Mississippi. "We loved our home. The elder Ducksworth sent a message We farmed and had to work hard, but we hack, replying, "I don't care whose son it enjoyed it." was, you had no business shooting him." Roman Ducksworth Jr. had managed Ducksworth was buried with full military 1962 to take his wife and children with him dur- honors, including a 16-gun salute, at a ceremo- ing much of his Army career, including ny attended by an integrated honor guard. Ej three years he spent in Germany. Then, as the family grew, he built a house for them

in Taylorsville, and he made plans to move Opposite page. Freedom Riders traveled the South in back there after he had completed 10 years the summer of 1961 to test new laws that allowed of service. He had only a few months of blacks equal access to bus stations. duty to finish when he died. Above. Blacks who rode buses were not free of The killing of Roman Ducksworth harassment even after the federal government shocked both whites and blacks who had outlawed segregated facilities for interstate pas- known his family for generations. More sengers. Some Southern cities defiantly ordered than 2,000 people attended the funeral. facilities for intrastate riders remain segregated. Even William Kelly, the officer who killed him, sent a message by way of his pastor

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hen tried to enroll in his dispatch that afternoon: in the University of Mississippi in "It is an atmosphere not of crisis but of the fall of 1962, he was turned a carnival...there are thousands of Confed- away by Governor , who erate flags...They are fixed to the radio vowed no black person would attend the antennas of automobiles, they are in the state's most prestigious white college. buttonholes of men's suits. They are Barnett did not have the authority to shown by the ladies...and there's a feeling exclude Meredith, a federal court ruled, of relaxation in the crowd...People are not but the governor would not back down. at all aware of the enormity of their ges- Paul Guihard After negotiations between federal and ture, of its repercussions and of the interest 1932 -1962 state officials failed, President Kennedy it is creating all over the world. finally sent in federal troops to ensure the "It's difficult to believe that you are in safe enrollment of James Meredith. The the center of the most serious constitutional stage was set for a battle at Ole Miss, and crisis ever experienced by the United States reporters from all over the world came to since the War of Secession." cover the story. Then, as the crowd began to sing One of them was Paul Guihard, a "Dixie" and a member of the White Citi- French reporter based in New York City. zens Council bellowed that "A Negroid The day Meredith was to enroll Sunday, America will lose her greatness!" Guihard September 30, 1962 was supposed to be felt the tension rise. He wrote, "It is in a day off for Guihard, but his editors said these moments you feel there is a distance the story in Mississippi had to be covered. of a century between Washington and the

CIVIL WAR CONTINUED "It's difficult to Guihard was a tall, husky -bearded bache- believe that you are lor known for his energy in the center of the and enthusiasm and nick- named 'Flash' by fellow most serious reporters. When he constitutional arrived at the airport in Jackson, Mississippi, a crisis ever flight attendant who dis- covered he was French experienced by asked, "What are you the United States doing in Jackson?" "Can't you guess?" since the War of replied Guihard. The woman paused, Secession." then said in surprise, "Oh, yes, it's because segregationists of the South...The Civil War - Paul Guihard of that Negro story." has never ended." Before Guihard was even out of the airport, he saw the signs of a battle that WIlEOFOLEIMMIS had become not only a racial crisis but a Guihard left Jackson for Oxford that contest between the highest levels of state day with a sense that he had entered an and federal government. Several young absurd but slightly terrifying drama. men were handing out At the campus of Ole Miss in Oxford, addressed to President Kennedy which 300 federal marshals were stationed urged him to end "the war against nature around the main building, where hundreds which he is leading against the sovereign of angry whites had gathered to await state of Mississippi." James Meredith's arrival. (Meredith in fact In Jackson, Guihard discovered that a had already been secretly taken to a dorm white mob had cordoned off the gover- room, and was under the protection of nor's mansion to protect Gov. Barnett armed guards throughout the night.) from what they believed was a federal About 8 p.m., just as President invasion. Guihard described the scene to Kennedy announced on national television his French readers as "absolutely unreal," that the crisis at Ole Miss was resolved, a

FREE AT LAST 52 54 federal marshal was hit with a lead pipe by It is not known who shot Guihard, or SEPTEMBER 30 someone in the white mob, and a shower whether the killer knew he was a reporter. of rocks, bricks and bottles came down on But it was not uncommon for reporters cov- the troops. The marshals responded with ering civil rights crises to become victims tear gas. The whites began firing guns. themselves. During the Freedom Rides, Less than an hour later, Paul Guihard white mobs lashed out at reporters and was found dead in front of a women's dor- cameramen who were attempting to docu- 1962 mitory, killed by a brillet in the back. ment the violence. In Birmingham and Sel- By morning, the marshals had been ma, reporters were also attacked. But they

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continued to bring the news of Opposite page. White men began the civil rights movement to the gathering on the afternoon of nation. September 30, 1962 to try and Paul Guihard was buried prevent James Meredith from_ October 5 in Saint Ma lo, France, enrolling in Ole Miss. following a memorial service in New York attended by U.S. and Above and left. National Guard French officials. President troops used tear gas against Kennedy expressed his apologies the violent mob in front of the to the French press agency in a main building of Ole Miss. By telegram, and the University of night's end, two people were Mississippi student newspaper set dead, 200 others had been up a scholarship fund in Gui- arrested and dozens of hard's name. weapons had been Within two weeks after confiscated. reinforced by Army and National Guard Guihard's death, 20,000 troops were troops and nearly 200 people had been brought into Oxford to maintain calm. arrested. Weapons confiscated from the James Meredith's life at Ole Miss was white mob included more than 40 shot- marked by isolation and harassment, but guns as well as rifles, knives, and black- his graduation day came without further jacks. Of the 300 marshals, 28 had been violence. Four years later, Meredith was shot, and 130 others were injured. A white shot and seriously wounded during a one- man, Ray Gunter, was found dead from man march through Mississippi. stray gunfire. BESTCOPY MAIL, FREE AT LAST 55 53 ,,PilainHDuring One-Man Nai-ch Agaikat 64vegation Walla-6 Alabama

group of black students stood in knew that people laughed at his idealism, line at a whites-only movie theater but he was never ashamed of it. He mar- in in the winter of 1963, ried a woman who appreciated his unique- waiting to buy tickets but expecting to go ness and gave him confidence to pursue to jail. Sure enough, the police arrived and his dreams. began arresting the students one by one When he left Binghamton for Balti- for trespassing. In the midst of the black more, he joked with reporters about his students the police were astonished to see image as a "nut" and said he hoped his a white man, Bill Moore. A puzzled officer protests would have more impact in his William Moore asked Moore if he understood that he was new home. 1927 -1963 in line to be arrested. Moore explained In Baltimore, Moore worked as a sub- simply that if the others couldn't see the stitute mail carrier and devoted his free movie because of the color of their skin, time to writing and demonstrating. then he didn't want to see it either. He Although he joined a local Congress of spent that night in jail. Racial Equality (CORE) group, Moore nev- No one in Bill Moore's hometown of er fit comfortably into the civil rights orga- Binghamton, New York, was surprised at nizational mold. He cared little about his willingness to go to jail. Moore was political strategies. He felt individuals known for standing up for his beliefs, even could be agents of social change simply by when he stood alone (as he usually did). acting on their beliefs. One time Moore had braved 16-degree weath- er to walk alone for hours in front of a Bing- hamton courthouse carry- ing a sign that read, "Turn Toward Peace."

A RARE IDEALIST Although he had served with the Marines on Guam in World War II, Moore was a pacifist. He had a degree in social sciences, and had studied in England and France. After his return to the United States, Moore suf- fered a mental break- down. He voluntarily entered an institution To make his point, Moore used a tactic where he received therapy and worked on that seemed natural for a postman: he a book. The book, called The Mind in walked. He walked alone from Baltimore to Chains, was a frank account of his break- the state capitol in Annapolis to protest seg- down and recovery. He left the institution regation. later he walked to Washington, after 20 months, healthy but forever aware D.C., to deliver a letter to President Kennedy that he was different from others. at the White House. (A guard there told him Moore's first mission upon re-entering to put the letter in a mailbox.) society in 1954 was to help others like Undaunted, Moore made plans for a himself. He started one of the first self-help much longer walk from Chattanooga, groups for recovering mental patients. Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi to Then he took a job as a social worker. deliver a letter in which he urged Gover- Before he left that job, he had given nearly nor Ross Barnett to accept integration. $3,000 of his own money to his clients. Bill Moore was gifted, some would say THE LAST WALK cursed, with a reflexive conscience one Moore had little encouragement for his that automatically recognized human need march to Jackson. CORE, which had and automatically responded to it. Moore sponsored the bloody "Freedom Rides"

FREE AT LAST 54 56 two years earlier, withheld support from day's walk was painful. APRIL 23 Moore's march because their leaders con- Just south of Colbran, Alabama, a sidered it too dangerous and too limited white store owner named Floyd Simpson to be effective. Even Mary, Moore's wife, heard about a man who was wheeling a tried to discourage him. postal cart and wearing signs about integra- When Moore wrote to relatives in the tion, and he decided to go find him. Moore South about his plans, they responded was happy to stop for a while and explain 1963 with bitter criticism. One aunt wrote back his views on racial equality to Simpson. saying, "Our home will be closed to you Later, Moore stopped at a grocery store on a trip of this nature...You'll probably and gave his tag-along dog to some chil- find out when you hit this section of the dren there. On his way down U.S. High- South what you are doing is not a joke way 11 toward Reece City, he stopped on after all." She signed off, "With love, and the roadside to rest. He made his last jour- a prayer to God that he will deliver you nal entries: "Feet sore all over. Shoes too from this thing that has taken possession painful...Kids adopt dog." of you." As he was resting by the road that Moore had been raised by grandpar- evening, Moore was killed by bullets fired ents in Mississippi, and still felt a strong at close range from a .22-caliber rifle. Bal- connection to the region. He tried not to listics tests later proved the rifle belonged take his aunt's criticism personally, and he to Floyd Simpson, but no one was ever didn't let it stop him. indicted for the murder. Wearing pro-integration signs and In death, Moore earned the public wheeling a postal cart full of clothes, he credibility that hadrinever been his in life. left Chattanooga on April 21, 1963. Shortly Alabama Governor and after he crossed the Alabama state line on President Kennedy denounced the killing. the first day of his journey, he was accost- Civil rights organizations held marches and ed by motorists screaming "Nigger-lover!" memorial services. Within a month, 29 and throwing rocks. He wrote casually young people were arrested in Alabama for about the incident in his journal and he trying to finish the walk begun by William apparently had no fear. Moore. They were carrying signs that read, The next day, he befriended a stray "Mississippi or Bust." dog that followed him. By the end of that day his feet were blistered, and the next

Opposite page. William Moore relied on the support of his wife Mary during his lonely protests. Left. Students who never knew William Moore joined to complete the march he began. Many of them were arrested and went to jail.

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y the time Medgar Evers was 28, Evers equal air time. "History has reached he had lost a family friend to a a turning point, here and over the world," lynch mob. He had been turned Evers said. He compared black life in Jack- away from a voting place by a gang of son to the lives of black Africans. "Tonight, armed white men. He had been denied the Negro knows...about the new free admission to a Mississippi law school nation in Africa and knows that a Congo because he was black. Nevertheless, native can be a locomotive engineer, but Medgar Evers loved Mississippi. He fought in Jackson he cannot even drive a garbage in World War II for the United States truck...." Medgar Evers "including Mississippi," he told 1925 -1963 people. And he returned from overseas with a commitment to steer his home state toward civi- lization. That determination and a great deal of personal courage would carry him through many trials during the next nine years. Evers became the first NAACP for Mississippi, and he spent much of 1955 investigating racial killings. Evers' research on the murders of George Lee, Lamar Smith, In Jackson, Emmett Till and others was Mississippi, in 1963, compiled in a nationally dis- tributed pamphlet called M is for There lived a man Mississippi and for Murder. There was immense danger who was brave. and little glory attached to civil He fought rights work in Mississippi even for the NAACP's highest for freedom state official. Medgar Evers was the one who arranged the safe all of his life, escape of Mose Wright after the elderly The bold speech made Evers the But they laid black man risked death to testify against focus of racial tensions in the city. Young the white killers of Emmett Till. It was blacks became more impatient as city offi- Medgar Evers Medgar Evers who counseled James cials stubbornly refused to listen to civil Meredith through the gauntlet of white in his grave. rights demands. On May 28, an integrated resistance when Meredith became the first group of students sat quietly at a white , black person to enroll at the University of lunch counter while white thugs sprayed -The Ballad of Medgar Evers" Mississippi. When there were no crises to them with paint and poured salt and pep- respond to, there were long hours on the per on their heads. A photo of the inci- road organizing NAACP chapters. dent was published nationwide, and In the Spring of 1963, Evers was living Mayor Thompson was suddenly forced to in Jackson, leading a drive for fair employ- negotiate with black leaders. During the ment and integration against a stubborn series of meetings and demonstrations city government. When Evers sent a list of which followed, Medgar Evers became a black demands to Mayor Allen C. Thomp- hero to blacks in Jackson and a mortal son, the mayor replied in a televised enemy to whites. speech to blacks: "You live in a beautiful city," Thompson said, "where you can TENSIONS RISE work, where you can make a comfortable As the momentum of the movement living...do not listen to false rumors which increased, so did the threat of violence. A will stir you, worry you and upset you...." molotov cocktail was thrown at Evers' The mayor's speech only angered house. Student demonstrators were beat- blacks more. The television station granted en by police. So many protesters were

FREE AT LAST 56 58 arrested that the state fairground had to be hung juries and he was never convicted. turned into a detention camp. Evers spent day and night in negotiations and strategy RAGE CONTAINED sessions, seeking desperately to avoid Myrlie Evers had often heard her hus- violence. band counsel forgiveness in the face of vio- Then, on the night of , 1963, lence. But the night he was killed, there President Kennedy delivered his strongest was only room for grief and rage in her 1963 message ever on civil rights. "We face...a heart. "I can't explain the depth of my moral crisis as a country and a people," hatred at that point," she said later. The Kennedy said. "A great change is at hand, next night, with newfound strength, she and our...obligation is to make that revolu- spoke before 500 people at a rally. She tion, that change, peaceful and constructive urged them to remain calm and to continue for all." the struggle her husband died for. Evers watched the presidential address Others were unable to contain their with other NAACP officials. Greatly encour- anger. On June 15, after more than 5,000 aged, they held a strategy session lasting people had gathered in silent tribute to late into the night. When Evers finally Evers, a group of black youths began arrived home, it was after midnight. He singing and marching in defiance of a court pulled into his driveway, gathered up a order. Police and fire engines confronted Opposite page. Black youths pile of NAACP T-shirts reading "Jim Crow them on a downtown street, and the angered over the assassina- Must Go," and got out of his car. youths began throwing rocks. Several tion of Medgar Evers con- Myrlie Evers had let her children wait police officers drew their pistols. John fronted police in a tense up for their father that night. They heard his Doar, a Justice Department lawyer who moment after Evers' funeral. car door slam. "And in that same instant, had come to attend Evers' funeral, knew Violence was avoided only we heard the loud gunfire," Mrs. Evers there was going to be a riot unless some- after John Doar, a U.S. Jus- recalled. "The children fell to the floor, as one acted quickly. Doar walked in tice Department lawyer, he had taught them to, and I made a run between the police and demonstrators and stepped in. for the front door, turned on the light and urged the youths to turn back. They Left. The body of Medgar there he was. The bullet had pushed him obeyed, and there was no violence. Evers was laid to rest in Four days later, Evers was buried Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington on June 19, 1963. Myrlie National Cemetery. Evers and two of her three A military bugler children, Darrell Kenyatta, 9, played "Taps" and and Reena Denise, 7, are the crowd of 2,000 seated at right. sang "." The day after Evers' funeral, Mayor Thompson appointed the city's first black police officer, as part of an agreement reached with black forward, as I understand, and the strong leaders in the aftermath of Evers' murder. man that he was, he had his keys in his Although the settlement was not a com- hand, and had pulled his body around the plete victory for Jackson's black citizens, rest of the way to the door. There he lay." it was a major step toward the goals for Neighbors lifted Evers onto a mattress which Medgar Evers had fought. and drove him to the hospital, but he was A year before his death, Evers told an dead within an hour after the shot. interviewer why he devoted his life to the The next morning, police discovered a struggle for civil rights: "I am a victim of small clearing in a patch of honeysuckle segregation and discrimination and I've near the house. On the ground nearby lay been exposed to bitter experiences. These a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight. things have remained with me. But I think An FBI investigation later showed the fin- my children will be different. I think we're gerprints on the rifle belonged to Byron De going to win." La Beckwith, a charter member of the White Citizens Council. Beckwith was tried twice for murder both trials ended in

