Civil Rights Self-Guided Tour
Ruth and Jonathan Clemens
August/September 2018
Inspired by our daughter Hana’s civil rights trip (while a senior at Baltimore City College High School), we planned our own self-guided tour in Aug/Sept 2018. Following are some of our learnings and reflections (Hana’s reflections inserted) and links to places visited, websites, etc.
We hope to encourage others to trace at least some of these steps, and pray that it will have an impact on our collective understanding of the roots of racism in the U.S.
Hana: Students from my school and two other schools in Baltimore took a bus down into the Deep South in order to learn first-hand about the Civil Rights struggle that took place in the 50s and 60s. The Park School, a private school in Baltimore, was mostly white, while City Neighbors High School, a charter school, was mostly black. Baltimore City College High School, which is my school, had about an equal amount of black and white students.
Books, films, podcasts which we found helpful to provide background to the Civil Rights scene in the U.S. Other such resources, specific to an event or place, are referenced in the journal below.
12 Years a Slave – true story of a free African American from NY who was captured and sold into slavery
Amistad movie
Up from Slavery – Autobiography of Booker T. Washington
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II / Film on PBS by Douglas Blackmon
“Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism” by Dr. Drew G.I. Hart
A Force More Powerful – a History of Non-Violent Conflict by Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall
Eyes on the Prize Documentary: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965
Eyes on the Prize – Then and Now - This intergenerational dialogue takes the civil rights movement and places it under a microscope – revisiting, reframing and re-asking key questions while contextualizing those issues in a contemporary way.
Joe Carter interview with Krista Tippett in “On Being” podcast – gives rich insight into the legacy of Spirituals in the African American experience.
Proud Shoes and The Firebrand and the First Lady – Books by Pauli Murray
Brother Outsider – documentary about Bayard Rustin
Overall Reflections while traveling:
Blue skies, puffy southern clouds, “Gulf of Mexico sky”
Kudzu taking over the parts of the southern landscape
Radio news – Bob Woodward’s book came out about chaos in the White House.
Aretha Franklin’s death –listened to CDs of her singing. Her services were also being held.
John McCain’s death from brain cancer, flags at half mast.
Love of enemies/the efficacy and moral rightness of non-violent direct action undergirding the movement
“At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”– MLK
Security at the civil rights museums we visited was tight, much like airport security.
Civil Rights (rough) Timeline
· 1808 International slave trade made illegal. Domestic slave trade (being sold “down the river” emerged as a sustainer of the southern plantation system. However some illegal trade from Africa continued.
· 1820 Missouri Compromise
· 1850 Fugitive Slave law
· 1857 -- Dred Scott decision – decided that slaves weren’t Americans and therefore couldn’t bring lawsuits.
· 1863 – Emancipation Proclamation. The Memphis museum made the point that Lincoln wasn’t so much making a moral statement about slavery. Rather, he was primarily seeking to cripple the south economically as a military tactic. (“Follow the money” and the politics, even with Lincoln.)
· Reconstruction 1865-77 – Approx. 600 A-A leaders were elected to the statehouses in the south. African American voter registration jumped. This relatively optimistic period ended when the Union military withdrew their troops and protection was lost.
· 13th , 14th, 15th amendments (1865, 1868, 1870 respectively)
· 1896 – Plessy vs Ferguson, Judge Harlan was the lone dissenter, Separate but Equal – this legitimized the many state Jim Crow laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed by states in the American south after the end of reconstruction.
· The Great Migration – 1910 – 1970 – mostly to the large northern cities.
· 1931 – The Scottsboro nine. (Alabama) – 9 boys 13-20 yo, accused of raping a white woman
· 04/09/1947 – The Journey of Reconciliation – Bayard Rustin
· 1954 – Brown vs Board of Ed – desegregation of schools—about 5 cases, Brown (KS) being one of them – Thurgood Marshall argued this case before the Supreme court
· 08/1955 – Emmett Till
· 1955 – Montgomery bus boycotts – MLK comes to the national stage for the first time
· 12/01/1955 – Rosa Parks
· 09/1957 – Little Rock Nine, Central High School, Little Rock, Ark.
· 02/01/1960 – Greensboro NC Woolworth’s Lunch Counter sit in
· 1960 – To Kill A Mockingbird published. Movie put out in 1962 (based on 1936 events)
· 11/14/1960 – Ruby Bridges – Wm Frantz Elem School in New Orleans
· 1961 – Freedom Riders
· 03/27/1961 – Tougaloo Nine (“Read in” at Tougaloo College)
· 10/01/1962 – James Meredith admitted to U. of Mississippi
· 06/12/1963 – Medgar Evers murder (Jackson, MS)
· 1963 – April 3 – May 10 – Children’s March, Birmingham, Ala
· 08/28/1963 – March on Washington, MLK Dream speech
· 09/15/1963 – 16th St. Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala.
