Civil Rights Events
Albany Movement
Filling the Jails
Students at the local
Black college, Albany
State, were anxious to
launch protests against segregation. They were in a rebellious mood toward the
conservative campus administration and pushed the college president to address
their demands about conditions on campus.
Sherrod and Reagon
concluded that it was important to create a mass movement in the regional
metropolis before working in the rurals where Black people made up a majority
of the population. The duo from SNCC began conversations with students on Albany State’s
campus but were quickly kicked out by a nervous school administration. But it
was too late, Sherrod wrote, “We delivered the idea that would disrupt the system”
(October 4).
Charles Sherrod ...
slowly gained the confidence of the people by living with them, working in the
community, and giving voice to the aspirations of the people. His work there,
along with Charles Jones and Cordell Reagon, was a model of the way an
"outside" group works with a community anywhere in the South. Never
in a hurry, the task was to lift fear that engulfed the Albany Negroes, continue the momentum of the
previous spring, and teach the people what their rights and potentialities
might be. The leadership was one of encouragement from the middle, rather than
a take charge one (Browning 1).
On November 1, Sherrod and Reagon went to the Greyhound
terminal to witness the results of an attempt made by Albany State College
students to integrate waiting room facilities.
When the SNCC pair
arrived, however, they saw only a small group of Albany policemen, headed by Chief Pritchett.
The pair was confused over the lack of student support. The absence of student
protestors resulted from a Youth Council decision to postpone the test without
informing Sherrod or Reagon. As a result, the SNCC secretaries quietly slipped
out of the terminal.
Leaving the station,
Sherrod and Reagon found the Albany
community in a state
of chaos. … The fear of openly defying the status quo
of segregation motivated inaction in the community, even among supposed student
supporters. Sherrod and Reagon eventually prodded nine students back to the Trailways
bus station, but only with intense cajoling. Arriving at the station, the nine students
attempted to seat themselves in the white waiting room. Almost immediately, Chief
Pritchett ordered the students to disperse. Obeying, the students retreated
back to town to confer with Sherrod and Reagon. Though extremely minor by later
standards of protest, the students’ attempt to desegregate the station led to
widespread black interest in protest activities, even among adults who had
previously shunned the methods of the SNCC secretaries. The SNCC workers’
organizing had elicited fear and panic, but the students’ action led to black
community support that was otherwise absent. In order to challenge the city
from a legal standpoint, the NAACP and other Albany adults agreed to support a test arrest
at the station.
Realizing the need to
organize the community, the leaders of SNCC, the NAACP,
and other groups met
on November 17, 1961, to form what became known as the Albany Movement. The Movement selected William G. Anderson, a
local doctor, to head the
Movement as its
president, recommended by C.B. King, a well-respected black lawyer.
C.B. King may have
been motivated by the fact that Anderson
“was a relative newcomer
and had not had the
opportunity to make a lot of enemies around town” (Nelligan 7-9).
Interviewed in 1985, Dr. Anderson recalled: “A number of the
civic and social organizations sort of got together and—and decided all in one
night—the people in the community apparently are ready for whatever is
happening. We are their leaders. And we are not ready for what the people
appear to be ready for. So we decided at that time it would be better for us
local leaders to give some direction to whatever is happening than for these
outsiders to give that direction. So we decided … then that we representatives
of the established civic and social organizations of the city of Albany should bind
ourselves together. And we should become a part of what was happening, because
the people apparently are ready for a change, and we their leaders have not
taken the lead in this endeavor. And so after a good deal of conversation about
what shall we call ourselves? And naturally we tossed around all sorts of
names, but when the … words ‘Albany Movement’ were spoken it sort of took hold
at that time” (Interview 3).
Up to this point,
protest in Albany
remained limited to actions by students trained
and counseled by
Sherrod and Reagon. The small scale protest that resulted at the
Trailways terminal on
November 1 and the ensuing student enthusiasm made many
blacks feel obligated
to support their own children by joining in on protest activities.
“The kids were going
to do it anyway,” local parent and later activist Irene Wright stated.
“They were holding
their own mass meetings and making plans…we didn’t want them to
have to do it alone.” While
many black adults favored the legal action and negotiation
promulgated by the
NAACP to direct positive action, they nevertheless supported SNCC
protest because of
their children’s involvement in it. As a result, a committee was formed
[that]“petitioned the
City Council to set into place some mechanism…of desegregating the City of Albany,” as well as
preparing for more positive action, such as demonstrations and arrests. The support of the parents was important, but
there existed a great divide between support and dedication. More reluctant
members of the community now supported the Movement. The question now would be
whether that support would translate into action.
