A a HISTORY of the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and THOSE WHO DIED in the STRUGGLE
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' . .. PUBLJSJ!ED BY TllE CIVJl RIGt-iTS Eoucxn oN PROJECT ' \; THE SouTJ 1ER\ PovERW LAw CENTER , .t_ ' .' ." .. ~ ' I• . ' .... } ' ' <J,' ' '" "'. ~' . ' • '• .. -,, <.... '' •' . ., " ,. '. J a A HISTORY OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND THOSE WHO DIED IN THE STRUGGLE I 1' . ' STAFF: Executive Editor: Sara Bullard Civil Rights History Editor: Julian Bond Manuscript Editors: ). Ri chard Cohen Steve Fiffer Design Director: Susan Hulme/ \Xlright One day the South In Montgome1y, Alabama, groundswell of suppon from in 1989, a memorial was built ordina1y people who had Senior Researcher: will recognize its Joseph T Roy Sr. to commemorate the achieve never before been politically real heroes. ments of the civil rights era involved. Researchers: and to honor those who died The actions of politicia Jeff Richburg -Martin Luther King Jr., in Charles Blevins "Lette r From Birmillgham City J ail" during that struggl e. A few of and judges helped speed the Ca thy Lane the victims were well known transformation that occurred Nancy Britnell Barbara Blank - Medgar Evers, Martin Luther during those 14 yea rs. But it King Jr. - but there were was the courage of people Ii Pre-Production Manager many whose names you cou ld \Xfha rlest Jackson w ho lost Betty Pmvell not find in the histo1y books: their lives in the struggle that Proofreader: John Earl Reese, Willie made that transformation Gayle Brya nt Edwards, Clarence Triggs. inevitable. Along with a histo1y of Some of these ma1tyrs 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 from a society in w hich blacks Penn, driving through Georgia were routinely excluded from on his way home from Army Published by: The Civil Rights full citizenship into one that reserve tra ining; Willie Ed uca tion Project now recognizes, if it has not Brewster, a found1y worker The Southern Poverty Law Center entirely rea lized, the equa l driving home from work ; 400 Washington Ave. rights of all citizens. Virgil Ware, a boy on a bicycle Montgome1y. AL 36104 Although civil rights activi - all were killed by members Bulk rnpie> of this magazine may he ty has been a potent force in of large Klan and neo- azi ordered at cost for cbssroom use. American political life since the organ izations w hose members by w riting 10: The Civil Rights Educa tion Abolitionists battled slave1y thought terrori zing blacks Project. 400 Washington Ave .. Montgome1y . AL 36 104 and continues in many forms would halt civil rights effo11s. today, the civil rights move But terrorism did not Copyright © by the Southern Pove11 y Law Ce nter. All rights reserved. ment w hich overturned segre break the movement. Time Printed in the Uni1ed States o f America. gation in the South during the after time, inhuman acts of vic> \lo rx 111 of 1his publication may he reproduced. stored in a re1rie\'al system. 1950s and 1960s was a unique lence only strengthened the or transmitted. in any fonn or by any phenomenon - character dedication of those whose li\'e5 means. electronic. mechanical. ized by nonviolent resistance were bound to the struggle. photcx:opying. recording. or otherwi>e. without the prior pem1ission and fueled by an enormous When Emmett Till and Mack of the publisher. Parker were lynched in Fll EE AT LAST 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Inva luable assistance and advice were given by: Steve Suitts and Marge Manderson Southern Regional Council , Atlanta, Ga. Taylor Branch, author of Pm1ing the Waters Rickey Hill, Chair, Depa11ment of Political Science, Mississippi, when fou r girls • Maybelle Mahone, a 30- unidentified teen-age boy South Carolina State College David Garrow died in a Birmingham church yea r-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 New York and author of world paid attention to the at her home in Zebulon, Black River near Canton, Bearing the Cross movement that was changing Georgia, in 1956 because she Mississippi. Several books Arlie Schardt, Editor Ame ri ca, and the na tional will "sassed" him. noted his death in passing Foundation News Juan Wtlliams, author of fo r reform grew. • Frank Morris, a 51-year because he was found wearing E)es on the Prize Those whose deaths old shoe repainnan and radio a Congress of Racial Equality Jeff Flannery Manuscript Division spurred the movement on, host, was fatally burned when T-shirt, and other documents Library of Congress 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 tiying to Ferriday, Louisiana, on Decem long summer of violence in Robert lane, Director Air University Libra1y .. 