Civil Rights Events

Mississippi 1961

Bob Moses, Voter Registration, and McComb

 

Here is a useful map of Mississippi.  https://socketize.com/7124/no7141/

It is a truism of the era that the further south you travel the more intense grows the racism, the worse becomes the poverty, and the more brutal is the repression. In the mental geography of the Freedom Movement, the South is divided into zones according to the virulence of bigotry and oppression: the "Border States" (Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and portions of Maryland); the "Upper South" (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida, Texas); and the "Deep South" (the Eastern Shore of Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana). And then there is Mississippi, in a class by itself — the absolute deepest pit of racism, violence, and poverty.

Duing the post-Depression decades of the 1940s and 1950s, most of the South experiences enormous economic changes. "King Cotton" declines as agriculture diversifies and mechanizes. In 1920, almost a million southern Blacks work in agriculture, by 1960 that number has declined by 75% to around 250,000 — resulting in a huge migration off the land into the cities both North and South. By 1960, almost 60% of southern Blacks live in urban areas (compared to roughly 30% in 1930).

But those economic changes come slowly, if at all, to Mississippi and the Black Belt areas of Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. In 1960, almost 70% of Mississippi Blacks still live in rural areas, and more than a third (twice the percentage in the rest of the South) work the land as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and farm laborers. In 1960, the median income for Afro-Americans in Mississippi is just $1,444 (equal to a bit over $11,000 in 2013), the median income for Mississippi whites is three times higher. More than four out of every five Mississippi Blacks (85%) exist below the official federal poverty line.

Education for Blacks is totally segregated and severely limited. The average funding for Afro-American schools is less than a quarter of that spent to educate white students, and in rural areas the ratio is even more skewed. In 1960, for example, Pike County spends $30.89 to educate each white pupil and only $0.76 cents per Black student. It is no surprise then that only 7% of Mississippi Blacks finish high school, and in the rural areas where children are sent to the fields early in life, functional illiteracy is widespread.

Mississippi is still dominated — economically and politically — by less than 100 plantation barons who lord it over vast cotton fields worked by Black hand-labor using hoes and fingers the way it was done in slavery times. They are determined to keep their labor force cheap and docile. The arch-segregationist Senator James Eastland provides a good example of the economic riches reaped by racism in Mississippi. His huge plantation in Sunflower County produces 5,394 bales of cotton in 1961. He sells that cotton for $890,000 (equal to almost $7,000,000 in 2013 dollars). It costs Eastland $566,000 to produce his cotton for a profit of $324,000 (equal to a bit over $2,500,000 in 2013). The Black men and women who labor in his fields under the blazing sun — plowing, planting, hoeing, and picking — are paid 30 cents an hour (equal to $2.34 in 2013). That's $3.00 for a 10-hour day, $18.00 for a six-day, 60-hour week. The children sent to labor in the fields are paid even less.

This system of agricultural feudalism is maintained by Jim Crow laws, state repression, white terrorism, and the systematic disenfranchisement of Afro-Americans. Overall, whites outnumber Blacks in Mississippi, but the ratio of Blacks to whites is higher than any other state in the union. And in a number of rural counties, Blacks outnumber whites, in some cases by large majorities. Given these demographic realities, the power-elites know white-supremacy can only be maintained if they prevent Afro-Americans from voting. And in that they are ruthless — using rigged "literacy" tests, white-only primaries, poll taxes, arrests, and economic retaliation. And also Klan violence, and even assassinations, which over decades have become an accepted part of Mississippi's southern way of life. On average, six Blacks have been, and are, lynched or killed in racial-murders every year in Mississippi since the 1880s.

According to the 1960 Census, 41% of the Mississippi population is Black, but in 1961 no more than 5% of them are registered to vote. In many of the Black-majority counties not a single Afro-American citizen is registered, not even decorated military veterans. Across the state, of those few Blacks on the voter rolls, only a handful dare to actually cast a ballot. This systematic denial of Black voting rights is replicated in the Black Belt areas of Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, and Southwest Georgia (Mississippi 1-3).

Back in the summer of 1960, Amzie Moore, Medgar Evers, and other local Black leaders in Mississippi told Bob Moses that they needed help with voter registration more than demonstrations against segregation. He promised he would return in the summer of '61, and in July he begins voter registration work in McComb. Staunch, long-time, Movement supporters such as Harry Belafonte and many of SNCC's student leaders also believe that SNCC should focus on voter registration rather than direct action such as sit-ins and Freedom Rides. They argue that poor, rural Blacks have no money for lunch counters or other public facilities and what they need most is political power that in Mississippi has to begin with winning the right to vote.

Other SNCC leaders — many just released from Parchman Prison and Hinds County Jail — argue that the Freedom Rides and other forms of direct action must continue. The protests are gaining momentum and bringing the Movement into the darkest corners of the Deep South, raising awareness, building courage, and inspiring young and old. They are deeply suspicious of Kennedy's demand that they switch from demonstrations to voter registration, and they are unwilling to abandon the tactics that have brought the Movement so far in so short a time.

In August, the issue comes to a head when SNCC meets at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. After three days of passionate debate, SNCC is split right down the middle — half favor continuing direct action, the other half favor switching to voter registration. Ella Baker proposes a compromise — do both. Her suggestion is adopted. Diane Nash is chosen to head direct action efforts and Charles Jones is chosen to head voter registration activity. Both groups send activists to join Bob Moses in McComb.

Amid the fires of the Freedom Rides and the heat of debate, SNCC as an organization is rapidly evolving away from its campus/student roots. More and more SNCC activists are leaving school to become full-time freedom fighters. With money raised by Belafonte, first Charles Sherrod, then Bob Moses, then others are hired as SNCC "field secretaries," devoting their lives to the struggle in the rural areas and small towns of the south. In September, James Forman becomes SNCC's Executive Director to coordinate and lead far-flung projects and a growing staff. Increasingly, it will be the SNCC field staff from projects in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Virginia and Maryland who will shape and lead SNCC in the years to come (Direct 1-2).