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t was Youth Sunday at Sixteenth black-owned hotel, and other churches Street Baptist Church in Birming- had been wrecked. But there had been ham, Alabama. The preacher had nothing so evil as the dynamiting of chil- prepared a sermon especially for the chil- dren during Sunday School. The news dren. The youth choir would lead the con- spread quickly, and it sickened people of gregation in music, and children would all races and all political allegiances serve as ushers. throughout the world. For the youngsters, many of whom Civil rights leaders tried to channel the had marched proudly with Dr. Martin grief and rage that spread through the Addie Mae Collins Luther King Jr., it was another in a series of black community, but there was little com- 1949 -1963 momentous events that year. That spring, fort in their efforts. Gangs of black and their own church had been the center of a white youths battled in the street, and campaign against segregation. The long businesses went up in flames. struggle was won mainly because children Martin Luther King Jr. had delivered were brave enough to march into the over- his "I Have a Dream" speech to the largest powering water hoses and vicious dogs of civil rights march in history only 18 days Police Commissioner Bull Connor. After earlier. Now he spoke quietly to a crowd television news cameras revealed the bru- of 8,000 at a joint funeral for three of the tal force unleashed on the children, city bomb victims. officials were forced to reform their harsh "God still has a way of wringing good segregation laws. out of evil," he told the mourners. "The Now lunch counters were no longer innocent blood of these little girls may well closed to blacks, and a federal court had serve as the redemptive force that will just ordered white schools in the city to bring new light to this dark city...Indeed, admit black children. The whole world had watched in awe as the children in Denise McNair Birmingham made history. Before this day 1951 -1963 was over, the whole world would mourn. THE SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN In the basement ladies' lounge of Six- teenth Street Baptist Church, four girls were chatting nervously and straightening their fancy white dresses. In a few min- utes, the worship service would begin. Addie Mae Collins, 14, and Denise McNair, 7-7 11, were in the choir. Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, both 14, had been chosen to serve as ushers. Only a few feet away, beneath a stone staircase along the outside wall of the church, a dynamite bomb had been plant- ed eight hours earlier. At 10:22, it explod- ed. The whole church shook. Plaster and debris fell around the people in Sunday School upstairs. The four girls in the ladies' this tragic event may cause the white South lounge were killed instantly. to come to terms with its conscience." For a few minutes, there was only screaming and chaos. Then people began `WE ALL DID IT to search through the rubble for victims. In The FBI immediately investigated the the end, more than 20 people were hospi- bombing, and discovered it was planned by talized with injuries. One of them was Klansmen in response to the new school Addie Mae Collins' sister Sarah, who was desegregation order. An eyewitness saw blinded in one eye. four white men plant the bomb. Unexplain- There had been many bombings in ably, no one was charged with the crime. Birmingham designed to stop the black Then, 14 years later, Alabama Attorney struggle for equality. Ministers' homes, a General William Baxley reopened the case.

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Opposite page. While police and firemen began investi- gating the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, an empty stretcher awaits one of the victims. Left. The explosion ripped through the church and damaged nearby automobiles.

Cynthia Wesley A 73-year-old Klansman named Robert The Sixteenth Street bombing, perhaps 1949 1963 Chambliss was charged with first-degree more than any other event of the period, murder, and the jury found him guilty. brought national attention to the evil of Chambliss was sent to prison, where he racism. The tragedy sparked a surge of died. No one else has ever been tried for support for federal civil rights legislation, the Sixteenth Street bombing. and it led to an intensive voting rights cam- September 15, 1963 was remembered paign in Selma, Alabama. as a day of victory for the Klan. Shortly after But more importantly, it made the pain the church bombing, white supremacist of racism felt among whites who would nev- leader Connie Lynch told a group of Klans- er experience it themselves. The day after men that those responsible for the bombing the bombing, a white lawyer named Charles deserved "medals." Lynch said the four Morgan gave a speech in Birmingham. He young girls who died there "weren't chil- asked his audience: "Who did it?" and gave dren. Children are little people, little human his own anguished answer: "We all did beings, and that means white people... it...every person in this community who has 111k They're just little niggers... and if there's four in any way contributed...to the popularity of less niggers tonight, then I say, 'Good for hatred is at least as guilty...as the demented Carole Robertson whoever planted the bomb!' " fool who threw that bomb." 1949 1963

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s members of the bombed Six- NSRP taught that black people were less teenth Street Baptist Church waited than human, and they didn't deserve to with the wounded and grieving at live in America. Farley and Sims, indoctri- the hospital on September 15, 1963, the nated in such fanatical racism, killed Virgil streets of Birmingham erupted. Some Ware casually, as if they were shooting at blacks, who had struggled through months an animal. of threats and violence during the cam- The white youths went to trial not paign for civil rights, could no longer con- for murder, but for the lesser charge of tain their rage. They threw rocks at police manslaughter. They were convicted and Virgil Lamar Ware and gangs of white boys, and set fire to sentenced to seven months in prison. But 1949 -1963 several white businesses. Joe Sims, the boy who pulled the trigger, The families of the four dead girls tried was released after only a few days in cus- to stop the violence. Chris McNair, the tody. The trial judge set him free and father of the youngest victim, said, "We warned him not to have another "lapse." must not let this change us into something different than who we are. We must be human." Yet, even as black leaders pleaded with their followers not to meet violence with violence, two other black youths were killed that day. A 16-year-old boy, Johnny Robinson, was among a crowd of black youths who were throwing rocks. When the police When violence arrived, the youths turned to run. The police fired shotguns at them. Robinson erupted in the was killed by a load of buckshot in the aftermath of the back. In a suburb of Birmingham, 13-year- Sixteenth Street old Virgil Ware was riding on the handle- church bombing, bars of a bicycle while his older brother James pedaled. It was Sunday afternoon; Chris McNair, father neither of them had heard about the bombing yet. As James brought the bike of the youngest down Docena Road, they were victim, pleaded for approached by two white boys riding a red motorscooter decorated with Confeder- calm: "We must not ate stickers. The boy riding on the back of the motorscooter pulled out a .22-caliber let this change us pistol and fired twice without saying a into something word. Virgil was hit in the chest and the face. different than who He fell from the handlebars to the ground and died. we are. We must be The killers of Virgil Ware were quickly human." identified. They were Michael Lee Farley and Larry Joe Sims, both 16, Eagle Scouts, and regular churchgoers. They confessed to the killing but told the police they didn't know why they shot Virgil Ware. An investigation showed that Farley and Sims had attended a segregationist ral- ly before the shooting. They had also visit- ed the headquarters of the National States Rights Party (NSRP), a white supremacist group whose members had been involved in bombings and other racial violence. The

FREE AT LAST 62 60 u-r- ii-r I he innocent blood of these I hey're just little niggers... and little girls may well serve as the if there's four less niggers tonight, redemptive force that will bring then I say, 'Good for whoever 11 1963 new light to this dark city... Indeed, planted the bomb!'

this tragic event may cause the - White Supremacist Leader Connie Lynch white South to come to terms with ff its conscience.

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Angered by the murder of four schoolgirls in the 16th Street Church bombing, black youths took their rage to the streets. Although the outburst was short-lived, two more young people were killed before the day was over.

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ruce Klunder was a minister who "Our central affirmation is that, through believed his life must be his ser- Jesus Christ, we all are one one with mon. He was living out his faith God and one with each other... We must when he laid his body down in the mud each in his own way suffer with and behind a bulldozer that was breaking for those who are oppressed by those ground for a segregated school. Klunder's structures of injustice...We must learn to intention was not simply to protest segre- feel their pain as our own and...be willing gation, but to prevent it. Instead, he was to bear personally some of the cost of that crushed to death. And although his death pain's removal." Rev. Bruce Kiunder was in one sense an accident, it was also One of the institutional injustices that 1937 -1964 an expression of the purpose to which he blacks suffered all over the country was had committed his life. inadequate education. In , black In 1955, when blacks in Montgomery schools were so old and overcrowded that stopped riding buses to protest segregation students had to attend classes in shifts. laws, Klunder was an 18-year-old college White schools were lavish in comparison, student in Oregon, far removed from the with an abundance of teachers and books. realities of racism. The bus boycott awak- When civil rights leaders in Cleveland ened him to the inequities between blacks protested the overcrowded conditions in and whites in America. Kiunder raised black schools, the school board agreed to money to help support the Montgomery send a number of black students to white boycotters and he began discussing civil schools. But white parents objected that rights issues with his fellow YMCA Student they didn't want their children going to Council officers. His mission had begun. integrated schools. Bowing to white pres- After completing Divinity School at sure, the school board agreed to build "I pray that by the Yale, Bruce and his wife Joanne moved to more schools for black children, so white time the children Cleveland where he took a job with the schools would not have to be integrated. Student Christian Union and immediately Local ministers and civil rights leaders grow up, their immersed himself in civil rights issues. He were outraged that school officials would and Joanne took a group of students on a go to such lengths to preserve segregation. father's death will field trip through the South to expose have been them to the effects of segregation, and LIVES ON THE LINE they became founding members of the Bruce Klunder and others were deter- redeemed, and Cleveland chapter of the Congress of mined to stop the construction of the black Racial Equality (CORE). Klunder was schools. When legal roadblocks failed, they will be able to among the CORE members who demon- they staged picket lines at the site of the see the effect of strated at the state legislature for a fair first school. When police began arresting housing bill. Whenever there was a protest demonstrators, some of the protesters what his dying did against injustices in housing and education, decided to place their own bodies in the Klunder was there. way of construction equipment. "We will for the consciences For Bruce Klunder, this work was not not stop short of having the school board of at least a few just a matter of conscience. His hope was revise its plans," said Klunder. not simply to improve black lives, but to On April 7, Klunder and several others people at make his own life an expression of God's went to the construction site where a bull- least a few" love. Before he was killed, Joanne remem- dozer was preparing ground for the black bered, they talked about moving their fam- school. Three protesters threw themselves -Joanne Kiunder ily into the heart of the ghetto "so that our to the ground in front of the bulldozer. children could grow up knowing the Bruce Klunder went to the back of the meaning of caring for others." vehicle and laid down on the muddy ground. When the bulldozer operator WE ALL ARE ONE reversed directions to move away from the Bruce Klunder articulated his beliefs in protesters in front, the huge machine ran a 1963 sermon in which he told the white over Kiunder, crushing him to death. congregation that it was not enough for Police ruled the death an accident. Christians to bring fairness and equality Some blacks in the community reacted into their personal relationships: they must with rage and were on the brink of rioting also work to reform the institutions of soci- when Joanne Kiunder made a plea for ety even if it meant taking personal risk. calm. The violence was sporadic and

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Even after the Supreme Court outlawed segregated schools, cities all over the country sought ways to preserve Jim Crow facilities. In most cases, school integration came only after civil rights activists 111111"- insisted on equal rights for black children.

short-lived. we can do something about it and we In the aftermath of Klunder's death, must.' school officials halted construction on the She continued, "I pray that by the time segregated school. Once tensions eased, the children grow up, their father's death however, the work was resumed and the will have been redeemed, and they will be school was completed. able to see the effect of what his dying did Joanne Klunder wrote later that her for the consciences of at least a few people husband's death shook whites and blacks at least a few." out of a sense of complacency about racial injustice. "There now is a feeling of 'Yes,

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hey called it Freedom Summer. For the entire civil rights movement. many, however, the summer of By the end of the summer, 80 people 1964 would be remembered as a had been beaten, 35 shot at, 5 murdered, season of terror. and more than 20 black churches had It was the year that hundreds of col- been burned to the ground in Mississippi lege students, recruited from Northern alone. Much of the violence could be campuses in a highly publicized campaign, traced to members of the White Knights. came to work in rural Missis- sippi. They started Freedom Mat Charles Eddie Schools to teach black chil- Moore dren about their rights and 1944 -1964 their heritage. They coached adults through the hurdles of voter registration procedures. Henry Hezekiah And they brought national Dee (photo unavailable) attention to the repression 1945 -1964 and poverty that enslaved black people in Mississippi. They also confronted a force of white resistance more brutal than any of them had imagined the kind of ter- rorism that had haunted blacks in the South for gener- ations.

