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Autherine Lucy at the Univ. Alabama (Oct)
Mississippi Sovereignty Commission Formed (March)
NAACP Banned in Alabama (1956-1964)
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) Founded (May)
Tallahasee Bus Boycott (May 1956-Jan 1958)
Student Protests & Boycotts — Orangeburg, SC (April - May)
Montgomery Bus Boycott Victory (December)
After attending Selma University and graduating from Miles College in Birmingham, Autherine Lucy applies for admission to graduate school at the University of Alabama (a segregated, all-white institution). Though the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown decision outlawed school segregation in theory, she knows she faces implacable opposition. She asks the NAACP for assistance and Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, and Arthur Shores volunteer to be her attorneys.
In June of 1955, the NAACP lawyers win a court order prohibiting the University from denying her — or anyone else — admission based on race. In February 1956, Autherine Lucy enrolls in the graduate School of Library Science at the main U of A campus in Tuscaloosa Alabama.
A mob of students, townsmen, and KKK thugs from across the South try to keep her from attending class. "Kill her! Kill her!" they chant. A police escort is required to protect her from their violence. The University administration suspends Lucy, but not the white students who attack her. They claim that the suspension is "for her own safety." When the NAACP files a lawsuit charging the University with contempt of court and acting in support of the mob, Autherine is expelled. The Federal government fails to enforce either the Brown decision or the court order against the University of Alabama.
In 1988 — 32 years later — the University finally admits it was wrong and overturns her expulsion. Autherine and her daughter Grazia both enroll and in 1992 both are awarded degrees.
See Standing In the Schoolhouse Door for subsequent events.
For more information:
Web: Autherine Lucy & University of Alabama.
In response to the Brown
school desegregation ruling, the Mississippi legislature creates the
Mississippi Sovereignty Commission (MSC) to "Preserve
segregation of the races in the state." The word "sovereignty"
is used because white politicians in Mississippi are elected on
"states-rights" platforms which assert that the Federal government has
no power to interfere in the peculiar institutions of the "southern
way of life." Other southern states follow Mississippi's lead and
establish similar commissions and agencies.
The legislature instructs the MSC to "Do and perform any and all
acts and things deemed necessary and proper to..." defy and
resist any effort by the Supreme Court and Federal government to limit
segregation, to disrupt and destroy the Civil Rights Movement, and to
prevent Mississippi Blacks from voting. Until it is disbanded 17 years
later in 1973, the state-funded MSC acts as the state's secret
political police, working hand in glove with the
White Citizens Council,
Ku Klux Klan, and state and
local police forces to carry out its racist mandate and promote the
political agenda of the far-right.
For more information:
Web: Mississippi Sovereignty Commission
In retaliation for the NAACP's role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Autherine Lucy's attempt to desegregate the University of Alabama, the state moves to suppress and destroy the NAACP in Alabama. At the request of state Attorney General (and later Governor) John Patterson, on June 1st a Montgomery judge issues an order prohibiting the NAACP from operating in the state on the grounds that it is not properly registered. The judge also levies a fine of $100,000 (equivalent to $725,000 in 2006) — a huge amount guaranteed to bankrupt a shoe-string civil rights organization funded by nickel and dime contributions of overwhelmingly poor Blacks.
The state claims that the NAACP is "not properly registered" because the NAACP refuses to turn over its membership list to the Attorney General. Given the climate of repression and terror, and the close cooperation between state government, the state police, and the Citizens Council & KKK, the NAACP refuses to surrender its membership list because doing so would result in economic retaliation, police harassment, beatings, and lynchings. (Organizations such as the White Citizen Council and Ku Klux Klan are, of course, not required to register or turn over their membership lists.)
For 8 years the NAACP fights this un-Constitutional ban in the courts. Eventually, in 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules in the NAACP's favor. The Court declares that forced disclosure of an organization's membership has the effect of suppressing peoples' right to free association and is a violation of the 14th Amendment. But even though it is later overturned, the 1956 banning of the NAACP drives the organization underground and cripples its activities in Alabama at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
For more information:
Web: Alabama vs NAACP
With the NAACP Banned in Alabama, Movement leaders form new local organizations to carry on the struggle. In Birmingham, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and other local leaders form the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). Says Shuttlesworth, "They can outlaw an organization [NAACP], but they cannot outlaw the movement of a people determined to be free."
ACMHR organizes boycotts, demonstrations, and civil disobediance to challenge school segregation, and segregation in public accommodations such as lunch counters. ACMHR members are harassed and arrested. On Christmas night, 1956, the home and church of Rev. Shuttlesworth are bombed by the KKK. A year later a white mob beats Shuttlesworth with whips and chains when he tries to enroll his children in an all-white public school. There are so many violent attacks and terrorist bombings against Freedom Movement activists in Birmingham that people began calling the city "Bombingham."