Black voter registration in the Deep South is entirely controlled by the white power-structure. For decades they have maintained a savage system of oppression, repression, retaliation, and legal restrictions to keep Blacks politically disenfranchised. The "Jim Crow" schools and school attendance laws systematically and deliberately keep Blacks illiterate and ignorant of government and their political rights while at the same time literacy and civics are made the essential requirements for voter registration through the so-called "literacy tests." Brutal violence, often deadly, and swift economic reprisal are used to deter and punish Black men or women who dare attempt to gain the political franchise.

Voter registration procedures in the Deep South — which vary from state to state and county to county — are based on a voter application and a so-called "literacy test" that prospective voters must pass in order to be registered. The system is designed to allow the county Voter Registrars (all of whom are white, of course) to rig the outcome however they wish. Whites are encouraged to register regardless of their education (or lack thereof), while applications from most Blacks are denied even if they answer every question correctly.

In McComb, for example, the "literacy test" consists in part of the Registrar choosing one of the 285 sections of the Mississippi constitution and asking the applicant to read it aloud and interpret it to his satisfaction. He can assign an easy section, or a dense block of legal baffelgab that even law professors cannot agree on. Then it is entirely up to the Registrar to decide if the applicant's reading and interpretation are adequate. Voters are also required to be of "good moral character," and again the Registrar has sole authority to decide who does, or does not, posses sufficient "moral character."

Blacks who attempt to register in defiance of the white power-structure are harassed and threatened. They are fired from their jobs and evicted from their homes. Many are beaten. Some are murdered. …

In urban areas of the Deep South, a few token Blacks — usually ministers, teachers, doctors, and other professionals — are allowed to register, but never enough to affect the outcome of an election. In the rural counties, particularly those with large Black populations, only a handful — or none at all —  are permitted to register (Voter 1-3).

With 12,000 residents, McComb is the largest city in Pike County, Mississippi. … Financed by a wealthy oilman, Klavern #700 of the United Klans of America has over 100 members. McComb's mayor is Chairman of the White Citizens Council, the police chief heads the local chapter of Americans for the Preservation of the White Race (APWR), a virulently racist white-supremacy organization, and the county sheriff participates in their meetings.

According to the 1960 Census, Blacks comprise 42% of McComb's 12,000 residents. The railroad, now part of the Illinois Central, is still a major employer of both Blacks and whites, and because they are protected by union contract, Black railroad workers cannot be summarily fired for opposing segregation or advocating Black voting rights. From these union ranks emerge activists and leaders of the Pike County Voters League and the local NAACP chapter.

In July of 1961, NAACP leader Reverend C.C. Bryant invites Bob Moses to begin a voter registration project in McComb. Moses is soon joined by SNCC members John Hardy of the Nashville Student Movement and Reginald Robinson from the Civic Interest Group in Baltimore. Webb Owens, a retired railroad man and Treasurer of the local NAACP chapter introduces the SNCC organizers to people in the Black community and urges them to support the voter-registration project with donations of food, money, and housing for the civil rights workers. He takes them to the South of the Border Cafe owned by Aylene Quinn, "Whenever any of [the SNCC workers] come by, you feed 'em, you feed 'em whether they got money or not" he tells her.

Before beginning work, Bob Moses writes to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) asking what the federal response will be if Blacks are prevented from registering. In line with the Kennedy administration's promise to defend voting rights if the students will turn away from direct action, the DOJ replies that it will "vigorously enforce" federal statutes forbidding the use of intimidation, threats, and coercion against voter aspirants (McComb 1-2).

Bryant, a brusque, energetic man with a high-pitched voice and a warm handshake, was one of the stalwarts of the Movement. He ran a barbershop in front of his house in Baertown, a small black community the city fathers had deliberately zoned outside the town limits. He also operated a loading crane for the Illinois Central, whose tracks, along with the Gulf, Western & Ohio, cut right through the heart of McComb. On the west side of town were paved streets; a few blocks of retail stores, and the white suburbs, spread out under a canopy of shade trees and embroidered with flowers. On the east, Burgland, the all-black town with its shabby stores, ramshackle houses, and dirt roads. The general air of grinding poverty was broken by the occasional brick house of somebody who worked for the railroad (Heath 4).

C. C. Bryant wasted no time plugging Moses into McComb’s black community.  One of the first people he introduced Moses to was retired railroad man and NAACP membership chair, Webb Owens.  Every morning for the rest of July, Webb picked Moses up and took him around town, introducing him to key figures in the community.  They secured enough support from McComb’s Black community—in $5 and $10 contributions—to support the project.

House to house canvassing began at the start of August.  Some honor students from the local high school that Webb had recruited accompanied Moses as he worked his way through McComb’s neighborhoods (Bob Moses 1). 
 

At first, children stopped playing hopscotch and huddled together as I walked by. "He's a Freedom Rider," they whispered. Their wary parents would pass me on the road without meeting my eyes, but I could feel their stares and questions jabbing into my back. Many were frightened; I meant nothing but trouble. I would tell them, "Get ready, the Movement is coming your way," but that wasn't anything they wanted to hear. One man stooped down behind the tomato plants in his garden to avoid me. Another time, a little girl came to the front door and said, "Mama say she not here" (Heath 5).

He often introduced himself as “C. C. Bryant’s voter registration man.”  At each house, he would show a voter registration form and ask if the person had ever tried to fill it out. Then, as a way to cut through people’s fear about registering, Moses asked if they wanted to try filling it out right there in their home (Bob Moses 1).

