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http://libarchstor2.uah.edu/digitalcollections/files/original/32/481/loc_civr_020_024.pdf
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The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
Join us in Fall 2001 in celebrating a series of public lectures,
panels and firsthand accounts of the major developments of
the Civil Rights Movement that took place in Alabama
from 1954 to 1965.
Presented by
Alabama A&M University
UAH LECTURES
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Inaugural Lecture
Taylor Branch, Pulirzer Prize-winning author of Paning
�JhL%�rs;.c.Av1eiica in ihe Ki11g Ye<lrs, 1954-63 (1988)_
and Pillar of Fire: America in ihe King Years, 1963-65
(1998).
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Early Years of the Movement (Part 1)--
Diane Nash, student leader, Nashville sit-ins of 1960,
Freedom Rides of 196 I, and the Selma Right-ro-Votc
movement, and a founding member of the Student
No,wiolenr Coordinating Commitree (SNCC).
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The Montgomery Bus Boycott
Fred Gray, acrorney for Rosa Parks and Martin Luther
King, Jr., and author of B11s Ride w)11s1ice (1995);
Charles Moore, Tuscumbia native and celebrated
photographer of the civil rights era; D'Linell Finley,
Sr., University of Alabama Department of Political
Science.
t•Xit•]a3;11:I
Trial by Fire and Water:
Birmingham, 1963 (Part II)
Glenn Eskew, Georgia State University, author of But
for Binninglumi: The Local and National Movemenrs in ihe
Civil Righis Struggle (1997); Horace Huntley,
University of Alabama in Birmingham, author of a
forthcoming oral history of the Birmingham movement;
-e.Jessa Woolfolk, Presidem Emerita ofthe &a,<l t>{
Directors of the Birmingham Civil Righcs Institute.
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"Bloody Lowndes" and the
Black Panther Party
John Hulett, Lowndes County activist during SNCC's
local voter registration drive; Frye Gaillard, prize-win
ning journalist, author of The Dream Long Deferred
(1988) and a forthcoming history of the civil rights
movement in Alabama.
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Turmoil in Tuskegee
Ocmon$1rO!rol"$ QI Kcly l"9rom Port<, Bi,minghom, Maj 1903'
Frank Toland, Tuskegee University Department
of History.
�AAMU LECTURES
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NOVEMBER 8
Selma to Montgomery, 1965
Linda Reed, University of Houston, author of Sim/)ie
Decency and Common Sense: The Sol((hem Conference
lvlovemem, 1938-1963 (1991 ).
John Lewis, U.S. Congressman (Ga., O-Sth)
a native of Troy, A labama and author of \'(/a/king tvith rhe
\Vind: A Memoir of rhe Movement ( 1998), active in the
Freedom Rides and in the events of "Bloody Sunday" at
Selma in 1965; Mary Stanton, author of From Selma ro
SEPTEMBER 20
Early Years of the Movement (Part II)
J. L. Chestnut, Jr., attorney and civil rights nctivist,
Sorrow: the Life and Dearh of Viola Uuzzo ( 1998).
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author of ·BJack in Selma: The Uncommon Life of). L.
Chesnrnt]r.: Poliiics and Power in a Small American
The Case of Mobile
City ( 1990).
Walker Leflore, Janet Owens Leflore, and Burton R .
LeFlore, family o f the eariy civii rights leader John
Leflore; O. B. Purifoy, member of the Non-Partisan
Voters League.
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Trial by Fire and Water:
Birmingham, 1963 (Part I)
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Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, veteran civil rights fighter,
pastor of Birmingham's Bethel Baptist Church
between 1953 and 1961, and a founder of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
(A Look Back and a Look Ahead)
Aldon Morris, Northwestern University, author of
The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black
Communities Organizing for Change ( 1984).
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Huntsville during the Civil Rights Movement
Sonnie W. Hereford, III, local physician and activist;
Veronica Pearson, Fred Carodine, and other former
Alabama A&M students active in the 1962 sit-ins.
For more information, look us up on the web at:
Charles Moore, Tuscumbia native
a�d renowned pho(ograpcr of the
Civil Rights era.
http://www.uah.edu/rights or
1------http:;tlwww.aamu.eauTr·-, g�ts---or call 824-6822 or 851-5846
All sessions are free and open to the public and will be held on Thursday evenings at 7 p.m,
except the final session on Dec. 4, which will be on Tuesday. UAH programs will be held at
Roberts Recital Hall. Alabama A&M programs will be held in the School of Business Multipurpose Room.
This series is mode possible in port by funding from lhe Alobamo Humanities Foundation, o state program
of the Notional Endowment for the Humonities; Senator Hank Sandert; The Huntsville Times; DESE Research, Inc.;
MEVATEC Corp.; Alabama Representative Louro Holl; Alabama A&M University, Office of the President;
Office of the Provost; State Black Archives; Reseorch Center and Museum; Tide Ill; Telecommunications and Distance
Learning Center; Office of Student Development; Honors Center; Sociol ogy/Social Work; History; Political Science;
The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Office of the President; Office of the Provost; History Forum/Bonkheod Foundation;
Sociology/Social Issues Symposium; Humanities Center; Division of Continuing Education; Honors Program; Office of
Multiculturol Affairs; Office of Student Affoirs; UAH Copy Center.
'Any ':production of image prohibited without permission o( Charles Moore or Black Star (cmoore 1567@earthlink.net/.
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Alabama A&M University
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
Relation
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<a href="http://libarchstor.uah.edu:8081/repositories/2/resources/21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">View the Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965 finding aid in ArchivesSpace</a>
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
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Title
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Flier advertising the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama 1954-1965 Lecture Series.
Subject
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Alabama--History--1951-
Civil rights movements--Southern States--History--20th century
Creator
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Alabama A & M University
University of Alabama in Huntsville
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
Box 1, Folder 1
University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives, Special Collections, and Digital Initiatives, Huntsville, Alabama
Date
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2001
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This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections.
Language
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en
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Fliers
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loc_civr_000020_000024
Temporal Coverage
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2000-2009
Description
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This pamphlet features photographs taken by Alabama photographer Charles Moore during the civil rights era. Speakers listed include Fred Gray, Fred Shuttlesworth, Sonnie Hereford, and John Lewis.
-
http://libarchstor2.uah.edu/digitalcollections/files/original/32/218/shuttlesworth.jpg
b37cc8043457e5c03d475e5111eed3df
http://libarchstor2.uah.edu/digitalcollections/files/original/32/218/Tape5.mp4
5f303388d4c20fdcf309171e200b4b70
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Title
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
Relation
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<a href="http://libarchstor.uah.edu:8081/repositories/2/resources/21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">View the Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965 finding aid in ArchivesSpace</a>
Identifier
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
Oral History
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Fred Shuttlesworth Lecture: Injustices of the Era (September 11 and Cincinnati Unrest) and Civil Rights</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript></partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis></synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords></keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>1745</time><title>Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth Lecture: Justice, Civil Rights, and Organized Religion</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript></partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis></synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords></keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2380</time><title>Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth: Biblical Justice and the Birmingham Movement</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript></partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis></synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords></keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>4625</time><title>Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth Q&A</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript></partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis></synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords></keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point></index><type></type><description></description><rel /><transcript>Introduction: Our speaker for tonight is the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. You
will hear more about him from the person who will introduce him. I want to make
just a few comments about the way in which the programs have taken place up to
this point. Last week we did not have a lecture. I am not sure if that was
clearly stated at the program the week before last. There may have been some
confusion. At least I heard some were a little bit confused. In fact we had a
program at the State Black Archives last Thursday. Some of the people showed up
at the State Black Archives. They said to me, "Is this where the symposium is
going to be?" I told them there was no way we could accommodate the numbers that
we have had at this symposium here at our place. We can only accommodate about
fifty in there. I'm very sorry that there was some misunderstanding. I think
there may have been at least a statement made but perhaps it was not emphasized
as clearly as it should have been or perhaps the emphasis was not as great as it
should have been. If you had looked at your schedule, you would have noticed
that there was no notation for October 4. That was because UAH had a small break
last week. That is the reason why it is not scheduled for the brochure. We
apologize for any inconvenience. We hope that you will forgive us for not making
that clear. However, tonight I would like for you to be sure to note that next
week's program will be at UAH. It will be at the same place and at the same
time. However, the next two programs from the campus of Alabama A&M, that is
October 25 th . If you have your pencils and you want to make a note on your
brochure, you can. October 25 th and November 8 th will be in this place, which
is the West campus center and the Ernest L. Knight reception area. If you are
coming from Meridian, come to the second light. Tum right or turn left. There
are plenty of parking areas just across the street in the parking area where the
post office is. There is some parking also on this side, if you turn left. All
you have to do is remember to proceed to the second light after the Chase Road
and then turn left or right. It will be the building across from the post
office. Is that clear to everyone? The next two programs on the campus of
Alabama A&M, October 11 and October 25 and November 8, there are three of these
and John L. Lewis will be here. We hope that some of the matters that are
keeping the conference occupied will not prevent him from coming. We hope that
he will be able to be here. Keep that in mind. I would like to acknowledge the
planning committee that has been responsible for each program. Dr Mitch
Berbrier, John Dimmock, Lee Williams and Dr. Jack Ellis from UAH; Professor
Carolyn Parker, who is not able to be here tonight, she is out of town, and
myself, from Alabama A&M, and of course crucial contributions are made by Joyce
Maples and Mr. Charles Wood. We do want to acknowledge their contribution and
the committee as a whole. I would like for Dr. Lee Williams to come forth and
acknowledge the people who are responsible for this series. Pastor of St. John
AME Church and a professor here at Alabama A&M University, will introduce Dr.
Shuttlesworth. Thank you.
Introduction continued: Thank you very much Dr. Williams. To Dr. Johnson and to
all of the committee of the Civil Rights Movements Symposium, and to all of the
underwriters, distinguished guests, visitors and friends, the entire Alabama
University family, it is a distinct honor and privilege to introduce the speaker
this evening. He is one whom I can truthfully and sincerely state, his times are
in God's hands. Paraphrased from Psalms 31: 15, "My times are in thy hands."
Circumstances and events in this life for eighty years, this March, I believe.
He has had fifty-eight years of ministry and thirty-six years at Greater New
Life Baptist Church in Cincinnati. He has been living eighty years on this
planet earth. He will introduce himself through his testimony tonight; a
testimony with heritage rich in the African-American experience; a heritage rich
in his love for America; a heritage rich in its primary base, a spiritual base.
We thank God for that rich heritage that is so needed for such a time as this.
Yes, we could talk about his long devotion, his personal history, human rights,
and justice ranging from Selma University and Alabama State with a Bachelor in
Science Degree, but he does not want me to talk about that. Even about 1956
where Alabama politicians outlawed the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People. In response to that act, a group of ministers under the
leadership of Reverend Shuttlesworth came together to organize the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights. He was a very close ally of Dr. King. With
the personality of confrontation, he became known and honored as Birmingham's
Civil Rights Leader. He was able to help and join together with Dr. Martin
Luther King and others to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He
was devoted to nonviolence. He conducted leadership training programs. We can
read the whole history of this association with attorney general Kennedy along
with his love for human rights and justice. He was beaten with clubs and chains
when he tried to enroll his children in an all white high school and in 1961 he
moved to Cincinnati. He founded the Greater New Life Baptist Church in 1966
where he continues to serve as pastor. It's no question that they honored him on
March 10th through 17th of 2002, for thirty-six years of faithful service,
fifty-eight years in the ministry. He does not even look like he is eighty years
old. When I grow up I want to be like that. We look forward to a treat tonight
and I am sure that when we have the impact, not only of what happened at the
Unity Breakfast some years ago. He took us to the mountaintop. I am sure that by
the grace of God he will carry us to another level tonight. He always says that
he can't go any further than the people who are praying for him. I would like
for you to greet him with attentive ears, open hearts and raised disposition for
Birmingham's Civil Rights leader who comes to not only give us inspiration but
also his dedication for years of fervent commitment, not only to human rights
but social justice as a Christian creature who has not denied nor cut himself
away from his ethnicity, spirituality and politics of confrontation. It is my
privilege now to present to you the Reverend Doctor Fred Shuttlesworth, the
Pastor of Greater New Life Baptist Church.
Fred Shuttlesworth: That is a great introduction son. Thank you very much. That
was a great introduction Dr. Williams, Johnson, all the members of the faculties
of these institutions. I assure you that after that beautiful introduction, I
feel a little better than I did before. I was sitting there thinking about how
this is my eighteenth hour. I had to get up at four o'clock this morning. I must
commend the program. This is the first program in which I have ever been
introduced as you get to the heart of the program this quickly. I don't know if
you knew my sufferings or not, but I assure you I won't be all night. I am
reminded of that young boy whose mother wanted him to go and hear a professor
speak. This professor was noted for speaking a long time. In the audience, most
people would go to sleep while he would be speaking. When any of us would talk,
he would sleep. This young boy had to not only be pleaded with but she started
patting him a little bit with a switch. He was burning and seething. The
professor at the college would notice and just look over the audience, maybe
forty-five seconds, or more than a minute and he couldn't come up with anything.
After a while he would say, "I can't think of nothing to talk about." The little
boy would say, "Talk for about a minute and sit down." I may take a little more
than a minute since it would be unfair to you to have that great introduction
and I don't say anything. This is a great time to be alive and I appreciate the
instructional purpose of the programs that you are having, trying to get people
to understand that we have a great heritage. We have a great opportunity to do
something despite the uncertainty of the times in which we live and despite the
fact many people don't appreciate many of the things that happened to make the
change that we have had. This is a challenging time to be alive, both for people
who are in college and out of college. I thought a little bit about the times in
which we live. You all are interested in where I have been and what I have been
doing. I admit I have been into some things and I can put that into one sentence
to sort of put a critique on it. Paul the Apostle in writing to Timothy said
some words that seem to fit for what I have tried to do and what I am doing.
First Timothy Chapter 1 Verse 12 says, "Timothy, I thank God for putting me into
this ministry and sustaining me." I may make that the core of what I want to
speak about tonight. I wish I could speak to your satisfaction on the Birmingham
Movement. The Birmingham Movement should mean much more than it does to most
people. If we could use that as a taking off point to something better. If we
talk about the Birmingham movement and not be inspired from what happened then,
not when I was in it but because of the sacrifice of the people even down to the
children who made as great a sacrifice as if they were soldiers on a foreign
battlefield. That ought to challenge us today to go ahead and finish up the
work. It should challenge us to look at our country, love it, and make sure it
moves forward with this business of brotherhood and justice. I wish I could just
talk about some of the beautiful things that happened in the movement and some
of the terrible things. I know that you have had Diane Nash, one of the stalwart
young ladies. If not for her and the Nashville movement, the freedom riders
would have died on the ground in Birmingham; that is, there would have been no
progress. I wish I could take time and tell you about Robert Kennedy, the
president's brother and the many activities and many conversations that I had
with him, especially as it related to continuing the freedom rides. Maybe we can
cover some of that in the question and answer period, and in demonstrations,
seven years before sixty-two, we suffered so much. We caught a lot of
deprivation. I often think of the song that the people used to sing, Way Down
Yonder By Myself, I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray. Before I say anything more, I
would like to release what happened after 9/11. Everybody knows what that is,
don't you? That was the day when everyone needed to not call on the police but
call on the Lord. I am a person who believes that you can't just let things roll
on. Things change because people change things. I must say to you that the
world, if it is to be changed, it will be changed by people whom the world
itself cannot change, so I hope I can challenge you in this great city where the
rocket center is your foundational basis here. Leading with outer space, where
we haven't conquered inner space yet. I would like to read this release, then we
will say some words and sit down. I was in California and of course none of us
could fly back so I had to stay in California for three extra days. In all of
what has happened to me, I don't think I have seen anything as tragic as those
planes flying into those tall buildings that represented the greatness of
America, the wishes of America, the center of trade in the world. I tried to get
about five minutes of sleep by turning the television off but I couldn't go to
sleep just thinking about it. No one could look at that with any sensibility and
not have some sort of feeling. Many people had a wrong feeling about it. Let me
just read this. This is the reason I wrote an article in California for the
paper. "Under no circumstance could any American with any degree of loyalty to
humanity or America condone the inhuman and dastardly destruction of buildings,
lives and property in New York and Washington DC. Our nation has indeed been
partially humiliated by this terrorist attack. We hope and pray that it has also
become more humbled before God. America responded in military and diplomatic
strengths to those who destroyed so much property and so very many innocent
lives. America will also now move with the same degree of arousement and
determination to attack racism and injustice within, with the same and truly
beneficial results to al I segments and levels of American life. We are all
Americans, hopefully loyal and loving Americans. However much we question and
disagree with the disputed election of President Bush, we do truly urge all
Americans to join one thousand and one percent in prayer for support of his
effort to secure, lift the spirits, and encourage the lives of all Americans in
this critical hour. God help us to come together and totally sacrifice together
when we are not in crisis as we are now doing always together the things in
unity of spirit as we are doing in this crucial hour. We saw everybody digging
and pulling and helping and suffering and bleeding, and dying together. That's
what Americanism ought to be about. I say this from the bottom of my heart and
in the spirit of God who loves his own. Yes, in the spirit of Martin Luther King
Jr., whom God sent to speak the spirit of nonviolence and unity to America and
to the world. In this our day of violence, hatred and meanness, only Satan is
the enemy of all mankind. All men are brothers and should act brotherly despite
racial and ethnic distinction. God is love and in His Spirit, someday we will
soon overcome the evils of this perilous moment. God bless America and God bless
each one of us." That was the statement.
I was getting ready to go somewhere. I was actually running out the door when I
heard that the judge that dismissed the sentence against the policeman who would
not have been given anything but nine months anyway, if he was given a sentence
at all, after killing this man. It was a minor charge. I thought of how the
system can be so light on certain people and so heavy on others. I thought I
should have something to say. I have lived long enough to know that if you say
nothing and do nothing the life will mean nothing. I was about to run out but my
secretary happened to have the radio on. When J heard that I couldn't believe
it. Serving nine months for killing a man is nothing. If this was a poor man or
a black man, nine years wouldn't have been enough. The following is what I
wrote. "The not guilty verdict of the court for Officer Steven Roach who
wantonly shot and killed Timothy Thomas, is typical of Cincinnati justice. You
know where Cincinnati is, don't you? It is as far South as you can get being in
the North, where the treatment of blacks by policemen is concerned. It is very
close to rulings by Southern segregation judges who felt blacks had no rights
that policemen had to respect. I am a living witness to that. This verdict,
following a series of unnecessary killings of several blacks by policeman and
numerous investigations by officials, can only mean that Cincinnati had been and
still is stuck in the mud of racism and injustice. Right is right and wrong is
wrong no matter who does it. This city, its prosecutors and its courts can never
find any punishable wrong done by its police department where blacks and
minorities are concerned. As painful and as hurtful as the decision to the
morale of the black and poor community, we must continue to give proper respect
to officers of the law, in spite of this decision and the long unholy record of
injustice in this city. Let us hope in faith and nonviolence that the national
tragedy of September 11 th will humble America and Cincinnati, to look within
our souls and eliminate racism, injustice and mistreatment of minorities, even
as America now arms itself to root out terrorism in the world and establish the
rule of law. Anything short of equal and exact justice in the same circumstance
done to any individual, regardless of color or status, is very close to terror
itself. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. God bless America and God
bless Cincinnati and may the day speedily come when all men, regardless of
position, stand equally before the Lord. They can enjoy freedom, justice and
fair play."
I thought I should read that as a sort of taking off point here tonight, as we
think about one or two lessons from the Civil Rights Movement that can be good
for today's affairs. My friends, I am convinced that this is God's world no
matter what. I believe that from the bottom of my heart. In fact, when Bull
Conner was talking about me I said, "Mr. Conner, this is not your world! This is
God's world." I quoted to him that the deeds to this world is written in the
twenty-fourth Psalm where it reads, "The earth is the Lord's." I said, "Your
name is nowhere around it." This is God's world. God loves all of His people. At
sunder times, periodically, God moves in human history to change conditions in
human lives. I am also convinced that God is The God, not a God, but "The God".
There is only one you all know. He is the God of love and mercy, as most people
love to say. He is also the God of justice, which most people don't say. It is
fotmd in Psalms 88: 14. You may read it when you go home. It talks about God's
throne. Psalms ninety-seven talks about it also. They both speak of how God's
throne sits on two pillars. One of the pillars is justice and the other is
righteousness. You see, whoever speaks and does not talk about justice, is not
talking too much or rightly about Mr. God. He is a God of justice. We need in
this day like in old times, the preachers, the prophets, the church and the
leaders to thunder out the words, "let justice roll down like water and
righteousness. We need that to be emphasized today.
No one can preach or teach about God unless one talks of justice, even from the
prophets who said let justice roll down etc. and the longstanding weakness of
the church. I am not going to ask how many people here belong to a church
because I don't want to hear any untruths in here. The tabernacle, the mosque,
in other words organized religion because organized religion, based on the
spirit of God, is God's army. God and an army is a fighting instrument. Am I
right? An army is trained to fight. Folk in the church should be disciplined to
fight. Most folks in the church think that we are in a picnic and not a fight.
God's movement is to overcome injustice and unrighteousness, whether it is in
the government or in the streets. We don't emphasize this. We are supposed to
teach, preach and talk that. No wonder Dr. Martin Luther King said the church is
much more like a taillight than a head light on a car.
I am going to tell the story about this man who was running late for an
appointment. You all were on time. You are to be commended. This man was driving
his car to an instructional convention. He was running late because he was doing
something. The crowd he was supposed to lead just went on without him. There
were several carloads that went ahead. He was trying to hurry up when he
realized he didn't have much gas. He rushed to the filling station and said to
the man, "Fill it up real quick. Put some gas in here real quick." At that time
they had just got this thing where you could put the gas and let it be running
while you do something else, so the man was very nice. He tried to do a little
courtesy, you know, wipe his windshield off and checking the air in his tires.
He was not concerned about that though. He wanted his gas so he could just go
because he was already late. After awhile he told the guy, "Look fellow, I am
late. Hurry up and put the gas in. Did you see some folks in about ten cars go
along here a few minutes ago?" The man said, "Yes". He said, "Well hurry up
because I am leading those folks.
In the affairs of the world, the church is leading those folks, but say nothing.
Indeed the letter from the Birmingham jail was written in response to high
officials, not just ordinary preachers, but bishops and rabbis who talked with
the conscience of God. I guess that is what they thought. We were put in jail.
Police began to beat us. They commended the police. They suggested that we
should just be quiet. Isn't that the voice now of evil when people protest?
Isn't it the same thing? The system has changed since the time when God said to
Moses, go down and tell Pharaoh. You should read Genesis. The first Civil Rights
Conference was called, not in Chicago, as people think, but in a midnight desert
between God and Moses. There were only two of them there around the burning
bush. It was right there where God said some things that I think we would
refresh ourselves and remind ourselves and really do better as we listen again.
Read it again when you go home. God did a strange thing on September 11 °1 to
get our attention. He just set a bush afire. Well maybe if we let him set bushes
afire instead of setting buildings afire, we would do better. He said, "Moses I
am the God". God always makes it plain that he is the only one. Whatever name
you call him he is the God of your problem. You have to think of God with
antiquity in your mind. Did I not say that right or what? I thought I was doing
something wrong. God said, "I am the God". That's not my thought though. God
said, "I have seen the afflictions of my people". That's where we get this thing
from that we say in church "God sees". Let's believe that. I have heard their
groans and I have come down to deliver them". Our God is a God of deliverance
from whatever will hold us down or back. God says, "I see, I know and I am
here". He said another word that too many preachers leave out. God did not come.
He said to Moses, "I will send you to Pharaoh. I will tell you what to tell
him". God is so big and powerful. He can tell you what he is going to do
different from what he is sending you to do. He said, "I am going to harden
Pharaoh's heart but you still do your job". I think that is where we miss the
point. This is a sermon. I am a preacher and it may sound like I am preaching.
The church and people always have excuses. They're always saying what they can't
do. What can you do? God basically said to Moses, "Well who made your mouth
since you think you can't talk. To help you out I will send your brother with
you but Moses you are responsible." Our job is to go to Pharaoh. Pharaoh has a
voice. This might be a good thought to remember. The voice of Pharaoh then, was
not much different from the voice of Pharaoh now. Pharaoh is the system no
matter who is in it, whether they are black or white.
Black folks have been in the system most times. We are a little involved in it
now. If we aren't careful, we won't have to be in it long before we are like the
system. When Moses went down to Pharaoh, he was nervous. "Mr. Pharaoh, ugh, I am
here." Pharaoh said, "What's your name? God told Moses to say, "Tell him I am".
Moses had never heard that. One preacher was philosophizing. This preacher felt
Moses went down to Pharaoh and said, "Well God said let his people go. I am is
my God." Some people call this spiritual imagination. He said Pharaoh said, "I
am? Who is the Lord that I should obey? In allegiance, I am that I am." Moses
went back and told God, "Well Pharaoh said he is down here." God said, "That's
all right. Go back and tell him I am that I am ... my last and first name is the
same and my message is still let my people go."
This system has a nice way of doing it. We don't say we are not going to let
them go. The system says we will let them go but we are always enslaving them
and causing them to get behind even more. If you don't understand what I mean,
Martin Luther King and I were struggling in the South. There are more poor
people and they're poorer now than they were then and we have more money, more
everything. We are wasting it up in this country.
God is going to help us get rid of some of it because we have t.o buy some
friends with free food to help us. You can be sure your sins will find you out.
To show you that this hasn't changed, when Christ Jesus was risen, he called the
disciples. Read the last chapter of John. Jesus told the disciples, "Peace be
unto to you. As My father has sent me, even so, I send you." Our job is to still
speak to Pharaoh, to the system and the injustices in the system. Do you all
agree with that? If you don't, it is true. The church must speak out. If you
could see the Civil Right film, I could have brought that film and wouldn't have
to say anything. I have three copies. We would have fighting and suffering and
Howard K. Smith, this is in 1961, a long time ago. White people were saying what
they wanted to say. The judges and the bishops were talking. The Martin Luther
King letter from the Birmingham jail was responding and so forth. You would have
been surprised. You would have almost thought it was slavery time. The blacks
were discussing their suffering and sacrifices. We called ourselves Negroes
then. Negroes have changed. We call ourselves some of everything now. King led
us to the Birmingham jail with an answer to that defense. The church does not
speak. We compromise on things. We accept things. The history of the church says
that money has had a large effect on the church. Anything money can buy, someone
else can sell for a little more money. People should speak the truth. The Lord
told us to speak the truth. They tell me if we ever practice speaking the truth,
you won't. have to remember the last lie that you told. The truth is just the
truth you know.
I have a little more written down here if you can take it. Without justice,
there would be no brotherhood ever. There would be no beloved community. In the
south, segregation at one time, you wouldn't believe this was more sacred than
going to heaven. The Ku Klux Klan, the mob were allied with the rulers, the
system. The system is amazing. It is just like Old Man River. Don't say nothing,
just keep rolling along. I tell many black people it is our responsibility to
challenge this system. We must remember, if we don't win the war and just win a
battle and think you have won the war, then you have lost. We must come together
and keep pushing for what is wrong. Injustice. I still say like I said fifty
years ago, "Rattlesnakes don't commit suicide and ball teams don't strike
themselves out. You have to put it out." If we are going to win the battle for
justice, freedom, and righteousness in America, we will have to stand up for
something or we will fall for everything. I ask the question, "Who is brave
enough in the land of the free and the home of the brave to call for freedom or
to stand up for freedom? I am speaking to the young people. What kind of world
do you want? Do you want to continue to live in a world that was oppressive,
where people say that they are praying? Even Abraham Lincoln said back then,
"How can a man rest his living from the eyebrows and back of another person and
call on a righteous God to sustain him". In the civil war you have to come to
the conclusion that even if the war is terrible until every drop of blood drawn
with the lash shall be replaced and drawn by the sword. Even so, it must be said
as David said two thousand years ago, "The judgments of the Lord arc true and
righteous all together." I hope that the colleges are training young people. We
have been training them to become a part of the system and become just like the system.
Some of my people were once slaves. Some people hate the word slavery because
they don't like to think they have been in slavery, but they have. When you rise
a little bit up to a certain point, you have to reach back and help those who
are still behind. Justice calls for people who rise in it all, to remember where
you came from. People that don't remember where they came from will not get too
far ahead. Segregation was so important. I can just put this in here now so you
won't forget. If Diane Nash had not been in Nashville encouraging the students,
as I said earlier, the freedom rides would have died on the ground in
Birmingham. That is, they could not have gotten out. But she called me and said,
"Imagine this. After all of the violence and other things, the first time I saw
a human skull, they hit him with an iron pipe and his skull was lying open. You
would not believe it. Birmingham was terrible. They intended to give this man to
the Klan that night. It is amazing how far some people will go, claiming
righteousness. I better tell this. I have seen so many things. I thank God for
this. I don't let anything I see or hear keep me from being what I think I ought
to be and do. Ordered and directed from above before we got here. We should try
to relate to that. On the day that the freedom riders were beaten up, here comes
a yow1g black boy, all beaten up. They came to get me. By the time I got out
there, two or three more had come. Then here comes this white man with his skull
out. It was a pitiful sight. It was as bad as it was on September the 11th, but
in a small way because you had to have empathy.
You had to have evidence. It was around one thirty or two o'clock when we sent
him to Jefferson Hospital. I told him not to try to catch a cab to come back. It
was a dime then. I told him to call me when he was ready and we would come back
to get him. I thank God for using me. We were afraid but so concerned to make
sure of this. I had people around me that I could send to the hospital. That
night something said to me, "Why don't you go". Two fellows said they would go".
I said, "I think I will go tonight. They told me to stay there and they would go
but I told them I wanted to ride tonight. I was on the driver's side. The people
were still marching around the church as if they knew each other, so this man
had this other fellow's car. There were three wheelers and two squad cars. We
came out and got in the car. We pulled off slowly. \,Vhen we started off, they
started off also. I said to the driver, "Be careful. Don't drive over eleven
miles per hour. Nobody is going to get arrested for speeding tonight". We went
from 20th Street going from South to North. There is a viaduct where you had to
go about six blocks to get off, up and on to the North side. They followed us
slowly until we got about a block on the viaduct where you could not turn off or
get off. A policeman on a three-wheeler came right up to the driver's side and
said, "Where are you going boy?" The fellow said, "I am going back over to
Reverend Shuttlesworth's house". The policeman said, "Yeah, let me see your
license". It was the usual. The police said, "Well let me see your
registration?" The fellow said, "Well I am driving so and so's car". The police
said, "Oh, a stolen car!" I knew right then it was going to be hell to pay. I
was so glad I was there. I said to myself, "Thank you Jesus that I came". Has
there ever been a time when you just thanked God for who you are? I knew I had
to say something. The police said to him, "You mean to tell me you have a stolen
car?" I thought I had better say something then. I was sitting on the passenger
side. I said, "Officer you have understanding enough to know that this man would
not get a stolen car to come over to the hospital to get James Peck. He said,
"Who in the hell are you?" I said, "You don't like to know me but you have to
know me. I am Fred Shuttlesworth and tonight you all will not do what you intend
to do. We won't have that here tonight. He is going back over to my house,,. The
policeman said, "Who the hell you say you was? I am saying this only because the
policeman said this. 1 said," I am Reverend Fred huttlesworth and you know it".
The policeman had this thing open and I was listening to the people down at the
station and he was also. He said, "Oh, you are Shuttlesworth?" I said, ''Yes I
am". He said over the speaker, "Hey so and so, shuttlesworth is with us. The
person he was talking to said, "Who, you said?" The police officer repeated
"shuttlesworth!" The man on the radio said, "Aww hell! Let him go!" I said,
"Thank God!" I was in a place where I could speak out and say who I was. My
"am-ness" helped that situation. I am going to make this part of a long story
short if I can. I feel better now than I did when I began to talk. I thought it
was all over. They finally left out from there.
The very next morning when I was getting ready to go out of town, along came a
nice lady's voice saying, "Brother shuttlesworth, this is Diane ash". She had
not yet married as of then. he continued, "The students in Nashville have
decided that we can no longer let violence stop the rights of people". I said,
"Young lady, do you understand what is happening around here? Do you know
someone may yet be killed here?" he said, "Oh yes, but I want to inform you that
the students have made a decision". ln my heart, while I was trying to talk nice
to her, I am saying, "Thank God!" Have you ever been talking to someone and
praying at the same time? I said, "Thank you God for courage". he said, "In fact
a load are already on the way". I said call your governor and police and send
them some telegrams". At that time, any way that they could get you for an
infraction of the law they would do it. I told her we better develop a little
signal because if you would call my house long distance, at that time, Bill
Conner, and all of them would be listening to everything. When I would pick up
the phone long distance, I could hear the police talking to each other. One
time, I went to make a call and I heard someone say, "That's Shuttlesworth".
Don't be so excited. You would be amazed what your country can do. I have gotten
as many as fifty telephone calls in one night. Sometimes we would pick up the
phone and no one would say anything. One time the telephone rang and I picked it
up. I said, "Hello". No one said anything. I put it down and picked it back up
again. I took it off the hook. Guess what? The phone rang off the hook. Another
time I picked it up. Someone said, "Hello, Fire Department, Hello Police
Department. Hello Hospital". Within ten minutes all of them ganged at my house.
I have been through a storm, but thanks be to God.
The problem is not so much about what happens to you. I have discovered that
this God we talk about has always been a God of deliverance. His automobile is
the only automobile I know that does not have any reverse gears. God's car is
not supposed to back up. He proved that at the Red Sea. Nothing but water on
either side and yet God said, "Go ahead. Forward march" There is no mountain or
no water that can stop God. Forward march. They walked across on dry land. It
took faith to believe that. So they went on across. I believe the same about
Pharaoh's army. They were drowned in the Red Sea. The world says, "If you can do
it, then we can too", but you can't if God is in it. He does what he wants to do
and nobody can stop him. How much more time do I have? I am just getting started.
Let's do some things here. Thank God for the creative fifties and sixties. As Stevenson said when he was running against Eisenhower, he said, "America is great because America is good. I liked to hear him orate. He was the best speaker. Eisenhower couldn't talk but he could. He continued to say, "When America ceases to be good, it ceases to be great". It became me, Martin and others led by black folk to challenge this system. We had to ask America, "How good is God's goodness?" I love that song. I don't care what people say about me because I am an American. They used to call me communist, they'd call me black. I said, "Well no, I am too American black to be Russian Red." You can call me what you want but I am like Abraham Lincoln, calling a cow's tail a leg does not make it a leg. I like when we sing that song America, America God shed his grace on you and crowned your good. You need to question how good is his goodness. You must do it because that is a necessity. There are too many people that are terrorized. But I'll try to get to that a little more quicker so you can ask me some questions. We must live in a society that is affluent to decide whether you are going to pay your rent or doctor bill. This is my prayer for America. I hope you will pray for it too. Bush didn't win the election fully, that's all right, we didn't disagree and I can love you right on. Half of that stuff we can change. God bless you and God sanctify you and keep you strong and thank you for allowing me to come.
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Title
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VHS tape of "Trial by Fire and Water: Birmingham, 1963" (Part I).
Subject
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Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011
Civil rights movements--Southern States--History--20th century
Birmingham (Ala.)
Jefferson County (Ala.)
Description
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Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth is the speaker in this lecture given at Alabama A&M.
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Alabama A & M University
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Source
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
Box 2, Tape 5
University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives, Special Collections, and Digital Initiatives, Huntsville, Alabama
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2001-10-11
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en
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Lectures
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loc_civr_0000001
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2:01:04
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2000-2009
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<a href="http://libarchstor2.uah.edu/omeka-2.6.1/items/show/521">Transcript of "Trial by Fire and Water: Birmingham, 1963" (Part I).</a>
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http://libarchstor2.uah.edu/digitalcollections/files/original/32/521/loc_civr_025_044.pdf
aff76a60d08d39750bbe219d76133d43
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Text
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
Alabama A&M University
Trial by Fire and Water: Birmingham, 1963 (Part I)
Speaker: Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth
Introduction: Our speaker for tonight is the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. You will hear
more about him from the person who will introduce him. I want to make just a few
comments about the way in which the programs have taken place up to this point. Last
week we did not have a lecture. I am not sure if that was clearly stated at the program on
week before last. There may have been some confusion. At least I heard some were a
little bit confused. In fact we had a program at the State Black Archives last Thursday.
Some of the people showed up at the State Black Archives. They said to me, "Is this
where the symposium is going to be?"
I told them there was no way we could
accommodate the numbers that we have had at this symposium here at our place. We can
only accommodate about fifty in there.
I'm very sorry that there was some
misunderstanding. I think there may have been at least a statement made but perhaps jt
was not emphasized as clearly as it should have been or perhaps the emphasis was not as
great as it should have been. If you had looked at your schedule, you would have noticed
that there was no notation for October 4 th . That was because UAH had a small break last
week. That is the reason why it is not scheduled for the brochure. We apologize for any
inconvenience. We hope that you will forgive us for not making that clear. However,
tonight I would like for you to be sure to note that next week's program will be at UAH.
It will be at the same place and at the same time. However, the next two programs from
the campus of Alabama A& M, that is October 25 th. If you have your pencils and you
want to make a note on your brochure, you can. October 25 th and November 8 th will be
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�The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
Alabama A&M University
in this place, which is the West campus center and the Ernest L. Knight reception area. If
you are coming from Meridian, come to the second light. Tum right or turn left. There is
plenty of parking areas just across the street in the parking area where the post office is.
There is some parking also on this side, if you turn left. All you have to do is remember
to proceed to the second light after the Chase Road and then turn left or right. It will be
the building across from the post office.
Is that clear to everyone?
The next two
programs on the campus of Alabama A&M, October 11 and October 25 and November 8,
there are three of these and John L. Lewis will be here. We hope that some of the matters
that are keeping the conference occupied will not prevent him from coming. We hope
that he will be able to be here. Keep that in mind. I would like to acknowledge the
planning committee that has been responsible for each program. Dr Mitch Berbrier,
John Dimmock, Lee Williams and Dr. Jack Ellis from UAH; Professor Carolyn Parker,
who is not able to be here tonight, she is out of town, and myself, from Alabama A&M,
and of course crucial contributions are made by Joyce Maples and Mr. Charles Wood.
We do want to acknowledge their contribution and the committee as a whole. I would
like for Dr. Lee Williams to come forth and acknowledge the people who are responsible
for this series. Pastor of St. John AME Church and a professor here at Alabama A&M
University, will introduce Dr. Shuttlesworth. Thank you.
Introduction continued: Thank you very much Dr. Williams. To Dr. Johnson and to all
of the committee of the Civil Rights Movements Symposium, and to all of the
underwriters, distinguished guests, visitors and friends, the entire Alabama University
family, it is a distinct honor and privilege to introduce the speaker this evening. He is
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�The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
Alabama A&M University
one whom I can truthfully and sincerely state, his times are in God's hands. Paraphrased
from Psalms 31: 15, "My times are in thy hands." Circumstances and events in this life
for eighty years, this March, I believe. He has had fifty-eight years of ministry and
thirty-six years at Greater New Life Baptist Church in Cincinnati. He has been living
eighty years on this planet earth. He will introduce himself through his testimony tonight;
a testimony with heritage rich in the African-American experience; a heritage rich in his
love for America; a heritage rich in its primary base, a spiritual base. We thank God for
that rich heritage that is so needed for such a time as this. Yes, we could talk about his
long devotion, his personal history, human rights, and justice ranging from Selma
University and Alabama State with a Bachelor in Science Degree, but he does not want
me to talk about that. Even about 1956 where Alabama politicians outlawed the
ational
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In response to that act, a group of
ministers under the leadership of Reverend Shuttlesworth came together to organize the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. He was a very close ally of Dr. King.
With the personality of confrontation, he becan1e known and honored as Birmingham's
Civil Rights Leader. He was able to help and join together with Dr. Martin Luther King
and others to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was devoted to
nonviolence.
He conducted leadership training programs.
We can read the whole
history of this association with attorney general Kennedy along with his love for human
rights and justice. He was beaten with clubs and chains when he tried to enroll his
children in an all white high school and in 1961 he moved to Cincinnati. He founded the
Greater New Life Baptist Church in 1966 where he continues to serve as pastor. It's no
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Alabama A&M University
question that they honored him on March 10th through 17 th of 2002, for thirty-six years of
faithful service, fifty-eight years in the ministry. He does not even look like he is eighty
years old. When I grow up I want to be like that. We look forward to a treat tonight and
I am sure that when we have the impact, not only of what happened at the Unity
Breakfast some years ago. He took us to the mountaintop. I am sure that by the grace of
God he will carry us to another level tonight. He always says that he can't go any further
than the people who are praying for him. I would like for you to greet him with attentive
ears, open hearts and raised disposition for Birmingham's Civil Rights leader who comes
to not only give us inspiration but also his dedication for years of fervent commitment,
not only to human rights but social justice as a Christian creature who has not denied nor
cut himself away from his ethnicity, spirituality and politics of confrontation. It is my
privilege now to present to you the Reverend Doctor Fred Shuttlesworth, the Pastor of
Greater New Life Baptist Church.
Fred huttle worth: That is a great introduction son. Thank you very much. That was a
great introduction Dr. Williams, Johnson, all the members of the faculties of these
institutions. I assure you that after that beautiful introduction, I feel a little better than I
did before. I was sitting there thinking about how this is my eighteenth hour. I had to get
up at four o'clock this morning. I must commend the program. This is the first program
in which I have ever been introduced as you get to the heart of the program this quickly.
I don't know if you knew my sufferings or not, but I assure you I won't be all night. I am
reminded of that young boy whose mother wanted him to go and hear a professor speak.
This professor was noted for speaking a long time. In the audience, most people would
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go to sleep while he would be speaking. When any of us would talk, he would sleep.
This young boy had to not only be pleaded with but she started patting him a little bit
with a switch. He was burning and seething. The professor at the college would notice
and just look over the audience, maybe forty-five seconds, or more than a minute and he
couldn't come up with anything. After a while he would say, "I can't think of nothing to
talk about." The little boy would say, "Talk for about a minute and sit down." I may
take a little more than a minute since it would be unfair to you to have that great
introduction and I don't say anything. This is a great time to be alive and I appreciate the
instructional purpose of the programs that you are having, trying to get people to
understand that we have a great heritage. We have a great opportunity to do something
despite the w1certainty of the times in which we live and despite the fact many people
don't appreciate many of the things that happened to make the change that we have had.
This is a challenging time to be alive, both for people who are in college and out of
college. I thought a little bit about the times in which we live. You all are interested in
where I have been and what I have been doing. I admit I have been into some things and
I can put that into one sentence to sort of put a critique on it. Paul the Apostle in writing
to Timothy said some words that seem to fit for what I have tried to do and what I am
doing. First Timothy Chapter 1 Verse 12 says, "Timothy, I thank God for putting me into
this ministry and sustaining me." I may make that the core of what I want to speak about
tonight.
I wish I could speak to your satisfaction on the Birmingham Movement. The
Birmingham Movement should mean much more than it does to most people. If we
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could use that as a taking off point to something better. If we talk about the Birmingham
movement and not be inspired from what happened then, not when I was in it but because
of the sacrifice of the people even down to the children who made as great a sacrifice as
if they were soldiers on a foreign battlefield. That ought to challenge us today to go
ahead and finish up the work. It should challenge us to look at our country, love it, and
make sure it moves forward with this business of brotherhood and justice. I wish I could
just talk about some of the beautiful things that happened in the movement and some of
the terrible things. I know that you have had Diane
ash, one of the stalwart young
ladies. If not for her and the Nashville movement, the freedom riders would have died on
the ground in Birmingham; that is, there would have been no progress.
I wish I could take time and tell you about Robert Kennedy, the president's
brother and the many activities and many conversations that I had with him, especially as
it related to continuing the freedom rides.
Maybe we can cover some of that in the
question and answer period, and in demonstrations, seven years before sixty-two, we
suffered so much. We caught a lot of deprivation. I often think of the song that the
people used to sing, Way Down Yonder By Myself, I Couldn't Iiear Nobody Pray. Before
I say anything more, I would like to release what happened after 9/11. Everybody knows
what that is, don't you? That was the day when everyone needed to not call on the police
but call on the Lord.
I am a person who believes that you can't just let things roll on. Things change
because people change things. I must say to you that the world, if it is to be changed, it
will be changed by people whom the world itself cannot change, so I hope I can
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challenge you in this great city where the rocket center is your foundational basis here.
Leading with outer space, where we haven't conquered inner space yet. I would like to
read this release, then we will say some words and sit down. I was in California and of
course none of us could fly back so I had to stay in California for three extra days. In all
of what has happened to me, I don't think I have seen anything as tragic as those planes
flying into those tall buildings that represented the greatness of America, the wishes of
America, the center of trade in the world. I tried to get about five minutes of sleep by
turning the television off but I couldn't go to sleep just thinking about it. No one could
look at that with any sensibility and not have some sort of feeling. Many people had a
wrong feeling about it. Let me just read this. This is the reason I wrote an article in
California for the paper. "Under no circumstance could any American with any degree of
loyalty to humanity or America condone the inhuman and dastardly destruction of
buildings, lives and property in New York and Washington DC. Our nation has indeed
been partially humiliated by this terrorist attack. We hope and pray that it has also
become more humbled before God.
America responded in military and diplomatic
strengths to those who destroyed so much property and so very many innocent lives.
America will also now move with the same degree of arousement and determination to
attack racism and injustice within, with the same and truly beneficial results to al I
segments and levels of American life. We are all Americans, hopefully loyal and loving
Americans.
However much we question and disagree with the disputed election of
President Bush, we do truly urge all Americans to join one thousand and one percent in
prayer for support of his effort to secure, lift the spirits, and encourage the lives of all
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Americans in this critical hour.
God help us to come together and totally sacrifice
together when we are not in crisis as we are now doing always together the things in
unity of spirit as we are doing in this crucial hour. We saw everybody digging and
pulling and helping and suffering and bleeding, and dying together.
That's what
Americanism ought to be about. I say this from the bottom of my heart and in the spirit
of God who loves his own. Yes, in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., whom God sent
to speak the spirit of nonviolence and unity to America and to the world. In this our day
of violence, hatred and meanness, only Satan is the enemy of all mankind. All men are
brothers and should act brotherly despite racial and ethnic distinction. God is love and in
His Spirit, someday we will soon overcome the evils of this perilous moment. God bless
America and God bless each one of us." That was the statement.
I was getting ready to go somewhere. I was actually running out the door when I
heard that the judge that dismissed the sentence against the policeman who would not
have been given anything but nine months anyway, if he was given a sentence at all, after
killing this man. It was a minor charge. I thought of how the system can be so light on
certain people and so heavy on others. I thought I should have something to say. I have
lived long enough to know that if you say nothing and do nothing the life will mean
nothing. I was about to run out but my secretary happened to have the radio on. When
J
heard that I couldn't believe it. Serving nine months for killing a man is nothing. If this
was a poor man or a black man, nine years wouldn't have been enough. The following is
what I wrote.
"The not guilty verdict of the court for Officer Steven Roach who
wantonly shot and killed Timothy Thomas, is typical of Cincinnati justice. You know
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where Cincinnati is, don't you? It is as far South as you can get being in the North,
where the treatment of blacks by policemen is concerned. It is very close to rulings by
Southern segregation judges who felt blacks had no rights that policemen had to respect.
I am a living witness to that. This verdict, following a series of unnecessary killings of
several blacks by policeman and numerous investigations by officials, can only mean that
Cincinnati had been and still is stuck in the mud of racism and injustice. Right is right
and wrong is wrong no matter who does it. This city, its prosecutors and its courts can
never find any punishable wrong done by its police department where blacks and
minorities are concerned. As painful and as hurtful as the decision to the morale of the
black and poor community, we must continue to give proper respect to officers of the
law, in spite of this decision and the long unholy record of injustice in this city. Let us
hope in faith and nonviolence that the national tragedy of September 11th will humble
An1erica and Cincinnati, to look within our souls and eliminate racism, injustice and
mistreatment of minorities, even as An1erica now arms itself to root out terrorism in the
world and establish the rule of law. Anything short of equal and exact justice in the same
circumstance done to any individual, regardless of color or status, is very close to terror
itself. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. God bless An1erica and God bless
Cincinnati and may the day speedily come when all men, regardless of position, stand
equally before the Lord. They can enjoy freedom, justice and fair play."
I thought I should read that as a sort of taking off point here tonight, as we think
about one or two lessons from the Civil Rights Movement that can be good for today's
affairs. My friends, I am convinced that this is God's world no matter what. I believe
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that from the bottom of my heart. In fact, when Bull Conner was talking about me I said,
"Mr. Conner, this is not your world! This is God's world." I quoted to him that the
deeds to this world is written in the twenty-fourth Psalm where it reads, "The earth is the
Lord's." I said, "Your name is no where around it." This is God's world. God loves all
of His people. At sunder times, periodically, God moves in human history to change
conditions in human lives. I am also convinced that God is The God, not a God, but "The
God". There is only one you all know. He is the God of love and mercy, as most people
love to say. He is also the God of justice, which most people don't say. It is fotmd in
Psalms 88: 14. You may read it when you go home. It talks about God's throne. Psalms
ninety-seven talks about it also. They both speak of how God's throne sits on two pillars.
One of the pillars is justice and the other is righteousness. You see, whoever speaks and
does not talk about justice, is not talking too much or rightly about Mr. God. He is a God
of justice. We need in this day like in old times, the preachers, the prophets, the church
and the leaders to thunder out the words, "let justice roll down like water and
righteousness. We need that to be emphasized today.
No one can preach or teach about God unless one talks of justice, even from the
prophets who said let justice roll down etc. and the longstanding weakness of the church.
I am not going to ask how many people here belong to a church because I don't want to
hear any untruths in here. The tabernacle, the mosque, in other words organized religion
because organized religion, based on the spirit of God, is God's army. God and an arn1y
is a fighting instrument. Am I right? An army is trained to fight. Folk in the church
should be disciplined to fight. Most folks in the church think that we are in a picnic and
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not a fight. God's movement is to overcome injustice and unrighteousness, whether it is
in the government or in the streets. We don't emphasize this. We are supposed to teach,
preach and talk that. No wonder Dr. Martin Luther King said the church is much n1ore
like a taillight than a head light on a car.
I am going to tell the story about this man who was runnmg late for an
appointment. You all were on time. You are to be commended. This man was driving
his car to an instructional convention.
He was running late because he was doing
something. The crowd he was supposed to lead just went on without him. There were
several carloads that went ahead. He was trying to hurry up when he realized he didn't
have much gas. He rushed to the filling station and said to the man, "Fill it up real quick.
Put some gas in here real quick." At that time they had just got this thing where you
could put the gas and let it be running while you do something else, so the man was very
nice. He tried to do a little courtesy, you know, wipe his windshield off and checking the
air in his tires. He was not concerned about that though. He wanted his gas so he could
just go because he was already late. After awhile he told the guy, "Look fellow, I am
late. Hurry up and put the gas in. Did you see some folks in about ten cars go along here
a few minutes ago?" The man said, "Yes". He said, "Well hurry up because I am
leading those folks.
In the affairs of the world, the church is leading those folks, but say nothing.
Indeed the letter from the Birmingham jail was written in response to high officials, not
just ordinary preachers, but bishops and rabbis who talked with the conscience of God. I
guess that is what they thought. We were put in jail. Police began to beat us. They
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commended the police. They suggested that we should just be quiet. Isn't that the voice
now of evil when people protest? Isn't it the same thing? The system has changed since
the time when God said to Moses, go down and tell Pharaoh. You should read Genesis.
The first Civil Rights Conference was called, not in Chicago, as people think, but in a
midnight desert between God and Moses. There were only two of them there around the
burning bush. It was right there where God said some things that I think we would
refresh ourselves and remind ourselves and really do better as we listen again. Read it
again when you go home. God did a strange thing on September 11 °1 to get our attention.
He just set a bush afire. Well maybe if we let him set bushes afire instead of setting
buildings afire, we would do better. He said, "Moses I am the God". God always makes
it plain that he is the only one. Whatever naine you call him he is the God of your
problem. You have to think of God with antiquity in your mind. Did I not say that right
or what? I thought I was doing something wrong. God said, "I am the God". That's not
my thought though. God said, "I have seen the afflictions of my people". That's where
we get this thing from that we say in church "God sees". Let's believe that. I have heard
their groans and I have come down to deliver them". Our God is a God of deliverance
from whatever will hold us down or back. God says, "I see, I know and I am here". He
said another word that too many preachers leave out. God did not come. He said to
Moses, "I will send you to Pharaoh. I will tell you what to tell him". God is so big and
powerful. He can tell you what he is going to do different from what he is sending you to
do. He said, "I am going to harden Pharaoh's heart but you still do your job". I think
that is where we miss the point. This is a sermon. I am a preacher and it may sound like
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I am preaching. The church and people always have excuses. They're always saying
what they can't do. What can you do? God basically said to Moses, "Well who made
your mouth since you think you can't talk. To help you out I will send your brother with
you but Moses you are responsible." Our job is to go to Pharaoh. Pharaoh has a voice.
This might be a good thought to remember. The voice of Pharaoh then, was not 1nuch
different from the voice of Pharaoh now. Pharaoh is the system no matter who is in it,
whether they are black or white.
Black folks have been in the system most times. We are a little involved in it now.
If we aren't careful, we won't have to be in it long before we are like the system. When
Moses went down to Pharaoh, he was nervous. "Mr. Pharaoh, ugh, I am here." Pharaoh
said, "What's your name? God told Moses to say, "Tell him I am". Moses had never
heard that. One preacher was philosophizing. This preacher felt Moses went down to
Pharaoh and said, "Well God said let his people go. I am is my God." Some people call
this spiritual imagination. He said Pharaoh said, "I am? Who is the Lord that I should
obey? In allegiance, I am that I am." Moses went back and told God, "Well Pharaoh
said he is down here." God said, "That's all right. Go back and tell him I am that I
am... my last and first name is the same and my message is still let my people go."
This system has a nice way of doing it. We don't say we are not going to let them
go. The system says we will let them go but we are always enslaving them and causing
them to get behind even more. If you don't understand what I mean, Martin Luther King
and I were struggling in the South. There are more poor people and they're poorer now
than they were then and we have more money, more everything. We are wasting it up in
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this country. God is going to help us get rid of some of it because we have t.o buy some
friends with free food to help us. You can be sure your sins will find you out. To show
you that this hasn't changed, when Christ Jesus was risen, he called the disciples. Read
the last chapter of John. Jesus told the disciples, "Peace be unto to you. As My father
has sent me, even so, I send you." Our job is to still speak to Pharaoh, to the system and
the injustices in the system. Do you all agree with that? If you don't, it is true. The
church must speak out. If you could see the Civil Right film, I could have brought that
film and wouldn't have to say anything. I have three copies.
We would have fighting and suffering and Howard K. Smith, this is in 1961, a long
time ago.
White people were saying what they wanted to say. The judges and the
bishops were talking. The Martin Luther King letter from the Birminghan1 jail was
responding and so forth.
You would have been surprised.
You would have almost
thought it was slavery time. The blacks were discussing their suffering and sacrifices.
We called ourselves Negroes then. Negroes have changed. We call ourselves son1e of
everything now. King led us to the Birmingham jail with an answer to that defense. The
church does not speak. We compromise on things. We accept things. The history of the
church says that money has had a large effect on the church. Anything money can buy,
someone else can sell for a little more money. People should speak the truth. The Lord
told us to speak the truth. They tell me if we ever practice speaking the truth, you won't.
have to remember the last lie that you told. The truth is just the truth you know.
I have a little more written down here if you can take it. Without justice, there
would be no brotherhood ever. There would be no beloved con1munity. In the south,
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segregation at one time, you wouldn't believe this was more sacred than going to heaven.