· 1964 – Civil rights act of 1964
· 02/26/1965 – Jimmie Lee Jackson dies after being shot by a state trooper during a peaceful march in Marion Ala (incidentally, Coretta Scott King’s hometown)
· 1965 – Selma to Montgomery March – MLK “How long, not long, for no lie can live forever” speech
o 03/07/1965 – Bloody Sunday
o 03/09/1965 – Turnaround Tuesday, White minister James Reeb’s beating and death
o 03/21-03/25/1965 – Selma to Montgomery March, 54 miles
· 1965 – Voting Rights act of 1965
· 04/04/1968 – MLK assassination
· 06/06/1968 – Robert F. Kennedy assassination
· 1968 – Civil Rights act of 1968
Leadership of the Civil Rights Movement
Acronyms frequently referenced:
CORE - Congress of Racial Equality – James Farmer
NAACP - – founded in 02/1909
SCLC - MLK, James Bevel, Diane Nash, James Orange, Hosea Williams; Established by MLK, Fred Shuttlesworth, C.K.Steele in 02/1957; MLK first president
SNCC - Stokely Carmichael, James Forman, Bernard Lafayette, John Lewis, -- founded in Raleigh NC in 04/1960 at a meeting at Shaw Univ. organized by Ella Baker
Name changed from Student “nonviolent” coordinating committee to “national” in 1969 reflecting a change in their approach
SPLC - Morris Dees
SCLC, SNCC, CORE all had roots in the teachings of Gandhi. There seemed to be some rivalry between groups at times, and much collaboration as well. But they each had their own unique history and identity and contribution to the movement.
Martin Luther King is of course considered the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. But we discovered many others who were also vital, and without whom the movement wouldn’t have been as successful.
James Lawson - As a Methodist pastor, he was a leading theoretician to the success of the Civil Rights movement in providing background training for non-violent action. While a missionary in Nagpur India, he studied Satyagraha, a form of nonviolent resistance developed by Gandhi. He returned and was introduced to MLK who had also studied Gandhi’s principles. MLK invited him to the south to join the civil rights movement. While at Vanderbilt Lawson held workshops in nonviolent direct action, a central tactic in the movement. These workshops were attended by Diane Nash, James Bevel, John Lewis, Bernard Lafayette, and many others involved in the struggle.
Many women were key players along the way, although the movement tended to highlight the men in leadership more than the women. Many of the women are not sufficiently recognized for the contributions they made. Three that especially stand out to us…
Diane Nash organized the Freedom Rides and the Children’s March in Birmingham
Ella Baker was the energy behind the organization and founding of the SNCC
Pauli Murray was a civil rights lawyer. Her thesis was the “Civil Rights Bible” referenced by Thurgood Marshall in his Brown vs. Board of Education and other cases.
Greensboro, NC
Hana: We rode down to Greensboro, North Carolina, where we visited the Woolworth’s lunch counters which was the site of the first sit-ins and the first incident of non-violent resistance to racial discrimination in the south. We also took a tour of A&T College, an HBCU where the students primarily came from in the sit-in movement.
Atlanta, GA
Hana: We left NC that same day and drove another 5 hours to Atlanta, Georgia, the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr. The next morning, we went to Ebenezer Baptist Church, which is the home church of MLK. This was the Sunday before MLK Day, and so there was a commemorative service with amazing singing and an interesting sermon on the topic of healthcare. This was the first place where we heard the Civil Rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome”, which we would hear and sing several more times while on the trip. After the service, we got a chance to walk around the neighborhood where MLK grew up. A couple of students and I wandered a bit outside of the allotted streets, and I was struck by Atlanta’s similarities to Baltimore. For example, just by walking a few blocks, it was evident that we were no longer in a safe neighborhood anymore. When a seemingly homeless, black man came up to talk to us, I was intrigued by the Park School students’ reaction of turning around and walking away, while another City College student and I stayed and talked with him. Later on, many of the students at this private school would come to realize and admit to their sheltered attitude towards the urban setting.
Hana: We traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, where we would have our first authentic southern meal. That night we were to hear from some activists during the movement, and I was chosen along with two other students to sit and eat with these people during dinner. I sat next to Cleopatra Goree, who was a teacher during the time of the Children’s March in Birmingham. She was able to inspire these young individuals to stand up to the injustices in their city. Being able to eat and talk with her was an honor. I also got the chance to talk with Catherine Burks-Brooks, who was one of the original Freedom Riders, and also a very inspiring woman.
Listen to Code Switch – Live from Birmingham
On the way up I-65 from Montgomery to Birmingham we saw a huge confederate flag flying in the woods by the roadside, with a billboard “Sons of Confederate Veterans”. And an 800 number to call for more information.
In the City of Birmingham, We followed some of the Birmingham Civil Rights Heritage Trail which took us from the 16th Street Baptist Church, where a bombing (by KKK) killed 4 girls in 1963, along the route of the Children’s March to City Hall, and to the Birmingham City Library, which was racially integrated in 1963 after many African American university students entered and asked for a library card and were refused. That evening the Library board had an emergency meeting and the next day they decided to integrate the library system. One of the stained-glass windows in the 16th St. church is of a black Jesus, a gift from people in Wales after the bombing.
We visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, which lays out Civil Rights events in the 50s and 60s in a timeline fashion, setting National events with those in Alabama in juxtaposition. Domed roof, Kelly Ingram Park across the street, we initially viewed a film then the screen lifted, and we entered the museum there. Had a conversation with a museum volunteer at the end of our tour. She said, “The struggle isn’t over yet, but God is in control, we need to pray.” We together watched a video of an artist named Denny Dent (impressively) speed painting (with brushes and with his hands) a beautiful MLK portrait.