People listened and gave what they could--a nickle, a dime, a quarter--to support a handful of SNCC workers. Soon I was joined by John Hardy, Reggie Robinson, Travis Britt, and a few others who had been in jail in Jackson for taking part in the Freedom Rides. Also, several of the local students got involved. One in particular, Brenda Travis, always bright-eyed and brimming with questions, would sit on a family's porch talking to them for hours if necessary until they were convinced of the need to register. Thanks to Curtis Bryant, who, in addition to being head of the local NAACP, a deacon in his church, a Sunday school teacher, and a scoutmaster, was also a high official in the Freemasons, we were able to set up a Freedom School in the Masonic Hall over the Burgland grocery store. Saint Paul's Methodist Church, across the street, agreed to let us hold meetings there too.

The people flocked to our school. All 21 questions on the application form have to be understood.  All 285 sections of the Mississippi constitution have to be mastered. When we explained the power of the vote, they squirmed in their chairs and glanced at each other. One heavyset woman up front fanned herself harder every time I mentioned the word freedom. Within a few days we sent several students to the Pike County courthouse in Magnolia. When they learned that they had passed, we held a party that lasted long into the night. It seemed for the moment as if everything would be easy. Then the local paper, the Enterprise-Journal, ran an article on what we were trying to do. Whites became alarmed. The next day, the registrar rejected our students, and that evening one of them, in an incident apparently unrelated to voter registration, was shot at. As the news spread, I noted the panic in people's eyes; they saw a connection. Fewer and fewer came to the Freedom School. (Heath 6-7).  

More SNCC workers arrive in McComb direct from the Highlander meeting: Ruby Doris Smith, Marion Barry, Charles Jones, and others. In late August, after training in the tactics of Nonviolent Resistance by the SNCC direct action veterans, two local teenagers — Hollis Watkins and Curtis Hayes (Muhammad), both of whom go on to become SNCC field secretaries of renown — sit-in at the local Woolworth's lunch counter. They are arrested  (McComb 3).

News of the voter registration efforts in McComb spread, and farmers from neighboring Amite and Walthall County reached out to Moses about starting voter registration schools in their areas. These rural areas of Southwest Mississippi were notoriously violent and poor. The Ku Klux Klan was stronger here than in any other part of the state. Many locals in McComb feared SNCC workers would be killed and tried to discourage SNCC from attempting a voter registration campaign. But Moses felt like he had little choice: “You can’t be in the position of turning down the tough areas because the people, then, I think would lose confidence in you” (Bob Moses 3).

Rev. Bryant introduced Moses to Amite County NAACP leader E.W. Steptoe, and the project spread to cover Amite and Walthall Counties.  On August 15, Moses accompanied three local people to the Amite County courthouse in Liberty. The registrar forced them to wait in the courthouse for six hours before they were allowed to fill out the forms. As the group drove from the courthouse, a highway patrolman followed them, pulled them over, and arrested Moses. While in custody, Moses placed a loud collect call to John Doar in the U.S. Justice Department and then spent two nights in jail for refusing to pay $5 in court costs.

Two weeks later, Billy Jack Caston, the cousin of the local sheriff [and son-in-law of E. H. Hurst the State Representative], attacked Moses with the blunt end of a knife after he accompanied two more people to the courthouse (Voter Expands 2).

"I remember very sharply that I didn't want to go immediately back into McComb because my shirt was very bloody and I figured that if we went back in we would probably frighten everybody," he recalls. So, Moses washed up before heading back to McComb. He later required eight stitches to close his head wound (Lake 2).

Steptoe didn’t even recognize Moses, when he returned bloodied to the farm with three gashes in his head that required eight stitches. The next day, in an unprecedented move, Moses pressed charges against Caston. Caston was quickly acquitted, but the case drew even more attention to SNCC’s work. White people underestimated the power of Black organizing when SNCC first arrived in McComb. But by the end of August, they realized that SNCC’s campaign wasn’t about helping a handful a Black people vote but ushering in systemic change that would upset the white power structure (Voter Expands 2).

 That night in McComb, more than 200 Blacks attend the first Civil Rights Movement mass meeting in the town's history to protest the arrest of the students and the beating of Moses. They vow to continue the struggle.

Brenda Travis, a 15 year old high school student in McComb, canvasses the streets with the SNCC voter-registration workers. To awaken and inspire the adults, she leads other students on a sit-in. For the crime of ordering a hamburger, she is sentenced to a year in the state juvenile prison. She is also expelled from Burgland High School. In response, McComb's Black students form the Pike County Nonviolent Movement — Hollis Watkins is President, Curtis Hayes is Vice President.

The Klan, the Citizens Council, and racist whites in general react violently to Blacks beginning to assert their rights. White "night riders" armed with rifles and shotguns cruise through the Black community at night (McComb 4).

… more SNCC activists came to Southwest Mississippi as the line between direct action and voter registration blurred. SNCC activists like Ruby Doris Smith, Charles Sherrod, Charles Jones, and Marion Barry, many fresh off of a prison stint from the Freedom Rides, recruited high school students and began training them in non-violence. With these young people, the Movement in McComb grew to include direct action protests as well as voter registration.

But those SNCC workers in the rural areas focused solely on voter registration and that work only became more dangerous. A week after Moses’s beating, a white man attacked SNCC’s Travis Britt at the courthouse Amite County, choking and punching him “into a semi-conscious state” as he and Moses took people to register. Two days later, the Wathall County registrar smashed a pistol against the head of John Hardy in his office, and when Hardy stumbled outside, law enforcement arrested him for disturbing the peace (Voter Expands 3).

 In late September in Amite County, Herbert Lee, a local volunteer working with Moses. was murdered.