COUNTERATTACK ON CIVIL RIGHTS Even before Freedom The South's most Summer began, members of the South's most violent Klan dangerous Klan organization, the Mississippi organization, the White Knights, were planning their response. They began Mississippi White by burning 64 crosses on a single April evening through- Knights, planned a out Mississippi. By June, the violent response for White Knights had established 29 chapters with an estimated Freedom Summer. 10,000 members. Charles Moore and On May 3, White Knights Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers Henry Dee were issued what amounted to a declaration of Although the murders of Chaney, war against the Freedom Summer workers: Goodman, and Schwerner received world- their first victims. "The events which will occur in Mississippi wide attention, two other White Knights this summer may well determine the fate victims went practically unnoticed. They of Christian civilization for centuries to were Charles Moore and Henry Dee, come," Bowers wrote in his Imperial Exec- young black Mississippians who had disap- utive Order to all White Knights members. peared in early May. Their mutilated bod- Bowers urged his members to conduct ies were discovered in the "counterattacks" against "selected individu- during the massive search for the three al targets." civil rights workers. A month and a half later, White Knights murdered James Chaney, Andrew FORGOTTEN VICTIMS Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in one Maisey Moore last saw her son Charles of the most widely publicized atrocities of talking to Henry Dee on May 2. Moore, 20,

FREE AT LAST 64 6,6 had just been expelled from college for tak- truck driver, was the son of a White Knights ing part in a student demonstration. He had chapter leader. Edwards worked at the Inter- gone into Meadville to look for work. Dee, national Paper Company in Natchez, a center 19, worked at a local lumber company and of White Knights activity. lived with his grandmother in a shanty near Edwards gave the FBI a signed confes- the Homochitto National Forest. sion. Moore and Dee had been murdered, When Moore did not come home that he explained, because the White Knights 1964 night, his mother assumed he had gone to believed they were Black Muslims plotting Louisiana to look for a job. When he still an armed uprising of local blacks. Dee was had not returned in two days, Mrs. Moore suspected because he had once lived in notified the sheriff. A few days later, the Chicago; Moore because he had participat- sheriff told Mrs. Moore that the two were ed in a student demonstration. (In fact, the staying with one of Dee's relatives in Black Muslim plot was a wild, unfounded Louisiana. Unconvinced, Mrs. Moore and rumor.) the sister of Henry Dee drove to see the In his confession, Edwards described relative. Charles Moore and Henry Dee the killing. The White Knights abducted were not there and never had been. Moore and Dee from a roadside and took More than two months later, on July them deep into the Homochitto National 12, 1964, a man fishing in the Mississippi Forest, where they tied them to trees and River near Tallulah, Louisiana, found the beat them unconscious. Then the Klans- lower half of a badly decomposed body. men loaded their victims into a car and The body was dressed in jeans and the drove to the Louisiana side of the Missis- ankles were tied with rope. FBI agents sippi River. After tying heavy weights rushed to the scene, suspecting the body (including a Jeep motor block) to their might be one of the missing civil rights bodies, they threw them in. workers. The search continued, and the The FBI gave Edwards' confession along

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Opposite page. Rescuers dragged Mississippi rivers in a massive search for three civil rights workers who dis- appeared in . The 0 bodies of Charles Moore and Henry Dee were discovered during the search. 147 Left. Klansmen thought they 1'p would be able to stop the civil rights movement by intimidating blacks. When masked confrontations did not work, they resorted to violence.

next day a second body was discovered. with other evidence to state prosecutors, This one was decapitated and a piece of who were responsible for bringing murder wire was wrapped around the torso. charges. But a Justice of the Peace promptly A school key was found in the jeans dismissed all charges against the White on the first body, identifying it as Charles Knights, without explanation and without Moore. The second body was identified as presenting the evidence to a grand jury. Henry Dee. Two White Knights members , 29, and Charles Marcus Edwards, 31 were arrested for the murders. Seale, a BESTCOPYMai6MLE FREE Al LAST 65 67 Civil Right@ Vork@E@ Abduct@d And Slcin By KlAn Fhilad@lphla 0 Ml@@1@oippl

nn ount Zion Methodist Church had Chaney was worried for her son. stood solid since the turn of the But Chaney was invaluable to CORE. century, but by Sunday, , He knew every back road, every farm- 1964, nothing was left except a pile of house in the county, and he was behind bricks and ashes, a few charred hymnals, the wheel when he and Schwerner left the and the church bell. church ruins that Sunday. Three young civil rights workers The third person in the car with them Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and was Andrew Goodman, an anthropology Andrew Goodman stood amid the rub- major from New York who was spending James Chaney ble, staring dismally at what would have his first day in Mississippi as a volunteer 1943 -1964 been their first Freedom School. Church for the Mississippi Summer Project. Good- members had only reluctantly agreed to man had participated in one of the earliest make their building available for civil rights civil rights marches in Washington when activities for fear that something like this he was only 14. At age 16, he had picketed would happen. a Woolworth's store in New York City in Now their church was in ruins; several support of the Southern sit-ins. of their members had been beaten by Klansmen; and the three civil rights work- TRAPPED ers were in danger. The Klansmen who When Chaney, Goodman, and Schwer- burned the church had been looking for ner left the church that afternoon, they Mickey Schwemer. headed toward Philadelphia, Mississippi. At the town limits, they were stopped by TARGETED Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Schwerner, a 24-year-old social worker Price. Price arrested Chaney for speeding from New York City, had worked in Merid- and Goodman and Schwerner for the ian for the Congress of Racial Equality arson of Mount Zion church. (The ludi- Andrew Goodman (CORE) since January and had become crous charge was a familiar ploy of whites accustomed to threats. For the Klan and its who claimed civil rights workers staged 1943 1964 sympathizers (including many local law their own violence to create sympathy for enforcement officials), Schwerner was their cause.) despised as a symbol of the civil rights The arrests of Chaney, Goodman, and invasion that was threatening their way of Schwerner set a long-awaited plan into life. They hated him for his friendships motion. Klansmen immediately began with local blacks, for his attempts to chal- gathering at the home of a member in lenge segregation, and not least, for his Meridian. Job assignments were handed open disregard for Southern standards of out, directions given, meeting times coor- appearance: he wore a short beard at a dinated. Three Klansmen were sent out to time when no respectable Southern man buy rubber gloves. Another was assigned wore facial hair. to contact a local bulldozer operator. The White Knights of the Ku Klux Deputy Price jailed the civil rights Klan, who nicknamed Schwerner "Goat- workers without letting them use the tele- ee," had plotted to kill him as early as phone. Then, about 10 o'clock that night, March, but their attempts so far had failed. he suddenly released them and ordered Schwerner's closest associate, James them to return to Meridian. Chaney, Good- Michael Schwerner Earl Chaney, had helped convince Mount man, and Schwerner had not gone far Zion members to host the Freedom before Price pulled them over again. This 1939 1964 School. Chaney, 21, had grown up in time, he was accompanied by two carloads Meridian as the oldest son of a domestic of Klansmen. servant and a traveling plasterer. I.E." as Chaney was struck with a blackjack as his family called him, had once been sus- soon as he stepped out of the car. All three pended from school at age 16 for wearing were ordered into the back seat of Price's an NAACP button. By the time he went to patrol car, then driven to an isolated spot work with CORE he knew better than to off Highway 19. One by one, the three broadcast his civil rights views. He rarely young men were taken out of the car and discussed his activities, even with his clos- shot at point-blank range. Their bodies est friends. It was a reckless line of work were deposited at a nearby farm where an for a black Southerner, and Fannie Lee earthen dam was under construction. The

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Top. The burned car of the missing civil rights workers was found in the Bogue Chitto swamp, where Klansmen had hidden it. Bottom. Deputy Sheriff (left) and Sheriff Lawrence Rainey (right) at their trial. Price was found guilty of federal civil rights violations in the murder of the three civil rights workers and Rainey was acquitted.

bulldozer operator who had been hired by County would tell the FBI what they knew. the Klan scooped out a hole for the bodies, Some suggested the murders were a CORE and built the dam above them. publicity stunt. Others said the three men The disappearance of the three civil were troublemakers who got what they rights workers sent shock waves through- deserved. One local white woman spoke out the world. Within hours after their dis- out against the murders and lost her Sun- appearance, top officials at the U.S. Justice day School teaching job as a result. "It has Department were notified. Within days, made me understand how Nazi Germany President Johnson met with the parents of was possible," said Florence Mars. Goodman and Schwerner. By the end of The search for the three civil rights the week, 100 FBI agents were assigned to workers quickly became the biggest federal search for the missing men. investigation ever conducted in Mississippi. Despite widespread talk about the The FBI dragged 50 miles of the Pearl River abduction and killings, no one in Neshoba and marched in columns through the

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This page. Ben Chaney stands with his mother and father at a memorial service for his older brother James. Opposite page. Mothers of the slain civil rights workers Mrs. Chaney, Mrs. Goodman and Mrs. Schwerner (left to right) swamps looking for the bodies. Agents bitter tonight!" Dennis struggled to control link arms after the funeral ser- interviewed 1,000 people and built up a his voice. "I'm sick and tired, and I ask you vice for Andrew Goodman in 150,000-page case file. to be sick and tired with me. The best way New York City. Finally an anonymous informer we can remember James Chaney is to revealed the location of the bodies in demand our rights...If you go back home exchange for $30,000 in federal reward and sit down and take what these white money. The next day, a team of FBI agents men in Mississippi are doing to us...if you and a hired bulldozer dug up 10 tons of take it and don't do something about soil to uncover the decomposed bodies of it...then God damn your souls!" Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. They In the months that followed, several discovered Chaney had been shot three Klansmen gave information to the FBI, but times. In the tightly clenched fist of Andy no charges were brought until civil rights Goodman they found a handful of soil activists sued for the legal right to prose- from the dam. cute the suspects. Finally, the U.S. Justice Thousands of mourners and civil Department called a federal grand jury and rights leaders attended services for Mickey won indictments against 19 men, including Schwerner and Andrew Goodman in New police officials and Klansmen, for the mur- York City. ders. At a Baptist church in Meridian on On October 20, 1967, seven Klansmen, August 7, veteran CORE worker Dave including and Deputy Dennis rose to speak at James Chaney's Price, were found guilty of federal civil funeral. The typically quiet man, known as rights violations in the deaths of the three an intellectual, looked down to see James' men. They were sentenced to prison terms younger brother Ben crying in the front ranging from three to 10 years. Three other row, and he was filled with rage. Countless defendants were freed by a hung jury, and black people, like James Chaney, had giv- three were acquitted. en their lives during the struggle for equali- It was the first time a jury in Mississippi ty. Now, because two whites were among had ever convicted Klansmen in connection the victims, the world paid attention. with the death of a black person or civil Dennis reminded the crowd of the rights workers. martyrs who had gone before: Emmett Till, Mack Parker, Herbert Lee, Medgar Evers. And he said, "I'm not going to stand here and ask anyone not to be angry, not to be

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ne week after Chaney, Goodman, lived with their three children in a quiet and Schwemer were murdered in integrated neighborhood. Mississippi, Lemuel Penn left his The night before he left , home in Washington D.C., for two weeks Penn telephoned his wife to let her know of Army Reserve training in Georgia. Penn when to expect him home. There had was familiar with Southern segregation been daily reports of racial violence in the after years of summer training at Fort Ben- South that summer, but Penn assured his ning. He was also a cautious man. In the worried wife that he was in no danger. violent summer of 1964, he spent the entire Four hours into their trip home, the Lt. Col. Lemuel two weeks of Reserves training on base just officers stopped to change drivers. Penn Penn to avoid any possible racial confrontations. took the wheel. A few minutes later, about 1915 -1964 When it came time to return North, 22 miles from Athens, Georgia, he saw he Penn timed his trip so that he and two fel- was being followed by a speeding station low black officers could drive through the wagon. At about 4:45 a.m. the station wag- night without having to stop. Their tour of on, with three white men in it, overtook duty was up at midnight on Friday July 10. Penn. As it passed, two loads of buckshot Fifteen minutes later Penn left, accompa- blasted through the side windows of the nied by Maj. Charles E. Brown and Lt. Col. officers' car. One entire load hit Penn in John D. Howard. They brought sandwich- the neck, killing him instantly. es and soft drinks with them and carried The other two officers struggled to no weapons. move Penn's body aside and regain

A LIFE OF CHALLENGES Penn, 48, was known as a brilliant educator and a digni- fied man a "mag- nificent gentleman," as his fellow officers described him. He served in the South Pacific during World War II, and by 1964 was a lieutenant colonel in the Reserves. iMgal.3-= Although he was not involved in the civil rights movement, Penn had filled his life with challenges. He started out teaching math and science in an all-black school, and now was head of vocational education for the integrated Washington D.C., school system. He had received the Boy Scouts' highest leader- ship award for estab- lishing a camp for black children. His wife Georgia was also 4') a teacher, and they

FREE AT LAST 72 70 control of the car. The pursuing car forced body of President John F. Kennedy only JULY 11 them into a ditch, then sped off. eight months earlier. Shortly before the Both the Army and the FBI began funeral, Georgia Penn had said she hoped investigating the Penn murder immediate- her husband's death would lead to more ly. The more questions they asked, the concern about racial violence. more it seemed that the crime was the Sims and Myers were first tried for work of Klansmen. murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. 64 In the months following their acquittal, KLAN TERROR they were arrested for attacking a black The Athens chapter of the Klan had a photographer during a civil rights demon- "security force" called the Black Shirts, that stration and for beating a one-legged black combatted civil rights efforts by terrorizing farmer they had run off the road. blacks. In March of 1964, they beat up a U.S. Justice Department officials were 50-year-old black mechanic. In June they alarmed by the actions of Southern courts fired shots into a black housing project, in cases of racial violence, and they looked blinding a 19-year-old in one eye. for other ways to prosecute Penn's killers. The Klansmens' obsession with vio- Finally, they charged Sims and Myers and four other Klans- men with conspir- ing to violate the civil rights of blacks by intimidation and harassment. A dis- trict judge promptly threw out the feder- al indictment. Deter- mined federal prosecutors appealed the deci- Opposite page. Two loads of sion to the U.S. buckshot crashed through the Supreme Court. car carrying three Army The Court reinstat- Reserve officers. Lemuel Penn, ed the indictment who was driving, was killed in an important instantly. ruling that allowed Left. Klansman Joseph Howard lence was only strengthened in early July broader federal enforcement of such con- Sims (in handcuffs) was sen- when President Lyndon Johnson signed a spiracies. law providing broad civil rights protection When the federal case against Sims tenced to 10 years in prison for to blacks. Only nine days later, Lemuel and Myers went to court in June of 1966, civil rights conspiracy in the Penn was dead. prosecutors brought in three cartons of killing of Lemuel Penn. An Athens Klansmen named James S. weapons confiscated from the Klansmen. Lackey confessed to the killing. He said he There were sawed-off shotguns, pistols, drove the car carrying two fellow Klans- clubs with swastikas carved in them, and a men, Cecil William Myers and Joseph heavy chain welded to a swivel handle. Howard Sims. "The original reason for our Prosecutors detailed a two-year pattern of following the colored men," Lackey said, violence by the Klan "security force" which "was because we heard Martin Luther King climaxed in the slaying of Lemuel Penn. might make Georgia a testing ground for In response, the attorney defending the the civil rights bill. We thought some out- Klansmen argued that his clients "may be of-town niggers might stir up some trouble guilty of a little violence, even a little bad in Athens." violence, " but they were only trying to When they spotted the black officers, "help out" by "letting the colored people of Lackey recalled, Sims said: "That must be Athens know that somebody else other some of President Johnson's boys." As the than the police was watching them." chase began, Sims told Lackey, "I'm going In the end, Myers and Sims were con- to kill me a nigger." When Lackey pulled victed of the civil rights violations and giv- alongside the other car, Sims and Myers en the maximum 10 prison sentences. The fired simultaneously. four other Klansmen were acquitted. It Lemuel Penn was buried with full mili- marked only the second time that the fed- tary honors at Arlington National Cemetery. eral government had successfully prosecut- His body was borne to its grave on the ed a case of civil rights conspiracy. 0 same horse-drawn caisson that carried the