The most moving part of the museum was a video hearing stories of the children (now adults) who participated in the Birmingham Children’s March. These children were taught non-violent responses and were willing to go to prison for the sake of freedom. This march was coordinated by MLK’s SCLC, and met with police dogs, fire hoses. After five days, 3,000 of them were in jail or held in animal pens at the fairgrounds after the jails filled up. Sometimes some of the younger children were let out of jail in the middle of the night. The police had lost their power of fear. This march culminated in JFK declaring that segregation in the U.S. must end, and eventually led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Freeman Hrabowski (president of University of MD, Baltimore County—UMBC) participated in the Children’s march.
MLK was arrested in Birmingham, April 12, 1963, wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in response to a letter of caution from white clergy. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He was jailed for 11 days, arrested for violating a new law outlawing ‘parading and demonstrating.’
Hana: The next day, we traveled to Selma, Alabama, the site of “Bloody Sunday”, where John Lewis, MLK, and other activists marched across Edmund Pettus Bridge and was met by teargas and batons on the other side. This event illustrated the undying determination of the people to achieve justice, because they went on to try again and march all to Montgomery, AL in order to achieve the black right to vote. In Selma, we met Joanne Bland, who was a marcher on Bloody Sunday when she was just 15 years old.
The movie, Selma portrays the African American struggle for the freedom to vote.
What does it mean to have the right to vote? It means we have a say in who our leaders are, who make the laws of the land, and judges who interpret those laws, who are the face of our city, state, country. It means we can actively make our own choice and have a voice in the public sphere. It means we are valued as American citizens.
In 1993 we were present in for the first vote in 25 years in Cambodia. Voter turnout was 85%. People were dressed in their Sunday best and lined up around the block. We realized how much we take for granted the right to vote in my country.
Visiting Selma, we realize again how many people had to struggle, fight, give up their comfort and security, to get the right to vote, simply because of the color of their skin. Selma was chosen strategically, the circumstances regarding voting rights and deprivation of those rights, as well as the nature of the police chief Jim Clark who was known to have a short temper and would prove to show the world the contrast between the two sides. Poll tax, literacy tests, intimidation were all used to keep the African American from voting, and it worked for awhile…
At the Ancient Africa Enslavement and Civil War Museum in Selma, we met Annie Pearl Avery who was a SNCC organizer during the Civil Rights movement, and present in Selma for Bloody Sunday. She continues her activism, and said proudly that she had been imprisoned for civil disobedience three times in the past 18 mo. “We still aren’t free, you know!” And “We can sit around and wait for this or that president and get thrown a bone to chew on for a while. But we really have to do the work ourselves!”
We visited the Selma Interpretive Center. We walked to the Brown Chapel - Church where they gathered to strategize and preach before the marches were to start. James Bevel – preacher at the funeral of Jimmie Lee Jackson – “We’re going to march to Montgomery.” Husband of Diane Nash at the time.
There were three marches in the attempt to march to Montgomery.
The March on Bloody Sunday when they were attacked, John Lewis and Hosea Williams leading the long column. We were impressed in the video with Lewis’ calm, fearless look as the column of marchers is approached by the Selma police force in their riot gear. According to the witnesses, the attacks and harassment went on all night long throughout the black neighborhoods in Selma.
The “turnaround march” led by MLK a few days later, when the group walked over the bridge, stopped at the other side, knelt to pray in front of the line of police, then turned around and walked back.
The final march to Montgomery 54 miles, four days, culminated by a MLK speech on the state capitol building steps. “How long, not long, because no lie can live forever.” Making a demand on governor George Wallace that their time to vote had come.
The march to Montgomery went through Lowndes County, which was the Alabama county with the lowest number of African Americans registered to vote (zero), and the highest number of lynchings (half of the entire Alabama state total). After the march and the signing of the federal voting rights act, Lowndes Co became the site of Tent City. This was a large field that was designated for African Americans who had dared to register to vote and were subsequently forced to leave their share croppers’ jobs and were internally displaced. The Tent City was in place for 2 1/2 years. The Black Panther party emerged from this, with Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton, later joined by H Rap Brown, Bobby Seale, Fred Hampton and others. In these early years the Black Panther party was part of the peaceful protest movement, organizing and galvanizing the vote. The more violent aspects of the Black Panther movement came later. The Loundes Interpretive Center is on these grounds.
We followed Rt. 80 to Montgomery capital building, the route taken by this march.
Montgomery, AL – Lots of good things to see!
Hana: We went to Montgomery, AL on the same day, where it was a relieving 66 degrees outside (the first and only mild day of the trip). There, we visited the Southern Poverty Law Center, where there have been multiple cases won against hate groups that still exist today. In that center, I learned about many cases that have been relevant in the past decade against such groups as the LGBTQ community and Muslims in Arizona within five days after 9 /11. This was particularly interesting, because for the first time on the trip I considered the oppression of groups other than African-Americans in the mid-1900s. We also saw the Greyhound Bus Station, where the Freedom Riders were met by police and an angry mob.
Montgomery, being the cradle of the confederacy, was also the “perfect storm” place to stage several Civil Rights actions. We walked past the First White House of the Confederacy, across from the State Capital. Confederate Memorial Day – to memorialize the 258,000 Confederate dead – is an official state holidays in SC (May 10), MS (last Monday in April), Ala (4th Monday in April), Texas Confederates Heroes Day Jan 19. We found the corner where Rosa Parks St and Jeff Davis Ave intersect!