 

Works cited:

 

“Bob Moses Goes to McComb.”  SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and uke University.  Web.  https://snccdigital.org/citation-copyright-policy/

“Direct Action or Voter Registration?” Civil Rights Movement History 1961.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961mccomb

Heath, William.  “The Children Bob Moses Led.”  The Washington Post.  Web.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/children.htm?noredirect=on

 

 Lake, Ellen.  “Bob Moses.”  The Harvard Crimson.  December 4, 1964.  Web.  https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1964/12/4/bob-moses-pbob-moses-stood-in/

 

“Mississippi — the Eye of the Storm.”  Civil Rights Movement History 1961.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961mccomb

“The McComb Project.”  Civil Rights Movement History 1961.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961mccomb 

“Voter Registration & Direct Action in McComb MS (Aug-Oct).”  Civil Rights Movement History 1961.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961mccomb

“Voter Registration Expands in Southwest Mississippi.”  SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and uke University.  Web.   https://snccdigital.org/events/voter-registration-expands-southwest-mississippi/



Civil Rights Events

Albany Movement

Defeat

 

Judge A. N. Durden set Martin Luther King’s sentencing for July 10, 1962. Local leaders began fomenting interest among the community, scheduling mass meetings in Shiloh and Mount Zion in the days leading up to the decision. King and Abernathy were given the option of 45 days in prison and labor, or a $178 fine. Both men elected to serve the time, which brought a renewal of support for the Movement. Bill Hansen, a SNCC staff member, described the effect King’s incarceration had upon the community: “As much as we may disagree with MLK about the way him [sic] and SCLC do things, one has to admit that he can cause more hell to be raised by being in jail in one night than anyone else could if they bombed city hall” (Nelligan 32).

 

King explained from jail, “We chose to serve our time because we feel so deeply about the plight of more than 700 others who have yet to be tried…. We have experienced the racist tactics of attempting to bankrupt the movement in the South through excessive bail and extended court fights. The time has now come when we must practice civil disobedience in a true sense or delay our freedom thrust for long years” (Albany 4).

 

However, this enthusiasm did not translate well into community action. Despite pleading and exhortation from Sherrod and Reagon, only 32 out of over five hundred people assembled in the churches volunteered to march the next day.  While attendance at mass meetings remained high, increasingly smaller numbers volunteered for jail.  Support was high, but the dedication necessary to send hundreds of people to jail remained absent. The memory of long stays in dirty, crowded jail cells weighed heavily on the local population, who now realized that the strategy of mass marches would only be successful if they agreed to extended stays in jail, something that very few people were willing to do. Yet the Movement continued to press the strategy of mass marches despite the fact that anything less than total involvement of the black community rendered any arrests meaningless

 

The inability of the Movement to translate support into dedicated action led to increased frustration in the community. This frustration boiled over on the night of July 11, with over two hundred Albany blacks rioting outside a mass meeting held in Shiloh Baptist.  Seeking an outlet for their anger, the mob settled on Albany policemen monitoring the situation, hurling rocks and debris at the assembled officers. Only the quick thinking of Pritchett saved the situation from escalating any further. The incident revealed that the Movement strategy of nonviolence, despite widespread education, was not being universally abided by..

 

…

 

Although Pritchett had maintained control due to his swift action, the white establishment realized that having King imprisoned in Albany represented a source of strength for the Movement. The city was putting tremendous resources into maintaining segregation, keeping the police force on duty for weeks at a time.  The outbreak of mob violence against police the night before had reinforced the siege mentality in the minds of the city council. Mayor Kelley and his close allies in the business community knew that if King remained in jail for the duration of his sentence, it would make Albany a national arena for civil rights, something they could not allow.  As a result, the city council arranged for B.C. Gardner, a black partner in Mayor Kelley’s law firm, to pay King and Abernathy’s fines anonymously. Although Pritchett expressed no knowledge of the event at the time, he later admitted that a coalition of city councilmen and blacks had come up with the scheme to get King out of jail. On July 12, a “well dressed Negro gentleman” arrived at the Albany city jail, paid the $175 fines for King and Abernathy and left. King recalled being told to dress in civilian clothes and being led to Pritchett’s office, who informed them that they were free to go. When King protested that he had no desire to do so, Pritchett replied “God knows, Reverend, I don’t want you in my jail.”  King declared his displeasure at being released from jail, but did not immediately seek re-arrest. To the community, King had again promised to stay in jail, only to emerge after a short time. Some people still remained in prisons in Albany, Camilla, Americus, and other surrounding towns, unable to afford bail or the ability to post security bond. The reaction among the black community was overwhelmingly negative. Pritchett himself noted that King suffered a great loss of respect in the black community as a result of his inability to stay in jail. Although his release was beyond his control, King had again said one thing and done another. Andrew Young reveals that “the talk going through all the Negro community was that Martin Luther King was going ‘chicken’.”

 

For King, the situation was becoming critical.  … Mass dedication, in the form of jail volunteers and marchers, remained absent. All attempts to puncture the fortress of segregation, fortified by the stalling tactics of the City Council, failed. The Movement had reached a critical juncture. It had zero leverage with which to bargain.  …

 

… King threatened on July 15 to resume mass marches and mass arrests if the city did not meet the movement’s minimum demands of dropping the charges against the original December marchers. Unless the week produced significant progress, King threatened to resume the direct action protests that had characterized the initial December protests.  Mayor Kelley fired back harshly, reflecting the critical juncture the fight for segregation had reached. Labeling demonstrators as “law violatorsm,” Kelley summarily refused to negotiate with the Movement.  This time, the city meant it. All negotiations … were halted. The rhetoric used by the city marked a change from earlier promises to “consider” and “look over” settlements. The city was openly calling King and the Movement’s hand, leaving them only one choice. The city realized that whatever ensued would prove a “decisive test” for King and the Movement.  King responded that he saw no choice but to commence direct action protest.