In 1957, Shuttlesworth and ACMHR work with Dr. King to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and ACMHR becomes one of SCLC's most important affiliate organizations.
ACHMR activists file lawsuits opposing segregation. In 1959, a Federal court orders the desegregation of Birmingham's city buses. In 1961, the court orders that the city's parks be desegregated. To circumvent that order, Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor closes all of the parks so that nobody can use them. When the CORE Freedom Riders are attacked and beaten at the bus station, Shuttlesworth and ACMHR shelter them and then work with SNCC activists from Nashville to resume the ride into Montgomery. In 1962, ACMHR and student activists begin picketing and boycotting stores that discriminate gainst Blacks.
In 1963, ACMHR asks Dr. King and the SCLC to come to Birmingham to help ACMHR wage a broad attack on segregated stores & lunch counters and discrimination in employment. (See The Birmingham Campaign and Birmingham Church Bombing.)
For more information:
Books: Birmingham Movement
Web:
Alabama Christian Movement Human Rights
Birmingham Movement
Fred Shuttlesworth
In May of 1956, two Florida A&M University (FAMU) students — Carrie Patterson, 21 and Wilhemina Jakes, 26 — are arrested for sitting at the front of a Tallahasee bus. They are charged with "inciting a riot," though the white woman they sit next to makes no objection. The next night a cross is burned outside their rooming house.
Furious at the arrest and the cross-burning, a "students-only" mass meeting of more than 2,000 votes to boycott the buses in emulation of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, then in its sixth month just a few hours drive to the north. Under the leadership of Rev. C.K. Steele, the local community rallies behind the students' boycott and forms the Inter-Civic Council (ICC) to lead the boycott and negotiate with the white power structure when the students go home for summer vacation.
As the boycott continues, so many are arrested for the "crime" of giving car rides to boycotters that the jail is filled to overflowing.
In November, the Supreme Court rules in the Montgomery case that bus segregation is unconstitutional. The ICC suspends the boycott and the bus company stops enforcing segregation. Three days later, 9 white bus drivers and the company manager are arrested for the "crime" of allowing Blacks to sit near the front of the bus in violation of the local segregation rules. Florida Governor Leroy Collins suspends all bus service in Tallahassee (which is the state capitol). In January, a Federal judge rules that all Florida bus segregation laws are unconstitutional and Collins allows the busses to resume on an integrated basis.
Years later, Tallahassee's bus terminal is named after Rev. Steele in honor of his courage and dedication to the Freedom Movement in Tallahasee.
For more information:
Book: Pain and the Promise: Struggle for Civil Rights in Tallahassee.
Web: Tallahassee Bus Boycott
Orangeburg, SC, is a small, politically conservative, town of 14,000 in the middle of the state. The majority of its population (60%) are Black, there are two Black colleges (Claflin and South Carolina State), and segregation is rigidly enforced.
In response to the Brown decision, parents in Orangeburg SC sign a petition asking that city schools be integrated. The White Citizens Council (WCC) uses economic terrorism (firings, evictions, foreclosures, etc) to force those who signed the petition to remove their names. Blacks organize a counter-boycott of stores owned by members of the WCC. The Citizens Council then orders distributors to halt all food deliveries to Black-owned markets so that Blacks will be forced to shop at the white-owned stores in order to eat.
Fred Moore, Student Council President at South Carolina State College (SCSC), organizes SCSC and Claflin College students to support the community. They ask college administrators to stop buying food from white distributors who are blocking food deliveries to Black neighborhoods. When the administrators refuse, the students organize hunger-strikes in the school dining halls, mass meetings, and freedom marches in solidarity with Black citizens who are being denied the necessities of life.
Fred Moore, Alice Pyatt, Alvin Anderson, Barbara Brown, and 11 other student leaders are expelled from school. Moore is just two weeks from graduation. 1500 students participate in protest marches and demonstrations against the expulsions.
See Mass Arrest of Student Protesters, Orangeburg, SC for continuation.
For more information:
Book: Freedom & Justice: Four Decades of the Civil Rights Struggle..
On November 13, 1956 the United States Supreme Court rules that bus segregation is unconstitutional. But Montgomery continues to operate the busses on a segregated basis — and Blacks continue the boycott — until the court ruling is physically delivered to Montgomery. On December 21 the busses are finally desegregated and the boycott comes to a triumphant end 381 days after it began. See Montgomery Bus Boycott for boycott details.
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