“WE DON'T WANT ANOTHER BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT!”: AN INQUIRY INTO THE DESIRE FOR NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS BY COMPARING HOW PEOPLE PERCEIVED BOTH THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT VERSUS THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT
Isaiah Hicks
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
May 2020
Committee:
Tyler DeWayne Moore, Advisor
Thomas Edge © 2020
Isaiah Hicks
All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT
Tyler Dewayne Moore
The Civil Rights Era of the 1960s has helped America transcend and grow above its racist past, at least that is what we have been led to believe. However, the past decade has made it all too clear that there is still a deep racial divide within America. Tragic events such as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown’s death, and the details that surrounded them, were heavily polarized topics that made clear America’s racial divide. Those events also spawned a new movement, the Black
Lives Matter Movement, which draws heavily from its predecessors of the past. Due to the current memory of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter and its supporters, have and continue to fight an uphill battle against the national media, which has attempted to denounce the new movement and portray it as contrary to American values, much like they have portrayed groups associated with the Black Power Movement. This study explores how people perceived the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement and examines whether that has any relationship with how other movements such as the Black Lives Matter Movement are perceived.
Although there is a vast amount of literature covering the Civil Rights Movement and the Black
Power Movements, individually and collectively, there is not a lot of work that examines them both as part of the continuous Black Freedom Movement. Due to popular memory of the Civil
Rights Movement, new developing movements have been grossly distorted to ensure the failure and public denial of subsequent movements meant to validate the continuance and longevity of the Black Freedom Movement. This thesis will argue that Black Lives Matter is proof that the
Black Freedom Movement is continuous, and is ongoing today. Catastrophic events such as
Trayvon Martin’s and Michael Brown’s death acted as a rallying point for many Blacks to become involved in the new movement, much like Emmitt Till’s death acted as a catalyst for the
Civil Rights Movement. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to offer my most sincere gratitude towards my thesis committee,
Dr. Tyler Dewayne Moore and Dr. Thomas Edge. Both stepped in and offered an immense amount of assistance, constantly standing by my side and guiding me through this thesis process and for that I am grateful. I would also like to recognize the invaluable assistance that Dr.
Benjamin Greene, Dr. Nicole Jackson, and Travis Wright provided during my study. Dr.
Benjamin Greene offered an immense amount of morale support and helped me to stay on track throughout this process. Dr. Nicole Jackson provided rich and fruitful critique which at the time may have been the last thing that I wanted to hear but in the end helped me to produce this work, and for that I am truly grateful. I would also like to thank Travis Wright for peer editing my thesis when I was stressed out about not being able to submit on time. I am also indebted to
Maureen Barry who assisted me in accessing a number of primary and secondary sources that assisted me in my research. Without her assistance none of this would be possible. My deepest gratitude also goes out to Toledo activist, Brother Washington Muhammad who not only gave me an interview offering me firsthand insight into much of my research but opened my eyes do a different perspective as well and for that I am thankful. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to my fiancé, Maria. Without her constant support and encouraging words, I would have drowned in the stressful process known as thesis writing. She also proved to be an excellent peer editor when I often felt I could make no more changes to my work and for that I am thankful. I would also like to thank my parents and my siblings, the Hicks family, for not only listening to my worries and fears but also encouraging me and keeping me on track throughout this entire process. I would also like to thank my cohort members for the comradery, support and constant advice on improvements. All of these people played a role in helping me to complete this thesis and for that I am eternally grateful. vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………..... 1
CHAPTER I. THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT: THE CIVIL RIGHTS AND BLACK
POWER MOVEMENTS… ...... …………………… 16
Media Portrayal of the Civil Rights Movement in the South ...... 22
Media Portrayal of the Civil Rights Movement in the North and West ...... 48
Black Power ...... 54
Civil Unrest ...... 60
CHAPTER II. BLACK LIVES MATTER ………………………………………………… 71
How Black Lives Matter Came to Be………...... …………………………………. 74
Media and Black Lives Matter ...... 85
Comparing Black Lives Matter to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements .. 91
The Influence of the President on the Movement...... 105
CHAPTER III. POPULAR MEMORY………………… ...... ……. 119
Media’s Influence on Popular Memory …………………………………………….. 121
Popular Memory of the Civil Rights Movement……………………………………. 123
Popular Memory of the Black Power Movement……….……………………………127
Ongoing Fallout from the Civil Rights Movement’s Success ………………..……...129
What will the Popular Memory of Black Lives Matter Be?………………………….136
CONCLUSION……………………………………………...... ………………….. 142
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………….………………………………. 150 1
INTRODUCTION
On August 26, 2016, in a packed stadium with thousands also watching at home, Black
quarterback Colin Kaepernick for the San Francisco 49ers decided to make a bold political
statement by sitting during the national anthem. When asked why he sat during the anthem,
Kaepernick responded, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that
oppresses black people and people of color.”1 Although the National Football League initially
tolerated Kaepernick’s protest, saying, “Players are encouraged but not required to stand during
the playing of the national anthem,” the general public’s response came to define its more critical
position.2 Kaepernick’s actions, and the statement that followed, infuriated many Americans who
believed them un-American and disrespectful to the American flag. The backlash impelled
Kaepernick to meet with Nate Boyer, a U.S. Army Veteran and former NFL long snapper, who
inspired him to kneel—rather than sitting—during the anthem as a sign of respect for the
military.3 After he kneeled at a game against the San Diego Chargers on September 1, the crowd
in attendance showered Kaepernick with boos throughout the entire game. He responded to the
critics, “Once again, I’m not anti-American. I love America. I love people. That’s why I’m doing
this. I want to help make America better.”4
Kaepernick’s message captured the hearts of individuals across the world. Not only did
many of his fellow football players begin imitate his protest, but soon professional basketball
players in the NBA and WNBA did too. United States Women’s national soccer team star Megan
1 Victor Mather, “A Timeline of Colin Kaepernick vs. the N.F.L.” (The New York Times, February 15, 2019). 2 Ibid 3 Matthew Impelli, “A Timeline of Colin Kaepernick’s Kneeling in Protest to His Upcoming Workout for NFL Teams.” (Newsweek, November 14, 2019). 4 Victor Mather, “A Timeline of Colin Kaepernick vs. the N.F.L.” (The New York Times, February 15, 2019). 2
Rapinoe even imitated him during a national match. 5 The following year Kaepernick opted out of his contract, hoping to obtain better pay, but the 49ers did not resign him. Other NFL teams also did not sign him; he eventually filed a grievance against the NFL, arguing that his protest was the reason that he remained unsigned.6 Despite the fact that Kapernick was unsigned and not playing, protests continued by players throughout the sports world.
In 2017, President of the United States Donald Trp criticized the NFL for allowing the protests, declaring that protesters who did not stand for the anthem should be fired.7 Taking to
Twitter a number of times, the President lashed out at Kaepernick and his supporters. His efforts to stifle Black voices deepened the racial divide in America. As a result of Trump’s hyperbolic public statements, the NFL team owners ruled that players could no longer kneel during the national anthem. Players who wished to protest had to remain in the locker room instead, or face punishment from the League.8 Many of the team owners believed this new policy would bring a return to normalcy, but the president made an even more bombastic statement, “I don’t believe the players should be staying in the locker room in protest. If a player is not standing for the national anthem, maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”9 Despite the statements of the president and the NFL’s new policy, a handful of athletes continued to protest.
For many everyday Black People in America, Kaepernick’s protest provided further evidence that no matter your position in life Black people did not have an equal chance of being
5 Victor Mather, “A Timeline of Colin Kaepernick vs. the N.F.L.” (The New York Times, February 15, 2019). 6 Ibid 7 Ibid 8 Ibid 9 Ibid 3 treated fairly in America. It was further proof that an establishment that endangered the lives of the citizens it was meant to protect needed an overhaul. For many everyday White Americans,
Colin Kaepernick was a nuisance, who disrespected the American flag and exacerbated racial tensions that had been resolved long ago. Many Americans believed the nation had overcome issues of racial discrimination in the 1960s. Tragic events, such as the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and the election of the first African American president, Barack Obama, had seemingly united all
Americans regardless of race, color, and creed.
The United States, however, had not achieved racial equality, or become an egalitarian utopia. The decade of the 2010s made it all too clear. In fact, the nation’s deep and unresolved racial issues manifested in almost all aspects of life. The murder of Trayvon Martin, for example, triggered civil unrest across the country. According to his mother, Sabrina Fulton, “His is the story of a life cut tragically short, but it’s also the story of a boy who in death became a symbol, a beacon, and a mirror which a whole nation came to see its reflection.”10 Trayvon Martin’s death, and the acquittal of his murderer George Zimmerman, inspired both celebrations and protests, deepening the racial divide and inspiring many people of color to bring more attention to the multitude of incidents that they felt were discriminatory and unlawful. Over the next few years a number of police shootings of Black citizens and excessive force cases prompted the creation of #BlackLivesMatter, a twitter based social movement to bring awareness to the inequalities that Black people faced on a day-to-day basis. Soon, the hashtag movement evolved into a large scale social movement. Black Lives Matter garnered the support of many, especially younger Black people who decried continuing racial inequality.
10 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018), ix-x. 4
Intense resistance and condemnation mitigated the success of the movement for Black
Lives, which, like many other movements for racial equality, had to deal with critics, many of whom denounced the movement for either moral or tactical reasons. Massive resistance had limited the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, and it made it hard for the movement for Black Lives to achieve its goals. Just as the continued devaluation of Black lives demonstrates that racial inequality continues to exist in America, my thesis seeks to link the present struggles of African Americans to the struggles of the past.
Colin Kaepernick was not the only athlete to take action. At the 1968 Olympic Games in
Mexico City, John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists in protest during the medal ceremony, giving the “Black Power salute” during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner.
Prior to the actual protest, the athletes actually planned for a larger boycott of the Olympics. The boycott effort and larger movement began in the fall of 1967 when Smith revealed to a reporter that he was open to the possibility of an Olympic boycott.11 Smith and other African American athletes from his home university of San Jose State reached out to other elite athletes with hopes to build support for a boycott. In New York, activists from all across the Civil Rights spectrum such as Martin Luther King Jr., H. Rap Brown, and Louie Lomax spoke in support of a list of demands for racial justice within the athletic establishment.12 Actively engaged early on, they established workshops on athletic activism in Los Angeles, created pamphlets, sent out telephone calls and mailings all over the country, and had a national press conference in New York City in
11 Douglas Hartmann, “The Olympic ‘Revolt’ of 1968 and Its Lessons for Contemporary African American Athletic Activism.” (European Journal of American Studies 14, no. 1, March 29, 2019), 3. 12 Ibid 5
December of 1967.13 Although a boycott never actually took place, the athlete activists were extremely active and nationally visible in the months leading up to the Olympic games. “There have been a lot of marches, protests, and sit-ins on the situation of the Negro ostracism in the
U.S,” exclaimed Tommie Smith. “I don’t think this boycott of the Olympics will stop the problem, but I think people will see that we will not sit on our haunches and take this sort of stuff. Our goal would not be just to improve conditions for ourselves and our teammates but to improve things for the entire Negro community.”14
Like the protests of Colin Kapernick, the protest of Carlos and Smith was not met with unanimous praise. It provoked national and international outrage. White sportswriters and reporters across the country condemned the boycott initiative and all athletically-based protest almost universally from the beginning. The President of the International Olympic Committee
Avery Brundage as well as U.S. Olympic legend Jessie Owens also criticized the actions of
Carlos and Smith.15 Despite the backlash, and the cancellation of the initial boycott movement,
Tommie Smith and a few others were compelled to display their unity with African Americans struggling back home. “I decided to wear articles [clothing] that represented why I must do what happened on that victory stand,” Smith later described of his rationale during the protest. “The
Black socks represented poverty. The right hand in the air with the black glove represents power and tranquility—as much as I could muster at that particular time. Of course, the head bow was a prayer. It was a prayer of hope, a prayer of saneness. The prayer of equality, all prayers. You send the right prayer you will get an answer.”16 International television broadcast the impromptu
13 Douglas Hartmann, “The Olympic ‘Revolt’ of 1968 and Its Lessons for Contemporary African American Athletic Activism.” (European Journal of American Studies 14, no. 1, March 29, 2019), 3. 14 Ibid, 4. 15 Ibid 16 Jill Martin and Alvin Whitney. “Tommie Smith, in His Own Words.” (CNN. August 18, 2016). 6 protest only briefly, but it has become a symbol of the Black freedom struggle in America. In the aftermath, Smith and his companions were seen as radicals and militants, ungrateful traitors who did not respect the place of sports in society.17 According to Douglas Hartmann, “The Olympic activism of 1968 is often understood or remembered for its condemnation of prejudice and discrimination in the athletic arena, but in reality, it was much bigger than that. The primary goals of the planned boycott and the protests were about using the prominence of African
American athletes to call attention to societal racism more generally in service of the larger movement for racial justice.”18
The Civil Rights Movement has been romanticized in the national media and newspapers as successful and over, and largely limited to the South. This, however, is only a portion of the story. The Black Freedom Movement, which involved the Civil Rights Movement and the Black
Power Movement, use different mediums and methods of protest to fight racial inequality all over the country. By centering the narrative of civil rights on southern struggles, the United
States champions itself as a righteous nation on the side of freedom and justice whilst simultaneously framing the Civil Rights Movement as the sole movement responsible for bringing about such drastic changes. Today, the national mythology of the Civil Rights
Movement is used to push personal and political agendas, while day after day more people forget the true nature of the struggle. It leaves out essential components of the movement such as its grassroots nature, the various organizations, the diversity of strategy and tactics, and the importance of armed self-defense. Due to the national mythology of the Civil Rights Movement,
17 Douglas Hartmann, “The Olympic ‘Revolt’ of 1968 and Its Lessons for Contemporary African American Athletic Activism.” (European Journal of American Studies 14, no. 1, March 29, 2019), 5. 18 Ibid 7 more contemporary movements for racial equality are often held up in comparison to its romanticized ideals. As noted in the aforementioned examples, people such as John Carlos,
Tommie Smith, and Colin Kaepernick are just a few individuals who recognized the longevity of the Black Freedom Movement and felt it was their duty to use their platform to make a difference. Carlos and Smith used their international platform at the Olympics to inform the world that life was not fine for African Americans. Kaepernick used his national platform to let the world know that America continued to devalue the lives of African American. The American media largely vilified each of them, painting them as troublemakers in an otherwise reconstructed society. Considering that massive resistance continues to prevent us from achieving the goals of the Civil Rights Movement, my thesis asserts that the movement for Black
Lives exposes how the national myth of the Civil Rights Movement continues to inhibit the struggle for racial equality
The Civil Rights Movement was a social, grassroots movement, meaning that everyday citizens were involved in all aspects of the movement. It sought to establish social justice and enforce the rights for people of color. For some reason, the main narrative told today speaks of the Civil Rights Movement as a singular struggle led by one leader, or a small cohort of leaders, when in reality that was not actually the case. Joining a growing number of scholars writing about this, I wish to add to the literature dealing with the temporal and geographical expansion of the Black Freedom Movement. Within my thesis, the movement itself will be examined in all of its facets and intricacies. While Black people have fought for civil rights for hundreds of years, the period identified as the Black Freedom Movement did not begin until the early 1900s. The consensus among many historians is that the Civil Rights Movement began in 1954 and lasted until 1968. Early works from scholars such as Taylor Branch and David Garrow examine the 8
movement, intensely analyzing figures like King. Alternatively, according to Charles Payne, “the
well-known movement of the early 60s was predicated on the activism of an earlier, entirely
invisible generation.”19 Payne and other historians like him believe that the Civil Rights
Movement did not just begin in the mid-1950s but was established on a longer movement, the
broader Black Freedom Movement which began much earlier. Prior works covering the
“invisible generation” are written by authors such as Historians John Edgerton, Harvard Sitkoff,
Robber Norrell, Robert Korstad, and Nelson Lichtenstein. Edgerton believed that World War II
presented an opportunity for America to address its racial past and enact social changes but they
did not truly take advantage of the opportunity.20 Sitkoff believed the Great Depression acted as an indicator to Blacks that things needed to change.21 Norrell argues that it was not “a few
tantalizing moments of protest, but a widespread, if not yet mature, struggle to overthrow
segregation and institutionalized racism.”22 Korstad and Lichtenstein place the start of the
movement at the beginning labor radicalization in the early 1940s. “When the social structure of
Black America took on an increasingly urban, proletarian character.”23 Granted, I will not be
analyzing the entirety of the Black Freedom Movement, but that does not take away from the
impact of the earlier, lesser-known part of the movement. Instead, I will limit my scope of the
Black Freedom Movement from 1954 to 1970, for a variety of reasons. For one, I wish to
examine and debunk the common assumption that the Black Freedom Movement started and
ended with the successes of the Civil Rights Movement. Much like Historian Clayborne Carson,
19 Charles M. Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 4. 20 John Edgerton, Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation before The Civil Rights Movement in the South, (New York: Knompf,1994),10. 21 Adam Fairclough, “Historians and the Civil Rights Movement” Journal of American Studies, vol. 24, no. 3, Dec. 1990, 387. 22 Ibid 23 Ibid 9 who argued, “The Civil Rights Movement died during the mid-1960s replaced by the Black
Power Movement with different goals.”24 Scholars such as William L. Van DeBurg, Komozi
Woodard, Michael Eric Dyson, Jama Lazerow, and Yohuru Williams study the Black Power
Movement as offering important developments, rather than counterproductive efforts that opposed the true spirit of the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement.25 Building off of these scholars,
I argue that the Black Freedom Movement is a continuous one, with its most recent edition being that of Black Lives Matter. The Civil Rights Movement started in 1954 and achieved success after the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but the Black Power
Movement also served an important role in strengthening the rights of Black people. When remembering the Black Power Movement, the national media portrays it as a militaristic, nationalistic movement with a devious intent. The first chapter will analyze both the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements, specifically examining how they were portrayed by the national media and the effects media portrayal has had on public memory. There are a number of key events examined that took place during the time period. The analysis of the events will provide understanding in how the movement was portrayed and received. I will also analyze the dynamic nature of both movements, including the different organizations and groups that comprised the movements as well as the varying stances and viewpoints that they had. In doing so, I will demonstrate how the Black Freedom Movement has been a continuous one. Building off of the literature of Jeanne Theoharis who argues that the Civil Rights Movement has “been misrepresented for political reasons,” I argue that The Civil Rights Movement has been
24 Adam Fairclough, “Historians and the Civil Rights Movement” Journal of American Studies, vol. 24, no. 3, Dec. 1990, 388. 25 T. Dewayne Moore, “Historiography of the Black Freedom Struggle,” (Accessed February 5, 2020). 1-32 10 misrepresented for political reasons in order to ensure the failure and public denial of subsequent movements meant to continue the Black Freedom Movement.26
With the Black Freedom Movement being a continuous one, I claim that Black Lives
Matter is a developing movement that uses the framework of both the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement to achieve goals that were addressed during the prior movements but yielded little substantial success. For example, the Civil Rights Movement ensured the enforcement of Civil Rights and Voting Rights for Blacks, the Black Power
Movement gave Black people the urgency to get involved and take office, Black Lives Matter seeks to make lasting changes to the criminal justice system which is directly oppressing Blacks from exercising the rights won in the first two movements.27 Black Lives Matter evolved from a twitter hashtag to a certified movement. As noted on their official web page, their mission is “to build local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.”28 In my analyzation of the movement I will limit my scope from 2012 to 2018. My reasoning is multifold. For one reason, I plan on examining the correlation between having a
Black president in office but also having a movement established on the premise that Black people are not treated equally across America. I will also examine a number of key events, to determine what provoked the movement.
Building upon prominent literature such as Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of
American Democracy by Mary Dudziak, and Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside
26 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), ix. 27 Barbara Ransby, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-first Century, (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018), 8. 28 Black Lives Matter. “What We Believe.” Accessed January 30, 2020. https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we- believe/. 11 the South by Komozi Woodard and Jeanne Theoharis, the first chapter breaks down the traditional narrative that the movement is limited strictly to the South and had the full support of the United States government throughout the entirety of the movement. To truly explore the evolution of both movements and how people remember them, the first chapter examines each, looking at how they are perceived during their time, in the 1960s and early 70s. An examination of the historiography of the Civil Rights Movement, with a timeline of crucial events that played an important part in the progression of civil rights, provides context as to how people’s perception of the movement changed. Important literature such as The Race Beat: The Press, the
Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff address the American media’s dilemma in covering the Civil Rights Movement. “The mainstream American press wrote about whites but seldom about Negro Americans or discrimination against them; that was left to the Negro press.”29 Whereas Timothy B. Tyson’s
The Blood of Emmett Till attempts to rectify how people remember such an infamous event while simultaneously providing an examination of how the media portrayed different moments of the movement. Both works offer insight into the holes of how the Civil Rights Movement was covered and is remembered. Literature by historians such as Peniel E. Joseph, Hasan Kwame
Jeffries, Jeanne Theoharis, and Komozi Woodard provide valuable insight on the dissent between the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement but also shows how they worked together to fight greater injustices. Several firsthand accounts will also be examined to better gauge people’s reaction to the movement, on the national and local level.
29 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 4. 12
The second chapter analyzes the Black Lives Matter Movement whilst simultaneously comparing it to the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. Literature such as A
More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Jeanne
Theoharis and Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon by Jane
Rhodes provide a thorough analysis of how each movement is remembered, focusing specifically on how it was remembered when it took place versus the events remembered today. Theoharis’ work provides a good starting point in the comparison of the Civil Rights movement versus the
Black Lives Matter Movement, seeing as how she argues that the Civil Rights Movement is remembered differently than what truly took place. Rhodes’ contextualizes the similarities between the Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter in her work, which aids my argument that
Black Lives Matter borrows from both movements. To compare the Civil Rights and Black
Power Movements to Black Lives Matter calls for a breakdown of the movement. Chapter two also provides a dissection of the origins of the Black Lives Matter Movement, including the different factions, organizations, and leaders of the movement. A timeline of events that triggered the growth and development of the movement will also be utilized; perfectly transitioning into the public’s response to the movement. While relatively new, works by activists and historians like Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Asha
Bandele, Wesley Lowery, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Barbary Ranbsy explain how Black
Lives Matter came to be and what helped it grow. This literature also provides insight into the type of people joining this new social movement and their reasons for joining. Many of those people argue that they protest for similar reasons as the Civil Rights pioneers of old, however many of those same acclaimed Civil Rights activists see little to no correlation between the movements. A correlation between both movements is examined to determine whether they are 13 more alike than different. While many scholars, like Frederick Harris and Titilayo Rasaki, believe there are similarities between both movements, some, like Dewey M. Clayton, argue that despite their similarities the movements are fundamentally different. I dispute that claim, arguing instead that there are many similarities, as well as differences, between the Civil Rights
Movement and the Black Lives Matter movement because Black Lives Matter follows similar framework as the Civil Rights movement. I claim the same for the Black Power Movement when it comes to Black Lives Matter following similar framework. I concur that, although they are different movements, Black Lives Matter acknowledges and accepts the challenge of building upon the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement, and in many places hopes to further their successes.
The third chapter explores popular memory and how it affects how people remember each movement. With the Civil Rights movement taking place over fifty years ago, public memory of the social movement and its participants has evolved drastically. According to Jeanne
Theoharis, “By 1987, 76 percent of Americans held a favorable opinion of the civil rights leader
[MLK], almost the reverse of his popularity at the end of his life (only 28 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of him in 1966).”30 Many historians believe popular memory of events is affected by contention in politics and contemporary issues. Historian David Blight argues,,
“The historical memory of any transforming or controversial event emerges from cultural and political competition, from the choice to confront the past and to debate and manipulate its meaning.”31 Contemporary work by historians Renee Romano and Leigh Raiford provides a
30 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), ix. 31 David W. Blight, “‘For Something beyond the Battlefield’: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War.” (The Journal of American History 75, no. 4, March 1989), 1159. 14
more nuanced analysis of public memory of the Civil Rights movement, arguing that the
memorialization of the Civil Rights movement has become a political tool.32 Chapter three will search for reasons that popular memory for the Civil Rights Movement has changed over time and whether that has any effect on subsequent movements. Literature on public memory such as
The Civil Rights Movement and the Politics of Memory by Randall Kennedy serves as a useful
resource to base the analysis of the Civil Rights Movement around public memory. Jane Rhodes’
Framing the Black Panthers, also helps to inform how public memory remembers groups and
organizations under the Black Power Movement. I argue that the public widely overlooks other
portions of the Black Freedom Movement due to public memory of the Civil Rights Movement
being altered in such a way that following social movements have to live up to the expectations
of the Civil Rights Movement. Living up to it has been framed to be an impossible task, making
it much harder for social movements to succeed in the future.
The overarching goal of this thesis is to address those aforementioned questions by
building upon the historiography of the continuous Black Freedom Movement, prospectively in
each chapter. With Jeanne Theoharis being one of the most recent historians indicating the gap in
historical coverage she made note of the fact that, “While recent uprisings in Ferguson,
Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Baltimore have prompted much important reporting on the nature of
injustice in law enforcement, municipal policy, and the court system in these places, few stories
have focused on the groups and organizers in these cities that have highlighted problems for
years. Much like after the Watts and Detroit uprisings, journalists today have not forced city
leaders and citizens to grapple with the reasons why these movements and the issues they amply
32 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), xvii. 15 highlighted for years have been neglected for so long.”33 My aim is to explore why the events such as Ferguson happened and why White citizens and the media rushed to denounce these actions. I will address a few of the leaders and organizers who have been fighting the fight prior to Ferguson, albeit vaguely. I argue that Black Lives Matter is proof that the Black Freedom
Movement is continuous, and is ongoing today. Catastrophic events such as Trayvon Martin’s and Michael Brown’s death acted as a rallying point for many Blacks to become involved in the new movement, much like Emmitt Till’s death acted as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.
Due to the current memory of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter and its supporters, have and continue to fight an uphill battle against the national media, which has attempted to denounce the new movement and portray it as contrary to American values, much like they have portrayed groups associated with the Black Power Movement. Through an in-depth analysis and upon going through a number of primary sources, there is sufficient evidence to support my argument and conclusion. Hopefully, this thesis provides a refreshing and enlightening insight to such a polarizing but important, contemporary topic.
33 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), 82. 16
CHAPTER I. THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT: THE CIVIL RIGHTS AND BLACK POWER MOVEMENTS
Today the Civil Rights is agreed, by many scholars, to be an important, defining moment in U.S. history. Whereas during and right after the movement the opposite could be said. During the time period that the Civil Rights Movement took place, there were a number of other social movements that also took place with similar goals in mind. Albeit, when it comes to remembering successful social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the everyday American citizen will most likely cite the Civil Rights Movement as being the main movement. In all truthfulness the Civil Rights Movement, like many other social movements of the time, fell under the umbrella of the Black Freedom Movement. According to Historian Hasan Kwame
Jeffries, “The Black Freedom Movement is a distinct era in the African American struggle for civil and human rights that began in the mid-1940s with a surge in public protest and ended in the mid-1970s with a shift in emphasis toward electoral politics.”34 He believes that the Black
Freedom movement includes two of the most prolific and unique periods of Black activism. “The first is the civil rights movement, which resulted in the elimination of Jim Crow laws in the
South and the upending of Jim Crow customs in the North. The second is the Black Power movement, which not only expanded on the gains of the Civil Rights movement but also elevated
African American racial consciousness, forever changing what it meant to be Black,” Jefferies continued.35 Despite the fact that two, rather large and important movements fall under the Black
Freedom Movement umbrella, only one is remembered in a favorable light and considered successful amongst the general public. That makes one question what aspects about the Civil
34 Hasan Kwame Jeffries. “Black Freedom Movement.” (Keywords for African American Studies. New York: New York University Press, 2015), 22. 35 Ibid 17
Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement did the general populous support and
criticize, and what changed to where people now overwhelmingly support the Civil Rights
Movement and universally criticize the Black Power Movement. The easy answer would be that
a narrative of the Civil Rights Movement was written and generally accepted by the public, but
that leaves one wondering why the narrative was re-written to exclude the Black Power
Movement. To explain why the narrative was re-written and told how it was, one has to
understand how people reacted to both movements in the moment.
Throughout most of the 20th century, civil rights for Blacks were denied and ignored. In
fact, many of the leaders, groups, and organizations were labeled as “communists” or home-
grown spies for the Soviets, whom the United States was embroiled in a decades long battle for
hearts and minds across the globe. According to Mary Dudziak, “Civil rights groups had to walk
a fine line, making it clear that their reform efforts were meant to fill out the contours of
American democracy, and not to challenge or undermine it.”36 Many of these well-known groups
and leaders were subjected to ostracism and criticism from their fellow countrymen and peers
and their public stances on social life in America was devalued and discredited. Several scholars,
such as Dudziak, argue that the United States government did not take seriously the idea of civil
rights for Black people until its adversary, the U.S.S.R., started publicizing across the globe how
America claimed to represent democracy and freedom and equality for all but if you looked in
their own backyard they were treating Black people as second-class citizens. “The focus of
American foreign policy was to promote democracy and to “contain” communism, but the
international focus on U.S. racial problems meant that the image of American democracy was
36 Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy; with a New Preface, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 11. 18
tarnished.”37 The Soviets spread propaganda on tragic events that took place in America such as the death of Emmitt Till or the Little Rock Crisis. Bad enough on their own, the events painted the United States in a bad light but on the international stage they looked even worse so they began to move to counter those views. According to Mary Dudziak, “United States government officials realized that their ability to promote democracy among people of color around the world was seriously hampered by continuing racial injustice at home.”38 The United States began to
pass legislation and rule on cases in favor of Black people, such as the famous Brown v. Board
case. “By silencing certain voices and by promoting a particular vision of racial justice, the Cold
War led to a narrowing of acceptable civil rights discourse,” insists Dudziak.39 You begin to see
the transition of people who were once cast as “traitors” and “communists,” as heroes and
activists, although some of the individuals would still be watched by the federal government. It
was because of the efforts of early civil rights pioneers that the United States government was
swayed to intervene on behalf of the Black community.