Montgomery Bus Boycott - Rosa Parks (museum in Montgomery) refused to move the back of the bus on a Thursday, and the Bus Boycott began the next Monday. All without the internet! Most walked to work for 11 months. An elaborate car pool system was set up over that weekend and into subsequent weeks. African Americans owned funeral homes and others had cars to organize car pooling for those who couldn’t walk such a distance to their work. Buses were basically empty save a few white folks for 11 months.
Imagining MLK at 26 (1955), had been a pastor at Dexter Ave Baptist church in Montgomery Ala for a bit over a year old, the Montgomery bus boycott needed a leader and he came onto the scene, a parishioner said that “We have a pastor and he can make people listen”. He stepped in, somewhat reluctantly, and the rest is history. At that time, at age 26, he was still forming who he was, he was a young man.
Did you know there were four other women who had refused to move to the back of the bus before Rosa Parks, but their cases didn’t go very far. Rosa’s case was particularly strong and she was the right person to generate publicity and move the marker ahead.
Fred Gray was one of the first African American attorneys and carried the Rosa Parks case.
Equal Justice Initiative developed the following two museums in Montgomery, opened in April 2018.
Helpful background reading:
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson… “Just Mercy” movie just began filming in Montgomery while we were there August 2018.
The New Jim Crow book by Michelle Alexander and documentary
Legacy Museum, from Enslavement to Mass Incarceration ….
Entering from the street, initially saw 4-5 life sized holograms of slaves telling their stories—Learned more about the International slave trade vs Domestic slave trade. Separating mothers and fathers from children was commonplace. This museum is housed in a converted warehouse that had housed slaves. Death-In-Prison sentences are addressed by EJI.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade was made illegal in 1908. The domestic slave trade was deemed necessary to keep the cotton and tobacco money flowing on the Southern plantations. This museum gave some descriptions of that lucrative and brutal system, being sold “down the river” meant being separated from family, mothers and fathers from children, and never to come back. The deep southern states of Ala, Miss, etc were a feared destination.
A brief period after the emancipation proclamation in 1863 gave freed black citizens some place in the politics and decision making in some states and during the Reconstruction period. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution were attempts to sustain this but the reality in many of the states made these amendments unenforceable. The withdrawal of federal troops in 1877 Resulted in an increase in lynchings and establishment of Jim Crow laws. The Great Migration to the northern cities was one result, and another result was the dis-enfranchisement of freed black persons.
The Legacy Museum gives a tour through this history, through the lynching period, the civil disobedience that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The increasing tendency to mass incarceration was also highlighted, including cases of some who were wrongly convicted. We were once again struck by the evolution of slavery...to Jim Crow laws, to share cropping, to lynching, to mass incarceration…
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice …is a .7 mile walk from the Legacy Museum. On the way, we visited the landing on the Alabama river where slaves were brought and sold. Also at this landing was the remnants of a large cotton slide, where large bales of cotton were slid into the waiting barges.
This National Memorial is dedicated to the legacy of African American people terrorized by lynching. It's a powerful call to accountability and recognition that this took place in our country. Each county in the U.S. where a lynching was documented is represented by a pillar with the names of those lynched, including our home state of Maryland. Outside the museum awaits duplicate pillars laid out like coffins, inviting the authorities to take "their" county's pillar to display on their own soil as a recognition that this took place. It depicts the many lynchings that have occurred from 1877-1940s, state by state, county by county, with the names inscribed on steel beams that are hung vertically in a large pavilion. These lynchings are all cold cases, unsolved murders from long ago. For each name inscribed in the pillars at least two pieces of documentation proving the time and place of the lynching were required. This display was set in a beautiful park, well kept up with flowers and trees.
There were 26 lynchings that are recorded for Maryland, one on Baltimore County, etc. Brief stories were also on display…
Maryland
Harford Co – Lewis Harris
Baltimore Co – Howard Cooper (07/13/1885)
Carroll Co – Townsend Cook
Howard Co – Hezekiah Brown, Jacob Henson
Anne-Arundel Co – George Briscoe, Wright Smith, Henry Davis, King Johnson
When one date has a number of names, a guide explained that this could have represented the lynching of striking sharecroppers
At least one massacre listed many deaths at one time
One pastor was lynched for marrying a black man and a white woman.
That night we ate dinner with a friend from Birmingham at an authentic Alabama style BBQ restaurant (Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q) and had Alabama banana pudding for dessert.
The Civil Rights Memorial is part of the Southern Poverty Law Center. This memorial designed by Maya Lin (who did the Viet Nam War Memorial) highlights the memory of 40 key “martyrs” of the Civil Rights movement. This memorial is connected with a SPLC museum that celebrates and memorializes these 40 persons. The actual SPLC office building is nearby but unmarked and a bit hard to find (SPLC leaders have received bomb threats and the building was entirely destroyed in 1983 by a firebombing.) Morris Dees is the founder of the SPLC. The SPLC memorial connected civil rights movement with movements worldwide - Lech Walesa, Cesar Chavez, LGBTQ, Native Americans, Moslem ban, Palestinians…
Freedom Riders National Monument
Located in the Greyhound bus terminal where a busload of freedom riders was attacked in 1961, we (and another couple from Chicago) heard a presentation by the guide. The guide was a young woman, passionate about what she was doing, holding a life mission to teach kids about this part of our history. Her enthusiasm and heartfelt passion was contagious.
