Civil Rights Events

Meredith March against Fear

Yazoo City, Internal Strife, Philadelphia

 Access this map to follow the direction of the Meredith March. https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mmm_map.htm

… as the marchers trek through the muggy heat from Greenwood to Belzoni and thence to Louise, Stokely's call for "Black Power" has created a sensation in the press and consternation among white liberals. No one is surprised that the white-owned southern media reacts to "Black Power" with predictable outrage over the threatened end of the social norms that shape their white identity and sense of God-granted privilege. Nor that most of them see it as a confirmation of all their worst, fever-fear imaginings of Black vengeance and anti-white violence. What's new is that significant sectors of the northern "liberal" media echo those southern themes — as does even a portion of the Black-owned press.

…

Again and again, the mass media equates Black Power with a call for Black violence. Newspaper columnists and TV pundits express fear that the slogan will inevitably inflame northern ghettos into summer explosions even larger than Harlem and Philadelphia in '64 and Watts in '65. …

On Sunday the 19th, Stokely appears on Face the Nation, the premier talk show of CBS. The panelists confront him again and again with statements and questions like:

Q: This would seem to imply that you are advocating taking power by force and violence — by the overthrow, in effect, of the government. Is that what you mean?

Q: Mr. Carmichael, do you reject the ultimate use of violence as a final last resort in bringing down the power structure?

Q: How can you not reject violence and be the head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee?

Q: Are you telling us that the Negro can riot and take over? What do you mean by Black Power? Are you saying the Negro can take over parts of the country?

…

Stokely deftly avoids either endorsing or opposing violence on the part of Blacks, arguing instead that it is up to oppressed people themselves to decide for themselves the best tactics and strategies to end their subjugation. He defends the right of Afro-Americans to enjoy and employ political power the same way that the Irish, Jews, and Italians have done. He focuses on building up Afro-American economic power, and in black-majority regions developing third-party political organizations that are independent of the white-dominated Republican and Democratic Parties — as in Lowndes County, Alabama. Yet so focused are they on their own assumptions, his establishment interlocutors don't hear what he's actually saying. It's as if they are in two completely separate conversations.

Some months later, Dr. King described the media's coverage of Black Power:

The press kept the debate going. News stories now centered, not on the injustices of Mississippi, but on the apparent ideological division in the civil rights movement. Every revolutionary movement has its peaks of united activity and its valleys of debate and internal confusion. This debate might well have been little more than a healthy internal difference of opinion, but the press loves the sensational and it could not allow the issue to remain within the private domain of the movement. In every drama there has to be an antagonist and a protagonist, and if the antagonist is not there the press will find and build one.

…

Though disconnected from the media frenzy, the Meredith marchers still passionately argue and debate Black Power from their own perspectives. Disputes are intense and at times bitter and angry — particularly between members of SNCC and SCLC. Chants of "Black Power" and "Freedom Now" increasingly become antagonistic battle cries used to drown out, dominate, and defeat the other side. So much so, that the most extreme proponents seem to be on the verge of physical violence against each other — in full view of the national press who are eager for ever more dramatic stories of internal dissension (Controversy 1-2).

Days of marching in the muggy heat and the debilitating effect of internal dissension reduces the number of non-local marchers. On the morning of Tuesday the 21st, just 60 or so men and women head south from Louise on state Route-149 for the 17 mile trek to Yazoo City.

Situated on the southern edge of the Delta, Yazoo City is a racist stronghold that has resisted the Freedom Movement for years. Though Afro-Americans are a majority in Yazoo County, barely more than 10% are registered to vote. Yet as the marchers cross over the Yazoo River bridge into town their number is doubled by an enthusiastic crowd of local Black youth who give the protesters a warm welcome.

As with Grenada a week earlier, Yazoo's white power-structure adopts a conciliatory, "no-confrontation-in-front-of-the national-press strategy." They urge local whites to avoid the marchers and refrain from heckling and acts of violence — instructions that local whites accept and obey. Yazoo is not unusual in the control that the powers-that-be have. As elsewhere throughout the South, while the KKK and similar organizations are on occasion a law unto themselves, most of the time white violence is — to a significant degree — controlled and directed by power elites who either encourage or discourage it as they choose.

