The Freedom Riders and Lessons for Today
With
The Rev. Dr. James Lawson , helped coordinate the Freedom
Rides in 1961, the Meredith March in 1966, & while working as a pastor
at the Centenary Methodist Church in Memphis, played a major role in
the sanitation workers strike of 1968. On the eve of his assassination,
Martin Luther King called Lawson "the leading theorist and strategist of
nonviolence in the world and (complete page)
It's one thing to see some of the films and photos on the topic of non-violent "Action", I say action because what was done was far from passive in spite of appearances. All of the movement's activities required some level of training. The more dangerous the action, the more intense the training. The following video is a dramatization of a SNCC training session for those who were to sit-in at lunch counters as well as other places. The NAACP, CORE and other groups all conducted similar training sessions. Even these intense training bouts didn't always prevent injury but they did enable the protestors to maximize their efforts.
The following is a "Democracy Now!" broadcast which aired the day after
the death of civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
It features some highlights of Rosa Parks' role in the movement.
Always a voice for unity and equality among people, Pete Seeger discusses the song
"We Shall Overcome."
His lifelong contribution to social justice should be remembered by all.
Who Speaks for the Negro? by Robert Penn Warren This body of work is a must -see if you are interested in the voices of African-Americans of the 1950s and 60s There is not much for me to say other than go see for yourself and don't hesitate to share this info with others that you think will appreciate it. Be prepared to make time to listen to many hours of recorded interviews with prominent people who were active in the movement for civil rights and equal opportunity.
These individuals are among those interviewed.
James Baldwin, Carroll Barber, Wiley Branton, Bridgeport (Conn.) men, Stokely Carmichael, Joe Carter, Septima Poinsette Clark, Felton Grandison Clark, Kenneth Bancroft Clark, Dan W. Dodson, Ralph Ellison, Will D. Campbell,
James Farmer, Jr., James Forman, Milton A. Galamison, Richard Gunn, Clarie Collins Harvey, William Hastie, Aaron Henry, Jackson State College students, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Montgomery Wordsworth King, Martin Luther King Jr., James M. Lawson, Jr., Gilbert Moses and Richard Murphy, Robert Moses, William Stuart Nelson, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Gloria St. Clair Hayes Richardson, Carl T. Rowan, Bayard Rustin, Kelly Miller Smith, William Stringfellow, Tougaloo College students, Ruth Turner, Wyatt Tee Walker, John Hervey Wheeler, Roy Wilkins, Avon N. Williams, Jr., Stephen Wright, Malcolm X, Andrew Young, Whitney Young,
Lolis Elie, Nils Douglas and Robert Collins
Ezell Blair, Stokely Carmichael, Lucy Thornton and Jean Wheeler
The Who Speaks for the Negro? website is a digital archive of materials related to the book of the same name published by Robert Penn Warren in 1965. The original materials are held at the University of Kentucky and Yale University Libraries. We are indebted to both of these institutions for their willingness to share their collections in order to create a full digital record of Warren’s research for the book. Robert Penn Warren’s children, Gabriel Warren and Rosanna Warren, have generously given their permission for this material to be made available publicly. The archive consists of digitized versions of the original reel-to-reel recordings that Warren compiled for each of his interviewees as well as print materials related to the project. All of the print materials appear on the website in two versions: an image of the original document which is not searchable and a re-transcribed document which is searchable. When a search is implemented, the searched word or phrase will be highlighted within the re-typed document; the user will need to scroll through the document to find the highlighted search term.
Documentary showing the civil rights movement in 1959 and 1960: sit-ins, marches, boycotts and Includes such events as the first mass marches in Montgomery, Alabama , reactions against police brutality in Brooklyn , N.Y., and protests against the prejudiced treatment of Negroes in court. Directed by Madeline Anderson.
