Civil Rights Events

Selma Voting Rights Movement

The Killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson

 

 



In 1962, when civil rights organizer Albert Turner persuaded some black residents of Marion to try and register to vote, an elderly farmer named Cager Lee was one of the first in line at the courthouse.

 

Standing with Lee was his daughter, Viola Lee Jackson, and her son Jimmie Lee Jackson. They were not permitted to register. When Jimmie Lee Jackson saw his frail 80-year-old grandfather rudely turned away from the registrar’s office, he became angry. He knew that he must be a part of the movement for civil rights.

 

Years earlier, when he was a proud high school graduate of 18, Jimmie Lee Jackson had made plans to leave rural Alabama for a better life in the North. He abandoned those dreams when his father died, leaving him to run the family farm. Determined to make the most of his life, Jackson took logging work in addition to farming, and he became active in a local fraternal lodge. At age 25, he was the youngest deacon ever elected at his church.

 

After the incident at the courthouse, Jackson saw the chance for real change in his hometown of Marion. He wrote a letter to a federal judge protesting the treatment of black voter applicants. He attended civil rights meetings, participated in boycotts of white businesses, and joined others in marching for the right to vote (Jimmie 1-2).

 

On Tuesday, February 18, [1965] carloads of Alabama State Troopers led by its commander, Al Lingo, swarm into Marion, Perry County, to suppress Black defiance.  SCLC project director James Orange is spotted walking on the street and is arrested for "contributing to the delinquency of minors" (by encouraging students to march around the courthouse singing freedom songs).

 

James Orange is immensely popular among both young and old in Perry County's Black community, and that night tiny Zion Methodist Church is packed to overflowing as word spreads of his arrest. The lockup where Orange is being held is just a block and a half away. The plan is for a short night march so they can sing freedom songs outside his cell window and then return. If the troopers block them, they plan to kneel in prayer and then go back to the church.

 

Albert Turner and local minister, Rev. James Dobynes, lead 400 marchers out of the church and up Pickens Street two-by-two on the sidewalk. They are halted by Lingo's troopers. Jim Clark and some of his Selma posse are also present, along with an angry mob of local whites. As planned, Dobynes kneels and begins to pray. Suddenly, all the street lights go dark. The mob savagely attacks news reporters covering the protest. Richard Valeriani of NBC is clubbed, his head bloodied. Some of the mob have come prepared with cans of spray paint they use to sabotage camera lenses. Others smash the TV lights. No photos are taken of the troopers, deputies, and possemen wading into the line of marchers with hardwood clubs and ax-handles flailing, beating men, women, and children to the ground.

 

SCLC field secretary Willie Bolden described his experience.

 

The cameras were shooting. All of a sudden we heard cameras being broken and newsmen being hit. I saw people running out of the church. ... The troopers were in there beating folks while local police were outside beating anyone who came out the door. ... A big white fella came up to me and stuck a double-barreled shotgun, cocked, in my stomach. "You're the nigger from Atlanta, aren't you? Somebody wants to see you," he said, and he took me across the street to this guy with a badge and red suspenders and chewing tobacco. "See what you caused," he said, and he spun me around, "I want you to watch this." There were people running over each other and trying to protect themselves.

One guy was running toward us. When he saw the cops he tried to make a U-turn and he ran into a local cop. They just hit him in the head and bust his head wide open. Blood spewed all over and he fell. When I tried to go to him, the sheriff pulled me back and stuck a .38 snubnose in my mouth. He cocked the hammer back and said, "What I really need to do is blow your God damned brains out, nigger." ... I was scared to death! He said, "Take this nigger to jail." So they took me, and they hit me all over the arms and legs and thighs and chin. There were others there got beaten the same. ... There were literally puddles of blood leading all the way up the stairs to the jail cell.

 

Albert Turner of SCLC recalled the beating and death of Reverend Dobynes.

 

They started beating Reverend Dobynes who was on his knees at that point praying, and they carried him to the jail by his heels. And beat him on the way to the jail. Really the public doesn't know, but Dobynes died also as a result of the beating. He did not die immediately, but he really never did recuperate from it. He died roughly a year later, but his head was severely damaged, and he just never did survive it, but nobody says that he really was murdered or killed from that... that demonstration.

 

Marchers desperately try to retreat to the church; many are cut off. Some of the fleeing marchers take refuge in Mack's Cafe, a small Black-owned jook joint. Among them are Cager Lee, 82, his daughter Viola Jackson, and her son, military-veteran Jimmie Lee Jackson 26. Jimmie Lee is a church deacon who has tried to register five times and has been denied each time. Troopers follow them in, smashing out the lights, over turning tables, and beating people indiscriminately. They attack Cager in the kitchen. His daughter tries to come to his aid and they knock her to the floor. Jimmie tries to protect his mother and one trooper throws him up against the cigarette machine while another [James Bonard Fowler] shoots him twice, point-blank in the stomach. They club him again and again, driving him out into the street where he collapses.

 

Albert Turner narrates: After shooting him then they... then they ran him out of the door of the cafe, out of the front door of the cafe. And as he run out of the door, the remaining troopers, or some of the remaining troopers, were lined up down the sidewalk back toward the church, which he had to run through a corridor of policemans standing with billy sticks. And as he ran by them they simply kept hitting him as he kept running through. And he made it back to the door of the church, and just beyond the church he fell. 