Police officers escort the marchers along Broadway and Main Street … to the municipal recreation center where they allow a tent encampment. Though they've drained the public swimming pool to prevent any interracial swimming, the city makes the pool showers available — a welcome and needed refreshment for marchers who have been slogging through the summer heat for days.

Matters, however, are quite different 100 miles to the east in Philadelphia MS, the seat of Neshoba County, where for the past several days CORE and MFDP [Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]organizers have been mobilizing for a protest march and memorial to commemorate the 2nd anniversary of the Chaney-Schwerner-Goodman lynching. During Freedom Summer just two years earlier, on June 21st 1964, the three civil rights workers had been detained and held in jail by local lawmen who then turned them over to a KKK death squad for execution.

Since then, against great odds a local Freedom Movement has been built in Philadelphia and Neshoba County. Courageous Blacks have registered to vote, filed desegregation lawsuits, protested intolerable conditions and launched an economic boycott of white merchants to demand police reforms. But the same sheriff, deputies, and power-structure that orchestrated the lynching remains firmly in power. They are determined to maintain the Jim Crow, "southern way of life" with economic reprisal, legal repression, and racist violence — white racial "moderates" hold no sway in Neshoba County.

Local Movement leader Rev. Clint Collier who is running for Congress as an MFDP candidate has been fired from his job as a public school teacher, been beaten by whites for trying to buy a cup of coffee at a segregated diner, and arrested and thrown in jail because of his civil rights work. Sheriff Rainey and Deputy Price, the architects of the Chaney-Schwerner-Goodman lynching continually threaten Afro-Americans who fail to "stay in their place." As do their Ku Klux Klan allies.

While most of the Meredith marchers head towards Yazoo City, Dr. King and a small group of SCLC and CORE members drive over to Philadelphia from Louise to join local Blacks, supporters from Meridian, and MFDP activists from around the state in the memorial and commemoration march. They all gather at Mt. Nebo Baptist Church in the "Independence Quarter" — Philadelphia's main Afro-American neighborhood.

After a brief mass meeting, Dr. King and Rev. Collier lead 200 marchers out of Mt. Nebo Church towards the county courthouse. Though local law enforcement has known about the memorial march for weeks, only a dozen or so poorly-trained and ill-equipped cops are on duty — and their sympathies are clearly aligned with white-supremacy. No Deacons for Defense are present because they're guarding the marchers who are trekking towards Yazoo City. Some FBI agents and Justice Department officials are on hand, but as usual they self-limit their role to taking notes rather than actively upholding federal law or defending the constitutional rights of Afro-Americans.

Singing "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around," the marchers approach the small "downtown" district where a large crowd of furious whites screaming hatred wait for them. Cars driven by hostile whites charge at the protesters, forcing them to jump aside. Rev. Abernathy of SCLC leads a brief memorial prayer at the county jail where the three men had been secretly held before they were handed over to the KKK lynch mob. Against the noise of the jeering whites and their honking car horns almost no one can hear him. A furious white man attacks a TV camera crew. The local cops smile, grin, and do nothing.

"Freedom Now! Freedom Now!" chant the marchers in defiance. "You done killed our boys! But we on the march and ain't turnin' round. Ain't nobody gonna turn us 'round. You cain't turn us 'round!" shouts a Black woman at the white hecklers. Another Afro-American woman sees her white employer screaming hate at her, "Yes! It's me and I've kept your children," she shouts back.

On the steps of the Neshoba County Courthouse, King and Abernathy confront Deputy Cecil Price who had played a central role in the lynching. "You're the one who had Schwerner and the other fellows in jail," says King. "Yes, sir," responds Price with pride in his voice.

The 200 marchers at the courthouse are mostly Afro-American with a scattering of white supporters. They are outnumbered two or three to one by the surrounding mob who hurl exploding cherry bombs at them. "I am not afraid of any man. Whether he is in Mississippi or Michigan, whether he is in Birmingham or Boston. I am not afraid,” preaches King as firecrackers explode around him (Ordeal 1-3).