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n 1962, when civil rights organizer then arrested him after Vivian continued to persuaded some argue for the right to vote. black residents of Marion to try As the Selma campaign heated up, so and register to vote, an elderly farmer did activity in Marion. On February 3, Mar- named Cager Lee was one of the first in ion police arrested 700 black children for line at the courthouse. marching around the courthouse and jailed Standing with Lee was his daughter, a civil rights leader for contributing to the Viola Lee Jackson, and her son Jimmie Lee delinquency of minors. Jimmie Lee Jackson. They were not permitted to regis- ter. When Jimmie Lee Jackson saw his frail ATTACK AT NIGHT Jackson 80-year-old grandfather rudely turned The combined resistance of Alabama 1938 -1965 away from the registrar's office, he became officials angered the Marion demonstrators, angry. He knew that he must be a part of and they decided to step up their cam- the movement for civil rights. paign with a tactic they knew would be Years earlier, when he was a proud dangerous: night marches. high school graduate of 18, Jimmie Lee The clay after he was released from jail Jackson had made plans to leave rural in Selma, C.T. Vivian went to Marion to Alabama for a better life in the North. He lead a mass meeting and night march. abandoned those dreams when his father About 9:30 the night of February 18, more died, leaving him to run the family farm. than 200 marchers began walking in pairs Determined to make the most of his life, out the front door of Mount Zion church. Jackson took logging work in addition to Before they had even walked a block, they farming, and he became active in a local were confronted by a line of state troopers "Jimmie Lee fraternal lodge. At age 25, he was the and the police chief, who ordered them to youngest deacon ever elected at his disperse. Jackson's death church. After the incident at the says to us that we courthouse, Jackson saw the must work chance for real change in his hometown of Marion. He passionately and wrote a letter to a federal unrelentingly to judge protesting the treat- ment of black voter appli- make the American cants. He attended civil rights meetings, participated dream a reality. His in boycotts of white busi- death must prove nesses, and joined others in marching for the right to that unmerited vote. In nearby Selma, suffering does not go activists had been marching unredeemed." for voting rights since early 1963. In January of 1965, they were joined The marchers halted at the chiefs - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by Martin Luther King Jr., who brought order, and suddenly all the street lights on national attention to the voting rights cam- the square went out. A black minister at paign. King led nightly mass meetings and the head of the march knelt to pray, and frequent marches to the courthouse, where was struck on the head by a trooper. Other demonstrators were turned away by a troopers began swinging their clubs and stubborn Sheriff Jim Clark. the marchers panicked, running for cover During one week in February, more wherever they could find it. than 3,000 marchers were arrested in Sel- Viola and Jimmie Lee Jackson hurried ma. On February 10, the sheriff's posse into Mack's Cafe and were huddled for used cattle prods to drive the marchers all safety when they saw Cager Lee come in, the way out of town, leaving them strand- beaten and bleeding. Shocked at the sight ed and injured about a mile from the city of his grandfather wounded, Jimmie Lee limits. And on February 16, Sheriff Clark tried to lead him out the door to take him clubbed civil rights leader C.T. Vivian and to a hospital. But they were quickly

FREE. AT LAST 72 74 shoved back into the room by a crowd of said, "We were infuriated to the point club-swinging troopers and terrified where we wanted to carry Jimmie's body marchers. to (Alabama Governor) George Wallace The troopers began knOcking out the and dump it on the steps of the Capitol." cafe lights with their clubs and beating It was a testament to the genius of the people at random. Jimmie Lee saw a troop- nonviolent gospel and its ministers that er strike his mother, and he lunged for the such bitterness did not explode in a rage of 1965 man without thinking. A trooper clubbed violence. At one of two services for Jack- him across the face and slammed him into son, Martin Luther King told a crowd of a cigarette machine. As Jimmie Lee was 2,000: forced against the machine, another troop- "Jimmie Lee Jackson's death says to us er pulled his pistol and shot him in the that we must work passionately and unre- stomach. lentingly to make the American dream a Wounded, Jimmie Lee managed to reality. His death must prove that unmerit- escape the cafe, but the troopers continued ed suffering does not go unredeemed. We must not be bit- ter and we must not harbor ideas of retaliating with violence. We must not lose faith in our white brothers." Yet more than encouraging words would be needed to calm the surge of grief and rage. , an associ- ate of King's, thought a long march from Sel- ma to Mont- gomery would Left. The hearse help absorb the carrying the body of Jimmie tension in the Lee Jackson drove slowly movement and through the rain as an to beat him as he ran up the street. Eventu- bring national publicity to the problem of estimated 700 people ally he collapsed. It was two hours before voting rights. followed. Jimmie Lee arrived at Good Samaritan Hos- Thousands of blacks and whites from pital in Selma. He died eight days later. all over the country gathered in Selma on Opposite page. Hundreds of voting Jackson's killer was never publicly March 21, 1965 to march behind Dr. Martin rights activists were arrested in identified and no charges were ever Luther King Jr. to the state Capitol in Mont- Marion during February 1965. brought. Three days before Jackson died, gomery. Jimmie Lee Jackson's grandfather, the Alabama state legislature passed a reso- Cager Lee, was one of the first in line. lution supporting the state troopers' actions By the time the Selma to Montgomery in Marion. march was completed, two other civil rights workers were dead. The murders of

TEST OF NONVIOLENCE . James Reeb, and Jimmie Lee The death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, at Jackson made voting rights a matter of the hands of a man sworn to uphold the national urgency. Three months after the law, put the followers of nonviolence to a Selma march, Congress passed a broad vot- tremendous test. In the past 18 months, ing rights bill and federal officials began they had seen five murders in Alabama and the massive job of registering blacks six in Mississippi. Just five days before throughout the South. Jackson died, black leader Malcolm X had been assassinated. There was no disguising the bitterness civil rights activists felt at the death of Jim- mie Lee Jackson. Albert Turner, who had started the voting rights drive in Marion, BEST COPY AVAILABLE

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rom the time he was a boy, James signal to retreat. He had never defied a Reeb followed his conscience. He federal court order, and could not bring spent his teen-age years working himself to put the marchers in any more with disadvantaged youth. He felt called to danger. the ministry even before he graduated from At Brown Chapel that night, King high school. As a Unitarian minister in explained to the marchers why they had Washington D.C., Reel) spent more time retreated. But he asked the people from helping the poor people who lived near out of town to stay awhile if they could, the church than he spent in church. By and promised there would be a march to Rev. James Reeb 1965, Reel) was living with his wife and Montgomery. 1927 -1965 three children at the edge of a Boston ghet- James Reel) was among those who to and devoting his life to improving slum decided to stay. That night, after eating at a conditions. local black cafe, Reel) and two other minis- On March 7, 1965, Reel) watched in ters made a wrong turn as they were walk- horror as television news showed the ing clown the street. Strangers to Selma, attack by Alabama state troopers on civil they began heading toward the Silver Moon rights marchers in Selma. The next clay, Cafe, a notoriously rough all-white club. when Martin Luther King Jr. sent out a They heard shouts: "Hey, you niggers!" and nationwide plea for ministers of all races saw four white men approaching. One of and to come to Selma, James the men swung a heavy club into the side Reel) knew he had to go. of Reeb's head, sending him crashing to the The gathering in Reeb's wife Marie, who was accus- ground. Then the gang knocked the other Selma of white tomed to her husband's unconventional two clown and kicked them. "That's how it choices, told him this time that she wished feels to be a nig- people from all he wouldn't go to Selma. A fellow minister ger clown here," over the country warned him, "you could get hurt." But the attackers said Reel) saw the decision as one of con- before they left. was a sensational science, and felt he had no choice. Reel) man- That night, James Reel) was among aged to get up boost for local hundreds who flew into Montgomery, from the blow, blacks who had Alabama. From there it was a short drive to but he had an Selma and by 9:00 a.m. on March 9, Reel) agonizing been marching and ministers from all,over the nation were headache. The in Selma, ready to march. They expected next few hours steadily for two this to be a brief, jubilant demonstration of were a night- years. It proved to unity, and most of them planned to fly mare of mishaps home the next clay. as his condition the sheriff who The gathering in Selma of white peo- worsened. Doc- ple from all over the country was a sensa- tors at the local hated them, the tional boost for local blacks who had been infirmary told troopers who beat marching steadily for two years. It proved Reel) to see a to the sheriff who hated them, the troopers neurosurgeon in them, and the who beat them, and the governor who Birmingham, governor who denounced them that people everywhere but the hospital shared their cause. there required denounced them an entrance fee, MARCH HALTED so the ministers that people Then a federal judge ordered the had to wait until everywhere march postponed. With 2,000 people the $150 fee waiting to march, King could not tell could be collect- shared their cause. them all to go hack home. They started ed. On the way out from Brown Chapel on the morning to Birmingham, of March 9. James Reel) walked near the their ambulance back, his arms linked with another cler- had a flat tire gyman and a black man from Selma. and they had to When the front ranks reached the line of wait for another troopers waiting for them, King gave the one and this

MTATIAST 74 76 one's siren was broken. It was 11 p.m. people suddenly sat up and took notice I before Reeb finally arrived at the hospital. and from then on things changed in the He had a massive skull fracture and a large movement. People came from all over the blood clot. He died two days later. country to Selma." There was a surge of national outrage Four days after Reeb died, President at Reeb's death, in sharp contrast to the offi- Johnson delivered a voting rights bill to cial silence that accompanied the death of Congress. In a nationally televised speech 1965 Jimmie Lee Jackson. Memorial marches Johnson said the struggle in Selma "is part were held all over the country. The Presi- of a larger movement...Their cause must dent phoned Marie Reeb, and the Vice be our cause, too. Because it's not just President attended Reeb's funeral. Negroes but really it's all of us who must Jimmie Lee Jackson's mother had overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry received no such attention when she lost and injustice. And we shall overcome." her son, and the reason, most believed, Those last three words, spoken by the was race. Reeb was white; Jackson was President, sent shock waves throughout the black. No one in the movement questioned white resistance and brought tears to the the value of Reeb's sacrifice; they only eyes of civil rights activists. It was a sign wished Jimmie Lee Jackson's had been sim- that even white leaders, far removed from ilarly recognized. the battlefronts, were learning the lesson Nevertheless, it was Reeb's death more James Reeb had understood from the than anything else that focused the national beginning: this was a struggle that demand- spotlight on Selma. ed a commitment from all who loved jus- "It's a terrible thing to say, but it took tice, regardless of their color. the death of a white clergyman to turn Reeb's death, like Jackson's and so things around," remembered Orloff Miller, many others, went unpunished. Although one of the ministers who was attacked with four white men were arrested and indicted, Reeb. "When James Reeb, a white clergy- it took a jury only 90 minutes to decide man from the North, was killed in Selma, they were not guilty.

Clergy people of all faiths came to Selma to join the TOW, 7 voting rights demonstrators after they were attacked by state troopers at the . Finally, Alp protected by federal troops, thousands completed the march to the on March 25.

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n the evening of March 25, 1965, Klansmen pulled up alongside Liuzzo's "i A N, while civil rights marchers were Oldsmobile. Viola Liuzzo turned and making their way back to Selma looked straight at one of the Klansmen, after the climax of their three-day march, a who sat in the back seat with his arm out white man who had participated in the the window and a pistol in his hand. He beating of James Reeb sat in the Silver fired twice, sending two .38-caliber bullets Moon Cafe talking to a group of Klans- crashing through the Oldsmobile window men. "You boys do your job," the man and shattering Viola Liuzzo's skull. said. "I already did mine." LeRoy Moton grabbed the steering Viola Gregg Liuzzo The Klansmen, a select group from a wheel and hit the brakes, and the Oldsmo- 1925 -1965 klavern near Birmingham, had been sent bile crashed into an embankment. The to Selma with orders to keep the marchers Klansmen came hack to inspect their "under surveillance." After leaving the cafe, they headed out of town toward Mont- gomery. At a stoplight, they noticed a green Oldsmobile with Michigan license plates

driven by a white *ay woman with a young black male passenger. That car symbolized "We (pray) for rest, for them the two most despised aspects of the peace and light to civil rights movement: Mrs. Liuzzo. Maybe outsiders and race-mix- ing. The Klansmen had she has finally found their target. Viola Liuzzo, a 39- found a life free of year -old white mother prejudice and from Michigan, was still full of energy after work, and Moton feigned death while they three long days of shuttling marchers shone a light in the car. As soon as they hate." between Montgomery and Selma. A left, Moton flagged down a truck carrying stranger when she arrived in Selma six more civil rights workers. Moton was terri- days earlier, she had become known as a fied but uninjured. Viola Liuzzo was dead. tireless and cheerful worker. A priest from Chicago who had been on the march said, AN EXTRAORDINARY WOMAN "Her energy, enthusiasm and compassion Viola Liuzzo, by all descriptions, was were contagious and put many of us to an extraordinary woman. At age 36, with shame." five children at home, she went back to Mrs. Liuzzo sang strains of the civil school to become a medical lab techni- rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome," as cian. She graduated with top honors, but she turned her Oldsmobile back toward worked for only a few months before she Montgomery for another carload of quit her job in protest over the way female marchers. LeRoy Moton, a young black secretaries were treated. With the encour- man, was riding with her to help drive. agement of her friend and housekeeper Moton was surprised at her nonchalance Sarah Evans she became one of the few when they discovered-they were being fol- white members of the National Association lowed by a carload of white-men. "These for the Advancement of Colored People. white people are crazy," Mrs. Liuzzo said, On March 7, 1965, Viola and Jim Liuz- and pressed the accelerator. zo were watching the 11 o'clock news Soon both cars were racing down the when they saw the first film clips of state highway at 100 miles per hour. About 20 troopers attacking Selma marchers at the miles outside Selma, on a lonely stretch of Edmund Pettus Bridge. Tears rolled down road in Lowndes County, the carload of Mrs. Liuzzo's face as she watched the

FREE AT LAST 76 78 brutal attack on television. She brooded Mrs. Liuzzo's friends knew her as a car- MARCH 25 over the scene for days. Then came the ing person who gave of herself without news reports of the death of James Reel). regard to public opinion. Her children She got in her car and left for Selma alone, were fiercely proud of their mother, and despite her husband's concerns. tried to sue the FBI for lying about her (the After Viola Liuzzo was killed, Jim and case was thrown out of court). Mrs. Liuz- zo's home diocesan 1965 newspaper chastised those who criticized her character: "We cannot wish mercy to those who have passed a judgement of hate upon her. They have found the only possible way to alienate a forgiving God... We (pray) for rest, peace and light to Mrs. Liuzzo. Maybe she has finally found a life free of prejudice and hate." President John- son was enraged at Mrs. Liuzzo's murder, and he ordered Congress to start a complete investigation of the Ku Klux Klan. That investigation uncovered a series of Klan crimes and led to a curtailment of Klan violence. Three Klansmen Eugene Thomas, William Orville Eaton, and Collie LeRoy Wilkins Jr. were indicted for the murder Opposite page. Viola Liuzzo tried of Viola Liuzzo. The state had a strong to outrun the Klansmen who , case: the fourth Klansmen in the car, Gary were following her car. When Thomas Rowe Jr., was an FBI informant they caught up with her, they and he had seen everything. The Klan's fired a .38-caliber pistol attorney defended his clients by delivering through the window, killing her Y' a violent harangue against the murder vic- tim herself. The case ended in a hung jury. instantly. During the retrial, a second all-white jury Left above. Four of Viola Liuzzo's deliberated less than two hours before find-five children grieve after ing the Klansmen not guilty. hearing of the death of their Many people, including some federal mother. They are (left to right) officials, were becoming frustrated at the Anthony, 10, Sally, 6, Penny, consistent failure of Southern juries to con- 18. and Tommy, 13. vict civil rights opponents. In an unusual Left below. Selma marchers on move, the U.S. Justice Department decided their way to Montgomery. the children also became victims. They to bring federal charges against Thomas, were besieged with hate mail and phone Eaton, and Wilkins for conspiring to violate threats. The Klan circulated ugly lies about the civil rights of Mrs. Liuzzo. A federal jury Mrs. Liuzzo's character, and these were found the Klansmen guilty, and Alabama repeated in FBI reports. Though they were federal district Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. proven false, the rumors fueled sentiment handed down the maximum prison sen- among some that Mrs. Liuzzo was out of tence of 10 years for each defendant. The "her place" in Selma, that she should have Liuzzo case became known as a milestone stayed home with her children. A Ladies in the history of Southern justice. Home Journal survey showed that only 26 percent of readers approved of Mrs. Liuz- zo's mission in Selma.