 

A reporter encounters Jim Clark prowling the streets with some of his possemen. When asked why he's in Marion, Clark replies, "Things got a little too quiet for me over in Selma tonight. It made me nervous."

 

Perry County has no hospital and the local infirmary is swamped with serious injuries. An unknown number of others lie wounded in jail. The infirmary is not equipped to care for gunshot wounds, so Jimmie Lee Jackson is rushed 30 miles by ambulance to Selma in adjacent Dallas County. Since the "white" public hospital there won't treat Black protesters, he's brought to the Catholic-run Good Samaritan Hospital (Shooting 3-6).

 

NEW YORK: On Sunday evening, February 21st 1965, Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem under circumstances that remain controversial to this day. His death hits the Civil Rights Movement hard. Despite tactical differences over integration and nonviolence, he is seen as a courageous and forthright Black leader in the fight against white-supremacy. John Lewis attends his funeral and later says: "I had my differences with him, of course, but there was no question that he had come to articulate better than anyone else on the scene — including Dr. King — the bitterness and frustration of Black Americans."

 

ALABAMA: Governor Wallace issues an unconstitutional order barring all night-time marches everywhere in the state and assigns 75 troopers under Lingo to enforce his version of "law and order" in Selma. At a rally of the Dallas County White Citizens Council, former Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett tells some 2,000 whites that they face, "... absolute extinction of all we hold dear unless we are victorious." After the shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson and the murder of Malcolm X, hope begins to waver and the mood of Alabama Blacks turns increasingly bleak.

 

SELMA: Day after day, vigils for Jimmie Lee Jackson are held outside Good Samaritan, and mass meetings in Black churches around the state condemn the shooting and pray for his recovery. Despite their anguish and sorrow, grimly determined groups continue marching to the Dallas County courthouse in Selma to add their names to the appearance book. DCVL leader Amelia Boynton calls on Blacks to expand the economic boycott to all white- owned businesses as well as the city buses that still require Blacks to sit at the rear.

 

…

 

… over in "Bloody Lowndes" to the east, where no Black in living memory has been registered to vote, James Bevel, now out of the hospital, tries to stealthily infiltrate, "like Caleb and Joshua," seeking — without success — a church that will host a voting rights meeting.

 

LOWNDES COUNTY: Every fourth Sunday, Rev. Lorenzo Harrison of Selma preaches to tiny Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Lowndes County a few miles from Hayneville, the county seat. Word of Bevel's effort leaks back to the white power-structure and a rumor spreads among whites that Harrison intends to speak about Black voting rights. Carloads of Klansmen armed with rifles and shotguns surround the church. Members of the little congregation recognize Tom Coleman, son of the sheriff and an unpaid "special deputy," who in 1959 was known to have murdered Richard Lee Jones at a chain-gang prison camp. (Soon he will kill again.) Another is a plantation owner with 10,000 acres who had once shot to death a Black sharecropper because he seemed too happy at the prospect of being drafted out of the fields and into the Army. Mount Carmel Church has no phone they can use to call for help — few Blacks in Lowndes have telephone service and those that do suspect their calls are monitored and reported to authorities. With quiet courage, Deacon John Hulett manages to smuggle Harrison to safety.

 

SELMA: On Tuesday the 23rd, Al Lingo serves an arrest warrant for "assault and battery" on Jackson (Tension 1-5). 

 

Jimmie Lee Jackson appeared to be on the way to recovery. At 9pm, [February 25] as Dr. William Dinkins recalled, Jackson was sitting up in his bed talking and in good spirits. Thirty minutes later, Dinkins received a call from the hospital that another doctor had decided Jimmie needed to undergo further surgery. Dinkins argued against it but eventually was forced to proceed. During surgery, Jackson was under a safe dose of anesthesia. Minutes later, his blood turned dark and Dr. Dinkins stated to the other doctor that Jackson should be put on 100% oxygen. Instead the doctor decided to increase the levels of anesthesia and in minutes [February 26] Jimmie Lee stopped breathing and died. Dr. Dinkins was adamant that Jimmie Lee Jackson could have survived had this second surgery not occurred (Jones 2-3).

 

Three days before Jackson’s death the Alabama state legislature had passed a resolution supporting the state troopers’ actions in Marion.  Dodging an indictment from a grand jury, Fowler does not suffer punishment or disciplinary action.   He is allowed to continue in his job.

 

PERRY COUNTY: Voter registration offices will be open again on Monday, March 1, and over the weekend SCLC and SNCC organizers concentrate on mobilizing Blacks in Dallas, Perry, Wilcox, Marengo, and Hale counties to honor Jimmie Lee Jackson and demand their right to vote. At a Sunday memorial service and voter registration rally in Marion, James Bevel preaches from the Book of Esther and tells the congregation: "We must go to Montgomery and see the king! Be prepared to walk to Montgomery! Be prepared to sleep on the highway!" By this he means not a march in Montgomery, but a march on the state capitol to present to Governor Wallace a demand for justice in the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson and also their call for voting rights. Old Cager Lee and Jimmie Lee's mother, Viola Jackson, bandages still covering their injuries, are ready to join him.