 

Protests began the next day, with attempted integration of public facilities and sit-ins occurring at downtown drugstores. In response to this, Mayor Kelley began to strengthen his position, requesting an injunction barring King, Abernathy, Anderson, and other prominent Movement leaders from marching.  … Returning to Albany on the night of July 20, King addressed a mass meeting, declaring his intent to march on city hall and face arrest again if need be.  …

 

The following morning, Judge Elliot handed down his injunction against the Movement. Naming prominent leaders, the order barred those named from marching or engaging in protest activity in Albany.  …

 

After intense consideration, King decided to obey the injunction and seek a reversal in a higher court. It is possible that King’s decision to honor the injunction demonstrated his hope that through the federal courts, the Movement could salvage some semblance of victory from Albany. This would take time, however, and SCLC attorney William Kunstler began working on an appeal. King’s decision not to march was met with outrage with the members of SNCC, who held little confidence in the government’s ability to do anything beneficial to the movement.  SNCC was furious with King’s

decision, and let him know it. Sherrod, Reagon, and other young SNCC workers verbally castigated King for his decision, accusing him of supplanting their local movement, making it a nationalized struggle for his personal gain. For his part, King told the SNCC secretaries he would wait for the order to be overturned by a higher court. Later, Sherrod would state he was never angry at King, only annoyed in the way that King’s methods upset his ability to organize.  The SNCC staffer realized that King had de facto control, as it was obvious that Anderson received all of his direction from King. Wyatt T. Walker expressed his annoyance with SNCC’s constant attempts to undermine King’s power in the Movement.  King made clear his intention to wait for the injunction to be overturned in a higher court.

 

July 25, 1961 marked the resumption of protest in Albany, as William Kunstler and Movement attorneys convinced appellate Judge Elbert P. Tuttle, Elliot’s direct superior, to overturn the injunction. King and the Movement announced plans to march the next day, calling on the black community to join them. Earlier that same day, however, the first instance of outstanding police brutality had incensed the community.  Marion King, the wife of Albany Movement leader C.B. King, had visited a Camilla jail along with a friend, whose daughter was imprisoned there. Standing outside the jail fence trying to speak to those in the jail cell, a local sheriff ordered her to back away from the fence. When she did not comply fast enough, the sheriff and his deputy pushed her back, slapping and kicking her to the ground.

 

 That evening, as King spoke to a crowd in Shiloh, a young Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) worker, Marvin Rich, began to exhort young blacks to march on city hall that very night to protest the beating. Tensions were extremely high, as news of the beating carried a force the injunction overruling did not. … The anger of the community was impossible to quell, and as police attempted to arrest the marchers as they crossed Ogelthorpe Avenue, onlookers turned violent and began throwing bricks and rocks at police. The absence of Movement leaders, who were occupied holding mass meetings, meant they could not control the crowd. A policeman was injured, his jaw broken on a rock thrown by a black man. As the meeting in Shiloh let out, leaders attempted to stop the riot, but the damage had already been done.   The violence again revealed the frustration in the community with nonviolent protest. Anger and opposition to segregation was widespread, but support for the Movement’s method of attacking it was not.

 

… The outbreak of violence further deteriorated the position of the Movement, who now risked being labeled the offending parties, even though many of those rioting were not part of the actual Movement … [which] was forced into reconciliatory measures, King calling off protests the following day in a “day of penance” for the violence of the previous night.  …

 

Following the “day of penance,” King toured the local pool halls and bars, speaking of the need for nonviolence in the black community as a whole. He planned for marches two days later, and tried to enlist volunteers at a mass meeting held that night in Shiloh. He was only able to convince twenty six volunteers to march with him to city hall the following day. After asking to speak with the city council and being refused, the marchers kneeled and were arrested.  This did not create the upswell of potential marchers the Movement had hope for, as only thirty seven volunteered for jail the following day.   …In the days following King’s arrest, fewer and fewer people attended the mass meetings, with marches virtually halting. The city council sensed that the other side was close to surrender, and brought contempt charges against King, alleging that the demonstrations that defied the injunctions implicated him. Silence to requests for talks continued.

 

…

 

Virtually no protest occurred in the week leading up to King’s trial, set for August 10. On the trial date, King, Anderson, Abernathy, and Slater King were convicted of creating a disturbance. The white establishment took no chances, and all were fined $200 and given suspended jail sentences, meaning King could not use his punishment to garner outside support for the Movement. In response, the two planned marches were cancelled.  King announced that he would be leaving Albany “to give the City Commission a chance to open ‘good faith’ negotiations with local Negro leaders” (Nelligan 32-46).

 

King agreed on 10 August 1962 to leave Albany and announce a halt to demonstrations, effectively ending his involvement in the Albany Movement. Although local efforts continued in conjunction with SNCC, the ultimate goals of the Movement were not met by the time of King’s departure. King blamed much of the failure on the campaign’s wide scope, stating in a 1965 interview, “The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it. Our protest was so vague that we got nothing, and the people were left very depressed and in despair.” The experiences in Albany, however, helped inform the strategy for the Birmingham Campaign that followed less than a year later. King acknowledged that “what we learned from our mistakes in Albany helped our later campaigns in other cities to be more effective” (Albany 5).

 

King recognized that an area that had little SCLC support would not welcome SCLC help; also that the authorities within the South could not be trusted and that a political approach would be less effective that a financial one – boycotts which would affect the financial well being of the white community (Trueman 3).

 

King and the civil rights movement were not the only ones to come out of Albany with lessons learned. The stubborn Albany Police Chief had taught the rest of the South how to successfully stave off the mighty nonviolence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Pritchett proved that if one commits to appearing to be nonviolent in front of the cameras one can use repressive violence behind the scenes and still exude an image of nonviolence. Emphasizing his use of mass arrests as a tactic instead of mass beatings, Pritchett preached to the nation how one can use nonviolence to combat nonviolence (Albany Campaigns 3).

 

Was the Albany campaign a flat out failure?

 

Charles Sherrod did not think so.  He has stated that its greatest success was instilling in black people pride.  "As many people as I know … now believe in themselves, … look at their children and see genius. They are no longer afraid to speak face to face with a white man or a white woman and look them dead in the eye like I'm looking at you as a human being" (Recalling 4).