We learned about the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation (sponsored by CORE and the Fellowship of Reconciliation) a forerunner of the Freedom Riders. The leaders were George Houser and Bayard Rustin (Quaker, studied Gandhi, gay, communist). Took place in the southern states (but not Ala or MS, as those were considered too dangerous…). Didn’t lead to many immediate results, but was the forerunner to the 1961 Riders. There is a documentary about Bayard Rustin called Brother Outsider. He sounds like a fascinating person, we hope to see that film.
Diane Nash instrumental in organizing the freedom riders, as was James Farmer among others.
Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. was involved with the cases that were brought to court.
Learned about some of the Freedom Riders who came from all over the U.S., some < 18 yo needing the consent of their parents (had to sign a waiver). Those older than 18 were asked to prepare their wills, knowing what they were getting into. Organized by Diane Nash from Chicago, the SNCC was the main organization behind this effort. Riders included Malcolm Boyd, William Sloane Coffin, John Lewis, James Zwerg (severely injured), Bernard Lafayette, James Farmer.
Most of the Riders were young students who heard about this movement and showed up from across the country. They were 50/50 black and white participants. They got training (nonviolent resistance) before they participated. Can you imagine if even one of them would have responded in violence?
The museum got busier and one of the visitors was Kredelle Petway a former Freedom Rider (actually rode a plane with the same integration goal) who was arrested when the plane landed in Jackson, MS. Ms. Petway was interested in talking with us and we had a good conversation.
One of the projects was a series of videos taped of those who were part of the movement. Bernard Lafayette emphasized the need to first be changed from the inside, a daily journey, and moving from inner change to making change happen on the outside. A Christian principle of discipleship. Reconciliation is the bridge, but once over the bridge the hard work of Restoration begins.
Africatown, Plateau (near Mobile), AL
We spent a day visiting Mobile and Ruth’s brother. Together we drove to Africatown. This town was founded by the last known people to be smuggled into the US as slaves in 1860, after the international slave trade had been outlawed already for half a century. Living here would be the descendants of survivors of that slave shipment on the Clotilda. We found this small group of houses on the northeast side of Mobile tucked between the highway and an industrial gravel pit. Many of the houses were run down and perhaps uninhabited. There was a small turnoff with a sign saying, “Future home of the Africatown Welcome Center,” and another sign along the highway saying, “Future site of the memorial to the inhabitants of the Clotilda.”
Cudjo Lewis was the last surviving slave (recorded) from the Clotilda, as written down in Barracoon, by Zora Neale Hurston. He worked as a slave on a steam ship for five years before he was freed after Emancipation. He was responsible for getting permission to purchase the land and establish what became Africatown. In a large cemetery next to the town we found the grave stones of two of his six children, all of whom died an untimely death.
We noticed several towns in Alabama that seem to have African sounding names, likely settled by freed slaves. From my Tshiluba dictionary (Congo), I made some wild guesses…For example:
Coosada. Kusala means “at the border.”
Chunchula. Tshula means “good things to be grown.” To grow good things?
Kushla. Kusula means “glance” or Kushala means “to stay”
On our way back we stopped at a roadside market and bought some boiled peanuts and local peaches, Yum! Stopped at at Piggly Wiggly and bought Swamp Soda (ginger ale) and had a picnic at a small park on the Gulf of Mexico along the Battleship Parkway. We read about Hurricane Gordon forming some distance off the coast and moving towards Alabama.
Mississippi
Hana: Mississippi is the poorest state in America, and this fact was very evident in much of the Delta that we visited. For example, we went to Simmons High School, where we met with some students. In the Delta, much of the schools are still segregated by race. The white families enroll their students in private institutions. The High School we visited had two white students who probably could not afford to attend the private school. I saw both of them, and they didn’t appear to fraternize with the black students at the school. We went to have lunch with some of the Simmons students, and talking to them was very enjoyable, but at the same time very depressing. Our ability to mesh and socialize with these students made me realize how similar we are, but also how sad their apparent poverty and lack of resources is. Still, meeting with a group our age from a very different part of the country was certainly an interesting and enjoyable experience.
After seeing these students, we visited the Sunflower County Freedom Project. This project was established in the mid-1990s and it was designed for students from 7th to 12th grade who were determined to get a good education, despite what lack of resources their schools had to offer. This dialogue with students in our age range was probably the most prominent experience that I would have on this trip, because I realized how much these students valued education as compared to me; while they are struggling to find resources, I am guilty for taking my resources for granted. What made this visit even more impressionable was the realization that, while these students valued education so much, there were so many more students in the public education system who were not getting the kinds of resources these students were receiving through the Freedom Project. One of the chaperones who went along on the trip noted to us that she had tried to get a visit with one of the white private schools in the county, but they had declined our invitation. While it is inspiring to see this group of ambitious young people, it was also clear that so much more needs to be done in this region of the country that is still stuck in the segregated south of the past.
Jackson, MS
Voice of Calvary Ministries is headquartered here, and open to volunteers if arranged ahead of time.