 

…

 

SELMA and MARION: The rain is still coming down on Wednesday, the day of Jimmie Lee Jackson's funeral. In Selma, R.B. Hudson High is practically empty as the students boycott class for his memorial service. Two thousand mourners file past the coffin in Brown Chapel where a banner reads, "Racism killed our brother." In Marion, where 400 manage to jam themselves inside Zion church for Jackson's service and 600 wait outside in the rain, Dr. King asks: "Who killed him?"

“He was murdered by the brutality of every sheriff who practiced lawlessness in the name of law. He was murdered by the irresponsibility of every politician from governors on down who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. He was murdered by the timidity of a federal government that is willing to spend millions of dollars a day to defend freedom in Vietnam but cannot protect the rights of its citizens at home. ... And he was murdered by the cowardice of every Negro who passively accepts the evils of segregation and stands on the sidelines in the struggle for justice” (Tension 6-7).

 

It wasn't until 2007, 42 years after Jackson’s death, that [James] Fowler was arrested and charged with first and second degree murder. Fowler initially maintained that he had acted to defend himself, but eventually accepted a plea bargain for misdemeanor manslaughter. He received a six-month jail sentence, but served only five months and was released in July 2011 because of health problems. In 2011, the FBI began investigating Fowler’s role in the 1966 death of Nathan Johnson, another black man, who Fowler had fatally shot after he stopped Johnson for suspicion of drunk driving.  Fowler died of pancreatic cancer on July 5, 2015 at the age of 81 (Jimmie Biography 4).

 

ATLANTA: Dr. King endorses Bevel's proposal for a march from Selma to Montgomery. But SNCC opposes the SCLC plan. They see it as a dangerous grandstand play by King that will do nothing for the local people. John Lewis disagrees, "I knew the feelings that were out there on the streets. The people of Selma were hurting. They were angry. They needed to march. It didn't matter to me who led it. They needed to march. Lewis stands alone and is outvoted. The SNCC meeting does agree that SNCC members can participate in the march as individuals, but not as SNCC representatives. SNCC sends a letter to King stating: We strongly believe that the objectives of the march do not justify the dangers ... consequently [SNCC] will only live up to those minimal commitments ... to provide radios and cars, ... and nothing beyond that (Tension 8).

 

 

 

Works cited:

 

“Jimmie Lee Jackson.”  Teaching Tolerance.  Web.  https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/texts/jimmie-lee-jackson

 

“Jimmie Lee Jackson Biography.”  The Biography.com.  Web. https://www.biography.com/people/jimmie-lee-jackson-21402111

 

 

Jones, Ryan M.  “Who Mourns for Jimmie Lee Jackson?”  National Civil Rights Museum.  Web.  https://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/news/posts/who-mourns-for-jimmie-lee-jackson

 

 

“The Shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson.”   Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmajackson

 

 

“Tension Escalates.”  Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmatension



Civil Rights Events

Selma Voting Rights Movement

Escalating Brutality

 

Arrival of the state troopers greatly escalates tension. Meeting with his Executive Staff in Atlanta, Dr. King decides that it's time for him to call attention to the continuing denial of Black voting rights by going to jail in Selma. From his jail cell, he intends to issue a "Letter from a Selma Jail" that he hopes will have an effect similar to that of his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail.

 

 

Up to now, SCLC senior staff have carefully maneuvered to avoid any risk of King being arrested. Changing that policy is a complex strategic decision. He is the prime symbol of Black resistance to white-supremacy and the top target of every racist hate group and fanatic. Clark's deputies are known for their vicious brutality toward Blacks, and past history gives them scant reason to fear any consequences for whatever they might do to a prisoner in their custody. Behind bars, King will be vulnerable to any "lone-gunman" or "crazed assassin" who "mysteriously" finds his way into the Dallas County jail. Moreover, while King is incarcerated, he cannot travel around the country speaking to mass audiences and the national media about the issue of voting rights. Nor can he continue to raise the huge amounts of bail bond money required to keep the Selma campaign going. The Selma marchers are willing to face arrest because they trust that SCLC will bail them out, but if those funds dry up so will the number of protesters.

 

 

… Monday, February 1, is the fifth anniversary of the historic Greensboro Sit-In. Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy lead 260 marchers out of Brown Chapel. Two-by-two they head for the courthouse. As usual, Chief Baker halts the line and orders them to break up into small groups. This time they refuse. As American citizens they have a right to peacefully assemble and march in protest. They know that Baker will arrest them, putting them in the Selma city jail which is run by Baker's police, rather than the county jail which is staffed by Clark's deputies. Most of the marchers are bailed out by SCLC, but as planned, King and Abernathy refuse to post bond and they end up sharing a cell  …

 

 …

  

… Deep in the dingy cell block, King talks quietly with the regular prisoners who tell him their stories of southern injustice. One has been waiting two years for trial with no opportunity for bail. Another was jailed after being beaten by cops on the street. Now 27 months later he has still not been told the charges against him. Others have similar tales. King is saddened, but not surprised. Jails all over the Deep South are the same, and until Blacks gain the vote and enough political power to challenge reigning sheriffs and mayors, nothing is going to change.

