America Dreaming Page 5

  In 1954, the Supreme Court in its Brown v. Board of Education ruled that segregated schools were illegal. Chief Justice Earl Warren read the Supreme Court’s ten-page unanimous decision. “We come then,” the ruling read, “to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of educational opportunities? We believe it does.” The ruling took only fifteen minutes to read aloud, but it would take years for it to be finally implemented. To add to the delay, a year later on May 31, 1955, the Supreme Court qualified its decision with the statement that desegregation must have “a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance…with all deliberate speed.” That phrase “with all deliberate speed” was all Southern states needed to delay implementation. “Deliberate speed” to Southern whites meant they could pretend to be moving forward without actually desegregating.

  “Somewhere in the universe a gear in the machinery had shifted.”

  —civil rights activist Eldridge Cleaver commenting on Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus

  Even though the ruling was a huge success because it established the legal right to equality, the decision exposed the limits of what could be achieved through the courts if the people in charge of implementing the decision were unwilling. African Americans won in principle, but lost in implementation. Justice in the courtroom could not be translated into justice in the streets.

  * * *

  Rosa Parks

  On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was not “moving back.” She was tired. She needed to sit and she was not getting up. Parks described what happened years later:

  Having to take a certain section [on the bus] because of your race was humiliating, but having to stand up because a particular driver wanted to keep a white person from having to stand was, to my mind, most inhumane.

  On December 1, 1955, I had finished my day’s work as a tailor’s assistant in the Montgomery Fair department store and I was on my way home. There was one vacant seat on the Cleveland Avenue bus, which I took, alongside a man and two women across the aisle. There were still a few vacant seats in the white section in the front, of course. We went to the next stop without being disturbed. On the third, the front seats were occupied and this one man, a white man, was standing. The driver asked us to stand up and let him have those seats, and when none of us moved at his first words, he said, “You’ll all make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats.” And the man who was sitting next to the window stood up, and I made room for him to pass by me. The two women across the aisle stood up and moved out.

  When the driver saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said, “No, I’m not.”

  And he said, “Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to call the police and have you arrested.”

  I said, “You may do that.”

  He did get off the bus, and I still stayed where I was. Two policemen came on the bus. One of the policemen asked me if the bus driver had asked me to stand and I said yes.

  He said, “Why don’t you stand up?”

  And I asked him, “Why do you push us around?”

  He said, “I do not know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.”

  * * *

  Parks’s action sparked the entire African-American community of Montgomery to react. Beginning on December 5, more than 50,000 blacks joined a bus boycott that lasted 381 days. The bus companies, which were private, lost two thirds of their revenue and nearly went bankrupt. The Montgomery bus boycott was a success only because a federal court ruled against the city. It was also limited to the local community. It did not lead to similar boycotts across the South or change the discriminatory laws in other communities.

  The protests did, however, bring to prominence Martin Luther King Jr. At the time, King was a twenty-seven-year-old minister who was new to the city, but his leadership and the principles he preached became the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement. In his initial address at a church in Montgomery, King said:

  Now, let us say that we are not advocating violence. We have overcome that. I want it to be known throughout Montgomery and throughout the nation that we are a Christian people. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest.

  With these words King initiated the nonviolent tactics that would become the hallmark of the modern Civil Rights Movement. They were in stark contrast to the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens’ Council, and other white racist organizations that tried to keep blacks “in their place.”

  King would go on to become the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization of black ministers against segregation. The SCLC eventually would help move the Civil Rights Movement from isolated regional protests into a national movement. But that would not happen until young people involved in grassroots organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee incorporated King’s principles to lead the way with the lunch counter sit-ins. In addition, two other important developments came out of the 1960 bus boycott. First, blacks discovered that they could exert economic pressure on corporations to end segregation, and second, the federal courts would support their efforts to end segregation. What became clear from these results was that on a national level, segregation could be fought and won. Locally, however, the effort to change these racist laws would face violent resistance.

  * * *

  ON NONVIOLENCE

  “Why use nonviolence?

  The practical reason is that we’re trying to create a more just society. You cannot do it if you exaggerate animosities. Martin King used to say, ‘If you use the law “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” then you end up with everybody blind and toothless,’ which is right.”

  —James Lawson, a black theology student at Vanderbilt University on what he learned in workshops in Nashville run by CORE and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, NAACP youth organizers, and ministers from the Southern Christian Leadership Council

  * * *

  When asked why he was in Little Rock, a soldier answered it was to “keep the niggers out!”