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005)
was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"
Mrs Parks refusal to give up her seat sparked
The reknowned Montgomery Bus Boycott
I still remember sit-ins and boycotts of the late 50s and early 60's I was a young teenager at the time. I didn't participate in any sit-ins but I did have the opportunity to take part in the picketting of segregated swimming pools and other public establishments in Southern New Jersey. We also successfully boycotted for the hiring of Black employees at local supermarkets and a few other retail outlets that we patronized. I'll never forget when I boarded a bus with other local teens bound for Washington DC. It was a very exciting time, we recieved some coaching on the way regarding what to do and how to behave in case of trouble, we didn't know just what we would find at the end of our four and a half hour bus ride. It turned out to be one of the most impressive experiences of my life. Black Americans from all over America and other races including some from the international community as well had all come to express their desire to bring an end to the inequality that was being practised in the United States and to promote the adaptation of a Civil Rights policy that was necessary if America was to live up to it's claims as being a Nation of Justice.
I had just turned 17 at the time and most of the young people on the bus that day were about the same age it was quite a mix we were young men and women, Black, White, Asian, Jewish and Native Americans, rich and poor. Some of the kids I knew but most I was meeting for the first time and we were all prepared to face whatever we had to in order to make America a better place everyone.
In 1960 four freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro walked into the F. W. Woolworth store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. They were refused service, but they stayed until closing time. The next morning they came with twenty-five more students. On the third day, sixty-three students joined the sit-in. On the following day, the students were joined by three white female students from the Women’s College of the University of North Carolina, and by the fifth day Woolworth had more than three hundred demonstrators at the store. The next day the company said they were willing to negotiate, but only token changes were made. The students resumed their sit-ins, the city adopted more stringent segregation policies, and forty-five students were arrested and charged with trespassing. The students were so enraged by this that they launched a massive boycott of stores with segregated lunch counters. Sales dropped by a third, forcing the store owners to relent. Six months from the very first sit-in, the four freshmen returned and were served at Woolworth’s lunch counter.
Within a year similar peaceful demonstrations took place in over a hundred cities North and South. At Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, students formed their own organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “Snick”). The students’ bravery in the face of verbal and physical abuse led to integration in many stores even before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Demonstrators walk down a street during the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.
(Peter Pettus. 1965. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Lot 13514, no. 25.
John Lewis (on right in trench coat) and Hosea Williams (on the left) lead marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
On Sunday March 7, 1965, about six hundred people began a fifty-four mile march from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol in Montgomery. They were demonstrating for African American voting rights and to commemorate the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, shot three weeks earlier by an state trooper while trying to protect his mother at a civil rights demonstration. On the outskirts of Selma, after they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers, in plain sight of photographers and journalists, were brutally assaulted by heavily armed state troopers and deputies.
One hundred years after the Civil War, in many parts of the nation, the 15th Amendment had been nullified by discriminatory laws, ordinances, intimidation, violence, and fear which kept a majority of African Americans from the polls. The situation was particularly egregious in the city of Selma, in Dallas County, Alabama, where African Americans made up more than half the population yet comprised only about 2 percent of the registered voters. As far back as 1896, when the U.S. House of Representatives adjudicated the contested results of a congressional election held in Dallas County, it was stated on the floor of Congress:
…I need only appeal to the memory of members who have served in this House for years and who have witnessed the contests that time and time again have come up from the black belt of Alabama—since 1880 there has not been an honest election in the county of Dallas…
This video is over an hour long but don't let that deter you from watching it. Please take the time to view this video. Take the time to share it with with our young people, who may not be aware of its contents or the valor of those who struggled during those trying times. The struggle is not over and they will need the examples of doctor King and those of us who worked with him to hold themselves and the country accountable for the injustices that are still occuring.
While it might be difficult for us to imagine today, at one time the job of Pullman Porter was very highly prized and carried with it a quite a bit of status in the Black community.
In order to get a taste of the social history of a Pullman porter
by journalist Larry Tye. Tye says that the job was one of the best for African Americans at the time, and that it was a foothold in the American workplace.