  

…

 

Students march out of Morning Star Baptist Church in Marion to support voting rights for their parents. A state trooper tells SCLC organizer James Orange, "Sing one more freedom song and you're under arrest." The singing continues and 500 are busted. The little county lockup can't hold more than half a dozen prisoners, so they are crammed into a bare concrete stockade and forced to drink from cattle-troughs. After work, some 200 parents assemble at the church and march to protest the brutal conditions inflicted on their children. They too are arrested.

 

 

… The next day, 520 more are sent to jail in Selma, and on Wednesday, another 300 for defying a new injunction issued by Judge Hare forbidding demonstrations outside the courthouse. The total number of arrests in Selma since January 18 is now more than 1,800.

 

 

In Selma the cells are full and the small rural lockups are jammed beyond capacity. As arrests mount, prisoners are shuttled to jails and chain-gang camps all over the region. At Camp Selma, the beds are removed so that prisoners have to sleep on the cold concrete floor. They are made to drink from a common tub of water and the single toilet is clogged.

 

…

 

From his jail cell, Dr. King issues "Letter from a Selma Jail." SCLC publishes it as a full page ad in the New York Times and Freedom Movement supporters circulate it, but it fails to generate the impact of his earlier "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

 

 

President Johnson’s attention is on America’s involvement in the war in Vietnam.  Public attention is more focused on events in Selma.  Johnson is forced to issue a statement about voting rights for black Americans.

 

 

[All Americans] should be indignant when one American is denied the right to vote. The loss of that right to a single citizen undermines the freedom of every citizen. This is why all of us should be concerned with the efforts of our fellow Americans to register to vote in Alabama. ... I intend to see that that right is secured for all our citizens.

 

 

Meanwhile, under pressure from the Department of Justice and white moderates in Selma who hope that concessions will weaken or divert the movement, Judge Thomas issues a new order on Thursday morning requiring the Dallas County registrars to stop using the literacy test. It also prohibits them from rejecting Blacks for minor spelling errors on their application. He further mandates that they actually process at least 100 applications on each of the two days per month that registration is open. This represents a slight improvement over his previous order that merely allowed 100 Blacks to wait in the alley without being arrested. But he does not order that any Blacks actually be added to the voter rolls. Nor does he mandate any increase in the number of registration days. Even if all 100 applicants are added to the rolls on each of those two days per month — which no one believes will happen — that's only 200 per month and there are 15,000 unregistered Blacks in Dallas County. Moreover, his ruling still only applies to this single county and nowhere else in Alabama (Letter 1-6).

 

 

Whenever possible, Freedom Movement arrestees are kept segregated from the regular prisoners so as not to contaminate the inmates with dangerous ideas such as speedy-trials, right to an attorney, racially-unbiased justice, and other such "subversive" notions. The main exception to this rule is that white civil rights workers are sometimes locked in with white prisoners who are encouraged by the guards to show these "race traitors" the error of their ways with a thorough beating. For their part, the deputies — all white, of course — inflict their own physical abuse on "uppity" Blacks who are rebelling against the sacred "southern way of life."

 

 

Jail food is so foul it's inedible until hunger forces inmates to swallow it down while trying not to gag. Though the authorities allocate a daily budget to feed each prisoner, it's up to the jailers to spend the money as they see fit — and they get to pocket whatever is left over. The result is a salt-encrusted diet of black-eyed peas or lima beans contaminated by roaches, a square of crumbly cornbread, acrid black coffee, and on special occasions, grits or a boiled chicken neck. But small as the expenditures are, as the number of prisoners swells, so too do the costs of feeding and guarding them, thereby diminishing the "surplus" funds that deputies and guards are accustomed to skimming off the top.

 

 

Inside the jammed cells, Movement prisoners endure uncertainty, boredom, rats, roaches, clogged toilets, inedible food, lack of showers, sweltering heat, and freezing cold. Freedom songs and spontaneous group prayer bolster their courage and spirit. When not singing or praying there is talk. The boys talk about girls (and sex), and the girls talk about boys (and sex). There are also ongoing discussions and debates about the Movement, strategy, tactics, nonviolence, Black history, economics, civics, politics, philosophy, and a universe of other subjects. Some of the prisoners are college graduates or undergrads, some are still in segregated Colored schools where many topics are forbidden and cannot be spoken of openly, and some have had little or no formal education at all, though they are well- schooled in the brutal realities of white-supremacy and Black exploitation. Each person teaches what they know, and soaks up new knowledge from everyone else. The jam-packed cells become intellectual pressure-cookers where new ideas, new concepts, and new contexts ferment, bubble, and fume. In later years, some of the young students tell interviewers that it was this jailhouse university that inspired them to find their way to college, something they had not previously thought might apply to themselves (Bound 1-3).

 

 

WASHINGTON: On Tuesday, February 9, Dr. King travels to Washington to meet with Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and briefly with President Johnson. LBJ is still preoccupied with Vietnam, but the Selma campaign is generating intense public and congressional pressure to do something about Black voting rights. He tells King that he will soon send legislation addressing the issue to Congress — though what it will consist of is not clear.