The Ku Klux Klan, the mob were allied with the rulers, the system. The system is
amazing. It is just like Old Man River. Don't say nothing, just keep rolling along. I tell
many black people it is our responsibility to challenge this system. We must remember,
if we don't win the war and just win a battle and think you have won the war, then you
have lost. We must come together and keep pushing for what is wrong. Injustice. I still
say like I said fifty years ago, "Rattlesnakes don't commit suicide and ball teams don't
strike themselves out. You have to put it out." If we are going to win the battle for
justice, freedom, and righteousness in America, we will have to stand up for something or
we will fall for everything. I ask the question, "Who is brave enough in the land of the
free and the home of the brave to call for freedom or to stand up for freedom? I am
speaking to the young people. What kind of world do you want? Do you want to
continue to live in a world that was oppressive, where people say that they are praying?
Even Abraham Lincoln said back then, "How can a man rest his living from the eyebrows
and back of another person and call on a righteous God to sustain him". In the civil war
you have to come to the conclusion that even if the war is terrible until every drop of
blood drawn with the lash shall be replaced and drawn by the sword. Even so, it must be
said as David said two thousand years ago, "The judgments of the Lord arc true and
righteous all together." I hope that the colleges are training young people. We have been
training them to become a part of the system and become just like the system.
Some of my people were once slaves. Some people hate the word slavery because
they don't like to think they have been in slavery, but they have. When you rise a little
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bit up to a certain point, you have to reach back and help those who are still behind.
Justice calls for people who rise in it all, to remember where you came from. People that
don't remember where they came from will not get too far ahead. Segregation was so
important. I can just put this in here now so you won't forget. If Diane Nash had not
been in Nashville encouraging the students, as I said earlier, the freedom rides would
have died on the ground in Birmingham. That is, they could not have gotten out. But she
called me and said, "Imagine this. After all of the violence and other things, the first time
I saw a human skull, they hit him with an iron pipe and his skull was lying open. You
would not believe it. Birmingham was terrible. They intended to give this man to the
Klan that night. It is amazing how far some people will go, claiming righteousness. I
better tell this. I have seen so many things. I thank God for this. I don't let anything I see
or hear keep 1ne from being what I think I ought to be and do. Ordered and directed from
above before we got here. We should try to relate to that. On the day that the freedom
riders were beaten up, here comes a yow1g black boy, all beaten up. They came to get
me. By the time I got out there, two or three more had come. Then here comes this
white man with his skull out. It was a pitiful sight. It was as bad as it was on September
the 11 th , but in a small way because you had to have empathy.
You had to have evidence. It was around one thirty or two o'clock when we sent
him to Jefferson Hospital. I told him not to try to catch a cab to come back. It was a
dime then. I told him to call me when he was ready and we would come back to get him.
I thank God for using me. We were afraid but so concerned to make sure of this. I had
people around me that I could send to the hospital. That night something said to me,
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"Why don't you go". Two fellows said they would go". I said, "I think I will go tonight.
They told me to stay there and they would go but I told them I wanted to ride tonight. I
was on the driver's side. The people were still marching around the church as if they
knew each other, so this man had this other fellow's car. There were three wheelers and
two squad cars. We came out and got in the car. We pulled off slowly. \,Vhen we started
off, they started off also. I said to the driver, "Be careful. Don't drive over eleven miles
per hour. Nobody is going to get arrested for speeding tonight". We went from 20 th
Street going from South to North. There is a viaduct where you had to go about six
blocks to get off, up and on to the North side. They followed us slowly until we got
about a block on the viaduct where you could not turn off or get off. A policeman on a
three-wheeler came right up to the driver's side and said, "Where are you going boy?"
The fellow said, "I am going back over to Reverend Shuttlesworth's house".
The
policeman said, "Yeah, let me see your license". It was the usual. The police said, "Well
let me see your registration?" The fellow said, "Well I am driving so and so's car". The
police said, "Oh, a stolen car!" I knew right then it was going to be hell to pay. I was so
glad I was there. I said to myself, "Thank you Jesus that I came". Has there ever been a
time when you just thanked God for who you are? I knew I had to say something. The
police said to him, "You mean to tell me you have a stolen car?" I thought I had better
say something then. I was sitting on the passenger side. I said, "Officer you have
understanding enough to know that this man would not get a stolen car to come over to
the hospital to get James Peck. He said, "Who in the hell are you?" I said, "You don't
like to know me but you have to know me. I am Fred Shuttlesworth and tonight you all
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will not do what you intend to do. We won't have that here tonight. He is going back
,,
over to my house . The policeman said,"Who the hell you say you was? I am saying this
only because the policeman said this. 1 said," I an1 Reverend Fred huttlesworth and you
know it". The policeman had this thing open and I was listening to the people down at
the station and he was also. He said, "Oh, you are Shuttlesworth?" I said, ''Yes I am".
He said over the speaker, "Hey so and so, huttlesworth is with us. The person he was
talking to said,"Who, you said?" The police officer repeated " huttlesworth!" The man
on the radio said, "Aww hell! Let him go!" I said,"Thank God!" I was in a place where
I could speak out and say who I was. My"am-ness" helped that situation. I am going to
make this part of a long story short if I can. I feel better now than I did when I began to
talk. I thought it was all over. They finally left out from there. .
The very next morning when I was getting ready to go out of town, along came a
nice lady's voice saying, "Brother huttlesworth, this is Diane
ash". She had not yet
married as of then. he continued, "The students in Nashville have decided that we can
no longer let violence stop the rights of people". I said,"Young lady, do you understand
what is happening around here? Do you know someone may yet be killed here?"
he
said, "Oh yes, but I want to inform you that the students have made a decision". ln my
heart, while I was trying to talk nice to her, I am saying, "Thank God!" Have you ever
been talking to someone and praying at the same time? I said, "Thank you God for
courage".
he said,"In fact a load are already on the way". I said call your governor and
police and send them some telegrams". At that time, any way that they could get you for
an infraction of the law they would do it. I told her we better develop a little signal
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because if you would call my house long distance, at that time, Bill Conner, and all of
them would be listening to everything. When I would pick up the phone long distance, I
could hear the police talking to each other. One time, I went to make a call and I heard
someone say, "That's Shuttlesworth". Don't be so excited. You would be an1azed what
your country can do.
I have gotten as many as fifty telephone calls in one night.
Sometimes we would pick up the phone and no one would say anything. One time the
telephone rang and I picked it up. I said, "Hello". No one said anything. I put it down
and picked it back up again. I took it off the hook. Guess what? The phone rang off the
hook. Another time I picked it up. Someone said, "Hello, Fire Department, Hello Police
Department. Hello Hospital". Within ten minutes all of them ganged at my house. I
have been through a storm, but thanks be to God.
The problem is not so much about what happens to you. I have discovered that
this God we talk about has always been a God of deliverance. His automobile is the only
automobile I know that does not have any reverse gears. God's car is not supposed to
back up. He proved that at the Red Sea. Nothing but water on either side and yet God
said, "Go ahead. Forward march" There is no mountain or no water that can stop God.
Forward march. They walked across on dry land. It took faith to believe that. So they
went on across. I believe the same about Pharaoh's army. They were drowned in the
Red Sea. The world says, "If you can do it, then we can too", but you can't if God is in
it. He does what he wants to do and nobody can stop him. How much more time do I
have? I am just getting started.
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Let's do some things here. Thank God for the creative fifties and sixties. As
Stevenson said when he was running against Eisenhower, he said, "America is great
because America is good.
I liked to hear him orate.
He was the best speaker.
Eisenhower couldn't talk but he could. He continued to say, "When America ceases to
be good, it ceases to be great". It became me, Martin and others led by black folk to
challenge this system. We had to ask America, "How good is God's goodness?" I love
that song. I don't care what people say about me because I am an American. They used
to call me communist, they'd call me black. I said, "Well no, I am too American black to
be Russian Red." You can call me what you want but I an1 like Abraham Lincoln, calling
a cow's tail a leg does not make it a leg. I like when we sing that song America, America
God shed his grace on you and crowned your good. You need to question how good is
his goodness. You must do it because that is a necessity. There are too many people that
are terrorized. But I'll try to get to that a little more quicker so you can ask me some
questions. We must live in a society that is affluent to decide whether you are going to
pay your rent or doctor bill. This is my prayer for America. I hope you will pray for it
too. Bush didn't win the election fully, that's all right, we didn't disagree and I can love
you right on. Half of that stuff we can change. God bless you and God sanctify you and
keep you strong and thank you for allowing me to come.
TAPE 5 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS INAUDIBLE
20
�
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
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Transcript of "Trial by Fire and Water: Birmingham, 1963" (Part I).
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Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011
Civil rights movements--Southern States--History--20th century
Birmingham (Ala.)
Jefferson County (Ala.)
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<a href="http://libarchstor.uah.edu:8081/repositories/2/resources/21">VHS tape of "Trial by Fire and Water: Birmingham, 1963" (Part I).</a>
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http://libarchstor2.uah.edu/digitalcollections/files/original/32/13353/TheCaseofMobile_Tape11_File12.pdf
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PDF Text
Text
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
Alabama A&M University
The Case of Mobile
Speakers: Janet Owens LeFlore,
Burton R. LeFlore, O.B. Purifoy
Tonight's program, The Case of Mobile, is the next to the last program in this
fourteen weeks' series, which started on August 30, 2001.
Really, this has been a
fantastic series; it has been well received and supported by you who have attended these
weekly symposiums. And really, it is because of your support that this series has been a
success. So I would like for all of you to give yourselves a hand. Some of you have
attended all of the programs, others have attended all but one or two. Some attended as
many as possible, but we want to express our appreciation for all who attended any of the
programs; so again, we say thank you for not only being here tonight but for staying with
us throughout the entire thirteen weeks. Well, it will be thirteen weeks next Tuesday,
which will be the last program. We certainly deeply appreciate your support in coming
out. We also want to express our appreciation to the planning committee. I am not going
to indicate who the planning committee is tonight because I think all of you who have
been here each night, I think you know who the planning committee is by now. But, we
certainly want to express our appreciation to the planning committee. If those on the
planning committee want to stand and take a bow, please feel free to do so. We also want
to express our appreciation to others who have aided in weekly preparation. What I mean
by that is those who have provided the refreshments and those who have helped to set up
the chairs, certainly at A&M' s campus because that is what we have had to do, whether
we have been here at the multipurpose room or whether we have been over at the Knight
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Reception Center. Those who helped set the chairs up, those who helped to man the
doors, hand out brochures and program evaluations and also those who helped to man the
PA system during the question and answer period, I would like for you to at least give
them a hand as well.
Because of protocol, I will acknowledge the sponsors. Please bear with me
111
indicating that those who helped to make this entire series were as follows in terms of
funding: The Alabama Humanities Foundation; a state program of the National
Endowment of the Humanities; Senator Hank Sanders; the Huntsville Times; DESE
Research, Inc; Mevatec, Inc; Alabama representative, Laura Hall; Alabama A&M
University Office of the President, Office of the Provost; the State Black Archives
Research Center and Museum; Title III Telecommunication and Distance Learning. Of
course, we have acknowledged the terrific role that they have played in videotaping these
programs each night and so we certainly express our appreciation to them. In addition,
we express thanks also the Office of Student Affairs and the Honor Center at Alabama
A&M, in addition to the Sociology and Social Work, History and Political Science. At
the University of Alabama in Huntsville: The Office of the President; Office of the
Provost; History Forum/Bankhead Foundation; Sociology/Social Issues Symposium;
Humanities Center; Division of Continuing Education; Honors Program; Office of
Multicultural Affairs; Office of Student Affairs; UAH Copy Center. And so, we are
certainly thankful to them for the contribution that they have made in terms of the
financial support that they have given.
I want to simply mention that next week's
program, of course, is the last program. If you have paid attention to your brochures, you
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will notice that that program is scheduled for December 4, which is on Tuesday, not
Thursday, Tuesday, and it will be in the same location here on the campus of Alabama
A&M University. That is, in the multipurpose room which is also now called the Clyde
Foster Multipurpose Room. So if you happen to see that, it's the same place. Do not
become confused by that. And then, of course, tonight's program is The Case of Mobile
and I will ask Dr. Jack Ellis to come and introduce the presenters, those who will be
taking part in the panel and provide the context for the program.
Jack Ellis: I want to add to what Professor Johnson has just said in extending my
appreciation to those of you who have attended so many of these wonderful symposiums
and I especially want to commend the students from Decatur. Somehow, I think you
have been here almost every night if memory serves me right. This is something because
tonight when I saw flooding streets and tornado alerts, I thought to myself, "I know one
group that I'm sure is going to be there, it's those Decatur students." Some day, I think
that you probably know by now the magnitude of heroes that you have seen over the last
thirteen to fourteen weeks. I think that some day in your old age you will think back to
these times and these are ordinary people that we have seen, including those that are on
our stage tonight and so we are just thrilled to have you here.
This fall's series on the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama has revealed a
number of patterns that mark the campaign for justice and equality here in our own state.
One is the rich diversity of events occurring within Alabama's different regions and
cities. As we saw in the example of Huntsville, these events were not simply the faint
echoes of a recurring drama played out by Dr. King and the SCLC, which some
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historians regard as the almost mythical core narrative of the movement. Rather, they
bore the imprint of local circumstances and local conditions reflecting longstanding race
relations, economic forces and political traditions. Another is the sheer longevity of the
movement as was evident in last week's presentation on CG Gomillion and the Tuskegee
Civic Association which had been going on long before the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Put another way, what happened in Tuskegee, Montgomery, Huntsville, Birmingham and
so on during the l 950's and l 960's represented the culmination of decades of struggle
and revealed a powerful and enduring local culture that African-Americans had managed
to sustain within their own communities over years of oppression.
These things are
clearly illustrated in the case of Coastal and Catholic Mobile, the state's oldest and
second largest city; it's only seaport in the city where the very notion of race itself defies
easy definition. It was nevertheless a segregated city, one that had known its share of
racial violence.
An example (and this is something that my colleague, Professor
Williamson, has been working on for years) was the riot that took place in May 1943 in
the yards of the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company which was under federal
contract at the time to build ships for the war effort. An attempt was made to allow black
workers to move from menial jobs to positions as welders and shipbuilders and this
provoked a violent response on the part of white workers, most of these coming from the
rural areas of Alabama and Mississippi. Over 100 black workers were injured in the
1943 riots and peace returned only when the government sent in troops from nearby
Brookley Air Force Base. Although African-Americans made up 36 percent of Mobile's
population in 1950, they were still being denied access to education and jobs generally
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University
not shared in the cities post-World War II boom.
Yet, during the 1960's, Mobile
witnessed none of the confrontational tactics occurring in the streets of Birmingham and
Selma. The historian, ______
, author of a book on the Civil Rights Movement
in Mobile, which is scheduled to be published by the University of Alabama Press, points
out that Mobile was the only large city in the state during the l 960's that did not have a
major civil rights demonstration.
She attributes this fact primarily to the leadership of
two people, both of whom typified in her words, "The new deal influence liberal alliance
in the south forged during the 1930's." One of these individuals was Joseph Langan who
had grown up in an Irish Catholic family that lived in a racially mixed neighborhood of
Mobile. He had risen to statewide prominence after winning a seat in the Alabama
legislature in 1939. Following military service in World War II, which served to deepen
his understanding of the injustices faced by black people everywhere, Langan returned to
Mobile and resumed his political career winning a seat in the Alabama senate and then in
1953 one of three seats on the Mobile City Commission. Until his defeat in 1969 during
the black power insurgency associated with a new group calling itself the Neighborhood
Organization Workers of Mobile, or NOW, which denied him the support he had long
enjoyed in the black community.
Langan stood as a remarkable visionary among
Alabama's white politicians, a rare and eloquent voice for reason and reconciliation in
matters of race.
The second was an African-American postal worker named John L. Leflore, born
in Mobile in 1903. The son of a laborer, Leflore passed the Post Office Civil Service
examination in 1922 and became a letter carrier. He was one of the few blacks to be
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allowed to take the Civil Service examinations m the 1920's and 1930's. The job
provided him with a measure of protection against economic reprisals during his later
career, a distinct advantage for one who even as a young man had proved capable of
defending himself in personal encounters with racism, something I was discussing with
his grandson at lunch today. In 1926, LeFlore reorganized the defunct Mobile branch of
the NAACP and during the administration of Governor Bibb Graves, between 1926 and
1930, became one of the state's most visible civil rights activists. Until 1956, when
attorney general John Patterson outlawed the NAACP in Alabama, LeFlore served as
executive secretary of the Mobile branch and though he countered Patterson's action by
creating the Non partisan Voters League, which you are going to hear about tonight, he
continued his affiliation with the NAACP which was later legalized once again in the
1960's. Now working through the NAACP during the 1930's and 1940's, Leflore fought
numerous battles on behalf of African-Americans, things that we need to remember
today. In court, he challenged the railroads in the matter of equal pay for black brakemen
and firemen and fought both the railroads and the railroad unions when they failed to
protect the seniority of black workers. He defended the cause of black seaman on ships
sailing in and out of Mobile Bay, including their right to stay in integrated hotels while in
port.
He especially denounced the multitude of lynchings occurring in Alabama,
Mississippi and Louisiana after World War II, carrying out onsite and often dangerous
investigations and publicizing the failure of local police authorities and the FBI to find
the killers, as in the case of the black veteran such as George Dorsey, who was murdered
along with three others outside Monroe, Georgia in the year 1946. In alliance with white
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liberals, LeFlore labored tirelessly during the late l 940's and l 950's to expand voting
rights for African-Americans, to increase job opportunities in shipbuilding and in such
federal establishments as the Post Office and Brookley Air Force Base. In addition, he
won a major victory in persuading the Mobile County School Board to equalize the
salaries of black and white teachers. LeFlore's was truly a remarkable life and has been
featured in an excellent film produced by Public Television in the Mobile County public
schools entitled "A Quiet Revolution."
The John Leflore legacy is our own focus tonight and before introducing our
guests, I would like to mention two or three other people who wanted to be with us but
who were unable to do so. One of these is former Mayor Langan, who is now 90 years
old, still articulate, still eager to talk about his life, but following a recent bout with
illness, simply was unable to make the trip up to Huntsville. The same is true for
Mr. J.C. Randolph who is the former treasurer of the Nonpartisan Voters League. He
told me he is now 88 years old, but he expressed his regrets with a wish that I convey this
message to the young people in the audience and so here it is, "Don't relinquish what we
have already accomplished but nurture it and build upon it. I have carried the torch as far
as I can and pass it on to you, confident that you will go forth." So that is
Mr. Randolph's message to the young people tonight. Finally, I note with sadness the
absence tonight of Dr. Walker B. Leflore who passed away in October. Dr. Walker
Leflore was a Mobile native who decided to study medicine during his student years at
St. Augustine College, which is a private Episcopal school in Raleigh, North Carolina,
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where he also met his future wife, Janet E. Owens. He received his medical degree at
Meharry and practiced many years in Mobile until his death. In a tape interview that I
did with him at his medical clinic in October of 1988, Dr. LeFlore recounted with pride
his parents' influence on his life, which he said had always shaped his own practice of
medicine.
We are honored in having as our guests Dr. LeFlore's wife, Janet Owens Leflore
and their son, Burton Leflore. They will discuss their own unique perspectives of John
LeFlore's career and we hope that our efforts tonight will stand as fitting tribute to the
memory of his son, Dr. Walker B. LeFlore. Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, Janet
Owens LeFlore received her undergraduate degree from St. Augustine and for several
years thereafter taught chemistry and algebra in the schools of Mobile, Wilmington and
Atlanta. She began work on her Masters Degree in chemistry at Atlanta University and
while her husband was finishing his medical degree at Meharry, completed her Masters at
Fisk, teaching and doing research in infraredspectography. She continued her research at
Smith, Kline and French Research Industries and then taught chemistry at Bishop State
Community College after she and Dr. Leflore returned to Mobile in 1965. From that
point forward, and despite fulltime duties as a mother and chemistry teacher, Janet
Owens LeFlore became deeply involved in the community activities of her father-in-law,
assisting him in a multitude of tasks, from correspondence and proofreading to
scheduling. She was thus an eyewitness to remarkable civil rights careers in the 20th
century. Those of you who have seen the film, "A Quiet Revolution," will recall her own
detailed and insightful recollection of John LeFlore's life and work.
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We are also honored to have Burton Leflore who will also share personal
memories as well as insights that he has gained in studying and now writing about his
grandfather's life. Mr. Leflore graduated from a Mobile High School that only recently
has been named in his grandfather's honor. From there, and while working part-time on
the Mobile Press Register, he went on to earn a Bachelors Degree at the University of
South Alabama and then completed his law studies at Florida State in 1997. He has
taught business law at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington where he served
as visiting professor and he stayed active there as well as active as president of the family
real estate business in Mobile. Added to these achievements, a film study at NYU film
school, and he is presently owner of a company called Film at Work, which produces
films and videos for global distribution.
Finally, we welcome Mr. O.B. Purifoy, one of the veterans of the civil rights
struggles in Mobile who took an active role in the Nonpartisan Voters League as
executive secretary and second vice president and is among those featured in this very
powerful film, "A Quiet Revolution." Born in Andalusia, Alabama in 1914, Mr. Purifoy
studied Business Management at Alabama State in Montgomery before entering the army
during World War II.
After serving in Europe and the Philippines, he returned to
Andalusia to open an insurance firm, later moving to Dothan, before finally settling in
Mobile in 1947. Mr. Purifoy was one of John LeFlore's closest collaborators and he will
share with us tonight also some of his memories of that experience. We're going to start
with Burton LeFlore who is going to spend a few minutes talking about his own work and
recollections of the life of John LeFlore. Afterwards, Mrs. Leflore and Mr. Purifoy will
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offer some comments and recollections along the same line and then we're going to open
this up to informal discussion and questions from the floor. Please join me in extending a
very warm welcome to our guests tonight.
Burton LeFlore: How is everyone doing this evening. I would just like to thank, first of
all, all of you for coming out tonight, I mean with all this rain and everything. I know this
was just a good evening just to kind of call it quits and go home and just watch some
television and lay down, but I thank you all for being here. I would also like to thank
Dr. Jack Ellis and Dr. James Johnson for having us here in response from this symposium
tonight. Once again, I am just honored to be here. I guess another reason why I am
certainly happy that everyone came out tonight is because am I am here tonight to honor
my grandfather and discuss his legacy and some of his work, there is also a new
generation waiting to be born. I have a newborn on the way and I sort of risked missing
the birth of my newborn to be here tonight, so I would have been really upset if no one
would have shown up. I hope I will be able to get back in time for that. I am going to talk
a little but briefly about growing up with John Leflore as a grandfather and then I want to
discuss a little bit about some of his work. Obviously, I will not be able to get into
everything in the amount of time that I have. Dr. Ellis has mentioned a number of things,
but growing up as his grandson was rather uneventful. He was a good grandfather. We
spent a lot of time together, but as a child I was not aware of who he was. I was not aware
of the things that he had been involved in or things he had done. He was just granddaddy
to me. I did not know he had even been a Civil Rights activist. I believed at that time,
when I was born, I think that was near the time when he retired from the postal service,
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so he was basically retired. He was working very closely with the Non-Partisan Voters
League at that time. We spent a lot of time together and my recollections with him are
very vivid. My grandfather passed away in 1976 and I was about IO years old. I think I
was about in the 5th grade then. So, I was lucky enough to have been old enough to have
formed a relationship with him and to have gotten to know him. He was just a very
humble person. He was a very kind person. He was very kind to me. He spent a lot of
time. He took me to church. Now, he belonged to a Baptist church, but the church that we
would normally go to was a church called the Unitarian Fellowship. The Unitarian
Fellowship was more or a less the church where people went and there was some
spiritualism going on. There was also a an open forum for many of those individuals to
get up and talk about the various things that were going on in the community and state,
nationally, etc. I think that is why he enjoyed that particular church because obviously he
was very attuned to what was going on during that time. He was also very interested in
knowing what other people thought about what was going on, and not just the AfricanAmerican people but the entire community of Mobile as well. Unitarian Fellowship was a
nondenominational, racially integrated church. So, I remember those Sundays going to
church with him very vivid. I remember that he was a night owl. He stayed up late at
night sometimes a lot and maybe I have inherited that from him. He was a night owl and I
remember some nights he would come in and he would be hungry. He would eat a little
midnight snack and he would watch a little television. I remember he loved cottage
cheese and I hate cottage cheese. That was another very vivid memory of mine the fact
that he always ate cottage cheese and of course my grandmother was the homemaker. She
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was a very good cook. She cooked just about every day but on Fridays she would always
cook gumbo. She would always cook gumbo and she would always have fish, mashed
potatoes, vinegar and (what do you call that) cucumbers ... vinegar and cucumbers. I
remember having those Friday evening dinners with my grandfather, my mother and my
father and my brother and that was always a lot of fun. Of course, now, as far as his
involvement in certain things ... Now, there are several things I think were very prevalent
in my mind where my grandfather is concerned and of course, one was the fact that there
house was bombed in 1967. At that time, I do not have any recollection of the house
being bombed. I do not have any recollection of the old house, but I do remember my
grandfather coming and staying with us for about 6 months or so while they were
reconstructing the house. I think my grandmother went and stayed with their next door
neighbor at some point or something like that. The biggest recollection of the house being
bombed was the fact that at some point or another I realized, gee, there house was
bombed and there are actually pictures in books of them standing out in front of the house
after the bombing. First, the anger that I felt and thinking was gee, someone actually tried
to kill my grandparents, these innocent people here. Then, the other the thing that really
infuriated me was the fact that I could have been there. If my mother had dropped me off
over there that night, I might not be standing here today and that was the very infuriating
thing I think which has caused me a lot of thought. It reminds me very much of those four
girls who died in the Birmingham Church bombing. Of course, luckily, neither one of my
grandparents passed away in that bombing and of course I was not there, so that was
great. That has always been something that has bothered me over the years. Another thing
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that I remember about my grandfather was the Non-Partisan Voters League meeting.
Now, I never knew what was going on in these meetings. I never knew what was being
discussed in these meetings. Mr. Purifoy could probably attest to this. Probably, the gist
of it was that I was just a teenager and I was being so bad and so obnoxious. People were
probably sitting around thinking, why does, you know, he not quiet this kid down. Why
does he not tell this kid to sit down? No one ever said anything. So, at that point, I think I
started to realize that some of these people had a little respect for my grandfather because
obviously they put up with my obnoxious behavior. Now, the final recollection, of
course, was when he ran for the House of Representatives and that was a big thing. My
recollection of that was I really did not (once again) know, understand or appreciate the
extent of his commitment to Civil Rights or the extent of his commitment to serving
humanity. That was a pretty big event and when he won we were obviously very proud of
him at that time. Then, of course, I attended John Leflore High School, which was
named after my grandfather. At that point, I think I started to realize, you know, gee,
well, it looks like granddad was a pretty heavy hitter around here. You know he actually
had a whole high school named after him. That is a pretty big accomplishment here. In
many senses, I am very proud to have been part of his legacy. I am very proud to have
been his grandson and very proud of him, but also being his grandson has been a doubleedge sword. It has been a benefit in many ways and it has been a detriment in many ways,
but I think the benefits have certainly outweighed the detriments.
Now, as far as his works and achievements, first of all, his childhood is very
interesting and his development as a child. He was born in 1904 or 1903. His father
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passed away when he was about 9 months old, so he was basically raised by his mother
and by his older siblings. Now, his mother was a very industrious lady. She had a gumbo
fillet business and she made fillet for gumbo. The interesting thing about how he grew up
and the interesting thing about his family life as a child was that she required all the
children to work. They all had to work. They all had to hold down jobs and they all had
to bring their money back to help support the family. So, my grandfather from the time he
was four or five years old he held down a job; he worked, you know, literally as much as
he could when he was not in school. He sold newspapers. I think one gentleman that was
a friend of his once told me that they use to go down to Brookley Field and they would
dive for golf balls. If they got a bucket full, they got like 50 cents or a dime or something.
They would actually dive into the lake and fish these golf balls out of the lake and that
was sort of recreational for them, but they also got paid for it. Basically, his early
childhood was characterized by work and I think that sort of helped instill his work ethic.
I think the turning point in my grandfather's life was when he was about 17 years
old, right after he graduated from high school. He was on a street cart in Mobile and at
that time there were Jim Crow street carts and he was asked to move by a man who had
gotten on to the street cart and he refused to move. At that point, there was an altercation
between the two gentleman and obviously my grandfather was arrested. I think that was
the turning point in his life. I think that maybe from his childhood experiences, having
had to work so much as a young child and having not really grown up with his father
around, that maybe had something to do with his development in terms of him wanting to
become an activist. I think that was the turning point for him. I think that was when he
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realized that he wanted to spend a large majority of his life working to try to change some
of the inequities in society.
Now, I believe in 1923 he married my grandmother, Teah Leflore, which brings
us to the first major portion of his work which was trying to integrate or desegregate the
national railroad system in the Pullman cars. Based on my research, understanding and
knowledge of this early part of his life, I think that is when he and my grandmother got
married. They took a honeymoon trip to St. Louis. Obviously, at that point, I think this
was his first exposure not only to the segregation but to the Jim Crow situations on those
railroad carts. Obviously, he was obviously incensed about the segregation on the street
carts in the city of Mobile, he saw this as an opportunity, his first opportunity to try to
change and to try to start working towards bringing about some type of social change.
That was of course one of the first things that he began to work on and ultimately he was
successful. He may not have been given much credit for it but he and other members of
the NAACP at that time were probably some of the foremost fighters in terms of trying to
change the national railroad system at that time.
Now, around 1925 or 1926, he founded the Mobile branch of the NAACP. Of
course, as many of you may know, at that particular time, that was a very unpopular thing
to be talking about. As a group of activists or a group of people who wanted to try and
accomplish something in their communities or in the state, certainly, I think there was a
great deal of fear. I think they were more or less in a situation where it was like, well,
what are we going to do; are we going to try and do something about this or are we just
going to kind of sit down and just let these things go on that we feel are wrong? Of
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course, I think that was also part of my grandfather's whole philosophy in terms of the
fact. He was a very quiet person. He was not a Malcolm X. He was not a Martin Luther
King. He was not a Medgar Evers. He was not someone who was willing to go out in the
streets and march. He was not someone willing to speak publicly in an open form. I
mean, he spoke publicly quite frequently, but he would never put himself in a position
where he felt like he might be in danger. There were death threats made on his life quite
frequently. As a matter of fact, one of the things that my father has really ever told me
about my grandfather was the fact that he use to go down and check my grandfather's
mail for him. He would go down during World War II or World War I. I believe it was
World War I. He would go down during World War I and there would be postcards in his
mailbox. He would pull the mail out and there would be a statement in there about
something to the effect of like, nigger, we are going to get you after the big one's
through. My father was very adamant about not being involved in politics at all. He
wanted nothing to do with politics. He wanted nothing to do with activists. He wanted
nothing to do with any of that stuff. I think while that stemmed from his having grown up
with John LeFlore and grown up as John LeFlore's son. Many of his thoughts and
recollections of my grandfather were basically that I was just worried they were just
going to kill the guy. One day, he was just going to leave for work and just was not going
to come home, like many of those people did in the September 11th bombing of the World
Trade Center. That was his fear. He lived with a lot of fear during the early part of his
life. I think fear that his father was either going to be killed or that his father was going to
lose his job and what was his family going to do at that point because my grandmother
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was the homemaker. Those are really the main things that my father use to talk about to
me. He never really talked about the things that John Leflore was involved or anything.
He just really talked about those fears that his father was going to be killed and the fears
that his father would be fired from his job. Those were his main concerns at that time.
During the l 940's and l 950's, John LeFlore focused a lot of his time and
attention on voting rights. Voting Rights became very important. He was very active and
certainly as a postal worker and a federal employee. He was not suppose to get involved
in many of these issues. He was accused at one point of violating the Hatch Act. Of
course, that was another instance where the postal service kind of came down on him and
he was censored and reprimanded for having been involved in some of these activities.
He never wavered. He never faltered. He hung in there. He was always active during the
early l 920's and the l 940's, in terms of trying to change a lot of things that were going
on in the postal system, various segregated bathrooms. He was very active about trying to
desegregate the bathrooms, the lunch counters, the eating areas and the fact that Black
postal workers were not allowed to at that time to work as clerks. He was very active in
trying to encourage the postal services not only locally but nationally to promote
minorities into more responsible positions other then letter carriers. Certainly, as we see
now today, that has occurred.
The interesting thing about his marriage to Teah is that during the early l 920's
Teah's father was also a postman. I think he was attracted to Teah, but I think he also
wanted to get in good with her father because he saw this as sort of a dual opportunity.
He was going to get the girl and he was going to get the job too; that was his whole goal.
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I guess he figured, you know, if he could get the job at the post service, which was a
pretty good job for a minority at that time, (which is still a pretty good job for anyone at
this particular time) he was going to get the girl and he was going to get the job. I think
he wanted to endear himself to my grandmother's father at that point to sort of
accomplish that dual goal. Obviously, this man had the inroads to the girl and to the job.
Sorry, I am skipping around a little bit, but we are moving back into the l 940's and
l 950's. Now, another thing of course (I will not have time to talk about every little thing
that he was involved in, but I just want to try and talk about some of the noteworthy or
some of the more important things) was the bus segregation. In Mobile, the bus system
was integrated or desegregated during about 1956 or 1957, which many of you know that
was way before Rosa Parks in Montgomery and the Bus Boycott in Montgomery. They
did it peaceful in Mobile. They did it peacefully and basically my grandfather and local
politicians like Joe Langan got together and said, look, we got to do something about this;
what are we going to do? So, there strategy and there program was look, what we are
going to do is ... We are going to have a black man get on the bus and he is going to sit in
the front of the bus and he is going to be arrested. Once he is arrested, we are going to go
to court and we are going to have this city ordinance invalidated and that was it. It was all
planned. There was no impromptu action here. This was all orchestrated by these
organizations, by the NAACP, by the city counsel and by the mayor. It was all
orchestrated. It was all planned. It was all scripted. They had it all planned out and
basically I think it was probably one of the smoothest procedures that any city in
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Alabama had experienced in terms of desegregating the bus system. Once again, this was
in 1956.
Another thing, of course, he did a lot during the 1940's and 1950's was
investigate a lot of lynches during the 1940's and 1950's. There were lynches in
Mississippi that he investigated. There were lynches in Georgia that he investigated and
what they would do .. .I have two little interesting stories regarding the lynches. One story
I got to tell you is the story about his older brother, George Leflore. George had just
gotten a divorce and he was living with my grandmother and grandfather at the time. I
believe this was the Munroe, Georgia lynching he was about to investigate. My
grandfather was leaving the house to go and investigate this lynching. His brother George
(who was perhaps a little less interested in being involved in the Civil Rights Movement,
risking his life or getting deeply intrenched or even remotely intrenched in any of the
things that were going on at that time) said to him, you are crazy; you are an absolute
fool; there is no way that you are going to go up to Munroe, Georgia after this lynching
and ride your black self into that county and investigate a lynching. Because when you
get there, as soon as they see you drive across the county line, you are going to be the
next person lynched. He said, you are not going, as a big brother to a little brother; there
is no way. They literally got into a fistfight in the front yard of my grandfather's home
because my grandfather said, look, there is no way. I am going, that is all there is to it. If
you want to stay here, go right ahead, be my guest, but I got to do what I got to do. He
investigated these lynches and he wrote articles for the Chicago Defender, which was an
African-American publication out of Chicago. He was sort of a staff correspondent for
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the Chicago Defender. Very often when he would investigate one of these lynches, he
would write back to the Chicago Defender and they would print an article about the
findings of his investigation.
Now, another very interesting thing that many of you may not know (I am sure
that Mr. Purifoy probably knows about this) is that one of his very close activist friends,
Wiley Bolden ... Now, my grandfather was a relatively dark-skinned man. Wiley Bolden
was a very fair skin man. Wiley Bolden was like he was almost white. When they would
go to investigate some of these lynches, my grandfather would ride in the trunk of the car.
Wiley Bolden would drive the car because just to an average onlooker (say there was a
sheriff or someone driving around or some people driving around maybe looking for
these activists who were coming in to try and investigate the lynching) ... If they would
sort of glance over and see Wiley Bolden driving a car, they would assume he is just
another white man. They would not have even raised an eyebrow about it. Of course, now
that was the protocol; that was the procedure. When they would go into these counties to
investigate these lynches, Wiley Bolden would drive and John Leflore would ride in the
trunk until they got to where they needed to go and until they got to some area where they
could figure they were safe.
At some point or another, during the 1960's, he retired from the postal service and
he became very active with an organization called the Non-Partisans Voters League. The
philosophy behind the Non-Partisan Voters League was basically the fact that these
individuals had reached a point in their lives, in their careers and in their whole struggle
that they had realized that they did not want to affiliate themselves with any particular
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party. They did not want to affiliate themselves with the Democrat. They did not want to
affiliate themselves with the Republican. They were going to affiliate themselves with
whoever was willing to listen to them, whoever was willing to serve their agenda and
with whoever shared a similar outlook or at least with that candidate who perhaps more
than the other candidate saw things the way that they saw things; people who were
interested in trying to help this organization. They never wanted to necessarily say, well,
we are just going to vote straight Democrat. We are just going to vote straight
Republican. We are going to vote for the person who we feel is going to best represent
out interests and our goals and that was the real philosophy behind the Non-Partisan
Voters League. Now, the Non-Partisan Voters League became involved in a number of
things. During that time, I think my grandfather had accomplished a great deal during his
life in terms of helping to gain voting rights, desegregating lunch counters, restaurants,
bathrooms, railroad cars, buses and employment opportunities. I mean he did a large
amount of work in terms of trying to help minorities gain access to better employment
opportunities. He spent a lot of his time coaching minorities in how to pass these exams
that were initially formulated to preclude them from voting during the early l 950's. He
spent a lot of his time coaching and talking with various employers around the city of
Mobile and around the state about benefits of employing minorities or at least at terms of
just looking at the idea. He would say to these employers, how about just having a few
interviews. We have 5 people here who would like to interview with your company. You
know, you do not have to hire him but just talk to them, just have them in. You might
find somebody you like. You might find somebody you may want to hire, just give them
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a chance. He spent a lot of time doing that. Once he got involved in the Non-Partisan
Voters League, he and the other activists, Mr. Purifoy and Mr. Bolden and many other
who were involved in the Non-Partisan Voters League at that time, became involved in
trying test cases. If they focused in on something that they felt was a necessary evil so to
speak, they would then file a test case in court. At that point, once the test case went
through, normally those cases they won.
During the early l 960's and many people may not be aware of this, John Leflore
and the Non-Partisan Voters League were instrumental. They were almost completely
responsible for integrating the University of Alabama. When Vivian Malone Jones went
to the University of Alabama during the Governor Wallace stand in the doors of the
University of Alabama, the Non-Partisan Voters League and John Leflore were right
behind here. I think actually my son asked me once if granddaddy was involved in
integrating the University of Alabama and there is all this footage of Governor Wallace
standing in the doorway, where was he? That is a very important point because
granddaddy, John Leflore, was not one who believed in risking his life. He was the
___
. He was the caboose. He was the engine. He was the engineer, but he would
very often stand back and let things happen once they occurred. Once again, he never,
other than perhaps investigating some of these lynches, put himself in a situation where
his life would be in danger. Once again, during that particular time, the Non-Partisan
Voters League sponsored Vivian Malone and they were right behind her there at the
University of Alabama. Now, the Bertie Mae Davis case is another case that they worked
on once they finished with the University of Alabama and that case involved integrating
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the Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama. Bertie Mae Davis of course was a young
girl and public school student there in Mobile and John Leflore basically decided that he
was going to have her as their spokesperson and as their test student so to speak. He spent
a lot of time with her talking with her about what to expect and what it was going to be
like. He explained to her that it was very important that she be brave and that this was a
new situation, but this was something that had to be done. He explained to her also that
once you do this, you are going to be a part of history. You are helping to make history.
Of course, that went over fairly well, the integration of Murphy High School, which later
led to the integration of other high schools in the Mobile area. Then, of course, during the
latter part of the l 960's, the next big case that they worked on was the Bolden versus City
of Mobile case and that case was the case that basically changed the city form of
government in Mobile. The original city form of government was comprised of three
counsel members that were elected at large. The notion that the Non-Partisan Voters
League formulated was with three counsel members that are elected from the city at
large. Based on this, there was no way that various communities and various factions
within the city were going to have any voice because we had the same two, three or four
guys that were just being reelected over, over and over again. This was shortly after Joe
Langan was voted out of office. Now, what happened with Joe Langan was that when the
neighborhood, organized workers came along during the latter l 960's, there whole
philosophy was so different from John LeFlore's philosophy. These guys were like, you
know, they were ready. Their philosophy was more along the line of Malcolm X's
philosophy. They wanted to fight fire with fire. They said, if they want to bomb churches
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or houses in our community, then we are going to go bomb churches and houses in their
community. If they want to kill our people in our community, we are gonna go kill people
in their community. Of course, this was totally alien to John Leflore's philosophy. John
LeFlore's philosophy was look, let us work this thing out. Let us sit down and let us work
this thing through the courts. Let us file these cases in court. Let us get some rulings on
these cases. Let us go to the city counsel. Let us go to the legislature. Let us go to
congress. Let us lobby in congress. Let us lobby in the legislature. Let us try and change
these things. We do not want to go killing people or bombing people or tit for tat or burn
for burn. We do not want to do that. We just want to bring about peaceful harmonious
change and that is what John Leflore always worked for. Of course, the Bolden versus
the City of Mobile, as I was indicating, came after Joe Langan being voted out of office.
The NOW Organization was also very instrumental in Joe Langan being voted out of
office. I think they realized that they wanted to upset the whole fabric of Mobile, so to
speak. They want to bring about change and as their organization said; they wanted it
now. They did not want it next week. They did not want it next month or next year. They
wanted it now. Even though, Joe Langan had much Black support in the city of Mobile,
the NOW Organization turned their back on Joe Langan. They said, look, if Joe Langan is
working with this John Leflore and this Non-Partisan Voters League, he is not getting
our vote. We do not want to have anything to do with Joe Langan. We are going to do our
own thing. So, many of the blacks who voted for Joe Langan initially did not vote for Joe
Langan during the election previous to the Bolden versus City of Mobile case, which
involved changing the city's form of government. Of course, the Bolden versus City of
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Mobile case was a successful case and the city of Mobile form of government was
changed. We now have a city form of government that is comprised of I believe six or
seven counsel members from various districts within the community and of course one
mayor. So, that was of course probably one of the final local accomplishments of my
grandfather. Of course, finally, during the l 970's, he focused his efforts on running for
political office. He initially ran for congress. He did not win that election. Shortly
thereafter, he ran for the House of Representatives. He was elected to the House of
Representatives I believe in 1974. This was about two or three years before his death. To
the best of my knowledge and if I am wrong if anyone can correct me q,n this, I do
believe that he was the first African-American to be elected to the Alabama House of
Representatives since reconstruction. I do believe that he was. If anyone knows anything
different, please let me know. During the l 970's, he was elected to the House of
Representatives and of course in January of 1976, he passed away.
Closing: In closing, I would just like to say that if we look over history and if we look at
Alabama history, we have to realize that the Civil Rights Movement did not begin during
the 1960's. The Civil Rights Movement did not begin during the 1950's with Brown
versus Board of Education. The Civil Rights Movement certainly did not begin in 1925
when John Leflore, Wiley Bolden, Mr. Purifoy and all those guys began working in
Mobile. Certainly, the Civil Rights Movement began when the first African slave was
brought here into the Civil Rights Movement; that is when the Civil Rights Movement
began. We also have to realize, especially you young students back there, that there were
many people who were out here working for civil rights. Many of them were behind
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scenes way before the 1960's, way before the 1950's, way before Medgar Evers, way
before Malcolm X and way before Martin Luther King. Way before any of these people
were even born. You know, there were people who were out there working diligently to
bring out peaceful change in the state. Finally, in closing, I would like to say too if you
look at the history of Alabama, if you look at Birmingham, if you look at Montgomery
and you look at many of the things that went on in Birmingham and Montgomery during
that time with as much violence that went on there, Mobile was light years ahead of
Birmingham. Mobile was light years ahead of Selma because of the philosophies of
people like John LeFlore, Non-Partisan Voters League, Mr. Purifoy and Mr. Bolden.
Many of the changes that they brought about during that time were brought about
peacefully. They were brought about litigiously. They were brought about through the
court system. They were brought about through negotiation and were brought about
through litigation. They were brought about through legislation, so to speak. That was the
way that many of these people were able to bring about change during that time. I think
that was also the way that many of Mobilians were able to achieve certain changes in the
social fabric of the city through the work of many of these activists like my grandfather
John LeFlore. I believe that I have just about used up all of my time. So, thank you all for
being here.
Janet LeFlore: I don't think that my son left too much for me to say. Do you think he
covered it Mr. Purifoy? There is one thing that I would like to add to it though, just one
little thing, and of course this is typical. As he mentioned the changes to the form of
government from the at-large form to the city council form. It was like as if it was just
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something that was done, but it really wasn't. My husband and I were in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania in the 1960's. He was at Albert Einstein and working on his residency in
internal medicine. John Leflore called and said, "Janet, I want you to find out what kind
of government they have in the city of Philadelphia." I said, "What do you mean? It's just
like it is anywhere else, John." He said, "Find out. An at-large form of government or is it
a council form of government." I asked my husband, "What is he talking about?" He was
listening to John and I didn't quite get it. He said, "Well, just find out and let me know."
So, as we discussed it, he said it was probably another project of status and I found out
for him and I called him. I said, "Why John? Why do you want to know". He said,
"Because, the form of government here in Mobile has to be changed." He said it with
such conviction. I said, "John, you cannot change the form of city government in Mobile,
Alabama." He said, "Oh, yes I can. !fl start it and don't finish it, someone will be here to
finish it for me." Well, he started it, but it wasn't quite as candidly as one could say. It
involved about ten or twelve years of hard work, calling cities here and there and
everywhere. He was writing to city officials who were not going to answer your little
note. They hardly give you time on the telephone, telling you the kind of form of
government that they have. So, when my husband and I would go somewhere, anywhere
and everywhere we'd go, check on the kind of government that they have there. See
what's working for them. It took a number of years to do this. It took a lot of reading and
interpretation to do this research. It started in the l 960's and in I 976, the ruling came
down that the change of government had to take place. Now, after John Leflore, the NonPartisan Voters League, Purifoy and Ben Bolden and all of them ... After they got enough
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history and after enough research had been done, Mobile, Alabama was under the fire
because they could see on paper that the government, which was an at-large form of
government did not allow the fair practice of government for everybody there. The
minorities could definitely be segregated against and this was evident, not with just the
research that had been done in other cities, which would indicate that Mobile should
change the city form of government, but with what Mobile, itself, had shown to
Mobilians. So, they had a case and that was their technique. Non-Partisan Voters League
just wanted a case, a real case; so, they took it to the courts. Of course, they lost the first
one. They took it to the higher court; this started in the 1960's. In 1976, it was sent to the
Fifth District Court and the Fifth District Court declared that the form of government
practiced in Mobile, Alabama, an at-large form of government allowed so many
inequities that the minorities in Mobile, Alabama could be segregated again. John
LeFlore died January 30, 1976. In September 1976, the Fifth District Court declared that
the form of government in Mobile, Alabama, must be/should be/must be changed and
then it changed from an at-large form of government to a council form of government
and that is the kind of government that Mobile practices today. I am a witness that this is
the best form of government, at least for Mobile, Alabama, and this was done by John
Leflore as executive secretary of the Non-Partisan Voters League and all those other
members of the Non-Partisan Voters League who participated in this research. It was
called Bolden versus City of Mobile. That was the case that went down in history. It
changed the city form of government of Mobile. As my son said, I am so glad to see the
change of the city's form of government. It was not like that at all. It was somebody's
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calling, writing, reading and analyzing the research that had taken place ten to twelve
years and 1965 is when I actively became involved with it and 1976 is when the Fifth
District Court said that the government should be changed. I think it has worked out very
well to have the divided into seven districts and each district now is represented by a
council person and the mayor, of course, is the top of it all. It is not like one man or two,
three or four men ruling the whole city of Mobile. Surely, if you are living in one district
and I am in another district, you cannot know what my needs are; it is my district and that
is what it was all about. Of course, there was segregation all over Mobile at that time,
still. When we came back from Philadelphia to Mobile, there was a lot of segregation and
this form of government did help to rule out a lot of the segregation which was there.
This was witnessed by me, but it took more than just a little effort; it took a lot of effort.
This was John LeFlore's dream. He went to Queens, New York, the latter part of the
l 950's and the he returned the early part of the l 960's. Queens, New York had this kind
of government there and probably other cities in New York. He said, it seemed to be such
a fair type of government. Of course, when he called me in Philadelphia asking me what
kind of government did we have there, it did not make sense to me at all. In the long run,
it made a lot of sense. I did put forth quite a bit of effort as all of the members of the
Non-Partisan Voters League put forth quite a bit of effort to change the city's form of
government and that is the one that we practice today. I guess Mr. Purifoy could attest to
the fact that it is a better form of goverrunent. John LeFlore worked all these years. He
worked a long, long time. As a child in Wilmington, North Carolina, my dad was a
postman also. There was a little paper called, The Postal Alliance, which came out
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probably two times a month. When my dad got that paper, he looked for John LeFlore.
He would find something in there that John LeFlore did. We would have to sit down and
listen to it. Is this something? He crossed in the middle of the street and they are putting
him in jail for this. He came in a minute late and they are putting him in jail for this. He
has his bag on the left side instead of the right side and they are putting him in jail. That
is John Leflore in Mobile, Alabama. This is the Hatch Act that he has violated. They are
going to kick him off of his job, but that is the most courageous man in the history of the
times. He said, "I want to meet John Leflore of Mobile, Alabama." So, he sent his
daughter to ____
_ College and his daughter met John Leflore's
son. John
LeFlore's son did not intend to let her go. So, when I introduced him to my mom and
dad, (I must have been in my third year and he was in his senior year) my dad said to my
husband, (which I call Beck)"would you happen to know a John LeFlore in Mobile,
Alabama? My husband said, "Yes. John LeFlore's my dad." My dad said, "Would he be
the civil rights worker?" He said, "Oh, yes. That's my dad." He said, "Well, I want to
shake your hand." So, after that, Beck said to me, "I've got it made," and I guess he did.
Knowing John Leflore and working with him was a glorious experience for me and I
think it opened up my mind to bigger and better things. I think it made me a better
person. I could never be as courageous as John Leflore. I remember that John LeFlore
said to me that you cannot walk through life being afraid. You have to walk through life
being unafraid. If you walk through life being afraid, you are not really going through
life. I think this was right after I had the telephone, but I lived literally lived around their
house all the time. I answered the telephone once and this gentleman was saying that he
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wanted to know what was the size of John LeFlore. I said, "The size of his shoe? What do
you want to know for?" He wanted to know so he could make the shoes with cement that
would fit him, so if they killed him and dropped him in the Mobile Bay, he would stay
down and he would never come up. He would never float up. When I mentioned this to
John and his wife Teah, they were unmoved and I was scared to death. They were
unmoved. It did not phase them at all. I said, "Well, aren't you afraid, Teah?" She said,
"No, it comes all the time." John said that was just somebody being a prankster. I could
not understand how these two people could not be disturbed by this kind of message on
the telephone. Of course, I thought it was really real that somebody was going to really
do that. Of course, they did not because they had so many messages like that. They
already had I think about one or two shots in the window, but no one was killed. Of
course, John had so many instances where I guess his life was really laid on the line. The
Non-Partisan Voters League (I have to give it to you all Mr. Purifoy) really did protect
him. They never allowed him to go out from a meeting at night without someone on both
sides of John. Before John went out, they had two or three people go out and canvas the
area, go across to the parking lot where he had his car parked and kind of go around the
neighborhood. Then, they would come back in and give their reporting and then two of
the other would escort John Leflore to his car. They gave him as much protection as any
group of people could possibly give. So, regarding the case of Bolden versus the City of
Mobile, it took over ten to twelve years to get that and that was the way it was with so
many of the cases. It takes a long time. It takes the efforts of a lot of good thinking
people. It takes a lot of good thinking. It takes a lot for a man to decide that he is going to
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go this way because he knows that his life might be on line. It takes a really courageous
man and John Leflore was the man and the members of the Non-Partisan Voters League.
They were really courageous, Reverend Hope, he was courageous. He was getting old
when I started working with you all. Mr. Purifoy, I am not going to talk any longer.
Mr. Purifoy is going to tell the rest of it. They are courageous. It takes a lot of thinking
and as I thought about it at several times of my life, John would call me at night, twelve
o'clock, and say, "Would you listen to this Janet? How do you like this?" or he would
call me at night and say, "Could you come over and read something for me? Please, just
read it for me. Look for the i's and look for the t's. See if! dotted the i's and crossed the
t's. Just type what I want you to type." It takes a lot out of your day. It takes a lot out of
your time. It takes a lot out of your thinking. You have to program yourself to do this.
You have to make a lot of changes in your life in order to do this. In the end, you have to
think it is probably going to be worthwhile and it was. So, I do not regret any time at all
that I gave to this program of John Leflore and the Non-Partisan Voters League and that
is all I am going to say.
O.B. Purifoy: With what has been said, I do not know really where to begin. (inaudible)
I am proud that I was asked to come to Huntsville. It is not a new place to me, but it is an
old place that maybe some ten or fifteen years ago I came and I saw this university
because .. .I say university now because it was Alabama A&M College for Black Students
I think. I came up to bring my grandson to school and of course, I left. Let me say that
what I intend talking about tonight are some of the incidents that we had to go through
with in living in Mobile, Alabama. Mobile is a good town; don't let anybody tell you
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different. It is a good town. Even now, I can say it is a good town. First, I am going to
start with the hospitals in and around our city. We visited (let me see if I can name some
of them) Mobile ----
Hospital and South Alabama. (inaudible) I want to say in
visiting those hospitals, back when they were talking about, back in the 1950's and the
l 960's, black people had a very, very small area in which you could go into the hospitals.
You had to be darn good to get in there even at that because they just did not want you in
that hospital. After we talked with these people through John LeFlore, John would call
the sisters and us. He would call the presidents of the hospitals. We sat down and talked
with the sisters and we talked with the presidents of the hospitals. Do you know that
when we left those places, we left with an understanding that if you send your blacks out
here you will find that the hospitals are going to be different and they were. They were
very good about things like that. We even came up to Greenville to what was (inaudible).
Some of you may remember that one. We had a John ___
up there. He was the
president of the hospital. (inaudible) That is where I was born. I met him and I told him. I
said, "John, how is it you can't let any blacks come into this hospital?" He said, "O.B.,
what makes you think that?" I said, "Simply because I am told that, that they can't come
into the hospital in Greenville, Alabama." He said, "Well, how long are you going to be
here." I told him, "I'll be up here." He said, "Well, you come back in here to see me the
day after tomorrow and I'll show you some black patients in this hospital." It happened.