When the United States government finally began to listen to the Black man’s plea for
equality, it did so by scapegoating southern Whites. The reason they did this is multifold. For
one the United States, as an entity, could not be portrayed as the villain, especially when it was
trying to portray itself throughout the world as a flawless nation. The United States also
attempted to directly address the issue which had been represented in the media, while at the
same time maintaining the status quo throughout the rest of the country. By framing the problem
as a Southern problem only, the United States is able to maintain how it looked on the world
stage while at the same time enacting new laws to preserve the way of life in the North and West.
37 Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy; with a New Preface, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 12 38 Ibid 39 Ibid,13. 19
The government’s rebuke and ostracism of Southern society, as a whole, largely led to the aggressive and savage like behavior portrayed by many segregationists.
White Southerners were upset at the development of the movement and how they were portrayed as the villains of the nation. Jason Sokol explores how Southerners felt stating, “White southerners’ racial attitudes and behavior frequently revealed a confused and conflicted people, at times divided within and against themselves.”40 Observers at the time noted this division in
Southern White opinion, a point often made by multiracial organizations based in the South.
“There...needs to be more recognition of the complexity of opinion of and attitude on race. Most people hold no simple, single-minded, coherent opinion on the subject; rather they have a number of vague, shifting , often contradictory notions of what their position should be, said
Harold Fleming of the Southern Regional Council.”41 In their mind the status quo seemed to be working fine, and people that wanted to change things were trying to “rock the boat” and alter a way of life that had shown itself to work fine for a number of years. In framing the Southern
Whites as the villains, Whites in the North and the West felt as if they were absolved from all blame. Liberal Whites in the north felt as if they had transcended racism and discrimination in the North and that they had provided Blacks with an open and inclusive environment with an opportunity for them to get a job, land, house, and move up in society. According to Jeanne
Theoharis, “By shielding Northern segregation and the economic and social disenfranchisement of people of color from full examination, these formulations naturalize the Northern racial order as not a racial system like the South’s but one operating on class and culture with racial
40 Jason Sokol, There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975, (New York: Vintage Books, 2007),14. 41 Ibid 20
discrimination as a byproduct.”42 If one truly analyzes the events that transpired in the North
during the Civil Rights Movement, the discontent and displeasure amongst Black people would
be evidently clear. In his book Sweet Land of Liberty, historian Thomas Sugrue made mention of
Swedish sociologist, Gunnar Myrdal’s findings in his 1944 study of race relations in America
which indicated a sort of implied sense of discrimination practiced in the North. “The social
paradox of the North is exactly this, that almost everybody is against discrimination in general
but, at the same time, almost everybody practices discrimination in his own personal affairs.”43
Northern Whites did not accept Myrdal’s analysis of American society to be fact, but that did not
mean that it was not indeed true.
The notion was not lost to Black people. Dr. King alluded to the vast struggles and
inequalities faced by Black people in his acclaimed “I Have a Dream” speech. He indicated the
disillusionment of civil rights and voting rights that Blacks dealt with throughout the entire
country. “We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to
a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro
in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will
not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” he
implored.44 He urged Blacks to, “Go back to Mississippi, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair….”45 If you look at struggles involving
42 Komozi Woodard and Jeanne F. Theoharis. Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940- 1980, (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 3. 43 Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North. (1st ed. New York: Random House, 2008), xiv. 44 “I Have a Dream…” speech Copyright 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. obtained source from National Archives. 45 Ibid 21 equality in housing and jobs, as well as the application of the Brown v. Board decision in
Northern schools you will see how the North and South were eerily similar.
Today the Civil Rights Movement is generally accepted and proclaimed to be one of the pivotal events that propelled America into the ‘Colorblind age.’ Contrary to popular belief, at the time that it took place, the Civil Rights Movement was unpopular among most average White
Americans. Acceptance of the movement did not begin to change until the leaders of the Civil
Rights Movement, with the assistance of the national and local media, began to frame the movement as a peaceful, non-violent movement for social progression juxtaposed against the violent, oppressive nature of racist ideology and white supremacy. By framing the movement in this manner, the general White public’s perception of the movement became more sympathetic towards their cause. This chapter examines how the Black Freedom Movement, specifically the
Civil Rights Movement, succeeded and also analyzes the change in perception of the movement over time by examining how the media talked about it from its inception until its completion, with an in-depth look into why the Black Power Movement was overlooked. Popular memory attempts to designate the Civil Rights Movement as an individual one, an anomaly of sorts, needed to “get America back on track” and ensure that it was a truly democratic land for all its citizens; popular memory also attempts to end the Black Freedom Movement in the early 1960s but it continues several years later into the 70s.
A key thing to remember when examining the Civil Rights Movement is that it is more than the keynote events typically used to describe the movement. Even though these events did compose the movement and played a major role in how it was perceived on the national scale, they were not the only aspects of the movement. At its inception, the Civil Rights Movement was grassroots, meaning it was formed and carried out by ordinary individuals, that mobilized itself 22 on the local and national level. Although it began as a grassroots movement, the national media paid little attention to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. According to Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, “The mainstream American press wrote about Whites but seldom about
Negro Americans or discrimination against them; that was left to the Negro press.” 46 It was not until the Supreme Court made a landmark ruling on the Brown v. Board case that the national media began to pay attention to the movement. Due to this monumental ruling, Brown is widely believed to be the start of the Civil Rights Movement because from this ruling came activists, groups, and organizations willing to test the limits of the ruling. While the case specifically mentioned schools in its ruling, activists used it to challenge the legality of segregation in various other facilities as well. It is important to note that the media did not show true interest in the movement itself but in the immense noteworthiness of the decision.47 The national media sources did not show interest in the movement unless there were mass amounts of violence displayed, and when they realized this Civil Rights leaders used it to their advantage.
Media Portrayal of the Civil Rights Movement in the South
The tragic murder of young Emmitt Till, proved to be the incendiary moment needed to shock the consciousness of the nation. It also is a prime example displaying the peculiar nature of the national media’s obsession to violence involving Blacks. Even though it was known in the
Black community that a young African American boy from Chicago was murdered in
Mississippi, it took the actions of Emmitt Till’s mother and the Black press to push the issue into the national limelight. His mother requested that his body be sent back to Chicago for burial where she decided to have an open-casket funeral so that people could see what “racist
46 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 5. 47 Ibid, 62. 23 murderers” had done to her son. African American newspapers and magazines such as Jet published pictures of his corpse, at the open funeral, and soon his story was picked up by the national media. “Like other great episodes in the battle for equality and justice, this trial has rocked the world, and nothing can ever be quite the same again – even in Mississippi,” said the
New York Post’s editorial board.48 The tragedy of Emmett Till’s murder alongside the strength rendered by his mother, prompted discussion and outrage throughout the nation, and eventually the world. The Chicago Defender, a primarily African-American newspaper, was one of many newspapers and organizations that wrote President Eisenhower urging him to respond. In the letter it said, “A Chicago Boy, Emmett Louis Till, 14 was kidnapped and lynched in Mississippi this week, would you let us know if your office has plans to take any action with reference to this shocking act of lawlessness?”49 The resultant international outrage compelled the U.S. State
Department to lament “the real and continuing damage to American foreign policy from such tragedies as the Emmett Till case.”50 The local White media outlets, where the murder took place, attempted to downplay what took place while at the same time attempting to alter
Emmitt’s position from victim to violent perpetrator. They also portrayed the accused murders in a positive light influencing how people perceived them and labeled them innocent before the actual verdict was even ruled. “Mississippi’s misfortune was partly because the trial had become known as the “wolf whistle case” or the “Till murder case,” “when all along it should have been called “this rape attempt case,” exclaimed the editors of the Greenwood Morning Star.51 The editors of several newspapers such as the Jackson Daily News and the Memphis Commercial
48 Timothy B. Tyson, Blood of Emmett Till, (Thorndike Press, 2017),189. 49 Telegram, Chicago Defender to President Dwight D. Eisenhower Regarding Emmett Till Case; 9/1/1955; Collection DDE-WHCF: White House Central Files (Eisenhower Administration) 50 Timothy B. Tyson, Blood of Emmett Till, (Thorndike Press, 2017),5. 51 Ibid,182. 24
Appeal argued that there was a lack of evidence necessary to convict the accused murders. The
Greenwood Morning Star went so far as to say, “Mississippi people rose to the occasion and proved to the world that this is a place where justice is given to all races, religions and classes.”52
This initial incident is one singular example of how the media addressed Civil Rights issues on a local level versus a national level however when the movement expands to a national level the national media reacted similarly, also choosing to portray Blacks as criminals all the while assuming the North and its white citizens as the true victims. Early on the feeling that the Civil
Rights Movement would not amount to anything was not uncommon, especially amongst many
White people.
When the movement initially began to organize the protests were passive but they were not organized with an intention to arouse a feeling of anger or violence against the people that they were protesting against. For example, events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott or the
Greensboro Sit-ins were passive and intended to prove a point and force the bureaucracies in charge to adhere to their demands. Popular memory informs that the Montgomery Bus Boycott initially began after Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1,1955 for refusing to give up her seat at the front of a bus to a white man. While she did not initially expect to act in this manner, Rosa
Parks claimed that it was because she was tired of giving in that prompted her refusal and consequential arrest. She had also alluded that recent events such as Emmett Till’s murder would not allow her to move.53 The Montgomery Advertiser briefly mentioned the incident in a five- paragraph story underneath the headline, “Negro Jailed Here for ‘Overlooking’ Bus
Segregation.54 Her brave act encouraged thousands to boycott the city buses and it was largely
52 Timothy B. Tyson, Blood of Emmett Till, (Thorndike Press, 2017),183. 53 Timothy B. Tyson, Blood of Emmett Till, (Thorndike Press, 2017), 211. 54 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 109. 25
successful, despite the fact that boycotters faced threats, arrests, job termination, and even
violence. After persisting for over a year the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of
Alabama ruled in their favor and the segregated seating on public buses was ruled
unconstitutional. Six months later, the United States Supreme Court upheld that decision, and on
December 20, 1956, after a 382-day boycott, Montgomery’s buses were desegregated and Black
people could sit wherever they liked.”55 While this passive boycott had garnered much attention
in the Black community, it is downplayed by the mainstream media. Local White media outlets
portrayed the boycotters as a nuisance taking money out of the cities pockets and ruining the bus
infrastructure. The national media overlooked the boycott almost entirely. For example, The New
York Times had sent a number of reporters into southern states to assess their openness to
desegregation. In the report the Times identified the South as inherently segregationist but years
of work were being invested in the bettering of race relations.56
The Times’ report failed to measure the depth of the segregationist feeling. It did not see that the overwhelming success of the two-month -old Montgomery bus boycott- which it had covered almost entirely with small wire stories- was indicative of a civil rights movement that had no intention of quitting. By misreading the sentiment of the South at its extremes, it also failed to see that the extremes would soon be in control. It missed the resoluteness of the passive and massive resistance movements to do battle, if necessary.57
While the Montgomery Bus Boycott was largely successful and believed to be a catalyst of
organized protests centered around civil rights, the media largely ignored it for a while. One
interesting point to note is that the conditions that lead to the protest that framed the Montgomery
Boycott had been set prior to Rosa Parks actually setting off the initial boycott. On May 21,
55 Jeannie Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018),206. 56 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 111. 57 Ibid 26
1954, shortly after the passing of the Brown v. Board ruling, Jo Ann Robinson, an English
professor from Alabama State College, wrote a demanding letter to the Montgomery mayor
insisting upon improved conditions for Black riders of city buses and threatening a boycott if city
and bus officials did not offer major improvements.58 This important point creates a contrasting narrative of the remembered events that lead to the bus boycott and that is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it adds another woman to the narrative challenging the notion of docile women who just so happened to make a stance, as Rosa Parks is now mainly portrayed and remembered. Secondly, it displays evidence of disgruntled community members, who years before the actual boycott made their demands known, therefore adding a more comprehensive depiction of the involvement of the community in the boycott. Be that as it may, it is not common information and much like other aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, it was ignored by the national media and has been written out of the main narrative. Today the Montgomery
Bus Boycott is commonly interpreted as the ideal protest. While civil rights leaders did admit to organizing many of their protests or boycotts similarly to the structure of the Montgomery Bus
Boycott, it does not explain why many, including todays’ media view the passive style of protest as the exemplar of the entire movement.
One infamous incident that captured the media’s obsession with violence is that of Little
Rock. On September 4, 1957 nine Black students, who became known as the “Little Rock Nine,” were prevented from integrating Central High School. The students and their parents were harassed, abused, and pelted with objects from White protesters who did not wish for them to integrate the school. Through the use of the expanding television news as well as radio reports, the situation made international headlines. Coverage of the incident was so intense that several
58 Jo Ann Gibson Robinson and David J. Garrow. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), x. 27
reporters committed several reporting taboos to make sure they had “juicy” material. One CBS
cameraman had gotten into place too late to catch on film the yelling contorted faces,
Confederate flag waving, and “Nigger Go Home” signs. When CBS News television and radio
reporter, Robert Schakne realized he did not have footage he ordered an artificial retake. He
urged the crowd, which had fallen quieter, to demonstrate its anger again, this time for the
cameras. “Yell again!” Schakne implored as his cameraman started filming.59 “The unusual
aspect of this story was its emotional impact upon the newsman,” The Tennessean’s editor,
Coleman A. Harwell, wrote soon after the bombing, “I recall no instance when everyone felt so deeply about an occurrence… There is something so very personal about a school. It involves our children, their happiness, their safety, their dreams, and our dreams for them.”60 A New York
Times editorial captured the magnitude of the Little Rock incident being displayed on a global
stage forcing the government’s hand in enforcing desegregation, “The sickening performance put
on in Little Rock yesterday by the forces of hysteria, mob violence and race hatred has now
driven President Eisenhower to do the last thing he wanted to do: directly threaten use of “the
full power of the United States, including whatever force may be necessary, to prevent any
obstruction of the law and to carry out the orders of the Federal court.” 61 While the actions by
the President allowed the students to safely integrate the school, it did not immediately halt the
violence and civil disruption that took place within Little Rock for the next few months. Little
Rock would remain a tense situation and subsequently would linger in the international spotlight
as a representation of how life was for Black people in America. In a more analytical
examination of what had occurred the editor of the New York Times continued,
59 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 161. 60 Ibid,164. 61 "Mob in Little Rock,” (New York Times, Sep 24,1957), 34. 28
One may question the tactical wisdom of sending those Negro boys and girls to the school on the very first possible morning, when a voluntary delay of another two or three days might have taken the edge off the synthetically stimulated crowd. One may ask why better arrangements for preserving discipline among the white students inside the school had not been made. But one cannot question either the Negroes’ right to be there or their courage in making the attempt, or in their inevitability of their return. They must come back, no longer merely for themselves, but now for the good name and lawful government of the United States.62
The editor condemned the actions of the participants of mob violence, though it could also be interpreted that he questioned the sanity of the African American students and their families for placing themselves in that dangerous situation. Due to the federal government becoming involved, the editor believed that the African American students had to continue going to the school in order to ensure that the federal government was able to successfully enforce its power over the state governments. One thing to note is that although the incident in contention was the desegregation of the school and the allowing of Black students in a primarily White school, the newspapers did not begin to heavily cover the incident until there was reports of mob violence.
Unlike the White press, the Black press covered the story prior to violence breaking out. Being such a huge story involving the integration of a White school, the Black press was there to cover the story because of its significance to the community. When things became too dangerous for the Black students to continue, the Black press used their firsthand position as Black citizens and professional journalists to write critical but scathing accounts of what took place. An editorial from the Arkansas State Press blasted the governor for the retractions he made in dealing with the Little Rock. It exclaimed,
The latter part of the same week we found the governor testifying in favor of a move to enjoin school integration where he had previously declared a “hands off” policy with the statement that he was leaving the matter to local school officials. What manner of man is this who can throw out the welcome mat to one racial antagonist (Georgia’s governor Griffin), and rebuff another brother antagonist (Kasper) who wishes to visit the state for the same purpose as the Georgia executive? What manner of man is this, who admits that
62“Mob in Little Rock,” (New York Times, Sep 24,1957), 34. 29
integration in the public schools as outlined by the school board was proceeding peacefully until the Georgia solon’s despotic advice changed the entire picture? What manner of man is this who sneakily calls in a state militia overnight to ban the entrance to classes of nine minors, with the supposition that violence would erupt? This supposition was entertained by no one but himself. What manner of man is this who can say this is MY state MY militia, MY responsibility? What manner of man is this who stated with emphasis that ‘any federal law superseded a state law,’ and is the first one to openly break and defy the highest Law of the Land? What manner of man is this who defies the government he has vowed to uphold? What manner of man is this who seeks to ban integration in the capitol city alone, while smaller cities over the state are making peaceful adjustments? Such fear, confusion, and defiance of the principles of honesty, justice, and integrity can only come from a corrupt mind-in short, he is “all shook up.”63
Blaming Governor Faubus for the events that transpired at Central High School, Theresa Jones, the writer of this piece, criticized the governor for his handling of what should have been a peaceful and momentous event. However, like many other Governors and leader-figures like him, Faubus’ reaction was influenced by political factors. Similar examples can be seen in a number of other instances.
A case similar to that of Little Rock, but largely ignored or misconstrued by the national media, was that of the New York City school desegregation battle, a direct contradiction to the accepted framing of the Civil Rights Movement. In Harlem, New York a group of African
American mothers claimed that their children were not receiving an equal education in the
Northern segregated schools. They pleaded with the board of education but little to nothing was done to fix the situation; at which point the mothers began a school boycott. A New York Times article captured the importance of the protest in a headline reading, “Boycott Cripples City
Schools; Absences 360,000 Above Normal; Negroes and Puerto Ricans Unite: Pickets
Peaceful.”64 The case made its way to the courts where in a landmark victory the judge charged
63 Theresa Jones, "What Manner of Man is This?" (Arkansas State Press, Little Rock, Arkansas, September 6, 1957), 4. 64 Leonard Buder. "Boycott Cripples City Schools; Absences 360,000 Above Normal; Negroes and Puerto Ricans Unite: Pickets Peaceful Integration Protest is Hailed as Success by its Leaders School Boycott Keeps Hundreds of Thousands of City Pupils Away from Classes Picketing is Calm in Racial Protest 2,600 Marchers Show up at Buildings--Donovan is Critical of Leaders." (New York Times, Feb 04, 1964). 30
New York City Board of Education with offering inferior educations to the city’s Black
children.65 The Black press and community groups hailed the ruling as the first Northern
decision against de facto segregation in public schools.66 While this may seem like a clear
victory, it was only the beginning of the fight that would ensue. Many White parents were upset
with what the ruling meant. However, they did not want to come off as racist. As a defense,
White parents asserted their rights as citizens and taxpayers voicing their concerns of the cultural
deprivation of the Black community and the effect it would have on their White children if the
two communities were to integrate schooling. White school teachers also argued against the
integration of schools, describing Black students as “problem children coming from difficult
backgrounds.”67 Black parents’ refusal to accept inferior schooling for their children coupled with Whites’ attitude towards the notion of having integrated schools lead for a tense stand-off between both groups. Speaking on the issue, an editorial from the New York Times filled with
coded language said
If a school is to be where the children are, the result tends to be automatic. It may be called segregation by accident, or by happenstance, except that we all know that prejudice in one form or another is at the root of the fact that some neighborhoods are all Negro or all white, or mostly so. The Board of Education here and the civic organizations interested in the schools were not happy about the segregation, even if it was accidental. The 1954 Supreme Court decision inspired a fresh and search going attack on the problem…. The redrafting of school district lines, the transportation of some pupils, the purposeful location of new schools to advance integration- these and other measures can have their limited and worth-while effect…. That is, to compensate by improving and enriching every “difficult” school with the installation of the most able, experienced teachers, reduced class sizes, guidance and counseling personnel, modern equipment and teaching aids. This costs money. It inconveniences school personnel. But these are the sacrifices we must demand of ourselves and our teachers to satisfy the community’s consciousness on the way to the more complete integration…68
65 Komozi Woodard and Jeanne F. Theoharis. Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940- 1980, (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 65. 66 Ibid, 74. 67 Ibid, 68. 68 "Integration in New York." (New York Times, Sep 2, 1958). 31
While this editorial did not clearly come off as racist there was some language that hinted how the editor truly felt. He attributed the segregation of schools in New York to chance, or where parents choose to live, but he wrote it in a sarcastic manner. He also indicated that the only reason that the Board of Education was worried about school segregation was because of renewed interest due to Brown v Board. Although, he revealed his true opinion when he exclaimed that redrawing district lines, transporting students, and relocating schools would have a limited effect. Many national media outlets in the North would analyze situations that took place in their own backyard in that manner. However, they attempted to sound as liberal as possible so as to not be associated with the primitive beliefs of the racists that they were portraying in the South.
The incident in Little Rock was portrayed with peaceful, docile Black children and their families walking into a lion’s den of aggressive, violent Whites who did not want them to integrate their schools so much so that they were willing to use violence. On the other hand,
Blacks in the North were portrayed as dregs of society with kids who did not want to learn and only wished to negatively influence the White kids at the White schools if integration was enforced. Despite the similarity of the examples, there is a simple reason as to why the Southern
Whites and Northern Whites reacted as they did. Many of the Southern Whites who denounced integration at Little Rock were of the uneducated background, and were lashing out towards a group of people who they felt were encroaching on their rights.69 Conversely, Northern Whites being mostly educated chose to degrade the character and persona of Blacks, attempting to attach a stigma that would manifest itself therefore giving them reason to continue segregating
69 Jason Sokol, There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975, (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 4. 32 schools.70 Much like the accepted version of the movement, it is simple to explain the Civil
Rights Movement in this manner. With the South being backward and uneducated, and the North being educated and therefore progressive. When examining Little Rock and those involved, the narrative of the backwards and uneducated is not the only narrative. There were educated
Southern segregationist insistent on their views just as there were Northern educated who were not as progressive as they attempted to portray themselves. Further evidence, explaining why
Governor Faubus reacted to Little Rock like he did, is displayed during the events that took place in Hoxie, Arkansas on July 1955.
Two years prior to the Little Rock incident a similar incident took place in Hoxie but it was not violent. The school board in the town voluntarily voted to desegregate their schools in accordance with the Brown v. Board ruling. The board’s decision did not cause any ruckus within the town but when school actually started the news was there to display the open act of desegregation. Once segregationist groups learned of this they rushed to the little town demanding that the school be closed for fear that it would set a precedent of integration. The school board held firm in their decision but in doing so they angered many segregationists in the
Citizens Council who in turn coerced Governor Faubus to abandon his moderate stance on integration.71 Although the media did gather to report such a bizarre occurrence, there were not nearly as many reporters to tell this story, primarily because violence did not break out.
However, due to the raw nature in which they were able to report the events that took place in
Little Rock, many newspapers were able to bring awards and esteem to themselves and the newspapers that they represented in their covering of the incident. For example, “Three of the
70 Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, eds. Freedom North: Black Struggles Outside the South, 1940-1980, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 67-68. 71 Richard Pride, “A Review of: ‘Hoxie: The First Stand’: Produced and Directed by David Appleby, 2003. 56 Minutes. Distributed by the Cinema Guild,” (Political Communication 22, no. 3, July 2005), 419. 33
1958 Pulitzer prizes in journalism were awarded for their coverage of the integration crisis in
Little Rock, Arkansas. Two of the three prizes were won by the Arkansas Gazette, the third prize was awarded to Relman Morin, of the Associated Press, for his coverage of integration violence in Little Rock.”72 Due to immense displays of violence, the Little Rock incident is observed in the news by eyes all across the world. The Civil Rights leadership realized that by really emphasizing their belief in nonviolence and also protesting in a manner that made people stop and listen, they could potentially incite violence and draw the attention of the national media.
From that point onward, drawing media attention became a strategy that was necessary to obtain civil rights and challenge the beliefs of every citizen in the United States. In order to do that the movement needed a new group of activists who truly internalized what it meant to truly endure physical danger to ensure lasting social changes, they found this in the youth.
Combining the nonviolent activism of Montgomery, the Sit-ins that took place at various department stores, malls, and dining facilities across the nation, overwhelmingly emphasized youth involvement. The first Sit-in took place in Greensboro, North Carolina on February
1,1960. Four Black college students refused to leave a White’s only lunch counter without being served, while they did not succeed in their first few attempts, the students were resilient in their protest. This nonviolent demonstration prompted the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee or SNCC, a Black, student-led, civil rights organization, to begin a campaign of similar sit-ins throughout the country. A Los Angeles Tribune described the popularity of the method of protest, “The silent and dramatic ‘sit-downs’ or ‘sit-ins’ at public lunch counters, mainly in chain five and ten-cent stores, by Negroes and White students in at least 30 cities of
72 E. Harrison, "Newspaper in Little Rock Wins Two Pulitzer Prizes: Arkansas Daily Gets 2 Pulitzer Awards Paper’s Courage in Crisis is Cited, Ashmore Editorials Praised -- 'Look Homeward, Angel' and Agee Novel Honored."(New York Times, May 6, 1958). 34
the South, protesting the refusal of the counters to serve Negroes, has struck a sympathetic spark
even in Los Angeles, where the first demonstration was held last Saturday and will be continued
this Saturday.”73 Although, when national news sources, such as Associated Press, began to report on the protests they failed to do them any justice and were extremely uninformative. For example, the AP reported that, “A group of Negro students- at one time numbered up to 27 men
and four women- sat down at a 5- and 10- cent store lunch counter Tuesday in an attempt to
obtain service and break racial barriers. They failed. But one of the students said the group “is
prepared to keep protesting for two years if we have to.”74 One can infer from national coverage
such as this, how difficult it would be to build up support to continue the movement. The initial
lack of coverage led to more direct-action protests that activists believed would garner media
support, and with the youth now involved they were sure to reach the conscious of Americans
hearing of the protests.
An increasing number of youths becoming involved in the freedom struggle, with a
strong disdain for complacency, they started to push the limits of understood forms of protest.
One organized group, who named themselves the Freedom Riders, made it their intention to test
the Supreme Court’s ruling on desegregated interstate bus travel. Comprised of riders young and
old, Black and White, the Freedom Riders knew that they would face many obstacles along the
way, including violence. One bus’s tires were slashed and when it stopped to change them the
bus was firebombed and the riders were beaten severely. While all the violence took place, the
police either watched or were late to show up. “College students took over the Freedom Ride
movement recently when the original group abandoned its journey because of violence,” the
73 "Pickets Planned of Kress, Woolworth Here; 300 Students Jailed in 11 Cities." (Los Angeles Tribune, Los Angeles, California, vol. 20, no. 5, March 11, 1960), 3. 74 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 223. 35
New York Times reported.75 The Freedom Riders leaked their intentions to the press so there
were a number of reporters onboard different buses and at the bus terminals to witness the events
that unfolded. The mob attacked the Freedom Riders as well as the reporters, because they
portrayed them in a negative manner, even though their actions garnered the portrayal. “At least
four out-of-town reporters and photographers were beaten as they attempted to film the rioting.
Others had their cameras smashed,” said a report by the Associated Press written on the
Montgomery mob.76 CBS commentator, Howard K. Smith, was present covering the events as
they unfolded at the Birmingham station. He described it as a coordinated attack between local
Klan members and Commissioner of Public Safety, Bull Connor. He recalled, “When the bus
arrived the toughs [between 30-40 men] grabbed the passengers into alleys and corridors,
pounding them with pipes, with key rings and with fists…the scene was close to police
headquarters but police didn’t appear until around ten minutes later, when the hoodlums had
gotten into waiting cars and moved down the street a ways.”77 Video and photographical
evidence, alongside firsthand reporting, of the mob violence began to be featured throughout the
country garnering support for the Freedom Riders and increasing the pressure on Alabama
officials to condemn and cease the violence. It is true that most people condemned the violence
but there was still a call for the Freedom Riders to cease their cause. Attorney General Kennedy
even went as far as to ask the riders for “a cooling off period,” but that was quickly rejected by
leaders of the movement. An editorial from the New York Times, insincere to the true cause of
the Freedom Riders, stated,
75 "Freedom Riders Open New Drive: 3 Groups Converge on Deep South—6 White Youths Are Freed in Shooting Freedom Riders Open New Drive.” (United Press International, May 28,1961), 1. 76 "Freedom Riders Attacked by Whites in Montgomery: President’s Aide Hurt by Rioters Battle Rages for 2 Hours as Mobs Chase and Beat Anti-Segregation Group." (The Associated Press, May 21, 1961), 1. 77 "Bi-Racial Buses Attacked, Riders Beaten in Alabama: Alabama White Fire Bi-racial Bus." (The Associated Press, May 15,1961), 1. 36
…The Freedom Riders and everyone else have an absolute moral and legal right to uninhibited transit from one state to another in this Union. President Kennedy and the Attorney General deserve praise for the firm way in which they have moved in to protect that right. The mob action and the failure, where it occurred, of local and state officials to take proper measures were disgraceful and contemptible. The basic injustice of segregation in any form 100 years after the Civil War is beyond dispute. The facts and the situation today add up to a victory for the freedom Riders, one that most Americans will applaud. All the same, it looks as if this victory can be diminished, or nullified, if the agitators press on through an inflamed atmosphere. They are challenging not only long- held customs, but passionately held feelings. Non-violence that deliberately provokes violence is a logical contradiction. If the objective is victory through non-violence, then, as the Attorney General suggests, there should be a breathing spell so that the campaign can be resumed in a more normal atmosphere. In present circumstances, the best technique would seem to be expressed in the French saying-- go back a bit in order to jump better.78
Within the New York Times editorial piece, one could interpret an offhanded commendation of the Freedom Riders and an indifferent attempt at condemning the perpetrators of violence. While at the same time the editor offers a scarcely veiled critique of the method of protest within which the Freedom Riders use, essentially condemning the tactics of the movement as a whole. He is more critical of the protesters and how they protest rather than the southerners and their long tradition of using violence against Black people. The editor criticizes the Freedom Riders for agitating the aggressors and believes they should “cool off” as the Attorney General suggested.