 

SELMA: Sacrifice and suffering are beginning to wear down the Black community. Some are becoming discouraged and weary after weeks of futile struggle. Adults and children are enduring arrest after arrest and longer sojourns in dreary cells, parents are being fired from jobs and families evicted from their shacks. The weather is wet and cold and, in too many homes, there's scant funds for food and even less for heat. And no one is being registered to vote. No one is being registered to vote, no victories are in sight, not even small ones such as a neighbor or relative achieving recognition as a citizen-voter

On the white side, the costs of policing marches, arresting thousands of demonstrators, and feeding, guarding, and transporting hundreds of prisoners is bankrupting Dallas County. Deputies and jailors are personally feeling the effects as they're forced to spend money on feeding prisoners that normally would find its way into their personal pockets as traditional perks of office. They are not amused.

 

On Wednesday, February 10, some 160 students march to the courthouse carrying hand-lettered signs reading "Let Our Parents Vote," "Wallace Must Go," and "Jim Clark is a Cracker." By now, the courthouse protests have become somewhat routine; everyone knows what to expect, and with so many of the SCLC and SNCC staff either in jail or working in the outlying counties, the students are organizing and leading their own marches. But this time is different.

 

"Move out!" Clark shouts, and his deputies and possemen herd the students — some as young as nine — down Alabama Avenue toward the jail. They assume they're being arrested as usual. But instead of entering the jail, the cops force them to start running. "You wanted to march, didn't you? March, dammit, march!" shout the deputies as they jab and poke with their clubs. Clark rides along in his car as the young protesters are forced to run down Water Street and then out on lonely, isolated River Road bordering the Alabama River sloughs and bogs. Clubs strike those not moving fast enough and the searing pain of the possemen's electric cattle-prods burn through their winter clothes. Run! Run! Faster! Faster!

 

At the creek bridge, sheriffs use their cars to block the road so that reporters and photographers back at the courthouse — who were taken by surprise by Clark's switch — cannot catch up. A fifteen-year-old boy pants to a guard, "God sees you." The deputy smashes him in the mouth with his hardwood club. Some of the students collapse, vomiting, and shaking. They are beaten with clubs to keep them moving until they can run no more. Some bolt, or are driven, into the bogs, others manage to escape to a Black-owned farm.

 

Clark returns to the courthouse. With a smirk and wink, he tells reporters that the student prisoners "escaped" his custody. SNCC Chairman John Lewis writes out a statement on a scrap of paper:

 

“This is one more example of the inhuman, animal-like treatment of the Negro people of Selma, Alabama. This nation has always come to the aid of people in foreign lands who are gripped by a reign of tyranny. Can this nation do less for the people of Selma?”

 

 

Clark's brutal treatment of the Black community's children re-energizes the movement which had been sagging under the weight of march after march, arrest after arrest, all for little result. The next day, Thursday, more than 400 adults and students march to the courthouse in a revitalized show of strength. The wave of adverse publicity caused by Clark's cruelty temporarily gives Wilson Baker the upper hand in the ongoing struggle between them, so Baker is able to apply his "kill 'em with kindness" strategy. Hare's injunction is not enforced, and no one is arrested or beaten. Clark and Hare are furious (Clubs 1-6).

 

 

Arrests continue to mount, people continue to lose their jobs, and the endurance of Selma's Black community is sorely tested. Tension and disagreement among SCLC, SNCC, and DCVL leaders erupt into dispute. The immediate issue is how to respond to the minimal concessions contained in Judge Thomas order of February 4^th … Under the new Thomas ruling, on the two days per month the Registration office is open Blacks will be allowed to fill out the voter application in the order their names are listed in “an appearance book” without having to wait all day in the alley.

 

 …

 

DCVL argues that even though the Thomas order does not apply to any other county in the state, it should be characterized as a small, encouraging, partial victory to raise spirits. And its procedures should be followed in the hope of getting at least some Black voters added to the rolls.

 

 …

 

 On Monday, February 15, voter registration offices open for applications.  The line of waiting applicants stretches for blocks in the dank February cold. Over the course of the day, almost 100 who have low numbers in the appearance book are allowed to fill out voter applications, some 600 more sign the book for a chance to apply in the future. When school ends in the afternoon, the teachers join the end of the queue, and 800 students march by to honor the adults.

 

…

 

Later that evening, the turnout for the nightly mass meeting at Brown Chapel is large. Large and frustrated. Despite marches, arrests, court orders, and over a thousand appearance book signatures, only a trickle of Blacks have actually been registered to vote. Hosea Williams tells them that despite the huge number of Blacks who lined up at the courthouse that day, "We're just about as far from freedom tonight as we were last night." (Holding 1-6).

 

 

The sight of 1,500 Blacks freely marching to the courthouse in Selma without arrest or retribution outrages Hare, Clark, and the other hard-line segregationists. The White Citizens Council runs a full-page ad in the Selma Times-Journal equating the Civil Rights Act with Communism, … a sign that the political tide is swinging back toward Hare and Clark.