In his book Bearing the Cross author David Garrow described the scene. “Heckling from the whites almost drowned out King’s words, and newsmen looked on nervously as he spoke prayerfully about the three young men’s sacrifice. ‘King appeared to be shaken’ as the whites’ shouts grew more vociferous, and his voice quavered when he declared that ‘I believe in my heart that the murderers are somewhere around me at this moment’ while Cecil Price smirked only a few steps behind him. ‘You’re damn right, they’re behind you right now,’ Price muttered” (False 4).

Ignoring the white violence erupting all around them, Deputy Price suddenly grabs local leader Rev. Collier and throws him to the ground, declaring him under arrest for prior traffic tickets. Bruce Latimer, the Chief of Police, orders the protesters "Now you better GIT!"

Under a fizzled of firecrackers, rocks, and bottles the march retreats towards the safety of Independence Quarter. An elderly Afro-American marcher falls out of the line and collapses, suffering an epileptic seizure. MCHR nurse Dorothy Williams hovers over him, protecting him from hostile whites armed with clubs and knives while she tries to ease his suffering. Somehow she manages to get him into a truck driven by a Movement supporter but then she's grabbed and surrounded by the mob until a volunteer leaps from the truck and drags her over the tailgate as the vehicle races off under a hail of missiles.

Meanwhile, back at the courthouse, fights break out between whites armed with ax-handles and knives and Afro-American onlookers who had been watching the protest. Finally, with the protesters now gone, the police exert their authority and command a halt to the violence.

King tells a reporter, "This is a terrible town, the worst I've seen. There is a complete reign of terror here," He has no idea that within a month he will face far worse white violence during fair housing marches in the Chicago suburbs. So much so that he will then tell another reporter, "I've been in many demonstrations all across the South, but I can say that I had never seen, even in Mississippi, mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as in Chicago."

The marchers who retreat to Mr. Nebo Church are battered, bruised, frightened, discouraged — and determined to continue fighting for their freedom. Dr. King promises that in three days time, on Friday June 24, he will return to lead an even larger march back to the Neshoba County courthouse. One that will defy white supremacy and racist violence and make evident to all that the Freedom Movement won't back down. He and Abernathy then bravely return to the Neshoba County courthouse to bail out Rev. Collier before harm befalls him. Cecil Price glares at Collier and tells him, "We'd like to work you over, and we would have worked you over if that crowd hadn't been out there. And we will work you over yet" (Ordeal 4-5).

Interviewed by Eyes on the Prize in 1988, SNCC activist Cleveland Sellers made these comments.

Philadelphia was the area where Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney had been killed, the summer of '64 and it was an area that, that I personally had been in because I went in there to try to look for the bodies in the summer of '64. And, we felt a kind of, of bitterness about Philadelphia because we knew that they were murdered but there was not going to be any justice done. So we felt like we needed to go back to Philadelphia even though the march was coming down the eastern part of the state of Mississippi. We felt it important to, to move over to Philadelphia and make a statement. And we did that. And we went into Philadelphia and as I remember Martin King was kneeling and praying and, and all of the people who went to Philadelphia, we had a little, short march. We were kneeling down and praying. And, ah, I, I remember, ah, Dr. Abernathy, ah, giving the prayer and he was saying something to the effect of "Let us pray for those who have murdered our comrades, our friends, and wherever they may be." And over from out of the back you heard this response saying, "Well, we're standing right over here." And that was quite terrifying because you knew that that was a serious retort because we're talking about the sheriffs and the deputies who were involved and many of the outstanding citizens. So, at that point, people recognized that the situation was turning. We had absolutely no protection from the local police authority, the State Police authority or the federal government. So we felt like it was important for us to try to turn around and ease out of that community. But what, what happened there was, I think Martin King became really, ah, an eye witness to the violent nature of Mississippi and how hostile the place could be. And we were able to get out of there before anybody was hurt seriously. There were some scuffles that took place. But we just got out of there barely with our lives, we feel. And, ah, that began to, to change the dynamic and get people to understand the nature of the struggle and the commitment and dedication on the part of many SNCC people who had to work under those conditions for long, long, long periods of the time without any kind of outlet (Interview 9).