Dr. Anderson declared the campaign “a qualified success.”  Qualified in that at the time the movement came to an end, and it didn't come to an abrupt end. It was sort of phased out, the phasing out was marked by the cessation of the mass demonstration and the picketing. At that time, none of the facilities had been desegregated. The buses had become desegregated, the train station, the bus station. But these were being desegregated by federal edict. And it was not a voluntary move on the part of the people of Albany. But the lunch counters, there were no blacks employed as clerks in the stores. The parks and other public accommodations were not desegregated at the time the Albany Movement came to an end, end in the sense of no more mass demonstrations. But the Albany Movement was an overwhelming success in that first of all there was a change in the attitude of the people. The people who were involved in the movement, the people involved in the demonstrations because they had made a determination within their own minds that they would never accept that segregated society as it was, anymore. There was a change in attitude of the kids who saw their parents step into the forefront and lead the demonstrations and they were determined that they would never go through what their parents went through to get the recognition that they should have as citizens. Secondly, I think that the Albany Movement was a success in that it served as a trial or as a proving ground for subsequent civil rights movements. There would be those from all over the world that would look at Albany, they would look at the Albany Movement and how the people responded when they were… were led, and how they were able to identify the problems and address those problems in a very affirmative manner. So that we—we think that the Albany Movement was very meaningful in the total picture of the civil rights movement in that it gave some direction. The mistakes were not to be repeated that were made in Albany, for example, that settlement on a handshake if you would. That would never be repeated anytime in the future (Interview 15).

 

The Albany Movement began before King arrived and persisted long after King’s departure in defeat. Its history is not one of failure simply because King failed in southwest Georgia, but one of persistence and ultimately some success. Often forgotten is that the Albany Movement was the first mass movement of the modern civil rights era to have as its goal the desegregation of an entire community. Mass meetings, protest marches and arrests continued in Albany in 1963. Sherrod and his integrated teams of SNCC workers expanded their efforts beyond Albany into the rural counties of Terrell, Lee, Sumter, Baker, and the rest of southwest Georgia, where they faced some of the worst white racist terrorism in the South. SNCC workers were beaten by law officers, shot at and wounded by night riders, and churches associated with their voter registration efforts were firebombed.

 

The story of the movement is not a linear tale. It was a hodgepodge of many local movements, each with its own beginning and its moment in the sun of national media attention. There are many threads connecting these movements besides the involvement of Martin Luther King (Interview: Re-evaluating 4).

 

Police chief Laurie Pritchett asked Dr. Anderson this question late during the Albany Movement campaign.
 

"Dr. Anderson, do you think this is the way to get white people to accept you?" And I said to him, "You will never know whether or not I would be acceptable to you if somehow we are not given the opportunity to get together." I believe that a lot of white people feared, mixing with blacks because they had never had the experience. And they had been taught all of their lives that blacks were somehow inferior, dirty, smelly, unintelligible and all of the bad things that could be spoken about any person. They had been told this. They were brought up in that environment; that blacks should be totally segregated. They should be denied access to public accommodations. And I think that blacks were more afraid of the unknown. Not of actually having experienced being in the presence of blacks as equals (Interview 14). 

That problem persists.

 

Works cited:

 

“The Albany Movement Campaigns for Full Integration in Georgia (Fall 1961- Summer 1962).”  Global Nonviolent Acyion Database.  Web.  https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/albany-movement-campaigns-full-integration-georgia-fall-1961-summer-1962

 

“Albany Movement.”  Stanford: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.  Web.  https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/albany-movement

 

“Interview:Re-evaluating the Albany Civil Rights Movement: Interview with Lee Formwalt.”  DailyHistory.org.  Web.  https://dailyhistory.org/Interview:Re-evaluating_the_Albany_Civil_Rights_Movement:_Interview_with_Lee_Formwalt

“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

Nelligan, Brendan Kevin.  “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.”    Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence.  Fall 2009.  Web.  https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=student_scholarship

 

“Recalling the History of the Albany Movement.”  WALB10News.  November 11, 2015.  Web.  http://www.walb.com/story/16047367/recalling-the-hisotry-of-the-albany-movement/

Trueman, C. N.  “Albany 1961.”  historylearningsite.co.uk.  The History Learning Site.  March 27, 2015.  Web.  https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-civil-rights-movement-in-america-1945-to-1968/albany-1961/



Civil Rights Events

Albany Movement

Surmountable Difficulties?

 

Ain't gonna let nobody, Lordy, turn me 'round,
turn me round, turn me 'round.
Ain't gonna let nobody, Lordy, turn me 'round.
I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', Lord,
marching up to freedom land (Mt. Zion 1).

Since the Albany Movement envisioned total desegregation, their tactics were diverse. Protestors held meetings, gave speeches, marched, held sit-ins, and organized rallies. Of all the tactics, however, there was one that became surprisingly effective, and that was singing. Singing, largely inspired by the role of music in African American Baptist churches, proved to be an extremely effective way to galvanize protestors, keep energy and morale high, and present a very non-threatening form of nonviolent protest (Muscato 1).

 

Rev. Prathia Hall participated in many mass meetings held at Albany's churches, and she describes her moving experience as follows:

 

"I was profoundly impacted by the Albany movement and the southwest Georgia project conducted by SNCC. It was my first experience of the deep South…the very first night, there was a mass meeting. The mass meeting itself was just pure power…you could hear the rhythm of the feet, and the clapping of the hands from the old prayer meeting tradition…people singing the old prayer songs…there was something about hearing those songs, and hearing that singing in Albany in the midst of a struggle for life against death, that was just the most powerful thing I'd ever experienced" (Faith 1).

 

Charles Sherrod described such a scene: “Tears filled the eyes of hard, grown men who had seen with their own eyes merciless atrocities committed…when we rose to sing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ nobody could imagine what kept the church on four corners” (Nelligan 19).