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: is older brother teased him and his tion. The appointments enraged some mother worried endlessly, but whites, particularly members of the Ku Oneal Moore could not have been Klux Klan. prouder when he was chosen to be one of Despite the white animosity, Moore the first. black deputies in Washington was proud of his appointment. He let his Parish, Louisiana. His selection was no sur- daughters listen to the police radio in his prise to those who knew him. Moore was patrol car. When his brother Ameal teased a 34-year-old Army veteran who had dis- him about being a deputy, Oneal put on Oneal Moore tinguished himself as a leader in his his uniform and bashfully told his brother church, his local fraternal lodge and the "this ain't no tin badge. Oneal's younger 1931-1965 E.T.A. He had four daughters who idolized sisters, who had always looked up to him, him and a wife who had great ambitions nearly burst with piide. Only his mother for him and their children. Oneal's eight was frightened. brothers and sisters remembered him as a Oneal knew he had put himself and confident, hard-working youth who treated his family at risk by accepting the job, and all people with respect but who would not he tried to he cautious. While other blacks let anyone take advantage of him. in the area marched and picketed, and Moore became deputy in Washington some even armed themselves as defense Parish at a dangerous time. The parish was against the Klan, Moore avoided civil rights known to have the largest Klan member- activities. He wanted only to be able to ship per capita of any place in the country, perform his duty to protect law-abiding and it was not unusual for carloads of citizens from violence and crime. white thugs to ride through black areas shooting at homes and cars. Sheriff Dor- AMBUSHED man A. Crowe named Moore and another Exactly a year after they were appoint- man, Creed Rogers, deputies in response ed, Rogers and Moore had finished their to black demands for more police protec- nightly patrol and were heading home

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Opposite page. Marvella Moore sits between her daughters Tressler (left) and Regenia (right) at the of her husband. Oneal Moore's toward Varnado when their car was hit by to remain calm. mother and father are seated a volley of gunfire. Moore was hit in the Despite the rage that many blacks felt at left. head and instantly killed. Rogers was at the murder of Oneal Moore, Marvella wounded in the shoulder and blinded in Moore would allow no signs of anger at Above. A Klansman passes one eye. As their attackers sped away, her husband's funeral. She asked national out calling cards in Rogers managed to broadcast a description civil rights leaders attending the funeral to Bogalusa. Washington of their car on the police radio. make no public statements. A New York Parish was known as a News of the killing spread quickly, and Times reporter described the eulogy as center bf Klan activity in the officials feared there would be more vio- "remarkably free of bitterness." mid-1960s. lence. They were right: three days after Following the tragedy of Moore's Moore's death, bullets were fired into the death, civil rights activities increased in home of a white deputy who was heading Washington Parish. Black boycotts finally the murder investigation. Sheriff Crowe succeeded in forcing the integration of said the shooting was probably the work of restaurants and theaters in Bogalusa. Rural white extremists, and he pledged all black youth began learning aboiit their resources to solve the murder and the rights at Freedom SChools run by the shooting. Louisiana Governor John McKei- Congress of Racial Equality. And a massive then offered a $25,000 reward for informa- voter registration drive added hundreds of tion leading to the killers of Oneal Moore. blacks to the voting rolls. In response to the killing, civil rights The murder case was never solved. activists in Washington Parish stepped up Police arrested a suspect a man named their marches and demonstrations. A black Ernest Ray McElveen who belonged to sev- self-defense group called the Deacons for eral white supremacist groups, including !Defense placed armed guards in black the National States Rights Party, the United neighborhoods. Hundreds of state police Conservatives and the White Citizens Coun- were brought in to help prevent violence. cil. However, the charges against him were Louisiana Governor John McKeithen came unexplainably dismissed, and neither to Bogalusa to meet with black activists McElveen nor anyone else was ever prose- and white segregationists, urging both sides cuted for the murder of Oneal Moore.

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he National States Rights Party had About the time Lynch's tirade reached more in common with the Ku Klux its peak, three black men were getting off Klan than with a political party. Its work from a local pipe foundry. One of claim to fame during the 1960s was a "riot them was Willie Brewster, a hard-working squad" of two men Connie Lynch and J. 38-year-old who raised his own vegetable B. Stoner = who hated blacks and Jews so garden in addition to working at the facto- ti much that they became evangelists of vio- ry. When the shift ended on the night of lence, traveling the South delivering fanati- July 15, Brewster got in a co-worker's car cal racist speeches to whoever would for the ride home to Munford, a small Willie Brewster listen. town 20 miles from Anniston, where Brew- 1926 -1965 Although the term "lynch mob" was ster's pregnant wife Lestine was waiting coined long before Connie Lynch began with their two small children. his escapades, the irony is appropriate. Willie Brewster was described by his Lynch, who called himself a minister, boss as someone who "went beyond his frankly urged his listeners to "kill the nig- duties to help." When his friend com- gers," and sometimes named specific tar- plained of achirig feet during the drive gets in the towns he visited. After home, Brewster took over the wheel. He Klansmen in Birmingham bombed a was driving down Highway 202 when church, killing four schoolgirls, Lynch told three gunshot blasts tore through the back a white crowd: "If there's four less niggers window. A bullet slammed into'Brewster's tonight, then I say good for whoever plant- spine and he slumped over the wheel. The ed the bomb." uninjured riders caught a glimpse of sever- On the night of July 15, 1965, about al white men in a passing car as they tried 100 white people gathered at the court- to regain control of their own vehicle. It was the first house in Anniston, Alabama, to hear Con- nie Lynch speak. He told the audience ENEMIES OF US ALL time during the civil there should be a special medal for who- For the next several days, Lestine rights era that a ever killed Viola Liuzzo. He promised that Brewster sat with her husband at the hos- all politicians who supported civil rights pital while a local newspaper raised white person was efforts would be hanged when the Nation- reward money for information leading to al States Rights Party took over the coun- his assailants. The reward offer, wrote an convicted of killing a try. He went on to black person in say, "If it takes killing to get the Negroes Alabama. The out of the white man's streets and to guilty verdict protect our constitu- astonished tional rights, then I say, yes, kill them!" everyone, including Sitting at the civil rights leaders podium while Lynch spoke was J.B. Ston- who had already er, the NSRP lawyer who made a business made plans to of defending Klans- protest an acquittal. men and others charged with racist crimes. Next to Ston- er was Kenneth Adams, another NSRP official who owned part of a local oil dis- Anniston Star editor, "says to Willie Brew- tribution business, and who once assaulted ster and to the world that he is not alone the famous black singer Nat King Cole at a at this moment, that the persons who concert in Birmingham. In the audience brought him to the point of death...are not was one of Adams' employees, 23-year-old just his enemies. They are enemies of us Hubert Damon Strange, and his friend all, and we stand together in opposition to Jimmy Knight. them." Civic leaders raised $20,000 within

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Opposite page. Mourners file past the casket of Willie Brewster. Left. National States Rights 12 hours and Alabama Governor George second-degree murder conviction against Party leader J.B. Stoner (with Strange and sentenced him to 10 years in Wallace added another $1,000 to the microphone) traveled the reward fund. prison. It was the first time during the civil The doctors told Lestine that if her hus- rights era that a white person was convict- South encouraging violence band lived, he would he paralyzed from ed of killing a black person in Alabama. against blacks. the waist down. Willie tried to reassure his The guilty verdict astonished everyone, wife, saying, "I'm going to get well." But including civil rights leaders who had three days after the shooting, he died. Les- already made plans to protest an ,acquittal. tine had to be hospitalized immediately, Hubert Strange never served his prison and a month later she lost her baby term. While he was free on bond waiting through miscarriage. appeal, he got into a barroom brawl with Three white men Hubert Damon another man and was killed. Johnny Ira Strange, Johnny Ira Defries and Lewis Defries was acquitted of murder in a sec- Blevins were indicted for the murder of ond trial. In 1980 Stoner himself was con- Willie Brewster on August 27, 1965. victed for the racial bombing of a church Strange, the first to be tried, was represent- in Birmingham. He was released from ed by NSRP lawyer J.B. Stoner. Jimmy prison in 1986 after serving several years, Knight, who had attended the NSRP meet- and returned to his white supremacist ing with Strange, was the star prosecution activities. witness. He testified that he heard Strange boast, "we got us a nigger" after the shooting. After 13 hours of deliberation and 20 ballots, the all-white jury returned a

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t was not an easy road that led Daniels soon turned his attention Jonathan Daniels to the ministry. away from reforming white consciences to The son of a doctor and a school helping poor blacks exercise their rights. teac ler in Keene, New Hampshire, Jon He helped them obtain welfare and farm had always been active in his church. But assistance, encouraged them to register to his teen-age years were a long storm of vote, and tutored many of their children rebellion, during which his grades dropped and his par- Jonathan Daniels ents despaired. Sens- 1939 -1965 ing his own need for discipline, Jon attend- ed Virginia Military Institute for his college studies and he gradu- ated with top honors. Despite his suc- cess, something inside him was unfulfilled. During his first year in graduate school at Har- vard, Jon was over- come by doubt and depression. Then on Easter Sunday in 1962 he had a religious awakening that changed who had inadquate educational opportuni- the rest of his life. He left Harvard and ties because they were black. decided to become a minister. Jonathan Daniels, said a fellow civil Jonathan Daniels was a 26-year-old rights worker, helped give people the student at an Episcopal seminary in Cam- courage they needed to exercise their bridge, , when Dr. Martin rights. "He had an abundance of strength Luther King Jr. issued his nationwide call in that came from the inside that he could 1965 for clergy of all faiths to come to Sel- give to people," said . ma to support the voting rights marchers. "The people in Lowncles County realized Daniels knew that he was meant to go to that with the strength they got from Jon Selma, and he went eagerly. Daniels they had to carry on, they had to During the long hours of waiting, carry on!" meeting, and marching in Selma, Daniels On Saturday, August 14, black teen- was buoyant in the knowledge that he was agers in Fort Deposit, Alabama, gathered living his faith. He made fast friends with a to picket white stores that discriminated. black family who opened their home to Daniels and two fellow ministers joined in him, and he quickly saw the urgent need the protest. There were threats of white for economic and political reform in the mob violence, and police had already region. When the thrilling pageant of the informed the marchers they would be Selma-Montgomery march was over, arrested for their own protection. As the Daniels decided to stay and work in group approached downtown, the police Alabama. kept their word, and Jon Daniels and Father Richard Morrisroe were among the AN ABUNDANCE OF STRENGTH 30 marchers taken to the jail in Hayneville. One of his first goals was to integrate a local Episcopal church. Despite their A LICENSE TO KILL common creeds, Southern churches were The marchers spent nearly a week in (and most still remain) racially separate. jail, and then suddenly on August 20 they Daniels believed churches should be the were released without explanation and first to reach out to people of all races, but with no transportation back to Fort his efforts met with stubborn resistance_ Deposit. While one of them went to tele- from white churchgoers and ministers. phone for a ride, two teen-agers walked

FREE AT LAST 82 84 with Daniels and Morrisroe toward a near- man not guilty and shook his hand as they A by grocery store to buy a soda. When they filed out of the courtroom. got to the door, they were met by a man It was an old and bitter story of South- with a shotgun who told them to leave "or ern justice, but this time even the attorney I'll blow your damned brains out!" In a split general of Alabama could not contain his second, Daniels pushed one of the teen- outrage. The acquittal, Richmond Flowers agers out of the way and the gun went off. said, represented the "democratic process 1965 The shot hit Daniels in the stomach, going down the drain of irrationality, big- killing him instantly. Morrisroe was hit in otry and improper law enforcement...now the back, critically injured. (Morrisroe even- those who feel they have a license to kill, tually recovered after months of hospital- destroy and cripple have been issued that ization and physical therapy.) license." Tom Coleman, 55, a part-time deputy Jon Daniels had died without fear, for sheriff of Lowndes County, put down his he knew the dangers of doing civil rights shotgun, walked over to the courthouse work in the South. He wrote after arriving and called Colonel Al Lingo in Mont- in Alabama, "I lost fear in the black belt gomery. "I just shot two preachers," he when I began to know in my bones and told the state trooper commander. "You sinews that...in the only sense that really better get on down here." matters I am already dead and my life is A grand jury indicted Coleman for hid with Christ in God." manslaughter instead of murder, after hear- ing Coleman testify Daniels had pulled a knife on him. The members of the all-white jury took less than two hours to find Cole-

Opposite page. A Boston seminary student, Jonathan Daniels made himself at home with the children of Lowndes County, Alabama. Left. Members of the all-white jury who tried the accused killer of Jonathan Daniels take a break beside a Confederate statue. They took less than two hours to find the accused not guilty.

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ammy Younge could have had an than with his middle-class peers. Soon he easy life. He grew up in a promi- was spending more time in the country- nent middle-class family in side recruiting voters than he was spend- Tuskegee, Alabama a town dominated ing in class. by a famous black university and noted for Then Younge began to feel the full its progressive race relations. Younge impact of white resistance. In the summer attended a New England boarding school of 1965, he was among TIAL students who for a while, and served two years in the were beaten while trying to attend a white Navy. He was a bright, exuberant youth, church in town. Weeks later, someone Samuel Younge Jr. brought up to have pride in his race and threatened to blow up the home where 1944-1966 confidence in himself. Younge's mother lived. Then someone Although prosperity and prestige were fired shots at a truck he was riding in. his, they were not what interested Sammy Finally, on the first day of September, Sam- Younge. He required adventure; and the my Younge was arrested along with about biggest adventure going on in Alabama in 60 others who were trying to register to the late 1950s was the civil rights move- vote in Opelika. ment. Even as a child, Younge saw the struggle for equal rights as a personal chal- CONFRONTATION lenge. He was light-skinned enough to The violence and arrests frightened pass for white, and he would sometimes Younge, and when the new school term fool store clerks or train porters to gain started he tried to concentrate on his stud- entrance to white facilities, as a way of ies. But he could not get the movement mocking segregation laws. out of his blood. When the accused killer of civil rights worker Jonathan Daniels was "This is an era of REJECTING HYPOCRISY acquitted in Lowndes County, Alabama, social revolution. In Sammy Younge entered the presti- Younge organized a protest march. He gious Tuskegee Institute in the fall of 1964 even traveled to Lowndes County to help such revolutions, with the intention of getting a degree in black tenant farmers who had been evicted political science. But he quickly became because they tried to vote. individuals dissatisfied with the hypocrisy he saw On January 3, 1966, Younge was back sacrifice their among black leaders in Tuskegee. While in Tuskegee, organizing blacks to go to the blacks in Birmingham and Montgomery Macon County courthouse to register to lives." had succeeded in integrating their cities, it vote. (It was one of the two days a month seemed the well-to-do blacks in Tuskegee the registrar's office was open.) A man at - Samuel Younge Sr. were content to live with segregation and the courthouse tried to scare him with a voting abuses as long as their own pros- knife, but Younge waited until the last vot- perity was not threatened. er was registered. By the end of the day, Other students at the Insitute, who about 100 black voters had been added to had long heard the praises of Tuskegee's the rolls. racial progress, looked around them and That night, there was a party. Younge saw blacks being shut out of jobs and danced and drank for a while, then went turned away from the voter registration out to buy some cigarettes. At the local office, and black children denied the service station, he asked to use the chance to swim at a public pool in the restroom and was directed to the back of summertime. They formed the Tuskegee the station. Convinced he was being sent Institute Advancement League (TIAL) to to a "colored" bathroom, he argued for a push for stronger reforms. Sammy Younge moment with the 67-year-old attendant, became one of TIAL's most active mem- Marvin Segrest, then left. As Younge bers. He participated in boycotts which walked away from the service station, a forced businesses to hire blacks, and shot was fired. He tried to run for cover, worked in successful campaigns to inte- but the second shot struck him in the head grate local restaurants and the public pool. and killed him. Yet it was the plight of poor rural The murder touched off immediate blacks that most concerned Younge. He demonstrations. About 2,000 Tuskegee stu- had been isolated most of his life from the dents and faculty marched through down- black farmers outside Tuskegee, but now town in a steady rain the next day to he felt he had more in common with them protest the killing. They were openly