Each room of this museum represented a different period of history. Very well laid out and thorough in its stories and records of personal experiences during these times. Comprehensive look at the overall timeline, with some emphasis on Mississippi, moved from section to section with a central room remembering the deaths of the martyrs, Philadelphia 3, Emmet Till, etc. – playing beautiful spirituals in this room of remembrance. “This Little Light of Mine.” “Classroom” where we sat as students in a classroom and the blackboard wrote (as a teacher would) statistics and important facts about educational inequality in the South during those years.
Medgar Evers was WW2 veteran and a Mississippi leader in the NAACP, a civil rights activist. In June 1963 he was shot and died a short time later. He became the first African American in the state to be admitted to an all-white hospital. His widow, Myrlie, remained active and had leadership roles in the civil rights movement over the years that followed.
Even before the murderer was found, writer Eudora Welty wrote a short story “Where is the Voice Coming From?” written in the first person from the point of view of the killer. Welty said, “Whoever the murderer is, I know him: not his identity, but his coming about, in this time and place.” When Byron De La Beckwith was apprehended, Welty’s story proved amazingly prescient and accurate. The first two trials resulted in hung juries. Finally, on new evidence, he was convicted in 1994.
During Reconstruction there were a several years of optimism. Many African Americans registered to vote, and some won legislative positions. But intimidation, arrests and lynchings soon dashed hopes, and voter registration declined rapidly over the following years.
There was a brief talk at the end from a young African American guide who said, “Doesn’t the times now look like 1964 and 1965? The struggle today is about - immigration, gender rights, mass incarceration, gun violence…Keep with the struggle.”
Philadelphia, MS - Murders of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwermer, James Chaney
During Freedom Summer 1964, there was a massive drive in MS to register African Americans to vote. Activists came from all over the country to work on this campaign for Voter education, including these three young men (two from NYC). The Mt. Zion United Methodist Church was burnt by Klansmen after a church meeting (where several were beat up), and Goodman, Schwermer and Chaney came investigate the incident. As they drove back to Philadelphia, they were stopped for speeding, arrested, held for a few hours, then released in the middle of the night and pursued by deputy sheriff and KKK members. They were taken to remote heavily wooded area, shot at close range, then buried in an earthen dam, bodies discovered a couple of months later. Forty-one years later the killers were arrested and convicted.
We visited the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, on County Road 747, east of Philadelphia. There is a plaque and a monument in honor of the three young men. At the corner of Rt. 19 (drive about 4 mi. south of Philadelphia) and CR 515 (off to the right as you drive south from Philadelphia) is a plaque marking the approximate area where they were killed. It’s obvious they took them to a very remote spot.
Hana: The most interesting day of the trip, in my opinion, was the next, when we traveled into Mississippi. Our first stop was Money, Mississippi, which is in the MS Delta. There, we saw the grocery store in which Emmett Till allegedly cat-called at a white woman, resulting in his grotesque murder by her husband and another white man. This store had been left abandoned, and it was quite obvious that the people of Money had no intention of preserving this horrific story that has scarred their town forever. The woman to whom Till spoke is still alive today, and she receives death threats every day by the angry black community.
This trip through rural MS gave us a little sense that you’re in the middle of nowhere, isolated, and nobody will care what happens in this part of the world. Emmett Till, age 14, had come down from Chicago to visit his great uncle. He was accused of whistling to a white woman at her grocery store. On a following night, Carolyn Bryant’s husband, James and his half-brother, JW Milam came to get Emmett from his uncle’s house and took him away and murdered him, mutilating his face, cutting off his ear, etc. They dumped him off a bridge into the Black Bayou near the town of Glendora and his body later was pulled out of the Little Tallahatchie River. Taken to Chicago, his mother insisted on an open casket, photos published nationally, and the resulting outcry was a forceful impetus to the civil rights movement (for example, Rosa Parks said at the time of her civil disobedience that “I thought of Emmett Till and I couldn’t go back.”)
The two men came to trial but were acquitted. A year later they sold their story to Look Magazine admitting that they had done the crime. This case was opened again in July 2018 by the Justice Dept (perhaps to distract attention from other things going on politically?). Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who brought the claims, has since declared that they were untrue in an interview with Timothy B. Tyson, a Duke University professor — who has recently written “The Blood of Emmett Till.” The two men who perpetrated the murder have since died.
The Tallahatchie Bridge, of Bobbie Gentry hit “Ode to Billie Joe” fame, is only a short distance from the store in Money, where the incident started. Now the original Bryant grocery store in Money is overgrown, in disrepair, still standing, next to a neater re-creation of the store. (complete with gas pumps, price at 25.9 cents per gallon). After the Look Magazine article came out the community disowned the family, and their store was boycotted. They had to go out of business and moved to TX. They couldn’t sell the property, because no one wanted to be part of that legacy. And there it stands, under the weeds…
We visited the ETHIC (Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center) in Glendora, a little town of 100, seemingly deserted. Saw a sign for “Benevolent Aid and Burial Society” in front of a building in Glendora.
The ETHIC center was hard to find but we persevered. It was staffed by a friendly young woman, daughter of the mayor. We were the only two visitors. We first saw a film about Glendora, then walked around the museum. Both the museum and the displays had to do mostly with the Emmett Till case. There were several interviews in the film, mostly primary sources since much of the activity about the murder took place in and around the town and these were folks who were in Glendora at the time of the murder. The young woman employee said that her grandfather (the mayor’s father) was a witness to the crime and was jailed during the trial to keep him from testifying. He was interviewed on the film. The museum was not very large but seemed carefully and well planned, a labor of love. The displays were meant to celebrate Glendora’s heritage and featured a display about Sonny Boy Williamson – the “Harmonica King” – one in a family of 21 children born in Glendora.