…
Headed by Mayor Asa Kelley,
the City Council had a notable history of ignoring any and every complaint brought
before it by the black community. Prior
to the Albany Movement, most of these complaints centered around maintenance of
public works in African-American communities, such as unpaved streets and
sidewalks. The pattern of ignoring black community issues continued, as Anderson’s initial
audience with the City Council ended in him being told that the council
“determined that there is no common ground for discussion, and did not deem it
appropriate to have it as an agenda item.” The next day the local newspaper,
the Albany Herald, answered for the
white establishment even more emphatically. The paper characterized Anderson as
a hothead, and decried any attempt to change the status quo in Albany, going so
far as to list Anderson’s address and telephone number for any “interested” party,
which would be used by whites to threaten and bother Anderson throughout his
time as president of the Albany Movement (Nelligan 10, 12-13).
On November 22, just a
few days before the Thanksgiving holiday, three young people from the NAACP
youth council and two SNCC volunteers from Albany State
were arrested in the Trailways terminal. The NAACP youth council members were
released on bond immediately after their arrest. However, SNCC volunteers Bertha Gober and
Blanton Hall declined bail and chose to remain in jail over the holidays to
dramatize their demand for justice.
After the holiday [November
25], more than 100 Albany State
students marched from campus to the courthouse where they protested the arrest
of Gober and Hall. A mass meeting–the first in Albany’s
history–occurred at Mt.
Zion Baptist church to
protest the arrests, segregation, and decades of racial discrimination. The
music, especially, was powerful, mirroring the Movement that had begun to
emerge. Reflecting on this moment, Bernice Johnson Reagon [Cordell Reagon’s
future wife] said, “When I opened my
mouth and began to sing, there was a force and power within myself I had never
heard before. Somehow this music … released a kind of power and required a
level of concentrated energy I did not know I had” (Albany 2).
The meeting and the
march were held after the SNCC notified the Department of Justice that the city
of Albany did
not follow the Interstate Commerce Commission ruling which prohibited
discrimination in interstate bus and railway stations (Movement 1).
With the community now
energized, recently arrived SNCC field secretary
Charles Jones met with
Sherrod and Reagon to discuss their next move. The challenge
faced now by the
organizers was how best to maintain the assault upon Albany’s
segregation without
alienating more cautious and conservative members of the
movement, who still
favored petitioning the city council. Should SNCC push too hard,
they feared being
branded as agitators. Community support was not yet so strong as to
permit the SNCC
members to call for demonstrations that required mass arrests and
filling the jail. On
the other hand, the men did worry that if they did not push hard
enough, the Movement
would lose enthusiasm rapidly. Sherrod, Reagon, and Jones
decided to appeal for
outside support. …
The SNCC workers
settled on the solution of asking James Forman, executive
director of SNCC, to
organize a Freedom Ride to Albany
in an attempt to raise and
maintain community
support. Forman agreed, and enlisted eight others to join him in
integrating Albany’s interstate
terminal. By using the Freedom Riders, Sherrod, Reagon,
and Jones hoped to
avoid charges of provocation, while maintaining the enthusiasm for
protest in the Albany community. …
On December 10, 1961,
nine Freedom Riders from Atlanta arrived at the Albany
Trailways bus terminal
and were met by a crowd of approximately three hundred black
onlookers and a squad
of Albany
policemen. Chief Pritchett arrested the riders without
incident, telling the
press that white Albany
would “not stand for these troublemakers
coming into our city
for the sole purpose of disturbing the peace and quiet in the city of
Albany,” framing the city’s opposition in domestic
rather than racial rhetoric. The
arrests resulted in
the desired galvanization of the black community. The following day,
mass meetings filled
Shiloh Baptist and Mount
Zion Churches.
With the continuation of
support, movement
leaders, specifically the SNCC secretaries, began implementing their
ultimate strategy of
filling the jail in order to force the city into negotiations (Nelligan 13-14).
That night we had a
meeting of the Albany
Movement at which time we decided that we would not let these people stay in
jail alone, we would fill up the jails. That next morning, at breakfast, I [Dr.
Anderson] was advising my wife and my
kids that their father and husband would very likely wind up in jail before the
week was out, because the Albany Movement had decided that the best way to
respond to first ignoring the petition of the Albany Movement, and secondly to
arresting these Freedom Riders, the… the most appropriate response would be
mass demonstrations. And I said, "I'll probably wind up in jail, and I
want you kids to understand why this is being done" (Interview 4).
Leaders called for
volunteers to march on city hall the following morning. Privately, Sherrod recognized the importance
of getting people into jail and keeping them
there, and evidence
suggests that he told his closest supporters of this fact. This “jail, no
bail” strategy,
however, was evidently not shared with the masses assembled in Shiloh
and Mount Zion, or even with other
members of the movement. Anderson,
while fully
expecting to be
arrested himself, stated “we had no provisions for these people going to
jail because we did
not anticipate mass arrests.” While Anderson acknowledged the
strategy of filling
the jails, he also was not prepared for mass arrests. It is likely Anderson believed
that few arrests would be necessary in order to completely swamp the jail facilities,
and that the arrest of the movement leaders and a few others would compromise the
Albany police department’s ability to make arrests. It is unclear how many of those preparing to
march were aware that they might be arrested. The last time the black community
marched to city hall, the police arrested no one, and it is possible that many assumed
that the same would be true.
