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Atlanta Sit-ins & Mass Arrests (Dec-Feb)
Freedom Day in Hattiesburg (Jan)
Louis Allen Murdered (Jan)
Civil Rights Act — House Passage (Feb)
St. Augustine FL, Movement — 1964
Birmingham Protests Resume (Mar)
Malcolm X "The Ballot or the Bullet" (April)
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) Founded (April)
Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC) Founded (April)
Cambridge MD, Movement — 1964
Freedom Summer (Summer)
Chaney, Schwerner, Goodman Murdered (June)
Freedom Schools (June-Aug)
Wednesdays in Mississippi (1964-1965)
MFDP Challenge to Democratic Convention (Aug)
Bogalusa LA Movement (1964-1967)
Harlem Rebellion (July)
Civil Rights Act — Battle in the Senate (June)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (July)
The Selma Injunction (July)
Deacons for Defense Founded (July)
Lemuel Penn Murdered (July)
SNCC Delegation to Africa (Sept-Oct)
MFDP Congressional Challenge (Fall)
King Awarded Nobel Prize (Dec)
Scripto Strike, Atlanta (Dec)
Massive Evasion of School Integration
Free Southern Threatre Founded
Photos
See SNCC Meets Kenyan Freedom
Fighter in Atlanta for preceding events.
As 1963 comes to a close, the political battle to pass the Civil Rights Act continues in Washington. President Johnson pressures civil rights organizations to halt protests and civil disobediance campaigns. He says that demonstrations anger whites and alienate legislators making it harder to win votes in Congress. SNCC, CORE, and SCLC all refuse declare any moratorium on protests, arguing that it is direct-action that has put civil rights on the nation's agenda and that without continued protests there will be no progress — and no bill. At a rain-soaked rally of more than 4,000 people in Atlanta, Dr. King rejects LBJ's plea and calls for continued demonstrations.
Led by COAHR, the SNCC-affiliate at Atlanta University Center, sit-ins and other forms of protest against segregation and job discrimination have been intermittently ongoing since 1960. These demonstrations by college and high-school students have had some success, a few hotels and eating establishments now serve Blacks, but most of Atlanta is still segregated. Crowds of angry whites harass and threaten young protesters and KKK members in their white robes counter-picket establishments that end segregation. SCLC's Rev. Abernathy organizes local ministers into "Operation Breadbasket." They weild the threat of direct-action and consumer boycotts to open formerly "white-only" jobs to Blacks. They estimate that 750 Blacks have been hired due to their efforts, but that remains a small number compared all those who have been shut out of employment by race discrimination.
On December 21st, 1963, SNCC members are arrested for sitting-in at a Toddle House restaurant next to the Peachtree Manor hotel. Toddle House is a chain more than 250 diners throughout the eastern states owned by the Dobbs Corporation. SNCC members John Lewis, Roberta "Bobbie" Yancy, Prathia Hall, and Movement supporter Lillian Gregory (wife of comedian Dick Gregory) each purchase a share of stock in Dobbs. The next day they return to the Toddle House — which, as stockholders, they now partly own — and are, nevertheless, arrested bringing the total to 21. All 21 adopt Jail-No-Bail and declare they will spend "Christmas in Jail."
SNCC organizes what would today be called a "corporate campaign" around their arrests. Friends of SNCC chapters in the north demonstrate at Dobbs and Toddle House establishments in Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, and similar actions quickly spread to other locations. Within weeks, protests temporarily close a dozen restaurants in the north, and the Dobbs Corporation agrees to desegregate all of their facilities nation-wide — including Atlanta.
COAHR calls for Atlanta to become an "Open City." For COAHR Chair Larry Fox, that means, "... jobs, decent and integrated schools, and the right to eat or rent a room wherever we choose." Mobilized by COAHR, 100 high school students "play hookie for freedom," they boycott classes and sit-in at Mayor Ivan Allen's office to demand that Atlanta become an "Open City."
In January of 1964, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities comes to Atlanta to examine race relations in the city that claims it is "Too busy to hate." Student pickets at the airport greet them with signs saying "Welcome to a segregated city." Sit-ins are staged outside their hotel. Dick Gregory and 80 students are arrested for protesting at the segregated Leb's Deli, and 200 more are busted over the following week for various protests. With bail raised to the huge sum of $1,000 per demonstrator (equal to $6,700 in 2007), protests taper off, but continue at a lower level until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally ends segregation in Atlanta.
For more information:
Atlanta in the Civil Rights Movement (Atlanta Higher Education)
Atlanta University District (National Park Service)
Photos
See Freedom Ballot in MS
for preceding events.
Hattiesburg Mississippi, population 35,000 in 1960, is the seat of Forrest County where almost every white is registered to vote, but only 50 of the 7,500 eligible Blacks — less than 1% — are on the rolls. Unlike the Delta counties where Blacks are the majority, here Blacks are roughly one-third of the population. And also unlike the Delta where agriculture completely dominates the economy and poverty is extreme, Hattiesburg has the benefit of some timber-based industry, the University of Southern Mississippi, and adjacent Camp Shelby, the second largest Army base in America. While most Forrest County Blacks are poor, their economic situation is not quite as desperate as in the Delta.
Just south of Hattiesburg is the unincorporated town of Palmer's
Crossing, one of Mississippi's historically Black communities where
African-Americans own property and businesses, and which to some
degree serve as havens from white oppression. [Today, Palmer's
Crossing is incorporated into Hattiesburg.]
Hattiesburg & Palmer's Crossing are no strangers to the freedom struggle. When Clyde Kennard was framed and jailed in 1959 for trying to integrate the university, NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer and many others worked to free him. For years, Forrest County Blacks filed voting rights lawsuits against Therron Lynd, the notoriously racist Registrar of Voters. As of March 1962, he has not allowed a single Black to register, but he's registered 1,836 whites without requiring them to even fill out an application or take the literacy test. Lynd not only requires Blacks to take the official test, he is famous for making up questions on the spot such as "How many bubbles in a bar of soap?" then "failing" the applicant regardless of the answer. As in the rest of the state, Blacks who try to register face brutal violence, jailing, firings, and evictions. And also as elsewhere in Mississippi, anyone who tries to picket, march, sit-in, or protest in any othe way, is instantly arrested.
In March of 1962, two SNCC organizers arrive in Hattiesburg to begin a COFO voter registration campaign — Curtis Hayes and Hollis Watkins, both veterans of the McComb project and the Pike County jail. They find fertile ground. In addition to Vernon Dahmer, there is NAACP leader J.C. Fairly, beauty-shop owner Peggy Jean Connor, and over in Palmer's Crossing there is Victoria Jackson Gray — an SCLC Citizenship School teacher, and then a SNCC field organizer of renown. Along with John Henry Gould, Johnnie Mae Walker, and others, they found the Forrest County Voters League to shake Hattiesburg to its social roots.
By the Fall of 1963, Hattiesburg and Palmer's Crossing are centers of Movement activity. A storefront owned by Mrs. Lenon Woods on Mobile Street in the heart of Hattiesburg's Black community becomes the SNCC Freedom House and COFO headquarters. After being released from jail in Winona, SNCC activist Lawrence Guyot is assigned to Hattiesburg as project director. When Freedom Ballot votes are cast in November, almost half (3,500 of 7,500) of Forrest County's eligible Blacks participate in the mock vote, the highest percentage of any county in the state.
Building on the Freedom Ballot success, movement leaders call for a Freedom Day in Hattiesburg. Modeled on the one in Selma, it is to be a major mobilization of potential voters, local activists & students, and SNCC leadership. Working with the National Council of Churches, SNCC asks northern ministers, most of them white, to participate in the hope they will draw national media attention and their presence will both prevent police repression and pressure the Federal government to enforce legal rulings requiring Therron Lynd to stop blocking Black voting rights.
The experiment of using northerners occurs in the context of a fierce debate within SNCC over the idea of a summer project to bring a large number white supporters into Mississippi. SNCC's Black activists are divided. The presence of whites might (it is hoped) provide some protection for local Blacks, focus national attention on denial of human rights, and increase pressure on the Johnson administration to enforce the Constitution and Federal court rulings. But using whites for protection that is not given to Blacks perpetuates the racist double-standard they so strongly oppose, and there is deep concern that highly educated whites will dominate the fledgling community organizations being slowly built by Mississippi Blacks. Local leaders in Hattiesburg, however, are clear — they want all the support they can muster and if white clergymen are willing to put their bodies on the line at the Forrest County courthouse they are welcome.
On the eve of Freedom Day, some fifty northern clergymen — mostly Presbyterians, some Episcopalians, and two Jewish Rabbis — arrive in Hattiesburg and Palmer's Crossing. Led by the Rev. John Coventry Smith, some are ready to picket the courthouse which in Mississippi means immediate arrest. Others are there to witness, but are not yet ready to face jail.
The mass meeting that night is the largest held to date. More than 600 people are jammed into St. Paul's Methodist church and overflow outside. Among them them are James Forman, Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis, Amzie Moore, and Bob Moses. State NAACP President Aaron Henry is arrested on some pretext as he drives into town, but he's bailed out in time to address the meeting. Annelle Ponder of SCLC, Dave Dennis of CORE, Lawrence Guyot of SNCC, and local leaders Vernon Dahmer and Victoria Gray speak. As does Ella Baker of SNCC who says:
"Even if segregation is gone, we will still need to be free; we will still have to see that everyone has a job. Even if we can all vote, if people are still hungry, we will not be free ... Singing alone is not enough; we need schools and learning ... Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind."[1]
January 22nd, 1964, is Freedom Day in Hattiesburg. A cold rain is falling. Fifty Blacks, mostly students plus a few adults, and thirty of the northern clergy, picket the Forrest County courthouse. Some carry signs with SNCC's new slogan "One Man One Vote." Close to 100 Black adults are lined up at the building to register, their numbers dwarfing all previous attempts.
A phalanx of cops and volunteer "auxiliary police" (possemen) in helmets and rain slickers, guns on their hips, clubs in their hands, march down the middle of Main Street towards the protesters. Using a bullhorn, they issue their order: "This is the Hattiesburg Police Department. We're ordering you to disperse. Clear the sidewalk!" The pickets hold the line. No one leaves. The cops threaten again. The pickets hold. SNCC leader Bob Moses is arrested for "Disturbing the Peace" when he tries to escort an elderly Black women into the courthouse to register. But none of the pickets are arrested. For the first time in living memory, an inter-racial civil rights demonstration in Mississippi is not suppressed. As it becomes clear there won't be a mass jailing, more people join the line, swelling it to over 200 who by the end of the day are massed on the courthouse steps singing freedom songs.
Theron Lynd allows only four voter applicants at a time into the building. He takes an hour to process each batch. Meanwhile, the others continue to stand in the cold rain waiting their turn. Whites are allowed to freely enter the building, but Blacks are not. Justice Department officials and FBI agents take notes, but refuse to intervene. When the courthouse is closed at noon for lunch, only 12 applicants have been processed. The rain, the waiting, and the pickets continue all day until the courthouse closes at 5pm.
Yale graduate Oscar Chase, a white member of SNCC, is arrested on a phoney vehicle charge. He is put in a cell with white prisoners who beat him into bloody unconsiousness while the guards watch. The most brutal of the white inmates is rewarded with early release. After being bailed out the next morning, historian Howard Zinn and two Movement lawyers take him to the FBI office to file a complaint. His clothes are covered with blood, his nose broken, and his face swollen and bruised. The FBI agent looks at the clean-shaven college professor, the two lawyers in their neatly-pressed suits, and the battered freedom fighter and asks: "Who was it got the beating?"
Freedom Day is considered a Movement victory. For whatever reason — the white ministers, the media, some change in segregationist strategy or policy — the pickets are not dispersed by police billy clubs nor are there mass arrests. More than 100 Forrest County Blacks defy generations of repression by trying to register. Therron Lynd is forced to allow at least some of them into the office to fill out the application and take the literacy test. But it is only a small, partial victory. Neither the Justice Department nor the FBI enforce either the Constitution or court orders and few, if any, Blacks are actually registered. And when some of those who protested or attempted to register are later fired from their jobs, the Federal government does nothing.
The next day, the picket line returns to the courthouse. All day they picket, and the following day, and every day, in what becomes known as the "Perpetual Picket." Week after week, month after month until the summer, relays of northern clergy join local Blacks on the line. Individual activists continue to be arrested, Guyot makes a freedom speech and is jailed for "corrupting minors." There are beatings, violence, evictions, and firings. But for the first time since the end of Reconstruction, Blacks file to run for national office — Fannie Lou Hamer of Ruleville and John Cameron of Hattiesburg for the 2nd and 5th Congressional Districts. And Victoria Jackson Gray of Palmers Crossing for U.S. Senate against the arch-racist John Stennis of Mississippi. The crack in the iceberg of segregation that began in McComb, widened in Greenwood, and expanded across the state in the Freedom Ballot now threatens to shatter and obliterate the old order.
See Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Founded for continuation.
For more information:
Faces of Freedom Summer
Mississippi Movement for partial list of books.
Hattiesburg MS, Movement for web links.
See Herbert Lee Murdered for preceding events.
In September of 1961, Louis Allen, a Black farmer in Amite County Mississippi, witnesses the murder of voting-rights activist Herbert Lee by state legislator E.H. Hurst. Under threat of being killed himself, Allen is forced to falsely testify that Hurst killed Lee in self-defense.
Privately, Allen tells friends and civil rights activists the truth, that Hurst killed Lee because Lee was registering Black voters. When whites learn that Allen is talking to the FBI, they boycott his timber business and threaten to kill him. When he continues talking to the FBI he is beaten by local police and arrested on phoney charges to keep him silent. Movement organizers beg the FBI to provide him protection, but they refuse.
When Allen tries to register to vote at the Amite County courthouse someone takes a shot at him and he is turned away. A white businessman tells Allen: "Louis, the best thing you can do is leave. Your little family, they're innocent people, and your house could get burned down. All of you could get killed."
Knowing that it is too dangerous to remain in Mississippi he plans to join his brother in Milwaukee. On January 31st, the night before he is to leave, he is ambushed by persons unknown at the front gate to his property who kill him with multiple shotgun blasts.
For more information:
Books: Mississippi Movement for partial list of books.
Web links:
Mississippi Movement & MFDP A Discussion
Mississippi Movement
McComb MS Movement
Oh Freedom Over Me, PBS
Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader
Martyrs of the Movement for web links.
See Kennedy's Civil Rights Speech for preceding events.
(Description to be written.)
See Civil Rights Act — Battle in the Senate for continuation.
For more information:
Civil Rights Legislation for partial list of books.
Civil Rights Act — 1964 for web links.
See St. Augustine FL, Movement — 1963 for preceding events.
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
St. Augustine Movement
St. Augustine Movement for additional web links.
"The Hot Summer of 1964: A Warrior In Florida's Struggle For Civil Rights Remembers" FLAVOUR: Black Florida Life & Style Magazine, Spring 2005, Vol. 6 NO. 1
"Rejected by Church to Glorious Ministry" FLAVOUR: Black Florida Life & Style Magazine, Winter 2006, Vol. 6 No. 1
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Birmingham Movement for partial list of books.
Freedom Now! (Pacifica Radio Archive transcript)
Birmingham Movement for additional web links.
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
"The Ballot or the Bullet" [Transcript] (American Rhetoric)
Malcolm X The Ballot or the Bullet [transcript] (Indiana Univ.)
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Mississippi Movement for partial list of books.
Web links:
Mississippi Movement & MFDP A Discussion
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Mississippi Movement
Meeting in Nashville on April 4th, 50 students from 15 all-white (or overwhelmingly white) southern colleges found the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC), stating:
Most of the SSOC founders had been active in sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and other forms of nonviolent direct-action with SNCC and CORE. Back in the Fall of 1961, SCEF had given a $5,000 grant to SNCC for work with white southern students. SNCC staff member Bob Zellner — son of an Alabama minister and also an officer of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) — was assigned to this project. Zellner recruited SNCC staffer members Sam Shirah — another Alabama minister's son — and Ed Hamlett to continue the work when Zellner returned to school in 1963. Moved by media coverage of sit-ins, Freedom Rides, voter registration, and atrocities such as the Birmingham church bombing, more white students became willing to face social ostracism by defying the segregation system, irate parents, and racist school administrations.
At its founding meeting, SSOC adopts 5 goals that go well beyond a narrow definition of civil rights:
At a following meeting in November there are 125 students from 43 colleges in 10 southern states. In the following years, SSOC continues its activities until 1969, primarily working on civil rights and student rights (university reform) issues. And during this period, many SSOC members and students influenced by them, participate as individuals in a broad range of Freedom Movement activities organized by SNCC, CORE, SCLC and other organizations. Activists associated with SSOC also play leading roles in the development of the anti-Vietnam War movement in the south.
Book: Struggle for a Better South: Southern Student Organizing Committee, 1964-1969
Web: Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC)
See Cambridge MD — 1963 for preceding events.
(Description to be written.)
See Cambridge MD — Black Power Speech for subsequent events.
For more information:
Book: Civil War on Race Street: The Civil Rights Movement in Cambridge Maryland
Web: Cambridge Convergence (King Papers Project, Stanford Univ)
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Mississippi Movement for partial list of books.
Web links:
Mississippi Movement & MFDP A Discussion
Freedom Summer
Freedom Schools
Mississippi Movement
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Mississippi Movement for partial list of books.
Web links:
Mississippi Movement & MFDP A Discussion
Chaney, Schwerner, Goodman
Mississippi Movement
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Martyrs of the Movement
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Mississippi Movement for partial list of books.
Web links:
Mississippi Movement & MFDP A Discussion
Freedom Summer
Freedom Schools
Mississippi Movement
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Mississippi Movement for partial list of books.
Mississippi Movement for web links.
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Mississippi Movement for partial list of books.
Web links:
Mississippi Movement & MFDP A Discussion
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Mississippi Movement
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Books: Louisiana, Bogalusa, & New Orleans
Web links:
Bogalusa LA Movement
Deacons for Defense
Louisiana Movement
(Description of affect on Southern Freedom Movement to be written.)
See Civil Rights Act — House Passage for preceding events.
(Description to be written.)
See The Civil Rights Act of 1964 for analysis of the Act and its effects.
For more information:
Civil Rights Legislation for partial list of books.
Civil Rights Act — 1964 for web links.
See Civil Rights Act — House Passage and Civil Rights Act — Battle in the Senate for preceding events.
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Civil Rights Legislation for partial list of books.
Civil Rights Act — 1964 for web links.
See Freedom Day in Selma for preceding events.
After the high point of Freedom Day in October of 1963, Movement activity in Selma begins to ebb. The arrests, trials, and lack of bail money make it difficult for students to continue direct-action protests. As in Mississippi, the economic terrorism of the White Citizens Council takes a heavy toll of firings and evictions. Attendance at the weekly mass meetings of the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) begins to dwindle. SNCC is forced out of its rented office, and has to operate clendestinely from the facilities of the Fathers of St. Edmund, a Jesuit order led by Father Ouellet. SNCC organizers Prathia Hall, Worth Long, John Love, Mary Varela, Silas Norman, and others carry on, but SNCC's limited resources are stretched thin, and most of its meagre funds and the majority its activists are focused on the struggle in Mississippi.
In the community, even the most dedicated Movement supporters are becoming discouraged at the lack of tangible success. All but a few of those who apply to register are denied. The Department of Justice files lawsuit after lawsuit, which they win in the courts, but the legal victories have no noticible effect — the white power structure continues to prevent Blacks from voting. When the Lafayettes came to Selma at the end of 1962, roughly 150 of the 15,000 eligible Blacks were registered to vote (1%), after two years of struggle, endurance, sacrifice, arrests, beatings, firings, and lawsuits, only 335 are registered (2%). As Justice Department official John Doar reports:
1963 (July-Dec)
1965
"[Even though] the litigation method of correction has been
tried harder here than anywhere else in the South, [Dallas County
Blacks stil have not been provided with] the most fundamental of their
constitutional rights — the right to vote."
But with enactment of the Civil Rights Act in July, there is a sudden upsurge in hope. On Saturday, July 4, SNCC activist Silas Norman and 3 others attempt to implement the new law by desegregating the Thirsty Boy drive-in. A crowd of whites attack them, and they are arrested for "Tresspass." At the movie theatre, Black students come down from the "Colored" balcony to the white-only main floor. They are also attacked and beaten by whites. The cops close the theatre — there will be no integration in Selma, no matter what some Federal law in Washington says.
Sunday evening there is a large mass meeting — the first big turnout in several months. Sheriff Clark declares the meeting a "riot." Fifty deputies and possemen attack with clubs and tear gas. Monday, July 6, is one of the two monthly voter registration days. SNCC Chairman John Lewis leads a column of voter applicants to the Courthouse. They hope that the new law will offer them some protection, but Clark herds 50 them into an alley and places them under arrest. As they are marched through the downtown streets to the county jail, the deputies and possemen jab them with clubs and burn them with cattle prods.
On July 9, Judge James Hare issues an injunction forbidding any gathering of 3 or more people under sponsorship of SNCC, SCLC, or DCVL as organizations, or with the involvement of 41 named leaders including SNCC organizers, the Boyntons, Marie Foster, Rev. L.L. Anderson, Rev. F.D. Reese, and others. In essence, this injunction makes it illegal to even talk to more than two people at a time about civil rights or voter registration in Selma Alabama. And because it is an injunction rather than a law, Judge Hare can jail anyone who — in his sole opinion — violates it. And he can do so without the fuss, bother, and expense of a jury trial.
Activists and their attorneys file appeals. They know that at some bright day in the distant future the blatantly unconstitutional order will eventually be overturned by a higher court. But here and now it paralyzes the Movement. Neither DCVL nor SNCC have the resources — human, financial, legal — to defy the injuction with large-scale civil disobedience. The weekly mass meetings are halted, SNCC organizing is driven deep underground, and a pall of discouragement saps voter registration attempts. For the next 6 months there is not a single public Movement event in Selma — not until January 2nd, 1965, when Dr. King and SCLC challenge the injuction by calling a mass meeting to kick off the Voting Rights Campaign of 1965.
See Selma Voting Rights Campaign & March to Montgomery for continuation.
For more information:
Books: Selma Voting Rights Campaign & March to Montgomery
Web: Selma Voting Rights Campaign & March to Montgomery
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Deacons for Defense for partial list of books.
Bogalusa LA Movement & Deacons for Defense for web links.
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Web links:
Lemuel Penn Murder
Martyrs of the Movement
(Description to be written.)
SNCC for partial list of books.
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Mississippi Movement for partial list of books.
Web links:
Mississippi Movement & MFDP A Discussion
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Mississippi Movement
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Martin Luther King for partial list of books.
MLK Awarded Nobel Prize for web links.
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
(Description to be written.)
See also:
Student Strike at Moton High
Students and Paraents Challenge School Segregation
NAACP Builds the Case
Brown v Board of Education
"Massive Resistance" to Integration
"All Deliberate Speed" Decision
Nashville "Grade-a-Year" School Desegregation Scheme
For more information:
Schools and School Desegregation for partial list of books.
Brown v. Board of Education 1950-1954 for web links.
(Description to be written.)
For more information:
Free Southern Theater for web links.
1. SNCC The New Abolitionists
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