Drove to River Site #1 where Emmett’s body was dumped in the river (with a large metal cotton gin fan and barbed wire tied to his body) and then on to an isolated place River Site #2, after a 2 mile drive on a dirt road, where his body was pulled out of the Tallahatchie River. There were historical marker signs at both sites, both were riddled with bullet holes. We felt a little creeped out and didn’t linger.
We took the short drive to Sumner where we found the Emmett Till interpretive center. It was closed, tours by appt only. Looking in the window of the center one of the few items visible was a sign for the River Site 2 full of bullet holes, replaced by the current sign. The courthouse building in the town square where trial of Bryant and Milam took place is the dominant point of the town in the middle of the town square. The trial was a media circus and it took 65 min for the all-white male jury to reach a unanimous verdict of not guilty (one juror said – “We would have taken a shorter time but we stopped for a soda pop break in the middle”). There were indications that the Emmett Till interpretive center in Sumner and ETHIC in Glendora seemed a bit at odds with each other (“outsiders” coming in setting up the center in Sumner vs. an organic grass roots effort by the mayor, a native of Glendora).
Our Tour of Emmett Till key sites:
1. Money: Started with Bryant’s Grocery Store, in Money, MS, where the accusations started, which is now dilapidated and all grown over with vines, with “no trespassing” signs, and an Emmett Till sign out front marking the spot.
2. Glendora: Emmett Till Intrepid Center in Glendora, MS, which was at the back of this tiny town along the train track, at the end of what seemed like an alleyway. This is the town where one of the murderers lived, and where Till was likely tortured and murdered. His body was dumped in the river a mile away. This town had a cotton gin then. The town did not appear to be thriving- there were several small businesses, and not a lot of activity was evident. This link: to the interview with the mayor of Glendora is also helpful background to his efforts to bring to light his family’s connection to the murder and the needs of Glendora.
3. Emmett Till River Marker 1, Glendora – right across the bridge (from Glendora) on Sharkey Rd, near Persimmon Grove Church – where his body was likely dumped.
4. Emmett Till River Marker 2, Glendora – two miles down a dirt road along the river where his body was found and pulled out of the river.
5. Sumner: We drove north to Sumner, MS where the court tried his case, and no one was brought to justice. Years later the town still bears the burden. Hear NPR report.
Little Rock, AK
Hana: We then traveled to Little Rock, AK, the site of Central High School and the first integration of high schools. This huge school resembles a castle, much like my own school. But unlike my school, it is about three times as large. Central can be compared to my own school in many different ways. Despite the difference in ethnic demographics (Central is 54% white and City is 10% white) they are both generally segregated within the school on account of different honors programs in the schools (Central has AP, while City has IB). The continued evidence of similarities between the deep South and Baltimore, which are very different regions, was another interesting concept that I took with me when I came back to Baltimore, which is more segregated than one might originally think.
In Little Rock, we heard Dr. Sybil Hampton speak. She was the first African-American to go through all three years of high school and graduate. Her stories of the ridicule and harassment she experienced were gut-wrenching, because of the sheer hate that these white students at her school had possessed. It was interesting to hear about a time when she went to her class’s 50th reunion, where she experienced many instances of reconciliation and apologies for putting her through the most difficult years of her life.
After this, we went over to Dunbar High School (note that Baltimore has a high school with the same name) in a different neighborhood in Little Rock. This was the black school in the times of segregation, and it was clear that, compared to the illustriousness that was Central High School, Dunbar High School was comparatively neglected in terms of upkeep. Although we were only able to see the outside of the school, it was still obvious that the contractors who built Dunbar and Central were not keen on keeping the schools equal, when they were clearly very separate.
Hana: We then drove into Memphis, Tennessee, which is where MLK was assassinated. At the museum there, I was able to stand in the place where the killer shot him, as well as the place where he was shot. This was nearing the end of the trip, and although I was incredibly tired from the week full of museums and visits to historical sites, standing in these positions was nonetheless overwhelming, thinking of how this country could have turned out differently if this one man hadn’t shot down this influential and inspirational leader.
The next day, we went to New Market, TN, where the Highlander Research and Education Center is located. This center was where many political activists during the civil rights movement went in order to train in nonviolent resistance. In addition, today, they hold reconciliation clinics for people within such groups as the LGBTQ community and women. Being able to participate in a workshop that was designed for world-changing leaders was a perfect way to end this trip, because I was able to realize how little this movement may have seemed at first, only to evolve into a universal struggle for equal rights among all people. Going on this trip has opened so many doors to meet so many influential people, such as Diane Nash and John Lewis, and in turn these people have changed the way I look at social change: as a very tangible and achievable goal.
National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel
Site of MLK assassination, his hotel room, Room 306, is set up as a kind of shrine, more “reverence” here. The balcony, his hotel room, the boarding house across the street from where James Earl Ray shot him, the suspicions about a conspiracy (eg. The FBI was surveilling him intensely). 2018 is 50th anniversary year of his death.