This is significant
because for African Americans living in Albany,
and in
southwest Georgia
in general, arrest and jail represented personal endangerment. Anderson communicated the public opinion of
jailing, stating “You have to understand
that going to jail was
probably one of the most feared things in rural Georgia. There were many blacks who
were arrested in small towns in Georgia
never to be heard from
again… going to jail
was no small thing.” Horrible conditions
in local jails were well
known to many, and it
is important that many who agreed to march initially may have
done so without
preparation for extended stays in jail, which placed strain upon people
economically, families
especially. … the Movement was poised to
test the resolve of the
community through a
baptism of fire, namely by sending hundreds of supporters to
prison.
The following day,
over four hundred people marched to city hall in downtown
Albany, protesting the arrest of the Freedom
Riders. The city gave the marchers
permission to circle
the block twice, and when the marchers refused to stop after the
allotted distance,
Pritchett ordered the protestors arrested. Herding the protestors into
the alley between
police headquarters, Pritchett arrested 267 protestors, including Sherrod and
Reagon, and many of their young supporters (Nelligan 15-16).
Dr. Anderson narrated: But
on this Monday morning following the arrests on Sunday, we met at a church, and
we started a march downtown, and we were going to walk around the courthouse
and go back to the church. We made it around the first time and I was at the
head of the line with my wife. But after we made it around the first time not
getting arrested I went on to my office, but the group went around a second
time to make this impression that we are united behind these people that you
have unjustly arrested. But the second time around they were arrested. And some
700 were arrested before they stopped (Interview 5).
The Movement continued
to hold meetings in Shiloh and Mount
Zion, sending two hundred
and two protestors to jail the following day. In response to these marches,
Pritchett informed the press that “We can’t tolerate the NAACP or the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or any other ‘nigger’ organization to take
over this town with mass demonstrations.”
Despite almost five
hundred arrests since the Freedom Ride, the Albany jail was not full. This
presented a problem for the “jail, no bail” strategy of the Movement. Pritchett
had not been forced to turn away those whom he had arrested and therefore would
not soon be forced into concessions. Pritchett, who had been warned of the
possibility of mass marches, had devised a plan to ensure that his jail would
never be full. Pritchett planned to use jails in the surrounding counties to
house Albany
prisoners should their number threaten to swamp his facilities. As he stated,
“plans had been made where we had the capability of 10,000 prisoners, and never
put one in our city jail.” As Pritchett himself
attested, the protestors “were to be shipped out to surrounding cities in a circle…we
had fifteen miles, twenty five miles, forty five miles, on up to about seventy miles that we could
ship prisoners to.” Pritchett had seen
to it that Albany
would not be required to pay for
the prisoners to be housed in other jails, as local law enforcement had agreed
to absorb the cost so as to protect the segregationist cause. Pritchett did
insist that his own men police the jails themselves, however, in order to
maintain control over Albany
prisoners. This maneuver dealt the
Movement a significant setback, as no one conceived of Pritchett’s ability to
increase his jail capacity this drastically.
For many of those
arrested the realization that they were going to jail not in their hometown of Albany but rather in outlying areas such as “Bad” Baker County
struck terror into their
hearts. Prison conditions were harsh, with jail cells packed to many times their
intended capacity. One woman described her cell in the Camilla jail designed to
accommodate twenty prisoners being packed with over eighty-eight women. Andrew Young, describing Albany jail conditions as
“harrowing,” described jailors refusing to heat the jail in the
winter, and raising the heat and closing the windows on hot days. James Forman reported
that many of those jailed spent most of their time “wondering when they would get
out of jail,” suggesting that the expectation of staying in jail was not one most people were
aware of. Some voiced their astonishment when they werearrested. One young
woman stated “I didn’t expect to go to jail for kneeling and praying at city hall.” The misery of sitting in jail cells far from
home sapped the resolve of many of those who
initially agreed to march and risk arrest. Along with the fact that many of
those arrested did not expect to be, the mass jailing of Albany blacks presented the Movement with an
enormous strategic problem. The infeasibility of filling the Albany jail meant that the
basic strategy proposed by SNCC and supported by the Movement could not be
successful. While admirable, the suffering of Albany residents in jail
accomplished little
and represented an exercise in futility. This lack of concrete result would have a profound
effect on the consciousness of the Albany
African-American community (Nelligan
16-18).
Works cited:
Browning, Joan C.
“Conflicting
Memories of the Albany Freedom Ride and Albany Movement: An excerpt from: Who,
What, When, Where? — Success or Failure?”
Veterans of the Civil Rights
Movement. Web.
https://www.crmvet.org/comm/00albany.htm
“Interview with Dr. William
Anderson.”
Eyes on the Prize Interview.
November 7, 1985.
Washington University Digital Gateway Texts.
Web.
http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb/and0015.1042.003drwilliamganderson.html
“October 1961: SNCC Arrives in
Albany.”
SNCC
Digital Gateway. Web.
https://snccdigital.org/events/sncc-arrives-in-albany/
