Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement -- Demonstrations

Do you think marches, sit-ins, and other demonstrations helped or hurt the movement?

The marches, sit-ins and demonstrations were necessary to bring attention to the cause. Had these not occurred, then people would have accepted the status quo of the way we lived, and very little if anything would have happened to better the situation. The movement could not have existed had we not used these methods to draw attention to the fact that these horrible inequities existed in the society.

Bruce Hartford:

For those of us who were active in CORE, SCLC, and SNCC it was the freedom rides, sit-ins, marches, demonstrations and other forms of direct-action that put the "move" into the Freedom Movement. Prior to the direct-action campaigns the term "Civil Right Movement" did not even exist. There had been civil rights lawsuits and legislative lobbying activities but those, while valuable and important, involved only a small number of people who were paid specialists (lawyers, lobbyists, organizational leaders) and they were not a popular mass movement. The word "movement" refers to numbers of ordinary people actively engaged in some cause on a volunteer basis and it was direct-action in the streets that created the "Movement."

Jim Crow was both a legal system of oppression with laws enforcing "white only" facilities and a psychological system of repression, intimidation, and coerced inferiority. It was the direct-action demonstrations that resisted and fought both aspects. Defying segregation laws as part of a group demonstration empowered people by breaking down the sense of individual isolation against an entrenched system. Publically daring the police and racists to do their worst liberated people from generations of intimidation. That's why we used to sing: "Ain't scared of your jails 'cause we want our freedom, want our freedom now!" Prior to the direct action movement it was a mark of shame and degredation to be arrested, but direct action made getting arrested in the Freedom Movement a badge of pride and honor. As the jails and court dockets filled with protesters eager to violate what were seen as unjust laws, those laws became unenforceable.

Eventually, it was the direct action campaigns that led to the legal dismantling of segregation in the passage of the Federal Civil Rights acts, and then the Voting Rights Act. Without the demonstrations and other forms of direct action, none of the civil rights laws would have been passed. Nor would Federal marshalls (and in some cases troops) have been sent into the South to ensure the constitutional right to vote.

Gabe Kaimowitz:

I think they helped enormously. They never should have stopped or slowed down.

Joan Mandle:

Marches, sit-ins and demonstrations were brilliant tactics and the movement could not have succeeded without them. The South was a part of the country that no one really paid much attention to and African-Americans were ignored as well. The only was to get the attention of the nation and shine a light on this shameful situation was to get the media to broadcast the message of the movement. Public demonstrations in the streets, sit-ins etc. showed the truth and also show how committed and worthy were the people supporting civil rights. It also showed how many of those folks there were and that it was a bi-racial movement. All of this helped to change the minds of many Americans about the racism in the South and elsewhere. It showed the courage and commitment of people to justice and shamed the nation in to making change.

Mike Miller:

If you're asking about the period 1955-1965, I think the results were generally helpful. After that, I think the student movement, including SNCC, lost track of where it was going and began to collapse. Increasingly militant demonstrations were one of the expressions of this collapse.

Wazir (Willie) Peacock:

They helped. Because they were part of mass education. At that time, the media was showing to the country what was going on, and they had to explain why we were out there demonstrating. At the time, some people who thought we shouldn't be doing that, like "How dare you?" Especially in the South, they weren't ready to see what we were doing, so it sure made them angry. It brought about a lot of Klan activity. Sure that hurt, but it was a part of the whole thing that was necessary. We couldn't avoid that. People had been oppressed by these forces all the time. It was a time for confrontation, to bring it all out to the surface, so in that sense, the sit-ins, the marches, and all of that was necessary, and it helped.

A lot of people said the marches "Are hurting your cause." I heard a lot of that. It seems to me that they were saying, "You're going to cause me to act in a way that I don't want you to see me doing. But that's where my heart is. That's who I am. I am part of the same people that would come out in a mob and hang you. But at least I'll talk to you, and you tell you that you are hurting your cause." They told us, "You're moving too fast and too far. It needs to be more gradual." We weren't hearing that. We were young and all. We weren't about gradualness at all. We wanted it right then and now. And it was already too late as far as we were concerned.