  Other events also paved the way for the lunch counter sit-ins, including the “Little Rock Nine” attempting to integrate the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. On September 4, 1957, nine black high school students—six girls and three boys—dared to integrate Little Rock Central High. Even though it was more than three years after the Supreme Court had ruled that black children had the right to attend white schools, no Southern school district in the deep South had yet to obey the law. Little Rock was going to be the test case. The television and print media had descended on the city to capture this historic moment. What the nation saw was the ugly face of racism. White children and parents lined the street leading to the school and hurled racial epithets at the nine African-American students. On orders from Governor Orval E. Faubus, the Alabama National Guard denied the students entrance to the school.

  The fallout from integrating Little Rock schools was that the following year, Little Rock Central High did not open at all and remained closed for the entire 1958–59 school year.

  THE LITTLE ROCK NINE

  From top left: Ernest Green, Daisy Bates (adult supporter), Carlotta Walls, Terrance Roberts, Melba Patillo, Jefferson Thomas. From bottom left: Gloria Ray, Elizabeth Eckford, Minnie Jean Brown, and Thelma Mothershed.

  THE FREEDOM RIDERS: MAY 4, 1961

  “Why didn’t the federal government enforce its laws?” asked James Farmer, cofounder and president of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Farmer asked this question at the beginning of 1961, when the Supreme Court finally banned segregation in bus terminals, waiting areas, restaurants, and restrooms. It had been fifteen years since the 1946 Supreme Court decision against segregation on buses and trains, but African Americans were still waiting for the ruling to be enf
orced.

  Farmer felt the time was ripe to test the resolve of the federal government. John F. Kennedy was about to be inaugurated as president of the United States. In his campaign, Kennedy had clearly spoken out in support of equal rights for African Americans. Farmer and his colleagues at CORE wanted to challenge the new Kennedy administration to back up its words with action. Farmer reasoned:

  If we were right in assuming that the federal government did not enforce federal law because of its fear of reprisals from the South, then what we had to do was make it more dangerous politically for the federal government not to enforce federal law. And how do we do that? We decided the way to do it was to have an inter-racial group ride through the South. This was not civil disobedience, really, because we would be doing merely what the Supreme Court said we had a right to do.

  CORE carefully selected, recruited, and trained thirteen people—seven blacks and six whites—to exercise their civil rights on buses and in bus terminals. On May 4, they divided into two groups, one boarding a Greyhound bus and the other boarding a Trailways bus. They traveled to Richmond, Petersburg, and Lynchburg, Virginia, without incident. On May 9, however, violence erupted at the Greyhound station in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Here, black volunteer John Lewis was clubbed and beaten by whites when he tried to sit in a whites-only waiting room. Others in the group were also beaten. In the end no arrests were made and the riders were allowed into the waiting room. The riders, with others joining the protest, then proceeded to Sumter, Camden, Augusta, Athens, and Atlanta, Georgia, without incident.

  On May 14, a white mob attacked both black and white freedom riders at a bus station outside of Birmingham, Alabama. Six days later the freedom riders were attacked again by a white mob of one thousand in Montgomery, Alabama, and as many as twenty-five people were injured. On May 24, more than seven freedom riders were jailed in Jackson, Mississippi, and four days later another seventeen were jailed for defying a federal injunction prohibiting their activity. Finally, Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent in U.S. marshals to Alabama to stop the violence. At the same time, the governor of Alabama declared martial law and dispatched the National Guard to calm certain areas.

  At this point the Civil Rights Movement began to take on the trappings of an old-fashioned morality play. Blacks would petition the Supreme Court to secure their rights. White Southern authorities would ignore the Court’s ruling. With national television and print media present, blacks would attempt to exercise their rights. White mobs would attack the black protesters to prevent them. Finally, political pressure through the national media would force the federal government to act to ensure the civil rights of all of its citizens. This drama had to be played out over and over again across the South.

  * * *

  SNICK: STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE

  Inspired by the sit-ins and other nonviolent protests they participated in, more than 300 college students across the South met on Easter weekend of 1960 in Raleigh, North Carolina, to make a place for young people in the movement. The real question was whether to become a youth arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or to form a separate group. Since many of those in attendance were critical of how the SCLC centered on Martin Luther King Jr., it was decided that they should form a more “group-centered” organization. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee emerged from this meeting. Because its initials were SNCC, members quickly began referring to the group as “snick.” Along with King’s SCLC, the SNCC became one of the movement’s most important organizations.

  * * *

  They were for freedom.