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Above. Students carried a mock casket to the White STANDARD 1 -'-\311.,P'' House to protest the killing of Sammy Younge. Below. Younge was shot to death between this bus station and the Standard Oil station at left.

angry, and they continued to express They pushed for, and won, a city ordi- their rage in demonstrations the nance banning discrimination in hotels and following week. The City Council urged restaurants. students to restore calm, but racial tensions But it was the impoverished rural mounted. blacks many of whom registered to vote Then the man who shot Sammy because of Sammy Younge who won Younge was found innocent of murder. the biggest victory. In the fall of 1966, they Marvin Segrest admitted to an all-white jury elected Lucius Amerson the first black sher- that he killed Younge, but claimed he shot iff in the South since Reconstruction, in self-defense after an argument over the despite the lack of support from Tuskegee restroom. (In fact the service station did not black leaders who felt a black sheriff could have segregated restrooms, Segrest said.) not be elected. When they heard about the verdict, Tuskegee was transformed, and Sam- the students could no longer contain their my Younge's father was satisfied that his rage. They set fires on the town square son had not died in vain. "This is an era of and threw rocks and bottles into store social revolution," said Samuel Younge Sr. windows. "In such revolutions, individuals sacrifice The threat of further violence finally their lives." forced Tuskegee's black leaders to act. REST COPYAVAILABLE

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y the time he was middle-aged, burns. Dahmer's lungs were irreparably Vernon Dahmer had overcome the scorched. handicaps of racial discrimination From his hospital bed, Vernon Dahmer and a tenth-grade education to become a said, "I've been active in trying to get peo- wealthy businessman. He owned a 200 ple to register to vote; people who don't acre commercial farm just north of Hatties- vote are deadbeats on the state. I figure a burg, as well as a sawmill and a grocery man needs to do his own thinking. What store. Blacks and whites alike had tremen- happened to us last night can happen to dous respect for Dahmer. His businesses anybody, white or black. At one time I Vernon Dahmer provided much-needed jobs for the rural didn't think so, but I have changed my 1908-1966 community, and farmers could always mind." He died shortly afterward. count on Dahmer to lend a hand at harvest time. THE COMMUNITY RESPONDS As Dahmer built his businesses and The death of Vernon Dahmer and the raised a family of eight children, he never destruction of his home and store sparked lost sight of the struggle most black Ameri- a reaction that must have surprised the cans faced. He was elected president of Klansmen for this time white officials the local NAACP and became notorious for and community leaders were genuinely urging his friends and neighbors to vote. outraged. The Hattiesburg city council set "If you don't vote, you don't count," many up a relief fund for the Dahmer family, and people heard him say. During the violent a white-owned bank made the first dona- months of 1964, when Klansmen fired into tion. Whites and blacks donated furniture, black homes and burned dozens of clothes, and materials to rebuild the Dah- churches, Dahmer sat up at night with a mer home. Local officials pledged their full Ellie and Vernon shotgun to protect his family. But he did resources to solve the crime. not stop talking about voting. White sympathy did not erase the Dahmer woke to the Members of the White Knights of Mis- anger that blacks felt after the murder and sound of gunshots sissippi, the state's most violent Klan arson. A memorial march for Dahmer near- group, kept a close eye on Dahmer. When ly exploded when demonstrators and and exploding fire- Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers spoke to the police officers got into a pushing match. bombs. Dahmer local klavern about putting a stop to civil Young activists began calling for boycotts rights activity, Vernon Dahmer's name was and pickets, raising the possibility of fur- grabbed a gun and always mentioned. At one such meeting, ther violence. However, tensions soon according to Klansmen who were there, eased when older black leaders presented went to his front Bowers said Dahmer was a 'Project 3' or a a list of grievances to city and county offi- door. While the fire `Project 4' if possible. In Klan code lan- cials, demanding equal hiring in public guage, Project 3 meant arson; Project 4 jobs and desegregation in public facilities. raged, he stood in meant murder. Wanting to maintain peace in the aftermath After the 1965 Voting Rights Act was of tragedy, the officials began to make his doorway, passed, a new sense of hope led more and reforms based on the list of grievances. inhaling the more blacks to the polls. On January 9, Dahmer's murder triggered another 1966, Dahmer made a public offer to col- unexpected response. The federal govern- burning fumes and lect poll taxes for his neighbors so they ment, which had shown reluctance in ear- wouldn't have to go to the courthouse in lier civil rights cases, reacted this time with returning gunfire town. He said on a radio broadcast that he speed and determination. President Lyn- while his family would even pay the taxes for those who don Johnson sent a telegram to Dahmer's couldn't afford it. widow Ellie, praising her husband's civil escaped. That night, Ellie and Vernon Dahmer rights activities: "His work was in the best woke to the sound of gunshots and tradition of a democracy helping his fel- exploding firebombs. Dahmer grabbed a low citizens register and vote. His family gun and went to his front door. While the can be justly proud as his work was a fine fire raged, he stood in his doorway, inhal- example of good citizenship." Johnson ing the burning fumes and returning gun- ordered an immediate FBI investigation fire while his family escaped. When it was which was to last more than two months. over, Dahmer's home and the nearby store Fourteen Klansmen were eventually were destroyed. Betty, his 10-year-old charged with arson and murder. daughter, was hospitalized with severe

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Hospitalized with severe burns, Vernon Dahmer repeated his support for black voting rights shortly before he died. Dahmer's 12-year-old son Dennis is shown here by his father's bedside.

WHITE KNIGHTS ACCUSED be sent to prison.) Billy Roy Pitts, a member of the White Lawyers for the U.S. Justice Depart- Knights in Jones County, pleaded guilty to ment, dissatisfied with the mixed verdicts the arson and agreed to testify at the trials in the Dahmer case, filed new charges of the other 2iccused Klansmen. Over and against 11 of the defendants for violating over, Pitts described how the Klansmen the 1965 Voting Rights Act. A federal jury met with Bowers, scouted out the Dahmer acquitted three of the defendants and could residence, filled plastic jugs with gasoline, reach no verdict for the remaining seven. and then fired shots into the buildings and The trials in the Dahmer case took threw the homemade bombs inside. Pitts place over several years. Although they did lost his pistol at one point during the not result in jail terms for every accused attack, but Bowers reassured him there Klansman, they exposed the brutality of the would be no problem. "He told me a jury White Knights in Mississippi. Finally, crip- would never convict a white man for pled by congressional inquiries, lengthy killing a nigger in Mississippi." FBI probes, and the conviction of Bowers, At one time Bowers would have been the most violent Klan group in the South right. But times were changing. Three fell into disarray. 0 white men Cecil Victor Sessum, Charles Clifford Wilson and William I. Smith were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Bowers and another Klans- men, Henry DeBoxtel, were freed by hung juries. (Bowers was not yet out of trouble he was convicted of federal civil rights violations in the murders of Chaney, Good- man and Schwerner and was only awaiting the outcome of his appeal before he would

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en Chester White had been a qui- began firing. He emptied one carbine pin et, familiar presence on the Carter and loaded another. This time he pointed plantation in Natchez for as long the rifle at Avants, and ordered him to as people could remember. The 67-year- shoot into White's bullet-riddled body. old caretaker was a trusted worker and a Avants fired a shotgun blast that tore apart generous friend. At a time when Mississip- White's head. The men dumped the pi was the center of civil rights turbulence, remains in a creek and burned the car. White was no threat. He never marched or demonstrated. He wasn't even registered to WHAT HAVE I DONE? Ben Chester White vote. He had no enemies, and there was A month later, Jones confessed to the 1899-1966 no reason anyone would want to harm crime and was tried for murder. He told him. the jury he was "deep in sin" and wanted Then a few members of the White to clear his conscience. He repeated Ben Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, calling them- Chester White's final cry: "Oh Lord, what selves the Cottonmouth Moccasin Gang, have I done to deserve this?" Nevertheless, decided to kill a the jury could not black man. It didn't reach a verdict and matter much who Jones was never con- they picked; the mur- victed. A separate jury der would simply be acquitted Ernest the lure for a bigger Avants. Although target Dr. Martin Avants admitted shoot- Luther King Jr. At the ing White, he argued time, King was lead- he could not be guilty Right. Hatred for blacks ing a mass march of murder since he had permeated Mississippi through Mississippi to fired into a dead body. society at all levels. It found finish a protest begun Neither Avants nor expression in atrocities such by James Meredith, Jones would agree to as the murder of Ben Chester who had been testify against Fuller, White, and in the sentiment wounded by sniper the man they both said that allowed murderers of fire earlier in the killed White, and Fuller blacks to go unpunished by march. Everywhere was never tried. white juries. King went, he was Ben Chester met by ugly crowds White's son Jesse could of angry white men. not stand to see the The Natchez Klans- killers go unpunished. men believed if they could draw King to He filed a civil suit claiming that the Klans- Natchez, they could assassinate him and men, under the orders of top White make themselves heroes among Klansmen. Knights leaders, conspired to violate the The Klansmen decided Ben Chester civil rights of his father. On November 13, White would be the lure. One of the Cot- 1968, federal Judge Harold Cox ruled tonmouth Moccasin Gang, James Jones, against the Klan, and a jury awarded more remembered gang leader Claude Fuller than $1 million in damages to White's fam- interrogating White about his views on ily. It was the first time a Klan organization integration. When Fuller asked, "Don't you was found liable for violence committed feel your children should go to school with by its members. Judge Cox said the award whites?" the quiet caretaker nodded in would "serve as a deterrent and message agreement, simply to appease the Klans- to others who may try to do similar acts." man. That was all the excuse Fuller need- The verdict gave consolation to anoth- ed. He told two other gang members, er man Edwin Benoist, the county attor- I "He's got to got rid of." ney who had tried unsuccessfully to win On June 10, 1966, James Jones, Claude murder convictions against the three Klans- Fuller and Ernest Avants picked up White men. Twenty-two years after White's at his home, pretending they needed his death, Benoist still remembered the killing help to find a lost dog. Jones drove to a as "the most atrocious murder and the secluded area where they all got out of the greatest occurrence of injustice" he had 1966 car. Fuller aimed his rifle at White and ever witnessed.

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larence Triggs was a newcomer to Throughout 1965 and 1966, blacks in Bogalusa when he joined a civil Bogalusa staged more than 100 marches rights march in early July 1966. He for equality in jobs and politics, and tried had served in the armed forces and worked to protect themselves against the continu- as a bricklayer, and had never been very ing threat of white terrorists. One protest active in the movement. When he moved ended in violence when a mob of white to Bogalusa with his wife Emma, all he had men attacked black marchers. At another in mind was his search for a job and a bet- march, white police officers beat blacks ter life. But he could not ignore the injus- indiscriminately. Clarence Triggs was one of many Clarence irriggs blacks in Bogalusa who supported the (photo unavailable) move for equality by attending the march- 1942- 1 966 es and demonstrations, but he was never considered a leader. Few people even knew who he was. Less than a month after Triggs marched alongside other protesters at a civil rights demonstration, he was found dead next to a car on the side of the road with a bullet wound in his head. Triggs' murder was never fully explained. One black leader who tried to find out what happened was turned away from the crime scene by police who were investigating. Even Emma Triggs was not Biack bcicottersWho allowed to identify her husband's body at persisted in demanding their the scene. equal rights (left) inspired Believing the police were trying to Klansmen to retaliate with cover up the murder, civil rights leaders their own brand of protest called for nightly marches until there were (below). tices he saw. arrests. Two days Triggs had come later police arrest- from Jackson, where TRADE ed two white men, HERE II4'1" Medgar Evers had lost his rS %DE Homer Richard life in the move to inte- DON'T -s Seale and John W. TRADE r,r RACE ;Yr r4 grate restaurants and HERE A Copling Jr., and MIXER. AC.c. R OWNERS OF ERS downtown businesses. In TM5 5051NES5 A! charged them with vimwarmw comparison, Bogalusa rh.t R ACE murder. Detectives was still a Jim Crow MIXERS had found their fin- town. Not only were gerprints on the blacks kept out of steering wheel and libraries and restaurants a broken Scoth because of their race, but bottle in the car they were also segregated next to Triggs' on the job. At the Crown- body. A jury delib- Zellerbach paper mill in erated less than an Bogalusa where most hour before finding people worked, black Copling innocent. employees were forced Seale was never to use separate facilities tried. and kept in low-paying The motive for jobs. Among the white Triggs' murder was workers at the mill were a large number of never revealed,and to this day, his death Ku Klux Klan members. In fact, Bogalusa remains a mystery. was believed to have more Klan members per capita than any other region of the South in the mid-1960s. 1966

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or Wharlest Jackson, getting in the had been permanently disabled by the car to go to work each day was an bombing of his own car, and he no act of courage. Jackson, 37, was longer drove. Instead, he rode to work the treasurer of the local NAACP during a with Jackson. tense period of protests and boycotts by On Monday, February 27, 1967, Met- blacks in Natchez. He worked at the Arm- calfe and Jackson were scheduled on sepa- strong Rubber Company, where many of rate shifts, so Jackson drove to work alone. the white employees were members of the He'was starting his third week on the new Ku Klux Klan. When Armstrong officials job, and he was full of energy and hope. Wharlest Jackson responded to civil rights demands by He told friends that with the 17-cents-an- 1929-1967 opening more jobs to blacks, Wharlest hour raise, "My wife and children should Jackson was offered a promotion to a have a chance now." That night, at 8:01 higher-paying job as mixer of chemicals a position previously reserved for whites. Jackson hesitated before accepting the promotion. Word had spread around the plant that blacks who were promoted to "white men's jobs" would not live to /1? "Wharlest enjoy them. These were not idle threats. Jackson had The local NAACP begun to climb out president, Jackson's friend and co-worker of the darkness into George Metcalfe, was the light, and for this almost killed when a bomb exploded in his SEGREGATION he was cut down." car. Jackson, who had worked at the plant - Roy Wilkins for 11 years, knew the SOD'S risk he was taking when he accepted the promotion. But he PLA N needed the extra money for his wife ceN ILY, 21, and five children, and 4 6 he was proud of the opportunity to help demonstrate the achievements of the civil rights movement in Natchez. Mississip- pi NAACP Field Secre- tary , who had lost his own brother to assassins, told Jackson his promotion would help p.m., Jackson punched the time clock and pave the way for others. started for home in a pouring rain. Ten George Metcalfe gave his friend a minutes later, a time-delayed bomb which word of advice when Jackson took the had been planted under the frame of his new job: always check under the hood of pickup truck went off, ripping apart the your truck before you start it. Metcalfe cab and killing Jackson.