While protesters are defying a racist mob in Philadelphia and Meredith Marchers are trekking towards Yazoo City, Charles McLaurin of SNCC and Joe Harris of the Delta Ministry lead more than 100 Afro-Americans on a 10-mile voter registration march through Sunflower County in the heart of the Delta to the courthouse in Indianola. Sunflower is the birthplace of the White Citizens Council and political stronghold of the ultra-racist Senator James Eastland. It's a Black majority county, the home of MFDP leader Fannie Lou Hamer, and an area where SNCC has been helping build a local Freedom Movement since 1962. Yet white-supremacy continues to dominate through intimidation and fear. Despite four years of hard, dangerous organizing and passage of the Voting Rights Act, only 13% of the county's Afro-Americans are registered to vote.

From Philadelphia, King and other SCLC leaders fly to Indianola to join them. When King arrives, he addresses a spirited rally of more than 300 local Afro- Americans. McLaurin leads the crowd in calls for, "Black Power." Ralph Abernathy of SCLC leads chants of "Freedom Now!" The people enthusiastically shout both slogans. … As in Yazoo City and Grenada, the local white power-structure chooses not to foment white violence so there is none (Ordeal 5).

As evening falls on the evening of the 21st, a huge Afro-American crowd numbering close to 1,000 gather for a rally in the Yazoo City park where the Meredith Marchers are camping. Local leaders, SNCC, SCLC, and Deacons for Defense speakers address the crowd who loudly cheer them all. But beneath the surface the speeches are becoming increasingly antagonistic duels between supporters and opponents of Black Power, different interpretations of Black Power, and violence versus nonviolence. SNCC militant Willie Ricks urges the crowd, "When a white man attacks us, attack him back!" and Deacons leader Ernst Thomas argues that few Afro-Americans support nonviolence and that if "rednecks abuse any Black people ... there'll be a blood-red Mississippi"

In the view of King and SCLC staff, that rhetoric violates the agreement of a nonviolent march with self-defense against terrorism outside of the protest. It moves the march into a realm of aggressive retaliatory violence and a step down the road towards race war. When it's his turn to address the crowd, King [who has just returned from Indianola] tells them:

“I'm ready to die myself. When I die I'm going to die for something, and at that moment, I guess, it will be necessary, but I'm trying to say something to you, my friends, that I hope we will all gain tonight, and that is that we have a power. We can't win violently. We have neither the instruments nor the techniques at our disposal, and it would be totally absurd for us to believe we could do it. The weakness of violence from our side, the weakness of a riot from our side, is that a riot can always be halted by superior force. But we have another method, and I've seen it, and they can't stop it. ... Don't worry about getting your guns tonight. Don't worry about your Molotov cocktails tonight. You have something more powerful and if you work with [nonviolence], morning will come” (Holding 1).

King added: “I am not going to allow anybody to pull me so low as to use the very methods that perpetuated evil throughout our civilization. I'm sick and tired of violence . . . . I'm tired of evil. I'm not going to use violence no matter who says it!”

The next day, in a small item without a byline, the New York Times reported on Dr. King's comments:

YAZOO CITY, Miss., June 21 - Tonight at a rally in Yazoo City, Dr. King lashed out at the student committee's policy of advocating "black power" and at the Deacons for Defense and Justice, which urges Negroes to arm themselves in self-defense.

"Some people are telling us to be like our 'oppressor, who has a history of using Molotov cocktails, who has a history of dropping the atom bomb, who has a history of lynching Negroes," he said. "Now people are telling me to stoop down to that level.

"I'm sick and tired of violence. I'm tired of the war in Vietnam. I'm tired of Molotov cocktails" (False 7-8).

That morning, Wednesday June 22, a large voter registration rally is held at the Yazoo County courthouse and more than 100 Afro-Americans are added to the voting rolls. A hostile crowd of local whites look on, but obedient to instructions from the power-structure they commit no violence. The Meredith marchers then head east on State Route 16 for the 10 mile hike to the little hamlet of Benton MS where they camp on the grounds of Oak Grove Baptist Church. Among the marchers are those who had faced mob violence in Philadelphia the previous day. They recount the brutality and terror of police-sanctioned mob violence. The marchers seethe with rage. and a fierce determination not to back down fills them. Many vow that on Friday they will return to Philadelphia to stand with Dr. King and the Black citizens of Neshoba County.