By stating this, the editor is indirectly saying that the protestors should be patient and let the
Southerners gradually change, essentially signing off on a notion of complacency. At first glance, most people would not regard his comments as criticism but as staunch backing of the
Kennedy administrations orders, but that is clearly not the case. In spite of the evident criticism of the protesters, the media, such as this editor, would not be able to advise for patience in the events that came next.
78 "The Choice for the Riders,"(New York Times, May 26, 1961),32. 37
America witnessed another bizarre example of mob violence and the South’s disdain for integration in 1962 in Mississippi in the attempted integration of Ole Miss by a Black man named James Meredith. When the Supreme Court ruled that he was able to attend the college the city of Oxford went into a period of uproar. In a speech featured across the entire state, Governor
Barnett made it clear that he would not follow the federal orders. He went on to say, the choice facing Mississippians was to “either submit to the unlawful dictate of the Federal government or stand up like men and tell them, ‘NEVER!’ There is no case in history where the Caucasian race has survived social integration. We will not drink from the cup of genocide.”79 A Black reporter from the Mississippi Free Press provided a somber firsthand account of Meredith’s integration attempts,
Have you ever waited with a crowd of Mississippians for one James Meredith. Probably not. Last Tuesday afternoon I had the experience. It was a revealing experience. After Meredith had come and gone, I left the mulling crowd with a heavy heart. The saddest point was not hearing the Governor deny Meredith’s admission, because we all know what that will come to sooner or later, but rather the people. The people made me very sad. They acted very unlike people. During the freedom ride trials, evidence was always introduced by the arresting officials that the crowd was in an ugly and angry mood. Last Tuesday, the throng that packed in around Meredith and his escorts was truly ugly. To say the least, ugliness in people is a sad thing.80
On the evening of September 30th, a mob of over 2,000, emboldened by Governor
Barnett’s provocative words assembled on the lawn of Ole Miss to present Meredith from integrating it. With police leaving the mob to their own vices, and often times taking part in the anarchy, the Federal government deployed the Federal Marshals. Describing the Mississippi integration crises as extremely grave, a Cumberland News bulletin described what took place. “A full-scale riot broke out Sunday night on the University of Mississippi campus. Marshals quelled
79 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 274. 80 "Personal View Meredith in Jackson." (Mississippi Free Press, Jackson, Mississippi, vol. 1, no. 42, September 29, 1962), 3. 38 the rioters with several volleys of tear gas. A number of persons were reported hurt.”81Although it is unknown what ignited the mob they began to berate and eventually attack the Marshals as well as reporters and cameramen.
It is noteworthy to mention that there were hardly any Black people present during the ensuing riot. Meredith had been whisked away to safety, with the plan to try again the next day, and Black reporters were barred from reporting on the developing story, also for their own safety. Despite the source of their anger not being present, the mob launched into a frenzy that lasted the entire night. Many news reporters involved in the events at Oxford described it as one of the worse depictions of racism at play that they had been a part of. According to Associated
Press’s Relman Morin, “Little Rock was a skirmish, Oxford a war.”82 The next day, when order was finally restored the next morning, Meredith went to the registrar’s office where he officially enrolled into Ole Miss. “The determination of the federal government to put Meredith into Ole
Miss as the first Negro student ever knowingly admitted in 114 years is on record,” reported the
North Adams Transcript of Williamstown, Massachusetts.83 In an editorial by the New York
Times the editor applauded Governor Barrett for finally coming to his senses and listening to the federal government, “The issue in Mississippi was always a simple one. It was not the merits of segregation versus integration. It was the integrity of the Federal Government and its survival as a Government of laws. When the Federal courts, as interpreters of the Federal Constitution, ordered the enrollment of James H. Meredith in the University of Mississippi, the full authority of the United States was committed to the enforcement of that directive.”84 In comparison with
81 Raymond Crowley, “6000 Mustered to Enforce U.S. Court Mandate.” (The Cumberland News, October 1, 1962, Vol. 24, No. 268 edition), 2. 82 Gene Roberts, and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 297. 83 “University of Mississippi Campus Calm but Still Under Shadow of Integration Trouble.” (North Adams Transcript, September 29, 1962, 94 edition), 1. 84 "Mississippi Rejoins the Union." (New York Times, Oct 01, 1962). 39 how Governor Faubus mishandled the situation in Little Rock, the analysis of the events that transpired in Mississippi clearly ignored the plight of African Americans and their cause for an enforcement of their rights, instead placing the main issue as a power struggle between the federal and state government. Much like rhetoric that was used during the Civil War, symbolic analyzations, like this one, would reappear several more times throughout the Civil Rights
Movement. Although, the violence that preceded Meredith’s enrollment would consequently garner more and more of the general public to condemn the position of the segregationist and began to fall into the same mindset as activists in the movement, condemnation was more towards Mississippi’s disregard of federal law rather than segregation practices. It seems that the national media was much more sympathetic to actions by White government officials than activism by Black people.
By this time Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a preacher and the first president of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), had emerged, with the assistance of the national media, as the face of the Civil Rights Movement. King worked closely with various other Black organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) fought to break down barriers through democratic processes, or the Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE) who was also a nonviolent organization that worked to ensure true equality throughout the world. King’s own organization, the SCLC, was created in a direct attempt to imitate the feeling of rebellion that had been successful in Montgomery.85 The Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), also played an important role in the Civil Rights
Movement, and the founding of the Black Power Movement as well. Many of those involved in
SNCC had been participants of the widely used and successful sit-ins. Ella Baker, who helped
85 Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Gender & American Culture. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 170. 40 create SNCC, “wanted to bring the sit-in participants together in a way that would sustain the momentum of their actions, provide them with much needed skills and resources, and create space for them to coalesce into a new, more militant, yet democratic political force.”86 It is noteworthy to make mention of the contentious relationship between the SCLC and SNCC. The students did not want to be used by the SCLC, there was also a disagreement about public perception and tactics. Initially, King and other leaders of the SCLC wanted to ‘capture’ the youth movement and use it to their advantage.87 For example, SNCC executive secretary James
Foreman detailed the differences that the two groups faced during the Selma campaign. “But disagreement on such key issues as concepts of leadership, working methods, and organizing voters for independent political action versus Democratic Party politics, bred conflict between
SNCC and SCLC staff in Alabama…Relations between SNCC and SCLC were at a very low point. We began holding meetings of the SNCC staff, as well as meetings between SNCC and
SCLC, to resolve our differences,” he said.88 Ella Baker, who played a limited role in the SCLC, served as an advisor to the budding organization and ensured that they would be respected and treated as an autonomous organization. Barbara Ransby says, “She [Ella Baker] saw the emergent movement not as a youth-only movement, but as ‘an opportunity for adults and youth to work together to provide genuine leadership’.”89 Despite the many differences of the various organizations, such as the ones between the SCLC and SNCC, they were able to overcome them and work together in order for the movement to succeed.
86 Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Gender & American Culture. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 239. 87Ibid, 242. 88 Clayborne Carson, ed., The Eyes on the Prize: Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954-1990. (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1991), 217-220. 89 Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Gender & American Culture. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 243. 41
In April 1963, in Birmingham, the SCLC, alongside activists such as Dr. King, partnered with local groups like the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, to launch a massive direct-action campaign against the city’s brutal segregation system. Recognizing the political gains, he would make if he took a strong stand against the activist, newly elected Alabama
Governor George Wallace gave an infamous speech that would live on in Alabama’s history. In his inauguration speech, Governor George Wallace decried “the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South,” adding words provided by an Alabama Klansman, he continued, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny. And I say: segregation now! Segregation tomorrow!
Segregation forever!”90 To directly counter the aggressive government in place local activist,
Fred Shuttlesworth, and Dr. King recruited a number of people to fill the streets and jails of
Birmingham in a sustained campaign of boycotts, demonstrations, and marches. “If you create enough tension, you attract attention to your cause and that is how you get to the consciousness of the white man,” said Dr. King. 91 Protesters pressured Birmingham merchants during the
Easter season, the second biggest shopping season of the year. Fred Shuttlesworth stated in the
Birmingham Manifesto that the campaign was “a moral witness to give our community a chance to survive.”92
On Thursday May 2, a copious number of black youths answered that call and joined the protest to provoke Bull Connor to react, and react he did. As the youth marched to City Hall,
Connor sent police, as well as German shepherds, alongside firemen to prevent them from protesting downtown. Many were beaten, mauled, and hosed by the firemen. Several protestors
90Gene Roberts, and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 303. 91Ibid, 307. 92 Fred Shuttlesworth and N.H. Smith, “Birmingham Manifesto,” 3 April 1963. 42
were arrested, with the total number of arrests for both adults and juveniles exceeding 1,000 in
just three days.93This hot-spot of action drew the attention of reporters all across the nation. “Let
those people come to the corner, Sergeant. I want them to see the dogs work. Look at those
niggers run,” one journalist reported hearing the police commissioner say.94 NBC’s cameras caught a young man pulling off his soaking shirt and holding it up, like a toreador’s cape to taunt a snarling dog; then they focused on a police officer as he kicked a demonstrator in the knee, knocking him down so that a police dog could more easily maul him.95 The use of television
news, alongside vivid photographs, provided undeniable evidence that America could not ignore.
It showed graphic examples of the unfairness, inhumanity and brutality that comprised
segregationist practices and their fundamental racists beliefs. Proving itself a critical turning
point, the Birmingham campaign was a big catalyst in garnering the nation’s sympathies towards
the movement.
Operating in a more contentious manner, the summer of 1964 brought a more aggressive
and direct method of action. Civil rights organizations such as SNCC, CORE, the NAACP, and
the SCLC came together under an umbrella organization called the Council of Federated
Organizations, came together with the intentions of staging a Freedom Summer in Mississippi.96
They would train hundreds of college students to set up voter registrations efforts, health clinics,
legal aid, and schools. State President of the NAACP and Chairman of the Council of Federated
Organizations, Dr. Aaron Henry, explained that many of the students would be white and come
from prominent families. “The Federal Government will be on the scene then, even though it
93 Foster Hailey, "U.S. Seeking a Truce in Birmingham; Hoses again Drive Off Demonstrators: Two Aides Meeting with Leaders--Negroes Halt Protests Temporarily U.S. Seeks Truce in Birmingham, Demonstrators all Young." (New York Times, May 05, 1963), 1. 94 Gene Roberts, and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 318. 95 Ibid 96 Ibid, 353. 43
does not protect Negroes who attempt to register to vote.”97 By involving White college students who come from affluential families, Black Civil Rights leaders hoped it would ensure an extra layer of protection as they attempted to organize and register people to vote. By summer’s end there were forty-one schools in twenty communities throughout the state with over 2,000 students enrolling; there were also thirteen community centers established which offered literacy classes, art, music, drama, recreation, health and childcare programs; they also managed to register over 55,000 black people to the Freedom Democratic party, the group that successfully challenged Mississippi’s all-white Democratic Party at the National Democratic Convention that year.98 SNCC workers hoped to expand drives, such as this one, into other Southern states like
Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas. “The summer civil rights project in Mississippi, which ends
this week, brought few tangible changes in the social order. But many Mississippians feel that
the state has passed through a crisis and will never be the same, read a New York Times
Special.”99 Although Freedom Summer proved to be an overall success, in terms of established
institutions and programs available for the Black community, their success was not without
invoking the ire of Mississippi segregationist.
Prior to the campaign, there was an aura of fear within Mississippi. The New York Times
reported on White Mississippians fear of the Freedom Summer campaign with a glaring headline
titled “Mississippi Is Gripped by Fear of Violence in Civil Rights Drive.”100 There was a fear
amongst government officials that there would be an increase in violence, officials even went as
97 "Workshop Discusses Religious Freedom." (Mississippi Free Press, Jackson, Mississippi, vol. 3, no. 9, February 8, 1964), 8. 98 “Memphis World: Mississippi Summer Project Ends; Mississippi Freedom Drive Begins,” (Digital Public Library of America, September 5, 1964) 99John Herbers, "Civil Rights Drive Alters Mississippi: Mississippi Changed by Drive of Student Civil Rights Aides." (New York Times, Aug 20, 1964). 100 Claude Sitton, "Mississippi is Gripped by Fear of Violence in Civil Rights Drive: Mississippi Fears Rights Violence: Mississippi Girds for a Long and Violent Summer." (New York Times, May 30, 1964),1. 44 far as to appeal to White residents urging them to “ignore civil rights demonstrations and in exchange they would firmly deal with any that challenged the state’s racial codes and customs.”101 It was even reported that President Lyndon B. Johnson was anxious about the campaign as well. In a phone conversation with Georgian Senator Richard Russell, Johnson warned of the foreseeable bloodbath saying, “…they tell me that every family down there is buying a gun and every Negro family’s got a gun and that there’s gonna be the damndest shootings you ever saw in [voter] registration and they’re sending them in by buses in the hundreds from all over the country to help ‘em register and they’re gonna try to get ‘em all registered in Mississippi and they’re gonna be a bunch of killings.”102
A resurgent White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan formed to intimidate and prevent activists from succeeding. A multitude of cross-burnings, harassments, and attacks took place widely uncontested. “Terrorism marked the beginning of the Mississippi Freedom Summer project, as staff members and volunteers arrived from training sessions at Oxford, Ohio. Three
Civil Rights workers have been missing in Neshoba County since Sunday night. Monday night, a series of bombings took place in McComb, Mississippi,” a Mississippi Free Press editorial described.103 A Times Special, by Claude Sitton, examining white college students’ role in the drive discussed their effect saying, “Some 200 college students are drifting out of this quiet little college town to engage in a Negro drive in Mississippi. There they will face white hostility in the smallest cities, dusty county seats, farms and plantations of the countryside,” he continued,
“Many of the volunteers, most of which are white, come from prominent and influential families
101 Claude Sitton, "Mississippi is Gripped by Fear of Violence in Civil Rights Drive: Mississippi Fears Rights Violence: Mississippi Girds for a Long and Violent Summer." (New York Times, May 30, 1964),1. 102 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007),354. 103 "Arrests and Violence Hot Summer is on $Millions Flows Right through Them . . .." (Mississippi Free Press, Jackson, Mississippi, vol. 3, no. 28, June 27, 1964),1. 45 in New York, California, Illinois and New Jersey. Civil Rights leaders have complained that the
Federal authorities have in the past shown little concern for the plight of Mississippi Negroes.
They believe the presence of the students will involve the entire nation.”104 Unfortunately that did happen when three activists were jailed then suddenly disappeared after local Mississippians learned that they were involved in the Civil Rights drive. This prompted news crews and reporters to make their way to Mississippi where they filmed firsthand accounts of how the Klan actively terrorized anyone they believed to be linked to civil rights.
On July 2nd, President Lyndon B. Johnson took a decisive step in signing the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. It was a huge achievement for the Civil Rights Movement, but in doing so
Johnson feared that in doing so he would trigger more violence in Mississippi. The law prevented discrimination due to race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. It also made some changes in voting rights and school desegregation, extended the Civil Rights Commission, created a community relations service to resolve discrimination disputes, and strengthened the federal government’s power to enforce the law.105 The situation became so urgent that President
Johnson called for J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to get involved in the unruliness in Mississippi.
Although the FBI has its own history of harassing members of the Civil Right Movement and attempted to disrupt its success, they were able to discover where the bodies of the three men were and arrest the parties responsible. Despite the fact that it wrote into law the illegality of discrimination, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not immediately halt all acts of discrimination and racism portending that the movement for Civil Rights would not end with its passage.
104Claude Sitton, "Rights Campaigners Off for Mississippi: Rights Workers Off for Mississippi to Register Negro Voters." (New York Times, Jun 21, 1964). 105Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 359. 46
One major instance of protest which took place a few months prior to Freedom Summer, but is normally cast outside the parameters of the accepted Civil Rights Movement, were the demonstrations and protests that took place during the 1964 World Fair. Although legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were passed to enforce civil rights for minority groups, essentially deeming the Civil Rights movement a success; they did not automatically end racism, segregation, and discriminatory practices. Northerners heavily opposed the narrative that attempted to frame the movement as a national one rather than just a regional movement focused in the South. One method that they combated the narrative was by challenging the methods of protests and labeling them as disruptions rather than demonstrations. In the South the national media portrayed the demonstrations as protest meant to attack and break down decades of
Southern tradition, however, when it came to Northern protests, demonstrators were disrupting a fast-moving capitalist society. At a time when America was trying to display, to the world, that capitalism was better than socialism, this was seen as hurtful rather than proactive.
“Drive a while for freedom,” said leaflets distributed in New York last week by the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Those interested were advised to fill their cars with just enough gas to get onto one of the five main roads leading to the New York World’s Fair on opening day April 22, and to block the roads when they ran out of gas. The resulting “stall-in” would call attention to the civil rights cause.” New York’s Traffic Commissioner Harry A. Barnes was dismayed; with a million visitors expected at the opening of the fair, he said traffic would back up and “paralyze the whole city.” CORE’s national office disavowed the plan, fearful of its possibly unfavorable effect on the Negro cause. It suspended its Brooklyn chapter for suggesting it. But the Brooklyn unit remained defiant. The “stall-in” plan, whether followed through or not, was symptomatic of a new rise in Negro militancy.106
Characterizing these “new” demonstrations as more direct and more aggressive ergo more militant and counter to the goal of civil rights, the national media was able to write off many of these demonstrations and demonstrators as a subgroup, or fragmentation, of the Civil Rights
106 "The Nation." (New York Times, April 12, 1964). 47
Movement. It is within this frame of thought that more militant groups and organizations began
to become written out of the master narrative of the Black Freedom Movement, with the Civil
Rights Movement and the groups and organizations directly linked to it being portrayed as more
ideal compared to their radical counterparts.
Upon the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the goal shifted to achieving
legislation that enforced voting rights for all. Activists planned an all-out event that would garner
the attention of the nation and assist them in achieving this goal. Selecting Selma, Alabama as a
place to pick up attention, demonstrators arrived in droves to protest drawing the attention of the
police. The police responded in a very brutal manner, and the reporters made sure to capture
every beating. However, it was not the amount of attention Martin Luther King deemed
necessary in forcing the government’s hand in enacting a Voting Rights law.107 Due to these
factors, the leaders of the movement decided to hold a march from Selma to Montgomery.
On Sunday March 7, 1965 the march took place resulting in the infamous Bloody
Sunday. Over 600 activists marched to Montgomery to protest Black voter suppression. Along
the way they were met by local police and protesters who attacked them to prevent them from
reaching Montgomery. Although King had notified Governor George Wallace of his intentions
and received the lawful permits for his march, the governor ordered Alabama state troopers out
to disband the march. He ordered the troopers “to use whatever measures are necessary to
prevent a march.”108 As the marchers prepared to march over the bridge towards Montgomery they were meet by the troopers. “Alabama troopers, row upon row, all in blue shirts and white helmets, as many of them as marchers. They looked battle-ready. Behind them were several
107 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 385. 108 Ibid 48
dozens of Sheriff Clark’s khaki-dressed posse men, some on horseback, many wielding clubs as
large as baseball bats. And alongside the road were about a hundred whites waving Confederate
flags, laughing and spoiling for a bloodbath,” reporters Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
recalled.109 Plowing through the peaceful marchers the outright merciless behavior of the Selma
authorities was broadcast nationwide. Their actions shocked the consciences of many prompting
a number of sympathy protests to take place all across the world. The brutality of the attack also
prompted the government into action, President Johnson, himself lobbied for the passing of
Voting Rights laws, and on August 6, 1965 he signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to prevent
the use of literacy tests as a voting requirement and prevent other methods in which black people
were denied to exercise their right to vote.
Media Portrayal of the Civil Rights Movement in the North and West
The North, just as the South, dealt with its own issues of discrimination and racism.
Unlike the South, the North attempted to not overtly display their shameful practices. Instead,
many Northern cities wrote legislation with coded language ensuring discriminatory practices
and racism but making it more difficult for Civil Rights activists to argue against. Some of that
legislation was used to ensure discrimination and segregation in places like housing and
schooling despite the Brown v. Board ruling. Many Civil Rights leaders and organizations attempted to shame the North for its embarrassing handling of civil right issues but they were either shrugged off or ignored. In a speech to the Urban League in New York in 1960, Martin
Luther King Jr. declared, “The racial issue that we confront in America is not a sectional but a national problem. …There is a pressing need for a liberalism in the North that is truly liberal, that firmly believes in integration in its own community as well as in the deep South. There is a
109 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 385. 49 need for the type of liberal who not only rises up with righteous indignation when a Negro is lynched in Mississippi, but will be equally incensed when a Negro is denied the right to live in his neighborhood, or join his professional association or secure a top position in his business.”110Despite the fact that Civil Rights leaders directly called out the North, it was not until the demonstrations turned violent that the national media began to notice but because it was in the North they were portrayed in a different manner.
Stories similar to the aforementioned school desegregation case in Harlem, New York, happened throughout much of the North and the West as well. Even Boston, the city that is championed with being the pinnacle of freedom and liberty, had its own dark history with school segregation that was not addressed until the mid-seventies. These segregated schools were justified in coded language by teachers and parents accusing Black families and Black children of being “difficult children” and coming from culturally deprived areas. They attempted to place the blame on the families and the students blaming their culture and background for their poor education; they conveniently ignored the years of slavery and segregation that had been institutionalized and written into policy taking away many of the means through which African
American families could uplift themselves in society.111 African American families largely denounced the notion that they did not care for their children or were not as invested in their future. They wrote letters to Boards of Education and city officials, attempted to involve the national media, and demonstrated in several other forms, however, they were ignored or deemed ungrateful and asking for too much. 112
110 Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, eds. Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940- 1980. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 1. 111 Ibid, 126. 112 Clayborne Carson, ed. The Eyes on The Prize: Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954-1990, (New York, NY: Penguin Books,1991), 596. 50
Another thing that many African American families had to deal with was segregation in
housing. While the North was known as being more liberal, it also had segregationist policies
when it came to housing. In Richard Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of
How our Government Segregated America, he argues that “it was de jure segregation that promoted discriminatory practices that continue to this day.”113 He continues, “African
Americans were unconstitutionally denied the means and the right to integration in middle-class
neighborhoods, and because this denial was state-sponsored, the nation is obligated to remedy
it.”114 While widely known by scholars that the South intentionally wrote into law segregationist
policies for most public and private institutions, it is not commonly known that the North
practiced segregationist policies for housing. Rothstein addresses this stating that, “Across the
Northeast and the Midwest, the PWA [Public Works Administration] imposed segregation on
integrated communities….PWA projects also concentrated African Americans in low-income
neighborhoods in Detroit, Indianapolis, Toledo, and New York where, for example , the PWA
created two segregated projects: the Williamsburg Homes in a white neighborhood was for
whites, and the Harlem River Houses in a black neighborhood was for African Americans.”115
Not only were the houses that African Americans were sold by realtors, in low-income
communities but they also were in worse condition than the houses sold to their white
counterparts. They also had to pay up to three times more than the average White family for their
home as well.116
113 Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. (New York; London: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company,1st edition, 2017), xiv 114 Ibid 115 Ibid, 20. 116 Ibid, xiv 51
These blatant acts of inequality angered many African Americans and prompted them to act. Organizations wrote stinging critiques on how cities operated, there were several protests and demonstrations as well. According to the national media and many White citizens, the
African American community were ungrateful and asking for too much. Northern Whites believed that simply because they offered more opportunity to African American families than the South, that they were not an unequal society. African Americans strongly disagreed. In an editorial from the Milwaukee Star, a newspaper with a primarily Black readership, the editor listed a number of grievances from the Black community. One can clearly gauge, through the earnest language used, the seriousness of the situation.
1. The mayor and city administration have circumvented the constant needs for equality of opportunity. (Education, housing, employment, police community relations, etc.) 2. Local government has ignored studies citing the causes of riots, the substandard conditions that have long existed, yet has continued to exploit the community through lack of enforcing housing ordinances, providing equal employment opportunities, etc. 3. The city administration and the white system called the shots and set the guidelines for communications in the traditional paternalistic manner which was acceptable to them, with no intention to follow up with affirmative action. 4. The mayor heads a structure which is the most segregated and discrimination institution in the community and his projected superficial program such as the ‘war on prejudice’ shows no real commitment from city hall….117
With hopes to bring awareness of the position of Blacks in the entire country not just the
South, Civil Rights leaders organized the March on Washington. Many people were frustrated with the pace at which civil rights were advancing and the contentment of many to remain within the status quo. While Black newspapers and Northern newspapers were excited about what the march would entail, Southern newspapers heavily emphasized the violence that would be associated with the event. In a report the Corpus Christi Times stated, “This is the day of the civil
117 "'Black Voices Must Be Heard'." (Milwaukee Star, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, vol. 2, no. 31, August 5, 1967), 1. 52 rights “March on Washington,” Some militant Negro leaders have managed to scare the pants off contented whites with vast projections on this march…. Every precaution has been taken by the metropolitan police, the Capitol police, and the national park police, to see that professional provocateurs don’t get into the racial act on Aug. 28. Covell has announced that no permits could be issued for that day. He mentioned no specific organization, but the announcement was aimed at blocking plans of local Nazis to stage provocative demonstrations while the Negro visitors were in Washington.”118 Many others welcomed the march but were simultaneously nervous at what it could produce. “In Washington, authorities from all sectors guarded against the possibility that marauding Negroes might sack the capital like Moors or Visigoths reincarnate,” wrote Taylor Branch in his book “Parting the Waters.119 A New York Times editorial said, “The risk in massing so many people on an issue so emotional and so explosive need no underscoring.
The planners of the demonstration have gone to extraordinary lengths to maintain discipline, to assure observance of laws, and to avoid any semblance of coercive pressure on individual legislators. Yet all these precautions may prove unavailing, with results that could prove permanently hurtful to the civil rights movement.”120 The March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom took place on August 28, 1963, involving, a surprising, 200,000 participants, including groups such as the NAACP, the National Urban League, the National Catholic Conference for
Interracial Justice, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the UAW, CORE,
SNCC, the SCLC, and several more. According to Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, “the march provided the single greatest exposure of national audience to the civil rights
118 Edwin Lahey, “Fear Abates as Date for March Nears.” (Corpus Christi Times. August 6, 1963). 119John Rivera. “I Have a Dream’ Speech Still Resonates.” (The Nashua Telegraph. January 15, 2001),11. 120 "March on Washington." (New York Times, Aug 25, 1963). 53 movement.”121 “There was no violence to mar the demonstration. In fact, at times there was an air of hootenanny about it as groups of schoolchildren clapped hands and swung into familiar freedom songs. But if the crowd was good-natured, the underlying tone was one of dead seriousness,” admitted the New York Times in its coverage of the event.122 Notably, one of the most often remembered speeches during the march was that of Dr. King. He delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech resounding on notions of the American dream through his eyes, an African American. “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…..When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God
Almighty, we are free at last!” King said in a portion of his speech.123 Heavily influenced by the march, President John F. Kennedy met with several civil rights leaders at the White House where they discussed the need for legislation to protect and enforce civil rights.
Despite the passage of legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voters
Rights Act of 1965 to enforce civil rights for minority groups, essentially deeming the Civil
Rights movement a success; they did not automatically end racism, segregation, and discriminatory practices. African Americans grew heavily disheartened at this fact; so much so that in the mid 1960’s you see a drastic change of attitude amongst many in the African
American community. Drawing from a wide variety of movements, past and present, that offered
121 Gene Roberts, and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 346. 122 Ibid, 347. 123 “I Have a Dream…” speech Copyright 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. obtained source from National Archives. 54
alternative forms of organizing and critiquing White power structures eventually contributed to
many in the Black community to adhere to more militant ideology. In doing so, they began to
pay less attention to the notion of integrating into White society, instead thinking that they would
do better on their own. They were tired of experiencing racism and violence from White
authority figures who were supposed to protect them but instead took advantage of them. The
phrase “Black Power” began to be popularized in the Black community, essentially meaning that
African Americans should embrace their blackness instead of running away from it as the White
society had been teaching for so long. This notion emphasized self-sustenance, yet the national
media decided to, instead, focus on the more militant aspect of the ideology; and as an effect it
was eventually portrayed as negative ideology with aims to tear apart American society. Either
way, as the story of civil rights entered a national frame instead of just being centered in the
South, it was framed as a movement that had become impatient and volatile. According to Gene
Roberts, “Many Blacks blamed the press, especially television, for the changing of public mood.
Blacks complained that television portrayed the militancy of Black power, Black nationalism,
and militancy. Meanwhile, the escalation of the war in Vietnam, and the protests against it,
steadily diverted attention from civil rights.”124 National media portrayal of the ‘volatile’ movement and impatience within the African American community eventually gave way to the rise of the Black Power Movement.
