1955

Rev. George Wesley Lee Murdered (May)
The "Brown II," "All Deliberate Speed" Decision (May)
Emmett Till Murdered (Aug)
Lamar Smith Murdered (Aug)
John Earl Reese Murdered (Oct)
Montgomery Bus Boycott (Dec 1955-Dec 1956)

NAACP Leader Rev. George Wesley Lee Murdered in Belzoni MS. (May)

REV. GEORGE WESLEY LEE, an NAACP leader and one of the first Black men registered to vote in Humphreys County, uses his pulpit and his printing press to urge others to vote. White officials offer Lee "protection" on the condition he remove his name from the list of registered voters and end his voter registration efforts. Lee refuses and is murdered. — From The Civil Rights Memorial (Southern Poverty Law Center)

Rev. Lee, who had managed to get almost 100 Blacks registered, is shot to death. Even though witnesses describe how a car driven by whites had shot into Lee's car, the local sheriff declares his murder to be "death by unknown cause" and says that the shotgun slugs in his face were dental fillings. The Governor refuses to allow the state to investigate any further.

The "Brown II," "All Deliberate Speed" Decision (May)

In a decision known as "Brown II," the Supreme Court rules that school integration should procede with "all deliberate speed." In real life, this means that Southern states and school districts can resist, delay, and avoid significant integration for years — and in some cases for a decade or more. It permits a wide range of outright evasions such as closing down school systems and using state money to finance segregated "private" schools, stalling tactics such as the "Nashville Plan," and subterfuges such as "token" integration where a few Black children are admitted to "white" schools but the vast majority are forced to remain in underfunded, unequal Black schools.

For example, in Prince Edward County, VA (site of the 1951 Student Strike at Moton High) where the white power structure adopts Senator Byrd's plan of "Massive Resistance" to integration, the results of the "Brown II" decision are:

Based on "Brown II" the U.S. District Court rules that Prince Edward County does not have to desegregate immediately, and they continue their segregated public school system until yet another court case in 1959 rules that the county's schools finally have to desegregate.
The county board of supervisors then stops appropriating money for any integrated school. Since the original Brown decision directly applied to Prince Edward schools this means that all public schools are closed for lack of funds. They remain closed for five years, from 1959 to 1964.
A segregationist committee known as the "Defenders of Liberty" is set up to raise money to provide private schooling for white children in the county. A foundation is established to fund and run the private — white-only — Prince Edward Academy for elementary and high-school students.
Almost all of Prince Edward County's white children are enrolled in the Academy. Poor whites are given scholarships and grants to pay their children's tuition. (A few white families who refuse to accept such "welfare" simply do not send their children to school at all.)
With the public schools closed, most Black children are without schooling for 5 years, though a few are able leave their families to attend school in other states.
In denying a case brought by the NAACP, the Virginia State Supreme Court rules in 1962 that county boards of supervisors are not required to appropriate funds for public schools, and can not be forced by local or state courts to do so. In other words, as far as the Virginia Supreme Court is concerned, if a county wants to close its public school system rather than integrate, that is fine with them.

The "Massive Resistance" to school integration permitted by "Brown II" continues until 1964 when:

Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forces the Federal government to begin (finally) enforcing public school desegregation.
The Supreme Court overturns its "Brown II," "All deliberate speed" decision by ruling in Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, that "..the time for mere 'deliberate speed' has run out."

With Senator Byrd's "Massive Resistance" strategy no longer possible, segregationists in the South then adopt what might be called a "Massive Evasion" strategy to maintain separate and unequal school systems for white and Black.

For more information:
Books: Schools and School Desegregation
Web:
"All Deliberate Speed" Ruling
Brown v. Board of Education 1950-1954

Emmett Till Murdered (Aug)

Emmett Louis Till is a 14-year-old boy from Chicago. Over summer vacation, he visits relatives in Money Mississippi (just north of Greenwood). He somehow offends the racial sensabilities of local whites — some claim he "sassed" or "flirted" with a white woman who ran a local store, others say that he showed around a photograph of himself and a white girl who he claimed as his girlfriend back in Chicago. In the night, two white men drag Till from his bed, savagely beat him, shoot him, chain his corpse to an old air-conditioner, and dump his body in the nearby Tallahatchie River.

Though everyone knows who the killers are — and they later brag about it to news reporters — an all-white jury finds the men innocent.

Lynching Black men (and boys) for "crimes" against segregation, white supremecy, and the "purity of white womanhood," is a traditional part of the "Southern Way of Life." What makes the Emmett Till case different are the angry public protests by Mississippi Blacks and the courage of Emmett's mother who refuses to remain silent out of fear. She publicizes the lynching, and insists on an open coffin at Emmett's funeral so that the world can see the horrific brutality that was inflicted on her 14-year old son.