How he made it work, I do not know, but it worked. We also had what was known as the
Greyhound bus terminal in Mobile. That was a bus stop. If you have ever tried to ride the
greyhound bus back in the l 940's, l 950's and the l 960's, of course, you would know
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that what I am about to say is real. You got on the bus. You walked to the back and there
was a curtain on that bus. You had to get beyond that curtain if you were going to ride on
that bus. Lots of you people do not believe that. Well, alright, I did not know that you
were that young. Anyway, that was something we had to do. We went down to the
Greyhound bus station, Mr. Bolden, myself and two or three others of the Non-Partisan
Voters League. We sat down and talked with the manager of this station. We did not sit
down. We stood and he sat down. Well, he talked and he talked and after we explained to
him what we were there for and why we were there, you should know that the bus
stations in Mobile, Alabama changed. It changed. It definitely changed. There were
several late-night eating places in Mobile at this time. One was called Fletcher's. John
Leflore was carrying mail back then. I decided that we were going to go down there and
try eating at Fletcher's Barbecue. Well, you know what happened. We were abused, not
bruised but abused. We could have gotten bruised had we decided to eat there anyway
that day. We just took the abuse and decided that we were going to talk to Mr. Fletcher,
the man who owned the place and see what we could do. We talked to him. You know he
closed that restaurant, closed it and moved it out on Airport Boulevard. They thought we
would not eat there, but we decided that we were going to eat out there. We did eat there
and we had a good time eating there. It was very, very nice. It was mentioned about the
dry docks in Mobile. We had a lot of blacks working out there, but they were working as
workmen at the minimum task you could perform. They were ordering ships. They were
picking up trash; they were doing all of that. When we talked to these gentlemen at the
dry docks, it was within six month that we had supervisors in maybe three or four
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departments at Alabama state dry docks. This was a trying situation because it was here
that they said you would never see a black supervisor in Alabama dry docks. Like I said,
within six months, we had three people out there and they were supervisors. Now, we
went on to Angus which is about forty miles from Mobile. We have about two thousand
people working there now. Mr. P was the man who ran Angus and he was a Mr. P alright.
He was a Mr. P and he spelled his name p, e. That is why I do not mind spelling it
because that is the way he spelled his name. We have people working down in Angus.
(inaudible) They are building them now. Let's come back to Mobile and bus situation.
We talked a little bit about the bus station, but we did not talk about the bus drivers. We
do have _____
by Mr. Bolden and Randolph. I do not think I was in on this one.
Bolden and Randolph went down and they talked with the man at the bus station and we
do have bus drivers. Following that discussion that they had, we have black bus drivers
and some of them live and drive right out of Mobile, Alabama. We have the third largest
water systems in the state of Alabama. Mobile Water and Sewage is a big place. That is a
big, big place and we have about three or four thousand people working for them.
(inaudible) That Thursday, they had a meeting. They called all of the workers, laid them
off for a day and called all of them in. They sat in big groups all around Mobile Water
and Sewage. In less than two months, we had blacks driving trucks going all over the city
doing what they do without any whites because they did the work, but they just had to
have a white person along with them. The league was very, very good. It was a city
where men and women could sit down and talk. All of you whites in Huntsville know
that before the space center got here, you just did not believe there were going to be
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blacks out there that were working in the areas as they were working in the space center.
You did not believe that they would be setting up those very valuable rocks or what have
you. Right now, I believe you have fifteen hundred. We can talk a lot about the struggle.
We can talk a lot about the things that we did and did not do, but we have had some
wonderful experiences. I would not trade them for anything because it is here that I
learned my lesson. Now, I work individually for the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. I
am retired and I am happy of it, but I still work with the Non-Partisan Voters League in
Mobile If you are every in that area, look us up. We will do anything we can. We just
about know everybody in Mobile.
Mr. Joe Langan was a wonderful person. After he came back from the army ... !
was in the army the same time he was in the army. After he came back, he ran and won
the election as city councilman. The city government and Mobile are going to have a
strange case come up. I do not believe that Mrs. LeFlore knows about this just yet. In the
election of government, we have councilman and we have ____
. We have to have a
minority of five in order to pass anything in the city. Recently, less than two months ago,
we had three new persons that were elected to this council. One of them have come up
with that we do not need a majority in order to get something happening in the black
community. You know about what is probably going to happen. That is why we are going
to have another ____
come up in Mobile because we are not going to have just one
man come in and change what has been effective and has been helpful in Mobile and
helpful in the state of Alabama. It has been helpful in the whole United States. I think the
works of John LeFlore was the beginning of this. I think that John LeFlore gave to the
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black people an insight that would help them realize that the ways to maintain it is to sit
down and talk. I do not know who the mayor of Huntsville is now, but maybe if you sit
down and talk with him you may find him out. You can talk with him; I would think. The
way that we grew up in Mobile is by talking to the mayor. We talk to the city police
chief. We talk to the councilmen. If you have talked with the man and go there with the
right idea, you can leave with a better idea and I know that I have used up my time. I
want to thank you for listening.
Janet LeFlore: When my husband and I came back to Mobile from Philadelphia, my
husband absolutely, beyond a shadow of doubt, definitely qualified to practice medicine
at any hospital in the whole United States of America. He could only go to one little
hospital. It was overcrowded with all the blacks that had to go there because as he
mentioned the hospitals did not allow the blacks into their beds and so forth. John at that
time was trying to get Dr. Foster a position in Mobile. Just at the time that my husband
got there ... My husband had applied to all of them and had not heard from any of them,
boy, was he surprised because he really knew he would get in, but he did not get in. John
Leflore went into the hospital. He talked to the administrators and said, it is not right.
This is what John Leflore believed in doing as Mr. Purifoy just pointed out. He said, "I
believe if you take a right and wrong to any person in the United States of America (of
course, he was wrong) and say to them, "Is it right for you to keep a man from feeding
his family. Is it right for you to kick a man out of a position just because he is black? My
son has not heard from any of these hospitals here. He has not been admitted to anyone
except for down at the base." The sister was really surprised and she said, "I never got his
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application, but that is okay. He need not send it. Tell him to call me tomorrow and he
will be admitted to this facility." Then, Mobile Infirmary said the same thing and then
South Alabama Hospital. Dr. LeFlore was admitted to all of the hospitals within twentyfour hours and there were no incidents, none whatsoever. That was the personal
experience I thought of when Mr. Purifoy was talking. Thank you.
Q: (inaudible)
A: You have a good question there. I cannot answer you fully. Mobile is strangely a town
of politics where if you carry the right idea, then you got the right answer. You can do
that today. You can count on that. If you carry the right idea, you get the right answer.
A: Yes, politics are involved if I may answer that question. They are definitely. We are
talking about politics. There are good politics and there are bad politics. You know that. I
know that. We are talking about one versus the other. You know there is right and there is
wrong and that is what we have to face in life. You are either right or you are wrong. You
are either on the right side of the street or the wrong side of the street. This is what I keep
saying about John LeFlore because I was so intermittently involved with him. He
I
believed going to you and saying to you, "Would you consider opening up a job to a man
who happens to black. He is very good and deserves a good. Can you consider the idea
that it is wrong to keep a man out of a job just because his skin is not the color of your
skin?" He believed going to a man. He nagged them to death, over and over, writing them
notes and calling them on the telephone saying, "Can we have a conference? Can you
have a conference with me? Can I have five or ten minutes of your time?" It usually
ended up being twenty-five or thirty minutes of his time, but he did it. Isn't that what
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politics are all about? We are living in a political world. This is a political arena. There is
right in it and there is wrong in it. We all know that. John Leflore, Non-Partisan Voters
League and the NAACP were trying to right some of the wrong. Even if you were blind,
even if you could not see, you knew these were inequities that should not be, particularly
in the United States of America. It took a long, long struggle and it did not start in 1960.
It did not start with Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King did his part surely and God
bless him and we all love him, but it started long before the sit-ins. It started long before
____
. It started with (inaudible) pushing and striving and praying that this change
would take place with honor and without fighting in the street and without kicking and
slamming each other but just negotiating. If the negotiating could not take place in an
office, then they would take it to the court, particularly after the Civil Rights Bill was
passed.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Let me say this. Yes, he was a lawyer and then no, he was not a lawyer, but there is no
lawyer that knew much more law than John LeFlore. He worked and he worked and he
worked. He went to the post office during the day and put his time in there. He came
home and got a little bit of rest, two or three hours. He took his soak in the bathtub and
then he started working at his typewriter in the Non-Partisan Voters League or in the
NAACP office and then he worked until two, three or four o' clock in the morning. The
night that his house was bombed (if you can believe in this and I think I do) he sat each
night in a particular chair in front of two windows in his home. He sat at his nice dining
room table that he had to clean off daily in order to eat there because it had pages all over
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the place. He sat there and he worked. He pecked away at that typewriter. He went to the
meetings. He did all of this. He worked. I would say out of twenty-four hours a day he
must have given at least eighteen hours of time to do this work. One other thing, he took
a course at a college and I will not name the professor. He told me this. He said, "I just
noticed that John just kept asking questions and asking questions. Then, suddenly, I
didn't see John anymore. He left the class." So, I called and asked, "Why did you leave
the class? Have you left the class for good?" He said, "Well, I wasn't learning too much."
Then, he said, "You knew more than I did. You knew more of the history than I did." He
was a well, rounded man. He did not graduate from college, but he could hold a good
conversation and give you the facts on practically any subject that you approached him
with.
A: That is an interesting question because actually John Leflore probably should have
been a lawyer. It is interesting that you would raise that point. He was a very articulate
man. That is another recollection of mine. He loved words. He was a brilliant man. As I
said, he never really got the opportunity to go to college. He certainly never got the
opportunity to go to law school. Much of his work in civil rights was work that he did
really out of the goodness of his heart. This was not something he got paid for. He was a
postal worker. He was a mail carrier. That was his job. That is how he earned a living and
that is how he paid his bills. That is how he feed his family, bought a car and home,
whatever. That was his job. If anything happened in Mobile, I say maybe from (I would
was born in 1965, so I know anything after that) 1950 through 1976, if someone felt they
had been discriminated against, if someone felt they had been wronged, if someone had
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been beaten by the police, if someone felt that they had been wrongfully arrested or if
they had been discriminated against in employment, the first person they went to talk to
was not an attorney; it was John LeFlore. Very often, I think about the fact of what would
it have been like had he been an attorney. If he had been an attorney, my goodness, you
never know what the possibility would have been. I mean, I am an attorney and frankly
speaking, I do not have half of the guts that this guy had. Of course, I live in a different
time and I have a very different viewpoint about life and many other issues. So, it really
is not mandatory that I have the guts that he had because I do not have to face the things
that he had to face. I do not have to worry about many of things he had to worry about.
Society is very different today as opposed to the way society was then. I think the
interesting thing about him having been an attorney was the fact that he was not.
Possibly, had he been an attorney, he would have been more or less in a situation where
he would have had to pick and choose more so than just being a humanitarian. You know,
I went to school with a lot of very, very wealthy people. Many of these people whose
grandfathers and great-grandfathers started big businesses, etc., etc. My grandfather was
not a wealthy man. He was not a wealthy man when he died. He was not a rich man when
he died. He left behind a great legacy. He left behind thousands of people who
remembered him, respected him, believed in what he stood for and who cherished his
memory. Once again, he was not a wealthy man, but I think had he been an attorney, he
would have made decisions based on pecuniary concerns as opposed to having made
decisions based on humanitarian concern. His decisions may have been a little different.
He may have had to back away from certain things because he would have been scared
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that he would have jeopardized his life had he gotten involved or he may have gotten
involved in things because maybe there was a pecuniary interest, or financial interest,
whereas that was never really a motivating factor. Really, once again, all of the things
that he did as far as civil rights are concerned, those were things he was never
compensated for. This was time, maybe three, four or five hours a day that he spent,
maybe twenty, thirty hours a week that he may have spent working with the NAACP,
working with the Non-Partisan Voters League or working with various organizations,
political leaders, members of the community, etc., etc. He was not paid for any of this
stuff. This was all out of his own dedication, out of his own devotion and his own
humanitarian spirits.
Q: With bus drivers, were they allowed to drive throughout the whole state or just in
Mobile? The next question is what kind of tactics was used to appeal the Jim Crow laws?
What kind of angles was used with the injustice that was against human rights?
A: Ifl came to you and said to you, "Do you think it's right for you to run over this child
in the middle of the street or should you drive around this child who is in the middle of
street?" What would you say to me? Which is right and which is wrong? One is right and
one is wrong. Would you drive over that child in the middle of the street or would you
drive around that child in the middle of the street so that you would not kill it? It is the
matter of working with a man's conscious and going to a man, a leader, who is helping to
make the rules an who is making the law and present the law to that man. Let him think
about it. Is it right or is it wrong? This is a human being. The only difference is that your
skin is one color and this man's skin is another color. Should we segregate on the basis of
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color? No. I good thinking person whether he is black, green, white or purple could not
say anything to that question except, it is the law or that is wrong. That was his technique.
Q: Mrs. LeFlore, while not meaning to understate the racism in the northern states as
well as the south, I am wondering if Philadelphia's system might have been a little bit
different from Mobile and did you ever intend on not returning to the south?
A: Yes. When we went to Philadelphia, we were going to buy a home in Philadelphia, we
noticed that the realtors were taking us to middle class homes that were owned by whites.
Then, we noticed that in these neighborhoods, for the most part, there was integration.
They were quite a few blacks and very few whites. Then, we learned that we bought
blacks. We bought the homes from the whites and they moved out, way out, to North
Philadelphia. Philadelphia had two people who thought well of themselves. They had
been taught to think well of themselves. Learn it. Do it right. Do not do it halfway. Do it
all the way. So, when we bought this house and they moved out; this is segregation in
Philadelphia. That is what we were up against. My husband thought about his mother and
father growing old in Mobile by themselves, so he came back to Mobile. Now, Mobile
did need desperately black doctors. I say black doctors because there were blacks in
Mobile that desperately needed medical care and there were not enough black doctors in
Mobile to give them that care. They were several black doctors then. White doctors did
not turn them away, but proud blacks did not want to go into a white doctor's office and
sit where they had to sit, waiting for services. How could you trust a man with your life
who was not going to let you sit with his other patients. It was that kind of situation, you
know, just thinking through it. So, we had not plarmed to come back to Alabama. I did
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not particularly want to come back to Alabama, but I was a dutiful wife and I followed
my husband back to Alabama. The same things began happening in Alabama. We started
to buy a home and the same thing was happening. So, my husband and I said, "Well,
we'll buy all of that when we get enough money and we will make our own subdivision,"
and we did it.
Q: First of all, I would like to thank all of you for coming in this weather. It is kind of a
two-part question but kind of short. First, how did you stay so focused on your work in
helping John Leflore and second, what advice would you give to a young person today to
help make sure that the progress in America continues.
A: First of all, you have got to believe in yourself. Okay? My grandmother was raised
under a mother who got you up out of the bed and gave you tasks to do all day long. You
were doing this and doing that. Everyday you had to study and you had to learn math.
Everyday, you had to devote a little bit of time to that and everyday you had to be
functional. ----
father said who said to you, "You have to work. You must work.
You must do a good job." He had five daughters and three sons. He told his daughters
they were not prissy or attractive unless you can work. So, what daughter would not want
to be attractive to a father? So, you worked and you worked and you worked. You swept
the kitchen and you swept the sidewalk. You washed the dishes, all except my sister; she
would not wash dishes, but you learned how to do these things. They were embedded in
you and you had a mother who said, "You can't rest in the bed unless you are sick. You
have to do this." Your whole day is programmed. So, this is what you learn to do to make
the maximum use of what God has given to use, some energy. You just learn how to
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work. When I was teaching at Fisk University, I also worked at the Atomic Energy
Commission in a very sophisticated stage of chemistry, which I had to learn and then put
in use. I held down tow full-time jobs while my husband was in medical school. That was
very, very hard, but I did it. I also gave our son some time. When I went to Mobile and
started helping with the Non-Partisan Voters League, all this reading and listening to
John Leflore, it was hard, but it was worthwhile. I had attuned myself, my body, my
energies and everything I had to working. You are working. So, you just do it and you do
not ignore your children. You give them good, quality time. What is wrong with my son
sitting on my lap while I am talking to somebody in Timbuktu about changing the city's
form of government? This is what you do. Work always, my dear, maximum work, each
day of your life. Go all the way. Do it. You can do it.
Closing: In reference to your question and your question as well. I have always had that
same question, not only about John Leflore, but many people who bring about change in
history. How are they able to do this? I also know about Janet Owens LeFlore in 1965
when she went back to Mobile. I know a little bit about the things she was doing in the
Non-Partisan Voters League. I know she had a full-time career teaching chemistry at
Bishop. I can barely do one job teaching full-time and in addition to raising a fan1ily. The
other thing, which is just a general comment in relation to politics, from the historical
point of view, all change in a sense is ultimately political change. Tactics are different.
Tactics that worked in Selma and Birmingham may not work in other areas. It seems to
me that LeFlore and the Non-Partisan Voters League arrived at the best tactics given the
circumstances they found in a coastal and catholic. He reminds me of the ____
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about war. He says, "War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means." I think in a
way politics are the same way.
I have really enjoyed this session tonight. It has been a privilege to have Burton
her and Janet Owens Leflore and Mr. Purifoy. I appreciate you all coming out and please
join them in one more round of applause.
46
�
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LeFlore, Janet Owens, 1928-2015
LeFlore, Burton R, 1966-
Purifoy, Ossie B., 1914-2005
Civil rights movements--Southern states--History--20th century
Mobile (Ala.)
Mobile County
Segregation
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Civil rights demonstrations
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Text
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
Alabama A&M University
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
(A Look Back and a Look Ahead)
Speaker: Aldon Morris
Welcome to the last session of a series of public lectures on the Civil Rights
Movement. Yes, this is the last session. The 15 lecture series included some of the most
noted figures of the Civil Rights Movement. They have rotated between UAH and A&M
and have lasted the entire fall semester. A&M and UAH are to be commended for
planning and implementing such an excellent collaborative and historical lecture series.
The planning committee has worked very hard to make sure each lecture was
carried out as scheduled. Many times we see the finished product and we forget about all
of the background and the preparation that has gone into making each program a success.
In expression of our appreciation for all the hours of planning and implementation, let us
give the planning committee another hand of applause.
Attendance at the lectures has been excellent. People attending the lectures seem
to listen attentively as the presenters gave first-hand accounts of the major development
of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama from 1954 to 1965. For some of us, the
lectures are a source of new knowledge or additional knowledge. For others, the lectures
cause us to reflect on the past and have hope for the future.
The lecture this evening by Dr. Aldon Morris entitled, The Civil Rights Movement
in Alabama (A Look Back and a Look Ahead) will be dynamic and thought provoking.
Dr. Morris will be introduced by Dr. Glenna Colclough, Chair of the Sociology
Department at UAH, but before the introduction of the speaker I would like to
acknowledge the sponsors that made the lecture series possible. We have the Alabama
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Humanities Foundation. We have Marion Carter who is the associate director of this
organization in the audience. Please stand. The Huntsville Times, Mevatec Corporation,
DESE Research, Alabama Representative Laura Hall, Alabama A&M University Office
of the President, Office of the Provost. We have Dr. James Hicks who is provost in the
audience, A&M, State Black Archives Research Center and Museum, Title III
Telecommunications and Distance Learning Center, Office of Student Development,
Honors Center, Sociology/Social Work, History and Political Science at Alabama A&M
University. We have the University of Alabama Office of the President. We have Dr.
Frank Franz, President of UAH, in the audience, Office of Provost UAH, Dr. Fran
Johnson. History Forum Bankhead Foundation, Sociology Social Issues Foundation,
Humanities Center, Division of Continuing Education, Honors Program, Office of
Multicultural Affairs, Office of Student Affairs and UAH Copy Center.
The reception this evening is sponsored by the social work department's
undergraduate and graduate student organization. So again, thank you for attending this
important historical lecture series. Thank you very much.
Introduction: I am Glenna Colclough from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. We
are so pleased to have Professor Aldon Morris with us tonight for the last lecture series
on the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama and also for the Sociology Department Social
Issues Symposium, which has also worked on this particular lecture this evening. We are
honored to have with us one of the most distinguished sociologists in the country and
foremost sociologist of the Civil Rights Movement.
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Aldon Douglas Morris was born and spent his early years in the Mississippi Delta
before moving to Chicago as a young adolescent where he began his very distinguished
educational career. In 1972, he earned an associate's degree in sociology from OliveHarvey College in Chicago. In 1974, he graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in
sociology from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois and attended graduate school at the
State University of New York, Stony Brook, where he earned an MA in 1977 and a Ph.D.
in 1980, both in sociology. Professor Morris' first teaching position was at the University
of Michigan where he began as an assistant professor in 1980. He left Michigan in 1988
and became an associate professor and associate chair of the department of sociology
there in Michigan and then in 1988, Professor Morris returned to the greater Chicago area
accepting a position at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He has been a full
professor of sociology there since 1992 and was chair of the department from 1992 to
1997. At Northwestern, Professor Morris has also been associated with the Institute for
Policy Research.
Aldon Morris has been the recipient of countless awards and honors. Among his
numerous publications, his book, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, is generally
recognized now as a true classic in the field of social movement. He has won many
awards including The Gustavus Myers Award, the Distinguished Contributions to
Scholarship for the American Sociological Association and the Annual Scholarly
Achievement Award of the North Central Sociological Association. The book was also
selected by choice as one of the outstanding academic books of 1984. In 1986, Professor
Morris became the President of the Association of Black Sociologists, a post he held for 3
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years. He was the consultant for the famous PBS series, Eyes on the Prize, in the mid1980's and was also associate editor the American Sociological Review from 1983 to
1986. Over the years, Dr. Morris has been very busy organizing numerous conferences
and speaking all over the country and his work has been published and reprinted in
numerous places. In 1995, he received the Certificate of Leadership Award from the
Association of Black Sociologists and in 1997, he held the Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Caesar Chavez, Rosa Parks Visiting Professorship at the University of Michigan.
In recent years, Professor Morris has continued his research on the Civii Rights
Movement. In addition, his research includes the study of the National Baptist
Convention funded through the Hartford Seminary as well as the study of The Black
Chicago Renaissance Movement.
Tonight, Aldon Morris is here to offer us some reflections on the Civil Rights
Movement and his talk is entitled, The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama (A Look Back
and a Look Ahead). Please join me in welcoming Dr. Aldon Morris.
Aldon Morris: Well, good evening. First of all, it is a real pleasure and honor to
me to be here. I want to thank each and every member of the planning committee.
Knowing something about organizing in social movements and so forth, I know that
nothing never just takes place out of the blue, a lot of work went into it. So, I want to just
recognize the people who put this all together.
I would say that one of the reasons why I decided to come to Huntsville is
because I think that during this period of history it is very important for us to revisit the
Civil Rights Movement and what has happened in this country in terms of race relations
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and so one. Hopefully, in my talk, I will give you some sense that it is not just important
as a romantic journey into the past to revisit the glory days as they were but to really
think about race and race inequality today. So, then it is a pleasure for me to address you
and to speak on Alabama's role in the Civil Rights Movement and where we need to go
from here.
One simply cannot think about the Civil Rights Movement without thinking about
the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott where 50,000 African-Americans refused to ride the
buses for over a year. Certainly, we cannot think about the Civil Rights Movement and
not think about the major confrontation in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. We cannot
think about the Civil Rights Movement and not think about the Selma confrontation in
1965. When we think about the Birmingham confrontation in 1963, what is going to
come out of that of course is going to be the 1964 Civil Rights Act that is going to take
the legal teeth out the Jim Crow order. Then, of course, the 1965 Selma confrontation
was the major struggle that ended up with blacks ceasing the franchise and being able to
vote, which they had not been able to do since the reconstruction period. So, then, clearly
Alabama is a good place to talk about the Civil Rights Movement.
Now, I want to add a personal note here because I think it would provide some
kind of context for what I am going to say. I was born in Saltwater, Mississippi in 1949. I
cannot believe that I am this old, but it happens. I knew the Jim Crow system first hand. I
drunk from colored water fountains. I attended segregated inferior schools. I remembered
that when school began in the fall that almost all of the black students would disappear
for 3 months and they went out into the white man's cotton field. I can still recall very
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clearly how we had to walk a mile to the colored school passmg by a very new
sophisticated looking white school and walk to the colored school and then receive the
torn up hand-me-down books that the white students no longer had any use for. I
remember when whites called our father boy and called our mother auntie and referred to
all of other inhabitants of the black community as niggers. As a young boy, I loved ice
cream. I remember having to walk to the Dairy Creme and then having to go round to the
back of the Dairy Creme and have the ice cream cone handed to me out of a little hole in
the wall in the back of the Dairy Creme.
As a 16-year-old boy, I was gripped with fear when Emmett Till, 14 years old
from Chicago, was lynched in Mississippi. In short, what I am saying is that I
experienced the prison of Jim Crow first hand.
Though more formerly stated, by the l 950's, southern whites in Alabama and
throughout the south had established a very comprehensive system of domination over
blacks. It is what I have called a tripartite system of domination in the sense that it
controlled blacks economically, politically and personally. Economically, blacks were
highly concentrated in the lowest paying and dirtiest job that the rural areas in the city
had to offer. Politically, southern blacks were oppressed because they were
systematically excluded from the political process. They could not serve as jurors and
they really had no input into the governing process. blacks were controlled personally
because the system of racial segregation denied them personal freedom and by personal
freedom I am talking about something as simple as being able to urinate in a decent toilet.
I am talking about the kind of personal freedom that whites enjoyed on a routine basis.
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So, racial segregation itself was an arrangement that set blacks off from the rest of
humanity and labeled them as an inferior race. Thus, the monumental question that
confronted southern blacks at the second half of the 20th century was simply this, how
can a relatively powerless group overthrow this tripartite system of domination. It is a
system of domination that is backed by legislation, by custom, by terror and by the iron
fist of the southern state. There was a darkening path. How do you overthrow this kind of
system without very much power?
Now, the great abolitionist, Frederic Douglas had already given a clue as to what
has to happen when he declared that he who would be free must himself strike the first
blow. The Civil Rights Movement was really that first blow in terms of overthrowing the
Jim Crow order. Now, the Alabama Movement struck a blow heard throughout America
and around the world. So, let me just present to you my thesis or really what my basic
argument is here. It is this, that the local movement in Alabama and throughout the south
encompassed the organizational and political framework that were the culminating forces
that really ended up withdrawing the Jim Crow order. To understand how the Civil
Rights Movement overthrew racial segregation in America, you must come to grips with
what I talk about as the local movement. When you think about these local movements,
they did at least 3 things, one is that they organized and mobilized the black masses.
Two, they developed the strategy of mass nonviolence direct action and three, they
persuaded the people to abandon their passivity and fear and to boldly disrupt the Jim
Crow order until it would collapse. Then, to simplify, I am going to focus tonight on the
1963 Birmingham confrontation. It is important to keep in mind that the same dynamics
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that unfolded in Birmingham in 1963 also unfolded in many local black communities
throughout the south. When I first started studying the Civil Rights Movement, I was
struck by how previous accounts attributed how the Jim Crow order got overthrown.
They attributed the victory to the Supreme Court, 1954 Brown versus Board decision or
they would attribute it to the actions of the Kennedy and Johnson administration and to
the actions of sympathetic, northern white liberals. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was given
some credit. He was usually viewed as a charismatic, black Moses who single-handedly
waved the magic wand that freed his people, but as I dove into the archives and
interviewed key participants of this pivotal movement, I developed a very different view
of how it all happened. I came to recognize that even though the courts were important
and so were the Kennedy and Johnson administration as well as sympathetic whites, but
these were not the critical factors responsible for overthrowing the Jim Crow order. They
were secondary factors, which were triggered by moral and deeper primary factors. Then,
in my view and in my research, the primary factors were the local movements that were
developed following the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. These local movements had a
definite character. First, they were deeply rooted in the black church. Many of them were
led by black ministers. Second, they were committed to mass nonviolent direct action that
directly confronted the forces of racial segregation. Third, they were associated with the
charismatic leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Now, why was the black church so important m this context? I think it is
important to talk about the black church historically here but also I think it gets a bum rap
a lot for what it fails to do and I think there is a lot of criticism for the black church
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and we may get into it later. I think that we also need to also recognize the historic role
that it displayed in the black community. The black church was so crucial to the
movement because it was a mass base, indigenous institution respected by black people.
Its ministers constituted the bulk of black leadership. The church was largely free of
white control and could act independently if it had the courage to do so. During the days
of racial segregation, you could not think of any other organization or institution within
the black community that was as free to act independently if it had the courage to do so
with the church. The black church functioned as a repository of black culture that housed
and nourished the community's sacred beliefs and cultural expressions, especially black
music. In studying the Civil Rights Movement, I remember talking to a minister about the
role of music, one of the major leaders of this other movement. We could not have been
able to mobilize that movement and the whole people together if we did not have the
music. Church services are the black community's communication network. You go to
church and you learn what is happening in the community. You learn the gossip. You
learned other kinds of important information. Finally, the church was the community's
organizational framework through which important goals could be pursued in a
systematic fashion. Because of all of these functions of the black church, it really had no
rival in the black community in terms of its importance and this is why the sociologist, E.
Franklin Frazier, referred to the black church as a nation within a nation. It falls then that
the black church would become the institution on their cultural backbone of the Civil
Rights movement.
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The strength and importance of local movements were determined by the degree
that the community's churches became involved in the movement in terms of providing a
mass of people willing to engage in protest, providing the movement with leadership,
with finances and with the resolve to face danger despite the possible consequences.
Now, these movements were crucial because they became committed to engaging in
mass, nonviolent direct action.
When you think about the Jim Crow order and for those of you who are old
enough to remember, you know that the Jim Crow order was nothing to be played with.
Those who dared to violate its rules could expect awful consequences including being
fired from your job, being jailed, being beaten and at worst being hung from the limb of a
tree. It was a system designed to make people cowards and to say yes boss to white
people who despised them. It was a system that was designed to exploit black people
economically and to dominate them politically. It was a system that thrived on keeping
black people educationally ignorant and timid. Jim Crow then was dedicated to producing
meek, black people who were afraid to rebel against one of the cruelest systems of
domination known to human beings. As I said earlier, it was backed by guns, southern
states and by terror groups like the Klan. So, then the job of local movements was to
produce a fort that could overcome the power of white segregationists.
The great achievement of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott was its revelation
that there existed a method of social protest that could boldly confront the Jim Crow
system and win. That method was nonviolent direct action. First of all, most blacks, like
most other Americans, believed in self-defense rather than turning the other cheek. To
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have people in mass to function nonviolently was a great, great achievement. It was a
method that had to be taught to black people. I know at one time I was in Turkey and I
asked folks there about what they thought about the Civil Rights Movement and they said
the blacks were peaceful and they would sing all this beautiful music and all. I was
thinking I really know black people and it was a very complicated thing to get them to
accept this whole idea of engaging in nonviolent direct action. It was a unique form of
combat that could be used in a way to really challenge the Jim Crow system. I often think
about what if King and others had chosen to try to overthrow Jim Crow violently at that
time. How might the response have been very different? More than likely, it would have
been crushed immediately by the power of the state and other groups acting violently
against it. I would argue then that when you think about the Civil Rights Movement one
of the thing very important to recognize is that generation formed a taxable problem. It
said, we want to overthrow segregation. We do not have that much power. We do not
have the guns. We do not have the state behind us. We do not have the media behind us.
What do we do then? They came up with this idea of engaging in massive, nonviolence
direct action.
Another very important thing about that movement was the creation and the
development of Martin Luther King Jr., as a charismatic leader because leaders are
important in a movement. Now, King became a charismatic tool of the black community
and of the Civil Rights Movement. What do I mean by charismatic tool? That means
anytime he went to a movement, say he goes to Montgomery, Birmingham or to Selma,
immediately the focus of the nation was on that community. He had the eyes of the world
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on where he went and the black community really never had that kind of person. So, that
gave the black community something that it had never had. One of the things in studying
social movement that I think is an important point for all of those who wish to engage in
social change by participating in social movements is there is never such a thing as one
leader that leads the social movement. The data shows that Martin Luther King Jr. did not
create the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement created Dr. King in the
sense that there were already large numbers of people in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955
who had already decided that they were going to have a boycott. Rosa Parks was not just
some tired old lady. She was an activist. She worked in the NAACP and working in the
NAACP in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 was like working in the Black Panther Party
in 1966 or 1967. So, when they decided that they were gong to have this boycott, they
looked around and they said who should be our spokesperson. Then, they said there is
this good speaker over at Dexter Church, Reverend King. He is pretty eloquent and he
has a Ph.D. They said, let's try him. So, that is how King became the leader of the
Montgomery Bus Boycott. From there, he went on to grow into this major charismatic
tool. I made this point because for those who are interested in social change to have the
idea that there are somewhat Moses type of leaders that are going to come along and
wave a magic wand and free people is just not the way it happens. So, then, we have a
development in the south where now black people have a method, nonviolent direct
action, to go and confront the system of domination directly. Now, you have a
charismatic leader who can bring attention to those movements, not only domestically but
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bring attention to the whole world as to what is happening to black people in a country
that is selling itself as the beacon of democracy.
We have to remember that another very important contact during this period was
that America was locked in the Cold War. It was in a colossal battle with the Soviet
Union. The cold would be the super power. What the United States was doing
internationally was telling all of the newly, independent nations of Africa, Asia, and
South America is that you should come and align yourself with us because those
communists in the Soviet Union are a totalitarian government. They are totalitarian; we
are democratic. So, what this did for the merging Civil Rights Movement was once these
local movements confronted the system of segregation, then the leaders of the Third
World looked at America and said, is this a democracy? Is that how you treat young
black children in the streets and so forth? So, then there was this international contact.
This was also very important because with the confrontations in the street it really caused
a nightmare for the American Foreign Policy.
I believe that ( and this is why it is so important to talk about the fact that there is
no one leader of a mass movement), the confrontation in Birmingham in 1963 where
King was triumphant would never have happened without Fred Shuttlesworth and the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights built a strong local movement over in
Birmingham. He had fought the system of segregation in Birmingham for 7 years before
King decided to come to Birmingham in 1963. In terms of Fred Shuttlesworth, let me just
give you a sense of the kind of person that he was. Fred Shuttlesworth is one of the few
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people and I have talked with him a lot. I would say he is my favorite civil rights leader
really from that period because this man really conquered the fear of death. For him, the
destruction of racial segregation became more important than his own life. That is why in
1956 when he organized the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. He cried
in this manner, "Now, when you organize to fight segregation that means you can never
be still. We are going to wipe it out or it is going to wipe us out. Somebody may have to
die." Shuttlesworth was clear that he, himself, was ready to die for the cause. He
maintained, "I tried to get killed in Birmingham. I tried to widow my wife and my
children for God's sake. I believed that scripture, which says whosoever will lose his life
for my sake shall find it. I had no fear." So, this was the attitude that was
incomprehensible to Bohr Conner and I would also say to a lot of black people as well. A
system of oppression cannot endure for long when it is persistently attacked by leaders
willing to die for freedom and one who is able to instill that spirit in the hearts of the
oppressed. That was the character of the leadership that took place in Birmingham. Let
me also emphasize this once again, I will not take your time to go through this, but there
were literally hundreds of leaders, activists and organizers who were part of the local
movement in Birmingham.
Now, I argued a little earlier about how important the black church was, saying
that was where most of the participants came from, that is how the black mass organized,
that is how they financed the movement, passed the plate and raised the money and so
forth. You know something that was interesting during the Civil Rights Movement and in
Birmingham is that the churches who supported the movement earlier were hardly
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Working class black churches but relatively poor Black churches. So, when I say the
black church, I want to be a little careful there because at that time there were about 400
black churches in Birmingham, Alabama. The movement that really produced the major
confrontations in Birmingham was organized by about 40 working class black churches.
The other black leaders or other ministers were accommodation leaders. They had deals
with the white power structure. They were afraid to stand up with the people and so on.
The middle class and more prosperous black churches were rather late in coming to the
movement and supporting it. Now, I want to briefly mention why it is that Birmingham in
1963 ended up being the major ____
that it was. It was because when you think of
what power is. The famous sociologist Max Vaper defined power in this way. He says it
is the ability to realize one's own will despite resistance.
In Birmingham, as in many other local southern cities and rural areas, blacks have
gone to the white power structure and said look, can you desegregate the buses. Can we
have some black policeman? Can we get some school desegregation? I mean the Brown
decision was passed 3 or 4 years ago and nothing has happened and the white power
structure always responded by saying, look you know we cannot do that. Segregation is
the law of the land. So, what we have here is black leaders who are without power. They
are going and they are pleading and begging the white power structure to implement
change. The power of the Civil Rights Movement is this. How do you generate the ability
to realize your own will despite resistance? Now, what nonviolence resistance ... This is
why Martin Luther King was a radical and this is why he was not this kind of peaceful
lover that he is portrayed as now. What he understood and
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what the people understood at that point in history is that the only way that segregation
was going to change is that the entire Jim Crow order had to be disrupted.
Therefore, in 1963, number one, they implemented an economic boycott of the
downtown area. All black people in Birmingham, 90 percent, refused to shop during the
movement in Birmingham and it was during Easter season. I know that most black people
in this audience would know this. I do not know how many white people know. For black
people during Easter, it is second only to Christmas in terms of black people shopping.
Everybody has to have a new hat and you have to have new clothes to go to church and
so forth. So, then, the white business people in Birmingham expected a great deal of
business during the Easter season, but black people refused to buy anything and because
of all of the political uncertainties that was going on in Birmingham, white people were
afraid to go downtown and shop. So, number one, the business community in
Birmingham was brought to a halt. There was no money being made in Birmingham
during the movement in 1963. Also, they mobilized thousands of people to march
through the streets. What did this do? It did not only make a statement, but it tied those
streets up. You could not have any cars, trucks or goods being delivered during this
period because the city was completely tied up. One of the ways in which, of course, the
power structure dealt with all of these demonstrators and agitators as they call them is
that they put them in jail. Then, the movement in Birmingham had a plan for that. What if
we fill the jails up and there is nowhere to put anybody else? You would still have
thousands of demonstrators coming to demonstrate and the jails would be full; they were
able to achieve that. My point here is that what mass, nonviolent direct action did during
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University
this period is that it created a total crisis in places like Birmingham, in places like Selma
and in other places. It brought business to a halt. It brought political activity to a halt. It
created a crisis. It generated power in this sense that then the capitalists who are into
making money would say, well, my goodness; this cannot go on. This cannot continue.
So, then they started putting pressure on the political leaders saying you need to go talk to
those folks in the movement. These leaders of the white community were now coming to
the movement leaders saying what do we have to do for you all to stop all of these
demonstrations and tying up business and tying up the political system. What can we do?
You have to take down the signs of segregation and so on. The bottom line then is that
such a crisis was created through the use of nonviolent direct action that the system them
had to grant many of the demands of the movement. It is the way in which the Jim Crow
order was overthrown.
Because of the national and international cns1s created by the Birmingham
movement, the White House concluded that they had to act. Attorney Robert F. Kennedy
studied the map of the United States where pins showed trouble spots multiplying daily.
One of the other things was that the Birmingham Movement was organized so
magnificently that literally thousands of local movements grew up in cities all across the
nation. They called themselves the Birmingham-style movements. They were styled after
Birmingham. So, what you have now is the crisis that is just multiplying throughout the
nation. John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, the attorney general, ended up in the
war room. They were looking. They had little pins on all this spots where protests were
breaking out. So, the attorney general concluded that the federal government could no
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longer run around the country like a firearm putting out brush fires. He told his brother,
President John F. Kennedy, that they had to correct basic injustices. The President
responded with a national address in which he explained that now the time has come for
this nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so
increased the cries for equality that no city, state or legislative body can prudently choose
to ignore them. Then, on July 2, 1964, John F. Kennedy signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act
and the 1964 Civil Rights Act was the act that overthrew legal racial segregation. Then,
of course, the 1965 confrontation in Selma was the battle that ended up causing Johnson
then to introduce a Voting Rights Act and that is how black people ended up with a
franchise. Now, not only did you get the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting
Rights Act, but you had other measures like affirmative action whose goal was to bring
equality between the races.
Now, what I want to do is share with you the lessons that I think can be learned
from the Civil Rights Movement. The first lesson to be learned from the Civil Rights
Movement is that masses of people acting collectively can generate social change. I want
to speak more directly to the young people in the audience. A large portion of Civi I
Rights participants were young elementary, high school and college students. Indeed, as
the movement progressed, black colleges and universities became second only to the
black church in terms of its role in organizing and mobilizing black people to confront
the Jim Crow order. Thus, young people were crucial to change that was produced by the
movement. In fact, when you study social change movements through time and across
space and different nations, you realize that in most of those movements the young
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people who are idealists, who believe in democratic values and who believe that change
can happen generally play a very, very important role in producing change within those
movements. Another lesson to be learned from this pivotal movement is that it produced
real change that is often not understood by younger generations of black people. Young
people, imagine being in a situation where you could not vote, where you could not use a
washroom, where you could not stay in a hotel, where you could not attend most colleges
and universities of this nation, where you could not defend yourself when being attacked
physically by whites without risking jail and the possibility of death and where you could
do nothing when your father was called boy and your mother called auntie. Imagine
being shut out of decent occupations and careers simply because of the color of your skin.
Young people, real change occurred. The Civil Rights Movement produced real change
and it is only ignorance of history that causes one to doubt that the Civil Rights
Movement made a difference. Stokely Carmichael who was one of the important student
leaders of the Civil Rights Movement summed it up all metaphorically when he stated
that one thing is for sure, black people would never go to the back of the bus again. At
the same time, I understand why young black people erroneously believe that the Civil
Rights Movement did not generate major change. It is because that movement failed to
bring about complete racial equality and it also generated the fears of white backlash
against racial equality that rages to this day. The current, white backlash disclosed itself
in the hypercritical rhetoric of color blindness and individual right rather than group right.
White backlash claimed that equality had been reached and that measures like affirmative
action equaled reverse discrimination against qualified whites and generally they mean
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qualified white males in their view. These whites along with some strategically black
supporters (like Clarence Thomas or somebody like that) claimed that the racial playing
field is now equal, but the real truth and the hard data reveals a different reality. For
example, look at the recent 2000 Census Data and what you will see is some of the
following. If you look at each fifth of white families, it will show that each fifth of white
families earn dramatically more than each fifth of black families. For example, the lowest
fifth of white families on average make 15,855 dollars a year while similar situated black
families earn only 8,236 dollars a year. You have the data there. The other part of it is
that it does not get any better when one examines affluent whites and affluent blacks.
Indeed, the top 5 percent of white families on average earn 282,017 dollars while similarsituated black families earn only 182,373 dollars. That is a whopping difference of
100,000 dollars.
Moreover, social scientists have come to realize is that wealth is an even more
important indicator of racial equality than is income. Wealth consists of assets such as
homeownership, stocks and bonds, annuities and the like. Wealth constitutes the
resources that are passed down through generations. Wealth determines which groups of
families and individuals will have superior power and resources through history. Now, if
we want to be honest about it, black people were in slavery for 244 years, then, Jim Crow
for another two-thirds of a century, almost another 100 years. They were not earning any
assets to be passed down to generations. Even black generations of today have to start
pretty much anew and that is not happening in the white community in the same way.
Another fact that I think that has to be confronted is that when whites argue I did not own
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any slaves; I like black people. The fact of the matter is that 244 years of free labor that
produced all of these resources did give whites a great amount of wealth that has been
passed down to generations to this day. What a head start, what a head start, 244 years of
slavery and then three quarters of a century of Jim Crow. Then, the data is clear. At each
income level, whites have 5 to 10 times greater wealth than blacks. The greatest wealth
inequalities are between higher income blacks and whites. So, it gets worse as you go
towards the top. So, in terms of in common wealth, the racial playing field is grossly
unequal. That field is a steep incline and a slippery slope for blacks and the current
rhetoric of color blindness among whites is not going to change these basic facts.
I want to turn to another very serious form of racial inequality in this nation and in
the state of Alabama, in particular. Record numbers of black people, especially young
black people, are being locked up in the nation's jails. In the year 2000, 5,051,182 were
convicted felons, that is 21 percent of all blacks and 37 percent of black men were
convicted felons. Now, let us turn to the state of Alabama, because out of all states,
Alabama had the 6th largest incarceration rate out of all of them in 2000. Their rate was
549 persons per 100,000 residents. What does it mean for Alabama to have such a large
incarceration rate? In Alabama, felony conviction leads to political disenfranchisement.
Indeed, Alabama was one of the few states that disenfranchised all forms of felons
including prisoners, parolees, felony probation, jailed inmate and ex-felons. In fact, when
you look at the data for Alabama and across the nation, the largest number of folk who
are disenfranchised because of felony convictions are actually ex-felons, people who
have paid the price but still are disenfranchised. Last year in Alabama, 111,755 African-
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Americans were disenfranchised because of felony convictions. Out of the IO largest
African-American disenfranchised populations, Alabama ranked 6th in the nation.
Moreover, there 1s a large racial dysbaric in Alabama when it comes to felony
convictions. The total disenfranchisement rate in Alabama was 6.75 percent but for
average Americans that rate doubles the white rate at 13.97 percent. So, nationally, this
means that Alabama had a higher rate of black disenfranchisement due to felons than 41
other states. The bottom line is this. This is not without consequence. Probably enough
blacks in Alabama were disenfranchised to determine the final outcome of Gore-Bush
presidential election. Now, this decision is even stronger when you consider all of the exfelons nationally who cannot vote. So, then, let me close by saying that the playing field
between blacks and whites in this country and in Alabama is nowhere near equal.
Income, wealth and equalities between the races remains staggering. A large
disproportioned number of African-Americans languish in jails and are disenfranchised
because of these convictions.
A more, basic reality I think is that the Civil Rights Movement was able to
destroy legal, racial segregation. That is a major accomplishment, but as you well know,
America, Alabama and Huntsville for the most part are more racially segregated than
during the days of the Civil Rights Movement. There is an article in your major paper
here that shows that Huntsville has become more racially segregated in 2000 than it was
in 1990. So, it is hard to argue that we are going in the right direction. We have flipped
the script. We are headed backwards. So, I think that one of things that is very important
to point out and this is true during the Civil Rights Movement, black people never
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University
wanted integration because they wanted to be close up around whites or because they
wanted to marry whites. What was clear is that in white neighborhoods there were
different life chances. There were better schools. There were better services in the
community. So, it was the inequality between blacks and whites that caused blacks to
say, well we need racial integration. If we all live in the same neighborhoods, go to the
same schools and so forth, then we could be equal. The bottom line then is that is not
happening and it does not appear to be happening. Before you think that I am picking on
Alabama and the South, I bet you when I read the article today in the paper about
Huntsville going in the opposite direction and being more segregated now then it was a
decade ago, I think you all are ranked number 61 or somewhere around in there. I bet
Chicago is up around 3 or 4, but not I. So, it's a national phenomenon. It is a national
phenomenon. So, I would conclude by saying that for freedom-loving people and for
people who really want America to be a robust democracy because I maintain, that with
staggering racial inequality where there is no equal playing field, you cannot have a
robust democracy because those kinds of conditions are not congruent with the claims of
the constitution. One of the most important things that the Civil Rights Movement did is
that it freed a lot of white people as well as blacks because there were many white people
who did not want live like that, living a lie in terms of what this country claimed to be.
Therefore, it is just as incumbent upon whites as it is blacks to start thinking about how to
reengage the struggle about how to bring about real equality because a social movement
and change ofreal racial equality is needed today as much as it was needed
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when Jim Crow held sway over most of the south and the nation. America cannot mature
into a robust democracy until racial inequality is eliminated at its very roots.
Q: You said that _____
were second only to the black churches immobilizing the
movement?
A: Yes.
Q: Did the colleges publicly support these movements, like most of them were state
funded, and if they did, did they lose their funding or what did they do about that?
Q: The private black colleges participated a great deal more than the public ones.
Whenever there was a protest at a state school, they would get a visit. They would say,
tell the president. Can you stop this? If not, we have to cut your funds off. But the other
thing is that many of the black students could not be controlled by the administrators.
They were caught up in the movement. They were caught up in fighting for change and
they went on and protested anyway. The black administrators had to say, heh boss, I
cannot control them. So, yes you did have a greater amount of participation from the
private ones, but you also had significant protests come out of the state schools as well.
By the way, on that questions, do you know that one of the most controversial things that
happened in the Birmingham Confrontation in 1963? When the movement needed all
these people to go to jail or fill up the jail, King and his lieutenants made a decision that
they were going to us really young children to participate in this demonstration. Now, this
was very controversial. It was debated within the movement. King's lieutenants, very
interestingly, had gone to all these schools in the community; I am talking about
elementary schools and they had organized. So, they made the decision to use the kids
and they did not tell the parents. So, these young kids were going out there confronting
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Bohr Conner and so on. Now, on the other hand, the belief of the folk in the movement,
especially King and other religious leaders and so forth, they always argued that God was
in it. They were confident that God would protect the children. What is so interesting to
me is that at the moment that it was time for the children to go and protest, the organizers
came to these elementary schools and the kids would line up by the thousands. They were
jumping over the school's fences and all and racing down to the 16th Street Baptist
Church. At the apex of that movement, there were 3,000 really young people in the jail.
So, you can imagine the degree to which the parents/adults had to get involved because
they had no choice but to try protect their children at that point.
Q: (inaudible) Would say that Afghanistan not only exists because of the ocean, but we
live under a form of terrorism right here in this country and they are talking about
righting a new constitution that all the blacks and whites get involved with rewriting this
constitution and turning things around because if they have a block on the voting, a block
on the schools, block on the jobs ... .it is a materialistic system. Would you agree with
that.
A: Well, I will put it in my own words. The way that I look at it is that I try to go back to
other periods in history. We had a period in history like what we have now and that was
the McCarthy period. This was a period in which there were groups across America who
were organizing for change and then what was used by people who wanted to block
change was to accuse all of these groups of being communists. Talking about taking
rights away, do you know that Paul Roberson, who was this internationally famous actor
and singer, he used his being a celebrity to go across the world saying that America was
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not a democracy because of the way it was treating its own black citizens. Do you know
that because of the McCarthy activity and because of communism, they took away Paul
Roberson's passport so he could not travel for over a decade. They did not only take his
away. They took away W.B. Dubois because W.B. Dubois was traveling across the world
doing that thing. So, they took these passports. What my point is here is that with
Americans, many of us know in our heart, when you start talking about taking away
constitutional, guaranteed freedom, that you are truly on a slippery slope. We also know
that black people feel it most intensely because we know that we will pay far more dearly
than others. So, I would certainly agree that the treatment of people of color in this
society to a certain extent can dictate how we see people of color around the world. That
is one of the reasons why I argue that it is so critical that we get over this race problem.
When I say get over the race problem, I want to be clear; I do not mean to hold hands and
sing, We Shall Overcome. Until the structures of inequality, income inequalities, public
inequalities, educational inequalities .... Until those structures of inequality
____
are
, there is no reason for us to suspect that we are going to get along together in
some form of racial harmony. Think about this. If it took almost 40 years ... If you have
structures of control and structures of this _____
that lasted for 40 years, what
would you really have to do to change those? They are deep. They are well intrenched
and so it would take a lot. Coming back to my brother over here, I would say that there
are some real serious problems confronting this country in terms of race but not only
race. There is another serious thing going on. When we talk about racial inequality, look
at class in equality. Inequality between well-off Americans and poor Americans or even
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working class Americans; I do not care what color they are, those inequalities have
increased drastically very significantly. So, one of the things about the black movement
and one importance in this country historically, it has always been a broad-based freedom
movement and it allows other people who want a democracy to get involved. That is why
when we look at the Civil Rights Movement and think about it and what it did, it
generated the Women's Movement. It generated the Environmental Movement. It
generated the Disability's Movement. It generated the Farm Worker's Movement and
there are a lot of other movements I can mention. Its because the black movement has
always reached at and really tried to push to be a robust democracy and really reach out
embrace what is claimed in the constitution. That is why King said, we are just trying to
make the country live up to what it claims to be on paper. So, we are in a serious situation
here.
Q: With the trend going backwards, do you think that reparations can help out to heal
some of these wounds or do you think that it would farther divide us or do you think it
has some kind of a place in the movement today.
A: I think that reparations should be seriously debated and considered in America. I think
that one of the reasons why America walked out of the conference in South Africa was
not so much because of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. I think that all of these countries
from across the world was going to come to America and come to Europe and say, look,
here is what has happened, here is why America is a rich nation because of its
engagement in the slave trade and because of all of these centuries of slavery and here is
why Europe is such a strong power because of its role in the same dirty business. If we
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want to go on a new path, we have to try to correct some of these inequalities and these
centuries of oppression. So, my position about reparations is that I think that everything
now ought to be put on the table for discussion. I think as I mentioned in my talk, I
believe that if we were dealing with a situation in which whites in this society or any
other privilege group had really, really earned everything fair and square or if they are
really where they are simply because they worked hard and not because of 250 years of
free labor and not because of75 years of Jim Crow (if that were true) then blacks should
not be talking about no reparations, but it is not true. If blacks are forever locked behind
because of the history of this country and the racist practices of this country, the question
really then is how do we go about changing that? How do we do it? Do we just say, well
you know, everybody pull themselves up by their own bootstraps now. We are all equal
now and we know that is not true. So, yes, I think that reparations is something that ought
to be fiercely considered. It ought to be debated and discussed like any other proposed
measure. There are all kinds of complexities and all of that. A lawyer once told me that
just because something is complex to implement does not mean that it should not be
seriously considered if questions of justice are involved. Everybody still like me okay?
A: Yes.
Q: I want to ask the question about disenfranchisement. ls that possible to be
disenfranchised for us? I have heard that we have the right to vote upon every so many
years, is that true?
A: I am not an expert on exactly how that happens. I do know that the Civil Rights Act
was something that was suppose to be put in place for a limited amount of time until the
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goal had been accomplished and then it would be revoted on. I have noticed that has
happened in the past, so there may very well be additional times that it would have to
come up for another vote and so forth so. In other words, I do not think that the Voting
Rights Act is suppose to exist in perpetuity. I do not think that is the way it is on the
book.
Q: Will disenfranchisement take place in the black community because the 1965 Civil
Rights Act is no longer in the book.
A: I am not sure that follows. I think number one that most black people who vote and
who recognize the responsibility to vote and what we had to pay to get it, they are not
about to give it up for any reason. I think that you know that we have a far more serious
problem; I would not say more serious, but equally serious problem and that is a lot of
our people are not being educated for exercising the franchising and recognizing they got
it through people making all kinds of sacrifices and so forth.
Q: Dr. Morris. Thank you very much for your speech. I have been trying (inaudible) 1
cannot find a measuring yard to measure your progress, because we have the rights and
nobody would touch that. The females have the rights and nobody can mess with them. A
young girl can work here with their tops on with their small bikini and you cannot even
touch her, even if you want to, but every time blacks are given their rights the
government has a way with a lawyer to circumvent that right. What is the cause of
racism? I will give you the cause, if you want a debate, but how do you as a people find
the cause of racism that you cannot stop. I do not see any end to this. So, if (inaudible)
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and nobody would mess with her when she comes around here. (inaudible) and nobody
debates that?
A: I got your point, I think. One of my replies would be this is a little side issue. What I
think he was asking me is that how do you measure progress on the racial front and how
can you be sure that you progress when the rights that you won can be easily taken. I
think he was also saying that when you look at gender inequality, it seems to be a little
less complexed and that the rules are clear about what you can and cannot do, specifically
the women. My sidebar is to say that gender inequality (inequality between men and
women) is that it remains a fundamental form of inequality in America society. Secondly,
the black community is the one that can afford gender inequality the least because when
you look at the degree of family that are headed by black women by themselves, we need
to fight like hell to make sure that they can get decent jobs and decent pay. Not only that,
because of the historical burden that has been thrust on the black community, black men
and women need to be equal to be able to carry forth the struggle. So, I want to say that
about gender inequality. Another major form of inequality is that if America is to be what
it aspires to be, it is a form that needs to be eliminated. Now, let me go back to what 1
think is the crust of this question and that is how do you measure racial progress in this
society and can it be easily taken? I think that as I said in my talk there has been racial
progress in this society. Before the Civil Rights Movement, if you were a middle class
black, you were a teacher; you were a preacher; you were .a mortician or you were an
attorney or doctor. It was a small, tiny black middle class. Less than a tenth of the
workforce could be classified as black middle class prior to the Civil Rights Movement.