Black Power
As mentioned in the previous chapter, Black Power was the second installation of the
Black Freedom Movement. The Black Power Movement not only expanded the achievements of
124 Gene Roberts, and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 400. 55 the Civil Rights Movement, but also changed what it meant to be Black.125 “During the summer of 1966, SNCC adopted a new organizing program which it dubbed Black Power. The program involved sending African American organizers into Black communities to cultivate racial consciousness and build independent political parties.”126 The second week of June, in 1966,
Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael led hundreds of demonstrators through the state of Mississippi in defiance of White terror and violence to continue James Meredith’s solo
‘March Against Fear. Disagreements on stances over armed self-defense, interracial cooperation, and political tactics began immediately, with reporters eagerly playing up the differences between both men.127 Fed-up with police harassment against demonstrators and King’s nonviolent tactics, Carmichael introduced the phrase “Black Power” to the struggle for Black freedom. In a speech on June 16 he angrily exclaimed, “This is the twenty-seventh time that I’ve been arrested. I ain’t going to jail no more. The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. What we gonna start saying now is Black Power!”128 This electrifying phrase was a turning point in the Black Freedom movement. The phrase ‘Black
Power’ served as a tool of empowerment to remind people that despite what they had been told
Black was beautiful, it also served as a catalyst for the transition from passive, nonviolent responses to White aggression to more direct, defensive responses. As Black Power became more prominent, people began to forgo identifying themselves as African Americans opting instead to identify themselves as Black. The embrace of flaunting one’s Black culture also
125 Hasan Kwame Jeffries. “Black Freedom Movement.” (Keywords for African American Studies. New York: New York University Press, 2015), 22. 126 Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt. (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 179-180. 127 Peniel E. Joseph, ed. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 1-2. 128 Ibid, 2. 56
became prominent as well. Black Power was a reminder to Black people that there was power in
being Black, but by proclaiming such a statement they invoked the fears of Whites everywhere.
According to Peniel E. Joseph, “For many journalists and political analysts the Meredith
March represented a stark line between Civil Rights and the coming Black Power Movement.”129
Despite the fact that it was growing popular, the ideology of Black Power was not embraced by
several top activists; they heavily opposed the notion of Black power, believing that it was
nationalistic and would work counter to their goals. As Stokely Carmichael emerged as the
spokesperson for the new generation of Black radicals, Martin Luther King Jr. distanced himself
from Carmichael and the phrase ‘Black Power.’130 A New York Times editorial portrayed Dr.
King’s and Roy Wilkins’ sentiments towards the ideology stating, “No one could seriously accuse Mr. Wilkins or Dr. King of being insensitive to the impatience of Negroes for more rapid progress- the kind of impatience that inspired the explosive slogans of the recent Mississippi march and the CORE convention in Baltimore. It is precisely their long experience that prompts both leaders now to speak out with such vigor against tactics that could only bring disaster to the cause of racial equality.”131 Even though they did share some similarities, the Civil Rights
Movement and the Black Power movement were different in a number of ways as well. For
example, Black Power activists fought for community control of schools, Black Studies
programs at colleges and universities, welfare rights, prison reform, and jobs and racial justice
for the poor while at the same time increasing black political power.132 Black Power was
129 Peniel E. Joseph, ed. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 2. 130 Ibid. 131 "Black Power is Black Death." (New York Times, Jul 7, 1966). 132 Peniel E. Joseph, ed. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 3. 57
embraced by many common Blacks because it enacted a notion of pride within Black identity, a
feeling that had been seemingly lost within the community.
One organization associated closely with the notion of Black power, is the Nation of
Islam, a religious organization that participated in the movement, though with different belief
and tactics. Established in Detroit in 1930 underneath the leadership of Elijah Muhammad the
organization started off rather small. Then in the 1960s with the assistance of Malcolm X,
another leader of the organization, who had “fiercely smart rhetoric that helped to shift the
dominant political struggle from a strategy of civil rights liberalism to electric expressions of
black nationalism,” the organization began to expand.133 The Nation of Islam believed in
“economic self-sufficiency” and “a prophecy of divine intervention to a paradigm of activist nationalism”; although, Malcolm X took it a step further calling for armed defense. This frame of thinking, alongside the militant speeches of Malcolm X, preached to the masses of the economically and politically oppressed. Their belief of arming themselves and defending themselves by any means ran counter to the beliefs of Dr. King and other groups such as SNCC, in its early phases. Although it elicited the attention of many Black people, and taught them their beliefs, they were not always in accord with other organizations and their protests during the
Civil Rights Movement. For example, the Nation of Islam condemned the March on Washington and did not participate.134
Another organization that had followed the same fundamental ideology of self-sustenance
and armed-defense as the Nation of Islam was that of the Black Panthers. Taking their name
from the original Black Panther Political Party in Lowndes County, Alabama; The Black
133 Komozi Woodard and Jeanne F. Theoharis. Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940- 1980, (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 177. 134 Ibid, 184. 58
Panthers, or the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was an organization founded by Bobby
Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, California in October 1966. “The Black Panther Party was a political vehicle created by local people who drew on the Southern resistance traditions and the contours of their urban experience to defy police brutality, housing shortages, unemployment, racism, poverty, and their own fear and apathy, and to take collective action to transform their conditions.”135 Firm believers of self-sufficiency, they enacted several programs to build up their communities such as free breakfast for kids, free plumbing and maintenance, they even opened up health clinics. The Panthers also believed in self-defense, based on the notion that police were the main perpetrators of violence in their communities, so they carried weapons for protection.
The Black Panthers became a symbol of Black Power. Peniel E. Joseph argues, “The Black
Panther Party rejected nonviolence and elevated armed resistance as an alternative protest strategy,” he continues, “The Black Panther party’s concept of self-defense included revolutionary violence and appeared to serve primarily as a symbolic means to defy racist authorities and to nurture notions of militant black manhood.”136 Initially, the national media attributed the Black Panthers and groups who believed in Black Power as assets to the Civil
Rights Movement, who rejuvenated an older base. After his role in influencing the Alabama
Black Panther Party to directly challenge the segregationist democratic base in the elections of
1966, the Los Angeles Times and the Atlanta Constitution, heralded Stockley Carmichael’s election as chairman of SNCC and they deemed it a victory for Black nationalism.137
135 Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard. Groundwork: Local Black Freedom Struggles in America. (New York: New York University, 2005), 301. 136 Peniel E. Joseph, ed. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 146. 137 Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. (New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton, 2007), 61. 59
Nevertheless, this positive placement of Black power and Black nationalism in the national
spotlight would not remain for long.
In the midst of the growing ideology for Black power and Black nationalism, disgruntled
communities began to search for methods to display to the non-Black society their displeasure
and their grievances. As activist Julian Bond observed, “amid calls for Black power and scenes
of urban rioting, White media sympathy and public support for further action on behalf of
African Americans steadily evaporated.”138 The press was so used to framing civil rights stories in a standard good vs. evil binary, but sticking to that binary was not so simple when trying to analyze the ideology behind Black power alongside the figures, such as Stockley Carmichael and
Huey P. Newton, who represented it. Soon the media began to “other” the Black Panthers and like-minded groups who followed similar ideology, condemning the notion of Black power, and portraying groups like the Black Panthers as groups to be feared. “Northwest suburbia recoiled with the rest of the nation this year when from militant ranks within the civil rights movement came the ominous cry. “Black Power!” But just how ominous the newly-stated goal really is, no one seems to know,” exclaimed an article in the Arlington Heights Herald.139 According to Jane
Rhodes, “Newspapers were largely ignorant of the growing Black resentment in their own
communities.”140 While the national media was still paying attention to the same factors that they
had payed attention to in the South, they largely overlooked the bigger picture behind it. In the
South they covered White violence in response to Blacks who protested nonviolently for their
rights. In the North they covered Black violence in response to Whites who ignored their
138 Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. (New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton, 2007), 64. 139 Dave Crippen, “Behind the Headlines: ‘Black Power’ Tactic.” (Arlington Heights Herald. September 22, 1966), 183. 140 Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. (New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton, 2007), 62. 60 concerns for far too long. In the latter, the national media neglected to see what the driving factor was behind the unrest. No such example proves this analysis of how the media portrayed the
Black Power Movement better than that of the Watts and Detroit riots.
Civil Unrest
On August 11, 1965 riots broke out in Los Angeles in the city of Watts. The riots were prompted by an interaction between a White police officer who arrested a Black man on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Cries of excessive force caused the region to erupt in protests which quickly spiraled out of control and turned into riots. Violence, fires, and looting took place for almost a week. Upon the conclusion of the riots, a government report determined that 34 people had been killed, there were over 1,000 injuries, and more than $40 million in property damage. In a special titled “A Special UPI Report: The Terror in Los Angeles” a news report attempted to capture the feeling of panic with the Los Angeles and the United States as a whole. Prior to the special itself the editor felt inclined to leave an editor’s note before the article began to dramatize the seriousness of the covered event.
…At first hardly anyone noticed the state highway patrol car that stopped an automobile at the intersection of Avalon and 116th. The troopers, Lee Minikus and Bob Lewis, were making a routine stop of two Negroes suspected of drunken driving. They encountered resistance. The torrent of words between officers and suspects grew louder, soon attracting a small crowd. The troopers requested help. City officers who responded were pelted with a few rocks. That was the way it started. Before the calm was restored five days later- if indeed the end had come- Los Angeles had gone through its worst ordeal within memory of anyone alive. Rioting that’s spread like a forest fire swept a 50-square mile area. At least 32 persons were dead and hundreds were wounded or injured by sniper fire and broken glass. Property damage was probably beyond the $100 million mark….141
This interpretation of the riot was full of descriptive words to describe the event.
Although, they failed to analyze what the driving factors behind the riot were. In reexamining the
141 Al Kuettner, “A Special UPI Report: The Terror in Los Angeles.” (Raleigh Register. Vol 86, No. 47, August 16, 1965),1. 61
Watts community, a decade prior to the uprising reveals that despite growing Black protests,
White leaders and citizens developed a variety of mechanisms to ignore them: diminishing the
problem, refusing to listen, reshaping the problem, asking for proof, demonizing activists as
“troublemakers,” blaming Black culture as the problem, and refusing to even acknowledge
incidences of police abuse. 142 While many city and state officials, along with the national media,
blamed Black culture and underclass alienation, a mountain of evidence from the research,
testimony, and investigation that followed the uprising, including that of the McCone
Commission convened to investigate it, made the case that the riots were political rebellions
against racism in the city and nation.143
On July 23, 1967, the Detroit Riot took place. The riot broke out after city police raided
an illegal drinking club. They arrested everyone inside, most who were Black. Residents who
lived nearby began to protest and vandalize property and loot businesses. The violence quickly
spread throughout other parts of the city. Upon the conclusion of the riots there were 43 dead,
hundreds of injuries, over 7000 arrests, and over 1,000 burned buildings. Similar, to the Watts
riot, it the Detroit rioters were also portrayed negatively. The front page of the Traverse City
Record-Eagle held several articles that covered the event, and its effect on the nation, with flashy titles like: “Negro Sniper Squads Battle Troops in Detroit; Riot Death Toll at 33,” “Race
Violence Recorded in State Cities,” “Insurrection Costliest in Nation’s History; End Not Yet in
Sight,” “Congress Presses for End to Violence,” and several more.144
142 Jeannie Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018),65. 143 Ibid, 73. 144 “Negro Sniper Squads Battle Troops in Detroit; Riot Death Toll at 33,” (Traverse City Record-Eagle, July 26, 1967), 1. 62
From 1965-1968 there were over 150 race riots throughout the United States.145 A
Milwaukeean newspaper attempted to capture the fiery, disruptive spirit of rioters in its analysis
of how a riot broke out in an urban neighborhood. It said, “The chant of ‘Black Power Baby’ was
the phrase repeated by many of the youths whom a reporter and myself heard late Sunday night.
Negro rioters moved along Third street breaking down windows on many of the non-soul brother
owned stores. It seemed that the majority of them just wanted to destroy property. It was those
who followed that started the looting.”146 They were attempting to capture the spirit of the rioters, yet they failed to determine what was giving them that spirit. In other words, what was the cause of the riot. In another edition of the Milwaukee Star, they captured what some people considered to be the cause of the riots, “…Negroes see the causes as basic problems of survival, such as bad housing, job discrimination, unemployment, police brutality, and poor educational opportunities. Whites, on the other hand see the riot as being caused by: the breakdown of social control, such as rebellious youth who lack parental control; ‘outsiders,’ including Communists and Black Nationalists, and by local Civil Rights leaders who stirred unrest….”147
The Black community listed legitimate explanations that influenced the anger and rage
that lead to the riots, whereas the White community sought to place blame on outside groups of
people, not the factors that actually caused it. A letter to the editor of the New York Times
displayed White citizens’ feelings on the riots. “…An otherwise fine editorial blames the “white
men’s sins of omission and commission that are at the root of much of this summer’s turmoil. I
suppose the Detroit police had no business raiding the Negro after-hours spot that “touched off”
the riots. The prostitutes, lawless elements and teen-agers who joined in the riot were certainly
145 “Gallup Vault: Public More Hopeful Than Kerner Commission.” Gallup.com, February 26, 2018. 146 "Youth Predicted Sunday's Riot." (Milwaukee Star, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, vol. 2, no. 31, August 5, 1967) ,1. 147 "Negroes and Whites Differ on Riot Causes." (Milwaukee Star, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. vol. 2, no. 10, March 9, 1968),5. 63 not fighting for the correction of any civil wrongs. Nor were the looters, black and white, seeking to redress social injustice.”148 Another federal investigation took place after the Detroit riot, the
Kerner Commission, which concluded that racism, discrimination, and poverty were some of the causes of the violence and warned that our nation is moving “toward two societies, one Black, one White--separate and unequal.”149 “The Kerner Commission placed the blame [rioting] squarely on White racism. Gallup tested public agreement that racism existed, asking, “How well do you think negroes are being treated in this community—the same as whites are, not very well or badly?” Here, Whites and Blacks saw things very differently. Nearly two in three Blacks
(64%) thought Blacks were treated “not very well” or “badly” in their community, whereas nearly three in four Whites (73%) thought Blacks received the same treatment as Whites.”150
Even when those who still believed in nonviolent protests attempted to demonstrate in the
North, or criticize how the North was just as racist or oppressive to blacks as the South, they were met with firm resistance. Martin Luther King himself was physically abused by counter- protesters when he marched for housing equality in Chicago. Martin Luther King led six hundred
Blacks into the White area of Gage Park in Chicago’s southwest side and journalists observed more than a thousand Whites lined the streets, shouting “Kill those niggers” and hurling rocks and bottles. King was knocked to the ground by a rock but resumed marching after supporters helped him to his feet. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” he told Gene Roberts of the
New York Times. “I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn to hate.”151 The previously mentioned evidence proves that the Black Freedom Movement was not
148 "Comments on Rioting in Cities." (New York Times, Aug 5, 1967). 149 Lydia Saad, Gallup Vault: Public More Hopeful Than Kerner Commission, (May 7, 1968) distributed by Gallup Polling, https://news.gallup.com/vault/228206/gallup-vault-public-hopeful-kerner-commission.aspx 150 “Gallup Vault: Public More Hopeful Than Kerner Commission.” Gallup.com, February 26, 2018. 151 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 401. 64 centered to, nor limited, to the South. Rather it took place throughout the entire country but the accepted version of the movement is limited to the South, where there is a clear depiction of the
“villain” or the segregationist and the “hero” or the brave activist who pushed for integration. It is framed as a Civil Rights Movement focused in the South with the support of the nation behind it, but in doing so the role that the nation played in the Civil Rights Movement as well as the
Black Power Movement is ignored. The accepted version of the movement creates a false narrative of the Black Freedom Movement that unfortunately persists to this day.
Once the national media began to portray the Civil Rights Movement as a violent one it just ended. The national media framed the Southern movement as the only actual movement, within the Black Freedom Movement, and decidedly wrote out the rest. The last major event,
Selma, was seen as the end of the actual movement. “Thirty-three years later, John Lewis, the former SNCC chairman and now a congressman, would look back on the voting rights victory and say that it had been Selma, and the later efforts to keep voting rights in the news, that it had held the movement together so long,” he continues, “After that, we just came apart.” 152 While scholars and activists choose to stretch the timeline to 1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated, the Civil Rights Movement achieved its goals after the passage of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Topics such as the events that Watts and Detroit riots and the rise of Black Power Movement and the Black Panthers were not seen, or purposefully ignored, as being part of the larger Black Freedom Movement.
As is evident from the analyzation of the Civil Rights Movement, it was clearly not popular while it was taking place. It was not until it was considered over and successful that people’s opinion of the movement, and the people involved with it, began to change which is a
152 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 394. 65
peculiar fact in itself. According to Jeanne Theoharis, “By 1987, 76 percent of Americans held a
favorable opinion of the civil rights leader [MLK], almost the reverse of his popularity at the end
of his life (only 28 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of him in 1966).”153 The
resulting question is what changed in the brief time during the movement and its conclusion that
caused people to remember it differently?
The national media positively portrayed the movement when the South was depicted as
the bad guy. It was an age old, sectional battle that had manifested itself on a different but
familiar plane. Once the United States government became involved, due to bad publicity, racist
and discriminatory behavior started to transition into an “un-American trait,” in this manner the
United States ethos could maintain its aura of perfection. Since the South had racism and
discriminatory practices recorded in legislation it was fairly easy to paint them as the scapegoats,
and accuse segregationist who refused to abandon their ways as “un-American”. The North and
West also had racist and discriminatory practices recorded within their legislation though not
always as candid as the South. By disguising their legislation, they continued their way of life
while condemning the Southerners for their vile ways. This is how many Northern White;
liberals saw themselves as part of the Civil Rights Movement. It is also how the movement
begins to be shaped differently than it was intended. When the actions of Northern Black people
began to appear in popular tributes to the era, they tended to show up in the later 1960s, either in
the form of the riots and a naive Martin Luther King discovering Northern Black issues, or as a
contrast drawn between groups like the Black Panther Party and the Southern movement.154
153 Jeannie Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018), ix-x. 154 Ibid, 33. 66
To challenge the popular narrative, one only has to analyze people’s reaction of the movement on a local level. People’s opinion of the Civil Rights Movement changed rapidly when it entered their own backyard. Which can be seen in examples of civil rights protest in the
North, however because they were in the North the national, mainstream media refused to portray them as part of the overall Civil Rights Movement but as irate Black citizens instead. For example, while Southern segregationists fought to prevent school integration, similar movements took place in Northern cities by White families; but instead of being termed segregationists, as they truly were, they are described as “antibusing movement protestors” and their anger is just termed “white backlash” not the accurate term of racists, as it should have been.155 Continuing on that same thread, examples of discrimination and racism in the North is observed distinctly in places such as New York and Boston. Both places were home to momentous desegregation cases and were full of protests and violent clashes although, they are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the main narrative of the Civil Rights Movement. Unhappy because South Carolina did not erupt into violence as Mississippi did, Charleston editor Tom Waring wrote a Citizens’ Council member, “While I know you regard the latter as a sign of weakness, we are giving this gambit a whirl to try for size in the hope that explosions now making up in the Northern ghettos will take the liberal’s minds off the South.”156 He, and others like him, realized that if they ignored their anger and displeasure more attention might be featured on similar injustices, though they didn’t believe them to be unjust, in the North.
In examining how Northern Black peoples were portrayed by the national media during the Civil Rights Movement one has to search primary sources other than national, mainstream
155 Jeannie Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018), 56. 156 Gene Roberts, and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, (New York: Vintage, 2007), 303. 67 media. From the very beginning the Black press covered the Civil Rights Movement in a more thorough manner. With a mostly Black readership, the Black press had to cater to the demands of their readers. While it is clear that the Black press covered the Civil Rights movement in a more thorough manner because their audience consisted of Black people who truly cared about how the Civil Rights Movement developed, Civil Rights leaders did not believe that the Movement could be successful without the help of the national, mainstream media. To be successful the
Civil Rights movement was looking for enforcement of civil and human rights for Black people.
Black people had already been awarded civil rights and voting rights in the 14th and 15th
Amendments, upon the conclusion of the Civil War. Section one of the fourteenth Amendment reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”157 Section five reads, “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”158 Sections one and two of the fifteenth Amendment reads, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”159 While the Amendments clearly identify Black people as citizens and allow them to vote, it also dictates that Congress has the power to enforce these Amendments. Up to that point Congress had chosen not to enforce them.
157 “Avalon Project - U.S. Constitution: Amendments XI - XXVII.” Accessed February 29, 2020. 158 Ibid 159 Ibid 68
Congress’ willingness to deny Black people their rights forced Civil Rights leaders to use a method that they could not deny.
As I previously mentioned, the United States was in an international Cold War with the
Soviet Union at the time, providing a most opportune time for Civil Rights leaders to show their hand. Following the guidelines through which America identified itself; a strong, patriarchal,
Christian nation. The Civil Rights Movement framed itself in that same manner and peacefully protested even when meet with violence. This captured the attention of the national media, including the many prominent Northern Whites, causing many to questions their morals and beliefs. The manner within which the media portrayed the Civil Rights Movement in the South directly depicted them as the “bad guy”. The media depicted the South as a very backwards society bent on sticking to old traditions. In reality, they were not the only part of the nation with a deep and dark racist past.
As observed in the numerous accounts of the movement, Northern media outlets criticized the blatant acts of racism and violence displayed by Southern Whites while simultaneously condemning the Civil Rights Movement for provoking those attacks. Northern media outlets were also more inclined to side with the federal government over Southern states’ rights. One thing that is clear is that civil rights were not primarily in the main interest when it came to the national, mainstream media’s interpretation of events. They either focused on the power struggle between the state and federal level or focused on the portrayal of violence displayed, but the lack of civil rights was not a major concern. Seeing as how most of the popular media institutions were based in the North, it was easy to condemn the South’s actions and praise the North for being integrated. However, it was not that simple. There were many civil right 69
events that took place outside of the South but because the movement was framed as a Southern
issue, the events were construed as being outside the movement.
The national media largely glossed over or completely ignored countless Northern
protests for civil rights, until they became violent. According to Jeanne Theoharis, “While
newspapers such as the New York Times were covering the Southern Civil Rights Movement
extensively and sympathetically by 1964, they took a different, much more critical approach to a
growing desegregation movement at home.”160 People affiliated with the movement’s effort in
the South were recognized as honorable, fighting for a worthy cause whereas those who fought
for the same movement in the North were described as troublesome ne’er-do-wells with a
redundant cause. The Watts riot, in Los Angeles, becomes the first introduction to the Northern
racial landscape outside the South- and Black communities there are cast as angry, alienated, and
unwilling to work through ̈proper channels.”161 The emergence of the Black Power Movement is important for this very reason.
The role that the national media played in portraying the Civil Rights Movement directly effects how people remember the movement today. Reporters experienced firsthand, and were often a part of, the violence and oppression that Southern Blacks went through. As reporters, one is supposed to be unbiased and not get involved in the story but during the movement reporters were often active agents and participants involved in the events unfolding. As a result of this the dynamic changed and many reporters were no longer completely objective. Due to them being involved in the story, several reporters were able to capture and write stories with pathos that effectively reach the millions sitting at home, reading and watching the stories. Although, when
160 Jeannie Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018),45. 161 Ibid, 64. 70 the Civil Rights Movement reached a national platform and many African Americans dropped their stance of nonviolence, during the Black Power Movement, they were displayed as the aggressors who did not truly want to become a part of American [white] society. While this analysis attempts to explain why the Black Freedom Movement is remembered the way it is today it also alludes to how several subsequent movements, such as the Black Lives Matter
Movement, are analyzed. In my next chapter I will examine the ambitious Black Lives Matter movement that appears, in many ways, similar to both the Civil Rights Movement and the Black
Power Movement. 71
CHAPTER II. BLACK LIVES MATTER
Despite the Black Freedom Movement’s vast success, only a portion of the movement is ever remembered as being successful. Within the Black Freedom Movement are the Civil Rights
Movement and the Black Power Movement. Many historians, such as Felicia Ann Kornbluh, believe subsequent movements also saw large degrees of success because of the wide success of the Black Freedom Movement. One such movement is the Welfare Rights Movement. “Due to the success of the Black Freedom Movement, activists in the Welfare Rights movement were able to collectively organize in the 1960s and had a number of resources available for their disposal. These resources were material, in the form of financial help, office space, and staff that came from local outposts of the federal War on Poverty. They were also rhetorical, in the form of the rights language that was popularized by the freedom movement and the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren,” argues Kornbluh.162 In spite of this, when it comes to remembering the Black Freedom Movement, people only remember the Civil Rights Movement.
In the years following the Civil Rights Movement there have been numerous social movements that have attempted to follow in the footsteps left by it but have fallen short for a number of reasons. One such contemporary movement, is of Black Lives Matter, which evolved from a simple hashtag into an international activist movement. Originating in the Black community in Ferguson, Missouri, Black Lives Matter is a movement “that campaigns against violence and systematic racism towards Black people.”163 Very similar to the Civil Rights
Movement, insofar as it seeking to better the everyday lives of Black people, the Black Lives
Matter movement, addresses distrust in the Black community between police and Black people
162 Felicia Ann Kornbluh, The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Poverty in Modern America. (Politics and Culture in Modern America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 9. 163 Black Lives Matter. “Home.” Accessed January 15, 2020. https://blacklivesmatter.com/. 72 as well as the use of excessive force.164 Coincidentally, Black Lives Matter experienced growth during many catalytic events within the African-American community. The phrase Black Lives
Matter is credited to Alicia Garza, who coined the phrase, in July 2013 after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the death of Trayvon Martin. Although it would not be until a year later, in
2014, after the tragic death of Michael Brown, that #BlackLivesMatter emerged into an independent movement. Stemming from a rise in police violence, the movement epitomized the lack of trust and respect between Black citizens and the police. Alicia Garza noted that, “even though the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ was taken from a Facebook post, Black Lives Matter was intended to be a movement from the start and not simply a social media phenomenon or a hashtag.”165 While Alicia Garza is credited with the phrase Black Lives Matter, she, Patrisse
Cullors and Opal Tometi are credited with turning the phrase into a full-blown movement. It is noteworthy to point out that although Alicia Garza was credited as being a founder of Black
Lives Matter, Garza created another group that operated within the Black Lives Matter network.
As a result of the Trump administration, with all of its belligerence and appeals to white nationalists, as well as the synonymous relationship between the Ferguson riots and Black Lives
Matter, numerous challenges impacted the movement in unforeseen ways.166 This led to the creation of a new phase called the Movement for Black Lives. Barbara Ransby clarifies the distinction between the two stating, “The Movement for Black Lives is an umbrella term and a coalition that includes dozens of local and national organizations; encompassing both affiliated and unaffiliated forces that have emerged or gained traction post-2012, through their protests and
164 Black Lives Matter. “Home.” Accessed January 15, 2020. https://blacklivesmatter.com/. 165“Alicia Garza: Black Lives Matter Proves That ‘New Leaders Are Possible,’” (Marguerite Casey Foundation, October 23, 2015). 166 Barbara Ransby, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century. (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018), 9. 73 organizing efforts against anti-Black racism, especially as it manifested in various forms of police, state, and vigilante violence.”167 Although many may use Black Lives Matter and the
Movement for Black Lives interchangeably, I will refer to each individual movement as their own.
Much like the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter is grassroots in nature, meaning that the organization is comprised of ordinary individuals. It is a “chapter-based, member-led organization.”168 Black Lives Matter prides itself so much on its grassroots origins, but unlike the Civil Rights Movement it has a non-centralized structure meaning that there are no true inherent leaders of the organization. There have been a number of faces that the media has framed as leaders of the organization but in terms of structure, Black Lives Matter is a leaderless organization. According to Garza ‘leader-full’ is a more apt description of the organization.
“There are many people working within the movement and using the moniker ‘Black Lives
Matter’ to organize their communities. New leaders are possible, everyday people- a Black single mother, a Black transgender woman, a Black immigrant can do things to change the way that our country is going, and can be empowered to provide vision, guidance, and other forms of leadership.”169 Much like the Civil Rights Movement, much of how Black Lives Matter is perceived by mainstream America, is heavily influenced by the media. The Civil Rights
Movement received ample attention when the protests were peaceful and the reaction was violent, as can be seen in protests such as the Freedom Rides or the Sit-ins. Although, as the
Civil Rights Movement ended and the Black Power Movement began, mainstream media
167 Barbara Ransby, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century. (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018), 4. 168 Black Lives Matter. “Home.” Accessed January 15, 2020. https://blacklivesmatter.com/. 169 “Alicia Garza: Black Lives Matter Proves That ‘New Leaders Are Possible,’” (Marguerite Casey Foundation, October 23, 2015). 74
portrayed the movement as angry and violent. The same could be said for Black Lives Matter. In
its origins the movement was awe-inspiring in the attention that it garnered, on social media and
in the mainstream news. The infamous case of Trayvon Martin, would serve as a catalyst that
inspired the acclaimed phrase that eventually grew into a vibrant movement.
How Black Lives Matter Came to Be
On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old boy, was fatally shot by
neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, as he was walking home from a local
corner store. Zimmerman accused Martin of trying to sneak into the gated community and an
altercation ensued. Zimmerman saw Martin reach for what he believed to be a weapon, but was
actually a drink. A scuffle ensued, which resulted in Zimmerman ultimately shooting him.