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 own acts of courage - these lence have victimized blacks seemed his name had been National Education Association Dr. Daniel T. Williams, Director are the heroes of the civil throughout histoiy, 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 l:lut they are not the only selected and lynched by the ning microfilm at the Libraiy of Study of Southern Culture at the victims of the era. There are Kl an in Mobile, Alabama. In Congress found a memo that University of Mississippi, and the Martin Luther King Center for countless others who can only 1988, neo-Nazi Ski nheads mur noted the discoveiy of a body Nonviolent Social Change be characterized as victims of dered an Ethiopian man in - a 14-year-old boy, wearing in Atlanta. random, senseless racism - Members of the Civil Rights Portland , Oregon, simply a CORE T-shirt, found in the Memorial Advisory rdcism so perverse it all owed because he was black. Big Black River. His name was Committee \\'hires to murder blacks for lit The research for the Civil Herbert Oarsby. tle or no reason: Rights Memorial was conduct The full stoiy of Herbert • Cli nton 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 be known. There SPECIAL THANKS: by a white man who objected archives, Libraiy 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 • LC. Baldwin , a 79-yea r right5 organizations, as well as identified, and many victims ing the movement, for provid old n11 ·n1 ·s ter, was leading a ing us with valuable leners, numerous personal interviews whose names have been lost. photogra phs, documents and cow along a roadside in and hundreds of letters solicit This book is dedicated to remembra nces. Huntsville, Alabama , in the ing information. the memoiy of Herbert Oarsby spring of 1956 when a young From time to time during and the unknown martyrs of White h man t rew a 10-pound that research, a glimpse of a the civil rights movement. stone fro . m a passing car "as a stoiy kept appearing, in vari Pr<1 nk ," kill ing Baldwin. ous forms, of the death of an FHEE AT LAST 111...... ____ ~~~~~~~~3~~~~~~~~~~ ~- 2 PREFACE 6 PART 1/ EARLY STRUGGLES From, the time they were first brought to this country as slaves, blacks chal lenged America to live up to its proniise qf democracy. 12 PART 2/AMOVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE With the Montgome1y bus boycott and the Little Rock school crisis, the Civil Rights Movement was horn . 18 PART 3/CONFRONTATIONS Freedom riders were beaten and civil rights marchers were attacked by police dogs andjzre hoses, hut the movement only grew stronger FREE AT LAST 4 26 PART 4/ FIGHTING FOR THE 3 6 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 Louis Till 40 tion procedures to win voting rights j ohn Earl Reese 42 \'(ii/lie Edwards Jr. 44 for blacks. Mack Charles Parker 46 Herbert Lee & Louis Allen 48 Cpl. Roman Duckswo11h Jr. 50 Paul Guihard 52 32 PART 5/ DAYSOFRAGE William Lewis Moore 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 Robe11son, & Cynth ia Weslt:Y 58 struggle for equality. Virgil Lamar Ware 60 Rev. Bruce Klunder 62 Heniy Hezekiah Dee & Charles Eddie Moore 64 James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, & Michael Schwerner 66 LI. Col. Lemuel Penn 70 Jimmie Lee Jackson 72 Rev. }a mes Reeb 74 Viola Gregg Liuzza 76 Oneal Moore 78 Willie Wallace Brewster 80 j onathcm Daniels 82 Samuel Younge Jr. 84 Vernon Dahmer 86 Ben Chester White 88 Clarence Triggs 89 Wharlest Jackson 90 Be1~jamin Brown 92 SEGREGR')a Samuel Hammond fr.