 

The a cappella singing that became the trademark and the unifying force of the civil rights movement was introduced at this church by three student "Freedom Singers"--Ruth A. Harris, Bernice Johnson, and Cordell Reagon (Mt. Zion 1).

 

Locally raised Rutha Harris described how she became a founding member of the Freedom Singers after discovering that she was” not free.”

 

My skills as a singer were discovered by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (“SNCC”) member, Cordell Reagon. Cordell heard me sing during a mass meeting and thought I was very good. Cordell was a field secretary for SNCC, and also a very gifted singer.  He was trying to form a singing group to raise money for SNCC.  We were called The Freedom Singers.  We sang a cappella. The original group consisted of Cordell Reagon, Bernice Johnson (later Bernice Johnson Reagon), Charles Neblett and yours truly – me!

 

I joined the Albany Movement through SNCC. I was 21 and I was home in Albany for the summer. SNCC was organizing people to register to vote. I went to a meeting to learn about what they were doing.

 

Cordell met me while I was walking down the street and asked me if I wanted to be free.  I said “What do you mean, do I want to be free? I am free.”  I said this because my father, Reverend I. A. Harris, sheltered us from segregation. He built the house that I am living in now in 1932.  He was a strong man and a respected member of the Black community.  He was also respected by white people in town.  As we said back then, “he didn’t take no wooden nickels.”

 

Well, he controlled what we were exposed to. He was a minister, so he told us that we could not go to the movies at all because he did not like the content.  That meant we never went to a segregated movie theatre. If we wanted to go out to eat, he said, “No, we have a refrigerator, stove, kitchen table and good food right here. I am not spending money on eating out when you can eat right here.”  That meant that we didn’t see any segregated restaurants.

 

If we couldn’t use the bathroom at a gas station, he took off and refused to buy gas there.  I really thought I was free until I learned about the voter registration numbers in Albany. I thought, “I know there are more than 28 Black people who want to vote in this town.” That motivated me to start working with SNCC.

 

When I learned from the SNCC workers that people in Albany were afraid to register to vote, for fear of death, violence or losing their jobs, I realized that things were not as I thought they were in my life in Albany either.  As I got more involved in the movement I came to understand that I could not go to the white areas of places that we marched to, like segregated waiting rooms in bus stations, bathrooms, and segregated restaurants. It brought it all home and I knew I wasn’t free either.

 

My mother agreed to let me travel with the Freedom Singers after I promised that I’d finish college once I was done working with SNCC.  I left Florida A&M for the movement.  I fulfilled my promise to my mother in 1970, when I graduated from Albany College.

 

…

 

 Without the songs of the Civil Rights movement, there would not have been a movement in my opinion.

 

Yes, we were afraid.  There was fear. If you are marching for voter registration and the police say halt, and you don’t, you know you will be arrested.  After you were arrested, who knew what would happen? The police might kill you or harm you. We were afraid, but we kept going and sang freedom songs.

 

The songs directly addressed the situation we were facing and helped us move forward. The police said halt. These songs kept us moving (Stayed 1-3).

 

King returned to Albany on February 27, 1962, to stand trial for his arrest in December. The trial was a quick one, and despite the predetermined outcome, Judge A.N. Durden announced that he would issue a decision within the next six months. Meanwhile,

King left Albany to resume his duties with the SCLC. In Albany, boycotts and sporadic

arrests continued. The Albany Movement kept trying to talk and bargain with the city

council and the police department with little success. The white establishment had little

reason to consider any of the Movement’s proposals, as the boycott threat had already

proved surmountable, and it appeared that the community was not eager to resume mass

marches any time soon. Sporadic arrests did continued, but these were largely the result

of so-called “test” arrests of protestors attempting to integrate public facilities (Nelligan 32).

 

The two leaders of the white supremacists were the police chief Laurie Pritchett and James H. Gray, “who owned Albany’s only newspaper, the Albany Herald, its only television station, a radio station, and who was a key member of its city commission. Although historians give Pritchett the lion’s share of credit for beating King at his own game, it was Gray who called the shots in Albany, and it was his media empire that played events up or down as he saw fit.”

 

Pritchett was the city’s point man, and he confounded both the press and the demonstrators. According to The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibhanoff, he looked every bit the Southern bubba cop and enjoyed playing the role for cameras. Large in stature and big bellied, he often addressed demonstrators while chewing on a piece of straw, and he liked to cock a smile at them before taking them politely to jail.

 

But the comparison ends there. Pritchett was also smart.  He knew King was committed to non-violence, and he had spent time in the library studying Gandhian philosophy and tactics. He understood that if King could not provoke a confrontation, he would gain no moral ground in Albany. Pritchett was also mean. Once he told a reporter over beer that “There are three things I like to do: drink buttermilk, put niggers in jail, and kick reporters’ asses.  …”

 

Behind Pritchett’s power was James H. Gray. Gray grew up affluent in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where his father was a lawyer and one of his neighbors was Norman Rockwell. He graduated from elite Dartmouth College, where he befriended a Harvard University basketball rival, Joseph Kennedy. According to The Race Beat, Gray sometimes visited the Kennedys and, after Joseph Kennedy died in World War II, he became close to the next oldest son, John. After leaving Dartmouth he wrote for the Hartford (Connecticut) Courant and later the New York Herald.

 

By then he had set his sights on Albany because of his wealthy wife, Dorothy Ellis, who was from the small Georgia city and whose father owned the Albany Herald and a plantation. … When he returned home [after World War II] he moved to Albany, purchased its only newspaper and began to build a media empire. He was also prominent in Georgia’s arch segregationist Democratic Party, where he became chair in 1958.  That year he hosted his friends, then-Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife, for a weekend in Albany.