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Now, a third of the black population can be counted as part of the black middle class and
that is because that movement was able to open up doors of opportunity that had been
previously closed in the schools and in the workplace itself. So, it would be foolhardy I
think to not understand the progress that has been made because when you understand the
progress that has been made, then you understand that you have something to build on.
Now, the other part of it is yes. The gains are always under assault and what that means is
that the struggle must always be vigilant to make sure that they are not reversed. Not only
that, of course, you make sure that you lay the groundwork to move ahead into progress
beyond what you have already received. It is a dual fight always. Protect what you got
and push forward. That has been our history in this society, this country.
Q: Dr. Morris you spoke of a disparity in the numbers of African-Americans and whites
being sentenced but I would like to ask a question. What do you think is a possible
solution to alleviate that? With the disparity in the way the sentencing occurs because it
has been proven over time definitely that blacks receive harsher convictions in
comparison to white counterparts. What are possible solutions to alleviate this and make
it a fair conviction across the board versus one being greater than the other?
A: Well, you certainly referred to a very, very complex problem in this society. We know
that justice in America is highly correlated with the amount of resources that you have. If
you have a lot of money and you can get good lawyers and you can get good experts,
witnesses and so forth, you have a much greater chance of being released and not
convicted. On one hand, I think what we have to do is recognize that there is this
complicated relationship always between race and class and so a big part of the problem
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is that large numbers of black people who are incarcerated and who are convicted are also
poor. So, we have to deal with this whole issue of economics, unemployment and the
work and poor. So, that is a big part of it. Another part of it, of course, is that the criminal
justice system in America has been racist. One of things that is going on right now in
Illinois is that our governor (and he is a Republican) was courageous enough to declare a
motorium on death ____
in Illinois. Now, what is so interesting here is that there has
been about at least IO different cases now of black men on death row. Most of them have
been accused of raping white women and other very, very serious crimes. Thank God for
DNA. Over the last year, I have not counted them all, but I can tell you that at least 20
black men have been released from death row for false convictions. What we also know
from this and what we are learning from this is that many times the convictions were
beaten out of them by racist white cops and so forth. It is just a fact and so here again is a
situation in which the criminal justice system has to be studied, examined and challenged.
By the way, one of the reasons why you have a large rate in the prison population,
especially amongst African-Americans is drug convictions. There are those who argue
that most of these people need help. They need rehabilitation, not to be thrown away and
locked in jail where they become hardened criminals and then released and reek havoc on
the society. So, yes, I would just say that we clearly have a criminal justice system with
some serious, serious racial biases in it and it is getting innocent people killed and forcing
folk to stay in jail far longer than they should and as a result also being politically
disenfranchised.
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Q: It is really not a question. It is more of responding to the issue raised about
disenfranchisement. The Voting Rights Act is periodically comes up for renewal. If it is
th
not renewed, though, blacks will not lose their right to vote. Remember the 15
Amendment is the thing that gave blacks the right to vote. So, until that amendment is
appealed blacks will always have the right to vote. What the Voting Rights Act does is
that it gives the federal government the authority to come in and enforce the 15th
Amendment. If the Voting Rights Act is not renewed, then that power will also removed.
So, I just wanted to clear that up.
A: What I am concerned about is if we all have the right to vote but we do not vote
because we are discouraged or something .. .I hear information all the time that people are
just not voting. In fact, middle class and low class people (poor people) have got to
realize that they have power if they use it, the power of their vote and they should not be
discouraged. They should get together and begin to use that power. Now, the United
States is becoming ruled by corporations, but I know that there is not a senator anywhere
or representative that cannot be voted out of office if you do not like what they are doing
by numbers. I wish to goodness that people would realize that, particularly young people.
So, let us get together, all of us, and vote some of these ridiculous laws and actions by the
federal government out.
A: What I would say to that is that of course I agree with this, but I would also add that
often you vote one group of scoundrels out and another group in. The real problem is that
many people choose not to vote I think because they went and they voted and they
thought that some real change was going to come and it was at this that is made no
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difference. When you think about my argument about the playing field is not
level... Think about this. One of the most (I do not think that anybody would disagree
with me) important bodies in the federal government is the senate. There is not one black
senator and it does not concern many folks, no big thing. I think that part of what has
happened in this country is that we just have turned our heads away now. I look at all of
the major talk shows like CNN and The Today Show and Good Morning, America, and
all that. I do not see any diverse group of people discussing issues. For the most part, 1
have never really seen any serious black journalists or anybody on discussing any issues;
so, it is becoming a very narrow dialogue, a very closed kind of community. Finally,
about the importance of the vote, a democracy is not just about the vote. It is about
informed citizens organizing themselves and engaging in relentless participation in
struggle to make the country a democracy. So, I think we have to keep that part in mind.
Lastly, I want to thank you for listening to me tonight. I want to say that in these sort of
talks, I wonder about them later because I know that part of what I got to say is not meant
to bring any peace, no feel good. I think that as an individual I hate to be the bringer of
bad ___
; I really do. I would rather for everybody to say, boy, that Dr. Morris is a real
cool guy. I love him, but I know I have a higher calling as an academic and as somebody
who studies these things. If I said anything to spur you all to think deep about, even if
you completely disagree with me, even if you read the data that I have tried to talk to you
about differently, I only ask please let us think about what is happening in America
today. Thank you.
34
�
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Morris, Aldon D., 1949-
Civil rights movements--Southern states--History--20th century
Alabama (Ala.)
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Civil rights demonstrations
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Text
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
UAH - University of Alabama in Huntsville
Turmoil in Tuskegee
Speaker: Frank Toland
Let me point out to you that this series has been possible only because of the generous
contributions of the following: The Alabama Humanities Foundation State Program; The
National Endowment for the Humanities; Mevatec Corporation; DESE Research, Inc;
Representative Laura Hall; and Senator Hank Sanford. At A&M, the Office of the
President; the Office of the Provost; State Archives and Research Center and Museum;
Title III; The Office of Student Development; The Honor Center of Sociology and Social
Work, History and Political Science; and also at the Telecommunications and Distance
Leaming Center have also been wonderful in taping all of our sessions for us. They have
done a wonderful job.
We are grateful to them for that. At UAH, the Office of the
President; the Office of the Provost; the Bankhead Foundation to the History Forum and
to the Department of History; Social Issues Symposium; the Department of Sociology;
the Office of Multicultural Affairs; Division of Continuing Education; The Humanities
Center; The Honors Program; The Office of Student Affairs and the Copy Center. I
would now like to turn things over to Ms. Barbara Wright who is a graduate student in
History here at UAH, past president of Phi Alpha Beta, currently assistant to the editor of
the Oral History Review. She will introduce our speaker for this evening.
Introduction: In his long and distinguished career Frank J. Toland has served his
community in many ways, as an educator, a social and political activist, a historian, a
scholar, a folklorist, a writer and a poet. He began his career studying English, History
and Political Science at South Carolina State College. Mr. Toland received his MA in
�The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
UAH - University of Alabama in Huntsville
History from the University of Pennsylvania, completing advanced study at both Temple
University and the University of Minnesota. As an educator, Mr. Toland joined the
faculty of Tuskegee University in 1949.
During his tenure at Tuskegee he was
instrumental in developing the History Major program, the College of Arts and Sciences
and the Black Studies Program. Mr. Toland served Tuskegee as chairman of the History
Department for over twenty-seven years and as Director of the Black Studies Program
from 1968 until 1984.
Widely recognized as an expert in African-American and
Southern History and a humanities scholar, Mr. Toland has been invited to speak at
colleges and universities worldwide. He has served as a scholar and lecturer for the
Alabama Humanities Foundation since 1983 and is a member of the Speakers Board for
•
extending the humanities to the public since 1990. The topic of his lectures have
included: Black Wings, the American Black in Aviation; Utopia in American Life and
Literature; African-Americans and the War Experience; The Harlem Renaissance
Revisited; Tuskegee Airmen and the Civil Rights Movement; and the African-American
Religious Experience. As a politician and activist, Mr. Toland became the first AfricanAmerican to serve as mayor pro tern of Tuskegee, a position he held from 1968 until
1972. He also served as chairman of the Tuskegee Utilities Board, as coordinator of the
Tuskegee Model Cities Program.
himself to community service.
For over two decades Mr. Toland has dedicated
His membership and activities include the Alabama
League of Municipalities, the State Committee for the Study of Alabama State
Administration, the National Security Forum, and the State Registrar's Advisory Board,
to which he was nominated by Governor Guy Hunt. Mr. Toland is here tonight to speak
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to us about the turmoil in Tuskegee during the civil rights movement. Please join me in
giving a warm welcome to Mr. Frank J. Toland.
Frank Toland: Thank you very much platform associates and I've got to mention my
good brother there, Dr. D. Williams, who has been so kind to me over the years in
inviting me different places, especially here at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. I
was surprised at some of those things that were said that I had done. The fact that I
couldn't decide what it was I wanted to major in at college, so I ended up majoring in all
three was because I was an intellectual nomad. I wandered from one area to the other. In
listening to the introduction, you have concluded that I am still something of an
intellectual nomad. I thought I was going to be a constitutional scholar when I went to
work at Tuskegee Institute only to discover that they never had a course in Constitutional
History and I was invited to develop one as long as I taught those courses in World
Civilization which were expected of me. What I discovered is what you discover at a
small school is that you become a generalist and not a specialist and that the generalists
are those persons who learn less and less by going more and specialists are those persons
who learn more and more by less and less.
Tonight, I have outlined some material, but don't be alarmed. I will be selective
in presenting it to you. The journey, my journey in civil rights, began as I turned thirteen
years of age in South Carolina. I had been hearing and had almost made me believe that I
remembered it, that the Ku Klux Klan had visited my grandmother and my paralyzed
grandfather before I was four years old. They were looking for a young black man whom
they wanted to teach a lesson and my grandmother may have saved a brutal beating or a
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lynching because she recognized the voice of one of the Klansmen and in her bravery as
the daughter of a white man she snatched his hood and then shamed him. I understand
that it was a traumatic experience for me and that I kept hanging onto my grandmother's
leg over the years until she finally sent me off to elementary school. That got rid of that.
I have witnessed violence in my life and I have had these threats made upon me many
times. The Klan was looking for our leader's home in Tuskegee, CG Gomillion's home.
We lived on the same street, both on the right side of the street. The street that we lived
on had become overgrown at the end with trees so that you could not get all the way out
to Highway 80. So, the Klan came in with this cross about three feet high, intending to
bum it on Gomillion's lawn on the right side, but I was the secondary target in case they
didn't get it burned at Gomillion's house. They forgot that if you go down and it's on the
right and when you come out it's on the left, so they burned the cross at a house that
looked like the one I lived in. It was a dear, sweet old lady and she knew the cross was
intended for me and she never had another civil thing to say to me the rest of her life.
They had frightened her terribly and it was indeed my fault and I tried to reconcile but
without success.
I got involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee because of an incident
at the courtroom at the courthouse in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was over my efforts to get
my wife a driver's license. After three trips there, the patrolman, each time he'd get
almost to us, whites would come in at the last minute and he always gave them
preference so that blacks were continuously returning to try to get those licenses. One of
the persons there already had a pilot's license. Her husband you may have heard about,
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Tuskegee airman, Colonel Herbert Carter, retired, and she never knew until a few months
ago that I was the one who caused her such a delay in getting her license because the
patrolman thought that she was my wife and he wanted to teach me a lesson. The lesson
that stuck was that he threatened to blow my guts out for interfering with the way that he
performed his job and I was nervous about it, but I put up a bold front and I said to him,
"I own property in this state, I help to pay your salary." That was not a good thing to say.
I got involved in the movement and we had three different organizations and they were
interlocking directories, meaning that officers in one served on boards for the other and
the other. The three organizations included the NAACP. In the NAACP, all of our
committees were called action committees (political action, education action). All were
action committees because we were raising money expecting to secure our rights through
the court system but in 1955 we appeared in court in Montgomery before Judge Walter B.
Jones, and Judge Walter B. Jones had written an article that was widely circulated. He
did columns for the Montgomery Advertiser periodically and he had written a column
that said, and circulated even in the northern area. It said, "I speak for the white man" so
when R. Carter of the NAACP office showed up to defend us and the NAACP, he asked
Judge Jones to excuse himself because of his prior expressed prejudices against blacks.
He refused to do so. He took a break and he walked up and down in the hall smoking,
then came back in and he pulled the decision out of his inside coat pocket. He had
already written his decision. "The NAACP was a foreign corporation doing business in
Alabama without paying Alabama taxes," and so what we did, the regional office of the
NAACP was in Birmingham, so during the course of the night we loaded those materials
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and transported them to Atlanta, that's how the office ended up in Atlanta, but for all of
the rest of the years since 1955 until after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the NAACP
could not operate in Alabama.
The second organization was the Tuskegee Civic Association.
This is the
organization that led the successful movement for Civil Rights in Macon County. That
group had started as a men's discussion group in the 1920' s. It became a men's meeting
group in 1938 and became the Tuskegee Civic Association in 1941. As the Tuskegee
Civic Association, we accepted membership from women, but women were treated kind
of like second-class citizens. The men paid one dollar a year for membership dues. The
thought was that women didn't have a dollar that they wanted to spare, so women were
charged fifty cents a year until Beulah Johnson got up in one of the meetings and
indicated that we needed to examine what we were doing because we were talking about
an egalitarian society and we were treating our own wives as unequal. We responded by
charging her a dollar and immediately we collected fifty cents more and then after that
women paid the dollar. I mention Beulah Johnson because when we were having our
difficulties locating the registrar's office, Beulah Johnson happened to go into City Bank
and she noticed people going in and out of the vault and she just went back there and saw
that the Board of Registrars was meeting at the City Bank and not at the courthouse and
Beulah Johnson caught one of them and pulled him out and told him, "You go where the
law requires you to be, and that is in the room set aside for registration in the
courthouse," and Beulah got away with it.
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The next organization was the Macon County Democratic Club. What we did
there was do candidate analysis and make political endorsements, but we never endorsed
any candidate until the night before the voting, and then we roamed around the county in
meetings around the county, indicating the candidate that we would support. The reason
we did that was because we didn't want the white candidate to be able to say who was
getting the Negro vote so we kept them in the dark. One year it worked very well. The
sheriff, Patty Evans, was perhaps one of the meanest people that God put in Macon
County and we got him. We forced him into a runoff because he missed winning a
majority by one vote and they checked all they could but he still didn't have it and so at
the runoff election we supported Hornsby for the sheriff. Hornsby sneaked into black
meetings and Hornsby always took his hat off in the presence of black women. We
didn't get much promise out of Hornsby but Hornsby was the best thing we had going for
us. With Hornsby, we heard him address our women properly. He promised us that ifwe
worked with him to make him sheriff that neither he nor any of his deputies would ever
hit another Negro with a club or not with a club. So, on that basis, we made him sheriff.
Then, we made him probate judge and we discouraged any blacks from running against
Hornsby until Hornsby reached the age of 70 and couldn't run any more and now
Hornsby is dead. But Hornsby was one of the best white persons to happen to us during
that period of turmoil in Tuskegee.
The Tuskegee Civic Association would put its primary emphasis on securing for
blacks the right to vote and the right to register unhindered. If you had any contact with
the registration application of the late 1940's and the early 1950's, that application was
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some three to five legal size paper and it was deliberately designed to confuse people
who were trying to register. At one point on the application it asked for your place of
birth and several lines below that it asked how long have you been a citizen of Alabama?
Invariably, persons who were born in Alabama would subtract twenty-one years,
believing that you only became a citizen when you achieved the right to vote. We had
application after application rejected on those excuses. When I did my application to
register the person who was the chairman of the Board of Registrars in Peck County had
a tenth grade education, not that there was anything wrong with a tenth grade education,
but he was trying to take me over an oath which he had not been taught to read himself
and every time he made a mistake with the oath, I corrected him. So I never became fully
sworn in as a registered voter. I just became a registered voter. They decided, "That's
enough, we'll let you know in a week if you are qualified to vote in the state." But they
took my discharge to prove that I was a veteran. I couldn't sleep that night for fear they
had destroyed my discharge. I went back the next morning and they had already decided
to register me because someone had said to them, "I think he is a lawyer for the
NAACP," and so I was registered, I suppose, under false profession.
Some of the things that they did (not only was the application confusing) ... We
had application completion schools where we taught blacks how to do applications, but
how would you like to have thrown at you questions like this. These were for black
people; it was approved by the Alabama Supreme Court. They used it and finally in 1994
the Alabama Supreme Court approved these kinds of questions to be asked of persons
trying to get registered, but the court was careful to point out that it was an attempt to
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restrict the number of unqualified Negroes. The questions were like this: How many
persons were in South Carolina's first congress; how many persons were needed to have
a representative in the first congress; if the president appointed someone to a position that
needed the approval of congress, what were the limitations. I wouldn't let him ask me
those questions. What I said to him was, 'Tve got some that I'd like to ask you because
I'm trained in constitutional history and if you will answer one for me I think I can
handle some of these." He didn't because he couldn't. No one could answer them.
Let me move to our work in registration and voting, beginning with 1957. In
1955, the NAACP was forced out of the state and an engineering firm was brought in
from Birmingham, Denning and Associates. We were told in the black community that
Denning and Associates were there to serve the black neighborhood so they could
provide us with water, sanitary sewers, streetlights and paved streets. We cooperated
with Denning. We helped him do his job only to discover that it was false pretense. What
Denning was doing was surveying the city of Tuskegee in order to gerrymander the city
of Tuskegee. A few of you have this gerrymander map. The city was squared off and
rectangled off. When Denning got through with it, eliminating some three thousand black
people from the population of the City of Tuskegee, about four hundred of these black
people were registered voters when we didn't have much more than about four hundred
and twenty voters. We have counted the size of this monstrosity and we can't agree
whether it's twenty-six sided or twenty-nine sided, so those of you who have the maps
you can try counting them and see what it shapes up to be. For example, one of the main
streets was Fonsill Street and blacks lived on one side of the street and whites on the
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other. So the city limits went right down the middle of Fonsill Street, but they couldn't
get all of the black people out of Fonsill Street out of the city because on one end of
Fonsill Street there were several black owned properties, so they didn't zigzag it in, they
just went straight down the middle. They gerrymandered us out of the city. I was one of
those gerrymandered out. When we got news of it through an introduction by Senator
Sam Englehart into the Alabama senate, then we got the word and we appealed to the
whites in the town. We appealed by newspaper advertisements to other legislators that
they not pass this gerrymander bill and we didn't stop it. We could not stop it being
passed by the Alabama legislature. What they were going to do, they said, was to "end
forever this agitation by Negroes to try to take over our town and our county." The bill
was allowed to become law in Governor Fulton's administration. He did not sign it.
Then, the second bill that Englehart introduced (he was on a roll) a bill to abolish Macon
County and to divide Macon County among the five surrounding counties and this bill
passed, authorizing a constitutional amendment.
We again appealed that this not be
allowed to happen and Englehart's committee said that they would have hearings on it.
Our organization asked to be represented at the hearings. We did not know as we took
our little group down to Montgomery that Sam Englehart would dictate that only one
Negro could be heard. So, the rest of us cooled our heels out in the hall and our leader,
CG Gomillion, whom some of you have seen on film, was a mild mannered man. CG
Gomillion was allowed to represent the Negroes in Macon County except that they would
not allow him to be seated in the presence of the white inquisitors and he took it for the
good of the order. What we decided to do was to mount a campaign, making speeches in
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the counties that were supposed to get a piece of Macon County. We scared those other
counties off because all of us who were doing speaking came from Tuskegee Institute,
that hot bed of radicalism, and what the decision was by these counties was that they
wanted their piece of the action, but they did not want Tuskegee Institute and the
Veteran's Administration Hospital. We thought we'd tweak them a little bit and start
investigating how Tuskegee Institute and the VA Hospital could be incorporated as a
separate, black governed city and that's when the law was explained to us that we could
not have a separate city because we would be within the police jurisdiction of an existing
city. We never intended to do that anyhow, but that kind of tactic had worked for me
when I was in the movement in South Carolina, where you start rumors among the white
people of the worse kind and then expect them in fear to spread the rumors for you. It
had worked before and that time it worked again. We did get one white group to oppose
the abolition of the county. It was the Macon County Bar Association but for fear of
white reaction against them, they made it clear that they only opposed the abolition of the
county at the present time. We mounted what we called a crusade for a city democracy
and we revived a campaign that had been tried in the l 940's, a campaign of trade with
your friends, and so we put out handbills and the like, Trading With Your Friends, urging
black people to trade only with those white people who would support our constitutional
rights. A white retaliatory group then came out with its campaign urging white people
not to hire Negroes and to fire the Negroes they already had. Well, it was like the same
thing they tried to do in Montgomery in the bus boycott. It didn't work in Montgomery
and it didn't work in Tuskegee, but it worked for black folk because our pressure on the
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economic system forced the closure of over twenty businesses. We drove them out of
town. We were so successful with that that when the whites tried to come into Macon
County at the old Tuskegee Army Air Base, I was in Minnesota so I was sent on a
mission by the group to this firm they were courting in Minnesota to establish a plant in
Macon County and I single handedly nipped that one in the bud when I started talking
about the kind of reaction that we were going to produce in the nation among the black
population not to buy anything that they manufactured at any plant in Tuskegee. I know
somebody will say you cost black people jobs, maybe so and maybe not. What we were
trying to do was prove to whites that we were an integral part of the society and an
integral part of the economy and that without us it would flounder. After all, blacks in
Macon County constituted 84.6 percent of the population. We turned to the courts and in
our case, there's a book on it by Bernard Taper. In our court action, in Gomillion versus
Lightfoot, we filed suit over the gerrymander, over the redefinition of the boundaries.
Judge Johnson, who would later render some fairly good decisions on our behalf, decided
that he had no jurisdiction in the matter regarding the gerrymander of the city so we kept
pushing and on November 14, 1960 we lost in the district court. We lost in the appellate
court and we won in the Supreme Court. Another case that we brought was to secure an
improvement of our registration possibilities. We tried to appeal and to quote the liberals
in congress, including a personal visit that I had with Senator Humphrey and what I was
trying to explain to him on behalf of my group, that there was a clause in the 14th
Amendment which had never been enforced. It's that clause that provides that if any
group of people were denied the right to vote that that state would proportionately lose
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representation in the House of Representatives.
If you look at it, it has never been
enforced. What Senator Humphrey and others said was that that wasn't the way that we
needed to go. We needed to keep pressing to force the southern states to live up to the
constitutional requirements of both the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment. The
th
15 Amendment does not grant the right to vote, but it protects the right to vote from
discrimination in the application of a state's voting laws. We were able to finally get the
Civil Rights Commission in December of 1958 to come into Tuskegee and examine our
situation there and the commission did hold hearings in Montgomery and brought in
black witnesses on this. It was a good move. John Doy le of the Attorney General's
office would come in and help us in a voting rights case in 1959. One of the things that
the Tuskegee Civic Association had going for it was that we had some good record
keepers and so when the Board of Registrars would come into session it would hurry to
register all whites and then they would cease to function. The law required that two be
present before registration could take place and so ultimately one would come in, then the
next time another one would come in, but they would not two of them, so that we could
get blacks registered to vote. Every week we would draw up a list of twelve qualified
blacks and mail that list by registered letter to the three persons who had charge in the
state of appointing the boards of registrars so that when the Justice Department came in
we had records of all of this and when the Justice Department tried to get the registration
records they had to go to Judge Johnson's court to get an order forcing the registrars to
open their books, to open those registration books from 1950 to 1960. It was while we
were examining the applications of whites that we discovered how little prepared some of
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those applications had been and yet those persons had been registered to vote. In my
participation in research, I guess I've seen enough bad writing as a teacher so that
immediately one of the applications caught my eye because everything on it was filled
out in the same handwriting, including the signature, and over on the edge there was a
tiny X. The person who had been registered was an illiterate white woman out of
Notasulga, Alabama. So that helped to make our case.
The trial on the voting rights issue was held m Opelika, you had these state
lawyers profiling and stancing because the thought they had the right judge, and they did
have the right judge until we got them before the Supreme Court and then they had the
wrong judge there. We had our lawyer put this lady on the stand, and then the bombshell.
"You're under oath. Is this your signature?" The lawyer for the state said, Judge, "She
doesn't have to answer that." We persisted and the judge said that she must answer. We
went a step further. We handed her a pen and asked her to sign, and she couldn't. She
said, "You all are just trying to shame me, embarrass me," and I momentarily had this
twinge of pity that anybody that would abuse a female in that fashion, using her and then
trying to put her in further danger of legal action by claiming that she indeed had
prepared this application. Well, we had our case dismissed but again, we took it to the
Appellate Court and again, we lost. We took it to the Supreme Court and again, we won.
In 1959 we seemed to have been on a roll and so two of us decided that we would
write our own voting rights bill, so we did. We wrote a voting rights bill that provided
that in those counties where the registrars were unwilling to register persons who were
qualified to vote, if they failed to perform their functions, then the registrars would be
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federal registrars. Does that sound familiar to anybody? You see, Adam Clayton Powell
put it in legal language for the House and while we told him to wait while we gathered
some support for this, Adam Clayton Powell needed a political stand so he introduced it
but he couldn't get any support for it. What pleased us was later on the Voting Rights
Act of 1965, those areas that do not perform the functions of registering qualified people
to vote, federal registrars can replace them.
So, we did have that part that was
represented. In 1959, the Alabama legislature was again attracted to our situation in
Macon County and so the Macon County representative introduced a bill, which he called
a bill to curb voter registration of the Negro. That was in 1959. Well, folk, when we first
started working this registration business the white Board of Registrars required that
every Negro applicant who was deemed to be qualified to vote must be vouched for as a
good Negro by a white registered voter. So, Gomillion was not registered to vote at first.
Gomillion was going to build a house on their street. So, Gomillion put it out for bids
and the Carter brothers in Tuskegee, a building firm, had the lowest bid and they kept
wondering, "When will he let us start?" Gomillion said to them, 'Tm going to start
building this house as soon as I become a registered voter," and they said, "If that's your
problem we'll take care of that." So, Gomillion opened another avenue to black folk.
Don't do business with white folk who won't vouch for you to vote if you're a good
Negro.
So, many white folks started vouching for too many good Negroes and the
registrars decided that now no white person could know no more than three good Negroes
in one year. We went to court again. We broke up that white voucher system so it
became possible for black folk to vouch for black folk. We vouched for black folk all
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over the place but when we were sending these names in and all, they were being rejected
and we were building a case for the Supreme Court. We knew that's where we would get
our relief. So, we did with the Justice Department. We got before the Supreme Court
because Johnson had turned us down and the Supreme Court remanded this case to
Johnson and told Judge Johnson that these Negro citizens who are as qualified as the least
qualified white voter on the list must be registered to vote, so Johnson issued the order.
But guess what? The least qualified white person on the list was an illiterate white
woman. So that opened Pandora's box by registering an illiterate white voter. That made
themselves subject if we pushed it to the registration of illiterate black voters. Now folk,
in this whole process we brought the evidence, they rejected over 170 blacks, none of
whom had less than two years of college, and the chairman of the board had a 10th grade
education when he was declaring along with his companions that these blacks were not
literate enough to vote for they had not completed a perfect application. You had to
complete a perfect application, they declared.
Now the case I talked about, the gerrymander case, this is Gomillion versus
Lightfoot and there was a book out on that case. In fact, there are four books that I can
cite to you and one I particularly think is sufficiently documented, that's the book written
by a person who served as historian of the group ahead of me, Jessie Parkhurst Guzman.
Her book, Crusade for Civic Democracy, contains a number of documents, the cases that
I have cited for you being among them. Bernard Taper, who wrote a series of articles for
the New Yorker came out with his book, Gomillion versus Lightfoot: Apartheid in
Alabama and then Charles Hamilton, a political scientist eventually at Columbia
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University and the coauthor of Black Power. If you read Black Power, some of the
material in there is material taken from the Archives of the Tuskegee Civic Association.
Another book is Robert Norrell's book, Reaping the Whirlwind. Norrell says what he has
done is to look at the Macon County situation from both the white perspective and the
African-American perspective.
We would continue this pressure to continue to get
blacks registered to vote. We would continue the pressure for legal action and at the
Supreme Court level we eventually did not lose any of the cases that we got before the
Supreme Court of the United States. We mounted this crusade for civic democracy like
that Montgomery Bus Boycott of a later time. Tuskegee, really, was more of a mother of
the Civil Rights Movement than Montgomery. It is not known that Ralph Abernathy, a
late friend of mine, and Dr. King came to Tuskegee to get ideas about how we conducted
our affairs in the Tuskegee Civic Association. In a home there on Washington Avenue, I
was talking to my good friend Ralph. We knew what King had talked about nonviolence
and I was not then nonviolent. No, I wasn't, because I had known violence several times.
A cop had threatened to kill me on 280 in Birmingham, a cop had threatened to kill me in
Macon County and a white man had gotten his gun on me in Decatur when I was trying
to buy gasoline. In instances, they said I didn't know how to talk to white folks. I had
gotten lost in Lawrence County. I was conducting citizenship and voting classes for the
Southern Branch of the National Urban League and we had a standing operating
procedure and that was if you got lost out there on those country roads and couldn't find
your way out, look for the worse house on the road and go there and get directions,
because that would be the house occupied by black folk. Well, one night I saw such a
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house and I went up on the porch. The mistake was there was a single light bulb on the
porch and that should have warned me that blacks hadn't electrified in that area, but I
knocked on the door and this white man came to the door and he said, "What you want
Negro?" I quickly made me up a name and an excuse. I told him I was an insurance man
and that I was looking for this fellow.
He said, "Nigger, there ain't no such nigger
around here." I backed off the porch because you see in those circumstances you learn
that you don't walk away, you back away, for if you walk away and you get shot, you get
shot in the back, you see, so that you have done a crime and you' re trying to get away
and you got stopped. So, I didn't get back to that area. I never completed my task either
because I rode around until I found my way out to my county and headed on home.
You know, I was saying to someone that I may be the only black person
111
Alabama who has been called a black George Wallace. It was in Lowndes County. I was
down there speaking in Hayneville, Alabama to a group of black folk I was trying to get
registered and all and a reporter/photographer for the State Sovereignty Commission was
following us around and so he showed up, camera in hand. I wasn't talking to him. I was
doing the rap, as they say, with the black folk. He turned to me and he shook his finger at
me and said that I was nothing but a black George Wallace, and I used profanity and he
left. I asked the Lord to forgive the use of those words, which I had not used in a mighty
long time.
Now for us, we elected our first blacks to office in 1964 in Macon County, two
members of the city council and one county commissioner. We had tried to elect earlier,
before we got a majority of the vote, a member of the Board of Education. We had gone
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to Notasulga and mailed the postcards there to encourage people to vote for her, Jessie
Parkhurst Guzman, author of the book I mentioned. We mailed one card back to
Tuskegee and that one card was not delivered so we knew that the postmaster
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Notasulga had destroyed the mail and we put Washington on them because we knew
what they had done. They would never do that again, but we didn't win the seat either.
In 1964, we were moving so well with elected officials that the decision was made that
we would not try to take control of the government but share the government, black and
white. A group rose up to challenge the old pioneer leaders on the grounds that we were
out of church, but we would come back and our way would prevail. The following
election, in 1968, I was elected unanimously to the city council and unanimously by the
council to be the first black mayor pro tern, and then for eight weeks I became the first
black to serve as mayor of Tuskegee without being elected. I was interim and I also
became a black judge for a day. I handled one case to save the city money. It was a case
of an alcoholic who came to town because he had been put on a bus and sent to
Tuskegee. I put him on a bus and sent him to Montgomery. Do you have questions?
Moderator: Does anyone have questions?
Q: You said that ...
A: We won the election over that candidate.
Q: Was there any specific turning point where Judge Frank Johnson sort of turned?
A: Judge Frank Johnson got his wrists slapped by the Supreme Court of the United
States when they remanded the voting rights case to him and told him to issue a ruling on
it and so we got a good ruling out of him. He is the one who carried through that the
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Board of Registrars must register all qualified Negroes who were as qualified as voters
already on the list. When the Board of Registrars received the court order permitting the
Justice Department to examine the records, they put a sign up saying that there would be
no registration because the office had been invaded by the "Injustice Department." They
resigned and we kept trying to get new registrars appointed. No white person would
accept an appointment to the Board of Registrars so we offered our own registrars to
them and Frank Johnson issued a ruling that they were to have functioning registrars. He
would send in federal registrars and so under that threat they came back and they had to
gradually register a backlog of over 170 black folk, all of whom had been qualified.
Moderator: Any more questions?
Q: (inaudible)
A: No. We always figured, you see, in these southern courts your district judges and
your appellate judges are southerners and they had to be brought around by the Supreme
Court. I would guess that no judge likes to be continuously reversed if he has aspirations
for elevation in the federal judiciary and so eventually Frank Johnson became very
favorable for us. The same thing happened in South Carolina with Judge Wright. I was
scheduled to be a litigant to desegregate the School of Law at the University of South
Carolina, I'm a South Carolina person, but I got into a fight and they tested me and
decided that I was a bit too volatile to talk about desegregating anything. And so I lost
my chance for that history.
Q: Professor Toland, could you tell us a little bit about events in Tuskegee after the Lee
versus Macon County court case desegregated the schools in Tuskegee.
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A: The Lee versus Macon case was a case that involved first of all twelve black
youngsters, I think eventually thirteen attended the school. We got Lee versus Macon,
which we financed through the Tuskegee Civic Association. We got it declared to be a
class action suit and then to make the ruling in the case applicable to other school districts
in the state if they were similarly situated and once we won the case and Judge Johnson
ordered the admission of these students, George Wallace sent in state troopers and closed
the school. So we got Judge Johnson to order the black students who would have gone to
the school placed in the white school in Notasulga and what eventually happened to
Tuskegee school is that arson destroyed the building where the classes were held that had
the black student center. It was done at night. Blacks were not there. Judge Johnson
ordered those students displaced in Tuskegee to be bused to Notasulga, the school there,
and of course a year later all of the whites pulled out of the school and you were
operating a school for twelve or thirteen black youngsters.
After they burned the
building, these kids had no school. They had to be put in a school in Notasulga. Maybe
it was a good thing because the school burned in those areas and we got instant urban
renewal on the school because under court order they had to provide a school and so they
built a new facility at the place where they had burned it down. But the cross burnings
were at work in the county. Several whites that cautioned that we should make an effort
to heal the community found some properties of theirs burned. We had two blacks, who
were businessmen, and their businesses were burned to the ground. One of them was a
shopping center owned by a black family and they burned that. The other was a store
across from campus. You see the vacant spot there. That's where another school used to
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stand. It was during the boycott years and we were not trading downtown. We were
trading with these grocers, so they burned them out and we had to trade in Auburn and in
Montgomery. We were running transfers of people into Auburn and into Montgomery to
trade. Tragedy would befall one of the students who was involved in that desegregation.
He never quite recovered when all of the accolade died down.
One thing that
desegregating school situations developed was that we made heroes out of these persons.
They were ordinary people and we made heroes out of them. We paraded them around,
elevated them to programs and all, what you have done to serve your black community
and all, and it was a little bit too much for them. One day, there was a student of mine in
Bible study, and he would come up with things out of his reading. He was reading stuff
about how you reduce the pressure on population by wars to kill some of the people off
and so he bought into it and he killed himself. He reduced the pressure on the population
by committing suicide. This was the only tragedy. I offered our daughters as one of the
persons and my wife said to me, "I'm sacrificing a husband.
I will not sacrifice a
daughter." She was sacrificing a husband because I got these threats and when I would
come home at night, since my house fronted a well traveled street, I would have to drive
into the back of my house and go underneath the house and wait until traffic died down
and then come up the back way into my house. After dark, I could not use my living
room because the house had been shot into and there was fear that if I used my living
room after dark I could get shot. I couldn't take a gun because I couldn't get a permit.
And besides, if I had a permit I wouldn't know who was threatening me anyway, and so I
survived it.
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Q: Can I ask you to comment a little bit more about the question answered earlier, the
challenge of young people to Mr. Gomillion? Who exactly were the young people and
might you also comment about the changing student body at Tuskegee, the impact of
SNCC, for example. Where does Macon County stand today in reference to the struggles
and the hopes that you had 34 years ago?
A: Some of these persons had come in from the outside to work among the youth there in
Tuskegee. They had been caught up in Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panther
movement. They came into Tuskegee with a source of money, for one thing, and the
students were there and they believed that the students were ready to be radicalized and
so they worked in that direction with the students. We had some demonstrations on
campus. We had growing out of that students to rampage in the hall of the main camps
building, and I was in there when they were rampaging but when I started out knowing
what they were doing I decided to spend the night in my office. I never went back to that
office at night again. What they did was they cut the fire hoses and turned on all of the
water and locked the front door of the building, wouldn't let faculty out. They locked the
trustees up in Dorothy Hall, they had food fights all over the place and somebody called
the state troopers to come in to quell the disturbance there at Dorothy Hall. So, the
movement for the young people turned a little bit away from Dr. King. King was not the
hero to some of these students, Malcolm X was.
Q: What about your reflections on where you are now in reference to your struggle?
A: I tell you, with our students now, I really wish they were a bit more proactive. I wish
they thought of something other than their own SUV's and their walkie-talkies and that
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sort of thing. I really wish they would be more proactive. They're just not interested.
We have a few students that I talk to because they don't study enough to logically
analyze anything. Some of them study in one direction. I love sweet potatoes, but I don't
want sweet potatoes three times a day. Some of them are reading the same stuff, you see,
so they are not giving any kind of variety to their learning experiences.
Q: You mentioned a very lengthy process for these legal appeals, which I imagine took a
great deal of effort and time. Please elaborate on the support. Did the NAACP help in
this?
A: When we brought the Justice Department in, the Justice Department paid for those
cases. Where we had our own attorneys and the attorneys of the NAACP, the NAACP
financed the case where the NAACP was thrown out of state. The NAACP financed that
case, but people were generous in their giving to the Tuskegee Civic Association. During
the course of what we called the crusades, when we had weekly meetings, we had built
twelve collection boxes (twelve locked collection boxes). Every week people would put
money through the slot in the collection box and then we would go back to the office,
unlock the boxes, count the money and bank the money, so that we were able to finance
Lee versus Macon, for example, from our own resources. We instituted what we called a
life membership.
It was a cheap life membership because you could become a life
member for $25.00 and a lot of people joined life membership and put their kids in. I
ended up with five life memberships. I wanted my kids to get off on the right track.
Q: I want to ask a question about the VA Hospital ..... .
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A: The test of Tuskegee Civic Association was a nonpartisan organization, and then
persons from the Veterans Administration Hospital could work in the units of Tuskegee
Civic Association.
Remember, for the NAACP we called them action committees,
political action, education and that sort of thing; but when the NAACP was forced out of
the state we concentrated the work of the NAACP into the Tuskegee Civic Association.
We called the Civic Association's committees education committees so that the persons
who worked at the Veteran's Administration Hospital could be active in the group. Now,
we had teachers in the movement. Alabama legislature passed a law removing the
teachers from Macon County from the tenure track. When they did that, what we did was
move all teachers out of leadership positions in the Tuskegee Civic Association so that
they would not lose their tenure or their retirement. We adjusted to that. The NAACP on
campus, we called it the student forum and then we did the same thing we were doing
when it was the NAACP, except we called it education. We did the same thing with the
Tuskegee Civic Association. We now doubled our responsibilities because we took on
the work of the NAACP. Someone had asked me earlier about Lee versus Macon.
Anthony Lee, I think, was born to do what he did. His father was Detroit Lee, who was a
pioneer in the Tuskegee Civic Association and then he decided to run for probate judge in
the democratic primary and I warned him that he would violate the Hatch Act by doing
so, but Detroit Lee had challenged many things before and this time he challenged the
Hatch Act and lost. He lost the election and he lost his job.
Closing: We are going to have refreshments in a minute or two and I remind you that our
next session is two weeks from tonight.
25
�
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Digitized transcription of VHS tape of "Turmoil in Tuskegee".
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Frank Toland is the speaker in this lecture given at University of Alabama in Huntsville.
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University of Alabama in Huntsville
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2001-11-15
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2000-2009
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Toland, Frank, 1920-2010
Civil rights movements--Southern states--History--20th century
Tuskegee (Ala.)
Macon County (Ala.)
Segregation
African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc.
Civil rights demonstrations
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<a href="http://libarchstor.uah.edu:8081/repositories/2/archival_objects/392">Turmoil in Tuskegee - Speaker: Frank Toland - Transcription of Tape 10, 2003 Box 1, File 11</a>
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Text
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
Alabama A&M University
Selma to Montgomery, 1965
Speakers: John Lewis, Mary Stanton
I am Douglas Turner, a professor of Political Science here at Alabama A&M
University. I'd like to welcome you to what has been a unique, informative, and often
moving series of lectures and panel discussions. This series, the Civil Rights Movement
in Alabama 1954 through 1965 is a joint endeavor between Alabama A&M University
and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. In my opinion, this series has been highly
successful and is a testament to what can be accomplished when people of good will
come together and earnestly attempt to build bridges that bring together communities that
often view each other with ambivalence, to say the least.
Of course tonight's program, Selma to Montgomery 1965, looks at the events
surrounding the confrontation that has come to be known as "Bloody Sunday," in which
hundreds of non-violent protesters led by of course John Lewis among others and Jose
Williams, who attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama and were
met by Alabama state troopers who kicked and clubbed marchers, severely injuring
many. Congressman Lewis, himself, was struck in the head and knocked unconscious in
that particular incident. The event was captured on film and of course garnered a great
deal of publicity for the movement. This publicity as a subsequent march between Selma
and Montgomery would prompt President Lyndon Johnson to push for the Voting Rights
Act which congress passed on August 6, 1965. Also, let me mention that next week's
program, "Turmoil in Tuskegee" will take place at Roberts Recital Hall on the campus of
�The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
Alabama A&M University
UAH at 7 pm. The featured lecturer will be Frank Toland of the Department of History
ofTuskeegee University. Let me also mention tonight, that the last two lectures
November 29 and December 4th will both be held here on the campus of Alabama A&M
University. We will be moving back to the multi-purpose room in the new School of
Business for those last two lectures; of course, they do began at 7 pm.
Now, of course the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama lecture series has been a
success in part due to the efforts of those committee members who initiated and
formulated the series and the many sponsors who have contributed financially to make
this ground breaking series a reality. Members of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
planning committee include members both from the University of Alabama in Huntsville
and Alabama A&M University which include Dr. Mitch Berbrier of UAH, Dr. John
Dimmock of UAH, Dr. Jack Ellis of UAH, Dr. James Johnson of AAMU, Professor
Carolyn Parker of AAMU and Dr. Lee Williams of UAH. Funding for the series has
been provided by the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National
Endowment for the Humanities; Also, Senator Hank Sanders, the Huntsville Times,
DESE Research, Incorporated, Alabama Representative Laura Hall. Also, the Alabama
A&M University sponsorship has come from the Office of the President, the Office of the
Provost,
the
State Black Archives Research
Center and Museum,
Title III
Telecommunications and Distance Learning Center, the Office of Student Development,
the Honor Center of Sociology and Social Work, History and Political Science.
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From the University of Alabama in Huntsville, support has been forthcoming
from the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost, the History Forum, the
Bankhead Foundation, Sociology and Social Issues Symposium, the Humanities Center,
the Division of Continuing Education, the Honors Program, the Office of Multi-cultural
Affairs and the Office of Student Affairs, and also the UAH Copy Center. We also,
would like to recognize other distinguished guests and visitors in the audience tonight, we
acknowledge you.
The introduction of tonight's speaker, Mrs. Mary Stanton, who is a free lance
writer and director of Human Resources for Riverside Church in New York City and U.S.
Congressman John Lewis, Representative from the 5th district in Georgia.
The
introduction of tonight's speaker will be provided by Alabama State representative Laura
Hall of Huntsville, Alabama. Do your Honors.
Introduction: Thank you, good evening. I want to say a special thank you to the
members of the committee for Alabama A&M and the University of Alabama in
Huntsville for providing this opportunity for us to reflect and for giving those of us who
did not have an opportunity to live during this time an opportunity to hear about the
experiences of the Civil Rights Movement. I will provide for you the introduction for
Mrs. Mary Stanton. I don't believe we give enough credit to writers. We take it for
granted that the printed word appears on pages for our consumption and hardly appreciate
the hours of research and talent involved in writing. Mrs. Mary Stanton our speaker, is a
writer to whom we owe special honor. She practiced her profession from a foundation of
education. Holding a MA degree in English literature qualifies here to teach English at
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the University of Idaho at Moscow, the College of St. Elizabeth in Morristown, New
Jersey, and the writing program at Rutgers University, and this is only her secondary
career. She has the most productive career in human resources. Her experiences in
human resources surely give her the special insight into her writing career. I want you to
know that Ms. Mary Stanton is the author of, From Selma to Sorrow: the Life and Death
of Viola Liuzza. Published in 1998, her depiction of how this Detroit housewife came to
be murdered during the 1965 Voting Rights March is essential to our understanding of
the sacrifices made by people who care. This book was nominated for the National Book
Award and the Pulitzer Prize. It has been ____
optioned by the Columbia Tri-Star
pictures, and we should see this new movie soon. A documentary film about the Life of
Viola Liuzzo is about to be completed. We will watch also for Mrs. Stanton's new book,
"Mississippi or Bus," the 1963 freedom walk that tells the story of five interracial
attempts to deliver a message of tolerance to Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett. One
man was murdered on this march. More than one hundred were jailed and ten spent a
month on death row at Kilby State Prison.
dedication to writing.
Ms. Mary Stanton, thank you for your
We are truly honored and we benefit from the toils and your
talents that you will share also with us today. Ladies and Gentleman, let us welcome Ms.
Mary Stanton with a warm round of applause.
Mary Stanton: Thank you very much. Good evening everybody. I want to thank you. I
want to especially thank Dr. Williams and Dr. Dimmock for your kind invitation to
Huntsville, my first trip down to Alabama. I feel very privileged to be apart of this forum
tonight to share some insight about the Alabama of some forty years ago. When I asked
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Dr. Williams what he'd like me to talk about, he suggested that I tackle, and I'm gonna
quote right now, "the interconnections of law enforcement officials with the intra and
interstate police officers, the Klan and the FBI to subvert the movement in Alabama.
That's a mouth full isn't it? At first, I looked at that and I said, "well that's a pretty
thankless task", but it really is a very important part of what happened here forty years
ago, and it certainly is a important part of Viola Liuzzo's story. What we know is that the
Alabama Civil Right's Movement was all about power.
Power.
Who had it? Who
intended to keep it? Who wasn't going to get any? Yes, it was also about injustice and
segregation and economics, but day to day it was really about maintaining the status quo,
and that depended on maintaining segregation through intimidation, because there were
many more powerless black people than more powerful white ones. Now, two very
effective ways of sustaining segregation were number one, to keep the electives white, so
that the segregationists couldn't get voted out of office. And number two, to keep the
juries white, so those violent racists wouldn't get convicted of their crimes against blacks
and against race mixture. Now, in order to maintain this southern way of life, people
were forced to operate outside the law. Remember, there were less than two thousand
Klansmen in the whole state, which is less than one percent of the whole population.
Now, the Klan was successful because they were federal, state and local law enforcement
officers who were members and supporters. The very people responsible for enforcing
the law were undermining it, and permitting the Klan to operate really like a terrorist
shadow government. Case and point Governor George Wallace refused to intervene.
Ace Carter, who was his special assistant, was an outspoken white supremacist. He
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headed an organization called the Official Klu Klux Klan of the Confederacy. And then
there were the sheriffs O'Connor and Jim Clark who all actually encouraged to defy the
law.
So, what does all of this have to do with Viola Liuzzo? I'd like to tell you about
that. In the time that we have together tonight I'd like to talk about three things. Number
one, who Viola Liuzzo was. Number two, why she was murdered, and finally, what does
her experience tell us about the breakdown of the rule of law, not only in Alabama but
through a network of defiance that stretched from Selma, up to Detroit and across to
Washington, D.C. back in 1965. Now, if Viola Liuzzo was here tonight among us, and
we were to ask, "Who are you?" She might say, 'Tm Penny, Tony, Tommy and Sally's
mother." Or, she might say, 'Tm Jim Liuzzo's wife." After she took a breath she might
add, 'Tm also a medical technologist, I'm a part-time college student, I belong to the
PTA, the Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish and I volunteer for the March of Dimes."
Listening to Viola describe her life, you'd be hard pressed to figure how she ever became
the most controversial of the American civil rights martyrs, and the only white woman
who is honored at the National Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery.
So, how did it happen? The story very briefly is this. On March 25, 1965, Viola
and a young black man, whose name was Leroy Moton, drove from Selma to
Montgomery that night the voting march ended. They were picking up some marchers
who needed a ride. The march had drawn twenty five thousand people to Alabama's
capital city. Four Klansmen followed Viola and Moton on Highway 80 for twenty miles,
and then they pulled up along side her car and fired out the side window. Viola was
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killed instantly, and Moton who was covered with her blood escaped by pretending to be
dead when the Klansmen came back to check their work.
The thirty-nine-year-old
Detroit housewife and nineteen-year-old Selma short order cook had been deliberately
chosen by the Klansmen because they represented every thing that the segregationists
most hated and feared, a white female, outside agitator driving after dark with a local
black activist sitting in the front seat of her car. Because one of the Klansmen was a paid
FBI informant, Viola lost her life in more ways than one. In order to deflect attention
from the FBI' s carelessness in permitting a violent racist to work undercover the night of
that march, J. Edgar Hoover personally crafted a malicious public campaign portraying
Viola as an unstable woman who had abandoned her family to stir up trouble in the south.
The implication was that she got exactly what she deserved.
Years of unrelenting
accusations and outright lies nearly destroyed her husband and her five children. Until
the family got her files through the Freedom of Information Act, nearly fifteen years atier
their mother's murder, they didn't know that the ugly slander about her had originated in
the offices of our own justice department.
Well, this is a very sad story you might say, and yes it's tragic, and yes J. Edgar
Hoover was a monster, but if this was a random slaying or even if it was a symbolic
killing, what is it that we can learn from it? Well, it's this. J. Edgar Hoover may have
molded a very sinister image of Viola Liuzzo, but in 1965 a majority of white Americans
believed it. Why? Well, nice middle aged, working class white American women didn't
go to college. They didn't champion civil rights or travel by themselves. Those things
wouldn't enhance a white woman's reputation on a good day, but even a reputation
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tongued by the FBI couldn't alter the fact that Viola was useless as a symbol of the Civil
Rights Movement. Her age, her gender, her background, her class, her education, they
were all wrong. Yet, ironically the Klansmen chose her as a target precisely because her
death would send a message, send a very clear message that northern whites and southern
blacks could understand. Come south and get involved with the Freedom Movement at
your own risk.
Like the international terrorists that we face today, the Klansmen knew how to
manipulate symbolism. Bin Laden chose the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, not
because they are the tallest or the most beautiful buildings in America, but because they
represent something very fundamental about our society. Symbolism stirs our deepest
consciousness, and it has the power to terrify as well as to inspire. Andrew Goodman,
Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, the three young men murdered during the Freedom
Summer of 1964, also became symbols. To white liberals, they were appropriate civil
rights leaders. They were young. One was a white activist, college student and another
one was a selfless, white social worker.
The other was a black community worker
fighting for the freedom of his people. These were very positive symbols. Viola was too
old, too pushy, too independent, and she trampled on too many social norms. In 1965,
Viola had volunteered to advance the social movement that the majority of white
Americans felt was already moving too fast.
Her activism couldn't be ascribed to
youthful idealism. It threatened the family and most importantly, the protective status of
women. White American women couldn't afford to make Viola a hero. To do that
would be to invite disturbing questions about their own lives. The Goodman, Schwerner
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and Chaney families worked hard to insure that their sons would be remembered. All
these families had supported their civil rights activism, while violist husband Jim, had
been very ambivalent about his wife's participation. After Viola's murder, Jim found
himself continually defending her reputation, refuting these vicious rumors that were
swirling around her, and trying to protect their children. Two days after her funeral, a
cross was burned on his lawn in Detroit.
Jim had little time or energy or even
opportunity to worry about his wife's immortality. Viola's children were taunted by their
classmates, shunned by their neighbors and shamed by the cloud of suspicion that hung
over their mother's activism. America fussed about her and budged about her for a few
days and then promptly forgot all about her. The consensus was there was something just
not right about this woman.
Okay, so now that we know who she was, and why she was murdered, let's look
to that last question. What does her experience tell us about the break down of the rule of
law, not only in Alabama, but also through a network of defiance that stretched from
Selma, to Detroit, to Washington? The answers are contained in something called the
Lane report. When I discovered this report in the course of my research, the nicest thing
I can say about it is that it absolutely chilled me to the bone. I want to share some of that
with you. On May 11,1965, Walter Rugaber, a Detroit free-press reporter, called Jim
Liuzzo to alert him that a confidential report about his wife written by Marvin G. Lane,
police commissioner of Warren, Michigan and former chief of detectives of the Detroit
Police Department had been sent to Selma Sheriff Jim Clark, in April. Early in May,
Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton was seen passing copies of this report to newsmen
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covering the Wilkins trial. Wilkins was one of the murderers of Liuzzo. Rugaber told
Jim Liuzzo that the free press would be breaking the story on May 12. Jim was livid. He
wanted to know why Commissioner Lane was investigating his murdered wife. Jim was
so upset that he called the Detroit FBI office. Lane's jurisdiction was listed in suburban
Warren, Jim told the agent. Liuzzo's never lived in Warren. They had never received so
much as a parking ticket in Warren. And no one from the Warren Police Department had
ever questioned Jim about his personal affairs. Who authorized the Lane report? Police
commissioner
Ray Girardin vehemently denied that his department's
criminal
intelligence bureau had any part in compiling it. Commissioner Lane refused to name the
sources, insisting that confidential reports were routine. Lane said he often supplied
other police departments' confidential reports and he received them in return. This was,
despite the fact that it was highly irregular to prepare a detailed personal history on a
murder victim, after the suspects have been apprehended. Commissioner Lane's note to
Sheriff Clark was written on City of Warren Police stationery. He clearly stated that on
March 26, one day after the murder, the criminal intelligence bureau began an
investigation on the background of Viola Liuzzo.
Lane went on to request Sheriff
Clark's assistance. We would like Wayne Rhode, if it is at all possible to detern1ine the
method of transportation of Selma by Mrs. Liuzzo, and who may have accompanied her.
The Detroit Free Press posts three critical questions; What business of Lane's was it to
compile a report from Mrs. Liuzzo since she was not a Warren resident?
By what
distorted judgment did Lane decide such a report was any business of Sheriff Clark's
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since the murder did not take place in Dallas County but in Lowden. What authority did
Lane ask Sheriff Clark to determine the method of transportation she took, and who went
with her? On May 14, Walter Rugaber reported that virtually every detail of Lane's
confidential report was smuggled out of the file of the Detroit Police Department.
Rugaber even identified the file as number 1782, which contained material gathered both
by the Detroit police and by the FBI. Chief of Detectives, Vincent Persanti admitted it
was an obvious conclusion that Lane's information had come from the Detroit Criminal
Intelligence Bureau.
On May 17, inspector Earl Miller, Director of the Criminal
Intelligence Bureau admitted to finding his ex-boss Marvin Lane with the file. Former
Sinclair county Sheriff Ferris Lucas, who was serving as Executive Director of the
National Sheriffs Association in Washington, admitted that he had encouraged Sheriff
Jim Clark to ask Lane for the information. Commissioner Girardin relieved the inspector
of his duties saying, "his motives were right, his judgment perhaps wasn't."