FREE AT LAST , BEST COPYAVAILABLE 90 9 2 after a decade of FEBRUARY 27 civil rights murders. The day after Jack- son's death, he led 2,000 blacks to the gates of the Arm- strong Plant, to "put 1967 ourselves before all 4A the Kluxers and say 'You killed our brother, now kill all of us.' " And he hint- ed that the patience of many blacks was wearing thin. "Once we learn to hate, they're through," he said. "We can kill more people in a day than they've done in 100 years." He threat- ened a boycott if Armstrong officials did not fire the Klan members on its payroll. The murder and Evers' stern response spurred white officials into quick action. The Natchez Board of Alderman offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to Jackson's killers, and the Armstrong com- pany added $10,000 to the reward money. The mayor, police chief and sheriff attend- ed a black mass meeting for the first time 1. ever, assuring the community that the case would be vigorously pursued and linking arms at the end of to join in the civil rights anthem "We Shall Over- come." Mississippi Governor Paul Johnson called the bombing an "act of savagery Left. White resistance which stains the honor of our state." strengthened as civil rights National NAACP Executive Director activities intensified in Roy Wilkins praised city leaders for their Mississippi. It took great response to Jackson's death and said, courage to defy the barriers "Things have changed...throughout the of racial segregation. state of Mississippi." Nevertheless, Jackson's killers were Above. The explosion left never identified. Jackson's pickup truck in Wharlest Jackson was given a military pieces. funeral service on March 5, 1967. He had been a veteran, and his body was placed in a flag-draped casket. At the funeral, Wilkins talked about the long his- tory of racial oppression that had kept American blacks poor and powerless. He said, "Wharlest Jackson had begun to climb out of the darkness into the light, and for this he was cut down."

`ACT OF SAVAGERY' The murder of Wharlest Jackson brought sharp reactions from both blacks COPYAVAILABLE and whites in Natchez. Charles Evers, BEST instead of preaching love and forgiveness, gave voice to the bitterness that blacks felt

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en Brown was a child when the and Brown's hand was badly burned. o Montgomery bus boycott brought Threats and abuses did not dampen

, the civil rights movement into Brown's spirit for long. He began working national focus. He grew up with the spirit for the Delta Ministry, a coalition of Missis- of the movement, questioning his parents sippi church groups which worked to about the way blacks were treated and combat poverty and discrimination. Brown eager to learn about the heritage of his traveled throughout the poor Delta coun- race. ties, living on a stipend of $10 a week. He By age 16, Ben Brown was an activist. especially enjoyed working with children Benjamin Brown He marched to protest the attacks on the he told them stories of famous black 1945-1967 Freedom Riders in 1961. In 1963 he was figures, taught them games and took them among thousands who took part in a silent on field trips to the zoo. memorial march for the slain civil rights By 1966, the intense civil rights activity leader Medgar Evers. In high school, he that characterized Mississippi Freedom helped organize boycotts against discrimi- Summer had died down, and national civil natory businesses. After he graduated, he rights groups were focusing their attention went to work full time in voter registration. elsewhere. The Delta Ministry, one of the During the next four years, Brown was few homegrown civil rights groups in Mis- harassed, shot at, arrested and jailed for his sissippi, was quickly running out of funds civil rights activities. His mother, 011ie Mae and could no longer pay its workers. Brown, urged him to take his talents north Brown saw that it was time to move on in where he would be safer, but he refused. his life. In 1965, Brown was among a thou- On the day before Christmas, 1966, sand protesters who were arrested for Brown married a fellow civil rights worker, "Nobody ever picketing Mississippi's all-white state legis- Margaret Willis, and by spring they were came to me and lature. The protesters were imprisoned at a expecting their first child. Brown worked fairgrounds because the prison could not full time as a truck driver and no longer explained why went to civil rights meetings and demonstrations. To his mother's great "Nobody, no public relief, he was settling down. official or anything LYNCH STREET ever came down On May 10, 1967, violence erupted on Lynch Street, a short walk from Ben and said they were and Margaret's apartment. The trouble sorry my son was began with a student protest against city police actions on Jackson State killed." College campus. The protest grew louder, and non-students from the 011ie Mae Brown downtown area joined in. Police sealed off the street with barricades, and some protesters reacted by burning the barri- cades. The next evening, May 11, city police were joined by state highway patrol and National Guard troops who confronted the protesters with rifles and bayonets. Toward the end of the second clay of protests, Ben Brown walked with a friend into a Lynch Street cafe to pick up a sandwich to take home to Mar- garet. The cafe was full, so they started hold them. During his incarceration, clown the sidewalk toward another restau- Brown was walking through a food line rant. Ben had never believed in violent when he accidentally dropped his plate protest and he had not taken part in this into a tank of boiling water. A guard one. As he started down Lynch Street, forced him to reach in to retrieve the plate, protesters ahead of him began throwing

HEE/MAST 92 94 bricks and bottles at the line of police her case depended on information con- MAY 12 behind him. One officer was struck with a tained in the department's own investiga- piece of glass and fired his shotgun into tive records, which the police refused to the air. The protesters turned to flee as release. After nearly 20 years of trying to more policemen opened fire. win justice in the case, she was left with Ben and his friend ran when they only unanswered questions. heard the first gunshot, but Ben was struck "Nobody ever came to me and 1967 by the second round of blasts. He fell to explained why," she said. "Nobody, no the ground with shotgun wounds in the public official or anything ever came down back of his head and his lower back. A and said they were sorry my son was minister who saw the shooting started to killed." help him, but police refused to let anyone near Brown. He lay bleeding on the

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ground for 10 minutes before a National Opposite page. Ben Brown married fellow civil rights Guard medic came to his aid. It was 45 activist Margaret Willis. She was pregnant with minutes before an ambulance took him to their first child when Brown was killed. the hospital. He died early the following morning, his 22nd birthday. Above. Brown is finally carried to an ambulance, Two other black youths who were after being left bleeding on the street for 45 min- shot that night survived. No action was utes after he was shot. ever taken against the officers who fired their weapons. 011ie Mae Brown never stopped trying to find out who shot her son. Although eyewitness testimony showed Brown was not among the rioters, and police admitted it was a "wild shot" that killed him, the offi- cer who shot Brown was never identified. Mrs. Brown sued the Jackson police department for the death of her son, but 95

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lizabeth Smith earned $6.40 a day officers and sheriffs deputies. The police working as a maid for white fami- put out the fire, and some students retaliat- lies in Marion, South Carolina. She ed by throwing rocks and bottles. Students raised her four children by herself in a rebuilt the bonfire and police again shotgun house in the country, and arrived to put it out. This time someone although she could not afford "luxuries" struck a patrolman with a bannister post like indoor plumbing or an automobile, pulled from a vacant house. More objects she managed to save money for her one were thrown. A shot rang out, and stu- Samuel Ephesians great ambition to send her children to dents started to run away. Then a volley of Hammond college. shotgun blasts were fired from police into 1949 -1968 Henry was her second oldest child. the retreating crowd. When he went away to South Carolina State College in Orangeburg in the fall of THE VICTIMS 1966, Henry took with him a strong sense Henry Smith was one of the first to of family responsibility. He wrote home fall. He was shot five times in the sides frequently, and called his moth- er whenever he had a problem he needed to talk about. On the night of February 6, 1968, Henry called his mother at 2 a.m. He was frustrated and worried. Mrs. Smith listened to his description of what was happening at school, and then urged her son to pray. That night, Henry Smith was among students who Delano Herman demonstrated at a bowling Middleton alley that refused to admit blacks. They were confronted 1950 -1968 by police with night sticks, and several scuffles erupted. Two women were beaten and many others, including Smith, were injured. The attack on the women enraged Smith, and he complained to his mother that night that student efforts to achieve integration were getting nowhere. The next day, February 7, students wanted to march downtown to present a list of grievances to and back. Delano Middleton, a 17-year-old city officials, but their parade permit was high school student whose mother worked denied. Tensions ran high. That night, the as a maid at the college, was shot three bowling alley was closed and the National times in the forearm, once in the hip, and Henry Ezekial Guard was called in, but there was no vio- also in the thigh, the side of the chest, and Smith lence. the heart. Samuel Hammond, a football 1948 -1968 The next night, still barred from the player from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was bowling alley and surrounded by police, shot once in the back. Within ten seconds, students began to look for an outlet for 27 students had been struck by shotgun their anger. Henry Smith was with about fire most had multiple wounds and all 200 students who gathered around a bon- but three were hit from the rear or the fire on a campus street. They were side. Many were shot in the feet as they matched by an equal number of highway lay on the ground. patrolmen, National Guardsmen, police Samuel Hammond died less than an

FREE AT LAST 94 96 Later investigations proved that the stu- FEBRUARY 8 n dents in fact did not have guns and no one but patrolmen had fired weapons on the night of February 8. The evi- 1968 dence also showed that patrolmen shot at ran- dom into a retreating crowd there was no attacking mob. The patrolmen did not fol- low accepted riot con- trol procedures. Instead of using tear gas or less powerful ammunition against the disruptive students, the patrolmen fired deadly buckshot. Despite the evi- hour after the shooting. The stocky 18- dence, a grand jury in October 1968 failed year -old had lettered in track and football to indict the officers who fired their guns. at a newly integrated high school in Fort Six months later, the U.S. Justice Depart- Lauderdale, and had come to State College ment brought federal charges against nine with the ambition of becoming a teacher. A highway patrolmen for using excessive white high school teammate, John Bogert, force against the students. All nine were Opposite page. Firemen douse the heard about the tragedy at Orangeburg and acquitted. wrote a letter to the Fort Lauderdale paper. The Attorney General of the United bonfire built by student He remembered Hammond as a loyal States, , disputed the general protesters at South Carolina friend and mature competitor, and wrote, opinion that the officers had acted appro- State College. "This incident has caused me to take a long priately. "To use double-ought buckshot Above. Henry Smith (left) and hard look at what I believe to be true. How it's a killer shot. You use it when you're try- Delano Middleton lie wounded could I say that what Sam died for is ing to kill somebody. To think that law on the sidewalk after being shot wrong?...I can only sit here and look at the enforcement had to try to kill somebody to by highway patrolmen. news photo which was taken while I stood contain those students is to think wrongly. next to him at Lockhart Stadium and feel, That cannot be true. as another student once put it, that some- "You wonder if this had been Clemson one had killed my brother." or Amherst or Princeton or some place like Delano Middleton's mother made it to that, what the public reaction would have her son's hospital bedside in time to hear been," Clark said. him describe the "bullets...flying every- Still, state and local officials never where." Delano's main interests were acknowledged that mistakes were made in church and sports, and he had never been handling the Orangeburg protesters. involved in civil rights activities. He had Two clays after the shootings, the Jus- gone to the campus that night simply out tice Department filed suit to integrate the of curiosity. As he realized he was dying, bowling alley. State bond issues were Delano asked his mother to recite the passed later that year to make improve- Twenty-third Psalm. "The Lord is My Shep- ments at the college. A year after the herd," she began. He repeated it with her, killings, a new physical education building then he died. on campus was dedicated as the Smith The doctors thought they had a chance Hammond-Midclleton Memorial Center. A to save Henry Smith, but his wounds sud- granite marker was placed on campus to denly hemorrhaged and he passed away a honor the three students who lost their half hour after Middleton. lives "in pursuit of human dignity." And each year, Samuel Hammond, Delano Mid- KILLER SHOT dleton, and Henry Smith are honored at a The first news stories described the memorial service, as the victims of what violence on campus as a gun battle has become known as the Orangeburg between students and patrolmen. Law enforcement and government officials Massacre. immediately blamed the tragedy on black militants.

ra FRIT Al 'AST 97 REST 95 Ast@A@@ingted ° (r@aan@mcQe

hen black leaders in Montgomery major social revolution but would inspire a launched a boycott of city buses in transformation of conscience in America. December 1955, they picked an Martin Luther King's life was in danger articulate young newcomer as their from the moment his enemies recognized spokesman. Martin Luther King Jr. was the the power he held. Klansmen bombed his minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, home in Montgomery. He was attacked by the son of a prominent Atlanta preacher, fanatical white supremacists in Selma, and and a biblical scholar who received his stabbed by an angry black woman in New doctorate at age 26 from Boston University York. He spent many nights alone in jail. Martin Luther School of Theology. He received countless death threats. King Jr. King had a coolness about him when In spite of the danger, he continued to 1929 -1968 he discussed ideas and strategy, but his lead campaigns for integration in preaching could set a congregation on fire. Albany in 1962, in Birmingham in 1963, in The first night of the boycott, King spoke St. Augustine in 1964, and in Selma in to a mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist 1965. He led with an imagination and Church in Montgomery. He told the boy- strength that surprised his friends as well cotters they had truth on their side, and as his enemies. made them believe they could win the bat- In Birmingham, he wrote a letter from his jail cell answering the criticism of mod- erate clergy who thought he was demand- ing too much too soon. "For years now I have heard the words 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiar- ity. This 'wait!' has almost always meant

tle for equality. "One of the great glories of democracy is the right to protest for right," he said. King told them they were right to be tired of discrimination and injustice. "For many years, we have shown amazing patience...But we come here tonight to be 'Neverr...We have waited for more than saved from that patience that makes us 340 years for our constitutional and God- patient with anything less than freedom given rights...There comes a time when and justice." By the time King finished his the cup of endurance runs over." remarks, the boycotters were jubilant in In Selma, he issued a nationwide call the face of their challenge. for clergy to come South for the march to King's calm under pressure and his Montgomery. Within two days, hundreds transcendent rhetoric sustained the Mont- of people poured into Alabama with little gomery bus boycotters through 13 months more than the clothes on their backs, and made King the most influential figure thrilled just to be marching with Dr. King. of the entire civil rights era. Through the Through him, the doctrine of nonvio- next 13 years, he would not only lead a lence became the movement's unifying

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Left. Montgomery police take King into custody. Opposite page and below. Though he was a calm strat- philosophy. Over and over, King preached rooted in the American dream, that one egist, King became famous the difficult message of peaceful confronta- day this nation will rise up and live out the for his intense oratory. tion. Demand your rights, he urged, but true meaning of its creed we hold these love your enemies. truths to be self-evident, that all men are When the movement suffered setbacks created equal." and tragedy, like the Birmingham church His gift of rhetoric and his personal bombing and the death of Jimmie Lee Jack- strength enabled King to rise above the son, King comforted his followers by divisions that plagued civil rights groups in reminding them that "undeserved suffering the mid-60s and to withstand the criticism does not go unredeemed." Love, he of political leaders as well as the constant preached, would conquer hatred. It was King who brought the move- ment to its highest emotional peak, during the March on Washington on , 1963. "I have a dream," he told the crowd of 250,000 who gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial. "It is a dream deeply

scrutiny of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. His strong spiritual focus led King to address the issues of world peace and poverty in the years before his death. He spoke out against the Vietnam War and launched anti-poverty campaigns in Chicago and

FREE AT LAST EST COPYAVAIL 97 :7, so to,

14?