Zimmerman’s account of what happened is accepted as being fact, according to police, because
he reported that Trayvon Martin was the aggressor.170 While Black people were used to being
ignored and overlooked by the police, they had faith that justice would ultimately be served but
they were let down. Reactions ranged all over the place. A New York Times letter to the editor captured one angry reaction. Vaughn A. Carney, a lawyer from Stowe, Vermont wrote,
Let me see if I’ve got this straight: A self-appointed vigilante, brandishing a deadly weapon, reportedly ignores police directions and assaults an unarmed black 17-year old, and as a result of this self-instigated confrontation the teenager is killed; the assailant pleads self-defense and may escape prosecution. Surely this scenario cannot be justified under any sane reading of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. Florida’s ill-conceived rejection of several hundred years of common-law precedent-- the duty to retreat safely rather than to resort to the use of deadly force-- has been revealed for its sheer idiocy. All such laws must be repealed.171
Originally, the story of Trayvon Martin’s death was not picked up by the national media.
According to Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s father, “The media didn’t go looking for the story, so we
170 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2016), 147. 171 "Guns, Race and a Killing in Florida." (New York Times, Mar 22, 2012). 75 had to go looking for the media.”172 The family lawyer, an established Civil Rights Attorney named Benjamin Crump, persisted in getting the media to pick up the story and it was eventually picked up on Reuters giving it “credibility and national distribution.”173 From there, Martin’s tragic death was presented to the entire nation. Once the case reached a national level it quickly became a major talking point. In a Gallup poll administered to 3,006 Americans, including 242 blacks, 72% of blacks believed race was a major factor in the events that led up to the shooting death of Martin whereas 13% said it was a minor factor.174 On the other hand, only 31% of nonblack respondents believed racial bias was a major factor, 26% saying it was a minor factor, and 25% saying it was not a factor at all.175 Although the sample size is relatively small, this segment provides a fairly accurate insight of people’s true feelings. Despite the fact that the case caused national outrage, Zimmerman’s eventual acquittal sparked an even bigger outcry. What could have been a fair case where justice is served, quickly turned into a case that left many questioning the justice system, and wondering whether Black lives truly mattered in the United
States.
While the phrase “Black Lives Matter” was uttered in encouragement in the somberness of George Zimmerman’s acquittal, it was the death of Michael Brown that truly brought the phrase into the light as a full-blown social movement. Michael Brown was walking home in the street with a friend when an officer rode past and yelled at them to get on the sidewalk. They ignored him, prompting the police officer to get out and argue with them. Michael Brown and the officer, Darren Wilson, somehow ended up in a scuffle, which resulted in Brown being shot in
172 Fulton, Sybrina, and Tracy Martin. Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin. (First edition. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2017), 59. 173 Ibid, 61. 174 “Blacks, Nonblacks Hold Sharply Different Views of Martin Case,” (Gallup.com, April 5, 2012). https://news.gallup.com/poll/153776/Blacks-Nonblacks-Hold-Sharply-Different-Views-Martin-Case.aspx. 175 Ibid 76
his hand. Both boys then took off running, Michael Brown ran down the street while his friend
hid behind a car. Darren Wilson pursued and shot Michael Brown numerous times even though
he made clear that he did not have a weapon. As if that was not traumatic enough, they left his
lifeless body lying in the streets for over four hours.176 Social media coverage of the events that
unfolded prompted protests all across the nation but Ferguson was definitely a focal point.
Protests carried on for days and eventually transitioned into riots. A rather revealing
exposition of the media’s true nature discovered what truly drew their attention to the turbulence
in Ferguson. “While photos and videos from the day of Brown’s death had certainly gone viral, it
was the destruction of the QuikTrip, not the police shooting of Mike Brown, that brought the
microscope of the national media to Ferguson. Yet another police shooting in a working-class
black neighborhood, even the breaking of a young black body left on public display, didn't catch
the gaze of the national media. It was the community’s enraged response -broken windows and
shattered storefronts- that drew the eyes of the nation,” stated Wesley Lowery.177 It became so
bad that the governor had to declare a state of emergency. In a New York Times editorial titled
‘The Search for Calm in Missouri’ it said,
Higher authorities wisely stepped into the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo., on Thursday after a night that startled the nation with images of police overkill; flash grenades, rubber bullets and huge clouds of teargas fired at demonstrators protesting the police shooting Saturday of an unarmed black teenager. Gov. Jay Nixon--after keeping a low profile for too long-- made an urgent tour of the town and replaced local police officers with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. He gave the Highway Patrol an order that should have been given over the weekend: Let protesters who are angry about the shooting protest peacefully, without aggressive demands to disperse, as is their constitutional right.178
176 Lowery, Wesley. They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement. First edition. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2016,25. 177 Ibid, 29. 178 “The search for calm in Missouri,” (New York Times, August 15,2014). 77
The editorial is written, almost eerily, similar to newspaper articles covering civil rights protests in the South during the 1960s. One such similarity is that of the militarization of the police disbanding the protesters. Thomas J. Lucente Jr, of the Lima News, indicated the effect militarizing the police had on everyday citizens. “These ‘soldiers’ were using tear gas and firing rubber bullets to deprive the people of their constitutional rights. If you outfit them like combat soldiers, they obviously will act like combat soldiers.”179 The previously mentioned editorial also describes the use of flash grenades, rubber bullets, and teargas to aggressively break up journalists and protesters; comparing them to the dogs, and batons, and fire hoses used on the protesters in Birmingham during the early1960s.
Another similarity, could also be the delayed presence and reaction of Missouri Governor
Jay Nixon. Although many condemned the actions of the police and the governmental response, there are also those who reprimanded Black Lives Matter and other protesters for the rioting that ensued. Many older Black people critiqued Black Lives Matter for acting counter to Martin
Luther King’s dream and promoting violence. CNN interviewed Martin Luther King III, asking him to speculate about what his father would make of the rioting and violence that took place in
Ferguson. He responded,
I’m sure he would be greatly disappointed. First and foremost, he would certainly be feeling very bad for the family, I mean, he would have empathy for the family. Secondly, he would feel disappointed that it erupted into a scenario of violence all across communities. He used to say that violence is the language of the unheard. And he constantly talked about, we must find nonviolent ways to address our conflicts, so he would be always advocating nonviolence, never stooping to an encouraging violence…. I think that we have to use as many voices as possible to speak to the younger generation. My voice is one voice, but you really need those who are of that age, young people speaking to young people saying, “Look, there’s a more constructive way.” We
179 Thomas J. Lucente Jr., “The Dangers of Police Militarization,” (The Lima News, August 17, 2014), 10. 78
understand your frustration. This particular strategy is not going to yield a long-term result. It’s not going to create peace. In the long run, peace creates peace not violence.180
In his attempt to convey the message that Martin Luther King Jr. preached, his explanation for the violence thoroughly explained why the city erupted as it did. Echoing his famous father,
Martin Luther King III said, “Violence is the language of the unheard,” and the black citizens of
Ferguson truly felt unheard.181 They were angry and confused as to why an unarmed Black boy was shot and killed by the police and then his lifeless body was left in the streets for hours.
Although many activists of the Civil Rights movement did not support the tactics of the protesters of Black Lives Matter, the feeling of being ignored and unheard, a feeling that many participants felt during the Civil Rights movement, is what largely influenced many to join in and participate in Black Lives Matter. Concurring with that belief, Wesley Lowery argues,
“Ferguson would birth a movement and set the nation on a course for a still-ongoing public hearing on race that stretched far past the killing of unarmed residents- from daily policing to
Confederate imagery to respectability politics to cultural appropriation. The social justice movement spawned from Mike Brown’s blood would force city after city to grapple with its own fraught histories of race and policing.”182
Justice seemed far off to many African Americans in Ferguson. They felt ignored by the city and, to them, Brown’s death was symbolic of all the wrong the city of Ferguson and the police department committed. They wanted answers but they did not receive them, and it frustrated them. Numerous police officers went as far as to defend Wilson, arguing vigorously,
180 Jermaine M. McDonald, “Ferguson and Baltimore According to Dr. King: How Competing Interpretations of King’s Legacy Frame the Public Discourse on Black Lives Matter.” (Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, vol. 36, no. 2, 2016), 142. 181 Ibid 182Wesley Lowery. They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement. (First edition. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2016), 13. 79 that his life was the one at risk. Several interviews of Darren Wilson took place and most of them attempted to portray him as a man who had been through a lot but wanted to give back to his community. According to the New Yorker, Wilson struggled in school and had grown up with a criminal mother who eventually committed suicide. Despite his tough life, Wilson saw becoming a police officer as a chance to prove himself. Joining the force while the economy suffered dramatically, Wilson chose to work in a predominantly Black division because there would be more calls; he could stay busy.183 It is important to note that, even though he may have remained busy, it was not guaranteed that he received pay that justified how busy he was. According to
Missouri Fraternal Order of Police President, Kevin Ahlbrand, “Police officers can be paid as little as ten dollars an hour, and that low pay can create unprofessional police officers.”184
Despite Wilson’s touching life story, how he felt during the moments of Brown’s death was a different matter. During an interview by the New Yorker a reporter asked Darren Wilson if he reflected on what kind of person Brown was? Wilson responded, “You do realize that his parents are suing me? So, I have to think about him. Do I think about who he was as a person? Not really, because it doesn’t matter at this point. Do I think he had the best upbringing? No. Not at all.”185 The reporter made a note to mention how striking Wilson’s tone was when answering the question, given Wilson’s own troubling childhood. Despite the similarities in their upbringing,
Darren Wilson was not able to relate with Michael Brown and diffuse the situation rather than escalate it, possibly indicating an underlying racist attachment that manifested itself in the heat of the moment.
183 Jake Halpern, “The Man Who Shot Michael Brown.” (The New Yorker, August 3, 2015). 184 Ibid 185 Ibid 80
Almost a month after the killing of Brown and the riots that transpired at Ferguson, the
Black community saw an opportunity for justice. In lieu of the violence and accusations of systematic racism, the Department of Justice conducted an internal investigation into the
Ferguson police department. They found patterns of numerous civil rights violations by the
Ferguson Police Department including violations of the first, fourth, and fourteenth amendments of the Constitution. The report also found that the Ferguson Police Department had a pattern of routinely interfering with the right to free expression in violation of the First Amendment; and using unreasonable force in violation of Fourth Amendment.186 Attorney General Eric Holder reported,
Our investigation showed that Ferguson police officers routinely violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force against them. Now that our investigation has reached its conclusion, it is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action. The report we have issued and the steps we have taken are only the beginning of a necessarily resource-intensive and inclusive process to promote reconciliation, to reduce and eliminate bias, and to bridge gaps and build understanding.187
The Department of Justice also found Ferguson’s harmful court and police practices were due, at least in part, to intentional discrimination, as demonstrated by direct evidence of racial bias and stereotyping about African Americans by certain Ferguson police and municipal court officials.188 While they were glad the Ferguson Police Department would be held accountable, citizens wondered if the Department of Justice would also find Darren Wilson guilty of civil rights crimes. When questioned during his grand jury hearing, Wilson told the jury that Brown, upon being shot, had “the most intense, aggressive face,” and he looked “like a demon.”189
186 “Justice Department Announces Findings of Two Civil Rights Investigations in Ferguson, Missouri,” (March 4, 2015). 187 Ibid 188 Ibid 189 Jake Halpern, “The Man Who Shot Michael Brown.” (The New Yorker, August 3, 2015). 81
Wilson’s statement bothered many people, who argued that his statement had several negative
racial connotations in it. MSNBC commentator and historian Melissa Harris-Perry noted that
Wilson’s use of language- much like his use of the word “demon”- was dehumanizing, and
conformed to the “myth of the Black brute incapable of pain himself bent on inflicting pain on
others.”190 Despite the Department of Justice investigation into the Ferguson Police Department
and the actions of Darren Wilson, the Justice Department found that, “the evidence does not
establish that Darren Wilson violated the applicable federal criminal civil rights statute.”191 It is
also important to note that Darren Wilson did not offer Brown’s family any indications of
remorse or sympathy until after his non-indictment.
In the events during and immediately following the turbulent situation taking place in
Ferguson, the Black Lives Matter movement flourished and expanded. Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor probably said it best in her book, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, “The
explosion in Ferguson and the nationwide protests have deepened the political crisis, shattered
the “post racial” proclamations, and inspired others to rise up against a worsening epidemic of
police harassment, brutality, corruption, and murder that threatens to snatch the lives and
personhood of untold numbers of African Americans in every city and suburb.”192 Coming to a similar realization, Black people from all walks of life united under the mantle of “Black Lives
Matter.” “The body of Michael Brown laying on that ground for 4 ½ hours, shocked American back into its consciousness once again. It woke so many people up that thought Emmitt Till was a figment of the past and not a very relative figure of the present. Emmitt Till is Michael Brown,
190 Jake Halpern, “The Man Who Shot Michael Brown.” (The New Yorker, August 3, 2015). 191 “Justice Department Announces Findings of Two Civil Rights Investigations in Ferguson, Missouri,” (March 4, 2015). 192 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2016),13. 82
Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland, and Eric Garner, and all those folks because they woke us up again,” proclaims Brittany Packnett, Black Lives Matter Activist & Co-Founder of Campaign
Zero.193 Everyday people with no experience in social movements, such as Johnetta Elzie and
DeRay McKesson, became involved in Black Lives Matter because they were angry and wanted to see a change. Johnetta Elzie was a young, working-class native of St. Louis before she became heavily involved through Twitter activism to express her frustrations.194 DeRay McKesson was from Baltimore and had been a teacher before he quit his job to become one of the most well- known social media faces of Black Lives Matter.195 Once a phrase spoken as encouragement,
Black Lives Matter morphed into an entire movement that many people hoped and believed would unite the masses to bring about change in society. The events that transpired at Ferguson served as the ultimate catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement, but numerous subsequent events added fuel to the growing movement.
Black Lives Matter was not accepted by numerous Americans for a number of reasons.
The first and probably the most important reason, the Black Lives Matter movement ran counter to the “progressive, colorblind” culture that America had branded itself as post-civil rights. Due to this paradigm, many questioned the legitimacy of the Black Lives Matter movement. “There was a petition that was drafted and circulated all the way to the White House. It said we were terrorists. We, who in response to the killing of that child [Brown], said Black Lives Matter,”
Patrisse Khan-Cullors somberly explained.196 Acceptance of the movement also tended to run
193 “Before Black Lives Matter, There Was Black Power,” (NBC News, March 24, 2018). 194 Barbara Ransby, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century. (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018), 60. 195 Ibid, 61. 196 Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. (First edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018), 6. 83 along party lines.197 While it is not uncommon to run along party lines when it comes to civil rights and racial issues, it is very important specifically for the acceptance of the Civil Rights
Movement. Since the 1980s, America has seen the polarization of its political parties when it comes to key issues; such as race relations, police brutality, and gun laws. On a national level, the Republican party tends to be more conservative meaning pro-police and pro-gun whereas the
Democratic party tends to be more liberal and open to societal reformations. Things are not as clear on the local level when you factor in outside factors like region and state. Black people are caught in between a tough place when it comes to choosing a political party to speak on their behalf. According to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, “They cannot vote Republican since that party has become increasingly a pro-white party; they cannot fully trust the Democratic Party since it has shown in recent times a tremendous degree of ambivalence in its commitment to Blacks as evidenced in the racialized discourse of many leaders on welfare, crime, government spending, and affirmative action; and the third party option; advocated by many progressives, is still a far- fetched idea with a very limited impact among black urban voters.”198 Although the Democratic
Party is now considered the party that prioritizes the interest of Blacks, it still has done its share of damage that cause many Blacks to be wary. It was President Bill Clinton, of the Democratic
Party, who enacted some of the harshest legislation, such as the 1994 Crime Bill, that proved detrimental for Black citizens.199 Clinton aggressively pursued the bill to appeal to moderates and to appear tough to Republicans, but in doing so he went further than the Republicans had previously gone. Due to his actions Blacks feel a notion of fear when Democratic Presidents,
197 Harry J. Enten, “Were Republicans Really the Party of Civil Rights in the 1960s?” (The Guardian, August 28, 2013). 198Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. (Fifth edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 32-33. 199 Thomas Frank, “Bill Clinton’s Crime Bill Destroyed Lives, and There’s No Denying It,” (The Guardian, April 15, 2016). 84 such as Obama, make concessions to moderates and Conservatives, because they fear it can turn out worse for them as it did when Clinton was in office. Similarly, you see the rise of progressive portions of the Democratic party who seek to stamp out the parts of the Democratic party that continuously give in to the Conservatives, whilst sacrificing the livelihoods of their supposed constituents. The Black Lives Matter movement has quickly become another debating point between both parties, perhaps taking away from the effectiveness of the movement in general. A
New York Times editorial attempted to describe Black Lives Matters and, identified how the
Republican party portrayed the movement. It read, “The Republican party and its acolytes in the news media are trying to demonize the protest movement that has sprung up in response to the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans across the country. The intent of the campaign-- evident in comments by politicians like Gov. Nikki Hayley of South Carolina,
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky-- is to cast the phrase
“Black Lives Matter” as an inflammatory that has no legitimate place in a civil rights campaign.”200
Much like the previously mentioned example, rhetoric and analysis of pro-Black movements is also seen during the closing years of the Civil Rights Movement during the Black
Power era. While the Civil Rights Movement called for an end to discrimination and desegregation, and asked for integration, the advocates of Black Power called for almost the exact opposite. Spoken by angry Black citizens, tired of waiting on the white man to accept them; the phrase “Black Power,” became a call for unity and self-sufficiency.201 Such a “radical” statement created a notion of fear in White people who in turn vilified the ideology, parallels can
200 "The Truth of 'Black Lives Matter',” (New York Times, September 4, 2015), 1. 201 Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017), xi. 85 also be seen in how White people perceive Black Lives Matter. The New York Times editorial continued, “The “Black Lives Matter” movement focuses on the fact that Black citizens have long been far more likely than Whites to die at the hands of the police, and is of a piece with this history. Demonstrators who chant the phrase are making the same declaration that voting rights and civil rights activists made a half-century ago. They are not asserting that Black lives are more precious than White lives. They are underlining an indisputable fact--that the lives of Black citizens in this country historically have not mattered, and have been discounted and devalued.”202 While the acceptance of the movement did become polarized, increasing events brought to national attention began to sway many observers to consider what Black Lives Matter was fighting for.
Media and Black Lives Matter
While the media covered the movement, it was not always in the most flattering of lights. Similar to how the media covered the riots of the North during the Civil Rights Movement, you had the media cover the Ferguson riots, and others throughout the country, in the same manner. At two distinct points in history, the media failed to connect the riots to the broader picture of Blacks unhappy with their living conditions, people who felt they had exhausted every available resource to them in order to be treated equally and have the same resources available to them as their White counterparts but had nothing to show for it. “Seeing a protracted movement in these
[Northern] cities before the uprisings reveals how long and hard people fought to reveal and challenge these injustices-and the investments Northern political elites and many ordinary white citizens had in ignoring or dismissing these movements. A similar surprise had accompanied uprisings from Ferguson to Baltimore today-as has a similar refusal to grapple with longstanding
202 "The Truth of 'Black Lives Matter'." (New York Times, September 4, 2015), 1. 86
Black demands and movements that preceded them,” asserted Theoharis.203 The use of social
media proved to be an increasingly important tool to help support the growth of the movement.
“We were not pleased with the media. Somebody would be at home watching a channel, they
would text or tweet someone and say ‘this is the story that is being told about you, and I know
that’s not true because I was just out there myself.’ That’s why social media was such an
important tool for us because it allowed us to tell the truth unfiltered,” says Brittany Packnett.204
While the mainstream media is controlled by executives and the content is based off of their own
biases, social media is controlled by executives as well but the content of social media is
primarily controlled by every day, individual people. According to Wesley Lowery, “Social
media made it possible for young black people to document interactions they believed to be
injustices, and exposed their white friends and family members to their experiences.”205 The new generation of activist passed knowledge and information on in the way they were most familiar with, on social media using hashtags, characters, emojis, and live videos to capture everything that took place. According to Amanda Bunting and Janet Stamatel, “During the initial week of protests, over 3.6 million posts appeared on Twitter documenting and reflecting on the emerging details surrounding Michael Brown’s death; by the end of the month, #Ferguson had appeared more than eight million times on the twitter platform.”206 “Hashtags created in direct response to events that disproportionately affect black communities, like police shootings of unarmed Black suspects, provide powerful counternarratives to traditional representations and treatment of
203 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), 82. 204 “Before Black Lives Matter, There Was Black Power,” (NBC News, March 24, 2018). 205 Wesley Lowery, They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement. (First edition. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2016), 15. 206Amanda M. Bunting and Janet Stamatel, “Exploring Geospatial Characteristics of Hashtag Activism in Ferguson, Missouri: An Application of Social Disorganization Theory.” (Geoforum 104, August 2019), 55. 87
African Americans in the United States,” Bunting and Stamatel argue.207 According to New York
Times Magazine, core Black Lives Matter activists like Johnetta Elzie and DeRay McKesson,
through twitter, have the ability to frame events and direct the actions of hundreds of thousands
of people across the nation at their fingertips.208 Events could be recorded and shared with
millions of people in a matter of seconds. That is one of the reasons Black Lives Matter saw such
initial success. Peggy Parks asserts that, “After the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag first appeared on
social media in July 2013, its use grew and then declined sharply by July 2014. But according to
a Center for Media & Social Impact study, Brown’s death in August caused the hashtag’s use to
soar to 52,288 tweets that month.”209 The use of social media gave a voice to a whole new group
of people and simultaneously allowed for a change of platforms; rather than forcing the new
activists to rely solely on more traditional methods used to relay information. Social media has
provided a platform where marginalized people can voice their opinions on issues that negatively
impact them. Twitter, specifically “Black twitter,” has proven itself to be a safe space where
black people can vent how they feel, without fear of exclusion.210 “Everyday Black Americans
use Twitter to voice their concerns in a way they could not use television or radio,” Bunting and
Stamatel insist. 211 Wesley Lowery agrees with their theory, claiming that, “Conversations once
had at Bible studies and on barroom stools were happening on our phones and on Facebook,
allowing both instant access to information and a means of instant feedback.”212 Compared to the
Civil Rights Movement and the important role media held in effectively covering the brutal
207 Amanda M. Bunting and Janet Stamatel. “Exploring Geospatial Characteristics of Hashtag Activism in Ferguson, Missouri: An Application of Social Disorganization Theory.” (Geoforum 104, August 2019), 56. 208 Fredrick C. Harris, “The Next Civil Rights Movement?” (Dissent 62, no. 3, Summer 2015), 35. 209Peggy J. Parks, The Black Lives Matter Movement. (San Diego, CA: Reference Point Press, 2017), 26-27 210 Amanda M. Bunting and Janet Stamatel. “Exploring Geospatial Characteristics of Hashtag Activism in Ferguson, Missouri: An Application of Social Disorganization Theory.” (Geoforum 104, August 2019), 56. 211 Ibid 212 Wesley Lowery, They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement. (First edition. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2016), 14. 88 realities of racism in the United States, one can began to understand the important role social media has played during Black Lives Matter. Without media coverage of what took place, during the Civil Rights Movement, the rest of the nation would not have truly come to understand the violence that Black Americans faced on a daily basis. Whereas today, without the use of social media, Black communities would not have the opportunity to control the narrative and tell the story as they saw it develop, often times completely different than the heavily influenced media told it. Without the use of social media, Black Lives Matter would not have been able to gain traction nationwide. Failure to gain national traction likely would have resulted in the collapse of the movement, although, this is just speculation.
Due almost entirely to the easy accessibility of social media and #BlackLivesMatter encouraging citizens to police the police, altercations that took place between police and Black people often times obtained national focus. Numerous Black people were either brutally injured or killed with excessive force when they encountered the police. Other more prolific incidents were cases such as the death of Eric Garner, who was choked to death on July 17, 2014 by a
NYPD officer for selling loose cigarettes; or the 2014 shooting death of twelve-year-old Tamir
Rice who was killed for playing in the park with a toy gun. The careless and reckless killings of individuals like Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Anton Sterling and Philando Castile also caused the movement to gain momentum. While the movement grew in the public eye, it also gained more critics.
While Black Lives Matter gained notoriety during other tragic events, a shooting on July
7th, 2016 condemned the movement in the media and essentially mainstream America’s eyes. A protest had been planned in Dallas, Texas in response to the death of Alton Sterling in Minnesota and Eric Garner in Louisiana. It was a peaceful demonstration until a lone gunman opened fire, 89 targeting police officers. Five white police officers were killed by what turned out to be a Black former veteran with Black nationalist ties. “The shooting was the kind of retaliatory violence that people have feared through two years of protests around the country against deaths in police custody, forcing yet another wrenching shift in debates over race and criminal justice that has already deeply divided the nation,” said a New York Times article.213
An investigation determined that the shootings were carried out by a Black veteran named Micah Johnson. Soon after the shooting authorities converged at his house to see if they could find any indication for a reason for the attack. At his house they found a sort of manifesto/ journal that depicted the type of thoughts that went through his head before he carried out the heinous act. A Dallas News report described Johnson’s writings, “In handwritten scrawls and crude sketches, police learned about the 25-year-old’s gun lust, his fascination with shoot-and- scoot tactics, and increasing interest in Black nationalism.”214 The media was quick to take this bit of information at first glance and run with it. They designated Johnson’s writings as a manifesto and they attributed his violent view towards other races and his interest in Black nationalism to the rise of Black Lives Matter ideology. A more nuanced depiction of Johnson began to form after further investigation. “His words aren’t an intricate manifesto. They were fleeting thoughts that bounced around inside a brain that never really grew up. His journal included riffs about assault rifles, but they were interspersed with rap music lyrics. A dispassionate sentence about ways to inflict maximum carnage, might be followed by one with complexity and heart, about being both African and American during a time where those ideas seem to conflict,” the Dallas News article continued.215 Dallas Police Chief David Brown said he
213 Manny Fernandez, Richard Pérez-Peña, and Jonah Engel Bromwich. “Five Dallas Officers Were Killed as Payback, Police Chief Says,” (The New York Times, July 8, 2016). 214 Jennifer Emily, “Who Was Micah Johnson? A More Complex Picture Emerges,” (Dallas News, July 10, 2016). 215 Ibid 90
and other police were, “convinced this suspect had other plans and thought that what he was
doing was righteous and was determined to make us pay for what he sees as law enforcement’s
efforts to punish people of color.”216 Groups in Dallas that stemmed from the Black Power
movement confirmed that Johnson had attended a few of their meetings and events, but he was
never an active member. “He was a Black Power supporter. Talking to comrades in Dallas, that’s
what it seemed like,” said Yahcanon, the People’s New Black Panther Party’s national minister
of information.217 He continued, “Johnson was not on the “frontlines” of the movement but
whenever an event was put on by a black organization, he did attend.”218 Yahcanon was quick to distance the organization from Johnson saying, “Micah Johnson had nothing to do with our party whatsoever.”219 Despite the reports, fellow veterans that Johnson served with fiercely argued that
the Johnson they knew was nothing like the “pathologically violent racist” described in the
media.220 It is important to indicate the different language used when describing the actions of
Micah Johnson and Darren Wilson. In the article examining his life, the media depicted Johnson
as a “pathologically violent racist” whereas the contrasting article, interviewing Wilson, depict
him as a human who “had to make a tough decision in a charged moment.” They are both
portrayed in that manner by the media and the subtle language is a tool used by the media to
argue that someone other than a white person is racist.
Sadly, what took place in Dallas brought much unwanted, negative attention to the
movement and caused several supporters of Black Lives Matter to question their motives and
their mission. Due to the negative backlash, Black Lives Matter began to see a restructuring
216 Jennifer Emily, “Who Was Micah Johnson? A More Complex Picture Emerges,” (Dallas News, July 10, 2016). 217 Ibid 218 Ibid 219 Ibid 220 Ibid 91
within the movement. Black Lives Matter sought to clarify their goals and their mission, to build
local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and
vigilantes.221 They simultaneously condemned violence against others. To better ensure that situations like Dallas would not happen again, they began to strengthen their individual grassroots operations and the different branches of Black Lives Matter began to network more effectively. They also began to establish an official overseas presence. It was also during this time that the Movement for Black Lives began to emerge.
