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)
I regret to inform you that this wonderful youtube channel is no longer available. I only hope that you were able to benefit from the great videos that were shared with us while it was active.
This channel, at time of this writing, consists of about 80 videos between a minute and a half to almost 2hours in length. Spanning from Carmichael's/Ture's time with SNCC through when he moved to Guinea-Conakry. The videos cover a wide range of topics such as Politics, MLK, Malcolm X, The Police, The Media, Guns, Gangs, Education, SNCC, Vietnam, Black Power, Religion, Revolution, Pan Africanism and so much more. I haven't watched them all but it appears that the bulk of the videos contain live footage of Carmichael/Ture speaking. I will probably include this post on the blog to be posted in advance of Black History Month 2013 because there is so much interesting material, from the civil rights movement of the 1960s through the 1990s, that you might want to check it out and share it yourself during BHM.
Kwame Ture (aka ; Stokely Carmichael June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998) was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. Growing up in the United States from the age of eleven, he graduated from Howard University and rose to prominence in the civil rights and Black Power movements, first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick") and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party.
Initially an integrationist, Carmichael later became affiliated with black nationalist and Pan-Africanist movements. He popularized the term "Black Power". Following his expulsion from the Black Panthers in 1967 and widespread riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, Carmichael moved to Guinea-Conakry in 1969. He resided there for the rest of his life, except for receiving medical treatment in the US late in life. - From Wikipedia
I'm adding some Ture videos here so you can sample the previous channel.
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.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday every January becomes an occasion for looking back at the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. As the celebration of the King Holiday leads into February and Black History Month, it's a time to consider not only how far we've come but how far we still have to go, and to reflect on some of the milestones in movement history. This year, one of those national and personal milestones is the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
On February 1, 1960, when I was a senior at Spelman College in Atlanta, four black freshmen from North Carolina A&T State University sat in at the Whites-only lunch counter in the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's store. It was just the spark I and so many black youth were waiting for to stand up against the segregation that daily assaulted our dignity and lives. I and thousands of other students were galvanized to strike our blow for freedom, giving birth to the sit-in movement, the formation of SNCC, and a new era of student activism that energized the larger Civil Rights Movement. People often forget that children and youth were major frontline soldiers in the Civil Rights Movement. Little Ruby Bridges in New Orleans and the Little Rock Nine and other young black children desegregated schools across the South, often standing up to howling mobs. They were instrumental in Brown v. Board of Education. Young people coordinated voter registration drives, participated in Freedom Rides testing segregation laws on interstate buses, conducted voter education and other activities during 1964's Freedom Summer in Mississippi including Freedom Schools, and more. My generation was blessed beyond measure to be in the right places at the right times to experience and help bring transforming change to the South and to America.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday every January becomes an occasion for looking back at the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. As the celebration of the King Holiday leads into February and Black History Month, it's a time to consider not only how far we've come but how far we still have to go, and to reflect on some of the milestones in movement history. This year, one of those national and personal milestones is the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
On February 1, 1960, when I was a senior at Spelman College in Atlanta, four black freshmen from North Carolina A&T State University sat in at the Whites-only lunch counter in the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's store. It was just the spark I and so many black youth were waiting for to stand up against the segregation that daily assaulted our dignity and lives. I and thousands of other students were galvanized to strike our blow for freedom, giving birth to the sit-in movement, the formation of SNCC, and a new era of student activism that energized the larger Civil Rights Movement. People often forget that children and youth were major frontline soldiers in the Civil Rights Movement. Little Ruby Bridges in New Orleans and the Little Rock Nine and other young black children desegregated schools across the South, often standing up to howling mobs. They were instrumental in Brown v. Board of Education. Young people coordinated voter registration drives, participated in Freedom Rides testing segregation laws on interstate buses, conducted voter education and other activities during 1964's Freedom Summer in Mississippi including Freedom Schools, and more. My generation was blessed beyond measure to be in the right places at the right times to experience and help bring transforming change to the South and to America.