Medgar Evers and other NAACP leaders publicize and organize around the case, raising awareness not only in the U.S. but internationally. In later years, many of the young activists who lead the Movement in the 1960s say that it was reading about the lynching of Emmett Till — a boy their own age — that began the process of motivating their courage and committment. In later years, Joyce Ladner of SNCC referred to herself and other young Mississippians as the "Till generation," "I can name you ten SNCC workers who saw that picture [of Till's body] in Jet magazine, who remember it as the key thing about their youth that was emblazoned in their minds."[1]

For more information:
Web:
Emmett Till Murder
The Civil Rights Memorial (Southern Poverty Law Center)

Lamar Smith Murdered (Aug)

LAMAR SMITH was shot dead on the courthouse lawn by a white man in broad daylight while dozens of people watched. The killer was never indicted because no one would admit they saw a white man shoot a Black man. Smith had organized blacks to vote in a recent election. — From The Civil Rights Memorial (Southern Poverty Law Center)

For more information:
Web: Martyrs of the Movement

John Earl Reese Murdered

JOHN EARL REESE, 16, was dancing in a cafe when white men fired shots into the windows. Reese was killed and two others were wounded. The shootings were part of an attempt by whites to terrorize blacks into giving up plans for a new school. — From The Civil Rights Memorial (Southern Poverty Law Center)

For more information:
Web: Martyrs of the Movement

Montgomery Bus Boycott (Dec 5, 1955 — Dec 21, 1956)
Photos

Many books, articles, and web pages are devoted to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, and Dr. King (see "For more information" below). The broad outline is well-known: How after a hard day's labor as a seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white man, how she is arrested and jailed, how her arrest rouses the Black citizens of Montgomery to take action, how they choose the Reverend Martin Luther King as their spokesman, how they boycott the Montgomery busses for more than a year, how they endure hardship and persecution, and how through courage and perseverance they eventually win a great victory that inspires resistance to racism and segregation across the country and around the world.

Rather than repeat that well-known and well-documented story here, we as Movement veterans want to call attention to some aspects of the bus boycott that we believe are sometimes misunderstood or given inadequate attention:

The bus boycott was not spontaneous. Local leaders and organizations such as the NAACP and its leader E.D. Nixon, and the Women's Political Council (WPC) under the leadership of Jo Ann Robinson, had been discussing, planning, and organizing around the bus situation for some time. The previous year the WPC had twice demanded that the city address bus segregation issues, and in a letter to the Mayor wrote that if nothing were done that: "There has been talk from twenty-five or more local organizations of planning a city-wide boycott of busses."
In the months preceding the boycott, young Claudette Colvin (15) and Mary Louise Smith (18) had both been arrested for resisting bus segregation, but for tactical reasons community leaders held off mass action until conditions were right. Rosa Parks was an NAACP activist who just prior to her arrest had attended an integrated political workshop at Highlander Center. While her refusal to give up her seat was a spontaneous, unplanned act of resistance, it grew out of all the planning, organizing, and training that had gone before.
The Bus Boycott was a peoples' movement. Some movements are inspired and led by leaders from above, others are led from the bottom up and inspire the leaders. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a bottom-up movement. Rather than relying on lawyers, politicians or clergymen to accomplish their goal while sitting and waiting for the outcome, the vast majority Montgomery's Black citizens took direct action on their own behalf, with "average people" providing leadership in a mass movement. And through the power of nonviolent mass action, "powerless people" transformed themselves into makers of history.
Dr. King did not make the boycott, the boycott made Dr. King. Inspired by the dedication and courage of the boycotters, Dr. King articulated a vision of the boycott as a struggle of national scope with far greater importance than just the specifics of bus segregation in a single city. And just as the boycott transformed Montgomery, it shaped and transformed Dr. King, setting him on the road that he followed for the remainder of his life.
Centrality of women's leadership. It was the Women's Political Council that first called for a bus boycott and began mobilizing support for it. As spokesman, Dr. King received most of the media attention, from their pulpits other ministers added their voices to the movement, and NAACP president E.D. Nixon played a crucial role in shaping the strategy. But day-to-day, the work of sustaining the boycott was mostly performed by women beneath the notice of the press. It was women who performed the bulk of the Transportation Committee's work coordinating the complex scheduling of the "private taxi" plan, by which those who owned cars picked up and dropped off those who needed rides at designated points. And it was the women more than the men who had to walk miles day after day in blazing sun and freezing rain.
The Bus Boycott changed and evolved. The boycott started as a one-day protest. Based on the success of the first day, at mass meeting that night the community decided to continue the boycott. But few expected it to last for very long. Previous bus boycotts in cities such as Baton Rouge, had lasted a week or so. But as the struggle sharpened, as the white power structure tried to break the boycott with violence, arrests and economic retaliation, peoples' solidarity and determination grew stronger to see it through no matter how long it took.
Initially, the boycott was for:
- Courteous treatment by the bus drivers towards all
- That Blacks be able to enter through the front door instead of having to pay at the front of the bus and then exit and go to the rear door
- First-come, first-serve seating, with Blacks sitting from the rear and whites from the front similar to the system won by the Baton Rouge Bus Boycott
- Stops at every corner in Black residential areas — as was done in white neighborhoods.
After the mass meeting decided to continue the boycott, a demand for Black drivers on predominantly Black routes was added. And as the white power structure continued to resist, the boycotters' determination hardened as well. When the case was filed in Federal Court in February 1956 they were no longer asking for a more reasonable method of segregation, they were demanding that bus segregation be completely ended. Which is what they finally won in the Supreme Court later that year.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott sparked major anti-segregation bus boycotts across the South, including Tallahasee, Miami, and Tampa in Florida, Atlanta GA, Rock Hill SC, and Columbia SC.

For more information:
Books:
     Montgomery Bus Boycott & Rosa Parks
     Martin Luther King
Web:
     Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955-1956
     Martin Luther King
     Rosa Parks
     Dr. King's address to first boycott mass meeting (King Papers Project, Stanford University)

1955 Quotation Sources:

1. I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, Charles Payne.

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