Comparing Black Lives Matter to the Civil Rights and the Black Power Movements
There are many similarities and differences between the Black Lives Matter and the Civil
Rights Movement, such as similarities in structure or differences in meanings of inclusivity. In
spite of the similarities and differences, people still find the need to compare Black Lives Matter
against the Civil Rights Movement often times taking away from the impact that the Black Lives
Matter could have in public memory. While they are very much alike, they are both individual
movements at different points in history. Both movements are social movements that argue for
simple, civil rights for marginalized people. The Civil Rights Movement mainly called for civil
rights and inclusion into society, appealing to the morality of the nation, whereas Black Lives
Matter takes it further arguing for equal treatment of marginalized, Black folk to make society as
a whole better. This is not to say that they are so different that they should not be compared. On
the contrary, the Black Lives Matter Movement should be compared to the Civil Rights
Movement but as its own individual movement. It should not be confined into being the same
exact movement as the Civil Rights Movement. Society views the Civil Rights Movement as a
successful movement that enforced the civil rights of Blacks; allowing them to truly take part in
221 “About.” Black Lives Matter, https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/. Accessed 5 Jan. 2020. 92
a democratic society. The Black Lives Matter movement hopes to take things further, picking up
where the Civil Rights Movement left off, eradicating the violent, white supremacist tendencies
and behavior of authority figures and reminding them that Black lives matter. “Before BLM
there was a dormancy in our Black Freedom Movement,” Patrisse Khan-Cullors said in an
interview with the Guardian. “Obviously many of us were doing work, but we’ve been able to
reignite a whole entire new generation, not just inside the US but across the globe, centering
Black people and centering the fight against White supremacy.”222
One major, but positive, difference between the Civil Rights Movement and the Black
Lives Matter Movement is the role that women play in each movement and the degree of
acceptance of women leading the movement. While the Civil Rights Movement had several
influential women activists, their role in the movement has been heavily downplayed and
minimized. The role of women such as Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Fannie Lou Hammer,
Diane Nash, and Ella Baker to name a few, have been minimized and altered to portray the
movement as a more masculine one. Ella Baker played a pivotal role in the three most prominent
black freedom organizations of her day: NAACP; SCLC; and SNCC.223 “She worked alongside
some of the most prominent Black male leaders of the twentieth century including W.E.B. Du
Bois, Thurgood Marshall, George Schuyler, Walter White, A. Phillip Randolph, Martin Luther
King Jr., and Stokely Carmichael.”224 Although Baker had a tense relationship with many of these men she continued working with them. Her limited role, a status informed by her gender, class loyalties, and political ideology, heavily influenced her involvement with organizations
222 Jamiles Lartey, “We’ve Ignited a New Generation’: Patrisse Khan-Cullors on the Resurgence of Black Activism.” (The Guardian, January 28, 2018). 223 Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. (Gender & American Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 4. 224 Ibid 93
such as SNCC, which was student-led, and ran counter to the traditional structures used. “The
attitudes that King and other ministerial leaders of the SCLC held toward Baker were not unique
to her situation; rather, they were a manifestation of the larger problem of sexism within the
church, the organization, and the culture.”225 Despite this culture of patriarchy, Baker criticized unchecked egos, objected to undemocratic structures, protested unilateral decision making, condemned elitism, and refused to nod in loyal defense to everything the “leader” had to say.226
“Too often when sexism in the civil rights movement is acknowledged, it becomes another
blinder to the leadership, vision, and organizing skill of a broad group of Black women in the
struggle, as if gender inequity and women’s leadership could not exist in tension and in tandem,”
states Jeanne Theoharis.227 Few people know that Rosa Parks was a life-long activist and her
arrest on the buses in Montgomery was not her only impact on the movement. Popular memory
only seeks to focus on that one particular moment in history, overlooking the rest of her life. Ella
Baker, Rosa Parks and other women like them challenged treatment that belittled the seriousness
of their contributions, resisting models of organizing that placed men and men’s work at the
center, and carving out public identities as leaders, strategists, and public intellectuals-identities
that were generally reserved for men.228 Other works such as Hand on the Freedom Plow:
Personal Accounts of Women in SNCC by Faith Holsaert,eds., Sisters in the Struggle by V.P.
Franklin and Bettye Collier-Thomas, Women in the Civil rights Movement: Trailblazers and
Torchbearers by Vicki Crawford, Jacqueline Rouse, and Barbara Woods support and build on
225 Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Gender & American Culture. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 184. 226 Ibid, 4. 227 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), 155. 228 Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. (Gender & American Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 4-5. 94 the contributions made by women during the Civil Rights Movement. Prior to her meeting and marrying Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King was also a life-long activist.229 Due to who her husband was, she is often left out of the conversation as being an independent, influential civil rights activist. On the other hand, Black Lives Matter is led and influenced heavily by women and black Queer folk. As previously mentioned, Alicia Garza is credited with coming up with the phrase, Black Lives Matter, and she, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi are credited with being the founders of the movement. “We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered...We foster a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise),” states the official Black Lives Matter webpage.230
Also like the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter is a grassroots movement, or one comprised of ordinary people. Black Lives Matter prides itself on its grassroots origins and de-centralized structure. In response, many critics fault the organization’s decentralized structure as a weakness and a reason for its ineffectiveness. While discussing Black Lives Matter, Oprah
Winfrey compared it to the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She accused the movement of being haphazard, lacking in leadership, and unable to clearly articulate a coherent agenda.231
Activists involved in Black Lives Matter denounced the negative comments made by Oprah and other Civil Rights activists, they claimed that they were intentionally a decentralized
229 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), 165. 230 Black Lives Matter. “What We Believe.” Accessed January 10, 2020. 231 Jermaine M. McDonald, “Ferguson and Baltimore According to Dr. King: How Competing Interpretations of King’s Legacy Frame the Public Discourse on Black Lives Matter,” (Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, vol. 36, no. 2, 2016),149. 95
organization with clear objectives. Civil rights historian Barbara Ransby came to the defense of
Black Lives Matter and responded to Oprah’s critique on its leaderless structure. Ransby argued
that, “Black Lives Matter operated within Ella Baker’s leadership paradigm, which helped found
SNCC, which defines leadership as ‘a process of social influence in which a person [could] enlist
the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task,’ enabling everyday
people to bring their collective power to bear in resisting injustice and fighting for sustainable
change.”232 “Ella Baker believed ‘Authentic’ leadership could not come from the outside or
above; rather the people who were most oppressed had to take direct action to change their
circumstances,” stated Ransby.233
Black Lives Matter is not represented by a single face, like Martin Luther King’s SCLC.
Also, like SNCC, Black Lives Matter is insistent in letting marginalized groups take active roles
in the movement. “Like SNCC, the BLM movement takes radical, non-violent actions meant to
disrupt and elicit reactions from local authorities and apathetic neighbors and peers,” says
Titilayo Rasaki.234 SNCC’s direct, radical sit-in protests were disruptive but extremely effective.
Barbara Ransby argues, “The students’ direct assaults on Jim Crow had done more to demolish the most ubiquitous and offensive everyday forms of segregation than years of carefully orchestrated national campaigns.”235 Similar disruptive tactics are observed, today, in Black
Lives Matter protests. Although, some critics still denounce Black Lives Matter protests,
believing them to not follow the framework that “typical” protests should. The Washington Post
232 Jermaine M. McDonald, “Ferguson and Baltimore According to Dr. King: How Competing Interpretations of King’s Legacy Frame the Public Discourse on Black Lives Matter,” (Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, vol.36, no. 2, 2016), 150. 233 Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Gender & American Culture. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 170. 234 Titilayo Rasaki, “From SNCC to BLM: Lessons in Radicalism, Structure, and Respectability Politics.” (Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, January 1, 2016), 32. 235 Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Gender & American Culture. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 239. 96 published an editorial by Barbara Reynolds, a Civil Rights Activist who struggled to understand the Black Lives Matter movement, titled “I was a civil rights activist in the 1960s. But it’s hard for me to get behind Black Lives Matter.: I support BLM’s cause, but not its approach.” She argued,
…Many in my crowd admire the cause and courage of these young activists but fundamentally disagree with their approach…. In the 1960s, activists confronted white mobs and police with dignity and decorum, sometimes dressing in church clothes and kneeling in prayer during protests to make a clear distinction between who was evil and who was good. But at protests today, it is difficult to distinguish legitimate activists from the mob actors who burn and loot. The demonstrations are peppered with hate speech, profanity, and guys that show their underwear. Even if the BLM activists aren’t the ones participating in the boorish language and dress, neither are they condemning it. The 1960s movement also had an innate respectability because our leaders often were heads of the black church, as well. Unfortunately, church and spirituality are not high priorities for Black Lives Matter, and the ethics of love, forgiveness and reconciliation that empowered black leaders such as King and Nelson Mandela in their successful quests to win over their oppressors are missing from this movement.236
While Barbara Reynolds is a respected Civil Rights activist, she used some of the same techniques that her critics used against her over fifty years ago. She deliberately attacked the character and appearance of the new activists rather than what they stood for at their core. She talked about what they wore, their religion, and the vernacular they used. While language is important, when it comes to reaching across a divide, clothing and religion should not prevent her and others like her from supporting Black Lives Matter. “Some of our tactics were still rooted in the traditions of the Civil Rights Movement but given that this is the next chapter things evolve. We weren’t going to sing ‘I Shall Not Be Moved’ and ‘We Shall Overcome’, we’re going to play Lil Boosie. We’re not carrying protest signs; we’re wearing protest tees. To wear your Sunday best, that was a strategic move in the Civil Rights Movement, but I shouldn’t
236 Barbara Reynolds, “I Was a Civil Rights Activist in the 1960s. But It’s Hard for Me to Get Behind Black Lives Matter,” (Washington Post, August 24, 2015). 97 have to dress my best for you to see me as a human being,” asserts Packnett.237 Titilayo Rasaki argues a similar point stating, “Protesters faced with military tanks, tear gas and militarized police are no less egregious when dressed casually than in their Sunday’s best. Where Civil
Rights Era groups that practiced respectability politics, dressed and behaved in certain ways in order to debunk the Darwinist stereotypes inflicted upon them, BLM challenges the White supremacists’ underpinnings of those acceptable characterizations of Blackness.”238 Many people of the older generation feel that the young core of Black Lives Matter is too angry, and too rowdy for anyone to rally behind and support. “To be a standard bearer in the Civil Rights era was to be a saint, unsullied by human fallibility. In the Black Lives Matter movement, humanity is the standard. It is inherently sacred, no matter the alleged crime, no matter the dress, and no matter the amount of education,” Rasaki states.239 Berating a Black Lives Matter group’s plan to disrupt freeway traffic in 2016, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said, ‘Dr. King would never take a freeway.’240 Yet, Dr. King did take a freeway in the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.
Historian Jeanne Theoharis exclaims, “No wonder so many today dismiss the need for another civil rights movement and contrast BLM’s aggression and violence with the earlier movement.
It’s whitewashing not just King the person, but also of what the movement was challenging and how vicious the opposition was.”241 Dr. King warned us of the kind of politics of respectability and “polite” racism that continues to frustrate and anger young activists today. “As America progressed, violence was always part of it, no other movement in history has ever been held to
237 “Before Black Lives Matter, There Was Black Power,” (NBC News, March 24, 2018). 238 Titilayo Rasaki, “From SNCC to BLM: Lessons in Radicalism, Structure, and Respectability Politics.” (Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, January 1, 2016), 35. 239 Ibid, 36. 240 Jeanne Theoharis, “Perspective | Martin Luther King and the ‘Polite’ Racism of White Liberals,” (Washington Post, January 17, 2020). 241 Simone Sebastian, “Don’t Criticize Black Lives Matter for Provoking Violence. The Civil Rights Movement Did, Too.” (Washington Post. October 1, 2015). 98
these standards,” argues St. Louis University historian Stefan Bradley.242 Despite the similarities
between the two movements people like Barbara Reynolds, and others like her, found similar
reasons as to why they could not get fully behind the Black Lives Matter movement. According
to deputy editor of the Washington Post, Simone Sebastian, “It [BLM] fights the same injustices
and encounters the same resistance. The truth is, if you oppose Black Lives Matter’s tactics, you
would have abhorred King’s.”243
There are also many similarities between the Black Power Movement and Black Lives
Matter. “There is no question that Black Lives Matter is organically connected to the heroic
period of the Civil Right s Movement-that period from 1954 and 1965, between Brown and the
Voting Rights Act- and the Black Power Movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s,” says Peniel
Joseph.244 Black Power also received harsh national media treatment and portrayed as violent
and detrimental to American society. “With the advent of Black Power, it becomes a little bit
more difficult for the press to cast it in terms of good versus evil. The message of Black Power,
kind of like the message of Black Lives Matter 50 years later, is a message that is geared towards
Blacks themselves,” says historian Aram Goudsouzian.245 Not only are the name of the
movements uplifting in meaning, meant to inspire, but they also share similar goals and tactics
used to achieve said goals. Peniel Joseph argues, “Both the Civil Rights and the Black Power
Movements espoused an expansive hopefulness and a radical democracy. The struggle sought to
change laws and policies along with hearts and mind…It was about ending segregation, gaining
voting rights, opening up employment and to a much lesser extent it was about criminal justice.
242 Simone Sebastian “Don’t Criticize Black Lives Matter for Provoking Violence. The Civil Rights Movement Did, Too,” (Washington Post, October 1, 2015). 243 Ibid 244 Carl C. Chancellor, “#BlackLivesMatter Deeply Connects to Black Power Movement,” (USA TODAY, February 1, 2016). 245 “Before Black Lives Matter, There Was Black Power,” (NBC News, March 24, 2018). 99
In contrast, Black Lives Matter is much more focused on criminal justice.”246 He continues, “In a
very real sense, those were the halcyon days comparing back then to now with the number (of
Blacks) in prison and the rate of mass incarceration. Criminal justice is the principal gateway to
racism, it is connected to schools, jobs, the assault on voting rights, discrimination. Criminal
justice has so many tentacles.”247 Although, it is now clear that criminal justice reform is not the
only focus of Black Lives Matter, it is what they are most famously known for. One Black Power
organization that also gained recognition vastly because of its response to police violence, is the
Black Panthers.
Many people argue that Black Lives Matter has many similarities to the Black Panthers,
an organization of the Black Power era, severely condemned by the media. “Fifty years ago, the
Panthers first organized in response to police killings of Black men such as Matthew Johnson in
San Francisco and Denzell Dowell in Richmond, California. Similarly, the recent deaths of
Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Rekia Boyd, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and
countless others are the stimulus for an expanding network of groups and projects, including the
Black Youth Project and Black Lies Matter,” expounds Jane Rhodes, “Today’s organizers
unabashedly evoke the Black Panthers as a role model.”248 According to Eric K. Arnold, “It’s no coincidence that both the Panthers and BLM originated in Oakland, or that the Panthers’ Ten-
Point Program demanded freedom, full education, a jail moratorium, and an end to police brutality, while the movement for Black Lives platform states, ‘We demand an end to the
246 Carl C. Chancellor, “#BlackLivesMatter Deeply Connects to Black Power Movement,” (USA TODAY, February 1, 2016). 247 Ibid 248 Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017), xi-xii. 100 criminalization, incarceration, and killing of our people’.”249 While there are many similarities between both organizations, such as the radical and aggressive tactics used, many activist in
Black Lives Matter credit organizations like the Black Panthers for their inspiring ideology and fierce stance against White supremacy. According to the executive director of the Center for
Media Justice and a member of the Black Lives Matter’s communications team, Malkia Cyril,
Both organizations were birthed by organic intellectuals whose love for black people and all oppressed people is unwavering. Both organizations seek alliances across the lines of difference and make every attempt to embrace and engage all black people, but especially those pushed to the margins of society. Both organizations have an internationalist approach, both value and uphold the leadership of women, and both have made a unique commitment to rejecting homophobia as a principle and a practice. Both have a critical and clear commitment to the concept of Black Power, as articulated by Stokely Carmichael. Also, both were/are under attack by the FBI and local police and under constant and illegal surveillance for democratically protected activities.250
It is important to note the differences between both organizations, most notably in what prompted their establishment. According to Eric K. Arnold, “The Black Panther Party emerged after several decades of decolonization movements in the Global South, including the independence of Cuba. BLM emerged after three decades of neoliberal attacks on Black communities across the US, specifically decimating national and global movements, a massive, a massive expansion of the prison system, and a systematic destruction of public education.”251
Despite the differences in their establishment, both movements originated to unite disenfranchised Black people. That common theme should be enough to create a coalescence between the youth of his generation and the older citizens of the movements from yester-year.
“While BLM is ‘not your grandfather’s Civil Rights Movement,’ the economic reality for Black
249 Eric K. Arnold, “The BLM Effect: Hashtags, History and Race.” (Race, Poverty & the Environment, Conversations on Race & Resistance, vol.21, no. 2, 2017), 14. 250 Ibid 251 Ibid 101 people in America means the movement must revisit what the Panthers called ‘survival programs,’ extols Black Lives Matter Activist Cat Brooks.” Some communities of color, she explains, do not engage in political activism because of pressing economic hardships, like paying electricity bills, or grappling with rising rents and eviction notices.252 Essentially she is arguing that much like how the Black Panthers attempted to organize and break the loops of disenfranchisement within poor, Black communities, Black Lives Matter is attempting to organize disenfranchised Black communities to proactively become involved in issues that directly affect them. The Black Panthers believed the lumpenproliteriat, or those who functioned outside of the traditional confines of capitalist society, to be the vanguard of the Black Power movement.253 A correlation can be made between Black Lives Matter insistence that all Black
Lives Matter, no matter the age, sexual orientation, creed, religion, or any other dividing factor.
The similarities between both movements is another glaring indication of the continuation of the
Black Freedom Movement despite the Black Lives Matter taking place almost fifty years.
One huge difference that many people point out for not being able to get behind the Black
Lives Matter movement is its lack of inclusivity, a similar accusation used towards the Black
Power Movement. Many older African Americans, including former Civil Rights activists, criticize the Black Lives Matter Movement for the name of the movement and its implied exclusion of others. They tend to forget that during the Civil Rights Movement many White
Southerners often decried the actions of the movement because they felt overlooked by the government, to cater to the rights of Black people. Organizations such as the Citizens Council, groups of “concerned” White citizens, spawned in direct response to a pivotal moment in the
252 Eric K. Arnold, “The BLM Effect: Hashtags, History and Race.” (Race, Poverty & the Environment, Conversations on Race & Resistance, vol. 21, no. 2, 2017), 15. 253 Errol A. Henderson, “The Lumpenproliteriat as Vanguard?:The Black Panther Party, Social Transformation, and Pearson’s Analysis of Huey Newton,” (Journal of Black Studies, vol.28, no. 2, 1997), 175. 102
Civil Rights Movement, Brown v. Board of Education. Professor Dewey M. Clayton, a political science professor from the University of Louisville, argues that the Civil Rights Movement framed its issues in a more inclusive manner than Black Lives Matter. He states that the Civil
Rights Movement “defied authority, but they sought to attract converts from outside the movement…. Conversely, Black Lives Matter has struggled with a message of inclusion- many see their message as exclusive, specifically as anti-police.”254 Many counter-organizations, such as “All Lives Mater” or “Blue Lives Matter” have the same argument, and for that reason created their organization in protest. While that assessment does hold some truth to it, it overlooks why the organization says “Black Lives Matter.” In response to the counter-movements, Alicia Garza, one of the creators of Black Lives Matter explained how the phrase is a precondition for all lives mattering: “Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean your life isn’t important – it means that Black lives, which are seen as without value within White supremacy, are important to your liberation.
Given the disproportionate impact state violence has on Black lives, we understand that when
Black people in this country get free, the benefits will be wide-reaching and transformative for society as a whole.”255 Essentially meaning for all lives to truly matter, Black lives have to matter to society.
In conjunction with Garza’s argument, many people also argue that by making its message more inclusive the Civil Rights movement appealed to basic human nature whereas the
Black Lives Matter movement has struggled to find a way to connect with mainstream American ideals. Brother Washington Muhammad, Co-Founder of the Community Solidarity Response
Network of Toledo (CRSN) had much to say on inclusion within Black Lives Matter,
254 Dewey M. Clayton, “Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement: A Comparative Analysis of Two Social Movements in the United States.” (Journal of Black Studies, 49, no. 5, July 2018),474. 255 David. Smith, “The Backlash against Black Lives Matter Is Just More Evidence of Injustice,” (The Conversation, October 31, 2017). 103
Who created that viewpoint, what is that viewpoint that they want everybody to come under one umbrella? We push back on that type of thing. From my observation, I believe that the Black Lives Matter movement is much more inclusive than what I saw in the Civil Rights movement. When I say Civil rights movement, I’m talking about that preferred picture of it. Meaning mostly religious minded people leading the charge, with Black Lives Matter, we have been able to utilize everybody’s skillset, whereas if you look at the Civil Rights movement LGBTQ rights and language was never used. No one talked about that. No one talked about accepting all in this fight, during the Civil Rights Movement. Now we do. We accept everybody that has a skillset. Regardless of their race or their gender, those people are welcome, but we recognize what we are fighting for is the awareness of issues affecting black people and people of color. Anybody that wants to join us and assist us in creating awareness to that, are welcome. Nobody is refused, whereas in the Civil Rights movement you had to be male, you had to be Christian, and if you weren’t male, or Christian, or Democrat, your persona non grata. If you were gay you could be involved but we can’t acknowledge you, we can’t talk about you, we can’t say your name. If you were a woman, unless you were a victim, then you would not be in the key part in organizing or planning. The way we do things now are different because its decentralized, so there is no way that someone can say that, “hey you guys need to be more mainstream acceptable.” If we are going to appeal to anybody, who would we be appealing to, last time I checked they brought in Donald Trump. Why would we be appealing to something like that rather than organizing locally on issues that we want to highlight, creating relationships within some of those systems so that our voices are heard, striving to create policy and planning and guidelines so that these things change because we are a part of the change. That’s not what the mainstream wants, that’s not what they want, they want is for us to adopt a particular language that they are comfortable with. Within that language comes actions or inactions, and pretty soon it will be like Occupy Wall street. Once we decide that we aren’t going to say this or not going to say that, pretty soon it diminishes it to the point where it is not effective and it disappears. 256
While some may argue that his viewpoint on Black Lives Matter is biased because of his involvement, Brother Washington Muhammad’s opinion is true on a number of fronts. The Civil
Rights movement had a number of issues when it came to inclusivity. To be the face of a protest, march, speech, etc. you had to be Christian. For the most part women could only lead women, they rarely led men because the organizations were very patriarchal, only when victimized did a women’s face sometimes make it to the front of the movement. Other than that, they were held in marginalized roles. It is also important to note that women who became pregnant before
256 Bro. Washington Muhammad, Phone interview on Black Lives Matter, February 18, 2020. 104
marriage could not participate. The Black Lives Matter movement is completely different than
the Civil Rights movement as far as allowing anyone and everyone the opportunity to be active
members of the movement. Though even evidence of the Black Lives Matter movement’s
inclusiveness of all people does little to convince its critics.
According to Dewey Clayton, “The civil rights movement focused on core democratic
values of equality, freedom and justice for all, and the rights of man…. Today, Black Lives
Matter does not utilize the same framing- it has yet to appeal to mainstream America and
convince them that its concerns are part of the national identity.”257 Indeed, Black Lives Matter does not use the same framework as the Civil Rights Movement, but they have attempted to appeal to basic human nature. Black Lives Matter has attempted to attune their mission, as a human rights issue, similar to the methods of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X who used human rights to internationalize the issue of racial inequality in the United States. According to
Thomas Jackson, “King often referred to the American Civil Rights Movement as simply one expression of an international human rights revolution that demanded economic rights to work, income, housing, and security.”258 Though they have been portrayed as complete opposites with
rivaling viewpoints, Malcolm X made a similar realization. He discovered, “by framing the
mistreatment of Black Americans as an international human rights issue instead of a national
civil right one, those grievances can then be brought into the United Nations and be discussed by
people all over the world.”259 Following the same framework, Black Lives Matter and similar
organizations have taken their plights to the United Nations. Mike Brown’s parents, alongside a
257 Dewey M. Clayton, “Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement: A Comparative Analysis of Two Social Movements in the United States,” (Journal of Black Studies, vol. 49, no. 5, July 2018), 474. 258 Thomas F. Jackson, “From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 1. 259 Fredrick C. Harris, “The Next Civil Rights Movement?” (Dissent, vol. 62, no. 3, Summer 2015), 39. 105 new organization called We Charge Genocide, traveled to Geneva, Switzerland to call on international officials to compel the American government to stop police murder and brutality against African Americans.260 By making it a human rights issue, Black Lives Matter attempts to appeal not to just American identity but basic human identity as well. Although, in order to accomplish any lasting change, Black Lives Matter would have to frame their objectives as paramount to American life. For that they would need the assistance of lawmakers and the influence of the White House.
The Influence of the President on the Movement
While the Civil Rights movement was largely a grassroots movement and strived for changes in how society treated African Americans, the movement would not have been deemed a successful movement without the involvement of numerous presidents. Presidents such as Harry
Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and even Richard Nixon played a role in the Civil Rights movement and solidified its success. When it comes to the Black
Lives Matter movement, however, things differ greatly. For one, at the outset of Black Lives
Matter, the president, Barrack Obama, was a black man. That is a significant point, for several reasons. With a Black president, the Black Lives Matter movement felt emboldened to even create a movement that challenged police authority. “Any façade of a post-racial reality was soon melted away amid the all-consuming eight-year flame of racial reckoning that Obama’s election sparked,” states Wesley Lowery.261 Activists in Black Lives Matter, and the Black community in general, assumed that because Barack Obama was black and because he had to traverse the political spectrum where white ideology and racism reigned, he would be able to relate and
260 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2016), 180. 261 Wesley Lowery, They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement. (First edition. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2016), 14. 106 identify with their struggles and complaints. That assumption did not always play out as activists hoped.
Since his rise in power, Barack Obama’s blackness has been questioned by Whites and
Blacks. From the inauguration of his tenure as president, Barack Obama has been criticized by the Right for being too liberal and using his position to be overly sympathetic with Black people, including organizations like Black Lives Matter. Those on the Left criticize him for not being assertive enough and doing more for black people. At a speech held in Philadelphia in 2008,
Obama responded to the Right media that attempted to link him to the teachings of his radical pastor, Jeremiah Wright, back in Chicago, who believed America should pay for all the harm it did to people in the world. In a monumental speech, the president directly addressed America’s racist past while at the same time distancing himself from his pastor, stating that he grew up in a time when, “legalized discrimination- where Blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-Americans business owners, or
Black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or Blacks were excluded from unions or the police force or the fire department- mean that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations.”262 His speech garnered many positive reactions throughout the nation. Author Joan Morgan stated that, “she listened to his speech with high hopes that he would become the forty-fourth president of the United States, and that his own
‘exotic’ origins and his struggle with these origins would bring to light the schisms that exist in
Black American identity and bring us closer to healing them.”263 Such a response gave many
Black people hope for how race issues would be addressed in America but it was another portion
262 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2016), 137. 263 T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, The Speech: Race and Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union,” (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), 67-68. 107 of his speech that left many Black people feeling unsure about the change that they believed to be taking place. He urged African Americans to, “take full responsibility for our own lives… by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.”264 As Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor grandly explained, “he spoke eloquently about the nation’s original sin and dark history, but has repeatedly failed to connect the sins of the past to the crimes of the present…”265
People, Blacks in particular, hoped for change when Barack Obama became elected. As time progressed, Black people were increasingly let down at the pace at which change occurred.
They believed Obama should do more for civil rights. Even during the tragic murders that spurred the creation and growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, President Obama did very little in support of the movement. In a speech following the acquittal of George Zimmerman,
President Obama offered a very personal response.
… You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away. There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often. And I don't want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.
264 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2016), 138. 265 Ibid 108
The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws -- everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case. Now, this isn't to say that the African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence….The fact that a lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there that show that African American boys are more violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain.….266
The fact that Obama gave the speech immediately after an outrageous judicial decision indicated that he felt strongly about racial issues and would do as much as he could in his position to make some lasting change. Many congressmen were not pleased with his remarks which ultimately had a negative effect on Obama’s legacy when it came to racial issues. A
CNN article described Obama’s actions as “unprecedented and inappropriate” and saying that
“he comes away from the case looking badly tarnished by his poor judgement.”267 Abigail
Thernstrom, the author of the op-ed, continued, “Let us hope it never comes to that [civil rights charges against Zimmerman], for at that point a double tragedy will have occurred. Trayvon
Martin will be dead, and our hopes for a president whose judgement is unaffected by his race will have been thoroughly and irreparably dashed.”268 The author of this op-ed was wrong on several accounts but the most severe error was her accusation that Obama had to make decisions without giving in to his race. Barrack Obama won the election, in a historically large turnout, because many Black disenfranchised constituents and other marginalized communities believed that he would give them a voice. Abigail Thernstrom overlooks the numerous White presidents who have also made decisions based on race. In pigeonholing Obama and accusing
266 “Remarks by the President on Trayvon Martin,” (Whitehouse.gov., July 19, 2013). 267Abigail Thernstrom, “Opinion: Obama’s Mistake on Trayvon Martin Case.” (CNN. July 15, 2013). 268 Ibid 109
him of only catering to his race, you take away the changes that Black people and the nation
have been waiting on for decades. Thernstrom’s op-ed came from a left-leaning media outlet
but there were several more including even more scalding critics from conservative media
outlets. Due to receiving such negative backlash, Obama is influenced into taking a more
impartial stance for future racial issues, which can be seen in his response to Ferguson.
