Preface – How Rhodes Obtained This Collection (reprinted from the Summer 2017 Rhodes Magazine) EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS PROVE RIVETING By Leanne Kleinmann In 1968, Professor Michael P. Johnson at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis asked students who marched in support of the striking Memphis sanitation workers to write about their experience. Today, Rhodes students are ensuring that these riveting slivers of history become available to the public. The nearly 100 rare, handwritten eyewitness accounts from the event made their way to Rhodes through what Dr. Charles Hughes, director of the Memphis Center, describes as a bit of serendipity. Rhodes board of trustees chair Cary Fowler ’71 was in town for a board meeting and stopped to sit in on a history class. “He visited my History of Memphis class,” recalls Hughes, “where we were talking about the roots of the civil rights movement in the 40s and 50s, and in Memphis, the end of the Crump regime.” Fowler, who is world-famous for his leadership in preserving global crop diversity and the construction of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, was active in the Memphis civil rights movement. In fact, he had participated in the March 28, 1968, march that became the subject of the LeMoyne-Owen student accounts, and had been given a copy of them by Johnson. “I kept them all these years,” says Fowler, “and began to notice that they were never referenced in books about the sanitation workers strike and this period in Memphis.” He made arrangements for Rhodes to acquire the accounts. The accounts make for fascinating reading. This one is from “B.P.” (Johnson redacted the names when he knew the accounts would go public): “I was in the midst of the marchers, and could not see anything in the front or back of me. We were on Main only a few minutes before we heard a noise that seem to rock the doors of Heaven. Tear gas had been thrown into crowd by the ‘police force.’ ” “My four fellow marchers and I ran for the nearest street, and while running I remember laughing to myself because a group of policemen were out-running us trying to get to safety . When I got home that evening I was surprised to learn that all of my sisters and brothers had been dismissed from school because of violent outbursts, fighting and window breaking.” “I expected everything that happened to happen. When conditions such as police brutality, a government for the white people, and discrimination at every level are brought to a head and become intolerable in the Black Community the result is not very pleasant for anyone . (Negroes) want their rights now and will not wait.” Jessica Johnson ’15, who was part of the Digital Preservation and Scholarship (DPS) team, read all of the LeM- oyne-Owen documents, and realized what Fowler had understood: “We don’t really have documentation of what happened in the daily lives of Memphians, of African Americans.” “Some of the accounts are very dramatic,” said Dr. Suzanne Bonefas, director of Special Projects at Rhodes, who leads the student digitization teams. When Johnson began reading the LeMoyne documents, she had an interest in their historical value, but then she de- cided to bring them to life by asking friends to read and record the accounts. From “E.W.”: “When I got up on Thursday, March 28, 1968, I knew that there was to be a massive demonstration in downtown Memphis, but until 11, it never dawned on me that there was actually something more than just the peaceful demon- stration for the striking sanitation workers.” “At 11, my cousin called me from Carver High School pleading with me to get her out of school. She said that ‘these people have gone crazy over here and I am afraid to stay here.’” “After I finished talking to my cousin, I turned my radio on and I heard that there was an outbreak of violence at Hamilton High School and that there was violence and window-breaking in the downtown area. My neighbors, by this time, had gotten their children out of school and were in the front yard listening to the radio (WLOK and WDIA). They cheered and laughed uncontrollably as the accounts of vandalism and violence poured out of a transistor radio.” Says Jessica Johnson, now a law student at Ole Miss: “I wanted to transcribe the stories from an old piece of paper full of illegible cursive to something everyone could see, understand, and believe. I wanted to make them come to life.” Original Preface to the Collection THE MEMPHIS “RIOT” Some Eye-witness Accounts of Events in Memphis, March 28-April, 1968 These documents do not present a balanced picture of the Memphis “riot.” They are not supposed to be balanced. In- stead, they are eye-witness accounts of what ninety-seven LeMoyne students saw, heard, and felt during the tumultuous days that occasioned Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ill-fated return visit to the City of Good Abode. These documents give us a unique opportunity to learn what really happened during the “riot,” at least to these LeMoyne students. They represent history in its roughest form, direct and unedited statements of personal experiences. Because they are uned- ited, they are repetitious; because they were dittoed, many of the copies are faint; because they were hand-written they are not as clear as they might be. ALL of this means the reader is confronted with material that demands more than the usual amount of perseverance, concentration, and simple hard work. We hope it will be worth it. We hope that after you read these documents you will be able to answer many questions. For example: Why did violence erupt at the scene of the march? Were black militants wholly responsible? Was police protection adequate, before the window-breaking? Was the march properly disciplined? What was the influence of the incidents at Hamilton High School. Did the news media contribute to the tension or merely observe it? Were the looters seek- ing revenge against “the man” or were they simply interested in stealing? Did the police exercise the restraint Frank Holloman has praised them for? Was the widespread property damage organized by conspirators or was it random and spontaneous? Was it the result of a “moral holiday,” precipitated by looting at the march, or was it redistribution for the actions of police? How was the curfew enforced? What were the attitudes of police and National Guardsman as reflected in their actions and language? And of course these are not the only questions to which we hope you will find here. Many people helped contribute to this publication. The students in History 202 and 304 did the most important work—they wrote it. The College has generously consented to underwrite the cost of making copies of the documents. We are grateful to Upward Bound for the use of their electric ditto machine. Note to the Reader: 1. Page numbers are circles in the lower right corner of each page. 2. The initials of the writer are at the top right of each page. 3. All names in these accounts are fictitious. Michael P. Johnson Memphis, Tenn. May 14, 1968 R.C. - 1 The incident at Hamilton High School began around 8:30 AM when students of Hamilton go there for the outside of the school. The only trouble was that most of the students were talking rather loud. Then as a bus was arriving some of the students surrounded the bus and forced their way onto the bus. This would have been prevented if the N.A.A.C.P. workers had sent a representative to advise the students of the best way of preceding downtown to join the march. After this the students became rather impatient and were blocking the streets. The students began bricking garage trucks, police cars and a laundry truck. They also kicked and dented a white lady’s car as she continued to blow her horn for the students to clear the street. Police cars began to arrive and a helicopter appeared circling the school overhead. The students quieted down a lot. Then another bus came down Wilson and four more police cars arrived. 1 R.C. – 2 The officers in these cars jumped out suddenly with nightsticks and shotguns in their hands and charging toward the students who were fleeing toward the buildings. One girl was hurt. Police and newspapers stated that she was hit by an object someone threw. Students stated that she was hit by an object thrown by an officer. The officers also claimed that they did not use their nightsticks but they were swinging at the running students and could not prevent hitting them. Students began throwing bricks, bottles, and sticks after they were being hit by the policemen. When the girl was being taken away to the hospital the students ceased fighting but the police made another charge at the students and they started back again. People watching began talking and telling the police that they should not hit the students and to leave them alone. The police then started forcing the people 2 R.C. – 3 Off the corner and one man was arrested for merely protesting the action of the police and for being slow to move on. Around 9:30 the students settled down and proceeded to march downtown to join the march. 3 V.C. – 1 Violence at Hamilton High Lucille Watson is a fictitious name of a student at Hamilton High School, who witnessed the riot that occurred at Hamilton on the day of the March downtown for the sanitation strikers.