Cleveland. He had gone to Mem- phis to support a sanitation work- ers' strike for fair wages when he was assassinated. King died a hero to many peo- ple of all colors throughout the world. He provided a model for successful social change that today inspires blacks living in South Africa and people everywhere who are denied their rights. A Nobel Peace Prize winner, King asked not to be remembered for his awards but for his character. Two months before he was killed, he told a congregation in Atlanta that when he died, he wanted only for "somebody to mention that day, W' that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others." Nine years after his death, Mar- tin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The citation reads, in part: "Martin Luther King Jr. was the con- Opposite page. King delivering his "I science of his generation. A Southerner, a Have a Dream Speech" during the black man, he gazed on the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of March on Washington. love could bring it down...He helped us Top. King with his father (left), wife overcome our ignorance of one anoth- Coretta and their children. er...He made our nation stronger because Above. King leads off the last leg of he made it better... the Selma to Montgomery march. "His life informed us, his dreams sus- tain us yet."

BEST COPY MLALE 101

FREE AT LAST 99 Civil Rights Tim

Tennessee

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Arkansas 0 Alabama Colbert 0 Oxford 0 Attalla

Mississippi 0 0 Birmingham Anniston

Marion 0 0Belzoni

Georgia Philadelphia 0 Jackson o

Louisiana

0 Natchez o Liberty

0frPr_Pc_PdEPEPEPEPLEP c_Pc_Pc_P

17 MAY 1954 13 AUG 1955 22 OCT 1955

SUPREME COURT OUTLAWS SCHOOL IAMAR Shin MURDERED FOR ORGA- JOHN EARL REESESLAIN BY NIGHTRID-

SEGREGATION IN BROWN VS. BOARD OF NIZING BLACK VOTERS BROOKHAVEN, MS ERS OPPOSED TO BLACK SCHOOL

EDUCATION IMPROVEMENTS MAYFLOWER, TX 28 AUG 1955

7 MAY 1955 EMIT LOUIS 111LYOUTH MURDERED 1 DEC 1955

REV. GEORGE LEEKILLED FOR LEADING FOR SPEAKING TO WHITE WOMAN ROSA PARKS ARRESTED FOR REFUSING

VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE BELZONI, MS MONEY, MS TO GIVE UP HER SEAT ON BUS TO A

WHITE MAN MONTGOMERY, AL BEST,COPYVADLABLE

FREE AT LAST 100 102 eline

0 C-1 23 JAN 1957 9 APR 1962 The names of those WIIIIE EDWARDS JR.KILLED BY KLAN CPL ROMAN DUCKSWORTH JR. TAKEN

MONTGOMERY, AL FROM BUS AND KILLED BY POLICE who died and the TAYLORSVILLE, MS major events of the lina 29 AUG 1957 CONGRESS PASSES FIRST CIVIL RIGHTS 30 SEP 1962 movement are ACT SINCE RECONSTRUCTION RIOTS ERUPT WHEN JAMES MEREDITH, A engraved in the 0 BLACK STUDENT, ENROLLS AT OLE MISS Orangeburg 24 SEP 1957 Civil Rights Memo- PRESIDENT EISENHOWER ORDERS FED- 30 SEP 1962 rial in Montgomery, ERAL TROOPS TO ENFORCE SCHOOL PAUL GUIHARD EUROPEAN REPORTER DESEGREGATION LITTLE ROCK, AR KILLED DURING OLE MISS RIOT Alabama. OXFORD, MS 25 APR 1959 MACK CHARLES PARKER TAKEN FROM 23 APR 1963

JAIL AND LYNCHED POPLARVILLE, MS WILLIAM LEWIS MOORE SLAIN DURING

ONE-MAN MARCH AGAINST SEGREGATION

1 FEB 1960 ATTALLA, AL

BLACK STUDENTS STAGE SIT-IN AT

'WHITES ONLY' LUNCH COMER 3 MAY1963

GREENSBORO, NC BIRMINGHAM POLICE ATTACK MARCHING

CHILDREN WITH DOGS AND FIRE HOSES 5 DEC 1960

SUPREME COURT OUTLAWS SEGREGA- 11 JUN 1963

TION IN BUS TERMINALS ALABAMA GOVERNOR STANDS IN a SCHOOLHOUSE DOOR TO STOP 14 MAY 1961 UNIVERSITY INTEGRATION

FREEDOM RIDERS ATTACKED IN ALABA-

MA WHILE TESTING COMPLIANCE WITH 12 JUN. 1963 0 BUS DESEGREGATION LAWS MEDGAR EVERS CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER ASSASSINATED JACKSON, MS 25SEP 1961

5 DEC 1955 HERBERT TEEVOTER REGISTRATION 28AUG1963

MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT BEGINS WORKER KILLED BY WHITE LEGISLATOR 250,000 AMERICANS MARCH ON WASH-

LIBERTY, MS INGTON FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 13 NOV 1956

SUPREME COURT BANS SEGREGATED 1 APR 1962 15 SEP 1963

SEATING ON MONTGOMERY BUSES CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS JOIN FORCES TO ADDLE MAE COWNS DENISE MCNAIR

LAUNCH VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE CAROIE ROBERTSON CYIVIIIIA WESLEY

SCHOOLGIRLS KILIED IN BOMBING OF 161}I

ST BAPTIST CHURCHBIRMINGHAM, AL

I"% COPY PV FREE AT LAST 4: f P EST 101 I don't know what 15 SEP 1963 26 FEB 1965 10 JAN 1966 VIRGII. LAMAR WARE YOUTH KILLED JIMMIE LEE JACKSONCIVIL RIGHTS VERNON DAHMER BLACK COMMUNITY

will happen now. DURING WAVE OF RACIST VIOLENCE MARCHER KILLED BY STATE TROOPER LEADER KILLED IN KLAN BOMBING We've got some BIRMINGFM, AL MARION. AL HATTIESBURG, MS

difficult days 23 JAN 1964 7 MAR 1965 10 JUN 1966 ahead. But it POLL TAX OUTLAWED IN FEDERAL ELEC- STATE TROOPERS BEAT BACK MARCHERS BEN CHESTER WHITE KILLED BY KLAN TIONS AT EDMUND PETTUS BRIDGE SELMA, AL NATCHEZ, MS doesn't matter with me now. 31 JAN 1964 11 MAR 1965 30 JUL 1966 LOUIS ALLENWITNESS TO MURDER OF REV. JAMES REEB MARCH VOLUNTEER CLARENCE TRIGGS SLAIN BY NIGHT-

Because I've CML RIGHTS WORKER, ASSASSINATED BEATEN TO DEATH SELMA, AL RIDERS 130GALUSA, LA been to the moun- LIBERTY, MS 25 MAR 1965 27 FEB 1967 taintop...I've seen 7 APR 1964 CIVIL RIGHTS MARCH FROM SELMA TO WHARLEST JACKSONCIVIL RIGHTS the promised land. REV. BRUCE KLUNDERKILLED PROTEST- MONTGOMERY COMPLETED LEADER KILLED AFTER PROMOTION TO ING CONSTRUCTION OF SEGREGATED WHITE JOB NATCHEZ, MS I may not get SCHOOL CLEVELAND, OH 25 MAR *1965 there with you. But VIOLA GREGG LIUZZOKILLED BY KLAN 12 MAY 11967 2 MAY 1964 WHILE TRANSPORTING MARCHERS* BENJAMIN BROWN CIVIL RIGHTS I want you to know HENRY HEZFKIAH DEE CHARLES EDDIE SENA HIGHWAY, AL WORKER KILLED WHEN POLICE FIRED MOORE KILLED BY KLAN MEADVILLE, ON PROTESTERS JACKSON, MS tonight, that we, MS 2 JUN 1965 as a people will ONFAL MOORE BLACK DEPUTY KILLED 2 OCT 1967 20 JUN 1964 BY NIGHTRIDERS VARNADO, LA THURGOOD MARSHALL SWORN IN AS

get to the FREEDOM SUMMER BRINGS 1,000 YOUNG FIRST BLACK SUPREME COURT JUSTICE promised land. CML RIGHTS VOLUNTEERS TO 9 JULY 1965 MISSISSIPPI CONGRESS PASSES VOTING RIGHTS ACT 8 FEB 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. OF 1965 SAMUEL HAMMOND JR.DELANO MID- April 3, 1968 21 JUN 1964 DLETON HENRY SMITH STUDENTS Memphis, Tennessee JAMES CHANEY ANDREW GOODMAN 18 JUL 1965 KILLED WHEN HIGHWAY PATROLMEN

MICHAEL SCHWERNERCIVIL RIGHTS WILLIE WALIACE BREWSTERKILLED BY FIRED ON PROTESTERS ORANGEBURG,

WORKERS ABDUCTED AND SLAIN BY NIGHTRIDERS ANNISTON. AL SC

KLAN PHILADELPHIA, MS 20 AUG 1965 4 APR 1968

2 JUL 1964 JONATHAN DANIELS SEMINARY STUDENT DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. ASSASSI-

PRESIDENT JOHNSON SIGNS CML KILLED BY DEPUTY HAYNE\ILLE, AL NATEI) MEMPHIS, TN RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 3 JAN 1966

11 JUL 1964 SAMUEL YOUNGE JR STUDENT CML

LT. COL LEMUEL PENN KILLED BY KLAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST KILLED IN DISPUTE OVER

WHILE DRIVING NORTH COLBERT, GA WHITES-ONLY RESIROOM TUSEGEE AL

FMTATIAST 102 104 Credits

Cover photos: Martin Luther King p. 32: Ron Mc Cool/Black Star Newsphotos Jr.: Black Star; Denise McNair: p. 33: UPI/Bettmann p. 75: Charles Moore/Black Star Birmingham News; Jonathan Newsphotos p. 76 right: ©Bruce Davidson/ Daniels: UPI/Bettmann p. 34: Declan Haun/Black Star Magnum Photos Newsphotos p. 35 top: ©Eli Reed/Magnum p. 77 top: UPI/Bettmann p. 5 left: ©Bob Photos Newsphotos Adelman/Magnum Photos p. 35 bottom: ()Bruce Davidson/ p. 77 bottom: ©Bruce Davidson/ p. 4 top left: Matt Herron/Black Magnum Photos Magnum Photos Star p. 37: ©Eve Arnold/Magnum pp. 78 and 79: p. 6, 7, 8 (all photos): The Photos UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos Bettmann Archive p. 38 bottom: Bob Fitch/Black p. 80, 81, 82, 83, 85: p. 9: UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos Star UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos p. 10: UPI/Bettmann pp.40, 41 (all photos): p. 86, 87: AP/Wide World Photos Newsphotos UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos p. 88 center: Matt Herron/Black p. 11: Library of Congress p. 42: ©Bruce Davidson/ Star p. 12: UPI/Bettmann Magnum Photos p. 89 top: Billy E. Barnes/Black Newsphotos pp. 45, 46, 47 (all photos): Star p. 13: Roger Mal loch/Black Star UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos p. 89 bottom: ©/ p. 14: Flip Schulke/Black Star p. 49: ©Danny Lyon/Magnum Magnum Photos p. 15 top: Charles Moore/Black Photos p. 90 top left: AP/Wide World Star p. 50: Lee Lockwood/Black Star Photos p. 15 bottom: UPI/Bettmann p. 51: UPI/Bettmann p. 90 right: Steve Schapiro/Black Newsphotos Newsphotos Star p. 16 top; UPI/Bettmann p. 52 top left: UPI/Bettmann p. 91 top: UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos Newsphotos Newsphotos p. 16-17 bottom: Steve Schapiro/ p. 52 center: Charles p. 92: Courtesy Mrs. 011ie Mae Black Star Moore/Black Star Brown p. 17 top and right: p. 53 both photos: Flip p. 93: UPI/Bettmann UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos Schulke/Black Star Newsphotos p. 18-19: Bruce Roberts p. 54 courtesy Mary Moore p. 94 left column: Cecil J. p. 20 top and bottom: Birchard Williams UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos p. 55: ©/Magnum p. 96 top left: ©Bruce Davidson/ p. 21: ©Bruce Davidson/ Photos Magnum Photos Magnum Photos p. 56 left: Black Star p. 96 center and right: Flip p. 22, 23 (all photos): Charles p. 56 right: Flip Schulke/Black Schulke/Black Star Moore/Black Star Star p. 97 bottom left and right: Flip p. 24: ©Bob Henriques/Magnum p. 57: UPI/Bettmann Schulke/Black Star Photos Newsphotos p. 97 top: Charles Moore/Black p. 25: Fred Ward/Black Star p. 58 and 59 (four girls): Star p. 26 top: Charles Moore/Black Birmingham News p. 98: Flip Schulke/Black Star Star p. 58 right: UPI/Bettmann p. 99 top: Black Star p. 26 left: Bob Fitch/Black Star Newsphotos p. 99 bottom: UPI/Bettmann p. 27 right: Black Star p. 59 left: UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos p. 28 left: Charles Moore/Black Newsphotos p. 100: illustration by Daniel Star p. 61: Charles Moore/Black Star Armstrong, p. 28 center: C:Danny p. 63: CA3ruce Davidson/ back cover: Matt Herron/Black Lyon/Magnum Photos Magnum Photos Star p. 29: Steve Schapiro/ p. 64, 65, 66 (all photos): Black Star UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos p. 30 top: ©Bob Adelman/ p. 67 top: Steve Schapiro/Black Magnum Photos Star p. 30 right: UPI/Bettmann p. 67 bottom: Bill Reed/Black Newsphotos Star p. 31 top: UPI/Bettmann p. 68: Vernon Meritt III/Black Newsphotos Star p. 31 right: ©Bruce Davidson/ p. 69, p. 71: UPI/Bettmann Magnum Photos Newsphotos p. 31 bottom: ©Bob Adelman/ p. 72 right and 73: BEST Magnum Photos UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos p. 74: UPI/Bettmann

FREE AT LAST 103 The The Civil Rights Memorial is "a place to remember the was built in 1989 by the civil rights movement, to honor Southern Poverty Law Center those killed during the strug- as part of an ongoing effort to gle, to appreciate how far the ipp,11% Jir& educate young people about country has come in its quest $10 the civil rights movement and for equality, and to consider the continuing problems of how far it has to go." racism in America. The memorial stands a The memorial represents block from the church where what its designer calls a "col- Martin Luther King Jr. preached lective memory of history." and a few blocks from the , who also designed original White House of the the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Confederacy. in Washington, D.C., sought a The memorial was fund- design for the Civil Rights ed by the Southern Poverty Memorial which would not Law Center, a private,. nonprof- only honor movement heroes, it organization founded in 1971 but would become a vehicle to protect and advance the for education and reflection. legal rights of poor people and The memorial includes a black minorities. Since 1979, the Law granite table engraved with Center's j(lanwatch project has names of those- who died dur- monitored racist violence and ing the civil rights movement white supremacist activity as well as key events of the around the country. This maga- period. Over the table flows a zine was produced in conjunc- thin sheet of water which glis- tion with the Civil Rights ...to appreciate how tens with light and reflects the Memorial by the Law Center's far the country has image of the viewer. Teaching Tolerance project, "This is a very different and may be ordered for class- come in its quest for memorial than most traditional room use by writing to: equality, and to memorials because it deals Teaching Tolerance, The with direct, immediate relaying Southern Poverty Law Center, consider how far of historical facts," says Ms. Lin. 400 Washington Ave., it has to go. It relies on "the power of the Montgomery, AL 36104. word." The memorial plaza is also "a contemplative area," says Ms. Lin, "a cool and tran- quil place rich in the history of struggle and transformation." It AVAIL HEST COPY FREE AT LAST 1.06 104 "...UNTIL JUSTICE ROLLS DOWN LIKE WATERS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS LIKE A MIGHTY STREAM.

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