President Obama responded to the events that transpired in Ferguson, “denouncing tactics
of ‘excessive force’ by the police and the ‘bullying’ and arrest of journalists trying to cover the
news. He said the federal investigation into the incident, which began earlier this week, must
determine exactly what happened to Michael Brown, the 18-year old shooting victim.”269
Although when questioned further about the Ferguson riots President Obama responded saying,
“We need to recognize that this is not just an issue for Ferguson, this is an issue for America.”270
Hip hop artist and St. Lois native Tef Poe sent an open letter to the president disagreeing with his
statement, “I speak for a large demographic of us that has long awaited our Black president to
speaking a direct tone while condemning our murders. From our perspective, the statement you
made on Ferguson completely played into the racist connotations that we are violent,
uneducated, welfare-recipient looters. Your remarks in support of the National Guard attacks
upon us and our community devoured our dignity.”271 Obama’s remarks left many Blacks, especially young Black Americans, feeling abandoned and hopeless. If a Black president would not argue for Black lives, then who would? Although according to Wesley Lowery, Obama’s inaction in Ferguson prompted action amongst Black youth, “A new generation of Black
269 “The Search for Calm in Missouri,” (New York Times, August 15, 2014). 270 "The Meaning of the Ferguson Riots." New York Times, November 26, 2014). 271 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2016), 136. 110
Americans were, if anything, as emboldened by our Black president as they were unsurprised by the failure of his election to usher in a fantasy period of racial healing.”272
Despite the fact that he fit the mold of what a Black president should be, many from his base believed that President Obama did not take the initiative to directly address issues in the
Black community. He voiced support to Black organizations like Black Lives Matter but did not do much to ensure the changes they sought. When addressing the tragic deaths of Blacks killed by police, his response almost always came in the form of mediation between the Black community and police, rather than condemning the role that the police played. When discussing the Dallas Police shootings, he quoted one witness as saying, “Everyone was helping each other it wasn’t about Black or white. Everyone was picking each other up and moving them away.” At the same time, he implored Black Lives Matter to recognize that a vast majority of cops perform their jobs valiantly and fairly and that by painting all police as racist or bigoted, we undermine those who we depend on for our safety.”273 In a public speech directly addressing the shootings,
Obama addressed the nation saying,
Americans are struggling right now with what we’ve witnessed over the past week, First, the shootings in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, and the protests, then the targeting of police by the shooter here- an act not just of demented violence but of racial hatred. All of it has left us wounded, and angry, and hurt…. We wonder if the divides of race in America can ever be bridged. We wonder if an African-American community that feels unfairly targeted by police, and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other’s experience…. To the officers in the audience, we mourn fewer people today because of your brave actions. Equally, a police department needs to recognize that bias remains a problem and that insisting we do better to root out racial bias is not an attack on cops, but an effort to live up to our highest ideals.” In the same vein, he asked Americans who might be uncomfortable with Black Lives Matter to look past the slogan to the unassailable reality that African-American communities are often mistreated by the police. Of Alton Sterling, a generous friend and neighbor shot dead last week in Baton Rouge, he said, “maybe he wasn’t so different than us.” And the life of Philando Castile mattered to a whole lot of people of all races, of all
272 Wesley Lowery, They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement. (First edition. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2016), 15. 273 "'They Will Not Drive Us Apart,'" (New York Times, July 13, 2016). 111
ages.” The hate-filled sniper who killed five officers in Dallas will not be the last person to seek to turn Americans against one another, President Obama said. “But as Americans we can decide that people like this killer will ultimately fail. They will not drive us apart. We can decide to come together and make our country reflect the good inside us, the hopes and simple dreams we share.274
Obama’s speech called for unity in a time of divisiveness, which is definitely more appropriate in a tense situation between an organization that appeared radical and a nation that supported police and blamed the radicalness for inspiring the killings. It also touched on the grievances that both communities had, it seemed as if he did not consider those to be the main issues but rather the idea of America being a unified front as the main issue. According to Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor,
“For African Americans, Obama’s presidency had been largely defined by his reluctance to engage with and directly address the ways that racial discrimination was blunting the impact of his administration’s recovery efforts.”275 Looking back, it can be argued that the election of the next president caused many Black Americans to truly feel that the change they wanted would never come. Regardless of the fact that Obama was not as active in civil rights as many hoped, his administration was sympathetic and understanding of the complaints and troubles of Black
Lives Matter. Ensuring lasting changes to society became more difficult as Obama left and the next administration came in.
Black Lives Matter did not endorse a candidate in the 2016 Presidential election. The three frontrunners were Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump. Organizations and protesters pushed candidates to address race issues but they never went as far to endorse a successor for Barrack Obama. Some protestors went as far as to interrupt planned speeches by candidates to directly ask how they would address racial issues. It happened many times to
274 "'They Will Not Drive Us Apart,'" (New York Times, July 13, 2016). 275 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2016), 142. 112
Hillary Clinton and even her husband Bill Clinton, whom many Black people did not trust
because of their political track record, specifically when Bill Clinton was in office. They were
not the only ones who were questioned by protesters. Bernie Sanders was also interrupted at a
rally in Phoenix, Arizona on July 18th 2015. Two female activists stormed the stage and demanded four and a half minutes of silence in remembrance of Michael Brown and then they questioned Sanders about his political record. The crowd in attendance was not happy and people booed and shouted “Let Bernie Speak.” Sanders later lamented that the disruption was unfortunate. “I am disappointed,” he exclaimed, “that two people disrupted a rally attended by thousands at which I was invited to speak about fighting to protect Social Security and Medicare.
I was especially disappointed because on criminal justice reform and the need to fight racism there is no other candidate for president who will fight harder than me.”276 Despite how Bernie
felt about being interrupted at the speech, he passed up on an opportunity to win over portions of
the Black fan base by interacting with the protesters and discussing the issues they felt were
urgent in their community. Alicia Garza discussed the organization’s refusal to settle on a
candidate, in an interview saying, “Black Lives Matter as a network will not, does not, has not,
ain’t going to endorse any candidates, now if there are activists within the movement that want to
do that independently, they should feel free and if that’s what make sense for their local
conditions, that’s fantastic. But as a network, that’s not work we’re engaged in yet.”277 While
several individual activists did go on to endorse candidates, the movement for Black Lives never
did, even when Donald Trump was gaining momentum. Garza explained why the movement
would not endorse a candidate. “In the future, the organization may become more involved with
276 Phil Helsel, “‘Black Lives Matter’ Activists Disrupt Bernie Sanders Speech.” (NBC News, August 9, 2015). 277 “Black Lives Matter Movement Refuses to Endorse Any 2016 Presidential Candidate.” (The Guardian, September 19, 2015). 113 candidates and parties, and even run candidates,” she argued, “We’re not there yet. It’s too early in the development of the network and it’s too early in the genesis of the movement to rally around anyone in particular who hasn’t demonstrated that they feel accountable to the Black
Lives Matter movement or network. What we’ve seen is an attempt by mainstream politics and politicians to co-opt movements that galvanize people in order for them to move closer to their own goals and objectives. We don’t think that playing a corrupt game is going to bring change and make black lives matter.”278 Conversely, at the same time if Bernie Sanders earned a more solid Black vote in the primary, and if he had been the Democratic candidate in 2016, the Left and Black Lives Matter would have been fighting a different, more winnable battle post- election.279
Due, in part, to Black Lives Matter’s decision to not endorse a political candidate for the
2016 presidential election, Donald Trump became the president of the United States. Trump’s election dramatically changed the political landscape, altering what seemed like opportunity for many during the Obama era to a sense of dread and hopelessness for people of color. If Black
Lives Matter thought Obama did not take a stance on racial issues Trump was the polar opposite.
Crediting his victory for the presidential bid to him not being politically correct and the appeal that had to his fan base, Trump often spoke his mind about politically charged events without actually understanding all the facts nor caring about the repercussions of what he said. He had a long record of disparaging comments towards minority communities, including the Black community. One such example could be seen in his comments toward the Central Park Five case
278 “Black Lives Matter Movement Refuses to Endorse Any 2016 Presidential Candidate,” (The Guardian, September 19, 2015). 279 Barbara Ransby, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century. (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018), 92. 114 that took place in New York in the late 1980s. In the case a white, female jogger was attacked and raped; the prosecutor leading the case decided to round up all the Brown and Black men of color who were in the park that night. She eventually pinned the crime on five young Black and
Brown boys, who had no true idea of the situation they were in, and coerced them into pleading guilty. The trial was very polarized with many in the Black community arguing the boys’ innocence and many in the white community viewing them as guilty. In a vicious front-page article titled “Bring Back the Death Penalty, Bring Back Our Police!” Donald Trump called for the death penalty for the boys. Portions of the op-ed charged,
What has happened to our City over the past ten years? What has happened to law and order, to the neighborhood cop we all trusted to safeguard our homes and families, the cop who had the power under the law to help us in times of danger, keep us safe from those who would prey on innocent lives to fulfill some distorted inner need.…I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence…. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them. If the punishment is strong, the attacks on innocent people will stop…. I no longer want to understand their anger. I want them to understand our anger. I want them to be afraid…. How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits? Criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS....Let our politicians give back our police department’s power to keep us safe. Unshackle them from the constant chant of “police brutality” which every petty criminal hurls immediately at an officer who has just risked his or her life to save another’s. We must cease our continuous pandering to the criminal population of this City. Give New York back to the citizens who have earned the right to be New Yorkers. Send a message loud and clear to those who would murder our citizens and terrorize New York- BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY AND BRING BACK OUR POLICE!280
Trump’s editorial demonstrated how he felt toward the Central Park Five, but it also displayed some of his internal beliefs. He was a staunch believer in police use of force and wished for them to display similar amounts of force as was common in his childhood, when there were many reports of police abuse of power and excessive force in communities of color. He also advocated
280 Donald J. Trump, “Bring Back the Death Penalty, Bring Back Our Police.” (Daily News, May 1,1989), obtained sources at Newspapers.Com. 115
for the cancelling of criminals’ civil liberties, even for petty criminals. Acclaimed African
American filmmaker Ava DuVernay produced a Netflix docuseries on the events of the Central
Park Five and the eventual exoneration of the alleged criminals. DuVernay’s docuseries revealed
to the public a lot of details about the case, detailing how they were framed and the trials and
tribulations the infamous case caused, which caused outrage throughout the country. One person
who did not change their stance was Donald Trump. When questioned about the case during his
2016 campaign he replied saying, “They admitted they were guilty,” largely overlooking the fact
that their false confessions had been coerced by police.281 Attesting to his belief that crime
needed to be meet with force, as was indicated in his op-ed about the Central Park Five, giving
police back their autonomy became one of the main themes of his presidential campaign in 2016.
According to Randall Swain, “Trump claimed that there needed to be a restoration of ‘law and
order’ along with repeated claims that crime rates were at unprecedented levels; although this
was refuted, it is evident that these claims still resonated among Trump supporters and perhaps
reinforced their decision to vote for him rather than Hillary Clinton.”282 In a study done by Swain
it was discovered that, “there is support among a segment of White voters who supported Trump,
for police’s excessive use of force during encounters with Black Americans. To the extent that
these voters harbor negative stereotypes of Black Americans, support for Trump’s candidacy for
president was enhanced by his promise to crack down on crime- a problem or issue that was
never as systemic or pervasive as claimed.”283 It is unlikely that many Trump supporters would be swayed by Black Lives Matter, primarily because Trump ran on a platform that called for the
281 Jan Ransom, “Trump Will Not Apologize for Calling for Death Penalty Over Central Park Five.” (The New York Times, June 18, 2019). 282 Randall D. Swain, “Negative Black Stereotypes, Support for Excessive Use of Force by Police, and Voter Preference for Donald Trump During the 2016 Presidential Primary Election Cycle.” (Journal of African American Studies, vol.22, no. 1, March 2018), 110. 283 Ibid, 121. 116 strengthening of police forces and giving them more autonomy to enforce “order,” whereas
Black Lives Matter primarily denounced giving more autonomous powers to the police force.
While Black Lives Matter in no manner caused Trump’s election, their inaction to become politically involved in the 2016 presidential election may have indeed led to it. Had Black Lives
Matter endorsed a candidate in the 2016 election, they could have influenced more Black voters to turn out and vote and also influence the topics that the political candidates ran on. Now, in the age of Trump social activism has become difficult. Activists normally select one large issue to address before transitioning to another one whereas the Trump administration thrives off of dealing with multiple issues. So far during the Trump administration, people of color have dealt with a Muslim ban exclusive to nations with majority Muslim populations, efforts to build a border wall along the Mexican border to keep out immigrants, degrading comments directly from
Trump about third-war countries, and several other discouraging issues that activists have to deal with on a daily basis.284 It makes it extremely difficult for Black Lives Matter to pick a specific issue to address because in a way they are all linked. There is also the fact that during the Obama administration Black Lives Matter had someone who was at least sympathetic to their cause whereas the Trump administration has shown its indifference numerous times. Nonetheless, since Trump has taken office it has become increasingly difficult for Black Lives Matter as a network to be successful and to remain on the national stage however that does not mean that the movement is over.
At its onset #BlackLivesMatter was a phrase used during a time of tragic death, uttered from one black person to another as if to let them know that even though they do not believe we
284 “Trump Administration Civil and Human Rights Rollbacks,” The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, accessed February 21, 2020. https://civilrights.org/trump-rollbacks/ 117 matter, we know we matter. However, it transformed into an all-out movement going from Black
Lives Matter to the Movement for Black Lives. The introduction of America’s first black president, Barack Obama, brought a feeling of hope and change to the nation, especially to Black youth. Admittedly, his presidency did not bring about as much change as many Black constituents hoped for, but the prospect of having a Black man in the White House sustained a lot of social change. One organization that hoped to bring about societal change, is that of Black
Lives Matter. Born from the reactions of Trayvon Martin’s death, the movement grew every time a Black person was murdered or abused at the hands of White people in power, most often police. Establishing itself as a different sort of social movement, the Movement for Black Lives attempts to break down patriarchal hierarchy that is normally used in social movements, and not adhering to the status quo, or directly following in the footsteps of the Civil Rights movement.
Due to its vast social media presence, the movement for Black Lives quickly established a national presence and garnered a lot of attention every time they protested, although all the attention they attracted was not positive. Besides attracting some negative attention in its earlier phases, the Movement for Black Lives has shown that it needs to be taken seriously as a social movement.
There are many similarities and differences between the Civil Rights Movement and
Black Lives Matter, such as how they both appealed to the greater human nature or how they differ in inclusivity. Despite that fact, Black Lives Matter has proven itself to be its own independent movement. Albeit the Movement for Black Lives acknowledges the successes of the
Civil Rights Movement, the organization attempts to use a combination of different frameworks from numerous other movements and organizations. Due to it not following the direct framework of the Civil Rights Movement, many people have immediately written it off and condemned its 118 actions. One reason for this is because the Civil Rights movements is depicted and idolized as the one and only successful movement for civil rights. As a result of the difference in frameworks, many subsequent movements have not stood much of a chance in the eye of the
American public. In the next chapter, I will delve into how popular memory of the Civil Rights movement evolved over time and the effects that its evolution has had and will continue to have on ensuing movements, such as Black Lives Matter. 119
CHAPTER III. POPULAR MEMORY
The intersection between memory and history has always been a difficult line to transverse. While many scholars, like French historian Pierre Nora, argue that memory takes away from the truth of historical discourse, others believe that memory is part of history and that they rely on each other to tell a more complete, nuanced version of the truth. According to Pierre
Nora,
Memory is life, borne by living societies founded in its name. It remains in permanent evolution, open to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting, unconscious of its successive deformations, vulnerable to manipulation and appropriation, susceptible to being long dormant and periodically revived. History, on the other hand, is the reconstruction, always problematic and incomplete, of what is no longer. Because of the living and the dead could not coexist in the same space, history is perpetually suspicious of memory, and its true mission is to suppress and destroy it.285
Essentially, it is difficult for the true history and true memory of an event to exist in the same space. Frederick Douglass once explained historical memory saying, “Historical memory was not only an entity altered by the passage of time; it was the prize in a struggle between rival versions of the past, a question of will, of power, of persuasion. The historical memory of any transforming or controversial event emerges from cultural and political competition, from the choice to confront the past and to debate and manipulate its meaning.”286 While Douglass’ analysis of historical memory directly addressed the memory of the Civil War there is a great deal of correlation with this topic and the Civil Rights movement. As noted in the aforementioned chapters, the media portrayed the Civil Rights movement in one manner but public memory of the movement is different than how the movement actually materialized. As a consequence of this fact, popular memory of the Black Freedom Movement has become vastly
285 Jonathan Scott Holloway, Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940. (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 8-9. 286 David W. Blight, “‘For Something beyond the Battlefield’: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War.” (The Journal of American History, vol.75, no. 4, March 1989), 1159. 120
misinterpreted and used to further personal agendas in today’s heavily politicized climate,
simultaneously ensuring that future movements would be instantaneously devalued.
In the previous two chapters, I discuss the development of the Black Freedom Movement
and the Black Lives Matter Movement in great detail. Readers discover how unhappy African
Americans, sick and tired of being pushed around and treated inhumanely, banded together in a
complete grassroots movement to construct the Civil Rights Movement. National outrage over
events like the death of Emmitt Till alongside legal victories such as Brown v. Board of
Education led to effective protests such as that of the Birmingham Bus Boycott. From there many African Americans threw aside their differences and united under the banner of civil rights for all. Following under the leadership of people such as Martin Luther King Jr., SNCC
Chairman John Lewis, Roy Wilkins, and countless other activists whose names deserve mention.
Intentionally challenging the status quo, the Civil Rights portion of the Black Freedom
Movement aimed to break down the notion of White supremacy and segregation while fighting to enforce the civil rights of Black people. While activists faced severe backlash, including violence and even death, they persevered to break down the old order. Although the movement gained popularity, with the assistance of the national media, and is regarded as a successful movement critical to maintain America’s identity, all portions of the Black Freedom Movement are not widely accepted. One can even go as far as to say that the accepted parts of the movement have been placed on a pedestal to symbolize what America deemed to be an acceptable movement but also to indicate that because it is deemed a success any movements that followed in its tracks would be deemed unnecessary, including the Black Power Movement.
Fast forward to current day and you have movements, such as Black Lives Matter, who indeed follow in the footsteps of the Civil Rights movement but also attempt to frame themselves 121 as their own individual movement, struggle to retain legitimacy due to the fact that most
Americans deem them to be redundant. According to Bro. Washington Muhammad, Co-Founder of Community Solidarity Response Network of Toledo (CRSN),
The popular memory of the Civil Rights movement helps future attempts at social movements. We stand on the shoulders of those known and those unknown, everybody stood up and everybody had a plan. We honor those who stood up [for Civil Rights], we don’t try to compare if King was better than Malcolm X, if Malcolm X was better than Stokely Carmichael, if Stokely Carmichael was better than Fred Hampton. All of them belong to us, it helps us by remembering all and lifting up all of our ancestors, every last one! In lifting them up we find out about some lesser known [activists] and we learn what they did locally, and we apply the best tactics that they use.287
While his viewpoint is shared by many, there are others who believe otherwise. Similar to that viewpoint, chapter two argues that movements like Black Lives Matter not only have to prove their validity to the American public but they also have to continuously deconstruct how people remember the Black Freedom Movement, otherwise their cause is seen as pointless before it is even argued.
Media’s Influence on Popular Memory
As mentioned in the previous two chapters, the media played a role in how America understood and received the movement. When it came to the Civil Rights Movement national coverage of nonviolent, peaceful Black protesters being accosted by violent, angry White
Southerners helped to formulate an image of the Black community as the victim, for arguably the first time since slavery. Following the guidelines of peaceful Black protesters versus violent
White Southerners was simple for the media to incorporate America’s founding values from important documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. At the same time, when it came to incorporating “unruly,” angry Blacks into the narrative they did not fit. In the same way that you see Civil Rights opponents still considered nonviolent protesters as
287 Bro. Washington Muhammad, Phone interview on Black Lives Matter, February 18, 2020. 122
Communists, outside agitators, attacking the American way of life, you see opponents attacking the character of Black Power groups. Here you see groups like the Black Panthers or the Nation of Islam and other more nationalistic and militaristic groups being depicted as un-American, in contrast to the nonviolent, Black protesters who were depicted as the utmost version of American ideals. Through such interpretations, the Black Freedom Movement has come to be synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement, with the Black Power Movement being written out as its own, militaristic movement, independent of the Black Freedom Movement. Such framework of how to portray social movements has persisted and continues to be used even today, as seen from how
Black Lives Matter is portrayed. According to Bro. Washington Muhammad the explanation for media’s influence on important historical events is very clear,
The media was the same newspapers that were advertising lynching, these were the same newspapers that would advertise the sale of slaves. When did they make this change about being about righteousness and justice? Based on what the sponsor wants on the news show, determines what they report on. The media is not driven by justice and equality; it is driven by who the sponsors are. Depending on who the sponsors are will determine what kind of news spin you get.” When it comes to media coverage we can not depend on them to tell the truth about us [Black people]. There has always been militant- minded Black people in America, but if you take one smaller group and place in them a nonviolent message and then use the media and newspaper and radio to promote that, you might make nonviolence and internationalist look more popular than us [Black people] doing something for ourselves.288
While it is true that outside forces impact what is reported on by the media, the outside forces manifested themselves into biases on what they perceive the truth to be. According to Renee
Romano, “Instead of being an investigative undertaking that examines the relationship between evidence and historical interpretation, mass media’s public memory draws heavily on the very stories, events, and personalities that prevailed in past media accounts. Subject to intervening influences, the frames of public memory resemble those that permeated media interpretation
288 Bro. Washington Muhammad, Phone interview on Black Lives Matter, February 18, 2020. 123 during the civil rights and other 1960s social movements.289 By relying on how the media discusses the Civil Rights Movement, we are stuck viewing the movement through the same lens as the editors and reporters who captured and wrote about the movement. In doing so we are not given the whole story and are deprived of the entirety of the movement. According to Edward P.
Morgan three recurring themes characterize mass media culture’s public memory of civil rights,
First, the “good” civil rights text retells the story of a regional struggle in the South in ways that legitimize rather than challenge national traditions and institutions. Second, persistent national issues like racial inequality are interpreted through a bounded discourse in which critics of national institutions are either rendered invisible or are related to a status of illegitimate other. Third, the civil rights story, like the contemporary media discourse on race, reduces the public to spectators identifying with or cheering for one or another public representation of conflicting sides. Both the content and form of media discourse, then contradict the powerful democratic assertiveness that lay at the heart of the civil rights struggle.290
Edward P. Morgan provides good context as to the effects public memory of the Civil Rights
Movement has on the movement. It still leaves the question, what exactly is the popular memory of the Civil Rights Movement and why has it changed?
Popular Memory of the Civil Rights Movement
The problems for movements like Black Lives Matter stem almost entirely from the popular memory of the Civil Rights Movement. People today remember a false version of the movement and due to that if others do not fit within a similar framework as the movement they remember taking place in the 1960s then it is therefore inferior and therefor viewed as un-
American. As author Fred Powledge has observed, “In the minds of untold numbers of
Americans, for example, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the civil rights movement. Thought it up, led it, produced its victories, became its sole martyr. Schoolchildren-
289 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 139. 290 Ibid, 140. 124
including Black schoolchildren- are taught this.”291 Such seemingly conscious framing of the
Civil Rights Movement not only creates a false history of the true events but it also clashes with
the memories of the people who were actually participants of the movement. This leaves many
wondering why the Civil Rights Movement is being remembered incorrectly. An op-ed in the
Tampa Bay Times by Juan Williams believed this false history was born of White resentment of the Civil Rights movement. He said, “I’m convinced it is born out of a national desire to forget the Civil Rights Movement. Apparently, the lone message many whites want to hear clearly about the civil rights movement is that the movement was a success- it won the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.”292 Continuing in the same opinion piece he argued, “What pleases
whites in that message is two-fold. First, since the victory is won for Blacks, the social turmoil,
the protest marches and sit-ins are over. Second, the country cannot be accused of being openly
racist because blacks got what they wanted; life is clearly better for them and there is no
justification for continued agitation by Blacks seeking special help from the government or
employers.”293 While indeed a provocative statement, there is much evidence to support what
Juan Williams argues. By deeming the movement, a success, you are able to revert back to being
a polite society. At the same time by siding with the movement and passing legislation to ensure
its success, the government is able to remove itself from the equation and essentially cannot be
accused of being a government in favor of White supremacy and racist ideology. Connecting
closely with that notion, you begin to see governmental figures and other individuals began to
make the movement a political or economic movement, using it for their own motives.
291 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 141. 292 Juan Williams, “White Resentment towards Blacks Causes Tension,” (Tampa Bay Times, March 1, 1987). 293 Ibid 125
Deliberately constructed to be used as a tool, rather than to tell the true story of the Civil
Rights Movement, popular memory of the Civil Rights Movement has become an instrument.
According to Jeanne Theoharis, “...They [popular histories of the civil rights movement] have
served a function similar to the popular histories of Reconstruction that developed at the turn of
the twentieth century to legitimize the rise of Jim Crow America. Both have become necessary
glue that binds and justifies current public policy and national identity.”294 Much like the
propaganda that passed as false history, after Reconstruction, the version of the Civil Rights
Movement that is accepted today is told in a manner that made it seem like most Americans were
either participants of the change that the movement brought or well-meaning citizens, openly
waiting for that change to come. At the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, people
considered it unpopular and even fewer supported it. Little changed towards the end of the
movement, although it had gained more support and popularity it was still seen as unfavorable by
the vast majority of Americans. Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is not seen widely in a
favorable light, including at the time of his death. U.S. News happened to be the national news
weekly most prone to viewing King as threatening in the 1960s.295 Though, things began to change drastically within the next twenty years. Per Jeanne Theoharis, “By 1987, 76 percent of
Americans held a favorable opinion of the civil rights leader [MLK], almost the reverse of his popularity at the end of his life (only 28 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of him in
1966).”296 Not only had King’s popularity increased drastically but his name, alongside other
activists, were used to memorialize the movement. According to Glen T. Eskew, “Confronted by
294 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), xx. 295 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 143. 296 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), ix-x. 126
the complicated pluralism of the body politics, municipal leaders have distanced themselves
from the old ceremonies of White supremacy at Confederate monuments and instead play a
central role in creating the new [civil rights] commemorations.”297 Bearing the name of Martin
Luther King, Rosa Parks, and many others, numerous streets, buildings, schools, and statues
became memorials. According to sociologist Cynthia F. Pelak, “Central to understanding the
process of institutionalizing Black counter-memories in the U.S. South is an examination of the
local discursive meaning struggles surrounding the difficult racial past, including the
accumulative effects of cultural trauma and the state-sponsored collective forgetting,
misremembering, and disremembering.”298 On the surface, the memorials may seem like long overdue recognition, but, some believe they do more damage than good. Per historian Glenn T.
Eskew, “What veterans of the struggle began through historic preservation at sites of memory has developed into a civil rights industry created for the tourism trade.”299 According to Jeanne
Theoharis, “While these tributes honored the movement, they simultaneously depoliticized the scope of the struggle, distorted the work of the activists honored, demonized Black anger, and obscured ongoing calls for racial justice through a celebration of a nearly post racial, self- correcting America.”300
297 David Walter Gobel and Daves Rossell, eds. Commemoration in America: Essays on Monuments, Memorialization, and Memory. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013), 243. 298 Cynthia F. Pelak, “Institutionalizing Counter-Memories of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement: The National Civil Rights Museum and an Application of the Interest-Convergence Principle.” (Sociological Forum, vol.30, no. 2, June 2015), 324. 299 David Walter Gobel and Daves Rossell, eds. Commemoration in America: Essays on Monuments, Memorialization, and Memory. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013), 243. 300 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), xii. 127
Popular Memory of the Black Power Movement
As I mentioned previously, The Black Freedom Movement has become equated to the
Civil Rights Movement and in doing so effectively writes out the Black Power Movement.
Popular memory depicts the Black Power Movement as an entirely different movement, more aggressive and violent than the previous Civil Rights Movement. Although militant by nature, the Black Power Movement was never violent without fair reason. Regardless, such militancy played into directly into White fears of an insurrection by Black people. According to
Goudsouzian, “It’s two words [Black Power] that come together to capture a whole host of white anxieties about race and about African American civil rights activism.”301
The national media played a major role in spreading a violent depiction of Black Power.
From its very inception, in Mississippi, the media played up the differences between King’s nonviolent strategy and Stokely Carmichael’s one of self-defense. At first the media believed such tactical differences would be the demise of the Civil Rights Movement but they did not realize that the movement was evolving into an entirely different one right before their very eyes.
As the Black Power Movement emerged as its own distinct movement, the media tended to focus on the notion of violence. According to historian Taylor Branch, “It [Black Power] sounds kind of aggressive, it sounds on the verge of military revolt. I mean everybody was full of Black
Power. It drew all the news coverage but the press were fixated on the notion of violence.”302
Such a fixation, took away from the overall acceptance of Black Power and made it out to be more problematic. “They wanted to see us as only passive. The media tends to be stuck in the narrative that they understand,” says Judy Richardson, a former SNCC staff member.303
301 “Before Black Lives Matter, There Was Black Power,” (NBC News, March 24, 2018). 302 Ibid 303 Ibid 128
Due to the fact that it was not a passive movement, Black Power became a target for the national media and of the federal government. In an interview with Judy Richardson to discuss the birth of Black Power, Stokely Carmichael described the media’s reaction to the phrase when they first heard it during the Meredith March.
We expected the press to be completely against us, to use all sorts of terms but that was not our problem. King was on the march. And since King was on the march they could not attack the march without attacking King. And King could not leave the march. So their hands would be tied only to attack us, leave the march in place, and leave King out there to see how he would relate to it. King obviously could not attack us. And if you will look everywhere, King has never attacked Black Power. He said, I wouldn’t use the term, the connotation conjures.304
The national media denounced the Black Power Movement from the beginning, and they criticized any organization or person who claimed to be a part of the movement. This included important leaders such as Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, and a number of others. Many of these people were placed under state and federal investigation by the police and the FBI, only increasing their unpopular attention. Much of how we remember the Black Power
Movement today, and the figures that participated in the movement stem from the portrayal of the movement. Through mediums such as books, movies, cartoons, and other memorabilia, the
Black Power Movement’s militaristic trait is emphasized, while at the same time their political and communal achievements are purposely overlooked. “A clenched fist, snarling black cat, black beret, Afro, sunglasses, poised rifle, and ammunition belt slung across the chest are equated with the Black Panthers and are the synecdoche for radicalism and unrepentant Black rage,” states Jane Rhodes.305 Current popular memory of the Black Power Movement allows the larger Black Freedom Movement to be misconstrued and also provides the national media a
304 “Excerpt from ‘Interview with Stokely Carmichael,’” (Digital Public Library of America, November 7, 1988). 305 Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017), xvi. 129 framework of what a movement should not look like. Due to its militaristic and nationalistic nature, the Black Power Movement became portrayed as counter to American ideals. Thus, setting the stage for any future movement that appears similar, in the slightest way, to also be portrayed as counter to American ideals.
Ongoing Fallout from the Civil Rights Movement’s Success
While the Civil Rights Movement is now perceived by most people to be an essential piece of American identity its successes continue to have an effect on everyday life for American citizens. For example, once the Civil Rights Movement succeeded and African Americans integrated into mainstream society, the term “color-blind society” began to be used more frequently. Born from one of Martin Luther King’s most often remembered speeches, how we interpret his “I Have a Dream Speech,” has come under debate numerous times since his death.