  THE ALBANY MOVEMENT

  November 1, 1961

  “They were for freedom. I understood that, and I had been waiting,” said Bernice Johnson Reagon as she summed up the feelings of the black community in Albany, Georgia. Charles Sherrod, twenty-two, and Cordell Reagon, eighteen, two young but experienced SNCC volunteers, had arrived in Terrell County during the summer to begin a voter registration drive. By the fall they moved their base to Albany. Here, Sherrod and Cordell Reagon organized non-violence workshops in church basements. Surprisingly, the NAACP sent representatives to Albany to discourage the black community from listening to Sherrod and Reagon. They were wary of SNCC’s operating independent of them. Despite this, nine students volunteered for Albany’s first sitin. The protest took place on November 1, 1961, at the local bus station. Even though no one was arrested that day, the civil action galvanized the black community there. They came together to form an organization called the Albany Movement. Its mission was to end segregation in all areas of life in the town. The Albany Movement was the largest mass protest since the Montgomery bus boycott. It exceeded the boycott, however, in its ambition because for the first time a black community was attempting to eliminate the entire system of segregation, not just one segment, such as buses.

  Over the coming year, the Albany Movement introduced a new element to the civil rights struggle: mass demonstrations. Organizers led marches to the train station, to city hall, and to the courthouse. On December 16, Martin Luther King Jr. lent his name and the power of SCLC to the protests by leading a march on city hall. He and a number of other demonstrators were arrested. Sadly, the Albany city council refused to consider any demands for desegregation.

  Albany’s white police chief, Laurie Pritchett, had perhaps the most unique response to the protests. He had researched nonviolent protests and understood that meeting them with violence would make the protesters heroes. As a result, Chief Pritchett would kindly bow his head in prayer as he arrested black ministers.

  Without violence, the ugly face of racism could not be splashed across the nation’s television screens and newspapers. Without violence, the federal government felt no pressure to intervene. In fact, the Kennedy administration complimented Albany’s segregationists for their restraint. The result of Pritchett’s restraint and the city’s refusal even to consider desegregating was a serious blow to the Movement. As the protests sputtered along for months, black leaders began to blame each other for the failure. The infighting became so tense that the once-united organizations involved—SNCC, King’s SCLC, the NAACP—began to splinter. “We’re tired, very tired. I’m tired. We’re sick of it,” Martin Luther King Jr. said to Attorney General Robert Kennedy afterward.

  James Meredith escorted by U.S. marshals

  JAMES MEREDITH INTEGRATES OLE MISS

  September 30, 1962

  One hundred twenty-three deputy federal marshals. Three hundred sixteen U.S. border patrolmen. Ninety-seven federal prison guards.

  That is what it took to enroll one black student into the University of Mississippi, “Ole Miss.” At six p.m. on Sunday, September 30, James Meredith was flown to Oxford, Mississippi, and secretly escorted onto campus. Within the hour, more than 2,000 protesters attacked Meredith’s protectors. Ordered not to shoot back, the U.S. marshals were assaulted throughout the night by guns, bottles, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and a bulldozer. The marshals fought back with tear gas. At six a.m. the next morning, federal troops arrived and pushed the mob back into the town square. By eight a.m., when Meredith officially registered for school, 28 marshals had been shot and 160 injured.

  After two years at Jackson State College, James Meredith had transferred to Ole Miss. After another year and much protest, he graduated on August 18, 1963.

  “What really happened in the Meredith case when the state decided to resist was that they were playing out the last chapter of the Civil War.”

  —Constance Baker Motley, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and James Meredith’s attorney

  MARCHING IN BOMBINGHAM

  April 12, 1963

  “Birmingham is where it’s at, gentlemen,” said Fred Shuttlesworth, minister at Birmingham’s Bethel Baptist Church and a cofounder of the SCLC. “I assure you, if you come to Birmingham, we will not only gain prestige but really shake the country. If you win in Birmingham, as Birmingham goes, so goes the nation.�
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  Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC listened to Shuttlesworth and came. After the failure of Albany, it was clear to everyone in the Civil Rights Movement that the only way to get progress was to provoke aggression from the segregationists in front of the media. The mass marketplace had become so powerful that national media now influenced local politics.

  SCLC came up with a plan to tap just that power. It was called Project C. Its aim was to provoke segregationists into violent acts that would force the entire nation to face the evil of segregation. On April 12, Good Friday, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and Fred Shuttlesworth led a group of fifty protesters out of church. They marched to city hall, where they were promptly arrested. King’s arrest made the front page of the New York Times. No sooner was this group incarcerated than another took to the streets to protest their arrest. This continued day after day until King and the others were released a week later.

  King then opened the second phase of his campaign. He spent two weeks recruiting children ages six to sixteen to march. This was the biggest risk of his career. If any of these children were hurt by the snapping police dogs or fire hoses so powerful they could strip bark from a tree, King would be held responsible. Over this period, volunteers trained the children to protect their heads, eyes, and genitals, and they taught the children the principles of nonviolent protest.