 

Although only a transplanted Southerner, Gray earned a reputation for his rabid defense of racial segregation.  In the late 1950s, following the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregated public schools, he was one of a number of Southern editors openly hostile to any news coverage portraying the South in a negative light.  Following the decision, moreover, a new organization known as the White Citizens Council (WCC) formed in Mississippi to fight segregation; chapters soon formed in every Deep South state.  Unlike the Ku Klux Klan–whose members, by then, were typically working class or marginalized whites–the WCC was middle class.  Its members were professional men, including bankers, lawyers, business owners, and some newspaper publishers.  …  

 

When the Albany demonstrations began in late 1961, Gray knew what to do. He contacted the city’s mayor, Asa Carter, and Police Chief Pritchett to coordinate a strategy whose main principal was to avoid violence. Arrests yes, force no.

 

When King sat in jail a week before Christmas, Gray addressed the public through his own television station and announced that the movement was under the influence of a “cell of professional agitators” and Communists.  He affirmed further that Albany’s racial system was one that “over the years has been peaceful and rewarding.” He called Pritchett and insisted that he negotiate King’s release, then phoned his friends in the Kennedy Administration to make sure there would be no federal intervention in Albany (King 1-3).

 

One of the major issues surrounding the Albany Movement’s 1961-1962 campaign was the lack of aid from the federal government. President John F. Kennedy and his administration promised that they were watching the situation in Albany closely; however, because of Pritchett’s use of arrests and avoidance of public violence, the federal government never felt enough pressure from American citizens to intervene. The lack of intervention by the Kennedy administration in this case reinforced the frustration and distrust that many civil rights demonstrators had for the federal government (Albany 2).

 

Dr. Anderson was definitely critical of Kennedy and the Justice Department. 

 

Needless to say we were in constant contact with the federal government. Even from the time Dr. King initially came into Albany. Contact had been made with Attorney General Bob Kennedy, and he had sort of turned us over to Burke Marshall. And when Dr. King was coming in we requested some protection for him coming into town. Laurie Pritchett, I understand was contacted by Burke Marshall, and was requested to provide security for Dr. King, and initially Laurie Pritchett said that he couldn't do it. He couldn't guarantee the safety of Dr. King coming into town. So Burke Marshall indicated, if you can't then I'll send in enough federal marshals to do it, whereupon Laurie Pritchett decided, well maybe I can. But even we—we never at any time got any of the Justice Department officials to come in to my knowledge. Even as observers during the arrest or during the court hearings. There were FBI agents on the scene, but no one from the Justice Department that we thought would be there to protect our civil rights. We didn't have that.

 

I would have expected a representative from the Justice Department to be on the scene as an observer if nothing else because civil rights were being violated. For example, we were not permitted to—to demonstrate at all, even following all the guidelines that had been set forth by the city, we attempted picketing of—of selected stores in small numbers, widely spaced. Not blocking any ingress or egress, all the guidelines that were given, so that you could picket, we would do that and still got arrested. I was arrested on several occasions just walking down the street holding a piece of paper in my hand and under the pretense of passing out literature without a permit or something to that effect. I'm saying that Justice officials were not there as observers, and if they were there mind you they were not identified as such, and to my knowledge no action was taken relative to the violation of our civil right— (Interview 10).

 

When King and his supporters once again confronted the racists--most famously in this period in Albany, Ga., and Birmingham, Ala.--the president and his advisers responded by calling for the maintenance of "law and order" and investigating King's alleged Communist Party ties, rather than by attacking Jim Crow.

 

Despite their promises, the Kennedys claimed the government had no jurisdiction over the Jim Crow laws of Southern cities, and they told King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to await Congressional action.

 

…

 

King was blamed for the deal made with the city council in December that temporarily halted demonstrations, an agreement that the council did not honor.  Albany Mayor Asa Kelly gloated he had forced an end to the protests with Jim Crow still intact. Even more humiliating, the Kennedy administration phoned Kelly to congratulate him on his handling of the crisis.

 

The administration's only words to King were warnings that two of his advisers, Jack O'Dell and Stanley Levison, were linked to the Communist Party and should be dropped. King bowed to pressure and asked O'Dell for his resignation as a paid SCLC staff member. O'Dell continued to be active in the organization as a volunteer.

 

King [later] criticized President Kennedy for his "lack of leadership" in civil rights issues. But King maintained his position that federal support was key to the movement's success--a position that would contribute to the final defeat at Albany (Sustar 1, 3-4).

 

   

Works cited:

 

“A Faith Forged in Albany.”  This Far by Faith.  Web.  https://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/journey_4/p_4.html

 

“The Albany Movement campaigns for full integration in Georgia (Fall 1961- Summer 1962).”  Global Nonviolent Acyion Database.  Web.  https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/albany-movement-campaigns-full-integration-georgia-fall-1961-summer-1962

 

“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

King, Pamela Sterne.  “From Albany to Birmingham.”  Weld: Birmingham’s Newspaper.  December 19, 2012.  Web.  https://weldbham.com/blog/2012/12/19/from-albany-to-birmingham/

 

“Mt. Zion Baptist Church.”  We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement.  Nps.gov.  Web.  https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/g3.htm

 

Muscato, Christopher.  “The Albany Movement: History, Events & Significance.”  Study.com.  Web.  https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-albany-movement-history-events-significance.html

 

Nelligan, Brendan Kevin.  “Lessons of Albany: Civil Rights Protest in Albany, Georgia 1961-62.”    Providence College: DigitalCommons@Providence.  Fall 2009.  Web.  https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=student_scholarship

 

“She’s Still ‘Stayed on Freedom’: An Interview With Civil Rights Activist and Freedom Singer, Rutha Harris.”   BlackHer Movement.  Web.  http://blackher.us/shes-still-stayed-on-freedom-an-interview-with-civil-rights-activist-and-freedom-singer-rutha-harris/

 

Sustar, Lee.  “King, nonviolence and the Albany Movement.”  SocialistWorker.org.  November 9, 2012.  Web.  https://socialistworker.org/2012/11/09/king-and-nonviolence