The portion of the speech in contention says,
…. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today….306
306 Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream,” (Avalon Project, August 28, 1963). 130
Avid followers of Dr. Martin Luther King believe his dream is pretty self-explanatory. “The
country was in more turmoil than it had been in since before the Second World War. People
didn’t understand it. And he explained it. It wasn’t a Black speech. It wasn’t just a Christian
speech. It was an all-American speech,” claims Gary Younge.307 Ironically, some who were not always sided with Martin Luther King emphasize select portions of his speech and believe they are ensuring that King’s dream is fulfilled. Taylor Branch argues, “The meaning of King’s quote is more complex today than in 1963 because the unconscious signals have changed, fifty years ago, bigotry was widely accepted. Today, even though prejudice is widely denounced, many people unconsciously prejudge others.”308 Such a dilemma creates an intricate paradigm when it
comes to the notion of a colorblind society. Post-civil rights society, or for this purpose White
America, eagerly clutch to the concept of a colorblind society. However, people of color are not
so quick to accept this dialogue shift, and often for good reason. According to Titilayo Rasaki,
“We live in an era of purported colorblindness. It is an era where Black people ‘exercise power’
in the levels of government. The current system depends on Black exceptionalism in order to
ignore the racial caste system. It shifts the burden for uplift on communities that have been
systematically locked out of decent schools, economic opportunity and promise of which only
some Black people have access.” 309 In a colorblind society, people are not limited by the color
of their skin because everyone is essentially equal in society now. It was meant to transition us
into an immediate utopian society where people were accessed on merit and skills instead of
simply race, however it was not that simple. According to civil rights advocate Michele
307 Gary Younge, “The Speech: The Story behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream,” (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2013), 7-8. 308 Jesse Washington, “‘Content of Character’ Inspires Debate,” (The Des Moines Register. January 21, 2013). 309 Titilayo Rasaki, “From SNCC to BLM: Lessons in Radicalism, Structure, and Respectability Politics.” (Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, January 1, 2016), 37. 131
Alexander, “The very discourse of colorblindness- created by neoconservatives and neoliberals in order to trivialize and disguise the depths of black suffering in the 1980s and the 90s- has left
America blind to, what she calls, the New Jim Crow.”310 “In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. Rather than relying on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind,”
Alexander argues.311 Many Black people and other people of color do not adhere to the idea of living in a colorblind society. As Michelle Alexander mentioned, their very livelihoods made it very clear that we are not yet in a colorblind society. According to Attorney Rasheed Ali
Cromwell, “the colorblind concept is a misunderstanding of the Martin Luther King quote expressing hope that black people, like the civil rights leader’s then young children, would someday ‘not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character’. It’s about what you relate to what you see rather than not noticing skin color. By saying ‘I don’t see color,’ you’re saying ‘I don’t see a part of you and where you’re coming from’.”312 As argued by many organizations such as Black Lives Matter, if mainstream society actually continued to listen to the voices and concerns of marginalized people after the Civil Rights Movement, rather than branding it completely over and moving on, then the concept of a colorblind society would be pointless.
The sudden acceptance of the Civil Rights Movement took away from the true achievements of people who took part in the movement itself, it also indicated that the movement
310 Michelle Alexander and Cornel West. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. (Revised edition. New York: New Press, 2012), x. 311 Ibid, 2. 312 Andrew Wind, “Speaker: ‘Colorblind’ Is Not Enough,” (The Courier, February 26, 2017). 132 had become a political tool used by others to laud their “Americanness.” According to Leigh
Raiford and Renee Romano,
State actors seek, with varied success, to shape historical memories to suit their perceived political and ideological agendas. Especially in the case of the civil rights movement, which can be held up as a shining example of the success of American democracy, the state has a strong interest in using the memory if the movement as a tool of nation- building and of fostering and fomenting hegemony through consensus. By doing so the movement becomes proof of the vitality of America’s legal and political institutions, and evidence of the nation’s ongoing quest to live up to its founding ideals of egalitarianism and justice.313
Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, the pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church in West
Baltimore said, “Selected sound bites are played and become part of the public memory of King.
So people whose ideological orientation is clearly antithetical to that of King can mouth pious platitudes in honor of King while arguing for policies King would have never supported.”314
Today’s conservatives have found that instead of openly condemning the Civil Rights
Movement, as conservatives at the time did, they could celebrate and exaggerate the gains of the movement in order to reverse its progress.315 For example, in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a case that destroyed a key tool of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the legislation came from “the entrenched racial discrimination in voting.” He concluded that the historical record can no longer rationally support key remedial features of the legislation. “At the time the revisions made sense but nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically.”316 He essentially concluded that back then the revisions were necessary because of the severity of segregation and discriminatory practices during voting but they were no longer
313 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), xvii. 314 John Rivera, “‘I Have a Dream’ Speech Still Resonates,” (The Nashua Telegraph, January 15, 2001), 11. 315 Randall Kennedy, “The Civil Rights Movement and the Politics of Memory,” (The American Prospect, May 12, 2015). 316 Ibid 133
needed because the nation had progressed and changed. Not to say that the nation has not
progressed, but the naivety of Chief Roberts decision to do away with the revisions indicates an
ignorance to the continuing struggles that people of color still have to face to vote. “So too are
these mis-histories of the civil rights movement necessary at the dawn of the 21st century in
promoting the idea of an exceptional America moving past its own racism. Though vastly
different on the surface (the latter seemingly positive, the former vicious and negative), popular
histories of the civil rights movement operate similarly to show why no further governmental
intervention is needed,” states Jeanne Theoharis.317 There is also a number of people who seek to
domesticate the Civil Rights movement, homogenize it and make it universally palatable. They
delete from the movement’s history its troublesome radical outcroppings, subordinate its
communal character to tales of individual heroism, and make the narrative into a story of
American triumphalism.318 It is easily seen in how the public remembers iconic figures of the
Civil Rights Movement such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and numerous others.
According to Jeanne Theoharis, “If we follow the actual Rosa Parks- see her decades of community activism before the boycott; take notice of the determination, terror, and loneliness of her bus stand and her steadfast work during the year of the boycott; and see her political work continue for decades following the boycott’s end- we encounter a much different “mother of the civil rights movement.”319 “The process of turning Martin Luther King into a national icon has
required a massive case of amnesia about what King really stood for,” historian Vincent Harding
argues.320 Today, when many figureheads and leaders laud Martin Luther King for his passivity
317 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), xxi 318 Randall Kennedy, “The Civil Rights Movement and the Politics of Memory.” The American Prospect, May 12, 2015. 319 Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2013), x. 320 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), xviii. 134
and his “polite,” organized protests, they preach to other movements that they need to be
organized and not disruptive. In doing so they leave out the true nature of King’s work. Many of
his protests were disruptive. He was a staunch believer in not trying to frame protests in the
manner that your oppressors wanted. Even Malcolm X, a lifetime rival of Martin Luther King’s
passiveness, eventually saw the militancy of King’s protests.321 A U.S. News column opined that,
“In contrast to his ‘prime’ when King was perceived as a threat by practically all segments of society, his reputation had revived to the point that people of all persuasions now have a sense that he challenges them to be at their best and that he’s articulating principles they believe in that are larger than race.”322 As Edward P. Morgan suggests, “The media has played a crucial role in
propagating a vision of King as a “good” civil rights leader as opposed to supposedly more
threatening figures like Malcolm X.”323 Not only is there further evidence of the domestication
of the movement, but it also provides insight into what the true goal of the outside forces were, to
make the issue about something larger than race. Lewis V. Baldwin and Rufus Burrow Jr. write
that, “America is unwilling to come to grips with the radicality of King’s ideas and social praxis,
and is therefore more comfortable with a domesticated King, or one who is harmless, gentle, and
a symbol of our own confused sense of what it means to be Americans.”324 Due to this
domestication of the movement, the true framework of the movement is forgotten more and more
each day. According to Edward P. Morgan, “By 1989, King had been sufficiently domesticated
to the point that racial conflict was subsumed in the broader dream of national harmony.”325 In
321 Eric Dyson Michael, "King's Light, Malcolm's Shadow," (New York Times, January 18, 1993). 322 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 143. 323 Ibid, xviii. 324 Jermaine M. McDonald, “Ferguson and Baltimore According to Dr. King: How Competing Interpretations of King’s Legacy Frame the Public Discourse on Black Lives Matter.” (Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, vol. 36, no. 2, 2016),151. 325 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 143 135
essence, ending the dialogue, and any future dialogue, about racial conflict and paved the way
for the colorblind society. According to Leigh Raiford and Renee Romano, “...others worry that
the canonization of King and other civil rights icons has the potential to impede future
struggles.”326 Not only does this immortalization of iconic figures do damage to the legacy of the
Civil Rights Movement but it also inhibits subsequent movements from following in its
footsteps.
Despite how popular memory recollects the Civil Rights Movement, not all are worried
about its effects on ensuing social movements. According to Brother Washington Muhammad,
Co-Founder of the Community Solidarity Response Network of Toledo (CRSN), “Popular
memory of the Civil Rights Movement does not negatively affect other social movements like
Black Lives Matter because nowadays we don’t have to accept the mainstream media’s
interpretation on who Dr. King is. We can research ourselves, they are not going to put out some
weak story in Time magazine and we use it as our bible.”327 In a phone interview, Bro.
Muhammad goes on to say
We have elders also that organize with us, those who are 60-70 years old, who were actually there. These are those men and women that tell the oral history based on their actual attendance and presence there so it works in our favor as far as how we remember them [civil rights movement]. We push back on what the network news says they [activists] were, we know that Dr. King was just more than the “white boy, black girl holding hands”, we know that he was much more than a perpetual integrationist. We know that Malcolm X was much more than just an angry guy, that just had an axe to grind. We know that the Black Panthers were more than just gun toting black men and women. We know much more. And we don’t allow how white culture will just pigeonhole us and say this is all you’re going to know about the NAACP, this is all you’re going to know about the Nation of Islam, you won’t know any more about the Rainbow Coalition or the SCLC, this is all you’re going to learn, thanks but no thanks. We fend for ourselves now. There is no way that they can shape our minds, we know what it is now, we know exactly what it is.328
326 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), xix. 327 Bro. Washington Muhammad, Phone interview on Black Lives Matter, February 18, 2020. 328 Ibid 136
Bro. Muhammad is part of the generation born during the Civil Rights Movement and being born then he recognizes how the problems from then persist today. Choosing to actively seek change,
Bro. Muhammad is one who allows public memory of the Civil Rights Movement to act as a call of action for him to seek change to social issues today. Although, it is important to note that he is not complicit in how the public remembers the Civil Rights movement. Rather he takes it a step further educating himself even more on events and people of the Civil Rights Movement. Sadly, many of today’s generation do not take the initiative to educate themselves on key events in
American history, instead relying solely on media. As an effect, they are taught a false version of the Civil Rights Movement, one that overlooks many everyday people who participated.
What will the Popular Memory of Black Lives Matter Be?
As a result of popular memory of the Black Freedom Movement and how people only remember the Civil Rights Movement as being part of the previously mentioned, many of the following movements that chose to follow the Civil Rights Movement and take its achievements further have little chance of being accepted by the American public. The public has chosen to accept only a certain framework of what the Black Freedom Movement was and what it meant.
Generally, the Civil Rights Movement is cast as a sectionalized problem focused in the South, a battle for integration and the end to discrimination. Iconic leaders such as Rosa Parks, a gentle older lady who is “opportunistically” given the singular chance to protest which resulted in her being the pivotal face of the Birmingham Bus boycotts, and Martin Luther King, a passive,
Christian leader who wished to calmly and patiently break down the racist walls that the South had built, helped to lead this movement that symbolized the acceptable form of protests that
America stood for. Written out were the numerous acts that Rosa Parks committed to protest prior and after the bus incident. Forgotten about is the radical side of Martin Luther King who 137 did speak of nonviolent civil disobedience, but after growing impatient, he began the planning of the Poor People’s March on Washington to speak about “aggressive nonviolence,” by which he meant disrupting government and blocking roads during protests.329 Renee Romano argues, “The dominant narratives about King and Parks do not focus on how people worked together to achieve social change; they tell the story of singular, extraordinary individuals who made history by acting in ways that are consistent with longstanding American values. Lost in the process are the organizations that stood behind the individuals, the many individuals who acted but who are not famous, and most significantly, the sense that ordinary people cannot change their lives unless they have a great, almost superhuman, leader to guide them.”330
Left out of the narrative, is the fight to also end segregation and discrimination in
Northern and Western American cities. Completely left out is the notion of Black Power and self-sufficiency and independence taught by the likes of organizations such as the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam. Historian Jonathan Scott Holloway argues, “the literal truth is less important to me than the act of remembrance itself. This is the act that shapes a consciousness and an identity, and this is the act that I find most compelling in telling stories about the Black past.”331 Due to the overlooked period of the Black Freedom Movement, the accepted version of the Civil Rights Movement has made it incredibly difficult for any movement that followed to be accepted by the general public.
As a result, Black Lives Matter will have a hard time garnering the support and approval of mainstream America. According to Leigh Raiford and Renee Romano, “How we remember
329 Eric Dyson Michael, "King's Light, Malcolm's Shadow," (New York Times, January 18, 1993). 330 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), xix 331 Jonathan Scott Holloway, Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940, (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 9. 138 the [Civil Rights] movement can discourage us from or encourage us toward future activism.”332
“He [King] has become the exemplar by which American society measures all protests and movements, especially those focused on racial justice. Thus, Black Lives Matter, as an organization seeking racial justice for Black people, has the burden of responding to King’s legacy or risks being delegitimized and disregarded in the American public discourse.”333 While it may be true that social movements like Black Lives Matter have to live up to the legacy of the
Civil Rights Movement, the question remains of how Black Lives Matter will be remembered.
According to Bro. Muhammad,
Based on who is telling the story, we will see black lives matter as a national revolution. I believe history will treat black lives matter the same as they treat Power to the People, Black is Beautiful, Free the Land, I’m Black and I’m Proud, Black Power. All of these were sayings that electrified the people and black lives matter is a saying that electrifies the people. I’m a member of the Nation of Islam but we use that term black lives matter because of how much power it has in it. Those are some powerful, powerful words that you just can’t define as the people that created it in California, or the people that perpetuated it in Delaware or Baltimore, it’s out of our hands, it’s out of anybody’s hands. It is what it is. For black people, it’s hard to say black lives matter and have a frown on your face. I believe depending on who writes the story and who recants the story that was here, I’m one of those that was here in the beginning of all of this, I was here for “Hands up Don’t Shoot” and when it evolved into “Black Lives Matter,” at one point we were saying “Justice or Else” and some of us still do. So, it will be seen as a call to action, regardless if its action to have a neighborhood cleanup, to protest police brutality, to protests voter’s oppression, to bring water to flint, to protest human trafficking, substandard education, gentrification, equality, it will be seen as a universal electrifier that moves people in many, many different ways. But what they won’t be able to say, or they will have a hard time saying it, is that Black Lives Matter was only about police brutality. 334
Brother Muhammad’s opinion on how the movement will be remembered is optimistic but is also full of hope. At the end of the day, members of Black Lives Matter became actively
332 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), xix 333 Jermaine M. McDonald, “Ferguson and Baltimore According to Dr. King: How Competing Interpretations of King’s Legacy Frame the Public Discourse on Black Lives Matter.” (Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, vol. 36, no. 2, 2016),149. 334 Bro. Washington Muhammad, Phone interview on Black Lives Matter, February 18, 2020. 139
involved because they feel there is some sort of social injustice at play. They are involved to
make continuous changes on all types of social issues and they will remain doing so despite how
they are portrayed in the media and despite how the public will remember them. While it is nice
to have positive coverage and be portrayed in a positive light, it is not necessary to continue to
seek positive changes. By continuing to seek positive changes despite the uncertain media
portrayal, you are solidifying your legacy as a positive movement and debunking the negative
depictions. It will also lead to an increased understanding and acceptance of the movement. For
example, an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer discussed how even now Black Lives Matter is being used and implemented into public memory. Covering a Philadelphia school district that designated a week to discuss and teach students about Black Lives Matter the school was hit with an influx of responses. “Not all are happy with the groups decision to introduce Black Lives
Matter curriculum into some city schools though,” Kristen Graham wrote, “labeling the movement antipolice, among other things.”335 Despite its reception in the public, the vast majority of students did not seem to have a problem with it. “Saying Black Lives Matter, for most of our students, is not a controversial statement, it’s an affirmation,” said Charlie
McGeehan one of the Black Lives Matter week organizers.336 Examples, such as the
aforementioned one, support the notion that public memory of Black Lives Matter may not
remain so negative after all, and offers hope for continuing social movements to make their mark
on the world.
As previously mentioned, popular memory of the Civil Rights Movement has impacted
how people today understand and receive the Black Lives Matter Movement. While arguments
are made on whether it is positive or negative, evidence does indicate that popular memory of the
335 Kristen A. Graham, “BLM Events Bring Teachable Moments,” (The Philadelphia Inquirer. January 27, 2017). 336 Ibid 140
Civil Rights Movement overlooks a vast part of what actually took place during the Black
Freedom Movement. By doing so, popular memory of the movement is not teaching the complete version of the movement or the true history. Today, people use the popular memory of the movement to push personal agendas and to argue that America has transcended past its racial past. Both are gross misuses of the Civil Rights Movement and arguably do more harm than good. According to Renee Romano and Leigh Raiford, “Representations of the past can be mobilized to serve partisan purposes; they can be commercialized for the sake of tourism; they can shape a nation’s sense of identity; build hegemony, or serve to shore up the political interest of the state; and they can certainly influence the ways in which people understand their world.”337 Popular memory of the Civil Rights Movement not only affects how people remember the movement but also affect how people believe society should act and react to future movements. Alongside the argument of transcending racism, there are many who believe that, due to that belief, there is no need for more social movements. It is from this belief that the condemnation of social movements follows. Similarly, to how groups such as the Black Panthers are written out of the main narrative and portrayed as an unruly, offset of the movement, you also now have groups like Black Lives Matter being portrayed in the same way. Although, if protesters from the new social movements do not follow the same framework as the Civil Rights
Movement then they are also unruly, and deemed unable to stand up for social change.
According to Jeanne Theoharis, “The iconization of figures like King and Parks and the erasure of many other leaders and participants seemed to suggest that Americans, particularly young people of color today, could not do what these civil heroes and heroines did.”338 While some
337 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), xxi 338 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), xiv. 141 people believe this, it is the furthest thing from the truth and, Movements like Black Lives Matter make it their mission to prove otherwise.
Black Lives Matter has made it clear that they are in a constant battle to bring social justice, and that will remain their battle. Despite how the media portrays them, the organization will always seek to bring improvements to society. Even if the media denounces them like they did the Black Panthers, Black Lives Matter will still seek to improve lives. Many historians argue that even though White America criticized the Black Panthers, they were still respected and revered in the Black community, for whom they were fighting for. As Jane Rhodes argues in her book Framing the Black Panthers, “To celebrate the image of the Panthers as heroes is an act of assertation and empowerment for many Black Americans; to reclaim the Panthers is to return to a time when black rage openly identified and confronted the oppressor.”339 The same could be said about Black Lives Matter, the phrase itself is seen as an empowering phrase to the Black community. Regardless of how its depicted in the media, as long as the organization is fighting for positive change for Black people, the Black community will appreciate Black Lives Matter.
339 Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon. (New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton, 2007),13. 142
CONCLUSION
The Black Freedom Movement has been vastly distorted in American popular memory. It has become synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement, which was the first part of the movement but not the only part. In making the Black Freedom Movement and the Civil Rights
Movement one singular movement, the second part of the movement, the Black Power
Movement, is left out of the main narrative. Left out of the main narrative is the push for political organization and the many self-sustenance programs that were major components of Black
Power. According to Jeanne Theoharis, “It [popular memory] contributes to an artificial distinction between Civil Rights and Black Power, between leaders and followers, between heroic movement pre-1965 and its militant demise post-1965.”340 While problematic for a number of reasons, ignoring the Black Power Movement from the main narrative allows a false history to be told in history books, classrooms, and society as a whole. American society has had a muddled past of creating false histories when it comes to telling the story of Black people, as is evident from the Dunning Schools twisted interpretation of Reconstruction.341 Popular memory of the Black Freedom Movement allowed for the misinterpretation and the distorting of both the
Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. While not many people realize that there is more to the Black Freedom Movement, or the entire struggle for civil and human rights, even fewer will realize how a false history of the movement came to be.
To summarize, the Civil Rights Movement became adopted as the official, and only, movement of the Black Freedom Movement. It fit within the parameters of American ideology
340 Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard. Groundwork: Local Black Freedom Movements in America. (New York: New York University, 2005), 4. 341 John David Smith and J. Vincent Lowery, eds. The Dunning School: Historians, Race, and the Meaning of Reconstruction. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013), 2. 143 of democracy and freedom and the framework that followed provided itself to be ideal for appealing to the human nature of American society. The United States could support the framework of the Civil Rights Movement and simultaneously use it to shape a new era of colorblindness, post-civil rights whereas the Black Power Movement became regarded as the bad movement, a depiction of the worst aspects of American society. It is believed to be too violent, to nationalistic, and too radical. According to popular memory, such a movement could never be regarded as being inherently American in nature. “Representations of the past can be mobilized to serve partisan purposes; they can be commercialized for the sake of tourism; they can shape a nation’s sense of identity; build hegemony, or serve to shore up the political interest of the state; and they can certainly influence the ways in which people understand their world,” argues Renee
Romano.342
Everyday people became active participants, they were led by strong, charismatic, male leaders typically from a Christian background, and the protests were also peaceful. The angry, violent response they received from segregationists amplified their stance even more and gave them a larger platform for the world to see. At the time, the United States was in an international
Cold War with the Soviet Union, providing a most opportune time for Civil Rights leaders to garner support. The Civil Rights Movement finally captured the attention of the national media after people read or watched many of the protests and riots, many Whites began to question their morals and beliefs. The national media sided with the Civil Rights Movement, depicting the
South as the bad guy. They depicted the South as a backwards society bent on sticking to old traditions. It was an age old, sectional battle that had manifested itself on a different but familiar plane. Joining the sectional battle, the United States government began to enact and enforce
342 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), xxi 144 positive laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Racist and discriminatory behavior began to be regarded as an “un-American trait.” In this manner the
United States ethos could maintain its aura of perfection to the rest of the world.
The false version of the Black Freedom Movement begins when the Civil Rights
Movement attempts to become a national movement instead of one focused just in the South.
The South had racism and discriminatory practices recorded in legislation making it fairly easy to paint them as the scapegoats, and accuse segregationist who refused to abandon their ways as
“un-American.” The North and West also had racist and discriminatory practices recorded within their legislation although not always as candid as the South. By disguising their legislation, they continued their way of life while condemning the Southerners for their vile ways. Much like the
South, the North did not want to see the racism and discrimination in their own backyard. They told the Black people of their community to be patient and wait for change or they ignored their complaints entirely, although, for many Black people they had been patient for way too long.
The sense of impatience and anger sparked the beginning of the Black Power Movement, it also begins the misinterpretation of the rest of the Black Freedom Movement.
Once the national media began to portray the Civil Rights Movement as angry and violent it just ended the Black Freedom Movement, according to the media. The national media framed the Southern movement as the only actual movement, within the Black Freedom
Movement, and decidedly wrote out the rest. The Civil Rights Movement achieved its goals after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it did not immediately lead to better standards of living for Black people. When addressing each movement, the tendency is to attribute the components of the movement directly under that movement. For instance, when addressing standards of living and Black empowerment we 145 directly attribute these to the Black Power movement because they follow characteristics similar of the movement. Yet, much of the general public fails to realize that there is much overlap between movements. Consequently, making it much easier to order the “good” aspects of the
Civil Rights Movement in one category and the negative aspects of Black Power in another. In all actuality, there were organizations and leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, such as SNCC, that resonated and embodied standards of living and Black empowerment and when they did not see it take place quick enough in the Civil Rights Movement they helped to create an entirely different movement that placed heavier emphasis on these attributes. The Black Power
Movement, which transitioned after the Civil Rights Movement, made more of an effort to directly address the concerns of standards of living and Black empowerment, but that does not mean that the Civil Rights Movement did not attempt to address these problems at all. People affiliated with the Civil Rights Movement’s effort in the South were recognized as honorable, fighting for a worthy cause whereas those who fought for the same movement in the North were described as troublesome ne’er-do-wells with a redundant cause. The Watts riot, in Los Angeles, becomes the first introduction to the Northern racial landscape outside the South- and Black communities there are cast as angry, alienated, and unwilling to work through ̈proper channels.”343 The Black Power Movement addressed all the built-up anger inside of the millions of Black Americans who still felt marginalized and belittled despite the achievements of the
Civil Rights Movement. It gave them confidence and power and taught them to rely on themselves, rather than the “White man.” According to the mainstream media, however, the
Black Power Movement was dangerous and detrimental to American society, therefore it could not be considered a part of the Black Freedom Movement.
343 Jeannie Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018),64. 146
The role that the national media played in portraying the Black Freedom Movement directly effects how people remember both the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power
Movement today. Civil rights reporters experienced firsthand, and were often a part of, the violence and oppression that Southern Blacks faced. As reporters, one is supposed to be unbiased and not get involved in the story but during the movement reporters were often active agents and participants involved in the events unfolding. As a result, many reporters were no longer completely objective to the story. Due to them being involved in the story, several reporters were able to capture and write stories with pathos that effectively reach the millions sitting at home, reading and watching. When the Civil Rights Movement reached a national platform and many
African Americans dropped their stance of nonviolence (during the Black Power Movement) they were displayed as the aggressors who did not truly want to become a part of American
[White] society. “Ultimately, they take a national struggle challenging the politics and economics of race in the United States and pigeonhole it as a heroic triumph over Southern backwardness between 1954 and 1965, states Jeanne Theoharis.”344
As previously stated, national media coverage of both movements played a massive role in the public memory of each movement distinctively, and of the Black Freedom Movement overall. As evident from the analyzation of the Civil Rights Movement, it was not popular while it was taking place. People’s opinion of the Civil Rights Movement, and the people involved with it, began to change only after the movement ended and the Black Power Movement began.
The national media effectively severed both movements believing them to not be related, when in all actuality they were each part of a larger movement. Public memory of both movements became an active agent used to shape the current culture in today’s American society. Today, the
344 Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, eds. Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940- 1980, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 3. 147
Civil Rights Movement is regarded as the exemplar movement out of all the social movements during the latter half of the 20th century.345
Popular memory of the Black Freedom Movement not only affects how people remember the movement but also affect how people believe society should act and react to future movements. Alongside the argument of transcending racism, there are many who believe that, due to that belief, there is no need for subsequent social movements. It is from this belief that the condemnation of future social movements follows. Similarly, to how groups such as the Black
Panther Party are written out of the main narrative and portrayed as an unruly offset of the Black
Freedom Movement, you also now have new movements like Black Lives Matter, being portrayed in the same way. Due to the pedestal that the Civil Rights Movement is placed on in popular memory, if new social movements do not follow the same framework as the Civil Rights
Movement then they are determined to be unruly, and deemed unable to stand up for social change. According to Jeanne Theoharis, “The iconization of figures like King and Parks and the erasure of many other leaders and participants seemed to suggest that Americans, particularly young people of color today, could not do what these civil heroes and heroines did.”346 With the creation of the Black Lives Mater Movement, the youth of today refuse to allow credence to such a blasphemous argument and hope to dismantle the current notion of civic engagement believed by many.
Despite the harm created by the false narrative, the very creation of Black Lives Matter proves the continuity of the Black Freedom Movement. Much like the origins of the Black Power
Movement, in the beginning #BlackLivesMatter was a phrase used during a time of tragic death,
345 Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2006), xxi 346 Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), xiv. 148 uttered from one Black person to another as if to let them know that even though they do not believe we matter, we know we matter. It soon transformed into an all-out movement going from
Black Lives Matter to the Movement for Black Lives. Establishing itself as a different sort of social movement, the Movement for Black Lives attempts to break down patriarchal hierarchy that is normally used in social movements, and not adhering to the status quo. Due to its vast social media presence, the movement for Black Lives quickly established a national presence and garnered a lot of attention every time they protested, although all the attention they attracted was not positive. Black Lives Matter came under intense critique by the national media. Analysts saw similarities between Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement, but also the Black
Power Movement. Since it did not follow the direct framework of the acceptable Civil Rights
Movement and instead chose to adopt the radical framework of the Black Power Movement, the national media vilified it.
In the few years since its creation, Black Lives Matter has made it clear they are a movement to be taken seriously, making massive contributions to society. While they acknowledge the similarities between both the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power
Movement, Black Lives Matter more accurately believes itself to be another point on the timeline of the Black Freedom Movement. Thus, proving the continuity of the Black Freedom
Movement, Black Lives Matter disrupts the notion that social movements have to follow a particular framework in order to be successful. Black Lives Matter attempts to use a combination of different frameworks from numerous other movements and organizations. Due to it not following the direct framework of the Civil Rights Movement, and partially adopting framework from Black Power, many people have immediately written it off and condemned its actions.
While the media can portray the movement in a positive light or negative light, depending on 149 how they interpret it, Black Lives Matter has made it clear that the movement does not act a specific way for the benefit of the media. Regardless of how the media portrays Black Lives
Matter, the organization will always seek to bring improvements to society. Even if the media denounces them like they did the Black Panther Party, Black Lives Matter will still seek to improve lives, thus cementing the true nature of Black Lives Matter. 150
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