 

 …

 

The focus is now on adding new signatures to the appearance book rather than lining up en masse day after day at the Dallas County courthouse. On Tuesday, February 16th, John Lewis of SNCC and C.T. Vivian of SCLC lead a small band of those who have not yet signed the book to add their names. …A cold rain is falling, and Vivian leads the little group to the Alabama Street entrance where an overhang provides some shelter. Sheriff Clark bars the door, allowing only a few at a time inside. Citing Judge Hare's injunction, Clark orders the remainder to leave. C.T. confronts him face to face, "You're a racist the same way Hitler was a racist!" Deputies push them off the steps with their clubs, knocking several people to the pavement. Vivian leads them back to the door. They demand to be let in out of the rain. A deputy smashes his fist into C.T's face, sending him reeling back with blood flowing from his mouth. Then they drag him off to jail.

 

 

At the mass meeting on Wednesday night, DCVL leader Rev. Reese calls for an economic boycott of white stores owned by, or employing, members of Clark's posse. Dr. King, ill with a viral fever, hoarsely tells the crowd, "Selma still isn't right! ... It may well be we might have to march out of this church at night..."

 

 

By now, most of those in Brown Chapel are veterans of direct action and they are grimly aware of what a night march implies. Night marches allow adults with jobs to participate after work which increases numbers and political impact. But night marches are dangerous because Klansmen, police, and possemen can attack under cover of darkness with little risk of being identified. Even with flash bulbs and portable spotlights, the range of media cameras is sharply curtailed and it's easy for the cops to keep reporters far enough away so that nothing is recorded on film (Shooting 1-2).

 

  

Works cited:

 

“Bound in Jail.”  Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmaletter

 

 

“Clubs and Cattle Prods.”  Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmaletter

 

 

“Holding On and Pushing Forward.”   Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights

 Movement History & Timeline.  Web.   https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmaletter

 

 

“Letter From a Selma Jail.”  Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmaletter

 

 

“The Shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson.”  Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmaletter

Civil Rights Events

Selma Voting Rights Movement

Clash of Wills

 



Sheriff Clark, his deputies, and his posse bar the main courthouse entrance on Alabama Avenue and herd the Blacks into a back alley out of sight (local whites, of course, are freely allowed in through the front door). In the alley, Blacks wait all day for a chance to fill out the voter application and take the literacy test.  … the Registrar is "too busy" for any Blacks to apply …

 

Meanwhile, integration teams test facilities in downtown. Everyone is served in compliance with the Civil Rights Act. King, Shuttlesworth, and other Black leaders check in for a night at the ornate, historically "white-only," Hotel Albert. While talking in the lobby with Dorothy Cotton, Dr. King is knocked to the floor and kicked by a leader of the National States Rights Party who is quickly arrested by Wilson Baker.

 

The next day, Tuesday, January 19, Black voter applicants and student supporters return to the courthouse even though the registration office is closed and won't open again for two weeks. This time they are not taken by surprise, and many refuse orders to wait in the back alley — they insist on using the front door on Alabama Avenue. First in line and first to be arrested are Hosea Williams of SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC. Amelia Boynton [a registered voter] is again present to vouch [for the applicants]. Sheriff Clark grabs her by the neck and manhandles her into a police car. Clark's deputies surround those trying to use the main entrance. They use their electric cattle-prods to herd everyone down Alabama Avenue toward the county jail. Among them is 3rd-grader Sheyann Webb (age 8), who later recalls:

 

I was the youngest, certainly the smallest, of the "regulars" in the demonstrations. ... I was with Mrs. Margaret Moore again.. ... Deputies with sticks and those long cattle prods moved toward us. I squeezed tight on Mrs. Moore's hand; there was a sudden urge to back away, even turn and run. Somebody shouted, "Y'all are under arrest!" I looked up at Mrs. Moore, "Me, too? Are they arrestin' me?" "Don't be scared," she said. "Don't let go of my hand." I saw some of them deputies push our people, saw some of them use the cattle prods and saw men and women jump when the electric ends touched against their bodies. ... My toes were stepped on and I lost my balance several times as we were wedged together. Then they ... began marching us down Alabama Avenue, back toward the [county jail]. I was now holding onto Mrs. Moore with both of my hands, watching so I wouldn't get touched with one of the prods. We were being moved like cattle. ... [At the jail] an officer came up to me and asked why I was there. "To be free," I said.

 

Sheyann is released and allowed to return home, but more than 60 others are charged. Lawyers from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund manage to get them released pending trial in time to attend the evening mass meeting where they are honored as heroes.

 

The following day, Wednesday, January 20, applicants and supporters march to the courthouse in three sequential waves, each one carefully broken into small groups to conform to Baker's decree forbidding "parades." They insist on using the Alabama Street entrance and are all arrested by Jim Clark.  … By the end of this third day, some 225 have been incarcerated. A sheriff's deputy cracks wise, "Jim Clark 225, Martin Luther Coon, zero!"

 

…

 

On this day when Black citizens in Selma — many of them combat veterans of World War II and Korea — are being denied not only the right to vote but their Constitutional right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, President Johnson is inaugurated in Washington before a huge throng of supporters.  …

 

… Johnson's speech contains only a single, vaguely worded, platitude alluding to racial justice. Though many Black leaders and some civil rights activists attend inaugural balls and events, Dr. King is not among them. He has declined all inaugural invitations and remains in Selma (Marching 2-4).