While the increasingly angry marchers head for Benton, Dr. King convenes another summit meeting of Meredith March leaders in Yazoo City to address the "widening split in our ranks" — particularly the increasingly bitter division over Black Power between SNCC and SCLC staff and the strident condemnations of nonviolence and calls for aggressive Black violence by some of the most militant speakers at recent mass meetings. It is clear that King is pondering whether he and SCLC is going to withdraw from the march.

For hours they debate philosophy, strategy, tactics, perceptions, nuance and anticipated consequences. There is little indication that any minds are changed, but in the interest of maintaining enough unity for the Meredith March to continue as a coalition effort including King and SCLC they mutually agree to tell their organizational staffs to refrain from stoking contentious rivalry, that march leaders won't invoke dueling chants of either "Black Power" or "Freedom Now," or make inflammatory public calls for retaliatory violence (as opposed to self-defense outside of the march) — though march participants and local folk remain free to say and chant whatever they wish.

The meeting ends with enough organization unity to continue, but the majority of SNCC and CORE members are determined to project the "Black Power" slogan both locally and nationally while SCLC supporters continue with "Freedom Now." Most of the local Mississippi marchers continue enthusiastically chanting both slogans, while white marchers are split, some uncomfortable with "Black Power," others having no problem with it.

Yet though the meeting fails to achieve agreement on substantive ideologic differences it does to some degree clear the air and ameliorate antagonism — at least among the organizational heads. Stokely joshes King, "Martin, I deliberately decided to raise this issue on the march in order to give it a national forum, and to force you to take a stand for Black Power." King laughs and replies, "I have been used before. One more time won't hurt" (Holding 2-3).

Cleveland Sellers commented about Carmichael and King’s relationship and SNCC’s commitment to non-violence.

… the relationship between Stokely and Martin was I think a very warm kind of relationship. Ah, we all knew that we had differences in terms of strategies and our tactics. I'll give you one example, that Martin believed in non-violence as a way of life. Ah, our concern about non-violence was only tactical. We used it when it became important for your survival to use non-violence. … What happens in a lot of instances is that the press began to use these differences even though they might have been completely minor to create rifts and try to break up the unity that existed within … the Civil Rights Movement. And I'm not saying that we didn't disagree tactically, organizationally, we did. But I think there was a personal, ah, relationship among SNCC people and SCLC people that was, that was very good and very healthy. Now, those relationships were strained at different times but we always managed to work our way through it.

…

I think that, ah, one of the things that we can look at in, in Philadelphia, Mississippi or anywhere along the march, the mode of non-violence was still there but I think we were beginning to come to grips with the fact that we had to be real with people in terms of, if somebody attacked you, that you expected to be able to protect yourself. So the whole idea, notion of self-defense was a growing, ah, notion inside of SNCC and inside of other civil rights organizations. Non-violence was a tactic for SNCC and we used it as a tactic. Ah, everybody in SNCC was not, ah,… non-violent as a way of life, as a philosophy. Ah, in Philadelphia, Mississippi … it was non-violence that assisted us in getting out of there. If we would of gotten involved in a, a confrontation in Philadelphia, Mississippi, we all probably [would have] been history (Interview 10, 11).

Works cited:

“Controversy over Black Power.” Meredith Mississippi March and Black Power (June). Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (Jan-June). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis66.htm#1966mmaf

“The False Memories of Haley Barbour.” Daily Kos.” February 28, 2011. Web. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/2/28/951269/-

“Holding Together, June 21-22.” Meredith Mississippi March and Black Power (June). Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (Jan-June). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis66.htm#1966mmaf

“Interview with Cleveland Sellers.” Eyes on the Prize Interviews. October 21, 1988. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eii/eiiweb/sel5427.0215.148clevelandsellers.html

“Ordeal in Philadelphia Mississippi, June 21.” Meredith Mississippi March and Black Power (June). Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (Jan-June). Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis66.htm#1966mmaf