Documentary “The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306”
The Mountaintop speech that he gave the evening before his death almost didn’t happen. One of his greatest speeches! He sent his associates ahead of him to the church thinking there wouldn’t be many people there, with the bad weather. When they arrived, they saw the 2000 who had shown up, said to one another ‘this is a Martin crowd’ and called him to come. He spoke reportedly without notes, by his words foreshadowing his own death.
Seeing a photo of King marching on March 28, a week before he died, he looks tired, haunted and intense. He knew that he had reason to fear for his life.
Robert F. Kennedy’s words when hearing of MLKs assassination. Footage – he says in the background “have they heard yet?” Then to the crowd – “Put down your signs, I have some sad news.”
Footage of MLK’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech, wide shot shows a woman to the right of the podium wiping tears from her eyes. Is it Mahalia Jackson? She sang at the rally and is reported to have said from behind him, during his speech, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” That last most famous part of the speech was off text, no notes.
MLK’s “Dignity of Labor” speech given March 18, 1968. The occasion was in Memphis at the Sanitation workers strike. “All labor has dignity.” (Thinking of DVD “Searching for Sugarman” about the singer Rodriguez who was famous in S. Africa, and meanwhile worked as a day laborer in Detroit. In this film Rodriguez spoke eloquently: “there is no shame in a good day’s work.”) This movement in Memphis was made urgent by the death of two sanitation workers in a compactor less than two months before the speech.
Scenes from this museum we noted:
Photo of Will D Campbell (who later wrote “Brother to a Dragonfly”) standing alone on the Lorraine Motel balcony site the day after the assassination. Looking forlorn.
James Meredith enrollment in U. of Mississippi, tried three times, turned away, then succeeded. Guts it took for him to keep pursuing, among 1000s of protesters.
Greensboro 4 -- 02/01/1960 – began the lunch counter sit in which spread to other parts of the south. Their own term for this act was: “passive sit-down demand.” Subsequent sit ins – included the “Rock Hill 9” (or the Friendship 9) in Rock Hill, SC.
Tougaloo 9 “Read In” (a college N of Jackson, MS)
When slaves ran away they called it “stealing themselves”, they were property.
500,000 slaves at 1776; By 1860 there were a total of almost 4 million enslaved African Americans.
20% of Africans transported died in the Middle Passage (being transported in the slave ships across the Atlantic).
Distinctions between Civil Rights (supported by law) vs. Human Rights (universal)
Hazel Brannon Smith – a white newspaper editor who wrote editorials (won a Pulitzer) about the civil rights movement in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Hodding Carter, fellow Mississippian, stood by her through the white boycott of her newspaper. (Hodding Carter would later become Assistant Secretary of State for public affairs under Jimmy Carter—he was a prominent spokesperson for the Carter administration during the Iran hostage crisis.)
Summary thoughts….
Focusing every day for two weeks on the struggles of the Civil Rights movement was emotionally exhausting but rewarding. We’ve deepened our appreciation for the risk-taking commitment of these hundreds of people, many of them young adults, youth and children. Many on the way said, “The struggle isn’t done yet.”
While we hear most stories about a relatively few individual heroes, this movement was made up of a groundswell of 1000s of people who we will never know, or rarely hear of.
The four women who refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery before Rosa Parks’ case came along.
The 430 some Freedom Riders
The 1000s of children involved in the Children’s March in Birmingham
The 1000s of people involved with Selma to Montgomery protests and marches.
The 100s of college students involved in lunch counter sit-ins across the South.
The 100s of college and high school students across the South who registered for a library card so they could access books in the whites only libraries.
Common to these struggles:
The strategy of non-violent direct action. Months and years of training in these tactics were important to keeping people focused on the outcome. Not only is non-violence good for relationships with others and with God, it’s also a good tactic for change! Gandhi, Mandela, MLK…all believed in this principle, though they came from different faith perspectives.
Many involved came from a Christian faith conviction which drew them together for strength
Tactics: the need to focus on one particular federal law that wasn’t being lived out at the state and local level, discrepancies with state and local law. Fight a particular person’s legal case to bring to the courts, fight it through, and get publicity for that individual case. (eg Thurgood Marshall – Brown vs Board of Education in 1954)
In many cases, filling up the jails was key, not posting bail unless absolutely necessary.
Key was getting media attention so that the country (and the president in some cases) became outraged with the violence of segregation.
Who is working for justice, using these common themes (especially #s 1-3) today?
Bryan Stevenson, EJI in Montgomery. His organization is getting African American people off death row who have been unjustly sentenced.
Colin Kaepernick, NFL player who has lost his contract for taking a knee during the national anthem to draw attn to the shooting of young black men.
Rev. William Barber is considered a new leader in civil rights, focusing on poverty, anchored in faith.
What differences now exist, for better or for worse?
Internet and social media. This can more easily rally people to response. It can also be a tool to incite hate for those involved in the struggle.
We’ve become more individualized, and less community oriented.
Moral majority, Evangelical Right dominates politics, leading to legislating individual morality over community.
What does the struggle look like today? Someone along our journey said –
Immigration
Mass incarceration
Gun violence
Gender rights
Places to visit in Baltimore, DC and Eastern Shore
DC
Baltimore
National Great Blacks in Wax Museum
Eastern Shore
Harriet Tubman Museum and Underground RR Byway
Read: Song Yet Sung, by James McBride – book about slave catching on Eastern Shore of MD