 

In the South, teachers have no unions to protect them. Black teachers can be fired at will by white school boards, and the White Citizens Council stands ever vigilant to root out "agitators" and "trouble-makers." In many southern states, membership in the NAACP is legal grounds for immediate, mandatory dismissal, as is any other form of civil rights activity — or even just trying to register to vote. As a result, while many Black teachers clandestinely support the Freedom Movement, few are willing to sacrifice their financial security by risking any sort of public participation.

 

But in Selma, a few school teachers such as Margaret Moore and Rev. F.D. Reese defy the school board and Citizens Council by assuming leadership roles. Rev. Reese is both a teacher at Hudson High School and President of the Dallas County Voter's League (DCVL) which becomes the major Selma freedom organization after Alabama suppresses the NAACP in 1956. As the 1965 voting rights campaign intensifies with nightly mass meetings, marches to the courthouse, and students walking out of school to face arrest, Reese, Moore and a few others begin organizing and mobilizing the Black teachers. They challenge their colleagues, "How can we teach American civics if we ourselves cannot vote?" One by one, teachers sign a pledge that they will go together to the courthouse and attempt to register as a group.

 

Friday, January 22, is the day. After school they gather at Clark Elementary School in their Sunday best — the women in hats, gloves, and high-heels, the men in somber suits. Reese takes roll of those who have promised to march. They are all present. They know they not only risk losing their jobs, they risk arrest — hundreds have already been jailed for trying to register to vote.

 

Reverend Reese commented: “The sheriff will think twice about mistreating you. You are teachers in the public school system of the state of Alabama, but you can't vote. We're going to see about that today. If they put us in jail, there won't be anybody to teach the children. [Clark] knows if they're not in school, then they'll be out in the streets.”

 

Some of the teachers hold up a toothbrush, a visible symbol of their willingness to face jail. Solemnly, silently, 110 of them — almost every Black teacher in Selma — march to the courthouse in small groups as required by Baker. Nowhere in the South, not ever, not in Nashville, not in Albany or Birmingham, not in Durham, Jackson, or St. Augustine have teachers publicly marched as teachers.

 

Again, Reverend Reese:

 

Parents came out of their simple dwellings to encourage us. Old ladies and old men walked slowly from inside their homes, and stood in front yards and near the sidewalk. The faces of men and women who had, due to their will power and faith, survived under one of the most oppressive and discriminatory systems in a Southern town met our eyes. It is difficult to say to whom this march meant the most, the teachers or the observers. The students who were home from school by this time cheered with delight as the rhythm of our footsteps signaled our intention to execute the plan. Black mothers held their babies and watched with great satisfaction as we marched toward the courthouse. Many Black bystanders in the projects were weeping and sobbing openly as we passed by their homes. They were outwardly shaken by the sound of our footsteps, knowing the teachers were not going to turn around. Many of the weeping bystanders had been arrested on numerous occasions during the past 12 to 18 months, while the teachers had only been exposed to minimal discomforts and abuses.

 

At the courthouse, Clark and his deputies wait. They wear pistols on sagging belts and carry cattle prods and hardwood billy clubs which they smack against their palms in anticipation. At 3:30 in the afternoon the first group approaches. Led by Reese, they walk two-by-two up the steps of the Alabama Avenue entrance. They will not go into the back alley; they will enter by the front or not at all. As each group arrives, the line snaking down the street grows longer. School Superintendent J.A. Pickard, and Edgar Stewart the School Board president (and a former FBI agent) confront them — the Registrar's is office closed, their request to register after class is denied. Go home.

 

Reese: We refused to move. After one minute or so the sheriff took it upon himself to move us. He drew back and began jabbing me and Durgan in the stomach. The deputies immediately imitated the sheriff's behavior. They began jabbing other teachers and wildly pushing us down the concrete steps. We began to fall back like bowling pins. The teachers grunted, bent over involuntarily as the blows from the clubs registered, and breathed heavily while falling. The strikes from the billy clubs stung. No mercy was shown to the women. The teachers had no weapons and desired none. Determination and will power were our weapons of choice. Clark and his men successfully cleared the front of the courthouse of marchers from the top step to the bottom. 

 

With help from SCLC field secretary "Big Lester" Hankerson, Reese reforms the line and leads them back up the steps to the doors. Again the cops drive them down. Again they reform and rise up to the doors that are barred against them.

 

Clark threatens to arrest them all, but wiser heads prevail. The Circuit Solicitor pulls him inside and can be seen through the glass speaking urgently to him. Until now, only a few hundred Black students have participated in the protests, but if the Black teachers are all in jail, come Monday there could be thousands in the streets. Clark orders the teachers shoved back down the steps a third time. This time, Reese and SCLC leader Andrew Young decide the point has been made. Instead of trying again, the teachers march in their small groups back to Brown Chapel where a throng of their students wait to greet them.

 

Sheyann Webb commented: Most of us had viewed the educators as stodgy old people, classic examples of true "Uncle Toms." But that wasn't the opinion that day. I looked about me and saw scores of other children running about the [Carver Housing Project] shouting the news that Mr. Somebody or Old Mrs. Somebody was marching. Could you believe it?