Chief
Persanti explained the Liuzza funeral was going to be here in Detroit, and we wanted to
know what sorts of security arrangements were anticipated? Demonstrations and counter
demonstrations were anticipated and we were just trying to prepare ourselves.
Commissioner Girardin was then called before the City Council to explain why inspector
Miller would assume that Lane, who no longer worked for the police had a right to look
at confidential information.
You must remember, that Lane is a retired chief of
detectives, he says, "If he asks to check a record, he would get cooperation."
assured that council that he would meet personally with Jim Liuzzo.
Girardin
He said, "He
wanted to spare the Liuzza children from embarrassment." That quotation was picked up
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by the Detroit Free Press and subsequently hit the wire services. Jim went wild. When
he couldn't reach Girardin by phone, he dashed off a telegram demanding to know what
the commissioner meant by such a statement. Distortions, half-truths, and outright lies
were being circulated about his wife. Aspirations were being cast on her sanity, her
morality, and her sense of responsibility in going to Selma.
Girardin's statements said
that ora of mystery surrounding the Lane report, his posture with the council only
encouraged further conjecture. Bits and pieces of Viola Liuzzo's history were being
taken out of context, and distorted beyond recognition. The Jackson Mississippi daily
news was reporting that Mrs. Liuzzo had a police file four pages long. Now, I think
we've come to the crux of what Dr. Williams was talking about and what was really
going on here. The FBI' s need to defame Viola in order to cover its own tracks is
understandable, if not a forgivable motive, as is the precious desire for a good story. The
connection between the Selma police, the Detroit police and the Klan is however, much
more ominous.
Detroit was one of America's most racially troubled cities in 1965.
Relations between the white police department and the black community were as angry
and violent as any in Blackbelt, Alabama. In 1925, the Detroit police department had
recruited officers from the Deep South and many of them, their sons, their nephews, their
brothers and their cousins remained on the force forty years later.
Members of the
Detroit and Selma police forces reach down empathically to one another. Many on both
sides believed that a white woman who would leave her family to go off on a freedom
march, live with blacks, ride in cars with black men, and advocate for their rights was, if
not crazy, at least a trader to her race and therefore very likely immoral. Now, the Lane
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report ultimately achieved it's purpose, public sympathy was withdrawn from the Liuzzo
family almost immediately, her murderers were set free, and her image as a spoiled
neurotic housewife abandoning her family to run off on a freedom march began to stick.
I could tell you that it made other northern white middle age white women think about
taking a stand on civil rights. It frightened them off, just as Viola's murderers had
intended to frighten off activists who were considering coming south to work for the
movement. An editorial in the Detroit Free Press on May 13th tried to set the record
straight. The Lane report is inaccurate, the editor wrote, "It is derogatory, and totally
uncalled for." It makes insinuations, which are not supported by the facts, and dwells on
irrelevant and unfavorable minutia, not only about Liuzzo but also about her whole
family. What Lane ignored was that Mrs. Liuzzo was not accused of any crime. Her
murder was not the result of any provocation on her part.
She was involved in no
ballroom brawl, and she had broken no law. Viola Liuzzo's story, like so many other
stories of the !960's, causes us and cautions us to be careful and to stay alert. The
American electorates are no longer all white.
Juries are no longer all white, but
intimidation and manipulation continue. Spend and character assassination continues.
The power of symbolism to help and to hurt is as strong today as it ever was. Viola
Liuzzo's reminds us that the fight for justice is everybody's business, and no one, no
private citizen, no law enforcement official ought to be permitted to shame or to terrify
anyone into backing away from a lawful position of conscience. I remember when I was
a little girl growing up in Queens, New York and I got into to squabbles with some of the
neighborhood kids, and the kids would often say to each other, "Don't you tell me to shut
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up, this is a free country!" That's the message. The philosopher Plato probably said it
best when he observed at 400 B.C. that, "The punishment which the wise suffer will
refuse to take part in government, is to live under the government of worse men." Let us
remember that.
It was something the Alabama Civil Rights activists believed was
important enough to risk their lives for. Thank You.
Introduction: On February 21, 1940 in Troy, Alabama a little baby boy was born. With
nine siblings, he worked on his family's farm picking cotton, gathering peanuts and
pulling corn. Many times they had to work on the farms rather than attend their local
segregated schools in Pike County, Alabama.
Who would have seen an U.S.
Congressman in that little boy by the name of John Lewis? Who would have guessed
that this little boy would devote his life to the beloved community? Who would have
known this little boy would play his role in history? Who would have guessed this little
boy who devoted his life to the beloved community where all people of all races, religion
and ethnicity, would share basic human rights? Who could have foreseen his fellow
congressman asking him to tell them what is was like to have been in the action of the
Civil Rights Movement?
As a young student at Fisk University, John Lewis organized sit in's and nonviolent process. In 1961, he was one of the first freedom riders on the Greyhound buses
in Washington D.C., then down through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and his native, Alabama. It was 1963; John Lewis was
only twenty-three-years-old and a chairman of the student non-violent coordinating
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committee, which placed him in the national spotlight with the "Big Six": Martin Luther
King Jr., A. Phillip Randolph, Whitney Young, James Farmer, and Roy Wilkins. They
met with John F. Kennedy to plan the upcoming march on Washington.
John's
controversial speech at the National Mall placed him into the forefront and into the
national spotlight. Gaining national attention by showing political power in numbers was
a successful goal that summer in 1964. John Lewis was there to help organize voters
registration drives and community action programs for the Mississippi freedom summer.
Challenging Mississippi's long standing Democratic Party of segregationists while
democrats fought for seats at the upcoming national convention was a radical step. John
Lewis was there. It was back home in Alabama for John Lewis on March 7, 1965. Arm
and arm with the non-violence intended, they marched six hundred strong across the
Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. Suddenly, the clubs and the kicks of Alabama State
Troopers turned their peaceful march into "Bloody Sunday." A violent blow struck John
on the head, knocking him unconscious.
This incident propelled President Lyndon
Johnson to work harder for the Voting Rights Act which congress passed on August 6,
1965. Well, a knock on the head didn't stop John Lewis. He became Director of the
Voter Education Project, which would add four million minorities to the voter role. In
I 977, President Jimmy Carter named him the Directorship of Action with more than two
hundred fifty thousand volunteers. In 1980, he became Community Affairs Director of
the National Consumer Co-op Bank in Atlanta. After serving on the City Council John
Lewis was elected to represent Georgia's 5th Congressional District in November of
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1986. He is currently serving his 8th congressional term, and guess what ladies and
gentleman; he runs unopposed. In the 107th Congress, John is a committee member of
the Ways and Means where he serves on the sub-committee on health and oversight. He
is a Chief Deputy Democratic Whip sense 1991. He served on the Democratic Steering
Committee as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and a congressional
committee to support writers and journalists. He is also the Co-chair of the Faith and
Politics Institute.
Now I ask you, what crystal ball could have forecast that we here today would be
eagerly waiting to hear this hard working, farmer's son, this courageous student, this
national leader, this trench worker for voter registration, this Edmund Pettus Bridge
peaceful warrior, and this distinguished Congressman John Lewis? Congressman Lewis.
John Lewis: Thank you very much, Representative, for those kind words of introduction.
Let me just say to members of the planning committee, to each and every one of you
participating in this event, for inviting me to be here, the representatives of University of
Alabama in Huntsville, and Alabama A&M University, I'm delighted and very pleased to
be here. It is good to be here with Mary Stanton telling the history of Viola Liuzzo.
Thank you, Mary. Thank You. You heard in the introduction, and I want to be brief. 1
didn't grow up in a big city like Decatur. I didn't grow up in a big city like Troy, Selma,
Montgomery, Birmingham, Bradford, Atmore, or Florence. I grew up fifty miles from
Montgomery, in this little town called Troy. My father, as Representative Hall told you
was a sharecropper, a tenant farmer. Back in 1944, when I was four years old, and I do
remember when I was four, My father had saved three hundred dollars and with the three
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hundred dollars he bought one hundred ten acres of land. That's a lot of land for three
hundred dollars. As a matter of fact, my eighty-seven- year old mother is still living on
this farm that my father bought in 1944 for three hundred dollars. On this farm, there
was a lot of cotton, corn, peanuts, hogs, cows, and chickens. Now, Mary has heard me
tell this story and Don Calloway, who is the Executive President of the student body here
at A&M with a intern in my office this pass summer, he heard it probably more than you
care to hear. Right Don? But, I tell this story just to put it into the proper perspective
about the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama and our journey from Selma to
Montgomery in 1965. Assuming you come to Washington and visit my office, the first
thing the staff will offer you will be a Coca-Cola, because Atlanta happens to be the
home of the Coca-Cola bottling company. And Coca-Cola provides all members of the
Georgia Congressional Delegation with an adequate supply of Coca-Cola products to be
made available to our visitors. The next thing the staff will offer you, will be some
peanuts. I ate so many peanuts when I was growing up outside of Troy, that I don't want
to see anymore peanuts. Sometimes when I would get on the flight to fly from Atlanta to
Washington or from Washington back to Atlanta, the flight attendant would try to push
some peanuts on me and I would just say, "No, no peanuts!" The Georgia peanut people
provide us with peanuts and I don't want any of you to come to Georgia and say that John
Lewis was talking about the peanuts okay? Don't say anything, but if you are from there
we will offer you some peanuts. Also, on this farm, we raised a lot of chickens and as
young black boy growing up on this farm it was my responsibility to care for the
chickens. I fell in love with raising chickens like no one else could raise chickens. It was
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my calling; it was my mission; it was my sense of obligation and responsibility to care for
those chickens. Now, I know that at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and
Alabama A&M, you are very smart.
They have wonderful professors, wonderful
administrators and smart students, but you don't know anything about raising chickens. I
know you don't. Let me tell you what I had to as young black boy growing up in rural
Pike County, Alabama in the l 940's and l 950's. You take a fresh egg, mark them with a
pencil, place them under the sitting hen and wait for three long weeks for the little chicks
to hatch.
Now, some of you are smart in computer science and math, history and
literature, but you don't know anything about raising chickens. I know you are very
smart being here in this community with tons of technologies, but you don't know
anything about raising chickens, but you' re saying why do you mark those fresh eggs
with a pencil before you place them under the sitting hen? Well, from time to time
another hen will get on the same nest, and there would be some more eggs. You have to
be able to tell the first eggs from the eggs that we already under the sitting hen. Do you
follow me? You don't follow me. When these little chicks would hatch, I would fool
these sitting hens; I would cheat on these sitting hens. I would take these little chicks and
give them to another hen. I'd put them in a box with a lantern, and raise them on their
own. I'd get some more fresh eggs and mark them with a pencil, place them under the
sitting hen, encourage the sitting hen to sit in the nest for another three weeks. I kept on
cheating on these sitting hens in order to get some more little chicks. When I looked
back on it was not the right thing to do. It was not the moral thing to do. It was not the
most loving thing to do. It was not the most non-violent thing to do, but I kept on
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cheating on these sitting hens and fooling these sitting hens. I was never quite able to
save $18.98 to order the most inexpensive hatcher incubator from the Sears & Roebuck
store in Atlanta. We use to get the Sears & Roebuck catalog. Some of you may be old
enough to remember that big book, thick catalog, we called it the wish book. I wish I had
this, I wish I had that. So, I just kept on cheating on the sitting hens. As a young boy, I
wanted to be a minister. So, when I was about 7-½ or 8 years old, one of my uncles had
Santa Clause bring me a Bible. I learned to read the bible, then I started preaching and
teaching; from time to time, we would church. With the help of my sisters, brothers and
first cousins, we would gather all of our chickens together, like you are gathered here in
this hall tonight. The chickens along with my sisters, brothers and my first cousins would
make up the congregation.
I would start speaking, a preacher, and as I started the
chickens would become very quiet. As a matter of fact some of these chickens would
bow their head. Some of them would shake their head. But when I look back on it, they
never quite said Amen. I am convinced that the regular majority of these chickens that I
preached to in the 1940's and in the l 950's tended to listen to me better than some of my
colleagues listen to me today in the Congress and some of these chickens were a little
more productive.
At least, they produced eggs. But growing up there in rural Pike
County, outside of Troy ... When we would visit the little town of Troy, or visit
Montgomery, or visit Tuskegee, or visit Union Springs, I saw those signs that said,
"White men, colored men, white women, colored waiting." I saw signs that said white
waiting, colored waiting. As a young child, I tasted the bitter fruits of racism and
segregation and racial discrimination.
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In 1955, at the age of fifteen in the tenth grade, I heard of Rosa Parks; I heard of
Martin Luther King Jr. In 1956, at the age of sixteen, a group of us went down to the
Pike County Public Library in downtown Troy, trying to check some books out, trying to
get a library card. We were told by the librarian that the library was for white only, and
not for colored. I went back to the Pike County Public Library on July 5' 1998 for a book
signing and hundreds of white and black citizens came out. As a matter of fact they gave
me a library card, so it says something about the distance that we've come and the
progress that was made in laying down the burden of race. I don't want to digress too
much, but I was telling Jim and his wife that when we were driving in from the airport
that when I finished high school in May of 1957, I wanted to study at Troy State College.
I sent my High school transcript, filed my application, and I never heard a word from the
college, only ten miles from my home. I wrote a letter to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I
didn't tell my mother, didn't tell my father or any of my sisters and brothers that I had
sent a letter to Dr. King telling him about my desire to attend Troy State College, better
known now as Troy State University. In the meantime, my mother was working at a
baptist orphan home, white, Alabama southern baptist orphan home, in addition to her
work on the farm. She came across a little paper about a black school, supported by the
southern baptist white and nation baptist black in Nashville for black students, students
who studied and worked their way through school. I applied to go there. I was accepted.
An uncle of mine gave me a hundred-dollar bill, more money than I had ever had. He
gave me a footlocker, one of these upright trunks, footlockers with the drawers, the
curtains, drapers you call it I guess. I put everything that I owned in that footlocker, my
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books, clothing, everything except those chickens and I went off to school in Nashville.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. heard that I was in Nashville and got back in touch with me.
He sent me a round trip Greyhound bus ticket and told me the next time I was in Troy for
spring break to come to see him. It was in March of 1958, by this time I was eighteen
years old, on a Saturday morning, my father drove me to the Greyhound bus station. I
boarded the bus, and traveled the fifty miles to Montgomery. A young lawyer, I'd never
seen a lawyer before, black or white by the name of Fred Grey met me at the Greyhound
bus station. Fred Grey for many years was a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement
Association for Dr. King and Rosa Parks, for those of us on the Selma March and the
Freedom Ride.
He met me and drove me to First Baptist Church in downtown
Montgomery on Ripley Street passerby Reverend Abernathy. Arriving at the steps of the
church, I was so scared and so nervous. I didn't know what I was going to say to Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. He ushered me into the pastor's study and I saw Reverend
Abernathy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. standing behind a desk. Dr. King said, "Are
you John Lewis? Are you the boy from Troy?" and I spoke up and said, " Dr. King, I am
John Robert Lewis." I gave my whole name. I didn't want there to be any mistake that I
was the right person. That was the beginning of my relationship with Martin Luther King
Jr. I continued to study in Nashville. While studying there I met individuals like Jim
Lawson, one of the leading thinkers and philosopher on the philosophy and the discipline
of non-violence, students like Diane Nash, James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette and many
other young people.
We start studying the philosophy and the discipline for non-
violence, every Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. at a Methodist church near Fisk University
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campus. In then we got involved in the sit-ins and the freedom ride. Two years later, I
became the head of the student non-violent coordinating committee in June 1963 as
Representative Hall said at the age of twenty-three.
On the freedom ride through
Alabama, we were arrested and jailed in Birmingham. Later, Bull Conner picked us up,
took us out of jail and dropped us off at the Alabama/Tennessee state line, and left us. A
car from Nashville came back in May of 1961, picked us up and took us back to
Birmingham where we were met by the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and other students.
We continued from Birmingham to Montgomery, where we were beaten at the
Greyhound bus station in Montgomery by an angry mob. We continued to Mississippi,
but we were arrested and jailed, a few ofus was in the city jail in Jackson, the county jail
in Jackson and many of us went to the state penitentiary in Parchment during the summer
of 1961. All across the south, not just in Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina or South
Carolina, but in the eleven states of the whole confederacy, from Virginia to Texas, it was
almost impossible for people of color to become participants in the democratic process to
register to vote. When I was working on my March on Washington speech for August
28, 1963, I was reading a copy of the New York Times and I saw a group of women in
Africa, black women, carrying signs saying, "One man, one vote." So in my March on
Washington speech I said something like, "One man, one vote is the African pride. It is
ours too, it must be ours," and that became the rallying cry. That became the slogan for
the student non-violent coordinating committee.
A young man by the name of Bernard Lafayette who was a student in Nashville,
had gone into Selma, Alabama in the fall of 1962. He was working with Mrs. Boynton
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. of the immediate Boynton in the Dallas County Voters League, working with several
ministers and others, trying to create a movement in Selma, around the right to vote. In
Selma in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965 only 2-4 percent of blacks of voting age were
registered to vote. At the same time, we were organizing an effort in Mississippi. There
had been sit-ins in Selma. People had gone to jail, got arrested at lunch counters and
drugstores. There had been a movement there, and we went there to help. A great deal
of our time was left in a place in Mississippi. Before we could launch the campaign in
Selma or in Mississippi, there was a terrible bombing at the sixteenth street Baptist
Church in Birmingham, Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, where four little girls
were killed. We intensified our effort in Selma, but also in Mississippi. We recruited
more than a thousand students. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, priests, ministers, rabbis, nuns
and others to come to Mississippi and work in the Freedom School. As Mary Stanton
told you, the summer night of June 21, 1964 three young men that I knew: Andy
Goodman, Michael Schwerner, white from New York and James Chaney, black from
Mississippi, went out to investigate the burning of black chnrch that stopped by the
sheriff. They were arrested and taken to jail. Later that same Sunday night of June 21,
1964 the sheriff and his deputies took these three young men from their jail cell and
turned them over to the Klan, where they were beaten, shot and killed. These three
young men didn't die in Vietnam. They didn't die in the Middle East. They didn't die in
Africa or in Eastern Europe. They didn't die in Central South America. They died right
here in our own country, for the right of all of our citizens to become participants in the
democratic process. So, when people said what they said about the election last year, and
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what happened in Florida and other places, and they tell us to get over it, we say, "We
cannot get over it." It's very hard to get over it. It's difficult for me to know that some
of our friends, some of our colleagues died for the precious rights for all of our citizens to
participate in the democratic process.
That was a serious blow to the movement, but we didn't give up. President
Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964. He won a landslide election in
November of 1964.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received a Nobel Peace Prize in
December 1964. He came back to America, met by a group of us in New York, and later
went down to Washington to the White House to have a meeting with President Johnson
and he said, "Mr. President, we need a strong voting rights act." And President Johnson
told Dr. King in so many words, "We don't have the votes in the congress to get a voting
rights act passed." A judge signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Martin Luther King Jr.
had come back to Atlanta to meet with people in FDLC, his own organization. We were
those involved in the student non-violent coordinating committee.
Then, he got an
invitation from the Dallas County Voters League in Selma, Alabama from Mrs. Boynton
and the good people in Selma, to come there and be the Emancipation Proclamation
speaker in January of 1965. Dr. King said," We will write that act, we will write it some
place." In Selma, Alabama we had a Sheriff, as the Mayor mentioned earlier by the name
of Jim Clark. Sheriff Clark was a very big man, who wore a gun on one side and a
nightstick on the other side. He carried an electric cow prodder in his hand, and he didn't
use it on cows. He wore a button on his left lapel, and that button said, "Never, never to
voter registration." Now all of you here must keep in mind that in Selma, if you go there
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now, the courthouse looks the same way it did thirty six years ago. The steps and the
rails are the same. You could only attempt to register to vote on the first and third
Monday of each month. The courthouse was the only place. And sometimes when they
knew that we were organizing the voter's registration campaign they would just close the
doors, just lock it up for the day or for the week. I will never forget when it was my day,
January 18, 1965, to lead a group of elderly black men and women to the courthouse just
to get inside the door, up the steps, get an application form and try to pass the test. You
must keep in mind, and I know that there are some historians here and professors of
political science, but it was very difficult, almost impossible for people to pass the pollliteracy test. They were asked things like; How many bubbles are in bar of soap? That
was not on the test. There were black teachers, black lawyers and black doctors told that
they could not read or write well enough, and they fought the so-called literacy test. On
January I&'\ when it was my day to lead a group of people up the steps, Sheriff Clark
met me at the top of the steps and he said, "John Lewis, you're an outside agitator. You
are the lowest form of humanity." At that time, I had all of my hair and I was a few
pounds lighter. I looked Sheriff Clark straight in the eye and I said, "Sheriff, I may be a
agitator, but I'm not an outsider. I grew up only about ninety miles from here and we're
going to stay here until these people are allowed to register to vote," and he said, "You're
under arrest." He arrested me along with a few other people. We went to jail. A few
days later Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Reverend Abernathy and others came to Selma. In
less than one week, we filled the jails of Selma, every jail, the city jail and the county jail.
They took us out on some penal farm where it looked like a place where they kept
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chickens. They put us all in there and we slept on wooden floors. Then, about three
weeks later, I believe it was the night of February 17 or the 19th in Marion, Alabama, in
Perry County, in the heart of the Blackbelt. Perry County is the home county of Mrs.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, the home county of Mrs. Ralph Abernathy,
Juanita Abernathy, and the late Mrs. Andrew Young, Jane Young; all from this county in
Alabama. There was a demonstration, a protest, for the right to vote. That night a
confrontation occurred. A young man by the name of Jimmy Lee Jackson tried to protect
his elderly grandparents and was shot in the stomach by a state trooper and a few days
later, he died at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma. Because of what happened to
him, we made a decision (the movement did) that we would march from Selma to
Montgomery. It was the idea of James Bevel that had been involved in the Nashville
incident and the Freedom Ride. A whole new staff of Dr. King suggested at one point that
maybe we should take the body of Jimmy Lee Jackson to the state capital in Alabama and
present the body to Governor Wallace. We decided that we would have an orderly
peaceful nonviolent war from Selma to Montgomery to help educate and synthesize all of
the citizens of Alabama but as a nation around the right to vote. We announced that the
march would occur on Sunday, March 7th . On Saturday, March 6th , Governor Wallace
made a statement that the march would not be allowed. On Saturday, the Governor, rather
than the sheriff from Dallas County, Sheriff Clark, requested that all white men over the
age of 21 come down to the Dallas County Court House to be deputized to become part
of the part to stop the march. There was a real debate within my organization, the student
non-violent coordinating committee. There were people saying that we should not march;
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it is too dangerous; people would get hurt. So, we went back to Atlanta, had a meeting
there in the basement of a little restaurant. We met almost all night debating whether we
should march or not. I took the position as the chair of the student non-violent
coordinating committee and said that we should march and the local people wanted to
march. The FDLC people wanted to march. I felt that I had an obligation to walk with the
people from Selma. I have been there; I got arrested with them. I felt that I should be
there. So, the SNCC executive committee voted that early that Sunday morning, about
three or four o' clock in the morning, that if I wanted to march I would march as an
individual but not as chair of the student nonviolent coordinating committee. Three of us
jumped in an old car and drove from Atlanta to Selma. We got our sleeping bags and
slept in the SNCC Freedom House on the floor until later that morning. We got up and
got dressed. We went to the Brown Chapel AME Church for the morning services. After
the services, more than six hundred of us, mostly elderly black men and women and a
few young people came out of the church near a housing project (playground area) where
we conducted a non-violent workshop, telling people to be orderly, to be quiet and to
walk in twos. We had a prayer. We lined up in twos. I was walking beside Jose Williams
from Dr. King's organization. At that time, I was wearing a backpack. I had a light trench
coat on and I was wearing a backpack before they became fashionable to wear
backpacks. In this backpack, I had two books, an apple, an orange, toothbrush and
toothpaste. I thought that we were going to be arrested and that we were going to jail. So,
I wanted to have something to read, something to eat and since I was going to be in close
quarters with my friends, colleagues and neighbors, I wanted to be able to brush my teeth.
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We started walking through the streets of Selma. No one was saying a word, so orderly,
so peaceful and so quiet on a Sunday afternoon. We got to the edge of the Edmund Pettus
Bridge, crossing the Alabama River, and Jose Williams looked down below and he saw
this water. He said, "John, can you swim." I said, "No, Jose. Can you swim?" He said,
"No. Well, there is too much water down there." I said, "We are not going to jump. We
are not going back. We are going forward." We continued to walk. We came to the apex
of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and down below we saw a sea of blue, Alabama state
troopers, and behind the state troopers, you saw Sheriff Clark's deputies; you saw men on
horseback and we walked. We came within hearing distance of the state troopers and a
man identified himself and said, "I am Major John Cloud of the Alabama State troopers.
This is an unlawful march. You will not be allowed to continue. I will give you three
minutes to disperse and return to your church." Less than a minute-and-a-half, Major
Cloud said, "Move up that van," and Jose said to me, "John, they are going to gas us."
We saw these men putting on their gas masks and they came towards us beating us with
nightsticks, tramping us with horses and releasing the tear gas. I was hit in the head by a
state trooper with a nightstick. I thought that I was going to die. I thought I saw death.
Until this day, I do not know how I made it back across that bridge, through the streets of
Selma and back to the Brown Chapel AME Church, but I do recall being back at the
church that Sunday afternoon. By this time, the church was full to capacity. More than
two thousand citizens of Selma and surrounding communities from outside were trying to
get in to protest what had happened. Someone in the median said, "John, you should say
something to the audience." I stood up and said," I do not understand it, how President
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Johnson can send troops to Vietnam but cannot send troops to Selma to protect people
who only desire is to register to vote." The next thing I know is that I had been admitted
to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma with a fractured skull. The next morning, early
that Monday (it would be March 8th) Martin Luther King, Jr., and Reverend Abernathy
came in from Atlanta. They came by to see me. Dr. King said, "Do not worry. We will
make it from Selma to Montgomery. The Voting Rights Act will be passed." He was
right. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., issued an appeal for religious leaders to come to Selma
that following Tuesday, March 9th More than a thousand white and black religious
leaders, ministers, priests, rabbis, nuns and others came to Selma and marched to the
same spot where we had been beaten two days earlier, prayed and turned back. Some of
the people in SNCC that had a poster march came and they did not like the idea that Dr.
King turned back. They went to Montgomery and started another effort organizing the
students at Alabama State and Tuskegee; a confrontation occurred there. We went into
federal court and got an injunction against Governor Wallace, Sheriff Clark and others
for interfering with the march. President Lyndon Johnson called Governor Wallace to
Washington and tried to get an assurance from him that he could protect us, as we got a
court ruling from federal district judge Frank Johnson. I do not know what the state of
Alabama would be like. I do not know what it would be like if it was not for a man like
Frank M. Johnson. I remember us going into court. The Department of Justice
subpoenaed the CBS film from that day of "Bloody Sunday." Judge Johnson viewed it.
He stood up, shook his robe, recessed the court, came back and granted us everything that
we wanted and allowed us to march in an orderly fashion all the way from Selma to
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Montgomery. Three hundred of us walked all the way. On the night of March 15, 1965,
President Lyndon Johnson spoke to a joint session of the congress and made one of the
most meaningful speeches any American president had made in modern time and the
whole question of voting rights/civil rights. He condemned the violence in Selma. He
started that speech off that night by saying, "I speak tonight for the dignity of man and for
the destiny of democracy." President Johnson went on to say, "At times, history and fate
meet in a single place in man's on end in search for freedom." It was more than a century
ago at Lexington and at Concorde. So, it was at ____
. So, it was last week in
Selma, Alabama. In his speech he said, "And we shall overcome," over and over again.
He said it with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the home of a local dentist. As we watched
and listened to Lyndon Johnson, tears came down Dr. King's face; he cried. We all cried.
He said again, "We'll make it from Selma to Montgomery," and the Voting Rights Act
was passed. We walked all the way, five days. More then twenty-five thousand people
gathered there on that day. As Mary said again, Ms. Viola Liuzzo was killed on that that
night traveling between Selma and Montgomery, and Reverend James Reed was beaten
almost to death on the night of March 91\ after ____
crossed that bridge and later
died at the local hospital in Birmingham. The congress passed the Voting Rights Act,
finally to law, and I said it might be because of what happened in Selma. Because of what
happened on the bridge, we had witnessed what I like to call a nonviolent revolution in
this region. We live in a different country. We lived in a better country and we are a
.
better people. Sometimes, I hear young people saying nothing has changed and I feel like
saying, "Come and walk in my shoes. Come and walk across that bridge. Come and sit-in
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in Nashville. Come and go on the Freedom Ride Bus. Come and be dropped off on the
Tennessee/Alabama state line by Bull Conner at four o'clock in the morning leaving you
to be ambushed." Things have changed. Today, there are hundreds and thousands of
black-elected officials like Representative Hall and others because of what happened in
Selma. So, tonight as we think and ponder Selma to Montgomery in 1965, we must not
give up. We must not give in. We must not give out. We must not get lost in a sea of
despair. We must keep the faith and keep our eyes on the prize. I was just thinking a few
days ago, since September ll
th
,
and I said it a few days after September ll
th
,
that people
may bomb our buildings, kill some of our fellow citizens, but they will never ever kill our
love for freedom, our love for democratic ideas, our love for the good society and to the
open society. Many ofus in the 1960's would be walking across that bridge, through the
sit-ins and when we went on the Freedom Ride, accepting nonviolence not as a simple
average technique or as a tactic but as a way of life and as a way of living. Selma was not
a struggle against a people; it was against custom and tradition, a system we wanted to
build and not tear down. We wanted to reconcile and not separate. We wanted to create
the beloved community, the good society. I will tell this story and I will be finished. I tell
this story in my book, Walking with the Wind. It's a true story. When I was growing up
outside of Troy, Alabama, I had an aunt by the name of Seneva and my aunt Seneva lived
in what we called a shotgun house. She didn't have a green, manicured lawn. She had a
simple, plain dirt yard and sometime at night, you could look up through the ceiling,
through the wholes in the tin roof and count the stars. When it would rain, she would get
a pail of what we called a bucket and catch the rainwater. She lived in a shotgun house.
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From time to time, she would go out into the woods and get branches from a dogwood
tree and she would make a broom. She called that broom the branch broom and she
would sweep the dirt yard clean, sometimes two and three times a week. For those who
are so young, who might not know what a shotgun house is and never seen one, was not
born in one and never lived in one, (in a nonviolent sense) a shotgun house is a old house
with a tin roof where you can bounce a ball through the front door and the ball would go
straight out the back door. In the military sense, a shotgun house would be an old house
with a tin roof where you can fire a gun through the front door and the bullet would go
straight out the back door. My aunt Seneva lived in a shotgun house. One Sunday
afternoon, a group of my sisters, brothers and a few if my first cousins, about twelve of us
young children while playing my aunt Seneva' s dirt yard, an unbelievable storm came up.
The wind started blowing. The thunder started rolling. The lightning started flashing and
the rain started beating on the tin roof of this old shotgun house. My aunt became
terrified. She thought this old house was going to blow away. She started crying. She got
us all in the inside and told us to hold hands. As little children, we did as we were told,
but we all started crying. The wind continued to blow. The thunder continued to roll. The
lightning continued to blast. In one comer of the house, it appeared to be lifting from its
foundation and my aunt had us walk to that side to try and hold the house down with our
little bodies. When the other comer appeared to be lifting, she had us walk to that corner
to try and hold down this house with our little bodies. We were little children walking
with the wind, but we never left the house. As citizens of Alabama, as citizens of the
world, as students and young people and as faculty members, the wind may blow; the
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thunder may roll; the lightning may flash and the rain might beat on our old house. Call it
the house of Huntsville. Call it the house of Alabama. Call it the house of America. Call
it the world house. We must never ever leave the house. We must become one house, one
family and one people. Just maybe, our foremothers and our forefathers all came to this
great land in different ships. We're all in the same boat now. It doesn't matter whether we
are black or white, Asian, American, Hispanic or Native American; we are one people.
As we think about Selma to Montgomery, let us continue to walk with the wind and let
the spirit of the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965 be our guide. Thank you very
much.
Douglas Turner: Alright, one again, how about another round of applause for Ms. Mary
Stanton as well. We want to take a short period here for answer and questions. I want to
mention that any of you who might have any commendations or other certificates of
recognition that you would like to present to the congressman that you can do that after
the symposium is over. We do want to open the program now for questions for either Ms.
Stanton or Congressman Lewis.
Q:
The
question
and
comment
for
both
Congressman
Lewis
and
Ms.
Stanton ... Congressman Lewis, you've spoke about the struggles that you had in the
march from Selma to Montgomery, the pain that you and others suffered. Ms. Stanton
you talked about Plato's reflection on government and participation. The suffering that
has occurred so that people, all people, have the right to participate in this democracy, yet
today eighty percent of young people and more than fifty percent of all adults, do not
bother to vote. We have moved a great deal forward, but ifwe do not exercise, all ofus,
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the right to vote and if we do not take part in our responsibilities to participate in this
democracy, we are going to move backward. How do we get pass this? How do we
reverse this at present? How do we tell people, you have to participate if you want to
keep moving forward? I sincerely believe that. I guess the question is two parts. Do you
agree with that and if so, how do we win that battle?
A: That's a good response. Mary, would you like?
A: I would prefer you.
A: I agree with you, sir. I think the greatest threat to our democratic way of life and the
greatest threat to our democracy and to whatever you want to call it is the lack of
participation and the lack of involvement. I think the day will soon come in America, if
we are not mindful, that we will no longer count the people that are voting, we will count
those who did not vote. I think it is a very dangerous trend. First of all, I think we have to
do something called campaign finance reform. We have to get.. .In the congress, there is
a group of us on both sides, both Democrats and Republicans, and the Independents that
we have among us in the house, trying to get campaign finance reform. There is too much
money. I have been in congress for my fifteenth year, serving my eighth tenth, but I have
young colleagues that come and they spend all of their time dialing for dollars. That's not
the way. When you have some one in New York spending fifty or sixty million (I don't
know how much money was spent all together) ... but to get elected. We have people
running for congress and we have someone running for mayor for Atlanta. We have to
make the airways free. It cost too much to be on television. The people have the right to
know. We have to take money out of it. It is too much money in American politics.
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Whether someone is a millionaire or whether someone is a dogcatcher, they have only
one vote. We have to change it. It is not the way to go. We have to say to our young
people and those of us not so young, if you do not vote, you really do not count. You
have to participate. We have to encourage more people to run, more women, more young
people, more minorities. Get out there and run. Don't leave it up to people. Everybody
has something to offer. Run for school board. Run for city council. Run for mayor. Run
for congress. Get out there. The more people we have participating, the better our
democracy is. It helps strengthen our democracy. We have a young lady who was just
elected mayor of the city of Atlanta. She came out of nowhere almost. She raised a lot or
money also, but she came out of nowhere.
Douglas Turner: Let me also mention that both Ms. Stanton and Congressman Lewis
have books for sale back here in the back. They will be available to sign if you have
already purchased one and you ·vant them to sign it or if you will be purchasing one.
Next question, I saw your hand back there.
Q: Congressman Lewis and Ms. Stanton, I am trying to find the difference really between
the nonviolent revolution that you were talking about because I have looked at most of
the countries who practice nonviolent revolution and they do not seem to be making any
progress. They are stagnated like we are, but Americans came with a more traditional
type of revolution and now we are the number one power in the world. It seems we all
•
will be ambulating to number one or something in that area.
Douglas Turner: So, is your question or statement is that there is a need for violence or
some kind ofrevolution.
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Q: Mary, you want to deal with that?
A: I'm not sure that I understand the question. Are you asking the value of a nonviolent
revolution?
A: Yes.
A: Well, I happen to believe in the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence and I
happen to believe also that in the long run, violence tends to create more problems than it
solves. As Americans, we've said, well Americans proceed in violence when we talk
about the American Revolution. A few days ago, I was in (inaudible) and visited those
historic places. I think humankind must evolve to a much higher level, not just Americans
but people all over this planet and all over this world. We lay down the tools and the
instruments of violence and some people would say and maybe you would say that is too
idealistic. As Dr. King would say, it is nonviolent and nonexistent. No one in the long run
wins in a war. A war is messy. It is bloody. It kills; it harms; it divides and it destroys.
We have to find a way to say no more war.
Q: Do you know who killed Dr. King? (inaudible)
A: I don't know who killed Dr. King. A colleague of mine from one of our southern
states came to me on the floor just yesterday and wanted me to meet with him and come
and visit a family who says they had some information about someone who participated
in the assassination or knew something about the assassination of Dr. King. He doesn't
know if this is legitimate or whether this is valid. I don't know. I believe until the day that
I die that it was a conspiracy to remove Dr. King from America. I do not think that any
one person acted alone. Some of the things that happened during the 1960's and what
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Mary said about the FBI, it is unbelievable. It is to think the unthinkable. We had this
whole thing going on in America during the Cold War that there was _____
_
members coming inside and we were under the Dukes of Marksville. If you saw a sign
saying white waiting and colored waiting, you did not need anyone from Marksville,
New York, Philadelphia or Washington to tell you that sign had to go. So, somehow and
some way, this mentality is creeping back into this segment of America. There has been
an attempt on the part of some of us to remove Mr. Hoover's name and have another
respected American's name put on there.
Q: Brother Lewis, it is so good to see you again. My name is James Steele. I remember
the situation quite well. I was a young student here at the college when you were beaten
on the Selma Bridge; 1954 just would not make it to Selma. Right down the street, a
young man was pastoring a church by the name of Reverend Ezekiel Bell in the l 960's. I
was with the first steering committee that launched the movement here in Huntsville.
Some of the student nonviolent coordinating persons and the Congress of Racial Equality
along with a young lawyer here at Alabama A&M by the name of Randolph Blackwell
that some of you may know of. There had not been much talk about Reverend Bell and
Blackwell, but they were spark plugs in the movement here. I started with the movement
about 1954. I don't want to tell how old, I mean how young I am Dr. Lewis, but what has
concerned me is that was a great movement. People were together. I must admit that we
had a number of people shucking and jiving in the movement back then. My question is
about 1980. What I believe is going to go down in history is the saddest part of our
history, one who kept his eye on the Civil Rights Movement and the Human Rights
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Movement in Huntsville, Alabama. I believe that I have seen more shucking and jiving
starting in the l 980's to the present time. My question is from your vanish point, do you
see that and what we may do to overcome this go with the flow, flip-flopping type
leadership that we see now across the nation. Somebody ought to stand up and tell the
truth where it relates to real freedom, justice and equality. I won't share that scripture
with you now, but it is in Isaiah 56: 10.
Douglas Turner: What is the question?
A: I am getting to that. Go ahead and answer my question. They called time on me.
A: Only thing I would say my friend is that during the days of the height of the
movement, it was my philosophy not to engage in name calling, not to put anyone down
because it was keeping with the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence. There are
roles for people to play. Everybody can go in a sit-in. Everybody can go on the Freedom
Ride. When I was a student in Nashville, there were guys who played football and they
said, "Oh, John. I can't go. If I go down, I may fight and I can do something else. Maybe,
they just did not have the courage to sit-in unless someone put a lighted cigarette out in
their hair or down their back. So, I just do not think it is in keeping with the philosophy
of nonviolence to sit in judgment on the role and the function of anyone. So, I don't want
to call anyone shucking and jiving or put someone down because they may be marching
to a different beat.
Q: I would like to know was it pure luck that Ramsey Clark with feds monitored the
Selma to Montgomery march or was that a request.
A: Was it pure luck that Ramsey Clark?
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A: Monitored the Selma to Montgomery march.
A: I do not know. I really do not. It could have been his role and maybe there was
something that he wanted to do. I have said in the past that there are such individuals in
the Kennedy/Johnson administration. There was a young man by the name of John Door
who was a Republican. He was held over from either house administration. He was a tall,
lanky guy from the Midwest. He played a major, major role and I consider some of these
individuals as sympathetic referees in the struggle for civil rights. I think you had in the
department of justice that said Edgar Hoover was this and that. There were certain
individuals. It did not matter what time of night or what time of morning. You could pick
up the telephone and call them at home instead of Ramsey, Burke or Marshall or whoever
saying this is our problem; there is a problem in Alabama or there is a problem in
Mississippi. Some of these guys would say today. Some of you may not know this. On
the Freedom Ride, there was this brave, courageous man representative by the name of
Floyd Mann, who was the public safety director for the state of Alabama during the
freedom ride. When we were being beaten by this angry mob in Montgomery, it was
Floyd Mann. This white gentleman, native of this state and from this part of Alabama,
had to leave. I think he took a job as a security person maybe for the Goodyear plant. He
stood up with a gun and he said, "There would be no killing here today. There would be
no killing here today." It was Saturday morning, May 20, I 961, at the greyhound bus
station in Montgomery and the mob dispersed. If it had not been for this man, I probably
would not be here today and others probably would not be here. I saw him for the first
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time later, in all these years, at the dedication of the Civil Rights Memorial m
Montgomery. He came up to me and I think by this time I was on the city council or
maybe in congress and he said, "John Lewis, do you remember me?" I said, "Mr. Mann, I
do remember you. Thank you for saving my life." We both started to cry. So, you had
people there.
Q: Congressman Lewis, you mentioned about the woman in Atlanta who came out of
nowhere and won governor.
A: The mayor's office.
Q: Okay, the mayor's office. Don't you think it is about time for a dark horse to come out
and run for president? When are you going to run for president?
A: Who me? No, I'm happy being the congressperson from Atlanta, Georgia.
Q: It was a pleasure hearing you speak and I had the pleasure of being in Selma at the
last election for the run off and some of the same things are going on as far as getting
people the patient register to vote. My question is this. With the incident that took place
down at Auburn University, do you think that is an isolated incident? Or is there
something that should be addressed to the governor, to the people of Alabama and to the
nation as to that incident? The other thing is that there are young people that need to take
up the struggle. Do you think that it would be befitting? In the state of Alabama and in
the United States of America, they teach history. They teach so-called American history.
Do you think they should teach civil rights and the Civil Rights Movement in the state of
Alabama and all the other states so that they will know the history of this movement
because this movement is what gave life to the whole constitution?
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A: Well, I think it is important that we tell the story. To me, I am so gratified and so
pleased to see what these two institutions are doing. I wish other institutions, not just in
Alabama, all across the south and all across the nation, would do this. It is to help
educate, to synthesize all of our people about the contribution that people made and the
changes that have occurred. I think it is a must. I think we need to be teaching the
philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence, not just when people get to college, but we
need to start teaching it in daycare, in Head Start and in first grade. We need to teach
people the way of love and it may sound strange for a politician or for people to talk
about love. We need to teach that the way of love and the way of peace is a much better
way and much more excellent way. Maybe, we would not have some of the problems that
we have. Maybe at Auburn, a group of students could start conducting nonviolent
workshops saying we just don't do this; we live in a different time; we live in a different
period. We respect diversity. We respect people. We respect the worth and dignity of
every human being. I think too many young people in our society today are growing up,
and too many of us, because of something that is happening that we have this almost
disdain for just common decency and respecting the worth of a fellow human being.
People bump into you and do not even want to say excuse me; I'm sorry. So, to be
nonviolent is not not hitting some, but it is also attitude. Words can be very violent.
Words can be very destructive. So, it is a way of love and the way of nonviolence that we
have to get over to our people. Maybe, during this time of sort of national healing, we can
sort of tum towards each other as a national community and talk about love and
nonviolence and peace in the sense of community and in the sense family. Don't be afraid
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to say it to somebody. It's nothing weak about saying to somebody, "I'm sorry I said that.
I'm sorry I did that." A lot of times, I call my colleagues and they say, "Hello, brother.
How are you?" It's not just a black brother; it's the white brother and the brown brother
who happen to be Hispanic or an Asian American brother or sister. In the congress, you
see us on the floor. We argue like cats and dogs, but I bet you one thing, when something
happens to us, we are there for each other. We are family. The same people that get up
and arguing on C-span or arguing on the floor, the next moment they are working out
together in the gym or having a meal together in the member's dining room. I wish
sometimes that the larger community could see the sense of family that we try to exercise
even in Washington even among politicians. Can I go for one other moment? We have a
group in Washington, and I am the co-chair, called Faith and Politics. I am the Democrat
co-chair. There is a young man by the name of Amo Houghton who is the Republican cochair. I am one of the poorest members of congress. This guy is one of the richest
members of congress. He is very, very ... You know Steuben Glass, CorningWare. That's
the family in upstate New York. We get together, members from Alabama, white
members from Alabama, white members from Mississippi, black members from
Mississippi, Alabama or Georgia, Hispanic members from Texas, California or Florida or
Asian American members from California. We get together in our offices, in our little
hideaways and in our homes and we have what we call a ---
on race and we talk
about it. We debate it. During the past four years, we have been taking (some of you
probably read about it) we have been taking groups of members from Washington,
starting in Birmingham to Montgomery and to Selma, over a weekend during the
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anmversary of the march across the bridge. It has been unbelievable. Some of the
members walked through Sixteenth Street Baptist Church or went to the site where Rosa
Parks was arrested or might go to the museum there or go to Birmingham and walk
through the park. They would walk across the bridge and breakdown and cry. It helps to
educate and helps to synthesize. It is making us better. We always need to reach out to
each other.
Q: Good evening, Ms. Stanton and Mr. Lewis. I would just like to thank you all on behalf
of the student body for making your appearance and sharing with us your experiences this
evening. Mr. Lewis, I would just like you to, if you could for just a moment, speak about
your current struggles with historic preservation in the African-American museums,
which we did a lot of work on this past summer. Ms. Stanton, my question was there is
no doubt to anybody in here that Viola Liuzzo was a remarkable woman and a
remarkable individual and what happened to her was disgusting and reprehensible to say
the least, but we hear about a movie, books and all these types of things. I have seen
documentaries on her and her existence. Do you believe that if Viola Liuzzo was an
African-American woman that she would be remembered today?
A: That's a good question. It's a hard one to answer because in many ways Viola Liuzzo
was not remembered. If she was an African-American woman, the obvious answer is
probably no.
A: In Washington, for the past twelve or thirteen years, I've been leading in an effort to
create a national African-American museum on the mall. As a matter of fact, I had a
meeting today with J.C. Watts, my Republican colleague from Oklahoma, who is the
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chair of the Republican conference. We had more than one hundred and thirty-five
members, cosponsors, Republicans and Democrats in the house, and thirty-two members
of the senate of cosponsor. All of the leadership on the house side and the senate side are
cosponsoring this legislation and I think one day, we will have in Washington a national
African-American museum that tells the whole story of the struggle of AfricanAmericans from the days of slavery to the present. It will happen.
Douglas Turner: I have been instructed to allow a few more questions, although time is
running out and I know our guests would like to, you know, get away and rest tonight.
Two more questions. Go ahead.
Q: (Inaudible)
Q: I am the president of 2000 Freedom Fighters out of Decatur and my question is that
we have had a hard time getting the ministers involved. I know way back when the
church was the foundation and the ministers was the backbone. So, what would you have
to say today that would encourage the ministers and the churches to get involved with the
civil rights because certainly there are so many injustices in the state of Alabama and all
over the country?
A: Well, it is a very interesting question. I do not know about how strong the AfricanAmerican churches are in the African-American community, but there was no institution
that ran parallel in the poor white communities when people were trying to organize. I
think that strength moved the movement, the incredible thrust and the power that the
church has, not only through faith but also through organizing skills training people and
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bringing people together. Maybe, you can speak to that Congressman Lewis. Is it as
strong as it was or are we losing ground?
A: I would like to think that the church in the African-American community is still
strong. From what we gather, more people in both the African-American community and
the white community are going to church. You must keep in mind that during the 1960's
and during the height of the movement, all of the ministers were not involved. All of the
churches were not involved. There were certain churches even in the city like Atlanta did
not even want Dr. King, when he left Montgomery, to come back to Atlanta. There were
churches in other parts of the south. There were certain places where the ministers were
afraid to speak out or speak up. So, you do not give up because some group is saying,
well, I cannot do this. You just keep going, four year and five there, ten there, fifty here
and one hundred there, but you be consistent, be persistent and just hang in there and do
what you can do. You are never going to have everybody. During the original Freedom
Ride, the original Freedom Ride group that left Washington, DC, on May 4, 1961, it was
only thirteen ofus, seven white and six blacks that left Washington, DC, on May 4, 1961.
Later, three hundred people got arrested and went to jail over the summer of 1961. So,
you do not have to have the whole nation or the entire community. Sometimes, there are
only a few that come together in one accord committed, dedicated, believing in an idea
and they change things. So, do not be discouraged.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Well, I would encourage people, especially young people. There is a young man who
is a history teacher out in the bay area of California and he (inaudible). He was able to get
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Alabama A&M University
the state legislature of California and others to get the necessary money, but he started off
just having a fundraiser, bringing one hundred students to Washington. They go to the
Lincoln Memorial. They listen to Dr. King's speech on an old boombox, "I have a
Dream." Then, they fly to Atlanta. Then, they travel by bus to Montgomery,
Birmingham, Selma, Little Rock and to Memphis. They go to Central High and they meet
with some of the former students of Central High. During the past four or five years, he
has brought over eleven hundred students. In some cases, there were superintendents,
parents and members of the board of education, but a whole generation of high school
students. They are black; they are white. They are Asian American. They are Hispanic
and Native American. In this state, there is so much history; it is unbelievable. I say to the
young people in Atlanta, to the students there sometimes, go and visit the King Center.
Go and visit Dr. King's grave. Go and visit Ebenezer Church. There are kids growing up
in Atlanta that have never been in the home of where Dr. King was born. So, we
encourage young people and people not so young to take advantage of this history here.
There is a lot of rich history here in this state dealing with the whole question of race and
civil rights.
Closing: We have gone over our usual time, but I think that most of you would agree that
it has been a productive and memorable evening. Once again, how about a round of
applause for Ms. Mary Stanton and Congressman Lewis. Do not forget too that next
week, the lecture series continues at UAH in Roberts Recital Hall at 7 p.m. The topic will
be "Turmoil in Tuskegee." The lecturer will be Frank Toland of the History Department
at Tuskegee University. Thanks for coming out and see you next week.
46
�
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Digitized transcription of VHS tape of "Selma to Montgomery, 1965".
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Stanton, Mary, 1946-
Civil rights movements--Southern states--History--20th century
Selma (Ala.)
Dallas County (Ala.)
Freedom Rides, 1961
African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc.
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Text
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
UAH The University of Alabama in Huntsville
"Bloody Lowndes" and the Black Panther Party
Speaker: John Hulett, Frye Gaillard
I am Sherry Marie Shuck, Assistant Professor of History at UAH. \Velcome to the
ninth installment of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, 14-week symposium
centered around a series of public lectures, panels and first-hand account of significant
events taking place in the state of Alabama. This series is held alternately at UAH and
Alabama A&M University. After three years of planning, this unique intellectual project
is a joint venture between Alabama A&M University and the University of Alabama in
Huntsville. The members of the Steering Committee in alphabetical order are: Mitch
Berbrier ofUAH, John Dimrnock ofUAH, Jack Ellis ofUAH, James Johnson of AAMU,
Carolyn Parker of AAMU and Lee Williams, II, of UAH. Throughout its work. the
planning committee has also been greatly assisted by the efforts of Joyce Maples of
UAH's University Relations.
We ask that you complete an evaluation form for this program and leave it here
on the stage or with an attendant at the exit.
This series on the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama would not have been
possible without the financial support of numerous sponsors whom the planning
committee wishes to acknowledge at this time. First and foremost is the Alabama
Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
The Huntsville Times, DESE Research Incorporated, Mevatec Corporation, Alabama
Representative Laura Hall and Senator Hank Sanders.
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Joining our efforts from Alabama A&M University is the Office of the President,
The Office of the Provost, the State Black Archives Research Center and Museum, the
Title III Telecommunications who are responsible for taping these sessions and we give a
special thanks to all of you and Distance Learning, the Office of Student Development,
the A&M Honors Center, Sociology/Social Work, Political Science and History.
At the University of Alabama in Huntsville, we greatly acknowledge funding
assistance from the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, the Humanities Center,
the Division of Continuing Education, the Department of Sociology, its Social Issues
Symposium, the Honors Program, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Student Affairs,
The Copy Center and the UAH History Forum Bankhead Foundation, which is serving as
the local host for tonight's activities; and with the kind help of Staff Assistant Beverly
Robinson, who has prepared a reception back stage immediately following tonight's
lecture to which you are all invited.
We would like to remind you that next Tuesday, November 6th , we have a special
guest lecturer, Dr. Hilliard Lackey, Professor of History at Jackson State University who
will speak on the Selma Voting Rights Campaign, which will be held in Room 111 of the
School of Business at Alabama A&M University at 7 p.m.
Next Thursday, our series will take place at the Ernest Knight Reception Center at
Alabama A&M University. Our focus will be the struggle for voting rights in Selma,
culminating in the event of March 7, 1965, known as Bloody Sunday in which state
troopers in an armed posse led by local sheriff, Jim Clark, used clubs an tear gas to beat
back peaceful marches attempting to cross Edmund Pettus Bridge on their way to
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Montgomery. Our speaker will be Congressman John Lewis of Georgia's 5th District, one
of the towering figures of the Civil Rights Movement. A native of Torre, Alabama, an
author of Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, published in 1998,
Congressman Lewis was active in the national sit-ins, the freedom rides, the Selma
movement and was at the head of the marcher's attack on Pettus. He will be joined by
New York writer Mary Stanton, author of the book From Selma to Sorrow: the Life and
Death of Viola Liuzzo, published in 1998.
Tonight, we look at events that took place not far from Selma in a Blackbelt
County, whose tradition of violence against African-Americans and Civil Rights workers
earned it the unenviable nickname of Bloody Lowndes.
Two classic examples of Lowndes County terrorism are the Klan murders on
March 25, 1965, of Mrs. Viola Liuzzo, a white Civil Rights volunteer from Michigan
along US Highway 80, followed by the shotgun slaying of Jonathan Daniels, a 26-yearold Divinity student from New Hampshire at Varner's Cash Store in Hayneville. Such
atrocities had prevented any black resident from being registered to vote for over half a
century, even though they outnumbered local whites by more than 3 to I. Blacks who
wished to register not only faced expulsion from the farms where they lived and worked
but also a constant threat of physical violence.
In a county where only 800 white men resided, Mr. John Hulett observed in 1966,
that "there are 550 of them who walk around with guns on them. They are deputies. It
might sound like a fairy tale to most people, but this is true." Mr. Hulett was at the center
of the struggle to bring change to Lowndes County and what he accomplished there had
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repercussions far beyond the Blackbelt and state of Alabama. To introduce him with our
second distinguished guest on stage tonight, prize-winning journalist, Frye Gaillard, a call
upon Ms. Erin Reed, a history graduate student at the University of Alabama in
Huntsville and president of Phi Alpha Theta, the history on a raring society ... Ms. Reed.
Introduction: In defending the cause of freedom over the past 5 decades, Mr. John
Hulett has served in many ways, from union activist and civil rights leader to county
sheriff and probate judge. In his book, Outside Agitator, John Daniel and the Civil Rights
Movement in Alabama, historian Charles W. Eagles, portrays Mr. Hulett as the leader of
the Civil Rights struggle in Lowndes County and as a "tireless, determined worker with
unusual intensity and powerful personality." Born in a tiny community of Gordonsville,
Mr. Hulett passed his formative years in rural bonds. It was here, according to Professor
Eagles, that his grandfather born in slavery had managed during his life to acquire more
than a hundred acres in addition to a gristmill, a sawmill and a cotton gin. Finishing high
school in 1946, Mr. Hulett soon left the family's farm to live in Birmingham. There, he
was hired as a foundry worker for the Birmingham Stove and Range Company. This
marked the beginning of his life as an activist, first as president of the Foundry Worker's
Union and then as a reformer seeking to improve the lives of those in Pratt City where he
lives.
By 1949, he had joined the NAACP and after it was banned he joined the
Successor Organization created by Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, known as the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights. In Birmingham, Mr. Hulett was also successful
in his attempt to register to vote.
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Returning to Lowndes County in 1959, Mr. Hulett soon emerged as the leader of
local efforts to combat the poll tax and to gain the right to register for local AfricanAmericans. This brought him into direct conflict with a white minority that dominated
that county and that for 50 years had ensured that no black person could vote or serve on
By March of 1965, only he and one other black resident had succeeded in being
registered, despite an appearance at the courthouse in Hayneville that month by Martin
Luther King, Jr., who sought unsuccessfully to register 37 local residents. In response,
Mr. Hulett help organize the Lowndes County Christian Movement for Human Rights
and served as its first president.
Passage of the Voting Rights Act in August 1965 along with presence of federal
registrars helped ensure that African-Americans would become a voting majority in
Lowndes County. In order to solidify the gains achieved by this ___
and to prevent
the local democrat party from again disenfranchising blacks by raising fees for office
seekers, Mr. Hulett was instrumental in founding an alternative party, the Lowndes
County Freedom Organization. This party was organized on April 2, 1966, with Mr.
Hulett and it took as its symbol the black panther. In Lowndes County, he explained, we
have been deprived of our rights to speak, to move and to do whatever we want to do at
all times and now we are going to start moving. On November 8 of this year, we plan to
take over the courthouse in Hayneville and whatever it takes to do it, we're going to do it.
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In 1969, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization became part of the National
Democratic Party of Alabama whose electoral victories the following year included that
of John Hulett as sheriff, the first African-American to be elected to that office there.
Tonight, Mr. Hulett will share with us memories of his life and struggle m
Lowndes County from his youth and early involvement in the Voter Registration
Campaign to the founding of the Black Panther Party, to the Selma movement and the
murders of Viola Liuzzo and John Daniels and finally to the changes that has witnessed
over the past 40 years.
Along with Mr. Hulett, we are also privileged to have as our guest on stage
tonight journalist and author Frye Gaillard. Mr. Gaillard will be interviewing Mr. Hulett.
Mr. Gaillard lives and works in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is a free-lance writer with
special interests in the culture, religion and social history of the American south. He has
written or edited 18 books touching on various aspects of this southern experience from
black and Native American history to country music and Habitat for Humanity.
Mr. Gaillard is a native of Mobile and in 1994 described his own family's history
in a book entitled, Lessons from the Big House, One Family's Passage through the
History of the South. Between 1964 and 1968, Mr. Gaillard studied at Vanderbilt
University, graduating with a major in history. After a brief ____
_ at the
Associated Press in 1972, he joined the Charlotte Observer, serving first as a staff writer,
then as editorial writer and columnist and finally as southern editor. He remained with
this newspaper until 1990 when he decided to pursue free-lance writing. During those
years, Mr. Gaillard won numerous awards for excellence in reporting including awards
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from the North Carolina Press Association and the Associated Press. Among Mr.
Gaillard's books are several that bear directly on the Civil Rights Movement, The
Greensboro for Civil Rights Pioneers, The Way We See It, documentary , photography
by the Children of Charlotte which he published with his daughter Rachel and the Dream
Long Deferred which detailed the landmark school desegregation struggle in Charlotte.
This book won the Gustavus Myers Award for writing on the subject of human rights.
At present, Mr. Gaillard is working on a book detailing the Civil Rights
Movement here in Alabama. It will be titled, Cradle of Freedom, The History of the Civil
Rights Movement in Alabama .. It is scheduled to be published by the University of
Alabama Press in 2002.
We are pleased to have both interviewer and interviewee with us this evening.
Please join me in a warm welcome.
Frye Gaillard: We are happy to be here tonight to participate in this program. I
was fortunate to be here for one of the other programs, with Diane Dash on September
13'\ two days after some fairly significant events in the world. My wife and I were
driving down and we thought there would be us and Diane Nash at the auditorium, but it
was an amazing turnout. It is a testament to the kind of interest that you have in this
community, in this subject and also to the really well planned nature of the program that
you have been fortunate to be a part of, I think. I have been asked and have worked for
the last two years researching what the University of Alabama Press is calling a popular
~
history of the Civil Rights Movement. By that, they mean they want a journalist and a
storyteller rather than a historian to write about it and to keep it short. One of things that I
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have had the privilege of doing is talking to a lot of people who were foot shoulders in
the movement, people that I have never in many cases ever heard of. I grew up in those
days in Alabama and sort of came of age with an awareness of what was going on in the
state. There are so many people who have such rich stories and one of those people are
obviously the guest of honor here tonight, John Hulett. I knew that I wanted to meet John
Hulett ever since the time in the early l 970's. I was working for the newspaper in
Charlotte and I was doing a story on the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on the
south in general and one of the places I visited was Lowndes County. I remember driving
down one of the back roads in Lowndes County and Lowndes County has a lot of back
roads. I was passing this farmhouse and there was kind of a rutted two-lane path that led
up to the farmhouse and there was a black man sitting on the porch of this farmhouse. So,
I drove up to just see what he might have to say about the Civil Rights Movement and the
impact that it had on his life. He was a little skeptical at first of this white stranger who
had driven up to his place, but we sat on the porch in these flimsy old aluminum chairs
and we talked for a while and began to connect, I think. We started to talk about the
movement and the impact that it had and I said, can you tell me what it has meant to you
that the Civil Rights Movement occurred in the south and in the state of Alabama. He
said, oh, that's an easy question to answer; the biggest difference it has made in my life is
that John Hulett is sheriff of Lowndes County and I didn't know exactly what he meant
and I said, well talk about this a little bit more. What do you mean by that? He said, let
me tell you a story and he told me the story of the night that he was on his way home; this
was a man named Ervin Henson. He told me the story of a night that he was on his way
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home and his car broke down on the side of the road. So, he had to leave it and walk and
this was not something that you wanted to happen in the pre-Civil Rights days in
Lowndes County, Alabama. He was walking by himself on the road and a car with two
deputy sheriffs passed by him. They pulled to a stop, demanded what to know what he
was doing and he just told them that he was on his way home. They got out of the car and
one of them clubbed him over the head with a nightstick. They handcuffed his hands
behind his back and pitched him bleeding and semiconscious into the trunk of the police
car. They drove around with him in the trunk of car until it was almost dawn and what
Mr. Henson said is that it does not happen any more because John Hulett is sheriff of
Lowndes County, Alabama. And the more I began to talk to people about this, the more
clear it became that there were these sort of stages that the Civil Rights Movement went
through. You had this kind of feeling of daybreak in Montgomery with the Montgomery
Bus Boycott and the sort of first time that black people in a kind of mass way took a
stand for freedom and justice and actually accomplished something and accomplished
very tangible results. Of course, you had the freedom rides where young black people and
activists served noticed that there was no place too terrifying for the movement to go and
that violence would not overcome nonviolence no matter what. You had Birmingham
with the police dogs, the fire hoses and those images that seared the conscious of people
all over the country. You had Selma and the Montgomery March that led to the most
revolutionary single change that the movement accomplished which was the right to vote
for black people everywhere. You also had these other struggles that were taking place in
Huntsville, Gadsden, Mobile, Tuskegee, Tuscaloosa and all of these other places and you
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had the struggle in the Blackbelt that John Hulett knows so well, which I think the final
movement was the victory over fear. If you were black ... and I am going to ask Judge
Hulett about this in a minute. But, if you were black in Lowndes County, Alabama, you
lived with fear every single of your life because you knew that white people, if they
chose, could do anything to you that they wanted to almost with impunity, but at least the
legal system would offer you no protection whatsoever and in fact, in most cases, was
part of the problem and this is what they changed. This is the final stage of the movement
and so that is what we will get to tonight. The format that we are going to use is one that
neither John Hulett nor I would have thought of.; I think I am safe in saying. I was doing
an interview with him in Hayneville at the courthouse and there was a professor from
Auburn who happened to be with me who was so fascinated by the answers that I was
getting to these questions that she said, you know, you guys need to do this publicly. We
need to take you to some of the schools in Alabama. So, we tried it out before a couple of
high school audiences and survived and we figured that was about as tough a crowd as
we could have and then we did it at Auburn one time too. So, we are going to try it again
tonight. Hopefully, it will work and if you have questions, feel free either to jump in or
when I finish getting us started then I will kind of open it up to the audience and you guys
can ask whatever you would like to know as well. So, I just want to say before I start
what a privilege it is for me to be here with one of the genuine heroes of this movement
that you guys have been talking about.
Q: Judge Hulett, you grew up in the Blackbelt in the 1930's and l 940's. Talk a little bit
about what it was like for black people in those days in that part of Alabama. What are
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some of your memories growing up then and do you agree with Ervin Henson and others
that it was a dangerous place to be if you were black?
A: Certainly, I do. I was born in 1927 in Gordonsville, Alabama; that's close to
______
and doing that time the entire county was farming country. Most people
who lived in that county were sharecroppers. You had to work on other folks plantation,
if you know what a sharecropper is, and when you work on peoples plantations you had
to do what they say do or you had to go or get killed or a thing of that time, but I lived in
Lowndes County and grew up there. I went to school at an all black school and finished
grammar school and high school. I came out of high school in 1946, but it was a lot filth
that went on during that time. I can remember many times, at night times, we had a
sheriff in that county, a real nice brother and he would drive by, and if you were walking
the road at night, especially a few black boys walking the road, he would catch you and
beat you. I know one friend of mine whose brother went to school with us that he beat
one night and finally he died from that beating, but nothing was done about it; I can
remember that. Plenty people he would beat. He would walk up to a place that if you had
a music box playing, he would just walk up and take his Billy stick and tear it up and start
shooting at it. He was that type of person. Oto Mural was our sheriff and he stayed in it as
long as he wanted to. When he got ready to run for probate judge, the people denied him
the opportunity to be the probate judge, but they wanted a man like that for sheriff.
Q: Now, in the those days, back in the l 930's, the Tenant Farmers Unit, came into
Lowndes County and tried to organize sharecroppers who were living in conditions not
very far removed from slavery. I remember talking to one elderly man, Mr. Charles
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Smith, who remembered that as a young man in Lowndes County we were working for
almost nothing and he talked about how they struck to try to get paid a dollar a day and
they walked out of the fields and the person who organized the strike at the Bell
plantation that he was part of was shot down by the sheriff of the overseer in cold blood.
Did you hear of those kind of stories when you were growing up? Did you hear about that
kind of thing?
A: Yes, I did. I talked to Mr. Lemon Bogen whose one of the persons who was involved.
The late Lemon Bogen, he's dead now, but he also talked about how bad it was and how
people would beat up people and shoot individuals. This was the beginning of the Civil
Rights Movement when he started telling more about most of this type stuff. He always
said when you go out on these plantations be careful cause they will kill you.
Q: So, when the Civil Rights Movement really started in Lowndes County, Alabama, it
was part of the collective memory of the people there and what could happen to people
who stood up for themselves? I mean, you knew that you were laying your life on the
line to do that?
A: This is true. I did know that.
Q: What do you think gave you the courage to do it? Was it some of the experiences that
you had at other places? I know you left Lowndes County for awhile, worked in
Birmingham, both in the Labor Movement and in the Civil Rights Movement there. Did
you learn things there that were important to you later on?
A: Yes, I did. In Birmingham I worked in Shuttersworth and the most important thing
happened was the bombing of church, Author Shows house and Athrene Lucie was trying
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to enter into the University of Alabama. So, a few of us got together and would sit guard
at Author Shows house that night.
Q: Now, he was an attorney?
A: He was an attorney who represented Athrene Lucie and I can remember one night
sitting there about 3 o' clock in the morning and a shout would come out, there's a car
driving up with no lights on it. It was a police car and see most of this stuff that went on
was done by law enforcement officers or people who they allowed to do what needed to
be done. So, when we came out with those guns in our hands. The lights came on the car
and then they said they were just checking to see how everything was. That was the
beginning of it, but when I went back to Lowndes County it was a whole different ball
game because Lowndes County was predominantly black as far as population but such a
dangerous place to be in during that time and we got back into Lowndes County. We had
a few people that tried to register to vote but was denied. There was not a single
registered voter in Lowndes County and in 1965, the first week in March, the voter
registration would be opened 2 days, the first and third week of the month. We got about
65 people to go and get registered to vote. Most of them were afraid to get out of there
car when it they got to the courthouse, but somebody had to have the courage, so I took
the leadership to walk in the courthouse and find out where to register at. The first thing l
was told by one of the registrars was that we have not permitted you all here, go down to
the old jail; that's where we going to register the people 2 weeks from now. I
immediately went to that old jail, went all through it and looked at the gallows to see
where they had been hanging people for years. You had to have that kind of nerve. Two
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weeks later, we went back to that jail and I happen to take the leadership and carry the
blind man along with me, the late Reverend Jesse Lawson. They passed two of us that
day out of about 25 or 30 people that went through it. They passed me and they passed
Reverend Lawson and you had to do answer questions on those older tests at that time.
One of the questions that they asked me I can remember, what hospital the president had
been in during that time. Now, there are no televisions, very few radios in the radio in the
neighborhood, but I did remember it was Walter Reed Hospital and I said that and they
passed me. I do not think I passed the test, seriously. They passed me to get rid of me, but
every time the voter's registration was open I was back there again until we were able to
get enough people registered to vote.
Q: You had registered to vote in Birmingham when you lived there. ls that correct?
A: This is true. I registered to vote in Birmingham.
Q: So, some of the experiences that you had in Birmingham were kind of things that you
imported back to Lowndes County?
A: That's right.
Q: I know one of the interviews that I did recently you mentioned Reverend
Shuttlesworth. He tells the story of Christmas night, 1956, right after the end of the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, and he had announced that the next day, December 26, he was
going to ride in front of the bus in Birmingham. He was lying in his bed and the
parsonage of his house and 14 sticks of dynamite went off on the comer of the house
right under the bed where he was lying. The floor collapsed and the ceiling collapsed but
fell just short of where he was. He felt himself falling through the floor to the ground,
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landed on the bed and he said later that he felt like he was landing in the arms of God and
if he had ever been afraid until then, he was never afraid again. I am guessing that kind of
example of courage inspired you to look inside yourself for the kind of courage that you
have because you had to have it in Lowndes County.
A: Yes. You had to have it in Lowndes County. I lived about almost a mile and a half off
the main. If you have ever lived in the country, you did not have cattle gaps because the
drive crossed the cattle gap. You would have to open three gates before you get my house
and that was the most fearful thing that somebody might be lying out in the weeds
waiting on you. When you open this gate, they could ambush you, but it never happened
to me. I kept God in the front and I kept doing what I needed to do to make life better for
the people in our country.
Q: One of things that happened in a lot of places during the Civil Rights Movements was
that in every case there were local people who were there to take a stand. They would
stand up for what was right, what was just and what was decent and fair, but there was
also in many cases people who came in from the outside to encourage people. I want to
talk about two of the people who came into Lowndes County. One of them was Stokeley
Carmichael and the other was Jonathan Daniels. Now, there were others too who were
every important and we have talked about them as well, but let's take those in order. Give
us your recollection of Stokely Carmichael, one of the toughest organizers in SNCC; I
think its fair to say. What was your impression of him as a person, a human being, an
organizer and a leader and how well did you get to know him?
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A: Just like a brother because he had worked around me quite a bit. I think Stokely was a
great person. He had worked in Mississippi with the movement there and when he came
into Lowndes County he knew he had an uphill journey. We worked close together and
that is why we organized the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. Every place they
would go into they was looked at by state troopers every were they went. I remember one
incident that took place. One day, there was a group of people that decided to picket in
Fort Deposit, Alabama. They arrested about 20 people in that area. Stokely was a
passenger in a car and during that same day was arrested and charged with reckless
driving as a passenger. So, you can see how bad they wanted Stokely Carmichael. He was
great person. He was a great organizer. He stayed with the people in the community and
we worked together to try to make Lowndes County better. We had organized the
Lowndes County Christian Movement for Human Rights. If you can remember the
movement in Birmingham; it was the Alabama Christian Movement. So, the day we went
over to get registered and was denied that right, Dr. King came over, but we didn't see
him, we went down that night and organized the Lowndes County Christian Movement of
Human Rights. I was chosen temporary chairman of that group until we was able to have
a mass meeting and the people decided to go ahead and keep me there, but this was the
beginning of it.
Q: Now, there were people who later came to regard Stokely Carmichael as a violent
person. Did you think of him that way?
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A: No sir. He was not a violent person. I never saw him do anything violent to anybody.
He would speak up, but he would not threaten anybody or talk about killing or all that
type stuff.
Q: And that was most emphatically your experience with him in Lowndes County.
A: This is true.
Q: Okay. Let's talk about Jonathan Daniels a little bit, a white, Episcopal seminarian who
came to Lowndes County and did not get out alive. What was your view of Jonathan
Daniels?
A: He was a great person. He was interested in what was going on. He did not try to do
anything wrong. The day that they had this picket in Fort Deposit, Alabama (that's the
largest town in the county) he joined that group without my knowledge. I was in Fort
Deposit, but I did not know he was going to be a part of that group and it was dangerous
for any white to join the black in Fort Deposit. When got there that morning in town, they
had every police officer they could get and everything, just waiting. In a moment, if they
made about IO steps, they were arrested and out in a two-cell jail with 20 something
people. They had to get a dump truck. You know what a dump truck is. The one with the
side bars on it. They put them on that dump truck and put a black police officer and
brought them in. This was when Stokely was arrested. They wanted him so bad. I am
going to be honest with you. There were two pickup trucks and everywhere they would
go, one of the trucks would get in the front. If they would make a right into them, the one
behind would get in the front and just hit breaks all of a sudden until it made them bump
them. When they bumped them, the police arrested them and put both of them in jail and
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charged them with reckless driving. I have a record of that showing that 2 people got
charged for reckless driving in the same automobile, but this was the type of situation we
lived in that day and time. There were white people that walked around with shotguns. I
can never forget that day. I went to the town hall to try to make arrangements with the
chief to try and get them out of jail. I could not get anybody to go with me, but I finally
took the same car they were driving and drove it to the town hall and waited there while
and carried another fellow. There was 14 people and I am not going to lie to you sitting
on the sidewalk with shotguns, rifles and pistols.
Q: White people?
A: White people and they all came inside when the chief of police came in. He wanted to
know what I wanted and I told him that I wanted to try to make bond to get Stokely out of
jail because I believe they would kill him there. He said no that I could not get him out of
jail he is up in Lowndes County and I can never forget the last man. A double barrel
shotgun passed by and I rolled my pistol on the floor and he almost ran over the next
man. I can remember that just like daylight today and I found out then it has to be a group
of you doing it to do it like it ought to be done. You know what I'm saying. They were
afraid themselves, but they were out there doing these types of things. Stokely stayed in
jail; that was on a Saturday. On Wednesday, I went by the jailhouse and carried food to
feed the people that they took to jail. Some of them we made bond, except for Stokely
and one or two more. On a Friday evening, I went to Montgomery and when I came back
the town was full of police officers and other white people. Black folks were afraid to
speak to me almost when I got out of the car on the comer at the intersection. I asked
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what was going on. Why were all of these people were in town? They said, they killed
those two white preachers. That's what they said. They had killed Jonathan Daniels. They
first shot and killed him and the second shot hit Father Marshall from the back and it took
12 hours to operate on him at St. Jude Hospital, but he finally lived from it. I have had
seven meetings with him since that time. This was the kind of conditions we had to live
in during that time.
Q: How were you able to persuade the average person in Lowndes County that it was
possible to change a situation that went as deeply as this one went, where white
supremacy was defended as completely by violence and any means necessary? How did
you convince people that it was possible to make a change?
A: We were meeting together in groups. We were having mass meetings and we would
speak to them from those mass meetings. He gave a lot of courage to people that they
could overcome what was going on. We would talk about what was going on. We would
go on plantations on a daily basis. I quit my job and the movement paid me. The
Lowndes County Christian Movement gave me a salary to work.
Q: How much was that?
A: My salary was 25 dollars every first Sunday; that is a month. I did not work long
hours. I just worked about 9 or IO hours a day, 6 days a week. When I went on
plantations, bosses were there. You had to have a lot of courage to stand up. I would
carry about one or two ladies around with me, most times just riding with me. I would
speak up and be straight to people. I was able to get a lot of things done when I started
doing that. People would go out and get registered. They just believed that I was doing
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the right thing. Not only me, but there were other people in the movement as well, like
the Jackson family, Mattie Lee Murrell; these were older people. They were strong. They
stood up and decided to go ahead and go out and register to vote. They wanted to change
life for their children and themselves.
Q: One of the people that I interviewed in Lowndes County was a SNCC organizer who
came in there by the name of Bob Mantz and he still lives there. I was asking him where
he found the courage to do the things that he had to do. He said it was so terrifying. There
were times when he could barely make himself do the things that he needed to do. I said,
where did you find the courage and he said it came from the people of Lowndes County.
He told me the story of going to this house where an elderly black woman, almost I 00
years old, was bedridden. She was lying in a bedroom off from the living room where he
was talking to other people in the family. He heard this frail voice saying tell that boy to
come in here; I want to talk to him. So, he went in to talk to this old lady. She looked up
at him and she pointed this bony finger at him from her bed and she said, I have been
praying that you boys would come into Lowndes County ever since I saw you march
around Mr. Lincoln's grave. Of course, what she meant was that she had seen the march
on Washington in television and had been praying that people would come into Lowndes
County and trigger a movement in Lowndes County. Bob Mantz said and what I have
heard you say as well is that the courage of average people became contagious after
awhile. People just held each other help. That is the example from you and other some
other people.
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A: This is true. At the same time, there were people who worked on the plantation. If you
were hoeing, you made 25 cents a day and if you were on ____
you got 50 cents a
day. We started telling people to go to Montgomery and get jobs and start making life
better for them. So, that gave them a lot of courage to come out and do what needed to be
done. That made a difference. I want to say one other thing. When Stokely got arrested in
Prattville I was suppose to have gone over with him, but I had another speaking
engagement with a group of folks in my county. He got arrested the next morning. A
young lady called me, a school teacher named Ms. Darby Henson. She said, come ride
over to Prattville with me. When I got over there, Stokely was in jail. I drove up to the
chief of police and asked him could I walk down the hill to one of the Civil Rights
workers; they are in a housing house. He said, go ahead but do not stay long. I walked
just a short distance and when I looked out of the window he had a carbine rifle punching
her in the car, and that was the most hurting thing I have ever seen in my life. So, I came
back out. They had the National Guards. State troopers were over there. When I came
back out, the punch did not hit me, but they punched after me until I got to the car. I got
in the back seat of the car on the passenger's right side. The same person opened the car
door and punched me in the face. Ifl had not snatched by head, I would have broken my
jawbone. I made up my mind. I am going to say this because I am serious about it; I was
going to get him if I had to burn his house down, his wife and children. Let me be serious
with you. I went home that night and prayed about it. It looked like the Lord just came to
me like daylight and said do not do that; that is not the way to do it. I did not do it. I
prayed about it and things changed for us. Sometimes, you cannot take on violence
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because you believe you ought to do something. You cannot make a fast decision, just
pray about it, but I was punched in the face. A few months later I had a gun in the
_____
. I went to Montgomery to get the gun out the shop. I had to go up to a
lawyer's office. I got on the elevator. Now, I do not even know the man because I never
seen him before who punched me in the face. So, when I got on that elevator, he was on
that elevator and he came off running like a ____
. The people over there were
saying what is going on. I said, do not worry about it' everything is okay. I am not going
to bother him. When you treat people wrong, it will come back to you. The next time I
got a chance to see him was at the University of Alabama. Everybody was introducing
themselves. I was just elected sheriff. When it got around to him, he was sitting across
the big conference table and he gave his name in front of me, but he never was able to
come back and say I am sorry and that is a bad thing. When you do wrong, you ought to
do it. While I am telling it, I want to tell this incident. In 1983, in the line of duty, I got
shot in the back by a black man who was on drugs.
Q: You were sheriff?
A: I was sheriff. One of my deputies reached to shoot him closer than this gentleman
over here. I told him not to shoot him. If he was shooting to kill that man and made a
mistake and killed somebody else, he would have done more harm than it helped good.
After he went to the penitentiary and stayed awhile, I never signed papers to keep him in,
I met him one morning after he had gotten out and we out our arms around each one other
and forgot about everything. A few months later, I married him to a girl from Pratt,
Alabama. I think this is the type of life you have to kill. I think about Jesus Christ, who
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died on the cross for our sins. If we are going to hold things against one another the rest
of our lives, white or black, we are wrong. There was an elder man who was part of our
movement by the name of Mr. Calan Hayes. We would call him CC Hayes. He always
said, John whatever you all do, do not try to do evil for evil to people, not even to us. He
passed away a few months ago, but I thank God for that type of thing. We have tried to
live right.
Q: Let's talk about this whole idea of the changes in Lowndes County and the whole idea
of forgiveness and fairness once those changes happened, two questions about that. First
of all, in 1966, you ran for sheriff for the first time under the banner of what some people
called the Black Panther Party. Now, that was not literally the name of the party, but the
emblem of the party was the black panther. Talk about the symbolism of that party, why
you ran under that banner and then we will move on to the next question which has to do
with when you were elected in 1970.
A: Let me say this, I did not run. I was head of the Lowndes County Christian Movement
and in 1966 when we got ready to run candidates the Democratic Party, if you can
remember, had over the banner white supremacy for the _____
. There was a 50
dollar fee to qualify for sheriff. When we got ready to run, a black man Sidney Logan, Jr.,
they went to 500 dollars. So, we immediately decided to organize the Lowndes County
Freedom Organization and we had to have a symbol, like the rooster was for the
Democratic Party or the elephant was for the Republican Party. We organized the
Lowndes County Freedom Organization and we had to come up with a symbol. We kind
of kicked names around and we came up with the black panther. The reason why we did
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this is because the black panther is not a violent animal but when you push it to a corner,
it will come out and do whatever it has to do. If you lived in Lowndes County, you better
had something to let folks know you were serious about it. So, we chose that black
panther for the party. We lost the election in 1966 and something happened to us. If you
can remember, in California, there was a group who was in Lowndes County doing the
election in 1966.
Q: Huey Newton and some others?
A: Huey Newton. They went back to California and got their guns and things.
They would get in their cars and follow a policeman around and one of them finally
killed a police officer according the records. Because of that, we just decided that the
emblem of the black panther was not the best thing for Lowndes County people. We did
not want anyone to get hurt in Lowndes County because of what they were doing in
California. Dr. Jordan Cassius, from Huntsville, Alabama, came down to Lowndes
County and Green County and we got together and organized the NOP A and used the
eagle for our symbol and nobody said a word about that. Logan lost in 1966 and in 1970,
I ran for sheriff under the National Democratic Party. I won by 210 votes because a lot of
our people were afraid to vote for me because there was a thing out that they were going
to kill John Hulett if he wins within 3 days after I was elected. I had to go to a lot of these
old people that I had trusted in and that loved me because they did not want to see me die.
So, I said go ahead and vote for me. I will live ifl have to stay in the woods 3 days. After
that, I won 5 more elections without having any problems whatsoever with white or
black.
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Q: That is right. It was not you that lost in 1966. It was Sidney Logan and then you ran
in 1970. In terms of the kind of spirit that you brought to the Office of Sheriff after you
were elected in 1970, the spirit of justice rather than revenge, talk a little bit about your
relationship. I think it is a great illustration of this point with Tom Coleman. Tom
Coleman was the man who killed Jonathan Daniels, blew him away with a shotgun in
cold blood at point blank range in the summer of 1965. Can you tell the story about just
before you were running for sheriff that Tom Coleman drove up to you on the square in
Hayneville? Tell people about your story.
A: He drove over to the square in Hayneville and said John, would you mind riding with
me to Lonsborough. Here is the guy who just killed one person and shot the other. I had
to show him that I had enough courage to get in that car without a gun or anything. I
stepped in that car because I did not think that anybody could do anything to me for
driving the car and being up there with him. We rode to Lonsborough and we talked
about the incident and what took place. The first thing that he said was that people
pushed him in a corner to do this. You know, there was people who encourage him to do
this; that is what he was saying. The next thing, which I would not have done to any
black, he was trying to do this to white people to keep them out of Lowndes County and
from helping us and to slow the process down. This is what this was all about. I told him
then that I was going to run for sheriff and I would appreciate it if he vote for me. He
said, well I cannot vote for you, but I know you are going to win it. After I won the
sheriff race in Lowndes County, he was one of people that kept a monitor in his house.
He would call me on a daily and nightly basis. He would let me know that the troopers
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were trying to get up with me and that I got some debris on the highway. He would get on
the road with me at 2 o'clock in the morning. He would clean up the highways. He had
done that for me. I think that sometimes you have to live the kind of life that the Lord
wants you to live and treat folks like human beings. I never was afraid of him. I worked
with his son as a state trooper and an investigator, but this is the type of thing that I have
done. I think the best thing in the world to do is let people know that you are not afraid of
them, but you are going to do the right thing; black or white, it did not make a difference.
Q: Would you say this man became a friend of yours?
A: Yes. He became one of the best friends I had as far as letting me know what was
going on and talking to me on a regular basis. He had done that.
Q: Why do you think he did that?
A: I think it could have been out of fear. He could have thought I was going to try and
pay him back. A lot of things could have happened. I can never forget. I want to say this
while I am talking. I went into Fort Deposit and I walked into a drug store. There were 11
or 12 women in that store and one man who was filling prescriptions. While I was in
there, there was a guy who walked around on the outside all the time with a 38 on him
with a ____
. Just as I started out of the door, the main way to ____
school,
until I got almost to the door like this here, he walked in and said who is your damn so
and so and cussing on. Those women were running out of that door. Two or three were
trying to get out at the same time. I looked around at the man who was filling the
prescription and I would not lie, he was shaking and trembling so the pee was falling on
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the floor. Somebody has to have some courage. So, I turned around and walked back in
there with him wherever he went.
Q: The man with the gun?
A: Yes. You might shoot me, but you are not going to shoot me in the back. I am going
to take this gun from you or you are going to have to shoot me right. I walked back in the
store with him for about 5 minutes. He never said another word; I just took his nerve. I
finally picked up a bar of candy, paid for it and walked out. He, the drugstore man and I
were the only 3 people in there. I never had another word from him. Later, he pulled a
gun and said he would never let a nigger arrest him. He pulled a gun on a black man in
Fort Deposit and that next morning I go to work after the warrant was signed, he came
into the office with Mr. Tom Coleman. That is smart. You understand what I am saying.
He believed that Tom Coleman could straighten out some things. I made him sign his
bond. I fingerprinted him and told him to make sure you show up in court when time to
come and I did not have anymore problems. I never heard another word from him, but he
did go to court. These were the types of situations you had to live in. It did not make any
difference whether you were right or wrong, white or black; you had to do what was
right. I stood my ground the whole time I was in the sheriffs office. I did not care what
color he was. If you committed a crime, you went to jail. I would call you and if you did
not come, I would go get you.
Q: Did you ever have any dealings with George Wallace when you were sheriff?
A: Truthfully, I had dealings with George Wallace. George Wallace turned out to be one
of my best friends. The first time I became sheriff he had a parade in Greenville and I
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was the only black sheriff in that parade. I can remember walking by him and he gave me
some of his material. Every time I would go to their captain for anything, he would say,
sheriff what you want. I had a small staff when I started as sheriff. There was only 3
people. I went up one day and said I need a larger staff and he said okay and tell your
representative to come by. I told me my representative, but he did not go by. Two weeks
ago, I got a check from him to pay for another deputy. That was the kind of person he
was and whenever I would come around he would get up and take a picture with me. He
would call my house on the weekend and when I got shot, he would call my wife every
weekend, Friday night, and tell her whatever he could do to help he would do it. This was
the kind of person George Wallace turned out to be with John Hulett. I was not no Uncle
Tom, but I was just doing the right thing.
Q: Before we open it up to everybody else's questions, as you look back on the
experiences that you had in Lowndes County and the impact that the movement had in
Lowndes County and other places in Alabama, what is your bottom line summary of
those days. What do you feel was accomplished? To what extent was the movement
successful and to what extent did it fall short of what you had hoped for?
A: Let me refer back to two things. If you all remember, in the state of Alabama, the only
people who served on jurors in the state of Alabama were men. There were very few
black men in places like Lowndes County. It was Lowndes County who went to
Montgomery and filed a snit, White versus Crooks to allow women to serve as jurors in
the state of Alabama.; that originated in Lowndes County, Alabama. The first place they
camped out in Lowndes County when they came in was Rose Steel's property. Her
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granddaughter was the individual who _____
, Ardenia White. So, that is why
women are serving today in the state of Alabama. We also had the justice of peace
system in the state of Alabama. Most of you might remember the justice of peace. Every
county had a justice of peace. In Lowndes County, one day, I was arrested and charged
with reckless driving. I went straight to the justice of peace office and said, what would it
cost me for this ticket. He said, it was going to cost you I 00 dollars and 11 dollars court
cost. Excuse me for the expression, but I said I will die and go to hell before I pay it. He
said, you can get ready. Next week, I went to Montgomery, attorney Salman Say's
office, and talked to him about it cause every justice of peace fine you give them, they get
5 dollars out it. I went to federal court and that is why they do not have any justice of
peace in the state of Alabama today. The judge ruled in our favor. That was helpful to the
state of Alabama and the woman serving on jury was helpful. There was a number of
other things that took place in that county. People were able to hold public office who
had never held public office. We got plenty of them now, men and women, not only in
Lowndes County but in surrounding counties because of our courage and things that we
have done. I have gone into other counties and our joining county, Wilcox County has a
black sheriff. When he got ready to run, I encouraged him to run. I went down and spoke
for him and he won that election and he has been there ever since. It is a lot you can do to
help other people if you would do it. Today, we are still working hard trying to make life
better for the people in our county. Let me say this. I am retired now and I could not run
for probate judge because of my age, but each morning of my life I get up now and go out
and do something for somebody. I pick up aluminum cans off the street and give to the
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scholarship fund to help children to go to college. I have a group that takes care of it. I
plant gardens so there are plenty vegetables to give folks who cannot afford to work. The
older people who cannot cut there yards, I cut there yards free. If you need a ramp built or
a wheelchair or something, I go out and do it free for people. This is the type of life I live
today. God has blessed and I reach out and try to help others. I want to advise all of you,
let's try to do the same thing.
Q: I think maybe this is a good time to open it up to questions that people out there may
have, things that they want to ask Judge Hulett.
A: Okay go ahead.
Q: If you want to ask them, I will repeat the questions just in case everyone cannot hear
you. Do you consider the adverse situations that you faced in Lowndes County, the
opposition that you faced when you tried to stand up for what was right, to be state
terrorism against the people of Lowndes County?
A: This is true as I have said it to a lot of young people lately because I go out and talk to
them. I am use to terrorism. We have had it in our county. We have had it in Birmingham
and we have had it in other places. When the people crossed the Edmund Pettis Bridge,
there was terrorism. When I was punched in the face in Prattville, there was terrorism.
We did not have any killing. That was the only difference; it was on a small scale. There
was a time in Pratt City, Alabama; I was living in Birmingham. One night, there was like
15 young people who wanted to see the Klan walk up Highbuyon A venue. I took them
out there to show them and they had their robes and everything on. They asked me who
are these people. I said, these are the same people that you are trading with in stores on an
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every day basis, most of them are, but they are Klan men. Do not be afraid because you
are with me. As we stood there, they drove by singing the Dixie song or a thing of that
type with the lights on in the car. These are the type things I have gone through for years.
I am not afraid and I try to be straight with my people and say everybody was not wrong,
but there were a few people who would do anything. In terrorism, you are going to reap
what you sow, so we need to work together and try to save our people instead of trying to
destroy them.
Q: How many people, African-American people in Lowndes County, did it take before
there was sort of a help factor where you felt you were going to succeed. You started out
with a little group. How big did the group get?
A: Each Sunday night, we would have our mass meeting in groups. We did not have a
church large enough to hold us after a few months when we would go in the county. The
question was some churches were afraid for us to go in because they thought someone
would burn their churches. There was not church burning in Lowndes County, if you
remember. There were 2 or 3 churches going in Lowndes County. We had a poverty
program burned and one day a white church burned. I was at the University of Wisconsin
at that time. This white church burned and no more burning take place in Lowndes
County. That is the sad thing, but that took place.
Q: In all of your trials of getting registered voters, where was the Federal Government at
this time. At one time, I read an article that you recruited a bunch of
_________
registered voters. (inaudible)
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A: They came down, but let me be honest with you all. On the first election in 1966, they
would be standing out there. I think they were scary and most black folks were. I am
serious. I can remember in the ___
area in 1966 when they had the election,
somebody cut the lights off in the building. Let me tell you, everybody just froze. Stokely
and them were there and they went out and turned the lights on their cars, but those
federal agents were just as afraid as anything else. They would not say anything. Several
white people that I know brought the people that worked on their plantation in with them
and went in and voted their ballots for them. That is why we worked to get that law
changed where you could not help your boss man. Now, you can help anybody you want,
but your phone cannot help you. If you work for a company, your boss man cannot help
you raise the vote in the state of Alabama. We had to get that changed and it was
Lowndes County who played the biggest part in that. People were evicted off their
plantation because they registered to vote and we put tents out there on highway 80 and
tried to be fair to people. We did everything we could until there were able to acquire
land to move into. We filed a suit to stop the evictions. That is the only suit that we lost.
Q: Did you know Viola Liuzzo and what are your recollections of her, of so?
A: I did not know here but shortly after she got killed, I go to meet her family on several
occasions. Her son came down and stayed in the county for awhile, but I did not know
her personally.
Q: If you ever have a chance to go to the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, there
is a wall in the museum that I believe is called, I was there wall or the we were there
wall or something like that. The people who played some role in the movement signed a
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little sleep of paper and tacked it to the wall. One of the most touching things on that
wall is the daughter of Viola Liuzzo who about a year ago visited the museum and said
my mother was here and that is just on the wall there. It is really interesting to see.
Q: Do you think that was a turning point in getting national attention to the movement?
A: It was a turning point to get lots of attention because people came in. Even at that,
Jonathan Daniels was killed after that but remember he got acquitted in court and that is
the hurting thing. You understand what I am saying. The Klan killed her and did not
anything come from that. The person that was prosecuted in that case stood up in the
court and said if she would have stayed in Detroit, Michigan she would have been alive
today. There were very few blacks there because they were afraid to go in that court room
at night time. Now, if you are prosecuting somebody and get up and say that, what do
suspect a jury to do? This is the type ofrepresentation we had.
Q: Stokely Carmichael had started an organization called The All African Peoples
Revolutionary Party. It took a strong standing in the (inaudible).
A: He did do that, but he did not do that in our county. He never did that in Lowndes
County. He never had any confrontation with the police.
Q: Stokely Carmichael founded an organization. Say the name of the organization again.
A: The All African Peoples Revolutionary Party.
Q: With The All African Revolutionary Party, did that have an effect on your
relationship with Stokely?
A: No, it did not because he did not do any of that stuff in Lowndes County. He respected
the police officers and Arthur Stickwicker did as well.
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Q: There years that you we
re involved with the Bloody Lowndes in your county, can
you tell us a little bit about your personal life. Did you have a family and how did this
impact your family during the year. Then, I understand that there was some type of
sanitary land field plan underway within the last couple of years that may effect or impact
the tourism and trade in Lowndes County with respect to the Edmund Pettis Bridge and
the Selma March in November. Can you talk a little bit about that?
A: Okay, let me be honest with you. I have some children who lived with me during that
time. My son is a probate judge now who lived in Lowndes County. They were too young
to vote, but it did not affect them because we did not have any real decent jobs no way,
we were just out there working. We were trying to make life better for them to go to
school. When they first integrated the school in Hayneville, they sent 6 kids to school that
year. One of my sons went to school and he had some problems with some of the white
kids stepping on his heels. One night, I got in my car and drove to the father's house. I
said to him, your son is stepping on my son's heels and I do not want it to happen again
because I may have to stop that bus on the road and get him off there and it never
happened again. I was the sheriff. I being straight with you all about it. This is a little
incident that happened. Let me be honest about this land field that we have. This land
field is off the Civil Rights trail. People are dumping trash on the highways. Lowndes
County was not a pretty place until I started cleaning it up when I retired from the
sheriffs office. The white people in Lonsborough did not want it and they had a few
blacks with them to help to keep it out. I do not think that land field would do anything
wrong to Lowndes County as long as it does its problem like it ought to be done. People
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will be buried under the ground, like 40 feet deep, and within the next 200 years I do not
think there will be problem whatsoever.
Q: Is that a divisive issue in Lowndes County? Do people disagree about that?
A: There are a few people that disagreed about it, just a few. It was mostly people who
lived right in Burksville. I remember one night I said to them, you are not concerned
about the Civil Rights trail. If you were concerned about the Civil Rights trail, why did
you not help us get registered to vote or a thing of that type. You understand what I am
saying. These are the same folks who guessed everything now concerned about the Civil
Rights trail. It is a money thing that they are looking at now.
Q: Have you written or will you right about how the majority of the city of Alabama was
able to tolerate injustice in such a way that it brings up today what they are willing to do
now which is stand up against injustice.
A: I think that to understand the magnitude of what happened in the Civil Rights
Movement you have to understand that the majority of white citizens in the state of
Alabama were complicit, if not cutting-edge practitioners of the injustices that were
inflicted on black people. It was absolutely pervasive. I am very aware of this because I
grew up in Alabama in a family that was very much a part of the status quo in Alabama .
So, it is really easy to see that the system of segregation that was in place in Alabama
could not have survived without the active support of the overwhelming majority of
white people in the state of Alabama. I think there is a sense in which white people were
liberated by the Civil Rights Movement as well because people of my generation were
certainly coming along and you had to decide what we thought about it. It was such a
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powerful reality and it was inescapable. So, you had to ask yourself what is really going
on here. I remember when I was about 16 years old I was in Birmingham on a high
school trip and I happen to be walking along one afternoon with no idea of anything that
was going on. I was not paying attention to what was going on in the world and I walked
up upon the arrest of Martin Luther King, the first time he was arrested in Birmingham. I
remembered it actually incorrectly. I remembered at first that he was wearing overalls.
He was not. He was wearing a denim work shirt and blue jeans. It was almost that way,
but I do remember, like I have a picture of it in my head, the look on his face as the
policeman bodily carried him pass where I was standing and it was a look of not fear. His
eyes seemed to me to be very sad but kind of stoic all at the same time. There was a
dignity about him on that occasion that stood in such incredible contrast with the kind of
bullying attitude that the policeman had on that occasion. As a 16-year-old white kid, it
was a jarring imaging to behold and it was something that I never forgot. It made you ask
in a very personal way, what is going on here. It was easy to know who you wanted to
identify with in that particular situation. So, one of the things that I am very interested in
and this is a long answer to your question, but one of the things I am very interested in is
the impact that the Civil Rights Movement had on white people, people of my generation
and other people as well because I think that the white citizenry in the state of Alabama
had a long way to go. I think we were compelled to move by events that happened by the
example of courage that we saw, so I think that is an important part of the story that I
certainly want to try to touch on. Now, did we go as far as we need to go? I mean
obviously not. We are still struggling with that issue. I was talking to some reporters
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today at the paper. We were talking about why it is that we have not made as much
progress as we have maybe hoped we would. I think to me it is the cutting edge of
civilization. It is sort of the frontier of civilization. The people who are not exactly alike
are still trying to learn how to live in peace and proximity with each other, if they are
even trying at all. Amazingly enough, we are probably doing a better job of it here than
they are in most places because you look at the Middle East, Northern Ireland or all these
other places and people struggle with that. We will continue to struggle with it here, but
we have more tools now because of the example of people in the Civil Rights Movement.
Q: I was a new comer to Alabama. We came here in 1965 and this whole situation has
really stressed me a lot and (inaudible) but nowhere else is it quite so legal. So, I thought
perfectly well that this is of people like you, although I had a very culture when I came
here. I also said to my brother who called me and said (inaudible) how are you managing
this and how will it turn out. I said that I truly believe that we will solve our problems as
soon as everybody else, so do not worry. I mean it is a bad situation, but I know that the
people that I know so well will find a way to let this happen. I was feeling very
-----
at some times during it, off and on. I also participated in the long line that
were lining up to vote after the federal government interceded and it was kind of a
interesting mess. If you remember, you had to have a registered voter stand with
everybody that was going to vote and every body was getting curious because they had 3
tests that were not hard but it took more time and we did not have anymore time allotted
to us. So, it was a pretty interesting time for me and I helped the best way that I could to
be helpful, the best way I knew how to. I am glad that I was here to do it.
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Q: Any response you want to make to that.
A: I am not sure. I could not hear everything that she was saying. It was pretty rough,
true enough. I could remember the times that we had to have a white to vote for a black.
You could not find a white to vote for a black. After they started registering, we did not
have to do that in Lowndes County. You did not have to have anybody to vote for you.
That was some our problems we were having. The voter registrar did not assist on that.
The federal came down and registered most of our people in out county.
Q: Was lynching a part of your community also?
A: There were many people that were lynched or had things done to them. I do not know
much about that, but there were people that were lynched in Lowndes County not during
the Civil Rights Movement but before that time. Once we organized, there were no blacks
killed by whites except one person and that was before I took office. He was killed
because he was hunting rabbits. The dog went across the county line. They shot and
killed him and tried the case. That was the first case tried when I got there and they found
him guilty. They charged him 100 dollars and a year's probation. This is the kind of thing
that happened. This was a white guy who killed a black guy and they charged him 100
dollars plus court cost and a year's probation.
Q: How much would it help if they rewrote the constitution in the state of Alabama.
Would that kind of blanket or help throughout out the state if the constitution itself was
dealt with?
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�The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
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A: I was in a meeting not long ago and the Alabama New South Coalition was trying to
put a committee together to start doing this with the state legislatures, but it may help
some. You can rewrite all you want to, but it has to come from the inside of your heart.
Q: There are many of the young people today that do not seem to have the right stuff? I
would like to know what would be your message to them.
A: Those of us who understand what the Civil Rights mean we should go into our
communities sit down and talk to our young folks and try to encourage them to do the
right thing. Our churches ought to be a part of doing that.
Q: Was Lowndes County as violent as it was because black people outnumbered white
people by the margin that they did? We have come a long way, but we still have a long
ay to go. What, in your opinion, do we still need to do or still need to accomplish?
A: I am going to give you a number of incidents that people have just killed people.
There were a group of folks from Birmingham one time that came down to move
somebody off of a plantation. They killed a guy on a Saturday or Sunday night and rode
around in a truck and that Monday they were riding around that courthouse on the back of
the truck and nothing was done about it, but this is the kind of thing that happened. If
something happened in your family like, you would get afraid. I knew other people that
would go out and hunt. I had a cousin that went out one night just hunting. The guys ran
up on him hunting in the woods and started shooting under his feet and made him dance
all night long. This is the kind of thing that went on in Lowndes County, but in order to
change this we are going to have to come together and let drugs go. That is one of the
things that is ending us now. Drugs are getting to most of our people. Stop committing
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�The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
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crimes, stay out of trouble, go to the polls and register to vote and start treating one
another like they are human beings. Black or white, we are going to have to start doing
that together or we will never move on.
Q: Is there still racial tension between blacks and whites in Lowndes County today.
A: There may be a few older people. It may not show up around me, but it may show up
around a few people. Most people, when you treat folks right, they do not have any
problems. I can go any place in Lowndes County in almost anybody house and I do not
have any problems.
Q: And when you have ran for office, you have gotten considerable white votes?
A: At this age, I am 73 years old. I will be 74, November 19th and I wish it was this
month. I have had more than 1800 people to call me already and talk to me. I believe I
could go back and run for sheriff again. I don't why, but this is something. Let me say
this. If someone burglarize a community, a house, a church I get out and work on it night
and day until that person has come to justice just about. If somebody has shoot somebody
or cut somebody, they are going to jail and everybody knows that. I do not know what is
happening to the sheriff and bothering other folks now, but I try to do what is right for the
people in our county. I guess that is why they want me back. They are not trying to get
me back because I am going to let them do something wrong. If it is a drug dealer in
town, he better leave. He better get his stuff and go to some other county. I believe that is
what we out to do. They have a drug task force and I want to be sure I get with that drug
task force if I am successful in winning and try to get them to do a much better than what
they been doing and get these drug dealers out of time.
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Q: Will you run again?
A: If my health holds up, my name will be on the ballot.
Closing: Well, Sheriff Hulett thank you for sharing these stories with us tonight. We
really appreciate it.
41
�
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Digitized transcription of VHS tape of "Bloody Lowndes and the Black Panther Party".
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University of Alabama in Huntsville
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Hulett, John,1927-2006
Gaillard, Frye, 1946-
Civil rights movements--Southern states--History--20th century
Hayneville (Ala.)
Lowndes County
Voter registration
Black power
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Text
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
Alabama A&M University
Huntsville during the Civil Rights Movement
Speakers: Sonnie W. Hereford, III, John Cashin Jr.,
Fred Carodine and William Pearson
On behalf of the University of Alabama in Huntsville and on behalf of President Frank
Franz, I am very pleased to welcome all of you to this lecture series focusing on the
history and impact of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. This historic initiative
brings to Huntsville, distinguished speakers who will reflect on events of the past and
who will share with us their hopes for the future. I must once again commend the faculty
from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and from Alabama A&M University, who
worked over a period of more than two years to make this possible. The faculty includes,
but are not limited to, John Dimmock, Lee Williams, Jack Ellis, Mitch Berbrier from
UAH, James Johnson and Carolyn Parker from Alabama A&M. I am very pleased that
you could be with us.
Good evening. It is my pleasure to take a couple of moments to acknowledge our
sponsors. These are the people who have made it possible for us to do all these kinds of
things. They have given us funds and all kinds of support. They are: The Alabama
Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
Senator Frank Sanders; The Huntsville
Times; DESE Research Inc.; Mevatec
Corporation; and Alabama Representative, Laura Hall. At Alabama A&M, we have the
Office of the President, Office of the Provost, the State Black Archives Research Center
and Museum, Title III Telecommunications and Distance Learning Center, Office of
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Student Development, the Honor Center, Sociology/Social Work Programs and the
History Political Science Programs. At the University of Alabama in Huntsville, we have
the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, The History Forum Banking
Foundation, Sociology, Social Issues Symposium, The Humanities Center, The Division
of Continuing Education, the Honors Program and the Office of Multi-Cultural Affairs,
Office of Student Affairs and the UAH Copy Center. Let us give these people a show of
appreciation.
Jack Ellis: The focus is on the Civil Rights Movement in Huntsville, the event that
started at least with the first sit-ins of January 3, 1962, which were carried out largely by
students from William Cooper Council High School and Alabama A&M, many of whom
had been recruited by a young man named Henry J. Thomas, who was a veteran freedom
rider and a field agent for the Congress of Racial Equality, known also as CORE.
Thomas also, as some of you may know, had been on the bus that was firebombed
outside of Anderson and was beaten as he exited the bus. For several months after the
initial demonstrations in Huntsville, the movement mushroomed as students targeted
segregated lunch counters throughout the city. From the list of those arrested appearing
in the Huntsville Times, one can identify around 130 young people who participated
repeatedly and over an extended period of time. Though in her 1965 Master's thesis
presented here at Alabama A&M and entitled "The Acquisition of Civil Rights in
Huntsville, Alabama from 1962 to 1965," Theresa Powers-Shields estimates the number
at actually 400 and the total number of known sit-in demonstrations as 260.
Accompanying this campaign were weekly mass meetings, the formation of a community
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service committee, known as PCFC, which was chaired by Reverend Ezekiel Bell.
Despite foot dragging by the mayor and other city leaders, the movement also succeeded
in seeing the appointment of a biracial committee that helped oversee an end to
segregation in public facilities two years before the Civil Rights Movement of 1964.
The question I propose tonight that we can discuss is how and why did events
occur in this fashion in Huntsville and in what ways was the Huntsville Movement
different from, for that matter similar to, the Civil Rights Movements in other areas of the
state. For background, I will briefly mention just a few facts starting with the city's rapid
rise in population after World War II. In 1960, the population of Huntsville stood at just
over 72,000; many of these young, middle-class professionals were from areas outside
the south. That same year I saw massive infusion of federal funds into the local economy,
aided greatly by the creation in 1958 of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center
which was charged, as many of you know, with developing launch vehicle systems to
support the lunar landing program.
Within four years, Marshall was producing 30
million dollars in local contracts annually and employees of NASA and the newly
arriving aerospace industries were spending another I 00 million in Huntsville. In their
book, "A Power to Explore: A History of the Marshall Space Flight Center, 1960 to
1990," published in 1999, Professors Andrew J. Dunar and Stephen P. Waring note that
because nearly 90 percent of Huntsville's economy was based on federal funds,
Washington had more leverage here than anywhere else in the state, simply because few
business leaders or political leaders were willing to risk losing such resources. In short,
say the authors, "the gospel of wealth had more disciples in Huntsville than the gospel of
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white supremacy." These facts, no doubt, helped shape the strategies and tactics of the
local Civil Rights Movement, as did the ability of the demonstrators to tum Cold War
rhetoric on its head by noting how America was spending billions for defense against
communism abroad while denying freedom to its own citizens here at home. The signs
carried by protestors on the Huntsville Square echoed this message. One said that this is
the Rocket City USA, let freedom begin here; another said Khrushchev can eat in this
restaurant, but I can't.
Nevertheless, while the success of the local movement owed much to the federal
presence, I believe it also reflected strengths within the black community itself. Ten
thousand strong in 1960, Huntsville's black residents had developed a powerful sense of
community and culture that was flourishing long before the arrival of NASA and German
rocket science. It was the leaders of this community, its ministers, its business leaders, its
professionals, tradesmen and workers, who defined the terms of the Civil Rights struggle
and who provided financial support and council to the students. Their efforts not only
helped break the back of segregation in Huntsville's public facilities but set the stage for
the successful school desegregation suit filed in March of 1963 on behalf of Sonnie
Hereford, IV, Veronica Pearson, Anthony Bruton wid Davis Peday. By the way,
Huntsville's sit-ins, poster walks, boycotts and visits from the nation's top Civil Rights
leaders outraged state officials, like attorney general McDonald Gallion, who succeeded
in banning the Congress of Racial Equality from the state, and certainly Governor John
Patterson who forced the retirement of Alabama's A&M president of 35 years, Joseph F.
Drake.
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At the local level, business and professional leaders seemed stunned as they
witnessed the exploding myth of racial harmony in the much-vaunted progressive
environment of Madison County. Their surprise may have been an indication of how
little they really knew about the black community, a fact that is easily confirmed by one
of my students, by the almost complete absence of positive reporting in the local press on
the achievement of African-Americans here in Madison County during the 3 or 4 decades
prior to 1960. Initial reaction to the sit-ins was thus to be expected. In an editorial from
July 9, 1962, the Huntsville Times accused black leaders of threatening, "to harm
Huntsville's position in the highly competitive race for industrial and intellectual
development." Similarly, a resolution of the Huntsville Minister's Association stressed
the economic progress the city had made as the space capital of America and added, "We
do not want this image marred by the struggle in human relations that is going on
throughout America and around the world." Yet, as Dunar and Waring had pointed out,
despite its liberal reputation, at least in comparison to the county's black belt. Huntsville,
its schools, hospitals and other public facilities, were rigidly segregated. Black housing
and schools suffered from neglect. Educational and job opportunities were severely
limited.
African-Americans, they note, made up eighteen percent of the city's
population, yet were less than one percent of the work force at Marshall. The fact of the
matter, observed one NASA administrator, is that Huntsville is in Alabama. The Civil
Rights Movement here in Huntsville thus poses numerous questions that I hope we can
discuss tonight with our distinguished panelists and with members of the audience who
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were there. To introduce our guests and to moderate the discussion, I would now like to
call on my colleague, Professor Carolyn Parker.
Carolyn Parker: Thank you, Jack. This should prove to be an exciting evening for us.
I'm particularly delighted to have this opportunity to moderate and to introduce our
distinguished panel. Our first presenter for this evening is well known throughout the
city for his work as a medical doctor, Alabama A&M University and Oakwood College
physician, a familiar face on our football field. He served as team physician in the I 960's,
1970's and l 980's, as a professor of anatomy at local institutions of higher learning and
most especially, for our purposes tonight, a Civil Rights legend. Dr. Sonnie W. Hereford,
III is a native of Huntsville, Alabama, was educated at Council High School (my alma
mater as well, proud to say), Alabama A&M University and Meharry Medical College.
He distinguished himself by earning highest honors at each stage of his academic career.
He began his practice of general medicine in Huntsville in 1956. He served as medical
director on the Selma to Montgomery march and assisted Vivian Malone in her quest to
enter the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa. Dr. Hereford has received numerous
awards for his contributions to our community, to name a few; Delta Sigma Theta and
Zeta Phi Beta Sororities, the Community Action Agency, the Madison County Midwives
Association, Oakwood College and Alabama A&M University's Athletic Department.
He is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, the Huntsville Alabama Hall of Fame and
was cited for patriotism and dedication by Redstone Arsenal. In 1999, collaborating with
Calhoun Community College, he released a video taped account of the Civil Rights
Movement in Huntsville titled, "A Civil Rights Journey." His son, Sonnie Wellington
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University
Hereford, IV, who is right here, will you stand? Just let them see who you are. His son
Sonnie Wellington Hereford, IV was first to integrate a public school in Alabama in
1963, what was then called Fifth Avenue School. Dr. Hereford is married to the former
Martha Lynne Adams and they are parents of five daughters and one son. Dr. Hereford
will share with us a summary of the background of the Civil Rights Movement in
Huntsville from his perspective as a highly involved activist. It is my pleasure to present
our first speaker to our audience, Dr. Sonnie Wellington Hereford, III.
Sonnie W. Hereford, III:
Dr. Parker, Dr. Ellis, our distinguished panel, the esteemed
president of this university and also our esteemed provost, our fellow freedom fighters,
students and friends. It is indeed a pleasure for me to be here with you tonight. We want
to talk about Huntsville.
Just before I start talking about Huntsville, I would like to
introduce a few more people in the audience. She stole a little bit of my thunder, I had
planned to introduce some of the people, but I didn't even know Sonnie was going to be
here. Sonnie was at a funeral this afternoon in Kentucky and has driven here to be with
us. But first, let me introduce my president when I was working at Oakwood and he has
come here tonight at my invitation to be with us. Dr. Minette, would you stand up or
hold up your hand, please and let them see you? This is the first time I've had the
pleasure to see him in the last fifteen or sixteen years. Now, I wanted to just mention my
brother who is in the audience, who's been with me seventy years. We've been side by
side everyday, even in the Civil Rights Movement. Tom, would you stand up just a
minute please and my daughter who has driven all the way from Shreveport, Louisiana to
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be with us tonight. Would you stand up Martha, please? And, Sonnie and Sonnie's
daughter is here, would you stand up please? We have three generations here.
Thanks very much for inviting me here to be with you tonight to talk about the
Civil Rights Movement in Huntsville. You see, we have sat and we have listened to the
people talk about the Civil Rights Movement in other cities and other communities and
we've heard about the difficulties that they've had. When some of them spoke, I thought
they were writing my autobiography. We were so much alike, but then, there were some
ways in which we were different. I'd just like to mention to you about three or four
incidents in which it seems like we were so much alike. When Ms. Nash talked about
going to jail while she was pregnant, the first thing that came to my mind was my wife
went to jail when she was pregnant. When Attorney Chestnut spoke of those long
meetings that they sat in until the wee hours of the morning, I thought about Dr. Cashin
and how we use to sit in those long, long meetings until the wee hours of the morning.
When Attorney Gray spoke about the out of state fees they paid him to try to bribe him to
not even try to get into the University of Alabama, I received that out of state fee. They
said if you don't try to go to the University of Alabama, if you'll go to any other college
in the United States, we'll pay you the difference of what it cost you to go to that college
and to go to the University of Alabama. I talked to Dr. Cashin today and he said his
father refused to accept that. He sent him to school and paid his way. Dr. Woolfolk, just
last week, when she spoke about the superintendent of the schools threatening to fire the
teachers, well, we had the same thing here in Huntsville and it just seems like they were
just talking about our movement. The doctor has told you about my association with
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A&M, so I want to let you know that I really feel at home here at A&M. When I was a
teenager, I used to come to the football games here on Saturdays and then some
Saturdays when I couldn't come, I'd be picking cotton in the cotton field. I could look
and I could see Bill Grey. I could hear the band and wish I was here.
The next thing I want to speak about, the participation of the people. I go around
all over the United States, showing the film and talking to people about the Civil Rights
Movement. Sometimes, I forget to ask about people who have also participated. Now,
how many people do we have here in the audience who have participated in the
Huntsville Civil Rights Movement? May I have a show of hands, please? Those who
actually participated in the Huntsville Civil Rights Movement. Okay, very good. How
many had relatives who participated, maybe you weren't old enough to participate, but
some of you had ancestors and relatives who participated. I think there's a hand. Now,
how many people do we have here who've participated in movements in other cities? All
right, let's give them a hand. I see one young man back there who is still fighting, I know
about your fight.
Now, we know that there is nothing on the face of the earth that is as powerful as
a movement whose time has come. I had read about revolutions and my teachers had
taught me about revolutions, but the ones that I knew about they were more or less
bloody revolutions. There were guns involved; there were knives; there were slings and
there were arrows involved. We want to talk to you a little bit tonight about a nonviolent
revolution. We want you to see how powerful a nonviolent revolution can be. This is
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th
very timely because in a short sixty-nine days from now, we will be celebrating the 40
anniversary of the beginning of the Huntsville revolution.
I want to talk to you a minute about how Huntsville used to be, before the
movement started and I want to use the format that I used the last time, when I spoke at
the University of Michigan.
community.
I started off by telling them how things were in the
The schools in Huntsville were completely segregated.
We had poor
equipment. We had poor facilities. We had no library, no gym, no lunchroom, no PE
period, no PhD's on the staff, no playground and we had no laboratories. Some teachers
and students may take exception with me on that, some of the ones who went to Council
High, when I say we had no laboratories. We had a room that said, the inscription above
the door, "Chemistry Laboratory." But, if you had gone inside that room, this is what
you would have seen. You would have seen about ten or twelve test tubes, ten or twelve
reagent bottles, one beaker and one Bunsen burner. That is not a laboratory, in my
opinion. Now, I want to show you something. They say a picture is worth a thousand
words. I sat down, my wife and I drew this picture. You see where it says "MS," that's
my school. You see where it says "CD," that's the city dump. Now can you imagine
how it was? We didn't have air conditioning. Can you imagine in September and in May
how it was to sit in those classrooms when some of us didn't want to be there in the first
place. Can you imagine that? Now, if it cost me my life, I couldn't tell you which one
was put there first, the city dump or the school, but my contention is that whichever one
went there first, the other one had no business being put there. Do you agree on that?
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There were no buses for black children. The buses were for the white children.
The only thing I remember about a school bus is that if it passed by me fast, it blew dust
in my face. If it passed by me slowly, rotten eggs and rotten tomatoes came from the
windows and hit me in the face. That's what I remember about a school bus. Now, the
powers took our own tax money and hired the best legal minds in the United States to
keep us from getting our own freedom and the things that we deserved to keep us from
getting the things that we actually deserved. Now, you've heard the expression on the
street, a double whammy. Well, if it keeps the schools segregated, you automatically
keep the boy scouts and the girl scouts segregated. You see what I mean. Because the
troops come from the schools and the job. The black people were the last to be hired and
the first to be fired. And, then when they were given a job, they had different pay scales.
Just to give an example, a white man and a black man working on the same job, the black
man 25 cents an hour, the white man 40 cents an hour, the same job. I know you've
heard this before, they bring a white person on a job and ask the black person to train
him, a brand new person, and in the next two weeks the white person is the black man's
supervisor. I know you've heard that before. Now, the jobs that were available were
janitor, delivery man, minister, teacher, porter, errand boy and construction worker, but
you could not have any supervisor position in the construction work. There were no
policemen; no firemen, no bank tellers, no clerks, no meter maids, and no sales people
whatsoever. There were no black people in the national guard, no black people holding
political offices and I was 30-years-old before I saw my first brown mannequin in a store
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window and that was in Honolulu, Hawaii. I had never seen a brown mannequin in my
life, scout's honor.
Voting. We were disfranchised on the basis of illiteracy. Even though some ofus
had Bachelor's, Master's and PhD degrees, we were still disfranchised and this is what
one had to do if one wanted to vote. If you go to the voter's registration place, you had to
take someone with you who was already a registered voter to vouch for you. You had to
take a written test, an oral test and then interpret the Constitution of the United States to
the satisfaction of the examiner. Now, in some cities, if you passed all of that, they had a
jar of jellybeans and then you'd have to guess how many jellybeans was in the jar. Now,
say for instance you pass all of that including the jellybeans, then you have to go to the
courthouse and pay your poll tax. After you'd done all of that, if you didn't pay your tax,
you still couldn't vote. On the street, they called that a double whammy because if you
are not a registered voter, then you don't get a chance to serve on a jury. Now, I don't
know how it is today but that's the way it used to be in Huntsville, Alabama. The jury
pool was taken from the list of registered voters and I know that to be true because I
called two lawyers yesterday and asked them about it and I didn't want to come out here
and tell you that ifit weren't true.
Now, on public accommodations. There was no access to any of the arenas, no
access to any of the ballparks, skating rinks, the bowling alleys, the golf course, and not
even to the library. You couldn't go to Shoney's and you couldn't go to McDonald's. I
know you would not have liked that. In the medical community, we had a county here of
about 75,000 people, twenty-five percent black, with 33 white doctors. We had one black
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doctor when I came to town. In the town, I made the 35th doctor. All of the white
doctors had separate waiting rooms and then the black patients had to wait until the white
doctors finished their white patients and then they would take a black patient. I want to
relate to you a little incident that one of your professors here on the campus told me
about. He said, "Dr. Hereford, I went down to this white doctor's office to take an
insurance examination and he said they told me to be sure and be prepared to give a urine
specimen and so I purposely didn't go to the restroom before I went down there and he
said the nurse gave me a little bottle about that tall and she sent me into the x-ray room."
He said, "Dr. Hereford, I didn't mean to wet the doctor's floor, but when I got through
filling the bottle I couldn't stop." And so, this is the thing that used to happen to us. The
hospital had separate wings for black and white. On the black wing, they had about 13 to
14 beds and after those get filled up, then they put patients in the halls. They had to stay
in the hall. After the patients had delivered, all of our post partum patients were sent in
one room, just one big room for all of the postpartum patients, and when I first got to the
hospital they had one room for the emergency room, the operating room and the delivery
room, and you can see how you can run into problems with that. They had separate pay
scales for the workers. All of the white workers made more than the black workers and
they had no place whatsoever at the hospital for the black doctors, the black nurses and
the black workers to eat. And, nobody seemed to give a damn that they didn't have
anywhere for them to eat. When I started over there, the head of the staff told me,
"Dr. Hereford, you can admit your patient's to the hospital, just like Dr. Drake does, but
now you can't become a member of the staff because in order to become a member of the
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staff, you have to be a member of the county medical association." Well, in order to
become a member of the county medical association, you had to be white. So, in that
way I couldn't be a member of the staff. He said, "Now, you must come to the meetings,
but you can't vote, you can't make a motion and he said be sure you don't come before
seven because the white doctors are going to eat at 6:30 and for God's sake don't come in
while they're eating and if you do come in, don't let that waitress pour you a cup of
coffee." Now, that's the type of things we had to go through with. Now, Dr. Ellis is
looking at me. I don't know if he's looking at me about time or not, he says no. I like
that. I want to talk to you awhile. Thank you, Dr. Ellis. We yielded five minutes of his
time to me.
Well, you finally get tired of having those things. We were eating tonight, we
were sitting at the table and we said yes, sometimes you get tired but sometimes you
can't do it by yourself, you want some help and you want a leader. We were waiting on a
leader. We wanted somebody to get it started, but we didn't quite know how to get it
started and I wanted to do something about it. I was just sick and tired about how they
treated me, not only at the hospital but all over the city. I was just sick and tired. So, on
January 3, 1962, Henry Thomas, representing COA, came from New York. He recruited
students from Council High and Alabama A&M. He started sitting in at some of the
local lunch counters. They were immediately arrested because they had a law back in
those days that said that any merchant and any land owner that did not want you on his
property could order you off and if you didn't leave in a reasonable length of time they
could call the authorities and they would arrest you. And, so, they did that. They
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arrested these kids and that was their reason, just because the man didn't want them there.
So, they arrested these kids and we went and we bailed them out. Dr. Cashin and a lot of
other people went and signed their bonds and we bailed the kids out and then a night or
two after that we decided that we better call a meeting. We'd get together and we'd
organize and we'd form a committee to try to continue with the demonstration and to try
to make sure we could get these kids out of jail when they needed to come out of jail and
just to see what we could do about integrating the city.
I'll tell you a little bit about the committee first, and I'll be looking out the corner
ofmy eye at Dr. Ellis every now and then. We started with what we called a community
service committee and we decided that we'd have a chairperson and two vicechairpersons and a least one of those individuals ought to be lady. So, we worked that
out. We had subcommittees in the community service committee. We had a negotiating
committee; we had a finance committee; we had an education committee, a committee on
jobs, committee on public facilities, committee on housing and we had a psychological
warfare committee. Indeed, we would meet whenever necessary and we'd meet wherever
we could. One thing I want to point out, every single meeting we had and every single
demonstration we had was opened with prayer and closed with prayer, every single one.
Even if we had a called meeting where we were going to vote on one issue, it was opened
with prayer and closed with prayer. That's the way we approached it. Okay, she's telling
me I have five more minutes.
I'll talk to you about the leaders in the movement. We had a professor from here
on the campus, Attorney Blackwell, who was an economics and political science
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professor, and he was the only one who had had any experience. He had been in the
Greensboro situation. We had Mr. Harris who was manager of the Atlanta Life Insurance
company, and Mr. Nimms, who was the owner of a local funeral home; Reverend Ezekiel
Bell, a new pastor of Fellowship Presbyterian Church, and Dr. John Cashin, a local
dentist who was an activist and made tremendous financial contributions to this
movement. I know he isn't going to say it and I hope I don't embarrass him when I say
it. He gave more money than any other 50 people in the city to help this movement.
Now, you want to know how did I know, I was the treasurer and I knew where the money
came from and I knew where it went. They had Dr. Hereford, who was a physician and
an up and coming photographer who was going to take these pictures of all the
demonstrations and everything and then one day I got up in a meeting and said that if
anybody was injured or if anybody became ill while they were demonstrating that I
would take care of them at no charge to them. We had Mr. R.C. Adams who had done a
lot of work in voter registration, Ms. Ray, who was an activist, and we had our student
leaders like Mr. Pearson and Dr. Dickerson, Ms. Frances Simms, Mr. Steel and
Mr. Benton. Is Mr. Steel here tonight? Mr. Steel has been coming to most of the
meetings.
The other thing I want to say is that it was lack of experience. We had not had
any experience and we were just sailing on uncharted waters. We didn't know what in
the world we needed to do and when we left home we didn't even know if we'd returned
home. We didn't even know if we'd have a home to return to when we got back to. So,
we had no protocol and we had no instruction manual and no guidebooks and we were
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just trying to see what we could do to try to bring about the integration. We had a small
group of demonstrators without any money and it was against the might of the city,
county and state government. We had white supremacy in the city that were egged on by
the governor and the gubernatorial candidates and they knew that they could do anything
they wanted to us and they would not have to suffer any consequences for doing that. So,
that's what we were up against. Now I guess they're telling me I'm close to time. We
went to the mayor and we asked the mayor to integrate the lunch counter, the drinking
fountains and the restrooms. That wasn't much, was it? He refused us. He said, "I can't
do that. They're not going to lose the customers they've had for the last 15 to 20 years
just to accommodate you people. We can't do it." We then asked him to establish a
biracial committee. We thought if we could get him to establish a biracial committee and
have white people and black people to come to the bargaining table and sit down and talk
we thought we could work it out. Every single move that we made was geared toward
getting to the bargaining table. We felt that if we could just get them to the bargaining
table then maybe we could coerce them into doing what was right. We might be able to
bluff them into doing what was right or we might be able to shame them into doing what
was right. Everything that we did was geared toward that end. And so we finally got
some black members and the mayor said he couldn't find anybody white who would
serve. He worked and worked and after the demonstrations kept going, we had to boycott.
When the two doctor's wives got arrested, there was so much publicity all over the
United States, then the mayor found some white people to serve on that committee. Now,
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if I could take about another thirty minutes ... , I'm sorry, thirty seconds, I'll give a little
chronology about how things happened.
Our movement was 99 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, eight years
after Brown vs Board of Education, seven years after Ms. Rosa Parks, one year after
President Kennedy was inaugurated. So, January 3, we said was the first sit-in and in
February we began to start thinking about boycott. March 19th of the same year Dr. King
came, he spoke and helped solidify the community. March 30t\ the restrooms at the
courthouse were integrated. April 11th was when the two wives were arrested. April
22nd , we had what we called Blue Jeans Easter and May 13t\ the city parks were
peacefully integrated. About the middle of May, Dr. Cashin's mother-in-law and her
friends picketed the New York Stock Exchange and passed out leaflets. Then, on June 5t\
two of your professors from here and my wife and I went to Chicago and we picketed the
Mid-West Stock Exchange and passed out leaflets.
When the mayor and the City
Council found out about these things, they decided they would have what they would call
a trial integration. So, on July
9t\
10th and 11t\ they had a trial integration of the lunch
counters and the restrooms. In October of that same year, we filed a petition for the
school integration. In February of the next year, we filed a suit. In August, the suit was
heard and won, and on September 9, 1963, we had he first integration of any public
school in the State of Alabama, and that happened here in Huntsville. There were some
misconceptions about what was happening and it seemed to be the consensus of opinion
in these instances that some people think that if I give you some of your freedom I'm
going to automatically lose some of mine, and you know that isn't right. Another thing,
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they thought I was trying to get into the country club, and I wasn't trying to get into the
country club. I was trying to get into the library and into Shoney's.
And, the last
misconception, if they had just looked at my name a little bit closer they would have seen
that my middle name was Wellington, and not Bonaparte.
Carolyn Parker: Our next speaker, Dr. John L. Cashin, Jr. is a dentist who has devoted
his life to the struggle for civil rights for African-Americans, especially in the state of
Alabama. He founded the National Democratic Political party of Alabama, NDP A, and
was responsible for the election of the first African-American candidate to public office.
He ran for governor of Alabama as a work pool strategy, getting other black candidates to
local and state offices. Dr. John L. Cashin, Jr., is currently president of TRP, which is
critically involved with promoting public health education and HIV/ AIDS program
implementation in the economically challenged counties of the State of Alabama's black
belt. He writes a weekly column, "Down Home," and he provides for the National Negro
Newspaper Publishers Association. Dr. Cashin has worked with the Research Institute at
the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Teenage Pregnancy Prevention
research and with Dr. Emanuel Shelton on his Detergent Diet Nutrition Program. At
Alabama A&M University, he has taught biology as well and was involved in selective
enzyme cancer research for the removal of viable cancer nutrients. Dr. Cashin is also
Executive Director of Southeast Alabama Rural Business Enterprise, which is a
cooperative venture with the Tuskegee University Department of Agriculture, a
nutritional, environmental, ecology and economic stability. Dr. Cashin is a graduate of
Fisk University, Tennessee State University and Meharry Medical College. He is the
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recipient of numerous awards and citations from a plethora of local, state and national
organizations. He was the first national Omega man of the year ever from Alabama,
designated in 1971 by his fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, the 2000 Humanitarian award of
excellence from the New South Coalition and the 2001 Presidential loyal alumnus and
political activist award and the 2001 research service award from Tennessee State
University. Dr. Cashin is married, the father of three children, three grandchildren and
has many hobbies. He is instrument pilot, amateur astronomer, expert photographer, and
historian. I am proud to present to you Huntsville's preeminent freedom fighter, Dr. John
Cashin, Jr.
John Cashin Jr.: Thank you Ms. Carolyn, that is, Ms. Parker.
I call her Alma's
daughter. That was a very interesting little review that Dr. Hereford gave. As a matter of
fact, he mentioned some things that I had almost forgotten about, bringing tears to my
eyes because those were some rough days. But, we enjoyed it; we had a lot of fun. And
we knew we were on the winning side. I was supposed to be giving something like a
perspective on this movement and so forth. I was such an active participant that perhaps
I get choked up with emotion and can't give a correct interpretation, because I would be
biased. But, I did want to quote one of my favorite people, a guy that I worship, I call
him St. Fred. I'm sure you have all heard of him. Frederick Douglas is his real name.
Actually, it was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, but we called him Frederick
Douglas. One of his most famous quotations is, "Let me give you a message about
refonn. The whole history of human progress shows that all concessions made to her
August claims have been borne of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, all
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University
absorbing and, for the time being, putting all other tools to silence, it must do this or it
does nothing. Where there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to
favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are like men who want crops without plowing
up the ground. They want the rain without the thunder and lightening. They want the
ocean without the awful roar that's many waters. Now this struggle may be a moral one
or a physical one, or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle for
power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, it never will. Find out what any
people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and
wrong that will be imposed upon them, and these will continue until they are resisted
with words or with blows or with both. For the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the
endurance of those they oppress, a great object lesson for us." That was the spirit we
carried back in 1962. We were sort of like accidental leaders because you'd have to put it
in the perspective of the fact that Alabama was the only state in the union where the
NAACP was outlawed. How many of you remember that? It was actually a crime to be
a member of the NAACP in the state of Alabama, punishable by a $1000.00 fine and a
year in jail. And that's what we were up against. Of course, that was just a little side
product of the Alabama constitution of 1901, but I'm not supposed to be talking about the
constitution of 1901 tonight, but I can go on all night on that since that thing has taken on
700 and some amendments. 700 and how many amendments, Joe? I'm talking to the
editor of the Huntsville Times.
That's the number of amendments the Alabama
constitution has. I really don't want to get on that because it's a real sore point for me.
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But now, let's get to the perspective that we had in 1962. It's funny to me
because this guy, Hank Thomas, came to my office first and said he was tired and wanted
to do a little testing. I said, "Sure, by all means." I thought Huntsville was really going
to be all right. I said, "Go to the bus station first," because we had already had a Supreme
Court ruling.
Let's tum it back just a hot second because it's very important you
understand that because the NAACP was outlawed, we had to form our own
organization, or own ad hoc of the station that we controlled and, believe me, it's the best
way to handle it because it developed a leadership cadre that we didn't have before and
when I say a cadre, we had some pretty tough characters. They had to be tough to
undergo all of the things that we did; but we did overcome. I'm looking at little Sonnie, a
tough cat. I see a few other faces here that I recognize very well from those days. It was
rough, but now I'll have to quote somebody else, a fellow by the name of A. Philip
Randolph. He was the patron saint of Randolph Blackwell. Randolph Blackwell was the
economics professor here at Alabama A&M whose students were in jail or were
demonstrating.
They also were making A's in class attendance, too, but Randolph
Blackwell was a graduate of Howard University law school, that's another story, but he
was a disciple of a fellow by the name of A. Philip Randolph. A. Philip Randolph is a
character to be remembered. How many have seen the statute of A. Philip Randolph in
Union Station in Washington, DC. If you haven't, you need to go and take a look at it
because on the pedestal of this statue it gives his credo. It says, "At the backward table of
nature there are no reserved seats. You take what you can get and you keep what you can
hold. If you can't take anything, you won't get anything. And if you don't get anything,
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you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization."
And
that's what we had to do. We put together an organization. I guess pretty much we were
pledged to see it to the end. I really think that we outsmarted them, but they did not
believe, the opposition; when I'm talking opposition I'm talking about everything white
in this city was opposed to what we were doing. The Huntsville Times had an editorial,
"It's time to call a halt." I remember the day that R.C. Adams jumped up in a meeting
and said, "Let's boycott the Huntsville Times." You remember that? Anyhow, we used
several devices that got the people's attention.
So, as far as voter registration was
concerned, this became a SCLC trait, too. We had a mule that was paraded around
downtown with signs on him that said "I can't vote because I'm a mule, what's your
excuse?" If you remember some of the magazine articles from back in that time, that
mule got around. It was pretty good strategy.
Now, I really wanted to make a few other quotations there because it does not
pertain to what we were doing ad hoc at that particular time, but it does indeed call
attention to the struggle that's going on right now, and that's the struggle for a new
constitution for the state of Alabama. I spoke just briefly at a gathering in Birmingham
the day before yesterday at which I called attention to the fact that we do have an
opportunity. We've got a window out of this mess that we're in and Huntsville, Alabama
can be the key, and this is one of things I'm pleading Joe Hyman, everybody, Lee Rubin,
everybody who's in the news media who was engaged in the technology that we had.
Just remember, Huntsville, Alabama is the repository. This is the birthplace as what is
known in the world of science as zero to sex technology. Zero to sex technology. We
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should be arrogant. We put the man on the moon from Huntsville, Alabama, and you
should understand that NASA, those programs would never have come to Alabama had it
not been for what we did with the community service committee.
We desegregated
everything in Huntsville. Huntsville, Alabama was the very first city of any size in the
United States to desegregate. Huntsville, Alabama, it was a pioneer role and it played
then, it was a pioneer role that was played when we put the man on the moon; of course,
now it's Johnson Flight Center, Nixon's thing in Texas and California, but still the
repository of technology of excellence was right here in Huntsville. As a matter of fact,
when those boys in Texas and California get in trouble, they still have to call Huntsville.
Arn I right? So, Huntsville is probably the only city where nerd is not a bad word.
We've got more nerds per square inch in Huntsville and they're proud of it. But in any
case, I want to call attention to this situation by giving a quote from Thomas Jefferson.
His statement was, "In questions of power that no more be heard of confidence in man
but binds him down from mischief with the chains of the constitution." Shall I repeat?
"In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down
from mischief with the chains of the constitution." We can write a perfect constitution
with the technology; all of the world's knowledge is available right to us at our
computers and whatever we have. We can lead the world into an entirely new phase, just
starting from right here, Huntsville Alabama. We've got the answers. It's time for us to
really flex our muscles and become what we're supposed to be.
This little group
sacrificed. We caught hell but we did bring Huntsville into the focus. We can have
fairness and law and order even in Alabama because we did it without bloodshed. It
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didn't happen any other place. So, I would probably rather participate in a question and
answer session. I don't have to yield any time, I don't think I've taken my fifteen
minutes. I wanted to just take more time and just show off what kind of ego I have. No,
in all seriousness, this is a wonderful occasion. I see faces in this audience. I see green
eyes in this audience, it reminds me of...
How does it go? No, not good old days, for
the wisest purposes, the creed is implanted within us, an instinctive disposition to revere
the illustrious of our kind. To win this admiration is the most powerful incentive to
action. It is the ardent desire of passionate natures.
The sweet incense of popular
applause is more delicious than wine to the senses of man. Deservedly pained, it heals
every wound and sooths all pain. The mere hope of it will steal him against disease,
neglect and oppression. To bestow this reverence is a pleasure hardly less exquisite.
While we commune with the intellects and contemplate the virtues of the greats, some
portion of their exceeding light descends upon us. Their aspiring spirits have raised us to
higher levels. But, to yield our homage to those who do not deserve it, is to pervert a
pure and noble instinct. We cannot worship the degraded, except by sinking to lower
depths of degradation. So, Huntsville, Alabama, we cannot worship those evils of the
past. We cannot gloat that we have suppressed one third of the population and we have
gained a few little pennies here and there. We can't worship the degraded, except by
sinking to lower depths of degradation. So, to my mind, it's the only way we can go. A
perfect system, a perfect government, a perfect constitution, all of this is within our grasp.
I'd like to feel that it started right here in Huntsville, Alabama. Thank you.
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Carolyn Parker: Thank you, Dr. Cashin.
Dr. Fred Carodine has a long history of
activism on the job, in the community and in his civic organization. His indelible mark
has been made on our cities, particularly in the arena of human relations and improving
the educational opportunities for minorities. Dr. Carodine is a native of Tuscaloosa,
Alabama and a cum laude graduate of Alabama A&M University.
He earned his
doctorate in public administration from NOVA University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
and completed further studies at Wayne State University, the University of Alabama in
Huntsville, California State Polytechnic College and Alabama A&M University. During
the early period of the Civil Rights Movement in Huntsville, Dr. Carodine provided
invaluable services and funds from his entrepreneurial efforts as owner of a printing shop.
As the focus of the movement shifted around 1964 to the education arena, particularly the
integration of schools, he began to concentrate his efforts on working with the NAACP
towards satisfying this goal. Dr. Carodine has enjoyed a lucrative career with the federal
government, holding increasingly responsible positions and retiring, about ten years ago,
as chief of the operation research division test measurement and diagnostic equipment.
His community service activities have impacted the likes of the Boy Scouts, Harris
Home, NAACP, Alabama A&M University and the Interstate Mission, to name a few.
He is a deacon at First Missionary Baptist Church, Sunday school teacher, member of Phi
Beta Sigma Fraternity and the Athletic Booster Club. Dr. Carodine is married to the
former Nell Bailer and they are parents of three sons and one daughter. I am proud to
present to you one of Huntsville's premier activists and my dear friend, Dr. Fred
Carodine.
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Fred Carodine: Good evening. I guess just about everybody stole my thunder. I'd like
to take the opportunity to sort of put in perspective as I saw the movement and as I
participated in some of the events that happened. Earlier, when Mr. Ellis stood up and
introduced the overall program, he suggested that Huntsville was more interested in
learning at the time of the sit-ins back in the early 60's. That is true. There were certain
events, in my opinion that helped to make Huntsville behave in a fashion that Dr. Cashin
just mentioned, there was little bloodshed. One of those events, and I'll try to make the
event oriented, was the election of President Kennedy and his choice of Lyndon Johnson
as his vice president.
Now, that may not seem like much in the beginning, but the
Kennedy approach was one similar to what Dr. Hereford had mentioned. Give them what
they want. Find two or three black people who could give and they would deliver the
vote and you didn't owe them anything until the next election. If you think I've made a
mistake in that arena, if you look in the book " Nixon's Piano" on page 192, you'll
understand what Robert Kennedy had said. Once he was elected ... well, he was elected
because of the event of Robert calling when Dr. King was in jail. Nixon's chauffeur told
Nixon that, "You know, we were doing all right until that call was made about King in
jail."
But, what good could that do?
What it did, was that when Kennedy was
assassinated, Johnson took over his program and his efforts were directed toward
carrying out a program and maintaining Kennedy's legacy. In that sense, King was
determined that we would suffice in this particular city. One of the reasons it was this
particular city is because early on in 1960, NASA had been pulled out of ABMA and the
word had come down basically that we're not going to have the kind of things going on
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in other parts of the south here in Huntsville, or they would pull out. Reverend Ezekiel
Bell, Randolph Blackwell and the coordinating committee capitalized on that in the sense
that the signs that they took around addressed that issue. We'll move the arsenal away
from Huntsville.
The city of Huntsville then, was somewhat forced to listen.
The
population of Huntsville increased between the 1950's and 1960's well over about 400
percent. Between 1960 and 1964 it increased over the 1960 time frame, another 200
percent.
So, Huntsville was a growing community, which could not stand to have
bloodshed, if the city founders could stop it. Earlier, one of the panelists asked, how
many people had participated in the early movement. One of the persons who raised his
hand, I hope he won't be embarrassed, was Chuck LaLange. I worked in his campaign
once years ago to try to get him elected mayor for the city of Huntsville. He was with the
Inner Faith Mission Service and I guess that's when I met him. I guess you still are,
aren't you? But anyway, there were a number of things that took place. One event, as I
said, was the fact that Kennedy was elected. He chose Lyndon Johnson. What happened
after his having chosen Lyndon Johnson was that Lyndon put the B on the Huntsville
community.
Industries were moving into the city.
Each industry, according to its
number of employees, paid into a fund. That fund was handled for the most part by a
committee called AHAC. It was made up of Association of Huntsville Area Contractors.
It did some good and some bad. In the good part, it gave the black community, through
some of its more activist people, a way of expressing itself and getting it up to the city
founders.
On the bad part, whether we want to admit it or not, Milton Cumming
understood the black community. He knew the black family. He knew who to touch and
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who not to touch. Correct? He knew who to touch and who not to touch. And so it was
that he was going to keep a cap on everything, but it got out of hand. What happened?
During the sit-ins, both predecessors mentioned Randolph C. Blackwell. Randolph was
my next-door neighbor. We both were working out here. I was not in the sit-ins other
than the fact the Rev. Ezekiel Bell, who is my frat brother, who the Presbyterian Church
had sent here to found Fellowship Presbyterian Church, had solicited me for the sit-ins
and I told him I was willing to do it, but I couldn't promise that I wouldn't fight back if
somebody hit me.
So, he told me to collect money.
My job was to try at A&M
University, here on the campus, to collect money and I would tum it over to him. At the
time of the trial integration, there were I don't know how many, one, two, three, at least
three drive-in theaters that I knew about. One was just north ofus here on Meridian, one
was just south on Meridian and one on 72. My family and I were chosen to go to the one
on 72. That's the one we integrated. We went there to integrate but by 1964, after the
Herefords and so forth had integrated the schools, something happened. I'm sorry, it was
1965. The NAACP legal defense fund after the NAACP, Dr. Cashin was allowed back
into the state of Alabama had an interest in this particular area. There were several
people who had worked with the NAACP during the time frame that was outlawed. They
kept it alive underground. Among those people were, Reverend Lacey and James Pickett,
at least those are two that I can remember. They became presidents of the NAACP.
About 1965, a young man came to Huntsville named McKinley Bailey.
One of the
reasons Mack and some others came to Huntsville was this organization, AHAC, was
trying to get minorities on board, so they claimed, as employees. The problem that came
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to industry was, we need black engineers; we can't find any. Well of course you couldn't
find any. Dr. Hereford just explained why you couldn't find any. There had never been
any black engineers that could be hired.
So, why would a black person go to an
institution and take engineering when there was no job market? There were no black
engineers, or very few. McKinley Bailey was one of the few. There were one or two
others. But, every time, they went outside of the state trying to find employees, nobody
wanted to come to Alabama. They didn't want to come to Alabama for several reasons.
One, there was no housing. Two, they'd heard about the city and other things that were
going on here. Now, they bring in this man, McKinley Bailey. There's another man, Les
Jackson, who, in Mobile, had tried to bring us and for whatever reason, he had put them
off but finally, he came up. But what McKinley Bailey did was to become president of
the local chapter of the NAACP. Now, there were not that many NAACP members, not
near as many as there are now. The NAACP was a viable organization, ready to fight. It
was composed of McKinley Bailey, Fred Carodine and Ed Russell. But very seldom did
they show up at meetings. But, the strategy that was put forth was to try to integrate the
schools with contacts with a legal defense fund person who is a regional director, Allen
Black. Allen Black's office was in Memphis and we were tied in, I believe, the guy at
the Justice Department's name was Schira, I believe that was his name.
But what
happened then was that we began to move to try to get the schools integrated more fully.
The city proposed one grade at a time. We did not go along with that at the time. The
information that we had received was that we'd make our input to the legal defense fund
and we'd communicate with the Justice Department. So, when we did not buy that, we of
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course would end up sometimes later instead of going one grade at a time, which the city
had proposed, they had to integrate three grades at a time.
The other big issue was one that had been raised about pay. Black teachers did
not make salaries the same as Caucasian teachers. As a consequence, a number of the
engineers and scientists that were moving into Redstone who were males, of course their
wives were Caucasian, were working in the various predominantly white schools and of
course they were making more money than the black teachers who had degrees and
credentials for Alabama. Some of the Caucasians did not have credentials because they
had not taught in Alabama and they had not satisfied Alabama's criteria. And so it was
that even though they were on a Type B certificate, they were making more than the
black teachers. Well, what happened, once you had to integrate you had to do what?
Integrate the salary.
So, as we begin to work that particular problem two things
happened. If they were considered a very good black teacher in that particular school
wherever they were working, they were moved to a predominantly white school. The
others were allowed to stay where they were. The Caucasian teachers who were being
hired and who were just corning out of college, for the most part, went to these
predominantly black schools. As a consequence, we had a program that was started by
the federal government, called EFF A, which was supposed to help elevate these schools
that were behind. All of a sudden, a number of Huntsville schools were behind. They
were behind because they put a large difference between the behind group and they could
get money from the federal government to sustain this.
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Let me move a little off. There are one or two things I'd like to mention. Also,
about 1963, there was a student from Alabama A&M named Carl Bailey who went into
the city of Huntsville and requested to become a policemen and that was a no, no. They
told him they didn't have any janitorial jobs. He said he didn't come to be a janitor; he
wanted to be a police officer. Well, he was later hired, our first black policemen. Bailey,
a John Christmas and the late Reverend Huggin, they put them all in a car. They were
not to arrest a Caucasian person, but they could only go down into predominantly black
neighborhoods. Well, the dispatcher would get on and say, "Now, you go down to that
Negro area and do so and so." Well, they got a little tired of this and they went in to see
Chief Spurlock. Spurlock fires them and now the paper had played up the fact that they
had hired these guys, now all of a sudden they had to get some more policemen. So they
sent out to A&M and got two people, Holyfeld, Staten and finally following that they got
a guy named Aaron Wright. They replaced those three and after having replaced those
three until this year, this is the first time that a black police officer in the city of
Huntsville has ever gone beyond the entrance position of patrol. I don't mean a whole
other job, but Huntsville promoted a sergeant this year and it's the first time. That is a
disgrace, thirty-some years. I know my time is up and I yield.
Carolyn Parker: Our next presenter will share with us his perspective as a student
activist.
Mr. William Pearson was probably Alabama A&M University's most
committed member of SNCC during the early 1960's, along with Ms. Frances Fell. He
made many sacrifices in his personal life in order to follow through on the very demands
of the life of a student activist. Mr. William Pearson is a graduate of Parker High School
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m Birmingham and entered Alabama A&M University in 1958. As the Huntsville
movement developed, he could be found working with practically every aspect of the
movement, strategy sections, sit-ins, marches and other demonstrations, all of this while
at Huntsville, but he was also heavily involved in the sit-ins and marches in Birmingham.
Mr. Pearson later earned his degree in history from Alabama A&M University and
continues his dedication to the betterment of our city through his work with our youth.
He teaches and coaches at Davis Hill Middle School, has a long list of successes
producing championship teams for our Parks and Recreation Department and the YMCA.
Mr. Pearson is cofounder and vice-president of the Alabama Masons, designed to develop
the talent of young men, 12 to 17 years of age who are interested in basketball.
Sponsored by Nike, Inc, this organization finds scholarships for young people who want
to go to college. When asked, "What's in it for you," he replied, "I don't want anything.
My greatest reward is to see these young guys turn out to be decent men." Mr. Pearson is
married to the former Selena Pollard and the father of two sons, Christopher and
Reginald.
I present to you, ever the activist and community servant, Mr. William
Pearson.
William Pearson: Fellow panelists and audience. You know, I started to write stuff
down but when you're talking about something like this, it's from the heart. It comes
from here. As a 17-year-old college student, raised in Birmingham, Alabama, never went
to school with a white guy. My graduating class had 450 students. Later on, they talked
about buses. I thought everybody was bused. There were only three high schools there.
They bused people from all over Birmingham, four thousand five hundred of us in one
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school. We graduated two times a year, January and May, and then usually in the 9
th
•
When I was about 15-years-old, I had a job at a bowling alley. Getting off one evening, a
policemen stopped me, told me, he said, "I want you to stay out of my alleys and off of
my streets." I had to quit my job. I couldn't work. I came up at a time where I lived at
the bottom of what they called Dynamite Alley, Dynamite Hill, where Arthur Shores was
a lawyer there. I went to school with his daughter. I also went to school with Angela
Davis. We were always aware of what was going on. We were just waiting for a time.
Some ofus went to the left, some ofus went to the right, but we were always aware.
Hank Thompson came here at the foot of this hill, called a group of us in and said,
"Hey, you know what they're doing in Greensboro and you know what the students are
doing all over the country. What are you going to do?" I said we're going to do what we
have to do. We were committed to making something happen. We were committed to
doing it in a nonviolent way, afraid, yes, because you never knew. I had a guy tell me
one day; He said, "Brother, you don't know what it is to be black." I said, "Brother, I
was black when black wasn't cool." You know, afraid, went to jail, I forgot the times,
ten, twelve, fourteen, fifteen; I don't know. I had the record, that's right. I remember
one time Ms. Joan Jackson who was our advisor, you see they had their committee and
we had our committee; that was our lady, loved her, bless her. We would meet and we
would decide what to do and we would go to these guys. This is family here. They took
care of me. The little bit of a man that I am they helped to mold that. I had no parents
here; they were dogging my parents in Birmingham. My mother said, "I don't know if
you should be doing this," but daddy was an ex-marine. He said, "Son, do what you got
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to do," and that's exactly what I did. I don't need much time. The only thing I can say is
that I did what I had to do and I did it from my heart. But, you young guys, they are
there, out there now. There should be more of you in this audience to understand and to
realize what this world is coming to. What we marched for and what we fought for, if
you don't go out and get some of your fellow students together, you're going to be on the
back of the blood wash. You're going to be drinking colored water like I drank. I had
fun in school, but you have to be committed to make things better. I see my wife out
there, Selena, it's 28 years, and my son, Reginald is a 7th grader at Ed White, which was
an all white school when I did this, straight A student. So now I know I did it for a
reason. Thank you.
Carolyn Parker: We set aside a few moments for questions and answers, or I should say
questions and responses, so if you would like to address anyone on our panel in terms of
asking a question, I recognize you now. I saw this hand first.
Q: (inaudible)
A: The school system hasn't made any inroads to improving the school system. I had the
opportunity of meeting with a lot of young men. I see them on the street and they said
they stopped school at sixteen. It's something being done about the GED. The GED is
going to be changed the beginning of the year and what is the movement, what is the
struggle. There is no gain without a struggle and there is no gain without any pain. I
participated in quite a few things here on this campus and I'm surprised to see the low
attendance. What can we do to get more people involved? What can we do about pro
ration with what's going on right now. We're worried about terror, and I grew up in
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Louisiana, Mississippi and the south and, like you said, the things that went on in New
York, black people grew up and lived in that terror. We still live in some of that terror.
We talk about anthrax. We've got to start doing something about what's going on on a
daily basis and I think that this movement and this struggle have to come to the young
people. The older people participated in the NAACP. I participated in a drive and come
to find out there's sixty to seventy thousand black people here and you have less than
three hundred to five hundred people participating. Where does the struggle go from
here; I don't know.
Carolyn Parker: Okay. First, I'll say you did make some valuable observations, but
these gentlemen will try to answer your questions.
A: Well, I'm going to try and answer it like this, plain and simple. We've got to have a
new constitution in the state of Alabama. That is the root of the evil here. I would say
that the NAACP, or any organization in the state of Alabama, needs to be working very
hard for a new constitution convention. That is the basic medication I would prescribe to
this illness we have and I think it's very good advice considering the experience and the
professional education that I bear. Without a new constitution, there is no way that we
can continue in the state of Alabama the way that we have. It's got to be changed. It's
got to be brand new; and, of course, I may sound like a broken record, but that's it.
Carolyn Parker: I saw a hand right here. They say it's impolite to point but that's the
only way I can designate the person.
Q: My question is simply people are so headstrong to oppose anything, whatsoever other
than when they have a concern about NASA at Redstone Arsenal. What brought the
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white people around? How could they have changed without? I know what white people
can do and black people too, when you get so headstrong you're ready to, "I won't do a
thing they tell me," and to bring those people around and in two or three years, you're
talking 1962 through 1965, how did they come around like that? I can't believe it.
A: I'd like to answer that. It's one of the few I can answer. It was economics. It was the
boycott. It was the boycott that really, really, brought them around and we decided to
have the boycott, we had workshops; I had that included in my papers, but they wouldn't
let me talk to you about it. We had workshops on how to conduct a boycott. You don't
call a merchant and tell him if you don't do such and such a thing I'm going to boycott
you, you let that guy go. Then, Christmas or Easter, let him buy his stock and buy all of
his stuff and then you tell your people, don't go down there and purchase anything from
him. The first thing he knows, he's got all of this stuff on his shelves and he can't tum it
into money and he's got to pay the bank for that money that he borrowed. That was what
did it. The boycott was more successful than you could ever believe. I just found out
about it later and Dr. Cashin's wife and I discussed it and I know what she said was right
and the things I thought were right. We had at least five groups of people that were
participating in that boycott that I didn't know about when it was going on. We had
about ninety-five percent of black people that were absolutely, positively not going to
buy. We had another group of white people who were in the labor union and we had
picket lines and they would not cross our picket lines. We had some white people who
came down there to jeer us; we had some white people who came down to cheer us and
we had some other white people who just didn't come to the city of Huntsville because of
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the commotion down there and so that over-compensated for that other five percent of
black people that didn't buy. It was the boycott that really, really made them come
around.
A: Not just the boycott, but there's a little stunt that we put on there too. We had almost
simultaneous demonstrations, Chicago Board of Trade and New York Stock Exchange.
Picket lines. Don't do business in Huntsville, Alabama. It's bad business. That made
the New York Times and that word got out all around the world. That just showed most
of our potential. That's all. Apparently you had another part to your question?
Q: How did you handle the hot heads, the ones who were ready to break in?
A: They were not allowed to join our organization. Oh, you're talking about the white
people?
Q: The white people, how did they get put in their place?
A: What do you mean, "Put in their place?"
Q: How did you stop them?
A: We were prepared to take whatever, they did not, as I recall we only had one incident
of violence with Evelyn Sawkowski. The word was out to the city fathers, if that's what
they could be called, there was to be no violence. That doesn't mean they're going to
keep that. If you look in the paper when Sonnie Hereford, IV went to school, the first
time he went he was turned away. Governor Wallace had set up ... that's another story
too ... yes, that's another story, but what happened was the city fathers wanted the money
and were not about to let Spurlock and his group get out of hand. There was a soldier
who came up with his invalid child and he wanted to go to school, even though a black
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kid was going to school. There was another lady who told the police that, yea, they said,
"we don't want you to start any trouble, just go on back home."
She said, "You're
making the trouble." But that's because of the city fathers. They didn't want it either.
They contested it. They sent letters to representatives and everything. The point was
they wanted that green dollar.
Carolyn Parker: I think William wants to address that.
A: Yes. They tried everything they could, including coming to the school, getting with
the governor and telling us they were going to put us out of school if we marched. The
main thing is if you 're committed to something and you've committed to doing it a
certain way; we were committed to nonviolence. They knocked one girl off of a stool.
You know, the mind is a strong thing. There were people there jeering but when you
show no fear, and then they never wanted to get in the newspapers, so they had to keep it
down, the city fathers had to keep it down. They didn't want it in the paper.
A: There was a little humorous twist there. One of the ways that we were able to see to
it that the crowd didn't get out of hand is on our first demonstration we had members of
the Alabama A&M football team with the signs. They were some burly guys. Wonder
why they wouldn't be fool enough to tackle them. That was the initial march we had,
big, burly six foot three, two hundred and fifty pounders. Even the redneck would take
his chance on something else.
Carolyn Parker: Okay. I saw a hand here first, and then the next one. Right here,
young lady, you'll be next after this gentleman.
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Q: Could you tell me the difference between socioeconomics for the minority groups in
this community now as it was then? I don't see many black-owned businesses in this
community. Could you explain that?
A: We've got some black millionaires in this town. We've got quite a few as a matter of
fact. Yes, they're quite a few doing well. I'm not one of them, but I know a few.
Carolyn Parker: This young lady, then Ms. Deshield.
Q: How did you deal with it? I can't imagine trying to go to school and having people
treating me like that? I know you all were close and you talk about being committed, but
there has to be more to it than that.
A: How did we relieve the stress, is that what you're asking? Now for our students, and
this was Dr. Cashin's wife's idea, she said, "I think about every three or four weeks we
ought to have some entertainment for these students and when these students are out here
protesting and marching and demonstrating, we ought to give them something to look
forward to that they're going to be doing," so during our movement, the real active part
was about seven months, we had two dances, we had three parties and we had a 4th of
July picnic for the students, so we kept something for them to do and they always had
something to look forward to.
Carolyn Parker: William, would you like to address that?
A: We had a lot of fun too. We had fun together. You know, we were all close friends
and when we partied, we partied hard. We demonstrated; we demonstrated hard.
A: I'd like to say something else to. I'd like to say something about the closeness of that
group. Some of my fraternity brothers may not like for me to say this and some of my
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church members may not like for me to say this, but I've been on a lot of organizations
but I have never been in any group that had a greater closeness than that group, and more
love and respect for each other than that group that we had.
Carolyn Parker: Okay. Ms. Deshields had a question.
Q: I want to commend you, Dr. Ellis, for the inclusion of my name in your report and I
did write the Acquisition of Civil Rights in Huntsville, Alabama from 1962 to 1965. My
question and concern is that I have no documentation about this. You have not done any
research on it, but you made the statement that Dr. Drake was forced into retirement by
Governor John Patterson. I was a student here at A&M at that time
A: I know that story very well. Yes.
Q: You 're agreeing with it or disagreeing with it?
A: The way Patterson treated Drake.
Q: That he forced him into retirement.
A: Yes, he was forced into retirement without any doubt. As a matter of fact, it was
during the sit-ins and John Patterson said that he was going to name a president who
would make those children study and make them behave, and to really follow on his path,
he named the wrong man.
Q: I did see John Patterson in a subsequent meeting in Birmingham many years later and
he had done a 180 degree tum and I could see in my lifetime that transition.
A: A whole lot of them have done ISO-degree turns. George Wallace was in 438 when
he changed his mind.
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Q: Well, one final statement, Carolyn. That is that my recollection of Dr. Drake's
retiring was based on the loss of his health and that forced him to retire, but I may not be
accurate on that, but I'm raising the question.
A: He was ill and in the hospital when the sit-ins broke out and that is when Governor
Patterson decided that he would fire Drake and name a new president, and he named
Leon Bonner.
Leon was president for about three days I recall. Let me make one
comment with respect to that. It is my understanding at the time that Dr. Levi Watkins
and Dr. Drake were under fire. There should be a letter where Dr. Drake sent a letter to
Watkins telling Watkins to stand his ground, to use his words. Dr. Drake became ill with
meningitis, if I remember correctly, and during his illness, I don't know if he died out of
office or if Patterson fired him. No, Patterson fired him. But, it is due to his illness, in
my opinion, at the time. That's what we received. I don't know if it is true. Patterson
made the public statement that he was going to fire Drake and he was going to get him a
new president that would make those children behave and make them study. I just want to
confirm what Dr. Cashin said. Most of that information is from the Huntsville Times
and, in fact, according to the Huntsville Times, Dr. Drake heard about his forced
retirement on the radio. He didn't even know it was coming. He was deeply hurt by this
and the quotation that Dr. Cashin is referring to is that Governor Patterson said that he
wanted to hire a new campus administrator who said, "Will require discipline, make the
students behave themselves and make them study." Furthermore, in an about face, the
Huntsville Times generally either ignored some of the demonstrations or put them on the
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third or fourth page. In this case, they had a very lengthy editorial denouncing the
governor for this mistreatment of Dr. Drake.
Carolyn Parker: Okay, we'll take three more questions. I have this lady and there was
a lady in the back and this gentleman here.
Q: My name is Peggy Bavenovich and one of the questions I have, I saw that excellent
movie that's been made of the whole experience of Huntsville and my question is, are
you saying there were no idealistic whites in Huntsville that supported you?
A: There were some idealistic whites that did support us. As a matter of fact, a great
contingent came out of the Unitarian fellowship but so far as real active participation, a
few from the Human Relations Council were with it, but the Unitarians were probably the
strongest bunch of all. So far as the local whites are concerned, a lot of us had white
friends, but they didn't want to get exposed. As a matter of fact, we had some difficulty
getting membership in the biracial committee, but in the final analysis, there were two
merchants, I guess you could call them business people that did indeed support things
behind the scenes. One of them was Woody Anderson. I guess Woody would have
conniptions ifhe knew I was discussing him. You see, Woody owned the Kings Inn, and
that was one of the first places that opened up, and the other guy was Boots Ellis who had
Boots Lounge down on the Parkway.
Q: How about newcomers?
A: Newcomers, the newcomers pretty much stayed on their own. They were pretty much
here for business, and we had lot of engineers. They were very busy getting ready to put
the man on the moon and when John Kennedy said we're going to put a man on the moon
-43-
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by 1970, he gave Huntsville the job and we did it by 1969. But we were a very busy
community. Then, of course, Sputnik was up there beep, beep, beeping so we were really
under the gun. So, we didn't want to rock the boat, but we were not going to allow the
same things to be in place. There were some very, very dedicated whites; I have to admit
that, but so far as locals who were concerned, there was a narrow few.
Before you say that, I'm glad she mentioned the movie. I had planned to make this
commercial and they didn't tell me to say it or not to say it. Tom, would you bring it up
here please. She mentioned the movie. Evidently she must have liked it. How much are
they? $20.00, $50.00? No, $30.00.
Q: How can we as youth realize the struggle that is current. Many of the students at
A&M have no idea about this Civil Rights Movement because we were looking for it. We
attend Oakwood College and our pre-law found out about this. Many students don't know
what's going on so how can we get motivated and be informed on these kinds of forums
that are taking place?
A: Sessions like this. She didn't know about the program, is that what she's saying?
Well, that is not surprising to me at all. As a matter of fact, if you will flick on this
printed program, I'm not on there.
Carolyn Parker: Okay. We have a question right here, the former president of the
college.
Q: I have been greatly inspired by the wonderful tales given by the gentleman on this
panel. I admire their report and what they did over the years. For the second time in the
last four days a visit of Dr. Martin Luther King to Huntsville was mentioned.
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Dr. Hereford, I think is an expert on that. He mentioned it tonight. It didn't have a
relationship to what the committee and group were doing in Huntsville. He inspired the
Oakwood audience where he spoke. He gave us a preview of his "I Have a Dream"
speech where he gave it at Oakwood first, went up to the Washington Mall and inspired
the leaders of the nation and we know what happened thereafter. I would like to have
Dr. Hereford, ifhe will, enlarge on the effect on Huntsville.
A: Dr. Minette, it's all right here in this folder. They wouldn't let me tell you about it
but now they can't hold me down in the question and answer session. We had about four
or five hundred demonstrators that would demonstrate regularly in January, and then
nothing was happening. We weren't getting any concessions at all and so after about six
to eight weeks the participation dropped off. And then in one of those sessions,
Dr. Cashin, Mrs. Cashin, Randolph, Blackwell and I and all of us, somebody said that
"We ought to get a dynamic speaker to come to Huntsville and speak and see if we can
bring our people together, solidify the community and bring some of these people back
that we have lost and maybe get some white people to come and join us in our
demonstrations." So we kept thinking who in the world can we get and then Dr. King's
name came up and somebody said we'll invite Dr. King. We had a committee that was
going to invite Dr. King and I think that Dr. Cashin was probably the chairman or one of
the people on that committee. We had to figure out where we were going to get the
money to pay him and his lieutenants and so forth. He came March 19th and spoke at
First Missionary Baptist Church, downtown, and then he spoke at Oakwood College gym
that night at 8 o'clock. He had to speak at Oakwood because there was nowhere else in
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town that they would allow us to have Dr. King. You see what I mean? There was very
good security at Oakwood and I appreciate that, the way it was fixed up at that time, and
that's when Dr. King came.
After he left, the community did show signs of being
solidified and also some white people joined our movement and the mayor found two
white people to serve on the biracial committee when Dr. King left. Does that help to
clarify it a little bit?
Carolyn Parker: Okay. We do need to adjourn this session. I realize there are other
questions, but we promised that we wouldn't hold you too long. Let me also remind you
the next session, next week, will be at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Roberts
Auditorium, and I would certainly be remiss if I did not acknowledge our Director of the
Alabama Humanities Foundation, Mr. Bob Stewart. Just wave Bob. Bob came all the
way from Birmingham to support this project and, as you well know, we received a grant
from the Humanities Foundation for this program, among other contributions. Let me
again thank you and I've been so delighted to moderate this panel. All of these guys are
very, very special to me and it has just been special to me to do this. Please join us for
refreshments in the back sponsored by the State Black Archives Research Center. Don't
forget your evaluation forms. They'll be in the back holding them up. Hold on, Dr. Ellis
wants to make one more point.
Jack Ellis: I just have one more point. He spoke about Dr. King's speech. We have
excerpts of Dr. King's speech. Thank you Carolyn.
-46-
�
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
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<a href="http://libarchstor.uah.edu:8081/repositories/2/resources/21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">View the Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965 finding aid in ArchivesSpace</a>
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uah_civr_000022
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Digitized transcription of VHS tape of "Huntsville during the Civil Rights Movement."
Description
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Sonnie W. Hereford III, John Cashin Jr., William Pearson, and Fred Carodine were the speakers in this lecture given at Alabama A&M University.
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Alabama A & M University
University of Alabama in Huntsville
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2001-10-25
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2000-2009
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Hereford, Sonnie W., 1931-2016
Pearson, William, 1940-2007
Carodine, Frederick, 1930-2016
Civil rights movements--Southern states--History--20th century
Huntsville (Ala.)
Madison County (Ala.)
Segregation
Race discrimination
Cashin, John L. (John Logan), 1928-2011
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</a>
University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama
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<a href="http://libarchstor.uah.edu:8081/repositories/2/archival_objects/389">Huntsville During the Civil Rights Movement - Speakers: Sonnie W. Hereford III, John Cashin Jr., Fred Carodine, and William Pearson - Transcription of Tape 7, 2003 Box 1, File 8</a>
University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives, Special Collections, and Digital Initiatives, Huntsville, Alabama
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http://libarchstor2.uah.edu/digitalcollections/files/original/32/13347/TrialByFireandWaterPart2_Tape6_File7.pdf
27b97c39f8295b49d753e70fb1489463
PDF Text
Text
The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
UAH - The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Trial by Fire and Water: Birmingham, 1963 (Part II)
Speaker: Glenn Eskew, Odessa Woolfolk
Ladies and Gentleman, good evenmg. I am Sherry Marie Shuck, Assistant
Professor of History at UAH. Welcome to the sixth installment of the Civil Rights
Movement in Alabama, a 14-week symposium centered around a series of public
lectures, panels and first-hand account of significant events taking place in the state of
Alabama. This series is held alternately at UAH and Alabama A&M University. After
three years of planning, this unique intellectual project is a joint venture between
Alabama A&M University and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The members
of the Steering Committee in alphabetical order are: Mitch Berbrier of UAH, John
Dimmock of UAH, Jack Ellis of UAH, James Johnson of AAMU, Carolyn Parker of
AAMU and Lee Williams, II, of UAH. To round its work, the planning committee has
also been greatly assisted by the efforts of Joyce Maples of UAH's University Relations.
We would also like to recognize our two visitors at this time, President John Kee Gibson,
President of Alabama A&M University and Dr. Charles Nash, Vice Chancellor of the
University of Alabama System.
We ask that you complete an evaluation form for this program and leave it here
on the stage or with an attendant at the exit.
This series on the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama would not have been
possible without the financial support of numerous sponsors whom the planning
committee wishes to acknowledge at this time.
First and foremost is the Alabama
Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
�The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
UAH - The University of Alabama in Huntsville
The Huntsville Times, DESE Research Incorporated, Mevatec Corporation, Alabama
Representative Laura Hall and Senator Hank Sanders.
Joining our efforts from Alabama A&M University is the Office of the President,
The Office of the Provost, the State Black Archives Research Center and Museum, Title
III Telecommunications and Distance Leaming, the Office of Student Development, the
A&M Honors Center of Sociology/Social Work, Political Science and History.
At the University of Alabama at Huntsville, we greatly acknowledge funding
assistance from the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost, the Humanities
Center, the Division of Continuing Education, the Department of Sociology and Social
Issues Symposium, the Honors Program, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Student
Affairs, The Copy Center, and the UAH History Forum Bankhead Foundation, which is
serving as the local host for tonight's activities; and with the kind help of Staff Assistant
Beverly Robinson, who has prepared a reception back stage immediately following
tonight's lecture to which you are all invited.
Tonight, we are presenting part 2 o( our program, Trial by Fire and Water,
Birmingham 1963. We would like to remind you that next week's program which will be
a panel discussion on the Civil Rights Movement in Huntsville will be held on the
Alabama A&M West Campus at the Ernest Knight Reception Center. I would now like
to tum things over to Professor James Johnson, Director of the State Black Archives
Research Center and Museum who will introduce tonight, the distinguished panelists and
moderate the program .... Dr. Johnson.
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I would say good evening also. I would like to make some preliminary remarks
regarding Dr. Horace Huntley who was to be one of the panelists on tonight's program.
At the last minute, Dr. Huntley informed us that he could not keep his commitment to
participate in the program due to a medical condition and at the advice of his doctor
advising him against making the trip. He regrets this occurrence and offers his sincere
apologies, and of course, we recognize that his health takes priority over the project.
Dr. Huntley was scheduled to discuss the oral history project of which he serves as
director, sponsored by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. However, Ms. Odessa
Woolfolk is familiar with the project and is at liberty to address its significance to the
Civil Rights Movement in Alabama.
We are pleased and privileged to have two exceptionally qualified individuals to
serve as panelists for this evening's program, Part II, Trial By Fire and Water Birmingham, 1963.
Introduction: Professor Glenn T. Eskew made did his under graduate studies at Auburn
University receiving a BA degree in History and Journalism in 1984. His graduate
studies were completed at the University of Georgia, receiving an MA and Ph.D. degrees
respectively in 1987 and 1993. He has received prestigious fellowships and honors that
reflect upon his outstanding academic and professional accomplishments prior to and as a
Professor of History of Georgia State Universities since 1993. Some of these include The
National Endowment for Humanities, Summer Institute for College Teachers, teaching
the history of the Southern Civil Rights Movement at the WEB Dubois Institute, Harvard
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University 1195; Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award for undergraduate assistance,
best dissertation 1994;. Albert Einstein Institution Dissertation Fellowship 1991 through
1993. The Phelps-Stoke Graduate Fellowship in 1988. He is also a member of the Phi
Alpha Theta and Phi Kappa Phi local and national honor societies.
His numerous
publications have appeared in journals, anthologies and books, which include
Fraternalism in a Southern City, Race, Religion and Gender in Augusta, Georgia 1999;
Southern Labor in War Times and other essays in honor of Gary Fink, 1999, and But For
Birmingham, the Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle, 1997;
essays and a number of journals, the Journal of Southern History, Alabama Review, The
Historian, The Atlanta History, as well as encyclopedias and dictionaries.
But For
Birmingham, the Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle, is a
significant contribution to the recent literature on the history of the Civil Rights
Movement in general and to Birmingham and Alabama in particular. It will serve as a
basis for his presentation and the context of the panel's discussions. The title of the book
that it quotes from Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and provides the continuity between last
week's symposium where Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth was a keynote speaker.
Although not dealing exclusively with Reverend Shuttlesworth, But for Birmingham sees
him as a central figure in the Birmingham episode. His work, though expressing some
provocative view points, is an excellently written, prize-winning book, and Dr. Eskew
has a firm grasp on the topic; and questions pertinent to this topic that were not asked last
week, will have an opportunity to be addressed tonight.
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Ms. Odessa Woolfolk received a BA in history and political science from
Talladega College, AMA in Urban Studies from Occidental College in California and did
additional graduate studies in political science at the University of Chicago and Yale
University as a National Urban Fellow.
Her distinguished professional experience
includes teacher at Ullman High School in Birmingham, an administrative position with
the Urban Reinvestment Task Force, Washington DC, New York State Urban
Development Corporation, New York City, Auber Hill Community Center and Interracial
Council, Albany, New York. Ms. Woolfolk has served as a Director of the Birmingham
Opportunity Industrialization Center and Associate Executive Director for the Jefferson
County Committee for Economic Opportunity.
For ten years, she was director of
University of Alabama Birmingham, UAB, Center for Urban Affairs and adjunct lecturer
in a Department of Political Science and Public Affairs. She was also an assistant to the
president for Community Relations at UAD. She is now a private consultant and lecturer.
Her research in consulting areas are housing, social service, education, race relations,
community organization and urban history.
She also has a distinguished civil and community service history that includes
voice
of
educational
institutions,
nonpartisan
political
organizations,
business
organizations, cultural organizations, advocacy groups and community agencies.
Her
outstanding accomplishments and distinguished service have been recognized and
honored through the many citations received from numerous organizations and
institutions.
Upon her retirement from UAV in 1993, the University established the
Odessa Woolfolk Presidential Community Service Award.
5
In 1994, the Mayor and City
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UAH - The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Council of Birmingham selected her as an inductee into the Gallery of Distinguished
Citizens. She was awarded the Doctor of Humane Letters by Talladega College in 1996.
As former chair of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and now President
Emerita, she will address the role this institution played in the memorializing the Civil
Rights Movement in Alabama.
She will also comment on her relations to students
involved in the movement. I made a comment to her just before coming on stage about
one aspect of her talk in which she will not elaborate on but she may mention, and that is
the Kelly Ingram Park Monument that is associated with the Birmingham Civil Rights
Institute.
The comment that I made to her is that the State Black Archives usually
sponsors a historic preservation forum and due to extenuating circumstances, we are not
able to have that this year. In fact, it usually comes during this month. We decided to
forego it. I indicated to her that I would hope that she would return to Huntsville next
year to address the topic dealing with urban parks as it relates to historic preservation.
With that, we will ask Dr. Eskew's to come and begin the presentation.
Glenn Eskew: Good evening and thank you for coming. I would like to thank
Professor James Johnson for that very thorough introduction, and Professor Jack Ellis
also, the two of them, and the rest of the committee for inviting me to participate in the
symposium. I commend the University of Alabama in Huntsville as well as the Alabama
A&M University for putting on this series. As Professor Shuck mentioned, the Alabama
Humanities Foundation and the marvelous people there such as Marion Carter, Laura
Bradsford, and others who fund this kind of event. It is not very often that a symposium
is held where people can gather and actually discuss Alabama's history, much less
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frankly look at the racial past in our communities. I think that it is a great thing. If you
have appreciated these symposia, please allow me to encourage you to write your
representative down in Montgomery. Thank him for supporting the Alabama Humanities
Foundation for they do receive state dollars as well as your representatives in Washington
who also through the National Endowment for the Humanities fund the Alabama
Humanities Foundation. They need your support, so please write letters. One last thing, I
understand that Reverend Shuttlesworth was here was last week. As Dr. Woolfolk and 1
both know, when we are on panels with Reverend Shuttlesworth, he is a phenomenal
speaker and very charismatic, as scholars, I am afraid it is not the same thing when you
get us or me anyway. If you are use to these activists speaking, think back to the scholars
you have had and you will probably be a little happier.
Tonight, I would like to address Birmingham and the Civil Rights Movement,
looking at the Birmingham Triptych. A triptych is a three panel. You can sort of think of
it in terms of church as an alter piece. The climax of the civil rights struggle occurred in
Birmingham in 1963.
President John F. Kennedy attributed his decision to propose
watershed Civil Rights Legislation to Commissioner to T. Eugene "Bull" Conner's use of
police dogs and fire hoses against protesting Black school children, led by the Reverend
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
King's national group, The Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, came to Birmingham to assist the local Alabama Christian Movement to
Human Rights, led by the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth. The resulting Birmingham
campaign provoked a brutal response that not only created a crisis in local race relations
but also forced a resolution to the national race problem. In the iconography of civil
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rights history, three images stand above the rest. The Birmingham triptych of Conner,
King and Kennedy. Behind the hoses and the dogs, stood Bull Conner.
As city commissioner, Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Conner enforced Birmingham
segregation ordinances, a job he relished. Conner first gained notoriety in 1938 when he
segregated the biracial Southern Conference for Human Welfare at the apparent behest of
the Big Mules, the local name given to the city's industrial elite. Ten years later, Bull led
the Alabama delegation out of the Democratic National Convention and welcomed the
to Birmingham.
Indeed, Conner cultivated the reputation as a racial
extremist, a tough persona for a tough town. Birmingham existed because of the close
proximity of the coal, iron ore and limestone, ingredients necessary for making steel.
The city's largest employer, The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, was a
subsidiary of the monopolistic United States Steel Corporation.
While Pittsburgh
determined TCI's policy, creative use of interlocking directories and sizable contracts
with would-be competitors enabled TCI to determine Big Mule policy. That included the
use of a race wage, lower pay for Black workers as a way to keep white wages lower. By
enforcing segregation, Conner kept the city running in the interest of the Big Mules.
In June of 1956, a new Black protest group set out to alter race relations m
Birmingham. Led by Shuttlesworth, the Alabama Christian Movement used direct action
to challenge the legality of the city's segregation ordinances. Across the South, there
emerged new Black leaders, preachers who believed that as Christians they were
obligated to confront the sin, segregation.
Most well known was King, who gained
national attention with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This struggle to integrate the city
8
�The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
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buses concluded in December 1956 with the US Supreme Court ordering an end to
segregated seating. Shuttlesworth saw implementation of the rooming on Birmingham's
buses. The Alabama Christian Movement also attempted to register Black students at allwhite Phillips High School in 1957. They tried to integrate the terminal train station in
1958, the airport in 1959, and city parks in 1960. Shuttlesworth led Birmingham's Civil
Rights Movement.
Bull Conner determined to thwart that desegregation drive.
He
arrested Shuttlesworth and other integrationist, dodged court orders to stop segregating
buses and closed parks. When the freedom riders reached Birmingham in May 1961,
Conner allowed a white mob of
Klansmen to beat the non-violent activists with
impunity. Criticized for not providing police protection, a disingenuous Commissioner
of Public Safety explained, 'The force was off because it was Mother's Day".
The
national condemnation of Birmingham following the freedom rises, convinced several of
the Big Mules to tum against Conner. They hatched a plan to remove him from office by
changing the city's form of government.
Voters selected the mayor council system in November of 1962 and slated new
elections for spring 1963. Frustrated by the slow process of change, Shuttlesworth
invited King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to Birmingham.
As an
umbrella organization, the SCLC had provided assistance to local affiliates such as the
Alabama Christian Movement and indeed Shuttlesworth had served as secretary of the
SCLC since its inception in 1957. Agreeing to work together, the two groups decided to
postpone planned sit-ins until after the April 2nd 1963 runoff election. When Bull Conner
lost his bid for mayor that day, he then contested the change of government altogether
9
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and refused to leave office. Unwilling to await the outcome of Conner's court challenge,
the Movement initiated its boycott of downtown businesses with sit-ins at lunch counters
that refused to serve food to Black patrons. While the Birmingham news touted the
election, the segregationist Big Mule names Albert Boutwell over Bull Conner, as the
start of a new day, the real dawn occurred when twenty Black men and women, dressed
in their Sunday best, quietly asked for coffee at Britt's Cafeteria. Conner's men arrested
the protesters. Other demonstrations followed as Birmingham confronted a Civil Rights
Campaign amidst the chaos of competing municipal governments.
The first civil rights protest March occurred on April when Shuttlesworth led a
demonstration to city hall. Police stopped the procession and arrested the forty-three
activists. The next day King's brother, the Reverend A.D. King, headed a column of two
dozen out of church and in the streets lined with a thousand African Americans. While
not members of the movement, these Black bystanders, many of them unskilled or
unemployed workers of the underclass, identified with this desire for race reform. The
arrest of the marchers, after walking only two blocks, provoked civic unrest. When the
canine core arrived to break up the gathering, one Black youth poked a led pipe at a
police dog.
The German Shepherd attacked, pinning the young man to the ground.
Immediately officers moved in, swinging billy clubs and sicking the dogs. Policemen
disbursed the crowd. While reporting brutality, the national press mistook the bystanders
as actual members of the Movement, thus sensationalizing the number of protesters and
exaggerating the support the Movement received from the Black community.
King
capitalized on this error by staging future episodes after Black bystanders had gathered
IO
�The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
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and in time for national film crews to get their footage to New York City's for the
evening broadcast. Increasingly, Birmingham, became a media event.
Despite the use of dogs, Conner tried to follow the example of Police Chief Lloyd
Pritchard, who defeated the SCLC's drive in Albany Georgia by meeting King's
nonviolence with "nonviolence".
Conner obtained a state reporter restraining King,
Shuttlesworth, and others from leading protest marches.
King's decision to obey a
similar injunction the year before had ended the Albany campaign. In Birmingham, King
chose to defy the state court order, reasoning that all men had an obligation to violate
unjust laws. Also, the SCLC hoped King's arrest would trigger federal support for the
Movement. Dressed in the blue denim of the working man, King marched fiiiy people
pass a thousand Black onlookers on April 12. Law enforcement officials stepped in and
ushered the integrationists into waiting petty wagons.
The arrest of King focused attention on Birmingham as well as the oval office.
President John F. Kennedy claimed he had no legal authority to intervene in the dispute,
so he remained noncommittal, although he did arrange a telephone call between King and
his wife. While held incommunicado, King began his letter from Birmingham jail in
response to comments given by eight local clergyman describing the demonstrations as
unwise and untimely. Perhaps his greatest written work, King's letter, presented the case
for non-violent direct action in theological terms that stressed the immorality of racial
oppression. His heart-felt pros gave testament to the urgency of the Civil Rights struggle.
While national interest grew during King's incarceration, local support waned.
The Alabama Christian Movement had provided most of the foot soldiers so far. Those
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fanatical Christians whose faith enabled them to face Bull Conner's police dogs, when
others simply watched from the sidelines, yet the past two weeks had taxed their
resources. Once out on bond, King struggled to find new volunteers for his non-violent
army.
The Birmingham campaign teetered on the brink of collapse, as only a few
dedicated activist demonstrated. Then King's lieutenants, James Bevel and Ike Reynolds,
suggested to let the young people march. Opposition from Birmingham's traditional
Negro Leadership Class failed to sway King, who acquiesced to the idea out of
desperation to generate creative tension and keep the national press in Birmingham. The
children's crusade began at noon on May 2nd , as hundreds of Black students skipped
school and gathered at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and then embarked on a protest
march.
Wave after wave of Black youth washed down the stone steps in the Kelly
Ingram Park headed toward down town. The youngsters took Conner by surprise. By the
end of the day, the police had arrested five hundred Black teenagers and crammed them
into small jail cells.
The next morning, King promised bigger marches unless the merchants
desegregated. Bull Conner had other ideas. To prevent demonstrations, Conner stationed
firemen around the park and sealed off the Black business district from down town.
Attack dogs strained on their leashes intimidated many in the Black audience of
onlookers, while other bystanders taunted the officers. When the Black youth exited the
church, Conner hollered, "let them have it," as water gushed out of the fire hoses,
blasting blindly at males and females, spinning students down the sidewalks and tearing
the bark off trees. "I want to see the dogs work!" barked Bull explaining, "Look at those
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Niggers run!" Loosened, the dogs lunged at the Black crowd ripping at clothes in search
of flesh. Police arrested seven hundred people, emptying the area. Half an hour later, the
horrifying spectacle had ended, but it was captured on film forever.
Through his actions, Conner achieved immortality. His barbarous treatment of
peaceful protesters, the hoses and the dogs elevated Bull's Birmingham into a national
symbol of racial oppression. At least 250 journalists reported the event that dominated
the front pages of newspapers around the world. Footage of the brutal suppression
played on the broadcast of all three networks that night. Pictures in Saturday's paper
sickened President Kennedy, who decided to act. He ordered Burt Marshall, Assistant
Attorney General for Civil Rights to Birmingham, to end the protest.
Unrestrained,
Conner routed another demonstration, this time using the fire hoses to keep the activist in
the church. When the school children resumed marches Monday, May 6th
Conner refrained from force.
,
however,
Instead of the infamous hoses and dogs, his officers
arrested youthful offenders and loaded them onto school buses that rumbled off to prison.
As the momentum increased, classrooms emptied into the streets. Children ran into the
arms of policemen, prompting Conner to remark, "Boy, if that is religion, I don't want
any". By day's end, officers had arrested more than a thousand Black youth. The city
turned the stockade at the state fair grounds into a holding pen, for the Movement had
filled the jail to capacity.
The next morning, the Movement strategist exploited police lunch breaks by
beginning their marches earlier in a bid to upset social order through a large non-violent
protest designed to shut the city down. Activist reported false alarms to divert the fire
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department.
Small groups of protesters acted as decoys to distract the police while
hundreds of other Black students followed different routes around Bull's blockade. The
protesters converged at noon in the heart of Birmingham's business district on First
Avenue North. Thousands of singing Black citizens stopped traffic on Twentieth Street,
milled about stores and knelt on the sidewalk in prayer. "We're marching for freedom,"
cheered one. A group of Big Mules, discussing the demonstrations, broke for lunch only
to emerge from the chamber of commerce into the chaos of the streets.
businessmen recognized social order had collapsed.
These
They hastily reconvened and
determined to negotiate and end the protests. Although Burt Marshall saw his role as that
of a moderator between two opposing interests, his very presence in Birmingham
signaled the shift in federal policy.
While unclear how far Kennedy would go, he
obviously sided with a need for race reform.
Incensed that the Movement's maneuvering had outfoxed him, Conner reverted to
violence.
He high powered hoses and repulsed school children as they exited the
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Black bystanders threatened to riot, throwing rocks and
bricks at officers. When Civil Rights Activist attempted to quell the disorder, firemen
trained their hoses on Shuttlesworth. The water lifted him off the ground and slammed
him into the side of the church. Learning that an ambulance had taken the minister to the
hospital, Conner sneered, "I wish they had carried him away in a hearse."
After arriving in Birmingham, Marshall quickly convinced King to stop the
demonstrations.
With whites willing to negotiate, Kennedy's envoy acted as a go
between, hammering out an ambiguous agreement that acknowledged the movement's
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demand for desegregation, biracial communications and equal employment. Despite the
Klan bombing of the AG Gaston Motel and the Reverend A.D. King's house, with a
subsequent Black riot and fires in the ghetto that night, the truce held. Birmingham
embarked on a uneasy future.
Only willing to negotiate when the white violence
reflected badly on his administration, President Kennedy responded to the uprising of
Birmingham's Black underclass by mobilizing the armed forces.
He stationed riot-
controlled units at nearby military basis. He threatened marshall law in the city. His
televised statement of May 12, 1963, emphasized the need to restore order. Kennedy
urged Birmingham citizens to accept the negotiated accord and make outside military
intervention unnecessary.
Yet civil disorder had spread beyond Birmingham. In the
weeks that followed, some 750 demonstrations occurred in more than 185 cities across
the country with nearly 16,000 arrests of protesters. Civil Rights organizations sponsored
sympathy marches in Philadelphia, St. Paul, Los Angeles. About 5,000 people took to the
streets of Boston over the brutality of Birmingham. Suddenly, a national Black rebellion
appeared at hand. To the nation's white elite, it appeared that Black America could
follow one of two routes: the nonviolent movement for assimilation into the American
system lead by King, or the apparently violent alternative of Black separatism offered by
Malcolm X. In light of Conner's savagery and the outrage of many African-Americans,
the nation's new magazines began to rewrite the history of the Birmingham campaign.
Previously, the media had presented King as an outside agitator, exacerbating a local race
problem; but after the Birmingham campaign, Time and Newsweek heralded the
moderate King and his gospel of nonviolence. Forced to accept the Black Civil Rights
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revolution, the northeastern establishment circled around the charismatic King who
preached love and abhorred violence. The same circumstances that transformed King's
image altered Kennedy's persona as well. For following Birmingham, the President
proposed federal reforms to end America's discriminatory race practices.
During a
national broadcast on June 11, Kennedy admitted that Birmingham posed problems he
could no longer prudently ignore. To stop the demonstration, the destruction of property,
the negative publicity, the President called for sweeping legislation, for he believed new
moral laws would successfully shift the protests out of the streets and into the courts.
Eight days later, he sent to Congress his revolutionary Civil Rights Bill of 1963, which
harkened back to reconstruction by setting forth legal reforms designed to achieve
implementation of the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution and the aborted
Civil Rights Act of 1875. To outlaw racial discrimination, the federal government would
enforce compliance with the new laws by regulating interstate commerce and
withholding federal funds.
Yet, southern segregationists in Congress stalled the
legislation.
Building on the success of Birmingham, Civil Rights leaders planned a protest
March on Washington. Summoning the activists to the White House, President Kennedy
expressed his opposition to the idea, fearing the move might jeopardize his new
legislative agenda.
King responded that the march was no more ill-timed than the
Birmingham campaign. As the topic shifted to police brutality, the President said, "I
don't think you should all be totally harsh on Bull Conner," In the startled silence that
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followed, Kennedy quipped, "after all, he has done more for Civil Rights than almost
anybody else."
Shuttlesworth remembered the President saymg something different. But for
Birmingham, we would not be here today. Birmingham provided the climax of the Civil
Rights Movement, and the March on Washington simply celebrated that fact. Instead of
the massive protests in the capitol as originally envisioned by A. Philip Randolph, the
event became an affirmation of the American Dream. No one sounded the theme better
than Martin Luther King who gave the address of his life before an integrated audience of
at least a quarter-million people with millions more watching by television. With rolling
cadences, his "I Have a Dream" speech epitomized African-American desires for
assimilation.
Nearly tailor made to fit the demands of the Kennedy legislation before
Congress, the oration reasoned the need for race reform like his letter from Birmingham
jail while concluding with a resounding expression of faith in the American system.
Remembering that August day in 1963, Ms. Coretta Scott King recalled the
sanctification of King as he stood in the sunlight at the summit of the Lincoln Memorial.
"At that moment," she said, "it seemed as if the Kingdom of God appeared." Thereafter,
the media constructed an icon of the Civil Rights leader, a symbol of triumphant
nonviolence, marching in Birmingham and espousing the American Dream in
Washington. In short order, King won Time Magazine's "Man of the Year," and the
Nobel Peace Prize. Overwhelmed by his transformation, King accepted his newfound
glory with wonder.
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Likewise, Kennedy underwent a transfiguration in a touching interview shortly
after his assassination in November of 1963. Former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy
likened the heady excitement of her husband's administration to the mythical Camelot of
Broadway musical fame. Soon, the media set to work recasting the image of the late
President into that of an ennobled race reformer.
In reality, a less than aggressive
President seeking reelection had allowed segregationists to stymie the legislation in
Congress. Now, President Lyndon B. Johnson encouraged the passage of the package as
a tribute to the martyred leader, and the adoption by Congress of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 marked a watershed in national race relations. The act outlined equal employment
opportunities that opened the American system to minorities and women, thus, this
triptych. The juxtaposed icons of Conner, King and Kennedy symbolized the struggle to
overthrow racial oppression in the South. Taken together, the three images tell the story
of race reform in America. First, there's Conner, the fat, beady-eyed little man waving
on with his pork-pie hat the hoses and the dogs against helpless Black youth. Then, there
is Dr. King, having overcome Birmingham's hoses and dogs but now frozen in time at
the Lincoln Memorial giving his "I Have a Dream" speech; and finally, there is President
Kennedy in the haze of the White House Camelot, benevolently intervening in his
advocacy of racial equality.
As icons, these images retell over and again a morality play of triumphant race
reform. Clearly centering the climax of the Civil Rights Movement in the streets of
Birmingham.
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Odessa Woolfolk: Good evening, thanks to Dr. Johnson and to others who have
sponsored this wonderful discussion about a tremendously important event. I have heard
all over Alabama that this was the place to be, and I think we still have one or two more
weeks to go - several more weeks to go, so not only is this the place to be, but there is
time to be here. No doubt, the best work about Birmingham was written by Glenn
Eskew, and we are all indebted to him for his awesome scholarship. I am suppose to talk
about the memorialization of the Civil Rights Movement and use the Birmingham Civil
Rights Institute as a case, and I will do that, but as Professor Glenn, my friend, told that
riveting study of Birmingham, my mind raced back to 1963. I started thinking about what
I was doing in Birmingham during the time of these events so wonderfully captured by
Professor Glenn. So let me just be personal for a moment and tell you what I was doing.
There are four things that happened in 1963 that were mentioned by him that [
just want to comment about in a personal way. First, the spring campaign where Bevel
and others invited kids to participate. I was a young American Government teacher at
Ullman High School teaching the I 2'h Grade in 1963 when the call came for students to
go and joint a group marching downtown. It is interesting that the Birmingham Board of
Education had sent a notice to all the teachers saying check the roll in the morning and
again after lunch and turn in the names of those who were there in the morning and
absent after lunch. Well that did not seem right so a lot of fudging went on with those
things. I recall that a lot of students who were in my class were trying to decide ... now I
was teaching American Government (this is the irony of it) reading McGruder, the author
of the textbook that we used. McGruder laid out in the most beautiful fashion the
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American Dream, the American Creed, and it was clear that what was gomg on
111
Birmingham was not what McGruder said it should be. So, I counseled my students, as [
recollect. Students have told me as I have talked to them since that my counsel to them
was, "I can't tell you whether you should go down and face billy clubs and fire hoses, etc.
I can tell you this. I am not teaching on those days when you are not supposed to be here,
and so the grade that you will get will be for nothing here."
I remember that and
occasionally I see students and they remind me of that.
The second thing in 1963 that I am remembering, Glenn, as you talked about the
March on Washington, and I too went to the march. I went down from New York City
where I had been visiting with some friends, and we went on a bus that was sponsored by
the ______
and the NAACP. I am pretty sure there were more than a qumier-
million people there. It was interesting that when the people from Alabama and
Mississippi came in with the wagons and coveralls, you could hardly hear because there
was such a roar of acceptance by all the folks around the world praising what these folk
from the Deep South had done. So, I remember that and I also remember King's speech.
The third thing you mentioned, Glenn, that raced through my mine was the
Sixteenth Street Church. On that September Sunday, I recall hearing the bomb all over
town. I didn't go to Sunday School that day. I was not a member of the Sixteenth Street
Church. My church was a mile from Sixteenth Street. I normally taught Sunday School
but that day I did not, so I was late going to church, and I heard this awful noise, but we
heard a lot of awful noises in Binningham. When I arrived at church, shortly after I got
there, the phone started ringing and members of our church who had family members at
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Sixteenth Street were getting the calls about what had happened, so that day is seared in
my memory as well.
Then, the fourth thing you mentioned is Kennedy. I remember the day that the
President was assassinated. Then, I was teaching American Government at Ullman High
School. The kids had gone to lunch and came back right after the second lunch period
with their little transistor radios. We had transistor radios inside as well, and they said,
"the President has been shot," and they were hysterical. This was an all-Black high
school for those of you who are too young to know what it was like back then. They
were hysterical. About half an hour after that, a carload of white kids came by from
another high school chanting, "the nigger lover is dead. The nigger lover is dead," so
when I heard Professor Glenn talking about that year, I had all those images revisiting
me. I just wanted to share that with you.
Well, you have heard from Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, the fiery, tough-minded
leader of the Birmingham Movement, a person for whom I have a lot of respect and
admiration.
Glenn was absolutely right when he said that not all of the African-
Americans (we were Negroes then), not all of the Negroes supported what he did. It was
not that people did not want freedom. It was not that the middle class Negroes were so
comfortable that they thought they had it made. It was that Fred Shuttlesworth scared the
living daylights out of folks, and they said, "Fred, we want our freedom but we want to
be alive to enjoy it." So Reverend Fred did not have as many followers publically as he
had supporters privately. At that time what had happened around the South period was
that many Blacks lost their employment and people who were in school teaching and jobs
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like that had lost jobs, in some small towns especially. So, I suspect that many people
were fearful of that happening. The church that I attended, a congregational church, was
a place where Andrew Young, Wyatt Tee Walker, King, Deanie and John Drew and
others met.
Now, that was what Shuttlesworth called the middle class negotiating
committee. If you heard him speak, I am sure you heard him speak very plainly. These
folk met at our church, so our congregation was somewhat involved but not in the
middle, although some of the members actually were in the middle.
The Memorializing of the Movement in Birmingham - the healing of a city by
design is a title a local news journal used in a cover story of the Civil Rights District. The
district linked people, structures, nature, brick, mortar and stone in defining the role that
Birmingham played in the Movement. Dr. Johnson mentioned the Kelly Ingram Park and
that park was a part of the Civil Rights District which included the Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church, the historic Black business district, and the Birmingham Civil Rights
Institute which was constructed in 1992. Let me just tell you a little about that. Richard
Ellington, Jr., about whom many of you have heard, was Mayor of Birmingham for 20
years, the first African-American mayor - it was his job to complete a job proposed by
his predecessor, Mayor David Van. David Van in 1979, after having gone to Israel and
noticing how the holocaust was dealt with there in museums proposed that the City of
Birmingham should spend public dollars for a combination of a museum and an
educational facility.
It was not a very popular idea I can tell you, even in 1979 in
Birmingham, Alabama. It turns out that Van did not get reelected. Richard Ellington did
get elected and decided that he would move forward with this idea after thinking about it,
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as Glenn has written in some of his pieces. Ellington appointed a citizen's task force in
1986. He asked me if I would share it. At that time, I was working for the University of
Alabama of Birmingham, your sister university. What we decided to do was to sit and
come up with a mission statement, a schematic plan, and to recommend designers to
oversee the project to completion.
This is what our charge was.
You know,
preservationists and historians speak of the material culture of human events. We know
that the material culture of the Civil Right Movement is, as one scholar put it, comprised
of churches, homes, lunch counters, roadways, bus stations, bridges, parks and other
public spaces that serve as local sites for community organizing and demonstration. So,
we had our task as a planning committee to work on using raw history and telling a story
for all eternity of what happened in Birmingham. We were to submit a redesign of Kelly
Ingram Park, which is the park across the street from the Sixteenth Street church where
the marchers went and where Bull Conner and his crowd welcomed them.
One of the major stories in interpreting history is indeed whose story is to be told
and who should participate in the telling of the story. How to tell that story was indeed a
challenge for us. What we wanted our designers to do was to depict a really powerful, as
described by Glenn, a powerful social movement by redesigning the actual place, the
Holy ground if you will, where it occurred. We wanted to ensure authenticity so we
invited the people who had really marched in 1963 to retrace, to reenact their path. They
were asked to tell where the fire hoses and the firemen were; where were the police dogs;
where was the tank in terms of the periphery. Where were the cops stationed, etc., to
recollect exactly what happened from their first-hand experience, albeit many years later.
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In addition to those stories, we searched the primary sources and then used that
information for designing and landscaping of the park.
Dick Ellington was very
interested in that particular project and wanted us to think of the park as being from a
revolution, which the movement was, to reconciliation, which is the path we felt that
Birmingham was on. I would hope that some people might want to visit that park and I
will talk about that another time.
The design of the Institute itself needed to capture city history.
Even in the
building materials that we used, we wanted to celebrate the building materials of
Birmingham, which had been field brick and wood. Most of Twentieth Century
Birmingham structures were made out of those particular elements. We also wanted to
show in the path of visitors to the galleries a kind of undulating walk showing that the
movement indeed was a struggle and a move forward, so people proceeded vertically
through history. We felt that was symbolically important.
I raised the question earlier of whose story should be told. Fred Shuttlesworth
was no doubt the hero no matter what else we said. We had to tell Fred Shuttlesworth's
story. Martin Luther King, Jr., was important to Birmingham, but not as important as
Frederick L. Shuttlesoworth. The Birmingham hero of the movement was Fred L.
Shuttlesworth. So, we felt that his story needed to be told ... not only the story of the
leader, but many, many stories of the people who participated because the movement, as
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth will tell you, is larger than those who lead it.
We went about planning. The task force was appointed by the mayor, and in June
of 1990, the City of Birmingham appointed a Board of Directors made up of those who
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had previously been on the task force. I was asked to be the president of that, and we did
finally open the Institute in 1992; but it was not that simple. As a matter of fact, the
board was one of controversy. The mayor had tried on two occasions to have the citizens
vote on a bond issue which included not only the Birmingham Civil Right Institute
planning but a variety of public improvement, including schools and libraries and
recreation facilities. On both occasions, the voters turned those down.
There were some interesting arguments in our position, arguments such as: all we
will do is open up old wounds; it will rekindle racial strife; and after all, there are more
pressing priorities for public dollar. Some argued that just having kind of a building with
the name Civil Rights Institute would alienate whites of good will.
Somebody said,
"white people aren't coming." Others said, "no need to build a new facility for a handful
of old papers. We have a library, a very fine library, so we could put those old papers
there." There was a group called the Taxbusters who played a major role in the defeat of
the bond issue. Their leaders had been very critical of the mayor's spending priorities
and said that the taxpayer should not trust him with another dime of public money. They
went on and said that to do this, to build this, would just remind the nation about all of
the negative aspects of our city. One even argues, "I can't image that there would be
widespread attendance at the Institute with the crime and drugs that surround the areas."
The Institute was located in the heart of the historic Black community. The crime rate
there was no higher than other districts in Birmingham, but that was one of the
arguments.
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had previously been on the task force. I was asked to be the president of that, and we did
finally open the Institute in 1992; but it was not that simple. As a matter of fact, the
board was one of controversy. The mayor had tried on two occasions to have the citizens
vote on a bond issue which included not only the Birmingham Civil Right Institute
planning but a variety of public improvement, including schools and libraries and
recreation facilities. On both occasions, the voters turned those down.
There were some interesting arguments in our position, arguments such as: all we
will do is open up old wounds; it will rekindle racial strife; and after all, there are more
pressing priorities for public dollar. Some argued that just having kind of a building with
the name Civil Rights Institute would alienate whites of good will. Somebody said,
"white people aren't coming." Others said, "no need to build a new facility for a handful
of old papers. We have a library, a very fine library, so we could put those old papers
there." There was a group called the Taxbusters who played a major role in the defeat of
the bond issue. Their leaders had been very critical of the mayor's spending priorities
and said that the taxpayer should not trust him with another dime of public money. They
went on and said that to do this, to build this, would just remind the nation about all of
the negative aspects of our city. One even argues, "I can't image that there would be
widespread attendance at the Institute with the crime and drugs that surround the areas."
The Institute was located in the heart of the historic Black community. The crime rate
there was no higher than other districts in Birmingham, but that was one of the
arguments.
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Then during construction, we were caught in a public debate which the
newspapers carried for many, many weeks over whether a certain city consultant accused
of payment irregularities in work that she was doing for the city was involved in the
Institute project. Now, Dr. Glenn, most people on the Institute board never saw this lady.
To the whites who feared the creation of a Civil Rights District, Ellington responded that
whites were as much a part of this rich history as Blacks. This was an opportunity to take
pride in what we had been able to overcome as a biracial community; so he was very
positive about the biracial nature of this effort.
Well just when we thought we had set aside the usual suspects, we were
publically criticized by a small group of Civil Rights activists. The Civil Rights foot
soldiers went after us. Their beef was that they did not think that enough of them were on
the Board of Directors. They were concerned that the history that we told would not be
accurate and that besides, we were talking only to the leaders of the movement, and they
were going to be more interested in their particular role rather than the role of the
ordinary people. So we had to work that out. One group asked the City of Birmingham
for 1.8 million dollars to do their own history project, and what they did was to sort of
have a staff to duplicate what our proposed staff was; and they wanted the city to pay 1.8
million dollars. We were able to reason together and decide that would not be a good
idea. Eventually, most of the folk who were opposed to the Institute worked together to
make sure that it would happen.
We know that museums and institutes and memorials are very effective sources
for stories about any group's contribution to society. The purposes of the Birmingham
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Civil Rights Institute are to focus on what happened in the past, not simply because it is
in the "past" and leave it in the past, but to understand what lessons can be learned and to
be informed as to future developments in human relations in Birmingham and perhaps in
the world.
One observer of the District remarked, "In choosing to remember together, the
citizens of Birmingham have redeemed their history in a way that does indeed have the
potential to reconcile, to heal, to teach and to strengthen the bonds of community~not
just for themselves but for the larger community." So that is really what we are about,
finding a way to have those lessons learned from that turbulent period and forming future
relationships not only in this country but in the world. After all, both Dr. King and
Andrew Young talked about how when they traveled around the world, they would hear,
"We shall overcome," in many languages, so there is indeed a universality in the story.
Those of you who have visited the Institute know its layout. I will jnst make a
brief comment and during the Q&A, I can handle whatever questions you might want to
ask regarding the Institute, but we do have a self-directed march through history. The
high point is the history of Birmingham, but our story is about American history and
about what happened in other parts of the country, especially in the Deep South. I can
comment about the old history project later, but it suffices to say now that an important
part of the project was to have as many people as we could, who had any recollection
from that era to tell their stories in their own words. We have about 300 stories from the
people who were known to the public as leaders, such as Fred Shuttlesworth, Andrew
Young and the like, from the people who drove the kids downtown, from the people who
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fed the reporters who came to Birmingham, from the children who themselves marched
and from those who organized boycotts, sit-ins and kneel-ins, etc. So, there is a rich
collection of history that is videotaped and many of them have been digitized. I recall
saying in 1989, as chair of the taskforce, that the Institute would signify that we no longer
hide from our history.
We recognize that we were once a city that housed two people,
black and white, unknown to one another except through the long painful threads of
segregation. Now we are a different city embracing our past and through the Civil Rights
Institute and similar projects, we are looking to a brighter future. Our motto in spite of
the past, a vision for a future ... a vision to be a national and international place of
healing, mutual understanding and respect among all people.
Q:
The first time I visited the Civil Rights Institute and every time since, I am
impressed how the story of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement is told very
bluntly, but there is no rancor and no vigor, and I want to know how you managed to
avoid that?
A:
That was a question that we faced up front. We said that basically we wanted to
tell the story as it happened but that our goal was not to evoke guilt, but to have people
understand what happens when miscommunication occurs. Therefore, we deliberately
decided that we would tell it as it happened and let each individual go through with his or
her own emotions without any commentary and that way, the interaction would be
between the story and the visitor.
Q:
How would you compare President Kennedy to Abraham Lincoln?
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A:
That's probably a good comparison. Lincoln of course is the great emancipator
and more of a civil war, which he did win. He did free the slaves. The Emancipation
Proclamation did not at first; it did not free any of the slaves in the Confederacy and the
area the federal troops controlled, the slaves continued to be slaves, so Lincoln got a lot
of credit for what it seemed to be on surface at first. But as the historian, DuBois, noted,
to win war Lincoln freed the slaves and armed them and in fact, that is what the
Emancipation Proclamation was saying. Kennedy was very hesitant to get involved. For
example, the Kennedy administration initial response to race relations during the Civil
Right Movement was to try to create stability and to end brutality. So, in Alabama you
get the Freedom Rights and the Ku Klux Klan mob attacking the bus when it arrives at
the Trailway station in Birmingham and again another riot at the bus station in
Montgomery. All these sites are now being turned into museums, at least the
Montgomery one is. Then, the Kennedy administration intervenes and works out a deal
with the State of Mississippi and if in Mississippi there is no violence, if you simply
arrest these integrationists and throw them in jail without beating them up in front of the
TV cameras, that is great. That is what they did. So they worked out an agreement.
Kennedy approached Birmingham with the same kind or perspective. The policy was
called federalism and the idea was the federal government, without creating a national
police force, really could not come in and intervene in the way you might think it would
to prevent Civil Rights abusers. At first, what Burt Marshall was trying to do was simply
get the demonstrations ended and that is actually what he achieved. They ended the
demonstration. The problem was that it had become much broader than that. In the
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Kennedy papers, I had the privilege of going up and working in them in Boston. You read
in the documents themselves and in the exit interviews that were conducted with
members of the Kennedy administration that nobody was thinking about race, so race was
not on the radar screen. It was not an issue before Birmingham. Birmingham changed
everything and then suddenly it became the big issue. Like Lincoln, Kennedy was forced
to address the issue and does, and in the end while his administration hesitates to push the
legislation through, he set the whole ball in process.
A:
Interesting enough, Jerome Bennett's book, Forced Him To Glory, is a book that
sort of addresses Abraham Lincoln" role.
Q:
You said you when you were teaching American Govermnent to students you
essentially encouraged them without telling them to go. How many of your kids went and
what kind of changes did you see in those that did go out?
A:
The high school where I worked had a large number of kids. I cannot give you the
exact number of those who went and those who did not go. I would say that a good half
of the student body was vocally sympathetic to what happened and perhaps most of the
others felt that the Civil Rights Movement, the demonstration downtown made sense. I
think you have to just realize that Birmingham was the most rigidly segregated place in a
major deep south city. The kids have had experiences going down to the lunch counselors
and their parents being addressed by their first names and them not being able to go the
library. There was a branch library that they could go to. They could not go downtown to
check out books. They saw this every day. If they rode a public bus, the signs would
move according to the makeup of those who lived in the neighborhood. So, bus drivers
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would say to kids and kids talked about that a lot that if whites get on this bus now, we
are going to have to move you back. You can sit in the front but if whites get on the bus,
we have to move you back. So, I think the teenagers felt that there was something
horribly wrong about that and therefore they were really philosophically sympathetic.
The change was permanent. We have interviewed at the Birmingham Civil Rights
Institute many of the kids who were involved in the movement and they talked about how
that experience made them appreciate democracy because they felt that they had made a
contribution to make it better. The day that they all came back after they had been
arrested, several of them had little American flags. I sat in the back of the room with
others who said they did not go to march. The heroes and heroines that day were those
who had gotten arrested. They really had the badge of courage. So, I think the kids were
changed. Now, there were some kids that just went along for fun, kids being kids, but I
think many of them were changed.
Q:
How would you rate the big mule mentality down there these days?
A:
Well, I cannot really speak for recent Birmingham very well at all. I can kind of
talk about Birmingham in the l 990's. I recall the Scholl Creek incident that occurred in
1991 and those were bug mules. There is a great irony about Scholl Creek. Let me see if I
can recall all the names, Paul Thompson, Lou Willie and Abraham Woods. They had all
been involved in 1963 and here they were inl991, once again, with another Civil Rights
protest. You may recall that it was over the desegregation of a country club. It was during
a great moment for Birmingham with the PGA tournament out at Scholl's Creek. The
demand was to integrate the country club and ultimately that what occurs and we saw that
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take place. Integrating a country club versus desegregating America, it tells us how far
we have come since 1963.
A:
I would like to comment on that question. I have remained in Birmingham and
have worked with a number of organizations to which the so-called current big mules
belong. We do have in Birmingham a new generation of leaders as you do in many
communities and I think that the civic leadership of Birmingham realizes that if
Birmingham is to attract industry, attract business and attract visitors, then it has to
approach these issues in a modern fashion. So, even those individuals who then in there
earlier years may very well have been a valid racist. You do not hear that much anymore.
A:
The whole economy has changed. That is really the other thing too. The old big
mules were industrialists, bankers and insurance men and that kind of thing as well. That
is part of what is occurring during the demonstrations in 1963. The old steel industry is
losing its control of the city and a new service economy is beginning to emerge. So,
today, one of the big mules theoretically would be the president ofUAB.
Q:
This is a two-part question. Do you think history would have been made the way
it has been made if it had not been for the kids, if adults had marched instead?
A:
I think we would both say of course not. The kids made all the difference.
Q:
The second part is I lived in Thailand during the Vietnam War during
-----
, but is was not until the last one when the students marched and the adults
were afraid to do anything. They saw their children being killed,
whole
country took over. Is that what it is going to take here to do something about what is
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going on in the rest of the world now in Afghanistan? American children can give dollars,
have American children say stop bombing and killing.
A:
That is a very good point.
Q:
If Nixon had won the election or somebody else had been president, are you
implying that they would have reacted the exact same way or if President Kennedy as an
individual had anything to do with it
A:
I think Kennedy warmed up to black folk and Civil Rights. Then again, Nixon,
since you brought him up, is the fellow who gives us affirmative action.
Q:
It sounds like you are both from two certain states, Alabama and Georgia. Do you
think that Birmingham has a stigma for being involved in the Civil Rights Movement
during 1960 unlike Atlanta, Georgia, having a stigma with some of the same leaders that
came from that movement. Atlanta seems to have moved into a major US city and
Birmingham has sort of done ...
A:
That is an interesting point. I heard a speech given by the governor of Georgia not
too long along; this was last spring. He made the same kind of reference. He said when
Birmingham was using fire hoses and police dogs, Atlanta was addressing racial
problems and look at how well Atlanta has done and look at how we have surpassed
Birmingham. Maynard Jackson said the same kind of things. He said we go to the
bargaining table, that is Atlanta's style. By the way, I am an Alabamian; I am not a
Georgian. There is an attitude about that in Atlanta, but Atlanta also runs from its past. lt
has no past. It has bulldozed whatever was historically significant, just about in the city.
It was shunned any kind of connection to its Civil War heritage just about, of course it
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was burning during the war.___
is an antivillain town, in part to try to overcome
racist views from Gone With The Wind and other things but in other ways just because it
is typical of a metropolis. It is the center of the state's multinational corporations and it is
historical in many ways. Birmingham, on the other hand though, has very much seemed
to have hung on to its Civil Rights past for the longest time as a sore spot. It is hard to
overcome that. Today, though, Birmingham is capitalizing on it and using it for heritage
tourism. In the state of Alabama, thanks to initiation of a woman named Francis Smiley
and a fellow named Aubrey Miller who were working in the Department of Tourism for
the state under George Wallace the governor, promoted Civil Rights, black heritage in
Alabama. They have created a tourism package that is drawing thousands into the state,
thousands to the institute and the institute is the shining star of the whole thing. I would
say, however, that it is wrong to suggest that Birmingham was held back because of its
racism and Atlanta progressed because it was less racists. Atlanta was very racist. Atlanta
was the headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan. Atlanta was segregated up until the l 940's as
Birmingham ever dreamed of being. It was only because Atlanta's entire political
economy was premised on transportation and it had a lot of locally owned capital and
institutions like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines, and several other corporations.
Birmingham had the misfortune of being owned by Pittsburgh in large measure. There
was indigenous capital, but it was so compromised by US steel that it really was
handicapped by the industry itself.
A:
I understand the premise of your question and I share the premise of the your
question, that is to say that Birmingham lagged into a racist, repressive state longer than
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many other southern cities. The key to that has to do also with absentee ownership by US
steel. Even during the l 960's when there was an effort to try to get people to sit down
around the table to talk about a better community, the US steel representatives who lived
in Pittsburgh and elsewhere did not participate fully. So, I think that where we made a
mistake as a point that Glenn made is that we were owned by outside interests. The
second point I would make is that the people who were owners of even the businesses
within Birmingham that Fred Shuttlesworth and others were trying to desegregate by
enlarge did not vote in Birmingham either. They lived in a suburban area. So, we had a
peculiar kind of array of who lived in Birmingham and who participated in government.
Diane Mc Whorter has written a book. It would be interesting to hear how some historians
evaluate her book, but she does talk about the role of some of these elite interests and
industrial interests in holding Birmingham back.
A:
I would say today though Birmingham is a great place. You can drive across it
without too much difficulty, nice communities to live in. You can buy anything you want
there. If you cannot get it, you can get it on the Internet, you know. Why live in Atlanta?
A:
I would agree why live in Atlanta.
Q:
Any other questions?
Q:
Who was more in the Civil Rights Movement, was it the middle class, the lower
middle class? Who was doing it? Who was the movement force behind it?
A:
The movement force was made up of working class people and their preachers.
Now, the role I think is incorrect and I will yield to what Glenn's records show on this. It
is incorrect to say that the middle class was not involved at all. In terms of the class basis
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for the Shuttlesworth movement if happened to have been what sociologist would call
lower class.
A:
The middle class had been active in voting rights registration campaigns. The
NAACP had been very active in that in Birmingham for decades. The movement of folks
on the street under Shuttlesworth were from Collegeville which was in the center of a
number of industrial neighborhoods around ___
_ and railroad yards. They worked
in those plants. The Birmingham Historical Society is doing great work trying to get
Bethel Baptist Church on the national register because of the significance of that church
and pointing to the community-based support for the civil rights movement out of that
church. It came from black workers, paycheck vote.
A:
Plus, people who had been in the Labor Movement, there is a strong connection in
Birmingham with the protest from the Labor Movement as well.
Q:
I just have a couple of things that I am curious about. When you introduced him,
did he say that you have been in Albany since 1984.
A:
Yes, that is right.
Q:
I was just wondering where you grew up and if you have a sense of what
happened then in your own personal experience?
A:
I am after all this.
A:
That is what I have told her. He is a young fellow, so that is why I told the story.
Q:
I would like for you to share with us if you can the benefit about the how the
company is doing. (inaudible)
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A:
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute from the beginning proposed that we
would do as complete an oral history project as we could, first emphasizing those folks
that who were directly involved in the movement in the 1950's and early 1960's. So, the
first part of the project, now about 300 people, interviewed as many folks as we could
find who were involved in the movement, itself. We defined the movement as being those
activities that were sponsored by Shuttleworth's group and others from 1956 when the
NAACP was at large through 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was formed. That is our
definition of the movement for our research in the institute having to do with the
movement. We are going to expand that old history project to have folks who were
involved in other protests movements and a large section on the Labor Movement on
education, which was very important, in the Birmingham community right after World
War II.
Q:
(inaudible)
A:
The bombing on Sixteenth Street occurred in September of 1963, afier the
demonstrations. They were in Birmingham in 1961 with Freedom Rights; Diane Nash
was. Bevel was there with King in 1963 in the spring, so he had come back. They were in
and out over and over again. I heard you had Diane Nash. You were very fortunate to get
to have her come speak. I hope you enjoyed the experience.
Closing:
Thank you again for coming and remember next week's program will be
at Alabama A&M, The Huntsville Civil Rights Movement.
37
�
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
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<a href="http://libarchstor.uah.edu:8081/repositories/2/resources/21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">View the Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965 finding aid in ArchivesSpace</a>
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
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Title
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Digitized transcription of VHS tape of "Trial by Fire and Water: Birmingham, 1963" (Part II).
Description
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Glenn Eskew, Horace Huntley, and Odessa Woolfolk are the speakers in this lecture given at Alabama A&M.
Creator
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Alabama A & M University
University of Alabama in Huntsville
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University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama
Date
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2001-10-18
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2000-2009
Subject
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Eskew, Glenn T., 1962
Huntley, Horace, 1942
Woolfolk, Odessa, 1932-
Civil rights movements--Southern States--History--20th century
Birmingham (Ala.)
Jefferson County (Ala.)
Segregation
African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc.
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Lectures
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Lecture Series on Civil Rights in Alabama, 1954-1965
<a href="http://libarchstor.uah.edu:8081/repositories/2/archival_objects/400">VHS tape of "Trial by Fire and Water: Birmingham, 1963" (Part II). Box 2, Tape 6</a>
University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama
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en
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This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections.
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37
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<a href="http://libarchstor.uah.edu:8081/repositories/2/archival_objects/388">Trial by Fire and Water: Birmingham, 1963 (Part II) - Speakers Glenn Eskew, Horace Huntley, and Odessa Woolfolk - Transcription of Tape 6, 2003 Box 1, File 7</a>
University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives, Special Collections, and Digital Initiatives, Huntsville, Alabama