Some little boys came running down the street yelling that they were coming back. Me and Rachel [West] went into the church which was packed with people. We waited and when the teachers began coming in everybody in there just stood up and applauded. Then somebody started to sing ... first one song and then another, as they walked in. And they were all smiling; kids were shaking hands with their teachers and hugging them. I had never seen anything like that before ...

Some of the women teachers were crying, they were so elated. Mrs. Bright spotted me, and rushed forward, hugging me. She appeared to be in a mood of triumph. She laughed, she wiped at her eyes, she hugged me again. I remember she said something about her feet being tired, and I said, "You did real good" (Teachers 1-5).

 

Over the weekend, U.S District Judge Daniel Thomas in Mobile — a native Alabamian with scant sympathy for Black civil rights — issues rules that permit Clark to continue forcing Black voter applicants to line up in the alley, but he requires that at least 100 must be permitted to wait without being arrested. On Monday, January 25, Dr. King leads marchers to the courthouse where they line up two-by-two as ordered by Thomas. Soon the line grows to 250 or more. Clark orders that all marchers in excess of 100 be dispersed. SNCC worker Willie McRae disputes this interpretation of the judge's ruling and is immediately arrested. He goes limp, and is dragged off to a police car.

 

Some of the Black voter applicants turn to see what is going on. Sheriff Clark strides down the sidewalk forcing them back into line. One of them is Annie Lee Cooper who, along with a co-worker, was fired from her job at Dunn's Rest Home after they tried to register back in October 1963. When their boss not only terminated them but subjected them to insult and physical abuse, 38 of their fellow workers — Black women all — walked off the job in protest. They too were fired and their photos circulated among potential white employers. Clark twists Cooper's arm and shoves her hard; she hauls off and slugs him with her fist. He is driven to his knees and she hits him again. 

 

Annie Cooper recalled: I saw Jim Clark fling Mrs. Boynton around like a leaf a day or two before. Clark was larger than I on the outside, but I was larger than he on the inside. The altercation started. ... Jim Clark could not take me down alone. The town sheriff and I were going at it blow for blow, punch for punch, and lick for lick, with our fists. It was a plain old street brawl. Suddenly he cried out to his deputies: "Don'y' an see this nigger woman beatin' me? Do some'um." At the urging of the sheriff the others came to his aid. All four of them closed in on me.

Clark took his nightstick and prepared to land a blow. Before he knew it, I had his arm and held it back with a tight grip. Clark brought his billy club over my face. He managed to put enough power in his swing to graze me across the upper part of my eye with the nightstick. The blow stung and was hard enough to draw blood. It struck me over my eye. I was fiercely holding his hand so he could not strike me again. I heard Dr. King urging the marchers to stay calm. He was afraid the marchers were going to turn violent while watching the Policemen attack me. It was four against one. It took everything each of the four had to manhandle me.

The deputies wrestled me down onto the pavement, as the crowd looked on. Clark planted his knee in my stomach, as the deputies had me on my back. That was the only way he could have gotten his knee in my stomach. He stood no chance of wrestling me to the ground alone. The deputies rolled me over on my stomach and handcuffed my hands behind my back. They lifted me to my feet and took me to the paddy-wagon. I was taken through an alley in town. While walking through the alley, Clark took his billy club and landed a blow on my head. It was a fierce lick. The blow cracked my skull. ...

I remained locked up in the town jail the rest of the day. About 11 pm one of the deputies came to my cell. Jim Clark was nearby sleeping off his drunk. He was a heavy drinker. The deputy said: "I'm going to let you go before Sheriff Clark wakes up in a drunken stupor and decides to kill you." 

 

Though slugging Clark is a violation of nonviolent discipline, no one in the Freedom Movement holds it against her. Everyone knows Annie Cooper's history of courageous struggle, and behind their impassive faces, everyone on the line is thrilled to see her strike back at the hated sheriff. Most wish they had done it themselves. But the savage retaliation inflicted upon her makes self-evident the tactical necessity of continued nonviolence. And no one can register to vote from a jail cell — if people are going to be arrested it has to be for trying to register.  …

 

…

 

… on Tuesday and Wednesday there are more mass arrests at the courthouse as Clark enforces his no-more-than-100 interpretation of the judge's order. Among those arrested are SNCC members John Lewis, Willie Emma Scott, Eugene Rouse, Willie McRae, Stanley Wise, Larry Fox, Joyce Brown, Frank Soracco, and Stokely Carmichael. With the crowds growing larger, Clark calls for reinforcements and Governor Wallace dispatches some 50 Alabama State Troopers under the personal command of Alabama Director of Public Safety "Colonel" Al Lingo. The troopers, and Lingo personally, are notoriously hostile to Blacks and the Freedom Movement. The Selma Times Journal reports that in the week since the protests started on January 18 only 40 Blacks have been admitted to the Dallas County courthouse to fill out the voter application and take the literacy test. None have been added to the voter rolls (Annie 1-5).

 

 

Works cited:

 

“Annie Cooper and Sheriff Clark.”  Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmaeve

 

“Marching to the Courthouse.”  Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.   https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmaeve

 

“The Teachers March.”  Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmaeve