Icons of African American Protest: Trailblazing Activists of the Civil Rights Movement

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ICONS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN PROTEST

Recent Titles in Greenwood Icons Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares Edited by S.T. Joshi Icons of Business: An Encyclopedia of Mavericks, Movers, and Shakers Edited by Kateri Drexler Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture Edited by Mickey Hess Icons of Evolution: An Encyclopedia of People, Evidence, and Controversies Edited by Brian Regal Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz Icons of R&B and Soul: An Encyclopedia of the Artists Who Revolutionized Rhythm Bob Gulla African American Icons of Sport: Triumph, Courage, and Excellence Matthew C. Whitaker Icons of the American West: From Cowgirls to Silicon Valley Edited by Gordon Morris Bakken Icons of Latino America: Latino Contributions to American Culture Roger Bruns Icons of Crime Fighting: Relentless Pursuers of Justice Edited by Jeffrey Bumgarner Icons of Unbelief: Atheists, Agnostics, and Secularists Edited by S.T. Joshi Women Icons of Popular Music: The Rebels, Rockers, and Renegades Edited by Carrie Havranek Icons of Talk: The Media Mouths That Changed America Donna L. Halper

ICONS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN PROTEST Trailblazing Activists of the Civil Rights Movement VOLUME 1 Gladys L. Knight

Greenwood Icons

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut

•

London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Knight, Gladys L., 1974– Icons of African American protest: trailblazing activists of the civil rights movement / Gladys L. Knight. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-313-34062-8 ((set) : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-313-34063-5 ((vol.1) : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-0-313-34064-2 ((vol.2) : alk. paper) 1. African American civil rights workers—Biography. 2. Civil rights workers—United States— Biography. 3. African Americans—Civil rights—History. 4. African Americans—Civil rights— History. 5. Civil rights movements—United States—History. 6. Political activists—United States— History. I. Title. E185.96.K56 2009 323.0920 2—dc22 [B] 2008034739 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright C 2009 by Gladys L. Knight All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008034739 ISBN: 978-0-313-34062-8 (set) 978-0-313-34063-5 (Vol 1) 978-0-313-34064-2 (Vol 2) First published in 2009 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9

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Contents List of Photos

vii

Series Foreword

ix

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments

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Introduction: Icons and Protestors of the Twentieth Century Chronology of African American Protest

xvii xxiii

Volume 1 Ella Baker

1

Elaine Brown

27

Stokely Carmichael

53

Angela Davis

79

W.E.B. Du Bois

105

James Farmer

131

Louis Farrakhan

155

Marcus Garvey

181

Fannie Lou Hamer

207

Dorothy Height

233

Jesse Jackson

259

Martin Luther King, Jr.

285

Contents

vi

Volume 2 Spike Lee

311

John Lewis

337

Malcolm X

365

Thurgood Marshall

391

Huey P. Newton

417

Rosa Parks

443

A. Philip Randolph

467

Al Sharpton

493

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

519

Roy Wilkins

545

Robert F. Williams

571

Whitney Young

597

Appendix 1: Executive Order 8802

623


625

Appendix 3: Selected Excerpts from the Civil Rights Act of 1964

627

Appendix 4: Selected Excerpts from the Voting Rights Act of 1965

637

Appendix 5: Excerpt from the Black Panther Party Ten Point Platform and Program (October 1966)

641

Appendix 6: Icons in Their Own Words

643

Glossary

657

Bibliography

663

Index

665

Photos Ella Baker (page 1), between 1942 and 1946. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Black Panther Party members, leader Elaine Brown (page 27; center) and cofounder Huey P. Newton (right), pose with their lawyer Charles R. Garry (left) on the campus of Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, probably in April 1970. Photo by David Fenton/Getty Images. Stokely Carmichael (page 53), 1966. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Poster of Angela Davis (page 79), 1971. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. W.E.B. Du Bois (page 105), between 1930 and 1950. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. James Farmer (page 131) at Foley Square in New York, speaking at a memorial for four African American girls killed in a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Louis Farrakhan (page 155) told a Washington news conference he has no doubt that Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy was sincere in offering to help train and arm black Americans for an uprising against the U.S. government. ‘‘I cannot accept the carnal weapons of this world,’’ Farrakahn said, 1985. AP Photo/Scott Stewart. Marcus Garvey (page 181), 1924. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Fannie Lou Hamer (page 207) at the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1964. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Dorothy Height (page 233; right) presents the Mary McLeod Bethune Human Rights Award to Eleanor Roosevelt (left) at the council’s silver anniversary lunch, 1960. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Photos

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Jesse Jackson (page 259) surrounded by marchers carrying signs advocating support for the Hawkins-Humphrey Bill for full employment. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Martin Luther King, Jr. (page 285) delivering a speech at Girard College, Philadelphia, 1965. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Director Spike Lee (page 311) shown on the set of his 1996 film Get on the Bus. Courtesy of Photofest. Composite of two photographs: bottom photo shows the Selma Montgomery civil rights march, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (front/center), Coretta Scott King (behind Dr. King), and John Lewis (page 337; right of Mrs. King); top photograph shows five white segregationists, two with confederate flags, 1965. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Malcolm X (page 365) during a rally in Harlem, New York, 1963. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Thurgood Marshall (page 391) shown in front of the Supreme Court, 1958. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. A Black Panther poster featuring Huey Newton (page 417). Text beneath this image read: ‘‘The racist dog policemen must withdraw immediately from our communities, cease their wanton murder and brutality.’’ Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Rosa Parks (page 443) seated toward front of bus, Montgomery, Alabama, 1956. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. A. Philip Randolph (page 467) standing before the statue at the Lincoln Memorial, during the 1963 March on Washington. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Al Sharpton (page 493) on Saturday Night Live, 2003. Courtesy of Photofest. Ida B. Wells (page 519), 1891. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Roy Wilkins (page 545), 1963. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Robert F. Williams (page 571) living in exile. Lynn Pelham/Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images. Whitney Young (page 597) reading a book, 1963. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Series Foreword Worshipped and cursed. Loved and loathed. Obsessed about the world over. What does it take to become an icon? Regardless of subject, culture, or era, the requisite qualifications are the same: (1) challenge the status quo, (2) influence millions, and (3) impact history. Using these criteria, Greenwood Press introduces a new reference format and approach to popular culture. Spanning a wide range of subjects, volumes in the Greenwood Icons series provide students and general readers a port of entry into the most fascinating and influential topics of the day. Every two-volume title offers an in-depth look at approximately 24 iconic figures, each of which captures the essence of a broad subject. These icons typically embody a group of values, elicit strong reactions, reflect the essence of a particular time and place, and link different traditions and periods. Among those featured are artists and activists, superheroes and spies, inventors and athletes—the legends and mythmakers of entire generations. Yet icons can also come from unexpected places: as the heroine who transcends the pages of a novel or as the revolutionary idea that shatters our previously held beliefs. Whether people, places, or things, such icons serve as a bridge between the past and the present, the canonical and the contemporary. By focusing on icons central to popular culture, this series encourages students to appreciate cultural diversity and critically analyze issues of enduring significance. Most importantly, these books are as entertaining as they are provocative. Is Disneyland a more influential icon of the American West than Las Vegas? How do ghosts and ghouls reflect our collective psyche? Is Barry Bonds an inspiring or deplorable icon of baseball? Designed to foster debate, the series serves as a unique resource that is ideal for paper writing or report purposes. Insightful, in-depth entries provide far more information than conventional reference articles but are less intimidating and more accessible than a book-length biography. The most revered and reviled icons of

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Series Foreword

American and world history are brought to life with related sidebars, timelines, fact boxes, and quotations. Authoritative entries are accompanied by bibliographies, making these titles an ideal starting point for further research. Spanning a wide range of popular topics, including business, literature, civil rights, politics, music, and more, books in the Greenwood Icons series provide fresh insights for the student and popular reader into the power and influence of icons, a topic of as vital interest today as in any previous era.

Preface According to Dictionary.com, an icon is a sign or representation, an important and enduring symbol, or one who is the object of great attention and devotion. Protest is defined as an expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent. The twenty-four individuals featured in this book, Icons of African American Protest: Trailblazing Activists of the Civil Rights Movement, are worthy of renown (and sometimes notoriety) because of their extraordinary contributions to the enduring fight against racism, injustice, and discrimination. Many are recognizable, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. Others, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, remain at the forefront of black protest in the twenty-first century. The fact that others, such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, James Farmer, and Elaine Brown, are less well known does not diminish the magnitude of their contribution; it simply illuminates the need to reexamine the heroes from the past. The purpose of the present work is therefore two-fold. First, it fills in the gaps on the shelf by focusing on lesser-known individuals like Ida B. WellsBarnett, an urbane ‘‘lady’’ who launched an unprecedented crusade against lynching in the early twentieth century. Second, it provides background and corollary material on truly famous individuals such as King and Parks. School textbooks highlight achievements and experiences of some African American leaders, but, due to space limitations, they often lack the depth that makes these figures come alive. These life stories, when told in detail as these two volumes strive to do, accomplish much: they reveal the extraordinary strength and sacrifice displayed by courageous men and women for the cause of freedom and civil rights; they provide in-depth information on the century-long battle that was waged against gross injustice to supplement the more general information that is available elsewhere; and they help insure that these incredible individuals are never forgotten.

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Preface

The exploration of the lives of these great men and women was, for me, alternately alarming, extremely difficult to stomach, inspiring, and spellbinding. I often felt as if I were mingling with mythic heroes from some strange, frightening, and tumultuous past. At other times, their humanity—their insecurities, weaknesses, fears, ideological shifts, problematic marriages and divorces, illnesses, and exhaustion—exposed them as flawed and fragile. The climate in which they toiled, the obstacles they faced, were intensely harrowing, and their victories were all too infrequent. Still, they persevered. The personalities of these leaders cover a broad spectrum of descriptors— vibrant, tame, intense, aggressive, and diffident—and their politics run the gamut from conservative to ultra-radical. Nevertheless, whatever techniques, modes, or tactics employed—Thurgood Marshall’s legal fights in the courtroom, Dr. King’s reliance on nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action, or Huey P. Newton’s advocacy of armed self-defense—they were all, in their time, radicals who strove against a climate of racism, discrimination, exclusion, oppression, violent abuse, ignorance, and neglect. Many surprising commonalities are revealed by a comparison of the individual essays. A. Philip Randolph, James Farmer, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Height, and Angela Davis were academic superstars—well-educated and raised in relatively advantaged families. Others, like Fannie Lou Hamer and Malcolm X, epitomized the greater portion of African Americans: people with little formal education who hailed from the troublous regions of the South or the ghettos of the North. Due to societal expectations and traditions, most of the well-known activists were male. Most, if not all, had extremely supportive parents who stressed self-esteem, dignity, and pride, and were iconoclasts in their own right and, frequently, leaders in their communities. In appearance, these icons of African American protest were as diverse as any group of twenty-four in the general population. The conservatives, like Roy Wilkins, wore immaculate suits; the young-adult activists, like Stokely Carmichael, wore overalls with sleeves rolled above the elbows. The rebels of the late 1960s and 1970s wore afros and dashikis, adopted Afrocentric names, and walked with a commanding strut and saluted with a clenched fist. Despite their differing temperaments, tactics, and ideologies, what most leaders wanted can be summed up by the following statement: We may have a different color skin, but we are still American and deserve and demand the same rights, protection, justice, freedoms, and opportunities as you. These leaders yielded their lives to those who criticized their protestations— or worse, threatened, harassed, beat, jailed, or even martyred them for it. In exchange for their manifold sacrifices, these courageous men and women engendered unparalleled progress. Protest has always been a catalyst for change, reform, and critical development in society. Indeed, protest is at the cornerstone of America’s own birth. Did not the first immigrants help America take its first steps upon the

Preface

road to greatness when they long ago protested against the oppression of their native government and established new edicts promoting the ideals of freedom and opportunity? Likewise, since the first African slave was forced to board a ship bound for America, protest has been a major motif in the African American experience. Protest was a critical weapon during the raging violence against blacks following the end of Reconstruction and throughout the Jim Crow years, and against the grisly conditions in the ghettos of the North. It was used to combat economic and political oppression, racism, discrimination, and exclusion from mainstream America. I believe this text will prove to be user-friendly and of interest and value to students, teachers, researchers, and the general public. To that end, the introduction summarizes the history of African American protest and the conditions that called for remonstration. It is followed by a timeline of relevant events. Entries are presented in alphabetical order, each containing simple sub-headings that introduce childhood, young adulthood, and other milestones in the lives of the activist. Sidebars provide background information on key events, individuals, and organizations. Symbols are provided for important themes such as the freedom song ‘‘We Shall Overcome,’’ the clenched fist of the Black Power Movement, and the lynching noose. At the end of each entry, there is a ‘‘See also’’ section and a ‘‘Further Resources’’ section to provide additional sources of information—both print and electronic—for each icon. Also provided are several appendices, including historical documents, quotes from the icons of protest themselves, a bibliography, a chronology, a glossary, and a detailed subject index. Words defined in the glossary are boldfaced the first time they appear in any of the essays.

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Acknowledgments Special thanks go to so many people who have made this encyclopedia possible. I deeply appreciate Greenwood Publishing for their commitment to important subjects such as this one. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. I have been a voracious student of African American history since Mrs. Wotton facilitated a high school course on U.S. History, where I learned about slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. It was Mrs. Wotton who helped a group of us take a trip to the nation’s capital, where we stood on the very steps where Martin Luther King thundered out his famous ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech before an enthralled sea of some 250,000 people at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. I am deeply thankful to Michael Hermann and Shana Grob-Jones, with whom I have had the great pleasure to work since 2002. Editors Kristi Ward and John Wagner have been extraordinarily helpful every step of the way of this project. I would also like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to editors of other Greenwood books: Hans Ostrom, J. David Macey, Anand Prahlad, Richard Zuczek, Walter Rucker, James Nathaniel, and all the behind-thescenes players who have facilitated the publication and promotion of this volume. To Ellen Larson, a brilliant writer and indispensable adviser, encourager, and friend, I say thank you, thank you, thank you. You are absolutely the best. Special thanks to Teri Knight, a graduate of Spelman College and University of Michigan, who currently teaches high school English in Chicago, for writing the compelling introduction. To the remarkable individuals and activists I have known: the Black Student Union (BSU) president, who constructed a list of demands—including an appeal to diversify our predominately white campus—and gave them to the dean at a BSU meeting; the dean, who was at that meeting and listened patiently and responded accordingly; my mother, who participated in boycotts and sit-ins; Ursula, who wrote a paper on Malcolm X and received

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Acknowledgments

a failing grade because the teacher did not like her subject choice; Jackie Coard, who founded the first African American Museum in the state of Washington; the courageous museum board that gave of their time, energy, and ideas; Jessica and Najja, who protested against the blackface performances on their university campus; the University of Puget Sound, which hosted the 2006 National Race and Pedagogy Conference; the chair of that conference and acclaimed author, Dexter Gordon; and the mother who challenged an entire public school system to be more inclusive of other cultures and address racially charged incidents. To all of you, I say thank you for your contributions and bravery. My parents, Larry and Mary Gipson, my sisters Ursula and Teri, and countless prayers were a boundless source of strength, encouragement, and inspiration. Thank you to all the friends who provided support and patiently accepted rain checks for dinners and movie outings; to Derrick Pinckney, a great artist and sounding board; to my undergraduate advisor, David Droge, one of the best thinkers, doers, and professors I know; and to so many, many more, including you, the reader, whom I hope will be as profoundly moved as I was by the lives of these extraordinary icons.

Introduction: Icons and Protestors of the Twentieth Century The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind. From Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Any living soul—sighted or blind—at any point in the twentieth century has been an eyewitness to protest. Yet what does protest sound like? How does it taste? Can you smell it in the air? Or feel it in your bones? In her 1969 autobiographical work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou recalls the moment when protest awakened her to act upon the racial injustices that she faced growing up in Stamps, Arkansas. Angelou poetically asserts this universal truth: Activism is a powerful inherent force that seeks to eliminate obstacles and create paths. Protest intersects oppositional elements to effect change: visibility and invisibility, external and internal influences, immediacy and patience, force and nonviolence. Civil disobedience is the road that leads to equality. African American protest, as all African American history, has its roots in slavery. In The People Could Fly, Virginia Hamilton recounts a version of the African folktale about slaves who desired freedom from an oppressive master. In Hamilton’s version, an old African slave whispers words to help other African slaves fly to freedom. When he is caught, the old African slave flies away, unable to help all the slaves escape; however, he leaves the witnesses with a story to tell their children. In the folktale, the destination of the flying Africans is freedom in Africa; in the mind of black America’s greatest activists, freedom is equality and dignity. Traditionally, the greatness of any protest begins with the magic of words from one who possesses the keen insights of the universe. Few are bestowed with this knowledge; furthermore, the opportunities for change must be taken in an instant with a simple action of grand consequence. It was this way for the flying Africans who escaped the fields of the brutal overseer, and it has been this way for African Americans in the twentieth century seeking justice in their communities, workplaces, schools, prisons, and courts.

Introduction

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EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY PROTEST Protest grew up watching his parents being cheated in the game of sharecropping. The white man permitted his absence from school to help on the farm. He might eventually drop out of school to work in the field alongside his parents; in the evening, Activism listened to his grandparents tell stories about slavery. Protest made clothes out of flour sacks, and when the sole black doctor’s penicillin was not enough, Activism used the leaves of a peach tree to draw out fever. As a young man, Protest looked for the words to help free the souls of black folk as he fought to expose and end brutal lynching, which claimed thousands of freedom seekers each year. Leaving Injustice to chirp in the warm, damp night, those who could flew north. In great numbers, they filled southern cities in the North, where Injustice lived in cramped spaces in tall buildings and walked surreptitiously down crowded avenues. Black Activism looked back to Africa. He wrote about the crisis. Protest organized labor unions for his brothers and watched his sisters fight for women’s rights. He founded associations and leagues to assist his brothers and sisters in every fight. At night, Activism dreamt about the mule’s burden and of peeling back the husk of the sorghum cane and sucking out the sweetness of molasses.

MID-CENTURY PROTEST: JIM CROW AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA Halfway through the century, the restlessness of Activism increased. Jim Crow told blacks to order and eat their meals in the back of the restaurant, drink from different fountains, use dirty restrooms, and defer to whites in all situations. For many African Americans, segregated schools held secondhand textbooks and insufficient materials. To read and write, black students borrowed one of the school’s encyclopedias and wrote reports about English heroes like Sir Walter Raleigh. The white man said to teach black girls to cook and clean and teach black boys to farm; however, many black teachers knew the secret of the old African slave and taught their students more than just the curriculum. Black students learned that they were not inferior to whites. High school graduates of the middle decades could dream of traveling the world, practicing law or medicine, and teaching, but the wake-up reality was fraught with institutional racism and blatant and subtle prejudice. Increasingly frustrated with the raw end of Jim Crow’s deal, Protest aggressively sought school integration, formed committees, held conferences, and relied on the foundation of the association and the league. In 1961, Activism soared down the nation’s interstates singing spirituals in the key of militancy, seeking the elusive balance of peace, equality, and unity. Protest cooked breakfast for little black kids on their way to school. Protest marched, was beaten and jailed, all the while singing freedom’s songs,

Introduction

wearing an afro and straightened hair with waves and tight curls, a dashiki, a dress, or a suit with a bow-tie. The face of freedom wore sideburns, seldom smiled, and declared, ‘‘By any means necessary.’’ Activism became one of the greatest leaders to teach nonviolence. He was a brave king who traveled the streets blacks were not supposed to travel and sat at counters where blacks were not supposed to sit. From the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Protest shouted the words of the old African slave that lifted his ancestors in the sky, and watched the hundreds of thousands before him ascend from the lawn surrounding the reflecting pool. The great granddaughters of slaves looked white people in the eye and refused to say ‘‘yes ma’am’’ or ‘‘yes suh’’ and sat wherever they wanted on the bus. When these civil descendents went to lunch downtown, they were told, ‘‘We don’t serve niggers.’’ They replied, ‘‘Well, we don’t eat niggers either.’’ Protest raised a sole fist and shed his and her own blood for dignity. Activism worked hard just to survive; Protest worked harder to survive and get an education. Continually ignored for promotions and raises, Activism helped create jobs and demand federal aid for social programs. Activism moved to predominantly white neighborhoods. While her little black children played with white neighbor children, Protest kept a gun in her apron and watched the white parents. In an integrated school, Black Activism astonished her white teacher and classmates, who thought she was inept, when she recited British poet William Ernest Henley’s ‘‘Invictus.’’ Protest is unconquerable; it is the grass that grows through the crack in the sidewalk. Up North, if you were a black man or woman, Injustice might smile in your face and stab you in the back, but you were North where promised advantages and expectations hovered just within a fight’s reach; down South, you knew where you stood, and you also knew you did not have to stand there—and with a mustard seed’s faith, you moved to your rightful place. Activism was not born with second-class spirits. As Jim Crow staggered out and Integration pressed in, Protest took a glimpse of freedom’s face.

END-OF-THE-CENTURY PROTEST Near the close of the twentieth century, urban blight, poverty, and a host of political issues—including the Vietnam War—collided with the noble objectives of the Civil Rights Movement and produced a kaleidoscope of detrimental social problems. Growing up during the middle of the twentieth century, Protest had known that his future held prison or death at the hands of a white man, so Protest bulldozed his way through the ranks of the military, serving his country in Vietnam as an officer in the Marines. While stationed in Germany, Private Protest fought unequal treatment from white officers. Using the Army’s own chain of command, Protest stated his case in appropriate sequence to each

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officer, breaking one shackle at a time. Protest knew someone had to listen. Meanwhile, back home, Activism enraged the Old Boys Network when he was elected as mayor of his hometown and encouraged his friend Protest to become a member of the city council. Multifarious firsts in many corporate and political arenas inspired Activism; at the same time, the imprisoned and economically disadvantaged demanded Protest’s energy. Constructive, affirmative, realistic, and injurious images of African Americans blazed across televisions, movie screens, and theater stages. The alphabet organizations of the Civil Rights Movement seemed archived in history’s black-and-white photographic memory as the complexity of Modern Injustice attempted to disown his Jim Crow roots. The materialistic lullaby of the late twentieth century provided a false comfort and a divisive— too often violent—element that turned black on black in ways that had not been seen before. Heartened by Amiri Baraka’s ‘‘Wise 1,’’ Protest carves another Baraka title, ‘‘SOS,’’ into the wooden desk that holds his young mind in history class. For this offense, he finds himself in detention writing a film script. His desire to share those flying words rattles off his tongue with lightning speed. Activism professes flying stories to college students and pushes a coalition around the world advocating, mediating, and encouraging others with the words of the old African slave. Although February celebrates freedom’s heroes in twentyeight or twenty-nine days a year, Activism rides the bus to the state capital on black legislature day and fights for juvenile justice every day. Protest’s spark still burns and marches against police brutality and gang violence.

PROTEST IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM At the dawn of the twenty-first century, technology has expanded Protest’s means of communication and audiences; thus, the need for social change, too, grows exponentially. African Americans continue to respond to the voices of their predecessors in struggle, using every available medium: film, fiction, philanthropy, and even the information highway. Activism lives in the voices of university professors, community organizers, ministers, artists, presidential candidates, CEOs, and judges. The ‘‘who,’’ ‘‘what,’’ ‘‘when,’’ ‘‘where,’’ and ‘‘how’’ may be different, but the ‘‘why’’ remains the same— justice. The ability to acknowledge the essential equality of each human being is honorable, noble, and good; the ability to help others recognize that innate sameness is most honorable, the noblest, the purest good. As Americans continue to see barriers broken in all areas from city officials to the highest elected positions in the country, we must remain diligent in our responsibility to share these stories of protest and activism with our children. If we are to survive, the spirit of protest that resides within all of us must be nourished in our children. The cost of passive assimilation and

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complacency is too high. We must teach our children to identify and follow the voice within that seeks positive change and inspires others to seek the same. We must encourage our children to develop the strength to admonish naysayers with an unavoidable truth: freedom elevates all of humanity. Teri Knight


Chronology of African American Protest SLAVERY AND RESISTANCE TO 1877 1619

First record of Africans brought to North America as indentured servants. 1644 Black slaves successfully petition for freedom in New Netherlands (later New York). 1708 African slaves revolt in Newton, Long Island, and are punished by death. 1738 Fugitive slaves from the southern English colonies live with the Creek Indians in Georgia and the Spanish in Florida. 1739 Following the Stono slave rebellion in South Carolina, thirty enslaved Angolans elude capture for up to thirty years. 1780 Elizabeth Freeman sues for her freedom in Massachusetts. 1787 Richard Allen and Absalom Jones establish the Philadelphia Free African Society, one of the first free all-black societies formed to advocate black separatism and self-help programs. Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory, i.e., the territory soon to comprise the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 1793 Fugitive slave law enacted that requires escaped slaves to return to their slave owners. 1800 Gabriel Prosser leads a slave revolt in Richmond, Virginia. 1804 New Jersey is the last state in the North to abolish slavery. Ohio becomes one of the first northern states to enact discriminatory black laws against free blacks. 1808 Congress bans the importation of African slaves. 1812–1840s More than three decades of white riots against African Americans and abolitionists in the North. 1814 Paul Cuffee, one of the earliest proponents of the Back-toAfrica Movement, transports thirty-four blacks to Sierra Leone.

Chronology of African American Protest

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1816 1817

1820 1821 1822 1830 1831 1839

1841 1843

1845

1846 1849 1851 1857 1861 1863

1865

Richard Allen founds the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. African Americans in Philadelphia protest the American Colonization Society (ACS), an organization formed to transport blacks back to Africa. The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri. The ACS establishes the colony of Liberia in West Africa for blacks. Denmark Vessey leads a slave revolt in South Carolina. The first national black convention is held in the North to address issues such as slavery, voting rights, and integration. Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia. Africans revolt on the Spanish schooner Amistad but are recaptured during their attempt to return to Africa. Slave revolts, as well as suicide, were common forms of African resistance to slavery during the Middle Passage. Abolitionists play an instrumental role in freeing the Africans of the Amistad after they had been recaptured. Henry Highland Garnet, a militant abolitionist, delivers ‘‘Address to the Slaves’’ at the National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, New York. Frederick Douglass publishes The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, the first of three autobiographies. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and prominent African American abolitionist, founds The North Star. Harriet Tubman escapes slavery and becomes a major leader in the Underground Railroad Movement. A large migration of African Americans to Canada begins and lasts eight years. U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Dred Scott case that African Americans are not citizens. Civil War begins. President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, bestowing freedom to all slaves within Confederate territory. Civil War ends with the defeat of the Confederacy. Following the end of the Civil War, embittered southerners violently attack newly freed slaves. President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated. Major General Gordon Granger announces in Galveston, Texas, that the slaves are free.


1866

1866–1868

1870 1875

Congress ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, officially abolishing slavery. Black codes are established throughout the South, severely restricting the rights of African Americans. African Americans, known as the Exodusters, migrate to Kansas in response to the violence, racism, and oppression of the South. Other migrations occur from the rural South to the Urban South, to the West, and to the North. In Tennessee, ex-Confederates establish the Ku Klux Klan, one of numerous racist white organizations in the South. During Reconstruction, schools for blacks are established and civil rights acts are passed. The South is divided into five military districts. African American politicians are elected for the first time ever in the South. Congress ratifies the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, granting citizenship, due process, and equal protection to former slaves. Following a fiery speech of protest against the passing of a bill to remove African Americans from political office, Henry McNeil Turner leads a walkout from the capitol building in Georgia. Congress ratifies the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving black men the right to vote. Congress enacts the Civil Rights Act of 1875, guaranteeing African Americans the right to equal access to public accommodations.

BLACK NADIR, 1877–1901 1877

1878

1886 1890 1892

1896

Reconstruction ends in the South. Most of the gains received during Reconstruction are eliminated when political power is returned to conservative Democrats. Martin R. Delany is one of the sponsors for the Liberian Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company, which is formed to help transport black Southerners to Liberia. A race riot occurs in Washington County, Texas. The beginning of the era of the black women’s club movement. The lynching of three African American owners of the People’s Grocery Company is the impetus for Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaign. The Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation is constitutional. The Jim Crow era begins. The National Association of Colored Women is formed.

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1898

Race riots break out in Phoenix, South Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina.

EARLY CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1901–1955 1905 1906 1908 1909 1910

1914 1915 1917

1918 1919 1920

1921 1923 1930

1931

W.E.B. Du Bois, William Monroe Trotter, and others found the Niagara Movement. Race riot in Brownsville, Texas. Race riot in Atlanta, Georgia. Race riot in Springfield, Illinois. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded in New York. W.E.B. Du Bois founds The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP. The National Urban League is founded in New York. The Great Migration, a mass exodus of blacks from the South to cities in the North, begins. Ida B. Wells founds the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago, the first African American suffrage association. Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association. D.W. Griffith releases the Birth of a Nation. The NAACP is among the protesters of this film. United States enters World War I. Race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois and Houston, Texas. Marcus Garvey delivers the address ‘‘The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots.’’ A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen establish the Messenger. Marcus Garvey establishes the Negro World. Race riots in Chicago, Illinois and Elaine, Arkansas. Congress ratifies the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving women the right to vote. Harlem, New York is the birthplace of the Harlem Renaissance, a period of intense developments in African American art, literature, and music. Race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Race riot in Rosewood, Florida. The Chicago Tribune reports that 3,437 black men and 76 black women were lynched in America between the years 1882 and 1930. Nine black youths are accused of raping two white women in the Scottsboro case.


1941

1941 1942 1947 1948

1952 1954

1955

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 8802, mandating equal employment in defense plants and federal jobs. A. Philip Randolph plays a leading role in this victory. United States enters World War II. James L. Farmer and others found the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). CORE participates in the Journey of Reconciliation. A. Philip Randolph plays a leading role in the protests that lead to President Harry S. Truman issuing an executive order to integrate the U.S. Armed Forces and the creation of a Fair Employment Board. Malcolm X becomes a minister of the Nation of Islam and advocates black nationalism, black separatism, and militancy. Thurgood Marshall is one of the attorneys in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declares that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional. Roy Wilkins is named executive director of the NAACP.

MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1955–1965 1955

1957

1960

1961

Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till is lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The two men charged with the crime are acquitted by an all-white jury. Following Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads a triumphant bus boycott. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is formed. Ella Baker and Bayard Rustin co-organize the Prayer Pilgrimage. Eleven hundred paratroopers and the state national guard provide protection for the first black students to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Dorothy Height becomes President of the National Council of Negro Women. Four African American students conduct a sit-in at a Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded. President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order 10925, creating the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and mandating affirmative action to ensure that hiring and employment practices are nondiscriminatory.

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1962

1962 1963

1964

CORE and SNCC conduct freedom rides to test the new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities. James Meredith is the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Rioting ensues, and President Kennedy sends 5,000 federal troops in response. Robert F. Williams’ Radio Free Dixie airs from Cuba. During civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, fire hoses and police dogs are used against activists. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes the famous ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’’ Children are attacked and arrested at a ‘‘Children’s Crusade.’’ Medgar Evers, a field secretary for Mississippi’s NAACP, is murdered outside his home. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his famous ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedoms. Four young African American girls are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Fannie Lou Hamer assists with the Freedom Summer project for voter registration, involving the Council of Federated Organizations (CORE, SNCC, SCLC, and NAACP). Three civil rights workers are murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Deacons for Defense and Justice is founded. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, eradicating segregation laws. Martin Luther King, Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize. President Lyndon B. Johnson presents War on Poverty Program in his State of the Union Address. Congress ratifies the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, abolishing the poll tax, which was created to deter black voting.

BLACK POWER MOVEMENT, 1965–1976 1965

American military involvement in the Vietnam War begins. Malcolm X is assassinated. State troopers violently attack demonstrators led by Martin Luther King, Jr., as they march to Selma. This incident is known as ‘‘Bloody Sunday.’’ LeRoi Jones establishes the Black Arts Repertory Theater, prompting the Black Arts Movement and inspiring a massive appeal to Black Consciousness.


1966 1967

1968

1969 1969 1970 1971 1972

1974 1976

Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, eliminating discriminatory voting laws. African Americans riot in Watts, California. President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246, establishing affirmative action. President Johnson proposes the Great Society Program during his State of the Union Address. Stokely Carmichael presents his first ‘‘Black Power’’ speech. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale found the Black Panthers. Fifty-nine riots erupt in cities in the North. Major race riots take place in Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan. The Supreme Court rules in Loving v. Virginia that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional. President Johnson appoints Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. The first National Black Power Conference is held in Newark, New Jersey. The Kerner Commission releases a report on their findings of what caused African American rioting. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt soon after in more than 100 U.S. cities. President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. Student strikes result in the first black studies program at San Francisco State College. James Forman of SNCC interrupts worship services at Riverside Church in New York to present the Black Manifesto. Black feminism emerges. Jesse Jackson founds People United to Save Humanity (PUSH). First National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana. Angela Davis is acquitted of kidnapping, murder, and conspiracy concerning an escape attempt at Marin County Hall of Justice. Elaine Brown becomes the first and only woman leader of the Black Panthers. A riot takes place in Pensacola, Florida.

MODERN PROTESTS, 1980– 1980

African Americans riot in Miami. Molefi Kete Asante publishes Afrocentricity.

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1982 1989 1992

1995 1996 1997

2000 2005 2006

African Americans riot in Miami. Spike Lee releases Do the Right Thing. African Americans riot in south-central Los Angeles after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped beating of African American Rodney King. Maxine Waters, Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, is a voice for rioters in Los Angeles. Spike Lee releases Malcolm X. Louis Farrakhan holds Million Man March in Washington, D.C. California becomes the first of several states to ban affirmative action in college admissions and state contracts. John Singleton releases the film Rosewood, based on the race riot that occurred there in 1923. Spike Lee releases the documentary 4 Little Girls about the 1965 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Million Woman March takes place in Philadelphia. Tavis Smiley and Tom Joyner co-host the first of annual town hall meetings called ‘‘The State of the Black Union.’’ Millions More March is held in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Million Man March. Spike Lee releases When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, a documentary on the Hurricane Katrina tragedy in New Orleans. Jesse Jackson leads campaign against the use of the N-word. Jesse Jackson leads a rally and march in New Orleans. The theme is ‘‘The Right to Return, Vote, and Rebuild.’’

Library of Congress

Ella Baker (1903–1986)

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Icons of African American Protest

Ella Baker worked in a variety of positions in several of the prominent civil rights organizations: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Indeed, she was instrumental in the founding of SNCC and remained for several years an indispensable advisor. By all accounts, her work with SNCC, in the early to mid-1960s, when the organization strived towards integrating society and pushing voter registration in black communities, was her pride and joy. Most everyone knew the slight, 50 200 woman as ‘‘Miss Ella.’’ She was the one who sat quietly in a corner at the SNCC meetings. She was the oldest of them all, with graying hair, wearing a matronly dress with matching earrings. When things got heated—as they normally did in a room filled with the mostly twenty-something activists—she had a calming effect. All it took was a word or a question to redirect the passionate argument back to a productive discussion. This sagacious woman did not try to impose her point of view, gained from years of experience as an activist, on the youths; rather, she gently and unobtrusively helped develop and equip them for their important work. Later, when the organization became more militant, casting out all its white members and adopting an ideology of separatism, Baker graciously bowed out. Baker was disappointed in this turn of events, but she still had work to do, work that she approached in the same quiet and inconspicuous way she had always used. She was never really a one-organization kind of woman; she always had a rally to go to or a committee meeting to attend. But whatever she engaged in, she did so out of the limelight—unlike so many of the highly visible personalities of her day. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most famous civil rights leaders. His visibility put a face and voice to the Civil Rights Movement, provoked media attention and sympathy, and spurred action from the slow-moving and overly cautious federal government. However, Baker was opposed to his attention-grabbing leadership style. She felt it took away from the importance of the ordinary people and put too much focus on one individual. Baker was different from extant civil rights leaders in other ways, too. For one thing, she was a woman. And she had no qualms about shedding her dresses for overalls to scour the hot rural roads to empower African Americans. Unlike the middle-class giants of the NAACP and SCLC, she talked to the locals in a casual and familiar way, attempting thus to close the economic gap that kept many poor African Americans from participating in the movement. Despite her meek demeanor, she was fiercely independent, preferring to blaze her own trail, which was one of the reasons she refused to affiliate herself solely with any one association. Miss Baker had a deep authoritative voice and a lot of nerve, cultivated, undoubtedly, during her childhood, when, still in pigtails, she had stood up

Ella Baker

to white children with her fist or a handful of rocks. She grew up to challenge a nation’s racist and discriminatory laws. In 1986, she died a legend, despite her desire to remain out of the limelight.

CHILDHOOD Ella Josephine Baker was born on December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia. Although she was younger than her brother Curtis, she was appointed to walk him to and from school, to make sure he would not be ambushed by his classmates. Such was her presence and courage that when she was around, he did not get picked on or beat up. When Ella was about six years old, a white child called her a nigger. Her father and her brother stood on the sidelines and let Ella duke it out on her own. Another time, she threw rocks at a white child—the sheriff’s son—who called her a nigger. Young Ella Baker was not the only one in her family to stand up to bullies or racist whites. As a child she heard the stories of her defiant ancestors and grew up filled with pride for their courage. When her grandmother, a mulatto house slave, refused to obey the order of the slave-master’s wife to marry a light-skinned man rather than the dark-skinned man she had in mind, the mistress wanted to give her a lashing. The master prevented the whipping by ordering the grandmother (who was actually his daughter) to work in the field. It was said that the grandmother ‘‘danced all night to demonstrate her unbroken spirit’’ (Grant, 9). Shortly thereafter she married the dark-skinned man. Other rebellious ancestors included Uncle Alpheus, who argued with a white overseer over his profits from selling grain, and wealthy Grandpa Ross, who owned property and was a man of influence, thus defying one of the unspoken rules of the South that blacks had to stay in poverty. Thanks to examples such as these, the idea that African Americans could excel beyond their lot was as natural to Ella as the daily rise and fall of the sun in the sky. Grandpa Ross’ affluence and role as founder and pastor of the Roanoke Chapel Baptist Church in North Carolina made him a leader in his community. He insisted that Ella (whom he called the Grand Lady) sit at the head of the church, at the pulpit, where the visiting preacher was designated to sit. This angered her mom, for the pulpit was traditionally the realm of men— not of women or children. But for Ella, this was a rite of passage. One day, she would share power in a movement that was predominately led by men. Georgianna Ross Baker, Ella’s mother, an industrious and constantly busy woman, was a dominant figure in the Baker household. Blake, Ella’s father, was fun-loving and affectionate, and frequently away from home because of his employment as a waiter on a ferry. He was the one who always made sure the kids had some fun, like the time he took them all to the circus. Georgianna was the homemaker, having decided to raise the three children, Ella,

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Maggie, and Curtis, instead of pursuing a teaching career. She nurtured the community as well, bustling about the neighborhood, providing for the needs of the hungry, the sick, and the downtrodden, whether they were white or black. Whether she wanted to or not, Ella was required to follow the example of her mother, who went about the town with a basket of medicine and food over one arm and a Bible in the other hand. Thus, as a young child she trudged off every day to care for others as if she were her mother’s shadow. In this way Ella learned much about how to organize the women of the church and to do good works. When, in 1911, the family moved to Littleton, North Carolina, she was put in charge of the Sunshine Club. She was eight years old. A year later, Ella officially joined the Baptist church. Like so many black leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, Ella was serious about her church. She read through the bible several times, listened critically and analytically to the Sunday morning sermons, and, in an attempt to temper her spirited nature, determined to occupy herself with physical work. When she became angry, she was able to pacify her temper with hard work accompanied by loud singing. This habit followed her into her adult life, where she sought action—endless committees, reports, memos—not only to cool her frustrations with racial injustice but also to bring about change and betterment for all people. The difference was that, as an adult, it was the freedom songs of the Civil Rights Movement that provided the sense of release. Church also afforded young Ella the opportunity to observe women in leadership roles, and to learn the art of speaking well, an activity at which she excelled. At a very young age, she developed the notion that content was more important than the emotive aspects of traditional African American sermonizing. From her mother, Ella learned the importance of education, of speaking correctly, of selfless giving, and of pursuing a better life. Georgianna taught her three children how to read before they started school and insisted that they pursue all opportunities for achievement. Georgianna also made sure her children were well-versed in the tales of the high-achieving professionals in the family history: the postmistress, the registrar of deeds, and (according to family tradition) a congressman. If these men and women could accomplish what they did, then achievement for Ella and her siblings must be attainable too. Following grammar school, Ella attended Shaw University for secondary education and college, and quickly established herself as the campus firebrand. Shaw University was a Baptist school, and as such, the university prohibited what were deemed ‘‘immoral crimes’’ such as the use of tobacco, drinking alcohol, dancing, card playing, and men and women walking together on campus. For women, there were additional restrictions. They were forbidden to wear high-heeled shoes, go into the city, or wear silk stockings or earrings. Ella publicly protested that women should be allowed to wear silk stockings, especially if they had attractive legs to show off! She

Ella Baker

challenged the rule against men and women walking together on campus. After her first protest she was given a ‘‘talking to’’ by the dean. After the second, she would have been expelled but for the fact that the faculty spoke to the dean on her behalf. Ella rebelled against stultifying tradition wherever she found it. When she was called to sing for white visitors, she refused to do so. While campus girls dolled up for the young men on campus, Ella pursued baseball, debate, and other extracurricular activities. As a campus leader, she traveled to New York and Indianapolis to YWCA conferences. By the time she graduated as class valedictorian in 1927, she had made up her mind not to follow the path of most of her classmates, who wanted to be teachers or to settle down and begin families of their own. Ella had other plans. She would move to New York, where she would stay with her cousin Martha until she had saved enough money for a place of her own and could start a new life.

STARTING OUT In the 1920s and 1930s, Harlem was the place to be—for whites as well as blacks. Although New York was not legally a Jim Crow state, African Americans still tended to live in racially exclusive communities, either because they were not welcome in white neighborhoods or out of preference. Harlem was an explosion of glittery lights, urban sophistication, fashion, vivacious music, literature, and art—all created, molded, and developed by African Americans themselves. The camaraderie amongst the natives and the newly transplanted Southerners, like Baker, helped ease the transition into this new and provocative world. That she traveled alone even though she was asthmatic was a testament to Ella’s adventurousness and disregard for any obstacle—whether it was a social custom or her own health—that might stand in her way. Baker was enthralled by the outpouring of radical thought she encountered, literally on every street corner. The soapbox speakers—socialists, communists, black nationalists, and a hodgepodge of freethinkers—broadened the horizons of Baker’s education. The orators were spirited people, much like Baker herself. Protest was common in Harlem in those days, as was the steady stream of picketers and marchers who trudged down wellknown streets. Baker marveled at and was relieved by what she saw. She was not alone, and she would thrive in this environment. Despite her pioneer spirit, Baker did not initially consider a career in activism. She wanted to continue her education and become a medical missionary (a reflection of her early experiences with her mother). She was able to take a few courses, such as sociology, at Columbia University and the New School, though she could not afford to be a full-time student. But that did not stop her from supplementing her education with what she heard on the street, where there was a wealth of information, perspectives, and

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knowledge free for the taking. To earn a living, Baker did as most other African American women did: she worked as a waitress and a domestic. She organized tours for the Chicago’s World’s Fair. As time went on, she dabbled in almost anything, eventually including journalism, which was undoubtedly much more satisfying. She was a staff member of the American West Indian News, and was later hired on as the office manager of the Negro National News. She contributed articles to various other black presses. But it was through the Negro National News that Baker had her first experience with community organizing. YOUNG NEGROES’ COOPERATIVE LEAGUE (YNCL) Ella Baker knew George Schulyer from working with him at the Negro National News office, for he was the publisher of that newspaper. In 1930, she helped him start up the Young Negroes’ Cooperative League (YNCL), an organization geared to young activists between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. Baker was herself twenty-five at the time and eager to be a part of the solution to the problems afflicting African Americans, problems that had been exacerbated by the Great Depression. The YNCL was designed to muster black consumer power through organizations such as cooperatives to increase economic growth in African American communities. In the YNCL’s first year, Baker was the secretarytreasurer, and in 1931, the national director. She contributed her ideas and her time, helping to spur the organization’s growth through fundraising, rousing speeches, and organizing offices in several communities. She eased comfortably into her responsibilities, forming strong relationships with the various communities with which she worked. It was during this period that her intense interest in working with young people began to grow. Baker’s resume grew. She was chairman of the Youth Committee of One Hundred, founder of the Young People’s Community Forum, and adviser to the New York Youth Council of the NAACP. She organized an assortment of agitation activities. In 1934, when she met with a librarian to discuss the lack of African Americans employed at a branch in the New York City Public Library, she was not only listened to but also offered a job. One of her functions at the library was to facilitate the Mothers in the Park program to help mothers raise their children. NATIONAL NEGRO CONGRESS By age thirty-two, Baker had accumulated a great deal of work experience and credibility, and she was undoubtedly one of the ‘‘who’s who’’ of African American leaders in the city. In 1935, she was asked to be the publicity director of the Sponsoring Committee of the National Negro Congress—a

Ella Baker

significant nod to her growing status. The NNC was an effort to coalesce the various African American activist groups by setting aside their diverse philosophical, political, and other differences in an attempt to present a united front against the raging issues that concerned African Americans, such as discrimination, segregation, and racial violence. This organization attracted representatives from the NAACP, the Urban League, communists, and even the well-known A. Philip Randolph, distinguished leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement, who was elected its president. Hopes were dashed, however, when the organization folded shortly after Randolph resigned in 1940 due to his overwhelming commitment to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the fact that the communists were taking over the organization. During this time, Baker, as usual, occupied herself with a wide range of causes. As ever, action was her response to the problems that enveloped her community. She lent her hands, her voice, and her mind to whatever cause needed her. In 1936, she became a teacher with the Works Progress Administration, one of a number of programs under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal to help alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. In 1937, she signed up as an assistant project supervisor. Although the New Deal was criticized by many African American leaders because it did not seem racially inclusive (and in fact, statistically, blacks were among those who benefited the least), Baker felt that it was better to be a part of the solution than to complain and do nothing, when there were people who needed help. MARRIAGE Ella met T.J. Robinson, who was two years younger than herself, while at Shaw University. Like Baker, he was interested in activism, and he had even been a member of Randolph’s Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. While Ella was in New York and Robinson was still living in North Carolina, they corresponded voraciously. Robinson made his intentions quite clear. He visited her in New York at least once before Baker finally gave in to his numerous marriage proposals. When they married in 1940, it was with the understanding that she would keep her maiden name in her professional work. Her reasons for this were varied: she felt she had the right (like a celebrity), she was well-known by her maiden name, and she believed she could protect her husband from becoming overshadowed by her own notoriety. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP) The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was the premier organization for protest in the nation during much of the

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twentieth century. With branches across the nation, and a national office right in Baker’s own backyard, the NAACP represented for Baker the opportunity of a lifetime. She applied twice, in 1938 and in 1940, for the youth director position with the national office. She was passed over both times, despite her impressive resume and the fact that she was no stranger to the NAACP. In 1935, she had co-written an engaging article for The Crisis, the organ of the NAACP, entitled ‘‘The Bronx Slave Market,’’ which was the moniker bandied about in African American circles for Simpson Avenue, where African American women solicited themselves to white women for work. She had followed up that piece by holding a meeting with Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who was then the city councilman. Baker had also given a speech at the 1936 NAACP conference to talk about her work in the YNCL. In 1941, Baker was finally offered a position with the NAACP—as an assistant field secretary, not the youth position she had wanted. Nearing forty, Baker was a mature, experienced woman, and as no-nonsense as ever. Her physical appearance and comportment depicted an imposing presence: ‘‘Her large purse firmly tucked under her arm, her beaded hat set at a jaunty angle, Ella Baker strode forth with determination in her eye, her gait, her whole demeanor. Wherever she headed it was always with this hell-bent look. Given her horrific schedule, it’s no wonder that she took off at great speed’’ (Grant, 45). Another description portrayed her as a little helterskelter: ‘‘And wherever she went, she created a whirlwind, leaving a scatter of papers, notes, leaflets, church programs, and phone numbers in her wake. The more disciplined people in the office always found her takeoff breathtaking, unorthodox, and disorganized’’ (Grant, 46). Though Baker was renowned for frequently missed deadlines, she was a stickler for organizational procedures and instructions. And she produced results. For her first three years with the NAACP, Baker traveled across the South, visiting Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, on the road for at least six months out of the year. She gave speeches wherever she went for the dual purpose of raising money and increasing the membership. Much to the astonishment of the NAACP big guns back in New York, she was a huge success. Fundraising and leading a membership campaign were rigorous and challenging enough; traveling alone was harrowing. Baker reported her myriad experiences with segregation as she traveled by train and bus back and forth to New York. Baker was not a turn-the-other-cheek kind of person. On one occasion she adamantly challenged the staff at the Traveler’s Aid desk who did not want to give her the berth she had reserved. At the end of their bickering, she got the berth, plus double beds. Whenever Baker encountered racism on trains, she routinely wrote down names of the workers, so she could file a complaint. Once, she was lifted aggressively out of her seat in the dining car by a military police officer, because the curtain that divided

Ella Baker

the white and black section had not been put up. She addressed her fellow diners with a raucous ‘‘This man is overstepping his authority’’ (Grant, 66). Many of the other passengers sympathized with her. The NAACP, on the other hand, did not pursue a legal fight, but had Thurgood Marshall send off letters of complaint. The subsequent apologies did not satisfy Baker.

Daisy Lampkin (c. 1883–1965) Daisy Lampkin made history in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), when, in 1930, she became the first field secretary. She was also one of the few women who enjoyed leadership in a predominately male organization. The year of Daisy Elizabeth Adams’ birth is uncertain, but it is reported to be August 8, 1883. What is known is that she was born in Washington, D.C., but grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania. She was an only child and lived comfortably. Her father, George, was a porter, and her mother, Rosa, was a Proctor. She moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1909, and three years later she married William Lampkin. Lampkin’s efforts in the first three decades of the century were largely devoted to suffrage work, politics, and organizing. She became the president of the Negro Women’s Equal Franchise Federation, and later became the chairwoman of the Allegheny County Negro Women’s Republican League, vice chairwoman of the Negro Voters League of Pennsylvania, and vice chairwoman of the Colored Voters Division of the Republican National Committee. During World War I (1914–1918), she helped organize Urban League and NAACP chapters and was involved in women’s organizations such as the National Council of Negro Women and the National Association of Colored Women. In the 1930s and 1940s, Lampkin limited her activities to the NAACP, though the time and energy she gave to the organization were extraordinary. It also contributed to her poor health. In 1930, she became the organization’s first field secretary, a prestigious post in the NAACP. In 1935, she became national field secretary. Both roles required her to stay in the public eye, give speeches, and canvass for support across the nation. Lampkin’s work set the standard for field secretaries to come. Her name was well-known at the time, especially among members of the NAACP. Lampkin was known for her strength of character, extraordinary energy and accomplishments, and elaborate and stylish hats. She was a remarkable leader. Lampkin and her husband did not have children of their own. But they did raise a friend’s daughter, Romaine Childs. Lampkin died on March 10, 1965.

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Though Baker’s efforts as a woman in a male-dominated movement were groundbreaking, she was not alone. More and more women joined local branches. Some were elected president or held other offices. And some worked alongside Baker within the national office. Baker made friends with several women in the NAACP. Among them were Daisy Lampkin, Charlotte Crump, and Lucille Black. Lampkin was a seasoned soldier of activism, an early twentieth-century feminist, who had been active in the women’s suffrage front, a member of the National Association of Colored Women and of the National Council of Negro Women, vice president of the Pittsburgh Courier, and the first ever field secretary of the NAACP. Charlotte Crump was the coordinator of publicity and promotions at the NAACP, and Lucille Black was the national membership secretary. These friendships helped alleviate the hardships that Baker endured through her grueling work schedule and many frustrations. The women bonded through letters, both business and personal, telephone calls, lunch and dinner dates, and other social get-togethers, providing mutual support, camaraderie, and release from the day-to-day grind. Indeed, Baker built a rapport with nearly everyone she met at her various destinations during her travels as a field secretary. In this, Baker was an asset to the NAACP. She provided a personable, down-to-earth approach that the ordinary people appreciated and did not, in general, receive from most of the other representatives from the national office. Much of the secret to her success was the way in which she sought common ground with the people she spoke to and her way of ‘‘speaking in a familiar language that people could readily understand, and interacting with them in a way that made them feel they were important to her’’ (Ransby, 113). If anything, Baker wanted to give the membership more power than what the national office allowed. Early on, she pressed the executives of the NAACP to utilize the members in a more effective way to give them a purpose greater than simply being a number to add to NAACP’s growing membership base. Baker was member-focused, not organization-focused, but the latter was what the bigwigs in the NAACP wanted to emphasize. Baker wanted to enhance the power and control of the local branches to determine what issues were important or pertinent to them and their communities. Baker attended to other causes outside of the NAACP. Education for blacks remained one of Baker’s most passionate causes. She was a member of the Intergroup Committee on New York Public Schools, the New York City Board of Education’s Commission on Integration, and a subcommittee on zoning. In the same year she went to work for the NAACP, she conceived of a fundraising campaign to help African American teachers fight for equal pay. In 1943, Baker accepted the NAACP position of Director of Branches, becoming the highest ranking woman in the organization. In this role, she implemented many ideas and programs she felt would improve the areas in

Ella Baker

the organization she felt were lacking. She started leadership training conferences and in-service training sessions and developed job descriptions and procedures and a successful national membership campaign. Her work helped increase the influence and strength of the organization, a contribution she was acknowledged for. But the high-profile role that Baker played did not shield her from office politics and conflict. Part of what made the NAACP so successful was that it was run like an efficient machine, with all of the parts working together toward a particular goal that was defined at the top and relayed down to the membership. And the membership was expected to follow its leaders. Walter White, the executive secretary of the NAACP, in particular, wielded substantial power to keep members (especially paid staff and branch officers) in line with the position and philosophy of the organization. Baker saw for herself how White and W.E.B. Du Bois, the independent-thinking scholar and one of the founders of the NAACP, clashed. When Du Bois returned for the second time to the NAACP to edit its organ, The Crisis, in 1944, his reception back at the office was chilly. White attempted to keep a tight rein on Du Bois, not allowing him to have his own office or administrative support and trying to censure what he could publish in the magazine. Du Bois stayed for only four years. Like Du Bois, Baker’s repeated requests for administrative help were ignored. She became flustered over the fact that the talents of the members were overlooked and not appreciated for the resource they were. She wanted to empower the branches to pursue local causes. Baker vocalized these concerns from the day she began working with the NAACP, repeatedly raising these issues in memorandums, reports, and letters to the board and the executives. But White and the board were not interested in developing the massively growing membership base—a base that she had helped build. Both Baker and Du Bois, while employed by the NAACP, had the reputation of being radicals. And Baker, like Du Bois, began to feel stifled by the national office. While she began discreetly looking for another job, Baker was confronted with drama at home. Maggie, her youngest sister, ill-equipped to raise her baby, gave her to Georgianna to raise, which she did until the death of her husband and her old age made it impossible. Ella Baker, without hesitation, took the child, who in 1946 was nine years old. She brought her to New York, although most of the time her niece was shuttled between her husband, friends, and neighbors, as Baker had tremendous commitments that kept her away from home. In the spring of 1946, Baker resigned from the national office of the NAACP, though this did not conclude her involvement with the local organization. After her departure, she served as a board member, president, and education director of the local branch in New York City.

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LIFE AFTER THE NAACP Money was often tight in Baker’s home, and the years after her resignation were as financially uncertain as ever. Baker continued to look for the sort of work that mattered to her and would contribute to the betterment of humanity. In 1946, the self-assured Baker mailed off her resume to Edward Lewis, the executive director of the New York Urban League, including in the letter an idea to help him with increasing membership and fundraising. She worked with the Urban League until, in 1947, she took a job with the Salvation Army and then with the New York Cancer Society. Cancer had taken the life of her cousin, Martha, with whom she had lived when she first arrived to New York. This death propelled Baker to action, and so she became a fundraiser for the New York City Cancer Committee and launched a crusade to promote public awareness on cancer and prevention. Baker did not slack on her obligations to the many other organizations with which she was involved. She still traveled to NAACP branches for speaking engagements, where she ‘‘urged black people to ‘support the NAACP as a frontal organization, press for fair labor laws, better health conditions, a fair employment practice committee, anti-poll tax legislation, and against every measure, proposal, and practice designed to oppress the underprivileged’’’ (Grant, 91). Her influence with the members remained strong. She was an advisor to the New York Youth Council, earning the honor of ‘‘Mother of the New York Youth Council’’ for her role. Baker stayed involved with consumer organizations and volunteered her time on several committees, such as the Committee on Information Services of the Welfare Council of New York City, and the Consumer Advisory Committee of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. At home, she and her husband were deeply involved with the tenants’ association where they lived. It hardly appeared as if there was room for anything else on her calendar, but Baker would find a way. 1947 was a busy year.

JOURNEY OF RECONCILIATION In 1947, Bayard Rustin and Ella Baker collaborated on a project. It turned out to be an ideal match. Both Rustin and Baker preferred low-profile activism. Rustin had helped start civil rights organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality and, later, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Like Ella, he shuttled between his various organizations, working on projects or teaming up with other like-minded individuals. Rustin and Baker consistently came up with innovative program ideas, taking full advantage of their many years of solid experience. It helped that the two worked well together. Ella Baker joined Rustin and other members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation to coordinate the Journey of Reconciliation, conceived to test the

Ella Baker

ruling of the United States Supreme Court that banned racial discrimination in interstate travel. To Baker’s disappointment and frustration, she and the other women were not allowed to participate. It would be too dangerous. However, the Journey of Reconciliation ended uneventfully with the arrest of the black and white riders. Much later, in 1961, CORE and SNCC would coordinate in a remake of the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, which they would call the Freedom Rides. Though Baker was not involved, women were invited to participate. In addition to numerous arrests, the freedom riders were brutally attacked. The attacks were a large reason that the Freedom Rides were so dynamic.

NEW YORK CITY BRANCH OF NAACP In the 1950s, Baker’s involvement with the local branch of the NAACP in New York included a great deal of fundraising. She had always been a natural when it came to raising money for organizations. As part of a plan for the New York branch of the NAACP to raise $25,000, she challenged 1,000 individuals to raise $50 each. In 1953, she helped launch the Metropolitan Youth Conference on Equality and the Eastern Regional Training Conference. The first conference covered broad issues such as employment, housing, and veterans issues. The second conference addressed police brutality, an issue that would, in the 1960s, feed the tensions that triggered the urban riots in the North. That same year, Baker officiated a formal dinner at the New York State Conference. In 1953, Baker for the first time turned to politics. She was the president of the New York branch when Russell Crawford, the vice president, suggested that she run for the New York City Council. The possibility of extending her influence in the city was provocative, but she had to come to terms with her feelings about politics before she could make up her mind. To Baker, politicians could be corruptible, and traditional political parties were unappealing. Politically, Baker was independently minded, someone who held herself to her own high standards. Her solution was to agree to run under the Liberal Party and to simply be herself. Baker launched her campaign without any bells and whistles or fancy political speech-making, displaying a strong sense of what was needed in the city and a simple message. She proposed to do away with the slums and to provide affordable housing, day care programs, and community activities for those who might otherwise spend their time loitering or turn to crime. Her campaign pitches addressed not only blacks but also the large population of disadvantaged immigrants and whites in the city. In the end, she was defeated. Following her failed bid for City Council, Baker resumed her work at the local NAACP as the chair of a Special Committee established to deal with the potential threat of communist infiltration in the organization. This was, perhaps, Baker’s most trying hour. The NAACP had turned inward to purge

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anyone with ties, or the appearance of such, to communism. The 1950s had ushered in a second Red Scare, and everyone was suspect, especially activists or individuals and communities speaking against the American status quo in any way. Communists, as well as some African Americans, frequently sought each other out. African Americans, who had long been victims of oppression and exploitation, were prime candidates for the communists, who offered the enticement of social, economic, and political equality. What ultimately disenchanted those African Americans who considered becoming or actually became communists was the evolving revelation that this philosophy did not address racial issues, just economic class structure. Overall, communism did not appeal to most African Americans. Nonetheless, the NAACP, like many other organizations, worked hard to distance itself from it, sometimes employing the same melodramatic investigations, expulsions, and denouncements that characterized the period. Baker was not wholly convinced that red-baiting was a good idea. Fundamentally, she was an independent thinker and endorsed individualism and independence in others. The fact that she had witnessed the unraveling of the National Negro Congress due to infiltration by communists complicated matters. But as a leader in the New York NAACP, Baker felt obligated to submit to her directives. She ultimately did, though she tried to find ways to plead on behalf of the accused when she felt compelled to and to express her misgivings to the national office. MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT While Baker reluctantly carried out her duties to identify and remove communists from the NAACP, a major demonstration was underway in Montgomery, Alabama. It all started when Rosa Parks, an African American domestic and member of the local NAACP, refused to give up her seat to white passengers and was arrested. Parks happened to be Baker’s friend. They had met back in 1946 at a NAACP leadership training seminar in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1955, Baker, hearing of Parks’ arrest, rushed down to Montgomery, Alabama, and took part in the numerous discussions that followed to determine what the next step should be. Parks presented a critical opportunity for African American protest. Baker hoped that this opportunity would encompass some type of mass movement, and she helped direct the conversations to that end. The famed Montgomery Bus Boycott was the eventual result. IN FRIENDSHIP In the year that saw the birth of the boycott in Alabama and the subsequent launching of the meritorious career of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ella

Ella Baker

Baker again met up with Bayard Rustin, along with Stanley Levison, a Jewish attorney, and others to form In Friendship. A. Philip Randolph was the organization’s first chair, but he resigned shortly thereafter, due to his ongoing obligations to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. In Friendship was not a highly visible organization. Its primary function was to fundraise for such efforts as school desegregation in the South, and leadership development and training, and for organizations like the Montgomery Improvement Association, which was established to coordinate the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the NAACP. Rallies that were coordinated by In Friendship drew African American entertainers and celebrities like Duke Ellington and Harry Belafonte. The funds In Friendship raised were seminal to the Civil Rights Movement. However, fierce competition for monetary support forced In Friendship to eventually shut down in 1958.

SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (SCLC) In 1957, Baker helped launch another, more successful and longer lasting, organization: the Southern Christian Leadership (SCLC). According to Baker, the SCLC was conceived by herself, Levison, and Rustin. Baker had great hopes for this organization. She dreamed it would become what the NAACP was not: an organization in which the members were allowed a greater and more significant role. The SCLC was dominated by middle-class men of the cloth. Traditionally, ministers held a special place in African American life, a fact rooted in the customs that were transferred from Africa. Religion was the cornerstone of African culture and traditions, and it continued to be so during slavery in America. After slavery, to be a preacher was just about the highest and most influential position an African American could attain. Black ministers were—and still are—highly regarded in the African American community. The potential for mobilizing a massive movement among churchgoers, following the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, was compelling. Once again, Baker followed her own path. She was not a zealous churchgoer as an adult. She could not be easily charmed by anyone, not even by the charismatic King. And she was disinclined to fill the conventional role of the demure woman, which, as Baker’s biographer, Joanne Grant, suggests, the ministers might have expected. Baker was King’s first choice as someone to help set up the fledgling organization. Neither was she enthusiastic about moving to Atlanta, Georgia, in the segregated South. Nor was she pleased with the conflict that materialized after she reported to duty in 1958. Baker believed that her assertiveness played a part in the tension that defined her working relationship with King, the president, and Ralph Abernathy, the Secretary-Treasurer of the SCLC. Baker moved confidently in this realm; she felt that her voice was equal to theirs. Her grandfather had

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taught her that when he had first set her at the pulpit that was designated for the visiting preacher. Baker had no trouble asserting her thoughts on the direction of the SCLC, as well as other issues. But her influence was limited. There is no denying the fact that in the early days Baker was instrumental in getting SCLC off the ground. The first office was set up in a hotel room. Baker had to make calls on the pay phone outside and trundle to Ebenezer Baptist Church to make copies (after hours). In addition to managing the office as the executive director of SCLC, Baker was also in charge of coordinating registration drives (under the project name of Crusade for Citizenship) across the South. Getting blacks to vote was an imposing task, even for the influential Baker. She had to contend with the reality of white opposition that came in the form of violence and intimidation. Baker’s five-week stint in Shreveport, Louisiana was, despite these hurdles, constructive. She worked long hours helping to coordinate and organize voter registration campaigns. Baker’s other job duties included coordinating conferences, giving speeches, and, as ever, fundraising. It did not take Baker long to realize that the SCLC was not living up to her expectations. For one thing, she was stressed, overworked, and deprived of basic equipment and administrative support that would have alleviated the heavy demands put on her. She was working alone, operating a fast-growing civil rights organization. Like her experiences with the national office of the NAACP, Baker’s repeated requests and recommendations, such as the one for a literacy program, were overlooked. One major disappointment to her was the fact that she and the SCLC leadership had different agendas for the organization. Baker stressed the importance of ‘‘grassroots’’ or community leadership; the SCLC ‘‘‘project[ed] a national leader’’’ (Grant, 121). King was quickly becoming the face of the Civil Rights Movement, overshadowing the importance of the lesser-known or nameless individuals who participated in it. Baker’s personal philosophy on leadership was poles apart from King’s. Baker deliberately stayed out of the limelight and avoided the ever-present media that documented the tumultuous movement. Nonetheless, her name and face were well-known, especially amongst the activists. Baker was also at odds with the leadership over the function of the participants involved in the SCLC. Baker believed that the talents of the youth and of the women’s organizations that took part in the bus boycott could have been better utilized. Baker formally resigned from the SCLC on August 1, 1960. But once again, this did not conclude her involvement with the organization. Before Baker parted ways with the SCLC, she had to deal with a more personal problem. Just as it was becoming clear that the SCLC was not working out, so too was her marriage to Robinson coming to an end. Since Baker traveled so much, often living away from home, she did not let on that there were troubles. One might assume that it was her long stints away from home and her all-consuming preoccupation with one organization or

Ella Baker

another that caused the ultimate dissolution of her marriage, but it was not. Robinson’s depression, triggered by his mother’s death, was purportedly the cause. They divorced in 1959. SIT-IN MOVEMENT On February 1, 1960, four African American college students walked single-file into Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at a lunch counter, and refused to move. This was not the nation’s first sit-in, but it was the first of a wave of demonstrations led by young adults that took place across the South. The NAACP observed these demonstrations with some apprehension and cautioned its own college-aged members not to take part. The SCLC, on the other hand, moved quickly to help galvanize the emergence of this new and exciting potential. When Baker heard about the sit-in in North Carolina, she informed King. But, true to form, these two leaders had different ideas on what relationship should be forged with the young activists. Baker felt that the youth should lead themselves. She wanted the SCLC to provide assistance but to not interfere with the governing of the students. King had wanted to extend an invitation to them to participate in a youth division of the SCLC, and he did so at the special conference, known as the Southwide Student Leadership Conference on Nonviolent Resistance to Segregation, which Baker coordinated in April of 1960. Over 200 students attended. In the end, the students agreed with Baker and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was forged. From this point forward, Baker became the advisor, advocate, consultant, and beloved surrogate mother for the newly formed organization. King also played a critical role in this delicate beginning. Both helped fundraise for the organization and publicly supported and validated it. But Baker’s relationship was much more intimate than King’s. She was, more than likely, one of the few adults allowed to attend SNCC meetings. These youths infused high energy, fresh innovation, and a razor-sharp edge to the Civil Rights Movement. What they lacked in experience and organizational and leadership development, Baker more than made up for with her guidance and instruction. STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE (SNCC) The launching of SNCC was a time of great expectations and exhilarating change. SNCC’s objective was to spark new life, new energy, into the Civil Rights Movement in the form of direct action. Baker once again found herself in the thick of activity, leading the way to challenge the status quo and to improve the dire conditions facing African Americans. That summer, she resigned from the SCLC and looked forward to a new chapter with SNCC.

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SNCC activists conferred the title of ‘‘mother’’ to Baker. And that is what she was. Baker provided instruction on the logistics of how to structure and organize the group; she coordinated training workshops to equip them with the necessary tools to execute their plans—but she did not seek to control or interfere in their decision making or the development of their ideology. Her intent was not to tell the members what to do, but to give them the room to grow as they determined for themselves. A testament to her philosophy: when SNCC members asked Baker to take a leadership position, she turned it down. Baker’s policy of non-interference included periodic calculated interventions. At meetings, Baker withheld her own opinions. But when emotions ran high, or when she observed that the conversation was going nowhere, she gently and unobtrusively helped to alleviate the tension and to stimulate productive conversation. During one particularly intense meeting, Baker broke the tension with one of the most popular freedom songs, ‘‘We Shall Overcome.’’ The song instantly thawed the swelling anger, frustration, and contention that showed itself from time to time. At other times, she conferred with specific individuals and in her subtle way made recommendations and suggestions for the individuals to consider, such as when she prodded a reluctant Charles McDew to become chairman of the organization. In this feminized role, Baker also served as a comforter. When young activists were the target of violent police action, jailed, and oftentimes traumatized or filled with rage, Baker came to their aid and provided them with emotional support and material needs. Hers was a tough love, for when the bruises had healed and the pain had subsided, she encouraged them to get back on their feet and face the struggle once more. In short, Baker’s role was indispensable. When conflict threatened to tear the organization apart, Baker’s serene wisdom saved the day. One of the big issues within SNCC concerned the question of which program to pursue: voter registration or direct action. With Baker, the answer was obvious. Implement both. Thus, the organization formed two separate staffs to handle each area of interest. Through the direct action programs, SNCC activists ‘‘staged sit-ins and stand-ins at lunch counters, bus stations, movie theaters, and other segregated public facilities and mounted support campaigns for protesters who were arrested’’ (Ransby, 263). Education reform was another area in which Baker contributed to SNCC. She had always been committed to education. Protest was, to her, not some spontaneous, thoughtless action, but involved careful training and development. Baker spearheaded workshops and training sessions to equip students with an understanding of the issues facing African Americans, the philosophy of nonviolence, and information on how to organize and implement demonstrations. In 1961 the Civil Rights Movement was full of activity, and SNCC, helped by Baker as a free agent, made seminal contributions. In that year,

Ella Baker

SNCC activists participated in the Freedom Rides. After the fiery confrontation between black militants and whites in Monroe, North Carolina cooled, Baker went there to see what she could do, what comfort she could offer. Baker also attended to the demonstrators who participated in the Albany Movement in Georgia. There were consequences to activism in those days. Some risked their limbs and their lives at the hands of violent and racist whites. Others risked being ostracized from society. One young activist, Brenda Travis, a highschool student, was sent to reform school because of her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. Baker temporarily became a guardian to her, helping her navigate through this difficult period in her life. She sent Travis to a boarding school in North Carolina where she could finish out her education. OTHER ACTIVISM Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) Ella Baker joined the staff of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in 1960—the same year she helped African American students found SNCC. The YWCA gave her an opportunity to further contribute to the growth of SNCC. Baker prodded—sometimes laboriously—young women to join SNCC. One of her main duties was to travel the South, particularly to white colleges and universities, to endorse integrated schools. She found a number of students who were willing to take part in the events of the Civil Rights Movement going on around them, but the pressures from administration, parents, and the prevailing ideas of society deterred them. The Civil Rights Movement was, at the time, not popular with many blacks or whites. The cost of protest was high, and to join in took a great deal of consideration—as well as courage. White students faced dangers similar to those faced by blacks. To the students faced with parental and administration pressures, Baker gently insisted that they should do whatever they could, no matter how small. She was, overall, received well by the white students, just as she won the trust of the African American students of SNCC. Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF) In 1963, Baker became a part-time consultant for the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF). Once again, she found herself in a job that permitted her to devote plenty of time to SNCC, as well as to merge her SNCC work into her new job responsibilities. Back in New York, Baker plunged into fundraising, working alongside the New York Friends of SNCC. In February of 1963, Baker single-handedly organized a benefit concert at

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Carnegie Hall. In attendance were the likes of writer James Baldwin, singer Harry Belafonte, actress Diahann Carroll, singer Nina Simone, actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, jazz musician Thelonius Monk, and the Freedom Singers. Tony Bennett, the famous Italian American jazz singer, was also present. The event raised more than $8,000. Later that year, she established the Fund for Educational and Legal Defense, which provided scholarships to SNCC activists.

Freedom Singers The Freedom Singers was a singing group formed in 1962 to help raise money for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Singing has long been a tradition for African Americans, extending back to Africa. In Africa, singing was a daily event, a part of religious rituals as well as community life. There was a song for every occasion: while working, when a child was born, and when someone died. During good times and bad, singing was an essential part of life. A man from Zambia wrote in an article titled ‘‘Why I Love Africa,’’ ‘‘singing heals us, singing consoles us, singing soothes our souls, and singing generates hope’’ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ africa/4255387.stm). Some African songs were passed on from one generation to another. Others were new or extemporaneous. In America, black slaves continued this tradition. Although some slaves still remembered old African songs, many improvised new songs, the most common being spirituals. During slavery, many of these songs served multiple purposes: for worship and praise, expression of deep weariness and unhappiness, and encouragement to ‘‘keep on keepin’ on.’’ Some songs contained codes to direct black slaves through the Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes from the slave plantations of the South to freedom in the North. The song ‘‘Follow the Drinking Gourd’’ contained within it a map to help escaped slaves get to freedom. Thanks to white and black scholars, a large number of these songs were recorded and preserved in the late nineteenth century. All-black groups such as the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University made those songs popular and helped to raise large amounts of money from whites. Spirituals continued to play an important role during the civil rights struggle. Matriarchs like Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer regularly led activists in rousing songs. Freedom or protest songs were sung during marches and other demonstrations, as well as in jail when activists were arrested. The songs strengthened the hearts of the activists and served as expressions of resistance to racism and inequality. The Freedom Singers spread these songs across the nation and even recorded albums. Some of the songs included ‘‘Oh Freedom (Over Me)’’ and ‘‘This Little Light of Mine.’’

Ella Baker

The SCEF was a civil rights organization, but it comprised an interracial cast of members and its program was based on the struggle for integration. Baker greatly admired the idea that ‘‘the activists were more like-minded, more concerned with people, less hierarchical, and more democratic’’ than those involved with the NAACP and SCLC (Grant, 155). She enjoyed her consulting work, for her main duties were to coordinate educational conferences and workshops, such as the ‘‘Conference on Time for Action in the Mid-South’’ at Virginia State College and a civil liberties conference in Atlanta, Georgia. When violence erupted in the South in 1963, Baker took time away from work to go to the troubled sites. Violence was a constant with protest. White racists, most notoriously the Ku Klux Klan, worked double time to intimidate activists. Shockingly, women, as well as children, often took part. When African Americans rioted in response to bombings in Birmingham, Baker was there. Wherever activists, especially SNCC members, were being attacked, she was there. In 1964, she focused her attention on the Council of Federated Organization’s thrilling new undertaking: the Mississippi Summer Project. Mississippi Freedom Summer Mississippi Freedom Summer was the name of the new civil rights project. It was sponsored by the Council of Federated Organization (COFO), which was formed in 1962 to amalgamate four powerful civil rights organizations: the NAACP, CORE, SCLC, and SNCC. It also assembled a significant number of white and Jewish activists who participated in the Freedom Summer. SNCC, in particular, was not enthusiastic over the idea of including whites. But Baker felt, and told them at meetings, that the time was ripe to be inclusive. Her work with the YWCA and SCEF undoubtedly added to her confidence that an integrated approach to the struggle was the right way to go. The goals of the Mississippi Freedom Summer project were to increase voter registration, to build so-called Freedom Schools, which were raciallyinclusive institutions, and, later, to assist with the efforts of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The MFDP had been established to challenge the all-white and traditionally racially oppressive Democrats. For her part, Baker was member of the Friends of Freedom in Mississippi (along with Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Forman, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Dick Gregory, Ossie Davis, Marlon Brando, and others) and coordinator of the New York Ad Hoc Committee. Mississippi summers sweltered, and this one was no different. Indeed it was, if possible, worse than others. This was because Mississippi, a major hotbed for racist activity and oppression, was especially resistant to protests for change.

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Bayard Rustin (1912–1987) Bayard Rustin was an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement, yet his name was less well-known than many others. One reason for this was because he was openly gay and had been a member of the Young Communist League in 1936 or 1937. For these reasons, Rustin chose to work behind the scenes, where he helped to orchestrate some of the most majestic actions during the first decade of nonviolent struggle. Rustin was born on March 17, 1912, in West Chester, Pennsylvania and was raised by his grandparents. During these formative years, his grandmother made a deep impression on him. She was a radical. Unlike most African Americans, she did not belong to a Baptist church—or any other traditional religion. She was a Quaker. However, she did attend her husband’s African Methodist Episcopal Church. But that church’s history was steeped in a radical tradition: that if we as black people cannot worship with whites on equal terms, we will create our own church. Julia, Rustin’s grandmother, was also a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Rustin attended Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio and Cheyney State Teachers College (now known as Cheyney University of Pennsylvania); she also completed an activist training program facilitated by the American Friends Service Committee. He moved to Harlem in 1937 and joined the Communist Party USA. After the start of World War II, the Communist Party USA was no longer heavily involved in race issues. Rustin moved on to work with A. Philip Randolph on an idea he had to carry out a massive march on Washington to protest racial segregation in the armed forces. However, Randolph canceled the march when President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to issue Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in defense-related jobs. Upset over what he perceived as Randolph’s weakness, Rustin joined other organizations, such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Socialist Party. In 1944, Rustin was sentenced to three years in prison for violating the Secret Service Act by evading the draft. The 1950s saw the beginning of Rustin’s involvement in the modern Civil Rights Movement. He advised Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama in 1955. He helped coordinate the Freedom Rides in 1961 (he had also the precursor to the Freedom Rides, the Journey of Reconciliation, back in 1942). With Randolph, he helped coordinate the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 and other demonstrations. Rustin continued to fight for human rights throughout the 1970s and 1980s until his death on August 24, 1987.

Ella Baker

What the Mississippi Freedom Summer demanded was an upheaval of a long and seemingly impenetrable tradition of white supremacy. By exerting their potential political power through the right to vote, African Americans—a large portion of the South’s population—presented a very real threat to white dominance and discriminatory laws. In response to this agitation, racist whites were ruthless: they started fires and bombed homes. What received the most attention was the abduction of three volunteers: James Chaney (a black), and Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman (both Jewish) on June 21, 1964. All three were found dead. Baker’s most significant contribution to the freedom summer project was her work with the MFDP. In 1964, she was in charge of the MFDP offices in Atlantic City, New Jersey and in Washington, D.C. She gave a forceful speech at the August state convention in Jackson, Mississippi. Her speech was followed by thunderous applause and the singing of the emotive protest song ‘‘Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round,’’ as well as marching and more singing. Later, Baker made presentations and sent off letters to galvanize support for the party. When the MFDP delegates—mostly black—arrived at the 1964 Democratic Party National Convention in New Jersey, the delegates were bombarded with setbacks. President Lyndon B. Johnson was one of their biggest detractors. The future of his presidential career was at stake. Although blacks and supporters of civil rights rejoiced over the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, his enemies seethed. And some of them at the convention were threatening to stage their own demonstration of protest—a walkout. President Johnson did not hold back in trying to impede the MFDP— pressuring King and other civil rights leaders, putting delegates under surveillance, and even trying to divert attention away from the televised testimonials presented before the Credentials Committee by African Americans who had experienced tragedy when trying to register to vote. Fannie Lou Hamer, a friend of Baker’s and a key player in SNCC, was the star of the show during the testimonials. Her horrific tale of losing her job and being evicted from her home some eight years earlier, and the painful and humiliating abuse she had experienced while jailed at the Montgomery County jail in Winona, Mississippi, brought tears to her audience. Later, Hamer would help energize the activists at the convention with freedom songs. In the end, the delegates were forced to accept a compromise: they were allowed only two non-voting delegates to be seated at the convention, while the remaining seats remained in the control of the regular Mississippi delegates. Baker was disappointed by the outcome, but she was realistic. ‘‘‘If a vote is likely to go against the powers that be,’ she asserted, ‘they try to find ways of keeping that thing from coming to a vote’’’ (Grant, 177). That was the way of the South.

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SNCC AND THE NEW PROGRAM OF MILITANCY During one heated moment at a SNCC meeting on February 23, 1965, as the debate over the direction of the organization raged, Baker pacified the group by singing ‘‘We Shall Overcome.’’ Shortly thereafter, all the voices in the room rose together to join hers. But after losing at the Democratic convention, many of the SNCC activists were becoming increasingly disillusioned. Circumstances made the philosophy of non-violence a lot less palatable to them: the violence perpetrated against them, for one thing, and impatience with such organizations as the NAACP and SCLC for another. There were members who felt that SNCC should be black-run with black members only and that the murder of whites was getting more attention and sympathy than the deaths of countless blacks. The murder of white activist minister Jonathan Reeb upstaged that of black activist Jimmy Lee Jackson during the Selma to Montgomery marches. When frustrations got the better of James Forman at the Montgomery state capital building, he appealed to demonstrators to resort to violence if their remonstrations were not addressed. The official transformation to military and black separatist philosophy was sealed when Stokely Carmichael gave his ‘‘Black Power’’ speech in 1966 in Greenwood, Mississippi. During this transformation, Baker kept a typically low profile. She balanced her duties and kept pace with the changes that were emerging within SNCC. Back in New York, she continued to focus her efforts on voter registration and the MFDP. She contained to speak throughout the South, and joined a new organization, the Charter Group for a Pledge of Conscience. She reacquainted herself with Parents in Action and was a paid consultant to the executive council of the Episcopal Church. She also attended SNCC meetings. At a 1966 SNCC staff meeting in Tennessee, Carmichael was elected chair, ushering in a new era of militancy and black separatism for SNCC. Baker’s response, given her integrationist stance, must have startled some: she defended the organization’s ideological shift. From the start, Baker’s approach with SNCC had been to support it, not to promote her own agenda—or anyone else’s for that matter—although her advice carried significant weight with SNCC leaders. She nurtured their independence, even if it meant a radical stance. She ‘‘patiently explained to white supporters that this was a step that the young people needed to take … she firmly maintained that the youngsters must be allowed to make their own decisions, make their own mistakes.… she believed that the stance was a temporary one and never abandoned her own allegiance to a unified fight—black and white together’’ (Grant, 196). Though she never shared the fervor for black separatism, she understood it. When SNCC ousted all of its white members and staff workers and withdrew from the Civil Rights Leadership Conference in 1968, there was no turning back. By the 1970s, the group had lost all the ground it had won.

Ella Baker

Baker remained with the group until 1968. In the end, she saw the struggle for freedom, which the Civil Rights Movement embodied, as one that would benefit all people. In a 1964 speech, Baker told attendees at a meeting in Hattiesburg, Mississippi that the fight they should take part in was ‘‘not of Negroes, not of the Negroes of Mississippi, but for the freedom of the American spirit, for the freedom of the human spirit’’ (Grant, 225).

THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT AND BEYOND During the Black Power Movement, with its Afrocentric salutes and dashikis, Baker continued to forge her own trail. In this period, from the late 1960s through the 1970s, Baker remained a pivotal figure, performing the same types of protest work she had in the past as well as taking on new, more expansive responsibilities. Among the list of her affiliations were (once again) the NAACP; the movement to free Angela Davis; the Mass Organizing Party; the Jeannette Rankin Brigade (to address poverty and racism); prison reform, the campaign to free the Harlem Five; the Coalition of Concerned Black Americans and the Independent Black Voters’ League; the women’s movement for peace; and the Puerto Rican Solidarity Movement. Needless to say, Baker always gave of her time to talk with individuals with questions about the Civil Rights Movement. In 1975, Baker celebrated her seventy-fifth birthday at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace in New York City. Joanne Grant, a former member of SNCC, produced and directed Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker between 1979 and 1981. By this time Baker was showing signs of senility. She had difficulty remembering experiences and required a tremendous amount of caretaking. In 1981, Baker sat beside Grant during the premiere of the award-winning documentary. She was still trim and dressed in her signature hat and neat dress. Her face showed her age, but intelligence and wisdom were still indelibly etched there. Here was a woman who had no children of her own, but who had adopted thousands in her pursuit for civil rights. Here was a woman who could not be defined by one action or one organization. She had always affiliated herself with multiple groups, some simultaneously. She had lent herself generously to any agency that shared her quest for rights for African Americans—for all marginalized people. Baker died on her eighty-third birthday in 1986. Her funeral was attended by the individuals who represented her multifaceted connections: ‘‘integrationists, ministers, socialists, black Muslims, black revolutionaries, and ordinary folk’’ (Grant, 226). Although this woman had shunned the spotlight all her life, she was deeply respected and celebrated by many. See also Stokely Carmichael; W.E.B. Du Bois; Fannie Lou Hamer; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Thurgood Marshall; Rosa Parks; A. Philip Randolph; and Roy Wilkins.

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FURTHER RESOURCES Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and Franklin, V.P., eds. Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Crawford, Vicki L., Rouse, Jacqueline Anne, and Woods, Barbara, eds. Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Ellabakercenter.org. Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (November 2007). See http://ellabakercenter.org/page.php?pageid=1. Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker. Directed by Joanne S. Grant. Los Angeles: New Day Films, 1981. Grant, Joanne. Ella Baker: Freedom Bound. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

David Fenton/Getty Images

Elaine Brown (1943– )

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Elaine Brown was the chairperson and minister of defense of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense between 1974 and 1977. Elaine Brown grew up in the low-income, gang-ridden neighborhoods of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the 1940s and 1950s. She was raised by a doting single mom but had a troublous relationship with her biological father, a middle-class professional. She had street smarts and could talk fast and rough when she had to. In her teens, she acclimated herself to the culture and speech patterns of the prestigious, predominately white, private school (the Philadelphia High School for Girls) she attended. But in her home neighborhood, Elaine Brown was one of the girls. She navigated between these two very different worlds with agility, and when she grew up, her experiences would serve her well. Timid was not a word that was ever associated with Elaine Brown. Some called her ruthless; others called her crazy. In a speech in 2007 at a feminist convention, to explain her rise to power in the Black Panther Party she referred to herself as the baddest sister in Oakland, California. She was— and still is—an alluring beauty, with light brown skin with reddish hues and a slightly aquiline nose. When she wore her hair in an afro—a plume of soft curls—she looked like the heroine of a 1970s classic. The Gatling-gun style of speech she used when she needed to get a message across or wanted to be taken seriously had a chilling and unnerving effect on her listeners. Her eloquence, effectiveness, and reputation made her a prime candidate for the highest position—minister of defense—in the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, one of the most powerful militant organizations in the 1960s and 1970s. She was the first and only woman of the original Black Panthers to hold that position. It was bestowed upon her by the co-founder of the organization, Huey P. Newton, following his exile to Cuba to avoid charges that had been lodged against him in America. Bobby Seale, the other cofounder, would have made a more logical choice, but, according to Brown, Seale had been expelled from the organization over a disagreement with Newton. Newton had been the leader of the organization since its inception in 1966. In many ways, Brown was like Newton, except she was extroverted, less theoretically minded, and more hands-on. Newton kept in touch with her while he was in Cuba, but it was Brown who carried out the daily tasks of the organization. She also coordinated the expansion of its programs, spearheaded its influence in local politics, placed women in top positions, and made a name for herself. Notwithstanding her many contributions, her methods were sometimes considered controversial. Like Newton, Brown used violence and believed that it was justified and empowering. Accusations of violence, threats, and criminal activity for which there is some factual evidence (including confessions Brown made in her autobiography, A Taste of Power [1992]) made her more of an antihero than a hero. Conflict within the organization escalated when Newton returned to America to resume his position as minister of defense. Brown, uncertain of

Elaine Brown

what her role would be upon his return, chose, in 1977, to decamp with her daughter Ericka Suzanne Brown to France rather than face Newton’s unpredictable bursts of rage. They lived in France until 1996, when Brown and her daughter moved to Atlanta, Georgia (Newton had been shot and killed by a drug dealer in 1989). Since then, Brown has run for various political positions as a Green Party candidate and continues to lecture, speaking about her experiences with the Black Panther Party and her ongoing pursuit of liberation for the oppressed.

CHILDHOOD Elaine Brown, who was born on March 2, 1943, was morbidly afraid of the dark. When she had her nightly anxiety attacks, her mother Dorothy would turn on the lights and hold her until she fell asleep. There were other things that bothered her, too. The inner-city neighborhood on York Street in North Philadelphia where she lived terrified her. North Philadelphia was known for gang activity and violence, filthy air, and streets littered with trash. In the home that she shared with her mother, her aunt, and her grandparents, there were reminders everywhere of the oppressive want. Mice scurried through the house at night. Poverty was no stranger to her mother and her grandparents. Dorothy told her daughter regularly about the despair into which she had been born. Her family was so poor she could not often afford to buy shoes, so she fastened cardboard to the bottoms of her shoes with safety pins. Although Dorothy worked hard at the factory, where she pressed and packaged girl’s dresses too luxurious for her to afford, she stole one every now and then for Elaine to wear. Dorothy tried to change their luck by playing the numbers, a form of illegal gambling, but her efforts were in vain. Dorothy was fiercely proud, as well as stoic. She rarely cried and felt that ‘‘tenderness and open affection were phoniness … displays put on by upper-crust Negroes and white people’’ (Brown, 47). Elaine grew up keenly aware of the distinction between rich and poor, between whites and blacks. One of the main lessons she learned was that wealth and whiteness were associated with everything good, whereas poverty and blackness were associated with everything bad. She also learned, and this from her mother, that anything associated with blackness was inferior, whereas whiteness was superior. This notion had been established long ago, sustained during five hundred years of slave-based economy in the South, and still formed the thinking patterns of many blacks and whites in her Philadelphia environment. Dorothy would say that Elaine’s hair was a good grade because it was straight and not nappy. Elaine’s classmates would tell her the same thing, and tell her how her features were like a white person’s as a way of paying her a compliment. The reason that Elaine had light skin, white features,

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and straight hair was because her grandfather was half Native American and her grandmother’s mother had been raped by a white man. So many activities and mannerisms in Elaine’s environment were classified as either white or black. The middle- and upper-class blacks behaved in ways and participated in activities that were attributed to whiteness. Elaine too had engaged in activities that she classified as ‘‘white.’’ She took ballet classes. Once a month, her mother took her to piano lessons, and even purchased a piano for Elaine to practice on. Elaine liked to go to the affluent black neighborhood where she received her piano instruction. It felt different. It looked better than York Street, and there she was not afraid. But the middle-class girls did not accept her, because they knew that she was poor. Elaine was embarrassed when she went to one girl’s home to eat dinner and the girl’s mother ridiculed her for the way she was eating. Elaine would not let that happen again. She got a book on etiquette and taught herself how to eat properly. Like any mother, Dorothy wanted the best for her daughter, so she tried to enroll Elaine in the best school possible. Thaddeus Stevens School of Practice, a predominately white school, was difficult for anyone—white or black—to get into. There was a four-year waiting list, but Dorothy did everything in her power to make it possible for Elaine to be accepted, collecting recommendations, making phone calls, and attending school board meetings. When Elaine entered kindergarten class at Thaddeus Stevens, she realized quickly that she did not fit in. For one thing, the songs were bright and sweet, unlike the sing-song rhymes, often laced with expletives, that she and her friends at home sang as they clapped their hands, stamped their feet, or jumped double-dutch. (Elaine and her friends from the block did not realize that the origins of those childhood games were buried in distant Africa.) Another difference was that the Thaddeus Stevens kids brought their lunch in brand-new brown bags, while Elaine used reused soiled bags from a corner store. But she eventually found a way to assimilate. Stevens was situated in a good neighborhood, and she was happier there than on her home street. By second grade, Elaine was catching on. Making friends and remaking herself were the essential elements of fitting into the white culture and escaping the despair of her home. In the second grade, Elaine made friends with a Jewish girl. She went home with her almost daily, learning a lot about the Jewish culture in the process. ‘‘Eventually,’’ she wrote ‘‘I discovered that my ultimate disguise could be manipulated through words, their words in their voices. I listened to them, paid attention to their grammar, their syntax, their cadence. I learned to speak exactly like white people, learned to enunciate their language, to say ‘these and not ‘dese,’ and ‘he’ll be going’ rather than ‘he be goin’’’ (Brown, 31). Elaine paid just as much attention to the culture and customs of the ghetto. But she compartmentalized both worlds, not letting either one know about

Elaine Brown

the other. Toughness was a virtue in North Philly. She and her black friends, Nita and Barbara, would march around the neighborhood, chanting ‘‘We are rough! We are tough! We are the girls who don’t take no stuff!’’ (Brown, 34). If confronted, Elaine could posture as well as the best of them. Elaine was in her early teens when her mother managed to save enough money to buy a nearby apartment in the projects in North Philadelphia; despite this change, life continued to be permeated by poverty and gang culture. Elaine invited kids she called ‘‘youngbloods,’’ young gang members whose territory included 21st and York Streets, to her thirteenth birthday party. While her mom was away, the youths smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, and danced extremely close. Shortly thereafter, one of Elaine’s friends told her that she was pregnant. The father was a member of a gang. The couple married, and she dropped out of junior high school. Elaine did not join a gang, but she understood gang rules, and she knew that gangs comprised mostly males. A girl was associated with a gang only if she was especially tough, or was the girlfriend of one of the gang members, or performed some auxiliary function. She knew of one girl gang, which targeted girls who had long hair and money. Gangs had rules that the members followed without question. The sense of belonging, the solidarity, and the crimes they committed (such as damaging property, writing graffiti, and stealing) were, Brown believed, a product of living in oppression and poverty. Elaine did not know her biological father. She did not even know his name until one day, while attending Cooke Junior High, she found her mother crying. Her mother told her the whole story of how she had fallen in love with her biological father, only to be told that he had a wife. He and his wife adopted a child after Elaine’s mother told him she was pregnant. Although her father, Horace Scott, was a neurosurgeon and a man of means, he was not financially supportive. He lived in an affluent neighborhood on Lincoln Drive in the neighborhood known as Germantown in Northwest Philadelphia. During this period, Brown and her mother moved to Tioga. There was not a lot to do in the new neighborhood. It was a little quieter there than either of her former homes, but she was further away from her old friends. Elaine spent a lot of time at home, making up songs and pretending to be a movie star. Some time, in Brown’s early years at the elite Philadelphia High School for Girls, she saw her father for the first time on a poster in the city. He was running for Congress on the Republican ticket. In her sophomore year, Brown met him. Upon their first meeting, her father told her how proud of her he was. She was a good student, though perhaps feisty-tongued with her teachers. In the classroom, Brown took on airs, emulating the behavior of the privileged white students. But Brown’s good start with her father ended as abruptly as it had begun, when her mother had her ask him for $10 to

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buy food one day. Scott got angry. Brown fired back at him and stormed out of his office. While in high school, Brown spent a lot of time in Germantown, which was a middle-class black neighborhood. She dated Frank Constant, who lived in Germantown, until he went away to college. She later dated Bob Ludwig, who was Jewish, until he broke up with her because his mother threatened to disinherit him if he continued to date an African American. Brown was devastated. One night she was beaten up by six or seven youngbloods who stopped her and her friends while they were on their way to a party in Germantown. Brown was unchallenged by high school. She was also bored with Temple University, where she enrolled in 1961 ‘‘because there was nothing else to do’’ (Brown, 67). Other young women were going on to college or university, or getting married. During her brief time at college, she liked to go to coffee houses, where poetry readings were quite popular. In addition to singing, Brown liked to compose songs and poems. She wrote a number of songs about lost love. The days of her young life seemed to pass uneventfully, except for the close friendship she formed with a classmate named Billy James. They were considered the best dressers, the best dancers, and the most popular at the university. They drew people to them like magnets. And yet Brown was unhappy, even more so when Bob Ludwig returned to her life and then went back out of it again because she would not commit to him. She couldn’t do it, because she was hurt by his original rejection of her because of her race.

BROWN GOES WEST After quitting school in 1961 and spending a few spiritless years working in an office, Brown left Philadelphia bound for California. She arrived in April 1965 with $300 in her purse. She told others that she was headed for California to pursue a songwriting career, though this was not entirely true. Brown felt isolated in Philadelphia. Historically, California was a symbol of opportunity, of freedom, and of a new life. And in California, Brown would, in fact, make a new life for herself, one that would bring her face to face with her racial identity and the Black Power Movement. Brown’s $300 did not last long. After a few weeks, she anxiously began to look for work. When she could no longer afford her apartment in Hollywood, she made friends with a hippie who offered her a room in his home. She sold books door-to-door and pawned the jewelry that had been gifted her in Philadelphia. Living with a hippie who was perpetually ‘‘tripping’’ on psychedelic drugs became unbearable. Brown took a job as a cocktail waitress in an adult club. It was while working in that club that she met Jack Kennedy.

Elaine Brown

Jack Kennedy and Elaine Brown had little in common. Jack Kennedy was fifty-five years old, white, an accomplished writer, married, and a communist. Brown was just twenty-two, black, single, and she knew nothing about communism. But neither had a moral objection to entering into a relationship. Kennedy played a major role in Brown’s metamorphosis, supplying the basis of Brown’s early understanding of black consciousness and African American protest. During one of their first conversations, Kennedy told Brown that he had helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Brown did not know much about the march. Because the Civil Rights Movement was at that time waged largely in the South, directed against conspicuous laws and lawlessness, the struggle did not feel relevant to her. But through Kennedy Brown’s interest was piqued, and her understanding of philosophy, prominent African American figures and writers, and terms such as nonviolence and activism would blossom. She consumed the books he gave her to read with genuine enthusiasm. Although her mother had moved to California to be with her daughter, Brown’s relationship with the married Kennedy created a wedge between them. A woman named Beverlee Bruce, another African American who lived in the predominately white apartment building where Brown lived, introduced Brown to the Black Power Movement in Los Angeles. Bruce wore an afro and was a graduate student in the master’s of education program at UCLA. She gave Brown a proponent’s perspective of the movement, and something else Brown dearly desired: friendship. Philosophically, Bruce and Kennedy were in different camps. Bruce asserted that nonviolence was no longer relevant. Self-defense was, in some situations, a necessity, particularly in the impoverished black communities where police brutality was notorious. She talked excitedly about H. Rapp Brown and Stokely Carmichael, two major figures who had helped herald in the movement of black pride and militancy. Brown listened, but she was not yet convinced. The young girls to whom she taught piano in the Watts projects, two summers after the infamous riot, forced Brown to reconsider her detachment. She became involved when Bruce, knowing Brown loved to sing and play the piano and could do both well, asked her to volunteer. Brown agreed to help out, largely because Kennedy was out of town; it would be something to do. But coming into the Jordan Downs Housing Projects sent a rush of emotion over her. She had once been one of them. The fancy clothes she wore, and the shimmering hair piece, could not change that. Brown was forced to realize how deeply she was entangled in a milieu of poverty, isolation, and hopelessness. Shortly thereafter, Brown met a member of the executive committee of the Black Congress while giving piano lessons at Jordan Downs and was invited to a meeting.

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EXPLORATION Black Congress Part of the attraction of joining the Black Congress, a conglomerate of local black-power organizations, was that it presented an opportunity to belong to a community that shared a common identity and the goal of improving the situation for impoverished blacks. That black identity was center stage was a particular benefit, since Brown had finally come to realize that blackness was not ‘‘wrong’’ or ‘‘inferior.’’ Being surrounded by positive black men and women, who were proud and confident within themselves, made it easy to become enamored with what she had once viewed with shame. There was much to learn in this new environment. There were terms and a philosophy with which she had to become familiar. This was especially critical since Brown was one of two individuals assigned to write the Black Congress’ organ, Harambee, which in Swahili means ‘‘pulling together.’’ Brown grew comfortable with most aspects of the Black Power philosophy. At the core of most black power organizations was the endorsement of a militant, pro-black response to the issues that African Americans faced in the North. Even in this, there were philosophical differences. Some Black Power proponents advocated black separatism, black nationalism, or some combination of the two. Others desired to see black involvement in mainstream society, but not at the cost of washing out one’s cultural identity. For that reason, some saw King’s push for integration in the South as problematic, especially considering racial pride was not a part of his rhetoric. The agenda for some Black Power proponents included putting blacks in powerful, decision-making positions, thus exhibiting clear, unquestionable loyalty to the black community. In the North, despite the absence of Jim Crow laws, blacks were not adequately represented in most social, economic, or political spheres. As a result, blacks received little if any attention, as their problems, such as poverty, joblessness, and inadequate resources in health care and education, mounted. The Black Power groups sought to address these issues in a grassroots manner, as well as issues beyond the reach of the community. Other issues, such as racism and discrimination, contributed greatly to the economic immobility of blacks and made blacks vulnerable to police abuse and harassment. To address the problem of police brutality, Black Power proponents endorsed the right to carry arms and did so, nervily, in public. This practice gave militant blacks a bad name, though in actuality the gun was a pragmatic response to police violence, and served to symbolically empower African Americans—for themselves and others in their community. Historically, blacks endured abuses of all sorts quietly. Passivity was a coping mechanism utilized to survive the perils of living under oppression. The Civil Rights Movement, prior to the advent of the militant approach, was based on nonviolent, passive resistance. Black Power was a coming out

Elaine Brown

for blacks, not just with regard to militancy, but to racial pride as well. Both served to empower blacks. At the same time, the visibility of the gun and the Afrocentric trappings bewildered many whites, as well as some oldschool blacks. Brown liked the fact that the Black Power Movement played an essential role in the Civil Rights Movement. But most people did not see it that way. Black Power felt so different than the approach of the African American leaders the media adored, like Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the SCLC. The fact that many Black Power proponents refused to work with whites and even based their ideologies on racial hatred made their struggle appear suspect. Some Black Power groups did not characterize all whites as victimizers. They were less culturalists than activists seeking to ameliorate a bad situation. The activism of the militant struggle in the Civil Rights Movement included some boycotting and marching. Rallies played a greater role. Brown attended numerous rallies while a member of the Black Congress. At one rally, she met Angela Davis. This was prior to the high-profile media frenzy that was caused when Davis was fired from her teaching position at the University of California, Los Angeles for being a communist. Davis was one of very few women Brown met who played a part in local Black Power activities. The rallies energized Brown, but there were other aspects of the Black Power Movement that Brown did not like. Ron Karenga was the leader of the black culturalist organization US in 1965. Brown felt that Karenga was more concerned about maintaining his personal control over individuals than working together on behalf of the community. Brown also opposed the gender rules supported by all the men and most of the few women who participated. At a house party, Brown, in what would become her trademark feistiness, objected when told by one woman that the men, referring to them as ‘‘warriors,’’ were to eat before the women. Brown retorted by stating the following: ‘‘Excuse me, Sister. Nobody said anything about ‘our warriors’ when money was changing hands. I want my food now’’ (Brown, 109). Brown also was resistant to having to serve the men while they sat and talked amongst themselves, and to cleaning up after them.

Black Student Alliance The people with whom Brown was most impressed were those who were not power-hungry and those who were well-informed, smart, enthusiastic, driven, and (if they happened to be male) less sexist than most. Harry Truly was one of these men who translated his ideas to reality. Truly established the Black Student Alliance to mobilize the potential of the black student unions. When she heard him speak, Brown was won over before he finished. She volunteered, though it added to a list of responsibilities that already

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included a day job working in an office at UCLA and her work on the Harambee. Truly then appointed her Alliance representative to the executive committee of the Black Congress. There were a dozen other representatives, but only one other woman. During meetings, Brown’s less-than-complimentary opinion of Karenga worsened. She and a friend shared a secret: they liked to make fun of ‘‘his effeminate voice or his squatty body or his tiny hands,’’ and they snickered at him whenever the chance presented itself (Brown, 116). At one executive meeting, she challenged him openly. A member of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense visited one of the executive committee meetings and requested their support for the minister of defense of his organization, Huey P. Newton, who faced charges for, among other things, allegedly shooting and killing an officer. Karenga, the chair of the community, began to tell the Black Panther that he was not on the current agenda and would have to be placed on the agenda to speak. Before the Panther could respond, Brown interjected, ‘‘Well, I’d like to hear the rest of what this Brother has to say’’ (Brown, 114). Karenga initiated a voting process. Only two individuals voted to permit Earl to speak. When Brown voted against Karenga, she undoubtedly reveled in it. Because the vote had to be unanimous, the Panther was allowed to speak. That was the first time Brown acknowledged seeing a Black Panther in person. She was enchanted. Of the numerous Black Power organizations, the Black Panther organization was the only one known to have backed its talk with real action. Word was out about the patrols that the Panthers staged, about how they toted guns, observing white officers as they interacted with blacks in the community. Brown was impressed by this, as well as by the appearance of the Panther: he wore a cool black leather jacket, a powder-blue shirt, and a beret. Most organizations wore African garb. Brown detested having to wear African dress when occasions called her to dress in that fashion. She liked the urban look that seemed more relevant to her than nostalgic ethnic clothes. When Bunchy Carter announced that he was starting a Black Panther chapter in Los Angeles at a poetry reading sponsored by the Alliance, he got Brown’s attention. Carter was different than the others. Brown perceived that Carter, like many of the males involved in Black Power organizations, was an ex-convict and a former gang member. He came across as someone with confidence. And he treated women with respect and acknowledged their important contributions. When, at this same poetry reading, Carter brandished a poster of Huey P. Newton, the audience took note. Newton looked princely sitting in a rattan chair, wearing the Panther uniform, with a spear in one hand and a rifle in the other. When Carter declared that this was the movement’s leader, there was excitement and tension in the room, particularly from those who knew Karenga would not accept challenge gracefully.

Elaine Brown

Beret A beret is a soft, round cap that fits on the crown of the head and is often worn at a slant. Members of the Black Panther Party, both men and women, wore berets to complete their uniforms, which included leather jackets, powder-blue shirts, and black slacks. The women sometimes wore mini-skirts. The black children who attended the Black Panther Liberation schools wore berets with their white tops and black bottoms. Bobby Seale, cofounder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, devised the uniform for the adults when he saw Huey P. Newton (the other founding member and leader of the organization) wearing a similar outfit. He devised the color scheme (black and blue) to symbolize the term ‘‘black and blue,’’ which is used to describe a physical bruise. Seale reasoned that since blacks had been historically abused and oppressed, the symbolism was apt. The idea for the beret came from the French underground in World War II (1941–1945), knows as ‘‘the resistance,’’ which he learned about by watching war movies. Though the French originated the military beret, it became common in many countries for various reasons. One of Newton’s heroes, Ernesto ‘‘Che’’ Guevara, an Argentine Marxist revolutionist who launched a guerrilla campaign to oust Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, wore a beret. In some countries, like America, only elite military forces wore berets, which were color-coded to signify a specific branch or special unit, such as the famous Green Berets. Individuals wear berets for various reasons. Historically, berets have been worn by those who want to disassociate themselves from mainstream society. Examples include the beatniks of the 1940s, or those who wish to imply an artistic, literary, or scholarly aptitude. The Black Panthers wore berets to heighten their visual impact on the black community, as well as to make clear the paramilitary nature of the organization. The leather jackets and black pants added to the aesthetic of ‘‘cool,’’ which was valued in the community and served to garner respect and increase the awe factor in the black community.

Black Panther Party Brown did not immediately join the Panthers, even though she was charmed by Carter and the potent reputation of the organization. She attended a rally on February 17, 1968, Huey P. Newton’s birthday, to raise money for Newton’s trial. In attendance were the prominent Black Power proponents: Stokely Carmichael, James Forman, Ron Karenga, H. Rap Brown, and Bunchy Carter. Not among the A-list speakers was Harry Truly, who had

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actually left the movement, leaving Brown, temporarily, without her connection to the group. It did not take Brown long to make her way to the Black Congress building, where the Black Panthers had rented office space in April 1968. It was a difficult time. Earlier that month, Dr. King had been assassinated. Riots ensued in response to his murder. On April 6, a teenaged Panther named Bobby Hutton was killed during a shootout with Oakland police. Ericka Huggins, who greeted Brown at the office, was intelligent and inviting. She spoke with Brown and asked her to come to the next membership meeting. Initiation into the Black Panther Party was not like anything Brown had experienced. There were disciplinary rules to learn, a Black Panther Party ten-point platform and program to memorize, and volumes of reading. New Panther recruits were also required to take political education classes, to learn how to use weapons, and to be able to administer emergency medical aid. Brown learned early on that the Panthers meant business. As riots raged in black communities throughout the nation’s cities, the Panthers were actively involved, as Brown put it, trying ‘‘to maintain calm in the community or to direct the madness’’ (Brown, 133). Nor was their toil restricted to black issues. The Panthers formed coalitions with other ethnic groups and whites. The essence of their ideology was liberation for all marginalized and oppressed people. With regard to women, Brown and the others were expected to tote guns, go on patrols, and contribute, in other ways, equally to the movement. This was a groundbreaking approach, but it was not always so eloquently executed by all the male members. Problems between the US organization and Black Panthers quickly arose. Karenga was not happy that Carter and the Panthers had come to town. It was like Karenga was a gang leader and Carter a rival gang leader invading his territory, and Karenga was not keen on sharing. Exacerbating tensions was the fact that the two organizations clashed ideologically. Karenga was a cultural nationalist, and he based his program on a cultural identity and on putting down whites. Karenga’s group criticized the Panthers for being racially lax, because they did not obligate their members to wear Afrocentric dress and take homeland names. The Panthers were known to make fun of Karenga’s group as well. Bunchy Carter reprimanded the Panthers when some in Karenga’s group threatened his life because a poster bearing Karenga’s face had been defaced. Carter reprimanded his chapter, telling them that ‘‘the black man is never our enemy’’ (Brown, 144), and he issued an executive order saying that he would discipline anyone found out to ‘‘behave antagonistically toward another black person or black organization’’ (Brown, 144). That reprimand had a sobering effect on Brown. She was unnerved by Carter’s warning and the subsequent confrontation between Carter and

Elaine Brown

some of the Panthers who had chased down a suspicious car and pounced upon the unknown passenger. The stress of this event, compounded by her rigorous schedule, unnerved her. The spells that she had experienced while a child, which were triggered by being in the dark, came over her even when she was dating Jack Kennedy. This time, her panic propelled her to seek out a professional, who prescribed Thorazine to Brown. But this only transferred one set of problems for another. The Thorazine plunged Brown into a prolonged stupor. She stopped going to Black Panther meetings and took a job at a coffee house. John Huggins, Ericka’s husband, found out where Brown worked and visited her almost daily. Huggins talked to her and encouraged her to get off the Thorazine. When he asked her to return to the Panthers, she simply replied, ‘‘Can’t, Johnny. Scared Panthers. Guns’’ (Brown, 152). But Brown did return, and eventually she stopped taking the medicine the doctor had prescribed to her. In 1968, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, announced a directive to obliterate the Black Panther Party. COINTELPRO, an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program, was the weapon with which Hoover waged his war against the Panthers. COINTELPRO engaged in arrests, infiltration, beatings, and raids on the homes and offices utilized by Panthers. Some thought the COINTELPRO was simply a conspiracy theory. But the program was real and had previously been implemented against various organizations, like the Ku Klux Klan, and individuals, like Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Brown and the other Panthers had to face the gritty reality of the COINTELPRO attack, and the daily series of arrests, beatings, and raids. The tumult affected Brown, but she held on and did not recoil as she had before. The financial strain of securing bail money and rebuilding after raids nearly destroyed the Los Angeles chapter. On January 17, 1969, the L.A. Panthers lost more than their property and their freedom. Brown was there when, following a Black Student Union (BSU) meeting at UCLA, violence erupted, suddenly, and without warning. Karenga and US, the Panthers, and the BSU had called the meeting to discuss the role of students in the Black Power movement. Essentially, the BSU wanted to inform Karenga that they did not want to be a part of his Black Power program. Before the meeting, Brown had given Bunchy Carter, whom she idolized, a poem she had written for him. Brown still wrote poetry, though she restricted her topic to her favorite Panthers and their struggle. Bunchy was impressed by the poem. He always acknowledged Brown and her talents, and her importance to the organization. After the meeting, Carter saw one of Karenga’s men threatening Brown because of something she had said, though Brown would not tell Carter what he had said. Carter reproved her, telling her ‘‘As long as you live, don’t let another nigger talk crazy to you or put his hand on you’’ (Brown, 165).

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Minutes later, as the attendees were departing the campus building, Karenga’s men shot and killed Carter and John Huggins. The rivalry had turned deadly. Police rounded up Brown and several other Panthers, arrested them, and charged them with conspiracy. Brown believed that they did this to prevent them from retaliating against Karenga’s group. Brown and the other women were sent to Sybil Brand Institute. Brown’s mother raised her daughter’s $600 bail. In her anguish and anger, Brown turned to Jack Kennedy. Brown had not seen Kennedy for some two years. Kennedy was supportive, and he agreed to help the Panthers secure legal defense and help in the reconstruction of the organization. The legal defense program was indispensable, though the attorneys who provided assistance were white. The few black attorneys in the area, Brown contended, were too afraid to help them. In the months following Brown’s release, the Panthers focused on regrouping themselves, raising awareness, and implementing an unprecedented campaign to provide aid to the community. Party newspapers were sold, rallies protesting police brutality were staged, and leaflets were distributed throughout the black neighborhoods. The Black Panthers enlisted support from whites, such as Hollywood celebrities. With the money they raised, weapons were purchased and community programs were financed. They established a free-breakfast program, a free clinic, and a busing-toprisoners program that provided free transportation to people in the community who wanted to visit their imprisoned friends and family. The Panthers waged another, less visible, campaign during this period, one that underscored the militant character of the Panther organization. Brown admitted that some of the weapons the Panthers accumulated were stolen. The fact that the Panthers were a paramilitary organization was no secret. The Panthers were highly organized, disciplined, and well-trained in the use of weaponry and guerrilla warfare. The had a training base in the Mojave Desert. Their rigorous training was directed at confrontations with Us and defense against the police, and the Panthers engaged in several skirmishes with Us during this time. Homes and facilities were targeted on both sides. Brown attended the funeral for Carter in Oakland, the birthplace of the Panthers. Brown was featured at the gathering, singing several songs she had written. The song she wrote for Eldridge Cleaver, called ‘‘The Meeting,’’ was made the Black Panther’s anthem. All Panthers had to memorize it. On the recording that was made, Brown’s voice comes through with a clear, forceful, folksy quality. Following the memorial, the Panthers retired for an intimate gathering at the local chapter. Brown was again put off when she realized she was expected to help in the kitchen. She complained loudly as she ‘‘banged dishes into soapy water in the sink’’ (Brown, 191). When Brown returned to L.A. and told the

Elaine Brown

other women what had happened, they were startled. Like Brown, they were adamantly opposed to the sexist treatment of women in their own chapter. Brown explained their philosophy in this way: They were not feminists in the newfangled meaning of the term, which was sometimes translated into misandry or being anti-man. Brown explained that they ‘‘were not going to take a position against men’’; they simply ‘‘had no intention, however, of allowing Panther men to assign [them] an inferior role in our revolution’’ (Brown, 192). This was a much-needed voice in the Black Power movement, but unfortunately this closely-knit group of women was soon split up. The ensuing years were riddled with crises for the Panthers. They were critical years for Brown as well. She became increasingly entangled in dangerous Panther politics as she wended her way up the ranks of prestige and power. In May 1968, the FBI charged Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins with the murder of a black man, allegedly an undercover agent who had infiltrated the Panther Party. In the same year, Cleaver went into exile in Cuba and later Algiers to escape an attempted murder charge resulting from a shootout with the police. As for Brown, she received orders to produce an album, Seize the Time (1969), for the Black Panther Party; she also fell in love with a Panther named Masai and became pregnant. But shortly thereafter, Masai left Brown and married another woman. Though she was still reeling, Brown was promoted to deputy minister of information and transferred to New Haven, where she led the campaign in support of Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins during their murder trial. Ericka Suzanne Brown was just three months old in June 1970 when her mother received an invitation from Eldridge Cleaver to join him and several journalists on a tour to Paris, Moscow, Korea, Vietnam, Beijing, and Algiers. Brown would attend as a representative of the Black Panther Party newspaper. David Hilliard, the chief of staff of the Black Panther Party, was suspicious that Cleaver asked Brown to go and not someone else. So was Brown. But it was agreed that she should go. After her arrival in 1970, Cleaver revealed his plan to her and to the other journalists: he wanted to take over the Black Panther Party. Cleaver was outraged by the makeover of the Black Panther party, which was no longer engaged in patrols and militancy but devoted its energies to community reform. Cleaver, who had originally been seduced by the anticipation of a revolutionary struggle, wanted to create his own group. Some believed Cleaver might have been an agent provocateur in cahoots with the FBI. At first, Brown did not hold back when he insisted that she take part, even when, astoundingly, he ordered her to assassinate David Hilliard, who was keeping the organization together while Newton and Seale were in prison. Brown later said that Cleaver had threatened her life unless she complied. For several weeks, she felt like a hostage to Cleaver, but she covered her feelings, leading him to believe that she would carry out his plot. The other journalists were wary, as well.

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When Brown’s plane landed in America, she felt she had escaped what she described as a madman obsessed with a plot to destroy Newton’s Black Panther Party. Newton, who had been released while Brown was away, was one of the first faces she saw in the crowd of Panthers who had come to the airport to show their support. Newton was not what she expected. Until that day she had only known him as the stony face she saw on posters. What Brown saw that day was the radiant good looks of a celebrity. When he saw her, he bowed and held her. ‘‘I’ve listened to your voice and your songs over and over in my prison cell and dreamed of you,’’ he told her. ‘‘Welcome home, Comrade’’ (Brown, 240). Brown’s welcome home thus became the prelude to a love affair, and to her swift rise to power.

REIGN OF POWER Brown’s new influence in the Black Panther Party was linked to the man who ran it. In Brown’s autobiographical portrait, A Taste of Power, Brown titled this experience as ‘‘Becoming Huey’s Queen.’’ Brown described Newton as she and others saw him as a ‘‘hero’’ and ‘‘near-deity.’’ Newton wielded enormous control and power over his members, his leadership, and Elaine Brown. Her new role as Newton’s love interest/Panther partner vaulted her into an entirely new world. Initially, she was one of the few individuals Newton permitted into his private life and trusted. Newton shared with her the ideas that had been percolating in his mind. After Brown had told him all that had happened to her during her tour with Cleaver, Newton devised a media campaign to excoriate him. He also expelled Cleaver and his adherents within the Panther Party. Newton further developed some of his community outreach programs, officially bestowing the title ‘‘Survival Programs’’ upon them. It was his belief that it was time to move away from militant tactics and progress to empowering the community. Not everyone was ecstatic about this. It particularly bewildered those who had expected Newton to show himself as their militant leader. It also frustrated some Panthers when Newton withdrew to his new expensive penthouse funded largely by wealthy white friends and supporters. But the move, Brown claimed, was not wholly a selfish one; it was also meant to provide protection for Newton. Newton had many enemies, including Cleaver and his supporters and a dangerous contingent of individuals who dominated criminal activity in the street. Brown was glad that Newton had secure lodging. But even Brown was hurt when Newton started seeing Gwen Fountaine, as well as other women. Newton took an unconventional approach to romantic relationships. Brown was unhappy, even more so when he told her that Fountaine would share his new apartment and become his new secretary. But he

Elaine Brown

insisted that he had a bigger role for Brown, and promptly ordered her to move to Oakland. The L.A. Panthers were relentlessly targeted by the police, as well as by Karenga’s US organization and the Cleaver adherents. One of the tasks Brown performed for Newton was to take over the writing of the Black Panther newspaper. However, Bobby Seale posed a challenge for Brown. After he and Ericka Huggins had been acquitted of the murder charges in 1970, Seale came back to Oakland and took charge of the administration of the newspaper. Brown and Seale clashed regularly. From the outset, Seale did not want Brown on his staff. Once, when Brown was late for a deadline, Seale had Brown bullwhipped with ten lashes. Brown went to Newton, who did not reprimand Seale for punishing Brown; however, he did transfer Seale and put him in charge of the Survival Programs. Brown was relieved. Brown went to Newton again when she was beaten by a boyfriend who was a member of a covert contingent of the Panther Party. This time, Newton did nothing, telling her that her trouble was a private matter. Brown was under a lot of stress, and this episode only confused her more. She was working on her second album, titled Until We’re Free, which was released by Motown under the Black Forum Label. Newton had started using cocaine, and its effect on him troubled her. Meanwhile, she felt her own daughter, who stayed with friends or with her grandmother, did not even know her. Brown did not have the instincts of a traditional mother. She described herself as playing more of a father role than anything else. She desired to protect, not coddle her newborn. She was uncomfortable with motherhood, and she was preoccupied with Panther work. Soon Newton would keep her busier than ever. Politics Brown’s entrance into politics was not motivated by personal ambition; it was because Huey ordered her to do it. Brown appeared ambivalent about it, as if it were no different than any number of orders Newton might give any one of the Panthers. At the same time, as the title of her autobiography suggests, she liked the feeling of power that her mounting responsibilities gave her. However, the troublesome part was that she had to run for a seat on the city council with her nemesis, Bobby Seale. They launched their campaign in 1972. Brown appeared constantly irritated by Seale. She did not respect him, because he did not exert the same power, influence, and assertiveness as Newton. And it frustrated her that he insisted upon using Black English during their public speeches. Brown wrote that ‘‘his verbal clowning had always elicited foot-stomping responses from black people,’’ but ‘‘because of the critical eye of the national media, because political campaigns in America were in truth media events, Bobby’s nonsense phrases threatened to make our campaign a sideshow’’ (Brown, 325).

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Black English Black English, or African American Vernacular English, also known as Ebonics, is a controversial topic. Its origins extend to the first Africans who arrived in America to toil as slaves. Affecting the English that was spoken by black slaves was the fact that the majority were prohibited from receiving a formal education and thus learned their language skills through socialization and by trial and error in an isolated environment. Some scholars contend that the English that emerged from this history was influenced by West African linguistic constructs. During slavery, the way slaves spoke was ridiculed and thus became one more way in which whites denigrated blacks; this behavior has not stopped, even today. Perceptions of the distinctive rhythm, style, vocabulary, pronunciations, and sentence structure of Black English differ. Some scholars and Black English advocates argue that Black English follows a set of rules, just as formal English does, and as a result feel that blacks should not be discredited for speaking the way they do. In the 1970s, the topic became a popular issue. Dr. Robert Williams, who wrote Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks (1975), was one of the pioneers on the subject. However, many blacks believe that African Americans should be sensitive to the fact that speech, in any country, marks social class, education, and experience. One solution, as some see it, is to insist that Black English should be spoken only in the context of black gatherings and not in the public, as it only aggravates racist stereotypes and beliefs. In the phenomenon known as code-switching, an African American may use Black English in a black setting and then switch to Standard English in public situations, like in the workplace or on television. Some, like comedian Bill Cosby, believe that blacks should strive to speak well and to move away from distinctive behaviors and manners of dressing that prevent blacks from obtaining mainstream jobs and career advancement due to their inability to express themselves coherently in the language of business.

Brown and Seale propounded an ambitious agenda. They did not represent any of the traditional parties, Republican or Democrat, but espoused a radical doctrine ‘‘to overthrow the United States government,’’ and replace it with socialism (Brown, 323). The Panther nominees were extremely popular within their own community. The media was startled, not knowing what to make of Panthers in politics, constantly barraging them with questions concerning their organization. When they lost the 1973 election, Brown was still pleased, for they had generated substantial approval. Prior to the election, Brown veered from under Newton’s thumb to handle some business on her own. For some time, the Panthers had waged a

Elaine Brown

campaign to free Panther prisoners like George Jackson and Johnny Spain. In an effort to strengthen Johnny Spain’s case, Brown engaged in a dangerous, unauthorized undertaking. Brown, leading a crew of two other women, burst into the law office of Elaine Wenders, a white attorney who worked with several black prisoners. She was looking for several poems written by Spain that she thought would help his cause. Wenders had been skeptical of the Black Panther Party, thinking they were more concerned with amassing attention to themselves than the liberation of the prisoners. Wenders told Brown that she did not know where the poems were. There were two other white women with Wenders, both of whom were visibly shaken. Wenders, however, kept her cool until Brown roughly slapped her repeatedly. The three Panther women then ravaged the office, looking for the poems, but came up with nothing. Before leaving, Brown threatened Wenders, telling her to come up with poems within a day, ‘‘lest her office be blown off the map’’ (Brown, 318). This violent encounter proved to be an epiphany for Brown. The exertion of power was new to her, and it was seductive, although she realized that it was also morally and ethically wrong, and, legally, a crime. Brown wrote, ‘‘It is a sensuous thing to know that at one’s will an enemy can be struck down, a friend saved…. For a black woman in America to know that power is to experience being raised from the dead’’ (Brown, 319). Newton was not angry when he found out about what Brown had done. In fact, he defended her when he received several complaints. He made light of the moment, calling Brown a ‘‘terrorist.’’ But her action was no less ruthless than Newton’s exploits. And when, on the next day, Wendell carried the poems to the Panther office herself, Brown realized the tremendous power she wielded with the ability to intimidate. Chairman The day Brown became the new chairman of the Black Panther Party, replacing Bobby Seale, the cofounder of the organization, was not a day of rejoicing. Brown’s ascension came only days after Seale’s expulsion from the Panther Party. Brown blamed drugs for Newton’s instability, his sudden rages, his rapid descent into violence and criminal activity, and for his angry dismissal of Seale. The fact was, as Brown explained, Seale was not completely in Newton’s favor. Newton questioned whether or not Seale would approve of some of his tactics, and so he kept Seale out of the loop in terms of his covert operations. Brown knew that the rumors were true that the Panthers ‘‘were operating a nightclub and extorting payoffs from petty criminals and legitimate businessmen, solely to make a profit for ourselves’’ (Brown, 333). Newton also felt that Seale was not carrying his weight in terms of the leadership of the Panthers. Newton, perhaps increasingly isolated from his colleagues, felt that he alone bore the weight of formulating

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the ideological development of the organization and managing its day-today functions. On the day in question, it was Newton’s rage over some inconsequential thing that Seale had said that was the final straw. Brown was not the only one who saw what happened as a sign of the burgeoning madness that was settling upon him. Newton expelled others, including his childhood friend, David Hilliard. The fact was that there were not many other choices besides Brown to replace Seale. Newton had expelled a number of the vanguard, and many of the others were in prison serving sentences. And Brown had proven her loyalty, proving that she had the courage and toughness to help Newton lead the Panthers. But her overnight ascension to chairman did not feel secure. She figured she would be next. She might have been right about that, but for an unexpected turn of events. In the summer of 1974, Brown received a call from Newton. He had gone to Cuba to elude charges he faced for an assault on a black tailor and the murder of a seventeen-year-old prostitute. Brown doubted Newton’s guilt in the murder charge, but she had been present when he pistolwhipped the tailor in his penthouse. Newton told Brown that he wanted her to be in charge of the Panthers. Minister of Defense Brown’s reign began that summer. She faced numerous challenges as the first woman to head the organization. She knew full well that most of the male Panthers would be most resistant. The day she made the announcement, she was flanked by bulky and physically intimidating Panther guards who were fully armed. This image lent an air of seriousness to her presence and her words. But even without the bodyguards, Brown, who had roamed York Street declaring ‘‘We are rough! We are tough! We are the girls who don’t take no stuff!,’’ could handle herself. She was forthright in her message, letting the Panthers know that Newton was in exile and that she was the woman in charge, whether they liked it or not. But if they had a problem, she warned, ‘‘‘you’d better run—and fast!… My leadership cannot be challenged. I will lead our party both aboveground and underground. I will lead the party not only in furthering our goals but also in defending the party by any and all means’’’ (Brown, 4) Brown meant business. And for the next three years, she made drastic changes, spearheaded unprecedented growth and influence in the organization, and became the most visible African American woman in town. But her tactics could be as ruthless as Newton’s. Among her early tasks included the beefing up of the gun reservoirs and the strengthening of the organization’s elite guards. While in Cuba, Newton stayed in daily contact with Brown. Although he may have called the shots, Brown was the one who implemented them.

Elaine Brown

Newton told Brown to run again for a seat on City Council in 1975. Brown ran a stunning campaign, procuring endorsements left and right from the city’s top organizations, including the Alameda County Central Labor Council, the United Auto Workers, the United Farm Workers, and the Teamsters. Brown’s excursions into other political endeavors were plotted by Newton. Brown led the Panther campaign to put Jerry Brown into California’s governor’s mansion. She also oversaw the campaign to elect Lionel Wilson, a black judge, as the city’s mayor. Brown put Phyllis Jackson in charge of that campaign. Originally, Newton thought Brown should run for that office herself, but he changed his mind in light of a grander scheme to put a sympathetic black in that position. He kept Brown as leader of the Black Panther Party, and then embarked on a new plan to restructure the organization. Newton saw the militant aspect of his organization as out-of-date and wanted to include a powerful social program to benefit, blacks, whites, and other races. During this period, Brown put women in the foremost positions in the organization. Phyllis Jackson was in charge of party campaign workers. Ericka Huggins was responsible for the Black Panther Party school and its sundry programs. Joan Kelley maintained her role as the administrator of the Survival Programs and legal issues, and Norma Armour was the coordinator of the ministry of finance. When male Panthers openly complained about these changes, Brown dealt with them either directly via an expletive-laden tirade or had her personal guard, Larry, physically discipline them for challenging her authority. Brown was greatly empowered by the fact that Newton permitted these changes. But she was also beset with plenty of problems. One concerned the murder of a white woman named Betty Van Patter. Brown was one of the suspects. In her autobiography, Brown maintains her innocence, stating that she hired Van Patter to do some accounting for the organization on the recommendation of David Horowitz, a liberal who at that time was on the board of the Panther school. After Van Patter was hired, Brown claimed that she started asking too many questions about the expenses and sources of the Panther’s money, and so Brown fired her. Brown said Van Patter’s eventual murder was a mystery to her. However, Horowitz claimed otherwise, maintaining that Brown knew full well about the murder, and that Brown and Newton were responsible for the order to kill Van Patter. Brown had another brush with the law when she was found to be in possession of cocaine, which she said belonged to someone she was dating at the time. Brown gives no explanation as to why the serious charges against her were dropped. But dropped they were, and she was able to proceed with her campaigning for city council. The campaign was going so well that Brown felt sure that she had a significant chance of winning. She proudly recounted how ‘‘my image or voice was constantly on television or radio, in advertisements and interviews.

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David Horowitz David Horowitz was born on January 10, 1939, in Queens, New York. He is famously known for his advocacy of liberalism during the 1960s and his subsequent dramatic about-face and embrace of conservatism. During the former phase, he provided significant support to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Although one might assume that whites were repulsed by the militancy and seemingly racist ideology of the Black Power Movement, a number of them were supportive, if not empathetic. Horowitz, a Jew, was one who was drawn for ideological reasons to assist the Black Panther Party for SelfDefense. His attraction to the organization had as much to do with its leader, the charismatic and intensely glamorous Huey P. Newton, as with the fact that blacks in urban communities were suffering from gross neglect, racism, and police brutality and harassment. Horowitz was one of a number of Newton’s liberal, non-black friends. Notably, Newton had many friends in Hollywood, like film producer Berton Schneider and actresses Jane Fonda, Mia Farrow, and Shirley MacLaine. Newton advocated coalitions outside of the black community and welcomed influential and affluent people who helped provide funds for his community outreach programs, and, controversially, for a private home in a safe location. Newton claimed to need his rather luxurious home to protect himself from his numerous enemies. Horowitz helped fundraise for the Black Panther Liberation school, regularly attended Party functions, and got to know Newton on a personal level. Inevitably, Horowitz became privy to criminal activities the organization was involved in, most notably the murder of his friend Betty Van Patter in 1974. This knowledge left him frightened and disenchanted. Van Patter, a white woman, helped with the accounting for the organization. Horowitz believed that Van Patter was murdered by the Black Panthers because she uncovered some of their criminal activities. Horowitz has published several books and about his disillusionment with liberalism. He regularly attacks liberalism in academic forums and speaks out against reparations and affirmative action for blacks.

Billboards of the ‘Elect Elaine’ campaign were everywhere. People were sporting my campaign buttons all over Oakland, their cars flashing campaign bumper stickers. Everywhere, I reminded voters that my campaign represented a new Oakland, a more egalitarian Oakland, an Oakland that would share its reservoir of wealth’’ (Brown, 374). Despite her optimism, Brown lost, although she received 44 percent of the vote.

Elaine Brown

After Newton had been gone a year, Brown visited him in Cuba. At first, Brown was uncomfortable and sulky, because Newton and Fountaine had married while in exile. But she eventually warmed to Newton’s charm and charisma. And he was calm and lucid, since, during his exile, he did not abuse drugs. Besides, he was visibly pleased with her report of the financial growth of the organization, her headway in the political realm in terms of Brown’s ability to articulate the black community’s interests in important discussions within the city, as well as her no-nonsense management of the Panthers. The Panther school, which educated some of the children that the public school system had given up on, was ready for expansion. Newton was proud of her and envisioned that when he returned, they would rule together. Before Brown departed for America, Newton gave her the order that would make his comeback possible. He was restless in Cuba and wanted badly to return. He felt the new Democratic governor, as well as the potential election of the black mayor, would help his situation. He wanted Brown, with the support to Lionel Wilson, to talk with them, and to help address some of his legal problems. When Brown returned to Panther headquarters she ordered one of her bodyguards to oversee the eradication of a cocaine epidemic that was sweeping the community. It was believed that this would not only help avert potential challenges to the Panthers, but would also benefit the campaign to put Wilson in office. Phyllis Jackson’s efforts produced an extraordinary 90,000 new black registrants. On election day, the Panthers transported blacks to the polls. When Wilson’s win was announced on television, Brown was at his side, smiling broadly. Wilson would serve three terms, from 1978 to 1990. Newton’s Return Despite these many triumphs, Brown was almost sick with fear by the time Newton returned the summer of 1977. He had been acquitted of all his charges. Horowitz believes that underhanded plotting and intimidation had a lot more to do with that acquittal than justice. Either way, Newton was back and ready to lead the organization, presumably with Brown’s help. Brown feared Newton’s return and felt it was only a matter of time before he would get back on drugs. She also sensed that the organization’s descent into criminal activity was worsening and occurring outside of her control. Brown was further upset when Newton secured the release of Big Bob from jail. Big Bob was ‘‘one of Huey’s personal bodyguards … as his name suggests, [he] was a mountain of a man. He stood well over six foot four and tipped the scales at around 300 pounds. He didn’t walk; he lumbered, from side to side, like a grizzly’’ (Abu-Jamal, 110).

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Brown felt Big Bob’s release was a huge mistake, since he regularly ‘‘violated every rule of party discipline … and flagrantly jeopardized’’ the organization’’ (Brown, 443). Brown failed to see the fairness of Newton’s action, especially since a woman Panther had recently been hospitalized after being disciplined for some minor offense. Brown knew her influence was not secured. And though Newton talked as if he wanted her to manage the organization with him, she also knew the Newton that banished Seale and others in a drug-induced rage. Exile Brown felt that she was waging a losing battle. Not only was her power transient, but the fact was that her power was based on fear of reprisal and threat. She made secret plans to escape from Newton, from the Party, and from what she had begun to realize was a nightmarish existence. She and her daughter quietly left the country in 1990 and lived in France for six years. REBUILDING A LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES Life in America had changed considerably by the time Brown returned to the United States in 1996. For one thing she was a published author, having bared her whirlwind life in her autobiography in 1992. For another, she had gone through many years of counseling to come to terms with her past and to face her future. And the Black Panther Party as she had known it no longer existed. Its charismatic leader, Newton, was dead; his fast-paced life came to an end in 1989 when a drug dealer shot him over a quarrel regarding a crack deal. Brown moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta is considered a Mecca for progressive blacks, and it looks and feels nothing like Oakland. Its rhythms are relaxed and slower-paced. There is still poverty and crime, but there is a strong presence of upwardly mobile blacks who are concerned with progress and the positive development of their race as a whole. This contingent swells as more blacks move back to the South, in a phenomenon known as remigration. Brown is busy. Upon her return, she established several organizations, including Mothers Advocating Juvenile Justice and the National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform. On the home page of Brown’s website, she advocates for the release of black men serving prison sentences. She lectures throughout the country, expounding on topics related to activism, feminism, and the Black Power Movement. She is as tough, no-nonsense, and brisktalking as ever. See also Stokely Carmichael; Angela Davis; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X; Huey P. Newton; and Roy Wilkins.

Elaine Brown

FURTHER RESOURCES Abu-Jamal, Mumia. We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2004. Brown, Elaine. A Taste of Power. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and V.P. Franklin, eds. Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Elaine Brown Online (April 2008). See http://www.elainebrown.org. Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985. Directed by Judith Vecchione. PBS, 1989. Penial, Joseph E. Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights–Black Power Era. New York: Routledge, 2006.

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Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998)


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Stokely Carmichael was an integrationist when he got involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. In 1966, he coined the term ‘‘black power’’ and launched a campaign to advance militancy and separatism. As a young adult in the Civil Rights Movement, Stokely Carmichael was a tall and willowy figure with the quiet, sensitive face of a poet. In those early days, Carmichael was an integrationist with an impressive record in activism. While attending Howard University in Washington, D.C., he joined the Nonviolent Action Group. In 1961, he participated in the Freedom Rides and was arrested many times. In 1964, he served as a regional director for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Mississippi Freedom Summer. He wore overalls as he trained activists to mobilize blacks in the rural South to register to vote. At the end of that summer, blacks and whites challenged the conservative all-white Mississippi Democratic Party at the Democratic Party National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They were eventually granted two nominal seats at the convention, which he and many others regarded as an insult. This was the moment of reckoning. Carmichael felt the path he was on was not leading him where he wanted to go. Leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were not forceful enough. What was needed was something more assertive, bolder, and empowering. Carmichael’s answer came in two words: black power. These were words that he used frequently in his first ‘‘Black Power’’ speech in 1966 in Mississippi. King and the other conservative black leaders were confounded. But his audience went wild with excitement. The term spread like wildfire across the nation. Black Power organizations and leaders emerged, advancing such concepts as militancy, separatism, and black pride. For the next few years Carmichael was a high-profile leader in the movement he had started. But in 1969 he moved to Africa, because the Black Power Movement in America, radical as it was, had failed to meet his expectations. He wanted black organizations to sever all ties with whites. In Africa, Carmichael abandoned Western attire and changed his name to Kwame Ture. His new moniker melded the names of two African leaders, Ahmed Sekou Toure, a prime minister of Guinea, and Kwame Nkrumah, the president of Ghana. Carmichael married twice and had a son. He continued to lecture, to write, and propound his socialist and Pan-Africanist views until his death in 1998. CHILDHOOD Early Years in Trinidad Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael was born on July 29, 1941, in Port of Spain, Trinidad. His parents were Adolphus and Mabel Carmichael. He

Stokely Carmichael

had two sisters, Umilta and Lynette. The blacks who lived in Trinidad and the other Caribbean islands were, as in America, a product of the slave trade in Africa. When Stokely was born, Trinidad was still a crown colony, i.e., a country controlled by the British government. However, the spirit of resistance in Trinidad was alive and well. Slavery and the system of indentured servitude (which affected racial groups such as African descendants, the Chinese, and the East Indians) were diminished by tactics involving nonviolent demonstrations and officially abolished in 1838. Though free, blacks were still oppressed by the colonial rule of England. Carmichael explained how, in the 1930s, the British government attempted ‘‘to suppress African cultural survivals’’ and ‘‘decided that the colony would more easily be governable if drums and other traditional musical instruments were outlawed’’ (Carmichael, 39). But when their drums were confiscated and men who played them put under arrest, the black Trinidadians simply became resourceful. They turned fifty-five-gallon steel drums into a new form of musical instrument called, simply enough, the steel drum. Over the years, the instrument has been developed to make the delightful and refreshing sound that is the trademark of the Caribbean islands. The musical genre called ‘‘calypso’’ was a descendent of the oral traditions of African griots, who served as professional (or sometimes recreational) poets, history-keepers, singers, and storytellers. The calypso singer was cunning, and his songs contained sly commentary against economic oppression and racism, or about politics and local news. The singers were a popular feature at carnival time, but Stokely and the other children were not permitted to listen to the ‘‘scandalous, irreverent, antiestablishment tradition’’ (Carmichael, 41). The government tried to quell these songs of resistance, but they were too entrenched in the culture. One individual, a local named Tubal Uriah ‘‘Rab’’ Butler, organized protests against the local government in Trinidad when Stokely was a child. Butler was a firebrand of the first order. Born in Grenada in 1897, he was heavily involved in activism at least five years before Stokely was born. He spearheaded several labor riots to protest the exploitation of black workers. He formed at least three parties: the British Empire Citizens’ and Workers’ Home Rule Party, the Butler Home Rule Party, and the Butler Party. He was arrested frequently. For the most part, Stokely’s immediate world was trouble-free and serene in the spacious and dreamy home his father built by hand. Also in residence were his father’s mother, Cecilia, and his three sisters, Elaine and Olga (a third sister, Louise, lived with her husband nearby). Mabel continuously butted heads with the other women in the house. Fed up with the situation, she moved to New York to live with her parents (who had settled there several years earlier) when Stokely was three years old. Essentially, she gave

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Adolphus an ultimatum: choose between her and his mother and aunts. Adolphus chose her (though he was loathe to leave his home, family, friends, and comfortable life behind), following Mabel to New York in 1945. They would have two additional children, giving Stokely a total of four siblings. However, the children did not go to New York to live with their parents at that time. Stokely enjoyed living in the matriarchal environment with his two sisters and a cousin named Austin. At three, Stokely was already enrolled in a private school. When he was seven years old, he attended the Eastern Boys School, where he gravitated towards the poor children. He often brought food from home to give them. Stokely exhibited another quality not common in children of such tender years: an interest in politics. In 1948, blacks were able to vote in Trinidad, as long as they were twenty-one years old and owned property. Stokely attempted to register but was (naturally) turned away. Soon after, he persuaded his Aunt Elaine to vote for the radical Uriah Butler. The days passed harmoniously in Trinidad. Stokely played in the lush green terrain with friends. On Sundays, his grandmother and aunts decked him in striking little suits. Academically, school was a breeze. Stokely was a bright student, though even as a child he sensed the curriculum was not particularly pertinent to his culture and his life in Trinidad. (He would later recall learning about snow and England.) The classrooms were allblack, since blacks and whites were segregated from each other in every aspect of life. As an adult looking back over his early life, Carmichael felt that although the blacks had a rich culture that mixed many Africanisms with their new life in Trinidad (such as the fantastic carnival celebrations and some of the religious practices), they were less nationalistic than other races, such as the East Indians. But this was a consequence of slavery, which had forced Africans from their homeland into a foreign environment where they were prohibited from living in traditional ways. The East Indians who lived in Trinidad had arrived as indentured servants and did not face this loss. They maintained their language, their religious beliefs, and their traditional clothing. Life as Stokely knew it changed following the sudden death of his grandmother from a stroke. Since she was the one who looked after the children while the two aunts worked, it was decided that Stokely and his siblings should be reunited with his family in New York. Stokely was eleven years old. To the Promised Land The idea of moving to New York was thrilling. Stokely and his siblings envisioned an America of epic opportunity and abundance. But the image did not compare with reality. The Carmichaels lived at first in a predominately black neighborhood in Harlem. Some time later they moved to a mostly Italian community called

Stokely Carmichael

Morris Park in the Bronx. Stokely’s parents had to work twice as hard in America as in Trinidad, and they still struggled. His mom was a domestic, while his father worked as a cab driver who went to school during the evenings and was employed by day as a carpenter. He was also the deacon of the church they attended. The home that the Carmichaels lived in paled in comparison to the spacious castle his father had built in Trinidad. The educational school system in America was a shock. In Trinidad, the teachers were strict, and the children were quiet, obedient, and respectful. Stokely never thought it possible to experience a classroom that was as boisterous and unruly as the ones he came to know in New York. Although Stokely did well in school, he quickly adapted to the obnoxious antics of the other school children. Neighborhood life was also completely different. At home in Morris Park he joined an Italian gang. They called themselves the Morris Park Avenue Dukes and amused themselves by stealing and getting into fights. But Stokely’s adolescence was not all gangs and trouble. He remained an intensely serious student, so much so that his parents agreed that he should repeat the eighth grade to be better prepared to take the difficult entrance test into the prestigious Bronx High School of Science. That school was as good as it gets, drawing ambitious students, mostly white, from the upper echelon of society. Stokely’s repetition of the eighth grade paid off. He passed the test and entered high school in 1956. Although Stokely continued to be active in the Morris Park gang, he absorbed himself in school, adding new interests in classical music and the philosophical writings of Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Karl Marx. The environment at school was conducive to his desire to excel and his insatiable thirst for knowledge. In his first year, he quickly realized how all of his peers outpaced him academically. For example, their summer readings included Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Karl Marx. Carmichael wrote: ‘‘obviously these kids’ parents, like mine, encouraged their reading. Except that their parents, unlike mine [who ‘had not finished high school or studied in this country’] knew where and how to direct their children’s reading. But if academic intelligence is, as I do believe, largely a matter of cultural background, I was soon to discover that I too had an advantage over most of my peers’’ when it came to the intelligence tests (Carmichael, 85). This was because of an uncle who told Stokely to study Latin, which, ultimately, gave him an advantage in reading comprehension and vocabulary tests. Stokely thrived in this environment of high achievers, and in so doing he defied the common misconception, which stemmed from negative perceptions of Africans, that blacks were ignorant and uncivilized. In fact it was racism and the lack of opportunities that prevented blacks from learning and excelling, as the experience of students like Stokely clearly illustrates. Stokely gravitated towards communists at his high school, though he was generally the only black student to appear at the social gatherings, meetings,

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and activities hosted by the young leftists. Later, Carmichael was critical over the fact that although he was learning and developing politically and intellectually, it took him a long time to realize that the ‘‘revolutionary thinkers [who were all the rage among his friends] were European or that all their theoretical models were fashioned out of European historical experience’’ (Carmichael, 94). But Stokely did enjoy his white friends, the stimulating conversations, and the fun they had together. At the same time, Stokely was being influenced by individuals who were known at the time as ‘‘stepladder speakers’’ who could be found on 125th Street (in Harlem, the nearest equivalent to the stepladder speakers were the ‘‘soapbox speakers’’). The stepladder speakers were predominately nationalists. They embellished their stepladders with the red, green, and black flags of the African liberation movement and dressed to the nines in Afrocentric dress. Carmichael recalled how the male and female orators called for black unity and a return to Afrocentric values. They were, to him, tantamount to ‘‘the oral historians of the community, our town criers, waking up the sleeping town and bringing news of distant conflicts … keeping the flame of reunion and unity alive, ceaselessly exhorting us to keep historical and revolutionary faith with our ancestors’ long history of struggle and resistance’’ (Carmichael, 100, 101). Such was Stokely’s initiation into the philosophy of Pan-Africanism. When it came time for juniors and seniors to consider what to do after graduation, college was on most everyone’s mind, including Stokely’s. But developments in the winter of 1960, Stokely’s senior year, had put a new thought in his head. In February 1960, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University conducted a sit-in at a lunch counter at a local Woolworth store. Stokely had heard about segregation in the South, even though in New York he did not experience it. That 1960 sit-in was not the first such demonstration. Back in the 1930s, James Farmer, one of the co-founders of the civil rights organization, Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), participated a sit-in at a courthouse in Texas with other college students while he was a student at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. In the early 1940s, CORE conducted several sit-ins. At the end of that decade, individuals like Mary Church Terrell organized sit-ins and pickets outside restaurants and department stores in Washington, D.C. Notwithstanding the importance of the forerunners to the 1960 sit-in, the Greensboro sit-in was solely responsible for the ensuing rush of demonstrations that swept across the South. New civil rights groups, like the Nashville Student Movement, were quickly formed. In April 1960, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) hosted a weekend gathering (called the Southwide Youth Leadership Conference) at Shaw University in North Carolina to help organize the young activists. From this meeting was developed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Stokely thought the sit-ins were not real—until the television reports showed how racist whites abused and heckled the black and white demonstrators. His

Stokely Carmichael

Mary Eliza Church Terrell Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1863, Mary Eliza Church Terrell was one of the first female African American activists of the early twentieth century. Her father, Robert Church, was a former slave who ascended to affluence as a real-estate magnate. The family moved to Ohio to avoid segregation. There, Mary Church attended schools operated by Antioch College and Oberlin College (where she received a B.A. in 1884 and an M.A. in 1888). In 1891, after several years teaching French and German at Wilberforce University and teaching Latin at a high school, she married Robert Terrell, an attorney. They settled in an elite black neighborhood of professionals in Washington, D.C. At the end of the nineteenth century, Mary Church Terrell launched a formidable career in activism. She founded the National Association of Colored Women in 1896, working with white and black women to obtain women’s suffrage. In 1909 she helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Until her death in 1954, she waged nonviolent demonstrations to protest segregation in Washington, D.C.

interest was piqued. Friends from school and the stepladder speakers had already formulated their own opinions on the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King, whose arrival on the national scene had begun during the Montgomery Bus Boycott back in 1955. Stokely and his friends admired Dr. King, but the nationalists ‘‘attacked [his philosophy of] nonviolence, mocked his talk of redemptive suffering, and questioned the feasibility and desirability of ‘integration’ as a goal. They felt Dr. King was ‘begging white folks to accept us,’ something white folks had never done in three hundred years’’ (Carmichael, 111). During Stokely’s senior year, he received scores of invitations and scholarships from colleges and universities. Stokely refused them all, including the one from Harvard University, a predominately white Ivy League school. W.E.B. Du Bois, the prominent scholar and civil rights activist who became popular as the editor of the NAACP organ, The Crisis, had attended Harvard following his graduation from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. But rather than attend a predominately white school, Stokely elected to enroll at a historically black institution, Howard University in Washington, D.C. He wanted to be among his own race, and he especially wanted to be close to the civil rights demonstrations taking place in the South. His parents worked doubly hard to finance his education at Howard. HOWARD UNIVERSITY Howard University, a private institution, was one of numerous colleges and universities established for blacks during the American Reconstruction.

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Founded in 1867, the school quickly developed a name for itself and is associated with a number of prominent black leaders. Alain Locke, the chair of the Department of Philosophy, wrote The New Negro (1925), helping to inspire the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s in New York. Ralph Bunche, the chair of the Department of Political Science, served as a mediator to Palestine in the 1940s, made contributions to the formation of the United Nations, and endorsed the Civil Rights Movement. Charles Houston was dean of the Howard University Law School, a civil rights activist, and attorney for the NAACP. While at Howard, Houston taught the future famous attorney Thurgood Marshall, who would be known the world over for his role in winning the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, which dismantled Jim Crow schools in the South.

Nonviolent Action Group and CORE When Carmichael entered his freshman year at Howard in the fall of 1960, he planned on becoming a doctor. In actuality, this was his father’s vision. Adolphus wanted the family to return to Trinidad one day and establish a clinic there. But Carmichael’s extracurricular interest in activism would route him along an altogether different course. While at Howard, Carmichael made friends with Bill Mahoney, Courtland Cox, and others who joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG). Carmichael participated in demonstrations spearheaded by NAG and CORE. They staged pickets and sit-ins at lunch counters in local stores in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. NAG was not only exhilarating because of the opportunities to engage in protest it presented but also because it offered Carmichael and the other black students the chance to talk forthrightly. Since high school, Carmichael had been known for his outspokenness. In NAG, he met his equal in the other male and female members.

Freedom Rides During Carmichael’s second semester at Howard (spring 1961), the first Freedom Ride to challenge Jim Crow in interstate travel in the South was launched. The Freedom Riders comprised black and white activists from CORE and SNCC. The first rides were fraught with violence. Starting out of Washington, D.C., the thirteen Freedom Riders ran into trouble in Anniston, Alabama, where a white mob firebombed the bus in which they traveled. The activists were beaten. In Birmingham, Alabama, the Ku Klux Klan brutally attacked riders. After the attacks, CORE wanted to terminate the Freedom Rides, but SNCC insisted on continuing. It was at this point that the zealous Carmichael became a Freedom Rider, knowing full well that he could lose his life. His parents were nervous but gave him their blessing.

Stokely Carmichael

Two weeks after the violent reception of the Freedom Riders in Anniston, Carmichael mounted a bus with other riders headed to Jackson, Mississippi. At stops along the way, the Freedom Riders were instructed to challenge the Jim Crow laws on the use of facilities. For example, white riders were supposed to use the black-only restrooms and water fountains and blacks were to use the white-only facilities. When Carmichael strolled into a white cafeteria in Mississippi, he and the other riders were arrested. They served fifty-three days in the Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi. This was Carmichael’s first arrest. There would be many more. When Carmichael was released from prison, he resumed his studies at Howard. During the fall of that year, President John F. Kennedy ordered the ICC to enforce the laws prohibiting segregation in interstate travel. The Freedom Rides had been costly, exhausting, and harrowing, but they had achieved a historic victory. Even as activism began to unravel the racist and discriminatory structure of America, it also changed Carmichael. He did not want to be a doctor anymore; he wanted to make a life out of activism. So he began to take courses in philosophy. Philosophy is a study that appealed to many activists, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis. Lewis, who became the chairman of SNCC in 1963, received a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy from Fisk University in Tennessee. The study of philosophy involved readings and discussions on historic thinkers who tended to challenge orthodox beliefs and traditional conventions, which was what the civil rights leaders also struggled to do. Carmichael also benefited from the study of black culture, life, and achievement and became engrossed in the history of black resistance. He would not have experienced this sort of education at a predominately white university in those years. Carmichael graduated from Howard University in May 1964. He chose to begin working immediately as an activist, rather than continue his education. He declined a scholarship from Harvard University for that purpose. MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM SUMMER The timing could not have been more perfect. The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was formed in 1962. COFO was an amalgam of several major civil rights organizations—SNCC, CORE, the SCLC, and the NAACP. The Council planned an ambitious voter registration drive called the Mississippi Freedom Summer. This summer-long demonstration in 1964 was an unprecedented attempt to address disfranchisement in Mississippi and bring together black and white activists. Carmichael wrote how selective SNCC was in recruiting whites: … no missionaries going to save the benighted Negro or martyrs looking for redemption through suffering. Be on the hard lookout for the stench of

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personal virtue. No mystics. No flakes. No kids in rebellion, looking for attention or to get back at Mom and Dad. No druggies, beatniks, or immature-hippie types—too irresponsible. (Carmichael, 359)

But, for the most part, the whites who poured in eager to participate in the Mississippi Summer campaign were genuine and altruistic. Carmichael wrote that there were not as many racial problems as the press would suggest, despite the racial and economic differences (many of the white activists came from privileged backgrounds). Carmichael helped train the new activists, and he was put in charge of the SNCC and COFO offices in Mississippi. He spent the summer going into the communities, talking to the locals, hiring and training activists, and helping blacks to register to vote for the first time. While there, he often wore overalls, as was the custom with black sharecroppers. This training was no easy task. Not only were the local blacks anxious about the outsiders coming into their home state, trying to talk them into registering to vote, but they (and the activists) had to contend with increasingly violent opposition and intimidation from white groups like the Ku Klux Klan, who were fired up by the northern intrusion. One of the most tragic incidents to occur was the Klan murder of three activists: Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. Those were violent times. That summer was long and demanding. As activists established institutions, called Freedom Schools, to teach black youths, racist whites tried to pass laws to close them down. When local blacks registered to vote, they were fired from their jobs and evicted from their homes. Fannie Lou Hamer, a local civil rights worker known by all the SNCC activists, was among the casualties of political empowerment in the South. Hamer was born in Ruleville, Mississippi in 1917. In 1962, she responded to the call put out by SNCC volunteers to register to vote. After registering, she returned home only to be told that she had to leave the property where she lived and worked as a timekeeper on Mr. Manslow’s plantation. Then she received a barrage of death threats. What Hamer suffered was what many blacks in the South experienced. But the intimidation was not all; Hamer also had to pass the literacy test. It took her several attempts to pass the discriminatory test required for blacks before finally obtaining suffrage. Hamer was in her mid-forties, married, childless, and stoutly built when she accepted a leadership position in Mississippi. She not only galvanized black voters but provided food and other needs for the poor. Her songs, her warmth, and her fierce resolve made her a much-loved figure among the young black activists. She would play a starring role at the forthcoming Democratic National Convention. The highlight of that summer was the announcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ushered in a new Jim Crow–free era. But the celebrations of joy were ephemeral as white backlash and resistance remained

Stokely Carmichael

strong for several years. Thus, the civil rights struggle in the South continued, with activists and ordinary citizens striving for the integration that had been denied them for so long. MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM DEMOCRATIC PARTY (MFDP) Carmichael helped to organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which grew out of the activities that summer. Its purpose was to challenge the jurisdiction of the all-white conservative Democratic Party in Mississippi, since it did not legitimately represent the state (blacks in Mississippi had been historically prevented from full participation in the voting process and political power). The history of Mississippi politics is a bitter one. During slavery, wealthy white conservatives dominated political life. At the end of the Civil War, the federal government forced Mississippi (as well as other southern states) to integrate blacks into politics. For the first time, blacks enjoyed a taste of political power. Prominent black politicians in that period included B.T. Montgomery, Blanche Kelso Bruce, Hiram Rhodes Revels, and John R. Lynch. This was the beginning of a very important hour for blacks, as the new politicians broke down old racist and discriminatory laws. However, beginning in 1871, whites launched a violent campaign to restore their former power. They backed their political will with a systematic intimidation of the black community. As a result, on election day in 1875, no blacks presented a challenge and conservative whites were voted back into office. Since that day, blacks had been barred from political power and the right to vote in Mississippi. This was the backdrop against which the MFDP played out its attempt to defy the history of discrimination in politics. When delegates, including Fannie Lou Hamer and other blacks and whites, went to the Democratic National Convention in August 1964, they were optimistic. The challenge included several testimonials before the Credentials Committee. Carmichael saw Hamer’s testimonial on television. Her story of oppression and racial violence was the most moving presentation given. But the outcome of the demonstration was one of the biggest frustrations of the era. Carmichael summed up the situation: … the Freedom Democrats, we were told, would be given two ‘seats at large,’ which, as the people were quick to see, represented nowhere and no one.… And they pledged never to seat any ‘lily-white’ delegations in the future. They would create a Civil Rights Committee on the Democratic National Committee to ensure this. That was to be our victory. Our people should take it, express joy and gratitude, and go home. (Carmichael, 407)

Carmichael continued to help tap into the political potential of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. It was this new approach—not working

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through the traditional parties—that he believed would yield far-reaching results. While he cast about for strategies, he came up with the idea that there needed to be more examples like the MFDP. He laid plans to go to Lowndes County and establish a similar political model there. But there was other business to be attended to first. Carmichael went to Atlanta, Georgia to attend a SNCC meeting of the Executive Committee. What occurred there portended greater changes to come. Bob Moses made an announcement, stating that he was to be known as Robert Parris (his mother’s maiden name), that he was stepping down from his former position, and that he was not ever going to speak to another white person ever again. The room was shocked. However, Moses’ response was indicative of the monolithic pressures activists faced. Moses had multiple responsibilities as the director of SNCC’s Mississippi project, co-director of the COFO organization, and one of the main coordinators of the Mississippi Freedom Summer. Racial violence, intimidation, the stress of daily contact with suffering and destitute blacks, and the crushing failure at the Democratic National Convention often resulted in serious burnout. But Moses’ disillusionment was so great that it caused him to retreat altogether. In 1969, he moved to Tanzania in East Africa. He taught there for several years, returning to the states in 1975 to attend Harvard. He ultimately settled into the quiet life as a math teacher in a high school in Mississippi. After the meeting, the activists, including Carmichael, turned their attentions towards the next campaign in Selma, Alabama. SELMA, ALABAMA In 1965, the major civil rights groups rallied together to steer a voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama. Hundreds of locals standing in line at the courthouse, waiting for an opportunity to exercise their right to vote, were arrested. There were demonstrations going on elsewhere at this time. In Marion, Alabama, on February 18, 1965, black demonstrators marched from Zion United Methodist Church to the Perry County Jail, where James Orange was in jail for attempting to register blacks to vote. The group planned to sing hymns in protest and to encourage the civil rights worker. However, mayhem ensued when police officers descended on the protesters and began beating them indiscriminately. Among the demonstrators was a twenty-sixyear-old deacon from St. James Baptist Church named Jimmy Lee Jackson. While trying to protect his grandfather and mother from the police attack, he was shot and killed. Forty-two years after the crime, Trooper James Fowler was charged (trial pending at time of publication). News of the murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson spread quickly. Then, three days later, another shocking murder was announced. But it was Jackson’s death that inspired the famous Selma march.

Stokely Carmichael

The first day of the march was horrific. While marchers, dressed in their Sunday best, made their way peacefully over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were beaten by state troopers. Carmichael heard about the devastation in Alabama. He was on his way there when he heard the news on the car radio that Malcolm X had been assassinated. King led the marchers on a second attempt from Selma to Montgomery. But since King did not have a permit to march, he was forestalled. That night, Reverend James Reeb, a white minister who had participated in the Selma march, was killed by racist whites. The nation’s muted response to Reeb’s death angered many SNCC activists. Carmichael pointed out that President Lyndon B. Johnson sent flowers to Reeb’s wife but not to Jackson’s. On March 21, 1965, King at last led the successful and peaceful march to Montgomery. Four days later, Viola Liuzzo was shot to death by Ku Klux Klan members while transporting black marchers home. That August, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This was landmark legislation to support the enforcement of suffrage for blacks. But it had been dearly bought.

LOWNDES COUNTY FREEDOM ORGANIZATION After the Selma march, Carmichael headed for Lowndes County, Alabama to initiate his plan for a voting campaign, like the one that was waged in Mississippi. This time, however, SNCC would follow their own rules: they carried guns to protect themselves from racist violence. Progress was slow-going in Lowndes. Many local blacks had a difficult time grappling with the idea of challenging the oppressive system of racism in Alabama. Others willingly responded to the tall, charming, and polite stranger named Stokely. Carmichael held meetings in churches, walked the meandering country roads canvassing farms, and gently appealed to the cautious and leery blacks. In the fall of 1965, Carmichael achieved some success with the establishment of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), an alternative political party in the spirit of the MFDP. Their emblem was a black panther. John Hulett, one-time chairman of the LCFO, said this about the symbol of the panther: … [the] panther is a [fierce] animal, as you know. He never bothers anything, but when you start pushing him, he moves backwards, and backwards into his corner, and then he comes out to destroy everything that’s before him. Negroes in Lowndes County have been pushed back through the years. We’ve [lost] our rights to speak, to move, and to do whatever we want to do at all times. And now we’re going to start moving … (Johnson, 74)

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Aside from the substantial number of blacks newly registered to vote, the LCFO experienced no far-reaching triumphs. Still, Carmichael was pleased that he had helped set the foundation for activism. But he wanted more. He wanted to address something that was becoming increasingly worrisome to him, something that had become clear to him during the time he spent in Lowndes County. He began reading more about Malcolm X and his philosophy. He knew he was not the only one feeling the need for a serious change of approach; Bob Moses had felt it when he had decided not to speak to white people anymore. STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE (SNCC) The meeting that occurred in May 1966 would change SNCC forever. It centered around people’s dissatisfaction with conservatism and integrationism. Carmichael, whose mind danced with the fresh new ideas implanted there by his readings on Malcolm X, suggested that it was high-time that blacks do for themselves. He believed that nonviolence should no longer be a part of their ideology. This was something that Malcolm X endorsed in his fiery speeches and criticisms of Dr. King. Indeed, few stood up and attacked King so publicly and so viciously. Malcolm X called him and leaders like him Uncle Toms and said that whites should be excluded from black struggle. The following is a statement that identified how blacks, like Carmichael, saw the role of whites: These things which revolve around the right to organize have been accomplished mainly because of the entrance of white people into Mississippi, in the summer of 1964. Since these goals have now been accomplished, whites’ role in the movement has now ended. What does it mean if black people, once having the right to organize, are not allowed to organize themselves? It means that blacks’ ideas about inferiority are being reinforced. Shouldn’t people be able to organize themselves? … Further, white participation means in the eyes of the black community that whites are the ‘brains’ behind the movement, and that blacks cannot function without whites. This only serves to perpetuate existing attitudes within the existing society, i.e., blacks are ‘dumb,’ ‘unable to take care of business,’ etc. Whites are ‘smart,’ the ‘brains’ behind the whole thing. (‘‘The Basis of Black Power’’)

Importantly, Carmichael did not advocate racial hatred. Even Malcolm X, shortly before his assassination, regretted calling whites ‘‘devils.’’ Carmichael simply wanted blacks to construct an entity and identity separate from whites.

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The consensus was that John Lewis, then chairman of SNCC, had no place in the new format of the organization, since he was against militancy and separatism. Lewis resigned and Carmichael, who was just twenty-five at the time, took his place. Lewis would eventually become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives of Georgia in 1987, a position he maintains to this day. Other civil rights leaders congratulated Carmichael. This fact challenges the notion that they were surprised or dismayed by Carmichael’s sudden awakening to separatism and militancy. Leaders like King and Farmer imparted fatherly advice to him. ‘‘You have to be very careful,’’ warned King, ‘‘your every word will be magnified, scrutinized, and criticized. By friends as well as by enemies.’’ Farmer told Carmichael that ‘‘he’d be praying for [him]’’ (Carmichael, 484, 485). Perhaps these men looked upon Carmichael as a son. They had known him when he was a budding youth newly arriving in the movement. And though they did not embrace his new politics, they cared for him unconditionally. To be sure, Farmer and King were completely against violence. King was such a staunch pacifistic that he refused to keep a gun in his own home to protect his family. Farmer and King also objected to separatism. Their approach to the struggle was based on integrating blacks into mainstream society as a way to achieve full civil rights as equal citizens in America. Though Carmichael claimed that he and King remained close while he was chairman of SNCC in Atlanta, Georgia, his politics would become increasingly more radical.

BLACK POWER Carmichael’s rise to SNCC leadership signified a shift in the struggle for civil rights throughout the nation, as the new militancy prepared to eclipse the era of nonviolence. It was at the culmination of a march to protest the shooting of James Meredith (he survived) that Black Power made its entrance into the public arena. Meredith was twenty-nine years old in 1962 when he became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi. He wore a suit on his historic first day, and entered the University flanked by white deputy marshals, patrolmen, and guards. It took a total of one hundred twentythree deputy marshals, three hundred sixteen border patrolmen, and ninetyseven federal prison guards to protect him. Twenty-four federal agents guarded the perimeter of his dormitory. Yet this security was not excessive, as violent riots had occurred to protest Meredith’s presence. He was not wanted at the university—but the federal government enforced his right to attend the previously all-white school.

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Black Power Black Power is a term that meant many things to blacks during the 1960s and 1970s. When Stokely Carmichael coined the term in 1966, he set in motion a rift between black radicals and conservatives, as well as liberal whites and radical blacks. Needless to say, the term was, in implementation, often vague and mercurial. To the proponents of black power, the term represented a renaissance of black pride and empowerment. Black Power could refer to the philosophy of separatism, militancy, Afrocentric cultural expression, or all the above. What most proponents, like Carmichael, essentially wanted was to remove the dependency of blacks on whites and to enable blacks to define their demands, goals, and desires for themselves, as well as assert their right to defend themselves against racial violence. This desire was a response to centuries of forced subjugation to whites, as well as rampant anti-black violence. Carmichael grew disillusioned by the methods of civil disobedience and repeated physical attacks and abuses by angry white mobs. In terms of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he was concerned with the roles of whites in the organization and how that presented challenges with regard to leadership and control. For black culturalists, black power was largely associated with the concept of ‘‘black is beautiful.’’ Through natural hairstyles and Afrocentric clothes and accessories, blacks affirmed, celebrated, and embraced their racial identities. In this way, they not only demonstrated black pride, they challenged the racist constructions that relegated blackness to inferiority and unattractiveness. They also resisted assimilation, which for many black power proponents was a byproduct of integration. The Black Power Movement looked nothing like the Civil Rights Movement. Liberal whites were excluded from participation. Anger and militancy replaced the former precept of love and nonviolent resistance. Revolution and liberation became the new expressions of black protest. However, black conservative leaders deplored the philosophy of militancy and separatism, and many whites feared it.

Meredith recorded his experiences, in which he was subjected to ostracism from his peers, at the University of Mississippi in Three Years in Mississippi (1966). He graduated with a degree in political science in 1963. In 2000, his son, Joseph Meredith, was the top doctoral student in the School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi. In the spring of 1966, a thirty-two-year-old Meredith set out to show the world that Mississippi could be civil towards blacks. He set out alone along the U.S. highway with the intent of crossing the state. He was shot on

Stokely Carmichael

June 6, 1966. The photo of him after the shooting won a Pulitzer Prize for Photography in 1967. Carmichael traveled to Mississippi to discuss future plans with other leaders, including Dr. King, Roy Wilkins, leader of the NAACP, and Floyd McKissick of CORE. The idea was proposed to continue with Meredith’s march. A controversy over the logistics ensued. Carmichael wanted less participation from whites and armed protection for the marchers. But he ultimately compromised, and when the march went forward, the Deacons for Defense and Justice, who provided security, did not carry weapons. The Deacons for Defense and Justice organization was just two years old when it was asked to protect the participants in the march on behalf of James Meredith. This was not their first duty. They had always played a controversial role in the Civil Rights Movement. Originally formed by Earnest ‘‘Chilly Willy’’ Thomas and Frederick Douglas Kirkpatrick in Jonesboro, Louisiana, their purpose was to provide defense against the Ku Klux Klan. Twenty-one chapters emerged in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Through their efforts, they successfully undermined Ku Klux Klan activities and attacks. The march started on June 7, 1966. When, on June 17, the marchers convened in Greenwood, Mississippi, Carmichael gave his most infamous speech, titled ‘‘Black Power.’’ He had just been released from jail after being arrested for marching on school grounds. His words underscored what many young blacks felt: it was time for blacks to do for themselves. The speech made him instantly popular. He would forever after be known as the integrationist who had become a separatist. The implication of black power startled civil rights leaders. It was an offense to everything they had fought and were fighting for. Carmichael’s actions increased the polarization among the civil rights organizations. Before long he withdrew SNCC from the White House Conference on Civil Rights, and he influenced numerous other young blacks to make the switch from integrationism to separatism. Floyd McKissick, who replaced James Farmer as the leader of CORE, turned toward the same philosophy. The transition was not seamless. Black Power, which meant different things to different people, encompassed a philosophy of social empowerment, separatism, black pride, exclusivity, and to some extent race hatred and militancy. Adam Clayton Powell, a minister and New York congressman, tried to unify the many black-power groups that emerged, and so he established the first of several black-power conferences in 1966. Carmichael was not the focal point at these gatherings. Many whites were offended or frightened by the new philosophy, which grew in popularity daily. White philanthropists who had supported SNCC when it was an integrationist organization withdrew funds. Meanwhile, the FBI began to monitor Carmichael and other newly formed black-power organizations. Civil rights leaders waged campaigns to denounce black power.

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Carmichael spent much of his time during this period trying to quell the mayhem his words had created. Still, SNCC lost members right and left. In the South, blacks were less inclined to embrace the radical concept of black power, whereas in the North, blacks were more receptive. SNCC leaders pondered their next step. At a meeting in the winter of 1966, members of the SNCC staff voted to expunge all white members, and SNCC began to shift its focus to the North, where the racial problems were volatile. Blacks in the North had already proved back in 1965 that a racial explosion could occur at any moment. Beginning with what is known as the Long Hot Summer (1965–1969), blacks in cities outside of the South erupted in violence. Unlike the race riots of the past, where whites ravaged black communities, blacks internalized their rage and looted, burned, and destroyed buildings in their own communities. One of the first outbreaks occurred in Watts, Los Angeles. The trouble began on a simmering hot day in August 1965, when blacks congregated at the scene where a black man had been arrested for drunk driving. Police harassment was rampant in the North and was compounded by a host of serious social problems. When police officers at the scene called for backup, the crowd threw stones, bottles, and other objects at them. After six days of rioting, thirty-four individuals were killed, nearly a thousand injured, and an estimated four thousand individuals were arrested. Riots like this one— and worse—occurred throughout the summers into the late 1960s. Carmichael was critical of the weak response of the federal government to the problems in the black communities that caused the riots. Although President Lyndon B. Johnson had created a plethora of social programs as part of his War on Poverty program and other projects, Carmichael contended that those efforts were not adequate. In 1967, Carmichael collaborated with Charles V. Hamilton to publish Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. This book discusses racism and colonialism, as well as reactions to them by blacks, such as accommodationism (or acquiescence) and urban rebellions. While Carmichael’s popularity soared, criticism within SNCC began to mount; members did not like all the attention he was getting in the media. Other activists complained about the media obsession with King. They were also disappointed that Carmichael paid SNCC so little attention. Carmichael attempted to rebuild the organization, but he was being pulled in several directions at once. In 1967, he toured college campuses to promote black power. He also encouraged black students at predominately white campuses to demand black-studies programs and the recruitment of more black students. Carmichael’s presence on the campuses worried many. After leaving a lecture he gave at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee during a black power meeting, a riot broke out. Carmichael was accused by the mayor and the president of Fisk University of inciting the melee. The House of Representatives sought to deport him back to Trinidad.

Stokely Carmichael

Carmichael was not the only fiery orator in the Black Power Movement. H. Rap Brown was as flammable as they come, calling white people ‘‘honkies,’’ and the police ‘‘pigs,’’ a term coined by Huey P. Newton, leader of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and regularly employed in the sixties and seventies by black and white activists. In the summer of 1967, Brown told a black audience in Maryland that ‘‘if America don’t come around, we’re going to burn America down’’ (Hine, Hine, and Harrold, 534). Brown was charged with inciting a riot and arson after someone set a local school on fire. The authorities may have worried that Carmichael and the militant black-power adherents were fomenting unrest, but the riots generally had nothing to do with the black-power leaders. They were independent reactions to extreme conditions within impoverished black communities. Two of the most intense riots in 1967 occurred in Newark, New Jersey, and Detroit, Michigan. In New Jersey, white officials ignored the problems of unemployment, crime, inadequate housing and resources for blacks, as well as the mounting incidence of police abuse. On July 12, 1967, white police officers beat a black cab driver. After someone threw a firebomb at the police station, the police officers unleashed their fury on the crowd outside. Four days of rioting culminated in twenty-five deaths of blacks as the National Guard enforced order. In Detroit, blacks rioted after white police officers attempted to clear out a club where a celebration for the return of two Vietnam veterans was in progress. The riot lasted five days. President Johnson ordered 4,700 troops to Detroit to restore order. In the process, forty-three blacks were shot and killed by the National Guard. In 1967 alone, an astonishing fifty-nine riots occurred. The riots were on everyone’s mind. America was in a state of turmoil. Naturally, the violence frightened and bewildered whites, and some vilified the perpetrators of the violence. To this day, many wonder at the causes. President Johnson and some state officials took a proactive stance, conducting investigations to get at the heart of the problem. What they came up was what conservative and radical blacks already knew: young blacks were fed up with the severe problems of poverty and racism. From the perspective of many militant leaders, the riots were actually rebellions, or revolts. Charles V. Hamilton, the political scientist and academic who worked with Carmichael on his first book, wrote a great deal on the subject of black power and revolts. Through his research and writings, he became a spokesperson and advocate for the disempowered in the nation’s cities. He taught at several institutions, including Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, and Columbia University in Manhattan, New York. In May 1967, as the race riots, negative media attention (blaming Carmichael for the racial violence), and FBI monitoring of him and his family continued, Carmichael formally resigned as SNCC chair. He continued his involvement with SNCC as an organizer.

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The Wretched of the Earth The Wretched of the Earth (1961) was written by Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist and a revolutionary from Martinique, an island in the Caribbean. Books played a pivotal role in African American protest. For example, during the Civil Rights Movement, leaders were inspired and motivated by the writings of Mahatma Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau. Civil rights demonstrations were based, in large part, on many of Gandhi’s techniques of civil disobedience and direct action. The leaders in the Black Power Movement were equally stirred by books pertaining to militant protest. Whether for nonviolence or violent revolution, books changed lives, sparked callings to lives of protest, and helped develop the ideologies and the tactics of struggle. In The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Fanon advanced the philosophy of violence in the context of African liberation from colonial rule. Born on July 20, 1925, Fanon was an eyewitness to the racism and violence inflicted by French soldiers on the populace in his native Martinique. As a psychiatrist, he made observations on the destructive effects of oppression on the marginalized and surmised that redemption would be found in independence and self-determination, not by assimilating into or emulating the oppressor. Although Fanon’s books concerned another continent, individuals elsewhere applied his ideas and observations to their own lives and situations. For example, Fanon inspired Che Guevara, who launched a revolt against the dictator Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. Guevara wrote several books about revolution and guerrilla warfare and in turn inspired Huey P. Newton. Newton was influenced by Guevara’s writings, among others (such as Robert F. Williams, who founded the Black Armed Guard), when he constructed an ideology for his organization, the Black Panther Party for SelfDefense. Williams’ book Negroes With Guns (1962) has been credited for inspiring a number of the black power groups that formed during the 1960s. Unfortunately, just as these revolutionary organizations emerged, Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia. He would not live to see the revolutionary struggle as it developed in Africa, America, and other countries. He died on December 6, 1961, at age thirty-six.

WORLD TOUR It was a relief in more ways than one for Carmichael to leave the States and travel the globe. Carmichael was well known outside of America, and people looked up to him as a model of leadership for the oppressed everywhere.

Stokely Carmichael

In Puerto Rico, he met with nationalists who wanted to obtain independence from the United States. In Great Britain in the summer of 1967, Carmichael gave a presentation at the Congress of Dialectics of Liberation. In that address, Carmichael’s frustration with the situation in America and his growing militancy were obvious: For the past four hundred years the African American has tried to coexist peacefully inside the United States.… We have never lynched a white man, we have never burned their churches, we have never bombed their houses, we have never beaten them in the streets. We have been lynched, our houses have been bombed and our churches burned. Now we are being shot down like dogs in the streets by racist policemen. We can no longer accept this oppression.… We understand that as we expand our resistance and internationalize the consciousness of our people we will get retaliation from the government. (Johnson, 106)

After several fiery speeches that riled up black youths, Great Britain prohibited Carmichael from returning. Over the next five months, Carmichael visited several locations, including Havana, Cuba, Paris, Guinea, Tanzania, Egypt, Algeria, Spain, Czechoslovakia, and North Vietnam. As he traveled, Carmichael became increasingly more interested in Pan-Africanism. Discussions with W.E.B. Du Bois’ widow, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and with President Sekou Toure of Guinea and Ho Chi Minh, political leader of North Vietnam, confirmed his belief in the subject. Like Marcus Garvey in the early twentieth century, who was born in Jamaica and committed himself to the task of building a nation for all descendants of Africa, Carmichael began to conceptualize a plan to unite the descendents of Africa. His travels proved to him that there were leaders around the globe willing to provide him with assistance. The late W.E.B. Du Bois and his wife had been among the pioneers of Pan-African thought in the United States. Shirley Graham Du Bois had coordinated several Pan-African conferences. In Cuba, Carmichael met Fidel Castro, who had successfully waged a militant revolution to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Castro, who had subsequently established a communist government, was an enemy of America, but militant blacks venerated him because he had dared to challenge the opposition and win. Ho Chi Minh was the revolutionary leader of the Viet Minh independence movement, an uprising against French colonial rule that culminated with his ascent to power as chairman of the provisional government in 1946 and president in 1955. President Sekou Toure accomplished the colossal task of ushering his country into independence after Guinea opted out of colonial rule by the French. Both Castro and Toure offered Carmichael residence in their countries.

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BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOR SELF-DEFENSE After Carmichael returned to the United States, he found his status in SNCC faltering. The existing leadership did not embrace his Pan-Africanism. Carmichael reviewed the situation and considered working with a new upstart organization. In 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. In doing so they were inspired by Carmichael’s own LCFO. They were intrigued by the powerful symbol of the black panther and used it for their own organization. But there was little if anything else the two organizations had in common. The LCFO was strictly a political organization, created in the South to empower blacks to vote and to participate in the political process. The Black Panthers, as they were sometimes called, were located in Oakland, California, and became the foremost proponents of the tactic of armed self-defense during the Black Power Movement. Newton, who set the goals and the program for the organization, was born in Monroe, Louisiana but raised in Oakland. The main impetus for the founding of the Black Panthers was to resist racist police officers. The Black Panthers was one of the first black-power organizations to launch armed patrols to monitor the interactions between cops and blacks in the community. This landed Newton in jail more than once, but it made him a local folk hero. And Newton’s plans did not stop there. He implemented ‘‘survival programs’’ to address the immediate social needs of the community. These programs included free breakfast for children, clothing distribution, free medical clinics, testing for sickle-cell anemia, etc. In 1967, with Newton again in jail for allegedly shooting and killing a police officer, Carmichael agreed to speak at one of several Free Huey rallies. Soon after, Carmichael and James Forman (who had been the executive secretary of SNCC from 1961 to 1965) were invited to join the Black Panthers. Carmichael became the honorary prime minister of the Panthers, and Forman became the minister of foreign affairs. H. Rap Brown, who had taken over SNCC after Carmichael resigned in 1967, also joined, becoming the minister of justice.

MARRIAGE AND CHANGE The year 1968 was destined to be one of great change. It started out with Carmichael seeking a merger between the Black Panthers and SNCC. But events quickly overwhelmed his plans. His home life was also disrupted. Unbeknown to many, Carmichael had found happiness in a relationship with a beautiful South African singer named Miriam Makeba. Though he met her for the first time in Guinea during his world tour (Makeba was a friend of Toure’s), Carmichael had had a crush on her when he was an

Stokely Carmichael

adolescent in New York. Theirs seemed a perfect match. Makeba was also something of an activist, protesting the system of apartheid in her country to the United Nations. Apartheid was very similar to Jim Crow in the American South, in which races were socially segregated. In South Africa, the major races were classified as either white, black, colored (mixed ancestry, usually European and another race), and Indian (or Asian). Blacks were at the very bottom of the social structure. The system was established in 1948. Nelson Mandela is perhaps the most famous symbol of the struggle to end apartheid. He was a leader in the African National Congress, an organization founded in 1912 to advocate civil rights for black South Africans. As thanks for his activities, Mandela served twenty-seven years in prison. However, during that time he garnered much support throughout the world, including in America. In 1990, he was released. Following four years of negotiations, apartheid was abolished in 1994. Mandela served as president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He published his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, in 1994. Carmichael and Makeba started dating shortly after his trip to Guinea and were quietly married in March 1966. But as news of their wedding spread, Makeba got her first glimpse of the powerful forces arrayed in opposition to Carmichael: she received a call from her manager who told her that all her engagements had been canceled. The tumultuous events of 1968 moved quickly. On April 4, Dr. King was assassinated. Riots ensued. SNCC backed out of the Black Panther merger and then expelled Carmichael from the organization, feeling he no longer represented their philosophy. A year after Carmichael had begun working with the Black Panthers, he began to reconsider his involvement in that organization. He went to Washington, D.C. to help start up the first branch of the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party (AARP), a Pan-African organization that would work toward the liberation of all descendants of Africa. Makeba’s troubles continued. Singing was to her as activism was to Carmichael, but no one in America would give her a stage on which to perform. As for Carmichael, he felt increasingly displaced and alienated and thought more and more about Toure’s invitation to live in Guinea. He also wanted to go to Africa to study, to regroup, and to construct a solid plan for the future of his movement. Though he was denounced by some blacks for running away, he and his wife reviewed their options and decided to move to Conakry, Guinea.

GUINEA Stokely and Miriam arrived in Conakry in the spring of 1969. Carmichael was just twenty-seven years old. It was a busy time. He learned how to speak French, dressed in West African attire, changed his name to Kwame Ture, and began to study with Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

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Dr. Nkrumah was a leader-in-exile in Conakry, but Toure had made him honorary co-president of Guinea. Born in 1909 in the Gold Coast, Nkrumah was educated in Accra, Ghana. He received a bachelor’s of Sacred Theology from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and a Masters of Science in Education and Arts in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1947, he returned to Ghana and waged a campaign for independence from colonial rule. In 1950 he launched civil-disobedience demonstrations and was sentenced to three years in jail. Before the British relinquished control in Ghana, they held elections for seats in the Legislative Assembly in 1951. Nkrumah was in jail at the time, but he won a seat in the Legislative Assembly. In 1952, he was elected prime minister. In 1953, Ghana finally received its independence from Britain. However, in 1966, while he visited Vietnam, his government was overthrown. Thus, he settled in Guinea. Nkrumah published several books, including Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (1957), I Speak of Freedom (1973), and Revolutionary Path (1973).

kou Toure Ahmed Se kou Toure became the Following liberation from France in 1958, Ahmed Se first African president of Guinea. He was a gleaming example of strength and heroism to other Africans and black leaders in America because he succeeded in leading his country without relying on its former colonial power. Born on January 9, 1918 or 1922 in Guinea, a country located in West grew up under the colonial rule of France. Early on, he resisted Africa, Toure the notion that Africans should be under foreign rule and control just as his , was a legendgreat-grandfather had. His great-grandfather, Samory Toure ary war chief who led a formidable resistance movement against the French from 1882 until he was captured in 1898. France colonized Guinea in 1890. gave his French teachers trouble. And when he In the classroom, Toure grew up, he became a voluble critic of colonization and joined political groups dedicated to the struggle of liberation. In 1945, he helped found a labor union. In 1952, he became the leader of the Guinean Democratic Party. Four years later, he was elected deputy to the French national assembly and mayor. In 1958, the French government gave Guinea’s African leaders the option ’s group voted to vote for independence or to stay under colonial rule. Toure for independence. His country was the only one of France’s colonies to do then boldly ushered his country into self-government without any so. Toure assistance from France. was a controversial figure. Although he was a generous leader who Toure maintained contact with civil rights leaders, as well as militant black leaders like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, and was concerned about the plight of the descendants of Africa, he was a socialist dictator criticized for harsh censorship of his opposition.

Stokely Carmichael

When Carmichael left the United States, he formally dissolved his relationship with the Black Panthers. There were many reasons for this decision. In his words, ‘‘I thought there was real potential there, valuable initiatives that deserved to be defended and advanced, if possible. When I concluded that this wasn’t about to happen, I left’’ (Carmichael, 669). Others have claimed that Carmichael left because Newton formed coalitions with whites. But a third reason reflects the escalating criminal element within the organization. Carmichael described how, one day, Black Panthers from the West Coast threatened Jim Forman’s life. Shortly thereafter, Forman left the organization. The 1970s began with the publication of Carmichael’s second book. This one was titled Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism (1971). For his next project, he hoped to support Nkrumah in reclaiming his position as prime minister in Ghana. But Nkrumah was more interested in developing the restive young Carmichael. Miriam resumed her singing career, and Stokely worked for Toure, a job that often had him traveling across the continent. Carmichael also kept in touch with developments in America, returning periodically for visits. These appeared to be tranquil years. In 1972, Nkrumah died from skin cancer. The following year, Carmichael and his wife separated, divorcing in 1979. In 1980, Carmichael met Marliatou Barre, from the Fulani tribe, at a wedding in Conakry. They married the same year and she gave birth, in 1982, to their only son, Boabacar Biro. But that marriage failed, too. Carmichael blamed himself, writing, ‘‘I was incapable of giving my energies equally to both the revolution and the family. One had to be sacrificed, and in my case, that ended up being family.… For revolutionaries, family often has to be sacrificed to struggle’’ (Carmichael, 711). On March 26, 1984, Toure died of a heart attack. Over the years, Carmichael continued lecturing and advancing PanAfricanism. But pain in his hip slowed him down considerably during the 1990s. He felt exhausted, and finally, at the insistence of friends, went to see a doctor. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996. He underwent two years of treatment in New York, but died in Conakry, Guinea, on November 15, 1998. He was fifty-seven years old. See also W.E.B. Du Bois; James Farmer; Marcus Garvey; Fannie Lou Hamer; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis; Malcolm X; Thurgood Marshall; Huey P. Newton; and Roy Wilkins.

FURTHER RESOURCES Carmichael, Stokely. ‘‘The Basis of Black Power.’’ History Archive: A History of the Revolutionary Working Class (May 2008). See http://marx.org/history/usa/ workers/black-panthers/unknown-date/black-power.htm. Carmichael, Stokely. ‘‘Black Power.’’ American Rhetoric (May 2008). See http:// www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/stokelycarmichaelblackpower.html. Carmichael, Stokely. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael [Kwame Ture]. New York: Scribner, 2003.

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Carmichael, Stokely, and Abu-Jamal, Mumia. Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2007. Eyes on the Prize II: The Time Has Come. Directed by Judith Vecchione. PBS, 1989. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Penguin, 1976. Hamilton, Charles V., Ture, Kwame, Carmichael, Stokely, and Hamilton, Charles. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. New York: Vintage, 1992. Hine, Darlene Clark, Hine, William C, and Harrold, Stanley. The African-American Odyssey. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. Johnson, Jacqueline. Stokely Carmichael: The Story of Black Power. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Silver Burdett Press, 1990.

Library of Congress

Angela Davis (1944– )


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Angela Davis is a professor, author, and activist. She is most known for her involvement in the black liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Her FBI poster became a status symbol in the summer of 1970 when she became the third woman to be listed on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted over allegedly abetting a rescue attempt at the Marin County Courthouse. Angela Davis metamorphosed into a household name when, in 1969, she was fired from her job as an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, because she was a member of the American Communist Party. Shortly thereafter, the law that prohibited the hiring of communists was eliminated, and she was rehired.

Afro The afro, or ‘‘natural’’ as it is sometimes called, was a symbol of black pride and resistance in the 1960s. The trend continued through the 1970s until afros gave way to the processed Jheri Curl hairstyle. An afro is formed when black hair in its natural state is allowed to grow. Generally, the hair is picked with an ‘‘afro pick’’ to form a full, oval-shaped style. Afros range in size either according to one’s ability to grow the hair out or by preference. Sometimes, an afro wig is worn to achieve the same effect. The picks used to comb the afro were designed to look like those that were used traditionally in Africa. The afro was more than a fashion trend when it emerged in the 1960s; it was a challenge to centuries-old negative stereotypes toward African Americans as well as a political statement. Even before slavery, whites denigrated Africans, in large part because of their physiological differences. This persisted during and after slavery with no noticeable let-up. Whites attributed black physical traits (such as dark skin color, coarse hair, broad noses, full lips, etc.) with ugliness, inferiority, and evil, while they attributed attractiveness, superiority, and goodness to their own physical traits (straight hair, thin lips and nose, pale skin, etc.). This sort of thinking caused havoc for many blacks, whose internalized negative self-concepts manifested into self-hatred and excessive adoration of whiteness. Angela Davis’ FBI Most Wanted photo helped to amplify the craze for afros—so much so that whites began growing their hair out and emulating the style. In the twenty-first century, Davis continues to be pelted by questions over her afro. She is constantly amazed by the preoccupation over her former hairdo. But the apparent obsession with the style can be attributed to the fact that her hair was more than a style; it signified defiance, resistance, and pride.

Angela Davis

Davis reached even greater notoriety when she was accused of taking part in an ill-fated prisoner rescue at the Marin County Courthouse in 1970. Because she was a radical activist, a vocal advocate for prisoners’ rights, and the legal owner of one of the firearms used in the rescue attempt, she was charged with kidnapping, conspiracy, and murder—even though she was not present at the courthouse during the incident. A captivated world watched the dramatic events that followed. Angela Davis went into hiding, then, following her capture, spent sixteen months in jail awaiting trial. The words ‘‘Free Angela’’ were emblazoned on signs at demonstrations around the globe. Her face—stoic, intelligent, handsome, and framed by her trademark dark-brown afro flecked with copper—was displayed on posters, T-shirts, buttons, and other paraphernalia. Davis became a huge iconic symbol—which popularized the gestures and cultural trappings of the Black Power Movement as well as the revolutionary struggle for justice and freedom in mainstream America and abroad. Davis proved her innocence during the trial and was acquitted of all charges in 1972. Following her highly public ordeal, she resumed her activities in the fields that were of the most importance to her, particularly with regard to black feminism, prison abolition, and liberation for all who were oppressed. She ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. vice presidency in 1980 and 1984 on the American Communist Party ticket. She helped establish Critical Resistance, an organization committed to abolishing the prison system. She became a favorite on the lecture circuit at academic and non-academic venues. Scholarly interests have played a key role in Davis’ life. In addition to teaching at several universities, she has published a number of books, such as If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971), Frame Up: The Opening Defense Statement Made (1972), Women, Race, and Class (1981), Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude ‘‘Ma’’ Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (1999), and Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003). Davis is currently a professor of the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

CHILDHOOD Angela Yvonne Davis was born on January 26, 1944. Her father, B. Frank Davis, was a high school teacher and later owned a service station. Her mother, Sallye Davis, was an elementary school teacher. When Davis, her parents, and her baby brother, Benny, moved to a predominately white neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama in 1948 (her sister, Fania, was born that same year), they were the first African American family to do so. At first, their white neighbors just glowered at them. But as more black families moved in, their tactics turned violent. Whites bombed some of the

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homes owned by black families. The bombings became so frequent that the neighborhood was known as Dynamite Hill. Davis, however, was resistant to the intended effect of the bombs: she refused to become fearful, docile, and complacent to the inferior, browbeaten role southern society would have relegated her to. This neighborhood was very different from the one Angela had come from. In the black projects, everyone was friendly. Unfortunately, that was about the only benefit: the minuscule yards had been bereft of grass, blossoming flowers, or any garden for growing vegetables. Everything that was constructed for African Americans was substandard: the movie theaters did not show up-to-date films, schools were dilapidated, and textbooks were old and tattered. In those days, African Americans did not even have their own libraries, but had to enter the ‘‘white only’’ library from the rear via a labyrinth-like maze. Once inside, the black patron requested a book, and an African American librarian went on a search for it. By contrast, the white world was brighter, shinier, and bigger. White schools, with their immaculate lawns, were impressive looking. White children had amusement parks. White families had homes that were spacious and surrounded by wild plants and trees in abundance. This was the type of neighborhood Angela Davis moved into. It would have been a veritable dream home—if it had not been for the racists. Despite her parents’ efforts to prevent the inevitable, Davis grew up a rebellious child in this tumultuous environment. Her mother had been an activist while in college and had worked shoulder-to-shoulder with white activists. She tried to persuade Davis that not all whites were like the ones who maliciously attacked and humiliated African Americans in her hometown. Encased in this nightmarish world, however, Davis made up her own mind on this subject. Davis described the games she and the other children played as a form of resistance. One pastime she enjoyed immensely involved her and her friends standing in the front yard and yelling at whites who drove by. They would hurtle names like ‘‘redneck’’ and ‘‘cracker’’ at unsuspecting strangers with all the intensity they could muster, and then burst into peals of laughter to see ‘‘the startled expressions on their faces’’ (Davis, 80). At other times, they would play ‘‘dare,’’ challenging one another to touch the porch of some white homeowner. The biggest dare was for those who would actually ring the doorbell or knock on the door and then hide in the nearby bushes. Davis was one of those who accepted that challenge. It was a game, but underneath she felt the gravity of what she was doing. Davis had another game she liked to play, a fantasy game in which she imagined she wore a white mask and entered a white-only place, unveiled herself, and then ‘‘laugh[ed] wildly and call[ed] them all fools’’ (85). But Davis decided she would never succumb to wanting to be or act like a white person, like others did. She had too much self-esteem for that. She took

Angela Davis

pride in her race, as was evident in her annoyance when other kids pointed out her naturally wavy hair and light complexion. And it bothered her that the children would call one another ‘‘nigger,’’ as the whites routinely did. Racism was not the only part of Davis’ life that she found exasperating. Poverty was another issue that struck her to the core. The Davises were not wealthy, but they lived fairly comfortably and better than most other blacks. Her mother was an exemplar of generosity, who often took their clothing to school and gave it away to children who badly needed it. Davis suffered to see her friends with no food to eat during lunch time. She once stole money from her father to help feed her hungry classmates. During a visit to California, she witnessed the poverty of her aunt, uncle, and cousins, and pleaded with her father that he might give them money to buy food. Davis’ tendency for rebellion was fueled by many persons and events in her life. Davis’ great grandparents had been slaves, and her grandmother used to tell her stories about slavery. When Davis learned about the abolitionist Harriet Tubman in school, she personalized her by imagining that Tubman was her great grandmother. That her mother had been an activist must have also have had an impact on Angela. Thus, it was that given her imagination, games of resistance, her mother’s activism, and observations of racism and poverty, the young Davis was positioned to be a leader among female activists. Trips to New York, where she spent many summers between the ages six and ten, intensified Davis’ distaste for the Jim Crow South. They stayed with Angela’s aunt and cousins, as her mother was enrolled in a graduate program at New York University. In New York, Angela liked sitting in the front seat of the bus, going to the zoo, and eating in a restaurant. There were no colored-only or white-only signs to be seen. When, upon returning from New York one time, she insisted upon sitting behind the bus driver, her cousin, mortified, drew her away to the black section in the back of the bus. Davis was confounded. Though she loved life in the big city, Davis also relished trips to her grandparents’ farm in Marengo County, Alabama. The country presented a welcome retreat from the confines and tumult of Dynamite Hill. Feeding the chickens, riding horses, and frolicking in the fields were a far cry from the angry stares, the racial signs designating where she could and could not go, and the charred remains of homes that belonged to black people.

MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT Davis was ten years old when African Americans just a hundred miles away banded together for a singular purpose: to protest segregated seating on public buses. Before that demonstration, no one had heard of Rosa Parks, the diminutive member of the NAACP who became famous for not giving

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up her seat on a segregated bus. Parks’ defiance gave impetus to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King, a twenty-six-year-old Baptist minister from Atlanta, Georgia with a riveting and sonorous voice, was unknown outside his local community prior to that demonstration. He went on to lead several prodigious campaigns under the aegis of the Southern Conference Leadership Conference. Davis was moved by the boycott and was impressed by the fact that King had mobilized the complete support of blacks in Montgomery. Davis was disappointed that African Americans in her community appeared to kowtow to discrimination and racism. No one rallied behind the black teacher who lost his job for insisting that he be treated with respect. Davis recalled that there were others who ‘‘were affected by the boycott’’ (101). She and a few of her friends were inspired to sit at the front of the bus; however, there was not a big enough following to make an impact in their Birmingham neighborhood. Small random shows of protest did not produce the sort of results the Montgomery Boycott was making. Davis was not allowed to participate in other demonstrations because she was considered ‘‘too young … and a girl at that, to be exposed to the billy clubs and violence of the police’’ (Davis, 102). Given the times, Davis’ parents, who were members of the local NAACP chapter, would have been considered radical activists. The NAACP was outlawed in Birmingham. They received bomb threats, but their home was never attacked. When the local chapter eventually foundered, another organization was constructed to take its place: the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.

EARLY EDUCATION Davis could already read, write, and do arithmetic when she entered Carrie A. Tuggle School, an all-black school in Birmingham. In addition to the basic curriculum, the primary grades were taught African American history and sang the ‘‘Negro National Anthem’’ at school assemblies. In recollecting that song, Davis wrote that ‘‘although my singing voice was nothing I wanted to call attention to, I always sang the last phrases full blast: ‘Facing the rising sun, till a new day is born, let us march on till victory is won!’’’ (Davis, 91). During these years, Davis enjoyed reading. As it was her parents’ desire to give Davis a well-balanced education, they enrolled her in dance classes and gave her piano lessons. In contrast, the students’ behavior at Davis’ school reflected the violence that permeated their surroundings. Fights were constant and vicious, and the situation worsened in high school. Davis later came to realize that violence was one way in which the children vented their frustration at the social conditions and their sense of powerlessness. This situation was

Angela Davis

compounded by the fact that the education itself, particularly the history classes, was execrable. She learned nothing about African American history to supplement what she had learned during elementary school. Racism was rampant in Davis’ community. One teacher Angela knew lost his job because he corrected a white visitor when he called him by his first name. When a police officer stopped Angela and some school friends while driving in a car because he thought one of the black passengers looked white (whites and blacks were not allowed to socialize), upon finding out that the passenger was indeed black, he did not leave them alone, ‘‘harassing [them] with foul language, hitting some of the boys, and searching every inch of the car for some excuse to take us to jail’’ (Davis, 103). Davis explained that this was a common practice in Alabama at that time. On one occasion, Angela decided to challenge Jim Crow Laws, and she recruited her youngest sister, Fania, to join her. For years, Davis had imagined wearing a white mask and entering a white-only establishment. But when the time came to make the fantasy a reality, the only ruse she and her sister employed was a fake identity and a made-up accent. With this guise, they tricked the white workers and manager in a downtown shoe store into thinking they were not ‘‘ordinary’’ Birmingham blacks, but French. Davis recalled how they were directed to the white section and treated like ‘‘dignitaries’’ (Davis, 86). Davis and her sister could hardly stop laughing when they revealed to the manager and the other workers their true identities, and ran out of the store. Davis was anxious to get out of the South. In her junior year, she looked over her options for an early exit: attend Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she could study to become a pediatrician, or seek acceptance to a program specifically designed to allow African Americans in the South to attend an integrated high school in the North. Davis chose the latter and was admitted to Elisabeth Irwin High School in New York. The location of the school was a big draw for Davis. As a child, she had delighted in the expansive feeling of being able to go wherever she wanted to go. Fisk University, an all-black institution, could not offer her that. But by choosing the high school over Fisk, she abandoned her dream of becoming a pediatrician. And she felt more than a little apprehensive at the prospect of being in an all-white environment. As a child, Davis found whites objectionable, and her feelings had simmered since those days. Davis’ move to New York was illuminating. To her relief, her white host family was kind, and this greatly helped her transition into her new world. She liked them, and she appreciated that they lived in a black neighborhood. She made discoveries about both the whites and the blacks in New York. The whites were extremely informal. Teachers were called by their first name and dressed in jeans. One male teacher wore his hair long and disheveled. On the other hand, while blacks in the South were warm, friendly, and hospitable, in New York they were aloof and suspicious.

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While in New York, Davis stayed abreast with events in the South. She badly wanted to be a part of the mounting demonstrations, and was furious to the point of tears to see in the news how African Americans were hosed down with fire hoses and attacked with police dogs and cattle prods. Whenever her emotions got the better of her, she concealed herself in her room. Davis flourished intellectually in this environment, with its progressive teachers and inquisitive peers. She was not the anomaly she had been at the high school in Birmingham, for radicalism at Elisabeth Irwin was encouraged. Upon reading Marx’s The Communist Manifesto for the first time, Davis was changed: at long last, she had found the solution to her inner turmoil over class differences. Angela Davis had found her calling. Davis quickly linked up with a friend whose parent was a communist, and they both attended meetings of Advance, an organization affiliated with the American Communist Party. In 1960, Davis engaged in her first organized protest. This occurred during the start of the sit-in movement, which was launched by college students at a Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. Davis and her friends brandished picket signs and urged pedestrians not to patronize the five-and-dime chain until the F.W. Woolworth stores in the South hired African Americans. Notwithstanding the thrill of being a part of something greater than herself, Davis longed to be home, in the South, in the heat of the action. At the same time, she wanted to continue her education. Thus, although she engaged in demonstrations as often as she could, she did not participate in the epic demonstrations in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. Davis chose education, thus equipping herself for the battle that lay ahead.

BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY (1961–1963) In her freshman year at Brandeis University, Davis could be found, on any weekday, striding alone, in the jeans she habitually wore, across the Brandeis University campus in Waltham, Massachusetts, to class or to the library, her arms wound firmly around books by existentialists like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. At first, it was not easy being alone all the time. Davis was one of only three blacks on campus in 1961. It helped to try to convince herself that being alone was cool; that she was making a statement. She would meander into formal dances without a partner, leggy in her favorite jeans, scanning the crowds, content in her independence. But Davis did eventually make friends. While participating in rallies and demonstrations in support of communist countries like Cuba, she befriended other radicals. She also made friends with a few of the foreign students on campus. She dated a German exchange student and admitted a selection of eclectic friends from India, the Philippines, and South Vietnam into her

Angela Davis

private circle. One friend from India, Lalit, ‘‘helped [her] understand concretely the interconnectedness of the freedom struggle of peoples throughout the world.’’ Davis ‘‘was profoundly moved when he talked about the incredible misery of his people in India’’ (Davis, 120). Such experiences, she recalled, were none too different from that of blacks in America. Listening to the stories of others was inspiring, but Davis wanted to experience the world for herself. At the end of spring semester in 1962, she and a friend attended the Eighth World Festival for Youth and Students in Helsinki, Finland. Organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth, an anti-imperialist and leftist organization, the Festival was held periodically in countries that were sympathetic to communism. The slogan for that year was ‘‘For Peace and Friendship.’’ Although she accepted the ideology of communism, Davis had not yet officially become one. Davis and her friend were free-spirited adventurers; they traveled around Europe hitchhiking and camping out in empty fields. In this way, Davis visited locations such as London, England, Paris, France, and Geneva, Switzerland. In Davis’ second year at Brandeis, in which she majored in French, she attended a Malcolm X lecture. During this time, Malcolm X impressed numerous African American college students across the nation. They liked his militant speeches, in which he denounced white racism and advanced black pride and black nationalism. Davis, however, felt mixed emotions as she sat in a mostly white audience. She felt ‘‘a kind of morbid satisfaction listening to Malcolm reduce white people to virtually nothing,’’ but did not relate to his endorsement of the Muslim religion (Davis, 127). Her analysis of how whites reacted to Malcolm was pointed: ‘‘most of them,’’ she wrote, ‘‘were so bent on defending themselves and on distinguishing themselves from the slave master and the Southern segregationist it never struck them that they themselves could begin to do something concrete to fight racism’’ (Davis, 127). In this way, Davis felt that Malcolm was further polarizing blacks and whites.

SORBONNE (1963–1964) Angela Davis spent her junior year at the Sorbonne, also known as the University of Paris, in France. Davis, who had for so much of her short life struggled with a sense of guilt for being removed from the heart of the struggle for civil rights, had to read in the newspaper of the infamous Birmingham bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. This was a devastating blow. She knew all four of the young girls who died in that explosion: Carole Robertson was her sister’s best friend, her mother had taught Denise and Addie Mae Collins, and Cynthia Wesley was a neighbor. Davis could not stop talking about what had happened, but she was frustrated that no one seemed to comprehend that this was not just an isolated

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tragedy but a symptom of the racism problem that permeated American culture. When news broke out on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, Davis ‘‘wondered how many of them had shed tears—or had truly felt saddened—when they read the Herald Tribune story about the murders of Carole, Cynthia, Addie Mae, and Denise’’ (132). As the tumultuous events of the 1960s unfolded in the States, Davis pursued her studies. But living in France did not make her less affected by the violence and injustices against blacks. She felt the sting of the movement as if she were in the midst of the turmoil. And she reacted by plunging into her academic work with fierce intensity. She wanted to be ready when her time came. Participation in the struggle was the obvious purpose for her life. Through education, she sharpened and readied herself, to make herself useful to the struggle. With this aspiration, Davis nursed no dreams of individual heroism; she wanted to be a part of the collective.

BACK TO BRANDEIS (1964–1965) AND THE UNIVERSITY OF FRANKFURT (1965–1967) During Davis’ last year at Brandeis, she completed her preparations for graduate school. She wanted to study philosophy and enlisted the help of a Brandeis professor, Herbert Marcuse, who would become her advisor. Marcuse, a Jewish sociologist and philosopher, suggested she attend the University of Frankfurt. Davis went to Germany on scholarship in 1965 to attend graduate school. The area in which she lived was not progressive when it came to racial tolerance, but the family with which she lived was kind. They empathized with the historical and extant conditions faced by blacks. Moreover, ‘‘they never failed to draw the appropriate parallels between the Nazi oppression of the Jews in their country and the repression of my people in the United States’’ (Davis, 138). After awhile, Davis moved into a tattered apartment. It was more affordable, gave her more freedom and privacy, and was the only other place that admitted blacks. Davis’ friends included Haitian students, a few American students, and some Cubans who lived in the same building. Davis resumed her activism while attending the University of Frankfurt. She participated in the protest demonstrations that abounded in opposition to America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. As she studied, protested, and made frequent visits to Berlin, Davis became aware that a black power movement was emerging in America. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement demonstrations that were defined by passive resistance to white violence, this movement believed in armed resistance to oppression. Davis found that she related to this burgeoning militant stance.

Angela Davis

Black Power organizations multiplied exponentially in America during the mid-1960s. They comprised mostly young, dynamic, and assertive individuals, but each group represented varying degrees of radicalism and advocated an assortment of ideologies. Davis was intrigued by these exciting times. She wanted to explore the various groups and find a home among them. After two years in Germany, she decided to return to America, stopping off in London for a conference. Michael X and Stokely Carmichael were present. Michael X was a half Portuguese and Bajan revolutionist based in London. Like many black converts to Islam, he changed his last name from de Freitas to X to abandon his slave name. During slavery, blacks were given the surname of their slave owners, and their true names were lost. Michael X was so radical that he advocated violence against black women in relationships with white men, for which he was sentenced to prison for eighteen months. Carmichael was once a protege of King’s philosophy of nonviolence and direct action. In the early sixties, he participated in the Freedom Rides; as a student leader of SNCC, he participated in various demonstrations protesting segregation. Disillusioned over time by the violent backlash against himself and other demonstrators and by the conflict and competition between black and white activists, Carmichael chose to embrace self-defense and black separatism. In 1966, he coined the term ‘‘Black Power’’ at a rally. He served as one of the fieriest leaders in the new movement and contributed to the radicalization of SNCC. Davis listened to Michael X and Carmichael as they spoke about the black liberation movement, but it bothered her that militants did not see the destructive role the system of capitalism played in the lives of blacks. She also felt that too much hostility was focused towards whites. One could sense that Davis saw an opportunity to help steer the ideological stance of this fledgling movement toward a greater appreciation for and understanding of communism. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO, AND THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT (1967–1969) Birth of a Black Student Union Ever since Davis left her home in Birmingham, Alabama, she had lived in environments where blacks were a minority. This experience, in addition to her longing to join the Black Power Movement, undoubtedly affected Davis’ initial feelings of alienation when she arrived on the campus at the University of California, San Diego, in the fall of 1967. She longed to find others who not only shared her racial heritage, but were involved or interested in participating in the black power movement. Davis scoured the campus as

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well as the nearest black community for blacks who shared her desire, but her search was fruitless. Davis turned to the predominately white radical activist groups on campus. In this way, she could best utilize her restless need to do something productive. Davis participated in demonstrations against the war and was even arrested. Following her release, she attended a meeting where she met two African Americans named Liz and Ed.

Hippie Movement The Hippie Movement occurred between 1960 and 1969, spanning both the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. Angela Davis undoubtedly knew many hippies while she attended college in California and participated in anti-war protests, demonstrating right alongside many of them. But she was not a hippie. Nor were many other African Americans. The Hippie Movement was a conglomeration of many influences. It originated with the Beat Generation, a subculture formed in the 1940s. The ‘‘beatniks,’’ as they were called, comprised young whites disillusioned by society who created a subculture based on anti-materialism. These men and women developed a specific look: the men wore goatees and berets, while the women wore black leotards and let their hair grow out long and unadorned. In the 1960s, the emerging culture of the hippie grew to encompass Native American and African clothing, long, unkempt hair, and a certain naturalness and earthiness. New Age Native American religions were sometimes stressed, as were communal living, psychedelic drugs, and free sex. A large number of hippies were involved in various protests, the most well-known being demonstrations against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War (1956–1975). Others participated in civil rights demonstrations and were empathetic to the Black Power Movement. Like the black-power proponents, hippies regularly castigated American institutions, racism, and sexism. The term ‘‘pig’’ was created by Huey P. Newton of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense to refer to police officers. The term was adopted by and wildly popular with hippies.

Liz and Ed agreed to join her attempt to organize the campus’ first black student union. Their search turned up between fifteen and twenty students, university staff, and two black professors. Ten attended the first meeting. Davis, who by this time wore her trademark afro, was delighted. She explained, rather self-effacingly, that she became the leader only because she was the most experienced among them.

Angela Davis

Ed Lynn Davis established the new BSU with the agenda of making it not just another nominal campus organization but one that was involved in the community and the black power movement. One of the first projects concerned a campaign to support an African American seaman named Ed Lynn, who had protested racism in the Navy. He had gone as far as to accuse President Lyndon B. Johnson of knowing about the racial problem and doing nothing about it. Lynn was rewarded with a court martial. Davis helped coordinate a large community rally on Lynn’s behalf. Many of the major leaders of the movement were present and gave speeches. There was John Floyd of the Black Panther Political Party, Ron Karenga of the US Organization, and leaders of the Black Congress and the Community Alert Patrol. The rally was a success, but some were openly critical of Davis’ role as a leader in the movement. Individuals from the US Organization complained that Davis was ‘‘doing a man’s job’’ (Davis, 161). They were not the only ones who had a problem with female leadership. A common opinion among members of many black organizations was that women should be behind the scenes, supporting men. Davis was put out by this sentiment. To her, gender was a non-issue. What mattered was that someone, whether male or female, did what was necessary to get the job done. This issue was not the only problem Davis had with the black power organizations: she was frustrated by the overall disdain of blacks, in general, with regard to socialism and the vilification of the white race. But there were aspects of these organizations that Davis found provocative. When, in the winter of 1967, she attended a Black Youth Conference, which gathered an assortment of black power organizations, she was in awe. A number of the participations were clad in ethnic garments and had exotic tribal names. Davis liked the fact that, for once, blackness among blacks was something to be venerated. She also liked their solidarity, as demonstrated by their elaborate handshakes or by calling one another brother and sister. But the cohesion between the disparate groups had its limitations. Each leader or representative of an organization stood up and gave a presentation. Some were interested in the expression of cultural identity and nothing else. Some advocated a back-to-Africa movement. Others endorsed black separatism, revolutionary violence, armed self-defense, or some combination thereof. Frequently, these differences disintegrated into a competitiveness over territory or something as seemingly insignificant as a name of an organization, putting groups at odds with each other. Davis saw a frightening example of this aspect of the movement at the conference when a fight erupted between the United Front and US. Gunshots pierced the air, shattering the positive tone of the gathering. This conflict was a microcosm of the hostility that

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many organizations felt toward each other. It represented the violence that so many of the participants had experienced at one time or another during their lives—or sometimes a violence that was provoked through clandestine workings of the FBI, as agents infiltrated the groups. Davis was troubled by the violence. She always had been, ever since she had to endure the constant fighting that flared among blacks in Birmingham. But Davis also saw beyond the violence. Not every organization was hostile, and she was convinced that the movement was critical to black liberation. Over all, Davis felt that the Black Panther Political Party (not to be confused with the Black Panther Party for Self Defense launched by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale) ‘‘was far more sophisticated and more satisfying than’’ the others (Davis, 160). When she was invited to join that group, she seized the opportunity. Black Panther Political Party Both the Black Panther Political Party (BPPP) and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense took their names from the sobriquet that was given to the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), which originated in Alabama. Its symbol was a black panther. Davis’ group, the BPPP, purposely added ‘‘political party’’ to its name to differentiate itself from the Black Panthers, which was headed by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California. The close resemblance of the names of the two organizations caused tension. One day, while visiting the Black Congress building, where a coalition of organizations held meetings, a member of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense threatened Davis with a gun. He wanted her to relay a message to her organization: change its name or else. Later, it was found out that that individual was an undercover agent. But at the time, Davis turned to James Forman for help; she also obtained a gun to protect herself. Like Carmichael, Forman was a former integrationist turned radical militant. He was also an experienced leader, having been the executive secretary of SNCC between 1961 and 1966. Davis admired his work, and so she turned to him in her moment of crisis. Forman suggested that the Black Panther Political Party merge with SNCC. Davis and the other members of the BPPP agreed. However, Davis’ group maintained an agenda and program that were independent of the national organization. A subsequent meeting with Black Panthers helped to mitigate any hard feelings. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Campaigns There was nothing that could surpass the excitement of getting out into the community, talking to everyday people, and working to address their needs and concerns. The response was extremely positive. Davis kept a demanding

Angela Davis

schedule: attending classes, studying, canvassing neighborhoods, and working on the weekends at SNCC headquarters in Los Angeles. She recalled that she and her colleagues ‘‘felt we had the energy of stallions and the confidence of eagles as we rushed into the neighborhoods of L.A.,’’ and that they ‘‘experienced the heights of brotherhood and sisterhood doing something openly, freely, and above ground about our own people’’ (Davis, 170). A significant part of Davis’ responsibilities included campaigning on behalf of political leaders who were in trouble with the law. Davis helped coordinate a rally for the large-scale ‘‘Free Huey’’ Campaign. Huey P. Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was in jail facing charges for allegedly murdering a police officer. He was freed after serving two years. Davis was not completely happy with the rally. For one thing, not one of the speakers presented a plan of action on behalf of Huey’s campaign. For another, some of the speakers actually threatened violence if Newton was not freed. Not to mention the fact that Carmichael denounced socialism. A subsequent bail campaign for H. Rap Brown was more gratifying for Davis, who preferred action over talk. H. Rap Brown was the scaldingmouthed chairman of the radicalized SNCC. He wore shades and a moderately sized afro. Davis wrote that Brown was a frequent target of the FBI because of his speeches and radical politics. In 1967, following a speech he gave in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Brown was charged with inciting a riot. In 1968, Brown again faced multiple charges. He was arrested, and Davis’ group canvassed black neighborhoods with a petition to lower Brown’s bail and to collect donations to go toward his release. As a result of this campaign, a number of individuals joined SNCC. When an eighteen-year-old from the neighborhood named Gregory Clark was senselessly shot by a cop, SNCC was quick to respond, and Davis participated in the investigation. Clark’s brother was with the victim that day and told SNCC that they had been stopped by an officer who accused them of stealing the car they were driving and of drinking while driving. But the car was not stolen, and it was soda pop, not alcohol, that they had covered with brown paper bags. It was unclear what lead to the ‘‘brief scuffle’’ that ensued, but the cop put Clark in handcuffs and then pushed him down to the ground and shot him in the back of the head (Davis, 171). SNCC’s campaign was comprehensive. Davis was in charge of producing propaganda to protest the actions of the officer who had shot Clark. She made posters and leaflets that were distributed to the community. A People’s Tribunal Committee comprising members of the community was established. Historically, blacks had not played significant roles in the justice system. By creating this committee, blacks empowered themselves. They launched a mock trial at which the officer was pronounced guilty. After that mock trial, SNCC advocated that the Tribunal lead a march to City Hall. To their dismay, the community objected, crying out for violence

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instead. Davis credited Franklin Alexander, a friend and participant in the SNCC chapter to which she belonged, for cooling down the precarious emotions. He persuaded the residents to march peaceably to City Hall to state their demands that Clark’s death be investigated and that justice be carried out against the cop who killed him. However, violence broke out in other areas following the assassination of Dr. King on April 4, 1968. Davis and her SNCC colleagues worked overtime to prevent riots in Los Angeles. To be sure, Davis and others were not fans of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; they ‘‘had severely criticized [him] for his rigid stance on nonviolence’’ (Davis, 176). Davis’ stance was this: violence for selfdefense was appropriate, but not the senseless and random violence that blacks had employed during the riots. Part of SNCC’s plan was to divert the community’s attention to positive, grassroots activities, such as rallies, while at the same time imparting the message that violence was not the answer. Violence, however, was what SNCC got. While SNCC members were away from headquarters, several cops broke into the local SNCC office and wreaked havoc. The printing press was destroyed, the furniture was overturned, and papers and office equipment were strewn about the floor. Nails were put in several bowls and a pot of a leftover spaghetti dinner. This unexpected attack did not discourage SNCC. Indeed, the organization was flourishing. Within two months of its inception, the Los Angeles SNCC chapter had a strong presence in the community, a Youth Corps, as well as a new Liberation School. Davis was the director of that school, and she took the opportunity to implement courses on communism. A representative from the national SNCC office paid a visit in late 1968. Davis and the others hoped his arrival would bring some resolution to an internal problem they had been experiencing regarding the men’s frustration with the role women played on the staff. Of the six men and three women on staff, only two men chose to be actively involved. All three women filled in roles as they were needed. But the men complained bitterly that the women were trying to take over the organization. But the SNCC representative was not concerned with the gender conflict. He informed them that they needed to organize more fundraising events to meet the needs of the national SNCC. He criticized the chapter for not conducting itself in a professional manner and for not conforming to the procedures and practices of the national office. The other issue involved the Liberation School, particularly Davis’ management of it. He wanted Davis to restructure the curriculum of the Liberation School to include, exclusively, practical skills, like typing. And he wanted Davis to take communism out of the curriculum entirely. His belief was that ‘‘Black people were afraid of communism … they would be alienated from the organization if they thought communists were around’’ (Davis, 183). Not surprisingly, given this agenda, shortly after the arrival of the SNCC representative, Davis’ group began to unravel. Cops confiscated all the

Angela Davis

money that was raised from a fundraiser and all the guns that were stored in an apartment. They also arrested everyone that was in the apartment at the time and arbitrarily charged them with robbery. Alexander, who was due to speak the following day at a rally, was one of those arrested. Media coverage had a field day with the fact that Alexander was a communist. This attention unnerved the national office. Shortly thereafter, the national office expelled anyone affiliated with or supportive of the Communist Party. When Davis was let go from her position of director of the Liberation School, she left SNCC altogether. Shortly thereafter, the L.A. SNCC chapter was no longer in operation. Che-Lumumba Club Davis needed to fill the void that had been created by parting ways with SNCC. Her desire to be a part of the collective was still as strong as ever, but this time she wanted to find an entity that was a better ideological match. The Che-Lumumba Club was founded in 1967 by black communists who, like Davis, were not accepted by most black liberation organizations or by ordinary communist organizations where the agenda did not include or was not adequately inclusive of racial matters. After much discussion and introspection, Davis joined both the Che-Lumumba Club and the American Communist Party in the summer of 1968. In that same year, she received her master’s degree and began taking classes toward her doctorate degree. She also continued teaching and helped manage an office established by the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Davis and Deacon Alexander volunteered to operate the Che-Lumumba Club office on the West Side. The office was a seminal resource for black residents and was particularly popular with junior high school students. Davis and Alexander gave workshops on ‘‘the Black Liberation Struggle in the United States, the Movement in the Los Angeles Area, Strategy and Tactics in Community Organizing, and Marxist-Leninist Theory of Revolution’’ (Davis, 192). When an owner of a liquor store killed a young black man after he kicked over his garbage can in anger over not being allowed to buy any liquor without identification, Davis and Alexander helped coordinate a demonstration against the owner. There were marches, rallies, meetings at the office, and a boycott of the liquor store. As the office burgeoned, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense launched a purging campaign, targeting anyone deemed a detriment to the organization—suspected agent provocateurs and communists. After Alexander was let go, Davis withdrew to campus activism. Back on campus, Davis helped lead a campaign, through the Black Student Council, to demand that one of the newly constructed colleges be devoted to marginalized groups, including people of color and working-class whites. The campaign was a success.

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GOING TO CUBA In mid-summer 1969, Davis went to Cuba for a cultural-immersion experience. Davis and her friend Kendra Alexander toiled in the coffee and sugarcane fields under a bright and unmerciful sun. They worked beside Cubans, who were friendly and extraordinarily patient with them.

Communism and African Americans Communism is an ideology based on a classless society that advances the collective over the individual in society. Its antithesis is capitalism, which is based on private ownership and opportunity to unlimited economic power, where the individual is stressed over the collective. For blacks, communism has long been a controversial topic, especially during the height of tensions between America and the communist countries. Two terms are used to describe these times of tension: the Red Scare and the Cold War. The Red Scare was divided into two distinctive periods: 1917 to 1920 and 1947 to 1957. Both periods overlapped major wars: World War I (1914 to 1918) and World War II (1941 to 1945). The Cold War (1940s to 1990s) described the period of conflict and contention during peace time. Many African Americans were drawn to communism during the early twentieth century because they were prohibited from participating in so many aspects of mainstream American life. According to the philosophy of communism, life was not a struggle between races, it was a struggle between classes. African Americans could relate to this issue, since they were so often relegated to the lower classes. Communists allowed blacks to join the Party, even allowing them to hold influential positions. Communists played a role during several high-profile cases involving blacks. For example, the International Labor Defense (ILD), a communist organization, was the first to assist the nine young black men accused of assaulting two white women on a freight train during the famous Scottsboro case of the 1930s. Their contribution gave the communist party clout in the African American community. However, many African Americans denounced communism—some of them former members of the Party. Acclaimed writer Richard Wright, whose Native Son (1940) was one of his most critical works, joined the party in 1932 but then left it in 1944. He became disillusioned when he learned that placing the emphasis on class rather than race posed a problem, as he felt that both race and class were serious issues faced by blacks in America. Indeed, most blacks were repelled by communism, because they embraced America’s capitalist structure, and because Karl Marx, a founding philosopher of communism, denounced religion.

Angela Davis

Davis’ first impression of Cuba was a good one. After the revolutionist Fidel Castro ousted Cuba’s longtime dictator, Fulgencia Batista, in 1959, he implemented many changes. He aligned the country with the Soviet Union, which was then an enemy of the United States, instituted a communist system, and made significant steps toward racial progress. Davis was impressed to see blacks in positions of power and to learn that, in Cuba, discrimination, segregation, and racist language were forbidden. Something else that struck Davis was the fact that, in Cuba, everyone seemed to adore Castro. In America, he was vilified, as were communists in other parts of the world. The fear was that the communists were out to spread their beliefs and conquer the world. When Davis and her colleagues arrived in Guadeloupe on the way back to the states, they ran into trouble because some of them carried communist literature. Davis tried to explain to the colonials, in French, that they were not seeking to convert the locals to communism. With the help of an attorney, the group was permitted to continue the journey home. But they had to leave their literature and books behind.

THE FIRST FREE ANGELA CAMPAIGN Davis returned to the University of California, San Diego, renewed and ready to return to the struggle. She was also eager to continue and complete the requirements for her Ph.D. and to become a faculty member in the philosophy department at the University of California, Los Angeles. Davis was well-known on campus and popular with the students. Her lectures were stimulating. The fact that she wore an afro made her stand out and proved that she was in touch with the times. Her future seemed set— until she received a letter that threatened to undo all that she had worked for and planned. The letter was from the government body of the university. It was authorized by California Governor Ronald Reagan, former Hollywood actor turned conservative politician. The university wanted to know whether or not she was a communist. According to an old law, anyone declared a communist was not permitted to join the staff. Davis replied in the affirmative, though she knew her job was on the line. From that day on, Davis’ life would not be the same. Not only was her career in jeopardy, but her very existence was too. Her life, which had been private, was no longer her own. The media became obsessed with her, and she became the target of adoration by numerous individuals who rallied in her defense. Because of the harassing phone calls and bomb threats, she required protection around the clock. The campus police, as well as armed members of Che-Lumumba, guarded her during the day. At night, someone stayed with her for added protection.

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Davis was moved and overwhelmed—and somewhat embarrassed—by the massive display of support on her behalf. Faculty in her department were outraged by the posture of the university against Davis and publicly stood behind her. The black faculty were particularly ardent in their protests, as were the Black Student Union, the Black Professors’ organization, and the Che-Lumumba Club, which helped organize a campaign on her behalf. Her attorney, John McTernan, was indispensable. Davis worried about the effect of her notoriety on her family, and her anxieties proved warranted. Everyone but her brother, a professional football player, had been impacted by the scandal. Her father was losing customers at his service station. Her mother’s friends had stopped coming by. And the house of her sister and her husband, Sam Jordon, had been stormed by police officers during the night. Both were charged with the attempted murder of a police officer when they tried to defend themselves. A year later, the charges were dropped, but in the interim, the incident was portrayed by the media in a way which further exacerbated Davis’ troubles. For a short time, Davis was fired from her job. But after a trial, a judge ruled that the law prohibiting the hiring of communists was unconstitutional. Davis returned to campus, but her crisis was hardly over.

RAID ON PANTHER HEADQUARTERS On December 8, 1969, the telephone jolted Davis out of a sleep that had eluded her for weeks as she had fought to save her job at the university. The caller was frantic. Eleven Panthers were surrounded by cops at the Black Panthers headquarters in Los Angeles. They were armed. Some were hurt. Davis raced to the nightmarish scene. She counted perhaps one hundred officers. Helicopters hovered menacingly. Bombs had been dropped down on the office, and gunshots pelted the building and shattered windows. Explosions lit up the quiet, early morning sky. A mother, her face contorted with terror, paced nearby. Davis tried to calm her. Her daughter, possibly wounded or worse, was inside. Davis told her that help was on the way. Davis knew the men and women held up inside. She was scared for them too. Reinforcements arrived—not the cavalry, but regular civilians from the neighborhood and beyond. Men, women, grandparents, children, and many involved in the movement poured into the street in front of the Panther office. Their purpose was not to fight off the police but to stand as witnesses, offering some sense of protection against a possible massacre. The danger of retaliation, however, was very real. The community was concerned, angry, restive. Anything might set off the men and women, causing them to turn and attack the police. Rumors circulated through the community, further agitating the tense situation.

Angela Davis

Thanks to the presence of the crowd, the Panthers agreed to leave the building. Davis described the men and woman as they filed, one by one, out of their headquarters. Their stoic faces were soiled with soot from the explosions, perspiration, and blood from their wounds. Blacks burst into thunderous applause. That same night, a rally was held at Jefferson High School, and Davis was one of the speakers. By now, every one knew Angela Davis. Her voice was low, steady, and urgent. This was a rally that made Davis proud. Out of that gathering came plans to stage a walk-out at city hall and a coalition between the Black Panther Party, the Black Student Alliance, and CheLumumba Club. Davis was heavily involved in the preparations for the walkout. Literature was printed, and she assisted in disseminating the leaflets throughout the Jordon Down Projects in Watts. As uncomfortable as Davis was with publicity, she utilized her newfangled notoriety to publicize an upcoming rally. The night before the rally, hearing that the cops intended to return and inflict more damage, a vigil was organized at the office to defend it from another attack. The cops arrived and threatened to arrest everyone for ‘‘illegal assembly.’’ Instead of arrests, the cops preceded to beat the crowd, including Senator Mervyn Dymally. Even Davis was struck and fell to the ground. She and the others managed to escape—running through the community, finding refuge in the homes of those residents brave enough to hide them. The next day, the rally went off splendidly. Davis asserted that there were some eight to ten thousand participants. Individuals displayed banners. Songs were sung. Speeches were given, one of them by Davis. And the protesters circled the jail where the Black Panthers were held.

PRISONER RIGHTS Davis knew, from myriad personal experiences, that the prison system was fraught with problems. What vexed her, particularly, was the disproportionate number of blacks in prison and the complicating factors of racism and poverty that figured into this statistic. Davis’ first opportunity to put the prison system on trial came when a man named Hekima, on trial for murder, asked her for help. Hekima had heard of Davis through the media. She was intelligent, concerned, and credible. He did not want her to rescue him personally. As Davis explained, ‘‘he wanted [her] to point the finger at the real criminal: a society which keeps Black people imprisoned in such atrocious conditions of oppression that too often it is a question of stealing or going under’’ (Davis, 248). Davis spent a lot of time with Hekima, but she was never permitted

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to testify at his trial. She instead helped him in other ways, doing tasks for him that he could not accomplish while confined behind bars. This experience had a life-changing affect upon Davis. From that moment on, she decided to commit herself to protest for the release of prisoners and, eventually, to advocate the abolition of the prison complex altogether. In another campaign, Davis made a Herculean effort to release three black men imprisoned in the San Quentin State Prison in Soledad, California.

SOLEDAD BROTHERS At a Che-Lumumba meeting, the mothers of three prisoners from Soledad, George Jackson, John Clutchette, and Fleeta Drumgo, requested help for their sons, who had been accused of murdering a guard (who had been acquitted of the shooting deaths of three African Americans during a prison fight). The mothers feared that the three men were being set up, largely because they were known, in jail, as leaders in the liberation movement. The three women found a receptive audience, including Davis, who became the chair of their defense committee. The three men were referred to as the Soledad Brothers. The objective of the Soledad campaign was to mobilize supporters and publicize the case through newspaper and television coverage. There were rallies and dissemination of literature and other propaganda materials such as posters and buttons. Booths were set up at events in the black community to seek support and donations. Davis gave public presentations on behalf of the three men at various venues and donated the payment she received to the Defense Committee. The campaign eventually expanded to include a defense committee for Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins, who faced a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in the case of a Panther suspected of being an FBI agent. An unexpected consequence of the campaign was Davis’ involvement with George Jackson and his family. Davis found herself spending more and more time with Jackson’s mother and his sixteen-year-old brother, Jonathan—an earnest, bright, and sensitive youth whose young life had been traumatized due to his brother’s imprisonment. Jonathan was only six years old when his big brother was taken from him over a robbery that Jackson alleged he did not commit. Jackson was sentenced to one year to life as a result, and had been in prison at that point (1970) for some ten years. Jonathan became like a little brother to Davis, and Davis and George began to develop romantic feelings for one another. In the midst of the struggle, Davis was informed that the university would not renew its contract with her. Davis was crushed, but her personal troubles were overshadowed by the events of August 7, 1970.

Angela Davis

MARIN COUNTY At first, Davis could not believe what had happened. Jonathan, recently turned seventeen, along with two others, entered a Marin County courtroom, brandished a weapon, and held a judge, an attorney, and several jurors hostage in a van outside. Police officers shot Jonathan and one of the accomplices during the shootout that ensued. During the fray, the attorney was shot and paralyzed as a result. The judge died from a gunshot wound that came from the gun that was taped to his throat. Davis learned that Jonathan had intended to hold hostages in exchange for the release of the Soledad brothers. She also found out that the gun Jonathan had used belonged to her. Davis was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. Davis was innocent, but she chose to elude capture. Ironically, the woman who had launched campaigns for others was herself now the focal point of an intensive campaign. But this one was larger than anything she could have possibly imagined.

ON THE RUN Running from the law was far from glamorous, although the public would glorify and idolize Davis’ actions. Her face became a symbol of so many things—of rebellion, of defiance to oppression, of assertiveness, of strength, of a tough woman-victim who outwitted ‘‘the Man’’ (a colloquial referring to someone who oppresses) and, naturally, of the Black Power struggle. Her other attributes—intellect, beauty, even her afro, and the fact that she was a communist—added to her mystique. Though Davis was hidden from sight by friends and by people recommended by friends, she was numbed by all the attention. It was surreal for her to see her face on television and in the newspapers. She did not want this; she wanted to be a college professor and to pursue her political ideals and to contribute to the movement. Her thoughts whirled—not so much about her own life but about what was going on with the Soledad brothers. How were they doing? How was Georgina, George’s mother? How was George? And, as with her first experience as a cause celebre, she worried about her family. Davis did not like living in secrecy: creeping in the shadows, having to withdraw from her normal life. In the opening of her autobiography, she tells of how she wrestled with an ill-fitting mask and a wig to cover up her trademark afro. She was overcome by the kindness of the strangers, notably the African American couple who allowed her to stay in their home until she made her next move. She missed the freedom of being able to roam about under the open sky.

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Traveling grew more dangerous all the time. She flew from Las Vegas to Chicago to rendezvous with a man named David Poindexter, with whom she planned to travel to Miami. They got as far as New York where, under the cloak of darkness, they risked a visit to the movies. Back at their hotel, she entered an elevator with a man she knew instinctively was an undercover agent. When the elevator stopped at her and David’s floor, the agent got off too, and two months of hiding, uncertainty, and dread came to an end. JAIL Her experience in jail increased her resolve to fight for the abolition of the prison system. She wrote critically of the inhumane conditions in the jail— the lack of nutritional food, squalid jail cells, and lack of adequate psychological and medical care for the prisoners. While in jail, she learned of George Jackson’s death in 1971 during a prison riot. Davis was kept away from the general population most of the time, to prevent her from influencing the other prisoners. When she did engage with them, she made the most of every moment. She talked to the others about communism and led karate classes. While ‘‘Free Angela Davis’’ demonstrations were conducted outside the prison, Davis and the other inmates joined in—yelling in unison slogans that they had carefully prepared. Davis protested once by fasting, surviving on juice a few times a day and exercise to keep her mind and body strong. The other prisoners, and even some of the guards, showed their support for Davis. Davis endured eighteen months in jail until her trial in 1972. She was acquitted of all charges. SINCE FREEDOM Immediately after obtaining her freedom, Davis launched several speaking tours to locations such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, and Atlanta in the United States and to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Cuba. Since then, her busy schedule of speaking engagements has not waned, nor has her involvement in academia and activist organizations. In 1973, Davis was instrumental in founding the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which advocates for the release of prisoners. In 1980 and 1984, Davis tried her hand at politics, making an unsuccessful bid for vice president of the United States on the Communist Party ticket. Also in 1980, Time announced the marriage of Davis, then thirty-six, to Hilton Braithwaite, a colleague at San Francisco State University, where Davis began teaching shortly after her acquittal. The marriage dissolved several years later. In the late 1990s, Davis founded Critical Resistance, a grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of the prison system.

Angela Davis

In the new millennium, Davis continues to be immensely popular both with those who lived in the seventies and with the younger generation as well. During Black History month in 2008, Davis appeared before a packed auditorium at the University of Puget Sound, a predominately white private institution in Tacoma, Washington. At age sixty-four, Davis was radiant. She wore minimal makeup on her honey-colored and lightly freckled face and stood with impeccable posture, svelte in a black pants suit, at the podium. Her hair was a full mane of froth and coils. What was most striking about this living legend was the texture and rhythm of her voice, and, naturally, her message. Her voice undulated and pulsed with urgency and then dropped to a gentle lilt that hinted at her southern Baptist upbringing. She fused the presentation of an urban poet, an academic, and a radical orator. Davis covered a broad spectrum of topics in her lecture. Although she is primarily associated with black resistance, she is equally concerned with the exploitation and oppression of women, the working class, people of color, and homosexuals, as well as with the environment. She continues to be a staunch prison abolitionist. She made a number of references to contemporary racial incidents that have sparked much controversy, such as Don Imus and his racist and sexist comments directed at black basketball players and at Stanley ‘‘Tookie’’ Williams. Davis asserted the need for ‘‘communities of struggle.’’ And yet, she contended, these communities need not be structured by any singular identity such as blackness, but by a shared commitment to a common objective. When Davis addressed her own role as an icon in radical resistance, she was self-effacing. Her position stems from her belief that most people overemphasize the importance of individuals in society and can become preoccupied by ‘‘messiah figures.’’ She believes that by idolizing individuals we ‘‘give up our own power, our collective power’’ (Davis). As for her own prominence, Davis demurred. She became famous ‘‘not because of what I did but because people responded to my predicament,’’ she said, referring to the dramatic worldwide attention she received during her controversial imprisonment (Davis). Davis appears to be a reluctant legend, but she does not hide from the attention. Indeed, she uses it to carry on her continuing struggle to make America a better place for all. She continues to teach at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she is a professor in the History of Consciousness Department. See also Stokely Carmichael; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Huey P. Newton; Malcolm X; and Rosa Parks. FURTHER RESOURCES Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000. Critical Resistance (January 2008). See http://www.criticalresistance.org.

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Davis, Angela. Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York: Random House, 1974. Davis, Angela Y. ‘‘Civil Rights in America.’’ University of Puget Sound. Tacoma, Washington. February 8, 2008. ‘‘Interview: Angela Davis.’’ PBS Frontline (January 2008). See http://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/davis.html. James, Joy, ed. The Angela Y. Davis Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998. Younge, Gary. ‘‘We Used to Think There Was a Black Community.’’ Guardian.co.uk (January 2008). See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/08/usa.gender.

Library of Congress

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963)


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W.E.B. Du Bois was a prominent scholar, intellectual, writer, and editor. Born and raised in a predominantly white community in the North and educated at Fisk (a leading historically black university in the South), Harvard (a predominately white Ivy League university), and the prestigious University of Berlin in Germany, Du Bois was a prodigy among African Americans in the early twentieth century. He utilized his talents and influence to combat racism, segregation, and anti-black violence and promote the advancement of African Americans. Du Bois helped organize and participated in organizations such as the African American Council and the Niagara Movement. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was his greatest undertaking, and as editor of its organ, The Crisis, Du Bois became the foremost agitator, influential thinker, and commentator of his time. Through the written word—sociological studies, essays, articles, and books—Du Bois expressed himself freely, breaking down the Negro Problem and its various solutions, and displaying unprecedented knowledge of the social conditions, history, and culture of African Americans. He also lashed out with sharp criticism. His prolific and seminal writing reflected a complex man who espoused a broad array of methodologies. Among these were his advancement of the Talented Tenth, black self-defense, black capitalism, integrationism, Pan-Africanism, socialism, and communism. Above all else, he was unapologetically controversial. With the worsening of conditions for African Americans, Du Bois became progressively more radical and disillusioned, to the point that he moved to Ghana in 1961. Two years later, he renounced his American citizenship. On August 27, 1963, he died at the age of ninety-five.

CHILDHOOD W.E.B Du Bois began the chapter ‘‘My Birth and Family’’ in his third autobiography with the statement: ‘‘I was born by a golden river and in the shadow of two great hills, five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, which began the freeing of American Negro slaves’’ (Du Bois, 61). How appropriate was the emphasis on the description of his home, the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, cradled in an idyllic valley and on the emancipation of African American slaves. His hometown and the concept of freedom were integral to his development. As he eloquently mused in a subsequent chapter, without either, the course of his life would have been much different. His words also carry a secondary meaning: the ‘‘golden’’ hue of the river turned out to be the result of waste and sewage and not nature. This reflects Du Bois’ rude awakening to the realities of life as an African American adult in Great Barrington and beyond its pristine borders. The freedoms he

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enjoyed growing up in Great Barrington were a will-o’-the-wisp. The reality was that African Americans, especially in the South, were denied the full freedom, rights, opportunities, and resources enjoyed by whites in the North. To the young boy who went by ‘‘Willie,’’ these inconsistencies were not even a thought. He felt (and in many respects was) as free, and his potential appeared to be as illimitable, as his white peers. Du Bois flourished in this atmosphere, and as a result, he thrived, especially academically, surpassing his schoolmates and unwittingly debunking the fallacy that blacks were mentally inferior to whites. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1869, to parents who were destined to share a brief marriage. According to Du Bois, Mary, his mother, was a stunning beauty, mainly of African heritage with some Dutch and Indian. His mother’s people had lived in Great Barrington for some two hundred years. They lived comfortably and modestly, keeping to themselves. Their relationship with their white neighbors appeared amicable and tension-free. Mary was thirty-five when she met the white-looking Alfred Du Bois. Du Bois’ grandfather was a French Huguenot who had two sons with a black woman from the Bahamas. His mother was a woman of possibly Haitian descent. William’s birth roused the curiosity of the whites of Great Barrington who wanted to see what the child of an African American and a man who was so fair he could pass for white would look like. In a photograph of the four- or five-year-old Willie, he is small with long curls and delicate features, appearing almost princely in his formal-looking clothes and bright white stockings. The happiness of Willie’s birth did not alleviate the drama that was generated by Mary’s marriage. Her family did not like Alfred; they distrusted the young man’s fair skin and the fact that he was jobless. Moreover, his people were unknown to them. These bitter facts compelled Alfred to look for work in Connecticut to make a new life for his family. But Mary did not follow him, choosing instead to stay with her family and keep the peace. Willie never did get to know his father. With the help of family members and (to a lesser extent) white neighbors, William had a happy and smooth life (at least this was his perception as a youth). That he was African American being raised by a single parent (disabled in her leg and her hand as a result of a stroke) did not make him feel disadvantaged in any way. Financially, they might have been considered poor, but to the young Du Bois it seemed that the family always had what it needed, and he never felt deprived. Their acceptance was due in large part to the prevailing culture in Great Barrington. As was the custom, the residents did not place great distinctions on affluence, race (at least not in a glaring way), or, for that matter, difference of opinion. Above all, Du Bois had love. He adored his mother, with whom he walked arm in arm wherever they went, escorting her daily from work to home.

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Du Bois distinctly remembered that he experienced no racism or discrimination as a child, for the people of Great Barrington prided themselves on their abolitionist stance. Slavery had been prohibited in Massachusetts since the Revolutionary War. Even though there were only some fifty blacks out of a population of 5,000 in Du Bois’ town, he did not feel self-conscious, only mildly aware that the color of his skin and the texture of his hair ‘‘riveted attention upon’’ himself (Du Bois, W.E.B., 75). He was immersed in white New England life. He had a number of friends, with whom he embarked on various high adventures and played marbles, I-spy, duck on a rock, and other games. He visited their homes and frequently spent the night or weekends with them. On Sundays, he worshipped at a white church. Du Bois had limited interactions with the few other African Americans living in Great Barrington. Apparently by choice, the small black community lived in another part of town, where they had established a Negro Methodist Zion church. It was the Irish—not the African Americans—who were at the bottom of the social structure in Great Barrington; it was the poorer class of that segment of the population that was ridiculed. Du Bois avoided the poor Irish as much as possible, particularly as it had been someone from that group that first called him a ‘‘nigger.’’ Among the more well-off individuals of this ethnic group, Du Bois made friends. At an early age, Du Bois sensed that it was education that set individuals apart (not, for example, color, money, or even birth). He developed the idea that ‘‘the secret of life and the loosing of the color bar … lay in excellence, in accomplishment’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 75). Academically, Du Bois climbed to the top of his class quickly and effortlessly. He was the favorite of his teachers, and he enjoyed competing with his peers, even in his pre-high school years. Du Bois’ education extended beyond the classroom. From his mother, he was taught to avoid the local taverns, the locations of which were a source of trouble, idleness, and harmful distraction—the certain downfall of wayward youth and adults. He quickly absorbed the ways of the people of Great Barrington who prized thriftiness, industriousness, taciturnity, undemonstrativeness, and free speech concerning civic matters. Du Bois, who regularly attended the local Congregational church, was an active participant in Sunday school.

HIGH SCHOOL Immediately upon entering high school, Du Bois found himself firmly on track for success. The principal of his school took a personal interest in him and made sure he was enrolled in college preparatory classes. A friend’s mother paid for the books required for his Greek class. As usual, he was the

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only African American (except for a brief period when there was one other black student besides himself who, because he was not very studious, did not interest Du Bois). He was also one of only two or three other students bound for college. Du Bois was industrious, self-assured, a high-achiever, and curious. While in high school, he made his move toward earning a wage by chopping firewood, mowing laws, and performing other laborious chores. The money he made in the evenings and on weekends helped relieve the burden on his mother, who continued to work even though she was disabled. Du Bois’ schedule was not so hectic that he could not pursue his interests in writing, observing the world around him, and learning about local town politics. In addition to contributing articles to the New York Age, a prominent black newspaper, he was co-editor of his high-school newspaper, the Howler. At the insistence of Johnny Morgan, who owned the bookstore Du Bois frequented, he mailed off a few articles to the prestigious Springfield Republican. Morgan also permitted Du Bois to peruse the books he had for sale. Through these books, Du Bois expanded his exploration of the world. One of his favorite childhood memories was of being allowed to buy from Mr. Morgan his first encyclopedia, a five-volume set of Macaulay’s History of England, on installment. In the springtime, Du Bois went to town meetings. What amazed him was the climate of openness at these meetings. Although most locals endorsed the Republican Party, anyone was allowed to speak freely on any issue— even if their thoughts diverged from the majority. These were pivotal moments, wherein Du Bois got to see for himself the true application of freedom of speech. During his high school years, Du Bois had little time or inclination for a social life. Among the reasons for this was the fact that ‘‘there were no fraternities; there were no school dances; there were no honor societies’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 94). Du Bois was occupied with writing, studying, and working. He was at ease being alone with his thoughts. In this respect, Du Bois was very much like the locals of Great Barrington who sustained a culture of quietude and introversion. Given the confidence and support of the white townspeople, along with Du Bois’ extraordinary pride in his academic prowess (to the point where he felt superior to his white schoolmates), Du Bois felt he could do anything. He did not appear conscious of the fact that his was a privileged life, or aware of the fact that, in the South, he would have been abused or worse for befriending whites and endeavoring to equal or better them. Likewise, it was impossible to imagine that whites who supported the advancement of blacks faced dire consequences—including ostracism or worse. In this world of illimitable possibilities and freedom, Du Bois throve. The fact that he moved so comfortably and confidently in this white world would benefit him in his adult years. But that fact also posed a potential

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challenge. With limited contact with other blacks and a strong association with white culture, he could easily have become alienated from, or disdainful of, his own race. But this would not happen to Du Bois. Two encounters with blacks outside of his hometown triggered in Du Bois an insatiable interest and pride for his own race. Du Bois called his visit to see his paternal grandfather in New Bedford at fifteen years old his ‘‘greatest boyhood trip’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 97). During this trip, he experienced for the first time the culture of the African American elite. His paternal grandfather was a man with money, formality, and refinement. Du Bois eagerly observed this strange new elegant world and was impressed. On his way back to Great Barrington he had another moving encounter when he crossed paths with a large group of African Americans who had gathered for a yearly picnic on Narragansett Bay. Du Bois had never seen so many African Americans in one place. The moment filled him with much pride and excitement. He was struck not only by their physical beauty but their behavior, ‘‘the laughter and gaiety, the unhampered self-expression’’ which was so different from what he had known (Du Bois, W.E.B., 99). When Du Bois graduated from high school in 1884, he was one of thirteen graduates—the only black, and only one of two or three with plans to go to college. All those headed to college were required to give speeches. He gave his on Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist.

BETWIXT AND BETWEEN Upon graduation, two principals and one religious leader from Great Barrington decided that Du Bois should wait a year to prepare for entrance to Fisk University, an African American institution in the South. Du Bois’ own family ‘‘revolted at the idea of sending me to the former land of slavery’’ and felt they should have been ‘‘preparing me for work and giving me an opportunity right there in my own town and state,’’ not ‘‘bundling me off to the South’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 105, 106). Although Du Bois’ heart was set on attending Harvard, he was actually thrilled with the idea of being around other African Americans. Besides, he was convinced that he would go to Harvard later. The year that Du Bois stayed in Great Barrington before trekking off to school was fraught with unexpected change that challenged him to the core. The first jolt occurred in the fall of 1884 when his beloved mother died. Du Bois’ response was dramatic: he felt an immediate sense of release that his mother was spared from her difficult life and that he was free to leave Great Barrington. He felt he might not have had the courage to leave his mother alone in the world. The fact of the matter was that he was alone—without his closest and dearest friend.

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Another change was Du Bois’ position in Great Barrington. As a child, the town had coddled him. As an adult, he was suddenly conscious of the color of his skin and aware of the fact that he did not fit socially or politically in his town. Even school friends suddenly felt ‘‘embarrass[ed]’’ or compelled to make ‘‘explanation[s]’’ for their old friend, who would be the only black, in the presence of ‘‘strangers, visitors, [and] newcomers’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 106). Du Bois spent his last months in the town of his youth feeling somewhat ostracized and alienated, which made him look forward all the more to going to Fisk.

FISK UNIVERSITY Between 1885 and 1888, Du Bois attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, his first experience in the South. He was only seventeen when he entered the university as a sophomore and the only student from a New England state. Most of his other classmates hailed from the South. Du Bois described himself as being ‘‘bright, but sharp-tongued and given to joking hard with my fellows’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 109). Generally, his classmates did not appreciate his humor. Despite Du Bois’ flair for the obnoxious, he made many friends among his classmates, from the extremely wealthy to the abjectly poor. As for Du Bois, he had very little means. His education was made possible by the kindness of four congregations from his hometown. Fisk was truly an inspirational voyage of self-discovery and purpose. Du Bois enjoyed the cultural and academic immersion and was inspired by the talent that surrounded him. Many of his classmates shared Du Bois’ burgeoning altruism with regards to eradicating segregation. In this stimulating environment, he forged the idea of the Talented Tenth, a group that would embody the best and the brightest of the African American community and lead the way in the struggle for progress and the eradication of discriminatory laws and social practices. Du Bois, who had lived a sheltered existence in Great Barrington, continued to feel detached from the greater portion of his race, who were less privileged than himself and his classmates. He desired to both understand what he called the ‘‘real South,’’ as well as to give back to his people. He decided that the way to do just that was to teach in the impoverished rural communities. No one had ever done that before—more than likely, because this segment of the race epitomized all that they, the upwardly mobile achievers, strove not to be. They were ashamed of the poverty and old-fashioned customs. But Du Bois persisted. He lived two summers in the country and taught children without the luxury of books, chalkboards, or other necessary amenities. The summers Du Bois spent teaching were grueling but rewarding. He observed what he perceived to be a rich and fascinating culture. He heard for the first time soul-stirring spirituals—not the polished, modernized versions that the university choir—the world-renowned Fisk Jubilee Singers—sang,

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but ones that had been passed on by slave ancestors, uttered with a depth he had not heard before. He also observed the animated worship styles of the black country churches. Other experiences while in the South awakened Du Bois to the realities of racism, Jim Crow laws, and anti-black violence and other crimes. He learned with astonishment that ‘‘murder, killing, and maiming Negroes, raping Negro women—in the [1880s] and in the southern South … was not even news; it got no publicity; it caused no arrests’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 122). Du Bois graduated from Fisk in 1888. He left his mark on the university as the editor of the Fisk Herald and as one of the students who had helped raise funds for the new gymnasium. Early on, Du Bois realized that he was not interested in becoming a minister like so many other African American men. Moreover, he gradually turned away from organized religion altogether. ‘‘From my 30th year on,’’ he wrote, ‘‘I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor, and war’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 285). Nor was he consumed with materialistic aspirations. He wanted to pursue serious academic study on African American culture, history, and social conditions—what is now known as African American studies. In the late nineteenth century, there was no such thing. Thus, Du Bois would be a pioneer in what was a very unpopular, neglected, and misunderstood area of study. He applied to Harvard University with aspirations of obtaining a philosophy degree. That summer Du Bois earned money by managing a singing group, comprising several young men, which performed for white audiences. He worked for a brief and unsuccessful period as a busboy at one of the resorts where the singing group appeared. The money he accumulated would augment the scholarship he had been awarded.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY Fortunately for Du Bois, Harvard was giving serious consideration to diversifying its campus at the time that admissions received his application. According to Du Bois, ‘‘it was a piece of unusual luck, much more than my own determination, that admitted me to Harvard’’ since he had received a New England education and had ‘‘stud[ied] in the South and … was colored’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 125). Because Fisk University was not considered to be on par with Harvard, he was accepted on condition that he would enter as a junior. Du Bois wrote that ‘‘this was not altogether unfair, since my own high school in New England was somewhat behind Harvard’s requirements and Fisk, because of the wretched Southern common school system, still further behind’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 125). Then as now, a Harvard education was the best to be found. But in 1889 there was no serious course of study focusing on African American studies,

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nor did the social life on campus even acknowledge its black students. Fortunately for Du Bois, he brought a unique perspective to this situation. While his black classmates suffered and protested the lack of racial diversity on campus, the normally outspoken Du Bois was unusually silent. In fact, he was having a grand time despite the fact that he was an outsider on campus. His secret was in his ‘‘acceptance of racial segregation’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 135). Fisk had taught him that he could find camaraderie among his own people, so he survived his years at Harvard by seeking ‘‘no friendships among [his] white fellow students, nor even acquaintanceships,’’ and he ‘‘asked nothing of Harvard but the tutelage of teachers and the freedom of the laboratory and library’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 134–135). For friendship and recreation, Du Bois immersed himself in the local African American community. He enjoyed going to dances and courting African American women. Du Bois received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Harvard in 1890. A year later, he received an M.A. in history. Shortly after that, Du Bois packed his meager belongings and headed to the University of Berlin in Germany, where he had received a fellowship to pursue his doctoral degree.

UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN Europe in 1892 was an eye-opening experience. Du Bois was so accustomed to viewing the world through race (since his days in the South at Fisk) that it took him some time to adjust to the fact that Europeans did not see the world in the same way as Americans. In Europe, Du Bois felt that he could let down his guard and cease being, as he later wrote, ‘‘regard[ed] … as a curiosity, or something sub-human’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 157). While in Europe, he dated a German woman and would have married her if it were not for the fact that he knew he would one day have to return to America. Interracial relationships were, in the South, illegal, and even in the North were controversial at best. Living in Europe transformed Du Bois into a late-nineteenth-century cosmopolitan. Besides studying and taking challenging courses (facilitated in German), Du Bois was introduced to a rich repertoire of music, such as operas and symphonies. He acquired the Van Dyke—a manicured beard and slightly flared mustache—that he wore until his death, and took to using a fashionable walking cane. During his vacations, Du Bois traveled extensively, sometimes with friends he met at the university. He traipsed throughout Germany, Italy, Vienna, Hungary, France, and England. Du Bois had hoped to obtain his doctorate at the University of Berlin, but dwindling finances would not allow it. He returned to America in 1894, a man of the world determined to ‘‘begin a life-work, leading to the emancipation of the American Negro,’’ through writing and research (Du Bois,

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W.E.B., 192). Du Bois had concluded that through scientific knowledge, he might eradicate racism and discriminatory laws. Thus, he directed his future studies, academic work, and publications to that end. It was his belief that a lack of knowledge was the root of America’s race problem. DU BOIS: THE SOCIAL SCIENTIST Wilberforce University, Ohio Upon his return to America in 1894, Du Bois accepted the position of professor of classics at Wilberforce University, an all-black institution in Wilberforce, Ohio. He was in for a rude awakening. Not everyone tolerated his free-spiritedness and frankness. Some saw his confidence, quiet dignity, and cultured mannerisms as self-conceit and arrogance. Admittedly, Du Bois was, at that time, extremely sure of himself. Du Bois inevitably clashed with individuals on campus. One such person was Bishop Benjamin Arnett. As Du Bois put it, what ‘‘Arnett said, went,’’ and furthermore, ‘‘no one stayed at Wilberforce long whom he did not like’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 190). Du Bois bluntly disagreed with Bishop Arnett on more than one occasion and shied away from the religious traditions of the campus (which was affiliated with the African American Methodist Episcopal Church) such as leading prayer. This made for a challenging stay. Du Bois did not imagine he would stay long at Wilberforce. For the time being, he was productive, teaching several language classes. In 1895, he became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. By 1896, Du Bois was ready for a change. He married his first wife, Nina Gomer, resigned from his position at Wilberforce, and published the first of numerous books: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1879. When he accepted a position as an assistant instructor in the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, he did so with a greater purpose in mind. University of Pennsylvania The truth of the matter was that the temporary assistantship in psychology position was a demotion. Du Bois’ credentials were long (and expanding), and superior, in most cases, to those of the white professors there. Du Bois pointed out that he ‘‘was given no real academic standing, no office at the University, no official recognition of any kind … [and] no contact with students, and very little with members of the faculty, even in [his] own department’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 194). This was Du Bois’ cold reception into white academia on a predominately white campus. But Du Bois tolerated the discriminatory treatment for the sake of a rare opportunity to conduct an unprecedented study of African Americans in the

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Philadelphia slums. The work was hard going: white critics felt this was not a serious study, blacks did not like the idea of being studied, and he had to carry out the study all by himself. At the end of a year and a half, Du Bois’ term at the university was completed. In 1898, he finished the Philadelphia study, and in 1899 he published it under the title of The Philadelphia Negro. The work was well received. American Negro Academy Du Bois was not the only one to have the idea of mobilizing the greatest minds of the African American population to produce information that would help uplift the masses. Alexander Crummell, the first president of the American Negro Academy, outlined his organization’s objective as being ‘‘devoted to literary, statistical, ethnographical, folklore investigation, pertaining wholly and entirely to Africa and to the world-wide Negro race’’’ (Marable, 34). This group was in sync with Du Bois’ own plan. Not surprisingly, Du Bois was invited to join this exclusive group. In 1897, he was elected the organization’s first vice president. He served as president in the following year. In addition to his involvement with the American Negro Academy, Du Bois canvassed universities and the federal government to initiate studies such as his Philadelphia project. The Labor Bureau showed some interest, culminating in a prodigious two-month study Du Bois conducted of rural blacks in Farmville, Virginia during the summer of 1897. On October 2, 1897, his wife gave birth to their first child, a son they named Burghardt. The new addition to the family was a source of immense joy to Du Bois. Atlanta University At age twenty-nine, Du Bois was nearing the top of his game. With a Ph.D. in history from Harvard and two vanguard research projects under his belt, he was fast becoming the foremost African American intellectual in America. In 1897, Du Bois began what he called his ‘‘real life work’’ at Atlanta University, where he remained for thirteen years (Du Bois, 213). These years were complicated—both wonderful and traumatic, satisfying and trying to his very soul. To Du Bois’ delight, he had classrooms of his own and was placed in charge of the university-sponsored annual studies conferences, which investigated and addressed issues facing African Americans and then published the results. These studies spawned several reform efforts, such as kindergarten programs and business leagues. The conferences increased his popularity and kept Du Bois so busy that he had to resign from the American Negro Academy in 1903. But no matter how much acclaim Du Bois received, many freedoms were denied him and his family. In Atlanta, Du Bois was denied the right to vote

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and forced to follow Jim Crow laws, a situation that made him loathe to venture off campus. In 1899, Du Bois faced both methodological and personal challenges. When Du Bois heard that a black man named Sam Hose had been accused of murdering his landlord’s wife, he composed a logical and well-reasoned letter, which he took to the office of the Atlanta Constitution. Hose was lynched at the hands of a mob before Du Bois reached his destination. The result of this ghastly crime jolted Du Bois into rethinking and, ultimately, restructuring his life’s work. ‘‘One could not be a calm, cool, and detached scientist [as Du Bois had been] while Negroes were lynched, murdered and starved,’’ Du Bois wrote (222). But before Du Bois could further process and develop this revelation, he and his wife were struck by a terrible loss: the death of their son. At only two years old, Burghardt was a tragic ‘‘victim of the sewage pollution in the city’s water system’’ (Marable, 30). The death ‘‘wrecked’’ Nina (Lewis, 228). As for Du Bois, he mourned deeply, eventually finding relief by turning all the more fervently into his work. DU BOIS: THE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVIST In 1900, Nina gave birth to a daughter, Yolande. During the same time, Du Bois resolved to remake himself. Formerly he isolated himself in the enclave of books, research, and academia. Producing scholarly work was important, but to effect change Du Bois felt that he needed to be on the frontline, actively pressing for improvement in the conditions that he arduously studied and about which he had written. The change appeared as early as 1900, when Du Bois traveled to Europe for the Paris Exposition to present an award-winning exhibit on African American achievement and the dire conditions African Americans faced in America. He also attended a Pan-African conference in London. Back in America, he testified before the House of Representatives Industrial Commission on the results of his studies on rural blacks in the South and endorsed education for poor African Americans. He also ‘‘joined with local leaders to stem the popular movement toward black disfranchisement and Jim Crow’’ (Marable, 30). In 1903, Du Bois scaled to even greater heights of success and controversy. He published one of his most famous works, The Souls of Black Folk, and embarked in a highly public fight with Booker T. Washington. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON In the beginning, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois were not enemies. Du Bois’ first contact with Washington occurred following his return

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Booker T. Washington In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was virtually unheard of for a black man to have white friends in high and influential places in the North as well as the South. It was even more unorthodox for a black man to exhibit power and influence. And yet Booker T. Washington’s influence among blacks and whites was unequaled. In a historical paradox, he used his high profile to promote accommodationism, the very antithesis of agitation. Some scholars assert that the times would only accept an accommodationist as the first high-profile black leader; while accommodationism is now universally condemned, it is true that he paved the way for black leadership. Born into slavery on April 5, 1856 in Franklin County, Virginia, Booker Taliaferro Washington started life at the bottom rung of society. His mother Jane was a black slave. His father was a white man he scarcely knew. Eventually, Jane married a man named Washington Ferguson. At the end of the Civil War, the family, including a half-sister and half-brother, moved to Malden, West Virginia. Washington worked several jobs, such as in salt and coal mines. He went to school for the first time and learned how to read and write. When he was sixteen years old he attended an all-black school, Hampton Institute in Virginia, where he worked as a janitor in exchange for room and board. Washington was widowed twice before marrying his third wife. He had one daughter from the first marriage and two sons from the second union. Washington impressed nearly everyone he met. His charm opened doors that might otherwise have been closed to him. Such was the case when a white man named Samuel Chappman Armstrong got him hired as the principal (a position reserved for whites) for a school in Tuskegee, Alabama. Though the title of principal was impressive, the reality was that the school was located in a shack. But in a short period of time the school grew and prospered, mirroring Washington’s own rise to success, which he detailed in his autobiography Up from Slavery (1901). Washington was twenty-five years old when he started at the all-black Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. After seven years, the institute had gained a good reputation, new modern buildings, and substantial property due to Washington’s charisma and leadership skills. As the school flourished, so did Washington’s reputation and influence. Whites were enamored with him because he did not demand that they change the social, economic, and political structure of the world they dominated. Washington subscribed to separatism and excoriated the concept of protest. His school reinforced the idea that blacks should be subordinate to whites. Thus, black students were restricted to learning about farming, carpentry, and other trades, as well as teaching. Despite the fact that Washington acquiesced to discrimination, he himself was endowed with much power. His friends and sponsors included (continued )

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wealthy magnates. He advised Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft. His word was law, whether to make or break a career. He controlled most conservative black presses in America. His few dissenters were easily crushed by the powerful publishing network known as the ‘‘Tuskegee Machine.’’ Washington was not only the leader but virtual guru of blacks in the South when it came to self-improvement and the moral development of the modern, distinguished, and virtuous self-made man. Washington’s philosophy was much more easily digested than that of the other black personalities such as the radical and scathingly critical W.E.B. Du Bois. To protest brought forth disastrous and fatal consequences. And yet, after Washington died on November 14, 1915, it was Du Bois, who had already achieved some status through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who became the new major icon of protest for African Americans.

from Europe in 1894, when he was looking for work. Most every one knew of Booker T. Washington, the first principal of Tuskegee Institute. Du Bois applied for work there, as Tuskegee represented one of the best opportunities around—largely because the institute was so heavily funded due to Washington’s appeal to wealthy and powerful whites. But Du Bois was accepted at Wilberforce, and his thoughts turned away from Tuskegee and its grand leader for that time. Du Bois was just beginning his career when, in 1895, Washington made his famous ‘‘Atlanta Compromise Speech’’ and consequently became the most powerful and influential African American man in the nation, largely because so many blacks—and whites—were in agreement with his program of accommodationism. But to most black radicals, this speech was a shocking admission of white supremacy and black inferiority and acceptance of the system of segregation. Du Bois’ response to Washington’s speech was surprisingly positive. He perceived (through the controversial imagery) the underlying message of black empowerment. It was possible, he believed, to bring about progress by going along with the system rather than fighting against it. Du Bois ‘‘wrote to the New York Age suggesting that here might be the basis of a real settlement between whites and blacks in the South, if the South opened to the Negroes the doors of economic opportunity and the Negroes cooperated with the white South in political sympathy’’ (Du Bois, 209). After leaving Wilberforce in 1896, Du Bois sent off another letter of inquiry to Tuskegee before accepting a position at the University of

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Pennsylvania. In 1897, when Du Bois joined the American Negro Academy, Washington was among the organization’s first members. In 1899, Du Bois publicly defended Washington at an Afro-American council meeting, particularly concerning his endorsement of black businesses. When a position as superintendent of Negro schools opened up in Washington, D.C., Washington contacted Du Bois, suggesting that he was a strong candidate, even though he was, ultimately, not offered the position. But they met for the first time to discuss the job opportunity. In the summer of 1903, Du Bois lectured at Tuskegee. The two men did not click during their encounters. Washington was perhaps the most powerful, influential, and calculating African American man in his day. Like many, he probably considered Du Bois an upstart in the realm of black leadership. While Du Bois chattered aimlessly with an unsuspecting openness, Washington was reticent and reserved, a man who observed the world from behind an unreadable mask. Circumstances contributed to the growing Du Bois and Washington rivalry. Du Bois was not altogether in agreement with Washington’s opposition to black advancement in education and professional careers, or to his policy of non-interference, especially when it came to anti-black violence and the problems of suffrage and Jim Crow. In fact, since the lynching of Sam Hose and the Atlanta riot in 1906, Du Bois had become more radical and outspoken. That Washington was evasive and accommodating made a coalition between the two nearly impossible, as did the fact that Washington could not control or censure Du Bois. Washington was accustomed to getting his way, as well as to using his influence with the black press and powerful white individuals to destroy an opponent. The defining moment of the famous Du Bois–Washington conflict occurred in 1903, when Du Bois came to the defense of William Monroe Trotter, an ardent critic of Washington. That summer, Washington gave a presentation in Boston, Massachusetts. In attendance were the ultra-radical William Monroe Trotter and some associates who carried out a disruptive demonstration at the presentation. When Du Bois defended Trotter, Washington was not appreciative. When it became clear to Du Bois that he could not support the ultra conservatism of accommodationism and was not welcome in Washington’s crowd, he retreated to mobilize a plan of attack. It made no difference to Du Bois that Washington would be a formidable enemy. Meanwhile, Washington worked behind the scenes to discredit and demolish the young scholar’s career, and he came close to succeeding.

THE NIAGARA MOVEMENT The Niagara Movement, founded in 1905, was as much a reaction to Washington’s tyranny as it was a campaign to alleviate the conditions facing

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African Americans. Du Bois, William Monroe Trotter, and a handful of Washington opponents comprising intellectuals, ministers, and other middleclass professionals held their first meeting in Canada, near the Niagara River. Du Bois was elected the general secretary of the group, preferring that role to that of the president. As strident as his writings and speeches were, Du Bois remained an introvert at heart. All in all, the organization’s success was limited. The Niagara Movement engaged in very little protest. Its two organs, the Moon (1905–1906) and the Horizon (1907–1910), were too radical for, and thus unpopular with, most African Americans. Worse still was the fact that Washington and his so-called Tuskegee Machine hounded them relentlessly. Anti-black incidents, such as the Atlanta riot in 1906, were on the rise. Fearing for the life of his family, Du Bois guarded his home with a rifle in his hand. Within a few years, Du Bois was scampering to find ways to save the floundering Movement. He approached the American Negro Academy, the Afro-American Council, and the National Negro American Political League with the suggestion that they combine forces. The groups were not interested. It appeared that Du Bois was a marked man; no one wanted to be associated with him or with the Niagara Movement as long as Washington was at his heels. The Niagara Movement, riddled with internal problems and unable to withstand Washington’s opposition, folded in 1910. In that same year, Du Bois faced problems of his own at Atlanta University. The State of Atlanta did not like the fact that white students were admitted there and that whites and blacks sat down at the same table and ate meals together. Adding to the institutional problems was a lack of monetary support. Behind the scenes, Washington was effectively strangling out his opposition. In the spring of 1910, Du Bois felt he had no other recourse than to submit his resignation. ‘‘I insist on my right to think and speak; but if that freedom is made an excuse for abuse of and denial of aid to Atlanta University, then with regret I shall withdraw from Atlanta University’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 229). But he was not done fighting.

THE NAACP YEARS (1910–1934) Anti-black violence, not Booker T. Washington, was the primary motivation behind the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1909, Du Bois and most of the members of the soon-to-be extinct Niagara Movement joined an interracial group of scientists, philanthropists, attorneys, and social work professionals who came together to discuss ways to combat the eruption of anti-black riots, such as the one that occurred in the scorching summer of 1908 in Springfield, Illinois, and the general climate of racism that prevailed in the early twentieth

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century. Not everyone, for example William Monroe Trotter, was comfortable with the idea of working with whites. That Du Bois agreed to join this organization was a noble gesture, for at this stage, the organization was grassroots, penniless, and experimental—a far cry from the powerful institution that would eventually emerge.

Joel Elias Spingarn American Jews have played an essential role in the historic struggle for civil rights for blacks. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which is so well-known today, Joel Elias Spingarn made the courageous decision to help found an organization dedicated to eliminating Jim Crow laws. He targeted anti-black violence and tried to empower blacks with laws to enforce and protect their rights as citizens of the United States. Spingarn was one of many diverse individuals, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. WellsBarnett, William English Walling, Mary White Ovington, and Oswald Garrison Villard, who formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Spingarn was born in New York City on May 17, 1875. While attending Harvard University, he met W.E.B. Du Bois. Upon graduation, he pursued two interests: literature and activism. He taught comparative literature at Columbia University in New York from 1899 to 1911. In 1919, he co-founded Harcourt, Brace, and Company, the renowned publishing firm. After helping to found the NAACP in 1909, he became its second president. He served as chairman of the board from 1913 until 1939. In 1913, he instituted the prestigious Spingarn Medal, awarded annually to honor extraordinary achievement among African Americans. Noted recipients of the award include activists W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, A. Philip Randolph, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, Dorothy Height, and John Lewis. Spingarn died on July 26, 1939.

The NAACP had a rough start, but it did have some early successes, thanks in large part to Du Bois’ contributions. Du Bois was elected Director of Publications and Research and Editor of The Crisis. In 1910, he moved his family to New York. Establishing the magazine was not easy, for most members did not think it would be worth the time or the money. But Du Bois insisted upon it, and was thus forced to back his belief at his own expense. Initially, Du Bois financed the publication of The Crisis. Ultimately, the magazine more than paid for itself, for it was an overnight success. The first publication sold 1,000 copies. By 1918, it would sell more than 100,000. With the increasing success of The Crisis, NAACP membership soared. With the soaring popularity of Du Bois and the NAACP,

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Booker T. Washington’s stronghold on African American opinion weakened. As the NAACP evolved, it focused its efforts on an anti-lynching crusade and on targeting segregation in the nation’s courtrooms. Although The Crisis was Du Bois’ main focus, he spread his energies toward other independent projects. In 1911, he participated in the National Race Congress in England. The objective of this culturally and racially diverse group was to debunk racist beliefs that were perpetuated by socalled ‘‘scientific proof.’’ In the same year, Du Bois became a member of the Socialist Party. Like a number of radical African Americans, socialism was appealing because it espoused an inclusionary philosophy. The traditional parties—Democratic and Republican— excluded, neglected, and in many ways reinforced racism and discrimination. However, Du Bois left the Socialist party a year later, since it seemed to him that it did more preaching than practicing when it came to the race issues.

THE CRISIS It was in the massively popular NAACP organ, The Crisis, that Du Bois wielded his broadest and most effective attack against racism and discrimination. The Crisis covered many issues affecting African Americans and Africans. It also treated its readership to a lighter fare, offering features on culture, religion, education, literature, and music. The views of the magazine were largely those of Du Bois, whose treatments varied along with the vicissitudes of his opinion as events unfurled in the nation and the world. In 1911, Du Bois, normally a pacifist, urged blacks to use self-defense in response to racist attacks. ‘‘If we are to die,’’ he wrote, ‘‘let us perish like men and not like bales of hay’’ (Marable, 77). In subsequent editions, he promoted racial consciousness, protested against lynching, endorsed women’s suffrage, and continued his criticism of Booker T. Washington. In 1912, during the so-called Bull Moose Campaign, Du Bois endorsed Woodrow Wilson, a southern Democrat. Historically, African Americans had supported the Republican Party. Of the three prospects, Du Bois held out more hope for Wilson, particularly when the candidate gave the impression that he would address the Negro problem. Du Bois’ endorsement was strong enough to persuade a number of African Americans to vote for Wilson. However, following Wilson’s election, Du Bois and many others were disappointed to see the creation of ‘‘bills against intermarriage and for other discriminations in eight States’’ and that ‘‘while most of the proposed legislation in Congress was kept from the statute books, the administration carried out a segregation by color in the various departments which we had to fight for years’’ (Du Bois, 264). Racial antagonism increased when in 1915, D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was released. Whites thronged to see the movie, while African Americans were outraged. The film was, in short, a propaganda film for the

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Ku Klux Klan. Du Bois and the NAACP led a public protest against the film. In the same year, Du Bois argued against America’s occupation of Haiti. As a Pan-Africanist, Du Bois staunchly supported the independence of African countries. That fall, Du Bois’ archnemesis, Booker T. Washington, died. Du Bois wrote a generous eulogy in The Crisis. The following year, Du Bois represented the NAACP in an attempt to unify the various African American protest organizations. The Armenia Conference was held in Armenia, New York.

Swastika The swastika is the emblem of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich, and also a term used to refer to Germany during Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship from 1933 to 1945. The swastika is shaped like a cross and turned at each end in a right angle. Its considered a symbol of race hatred and invokes the ghastly horrors of the Holocaust. However, originally, the swastika was used by ancient cultures in China, Japan, India, and Europe as far back as 3,000 years ago to symbolize good luck, power, and strength. The bearers of the swastika and the dictator who led them were to Jews and other marginalized groups as white supremacist organizations, like the Ku Klux Klan, were to blacks in America. This comparison is dramatized compellingly in the 2000 documentary, From Swastika to Jim Crow. Hitler’s reign was based on a diabolical philosophy in which the Aryan, or white, race was axiomatically superior to all others. Anyone who did not fit his perception of a perfect Aryan was not welcome in his country. This included Jews, the disabled, homosexuals, and all ethnic groups. He conducted horrific medical experiments on some minorities whom he took prisoner. Through the horrific action known as the Holocaust, a systematic genocide or mass murder, he massacred some six million Jews (though the exact amount is debated). He launched a military campaign against his neighbors to eliminate any opposition to his plan to conquer the world. However, his plot was thwarted when the Allied Forces, including America, won World War II. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 rather than face capture. Some white supremacist groups in America have emulated the ideology and symbols of Nazi Germany, bearing the emblem of the swastika and mimicking the Nazi salute: the right arm extended out at an angle above the head. These organizations target blacks, Jews, and other groups. Members of the group known as the Neo-Nazis, which formed after World War II, can be found almost anywhere in the world. In the United States, they go by one of several names: the American Nazi Party, the National Alliance, the National Socialist Vanguard, the Aryan Nation, and the United National Socialist Movement. In the modern world, wherever the symbol of the swastika is found, there follows a philosophy based on race hatred and white supremacy.

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Beginning in 1917, the involvement of America in World War I against Germany and its allies consumed Du Bois’ writings in The Crisis. Personal health problems and subsequent surgeries did little to slow him down. Although Du Bois opposed war, he was intensely patriotic, encouraging African Americans to enlist. This stance caused one of his rivals, A. Philip Randolph, to criticize him, imploring why, considering the abuses and hostilities toward African Americans in their own country, they should participate in the war. Du Bois, however, saw the greater good in fighting for democracy abroad that would help the racial struggle at home. Du Bois and Randolph exchanged sharp blows in their respective newspapers throughout the course of the war. Most African Americans rallied behind Du Bois. In supporting the war, Du Bois made it clear that he was opposed to the practice of segregation and the abusive treatment of African Americans in the military, and he led protest efforts in support of that position. Military units did not integrate until 1948. At the end of the war, and despite the efforts of blacks in the war, African Americans faired no better than before. W.E.B. Du Bois did not lose heart, but went on to campaign for Wilson and in 1918 was offered an Army commission in charge of dealing with race relations. Du Bois accepted but failed his Army physical and was unable to serve. Du Bois carried on with his work.

ROARING TWENTIES In 1919, he was elected executive secretary of the first Pan-African Congress in Paris, France. Between 1918 and 1919, Du Bois wrote his first of three autobiographies, Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil. It was published in 1921 at the start of an exciting time for African American culture, art, and literature. The 1920s was a bustling decade of African American creativity and race consciousness. Du Bois was at the heart of the action, publishing new African American authors and poets like Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Bennett in The Crisis. The aspect of race consciousness in the artistic explosion was especially appealing to Du Bois, who had celebrated African American culture before it was popularized by the Harlem Renaissance movement. Another newfangled development had captured Du Bois’ attention. At first, when the short, stocky West Indian man arrived in town in 1916 and, in the following year, founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association division in New York, Du Bois paid no attention. When Garvey took to wearing a swashbuckling uniform and an outlandish plumed hat (despite the fact that he never served in the military or held a legitimate office), Du Bois was mildly amused. When the stir Garvey created grew into a fullblown storm, Du Bois grew concerned. The charismatic Haitian, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, soon became the object of Du Bois’ incisive, highly public scrutiny. The criticism was mutual.

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Garvey accused Du Bois of being an elitist. Du Bois lambasted Garvey for what he considered to be his lofty and absurdly impractical dreams (e.g., to create a black government) and his overly ambitious ventures (including a shipping line and other multiple businesses). Garvey, however, was able to succeed where few leaders could. He mobilized the black working class under a radical program of black nationalism and race consciousness to a degree that astounded practically everyone. But Du Bois was of the opinion that Garvey’s eventual failure, culminating in his deportment in 1927, was due to his own mismanagement of his organization and financial ventures. Du Bois had been interested in Africa for a long time, and in 1923 he was finally able to travel there. He went to the inauguration of President Charles D.B. King of Liberia to deliver a message on behalf of the American president. On his return to America, he led the campaign to fire Fayette McKenzie, then president of Fisk University, whom he felt was not adequately representing the race. Three years later, Du Bois went abroad again, visiting the Soviet Union, Germany, Turkey, and Italy. Following the Great Depression in 1929, The Crisis suffered financially. As a result, Du Bois found himself in an undesirable position: he would have to rely financially on the NAACP. This meant that his control of the political and radical direction of his paper would be compromised. Du Bois stated that he realized his views were ‘‘out of touch with my organization and that the question of leaving it was only a matter of time’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 297). He resigned in 1934.

RETURN TO ATLANTA UNIVERSITY (1934–1944) In a fortunate turn of events, Du Bois was welcomed back to Atlanta University in 1934, with a guarantee of ‘‘leisure for thought and writing, and freedom of expression’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 300). This was an offer Du Bois could not turn down. He was appointed to teach undergraduate and graduate students as professor and chairman of the sociology department. At age 66, Du Bois was not ready to give up his work, nor could he afford, financially, to retire. Happily, he was vigorous in both mind and body. One drawback of his return to the socially stifling South was that his wife refused to join him. She moved to Baltimore to be close to their daughter. Du Bois was busy during the years he taught at Atlanta University. He protested Jim Crow, taught night classes to African American workers, and started the Negro Book-of-the-Year Club. He even taught on communism. Continuing his lifelong commitment to the written word, he published numerous works, most notably Black Reconstruction: An Essay toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. Du Bois also wrote many weekly articles, such as those that were published in the Pittsburgh Courier.

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In the spring of 1936, Du Bois traveled to his old stomping ground of Germany as well as the Soviet Union, China, and Japan. He was horrified to discover that Adolf Hitler, a tyrannical ruler in Germany, was systematically exterminating anyone who opposed him, mainly Jews, but also communists, homosexuals, the physically handicapped, and anyone else who did not fit his idea of racial purity. During the Holocaust, blacks in Germany were sterilized, incarcerated, and victims of medical experiments. Between 1939 and 1945 Hitler’s reign of terror claimed eleven to fourteen million human lives. Du Bois was one of his earliest and loudest objectors. Nationally, despite the controversial flight from the NAACP, Du Bois was deemed a luminary and treated accordingly. He received honorary doctorates of law and letters from Atlanta and Fisk. On his seventieth birthday he was honored with a lavish affair. His notoriety increased with the publication of Phylon, a scholarly journal, and his second autobiography, Dusk of Dawn: An Essay toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept, both published in 1940. Meanwhile, tensions were running dangerously high across the globe. War had erupted on two continents: in Asia in 1937 and Europe in 1939. In the late 1930s, Du Bois expressed opposition to America’s involvement in the impending global war, particularly against Japan. He felt that racism was at the heart of America’s animosity towards the Japanese. But when Japan invaded Pearl Harbor in 1941, Du Bois rallied behind America in the war effort with the hope that securing democracy and freedom beyond its borders would aid the struggle at home. The war did not impede Du Bois’ productivity at Atlanta University in 1938, but growing resistance by the recently hired president and his conservative cronies on campus did. This opposition came at a critical point, when Du Bois had several plans in the works, including more historical studies on African Americans and a reinstatement of the conferences he led during his earlier stint at the university. In 1944, a group met behind closed doors to discuss Du Bois’ future with the university. At the conclusion of the meeting, it was decided that Du Bois must retire. A bewildered Du Bois reluctantly formalized his resignation, noting that ‘‘the result of this action was disastrous’’ (Du Bois, W.E.B., 323). Not only did it leave the study of African Americans in the hands of individuals he believed would misrepresent or neglect important facts, but it left him jobless, with only $5,000 in savings (and no retirement) at the age of 75. After long and bitter protest, the university did, however, agree to pay him a stipend for several years.

RETURN TO THE NAACP In 1944, Du Bois returned to the NAACP with the intention of resuming his uninterrupted focus on The Crisis. Above all else, he desired the unbridled

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freedom to write as he pleased. He humbly requested an office for himself (with a library for his books) and one for a secretary. His repeated requests were denied. Du Bois was a little overwhelmed by the size of the organization. The NAACP had grown significantly (in numbers and influence) since he had been away. Du Bois also observed that Executive Secretary Walter White ruled with a heavy hand. White, who had blue eyes and straight blonde hair though he identified himself as an African American, had served as NAACP Executive Secretary since 1931. Much of the success of the organization was due, in a big way, to his unilateral style, through which he unified the organization, prevented potential infiltration from subversive individuals and groups with contrary agendas, and guarded the organization’s conservative image. Du Bois, however, found White’s approach controlling, stifling, and intolerable. He was one of very few who dared to challenge White. Under these dubious circumstances, Du Bois forged ahead with multiple projects. In 1945, he was an NAACP representative at the founding of the United Nations and participated in the fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England. He published Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace; and Encyclopedia of the Negro Preparatory Volume. In 1947, he published The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History. In the same year, he edited and presented an appeal against racism in America to the United Nations (which was rejected, because it was felt the expose would embarrass America). Du Bois also lectured, wrote numerous articles, attended conferences, and even taught at the New School for Social Research in New York. Du Bois had many responsibilities outside of the NAACP, a fact that escalated the clashes between himself and White. At a board meeting, White called out Du Bois for attending a meeting without his approval. For this and similar actions, Du Bois felt that anything he did independently was looked at with suspicion. White even wanted to monitor the letters Du Bois received from The Crisis readers. On another occasion, Du Bois was advised to keep out of politics. Du Bois insisted that he had a right to attend any event independently of the organization and refused to permit White to read mail that was addressed directly to himself. Du Bois finally composed a letter of complaint to the board members, stating as his chief concern what he perceived to be White’s stranglehold over the organization and himself. Someone leaked the story to the officers of the organization—and to the press. A week after Christmas, 1947, Du Bois was fired. Outraged supporters of Du Bois rallied behind him. Some suggested that he start his own organization. But Du Bois had no interest in engaging in an all-out fight against the very organization he helped establish.

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ON HIS OWN Following his dismissal from the NAACP, Du Bois turned his attentions to other civil rights organizations. In 1948, he served as Vice-Chairman of the Council on African Affairs. In 1950, he was the chairperson for the Peace Information Center (one of its objectives was to call for nuclear disarmament) and a candidate for the U.S. Senate in New York, running on the American Labor Party ticket. In the same year, his wife Nina died. A New Era: A Fight for His Life The party in honor of Du Bois’ 83rd birthday was not only an evening of celebration but a marshalling of support. Prior to the event, Du Bois had been arrested and indicted for allegedly being an unregistered foreign agent. As a result, the party planners had to switch locations. The plush Essex House, where the party was originally scheduled to take place, did not want to be associated with Du Bois. But the owners of a modest restaurant in Harlem were willing to open their doors for Du Bois’ celebration. But scores of invitees opted not to attend, some with awkward apologies, others in marked silence. This party was different from the one that had taken place more than a decade ago. Du Bois’ birthday speech incorporated an urgent declaration of his innocence and his resolve to fight the charges laid against him. The money that was collected that night went toward his defense. Du Bois, a victim of the Cold War, had for some time been targeted as a communist. Because of heightened tensions between America and the Soviet Union, anyone who was sympathetic or could be linked to the Soviet Union or communism was suspect. The articles Du Bois wrote often promoted communism or sympathized with communist countries, like the Soviet Union, and individuals, like Paul Robeson. The main reason for Du Bois’ arrest, however, was his participation in the Peace Information Center. Other members of the organization were also indicted, simply because the Justice Department had ordered the organization ‘‘to register as an agent of a foreign principle.’’ The group hoped that by dissolving in 1950 they would obviate their problem with the U.S. government. As far as Du Bois’ attorneys were concerned, the court system had no case against him, because the organization was not affiliated with a foreign agent, and it was no longer operating. Du Bois and five others faced a heavy fine and five years in federal prison. Du Bois, along with a band of his staunch supporters (his defense committee), waged a battle on his behalf. He was acquitted later that year. The indictment, however, proved detrimental to Du Bois’ freedom, and consequently, his work. During the trial, he was barred from lecturing and publishing in numerous newspapers. He was ostracized by other leaders

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and organizations—most painfully by organizations in which he had participated, like his graduate fraternity. Although individuals within the NAACP supported Du Bois, the public statement given by the national office was innocuous. Following Du Bois’ acquittal, his situation worsened. That he could not speak freely at any venue or in any medium, was, to Du Bois, most upsetting. Equally distressing was the fact that he was prohibited more than once by the U.S. government from traveling abroad. Still, he wrote. He chronicled his horrific ordeal in In Battle for Peace (1952); Black Flame Trilogy: The Ordeal of Mansart (1957); Mansart Builds a School (1959); and Worlds of Color (1961). During this crisis, Du Bois found emotional support in his new wife, Shirley Graham, whom he wed shortly after his 83rd birthday. Graham, a multitalented beauty, had known Du Bois most of her adult life. He had been her writing adviser as she toiled over her essays, plays, and compositions. She was also an activist, which added to their compatibility. Although she was some twenty-eight years younger than Du Bois, she was convinced that he needed her. Du Bois adopted David, her son from her first marriage. In 1958, Du Bois was finally permitted to travel abroad. He visited the Soviet Union, England, France, Sweden, and China. Though Du Bois was vilified in his own nation, he was a celebrity abroad. In 1961, following the death of his daughter, Du Bois accepted an invitation from President Kwame Nkrumah to go to Ghana and work on a grand project, the Encyclopedia Africana, which he had conceived back in 1909. Du Bois also joined the Communist Party, though by doing so, he was prevented from ever returning to America, since, as a communist, he was not allowed to own a passport. Du Bois became a citizen of Ghana in 1963. Du Bois was rejected by his own country—not to mention by a number of African Americans. An emerging generation of African Americans kept in touch with the hoary man, who still wore his mustache and goatee and carried a cane. Illness and advancing age prevented Du Bois from completing his Encyclopedia Africana and kept him indoors, away from the public. On August 27, 1963, he died at the age of 95, on the eve of the historic March on Washington. Du Bois had known about the March before his death, and he had mixed emotions about it. His life’s work was based on the struggle for equality and for civil rights. However, since his days with the American Negro Academy, he had espoused voluntary segregation. Du Bois worried about the ramifications of integration on African American life and culture. The 250,000 individuals who attended the March on Washington gave Du Bois a moment of silence in tribute to his activism, contributions, and sacrifices. It was an extraordinary gesture in honor of a man whose work helped provide the foundation for the struggle ahead. See also Marcus Garvey; A. Philip Randolph; and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

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FURTHER RESOURCES Du Bois, Shirley Graham. His Day Is Marching On: A Memoir of W.E.B. Du Bois. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1971. Du Bois, W.E.B. The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois. New York: International Publishers, 1968. Foner, Philip, ed. W.E.B. Du Bois Speaks: Speeches and Addresses. 2 vols. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970. Lewis, David L. W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919. New York: H. Holt, 1993. Lewis, David L. W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919–1963. New York: H. Holt, 2000. Lewis, David L. W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1995. Marble, Manning. W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2005. Walden, Daniel, ed. W.E.B. Du Bois: The Crisis Writings. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, 1972. W.E.B. Du Bois: A Bibliography in Four Voices. Directed by Louis Massiah. Santa Monica, CA: California Newsreel, 1995. Wolters, Raymond. Du Bois and His Rivals. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002.

Library of Congress

James Farmer (1920–1999)

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James Farmer was the celebrated leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and one of the Big Six leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Before the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and the subsequent proliferation of sit-ins and demonstrations that marked the civil rights era, there was James Farmer’s memo, addressed to A.J. Muste, the executive secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). Farmer had just turned twenty-two in 1942 and had been employed by FOR as the race relations secretary for only a year and a half when he composed that memo. Raised in the Jim Crow South and equipped with degrees from Wiley College and Howard University, the altruistic Farmer was intent on eradicating segregation in an aggressive, newfangled way. In the memo, he described a radical, revolutionary, and groundbreaking approach, using such controversial words as ‘‘noncooperation,’’ ‘‘economic boycott,’’ ‘‘civil disobedience,’’ and ‘‘mass action’’ to urge the participation of blacks and whites working together, side by side. Farmer had no idea how Muste would receive his ideas. FOR was a pacifist organization and concepts such as ‘‘noncooperation’’ and ‘‘civil disobedience’’ had never before been used within the context of African American protest—not at least on the massive scale he envisioned. Unbeknownst to Farmer, his hero A. Philip Randolph conceived and implemented a similar plan when he launched his March on Washington Committee in the same decade. The March on Washington Committee, however, was a brief sensation. Farmer’s idea was more far-reaching and would prove to be long-lasting. Muste liked Farmer’s memo, as did the rest of FOR. As a result, CORE was launched that summer. Farmer served as the national chairman from 1942 to 1944 and 1950. During the next decade, Farmer worked as a labor union organizer, as well as program director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). But in 1961, Farmer was called back to CORE to lead the Freedom Rides. He served as the national director for CORE from 1961 to 1966, during the climactic years of the Civil Rights Movement. As leader of CORE, Farmer dealt with mobs, death threats, and arrests. He added his sonorous bass to the rousing freedom songs and catapulted CORE into the public consciousness as one of the most pivotal organizations in the Civil Rights Movement. Farmer was at his best—or at least most comfortable—in the role of distinguished leader, presiding over a meeting or negotiation far from the frenzied mobs, out of the heat of the conflict. Farmer met often with the other captains of the movement, the other members of the elite ‘‘Big Six,’’ including Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, Dorothy Height, Whitney Young, and (alternately) James Forman and John Lewis. He conferred with presidents, and in the late sixties, at the movement’s end and after the rioting in the black ghettos of the North had subsided, he accepted a swanky office job in the nation’s capitol, taught at colleges and universities, and lectured.

James Farmer

CHILDHOOD James Leonard Farmer was a smart and mischievous child—the latter being a sore spot considering that he was the son of a preacher. James Farmer, Sr. was an extraordinary man, a decorated scholar who ‘‘could read, write, and speak Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Latin, not to mention French and German’’ (Farmer, 34). Pearl, James Jr.’s mother, met her future husband while they both attended Cookman Institute in Jacksonville, Florida. After receiving a teaching degree, she taught in Jacksonville, Florida until James completed the coursework for his doctoral degree. They then moved to Marshall, Texas, where their first child, Helen, was born in 1918. On January 12, 1920, James Leonard Farmer entered the world. When James was six months old, his father took a teaching position at all-black Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Given his father’s standing on campus, James was treated very much like the son of a king. Within this environment, James felt safe and special. Life outside this all-black environment was a different story altogether. Remnants of slavery were rampant. A number of sprawling antebellum homes dotted the area, and the attitudes that had sustained the horrific practice were prevalent among local whites. As in many southern towns, there was an active chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, the fact that James and his family were required to live in an all-black community and go to an all-black school was the result of Jim Crow law. At only three years old, James received his induction into Jim Crow life. James and his mother were in town when he asked for a Coke. His mother told him that he would have to wait until they got home. On seeing a white boy drinking a soft drink in a nearby store, James made another request, not understanding why they could not stop to get him a drink, especially since it was such a smoldering day. It was then that his mother explained to him Jim Crow law. Because they were black, she told him, they could not enter a ‘‘white-only’’ store. When Farmer was five years old, he learned about the strange practice of arranging the seating on a bus by skin color. On a bus ride home, James indicated to his sister and a cousin that he wanted to sit at the front of the bus, an area that was, unbeknownst to him, allocated for whites. James complained when his cousin shook her head no. His sister glared at him and he reluctantly traipsed behind them to the back of the bus. Refusing to let the conversation die, he asked, ‘‘Is it like this everywhere?’’ (Farmer, 41). No, the cousin replied, letting him know that in the North there was no such thing as Jim Crow. As with the previous incident, this information disturbed him and had a deep and lasting impression upon him. In 1925, James, Sr. decided to transplant the family back to Texas. He accepted a position as registrar and professor of religion and philosophy at

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Samuel Houston College. In Texas, James’ boyhood played out like a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. Despite his father’s low wages, they lived adequately. Over the years, they were the proud owners of two pet dogs Friskie and Carl, which made James the envy of other boys on the block. James had many chums and frequently visited the black movie theatres. His childhood heroes were larger-than-life figures such as cowboys, Tarzan, and Rin Tin Tin. Decked in his steel plated shoes ‘‘with a metallic click like the cowboys in the movies,’’ James brought some of that movie magic to his own reality (Farmer, 47).

Norman Rockwell Parts of James Farmer’s life conjure a nostalgia that was handcrafted in the paintings by Norman Rockwell. Not all of Farmer’s life was terrible or burdened by daily racism or anti-black violence, as were the lives of the majority of blacks growing up in the 1920s and 1930s. Farmer enjoyed many simple, carefree days in his innocent boy’s life, the type of image that was regularly studied by Rockwell. However, the reality was that Farmer lived in a segregated world, and he had to struggle to obtain the inclusion of African Americans into mainstream American life. For much of the twentieth century, Norman Rockwell was famous for his depiction of wholesome and dulcet scenes from Americana. Born on February 3, 1894, in New York City, Rockwell started his career as an artist early, at age eighteen. His rise was steady and remarkable, and he was soon providing illustrations for a variety of mainstream publications. Over the course of his life, he married several times and had three sons. In 1963, during the climax of the Civil Rights Movement, Rockwell departed from his former benign scenes and delved into more serious topics, including poverty and civil rights. His new work was famously featured in Look magazine. Rockwell never lived in the South, but he was aware of the Civil Rights Movement, for their demonstrations were reported in newspapers and on television. Civil rights leaders were profiled in Time and other premiere magazines. Rockwell produced riveting paintings, one called The Problem We All Live With (1964), which depicts a young black girl named Ruby Bridges joined by federal marshals as she marches to integrate a school in New Orleans, Louisiana. Southern Justice (1965) chillingly portrays the death of three civil rights activists. Another painting, Negro in the Suburbs (1967), depicts a black family integrating a white suburban neighborhood. The pictures were a remarkable contribution to the movement and showed the depth and character of a man touched by the world around him. Rockwell died on November 8, 1978.

James Farmer

James was a top student, but his behavior was hardly what was expected from the son of such a highly respected father. James was a fast study (unlike his sister, whose good grades took laborious effort), but besides school smarts, Farmer was clever in ways that conjured images of Brer Rabbit, one of the most notorious trickster figures in African American folklore. Farmer disrupted class by projecting spitballs at classmates and got into fights that he could not win unless his sister was there to fight for him. In the one fight he managed to win on his own, he used the steel of his ‘‘cowboy’’ shoes to execute his decisive victory, although he later regretted the pain he caused his victim. Another time he turned the hefty school bully named Nelson into his personal bodyguard in exchange for doing his school work. Whites rarely penetrated into that forced all-black world, and African Americans infrequently crossed into the white world. This made for strange relations, as James later reflected when he saw the situation through adult eyes. Farmer described the whites he saw—like those who owned the grocery store on the black side of town—as figurines or robots. Having so little interaction with whites made them appear all the more mysterious to him. He longed to have a closer glimpse into their lives. Despite the misgivings of his parents, who wanted to insulate him from the potential dangers that could so easily erupt between the races, James’ opportunity came when he took a job with a friend who was a caddy at the local country club. The job was problematic from the start. The unspoken rule at the golf club was that the white and black caddies occupied separate benches. One day, James sat in the white section—not to cause trouble, though a brawl ensued nonetheless. A white caddy elbowed him until Nelson, James’ friend and guardian, exchanged seats with him. The white boy outfaced Nelson, who stood his ground, and the subsequent fight was taken to a nearby lot. In a desperate move, the white boy brandished a knife, but his friends dragged him away, preventing a disastrous outcome. That was the end of James’ career as a caddy. In the summer of 1927, James relished the chance at another glimpse into the mysterious white world when he briefly stayed with the son of a friend of the family who was recuperating from an illness. The mother of this household worked for a wealthy white family. Many days she would return home with her arms filled with treasures. James was exposed to sundry foods he had never heard of before, like durian fruit, limburger cheese, and caviar. He was shown pictures of the white family’s lavish home, containing luxuries he had only seen in movies. As payment for taking care of the convalescing son, he was given a sweater that belonged to the wealthy family. This sweater made James feel set apart from the rest of his neighbors. That winter brought forth more happiness with the birth of a brother Nathaniel and the acquisition of a new Dodge sedan for the family. However, one day when James was out for a drive in the new Dodge with his father behind the wheel, the vehicle struck and killed a pig along a country road.

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The owner of that pig confronted James’ father. The white man toted a shotgun, greatly adding to the sinister tone of this encounter. He also purposely dropped the check James Sr. handed to him in payment for the pig, then commanded him to retrieve it, calling him a nigger in the process. This sort of behavior was not uncommon in the South. It was supposed to teach blacks their place. But for James Jr., it magnified his antipathy towards racism and the cowardly submission to it. James Jr. did not see that by picking up that check his father was saving himself and his family from unnecessary harm. He saw instead a practice he would never abide by. This experience and others like it had the opposite effect from what white supremacists wanted; in James’ own words, it ‘‘fostered the spirit of rebellion’’ (Farmer, 65).

WILEY COLLEGE In 1934, James Jr. entered Wiley College where his father taught. Though James was a mere fourteen years old, he was a towering six feet tall, and awkward. He occupied himself with manifold activities, including the debate team, where he took part in lively critical discussions on the status of African Americans and was mentored by Melvin B. Tolson. James became captain of the varsity debate team, chairman of both the chemistry club and dramatics league, and class president. He briefly joined the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, but later quit in protest when members of a fraternity were found to have cheated during the voting for homecoming queen. James and another student formed the first-ever Anti-Greek Association. In the South in those days, almost everyone was a member of a fraternity or a sorority. It was considered unthinkable to challenge this long-standing tradition. While attending Wiley, James took two trips that had a lasting impact on him. One of them was a trip to Oxford, Ohio, where he was hand-picked to represent a youth group of the black Methodist Episcopal churches at the interracial National Conference of Methodist Youth at Miami University. Being one of the few blacks at a predominately white conference was at first unsettling to James. He felt acutely self-conscious. But when the topic of a proposed federal anti-lynching bill was broached, he could not sit idly by. He was startled that some of the individuals present believed that legal action against lynching would be an offense to whites. James, who had been shy, suddenly spoke up, asserting, among other things that ‘‘the motion [to pass the anti-lynching bill] seeks not to whip the South or hurt its people. The purpose of this motion is to stop lynching now!’’ (Farmer, 129). His impromptu speech elicited an ovation. The second trip undoubtedly opened James’ eyes to the possibilities of interracial understanding and cooperation. A white student named Cy Record from the University of Texas wanted to go to the National Negro Congress and Southern Negro Youth Conference meeting in Richmond, Virginia. He

James Farmer

sought to travel with black students under the guise of being a black man, planning to pass through the most intensely racist route, possibly as a crosscultural experiment. White southerners were accustomed to the fact that some blacks, because of interracial mixing, simply looked white. James and another member of the debate team, Hamilton Boswell, agreed to go with Cy. For Cy, the experiment was humbling and more difficult than he had imagined it would be. During the course of the journey, he used the blackonly water fountains and restrooms. He was speechless when he and James were refused dinner when they stopped at a restaurant and endured the vulgarity of a racist deputy when he questioned why they were sleeping in the car (the reason was that they could not find a black-only hotel). Cy remained quiet for much of the road trip. James sensed that he was laden with feelings ‘‘of shame, guilt, and terrible fury’’ (Farmer, 131). When they finally arrived in Virginia, James was star-struck by the presence of great leaders like A. Philip Randolph, of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and Dr. Ralph Bunche. At the conclusion of the trip, James related Cy’s poignant epiphany: ‘‘I’m not blind and I’m not insensitive. How could I possibly have grown up and lived in the South all these years without seeing, without knowing, the hell that we put you through every day of your lives?’’ (Farmer, 133). V.F. Calverton, whom Farmer described as a ‘‘literary critic, scholar, lecturer, writer, editor, hedonist, and bon vivant,’’ was another white man who exhibited unusual empathy for and interest in African Americans (Farmer, 137). Farmer and Calverton met when Calverton was invited to critique one-act plays that had been written by the Wiley Drama League. Calverton was put out when he found out that he would not be staying on campus, telling the Drama League to ‘‘invite me at some future date when you find the guts to fight those barbaric customs’’ (Farmer, 137). Calverton’s response thrilled Farmer. From that moment on, Calverton became a role model; Farmer idolized Calverton’s liberality and outspokenness.

SEMINARY SCHOOL Farmer was uncertain what to do upon graduation. He thought about becoming a doctor, but the sight of blood made him squeamish. He really wanted to make a career out of fighting against segregation, but he did not think that any job like that existed. He instead chose to follow his family to Washington, D.C., where his father took a job at the Howard University School of Religion. Farmer was admitted there in 1938. Critical to this stage of Farmer’s life were his burgeoning relationships with Calverton and his favorite professor, Howard Thurman, his growing interest in politics, and his induction into the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Farmer spent many of his weekends with Calverton, who lived nearby in Baltimore,

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Maryland. Calverton was influential in other ways besides his progressiveness. He was the antithesis of James’ strict and puritanical father. Through their friendship, Farmer became more of a man of the world, distancing himself from the regimented spiritual world of his father. Indeed, Farmer would eventually break away from the religious traditions of his father. Professor Thurman, who took Farmer under his wing, guided him through meditations on Gandhi. Farmer embraced Gandhi as a solution to the racial ills of America. Through his understanding of his hero Gandhi, Farmer became a pacifist. Farmer augmented his coursework by dabbling in politics and joining FOR. He campaigned for a Socialist candidate while he worked on his thesis: ‘‘A Critical Analysis of the Historical Interrelationship Between Religion and Racism,’’ in which Farmer presented his criticisms on segregation, including his assertion that segregation perpetuated racism. He had aspirations of publishing his thesis in book form, but this goal did not come to fruition. When graduation day came, Farmer matriculated with exciting plans. He would not be a minister; instead, he was going to be an activist. He had found out that employment in activism was after all a possibility; a living could be made doing his dream job. With a race relations secretary job lined up with FOR in Chicago, Farmer’s future was secure. As the national chairman of the Youth Committee Against War, Farmer was among many student leaders invited to attend a dinner with President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 5, 1941 at the White House. Farmer was possibly the only black on this occasion. Also present was Eleanor Roosevelt, the tall and bespectacled sharp-minded and sharp-tongued progressive, one of the most important political allies of whom African Americans could boast. When she sat at Farmer’s table, it was, undoubtedly, not on a whim. Farmer’s first encounter with the president was not as gallant as he had hoped it would be. He felt he came across as too brash when he challenged the president to acknowledge the hypocrisy of identifying Britain and France ‘‘as champions of freedoms’’ despite their oppressive colonization of Africa (Farmer, 69). The president avoided Farmer’s question. Eleanor Roosevelt tried to stick up for Farmer, to force her husband into addressing his point, but the president was too clever.

FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION Farmer arrived in Chicago in the summer of 1941. His new life was thoroughly different from the one he had left behind in the South. Chicago’s towering concrete buildings and lively metropolitan tempo, along with the fact that there were few places Farmer was denied access to, thrilled the young activist. But aside from the excitement of living in the progressive North, Chicago was far from perfect. Farmer found the dilapidated slums, where most of

James Farmer

the African American population barely maintained themselves, disturbing. A great percentage of these residents had come during the Great Migration (1910–1950), lured by the surge of new jobs created by the war. Since slavery, African Americans had idealized the North as a haven for the downtrodden and oppressed. But for many, even in the century of industrialization, the North was a will-o’-the-wisp. The fact that blacks faced dire poverty and had to compete for jobs and living space with whites and immigrants exacerbated racial tensions. This situation frequently produced violent encounters.

Fellowship of Reconciliation The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) is a pacifist and Christian-based organization founded in 1915 in Cambridge, England. An American FOR group was started in the same year by sixty-eight pacifists. Many of them were Quakers or members of the Society of Friends, who, since the seventeenth century, had promoted pacifism as well as gender and race equality. This translated into an easy transition when FOR took on a major role during the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. In 1947, FOR staffers James Farmer, George Houser, and Bernice Fisher established the new civil rights organization, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Eventually, CORE became an independent organization, and as such, launched radical direct action demonstrations throughout the South. In the same year, FOR participated in the Journey of Reconciliation. This little-known demonstration was launched to test the Supreme Court Ruling that prohibited Jim Crow in interstate travel. This demonstration ended without sensation, in large part because the media did not cover it. Media coverage was essential to the success of the Movement. In 1955, FOR assigned a white Methodist minister to aid Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The contribution of FOR was laudatory, particularly since the organization was pacifist and many of the demonstrations were considered controversial, because force was used, however indirectly. The organization wanted to steer as far away as possible from any appearance of violence. FOR’s contributions are significant because it was one of the few predominately white organizations to assist other civil rights organizations.

Despite the grim realities of early twentieth-century America, Farmer had a solid and luminous start to his early adulthood. One of his duties was to lecture in other parts of the country. Farmer traveled to places most African Americans would never have the privilege to see. He enjoyed his job immensely.

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Farmer surrounded himself with white friends, most of whom were pacifists, like himself, and socialists. Their eagerness to listen to Farmer’s thoughts and frustrations with racism and their enthusiastic encouragement of his ideas provided a nurturing environment in which he thrived. There was Bernice Fisher, a spirited rebel and college student adamantly opposed to racism, and Ben Segal, a Jewish intellectual who was in charge of the regional office of the Keep America Out of War Committee. Segal was not only a friend, but his roommate—a fact which, even in Chicago, would prove problematic. But it also provided further motivation for Farmer to execute a plan that had been percolating in his mind: to obliterate inequality, once and for all. It took all summer and most of the winter for Farmer to compose the words for what he described as a ‘‘‘master plan,’ a blueprint for winning equality,’’ self-consciously adding that it was the ‘‘pretentiousness of youth’’ that prodded him steadily forward (Farmer, 71). This plan was meant to eclipse the strategies of extant organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League, which Farmer, in his youthful vigor, assumed were inadequate because so little progress had been gained. In hindsight, Farmer acknowledged that he, of all individuals, was hardly equipped for such a colossal and imposing challenge. What he did have was youthful energy, a strong desire, and a revolutionary idea, involving direct action and the practical application of concepts he had learned from his study of Gandhi. He articulated his thoughts to his closest friend, Bernice, who shared his enthusiasm. The form of this plan would not materialize until many months later. Until then, Farmer spent many hours staring at a clean notepad, oblivious to the whirring of automobiles and blaring sirens outside his flat. Occasionally he sprawled a title he had come up with some time ago, ‘‘Provisional Plans for Brotherhood Mobilization,’’ across a desolate page. But his thoughts drifted between his plan and the image of the lovely woman who worked at the local drug store. Farmer enjoyed a cigar from time to time, but he was not a voracious smoker. To Winnie, the African American checker who saw him almost daily, alternately ringing up his purchases of cigars and gum, his motives were suspect. Farmer had fallen hopelessly in love with Winnie the moment he set eyes on her and was certain that she felt the same. But both were too shy to ask the other out. Farmer told Bernice about Winnie, but unlike her reaction to his revolutionary ideas, she was unimpressed. Her main complaint was that Winnie was not like them and had virtually nothing in common with Farmer. She was not an activist. James and Bernice took great pride in being pacifists and activists. They associated with like-minded activists and were always mulling over and discussing worldly matters. There was hardly anything else worth talking about for them. At the heart of their community was an edgy eagerness to voice and demonstrate their opinions; to be actively involved in some meaningful cause.

James Farmer

Farmer’s chance to demonstrate his objection to the war came in the winter of 1941, when he received a draft letter shortly after America entered into the Second World War. Farmer was nervous but resolute when he stood before the all-black draft board in Washington, D.C., explained his denunciation of the war, and then handed a document for conscientious objectors and his personal statement to the chairman. When the chairman chose to defer Farmer not for the reason he gave but because he considered him a minister since he had a theology degree, Farmer was shattered. He thought that the conscientious objection was a noble stance. Besides, he was not even an ordained minister. Nor did he share the faith of his father any longer. The chairman explained that he wanted to keep down the number of objections; it was nothing personal. Farmer reluctantly accepted the explanation. Farmer finished off the year with two trips: first to New York to attend a FOR staff conference and for a meeting with A.J. Muste, the executive director of the organization, and then to visit his family who still lived in Washington, D.C. In his New York office, Muste was far from receptive as he listened to Farmer eagerly describe the idea for the Provisional Plans. Muste impressed upon Farmer that he should focus on galvanizing new members. As for provisional plans, he requested that Farmer put something together on paper and send it to him. When Farmer arrived at his family’s home in Washington, D.C., he took off his suit and relaxed. It was good to see his family again. At only fourteen, Nathaniel stood nearly as tall as Farmer. The two brothers boxed and played ping-pong, while his sister, a graduate student, questioned the practicality of Farmer’s career choice. Why could he not get a sensible job, she asked him. She did not understand why he accepted a low-paying job that might occasionally result in imprisonment. But the highlight of the winter of 1941 had nothing to do with the war, or the lackluster but pivotal meeting with Muste. Rather it was the letter he received from Winnie. Unable to bring himself to ask her out directly, he had written Winnie a letter, asking if she would go on a date with him. The date with Winnie occurred shortly after his return from lecturing in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Madison, and Milwaukee. Farmer was the first to arrive. He felt surprisingly confident and revealed his feelings to her. She felt the same but had bad news: she was married, though in the process of getting a divorce. Farmer would wait for her. In the meantime, he had enough to keep him busy. He had that memo to write and send to Muste. Farmer worked feverishly on the memo. At last the words streamed effortlessly from his hand. When he had completed the last sentence with a flick of wrist, he typed it up and mailed it to Muste. It was dated February 19, 1942, and contained a summary of his plan to combat racism, discrimination, and segregation by utilizing nonviolent mass direct-action demonstrations involving blacks, whites, and Jews. In other words, this was to be a racially inclusive undertaking.

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While Farmer waited for Muste’s response, he had the opportunity to put his plan into action. Bernice gave a copy of Farmer’s memo to a white graduate student and pacifist at the University of Chicago, Jimmy Robinson. Jimmy told Farmer of his own idea to challenge segregated housing. He wanted a group of blacks and whites to live together in a house in a predominately white neighborhood. The name of this house would be the Boys’ Fellowship House. He asked Farmer if he would be interested in participating when they met for coffee at Jack Spratt Coffee House. Farmer gladly accepted the invitation. But he was chagrinned when the unexpected happened during their conversation. Farmer was caught off guard when the manager of the coffee house told him that he could not serve him because he was black. All his life it seemed Farmer had been waiting for the chance to challenge racism, and then when the opportunity came, he was speechless. Robinson was the hero during the subsequent exchange, pointing out to the manager that Jim Crow was illegal in Illinois. The manager relented and served Farmer. But he charged Farmer more than the regular cost of the doughnuts. Robinson again took the initiative and told the manager that Farmer was going to pay the regular price, then suggested they make the Jack Spratt Coffee House the first test case for his direct action idea. Farmer and a group of black and white youths returned to the coffee house for what would be the first unofficial interracial sit-in. Winnie, visibly uncomfortable, was there too. Farmer, Bernice, and Jimmy instructed the activists on what not to do: ‘‘no loud talking or abusive language or otherwise unruly behavior’’ (Farmer, 92). It was Bernice who had a hard time staying calm. She was ready for a fight. ‘‘Unclench your fists and ungrit your teeth,’’ Farmer warned playfully, ‘‘If you slug this man, you’ll blow the whole thing’’ (Farmer, 92). For all their trouble, the group was served dinner with no incident. When they departed, the manager threw out the money they paid for the meals. The change clattered noisily on the empty street. No one returned to retrieve it. The small band of activists returned to the Boys’ Fellowship House, which by then was up and running, where they processed what had just happened and what to do next. The meeting affirmed much. For one, Jimmy and Bernice would share leadership with Farmer. However, the ideology of the group belonged solely to Farmer. Also, the lack of African American participation needed to be remedied. They all agreed that the coffee house had not seen the last of them. Not only that, but they wanted to stage more demonstrations at other venues. For the Jack Spratt campaign, Farmer suggested that he pursue negotiations with the manager. The excitement and newness of this venture was stimulating to Farmer, but it did not mitigate the pain he felt when Winnie broke up with him. Bernice had warned Farmer that he and Winnie were a poor match and pointed out that Winnie was the only one at the Jack Spratt demonstration not to participate in the discussion back at the Boys’ House. Bernice was right:

James Farmer

Winnie was not an activist. The demonstration at the coffee house overwhelmed and frightened her, and she left Farmer because of that. Farmer’s self-prescribed remedy was to work. There was much to do. In addition to the ongoing coffee house demonstration, the residents of the Boys Fellowship House were being threatened with a lawsuit by the owner of the house. A third campaign to integrate a popular local skating rink was in the works. In response to the pending lawsuit against the Boys’ Fellowship House, Jimmy suggested that they refuse to leave the premises. Legally, the owner did not have a case. Segregated housing was not lawful in the state of Illinois. However, the young men at the Boys’ House were forced to move to a different neighborhood when the owner opted not to renew the lease. The White City Roller Skating Rink campaign, in which Farmer played a substantial role, faired little better. For years, the owners of the skating rink skirted around the issue of admitting blacks by claiming that the rink was a ‘‘private club.’’ Not so ironically, this club was all-white. To challenge this, white members of Farmer’s group paid for tickets and entered the skating rink. Both Farmer and another African American were refused tickets and told that the skating rink was for private club members only. Farmer told the manager that there were whites who were admitted into the skating rink without membership to any private club. On Farmer’s recommendation, the group chose to challenge the skating rink by utilizing the legal system. Three white city employees were arrested but were let out on bail raised by Farmer’s group. When the case came to trial, the judge acquitted the three employees but not before admonishing them for excluding blacks and also recognizing Farmer’s effort. When Farmer traveled in the spring to a FOR meeting in Columbus, Ohio to answer questions about his memo, he took Bernice and two other white friends with him. Farmer borrowed a car from an individual who resembled, in spirit and appearance, a hippy before the subculture came into existence in the 1960s. On one side of the garishly decorated car were the words ‘‘PEACE IS GOD’s WAY,’’ and on the other ‘‘WAR IS SATAN’s WAY.’’ Swelling with idealism and promise, the small band of crusaders traversed the open highways. At the meeting, Farmer was luminous as he spoke before the council members and staff. He talked about his memo and reported on the Chicago demonstrations, which were essentially trial runs of the formal program outlined in his letter. His audience had many questions. Of paramount concern was the fact that the demonstrations seemed to them a form of force. They also did not like the fact that arrests had been made. These methods conflicted with FOR’s stringent opposition to any form or appearance of violence. Nonetheless, it was agreed that Farmer was on to something; perhaps a program should be created that was not associated with FOR. Farmer would have to wait longer for final authorization.

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Back in Chicago, momentum was building. Bob Chino came up with a name for Farmer’s group. The name, ‘‘CORE,’’ would refer to the literal meaning of the word: the central or essential part of something. It was determined that the acronym for CORE would stand for Committee of Racial Equality but later be changed to Congress for Racial Equality. Farmer was elected chairman, Bernice secretary, and Jimmy treasurer. In May 1942, CORE launched its first sit-in, a reprisal of the Jack Spratt Coffee House demonstration. On the day of the sit-in, the servers were up in arms, especially since the demonstration caught on with customers who were not members of CORE. Many of the unsuspecting diners pushed their plates away and refused to eat their meals when black activists were denied service. A server called the police, who had already been notified by Farmer about the scheduled sit-in. When the police arrived, they confirmed that the restaurant legally could not deny blacks the right to eat in the coffee house. The activists ate well that night.

V for Victory The V for Victory sign is made by raising a hand, palm out, and holding the index finger and the middle finger to form a V-shape, while the other fingers are clenched together. During demonstrations waged by the Congress of Racial Equality, the sign was used among activists. The gesture signifies not only solidarity toward a common goal but encouragement during adversity. While jailed on one occasion, a white activist made the V for Victory sign and everyone responded immediately with joyous acclimation and singing. Gestures and singing were important symbols of the Civil Rights Movement, and were employed regularly to maintain the momentum of activists to help prevent fatigue or emotional weariness. The origins of the V-sign are explored in Gestures: The Origins and Distribution (1979), written by Desmond Morris. Notwithstanding its use during the Civil Rights Movement, the gesture is most known to have been used during protests against the Vietnam War (1956–1975) by hippies. However, their use of the V-sign did not refer to victory; rather, it signified ‘‘peace.’’

While CORE flourished, Farmer’s love life was going nowhere. Winnie reappeared in his life, then, without warning, she left Farmer for a second time. She married another man and moved to Detroit. Farmer contacted her, and Winnie promised to dissolve the marriage and marry Farmer as soon as the divorce was final. CORE was taking off with considerable speed, although it was not yet in the limelight. In those early years, Farmer wrote, ‘‘most of the world knew

James Farmer

nothing about it. There was no television to catch the drama, and the press largely ignored it’’ (Farmer, 115). When CORE became a national organization, Farmer was elected the national chairman. FOR moved Farmer to its New York office. Although Farmer had been authorized to establish CORE as a separate organization from FOR, he still received a FOR paycheck. At that time, members of CORE did so voluntarily, without receiving payment. Farmer felt that the move to New York was to make sure that FOR would remain his priority. Farmer had always wanted to live in New York, which in the 1940s was a hub for intellectual, artistic, and literary African American life and talent. Farmer desired to be a part of the excitement, but there were drawbacks. He was far away from his friends and his beloved CORE. This distance proved to be problematic; between lecture tours and other FOR commitments, Farmer was hard pressed to find time for CORE. Like many American leaders, Farmer feared, during the period of the Red Scare, that his absence left his organization vulnerable to attack. In June 1943, James married Winnie. Two years later, he resigned from FOR. Muste was unhappy with Farmer’s performance. So was Farmer. The strain of working two organizations was too much. Farmer wanted to continue working with CORE, but he felt he had to look for paid work now that he was married. With CORE and FOR seemingly behind him, he looked for work elsewhere. The job opportunities that propelled Farmer into uncharted territory as a labor leader were a financial relief but not completely satisfying. At first, his life appeared to be moving upward, with Winnie’s announcement of her pregnancy and employment as an organizer for the Upholsterers’ International Union of North America (UIU) in Martinsville, Virginia. Farmer gave lectures on soapboxes and mobilized African American participation in the union. Historically, African Americans had been extremely leery of joining labor unions. Experience had taught them that the assertion of rights, demands, and complaints and organizing offered only strife, firings, and violence. The other issue was that the labor unions were notorious for snubbing and discriminating against African Americans. When eighty-one black workers from the Stanley Furniture Company sent in their membership cards to the union, Farmer promised them that he would keep those cards in a secure place. But seventy-eight of those men were fired shortly thereafter. Farmer promptly filed a lawsuit. On the home front, Farmer was losing ground. Winnie found a love letter from another woman in his coat pocket and confronted him on it. Emotions flared. With the situation still unresolved, Farmer left town for business. During his absence, Winnie miscarried. Farmer returned home to be with Winnie. She recovered, but the relationship proved to be irreparable. In 1946, Farmer was still wrestling with his marriage troubles when he received an invitation to participate in the Journey of Reconciliation, a

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collaborative demonstration between FOR and CORE to test the Supreme Court ruling that desegregated interstate travel in the South. With deep regret, Farmer had to decline. He could not afford to take time off work to venture on another civil rights crusade, no matter how badly he wanted to do it. In that same year, James and Winnie divorced. In 1947, Farmer lost his job due to cutbacks at work, precipitating a return to New York. Farmer met the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lula Peterson at a dinner date with friends shortly after his arrival. They had first met at a CORE fundraiser a few years prior, when she was a senior at college and a member of CORE in Evanston, Illinois. Farmer later revealed that Lula was the woman who had written the letter Winnie found in his pocket. Lula now lived in New York and worked as a secretary while aspiring to be an actress. Lula and Farmer faced challenges from the start. Although they traveled in liberal circles, there were many who opposed their marriage, including Winnie. Upon hearing of the forthcoming wedding, she wrote Farmer, pleading that he not marry Lula and to give her another chance. Farmer wrote her back, telling her that he was going ahead with the marriage. The other challenge was that Lula had Hodgkin’s disease, and she did not know how much time she had to live. What she did know was that a pregnancy could be fatal in her condition. And they both wanted children. Despite these obstacles, the two married in 1950 and settled into their new jobs. James was hired on as a field secretary with the League for Industrial Democracy. Lula became the director of program budget for the Institute of International Education. His responsibilities included organizing college student groups. Farmer found that he enjoyed working with young adults. This discovery helped make up for the unimpressive pay. In that same year, the Farmers devoted as much time as possible to the local CORE group. For Farmer, the latter seemed to make all the difference in the world. While married to Winnie, he felt as if he had to choose one or the other. With Lula, they shared a love for the struggle. By now, Farmer’s old friend Jimmy Robinson was in charge of CORE. Lula helped with the accounting. Their home, in Greenwich Village, was a meeting space for frequent CORE gatherings. Nonetheless, Farmer was open to other employment opportunities and pursued the various job offers that came his way, although the outcome was always the same. The United Auto Workers union withdrew their offer when it was found out that Farmer was married to a white woman. The offer extended by Roy Wilkins at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People presented an intriguing opportunity, being that the NAACP was the strongest, longest running, and most prestigious civil rights organization in the country. When Wilkins asked Farmer to consider a position working with young adults, Farmer drew up a program akin to CORE that included a litany of direct action programs, such as ‘‘sit-ins by the association’s youth and student chapters at lunch counters and

James Farmer

restaurants, stand-ins in cafeteria lines, wait-ins at hotel registration desks, ride-ins in non–Jim Crow coaches on trains and front seats of buses, and wade-ins in public beaches and swimming pools’’ (Farmer, 178). Farmer was again passed over. Undoubtedly, his program was too radical for the notoriously conservative NAACP, which favored negotiations, court cases, and occasional marches and picketing over direct action demonstrations. In 1955, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. piloted the first major demonstration of the modern Civil Rights Movement with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. A. Philip Randolph called a meeting with Farmer and Bayard Rustin, who had been one of the FOR planners of the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947. On the agenda was how to provide support to King, a newcomer to high-profile leadership. Farmer suggested that Bayard Rustin be the one to go to Alabama to help advise King. Privately, the success and publicity that surrounded the boycott pained Farmer a little. It was clear that he would not be sharing the limelight at this historic hour. His wife tried to soften the blow: ‘‘You tilled the field, Jim. I know you’ll share in the harvest. I know you will’’ (Farmer, 186). Roy Wilkins’s second invitation to Farmer to join the NAACP staff provided some consolation to his wounded pride. Wilkins was now the executive director. Walter White, under whose authority he had previously been, suddenly died in March. Wilkins hoped Farmer would accept the position of activities coordinator. It was not long before Farmer regretted his decision. The others were suspicious of Farmer, the newcomer. He was never made to feel a part of the team. Hemmed in by politics, ideological differences, and iron-tight wills, Farmer was unable to execute his program. The birth of Tami Lynn Farmer on February 14, 1959 was a joyous moment for the Farmers. It presaged another birth that was taking place throughout the South. In 1960, Farmer, along with the rest of the world, watched in suspense as the sit-in movement unfolded following an unexpected demonstration by college students, unaffiliated with any organization, at a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference immediately stepped in to help mobilize the young adults, resulting in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Many of the youths who did not join the new organization opted to sign up with CORE. The leaders of the NAACP harbored mixed emotions. Sit-ins represented a rash form of activism that could potentially compromise the movement. As for Farmer, the excitement the sit-ins created conjured up the thrill of his youthful forays in Chicago. In 1961, the opportunity of a lifetime—to be the national director of CORE—was presented to Farmer. But it came with a price. It was felt that the current director, Jimmie Robinson, was not forceful enough to lead the organization forward into the final phase of the civil rights movement. The other issue was that he was white, and it was believed that it was time an African American should lead the organization. Notwithstanding his own

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desires to head CORE, Farmer believed the reasons for Robinson’s dismissal had merit. But Jimmy was an old friend, a co-pioneer in the initial formation of the organization. In the end, Jimmy remained on staff, under Farmer, as the organization’s fundraiser.

FREEDOM RIDES Farmer promised CORE activists that he would be a hands-on leader, not one to hide behind closed doors, flanked by stacks of papers. Shortly after starting his new job, Farmer was catapulted into the historic Freedom Rides, which, like its forerunner, the not-so-well-known Journey of Reconciliation, would challenge the Supreme Court ruling that prohibited segregation in interstate travel. Only this time the activists would challenge Jim Crow bus seating as well as the use of facilities at the terminals, and they would travel through the notorious nether regions of the South where anti-black sentiment ran high and vicious. Not everyone was gung-ho over the Freedom Ride idea. Roy Wilkins tried to persuade Farmer against it, but Farmer could not be convinced that the Freedom Rides were a foolhardy plan. Wilkins, however, offered his support during the volatile Freedom Rides, particularly providing the bail money when arrests were made. In preparation for the upcoming rides, Farmer required that activists, including black and white members of (mostly) CORE and SNCC, undergo an intensive orientation and training program. The training comprised various talks by professionals on the legal aspects of the challenge and on the dangers the freedom riders would face as well as role-playing sessions. On May 4, 1961, thirteen Freedom Riders solemnly set out from Washington, D.C. on two separate buses. The plan was to arrive in New Orleans, Louisiana on May 17. Farmer was unable to join the first stage of the trip from Atlanta, Georgia to Montgomery, Alabama, because he had to attend his father’s funeral. He thus narrowly missed what turned out to be a violent confrontation throughout. No one escaped unscathed, but there were no deaths—not yet, at least. The photo of the riders’ burning bus emblazoned the Washington Post, and it became the quintessential symbol of freedom. The two blended symbols implied a profound message: that freedom would come about through nonviolent struggle and violent backlash. The formula was right on, and in the months and years to come, pugnacious whites unwittingly helped speed the process towards civil rights legislation with their vicious opposition. Farmer arrived in Montgomery just in time to get caught in the riotous mob that besieged the Freedom Riders and supporters at the First Baptist Church. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was on CORE’s National Advisory Board, facilitated the rally. He called Attorney General Robert Kennedy for help. Kennedy asked that the rides stop, at least temporarily, to cool the

James Farmer

situation. King turned to Farmer. Even if Farmer had wanted to stop the Freedom Rides, the indomitable spirit of the movement had a force of its own that could not be extinguished, and the freedom riders were in no mood to turn back. The crisis at the church impelled the government to respond, whether it wanted to or not. It took hundreds of U.S. marshals and armed national guardsmen to quell the fire the Freedom Rides had stoked. Farmer had made up his mind—at least he thought he had—to not join the Freedom Riders in Mississippi. It would be suicide. The recent death of his father was emotionally difficult, and the thought of facing his own mortality was unnerving. But on the day of the departure of a bus carrying Freedom Riders, Doris Castle, a seventeen-year-old CORE activist (on that bus), beseeched Farmer to join them. Farmer climbed into the bus. When the Freedom Riders reached Mississippi, everyone was arrested. Farmer stayed forty days in jail. During that time, the activists were severely tested. They would have to endure execrable meals, abusive treatment, and humiliation. Because Farmer was the leader, he was treated with a modicum of respect. He tried to use his influence to improve the conditions during their time in jail, but there was little even he could do. To strengthen each other’s courage and to frustrate the guards, they sang protest songs. Farmer observed that imprisonment had a strange effect on the activists. It impacted individuals differently: ‘‘the younger ones had left a little of their youth in the prison cells; they had aged, matured. The older were surely younger now, more enthralled with freedom, imbued with its quest’’ (Farmer, 3). It also served as a badge of honor, a rite of passage. The benefits of these sacrificial imprisonments were myriad. They brought attention the struggle for civil rights. They helped propel a resistant national government to action, resulting in the enforcement of the ruling that barred the practice of Jim Crow on interstate buses and facilities, beginning on November 1, 1961. When Farmer was released from the Parchman State Penitentiary in July, he was rewarded with instant celebrity and entrance into the vanguard of civil rights leadership.

COUNCIL ON UNITED CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERSHIP The Big Six was a term used to describe the collaboration of the top leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Stephen Currier, a wealthy philanthropist, was instrumental in putting these individuals together. Officially, they became known as the Council on United Civil Rights Leadership (CUCRL). The leaders included Farmer, Dorothy Height, Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young, with John Lewis and James Forman alternating to make up the six. CUCRL met regularly for the purpose of discussing strategy, participating in fundraising campaigns, and keeping the lines of communication open—which

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was no easy task, as Farmer later observed. Disagreements flared frequently, particularly because of ideological conflicts, personality differences, and competition for funds, attention, and recognition. Due to their reliance on nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience tactics, John Lewis and James Forman’s SNCC and King’s SCLC were most similar to CORE. But Forman was contentious and obstinate while Lewis was quiet and had an easy-going manner. King was by far the most popular leader with the media and the public, but away from the adoring crowds he was demure. On the conservative side were the other leaders. Wilkins, leader of the longest running civil rights organization, the NAACP, was, in Farmer’s words, ‘‘acerbic and caustic,’’ while his alter ego, Young, of the Urban League, which was primarily a social service organization and a well-funded one at that, was the quintessential negotiator and peacemaker (Farmer, 218). Height, the head of the National Council of Negro Women, maintained an air of professional poise. At the end of the day, the leaders all recognized the important contributions of each organization and attempted to support one another. The power and influence that these leaders wielded individually and collectively, through CUCRL, is evidenced by the fact that U.S. presidents took notice of them and invited them regularly to the White House. T^ete-a-t^etes between civil rights leaders and presidents were crucial to the gains that were made during the course of the movement. Nevertheless, most, if not all, of these leaders were under surveillance by the FBI. So too were the leaders of the nascent Black Power Movement. But these leaders were excluded from presidential gatherings; instead, they were marked as vicious rabble-rousers and menaces. Malcolm X was one of those militant leaders on the rise. James Farmer met Malcolm X during a public debate that was broadcast on a radio station. Farmer was the only leader in the exclusive leaders club to agree to debate with Malcolm X. But he and Farmer got along, despite their differences of opinion—in large part, because Farmer was willing to break bread with him. Farmer and Malcolm X debated more than once and had more than one casual conversation over coffee. Following one televised debate, Malcolm insisted they stop the public debates, feeling that their exchanges were nothing more than sensationalized entertainment. Farmer and Malcolm maintained their relationship through the latter’s ideological metamorphosis following a trip to Mecca in 1964, which aligned him closer to Farmer and the other integrationists. Farmer was the only civil rights leader of the Big Six to attend his funeral when he was assassinated in 1965.

CORE CHALLENGES During the tumultuous sixties, Farmer kept himself and CORE in the thick of action. A steady stream of sit-ins, marches, and other demonstrations

James Farmer

(and arrests) kept him in tune with his members—and also kept him spry and youthful. CORE was an outlet for spirited, idealistic youths and a resource for blacks and whites working side by side to challenge Jim Crow and the racially hostile climate it bred. That they worked together was daring and radical. However, conflict smoldered beneath this smooth surface. One of the first serious moments of strife occurred early on at the annual convention in 1961. Jimmy Robinson and a woman named Gladys Harrington were part of a plot to remove Farmer from his position and replace him with Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth of SCLC. The plot failed. In the aftermath, Jimmy resigned and Gladys conceded that she had been in the wrong. According to Farmer, she told him that she ‘‘thought [he was] going to be just a black face’’ (Farmer, 214). She assumed that his marriage to a white woman would somehow compromise him and, subsequently, CORE. LEADERSHIP: BLACK OR WHITE? Racial tensions were a continual theme within CORE. In the late spring of 1963, CORE’s National Action Council was split on who would take Charlie Oldham’s place as the national chairman. When Oldham recommended a white man, whom he deemed the ‘‘best-qualified’’ for the job, Farmer bristled. ‘‘There is no way that a white man can be titular head of what Louie Lomax has called the ‘Negro revolt’ at this point in history,’’ he explained and ‘‘was called a racist, a black nationalist, a Garveyite, a Black Muslim’’ for it (Farmer, 255–256). To be sure, and everyone in CORE knew this, an emerging black consciousness was sweeping over the nation, and it was feared that it would destroy CORE. In the end, Farmer got his way when his endorsement, Floyd McKissick, was elected. March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom McKissick was also Farmer’s pick for his replacement at the legendary March on Washington that took place in August 1963. Farmer’s absence at the massive demonstration irritated the leaders of CUCRL. Everyone but Farmer and Dorothy Height gave speeches at the podium on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Farmer felt obligated to choose jail time over attending the March. He had been arrested following a march in Plaquemine, Louisiana. But he and the other jailed activists watched the historic moment on a television that was carried into their cell. A few days after Farmer was let out of jail, pandemonium ensued. Situated between acres of farmland and swamps, with few roads leading out, Plaquemine became a scene of inescapable horror. Troopers attacked the activists who had participated in the march with tear gas, billy clubs, chains, and ropes. No one could get a call through for help. Most of the

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marchers ran to the nearby Plymouth Rock Church. The screams from the injured and cries that pierced the air mingled with prayers and protest songs. Farmer himself hid in the church, which offered little refuge. Farmer, a mob target, had to be secreted away in the back of a hearse. Mississippi Freedom Summer Undaunted by the dangers and hazards of an activist’s life, Farmer authorized CORE’s involvement in the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). COFO included the NAACP, SCLC, and SNCC. In 1964, COFO launched the Mississippi Freedom Summer project, which incorporated a voting registration campaign, the establishment of Freedom schools, and support for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In June, two Jewish staff members, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, and one black, James Chaney, went missing. The investigation into their disappearance was initiated by Farmer with the assistance of comedian and activist Dick Gregory. Daring CORE activists scoured the town searching for clues, questioning edgy locals. What they found out, they passed on to the FBI, who, in early August, discovered the bodies. Chaney had been beaten to death, while the others had been fatally shot; Klansmen were responsible for the ghastly crimes. Arrests were made that October. Violence studded the summer of 1964, and at its end, many of the activists were spent and frustrated. Power conflicts arose between white and black activists as well as resentment over the fact that the killings of whites received more public reaction than that of blacks. Shifting Focus to the North Beginning in 1964, race riots in the cities in the North made the world take notice. While the media portrayed the rioters as hoodlums and criminals, civil rights leaders believed that the underlying causes of the riots were more complex. What they surmised was confirmed by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Kerner Commission Report, which pointed the finger at racism and poverty. Grim conditions compounded by police brutality turned more than one city into a blaze of fury, compelling civil rights leaders like Farmer to redirect their energies from the South to the North. On July 18, 1964, Farmer was in Harlem when a riot broke out. An officer had shot and killed an unarmed teenager who had been playing with a garden hose. Farmer moved in quickly to try to prevent the impending riot. Initially, he tried to reason with the residents, informing them of the accomplishments CORE and SNCC had made in the South. The crowd was unimpressed. When he mentioned that he was bringing CORE to the North, they paused. Joe Overton, president of the New York branch of the NAACP, suggested that Farmer lead the group in a spontaneous march. The march

James Farmer

started, but a riot broke out anyway, tellingly foreshadowing how the tactics that were used in the South were miscast in the North. Lyndon B. Johnson In the beginning, Lyndon B. Johnson appeared as if he would be responsive to the plight of the neglected, impoverished, and frustrated ghettos. Back when he was vice president to Kennedy, he had been receptive to one of Farmer’s ideas and had even come up with a catchy name for it—affirmative action. Following the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Johnson singled Farmer out as someone he wanted in his corner. Farmer noticed that Johnson’s interest in him began to decline during the 1964 presidential election after he refused his request to refrain from demonstrating. America’s increasing entanglement in the Vietnam War also upstaged problems at home and diverted Johnson’s attention. CLOSING OF AN ERA By 1966, with the demise of Jim Crow, the actualization of strong voting rights legislation, and the realization of many other of its goals, the Civil Rights Movement was winding down. The epic demonstrations, majestic oratory, and media coverage waned; the struggle for civil rights was reduced to a simmer. Taking center stage were the swashbuckling radicals of the Black Power Movement, who wore afros and Afrocentric attire and harbored palpable disdain for civil rights leaders like Farmer. Farmer sensed the end of the era and of his diminishing influence over his own organization. Black separatists, nationalists, and militants were overtaking CORE. Farmer knew his days were numbered. At one point it appeared that Farmer might be able to run a national adult literacy program, but the opportunity did not come through. Farmer resigned from CORE in 1966. McKissick took his place, ushering the organization into a program of separatism and militancy. SNCC made the same transformation. Farmer taught for a few years at Lincoln University and New York University, lecturing on American social movements, as well as the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968, Farmer ran for U.S. Congress as a Republican. Another African American, Shirley Chisholm, won. Richard Nixon hired him shortly thereafter as the Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Farmer expressed various reasons why he was not really cut out for HEW. For one, it was too bureaucratic, and he did not always agree with government politics. Farmer retired in 1971 and continued lecturing. Between 1975 and 1999, he led Open Society, a program to help diversify neighborhoods, which he co-founded with Morris Milgram.

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In 1976, Lula Farmer had died. Farmer’s health began to decline, and by 1983, he was blind. In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Neither blindness nor age could keep him down, and he taught a course on the Civil Rights Movement at what is now known as the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He died in 1999. See also Dorothy Height; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis; Malcolm X; A. Philip Randolph; Roy Wilkins; and Whitney Young. FURTHER RESOURCES Arsenault, Raymond. Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Congress of Racial Equality (February 2008). See http://www.core-online.org/ History/james_farmer_bio.htm. Farmer, James. Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1985. ‘‘Fund for an Open Society toward Thriving and Integrated Communities.’’ Open Society (February 2008). See http://www.opensoc.org. The Great Debaters. Directed by Denzel Washington. Harpo Productions, 2007. Shridharani, Krishnalal. War without Violence: A Study of Gandhi’s Method and Its Accomplishments. New York: Harcourt, 1939. Washington, Robin. ‘‘You Don’t Have to Ride Jim Crow.’’ (February 2008). See http://www.robinwashington.com/jimcrow/1_home.html.

AP Photo/Scott Stewart

Louis Farrakhan (1933– )

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Louis Farrakhan is the Minister of the Nation of Islam. By and large, Farrakhan’s supporters constitute the loyal members of his religious organization. Although to meet him, one would find Louis Farrakhan to be mildmannered, extraordinarily polite, and self-contained, he is most well-known for the vitriolic statements he makes. His bowtie and immaculate suits, the trademarks of all males in the Nation of Islam (NOI), can be disarming. But the fact is that Jews call him anti-Semitic, and his message of black separatism befuddles and exasperates conservative black leaders. Farrakhan is an anomaly these days; a throwback to the radical black protest exhibited by Marcus Garvey’s sensational movement of black pride, economic empowerment, and black nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s, and by the widely popular ideology of black separatism and militancy of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s. Among the proponents of the latter were myriad controversial leaders who were nationally known. But in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, there are few who can provoke such negative attention, as well such large-scale devotion and admiration, as can Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan’s rise to leadership began shortly after he joined the NOI in 1955. Between 1965 and 1975, he served as the minister of the New York Mosque. After the death, in 1975, of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, successor to NOI founder Wallace Fard Muhammad, the NOI went through a dramatic restructuring under new leadership. In 1977, Farrakhan disassociated himself with the newfangled organization and three years later, reestablished the original NOI, as it remains to this day. As the Honorable Minister of the NOI, Farrakhan is lauded by the members. They commend him for the strides he has made within their spiritual community, as well as for his efforts to address the problems of racism faced by blacks in America. NOI members follow a rigorous set of rules which emphasizes the importance of discipline. Only blacks are allowed membership. The men and women who do join must submit to stringent gender roles, dress codes, and rules such as no smoking, no dancing, and no drinking alcohol. The religion is primarily based on Afrocentric precepts, but also melds parts of the Qur’an (Islam’s sacred scripture) and the Holy Bible (Christianity’s sacred writings). Many blacks outside of the NOI like and respect Farrakhan’s brand of rhetoric, a point proved in 1995 by the fact that close to a million or more (the actual count is in contention) men responded to his invitation to join the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. His views on racism and his blunt criticism of the problems that afflict blacks—problems he believes to be largely self-inflicted—resonate with many black men and women. Whether or not they agree with his religious beliefs or fully embrace his politics, Farrakhan strikes a chord as he brazenly expresses the frustrations that might otherwise not be voiced or heard. Put another way, Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan

exposes the realities of the marginalized, calls to task racist behavior, and challenges blacks and perpetrators of racism and discrimination to take responsibility. Whenever Farrakhan speaks, he is certain to draw a crowd and generate an uproar. Compared to other radicals, such as Malcolm X, another famous leader in the Nation of Islam who was assassinated in 1965, there are few booklength treatments on Farrakhan. Arthur J. Magida, a Jewish journalist, was the first to undertake a serious work on Farrakhan’s life in an unauthorized biography. Through the course of the book, Magida expresses frustration with Farrakhan’s racist remarks and his refusal to apologize for them. But he also expresses his respect for and fascination with him. Julian Bond, former politician and black civil rights legend, wrote the foreword, in which he articulates how, love him or despise him, ‘‘his life and works can be our mirror’’ (Magida, xii). In Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and His Nation (1996), Magida paints an intriguing portrait of a man whose life began unassumingly in a West Indian community in Boston, Massachusetts. CHILDHOOD Louis Eugene Walcott was born on May 11, 1933, in the Bronx, New York and raised in Roxbury, a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. He was born to West Indian parents: Sarah Mae Manning, from the island of St. Kitts, and Percival Clarke, a cab driver from Jamaica. He had an older brother, Alvan, who had a different biological father. Farrakhan’s biggest influence in his early life was his mother. Sarah Mae Manning Sarah Manning was a strong-minded, handsome woman who brought her children up single-handedly after she and her husband permanently separated. She believed in hard work, and she set a fine example for her children. Like most black women in those days, she was poor, but she provided for herself and her family by working as a domestic for several families. Most of her employers were wealthy Jewish families. She also believed in discipline, religion, and protest. She talked to her boys about social justice and raised them to be confident. Although Manning did not grow up in the United States (she immigrated to New York in the 1920s), conditions in the West Indies were not altogether different with regard to race relations from those in her adopted homeland. Slavery was practiced in both the West Indies and the United States, with slaves imported from Africa to St. Kitts as early as 1649. The major staple on the island was sugar cane, and the slaves and their descendants labored in the fields for affluent European landowners. After slavery was abolished

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in St. Kitts in 1834, race relations were still based on centuries-old constructions of white superiority and black inferiority. Sarah Mae was too strongminded to accept that sort of thinking, a perspective she carried with her to the United States. Luckily for her, she arrived at a time when Marcus Garvey, the flamboyant, uniform-wearing black nationalist from Jamaica, gained a foothold among working-class blacks in major cities throughout the United States. His headquarters were in New York. If Sara Mae herself was not a follower of Garvey, she would certainly have been surrounded by numerous Garveyites who walked tall as a result of the charismatic Garvey’s rhetoric of black pride and the stunning exhibition of his black-run shipping line and other never-before-seen black-owned-and-operated businesses. In Boston, Sarah Mae read magazines like the NAACP’s Crisis. The Crisis was considered radical literature as it regularly featured articles that exposed atrocities against blacks and also reported on prosperous and successful African Americans. In the early twentieth century this sort of news contradicted the anti-black climate prevailing in the United States, especially in the South where Jim Crow laws and racial violence were the norm. The NAACP was considered so radical that the organization was prohibited from establishing chapters in certain southern states. Farrakhan recalled nights when he listened to his mother (who thought he was asleep) and her friends talking about the condition of black people, about the suffering of our people. I would wonder why, if God had sent a deliverer to an oppressed people in the past, why that same God wouldn’t send us a deliverer.… I couldn’t understand why we would have to be buried in a separate cemetery if we were all going to the same heaven. I couldn’t understand why it was an honor to go downtown to sing with a white choir in a white church. (Magida, 9)

These late-night conversations made the young Farrakhan cry. Though he suffered in private, these moments undoubtedly led him to eventually aspire to a life of leadership, dedicated to righting a great wrong.

Community Almost everyone in Gene’s neighborhood was West Indian. There were various reasons for this. Among immigrant populations, especially the early generations, families gravitated among their own—if not for comfort, preference, safety, and practicality (due to shared language and cultural traditions), then because such populations treated one another like family, whether they were related by blood or not. In communities such as Gene’s, everyone helped everyone else, reaffirming daily their shared beliefs and culture. Many cities in the North were separated by race and ethnicity, and sometimes this phenomenon produced strife, rivalry, and violence.

Louis Farrakhan

Outside of Roxbury, blacks were not always treated with respect and kindness, so they tried to stay out of certain neighborhood or parts of town to avoid trouble. Gene was not prone to violence. In fact, he recalled getting into only one fight: he punched a Jewish boy because of peer pressure. He regretted it as soon as he had struck the youth and vowed never to inflict physical harm on anyone ever again. St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Gene enjoyed attending an all-black church, St. Cyprian’s Episcopal. One might assume that this church was a black-nationalistic or social-activist institution, along the orders of an African Methodist Episcopalian Church (AME). But it was not, even though it was founded under circumstances that, in those times at least, were considered revolutionary. Images of Marcus Garvey and the founders of the AME church, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, were featured in the building’s stained-glass windows. Like the AME church, St. Cyprian’s Episcopal was established to protest against racial discrimination in predominately white churches. For example, Allen and Jones were inspired to leave the white-controlled Methodist Episcopal Church and found the AME Church (in 1816 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) because blacks were not allowed to lead general worship services that were attended by whites, and during general worship services blacks had to sit in the back row, separately from whites. Before 1925, some blacks shared the same church building as whites, such as in Roxbury, Boston, but held separate, black-only services. When, one day, a black man returned to church to retrieve an item he had forgotten, he found the whites fumigating the church, an action they regularly performed after blacks concluded their church service. The St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church was built as a result of black outrage over that incident. Gene believed in Jesus and the Bible with all his heart, and was actively involved in his church. At the age of six, he began violin lessons and played concerts at church. He also sang in a choir. EDUCATION Gene was a serious student of the violin, practicing up to four or five hours a day as he got older. His attention to his studies was just as pronounced: quiet, intelligent, and well-liked would best describe Gene during his school days. Gene was one of those students who made his teachers proud and never gave them trouble. He was also admired by his peers. He had Jewish and black friends. One person, fatherless and without a strong role model, recalled how he ‘‘heard about … how smart [Gene] was in school [and] watched how he walked. How proud he was of himself. I thought, ‘I want to be just like him’’’ (Magida, 7).

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If Garvey had been alive and his UNIA-ACL organization still going strong, one could easily see an enthusiastic Gene joining the youngsters on parade, proudly waving the red, black, gold, and green flag. Parades were part of the stunning visual propaganda Garvey used to excite blacks. When, during a visit to see a relative in New York at age eleven, Gene saw a picture of Garvey for the first time and on the same day learned of his death in 1940, he was heartbroken. Garvey, who represented a savior-figure for blacks, was gone. Though Gene may not have known at the time, Garvey’s last years had been tragic. His burgeoning empire floundered due to overly ambitious goals, lack of business savvy, and legal problems. After Garvey was indicted for mail fraud and deported in 1927 he was never able to resurrect the fame he had experienced in the 1920s. Except for the time he punched the unfortunate Jewish boy, Gene was a good, obedient student. Playing the violin and studying filled his days for the next several years. It would not be until high school that he would find himself out of his element. In 1947, Gene entered the Boston Latin School, where only students with stellar grades were admitted. Gene had no trouble keeping up with the academic demands of the school, but socially he felt uncomfortable as one of very few black students. After only one year, he transferred to the English High School. At English, blacks made up fifteen percent of the population. This was not a high percentage, but it did provide Gene with a greater sense of comfort. Gene was one of those students everyone liked and admired. Teachers raved about him. The track coach was pleased to have him on his team. Gene performed well on the track team (his specialty was the 100-yard dash), and he easily made friends with his teammates. He and one of his Jewish friends regularly visited one another at each other’s homes. Gene was also an altruistic and sensitive youth. For several summers, he worked as a counselor at Camp Breezy Meadows in Holliston, Massachusetts. The black girls and boys who attended this camp were from disadvantaged communities. At fourteen or fifteen years old, when he attended a fundraising concert for a football team, Gene discovered the tantalizing music of calypso. The history of calypso is rooted in traditions of resistance and empowerment. It was established in the beginning of the twentieth century by African slaves brought to Trinidad and Tobago. The plantation owners prohibited these slaves from talking to one another to prevent a slave uprising. However, the cunning slaves found another way to communicate—through song. After a time, these songs were used in other ways, for example to spread news. The lyrics of the calypso melodies could also be used to express protest in certain situations. But the songs Gene heard that day and soon after learned for himself were not intended for protest. On the contrary, these songs oozed with what he referred to as double-entendres; underlying messages that were seductive and mature. By age sixteen, Gene was a student and regular

Louis Farrakhan

Harry Belafonte Most know Harry Belafonte for his lilting calypso songs or his starring role (with Dorothy Dandridge) in the musical Carmen Jones (1954). Belafonte’s persona is jovial, warm, and festive, and yet in his other life he has been one of the most pivotal supporters of the Civil Rights Movement. He was one of a long list of celebrity activists, including Sidney Poitier, Charlton Heston, Shirley MacLaine, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Marlon Brando, Joan Baez, and Dick Gregory, who lent their support to the Movement. Harold George Belafonte was born in Harlem, New York, on March 1, 1927. His father was from Martinique, and his mother was from Jamaica. Between 1935 and 1939, Harry lived with his grandmother in Jamaica. When he returned to New York, he attended George Washington High School. He enlisted in the Navy during World War II (1941–1945). In the late 1940s, Belafonte pursued an acting and singing career. He sang in New York night clubs to pay for acting classes. Belafonte’s musical styles include pop, blues, gospel, show tunes, as well as calypso. His meteoric rise to success with his album Calypso (1956) was the launching pad to worldwide recognition. Belafonte went on to receive numerous awards for his music and acting. In 1959, he was the first African American to receive an Emmy with his solo TV special Tonight with Belafonte. Belafonte’s activism was inspired in large part by the robust singer, Paul Robeson. Robeson was a controversial figure, because he empathized with communists, but he was also a staunch civil rights activist. Belafonte played a significant role during the Civil Rights Movement fundraising for and contributing his own funds to organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He helped provide bail for Martin Luther King, Jr. and numerous students who were arrested during civil rights demonstrations. Belafonte spoke at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 (which he helped coordinate). Belafonte’s commitment to activism was reflected in his career, as well. Between 1954 and 1961 he refused to perform in the South, where Jim Crow laws kept blacks and whites in separate worlds, and where blacks were subject to social, economic, and political oppression. He also refused to perform in the musical Porgy and Bess, because of the racist characterization of Porgy. Belafonte continues to live a rich and active life. He has been married twice and has four adult children.

performer of these songs. His stage name was ‘‘The Charmer,’’ and he was well-known at popular black nightclubs. His mother did not approve, nor would she have approved (if she had known about it) of his habit of drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. It appeared that Gene’s childhood

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longings to save his race were, for a time, overshadowed by his dreams of stardom as a calypso star. During this period he appeared on The Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour, though he was featured as a classical violinist, not a calypso singer. Upon graduation, Gene hoped to enroll in the Julliard School of Music in New York, but went instead to Winston-Salem Teachers’ College in North Carolina on a track scholarship. Curiosity had compelled him to find out what black life was like in the South and how different it was from his experiences in the North. It was a revelatory experience. He confounded whites—and blacks accustomed to the culture of the South—when he drank out of ‘‘white only’’ fountains. He was bemused by the directive that he was not to speak with whites at a sports events, when some of his closest friends back home were white. There were other reasons why Gene considered dropping out of college. He longed to perform for a living. He was also homesick, especially after he met Betsy Ross during a visit home. In 1953, Ross became pregnant, and that settled the matter: Gene dropped out of school and returned home. They married on September 12, 1953 at St. Cyprian’s Church. They would have a total of nine children. In that same year, Gene’s up-and-coming alter ego signed his first contract with a record label. Shortly thereafter, the rich, smooth, lilting voice of Harry Belafonte was made famous. Belafonte became known as the ‘‘Calypso King.’’ Gene sulked somewhat over the ‘‘other’’ West Indian’s success. It was his face he had envisioned on stage and television. He tramped from one venue to another to make that dream come true, but success came from an unexpected direction.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NATION OF ISLAM In 1955, a friend who was a member of the Nation of Islam (NOI), invited him to a NOI meeting. The Nation of Islam was shrouded in mystery. Few knew the details of the organization’s ideology, but everyone in the neighborhood could pick a Muslim out of a crowd. They stood out. They were not given to loud, coarse joking, talking, or demonstrativeness. Nor did they loiter on street corners, smoking cigarettes or playing any of the gambling games. The men wore suits and bowties every day and did not wear their hair in the processed dos that were fashionable among black men. They sat, moved, stood, and carried themselves in a singularly poised fashion. If Gene Walcott, who continued at this time to smoke marijuana and was still intensely pursuing fame, felt any interest as he sat in the auditorium of Temple No. 2 of the Nation of Islam, it was very mild. When a man who called himself Elijah Muhammad spoke that day, Walcott was underwhelmed.

Louis Farrakhan

Bowtie For centuries, the bowtie has symbolized style, civility, and power. In the twentieth century, the bowtie has become an identifiable marker for male members of the Nation of Islam. Louis Farrakhan asserts that for black men in the Nation of Islam, the bowtie is symbolic of self-empowerment. To be sure, the men are instructed to follow an extremely austere life: no dancing, no alcohol, no drugs, and no excessive demonstrations of emotion. In almost every way, they aspire to transcend the degradations that entrap many African American males. Even members of the NOI’s military arm, called the Fruit of Islam (FOI), wear bowties. While guarding various speakers (Farrakhan and various African American celebrities such as Spike Lee, Michael Jackson, Jesse Jackson, and Eddie Murphy), they stand posed with arms behind their backs, and feet shoulderwidth apart. They carry no guns but are well-trained in combat forms such as karate and are instructed to not kill unless in self-defense. Because the bowtie is so heavily associated with the NOI, it has also become a symbol of other things, like exclusivity and cult-like extremism, as well as, in the NOI’s case, radical black pride and black power.

Muhammad was a small, unassuming, light-complected man who wore a truncated cone-shaped hat called a fez, and he did not speak well. Muhammad’s manner of speaking, in particular, bothered Walcott. Muhammad’s speech was a product of his humble beginnings and the oppressive environment in which he lived. He was born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Georgia in 1897, a period referred to as the nadir of black life. His parents were sharecroppers who endured segregation. He completed only three years of education. Poole witnessed the lynching of at least three black men. At only sixteen, he traipsed alone across the United States. In 1917, he married Clara Evans and settled in Detroit, Michigan, where he had a life-changing encounter with a man named Wallace Fard Muhammad. Wallace Fard Muhammad’s background was dubious. He reportedly had several aliases and was frequently in trouble with the law over drug offenses and subsequently served three years in prison. Muhammad founded the first Temple of the Nation of Islam in Detroit, Michigan in the summer of 1930. He was responsible for the new religion’s distinctive tenets, such as the idea that blacks were the first peoples on the Earth, and that whites were created later by a scientist. He called whites ‘‘devils,’’ insisting that they were inherently malevolent. He claimed that Islam (not Christianity, the religion of white slave owners) was the natural religion of blacks, and that the identity of blacks had been purposely hidden to further subjugate them. He condemned the United States for its miserable treatment of blacks. Muhammad

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taught these ideas and more, though, ironically, historians have speculated that he might not have been African American at all. Some believe his ethnicity might have been a mix of European and Polynesian, Indian, or Persian. He posed at various times as any number of different races. Poole and Wallace Fard Muhammad forged a close bond in a short period of time. Poole became what Muslims refer to as his disciple or apostle, e.g., someone who follows a spiritual leader. In 1934, Poole, who changed his name to Elijah Muhammad, further developed the Nation of Islam. For one, he declared that Fard was Allah incarnate, coming down to earth to deliver blacks from oppression and despair and to empower them. He also established the ten demands of the Muslim program, including reparations, racially separate schools, a territory for blacks only, justice, and the end of anti-black violence and miscegenation, or race mixing. Spiritually, the Nation of Islam operated on a philosophy of black separatism, racial consciousness, and the Islamic precept of Allah or God. It also incorporated the Christian and Islamic texts. Black males responded positively to this Afrocentric religion. They also were drawn to Muhammad, its leader. During the 1940s, when Muhammad served four years in prison for instructing NOI members to ignore the draft, his reputation only grew.

BECOMING LOUIS X In 1955, Walcott’s wife joined the Nation of Islam. His uncle, who attended the meeting with them, also joined on the same day, pressuring Walcott to do the same. Walcott liked the part of the message that involved decisive criticism on American race relations, but he was not yet ready to relinquish his Christian beliefs or embrace the radical blend of faith that Muhammad presented. Nevertheless, he soon joined and changed his surname, like other members of the Nation of Islam, to X to signify his rejection of the name that originated from his ancestor’s plantation owner. In the final developmental stage of an individual in the Nation of Islam, Muslim names are bestowed. Louis X eventually perceived the Christian faith as a ‘‘hypocrisy,’’ stating that ‘‘I hated the fact that, as a Christian, we talked about the ‘love of Christ,’ but I didn’t feel the love of white Christians toward black Christians. And that the church was unwilling—or unable to address the concerns of black people’’ (Magida, 32). Malcolm X had a lot to do with that transition from a lukewarm convert to a zealot. It was the red-haired, bespectacled Malcolm X whose shrewd criticism of the historical oppression and status of blacks opened Louis X’s eyes. Louis X became fully committed to the Nation of Islam.

Louis Farrakhan

Malcolm X was a charismatic young minister of Islam with a painful, volatile past. His father was murdered in Michigan by white racists who laid him on train tracks to be severed by a train, because they did not like that he went around town trying to convert local blacks to Garveyism. After his violent murder, Malcolm’s mother was institutionalized in a mental hospital. At age thirteen, he was sent to live with a white family. He later dropped out of high school and moved to Boston to live with his half-sister. He lived life fast and hard until, in 1946, he was arrested for robbery while living in New York and served six years in prison. A large percentage of the NOI were men who, like Malcolm X, had humble, violent, and troubled beginnings. Eventually, Malcolm X presented himself as forceful, intelligent, shrewd, and courageous. Louis X’s future as a leader was secured when he was made captain of the Fruit of Islam shortly after becoming a member. The Fruit of Islam is the paramilitary arm of the organization. They are the ones who stand in statuesque poses, guarding NOI ministers and, sometimes, other famous personalities during presentations. Only a few months later, Muhammad promoted Louis X again, making him minister of the Temple at the Boston Mosque. The job was a huge challenge, for the mosque had no more than 100 members at the time, fifth most across the country. Malcolm X’s Mosque in New York had 350 members, second most, and the Chicago Mosque had the most members, with 600. Louis X was up to the challenge. One of his first projects was to purchase a new building. The one he had his eye on and eventually bought was, ironically, an Orthodox rabbinical seminary. Louis X went to his former preacher, who donated fifty chairs and gave him a list of two dozen men to seek out as potential converts. Historically, black churches largely comprised black women, older men, and families. Younger men—at least those not intimidated by the austerity of the Nation of Islam—flocked to Muhammad’s teachings. Twenty of the men Louis X contacted became members of the Boston Mosque. During the late 1950s, Louis X recorded two songs. One, ‘‘A White Man’s Heaven Is a Black Man’s Hell,’’ became the anthem of the Nation of Islam. The other, ‘‘Look at My Chains,’’ was a hit with the black community. Louis X also wrote two plays that included musical performances, ‘‘The Trial’’ and ‘‘Orgena’’ (‘‘A Negro’’ spelled backwards). But Muhammad soon put a stop to Louis X’s diversions. Although his performances made him a local celebrity, which helped attract new members, it was, ultimately, behavior that was strictly out of the scope of Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. All members were forbidden to perform on stage, play music, or dance. Despite this restriction, Louis X made a good start with the Boston Mosque, though he did not come close to achieving the frenzied notoriety that Malcolm X garnered, beginning in 1959.

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Malcolm X brought the Nation of Islam to public awareness—not Elijah Muhammad or Louis X. Malcolm X got his start in the New York Mosque in 1954. Thanks to sheer charisma, his name quickly made the rounds. At an early demonstration, fifty composed, silent, and suited NOI members stood outside a hospital after one of their members was beaten by cops during an incident and sustained serious injuries. The mainstream media obsessed of this type of spectacular demonstration, and word of the NOI spread quickly. The media would go on to play a similar role during the Civil Rights Movement. The media were in a large way responsible for the fame that myriad civil rights organizations, leaders, and campaigns achieved. The same was true for Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam—but mostly for the man himself. The organization came across almost as an accessory to Malcolm X. As Malcolm X’s notoriety increased, and membership of the Temple he managed in New York grew, a television documentary about the Nation of Islam called The Hate That Hate Produced by Mike Wallace and Louis Lomax was aired in 1959. Few, if any, could match the malignancy of Malcolm X’s speech, the cool delivery behind the stony, unemotional countenance. Not even Garvey, who represented the early twentieth century’s most radical black leader, had approached Malcolm X’s invective. Garvey bolstered his presentations with large helpings of black consciousness and black pride, inserting bodacious comments such as Jesus was a black man (just as Malcolm X did). But attacking other races was not part of his program. As Malcolm X became the massively popular face of the Nation of Islam and the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest foe and critic, Elijah Muhammad stayed out of the limelight, directing the workings of his religious organization, restricting his comments to occasional objections of conservative leaders. Louis X remained a young upstart without notoriety—at least at that moment. As the Civil Rights Movement gained speed, Louis X remained focused on the development of his Mosque, and on forging a program with unique differences from the traditional African American religious experience.

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT The Civil Rights Movement came about to challenge the segregation laws of the South; the NOI of Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad was dedicated to forming a separate settlement. According to Nation of Islam creation stories handed down from Fard to Elijah Muhammad, blacks were good and whites were innately evil. Since the malevolent whites would never change their laws, the obvious solution was for the entire black population to leave and found a new and pure nation of its own.

Louis Farrakhan

Louis X diligently propounded this doctrine to his members. He pointed out that whether in the years of slavery or the decades of subsequent oppression, whites and blacks could never live harmoniously with each other. Members of the Nation of Islam, in Boston and elsewhere, sold their newspapers to blacks in the community and donated the money to local Mosques so that businesses and other ventures could be established to ultimately break their dependence on the mainstream economy. The Nation of Islam owned numerous restaurants, stores, and property. All the leaders, including Louis X, saw the civil rights leaders as disloyal to the race. Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X were known during the sixties as harsh critics of the Civil Rights Movement, and of Martin Luther King, Jr., the most famous advocate of nonviolence and integration, who ascended to the highest ranks of civil rights leadership during the first campaign he ever led, the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. King was frequently excoriated and called an Uncle Tom. Malcolm X, in contrast, espoused armed self-defense and violent revolution. This sort of rhetoric frightened progressive whites and conservative blacks alike. But racist whites in white supremacy organizations, who also espoused the separation of the races, responded differently. They respected the message of the NOI, and saw that both had the same vision. A large percentage of civil rights activists came from the Christian black churches, particularly the Baptist denomination. The influence of King, a Baptist preacher, extended to black and white Christians of all denominations and sparked an unprecedented movement of Christian activists. But the Nation of Islam had very little resemblance to the traditional black church. Louis X fashioned his Mosque to fit Elijah Muhammad’s rigid guidelines. For one thing, there were dress codes. During meetings, the women wore white head coverings and white smocks that covered their bodies from the neck to the ankle. They were not allowed to wear makeup, and men wore jackets and ties. Men and women sat in separate sections inside the mosque. Unlike the familiar animated services in black Christian churches, mosque meetings were staid and business-like. Members comprised mostly fringemembers of society—ex-convicts, former street thugs, pimps, and drug users. From time to time, the Boston Mosque was visited by Malcolm X, whose notoriety had a positive effect on membership growth. Many blacks were enticed by Malcolm X’s fiery rhetoric, the same rhetoric that repulsed most liberal whites. For Louis X, Malcolm X, who was eight years his senior, was a mentor and a big brother. In the study hall of Louis X’s mosque, there was no picture of Christ on the cross, as would have been found in most churches across the nation. Rather there was a picture that depicted a black man hanging from a tree. This picture, depicting a lynching (a tragically common occurrence predominately in the South during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries),

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served as a reminder for NOI members of the legacy of white oppression and spurred feelings of animosity against whites. In the NOI, constant vigilance was superimposed upon the conduct and reputation of the members. One way the NOI reputedly exacted chaste behavior was by invasive monitoring of each member’s personal life, family, and relatives. Sometimes the Fruit of Islam physically punished wayward members. For civil rights, 1963 was a landmark year, mostly because of the success of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Malcolm X publicly remarked snidely that it was more like the ‘‘Farce on Washington.’’ Many dangers lay ahead for civil rights activists in that year, as forthcoming campaigns in volatile locations like Mississippi and Selma, Alabama provoked a violent backlash from police officers and racist white mobs. The Nation of Islam would also face sweeping challenges that year, but for different reasons. On the surface, Malcolm X appeared to maintain his radical beliefs during interviews and in speeches made at the behest of a number of groups. But his cool self-assuredness covered up serious doubts that had arisen early in the year. Wallace Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad’s son, was in the precarious position of being both his father’s favorite and a close friend of Malcolm X’s. The problem between Wallace Muhammad and his father was significant: he no longer believed in the authenticity of the Nation of Islam. He confided to Malcolm X his feelings, and also revealed the shocking news that suspicions about affairs his father had had with several female members of the NOI had just been validated. In truth, Elijah Muhammad fathered thirteen children outside of his relationship with his wife. Malcolm X was shocked almost beyond belief. He personally interviewed the women who had accused Elijah Muhammad, and they all affirmed that he was the father of their children. Some even claimed that they were Muhammad’s other wives. A bewildered Malcolm X, who, in his autobiography, portrays himself as one of Elijah Muhammad’s sincerest devotees, took this news to Louis X— but Louis X’s response was unexpected. When Malcolm X asked Louis X what he thought about the situation, Louis X responded, ‘‘All praise is due to Allah,’’ and indirectly suggested that he would go and tell Elijah Muhammad about the accusations. But instead he granted Malcolm X time to break the news to Elijah Muhammad himself. After talking with Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad devised a way to legitimize his indiscretions. ‘‘‘I’m David,’ he told Malcolm. ‘When you read about how David took another man’s wife, I’m that David. You read about Noah, who got drunk—that’s me’’’ (Magida, 77). By aligning himself with figures from the Bible, Elijah Muhammad tried to make it appear that he was no different from biblical legends. This was his justification for his indiscretions.

Louis Farrakhan

In 1963, Louis X watched from the safe distance of his Boston Mosque as Malcolm X made the mistake that cost him his revered position within the NOI. After John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 23, 1963, Elijah Muhammad instructed all the NOI leaders not to make any derisive remarks about it. But Malcolm X, whether deliberately or not, told a reporter that he ‘‘never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon. Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad. They’ve always made me glad’’ (Magida, 79). For this comment, Malcolm X was silenced by Elijah Muhammad, then further disgraced when he was removed from his position as the NOI’s main spokesperson and minister of the New York Mosque. Shortly thereafter, Malcolm X confided to friends that he believed that his life was in jeopardy. He claimed members from the NOI were plotting his assassination. In a dramatic turn of events, the Nation of Islam suddenly became Malcolm X’s enemy. It was a time of turmoil and change for all concerned. Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam, and Louis X were about to face enormous challenges, mainly from within, that threatened to undo what Elijah Muhammad had created. The first crisis occurred when Elijah Muhammad’s son, Wallace Muhammad, was expelled from the NOI because of his public criticism of prevarications his father perpetrated through his organization. Wallace was not the only one made to leave the NOI over this issue, and some who were disillusioned by the situation simply resigned. Malcolm X further distanced himself from the NOI after going on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 and subsequently becoming a Sunni Muslim. He eventually formed two organizations: Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In an extraordinary about-face, he began to publicly endorse the very civil rights organizations he had once condemned. This transformation was undoubtedly influenced by Wallace Muhammad, whose experiences in Egypt brought him to the reality that the Nation of Islam did not follow the orthodox Islam faith. Malcolm X was deeply impacted by the demonstrations of racial harmony he saw during his pilgrimage, or Hajj, which every follower of Islam undertakes at least once in life. When Malcolm X returned to the United States, he was vocal about his change of heart and had visibly softened his perspective on both mainstream civil rights leaders and whites. It is reported that civil rights freedom songs were sung during one of his meetings and that he desired to reach out to civil rights leaders. The change was epitomized in the new name he chose to be known by: Malik el-Shabazz. Needless to say, Malcolm’s new rhetoric inflamed the Nation of Islam. Following Shabazz’s fall from grace with the NOI, Louis X launched a vicious verbal campaign against him, primarily through the NOI’s popular organ, Muhammad Speaks. Louis X accused Malcolm X of wanting to take control of Elijah Muhammad’s NOI, and, worse, declared that ‘‘the die is

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cast and Malcolm shall not escape.… Such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death, and would have met death if it had not been for Muhammad’s confidence in Allah for victory over his enemies’’ (Magida, 83). One NOI cartoon image depicted Malcolm X’s head rolling down a street. The smear campaign to denounce Malcolm X exacerbated the anti-Malcolm climate within the NOI. On February 21, 1965, Shabazz was assassinated in full view of four hundred people as he was giving a presentation in Manhattan, New York. Three members of the NOI were charged, arrested, and convicted. Louis X recalled that when he was told of Shabazz’s death, he walked the streets alone, paralyzed by what transpired. But the media alluded to his possible involvement in the murder. Louis X denied the allegations, as he does to this day, claiming that his only fault was publishing the malevolent pieces about Shabazz in the NOI’s magazine. But these suspicions never went away, and they continue to bolster the negative image that still envelops Louis X today.

AFTER MALCOLM X Becoming Louis Farrakhan After the assassination, Wallace Muhammad returned to his father and begged forgiveness for his disloyalty to him and the NOI. Muhammad welcomed his son back. He also bestowed two promotions to Louis X, whose name was changed to Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan was given Malcolm X’s position as minister of the New York Temple in 1965. A few years later, he was made the NOI’s national representative. Troubles in the NOI Beginning in the 1970s, the Nation of Islam gained a notorious reputation due to a string of murders. Magida claims that this epidemic was cultivated by a combination of the sort of men who had joined the Nation; by emerging fringe groups that were challenging Elijah Muhammad’s version of Islam; by Muhammad’s top aides refusing to give younger members a voice or a stake in financial policies; and by an erosion of muscle at the very top of the Nation’s power pyramid. (Magida, 97)

Most of the murders involved attacks by dissident groups that emerged within NOI temples and retaliatory attacks by the NOI on those groups. In 1971, Raymond Sharieff, Elijah Muhammad’s son-in-law and bodyguard, survived an attack on his life after being shot five times. Two known dissidents who were believed to be a part of that attack were later found dead in their homes. More murders followed. A NOI guard was killed at a

Louis Farrakhan

restaurant in 1972; seven dissidents from an organization that called themselves Hanafi Muslims were murdered in Washington, D.C.; and several children who belonged to the leader of that group were murdered. In 1973, James Shabazz, the minister of Temple No. 25 in New Jersey, was shot and killed. More brutal murders were averted when police apprehended eleven dissidents calling themselves the New World Order of Islam (the group emerged from Shabazz’s temple). Although Farrakhan was not directly affected by the murders in New York, he did comment on them at least twice during the radio broadcasts of his sermons. After one NOI member out of Philadelphia ‘‘was to testify against his fellow conspirators,’’ Farrakhan issued a warning to those of you who would be used as an instrument of a wicked government against our rise. Be careful, because when the government is tired of you, they’re going to dump you back into the laps of your people.… [Some blacks] have no forgiveness in them for traitors and stool pigeons. And they will execute you, as soon as your identity is known. (Magida, 98)

On the following day, that man’s body was found hanging in his jail cell. In another instance, Farrakhan encouraged retaliation after the murder of Shabazz.

Growing Status and Financial Woes An incident occurred at his mosque in 1972 that greatly contributed to Farrakhan’s growing reputation within the NOI and the black community. Allegedly, police had received a distress call from within the New York mosque. NOI members fought off the police as they tried to enter. When more police arrived, more than a thousand individuals from the general population came down to the mosque, ‘‘yelling obscenities, throwing bricks and bottles at the cops, and setting one unmarked police car on fire’’ (Magida, 110). From atop a car, Farrakhan spoke to the crowd and calmed them down, averting a riotous situation. Mainstream news reported on the event, and Farrakhan’s name was spoken with pride among the NOI. At the end of 1973, rumors that the NOI was in financial trouble became public. A New York Times article alluded to the fact that the NOI’s problems were largely due to incompetence. Yet Farrakhan and the ministers at other temples continued to prosper. Farrakhan and his family lived in a lavish house, complete with a maid, in the white suburb of Queens, New York. Dressed in fashionable, expensive clothes and owner of several flashy cars, Farrakhan exuded the aura of someone who was rich, famous, and powerful. He was on salary, which was drawn largely from sales of the NOI magazine, membership dues, donations, and numerous NOI businesses. After the FBI started to pay closer attention to the organization’s financial situation,

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Muhammad instructed all the ministers to scale down expenses and keep receipts for purchases. In time, the NOI would rebound from its financial troubles, but bigger issues loomed in the future. Elijah Muhammad died from congestive heart failure on February 26, 1975, and the leadership of the NOI was passed on to his son, Wallace Muhammad. Restructuring the NOI If Farrakhan was upset about the rise of Wallace Muhammad, the son who had condemned his father and the NOI, he did not show it at the 1975 Savior’s Day event. Savior’s Day is an annual NOI holiday that commemorates the birth of founder Wallace Fard Muhammad. That year, Jesse Jackson was one of the featured speakers. Jackson, a former aide of Dr. King, was a black leader on the rise. Four years prior, he had been a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, but by 1975 he was running his own organization, Operation PUSH, in Chicago. Jackson was a dynamic amalgamation of civil rights and black power rhetoric. His ties to the NOI were not the scandal the media made them out to be. Jackson and the organization shared a mutual respect; they were both concerned with elevating the esteem and the social, economic, and political power of blacks. Jackson was complimentary in his remarks on behalf of the deceased Elijah Muhammad. All the ministers present that day showed deference to the new leader of the NOI, Wallace Muhammad. Farrakhan cried at the podium when he spoke about Elijah Muhammad and pledged his loyalty to Muhammad’s son. Wallace Muhammad initiated huge changes to the organization. Among the numerous reforms was the dismantling of the strict rules of behavior. NOI members were permitted to smoke, dance, and dress in any way they desired. Wallace Muhammad also disassembled the ideology of the organization: no longer would the NOI pursue a separate state for blacks. In fact, he opened the door to anyone—including whites—who wanted to join, eradicated NOI doctrine, and ushered in the orthodox Islamic religion. In 1976, he gave his organization one of many new names: the World Community of al-Islam in the West. Farrakhan was dismayed by the changes, but he said nothing until Wallace Muhammad took the step of publicly denouncing his father. Farrakhan then warned him that he was alienating members who were still devoted to Elijah Muhammad and, worse, putting himself in a precarious situation. But the radical changes continued, and they began to affect Farrakhan’s position in the organization. He was moved to the Chicago Mosque and made spokesperson in charge of the counterattack on Wallace Muhammad’s critics. Farrakhan did his job well, but that did not stop others from asserting the belief that he was the organization’s only hope of rescue from

Louis Farrakhan

Wallace Muhammad. Farrakhan was not the only member unhappy with the changes. Eventually, Farrakhan’s turmoil began to show; he appeared uncharacteristically lifeless and spiritless to others. But becoming a radical voice of protest against Wallace Muhammad was not an option to him, perhaps because of his intense devotion to Elijah Muhammad. Farrakhan was a sincere follower of Elijah Muhammad, following his precepts to the point of putting away his dreams of being a calypso singer and playing the violin. It is inconceivable that he would challenge Elijah Muhammad’s son, since his father had made him leader. Farrakhan chose to handle the situation in another way: he quietly left the Temple. In 1979, he established The Final Call to replace Muhammad Speaks, and at the 1981 Savior’s Day convention, he announced the rebirth of the former NOI. THE HONORABLE MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN The ascension of Farrakhan as the Honorable Minister of the Nation of Islam gave him instant notoriety. But his fame was due not only to his title and leadership role, but also to his bold and shocking criticisms and his high profile in the mainstream media. To members of the Nation of Islam, Farrakhan is largely embraced because of what he has done for the organization. If it were not for him, the NOI as it was during the days of Wallace Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad would have been obsolete. When Farrakhan resurrected the NOI, he did so with the help of only two leaders who defected with him from Wallace Muhammad’s organization. Farrakhan toured the nation, mobilizing former members and attracting new converts. He reinstated the organization exactly as it had been before, with the same rules and ideology. He purchased its first temple in Chicago, where he still resides. He also established many NOI business ventures, such as food-industry services, restaurants, and the NOI’s Muhammad Farms in Georgia, which harvests and sells produce and grains. Under Farrakhan’s leadership, the NOI became noted for its many socialreform programs that helped to alleviate problems in black communities such as gangs and drug use and to transition convicts released from prison. Farrakhan also reestablished Elijah Muhammad’s Three Year Economic Savings Program, which ‘‘called for black people to pool their resources by contributing $10 a month to help fight against poverty, want, unemployment, abominable housing, hunger and nakedness of the 30 to 40 million black people in America’’ (Nation of Islam). Lingering Criticisms Farrakhan still lashed out verbally at Jews and white America, but he also had issues with middle- and upper-class blacks. In 1979, at a conference of

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black leaders, he criticized privileged blacks for neglecting the majority of the black population that remained downtrodden. Among the labels he used to describe them was ‘‘house nigger,’’ a term derived from slavery days. During slavery, two classes were created when light-skinned (normally the biracial offspring of slave master and slave) blacks worked in the plantation owner’s home. These blacks wore the hand-me-down clothes of the affluent families, ate leftovers from their meals, mimicked white mannerisms, and frequently felt contempt for the coarse, darker-skinned field slaves. As much as Farrakhan criticized white America for slavery and the contemporary condition of blacks, he also held blacks themselves responsible for their woes. He asserted the following in a speech he gave in 1979, saying that [black people] have fallen short of the glory of God. My people are not dying from skinheads. They’re not dying from the Ku Klux Klan. They’re dying from their ignorance and self-hatred that has us destroying one another.… We have to blame ourselves, because we’ve been offered the chance to go to the best schools to get an education, but we have not come out and used that education to provide the goods and education that our communities need. (Magida, 140)

In response to Farrakhan’s criticism of blacks, many nod in affirmation. His words may provoke uncomfortable feelings, but, at the end of the day, the consensus among blacks has increasingly been that there is truth in what he says. Farrakhan surprised everyone in 1983 when he accepted an invitation to speak at the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Back in 1963, Malcolm X, representing the NOI, had roundly bashed the demonstration. During his speech, Farrakhan spoke in King’s terms, denouncing racial and spiritual divisiveness and calling for a coming together of the groups he regularly criticized— whites and Jews—in addition to other races. Farrakhan thus demonstrated a new openmindedness by including the plight of other marginalized groups. Conservative blacks remained apprehensive of Farrakhan because of his notorious attacks on Jews, as well as the anti-American displays that highlighted his career then and for the next two decades. During Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign, Jackson referred to New York City by the racially derogative term ‘‘Hymietown.’’ After Jackson received several death threats, Farrakhan came to Jackson’s defense, sending out an indirect warning to anyone who would harm Jackson. Nathan Pearlmutter, the chair of the Anti-Defamation League, called Farrakhan a ‘‘Black Hitler’’ over Farrakhan’s defense of Jackson, since it implied that he endorsed an attack against Jews. When, in the same year, Farrakhan went with Jackson on a mission to Syria to facilitate the release of an African American lieutenant, he received little, if any, public accolade for his role. Yet Farrakhan’s fluent Arabic was extremely beneficial to that mission.

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Anti-Defamation League In 1913, B’nai B’rith, a Jewish service organization, established the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in the United States. The primary aim of this organization is to fight anti-Semitism, bigotry, and racism. The impetus for the founding of this organization was the lynching of a Jewish man, named Leo Frank, who was convicted of rape and murder (although it was argued that he was innocent of these crimes) in Georgia. While in prison, he was kidnapped and lynched. This grisly narrative had long been familiar to African Americans who live in the South. As a result of Frank’s violent murder, the ADL maintains vigilance over anti-Semitic and racially motivated crimes. Among those on whom the ADL keeps close watch are white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazis, the Christian Identity movement, neo-Nazis, white power skinheads, as well as Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the all-black Nation of Islam. The ADL maintains a comprehensive website, which includes extensive information on Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. One page, entitled ‘‘The ADL Farrakhan Library,’’ permits web browsers to access a wide range of articles on Farrakhan and his organization. One page features quotes from Farrakhan that the ADL deems to be anti-Semitic. Another link leads to a page entitled ‘‘Travels with Tyrants: Minister Louis Farrakhan’s 1996 Anti-American Tour,’’ which traces Farrakhan’s Middle East tour, including his activities, who he met with, and comments he made. Other links from the homepage offer information on such topics as civil rights issues, education, the Holocaust, Israel, and combating hate. In an article posted on the Finalcall.com website, titled ‘‘Beyond the Mask—The ADL Spy Scandal,’’ updated on November 24, 2006, Ashahed M. Muhammad reports on allegations that the ADL had been unlawfully spying on thousands of organizations and individuals. Muhammad includes claims that the ADL is controlling and does not hold themselves responsible for erroneous reporting and attacks on others, such as Farrakhan. The ongoing conflict between the Nation of Islam and the ADL mirrors tense relations between blacks and Jews, particularly in New York, where differences in religious beliefs, as well as in social and economic status, are, in part, a source of hostilities.

Farrakhan exacerbated the situation when, during a radio interview, he called Hitler a ‘‘great man … wickedly great.’’ The term ‘‘great’’ seemed to indicate Farrakhan’s positive opinion of the megalomaniac who was responsible for the Holocaust and other brutalities during World War II. Farrakhan’s main issue with the Jews can be summarized by the following. Citing the New Testament section of the Bible, Farrakhan faults Jews

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for their major role in the persecution and death of Jesus Christ. He believes that by establishing the New Testament, God dissolved his former relationship with the Jews, extending a new covenant to all who accepted Him, including Jews and Gentiles (anyone not of Jewish heritage or religion). Farrakhan also blames Jews, whom he asserts dominate the media and control many businesses in black communities, for contributing to the oppression of blacks. Blacks who lived in urban cities and deal frequently with racially tense relations with Jews in their community felt validated by Farrakhan. Farrakhan has made many controversial remarks since then. He has been accused of calling Judaism a ‘‘gutter religion,’’ and he used the term ‘‘satanic Jews,’’ for example, but Farrakhan asserted that his words were misinterpreted. One explanation he has given is that he denounces those Jews whom he associates with the oppression and exploitation of blacks or who advocate homosexuality. He believes that he speaks the truth. In an online selfimprovement course, Farrakhan writes the following: Now, what I am saying to you, when I speak to the Jews, is not hatred. I am concerned that you do not end up being destroyed by God. I am saying to you, that what you have done to the Palestinians is wrong. You don’t like me. What did I do? I say, ‘You’re wrong.’ I didn’t do anything against you. I am like your mother. A good Jewish mother will spank you when you are wrong.… Whether you like me or not is irrelevant and immaterial. (Farrakhan)

Jewish leaders have long wanted Farrakhan to stop what they call hatefilled messages in his speeches and interviews. They have tried to sit down with Farrakhan in his home to hash out a solution, but the meetings always prove fruitless, as Farrakhan feels he is within his rights to speak uncensored. During Jackson’s 1984 campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, Farrakhan endorsed him. But due to public outrage, Jackson rejected the endorsement and denounced Farrakhan and his ongoing controversial remarks. In 1985, Thomas Metzger, the leader of a white supremacist group called the White American Political Association, attended a rally coordinated by Farrakhan in Los Angeles. His presence at the rally and his donation of $100 sparked another scandal. The same thing happened with Marcus Garvey, who once notoriously held a meeting with the Ku Klux Klan. The meeting begs the question, what possible relationship could a white supremacist group have with a black nationalist group? But they did. For one thing, both groups denounced interracial relationships. For another, they both believed in separation of the races. Some white supremacist groups also liked the fact that Farrakhan publicly castigated Jews. The issue of racial separatism, however impractical, lingers in the NOI doctrine. Farrakhan’s nostalgia for the days of segregation confounded black

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integrationists, progressive whites, and other civil rights supporters alike. But Farrakhan’s stance was not new. During the period of the Civil Rights Movement, there had always been blacks who did not want to integrate with whites. In an interview, Farrakhan described what he called the benefits blacks enjoyed under Jim Crow. On the black side of town there were ‘‘black gas stations, black hotels, black motels, black insurance companies, black bus companies.… We pooled our resources, and we began to grow and expand economically.’’ This, says Farrakhan, changed after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that desegregated society in the South (Magida, 168). For the next ten years, Farrakhan continued to develop his organization. He kept a high profile during this period, and continued to give interviews and make speeches. At a public meeting on May 6, 1995, the widow of Malcolm X, Betty Shabazz, and Louis Farrakhan reached out to one another, extending the olive branch. After Malcolm X’s death, relations between Farrakhan and the Shabazz family were strained as a result of Farrakhan’s criticism of Malcolm X, his chilling warning to Malcolm that ‘‘the die [was] cast and [he would] not escape’’ shortly before his death, and the claims that he was directly involved in the assassination. This antagonism climaxed earlier in 1995, when Quibilah Shabazz (Malcolm X’s daughter) was arrested on charges of allegedly conspiring to assassinate Farrakhan. But Farrakhan immediately spoke out on Quibilah’s behalf, asserting his belief that her arrest was part of an FBI conspiracy. And in fact it turned out that the man who was believed to have framed Quibilah was an FBI informant, and the charges against her were dropped on May 1. This led to the reconciliation between Farrakhan and Betty Shabazz, who was grateful for his support, which drew to a close many years of pain and contention. The nineties opened with offers from a slew of mainstream television shows competing for Farrakhan’s attention. He appeared on the Phil Donahue Show in March 1990, on the Arsenio Hall Show in February 1994, and on ABC’s 20/20 in April of the same year. The glaring difference in Farrakhan’s reception underscored how his appeal was split racially. Arsenio Hall, a black comedian, exuded warmth, admiration, and respect—perhaps, according to critics, to the extreme. During the 20/20 interview, however, Barbara Walters, at the other end of the spectrum, was aggressive and on the attack. MILLION MAN MARCH The Million Man March, which occurred on October 16, 1995, in Washington, D.C., was one of the most talked about and anxiously awaited events

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of the decade. Because Farrakhan was behind it, skeptics feared that he would use the press and the public stage to further his hatred for America and Jews. Conservative blacks who agreed to speak at the event were criticized for doing so, the critics claiming that to participate was to inadvertently endorse the most radical and offensive man on Earth. Some black women were put off by the fact that they were asked to not attend the event. Others were simply proud of the fact that black men were gathering for the purpose of self-empowerment. The Million Man March was not, as some claimed, a protest event. Farrakhan called it ‘‘A Day of Atonement,’’ in which he and the other speakers would address the problems and failures of the troublesome state of black men in America and make recommendations on how to remedy them. A number of high-profile blacks showed their support on that day by their attendance or by speaking from the podium. The list included Stevie Wonder, Dick Gregory, Marion Barry, Kweisi Mfume, Cornell West, James Bevel, Martin Luther King III, Dorothy Height, and Rosa Parks. For the men in attendance, who came from across the U.S., the day was profoundly moving. The various speakers sent forth messages of healing to address longstanding pains and frustrations, and appealed to black men to be responsible, positive, and spiritual leaders in their homes and communities. In the aftermath of the March, Farrakhan for once basked in the glow of a positive response. It was reported that one and a half million black men registered to vote, and 13,000 blacks applied to adopt black children. The Million Man March inspired other marches, such as the Millions More Movement (launched by black leaders to commemorate the original march) and the Million Woman March. The original march also kindled renewed interest in Farrakhan, making him an icon of popular culture. But the gains Farrakhan achieved with his Million Man March were overshadowed by a tour to, of all places in that time of hijackings and hostagetaking, the Middle East. He traveled with a delegation of thirty individuals to twenty-three countries in less than thirty days. Perhaps his most controversial stop was his meeting with Muammar Khaddafi in Libya, who donated $1 billion to Farrakhan to galvanize voting power among marginalized groups. In Baghdad he met with Saddam Hussein, the dictatorial Iraqi president. The Anti-Defamation League reported on several other happenings during Farrakhan’s tour and published them on their website under the title ‘‘Travels with Tyrants: Minister Louis Farrakhan’s 1996 Anti-American Tour.’’ Notwithstanding this scandal, a 1996 poll found Farrakhan rated high among blacks. It was reported that ‘‘70 percent of blacks affirmed that he was saying things the country needed to hear, 63 percent said he spoke ‘the truth,’ and 53 percent called him a model for black youth. Only 34 percent considered him ‘a racist or bigot’’’ (Magida, 186–187). In the spring of 1996, the NAACP invited Farrakhan to its first National African American Leadership Summit. This was an unprecedented move for

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the NAACP, a notoriously conservative civil rights organization. Although Farrakhan attended the meeting, the major differences between him and conservative black leaders remained. The twenty-first century began busily for Farrakhan. It began with a CBS 60 Minutes interview and a Jet interview in which he explained that he was not responsible for Malcolm X’s death. Farrakhan responded to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America, in a letter to President George W. Bush in which he told him that the world is with you to pursue those who perpetrated this act of war against America, and your pursuit of the guilty parties is right and proper. However, Mr. President, it will take great courage on your part to look at America’s policies with a critical eye, and it will take even greater courage to break from the policies of the past and make a new beginning for this nation and the world. (‘‘The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s December 1, 2001 Letter to George W. Bush’’)

In effect, Farrakhan blamed the United States for provoking terrorist attacks because of its Middle East policies. In recent years, Farrakhan’s battle with illness has frequently kept him out of the limelight. In 2003, Farrakhan was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In that same year, he announced his recovery, as well as established a Prostate Cancer Foundation. In 2005, blacks voted Farrakhan ‘‘Person of the Year’’ in a Black Entertainment Television (BET) poll. In the following year, Farrakhan announced that he was recovering from an illness caused by an ulcer and subsequent infections. And in 2007, Farrakhan had abdominal surgery, brought on by complications from his treatment for prostate cancer. However, by 2008, Farrakhan had rebounded well enough to cause a predictable stir when he endorsed Barack Obama, the black Democratic presidential nominee. The fallout was a repeat of the events that transpired in Jesse Jackson’s campaign in 1984. Criticism abounded, and Obama rejected Farrakhan’s endorsement, denouncing the controversial philosophies of one of the most radical and divisive figures of the century. See also Marcus Garvey; Dorothy Height; Jesse Jackson; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X; and Rosa Parks.

FURTHER RESOURCES Farrakhan, Louis. ‘‘The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s December 1, 2001 Letter to President George W. Bush.’’ Nation of Islam (February 2008). See http://www.noi.org/statements/transcript_011201.htm. Farrakhan, Louis. ‘‘Self-Improvement Study Course.’’ Nation of Islam (February 2008). See http://www.noi.org/study/study_center_selfimprovement.htm.

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Farrakhan, Louis. A Torchlight for America. Chicago: FCN Publishing, 1993. Finalcall.com News (February 2008). See http://www.finalcall.com. Magida, Arthur J. Prophet of Rage. New York: Harper Collins, 1996. Marble, Manning, ed. Freedom on My Mind: The Columbia Documentary History of the African American Experience. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. ‘‘The Million Man March.’’ CNN (February 2008). See http://www.cnn.com/US/ 9510/megamarch/march.html. Muhammad, Jabril. Closing the Gap: Inner Views of the Heart, Mind & Soul of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. Chicago: FCN Publishing Co, 2006. Nation of Islam (February 2008). See http://www.noi.org/default.htm. ‘‘Travels with Tyrants: Minister Louis Farrakhan’s 1996 Anti-American Tour.’’ AntiDefamation League (February 2008). See http://www.adl.org/travels_with_ tyrants/travels_with_tyrants.asp.

Library of Congress

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940)

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Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. was the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). So large was Garvey’s influence as president of the UNIA that an entire movement was named after him. The Garvey Movement, executed through the UNIA and the African Communities League, was a sweeping plan to unite African descendents across the globe and to foster racial pride, empowerment, advancement, and self-determination and to develop Liberia, located in West Africa, as a national homeland. A bold visionary, Garvey’s goal and passion was to do the unthinkable: forge a blackcontrolled national identity in Africa. Garvey’s work centered around an illustrious struggle for the victims of racism and social, political, and economic injustice around the world. Early on, Garvey demonstrated a deep compassion for the downtrodden. Beginning in his teens, Garvey observed firsthand the trials and tribulations of black workers in his native Jamaica and even took part in a strike for black laborers. Traversing Central America, Garvey was horrified to discover that conditions were just as bleak. Garvey chose to fight back through radical journalism, though he did not find a ready audience in his home country or in the Latin American countries. He found inspiration through Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery (1901) and responded to the call to become a protest leader. Though Garvey established the first UNIA branch in Jamaica, it was in America, in 1916, that he and his UNIA achieved glittering success. African Americans marveled at the remarkable demonstrations of achievement and power, such as the establishment of multiple black-owned businesses, a shipping line known as the Black Star, and fantastic parades. These parades featured uniformed Garveyites (as the members of the UNIA were often called), undulating flags in the UNIA colors (red, gold, black, and green), and Garvey himself sitting proudly, like a king, in the back seat of his open-top car. Garvey’s massive appeal gained a worldwide membership for the UNIA. Although most of the members were from the working class and the poor, Garvey’s Movement did not lack for funds or resources during its peak. To his admirers, Garvey was a superhero. He seemed to accomplish the impossible at every turn and rebounded from each setback all the stronger. Nevertheless, Garvey was not invincible. In the end, he could not withstand the large-scale attacks against him by those in America and abroad who wanted to crush him. Garvey’s reign in America began its descent when he was charged with mail fraud in 1923 and ended when he was deported back to Jamaica in 1927. But jail and deportation did not quell the indomitable spirit of Garvey. He continued to canvass for support in various countries in aid of various causes and to protest the gross wrongs against peoples of African descent. Following a debilitating stroke in 1940 while living in England with his second wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, Garvey proceeded with plans to revive his movement and to build a new and liberated Africa. Upon reading an article that stated he had died from the stroke, Garvey suffered another stroke. This time he would not recover. Garvey died at fifty-three years old.

Marcus Garvey

Moses Moses is a religious prophet whose narrative is contained in the book of Exodus in the Old Testament of the Bible. Moses is a seminal religious figure in many faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. To African Americans, Moses plays an especially key role with regard to activism and protest. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses, of the Levite tribe of Israel (God’s chosen people), was born to Amram, his father, and Jochebed, his mother in Egypt. At that time, the Israelites were in bondage to the Egyptian Pharaoh. After Moses’ birth, his mother hid him in a basket and sent him adrift on the Nile River to escape Pharaoh’s edict that all male children born among the Israelites be killed. This was done to suppress the Israelites, who were growing in strength and in numbers, for Pharaoh wanted to maintain his oppressive rule over them. Moses was found by Pharaoh’s daughter, Thermuthis, who raised him like one of her own. However, when Moses grew to be an adult, he rebelled against Pharaoh and led the Israelites out of bondage to the land that God had promised his people. In the Bible, Moses was a chosen prophet of God and through Him was the conduit of many fantastic signs and miracles (such as turning the Nile into blood, several plagues that devastated the Egyptian people, and the dividing of the waters of the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to escape from Pharaoh’s army) that brought forth the freedom of the Israelites. During slavery, Moses became one of the most important symbols of resistance. The biblical narrative of Moses affirmed and gave confidence to the conviction of black slaves that it was right to want freedom and to actively seek it. Many spirituals or spiritual songs were created based on Moses’ life. They served to reinforce and augment the belief that freedom was possible and that God could also raise up among them a ‘‘chosen one’’ to lead them out of bondage, misery, and injustice into a Land of Promise. Whether that meant a physical escape (such as to the North) or the eradication of laws and customs in the places they lived, did not matter. Leaders who emerged during slavery time and after often personified the Moses symbol. The symbol of Moses was empowering in that it served to amplify a leader’s persona and deeds and augment his drawing power among blacks.

CHILDHOOD Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born on August 17, 1887 in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. He was the eleventh child, though only he (the youngest) and a sister named Indiana survived into adulthood. This and the fact that his mother presumably named him after the biblical Moses, who led the enslaved Israelites out of their life of bondage in Egypt, presaged his future

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as a dynamic leader determined to bring blacks out of social, economic, and political oppression. Unlike America, Jamaica was not governed by the laws of segregation and Jim Crow. However, there was de facto segregation, discrimination, and little opportunity for blacks. The social structure was such that whites, who were in the minority, were at the top of the strata; the mulattos were in the middle; and the unmixed blacks (who were in the majority) were at the bottom. Unaware of this stratification, Marcus grew up thinking he was no different from anyone else. He was privately tutored for a time, then went to school with whites. He counted his white neighbors among his closest friends. In actuality, Marcus exhibited dominance over his peers, white or black. This was because Marcus’ father was domineering, as well as extraordinarily stubborn. He did not let anyone, white or black, with or without authority, take advanage of him or force him to do anything that was not to his liking. In this he was much like the fierce Maroons, of whom he was reputedly a descendent. During slavery times, the Maroons were shipwrecked in Jamaica and fought successfully against the British for their independence. This legacy was undoubtedly a point of pride for Marcus Sr. and won him the respect and admiration of the locals. The fact that Marcus’ father owned property was an enviable status symbol. Unfortunately, his stubborness got the better of him and brought an end to his position of superiority. He refused to pay for a newspaper subscription that he had received for some twenty years at his home, thinking that it had been a gift. The courts confiscated all but a small plot of his land. This loss might have been the reason that he subsequently withdrew emotionally from his family, preferring to build his world around his books and his thoughts. Marcus’ mother, Sarah, was the antithesis of her husband. She was passive and peaceable, religious (she was a devout Roman Catholic) and tender-hearted. She displayed her entrepreneural spirit through various money-making ventures: as a domestic worker, as a tenant farmer, and by selling her homebaked goods. It was Sarah that Marcus Mosiah was closest too. Like her, he was religious and had an entrepreneurial spirit. Garvey was small but feisty and high-spirited. When he was not hard at play in the open air, effortlessly commanding the respect of his peers, or blithely swimming in the shark-infested sea, he was reading. Like his father, he was an avid reader, and there were scores of books in the family library. He approached reading and word mastery with the same heartiness with which he approached his play in the outdoors. When he was not reading, he dreamed of grandeur, of becoming a man of great importance. Garvey’s childhood was full of adventures, but the carefree and freespirited years led all too quickly to a more constrained adolescence. At fourteen, Garvey received the jolt of his young life when the parents of his white

Marcus Garvey

neighborhood friends forbid him to play with their children. Garvey had never before had any experience with racism. He had never been called a nigger, and the word stung him deeply. Moreover, he had to leave school and was apprenticed to his godfather, who worked in the printing business. While he worked to help make ends meet for his family, his white friends continued their education in white schools. When he met them later on in life, they would either not recognize him or, because of social expectations, ignore him altogether. However, the apprenticeship turned out to be a good experience for Garvey. Garvey read from his godfather’s ample library, was taught much about world affairs, and learned about journalism. His time in the printshop prepared him for his future role. THE BURGEONING ACTIVIST Labor Protests and Political Organizing in Jamaica In 1906, Garvey moved to Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, in search of better opportunities for work. But he was not the typical laborer who submitted to harrassment and poor pay without complaint. When he protested about poor or unsafe conditions in which he worked or low pay, he did so to not only look out for his own best interests—he had a bigger picture in mind. Garvey was only ninenteen when he accepted a job with one of Kingston’s most prestigious employers, a printing shop run by the P.A. Benjamin Manufacturing Company. Garvey advanced quickly from laborer to foreman and was soon placed in charge of men triple his own age. He was a natural leader and the men respected him, just as his friends and acquaintances had done in his childhood. When Garvey had saved up enough money, he moved his mother from her winsome rural home in St. Ann’s Parish. The farm where she made her living had been destroyed by a hurricane. The move had a drastic effect on his mother, who was not accustomed to life in the city and did not like it. The loss of her home compounded with her unhappiness at living in Kingston was believed to have contributed to her early death (she was only in her fifties) in 1908. Alone, Garvey faced the grim realities of black life in the early twentieth century. Among the issues that disgruntled the workers at the P.A. Benjamin Manufacturing Company was low pay. When they went on strike, they naturally turned to Garvey to lead them. He accepted. But the consequences of standing up in protest on behalf of the workers cost him his job: he was not among the strikers who were invited back to work when the strike ended. The strike made a lasting impression on Garvey. It gave him an idea of what labor organizing was like, although he soon realized that labor

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organizing was not particularly gratifying. Perhaps this was because labor only addressed one aspect of the myriad troubles that blacks faced. More significantly, his interest in black issues, in protest, and in the possibility of leadership was piqued. Garvey found himself drawn to individuals who were socially aware and as vocal as himself. He immersed himself in the development of his leadership abilities, particularly as a speaker and a writer. On Saturday nights, he met with friends to discuss matters that affected them as well as workers around the world. In his spare time, he took elocution lessons from Dr. J. Robert Love, a Pan-Africanist, newspaper owner, and politician. He visited churches to study the speechmaking of preachers. He practiced presentations in front of a mirror. Garvey paid attention not only to the words he used but also to the presentation of the words, focusing on intonation, facial expressions, and body movements. Garvey’s efforts resulted in his becoming a confident and popular speaker around town. Given Garvey’s background working in his godfather’s printing shop, he turned to writing. In 1910, he established his first newspaper, the Watchman. But Garvey’s fellow Jamaicans were not as radically minded as he was, and the paper floundered. Garvey’s spirit was not easily dampened. He next established his first organization, the National Club, and its organ, Our Own. Desiring to devote more time and energy towards activism, Garvey quit his job (he was working for a government printing office at the time) and traveled to Costa Rica, where he planned to save money working on a banana farm to aid his organization and newspaper in Kingston. This was the first of Garvey’s many peregrinations in which he learned about the struggles of blacks elsewhere in the world. Central America Garvey found a job as a timekeeper on a farm in Costa Rica, where a large number of blacks worked. The experience appalled Garvey. It angered him to see the black workers exploited. Between 1910 and 1912 Garvey traveled to at least eight other countries in Central America, finding the same dismal conditions in all of them. Through radical newspaper writing, Garvey tried to incite black workers to protest their treatment and poor pay. In Port Limon, Costa Rica, he established La Nacion and made complaints to an unresponsive British consul. In Colon, Panama, he founded La Prensa. But he was unable to galvanize black protest or obtain help through either his personal or journalistic efforts. Nonetheless, Garvey’s zeal intensified. England and Europe In the spring of 1912, following a brief trip home to Jamaica, Garvey traveled to London, England. This trip contributed greatly to his growing fund

Marcus Garvey

Back to Africa ‘‘Back to Africa’’ is a term that refers largely to a movement in which blacks migrated or attempted to return permanently to their ancestral homeland. Africa is the ancestral homeland to individuals who, largely because of slavery, were dispersed to Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The Back to Africa movement as it pertains to America began on the original slave ships themselves, when Africans tried, through rebellion or by jumping into the waters and swimming, to return home. There were at least 400 documented slaveship rebellions during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Most were unsuccessful. The 1858 rebellion aboard the French ship Regina Coeli was one of extremely few revolts that succeeded. After slaves killed most of the crew, they escaped to Liberia. There were also a number of nonviolent attempts—carried out by whites and blacks—to return blacks to Africa. There were many reasons for this phenomenon. For blacks, whether in the North or the South, the desire to go back to Africa stemmed from the desire to escape social, economic, and political oppressions, as well as overwhelming anti-black violence. Moreover, there was a longing to start anew unhampered by white racism, as well as to return to their ancestral roots—even though most blacks could never know where home was, specifically. Records on slaves were not kept, and over time, the language and most of the African culture and customs were lost through acculturation (and sometimes force). Many times, Africans were forced into communities where other slaves did not speak their language. A wealthy black man named Paul Cuffe was one of the pioneers of the back to Africa movement. In 1815, Philadelphia Quakers helped him transport thirty-eight blacks to Freetown, Sierra Leone. In 1822, the American Colonization Society (ACS), supported by blacks and whites, helped establish the colony of Liberia in West Africa. The blacks who returned to Africa with the help of those like Cuffe, the organization ACS, and others, experienced many troubles and trials adapting to a climate and an environment that they had not ever known and adjusting to the ways of the indigenous peoples. The impulse to return home was revived in the twentieth century, as leaders like Marcus Garvey strove toward self-determination and self-government for the descendants of Africa.

of knowledge as well as to the formation of his philosophy. While there, he formed a relationship with Duse Mohammed Ali, a jounalist for the Africa Times and Orient Review. Garvey worked for him for a time, and also contributed articles to his publication and others. He made contacts with a motley group of black college students, sailors, and dock workers. He attended lectures at Birkbeck College and gave speeches on soapboxes, as was commonly done in Hyde Park.

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These relationships instilled in Garvey a profound love for his heritage and an intense desire to learn more about the culture and history that bound blacks all over the world together. He supplemented his discussions with trips to the library, where, slumped over a mountain of books, he fervently built up his knowledge of Africa. The information he discovered debunked the prevailing misconception of a barbaric continent. Precolonial Africa was home to complex societies and lavish empires with opulent traditions in art, music, dance, and religion. Through colonialization, foreign countries had subjugated the indigious populations and exploited the abundant natural resources: minerals, precious metals, oil, and timber. During the African Diaspora, countless Africans had been scattered throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia—largely to toil as slaves. Garvey and his family were a product of this diaspora, as were the myriad blacks he met around the world. Garvey realized they were, in actuality, connected by a common oppression, a common cultural identity, and a common homeland. But that homeland was no longer available to them, as it belonged to the people who had remained in Africa. Blacks had been effectively stripped of a national identity. Between December 1913 and January 1914, Garvey visited France, Spain, and other European countries. The trip produced bleak results. Conditions in Continental Europe were no better for men and women of African descent, who comprised the poor, the neglected, and the powerless. Garvey could not find any place where blacks exhibited independence and power. He thus famously remarked: ‘‘Where is the black man’s Government? Where is his King and his kingdom? Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affiars? I could not find them’’ (‘‘Negro’s Greatest Enemy’’). Upon Garvey’s return to England in mid-January 1914, he read Booker T. Washington’s second autobiography and national bestseller, Up from Slavery (1901). This was a classic rags-to-riches narrative, chronicling the life of Washington: a slave turned powerful race leader and founder of the heavily funded Tuskegee Institute. Washington recounted how he overcame monolithic odds, his ascension to greatness, and his program for black independence from whites through industrial training and development. This book moved Garvey in a profound way, and was in fact what ultimately convinced him to become a race leader. He was twenty-seven years old. While still in England, he wrote that he felt ‘‘restless for the opportunity of doing something [for] the advancement of my race,’’ and he ‘‘determined that the black man would not continue to be kicked about by all the other races and nations of the world’’ living as mere ‘‘peons, serfs, dogs, and slaves’’ as he had seen in his travels. ‘‘I could not remain in London any more,’’ he continued, ‘‘my brain was afire’’ (Primary Sources).

Marcus Garvey

Return to Jamaica Garvey returned to Jamaica on July 8, 1914. While attending a debate, he met Amy Ashwood. She was only seventeen, but she had impressed Garvey with the fiery speech she gave, her intelligence, and her beauty. She would eventually become his first wife. In August of that year, Garvey co-founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. The organization was ambitious. Its objectives were ‘‘to promote the spirit of race pride and love; to reclaim the fallen of the race; to administer to and assist the needy; to assist in civilizing the backward tribes of Africa; to strenthen the Imperialism of independent African states; to establish Universities, Colleges, and Secondary schools’’ (Martin, 31–32). Ironically, Garvey’s plan was well-received by local whites, while the general population of Jamaican blacks was apathetic. Those who opposed the plan comprised the mulatto class who ‘‘could not understand why any man with talent would concern himself with improving the lot of the lower-class blacks’’ (Cronon, 18–19). Garvey was disturbed to discover that color prejudice was rampant in blacks of mixed heritage. They opposed his use of the word ‘‘Negro,’’ not wanting to be associated with blackness, preferring instead to pass as white. That September, Garvey wrote to Washington, seeking support for a Tuskeegee-like industrial program in Jamaica. Washington, however, died on November 14, 1915, before the possibilities of a relationship and endorsement of Garvey’s program could come to fruition. Garvey made the trip to America anyway, under the premise that this would be an exploratory visit, like his other travels, to make comparisons between blacks in America and elsewhere. TO AMERICA Garvey arrived in Harlem, New York on March 23, 1916. Harlem was a black urban neighborhood that in a few short years would produce an explosion of black intellectual, literary, and artistic expression known as the Harlem Renaissance. It was also a hotbed for radically minded thinkers and speakers. Black revolutionaries on soapboxes and radical black newspapers proliferated. The discontent among African Americans was like nothing Garvey had ever seen before. The many blacks who had arrived from the South during the Great Migration, beginning in 1900, with the hope of finding work and better opportunities and to flee Jim Crow and racial violence, or had come up from the West Indies (including from Garvey’s hometown), were quickly disillusioned. Poverty, de facto segregation, police brutality, racial violence, racism, and discrimination abounded throughout America. One of the striking differences in the northern response to these conditions, particularly with white violence, was that blacks fought back and were more inclined to demonstrate and express radical and militant tendencies. In the American South, blacks

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faced disenfranchisement, lynching, and social, economic, and political oppression. Racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan roamed unchecked in isolated rural regions. When Garvey first arrived in Harlem, his reception was unspectacular. Shabbily dressed, short, and stocky, Garvey (whose childhood sobriquet had been ‘‘Ugly Mug’’) was aesthetically no charmer. People were accustomed to hearing the West Indian accent, for there was a substantial community of immigrants there, so Garvey did not stand out. Moreover, no one had ever heard of the UNIA, of which this stranger was president. Garvey spoke largely about the conditions of his home country, little of which pertained to blacks in America. However, Garvey did meet with influential African American leaders like Ida B. Wells-Barnett and W.E.B. Du Bois. Wells-Barnett, a pioneering anti-lynching crusader and women’s rights advocate, was impressed with his ideas, but thought they were extravagant. Du Bois, on the other hand, soon became one of Garvey’s most staunch critics. Garvey was none too impressed with these black leaders, whom he felt were elitist and were neglecting the masses. Garvey’s reputation gradually grew among the general population. His first public lecture at St. Mark’s Church Hall comprised a largely West Indian audience. While speaking he famously fell off the stage—allegedly out of nervousness or excitement. He next began a year-long speaking tour of thirty-eight states, spreading his message of unity. Back in Harlem in May 1917, Garvey formed a UNIA branch. That summer in Harlem, following the July 2 outbreak, he delivered one of his most famous speeches, ‘‘The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riot.’’ By this time, Garvey has begun to form quite the reputation as a speaker. His notoriety attracted the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which closely (and often suspiciously) followed public leaders and their movements. Earlier in the year, America had declared war against Germany, a fact that exacerbated government suspicion of protest leaders. While Garvey’s personal popularity increased, his attempts at organizing were less successful. The fledgling New York UNIA branch quickly dissolved following a controversial struggle to ‘‘discredit’’ Garvey, and to ‘‘turn [his] movement into a political club’’ (Cronon, 42, 43). Garvey refused to allow his organization to be associated with any political party, religion, or social reform organization. His second attempt at organizing fared better. This time Garvey, by request of loyal members, was elected president of the new branch of the UNIA, thus inaugurating an unprecedented and extraordinary moment in African American history. THE GOLDEN DAYS OF THE UNIA In the summer of 1918, Garvey tackled the task of building a foundation for his organization. Never a man of small dreams or mediocre pursuits, he

Marcus Garvey

purchased a capacious building in Harlem for the UNIA’s American headquarters. He named the building Liberty Hall. With a capacity of 6,000, Liberty Hall soon became the location of many spirited and full-house meetings. In July, the UNIA published its Constitution and Book of Laws Made for the Government of the UNIA/ACL. In August, Garvey put forth the first issue of the UNIA’s publication, The Negro World. This newspaper fast became one of the world’s leading black newspapers. As Garvey’s star rose, Amy Ashwood moved to America to be with him.

The Negro World The Negro World was not only vastly popular but enormously radical. In it Garvey detailed his ideas about creating an independent black nation, as well as his desire to liberate Africa from colonial rule. He published articles describing the conditions facing African descendants across the globe, about revolutionary black figures and Africa’s grand and glorious past, as well as essays and poetry. He endorsed racial pride, as well as the right to revolt against any system or government that suppressed what he believed was the right to self-determination and independence from whites. The New World was eventually banned in many countries. But by the late 1920s, the UNIA’s influence and presence had already taken root in twentytwo countries. Elaborate means were constructed to smuggle Garvey’s message to the people living in countries where his literature was prohibited. For example, in Kenya, children memorized entire issues and then recited them back to the people in their villages. Through this radical medium as well as the branches that sprang up in America, Europe, Central America, and Africa, Garvey became a global figure.

Garvey’s Mass Appeal By the spring of 1919, Garvey—with the assistance of key UNIA members— had amassed more than two million members worldwide. Garvey was the primary reason for the organization’s soaring success, and much of his rising appeal can be attributed to pure doggedness. Other contributing factors were a concoction of luck and masterful strategizing. Garvey had tromped across the globe to get the pulse of the black race; to assess the state and condition of the peoples of the African Diaspora sprawled throughout four hemispheres. Through various unsuccessful attempts to mobilize protest during his travels, Garvey had searched for a location in which to wage his campaign, seeking soil suitable to plant the seeds of black nationalism. If Garvey had allowed disappointment to get the better of him, he would not have witnessed the glittering hour of success that was approaching.

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Having done his research, Garvey knew that the soil was especially fertile in New York City. The militant climate of city life, compounded with longheld frustrations and unkept promises, had primed the black population to be receptive to organizing and new approaches. Garvey was also aware that the NAACP reigned in the conservative upper and middle classes, while the working-class blacks went without representation and without leadership. This was a fortuitous situation, for if conditions had not been ripe, or if Garvey had faced competition over the leadership of the largest class of African Americans, his movement might have never taken off. Thus, he lit the flame in New York, and it quickly spread from there. An undeniable factor of Garvey’s popularity was his marketing ability. Scholars referred to him as a great propagandist. Indeed, his ingenuity was the essence of the movement that bore his name. He constructed an ideology, crafted a public persona, created an ambiance of visually stunning pomp, and spoke to fundamental needs of humanity: to have a sense of selfworth. The effect was extraordinary. Only his opponents, who thought him to be delusional or a charlatan, were not swept up by Garvey’s magnetism or his spectacular campaign. Multitudes were drawn to Garvey and the philosophy that came to be known as Garveyism. The tenets, including the principles of race first, selfreliance, and nationhood, were simple, direct, sanguine. Like a modern-day self-help guru, Garvey’s message was primarily about empowering the victim, not the vilification of the oppressor or a preoccupation with changing the system (except in Africa, where Garvey sought to liberate African countries under colonial rule). He endeavored to solve the problems blacks faced in America and abroad by aiming to change, uplift, and transcend blacks themselves. The ultimate goal was to create an independent nation for blacks. One of the ways he justified this was to point out that most races had their own country to rule and control for their own best interest. It seemed right and good to him that blacks should reclaim a nation for themselves. Blacks were ravenous for Garvey’s daily helpings of feel-good oratory and writings. When Garvey told blacks to stop bleaching their skin and straightening their hair to look like whites, he debunked the notion that anything associated with blackness was wrong or ugly. Black features, including wide, flat noses, broad lips, and other physical qualities, were something of which to be proud, not ashamed. As Garvey saw it, white standards of beauty, which affirmed white features and negated black features, were a form of oppression and induced feelings of racial inferiority. Garvey made sure to build up the black self-image at every opportunity. This practice helped to undo and heal much of the damage caused by slavery, Jim Crow, racism, and white supremacy, as well as to endear him all the more to his followers. Garvey’s other strategies were just as potent. He carefully constructed both his own public persona and the UNIA demonstrations. Shortly after becoming president of the UNIA, Garvey shed his humble and inferior

Marcus Garvey

Pan-African Flag The Pan-African Flag, also known as the UNIA flag or the Black Liberation flag, is a tri-color flag that bears the colors red, black, and green in three horizontal stripes. The Pan-African Flag was designed in 1920 by the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIAACL), which was founded and led by Marcus Garvey. The flag was an important symbol of black pride, unity, and black nationalism. Garvey’s goal was to create a single black identity and government in Africa under the banner of the UNIA-ACL. Since every nation and country was identified by a flag, Garvey created one for his purposes. Each color on the UNIA flag symbolized Africa or its people. The red represented the blood that united all individuals of African ancestry and the sacrifices that were made for liberation, black stood for the black people or nation, and green symbolized the land and rich resources of Africa. The UNIA flag played an important role in the promotion of Garveyism, and various incarnations of it appeared in the latter half of the twentieth century. At public parades and events, Garveyites waved flags in the air, amping up the frenzy over Garvey and his program of black pride and selfdetermination. The flag next became an important symbol of black pride during the Black Power Movement of the mid-1960s, as well as in the resurgence of Afrocentrism spearheaded in large part by scholars such as Molefi Kete Asante, who published Afrocentricity (1980), Asa Hillard, and John Henrik Clarke. African American popular culture was also affected by individuals such as filmmaker Spike Lee, and artists Public Enemy, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest. During the 1980s and 1990s, the colors red, black, and green (and sometimes black and gold) began appearing on clothes. Red, black, and green flags were displayed on T-shirts, hats, medallions, and other paraphernalia.

clothes for extravagant outfits, such as graduation caps and robes, elaborately decorated uniforms, shining swords, and plumed hats. Critics decried the outlandish get-up, particularly since Garvey held no formal or recognized office other than the presidency of his organization. He made himself look like a dignitary or like royalty, when he was not. Nonetheless, his appearance dazzled and impressed his followers, as he knew it would. The UNIA members were also greatly impressed by the massive demonstrations, such as the UNIA marches. The critics ridiculed the flamboyant and gaudy display of uniformed marchers streaming gallantly through the streets, their colorful flags whipping in the wind. These marches infused a sense of pride, confidence, and wonderment in his admirers. If one man could

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orchestrate such a dramatic and triumphant display as this, self-governance seemed attainable. Garvey’s philosophy and propaganda moved blacks. One witness to this movement related that ‘‘Garvey took black folk who were, ah, assaulted by a variety of very unfortunately negative images of themselves and made them believe in themselves, made them see physical beauty in themselves. Made them see the need to interpret and write their own history.’’ Another recalled how Garvey dispelled the old stereotype that Africans were nothing but ‘‘cannibals running around in the jungles’’ (transcript from http://pbs.org). Garvey knew that ‘‘the smallest man in the uniform still looked like a giant’’ (transcript). Whites were also affected by the UNIA marches. One woman ‘‘heard white women fainted … when we had the big parades going down Fifth Avenue, they would just fall out’’ (transcript). At the height of Garvey’s glory, he and his movement appeared unstoppable. But behind the sunny rhetoric and the sensationalism, there were grave troubles brewing.

GARVEY’S DILEMMA UNIA Projects and Problems Through the UNIA, Garvey implemented programs with the objective of advancing and empowering blacks economically. He spawned projects, such as investment funds, the Negro Factories Corporation, and his most ambitious enterprise, a black shipping line. He instituted annual UNIA conventions. He also attempted to colonize Liberia. The Negro Factories Corporation involved the establishment of various black-owned businesses, such as stores, restaurants, and manufacturing companies. This venture resulted in at least one thousand new jobs for African Americans in Harlem alone. The Black Star Line, which Garvey announced in 1919 (though he had not yet purchased any ships), was based on the Green Star Line (established by the Irish) and the White Star Line (a British shipping line). The Black Star Line would accomplish numerous goals: it would get around Jim Crow laws that reduced blacks to secondclass citizenship aboard ships, stimulate commercial trade between Africans around the world, and (through promotion) provide profit-making opportunities for the UNIA and all blacks through the selling of stocks. Garvey hoped to employ an all-black crew for the ships, but that was not always possible, as trained seamen were limited. In response to this program, the African American press and top leaders were especially harsh, accusing Garvey of extorting blacks. But to poor blacks, the shares were more than a financial investment. One father used his hard-earned money to purchase Garvey shares instead of the month’s groceries. He instructed his daughter to touch the shares to ‘‘feel the power

Marcus Garvey

that the black man will someday know’’ (transcript). Because of Garvey, financial power was no longer the exclusive privilege of certain classes. On September 17, 1919, Garvey amazed the world, and especially his skeptics, when the UNIA purchased its first ship, the S.S. Yarmouth. Garvey aptly renamed the vessel, which had formerly transported cotton (a prime crop during slavery), the Frederick Douglass, after the former slave and famous abolitionist. Sold to the UNIA for $165,000, the ship was a costly purchase. Garvey boasted of an all-black crew with a black captain and declared that more purchases were in the works. He undoubtedly reveled in confounding his enemies, who were increasing in number as his popularity and influence continued to soar. A near-death experience the following month nearly shattered Garvey’s burgeoning empire. George Tyler, a deranged man (reportedly an investor or a former UNIA member and a likely assassin), approached Garvey with a gun on October 14, 1919. Four gunshots were fired at Garvey. One grazed his forehead—another blasted into his leg. Garvey survived, and the incident made him into something of a hero. Tyler, on the other hand, went to jail. He died there, either by suicide or murder. Garvey went to Philadelphia the next day for a speaking engagement. The Philadelphia audience was astonished that Garvey had not canceled. His reputation escalated. Garvey’s tenacity would be severely tested over the shipping line’s first purchase, the Frederick Douglass. Neither Garvey nor his associates knew much of anything about the convoluted business of shipping. For one thing, they had paid too much for that ship. For another, the insurance was exorbitant. When the Frederick Douglass finally set sail in the fall of 1919, Garvey made sure the UNIA band was in attendance to delight the frenzied crowd. But the Frederick Douglass trip was temporarily halted until the insurance was paid in full. This was not the last of the troubles inflicting the UNIA’s Black Star Line, but Garvey made sure not to publicize such problems. They kept up the appearance that Garvey and his UNIA were making an epic ascent to power and influence. Throughout the years, Garvey made enemies with the same intensity as he attracted followers. The integrationists, chief among them W.E.B Du Bois, one of the founders of the NAACP and the editor of The Crisis, were appalled by Garvey’s audacious showmanship and outlandish programs and by his ideology of black nationalism. Du Bois exchanged sharp barbs with Garvey in his speeches and articles, once maliciously calling him ‘‘a little, fat black man’’ (Martin, 109). Garvey was equally unkind when he published an article that ‘‘headlined, W.E. Burghardt Du Bois is a hater of dark people: calls his own race ‘Black and Ugly’’’ (Martin, 109). Garvey, who advocated racial purity, had his own issues (extending from his experiences in Jamaica) with black communities of biracial and multiracial heritage that favored

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assimilation with white culture, outlook, and prejudices. This caused him to distrust leadership of this sort and think of them as traitors, and Du Bois, with his biracial father, made him a ready target for Garvey’s rancor. Garvey’s custom of verbally attacking others provoked the attention of powerful adversaries. And since his early days making fiery speeches atop soapboxes in Harlem, Garvey had attracted the attention of the FBI. Comments made on the podium such as ‘‘When those crackers lynch a Negro below the Mason-Dixon line, since it is not safe to lynch a white man in any part of America, we shall press the button and lynch him in Africa’’ (transcript) incited a long-term FBI mission to deport Garvey back to Jamaica. In the meantime, they looked for a way to convict him of a crime. The inauguration of the Black Star Line presented an opportunity. In the hunt to catch Garvey, the FBI enlisted spies to obstruct his movement, and, for the first time ever, employed a black agent to infiltrate the UNIA. Other Garvey opponents included influential African Americans. In late 1919, Robert S. Abbott, editor (and one of the most prominent black journalists) of the Chicago Defender, published an article scoffing at Garvey’s Black Star Line. Garvey’s libel suit against Abbott was unprofitable. In a subsequent counterattack, Abbott may have been the cause of Garvey’s brief arrest for the illegal sale of stocks during Garvey’s visit in Chicago. Abbott ‘‘brought his victory to a climax with a successful libel suit against Garvey for his Chicago address and for articles appearing in the Negro World’’ (Cronon, 76). This would not be the last time that Garvey would be hit with libel suits. The UNIA had internal problems, as well. Garvey’s ambition often exceeded his experience and knowledge. Neither he nor the men he put in charge of his ventures, such as the shipping line, had sufficient knowledge to realize that the vessels they purchased were overpriced and in bad shape, requiring repairs that drained the UNIA’s finances. Add to that the expense of libel suits and the heavy-duty annual stipends promised to the UNIA leadership, and Garvey’s organization began to lose money at a staggering pace. Garvey’s mounting problems could possibly have been remedied if he had been open to suggestions, but he was convinced that, in the end, he would triumph. The new decade, the Roaring Twenties, opened up with setbacks: the unraveling of Garvey’s marriage to Amy Ashwood (they had exchanged vows on December 25, 1919 at Liberty Hall), the unfortunate events of the Frederick Douglass, and dissension among the UNIA leaders. The Frederick Douglass was plagued with mechanical problems and actually began to sink on January 19 (a cargo of whiskey, Cuba-bound, was lost during the process). News that all was not well within the UNIA leadership was publicized, but Garvey continued to put up a good front. Garvey defended the firing of officials in an address at Liberty Hall in March. In April, Garvey Sr. died. Garvey, seemingly unfazed by his organizational and personal problems, announced the acquisition of two more ships for the Black Star Line: the

Marcus Garvey

Shadyside and the Kanawha. Both ships were exorbitantly priced. The Kanawha, renamed the Antonio Maceo, the sobriquet of a black general in Cuba, was a troubled vessel whose boilers were perpetually giving out, costing Garvey a fortune in repairs. Garvey’s goal for the Shadyside was to provide excursions for African Americans. Of course, only families of means could afford the luxury of such trips, and the well-to-do were not exactly fans of Garvey’s. This proved problematic. Liberia: A Colonization Project In the fall of 1920, Garvey announced a two million dollar Liberian Construction Loan. Garvey hoped to develop Liberia with ‘‘colleges, universities, industrial plants, and railroad tracks.’’ His ultimate goal was to move the UNIA headquarters there and spur black migration (Cronon, 125). Liberia is situated along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, flanked by Sierra Leone, Guinea, and C^ ote D’Ivoire in West Africa. It was founded in 1822 by the American Colonization Society (ACS) to provide a settlement for free blacks. Many blacks and whites supported this project. In addition to the ACS-sponsored undertaking, blacks themselves launched efforts to return to Africa in an attempt to control their lives and destiny. These various projects came to be known as the Back-to-Africa Movement. Whites were in favor of transporting blacks to Liberia, because it helped solve the conundrum of how blacks would acclimate into mainstream society, anticipate competition for jobs and resources, and obviate social conflict and tension. Despite the fact that a large number of blacks balked at the idea of returning to Africa, since they felt too far removed from their ancestral homeland and preferred to remain in America, ACS helped transport 13,000 blacks to Liberia within twenty years. Liberia gained its independence from the United States in 1847. At first, the Liberians appeared to welcome Garvey with open arms. They permitted a visit from Elie Garcia, a UNIA delegate, in 1920. Garcia met with officials, observed the country, and composed a ‘‘secret report’’ on his observations, detailing how the non-native blacks, specifically a ruling class, oppressed the indigenous population. Garcia recommended that the UNIA implement a covert plan to take over the ruling class and liberate the natives. Unaware of this, the Liberian government was excited to accept the opportunity to modernize their country through Garvey’s promises. To demonstrate what appeared to be a strong relationship, the mayor of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, was elected potentate or ceremonial head of the 1920 UNIA convention. Between August 1 and 31, the UNIA made a spectacular show at the first annual International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World at New York’s Madison Square Garden. One morning, a member of the UNIA

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‘‘shined his boots, polished his sword, and headed to Harlem to take part in one of the biggest parades in New York’s history’’ (transcript). One surviving witness remembered how ‘‘every window that you looked at, people’s heads were out, to see the Marcus Garvey parade. Most of them wanted to see Marcus Garvey, and he was very well decorated, his hats, and the feathers’’ (transcript). The day itself was a virtual visual feast, with Garvey masterfully fusing elements of Afrocentric ceremony and Western pomp. The scene was described as follows: Harlem streets rang with stirring martial airs and the measured tramp of smartly uniformed marching bands. The hoarse cries of little black newsboys hawking special editions of the Negro World added to the Babel produced by cheering delegates from twenty-five countries. Garvey became literally the man of the hour. Enterprising Harlem tobacco shops offered special ‘Marcus Garvey’ cigars, complete with a photograph of the Jamaican race leader imprinted on the band. The magic of Garvey’s spell and the power of his organizational ability were never better demonstrated than at this first great international convention. (Cronon, 63)

On parade was the uniformed African Legion (some of whom were on horseback), the Juvenile Divisions, the Black Cross Nurses, the Universal Motor Corps, as well as the crew of the Black Star Line. In attendance were African nobility: an African prince and several tribal chiefs. The convention was a time for Garvey to not only market the UNIA but to conduct business. The UNIA authorized its symbolic colors: ‘‘red for the blood of the race, nobly shed in the past and dedicated to the future; black to symbolize pride in the color of its skin; and green for the promise of a new and better life in Africa’’ (Cronon, 67). An anthem was created to the tune of an Ethiopian song, and a Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World was written, including fifty-four demands affirming their right of liberty and justice for all African descendents, the abolition of the ‘‘use of the word ‘nigger’,’’ and Black History instruction for black children (Martin, 63). Titles, some elaborate, like the Provisional President of Africa (the title given to Garvey), were bestowed upon the leadership. The UNIA served as the provisional government for the aspiring African nation. Throughout the following year, Garvey maintained his programs in spite of mounting problems and attacks, a wildly busy schedule (including a speaking tour across the country and in the West Indies), and problems in his personal life. His marriage to Amy, which had been problematic from the start, was not getting better, and husband and wife were withdrawing more and more from each other. While in Jamaica during the winter of 1921, the State Department directed the U.S. consul general to refuse Garvey a permit to reenter the United States. He was detained by

Marcus Garvey

U.S. immigration but eventually was allowed to return to New York in the summer. Money was also a problem. At the second UNIA convention, Garvey had to contend with problems within his organization. One of the executive officers, a secretary general, was charged with misappropriation of funds. In Liberia, money troubles stymied progress. Although money was being raised by the UNIA, funds were being rerouted to save the Black Star Line. Unbeknown to the general membership of the UNIA, the Black Star Line was floundering. Efforts were underway to save it, but while the Garveyites remained loyal to Garvey, his critics, such as Du Bois, publicly questioned the fate of this ambitious and fraught-filled project. All three vessels of the Black Star Line were in serious trouble. The UNIA’s ‘‘unwise purchases of dubious ships at exorbitant prices were a handicap from which even a more soundly managed company would have been hard-put to survive.’’ In truth, the venture had resulted in ‘‘a heart-breaking series of disasters marked by bungling incompetence, individual dishonesty … ever-increasing corporate indebtedness,’’ as well as sabotage (Cronon, 81). The Frederick Douglass was in constant need of repairs. Eventually, its hapless career was ended at auction, and it sold at an embarrassingly low price. It did not help matters when an engineer, whether deliberately or not, corroded the engines and boilers of the Antonio Maceo with salt water. The Shadyside made the most miserable ending, sinking to the bottom of the Hudson River. Another individual might have thrown in the towel, but Garvey came up with a plan to rescue his moribund shipping line. His first step was to establish the Black Star Steamship Company of New Jersey in the fall of 1920. With this new shipping line, Garvey embarked on the ill-timed and unwise acquisition of a fourth ship, which he named the Phyllis Wheatley. The plan was for this ship to carry blacks to Africa. This purchase can be attributed to overconfidence or a desperate attempt to save face. The Phyllis Wheatley never made an appearance. Critics, like Du Bois, made sure to openly point out that fact. That Garvey sold tickets for promised trips to Africa and advertised the ghost ship only provided more ammunition to be used by his enemies against him. Bigger Problems for Garvey and the UNIA Garvey’s problems culminated with his arrest for fraudulent use of mail on January 12, 1922. Garvey was not the only member of the UNIA to be indicted, but it was clear that he was the target of the charge. Overzealous or desperate, Garvey’s preemptive move to advertise the nonexistent Phyllis Wheatley was at the center of the trouble. Journalists had a field day bashing Garvey. But the final straw was the accusation that he sent ‘‘fraudulent

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circulars through the mail’’ (Martin, 111). The journalists went for the jugular in subsequent editorials, but Garvey’s membership and supporters were not easily convinced of his alleged crimes. Garvey insisted that he was innocent and pointed his finger at his enemies, who he accused of plotting against him from the beginning. By the end of the year, Garvey’s Black Star Line had folded and his marriage had dissolved. The marriage had been a brief one; the divorce finalized on June 15, 1922. The circumstances surrounding the dissolution of what appeared to be Garvey’s first love were controversial: it was believed that Garvey himself thought he could not commit himself to both the struggle and his marriage. It was also argued that each accused the other of ‘‘infidelity, dishonesty, and various other things’’ (Martin, 66–67). Amy bitterly pointed to what she suspected was an inappropriate relationship between her husband and Amy Jacques, Garvey’s new secretary. It was known that Garvey and Amy, prior to their marriage, had had a querulous relationship. That Garvey had wholly given himself to his movement was illustrated by the fact that he did not have any social friends and was always working (as his son, who would be born during his second marriage, would attest). Marcus Garvey, Jr. asserted that ‘‘[Garvey] never seemed to relax. He never seemed to take a day off.… He always appeared to be dressed ready to work.… And he was working at home, he was working at the office. He kept tremendous hours’’ (transcript). Garvey married his new secretary, the intelligent and intensely loyal Amy Jacques, one month later after his divorce. In July, Garvey arranged a scandalous meeting with Edward Young Clarke, Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, the most widely known of the racist white organizations, regularly terrorized blacks and was responsible for countless diabolical acts against them. That Garvey met on friendly terms with the Klan—and even allowed a Klansman to speak before his membership—baffled the nation, especially African American protest leaders. It was not that Garvey condoned the Klan’s activities. Their seemingly bizarre and brief engagement was based upon their mutual desire to preserve their respective races. But the act emboldened African Americans to wage an organized fight, through a ‘‘Garvey Must Go’’ campaign, to get rid of Garvey and shut down the UNIA once and for all. The ‘‘Garvey Must Go’’ campaign united unlikely leaders in the African American community. Men who had once opposed one another’s philosophies and strategies of resistance collaborated in an effort to deport Garvey. Among the luminaries who opposed Garvey were A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, Frank Crosswaith, Robert Bagnall, William Pickens, George Schuyler, Joel A. Rogers, and Theophilus Lewis. This group represented a hodgepodge of white socialists, an NAACPer (Pickens), academics, and a black labor union leader (Randolph). The name of the organization

Marcus Garvey

they created was the Friends of Negro Freedom. Its members waged an antiGarvey attack on the city streets and in their respective newspapers. Garvey, of course, fought back through his own medium and with his characteristic no-holds-barred flair, threatening anyone who would attack him or his organization. When A. Philip Randolph received a dismembered hand and a threat against his life signed by the KKK, he accused Garvey of being the real perpetrator. Garvey denied it. Former members of the UNIA also turned against him. James W.H. Eason was a high priest in the organization when he made his volatile break with the UNIA at the 1922 convention. ‘‘Garvey and Eason quarreled violently … and at one point the two men almost came to blows on the platform.… Garvey accused Eason of double-crossing him, and the Philadelphian thereupon withdrew from the U.N.I.A. and formed a rival organization called the Universal Negro Alliance [one of many such organizations]’’ (Cronon, 109). When Eason was shot on January 1, 1923, two Garvey men were arrested. With no solid evidence against them, the charges were dropped. It was alleged that Eason might have been murdered because of damaging information he could have provided against Garvey. A week after the Eason shooting, a letter arrived on the desk of Attorney General Harry M. Daughtery. The letter was signed by eight African Americans: Robert S. Abbott, Robert W. Bagnall, Julia P. Coleman, George W. Harris, Chandler Owen, Harry H. Pace, William Pickens, and John E. Nail. The letter contained several arguments in support of Garvey’s conviction. The letter, as well as the ongoing ‘‘Garvey Must Go’’ campaign, escalated anti-Garvey sentiment. Garvey was furious. He flailed back, calling them ‘‘Good old darkies,’’ ‘‘Uncle Tom Negroes,’’ and ‘‘wicked maligners.’’ He labeled the letter that was meant to destroy him ‘‘the greatest bit of treachery and wickedness’’ (Cronon, 111). THE TRIAL Garvey was highly suspicious of the trial, which began on May 18, 1923. The judicial system, since Emancipation, had been historically and ruthlessly unkind to African Americans. With racist all-white juries, judges, and attorneys, African Americans rarely experienced justice, and they frequently received harsher punishments than whites. Garvey felt that he stood no chance. The public despised him, and prominent African Americans denounced him. The government was against him. Garvey complained that the judge overseeing his trial was biased against him because he had been a member of the NAACP. The judge was not removed. Garvey dismissed his African American attorney, believing he was not looking out for his best interests. But historians believe that when Garvey chose to represent himself, he made an unfortunate move. Despite Garvey’s fears, he actually had a chance to win the case. The evidence, such as an empty envelope with a Black Star Line stamp, concerning the

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alleged mail fraud was incredibly weak. Although this envelope was addressed to a shareholder, the contents were nonexistent and therefore did not imply fraud. Furthermore, the trial exposed how Garvey and the UNIA had actually been taken advantage of by whites who had sold them the doomed vessels. But ultimately, Garvey was his own worst enemy in the trial. He exhibited an unflattering awkwardness, was frequently hot-tempered in the court room, and he would not accept advice from anyone. This did much to hurt his chances of acquittal. In the end, the jury pronounced Garvey guilty, and he was sentenced to five years in prison. The other defendants were acquitted. Before entering Tombs Prison in New York, Garvey gave a speech, the essence of which was that the UNIA’s work was not finished. After three months in prison, Garvey was paroled. IN THE INTERIM While on parole, Garvey labored on and waited for the results of his appeal. In 1924, he established yet another shipping line, the Black Cross Navigation and Trading Company, to replace the one that had failed. The ships in this line were designated to transport African Americans to Africa, specifically to Liberia, where efforts were still underway to establish a UNIA colony. The line purchased its first ship, named Booker T. Washington. This one had promise. But it only made one voyage, and that one was traumatic. Expenses and racial tensions between the white captain, the white and black workers, and the black passengers resulted in a near-mutiny. The ship sailed to Cuba, Jamaica, and Panama but was ultimately sold to pay the UNIA’s rising debts. Other projects crumbled. In 1924, the Liberian rulers, suddenly and without warning, changed their mind about opening their doors to the UNIA. It appeared that authorities had gotten hold of the secret letter that contained plans for their ousting. Garvey lost not only an opportunity to stake a claim on African real estate, but he wasted a lot of money on pricey equipment. In the wake of this latest failure, Garvey shifted his attention to politics. He called his new project the Negro Political Union. Garvey began to promote and influence politics on the local and national level. He endorsed Republican candidate Calvin Coolidge during the 1924 presidential election. Coolidge won. Garvey’s influence, which was still largely intact, surely contributed to the win. But his political picks were not always popular. The African American press was still on his heels, publishing harsh opinions of him and his organization. In The Crisis, Du Bois called him a ‘‘lunatic’’ and a ‘‘traitor.’’ TO JAIL AGAIN In 1925, Garvey was arrested and sent to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. This time the federal grand jury claimed that Garvey had evaded taxes. The

Marcus Garvey

problem with this charge was that Garvey had not received as much money as the prosecutors claimed he had—a fact that was presented by an accountant during the trial. But it did not matter. While in prison, Garvey again encouraged his supporters to remember that their fight was not over. He produced the following a message, which pledged his support to black liberation whether in life or death: If I die in Atlanta my work shall then only begin, but I shall live, in the physical or spiritual to see the day of Africa’s glory. When I am dead wrap the mantle of the Red, Black, and Green around me, for in the new life I shall rise with God’s grace and blessing to lead the millions up the heights of triumph with the colors that you well know. Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for with God’s grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom, and Life. (Cronon, 136–137)

The fight to liberate Garvey was on. His wife Amy, an activist in her own right, published ‘‘Was Justice Defeated?’’ (1925). Garvey’s Pardon Delegation submitted a petition for his release to President Calvin Coolidge, the same man he had helped put into office. Garvey appealed to Coolidge for clemency. When that was denied, Amy rallied for his release. In the early months of 1926, Garvey lost the UNIA office building in New York and was denied parole. In 1927, Earl Little, Malcolm X’s father and a Garveyite, asked President Coolidge to release Garvey. Coolidge eventually pardoned him—with a catch. Garvey was released in November and deported on December 2. DEPORTATION Estelle James, who was a member of the UNIA, recalled the day of Garvey’s deportation as follows: It was a Monday morning in November—a cold, drizzly, damp November New Orleans morning. It was more like Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans on that particular day. Went out to see Marcus Garvey on this ship. I imagine the conductors got tired of askin’ for fares—so some people rode for nothing. And the fare was only seven cents. They was just packed on top of each on the street car goin’ out to the river front.… Mr. Garvey was not allowed to land. He had to stay on board ship. He did not put his foot on land.… —As the, ah, ship was moving out from the docks, the people on shore were singin’ the President General’s Hymn. (Transcript)

Virginia Collins described it thusly: ‘‘But the people in general they just was wavin, wavin, wavin, wavin, and cryin, and wavin. Cryin and wavin.’’

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Estelle added, ‘‘And the waves appeared to have been in harmony with the song as—as the people were singing and the boat was moving out to sea’’ (transcript). It did indeed rain that day, and on the somber brown faces, peering from under open umbrellas, there was a look that said that they would never see the likes of him or the UNIA’s proud splendor again. Indeed, Garvey never would set foot on American soil after that day. This concluded his amazing, spectacular, controversial, whirlwind movement of protest in America. Back in Jamaica, Garvey was greeted with much fanfare. It was a far cry from the last time Garvey had been in Jamaica, when neither he nor his message were accepted. But in Jamaica Garvey would attempt to revive himself and his movement. At first, his attempts met with some success. He added many more Jamaicans to the UNIA while keeping in contact with the United States through weekly articles in the Negro World. He established himself internationally with fresh new UNIA quarters in Paris and London. He planned an International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World to be held in Kingston in 1929, which would be the grandest spectacle native Jamaicans had ever witnessed. But Garvey was forced to adjust to changes in Jamaica. Given the fact that he could not return to America, Garvey criticized the American UNIA leaders, accusing them of exploiting the organization. And there was contention over where the actual UNIA headquarters should be. This argument caused a split, necessitating Garvey to form a new organization called the Parent Body of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. He also established a newspaper, the Blackman. After the 1929 convention, which was facilitated by his new organization, Garvey entered Jamaican politics. But scandal and controversy seemed to trail him like a hound. Garvey, who was not gifted with disarming charm or savvy political skills, had a rough time running for the Legislative Council. One of his platforms, a crusade to smite corruption in the judicial system, got him in trouble. The judges fought back by publicly denouncing him and charging him with being in contempt of court. He was sentenced to three months in jail and a one hundred dollar fine. Over the next few years, Garvey’s programs did not do so well, either in Jamaica or in the European locations. His personal life, however, picked up with the birth of a son, Marcus, in 1930, and a second son, Julius Winston, in 1933. In the same year, The Negro World was terminated. In 1935, Garvey moved to London in the hope of salvaging his new organization, leaving his wife and two young sons in Jamaica. In England, Garvey’s health suffered. The cool, damp climate was deleterious to Garvey’s constitution. Garvey had asthma, and in London he suffered from pneumonia on more than one occasion. To Garvey, his London office represented his last hope, and for a brief while, with the opening in 1937 of

Marcus Garvey

his School of African Philosophy to develop leaders for his UNIA organization, it seemed that those hopes were justified. But a year or two later, his paper, the Blackman, ceased publication. In America, money had streamed effortlessly to Garvey from blue-collar men and women who funded his campaigns. Expelled from America, Garvey no longer had access to that sort of support. Moreover, the people he enlisted in Jamaica and elsewhere did not have the means to match the financial support Americans gave. Garvey suffered a stroke in 1940. This must have seemed impossible to the man who had defied countless naysayers while stubbornly and forcefully making a name for himself, the man who had stayed up countless nights to labor for a cause he believed was righteous; lecturing, traveling the world, organizing conferences, and suffering the bitter weather in London. His right side was paralyzed as a result of the stroke, but he, undoubtedly, planned to make a full recovery. This was just another setback to overcome. That spring, a London newspaper misreported that Garvey had died from the stroke. The world believed this story. Following the shock of reading of his own death, Garvey collapsed. He died on June 10, 1940, and was buried in Jamaica, where he was mourned and celebrated as a hero. He was fiftythree years old. See also W.E.B. Du Bois; A. Philip Randolph; and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. FURTHER RESOURCES Blaisdell, Bob, ed. Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey. New York: Dover Publications, 2005. Cronon, Edmund David. Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1955. Garvey, Amy Jacques. Garvey and Garveyism. London: Collier-MacMillan, 1963. Garvey, Amy Jacques, ed. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1923. Garvey, Marcus. Eight Uncle Tom Negroes and W.E. Burghardt Du Bois as a Hater of Dark People. New York: Press of the UNIA, 1923. Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind. Directed by Stanley Nelson. PBS documentary, 2001. Marcusgarvey.com. Marcus Garvey (July 2007). See http://www.marcusgarvey.com. Martin, Tony. Marcus Garvey: Hero. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983. Martin, Tony. Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggle of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976. PBS.org. Primary Sources: The Negro’s Greatest Enemy (July 2007). See http:// www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/filmmore/ps_enemy.html. PBS.org. Transcript (July 2007). See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/filmmore/ pt.html. UNIA-ACL (July 2007). See http://www.unia-acl.org.

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Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977)

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Fannie Lou Hamer was a sharecropper turned civil rights activist. She participated in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and many other community and civil rights projects. Most of Hamer’s campaigns took place in her home state of Mississippi during the 1960s and 1970s. Voting rights, political power, social welfare, and assistance programs for African Americans were focal points of her career. Following her testimony before the Credentials Committee at the 1964 Democratic Convention, this hometown hero became a nationally known leader who would go on to make significant contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. Fannie Lou Hamer had little in common with the heavyweights of the civil rights struggle such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, and others. She neither looked nor sounded like the typical civil rights leader. She had no college degree—indeed, she had only six years of formal education. She came from a severely impoverished family in the Deep South, where racism and anti-black violence were notorious. The world in which Hamer grew up was a harsh one, where local authorities either tolerated, ignored, or abetted atrocities against blacks. From childhood on, she had experienced firsthand racism, violence, and poverty. As a result, she was able to relate to and effectively communicate with downtrodden blacks. This made her one of the most valuable activist leaders in African American protest. When Hamer spoke before an audience, she did so using the vernacular of the rural people. She drew from her religious experiences and knew how to use the soul-stirring old-time spirituals that were an essential part of the movement. Her down-home personality had a compelling and dramatic effect on those who heard her. When she divulged her experiences—some so personal, painful, and alarming as to move many to tears—she both increased her own prestige and lent significant leverage to the civil rights struggle. Some of the major players ridiculed Hamer for her humble credentials and roughedged demeanor and delivery. But in the end, her tireless work, though not always successful, was the measure of her talent and savvy. Hamer’s formal entrance into activism followed a visit by members of SNCC to Williams Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Ruleville, Mississippi. This meeting inspired her first attempt at registering to vote in 1964, which resulted in the loss of her job and her home. As if that were not enough, she was also relentlessly harassed. But this did not stop Fannie Lou Hamer. Jailed for attempting to get others to register to vote, she and her fellow activists were horrifically beaten, leaving her with a permanent physical mark. But this and other harrowing experiences only added to her stature and increased her ability to combat racism and injustice. In addition to her association with SNCC and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Hamer ran several unsuccessful political campaigns. She

Fannie Lou Hamer

participated in a number of lesser known but important endeavors, including a self-help organization that enjoyed ephemeral success. Illness cut short her work, and she died in 1977.

CHILDHOOD On October 6, 1917, Fannie Lou was born to James Lee and Lou Ella Bramlett Townsend in Montgomery County, Mississippi. She was the youngest of twenty children. When Hamer was two years old, the family moved to Sunflower County. Despite steady migration to cities in the South and the North since emancipation, the highest concentration of African Americans was still in the rural South. Fannie Lou’s childhood was a microcosm of the life of those African Americans who stayed behind while their friends, relatives, and neighbors yielded to the irresistible allure—or rumor—of better treatment, illimitable job opportunities, and a higher standard of living. The Great Migration played a pivotal role in changing the racial landscape of the North and the West. It is estimated that some seven million blacks left the South during two major migrations, 1910 to 1940 and 1940 to 1970. With slavery behind them, blacks were free to start new lives elsewhere. Industrial growth during wartime America promised jobs and opportunity. And the fact that Jim Crow had no legal jurisdiction outside of the South was another draw. But poverty and racism continued to be a problem, and in time, the areas in which blacks found refuge became ghettos. Both urban and rural black communities were fraught with troubles. Life in the Deep South had changed little after the end of the Civil War. Fannie Lou’s grandmother had been a slave. She had toiled on the plantations, without pay, rights, or the dignity of a name of her own. As she was traded or sold from plantation to plantation, her surname switched to that of her slave master. Even her body was not her own. She bore twenty children as a result of violent assaults. She had three additional children—Lou Ella among them—by a black man with whom she had had a consensual relationship. This grandmother talked often about her life in slavery. Thus, Fannie Lou grew up with the knowledge of the horrors that had defined slavery times and persisted in new forms. Civil rights laws were virtually nonexistent, and sharecropping had become the new slavery. Two generations after the Civil War, African Americans were the most despised and victimized people in the country, ranking below poor whites and immigrant populations. Like most rural blacks, the Townsends sharecropped; like their ancestors before them, they toiled under the sun picking cotton, a major staple since slavery, for white landowners. The predominately black tenants rented their equipment and land to sharecroppers, who did all the physical labor. While the tenants hoarded the profits from cotton sales and cheated the sharecroppers at the scales, sharecroppers grew deeper in debt.

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Sharecropping Sharecropping is a system of agricultural production that exists in various countries. But, in the United States, it has a unique history. Sharecropping emerged in the South at the end of the Civil War (1861–1865) as a way for white landowners to continue harvesting crops on their land even though they could no longer use slave labor. The legal end of slavery did not prevent whites from exploiting black labor, and sharecropping was one of the ways they accomplished that dubious feat. Many whites, but mostly blacks, worked in the South as sharecroppers. There was little else for them to do, since they did not have the education or skills to apply for other jobs. Moreover, the South is largely an agricultural region, and there were few, if any, opportunities in other fields for whites or blacks to pursue in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The North, with its rapidly growing cities, presented far greater opportunity for careers in industry and other businesses. But for blacks, the color of their skin often barred them from professional careers in the North and from land ownership in the South. Thus, the old racial structure of white supremacy and black inferiority was maintained. As sharecroppers, blacks raised their own crops on land owned by whites, but they lived on the land in exchange for the privilege of selling that crop to the landowner exclusively. The tools and equipment used on that land, as well most of the daily needs of the black family, were acquired on credit. The crop was sold at a fixed price, and usually the profit went toward the credit that was accumulated during the year. But bad weather, no crop, or pest infestation proved disastrous for many sharecroppers. Generally, sharecropping was not a lucrative way to make a living, and it perpetrated an endless cycle of poverty for blacks and provided little if any opportunity for economic advancement. Along with economic hardship, blacks were regulated to second-class status in other areas. Few were able to exercise their right to vote due to discriminatory laws and practices and intimidation. The Ku Klux Klan maintained black submission through terror, intimidation, and violence. It was for reasons such as these that blacks migrated to the North.

Because the Townsends had twenty mouths to feed and bodies to clothe, they had to find multiple ways of earning a living. James Lee was a Baptist preacher, but he also ran a juke joint and sold illegal alcohol. Lou Ella did domestic work for white families. All the children worked in the fields. Fannie Lou was only six years old when she was initiated—or wheedled—into the world of picking cotton. The landowner promised Fannie Lou treats in exchange for thirty pounds of cotton. Fannie Lou adjusted quickly, becoming

Fannie Lou Hamer

a good picker and proud of her prowess. She made reference to the fact that women—perhaps children, too—could clear the land as well as any man. Even though the entire family worked, they lived in extreme poverty. For winter shoes, their mother bundled tattered rags around her children’s feet. Their beds were makeshift contraptions of dry grass and corn shucks. The usual Townsend family dinner was greens and flour gravy. Sometimes Lou Ella supplemented this meal with what she cultivated in the small family garden or with what could be scavenged from other people’s leftovers. Perhaps Fannie Lou’s father’s nightly jokes and her mother’s perpetual singing helped lessen the rumblings of their stomachs. Fannie Lou’s formal education was brief. Although blacks were no longer forbidden to learn how to read and write, their educational opportunities were severely limited. Though white schools were open seven months a year, black schools in Sunflower County were only open four months a year. Though she was a promising student, Fanny Lou had to quit school after the sixth grade to work full-time in the field. Fannie Lou was painfully conscious of such disparities. Even as a child, she was a shrewd and critical student of early-twentieth-century life in the American South. She once ‘‘vowed to her mother that if she ever got a chance to change conditions she would’’ (Lee, 14). Later in life, her experiences and observations would become the foundation of her activism. But still the white world looked drastically better than her own, and once in a while she longed to be white. Her mother was relentless in counterattacking her daughter’s poor self-image, which was reinforced by society’s denigration of blackness. Lou Ella did her best to bolster her daughter’s sense of self-worth. For example, she bought her daughter a black doll. This was a revolutionary act, as most black girls had white dolls. In 1928 or 1929, the Townsends experienced a momentary let-up in their dismal economic situation. The family managed to save enough money to buy their own equipment, wagons, mules, and cows. But economic power among blacks in the South was frequently discouraged with violence. The Townsends gained firsthand knowledge of this fact when whites poisoned their livestock. All the stock—including Fannie Lou’s favorite cow—died, dashing any further thoughts about economic improvement. In fact, the family appeared to plunge deeper into poverty. During the next decade and a half, Fannie Lou remained on the plantation with her family. Her toil did little to alleviate her family’s financial woes. This fact exacerbated her distress over missing out on getting an education. But this was not entirely the case: Fannie Lou’s education came in a different form. In the Townsend family, the concept of resistance, of fighting back, was most exemplified by Fannie Lou’s mother. When going to the field, she carried a pan on her head and two buckets, one of which concealed a 9 mm Luger. She tussled with one white man who struck her son, and when

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another white man threatened to whip and take her niece, she stood up to him. Fighting back was an oddity among African Americans in Sunflower. Some labeled her as crazy because of her behavior. Lou Ella’s fearlessness made an impression on Fannie. When a white boy called Fannie a ‘‘dirty nigger’’ and proceeded to tell her that she was not allowed to play with her white friend, she pelted him with her fists. Joe Pulliam was another African American who resisted white suppression. Fannie Lou would never forget his mythic ending. When it was found out that Joe had kept the money a landowner had given him (because the landowner owed him money), rather than use it to pay for workers he was supposed to recruit, a white mob came after him. Joe collected as much ammo as he could carry and, hiding inside a hollow tree, engaged the mob in a shoot out. He killed more than a dozen men and wounded twenty-six others before he was chased out of his hiding spot by fire. Eventually he was dragged from a car and killed. His mutilated body was paraded throughout the black community and his ears were displayed in a store window. In the South, black resistance often had tragic and brutal consequences.

BEFORE ACTIVISM In 1944, Fannie Lou, a mature woman of thirty-two, married Perry Hamer, commonly known as Pap. Pap was a sharecropper with a daughter. That same year, Fannie Lou and Pap moved to W.D. Marlow’s plantation, where they worked for several years. For the first time ever, Fannie Lou left home, leaving behind her widowed and disabled mother. Lou Ella had sustained a serious eye injury during a field accident after her husband’s death in 1939. Because there was no adequate medical care for blacks, her condition had worsened until she went blind in both eyes. Like most African American women in the early twentieth century, Fannie Lou Hamer was not a stay-at-home wife. Hamer worked shoulder-toshoulder in the field with her husband. They did most everything together. In their free time, they fished, managed the juke joint that had belonged to her father, prepared and sold bootleg liquor, and went to church for worship or special functions. Hamer also briefly sold insurance to African Americans in her community. For all their toil, the Hamers were no better off than her parents had been. Their home was not their own. They had no running water or other modern conveniences, like a toilet. By comparison, in the Marlow house, even the family pet dog had a toilet. But Hamer shared what little she had with her aging mother, who came to live with her in 1951. Fannie Lou cared for her until her death in 1961. Despite their meager resources, Fannie Lou set out to bring about change for others, just as she had promised her mother she would during her

Fannie Lou Hamer

adolescence. In 1954, the impoverished family adopted two young girls, one nine and one only five months old, who had been burned in a fire. While working as the timekeeper on the plantation, Hamer addressed issues that affected the field laborers. It was common practice in those days for white landowners to cheat black laborers. Hamer witnessed such underhanded practices firsthand on the plantation. When Marlow was not looking, she made sure the laborers received a fair price for their work. This was a radical move, which illustrated both the size of her heart as well as her sense of duty to rectify wrongs. To be sure, she was only willing to do this when Marlow was not around. In 1961, the year her mother died, Fannie Lou was the victim of a tragedy that afflicted many African American women. Crimes (which usually went unpunished) against African Americans were often based on gender. Whereas African American males were commonly lynched, African American women were raped. A more insidious crime against black women involved the eugenics law, established in the early 1900s, that legalized involuntary sterilization. Farmer was an unsuspecting victim of sterilization when she went to a hospital to have a cyst removed from her stomach. Hamer relied on her faith to get her through that traumatic experience. As always through her difficult life, she kept ‘‘hoping and praying for change’’ (Lee, 22). Her prayers were answered the following year.

LIFE OF ACTIVISM Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Comes to Ruleville Fannie Lou Hamer had heard about the meeting from a friend at church. She was told that some people from the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) would be in town to talk to them about their voting rights and how to vote. COFO was a blend of several civil rights organizations: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the National Urban League, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It was SNCC, which had facilitated the meeting in Ruleville, with whom Hamer was most impressed. SNCC was run by young adults with a strong interest in localized, grassroots activities. Thus, the organization openly welcomed the participation of ordinary and mostly poor people like Hamer. Hamer received permission from Pap to go to the meeting, held on August 27th at the Williams Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, the only church that would allow the dangerous meeting. Voting rights was a touchy issue in the South and had been since African American men were enfranchised during Reconstruction in 1865.

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To keep African Americans from voting, whites used violence, intimidation, and other malevolent tactics. The federal government intervened until the end of Reconstruction. Discriminatory laws followed. Voting became inconceivable and hazardous to the general black population. Tough literacy tests and barefaced bullying kept black men and women (women’s suffrage became official in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment) from voting. By keeping African Americans from voting, whites believed they were averting any challenge to their control and power. In Sunflower County, African Americans constituted 61 percent of the voting potential. The meeting Hamer attended was life-altering. Like the other women, she probably wore a plain dress and fanned herself as she sat on one of the pews. Hamer had long, coarse black hair, which she sometimes spun into a bun or sometimes wore down. Hamer was stunned to learn that she could vote; she had not known that voting was her right. When the question was asked if anyone would make the trip to the Indianola courthouse to register to vote, Hamer was among the first to volunteer. Registering to Vote: First Attempt The bus carrying those who became known as the Indianola Eighteen—the brave individuals who were going to register to vote for the first time—was met by a group of dissenting whites at the courthouse on August 31. They probably thought their presence alone would cause the bus to turn back. Historically, white mobs meted out beatings and even death to African Americans. But there was no turning back for this group. The eighteen, Fannie Lou Hamer among them, managed to get through the crowd and enter the courthouse. But there they encountered more obstacles. They all had to provide personal information, which of course could be used against them by the White Citizen’s Council. They also had to take an excruciating literacy test. Hamer did not pass the test. On their way back home, the group was stopped and harassed by a police officer. The officer searched for any excuse—no matter how outlandish—to cause trouble for these citizens. He even threatened to arrest the driver if he did not pay a thirty dollar fine because the color of the bus was wrong. The passengers, who were willing to go to jail together if it came to that, reached down among their sparse pockets and purses and paid the fine. When Hamer returned home, she probably could not wait to tell her husband and their children about what had happened. But her children had something to tell her: Mr. Maslow, who had more than likely found out about Hamer’s trip to Indianola thanks to the questionnaire she had filled out, had ordered her to withdraw her registration application or leave the plantation where she and her husband had worked for eighteen years.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Hamer refused to withdraw her application, and she told Mr. Maslow so when he came down to see her to get her answer. This was, more than likely, the first time Hamer had ever stood up to Mr. Maslow to his face. The events that followed her defiance to Mr. Maslow’s order were like a terrifying nightmare. Hamer was forced to leave her family and move in with her friend Mrs. Tucker, one of a number of individuals who offered refuge to people who were abruptly put out of their homes. Others supplied the jobless activists with food. But Hamer’s life was in danger, and providing protection was not as easily done as sharing a meal or providing shelter. Less than two weeks after Hamer’s daring registration attempt, shots were fired at Mrs. Tucker’s. Pap feared for his wife’s safety, and Fannie Lou and her two girls moved temporarily to Tallahatchie. Hamer and the girls returned to Ruleville just two months later, and Fannie Lou resumed her involvement with the SNCC. Her first step was a leadership training conference at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. That winter she emerged as a leader in her own community. Officially, she was a field secretary-at-large for COFO, canvassing men and women for the voter registration campaign. Early Leadership The transition from cotton picker to community leader was abrupt, but Hamer was an eager student. She was, in many ways, a natural leader, and she rose effortlessly to the challenges that she faced. SNCC gave her instruction, but they did not seek to change her in any way. They could see that this woman would be an asset. She was just what they needed—someone who had expert knowledge of the problems blacks faced and was a part of the community. She was a trusted and familiar face. She was one of them, someone who already had influence with her neighbors. Most blacks were not easily persuaded to challenge whites, but Hamer was personable, convincing, and, most important, unafraid. However ready Hamer was to assume her new role as activist, it proved to be a challenge to her family. To minimize the strain on her relationship with her husband, Hamer made small but significant concessions. She kept Pap abreast of what she was doing and agreed to regularly check in with him. And Hamer was doing a lot: teaching classes, facilitating workshops, serving as an intermediary for the needy, and even fundraising. For this woman, with only six years of schooling, was good at what she did. Hamer received no income for this work, nor could she find work elsewhere. Whites did not employ activists. Her husband—simply through his association with Hamer—was barred from taking on any work. When the family moved to Lafayette Street in December 1962, they did so on the charity of friends and family. Food was supplied largely through donations

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raised by her own efforts through her involvement with SNCC. The food helped to feed not only herself, but many families in Mississippi. In that same month that the Hamers moved to their new home, Fannie Lou tried to register to vote for the second time. The following month she took the literacy test again, and this time she passed. Her name, along with all the other new voters, was published in the local paper. The newly registered voters became targets of a vicious cycle of harassment. The Hamer family received, on a daily basis, threatening phone calls, letters, and visits from white men with rifles. There were falsified bills to contend with as well, exacerbating an already difficult living situation. Finally, in 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer and other activists were arrested in Winona. What happened in that jail was one of the most terrifying events of her life. Winona Arrest Fannie Lou Hamer and seven others, three men and four women, were returning home from voter registration training in Charleston, South Carolina, when they ran into serious trouble. At the start of the trip, the bus driver became angry when the all-black group stood in line in front of whites. He pushed some of Hamer’s group to the ground, let the white passengers move to the front of the line, and then forced the blacks to sit in the back of the bus, which was unlawful. Hamer’s group tried to get the bus driver’s name, as they had been trained to do, and wrote down his badge number. His response to their protest mirrored the general reaction of southern whites to the dismantling of discriminatory, Jim Crow laws. ‘‘Niggers don’t have no civil rights,’’ he told them (Lee, 46). At subsequent stops, the driver was seen making numerous phone calls from public phones. During a layover in Winona, the trouble began. Whites—undoubtedly alerted by the driver—appeared and milled around the bus. A highway patrolman, a police chief, and a sheriff observed without providing protection to the activists. Hamer stayed on the bus, while a few of the members of the group entered a restaurant for a snack. They were refused service. The police chief and patrolman told the activists to get out. The group returned to the bus, where one of the activists suggested that they try to get information about the officers to report them. June Johnson, the youngest of the group at sixteen years old, began writing down the license number of one of the officers. The highway patrolman escalated the situation by arresting all but two of the activists (who were able to get away to get help). Hamer was roughly kicked and cursed at as she entered the police car. The violence started as soon as the activists were booked into the jail. Both Euvester Simpson and June Johnson were pounced on during the booking process. June Johnson was viciously beaten. They forced her to wash herself and her clothes to hide the evidence, but she managed to hide her underclothes, which she would later give to her mother. Poor June was

Fannie Lou Hamer

Medgar Evers Medgar Evers’ death on June 12, 1963, was one of the tragic milestones of the Civil Rights Movement and underscored the dangers of activism in that period. Evers was born on July 2, 1925, in Decatur, Mississippi. Mississippi was known to be one of the states of the Deep South where racism was its most ruthless and Jim Crow rampant. Many civil rights campaigns took place in Mississippi, but at the end of the campaign, activists normally returned home. Activists who lived and worked in Mississippi did so at incredible risk to themselves and the lives of their friends, family, and community. After serving in World War II (1941–1945), Evers returned home to Mississippi. In 1948, he studied at Alcorn State University, near Lorman, Mississippi. He married a classmate, Myrlie Beasley, in 1951, and graduated the following year. Medgar and Myrlie had three children. After graduation, Evers sold insurance and volunteered as president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, a civil rights organization. Evers led boycotts of service stations that did not allow blacks to use the restrooms. In that same year, 1952, he became the first NAACP field secretary for Mississippi. Evers’ rise to local leadership made him a target for violence. The Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens’ Council, and other racist white organizations were prevalent in the South. As Evers participated in increasingly high-profile activism, such as the enrollment of James Meredith, the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi, and civil rights demonstrations, the death threats increased. There were two threats on his life before he was, ultimately, shot from behind after climbing out of his car and heading towards the front door of his home. He died on June 12, 1963. Many were profoundly grieved, and it is of small consolation that his death brought more attention to the Civil Rights Movement. Byron De La Beckwith, a member of two white-supremacist organizations, was arrested for the murder, but not convicted until 1994. The film Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) dramatized his trial and conviction.

so badly beaten that her eye appeared to dangle from its socket. The women who saw her were horrified. This sight and the cries of pain from the others as they were beaten one by one by police officers would terrorize Hamer for the rest of her life. The attack on Hamer herself also created memories that would never fade. The officers did not do their own dirty work; they made two black prisoners beat her, while an officer watched. It was horrifying and humiliating, though the modest Hamer tried to maintain some sense of dignity by covering her legs as her dress rolled up above her waist during the assault. Physically, Hamer would never recover completely from that brutal

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experience. When a civil rights activist came to the jailhouse to investigate the conditions of the activists, he was apprehended and taken to another location, where the Ku Klux Klan tortured him. During this nightmarish experience, the activists received some small comfort. Hamer recited Scriptures from the Bible and sang inspirational songs, which the other women could hear from their cells. The jailer’s wife and daughter offered the suffering women water. If it were not for one empathetic white officer, who talked the others out of their plans to kill the activists to cover up what they had done, they might not have made it. As it was, the men contrived a plan to frame the activists with false charges. Fortunately, civil rights organizations were working feverishly to find a way to get the activists out of jail. The activists were freed three days later. SNCC and SCLC, including the legendary Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were instrumental in procuring their release. Charges were brought against the perpetrators of this inhumane act, but there was no justice to be had from the white judge and all-white jury. All the officers were acquitted of their crimes. Hamer remained in the hospital for twelve days. Over the years she would tell this horrific tale repeatedly, though with each telling she had to relive the ordeal. But she did it for the sake of the greater good, knowing what it meant to the struggle to improve the social, economic, and political life of African Americans.

MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM SUMMER AND OTHER CHALLENGES The years 1964 and 1965 were exceptionally busy for Hamer. She participated in many SNCC projects, including voter registration drives and food and clothing distribution for the poor. With Hamer, charity work was an avenue for activism. While adults collected food supplies and badly needed clothes for themselves and their children, Hamer spoke about the importance of voting and made it clear that she expected all those of voting age to register to vote. Even as Hamer pushed African Americans to register to vote, she was striving for political leadership. Since Hamer herself had first registered, she had known that she wanted to participate in politics. African Americans had not been allowed to run for political office until Reconstruction, but following that period, they were ousted from their political positions and white conservatives took over political control—to the great detriment of African Americans. Fannie Lou Hamer was one of several African Americans who stormed the iron walls of Mississippi politics. But the walls were impenetrable. In 1964, Hamer ran two times for office as a candidate for congress, and in 1971 she ran for the senate. With limited funds and a malevolent contingent of white Mississippians resisting her efforts with violence, intimidation, and harassment, Hamer did not stand a chance. But she understood the

Fannie Lou Hamer

symbolism of her travail as an African American woman and what it meant for African Americans in Mississippi who had been repressed for so long. What sustained her was her fierce determination and the possibility that her efforts would not be vain. By this time, she was not alone in the struggle, which must have been a source of strength for her. In April 1964, Hamer was among the 300 people who established the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). This party was an unprecedented response to the tyrannical and exclusive politics of conservative white Democrats who represented the interests of the affluent, landowning whites who had opposed the end of slavery. The party opened an office in Washington, D.C., where Hamer and others labored on behalf of the new party. Through the MFDP, Hamer and others would initiate an unprecedented siege on the old vanguard of white Mississippi Democrats. Testimonials Perhaps Hamer’s greatest contribution to the movement were her poignant testimonials. She gave many testimonials throughout her lifetime, and often infused testimonials in her public speeches. Testimonials were different than general speeches in that they involved giving an account of some event that the speaker had either witnessed or experienced. Hamer did both, speaking from her own experiences and on behalf of her community. Because of her itinerant canvassing throughout Mississippi (in search of both new voters and support for her campaigns) she had access to greater Mississippi, not just Sunflower County. The testimonial was not a new concept to Hamer, thanks to her habitual churchgoing. Giving testimonials and testifying were regular parts of the church service. Most of Hamer’s testimonials involved her personal experiences: losing her home and the subsequent threats on her life, as well as the horror at Winona. But she also spoke of the every day realities of impoverished and disadvantaged African Americans in Mississippi. In Witnessing and Testifying: Black Women, Religion, and Civil Rights, a distinction is made between testimonies and testifying, but both involved narrating a personal account. Testifying is described as ‘‘telling stories of divine intervention (often in a worship service) through speech.’’ Testimony is described as when ‘‘people speak truthfully about what they have experienced and seen, offering it to the community for edification of all’’ (Ross, 13, 15). As in slavery times, testimonials could be used, within a church setting, to express outrage and criticism of racists as well as the system of racism and its many manifestations, such as denied access to civil rights, protection from racist perpetrators, protection for property, and due process in a court of law. There were, however, significant differences between the testimonials that were uttered at church and those that Hamer narrated before special

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committees or public audiences. For one thing, the primary objective of the public appearance was to expose the ills African Americans suffered to mobilize support and galvanize action towards bettering conditions. Hamer was a proponent of both prayer and action, but in public, she was focused on the latter. Hamer often spoke before a predominately white audience. This presented a dilemma, for African Americans generally limited their complaints to locations that were within the safe sphere of other blacks. Fear of reprisal forced blacks, who bitterly recounted their troubles within the safe confines of a church, to appear content when in the presence of the whites who mistreated them. At church, there was no fear of repercussion for speaking unguardedly; at church, there was mutual understanding and support. When speaking outside of this sacred space, Hamer made herself vulnerable to scorn, incredulity, and danger. But she knew that speaking in public was vital to expose the atrocities that had too long been kept hidden from the public. On June 8, 1964, Hamer gave one of her first formal testimonials. She was one of several Mississippians who met before a panel of professionals, doctors, and psychologists for a hearing in Washington, D.C. Hamer spoke about her recent tragedies and made a case against the 1964 sterilization bill that allowed surgeons to forcibly sterilize poor, especially black, women, like herself, without their consent. The result of this hearing was positive. The panelists composed a letter in the hope of persuading President Lyndon B. Johnson to provide protection for the upcoming Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. A major impact of this letter was that some of its recommendations were included in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Shortly after the hearing, Hamer decided to address the unjustness of her failed political campaigns through the court system. She knew Mississippi well enough to count racism as one of the main reasons why she and other black political aspirants were unsuccessful. Racism kept the majority of African Americans away from the polls, despite SNCC’s voter registration campaigns, thus preventing them from voting for someone who would be an advocate for them. Hamer was a plaintiff in quite a few lawsuits. In 1964, she joined a group of electors to voice complaints concerning ‘‘the system of unpledged electors for the presidency,’’ ‘‘the discriminatory practice of determining black registration qualifications,’’ and ‘‘the voiding of recent precinct elections that excluded blacks’’ (Lee, 82). The case was dismissed. Lawsuits were a tool employed by a number of African Americans, most famously the NAACP, to achieve justice. But justice was elusive for most blacks, especially in a southern court of law. Mississippi Freedom Mississippi had long been considered the most adversarial southern state for civil rights activists. In the summer of 1964, activists (comprising SNCC

Fannie Lou Hamer

and CORE under the umbrella organization COFO) arrived in droves to launch a voter registration campaign, to construct Freedom Schools, and to support local leaders in the civil rights project known as the Mississippi Freedom Summer. Resistant whites were ready. Racist whites did not take kindly to outsiders, especially agitators, or ‘‘troublemakers’’ as they labeled them. That these outsiders included blacks and whites working together intensified their outrage. Whites armed themselves and terrorized the activists and the locals, whether or not they took part in the project. Violence was not the only strategy employed. Laws to ban picketing and protest literature and to establish curfews were established. A biased law enforcement establishment made sure the violent perpetrators went unpunished. By the end of that summer, there had been 6 deaths, 80 beatings, 1,000 arrests, 37 burnings of black churches, and 31 burnings and bombings of homes. Needless to say, this was a harrowing time for activists in Mississippi. The locals, Hamer included, stocked their homes and the SNCC office with guns. According to Hamer, the already tense situation was exacerbated by white women activists scouting out and consorting with African American men. Hamer felt gratitude for white participation in the project, but she fretted over the consequences of their actions. Numerous African American males had been lynched for real or imagined crimes (some as trivial as a passing glance) against white women. As part of their orientation to the South, Hamer warned many of the white women activists to be cautious. However, she continually caught them carelessly driving through black neighborhoods. For most of the summer, SNCC kept Hamer on the road, fundraising. She was a great talent in this arena. Her audiences were usually responsive, finding her personal accounts and experiences compelling. Hamer versus Racial Violence In July 1964, at COFO’s request, Hamer agreed to be one of four plaintiffs to seek protection for civil and voting rights workers in Mississippi from organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. Since the close of the Civil War, African Americans had been powerless in the face of the violence of organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. Few African Americans ventured to fight back, for they were usually outnumbered and outarmed. A legal fight had been out of the question, for the judge, jury, and attorneys, more often then not, sided with the racist organizations or with any white person if an African American was involved. Hamer and the others lost this case, but she did not lose hope. Democratic National Convention That August, Hamer anxiously anticipated another opportunity for African Americans. Sixty-eight delegates, including Fannie Lou Hamer, who had

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been elected co-chair of the MFDP, traveled to Atlantic City, New Jersey for the Democratic National Convention. Their goal was to challenge the Mississippi Democratic Party. On the first day, Hamer and the other delegates lobbied sympathetic politicians. A number of these supporters were eventually lost due to outside pressure. Several civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer, and Roy Wilkins, gave presentations before the Credentials Committee. Fannie Lou Hamer gave her testimonial as well. She retold the story of what blacks, like her, had to go through in the South to register to vote— the violence, harassment, and intimidation she faced, the eviction from the home where she had labored eighteen years, and the horror at Winona. Her testimonial bested the others and catapulted her into the highest circle of civil rights heroes. But the challenges before her remained. The same president who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and would later put his signature on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and implement a comprehensive poverty program stood as the MFDP’s greatest obstacle. The reason was clear. President Lyndon B. Johnson had much to lose by the presence and demonstrations of the MFDP. The southern Democrats had threatened a walk-out. Johnson, fearing the loss of that support, tried to undermine the MFDP with FBI surveillance, spies, and a staged press conference timed to take place while Hamer gave her testimonial. If Hamer was the face of the convention as a result of her testimony, she had limited pull behind the scenes. Though it was her voice that led supporters in protest songs on the boardwalk, out of sight the struggle raged on. It took several intense hours for the civil rights leaders to decide how to respond to the several compromises that had been proposed to their challenge to unseat the Mississippi Democrats. Hamer and Ella Baker raised their voices in favor of resistance during closed-door meetings with other civil rights leaders. Hamer had no intention of compromising in any way. She wanted the MFDP to be seated, plain and simple, whereas the civil rights leaders sided for compromise. In the end, the MFDP accepted two at-large seats and announced that they would ‘‘refuse seating to any delegation that had excluded blacks from participating in any stage of the political process’’ (Lee, 165). The MFDP delegation moved to the convention floor in protest and sang freedom songs, led by Hamer. Hamer was frustrated by the decision to compromise. To her, and to the young activists of SNCC and CORE, African Americans were always expected to compromise, to defer to whites. Compromise was synonymous with defeat. The conservative leaders, however, did not see it that way. Any win, no matter how slight, was a victory to them. But they would pay in a large way. The seeds of resentment had been planted in the hearts of the young activists and in Hamer. They began to see the conservative civil rights luminaries in a different light. When Hamer returned home, she cancelled her membership to the local NAACP.

Fannie Lou Hamer

The controversy over the compromise at the Democratic National Convention was not Hamer’s only concern. She felt belittled by some of the high-profile, well-educated, and polished leaders. Hamer was aware that she did not fit the mold expected for leaders of organizations like the SCLC or the NAACP. For one thing, her gender posed an undeniable difficulty. Also, she was not a minister, did not affect middle-class mannerisms, and had no academic credentials. For this reason, Hamer always stressed that academic degrees were not a requirement for activism. HAMER GOES TO WEST AFRICA It was a welcome reprieve to leave America that fall, following the series of bitter losses in the courtroom and at the convention. Battle-weary and scarred, Hamer traveled with an SNCC delegation to Guinea in West Africa. Guinea had been colonized by France in 1890. In 1958, the country received its independence, and France withdrew—providing no support or assistance during this transition. The SNCC delegation stayed for nearly three weeks. President Ahmed Sekou Toure hosted them graciously. The experience was inspiring and unforgettable. It also blasted negative stereotypes inflamed by society. Hamer recalled how she ‘‘saw black men flying the airplanes, driving buses, sitting behind the big desks in the bank and just doing everything that I was used to seeing white people do’’ (Hamer, 320). It was motivating to see a country that had broken away from colonial rule and advanced on its own. She marveled at how the president made time to speak with them directly. Being in Africa heightened Hamer’s pride in her heritage, as well as educated her to the astonishing similarities between Africans and her own community. For example, there were Guinean women she described as exuding enormous grace and aplomb, who balanced pails on their heads just like her mother. The Guinean physical features reminded her of her family’s, and she wondered what connection there could be between them, though she knew she would never know. Slave traders did not keep track of the origins of the slaves they brought to America. There were other similarities, too, some customs and a few melodies that resembled songs that Hamer knew or had heard sung by her mother. Hamer was deeply moved by these connections, and was often overwhelmed by strong emotions at this glimpse into the past of what might have been. RETURN TO AMERICA Freedom Vote Back in America, a reenergized Hamer returned to politics ready to face another challenge. A mock election for president and congress called the

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James Bevel The Civil Rights Movement entailed many large-scale demonstrations. Few, perhaps, are aware that most of the activists who participated in those demonstrations went through preparatory workshops and strenuous training under the supervision of experienced activists. James Bevel was one such activist. He was in town to encourage blacks to register to vote at the first meeting Fannie Lou Hamer attended, the meeting that launched her own impressive activist career in Mississippi. Bevel was also a Mississippian, having been born on October 19, 1936, in Itta Bena. After a brief stint in the navy, he studied at the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee from 1957 to 1961. In 1960, he met his first wife, Diane Nash, and joined her, along with several other students (including John Lewis), in the Nashville Student Movement. They all went through rigorous training facilitated by Reverend James Lawson, and Bevel read extensively about Mahatma Gandhi. He emerged a committed activist. Bevel went on to participate in many civil rights projects. In 1961, he led the Nashville Open Theater Movement, helped coordinate the Freedom Rides, and then returned to Mississippi to launch a voter registration campaign. After helping to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Bevel assisted directly with the controversial 1963 Children’s Crusade. This demonstration provoked criticism, most notably from President John F. Kennedy, who was upset that the SCLC permitted children to demonstrate. Bevel also made contributions in Alabama. In 1966, he redirected his efforts to the situation in Chicago, hoping to address problems blacks faced in the North. In 1969, James Bevel left the SCLC and founded the Making of a Man Clinic and the Students for Education and Economic Development. In 1995, he helped bring to life Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March in Washington.

‘‘Freedom Vote’’ was launched to provide all Mississippi citizens the opportunity to vote without harassment or intimidation—whether or not they were registered. On the ballot were five traditional Democrats and their MFDP opponents. The results were telling. Across the board, African Americans voted for MFDP candidates. Hamer won a decisive victory with 33,009 votes, while her opponent received only 59 votes. This proved that African Americans were politically interested and, if given a fair chance, would choose the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. This belied the excuse many Mississippi politicians gave ‘‘that low black registration figures were the result of apathy and ignorance’’ (Lee, 108).

Fannie Lou Hamer

Emboldened by the Freedom Vote, three women led the way for the second congressional challenge. Hamer, Annie Devine, and Victoria Gray (with the help of counsel) went to Washington, D.C. in the winter of 1964 ‘‘to unseat Mississippi representatives to Congress by arguing that the representatives-elect had ‘won’ the elections as a consequence of discriminatory voting practices’’ (Lee, 109). Hamer also continued her nonstop fundraising. While the MFDP waited for the results, Hamer’s health began to decline, and she was forced to stay at a hospital for a time to recover from exhaustion. Her relentless schedule was taking a toll. The congressional challenge continued, with MFDP members collecting evidence, assembling depositions during a forty-day period, and filing what had been collected (there were six hundred total depositions). The MFDP still needed money and support, so when Hamer was well enough, she resumed her fundraising tour. That fall, the MFDP got their anxiously awaited answer: the congressional challenge had been rejected. CHANGING COURSE For the organizations of the Civil Rights Movement, 1965 was a tumultuous year, internal tensions and intra-organizational conflicts were rife. In an effort to come to terms with the changing course of the movement, Hamer had to make adjustments. During the 1965 COFO convention, the discord between the NAACP and COFO was marked. The NAACP did not like the fact that COFO activists were not easily managed. And COFO did not want to be managed by anyone but themselves. Hamer defended the COFO activists by pointing out their merit: ‘‘How much have the people with suits done? If they, dressed up, had been here, then the kids in jeans wouldn’t be here’’ (Lee, 116). Alliances among the civil rights organizations were unraveling. SNCC parted ways with MFDP. Hamer herself was taken aback when SNCC activists declared that they wanted to oust their white members, and she was hurt when some of the members actually ‘‘denounced Hamer for being ‘no longer relevant’’’ (Lee, 138). The attack undoubtedly stung Hamer, who had sacrificed her time, her health, as well her marriage and family—and all this without pay—for the sake of SNCC. After a series of meetings in the winter of 1966, Hamer gradually detached herself from the organization. Mississippi Freedom Labor Union Hamer had aligned herself with several organizations, most notably the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union (MFLU). This organization was formed in 1965 by a handful of laborers, sharecroppers, and domestic workers who needed a movement to address their specific needs, most notably pay.

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Hamer, who had been a sharecropper and a timekeeper, and thus knew firsthand the troubles of working blacks, supported the multiple strikes and served as a spokesperson on more than one occasion during their demonstrations. She also helped to fundraise. Behind the success of most organizations was a face, and Hamer, a major civil right figure, lent hers to their cause. This brought instant legitimacy to the fledgling organization. The MFLU, in turn, helped out Hamer when she needed it. The MFLU provided assistance to her for her MFDP work and for various social welfare and community-empowering programs, such as black-owned co-ops. The MFLU, however, was short-lived, lasting barely into the winter of 1965. The difficult winter, along with money problems, contributed to the premature disbanding of the group. Special Elections A 1965 lawsuit, Hamer v. Campbell, resulted in more work for her. The case involved the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled that Cecil Campbell, a Sunflower County registrar, had obstructed blacks from registering to vote. Hamer had seen this registrar before. He was the one she had encountered when she had first attempted to register to vote. Hamer and others sued the county: ‘‘specifically, they requested that the poll tax be suspended and that the upcoming municipal elections be delayed until more blacks had a chance to register’’ (140). Hamer lost this case, but when she appealed, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in her favor. The state appealed the court’s decision, but, on an autumn day in 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered special elections in Moorhead and Sunflower to be held on May 2, 1967. Hamer had seldom felt the sweet and breathless joy of victory. This was a critical moment. She immediately planned her fundraising tour. She went on the radio and appeared on TV. In Mississippi, she went from door to door to canvass for support for the MFDP candidates and to simply encourage blacks to register. As she met with men and women, and spoke before curious audiences, Hamer must have felt a new and different exhilaration. This time the MFDP ‘‘candidates had money, the law, national attention, and enormous moral support’’ (Lee, 142). This time could be different. When the results of the election were announced, she was crushed. Not one MFDP candidate won. Hamer filed a new suit against the new registrar, and lost again. Hamer was still not disillusioned, nor had she depleted her reserves of courage—not even after her daughter, Dorothy, died a few short weeks after the blow of the election loss. Dorothy’s death was a tragedy, one that can be attributed to the harsh realities of Jim Crow. Dorothy had had health problems for most of her life. When, in June 1967, Hamer found Dorothy in terrible condition, worse than she had ever been before, she rushed her to the nearest hospital. The

Fannie Lou Hamer

hospital turned mother and daughter away, because it did not admit blacks. Fretting and anxious, Hamer raced to the nearest ‘‘black’’ hospital—more than one hundred miles away. As they neared the entrance to the hospital, Dorothy died. Hamer’s pain over the death of her daughter was deep. She found strength in friends, family, the church, and her work. She did not run for office this time, but assisted other MFDP candidates, achieving some success. 1968 Congressional Challenge The 1968 political challenge was a collaborative effort between the MFDP and the Loyalist Democrats, comprising members from the Mississippi Young Democrats, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the Prince Hall Masons, and the black Mississippi Teachers Association. Hamer’s issue with this coalition was her fear that Mississippi poor would get sidelined—or worse, ignored. When the new group was elected and took over the regular delegation seats at the Democratic National Convention, Hamer was pleased but still uneasy. Poverty Programs Hamer was involved in two poverty programs of her own. Needless to say, her undying interest in helping the poor stemmed from her own struggles in childhood and adulthood as well as her firsthand knowledge of the plight of other rural African Americans. Her experiences giving food and clothes to the poor through her involvement with SNCC bolstered her confidence in undertaking a program of her own. The first program, called the Associated Communities of Sunflower County (ACSC), was started sometime in 1965. This organization had trouble from the start. Competition among poverty organizations, particularly those like Hamer’s, which needed funding for Head Start programs, was high. These organization had to vie for attention from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), a by-product of President Johnson’s War on Poverty program. At the time, the OEO was a hot resource for funding for organizations in Mississippi. And it appeared that all of them—except for Hamer’s—received funding. As with her protest work, Hamer was not timid in fighting for her organization. She wrestled with OEO until, in 1967, she received a grant for her own Head Start Center. But on the heels of that victory came further setback. To Hamer’s dismay, she was forced to run her organization under the Sunflower County Progress, Inc. (SCPI). Hamer was no fan of the SCPI. In her words, the individuals who ran the organization were ‘‘middle-class bourgeoisie’’ and ‘‘Uncle Toms’’ (Lee, 146). From another perspective, the SCPI board represented a gallant

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demonstration of interracial collaboration. But it is true that there was little else in the way of economic diversity within the organization. That proved problematic, because Hamer felt snubbed again, as she had when she worked with the NAACP. Hamer’s other issue with the SCPI leadership was that they ‘‘had no love for those with a history of civil rights activism’’ (Lee, 146). Hamer protested the exclusion of activists like herself from the decision-making process. Hamer was admitted to the board in 1966, but she apparently did not go to any meetings. She blamed the board for this, accusing them of barring her from the meetings. The board insisted that they had not. As a result, she was not voted back onto the board in 1967. In the following year, her organization was closed down by the SCPI. The demonstrations and public protests she mounted to contest this did not change the situation. The OEO finally resolved the conflict between Hamer, the SCPI, and other poverty organizations in 1971 by requiring that all of them merge into one. In 1968 and 1969, Hamer toured various colleges and universities to support their campus protest activities and to impart her wisdom, experiences, and legacy to those who had watched the movement unfold in the media. She traveled to institutions throughout the country, such as Harvard University, Seattle University, Duke University, and Carleton College in Minnesota. The Freedom Farms Corporation, established in 1969, became Hamer’s pride and joy. The purpose of this project was to create and sustain self-sufficiency within African American communities. And this time, Hamer was going to find financial support through independent sources, rather than the government. She did not want anyone telling her how to manage her organization. This plan worked to her favor, as well as to the favor of a significant number of Mississippi’s poor—both black and white. With the help of Joseph Harris, a shrewd business partner, the Freedom Farm enjoyed much success. There was a board of directors and paid staff. Farmer served as assistant director and fundraiser, for which she received steady income. Hamer’s vision for the corporation resulted in several farreaching programs that addressed major issues concerning the welfare of the poor, such as the need for food, quality education, housing, business development, and disaster assistance. This was by any definition a progressive welfare program—one that would assist traditional two-parent households as well as numerous singleparent homes. Hamer resolved the issue of finding a reliable food source without having to depend on the benevolence of strangers. To kick-start this project, Hamer accepted the donation of pigs from the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). She implemented a pig bank which worked in this way: Families were given a pregnant pig, which they were required to return after a litter was born. The family then donated two pregnant pigs to another family. In 1973, some nine hundred households benefited from the pig bank.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Other programs included the purchase of land for vegetables to enrich the diet of the community; the acquisition and construction of affordable homes for locals dwelling in tattered shacks; the distribution of educational grants for high school students going on to college; and business loans and grants, and even disaster relief, such as one in 1971 when a tornado devastated a portion of Sunflower County. Hamer also utilized the Freedom Farm to carry out protest work. From time to time, a boycott or some other demonstration was launched when white businesses mistreated African American customers. Hamer was indebted to a number of sources for the health of the Freedom Farm. Among those were ordinary individuals, and famous individuals such as Harry Belafonte, groups from Harvard, organizations such as Measure for Measure out of Wisconsin, the National Council of Negro Women, socialists, and the American Freedom from Hunger Foundation. An appearance on the widely popular Phil Donahue Show carried her message to an even broader audience. During this period Hamer stayed busy (and happily so). But she still made time for new projects and political aspirations. In 1970, Hamer led the way to a victory against Sunflower County school officials. In Hamer et al. v. Sunflower County, school officials were forced to integrate local schools and to hire black teachers. The following year involved more speaking out against senseless killings against blacks and a not-so-surprising announcement for her run for the senatorial race, this time as an independent; all the while, she kept her Freedom Farm going. Jo Etha Collier On May 25, 1971, graduation night, Jo Etha Collier, a stellar student and athlete, joined some friends in front of a local store. A pick-up truck carrying three whites passed by the store. One of the passengers shot Jo Etha, who crumpled to the ground. She died that night. Charges were filed then dropped against two of the men. Wesley Parks was sentenced to five years in prison, but was discharged after less than three years. Hamer was quick to respond to this outrage. She consoled the mother and publicly denounced the perpetrators, averring that justice had not been served in the cruel murder of Jo Etha. When Ruleville and Drew demonstrators were arrested, Hamer went to the mayor and negotiated their release. National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) In the summer of 1971, Hamer attended the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC). One of the main objectives of this group was to encourage the involvement of women in politics and employment in the government.

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Since Hamer planned to run for U.S. senate, the participation in the NWPC seemed like a logical move. But there were issues to be worked out. Historically, feminist groups in America were largely dominated by white women, and the NWPC was no different. The reality of women’s organizations was that white and black women did not mingle much. Long-standing traditions, Jim Crow culture (depending on location), and simple preference were among the reasons why. As a result, white women and African American women organized separately, with the exception of some groundbreaking clubs that formed specifically to break with custom. With the rise of feminism in the early nineteenth century, African American women held back. The issues white women raised did not address those of African American women, who contended with both racism and sexism and whose histories yielded distinctly different problems. African American women eventually laid the foundation for black feminism in the late 1960s, but as a modern construct black feminism did not attract traditionally minded black women, who did not identify themselves with the feminist label. Hamer was one of these women. Hamer was at odds with feminism on at least two counts. White feminists advocated abortion; Hamer was against it. Regarding gender discrimination and inequality, Hamer felt equal to men in her community as both a leader and a laborer. She had been a leader for SNCC and had directed various projects on her own. As a laborer, she had been expected to help contribute to her family’s income. She and her husband had toiled side by side in the fields. White feminists sought to challenge the traditional role of the stay-athome wife and caretaker. This was an irrelevant issue for Hamer and other African American women. These ideological differences did not prevent Hamer from engaging in a working relationship with the NWPC. Black representatives within the National Women’s Political Caucus formed a black caucus, in which Hamer participated. She was among the women who drew up an antiracism resolution to address racially insensitive comments that had been made by some of the white women and to ensure that the NWPC maintained inclusivity. The national organization was responsive, passing the black caucus’ resolution and endorsing Hamer when she announced her run for political office. During Hamer’s campaign, she presented herself as a crusader for the poor and promoted a composite of the issues she had fought for in her lifetime: welfare programs, voter registration and election law, and support for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She also brought attention to that year’s shame: the poor reaction of authorities to Jo Etta’s murder. Hamer had the support of the NWPC, and several women helped scour the black communities to encourage blacks to register and to cast their vote for Hamer. They hung posters at key locations. These posters showed, between the words ‘‘sincere’’ and ‘‘capable’’ a close-up of Hamer, grave-faced and

Fannie Lou Hamer

adorned with drop earrings and a necklace, her hair swathed in a glossy bun on the crown of her head. Hamer was very ill during that campaign. After she lost the election, her health continued to deteriorate. She suffered from heart problems, depression, hypertension, diabetes, and would later be afflicted with breast cancer. In 1973, she had a nervous breakdown and suffered miserably while on a lecture tour. With the failure of the Freedom Farm in 1974, due to financial woes and various program disappointments, Hamer’s financial situation worsened. But she pressed onward, participating in the Loyalist Party and even attempting, to no avail, to get elected to a leadership position. However, in 1972, she was given a delegate seat. Some wondered if she would be well enough to carry out her duties. As Hamer’s physical condition worsened, great pains were made to celebrate the life and legacy of this remarkable woman. In Ruleville, October 31 was made Fannie Lou Hamer Day. She received numerous humanitarian and service awards from African American organizations. Hamer appreciated the attention, but felt that her life was coming to a close. The daily pain she suffered kept her home most of the time. Anyone who happened to stop by to see Hamer in the last few years of her life observed a dramatically different person. She was solemn, withdrawn, and in constant pain. Despite this her singing filled her home, though her voice lacked the robustness of bygone days. And this time she sang to comfort herself. She departed this world on March 14, 1977. She was sixty-five years old. See also James Farmer; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and Roy Wilkins. FURTHER RESOURCES Dittmer, John. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Hamer, Fannie Lou, ‘‘To Praise Our Bridges,’’ Mississippi Writers: Reflections of Childhood and Youth, Vol. II, edited by Dorothy Abbott. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986, pp. 321–330. Lee, Chana Kai. For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Urbana: University Press of Illinois, 1999. Mills, Kay. This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. New York: Dutton, 1993. Ross, Rosetta E. Witnessing and Testifying: Black Women, Religion, and Civil Rights. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2003.

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Dorothy Height (1912– )


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The Hat If This Hat Could Talk is the title of a unique musical produced by VanJo Productions in 2005. It portrays the heroic life of Dorothy Height and her activism, and features other prominent figures from the Civil Rights Movement such as Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, and Mary McLeod Bethune. The title refers to Height’s famous custom of wearing elegant, colorful, and full-bodied hats. The hat is a long-standing tradition in African American churches, particularly in the South. As a result of the migrations that brought blacks from the South to the North, the tradition is in evidence all across the country. The ‘‘church hat’’ has come to have such a mystique that Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry published a book of photographs on the subject, entitled Hat-itude (2000). As the book title suggests, there is a certain attitude that comes with wearing a good hat. Black women who wear them tend to be churchgoing, mature, and extraordinarily self-composed. Hat-wearing sometimes denotes social class; it takes a certain economic status to spend money on such an extravagant accessory. Or it may indicate other accomplishments, such as educational status (many black women who go to college or university in the South belong to a sorority, and sorority sisters are notoriously involved in community outreach and uplift). In addition to making a fashion statement, hats add dignity and regalness to a people who have been historically denigrated. Height’s legacy added a new dimension to hat wearing. As a venerated leader in the black community, a churchgoer, and the chair of the National Council of Negro Women (in her nineties, no less), she does not look the part of a ‘‘radical activist.’’ But her activism, particularly within the YWCA and during the Civil Rights Movement, made her one of the most famous radical African American women of all time. The activists who mobilized blacks to register to vote in the Deep South during the 1960s wore overalls, and the militant youth of the Black Power Movement pushed Afrocentric attire. Height’s wonderful hats helped her to show that radicalness is not reserved for the casually or ethnically dressed!

Dorothy Height was the president of the National Council of Negro Women between 1957 and 1997 and the only woman member of the Civil Rights Big Six. She is currently the chairperson of the executive committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. In recent pictures, Height, a nonagenarian, appears as the epitome of class and dignity. Attired in her sumptuous hats, pearls, and dress suits, she is venerable and regal. In 2004, in the Mumford Room at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., she lectured before a rapt audience on the historic

Dorothy Height

struggle for civil rights. She brings the perspective of a woman who had been there, toiling in the Civil Rights Movement as one of its few visible female leaders, braving a very hostile and intolerant world with grace and style. In the picture on the cover of her memoir, Open Wide the Freedom Gates, Height is smart, elegant, earnest, and youthful. She wears strands of pearls and pearl earrings; her hair is curled and polished. Her look is conventional, staid, and conservative. And yet as we learn from the pages of her book, Height was unorthodox, challenging racism in a time when to do so, particularly in the South, labeled her a troublemaker. Many activists were ostracized by their communities and even their families, physically assaulted, or lost their jobs, their homes, and even their lives for speaking out against discrimination, segregation, and racism. Height found a way to avert the repercussions associated with her activism while working out in the field: she worked discreetly, under the cover of anonymity. Many women’s organizations of the times did the same. One of the downsides of this tactic was that they did not receive the media attention that other individuals and organizations garnered. This gave the appearance that women did not play a vital role in the struggle for civil rights. As a civil rights leader, diversity and leadership trainer, and community builder, Height played many roles in her lifetime. She advocated for African Americans, women, and the poor. Starting out as a caseworker in New York City, Height quickly proved herself to be a natural and capable leader. In 1937, she became an assistant director of the Harlem YWCA. She was one of the major leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, and her image was captured time and time again alongside her male counterparts, other women of import, and several U.S. presidents. In her high-profile position, she gave visibility and voice to women’s concerns and issues. CHILDHOOD Dorothy Height was not supposed to live past the age of sixteen. When Dorothy was twelve years old, a specialist examined her to determine what was causing her toe to ache. Height gave no diagnosis of her ailment in her autobiography, but she explained how the doctor told her mother that Dorothy would live, at best, for another four years. Before the pain started in her toe, Dorothy struggled with asthma during most of her early childhood, which made simple activities such as sleeping and sitting in a classroom extremely uncomfortable. One teacher excused Height from participating in class discussions and activities. But Height overcame both issues. In regard to the doctor’s prognosis, Dorothy told her mother, ‘‘I’m going to live a long time.’’ (Height, 10). She rejected the doctor’s prognosis, just as she, irritably, objected to not being allowed to participate in class. As if by will (without any prescription from the doctor), her pain eventually faded away, and before long her teacher

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called on her as much as, if not more than, the other students. As Dorothy grew older, her childhood asthma went away. Height’s stubbornness, willfulness, and tenacity were the mainstays of her life. Dorothy Irene Height was born on March 24, 1912, in Richmond, Virginia. Both her parents had been married twice before, and as a result, Dorothy had a host of half-siblings: Golden, Minnie, Willie, Bennie, Jessie, and Josephine. She also had one full sister: Anthanette. Height’s family was extremely close and enjoyed a comfortable living. Father James was an enterprising building and painting contractor, and mother Fannie was a nurse. When Height was four years old, her father decided that the North would provide more money-making opportunities, and so they moved to Rankin, Pennsylvania. Though there were many advantages to living there, Fannie had to change occupations, as blacks were not allowed to work in the hospitals in Rankin. She worked as a domestic or housekeeper instead. Rankin was an industrial town, with a large immigrant population of Italians, Croatians, Germans, Jews, Hungarians, Polish, Czechoslovakians, and other ethnic groups. Height recalled in her memoir that this contributed to a very diverse childhood experience. Although African Americans were still considered, socially and otherwise, beneath the immigrants, everyone, for the most part, got along well. This was especially commendable given the numerous cultural, racial, and religious differences. There were other benefits to growing up in Rankin. Height attended integrated schools. Her parents provided her with a comfortable lifestyle and a nice home, bypassing the ramshackle, crowded dwellings most blacks occupied. Height was given a meaningful education at the Emmanuel Baptist Church and school, and she was exposed to and involved in organizations for women and girls. Discipline and training played an important role in the Height home. Dorothy was chided by her mother when she laughed at a boy who had trouble remembering his part for an Easter presentation at church. Dorothy, a high achiever, declared proudly that she had memorized her part flawlessly. ‘‘If you are all that smart,’’ her mother replied, ‘‘why didn’t you help Herbert?’’ (Height, 15). This was an important lesson, one that would become a major motif in Height’s life work: helping and bringing out the best in others. Her father also set a good example in this regard. Height recalled that newly arrived African Americans always sought him out first when they were looking for work. Dorothy soon found that she liked to help others, and she made it a habit to do so every time she had the chance. Once she went to the home of her friend Maria after school to help her with her part in a school speech. Maria was from Italy and had difficulty enunciating English. But on the day of her presentation, she was applauded.

Dorothy Height

Height learned at a young age to strive for excellence in all things. Fannie Height encouraged Dorothy to best herself, not others. Dorothy’s academic grades were stellar, which also contributed to her confidence. Dressing well was another way Dorothy projected her sense of accomplishment and pride. Clothes made her feel good about herself and also appeared to influence how others treated her. Dorothy built up her wardrobe with the help of an affluent white family for which Fannie Height did housekeeping. Most of the women Dorothy knew wore neat and respectable clothes and paid attention to the way they carried themselves. Women were a major influence in Dorothy’s life. She had a number of positive role models who helped define her identity as an individual, as a woman, and as a part of a community. Dorothy’s mother provided an intimate model of what strong womanhood looked like. Fannie Height was a mother, a wife, and a staunch advocate of women’s organizing power at church and in the Pennsylvania Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. Other individuals who had an impact on Dorothy as she grew up included a black woman named Maude Coleman, who was a member of the state legislature, and Luella Adams, a white woman, who was in charge of the Rankin Christian Center. Women’s clubs were popular elsewhere in the nation, not just in Dorothy’s community. During this period, these clubs provided opportunities for socialization, reform, self-improvement, community building, and leadership. Ironically, Height, an icon of such organizations, wrote that attending women’s church meetings and state and national meetings of the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs was an unwelcome chore during her childhood, when she would have preferred playing with her friends. But her mother insisted. She wanted her daughter to be a part of something that would not only advance her own status in the community but would benefit others. The women in Dorothy’s community were always entrenched in some important work or other, whether it was baking and cooking for a fundraiser, taking care of the sick and shut-in, or supporting one another in times of trouble. And so Dorothy went, dawdling and complaining all the way. The Emmanuel Baptist Church was also a busy place. Most blacks in the community attended this church. Dorothy’s father held multiple roles, as deacon, superintendent of the Sunday school, and choirmaster. Dorothy performed as important function as the ‘‘go-fer,’’ the one who was called upon to do various small tasks for the church, such as helping the women who formed the Church Missionary Society with the chicken dinners. Though Height had a healthy, positive upbringing, she did recall incidences of racism in her childhood. Her first encounter was traumatic: Dorothy was eight years old when Sarah, her best friend, an Irish girl, with whom she daily walked, hand-in-hand, to school and back, told her she could not play with her anymore, because she was a nigger. Dorothy was devastated. Sobbing, she turned to her mother, who tried to console her by telling her how

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wonderful she was and reminding her how many other friends she had. She also told her that her young friend did not understand what she was saying. Indeed, Dorothy had a host of other friends in the community to count on, one of the most important being a white woman named Luella Adams. Adams belonged to the American Baptist Home Mission Society. She came to Rankin in the early 1920s to launch a fundraising campaign to build the Rankin Christian Center (she would be the director), established to reach out to the large immigrant population. When the building was erected in 1923, it included a chapel, a gym, and a nursery, but blacks were only allowed entrance one day a week. This policy would change thanks to a suggestion Dorothy made to Adams. The white children in the nursery frequently made a lot of noise. To occupy them, Dorothy suggested that she provide them with other activities, like bible-story telling and play performances. Despite the one-day-a-week rule, Adams permitted Dorothy to take charge of the children. Dorothy was driven to succeed, a fact that she demonstrated in myriad ways in her childhood. In addition to taking care of the children at the nursery, she started a business giving music lessons. At twelve years old, Height wound a piece of string tightly around the toe that had caused her so much trouble to distract her from her pain. Eventually the pain went away. At thirteen, Dorothy attended a very important address, where Maude Coleman, member of the state legislature, spoke before the girls’ group of the state federation. Height recalled that her ‘‘words haunted me, so I found a way to get [a copy of her speech]’’ (Height, 7). High school brought with it a new set of experiences, some that were rewarding, others that exposed Height to racism and left her frustrated and feeling uncomfortable and powerless. She was the president of the Girl Reserves Club (which was associated with the YWCA), a member of the Junior Missionary Society, and played on two basketball teams at Rankin Christian Center and Rankin High School. Among her other extracurricular activities were debating and singing. When, one day, she and some other African American girls were forbidden to go swimming at the Chatham street YWCA, she questioned the administrators at the YWCA, as well as the leaders of the African American branch of the YWCA. Their defense and acceptance of the system of the Jim Crow rules governing the swimming pool usage only upset her more. On another occasion, when a rival basketball team in the South refused to play against Height’s team because there were three blacks on it, Height recalled that they were all ‘‘upset, but there was nothing we could do’’ (Height, 18). Height’s white peers rallied successfully behind her in another instance. When she and another friend (African American) composed the words and music for the school song, the new principal, Mr. Straitiff, attempted to prevent her from leading the school in the singing of it at assembly, though it had been her custom to do so. When the students of the predominately

Dorothy Height

white Rankin High School spontaneously protested by refusing to stand and to sing without Dorothy, the principal gave in. At fifteen, Dorothy, along with Mr. Straitiff and Mary Mohr, who taught Latin, went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to participate in the state finals for an Impromptu Speech Contest. It was an especially proud moment for Height and for everyone else in her community. Her mom made a special white dress for the occasion. But when the three attempted to check in at a Harrisburg hotel, they were told that they were could not stay there, because blacks were not allowed at the establishment. Neither Ms. Mohr or Mr. Straitiff (who were both white) had ever been rebuffed in this way. It was a compelling moment, one that offers a glimpse into black life in the early twentieth century. Dorothy quickly rebounded from the incident and suggested an alternative: they could eat somewhere else, and she would change into her dress in the restroom where the speech contest was being held. The subject of the contest was the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact, an attempt to outlaw war between France and the United States. When Height mounted the podium, in her special white dress, she was composed, despite the experience at the hotel. Height took advantage of the moment to expose the unjustness of Jim Crow by relating the event that had occurred earlier that day at the hotel, tying it into the theme of outlawing war. Dorothy left Harrisburg the Pennsylvania State Champion. Her high school was exhilarated. Mr. Straitiff called a special school assembly in her honor. An article about her win was published in the yearbook. These were among the first of many public accolades Dorothy would receive in her lifetime. In her junior year, Height was elected class secretary. She went to her class prom with a Croatian who was the class president. In 1929, she graduated with expectations of college and a career as a psychiatrist.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY To finance her college education, Height and her friends held a church concert and Height herself entered an oratorical contest sponsored by the Elks, speaking about the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Height received the Elks scholarship, but not without some controversy. A young white man argued that he was the actual winner of the contest, and his sponsor took his word over Height’s. Height called the judge who had declared her the winner, and he confirmed her win. Height went on to establish and become a member of an Elks club in New York after graduating from college. Height wanted to attend Barnard College, but she was turned away because the school had already met its quota of two black students for that academic year. Backed by a glowing letter from Mr. Straitiff and excellent grades, Height was admitted on the spot to New York University (NYU).

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Despite living in a progressive city, Height had many challenges to deal with. First, she had to reconsider her career path. After taking some courses in religion, one of her professors cautioned her, explaining that due to limited roles for women in the church, she would not have many opportunities for work or advancement. Height also had to contend with limitations based on her race on campus. Due to exceptional grades, Height received one invitation after another to join the various sororities on campus. However, it was clear that the sororities did not realize she was African American, for black women were barred from campus sororities. Nonetheless, Height showed up at a number of rush parties, partly out of curiosity and partly out of a sense of mischief. The responses were varied. Some of the white women at the parties were embarrassed by her presence and having to explain to Height that she had received the invitation by mistake. Others had no problems letting Height know that she was not allowed at the white-only affair. Height and some other African American women attempted to establish a black sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, but there were not enough of them that met the school’s criteria. The Great Depression presented another challenge. Although the effects of it were felt everywhere, Height managed to get along fairly easily. By living with her sister and her family, she saved money. She supplemented her four-year scholarship with money she made from an assortment of jobs, such as tutoring, writing obituaries, waitressing, working in a clothing factory, and proofreading Marcus Garvey’s Negro World. Garvey, along with his endorsement of black pride and nationalism, was popular with a number of African Americans, particularly among the working class. Despite the challenges Height personally experienced or those that affected the world around her, she made a happy and productive life for herself on and off campus. She joined a study group composed of another African American woman and several Jewish men. African Americans played an important role for Height on this predominately white campus. Height wrote that ‘‘there was a spirited camaraderie among us at NYU. [The black population of students] was small. Maybe that’s why we stuck together and looked out for each other’’ (Height, 34). One of the projects Height and some of the other black students participated in was the establishment of the Ramses Club to learn more and engage in conversation about their culture. They attended lectures and readings by famous African Americans, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and others. Height had come to New York during an exciting time for African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance, as it is known, lasted well into the 1930s. During this period, African American poets, artists, musicians, and writers reigned supreme. Height knew the names of some of the hottest performers and where to find them. Height’s diligence in her academic life paid off. In 1932, she received her B.A. in psychology after three years of college. In 1933, she received her M.A., also in psychology.

Dorothy Height

YOUNG ADULTHOOD Social Work Height’s professional career took off immediately after graduation. In the poverty-ridden city, there were numerous opportunities for Height to provide assistance to the large immigrant and African American populations. While in graduate school, Height volunteered at the Brownsville Community Center, a nonprofit agency that targeted boys of Jewish, Italian, and African American ethnicity in Brooklyn. She was offered a paid position supervising volunteers. Height received extra pay teaching religion classes at Columbia University and at Friends Seminary. In her free time, she volunteered for the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities. It did not take long for her employers to take notice of the professional, empathetic, and highly energetic young woman. Because of this, Height received a steady flow of offers for new employment and promotions. Through her volunteer work with the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, she was hired as an investigator for the Home Relief Bureau and called on to help provide assistance to welfare recipients. She was one of few African Americans at the bureau, and her work was exceptional. Welfare work was not just a job. Height’s caring nature propelled her to seek solutions for every case that came her way, no matter how big or small. In a short period of time, Height was promoted to special investigator, unit supervisor over a team of special investigators, and then personnel supervisor over all the central-office services. In the latter position, she was responsible for such duties as recruiting, hiring, and managing thousands of employees. She was regularly consulted in matters pertaining to race relations. Height’s promotion to personnel supervisor came largely as a result of a riot that broke out in 1935. The melee was sparked by a rumor that a white officer had assaulted an African American youth, an alleged shoplifter. Mayor LaGuardia created a special committee to investigate the source of that violence. Among the findings of that study was a strong sense of discontent in the African American community with the fact that the central office of the Home Relief Bureau was mostly white. As in many other urban cities, there was a pressing need for staff, especially decision makers, that reflected the ethnicity of the community. People were needed who could address, identify with, and represent the needs and concerns of its residents. Height took pride in using her new, influential position to increase the number of African American men and women hired to work for the bureau. The Youth Movement and Activism Throughout the 1930s, Height was heavily involved with the United Christian Youth Movement, the Harlem Youth Council, the New York State

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Christian Youth Council, the American Youth Congress, and the National Youth Congress. At the core of these organizations was activism, whether it took the form of discussions or actual agitation. Through her involvement with the Harlem Youth Council and the Harlem Christian Youth Council, Height was introduced to activism. One of her major contributions to African American protest during this time was her role in the establishment of the United Youth Committee Against Lynching, which had reached epidemic proportions. This campaign drew its members from the Harlem Youth Council and youth from the NAACP and other organizations. Height wrote that whenever there was a lynching anywhere in the country, the NAACP headquarters at Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street downtown would hang out a black sign with white letters: ‘‘Man Was Lynched Today.’’ When that sign went up, we would call the member organizations, put on black armbands, take out our ‘‘Stop Lynching’’ buttons, and march around Forty-second Street and Times Square chanting ‘‘Stop the lynching.’’ (Height, 62)

When the United Christian Youth Movement took part in a youth conference in Ohio in 1935, the main debate was whether Christians should protest. There were two main camps of Christian thought on this issue: those who believed it was appropriate for Christians to engage in activism and those who did not. In 1936, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a black congressman and popular minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, established the Coordinating Committee for Employment. The goal of this campaign was to force local businesses to hire African Americans, against whom businesses routinely discriminated. Powell instituted civil rights training and assigned groups of protestors to different businesses. Dorothy Height belonged to the group that targeted Symphony Sam’s Record Shop. When the owner refused to consider the demands she and her group presented, they picketed. Demonstrations, like these, had a high success rate. In 1937, it became clear to Height that she wanted to make her extracurricular work her full-time job. It so happened that a friend of hers was stepping down as the youth director for the Greater New York Federation of Churches. Height eagerly accepted this job. Shortly thereafter, she was chosen to be one of the delegates to go to Oxford University in England. Height and the other delegates were introduced to the prime minister, the queen, the archbishop of Canterbury, and other clergy and esteemed theologians and scholars. Height had to do some damage control during this trip. A number of people she encountered had never met a black person before. All they knew about African Americans was what was depicted in the media, and that was influenced by stereotypes and racism. Height found that most of the English were concerned about conditions for blacks in America. In spite of America’s flaws, Height was and remains patriotic.

Dorothy Height

Mary S. Ingraham Mary Shotwell Ingraham was the president of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) from 1940 to 1946, and was a highly esteemed friend and advisor to Dorothy Height in the early years of her career. Born in Brooklyn, New York on January 5, 1887, Mary Shotwell was a one of a band of pioneering women who managed to meld marriage, motherhood, career, and community involvement. She was at the vanguard of those who fought bravely to desegregate the YWCA. Before women’s suffrage, Shotwell entered college, graduating with an A.B. from Vassar College in 1908. After marrying Henry Andrews Ingraham, she bore four children: Mary Alice, Henry Gardner, Winifred Andrews, and David. Ingraham was a leader in numerous organizations and progressive works. She was the chair of the Young Women’s Christian Association of Brooklyn, New York from 1915 to 1922. She became vice president of the National Board of the YWCA in 1922, and served as president almost two decades later. In the 1930s, Ingraham was the vice president and director of the New York Council on Adult Education, vice chairman of the Brooklyn Council for Social Planning, and vice president and director of the Central Volunteer Bureau. During the Second World War (1941–1945), Ingraham was one of the leaders who worked to integrate women into the armed forces by helping to recruit women officers for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). Following the war, she was instrumental in integrating African American women into the YWCA. Ingraham’s unreserved acceptance of blacks may in part have to do with the fact that she was a Quaker. Historically, the Quakers were known to be progressive with regard to their denouncement of slavery and women’s roles in society. Quakers were one of the few religious groups to permit women to be ministers in the colonial period (as early as the 1650s). A large number of Quaker women were involved in the women’s rights movement of the nineteenth century. This was the legacy into which Mary S. Ingraham was born, and which she passed on to her own children. Mary Alice (Mary Ingraham Bunting) received her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in agricultural bacteriology (1934) and became president of Radcliffe College, an allwomen’s institution in Cambridge Massachusetts from 1959 to 1972. Mary S. Ingraham died in 1981.

WOMEN’S WORK For a large contingent of contemporary white feminists, ‘‘women’s work’’ is a phrase saturated with negative connotations. Traditionally women were restricted to the home, as homemakers, caregivers, and nurturers. Women were supposed to keep silent, and for a long time they were prohibited from

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wearing pants. It was not until 1995 that women in California were legally allowed to wear pants in the workplace. Height both challenged and fortified some of the issues surrounding women’s roles and traditions. She would remain single all of her life, choosing work over the social expectation to marry and bear children. But she did not denigrate women who married and had children. In fact, she endeavored to support them in their roles as wives and mothers. Of supreme importance to Height was that whatever a woman chose to do she did it well and with a sense of responsibility for her own well-being as well as that of the community at large. In this way, women’s organizations and work to better the community transformed and celebrated traditional caretaking and homemaking. Height made ‘‘women’s work’’ a lifelong activity. Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) In 1937, Height became the assistant director of the Harlem YWCA. One of her jobs was to oversee the counselors at the Emma Ransom House, which provided affordable temporary lodging for newly arrived young African American women from the South. The alternative was to face homelessness or the horror of what was known as the ‘‘Bronx slave market.’’ This was a section of the city where white women went to find domestic help in a recruitment process reminiscent of the slave block. According to Height, white women would ‘‘look them over, select one, and drive her home to work. The women were mercilessly exploited and offered very low pay— and even that was often withheld’’ (Height, 81). Height recalled that during a testimonial she gave at City Hall to protest the Bronx slave market, she was questioned on the use of the term, which was considered presumptuous and overly sensitive. To many African American locals, the term was more than appropriate. But Height’s creditable testimonial, as well as others given that day, did not have an effect on city officials. Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt On November 7, 1937, Height met Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt for the first time. Bethune was one of the most eminent black women of the early twentieth century. Although she was not tall, she had a forcefulness about her that exuded from her dark, distinguished face, her steel-gray hair, and her uncanny ability to draw skillful people like Height into her fold. Just two years prior, Bethune had founded and became the leader of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). Back in 1904, she founded a school that became Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida, of which she served as the president from 1923 to 1942 and from 1946 to 1947. She also played an integral role in the election campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

Dorothy Height

Mary McLeod Bethune Mary McLeod Bethune was the founding president of the National Council of Negro Women as well as a mentor and friend to Dorothy Height. But that does not even begin to describe Bethune’s exploits, which were numerous and beyond heroic. Born on July 19, 1875, in Mayesville, South Carolina, Bethune was one of seventeen children born to parents who had been slaves. In the South, there were virtually no opportunities—political, economic, or otherwise—available to blacks. Poverty and oppression were the norm. But Bethune transcended the trappings of her limited environment by earning a scholarship to attend Scotia Seminary, a high school in North Carolina (most blacks in the South received, at most, an eighth-grade education). After graduating, she became the only black to attend the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. In the wake of her graduation from Moody in 1895, McLeod taught for several years at various schools and institutes, such as the Presbyterian Mission School in Mayesville, South Carolina, Haines Institute in Augusta, Georgia, and Kendall Institute in Sumter, South Carolina. In 1898, she married Albertus Bethune, and gave birth to their son, Albert, the following year. But McLeod wanted more out of life than to stay at home and rear children, and she wanted more out of her relationship. She and her husband separated and shortly thereafter, despite being a single mom, she launched a spectacular career. McLeod founded her own educational institute, initially called the Daytona Industrial and Educational School (for girls only) in Daytona Beach, Florida. It was a small and unassuming school. But thanks to her fundraising talents and her growing prestige, her school merged, in 1923, with the Cookman Institute to become Bethune-Cookman College, a co-ed facility. It is now called Bethune-Cookman University. McLeod was also a leader in the suffrage movement, which culminated in 1919 with the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. But just because women could vote, it did not mean that black women could vote. McLeod had to contend with intimidation from the Ku Klux Klan, as well as discriminatory rules such as the poll tax, which required blacks to pay a tax to vote. As a result of McLeod’s public activities, people in high places took notice of her. In addition to playing a pivotal role in black women’s clubs, McLeod became director of the National Youth Administration’s Division of Negro Affairs (1936–1944). Along with her friend Eleanor Roosevelt, she served on the committee to draft the United Nations charter. McLeod’s contributions were practically unheard of in her time, and yet she exemplifies so many of the social struggles of the twentieth century. She rose from poverty, survived a failed marriage, and fought racist and sexist obstacles armed only with her faith in God and a will of steel. She died on May 18, 1955.

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Height, in her capacity as YWCA representative, was in charge of escorting the keynote speaker, Eleanor Roosevelt, to Bethune’s NCNW meeting. At the conclusion of that meeting, Bethune presented Height with a request she could not ignore. Height recalled the profound moment when Bethune said ‘‘‘we need you at the National Council of Negro Women,’’’ and how ‘‘she put her hand on me. She drew me into her dazzling orbit of people in power and people in poverty. I remember how she made her fingers into a fist to illustrate for the women the significance of working together to eliminate injustice.… ‘The freedom gates are half ajar,’ she said. ‘We must pry them fully open’’’ (Height, 83). That moment set in stone Height’s future with the NCNW. Though still employed with the YWCA, she volunteered all of her spare time to work with Bethune’s organization. Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Height briefly met on that fall day, was a remarkable ally and friend of Mary McLeod Bethune. Roosevelt was the wife of then President Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of the most active first ladies in America’s history. Height soon found herself again in the First Lady’s company, for she was among a small group who joined Eleanor Roosevelt to coordinate the World Conference of Youth at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1938. At the conference, Height was among a large group who prayed that America would not involve itself in the conflict that was escalating in Europe. Integration For many African Americans, prayer and action were mighty tools to be used in the struggle for integration. In the late 1930s, the NAACP (which originated in 1909) was at the forefront of that struggle. But another struggle was waged within the YWCA. Among the women of the YWCA, the drive towards integration was strong. Height was undoubtedly proud of the fact that the women of the YWCA took a powerful stance against segregation. She had not forgotten her childhood experience when the local organization in her hometown did not permit her and her other black friends the use of the swimming pool. In 1939, women protested a hotel in Columbus, Ohio that did not admit blacks. To further prove their commitment, there was a movement towards placing African American in high positions within the organization. Dorothy Height was still the director of the Emma Ransom House. Officials wanted her to be the executive director for the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA in Washington, D.C. Phyllis Wheatly YWCA The Phyllis Wheatley branch was established by African American women. It was the only African American YWCA of its kind. To be executive

Dorothy Height

director of the Phyllis Wheatly YWCA was an honor, but having to contend with segregation made the move almost unbearable. Twenty-seven years old in 1939, Height was the youngest leader within the YWCA, and she grappled with the huge responsibility. Struggle for Integration in the YWCA Continued The YWCA was a pioneer in the effort to eliminate segregation, including within the organization itself. It supported the larger protests that gained momentum during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. A number of women—many of them nameless—can be credited for initiating the desegregation of the YWCAs. Height played a vital role in the process, as well as in the difficult years that followed the newly integrated YWCA. It was this history that lead to the YWCA motto that appears on YWCA buildings that stand today, ‘‘to empower women and girls, and eliminate racism.’’ Height was in attendance at the 1940 YWCA Negro Leadership Conference. Of paramount concern was segregation, particularly within the YWCA. Although segregation was most rampant in the South, YWCAs throughout America were segregated and had been so since the first African American branch was created in 1895 in Dayton, Ohio. Height recalled a very ‘‘historic’’ moment, when African American women passed ‘‘a resolution recommending that the 1940 Negro Leadership Conference be dissolved’’ and ‘‘proposed to seek every opportunity to participate fully in all aspects of YWCA life’’ (Height, 111). At that year’s national YWCA convention, a group of farsighted young women from the National Student Assembly presented a radical petition asking that the organization make a study of the effects of segregation within the YWCA. This petition gave birth to a report on Interracial Practices in Community YWCAs. In it, advancements were made for integrating the YWCA. These two events represented the early stirrings towards the pursuit of desegregating the YWCA. Battle Scar On a biting cold day in January 1941, following a speaking engagement at St. James Presbyterian Church in New York, a car containing Dorothy Height and two friends crashed into a telephone pole. The accident was caused by a carbon monoxide leak that caused the driver and the passengers to fall into a near fatal sleep. But they all survived. Height was not expected to live, but she surprised the doctors again and recovered quickly from her wounds. Still, she stayed nearly three months in the hospital. Remarkably, her body produced so much blood on its own that she was able to give blood to other patients. What remains from that day can be seen in a subtle

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bulge above her left eye. This was not the first time Height faced death, nor would it be her last. Height received many visitors while she was in the hospital. Eleanor Roosevelt came to visit her, causing great commotion. ‘‘People in the hospital kept asking who I was. Was I a movie star? A dancer? A singer?’’ Height wrote (Height, 105). She recalled that she had to write more than a thousand thank-you notes when she returned home. With America’s entrance in the Second World War in the winter of 1941, Height joined the effort by supporting women in the armed forces. Because a number of African American women had joined the war effort and were moving into Washington, D.C. in droves, Height made sure the YWCA was prepared to be of service to them. They set up the first ever United Service Organization activities for African Americans and helped to train African American women civilians to work in army camps. When black women were forced to go without military housing upon their arrival to start their service, Height made sure the situation was brought to the attention of those in charge, unfortunately to no avail. But then she sparked an investigation of the poor women who ‘‘often were being exploited mercilessly by [civilian] landlords’’ (Height, 99). Through Height’s diligence, the government established the Lucy Diggs Slowe Hall for African American women. Height was appointed to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS). Along with a group of predominately white women, she was assigned the task of investigating the working and living conditions of service women. Height was also instrumental in advocating on behalf of all women of color, not just blacks. DACOWITS filled a great need during this early stage of women’s integration into the armed forces. In 1943, Height was presented with an opportunity to work with YWCA students in the South. She went to Tennessee for an interview and to help facilitate discussions at the YWCA student conference that was held at the Seventh Day Adventist College. But the experience was too harrowing for her; she did not want to have to deal with the Jim Crow of the South. The imperfect environment in Washington, D.C. paled by comparison, so she declined the job offer and returned to the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA in Washington, D.C. However, Height did not remain long in Washington. Following her return in 1944, she decided to move back to New York to work as the secretary for interracial education of the national board of the YWCA. She moved to an apartment in Harlem. As she threaded her way from home to work and back, she noticed that she had become something of a phenomenon. Blacks recognized her and gazed at her in shy admiration. Height began the new job at a time when the YWCA was breaking new ground in racial relations. Two years later, a charter was adopted at the national YWCA convention that officially redirected the course of the organization. ‘‘Among other things,’’ Height excitedly wrote, ‘‘it declared: Wherever there is injustice on the basis of race, whether in the community, the

Dorothy Height

nation, or the world, our protest must be clear and our labor for its removal vigorous and steady’’ (Height, 114–115). This bold pronouncement was not birthed without resistance, however, particularly from southern women, some of whom protested by walking out at that meeting. But Height was overcome with excitement and expectation. As the secretary for interracial education, Height’s duties were greatly enhanced by the new YWCA charter. But this did not make her job any easier. Part of what made her job particularly attractive was the fact that the task before her had never been tackled before. Whereas diversity and sensitivity training would become commonplace in the late twentieth century, Height was treading new ground in an environment that was hostile to her endeavors. Her booklet Step by Step was a creative attempt to address commonly accepted behavior and traditions that were so deeply entrenched in the culture that even well-meaning progressive whites practiced them in everyday situations. Height traveled to Dallas, Texas and Chattanooga, Tennessee to help facilitate the adoption of the YWCA’s new interracial charter. The South was where conditions towards blacks were most extreme. At both locations Height was unapologetically turned away. It was probably no surprise that the South would be a formidable obstacle, but progress had reportedly been achieved in several YWCA chapters elsewhere. In 1947, the national YWCA sent Height and a white woman to investigate these locations. These trips were disappointing. In Fort Worth, Texas, the women at the YWCA did not want to work with Height because she was black, preferring to deal with the white representative. Height declared, ‘‘But we’re a team, we work together.’’ To that one woman replied, ‘‘Y’all have just come down here to cause trouble’’ (Height, 119). Height bristled—confessing in her novel that she ‘‘couldn’t hold back’’—and gave the woman a rare talking-to, starting out by telling her that ‘‘perhaps you should know that it hasn’t been easy for Miss Sabiston and me to work together with you either’’ (Height, 120). Indeed, she and her colleague had been treated rudely and not given a hot meal in all the three days of their stay. Even for women in northern YWCAs, integration was difficult. Height felt this was largely because whites and blacks had not ever had much exposure to the other, resulting in awkward and uncomfortable gatherings. Height’s solution to blatant resistance was to ‘‘disagree without being disagreeable,’’ and to help foster amiable racial relations. She believed that ‘‘opportunities’’ should be ‘‘created for people to get acquainted, to cooperate in stimulating common tasks, and to increase their mutual understanding’’ (Height, 120). These opportunities often had to be deliberately created. The commitment among many white women remained strong. When Height refused to move to the colored waiting room at a train station in

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1947, she might have been arrested by the police who pursued her if it were not for the white women with whom she traveled helping her to escape onto the train. When the YWCA held their interracial conference of young industrial workers at a camp in North Carolina in 1948, the national president went to the governor and the mayor to seek protection from the three hundred Ku Klux Klan members, armed with bats, pipes, and other weapons, who had gathered to intimidate the women. The mayor said it would be best that the women not meet. The sheriff was ironically out of town. Put another way, the women were on their own. Despite the presence of the Klan, the women stood their ground and were not harmed. To help minimize the crisis, blacks did not stay at the camp overnight. Prohibited from staying at the hotels, they roomed with local black families. Height’s presence made her host family nervous, so they hid her in an attic. Determined to face the danger outside rather than hide away in a stifling hot attic, Height made her way, with the help of a ten-year-old guide (a daughter of the house), through the perilous night and the dense thicket and brush to the camp where the other women were staying. Height described how ‘‘every brush that could do so made a sound, and every sound suggested danger’’ (Height, 122). This struggle for integration within the YWCA was carried on concurrently with the broader movement that would take off in the mid-1950s. The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling, which desegregated public schools, occurred in 1954. Height was among the women who immediately got to work in its aftermath to support the decision. Height worked with student leaders to create and implement practical applications of the landmark ruling. They coordinated programs to escort African American children to and from school. This seemingly simple task quickly took on grandiose implications, as the first students to integrate white schools were often harassed and attacked by white men, women, and students infuriated by the ruling. In 1955, Height suffered a deep loss when the NCNW’s dynamic founder and leader, Mary McLeod Bethune, died on the eve of a fantastic struggle for civil rights. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT The desegregation of the public schools was followed by an independent campaign in Montgomery, Alabama to eradicate Jim Crow on public buses. That campaign was led by the famed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From that point on, the Civil Rights Movement continued to gain momentum. It was a grandiose era for African American protest. The major organizations of this era were the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), CORE, and SNCC. These were largely male-dominated organizations, as was the National Urban League (NUL),

Dorothy Height

which was not a traditional civil rights organization per se, since its primary aim was to support employment for blacks. Through the leadership of Whitney Young, the NUL made important contributions to the struggle. Height would also play a momentous role, although the media often downplayed her presence. Height was not a vociferous critic of the exclusion of women in the Civil Rights Movement. Height was self-assured about women’s roles in America, because she was part of a daily machine of women who worked day and night out of the limelight. Height did not seek publicity and attention. If anything, she respected and helped provide the necessary cloaking of a number of women who toiled for civil rights. The strategy of the women’s organizations, including the NCNW and a host of others, was to shield women from imminent danger. It was felt that media exposure might endanger or complicate their lives back home. In 1950, Height was chosen by Stephen Currier, the white president of the Philanthropic Taconic Foundation who took a great interest in the fight for civil rights for African Americans, to be a member of a prestigious group of big-named civil rights leaders. Among the leaders were those who were called the ‘‘Big Six’’: Martin Luther King, Jr. (SCLC), Roy Wilkins (NAACP), John Lewis/James Forman (SNCC), James Farmer (CORE), Whitney Young (NUL), and Height. Like the men in this exclusive group, Height was a leader in her organization (she represented the NACW, where she was elected as president in 1958), and she was well-traveled (she had been to India, Liberia in West Africa, and South America). The Big Six became known as the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership (CUCRL) in 1963. The main objective of this group was to collect information on issues such as the criminal justice system, the practices of social agencies, and employment to help seek funds for their respective organizations. These findings were reported back to the donors. Height was in charge of the investigation of the social agencies. She provided a unique voice whenever the group gathered together—not only because she was the only woman, but because she became the voice of issues involving ‘‘hunger, children, and social welfare issues’’ (Height, 141). Height felt she was treated as their equal and that her contributions were well-regarded. Height’s role in the Big Six was only one part of her ongoing contributions to the movement. She also maintained her leadership positions in the YWCA, the NCNW, and CURCL. The most pivotal moment of 1963, if not the entire movement, was the legendary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which occurred on August 28, 1963, at the nation’s capitol under the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. This march was the brainchild of the distinguished elder civil rights pioneer, A. Philip Randolph. All of the major civil rights leaders gave speeches except James Farmer, who was jailed after staging a demonstration, and Dorothy Height. Height explained that Bayard

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Rustin, who was in charge of coordinating the march, was the main reason no woman was allowed to give a speech. He refused to acquiesce ‘‘appeals to include a woman speaker. [He] held fast, insisting that women were part of all the groups—the churches, the synagogues, labor—represented on the podium.’’ Height declared that that slight was ‘‘vital to awakening the women’s movement’’ (Height, 145). In the wake of the march, Height gathered NCNW women for a meeting. On the agenda was the theme ‘‘After the March—what?’’ This meeting was not publicized. Height’s purpose was to draw the women into a deeper commitment toward civil rights. Her tactic, backed by her position as a civil rights leader, was effective. The women were to play a greater role because of her initiative. In 1963, Height brought together some of the players of the movement and the YWCA national board to dialog and come up with opportunities for coalition. After the death of four young black girls in the Klan bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963, King asked Height to lead several women to help comfort the mourning women. Height responded eagerly to the call. In the fall of 1963, SNCC coordinated an intensive voter-rights drive in Selma, Alabama. James Forman, executive secretary of SNCC, and Prathea Hall, a SNCC staff member, asked Height if the NCNW would assist in these efforts. Height formed a team that included three other women, one representing NCNW and two white women from the National Women’s Committee for Civil Rights and the New York Citizens Committee for Children. They went to Selma to investigate the situation. What they found was alarming. The young activists explained the harrowing ordeal of the process of registering to vote: some blacks lost their jobs or were attacked for attempting to register. The registrars deliberately kept inconvenient hours to thwart blacks. Tests that were administered to blacks were unduly difficult. The activists who attempted to push voter registration in Selma were regularly harassed and abused by police officers. In jail, they were given spoiled food and were frequently harassed and beaten. After the four women departed one rally, they were met by a swarm of state troopers decked out with helmets festooned with Confederate flags and armed with guns, clubs, and electric cattle prods. The participants at the rally left unharmed—that time. Height returned to New York, where she ‘‘was advised that a subpoena for my arrest had been issued in Selma. I was charged with ‘contributing to the delinquency of minors.’’’ (Height, 160). Height did not return to Selma—getting arrested was not on her agenda—she instead generated a report to the national board of the YWCA. Their responsiveness gave rise to a unique collaboration between five women’s organizations: the National Council of Catholic Women, the Church Women United, the National Council of Jewish Women, the YWCA, and the NCNW. This organization made plans for a meeting ‘‘to discuss police

Dorothy Height

brutality and the treatment of women and girls who had been arrested for civil disobedience in the seven most troubled southern cities’’ (Height, 163). Women would then launch investigations in these targeted locations to determine how women were being treated in the jails, as well as to check the general progress of the movement. It was agreed that this meeting, to take place in Atlanta, Georgia, would be conducted discreetly to protect the identities of the women. When someone took a picture, many of the women panicked. During the meeting, some women expressed their disapproval of the multiple demonstrations happening across the country. After much discussion, the women formed the Women’s Interorganizational Committee, to be later known as Women in Community Service with the intent of supporting the Civil Rights Movement. Militancy Height remained at the forefront, as, in 1964, women began to join forces on behalf of the Civil Rights Movement. And strong leadership was needed. The climactic win of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most important law to be passed since the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, was followed by several crises. Riots, beginning in 1964 and continuing until the assassination of Dr. King in 1968 and beyond, escalated in the urban cities of the North. Impoverished African American communities echoed the growing militancy of the Black Power Movement that appeared on the heels of the peaceful Civil Rights Movement. Height was troubled by the message of separatism and promotion of violence that attended the Black Power Movement. She lamented that the race riots resulted in some whites withdrawing their support. But blacks did not only revolt against white institutions and racial oppression; they began upbraiding the civil rights leadership itself. Public harangues against conservative leaders, including Height, complicated their ability to lead effectively. Part of the source of the outrage in poor black neighborhoods in the North was that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which did so much for southern blacks, did relatively little for them. In the North, blacks were not bound by Jim Crow; their troubles were far more elusive and subtle. Blacks lived disproportionately in tattered ghettos, where crime was high and invisible racism kept them from breaking out of the generational cycle of despair and feelings of alienation. Another invisible line barred blacks from owning homes in white neighborhoods, and kept them out of the decision-making positions that might have allowed them to enforce change in these communities. President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated a study of the origins of the race riots. The famous Kerner Report confirmed what the people of the ghetto had complained bitterly of all along: racism was largely to blame. Height responded to this crisis with her own form of action, through dialogue groups, which in time would translate discussion into real action.

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A major turn of events for the Black Power Movement occurred when Malcolm X returned from his trip from Mecca in 1964. He invited Height and celebrities such as Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Sidney Poitier to discuss his new philosophy. To Height’s credit, she showed enormous generosity and tolerance in attending that meeting, for Malcolm X was still considered a negative stigma for many civil rights leaders. To Height, he was ‘‘very complex’’ (Height, 149). Before the trip, he had been one of the most outspoken militant leaders of the Black Power Movement. The trip to Mecca taught him that white and blacks could work together, and that his hatefilled speech was not the answer. The newly transformed Malcolm was appealing and had much potential, which ended abruptly when he was assassinated in 1965.

MORE ACTIVITIES OF THE 1960s The drama of the Civil Rights Movement continued to unfold in the Deep South during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. The Mississippi Freedom Summer was a project spearheaded by COFO, but Height and several women’s organization lent a much-needed hand. The program entailed a voter registration drive and the establishment of several freedom schools. The NCNW sponsored ‘‘Wednesdays in Mississippi’’ (WIM), which included at least six women’s organizations. The aim of WIM was to galvanize support from women (black and white) in Mississippi, as well as to provide support to local organizations such as Woman Power Unlimited (a black organization), help break down color barriers, and provide aid to the freedom schools and SNCC activists. As the women busily prepared for the summer campaign, the white South was preparing a grim and dangerous reception for the strangers that were coming to ‘‘make trouble’’ in their region. Whites set booby traps, even converting ice cream trucks into armed tanks. Height participated in the early part of the campaign. A new team was sent to Mississippi each week, despite the violence that was unleashed upon the activists. There was much work to do in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the latter half of the 1960s found Height busier than ever. In 1965, she became the YWCA director of the Office of Racial Justice. She was the first African American to lecture at the summer institute on the Desegregation of Schools at the University of Mississippi. In addition to lecturing, she facilitated discussions with whites who had never before worked together equally with blacks—let alone sat with them at the same table for a meal. Meanwhile, the NCNW continued to implement numerous self-help projects such as ‘‘a hunger program, a housing program, help for teenagers, a health program, and a careers program,’’ and various leadership training workshops in Mississippi, as well as in other states and abroad (Height,

Dorothy Height

185). These various programs targeted all people of color and impoverished whites. Height revealed little in the way of a social life in her autobiography. Her days were dominated by her work with the YWCA and her volunteer work with the NCWA, as well as various committees. But there were occasional dinners with friends, which she enjoyed immensely. Greater Responsibilities at the Close of the 1960s and Beyond In 1966, Height served on an advisory committee for a conference President Lyndon B. Johnson held regarding minority issues. In the same year, Height’s NCNW introduced its Project Womanpower, which provided training for local women to better their community. In this way, the NCNW helped address the issues and frustrations that had caused the riots that stigmatized the decade. The Ford Foundation made a generous donation to assist in these endeavors. Height was one of nine hand-picked African Americans to travel to Israel to help study solutions that might alleviate some of the racial problems in America. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, African American leadership was in a state of flux. Height pushed tirelessly forward, responding to the question of black leadership with action. She was still in high demand.

POST-CIVIL RIGHTS ERA The 1970s were productive for Height, the YWCA, and the NCNW. Throughout the following decade, she was on President Jimmy Carter’s Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and was a major part of the policy making process. She also served on several committees, such as the President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and the President’s Committee on the Status of Women. In 1970, Height called a meeting of YWCA members—but for black women only. She wanted to draw from them the specific concerns of African Americans in an atmosphere where they could speak freely and pointedly, then introduce these concerns at the forthcoming national meeting. Among the issues brought up were racial injustice, world peace, and poverty. At the 1970 National YWCA Convention, those concerns resulted in a monumental resolution concerning racism. The essence of that resolution concerned the YWCA’s commitment to ‘‘the elimination of racism wherever it exists and by any means necessary’’ (Height, 129). What followed were several meetings and actions to implement the resolution, which

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aimed at helping not just African Americans but Native Americans and other races. In 1970, the NCNW made a huge achievement. It established a Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement in New York. A memorial to honor Bethune came to fruition four years later. Bethune’s memorial, which stands in Lincoln Park in Washington D.C., ‘‘was the first memorial to a black American—and the first to a woman of any race—to be erected on public land in the nation’s capital’’ (Height, 214). In 1975, Height oversaw the beginning of a new era for the NCNW as the organization extended its work outside the borders of the country. The undertakings involved coalitions in Mexico, South Africa, and other regions in Africa. The main objectives were to develop women leadership, to promote unity among women across vast distances and cultural differences, and to forge universal self-help programs. In 1977, Height retired from the YWCA and joined its national board as an honorable member, freeing up time she could commit to the NCNW and other pursuits. By the late 1970s, the NCNW membership and its programs had grown exponentially. In 1978, Height was one of the founding members of the Black Leadership Forum. In 1979, she helped bring to reality the Bethune Museum and Archives at Bethune’s last residence. In 1986, following several trips abroad, Height introduced what was certainly one of her proudest achievements: the Black Family Reunion. The Black Family Reunion events included free admission, food, games, music, and various resources to uplift the black community. The focus was on the celebration of the black family. In fact, the idea for the black family reunion was inspired by a documentary by Bill Moyers that vilified the institution of the black family. Height wished to change the image, and at the same time help alleviate the conditions and problems that threatened to ravage black families. The first Reunion was held that fall in Washington, D.C., followed by several other reunions at different locations. Throughout the 1980s, Height kept up her involvement in pertinent issues and played a visible role in various black events and magazines. When the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, a notoriously radical leader of the Nation of Islam, coordinated the Million Man March in 1995, she was heavily criticized by whites, Jews, and others who thought her involvement in the march would tarnish her image. Height surprised everyone when she agreed to be one of very few women to speak at the event. Her friends and colleagues warned her against being associated with someone as radical as Farrakhan. What would an integrationist have to do with a separatist whom many called a racist? The militant and the classic elderly stateswoman hardly seemed congruous. Height, however, was proud to be a part of such a landmark moment. She felt that her participation would not be damaging to her reputation and that her participation was not ‘‘inconsistent with [her] beliefs or the positions on issues that

Dorothy Height

[she] had taken all [her] life,’’ and furthermore, that ‘‘positive things sometimes emerge from polarization’’ (Height, 279). Height took her seat near the podium. When it was her turn to make a brief statement, she endorsed the representation of black men at the event and acknowledged the huge obstacles black men faced every day. Indeed, the day was not what many critics expected. It was a moment in which Farrakhan hoped to bolster the black male image in a positive and powerful way, as well as to encourage black men to be live responsibly. In 1995, Height saw yet another dream come to pass: the establishment of a new, permanent headquarters for the NCNW on 633 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. This new building houses the headquarters for the NCNW, the National Centers for African American Women, and the Dorothy I. Height Leadership Institute. The house was made possible by funding from a multitude of individuals and organizations. On the long list of famous personalities were Maya Angelou, Camille Cosby, and Susan Taylor. Corporate sponsors include Sears, Roebuck, and Company, the First Union Bank, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Company, and the Chrysler Corporation. In 1999, the first of Height’s annual major fundraisers, entitled the ‘‘Uncommon Height Gala,’’ was televised. Monies raised during the annual fundraiser help support the NCNW and its many projects. In the twenty-first century, Height, veteran soldier of the Civil Rights Movement, recipient of the prestigious Congressional Medal of Honor in 2004, and leader for sixty years of organizations that engaged in ‘‘women’s work,’’ can still draw a crowd. As she gazes over an audience, her wheelchair, which she must use now, is hardly noticeable. She appears in full dress, accented with her trademark hat. Her thoughts are unmuddled; her words seep with wisdom, strength, and the heroic memories of a time that younger generations can hardly fathom. The remarkable Height remains an influential advocate for the poor and the marginalized. See also W.E.B. Du Bois; James Farmer; Louis Farrakhan; Marcus Garvey; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis; Malcolm X; A. Philip Randolph; Roy Wilkins; and Whitney Young. FURTHER RESOURCES Fitzgerald, Tracey A. The National Council of Negro Women and the Feminist Movement, 1935– 1975 . Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1985. ‘‘Harlem History.’’ Columbia University (March 2008). See http://www.columbia.edu/ cu/iraas/harlem. Height, Dorothy. Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir. New York: Public Affairs, 2003. Hine, Darlene Clark, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, 1993. National Council of Negro Women, Inc. (March 2008). See http://www.ncnw.org.

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Jesse Jackson (1941– )

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Jesse Jackson was an aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the national director of Operation Breadbasket, a program run by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He is the founder and president of The Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH. Jesse Jackson has been on the scene since the early 1960s, when he transferred from the University of Illinois to North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. Tall, comely, and athletic, he was among the most popular students and a star on the football team, playing the most prestigious position, quarterback. He was also a leader in student-led civil rights demonstrations. In 1965, before he received his Ph.D. at Chicago Theological Seminary, he quit school to work with the famous Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Starting with the SCLC at the age of twenty-four, Jackson was the youngest member of King’s advisory team. He was swashbuckling and bodacious. He was also one of the few who did not come to work in a suit and tie. He grew his hair out, sporting an afro and thick sideburns. He had a penchant for fashion, and was not averse to wearing a dashiki and a gold medallion. His unusual tastes extended to other areas: Jackson was known as someone willing to rock the boat in the largely conservative nature of SCLC. After King’s assassination in 1968, Jackson pursued his personal ambitions, embarking on independent projects, much to the angst of Ralph Abernathy, who assumed King’s role as president of the SCLC. When Jackson was suspended in 1971, he quit and created his own organization, Operation PUSH. Jackson quickly ascended to national and international prominence. In the 1970s, he established PUSH/EXCEL, a program to augment the academic performance of inner-city youths. He ran twice for U.S. president as a Democrat in the 1980s. In that same decade, he met with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad and successfully negioated the release of an American pilot who had been detained in Syria, established the National Rainbow Coalition, a political organization, and was elected as Washington, D.C.’s ‘‘shadow senator.’’ In the 1990s, Jackson negotiated the release of hundreds held in Kuwait, obtained an ambassadorial position under President Bill Clinton, and continued his activities abroad and on the home front. In the twenty-first century, Jackson remains a swashbuckling advocate for worldwide issues, despite the fact that his image and personality have mellowed and taken some hits over the years. Though his likability is, at times, in question, he remains one of the few high-profile leaders actively advocating for blacks in America. However, young blacks challenge this. Some want him to step back and let new, fresher leadership take the helm. Along with his compeer, the controversial Al Sharpton, he remains a thorn in the side of those who tire of his relentless vigilance over racism.

Jesse Jackson

As Jackson approaches his seventies, he does not appear to be slowing down or, at least publicly, making preparations to pass on the baton of power. His speeches still carry the poetic lilt that made him famous in his youth, and his charismatic appeal at the podium remains untarnished. He has proven himself to be a man who is capable, well-experienced, and intensely patriotic; a man who has maintained his commitment to ushering blacks into mainstream America and developing an America that is the best it can be by taking advantage of its rich diversity.

CHILDHOOD Jesse Louis Burns began life on October 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina under daunting circumstances. His mother, Helen Burns, was just seventeen years old, and she was not married. Jesse’s father lived in the same community and had a wife. Helen’s pregnancy and the birth of her son were scandals, but she and her mother, Matilda, known as ‘‘Tibby,’’ bore the embarrassment quietly. They did not want to bring any more attention to themselves than necessary. Helen Burns never got the chance to pursue her dream of becoming a singer or going to college. However, she did finish her education at Sterling High School, where, prior to her pregnancy, she was extremely popular and known as someone who held a lot of promise. Helen was a lead majorette, performed in dance shows, and had a stunning voice. She also volunteered her time to read to the illiterate elderly in her community and helped them fill out important documents. Noah Robinson, Jackson’s biological father, was a former boxer who was well-known within the black community of Greenville. Self-assured, wellmuscled, and good-looking, he was what Jackson himself would eventually become. In 1943, Helen Burns married Charles Henry Jackson, who became Jesse’s stepfather. Charles Jackson was a somewhat lesser version of Robinson. He served in World War II, and upon returning home to South Carolina, took a modest job. Times were hard at first; the young family lived in a house with a tin roof and no running water, which meant they had to use an outhouse. Jesse was nine when he discovered that Jackson was not his biological father. When he finally met Robinson, he was in awe. He was fascinated by Robinson’s career in boxing and by his ability to provide a nice home for his wife and two children. That home was far away from the grim, threadbare neighborhood where Jesse, his grandmother, and his parents lived. He also was proud of the fact that Robinson did not behave obsequiously in the presence of whites. For a while, his boyhood friends heard little else besides accolades for and the exploits of his biological father.

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Eventually, Charles Jackson took a job as a custodian at the Post Office and the family moved to a housing project. This new home was a step up in many ways. There were no cracks in the walls for the wind to blow through. There was hot and cold running water. And the house was made of brick. In 1957, Jesse was adopted by his stepfather and took on his surname. Charles Jackson was a quiet constant in Jackson’s life, and his love for his stepson was undeniable. Despite the benefits of Jackson’s new home, the move did not permit Jackson to escape from segregation. In most of the South, Jim Crow was the law of the land. Two worlds, one black, the other white, stood side by side and sometimes intermingled, their boundaries maintained by blunt signage or unwritten but crystal-clear understanding. Jackson later spoke of how he and his friends joked about coming up in the Jim Crow South, saying they preferred living among blacks rather than whites. But the laughter was an ineffectual attempt to cover the fact that segregation was degrading and unjust. Because of Jim Crow, Jackson had to walk five miles to elementary school, when a white school was only a few blocks away. Jackson was an overachiever at school, despite the fact that he also worked to help the family make ends meet. He was, undoubtedly, influenced by his mother and his grandmother, who stressed education as well as the need to contribute to the welfare of the family and to the community. Everyone worked in Jackson’s family. His mother did laundry for a fraternity at Furman University and was also trained to be a beautician. Jackson’s grandmother worked in an upscale white neighborhood as a domestic. Most black domestics brought food and discarded clothes back to their families. Tibby Burns carried books and magazines the families loaned her. She gave these to Jackson to encourage his learning and expand his horizons. Jackson found various ways to earn money for the family. Along with friends, he sold soda pop and peanuts at football games at the university. At various times, Jackson worked at Greenville’s country club, at a restaurant, and at a local hotel. Jackson attended the same high school from which his mother had graduated, and like her, he also read to the elderly. This he did eagerly, for early on he realized the effect of giving of his time as he watched the smiling faces of the wizened men and women who listened with rapt attention as he breezily read to them. This lesson was affirmed when a man his mother had once helped returned the favor by dropping off six bags of groceries at a particularly low point in the family’s finances. There was a reason Jackson swaggered down the hallways at Sterling High School, why he nodded to and greeted his peers with the laid-back ease of a celebrity. Everybody knew and respected Jesse Jackson. All his teachers beamed approvingly when he sauntered into their classrooms. His confidence and buoyant personality might have been attributable to his genes, but clearly, his manner reflected the influence of the positive supportive network he found in the black enclave of Greenville. Later in life,

Jesse Jackson

Jackson stated, ‘‘Grandmama, Mama always made me feel I was somebody special, told me I was the Lord’s gift to them, you know, always saying, ‘You’re gonna be somebody. Just hold on’’’ (Frady, 101). When the students in Jackson’s class complained about all the big vocabulary words they had to learn, a sixth grade teacher sternly told them, ‘‘You’ll learn every one of these words, and a lot more like ’em ’fore this year is over. I will not teach down to you. One of you little brats just might be mayor or governor or even president someday, and I’m gonna make sure you’ll be ready’’ (Frady, 105). Jackson used the belief that others had in him to push himself to become an exceptionally good student and a strong athlete. In return, his achievements as ‘‘10th in his high school class’’ and ‘‘class president, a National Junior Honor Society student, a member of the student council, and state officer of the Future Teachers of America’’ made his community proud (Bruns, 12). Jackson’s coach, J.D. Mathis, made it his business to see that Jackson would never fail in the classroom. He made sure that Jackson and everyone else on the team excelled on the field, as well as in the classroom. Jackson was exceptional in one other way. Many young black men had dangerous run-ins with the police. The police could be ruthless with blacks in Jackson’s neighborhood; he recalled that they would ‘‘get a kick out of breaking down the front door if you didn’t answer quickly enough. When I was a little kid, we’d run and hide under the house at the sight of a police car. Later on, they locked us up for things like vagrancy or cursing … one police man … became infamous for locking up a black man for ‘reckless eyeballing’ a white woman from 100 feet away’’ (10). Jackson knew blacks his age who died as a result of violent confrontations with other blacks or with the police. Few black males were able to elude these frustrating encounters—benign or otherwise—with the police. But Jackson did, at least during this period of his life. A busy school life and a long-standing involvement with the church provided healthy diversions. Jackson was in the third grade when he joined the Long Branch Baptist Church. As a boy, he was transfixed not only by the spiritual message but by the presence of the Reverend D.S. Sample, whose oratory skills were unparalleled. It is a fact that Jackson stuttered terribly as a child. But after giving a speech during a Christmas pageant when he was nine years old, he was permitted to speak frequently at church, and the stuttering disappeared. During his adolescence, Jackson confided to a friend that he wanted to become a minister. James Hall was another minister Jackson admired. He staged a protest march in 1959, when Jackie Robinson, the first black to play baseball in the Major League, was forced to abide by Jim Crow law at the airport when he arrived in Greenville. He was there to speak at an event hosted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Hall’s march was not popular with the community. Many Christians were

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opposed to radicalness and thought it was better and safer to simply abide by the rules—no matter how discriminatory—than to rebel against them. Jackson was on top of the world by the time he graduated from high school in the spring of 1959. Jackson’s community expected great things from him. He turned down an opportunity to play professional baseball to attend the predominately white University of Illinois in Urbana on a football scholarship. Jackson, everyone agreed, was unstoppable.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS The University of Illinois proved to be a challenge for Jackson. At first, it was thrilling just to be in the open, unbounded space of the North, away from Jim Crow. This was Jackson’s first experience in an integrated environment; his first jaunt out of the South. But soon he realized that the North was not all it was cracked up to be. Racism abounded on campus. The color of his skin and his cultural differences were magnified a thousandfold in this new environment where he and the few other black students were a minority. Anonymous notes were disseminated to some of the blacks on the football team, warning them not to fraternize with whites. Blacks could not go to a concert held on campus. White students called them ‘‘niggers.’’ The hostile climate brought out latent insecurities Jackson did not know he had. So he bumbled through his life on campus, inwardly dismayed, outwardly trying to make it appear that he was getting along. But he was floundering. He felt isolated and denigrated. His grades suffered, and that made him feel worse. When Jackson, encumbered by problems at school, went home for winter break, he was not in good spirits. He needed to borrow a few books for an assignment, so went to the local library—the one that only admitted whites—as the black library had only a limited collection. Hovering nearby was a cop who observed the young black man asking the librarian to borrow some books. The cop confronted him and he left. Outside the building, tears filled Jackson’s eyes as he gaped at the sign that read ‘‘Greenville Public Library.’’ Jackson was in his second semester at the University of Illinois, when, on February 1, 1960, he heard the news about the four freshmen from North Carolina A&T, a historically black institution, who entered a Woolworth’s store, sat down at a lunch counter that served whites only, and refused to leave. By summer, they would become known as the A&T Four. This was the first of many public student-led demonstrations that soon swept the nation. Jackson was intrigued for many reasons. For one, he was inspired by the courage and initiative of the college students. For another, it made him take notice of North Carolina A&T. At the end of his second semester, Jackson returned home with two plans in mind: to leave the University of Illinois for North Carolina A&T and to

Jesse Jackson

do something drastic. On July 17, 1960, Helen Jackson was ironing and watching TV when she heard that her son and six others had been arrested for staging a sit-in at the Greenville Public Library. They were charged with disorderly contact, but held for less than an hour. This was her son’s first trouble with the law. It would not be the last.

NORTH CAROLINA A&T There was only one drawback to attending North Carolina A&T: Jackson was not offered a scholarship. Gaining admission took some effort; Jackson literally had to sweet talk his way into the university. Jackson was in his element at North Carolina A&T. He was not the greatest quarterback they ever had, but he was good. Moreover, he brought to the football team his ability to think quickly, an innate leadership, and a seemingly boundless energy. He was once again socially very active and as winsome as ever. It was not long before his eye was caught by a lovely oval face and long black downy hair. Jackie Brown was a spirited freshmen majoring in sociology and psychology in 1961 when she and Jackson crossed paths for the first time. Jackson was standing in line at the Student Union Building with other football players when she walked past—or, as she put it, strutted by like Marilyn Monroe. The guys on campus always catcalled and whistled at the female students, so Brown expected the attention. But when the tall, bronzed young man who announced, for all to hear, that he was going to marry her, she was truly flustered. And, before too long, also intrigued. Jackson’s confidence, dynamism, and intense interest in her well-being were, at first, overwhelming to Brown. Although they shared engaging conversations about activism and dreams about giving back to the community and having adventures abroad, they often argued too. Jackson worried that Brown wasn’t putting enough effort into her studies, but Brown had a lackadaisical attitude about her course work. He also pestered her about going to church every Sunday. But Brown was glad that she was away from home and not obligated to attend service twice a week. Eventually, however, her grades improved, and she—begrudgingly—went to church. That is if Jackson could find her when she hid from him to avoid going. Jackson had to work a lot harder to convince Brown that he was serious about marriage. Twice a week he and some friends serenaded her outside her dorm. He shared with her the bounty of the sweet potato pies that his mother regularly sent him. He undoubtedly treated her to a sampling of his winning speeches until finally she, like most everyone else, acquiesced to his charm. Jesse and Jackie were married in 1962. They had five children: Santita (1963), Jesse Louis (1965), Jonathan Luther (1966), Yusef Dubois (1970), and Jacqueline Lavinia (1975).

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EARLY ACTIVISM Crucial to Jackson’s burgeoning activist career was Samuel Proctor, the president of the university. Proctor was impressed by Jackson and took a personal interest in him. He intended to groom Jackson into a leader like Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he had known when they were students at Boston University. For his part, Jackson was an eager acolyte and admirer of King’s heroic achievements and majestic persona. King was no ordinary Baptist minister. Beginning with the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama, he was the first minister of the twentieth century to hold civil rights demonstrations on a massive scale and to mobilize black churches in the South in support of his actions. The involvement of the churches was in itself a grand achievement, considering that activism was considered a negative concept by most black Christians in the South. King popularized terms such as nonviolence, direct action, and civil disobedience, which he learned from his studies of Mahatma Gandhi, the world-famous leader of the Indian Independence Movement. Following his election to president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King launched several projects with the primary aim of dismantling Jim Crow in the South. Four major campaigns in Albany, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama, St. Augustine, Florida, and Selma, Alabama took place during the first half of the 1960s. The Congress of Racial Equality had been established in 1942 through the concerted effort of good friends: a black named James Farmer, and two whites, George Houser and Bernice Fisher. CORE, like King’s SCLC, had as its objective to fight segregation through nonviolent, direct-action demonstrations. But that was where the similarity stopped. The SCLC was led by ministers, and its membership consisted primarily of black churchgoers, although some Jews and whites made significant contributions and participated in demonstrations, sometimes at the cost of their lives. CORE was made up of college students, both black and white. Bayard Rustin, an essential player in various civil rights organizations and demonstrations, made significant contributions to CORE. The national headquarters was in Chicago, with numerous chapters proliferated across the nation. By 1961, there were more than fifty chapters. Through CORE, and later, the North Carolina Intercollegiate Council on Human Rights, Jackson came into his own. He also waged an unprecedented fight to obliterate Jim Crow laws in Greensboro, much to the surprise of the city’s white residents. Jackson took part in sit-ins at restaurants and in marches. Demonstrations at theaters were called ‘‘watch-ins,’’ at restaurants ‘‘eat-ins,’’ and at swimming pools ‘‘wade-ins.’’ For CORE activists, arrests were something to be proud of, soon coming to be thought of as a right of passage, even at the risk of getting expelled from college. In the spring of 1963, more than one thousand students were jailed during one

Jesse Jackson

week of demonstrations. Jackson, heavily involved in those demonstrations, was looked upon as a leader. In August 1963, Jackson went to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, one of the most pivotal events of the modern Civil Rights Movement. The speakers included civil rights greats such as A. Philip Randolph, leader of the Brotherhood for Sleeping Car Porters, Martin Luther King, Jr., of the SCLC, and Roy Wilkins, of the NAACP. John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was the youngest speaker that day. Floyd McKissick was there, representing CORE, while James Farmer, who had been arrested for his involvement in a demonstration, watched the march on television from jail. Some 250,000 gathered beneath the Lincoln Memorial to hear presentations and vocal performances. The most famous speech from that day was Dr. King’s tremulous oration of ‘‘I Have a Dream.’’ In the spring of 1964, Jackson gradated from North Carolina A&T. After deliberating with President Proctor, Jackson, following the path of Dr. King, secured admission to the Chicago Theological Seminary.

CHICAGO Chicago was a good match for Jackson, though when he arrived in the summer in 1964, he did not immediately plunge into activism. Instead he looked for work. His first job was for Mayor Richard Daley on Chicago’s South Side, where a large concentration of blacks had settled after coming up from the South over the course of several migrations. However, Jackson quit that job when he was told he had to take a position as a toll collector. His next job was an improvement: he sold Ebony and Jet magazines and got to know his way around Chicago. This time Jackson adapted well to life in the North. The blacks in the community took to him, as well. Jackson’s fiery and animated personality, down-to-earth qualities, and understanding of the black consciousness gave him an edge over conventional leaders who tried to reach out to the northern black communities. Blacks also appreciated Jackson’s ability to pick up on and use, in a credible way, the popular slang used in the community. This added to his charm and popularity. The SCLC initiated the last of its major campaigns in the South on March 7, 1965, a day which became known as ‘‘Bloody Sunday.’’ The march from Selma to Montgomery was sparked by the shooting death of a black man named Jimmie Lee Jackson during a voting-rights demonstration that had occurred the previous month. But on that grisly Sunday, shocking footage captured a police attack on hundreds of passive marchers. State and local officers attacked them with whips, billy clubs, and electric cattle prods as they attempted to march across Edmund Pettus Bridge. In the immediate aftermath, King made a desperate appeal to ministers everywhere for assistance.

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Jackson responded to King’s call, recruiting several other students and professors. King and his aides were impressed by him as they watched the strapping young theology student take command in Selma. He displayed the energy of several men, equanimity under extreme duress, and the sort of charisma and speech-making talent that made King himself famous. King observed him from a distance and took note. Eventually, Jackson was introduced to King and Ralph Abernathy. Without hesitation, Jackson asked if there was something he could do in Chicago to further King’s work. King listened, but took his time before answering. Returning to his home in Chicago from Selma, Jackson collapsed. He was extremely exhausted and, it turned out, had contracted pneumonia. But he was alive. One minister, a white man named James Reeb, was clubbed to death, four days after the campaign began. For Jackson, illness would be a lifelong problem. He has sickle cell anemia, a disease that most commonly afflicts blacks. Individuals who suffer from the disease are often wracked with bodily pain. Jackson’s illness was one of the few things in life that could ever slow him down. It was his albatross, but it did not defeat him; he projected and maintained an image of vigorous health and limitless energy. As his responsibilities increased, he often worked twenty-hour days. Six months after Selma, King got back to Jackson, inviting him to work full-time as an organizer for the SCLC. Jackson was ecstatic. The new job brought in more money and the opportunity of a lifetime: to work with King. But Jackson was not like the other activists. He was spontaneous, high energy, restive, and his confidence bordered on cockiness. King, on the other hand, was methodical, mild-mannered, sensitive to what others thought of him and, out of the public eye, introverted. It was a groundbreaking move for King to hire Jackson. True, King was a little unnerved by Jackson’s personality, but he also recognized his unique talents and wanted him on his team. Jackson was a harbinger of things to come; new, young leaders with strong personalities who would speak their minds. In the meantime, the balance in King’s leadership team remained intact, largely because Jackson revered King and was committed 100 percent to his ideology. Jackson listened to King. He did not detour to either the right or the left of whatever King instructed. King had important plans for the movement in Chicago. For some time he had been planning to launch a campaign in the North, and Jackson would play an essential role.

CHICAGO CAMPAIGN After the substantive wins of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, King turned his attention to the North, where inner-city poverty and racism were serious problems for blacks. Overcrowded and

Jesse Jackson

squalid ghettos, unemployment, and crime were among the pressing concerns. Emboldened by his successes in the South and by his unprecedented popularity, King launched his Chicago Freedom Movement in 1965. His intention was to utilize tactics such as rallies and marches, which he had employed with success in the South. But things were a little different in the North. Northerners did not rally behind King’s religious rhetoric or his advocacy of nonviolent tactics like blacks in the South did. Northerners had a different perspective on violence; northern blacks customarily fought back if attacked by whites. During the race riots of the 1960s, blacks, frustrated and overwhelmed by the conditions they faced, rioted in their own communities. In the South, blacks rarely fought back when attacked. Jackson had the ability to reach out to urban blacks in a way that King could not. This underscored why Jackson was so important to SCLC. King’s style and conservative persona worked extremely well in the South, but in the North, it was Jackson’s youthful and pliable style to which blacks responded favorably. Operation Breadbasket In the spring of 1966, Jackson was put in charge of a new program run by the Chicago chapter of the SCLC: Operation Breadbasket. He was thus responsible for one of the few successes achieved in the North by the organization. Operation Breadbasket was a concept conceived by King, inspired by a similar project known as ‘‘Selective Patronage,’’ spearheaded by Leo Sullivan in Philadelphia. The concept was simple: produce jobs for blacks by threatening white businesses with boycotts. King knew from personal experience that boycotts could be a powerful motivator for positive change. According to Jackson, the SCLC’s demands were a win-win situation for all concerned, since employment put money in the hands of the very people who patronized the stores that were targeted. Jackson expounded on the benefits of this program by explaining how it would help bring about economic empowerment and self-determination for blacks in the North. Jackson’s work bedazzled the SCLC leadership and created a buzz with the media in Chicago. As had been the case in the South, Operation Breadbasket initially drew from church members, ministers, and youth. The first campaign in 1966 targeted a dairy and was an easy victory. The boycott only lasted a few days before the business relented and agreed to employ blacks for forty-four additional jobs. In the same year, Jackson assisted King with several marches and with negotiations to do away with slums in Chicago. Two days after the July 10th march, a riot broke out. This was just one violent outbreak in a long series of riots that had begun in 1964. Riots were so prevalent that this period became known as the Long Hot Summer. Violence scorched major

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American cities throughout the nation. Police intervention did not help, and frequently made the situation worse. In most cases, deaths were caused by law enforcement, not the rioters themselves. Following the Chicago melee in July, King’s demonstrations were beset by problems and failures. Northern resistance to the marches was more violent than what King had faced in the South. Negotiations produced feckless agreements. King’s campaign was not going well. However, Jackson’s Operation Breadbasket in Chicago was flourishing, largely because of his popularity. Every Saturday morning, after a few songs by a gospel choir, Jackson, wearing flashy Afrocentric clothes, rattled off a speech like a Sunday sermon, complete with impassioned gestures, grimaces, and meteoric rhyming phrases. The crowds he drew were large and just as animated as his speechmaking. Jackson was a contradiction in terms. He was not yet an ordained minister, and his speeches and clothes were, at first glance, representative of a black power activist, not a leader from the SCLC. But Jackson had successfully adapted to his environment while retaining the essence of the SCLC’s ideology. He simply recast the message—and the messenger—in a way that would hold the attention of a particular audience. At the same time, Jackson was in fact proud of his black heritage and championed for black economic and political power—concepts that might have provoked a scandal if endorsed by King. King awarded Jackson’s success with a promotion in 1967, naming him national director of Operation Breadbasket. Jackson took his new job seriously. He worked long hours and maintained a steely focus. He started up more than a dozen chapters in other locations, but none faired as well as his own. This was due to his prestige, as well as a lack of funds available to sustain the other locations.

POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN King was extremely pleased with Jackson’s work, but he was troubled by his failure to produce tangible results in the North, America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, the race riots, and his own plummeting popularity. Poverty was another concern of King’s. Although it appeared that he was powerless to do anything about the other issues, he set out to fight poverty with renewed puissance. He told Jackson and the other aides that he wanted to launch a Poor People’s Campaign. In an unprecedented move, King sought to advocate not just for impoverished blacks. As he saw it, poverty afflicted everyone—whites, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and others. His aids listened, underwhelmed, as King described the other aspects of this new campaign. He would initiate an ‘‘Economic Bill of Rights’’ to address housing needs, unemployment, and

Jesse Jackson

financial assistance for those unable to work, and a march to Washington D.C. Jackson and the others were doubtful this scheme would work. Before King could execute the Poor People’s Campaign, he appeared in Memphis, Tennessee. He gave a speech on March 30, 1968 before a group of black sanitation workers who were on strike, protesting for better wages and treatment. On April 3, King attended a rally and gave another one of his most famous speeches, ‘‘I See the Promised Land,’’ also known as ‘‘I’ve been to the Mountaintop,’’ the speech that chillingly portended his tragic assassination that following day. In the speech’s conclusion, King said, Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. (Washington, 203)

KING’S ASSASSINATION On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated outside the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Jackson and several other aides were with him. James Earl Ray was later convicted of King’s death and ultimately died in prison at the age of seventy in 1998. King’s death affected the world, but those who knew him faced a very personal and private pain. Jackie Jackson described the emotional ordeal that followed for her husband. It began with a phone call when he informed her of King’s assassination and kept repeating to her that King had been shot. When she picked him up at the airport, he looked exhausted. In the car, neither spoke. When they got home, Jackson went directly to bed with his clothes on. After the shooting Jackson put King’s blood on his shirt. He wore that shirt for several weeks, during King’s memorial service, and television interviews. He was criticized by SCLC leaders for the inappropriateness of his gesture and distastefully calling attention to himself. Jackson went back to work in spite of his deep sadness. In that same year, he was ordained a minister at Chicago’s Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church. RESURRECTION CITY, USA Jackson plunged into work on the Poor People’s Campaign, determined to make King’s vision come alive despite his initial doubts. On May 2, a group of 300 individuals, representing an assortment of walks of life and races, assembled at the Lorraine Hotel, where King had been assassinated the

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previous month. From there, the group marched to an impoverished part of town in Memphis and boarded buses to Washington, D.C., where they rendezvoused with some three thousand people. The SCLC planned to take up residence at the nation’s capitol near where the famed March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom had been held in 1963 to dramatize the need for the federal government to address poverty in America. The name of this residence was Resurrection City, USA. Men and women constructed shacks and put up tents. Businesses donated individuals to provide services, such as medical and dental care. During the day, marches were staged and representatives held meetings with officials. Jackson served as the mayor of this makeshift town. Most days he gave speeches using a bullhorn. He held a revival-like session inside the capitol, complete with a sermon given by himself, as well as singing and prayer. He was also a much-needed calming influence. Beginning in the mid-1960s, black youths in northern cities had begun rioting in their communities, a violent reaction to desperate conditions that could break out at any moment. Jackson visited one such neighborhood where blacks were about to riot. But he gave a compelling speech that blended a touch of his own race consciousness with King’s teachings on nonviolence. His message of hope and pride calmed the fires that threatened to blaze. Jackson and the other residents of Resurrection City stayed for six weeks, but little was accomplished and no reform measures were introduced or set in motion. On the last day, June 24, a thousand police officers forced them off the premises with tear gas grenades. One hundred and seventy-five individuals were arrested.

BACK TO CHICAGO Back in Chicago, Jackson resumed his work with Operation Breadbasket. He fostered a familial climate in the black community near his Operation Breadbasket office. He continued his Saturday morning rallies, which were as spirited as ever. A portrait of King hung behind him, always in sight as he turned a clever phrase or rhymed. His crowd comprised mothers, children, gang members, the unemployed, and the struggling working class. These crowds hung on his every word. As always, his infusion of racial consciousness at these rallies and in the community at large was immensely popular. That Christmas, he introduced the term ‘‘Black Christmas,’’ a racial play on ‘‘White Christmas.’’ Black Christmas was a celebration of black culture. The local community participated with parades, beauty contests, and marching bands. Black businesses exhibited their wares at a festival. And ‘‘Black Soul Saint,’’ who hailed from the South Pole, delighted young children.

Jesse Jackson

These symbols were reminiscent of the tactics employed by Marcus Garvey, the early-twentieth-century African American leader of UNIA, who drew followers with ease using methods such as black-pride speeches and all-black marches. These simple events were highly significant given the white domination of most aspects of American life. By creating a climate based on blackness, Jackson and Garvey helped increase esteem and dignity in the black community, and such feelings were the exact opposite of the low self-worth and powerlessness that contributed to destructive and disastrous outcomes such as the race riots. Jackson’s ability to project himself to his community in a credible way was critical to his success as a leader. Garvey accomplished this by donning a pretentious uniform that set him apart from his constituents. Jackson’s Afrocentric garb and afro hairstyle better suited his times and enhanced his appeal to Chicago blacks. ILLINOIS HUNGER CAMPAIGN In an effort to further draw attention to the plight of the poor, Jackson launched the ‘‘Illinois Hunger Campaign’’ in 1970. This campaign brought together poor whites, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and other underprivileged groups. They marched from several points in Illinois to the capitol in Springfield. At the capitol, Jackson gave a speech. Jackson was pleased with the results of this campaign. Not only did the march avert state plans to reduce funds for its welfare program, but the state instituted free school lunches for children from low-income families. BLACK EXPO The Black Expo had nothing to do with Jackson’s work for the SCLC’s Poor People’s Campaign, and that presented a conflict for him. Its main purpose ‘‘was to gather together businessmen and tradesmen in a soulful, fun convention and exchange ideas, open accounts, and stimulate black business’’ (Stone, 88). The first one-week-long expo took place the summer of 1971 at the Chicago International Amphitheater. This event was a spectacular success and remains a major attraction today. Other Black Expos have appeared in cities across the nation. The SCLC leaders did not share Jackson’s excitement over the success of the Black Expo, as they were not among its sponsors. This was controversial, considering the fact that Jackson was an SCLC leader. Some found it troublesome that Jackson had not bothered to include the SCLC in this venture. Others thought he was trying to steal the limelight. Jackson’s issues with SCLC began shortly after King’s death. The organization was not the same after Ralph Abernathy took over as president,

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though in truth, trying to ‘‘replace’’ King was an impossible task. Jackson did not like the fact that he was not permitted to advance in the organization. When, in 1971, Abernathy suspended him over the snub concerning the Black Expo, Jackson quit and announced his intention to establish an organization called People United to Serve Humanity, otherwise known as PUSH.

OPERATION PUSH AND POLITICS Operation PUSH was one of the earliest organizations to be established in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement that was independent of the historical groups of that era. Many of the organizational aims remained the same as those of Operation Breadbasket. But this time Jackson had complete control. His local and national prominence and his audacity worked in Jackson’s favor. Jackson was a regular in the news and television interviews; he even appeared on an episode of the Public Broadcasting Station’s madly popular children’s show, Sesame Street. Jackson also had his own radio program, during which his voice could be heard on Saturday mornings speaking on a variety of topics concerning national and local issues that affect blacks. It was on this radio show that he broadcast his famous chant: ‘‘I am—somebody! I may be poor, but I am—somebody! I may be young, but I am— somebody! I may be on welfare, but I am—somebody! I may be small, but I am—somebody! I am—somebody!’’ Jackson took his chant to heart. For example, he was not at all intimidated when contacting businesses for support. He approached numerous big-name corporations and was rarely turned away. Among the list of supporters were Coca-Cola, Seven Up, and Quaker Oats. As Jackson saw it, by supporting blacks these corporations were investing in stronger and healthier communities. They were also augmenting their image and reputation among blacks, who, despite their dismal economic status compared with whites, were still strong consumers in the American market. Jackson’s brashness extended to his professional conduct. At the office, Jackson could be a challenging boss. The bigger the idea, the better, and he conceived many colossal projects. Jackson had no problem raising the funds and the support, but his employees and volunteers were expected to see his concepts through to fruition. In 1971, Jackson spoke at an event for black politicians in Gary, Indiana and gave his strong opinion on America’s two-party system. He was critical of the Democratic and Republican parties, asserting that the Democratic Party was not as proactive as it could be in regard to black issues, while the Republican Party did nothing at all. He asserted that there was a need for a new party.

Jesse Jackson

Jackson went to the 1971 Democratic Convention in Miami, Florida, where he was one of the main attractions. He was interviewed and allowed to give a speech protesting the lack of black representation at the convention. He was also there to challenge Chicago’s mayor, Richard Daley, whom he had long criticized for ignoring the problems facing blacks in Chicago. Jackson’s presence demonstrated ‘‘that he was entirely unafraid to go toe-totoe with the mayor’’ (Bruns, 69). This was a definitive blow to Daley’s influence. PUSH/EXCEL Seen in one light, PUSH/Excel was created, in 1976, to transfer Jackson’s personal sense of optimism and confidence onto disadvantaged black youth. The program was chock-full of ebullient slogans such as variations of ‘‘If your mind can conceive it and your heart can believe it, then you can achieve it,’’ which were printed on buttons and posters. One of Jackson’s goals for the program was to affect the belief system of underprivileged youth, if not overwrite some of the thinking and negative experiences that blocked them from success. Among the problems black youth faced were poverty, drug use, gang involvement, and teen pregnancy. Issues like these prevented black youths from finishing high school, going on to acquire advanced degrees and wellpaying jobs, and moving out of the ghetto, thus perpetrating the cycle of poverty. Poor academic performance, low test scores, and a general underachievement were historical problems for blacks. Though these problems were the clear legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination, they affected a huge percentage of the black community from the extremely destitute to those newly inducted into the middle class. Jackson’s position was that blacks should transcend these issues and that the historic handicaps should not be further enabled by short-term approaches disguised as solutions. During an expose on the PUSH/Excel program on the TV show 60 Minutes, Jackson was shown saying, I look at a lot of these theories that many social workers come up with, like, now the reason the Negro can’t learn is his daddy’s gone, his momma is pitiful, there’s no food in the refrigerator, it’s rats all in his house … and that’s the reason he can’t learn.… Well, if we can run faster, jump higher, and shoot a basketball straighter off of inadequate diets, then we can read, write, count, and think off those same diets (70).

PUSH/Excel’s advocacy of self-help appealed to the sensibilities of most conservatives and liberals. The program attracted financial support from a number of prestigious sources, such as the Ford Foundation, and numerous federal grants. PUSH/Excel programs were installed in schools across the

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nation and remain to this day an indispensable tool whereby students can participate in oratorical contests, receive tutorial assistance in school work, and take part in other extracurricular activities. However, the popularity of the program plummeted during the 1980s when Ronald Reagan became president. Reagan set in motion a tide of conservatism that not only affected funding to PUSH/Excel, but resulted in setbacks in many of the gains achieved for the poor, such as Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty programs. In that decade, the poor in America suffered, and once again there were rumblings in the ghettos. Two major riots occurred in Miami, Florida, in 1982 and 1989. 1984 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN Black leaders were distressed by Reagan’s performance, which favored wealthy whites and marginalized everyone else. In the late fall of 1983, during Reagan’s first term, Jackson startled the nation by announcing his intention to campaign for the presidency on the Democratic ticket in the election of 1984. Jackson was not the first black to pursue the presidency. In 1872, Frederick Douglass, the nineteenth-century black abolitionist, was nominated as the vice presidential candidate of the Equal Rights Party, sharing the ticket with the first woman to run for president. In 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first black and the first black woman to seek a major party (Democratic) nomination for president. The response to Jackson’s announcement was not positive. There were those who feared his run would provoke racial violence. Many felt that the time was not yet ripe for such an audacious move as that. Syrian Mission Jackson, characteristically brazen, paid no heed to his dissenters then or when he bolted off on his first unauthorized rescue mission to Syria, where Lieutenant Robert O. Goodman, Jr. was being held captive. Goodman had been captured when his plane was shot down during an American bombing raid. American officials and the media were opposed to Jackson’s venture. Jackson stayed for several days in Syria, meeting with Syrian officials and President Assad. The world was stunned when Goodman was released, thus making it impossible to ignore the fact that Jackson had not only extraordinary talents of persuasion, but also a broad influence. As one of his friends, Richard Hatcher, asserted, people in very high places [took] Jesse Jackson seriously and [recognized] what he potentially was capable of doing. I think that up to that point that they had … viewed him as basically a preacher, as a person who could engage, who was charismatic and who could engage in rhetoric. But they did not see

Jesse Jackson

Reverse Discrimination Reverse discrimination is the practice of showing preference to a disadvantaged group. Reverse discrimination is a term largely used by the dominant group to voice frustrations with programs such as affirmative action, which attempt to balance the historical oppression of marginalized groups by favoring them, e.g., in university admissions or employment. Many of these programs were launched in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, and in response to the riots that occurred in the impoverished black communities of some northern cities during the mid-1960s. The riots were caused by the dismal conditions in black ghettos, rampant police brutality, and gross neglect by local authorities. Contemporary civil rights leaders, such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, are often criticized for advocating reverse discrimination. The topic is controversial, for even among a number of African Americans, affirmative action is regarded with skepticism. Some feel affirmative action relegates them to ‘‘token’’ status, i.e., a person who is accepted to a university or hired simply because of race and not by merit. This feeling is exacerbated when whites publicly vent their frustrations with reverse racism or treat the recipient of affirmative action in a condescending manner. The reality is that blacks are disproportionately economically and politically disadvantaged compared to whites, and that historical injustices and racism are far and away the greatest contributors to that fact. To address the affects of racism, as well as the repercussions of slavery and Jim Crow, programs such as affirmative action attempt to resolve overwhelming racial disparities. However, in doing so, they generate a new type of racial strife for whites who disapprove of giving another race a special advantage.

him as a person who could be a serious player in international affairs and foreign relations. (102)

Reagan lauded Jackson publicly, and Jackson’s fame soared. This was an enviable boost to his political campaign. The Campaign Jackson’s campaign was stunning but also riddled with controversy and problems. Jackson was one of the top three Democratic Party candidates, the others being Walter Mondale and Gary Hart. Jackson’s massive popularity surprised those who had thought his political aspirations were precocious. His broad appeal paralleled his evolutionary change from a focus on blacks to one that encompassed all Americans suffering from poverty, neglect, and limited opportunities and resources—just as King had proposed in the months before

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his death. He forged the Rainbow Coalition, an activist political group that brought together whites, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, and others. In the process of his political development, Jackson stopped wearing afros, exchanged his Afrocentric clothes for suits and ties, and moved his family into a luxurious home. America was attracted to his charm and his emotionally stirring speeches, even when they lacked substance. But Jackson could be demanding and explosive. And when it came out in the news that Jackson had ‘‘muttered the coarse slang words ‘Hymie’ and ‘Hymietown,’ referring to [New York City’s] large Jewish constituency,’’ he was nearly crushed by the avalanche of outrage and criticism (Bruns, 78). After bungling attempts to deny and then defend his comments, he apologized before the national Jewish leaders at a synagogue in Manchester, New Hampshire. Jackson’s other problem was that he received an endorsement by the fiery and controversial Louis Farrakhan, minister of the Nation of Islam. As leaders go, Farrakhan, a black separatist, was among the most radical. His brazen, no-holds-barred criticism of white racism repelled most Americans. And his remarks concerning Jews were deemed by many to be anti-Semitic or hateful toward Jews. The endorsement tarnished Jackson’s image. Jackson recanted his acceptance of Farrakhan’s support and denounced the controversial statements. But in the end, it was doubtful that many Americans were ready to accept the idea of a black president. The numerous death threats Jackson received during his campaign attested to that fact. It had only been twenty years since the federal government had been compelled by black protesters to pass civil rights legislation. Racism and discrimination were still important issues. And blacks in most parts of the nation had not yet, in any significant way, penetrated the walls that barred them from mainstream American life. Jackson finished third in the Democratic Primary, with the nomination going to Walter Mondale. He did win twenty-one percent of the national primary vote, though, thanks to the rules governing delegate selection at the time in the Democratic Party, received only eight percent of the delegates. In 1984, Reagan was elected for a second term. If Jackson had been elected, it would certainly have greatly impacted black life. Jackson was in favor of reparations for descendents of black slaves, and of taking a strong stance against South Africa because of its apartheid system. He intended to strengthen the current voting right legislation, reorganize America’s War on Drugs campaign to target suppliers rather than just the users of illegal substances, and funnel more money to social reform programs. CUBAN MISSION In the spring of 1984, Jackson went on another unofficial mission, this time to Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro to discuss the release of some American captives. Castro was the leader of a militant revolution in 1959 that had put

Jesse Jackson

Reparations Reparations are a compensation, payable in money or other form, to amend a wrong or injury. The issue of reparations has been a thorn of contention among African Americans since the end of slavery. Both white liberals and many blacks have worked for more than a hundred years to come up with a formula for fair reparations, without much success through anyone’s efforts. In 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman’s proposal to grant recently freed slaves property was thwarted by President Andrew Johnson. Thaddeus Stevens devised a slave reparations bill, but it too never saw the light of day. In the late nineteenth century, a bishop and Henry McNeil Turner, one of the first black politicians in the South during Reconstruction, were vocal about the need for reparations to compensate blacks for years of forced and unpaid labor. Turner scored a rare success by procuring funds from the American Colonization Society to finance trips to transport blacks to Africa to live. There were an abundance of undertakings by blacks to demand reparations in the twentieth century. In 1955, a woman named Queen Mother Audley Moore organized the Reparations Committee of Descendants of the United States Slaves. In 1962, James Forman, executive secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, caused controversy when he interrupted services at the Riverside Church in Manhattan, New York and read the Black Manifesto, a document demanding $500 million from churches and synagogues to be used to address social problems in black communities. In the late 1980s, Representative John Conyers introduced several reparations bills. There have been other attempts by blacks around the country, though none of them have been successful. Blacks who have sought reparations are well aware that other groups have received compensation, and often refer to those cases to aid their own struggle. Native American tribes have received monetary compensation, and some have even regained property that had been illegally taken from them. During the Second World War (1941–1945), Japanese Americans lost land, jobs, and freedom when they were forced into internment camps. Approximately six million Jews lost their lives, their property, and their homes and belongings in the horrific genocide known as the Holocaust. Each of these groups has received reparations. Reparation advocates argue that African Americans suffered similar crimes from the beginning of slavery in America in the seventeenth century through the first half of the twentieth century. But the challenge to persuade opponents is formidable. Many reasons are given for the resistance to reparations. Some claim reparations for blacks is a racist concept; some say that compensation would be too costly and too complicated to administer, since it has been many centuries since the days of the first slaves. Others contend that affirmative action and other programs created to address lacks in black communities are a form of reparations. Consequently, this is an issue that remains unsettled.

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him in power. To many Cubans, Castro was a venerated hero who had rescued them from the tyrannical rule of Fulgencio Batista. But Castro, who had established communism as the country’s system of government, was America’s nearest nemesis. Castro had met with a number of African American leaders. He had granted black militants like Robert F. Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Huey P. Newton exile in his country during the 1960s. Among black power groups, his rise to leadership was considered legendary. Black proponents of communism were impressed by the progress he made on racial issues in Cuba. When Jackson arrived in Havana, he was not interested in communist ideology or politics; he was concerned with the liberation of the American captives. It took him only eight hours to accomplish what had been perceived as an impossible mission: the release of forty-eight individuals. 1988 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND BEYOND The most inspiring aspect of Jackson’s second campaign for the presidential nomination was the extraordinary show of support from whites. In the first campaign, Jackson’s support was largely drawn from the black South. In this second round, Jackson was bombarded with support from whites in the Midwest and the South. In Texas, for example, Jackson met a white man who had seen him during the march in Selma, Alabama. He told Jackson that, at that time, he was demonstrating on the side of the Ku Klux Klan. He proudly exclaimed that he and others no longer embraced hatred for blacks. Jackson finished second to Michael Dukakis in the Democratic primary, having garnered thirty-two percent of the delegates. A pivotal moment in Jackson’s life came at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, where he addressed the world, making famous his refrain ‘‘Keep Hope Alive.’’ Jackson punctuated that speech with biblical references, and references to the struggles of civil rights leaders. He also called attention to the AIDS epidemic (a disease that ravages the body’s immune system, which first made headlines in the early 1980s) and emphasized the importance of finding a common ground and uniting for America’s good. After that speech there was little question that Jackson had established his position as an important voice on the American political scene. In the Shadow It is difficult to imagine Jackson accepting a role with limited influence, but that is what he did in 1989 when he was elected as Washington, D.C.’s ‘‘statehood senator’’ or ‘‘shadow senator’’ as it was commonly called. According to federal law, Washington, D.C. residents were not allowed

Jesse Jackson

active representation in the Senate. As a shadow senator, Jackson, who moved to Washington, was unable to cast votes, but he hoped to influence policy. However, the limitations put on him were greater than he anticipated and he was unable to affect significant change. After only a year, Jackson decided to move on to other projects. Iraq Mission Due to the two successful international trips to secure the release of Americans, Jackson had developed an image of something of a superhero. In 1991, he bounded off to Iraq, where hundreds of foreign nationals were being held as virtual hostages by President Saddam Hussein following the onset of the Gulf War. In the global community, Hussein was considered a frightening ruler. He was responsible for the murders of numerous Kurds, an ethnic group that lived in the north of Iraq, carried out to maintain their subjugation to his rule. But one man was not afraid to meet with him in the hopes of releasing hundreds of hostages in captivity: Jesse Jackson. Through his own efforts, Jackson secured a meeting with Hussein, who agreed to an interview with him. Hussein did not hide his disdain for America’s president and the attempts to overthrow him. As he had done before on previous missions, Jackson ‘‘attempted to persuade Hussein that it was in his and his country’s best interest to release the women and children and the sick now being held’’ (Bruns, 103). More than two hundred foreign nationals and Americans were freed. In that same year, Jackson returned to Chicago to resume management of Operation PUSH (he eventually merged his two organizations to form Rainbow/ PUSH). But this did not signal the end of his illustrious career. He hosted Both Sides with Jesse Jackson from 1992 to 2000 on CNN and went on to befriend one of the most popular presidents in contemporary American history. Bill Clinton Bill Clinton served two terms as the nation’s president (1993–2001). He was a sensation with African Americans. During his terms, he frequented black communities and diversified his cabinet, proving by word and deed his empathy with the historical and present struggles of blacks. Jackson helped to mobilize support for his election, and, in 1997, became Clinton’s Special Envoy for the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa. Despite an intensive tour through West Africa, Jackson’s successes were minor. Some leaders were outright not interested in democracy; others were responsive but were preoccupied with other overwhelming issues: political unrest, rogue factions, drugs, poverty, and illness.

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The Wall Street Project Jackson’s next project, launched in 1998, enjoyed greater success. The Wall Street Project functioned in the same way as Operation Breadbasket: ‘‘using threats of boycotts and the power of Jackson’s own brand of persuasion politics (his enemies called it ‘extortion’), Rainbow/PUSH would lobby companies to name more minorities to corporate boards’’ (Bruns, 112). Jackson’s tactics drew complaints from those who questioned the ethics of compelling companies to respond to his demands or else feel the wrath of his protest machine. But others celebrated Jackson’s success and believed his methods were as necessary as those that had attacked and brought down the system of segregation. Yugoslavia Mission Ethnic turmoil between Serbian nationalists and Albanians in Yugoslavia forced Clinton to intervene in 1999. Back in 1995, Clinton had facilitated efforts to stop violent outbreaks by the combined use of force and negotiation. During a bombing campaign, three American soldiers were captured. Shortly after discussions that began after Jackson’s arrival on April 28, 1999, Jackson was triumphant and the soldiers were released. Publications Throughout the 1990s, Jackson, then in his fifties, did a great deal of writing. He wrote a weekly column for the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. He published two books: Straight from the Heart (1987) and Keep Hope Alive (1989). He co-authored Legal Lynching: Racism, Injustice, and the Death Penalty (1996), and It’s about The Money (1999) with his son, U.S. Representative Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY For Jackson, the new millennium started in an extraordinary fashion. In 2000, Clinton awarded Jackson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honor that had previously been bestowed upon other civil right greats such as Martin Luther King, Jr. (posthumously), James Farmer, Dorothy Height, and Rosa Parks. But as the new century progressed, Jackson was hit with scandal and attacks on his leadership in the black community. In 2001, he announced that he had conceived a child by another woman. His daughter Ashley had been born two years prior to the announcement. The news made headlines, but Jackson’s marriage stayed intact. The black community was largely supportive and forgiving.

Jesse Jackson

Noose A noose is a running knot in a rope that tightens as the rope is pulled, and it has become a symbol of race hatred. The noose is an old symbol in American history, extending back to the start of the lynching epidemic in the late nineteenth century. According to a statistic reported by the Tuskegee Institute, there were 3,437 blacks lynched between 1882 and 1951. Although lynching refers to any means of unlawful killing, it is largely identified with murder by hanging, using a noose. A November 25, 2007, New York Times article titled ‘‘The Geography of Hate’’ reported that nooses have been making a disturbing comeback in recent years, particularly since a mass rally on September 20, 2007. The event took place in Jena, Louisiana, where six black youths faced trial for assaulting a white youth. The assault followed a troubling incident in which white Jena High students hung nooses in a tree beneath which black students had previously sat. The students responsible for hanging the nooses contended that they did so innocently, not realizing the historical implications of what they had done. Since that rally, more than fifty noose incidents have been reported in both the North and the South. One of the first incidents to follow the Jena rally occurred on October 10, 2007, in Minneapolis, where the editor of a community college newspaper was fired after hanging a noose in the newsroom to motivate his team to meet their deadlines. Several nooses were found on college campuses, including Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana, and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. The noose has been displayed at construction sites, in a hospital room, and over the locker of a black man in the New York Police Department. Sightings have occurred in Alabama, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and other locations. In most cases, the situation is handled quickly and the person known to be responsible, if an employee, is fired. Interracial crowds have rallied in protest at the locations of the various noose incidents. However, the incidents have coincided with a marked increase in hate groups.

Young blacks, however, expressed dissatisfaction with Jackson, not for his personal failings, but for his incessant presence in the limelight. The feeling grew that the time was ripe for new leaders. But Jackson remains unstoppable. In 2005, he excoriated President George W. Bush for neglecting to respond quickly and efficiently to the predominately black victims of Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In that same year, he was among the protesters seeking clemency for Stanley ‘‘Tookie’’ Williams. Williams had helped found the Crips, a Los Angeles, California street gang. In 1979 Williams was charged with four

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murders, and he was convicted in 1981. After several years, Williams underwent a process of reform. He spoke out against gangs, wrote a public apology for his role in the formation of the Crips, and wrote children’s books with the theme of nonviolence. Jackson and others based their support on Williams’ redemption. However, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would not grant him clemency. Williams was executed on December 13, 2005. In the following year, Jackson responded to the case of the Jena Six. The problem in Jena, Louisiana began the day after blacks were granted permission by the teachers of Jena High School to sit under a tree where whites normally sat. On the next day three white students hung nooses on that same tree. The principal wanted to expel them, but the school board voted against it. The white students were suspended for a short time. Three months later, six black students, known as the Jena Six, beat up a white student. Initially, the six were charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy. The charges were eventually reduced for two of the underage youths (outcome of Jena Six pending at time of publication). Jackson and his friend and colleague Al Sharpton organized mass rallies and protests over what they deem to be the discriminatory handling of the Jena Six case. Whites in Jena contend they are not racist and that the white students who hung the nooses did not realize the gravity of their actions. The noose symbolizes a long and horrific history of black lynchings in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Its reemergence in the twentyfirst century concerns black leaders. Its appearance underscores the reality that racism is still a problem, and that the struggle that Jackson wages is as pertinent as ever. See also James Farmer; Louis Farrakhan; Marcus Garvey; Dorothy Height; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis; Huey P. Newton; Rosa Parks; A. Philip Randolph; Al Sharpton; and Roy Wilkins. FURTHER RESOURCES Bruns, Roger. Jesse Jackson: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. Frady, Marshall. The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Push for Excellence (February 2008). See http://www.pushexcel.org. Rainbow Push Coalition (February 2008). See http://www.rainbowpush.org. Washington, James M., ed. I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World. New York: Harper Collins, 1986.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. was the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King is arguably the most famous of the civil rights leaders. The source of his mass appeal lay in his ability to inspire with his messages of hope and in the stirring images he conjured in his famous speeches, most notably ‘‘I Have a Dream,’’ which he gave at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. In that speech, King envisioned a bold, new South, where ‘‘the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice,’’ and ‘‘in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers’’ (Washington, 104, 105). King is well-known for his incredible, booming, and tremulous voice, which ebbed and flowed like waves upon the shore. To this day, the mere image of King’s face on the cover of a book or mention of a Martin Luther King Day school program immediately summons images of blacks collapsing beneath the pressure of fire hoses and streams of men and women, black and white, hand and hand, singing and marching to challenge racism, social injustice, and discriminatory laws. At the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) office, King utilized a democratic leadership style. He relied on a team of advisors, with whom he consulted often. They brainstormed over strategies and painstakingly mulled over every issue and decision. Behind the scenes, King was quiet, sometimes tentative and sensitive. When criticized or faced with failure over a disastrous civil rights campaign, King could be melancholy and withdrawn for days. At other times, he exuded warmth and unmistakable southern charm, though in meetings with other civil rights leaders, King was reserved and quiet. It was at the podium, standing before crowds of hundreds and thousands, that King became the symbol of audacious hope, of tenacity and nobility, and of greatness. It is his humanity that one feels most profoundly—that and the magnitude of his courage and his sacrifice.

CHILDHOOD King was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia to ‘‘Daddy King,’’ a prominent reverend at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and his wife, ‘‘Mother Dear,’’ the second of three children. Willie Christine was the oldest and Alfred Daniel, or A.D., was the youngest. King was named Michael after his father. At five, his father changed both their names to Martin Luther, but the junior Martin was called M.L. for short. The King household, which included a grandmother whom King adored, lived in a two-story home in a black neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia. King wrote in his autobiography that his earliest years ‘‘were very comfortable’’ and that ‘‘life had been wrapped up for me in a Christmas


package,’’ words with which few African Americans in the 1930s and 1940s could relate (King, 5). M.L.’s childhood was filled with many pleasures and privileges. He and his siblings received allowances, with which they bought ice cream and sodas. M.L. had a bike, model airplanes, and kites. Many poor children had no toys with which to play. And though Jim Crow laws were at that time in full effect throughout the South, M.L. did not appear to directly feel their effects or question the fact that one of his childhood friends was white. His world was a secure and blissful place without limits or constraints—except those imposed by his father. Religion and his father’s stringent discipline were seminal to M.L.’s early development. While Mother was ‘‘soft-spoken and easygoing,’’ Daddy was ‘‘stern’’ (King, 3, 5). King and his siblings received many a spanking from their father, who raised his children to be good, upright, and God-fearing Christians. Religion was not just a Sunday affair. The family prayed together every day in the morning and in the evening. And the children were required to learn Scriptures by rote. As a young boy, King belted out hymns before a beaming congregation. M.L. was a precocious and compassionate child. Early on he displayed the qualities that would set him apart as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. He was a bright, inquisitive, and sensitive child who loved words and was moved by the very sight of poverty. M.L. was deeply influenced by his father and maternal grandfather, a legacy that quietly manifested itself in his adult years. In his autobiography, King proudly related the accomplishments of his fearless and commanding father, who boldly protested white racism and discrimination. The elder King had had a vastly different childhood than his own children. He was born into the desperate world of sharecropping, where anti-black violence was rampant. Mike saw beatings and a lynching. And once, a white man hit him when he did not yield to an order. These events filled King Sr. with a hatred for whites. And the constant evidence of white affluence and superiority kindled a hot desire in his heart for a better life for himself and his family to come. At fifteen years old, Mike left home for better opportunities in Atlanta and ascended to leadership. In the ensuing years, Mike earned his high school degree, received a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College, and married Alberta Williams, the daughter of the Reverend Adam Daniel Williams. Williams was an activist who served as the president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He led a boycott against a white newspaper that called blacks ‘‘dirty’’ and ‘‘ignorant’’ and was instrumental in the establishment of Booker T. Washington High School for black youths. He also ‘‘refused to ride the city buses after witnessing a brutal attack on a load of Negro passengers, … led the fight in Atlanta to equalize teachers’ salaries, and was instrumental in the elimination of Jim Crow elevators in the courthouse’’ (King, 5).

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King Sr. succeeded Williams at Ebenezer after his death in 1931. He received his doctor of divinity degree at Atlanta’s Morris Brown College and became a leader in his community, well respected by blacks and whites. Significantly, M.L.’s father was not only an activist but a masterful orator and spiritual leader. Since slavery, being a preacher had been one of the most highly regarded professions for African Americans. The eloquent words that swelled from the African American pulpits addressed critical issues that pertained to the spiritual and material welfare of the congregation and were a powerful means of swaying public opinion. As his father preached, M.L. watched the congregation respond with emotional fervor and noted the effect of sermons delivered in the spirited African American style. These examples of African American protest had little meaning for M.L., oblivious to the realities of the world in the halcyon years of his childhood. His awakening came when, upon entering elementary school, his friend’s parents refused to let him play with their son. This harsh entrance into the world of racial etiquette, Jim Crow, and segregation was followed by an intense discussion at the family dinner table about the history of African Americans, from slavery times to the present agonies of segregation. His parents assured him that though the laws stated that he was inferior, he was very much a ‘‘somebody.’’ But King hurt too badly over the situation. And, like his father in his younger years, his pain turned to hatred for whites. Though life in a middle-class family provided multiple comforts for M.L., it did not shelter him from the indignities of segregation. While King was forced to learn the complicated and demeaning rules of black life in segregation, his white friend was handed unlimited privilege and opportunity. King learned that a ‘‘good nigger’’ did not protest against the way things were in the South, like the time a white woman slapped him and called him a ‘‘little nigger’’ or when, as he saw, Klansmen or white police officers beat blacks in public. King despised the humiliating laws that forced him to use separate and inferior public restrooms and go through the rear of public places, while whites received the best seats, the best treatment, and the best accommodations. The pain of this reality drew M.L. closer to his grandmother, who provided the comfort he desperately needed. But in 1941, M.L. experienced a different kind of pain, and a deep sense of loss, when his grandmother died from a heart attack. He was twelve years old.

COMING OF AGE IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH M.L. came of age during the forties, a period of burgeoning African American protest exemplified by A. Philip Randolph and his role in the Labor Movement and his victory in desegregating the armed forces. This period also saw the rise of CORE. Before the establishment of CORE, the NAACP was more or less the only viable organization for African American activism. To


be sure, neither CORE nor the NAACP had much attraction for M.L.’s young mind at this time. He had other interests: girls, dancing, eating soul food, and playing with the boys. Academically, M.L. was a good student and conducted himself in a manner fit for a preacher’s son. He expressed the artistic side of his nature by playing the violin and listening to opera. As his voice matured and deepened, he began to captivate not only girls, but adults as well. It came as no surprise to anyone when M.L. entered and won an oratorical contest sponsored by the Negro Elks when he was in the eleventh grade. The title of his speech was ‘‘The Negro and the Constitution.’’ Despite that triumph, the incident that followed dampened his spirits and caused him to feel ‘‘the angriest [he] had ever been in [his] life’’ (Oates, 16). While riding home from the contest, M.L. sat with his teacher on a Jim Crow bus, basking in the glow of his victory. But when all the seats had filled up, the driver ordered M.L. and his teacher to give up their seats to two white passengers. True to his father and grandfather’s legacy, M.L. refused, in what may well have been his first attempt at protesting the humiliating system of segregation. The driver threatened and cursed him. When his teacher insisted that they do as the driver ordered, he gave in and ‘‘reluctantly got up’’ (Oates, 16). The fuming M.L. and his teacher ‘‘stood in the aisle’’ the remainder of their trip, ‘‘jostled and thrown about as the bus sped down the highway’’ (Oates, 16). What is clear is that a certain tension had arisen between father and son. M.L., perhaps experiencing a typical teenaged rebelliousness, had determined that he did not want to be like his father. For this reason, he suppressed his own inner yearning (and his father’s wish) to become a preacher. He felt disdain for his father’s expressive style of preaching and the unrestrained emotion of the congregation. And he made it known that he did not agree with the fundamentalist teaching of the Bible. There was also the fact that M.L. felt he could not love whites, as his father had come to do. Despite this tension, M.L. could not deny that he had the same eagerness to attain great heights that his father had, and he graduated early from high school so that he could go to college. HIGHER LEARNING Morehouse College King entered Morehouse College, a private black college for men, in 1944 at the age of only fifteen. His college years were a time of intense and stimulating study; a time for King to explore life independent of his parents and to sort out his questions about religion (particularly regarding fundamentalism) and about his purpose in life. To his father’s joy, King eventually decided to follow in Daddy’s footsteps—not just in his desire to preach but in his intention to fight the ominous monster known as Jim Crow. His education gave him the tools he needed to figure out how to connect preaching

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and activism and to develop the philosophy he would later use to motivate the massive Civil Rights Movement. M.L. had numerous rich experiences while attending Morehouse College. He had an active social life; dating women from the nearby Spelman College, a private black college for women; becoming a member of the glee club; and playing football and going on weekend trips with friends. During the summer breaks, King thought he should work as a manual laborer, despite his father’s protests. King was conscious of the fact that though he lived under Jim Crow like other African Americans in the South, he benefited from his father’s hard-earned middle class economic status. He was privileged in ways that most African Americans were not. He did not know poverty or hunger. Neither did he know the life of hard, ‘‘inferior,’’ work. In short, he pursued subordinate jobs to ‘‘learn their plight and to feel their feelings,’’ rejecting his father’s offers to work with a number of successful African American businesses (Oates, 21). One summer he worked on a tobacco farm. Another summer he worked for the Spring and Mattress Company, though he quit when his boss called him a nigger. Nevertheless, King experienced firsthand the injustice of a system that paid African Americans less than whites and treated them poorly. Classes at Morehouse were a provocative and stimulating experience, thanks in large part to the excellent professors. Walter Chivers was his sociology advisor; Gladstone Lewis Chandler drilled in King ‘‘the art of lucid and precise exposition’’; George D. Kelsey taught him that ‘‘truths’’ existed behind Bible stories and that a ‘‘modern minister should be a philosopher with social, as well as spiritual concerns’’; and Benjamin Mays ‘‘spoke out against racial oppression’’ and was ‘‘active in the NAACP’’ (Oates, 19). M.L. was a voracious learner who did well academically, despite the fact (he soon discovered) that he had graduated Booker T. Washington with only an eighth grade reading level. College provided the opportunity for the inquisitive young man to seek answers to the troubling problem of race in America. It also gave him quiet moments to ponder the great ideas he was reading about, and to scrutinize the efforts of historic African American activists such as Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Marcus Garvey. Yet none of these great men, King felt, had adequately developed tactics to fight the ills of racial segregation. He read Thoreau’s essay ‘‘Civil Disobedience,’’ which resonated with him in a way the others had not. During this period of intense learning, King underwent a significant change: he lost his hatred for whites. The impetus for this transformation was his participation in the Atlanta Intercollegiate Council, an interracial student group. Through this experience, King discovered ‘‘that contact on fairly equal terms could alleviate racial hostility’’ and that his own anger toward whites was abating (Oates, 21). In 1947, while still a student, King gave his first sermon at his father’s church. Shortly thereafter he was ordained a minister and made assistant


pastor at Ebenezer. In the following year, King graduated, majoring in sociology and minoring in English, determined to continue his education at Crozer Seminary in Pennsylvania. His choice was largely influenced by his experiences during those weekend trips in the Jim Crow–free North. Crozer Theological Seminary Life at Crozer continued to be intellectually stimulating for King, but it was also personally challenging. Having never before been in a situation where he was the only black, King found it difficult to adjust to being one of only a handful of African Americans on campus. Despite black migration, most African Americans lived in the South, and due to segregation they lived mostly among themselves, entering the world of whites only for business, work, or entertainment. Most African American communities were self-sustaining. Arriving at Crozer, King felt self-conscious, ‘‘painfully aware of how whites stereotyped the Negro as lazy and messy, always laughing, always loud and late,’’ and he over-compensated by being ‘‘grimly serious for a time,’’ having ‘‘a tendency to overdress, to keep my room spotless, [his] shoes perfectly shined, and [his] clothes immaculately pressed’’ (Oates, 24). Despite being in the more liberal North, King did experience several racial incidents. In one, he and his friends were denied service at a restaurant in New Jersey. His friends attempted to protest, stating that it was unlawful to discriminate against them, but the restaurant owner fired gunshot warnings and forced them out. King went to the police with his friends to report this incident. The owner was arrested, but the case against him was dismissed when three white witnesses refused to testify. In another incident, a raging white student confronted King in his dorm room, brandishing a gun and accusing him of being behind a prank that had been played against him. King, remaining cool and calm, denied any role in the prank. Students reported what happened to the student government, but King would not press charges. King became well-known on campus because of his bravery and for refraining from paying the student back for his behavior and the threat upon his life. King began to feel more comfortable around the other white students; indeed, he and a white female student fell in love and made plans for marriage. But the harsh reality was that no one, whether in the North or the South, in the 1950s approved of interracial dating. Their plans for marriage were dissolved when the Reverend Barbour, at whose church King frequently gave sermons ‘‘in a restrained, almost scholarly, style,’’ convinced him to call it off (Oates, 29). Interracial marriage posed too many problems. When the young woman’s parents found out about the relationship, they took her out of the school. At this point in King’s life, his academic studies, rather than love, were the focus of his attention. King’s coursework and academic interests led him

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to study numerous philosophies in communism, socialism, liberalism, and capitalism. All these ideas were fraught with imperfections, and none of them provided the strategies King needed to develop an approach to fighting racism in general and segregation in particular. What he wanted was something that was not so violent as to bring about swift retaliation and not so passive as to be ineffectual. He continued to struggle with the question of the role of Christianity in activism. The solution, at least in part, came to him when he attended a lecture on the life of Gandhi. Gandhi became a shining model for the young King, providing as it did a way to merge a ‘‘moral’’ and ‘‘practical’’ approach to injustice. In June 1951, King stood before his graduating class and presented the valedictory address. And he was awarded a $1,300 scholarship for graduate school. For his graduation present, his father bought him a shiny new green Chevrolet. King had transcended the depths of his anger and the bounds of racist laws, and his future was luminous. Boston University King chose to attend Boston University’s School of Theology for graduate school. His years there were again full of rigorous study and intellectual exploration. His social life also blossomed. Together with his roommate, Philip Lenud, King went to jazz clubs, dined at soul-food restaurants, and organized a Philosophy Club. He also embarked upon a deliberate search for a wife. He dated several women, but had not yet met the woman that fit his criteria: a wife he could converse with and who would be willing to stay at home to manage a family. He believed at least one parent should be home to attend to the upbringing of the children. King met this woman through a blind date set up by married friends. His bride-to-be was beautiful, intelligent, and a student at the New England Conservatory. Her name was Coretta Scott. However, Coretta had plans of her own: she planned to pursue a singing career and had never envisioned herself as a homemaker, especially not as a preacher’s wife. King, however, courted her relentlessly, taking her on drives to the ocean and going to the symphony and for walks in the park. Coretta finally said ‘‘yes’’ to his proposal of marriage, and King’s father married them on June 18, 1953. While the Kings enjoyed married life, he did not by any means neglect his studies. That summer he was nearing the completion of the requirements for his Ph.D. His biggest challenge was German, which he failed the first time around. On the second attempt, however, King passed, and he was free to begin work on his thesis. Although the idea of teaching theology in an academic setting, particularly in the North, appealed to him, he decided that practical experience was more important. Thus, on April 14, 1954, he accepted the offer extended to him from the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. This decision was problematic, for King did not want to


return to the South and raise children under the restraints of Jim Crow. But King convinced himself that going to Alabama and gaining experience were the right things to do—if only for a little while before returning to academic work. CHURCH MINISTRY In his first year as pastor of Dexter, King was witness to the landmark ruling against segregation in public schools in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case. He also witnessed the horrific reaction to the ruling on the part of racist whites, including legal resistance and violent backlash. Though not personally involved, King would not remain a passive observer for long. His work at Dexter provided additional personal development, as well as the necessary credentials and community exposure, to aid him in his eminent rise to leadership in the heralded modern Civil Rights Movement. The time had come for King to put his philosophical ideology to the test. Rather than engage in the emotive sermonizing of his father, he gave stilted academic lectures (which he painstakingly composed in his study) complete with quotations from Greek philosophers and other historical figures. But he soon realized that this dignified but dry way of preaching was inappropriate, for his congregation preferred the expressive traditional style of African American worship. In time, King accepted the constant interruptions— the shouts of approval and affirmation—and loosened the reins on his rich cadence and eloquent delivery. Word passed quickly from church to church of the young man and his dynamic preaching. Like most ministers, King counseled his congregation, handing out advice to married couples, divorcees, unwed mothers, and young men who were angry with the system of segregation to the point of militancy, just as he had been. In addition, King made a point of being more than a typical minister concerned only with the spiritual welfare of his flock. King’s church activism included participation in committees and programs to respond to the needs of the sick and the poor, to assist aspiring artists, and to provide scholarships for graduating high school students. King was also involved with the executive committee of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and the Alabama Council on Human Relations, an interracial group. Through King’s activities, he met Ralph Abernathy, who preached at the First Baptist Church. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT Montgomery Bus Boycott The year 1955 was a year of change for King. It marked his official entry to public activism and the concurrent launching of the modern Civil Rights

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Movement. There were changes on the home front, too, with the announcement of Coretta’s first pregnancy. King, who wanted as many as eight children, was overjoyed. On November 17, Yolanda Denise, the first of his four children, was born. Meanwhile, rumblings of discontent concerning the Jim Crow buses was growing among African Americans, who were forced to ride in the back section of the bus or stand even if seats were available in the ‘‘white-only’’ section in the front of the bus. White bus drivers abused black passengers with impunity, sometimes taking their fares and driving off, leaving the black commuter stranded at the bus stop. Against this backdrop, E.D. Nixon, a local community leader who was involved in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the NAACP, conceived a plan to boycott buses. King was interested. He was concerned with the bus situation, and his own steps to help remedy the situation through meetings between the Negro citizens’ committee and the police commissioner and bus officials had been a bust. A bus boycott was in keeping with the ideas propounded from his studies on Thoreau and Gandhi. Nixon was looking for ‘‘a test case to challenge the city bus ordinance in the courts’’ (Oates, 64). On December 2, Nixon called several local ministers, including King. He told King that he had found their test case: Rosa Parks, who had an impeccable reputation and was charged with violating Montgomery’s segregation ordinance following her refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger. Some forty or fifty ministers met the next day at King’s church for a meeting, where they were easily persuaded to participate in a boycott set to begin on December 5. Some 7,000 pamphlets were created and disseminated in the community. Shortly after the judge’s guilty verdict, the Montgomery Improvement Association was established. A reluctant King, who desired to assist in the effort but not at the price of being away from his ministerial duties and his obligations at home, was elected president. His first public speech, ‘‘sixteen minutes of inspired extemporizing’’ before news reporters, television cameras, and a throng of churchgoers ‘‘yelling and waving their arms, clapping and singing as he had never seen them do before,’’ was a defining moment for King, in which he felt he had been ‘‘chosen as an instrument of God’s will’’ (Oates, 71–73). King stated the following demands: ‘‘that bus drivers treat Negroes courteously,’’ that passengers ‘‘be seated on a first-come, firstserved basis, Negroes sitting from the back forward and whites form the front backward,’’ and that ‘‘Negro drivers … be employed at once on predominantly Negro routes’’ (Oates, 72). The well-organized boycott began on schedule, with King leading the way. It appeared that every African American in Montgomery rallied behind their young leader (King was only 26), abiding by his strict rule of nonviolence. An elaborate carpool system was set in motion (based on the one used by the boycotters in Baton Rouge). Station wagons, also known as ‘‘rolling churches,’’ were purchased. Many African Americans simply walked long


distances from home to work and back again. The ‘‘official protest song’’ was ‘‘Ain’t Gonna Ride Them Buses No More.’’

‘‘We Shall Overcome’’ No protest song is as well known as ‘‘We Shall Overcome.’’ The song is considered the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. It continues to be sung at protest demonstrations, as well as on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at public celebrations and school assemblies throughout the nation and the world. The words are simple, although variations have been created and the words are sometimes changed spontaneously by the one who leads others in the singing of it. The actual phrase, ‘‘We Shall Overcome’’ can be traced to a gospel hymn composed in 1901 by Reverend Charles Tindley, a minister of an African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. A white woman named Zilphia Horton learned a variation of that hymn from an African American woman who sang it during a strike against the American Tobacco Company in Charleston, South Carolina. Horton, who was the wife of one of the co-founders of the Highlander Folk School, an institution for aspiring activists, taught the song to Pete Seeger. Seeger claimed that the phrase ‘‘We Shall Overcome’’ was authored by a black activist and educator at Highlander, Septima Clark. Seeger made some additions to the song and was one of the first to record it. He then taught it to several others, one of whom, Guy Carawan, is believed to have popularized it with many activists in the 1960s. ‘‘We Shall Overcome’’ has been sung by numerous activists, but one of its most famous applications was by the 250,000 attendees at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Weekly meetings, which blended church service (singing, scripture reading, and prayer) with political speeches from community leaders and King, helped to keep the community focused. Most people came to hear King, whose distinct philosophy of protest by direct action and nonviolence was now clearly defined. This led to King embarking on a packed lecture tour. Anonymous whites wrote letters of encouragement or donated money, and out-of-state activists helped spread the gospel of this Gandhi-style protest. Resistance to the bus boycott, which showed no signs of letting up as days turned to weeks and weeks to months, was intense. Negotiations with city officials, bus authorities, and others were unproductive: they were insistent upon maintaining the status quo of the color line. Opponents employed various tactics to obstruct the boycott. Taxi fares were increased. Rumors were spread that Rosa Parks had been planted by leaders of the protest and that the movement was led by radicals and communists.

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Leaders, King among them, were harassed with obscene phone calls, hate mail, and death threats. King was arrested for speeding, and during the ride to jail he feared for his life. This was his first jail experience, and it rattled him, for he had never in his life been in trouble with the law. Due to the large crowd of African Americans that gathered around the station, King was let go. The tension became so great that King contemplated quitting the movement. On one night he awoke, deeply distressed, and crept into the family kitchen, where he pleaded to God for the strength to go on. He was instantly reassured that this was his life’s purpose and that God would be with him. On January 30, King’s faith was tested when his house was bombed. Local African Americans drawn to the scene threatened to attack the white police officers they found at King’s home. Despite the attack on his wife and child (who had not been harmed), King reiterated the importance of nonviolence and of choosing love over hate, and the angry crowd relented. Following this episode, he briefly allowed armed men to watch over his family. But this decision troubled King, leaving him feeling like a hypocrite. If he was in fact to follow the path of nonviolence, he would have to put ‘‘his faith in God’’ rather than in self-defense (Oates, 91). On February 21, King was among the ‘‘eighty-nine leaders, including twenty-four ministers and all the drivers in the car pool,’’ indicted for ‘‘violating an obscure state anti-labor law, which prohibited boycotts’’ (Oates, 92). Exacerbating the situation was Daddy King’s attempt, complete with tears and an entourage of friends, to persuade King to drop out of the bus boycott. King was adamant that he could not stop. Shortly thereafter he joined the other leaders, who had decided to give themselves up. At King’s trial on March 19 he was met with thunderous approval by African Americans who gathered to support him. King’s charisma and appeal, which crossed economic and social lines, along with the attention garnered by his trial, which made headlines, sparked worldwide interest in the movement. This in turn brought in financial support from a number of benefactors and organizations, including Bayard Rustin, who at the time took a leave from his duties as executive secretary of the War Resisters League to help advise King. Physically exhausted, King recognized that he had the momentum and toiled relentlessly on. In November, he finally received the joyous news that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of outlawing segregation on buses. Montgomery officials refused to help in the difficult transitional period in which the federal ruling was put in effect. It fell to King and others to equip African Americans for this perilous leg of their journey. King disseminated literature and coordinated workshops to instruct African Americans on how to conduct themselves and prepare for the inevitable white resistance. This came in the form of church bombings, racist propaganda, cross burnings, Klan marches, and death threats. Little did these terrorists know that these actions only fueled King’s drive toward protest.


As much as King was hated by racist whites, he was fast becoming a favorite among whites sympathetic to the black struggle. His fame spread around the globe, and he and his wife were received with open arms during his international tour, in the spring of 1957, of India, Africa, and Europe. Such travels intensified his disdain for poverty and colonialism. King compared South Africa’s apartheid system to segregation in America and felt it, too, needed to be eradicated. Upon his return to America, King plunged into a whirlwind of lectures, negotiations, as well as the coordination of and participation in myriad demonstrations. Washington Prayer Pilgrimage King’s first demonstration following the triumph of the Montgomery Boycott was the Prayer Pilgrimage of May 17, 1957. King, along with A. Philip Randolph, leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, coordinated this effort to galvanize interest in gaining voting rights for African Americans. Some 15,000 to 37,000 participants swarmed around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to hear performers sing and leaders give speeches. King’s speech was the highlight of the occasion—it expressed the longing of so many who by law had the ‘‘right’’ to vote but were forced to pass difficult tests and contend with the potential threat of white intimidation and violence to do so. Negotiations Aware of the influence he commanded, King broadened the field of battle. On June 13, 1957, King and Abernathy approached Vice President Richard Nixon to discuss three pressing issues: ‘‘white opposition to school desegregation, Negro enfranchisement, and integrated transportation’’ (Oates, 122). Although Nixon appeared attentive, King and Abernathy were unable to convince him of the need for federal intervention. Shortly thereafter, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was passed, due in large part to the efforts of Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson. But it was a lackluster act, and the federal government offered no help in enforcing the law. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Following the Montgomery Boycott, Rustin suggested that some sort of regional organization be established to carry out protests. In the summer of 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was launched with King as its president and Ella Baker its executive director (and only employee). This was a significant step because the organization formally inaugurated the role of the church in African American protest, enlisting scores of churchgoers and ministers.

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Crusade for Citizenship One of the first initiatives of the SCLC was to tackle voting registration in the South, with the ambitious goal of registering two million black voters prior to the 1960 presidential election. King and his fellow leaders knew well that enfranchisement would enable African Americans to put into office political leaders who had their interests at heart. The Crusade for Citizenship project included an extensive plan to set up voting clinics, canvass black neighborhoods, and publicize the ongoing atrocities in the South. Though these goals remained the focus of the Civil Rights Movement, the SCLC was unable to mobilize two million voters. The High Cost of Fame King’s immense popularity, though it provided tremendous impetus to the Civil Rights Movement, was both a blessing and a curse. Always in the spotlight, King was relentlessly bombarded with all forms of criticism, from all sides. White racist organizations were his oldest enemies. But a figure no less prominent than the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, led a covert investigation on King (as well as numerous Washington officials and even presidents). Hoover believed that Stanley Levison, a close King advisor, was an active communist (though he was never able to supply proof of that allegation). The loyal King refused to end his friendship with Levison, and so he became a target of Hoover’s invasive surveillance. In this way, Hoover uncovered King’s string of adulterous affairs. Though this secret was never made public during his lifetime, a penitent King was forced to disclose his secret to Coretta. Nevertheless, his wife and his entourage of advisors remained committed to him and the movement. But not all the attacks on King came from white racists intent on preserving the status quo or from power-abusing government officials. One difficult aspect of King’s high-profile role was the number of African American critics who assailed him with accusations of being an Uncle Tom (i.e., too accommodating to whites) or for being a high-strung radical (i.e., for endangering lives or running the risk of losing what few gains they had made). This harsh criticism dismayed the sensitive King, sometimes immobilizing him for periods of time. Then, too, there were a number of African American leaders who were jealous of King’s power and prestige. King’s hectic lifestyle and the many stresses it entailed impacted his health, his family, and his personal life. He would frequently get sick during periods of intense activity and be forced to take to his bed for days or even weeks. Family (his second child, a son he named Martin Luther King III, was born on October 23, 1957) and personal time was almost nonexistent. We catch a rare glimpse of an unguarded and relaxed King in photos of him vacationing with Coretta, or pitching a baseball to his son. These photos


Mahatma Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu political and spiritual leader, had a major influence on the civil rights leaders. Behind the demonstrations—the marches, the arrests, and other nonviolent demonstrations—was the philosophy of one man, known simply as Gandhi, who helped pioneer concepts such as nonviolence and civil disobedience. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, a city in Gujarat, India. Gandhi’s father, Karamchand, was the Prime Minister of Porbandar. His mother, Putlibai, was his father’s fourth wife. Arranged marriages were the custom for Indians, so when Gandhi was thirteen years old, he was married to Kasturba Makhanji. They had five children, but one died when just a baby. Because he was born into the business caste (the system that dictated social standing), he was required to pursue an apropos career. He attended Samaldas College at Bhavnagar, Gujarat, and the University College London and studied law, but attempts to practice law and subsequent jobs were dissatisfying and unfruitful. While employed with an Indian firm in South Africa, Gandhi was subjected to racial violence and other discriminations that propelled him to activism. In South Africa and England, Indians were relegated to second-class status, a situation akin to blacks in America. In 1893, without civil rights and reduced to extreme poverty, Gandhi began the long and arduous process of protest for civil rights for Indians in South Africa. The struggle for Indian independence from England lasted from 1916 to 1945. During these years of protest, Gandhi led a massive movement that involved civil disobedience and other nonviolent tactics. There were numerous arrests of activists, beatings, and murders. Gandhi’s fasts were well-known around the world and another powerful form of protest. He published several works, such as his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1929). Because of his fasts, Gandhi was a frail man. Swathed in his dhoti, bareheaded, bespectacled, and gently smiling, he was a study in quiet might. However, like so many great leaders, he was assassinated. He died on January 30, 1948. A riveting biopic on his life and death, entitled Gandhi, was released in 1982.

reflect a man who was not just the larger-than-life leader of the Civil Rights Movement but also a husband and a father. On September 3, 1958, King was harassed by police officers when he tried to enter a courtroom in a Montgomery, Alabama courthouse. The officers would not permit King entrance. Pictures of King being roughhoused by the officers emblazoned the morning papers. King was arrested and charged with ‘‘loitering.’’ At his trial, King read a piercing statement on the

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brutality experienced by himself and by African Americans throughout the nation. Abernathy distributed copies of the statement to news reporters. The police chief paid King’s fine to prevent him from galvanizing attention by getting arrested. He was not successful, and sympathy toward King and the Movement increased all the more. Because of his high profile, King sometimes attracted the animosity of attention seekers and simple fanatics. King was in Harlem on September 20, 1958, signing copies of Strive toward Freedom (1958), the first of his many publications, when a mentally unstable African American woman, Izola Curry, who was forty-two years old, stabbed him several times in his chest. King harbored no animosity toward her and only wanted her to seek help. After a much-needed rest while recuperating, King traveled to India, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Athens. Returning home, he moved his family to Atlanta, Georgia to be closer to the SCLC headquarters. King was home again, copastoring at Ebenezer with his father, under an agreement with the local black leadership that he would not launch demonstrations there.

Internal Conflict Though he appeared fearless in public, King was not exempt from feelings of insecurity and personal frustration. He could be at times very critical of himself for not measuring up to the likes of Gandhi, his role model. There were pictures of Gandhi above his dining-room table and in his office, constant reminders of the man who ‘‘haunted’’ King; a man who spurned the trappings of material comforts—home, family, nice cars, and fine clothes—and regularly made time to meditate (Frady, 65). King had a wife and children; he loved his meticulous, conservative suits; and he had no down time for reflection. In a sense, King felt controlled by the events of the Movement and the needs of others. But despite this sense of not living up to his ideals, he made his choice and continued to give willingly and endlessly of himself and his time.

King and the Sit-In Movement King had not been long in Atlanta when college students conducted a sit-in at a Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. This was not the first sitin in America; Mary Church Terrell and members of CORE and NAACP had done the same thing in recent years. What made the sit-in on February 2, 1960 different was the attention the students gained from the media, and the massive number of like sit-ins it engendered throughout the South. King supported these demonstrations, publicly lauding the young activists and helping to publicize their aims. King saw all forms of protest as essential to the movement. When students called upon him for assistance, he made himself available, no matter how taxing it was to his own schedule.


John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy is hailed as one of America’s most charismatic presidents. He was also one of the more popular presidents among African Americans, who saw him as a symbol of positive change. However, critics argue that his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, did more for civil rights and social reform than Kennedy. The debate will remain forever unresolved because of Kennedy’s sudden assassination. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born into wealth and privilege on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts. However, he knew something of discrimination, as the community in which he lived looked down on him because of his Irish heritage and his Catholic religion. In some regions in America, the Irish were treated almost as contemptibly as blacks. After graduating from Harvard College in 1940, he served as an ensign in the navy during World War II. Among his decorations was the prestigious Purple Heart. After the war, Kennedy embarked into politics, becoming a U.S. congressman in 1946. In 1952 and 1958 he was elected as senator from Massachusetts. In 1953, he married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. They had two children, Caroline Bouvier and John Fitzgerald, Jr. In 1956, Kennedy published the Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage, a book that explores the examples of bravery exhibited by eight senators, including Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, who opposed slavery. During Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency in 1960 he won over many black supporters by expressing his endorsement of civil rights and by spearheading the release of Martin Luther King, Jr. from prison (following one of his high-profile arrests). As president, Kennedy met with civil rights leaders— but he frequently had to be pushed to act on civil rights issues. Kennedy continually tried to temper, slow, and thwart the abundant and perilous demonstrations that took place while he was in office. This was not because he opposed civil rights, but because he was concerned that the demonstrations were too radical, and were pushing things too fast and thus creating national turmoil. He was right. The demonstrations did create tumult, but by doing so, they forced him to act. Before his death, Kennedy prepared the way for one of the most powerful enactments ever: the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Thus, it was Lyndon B. Johnson, who became president after Kennedy’s death, who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, dealing the largest and most far-reaching blow to segregation laws.

A momentary crisis came during the Sit-In Movement, one that King feared would jeopardize his work. A grand jury indicted King on tax evasion charges. Friends, including Harry Belafonte and others, helped raise money for his legal fees, as well as to support the SCLC and the student-led sit-ins, allowing King to resume his work as a mentor to the young students.

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In the spring of 1960, King was found not guilty of tax evasion. With those worries behind him, King instituted an aggressive plan to build up the SCLC. He hired a new staff and the shrewd Wyatt Tee Walker to be the SCLC’s executive director, and instructed them to actively fundraise. Thanks to Walker’s efforts, King’s public appearances, and the increased fundraising, the SCLC brought in enormous amounts of money, catapulting the organization to the level of the NAACP, which had previously predominated African American protest. Not surprisingly (though it disappointed King) the SCLC’s success created tension between the two organizations.

Politics In June 1960, a young senator named John F. Kennedy, who was nurturing an ambition to run for president, met with King. Kennedy hoped that by gaining the support of the black leader, he could mobilize significant black votes. King, leery of aligning himself with any political party or leader (even though Kennedy had impressed him considerably), was not easily won over. That fall, however, Kennedy won the hearts of many African Americans— including King’s—through a bold intervention to rescue King from a potentially life-threatening situation. While participating in a sit-in in Atlanta, King was arrested, along with a number of young activists. Everyone but King was released. King had violated his probation, stemming from a citation he received, some months ago, for driving with an invalid permit (he had failed to obtain a Georgia license after his move). As a result, the judge sentenced him to four months hard labor in a camp, where, isolated from the world, King would face uncertain dangers, and possibly death. Kennedy responded by using his influence to gain King’s release. This was a radical move for a presidential hopeful in a time when public sentiment toward African Americans was not wholly sympathetic, and when the government in the South (which held considerable influence over his political fate) was dominated by racist whites. King publicly applauded Kennedy for his boldness in securing the release of a black man who challenged white supremacy and advocated the unthinkable—blacks and whites living together. Kennedy became an instant hero among many African Americans, who played an instrumental role in securing his win during the 1960 presidential election. With the ushering in of the era of Camelot, a new optimism surged throughout the nation. And this time, African Americans were hopeful, as well. Once in power, Kennedy’s focus shifted toward securing America’s place on the center of the world’s stage. As far as civil rights for blacks and ending segregation were concerned, Kennedy contended that progress should be slow and managed in such a way as to avoid disrupting the delicate fabric of America’s social system (i.e., in ways that would not anger his constituents in the South or provoke unwanted opposition or civic unrest).


King had no intention of mincing his words or his activism; if anything, he stepped up his plans. If he could not convince Kennedy to intervene through reason, he would use demonstration. King deliberately planned to capitalize on two major factors that would ultimately prove to be indispensable to the movement: white backlash and the media. King and the Freedom Rides The Freedom Rides were conducted in 1961 by young black and white activists to force the federal government to uphold its laws on the integration of interstate transportation facilities. This was not a campaign conducted by King, nor did he participate in the rides on the buses. But when the riders were attacked, he raced to their aid, leaving his family (including the newborn Dexter Scott [born January 30, 1961]) behind. The situation intensified. As King spoke at a church in Montgomery, Alabama, an angry white mob gathered outside. King called Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who ordered federal marshals to assist the state police and national guard to protect them. The situation was thus diffused. King was invited to join the riders on the remainder of the rides, but he refused, preferring to contribute by fundraising on their behalf. This left some of the freedom riders resentful, but most were simply grateful, recognizing that King’s quick thinking saved the day, for no other African American leaders had that kind of pull. THE CAMPAIGNS IN THE SOUTH Albany, Georgia King was a professional activist, not given to protest for protest’s sake, but rather holding intensive meetings where he and his closest advisors painstakingly deliberated over how to most effectively bring about positive change for African Americans. Several campaigns were thus planned and undertaken in the heart of racist communities, where conditions for black southerners were most dire. The first such protest campaign took place in Albany, Georgia, where SNCC-led activities were already underway to register blacks to vote. A local group, calling themselves the Albany Movement, was formed that same summer, in 1961, to carry out voter registration drives, as well as demonstrations to desegregate the entire community. This same group invited King to Albany for help. This turned out to be King’s most public failure. Adopting King’s own strategy, Sheriff Pritchett forbade his officers to use violence against the activists, knowing that a violent backlash would only bring attention to the protestors and provoke sympathy for their cause. The final blow to the campaign occurred after King, who had been arrested and jailed for ‘‘parading without a permit, disturbing the peace,

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and obstructing the sidewalk,’’ accepted bail on the assurance that the white Albany leaders would negotiate with the African American leaders (King, 154). But the Albany leaders reneged on their promise. King was sharply criticized in the national papers and in the haunts of the young SNCC activists. Subsequent efforts to revive the Albany campaign proved futile. Birmingham, Alabama, and the Children’s Crusade On April 3, 1963, King began six weeks of demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama. His fourth and last child, Bernice Albertine, was just one week old. Coretta stayed home to take care of her. Typically, Coretta joined her husband at marches. Sometimes she spoke at an event, in his place, when he was unable to attend. King’s objective was to ‘‘support a total boycott of Birmingham’s blacks of the city’s downtown commercial district’’ to force desegregation and other civil rights (Frady, 99). The demonstrations in Birmingham were destined to go down in history as a powerful example of nonviolence and human fortitude. On one occasion, Public Safety Commissioner Eugene T. ‘‘Bull’’ Connor’s officers refused to turn their water hoses on activists decked in their Sunday clothes, kneeling in prayer before marching to the local jail to protest the arrest of some of the activists. On another, white business leaders were awestruck by ‘‘a veritable sea of black faces,’’ thousands of them, ‘‘on the sidewalks, in the streets, standing, sitting in the aisles of downtown stores’’ peacefully protesting and singing the ‘‘strains of the freedom songs’’ (King, 213). Moments like these touched the hearts of even the hardest racists. When King was jailed in Birmingham (for violating an injunction that forbid him and other leaders from protesting), he was put in solitary confinement. Coretta called President Kennedy. Both Kennedy brothers saw to it that King would be treated humanely. While in jail, King composed a letter in response to white clergy who had called for the end to his demonstrations. Although this letter, later published as ‘‘Letter from Birmingham City Jail’’ (1963), later became famous as it explained in-depth the purpose and necessity of direct action demonstrations, it failed to provoke a response from the clergy or the public. The campaign lost momentum and began to look like another dismal failure. The media began to leave the city. In a desperate move to create a crisis that would revivify the campaign, King approved the controversial involvement of children in the demonstrations. He received much criticism from this, but he saw no other way to save the campaign from certain death. Swarms of children (numbering in the hundreds), from age six to sixteen, participated in the march, ‘‘clapping and singing out of Sixteenth Street Church’’ (Frady, 112). The children marched directly into Bull Connor and his police force, who attacked them with water hoses and dogs and put them in jail. Tensions mounted when some blacks (not associated with the campaign) rioted in a park. Connor


ordered his men, decked in steel helmets that displayed the Confederate flag, to intimidate the activists. But King knew that his strategy was working. For one thing, he had again attracted the media’s attention. And finally, King successfully pressured Attorney General Kennedy to intervene and press city officials into negotiations. These officials eventually consented to negotiations with Andrew Young, one of King’s advisors, and a pact was constructed to King’s satisfaction. Angry whites set off bombs in Birmingham in protest. But the success in Birmingham helped pave the way for the most far-reaching legislation since Emancipation: the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It also magnified King’s popularity and put him on the front cover of Time as the ‘‘Man of the Year.’’

MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS AND FREEDOM The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28, 1963, was a climactic moment for the Civil Rights Movement. Initiated by A. Philip Randolph, from the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and Bayard Rustin, a peripatetic activist, the March drew 250,000 people to the nation’s capitol to hear the Big Six from the Civil Rights Movement: James Farmer (Congress of Racial Equality), John Lewis (SNCC), Roy Wilkins (NAACP), Whitney Young (National Urban League), Dorothy Height (National Council of Negro Women), and King (SCLC). Not a heart was unmoved when King mounted the podium and gave his most memorable speech, ‘‘I Have a Dream.’’ President Kennedy, who had originally protested the march (thinking a riot would ensue), was also moved. He gave impetus to the day by making the public announcement that civil rights legislation was in the works. But Kennedy would not have the opportunity to see his work completed, for he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. King was distressed by his death, as well as the ominous feeling that he too would die in the same way. There were other deaths that year; one of the most tragic was the bombing deaths of four young African American girls at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Alabama. The decade was fraught with violence, tragedy, and angst. But activists, as well as the leaders of the movement, were unconquerable. In February 1964, civil rights leader Robert Hayling invited King to engage in demonstrations in St. Augustine, Florida, where local police officers were in cahoots with racist whites who intimidated and terrorized blacks with impunity and fearless abandon. Whites attacked demonstrators with their bare ‘‘fists, kicks, and clubs, with the police moving forward simply to encircle the violence’’ (Frady, 137). Activists endured ‘‘several months of raging violence’’ and insults, but their suffering was not in vain, for King was able to press for a bi-racial committee ‘‘to work out a settlement’’ with St. Augustine leaders in June (King, 241).

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KING AND MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM SUMMER King was on hand during the Mississippi Freedom Summer, SNCC’s voting rights campaign in the summer of 1964. Mississippi was a notorious danger zone. Anti-black activity was rampant, and the campaign conducted by SCLC activists had been impeded by years of suppression. King joined the activists, visiting isolated and impoverished rural areas despite the constant threats to his life. While conducting a rally in one small town, Klan members dispensed racist pamphlets from a plane, inciting fear in the hearts of local black residents. At the Democratic National Convention in August, King endorsed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The MFDP, consisting of blacks and whites, was established to challenge the all-white regular Democratic Party, which historically had denied blacks the right to vote and political office. At the convention, King was one of the leaders who supported the proposal that gave only two seats to the MFDP, believing that a small win was better than none at all. Young activists were outraged for having to compromise and criticized King for his conservatism. KING AND THE BLACK MILITANTS AND SEPARATISTS King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway on October 14, 1964, for his strivings toward peaceful interracial relations. But not everyone celebrated King’s stance on nonviolence and amicable pursuits between the races. Malcolm X was one of King’s harshest critics. Unlike King, Malcolm X had channeled personal experiences with racism and racial hatred into a radical and militant call for black self-defense and separatism. Other rivals included Stokely Carmichael, a former integrationist who coined the term ‘‘Black Power’’ to inaugurate a new era of radical black consciousness, separatism, and aggressiveness (in contrast to King’s passivism), and a burgeoning group of young activists from within the civil rights groups and frustrated youths who shared Carmichael’s perspective. Reasons for the emergence of the radicals included the repeated failures of and violent confrontations at the civil rights campaigns, and the growing desire among African Americans to head their own struggle and not share it with whites. THE LAST CAMPAIGNS Selma, Alabama King traveled to Selma, Alabama to launch a campaign for voting rights. On February 1, 1965, he and more than two hundred other marchers were jailed. When he was released, he decided to return home to conduct Sunday


services at his congregation after a brief and unsuccessful trip to Washington to persuade officials there to support a bill to strengthen black voting rights. The second Selma march on Sunday, March 7 proceeded without him. Whites attacked the marchers so viciously that the day was aptly named ‘‘Bloody Sunday.’’ King was devastated that he had not been present and scheduled another march for the following Tuesday, though a judge from the federal district court in Montgomery and other government leaders opposed it. There was no violence at this march. In fact, it ended prematurely when King opted to turn the marchers back when they encountered a human barricade of state troopers on Highway 80. King’s decision to play it safe frustrated some of the marchers. But his was a well-chosen move, resulting in President Johnson’s televised announcement of a forthcoming voting rights bill. In his speech, Johnson noted that the Selma demonstrations had ‘‘awakened the conscience of the nation’’ (Frady, 162). King ended the campaign with a final march from Selma to Montgomery.

Watts Riot, Los Angeles, California King hardly had an opportunity to savor the Selma victory before news reached him of the horrific eruption of violence in Watts, an African American section of Los Angeles, California. The riot began on August 11 and lasted five days. King traveled there to help in any way he could. What he found when he got there was not, as the media portrayed, a band of criminals and juvenile delinquents randomly stealing, vandalizing, and destroying property within their own community, but a community that had reached a boiling point due to racism, oppression, de facto segregation, unemployment, and poverty. Rampant police brutality and a racist and discriminatory judicial system only inflamed the situation. King, along with other civil rights leaders, was both sympathetic to and disappointed by the rioting. They set out, with limited success, to help remedy the conditions that had caused the riots.

Chicago Campaign His observations in California made King turn his attention to the plight of African Americans living in the North. On January 7, 1966, he began a campaign in Chicago, planning to use the strategies that had been successful in the South. King and his family actually moved to the Chicago slums for a time. It was an eye-opening experience. King and his wife ‘‘became aware of the change in [their] children’s behavior,’’ and how ‘‘their tempers flared,’’ and how ‘‘they sometimes reverted to almost infantile behavior’’ in the confining dwellings of the slums (King, 302).

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King had a challenging time implementing his plan of action in the North. Unlike the South, racism in the North was ‘‘subtle’’ and ‘‘covert’’ (Frady, 172). The North lacked the ‘‘spiritual warmth of the South,’’ and black youths were inclined to be more militant and angry (Frady, 171). King found the city officials just as formidable, if not more so, than those in the South. Nevertheless, he waged a fight to attack abominable housing conditions and to pave the way for African Americans to move out of the slums. On August 5, King led a march, consisting, remarkably, of former gang members he had converted to his philosophy of nonviolence. The marchers were met with white resistance in the form of racist paraphernalia: Nazi flags and swastikas, obscenities, ‘‘White Power’’ ‘‘catcalls,’’ and ‘‘bricks, bottles, and firecrackers’’ (King, 305). King left Chicago having obtained an open housing agreement for African Americans and tenant unions. But the biggest success achieved was Operation Breadbasket, which was headed by the youngest of King’s aides, Jesse Jackson. Protesting America’s Involvement in the Vietnam War As a proponent of peace and nonviolence, King opposed the Vietnam War as early as 1965. With this stance, he ventured into new and controversial territory. King was accustomed to official remonstrations, but he had not anticipated that his own colleagues in the civil rights struggle would condemn him as well. Other civil rights leaders and politicians argued that King should stay out of war politics. King’s public denouncement of the Vietnam War culminated with a speech at the Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967. Poor People’s Campaign Beginning in 1967, King and his staff focused their energies on fighting poverty on behalf of the working class. Through the Poor People’s Campaign, they aspired to launch efforts to address poverty, not just for blacks but for all races. On March 18, 1968, King lent his oratorical powers to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Ten days later, he conducted a march in the same southern city. The march was disrupted by members of a black militant group that called itself the Invaders with ‘‘rocks and picket signs,’’ triggering a violent confrontation with police (Oates, 477, 478). ‘‘I’VE BEEN TO THE MOUNTAINTOP’’ King had come face to face with failure many times; he had serenely confronted the possibility of death so many times that he appeared unstoppable,


immortal. But during the final days of his life he had become withdrawn— as a man who sensed his impending death. On April 3, 1968, he gave his legendary speech, ‘‘I See the Promised Land,’’ also known as ‘‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.’’ The culmination of that speech was chilling. The next day, King stood on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was jovial, bantering with his aides. The shot seemed to come out of nowhere. King was hit with a single bullet and died that same day at the hospital. He was thirty-nine years old. Following King’s death, riots broke out in more than one hundred cities across the nation. James Earl Ray was convicted of King’s assassination and sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison. However, he spent the remainder of his life contending his innocence. See also Ella Baker; Stokely Carmichael; W.E.B. Du Bois; James Farmer, Marcus Garvey; Dorothy Height; Jesse Jackson; John Lewis; Malcolm X; Rosa Parks; A. Philip Randolph; Roy Wilkins; and Whitney Young.

FURTHER RESOURCES Biography: Martin Luther King, Jr. A&E Biography Series. DVD. 2004. Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988. Carson, Clayborne, Tenisha Armstrong, Susan Carson, Erin Cook, and Susan Englander, eds. The Martin Luther King, Jr., Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008. Carson, Clayborne, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Warner Books, 1998. Dyson, Michael Eric. I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Touchstone, 2000. Gandhi, Mahatma. Nonviolent Resistance. New York: Schocken, 1961. The King Center. April 2007. See http://www.thekingcenter.org/index.asp. King, Coretta Scott. My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969. King, Dexter Scott, and Ralph Wiley. Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir. New York: Warner Books, 2003. King, Martin Luther, Sr. Daddy King: An Autobiography. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1980. Oates, Stephen B. Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. Washington, James Melvin, ed. I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed The World. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992.

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Recent Titles in Greenwood Icons Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares Edited by S.T. Joshi Icons of Business: An Encyclopedia of Mavericks, Movers, and Shakers Edited by Kateri Drexler Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture Edited by Mickey Hess Icons of Evolution: An Encyclopedia of People, Evidence, and Controversies Edited by Brian Regal Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz Icons of R&B and Soul: An Encyclopedia of the Artists Who Revolutionized Rhythm Bob Gulla African American Icons of Sport: Triumph, Courage, and Excellence Matthew C. Whitaker Icons of the American West: From Cowgirls to Silicon Valley Edited by Gordon Morris Bakken Icons of Latino America: Latino Contributions to American Culture Roger Bruns Icons of Crime Fighting: Relentless Pursuers of Justice Edited by Jeffrey Bumgarner Icons of Unbelief: Atheists, Agnostics, and Secularists Edited by S.T. Joshi Women Icons of Popular Music: The Rebels, Rockers, and Renegades Edited by Carrie Havranek Icons of Talk: The Media Mouths That Changed America Donna L. Halper

ICONS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN PROTEST Trailblazing Activists of the Civil Rights Movement VOLUME 2 Gladys L. Knight

Greenwood Icons

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut

•

London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Knight, Gladys L., 1974– Icons of African American protest: trailblazing activists of the civil rights movement / Gladys L. Knight. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-313-34062-8 ((set) : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-313-34063-5 ((vol.1) : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-0-313-34064-2 ((vol.2) : alk. paper) 1. African American civil rights workers—Biography. 2. Civil rights workers—United States— Biography. 3. African Americans—Civil rights—History. 4. African Americans—Civil rights— History. 5. Civil rights movements—United States—History. 6. Political activists—United States— History. I. Title. E185.96.K56 2009 323.0920 2—dc22 [B] 2008034739 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright C 2009 by Gladys L. Knight All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008034739 ISBN: 978-0-313-34062-8 (set) 978-0-313-34063-5 (Vol 1) 978-0-313-34064-2 (Vol 2) First published in 2009 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9

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Contents List of Photos

vii

Series Foreword

ix

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments

xv

Introduction: Icons and Protestors of the Twentieth Century Chronology of African American Protest

xvii xxiii

Volume 1 Ella Baker

1

Elaine Brown

27

Stokely Carmichael

53

Angela Davis

79

W.E.B. Du Bois

105

James Farmer

131

Louis Farrakhan

155

Marcus Garvey

181

Fannie Lou Hamer

207

Dorothy Height

233

Jesse Jackson

259


285

Contents

vi

Volume 2 Spike Lee

311

John Lewis

337

Malcolm X

365

Thurgood Marshall

391

Huey P. Newton

417

Rosa Parks

443

A. Philip Randolph

467

Al Sharpton

493


519

Roy Wilkins

545

Robert F. Williams

571

Whitney Young

597


623


625

Appendix 3: Selected Excerpts from the Civil Rights Act of 1964

627

Appendix 4: Selected Excerpts from the Voting Rights Act of 1965

637

Appendix 5: Excerpt from the Black Panther Party Ten Point Platform and Program (October 1966)

641

Appendix 6: Icons in Their Own Words

643

Glossary

657

Bibliography

663

Index

665

Photos Ella Baker (page 1), between 1942 and 1946. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Black Panther Party members, leader Elaine Brown (page 27; center) and cofounder Huey P. Newton (right), pose with their lawyer Charles R. Garry (left) on the campus of Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, probably in April 1970. Photo by David Fenton/Getty Images. Stokely Carmichael (page 53), 1966. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Poster of Angela Davis (page 79), 1971. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. W.E.B. Du Bois (page 105), between 1930 and 1950. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. James Farmer (page 131) at Foley Square in New York, speaking at a memorial for four African American girls killed in a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Louis Farrakhan (page 155) told a Washington news conference he has no doubt that Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy was sincere in offering to help train and arm black Americans for an uprising against the U.S. government. ‘‘I cannot accept the carnal weapons of this world,’’ Farrakahn said, 1985. AP Photo/Scott Stewart. Marcus Garvey (page 181), 1924. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Fannie Lou Hamer (page 207) at the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1964. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Dorothy Height (page 233; right) presents the Mary McLeod Bethune Human Rights Award to Eleanor Roosevelt (left) at the council’s silver anniversary lunch, 1960. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Photos

viii

Jesse Jackson (page 259) surrounded by marchers carrying signs advocating support for the Hawkins-Humphrey Bill for full employment. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Martin Luther King, Jr. (page 285) delivering a speech at Girard College, Philadelphia, 1965. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Director Spike Lee (page 311) shown on the set of his 1996 film Get on the Bus. Courtesy of Photofest. Composite of two photographs: bottom photo shows the Selma Montgomery civil rights march, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (front/center), Coretta Scott King (behind Dr. King), and John Lewis (page 337; right of Mrs. King); top photograph shows five white segregationists, two with confederate flags, 1965. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Malcolm X (page 365) during a rally in Harlem, New York, 1963. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Thurgood Marshall (page 391) shown in front of the Supreme Court, 1958. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. A Black Panther poster featuring Huey Newton (page 417). Text beneath this image read: ‘‘The racist dog policemen must withdraw immediately from our communities, cease their wanton murder and brutality.’’ Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Rosa Parks (page 443) seated toward front of bus, Montgomery, Alabama, 1956. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. A. Philip Randolph (page 467) standing before the statue at the Lincoln Memorial, during the 1963 March on Washington. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Al Sharpton (page 493) on Saturday Night Live, 2003. Courtesy of Photofest. Ida B. Wells (page 519), 1891. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Roy Wilkins (page 545), 1963. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Robert F. Williams (page 571) living in exile. Lynn Pelham/Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images. Whitney Young (page 597) reading a book, 1963. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Series Foreword Worshipped and cursed. Loved and loathed. Obsessed about the world over. What does it take to become an icon? Regardless of subject, culture, or era, the requisite qualifications are the same: (1) challenge the status quo, (2) influence millions, and (3) impact history. Using these criteria, Greenwood Press introduces a new reference format and approach to popular culture. Spanning a wide range of subjects, volumes in the Greenwood Icons series provide students and general readers a port of entry into the most fascinating and influential topics of the day. Every two-volume title offers an in-depth look at approximately 24 iconic figures, each of which captures the essence of a broad subject. These icons typically embody a group of values, elicit strong reactions, reflect the essence of a particular time and place, and link different traditions and periods. Among those featured are artists and activists, superheroes and spies, inventors and athletes—the legends and mythmakers of entire generations. Yet icons can also come from unexpected places: as the heroine who transcends the pages of a novel or as the revolutionary idea that shatters our previously held beliefs. Whether people, places, or things, such icons serve as a bridge between the past and the present, the canonical and the contemporary. By focusing on icons central to popular culture, this series encourages students to appreciate cultural diversity and critically analyze issues of enduring significance. Most importantly, these books are as entertaining as they are provocative. Is Disneyland a more influential icon of the American West than Las Vegas? How do ghosts and ghouls reflect our collective psyche? Is Barry Bonds an inspiring or deplorable icon of baseball? Designed to foster debate, the series serves as a unique resource that is ideal for paper writing or report purposes. Insightful, in-depth entries provide far more information than conventional reference articles but are less intimidating and more accessible than a book-length biography. The most revered and reviled icons of

x

Series Foreword

American and world history are brought to life with related sidebars, timelines, fact boxes, and quotations. Authoritative entries are accompanied by bibliographies, making these titles an ideal starting point for further research. Spanning a wide range of popular topics, including business, literature, civil rights, politics, music, and more, books in the Greenwood Icons series provide fresh insights for the student and popular reader into the power and influence of icons, a topic of as vital interest today as in any previous era.

Preface According to Dictionary.com, an icon is a sign or representation, an important and enduring symbol, or one who is the object of great attention and devotion. Protest is defined as an expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent. The twenty-four individuals featured in this book, Icons of African American Protest: Trailblazing Activists of the Civil Rights Movement, are worthy of renown (and sometimes notoriety) because of their extraordinary contributions to the enduring fight against racism, injustice, and discrimination. Many are recognizable, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. Others, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, remain at the forefront of black protest in the twenty-first century. The fact that others, such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, James Farmer, and Elaine Brown, are less well known does not diminish the magnitude of their contribution; it simply illuminates the need to reexamine the heroes from the past. The purpose of the present work is therefore two-fold. First, it fills in the gaps on the shelf by focusing on lesser-known individuals like Ida B. WellsBarnett, an urbane ‘‘lady’’ who launched an unprecedented crusade against lynching in the early twentieth century. Second, it provides background and corollary material on truly famous individuals such as King and Parks. School textbooks highlight achievements and experiences of some African American leaders, but, due to space limitations, they often lack the depth that makes these figures come alive. These life stories, when told in detail as these two volumes strive to do, accomplish much: they reveal the extraordinary strength and sacrifice displayed by courageous men and women for the cause of freedom and civil rights; they provide in-depth information on the century-long battle that was waged against gross injustice to supplement the more general information that is available elsewhere; and they help insure that these incredible individuals are never forgotten.

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The exploration of the lives of these great men and women was, for me, alternately alarming, extremely difficult to stomach, inspiring, and spellbinding. I often felt as if I were mingling with mythic heroes from some strange, frightening, and tumultuous past. At other times, their humanity—their insecurities, weaknesses, fears, ideological shifts, problematic marriages and divorces, illnesses, and exhaustion—exposed them as flawed and fragile. The climate in which they toiled, the obstacles they faced, were intensely harrowing, and their victories were all too infrequent. Still, they persevered. The personalities of these leaders cover a broad spectrum of descriptors— vibrant, tame, intense, aggressive, and diffident—and their politics run the gamut from conservative to ultra-radical. Nevertheless, whatever techniques, modes, or tactics employed—Thurgood Marshall’s legal fights in the courtroom, Dr. King’s reliance on nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action, or Huey P. Newton’s advocacy of armed self-defense—they were all, in their time, radicals who strove against a climate of racism, discrimination, exclusion, oppression, violent abuse, ignorance, and neglect. Many surprising commonalities are revealed by a comparison of the individual essays. A. Philip Randolph, James Farmer, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Height, and Angela Davis were academic superstars—well-educated and raised in relatively advantaged families. Others, like Fannie Lou Hamer and Malcolm X, epitomized the greater portion of African Americans: people with little formal education who hailed from the troublous regions of the South or the ghettos of the North. Due to societal expectations and traditions, most of the well-known activists were male. Most, if not all, had extremely supportive parents who stressed self-esteem, dignity, and pride, and were iconoclasts in their own right and, frequently, leaders in their communities. In appearance, these icons of African American protest were as diverse as any group of twenty-four in the general population. The conservatives, like Roy Wilkins, wore immaculate suits; the young-adult activists, like Stokely Carmichael, wore overalls with sleeves rolled above the elbows. The rebels of the late 1960s and 1970s wore afros and dashikis, adopted Afrocentric names, and walked with a commanding strut and saluted with a clenched fist. Despite their differing temperaments, tactics, and ideologies, what most leaders wanted can be summed up by the following statement: We may have a different color skin, but we are still American and deserve and demand the same rights, protection, justice, freedoms, and opportunities as you. These leaders yielded their lives to those who criticized their protestations— or worse, threatened, harassed, beat, jailed, or even martyred them for it. In exchange for their manifold sacrifices, these courageous men and women engendered unparalleled progress. Protest has always been a catalyst for change, reform, and critical development in society. Indeed, protest is at the cornerstone of America’s own birth. Did not the first immigrants help America take its first steps upon the

Preface

road to greatness when they long ago protested against the oppression of their native government and established new edicts promoting the ideals of freedom and opportunity? Likewise, since the first African slave was forced to board a ship bound for America, protest has been a major motif in the African American experience. Protest was a critical weapon during the raging violence against blacks following the end of Reconstruction and throughout the Jim Crow years, and against the grisly conditions in the ghettos of the North. It was used to combat economic and political oppression, racism, discrimination, and exclusion from mainstream America. I believe this text will prove to be user-friendly and of interest and value to students, teachers, researchers, and the general public. To that end, the introduction summarizes the history of African American protest and the conditions that called for remonstration. It is followed by a timeline of relevant events. Entries are presented in alphabetical order, each containing simple sub-headings that introduce childhood, young adulthood, and other milestones in the lives of the activist. Sidebars provide background information on key events, individuals, and organizations. Symbols are provided for important themes such as the freedom song ‘‘We Shall Overcome,’’ the clenched fist of the Black Power Movement, and the lynching noose. At the end of each entry, there is a ‘‘See also’’ section and a ‘‘Further Resources’’ section to provide additional sources of information—both print and electronic—for each icon. Also provided are several appendices, including historical documents, quotes from the icons of protest themselves, a bibliography, a chronology, a glossary, and a detailed subject index. Words defined in the glossary are boldfaced the first time they appear in any of the essays.

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Acknowledgments Special thanks go to so many people who have made this encyclopedia possible. I deeply appreciate Greenwood Publishing for their commitment to important subjects such as this one. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. I have been a voracious student of African American history since Mrs. Wotton facilitated a high school course on U.S. History, where I learned about slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. It was Mrs. Wotton who helped a group of us take a trip to the nation’s capital, where we stood on the very steps where Martin Luther King thundered out his famous ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech before an enthralled sea of some 250,000 people at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. I am deeply thankful to Michael Hermann and Shana Grob-Jones, with whom I have had the great pleasure to work since 2002. Editors Kristi Ward and John Wagner have been extraordinarily helpful every step of the way of this project. I would also like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to editors of other Greenwood books: Hans Ostrom, J. David Macey, Anand Prahlad, Richard Zuczek, Walter Rucker, James Nathaniel, and all the behind-thescenes players who have facilitated the publication and promotion of this volume. To Ellen Larson, a brilliant writer and indispensable adviser, encourager, and friend, I say thank you, thank you, thank you. You are absolutely the best. Special thanks to Teri Knight, a graduate of Spelman College and University of Michigan, who currently teaches high school English in Chicago, for writing the compelling introduction. To the remarkable individuals and activists I have known: the Black Student Union (BSU) president, who constructed a list of demands—including an appeal to diversify our predominately white campus—and gave them to the dean at a BSU meeting; the dean, who was at that meeting and listened patiently and responded accordingly; my mother, who participated in boycotts and sit-ins; Ursula, who wrote a paper on Malcolm X and received

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a failing grade because the teacher did not like her subject choice; Jackie Coard, who founded the first African American Museum in the state of Washington; the courageous museum board that gave of their time, energy, and ideas; Jessica and Najja, who protested against the blackface performances on their university campus; the University of Puget Sound, which hosted the 2006 National Race and Pedagogy Conference; the chair of that conference and acclaimed author, Dexter Gordon; and the mother who challenged an entire public school system to be more inclusive of other cultures and address racially charged incidents. To all of you, I say thank you for your contributions and bravery. My parents, Larry and Mary Gipson, my sisters Ursula and Teri, and countless prayers were a boundless source of strength, encouragement, and inspiration. Thank you to all the friends who provided support and patiently accepted rain checks for dinners and movie outings; to Derrick Pinckney, a great artist and sounding board; to my undergraduate advisor, David Droge, one of the best thinkers, doers, and professors I know; and to so many, many more, including you, the reader, whom I hope will be as profoundly moved as I was by the lives of these extraordinary icons.

Introduction: Icons and Protestors of the Twentieth Century The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind. From Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Any living soul—sighted or blind—at any point in the twentieth century has been an eyewitness to protest. Yet what does protest sound like? How does it taste? Can you smell it in the air? Or feel it in your bones? In her 1969 autobiographical work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou recalls the moment when protest awakened her to act upon the racial injustices that she faced growing up in Stamps, Arkansas. Angelou poetically asserts this universal truth: Activism is a powerful inherent force that seeks to eliminate obstacles and create paths. Protest intersects oppositional elements to effect change: visibility and invisibility, external and internal influences, immediacy and patience, force and nonviolence. Civil disobedience is the road that leads to equality. African American protest, as all African American history, has its roots in slavery. In The People Could Fly, Virginia Hamilton recounts a version of the African folktale about slaves who desired freedom from an oppressive master. In Hamilton’s version, an old African slave whispers words to help other African slaves fly to freedom. When he is caught, the old African slave flies away, unable to help all the slaves escape; however, he leaves the witnesses with a story to tell their children. In the folktale, the destination of the flying Africans is freedom in Africa; in the mind of black America’s greatest activists, freedom is equality and dignity. Traditionally, the greatness of any protest begins with the magic of words from one who possesses the keen insights of the universe. Few are bestowed with this knowledge; furthermore, the opportunities for change must be taken in an instant with a simple action of grand consequence. It was this way for the flying Africans who escaped the fields of the brutal overseer, and it has been this way for African Americans in the twentieth century seeking justice in their communities, workplaces, schools, prisons, and courts.

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EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY PROTEST Protest grew up watching his parents being cheated in the game of sharecropping. The white man permitted his absence from school to help on the farm. He might eventually drop out of school to work in the field alongside his parents; in the evening, Activism listened to his grandparents tell stories about slavery. Protest made clothes out of flour sacks, and when the sole black doctor’s penicillin was not enough, Activism used the leaves of a peach tree to draw out fever. As a young man, Protest looked for the words to help free the souls of black folk as he fought to expose and end brutal lynching, which claimed thousands of freedom seekers each year. Leaving Injustice to chirp in the warm, damp night, those who could flew north. In great numbers, they filled southern cities in the North, where Injustice lived in cramped spaces in tall buildings and walked surreptitiously down crowded avenues. Black Activism looked back to Africa. He wrote about the crisis. Protest organized labor unions for his brothers and watched his sisters fight for women’s rights. He founded associations and leagues to assist his brothers and sisters in every fight. At night, Activism dreamt about the mule’s burden and of peeling back the husk of the sorghum cane and sucking out the sweetness of molasses.

MID-CENTURY PROTEST: JIM CROW AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA Halfway through the century, the restlessness of Activism increased. Jim Crow told blacks to order and eat their meals in the back of the restaurant, drink from different fountains, use dirty restrooms, and defer to whites in all situations. For many African Americans, segregated schools held secondhand textbooks and insufficient materials. To read and write, black students borrowed one of the school’s encyclopedias and wrote reports about English heroes like Sir Walter Raleigh. The white man said to teach black girls to cook and clean and teach black boys to farm; however, many black teachers knew the secret of the old African slave and taught their students more than just the curriculum. Black students learned that they were not inferior to whites. High school graduates of the middle decades could dream of traveling the world, practicing law or medicine, and teaching, but the wake-up reality was fraught with institutional racism and blatant and subtle prejudice. Increasingly frustrated with the raw end of Jim Crow’s deal, Protest aggressively sought school integration, formed committees, held conferences, and relied on the foundation of the association and the league. In 1961, Activism soared down the nation’s interstates singing spirituals in the key of militancy, seeking the elusive balance of peace, equality, and unity. Protest cooked breakfast for little black kids on their way to school. Protest marched, was beaten and jailed, all the while singing freedom’s songs,

Introduction

wearing an afro and straightened hair with waves and tight curls, a dashiki, a dress, or a suit with a bow-tie. The face of freedom wore sideburns, seldom smiled, and declared, ‘‘By any means necessary.’’ Activism became one of the greatest leaders to teach nonviolence. He was a brave king who traveled the streets blacks were not supposed to travel and sat at counters where blacks were not supposed to sit. From the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Protest shouted the words of the old African slave that lifted his ancestors in the sky, and watched the hundreds of thousands before him ascend from the lawn surrounding the reflecting pool. The great granddaughters of slaves looked white people in the eye and refused to say ‘‘yes ma’am’’ or ‘‘yes suh’’ and sat wherever they wanted on the bus. When these civil descendents went to lunch downtown, they were told, ‘‘We don’t serve niggers.’’ They replied, ‘‘Well, we don’t eat niggers either.’’ Protest raised a sole fist and shed his and her own blood for dignity. Activism worked hard just to survive; Protest worked harder to survive and get an education. Continually ignored for promotions and raises, Activism helped create jobs and demand federal aid for social programs. Activism moved to predominantly white neighborhoods. While her little black children played with white neighbor children, Protest kept a gun in her apron and watched the white parents. In an integrated school, Black Activism astonished her white teacher and classmates, who thought she was inept, when she recited British poet William Ernest Henley’s ‘‘Invictus.’’ Protest is unconquerable; it is the grass that grows through the crack in the sidewalk. Up North, if you were a black man or woman, Injustice might smile in your face and stab you in the back, but you were North where promised advantages and expectations hovered just within a fight’s reach; down South, you knew where you stood, and you also knew you did not have to stand there—and with a mustard seed’s faith, you moved to your rightful place. Activism was not born with second-class spirits. As Jim Crow staggered out and Integration pressed in, Protest took a glimpse of freedom’s face.

END-OF-THE-CENTURY PROTEST Near the close of the twentieth century, urban blight, poverty, and a host of political issues—including the Vietnam War—collided with the noble objectives of the Civil Rights Movement and produced a kaleidoscope of detrimental social problems. Growing up during the middle of the twentieth century, Protest had known that his future held prison or death at the hands of a white man, so Protest bulldozed his way through the ranks of the military, serving his country in Vietnam as an officer in the Marines. While stationed in Germany, Private Protest fought unequal treatment from white officers. Using the Army’s own chain of command, Protest stated his case in appropriate sequence to each

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officer, breaking one shackle at a time. Protest knew someone had to listen. Meanwhile, back home, Activism enraged the Old Boys Network when he was elected as mayor of his hometown and encouraged his friend Protest to become a member of the city council. Multifarious firsts in many corporate and political arenas inspired Activism; at the same time, the imprisoned and economically disadvantaged demanded Protest’s energy. Constructive, affirmative, realistic, and injurious images of African Americans blazed across televisions, movie screens, and theater stages. The alphabet organizations of the Civil Rights Movement seemed archived in history’s black-and-white photographic memory as the complexity of Modern Injustice attempted to disown his Jim Crow roots. The materialistic lullaby of the late twentieth century provided a false comfort and a divisive— too often violent—element that turned black on black in ways that had not been seen before. Heartened by Amiri Baraka’s ‘‘Wise 1,’’ Protest carves another Baraka title, ‘‘SOS,’’ into the wooden desk that holds his young mind in history class. For this offense, he finds himself in detention writing a film script. His desire to share those flying words rattles off his tongue with lightning speed. Activism professes flying stories to college students and pushes a coalition around the world advocating, mediating, and encouraging others with the words of the old African slave. Although February celebrates freedom’s heroes in twentyeight or twenty-nine days a year, Activism rides the bus to the state capital on black legislature day and fights for juvenile justice every day. Protest’s spark still burns and marches against police brutality and gang violence.

PROTEST IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM At the dawn of the twenty-first century, technology has expanded Protest’s means of communication and audiences; thus, the need for social change, too, grows exponentially. African Americans continue to respond to the voices of their predecessors in struggle, using every available medium: film, fiction, philanthropy, and even the information highway. Activism lives in the voices of university professors, community organizers, ministers, artists, presidential candidates, CEOs, and judges. The ‘‘who,’’ ‘‘what,’’ ‘‘when,’’ ‘‘where,’’ and ‘‘how’’ may be different, but the ‘‘why’’ remains the same— justice. The ability to acknowledge the essential equality of each human being is honorable, noble, and good; the ability to help others recognize that innate sameness is most honorable, the noblest, the purest good. As Americans continue to see barriers broken in all areas from city officials to the highest elected positions in the country, we must remain diligent in our responsibility to share these stories of protest and activism with our children. If we are to survive, the spirit of protest that resides within all of us must be nourished in our children. The cost of passive assimilation and

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complacency is too high. We must teach our children to identify and follow the voice within that seeks positive change and inspires others to seek the same. We must encourage our children to develop the strength to admonish naysayers with an unavoidable truth: freedom elevates all of humanity. Teri Knight


Chronology of African American Protest SLAVERY AND RESISTANCE TO 1877 1619

First record of Africans brought to North America as indentured servants. 1644 Black slaves successfully petition for freedom in New Netherlands (later New York). 1708 African slaves revolt in Newton, Long Island, and are punished by death. 1738 Fugitive slaves from the southern English colonies live with the Creek Indians in Georgia and the Spanish in Florida. 1739 Following the Stono slave rebellion in South Carolina, thirty enslaved Angolans elude capture for up to thirty years. 1780 Elizabeth Freeman sues for her freedom in Massachusetts. 1787 Richard Allen and Absalom Jones establish the Philadelphia Free African Society, one of the first free all-black societies formed to advocate black separatism and self-help programs. Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory, i.e., the territory soon to comprise the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 1793 Fugitive slave law enacted that requires escaped slaves to return to their slave owners. 1800 Gabriel Prosser leads a slave revolt in Richmond, Virginia. 1804 New Jersey is the last state in the North to abolish slavery. Ohio becomes one of the first northern states to enact discriminatory black laws against free blacks. 1808 Congress bans the importation of African slaves. 1812–1840s More than three decades of white riots against African Americans and abolitionists in the North. 1814 Paul Cuffee, one of the earliest proponents of the Back-toAfrica Movement, transports thirty-four blacks to Sierra Leone.


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1816 1817

1820 1821 1822 1830 1831 1839

1841 1843

1845

1846 1849 1851 1857 1861 1863

1865

Richard Allen founds the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. African Americans in Philadelphia protest the American Colonization Society (ACS), an organization formed to transport blacks back to Africa. The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri. The ACS establishes the colony of Liberia in West Africa for blacks. Denmark Vessey leads a slave revolt in South Carolina. The first national black convention is held in the North to address issues such as slavery, voting rights, and integration. Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia. Africans revolt on the Spanish schooner Amistad but are recaptured during their attempt to return to Africa. Slave revolts, as well as suicide, were common forms of African resistance to slavery during the Middle Passage. Abolitionists play an instrumental role in freeing the Africans of the Amistad after they had been recaptured. Henry Highland Garnet, a militant abolitionist, delivers ‘‘Address to the Slaves’’ at the National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, New York. Frederick Douglass publishes The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, the first of three autobiographies. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and prominent African American abolitionist, founds The North Star. Harriet Tubman escapes slavery and becomes a major leader in the Underground Railroad Movement. A large migration of African Americans to Canada begins and lasts eight years. U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Dred Scott case that African Americans are not citizens. Civil War begins. President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, bestowing freedom to all slaves within Confederate territory. Civil War ends with the defeat of the Confederacy. Following the end of the Civil War, embittered southerners violently attack newly freed slaves. President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated. Major General Gordon Granger announces in Galveston, Texas, that the slaves are free.


1866

1866–1868

1870 1875

Congress ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, officially abolishing slavery. Black codes are established throughout the South, severely restricting the rights of African Americans. African Americans, known as the Exodusters, migrate to Kansas in response to the violence, racism, and oppression of the South. Other migrations occur from the rural South to the Urban South, to the West, and to the North. In Tennessee, ex-Confederates establish the Ku Klux Klan, one of numerous racist white organizations in the South. During Reconstruction, schools for blacks are established and civil rights acts are passed. The South is divided into five military districts. African American politicians are elected for the first time ever in the South. Congress ratifies the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, granting citizenship, due process, and equal protection to former slaves. Following a fiery speech of protest against the passing of a bill to remove African Americans from political office, Henry McNeil Turner leads a walkout from the capitol building in Georgia. Congress ratifies the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving black men the right to vote. Congress enacts the Civil Rights Act of 1875, guaranteeing African Americans the right to equal access to public accommodations.

BLACK NADIR, 1877–1901 1877

1878

1886 1890 1892

1896

Reconstruction ends in the South. Most of the gains received during Reconstruction are eliminated when political power is returned to conservative Democrats. Martin R. Delany is one of the sponsors for the Liberian Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company, which is formed to help transport black Southerners to Liberia. A race riot occurs in Washington County, Texas. The beginning of the era of the black women’s club movement. The lynching of three African American owners of the People’s Grocery Company is the impetus for Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaign. The Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation is constitutional. The Jim Crow era begins. The National Association of Colored Women is formed.

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1898

Race riots break out in Phoenix, South Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina.

EARLY CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1901–1955 1905 1906 1908 1909 1910

1914 1915 1917

1918 1919 1920

1921 1923 1930

1931

W.E.B. Du Bois, William Monroe Trotter, and others found the Niagara Movement. Race riot in Brownsville, Texas. Race riot in Atlanta, Georgia. Race riot in Springfield, Illinois. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded in New York. W.E.B. Du Bois founds The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP. The National Urban League is founded in New York. The Great Migration, a mass exodus of blacks from the South to cities in the North, begins. Ida B. Wells founds the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago, the first African American suffrage association. Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association. D.W. Griffith releases the Birth of a Nation. The NAACP is among the protesters of this film. United States enters World War I. Race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois and Houston, Texas. Marcus Garvey delivers the address ‘‘The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots.’’ A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen establish the Messenger. Marcus Garvey establishes the Negro World. Race riots in Chicago, Illinois and Elaine, Arkansas. Congress ratifies the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving women the right to vote. Harlem, New York is the birthplace of the Harlem Renaissance, a period of intense developments in African American art, literature, and music. Race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Race riot in Rosewood, Florida. The Chicago Tribune reports that 3,437 black men and 76 black women were lynched in America between the years 1882 and 1930. Nine black youths are accused of raping two white women in the Scottsboro case.


1941

1941 1942 1947 1948

1952 1954

1955

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 8802, mandating equal employment in defense plants and federal jobs. A. Philip Randolph plays a leading role in this victory. United States enters World War II. James L. Farmer and others found the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). CORE participates in the Journey of Reconciliation. A. Philip Randolph plays a leading role in the protests that lead to President Harry S. Truman issuing an executive order to integrate the U.S. Armed Forces and the creation of a Fair Employment Board. Malcolm X becomes a minister of the Nation of Islam and advocates black nationalism, black separatism, and militancy. Thurgood Marshall is one of the attorneys in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declares that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional. Roy Wilkins is named executive director of the NAACP.

MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1955–1965 1955

1957

1960

1961

Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till is lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The two men charged with the crime are acquitted by an all-white jury. Following Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads a triumphant bus boycott. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is formed. Ella Baker and Bayard Rustin co-organize the Prayer Pilgrimage. Eleven hundred paratroopers and the state national guard provide protection for the first black students to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Dorothy Height becomes President of the National Council of Negro Women. Four African American students conduct a sit-in at a Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded. President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order 10925, creating the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and mandating affirmative action to ensure that hiring and employment practices are nondiscriminatory.

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1962

1962 1963

1964

CORE and SNCC conduct freedom rides to test the new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities. James Meredith is the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Rioting ensues, and President Kennedy sends 5,000 federal troops in response. Robert F. Williams’ Radio Free Dixie airs from Cuba. During civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, fire hoses and police dogs are used against activists. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes the famous ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’’ Children are attacked and arrested at a ‘‘Children’s Crusade.’’ Medgar Evers, a field secretary for Mississippi’s NAACP, is murdered outside his home. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his famous ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedoms. Four young African American girls are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Fannie Lou Hamer assists with the Freedom Summer project for voter registration, involving the Council of Federated Organizations (CORE, SNCC, SCLC, and NAACP). Three civil rights workers are murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Deacons for Defense and Justice is founded. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, eradicating segregation laws. Martin Luther King, Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize. President Lyndon B. Johnson presents War on Poverty Program in his State of the Union Address. Congress ratifies the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, abolishing the poll tax, which was created to deter black voting.

BLACK POWER MOVEMENT, 1965–1976 1965

American military involvement in the Vietnam War begins. Malcolm X is assassinated. State troopers violently attack demonstrators led by Martin Luther King, Jr., as they march to Selma. This incident is known as ‘‘Bloody Sunday.’’ LeRoi Jones establishes the Black Arts Repertory Theater, prompting the Black Arts Movement and inspiring a massive appeal to Black Consciousness.


1966 1967

1968

1969 1969 1970 1971 1972

1974 1976

Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, eliminating discriminatory voting laws. African Americans riot in Watts, California. President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246, establishing affirmative action. President Johnson proposes the Great Society Program during his State of the Union Address. Stokely Carmichael presents his first ‘‘Black Power’’ speech. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale found the Black Panthers. Fifty-nine riots erupt in cities in the North. Major race riots take place in Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan. The Supreme Court rules in Loving v. Virginia that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional. President Johnson appoints Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. The first National Black Power Conference is held in Newark, New Jersey. The Kerner Commission releases a report on their findings of what caused African American rioting. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt soon after in more than 100 U.S. cities. President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. Student strikes result in the first black studies program at San Francisco State College. James Forman of SNCC interrupts worship services at Riverside Church in New York to present the Black Manifesto. Black feminism emerges. Jesse Jackson founds People United to Save Humanity (PUSH). First National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana. Angela Davis is acquitted of kidnapping, murder, and conspiracy concerning an escape attempt at Marin County Hall of Justice. Elaine Brown becomes the first and only woman leader of the Black Panthers. A riot takes place in Pensacola, Florida.

MODERN PROTESTS, 1980– 1980

African Americans riot in Miami. Molefi Kete Asante publishes Afrocentricity.

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1982 1989 1992

1995 1996 1997

2000 2005 2006

African Americans riot in Miami. Spike Lee releases Do the Right Thing. African Americans riot in south-central Los Angeles after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped beating of African American Rodney King. Maxine Waters, Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, is a voice for rioters in Los Angeles. Spike Lee releases Malcolm X. Louis Farrakhan holds Million Man March in Washington, D.C. California becomes the first of several states to ban affirmative action in college admissions and state contracts. John Singleton releases the film Rosewood, based on the race riot that occurred there in 1923. Spike Lee releases the documentary 4 Little Girls about the 1965 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Million Woman March takes place in Philadelphia. Tavis Smiley and Tom Joyner co-host the first of annual town hall meetings called ‘‘The State of the Black Union.’’ Millions More March is held in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Million Man March. Spike Lee releases When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, a documentary on the Hurricane Katrina tragedy in New Orleans. Jesse Jackson leads campaign against the use of the N-word. Jesse Jackson leads a rally and march in New Orleans. The theme is ‘‘The Right to Return, Vote, and Rebuild.’’

Courtesy of Photofest

Spike Lee (1957– )

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Spike Lee is a film director, producer, writer, and actor. Spike Lee speaks his mind. He also produces controversial films, several of which deal with racism, skin color prejudice, racial violence, and radical activists like Malcolm X and Huey P. Newton. One of his films explores the tragedy of the four little black girls who died in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama when it was bombed during the tumultuous Civil Rights Movement. Lee asserts that he is not a ‘‘spokesperson’’ for African Americans, but he certainly is ever ready to defend them. For example, in the spring of 2008 he criticized Clint Eastwood, director and longtime actor famous for his squinty-eyed, husky-voiced portrayals, for not including African Americans in his 2006 World War II movie Flags of Our Fathers. At the time he brought Eastwood’s omission to light, Lee’s latest film, Miracle at St. Anna, about African American soldiers who fought in Italy during the same war, was still in production. It was due to premiere in the fall of 2008. Lee’s dedication to bringing the black experience and its legacy of protest to the big screen calls to mind the words of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. The aging activist met a twenty-five-year-old African American woman who knew the name ‘‘Ida B. Wells’’ but did not know what made people revere her. WellsBarnett wrote, in her autobiography, ‘‘I realized that one reason she did not know me was because the happenings about which she inquired took place before she was born. Another was that there was no record from which she could inform herself.’’ And so Wells-Barnett set out to chronicle her life and achievements, most notably as the pioneer of a spectacular anti-lynching campaign (Duster, 3, 4). There are reasons for the lack of information. Patricia A. Schecter, a Wells-Barnett scholar, determined that writing about resistance in Wells-Barnett’s day, ‘‘seemed to invite disregard, misunderstanding, or even punishment’’ (Schecter, 7). Indeed, when Wells-Barnett wrote an article castigating the lynching of the three black men who owned the People’s Grocery Store, in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1891, she became a marked woman and eventually chose to settle in the North rather than face the potentially fatal consequences of living in the South. Lee too faces repercussions, both for his remarks and his radical films. For instance, in response to Lee’s criticism of Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Eastwood told him to ‘‘shut his face,’’ explaining that the film was historically accurate, ‘‘that black troops were not involved in raising the flag at Iwo Jima.’’ Lee would also contend that his radicalness has cost him in others ways, such as the biting reviews he has received, the lack of recognition by the powers-that-be in Hollywood, and, sometimes, the trouble he has experienced trying to secure funding for his films. And yet he is one of only a few African Americans to have attained great fame, influence, and status as a moviemaker and in popular culture, especially considering his track record of controversy and his almost exclusive focus on black life. Like Wells-Barnett, Lee’s crusade appears to be to educate blacks as well as America as a whole. But he has other objectives. For example, he strives

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to spark dialogue, to raise critical issues, and to bring to light those historical events that have shaped today’s America that have been neglected or glossed over. Lest we forget or are too young to know what so many sacrificed and fought for, he makes his films. He has also inspired an array of books that describe his personal struggles during the process of moviemaking and how he became the giant he is.

GROWING UP IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA When Shelton Jackson Lee was born, on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia, African Americans were anything but powerful and influential. Although the famous Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 prohibited segregated schools in the South, real change came about slowly and not without struggle and hardship. In the South, conservative whites prevented blacks from voting through discriminatory laws and practices such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and other means—not excluding violence and intimidation. Blacks who registered to vote lost their jobs, or were harassed and threatened. In the South, Jim Crow laws segregated blacks from whites. There were separate parks, restrooms, hospitals, and other facilities for blacks and whites. In department stores, blacks could not try on clothes before they purchased them. In the North, segregation was generally prohibited, but it did not stop some whites from practicing Jim Crow when they could. In the North and South, rampant discrimination affected housing, job opportunity, and advancement. In the South, blacks could only attain top positions within the all-black segregated communities. In a world dominated by whites, blacks were relegated to second-class status, limited to menial jobs, and made less money than whites working in the same field. Unlike twenty-first–century America, blacks could not advance into positions of power, such as mayors, doctors (in mainstream hospitals), police chiefs, or run for president of the United States. In 2008, Barack Obama, the third black U.S. senator since Reconstruction (1862–1877), became the first African American to win the Democratic nomination for president and the first serious black candidate in either mainstream party. In this context, Shelton was not like most other blacks. His parents had college degrees, and so did their parents, and at least one great-grandparent before them. His mom, Jacquelyn, was a schoolteacher, and his dad, Bill, was a jazz composer who played in various clubs. Bill had graduated from Morehouse College, a black college (known as an HBCU, for historically black colleges and universities). He was a freshman there when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a senior. King was only fifteen years old when he entered Morehouse and just nineteen when he graduated with a B.A. in sociology. King went on to graduate from Crozer Theological Seminary and

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Historically Black Colleges and Universities Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions that were established specifically for African Americans prior to the enactment of the Higher Education Act of 1965. HBCUs were created to fill the need for educational institutions for blacks, since Jim Crow laws prohibited African Americans from attending white colleges and universities. Many HBCUs were funded by private individuals and organizations, churches, and federal grants. The first black college, the Institute for Colored Youth, was founded by a Quaker named Richard Humphreys in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1837. However, the majority of black colleges and universities are located in the South and were established after the Civil War (1861–1865). Indeed the creation of the HBCUs, as well as schools for children, was arguably the most substantial action undertaken to assist freed slaves during Reconstruction (1863–1877). There are currently 110 historically black institutions of higher learning in the United States. The HBCUs have had an uneven relationship with black activism. Many professors advanced social activism and played a part in inspiring future black leaders. A large number of black activist leaders attended historically black colleges and universities for undergraduate study. At Fisk University in Tennessee, W.E.B. Du Bois developed his concept of the Talented Tenth, i.e., the need for gifted black leaders to guide the black community toward racial, economic, and social improvement. Du Bois later taught for several years at Atlanta University, an HBCU. Others who attended HBCUs include Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Jesse Jackson, founder of Rainbow/Push; and Robert F. Williams, who headed an armed self-defense organization and led demonstrations in North Carolina. One of the most famous associations with an HBCU was the landmark sit-in by North Carolina Agricultural and Technical students Ezell Blair, Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond. Notwithstanding the legacy of activism and HBCUs, administrators at black universities and colleges were often leery of getting involved with the Civil Rights Movement. Wealthy conservative whites who helped fund the institutions or served on the boards of directors frequently thwarted activism on campus. When Whitney Young, executive director of the National Urban League, taught at Atlanta University in Georgia in the 1960s, the thenpresident was anxious to quell student sit-in demonstrations. HBCUs remain an integral part of the history and traditions of African Americans. Black institutions still rank high with black youths considering college, although blacks from outside the South sometimes have trouble transitioning due to differences and perceptions associated with blacks living in predominately white communities. (continued )

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Black students who choose to attend predominately white institutions also have a host of issues to contend with in terms of racial tolerance and sensitivity, and of simply fitting in. For instance, in the 1960s and 1970s, black students led protests to employ black professors, as well as to include diversity (such as black studies programs) in the academic curriculum. Substantial progress in this area has been made at some institutions, but still languishes at others to this day.

Boston University. In 1955, he would lead his first major civil rights campaign, the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Other demonstrations followed in towns in the South, such as Albany, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama, and St. Augustine, Florida. He also initiated campaigns in the North beginning in 1966, a few years before his assassination on April 4, 1968. Of the two parents, Jacquelyn appeared to be the most racially conscious. Her initial understanding of race pride came from her mother, Zimmie Shelton. In the early twentieth century, when the only race that mattered or was represented in the American media was the white race, this was no easy task. When blacks were represented, say, on television or in a song, it was in a derogatory way. Jacquelyn’s mom only permitted her to play with black dolls, even though they were made to look less attractive than the white dolls. She also painted the white faces on cards brown so it would reflect her own color. In this way, Zimmie Shelton demonstrated to her daughter that she was of value too. Jacquelyn and Shelton lived in Atlanta with Jacquelyn’s grandmother, while Bill worked in Chicago, where there was more work to be found for a bass player than in Georgia. It was around this time, while still a baby, that Shelton received his moniker, Spike. Jacqueline attributed his nickname to his toughness, and it stuck. In 1958, mother and son moved to Chicago, thus circumventing Jim Crow and the perilous South. In the following year, his brother Chris was born, and Bill convinced Jacquelyn that New York was the place to be. Most of his music friends and others he had heard about had moved to New York. Undoubtedly, he believed that New York promised better and more opportunities than Chicago. So the Lees packed up their belongings and headed east, settling in Crown Heights, a neighborhood in the borough (as it is called) of Brooklyn, in New York City. The Lees were the first African American family to live there. Most everyone else was Italian, which, in those days, was not unusual. Despite the fact that Jim Crow was unlawful, the North was still heavily segregated in most aspects of life. Generally, when blacks moved into previously all-white communities, trouble, harassment, and calamity were sure to follow.

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As a toddler, Spike was not aware of what those early days, months, and years were like for his parents in the predominately Italian neighborhood. The few incidents, like when his parents were called ‘‘niggers’’ by neighbors, that did occur were relatively mild compared to events in the South, or in other, more racially hostile, areas in New York. Spike’s brother David and sister Joy were born in 1961 and 1962, respectively. In those years, blacks in the South, especially those activists who tried to force integration upon conservative whites using the new tactics of sit-ins and picketing, lived in daily peril of harassment and violence. They endured heckling, being spat upon, and having food thrown at them. Some blacks who lived too close to white neighborhoods were regularly terrorized by nightriders. In other parts of New York, the enmity between blacks and whites (and other racial groups such as Italians and Jews) was so intense that neither side dared enter the other’s neighborhood (except to provoke a fight) for fear of physical assault or harassment. In this atmosphere, black and white gangs frequently formed. These tensions extended back to the early days of the Great Migration (1910–1950), when waves of blacks left the South in search of better jobs and the greater freedoms of the North. Black enclaves known as ghettos sprang up on the outskirts of many northern cities. Whites and other immigrants were exasperated over their presence. Competition over resources, housing, and work (especially given the fact that blacks were paid less than any other race and were, as a result, frequently hired over others) made for explosive encounters. Spike made friends with young Italian boys in the neighborhood. He went to public school without incident, although he was not allowed to join the Cub Scouts because of the color of his skin. His early years were happy and serene. Jacquelyn and Bill made sure to expose their children to varied and rewarding experiences. All the children received music lessons. Spike learned how to play the violin and the piano. His mother took them to concerts and museums and supplemented his education with lessons in African American history. She brought home books on important black men and women for her children to read so that they would grow up with a strong understanding of their history, and America’s history. At school, African American history was barely addressed. Trips to the South to visit his grandparents added to Spike’s awareness of black life and social conditions in the 1960s. Family road trips each summer entailed long drives to Georgia and Alabama, where Spike saw Jim Crow up close. He saw the signs that read ‘‘blacks only’’ and ‘‘white only.’’ And he learned about slavery from his relatives, who remembered the tales that had been passed down to them through the generations. Spike’s maternal great-great grandparents had been slaves. Most African American family histories can be traced back to slavery. The first slave ship, carrying human cargo, arrived in America in 1619. By 1804, slavery had been abolished in all northern states. But in the South,

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white landowners continued to practice slavery. At the end of the Civil War (1861–1865), blacks celebrated their freedom, though some were apprehensive of the future—and for good reason. Civil rights gains and progress for the newly freed slaves turned out to be ephemeral. A hundred long years later, as Spike and his siblings played games and battled over space in their parent’s cramped car heading to and fro on the highways from the North and South, violence erupted throughout the South, a brutal backlash directed at nonviolent demonstrators. Spike was not yet six years old when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. It seemed to many as if nothing had changed. But change was coming, though at great cost and sacrifice for blacks and whites. Spike was seven years old when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 into existence, destroying Jim Crow. The old black- and white-only signs were dismantled across the South, but blacks and whites continued to live in two separate worlds. And the tumult persisted. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam. One of Spike’s childhood visits included a trip to Snow Hill, Alabama, where his paternal grandparents lived. Nearby, in Selma, Martin Luther King, Jr. waged a voter registration campaign. But he was absent the day that white mobs and police brutally attacked demonstrators on a Sunday on March 7, 1965. That day, known as ‘‘Bloody Sunday,’’ was one of a string of civil rights tragedies that led to the pivotal Voting Rights Act of 1965. Thirteen days after Bloody Sunday, Spike celebrated his eighth birthday, back in New York, where blacks were free to vote. He played baseball and other games with his Italian friends and did not feel the magnitude of these privileges. When King was a boy growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, white racism prevented him from making friends with whites. Spike did, at least for a time, have to contend with another plight for African Americans: poverty. There were times when his father could not find any work, partly because he refused to transition to the new electric instruments like everyone else. And yet, Spike recalled that there was still food to eat, and the poverty that was so omnipresent in other neighborhoods was not felt. Neither was the crime, though in so many impoverished black ghettos throughout the North, life was hard, the crime rate was high, and violence was deeply entrenched. To be sure, there were bullies, but Spike learned how to cope with them: he gave up his lunch money without a fight. In 1968, the Lees’ financial situation took a turn for the better. Bill began playing with folk singers, and Jacquelyn took a job teaching at a prestigious private school, St. Ann’s in Brooklyn Heights. The Lees moved to a brownstone house across from a housing project. In the summers, the family went to Newport, Rhode Island for folk festivals where Bill performed with mostly white artists, many of whom were activists. Spike heard the black singer Odetta; Pete Seeger, who was affiliated with the Highlander

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Afrocentricism Afrocentricism refers to a philosophy or cultural expression that is based on the African experience. Afrocentricism is not a new concept, although the term was coined by Molefi Asante in the 1980s. Afrocentricism can take many forms and has been expressed in various ways by leaders in African American protest since post-slavery times. W.E.B Du Bois, one of the first black activists of the twentieth century, battled racism, discrimination, and anti-black violence dressed like a distinguished professor. But he advanced African American culture in a time when many blacks strove to distance themselves from the trappings of their African and slave past. When Angela Davis and Jesse Jackson grew out their hair in ‘‘naturals’’ and sported dashikis, they exhibited black pride, defying the structure that promulgated white concepts of beauty. Other black leaders have fused Afrocentricity into the ideology of their organizations. Louis Farrakhan, of the Nation of Islam, and Marcus Garvey, early twentieth-century founder and leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, allowed only blacks to join their organizations. Garvey, in particular, endorsed the idea that God was black and that black ambition and ability was boundless. He attempted to demonstrate this by launching his own black-owned businesses and a spectacular shipping line. Stokely Carmichael, a one-time activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, embraced Afrocentricity to the degree that he took on an African name, Kwame Ture, and moved to Africa in 1969. Afrocentricism was often instilled into leaders during childhood. For example, to counteract society’s negative image of blacks, the mother of Fannie Lou Hamer, a prominent activist in Mississippi during the 1960s, gave her daughter a black doll to play with. In those days racist black paraphernalia was abundant. Modern day Afrocentric shops specialize in dolls, gifts, and books that celebrate blackness. Spike Lee’s mother gave him and his siblings books about blacks to read. She also braided his little sister’s hair and decorated it with cowry shells, a tradition based in Africa. Through natural hairstyles and Afrocentric clothes and accessories, blacks affirmed, celebrated, and embraced their racial identities.

Folk School (an activist training institution) in Tennessee; Joan Baez, who participated in civil rights demonstrations; Peter, Paul, and Mary; and Bob Dylan. Bill Lee was not the only family member to move into a predominately white arena. Jacquelyn was the only African American teacher at St. Ann’s, and she was the first to introduce black history into the curriculum. David,

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Joy, and later Cinque were enrolled there. Cinque, born in 1966, was named after a slave revolt leader named Joseph Cinque. Joseph Cinque was born Sengbe Pieh in Mani, Sierra Leone, circa 1817. He was a husband and father of three children when he was captured by a rival African tribe, who sold him to slave traders. Only one-half of the African slaves survived the difficult Middle Passage to Cuba. The rest died along the way. To cover up the fact that they were slaves (slavery was unlawful in Cuba), he and the others were given Spanish names. En route to his new master’s plantation, aboard another vessel called La Amistad, Cinque led a slave revolt. It was an attempt to force his captives to return the Africans home, but the ship’s navigator steered them to the United States, where, in New Haven, Connecticut, the Africans were put on trial for the slave rebellion. In 1840, with the help of abolitionist and former president John Quincy Adams, Cinque and the others were set free. After lecturing throughout the North about his daring revolt, he returned, in 1842, to Sierra Leone. In 1997, Steven Spielberg would produce the movie, Amistad. During Lee’s pre-teen years, he enjoyed going to the movies. There were few movies with black casts, and fewer still that offered positive roles for black actors. Blacks in power positions such as director, producer, or writer were virtually nonexistent. These power positions in the movie industry were crucial, as they controlled the choice of content and the manner in which that content was presented, thus wielding the ability to influence perception. Lee remembered the first film he saw featuring a black actor. The movie was Lilies of the Field (1963), and it cast Sidney Poitier as Homer Smith, a worker who is persuaded to help Catholic nuns build a new chapel. Lee was unimpressed. Smith’s character was one-dimensional and too nice. Lee was in junior high school when he discovered The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965). The book was compelling, brutally honest, and eyeopening. Spike immediately took to the embittered, radical, and flawed man revealed in the book. It appears that Malcolm X’s outspokenness was an especially appealing trait. Spike liked the rawness of Malcolm and his life, and the way he brought out the blatant ugliness and subtleties of racism. Lee had learned about racism vicariously through his parents, and through discussions at the family dinner table. Later, his friends experienced problems while attending Fort Hamilton High School and Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, which were in a predominantly white neighborhood. White youths were hostile to the blacks who attended those schools and frequently chased after them. Notwithstanding Lee’s enjoyment in movie-going during this period, he preferred sports. He especially liked baseball, though in high school he became enamored with basketball. Lee went to professional games and dreamed of becoming an athlete when he grew up. Lee turned down his mother’s offer to enroll him in the Catholic school where she taught; he did not want to go to an all-white school. His siblings

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had experienced bouts of racism while attending the predominately white school, St. Ann’s, where their mother taught. Because of Lee’s good grades, he was able to attend John Dewey High School in Coney Island. A student could receive a good education there, as well as enjoy the diverse environment. As he grew toward manhood, Spike developed a keen sensitivity toward racism, though he was not yet the outspoken and assertive critic he would soon become. All in all, high school was a pleasant experience. But Lee was small in stature, even after growing an afro, reaching only five feet six inches as an adult, which meant that professional sports were out of the question. He would have to look elsewhere for a career.

MOREHOUSE COLLEGE Not attending college was not an option. In the fall of 1975, Lee entered the all-black and all-male Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. The other two major black institutions in Atlanta are Spelman College, a private institution for black women, and Clark Atlanta University. Spike’s experiences at Morehouse were troublesome. One can imagine that Morehouse, an all-black school in the South, would be an ideal institution for someone who would be known for his race consciousness. However, while attending Morehouse, Spike encountered a problem that was rampant on campus: skin-color prejudice. Skin prejudice is a centuries-old issue, stemming from slavery, where black slave women were subjected to abuse from white slave masters, producing biracial children. Generally, these children had lighter skin and straighter hair, along with other white features. The slave master frequently separated these offspring from the general slave population. In a few cases, the master treated the children as his own. Generally, the biracial men and women worked in his home, wore castoffs of the white family, and were made to feel ‘‘better’’ than the black population of ‘‘field slaves’’ who worked outdoors and lived in coarse shacks. This phenomenon later manifested itself into elitist black bourgeoisie communities, where light skin, education, polite manners, and money were among the keys to admission. Skin color prejudice is not unique to the South. Most anywhere, blacks are sometimes affected by this internalized racism, falling into the trap of thinking that black is ‘‘ugly’’ and ‘‘bad’’ and white is ‘‘attractive’’ and ‘‘good.’’ As such, some blacks have differentiated between ‘‘good hair’’ and ‘‘bad hair’’ with regard to hair texture. Hair that is naturally straight, as a result of racial mixing, is considered ‘‘better.’’ At Morehouse, Spike did not fit the mold. He stood out. Although not dark complected, he was not ‘‘fair enough’’ to pass the test of color attractiveness. He was small, lanky, and wore oversized glasses and an afro. He did not own a car—he did not even have a driver’s license. In New York,

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one could catch a taxi or the subway. As he had in New York, Spike rode his bike everywhere, while the cool fair-complected crowd drove around in flashy cars. Spike was a loner and out of his element. Making matters worse, Spike was homesick. He wrote home often and spent as much time as possible with his grandmother, who lived nearby. This helped a little, but during his sophomore year, Spike found out that his mother had liver cancer. She died in 1976. Spike’s pain was great, but he did not permit himself to wallow in it or show grief. He felt he had to be the anchor of the family, to carry his siblings through their deep sorrow. And he felt all the more compelled to make something of his life to make his mother proud. In the summer of 1977, he purchased his first video camera. Lee’s Junior year at college was a busy one. In addition to deciding to major in mass communications and taking classes in journalism, radio, and television, he wrote articles for the college newspaper. He also hosted a radio show at a local jazz station. And he continued to go to the movies. A friend at Morehouse said that Spike first relayed to him his dream of moviemaking after a trip to the movies to see The Deer Hunter (1978). That movie, like others, had him spellbound. In the late sixties and seventies blacks finally asserted themselves in the movie industry as producers. Until then, black producers had been few and far between. Pioneers like Emmett J. Scott produced several films, including The Birth of a Race (1918), an unsuccessful attempt to counter the racist movie The Birth of a Nation (1915), which vilified blacks and glorified the Ku Klux Klan. Black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, who owned his own production company, produced a number of important ‘‘race movies,’’ a term used to denote films with all-black casts. Micheaux broke ground as a writer, director, and producer. He produced forty-four films and wrote seven novels between 1913 and 1948. Micheaux’s characters defied the rampant stereotypical images of mainstream white films and featured blacks in exciting roles that black audiences appreciated and enjoyed. Gordon Parks, Ossie Davis, and Sidney Poitier directed movies in Hollywood during the sixties and seventies. All were also activists. Gordon Parks was a photographer, musician, and journalist, as well as a film director. His films include Diary of a Harlem Family (1968), The Learning Tree (1969), Shaft (1971), and Solomon Northup’s Odyssey (1984). The latter film was based on a true story about a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. He was enslaved for twelve years before his whereabouts were discovered and he was allowed to return to his wife in New York. Ossie Davis, who got his start in Hollywood as an actor, sat in the director’s seat for several movies, including Kongi’s Harvest (1970), Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Black Girl (1972), Gordon’s War (1973), and Countdown at Kusini (1976). Sidney Poitier, one of the first black actors to gain fame portraying positive and leading roles in white films, directed Buck and the

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Preacher (1972), A War December (1973), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), and Let’s Do It Again (1975). Some movies, like Davis’ Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Gordon’s Shaft (1971), contributed to a stereotype of blacks. This new genre was called ‘‘blaxploitation,’’ a combination of the words ‘‘black’’ and ‘‘exploitation.’’ Critics argue that the films glamorized a black urban underworld, criminal activity, drug use, and the degradation of women (who were frequently scantily clad). These films were produced by blacks as well as whites. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Urban League established the Coalition Against Blaxploitation to protest the films. By the eighties, blaxploitation was a thing of the past. Spike made his own films while he was still an undergraduate at Morehouse. His first was Black College: The Talented Tenth (1977). The term ‘‘talented tenth’’ refers to a term coined by scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois. Du Bois started life in an isolated, mostly white, New England community in the late nineteenth century. His first experience at an all-black southern school, at Fisk University in Tennessee, was inspiring; it inflamed his interest in black culture and life. And he was surrounded by like-minded progressives who, like him, felt the intense desire to use their education and gifts to uplift the race. However, Du Bois was aware that many of his school fellows did not appreciate his interest in the blacks who lived in impoverished rural settings, many of whom retained precious culturisms going back to slavery and Africa. Du Bois hoped that what he called ‘‘the Talented Tenth,’’ or the best minds among African Americans, would take up leadership roles in the black community. Spike’s film was not about that noble goal; it was instead about a love relationship. However, the title was an example of how he would enmesh bits of black history into his films. Neither this film, nor the next, Last Hustle in Brooklyn (1978), were major productions; they were only amateur films. The latter combined scenes from a disco and shots of people looting stores (and also rioting) Spike caught in a blackout in New York in 1977. In 1979, Spike graduated from Morehouse. That summer he interned at Columbia Pictures in Burbank, California. In the fall he began studying at the New York University Institute.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF FILM AND TELEVISION Spike Lee and New York have become almost synonymous. His love for New York is as well-known today as is his passion for basketball. However, in 1979, coming back home was not an easy transition. For one thing, his mother was not there. For another, his father had moved on; he was in a

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relationship with another woman, named Susan Kaplan, and it bothered Spike that she was Jewish. Evidently, he was the only one of the siblings to object. Bill eventually married Susan and they had a son. Though his home life distressed him, Spike flourished at the New York University Institute of Film and Television, after a bumpy start. He was one of only a handful of blacks who sat in the auditoriums listening to lectures, scrutinizing films, camera angles, and mis-en-scenes. This presented a new set of challenges. For instance, when he presented a counterattack to D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915) in the spirit of Emmet J. Scott with the title The Answer, his professors were critical. The professors ‘‘did not charge him with disrespect for Griffith. Rather, they criticized the film for being overambitious: First-year student films are only ten minutes long … they also criticized Spike for not having yet mastered ‘film grammar,’ or the techniques of filmmaking.’’ Spike believed otherwise, sensing ‘‘they thought he was an upstart to criticize Griffith, the ‘father of cinema’ ’’ (Haskins, 25). Spike showed his movie to the public anyway, screening it at a black dance club in Manhattan. Despite the early criticism, Spike returned to the New York film program for a second year. This was no small accomplishment, since many students were let go after their first year. Spike received a teaching assistantship and a job working in the equipment room to cover his tuition. His grandmother provided him with money to make films. Also pivotal to Spike’s start in filmmaking was the relationship he formed with another student, Ernest Dickerson. Born on June 25, 1951, in Newark, New Jersey, Dickerson attended Howard University, an HBCU, and New York University Graduate School of Film, emerging as a gifted cinematographer. He and Spike would team up for several films, and Dickerson would go on to direct films of his own. It was no wonder the two became fast friends: both were from the East Coast, attended historically black colleges in the South, and found themselves back in New York to engage in the magic of moviemaking. Dickerson was in charge of cinematography for Spike’s second film assignment, Sarah (1981). This one featured a black family in Harlem on Thanksgiving Day. His father wrote the score. To produce this film, Lee established Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks. The name of Spike’s production company referred to the part-fact, part-fable rumor that circulated after the Civil War (1861–1865) that blacks would receive reparations in the form of forty acres of property and a mule. However, the reparations were to be granted only to former black slaves living in the Charleston, South Carolina area. In any event, General William Tecumseh Sherman’s order was overturned by President Andrew Johnson, and the land confiscated by the Union was returned to the white landowners. The name was a none-too-subtle way for Spike to address the issue of slave reparations. Every time his movies were shown the credits featured the

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name of his production company. On the one hand, this would play out as an inside understanding among many blacks, who know the term and its meaning. And to others, especially generations of blacks further removed from such racial issues, ‘‘Forty Acres and A Mule’’ might at least spark questions that led to a search for the answer. Spike understood the power of words, as well as that of images. Spike’s next movie, Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, his master’s thesis, was a stellar success. It captured the private world of black life in a barbershop, where black men go to discuss politics and local gossip, as well as get a haircut. Zach, the manager, runs into trouble with a local gangster who wants to use the barbershop as a cover for illegal gambling. But Zach wants no part in the gangster’s lawless schemes. The former owner, Joe, was killed by the gangster. Spike received a student Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for that film, and it was shown on public television’s Independent Focus and at film festivals in California, Georgia, and Switzerland. Spike graduated from film school in 1982, at the beginning of a decade that would see a host of evocative black movies, including A Soldier’s Story (1984), Purple Rain (1984), and The Color Purple (1985). However, all three films were directed by whites. Spike was confident, with the success of his thesis film, that he would have no problem penetrating the movie industry.

STARTING OUT Starting out was not as easy as Spike had thought it would be. Although he signed on with several agencies, the phone did not ring. He had to make a living until he got a break, so he cleaned and shipped out film for First Run Features. Thanks to that job, he was able to move into his own place. He also began writing. His first script after graduating was The Messenger. This film bore some resemblance to Lee’s own life. It was about a bicycle messenger who must then bear the responsibility of leading the family when his mother dies. Spike faced several new challenges trying to make this film. Raising funds was one grueling aspect of moviemaking. But there were other tasks, such as hiring a crew and finding actors. Lee amped up his responsibilities by insisting that he ‘‘control all aspects of his films’’ (Haskins, 31). About this time he hit upon the idea of selling T-shirts to market his film. There were many filmmaking entities he had to answer to—not only the organizations funding the film, but the Screen Actors Guild, which he hoped would waive the rule that he had to employ union actors (who were more expensive). They denied him the waiver, stating that ‘‘the film was too commercial’’ (Haskins, 32). Lee was crushed. He could not afford union actors, and so he had to terminate production and confront the friends and

Spike Lee

associates who had contributed their own money. His girlfriend, Cheryl Burr, who had lent Lee money, broke up with him over this failure. But he learned his lesson: his ambition had exceeded his budget. The film was never shot. She’s Gotta Have It Lee’s next film, released in 1986, was his first feature-length motion picture. In it are some of the trademarks that would become famous in future films: the jazzy and soulful score, the monologue scenes in which characters rail into the camera, and the subtle reminders of Lee’s radicalism such as the fact that the main character, Nola Darling, has the same birthday as his hero Malcolm X and broaches the subject of police brutality against blacks. The movie revolves around a female protagonist, Nola Darling, an independent African American woman in Brooklyn, New York who’s pursued by three men. One of her love interests is Spike Lee, who plays the quirky Mars Blackmon. Lee (and his sister Joie, who had by this time changed the spelling of her name) appeared in the movie to save money. For the same reason, he filmed the movie in black and white and limited the cast. The film was shot in twelve days on a modest budget of $175,000. Lee sold paraphernalia and a book that chronicled the making of the film, Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking (1987). Despite the all-black cast and the frugality of the production, the movie grossed an impressive $7,137,502, received glowing recognition, and won the Young Director’s Prize at the Cannes Film Festival on the French Riviera. Perhaps even more significant, he piqued the interest of a white audience. Historically, ‘‘race films’’ had appealed almost exclusively to a black audience. Lee would change that paradigm, as he moved blackness out of the symbolic corner in the back of the room into the mainstream. Spike’s film was praised for his groundbreaking portrayal of upbeat, urban black professionals and the community of Brooklyn, New York. Indeed, the large influx of progressive young adults and artists into the neighborhood was attributed to his film. Others recognized Spike’s influence and capitalized on it. Nike featured Spike, along with famed basketball player Michael Jordan, in advertisements and commercials. Lee’s career opened up to new and exciting opportunities. RADICAL BLACK FILMS School Daze Beginning with his next movie, Lee showed America that he liked to shake things up, that he was not one to back down from controversy (in fact, he

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was drawn to it), and that he felt no obligation to propose resolution to the conundrums he constructed. In this way, Lee is tantamount to the student who is not afraid to tell on the classroom bully, but will leave it up to the teacher to deal (or not) with the wayward youth. Like Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, he has a tendency to hold up a mirror so that blacks can see problems within their own cultural community. School Daze (1988) is a case in point. School Daze is a musical that explores the tumultuous relationships between dark-skinned and light-skinned blacks at a fictional historically black college named Mission. During the opening scenes, Lee educates the audience with a brief pictorial history of African Americans, beginning with slavery. He then moves straight to the real-life topic of skin-color prejudice and the conflict it produces. His material is clearly based on what he observed while attending Morehouse College, though he creates makebelieve characters and exaggerated situations. Laurence Fishburne plays Vaughn ‘‘Dap’’ Dunlap (who is ‘‘dark-skinned’’), the campus activist who launches demonstrations against the South African apartheid system. Dap is also anti-fraternity. The Gamma Phi Gamma fraternity is home to all the ‘‘light-skinned’’ blacks with supposedly ‘‘good hair.’’ To accentuate the conflict, Lee uses the offensive term ‘‘Jigaboo’’ to label the dark-skinned blacks, and has Dap call the light-skinned blacks ‘‘Wannabes’’ or ‘‘Oreos’’ (i.e., black on the outside, white on the inside). Lee plays Half Pint, Dap’s cousin. Lee disappoints Dap when he announces that he wants to pledge for Gamma Phi Gamma. Word got out that Morehouse was not happy about the parody. Lee was ‘‘criticized … for airing dirty laundry’’ (Aftab, 58). But Lee did well. He popularized the song and dance routine, ‘‘Da Butt,’’ gave Columbia Pictures the biggest profit-making film of the year, and launched the careers of a number of previously unknown actors. Admissions of HBCUs reportedly shot up. Do the Right Thing Lee’s 1989 film about racism and a race riot turned him into a household name. It was his most controversial film yet; indeed, it is possible that he has yet to make another film as radical as Do The Right Thing. Adding to the disquieting tone of the movie was the fact that the movie came in the wake of an actual white-on-black incident and the belief that Lee had a political motive for making it. The real-life incident took place in 1986. Three black friends—Michael Griffith, Cedric Saniford, and Timothy Grimes—drove into a predominately Italian neighborhood in Howard Beach, Queens, New York. After their car broke down, they went into a pizza parlor to use the telephone to get help. Shortly thereafter, a white mob chased the three black men out of the pizzeria. Saniford and Griffith were beaten. Grimes had a knife, so he was able

Spike Lee

to escape. In an attempt to escape, Griffith ran onto a busy street and was hit by a car and killed. Reverend Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist, helped launch rallies and a march to protest the event. New York was fraught with racial violence and frightening incidents such as this. Police brutality was an especially troublesome problem in the black communities of the North. Anytime a black person was abused or murdered, especially by a white person or persons, it was not uncommon for rioting to break out in black communities. A number of riots had occurred in cities across the nation during the 1960s. Anti-black violence was not the only causal factor involved in race riots, though it was usually the triggering event. A host of problems exacerbated the tensions blacks living in impoverished communities felt. Studies and investigations by the federal and state authorities concluded that racism, as well as the lack of opportunities, general neglect, and overcrowded and inimical housing environments played a role as well. A year after the Howard Beach tragedy, Tawana Brawley, a fifteen-yearold African American girl, was found in a garbage bag. Her body was covered with feces and racist epithets. Her clothes were torn and burned, and she claimed that she had been sexually assaulted by six white men, including a police officer. Evidence gathered showed that Brawley had not been sexually assaulted, which led authorities to believe that the state in which she was found had been concocted by herself. Still, Reverend Sharpton continued to publicize the case, and many blacks rallied to support her. Not everyone believed that Brawley fabricated her story. Such racially charged incidents, as well as Lee’s long-time desire to make a film about a riot, were behind Lee’s desire to make Do the Right Thing. The other reason was that Lee wanted to do something to thwart New York’s then-mayor from getting re-elected. Lee saw Ed Koch as one of the main reasons why New York was so racially volatile. He planned that ‘‘when the film came out it would be right before the Democratic primary for mayor. We felt that we could have a little bit of influence … and every time we could nail Koch, we would’ ’’ (Aftab, 76). Koch’s last year as mayor coincided with the year Do The Right Thing was released. Lee fused a lot of vitriol into this film. He ‘‘decided that his forthcoming film would feature graffiti proclaiming ‘Tawana Told the Truth’’’ (Aftab, 75). The tension in the film was exacerbated by the oppressive heat that almost everyone in the film commented on and suffered from. This tidbit alluded to the idea that actual riots tended to erupt in the hottest days of summer. There are also several allusions to real-life situations in the movie. For example, one of the main settings of the movie takes place in a pizzeria (which had been where the trouble started for the three black youths in Howard Beach) in Bedford-Stuyvesant (a neighborhood known for its racial problems), where Mookie (Spike Lee) is the only black employed by the Italian owner named Sal (Danny Aiello) and his two sons.

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During one part of the movie, people of different ethnicities face the camera and take part in a racial epithet-spewing session. The scene is unorthodox, shocking, and vintage Lee. What Lee seemingly attempts to show is that racism is alive and well, though individuals may hide behind a guise of political correctness. The tension and sweltering heat are palpable, and the situation erupts after two black characters stage a sit-in because there are no black celebrity portraits on the walls of the pizzeria, only Italians. When the two men do not leave, the owner destroys the boom box of the character named Radio Raheem. A fight ensues between the Italian owner, his sons, and the two blacks. Cops arrive and Radio Raheem is killed when he is roughly handled by an officer. Mookie throws a trashcan through the window of the pizzeria and a riot erupts. The movie concludes with quotes form Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. denouncing violence, and Malcolm X advocating self-defense. Among the cast members are Ossie Davis, who plays Da Mayor, a neighborhood drunk, and Ruby Dee, as Mother-Sister, a local who sits perched on a stoop. These two were legendary actors whose careers began in the 1950s. In real life, the couple was married and had been civil rights activists, friends, and supporters of leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Davis and Dee played in several of Lee’s films. Their presence was a silent homage to nonviolent black protest. Lee’s films were stock-full of such symbols, and of tidbits of African American history, as well as racism and racial conflict at its worst. Do the Right Thing was one of the most talked about movies of the year. The Public Enemy song ‘‘Fight The Power,’’ featured in the film, became the new anthem for resistance. But the critics were harsh on Lee. Reviews in New York magazine and Today ‘‘argued that Do The Right Thing was of no value except as agit-prop to incite the black community to riot’’ (Aftab, 96). Lee may not have started any riots, but he did influence popular culture in other ways. Jungle Fever Interracial relationships used to be one of the most taboo subjects in America. For years spanning the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century, black males were lynched over real and imagined sexual relationships with white women. In fact, interracial marriage was unlawful throughout America due to miscegenation, which did not begin to be lifted until 1967. Whether in television or the big screen, romantic relationships between blacks and whites have been a subject that producers and directors have handled with a heightened awareness of the potential scandal involved. In 1968, a Star Trek episode featured the first kiss between a white man, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), and a black woman, Lieutenant Uhura

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(Nichelle Nichols), in television history. The actors were deluged with favorable letters from fans in response. In the same year, Plymouth Motors, the sponsor of an NBC television special, was outraged when, during a song number, singer Petula Clark, a white woman, touched the arm of Harry Belafonte, a black singer and actor. Plymouth Motors wanted the scene edited out, but Clark protested. When the special was aired, it received high ratings. But the movie to pioneer relationships between blacks and whites was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967). Produced by George Glass and Stanley Kramer, this movie was especially controversial considering that seventeen states in the South still upheld miscegenation laws. The movie stars Sidney Poitier as Dr. Prentice and Katharine Houghton as Joanna Drayton. The two meet while vacationing in Hawaii and fall in love. The movie focuses on their sudden engagement and the reactions of both their families back home in San Francisco, California. The movie was well received and was a positive, uplifting take on the theme of love conquers all—including racism. When Spike Lee produced his version of black-and-white love, he explored a controversial aspect of it, one that is the antithesis of racism: loving (rather than hating) another solely because of the skin color. Jungle Fever (1991) paid homage to interracial love based on race obsession. The idea was inspired by the murder of Yusef Hawkins in the predominately Italian neighborhood of Bensonhurst. Hawkins was an innocent victim of an Italian who was reportedly provoked to seek vengeance on any black man because his girlfriend told him that she had a black boyfriend. Lee wanted to find a way to dramatize the conundrum of interracial love and the animosity between two ethnic groups. ‘‘Jungle fever’’ is a slang term that refers to a white person’s infatuation with blackness as a sexual turn-on. Lee also addresses the subject of black men’s fixation with white women as ‘‘being on a pedestal, the universal standard of beauty’’ (Aftab, 123). This was a subject few would openly discuss, particularly not on a movie screen for the whole world to see. But Lee did it, making his movie under the tension of rumors that a riot would occur to protest the filming in Bensonhurst, though nothing came of it. The film was not only about the misdirected ulterior motives of romantic love between races and the anger it produced in two communities, one Italian and one black (not to mention that Wesley Snipes’ character, Flipper Purify, is married). There are subplots involving an Italian man who falls in love with an African American woman for apparently genuine reasons and the heartwrenching story of Purify’s brother, a crack addict, played by Samuel L. Jackson, which Lee asserts is the crux of the story. Indeed, that subplot received kudos. But the romantic relationship was heavily criticized for being negative. Another theme of the film was the selling out of the black middle class. This has been a complaint of some blacks against other blacks who pursue

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‘‘whiteness’’ (e.g., stereotypical white diversions and interests, behavior, white friends and spouses, etc.) as opposed to ‘‘blackness’’ as they scale the heights of economic success. At least one other black filmmaker has criticized Lee for not being ‘‘authentically’’ black. Matty Rich, who wrote and directed Inkwell (1994), charged Lee with being ‘‘a phony. He’s a middle-class third-generation college boy.… I’m a street kid. I think and talk street.’’ Lee countered with the following: ‘‘This is one of the things that is messed up now—that if black people are educated and speak correct English, they get accused of ‘trying to be white,’ selling out … so a lot of these young kids, they equate ignorance with ‘being black,’ ‘keeping it real’’’ (Aftab, 136, 137). Jungle Fever had company; black filmmakers were finally getting the chance to produce their films. Beginning in 1990, more than a dozen black films were produced by black directors and producers, including Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City (1991) and John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood (1991). Malcolm X Lee was still in production for his epic movie, Malcolm X (1992), when he started a promotional trend that swept the country. Michael Jordan began wearing ‘‘X’’ caps, and so, it appeared, did most everyone else in the black community. The modern surge of black consciousness was fueled by Spike’s marketing savvy with the establishment of his Joint shops, which carried clothes inspired by his movies. It was fitting that someone as radically minded as Lee would tackle the movie of the man deemed the most radical activist of his time. For the making of such a movie itself was fraught with danger. Lee risked being labeled a racist and being ostracized by the Hollywood community. Malcolm X was no Martin Luther King, Jr. At the start of his tenure with the Nation of Islam, Malcolm called whites ‘‘devils.’’ He said things that were racially divisive and provoked strife and anger. And unlike King, he was not so well received by liberal whites. But Malcolm X was a personal hero of Lee’s, one who had not received equal treatment in the history books. According to many mainstream sources, his claim to fame was his hate-filled, angry invective. But there was a complex life history behind the divisive image commonly portrayed in schools and in the media. In three hours and twenty-odd minutes (which in the movie business ranks as a substantial chunk of time), Lee explored the many divergent phases of Malcolm X’s life: the troubled childhood, an early adulthood in which he plunged into crime, the angry black Muslim, the devoted husband and father, and the ultimate transformation. Shortly before his assassination (which some alleged might have occurred because of Malcolm X’s

Spike Lee

X X is the chosen surname for male and female members of the Nation of Islam (NOI). According to Elijah Muhammad’s Message to the Blackman in America (1965), new converts to NOI must change their last name to X. In the case of individuals with the same first name, a number is added to distinguish each person, i.e., ‘‘Michael 5X.’’ Eventually, black Muslims are given an Islamic name. This name is considered a ‘‘holy name of God.’’ The most famous black Muslim to take on the ‘‘X’’ name was Malcolm X, formerly Malcolm Little. The ‘‘X’’ was a symbol of black protest to the slave names blacks received from their slave owners. Most slaves were referred to by their first name only. However, to distinguish one group of slaves from another, it was the custom for slave owners to bestow their own surnames upon them. This is true today for most African Americans who are descended from slaves. Spike Lee popularized the X symbol by wearing hats bearing the ‘‘X.’’ Malcolm X had been one of Lee’s heroes since he first read the Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) when he was in junior high school. In 1992, Lee produced the movie, Malcolm X, which was based on that book. Along with the movie, Lee marketed a plethora of paraphernalia—T-shirts and hats, for example— featuring the X. Blacks of all ages took to wearing clothing that featured the X, commemorating a man who, in life, had been the most radical black leader in American history. However, some contended that this was an ephemeral fashion statement and, as such, did not go beyond that. In Arthur Magida’s Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and His Nation (1996), he visits this issue. He recalls a situation when an African American woman asked black youths, in a Boston ghetto in 1994, if they knew the man who was represented on the clothes they wore. They did not know, thus demonstrating that fashion and black history knowledge are not always one and the same.

transformation), he took a pilgrimage to Mecca and returned to America transfigured. He no longer called white people devils, and believed that it was possible for blacks and whites to live in harmony. He broke from the Nation of Islam and took steps to assume a new role in black protest. Lee inserted footage of the infamous Rodney King beating into the film. In 1991, King was stopped by Los Angeles police for speeding and beaten by four officers while several other officers stood by and watched. A witness taped the beating and the four officers were brought to trial. When they were acquitted of wrongdoing, riots in the city ensued.

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The movie almost did not get made. Lee ran out of money near the end of production and Warner Brothers would not give him any more. They wanted him to cut the duration of the film to save money. Lee interpreted this as a racist offense: ‘‘Warner Brothers don’t view black people as important,’’ he said, and started calling them ‘‘the plantation’’ (Aftab, 148). But Lee forged ahead and got several black celebrities—Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Magic Johnson, Tracy Chapman, Prince, Peggy Cooper-Cafritz, Michael Jordan, and Janet Jackson—-to donate the $1.3 million that was needed to complete the movie. After this demonstration of generous support, Warner Brothers provided Lee with more money. When the movie was released in November 1992, Spike Lee encouraged youth to skip school to see his film. ‘‘Who said that the only place that you can learn is within the four walls of a school?’’ (Aftab, 166). However, many in the public were none too pleased that Lee would call for mass truancy and, in effect, challenge the importance of school. The movie only made $48 million at the box office. Some have surmised that the newness and intrigue of Lee had eroded some, or that the timing of the movie’s release was off. But the fact remains that it is a landmark motion picture and Spike Lee’s greatest accomplishment. MARRIAGE AND FAMILY Despite the box-office disappointment of his masterpiece, Lee continued to make movies. He also found time to fall in love with a woman named Tonya Linette Lewis, a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., whom he met at the annual Congressional Black Caucus. They dated for a year or so and then decided to get married. The wedding occurred in the fall of 1993 at the Riverside Church in New York City, famously known as the location where James Forman, a former executive secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, interrupted services to read the Black Manifesto, a demand for reparations, in 1969. Spike, who was thirty-six at the time, was in the middle of shooting Crooklyn (1994), a semiautobiographical movie, and Tonya was thirty-two. They had a daughter named Satchel (after the famous African American baseball player, Leroy ‘‘Satchel’’ Paige) in 1994 and a son, Jackson Lewis, in 1997. Jackson is Lee’s middle name. Get on the Bus Marriage and fatherhood did not slow Lee down—at least not much. In 1996, he produced Get on the Bus. The movie portrays fictional events leading up to Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March, which had taken place the year before. The march was considered controversial because whites

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feared what might come of an all-black male gathering coordinated by the radical Farrakhan. Farrakhan’s radicalism was as extreme as it gets, tantamount to that of pre-Hajj Malcolm X. Farrakhan admits to being a religious leader, a separatist, and a fiery critic of white America. Critics call him a racist, anti-Semitic, and a rabble-rouser. Many black women were none too pleased when they were told that they could not attend the march. But the event ultimately was a success. Black men from all walks of life, all levels of economic and social status, rallied at the nation’s capitol in Washington D.C. They met at the historic location of the legendary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Dr. King had had risen to superstardom. Black men left the Million Man March invigorated, inspired, and—in spite of the differences among them—with a sense of solidarity. This was what Lee wanted to capture when he made Get on the Bus. The cast of characters included a senior citizen, an estranged father and son, a gay couple, a self-absorbed actor, a bi-racial police officer, a film student, a Muslim, a conspiracy theorist, and others—along with a Jewish bus driver. The men talk and debate as they travel to the Million Man March. By the end of the film, the men are transformed in a positive way. 4 Little Girls Lee’s next film (1997), his first documentary, delved into the tragic murder of four African American girls in a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The victims were Denise McNaire (age 11), Cynthia Wesley (age 14), Carole Robertson (age 14), and Addie Mae Collins (age 14). The documentary opened with a song by folk singer and activist Joan Baez and featured several interviews with the girls’ parents, as well as whites and others who recalled the tragedy and its aftermath. Lee’s film exposed the violence that was so prominent during the Civil Rights Movement. The Ku Klux Klan was responsible for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. At the public funeral of three of the girls, more than 8,000 people attended and Dr. King spoke. Robert Chambliss was convicted of the four murders in 1978, and he died in prison seven years later. Forty-five years after the murders, two others, Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton, were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The fourth suspect was never charged due to weak evidence. Tragedies such as this created a crisis in America. They also helped propel the federal government toward intervention and meaningful civil rights legislation. Bamboozled and A Huey P. Newton Story In back-to-back projects, Lee explored racism and another radical figure. Bamboozled (2000) is a term Malcolm X once used in a speech that

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includes the popular refrain, referring to the powerlessness of blacks in America, ‘‘Ya been had, ya been took, ya been hoodwinked, led astray, ran amok.’’ The film is a satire of blackface minstrel shows. Every mercifully forgotten racist epithet and image is conjured up. Characters in blackface cavort in a watermelon patch. Prominent actors such as Ving Rhames and Will Smith lampoon stereotypical black roles. Al Sharpton plays himself and voices disapproval at these images. In the following year, Lee directed a one-man film: Roger Guenveur Smith’s reprisal of A Huey P. Newton Story (2001). Newton and Bobby Seale co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in 1966. Newton created a program for the organization that included social-reform programs and armed patrols of black communities to act as a buffer against police abuse. However, Newton was a conflicted man whose mind eventually becoming ravaged from his drug addiction. He was ultimately murdered during a drug deal in 1989. The film was commended by several, including the NAACP, which nominated it for the Image Awards. OTHER FILMS Over the years, Lee has demonstrated his versatility as well as his refusal to be pigeonholed or typecast as a maker of ‘‘race films.’’ His films, centering around black life, black characters, and black experiences, are a significant addition to the canon of American cinema. Lee’s films cover a broad range of subject matter. Mo’ Better Blues (1990) deals with an African American musician who grapples with balancing his music and romantic relationships. Black love is an important theme for Lee. In Crooklyn (1994), Lee paints an intimate portrait of his childhood growing up in Brooklyn, preceding the death of his mother. In Clockers (1995), he explores crime and the tough choices that are made in black inner-city communities. Lee looks into the father–son dynamic and the world of basketball in He Got Game (1997). Other films, like Summer of Sam (1999), 25th Hour (2000), and Inside Man (2006), depart from the themes of racism and controversy. Summer of Sam takes place in a predominately Italian neighborhood in New York during the real-life Son of Sam serial murders, which occurred in 1976 and 1977. 25th Hour is based on the novel of the same name and features a white protagonist: a drug dealer on his last day of freedom before he serves a seven-year prison sentence. Inside Man is a movie that, at first glance, comes across as a mainstream thriller. But it has a twist at the end that bears Lee’s signature. Another Lee trademark is the fact that the two protagonists are black detectives investigating a bank robbery and hostage situation in progress. Near the end of the film, Lee reveals that the bank robbers are bribing the chairman of the board of directors and founder of the bank, whose wealth was built upon his involvement in the Holocaust during World War II.

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Lee returned to full-blown controversy with When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006), a documentary that was aired on HBO. The film deals with the tragedy—which many consider to be the gross neglect— of primarily lower-class blacks whose lives and homes were devastated due to the levees that failed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Lee’s most recent film, Miracle at St. Anna (2008), centers around four African American Buffalo Soldiers in Italy during World War II. This film fills in another gap in the untold story of the black experience in America. Currently, Lee is fashionably bearded, a husband, and father of two children. He is also a man with a lot of ideas and issues still to explore. Who knows what shrewd, illuminating—though often emotionally uneasy—and groundbreaking filmmaking the coming years will bring. See also W.E.B. Du Bois; Louis Farrakhan; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X; Huey P. Newton; Al Sharpton; and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. FURTHER RESOURCES Aftab, Kaleem. That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. Duster, Alfreda M., ed. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970. ‘‘Eastwood Hits Back at Lee Claims.’’ BBC News (June 2008). See http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7439371.stm. Haskins, Jim. Spike Lee: By Any Means Necessary. New York: Walker Publishing, Company, 1997. Schecter, Patricia A. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880– 1930. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

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John Lewis was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s. During the civil rights era he shared a leadership role with James Forman as a member of the Civil Rights Big Six. He has been a U.S. Congressman since 1986. John Lewis was supposed to be a preacher. That was what he wanted to be as a child. While he was growing up, his family—mother, father, and nine siblings—called him ‘‘Preacher,’’ and he would daily visit the wooden henhouse to play preacher with the hens and chicks. He preached sermons to his ‘‘flock,’’ baptized and buried them, and presided over their funerals with solemnity. As a youth, Lewis stuttered a little and spoke with the heavy southern drawl of his native Troy, Alabama. He was also incredibly reticent and shy—at least, until he got comfortable. Perhaps that is one reason why he came to idolize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist preacher and masterful orator. He also admired what King said—how he spoke about social activism in the same context as Christianity. As Lewis listened to him over the static of the family radio, he nursed a new aspiration. His parents—sensible, law-abiding, and churchgoing—were crushed when, after attending American Baptist Theological Seminary, he started participating in civil rights demonstrations and then told them that he did not want to be a preacher after all. He wanted to be an activist. Although small and boyish-looking, John Lewis was tough. He made a name for himself in 1963 as the quiet, strong chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Lewis’ toughness was constantly tested as he encountered vitriolic crowds, violence, and arrest. He was removed from the SNCC leadership in 1966 by militants who overturned the organization’s pacifist philosophy. Building upon his activist experiences, Lewis devoted his energies to encouraging African Americans to register to vote and strengthening black communities that suffered from years of neglect and abuse. In the late 1970s he entered politics, and in 1986 he was elected to a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from the state of Georgia.

CHILDHOOD John Robert Lewis was born on February 21, 1940. His parents, Eddie and Willie Mae Lewis, were sharecroppers who brought up their ten children in the small, isolated, rural community of Troy, Alabama. In describing Troy, Lewis wrote ‘‘it was a small world, a safe world, filled with family and friends’’ (Lewis, 17). Troy, like any southern town, was segregated. As a result, all the blacks lived in one side of town, while the whites lived, worked, shopped, and worshipped in another. Lewis recalled that he did not see many white people while growing up. Elsewhere, southern blacks had violent and humiliating contact with whites, but Lewis was spared this. And so his memories of childhood, of growing up, were tranquil.

John Lewis

Home was a three-bedroom abode to which the family moved, arriving on a mule-drawn wagon, when John was four years old. Few African Americans actually owned their own home. Lewis’ parents were fortunate. They purchased this home, along with 110 pristine acres, for $300. They were lucky to be left to live in peace, because racists in many southern communities contrived ways to run blacks from their homes. This phenomenon was called whitecapping. Lewis’ world centered on the home, caretaking the hens, working in the fields, worship, and school. Life was simple, basic, and earthy, ensconced as in a warm blanket by family and friends. His family’s vast plot meant that they could grow plenty of food for daily meals and canning. Among the cornucopia of produce were southern delicacies like okra, collared greens, sweet potatoes, peaches, and watermelon. John’s father and big brothers had rifles with which they hunted for game to supplement the family meals. Laundry was washed in a cast-iron pot with soap that was made by hand. The clothes that hung on the clothesline dried crisp under a pale yellow sun. There was a lot to do if you were a member of the Lewis family. On Saturdays, the younger children pulled weeds from the yard. The older children learned how to plow and pick cotton. John’s favorite chore was taking care of the hens and the chicks. At night the family gathered around the radio. Twice a month, the family enjoyed worship services at the Macedonia Baptist or Dunn’s Chapel African Methodist Church. Each church only held one service a month. Without songbooks, blacks sang a capella. From the beginning, Lewis was riveted by these church services. When it came to those hens, Lewis was just as passionate as he was about Sunday worship. If a bird was needing to be sold for money or killed for food, Lewis would stage his own quiet protest. He would either forgo eating or refrain from talking. His tactics did not reform his family, but it was something Lewis felt compelled to do. When Lewis turned six and was forced to take his turn in the field, he complained bitterly to anyone who would listen about the wrongness of sharecropping. Sharecropping usually came with permanent debt. He wondered why no one else resisted. Lewis had a vague memory of his mother imploring his father not to do something. His father was visibly angry about something and was going to take his hunting rifle and handle some crisis. The crisis was never revealed, but the fact was that he relented, and that his mother begged him not to go. Indeed, most African Americans were prudent in that respect. The blacks in Troy at that time did not experience a lot of racial duress, and they wanted to keep it that way. To stir up trouble was to rouse dreaded attention that might end in death. Though comforting, home was in many ways confining. Lewis longed for a glimpse of life beyond the puffy white clouds that rolled listlessly above the treetops; beyond the unpaved paths of red soil that on a rainy day could trouble the most robust of horses. Only once in his childhood did Lewis

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leave Troy, traveling with an uncle to Montgomery, Alabama, fifty miles away. School represented a way out for Lewis. Not only did he enjoy learning, but the bus that carried him to the one-room school took him to another section of town, away from grueling chores. The school library was another of Lewis’ favorite places. Through books, he would be transported to other times and locations. This was all well and good, but during harvest season, John was supposed to stay home and work in the fields. Undeterred, young John hid under the broad porch, waiting anxiously and breathlessly for the bus to rumble down the unpaved road. When it came, he hustled over and climbed aboard before he was discovered skulking under the porch and forced to work in the fields. Montgomery, Alabama became the center of attention in 1955 during the momentous Montgomery Bus Boycott. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a local Baptist preacher, was nearing twenty-six years of age at the start of the boycott in early December, when he became the leader of the demonstration. The entire black community in Montgomery participated, refusing to ride on public buses for almost an entire year. Fifteen-year-old Lewis, sitting transfixed by the radio, was spellbound by the words and the distinctive melodic thunder of Dr. King. Everything in him was attuned to the sonorous voice that rose and fell like a swelling ocean wave. The title of the sermon was ‘‘Paul’s Letter to the American Christians.’’ The sum of his message was that African Americans should concern themselves not with the afterlife, but with life on earth. He pushed his listeners to think radically; to protest against the system that barred them from mainstream life, from full freedom and equality. To many, his words were almost scandalous. Lewis once overheard his parents talking about King, and their response was a mixture of admiration and fear. Mostly fear. For Lewis, hearing King speak was a life-changing event. But Lewis’ parents could not shelter him forever. As he grew older and was able to discern for himself the realities of life, the truth was unmistakable. And the truth disturbed him. He read in the papers how Emmett Till, a fourteen year old, was lynched for whistling at a white woman. He was gripped by the events of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and its aftermath.

The Lynching of Emmett Till The tragic murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till remains one of the most well-known of the all-too-many tragic events that nevertheless helped to propel civil rights activism. Indeed, it was Mamie Till, his mother, who courageously toured the nation to expose her son’s brutal lynching, demanding that his attackers be punished and exposing for all to see the violent world in which blacks in the South lived. (continued )

John Lewis

Born on July 25, 1941, in Chicago, Illinois, Emmett Louis ‘‘Bobo’’ Till had no firsthand knowledge of the dangers that awaited him in Mississippi. Although Mamie Till had lived only the first two years of her life in Mississippi, her parents had grown up there. Her parents and other southern-born African Americans in Chicago talked openly about life in the deep South. As Mamie Till helped pack her son’s luggage for a summer visit with his uncle in Money, Mississippi, she cautioned him to watch how he behaved with whites. There were important rules that blacks had to follow in the South. Many of these rules were ‘‘unofficial’’ and referred to under the term ‘‘racial etiquette.’’ These unofficial rules were taught through socialization and sometimes by trial and error, but violations, however small or seemingly insignificant, could reap dangerous, if not fatal, consequences to the transgressor. The custom of averting eye contact, deferring to whites on a sidewalk, and calling whites ‘‘Sir’’ or ‘‘Ma’am,’’ while at the same time being subjected to the derogatory terms ‘‘boy,’’ ‘‘gal,’’ or ‘‘nigger,’’ were just some of the rules of racial etiquette. On August 24, 1955, Emmett Till made the fatal flaw of committing what in that twisted society was considered one of the most serious crimes. What actually transpired is unclear. It is alleged that Till was responding to a dare by a friend at Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market when he either whistled at or called out ‘‘Bye baby’’ to a twenty-one-year-old white woman named Carolyn Bryant. She was the wife of the owner of the store, Roy Bryant. Several days later, on August 28, Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam (and possibly others), went to his uncle’s house at 12:33 A.M. and awakened Till. The white men took Till to a shed on a plantation in Sunflower County and brutally beat him and then shot him and tried to dump his body in the Tallahatchie River. NAACP activists, including Medgar Evers, a Mississippi field secretary, tried to find the whereabouts of the missing teenager, hoping against hope that he was still alive. When his body was found in the river, the brothers were arrested and put on trial. They were acquitted on September 23. At Till’s funeral, Mamie insisted that her son’s casket remain open so all could see the viciousness of the crime against her son. She toured the nation to tell others about what had happened to Emmett Till and published an autobiography Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (2003). In 2007, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act was passed, sponsored by several senators, including Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama, and congressmen such as John Lewis, Maxine Waters, and John Conyers. This landmark act will try to help resolve hundreds of civil rights crimes that have been committed in the nation.

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Lewis could have been a good preacher; he most certainly lived a saintly life. But he did not see that as an achievement: he felt that he mostly stayed out of trouble because there was nowhere for a teenager in Troy to go for fun and amusement. And he did not have a driver’s license to go anywhere else. Lewis was in fact unwieldy behind the steering wheel and lost his courage to drive after he failed his first driving test. He would finally get his license in 1982, at forty-two years old. But he excelled in other areas. In 1956 (the same year he failed the driver’s test) Lewis preached his first sermon at Macedonia Baptist. The congregation was ecstatic. Shortly thereafter, a story, with photo, was published in the black section of the local newspaper to document his important day. But his happiness was shrouded by the news of the shocking murder of a distant relative in Columbus, Georgia, who was killed for his involvement in the NAACP. The man who shot him admitted his guilt, but the murder was ruled justifiable homicide. His relative’s death shocked and angered him. The young child who had complained about the system of sharecropping had become a teenager who was keenly aware of the depth of the racial injustice around him, the racial violence, and Jim Crow. The practice of Jim Crow law in his own community spurred him to take his first act of resistance. Lewis walked into the Pike County Public Library and requested a library card. He knew he was going to be turned away because, thanks to Jim Crow laws, the library prohibited blacks from using its facilities and borrowing books. Lewis next approached his friends and neighbors and asked them to sign a petition requesting library service. Some could not think of including their names on such a radical document. Others were willing. But Lewis’ brave attempt went for naught. The library ignored the petition. Lewis’ next move was to join the NAACP. This was, perhaps, Lewis’ most brash action, given his relative’s murder and the fact that the organization had been banned in some states, including Alabama. But for John, the latter fact was a singularly motivating force. Going to college was another act of resistance. Historically, black slaves in America were deprived of education. Reading and writing—the most basic aspects of education—were strictly forbidden. In this way, whites maintained their positions of superiority and privilege. In post-slavery years, education continued to be a hotly contested issue. There were white liberals who supported it, but there were also plenty of racists who distrusted or were intimidated by educated African Americans. There were others who felt education was tolerable as long as black and white students were separated and blacks were not taught advanced subjects and were, generally, discouraged from pursuing higher education. Ten out of Lewis’ graduating class of thirty-seven blacks went to college. Initially, Lewis hoped to attend the same institutions as had his idol, Dr. King. King had gone to Morehouse College, a historically black institution for men

John Lewis

in Atlanta, Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, and Boston University in Massachusetts. But Lewis could not afford to go to Morehouse. And because he was not an exceptional student, he could not get admitted on his academic performance. So Lewis decided to go to American Baptist Theological Seminary (ABT) in Nashville, Tennessee, where students could pay for tuition, room, and board through a work-study program. Tears trickled down his mother’s face on the day that Lewis left home. It was not only that she would miss Lewis, who would be away from home for many months for the first time. She knew that he would face unseen dangers, for he was venturing into territory that could be hostile for young black men. His father said very little as the truck jostled along the rugged roads during the drive to the Greyhound bus station. At their parting, he shook his son’s hand. The bus arrived. Because of Jim Crow law, blacks had to sit in the back of the bus or give up their seats for whites if no other seating was available. Lewis mounted the bus and walked to the rear.

AMERICAN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY At seventeen, Lewis had not yet outgrown his youthful, boyish appearance. He would, for most of his life, appear innocuous and dovelike. But his mild aspect belied a fearlessness and relentlessness that would astonish the world. His start into the world of activism began during his years at the American Baptist Theological Seminary. It was not that ABT endorsed the civil rights struggle, at least not at first. Lewis’ interest and subsequent activities were largely self-motivated. Lewis was taken aback to find out there was no NAACP organization on campus. ABT was tied financially to southerners who wanted to maintain the extant racial relations and customs. As a result, the institution could not publicly condone or encourage activism without losing significant financial support. When Lewis went (during his second year) to hear lectures by well-known activists such as Fred Shuttlesworth, Roy Wilkins, and Thurgood Marshall, he had to go on his own time and leave campus and travel to the historically black university, Fisk. Some of Lewis’ peers were confounded by him. One friend asked him why he was so preoccupied with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A large number of African Americans shared Lewis’ zeal for King. But many others preferred racial separatism or, like Lewis’ parents, were wary of King, if not resentful of the havoc his demonstrations created. Indeed, King’s campaigns subsequent to the Montgomery Bus Boycott were designed to force a violent reaction from whites. This was a necessary part of his strategy to engage the news media and force the federal government to act on their behalf. King had mobilized a large segment of the black church community. But among college-aged individuals the civil rights struggle had not yet taken

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off. Lewis was a harbinger of the changes to come to Nashville. And he was not entirely alone. One of his professors, John Lewis Powell, lectured on radical themes such as protest and the eradication of segregation. In other ways, Lewis fit in well with the student population. At ABT, students were not allowed to drink alcohol or dance. For fun, the students played games or listened to sermons on the radio. Lewis did not appear to object to the rigid rules of the seminary. He was accustomed to leading a clean and puritanical life. But he did find it frustrating that women were not attracted to him except in platonic, familial, or maternal ways. Lewis did not have a girlfriend in high school, and this trend continued at the seminary. But if there was anyone he would have dated, it would have been Helen Johnson. Lewis and Johnson went on many walks together along the nearby river. When Lewis was not working in the campus cafeteria where he washed dishes (a job he found harder than sharecropping) to pay for his education, he was studying diligently and keeping up to date on the progress of the Civil Rights Movement. He kept an eye peeled for opportunities to participate. Lewis met with the president of the seminary and asked if he could form an NAACP group on campus. The president said no, but Lewis understood. In 1957, Lewis deliberately applied to Troy State College, an all-white institution in his hometown. When, as expected, he was denied admission, he gathered the courage to write Dr. King, who had helped establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in that same year. Lewis thought his rejection could be used as a test. Lewis’ heart pounded in his chest as he sealed the letter and mailed it off. When he received a response, Lewis wrote that he felt ‘‘overwhelmed’’ (Lewis, 67).

MEETING WITH MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Lewis could hardly believe he was sitting in the same room as his idol. The importance of that moment weighed on him heavily. Ralph Abernathy, the SCLC’s secretary-treasurer and King’s closest associate, and Fred Gray, a black attorney, were also there. They spoke to him in quiet, gentle tones. King stared kindly and somberly at him and said, ‘‘I just want to meet the boy from Troy.’’ Lewis was shocked speechless (Lewis, 68). It took a while for him to warm up and give them a brief narrative of his life. They listened intently, then described the dangers he would face if he decided to challenge his rejection letter and sue Troy State. There would be harassment and, potentially, violence. Lewis was willing. But they told him that he had to make sure his parents were in agreement. If they were okay, the SCLC would proceed with the case. Initially, Lewis’ parents supported John, though they admitted they were concerned for his safety, as well as their own and that of their extended

John Lewis

family and neighbors in their community. Before too long they changed their minds. The threat was too great. Lewis had to abort his plans. NASHVILLE STUDENT MOVEMENT In 1958, Lewis returned to ABT, but the climate was not the same. Everyone, he recalled, now appeared to be caught up in the movement. One of the most popular slogans of the year was ‘‘Free by ’63,’’ reflecting the belief Jim Crow would be eradicated in 1963. Lewis attended many lectures and special events, such as a mass rally where Coretta Scott King addressed a large crowd. Dr. King could not attend because he had been attacked by a deranged African American woman and was recuperating. Lewis was in attendance one Sunday when one of the more popular ministers, Reverend Kelly Miller Smith, introduced a guest at his church. Lewis was spellbound. This man, James Lawson, was a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an integrated pacifist organization, and was enrolled at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Lawson, working almost single-handedly, would go on to train black and white youths for an unprecedented assault on segregation. Lawson conducted workshops in the basement of a Methodist church to prepare college students for nonviolent activism. Lewis likened these workshops to college lectures, and he felt that Lawson’s teachings were beyond anything he had yet experienced. The workshops began with a study of the major world religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Lawson facilitated discussions on the philosophies of individuals like Henry David Thoreau and Reinhold Niebuhr. They talked about nonviolent resistance and love. For example, Lawson taught them a method to use when approaching a hostile person. He told them ‘‘to imagine that person—actually visualize him or her—as an infant, as a baby. If you can see this full-grown attacker who faces you as the pure, innocent child that he or she once was—that we all once were—it is not hard to find compassion in your heart’’ (Lewis, 77). What Lawson strived to impart was not merely ‘‘a technique or a tactic or a strategy or a tool to be pulled out when needed’’ but a lifestyle (Lewis, 77). He stressed that nonviolence was not just an action (or inaction), it was something that demanded that the natural reaction to violence would no longer be to hit back in self-defense. There were rules to resisting during an actual demonstration: No aggression. No retaliation. No loud conversation, no talking of any kind with anyone other than ourselves. Dress nicely. Bring books, schoolwork, letter-writing materials. Be prepared to sit for hours. Study, read, write. Don’t slouch. No napping. No getting up, except to go to the bathroom, and then be sure there is a backup to fill your seat while you’re away. Be prepared for arrest. Be prepared to be taken to jail. (Lewis, 93)

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Lawson’s teaching involved other activities besides the workshops. A weekend trip to Highlander Folk School, an institution dedicated to developing grassroots organizing near Monteagle, Tennessee, was invigorating for Lewis. It was inspiring to go to a school dedicated primarily to social activism. Lewis was especially delighted because King had received training there. Back in Nashville, Lawson’s students engaged in intense role-playing sessions. Both blacks and whites positioned themselves as activists and aggressors. Lawson taught them how to prepare themselves for physical attack. One of the important things to do when attacked, he explained, was to hold the body in a way to protect the internal organs, and to keep the eyes locked, not aggressively, on the assailant’s eyes. Lawson taught that an assailant is likely to be less violent if the victim does that. In 1959, Lewis helped co-found the Nashville Student Movement, comprising the young adults undergoing Lawson’s strenuous training program. Diane Nash, a black female activist who would play a visible role in the civil rights struggle, was elected its chairman. This was the start of something big, something thrilling. The group planned to wage a systematic sit-in campaign at various venues in Nashville. The first demonstration was held as a test case at a department store in downtown Nashville. Essential to this newfangled youth movement were the church leaders who permitted the use of the churches for headquarters, and the church members who provided transportation. Lewis grappled briefly with some anxiety and did not feel brave enough to participate in the test demonstration. The direction his life was taking challenged some of the core values his parents had taught him. Lewis had never been in trouble with the law or arrested. All his life, he believed that only bad people, criminals, were arrested. On the other hand, he realized that to challenge Jim Crow being arrested was inevitable and that arrest, on those terms, was victory. Lewis’ anxiety quickly vanished after participating in the test sit-ins. Everything the demonstrators set out to do during the test sit-in on Saturday, November 28, 1959, had been planned before that day. The black and white activists entered the store and purchased an item, then went into the department-store lunch counter. The waitress told them, politely, that she could not serve them. Diane Nash had been designated to speak to the manager. She was the only one that spoke during the demonstration. The manger answered all her questions, telling her that the whites could not be served, because they were with the black students. This was the store’s policy. The activists left, returning to the church to process what had just occurred and to celebrate their first trial run. The group staged another test demonstration the next week at a different department store. Lewis was selected to ask the manager if they could be

John Lewis

Diane Nash Diane Nash’s name is not as well-known as those of other women who participated in the Civil Rights Movement and is utterly overshadowed by the names of the men who dominated the struggle (this subject is explored in Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941–1965 [1990]). However, during the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, her name was among those honored by Bayard Rustin. The others were Rosa Parks, who was the star plaintiff in the case that started the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama, in 1955; Daisy Bates, the NAACP leader who played an instrumental role in providing protection and support for the first blacks, the ‘‘Little Rock Nine,’’ to integrate the Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas; Gloria Richardson, leader of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee in Maryland; and Mrs. Herbert Lee and Myrlie Evers, two widows whose husbands were murdered during the movement. Diane Nash was born on May 15, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois. Influenced by the Catholic schools she attended, she once aspired to be a nun, but in college her life took a dramatic turn toward protest. While attending Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, Nash grew increasingly frustrated with Jim Crow laws, so much so that she decided to go to the civil disobedience workshops facilitated by Reverend James Lawson. Nash’s intensity and dedication made her the natural leader of the group that was eventually formed, the Nashville Student Movement. In 1960, they launched a sit-in campaign that lasted from February to May. In May, all lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee were desegregated. After that success, Nash quit school and made a full-time commitment to activism. In 1960, she helped establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1961, she helped coordinate the 1961 Freedom Rides and the ‘‘Right to Vote’’ campaign in Selma, Alabama. In that same year, she married James Bevel, another activist who started out with the Nashville Student Movement. In 1962, while four months pregnant, Nash was briefly imprisoned for teaching children nonviolent techniques in Jackson, Mississippi. Nash also worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and in 1965 received the SCLC’s most prestigious honor, the Rosa Parks Award. In 1968, Nash and Bevel divorced. They have two children. Since the Movement, Nash has returned to Chicago, where she lectures and maintains her advocacy of issues affecting African Americans.

served. When they were told no, the group rose from their seats and left the lunch counter. On his way home for winter break, Lewis and his friend Bernard got on a Greyhound bus and sat directly behind the bus driver. When the bus driver

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told them to move to the rear of the bus where blacks were required to sit according to Jim Crow law, they refused to budge. The driver moved his seat as far back as possible, so that the two young men had to sit with their knees against their chests during the entire journey home. When Lewis returned to campus after the holiday break, he found the Nashville Student Movement welcoming more members. Lewis and the others continued their training, while the new members went through the preliminary lectures and role-playing sessions. The newspapers were soon ablaze with coverage of an event that occurred in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960. Four black students, Ezell A. Blair, Jr., David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain, from University of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, had launched a sit-in at a lunch counter at a Woolworth’s store. Upon hearing about the sit-in in Greensboro and all the attention it garnered, the Nashville group became restless. But Lawson was adamant that everyone be thoroughly trained and prepared for the forthcoming demonstrations. Through careful and intensive preparation, Lawson hoped to increase the effectiveness of the group and help stave off serious injuries or worse. The first actual sit-in was planned for February 13. But during a meeting at the First Baptist Church the day before the demonstration, some of the adults expressed their concerns: they were not sure the demonstration should move forward. The grim news of arrests and death threats in Greensboro made them urge the students to reconsider the demonstration. But the events in Greensboro had the opposite effect on the Nashville students (and students elsewhere), who felt compelled, white and black students alike, to mobilize and join what became known as the sit-in movement. The first real sit-in staged by the Nashville Student Movement was launched the day before Valentine’s Day. Nashville was flooded with swarms of quiet, well-dressed, and polite young adults—hardly the image of menacing radical troublemakers. Lewis recounted how it was observed that the impression of the Nashville Student Movement on the locals was akin to an alien invasion. People were shocked, confused, and alarmed. Lewis and the others hoped to educate the locals, to show them a dignified approach to protest. They also wanted to prove that whites and blacks alike were fed up with discriminatory laws and that whites and blacks could work together. To cover the most ground, the demonstrators were split up into smaller groups. Lewis was the designated speaker for the group that headed toward a downtown lunch counter at Woolworth’s. The manager closed the restaurant after Lewis asked to be served. The customers and the servers left the activists sitting at the counter in the dark. After several hours, some white men began to verbally harass them. The activists remained at the lunch

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counter until early evening and then left to discuss and analyze their experience and celebrate a successful first demonstration. A maelstrom of activity ensued. Demonstrations continued throughout downtown Nashville. Membership swelled, and a boycott of the downtown stores was launched by local blacks. But the opposition increased, too. Lewis was physically assaulted and arrested. To his surprise, the experience was glorious. He described it as ‘‘holy, and noble, and good’’ (Lewis, 100). Because of the sit-ins, the stores began to lose money. Customers did not want to be around when the activists streamed into the various restaurants, so in response to the activists the store managers usually closed their stores. The store owners and city leaders panicked. A moratorium was requested. The Nashville activists abided by it for a while, until it was apparent that the authorities were not going to concede to their demand to end segregation at the various locations. The activists saw the moratorium as a tactic for the city to buy more time. In a move of desperation, authorities created anti-protest laws to avert demonstrations. But the plan backfired. The youths were charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing, but they smiled triumphantly and broke out into song as their wrists were bound and they were hauled off to the local jail. Then they refused to pay bail. The mayor was forced to intervene to set them free. The city had lost control. The youths were unstoppable. Even when Lawson was dismissed from his position at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, activists continued to pour into downtown retail stores. Even when a black attorney’s home and a local African American hospital were bombed, the youth did not desist. The support the students received during these demonstrations emboldened them. Local blacks launched a boycott of the downtown retail stores. And Dr. King’s SCLC sponsored a youth conference that ran from April 15 through 17 to encourage and possibly assist in the organization of the young activists in Nashville and elsewhere. The result of that conference was the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as SNCC. On April 19, 1960, 3,000 individuals marched from Tennessee State University to city hall, where Diane Nash and the mayor faced off before the crowd, to demand that the city integrate downtown stores. The next day, newspapers published an unprecedented headline: the mayor had agreed to desegregate Nashville lunch counters. On May 10, 1960, nearly three months after the first demonstration, the desegregation became official. The Nashville Student Movement produced a giant win for civil rights. Lewis was now considered to be one of the student leaders of the movement. He and several others toured campuses throughout the nation to talk about what they had accomplished and how they had done it. They were looked upon as heroes. But at home, in the peaceful town of Troy, his parents were distraught. His mother pleaded with Lewis to stop protesting.

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Everyone in the community was talking about him and his arrest. It was as if their good child had gone off to seminary school and become a wayward miscreant. His parents were embarrassed—and fearful that his activities would affect them or destroy his life. Lewis’ involvement in the movement strained their relationship, a tension that would not be relieved for a long time. Going home during vacations, Lewis felt awkward and uncomfortable. He could hardly wait to get back to his life of protest.

FREEDOM RIDES They called themselves Freedom Riders. And not just anybody could be one. An application was required, and individuals were selected after careful consideration. Lewis mailed off his application with a letter of recommendation from Lawson. When Lewis received his acceptance letter, he was overjoyed. This Freedom Ride was the first of several that occurred in 1961. Lewis’ group included thirteen members: six blacks and seven whites. They went through rigorous training, similar to Lawson’s program, in Washington, D.C. The objective of the Freedom Rides was to challenge the laws that legalized segregation in interstate travel, including buses and facilities, such as the restrooms, drinking fountains, and restaurants at the terminals. The thirteen planned to depart from Washington, D.C. and travel through eight segregated southern states. The mood was somber at the dinner that was held for the Freedom Riders on the eve of their departure. To put the times into perspective, Lewis had never eaten with whites before. But the extraordinariness of this experience was muted by the reality of what they faced the next day. Everyone knew that they might not ever return to their respective homes. They might never see their family, loved ones, and friends again. Violence was inevitable. Death was a possibility. At first, nothing dramatic occurred. Not until the Freedom Riders reached Rock Hill, South Carolina, where Lewis walked toward the ‘‘white-only’’ restroom and was stopped by a group of white boys. They questioned him about where he was going. They did not like his answer, and one of them struck him on the side of his head. As he had been trained, he did not resist. He was repeatedly hit while a police officer stood nearby, watching. After some time, the police officer broke up the attack. Lewis did not press charges; this was a deliberate strategy. The irony was that if Lewis had charged the boys, they would, more than likely, have been given a light punishment or no punishment at all. After this incident, Lewis left the Freedom Riders for a short time to go to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to take care of some personal business. He had applied for foreign service with the American Friends Service (AFS). In Philadelphia, the AFS committee awarded him a position in India.

John Lewis

Lewis was on his way back to meet up with the Freedom Riders when tragedy occurred in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama. In Anniston, the bus of one group of riders was besieged. The tires were slashed, and the bus was firebombed. As the Freedom Riders escaped from the burning bus, whites beat them. Whites boarded another bus headed to Anniston and brutally beat the Freedom Riders. This group continued on to Birmingham, where a white mob waited for them. At the terminal, the group was beaten again. There were no police officers in sight. Police Chief Eugene ‘‘Bull’’ Connor said he had given his officers the day off for Mother’s Day. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), who had sponsored most of the Freedom Rides, called off the campaign.

STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATION COMMITTEE The newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was determined to keep the Freedom Rides going. So were the members of the Nashville Student Movement. When SNCC sent out a request for ten volunteers, Lewis eagerly signed up. Thus began Lewis’ often turbulent relationship with SNCC. Lewis, at only twenty-one years, was considered a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. He had the marks to prove it: arrest and battle scars. On May 17, 1961, Birmingham police ordered the Freedom Riders, including Lewis, off their Greyhound bus. They were detained for two days, then, at midnight, removed from their cells and carried off down isolated country roads. No one knew where they were being taken. The specter of danger loomed large. The Ku Klux Klan was known to hold rallies or perform lynchings behind the shade of the dense pine woods. The tension was palpable; perhaps they were being led to an ambush. When the unmarked police station wagon reached a nondescript destination and dumped them out, Lewis and the others were relieved to discover that no ambush awaited them. But they had no idea where they were or how they would get themselves out of this predicament. The Freedom Riders proceeded through the darkness until they came to a house that belonged to an elderly African American couple. The husband stared at them warily but the wife urged them inside and let them use their phone. Lewis called Danielle Nash. She promised to get them transportation. She also had good news for them: eleven more freedom riders had been recruited. Southern locals and authorities were not the only ones who opposed the Freedom Rides. The federal government was anxious about them. To be sure, President John F. Kennedy, a charismatic and youthful leader, had lent a sympathetic ear to Dr. King and the other civil rights leaders. African Americans, in general, felt Kennedy was a beacon for positive change. But his approach, much to the frustration of Dr. King and the other civil rights

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leaders, was to ask for more time. Unfortunately, Kennedy would not live long enough to pass significant legislation. The truth was that the civil rights demonstrations caused trouble for Kennedy politically. They also diminished the nation’s credibility with countries abroad. American citizens, too, were appalled as news of the beatings and arrests filled the pages of the newspapers and were reported almost daily on television. When the Freedom Riders refused to back down from the demonstrations, Kennedy was compelled to authorize protection for them. At the same time, he looked into ways to legally put a stop to the rides. The bus that Lewis and the other Freedom Riders rode was escorted by various police patrols and, at one point, an airplane. The sirens that blared dramatized the urgency and importance of the historical moment. Not only had the riders secured protection, but by their sacrifice, they had compelled the federal government to act on their behalf. No other form of protest— neither negotiation nor litigation—had produced such a compelling moment. When the bus arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, Lewis was the first to disembark in anticipation of speaking with the news media. But in addition to the reporters, a mob made up of men, women, and children waited for the Freedom Riders. In the subsequent chaos, Lewis tried to get his group to safety. Baseball bats were swung and fists raged. A violent strike to the head left Lewis incapacitated. He was still on the ground in a daze, with blood flowing steadily from his head, when he heard gunshots. The authorities had arrived just in time. But the rescue of the Freedom Riders was bittersweet. The Alabama attorney general read a statement as the activists slowly recovered from the sudden attack, stating that the Freedom Rides had been stopped. The Freedom Riders fought the injunction by going to court. In four days, the injunction was lifted, and the riders prepared to resume their ride to Mississippi. In Jackson, Lewis and the others were arrested. James Farmer, the national director of CORE, was also present. They were all sentenced to six weeks in prison. While imprisoned at Parchman State Penitentiary, Lewis wrote to the seminary and to the American Friends Service. Lewis was more certain than ever that his future would not be in preaching. He also had no interest in going to India at that time. His destiny was in the Civil Rights Movement.

CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERSHIP Lewis emerged from prison on July 7, 1961 a different man. He was not only several pounds lighter, but he had the aura of someone who had aged beyond his years in a short period of time. He was speaking better and appeared more confident and at ease. He had the striking glow and

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James Forman James Forman was the executive secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1961 to 1966. Forman was born on October 4, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1946, he joined the U.S. Air Force and served in the Korean War. In 1957, Forman received a B.A. from Roosevelt University in Chicago. Afterwards, he was employed by the Chicago Defender, a major black newspaper. Forman wrote several articles on the growing Civil Rights Movement in the South and was inspired by those experiences to quit his job in 1960. This was a critical year for the Civil Rights Movement, for it ushered in the Sit-in Movement, led by idealistic young adults, black and white, and the rise of prominent civil rights organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Forman first worked with CORE, providing aid to sharecroppers who had lost their jobs and their homes by attempting to register to vote in Tennessee, and then became an organizer for SNCC. In 1961, he participated in the Freedom Rides and was elected the executive secretary of SNCC. In his early thirties by that time, Forman was older than most of the members. But he was well-respected, though he projected a militant side that unnerved the mainstream civil rights leaders. He could be argumentative and preferred militant demands to the political nonviolence of leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP. During the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom he advocated for a much more militant version of the tempered and amicable demonstration. In 1965, Forman lost his cool at a rally before an audience that included King and other middle-class ministers. In his speech he castigated Lyndon B. Johnson, although the president had just given a speech in support of a major voting rights bill, and threatened to physically strike back at Alabama governor George Wallace if he continued to thwart justice. He was not the only one who disliked Wallace, who was shot during an assassination attempt by a white man named Arthur Bremer, in 1972, and was left paralyzed. With the emergence of the Black Power Movement, with its advocacy of militancy and separatism, Forman found a home. He was one of its staunch supporters. Although Forman resigned from his position in SNCC in 1966, he helped navigate the organization toward its new militant identity. Attempts to merge SNCC with the Black Panther Party in 1967 were unsuccessful. In 1969, Forman interrupted services at the Riverside Church in New York City to demand reparations. He read from a document known as the Black Manifesto. Although his demands created a clamor, they were not heeded. (continued )

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In the 1970s, Forman attended graduate school at Cornell University in New York, where he majored in African and African American studies. In 1982, he received a Ph.D. from the Union of Experimental Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C. Forman married twice, and a third relationship produced two sons. Forman published several books, one of which was his autobiography, The Making of Black Revolutionaries (1985). He died in 2005 from colon cancer.

competence of a leader, characteristics that were only enhanced by his innate quietness and composure. Much to his surprise, considering his humble origins, Lewis’ name was being bandied about town, across the nation’s college campuses, and in very prestigious circles. It did not take him long to reach greater heights. The SCLC offered Lewis and the other Freedom Riders scholarships, making it possible for them to continue their college careers. Lewis chose to attend Fisk University to study philosophy. In the fall of his first year at Fisk, 1961, Nash moved to Jackson, Mississippi, and Lewis was elected chairman of the Nashville Student Movement in her stead. Eventually, the Nashville Student Movement became a branch of SNCC. In 1962, Lewis was elected to SNCC’s Executive Committee. Dr. King nominated him to the SCLC Board. When, in 1963, SNCC elected him to be the organization’s chairman, he quit school and moved to Atlanta, Georgia to be close to headquarters. James Forman became the executive secretary of the organization. MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS AND FREEDOM In 1963, SNCC was only three years old. As such, it was the youngest of the major civil rights organizations, and like CORE, it comprised mainly college-aged youths. SNCC, CORE, and the SCLC were all engaged in dramatic demonstrations. The NAACP was by far the most conservative of these groups. The National Urban League was not originally a civil rights organization, but its leader, Whitney Young, broke fresh ground as he rose through the ranks of the prominent leaders of the era. SNCC received an invitation to the planning meetings for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, thus validating its status among the established ranks of civil rights organizations. But the invitation also ruffled many in SNCC, including Lewis, who were not keen on participating in a passive event. Among the main speakers were the major heads of the civil rights organizations: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the SCLC; Floyd McKissick, who substituted for CORE’s James Farmer; Whitney Young of the National Urban League; and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP. Although Dorothy Height, who

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was the president of the National Council of Negro Women, was the only woman admitted in the exclusive ‘‘club,’’ she did not speak on that day. Nor did any other woman—except for those who gave musical performances— address the audience of some 250,000 participants. Some believe it was a reflection of the times that women were omitted from speaking, a situation that was symptomatic of restrictive thinking that limited women to minor roles. Height did not quibble about the situation. She knew her worth and made grand contributions from within the sphere of women’s organizations. But, as Lewis explained, Ella Baker, an activist who was employed by the NAACP and the SCLC at different times, was none too pleased with the absence of women in leadership roles within the Civil Rights Movement. Lewis wrote that ‘‘long before people began using the term ‘male chauvinism,’ Ella Baker was describing it and denouncing it in the civil rights movement, and she was right’’ (Lewis, 214). Lewis was the youngest member to speak at the March. But his speech provoked controversy among the leaders, who pored over it just minutes before he was due to mount the podium. They hastily asked Lewis to make some corrections, because they thought some aspects of his speech were too militant. At first, Lewis stood his ground. But King and a frantic Randolph, who had conceived the march back in the 1940s, convinced him to change his mind. While the speakers’ voices rose from the podium, Lewis sat down to edit the strong wording out of his speech. He eliminated statements such as describing ‘‘the President’s [civil right’s] bill as being ‘too little and too late’’’ and ‘‘the word ‘cheap’’’ to characterize some politicians (Lewis, 227). Lewis finished making the changes in time to take his turn at the podium. The moment was titanic. The march had drawn people from almost every walk of life, including celebrities like Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Dick Gregory, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Ossie Davis, Charlton Heston, Sammy Davis, Jr., Harry Belafonte, and Diahann Carroll. ‘‘As I laid my papers on the podium,’’ he wrote ‘‘and looked out at that sea of faces, I felt a combination of great humility and incredible fear’’ (Lewis, 227). That day would go down as one of the most poignant moments in American history. President Kennedy had tried to talk A. Philip Randolph, one of the key organizers, out of going ahead with the march. He feared that violence would erupt. But in the end, Kennedy was so thrilled by the day that he invited the civil rights leaders to his office afterwards.

COUNCIL ON UNITED CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERSHIP When Stephen Currier brought together the leaders of the civil rights groups to form the Council on United Civil Rights Leadership (CUCRL), Lewis and Forman alternated as SNCC’s representative. The other members included Dr.

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Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, Dorothy Height, and Whitney Young. The main objective of this group was to raise money to be split amongst the various organizations and to collaborate on programs. Lewis was critical of these gatherings, stating that he ‘‘encountered the same tone of one-upmanship and infighting and political positioning that we’d witnessed during the planning for the march.’’ He felt that because SNCC was ‘‘considered the kids, the upstarts … we were given peanuts compared with what the others received’’ in terms of financial donations (Lewis, 236). However, these criticisms did not terminate SNCC’s collaboration efforts with the others. VOTER REGISTRATION In 1963, segregation was only one of several problems that concerned African Americans. Disenfranchisement was another. After the March on Washington, SNCC targeted voter registration in the South. Voting in the South was complicated by outmoded laws, irrelevant literacy tests, violence, and intimidation. Another problem was that the registrar kept erratic hours, conveniently closing at times of the day when African Americans were most likely to stop by. SNCC went down to Selma, Alabama, where only one percent of the black population was registered to vote. Their representatives went into the community, gave orientations at churches and in people’s homes about voting rights, and encouraged blacks to register. One of the Ruleville, Mississippi locals was a woman named Fannie Lou Hamer, who not only registered to vote but rose to the forefront of the civil rights struggle in her state. Lewis played an important role in Selma. He made several trips there between his other commitments, such as a sit-in campaign in Atlanta restaurants. Lewis joined the demonstrations in front of the Selma courthouse, protesting the obstructions that made voting nearly impossible for blacks. Lewis and others were arrested. The police officers used cattle prods during the arrest and held the demonstrators in converted chicken coops. FREEDOM SUMMER Following the voter registration campaign in Selma, SNCC prepared for a bigger project for 1964: the Mississippi Freedom Summer. This was a program comprising a voter registration campaign, the establishment of Freedom Schools, and the support of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. During one meeting with civil rights leaders prior to the launching of the Mississippi Freedom Summer, Lewis found himself bristling in his seat. Roy Wilkins had asked for a moratorium on any civil rights demonstrations to

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please President Lyndon B. Johnson, who wanted to circumvent bad press during this critical period in time to better his chances for re-election. Lewis, as well as Farmer, objected. SNCC and CORE were based primarily on the principle of demonstrations. Lewis did not foresee anyone in his organization willing to abide by a moratorium, especially considering that the Mississippi Freedom Summer was just underway. They would not agree to stopping their demonstrations, even for a brief period. The excitement gained momentum in the days preceding the Mississippi Freedom Summer. With the exception of a few dance parties, Lewis admitted that there was little time for or interest in recreation. In hindsight, he felt there should have been. The urge to act and a deep commitment to the struggle were shared by everyone. But most of these twenty-something activists had barely reached adulthood. Normally, they would have been just settling down into a full-time job, a marriage, or raising children. Lewis explained that he was married to the movement. Lewis’ ‘‘marriage’’ would be tested greatly during the ensuing months. The Mississippi Freedom Summer began on June 13, 1964. The troubles began shortly thereafter. While in training, three activists, Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, and James Chaney, were reported missing. Goodman and Schwerner were Jewish and hailed from New York (a number of Jews and whites were eager participants in the project). Chaney was black and a native of Mississippi. Everyone was worried about the three missing activists. Nonetheless, plans went forward as scheduled. Behind the scenes, Farmer, Lewis, and others flew down to Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of the activists. Talking to authorities yielded no new information. Lewis and others went into the community, asking questions of those locals who were brave enough to provide information. In the meantime, President Johnson dispatched FBI agents to search for the missing activists. Though this appeared to be an extraordinary gesture given the times, Lewis was bothered by it. Numerous black activists had lost their lives or been beaten, and the FBI had not lifted a finger. The fact was that by this time, Lewis had come to understand the enormity of the task ahead of them and the dangers of becoming overconfident because of their recent successes. On July 2, President Johnson had announced the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was the strongest civil rights legislation of the century. The next day, Lewis had given a speech at a Ruleville church and reminded locals that they had to stay vigilant; that the civil rights struggle was not over yet. On August 4, everyone’s worst fears were realized when the bodies of the three activists were found. Chaney had been viciously beaten and shot three times. The others had been murdered by a single shot. This was not the only violent tragedy that summer. The Mississippi Summer was fraught with violence, including church burnings, bombings, and multiple beatings.

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MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM DEMOCRATIC PARTY The violence only served to spur on the activists. Later in the summer, SNCC assisted a newly formed political party to challenge the traditional all-white and ultra-conservative Mississippi Democratic Party. Fannie Lou Hamer was among the delegates representing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Lewis toured several Mississippi towns and gave speeches to canvass support for them. When the delegates traveled to Atlantic City, New Jersey, for the National Democratic Convention, Lewis watched from the sidelines. He was proud; their optimism was catching. But when, at the end of the convention, the delegates were awarded only two seats in a back-room compromise, all their hopes contorted to anger and frustration. The activists and their leaders were torn over how to respond. Some did not want to acquiesce to the compromise. Lewis believed that the Civil Rights Movement began to collapse at that point, as the event fed the polarization between the conservative integrationists on the one hand and the militants on the other. For example, SNCC was largely disillusioned by leaders such as King, who were in favor of the compromise. The atmosphere at the culmination of the Freedom Summer was dismal. Despite the results of the campaign—seventeen thousand African Americans had successfully registered to vote and massive support was mobilized for the MFDP—the activists were burned out, frustrated by the non-stop violence, and disenchanted by the loss in Atlantic City.

AFRICA Eleven SNCC activists, including John Lewis, went on a three-week trip to Guinea, in West Africa, in the fall of 1964. Lewis and a friend also visited, strictly as tourists, Liberia, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Egypt. The trip to Guinea had a dual purpose: Harry Belafonte, a black musician and actor, had offered them a respite after the long and difficult summer. Furthermore, Belafonte’s friend, Ahmed Sekou Toure, first president of Guinea after it received its independence from French rule in 1958, desired to facilitate an international dialogue between the African American civil rights activists and the young people of his country. Lewis was impressed by the Guineans’ shrewd knowledge of world politics, including the events occurring in America. He felt solidarity with them, largely because they were also activists. Throughout the continent, Africans waged struggles for liberation from foreign colonialism. However, Lewis found that the African activists in Guinea and elsewhere on the continent were far more militant than the SNCC activists. These young men and women were, ideologically, nationalists and willing to literally fight for liberation. Among the barrage of questions directed to Lewis,

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a large number concerned Malcolm X, whom many of them venerated. Malcolm X was not only one of the most militant black activists in America, he was a Pan-Africanist, which meant that he was concerned not only for blacks in America but all descendents of Africa. While Lewis was in a hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, he met Malcolm X for the first time. Each was surprised to see the other. Malcolm commented that he was pleased ‘‘to see SNCC reaching out like this to Africa, and how more black people in America needed to travel and see and learn what was happening with blacks outside our country, not just in Africa but all over the world’’ (Lewis, 297). Malcolm was in Kenya attending a conference of nonaligned nations in Cairo, where he spoke about his new Organization of Afro-American Unity. Lewis was bewildered at the change in the man that sat before him, talking so amicably about racial unity. Malcolm X had been notorious for his intense anathema for whites and his scorching criticisms of racism in America, as well as of prominent civil rights organizations such as SNCC. But the former firebrand had undergone a dramatic transformation as a result of a trip to Mecca in 1964, where the sight of blacks and whites seemingly uncorrupted by racism opened his eyes to a new form of activism, one not based on fiery, angry speeches. When they departed ways, Malcolm X wished the SNCC activists well and encouraged them to press on. Back in America, black SNCC activists were undergoing a metamorphosis toward the opposite end of the spectrum. This shift stemmed from their resentment over whites taking leadership positions in SNCC as well as the conservative leadership of the Civil Rights Movement in general. They reached their breaking point after repeated merciless beatings and killings by racist police officers and white mobs. The disappointing results of the summer’s Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenge also figured into the general feeling of discontent. One of the loudest voices of opposition to SNCC’s conservative position on integration and nonviolence was Stokely Carmichael. Even James Forman exhibited militant tendencies. Everyone knew that Lewis was the antithesis of Carmichael and Forman. He was the mild-mannered one—the gentle one. When members took to calling leaders, such as his hero Dr. King, Uncle Toms, Lewis knew that his influence on the organization was slipping away.

BLOODY SUNDAY Lewis remained supportive of King. In January 1965, he joined the great leader in a voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama. On the eighteenth of the month, Lewis and King led four hundred locals to a courthouse. When they reached the steps of the courthouse, they found a sign affixed to the door that read ‘‘Out to Lunch.’’ This was an old tactic. Selma’s registrar office was

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open only two days a month. Restricting office hours was one way in which whites prevented blacks from registering to vote. Later that day, King was attacked at a hotel. Lewis fended off the attacker and detained him until police arrived to arrest him. This incident portended dangers to come. But for now, the demonstrations proceeded smoothly. There were more marches to the courthouse, and there were arrests. The pressure caused by the demonstrations and arrests compelled the federal government to order the registrar to expand office hours. During one of the demonstrations, Lewis confronted the local sheriff. This sheriff ordered Lewis and the demonstrators to leave the vicinity. Lewis stood up to him, even though the sheriff wielded a billy club. Until that point, there had been no fatalities associated with their efforts. But on February 18, at a voter registration demonstration in Marion, Alabama, an army veteran was shot and killed. SCLC organized a march from Selma to Montgomery to publicize that murder. Lewis and Hosea Williams, an SCLC civil rights leader who had been arrested 125 times during the Civil Rights Movement, set out on Sunday, March 7 with six hundred men, women, and children. The marchers were stopped by a barricade of Alabama state troopers as they prepared to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Some troopers were on foot; others were mounted on horses. Lewis and Williams instructed everyone to kneel and pray. Moments later, Lewis received the first blow. He staggered to the ground and braced himself for the next blow. The second hit, with a billy club, fractured Lewis’ skull. The troopers unleashed an all-out attack on the marchers, who were dressed in their church clothes. Fortunately for the demonstrators in particular and the country as a whole, reporters were there and caught every terrible moment with their cameras. That day became known as Bloody Sunday. A second march was planned, but Governor George Wallace would not allow it. On March 9, a white Unitarian minister, James Reeb, was beaten to death. Shortly thereafter, Lewis (still bandaged), King, and others gathered in the living room of a Selma resident. Their eyes were glued to the television set as President Johnson began one of the most memorable speeches in the history of the Civil Rights Movement, wherein he announced to the world his support for voting rights for all Americans. On the next day, the demonstrators were permitted to proceed with the march. What had started out as a protest march became a victory march, encompassing more than twenty-five thousand people. The march culminated at the state capitol in Montgomery, where Lewis was honored. The Voting Rights Act was signed on August 6. LIFE AFTER SNCC By the end of Mississippi Freedom Summer, Lewis’ authority within SNCC had dwindled to next to nothing. He had seen it coming, but the realization

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was painful, even traumatic. Stokely Carmichael was elected as chairman of SNCC in his place at the 1966 annual conference. Lewis lingered on for a rally in Mississippi in June. But the change had already taken effect, and this event was unlike any that had gone before. The rallying cry was for black consciousness, self-defense, and black power. As tough and brave as Lewis had proved himself to be, a militant he could never be. Everyone knew that about Lewis, including himself. He was devastated to see all that he struggled and sacrificed for unravel. Full-Time Work, Marriage, and Family Lewis looked for a job that would allow him to work on the issues as he had with SNCC, with the same objectives. He moved to New York and worked for the Field Foundation for a year. This organization helped fund civil rights and child-welfare programs. But Lewis liked the South better. He was glad to move to Atlanta, Georgia for his next job as a community organizer for the Southern Regional Council in 1967. With more time on his hands, Lewis turned his attention to some academic and personal business. In 1967, he graduated from Fisk with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. At a party, he met Lillian Miles. He invited her to his twenty-seventh birthday party, and they began dating shortly thereafter. Lewis also began the slow and difficult process of reconnecting with his parents, who were still baffled and hurt by his participation in the Civil Rights Movement. They eventually reconciled. Politics In 1968, Lewis fostered a new, unexpected relationship with rising politician Robert Kennedy, the brother of former President John F. Kennedy. Lewis believed that Bobby was more empathetic and willing to endorse causes for African Americans after the assassination of his brother in 1963. Lewis became a volunteer on his campaign for the presidency. He took a leave of absence from his job at the Southern Regional Council to help galvanize black voters. But Lewis was blind-sided by two assassinations: Dr. King’s on April 4, 1968, and Kennedy’s on June 6, 1968. Lewis, as well as much of the nation, was distraught. The questions on everyone’s mind, especially within the black community, were: What happens now? Who will lead us? Who will fight for us now? There had always been other leaders, but King had seemed to eclipse them all with his charismatic speechmaking and his overwhelming popularity among blacks and whites. But the struggle continued. Ralph Abernathy took King’s place as the leader of the SCLC, and the leaders of the other prominent civil rights organizations pressed forward. When Lewis had recovered from these staggering blows, he redirected his energies toward politics. In August 1968, he was one of the Georgia delegates

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who challenged the Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. The results were better than during the 1964 Mississippi challenge. The two Georgia delegations split votes down the line. When he returned to Atlanta, Lewis was hospitalized due to exhaustion. Miles stayed with him, and he asked her to marry him. They married on December 21, 1968. King’s father, Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr., officiated over the ceremony. The desire to better his community had been a driving force for Lewis throughout his adult life. As he entered his thirties, Lewis reaffirmed that commitment. In 1970, he headed the Southern Regional Council’s Voter Education Project to oversee voter registration drives and rallies, to provide classes for the community, and to monitor the status and progress of blacks. Lewis was at the top of his game when, in 1975, he was featured in Time magazine. The following year, he and his wife adopted a baby boy, whom they named John-Miles. Shortly thereafter, Lewis attended a SNCC reunion. There were no hard feelings on either side. In the ensuing years, Lewis remained active in Georgia politics. After an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed him associate director of ACTION. This appeared to be an ideal job, since he could play a significant role in the coordination of several volunteer social action programs. But the job made him restless. He no longer wanted to be involved in grassroots work. He desired to be a part of the decision-making process. That, he felt, was where he could be the most useful at this juncture in his life. U.S. House of Representatives Lewis successfully ran for Atlanta City Council in 1981. Five years later, Lewis, as a member of the Democratic Party, became the second black to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Georgia, since Reconstruction. The first was Andrew Young, a civil rights activist and close advisor to King, who served terms in 1972, 1974, and 1976. Lewis remains a prominent figure in Congress, where he addresses issues that concern blacks as well as all Americans, and helps maintain the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1991, he was appointed Chief Deputy Whip of the House. He has served the longest of any senator or congressperson in Georgia. Also in the 1990s, Lewis was among the high-profile protestors who challenged the design of the state flag of Georgia. Lewis argued that the design, featuring a Confederate Battle Flag, had been created in response to the 1956 Supreme Court ruling that desegregated public schools in the South. In 2001, Georgia designed a new flag. This issue parallels the ongoing conflict concerning the Confederate flag, which is used to symbolize the entire region of the South. Those who find

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the flag offensive assert that it glorifies a culture and community that was based on the systematic oppression of human beings. To them, confederacy and slavery are inseparable, and thus neither ought to be venerated. In 2000, when suspicions abounded that the voting process had been compromised, Lewis disputed the presidential election of George W. Bush. In 2001, after the terrorist attack on America, Lewis gave an inspiring speech to help unify and hearten Americans during a traumatic period. Lewis has an intimate understanding of what it means to live through extremely distressing times. For him, the civil rights struggle was both exhilarating and deeply troubling. To stare hate in the face, to confront death and brutal attacks, and to battle seemingly impossible odds and enemies took courage, determination, and an ornery conviction of the rightness of one’s goals and the certainty of triumph. Each year, Lewis returns to the site of the Selma, Alabama march of 1965, where he and others were beaten on Bloody Sunday during their quest for equality and justice. Undoubtedly, the scene plays back through his mind, and the ghosts, not yet half a century old, are awakened as he marches over that old familiar bridge. He is perhaps comforted, if not invigorated, by the fact that that battle was won, and America was made the better for it. See also Ella Baker; Stokely Carmichael; James Farmer; Fannie Lou Hamer; Dorothy Height; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X; Thurgood Marshall; A. Philip Randolph; Roy Wilkins; and Whitney Young. FURTHER RESOURCES Arsenault, Raymond. Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Forman, James. The Making of Black Revolutionaries. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997. Lewis, John. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. ‘‘Reporting Civil Rights; 1941–1973.’’ The Library of America (February 2008). See http://reportingcivilrights.loa.org. ‘‘SNCC 1960–1966: Six Years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.’’ SNCC Project Group (February 2008). See http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/ index.html. ‘‘U.S. Congressman John Lewis.’’ U.S. House of Representatives (February 2008). See http://johnlewis.house.gov.

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Malcolm X (1925–1965)

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Malcolm X was a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam (NOI). He emerged as one of the most radical and militant leaders during the Civil Rights Movement. Toward the end of his life, Malcolm X went through a spiritual and ideological metamorphosis following a pilgrimage to Mecca, which led to his embracing traditional Islam and tempering his animosity toward whites. Malcolm X was the epitome of extreme radicalness, though he did not project the emotional fervor of some. He was poised, deliberate, and steelyeyed beneath his brow-line glasses. When he gave speeches, he spoke with a measured, controlled rhythm. But the content of those speeches was a scathing, incisive, and shrewd attack on whites and a declaration of the privations and oppression of blacks. He lambasted all whites, making little, if any, distinction between those who were and those who were not racists. Sometimes he added a touch of humor, generally at the expense of conservative, middle-class African Americans, or Uncle Toms as he contemptuously called them. All in all, his message reflected his own tragic experiences with racism and oppression. His father, a zealous Garveyite, had been murdered by racist whites. Poverty and the unraveling of his mother’s sanity actuated the splitting up of his six siblings. The world Malcolm X knew was cruel and wretched, fueling his intense hatred for whites and the institutions dominated by them. Malcolm X contended that it was a good thing that his time spent as a wayward and confused youth landed him in jail, for that was where he was introduced to the Nation of Islam (NOI). He attributed his nearly overnight transformation into a self-disciplined devotee to this event. A major reason why the Nation of Islam captivated him so was because it centered on the importance of blacks, and in doing so, nurtured the esteem of black men denigrated by society. In this way, the NOI was similar to the Garvey Movement, which was named after the spirited Marcus Garvey. Garvey founded and led the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) in the early twentieth century. The Garvey Movement’s message of race uplift spread like wildfire throughout America’s urban black communities. The NOI also encouraged the expression of racial pride and black nationalism but through the medium of religion. Malcolm X became an ardent student of the Nation of Islam. Furthermore, he took the message into the streets, speaking from soapboxes. He enthralled his audiences and soon gained a reputation as a speaker. His swelling fame coincided with the burgeoning of the Civil Rights Movement, for which he did not have any use. Malcolm X regularly castigated the nonviolent methods advocated by the Movement’s leaders, criticized organizational collaborations between blacks and whites, and disapproved of the pursuit of integration. Malcolm X volubly advocated armed self-defense and called for violent revolution and black separatism. He was, in essence, one of the chief antagonists of the Movement.

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Soapbox A soapbox is a wooden carton in which soap is packed, but it can refer to any object used as an improvised platform. The term is also used metaphorically to describe someone who is voicing their opinion on an issue, and usually, at length. Soapbox orating is a practice that dates back to the American Revolution (and much earlier in countries such as England), when early Americans addressed the public in impromptu or prepared speeches on any given topic, usually political. What distinguishes soapbox orating from other speaking performances is that it is usually done by ordinary people and outdoors. New York is famous for its many soapbox orators. Certain streets in New York in the early twentieth century were a hotbed of activity for orators, including communists, socialists, and others deemed as radical freethinkers. Soapbox orating epitomized the American ideals of democracy and freedom of speech. Among popular early twentieth-century African American soapbox orators were Hubert Henry Harrison, A. Philip Randolph, and Marcus Garvey. Spending time on the soapbox frequently preceded a more formal leadership role. Soapbox orating served as a way to hone one’s speaking skills, to develop ideas and ways to express those ideas, and to cultivate a following and some notoriety. It was also the most direct way to disseminate an important message to the people. For example, before Randolph became the leader of the Brotherhood for Sleeping Car Porters, he was a young, passionate, and fiery radical mounted on a makeshift podium speaking against racism and classism. Before Marcus Garvey launched his eponymous movement, he too tested the waters on the soapbox and in other venues. Malcolm X, a young upstart in the Nation of Islam, became a household name while soapbox orating in Harlem, New York.

But however adamant he seemed, Malcolm X was not immune to change. Following a break with the Nation of Islam on March 8, 1964, he founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc. And after a pilgrimage to Mecca later that spring, he underwent a final metamorphosis. While in Saudi Arabia, Malcolm X was moved by the fact that Muslim adherents of all colors worshiped together. No one that he saw discriminated against anyone else, causing him to seriously reconsider and, ultimately renounce, his volatile and anti-white rhetoric. He wrote about this experience in his famous The Autobiography of Malcolm X, a comprehensive social study on his life and times. However, he did not live long enough to advance his new approach. Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965.

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CHILDHOOD Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska to Reverend Earl and Louise Little. He had eight siblings, three of whom, Ella, Earl, and Mary, were from his father’s first marriage. Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Reginald, and Yvonne were the children of Reverend Little’s second union. Reverend Earl Little was an anomaly, to be sure, and was, undoubtedly, a forceful role model for the young Malcolm. A native of Georgia, Earl Little, unlike his surname, was a giant of a man, six feet four, booming, and fearless. It is fair to say that Garveyism was Little’s true calling, but he was a Baptist preacher by trade and as a way to support his family. Many African Americans at that time would not dream of going about town trying to spread Garveyism. But this is what Little did, even though it caused him trouble with the local whites. Malcolm knew by heart the story of the night the Ku Klux Klan rode down to their home, wielding their rifles, and ordered Earl Little out of the house. Mary Little, pregnant with Malcolm at the time, toddled to the porch and told those men that her husband was not home. Before riding away, they broke every window of their home. The men were practicing an old custom of violent intimidation against anyone who challenged the system of white supremacy. This was one way in which they diffused any form of black organizing and any talk of racial pride and empowerment. This sort of intimidation and the threats to Reverend Little’s life did not thwart him. He had seen plenty of white hatred and racial violence in his life. Four of his six brothers were murdered by whites. After his violent death, another brother would share the same fate. Only one of Malcolm’s paternal uncles died of natural causes. Mary Little played a different role in the family. She was overwhelmed with housekeeping, preparing meals, and the ordinary day-to-day struggles of maintaining a large household. Mary Little was born in the British West Indies and stood in a stark contrast to her husband. She looked white, whereas the Reverend Little had very dark skin. Malcolm X believed she had received a good education, whereas her husband had only gone on to the third or fourth grade. Both were martinets, but Mary Little was usually the enforcer of the frequent whippings her children received. Both, Malcolm observed, were inflicted with a common form of skin-color prejudice. Mary Little favored the darker-toned children; Reverend Little showed a preference for the ones with fairer complexions. Malcolm X had the lightest skin of all his siblings. He felt that that was why he received special treatment from his father. Frequently, Reverend Little carried Malcolm to his Garvey meetings. Malcolm was dissatisfied with the impassioned black church service, but he was transfixed by the dignity and gravity that the Garveyites exuded, and by the empowering

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exclamations of racial pride and uplift. Etched in his memory were the solemn framed pictures of Garvey himself, the man who transported a race from hopelessness to optimism, self-determination, and self-reliance. Although Garvey died in 1940, his followers continued to stoke the flames of his memory and aspirations, but the movement would never attain its former grandeur. The house that Malcolm Little recalled most was the one his father built with his own hands on the outskirts of Lansing, Michigan. This house was constructed because the previous one had been burned down in 1929 by two white men. Reverend Little shot at those men, but it was too late. The family clambered to safety, then stood with the police and fire department and watched the house burn down. At the new home, the Littles lived in relative peace for some time. They raised chickens and kept a garden. Occasional fights erupted between the parents, at times culminating in domestic violence. Outside the home, Little continued to mobilize the locals to Garveyism and teach, sporadically, at various Baptist churches. One day, following an argument, Reverend Little stormed out of the house. Mary Little ran after him, distressed by a sudden premonition of his impending death. But her husband only stopped to wave back at her when she called after him. She never saw her husband alive again, for that night he was attacked and stretched across the railroad tracks. His body was nearly cut in half. Mary Little would never recover from that shock and the subsequent tumult that her family faced. One insurance company refused to release the money owed Mary Little, stating that her husband had committed suicide. This despite the fact that it was common knowledge that the Black Legion, an organization akin to the Ku Klux Klan, was to blame. The welfare checks and widow’s pension sufficed for a while. But Mary Little could not hold down a job. Her employers would not keep her on after it was discovered that her husband was the radical Little. Mary’s grief overwhelmed her, as did her inability to make any money. The household slowly came undone, and the children were left to try to maintain a sense of normalcy in the home. The administrators of the welfare assistance made matters worse. Malcolm X wrote that ‘‘they acted as if they owned us, as if we were their private property’’ (Malcolm X, 13). They scrutinized everything about the Little family. Little became a Seventh Day Adventist, only to have the welfare workers call her crazy for turning down some pork someone offered her family (pork is prohibited in the Seventh Day Adventist religion). They later targeted Malcolm when he began stealing food. Malcolm and his brother Philbert started acting out at school, getting into fights with some of the white students. After Mary Little was rejected by a potential suitor, the situation became irreparable. Mary began to talk to herself. Welfare stepped in and removed

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Malcolm from the home. He went to live with the Gohannas, a local black family. Malcolm liked living with them, and was close friends with the child everyone called Big Boy. Together, they hunted and fished. Every now and then, Malcolm went on awkward visits back home, but seeing his mother in her worsening state made him uncomfortable. In 1937, his mother was admitted into the state mental hospital in Kalamazoo, where she remained for twenty-six years. Malcolm Little’s siblings were split up, but they continued to maintain connection, largely through letter writing. In 1963, Mary was released and went to live with friends of the family. Living with the Swerlins When Malcolm was thirteen years old, he was sent to live in a detention home in Mason, Michigan with a white couple, Mr. and Mrs. Swerlin, for his unrelentingly unruly behavior. The Swerlin’s opened their doors to many wayward youth. The Swerlin’s and the other children who lived with them were all very kind to Malcolm. Mr. and Mrs. Swerlin treated him almost like one of their own. But when they talked about ‘‘niggers’’ in his presence, Malcolm was troubled. Despite that, Malcolm flourished. Everyone at the predominately white school, Mason Junior High School, liked him and welcomed him in. He produced stellar grades and was asked to be a part of almost every extracurricular event. In the second semester of the seventh grade, he was elected class president. When white spectators—or even his peers and teachers—called out racist names from the bleachers at basketball games he played in, he pretended not to notice. At school dances, he navigated through the awkward waters of being and yet not being one of them. He was not allowed to dance with the young white girls. So, he talked and laughed with his friends, and then quietly departed for home. Malcolm was too shy to ask out the local black girls. There were other issues that Malcolm Little did not dismiss so easily. In history class, his teacher, Mr. Williams, would tell ‘‘nigger jokes.’’ He also recalled how the sum total African American studies in the history book consisted of one paragraph. Within that paragraph there was a shocking statement about how African Americans ‘‘were usually lazy and dumb and shiftless’’ (Malcolm X, 29). One of Malcolm’s favorite things to do was to escape to the nearby black ghetto, just to watch the blacks going in and out of the bars and restaurants and to listen to the pulsating music vibrating from within was thrilling. Malcolm Little was drawn to this sort of life, so it was only natural that he used the money he made washing dishes at a restaurant to buy himself a green suit and shoes. Malcolm realized after a summer trip to Boston to visit his vivacious and successful half-sister, Ella Little, that one of the reasons he was adored at

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the Swerlin’s, at work, and at school was because of the way people perceived him. In his later analysis as an adult, Malcolm felt he was being treated like a mascot, and that he was accepted as he behaved in a way that was non-threatening. Malcolm X admitted that, while living with the Swerlins, he tried, in every way, to be white. The Boston trip had changed Malcolm in a profound way. For the first time in his life he was immersed in a large community of African Americans. The Swerlins and their ilk did not understand why Malcolm became reticent and looked so irritated when anyone used the word ‘‘nigger.’’ Upon his return, he felt suddenly out of place, self-conscious, and unhappy. He did not fit in that world. Another incident that confirmed his unhappiness occurred in the classroom, between himself and his English teacher, Mr. Ostrowski. Upon being asked what he wanted to do when he grew up, Malcolm Little proudly asserted that he wanted to become a lawyer. Mr. Ostrowski then explained that he should be ‘‘realistic about being a nigger, and suggested that he pursue carpentry, instead’’ (Malcolm X, 36). Malcolm felt that the Swerlins would not have understood why Mr. Ostrowski’s comment was so destructive and so painful. The Swerlins were exasperated by the cloud that had come over his formerly sunny disposition. They did not know what else to do, so they had him moved from their home. Malcolm dropped out of school and moved to Boston to live with Ella.

STREET LIFE In Boston, Little observed two black identities: the ‘‘Roxbury Negroes acting and living differently from any black people [he’d] ever dreamed of … and looked down their noses at the Negroes of the black ghetto, or so called ‘town’ section’’ (Malcolm X, 40). Malcolm gravitated toward the latter, although his half-sister was a member of the former. Ella did not like the change that took place in Malcolm following his arrival. His friend Shorty, a denizen of the town section, served as Malcolm’s guide, translator, and advisor, overseeing his transmogrification into a street kid. Shorty hailed from Lansing too, but that was the only commonality between the two boys, who met when Malcolm wandered into town one day. Shorty shot one look at Malcolm and knew he was not in tune with the latest trends. He didn’t talk with the parlance of the city; use terms such as ‘‘stud,’’ ‘‘cat,’’ and ‘‘cool’’; he did not dress in the fashionable zoot suits, or wear his hair in the processed style (called a conk). Because Malcolm had reddish hair, Shorty called him Red, and that became his street moniker. Shorty also helped Malcolm Little get his first job in Boston. Malcolm knew Ella would not approve, because shining shoes at the Roseland State Ballroom was not high class. It was a job that was relegated to blacks. But

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the job demanded more than the ability to work the rag so as to make it pop (a sound that gave the impression that the shoe shiner was working harder than he actually was); Malcolm was also expected to hustle or provide other services or products, such as alcohol and reefers. The shoe-shining job provided Malcolm with an up-close view of the happenings at Roseland State Ballroom, where the dances were segregated. The black dances were especially lively, featuring improvisational and dramatic moves that worked the crowds into a frenzy. The Lindy-hop was one of the dances that was all the rage. Malcolm would eventually become a popular fixture there. Malcolm was grateful for the new job and for having met such a knowledgeable friend. As a result of this acquaintance, Malcolm started gambling, smoking cigarettes and reefers, and drinking alcohol. He also received his first conk (he would later describe this as his ‘‘first really big step toward self-degradation’’) and purchased his first zoot suit on credit (Malcolm X, 54). When Malcolm posed for his sister in his suit, she was dismayed. He wrote his brothers and sisters, intoxicated with his self-satisfaction over his stylish transformation. Malcolm was not the only one drawn to this irresistible way of life. The woman Malcolm referred to in his autobiography as ‘‘Laura’’ was fascinated by it as well. Malcolm met Laura after he quit shoe shining, and while working as the soda fountain clerk at the Townsend Drug Store located in the Hill. Malcolm was miserable working with what he deemed to be selfabsorbed snobs. But Laura, who lived in the Hill neighborhood, was different. She came often to the soda fountain to read. At first they said little to one another. Gradually, they started having conversations, and that sparked a date when Laura lit up at the mention of Lindy-hopping. Laura was a fantastic dancer, one of the best. But during one dance, a white woman Malcolm called ‘‘Sophia’’ appeared, and once she and Malcolm locked eyes, there was no turning back. Malcolm snubbed Laura after that. He always believed it was his fault that Laura abandoned her college dreams and delved dangerously into street life. She was never the same after that. Malcolm and Sophia became inseparable. They had an unspoken agreement: Sophia lavished gifts and money on Malcolm, and he in turn displayed Sophia on his arm. This gave him instant status in the ghetto and permitted her to go with him into the taboo black world, in which he knew it was a thrill for many whites to take part. Malcolm was sixteen years old. Ella was relieved when Malcolm took a job with the New Haven Railroad, because, for African Americans, it was one of the best jobs around. It would also, she thought, steer him away from his relationship with Sophia and help to settle him down. Ella wanted Malcolm to meet a nice woman from the Hills, marry, and live a good, quiet life. But Malcolm did not stop seeing Sophia. And for him, the job was primarily a way to see New York, the epitome of fascinating city delights.

Malcolm X

Malcolm had no intention of slowing down—if anything, he accelerated his street activities at a dangerous, dizzying pace. While working with the railroad, Malcolm worked several jobs: washing dishes, selling snacks, cleaning, and renting pillows. His customers were black and white. With the white customers, Malcolm learned to do what he called ‘‘Uncle Tomming,’’ which meant kowtowing to whatever needs or wants they might have; in effect putting on a good show and being eager to please. Malcolm was good at this—when he wanted to be. Other times, he got into trouble for acting outside his expected subservient role—for being a recusant. He once nearly got into a fight with a white soldier. The complaints over Malcolm’s cheekiness increased, and he was eventually fired from the New Haven. For a while, he worked on the Silver Meteor until he was let go over a confrontation with the assistant conductor. In 1942, Malcolm ended his stint with the railroad and moved to New York, where he promptly descended into the city’s iniquitous underworld, taking on the name Detroit Red. In Boston, Malcolm had been a neophyte; Shorty’s artless underling. In New York, Malcolm would upstage his former mentor. Malcolm was given the name ‘‘Detroit’’ to distinguish him from other redhaired black men. He took to telling people that he was from Detroit, Michigan, since most people did not know that Lansing, Michigan even existed. As Detroit Red, Malcolm would launch an outrageous career in the streets. His first job in New York was as a waiter in a popular bar, where he began what he referred to as several hustles or illicit money-making schemes. One of them involved soliciting potential clients for his prostitute friends. When he was dismissed from his waiting job, he turned to selling marijuana, robbery, and playing the numbers. In 1943, Malcolm Little received a draft letter, but he had no interest in becoming a soldier. He circumvented the draft by feigning mental instability. He described his physical preparation for that day by saying: ‘‘with my wild zoot suit I wore the yellow knob-toe shoes, and I frizzled my hair up into a reddish bush of conk.… I went in, skipping and tipping’’ (Malcolm X, 105). Talking in his wildest street vernacular, he went to the induction center, and when directed to see the psychiatrist, he told the befuddled white man that he could not wait to get inducted to, in his words, ‘‘Organize them nigger soldiers, you dig? Steal us some guns, and kill up crackers!’’ (Malcolm X, 106). Malcolm spent most of his time hustling and doing drugs (along with a few nondestructive activities like going to movies and listening to music). He began abusing cocaine as well as marijuana. And he was still seeing Sophia, even though she had married a white man. When his brother, Reginald, left the merchant marines, Malcolm introduced him to the street world, where he had become a sophisticated and well-known presence. Reginald, however, did not delve as deeply into crime as his brother.

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Malcolm later commented that he should have died many times leading such a fast life. A West Indian gangster named Archie who ran the numbers game pursued him over money that Malcolm did not remember owing him. Italian ruffians hunted him down over some crime for which they blamed him. There were other threats on his life, as well as the fact that Malcolm’s drug use had him in a constant haze. And the law had been after him for a long time, since he had first been targeted as one of the infamous drug sellers in the city. Sammy, a friend and partner in crime Malcolm made while in New York, contacted Shorty, who drove to New York to rescue Malcolm from his iniquitous and dangerous lifestyle. Back in Boston, however, Malcolm continued in his parlous life of crime. He recruited Shorty, who had become a musician, but was barely making enough money to make ends meet. Malcolm became the leader of a small group of thieves comprising Shorty, Sophia and her sister, and a biracial man named Rudy. They burglarized several white homes before they were apprehended. Following the trial in February, 1946, Malcolm and Shorty each received a sentence of ten years in prison. Rudy somehow escaped during the incident, and was never captured or tried. The women were sentenced to one to five. During the trial, Malcolm ascertained from all the questions regarding his and Shorty’s relationship with Sophia and her sister that the ‘‘white women in league with Negroes was [the] main obsession,’’ not necessarily their actual crimes (Malcolm X, 149). The fact that the average sentence for a first-time offense was two years illustrates how racism, again, was at play.

PRISON Little served the first couple years of his sentence at Charleston State Prison. He continued to smoke, and to substitute his drug habit, he, like other prisoners, drank a concoction of nutmeg water. His penchant for making trouble caused him to be sent to solitary more than once. He was so raging, foul mouthed, and obstinate that the inmates began calling him Satan. It was a black man named Bimbi who provided Little with his first glimpse of redemption through education. Bimbi was a favorite with everyone because he had an enormous amount of knowledge. Other inmates, including Little, and sometimes the guards, huddled around him, spellbound by his intellect. His sources were an eclectic mix, including various philosophers, like Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau was born in 1817 and was a famous contemplative thinker, naturalist, as well as abolitionist and advocate of nonviolent resistance to government. He would influence famous activists like Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bimbi was also different from the others because he did not curse. Little, who appeared to have the baddest reputation at Charleston, was quietly

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intrigued by him. When Bimbi told Little that he ought to consider taking the correspondence course that was offered at the prison and spend some time at the library, Little, who had only eight years of formal education, listened. Learning was tough going for Little. He felt that his years of degradation had eroded much of what he had learned in his school years. Malcolm X later explained how his writing had become atrocious, and that he had lost the ability to write a simple sentence. Little took a correspondence course for English as well as Latin. In 1948, Little was moved to Concord Prison. While there, he discovered that all of his siblings had converted to the Nation of Islam and they wanted him to do he same. Little was not eager to comply. But Reginald knew how to approach him. In a letter, he urged Malcolm to stop eating pork and smoking and that he would ‘‘show him how to get out of prison’’ (Malcolm X, 155). To Malcolm, the letter was as puzzling as it was provocative. He did not yet understand how smoking and eating pork were related to his imprisonment, but it was a chance worth taking. He stopped smoking the very day he received the letter, and he did not eat another piece of pork while in prison. Much of Little’s learning about the Nation of Islam took place through correspondence with his siblings and the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, while he was imprisoned. He would later discover that, among other things, Black Muslims were not allowed to gamble, use drugs, or consume any drug, alcohol, or food (including pig) that would be harmful to the body, dance, or go to the movies. In other words, engage in the kind of behavior that characterized Little’s life prior to his imprisonment. He was also obligated to pray to Allah. Praying was, perhaps, the hardest aspect of his conversion. He wrote that ‘‘picking a lock to rob someone’s house was the only way my knees had ever been bent before’’ (Malcolm X, 169). The Nation of Islam not only advocated a clean, healthy, and a spiritually regimented lifestyle, it raised the racial consciousness of African Americans. From his own experience, Little knew a certain amount about his race’s history, about Africa, slavery, and the effect racism and ignorance had on the continued oppression of blacks in America. The only learning he had received in a history class was that blacks were lazy and shiftless. The discovery that Africa was not a savage, uncivilized country and that blacks indeed made numerous accomplishments empowered Little. Elijah Muhammad also taught an erroneous tale that all whites were, literally, devils. Studying the history of the world and analyzing the long history of white oppression over other races, and seeing the effects of racism in his own life, made Little susceptible to Muhammad’s interpretation. Elijah Muhammad blamed whites for his own predicament, asserting that ‘‘the black prisoner … symbolized white society’s crime of keeping black men oppressed and deprived and ignorant, and unable to get decent jobs, turning them into criminals’’ (Malcolm X, 169).

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The transmogrification of Malcolm Little was nearly instantaneous. It helped that Norfolk, unlike most prisons, encouraged intellectual growth among the inmates and housed a capacious library, with an unending supply of books on religion and history. Little delved into this wide array of books, intently reading history and philosophy. Little milled about with the other prisoners in the hope of proselytizing them. He even took to participating in a number of prison debates. He went on a letter-writing campaign, so zealous was he for his new-found faith. He wrote to his friends from his former street life. He wrote the Massachusetts mayor and governor. He wrote reprimanding letters to President Harry Truman explaining ‘‘how the white man’s society was responsible for the black man’s condition in this wilderness of North America’’ (Malcolm X, 171). He did not receive a response. Malcolm wrote Elijah Muhammad every day, and Muhammad frequently wrote Little back. Little’s embarrassment over his poor penmanship and his inability to construct sentences fueled his pursuit of knowledge. One of the first actions he took to remedy this problem was to handwrite an entire dictionary. He also took many of the classes that were offered at the prison. Though Malcolm was changing dramatically, his brother Reginald was regressing. During a series of visits, Malcolm watched as his brother showed increasing signs of trouble. He had been ousted from the Nation of Islam because of an illicit relationship with another member. Reginald did not hide his burgeoning scorn for the organization, or his physical decline. One of the trademarks of the Nation of Islam was physical cleanliness and orderliness in dress and appearance. Little observed that his brother began to dress in a slovenly manner. When Reginald told him, during one visit, that Malcolm’s beard looked like writhing snakes, Malcolm attributed it as a punishment for having turned away from the Muslim faith. He later felt that Reginald’s fall was aided by the rejection he and his siblings showed him because he was no longer a Muslim. Eventually, Reginald, like their mother, was put into a mental institution. In 1952, Little was shuffled back to the Charleston State Prison. He was not the same man that had entered there in 1946. He wore his hair neat and bereft of straightening chemicals. Because of his voracious reading habit, he began wearing the brow-line glasses that became his trademark. He was composed and disciplined, and he would never utter another obscenity or raise his voice to rant and rage. What did not change was his outspokenness and his readiness to challenge people with whom he disagreed. But now when he spoke it was to expose racism and racial stereotypes. During a bible class, Malcolm pointblank challenged the notion that Jesus was fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and blond, since he was a Hebrew. Although Little had always been a terrible fighter, he could spar effectively using his intellect and newfound knowledge, as well as his expanding vocabulary and his knack for using it. His direct, in-your-face style of intellectual combat was mesmerizing.

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NATION OF ISLAM On August 7, 1952, Malcolm Little was released from prison, after serving seven years. He felt as if it had been the equivalent of an advance degree in the Nation of Islam and self-development. His transition into life after prison was facilitated by several mundane jobs: at a furniture store, a factory, and with the Ford Motor company. His ongoing development in the Nation of Islam was facilitated by sharing a home with his brother Winfred and his family, who regularly prayed to the east (toward Mecca) as directed by the Prophet Muhammad, and maintained the dietary restrictions and other practices of the faith. Little went regularly to the temple to listen to Elijah Muhammad speak. Black Muslims gathered in buildings called temples. Also during this time, Little officially changed his name. For Malcolm X, names served as benchmarks for critical periods in his life. While submerged in street culture, he was known as ‘‘Red’’ in Boston and ‘‘Detroit Red’’ in New York. During the first few years in prison, he was called ‘‘Satan.’’ Upon his release, his new name, Malcolm X, symbolized not only his rejection of the surname (which belonged to slave masters) that had been imposed upon slaves in the New World, but the confirmation of his complete conversion to the Nation of Islam. It signified his own rebirth into a life of faith and purpose. At the center of this new life was Malcolm’s devotion to Allah, as well as his blinded idolization of the small-statured, smooth-faced, and coppery-complexioned Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X digested every word that escaped from his mouth. Elijah Muhammad was not only a man filled with sagacious wisdom, he was humble (known to sweep the floor of a Muslim-operated store), gentle, patient, loving, and even sometimes reproving of others, including Malcolm X. He was the antithesis of Malcolm’s own tempestuous father, who acquired obedience from the children through intimidation. Although Malcolm likened their relationship to that of Socrates or Aristotle to their students, Elijah Muhammad was also a surrogate father, someone he sought for guidance with spiritual, as well as personal, problems. When, during a dinner with Elijah, Malcolm asked him what the best way was to build membership, he took his first step toward his ascent within the Nation. Elijah told him that the way to increase their numbers was to look among the young people. Malcolm proved to be extraordinarily good at drawing in young men. In due course, Elijah fostered Malcolm’s leadership potential by allowing him to speak before the Muslims. In 1953, Malcolm officially became a minister and was instructed to build more temples in critical locations. Malcolm traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and finally New York City to establish new temples. Seriousness was a trait that characterized the Malcolm X of this period. His strict adherence to his fast-paced schedule denotes a man driven by

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purpose, not by frivolity. Sleepless at night, he traversed the city with his thoughts, agonizing over the oppression of African Americans and pondering ways to save the lives of those whose experiences were so similar to his own past degradation. He is usually stony-faced in his few extant photos from this period. In later pictures, taken after having received several death threats, he wields a rifle and stares furtively out a window. Photos of Malcolm X smiling broadly are a stunning contrast to the working Malcolm or the public Malcolm. Malcolm arrived in New York in 1954 and set up residence, bedazzling the African American community in ways that had not been seen since the glamorous days of his father’s beloved Marcus Garvey. He also turned his attention to the issue of making an appropriate marriage and starting a family. Even in love and marriage, Malcolm X carried himself with gravity. Most of the eligible women were enthralled by him. Some were openly miffed that he would not pay them any attention. But Malcolm undertook the subject of marriage as if approaching a business deal. Betty X, formerly Betty Sanders, had an education degree from Tuskegee Institute. She taught health and hygiene classes to the women at Temple Seven in New York. Malcolm X’s portrait of Betty was terse and unembellished: ‘‘tall, brown-skinned—darker than I was. And she had brown eyes’’ (Malcolm X, 227). He also liked the fact that she was not loquacious. But this description belied the fact that he had noticed her in an ‘‘interestedkind-of-way’’ from the start. But he hid this fact, even from himself, for he demanded the same commitment from himself as he did from others, which was to focus on their work. Malcolm X spent a great deal of time analyzing the idea of marriage and ultimately figured that ‘‘Sister Betty X, for instance, would just happen to be the right height for somebody my height, and also the right age’’ (Malcolm X, 229). Their courtship was brief. Although dating was not permitted among Muslims, there were group outings that Betty and Malcolm X went to, such as lectures or events at other mosques. Malcolm X mentioned only one outing alone with her, to the Museum of National History under the dubious guise that the outing would benefit her classes. From Betty X’s perspective, Malcolm was winsome, although grave. He got Betty to open up about her own experiences with racism. It was while driving from here and there that Betty X and Malcolm X ‘‘exchanged glances and smiles in the rear view mirror’’ (Jeffrey, 35). There was, evidently, a subtle and coy mutual attraction. But nothing could have prepared Betty for the unexpected call she received from Malcolm, asking for her hand in marriage. Malcolm X saw Elijah Muhammad in person to request his guidance on the marriage question. After meeting Betty X, Elijah gave Malcolm his blessing. Fortunately, Betty had no reservations. She accepted his proposal, even though her parents were against it. Like a number of African Americans, they felt Malcolm X was too radical and his brand of protest too dangerous.

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Angry Black Man The website http://www.urbandictionary.com attributes the Angry Black Man complex to African American sports athletes, but the term was originally associated with men, like Malcolm X, who expressed their frustrations with the social, economic, and political status of African Americans and rampant racism in a hard-hitting and direct way. The Angry Black Man image is certainly an urban construction. Since slavery, the stereotypical characteristics of a black man were docility, childlikeness, joyfulness, and stoic spiritualism. This image was reinforced in large part by Jim Crow laws, a sense of powerlessness, intimidation, and anti-black violence. In reality, feigning these characteristics was often used as a tactic on the part of blacks as a means of survival or to gain access to opportunities. Following the migration of blacks from the South to the North, there emerged a phenomenon in which black men, in greater numbers, became openly discontented with racism and oppression and more apt to confront racism head on. The race riots in the North during the 1940s and 1960s are cases in point, wherein black men refused to accept racism or submit to white superiority. African Americans saw this expression of anger, defiance, and assertive resistance as a form of empowerment. They perceived hiding behind the mask of meekness as demoralizing and weak. However, the ‘‘angry black man’’ image presents many dilemmas. Sometimes blacks criticize, or lampoon, the ‘‘angry black man’’ role that is frequently cast in contemporary movies. The criticism is that the angry black man reinforces another stereotype of a one-dimensional, perpetually angry character who is incapable of rational thinking skills or complex emotions. Famed writer James Baldwin criticized Richard Wright’s portrayal of Bigger Thomas in Native Son (1940) as a stereotypical figure, whose inner turmoil and rage cause him to commit heinous crimes. But most applaud Wright’s novel, because he dared to protest the system of racism through the medium of anger and demonstrated how poverty and racism triggered Bigger Thomas’ violent acts. The ‘‘angry black man’’ is problematic in more ways than one. For example, while W.E.B. Du Bois worked with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he had to contend with those who felt he viewed every issue in terms of race. This is a trait that is also associated with the angry black man, who is frequently deemed overly sensitive, and thus his protests fall on deaf ears.

They were married on January 14, 1958, with, ironically, a white man officiating and white witnesses. The ceremony took place in Lansing, Michigan, where they could get married without having to wait too long and without all the romantic fuss Malcolm wanted to avoid. Malcolm and Betty

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had six girls: Attilah (born 1958), Qubilah (1960), Ilyasah (1962), GamilahLamumba (1964), and Malaak and Malikah (1965). In the wake of Malcolm’s marriage, several events contributed to the burgeoning visibility of the Nation of Islam in the black community and mainstream America. The first was a television documentary program called The Hate That Hate Produced, which presumed to tell the story of the Nation of Islam. This generated a great deal of attention, almost exclusively negative in nature. The documentary sensationalized the organization, and the public responded with near-hysteria, as they could not get beyond the idea that this group hated whites and advocated violence. The mainstream media had a field day after the documentary aired, bombarding Malcolm X with phone calls (this routine would continue until his death) and distorting the image of the organization and Malcolm himself. The press branded the organization with labels such as ‘‘hate-teachers,’’ ‘‘violence-seekers,’’ ‘‘black racists,’’ and ‘‘black fascists.’’ Malcolm X became, he wrote, a ‘‘symbol of ‘hatred’’’ (Malcolm X, 239, 381). To be sure, Malcolm contributed to the construction of that identity with his fiery, confrontational, and self-confessed angry speeches. But the rest of his message, which called racist whites to task for the economic, social, and political oppression of blacks, for obliterating black history and carrying out racial violence with impunity, was rarely addressed. Malcolm X told one journalist that he was wrong ‘‘to accuse the Honorable Elijah Muhammad of teaching black supremacy and hate! All Mr. Muhammad is doing is trying to uplift the black man’s mentality and the black man’s social and economic condition in this country’’ (Malcolm X, 241). A number of conservative, high-profile black integrationists echoed the sentiments of weary whites. At first, Malcolm X held back from criticizing them. Elijah Muhammad did not want to give in to what he perceived to be an attempt by whites to fuel dissension between blacks. But when he gave the signal, Malcolm X went full steam into attack mode, calling prominent leaders ‘‘Uncle Toms’’ and publicly haranguing them. The schism between the conservative integrationist and the radical rebel was exacerbated by religious differences. Most of the prominent leaders were Christian. Their historical differences complicated any possibility of a parley. The media could not get enough of Malcolm X. He began to receive more and more requests to participate in sundry panels and debates. Eventually, Elijah Muhammad invited the white press to attend private Nation of Islam rallies, for media attention was a powerful tool for outreach and public exposure. Through Malcolm’s controversial speeches, he drew increasing attention to himself, fast becoming one of the most vocal adversaries of the civil rights leaders and their struggle for integration. Eventually, Malcolm X would become the face of the Nation of Islam. Among blacks, the Nation of Islam, as well as Malcolm X, was becoming increasingly popular. Nation of Islam news was circulated within the black

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community through printed media, helping to spread the message to more individuals than could ever be reached by a door to door campaign. Malcolm X wrote articles for the popular black newspaper, Amsterdam News, and later for the Los Angeles Herald Dispatch. Following a trip to Los Angeles to establish another Temple, in 1957, Malcolm X helped launch the Nation of Islam’s organ, Muhammad Speaks. One night in 1959, one of the members of Temple Seven called the Muslim-operated restaurant to inform them that Brother Johnson Hinton had been assaulted by two New York police officers. The story was that two Muslims had witnessed a fight that had broken out on the street. When officers arrived and told everyone to leave, the two Muslims stayed. One of them was rushed to the nearby precinct house—not a hospital—after receiving several blows to his head. Malcolm X was one of some fifty Muslims who gathered to stand ‘‘in ranks-formation outside the police precinct house’’ to which the injured Muslim had been brought (Malcolm X, 233). Malcolm X, their spokesperson, confronted the lieutenant in charge, telling him that that injured man should be in a hospital. The lieutenant complied. The Muslims followed the ambulance to Harlem Hospital and stood, silent, poised, until it was confirmed that the Muslim was being treated. Also present that evening were crowds of restive blacks, suspiciously watching what was going on and taking in, with an air of awe and respect, the quiet demonstration staged by New York’s Temple Seven and the coppery-haired man who led them. The Nation of Islam Temple in New York proved to be very attractive to African Americans. For one thing, the temple was officiated by the charismatic, no-nonsense minister, Malcolm X, who was unusually approachable. He could literally speak their complicated language. He had been one of them and had no problem making that fact known. Most importantly, he provided an alternative to the cold, empty hopelessness of city life by promoting an agenda of clean-living, strong self-worth, dignity, and responsibility. The temple ran programs for drug addicts and alcoholics. It offered camaraderie and racial pride in a safe environment, where they could vent their frustration with racism. For young blacks, the Nation of Islam presented an alternative to the allure of dangerous street life. Malcolm X was the easy winner over the appeal of superficial, trendy fashion, ill-gotten gains, and false prestige. As Malcolm X’s profile rose, the government carried out an investigation of this baffling new phenomenon. Spies infiltrated the organization, but as Malcolm X explained, this tactic frequently backfired. A number of black spies converted, and either quit their jobs with the feds or worked as counterspies for the Nation of Islam, which was growing by leaps and bounds. Plans were underway to build an Islamic Center; businesses were being launched, and Elijah Muhammad’s gentle voice could frequently be heard on the radio airwaves. Muhammad revealed to Malcolm X that he wanted

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him to take an unprecedented step as a Black Muslim: to become a public personality. With this commission, Malcolm X was expected to devote more time to broadcasting the Nation of Islam’s stance through the media. As much as the white media were confounded and even fearful of Malcolm X’s radicalism, they could not get enough of him. Students, white and black, at universities and colleges, were equally mesmerized. Malcolm X throve in this environment, just as he had when going into the streets proselytizing to blacks. Thanks to his varied experiences, Malcolm was able to hone his speech-making skills and intellectual agility. As Malcolm X toured the nation in the early 1960s promoting the Nation of Islam, the Civil Rights Movement, one of his favorite topics, reached full force. When Malcolm X called the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedoms the ‘‘Farce on Washington,’’ his biting commentary made headlines. Malcolm charged that that event did more to aggrandize the egos of the participants than to address the problems blacks faced. Malcolm regularly attacked one of the fundamental goals of the civil rights struggle: integrationism. Instead he endorsed separatism, advocating that each African American ‘‘should be focusing his every effort toward building his own businesses, and decent homes for himself … patronize their own kind, hire their own kind, and start in those ways to build up the black race’s ability to do for itself’’ (Malcolm X, 275). Before the public, Malcolm X appeared to be unswerving, impenetrable, and hard-edged. But the truth was that beneath the public armor, he was dealing with a very personal and crushing matter. As early as 1961, Malcolm surmised from innuendos and backdoor rumor-mongering that there were some in the Nation who were jealous of him. Elijah Muhammad had predicted that that might happen. But the gossip was escalating. Some said he was hoarding money and trying to outdo Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm was mortified. He underscored in his autobiography that he and his family lived on the bare essentials, that he had a terrible argument with his wife because he did not make enough money to provide for them. Malcolm X declared repeatedly that he would die for Elijah Muhammad and that he was not the self-seeking person that some made him out to be. To reduce this negative attention, Malcolm X tried to play down his role, declining a number of high-profile interviews in magazines such as Life and Newsweek. In the early spring of 1963, Elijah Muhammad showered Malcolm X with seemingly ingenuous praise at a rally, and followed this by making him the first National Minister of the Nation of Islam. However, in that same year, Malcolm X became aware of another rash of rumors—this time concerning Muhammad himself. Muslims alleged that Muhammad had fathered children outside of his marriage. Malcolm X spoke with the mothers of the children to find out the truth, even though they had been isolated from the Nation of Islam and his religion forbade him from seeing members who had been cast out for violating a NOI rule. What he discovered nearly shattered

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him. The three women he questioned confirmed the terrible truth: Elijah Muhammad had committed fornication. He also discovered that Muhammad himself feared that Malcolm would abandon him and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X tried to do damage control, but the situation in the Nation’s leadership continued to worsen. That summer, Malcolm X sensed something sinister fermenting in the ghettos. Anyone who was aware of the insidious problems of ghetto life, or who simply took the time to see for themselves, would realize how despair was turning into frustration and anger, creating something that could burst at any moment. Overcrowding, hunger, and poverty were getting worse, as were the tensions between racist white cops and young black men. When Malcolm X greeted youths as he walked the streets to the New York temple each day, he saw something fierce and unmistakable in their eyes. Few are aware that Malcolm X extended invitations, in July, to at least three of the major civil rights leaders: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Whitney Young, of the Urban League; and James Farmer, of the Congress of Race Equality. In that letter, Malcolm X wrote, ‘‘The present racial crisis in this country carries within it powerful destructive ingredients that may soon erupt into an uncontrollable explosion. The seriousness of this situation demands that immediate steps must be taken to solve this crucial problem, by those who have genuine concern…. We are inviting several Negro leaders to give their analysis of the present race problem and also their solution.’’ He promised to ‘‘moderate the meeting and guarantee order and courtesy for all speakers’’ (‘‘Letter to Martin Luther King’’). If the civil rights leaders had attended, it would have been deemed radical. James Farmer, however, at least agreed to speak publicly in media-covered debates. As a result of those interactions, Farmer and Malcolm X forged a respectful relationship behind the scenes. Despite attempts by the Nation of Islam to address the sweltering tensions in the ghetto, riots broke out beginning the following summer, in New York (Harlem, Rochester, and Brooklyn), New Jersey (Paterson and Elizabeth), Illinois (Chicago), and Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). In 1967 alone, there were some fifty-nine riots. Violence was seemingly everywhere. In the South, activists faced vicious attacks by white mobs. And on November 22, 1963, violence would strike where it was least expected when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Elijah Muhammad issued a warning that everyone must refrain from commenting on that tragedy. Malcolm X, however, sometimes made statements that he would later regret. This time his mistake would cost him. Malcolm X did not trust the media. He frequently complained that they manipulated his words and questioned him in ways that required intellectual agility. During the question-and-answer period following his speech ‘‘God’s Judgment of White America,’’ a reporter pointedly asked what his thoughts were concerning the president’s assassination. Malcolm X blurted

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unguardedly that ‘‘it was … a case of the chickens coming home to roost.’’ What was not included in subsequent articles was his expansion on that statement, which explained how ‘‘the hate in white men had not stopped with the killing of defenseless black people, but that hate, allowed to spread unchecked, finally had struck down this country’s Chief of State’’ (Malcolm X, 301). Publicly, Malcolm X accepted his error in judgment. He was penitent and self-effacing. In private, Malcolm X was disconcerted, not only because as punishment he was not permitted to speak publicly or in his temple for three months, but because word reached him of a possible threat to his life by members of the Nation of Islam. That meant, Malcolm believed, that his mentor, his idol, the man he credited with his own redemption, wanted him dead. Malcolm X had faced public attacks before, and in his former life he had confronted threats to his life, but this was an entirely different situation. He went to his family doctor, who told him to take some time off. He and his wife and children went on their first family vacation ever, accepting the invitation of Cassius Clay, later and famously known as Muhammad Ali, while he was in Miami training. But Malcolm could not unwind, not completely. Part of him was captivated by Clay’s charm and talent. But he was, for the most part, an emotional wreck. Malik el-Shabazz Malcolm changed his name to Malik el-Shabazz and announced his split with the Nation of Islam on March 8, 1964, causing quite a stir. But in a photo during a press conference, Malcolm reveals a gleaming smile. Perhaps he felt a sense of relief at leaving the organization. In addition to his troublous relationship with Elijah Muhammad, there were rumors that some within the organization were demanding money from members (for dues and newspaper sales) who could barely feed their families. And there was the fact that the police and FBI agents were infiltrating the Nation of Islam and causing turmoil within the organization. In the face of these troubling events, Malcolm X established a new organization on March 16, 1964, called Muslim Mosque, Inc. This organization, he promised, would be more actively involved in administering to the African American community. On March 26, 1964, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came face to face at a press conference for the first time. The meeting only lasted for a matter of minutes, but the two men spoke and shook hands. They then smiled for the camera and went their separate ways. The moment was replete with meaning. Could it be that the two biggest rivals of the Civil Rights Movement would come together? As Malcolm worked to build his new organization, he also made preparations for a spiritual journey to Mecca. In this he had the help of his sister,

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Ella, who helped provide funds for the trip, and Dr. Mahmoud Youssef Shawarbi, the director of the Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States. Dr. Shawarbi was gracious when the two met. They discussed the fact that not everyone could go to Mecca; only true followers of Islam were permitted to engage in that once a-year-pilgrimage (or Hajj) to the holy land. Dr. Shawarbi provided Malcolm X with a letter of approval and gave him a book, The Eternal Message of Muhammad, written by Abd-al-Rahman Azzam. This book was originally published in Arabic, in 1933, under the title, The Hero of Heroes or the Most Prominent Attribute of the Prophet Muhammad. Mecca The trip to Mecca was extraordinarily humbling and life changing. In America, Malcolm X projected a cool confidence and a surly independence that unsettled some. In Saudi Arabia, Malcolm was reduced to an almost childlike dependence on the kindness of strangers. He did not understand the rituals, nor could he speak the language. But he found friendliness and acceptance at every turn. A large number of individuals recognized him and approached him curiously, asking questions about America and how blacks were treated there. And they were patient with him, instructing him tenderly on how to pray, what words to say, and other important parts of the Hajj. Malcolm X was not only enlightened as to the aspects of orthodox Islam to the degree that he converted wholeheartedly to it, but his viewpoint on race was shattered. Before the trip, no one could have convinced him that race simply does not matter. But in Saudi Arabia, he worshiped side-by-side with dark- and light-skinned followers of Islam. He saw that all were treated equally and no one was shown preference. Others he met confirmed to him that his calling whites ‘‘devils’’ was not spiritually right. Malcolm returned to America in May of 1964 a greatly changed man. Though he remained primarily concerned with black issues, and with the entire population of descendants of Africa (a view known as Pan-Africanism), for the first time ever he saw the possibilities of working with whites and with civil rights organizations. His new approach to life was mirrored by another name change. As a result of his going on the Hajj, he was able to add ‘‘El’’ to his name. He was now known as El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. EL-HAJJ MALIK EL-SHABAZZ On June 18, 1964, Malcolm X announced the formation of a group he called the Organization of Afro-American Unity. This organization would

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be the way in which Malcolm could expand and explore his new ideas, including coalitions with whites and civil rights leaders. However, he stressed that whites were not necessarily going to join his or any black organization, but rather to organize amongst themselves, so that their organizations could then collaborate, each bringing its own racial perspective. Although Malcolm X was now an adherent of Islam and had expressed a new-found tolerance for whites, he was still an ardent proponent of selfdefense. He sent King a telegram on June 30, 1964, while the latter was in St. Augustine, Florida on a civil rights campaign, asking him—almost begging him—for the chance to send some of his ‘‘brothers’’ down to provide protection to the demonstrators. Indeed King faced one of his greatest challenges in his attempt to desegregate the small southern community of St. Augustine. Ku Klux Klan activity was strong there, as was resistance among top white officials. Despite several demonstrations and arrests, the campaign failed to produce the spectacular results that had followed so many of his other campaigns. Meanwhile, the reception to Malcolm X’s change of heart within the Nation of Islam was a cold one. In fact, Louis Farrakhan, the young minister in the Nation of Islam who took over Malcolm X’s former leadership duties in the Harlem Mosque, published a series of scathing criticisms and denouncements of Malcolm X. To the Nation of Islam at that time, Malcolm X was a traitor. Malcolm X received many death threats during this time. He kept a rifle in his home and remained ever-vigilant, but he continued to forge ahead with his program. In July, Malcolm attended the Organization of African Unity conference in Cairo, Egypt. He met with several African leaders, such as Jomo Kenyatta, president of Kenya, and Milton Obote, president of Uganda, to discuss the problems African Americans faced and the need for unity among all descendants of Africa. During a discussion with a white ambassador from the United States while in Africa, Malcolm X marveled when the ambassador said ‘‘he never thought in terms of race, that he dealt with human beings, never noticing their color [when in Africa] … only when he returned to America would he become aware of color differences’’ (Malcolm X, 371). Malcolm X came to realize from their conversation that whites were not evil—that it was society that cultivated racist thinking and behavior. While in Cairo, Malcolm X bumped into John Lewis, then chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and Don Harris, a close friend who was also a member of SNCC, in the hotel where they both stayed. This was Lewis’ and Harris’ first trip to Africa. Malcolm X joined them in their hotel room to talk. Lewis was stunned by

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Malcolm X’s transformation. In his autobiography, Walking with the Wind (1998), Lewis wrote that ‘‘the man who sat with us in that hotel room was enthusiastic and excited—not angry, not brooding … he got most enthusiastic about his idea of bringing the case of African Americans before the General Assembly of the United Nations and holding the United States in violation of the United Nations’ Human Rights Charter’’ (Lewis, 296, 297).

BACK TO AMERICA Malcolm X returned home on November 24, 1964. Shortly thereafter, he held a press conference to speak to the United Nations about his plans to address the issues facing blacks. The media could not help but notice the striking contrast between the Malcolm X they had once known and this Malik El Shabbazz, whose speech carried none of the fiery denunciations that had been so omnipresent prior to his trip to Mecca. Indeed, Malcolm X, the 6 foot 3 inch, lean, and broadly smiling black leader, felt a fresh optimism as he set about his self-appointed tasks. Indeed, Malcolm X’s interests now most resembled the work of his father’s hero, Marcus Garvey. Garvey was a Christian, but he attempted to unite blacks, not by religious affiliation, but by their ancestral link to Africa. And he did not base his ideology on racial hatred. Sadly, Malcolm X’s work was hindered by increasing violent acts against him and his family. In December 1964, Louis Farrakhan wrote, in an issue of Muhammad Speaks, that ‘‘only those who wish to be led to hell, or to their doom, will follow Malcolm…. Such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death, and would have met death if it had not been for Muhammad’s confidence in Allah for victory over his enemies’’ (Magida, 83). On February 14, 1965, someone tried to set his home in Queens, New York on fire. No one was hurt, but Malcolm X was outraged. Yet he did not stop. On February 21, Malcolm agreed to deliver a speech in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom. His wife and children were present, as well as a crowd of some four hundred. During Malcolm X’s presentation, a commotion broke out in the audience. Minutes later, men ran up toward Malcolm and gunned him down. He died that day at the age of thirty-nine. Three members of the Nation of Islam were apprehended, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Malcolm X: Norman 3X Butler, Thomas 15X Johnson, and Talmadge Hayer. However, Butler and Johnson maintain their innocence. See also James Farmer; Louis Farrakhan; Marcus Garvey; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis; and Whitney Young.

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Ossie Davis Many civil rights leaders did not attend Malcolm X’s funeral due to the extreme radicalism he demonstrated in life. Presumably, they did not want to be affiliated with him, even in his death, and jeopardize their roles and influence as the civil rights struggle went on. But Ossie Davis, an actor who was associated with civil rights activism and known for his venerable baritone voice, not only attended the funeral service but gave Malcolm X’s eulogy. Born on December 18, 1917 in Cogdell, Georgia, Davis attended Howard University and Columbia University School of General Studies, but he wanted to be an actor, so he quit school. There were few roles for African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century, and even fewer for those who desired to play positive characters outside the ordinary fare of maids, servants, and butlers. In 1950, however, he got his first break with a role in a Sidney Poitier film, No Way Out. The film itself was a major breakthrough because of its theme of racism, as well as the fact that Sidney Poitier played the protagonist (an African American doctor named Luther Brooks). Davis plays one of his brothers, John Brooks. His wife, Ruby Dee, whom he had married in 1948, was cast as his wife, Connie Brooks. The real-life union produced three children and countless contributions to African American protest and American movies. Davis and Dee were a power couple. Both were actors in their own right, having built substantial careers in the movies, and both were heavily involved in activism during the Civil Rights Movement. Davis appeared in numerous movies, such as Fourteen Hours (1951), A Man Called Adam (1966), and Slaves (1969). He was a fixture in many Spike Lee films, including School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Malcolm X (1992), Get on the Bus (1996), and 4 Little Girls (1997). He also was cast in movies with nonracial themes, such as Gladiator (1992) and Grumpy Old Men (1993). He directed a handful of films, most notably Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), and appeared in madefor-television movies such as Roots: The Next Generations (1979) and Deacons for Defense (2003). The roles he chose, and the plays and books he published, such as Escape to Freedom: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass (1977), Langston (1982), and We Shall Overcome: The History of the Civil Rights Movement as It Happened (2004), are indicative of Davis’ commitment to black achievement and protest. During the 1960s, he and his wife provided support to the Civil Rights Movement, sometimes behind the scenes and sometimes visibly, as in the 1963 March on Washington. Davis spoke not only at Malcolm X’s funeral, but Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s as well, after he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Davis and his wife also participated in anti-war rallies during the Vietnam War. On February 4, 2005, Davis died of natural causes.

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FURTHER RESOURCES Ali, Noaman. ‘‘Letter to Martin Luther King.’’ Malcolm-x.org (April 2008). See http://www.malcolm-x.org/docs/let_mart.htm. The Eternal Message of Muhammad (April 2008) See http://www.islamic-council.org/ lib/rahman-azzam/Azzam_Main.htm. Jeffrey, Laura S. Betty Shabazz: Sharing the Vision of Malcolm X. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2000. Lewis, John. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. Magida, Arthur J. Prophet of Rage. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 1964. Myers, Walter Dean. Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary. New York: Scholastic, 1993. Perry, Bruce. Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America. Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press, 1991.

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Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993)

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Thurgood Marshall was a civil rights attorney for the NAACP and was the first African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court (1967–1991). He is most widely known for his work on the famous Brown v. Board of Education case, which desegregated public schools in 1954. Thurgood Marshall began his journey to success and fame when he replaced his mentor Charles Hamilton Houston as attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1936. Marshall was only twenty-eight years old, full of zest, humor, and confidence. With his fair complexion, silky black hair, and manicured mustache, Marshall bore a resemblance to two other African Americans who attended the same university and rose to the top of their fields: Cab Calloway, the zoot-suited and bodacious musician who reigned supreme during the 1930s and 1940s; and the thought-provoking Langston Hughes, master poet and writer who made a living both celebrating black life and culture and showing its unglamorous side, as well as delving into the most controversial subject of the early twentieth century: racism. Marshall was a master in his field, as well. He attained celebrity status thanks to a number of high-profile victories in court. He won twenty-nine out of thirty-two cases that he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. There is a picture of him, taken in 1956, that personifies the man who was such an extraordinary champion of black justice and equality. The photo catches Marshall, at six feet tall, weighing over two hundred pounds and broadshouldered, poised in mid-stride as he leaves the federal courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama. He wears a long khaki trench coat and has one hand in his pocket. To his left and right and behind him are a phalanx of black supporters. To his immediate right is plaintiff Autherine Lucy, at that time in the midst of her struggle to maintain her enrollment in the University of Alabama. They look as if they are marching, with the striking figure of Marshall, who is at least a head taller than everyone else, in the lead. Lucy was in her mid-twenties when Marshall won his most famous case, Brown v. Board of Education, in 1954, the ruling that decimated the Jim Crow law that had segregated schools in the South for so long. In 1955, she approached him to help her obtain admittance to graduate school at the University of Alabama. The Supreme Court upheld her right to be admitted in the Lucy v. Adams ruling in the fall of 1955, and Lucy registered at the university shortly thereafter. But on the third day, a white mob formed and surrounded the building of one of her classes. Lucy was trapped inside. It took the intervention of the state police to rescue her from the building. But rather than punish the mob, the university suspended Lucy. Marshall went to court again and won. The university retaliated by expelling Lucy. Marshall sized up the situation—and surrendered. He knew that the university was legally permitted to expel her (or anyone they wanted) and that to pursue the case further would be costly and, quite possibly, unproductive. Obstacles like this one only served to motivate Marshall. He fought tirelessly for blacks, primarily in support of voting rights and against

Thurgood Marshall

segregation. Marshall helped all classes of blacks and took on many cases in the South, where racism and white retaliatory violence and intimidation were most visible and pervasive—not to mention tolerated, if not instigated or supported, by local authorities. Marshall slept little and worked hard, but was always fresh, charismatic, and riveting in the courtroom. Out of the office, Marshall was genial and fun-loving. He liked to tell jokes. He also liked to smoke and to drink martinis. When, in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson made Thurgood Marshall the first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice, it was the pinnacle of his career and a historic milestone in American history. Two years after his retirement from his long and luminous career in 1991, Marshall died. He was eightyfive years old.

CHILDHOOD Thurgood Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908. His parents were William, a waiter, and Norma Marshall, a teacher. He had a brother, William Aubrey, who was three years older than himself. Sometime in his early childhood, Thoroughgood made up his mind to shorten his name to ‘‘Thurgood,’’ because it was too long to write. His parents supported that decision. The year that Marshall was born is the focus of a book written by Jim Rasenberger, entitled America 1908 (2007). Rasenberger explores the glory of the industrial developments and America’s growth, as well as the grim realities of tumultuous race relations. The year 1908 marked forty-five years of freedom for African Americans, forty-five years since President Abraham Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation, declaring slavery illegal. At the end of the Civil War (1861–1865), slavery was officially a thing of the past. But in 1908, blacks were hardly in better shape than they had been during the difficult years following emancipation. Anti-black violence permeated the South. An epidemic of race riots perpetrated by whites against black communities occurred during the early twentieth century, the most notorious occurring in Atlanta, Georgia (1906), Springfield, Illinois (1908), East St. Louis, Illinois (1917), Elaine, Arkansas (1919), and Tulsa, Oklahoma (1921). In the year 1908 alone, it was reported that eighty-nine blacks had been lynched. In 1908, despite the passage of forty years since the end of the Civil War, blacks were without basic civil rights. Although black men were legally allowed to vote, most did not due to unchecked intimidation, discriminatory tests, and, in some places, unaffordable poll taxes. Unwritten Jim Crow laws in the South mandated that in every aspect of life, blacks were to be excluded from mingling with whites. For example, there were separate black schools, parks, churches, restaurants, and other facilities. Blacks were not

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even allowed to use the same water fountain or restroom facilities as whites. Significantly, the facilities reserved for blacks were substandard and not well-maintained. When, in some situations, blacks and whites were allowed in the same space, such as on a public bus, blacks were restricted to seats in the back and expected to give up their seats for whites if no other place was available. At some restaurants, blacks had to go to the back entrance to pick up their orders. Another notorious problem concerned the fact that blacks were discriminated against in the courtroom, where blacks received little justice and were not allowed to serve as jurors. When white persons committed a crime against blacks, they were generally not punished. When black persons committed a crime against whites, they were given harsher and longer sentences. The early twentieth century was arguably one of the lowest periods for blacks in United States history. Poverty, lack of opportunities, as well as social, economic, and political oppression plagued most blacks. The first promise of change would come with the establishment of a formidable civil rights organization, the NAACP, in 1909, and a social service agency, the Urban League, in 1910. The year of Marshall’s birth heralded in a long-overdue era of radical destruction of discriminatory laws. In his youth, however, Marshall was for the most part oblivious to the all-consuming problems that affected blacks. Although he did attend segregated schools, he lived primarily in a sheltered, integrated community in Baltimore, Maryland. Between 1910 and 1914, the Marshalls lived in New York so that William could pursue work with a railroad company, but they returned to Baltimore after Thurgood’s grandmother, who lived there, broke her leg. Marshall’s father, William, was so fair he could pass for white. He even had blue eyes. ‘‘Passing’’ was a phenomena in which some blacks capitalized on the lightness of their features and the straightness of their hair to penetrate white society. But William and his wife, Norma, were proud of being black, and they passed his pride on to their two children. One of the many stories that impressed young Thoroughgood was the legend of a slave relative. According to Marshall, he had one grandparent who had been a slave. All the other grandparents were born free. This one radical slave, like the mischievous trickster figure in slave tales, was always causing trouble for his slave master. As the legend went, his master eventually freed Marshall’s distant relative to be relieved of his antics. Whether this story is true or not, it served to bolster the concept of defiance. Slaves expressed their fondness for this sort of mischief through the telling of the ’ventures of Brer Rabbit, who always outsmarted everyone, including Brer Fox and Ole Master. In these cunning tales, Brer Rabbit symbolized the black slaves, while Ole Master (naturally) represented their slave master. But Marshall’s father did more than subtly instruct his son on the value of defiance; he told him directly to, when necessary, fight back. When

Thurgood Marshall

Marshall was seven years old, a white person called him a nigger. William told his son that the next time that happened again, he could physically strike him. One of Marshall’s fondest memories of growing up was dinner with his family. Although the Marshalls were by no means wealthy, they had enough to get by and to live in modest comfort. The dinner table was always set with good food and stimulating conversation. At the evening meal times, William initiated a tradition in which the boys debated any given issue. William liked to stay on top of current news and made sure his boys did the same. Marshall treasured these moments. He liked to talk, and he enjoyed coming up with arguments and facts to support his arguments. He also was mesmerized by watching the trials at the local courthouse. That was something William did as a diversion: go to the courthouse and observe trials. Marshall was as lively at school as he was at home, which often got him in trouble. He was a known ‘‘troublemaker’’ at school: not following his teacher’s instructions; talking when he should be paying attention to the lesson; teasing and pulling pranks. Marshall got his first job at an early age: he was seven years old when he went to work at a grocery store. Later, he was a delivery boy. He also worked at a hotel, toting luggage for guests. When Marshall entered high school, his work experiences would open his eyes to the realities of racism and segregation.

HIGH SCHOOL Because of his good grades in grade school, Marshall skipped the eighth grade, so he was only thirteen when he started his first year at Colored High and Training School. As the name of the school implies, Colored High was segregated. Everyone knew that the white school was better in every way, but few, if any, protested. This was just one of the facts of life. Marshall was one of the most popular students, though he could still be troublesome. He joined the debate team, where he excelled, thanks to the nightly debates with his father and his brother. The girls also took notice of him. They ‘‘were taken by Thurgood’s lanky walk, the way he swung his long arms and longer legs’’ (Williams, 36). The other popular student at the school was the hip Cab Calloway, who was one grade behind Marshall. Calloway tended to skip classes to make money hustling on the streets. Hustling is a term used to describe the earning of money by illicit or unethical means, such as gambling. ‘‘A hustle’’ could refer to any means of making quick money. For example, Calloway worked a number of jobs, such as selling newspapers, waiting tables, and shining shoes. Calloway would go on to make a name for himself as a jazz singer and as someone who helped popularize the fashionable zoot suits in the 1930s. The zoot suit was the epitome

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of coolness. It consisted of baggy, tight-cuffed, high-waisted trousers and an oversized jacket with overly broad, padded shoulders and wide lapels. The suit was completed with accessories, such as suspenders and a long watch chain. The suits often came in bold, bright colors. When Marshall got in trouble for pranks or other mischief-making, he was given a creative punishment by the school: he was sent to the basement and assigned a section of the U.S. Constitution to memorize. Marshall recalled that that was how he came to know the entire Constitution by heart. One of Marshall jobs during high school was at Mr. Schoen’s hat and dress shop. Mr. Schoen was Jewish, and he treated Marshall kindly. One day as he rode the trolley making a hat delivery, a white man called Marshall a nigger. Remembering his father’s instructions, he immediately began throwing punches at the man. Marshall was arrested, but he was released with the help of Mr. Schoen, who empathized with his situation. He confirmed what his father said ‘‘and told him he had done the right thing’’ (Williams, 16). But he soon realized that physical fighting would not get him very far if he planned to be a lawyer, which is what he decided he wanted to be during high school. He said ‘‘I got the idea of being a lawyer from arguing with my dad.… We’d argue about everything’’ (Williams, 36). Marshall graduated from high school in 1924. His next challenge was to figure out how to pay for a college education and become a lawyer.

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY Marshall was accepted by Lincoln University, an all-black institution in Oxford, Pennsylvania in 1925. Known as the ‘‘Black Princeton,’’ Lincoln was one of the premier schools for blacks in the day. Marshall studied liberal arts. He took a job working on the B&O Railroad before starting at the university to help fund his education. Thanks to this experience, Marshall had to pocket his fists and learn how to accommodate to keep his job. One coworker was fired after he suggested to other black workers that they should form a union. Labor unions were one way workers protected themselves from abusive treatment and low wages. During this period, blacks were not allowed to join the predominately white labor unions, and blacks rarely formed unions themselves due to the high cost of intimidation, violence, or loss of employment. Marshall did not want to risk losing his job. He needed the money to get through college. Marshall’s freshman year was unspectacular. He spent most of his days having fun and enjoying his newfound freedom away from home. He gained a lot of popularity as a member of the debate team. One of his most memorable experiences with the debate team was the trip to Boston, Massachusetts, where the Lincoln University debate team challenged several prestigious teams from Harvard University.

Thurgood Marshall

The next summer, William hired Marshall to wait on tables at the exclusive Gibson Island Club. But only whites were allowed to enjoy the myriad delights of the club, as a signpost attested: ‘‘No Niggers and Dogs Allowed.’’ Marshall was caught off-guard when a white senator who frequented the club referred to him as ‘‘nigger’’ or ‘‘boy’’ and was obnoxious when ordering him to fetch meals and beverages. Yet every day the senator left Marshall a twenty-dollar tip. This was a lot of money in those days. Marshall endured the daily abuse until his father spotted him ‘‘running up to the [senator’s] table, bowing and saying, ‘Yes, sir!’ ’’ (Williams, 44). William fired Marshall on the spot. Another experience marked a pivotal turning-point in how Marshall responded to racism. He and several other friends went into town to catch a silent cowboy movie. The attendant told them that they were not allowed to sit in the main part of the theater; they had to sit in the balcony reserved for blacks. The students demanded their money back and then protested by vandalizing the property. One of Marshall’s friends recalled how after ‘‘the usher refused to give refunds … we had a disturbance … pulled down curtains, broke the front door … they didn’t catch anybody’’ (Williams, 48). In 1926, Langston Hughes arrived on campus. The Marshall of that year reflected greater maturity, growing his trademark mustache and joining the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity (where he did indulge in occasional fraternity pranks). Hughes’ appearance caused a stir on campus. He was already wellknown for his intellectual and literary interest in race relations and black culture and for being well-traveled and well-published. He joined Marshall’s rival fraternity, the Omegas. But he was a resource for Marshall when the latter began to reflect on serious topics concerning race. During this period, Marshall read W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, and Jerome Dowd. All three individuals spent their lifetimes engaged in the study and writing of African American history, racial problems, and social issues. Du Bois was one of the founding members of the NAACP and the famous editor of The Crisis 1910 and 1934. In the spring of 1928, Marshall sustained a serious injury and did not return to the university until fall. As a result of his absence, he had to work double-time to catch up. In that same year he began dating Vivian Burey, who was a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. Marshall called her ‘‘Buster.’’ They married in 1929 at Philadelphia’s First African Baptist Church. After the wedding, Vivian moved to Baltimore to live with his parents while he stayed to finish school. He graduated with honors in 1930, at the start of the Great Depression.

HOWARD UNIVERSITY Marshall knew he wanted to go to law school. His heart was set on the University of Maryland School of Law, but there was no way they would

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admit a black man. But Howard University, located in Washington, D.C., turned out to be a fortuitous choice. His attendance there was greatly attributable to the sacrifices his family made to pay for his education. His mother pawned her wedding ring and her engagement ring to help out. One of his law professors was Charles Hamilton Houston. Although he was a diminutive man, he packed a powerful punch as a professor and an attorney. And he was a model of black ability to transcend incredible odds and break through seemingly impregnable barriers. Houston had graduated from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1915. As a result of encounters with racism during his enlistment in World War I, he decided to make the struggle to end Jim Crow his life’s mission. He enrolled at Harvard Law School and received his doctorate in 1923. By the time Marshall arrived on campus in 1930, Houston was the vice dean of the law school and served as the legal counsel for the NAACP. Houston’s martinet behavior inside the classroom was notorious. Students called him ‘‘Iron Pants’’ or ‘‘Cement Drawers.’’ But the fact was that Houston was preparing his students to be better than the best. They had to be, since they would soon face a world dominated by whites who felt that blacks were inferior to them. Black attorneys were a rarity. Statistics showed that only 1,000 out of the 160,000 attorneys in the country were black. During Marshall’s third and final year (1933) at the law school, ‘‘Houston began to treat the few remaining students, especially the transformed Marshall, as if they were partners in an elite black law firm’’ (Williams, 57). Marshall was one of the students selected by Houston to join him on a case in Virginia concerning a black man accused of murdering two white women. Marshall helped prepare the case and learned a great deal more by simply watching Houston in action. Although the black man was pronounced guilty of his crime, Houston rescued him from the death penalty. The trip to Virginia was Marshall’s first exposure to the South. It moved him deeply to observe the harsh conditions there. Although he had experienced segregated school and racism, he had not known the enormity of the oppression that blacks in the South endured. The omnipresence of Jim Crow was like a smothering pressure over the chest. Overt racism was shocking and disturbing. After graduating in 1933, Marshall took his bar exam and passed it on the first try. He quickly opened his own law practice back home in Baltimore. This was an audacious move, not only because he was a black practicing attorney, but because he had nerve enough to embark on a solo venture during the dismal years of the Great Depression. There would be no let-up from the harsh conditions until the start of the new decade.

Thurgood Marshall

ON HIS OWN Marshall was an idealistic crusader from the get-go. He took on almost any case that came his way. He was moved, body and soul, by the desire to better conditions for blacks. He frequently worked for little or no money at all. During this period, Marshall joined Houston on several trips to the South. Houston, doggedly carrying on his personal and professional mission to smite Jim Crow, was attacking segregated schools. The state of black schools was deplorable: ‘‘The schools usually were wooden structures, no more than shacks. They had no insulation, and it was common to be able to see the sky through the many holes in the roofs. The floors were sometimes dirt and ran thick with mud when rain fell’’ (Williams, 63). Wielding a heavy camera, Houston and his towering compeer tramped through thick woods, along paths trodden by children, and down long and meandering unpaved roads under steamy heat, capturing evidence of the gross inequities of the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) separate-but-equal ruling. Murray v. Maryland (1936) Marshall’s practice began to bear fruit. In 1934, Houston and another black attorney, William Gosnell, assisted Marshall with one of his earliest victories. Marshall’s first major victory all on his own was the case of Murray v. Maryland. The plaintiff was Donald Murray, a black graduate, who had been turned away from the University of Maryland’s law school. The trial began on June 17, 1934 and ended the next day in Marshall’s favor. Marshall was ecstatic: ‘‘The victory made history, and it gave Marshall a rush of pleasure at having defeated the law school that had deemed itself too good for any black, including him’’ (Williams, 78). In 1936, Marshall led the way to assist blacks in Baltimore to get a new high school, as the nearest black high school was ten miles away. Of course, there was no way officials would outright agree to building a new school. Marshall approached the case with the idea of suing the principal, the county superintendent, and the Baltimore County School Board. He thought that if he could get the plaintiff, thirteen-year-old Margaret Williams, into the local white high school, he might, in a roundabout way, force white officials to build a new school in the county rather than permit a black in the all-white school. The trial was pure misery. Marshall was utterly dismayed by the overt racism exhibited by the judge and the board’s lawyers: ‘‘This was the first time Marshall had seen lawyers argue that the essence of southern tradition was to keep blacks on the bottom of the social caste system’’ (Williams, 80). But Marshall kept his cool and remained as pleasant as possible. Nonetheless, Marshall’s argument fell on deaf ears. The case was a failure—except for one thing: the NAACP was impressed with Marshall’s performance.

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In 1936, Marshall learned of an opening at the Howard University Law School. He thought a change of pace might do him good. Besides, his law office was failing. It would help tremendously to receive a steady paycheck. But Marshall was not destined to teach just then. Houston contacted him with another offer. He was no longer working at Howard, but was one of the paid members of a special legal counsel working for the NAACP. He wanted Marshall on his team. Houston offered him the job, and Marshall accepted. Houston envisioned that while he went on the road fundraising, Marshall would oversee the legal cases. This happy note in Marshall’s life belied a crisis in his family. His father was out of work, as his defiance against whites kept getting him into trouble. And losing jobs made William turn to alcohol. Tragically, Marshall’s brother, William Aubrey, who had become a doctor, was dying from tuberculosis. Norma was the only one working. The Marshalls were distraught over the idea of Thurgood leaving his mother all alone. But Norma Marshall insisted that he go on. She and her husband had always pushed him to scale greater heights; she could not let him stop just as he was gathering momentum. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE Assistant Special Counsel Marshall and his wife moved to Harlem, New York in the fall of 1936. Autumn days in New York can be breathtaking, with leaves glistening like gold on quivering branches against a bright blue sky. The air was brisk and invigorating. At night, the city was illuminated with the pulse of electric lights and the steady rhythm of the famous Harlem nightclubs. The Harlem Renaissance was still in full-swing when the Marshalls arrived. Marshall even knew a number of the celebrities: Cab Calloway was a high school chum, and Marshall, Hughes, and Duke Ellington, a jazz genius, had all attended Lincoln University together. Marshall was surrounded by the icons of African American literature and the foot-stomping, skirt twirling music of the stars of the big band era. But Marshall had little time for play. Between 1936 and 1938, he shuttled between his offices in New York and Baltimore. When his brother was transferred to a hospital in New York, where one lung was removed, Marshall visited him every week. Happily, Marshall’s brother gradually recovered. In Maryland, Marshall worked on two cases, targeting equal pay for black teachers. In the first case, Montgomery County agreed to settle out of court to avoid a scandal and began paying black teachers in their district the same pay as whites. In the second case, Marshall went to trial, and the judge ordered Anne Arundel County schools to begin paying black teachers the same as whites.

Thurgood Marshall

These wins were pivotal for Maryland. In the grand scheme of things, Marshall had a long way to go, for he wanted to eradicate Jim Crow in the South, and ‘‘the South,’’ consisting of sixteen states, was a large region to cover. But Marshall’s plan involved calculated patience. He knew that small wins over time added to bigger wins from which there would be no going back. Marshall and his mentor Houston were of the same mind. They made a great team at the national offices of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Both were away working on separate campaigns most of the time, but they stayed in contact. Before Marshall arrived, the NAACP was a dour environment. It was all business and little frivolity. But when Marshall entered a room, the entire office was soon alight with laughter. Walter White, executive secretary, delighted in Marshall’s joviality and his impressive work. Roy Wilkins, the assistant secretary, enjoyed Marshall too. When time permitted, they enjoyed an evening together over cigarettes and a drink. White gave Marshall the responsibility of taking the lead in the NAACP’s anti-lynching campaign. Marshall traveled to Washington, D.C. and gave it his best shot. But the Senate killed the NAACP’s anti-lynching bill. White also sent Marshall to the South. There were nonstop cases to handle in the South. Marshall wrote back often with reports. As always, the South presented overwhelming challenges, and Marshall was not exempt from the physical dangers that threatened locals every day. If anything, he was a prime target because of the work he was doing and because of the threat he posed for whites determined to keep blacks ‘‘in their place.’’ In the court rooms, white attorneys and judges hardly knew how to act with a black man standing before them, speaking as an equal, and defending blacks who had so long been without a crusader for their cause. Blacks beamed with pride. Before long they came to cherish two names above all others: ‘‘Thurgood Marshall’’ and the ‘‘N-double-A-C-P.’’ When he returned to New York, it was business as usual. Although Marshall was not paid as handsomely as his older mentor, he enjoyed his work and was driven by the knowledge that he toiled for a greater purpose. He found that he liked the structure that the New York office brought. The constant ringing of the telephone, the murmur of voices, and the smell of coffee provided a sense of normalcy, and sharing office space with Houston was not all that bad. Marshall reveled in the company. But in 1938, Houston announced that he was leaving. He felt better suited to a less regimented environment. He wanted to run the family law firm. Marshall took the news surprisingly well considering that Houston had been his anchor, his safety net, his lamppost in the murky wilds of the court system. Whenever he got lost, Houston was always there to tell him where next to turn.

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Chief Legal Officer In the fall of 1938, Marshall faced the challenge of becoming the leader of the national legal office of the NAACP. He was excited and understandably nervous, but he maintained his rigorous schedule. If needed, Houston was only a phone call away. One day, Marshall discovered a potential case while scouring a black newspaper. He called Houston immediately. Houston had also read the news and was equally intrigued by the story of the black president of a college in Texas, George Porter, who had faced discrimination when called for jury duty in Dallas. Because of discriminatory laws, the blacks who had been called were told they could leave. But the college president stayed. He demanded to see the judge, who informed him that he would not be able to serve on the current case. Porter refused to leave, going out to lunch and then returning to the jury room, where a white man dragged him out of the room and hurled him down the courthouse stairs. Battered and bruised, Porter climbed back up the stairs, forced his way through white men who attempted to stop him, and ran into the judge’s courtroom. Nevertheless, the judge dismissed him and all the other jurists not chosen for the trial. Marshall and Houston discussed the case for some time, and Marshall wanted to take it on. Word got out that the famed black attorney would soon be on his way to Dallas, Texas. Then Marshall learned, through the rumor mill, that if he went to Texas, his life would be in peril. Conservative white southerners did not particularly care for northerners, especially black ones who caused trouble, as Marshall was apt to do. Marshall was not above feeling fear, and this direct threat unnerved him. Notwithstanding the overwhelming climate of racial hatred in the South, there were whites who exhibited kindness and demonstrated the pure ideals of freedom and justice for all. Marshall made friends easily, and sometimes even white racists could not help but respect the sophisticated and disarming lawyer. James Allred, the governor of Texas, was one such man who demonstrated integrity. He responded quickly to Marshall’s call for assistance. Allred promised to provide him with protection, and he did. Marshall headed for Texas after all. Still there were problems for Marshall. The Texas Ranger who was assigned to guard Marshall had an irritating habit of calling him ‘‘boy.’’ ‘‘Boy’’ was a common term used by whites to refer to any black male no matter what his age. Marshall called Allred and explained his concerns. How was Marshall to know that the Texas Ranger was not in cahoots with the alleged threat on his life? The governor insisted that that ranger was the best he had. After a brief phone call with the Ranger to ‘‘straighten him out,’’ Marshall did not have any further problems (Williams, 103). In fact, the Texas Ranger quite possibly saved Marshall’s life when one afternoon the chief of police ran towards Marshall, wielding a gun. His intentions

Thurgood Marshall

were frighteningly clear. However, ‘‘the ranger … calmly pulled his gun and faced the chief. ‘Fella, just stay right where you are’’’ (Williams, 104). Marshall was disappointed that he was unable to prosecute anyone or change the law prohibiting blacks from participating in jury duty. But he did bring exposure to the incident, and that, he concluded (undoubtedly with a sly smile), was what caused the judge, a few weeks later, to admit one black to the jury for a subsequent trial. Back in New York, things began to look up, beginning with the establishment of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), a taxexempt agency, in 1940. In that same year, Marshall defended three black men accused of killing an elderly white man in the case known as Chambers v. Florida. There was no certainty that these black men were responsible for the death of that white man. In fact, forty total African American men had been arrested over the death. This was a common practice, otherwise known as racial profiling. The phenomenon occurs when white officers target any black man for a crime simply because of his race, with no discriminating or fact-based evidence. In the early twentieth century, innocent blacks were frequently arrested, charged, convicted, and punished. Jailed blacks were often beaten or intimidated to coerce a false statement of guilt. This is what had happened in the Chambers case, and Marshall was eloquently and forcefully able to persuade the Supreme Court justices to find in the defendants’ favor. This was Marshall’s first U.S. Supreme Court case. Walter White, leader of the NAACP, was proud of Marshall’s growing prestige as well as his effectiveness in court. He invited Marshall to private social events at his home. These were exclusive gatherings, with some of the biggest names in New York, white or black, in attendance. These important affairs served a dual purpose: they expanded Marshall’s network of contacts and, as if Marshall were a debutante, served as a coming out for the NAACP’s star attorney. Wartime White worried, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and America’s entry into World War II, that Marshall would be drafted. However, Marshall did not serve in the war, although he did participate in several cases involving black soldiers. Indeed, there were so many black soldiers in need of legal assistance that Marshall hired more lawyers: Milton Konvitz, Edward Dudley, Robert Carter, and others. In 1942, another civil rights organization was created. The group, comprising radical-thinking youths, called themselves the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). CORE was one of the earliest organizations to implement Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent tactics of direct-action demonstrations. The group challenged Jim Crow in various locations, but because there was little media coverage in the early years following its formation, CORE was not

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widely known during the war years. But it did represent one more contingent within the full-scale Civil Rights Movement, which was slowly gathering steam. White carefully orchestrated his organization’s plan of attack against discrimination and racism. As civil rights organizations go, the NAACP was generally deemed the most conservative of all. But it was also the most powerful and sophisticated. White had at his disposal numerous efficiently run chapters located across the nation. Behind-the-scenes skirmishes occurred between combatants dressed in business attire over dinners or in conference rooms, and victories were won through strategic networking and by forging relationships with people in political office and other decisionmaking positions. And thanks to Marshall’s LDF and his new lawyers, the NAACP could tackle more legal issues than ever before. White made sure that Marshall’s work remained wide ranging. He was not only to manage legal cases, but to help address racism that manifested itself in every day situations. Through the first half of the new decade, he kept Marshall involved in campaigns to address the copious amounts of racist labels used in marketing goods. Racism was seemingly everywhere. In the early twentieth century, racist epitaphs were used openly and daily, but old customs were about to change—whether speedily or otherwise— with the vigilant Marshall and the NAACP on duty. For example, a shrimp company sold a brand of shrimp called ‘‘Nigger Head Shrimp.’’ One campaign that Marshall spearheaded was a protest over the brand name of Whitman’s candy called ‘‘Pickaninny Peppermints.’’ The company claimed that the term ‘‘pickaninny’’ was a term of endearment for a black child. Marshall wrote them back, stating that, according to blacks, the term was derogatory and insulting, just as any racist label would be for any racial group. Marshall contacted Afro-American, a prominent paper in New York, to have them run an article on the front page about it. The title of that piece was: IF YOU WANT TO BE CALLED A NAME, BUY WHITMAN’S. Whitman’s scrapped the name altogether. In 1941, Marshall attacked segregation in Texas politics head on, scoring a significant win. Southerners made no secret of the fact that they meant to keep blacks and whites living separate lives in separate worlds, period. Enforced by written and unwritten Jim Crow laws, the political structure of the South kept whites in power and blacks underfoot. Intimidation, poll taxes, and other methods kept blacks from registering to vote, and thus, from the opportunity to put in lawmakers who might change their situation. Whites knew this: for blacks to register to vote and then exercise the right to vote undermined their control. Southern states like Texas even implemented laws to prohibit blacks from voting in primaries. The problem with these laws was that they were in direct violation of the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave all citizens, regardless of race, the right to be involved in the voting process. This was what Marshall argued.

Thurgood Marshall

It was not until 1944 that Marshall and Bill Hastie, the new dean of the Howard University School of Law, presented their case to end the practice of all-white Texas primaries before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of plaintiff Lonni Smith, a black doctor who lived in Houston, Texas. Marshall and Hastie’s big win was published in newspapers—black and white— throughout the nation and commented upon in editorials. One of the earliest lessons Marshall had learned during his tenure as an attorney was that patience and the ability to assess a situation were essential skills in the struggle for civil rights. Victories did not come overnight. And the most far-reaching (and therefore important) wins occurred before the U.S. Supreme Court, which was the highest court of law, because these rulings generally affected all the lower courts. In 1944, the illustrious W.E.B. Du Bois returned as editor of the NAACP’s Crisis. He was the antithesis of Marshall. Marshall, at only thirty-six, was outgoing and jovial. At seventy-six, Du Bois appeared dour and introverted. He kept mostly to himself, with his face buried in the stacks of paper he scrutinized before sending them off to press. His surliness undoubtedly had a lot to do with his unhappiness at the office. He and Walter White lived in a constant state of contention. Du Bois felt stifled by White’s heavy-handed management of the organization. White was distressed because Du Bois would not conform to the ideological stance of the organization. This feud had been sparked when Du Bois first left the organization in 1934 and remained unresolved. Du Bois would leave again four years later. In the same year that Du Bois returned to the NAACP, Marshall worked on two high-profile cases, one involving black sailors in California and the other a criminal case in Oklahoma. Fifty black sailors were charged with mutiny for refusing orders from their white officers. Marshall learned the reason that the sailors had so behaved was related to an explosion that killed some 300 men (mostly black) at Port Chicago shortly before. The explosion was the result of the white officers who ‘‘placed bets on which group of black sailors was fastest at loading ammunition … even instructing them to throw boxes of ammunition so they could win the bet’’ (Williams, 129). This ‘‘race’’ had resulted in the horrific explosion. Despite Marshall’s presence, the sailors were found guilty in the California courts. The following year, Marshall argued the case in Washington, D.C., before the Navy’s judge advocate general (JAG), and won. The case in Hugo, Oklahoma resulted in a bitter and tragic loss. Lyons v. Oklahoma involved a black man named W.D. Lyons who was accused of killing a white family and setting the house on fire with the bodies still inside. The tragedy of this case was that two white men had originally confessed to the crime and a number of whites, including the father of the murdered woman, believed Lyons did not commit the crime. But Oklahoma Governor Leon Chase Phillips initiated a cover-up because, it was believed,

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the two white men were prison inmates who had committed the crime during one of their frequent visits to town. These visits were permitted by the prison, even though they were unlawful. Lyons, it was said, had been apprehended because officers found out he had been hunting rabbits near the vicinity of the murdered family. What occurred in the wake of Lyons’ arrest was abominable. The officers tortured him, starved him, and harassed him over the next few days. Still, he refused to break and confess to a crime he denied committing. Finally, one of the officers threw the bones of the victims into Lyons’ lap. Lyon was ‘‘superstitious about human bones’’ (Williams, 114). When they led him to an electric chair to intimidate him, he signed a confession. The statement also absolved the officers of any wrong doing, as it asserted that he had not been coerced. Marshall was unable to convince the judges of Lyons’ innocence. But he had strong suspicions of a ‘‘political cover-up’’ (Williams, 118). This was Marshall’s first Supreme Court loss. Lyons received a life sentence. Marshall’s upbeat personality helped him maintain his fighting spirit through that and other difficult setbacks. And there were difficulties in his private life as well as the public. Marshall wanted children badly, especially a boy. But Buster continued to miscarry. The couple tried to maintain optimism, but there was an absence in their lives. The second half of the decade brought with it an array of new obstacles, threats, and victories for LDF. In the fall of 1945, Marshall hired the first woman attorney on the team: Constance Baker Motley. Motley was forever grateful, because in that day and age few women were admitted into law firms or given opportunities to take on cases. But Marshall kept her busy. Following the end of the war, there was a high number of court-martial cases to attend to. Despite the expansion of the team of lawyers working for the LDF, office life remained much as it had been when Marshall had toiled single-handedly during the early years of his employment with the NAACP. There was never a dull moment. Despite the fact that blacks had made great contributions toward the allied victory in World War II, their status remained very low. One of Marshall’s most notable cases in the post-war period was Morgan v. Virginia (1946). The situation that sparked the case occurred in 1944 in one of the earliest (though not widely known) acts of defiance by a black who refused to give up her seat on a public bus. Irene Morgan, who was just twenty-seven years old at the time, was ill the day she mounted a Greyhound to go to see the doctor. When Morgan refused to give up her seat to a white person, she was arrested. Her trial went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices ruled that segregation was unlawful on interstate buses. This trial was especially important because it served as the inspiration for the Journey of Reconciliation demonstration, a predecessor to the Freedom

Thurgood Marshall

Constance Baker Motley In 1946, Constance Baker Motley was the first African American woman to be hired by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Legal Defense and Education Fund. She began as a law clerk and worked her way up to become the NAACP’s lead trial attorney. Constance Baker was born on September 14, 1921, in New Haven, Connecticut, to parents who had immigrated from Nevis, in the Caribbean. She was the ninth of twelve children. Both parents were domestics and poor, but her mother was wont to challenge the system of racism and discrimination within their northern community. In fact, she founded a local chapter of the NAACP. Discrimination in the North was not as prevalent as it was in the South in those years. In New Haven, for example, Baker attended integrated schools. But she still periodically experienced racism, such as when she was barred from going to the beach or entering the local roller rink. These experiences, as well as her parents’ poverty and the lecture she attended by George Crawford, an NAACP attorney, inspired her to pursue activism. Her resolve and poise moved Clarence Blakeslee, a white philanthropist, to finance her aspiration to go to college. Baker attended Fisk University in Tennessee, going on to receive her bachelor’s degree in economics from New York University in 1943. She then became the second African American woman to graduate from Columbia University Law School. In 1946, she married Joel Motley and was hired on by Thurgood Marshall to work for the NAACP-LDF, where she became the first African American woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. She won nine out of her ten Supreme Court cases. In later years, Motley continued to be ‘‘the first’’ to achieve other high positions. In 1964, she was elected to the New York State Senate, and in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson appointed her to be a federal court judge. Motley died on September 28, 2005, at the age of 84.

Rides of the 1960s. In 1947, sixteen young activists, black and white, set out to test that states were abiding by the Supreme Court’s ruling. Despite the fact that these activists conducted several rides and faced multiple arrests and violence, their demonstration received little media attention and is much less well known than the Freedom Rides. When, in November 1946, Marshall ran into serious trouble in Tennessee, even he, the famous and intrepid attorney, was visibly shaken. The problem arose while he was driving a car with two lawyers and a newspaper reporter as passengers. A white police officer stopped them and had Marshall get into his police car. The allegation was drunk driving, although it was

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evident that that was just an excuse. The tension was palpable. Marshall, because of his work, was a well-known ‘‘troublemaker,’’ and his life had been threatened before while working in the South. Marshall’s associates refused to leave him, sensing that he was in imminent danger. The police car drove toward a group of sinister-looking white men but then turned around, undoubtedly aware that they were being followed. The police took him instead to the local courthouse, where an elderly judge, with a keen sense of smell, possibly saved Marshall’s life by releasing him, because he could tell that Marshall ‘‘hadn’t had a drink in twenty-four hours’’ (Williams, 141). That was a close call. In that same year, Marshall was awarded the NAACP’s top award: the Spingarn Medal. This award, created in 1914, was named after Joel Spingarn, one of the NAACP’s founding members, its second president, and chairman of the board of the NAACP. It is given annually to recognize extraordinary achievement. The 1950s were a time of more change, joy, and intense sorrow. At the turn of the decade, Marshall grieved the loss of his friend and mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston. Shortly thereafter, Marshall embarked on the most well-known and celebrated case of his career. The plaintiff was Linda Brown, a third grader who had to walk twenty blocks to catch the bus to go to the segregated school she attended in Topeka, Kansas. This was the opportunity everyone in the NAACP had been waiting for, Marshall most of all. When Marshall took the case before the U.S. Supreme Court Case in 1952, he faced the ominous task of disproving the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Supreme Court ruling that sanctioned segregation based on the doctrine ‘‘separate but equal.’’ That ruling stated that it was lawful for states to uphold Jim Crow—as long as black facilities were equal to whites. But this was not the case. Most black facilities (e.g., school buildings) were shockingly substandard. In many places in the South, black teachers taught in one-room schools, while white students enjoyed brand-new and expansive modern facilities. Textbooks used in black schools were outdated and tattered, and there were never enough to go around the overcrowded classrooms. The research that was conducted to bolster Marshall’s argument was unparalleled; it addressed the psychological damage that racial separation caused. Critical to this issue was the pioneering work of Gunnar Myrdal in An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), as well as the doll experiments conducted by black psychologist Kenneth B. Clark and his wife Mamie Phipps Clark. In these experiments, young black children were asked questions regarding their preference of a black or a white doll. The children overwhelming picked the white doll over the black doll. Moreover, they attributed positive traits to the white doll and negative traits to the black doll. Marshall’s expert witness during the trial was crucial to his victory.

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Black Dolls A black doll would appear to be an innocuous creation. After all, dolls are just toys. And yet, there was a time when all dolls in America were white, thus illustrating the magnitude of how blacks were considered of no value in society. According to research on the history of black dolls by Dr. Sabrina Thomas, who is working on the forthcoming book, Black Dolls as Racial Uplift 1900– 1970, W.E.B. Du Bois was among the first to protest against the blaring exclusion of black dolls. Du Bois argued that black dolls were important to the development of identity and esteem. When, in the early nineteenth century, The National Negro Doll Company began to manufacture black dolls, Du Bois published their advertisements in The Crisis, the organ of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. When black mothers insisted that their black children have black dolls, this was a quiet form of resistance to white superiority and to the devastating and debilitating effects of oppression on self-esteem. Black dolls were among the earliest examples of black pride and Afrocentricism. In the 1940s, black psychologist Mamie Phipps Clark conducted experiments using dolls to study black children’s perception of race. In the 1950s, she and her husband Kenneth B. Clark testified as expert witnesses in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case. Their findings, that black children overwhelmingly preferred white dolls over black dolls, helped to prove that segregated schools were harmful and thus contributed to one of the most important Supreme Court rulings in history. Others studies on dolls have since been conducted. Dr. Thomas, who teaches at North Carolina Central University, has learned that older black children choose black dolls over white dolls. In a 2007 film, A Girl Like Me, produced by Kiri Davis, a New York City high school student, results were the same as Clark’s more than a half century earlier. Other tests suggest that blacks in predominately white schools choose white dolls, whereas in mostly black schools, black dolls are preferred. A significant part of these studies are the questions that are posed to the black children: which doll is ‘‘good,’’ and which doll is ‘‘bad,’’ etc. Painfully, the many instances where the black doll is chosen as the ‘‘worst’’ illustrate the lingering effects of internalized racism.

Finally, in 1954, the ruling came down, and Marshall’s victory was announced in newspapers throughout the nation. More than one future civil rights leader, such as John Lewis, who was an adolescent when he read the news from his home in Troy, Alabama, found that ruling to be the opening of a door into a life of activism.

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It is true that this was one of the greatest Supreme Court rulings in civil rights history, but it is also true that it was not easily transferred to actual practice. Both whites and, to a lesser degree blacks, were resistant. There were threats, intimidation, and years of struggle for the first blacks who broke the color line in schools across the nation. One well-known cases involved the Little Rock Nine, who, in 1957, were thwarted from their first attempt to integrate the Little Rock Central High School by Governor Orval Faubus, who deployed the national guard to block the entrance of the school. Activists intervened and sought federal assistance to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education ruling and to afford protection to the black students. The students received an armed escort to and from school, but were vulnerable to taunting and heckling throughout the school year. Some black parents, not wanting to put their children through the duress associated with those volatile years, preferred to keep them enrolled in black schools. Some blacks preferred black schools because they believed that the education their children would receive in the predominately white schools would not address black history and achievement. The process of integrating schools was slow and, frequently, very painful. Beginning in 1971, the federal government enforced mandatory busing to integrate predominately white schools. Despite the knowledge that there was a hard row to hoe ahead, Marshall was euphoric—until he and his wife were faced with jolting news. The doctor told Vivian that she had only weeks to live. Marshall was distraught. He stayed home to care for his dear Buster. Only once before had he taken an extended leave from his duties, when he was sick with pneumonia and hospitalized. Vivian died on February 11, 1955. On March 21, 1955, the NAACP office was hit with another tragedy. White died suddenly from heart failure. Wilkins took over the duties of executive secretary. That December, Marshall married a woman named Cecilia Suyat, whom he knew from the office, as she was a secretary at the New York headquarters of the NAACP. The marriage created some controversy, not only because it occurred so quickly after his first wife’s death, but because Cecilia had been born in Hawaii and was of Filipino descent. But Marshall’s friends and associates defended him. They felt that he had waited long enough and that because of his temperament, he could not bear to be alone. And he still wanted children. As far as the interracial nature of the marriage was concerned, the NAACP had had to face that issue before. White had caused a major scandal when he divorced his wife Gladys and married a white woman. But his marriage to Gladys in itself must have been somewhat unconventional, since White was a black man whose blue eyes, fair complexion, and straight hair showed his mixed racial heritage.

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Montgomery Bus Boycott December 1955 was a momentous month for other reasons, as well. On the first of that month, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was launched in Alabama. The leader of that demonstration was no other than a young newcomer to civil rights leadership, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King was only twenty-six and had just received his Ph.D. from the Boston University School of Theology. He had been minister of the congregation at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery for just a year and a half. The Bus Boycott was his first major demonstration, but it would catapult him into the vortex of the Civil Rights Movement. The boycott was written up in nearly every major newspaper. It was big news. But Marshall watched warily as developments unfolded. Marshall was no supporter of direct action; he had made that known publicly during lectures whenever the topic was addressed by someone in his audience. The main reason was simple: demonstrations provoked violence. Marshall believed that the NAACP’s approach was dangerous enough without the added complexity of direct action. But the new trend of direct action was gaining momentum through the massive appeal of Mahatma Gandhi. King would take Gandhi’s techniques and popularize them even more, especially with black churchgoers. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was formed in 1957 with King as its president, it became the second major civil rights organization to advocate direct action, alongside CORE. Marshall was not the only one keeping a close watch on these new civil rights organizations. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was also extremely attentive. Both Marshall and Hoover were opposed to communism, but that was about all they had in common, though Marshall shared some of Hoover’s misgivings about the demonstrations that occurred—for a while, anyway. As the nascent Civil Right Movement began to take shape and gather steam, there were developments on the Marshall home front. Marshall’s first son, Thurgood, was born in August 1956, and his second son, John, was born in July 1958. Marshall went to Kenya in 1959 to visit with its first African leader, Tom Mboya. Kenya gaining independence from Great Britain was in keeping with Marshall’s battle for the full of expression of freedom for blacks in America. While in Kenya, Marshall worked with Mboya to establish the country’s first constitution. Before coming back to America, Marshall toured London. The Unleashing of the Civil Rights Movement It can be said that the Civil Rights Movement first gained momentum in the 1940s with CORE, or even before that with the pioneering work of A. Philip Randolph in the 1930s, or as long ago as the inception of the NAACP in

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1910. But there is no arguing that, by the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was in full force. In 1960, college-aged activists launched the sit-in movement. In 1961, the Freedom Riders initiated the first of several bus rides into the South to test Jim Crow in interstate travel. The SCLC (lead by King) carried out many campaigns throughout the decade, as did CORE and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC was the latest civil rights organization on the block, having been founded in 1960. Marshall remained guarded about these developments. It was a challenging period for the NAACP, which, since its inception, had relied on litigation, lobbying, and the quieter, less radical forms of protest to achieve its goals. And because the organization had been around a lot longer than almost all the others, the effectiveness of its methods had been tried and found true. Nevertheless, when, in 1963, Stephen Currier, a rich white philanthropist, asked the heads of the major civil rights organizations to collaborate on fundraising projects and in intra-organizational dialogue, Wilkins agreed. The working relationships among the organizations and their leaders were made difficult by their diverse ideologies and personalities. Wilkins, representing the NAACP, and Whitney Young, the leader of the National Urban League, were by far the most conservative (and it is not coincidental that these two organizations were the oldest). Nevertheless, significant progress was made. One of the most celebrated and well-known collaborative efforts was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place in 1963. Eventually, Marshall’s thinking would come around, and he would embrace the new movement. A series of discussions with young activists finally convinced Marshall that their cause was worth championing. But it was a stretch for Marshall, who could not at first grasp the notion of handling the cases of individuals who willingly disobeyed laws, even when the motivation of protest was scrupulous. In 1961, Marshall handled the Supreme Court case known as Garner v. Louisiana on behalf of a group of young activists from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who were arrested and jailed for staging a sit-in in a local restaurant. On December 11, 1961, the Supreme Court overturned the students’ conviction.

TO JUSTICE AND BEYOND The 1960s was a decade of enormous transition and change. Blacks and whites joined forces in unprecedented numbers—defying the social constructs and laws that had tried for so long to keep them in separate worlds—to press for a new America with racial equality and civil rights for all races by means of sit-ins, marches, voter registration drives, and other activities. Some results were immediate. For example, when the Nashville Student Movement launched a comprehensive sit-in campaign, attacking Jim Crow restaurants, lunch counters in stores, movie theaters, and other

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locations in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, they brought forth direct results. In less than six months, the Nashville activists obtained a major victory when all lunch counters were desegregated. Change was rampant in the political realm as well when, in 1960, America elected the youngest-ever and first Catholic president. His name was John F. Kennedy, a Harvard graduate, who advanced civil rights during his campaign. African Americans were enthusiastic about him from the first, but not everyone was thrilled with his performance. Marshall criticized Kennedy for his hesitancy in backing up his campaign rhetoric with tangible action. He felt that what progress had been gained was a result of the long, dogged work of the NAACP. In 1961, Kennedy made a significant gesture by nominating Marshall to be a federal appeals court judge. The nomination was just a start, and Marshall had to endure an intensive questioning process by the Senate subcommittee. But in 1962 he was voted in. In November of the following year, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, and his vice president, a Texan named Lyndon B. Johnson, took his place. Johnson’s persona paled in comparison to the fresh-faced Kennedy, but his accomplishments surpassed all expectation. It is argued that if Kennedy had not died, he would have finished what he had carefully started, for before his death he had taken steps toward a major civil rights bill. Perhaps, by his tragic death, Kennedy made what Johnson did possible. During Johnson’s presidency, he not only signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he also put forth the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He also started several programs to alleviate poverty and to promote equal opportunity in the workforce. Marshall’s career soared during Johnson’s tenure. In 1965, he became the solicitor general, and in 1967 he became the first African American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was fifty-nine years old—mature, sagacious, and the happy father of two boys aged nine and eleven. Marshall was an active father. Whether playing football in the backyard or running the train set in the living room, the boys were a priority and a source of pure joy. But outside the home, the world again shape-shifted in something altogether new and unexpected. The Black Power Movement exasperated Marshall. The new radicalism of the Civil Rights Movement was nothing compared to the militancy and raging violence that erupted in the ghettos. Marshall denounced the call for black separatism and self-defense. In time, black power waned. But in the 1980s, Marshall had to contend with a new challenge: Ronald Reagan. A former star of a bygone Hollywood era, Reagan was elected president in 1980 and served two terms. During those years, Marshall was aghast at the numerous setbacks in substantial civil rights gains and poverty programs that Reagan oversaw. Programs to address poor blacks suffered, and the effects were felt everywhere, largely because funding was drastically cut. Marshall was also acutely aware of the effect of Reagan’s conservatism as

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Gavel A gavel is a mallet used by a judge presiding over a trial to signal the start and end of a court session or to put a motion into effect. The gavel in the court of law is a symbol of ultimate authority. Historically, blacks were denied access to this symbol of power. Indeed, inside the courtroom, justice eluded blacks in both the North and the South. As slaves, blacks were considered the property of white landowners and as such were denied freedoms, opportunities, and basic civil rights. Slaves could not sue or seek protection in the courtroom. In the North, free blacks faired better, with the help of liberal-minded whites. In general, when blacks were on trial for committing a crime, or a white was on trial for a crime against a black person, blacks, more often then not, did not receive justice. In addition, Blacks convicted of crimes received harsher punishments. After the end of the Civil War (1861–1865) and the freeing of the black slaves, conservative whites instituted black codes that provided more freedoms and opportunities, but in a limited form. For example, blacks were allowed to marry, own property, and to sue in court. But they could not marry outside their race, carry weapons, or testify in court against a white person or serve on a jury. In effect, whites continued to maintain control. In 1866, the federal government intervened, establishing, for example, the Fourteenth Amendment to safeguard blacks’ rights and freedoms. But these efforts did little to change the situation. Blacks faired better when cases were brought to the Supreme Court, where rulings were passed with greater impartiality than in local and state courtrooms. A number of black leaders emerged to protest social injustices against blacks; some became activists and others attorneys. This helped to balance the scale of justice. However, it was not until blacks became judges in local and state courts, and finally in the U.S. Supreme Court itself, that the implications became colossal. Blacks who held the gavel could influence law, oversee justice, and rightfully share in the power that had once belonged solely to whites. This in itself was a symbol that white America’s attitudes were improving.

he became surrounded by more and more conservative justices. Marshall became increasingly outnumbered and limited in his ability to make rulings that would benefit the lives of women, African Americans, and the poor. It was health that eventually forced Marshall to bow out of his responsibilities as a justice of the Supreme Court. Indeed, Marshall struggled with health problems throughout much of his term on the Supreme Court. He retired in 1991, and, on January 24, 1993, he died. Marshall was eighty-four years old. See also W.E.B. Du Bois; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis; A. Philip Randolph; Roy Wilkins; and Whitney Young.

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FURTHER RESOURCES Gatewood, Willard. Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000. Goldman, Roger. Thurgood Marshall: Justice for All. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1992. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (April 2008). See http:// www.naacpldf.org. Rasenberger, Jim. America in 1908: The Dawn of Flight, the Race to the Pole, the Invention of the Model T and the Making of a Modern Nation. New York: Scribner, 2007. Supreme Court of the United States (April 2008). See http://www.supremecourtus.gov. Williams, Juan. Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary. New York: Times Books, 1998.

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Huey P. Newton (1942–1989)

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Huey P. Newton was the co-founder of and minister of defense for the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. To the bystanders in the red-light district of Oakland, California, in the winter of 1967, the group of black men patrolling the streets was like nothing they had seen before. They were uniformly garbed in black berets, leather jackets, powder-blue shirts, and black pants; moreover, they were armed with guns they made no effort to conceal. One African American man asked incredulously, ‘‘What kind of Negroes are these?’’ African Americans did not go about town flaunting weapons—especially not in front of the Oakland police, notorious for being made up of nefarious whites recently transplanted from the South. Like other urban communities, Oakland had a problem with police brutality and harassment. While on that first patrol, Huey P. Newton and the other Black Panthers observed a cop ticketing an African American, who had assumed an all-toofamiliar position—bent over the back of his car, waiting to be frisked or arrested. Newton and Bobby Seale, the founders of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, stepped forward from the ranks to introduce themselves and the organization to the baffled crowd. The locals expressed their approval, calling out like congregants at a church service. When the officer challenged Newton and Seale, Newton responded with legal expertise, declaring their right as citizens to observe and bear arms. A group of black youths arrived on the scene, breathless and gaping. Unlike the comic book crusaders or the fabled cowboys of the movies, these heroes were tangible, relevant—and cool. ‘‘Anti-hero’’ best describes the five-foot ten-inch man with the chiseled good-looks who was the leader of one of the strongest black-power organizations of the time. But Newton was a complex figure—charming, daring, sensitive, as well as ruthless, reckless, and volatile. Newton reflected his environment: both the good and the bad. His friends and intimates, who both admired and feared him, suspected that he may have even had a manic-depressive disorder, complicated in later years by his alcohol and drug use. Though he exhibited strong mental facilities and developed his organization’s ideology, played classical piano, and had a Ph.D., he also had learning disabilities and a low I.Q. In fact, he could barely sign his name if someone was watching him. Although he was brought up within the embrace of his father’s Baptist religion, Newton was no saint. He had an affinity for street life. After graduating from high school, Newton did a stint as a con artist and thief, and he would stay in trouble with the law throughout his life. And yet Newton achieved many good works for blacks in cities throughout the nation, protecting them from the tyranny of abusive and racist cops, providing free food and other services, and publicizing the hardships they faced. Despite Newton’s limitations and failings, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was, for some time, an extremely powerful and empowering resource for the African American community. It was not, particularly in

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the beginning, as the media portrayed it: a renegade gang out to terrorize, intimidate, and brutalize whites and engage in criminal activities. The organization was not based on an ideology of racism or thuggery. It originated out of the palpable need to help the black community. But impediments complicated the effectiveness of Newton and his organization. In 1956, J. Edgar Hoover had launched an FBI Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to investigate organizations of which it disapproved. This included civil rights groups as well as black power organizations like the Black Panthers. COINTELPRO was designed to probe and, if possible, to disrupt the workings of these organizations through infiltration, sabotage, arrests, and instigation. The US Organization (another militant group) and the Oakland underworld presented other dangerous challenges to the Panthers. Newton also created problems for himself. The Black Panthers engaged in a scandalous dalliance with local criminals and engaged in criminal activities to fund some of their projects, to provide income for the armed Panthers, and to purchase weapons. Working with the local criminals marred the organization’s image and provided ammunition to its critics. When Newton descended into drugs, he became his own worst enemy. The drugs made him unstable and dangerous. In the end, his addiction would cause his death. In 1989, at the age of forty-seven, Newton was shot and killed by a drug dealer.

CHILDHOOD Growing up in Oakland, California, Huey P. Newton had a reputation as a tough kid who was known to wield an ice pick if accosted by anyone from school or his neighborhood. Huey was not the first member of his family to stand up for himself. Walter Newton, his father, also had a lot of nerve—but in a different way. The elder Newton was predisposed to radicalism and gravitated toward those who challenged the status quo. He idolized the governor of Louisiana, Huey Pierce Long, who talked brazenly about racial injustice and carried out programs to assist African Americans such as creating jobs and providing books for schools. That his hero was assassinated came as no shock to Walter Newton, because assertiveness was frequently punished in the South. When the youngest of their seven children was born on February 17, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana, Walter and his wife, Armelia, proudly bestowed their hero’s name upon him. Walter Newton received the label ‘‘crazy’’ following an altercation with a white co-worker. When the man told Walter that he usually whipped an African American man for talking back to him, Walter warned him that he had better be a good fighter if he planned to try to beat him. Huey proudly

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recalled that his father lived up to the label, ‘‘for his refusal to let a white man call him ‘nigger’ or to play the Uncle Tom or allow whites to bother his family. ‘Crazy’ to them, he was a hero to us’’ (Revolutionary Suicide, 30–31). And when he, in turn, was called ‘‘crazy,’’ it made him feel proud. In 1945, the Newtons moved to Oakland, California, where Walter Newton hoped to find a good job thanks to the surplus of work created by the war. Walter was a hard worker who often held several jobs at once to enable his wife to stay at home with the children. Despite the numerous paychecks he brought home, he made little money. The family was very poor, like others in their diverse neighborhood. Oakland was a rough environment. Huey quickly learned about racism, poverty, and the rules of survival. He also learned the importance of family, church, street life, and resistance. When Newton was very young, he had a soft and angelic face. He was also smaller than most children his age, and his appearance posed a problem. Even in kindergarten, the other children bullied and picked on Newton. He tried to get out of going to school by pretending to be sick, or tried to prolong the inevitable departure for school by feigning to have lost some item. Newton’s mother eventually caught on, and assigned Walter Jr. the task of taking Huey to school. But Walter Jr. did more than that: he taught little Huey how to fight. Newton explains in his autobiography that fighting was an essential skill in the disadvantaged community where he lived. Everyone had to know how to physically defend themselves. Moreover, through martial prowess, kids compensated for feelings of powerlessness. Newton was a quick study, thanks in large part to his brothers, Walter Jr. and Lee Edward. Both worked with Newton to help him perfect his brawling technique. Lee Edward told him ‘‘always to look an adversary straight in the eyes, and to keep moving forward. Even if you were hurled back three or four times … eventually you would prevail’’ (Revolutionary Suicide, 24). Newton idolized Walter Jr., Lee Edward, as well as the popular boxers of the day: Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis, brute, powerful fighters everyone held in awe. Huey was undoubtedly emulating these heroes as he beat up other boys in spontaneous tussles or organized boxing matches in the street or at the local Boys Club. By fighting, Newton earned respect and his own formidable reputation. Newton also found ways to resist the racism he experienced in the public school system. To Huey and his black classmates, school was a form of oppression, a place where teachers sometimes called them ‘‘niggers’’ and were socialized to believe that whites were smart and blacks were unintelligent. In fact, it was perceived that all things good were associated with whiteness, and that all things bad were affiliated with blackness. In this environment, all the dreams that Huey and his friends nurtured, all the hopes for the future they had, were doused by feelings of ineptitude and hopelessness. If Newton’s learning disability was inborn, it was also exacerbated by the conditions in which he was educated, where racist belief systems

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predominated. Huey suffered academically. Once, a teacher told him to go to the blackboard and spell ‘‘business.’’ Huey sensed the mockery in her voice and was aware that the purpose of this exercise was to embarrass him. He was humiliated, and so he froze, just as he did when someone hovered over him as he struggled to write his name. What Huey and other black students learned to do in the face of these demoralizing classroom situations was to fight back through disruptive behavior. This only served to magnify their problems and get them labeled ‘‘trouble kids.’’ Huey and his classmates found another way to weather their childhood troubles: they formed a gang. Huey and his friend David Hilliard belonged to a gang called ‘‘Brotherhood’’ when they attended the mostly white Wilson Junior High School. In the Brotherhood, everyone was called ‘‘brother’’ or ‘‘cousin.’’ The members played together and sought solace through one another. They gambled with dice, and played taunting games known as ‘‘capping’’ and ‘‘the dozens.’’ Huey admitted that he was not good at coming up with brilliant insults, so he relied heavily on his brawn to save face.

The Dozens To an outsider, ‘‘the dozens’’ is nothing more than harsh teasing employed by schoolchildren on the playground. As cruel and vulgar as some of the teasing can be, it belies another phenomenon that has its origins in Africa. The name itself is believed to derive from a term used to describe undesirable slaves in America who were sold cheaply on the auction block and were grouped together and referred to as a ‘‘cheap dozen.’’ Seen in another way, ‘‘the dozens’’ is a game of word skill. Children exchange cutting and sometimes explicit jokes and insulting rhymes to put down one another. The winner of this teasing game is deemed to be the one who can come up with the cleverest statement, in the most elaborate and skillful way. Reward is bestowed by exclamations of applause, shouts, whoops, and laughter. This is one way in which black youths obtained status and esteem, although to the detriment of the one upon which he or she has heaped verbal attacks. The dozens bears a similarity to games played by traditional African communities, which valued the creative use of language and its facile execution. In African culture, those who can speak well and best dramatize a story or an event are lauded and hold esteemed status in the community. Among the Igbos in Nigeria, small children and adolescents are known to play a game that is similar to the African American version of the dozens. This is explored thoroughly in ‘‘The Dozens: An African-Heritage Theory’’ in the 1976 publication of the Journal of Black Studies.

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Besides his gang, Newton’s family and church played a central role in surviving poverty, hopelessness, and racism. Huey’s family was extremely close. Growing up, his siblings were his playmates. They always looked after one another. Their parents provided love, dignity, and, despite the poverty, a happy home. Huey recalled that his mother was gentle and had a sunny disposition. Newton’s brothers and his father were major influences in his life. Unlike many blacks, Newton’s father did not back down from whites. Huey’s brother, Lee Edward, was a shrewd navigator of Oakland’s street life. Newton hung out with his big brother on street corners, and at pool halls, bars, and parties. From his other brother, Melvin, a serious student, Newton acquired a love of learning. Melvin eventually went to college, and he later taught sociology at Merritt College. Melvin tried to teach Huey how to read, but Newton did not really learn how to read until after graduation from high school, when, motivated by the desire to go to college, he taught himself. Melvin also introduced his brother to poetry and instilled in Newton an insatiable craving for books that would challenge his thinking and expand his critical-thinking skills. Huey had a sharp mind and an extraordinary memory. He could recite long passages of poems—and did so often to impress young women. As a young child, Huey recognized the importance of the church and was greatly affected by his father’s magnetism and influence over the men and women who listened to his Sunday morning sermons. Newton thought briefly of becoming a preacher himself. As a boy he was very active in the church, participating in the Baptist Young People’s Union, the Young Deacons, and the junior choir. For a while, he was swept up by strong spiritual emotions, for the songs, the heartfelt prayers, and the warmth of the church family made Huey feel at peace with the world. At least until the next day when he had to face school and the city streets again. Later, Newton realized the power of the church, of belief, and of bonding with others of the same faith. He saw the church as being a ‘‘stable force;’’ a means of ‘‘escape’’ from the bitter circumstances of day-to-day life (Revolutionary Suicide, 38, 39). Newton’s favorite biblical champion was Samson, whose muscle power captivated him, underscoring as it did the message of survival of the fittest in Oakland. Samson’s Herculean escapades were enthralling. He singlehandedly slaughtered a lion, slayed one thousand of the despised Philistines with a jawbone, and later sent pillars crashing down upon his enemies in retribution for having been captured and blinded. In that final act, Samson lost his own life. Not surprisingly, power and martyrdom would occupy Newton’s own thoughts when he became an adult. Piano lessons were an unlikely instruction for a youth who was preoccupied with mastering the art of street fighting, but Newton’s parents wanted him to learn how to play. Thus, he received seven years of instruction—and did not appear to mind. Throughout his life, people would marvel at his

Huey P. Newton

ability to play in the classical style. When Newton was an adult, a Black Panther happened to hear him play and was greatly surprised. Newton was constantly defying people’s perception of him. In high school, Huey discovered Fidel Castro. Initially, he liked Castro simply because he was someone that his teachers opposed. As Newton would later come to understand, Castro was a revolutionary, just as his childhood hero Samson had been. Angels had approached Samson’s parents before his birth and told them that he had been promised to them by God to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. Likewise Castro delivered Cubans from an oppressive leader, Fulgencia Batista. At Newton’s school, the teachers were, to the black students, their oppressors. In all his school years, Newton could recall only one teacher who was not antagonistic: a serene woman who taught his sixth grade class. None of the other children harassed her deliberately, because she did not provoke them. In high school, Newton continued to build up his reputation as a troublemaker. He vexed his teachers, and other students revered him. A defining moment in his life that became a local legend occurred when he hunted down some seven boys who had ganged up on him over a misunderstanding. When the cops arrived, Huey, a sophomore, was sent to juvenile detention for a month. After graduating from high school, he chose to go to college, even though not one of his teachers had encouraged him to do so.

HIGHER LEARNING AND THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT In 1959, Newton enrolled in Oakland City College. But he also attended Merritt College intermittently. He was interested in studying law and philosophy, as well as getting involved with the nascent Black Power groups on campus. Newton’s early years in college were filled with experimentation. When he came home one day with a beard like beatniks wore, his father was outraged and demanded that he shave. Newton moved out instead, preferring to live with a man named Richard Thorne, who had extremely nontraditional views on romantic relationships: he was a polygamist. Newton became one too. The two men talked a lot about race, denouncing ‘‘the white man for everything; Huey explained that he was an angry young man at this time, drinking wine and fighting on the block, burglarizing [white] homes [and cars] in the Berkeley Hills.’’ They also engaged in illicit money-making schemes (Revolutionary Suicide, 61). For Newton, stealing was not only done for money, it was a form of rebellion. He felt that the stolen goods and money equalized what he felt was the debt whites owed blacks for slavery and subsequent forms of oppression. Newton spent a great deal of time on the street, hanging out with blacks and engaging them in discussions about what he was learning in college as

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well as his extracurricular reading. These discussions highlighted Newton’s agitation over the system of racism, poverty, and oppression. He searched incessantly for an outlet—beyond stealing; beyond conversation—to find justice. Newton became a member of several organizations, but he always found them wanting. He joined the Phi Beta Sigma, a fraternity, and the AfroAmerican Association. The latter was more radical than the former, but it was still all talk and little, if any, action. Reading helped cool the fire that raged within him. He read scores of books on philosophy and the African American condition, books by activist and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, literary writer Ralph Ellison, and accommodationist Booker T. Washington. Other influences included Malcolm X, whom he heard lecture at a local high school. Malcolm and the Muslims fascinated Newton. He was intrigued by Malcolm X’s program of militancy and selfdefense, but he was not interested in following his religious teachings. Newton’s readings and personal interest in class disparities drew him to socialism, but after some consideration, he also rejected the Progressive Labor Party. Newton also looked into the organization called the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), but they were critical of him because he did not live in the poor communities where blacks lived. Later, they would tell his friend Bobby Seale that they did not trust him. He was, perhaps, too radical. Both Newton and Seale were members of the Afro-American Association and attended Merritt College. Huey asserted that he and Seale did not always see eye-to-eye on issues. One of the draws to having Seale as a friend was that he had guns and taught Newton how to properly use them and let him borrow one from time to time. One day, Huey got in serious trouble. A black man named Odell Lee, who had a scar, confronted Newton at a party in a way that he felt was aggressive. Newton knew that the code of the streets dictated that a scar on the body signified someone who was familiar with street fights. Newton interpreted Lee’s scar to mean just that. During their brusque conversation, Newton felt Lee was challenging him. When Lee grabbed Newton’s arm, he reacted instinctively, stabbing him repeatedly with a steak knife. Newton tried to say that in his world, this brief and violent encounter would have been construed as self-defense. However, the jury was not convinced. He was found guilty of a felony and sentenced to six months in the Alameda County Jail in Oakland in 1964.

ALAMEDA COUNTY JAIL Huey was no stranger to the California jail system. Prior to his conviction for attacking Odell Lee, he had been put in jail for stealing on several occasions. Huey described this occasion as preparation for his prolonged

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sentences in 1967 and 1968, which catapulted Newton to national fame as a hero-victim. Huey had no agenda when he entered Alameda County Jail. Early on, he was made a trustee, an unlikely position for a nonconformist. But when the inmates went on a food strike, protesting the bland and unwholesome meals, he joined them. He was the only trustee to do so. For punishment, Huey was sent to the room known to the inmates as the ‘‘soul breaker.’’ Newton described the soul breaker in this way: ‘‘There was no bunk, no washbasin, no toilet, nothing but bare floors, bare walls, a solid steel door, and a round hole [for human waste] four inches in diameter and six inches deep in the middle of the floor’’ (Revolutionary Suicide, 100). Newton survived the soul breaker longer than most. He accomplished this by devising a system based on techniques Gandhi had used during his demonstrations. Newton drank very little and ate even less, so he did not have to use the hole in the isolation room. He also did exercises and learned to control his thoughts by focusing on pleasant memories. Newton stayed for a month in the soul breaker. Most men begged to be released after only a few days. Newton was transferred to two other locations before being returned back to Alameda. At the county farm at Santa Rita, where Newton was supposed to serve the rest of his sentence, he attacked an inmate who would not let him take extra servings of food in the mess hall. At Graystone, a maximum security prison, Newton was put directly into solitary confinement.

SOUL STUDENTS ADVISORY COUNCIL Newton returned to campus after his release, still searching for a way to become involved in activism. Following Malcolm X’s assassination on February 21, 1965, Seale quit the RAM. Malcolm X was among the highprofile militant black nationalists. His incendiary speeches calling for violent revolution inspired both Seale and Newton, even though they did not aspire to his Muslim faith. Seale had hoped that the RAM would be inspired to act in some meaningful way after Malcolm X’s murder, but it did not. Newton and Seale explored the Soul Students Advisory Council and liked what they saw. The organization initiated demands for a black history course at Oakland City College and protested police brutality. Newton, however, wanted to rev things up a bit. One day he recommended that they carry guns and go on patrols like other black self-defense groups, such as the Deacons for Defense and Justice, were doing. Seale concurred. But the group wanted nothing to do with guns, weapons, or armed patrols. Newton and Seale attended several more Soul Students meetings, challenging the group with piercing questions. But the organization could not be convinced.

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THE BIRTH OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOR SELF-DEFENSE Having exhausted all the black power organizations, Newton and Seale withdrew to Seale’s home to discuss their future. They talked about the revolutionaries they admired such as Malcolm X, Robert Williams, Che Guevara, and Mao Tse-Tung. Robert Williams had established an armed guard to protect the black community in Monroe, North Carolina from racist attacks. Che Guevara, an Argentinean physician turned Marxist revolutionary, had a haunting appearance with his trademark black beret, from which streamed his jet black windblown hair, and an olive-drab military uniform. Though he would be executed in 1967, his legacy was indelible to those who had glorified his campaign of armed resistance. Guevara produced several works in which he discussed, in austere detail, his life, his ideology, and his experiences with guerrilla warfare. Mao Tse-Tung, a communist leader in China, had led his Revolutionary Army of Workers and Peasants to victory after more than twenty years of violent revolt. Out of these informal conversations was born the idea of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The ideology behind the organization was based on a compilation of all the revolutionary readings Huey had done. A tenpoint program was created that would serve as the constitution of the organization. This included a call to end economic exploitation and police brutality against blacks and a demand for housing, jobs, food, decent education, and justice in the court rooms. The name of the organization,

Black Panther The name and logo for the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense were inspired by a logo of a panther on a pamphlet belonging to the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama, an independent political organization founded by Stokely Carmichael. Newton liked the symbolism of the panther. He ‘‘suggested that . . . the Black Panther [be their] symbol’’ and the name of their new organization, since ‘‘the Black Panther is a fierce animal, but he will not attack until he is backed into a corner; then he will strike out’’ (Hilliard, 29). The symbolism of the panther not only conjured images of growing militancy in the latter half of the 1960s, but the color ‘‘black’’ denoted the fact that blacks were reclaiming the negative image of their skin color. No longer would black be equated with ugliness, ignorance, evil, and other negative words. Blackness would be celebrated as something beautiful, powerful, and strong. However, the image came on too strong for many whites and conservative blacks, who were uncomfortable with black militancy. The symbolism contributed to widespread public perception that Black Panthers were ultraaggressive and intent upon attacking whites for no reason at all.

Huey P. Newton

Black Panthers, was derived from the panther symbol that emblazoned a voter registration pamphlet produced by a group called Lowndes County Freedom Organization. Newton explained that ‘‘The Black Panther is a fierce animal, but he will not attack until he is backed into a corner; then he will strike out’’ (Hilliard, 29). Their first member was a fifteen-year-old named Bobby Hutton, whom everyone called Lil Bobby. Flores A. Forbes, who would become a member of the central committee and the special guard enlisted, among other things, to provide protection for Newton, explained to his father why he wanted to join the Black Panther Party when he was still a teen: I said, ‘‘Daddy, this is what I want to do. I want to be a Black Panther so that I can help my people. I see how things are in this country, and you always told me those stories about growing up in North Carolina and having to sit in the back of the bus. And then you and your brother refused to sit back there and you fought back and had that fight where you knocked the white boy out and stuff. You know what I mean? I’m tired of being pushed around and I want to fight back.’’ (Forbes, 30)

Point Seven Many adolescents were drawn to the Black Panther Party. Part of the draw was the allure of point seven of the ten-point program, which stated, in short, that ‘‘We believe we can end police brutality in our black community by organizing black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community from racist police oppression and brutality … the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms’’ (Hilliard, 33). For the youth, as well as the adults, who joined the Black Panthers, there was the allure about belonging to a community, but there was something more: the opportunity to wield a gun. Guns are a universal symbol of power, but they have special import for African Americans. In slavery, African Americans were prohibited from owning or using a gun. Even in the free states, laws forbade gun ownership by blacks. In cities like Oakland, white cops dominated blacks not only with the institutional power they wielded, but also because they carried guns, which they could use maliciously. White cops were rarely indicted for crimes against blacks. Black Panthers received extensive training on how to carry out their party duties, and on how to use guns. Panthers were taught how to clean guns and how not to point the barrel of the gun at any person (to do so was a crime). Panthers were required to memorize the ten-point program and to consume a healthy reading diet of philosophy, militancy, and the ideology of the organization. There were rules to abide by that emphasized respect for self and the community. For example, drugs and alcohol were forbidden while engaged in party work, and a Panther could not commit a crime

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against another member or any black person. It was important to Newton, who had learned about community from his family and at church, that the Panthers be tight-knit. In the first phase of Panther activities, Newton launched the famous gun patrols. While on these patrols, Newton depended not only on armed selfdefense but on the law. He would ‘‘stand there with his gun and his book, reciting the law, careful not to step outside the limits of the law, but rather, using the law and the gun as a means for legitimizing the rights for black citizens to protect themselves’’ (Hilliard, 38). Newton believed it was important to educate the community about the law as well as about the organization. His objective was to empower African Americans, and to do this he had to get the word out about the Black

Clenched-Fist Salute In the 1960s, almost everyone was raising their hand in the clenched-fist salute. Although it was used before then it was made popular in large part by several high-profile individuals in the Black Power Movement. The clenched-fist salute is also known as the black power salute or the ‘‘Power to the People’’ salute. It is raised to express solidarity. Newton and the members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense made the salute frequently among themselves and in public. Newton, as well as other individuals associated with the Black Power Movement, made the salute upon release from stints in jail. Generally, the audience, in a call-and-response effect, made the salute back. One of the most controversial moments in sports history occurred when the clenched-fist salute was raised during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. When two African Americans, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, entered the stadium to receive their medals, they wore no shoes to pay homage to impoverished blacks. Smith wore a black scarf to signify black pride, and Carlos wore a strand of beads to symbolize blacks who had been lynched or murdered by racists or by their oppressors. After mounting the podium, during the playing of the National Anthem, they raised their hands in the clenched-fist salute and bowed their heads. After dismounting the podium, the audience booed them. But the image made headlines all over the world. Back at home, the men received death threats and were heavily criticized. But their protest had the opposite effect on many blacks who venerated them for what they had done. A documentary on that incident, Salute, was scheduled to premiere at the Sydney Film Festival in 2008. Since black power proponents began adopting the clenched-fist salute, others have followed suit, such as Native Americans and hippies during the Hippie Movement.

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Panthers. His tactic worked, especially when his patrols, in party uniform, went into the communities themselves and disseminated their leaflets. Many of the new members included ex-convicts, prisoners, the unemployed, and the disenchanted. White cops were generally enraged by the fact that the Panthers were watching them. During the patrols, the Panthers had strict orders to stand a certain distance from a cop. They were instructed not to interfere. However, when an officer engaged Newton, he did not back down. The patrols were hugely successful, staving off violent acts and resulting in a marked decrease in incidences of police brutality and killing. Not all of Newton’s ideas were so noble. One was outright scandalous. Huey wanted to exact financial support for panther programs from individuals outside the law, such as the drug dealers and panderers. In exchange, he planned to establish a defense fund to provide bail and legal representation. Most individuals did not warm to this idea, and were put off by Newton’s interference in their personal matters. To some, this plan was nothing more than barefaced extortion.

ELDRIDGE CLEAVER: MINISTER OF INFORMATION It took Eldridge Cleaver a while to become convinced that the Black Panther organization was for him. From the first, Newton tried to coax Cleaver into joining his organization. He believed Cleaver would be an asset in many ways. He was a professional writer and a charismatic speaker. That he had been to jail made him someone who could relate to the plight of black men in disadvantaged communities. Cleaver listened, without uttering a word, as Newton explained what his organization was all about. He initially declined to join because he wanted to help restart Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity, not realizing that Newton and Seale had the same intent. Eventually, Cleaver changed his mind and asked Newton if he could join the Black Panthers. He did this for reasons that would eventually create havoc for the Black Panther Party. At a meeting in February 1967 to help coordinate a memorial to mark the fourth anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination, Cleaver was transfixed. He was awestruck by the demonstration of glinting weapons, urbane uniforms, and the imperturbable don’tmess-with-me posturing. It was then that Cleaver knew he wanted to be a part of the Panthers. At the memorial, as Huey and the Panthers served as guards for Malcolm X’s widow Betty Shabazz, Cleaver witnessed one of numerous standoffs between Huey and a police officer. The conflict started when a cameraman roughly brushed Newton’s hand away as he tried to shield Shabazz from being photographed. Newton ‘‘asked a nearby officer to arrest the other man for assault’’ (Hilliard, 118).

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Newton was ignored. Newton took matters into his own hands: when the cameraman tried to prevent him from covering up his camera, he ‘‘slammed him up against the brick wall of the building’’ and punched him (Hilliard, 118). Panicked, Seale tried to get Newton to run from the scene, but he would not. Instead, he outfaced a cop, dared him to use his gun, and called him a ‘‘big, fat, racist, pig’’ (Hilliard, 119). The cop backed down. Cleaver was awestruck. Cleaver was drawn by the power, mesmerized by the excitement of precarious confrontation. However, he did not have the same communal spirit that Newton had, and he was averse to becoming a mentor and role model to the members. DENZIL DOWELL CAMPAIGN AND BLACK PANTHER ARRESTS When word spread that an unarmed twenty-year-old named Denzil Dowell had been shot and killed on April 1, 1967 by a police officer in North Richmond, a community near Oakland, Newton saw an opportunity for community outreach and a way to broaden the Panthers’ influence. Newton and other Panthers met with the Dowell family and promised to lead an investigation into the tragedy. Newton organized rallies to inform the community of what had occurred. The Panthers pressed for police investigation and disciplinary action against the offending officer, but the officials at the police department were uncooperative. The Black Panther newspaper grew out of the need to dispense information regarding the Dowell case and others like it. On the front page of the first issue, a summary of evidence resulting from the Panthers’ investigation of the Denzil Dowell case was presented. There was also an advertisement for an upcoming rally, a description of the Black Panther Party’s objectives, and a call for the community to get involved. The magazine was only one way in which Newton hoped to get exposure for various causes and the party itself. Newton went on radio talk shows to educate the community about the goals of the Panthers, and to speak on pertinent issues such as the Dowell case. Early on, the black community was unsure about the Panthers. Their radicalism made many uncomfortable, and some feared the party’s existence might attract more problems. In time, they realized the Panthers was having the opposite effect, and that racist cops were less likely to act out against blacks. Whites, however, remained at odds with the Panthers. Donald Mulford was one of the Panthers’ most powerful enemies. Mulford was a conservative state assemblyman. During one radio talk show event with Newton, he called in and threatened to endorse a bill to make it unlawful for Panthers to carry guns. Newton planned a demonstration at the Sacramento, California legislature on May 2, 1967 (the day the bill was to be discussed) to protest the

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Mulford bill. Since he was still on probation, Seale went in his place, but Newton crafted a message for him to read that elucidated the need for the Panthers and other blacks to arm themselves against racist attacks by malevolent individuals, organizations (like the Ku Klux Klan), and police officers. Thirty armed Black Panthers flocked to California’s capitol. Cameras flashed upon Seale as he repeatedly read the message. Newton, at his parents’ home, watched the spectacle on television and was delighted by the coverage. Seale and the other Panthers were arrested after leaving the capitol. According to David Hilliard, chief of staff of the Black Panthers, the cops fabricated charges against them. Newton used radio appearances and fundraisers to collect money for bail. In a deal that called for Seale to return to jail, the remaining Panthers were freed. The exposure vaulted the Panthers to greater notoriety, but this came at a price. Yes, the Black Panthers garnered a lot of attention, which increased their numbers and improved their finances. But many powerful whites were incensed by this display of growing power.

A MURDER, AN ASSAULT, AND A KIDNAPPING October 27, 1967 was planned to be a busy day of fundraising for Huey P. Newton. But though the day started with a speaking engagement at San Francisco State College where he raised $500, it ended in tragedy. Newton did not like public speaking. He was more comfortable behindthe-scenes, thinking and guiding the development of his organization. But as part of the program to raise bail for Seale, he was willing to make the attempt. His speech at San Francisco State College was controversial because the black youths in the audience expected Newton to condone the spontaneous rebellions advocated by other black power proponents like H. Rap Brown. And they did not like that did he disapproved of racial separatism. Newton once stated that he was not ‘‘anti-white. I don’t hate a person because of his skin.… Because I wouldn’t stoop to the level of the Ku Klux Klan, to hate a person because of the color of his skin’’ (Hilliard, 71). The Black Panthers were one of few organizations that endorsed and actively formed coalitions with whites and other marginalized people, like Native Americans, Latinos, and the disabled. After giving his speech, Newton stopped by a fundraising party taking place at David Hilliard’s house. The event was unconventional, at best: it was a gambling party where Newton and Hilliard also planned to sell marijuana. At some point in the evening, Newton borrowed a girlfriend’s car to go out with friends and celebrate his last day of probation. Newton and Gene McKinney, who was with him, were stopped by Officer Gene Frey. Officer Frey was eventually joined by Officer Herbert

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Hearnes. Newton showed him his license and the registration papers, got out of the car, and was promptly searched. Officer Frey, like most if not all Oakland cops, knew or had heard of Huey P. Newton, the leader of the Black Panther Party. Frey ordered Newton to the back of his car, roughly pushing him along. He hit Newton, who stumbled backwards. According to Newton, Frey shot him in the stomach. What he remembered next was vague. He heard the sound of shots being fired and recalled struggling with the emergency room nurse to get admitted to the hospital. Hilliard provided more details. He recalled how Newton burst into his home, while the party was still going on, and crumbled onto the floor, blood streaming from his wound. Hilliard took him to Kaiser Hospital. The cops appeared shortly thereafter. Newton recalled how cops handcuffed him to his bed and beat him while a doctor looked on. Later, as he lay recuperating in a hospital room, cops continued to harass, beat, and intimidate him. Newton soon learned that they believed that he was responsible for the murder of their fellow officer, Frey, and for an assault on Hearnes. Newton would face three counts against him: murder, assault, and the kidnapping of a man named Dell Ross who accused him and McKinney of carjacking. FREE HUEY CAMPAIGN Subsequent events raised Newton into even wider fame. The Black Panthers launched a Free Huey Campaign, gaining sympathy and mass support from individuals who had never heard of him or had a negative opinion of the organization. The constant media attention did more to spread the news about the organization and to cultivate new members than anything they could have done themselves. And media attention was crucial to the promulgation of the Black Panther Party. The Free Huey Campaign involved a number of other black power leaders such as Stokely Carmichael and James Forman. Angela Davis also joined the demonstrations and helped dispense information for the campaign. When Bobby Seale was released from jail, he and Eldridge Cleaver made crucial contributions as speakers. Cleaver staged a mass rally. The frenzy that was created by the rallies and demonstrations not only helped Newton but promulgated the plight of poor African Americans. The first day of the trial was attended by 5,000 demonstrators and 450 Black Panthers. From jail, Newton created tapes and wrote letters to his organization. Newton used the trial itself as a platform from which to address the nation. He spoke about the history and objectives of the Black Panther Party; he exposed the police brutality and harassment that was rampant in his community. The trial itself endeared Newton to his audience and to his organization. That he endured solitary for a total of eleven months until the conclusion of his trial gave him superhero status.

Huey P. Newton

The verdict was a huge disappointment. Although Newton was found not guilty of kidnapping and assault, he was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to two to fifteen years in prison. In a statement to the press, Newton asserted that he believed ‘‘the verdict reflected the racism that exists here in America, and that all Black people are subjected to. I am very sure that we will get a new trial not because of the kindness the appellate courts will show us, but because of the political pressure that we have applied to the establishment, and asked that the community refrain from reacting in violence’’ (Hilliard, 107). CALIFORNIA PENAL COLONY (1968–1970) Shifting Gears Huey P. Newton spent most of his time in solitary at the California Men’s Colony, East Facility, in San Luis Obispo, California, otherwise known as the California Penal Colony. But he saw a benefit to his seclusion. Throughout most of his life, Newton had been constantly bombarded by people and responsibilities. In jail, and especially in solitary, Newton had time to reflect on life, his organization, and his ideology. Solitary also afforded him the time and space to read without interruption. Malcolm X experienced a religious and intellectual transformation while in prison. Al Sharpton, the twenty-first-century civil rights activist, was reinvigorated by reading the writings of prominent activists while he served time in jail. During his time in jail, Newton began to feel strongly that his organization needed to change direction. He did not like how the media depicted them (in Hilliard’s words) as, ‘‘trigger-happy, gun-toting thugs who were more interested in gunplay than substantive social change’’ (Hilliard, 127). Newton came up with a plan to provide food and other resources to the community. He foresaw one potential problem: Cleaver, who made no secret of the fact that he preferred guns over community outreach. Opposition Cleaver was not Newton’s only problem. In November 1968, the FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, began a long and brutal campaign to dismantle the Black Panthers, along with many other black power organizations. The name of this notorious campaign was COINTELPRO, otherwise known as the Counter Intelligence Program. The FBI’s methods included infiltration of the organization by agents provocateurs; schemes to frame leaders on trumped-up charges; and a campaign to print false, malicious, and damaging news in the media. Before long, Black Panthers were regularly monitored and followed by the FBI. Bugging devices were planted in homes and offices. Homes and

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offices were routinely vandalized and searched, with documents and personal items stolen. Beatings were common. By 1969, twenty-eight Panthers had been killed by police and agents provocateurs. David Horowitz, who had known Newton and had been one of the Panthers’ supporters, became the organization’s most voluble critic, but the more time he spent with the organization, the more uncomfortable he became. He painted a contradictory picture of the Panthers, by demonstrating, through numbers, the criminal activities of the organization: ‘‘348 arrests for murder, armed robbery, rape, and burglary in 1969 alone’’ (Collier and Horowitz, 151). Those statistics illustrated his belief that the Panthers were largely targeted by the FBI because of increased criminal activity. But the Panthers saw COINTELPRO as an immediate threat to themselves and their organization. Panther chapters scoured through their membership and purged anyone suspected of being an agent provocateur, often at the price of ousting the innocent. In a notorious 1969 case, a group of Black Panthers tortured and murdered Alex Rackley, whom they suspected of being an informant. Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins were arrested and charged with ordering the murder. DEATH OF THE FIRST BLACK PANTHER On April 6, 1968, while Newton was in jail, a confrontation between the Black Panthers and Oakland police ended in the death of Lil Bobby, who had been the first member of the organization. Bobby Hutton, Eldridge Cleaver, David Hilliard, and Wendell Wade were transporting food for a community barbecue planned for the next day. Before the incident that sent Newton to jail, he had organized the get-together to gain support for the newly created Black Panther Campaign Fund. Under the Peace and Freedom Party, Eldridge was running for president, Huey P. planned to run for Congress, and Bobby Seale and Kathleen Cleaver were running for assembly seats. According to Hilliard, Newton wanted to use the barbecue as a forum to help prevent riots in the black community in light of Dr. King’s assassination. Violent riots had erupted elsewhere, and Newton wanted to prevent this from happening in Oakland. Cleaver, meanwhile, was brooding over an idea to fuel a violent backlash. The cops, aware of the barbecue, were out in full force, and the city put restrictions on the event, preventing the Panthers from using a sound system. As the Panthers drove to the event, the cops arrived and chased after the Panthers. Cleaver and Lil Bobby fled to a nearby house. They were surrounded by cops who pelted the house with tear-gas and fire bombs. Lil Bobby and Cleaver were eventually forced out of the house. When an officer told both men to run toward a car, Cleaver could not, because he had been shot in his leg. But Lil Bobby ran, with his arms held high over his head. He was shot down in clear view of onlookers from the community.

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Cleaver was charged with attempted murder for shooting at the cops who pursued him. Instead of facing trial, he escaped to Cuba and then to Algeria. Other Panthers were apprehended and charged with the same crime as a result of the confrontation with the police. No one was prosecuted for the murder of Bobby Hutton. To fuel dissension among the Panthers, especially between Newton and Cleaver, COINTELPRO manufactured fake letters, written in both their names, to instigate trouble between them. Neither realized they were being set up. When the private conflict became public, Newton called up Cleaver, then in exile in Algeria, to confront him. Cleaver was ultimately expelled from the Black Panthers in 1971. He formed a rival organization in Algiers called the Revolutionary People’s Communication Network (known as ‘‘The Network’’). Expulsion was just one punishment for wayward or disobedient Panthers. Disciplinary measures were severe. One could be bullwhipped or mudholed. Black Panthers on the receiving end of this antiquated treatment had to remove their tops and were lashed with a whip. Mud-holing was even more extreme, with some of the biggest, fiercest Panthers stomping on the offending member. The sad irony was that being bullwhipped had been a common punishment for slaves. HUEY’S FREEDOM On August 5, 1970, Newton was released from prison after serving twentytwo months and (thanks to his supporters) posted a $50,000 bail. The appellate court had overturned his conviction over technicalities in the instructions the judge gave the jury. But, as he had predicted, the court did permit Newton another trial. In the winter of 1970, the judge dismissed his case. This is what Newton recalled about that day: It was a bright, blue-sky day, just the kind of day I had wanted. Looking ahead, I could see thousands of beautiful people and a sea of hands, all of them waving. When I gave them the power sign, the hands shot up in reply and everyone started to cheer. God, it was good. I felt this tremendous sense of release, of liberation, like taking off your shirt on a hot day and feeling free, unbound by anything. (Revolutionary Suicide, 289)

Newton kept himself busy after his release. Though he went to China for ten days in September 1971, he ignored most of the other invitations he received requesting media appearances, interviews, and speaking engagements. Huey had enough to contend with inside his organization, and he wanted to implement the plans he had formed while in prison. One of his first tasks was to initiate what he dubbed ‘‘survival programs,’’ such as medical clinics, sickle cell anemia testing, a free-food program, a free-breakfast program, and a shoe program. Newton envisioned the Black

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Panthers providing more services to the community, and he worked to set up these programs through chapters in other cities. He also spent a lot of time getting to know the other chapters, traveling the country to visit new chapters and new recruits. These were perilous times for Black Panthers. Leaders such as Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins were in jail facing various charges. A number of Panthers had fallen, either as a result of fatal confrontations with the police or with rival organizations. The Panthers worried that Newton was the next target. To ensure Newton’s safety, wealthy white friends, among them some Hollywood A-listers, helped secure him a new home: a lush, high-rise apartment away from the community the Panthers served. This new home was referred to as the Throne, aptly named since Newton was often referred to as a ‘‘prince’’ by his members. Newton was reasonably safe there, but not entirely. His home was once ransacked, and he was under constant surveillance.

PERSONA Not everyone appreciated Newton’s motivation for living in the Throne. Many African Americans were vehemently against the affluent white establishment and anything that hinted at acceptance of the white power structure, elitism, or privilege. The feeling was that Newton was getting out of touch with the organization. This was worsened by the fact that Newton stayed away from the Panther office. Most of his work was done from the Throne, and he rarely if ever went to the Panther office. Those who met Newton for the first time or saw him speak were sometimes perplexed, because his true personality contradicted their expectations of him. As one attendant at a college lecture stated: ‘‘People saw him as the baddest in the world. Then you have this guy come up with this intellectual discussion’’ (Hilliard, 176). New Panther recruits who met Newton for the first time had the same experience. Instead of getting a fierce warrior, they encountered an intellectual with a high-pitched voice who delivered ideology, not tough, forceful oration. A number of black students were crushed to learn that Newton was not a black separatist. But Newton could indeed be fierce. Robert Trivers, a professor and someone who spent a great deal of time with Newton, saw this side of him, and was unnerved by it. He wrote that ‘‘[Newton] was like a king, and therefore if you were a friend of his and in his presence, you were like a prince. On the other hand, he could be one of the more frightening creatures you would ever run into’’ (Hilliard, 257). Forbes, one of Newton’s top guards, detailed how he and others regularly pistol-whipped individuals who challenged them, particularly those in the underworld who would not subject themselves to Newton. Newton’s erratic and explosive temper was infamous. Accusations that Panthers committed murder or that Newton ordered those

Huey P. Newton

murders were rampant, tarnishing his hero image. Horowitz called him ‘‘Capone in blackface’’ (Collier and Horowitz, 156). The new apartment was both a sanctuary and a torment. This was evident to anyone whom he invited to the Throne when he was alone and troubled. The quiet, introspective side of Newton was witnessed by those he trusted the most. Newton benefited from the quiet time to think and to reinvigorate himself. He was not an extrovert like Seale or Cleaver. But sometimes the quiet was confining, and he needed someone to talk to. Newton was a man increasingly encumbered by his weighty responsibilities. He was constantly working on ways to improve his organization, trying to meet the needs of his members and the community, or brooding over some conflict that needed to be resolved. Sometimes, he expressed second thoughts about his position: ‘‘I’m not an idealist anymore,’’ he told one confidant, ‘‘what am I supposed to do?’’ (Hilliard, 199). Shortly after his release from jail, Newton was introduced to Gwen Fountaine, a new recruit to the organization, having joined in 1969. Doe-eyed and diminutive, Fountaine was a quiet constant in his life. She had two children, Ronnie and Jessica, from a previous marriage, and they became like Newton’s own. Many of Newton’s confidantes were women. But any woman who became close to Newton had to endure his unpredictable temper, his frantic schedule, and his decadent lifestyle. They also had to understand that the organization came first. BLACK PANTHER SCHOOL In 1970, Newton established the Children’s House, later called the Intercommunal Youth Institute and the Oakland Community School. The children who attended this school wore uniforms. Both boys and girls wore berets, and the young girls wore dark skirts that hung above their knees. The school was a sensation. Celebrities came to visit, and local black schoolteachers fed up with the traditional public school system were eager to work there. Newton, like everyone else in the community, knew the hazards of the public school system. He created an atmosphere where children could be taught racial pride and receive a good education without the humiliation he himself had experienced. The school was funded by the Educational Opportunities Corporation using federal and local grants. Some alleged that the school was eventually funded by criminal activities, such as extortion and illegal drug sales. PANTHER WAR ON DRUGS It did not matter to Newton that he himself used drugs out of the public eye; he was determined to keep drugs out of the black community. A

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campaign was created to educate the community on the hazards of drug use. Slogans such as ‘‘Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide’’ were used. Newton declared that he wanted to sustain a healthy community. At the same time, Hilliard claimed that the FBI spearheaded a scheme ‘‘to ‘criminalize’ our revolution by … pinning a narcotics rap on the Black Panther Party’’ (Hilliard, 204). In 1974, Newton was charged with pistol-whipping a black man and with the murder of a seventeen-year-old prostitute. There were some who thought the indestructible Newton had finally been caught. They were wrong. Disguised as a woman, Newton escaped with Gwen Fountaine to Cuba. Horowitz asserted that the Panthers tried to explain away Newton’s sudden flight by presenting an audiotape that exposed a plot on Newton’s life. Presumably, the criminal world in Oakland had marked Newton because they did not like how he tried to dominate them. Newton gave the real reason in his autobiography that he knew he had no chance in court. Exile was the only option. The escape was harrowing. They departed from Oakland by plane, then drove from Los Angeles to Mexico. In Yelapa, he and Fountaine spent weeks swimming, relaxing, and riding horses. From Yelapa, they took a boat and crossed turbulent waves onto Cuban shores. Newton changed his name to Peter Simon. At first, ‘‘it was nice to be anonymous and unbothered by people.’’ Later he wanted to be Huey again (Hilliard, 216).

CUBA Newton and Fountaine (later joined by her two children) were married after they arrived in Cuba, and they lived there for almost three years. For Newton, this new life was a dramatic change. For one thing, he was married. For another, he went to work at a cement factory, where he repaired trucks, and taught a social-movement course at the University of Havana. In the evenings, he and his family had quiet dinners. On the weekends, they sometimes went on outings, to the beach and elsewhere, with Newton’s co-workers. In his spare time, he read. This relatively normal existence seemed to presage a stabilizing of Newton’s life, but that proved to be unrealistic. He was not planning to spend the rest of his days in Cuba. While in exile, he kept in daily contact with Elaine Brown, whom he made the first woman leader of the Black Panther Party in his absence. Brown was intensely loyal to Newton, partly because he was someone she respected and partly because, like many women, she was infatuated with him. Under her leadership, the organization was catapulted to even greater success. She carried on his Survival Programs and oversaw the daily functions of the organization and the Black Panther School. She initiated Panther involvement in local politics. Horowitz

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summarized her accomplishments in a chapter entitled ‘‘Baddest’’ in his book Destructive Generation. While Brown was at the helm, ‘‘the organization was instrumental in the campaigns of Lionel Wilson, first black mayor of the city … and John George, first black supervisor of the county.’’ Brown later (1976) served as a delegate at a Democratic convention (Horowitz, 158, 159).

RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES Newton flew back to the United States on July 3, 1977, drawing a huge crowd of fifteen hundred to greet him. Huey was confident that, since the Republicans were no longer in control of Oakland politics and an African American man had been elected a superior court judge, he stood a chance to get a fair trial in the face of the charges against him. Newton gave a speech at the airport. He expressed his commitment to the struggle, saying he would ‘‘continue my fight against a system that denies decent housing, clothing, and medical care to people to fight against the evil of heroin sales in our community, despite the contract put on my life by heroin dealers with the knowledge of law enforcement.… Now I am going to jail. I believe I will be acquitted’’ (Hilliard, 244, 245). Newton was right. He was acquitted of all charges. But according to Horowitz, Newton was guilty of the crimes. He said that Newton, while high on drugs, shot a prostitute after she called him ‘‘Baby.’’ Newton had been tormented as a youth by kids who called him ‘‘Baby Huey,’’ a cartoon character. Horowitz said Newton assaulted the black man, a tailor, when he made the same error as the prostitute. The murder charge resulted in a hung jury. He was cleared of the assault charge by allegedly paying off the tailor. Newton claimed that the tailor could not or would not identify him as the perpetrator.

HIGHER EDUCATION REVISITED AND BOBBY SEALE’S DEPARTURE Education remained important to Newton. He received an associate’s degree in social science in 1966. In 1974, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. This was the year Bobby Seale was expelled from the Panthers. In the years preceding his forced departure, Seale and Newton drifted apart. When they started the Panthers organization they had been close friends, seeming, in numerous pictures, inseparable; bound like blood brothers. But Newton talked behind Seale’s back, bitterly complaining that he was not keeping up with him with regard to the ideological development of the organization. When Newton moved to the Throne, Seale was rarely

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invited. When Seale did finally visit Newton on a day in 1974, Newton was in a mood. An argument ensued, and Seale was promptly ousted. After Newton’s return to America and his acquittal of criminal charges, he decided to go back to the University of California, Santa Cruz. It was a love-hate relationship. Sometimes Newton attended classes dressed like a seventies star from a black exploitation film. And he was always flanked by his guards. He also made the other professors nervous. Newton continued to lead the Black Panthers during his time at Santa Cruz. In short, he was a celebrity, and at times disrupted classes, especially when he gave a public lecture on his dissertation. In 1978, Newton earned his Ph.D. His dissertation was titled ‘‘War against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America.’’

DRUGS, CRIME, AND MARRIAGE Despite his academic achievements, Newton served additional jail time for various crimes, including possession of a handgun and narcotics paraphernalia. Newton’s descent from power was propelled by heavy drug use, which eventually contributed to the demise of his marriage. Newton caused an accident while driving under the influence. His stepchildren were in the car at the time and nearly died. Gwen left him. Newton tried to start a new life with his marriage to Fredericka Slaughter in 1984. He joined her church and attempted to turn over a new leaf. In that same year, a crack epidemic began to sweep across the major cities of America, lasting through 1990. Oakland was one of the locations hit hard by the new drug, and Newton would eventually become one of its casualties. Newton remained in trouble with the law. He faced another jail sentence for embezzling state and federal funds from some of the Panther programs. For periods at a time, Newton was sober. But those periods did not last for long, and personal setbacks or the curse of addiction itself plummeted him back into drugs for days or weeks at a time. Despite a few good times, Newton was in a downward spiral. The Panther Party was floundering; Newton and his wife lost their home, and Newton was devastated when his deal for a Hollywood film biography did not go through. On August 22, 1989, Newton got into an argument with a young drug dealer. Ironically, this young man had been a recipient of his free-breakfast program when he was a child. Newton was shot three times in the head. He was forty-seven years old. In 1993, Fredericka Newton, Elaine Brown, and David Hilliard established the Huey P. Newton Foundation. It serves as a repository for Black Panther Party history and information. See also Elaine Brown; Stokely Carmichael; Angela Davis; W.E.B. Du Bois; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X; Al Sharpton; and Robert F. Williams.

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FURTHER RESOURCES Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz. Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixties. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Forbes, Flores A. Will You Die with Me? My Life and the Black Panther Party. New York: Atria Books, 2006. Hilliard, David. Huey: Spirit of the Panther. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006. Horowitz, David. Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes. Dallas: Spence Publishing Company, 1999. A Huey P. Newton Story. Directed by Spike Lee. 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, 2004. ‘‘It’s about Time.’’ Black Panther Party Legacy & Alumni (March 2008). See http:// www.itsabouttimebpp.com/index.html. Newton, Huey P. The Huey P. Newton Reader. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002. Newton, Huey P. Revolutionary Suicide. New York: Writers & Readers Publishing, 1995. Newton, Huey P. ‘‘War against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America.’’ Mindfully.Org (March 2008). See http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/War-AgainstPanthers-Newton1jun80.htm. Seale, Bobby. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton. New York: Random House, 1970.

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Rosa Parks was a domestic worker, seamstress, and activist. She is most known—and indeed celebrated—for a single and spontaneous act of protest, when, on December 1, 1955, she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks was an unlikely and unassuming hero. She was only forty-two when she was arrested for violating Alabama state law, but she appeared almost grandmotherly, with her trademark hair pinned neatly back and a pensive, strained expression on her bespectacled face. Even to those who knew her, Parks was quiet, reserved, soft-spoken, and timid. To the white community, she was invisible amongst the droves of African American women plodding back and forth from home—the black side of town—to a long day of cleaning, laundering, and other menial work for white employers in the white section of town. No, Parks was neither a notorious troublemaker nor a charismatic rebel leader. And yet beneath her mild-mannered demeanor there lurked a revolutionary. Parks was a secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a devoted member of the African American Methodist Church, and the wife of an activist. That day when Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger and told the white bus driver ‘‘no’’ when he ordered her to do so, though she risked violence or worse, was not her first act of protest against racism. Even as a fragile and sickly child Rosa had fought back—sometimes verbally and other times physically—against racial attacks. That day did not even mark her first incident on a racially segregated bus. What was different this time was that her act of resistance on that day in December would launch her from obscurity to instant fame as a protest icon and give impetus to a massive bus boycott led by a young Baptist minister by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This would jumpstart the remarkable era known as the Civil Rights Movement, and Rosa Parks, though she had no children of her own, would come to be known as its ‘‘mother.’’

CHILDHOOD Rosa McCauley was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama near the famous Tuskegee Institute founded by Booker T. Washington, one of the leaders of the African American community at the time. Washington and his philosophy of accommodationism was quite popular with both blacks and whites, and the practice was accepted as the norm in the South. Those who challenged the complicated rules of racial etiquette and discriminatory laws were marked for intimidation, violence, or death. In those days, African Americans had few rights, and were considered to be in every way imaginable inferior to whites. Rosa’s father, James, and mother, Leona, struggled to create a good life in that hostile world. James, a handsome carpenter of mixed African

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American, white, and Native American ancestry, was a restless wanderer constantly in search of money-making opportunities. Leona, whose heritage was Scotch-Irish, African American, and white, was intelligent and driven. She had received a teacher’s certificate (a high-status profession for African Americans) from Payne University in Selma, Alabama, but had stopped teaching while in Tuskegee to care for Rosa, her husband, and her brotherin-law, who took classes at the nearby Institute. Leona was lonely much of the time, for James was always working, and she made no friends and had no family in the African American community of Tuskegee. Despite this, she hoped her husband would eventually take a job at the Institute, for among the benefits of being a faculty member was a home, a good education for Rosa, and stability (Parks, 8). But teaching did not provide enough income for the restless James, so he moved the family to his hometown of Abbeville, Alabama. Leona’s dreams for the family dissolved after the move to Abbeville. She did not like living with her husband’s relatives, so while James again left the family for a job in the North, Leona, pregnant with their second child, packed her and Rosa’s belongings and moved back home, living with her parents in the rural town of Pine Level, Alabama. James lived off and on with his wife and children for several years, until, when Rosa was five years old, he permanently left them. Thus, Rosa spent the bulk of her childhood in Pine Level, where her education was vastly inferior to what she might have received at the Institute. She was raised mostly by her grandparents, for her mom lived and taught in a somewhat distant town during the work week. In Parks’ autobiography, My Story, she recounts many childhood memories of her life in Pine Level, a small segregated town. The African Americans were mostly sharecroppers, while whites owned the businesses and stores. Rosa’s grandparents were the only African Americans who owned land and were able to subsist on the family farm. They raised chickens and cows on their eighteen acres, and grew fruit and nut trees as well as a garden. For additional supplies or income, Rosa’s grandfather traveled on his wagon to the local stores to sell or trade. Another source of income came from cotton picking. Rosa was a field hand as a young child. Picking cotton was a laborious job made all the more unendurable under the scorching Alabama sun. The education of little Rosa began long before she made her formal entrance into the one-room school house designated for Pine Level’s black children. Integral to her education was learning her role as an African American in a white-dominated society. Her earliest memory of Pine Level gives a glimpse of a young child who had the potential to be a fine example of a ‘‘good Negro,’’ which was someone who went along with the laws and rules that whites set without complaining or protesting. On this particular occasion, her grandfather had taken Rosa to the doctor, a white man. She was only two and was suffering miserably from a severe sore throat caused by

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chronic tonsillitis. Because of Rosa’s weak heart, surgery was not an option. Rosa recalled proudly in her autobiography ‘‘that everything the doctor asked me to do, I just obeyed very nicely,’’ and those around her, including her grandparents and mother, were delighted ‘‘with my being so small and being so little trouble’’ (Parks, My Story, 11). As a child, Rosa relished being a ‘‘good girl,’’ exactly what society demanded she be. Rosa learned her early lessons in race relations through stories about life in slavery, firsthand experience with radicals who challenged the system of racism in her everyday life, and lectures on the importance of accommodating whites. Rosa heard many stories about the horrific realities of slavery from her mother, as well as her grandparents, who had been born into slavery. These stories taught her that slavery was a great evil. In them she heard about the dramatic measures slaves took to submit under the tacit (as well as explicit) rules of bondage, such as pretending to be happy with their lot to appease whites and to avoid hostility. Servility was a means of survival— or at least a method to ensure a peaceable existence. For the most part, African Americans in the South in the early twentieth century continued to conform to laws (explicit or not) that were just as humiliating and oppressive as the slave laws. For young Rosa, protest was exemplified by her cantankerous and mischief-loving grandfather, Sylvester, and a local denizen named Gus Vaughn. Sylvester’s early years had been traumatic and had embittered him toward whites. After the death of his mother, a house slave, and his father, a white plantation owner, Sylvester had been daily abused by an overseer who beat him and starved him. As an adult, Sylvester, like the trickster of traditional African American folktales, enjoyed playing tricks on whites, always ‘‘doing or saying something that would embarrass or agitate the white people’’ (thus challenging the rules of racial etiquette), such as shaking the hands of unsuspecting strangers or introducing himself to them as ‘‘Edwards,’’ or ‘‘call[ing] white men by their first names, or their whole names, and not say ‘Mister’ ’’ (Parks, My Story, 16). He had high expectations for his children, hoping that they would get an education. For some reason, Rosa’s grandfather was never harassed for this behavior or his beliefs (or for the fact that he owned land). The custom in the South was that individuals who challenged the system were frequent targets of racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. Rosa’s grandfather was not easily frightened by local whites or by the Ku Klux Klan riders who frequently thundered past their property in the middle of the night. Rosa recalled those tense nights, when she, still dressed in her clothes in case she had to escape from an attack, lay at her grandfather’s feet, while he sat in his rocking chair with his double-barreled shotgun at his side. On those nights, Rosa was wide-eyed, not from fear, but because she wanted to see her grandfather use his gun. He never did have that opportunity, for the Ku Klux Klan never molested him or his family.

Rosa Parks

Trickster A trickster is an archetypal figure in folklore who outwits a seemingly unconquerable foe. The symbol and antics of the trickster were important coping mechanisms in slavery, and also demonstrated a form of resistance employed by blacks in slavery and post emancipation. Trickster myths were part of the folklore of African communities. In America, black slaves continued the rich traditions of storytelling, giving birth to an Americanized form of the African trickster figure, which gave life to animals endowed with human characteristics. Brer Rabbit was one of the most popular characters. His nemeses included Brer Fox and an array of colorful characters. Brer Rabbit was not strong, but he was sassy and smart and able to outwit, outdistance, outmaneuver, and transcend anyone or anything through subtle or overt maneuverings. His tales are classic underdog-overcomes-all narratives. But more than that, the characters and situations in the Brer Rabbit stories represented slaves and their own impossible predicaments. Sometimes, the antagonist was ‘‘Ole Massa’’ himself. This vibrant imaginary world formed a backdrop for the real-life antics of individuals who outwitted the white oppressor. The stories vindicated blacks who daily endured oppression and indignities. It also slyly encouraged black slaves to find ways to undermine whites. For example, blacks who stole their white master’s choicest pigs and fruits without getting caught were heroes. Blacks, during the Jim Crow years of the late nineteenth century to midtwentieth century, found ways to challenge the white system through subtle mockery or in-your-face challenges. Unfortunately, the repercussions of playing the role of a trickster could be dangerous, and sometimes fatal.

Gus Vaughn was another African American in Rosa’s community who dared to challenge whites. While his family picked cotton, Rosa recalled how ‘‘Mr. Gus Vaughn didn’t do anything but walk around on his stick. He didn’t work for anybody. He didn’t do anything but walk around with his stick and talk big talk,’’ such as the day when a white man seethed, ‘‘Gus, I don’t like you’’ to which Vaughn replied, ‘‘There is no love lost,’’ implying that he didn’t like the white man either (Parks, My Story, 36). Rosa did not mention anything ever happening to Vaughn for what she referred to as ‘‘sassing’’ or talking back. He and her grandfather were two of the very few African American men who got away with putting themselves on equal terms with whites and challenging racism. Notwithstanding the humilities that Rosa and her family suffered, her childhood comprised some happy memories: fishing trips with her grandparents, frolicking with her little brother Sylvester (named after their

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grandfather) on the family property, reading, and going to school. Rosa, unlike her grandfather who forbade her and her brother from playing with the local white children, felt no animosity towards whites, insisting in her autobiography that not all white people ‘‘were hostile to us black people’’ (Parks, My Story, 38). For example, there was a white Union soldier who patted a two-year old Rosa ‘‘on the head and said [she] was such a cute little girl,’’ causing his southern father-in-law to ‘‘turn red as a coal of fire’’ and the kindly elderly white woman who frequently visited Rosa’s grandparents and took her fishing (Parks, My Story, 3). Despite her lack of hostility, Rosa was frustratingly aware of the disparity between whites and blacks in Pine Level. While white schoolchildren rode buses, the black children walked to school, often forced to trudge through the fields rather than the road to avoid being harassed by the children lumbering past on the school bus. The white children enjoyed a new school made of brick, ‘‘built with public money, including taxes paid by both whites and blacks,’’ and went to school for nine months. The black children attended school for just five months a year, because they were needed to work in the fields. When the black school was closed, Rosa and her brother walked eight miles to and from school at Spring Hill, where their mother taught. Unfazed by the social constrictions imposed on her race (and her gender), as well as her own sickliness and small size, Rosa, at age ten, single-handedly engaged in her first battle against racism. When a white boy ‘‘balled his fist up as if to give [Rosa] a sock,’’ Rosa ‘‘picked up a brick and dared him to hit [her]. He thought better of the idea and went away’’ (Parks, My Story, 22). She alluded to the explanation of her reaction to the white boy’s unprovoked threat when she wrote that the notion ‘‘that you don’t put up with bad treatment from anybody’’ was ‘‘passed down almost in our genes,’’ that ‘‘the habit of protecting [her] little brother helped [her] learn to protect’’ herself and that she ‘‘had a very strong sense of what was fair’’ (Parks, My Story, 15, 22). Her grandfather undoubtedly set a strong example for Rosa, but the women in her family did not applaud her efforts in challenging whites. Rosa was reprimanded by her grandmother for threatening the white boy with a brick. She told her that she was ‘‘too high-strung, and that if [she] wasn’t careful, [she] would probably by lynched before [she] was twenty years old’’ (Parks, My Story, 23). Rosa wrote that she ‘‘got very upset’’ by her grandmother’s words, mostly because she felt she had her ‘‘rights to try to defend’’ herself, and she thought that her grandmother had taken ‘‘his side’’ (Parks, My Story, 23). Since the schools for blacks went only to the sixth grade in Pine Level, Rosa’s mother sent her daughter to the big city of Montgomery, Alabama to further her education. Rosa attended the Montgomery Industrial School, where, significantly, the teachers were all white women from the North. Rosa learned ‘‘English, science, and geography, cooking, sewing, and the care of the sick.’’ More importantly, the teachers reinforced what her family had taught her: that she ‘‘was a person with dignity and self-respect,’’ and that she ‘‘should not set [her] sights lower than anybody else just because

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[she] was black’’ (Parks, My Story, 49). This aspect of the curriculum made the teachers very unpopular with the locals. Parks recalled that the downside to living in Montgomery was the stringent rules of segregation. Glaring reminders of white superiority and black inferiority were more prevalent in the big city than in little Pine Level. Signs regulating black and white life were everywhere. In particular, the ‘‘blackonly’’ and ‘‘white-only’’ signs on the water fountains initially puzzled Rosa, because she could not ‘‘understand that there was no difference in the water. [Both water fountains] had the same color and taste’’ (Parks, My Story, 46). Rosa encountered an increasing number of racial incidents in Montgomery, and her habit (to her mother’s angst) was to challenge them at every turn. Once, a young white boy on roller skates attempted to ‘‘push [Rosa] off the sidewalk’’ but found himself pushed instead (Parks, My Story, 48). When his mother, who stood nearby, protested, Rosa countered by stating that she ‘‘didn’t want to be pushed, seeing that I wasn’t bothering him at all’’ (Parks, My Story, 48). At another time, Rosa and a cousin were picking berries when a little boy shouted at them, ‘‘You niggers better leave them berries alone’’ (Parks, My Story, 51). But they countered back with a threat that they would harm him if he tried anything. They told their aunt who, like Rosa’s grandmother several years prior, scolded them and told them that they ought to keep their ‘‘mouths shut. If he’d gone and told somebody, they would have had y’all lynched’’ (Parks, My Story, 51). Rosa, however, would not be silenced. She later told a band of white teenagers after they had ‘‘threatened to throw her brother in the creek,’’ that ‘‘you won’t be putting nobody in the water unless all of us go in together’’ (Parks, My Story, 52). Rosa luckily survived these trying incidences, as well as the removal of her tonsils, but in the end she had to abandon her education. Following her stint at the Industrial School, Rosa attended Booker T. Washington Junior High and Alabama Normal School, but she had to drop out in her eleventh year to care for her grandmother. Her grandmother died shortly thereafter, but Rosa then had to care for her mother. To help provide for her family, Rosa worked as a domestic for whites. She also worked in a shirt factory and helped out on the family farm. This turn in Rosa’s life would have no doubt disappointed her grandfather, had he been alive, for the proud Sylvester had held grander hopes for his family. But opportunities for African American women were hardly any better for Rosa’s generation than her mother’s, and they were all the more limited for Rosa since she had not finished high school.

COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE When Rosa first met Raymond Parks, she did not like that his skin was so fair. He had a light complexion, like her grandfather, and was ‘‘in his late twenties and working as a barber in a black barbershop in downtown Montgomery.’’ Rosa was in her ‘‘late teens’’ and ‘‘very shy’’ (Parks, My

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Story, 55, 56). Coming often to her mother’s house, Raymond eventually gained Rosa’s trust and would take her for rides in his car. Rosa explained in her autobiography that owning a car was a big deal at that time. However, Rosa became interested in Raymond for another reason: [Raymond Parks] was the first man of our race, aside from my grandfather, with whom I actually discussed anything about the racial conditions. And he was the first, aside from my grandfather and Mr. Gus Vaughn, who was never actually afraid of white people. So many African Americans felt that you just had to be under Mr. Charlie’s heel—that’s what we called the white man, Mr. Charlie—and couldn’t do anything to cross him. In other words Parks believed in being a man and expected to be treated as a man. I was very impressed by the fact that he didn’t seem to have that meek attitude—what was called an ‘‘Uncle Tom’’ attitude—towards white people. (Parks, My Story, 59)

Raymond was a member of the NAACP when Rosa met him and a regular reader and subscriber of radical African American newspapers, like the Pittsburgh Courier, Amsterdam News, and Chicago Defender. Many of his clients at the barbershop read them too. During their time together, Parks often spoke about the organization and its current undertaking: raising money to help save the young boys of the infamous Scottsboro trial. The NAACP, deemed a radical organization at the time, had to work under the radar. The local chapter, of which Raymond was a member, functioned as an underground organization, meeting late at night. A lookout was positioned to watch for the police or any other signs of trouble, and the members carried guns. Parks was often cryptic when he talked to Rosa about the Montgomery Chapter. He did not want to expose Rosa to the dangers of what he was doing. This was not mere overprotectiveness on his part, for at least two of the men associated with Raymond’s activism had been murdered. In August 1932, the smitten Parks brought up the idea that he and Rosa ‘‘ought to get married’’ (Parks, My Story, 64). That December they exchanged vows in a quiet ceremony and reception at Rosa’s mother’s home. Theirs was a supportive marriage. Although Parks feared for her husband’s life, she did not attempt to deter him from his activism. And her husband encouraged Parks to work toward getting her high school diploma, which she received in 1933. Despite this achievement, she continued to take menial jobs. In 1941, Parks worked on an Army Air Force base, where jobs had been integrated as a result of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s issuance of Executive Order 8802. But off the base, segregation was still in full force. EARLY ACTIVISM The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) As has been shown, though Rosa Parks had a history of speaking out and fighting back when confronted with racism, she was often discouraged from

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doing so. She was also discouraged from joining the NAACP. In the early years of her marriage, Rosa did not express any interest in joining an organization for the purposes of resistance, but even if she had, her husband had made it clear that the NAACP was too dangerous. Parks speculated that this was the reason why many women may not have joined. It was not until more than ten years into her marriage, in 1943, that she challenged this status quo and joined the NAACP. Even then, Parks had not exactly intended to join the NAACP. She decided to go to a meeting to reconnect with an old school friend, a woman named Johnnie Carr, who, ironically, did not attend the gathering. But by the end of that meeting, Parks was not only a member but an officer, and her career as an activist had officially begun. Parks recalled that she ‘‘was the only woman there, and they said they needed a secretary, and I was too timid to say no’’ (Parks, My Story, 81). Some time later that year, Parks was not ‘‘too timid’’ when she tried to register to vote and, not for the last time, stood up to a bus driver who ordered her to get off his bus. Voting Rights Parks was unable to secure her voting rights after that first attempt in 1943, but her ongoing involvement and interest in the issue is shown by the fact that the Voters’ League frequently held meetings in the Parks’ home. Voting rights was also a major issue for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. Voting was recognized as a powerful tool, with which African Americans could affect the laws and elect the people who made those laws. Knowing this, whites, since emancipation, had made it as difficult as possible for African Americans to vote. In Montgomery, African Americans either had to be vouched by a white person or had to pass a tough literacy test. Initiating the steps to take the test was an ordeal in itself. Edgar Daniel Nixon, who was president of the Montgomery chapter of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and of the NAACP, and Arthur A. Madison, an African American attorney based in New York, were instrumental in helping to endorse black voting power. Madison was arrested and jailed for his work, illustrating the continuing perils of trying to change the system. Embittered by his experience, the lawyer returned to the North upon his release. First Bus Protest Parks revealed in her autobiography that ‘‘the second time I tried to register to vote, I was put off a Montgomery city bus for the first time. I didn’t follow the rules’’ (Parks, My Story, 76). The laws and established customs for riding segregated public buses varied from town to town (and bus to bus, in some cases) in the segregated South. In Montgomery, whites sat in the first ten seats, and African Americans filled the back ten seats. All the other seats in the middle were to be filled at the bus driver’s discretion. The gun-toting bus drivers wielded a great deal of power, enforcing the laws at their whim

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and fancy, and, as Parks described it, frequently mistreating African Americans in the process. One day in 1943 Parks entered the bus from the front rather than the back, because it was packed with people. After the driver ordered her to reenter the bus from the back door, she and the driver engaged in the following sharp exchange: I told him I was already on the bus and didn’t see the need of getting off and getting back on when people were standing on the stepwell, and how was I going to squeeze on anyway? So he told me if I couldn’t go through the back door that I would have to get off the bus—‘‘my bus,’’ he called it. I stood where I was. He came back and he took my coat sleeve; not my arm, just my coat sleeve. He didn’t take his gun out … I just didn’t get off and go around like he told me. So after he took my coat sleeve, I went up to the front, and I dropped my purse. Rather than stop or bend over to get it, I sat right down in the front seat and from a sitting position I picked up my purse. He was standing over me and he said, ‘‘get off my bus.’’ I said, ‘‘I will get off.’’ He looked like he was ready to hit me. I said, ‘‘I know one thing. You better not hit me.’’ He didn’t strike me. I got off, and I heard someone mumble from the back, ‘‘how come she don’t go around get in the back?’’ (Parks, My Story, 78–79)

This same Parks, who could be outright bold and outrageously defiant in some situations, appeared docile and submissive in others. As a secretary, Parks filled a subordinate (albeit important) role in the NAACP. She was not a decision maker, but a duteous supporter to the men who were. She followed instructions well and without complaint. She had many responsibilities (including taking minutes and other administrative duties), none of which brought her a stipend, but she was happy with what she was doing. She would have liked to do more, but as a co-worker had told her, her mother and husband were protective of her. Among her many jobs was to record ‘‘cases of discrimination or unfair treatment or acts of violence against black people’’ (Parks, My Story, 84). It was a distressing task, considering how often African Americans were denied justice. In 1945, Parks won a personal victory when she finally passed the literacy test. If she had not passed the third time, Parks had planned to sue the voter registration board, because she believed she had answered the questions correctly. As proof of foul play, she copied down by hand the test questions and her answers. She described her first time voting as anticlimactic, considering the hurdles she had personally overcome in specific and the historic struggle for black suffrage in general. Following this brief triumph, it was business as usual for Parks, who volunteered even more of her time to activism, eventually attaining a significant place in the NAACP. In 1946, Parks traveled to Jacksonville, Florida for an NAACP leadership training seminar, where she was introduced to

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Ella Baker, the national director of the NAACP. The two women fast became friends. Baker mentored Parks. A year later, Parks served on a committee that elected Edgar Nixon as president of the Alabama NAACP. She even presented a speech before convention goers in Mobile. The audience was ‘‘surprised’’ and impressed by the diminutive Parks as she ‘‘passionately’’ ‘‘quoted the Bible and Booker T. Washington, decried the mistreatment of African American women across the black belt, and chided those dandies who used the annual convention as an occasion for southern boosterism’’ (Brinkley, 69). On that same day, she was appointed secretary of the statewide NAACP conference. New endeavors followed in the ensuing years. Parks, as advisor to the NAACP Youth Council, helped high school students in their efforts to check out books from the white public library. During this time, she worked a number of housekeeping and seamstress jobs for whites and was an active member at St. Paul AME, preparing communion and teaching Sunday school. Between 1949 and 1952, Parks took a break from the NAACP to care for her mother, who frequently suffered from bouts of illness, but eventually continued her efforts, joining in the celebration of the monumental Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. During this time, she was befriended by (and did some sewing for) a white woman named Virginia Durr. Durr and her attorney husband were two of the few southern-born whites who assisted in the struggle of African Americans. A true iconoclast, Durr challenged racial etiquette by requesting that Parks call her by her first name (though Parks declined her request), engaged her in long friendly conversations in her home, and formed an integrated women’s prayer group (in which Parks participated). Virginia Durr contributed hugely to Parks’ development as an activist. She gave Parks books to read to supplement her education in, for example, politics, and insisted that she attend a workshop on ‘‘Racial Desegregation: Implementing the Supreme Court Decision’’ at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. With the help of Durr and a scholarship, Parks was able to attend the tenday workshop in the summer of 1955. Parks enjoyed herself immensely at Highlander, a school for aspiring activists. Although it was surrounded by a community of all whites—and racists at that—within the walls of the school there existed an unprecedented multiracial utopia, an illuminating experience for Parks. In this environment, Parks took part in discussions on race, speaking openly and unguardedly ‘‘without any repercussions or antagonistic attitudes from other people’’ (Parks, My Story, 107). Recreation included swimming, playing volleyball, and square dancing, in which Parks did not participate. Among the memorable aspects of the workshop was the forging of a friendship with Septima Clark, an African American woman activist and teacher at the Highlander School, where she taught ‘‘adults to read and write and learn about basic citizenship so they could become teachers of others, so they could register to vote,’’ and the fact that whites, not blacks, did the cooking every day (Parks, My Story, 104, 105).

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Septima Poinsette Clark Septima Poinsette Clark was an educator and activist. She was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 3, 1898, to Peter Poinsette, who had been born a slave, and Victoria Warren Anderson, who had been raised in Haiti but returned to her place of birth, Charleston, after the Civil War (1861–1865). After graduating from high school in 1916, Poinsette wanted to go on to college, but she could not afford it. Instead she found a job as a schoolteacher in John’s Island, South Carolina. Poinsette became an advocate for equal pay for black and white teachers when she realized that she and the other black teacher in the same school of one hundred thirty-two students received $35 and $25 a week, respectively. The white principle and teacher at the all-white school with only three students in the same town received $85 a week. In 1919, Poinsette began teaching the sixth grade at the Avery Normal Institute in Charleston, South Carolina. She soon began to attend meetings of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She and her students often went door-to-door for the NAACP, canvassing for support for various causes. A year later, Poinsette married Nerie Clark. They had a son, Nerie Clark, Jr., and moved to Dayton, Ohio. However, in 1925, her husband died. It was hard going as a single mom. She sent her son to live with his paternal grandparents in Hickory, North Carolina. While she taught, she took classes at Columbia University in New York and Atlanta University in Georgia. Further education at Benedict College, Columbia University, and Hampton Institute produced bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She returned to Charleston and continued to teach at various schools, including the famed activist institution, Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, where she facilitated an adult literacy program and taught students how to fill out voter registration forms. She also served as director of workshops for a time. In 1961, Clark became the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s director of education and teaching. She died on December 15, 1987.

There was tension in the air when Parks returned home to Alabama. The usually sleepy (with regards to African American protest) city of Mobile was abuzz with discontentment, particularly over segregated seating and abuse suffered on the public buses. This had long been a sore subject for the African American community, who, with only a few exceptions, endured the humiliation in silence. These exceptions included Nixon, storming down to the bus company to make futile demands, and Jo An Robinson, leader of the Women’s Political Council, whose protest resulted in the expansion of bus service into black neighborhoods and nothing else of major consequence. While the bigwigs in the NAACP, led by Nixon, contemplated a

Rosa Parks

plan of legal action, Parks had her own thoughts. She believed that the church should be at the forefront of whatever activism took place, and that a bus boycott was the solution to getting their demands met by the bus company. The problem with the bus boycott, as she found out after questioning some folks in town, was that the likelihood of mobilizing support was virtually nil. Though ‘‘a group of activists took a petition to the bus company official and city officials’’ making such requests as ‘‘courteous treatment’’ and the elimination of the signs that designated the black and white sections on the bus, Parks was not among them. She stated that she ‘‘would not go anywhere with a piece of paper in [her] hand asking white folks for any favors’’ (Parks, My Story, 112). Parks was witness to, and may have participated in, the intense discussions regarding whether or not to take legal action, a popular means of protest for the NAACP, against the bus companies. The odds for leading a successful legal attack were deemed to be weighted heavily against them. The conditions would have to be just right: the bus passenger would have to be charged with violating the laws of segregation, and, at the same time, to be ‘‘above reproach’’ so as to win over the religious African American community and withstand attacks by the opposition (Parks, My Story, 111). Only then would it be feasible for the NAACP attorneys to have their day in court before the Supreme Court with the possibility of victory. Justice for African Americans in the South, with its abundance of racist judges and allwhite hanging juries, was inconceivable. Potential cases with two young women had come and gone, but had not proved viable, because one woman was pregnant out of wedlock and the other did not want to protest. None of the activist leaders dreamed that the responsibility would fall upon the slender shoulders of the impeccable Parks, who made an unpremeditated act of defiance on December 1, 1955. PRELUDE TO THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT Thursday, December 1, 1955 On what seemed an ordinary evening following a day of work at Montgomery Fair, a department store in town, Parks ascended bus number 2857. She was possibly irritated when she noticed, after paying her fare, that the bus driver, one James Blake, was the same man she had had a run-in with in 1943 when he had ordered her off his bus when, following a spat, she did not enter the bus from the back. Since that confrontation, Parks had made a point of avoiding him. But it was too late to get off the bus now. She continued on, picking her way down the aisle and sitting down in the front row of the ‘‘black-only’’ section. Beside her were two women and one man. When a group of whites later entered the bus, the driver demanded that the four blacks (Parks included) give up their seats to a white man. The

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three other passengers hesitated, but when the driver commanded, ‘‘Y’all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats,’’ the three relinquished their places (Parks, My Story, 115). Parks stood up to let the black men sidle past her and sat down again, sliding over to the window seat. The bus was intensely quiet, watching to see what Parks would do. Parks did not move. Parks’ resistance—by not yielding her seat to the white man—was not because her feet were sore, as people would later say, and not because she foresaw the opportunity to induce an incident that could be used by the NAACP as a test case to fight segregation. Parks had a long history of stubbornly resisting racism. As she sat in her seat, her thoughts turned to memories of her radical grandfather, who stood up to racism with bold ‘‘sassiness’’ and readiness to defend himself and his family with his shotgun, and her bitter frustration over having to always bow down to white supremacy. This act of defiance was personal. The ensuing scenes played out without pandemonium. There was no explosive exchange or violent confrontation between the driver and Parks; the other passengers were not involved. The dialogue between the driver and Parks was brief: he asked her if she was going to give up her seat; she told him, ‘‘No.’’ When he said, ‘‘I’m going to have you arrested,’’ she cheekily replied, ‘‘You may do that’’ (Parks, My Story, 116). Neither the driver nor the two police officers who arrived on the scene physically assaulted Parks, which in that period would have been permitted. The first question one of the officers asked her was why she did not stand up. Parks responded with a question of her own: ‘‘Why do you all push us around?’’ (Parks, My Story, 117) By questioning the officer, Parks demonstrated that she was not obligated to answer to anyone. By making known her dissatisfaction with white oppression, she risked physical harm or death. But her question seemed to befuddle the officer, who replied, ‘‘I don’t know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest,’’ and then the two officers, in a gesture that could be interpreted as courteous, carried her bags to the police car (Parks, My Story, 117). While en route to jail, she was asked again why she did not comply with the bus driver. This time Parks said nothing. No major incidents occurred at the jail, with the exception that Parks was ignored when she asked to make a phone call. Parks was stoic while in jail. In the cell she shared with two other African American women, she was more concerned with one woman’s narrative of domestic abuse and how she had landed in jail because she had attempted to defend herself than she was with her own situation. When she was finally allowed to make a phone call, she called home. Her mother was relieved that her daughter had not been beaten. Her husband promised that he would be there soon. Word quickly spread within the African American community about Parks’ arrest. Nixon and the Durrs were on hand to greet Parks when she was released (a white friend of Parks’ husband supplied the bail money).

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Virginia Durr greeted Parks with a tearful embrace. Parks, suddenly letting her defenses down, recalled that she ‘‘didn’t realize how much being in jail had upset me until I got out’’ (Parks, My Story, 123). Raymond Parks ‘‘gave his wife a bear hug that swept her off her feet’’ (Brinkley, 114). Nixon soon broached the topic of taking her demonstration to greater heights, asking Parks if she would be willing to be the test case. Parks, with her ‘‘sterling character,’’ was the ideal plaintiff (Brinkley, 117). But Rosa Parks, who had not even considered allowing her personal moment of protest to go beyond what it was, had no immediate answer for Nixon. Parks went home that evening to discuss what to do with her husband and her mother. Both Leona and Raymond were wary of sacrificing Rosa’s future for the sake of challenging segregation on Montgomery buses. Besides, Raymond thought that there was no possible way to gain support from the community. No situation or experience had ever shown him that that was a possibility. The three of them deliberated for some time, finally deciding that Rosa should agree to work with the NAACP. That very night, Fred Gray, a black attorney, contacted Jo Ann Robinson, who agreed to ask for support from the Women’s Political Council for a bus boycott scheduled for the same day as Parks’ trial (Monday, December 5). Through Robinson’s efforts, more than ‘‘35,000 handbills (handbills, leaflets, brochures)’’ were produced to spread the word about the boycott (Parks, My Story, 126). Little did any of them know that that the heroic struggle toward civil rights had begun. Friday, December 2, 1955 The next day, Parks went to work as usual, though she took a taxi owned by an African American company, vowing that she ‘‘was not going to ride the bus anymore’’ (Parks, My Story, 128). She stunned her boss, who had neither heard the news nor read it in the morning’s paper. Meanwhile, Nixon began orchestrating the two-pronged battle: in court, with Parks as plaintiff, and in the community, via the bus boycott. Essential to this strategy was his utilization of the press and the African American church. Nixon’s behindthe-scenes masterminding was crucial to the success to come. Another significant move on Nixon’s part was to involve the African American church. Most African Americans in Montgomery and across the nation were churchgoers. Their deep-seated faith stemmed from the religious traditions of Africa, their ancestral homeland, and had survived the grueling Middle Passage and the period of slavery. Nixon made a call to a prominent local Baptist preacher, Ralph Abernathy, who in turn brought on a young newcomer named Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The two men were among the eighteen other ministers designated to lead the boycott. Nixon also coordinated a meeting that night to discuss the planned boycott. Significantly, the press was invited.

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During the lunch hour, Parks went to Fred Gray’s office to help answer phone calls and provide any other administrative assistance. That evening, she went to the meeting at Dr. King’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where she talked about her ordeal. As a result of the first meeting, some ministers ‘‘agreed to talk about the protest in their Sunday sermons,’’ and another pamphlet was created to appear ‘‘on the front page of the Montgomery Advertiser’’ (Parks, My Story, 129, 130). No strong consensus was reached regarding the duration of the boycott, and an additional meeting was scheduled (for the first night of the boycott).

MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT Monday was an important day: the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was forged, with Dr. King at its helm; Parks had her day in court; and the first day of the Montgomery bus boycott was launched with full participation from African Americans (with the exception of a few riders who had not known about the boycott). Notwithstanding the history-making significance of the day, Parks woke that morning without anxiety. She stated, ‘‘I did not spend a lot of time planning what to wear.’’ Nevertheless, she remembered precisely what she wore: ‘‘a straight, long-sleeved black dress with a white collar and cuffs, a small black velvet hat with pearls across the top, and a charcoal gray coat.’’ She carried ‘‘a black purse and wore white gloves’’ (Parks, My Story, 132). Such were the modest, non-flashy, and conservative battle clothes befitting of the demure Parks. As Parks strode up the steps of the courthouse later that morning, a woman called out behind her, ‘‘Oh, she’s so sweet. They’ve met with the wrong one now’’ (Parks, My Story, 133). During the trial, Parks—unlike so many icons of African American protest who engaged in extensive public speaking and elaborate denunciation— said nothing. Her mere presence was all that was necessary, while the attorneys, Charles Langford and Fred Gray, spoke on her behalf. As the protest leaders had hoped, Parks was ‘‘found guilty of violating the segregation laws’’ and was charged a fine of $14.00 (including court costs) (Parks, My Story, 134). After the trial, Parks went to Gray’s office. Keeping her identity incognito, she answered the non-stop phone inquiries on the results of the trial and this unknown woman named Rosa Parks. That evening there was a ‘‘pep rally’’ for the boycotters, at the Holt Street Baptist Church. As became the custom for such meetings, prayers and rousing speeches were given, religious songs were sung, and scriptures were read. At that time in African American history, the church was both a symbol and a tool for activism. Political speech making and the singing of protest songs stemmed from African American sermons and spirituals. At the head of this movement were the spiritual leaders of the African American Community: the preachers. Women held conventional and limited roles.

Rosa Parks

Parks, though she was the one who had sparked the massive demonstration, was not exempt. When she asked if she should ‘‘say anything’’ at the church on Holt Street, she was told that she had ‘‘said enough and you don’t have to speak’’ (Parks, My Story, 139). Parks seemed content with the explanation, explaining that she was not compelled to say anything anyway. Her introduction alone seemed to satisfy the enthusiastic crowd that flowed out the front door and spilled out onto the front lawn. The program featured Dr. King, who was received with thunderous applause and the reading of ‘‘the list of demands that the Montgomery Improvement Association was going to present to the bus company and the city’s white leaders,’’ which included ‘‘courteous treatment on the buses’’; ‘‘first-come, first-served seating, with whites in front and blacks in back’’; and ‘‘hiring of black drivers for the black bus routes’’ (Parks, My Story, 140). The boycott proved to be a long and harrowing affair; no one had expected it to last 381 days. Parks was the only woman to share center stage with Dr. King, whose popularity increased tremendously during the boycott. Parks was the quiet one; King was the charismatic orator. Both embarked on speaking campaigns. Parks, however, had to keep a full-time job to provide for her family. The monies she made from speaking engagements went to support the boycott. Parks also went to work behind-the-scenes for the MIA, which coordinated an elaborate transportation system utilizing black cab companies and church-owned vans. Others affected by the boycott opted to simply walk. Parks’ determination was severely tested during the boycott. Not only did the bus company and city officials (including the mayor) make every effort to oppose the demands of the boycotters, white racists made ruthless attempts to intimidate her and the leaders of the MIA. Both she and her husband lost their jobs. Rosa was fired, while Raymond quit when a supervisor threatened to fire anyone who mentioned his wife’s name. Rosa, along with other MIA members, was regularly threatened. Hate calls streamed in daily to the Parks’ home. But she and her family were never attacked— unlike some of the leaders, like King, whose home was bombed. Nonetheless, the daily bullying put a strain on the Parks. That February, eighty-nine indictments were handed down to ministers, MIA leaders (including King), and Rosa Parks, justified by ‘‘an old law that prohibited boycotts’’ (Parks, My Story, 148). King was the only one to be tried and sentenced, but his case was later appealed. The photograph of Parks getting fingerprinted was published on the front cover of the New York Times. Parks was becoming a household name. The attention was sometimes unsettling. One of the only times that Parks broke down publicly was when she was interviewed by an aggressive reporter out of San Francisco who told her he ‘‘was going ‘to take me apart and see what made me tick,’’’ and the interview made Parks so nervous that she recalled how the cup in her hand ‘‘was rattling, I was shaking so’’

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(Parks, My Story, 153). ‘‘The man was being obnoxious, and I was being as polite and nice as I possibly could,’’ she said, ‘‘suddenly I just couldn’t stand him any longer, I went into hysterics’’ (Parks, My Story, 153). Roy Wilkins, President of the NAACP, who was present at the interview, comforted her. The heroic struggle to boycott Montgomery buses took its toll on everyone. What got them through was the strength of their numbers, their unified commitment to protest, and extraordinary leaders like King. Bi-weekly meetings at the churches affirmed their purpose; songs were sung to strengthen their hearts, and brilliant legal work and media coverage documented the struggle in print and on TV for all the world to see. Above all was the unifying symbol of an ordinary woman like Parks. On November 13, 1956, the boycotters received joyous news: the Supreme Court had ruled that segregation on Montgomery buses was unconstitutional. Back to Highlander In December, Parks, along with her mother and Nixon, traveled to Highlander on an invitation to encourage six black students from Clinton, Tennessee, who were growing disheartened in the struggle they faced being the first blacks to integrate their high school and were considering dropping out of school. The black students were taunted, harassed, and received no protection. Parks was able to convince the youths to return to school. The visit was a good one for both mother and daughter. Indeed, Parks was invited to join the faculty at Highlander, but she had to reluctantly decline. Her mother did not want to stay. End of the Boycott Following the Supreme Court decision in November, King had warned the activists to keep boycotting until the ruling was made official. Thus, the boycott did not officially end until December 20, 1956. It was a joyful occasion. There were celebrations and a sense of accomplishment; pictures were staged on buses (Parks included), and similar demonstrations were launched in other parts of the South. However, the ensuing years were hard and dangerous. There were more bombings and threats, and whites even shot at buses. In the meantime, Parks became increasingly uncomfortable in encounters within her own circle. A Baptist preacher ‘‘teased’’ her one day, ‘‘exclaiming, ‘Well! If it isn’t the superstar!’’’ (Brinkley, 175). Nixon had ‘‘turned a cold shoulder toward her, telling Arkansas NAACP activist Daisy Bates that Parks was a lovely, ‘stupid woman’ the media had built up into an icon’’’ (Brinkley, 175). Abernathy ‘‘refused to take Parks seriously as a civil rights leader, dismissing her as a mere ‘tool’ of the MIA’’ (Brinkley, 176). The threat of violence, compounded by her inability to find work and possibly

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Highlander Folk School The Highlander Folk School, now known as the Highlander Research and Education Center, was a popular landmark during the Civil Rights Movement. Most activists attended workshops in social activism for training and development. Among some of the famous activists who have been associated with Highlander were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and John Lewis. Highlander was founded in 1932 by Myles Horton, Don West, and James A. Dombrowski. It was originally situated in Monteagle, Tennessee. After Rosa Parks refused her seat on a Jim Crow bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, racist whites did everything imaginable to thwart the subsequent boycott. So intense was the reaction against Parks that in 1961 the state of Tennessee closed Highlander. Parks had attended Highlander for a workshop prior to her demonstration. It reopened later that year in Knoxville, Tennessee and became known as the Highlander Research and Education Center. In 1971, it changed locations for a third time to New Market, Tennessee. Highlander was attended mostly by white students. Indeed it kept its doors open to all races, with a goal of developing and supporting activists and demonstrations locally, nationally, and internationally. Highlander was, in its time, an unconventional institute, since few schools in the South were integrated. In addition to workshops, Highlander offered a variety of recreational diversions. In this camp-like atmosphere, blacks and whites bonded while holding discussions on race, activism, and other important issues. Highlander: No Ordinary School (1996) provides an in-depth glimpse into this extraordinary institution.

by the discomfort of being a status symbol in her own hometown, induced Parks to move to the North. Her friends and co-fighters (Nixon among them) were sad to see her go. However, they bid her farewell with a party and a parting gift of $800. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT Rosa Parks’ move to Detroit in 1957, where her brother and his family lived, coincided with the burgeoning of one of the most important periods of African American protest: the Civil Rights Movement. This movement was concentrated in the South and led primarily by men, with King as its most popular leader. Though her role remained constrained—not by her departure from the center of agitation in the South, but because of her own temperament, the social traditions, and the expected gender roles of the time—Rosa Parks was an important player in the movement.

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Parks’ day-to-day existence during these years was a juggling act between making a living, caring for her mother and husband when they fell sick, and her activism. Parks found work as a seamstress at the Stockton Sewing Company (beginning in 1959). While there, she befriended Elaine Eason Steele. Unlike other leaders who were paid to engage in full-time activist work, Parks volunteered as often as she was able or when she was requested to appear at a function or demonstration. She was involved in the Detroit chapter of the NAACP and maintained a steady lecturing schedule. From time to time she attended conferences of the King-led Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC). King was revered by many. A permanent fixture of most African American homes was the big family Bible, accompanied by framed drawings of the biblical Jesus and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Hand fans imprinted with King’s face were used in African American churches across the nation. Parks herself, who read his books and regularly played his speeches on her record player in her home, was one of his biggest admirers. Whether in person or secondhand, Parks closely followed the goings-on of the Movement. When she was told that King was stabbed at a book signing in Harlem in 1958, she was beside herself. She was present at the unprecedented March on Washington in 1963. It was a sign of the times that women were not allowed to participate as speakers on the program, with the exception of the introduction of the prominent women activists (including Rosa Parks) during the ‘‘Tribute to Women’’ portion of the program. Parks was ‘‘more hurt than angered by the slight’’ (Brinkley, 185). ‘‘Nowadays,’’ she wrote in her autobiography, ‘‘women wouldn’t stand for being kept so much in the background, but back then women’s rights hadn’t become a popular cause yet’’ (Parks, My Story, 166). Growing Tide of Militancy and Racial Consciousness A new movement was developing within the urban African American communities of the North, right in Parks’ own backyard. While the Civil Rights Movement was making huge strides in the South, African American separatists and militants were gaining a foothold in impoverished African American neighborhoods in the North. This countermovement aimed to replace the call for nonviolence with self-defense and revolution, integration with black separatism and autonomy, and to address the frustration increasingly experienced by city youths over the poverty, despair, and lack of opportunities in their communities. The signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a major victory. It was felt most profoundly by middle-class African Americans living in the segregated South. In the integrated (by law, if not always by practice) North, segregation was not a major issue, but drugs, crime, alienation, racism, and unemployment were. Malcolm X was one of the most prominent militant

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leaders. His activism was launched on soapboxes on street corners. When he gave a speech in Detroit, he caught the attention of an unlikely person— Rosa Parks. Parks wrote that she ‘‘didn’t disagree with [Malcolm X] altogether,’’ and indeed some of Malcolm X’s ideas resonated with Parks (Parks, My Story, 178). She liked ‘‘his stance on alcohol and drugs’’ and ‘‘black self-sufficiency’’ (Brinkley, 192). She also agreed with the radically perceived concept of self-defense—up to a point. Although she saw the effectiveness of nonviolence as a strategy as King utilized it in massive demonstrations, she believed that individually, self-defense was at times necessary. What she did not subscribe to was ‘‘hatred for whites’’ and violence as a means to an end (Brinkley, 192). Parks heard Malcolm X speak (following his life-changing pilgrimage to Mecca that caused him to rethink his stance on integration) shortly before he was assassinated on February 21, 1965. Into the World of Politics and Religion In 1965, Parks was appointed deaconess of her home congregation, St. Matthew’s AME, and accepted a full-time position on the staff of a young civil rights activist turned politician named John Conyers. As a deaconess, her ‘‘duties expanded to include fostering and promoting the general interests of the church, soliciting the friendship and sympathy of the general public, cheering the downcast, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, and saving the lost by visiting them in mental hospitals and prisons’’ (Brinkley, 190). Parks’ work at Representative Conyers’ office was similar to responsibilities she held when she volunteered for civil rights organizations. In this way, Parks was finally getting paid to do the work that she loved, with the added bonus that she was allowed to take time off to go to a speaking event or demonstration, such as King’s Selma to Montgomery March in March 1965. Selma to Montgomery March Parks did not participate the first time demonstrators tried to march from Selma to the Montgomery capitol. Before they could cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, police officers attacked them with tear gas, billy clubs, and electric cattle prods. That day became known as ‘‘Bloody Sunday.’’ Parks saw the horrific violence on television. King led a second march, but this one was brief and more symbolic than anything else so as not to provoke a repeat of the first tragedy or to challenge a restraining order to prevent a full march. When that order was lifted and Parks was asked to participate in a third and successful march to the capitol, Parks, without hesitation, said yes. In attendance were King and a host of celebrity activists such as comedian Dick Gregory, singer Harry Belafonte, and gospel singer Odetta. Parks,

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however, was given a rocky reception, for she was put out on several occasions (by younger participants who did not recognize who she was) only to be invited back in by those who saw her standing on the sidelines. At the end of the march, she was escorted to the front of the line at the Montgomery capitol building, where an angry gathering of whites was ‘‘jeering and shouting’’ at them (Parks, My Story, 171). Several months later, Parks was a witness to the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This monumental civil rights legislation was largely made possible due to the heroism demonstrated during the Selma to Montgomery marches. Black Power Movement and Racial Consciousness By 1966, the Black Power Movement was in full force. Among the most visible leaders were Stokely Carmichael, former integrationist, who coined the term Black Power in that same year, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale. This movement dominated in the urban settings of the North. Parks was caught up to a small degree in the racial consciousness that spread throughout the nation. She ‘‘began wearing colorful African-inspired garb on occasion, attending performances at the concept east theater, the first African American theater company in the urban North, and listening to WCHB, the nation’s first major black-owned-and-operated radio station,’’ and she also ‘‘started making appearances at rallies sponsored by Detroit’s Freedom Now Party’’ (Brinkley, 202). What Parks could not empathize with or endorse was the rioting that erupted in the North beginning in 1965. King’s response to the crisis (and the conditions triggering the riots) in the North was to implement a program and a series of marches to address unemployment and poverty. His activism in the North met with little success. When rioting made its way to Detroit in 1967, Parks was outraged. She called the rioters ‘‘thieves,’’ and referred to the riots as ‘‘pure hooliganism’’ (Brinkley, 203). She told Ebony that ‘‘it harmed the cause when looting and burning were passed off as being ‘in the name of civil rights’’’ (Brinkley, 204). When King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, the world mourned. Parks and her mother, who heard the devastating news on a radio broadcast, ‘‘wept quietly together’’ in their home, and 168 riots erupted in cities across the nation (Parks, My Story, 179). THE YEARS FOLLOWING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT That Parks’ life was affected by King’s death, as well as by the emergence of new civil rights leaders, the Black Power Movement, and personal circumstances, was obvious. Parks’ popularity and activism were closely linked to King and the SCLC (which ‘‘drifted into irrelevance’’ after King’s passing)

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and to a generation that was gradually being replaced by a new leadership that did not know and had never worked personally with Parks (Brinkley, 207). Ill health in her family—her brother, mother, and husband experienced bouts of illness, as did Parks herself—kept Parks closer to home and less and less out of the battlefield. All three of her family members succumbed to cancer during the 1970s. These circumstances made her realize that she was becoming more ‘‘symbolic and less activist’’; more isolated from leaders in the thick of activity. Her interviews and appearances were reduced to focus on that of a single act of protest that occurred on December 1, 1955. With the coming of the new decade, Parks’ life was as busy as ever, but less overwhelming and less lonely thanks to Elaine Eason Steele, the friend she had met at the Stockton Sewing Company. Steele stepped in at a time when Parks was badly in need of friendship and helped her manage her overwhelming commitments. Eason was indispensable, helping Parks through a car accident in 1987, heart surgery, and the start-up of Parks’ own project: the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development in 1987, which reached out to several thousand of the nation’s youth. In 1988, she retired from working with Representative John Conyers to focus on the Institute. In the 1990s, Rosa Parks took on the mantle of one of the oldest living activists from the Civil Rights Movement and as such was celebrated throughout the world. Her popularity far exceeded that of the male leaders who had dominated the Movement. In 1990, she met Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist; Mandela had always wanted to meet Parks. The encounter was an emotional one for both: Tears filled his eyes as he walked up to the small old woman with her hair in two silver braids crossed atop her head. And in a low, melodious tone, Nelson Mandela began to chant, ‘‘Ro-sa Parks. Ro-sa Parks. Ro-sa Parks,’’ until his voice crescendoed into a rapturous shout: ‘‘Ro-sa Parks!’’ … then the two brave old souls, their lives so distant yet their dreams so close, fell into each other’s arms, rocking back and forth in a long, joyful embrace. (Brinkley, 230–231)

In the spring of 1994, Parks traveled to Tokyo to visit Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, President of Soka University, whom she had met in 1992 and ‘‘discussed new strategies for building a global grassroots movement to spread the philosophy of nonviolence’’ (Brinkley, 221). During her visit, Japanese students sang ‘‘We Shall Overcome’’ in English. That summer, Parks—an international star—survived a shocking attack. A teenager beat and robbed her of $103 in her own home. Shortly thereafter, Parks was moved to ‘‘the riverfront towers, a twenty-four hour gated and guarded modern high-rise complex overlooking the Detroit river,’’ where Parks surrounded herself with ‘‘precious souvenirs’’ and honors and mementos (Brinkley, 217, 218). Parks’ final years were spent reading books about activists and gazing out of the window overlooking ‘‘the majestic span of the Ambassador Bridge to

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Canada,’’ the refuge for a number of slaves and African Americans after emancipation (Brinkley, 218). There were still engagements to attend and appearances to make, but Parks was content. At age ninety-two, on October 24, 2005, Parks, the unlikely heroine and living legend, died. See also Ella Baker; Stokely Carmichael; Malcolm X; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Huey P. Newton; and Roy Wilkins. FURTHER RESOURCES Brinkley, Douglas. Rosa Parks. New York: Viking, 2000. Dove, Rita. On the Bus with Rosa Parks: Poems. New York: Norton, 1999. Kohl, Herbert R. She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. New York: New Press, 2005. Montgomery Boycott.com. Montgomery Advertiser (June 2007). See http:// www.montgomeryboycott.com. Parks, Rosa. Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue with Today’s Youth. New York: Lee & Low Books, 1996. Parks, Rosa. I Am Rosa Parks. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1997. Parks, Rosa, with Jim Haskins. Rosa Parks: My Story. New York: Dial Books, 1992. Parks, Rosa, with Gregory J. Reed. Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope, and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994. RosaParks.org. Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development (June 2007). See http://www.rosaparks.com. The Rosa Parks Story. Directed by Julie Dash. Santa Monica, CA: Xenon Pictures, 2002.

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Asa Philip Randolph was the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Randolph was a leader in both the labor movement for African American workers and in the struggle to eliminate segregation in the war industry and armed forces, and a pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement. Randolph’s entry into activism during the second decade of the twentieth century occurred during the heyday of prominent African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Marcus Garvey. Randolph was most influenced by Du Bois, though he eventually grew to oppose the immensely popular leader’s conservative ideology. Randolph came to believe that socialism was the solution to the deplorable conditions facing blacks in America. Protesting racism and inequality while espousing socialism was a precarious and radical position in early twentieth-century America. In his early adult years, Randolph was, in fact, the quintessential radical—a firebrand even—and deemed one of ‘‘the most dangerous Negroes in the United States’’ (Anderson, 83). Later, Randolph’s radicalism, which was tempered with diplomacy, dogged patience, and extraordinary dignity, and his activism, through negotiations and multiple demonstrations, was instrumental in making great strides in ablating barriers that obstructed African American progress and inclusion into mainstream American life and to laying the groundwork for emerging black leaders. For his contributions to the pursuit of civil rights, he was considered an honored and respected activist by the pre-eminent African American organizations of the day and by the very government he had once opposed.

EARLY YEARS Asa Philip was born on April 15, 1889 to James and Elizabeth Randolph in Baldwin, Florida. He had one brother, James, who was two years older. Their father, a reverend in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, named Asa after a king in the Old Testament. According to I Kings 15, King Asa negotiated with a Syrian king to rescue the people of Judah from Israel. This name proved to be prophetic in Philip’s later years, when he emerged as a leader driven to liberate African Americans from the bonds of segregation and injustice. The man Asa was to become was profoundly influenced by his parents (especially his father), his upbringing, and his experiences as a young adult. Although Asa was born in Baldwin, most of his upbringing occurred in Jacksonville, Florida, where his father accepted a preaching position at a small congregation. Asa’s parents were hardworking, religious people. Money, however, was a constant issue. The reverend and his wife found creative ways to supplement James’ modest income from his preaching. They both ‘‘repaired, dyed, cleaned, and pressed clothes’’ (38). Elizabeth sewed the family’s clothes, and food was raised in the backyard. The Reverend

A. Philip Randolph

Nat Turner Nat Turner (1800–1831) was an African American who led one of the largest slave rebellions in the American South. His life illustrates one of the earliest examples of militant resistance to slavery. Turner was a slave on a plantation owned by Samuel Turner in Southampton County, Virginia. Unlike most slaves, he could read and write. Whites prohibited the education of slaves to maintain control over them and to prevent escape and resistance. Turner’s ability to read and write along with his religious leadership raised his status among blacks in Southampton County. Turner preached sermons and was known to experience visions. Other slaves called him ‘‘The Prophet.’’ Through his visionary experiences and his interpretation of unusual natural events (such as two eclipses), Turner came to believe he was called by God to lead a slave rebellion. He devised a plan, which he divulged to four slaves he trusted—Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam. They planned to kill as many whites as possible and free the slaves. On August 21, 1831, the five slaves launched their revolt, attacking whites with hatchets and knives. It took two days to quell the rebellion. Turner and his rebels, who had swelled to fifty or more other slaves and free blacks, killed some fifty-seven white men, women, and children. Turner was found hiding in a cave. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. He was hung on November 11, 1831, and his body was flayed, beheaded, and quartered. All the blacks involved in the rebellion were executed. A white mob killed nearly another two hundred blacks, many of them innocent. Turner’s rebellion was not the first of its kind. Slave rebellions were reported to have occurred as early as the eighteenth century aboard slave ships during the passage from Africa. At least 250 slave revolts are known to have occurred in the South, although none were as notorious as the one launched by Nat Turner. In the aftermath of most rebellions, whites imposed tougher laws and restrictions on the slaves. This, and the onslaught of white-induced violence against innocent blacks, helped to quell future uprisings. Most blacks in the South learned that accommodation rather than resistance was the only way to protect self and community.

Randolph tried his hand at selling meat and wood on separate occasions, but these and other ventures were unprofitable. Although Elizabeth and the Reverend Randolph may have been poor in terms of material possessions, they were rich in terms of the education of their children. The Randolph home was imbued with love, discipline, and character-building

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instruction that was instrumental in setting the foundation for Asa’s activism and philosophy. Young Asa was familiar with the concept of African American protest. His parents belonged to a segment of African Americans that radically defied the preconceptions of the times, such as the notion that African Americans were a stigma, inferior to whites, and passive in response to white oppression and racism. The Reverend Randolph and his wife supplemented their children’s education with their own brand of militant instruction and example. First and foremost, the Randolph family belonged to the AME Church, which Asa’s father proudly acclaimed ‘‘was the first black militant institution in America’’ (26). The AME Church, which had separated from the Methodist Episcopal Church to form a predominately black church and engaged in anti-slavery protests, played a large role in forming the Reverend Randolph’s own radical views and intense racial pride. As a part of his children’s informal education, the elder Randolph required daily reading. Among the books in the diverse family library were radical African American newspapers and books on African history. He taught his sons about extraordinary African American leaders like Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, and Henry McNeil Turner. His parents were ‘‘constantly reiterating that the boys were ‘not supposed to bow and take a back seat for anybody,’ but rather stand up for their rights’’ (Pfeffer, 7). Elizabeth’s insistence that her children fight back when challenged by their peers served to foster courage in her children. Though Randolph was a reluctant fighter in his childhood and a lifelong advocate of nonviolence, his agitation required a certain pugilistic spirit in facing off with the opposition. The Reverend Randolph and Elizabeth were in their own uncelebrated ways extraordinary activists. When Asa was ten years old, his father joined a group of armed men to prevent the lynching of an African American man. In his father’s absence, his mother, ‘‘a deadly shot,’’ stood guard on the family porch with a shotgun (Anderson, 42). From this experience, Asa learned the lesson of self-defense and the importance of collective action. He also felt pride for his mother, who was stoically and unflinchingly prepared to defend their home. However, Randolph was not, as an adult, an advocate of self-defense. When Jim Crow laws came to Florida, Asa’s father ‘‘forbade his sons to read their books in the segregated reading room of the Jacksonville public library. Nor, he ordered, should they ride the Jim Crow streetcars. They should do as he did: walk to wherever they wanted to go in the city’’ (Anderson, 42). Asa’s parents worked to instill in him and his brother a confident bearing and a strong sense of self-esteem. This youthful training was the basis for Asa’s legendary eloquence and poise that were manifested in both his everyday life and his oratory style. Asa’s father emphasized the importance of articulation, as a result of which, both boys were naturally enamored with words and their pronunciation (and the spirited Asa enjoyed mimicking his

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father’s sonorous voice). The father, who ‘‘walked graceful[ly], just as straight as you can get,’’ also ‘‘taught the boys to walk like him. If he caught one of them slouching, he would call out, ‘come on, now shoulders back’’’ (Anderson, 37). The father inspired his sons to always display exemplary conduct and deportment, which they certainly achieved. Self-esteem, which was wanting in a society that classified African Americans as inferior, was strong in the Randolph boys. The father constantly pointed out positive African American role models to his children and introduced his sons as ‘‘two of the finest boys in the world’’ (Anderson, 40). The parents were, however, unable to instill in their children religious beliefs. Asa attended high school at the Cookman Institute. He and his brother were popular with the other students and had spotless reputations. Asa excelled academically, mostly due to the encouragement of two African American teachers, Lillie M. Whitney and Mary Neff, and in athletics. Asa ‘‘displayed gifts which marked him the school’s best student in literature, public speaking, and drama’’ (Anderson, 45–46). This was a pivotal period in Asa’s young life. At home, Asa and his brother delighted in discussing the hot topics of the day that concerned African Americans with their father. The boys had big dreams ‘‘of leading the fight for human rights as congressmen, or working as educators, scientists, doctors and writers’’ (Reef, 28). At graduation, Asa, the class valedictorian, gave his first public speech, entitled ‘‘The Man of the Hour.’’ He was, in that moment, on top of the world, and his future appeared destined to be a gleaming success. The five years following Asa’s optimistic send-off at his high school graduation in 1907 were anticlimactic. Because his parents were unable to afford college, Asa went the way of the majority of African Americans in the South: he collected insurance premiums from African Americans, ‘‘clerked in a grocery store, drove a delivery wagon for a drug company, stacked logs in a lumberyard, pushed wheelbarrows in a fertilizer factory, and carried water and shoveled dirt for an outfit laying railroad crossties’’ (Anderson, 47). What was most important to him were his extracurricular pursuits: reading ‘‘literature, history, and contemporary affairs,’’ ‘‘giving public readings of the Bible, Shakespeare, and the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar at black churches and theaters,’’ and joining a barbershop quarter (Anderson, 47). The Reverend Randolph wanted Asa to become a preacher, but his son had other intentions: Asa wanted to become an actor. Asa’s life took a significant turn after he read Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk. The book ignited his desire to ‘‘fight for social equality,’’ and it became ‘‘clear to him that the climate for whatever interests he wanted to pursue—be they on the stage or in politics—would be more favorable in the North’’ (Anderson, 52). Asa had been to New York once to visit his cousin, and the city had filled him with wonder and exhilaration. Thus it was that, at the age of twenty-two, Asa set his sights northward.

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BECOMING A RADICAL SOCIALIST In 1911, Asa Randolph, with Du Bois’ book still fresh in his mind, set out to make a life for himself in New York. He was one of numerous African Americans swept along by the current of migration to the cities of the North in search of freedom and opportunity. After renting a room in Harlem with a friend who had joined him in his journey to New York, Randolph explored his new neighborhood, ‘‘sightseeing and taking in the stage shows’’ (Anderson, 55). He visited several local churches and miscellaneous organizations, perchance to find an outlet for the expression of his newfound ideas and thoughts inspired by The Souls of Black Folk and enrolled at the City College. Randolph’s search for radically minded individuals turned up short. Expecting a more receptive and eager audience in the North, Randolph was disappointed. When Randolph met with the Epworth League, a group of young people who met to discuss the Bible and, to a certain extent, current issues, he found only a few individuals open to his radical views. Where Randolph advocated immediate change, most of the other members of the League espoused a slower, gradual approach. Nevertheless, the persuasive Randolph was able to recruit a few individuals to his philosophy. College life was much more rewarding for Randolph. Initially, Randolph studied public speaking to improve his oral delivery for acting but switched to taking up courses in socialism. A major reason for this was his parent’s moral objection to acting. Another reason was his introduction to socialism in one of his classes. Randolph was immediately taken by socialism. For Randolph, socialism provided a way to understand the plight of African Americans in America. He came to believe that capitalism caused conflict among people, ‘‘thus intensifying the competitive struggle between black and white workers, exacerbating racism, and politicizing hate,’’ and individuals tended to look at ‘‘the stereotypes and myths of race and people instead of looking at the human being or the economic situation’’ (Anderson, 63). Randolph felt that both the Democrats and the Republicans neglected African Americans; thus, socialism was the only recourse. Randolph was not the only one on campus or in his community to embrace socialism. Students were forming radical organizations and actively fundraising and coordinating rallies in support of striking laborers in America. Men like Hubert Harrison, ‘‘a pioneer radical intellectual in Harlem’’ and ‘‘member of the Socialist party’’ gave speeches from soapboxes on street corners (Anderson, 61). These examples of protest undoubtedly added fuel to Randolph’s intense inner yearnings and provided ideas on how to execute his activism through organizing, politics, and speechmaking. One of Randolph’s first solo acts was to form the Independent Political Council, which comprised a few of the former members of the Epworth League. He unsuccessfully assisted in the campaign for the Board of

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Aldermen by an African American running as an Independent. He then engaged in several protests at work (Randolph roved from job to job, holding traditional blue-collar jobs restricted to African Americans). Randolph, now known as a ‘‘troublemaker’’ by the Epworth League, was ‘‘stirring up trouble and sowing seeds of discontent among [his] co-workers’’ (Anderson, 65). As a porter for the Consolidated Gas Company, Randolph tried to rouse the other employees to push for advancement: ‘‘‘Look around you,’ he told them, ‘is it only white men who can be bookkeepers and supervisors? Why can’t negroes do those jobs? Are we only good for sweeping floors and washing windows?’’’ (Anderson, 66). Randolph quit that job when no one took up his call for protest. On another occasion, Randolph was fired (as was frequently the case), when he tried to ‘‘organize the waiters and kitchen help against conditions in [their small, crammed, foulsmelling quarters]’’ (Anderson, 66). Randolph used his group, the Independent Political Council, to dispense his radical views to the community. In 1914, Ernest T. Welcome, a member of the Epworth League, hired Randolph to work for his Brotherhood of Labor agency to help educate African Americans migrating from the South to the North ‘‘in the political and social conditions of life in New York City’’ (Anderson, 69). Randolph always said that in his early years in New York he was a carefree spirit with no thought of settling down to either steady employment or marriage. But his auspicious encounter with a beautiful, thirty-one-year-old widow named Lucille Green made possible a full-time commitment to activism. Lucille was an intelligent and enterprising woman who owned a prosperous hair salon. She was a socialite, mingling with the up-and-coming elite professionals and attending St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, ‘‘the wealthiest and most prestigious black congregation in the world’’ (Anderson, 72). Randolph, of course, did not care for the world of the elite because of his socialist beliefs, nor was he religious. Nevertheless, the two had in common an interest in socialism, community involvement, and the theater. They were married in November 1914—despite Randolph’s protest—in her church. Lucille Randolph was extremely supportive, in more ways than one. She provided the family income, supporting Randolph and his close friend, Chandler Owen, whom he met shortly after his marriage, so they could spend their days learning more about socialism and pursuing their radical activism. Randolph was able to quit his job with the Brotherhood, and the two inseparable friends came to be known as Lenin and Trotsky. SOCIALIST ACTIVISM: 1916–1925 Soapbox Oration and the Hotel Messenger In 1916, Randolph and Owen formally became socialists. Shortly thereafter, Randolph quit school and, along with Owen, mounted his soapbox to

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spread socialism. The two joined the ranks of men like the aforementioned Hubert H. Harrison, who was one of the most popular soapbox activists in Harlem. The eloquently spoken word was an effective means of getting the message across to the people, especially when the church was inaccessible to ‘‘radicals.’’ Randolph, who had a rich baritone voice and a diction that made people think he was educated at Yale or Harvard, enchanted his audiences. He and Owen ‘‘quickly became the most notorious street-corner radicals in Harlem, exceeding even Harrison in the boldness of their assault upon political and racial conditions in the country’’ (Anderson, 77). In 1917, Randolph used the power of the pen as an editor of the Hotel Messenger, a magazine aimed primarily at waiters at the invitation of William White, who was president of the Headwaiters and Sidewaiters Society of Greater New York. Through the Hotel Messenger, Randolph and Owen were able to further spread their message of protest. Randolph was coming into his own as a mature activist, no longer a meandering radical protesting impetuously, but a man with focus who took his responsibilities at the magazine seriously. Symbolizing his growth, Randolph began to refer to himself as A. Philip Randolph. When America entered World War I in 1917, Randolph and Owen protested the participation of African Americans. However, Randolph and Owen soon learned that freedom of speech often came with a price. They were fired after publishing an article contending that the sidewaiters were being cheated by the headwaiters. Since the headwaiters were a large reason why William White was president, he let them go in the same year they started editing for the society’s organ.

The Messenger Due to the ‘‘‘steady and numerous requests’’’ of their ‘‘‘intelligent, radical, forward-looking and clear-eyed patrons,’’’ Randolph and Owen started their own magazine called the Messenger that same year (Anderson, 81–82). Here, at last, Randolph had a medium that he could control, wherein he could publish his views without censure. This magazine was declared by the Justice Department to be ‘‘by long odds the most dangerous of all the Negro publications’’ (Anderson, 82). One of the major issues the Messenger covered was the war. Although African Americans moved in remarkable numbers to join the war effort, they faced racism and segregation in the armed forces and inequality and violence at home. Lynching and race riots were at their worst in the early twentieth century in both the North and the South. Prominent African American leaders such as Du Bois denounced the horrible conditions faced by African Americans, but Randolph and Owen went further in their protests by advocating that African Americans not participate in the war. This was a radical position that illustrated Randolph’s break from W.E.B. Du Bois and the extent of his

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defiance despite the great risks involved. Du Bois, who in Randolph’s and Owen’s eyes was too conservative, was criticized frequently in their magazine. The Messenger’s radical articles were considered a menace by many in the African American community, as well as by the U.S. Government. Shortly after the onset of the War, ‘‘Congress had passed the Espionage Act, empowering the government to censor newspapers or ban them from the mails, and to punish, by fines of up to $10,000 and imprisonment of twenty years, anyone found guilty of obstructing conscription’’ (Anderson, 104–105). In 1918, the government declared that ‘‘even the attempt at obstruction’’ was a felony (Anderson, 105). As an antiwar and socialist-promoting paper, the Messenger was a target. On more than one occasion, ‘‘agents of the Justice Department, broke into the Messenger’s office and vandalized their property and confiscated back issues’’ (Anderson, 104). In the same year, Randolph and Owen faced trial. They were charged with violating the Espionage Act. The judge let them go, doubting that the two African American men could be ‘‘old enough’’ or ‘‘smart enough’’ to have authored the ‘‘red-hot stuff in the Messenger’’ (Anderson, 107). When the men insisted that they were responsible for the magazine, the judge warned them to get out of town. Randolph and Owen willingly complied, but only to engage in more agitation. Shortly thereafter, near the end of the war, Owen was drafted and served for 120 days. Randolph avoided this fate, for the war ended before he could be drafted. Politics Randolph engaged in several political adventures. In 1917, he and Owen worked for the campaign of Morris Hillquit, a socialist with aspirations to be mayor of New York City. Randolph and Owen organized ‘‘the first Socialist club in the area—the 21st A.D. Club,’’ which ‘‘fanned out through the community, canvassing in Hillquit’s behalf and heckling the public meetings of the regular-party candidates’’ (Anderson, 94). Although he lost, Hillquit did win a substantial number of votes. In 1918, Randolph was hand-picked by Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association to be one of the African American delegates to speak on issues facing African Americans at the peace conference in Versailles, France. Randolph, because of his controversial reputation, was refused a passport. Du Bois, whom Randolph called one of the ‘‘good Socialists,’’ was allowed to go (Anderson, 124). Randolph and Owen were later among Marcus Garvey’s most strident critics and denounced him frequently in the Messenger. They were against his ‘‘doctrines of black capitalism’’ and imperialism, and believed that his advocacy of ‘‘black nationalism’’ and a return to Africa were ‘‘palliatives rather than solutions’’ (Anderson, 90). Randolph, like Du Bois and other conservative leaders, was in support of bettering conditions for African Americans in America, not elsewhere, and ultimately helping to create a

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world not of racial separateness but of total inclusion. Nevertheless, Randolph readily admitted that Garvey was able to rouse more African Americans than any other leader of his time. In 1920, Randolph lost in both campaigns for state comptroller and secretary of state. Organizations Randolph founded several organizations through which he hoped to advance socialism and labor unionism, as well as promote racial uplift. But this period of organizational leadership, beginning in 1917, was unfruitful, primarily because the African American community at large was conservative and therefore not receptive to either socialism or unionizing and steered clear of notorious radicals such as Randolph. The 21st A.D. Socialist Club and the Independent Political Council, which Randolph formed shortly after his arrival in New York, were obsolete. Another early venture, the United Brotherhood of Elevator and Switchboard Operators, was ‘‘was taken over by the Elevator and Starters Union’’ only a year after Randolph established it, and in 1919, his National Association for the Promotion of Labor Unionism ‘‘failed to materialize’’ (Anderson, 149). He founded the National Brotherhood Workers of America in the same year, but it failed two years later. Other organizations such as the Tenants and Consumers League and a Harlem branch of the Journeymen Bakers and Confectioners Union suffered the same fate. But Randolph was impervious. In 1920, Randolph founded another organization, the Friends of Negro Freedom. This organization had a short lifespan— only because it was established for one purpose: to oust Marcus Garvey from his ‘‘political leadership or from the United States’’ (Anderson, 130). This singular aim banded Randolph with unlikely protest leaders (such as his philosophical archrival Du Bois) whose efforts of speechmaking and letter (and article) writing coalesced to form the ‘‘Garvey Must Go’’ campaign. African American opposition to Garvey was based on an array of protestations—over his philosophy of black nationalism and racial separatism, his controversial shipping line, and his acceptance of the Ku Klux Klan’s agenda of separatism. Once Garvey was indicted for mail fraud in 1923 and later deported back to Jamaica, the Friends of Negro Freedom no longer functioned in any significant way. Opposition to Randolph’s Social Activism Between 1916 and 1925, opposition to Randolph’s agitation was immense. His views provoked contention between himself and other African American organizations, tragically preventing the formation of a united front that could better the lives of African Americans in the early twentieth century. The masses he strove to entice into socialism and labor unionism were largely unresponsive. Among the many reasons for this was the fact that African Americans were as a whole conservative and doubtful that

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socialism—a class-focused doctrine—was a solution to racism. Moreover, labor unions were segregated, and nothing in their history had shown them that blacks united could effect change against powerful white-owned and historically racist corporations and businesses. Indeed, many African Americans were beginning to renounce socialism, because it did not adequately address race. The class structure in the United States was in itself a problem, and being black added an additional layer of challenges and dangers. Opposition to Randolph intensified in 1922, when he began receiving death threats. On one occasion, he was mailed a severed hand with an ominous letter signed ‘‘KKK.’’ Though the KKK had every reason to go after him, Randolph believed Garvey was behind the letter. Garvey retorted that Randolph had himself devised the incident as a publicity stunt. Randolph was beginning to grow weary of his opposition, his many failures to launch his programs, and by the death of his father. Then, in 1923, his closest friend, Owen, moved to Chicago after the death of his brother. Randolph replaced his former partner with George Schuyler. Schuyler was a black journalist who was, at one time, interested in Garveyism but then turned to socialism. But he was not a gung-ho socialist, like Randolph. After a few years, he lost interest when he perceived that socialists did not appear concerned about black issues. More change was in the wind, as evidenced by Randolph’s own growing disillusionment with the Socialist Party. By 1925, Randolph ‘‘had withdrawn from Socialist activism and lost interest, if not in socialism, in the party’’ and asserted that ‘‘the Socialist party had no effective policy towards Negroes, and didn’t spend enough time organizing them’’’ (Anderson, 149). All that remained of Randolph’s activism was the Messenger, though its readership had declined severely, and its sharp edge had dulled. It seemed that Randolph was in his final days as a voice of African American protest when he received a call for help from an unexpected source that would change the course of his life forever. CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM: 1925–1935 The Labor Movement In 1925, Ashley L. Totten, a Pullman sleeping car porter and noted ‘‘firebrand’’ within the porter community, invited Randolph to speak to the Pullman Porters Athletic Association (Anderson, 153). He wanted Randolph to address his fellow porters on a topic that he knew had long been Randolph’s passion—labor unionizing. In fact, he wanted Randolph to be the one to lead them in their fight against the Pullman Company. Since 1900, African American porters had tried to organize a labor union. African American porters were required to work extraordinarily long hours, for meager pay, while submitting to abusive, debasing, and racist treatment

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by their superiors as well as by white passengers. There was no protection, no defense for the African American porter. At the same time, the position was considered one of the most prestigious opportunities for African American men. In 1920, the Plan of Employee Representation was established to offer assistance to African American porters, but this organization was a ruse by means of which the Pullman Company could maintain its power over the porters. In another attempt to better wages and hours for porters, African American delegates, Totten among them, were picked by the porters themselves to negotiate with decision makers of the Pullman Company. This conference took place in 1924. However, the Pullman Company paid off all but a few of the African American representatives. Following this dismal attempt, Totten sought Randolph as his last hope for the African American porters. Given Randolph’s history of promoting unionizing, he surprisingly declined Totten’s request, stating ‘‘that, flattered though he was by the request, he was sorry; he had no further interest in organizing anything. He told them of all his previous unsuccessful efforts, and that he was now satisfied to consider himself merely a propagandist for the idea of unionism’’ (Anderson, 155). Randolph went on to say that ‘‘the Messenger was now his whole life, and he was fully occupied in the struggle to keep the magazine going. Moreover, he added, he couldn’t see himself jumping into a fight with a company like Pullman, ‘one of the most powerful Brahmins of American Business’’’ (Anderson, 155). Despite this rebuff, Randolph found that he could not fully turn his back on such a critical situation. He wrote two articles in support of the Pullman porters. Totten again approached Randolph, requesting his help. This time, the formidable leader overcame his doubts and agreed to head up the labor movement of the African American porters. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was established on August 25, 1925, with Randolph as its leader. This was indeed a historic moment, as this organization was one of a very few of its kind created for African Americans by African Americans. Although Randolph did accept money from ‘‘white Socialists and liberals in New York’’ for the initial set-up of the organization, he insisted that African Americans themselves provide the ongoing financial support and leadership. Randolph had no racist feelings towards whites; he simply felt that African Americans who had long been dependent on whites should rise to the occasion by being self-supportive, self-sustaining, and self-governing. Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters would need that support and more to obtain their goals. Their position, like the biblical David who confronted the terrible and seemingly unconquerable Goliath, was fraught with long odds and impossibilities. The Pullman Company’s economic power far exceeded that of Randolph and the Brotherhood. Historically, few African Americans had challenged whites and won. In fact, African Americans were frequently targeted and subjected to intimidation, violence,

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and even death whenever they challenged whites. In addition, the false belief in white superiority and black inferiority affected some African Americans, such as one porter who admitted that he ‘‘‘never knew the Negro had a right to enjoy freedom like everyone else’’’ (Anderson, 177). As if that were not enough, many African Americans perceived unionizing as radical, a notion that was accepted and promoted by black newspapers, as well as black churches, who frequently condemned Randolph and his radical ideas. Randolph was not immediately embraced by all the members of the Brotherhood, and he realized that he had to win over the porters. The eloquence and distinguished demeanor that were his best assets put off many of the African American porters who, seasoned and roughened by the nature of their profession, did not think he could be capable of leading them. Milton Price Webster was one such doubter, but he eventually warmed up to Randolph and in fact became one of the many Randolph-admirers and second in command in the Brotherhood. The two men worked well as a team, depending on one another’s strengths during negotiations and speechmaking. At the organization’s peak, the Brotherhood had offices in ‘‘New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Omaha, Wichita, Oakland, Los Angeles, Denver, Portland, Washington, D.C., Boston, Detroit, and Buffalo’’ (Anderson, 177). By 1928, they had almost 7,000 members. The Brotherhood’s most fierce and relentless opposition was the Pullman Company. Some of the tactics utilized by the Pullman Company to subvert the Brotherhood were nefarious at best. They paid off African American porters to act as spies; they slandered Randolph; and they ran a campaign to fire, threaten, and harass African American porters who were believed or found out to be members of the Brotherhood. In St. Louis, A.V. Burr, a superintendent ‘‘who boasted that he whipped niggers,’’ fired members of the Brotherhood, including E.J. Bradley, who was in charge of the office there and, as a result, was unable to make payments for the rental of his office so he eventually ‘‘started running the office out of the trunk of his automobile’’ (Anderson, 175). The Brotherhood engaged in various countermeasures. To circumvent spying, Randolph and others were frequently forced to conduct business in secrecy. At the first gathering of the Brotherhood, Randolph conducted the entire meeting himself so as not to incriminate any of the porters or allow Pullman spies to identify them. In Jacksonville, Randolph ordered Benjamin Smith, who was willing to sacrifice his life, to leave Jacksonville to avert being lynched. Randolph also outwitted Pullman spies by employing Brotherhood spies. Randolph’s first step as the leader of the Brotherhood was to seek political intervention. Although Congressman Emmanuel Celler of New York had responded to Randolph’s request to seek a ‘‘congressional investigation of Pullman’s labor policies,’’ the resolution he introduced ‘‘died in the Rules Committee’’ (Anderson, 186). However, the ‘‘Watson-Parker bill—supported

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by the big railroad unions and all railroad managements—was passed as the Railway Labor Act of 1927’’ (Anderson, 186). This was a big win for the porters, for it legally gave them the power to pursue a ‘‘joint conference’’ with the Pullman Company ‘‘to ‘make and maintain agreements’ on rates of pay, rules, and working conditions’’ (Anderson, 187). With this newfound power to force negotiation, Randolph wrote the Pullman Company. The Pullman president did not respond. In accordance with the rules of the Railway Labor Act, Randolph wrote again. When he again was ignored, Randolph sought the assistance of the Mediation Board. This process was financially draining, for the Brotherhood was responsible for paying their lawyers and other fees. The mediation got them nowhere, for the Pullman Company insisted that the African American porters already had a company union representing their interests. In response, ‘‘Randolph collected some 900 affidavits’’ proving that the porters who supported the company union had been coerced to do so (Anderson, 190). This small, albeit significant, victory was followed by a deadlock. The Pullman Company refused to cooperate further in the mediation process. And it was within their legal right to do so. By not cooperating, the Pullman Company dealt a staggering blow to Randolph and his organization. A number of individuals left the Brotherhood, as it appeared that there was no chance for victory. Randolph and his fellow union leaders found it even more difficult to raise money from the remaining members. Randolph himself also suffered financially. His wife, whose salon business had gone under as a result of Randolph’s radical socialist beliefs, was no longer able to support them. Compounding the miserable financial situation was the fact that he had to frequently go without his modest $10 a week salary from the Brotherhood. His clothes, which had once been stylish and immaculate, became worn and tattered. Without money or members, there could be no Brotherhood. Exacerbating this critical situation were the death of Randolph’s brother; the collapse of his paper, the Messenger, in 1928; and the ensuing Great Depression. Randolph’s response to these circumstances was energetic and selfsacrificing. He used his charismatic speechmaking skills to motivate the Brotherhood to continue the struggle, win back former members, and to raise money. In his first radical move, Randolph managed to convince the porters to execute a strike, knowing that if he could create an emergency situation, he could force Pullman to continue mediation. He sent word of the threatened strike to the Mediation Board, which promptly ruled that no emergency existed since the Pullman Company did not perceive it as such. The strike was called off. In 1929, he joined the American Federation of Labor (AFL). This was a controversial step in that some member organizations of the AFL excluded African Americans and Randolph himself had, in his earlier days, denounced the AFL for that reason. However, the survival of the Brotherhood depended upon its link to a solid labor union. Throughout this difficult

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period, Randolph remained committed to the Brotherhood, turning down a job offer ‘‘with the city government, at a salary of $7,000 a year,’’ and maintained his optimism, believing that the Brotherhood would accomplish what it set out to do (Anderson, 214–215). The pressure of the situation was finally relieved in 1932 during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who instituted several important programs to alleviate the effects of the Depression. One of these programs, created with the assistance of a group of ‘‘labor executives,’’ bestowed the right of labor workers to form their own unions and ‘‘banned company unions’’ (Anderson, 217). At first, this legislation did not include porters, but Randolph quickly set about correcting this. He then set out to rebuild the Brotherhood and to make contact with the president of the Pullman Company. Meanwhile, the Pullman Company had ‘‘hand-picked a few loyal porters and authorized them to form their own ‘independent’ union, the Pullman Porters Protective Association’’ (Anderson, 219). To settle the question over which organization—the Brotherhood or the Protective Association—was the rightful representative of the African American porters, the Board of Mediation ‘‘ordered a secret ballot,’’ which Randolph proudly wrote was ‘‘the first time that Negro workers have had the opportunity to vote as a national group in an election, under federal supervision, for their economic rights’’ (Anderson, 220). The election took place in 1935. The votes were 8,316 in favor of the Brotherhood to 1,422 for the Pullman Porters Protective Association. Randolph’s historic negotiation with the Pullman Company took place that same year. After two years of grueling struggle, the Brotherhood, through Randolph, had achieved the impossible and negotiated wage increases and fewer hours.

The Private Life of the Popular Protest Leader Because of Randolph’s victory over the Pullman Company, he was considered in the ensuing decades to be one of the most universally respected African American leaders in America. Despite his high public profile, little was known about his private life. Perhaps not much of a private life existed, considering the long hours he daily put into his work. Either way, Randolph was an intensely private man. He had no children. He did not discuss his inner life; he gave his time wholeheartedly to activism, sacrificing whatever leisure activities and hobbies, such as acting, he had at one time treasured. Though their marriage appeared to be strong and enduring, he spent long periods of time away from his wife. And when Lucille took ill, Randolph attended to her needs and brooded over her as much as he could. As for Randolph’s health, his activism took its toll on several occasions. But ill health was usually a temporary inconvenience for the unstoppable A. Philip Randolph.

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Although Randolph was frequently attacked by his critics, his impeccable reputation allowed him to weather these attacks. He took great pains to lead a disciplined life and warned others to take no part in disreputable habits or weakness that would hinder their work. Randolph could not be bribed. Neither did he allow himself to be entangled in illicit affairs with women. As a result, he was known by his closest associates to be a man of high reputation and morals. Lacking more substantive ammunition, his attackers were often forced to target Randolph’s early radical socialist activism. In the face of such attacks, Randolph confessed that he had a ‘‘thick skin,’’ a useful weapon against the jabs and barbs of life in the limelight and in activism. Civil Rights Activism (1935–1979) National Negro Conference The National Negro Conference (NNC) was an organization that had been formed in 1935 to merge the efforts of various individuals, groups, and factions established to better conditions for African Americans in the United States. Randolph was made president of the NNC in 1936. Randolph’s greatest concern—and what proved to be the organization’s ultimate undoing—was maintaining the purity of the NNC’s primary tenet, which was to refrain from being dominated by any one political entity, thought, or belief—even his own. He also believed that the organization should remain in the control of blacks. Randolph hoped that the NNC would be able to build up the esteem of African Americans who had long been told that they could not be leaders. He worked to avoid being taken over by white communists who had intentions of infiltrating black organizations such as the NNC. But his attention was divided between the Brotherhood and the NNC. So he was caught off guard when communists worked their way into the NNC by way of generous monetary support. Randolph tried to fight the influence of the communists, but in 1940 he felt he had no other choice but to resign and carry on his activism elsewhere. Protesting Segregation in the Armed Forces and Defense Industry Following his resignation from the NNC, Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters mustered their resources to lead the fight to desegregate the defense industry and the armed forces (the Army, Navy, and Air Corps). Randolph’s approach to this enormous task encompassed all the traditional and widely accepted forms of black protest, starting with negotiation with the U.S. president. Although President Franklin Roosevelt had created the New Deal, an ambitious social program to relieve the effects of the Great Depression, his work had done little to directly help African Americans.

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Eleanor Roosevelt Born on October 11, 1884, in New York City, Eleanor Roosevelt entered into public life as the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Her interest in issues affecting African Americans began during her husband’s presidency, when she became aware of the disproportionate number of blacks who were not receiving assistance from the New Deal programs her husband had established to remedy the rampant economic hardships brought on by the Great Depression. She remained an advocate for African Americans until her death in 1962. Roosevelt displayed an extraordinary empathy towards blacks and was actively involved in addressing the many problems they faced, including poverty, discrimination, segregation, and racism. Roosevelt sometimes worked behind the scenes but was not at all afraid of using her high public profile to advocate for African Americans. She expressed her support of integration and racial equality in numerous speeches and articles, including her ‘‘My Day’’ column. In 1934, she pressed her husband to endorse the NAACP’s anti-lynching bill, to no avail. Despite her husband’s ongoing unresponsiveness, she forged ahead, forming friendships with blacks and making meaningful contributions to their lives in a day and age of severe racial hostilities. One of her most prominent relationships was with the distinguished Mary McLeod Bethune, the prominent black educator and founder and president of the National Council of Negro Women. Roosevelt is famously known for having resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) when, in 1939, they refused to permit Marion Anderson, a black contralto, to perform in Constitution Hall. President Roosevelt, Walter White, and others arranged for Anderson to perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In 1945, Roosevelt joined the board of the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality. She also participated in a workshop on civil rights at the Highlander Folk School, an institution for aspiring social activists, in Tennessee. As a result of Roosevelt’s support and activism, she endeared herself to a generation of blacks. The black press extolled her in their newspapers, and African Americans regularly wrote to her, telling her of their dire situations. If she could not help, she always got in touch with someone who could, though her success was often limited due to deeply entrenched racial barriers and anti-black attitudes. Roosevelt’s position was unpopular with much of the electorate, and her fiercest critics could be found in Washington, D.C. But Roosevelt refused to be ‘‘politically correct’’ and remained an independent-minded woman who was committed to making a difference for her entire life.

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Eleanor Roosevelt, the president’s wife, played an instrumental role in the early discussions with Randolph and his delegation, which included Walter White, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and T. Arnold Hill, of the National Urban League (NUL). Eleanor Roosevelt appeared empathetic to the cause, but to many in the federal government (including subsequent presidents), any civil rights gains needed to come about slowly and be handled delicately. And conservative leaders of such organizations as the NAACP and NUL were not disposed to pressuring government and political leaders, engaging in ‘‘radical’’ public demonstrations, or going against the law to achieve their aims. But Randolph, although he was extremely politic during these grave negotiations, still had a radical edge which, at fifty-one, made him restive with painstakingly slow and ineffectual negotiations. When negotiations with the president failed to produce tangible maneuvers toward desegregation in the defense industry and armed forces, it became clear to Randolph that ‘‘such modes of protest—public statements, strongly worded telegrams to Washington, and conferences with White House officials’’—were not working (Anderson, 246). He was not satisfied with the government’s suggested solutions to the problem, such as establishing ‘‘training in aviation to Negroes,’’ which was still segregation (Anderson, 246). Something was needed to get the government’s attention, and Randolph decided that a massive demonstration was the answer. Although black protest had previously included occasional demonstrations, such as sit-ins and marches, they were often done on a small scale. Randolph, however, planned a grand scheme of active protest to be carried out by the March on Washington Committee (formed in 1941). He envisioned a massive march on Washington consisting of 10,000 demonstrators. He and other Brotherhood leaders traveled the nation soliciting African Americans for support. The NAACP and NUL were not so eager to embrace Randolph’s idea of direct action, though both organizations still managed to lend their support in inconspicuous ways. The sharp claws of racism and oppression quelled much of the support for Randolph’s efforts in the South. Communists, who were against American involvement in World War II, were also busy attacking Randolph, with the hope of preventing the march. The reaction at the White House was as expected: Eleanor, speaking for her husband, attempted to dissuade Randolph and the others from going ahead with the march. Randolph, as was his custom, remained true to his conviction, although he did state that if the president created an executive order to officially desegregate the armed forces and industry, he would call the march off. When Eleanor warned that violence could erupt at such a march, Randolph ‘‘replied that there would be no violence unless her husband ordered the police to crack black heads’’ (Anderson, 255). Following this exchange, the president agreed to meet with Randolph and the other delegates.

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Randolph was in top form on the day he met with President Roosevelt. In his polite, patient, and refined way, he reaffirmed his position that the march would not be called off unless the president authorized a formal stance against segregation. When the president asked how many people would be participating, Randolph, without knowing the official number, answered, ‘‘one hundred thousand, Mr. President’’ (Anderson, 257). President Roosevelt was stunned. ‘‘Somebody might get killed,’’ he said. Randolph, who had already sent invitations to the Roosevelts, suggested that the event would go well, ‘‘especially if the President himself came out and addressed the gathering’’ (Anderson, 258). Although the president insisted that the march be called off, Randolph still declined. It was this adamant refusal to yield under pressure that eventually lead to success. The president had no choice but to submit to Randolph’s demands or face the consequences of a massive protest at his front doorstep, though he only agreed to desegregate the government and defense industries, not the armed forces. His promise was made official with the issuance of Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. This was a mere ‘‘six days before the march was scheduled to take place’’ (Anderson, 259). On July 10, he established the Fair Employment Practices Committee, which still exists today. Because only one of their demands had been met, the younger members of the March on Washington Committee were outraged. They wanted the march, which Randolph had canceled (at least for the time being), to go ahead. While ‘‘the young militants accused [Randolph] of selling out to Roosevelt, the majority of Randolph’s following … applauded his handling of the march strategy’’ (Anderson, 259–260). And the triumph alone (even if in part) increased Randolph’s popularity and strengthened his role as a leader in the African American community. March on Washington Movement Randolph learned an essential lesson during his negotiations with President Roosevelt—words were more effective when backed with action, and the march tactic was obviously one of his best ideas. If the threat of a march could force a president to accede to their demands, how much more could be gained with an actual march? The problem with this idea was that America had entered World War II in 1942. Objection to Randolph’s march idea was loud and unanimous: protest during a time of national crisis ‘‘would damage the national interest’’ (Anderson, 264). Randolph’s recourse was to find another means of agitation, utilizing (if not the march itself) the March on Washington Committee. Through the March on Washington Committee, Randolph waged a series of demonstrations for civil rights. Among the Committee’s objectives was the goal ‘‘[to] serve as a watchdog over the enforcement of the [Executive Order 8802], to carry on a campaign for a permanent Fair Employment

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Practices Commission, to represent the temper of the masses at the time, and to engage in other protest activities,’’ including ‘‘pressing a desegregation campaign,’’ utilizing the tactic made famous by Gandhi—‘‘nonviolent civil disobedience and non-cooperation’’ (Anderson, 262–263, 274). For a brief period during the early 1940s, his March on Washington Committee organized a dazzling succession of demonstrations and rallies that ‘‘Joel A. Rogers, the veteran Harlem historian and journalist, had not seen … ‘since the days of Marcus Garvey’’’ (Anderson, 265). Literature, such as a radical pamphlet entitled ‘‘The War’s Greatest Scandal: The Story of Jim Crow in Uniform,’’ was also produced and dispensed to the communities. The March on Washington Committee (as well as Randolph, who was its national director) was, needless to say, subjected to a flood of criticism by the NAACP, African American women vying for a voice in the movement, and his own compatriots in the Brotherhood. Critics within the NAACP (whose activities centered on lobbying, negotiating, and litigating) held that Randolph’s committee was too radical and (predictably) dug up his controversial past as a radical socialist activist to prove their point. Other naysayers asserted that Randolph was doing the work that should have been carried out by the NAACP. Closer to home, Randolph came under fire from disgruntled members of the Brotherhood, such as Milton Webster, who argued that the organization had to contend with too many questions concerning its role as a leader on the civil rights front and was frustrated by the emergence of women leaders in the movement. The women leaders were, in turn, unhappy that they were unable to participate in a more meaningful way in the development of the Committee. Others in the Brotherhood complained that Randolph was devoting too much time to other projects and shirking his primary—if not sole—responsibility: ‘‘to negotiate and sign contracts, not to run around like a West Indian Communist agitator and dreamer’’ (Anderson, 267). And in the South, Randolph still could not penetrate the barriers of racism and oppression. Another challenge to Randolph and his Committee emanated from conservative political resistance, causing the eventual demise of the March on Washington Committee in 1950.

League for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience against Military Segregation In 1947, Randolph and ‘‘Grant Reynolds, Commissioner of Correction for New York State, founded the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training—which expanded, early in 1948, into the League for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation’’ (Anderson, 274). The executive secretary of this organization was Bayard Rustin, a former member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, ‘‘one of the young militants who had denounced Randolph for calling off the 1941 march,’’ and a ubiquitous activist within multiple civil rights organizations (Anderson, 274).

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The League was established to resurrect the fight against segregation in the armed forces. Harry Truman, America’s new president, had just issued a draft bill, ‘‘proposing universal military training’’ that ‘‘contained no provision for a ban against segregation’’ (Anderson, 274). What Randolph wanted was ‘‘nothing less than an executive order against military segregation,’’ and he was prepared to use tactics of civil disobedience and direct action to make that happen (Anderson, 276). Randolph, accompanied by Walter White, Mary McLeod Bethune, Lester Granger, and Charles Houston, went to Washington, D.C. to speak with the president. In the wake of that unsuccessful meeting, Randolph spoke at the hearings on the universal military training bill, where he announced that he ‘‘personally will advise Negroes to refuse to fight as slaves for a democracy they cannot possess and cannot enjoy,’’ and that he would utilize ‘‘the thousands of white youth in schools and colleges who are today vigorously shedding the prejudices of their parents and professors. I shall urge them to demonstrate their solidarity with Negro youth by ignoring the entire registration and induction machinery’’ (Anderson, 276–277). Randolph followed this appearance in Washington, D.C. with ‘‘a civil disobedience campaign against the draft’’ (Anderson, 280). In Harlem, ‘‘he launched a series of public meetings, at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 125th Street, in which he counseled young men to refuse induction in a segregated army. In giving such counsel, he said, he was fully aware he was violating the Selective Service Act’’ (Anderson, 278). In Philadelphia, ‘‘scores of blacks, led by Randolph’’ picketed the National Convention in Philadelphia, while Hubert Humphrey waged a separate fight ‘‘to obtain a strong civil rights plank’’ in government (Anderson, 280). The response to Randolph’s campaign was divided. Many African Americans were ready for his radical brand of protest, with 71 percent of young black men in Harlem voting in favor of Randolph’s campaign. But the usual opponents such as the National Urban League ‘‘warned that Randolph’s campaign ‘would weaken the foundations of law on which our democratic processes rest’’’ (Anderson, 279). On July 26, 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, ‘‘calling for an end to military discrimination ‘as rapidly as possible’’’ (Anderson, 280). This victory was credited to Hubert Humphrey’s civil rights campaign at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, as well as to Randolph and his campaign of civil disobedience. However, the young militants within the League were upset with Randolph for ‘‘calling off the campaign’’ and ‘‘disbanding the League for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience’’ (Anderson, 280). Randolph’s personal approach to protest did not call for ‘‘civil disobedience for its own sake, but merely as a drastic last resort,’’ and he told them so (Anderson, 281). The militants went ahead with plans to keep the League going, but it ceased operating in November 1948.

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AFL-CIO Segregation had been the primary target of Randolph’s agitation since the earliest days of his activism, and its elimination was his mission when he and the Brotherhood joined the AFL in 1935. Although the AFL did not endorse segregation, it did not seek to interfere with how its members ran their unions. The fight against segregation in the AFL proved to be a long battle, but Randolph, with his patience of steel, was an endurance fighter. It did not faze him that he was one against many or that he was one of very few African American leaders within the predominately white AFL. He waged the battle against segregation on a number of fronts: as a speaker, a member of the esteemed Executive Council of the AFL-CIO, and a leader in a newly established Negro American Labor Council. In Randolph’s favor was the fact that the newly elected president, George Meany, was sympathetic to Randolph’s fight and respected the valiant leader. The merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955, and its increasingly progressive role in civil rights issues, was a big step in the right direction. Although Randolph encountered many impediments on the road to his goal of desegregating all company unions within the AFL-CIO, his influence resulted in substantial progress. The biggest obstacles were Meany’s hesitancy to bring about change as fast as Randolph wanted and his defense of the right of AFL-CIO members to self-governance. Although the AFL-CIO ‘‘was unable or unwilling [to engage in the] campaign against discrimination in its unions,’’ Randolph’s influence was undoubtedly reflected in the AFLCIO’s emerging role as ‘‘one of the strongest lobbyists for civil rights legislation in Washington,’’ ‘‘the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing school segregation’’ in 1954, and ‘‘President Kennedy’s and President Johnson’s civil rights programs’’ (Anderson, 310–312). Randolph made significant contributions to the Civil Rights Movement— coordinating collaborative demonstrations with leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. in 1957 and the Youth March for Integrated Schools in 1958 and 1959. He also had some disappointments, including his involvement with the Negro American Labor Council (NALC). The NALC, which was founded in 1960, was designed as an alternative vehicle of protest within the AFL-CIO. As a result of the radical role he played in the NALC, the Executive Council censured Randolph in 1961. In 1964, Randolph resigned as president of the NALC as a result of the growing number of militant and separatist African Americans within the organization. The March on Washington, August 28, 1963 The March on Washington on August 28, 1963 was one of the most memorable and powerful moments of the Civil Rights Movement. It assembled

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some 250,000 individuals (largely African American) on the steps of the nation’s capital and pulled together, if only for a day, representatives of the nation’s most prodigious civil rights organizations, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, John Lewis of SNCC, Whitney Young of the National Urban League, and Floyd McKissick, who stood in for James Farmer of CORE while Farmer was in jail following his arrest during a demonstration in Louisiana. The march culminated with the singing of ‘‘We Shall Overcome.’’ The march reflected Randolph’s influence and strategic genius and the culmination of a long-held desire (since 1941) to coordinate a massive march on Washington. However, it was Rustin who led multiple projects in the civil rights struggle, such as Randolph’s Committee Against Discrimination in the Armed Forces, and served as an advisor to King and other leaders, who conceived of the March on Washington in 1963 for the purposes of ‘‘calling for jobs, a higher minimum wage, and a guaranteed income’’ for African Americans (Anderson, 324). Randolph was impressed with the idea and immediately set about to coordinate the event with Rustin as the organizer. To President John F. Kennedy’s surprise, the march was not violent. Indeed, Kennedy was deeply moved by the power of the event. To Randolph, that day, August 28, 1963, was ‘‘the most beautiful and glorious’’ of his life (Anderson, 331). Historically, the March on Washington remains the archetype for peaceful demonstration. In addition to the numerous speeches, there were musical performances by such artists as Mahalia Jackson, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and others. Although women did not participate in the speechmaking, several were given tribute, such as Rosa Parks, Daisy Bates, and Diane Nash. Parks was the woman who sparked the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott, in 1955, when she refused to give up her seat to a white person on a Jim Crow bus; Bates played a prominent role during integration of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957; and Nash played a key role in the Nashville, Tennessee sit-ins and SNCC. Although Randolph headed the coordination of this march, his popularity and prestige at this point of his career had dimmed considerably from his glory years. Younger critics ‘‘felt the time had come for Randolph to withdraw to the wings’’ (Anderson, 320). Others called him an ‘‘Uncle Tom.’’ In the wake of the March on Washington, the hope that a massive commitment to civil rights would arise and all African Americans would reap positive benefits disintegrated. Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were extraordinary gains for African Americans, little else could be celebrated. Organizations remained fragmented; President Kennedy and Dr. King were assassinated in 1963 and 1968, respectively; the nation was preoccupied with the Vietnam War; and radical

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Lincoln Memorial The Lincoln Memorial is a colossal statue built in the likeness of America’s sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capitol. The memorial has a special meaning to African Americans, because it was Lincoln who created the Emancipation Proclamation, announcing the freedom of slaves. He also led America into the Civil War (1861–1865), where the Union victory secured the destruction of the slave system in the South. The construction of the Lincoln Memorial began in 1914, and it was opened to the public in 1922. Henry Bacon designed it, and a team of only two men, the Piccirilli brothers, carved it over four years. The memorial is 190 feet long, 119 feet wide, 100 feet high, and weighs 175 tons. It portrays Lincoln sitting in a chair, his hands straddling the arms of the chair, his eyes starring pensively forward. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 culminated in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. It was there that the major civil rights leaders, including A. Philip Randolph, gave speeches. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ was the most popular speech on that day. Many other protests have also taken place at the Lincoln Memorial. In 1995, Louis Farrakhan, the Honorable Minister of the Nation of Islam, chose the U.S. capitol in sight of the Lincoln Memorial as the location for his Million Man March. Although his event was not considered a protest demonstration, the symbolism was unmistakable. One of Farrakhan’s aims was to mobilize black men to register to vote. In the aftermath of the Civil War, blacks received several ephemeral civil rights, one of which was suffrage for freed black males. However, at the end of Reconstruction (1862–1877) the civil rights gains blacks had enjoyed for the first time in the nation’s history were done away with as conservative whites regained power over the South.

militants who endorsed the violence breaking out in black urban communities rose to prominence. Randolph, not unlike other civil rights leaders, disapproved of radical militancy and violence but understood that that was a by-product of youthful fury and desperation over oppression, racism, and dire conditions within their communities. The Randolph Institute In 1964, Randolph established the Randolph Institute to help address persistent problems within impoverished African American communities and to ‘‘strengthen the ties between the labor movement, civil rights groups, and other progressive organizations’’ (Pfeffer, 282). Randolph, at age seventy-

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five, did not play an active role in the organization, but he hoped that the Institute would ‘‘carry on his ideas and methods’’ (Pfeffer, 281). The Randolph Institute collaborated with several organizations, such as the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, and Jewish groups. Among the numerous programs it sponsored were those ‘‘to organize black trade unionists around the country to conduct voter registration drives … to recruit, tutor, and place blacks and Puerto Ricans in the predominately white building trades apprenticeship training schemes,’’ and to help combat poverty (Anderson, 314–315). In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Randolph the Presidential Medal of Freedom and appointed him to the national advisory council representing the public in the operation of his antipoverty program. In 1966, Johnson made Randolph honorary chairman of a conference on civil rights, where he made ‘‘his first public announcement of the [Freedom Budget] program he projected as the cornerstone of the institute’s activity’’ (Pfeffer, 286). This was a comprehensive program to promote employment and combat poverty in African American communities and its problems of crime, drug abuse, and violence. But Randolph was prevented from implementing this program due to budget cuts.

FINAL YEARS Randolph’s ‘‘last public involvement’’ was his support for ‘‘thirteen teachers— twelve [Jewish] and one black’’ in the United Federation of Teachers strike in 1968 (Anderson, 312). Randolph’s opposition was met with vociferous criticism from within the African American community, because it was blacks who wanted to maintain their control of the school district. In his defense, Randolph said, ‘‘I could not very well refuse to support the teachers’ right to due process and job security since it is not only a basic part of our democratic life, but is indispensable for the ability of workers to hold jobs’’ (Anderson, 314). Although no longer in the spotlight, Randolph remained a venerated hero for his lifelong activism. In 1969, he celebrated his eightieth birthday ‘‘at a black-tie dinner in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria’’ (Anderson, 347). In attendance were 1,200 people, including Bayard Rustin, Coretta Scott King, George Meany, and Roy Wilkins. In his last years, Randolph, who suffered from heart problems, lived alone (his wife Lucille had died in 1963). His days were spent ‘‘most of the time at home, resting, receiving visitors, or reading’’ and taking occasional walks. He also made occasional ‘‘trips out of town, to AFL-CIO conventions and executive council meetings, political affairs in his honor, or college campuses, to accept honorary degrees’’ (Anderson, 350–351). On May 16, 1979, Asa Philip Randolph died. In life, Asa, like his biblical namesake, had been a leader of his people, tirelessly performing valiant acts

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that paved the way for a better future. He was ninety years old. See also W.E.B Du Bois; James Farmer; Marcus Garvey; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis; Rosa Parks; Roy Wilkins; and Whitney Young. FURTHER RESOURCES A. Philip Randolph: For Jobs and Freedom. Directed by Dante J. James. San Francisco: Newsreel, 1995. Anderson, Jervis. A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. APRI.org. A. Philip Randolph Institute (July 2007). See http://www.apri.org/ht/d/ Home/pid/212. Harris, William Hamilton. Keeping the Faith: A Philip Randolph, Milton P. Webster, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 1925–37. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977. Kersten, Andrew E. A. Philip Randolph: A Life in the Vanguard. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007. Pfeffer, Paula F. A Philip Randolph: Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. Reef, Catherine. A. Philip Randolph: Union Leader and Civil Rights Crusader. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2001. Taylor, Cynthia. A Philip Randolph: The Religious Journey of an African American Labor Leader. New York: New York University Press, 2006. 10,000 Black Men Named George. Directed by Robert Townsend. Hollywood: Paramount, 2002. Transcript, A. Philip Randolph Oral History Interview I, October 29, 1969, by Thomas H. Baker, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. See http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/ johnson/archives.hom/oralhistory.hom/RandolpA/randolp.asp. Wintz, Cary D., ed. African American Political Thought, 1890–1930: Washington, Du Bois, Garvey, and Randolph. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. Wright, Sarah E. A. Philip Randolph: Integration in the Workplace. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Silver Burdett Press, 1990.

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Al Sharpton is a civil rights activist and has the distinction of being one of the most visible African American leaders of the twenty-first century. Al Sharpton, most often referred to as ‘‘the Reverend Al Sharpton,’’ was a religious prodigy at the age of four and an activist in his teens during the Civil Rights Movement. Nowadays, when Sharpton appears on television, in print, on the Internet, or on the radio, one can almost hear the collective exasperated sigh of millions. Right-wing blogs and editorials are ablaze with fury and criticism over something Sharpton has said or some cause he has taken up. Blacks have mixed emotions about Sharpton. Some entertain a love-hate relationship with him; others think poorly of him. Many recognize that Sharpton is still relevant and will continue to be so as long as justice eludes African Americans. This last is how Sharpton himself explains the importance of his role. The fact is that when trouble does arise for African Americans, Sharpton and his long-standing friend Jesse Jackson are the two high-profile leaders who can be counted on to present the African American viewpoint and effectively rally media attention to the situation. Problems may not occur on the same scale as a century ago, but modernday crises keep Sharpton busy, even if all of his crusades do not end in success or showcase him in a flattering light. In the last three years alone, Sharpton has led the attack on a number of controversial issues. In 2006, he reprimanded Michael Richards, one of the stars of the hit television show, Seinfeld, for using the N-word during a tense moment in a stand-up routine. Sharpton addressed the heavy use of racist and sexist epithets by the hip-hop community as well. He played a visible role in the 2006 Duke University lacrosse scandal, wherein a black stripper accused three white members of the lacrosse team of rape. In 2007, the critics howled when Al Sharpton chose to defend several black men charged with raping and brutalizing a black woman and physically assaulting her son in their home in the Dunbar Village projects. In the same year, Sharpton lashed out at radio personality Don Imus when he set off a highly public scandal by calling the members of the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team ‘‘nappy-headed hos.’’ In 2008, he was at the forefront of the attack on Kelly Tilghman, a broadcaster for the Golf Channel, when she commented that someone should ‘‘lynch [golfer Tiger Woods] in a back alley.’’ It was the term ‘‘lynch’’ that sparked Sharpton to action. Most recently, Sharpton figured as the spokesperson for the family and fiancee of Sean Bell, who was gunned down by officers after leaving his bachelor party.

CHILDHOOD On October 3, 1954, Alfred Charles Sharpton, Jr. was born. Sharpton has three siblings, Ernestine, Thomas, and Cheryl. Sharpton’s southern-born and -raised parents, Ada Richards Sharpton and Alfred Charles Sharpton, Sr.,

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were extraordinary people. Ada Sharpton taught the children to be confident and to excel at whatever they desired to do, which explains why Sharpton felt that he could do anything. Alfred Sharpton, Sr. was living proof that the impossible was possible. An ambitious and shrewd man, he owned multiple buildings and businesses, including a store and a newsstand located not too far from their home. Sharpton’s childhood started well. He spent his early years in a brick row house his father owned in Brooklyn, New York. He and his sister played in their parent’s store. On special occasions, their father took them to Harlem to the Apollo Theater, the famous theater that stands today. When the Apollo was established in 1913, only whites were admitted. In 1934, during the dazzling era known as Harlem Renaissance, it became one of the most popular venues for new singing groups. Its Amateur Night catapulted numerous stars, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Jackson 5, and Stevie Wonder, to fame. James Brown was one of Sharpton’s favorite performers. On Sundays, the entire family went to a Pentecostal church named the Washington Temple Church. Sharpton was three years old when the family placed membership. Bishop Frederick Douglass Washington, who had begun preaching at the age of four, was an inspiration to young Sharpton. Sharpton liked to pretend to be a preacher at home. In fact, he preferred that to playing games with the other children in his neighborhood. He preached to his sisters’ dolls and built church buildings out of his toy blocks. When the church was preparing for its special anniversary service, Sharpton told Mrs. Hazel Griffin, who was in charge of coordinating the children’s participation, that he wanted to preach the sermon. He wore a gold robe that day, July 9, 1959, and the congregation enveloped him in warm, loving shouts of encouragement and approval. He was only four.

BOY PREACHER Sharpton had several mentors in his life, who played crucial roles in his development as a person, a spiritual leader, and an activist. Nothing could tear Sharpton away from his first mentor, the Bishop Washington. After school, while most children played or did homework, Sharpton went to Bishop Washington’s office, where he mimicked everything Bishop Washington did. Once a month, he gave sermons at his church or traveled, first in New York, later to other states. Sharpton was a novelty. The people he met called him ‘‘Wonderboy’’ or ‘‘Boy Preacher.’’ Under the circumstances, it was not surprising that Sharpton had a hard time separating the boy preacher from schoolboy. When he was instructed to write his name on the chalkboard in the first grade, he wrote Reverend Alfred Sharpton.

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As Sharpton’s spiritual life prospered, so did his father’s economic life. In 1960, the family moved to a new, sprawling home in Queens, New York. This house had a lawn on which Al and Cheryl could play, ten rooms, and a basement where Sharpton practiced his sermons. Sharpton was more fortunate than most black children, who grew up in the dire poverty of the South or the squalid ghettos of the cities of the North. The young Sharpton did get a small inkling of what life was like for blacks in the South when, during a trip to Florida, where his father was brought up, a white man at a restaurant refused to serve his father. Sharpton did not understand why his father, a well-muscled former boxer, acquiesced. He did not understand the fatal consequences of black resistance until later. For Sharpton, and for most of America, the years from 1963 to 1965 were complicated. One of the most important events for African Americans was the signing of the Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon B. Johnson. This act destroyed Jim Crow but left blacks and whites floundering to navigate in this utterly new world of integration. Reactions were varied. Many blacks were overjoyed but were uncertain of how to contend with begrudging whites who felt the government had forced them to open up their world to blacks. Other blacks worried about what integration would bring. Would it destroy their culture? Would it devastate the black community? Meanwhile, Sharpton faced uncertainties in his own life when, in 1963, Alfred Sharpton, Sr. left his wife. They ultimately divorced. The divorce was difficult for everyone. The children were split up. Ada Sharpton kept Al and one of his sisters, and the three of them lived in the prodigious house until they could no longer pay for it. For a long time, they had to do without electricity and heat. Neighborhood children who knew about this teased Sharpton relentlessly, just as they taunted him about being a preacher. One day, a judge wanted to see Sharpton. He had heard that he was preaching and worried that he was being forced to do so to earn money for the family. He ordered Al to stop until he was convinced that it was his own conviction and desire, and not coercion, which motivated him to preach. But there was no doubt about Al Sharpton’s conviction. He became an ordained minister in the Pentecostal Church in 1964. He was ten years old, a portly child, with his hair shaved close to his head. He exuded confidence beyond his years. At the New York World’s Fair in 1965, Mahalia Jackson, the famous African American gospel singer, invited Sharpton to preach during her performance. Eventually, Ada Sharpton and the children moved to the projects and went on welfare. Ada Sharpton, unable to deal with the sudden crisis, stayed in a hospital for a while. The usually sunny Sharpton had his own adverse reaction, uncharacteristically missing class and becoming melancholy. Sharpton was helped during this time by the kindness of two teachers who showed him special attention. Another person who played a pivotal role in his life at this time was his new friend, Reverend Walter Banks.

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AWAKENING Many leaders of African American protest experienced an event or were influenced by individuals who served as a catalyst to awaken their social and racial consciousness. For Malcolm X, it took a long stint in prison and his introduction to the Nation of Islam. For W.E.B. Du Bois, the early twentieth-century scholar and activist who grew up in an austere New England town, it was his first exposure to a black community and his undergraduate years at Fisk University. For Sharpton, it was his parent’s divorce, and undoubtedly, his brief exposure to life in the projects. Sharpton had not known poverty—ever—until his mother had been forced to forge a life for him and his sister without the assistance of her ex-husband’s vast resources. The abrupt change from comfort to poverty must have been startling and bewildering. But Sharpton’s calamity had a sobering effect on him. Thanks to regular visits with Reverend Banks he came through this trial with an ultra-sensitive awareness of the world in which he lived. Reverend Banks introduced Sharpton to Brentano’s, a bookstore on New York’s ritzy Fifth Avenue. He let Sharpton peruse the stacks of books and purchase anything he wanted. During one trip, Sharpton discovered a book about Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Powell was a charismatic black minister and politician, and he was one of two blacks in Congress. He used his influential position to work diligently on behalf of blacks. He helped pass legislation and bills to desegregate schools, to make lynching a federal crime, and to eliminate the poll tax that blacks were required to pay to vote, and he campaigned to prohibit the use of the N-word during sessions in Congress. This he accomplished during a time when the climate toward blacks in the federal government was hostile at worst, or indifferent. But Powell was in many ways unconventional. He was flamboyant and cared very little what others thought or said about him. In addition to following Powell’s career with great admiration, Sharpton read heavily about other black leaders, like Marcus Garvey, the flamboyant personality who launched a brief but spectacular movement of black nationalism in America and abroad, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the face of the Civil Rights Movement.

CALL ME ADAM Sharpton attended Somers Junior High School in Brooklyn, New York. Life was looking up. His mother had moved them to a new apartment, out of the projects, and had found employment as a domestic in Greenwich Village. He made two good friends at school: a black named Dennis Neal and a white named Richard Farkas. Like Sharpton, his two friends were interested in the Civil Rights Movement. They took to calling each other by the

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names of their favorite leaders. Dennis’ alter ego was Stokely Carmichael, the young, lean leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Richard became U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, the brother of President John F. Kennedy. Al took on the persona of his hero, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1908–1972) was the first black U.S. Congressman to represent New York. His political contributions and social activism made him a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement. Powell was born in New Haven, Connecticut. When he was still a baby, his parents moved to Harlem, New York, where his father, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., became the minister of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. After receiving his M.A. degree in religious education from Colgate University, a predominately white institution, Powell conducted several groundbreaking demonstrations in the 1930s. These demonstrations were to demand jobs for blacks at the Harlem Hospital and at other local businesses. During the Great Depression, he established food banks to assist the large black population in Harlem. In 1937, Powell took over his father’s church. But he continued to be a leader in local social activism. He coordinated several boycotts and picketing demonstrations, opening the way for blacks to find employment in all-white businesses and companies. In 1944, he was elected as a Democrat to the House of Congress, though he continued to preach at Abyssinian. In his new position, he was often a lone advocate for civil rights. After the election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960, he served as the chair of the House Education and Labor Committee. He was instrumental in increasing the minimum wage and developing social programs such as Head Start. He also played a role in the establishment of the Office of Economic Opportunity, which would help tremendously in the twentieth century.

When Sharpton wanted something, he would not let up until he got it. It was this temerity that caused his mother to give in and let her son have his way when he wanted to meet Adam Clayton Powell. She did not want to go into Harlem. She thought it was too dangerous. But Harlem was where Powell’s church, Abyssinian Baptist Church, was located. It took several visits before Powell appeared, but when he did, Sharpton marched right to his office and requested a meeting with him. Powell, who had already heard of Sharpton, the ‘‘Boy Preacher,’’ agreed to meet him and took him for a soda. Powell and Sharpton spent a great

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deal of time together during that time, and Sharpton learned much from him. One of the more important lessons learned was that ‘‘you cannot be a true leader if you care about what people think or say about you’’ (Sharpton, 186). Powell had a lot of experience ignoring what people thought about him. During an appearance on the David Frost Show, the host pointed out that Powell had been ‘‘a member of Congress for over twenty years, and … pastor [of] one of the largest congregations in the world, yet you have been married four times; you drink liquor publicly; you have girlfriends; you have been indicted for tax evasion and sued’’ (Sharpton, 186). Powell was unrattled. ACTIVISM Operation Breadbasket In the mid 1960s, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) established an Operation Breadbasket office in Brooklyn, New York. Operation Breadbasket had as its objective to help address problems for blacks in the North such as unemployment and de facto segregation. This was significant because it represented a major civil rights organization’s attempt to tackle problems facing blacks outside of the South. That it was a success was a relief to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the rest of the leadership of the SCLC. Problems in the North were more complicated than he had originally thought. The struggle in the South was harrowing enough, but the tactics used there (nonviolent marches and demonstrations) did not seem to work in the North. For one thing, blacks in the North were eager to fight back, and for another, racist whites were sometimes more vicious than those encountered in the South. Sharpton attended several Operation Breadbasket meetings, but he eventually stopped going, because it ‘‘seemed kind of boring’’ (Mallin, 40). What Sharpton needed was another epiphany, which would come shortly after the assassination of Dr. King. It was common knowledge that King faced the possibility of death on a daily basis. Like other activists, he constantly received death threats. But when he was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, it took the African American community by surprise. Grief shook the nation, including Sharpton’s own mother. Her pain stunned him until she explained that the loss was intensely personal. Sharpton had not experienced Jim Crow law and custom. But Ada, who had grown up in Alabama, had. The Civil Rights Movement, King’s gallant crusade, and the major victories such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had been life-altering events for her. While watching a movie on King’s life and death several months later, Sharpton was struck by the words in a song that seemed pointed directly at

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him, ‘‘What will happen, now that the King of Love is dead?’’ Sharpton returned to the Operation Breadbasket and attended meetings regularly. In 1967, a new leader, Jesse Jackson, was put in charge of Operation Breadbasket. Jackson was not like other ministers; he was hip and youthful with swagger and good looks. And he was a little unorthodox. Unlike the staid preachers of the old vanguard, he grimaced sometimes when he gave

Dashiki A dashiki is a colorful, loose-fitting garment that is traditionally worn in West Africa. It became a powerful symbol for black culturalists and militants during the Black Power Movement of the 1960s. The dashiki held meaning for blacks for several reasons. One, it was an expression of black pride and black power. Although most African Americans cannot trace their heritage to a specific location or tribe in Africa, due to the fact that white slave traders and plantation owners did not keep records, it is known that the majority of slaves were procured in the region of West Africa. During slavery, Africans were largely assimilated into their new environment—but not completely. Although their languages, religions, and most customs were lost, a number of Africanisms or African traits and traditions remained. However, many blacks (during and after slavery), in an effort to fit into mainstream culture as well as to yield to societal pressures and stereotypes that depicted blackness as inferior and negative, distanced themselves from anything associated with their African and slave past. For example, many blacks straightened their natural, coarse hair with pressing combs and chemicals and stopped wearing rags on their head (a surviving custom of African women) or any other clothing that might set them apart from mainstream society. They avoided eating traditional black southern foods (or soul food). Some blacks even tried to lighten the complexion of their skin with special creams and lotions. The emergence of the dashiki in America in the 1960s thus represented a return to black roots and served as a physical expression of resistance. By wearing the dashiki, black men and women affirmed their unique culture and protested the notion of cultural assimilation. It was also a statement against the negative stereotyping of Africa and blackness. For many, the dashiki served to punctuate their desire to separate from white culture and life. Many whites were intimidated by blacks who dressed in traditional African clothing, although this was not necessarily the intention of the black culturalists, who believed that differences were to be celebrated, not feared. Whites who participated in the American Hippie Movement, which gained momentum during the Vietnam War in the 1960s, sometimes wore dashikis as part of the counterculture.

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speeches. He wore dashikis and medallions and sported an afro and sideburns. When he was arrested, photographs showed him and others with him giving the clenched-fist salute. He looked and acted more like a Black Power Movement adherent than anything else. But he was not. When Sharpton met Jackson, he was starstruck. Because of him, Sharpton started wearing a medallion and grew sideburns and an afro. In 1969, Jackson made Sharpton, at fourteen years old, youth director of Operation Breadbasket. Sharpton became as fiercely passionate an activist as he was a preacher. He helped recruit individuals to assist with demonstrations. A large number of these participants came from the churches of the ministers who participated in Operation Breadbasket. Sharpton mobilized five hundred individuals. Robert Hall Boycott Sharpton’s first demonstration involved the boycott of Robert Hall, a clothing store in New York. Among the items on their list of demands were ‘‘contracts for African American businesses, summer jobs for inner-city kids, and training programs so workers could move up in the company’’ (Mallin, 43). Robert Hall submitted quickly to the demands. Future campaigns would not be so easy. Tilden High School In the 1960s, the spirit of protest was infectious. College students formed activist groups and staged protests on campus’ throughout the nation and the world. Sharpton was one of the main instigators at his Tilden High School. In fact, before he even started high school he led a march to support black leaders who wanted the school to be managed by local school boards. He later staged protests, seemingly without much discretion. Once, he led a strike for better cafeteria food. Sharpton assumed a leadership position at Tilden, as well as in his community. He was heavily involved in extracurricular activities such as the debate team, the Afro-American Club, and the school newspaper. He was the leader of the Martin Luther King Memorial Committee. Not until 1986 would Dr. King be memorialized with a national holiday. But because of Sharpton’s efforts, Tilden was the first school to display a picture of King and a plaque detailing information about him. A&P Campaign In 1971, Sharpton faced off with one of America’s oldest chain stores in a campaign that proved to be one of the highest-profile demonstrations coordinated by Operation Breadbasket. The A&P (officially the Great Atlantic

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and Pacific Tea Company), was founded in 1859 in New York City. According to revenue reports for 2005 and 2006, the A&P chain, which consisted of five hundred grocery stores, ranked 35th and 21st, respectively, in the top seventy-five retailers in North America. In 1971, when Sharpton staged a demonstration, the A&P had four thousand stores. It made sense that Operation Breadbasket should target A&P, since though many blacks frequented the stores, few blacks were allowed to work in them—particularly in management positions. Furthermore, the stores in black communities were not on a par with those in white neighborhoods (a problem that continues to pester black residents in inner cities to this day). Other issues included fewer stores in black neighborhoods and higher prices than in stores in white neighborhoods. The A&P campaign was challenging. Sharpton and the other demonstrators picketed several stores in New York. At first, they tried to educate A&P shoppers with the hope that they would choose not to patronize the chain. The shoppers either ignored the activists or were indignant, like one woman who pushed a shopping cart into Sharpton. A&P executives refused to sit down with Jesse Jackson or Ralph Abernathy, who had replaced Dr. King as the leader of the SCLC. Reverend Jones decided to take the demonstration to the national headquarters in Manhattan, New York. Sharpton was the youngest of thirty ministers who participated in this demonstration. When the men entered the headquarters, they did not ask to see the A&P president, a middle-aged man named William J. Kane. They simply walked into his empty office, sat down, and began to sing protest songs. During the sit-in in Kane’s office, a white guard, impressed with his demeanor, gave Sharpton something to eat while they waited. Late in the evening, Sharpton called Kane, using the phone on his desk. But Kane was unwilling to respond to their demands. Police officers arrested everyone but Sharpton. The security guard who had been impressed by the young Sharpton asked the police not to arrest him. Even so, Sharpton slept that night at the jail where the ministers were being held. His mother did not stop him. Early that next morning, Jackson called Sharpton to find out what happened and instructed him to mobilize activists for a rally he wanted to stage for the next day at the national A&P office. When the arrest of the adult activists were aired on the news, the executives of A&P were forced to remedy the situation. The reputation of the franchise depended on it. This tactic—of forcing media attention on an issue via a nonviolent demonstration—was carried out repeatedly in the South by all the major civil rights organizations. Even the conservatively minded NAACP participated in picketing, from time to time. It had proven to be extremely persuasive. Following negotiations, the A&P agreed to most of the demands submitted by Operation Breadbasket. More blacks were hired. A&P stores

Al Sharpton

purchased the services of black-owned businesses and stocked their shelves with merchandise produced by black-owned manufacturing companies. They agreed to subsequent visits by representatives of Operation Breadbasket to check up on the compliance of the stores. National Youth Movement Sharpton was not yet eighteen when, in 1971, he formed the National Youth Movement to help impoverished youth. Jackson had decided to leave Operation Breadbasket and to mount his People United to Serve Humanity program, known as PUSH, or Operation Push, out of Chicago. PUSH resembled, in many ways, Operation Breadbasket, in that it waged demonstrations and boycotts against companies that did not hire minorities or support minority-owned businesses. PUSH also launched campaigns to support education and inner-city schools. One program, PUSH/EXCEL, sponsored extracurricular activities for youth and encouraged the development of public speaking skills. Through an application process, high-school seniors were selected for substantial scholarships to four-year universities. Starting up an organization is an enormous undertaking for anyone, let alone an eighteen-year-old. Sharpton recruited friends from high school and Operation Breadbasket with uncanny ease, but he needed advice from experienced professional activists. The National Youth Movement was made possible because of the support of many blacks who lent their expertise and influence. Bayard Rustin, the tall and lanky civil rights legend, consulted with Sharpton and gave him $500. Rustin had been a little older than Sharpton when his interest in activism had been piqued. He was in his twenties when he went through activism training and participated in the worldfamous Scottsboro trial, where nine young African American men were accused of raping two white women. Rustin was a ubiquitous figure in a number of organizations and civil rights activities. He participated in the Journey of Reconciliation to demand that nominal interstate travel laws that prohibited Jim Crow practices be enforced. He helped found the Congress of Racial Equality. He traveled to India to learn about Gandhian techniques. He was also an advisor for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a major coordinator of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and many others. Other activists responded to Sharpton’s call. Shirley Chisholm was the keynote speaker at one of Sharpton’s fundraising events. Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress, was a native of New York. She had a reputation for a sharp intellect, a no-nonsense attitude, and a distinctive appearance: oversized glasses, bouffant hair, and a winning smile. Since Sharpton was too young to incorporate on his own, the organization also needed a good lawyer. David Dinkins, who would become mayor of New York City between 1990 and 1993, provided the legal knowledge that ensured the smooth running of the operation.

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Sharpton received the Tilden High School Community Service Award at his graduation ceremony. His mother watched from the audience, beaming proudly. Her son was the first one in the family to graduate from high school and to go to college. This was a proud moment for the Sharptons. However, Sharpton’s father was nowhere in sight. If he felt the sting of that absence, he did not let it fester. Sharpton was too busy furthering his education and his career. He was on his way to college and a new relationship with a singer named James Brown.

Brooklyn College Established in 1930, Brooklyn College was well-known for its stately beauty as well as its solid curriculum. The motto at Brooklyn College was ‘‘Nothing without great effort.’’ This held special meaning for an experienced activist like Sharpton, and could easily have been his personal mantra, given his dogged pursuit of justice. Unfortunately, in terms of his academic career, this worthy motto did not apply. Sharpton was not impressed by his courses in contemporary politics and soon began to feel that he was wasting his time. A number of activists, notably King and his role model Jackson, had a great deal of education under their belts. But Jackson left school before he received his Ph.D. to work with King, who promised him experiences and opportunities that a classroom could not provide. Sharpton had confidence in himself, observing that his knowledge and experiences bested the experience of his professors and knowledge in the required textbook readings. Jackson tried to talk him into staying in college. Sharpton hung on for two years, joining the Black Student Union and the debate team, but then dropped out. He later regretted that decision.

James Brown Sharpton was still enrolled at Brooklyn College when, in 1973, he met the sensational soul singer James Brown. During the climactic years of the civil rights struggle, Brown performed such hits as ‘‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,’’ and ‘‘I Got You (I Feel Good).’’ He was widely known for his gritty sound, shouts, and frenetic dance moves. Some of his songs reflected the spirit of the times during the Black Power Movement, such as his ‘‘Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud’’ (1968). Brown sought Sharpton out because he wanted to make a contribution to his National Youth Movement and soon became one of the most influential people in his life. In fact, Sharpton wrote that Brown ‘‘had more impact on my life than any civil rights leader—maybe even more than my own mother. What I learned from him makes it possible for me to do the things I do today’’ (Sharpton, 204). Brown not only imparted his personal style (for

Al Sharpton

Brown was the source of Sharpton’s famous processed hairstyle) but ‘‘taught [him] about self-respect, dignity, and self-definition’’ (Sharpton, 205). Brown and Sharpton connected instantly, and their relationship was mutually beneficial. After performing a concert to raise money for Sharpton’s organization, Brown took him on tour with him. When his son died in a car accident, Sharpton became a surrogate son. Brown, like Sharpton’s father, knew a lot about business. So when his business manager died, he groomed Sharpton to take on that responsibility. Throughout the 1980s, Sharpton worked in the music industry, the National Youth Movement, and preached regularly in churches. To this day, Sharpton continues to preach. While working as Brown’s manager, Sharpton met a backup singer named Kathy Jordan whom he would later marry. The had two children. Over the course of his long relationship with Brown, Sharpton observed how the popular singer defied public ridicule and adversity while maintaining his dedication to social matters. Brown was someone who was often harshly criticized in the media. But, like Powell, he remained oblivious, bolstering himself with his a strong and confident sense of self. He was unfazed by those who ridiculed his style or anything else he said or did. Imitating his friend, Sharpton learned how to weather cruel remarks and barbs. During an early 1980s trip to celebrate Martin Luther King Day in Washington, D.C., Sharpton witnessed how Brown broached the topic of the troublous social conditions in America with then-Vice President George Bush, Sr. Brown then opened the dialogue so that Sharpton could share some of his thoughts on America’s problems and how to solve them. In the late 1980s, Brown served three years in prison for offenses such as carrying an unlicensed gun and driving violations. When he visited his friend, Sharpton was amazed to find that Brown did not sulk over his predicament but instead eagerly prepared for his comeback upon his release.

THE SHARPTON PERSONA People—black and white—make fun of Al Sharpton. This has as much to do with his appearance as it does his politics. Sharpton referenced a 1988 article that asked why many whites found him so easy to hold in contempt. The answer, according to the article? ‘‘He’s fat; he has show-business hair, a gold medal, a jumpsuit, and Reeboks. He’s a perfect stereotype of a pork chop preacher’’ (Sharpton, 203). Sharpton began to cultivate his trademark look in the 1970s after forming a close bond with Brown, who wore a long, processed hairdo. He knew well enough that it would help him to get noticed; to stand out from the crowd. But it was his penchant for putting on a good show for reporters and cameras, for shouting out his take on racial incidents, and for delivering clever one-liners that made him famous.

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EARLY NEW YORK PROTEST Sharpton began the early 1980s with his fists poised and swinging. Like a costumed superhero, he was by day a Pentecostal minister, and by night a full-time defender of the oppressed. Sharpton kept extremely busy for more than three decades, fighting racists and pursuing justice, and most of his crusades concerned situations that transpired in the North, particularly in New York. Sharpton was involved in two local campaigns in 1984. For one, he coordinated protests at Grand Central Station to demand that blacks be included on the board and hired for management positions with the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Mario Cuomo, the governor of New York at that time, responded favorably. The other situation produced lackluster results. In 1984, a white man named Bernhard Goetz shot four African American youths who asked for $5, paralyzing one of the young men. Race and public interest complicated the situation. Many in New York applauded Goetz for defending himself against youths engaged in a crime against him. Sharpton and a number of blacks interpreted the situation differently. Historically, whites had gotten away with a number of crimes against African Americans. African Americans had been largely defenseless in the court system, and if found guilty of a crime, were given longer sentences than whites. During investigations of crimes, blacks also suffered at the hands of racist officials and a system biased to believe that blacks were automatically at fault. Sharpton was concerned that this situation would repeat the old racist pattern. In addition, there was suspicion that Goetz had ‘‘overreacted’’ when he shot the men (Mallin, 64). Sharpton organized a press conference at New York’s City Hall, prayer vigils, and demonstrations at Goetz’ apartment and the courthouse. Goetz was acquitted, but sentenced to 250 days in prison for illegal ownership of the gun.

HOWARD BEACH (1986) Sharpton did not need to search for cases. Most of Sharpton’s campaigns began with a phone call. They usually came in the middle of the night with a frantic voice on the other end of the line imploring him to action. That was how Sharpton’s involvement in the Howard Beach incident started: a call from one of the members of the National Youth Movement who told him that one of his friends had been killed. There were two aspects to the ensuing campaign. First, Sharpton asserted that this was his first major demonstration. Second, ‘‘it was the first case that began to project nationally our [effective] use of direct-action strategies in the North’’ (Sharpton, 225). Sharpton knew that King had made direct-action techniques popular in demonstrations in the South during the Civil Rights

Al Sharpton

Movement. He also knew that when those same tactics were transposed to the North, they were ineffectual. Sharpton’s two-pronged approach—marches and court battles—made for a powerful punch. The details of what happened at Howard Beach shocked the nation. In New York, there are still neighborhoods known for their antipathy for other races. In Howard Beach, a community in Queens, a group of whites acted out their hatred of African Americans on three blacks whose car had broken down there. The three men got out to look for a phone to call for help and were besieged by a group of whites. Following a fight, whites chased after the men with, one recalled, knives, rocks, and sticks. One of the three men ran onto an expressway and was killed when he was hit by a car. Ed Koch, the mayor of New York City, called the killing of the young man on the expressway ‘‘a racial lynching’’ (Mallin, 67). Although lynching had been a common practice on the American frontier, it held a distinctive meaning between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, when lynching was almost exclusively racially motivated. Despite this statement, Sharpton was not convinced that Koch was an ally. He launched his own campaign, consisting of a speech at the site of the pizzeria where the three men had been confronted by the whites. Sharpton purchased pizza for all the participants. A week later, while leading a march, Sharpton and the other marchers were met by incensed whites shouting vituperations. The media caught it all on camera. Sharpton held several more marches and demonstrations, while the legal team fought in the courts. One of Sharpton’s ideas to help with the case was for the surviving victims to not provide any information to the investigation. This was a risky, questionable tactic. A year and a day after the incident in Howard Beach, Sharpton dramatized the court case by holding a ‘‘Day of Outrage.’’ He and other demonstrators stood on the tracks of a subway, calling out, ‘‘No justice, no peace!’’ This demonstration interfered with subway and car traffic headed toward the Brooklyn Bridge. Sharpton and the demonstrators were arrested, but others took their place on the tracks. In total, seventy-three people were put in jail. While in jail, Sharpton was informed that three of the four members of the Howard Beach mob had been found guilty of manslaughter and assault.

TAWANA BRAWLEY (1987) Of all the campaigns Sharpton was involved in after the Howard Beach case, the high-profile case of a fifteen year old named Tawana Brawley was the most well-known. But this time Sharpton found himself vilified by the press. Brawley was found wrapped in a trash bag in Wappingers Falls, New York in 1987. Feces covered her body, which was marked with racist epithets scrawled in charcoal. Brawley alleged that white men, police officers among them, had held her captive for several days and sexually assaulted her.

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Sharpton coordinated a series of dramatic demonstrations for this case. He appeared on the popular TV talk show, Phil Donahue, and at the church to which Brawley’s mother, Glenda, had retreated for protection. There were suspicions of a cover-up by the cops. Brawley and her mother refused to answer questions, which further damaged their case. As time passed, the press began to report that evidence of the actual attack was insubstantial. Some suspected foul play, that Brawley’s story was concocted, and that Sharpton was an accomplice. Sharpton denied that, and to this day contends that he believed Brawley’s account. The case did not come to trial. When Stephen Pagones, Assistant District Attorney, was named as one of the attackers, he sued Sharpton and Brawley’s legal team. Sharpton had to pay him $65,000. Sharpton opines that the bad publicity he received over this case was unjust and did not take account of all the good work he has done.

BENSONHURST (1989) Sharpton received a call one summer morning in 1989 from the father of a recent murder victim. Yusef K. Hawkins was only sixteen years old when he and other black youths went to Bensonhurst looking to buy a used car. Bensonhurst is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, and some of its residents were known to be hostile toward blacks. Hawkins and his friends were attacked. During the melee, Hawkins was shot and killed. But it was almost two years before Sharpton could turn his attention to the racially motivated crime, for he had to attend to other serious business. In 1990, Sharpton was charged with tax evasion and embezzling money from the National Youth Movement. He was not surprised by the charges, for Brown tipped him off after he was questioned by authorities. Sharpton dramatized the case in vintage style: He did not hide from the cameras. Rather he used the media attention, shouting out ‘‘They did this to King! They did this to Powell! They did this to Garvey! This is my inauguration! I have arrived!’’ (Mallin, 79). Indeed, by this time Sharpton was a celebrity of sorts. But authorities and city officials were not crazy about him. To many, he was a nuisance: starting racial fires and exposing issues they would rather have attended to privately or not at all. He was resented, and he was vulnerable to attack. When it came time to plead before the judge, Sharpton quipped, ‘‘I plead the attorney general insane!’’ The prosecution called eighty witnesses. Sharpton called no one. At the end of two long months, he and his attorney believed that the prosecution’s own witnesses strongly supported Sharpton’s case, and indeed Sharpton was acquitted of the embezzlement charges. All that was required of him was to pay a fine for tax evasion.

Al Sharpton

With the charges behind him, Sharpton planned a march to bring attention to the murder of Hawkins. The march was held on the weekend prior to King’s birthday, two years after the murder had occurred. At the march, Sharpton was stabbed. The perpetrator was apprehended, and Sharpton was hurried off to the hospital. Sharpton was not the only activist to become the victim of violence. While in Harlem in 1958, King was stabbed in the chest by a deranged black woman during an innocuous book signing for the recently published Strive toward Freedom. And his assassination was one of many that occurred during the struggle for civil rights and the Black Power Movement. Sharpton faced the possibility of death with a stoicism common among activists. He told Jackson, who visited him at the hospital, ‘‘I think I’ll be all right’’ (Sharpton, 196). The stabbing bore unexpected fruit. First, Sharpton had to make a public statement to quell the riot that was on the brink of erupting as a result of the attack. Next, Jackson called Sharpton to see how he was doing. This was unexpected because Jackson and Sharpton were not as close as they once were. In fact, a rift had appeared between them when Sharpton aligned himself with proponents of black nationalism in the 1980s. Jackson had reprimanded Sharpton for taking this position. The nationalists opposed men like Jackson because he was a part of the legacy of ‘‘Dr. King’s vision of integration’’ and they called him a ‘‘sellout’’ because of it (Sharpton, 193). When Jackson ran for U.S. president in 1984, Sharpton did not support him. But the stabbing created a space for reconciliation and new beginnings for the two men. It also initiated a new relationship with Sharpton’s father, who also called him during his recovery. It was the first time they had spoken in twenty years. After the stabbing, Sharpton rethought his association with the nationalists. Militancy had never been a part of Sharpton’s agenda. And after having become a victim of violence and racial hatred, he wanted to distance himself from any appearance of that brand of radical activism. The nationalists saw the change in Sharpton’s thinking and called him to task for it. They demanded that he end his relationships and affiliations with their rivals, but Sharpton did not submit to their demands.

NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK The idea for a new organization came to Sharpton while in the hospital. He called it National Action Network. Through this organization, he planned to carry out full-time civil rights work and to launch a political career. For Sharpton, the 1990s unfolded with new challenges, more protest, and grand political strivings. His relationship with Jackson took another hit, as Sharpton was highly critical of Jackson’s fraternization with President Bill Clinton. Sharpton believed that relationships with presidents would compromise his activism. Sharpton wrote that ‘‘you can’t be Dr. King and Whitney

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Young at the same time. You need both, but you can’t be both’’ (Sharpton, 197, 198). Whitney Young was the successful leader of the National Urban League. Despite Sharpton’s characterization of Young, he was among the first to attempt to wear two hats: as a leader in an organization that was not conceived as a civil rights organization and as a participant in the leadership of the major civil rights groups. The Sharpton–Jackson relationship was green fodder for a voracious media. For example: Sharpton waged a boycott against Burger King for withdrawing from plans to build more franchises that would create jobs and bring money into the black communities. Jackson’s criticisms of the boycott made the news, and so did the subsequent bickering between the two men. But their bond was never dissolved completely. In fact, in the early years of the new millennium they were united in many campaigns, sometimes coordinating their efforts, and sometimes working in parallel.

CROWN HEIGHTS (1991) Sharpton and Jackson were not the only ones to experience bouts of contention. New York had an infamous Jewish–African American racial problem for years. Black leaders like Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam minister who started and headed his own organization in 1977, was accused of being anti-Semitic because of controversial statements he made about Jews. Sharpton has also been lambasted for the same reason. In his book Al on America, he diverts attention away from himself by exposing the anti-Semitism of high-profile white leaders. The genesis of this notorious issue is complicated. Some scholars spout that racism and religious differences are to blame. Cornell West, an African American scholar, joined another intellectual, a Jewish man named Michael Lerner, to duke out their differences and understanding of problematic relations between Jews and blacks. They present their strategies to improve the situation in Jews and Blacks: A Dialogue on Race, Religion, and Culture in America (1996). For example, they cite how both Jews and blacks have historically been oppressed and marginalized. In addition, a substantial number of Jews made contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. Some gave their lives. Nevertheless, tensions play out on the streets of New York City. In some black neighborhoods, Jews are not welcome, while in some Jewish neighborhoods, blacks are not welcome. In 1991, a Hasidic Jew lost control of his car, hitting and killing a sevenyear-old African American named Gavin Cato and injuring his cousin Angela. The racial makeup of the individuals involved played a role in the eruption that followed. Blacks attacked the driver of the car. Riots broke out. Tragically, Yankel Rosenbaum, a young Jewish man preparing to become a rabbi, was cornered and killed by a black mob. When Sharpton

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emerged on the scene at the behest of the parents of the slaughtered child and led a march, people blamed him for the violence. In subsequent trials, both the Jewish driver and the black man accused of murdering Rosenbaum were acquitted. The Jewish community’s reaction was to stage demonstrations. Nevertheless, the stalemate quite possibly staved off an even more explosive racial confrontation. POLITICS: U.S. SENATE CAMPAIGN By 1992, Sharpton was angling for greater influence and he had a new look to show for it. Sharpton’s physical image projected a kindler, gentler version of his former self. For one thing he had slimmed down. For another, his hair, though still straight, is gray at the temples, neatly trimmed, and combed back and away from his face. He wears suits and ties almost exclusively, and the medallion he used to wear is nowhere to be seen. On camera he is dignified and, though still the master of the political quip, magnanimous. His speech is careful, even-handed, and polite. His goal was to play a role that no African American in New York had ever played: he campaigned for U.S. Senate as a Democrat. Initially, ‘‘Many people thought his candidacy was a joke’’ (Mallin, 90). But his professionalism and the speech he gave at a convention made his critics, some of whom dwelt within the Democratic Party itself, do a double-take. The campaign was conducted in a grassroots style, with not a lot of funds but lots of good old-fashioned mingling with ordinary people—mostly blacks—at housing projects and churches. Unlike traditional candidates, Sharpton did not have a graduate degree or a litany of political credentials. But he was well known and, especially among blacks, he was a hero. His campaign highlighted core issues such as inequities in the criminal justice system, unemployment, and housing. Sharpton did not win, but he did receive fifteen percent of the total vote and twenty-one percent of the vote in New York City alone. Sharpton ran again in 1994, but lost. FREDDY’S FASHION MART (1995) Sarpton’s moment of political favor was overshadowed by controversy in 1995. Sharpton called for a boycott on Freddy’s Fashion Mart in the fall after hearing several complaints. Sikhulu Shange, a South African, subleased a Record Shack from Freddy Harari, the owner of the Fashion Mart. Shange felt Harari was trying to push him out of his store, which had been situated near the Apollo Theater for some twenty years. Harari’s employees reported to Sharpton that they were getting paid below minimum wage and that they worked in unsafe conditions. Sharpton was heavily criticized for using the term ‘‘white interloper’’ while discussing the situation. He later backpedaled

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on his erroneous use of the phrase, acknowledging that he had quite possibly brought adverse attention to himself because of it. Sadly, a deranged black man, unaffiliated with Sharpton in any way, shot several Freddy employees, then started a fire that killed himself and seven others. Some accused Sharpton of having provoked that tragedy. Sharpton contended that ‘‘what that man did was an act brought on by his own mind’’ (Sharpton, 216). ABNER LOUIMA (1997) One of Sharpton’s best-known campaigns on behalf of victims of police brutality was the case of a Haitian man named Abner Louima. Louima was thirty years old and had a wife and child at the time of his terrifying assault. Louima was one of several men who attempted to break up a fight between two women at a Brooklyn night club. The police were called and Louima was apprehended, charged with allegedly hitting an officer. The horrific night began when the cops preceded to beat Louima during his transportation to the police station. At the station, Louima was violently assaulted with a plunger in the bathroom by an officer. The resulting injuries required several operations and a two-month hospital stay. At first, Justin Volpe, the officer who brutalized Louima in the men’s restroom, denied what he had done, even though Louima’s injuries were irrefutable. In 1999, Volpe was sentenced to 30 years in prison without parole. In the aftermath of the case, Louima joined Sharpton in his activism against police brutality. He set up community centers in Haiti and America to provide resources for Haitians in both countries. Louima turned tragedy into an opportunity to help others and to protect citizens from police tyranny. AMADOU DIALLO (1999) Sharpton responded to a call for help from a man who told him he was the leader of the Guinean National Association. He came to Sharpton’s office on behalf of twenty-three-year-old Amadou Diallo, whom, he explained, had been shot at forty times by four police officers, resulting in Diallo’s death. At first Sharpton was skeptical, but eventually he ordered an investigation at the man’s persistence. After some fact-finding, Sharpton uncovered the shocking truth: Diallo was indeed an innocent victim. Many blacks claimed racial profiling was partly to blame for this incident, for when plainclothes officers approached Diallo they thought he fit the description of a serial rapist. But they were wrong. Diallo was a hard-working college student who sold an assortment of items on the street by day and studied biochemistry in the evenings. During a tense

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moment, Diallo reached into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. But the officers thought he was retrieving a gun, and he was pelted with gunfire. Sharpton unleashed a storm of protest in New York City. Jesse Jackson and actress Susan Sarandon, supported by various politicians, rabbis, and clergy, joined in the chorus. The negative press prompted the trial to be transferred to another city. All four officers were acquitted, but the parents who survived Diallo received one of the largest settlements ever paid out by the City of New York for their son’s wrongful death.

VIEQUES (2001) A large contingent of Puerto Ricans had rallied behind Sharpton during the Diallo Case. In 2001, Sharpton felt compelled to support Puerto Ricans who were outraged because the United States. was testing bombs on Vieques Island. Sharpton constructed a plan similar to the one he had used to protest Diallo’s killing. He wrote that this protest strategy—maintaining a steady flow of demonstrators despite arrests—was a good one. When it came to arrests, Sharpton was by this time a veteran. But he did not anticipate that his incarceration for trespassing on the island would last so long. His sentence was for ninety days. For forty of those days, Sharpton fasted. A forty-day fast is symbolic, for the Biblical Jesus Christ did the same when he went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Once Christ overcame the devil, he entered his ministry, calling sinners to repent and be baptized. Fasting is practiced by individuals of many religious faiths and denominations. It is considered a time for contemplation, meditation, and preparation, especially for seasons of extreme duress. Sharpton usually fasted whenever he went to jail. He said ‘‘it helps me to focus and strengthens my resolve and my faith’’ (Sharpton, 161). The fasting that he underwent this time had another purpose: it was a hunger strike. The ninety days was a grueling experience for Sharpton, who was isolated from the world, his friends, his work, and even from other prisoners. Sharpton was subdued and indrawn. This was, he later recalled, a poignant and life-changing experience. He meditated deeply on the books he read, such as Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom and the autobiography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. After he completed his ninety-day sentence, he emerged ‘‘a more focused, more disciplined person—like a soldier going through boot camp. It was a test, a test to see how much I could take.… And I passed’’ (Sharpton, xiv, xv). He emerged ready to get back to work. A week after his release, on August 17, 2001, he endorsed the New York mayoral candidate, Freddy Ferrer. Sharpton himself had run for mayor unsuccessfully in 1997, and contemplated another run before participating in the Vieques campaign. Instead, he campaigned for Ferrer. In fact, Sharpton explained, all four candidates sought his support, underscoring the fact that he carried some serious weight in the community.

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On September 11, 2001, a world-shaking event occurred in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. Two planes flew into the World Trade Center in New York, causing them to crash in a plume of smoke to the ground. An investigation discovered that Al-Qaeda terrorists had hijacked a total of four planes. The third plane crashed into the Pentagon. The crew and passengers of the fourth plane, alerted to the gravity of the situation, attacked the cockpit, and the plane subsequently crashed into an empty field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died that day. Sharpton placed a temporary hold on the mayoral campaign and turned his attention to assisting any way he could in the nation’s hour of shock, terror, and mourning. One of his contributions was to start a counseling program to help surviving victims and loved ones pick up the pieces of their lives. The mayoral campaign took a drastic turn: Ferrer had to step out, and Mark Green took the lead. Sharpton was under a lot of pressure to endorse Green, but he refused to do so, because Green had previously publicly denied that he had asked for Sharpton’s endorsement. Sharpton charged him with race-baiting. In the end, Michael Bloomberg won the race that year. Sharpton was disappointed by the fact that blacks in New York City experienced very little progress in the ensuing years. The Ousmane Zongo case in 2002 was a case in point. Zongo, a Burkinabe immigrant, was shot and killed during a raid at a storage facility that had nothing to do with him. He had kept an artist’s studio at the facility, which was under police surveillance as a CD and DVD pirating operation. Prosecutors believed that when Zongo ran, he was frightened and did not realize that the man who chased after him was an undercover cop. He was shot twice in the back during the pursuit. Sharpton launched several protests and helped Zongo’s family win monetary remuneration. The officer responsible for killing Zongo lost his job but did not serve any jail time.

POLITICS: RUN FOR THE U.S. PRESIDENCY (2004) When Sharpton sat down to write Al on America (2002), his focus was on explaining his life’s work, defending himself from his harsh critics, and making a strong case for his run for U.S. president. Sharpton did not win, but he presented himself to the nation as one who had been made over. During the campaign, Sharpton appeared more conservative than before. His look had been a work in progress since the 1990s. But in the new millennium Sharpton projected a sense of sophistication. But criticism of his life and work remained as biting as ever. Indeed, thanks to the emergence of the Internet, where individuals are able to post blogs and comments and responses to articles at will and ad nauseum, the criticism actually increased. Sharpton has been a favorite target.

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In an article by Jeff Jacoby titled ‘‘Al Sharpton: The Democrat’s David Duke,’’ Sharpton is depicted as a liberal version of Duke, a white nationalist and former politician and Grand Wizard of the infamous Ku Klux Klan. Jacoby peered back to Sharpton’s past exploits to point out actions he considered racist. However, the general public took Sharpton seriously during his 2004 run for president. His speeches impressed, although he was not elected. Following the election, Sharpton announced that he and his wife were separating. For some years, they had been growing apart but agreed to stay together until their children had grown. In 2006, Sharpton and Jackson provided highly visible support for a black stripper who alleged that three white members of the Duke University lacrosse team raped her. In 2007, the charges were dropped against the three accused Duke students due to lack of substantial evidence and several inconsistencies, and the white district attorney who had brought the charges was fired and disbarred. Dennis Prager wrote in a Townhall.com article that ‘‘any time Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson get in front of cameras on a race matter, assume that they are there to inflame, not heal’’ (Prager).

THE N-WORD To Sharpton the N-word is never okay, whether a white or a black uses it. A torrent of debate surrounds the racist term ‘‘nigger.’’ It appears that the same number of blacks support its use as those who vehemently oppose it. Black leaders have been polarized over this issue. Dick Gregory, a comedian and civil rights activist, contends that as long as an individual does not allow himself to be defined by the term then its intended effect is stripped of its power. Others argue that when blacks use the word, or call each other nigga rather than nigger, its meaning is innocuous and can even be interpreted in some conversations to be a term of endearment. Sharpton does not agree. He has made it a point to attack the hip-hop community for glamorizing the word and a series of epithets that demean women. In 2006, he castigated comedian and actor Michael Richards when his comedy routine took a sudden and shocking racial turn when he used the word ‘‘nigger’’ when confronting black hecklers in the audience. Sharpton worried that the fact that Richards used the N-word indicated deeper, scarier racial issues. In the same year, the Cartoon Network declined an apology when Sharpton asked for one after an episode of ‘‘The Boondocks’’ showed an animated Martin Luther King, Jr. using the N-word. Sharpton thought that was an extremely undignified way to portray King. According to black journalist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Sharpton’s crusades are valid. He writes: ‘‘Sharpton is a breathing, walking, reminder that race still matters and matters a lot in America. He is a slap in the face to the

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Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton is a half-hour television series that appears on TV One, a cable television station that features African American programs and films. Sharpton’s talk show debuted on October 28, 2005, and includes an all-black cast, with Al Sharpton, as host, and several guests. What makes this talk show different is that the discussions are held inside a barbershop, specifically Levels Barbershop in Brooklyn, New York. Sharpton and his guests sit in barber chairs, and in the background barbers are attending to clients. The significance of this setting is that, historically, black barbershops were one of the few safe places available for black men to openly discuss a range of issues concerning politics, economics, and culture as well to exchange local gossip. In this space, male friendships were developed and frustrations over shared social experiences expressed. Many of these conversations would be considered scandalous or treacherous in a public setting. Topics related to racism or problematic race relations in ordinary life might never have been discussed in the presence of whites or in the context of mainstream life. The movie Barbershop (2002), directed by Tim Story and produced by State Street pictures, illustrates this situation all too well. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were outraged over one scene, in which, following an argument over Rosa Parks’ relevancy, a derogatory remark is made about Jackson. Sharpton and Jackson led a boycott and then demanded that the scene be cut, to no avail. In the spirit of the traditional black barbershop gathering, Sharpton has created a groundbreaking series. He brings in black leaders from across the nation, who represent a broad range of fields and professions, as well as prominent activists and celebrities. The discussions focus on issues relevant to African Americans. As host, Sharpton is generally generous, polite, and tolerant of his guests’ myriad perspectives.

legions that duck, dodge, deflect, and flat out deny that there’s still a lot of racial hurt inflicted on blacks’’ (Hutchinson). The first decade of the twenty-first century has been a minefield of public racial slurs. In 2007, Don Imus referred to members of a girl’s basketball team as ‘‘nappy-headed hos.’’ Historically, the term ‘‘nappy’’ bears negative connotations for blacks: it is a term to describe the coarse texture of black hair. ‘‘Ho,’’ a slang term for ‘‘whore,’’ has permeated pop culture due to hip-hop lyrics. Sharpton was not the only one to criticize Imus or Kelly Tilghman when, in 2008, she commented in a joking way that fellow players should lynch Tiger Woods, the biracial golf star, as the only way to stop him from

Al Sharpton

winning. That Imus was fired and Tilghman was suspended ruffled the feathers of conservative whites, who either downplayed the statements that were made, justified them, or vilified Sharpton. Blacks have always tended to be Sharpton’s most loyal fans, but upon occasion they have objected to his campaigns. In the 2007 Dunbar Village scandal, wherein a horrific crime was carried out against a black resident of the Dunbar Village projects and her son, blacks were at the forefront of those attacking Sharpton for defending the perpetrators. In 2008, the tide turned again for Sharpton, who took a stand for justice after the death of Sean Bell, shot by officers of the New York City Police Force as he was leaving a strip club where he been celebrating his bachelor party. The officers had been at the club investigating a possible prostitution ring. The three officers were cleared of wrongdoing. Blacks who witnessed the verdict shouted out in anger and disbelief. Sharpton, who represented the Bell family, declared that he wanted a federal investigation. Other civil rights leaders told reporters that there would be marches through the streets of New York in protest. Sharpton was again seen as an invaluable defender of the downtrodden. On October 3, 2008, Sharpton turned fifty-four years old. He remains a tireless advocate for justice and keeps in-tune with the times with his radio Talk Show, Keepin’ It Real, and his television show, Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton, which premiered on the black television network TV One in 2005. Sharpton is still in high demand on mainstream talk shows and on the news. His presence, whether negative or positive, illuminates the challenges that continue to beset African Americans in the new millennium. See also Stokely Carmichael; Louis Farrakhan; Marcus Garvey; Jesse Jackson; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X; and Whitney Young. FURTHER RESOURCES Hutchinson, Earl Ofari. ‘‘Why Al Sharpton Is the Man Millions Love to Hate.’’ The Huffington Post (January 2008). See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earlofari-hutchinson/why-al-sharpton-is-the-ma_b_73715.html. Jacoby, Jeff. ‘‘Al Sharpton: The Democrat’s David Duke.’’ Capitalism Magazine (January 2008). See http://www.capmag.com/articlePrint.asp?ID=2411. Mallin, Jay. Al Sharpton: Community Activist. New York: Franklin Watts, 2007. National Action Network (January 2008). See http://www.nationalactionnetwork. net. Prager, Dennis. ‘‘Duke Lacrosse Scandal: Eight Lessons.’’ Townhall.com (January 2008). See http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/duke_lacrosse_ scandal_eight_le.html. Sharpton, Al. Al on America. New York: Kensington Publishing, 2002.

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Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931)


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Ida B. Wells-Barnett lived an extraordinary life of protest against segregation, discrimination, racism, and racial violence against African Americans. Her claim to fame was her leading the way in the fight against lynching. She was a journalist, lecturer, suffragist, and social reformer, as well as wife and mother to four children. Both her life of activism and her personal life were revolutionary in that Wells-Barnett frequently challenged societal norms and the expectations of other activists, the ramifications of which provoked a torrent of criticism. Wells-Barnett’s activism was especially valiant considering she was an African American and a woman in a world that granted few privileges, rights, or freedoms to her race or gender and the fact that she often fought alone without the support or involvement of her colleagues, community, or the thriving organizations of the period. Late in Wells-Barnett’s life, her achievements were minimized, overlooked, and, ultimately, shrouded by a conservative and male-dominated organizational leadership. Those who sang their loudest praise on Wells-Barnett’s behalf, particularly in the years leading to her death in 1931, were African American women of the women’s club movement. Subsequent recognition was lacking, and the memory of Wells-Barnett was fast becoming obsolete until her life and heroism began to be lionized in a number of publications and articles. Contemporary scholars such as John Hope Franklin, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cornel West were among those whose works restored Wells-Barnett to her rightful position as a twentieth-century icon of African American protest.

EARLY LIFE Ida Bell Wells, the oldest of eight children, was born a slave on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. This was just two years before the end of the Civil War and the subsequent liberation of millions of African American slaves in the American South. Wells’ father was Jim Wells, who was apparently the only child of a white plantation owner in Tippah County, Mississippi and his slave, Peggy. As was sometimes the custom during slavery, Jim’s father, the ‘‘master’’ of the plantation, spared him, to a great extent, the harsh cruelties and indignities of slavery and permitted him privileges denied the majority of African Americans. When Jim turned eighteen, his father apprenticed him to a Mr. Bolling, a carpenter in Holly Springs. Some slave masters even sent their mulatto children to colleges and universities in the North. Wells’ mother, Elizabeth Warrenton, was born in Virginia but was separated from her family when she was sold into slavery. Like many slaves, Wells’ mother did not know much about her ancestry, except that her father was of mixed heritage: Indian and African. Once in America, African tribal identification was all but obliterated. Whites not only forbade slaves from


speaking their native languages and practicing their diverse religions and traditions but rarely kept record of family lineage. Elizabeth, undoubtedly, met her future husband while serving as a cook for Mr. Bolling. Elizabeth was a well-renowned cook, and Wells was proud of that fact. But her mother would not live a long life. She died before she was forty years old. She made a lasting impression on Wells, who recollected how her mother was very religious and provided a good home for herself and her siblings. She was disciplined, strict, and like most slave parents, she encouraged the education of her children. Elizabeth even went to school with the children at what was known as Shaw University, later called Rust College. In those days, the ‘‘university’’ was a school for recently manumitted African Americans of all ages, taught primarily by white teachers who stressed reading and moral conduct. Wells was brought up in a house built and owned by her father, who was an expert carpenter. The vast majority of African Americans in this period were severely impoverished, but prosperous African Americans were not altogether a novelty. Small pockets of African Americans with money, property, education, and standing existed in both the North and South during and after slavery. A number of African Americans helped construct and develop vibrant all-black towns in the West following emancipation. However, Wells was not completely sheltered from the oppression that afflicted the majority of African Americans during this period. Wells learned through her parents the horrors of slavery and the consequences of overstepping the color line. Ida B. Wells described her father as a man active in the political affairs of their small town. She became aware of the dangers associated with such activism early on, recalling that ‘‘mother walked the floor at night when [her] father was out to a political meeting’’ for fear of white retaliation (Wells, 9). Many whites and African Americans lost their lives advocating rights for freed slaves. As a child, Wells admitted she had ‘‘heard the words Ku Klux Klan long before [she] knew what they meant’’ (Wells, 9). And the very words conjured fear. Wells herself would learn about racial violence in the not-too-distant future. In 1878, yellow fever devastated a large segment of the population in Memphis, Tennessee. The epidemic spread to Wells’ hometown while she was away visiting her grandmother in the country. When she learned that her parents and youngest brother, Stanley, not even a year old, had died from the disease, the young Wells returned to Holly Springs to go to the aid of her surviving siblings in spite of the threat to her own life. The Masons (friends of her father, who had been a master Mason), decided that the surviving children should be split up and sent to different homes. Wells could not bear to see the family torn apart, and so at only sixteen years of age, she protested ‘‘that [the Masons] were not going to put any of the children anywhere’’ and ‘‘that it would make [her] father and mother turn over in their graves to know their children had been scattered like

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that,’’ and she went on to say ‘‘that [they] owned the house and if the Masons would help [her] find work, [she] would take care of them’’ (Wells, 9). There was no yielding with Wells. Eventually, they agreed, and Wells’ family stayed together. The Masons suggested she become a teacher. Teaching was one of the few avenues available for African American women (being a domestic was another). Although Wells had no particular aspiration to be a teacher, she entered the profession for the sake of her family, thus relinquishing plans to further her own education. Wells never did receive a formal academic degree, but she devoted all her spare time to learning. Wells took a teaching job six miles away from their home. Her monthly salary was $25. At first, Wells and her family were assisted by their grandmother until she suffered a stroke and was forced to return home. Wells received some support from the community, but it did not completely lighten her load. Wells led a rigorous life of teaching every weekday and ‘‘washing and ironing and cooking for the children’’ every weekend (Wells, 17). At the end of the first term, Wells’ Aunt Belle (her mother’s sister) asked her to move to Memphis, Tennessee. She offered to take Eugenia, the paralyzed sister, and to allow the two brothers to work on her farm. Wells accepted this invitation and happily left the one-room school in the country. She took a teaching job located in Memphis, Tennessee. New South Memphis presented an exciting new world for African Americans. Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, coined the term ‘‘New South’’ to refer to the new and improved social and economic developments of the South since the Civil War (1861–1865) dismantled its formerly slave-based economy. The city, in particular, provided more and better opportunities than the country for progressive, optimistic young professionals. Wells looked forward to the change of scenery, the faster pace of life, and the significant increase in pay that came with her new job. However, her optimism was soon to be tested. Refusing a Seat on a Segregated Train Shortly after Ida B. Wells arrived in Memphis in 1884, she engaged in her first public fight against segregation. Ironically, Wells literally fought for her rightful equal status with whites while traveling on a train. In the following excerpt from ‘‘Hard Beginnings,’’ the second chapter of Wells’ autobiography, she recounts what happened when she refused to sit in a segregated car: [The conductor] tried to drag me out of the seat, but the moment he caught hold of my arm I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand. I had braced my feet against the seat in front and was holding to the back, and as he had already been badly bitten he didn’t try it again by himself. He went forward and got the baggageman and another man to help him and of course they succeeded in dragging me out. (Wells, 19)


Wells went on to say that the white women and men on the train applauded the men who tried to violently force her back to the ‘‘black-only’’ section. Rather than succumb, Wells opted to get off the train. Segregation on trains was just the first of a series of deliberate legal actions used to undo the civil rights of African Americans following emancipation and to usher in the era of Jim Crow. Wells was quick to seek justice. She obtained an attorney, who helped her to win $500 for damages inflicted upon her during the ordeal. Wells pointed out that ‘‘none of [her] people seemed to feel that it was a race matter and that they should help [her] fight’’ (Wells, 21). Although Wells’ case was eventually reversed, and she was ordered to pay court costs, she proved that she was willing to fight against any entity, no matter how powerful, for the cause of justice. And she would do it alone, if necessary. Wells’ action against the railroad garnered a great deal of attention—and a divided response—from the community and the nation. The Memphis Daily Appeal, mirroring the prevalent racist sentiment of the time, referred to Wells as a ‘‘Darky Damsel’’ in a headline of its December 25, 1884 edition. Other southern whites were indignant. Although Wells stood alone in this fight, many African Americans lauded her protest against the railroad. In Wells’ words, this was ‘‘the first case in which a colored plaintiff in the South had appealed to a state court since the repeal of the Civil Rights Bill by the United States Supreme Court,’’ and her ‘‘success … would have set a precedent which others would doubtless have followed’’ (Wells, 20). Preparing for Activism Despite losing her case to the railroad, Wells’ experience in Tennessee was a turning point in the development of her lifelong activism, as well as in her personal life. Wells’ social life flourished in Tennessee. Although she did not like teaching, it did facilitate her entrance into the elite world of the black society. Wells wrote fondly in her diary and autobiography of ‘‘socials, picnics, church fairs, receptions, surprise parties, moonlight walks, and ‘entertainment for young ladies’’’ (Decosta-Willis, 6). She had a great interest in the theater, fiction, poetry, writing, shopping, and being in the company of potential suitors and male friends, and continued her education with elocution lessons and other studies. Wells also contended with the day-to-day struggles commonly faced by single young women of her class, whether African American or white. Wells frequently wrote of having financial troubles—paying the rent, providing money for her siblings, and managing her expensive shopping habit and various social activities—and her romantic struggles and disappointments. Wells, until her death, subscribed to the ideals of polite behavior, virtuous qualities, and religious teaching. But though she appeared similar to most ‘‘genteel’’ women of her era, she broke away from the track of becoming

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wife and mother to explore areas traditionally closed to women. She challenged the traditional concept of womanhood, despite the repercussions of this ‘‘rebelliousness.’’ Beginning in early adulthood, Wells often battled with herself to suppress her anger and outspokenness—two characteristics society deemed inappropriate for women but which proved essential to her radical activism. Another dilemma Wells had to deal with was her single status. While most women her age were planning their weddings, Wells remained unmarried. Her diary and autobiography reflect several reasons for this. On the one hand, she simply enjoyed spending time with men and the occasional courtship. But she had no desire to settle down. On the other, she did not seem to have found anyone to compel her to accept the marriage proposals she received. Nor did she feel that she had the right attributes for marriage. So she pursued a career instead. Choosing to be single was in itself unconventional for women at that time. Wells was not entirely alone in this area. Other women were making historical strides in traditional male occupations such as literature, journalism, medicine, and activism and turning down marriage. Nevertheless, men dominated most occupations and positions of leadership, while the majority of women continued to pursue marriage and motherhood. On the eve of the twentieth century, women who abnegated their expected roles or took maledominated jobs stirred controversy. This was as true for African Americans as it was for whites. However, Wells was eagerly welcomed into the relatively uncharted world of African American male journalists. Her transition was facilitated in part by Wells’ independent, adventurous, and fearless spirit, her ease in associating with men who had been throughout her young adult life her companions and mentors, and her passion for writing. Wells fell into journalism while attending Lyceum meetings. In the 1870s and 1880s, middle- and upper-class whites and African Americans popularized the club and society movement. Both men and women started up clubs and societies for the purposes of discussing literature, music, culture, and religion, or social issues. The Lyceum was made up of mostly teachers who spent their time in meetings, reading books, debating, discussing local and world news, and listening to music. The Lyceum published the Evening Star. When the editor of the Lyceum magazine moved away, Wells was elected to take his place, and her success attracted the attention of others. Reverend R.N. Countee, a Baptist preacher, also published a weekly called the Living Way. He requested that Wells make contributions to his publication. Wells accepted his offer and a number of ensuing invitations that came her way. Her career as a journalist was established. Although she had no formal training in writing and humbly noted that she had ‘‘no literary gifts and graces,’’ Wells was regularly praised for her articles (Wells, 23). Wells did recognize that she had keen observational and critical-thinking skills and an innate sense for the importance of the written


word in terms of empowering African Americans of all walks of life, particularly those who had no education. She wanted her articles to be accessible to people with little or no education, so she purposely ‘‘wrote in a plain, common-sense way on the things which concerned our people’’ (Wells, 24). She used the pen name, ‘‘Iola,’’ for these articles. Journalism helped to expand Wells’ understanding of the world and to sharpen her commentary on the social situation of African Americans as well as the philosophy of activism she maintained for most of her life. As in her private life, Wells was unguarded and straightforward in her articulation of her thoughts. In the article, ‘‘Functions of Leadership,’’ published in the Living Way in 1885, Wells criticized well-known African American leaders for their failure to respond to the needs of African Americans without money, prestige, and opportunity. She asserted that it was the responsibility of the African American leader to, ‘‘to some extent, devote his time, talent, and wealth to the alleviation of poverty and misery, and elevation of his people’’ (Decosta-Willis, 179). Wells consistently acted upon this belief, and as a result, she rarely took a break from some form of activism until the day she died. In the summer of 1886, when Wells was twenty-four years old, she was briefly pulled in a direction that threatened to stifle her socially, emotionally, and professionally. Wells’ aunt moved to Visalia, California and persuaded Wells to join her. Wells arrived, writing articles about her trip to the West along the way. She took a teaching job in an all-black classroom, noting in her autobiography her disappointment that African Americans insisted upon segregated schooling. Wells was unhappy on the western frontier, mostly because she was isolated from a substantial African American community and the lively pulse of city life. After moving to Kansas City, Missouri for a brief teaching stint, Wells, along with one of her four siblings, returned to Tennessee in the fall of 1886. Wells returned to teaching upon her return to Memphis. Her antipathy towards the profession grew daily, but newspaper writing brought her much joy. During this same time, Wells accepted an invitation from a Reverend William J. Simmons, D.D., to be a paid correspondent to his Negro Press Association. She attended several press conventions, where great leaders of the day such as Frederick Douglass, Bishop Henry McNeil Turner, and Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce were in attendance. All three remain legends of American history. Frederick Douglass became famous after the publication of his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). Douglass escaped slavery with the help of white abolitionists when he was twenty years old, quickly rising to become a prominent abolitionist and orator. Born free, Henry McNeil Turner was the first African American chaplain in the Union Army during the Civil War (1861–1865). In 1880, he was elected a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was

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elected to the Georgia Legislature in 1868. However, shortly thereafter, conservative whites passed a bill prohibiting blacks from holding political offices. Turner was a radical to the fullest, blasting criticisms of racist whites, as well as proclaiming to his congregation that God was black and advocating that African Americans return to Africa. Blanche Kelso Bruce, a former slave, served the U.S. Senate from 1875 to 1881. He was the first African American to serve a full term in the Senate. In 1889, Wells was elected secretary to the National Press Association and invited to write for a large number of African American publications. Her success and popularity as a writer was noted by several leading African American publishers, editors, and leaders. In the same year, Wells became writer, editor, and one third owner of the Free Speech and Headlight. Wells continued to teach until she published a controversial article about conditions in African American schools in Memphis. Wells described this article as ‘‘a protest against the few and utterly inadequate buildings for colored children,’’ and the ‘‘poor teachers given us, whose mental and moral character was not the best’’ (Wells, 36). As a result of this article, she was fired. This was in 1891. Wells was not surprised. Nevertheless, she was disappointed, particularly because the parents did not show her any support and felt Wells should have refrained from her protests to keep her job. The tenacious Wells had no regrets. Losing her teaching job was not a great disappointment to Wells. She taught primarily to make a living, while she pursued writing—her true passion—in her spare time. When her teaching career was taken away from her, Wells was compelled to try her hand at writing full-time. She traveled the South and happily immersed herself in writing and in garnering money and support for the Free Speech. She received an enormous amount of support from African American communities, organizations, churches, and associations. She was often ‘‘treated like a queen,’’ not only because she was the editor of a successful paper, a fellow Mississippian, and the daughter of a reputable master Mason, but because being a woman who was also a journalist was considered a ‘‘novelty,’’ not a handicap (Wells, 41, 42). Wells envisioned a comfortable and satisfying writing career. She could not foresee the horrific descent into racial violence that would jolt Memphis, Tennessee during her absence, a descent that would propel Wells into a life of activism.

ANTI-LYNCHING CRUSADE In 1892, a fight broke out between African American and white youths during a game of marbles in Memphis, Tennessee. This incident triggered what Wells described as an opportunity for the owners of a local white-owned store to make an attack against the owners of its competition, an African American–owned store called the People’s Grocery Company. The owners


of the black store were Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart. Moss was a close friend of Wells, who was godmother to his daughter. The owners of the People’s Grocery consulted an attorney who affirmed their right to arm themselves in self-defense. Several African American men guarded the store on the night of the rumored attack. When whites fired shots, the armed men shot back, wounding three of the white men. In the aftermath, Moss, McDowell, and Stewart were jailed. A number of African Americans guarded the jail to thwart off any attempts to harm the imprisoned men, but they went home when it was believed the threat had passed. On March 9, 1892, a white mob broke into the jail, carried out Moss, McDowell, and Stewart, and shot them despite their pleas for mercy. The lynching (a term used to refer to any form of execution without due process of law) of Moss, McDowell, and Stewart was the antecedent to Wells’ illustrious anti-lynching campaign, which coincided with the beginning of the Progressive Era. Wells heard the news while she was away canvassing for the Free Speech. When she returned to Tennessee, she immediately purchased a gun, ‘‘because [she] expected retaliation from the lynchers’’ and ‘‘felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap’’ (Wells, 62). She then wrote an article in her paper lambasting the lynchers for using violence to suppress African American advancement. She also launched an investigation into lynching and uncovered the fact that the majority of the allegations that the African American men lynched had committed a crime against a white woman were false. Such allegations were concocted for various reasons—in the case of Moss, McDowell, and Stewart, to impose white supremacy and thwart black economic progress. In one of her editorials, Wells bravely reported that ‘‘nobody in this section believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men assault white women. If Southern white men are not careful they will over-reach themselves and a conclusion will be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women’’ (Wells, 65, 66). Wells later pointed out that white men had long abused African American women with impunity, and that it was common knowledge that some white women pursued African American men. When African Americans refused their advances, ended the relationship, or a pregnancy occurred, white women accused their lovers of rape. The notion that white women and African American men could be in consensual sexual relationships was unimaginable to southern white men. It blotted the image of pure and chaste southern womanhood. Wells did more than write scorching editorials on lynching; she wrote in support of the economic boycott and migration of local African Americans (which occurred in response to the lynching). A group of white men came to her to ask her to discourage both boycott and migration, but she refused to do so. Wells followed up this meeting with an article praising African Americans for their work and insisting that they keep it up. Wells also traveled to Oklahoma, one of the principle locations of the migration, and wrote several articles on the conditions there in an effort to quash embellished stories

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Lynching Epidemic The lynching epidemic refers to the overwhelming number of African Americans murdered, through hanging or other insidious means, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After the South lost to the Union in the Civil War (1861–1865) and black slaves were freed, white southerners resorted to violence, intimidation, and terror tactics to maintain order and supremacy over blacks. Between 1885 and 1942, in Texas alone, it is claimed that 339 blacks were murdered by lynching. Other victims included seventy-seven whites, fifty-three Hispanics, and one Native American. Most black victims were male. Between 1882 and 1930, there were 462 lynchings in Mississippi, 423 in Georgia, and 283 in Louisiana. Although racism was at the heart of the majority of these killings, whites often claimed that they were carried out because of the ‘‘rape’’ of white women. During this period, the idea of romantic relations between white women and black men was a source of deep paranoia in the Southern white community. By accusing a black man of rape, whites were able to compel others in the community to form a mob and launch a terror campaign against the targeted person. Other blacks were targeted for violating Jim Crow customs and laws, as well as for exhibiting material success. A lynching incident was often conducted like a sensational social event. Often times, the media reported on an upcoming lynching as if advertising a carnival. Hundreds, including white men, women, and children, might attend a single lynching. Families came from miles around to attend one. During a lynching, the victim could be hung or burned alive. Many times trophies—dismembered parts of the victim—were distributed among the crowd or displayed in town. Other lynchings were spontaneous, often occurring at the hands of a white mob or an organization like the Ku Klux Klan. Because law officials often took part in the lynching, there was no one blacks could turn to for help. Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a pioneer of the anti-lynching campaign. Her work was followed by several organizations, most notably the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Efforts to stop lynching did not produce dramatic results as liberal politicians refused for years to pass federal anti-lynching laws. However, the campaigns helped to expose the atrocities, whereas previously, lynchings had proceeded unchecked. The lynchings waned at the start of the 1940s.


published by white newspapers to discourage black migration. During this time, the owners of the Free Speech decided that they would not keep the paper in Memphis, forcing Wells to consider where she should go. In May 1892, Wells went to the A.M.E. General conference in Philadelphia at the urging of Frances Watkins Harper and the fiery Bishop Henry McNeil Turner. She then went to New York at the invitation of Thomas Fortune. While in New York, Wells discovered that a white mob had destroyed the offices of the Free Speech and threatened to kill her if she ever returned to Memphis. The destruction of the Free Speech came shortly after the Commercial Appeal reprinted the article in which Wells alluded to the questionable ‘‘moral reputation’’ of the white women who white men claimed were the victims of rape and then ‘‘called on the chivalrous white men of Memphis to do something to avenge this insult to the honor of their women’’ (Wells, 66). But this attack did not silence Wells. She accepted Fortune’s offer and became part owner and regular paid contributor to the New York Age. Wells frequently credited Fortune, as well as Jerome B. Peterson, who owned and edited this widely read paper, with giving her a platform upon which to speak. She asserted that ‘‘had it not been for the courage and vision of these two men, I could never have made such headway in emblazoning the story to the world’’ (Wells, 63). Thus, Wells continued her bold, uncensored, and shrewd attack on lynching. She regularly reported statistics on the multiple lynchings that occurred throughout the nation. She was the first journalist—African American or white—to protest lynching. Wells, unlike the reporters for the southern papers who in many instances instigated or sustained the culture of lynching with their sensationalism and racist bent, relied upon facts for her articles. She changed her pen name from ‘‘Iola,’’ to ‘‘Exiled’’—a name that signified Wells’ forced departure from her home in Memphis, Tennessee. Wells’ work caught the attention of thousands in the South, including famed African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Throughout the few remaining years of his life, Douglass was a mentor, friend, and staunch supporter of Wells. Wells’ work also captured the interest of two African American socialites, Victoria Earle Matthews and Maritcha Lyons, who were responsible for coordinating Wells’ first speaking engagement. This occurred in New York before a hall filled with African American women on October 5, 1892. The lecture was a success, though Wells admitted in her autobiography that she was so nervous that she read her speech, instead of improvising the events that led her to leave Memphis. She was mortified that she let her guard down and cried during her presentation. The tears were the result of her recollecting the pain of leaving her friends and loved ones. But her audience was mesmerized and all-the-more sympathetic to her cause because of it. Wells was adamant that she not give in to the emotion of her experience

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ever again, and she never did. Future critics responded favorably to her impassive and poised locution.

Progressive Era The Progressive Era is the period of reform that occurred from the 1890s to 1920s. The individuals who led this movement consisted mainly of middleclass whites who lived in the nation’s cities. One of the main criticisms of the Progressive Era was that African Americans were largely neglected. The Progressive Era spanned one of the most difficult times for blacks in America. Rayford Logan, a black scholar, coined the term ‘‘nadir’’ to describe these harrowing years. The nadir spanned from 1877 to 1901, but life for blacks did not improve much in the early years of the twentieth century. The nadir was marked by extreme poverty and anti-black violence in the form of race riots and lynchings, disfranchisement, and discriminatory laws known as Jim Crow. While whites tackled alcohol use, workers’ rights, corruption in business and politics, and prostitution, black issues remained invisible. It took the African Americans themselves to make the move toward uplifting their community and to address the larger issues of Jim Crow and disfranchisement. Blacks who made critical contributions or at least valiant attempts to alleviate the overwhelming social, economic, and political problems of blacks included women’s organizations (like the National Association of Colored Women in 1896) and a score of individuals (like Ida B. Wells-Barnett). Two major organizations were formed during these years, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, and the National Urban League (NUL) in 1911. The NAACP addressed broad issues, working to expose lynchings in the South and launching legal campaigns to undo discriminatory laws. The NUL worked to employ blacks living in urban centers. This was no small feat, as racism in the North frequently closed the door on opportunities for blacks. For example, a number of department stores and other companies simply did not hire blacks until the NUL got involved. The NUL made sweeping strides in that respect.

The outcome of Wells’ first presentation was profound. Not only was she awarded a pen-shaped gold brooch and $500 to go toward a new newspaper to replace the one she lost at the hands of a mob, the women were inspired to form African American women’s clubs in their hometowns. Immediately following this success, Wells was invited to speak in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, and elsewhere. Wells’ lecturing career blossomed from that point on. This gave her an opportunity to meet numerous leaders within the African American and white communities. In this way she had a fortuitous encounter with Catherine Impey at a speaking engagement in New York. Impey played an instrumental role in the next


phase of Wells’ war on lynching when she and Isabelle Fyvie Mayo of Scotland invited Wells to England—the same country where Douglass had rallied mass support to help abolish slavery in the American South. Douglass gave Wells his blessing and endorsed her campaign to enlist America’s powerful and influential allies’ support in ending lynch law and segregation.

ANTI-LYNCHING CRUSADE ABROAD Wells engaged in two European lecturing campaigns, in 1893 (for three months) and 1894 (for six months). Her accomplishments during both trips were far reaching. Although she did not receive payment for her work, her needs were met by benefactors and hosts. She was well-treated—sometimes to Wells’ astonishment. After all, in her own country, to show herself equal or superior to a white person could provoke violence or death. Wells maintained a busy schedule, traveling to various locations throughout Scotland and England. She kept a diary through most of her travels and, during her second trip, published articles describing her experiences in the InterOcean. Wells appeared before diverse audiences and organizations in an assortment of venues including wealthy homes, churches, and meeting rooms. She spoke ‘‘of condiitions in the South since the Civil War, Jim Crow laws, ballot-box intimidation, and laws against intermarriage,’’ as well as her primary subject regarding the unrestrained violence against African Americans and other atrocities and injustices (Wells, 90–91). Her speeches shocked her audiences, who had thought African Americans had transitioned smoothly into post-slavery life and that racism was obliterated along with the end of slavery. Her listeners were moved to pass resolutions asserting their stance against lynching and racial discrimination. Wells’ success was covered in the newspapers following each lecture, with journalists using such words as ‘‘quiet,’’ ‘‘effective,’’ ‘‘educated,’’ and ‘‘forceful’’ to describe Wells’ presentations. Other results of Wells’ European tours were the formation of the AntiLynching Committee in London and a brief mention of Wells’ international campaign in the American book, Afro-American Women and Their Progress. There were times, however, when Wells’ progress was jeopardized by individuals who opposed interfering in the affairs of a foreign nation. Some individuals thought England should not intervene in America’s affairs, and others could not imagine the conditions in America were not resisted by Christians, popular reformers, and northerners, or traveling Americans themselves. Traveling Americans sometimes voiced their objections to Wells’ crusade. During Wells’ first trip, controversy nearly ended her campaign when she supported Impey who disclosed her interest to an Indian man. Although Mayo was a progressive reformer, she frowned upon interracial relationships. Incensed, Mayo terminated her relationship with Impey and insisted Wells do the same. Mayo believed that Impey had compromised the great work to

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which they had committed themselves. When Wells sided with Impey, believing she had done nothing wrong in falling in love with a man of a different race, Mayo distanced herself from Wells as well. This was a blow for Wells since much of her success had been dependent upon Mayo’s influence and support. FIGHTING FOR RECOGNITION AT THE WORLD’S FAIR Wells’ protest at the World’s Fair took place in 1893 in the interim between her two European campaigns. The World’s Columbian Exposition and Fair was launched to celebrate the nation’s four hundredth birthday. It featured forty-six countries, newly constructed buildings for the occasion, and splendid displays of cultural, artistic, and technical exhibits. Haiti was among the participants invited to the fair. Haitian officials chose Douglass (who served as a U.S. ambassador there from 1889 to 1891) to represent the country at the Haitian building. Glaringly absent from the program were African Americans. Outraged, Wells, in collaboration with Douglass and Frederick J. Loudin, a singer and musical director of the Jubilee Singers, set out to write and publish a book entitled The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Exposition. Financing for the book was troublesome. African American newspapers refused to offer support. Wells went to African American women, and with their help, coordinated meetings at various churches. With the money donated at the churches, plus personal contributions made by Wells, Douglass, and Loudin, the eighty-one-paged pamphlet was published and distributed. The protest of Wells, Douglass, and Loudin was a success. Wells believed that it was Douglass’ popularity and iconic status that drew large crowds to the Haitian building. Whatever the reason, she took full advantage to get the publication into as many hands as possible and went daily to the fair to disseminate it. Wells felt that exposing the truth to as many people as possible, especially during such an important event, was an indispensable part of rectifying the predicaments faced by African Americans. These efforts, either indirectly or directly, resulted in the officials of the Fair declaring a ‘‘Negro Day.’’ Every nation participating in the Fair was asked to make a presentation before all the attendees. Wells and some others rejected this invitation. They were vexed by the fact that they were asked to participate after having been snubbed originally. Douglass, on the other hand, coordinated the event himself and gave a masterful oration. The young poet Paul Dunbar recited some of his poems and the Jubilee singers gave a riveting performance. BEGINNING OF THE WOMEN’S CLUB MOVEMENT IN ILLINOIS Wells’ launch into her role as an activist was greatly assisted by the help of African American women. Women were the first to respond proactively to


Wells’ cries of protest after the lynching of the three businessmen in Memphis, and their support was integral to Wells’ success as a lecturer. African American women came to her aid when she needed help to procure funds to publish the book to censure the absence of African American’s in the World Fair program. Shortly after the World’s Fair, Wells played a major role in the creation of the first African American women’s club in Illinois, known as the Chicago Women’s Club, later renamed the Ida B. Wells Club. W.T. Stead, editor of the Review of Reviews, inspired great interest in the club when he gave a rousing speech in which he insisted that the African American community needed ‘‘a solid organization to fight race prejudice’’ to be managed by an elite (Wells, 123). ANTI-LYNCHING CRUSADE IN THE UNITED STATES On July 24, 1894, Wells was greeted with fanfare upon her return to America following her second European tour. She dedicated the next year to an anti-lynching crusade in the States. Although resolutions were passed in many white churches (though not always as easily as in England), and antilynching committees were formed, Wells experienced various setbacks. African Americans, as a whole, continued to withhold their moral and financial support. On one occasion, some African Americans asked Wells to minimize her accusations against white women. Wells, of course, refused to do so, for her aim was to present the facts. The major reason for black resistance to Wells’ work was fear of white backlash and of the belief that she was making matters worse (not better) for African Americans. Wells’ American anti-lynching campaign gave her access to other influential activists such as Susan B. Anthony, in whom Wells found a friend and who treated Wells with respect, kindness, and dignity. Wells continued to work with Douglass until his death on February 20, 1895. At the close of that year, Wells, at the age of thirty-two, and exhausted from her labor, decided it was time to attend to more personal matters. SOCIAL ACTIVISM AFTER MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN Ida B. Wells became Ida B. Wells-Barnett on June 27, 1895. The hyphenated last name embodied the roles she struggled to reconcile: activist and wife and eventually, mother. Wells-Barnett was able to retain much of the independence she demonstrated in her single life. Her husband, Ferdinand L. Barnett, an attorney, was himself an accomplished man. Their union was a good match. He encouraged her activism and did not protest when she carried the children with her on campaigns and braved multiple solo ventures. On many occasions, he gave money to her causes, or they worked as a team. She in turn helped to garner support for his career.

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Despite the skeptics who did not approve of Wells-Barnett’s decision to marry, she entered into matrimony with every intention of carrying on with her work. The loudest objections came from African Americans who felt she had abandoned them and their cause. Even Wells-Barnett’s’ friend and supporter, Susan B. Anthony, voiced her displeasure. It was expected that female activists give up marriage and children. But Wells-Barnett did not cease her work. She bought the newspaper, The Conservator, which belonged to her husband and others, was president of the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Women’s Club, and continued her lectures. Wells-Barnett faced another challenge in terms of keeping on with her work when her first son, Charles Aked (named after an English adherent) was born on March 25, 1896. Wells-Barnett dealt with this situation by becoming the self-proclaimed ‘‘only woman in the United States who ever traveled throughout the country with a nursing baby to make political speeches’’ (Wells, 244). Wells-Barnett seemed to have achieved the impossible: balance between motherhood and social protest. But after the birth of her second son, Wells-Barnett decided that being a wife and mother was a full-time job in itself and deserving of her full and undivided attention. Motherhood turned out to be a poignant experience for Wells-Barnett. She had not believed she possessed the same desire as other women to bear children, both because of the grueling years as mother to her siblings and the fact that she had committed herself to an independent life and a career in journalism and activism. But motherhood caused Wells-Barnett to ‘‘wonder if women who shirk their duties in that respect truly realize that they have not only deprived humanity of their contribution to perpetuity, but they have robbed themselves of one of the most glorious advantages in the development of their own womanhood’’ (Wells, 251). Despite this revelation, Wells-Barnett’s’ hiatus from public work was brief. Lynching across the nation had continued unabated. In 1898, the lynching of an African American federal officer brought her back to public life. WellsBarnett, five-month-old baby in tow, was among the delegation that went to Washington, D.C. to urge President McKinley to take a stand against lynching. McKinley appeared attentive, telling the delegates that secret agents were looking into the matter. Following this meeting, Wells-Barnett turned her attention to raising money for the widow and surviving children of the victim. During this time, the Spanish American War began. Wells-Barnett was compelled to postpone her fundraising endeavors and return home. To her great disappointment, she was forced to abort further efforts in Washington, D.C. due to lack of organizational support, money, and interest.

ORGANIZATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS, CHALLENGES, AND PROTESTS Ida B. Wells-Barnett firmly believed that African Americans could make a greater impact in America through formal organizations. She envisioned a


national organization that would be ‘‘numerically and financially strong enough to do the work which was so badly needed for making an organized fight upon’’ the persistent issues of racism, discrimination, segregation, and the emerging violence of the new century: riots (Wells, 267). On a side note, though Wells-Barnett was an active church member all her life and repeatedly sought out white and black churches during her activism, the church (though one of the leading agents in the antislavery movement) was an organization whose support was frequently sporadic. Although Wells-Barnett worked primarily with African American organizations, she periodically enlisted white supporters. Her European friends were proof of that, as were those whites, for example, who formed a committee in response to Wells-Barnett’s plea to put a stop to plans published in Chicago newspapers to abolish integrated schools. Her alliances with organizations brought some successes, but these liaisons were fraught with shortcomings, conflict, and opposition. Despite Wells-Barnett’s assertiveness and impact, she was overshadowed by other leaders who dominated the public stage. Afro-American League The Afro-American League was re-established in 1899 to protest the issues that concerned Wells-Barnett. Wells-Barnett believed that the organization’s progress was hindered by a lack of money and the accommodationism of men like Booker T. Washington. Accommodationism, a philosophy that advocates compliance to the status quo, was not only popular with a sizable number of African Americans but to an even greater degree with white America. Washington and other likeminded men were appointed to high political positions and advised white leaders. The influence of these men, particularly Washington, more than once, obstructed the work of the AfroAmerican League. By 1906, the Afro-American League had ceased to exist. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), established in 1909 to tackle prominent issues facing African Americans such as racial violence, disfranchisement, and segregation, was another organization that initially evoked Wells-Barnett’s optimism. WellsBarnett was among those whose concerns helped shape this organization in its developmental stage. She was a member of the subcommittee charged with electing forty persons for the National Negro Committee, which would be responsible for the planning and development of the forthcoming NAACP. Wells-Barnett was shocked and incensed when her name did not make the list. Subsequently, her relationship with the NAACP was strained. It was clear that Wells-Barnett did not have the credentials or fit the profile for entrance into the leadership of the emerging NAACP. Despite her heroic and very public anti-lynching campaign and years of experience with

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women’s clubs and journalism, Wells-Barnett could not tout having ‘‘college degrees, professional credentials, and formal relationships to official constituencies’’ (Schecter, 135). Moreover, Wells-Barnett was a woman, and she was radical. The new tide of leadership, brought forth by the NAACP, was largely male and conservative. And it, ultimately, took over the anti-lynching issue, acknowledging little of Wells-Barnett’s pioneering contribution. Notwithstanding the slight, Wells-Barnett moved on to other ventures. Lone Crusader and Lynching Revisited In the same year that the NAACP was formed, Wells-Barnett again rolled up her sleeves for protest—this time, to investigate a lynching in Cairo, Illinois. Wells-Barnett set out to ensure that the Illinois anti-lynching law, created in the aftermath of an earlier riot in Springfield, was upheld. In an unprecedented act against lynching, the state had established a law to dismiss ‘‘any sheriff who permitted a prisoner to be taken from him and lynched’’ (Wells, 309). Frank Davis was the sheriff in Cairo whose prisoner, an African American known as ‘‘Frog’’ James, was indiscriminately apprehended for the murder of a white woman. He was later seized while in custody of the sheriff, pelted with as many as 500 bullets, beheaded, and burned before a crowd of men, women, and children. In Cairo, while trying to persuade the African American community to stand with her in her protest, Wells-Barnett appropriately called herself the ‘‘mouthpiece’’ of the people. Although a number of men and women signed petitions to oppose Davis’ reinstatement, only one African American man, a lawyer, sat by her side, as she otherwise single-handedly testified before a throng of the former sheriff’s supporters during the trial. In the end, the courts upheld the crucial anti-lynching law, and Wells-Barnett declared that there was not another case of lynching in Illinois from that moment on. Her triumph was recognized by a representative of the NAACP ‘‘as the most outstanding thing that had been done for the race during the year’’ (Wells, 326). Negro Fellowship League Wells-Barnett established the Negro Fellowship League (NFL) back in 1908 addressed crime in the African American community. Although she argued that lawlessness was, in general, a contrived excuse to abuse African Americans, she was aware that crimes among African Americans were real. The organization’s main objective was to provide a positive alternative for young African American males recently arrived in the city who might otherwise turn to idleness and crime. The original membership consisted of young African American men, ages 18 to 30, from her Sunday school class. With the help of a philanthropic white couple, the organization was able to rent a house, referred to as a reading room, in a problem section of the


town on State Street where idle youth loitered or engaged in criminal activities. The house was used to lodge young men and to provide resources for assistance and employment in the city. Wells-Barnett called it the ‘‘Hull House for our people’’ (Wells, 356). Wells-Barnett bore most of the financial burden of running the reading room (with the help of white benefactors who helped with the expenses for at least three years) and did much of the hands-on work herself. Wells-Barnett proclaimed proudly that the reading room provided aid for every African American who came to the NFL for help. She believed the work played a pivotal role in bettering the world for African Americans. The Negro Fellowship League helped ordinary individuals whose stories never made the press. Among the high-profile cases was an incident involving an African American named Steve Green. Wells-Barnett and the NFL helped him to escape lynching and provided lodging for him after he killed a white man in self-defense. In another case, Wells-Barnett went to the aid of a man named ‘‘Chicken Joe’’ Campbell who had been accused of the death of a white woman in a fire that occurred at a penitentiary where he worked. When other papers would not give her a voice because she refused to temper her writing, Wells-Barnett went to the editor of the Record Herald, who allowed her to write an article of protest. Wells-Barnett’s husband took on the case. Although Campbell was found guilty, he evaded a death sentence and was given a life sentence. Wells-Barnett was sorely disappointed that she was unable to garner support from the professionals in the community or from any other organizations. In 1917, Wells-Barnett, working via the Negro Fellowship League, protested the imprisonment and hanging of African American soldiers accused of rioting in Houston, Texas. Not everyone rallied behind her. When WellsBarnett asked local African American churches to hold a memorial for the men, she was refused. Undaunted, Wells-Barnett had buttons made, which read ‘‘In Memorial: Martyred Negro Soldiers,’’ to protest what the American government had done. When she was accosted by two white secret service agents who accused her of treason for her stance and threatened to put her in jail and confiscate her buttons, Wells-Barnett courageously stood her ground, stating that she ‘‘would consider it an honor to spend whatever years are necessary in prison as the one member of the race who protested, rather than to be with all the 11,999,999 Negroes who didn’t have to go to prison because they kept their mouths shut’’ (Wells, 369–370). The men, powerless to back up their threats, left, never to return. NFL and the East St. Louis Riot In 1918, Wells-Barnett worked congruently with the NFL and the Chicago Defender to protest the two-day riot that took place in East St. Louis and resulted in the death of 150 African Americans and the destruction of

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property worth nearly $1 million. The NFL organized a meeting, later publishing their speeches and resolutions in several newspapers. Wells-Barnett was chosen to send the resolutions to Governor Lowden. But she wanted to do more than that. She desired to do some investigating, believing that this would strengthen their protest. Upon her arrival in East St. Louis, Wells-Barnett was astonished to find that the African American community had been left without much protection and that the people were receiving no help to reconstruct their lives. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that some leaders from the African American community met (without Wells-Barnett) with the governor, downplaying what had transpired and depicting Wells-Barnett as a troublemaker. Wells-Barnett, however, was able to press for an investigation into the causes of the riot, which, she observed, was focused unfairly on the African American men who had gone for help to avert the impending racial violence and consequently armed themselves in self-defense at the riot’s onset. She wrote that it was those men who ‘‘received the brunt of the punishment meted out’’ (Wells, 390). Later, Wells-Barnett went to the aid of Dr. LeRoy C. Bundy, who received a life sentence for his alleged participation in the rioting. She utilized the medium, the Chicago Defender, to successfully raise money for Bundy’s defense, and he was released from prison. Despite the numerous accomplishments made by the NFL, Wells-Barnett was forced to terminate the organization in 1920. With no money and support to draw from, she had no other choice. African American Women’s Clubs African American women played an essential role in Wells-Barnett’s activism, just as she was instrumental in their mounting power and influence and growth. She worked with and for women until her death. However, WellsBarnett’s relationship with some women, particularly those in leadership positions, who tended to perceive her tactics as abrasive and threatening, was frequently strained. And she was frequently frustrated by organizational bureaucracy. Wells-Barnett’s popularity began to show the strain when Mary Church Terrell, president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in Chicago, did not invite her to a convention in 1899 because some members did not want her there. Wells-Barnett wrote of how, on another occasion, women at a meeting ‘‘hissed me off the floor,’’ because they thought she was vying for control (Wells, 329). Some women were offended when WellsBarnett got the Ida B. Wells Club accepted as a chartered member to the largely white Chicago Women’s Club without following the proper procedures, though this was a monumental step toward integrating the women’s organizations. Later, Wells-Barnett severed ties with Celia Parker Wooley and the Frederick Douglass Center (an integrated women’s club). Wells-Barnett,


who had been vice president of the organization, objected to the way Wooley, the founder, treated her; Wooley challenged her stance on motherhood and racist stereotyping of black men and attempted to prevent Wells-Barnett from becoming president. One of Wells-Barnett’s most extraordinary adventures within the women’s clubs was her harrowing involvement in the suffrage movement. Between 1912 and 1914, ‘‘her participation in panels, dinners, canvassing, parades, and speech making all intensified’’ (Schecter, 199). She and her fellowsuffragists endured male protest and ridicule, and ‘‘tested the Jim Crowing of African American women to the back of a major pro–woman suffrage parade held in Washington, D.C.,’’ in 1913 (Schecter, 200). When WellsBarnett stood her ground, refusing to go to the back of the parade, she was supported by many white women, as well as the Chicago Defender. In the same year, Wells-Barnett was one of the founders of the Alpha Suffrage Club to galvanize the involvement of African American women in obtaining voting rights (a movement launched by white women). This was the first African American women’s suffrage organization in the United States. This club played a major role in the passage of the Illinois Municipal Voting Act, which allowed women in Illinois partial voting rights. In 1920, women obtained full voting rights in every state with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Wells-Barnett urged African American women to use their newfound voting power to endorse black leadership and white leaders sympathetic to the issues faced by African Americans and to eliminate racist legislation. Despite these wins, Wells-Barnett concluded that ‘‘all of our leading politicians proceeded to ignore those of us who had made it possible for [them] to realize [their] ambition’’ (Wells, 353). In 1927, Wells-Barnett turned her attention to politics with the hope of empowering women, as well as her race. She formed the Third Ward Women’s Political Club. This club prepared women for political positions. In the same year, Wells-Barnett came to the aid of Mississippians who were displaced in the Mississippi-Yazoo delta region in what was know as ‘‘the greatest flood in U.S. history’’ (Schecter, 237). Exacerbating the situation was that the flood broke the banks and levees of the Mississippi river. Wells-Barnett protested the sufferings of the black victims, writing letters to Herbert Hoover, who was the Secretary of Commerce at that time and in charge of flood relief, and articles for the Defender documenting and condemning the conditions of black refugees’’ (Schecter, 237). As a result of Hoover’s responsiveness, Wells-Barnett traveled the nation to endorse his candidacy for president and to register African American women to vote. Lone Crusader and Birth of a Nation Although the NAACP presented itself as a powerful champion for African Americans, Wells-Barnett was disappointed that the organization did not

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act in the case of the Birth of a Nation (released in 1915), a film whose portrayal of African Americans reflected southern racism. The debate over the showing of the film in Chicago ended up in court, without success. WellsBarnett spoke in court to protest the film, but her efforts were to no avail. Wells-Barnett blamed the NAACP, which did not make an appearance in court, as well as the lack of a ‘‘leadership with a vision’’ (Wells, 344). She pointed out that in Philadelphia, the film was banned due to the efforts of dedicated leaders and the support of local churches, which threatened to peacefully obstruct entrance to the theater showing the film.

The Birth of a Nation The Birth of a Nation (1915), or The Clansman, as it was also known, has gone down in history as one of the most racist propaganda films ever. And the name D.W. Griffith, for many blacks, is derided, since he chose to direct the film. Alarmingly, the movie was extremely popular, although it cast African Americans as villains and features a black slave (a white actor in black face) who is hunted down by the Ku Klux Klan and lynched. In one of the concluding scenes, the Klan is shown preventing black men from voting. In short, the film is a brief history of the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction when white conservatives regain control of the South. The film was based on The Leopard’s Spots: A Romance of the White Man’s Burden, 1865 to 1900 (1902) and The Clansman (1905), two novels written by Thomas Dixon. There was a third book to that trilogy, The Traitor (1907). All three novels were romanticized encomiums of the Ku Klux Klan and southern life and traditions. Blacks were outraged by the film and protests were carried out at showings in various cities. In locations such as Boston, Massachusetts and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the film instigated race riots. In some cities, the protestors were able to ban the film, but not everywhere. For several years following its premiere, the Ku Klux Klan actually used the film to recruit new members.

THE EQUAL RIGHTS LEAGUE The Equal Rights League (ERL) was a thriving organization during the early twentieth century. Although Wells-Barnett was not an active participant in this organization, she supported its work from time to time. In 1915, WellsBarnett was one of the delegates asked by the Equal Rights League to meet with President Woodrow Wilson to address discrimination in government agencies. William Monroe Trotter, president of the ERL, was one of the other delegates. The by-product of this meeting was that Wilson agreed to


look into the situation. A year later, the delegates, not including Wells-Barnett (who had a previous engagement), met with Wilson again. This second meeting was a fiasco. According to Wells-Barnett, ‘‘the president became annoyed over Mr. Trotter’s persistent assertion that these discriminations were still practiced and that it was his duty as president of the United States to abolish them’’ (Wells, 376). Wells-Barnett was one of the only leaders of the time to support Trotter’s action. She, through the NFL, embarked on a campaign to regain Trotter’s reputation, though many prominent African American leaders ostracized him. ERL and the Arkansas Riot Wells-Barnett’s protest during the Arkansas riot of 1919, which ignited after African American sharecroppers refused to sell their cotton at low prices, illustrates the troublesome politics that continually frustrated her and her work. It was also the cause of her break-up with the ERL. The Equal Rights League had appeared to be an organization after WellsBarnett’s own heart. Its purpose, she declared, was ‘‘to denounce lynching, peonage, and disfranchisement’’ (Wells, 397). While the extant president felt ‘‘there was nothing we can do [about the riot],’’ Wells-Barnett insisted that it was their duty to ‘‘protest against it and let the world know that there is one organization of Negroes which refuses to be silent under such an outrage’’ (Wells, 397, 398). Wells-Barnett’s plan included making resolutions to the president and a senator, congressman, and governor of Arkansas and writing an article for the Chicago Defender. She also conducted a personal investigation into the riot, when, disguised as a family member, she visited twelve accused men. During her visit, they sang solemn spirituals to her. Wells-Barnett chastised them for being so morose and exhorted them to pray, have faith in God, and believe that they would live and be freed. Unfortunately, their resolutions (as well as those made by the NAACP and the NERL) were disregarded. But resolutions were also created by Wells-Barnett and the People’s Movement, declaring ‘‘that if those twelve men [accused of conspiring to murder whites] were electrocuted we would use our influence to bring thousands more away from Arkansas, which needed Negro labor’’ (Wells, 399). These resolutions were heeded, resulting in an investigation and a new trial for the accused. But the ERL was disturbed that Wells-Barnett had not shown them the resolution made by People’s Movement. In her defense, she stated that this was a matter that could not be delayed. The ERL did not see her perspective, and so Wells-Barnett had nothing more to do with that organization. Organizational politics further frustrated Wells-Barnett when a leader in the NAACP informed her that she need not publish a list of donors in the Chicago Defender, insisting that the NAACP had everything under control and would not need further assistance from her. In the end, the twelve men

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were freed, and one of them visited Wells-Barnett to thank her personally for her work. In addition, one of the attorneys on the case acknowledged Wells-Barnett’s role as a pioneer in the anti-lynching movement. Universal Negro Improvement Association Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant who arrived to the U.S. in 1916, was the charismatic leader and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). His grand ambitions and separatist views were unpopular with the prominent African American leaders of the period. WellsBarnett, also considered radical by her peers, was impressed by Garvey’s Pan-Africanist program. Pan-Africanism is a worldview that includes all descendents of Africa, whether they be in America, Africa, South America, Europe, or elsewhere. Indeed, Garvey, in his flamboyant uniforms and Afrocentric fanfare, was outrageous in his time, and his desire to establish an independent nation for African descendents put him into a category of his own in regards to black leadership in America. Wells-Barnett made complimentary statements about Garvey. She said, ‘‘Mr. Garvey made an impression on this country as no Negro before him had ever done’’ (Wells, 381). Although she supported his vision and accepted an invitation to speak before his membership, she thought that his illustrious career was cut short in 1922 because he had no substantial support and his goals were too ambitious. Protective Association In 1919, Wells-Barnett and the president of ERL approached local ministers to take action against the Chicago Riot. From that meeting came the Protective Association. Wells-Barnett played the role of ombudsman, collecting the stories of riot victims (who were too intimidated to go to the authorities themselves) and testifying in court on their behalf. But when it came time to appoint someone to lead on behalf of the rioters, Wells-Barnett objected to the ERL’s selection of Attorney General Brundage, whose record with blacks was not good. When her objection was ignored, she dissolved her affiliation with the Association. FINAL YEARS In 1920, Wells-Barnett’s activism was temporarily put to a halt due to ill health. She wrote how after having surgery for her gallstones, she took a year off from work to convalesce and ruminate over her life. The result of her introspection was that she felt she ‘‘had nothing to show for all those years of toil and labor’’ (Wells, 414). When she felt strong enough, she continued on in her vital work with the women’s clubs, and in 1930, engaged


in an unsuccessful race for the Illinois state legislature. On March 25, 1931, Wells-Barnett died of uremia. Her funeral service was a lavish affair. Though she was scarcely recognized or credited for her enormous contributions during much of her life, there can be no doubt that her selfless contributions to the cause of African American rights and the example she set for women’s equality are unsurpassed. See also Marcus Garvey. FURTHER RESOURCES The American Experience: Ida B. Wells—a Passion for Justice. Directed by William Greaves. PBS, 1989. Decosta-Willis, Miriam, ed. The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. Hendricks, Wanda. ‘‘Ida B. Wells-Barnett and the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago.’’ In Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, ed. One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement. Troutdale, OR: New Sage Press, 1995. ‘‘Ida B. Wells-Barnett.’’ 2006. Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation. January 16, 2007. See http://www.idabwells.org. McMurry, Linda O. To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Rydell, Robert W., ed. The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Schechter, Patricia A. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880–1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Welch, Catherine A. Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Powerhouse with a Pen. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 2000. Wells, Ida B. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Edited by Alfreda M. Duster. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. On Lynchings: Southern Horrors, a Red Record, Mob Rule in New Orleans. New York: Arno Press, 1969.

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Roy Wilkins (1901–1981)

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Roy Wilkins was the executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was also one of the so-called ‘‘Big Six.’’ On the outside, Roy Wilkins, in his gray suit, fedora, and cigar, looked every bit the benign business man. And his autobiography, Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins (1982), which describes a portion of his daily life as executive director of the NAACP between 1955 and 1977, is frequently mundane and deceptively uneventful. But Roy Wilkins was not ordinary, nor was the civil rights empire that he helped build and maintain through the harrowing Civil Rights Movement. As civil rights organizations go, the NAACP is the largest, longest-running (established in 1909), and most influential. It has also notoriously been the most conservative. But that label belies the extraordinary influence of so many NAACP leaders, including Wilkins, who toiled arduously over the years to develop leverage with city officials and some of the most important leaders in the nation. It also ignores the fact that the NAACP was so disdained in parts of the South that local chapters were prohibited, that it waged ‘‘undercover operations’’ and demonstrations, and that as a strategy the conservative element proved to be immensely effective. In fact, the NAACP relied largely on behind-the-scenes negotiations, lobbying, and litigation. Wilkins was assistant secretary of the NAACP when the famous Brown v. Board of Education gave the deathblow to segregation in public schools. This was a major milestone in the early years of the Movement, though it provoked violent backlash from whites in the South who viciously opposed racial integration. As a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, Roy Wilkins was not overly spiritual or charismatic, nor was he a ubiquitous media figure like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He was not recklessly daring like James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) or John Lewis and James Forman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Wilkins was middleclass, married with no children, middle-of-the-road, and straight-laced. He could be heavy handed when he wanted to be. When the civil rights leaders combined forces, Wilkins liked to steer their meetings and was not shy about reminding others of the importance and power of the NAACP. He sometimes participated in marches and picketing, but his main task was to manage his well-organized and sophisticated organization and maintain its middle-of-the-road stance throughout the civil rights era and the militant Black Power Movement. Out of the public eye, Wilkins made profound changes and engaged in negotiations and legislative reforms that were indispensable to ensuring the freedoms and rights of African Americans. Without question, Wilkins’ abilities and achievements were as important to the movement as those of the men and women who battled on the front lines.

Roy Wilkins

CHILDHOOD If it were not for a certain mishap, Roy Ottoway Wilkins would have been born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, where his parents and grandparents had lived for many years. As fate would have it, on August 30, he was born in St. Louis, Missouri, a turn of events that had a great impact on his life and outlook. The story of Roy’s birth begins with his father, William, showing his radicalness by fighting back (and fighting hard) rather than submit to racial etiquette. William came upon a white man on the road who called him a nigger and hollered at him to let him pass. Racial etiquette demanded that blacks always step aside and yield to whites. But this time the white man got a violent beating instead. To avoid white backlash, William’s father, Asberry, sent him and ‘‘Sweetie’’ Mayfield, his new wife, out of town. They traveled to St. Louis, Missouri, which was the furthest north either one of them had ever been. The legacy of the Wilkins’ family extended back into slavery; Wilkins’ great-great grandfather was a slave. As with most black slaves, the surname Wilkins originated from the white family who owned them. After the emancipation of the slaves during the Civil War (1861–1865), Roy’s grandfather Asberry stayed on the plantation and married Emma, a woman who had a pronounced scar on her arm—a punishment for accidentally burning her white mistress’ dress while ironing when she was a slave. Although Asberry Wilkins acquiesced to the racist laws in the wake of Reconstruction, he was not entirely passive. Wilkins was a member of the Loyal League, a club that endorsed rights and suffrage for recently freed slaves. Although he could only sign his name with an X (in slavery, it was unlawful for him to learn to read and write), he chose to engage in the political struggle for voting rights. The Loyal League mounted numerous parades and marches at the polls, and freedmen marched in procession on election day. Voting in this period was a precarious adventure; throughout the South, whites challenged black voters with physical force, intimidation, and trickery. ‘‘Troublemaker’’ and ‘‘bad nigger’’ were some of the labels given to African Americans who resisted the traditional way of life in the South. Willie, one of three sons and a daughter born to Asberry and Emma, was considered the family’s first ‘‘troublemaker.’’ Unlike his father, Willie received an education in a segregated school and attended Rust College (which offered a high school–level education) where he met Sweetie Mayfield. Willie customarily talked back to whites and blacks alike. When he beat the white man who had commanded him to step aside, it must have horrified his family, friends, and neighbors. Life in St. Louis for Willie and Sweetie was difficult. To be sure, St. Louis was not completely integrated, and upon their arrival, the couple marveled at the fact that they did not have to sit in the back seats on the trolley they

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rode, and that there were no ‘‘black’’ and ‘‘white’’ only restrooms. But the rest of daily life in St. Louis was largely segregated, and Willie, as in the South, was forced to take the lowest-paying jobs. The experience was demoralizing. Religion helped allay much of the pain, and his burgeoning family—Roy, Armeda (1903), and Earl (1905)—was, in the beginning, a delightful escape from the grueling work day. But for the most part, William was a dour, frustrated man. The St. Louis in which young Roy grew up took the form of blocks and blocks of hard concrete and buildings. He never had the pleasure of exploring the expansive farmland and country lanes of Mississippi, but he was sheltered from the oppressive laws and conditions of the South. Wilkins remembered friendly police officers who greeted him as they passed by him or patted his head, and days frolicking with his mother and his two siblings. His mother was a gentle, demure preacher’s daughter. In St. Louis, Roy attended an allblack school kindergarten and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Roy was resistant to religion from the start. He did not understand the demonstrative and loud sermons, or the emotional response from the members. He endured the daily Bible readings his father insisted upon at the dinner table before the evening meal. When his mother got sick and was later diagnosed with consumption, the church women flooded the small house, cooking meals, scrubbing the floors, washing the laundry, and seeing to other household matters. Wilkins recalled their warmth and generosity, but when his mother was near death, and one of those genial women scooped up a shrieking baby Earl in her arms, Roy became angry and told her to leave him alone. Roy was shuttled off to a neighbor for the night, which was the night his mother died. Aunt Elizabeth was the fairer-skinned sister of Roy’s mother—a warm, loving, ebullient, and welcome presence for the grieving family. Elizabeth soon convinced William that the best course of action would be to follow her sister’s wishes and let her and her husband, Sam Williams, take the children to St. Paul, Minnesota, rather than send them to their grandparents in the small, racially oppressive town of Holly Springs. The train ride to St. Paul enchanted Roy. He could hardly eat he was so excited, nor was he too disappointed when the train came to a roaring stop at their destination. Uncle Sam was as wonderful and attentive as Elizabeth. The couple had no children of their own, but Roy, Armeda, and Earl filled that gap, and so received extraordinary opportunities, love, and encouragement from their adoptive parents. Uncle Sam added three new rooms and a bathroom for his new family. Home was a clean, comfortable place, nestled in an idyllic middle-class neighborhood with neat lawns and plush trees. Most of the neighbors were white, with many Irish, Swedish, German, Jewish, and French immigrants. Williams had one of the best jobs any black man could have: he was the chief steward of the railcar that belonged to the president of the Great

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Northern Pacific Railroad. This job led to many luxuries for his family, including lavish Christmases with Christmas trees that filled the sunny home with the scent of pine, boundless wrapped gifts, and turkey dinners. Sam and Elizabeth inculcated the importance of education to Roy and his siblings. But Roy did not expect, on his first day of his school, to walk into a room full of white children. After the initial shock, he settled into school life, making friends with the other boys and interacting without incident with his teachers. Henry, his best friend, was a blonde who lived in a rougher part of town, where roguish white boys were the only ones known to use the word ‘‘nigger.’’ The kindness that most other individuals in Roy’s environment displayed was remarkable for the times. One mother in Roy’s neighborhood treated him like one of her own. Church, on the other hand, was still very much segregated, either by preference, tradition, or both. In St. Paul, Roy and his family attended the AME church. In the beginning, Roy liked going to church no more than he had in St. Louis. When Aunt Elizabeth caught him pantomiming Reverend Jones at the pulpit, she put him into the children’s choir, where he had to sit in the front pews and could not act up. Roy never developed a fervent zeal for churchgoing, but he did eventually get involved. Besides the choir, he was later employed as the church janitor and then superintendent of the Sunday school, even teaching a class himself. Roy’s biological father tried to get his children back at one point. But Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Sam hired a black attorney and became the legal guardians of the children in 1911. William, who had remarried, moved to St. Paul to be close to his children. For the most part, life continued undisturbed for Roy. With the exception of the side of town where whites called blacks ‘‘nigger,’’ Roy was sheltered from racism. So oblivious was he when it came to race issues that it was not until years later that he realized how much his life had been framed in protest, by his grandfather, father, as well as his Uncle Sam, who was a member of the local branch of the NAACP. The community, too, was familiar with activism. A friend of the family was the esteemed Frederick McGhee, a Minnesota attorney who joined the Niagara Movement and later the NAACP. The family doctor and the pastor of the church were instrumental in quashing the attempt to make interracial marriage unlawful in Minnesota. Roy’s family had a subscription to the NAACP’s organ, The Crisis, edited by W.E.B. Du Bois. The issues that affected blacks in St. Paul were less intense than elsewhere in the nation, particularly the South, where lynching, riots, and legal and social oppression abounded, but there was still discrimination in employment and evidence of Jim Crow practices in hotels and restaurants. When Roy read Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, he memorized sections of it, but he could not completely relate or comprehend its full meaning. In 1915, Roy went on to George Weitbreit Mechanical Arts High School, the top high school in his town. If it had not been for Miss Copley, his

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English teacher, who pulled him aside and nurtured his natural gift for writing, he would have pursued engineering. Instead, he became the editor of the school’s literary magazine, editor of the school’s yearbook, and president of the Literary Society. In 1919, Wilkins graduated as salutatorian.

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA That fall, Roy began his college career at the University of Minnesota, where he studied sociology. His uncle paid for most of his expenses. Roy lived at home and worked a multitude of small jobs—at a golf club, the Union Station, Minneapolis Steel and Machinery Company, Swift and Company slaughterhouses, and the Northern Pacific’s North Coast Limited. In his second year, Roy made money writing for the Minnesota Daily, the university’s newspaper. In the summer of 1920, racial violence came to Duluth, a town near St. Paul. The experience was traumatic for Roy who wrote that he ‘‘lost [his] innocence on race once and for all’’ and ‘‘felt sick, scared, and angry,’’ causing him to finally grasp ‘‘what Du Bois had been writing about’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 41, 44). What happened in Duluth was as follows: A white eighteen-year-old accused black men of putting a gun to his head and raping his girlfriend. Some twenty-two black men were apprehended as a result. Three men were abducted from jail and openly lynched in what had been a quiescent street of the small and unsuspecting town. The thirteen men who stood trial were known as the Duluth Thirteen. The national NAACP and three of the NAACP branches in Minnesota, including the one in St. Paul, raised money for their defense. All of the cases but one were either acquitted or dismissed based on lack of evidence. It took many years for one black man who was convicted and sentenced to thirty years in prison to be set free. Roy was nineteen years old when the news of the lynching and the case of the Duluth Thirteen emblazoned papers across the nation. That he was around the same age as the men who were lynched, as well as those who were tried, rattled him. It did one other profound thing: it forced Wilkins to realize that the world was not the idyllic utopia that he had experienced in his St. Paul neighborhood. Wilkins also experienced racism at the university. He was not allowed to join any of the fraternities on campus because of the color of his skin. And when a possible Ku Klux Klan presence on campus was talked about, the white journalists at the Minnesota Daily jokingly commented that there was a new university club. Every one but Wilkins laughed. These sorts of experiences fueled Wilkins’ burgeoning racial consciousness. He and other black students organized the first black fraternity on campus. He entered an Oratorical Contest, giving a presentation on ‘‘Democracy or

Roy Wilkins

Democracy,’’ a speech based on the Duluth Thirteen, and won third place. In 1922, he joined the NAACP. Wilkins continued to work for the university paper, eventually becoming the night editor, writing the light and breezy articles on campus happenings. But in his other world, Wilkins sought to address the weightier issues that affected blacks. He edited the Northwestern Bulletin, a small black newspaper owned by a friend, in 1922. When the editor of the St. Paul Appeal died in a car accident, Wilkins became its new editor. Through his work with the Appeal, Wilkins gained access into the who’s who of the local black community and was initiated into the world of African American protest. Wilkins, ambitious and idealistic, explored issues he had not ever thought of before, such as the Ku Klux Klan, NAACP activities, and the trial of the controversial Marcus Garvey, leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. He was just twenty-one.

FINDING HIS WAY IN KANSAS CITY In 1923, Wilkins graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in sociology. That summer, on assignment for the Call, a well-established black newspaper in Kansas City, he went to the 1923 NAACP’s Midwestern Race Relations Conference. At the conference, Wilkins met and was awestruck by the eloquent and forceful leaders of the NAACP—James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, Du Bois, and William Pickens. The conference included a silent march, week-long daily meetings on race issues, and a stirring concluding meeting on the last day. Wilkins wrote ‘‘I had never seen anything like it. A haunting chorus of 200 Negroes in white robes sang Dett’s ‘Listen to the Lambs,’’’ and after Johnson, the general secretary of the NAACP spoke, ‘‘ten thousand black people rose to their feet. They cheered and clapped until their voices were hoarse and their hands stinging with pain. As they cheered, the soft sunlight streamed down around James Weldon Johnson, and I knew I had seen a great leader—and found my own cause’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 53–54). An excited Wilkins joined the staff of the Call that October, but his experience in Kansas City fell short of what he had expected. He had hoped for a thriving life in the big city. But racism was rampant and limited his access and enjoyment of the city’s diversions. Wilkins was shocked to discover at his first baseball game in Kansas City that seating was segregated, and that blacks were designated the worst seats. When he politely yielded his seat on a streetcar to an aged white woman, she snapped back, not to him, but to a white passenger: ‘‘I’m not old enough yet to accept a seat from a nigger’’ and remained standing (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 60). Racism showed itself in everyday encounters like this and elsewhere. Police officers bullied blacks, especially those who were engaged in

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interracial relationships. Officers ignored criminal activity in black neighborhoods. The Linwood Improvement Association worked to keep blacks confined in dilapidated homes. And the black schools were never given monetary support to improve buildings and provide up-to-date textbooks. Whenever possible, Wilkins wrote articles to expose such atrocities, and also experimented with activism outside of journalism. He helped organize a boycott of Jim Crow theaters and coordinated a Paul Robeson concert with an unprecedented integrated audience. When a lynching happened near Kansas City, Wilkins’ frustration got the better of him, and he uncharacteristically conceived of a radical, revolutionary plan of retaliation. He wanted ‘‘to organize a band of young Negroes to raid towns where such murders had taken place. Retaliation was my goal; what I had in mind was a black Robin Hood band that would pounce and punish with no warning’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 72). But he came to his senses and never implemented that plan. Wilkins did join a group of progressive professionals that met to discuss race issues, but eventually stopped going, exasperated that the intense dialogs never produced any action. He then created ‘‘Talking It Over,’’ a column in the Call that existed for the purpose of blasting racism, discrimination, and racial injustices. As Wilkins established himself as a writer, tragedy struck in his family. In 1927, his sister, a sophomore at Hamline College, died of tuberculosis. In 1928, his aunt and uncle both died within a short period of time, Uncle Sam dying from a stroke on his way home after hearing his wife had had a heart attack. Aunt Elizabeth died while recovering from her heart attack and preparing for her husband’s funeral. Earl moved to Kansas City to be near Roy. But Wilkins’ was reconsidering his life in Kansas City. Other black professionals, disheartened by Jim Crow, packed up their bags and left town for Chicago, New York, or other cities. Wilkins’ first visit to New York in 1929 made it harder to stay in Kansas City. The most memorable aspect of the trip to New York was when he sat side-by-side with whites and blacks at a concert on Broadway and at the famed Harlem neighborhood of the Harlem Renaissance. Wilkins pondered over the question of whether to leave or stay in Kansas City. Should he keep on with the lonely fight in Kansas City? Would he find a better job than the Call in New York? Minnie Badeau was a welcome distraction from his constant brooding over this question and from his grief over the recent loss of his family members. Badeau was a doe-eyed beauty; an independent and critical thinker like himself, who had recently arrived from St. Louis to begin her career as a social worker with the Urban League. They met at a fashion show benefit in 1928. Although Badeau’s mother was initially unimpressed by the young journalist, they married on September 15, 1929, at the office of the justice of the peace. Married life was blissful and exciting, filled with concerts and activity, but Wilkins was still on edge due to racial tensions in Kansas City. Minnie

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was concerned when one day, Wilkins, in an uncharacteristic move, aggressively approached a white man who asked her for directions. Wilkins had misunderstood, seeing only a white man approaching a solitary black woman. When Wilkins uncovered a local scam against African Americans and boldly printed it on the front cover of the Call, his life was threatened. Minnie insisted on going with Wilkins wherever he went. It was believed at that time that gangsters would not murder victims in front of spouses. In 1930, the NAACP led a campaign against the nomination of Judge John J. Parker to the U.S. Supreme Court. Voting power was one of the most powerful weapons available to blacks, and the NAACP hoped to sway the vote against Parker, who had publicly uttered racist comments, such as ‘‘Negroes in politics is a source of evil and danger to both races’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 91). Wilkins was instrumental in the NAACP’s quest. By now, he had acquired much acclaim through his work at the Call (he helped raise the newspaper to second in popularity to the Chicago Defender) and as secretary of the local NAACP chapter. Wilkins wrote articles exposing the judge’s racist remarks and sent one to President Herbert Hoover. The campaign was a success, and Wilkins’ contribution was acknowledged by the national office of the NAACP. W.E.B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis, extended an offer to Wilkins to become the business manager of his paper. But Wilkins declined. He did not feel he had the credentials to meet the needs of that position. Wilkins remained at the forefront of local issues and protests. He launched a successful boycott to challenge the employment discrimination of white businesses frequented by blacks, targeting a local bakery. In the nearby town of Clinton, where there was talk of an impending lynching, he conducted an investigation of his own and published a report of the incident from the point of view of the black victims. In 1931, Walter White, in his first year as executive secretary (the title changed to executive director in 1964) of the NAACP, sent an invitation to Wilkins to fill his former position as assistant secretary. Wilkins could scarcely keep his cool. Wilkins, and anyone else who followed the NAACP, knew about White. One of his most famous exploits was to go to the South disguised as a white man to investigate lynchings. Since White had straight hair, fair skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair, he had passed easily as white. Wilkins accepted the invitation because of his admiration for White and the reputation of the NAACP ‘‘at last was a fighting organization, not a tame band of status quo Negroes’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 93).

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) job was a prime opportunity for Wilkins. Not only was it the leading

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organization for protest work, but Wilkins would be second in command, making more money than he had at the Call. It also offered him the opportunity to move to New York and escape the Jim Crow culture of Kansas City. In the early days after his arrival in New York, Wilkins’ social calendar was full. He and Minnie enjoyed dinners with White and his wife, Gladys, and they received invitations to hear the latest bands and attend premier concerts. But as the days progressed, work became his priority. He did not make many friends at the office, which he characterized as a stilted place. There was little in the way of light office humor or banter. It was work, work, work, punctuated by the hammering of typewriters and the perpetual ringing of telephone calls. Du Bois, the editor of The Crisis, was withdrawn and serious, brooding over the magazine that was his life’s work. White was often away on business, which added to Wilkins’ responsibilities. In the evenings, it was off to the movies, to see a musical featuring the mercurial Cab Calloway, to the Harlem Opera House, or to visit a museum. Sometimes, Wilkins would share a drink with a friend before hustling home; sometimes he went straight home and dissolved the cares of the high-paced day by playing the radio softly and reading a book. Come morning, Wilkins was off and running again, dressing carefully in a gray suit, then bounding off to catch the train to work. Wilkins’ walk from the train to the office conjures the image of an unassuming man, alone with his thoughts, anonymous in gray suit and fedora, passing pedestrians who—at first—had no idea that he was a man wrestling with mountainous and bewildering problems without the cooperation of the city, state, or federal government. Almost everything the NAACP labored to accomplish was done with great struggle. There was struggle within the NAACP leadership too. In those early days, even the notoriously straight-laced Wilkins thought the organization was too conservative. And there were other tensions, most notably between White and Du Bois, two strong-willed men with frequently conflicting objectives. From the Office to the Field Wilkins wrote that his earliest duties ‘‘involved a little bit of everything— writing, lecturing, organizing new branches, raising money for a treasury that was always Depression-dry, running the office while Walter was touring around the country’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 113). In 1932, Wilkins, itching for something more thrilling than the humdrum tasks of writing, managing, and lecturing (and the daily grind of the office), plotted a scheme to investigate conditions in Mississippi, where, according to an undercover investigation, ‘‘the army was paying Negroes a dime an hour for shifts as long as twelve hours a day [for the construction] of flood-control dams and levees along the Mississippi delta’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 119).

Roy Wilkins

Walter White, a known swashbuckler, knew the perils of going to the deep South under any conditions, and considering that Wilkins was a dewyeyed activist who only knew the South from reading about it and had no first-hand experience, he was not easily persuaded. When he finally agreed, he sent George Schulyer along with Wilkins. The two men traveled to Mississippi, masquerading as poor blacks, then separated upon arrival. Wilkins almost blew his cover with one woman, who rented him lodging, who observed the smoothness of his hands (not that of a country laborer) and looked askance at him when he asked her where he could find a fire to warm himself in the morning. That question would cost him, because most blacks working in the camps went straight to work without the luxury of warmth, even though it was freezing cold and snowy in December. Hidden dangers and close calls abounded for Wilkins and Schulyer. Schulyer almost went to jail, after being wrongly accused of a crime committed by other blacks. Once, when Wilkins and Schulyer were together, they were stopped by a car filled with white men. Luckily, the men continued on and did not molest them. Wilkins was moved by the evidence of poverty around him—and by the generosity of the people he met despite their poverty. One black family took him in, offering him the shelter of a home that was ‘‘an unpainted shack in the woods. The cracks in the floorboards were so wide I could see chickens scratching on the ground below’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 123). The mother gave him a meal from what she had and a place to sleep. Wilkins gave her $3 when he left the next day. The money was more than she could have scraped together in a year. In January, the duo scuttled back to New York, where they reported their findings at the crowded Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Senator Robert F. Wagner, one of the NAACP’s few white allies, pressured the Senate to increase wages for black workers. It was a modest raise, but the win was encouraging. Wilkins wrote a letter to Arthur Spingarn, chairman of the national committee, stating that the NAACP should ‘‘hold itself up as a defender of the rights of Negroes everywhere and under all circumstances’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 147). Spingarn wrote back, stating that his ideas were good and noble but required more resources than were currently available, unless they were able to mobilize volunteer attorneys and one full-time attorney to do the job. He concluded by saying he would think about it. Demonstration and Arrest When Franklin D. Roosevelt began his first year as the president in 1933, many were aglow with optimism, for he represented hope for those who had suffered most from the Great Depression. It had been a stark period for

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all Americans, and yet African Americans benefited the least from Roosevelt’s New Deal Program. Wilkins was highly critical of Roosevelt over this fact. However, in Eleanor Roosevelt, the president’s wife, African Americans found a champion. Although she could be overly cautious many times, and there were limitations to her influence, the support she gave was radically different than what blacks had historically experienced. Wilkins called her ‘‘a loyal and effective friend’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 128). Roosevelt, a tall, confident, and progressive woman, believed in equality among the races, and said so at a speech she gave (in Harlem at White’s invitation) at an anti-lynching art exhibition to mobilize support for the Wagner-Costigan anti-lynching bill. In that day and age, black issues were not popular. Roosevelt’s bold support of the NAACP’s anti-lynching campaign was deeply appreciated. But even the support of the First Lady was not enough. In October of 1934, there was a particularly outrageous lynching in Florida. Though the local authorities knew in advance about the lynch mob, they did nothing to prevent it beforehand or to punish the perpetrators after the fact. Through the pioneering agitation of Ida B. Wells-Barnett in the late nineteenth century and other organizations (including the NAACP) in the twentieth, lynching—the South’s abominable secret—was coming under increased scrutiny. However, the federal government remained unresponsive. The NAACP supported legislation such as the Dyer and Wagner-Costigan anti-lynching bills, but the South’s influence blocked the passage of both bills. When, in 1934, Attorney General Homer S. Cummings announced a national crime conference to be held in Washington, D.C., Wilkins was astonished to learn that lynching was not one of the issues to be addressed. White wrote a letter to the attorney general. The reply was, in short, the same response the NAACP had always gotten on lynching. The government, due to the influence of politicians from the South, would not budge. Wilkins came up with an idea that he felt would finally give lynching the attention it deserved, though there were many who scoffed at him. ‘‘Picketing,’’ he wrote later ‘‘was a radical act’’ to most of the NAACP, while friends of Walter White suggested that the idea of a demonstration was hackneyed and ineffectual (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 134). Wilkins thought otherwise. With White’s approval, Wilkins drew support from others, including Virginia R. McGuire, president of the local NAACP branch in Washington. Wilkins made up slogans to paint on picket signs such as ‘‘5,068 Lynchings in U.S.A. in 52 Years,’’ and ‘‘Al Capone Got 11 Years. Lynchers Get Cheers.’’ On a bitter cold day in December, Wilkins and three other men marched in front of Constitution Hall, where the conference on crime was taking place. Because they had not followed the code or received parade permits, the cops loaded them off to jail. The arrest of these men prompted a second demonstration. This time, the signs were of the correct dimensions (the issue

Roy Wilkins

that had caused Wilkins and the others to be arrested). Seventy men and women (including one blind man) participated, wearing, for a theatrical touch, nooses around their necks. The cops could do nothing to stop the demonstrations as the signs were all under code. The demonstration made headlines. Wilkins had found a way to make lynching an issue, with or without the federal government’s support, and in doing so was making a name for himself, and coming out from under the shadow of Walter White. Amenia Conference Wilkins showed his radical side in other ways. When the NAACP began to plan for its second Amenia Conference in 1932, Wilkins brazenly suggested that only African Americans attend. Since the focus of that conference was to assess the current situation of African Americans, he felt there was no one better to participate in that discussion than African Americans. A compromise was made. Whites were allowed to attend, but only a small number and only for a limited amount of time. At the conference, Wilkins presented the idea he had submitted to Spingarn following his Mississippi assignment. He suggested that the NAACP broaden its programs to assist African Americans throughout the nation, and not just regarding civil rights cases. The matter was discussed, but it would not be implemented until years later. Du Bois Controversy Wilkins’ radicalism paled in comparison to what Du Bois published in The Crisis in the beginning of 1934. Du Bois’ startling endorsement of voluntary separatism in 1934 was in stark contrast to the NAACP’s stance on integrationism. Since 1910, Du Bois had been entrusted with publishing anything he saw fit. However, when Walter White took charge, he tightened the reins on Du Bois and insisted on overseeing the newspaper’s content. That Du Bois and White butted heads was obvious to Wilkins. The two strong-willed men bickered at meetings, and Du Bois often used The Crisis to lash back at White. The Crisis had become, for Du Bois, his own soapbox, which he used not only to fight racial injustice but to express his disagreement with White. It took everybody at the NAACP by surprise when Du Bois resigned in the summer of 1934. Wilkins was sorry to see him go and intimidated by the fact that he fell heir to the responsibility of editing The Crisis. Scottsboro Case The Scottsboro Case presented another heady challenge for Wilkins. The case began in 1931, following the arrest of nine African American youths,

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age thirteen to nineteen, accused of rape by two white women. This was not the first case of this kind, but it was certainly among the most sensational. The legal arm of the Communist Party and the International Labor Defense organization stepped up quickly in defense of the youths. The NAACP did not get involved until 1935, when it combined its efforts with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Methodist Federation for Social Service, the International Labor Defense, and the League for Industrial Democracy. This was a radical move. For one thing, the NAACP generally shied away from sex cases like this one. For another, everyone was less than thrilled to work side by side with the communists. During the period of the Red Scare, the NAACP had worked hard to distance its organization from communists. A common charge from southerners was that any protest organization that challenged the life and laws of their region was affiliated with the Communist Party. The Scottsboro Case was bitterly fought and dragged on for years. The trials themselves were a long ordeal. In the end, charges were dropped for four of the youths (two of them were underage, one was ill at the time of the crime, and the other one was legally blind) after they had served six years in prison on death row. The other five youths received lengthy sentences. The remainder of the decade was filled with non-stop activism for Wilkins. Beginning in 1934, the NAACP launched a legal campaign to desegregate schools. This was run by the newly formed Legal Department (Wilkins’ letter to Spingarn played a role in this development), headed by Charles Hamilton Houston. Both Houston and Thurgood Marshall played vital roles in these cases. In 1957, Marshall formalized the legal arm of the NAACP by establishing the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund as a separate entity. Wilkins took great pleasure in watching the NAACP’s star attorney, Thurgood Marshall, chisel steadily away, case by case, at Jim Crow. In 1936, Wilkins helped coordinate a campaign against presidential hopeful William E. Borah, a senator from Idaho. Although he was considered a progressive Republican, his track record with blacks was poor. And he refused support to anti-lynching bills. The picketing campaign worked like a charm. Most African Americans voted against him, and he lost his bid for the nomination.

WORLD WAR II AND THE NAACP The war years were complicated for the NAACP. On a personal note, they began unhappily for Wilkins, too, for in 1941, when America officially entered the war, Wilkins’ brother died. Throughout the 1940s, Wilkins fought on the front lines of an all-out challenge against racial discrimination. African Americans faced discrimination in all areas of life. Discriminatory laws were most apparent in the

Roy Wilkins

South, but the North had its problems too. Blacks faced injustice in the judicial system, anti-black violence, and joblessness due to racism and discrimination. These problems raised the question of why blacks would support America in its war effort to bring democracy abroad when they were deprived of full equality and equal rights at home. But support it they overwhelmingly did. The NAACP supported the war effort and encouraged blacks to do the same, despite the bitter fact that blacks served in segregated units, a fact that confounded Wilkins and other leaders. The hope was that through participation and demonstration of patriotism, blacks would effect greater gains at home. Wilkins accepted a government appointment to serve on a draft board, where he was an eyewitness to class preference and race discrimination. A large proportion of wealthy whites evaded the draft. The NAACP’s support of the war did not keep Wilkins from expressing his sour opinion of Jim Crow in the armed forces. When Wilkins made a presentation at an Urban League event, he was told to not speak against military segregation, since his audience would be mostly white and one of the men in attendance was an African American colonel. Wilkins gritted his teeth and gave his speech, lambasting discrimination in the military. To his surprise, the audience exploded in applause. A. Philip Randolph, a tall, lean, and staid figure in his early fifties who had been a firebrand in the early century and had come to fame as the leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, suggested a large-scale demonstration: a march on Washington, D.C. to press the government to abolish segregated armed forces. Wilkins was more than up for it. The march, however, did not happen, for the threat alone was enough to pressure President Roosevelt to create Executive Order 8802. This order did not desegregate the military forces, but it did prohibit discrimination in federal agencies and departments. It was viewed as a meaningful start. The war helped create job opportunities for African Americans. This was a good thing, but there were disastrous ramifications. As more blacks from the South migrated to the North to fill the new jobs, racial tensions between whites and immigrants escalated in the urban neighborhoods. Competition for housing and employment, as well as racism, inflamed the competitors and caused race riots throughout cities in the North such as Detroit, Michigan and Harlem, New York. Wilkins and his wife were caught in a riot that occurred in Harlem in 1943. The Wilkinses were on a bus on their way home when a brick crashed through the window. One passenger was injured and had to be taken to the hospital. Wilkins joined White shortly thereafter at the police station. The men went with Mayor La Guardia into the streets to help quell the rioting. The war presented special challenges for African Americans, as well as for the NAACP. Yet the NAACP prospered. By the time peace was declared, the organization had accumulated 500,000 members and 1,200 branches.

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While Wilkins contemplated this great success and made plans for the future of the organization, he received troubling news. His doctor informed him that he had colon cancer. On June 20, 1946, Wilkins, who had fought so hard for the public good, awakened from surgery knowing he faced a personal battle. Wilkins spent the summer recuperating and returned to work in October, in time to celebrate Executive Order 9808, which White and others had been canvassing for during Wilkins’ long convalescence. White also brought Wilkins up to date on the new issues the organization had taken on, such as improving housing conditions and raising the minimum wage. Wilkins was not the only NAACP leader who took ill. As the organization flourished, others faltered, undoubtedly falling prey to the rigorous schedules their work demanded. Thurgood Marshall was ill in 1946. In the following year, White suffered a heart attack. Then the doctors informed Wilkins that his cancer had returned. Wilkins was not expected to survive this second bout. But Minnie did not accept the doctors’ grim prognosis. She put her husband on a strict regimen of fun and relaxation, including plenty of baseball and football games—and most importantly, no NAACP work. Wilkins’ cancer went into remission. One of Wilkins’ main objectives during this period was to push the federal government to produce strong legislation towards civil rights. Not since Reconstruction (1863–1877) had African Americans witnessed substantial laws that granted them equal rights and protection. By the end of Reconstruction, with state governments again under the control of white southerners, those few laws had been eroded and the racial climate had worsened. The federal government moved sluggishly, despite the urgent demands put forward by civil rights leaders and the rampant violence and abuses African Americans suffered in the South. President Truman appeared to be a promising ally. When he appeared and spoke at the NAACP’s 38th Annual Convention in 1947, he ‘‘became the first President to do so’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 198). In October 1947, he established a Commission on Civil Rights and, in 1948, issued Executive Order 9980 (ordering the desegregation of the federal workforce) and 9981 (ordering the desegregation of the armed forces), and spoke brazenly about a plan to advance civil rights during the 1948 presidential campaign. Wilkins and his colleagues were elated. It appeared that the moment they had toiled and sacrificed for was at hand. Truman won the 1948 campaign, but his promises fell dismally short. At the same time, the NAACP underwent an internal crisis. In 1949, Walter White divorced his wife Gladys and married a white woman named Poppy Cannon and decided to take a year-long leave of absence. This meant that Wilkins would be in charge of the NAACP, and his first task would be to resolve the unrest that White’s sudden news had created within the organization. While at the national convention (which he was, for the first time,

Roy Wilkins

in charge of) in Los Angeles, California, Wilkins permitted a discussion over White’s recent marriage. The ‘‘final argument [was] how could an organization committed to integration fire its chief executive for marrying a white woman?’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 205). Wilkins also addressed Paul Robeson’s comment that African Americans would not participate in a war against the communist Soviet Union and the recent resignation of Du Bois.

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT Beginning in 1949, and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the NAACP initiated a number of strong civil rights gains and was a high-profile participant in the historic Civil Rights Movement. In 1949, Wilkins coordinated the ‘‘largest mass lobby ever to fall upon Washington’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 209). The mobilization effort included some 4,000 people, representing various associations, unions, churches, and other organizations. The outcome of this effort included the establishment of a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (of which Wilkins was the chair) and a meeting with President Truman. Truman received them coolly and remained unresponsive. Nonetheless, the NAACP rejoiced over that small step. The first of the major legislative achievements of the Civil Rights Movement occurred in 1954, with the monumental ruling of Brown v. Board of Education which desegregated public schools. When Walter White died in that same year, Roy Wilkins became the new executive secretary of the NAACP. Also in that year, Martin Luther King, Jr. led an extraordinary campaign, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which led to an Alabama state ruling that declared segregated laws for buses unconstitutional. One of Wilkins’ primary objectives as the leader of the NAACP was to pursue further civil rights legislation. This was a daunting task, requiring long and intense negotiations. One of his great frustrations was being constantly told that the NAACP was pressing too hard—moving too fast—for change. Another difficulty was gaining a victory, only to have to deal with the intense and often violent resistance that welled up in the aftermath of that victory. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Wilkins helped advocate for the first black students to integrate the Little Rock Central High School. This was a harrowing experience. Tensions were so hostile that President Eisenhower had to call in federal troops. As time wore on, Wilkins divided his time between lobbying, civil rights rallies, and keeping a close eye on mounting civil rights demonstrations. The NAACP was notorious for being a conservative organization, limiting its demonstrations to rallies, marches, and picketing. But Wilkins was not a complete fan of the nonviolent direct action tactics King had popularized. Although he knew its importance in the grand scheme of things, he saw real changes in society coming about through changes in the laws.

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The hostility to blacks spread to the NAACP itself. Beginning in 1956, several states resorted to legal action to stop the NAACP from setting up chapters in their states. One such state, Louisiana, tried to force the NAACP to report its members. Alabama was permitted a restraining order to prevent any NAACP organizations from forming in its state or engaging in fundraising activities. Other states to initiate similar ordinances were Georgia and Texas. When, at long last, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was enacted, Wilkins referred to it as a ‘‘crumb.’’ The Act was largely directed toward strengthening voting rights for blacks. However, it had little substance and its overall effect was anemic. Wilkins explained in his autobiography that sit-ins and other demonstrations were nothing new; there had been isolated sit-in demonstrations staged by individuals as early as the nineteenth century. Adam Clayton Powell led boycotts in the 1930s. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) staged demonstrations in the 1940s. He was proud of the NAACP youth council when it staged sit-ins in 1958, but he felt differently about the large-scale sit-in movement and the widely staged demonstrations of the 1960s. When, in 1960, several college students in North Carolina staged a sit-in that sparked numerous youth-led sit-ins throughout the nation, Wilkins received the news with wariness. And he was skeptical when King helped mobilize these youths to establish the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC). Wilkins wrote that the students were young, committed, and valiant, but … they would have no staying power beyond a few short years’ time. My own experiences had taught me that the struggle would still be going on long after they were out of college and immersed in other concerns. Only a strong organization like the NAACP could survive the wear that went on year after year after year. (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 270)

Indeed, SNCC collapsed at the end of the decade, while the NAACP remains active today. Nonetheless, Wilkins assisted SNCC, raising money to pay bail following the numerous arrests and to help pick up the pieces when the their students were expelled from colleges and universities because of their activism. Wilkins participated in the Civil Rights Movement in a variety of ways. He joined leaders like Randolph and King, who were leading marches, at a large rally at the Democratic Political Convention in 1960. A young, freshfaced, Hollywood-handsome Harvard graduate named John F. Kennedy was at this rally, hoping to win support for his presidential election campaign. When his presentation turned to voting rights, desegregating schools, and combating discrimination, everyone’s curiosity was piqued.

Roy Wilkins

John F. Kennedy Wilkins had casually tracked Kennedy while he was a senator between 1953 and 1960. Wilkins was a little perplexed by him. An aura of glamour enveloped him, which affected African Americans as well as whites. Wilkins admitted that when he was around Kennedy, even he found it hard to resist Kennedy’s magnetism. Kennedy’s support of blacks was legendary. One of his most well-known achievements was bringing about King’s release when he was jailed in 1960. When Kennedy became president, he put African Americans in positions of power within the government. Yet despite one meeting after another, Kennedy resisted Wilkins’ pleas to implement a strong civil rights bill. The truth was that Kennedy did not want to upset the southern politicians; he wanted to make gradual changes that would not lose votes for the Democrats. Wilkins observed that it took a combination of racial violence and media coverage to spur Kennedy to action. When racists attacked the Freedom Riders in 1961, the press were there to cover the horrific story. With television, newspapers, and radio stations broadcasting the shocking violence to the rest of America and the world, the government was forced to respond. Wilkins himself was more than once on the front lines during this period. Once, during a picketing demonstration in Jackson, Mississippi, in the spring of 1963, Wilkins was arrested. Minnie was beside herself. But Wilkins was released a few hours after his arrest and returned home unharmed. An arrest in those harrowing days was almost like a rite of passage for civil rights activists. This was Wilkins’ second arrest. That summer, Wilkins was one of the main speakers at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Following demonstrations led by the SCLC in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, Kennedy finally came through with what he knew was right, giving a compelling speech that declared, in no uncertain terms, that African Americans deserved equal rights. This speech gave Wilkins confidence that Kennedy just might be bold enough to demand the passage of a meaningful civil rights bill. While Wilkins watched Kennedy’s speech on television, he received a phone call. Medgar Evers, a NAACP field secretary, whom he had seen only days earlier, had been murdered. In November, Kennedy, a man in his prime and on the brink of one of the most important pieces of legislation for African Americans, was assassinated. His vice president, a tall Texan wholly lacking the charismatic charm and appeal that had defined Kennedy, took his place. Lyndon B. Johnson Wilkins portrayed Johnson as, as he put it, ‘‘the greatest civil rights President of our lifetime’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 297). Johnson was an upfront man

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who took an instant liking to Wilkins, as was evidenced by the numerous phone calls that took place between them. Though Johnson inherited the unfinished civil rights bill of 1964 by default, he quickly followed it through to completion. Johnson was helped by individuals like Wilkins and others within the NAACP who lobbied behind the scenes and organized demonstrations at the grassroots level. Riots of 1964 When the first wave of riots broke out in the summer of 1964 in the impoverished black communities of the North, Wilkins recalled that Johnson was alarmed. The president feared that the riots would hurt any chances for additional civil rights legislation. Wilkins called together other civil rights leaders and held a meeting, at which he suggested a moratorium, or a cessation of direct action demonstrations, until Election Day. Everyone, with the exception of CORE and SNCC, agreed. Wilkins and other civil rights leaders publicly denounced the riots. Wilkins was appreciative of the help of the FBI, whose statements laid to rest any misconceived ideas that the Civil Rights Movement had anything to do with the riots, or that during the riots blacks attacked whites. The race riots that occurred during this period were unique: blacks primarily vandalized and looted stores and buildings restricted to their communities. Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party One of Wilkins’ most uncomfortable hours was during the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1964. In that year, black and white Mississippians formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to challenge the all-white, ultra-conservative Democratic Party in that state. But when they arrived at the national convention, they were frustrated and angry over Johnson’s apparent obstruction of their aim. At the conclusion of extremely stressful negotiations, it was decided that the MFDP should concede to a less-than-favorable compromise: as Johnson wanted, the MFDP was only allowed two seats, and those were nominal at best. As with so many national white politicians before him, Johnson’s aim was to not upset the southerners to secure his election. But the one-sided compromise triggered a falling out with many of the young activists who had attended the convention and ‘‘did terrible damage to relations between white liberals and black organizers in the South. [Some MFDP delegates and SNCC supporters] thought they had been sold out. [Bob Moses, a SNCC activist] took a vow never to talk to whites again … I watched and worried for the future’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 306).

Roy Wilkins

Long Hot Summer The Long Hot Summer refers to the hundreds of riots that occurred between 1965 and 1967 during the hottest days of summer in the urban ghettos of numerous northern cities. To black leaders, whether they were militant separatists or nonviolent integrationists, the riots in New Jersey, New York, California, and Michigan came as no surprise. Black Power proponents called the riots ‘‘revolts’’ or ‘‘rebellions.’’ Indeed, black youths were frustrated with conditions in the ghettos, and the riots were evidence that conditions had reached a critical point. State and federal investigations into the riots affirmed what blacks already knew: dire poverty, overcrowded and dilapidated slums, unemployment, crime, racism, and discrimination, compounded by some triggering incident (usually a recent case of police brutality or killing of a black), were a recipe for disaster. Unlike the race riots of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where whites went into black communities and destroyed homes and property, frequently killing innocent blacks, the riots of the 1960s were largely isolated in black communities. Few deaths occurred, but innocent whites in the vicinity of the riots were known to be physically assaulted. Most deaths, when they did occur, resulted from the involvement of police officers sent in to enforce the law and quell the riots. Black youths directed their destruction inward—into their own communities and against whiteowned businesses. Conservative blacks did not condone the riots but understood the pathology behind it and interpreted the violence as a cry for help. Some militant blacks endorsed the violence and were inspired by the demonstrations of what they perceived to be revolutionary protest. They believed that this was the only viable way to bring about positive change. Most conservative whites interpreted the riots as something entirely different—as criminal acts by thugs and gangs. President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was president during the Long Hot Summer riots, responded by establishing social-reform programs by way of the War on Poverty program. However, America’s growing involvement in the Vietnam War drastically cut funding towards addressing poverty and discrimination.

Voting Rights The next major campaign, a joint venture between the SCLC and SNCC for voting rights, took place in Selma, Alabama. The campaign began on March 7, 1965, a day that became known as Bloody Sunday after police

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officers violently attacked marchers. The second attempt to carry out the march occurred on March 9. But this one was cut short, because King did not want to challenge an injunction placed on the march by a judge. With the injunction lifted, the march continued with success on March 25. Wilkins was there for that last march, what he called ‘‘the civil rights movement’s last great parade of the 1960s,’’ and recalled that ‘‘it was a fine moment, the best since the March on Washington. I flew back home feeling rejuvenated’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 308, 309). Shortly thereafter, Johnson signed the prestigious Voting Rights Act of 1965. Riots of 1965 Despite the passage of two major civil rights bills, it was no surprise to Wilkins when more riots erupted in 1965. He saw these riots as the result of the gross neglect of the government and officials, as well as one of the ramifications of the NAACP’s and other organizations’ focus on the South. As he put it, ‘‘we had not even touched the misery and desperation of the urban ghettos outside the South’’ (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 313). But many whites in the nation blamed the violence on criminals and gang members, and as a result city officials imposed harsher laws and strengthened their law enforcement. Johnson responded quickly by establishing a commission to investigate the true cause of the riots. The commission determined that racism played the biggest role in fueling the frustrations that produced the riots in the cities. Johnson followed up by implementing a prodigious War on Poverty program. Moving the civil rights struggle to the North was an imposing challenge. Wilkins and his fellow civil rights leaders did not know how to approach, mobilize, or initiate a program in the North. King’s campaigns in the North achieved only mild success. However, his Operation Breadbasket, under the helm of Jesse Jackson, was hugely beneficial to blacks in Chicago. Still, that was only one program. While civil rights leaders dawdled and floundered, a new movement was rising that had its own answer to the problem. BLACK POWER Wilkins was flustered by the Black Power Movement. He its call for separatism and militancy, as well as aggressive racial hostility and animosity. Because of Wilkins’ unique ing up in St. Paul, he could not be convinced that blacks not live peaceably together. He wrote that

was at odds with talk that fed into experience growand whites could

perhaps I’m a sentimentalist, but no one can tell me that it is impossible for white people and black people to live next door to one another, to get along— even to love one another. For me integration is not an abstraction constructed

Roy Wilkins

on dusty eighteenth-century notions of democracy. I believe in it not only because it is right but because I had lived it all my life. Where there are decent, loving people like the Hendricksons, integration works. Where decent white people are missing—that’s where the trouble begins. (Wilkins, Standing Fast, 30)

The black power proponents did not particularly like Wilkins or the other civil rights leaders. In black power speeches, these leaders were criticized and called Uncle Toms. They had an unflattering moniker for Wilkins, ‘‘Roy Week-knees.’’ The civil rights leaders were considered to be a part of the establishment—out of touch, sellouts. In 1967, the FBI informed Wilkins that they had uncovered a plot to assassinate him. The plotters were members of the militant organization, RAM.

RAM A ‘‘ram’’ is defined as any device used for crushing, driving, or forcing something. It is also the abbreviation for the Revolutionary Action Movement, otherwise known as RAM. RAM was one of multiple black militant and separatist organizations to emerge during the 1960s. RAM was founded in 1963 by Max Stanford (also known as Muhammad Ahmad) and Queen Mother Audley Moore. During the riots of the 1960s, RAM attempted to organize the young rioters into what was known as the Black Guards. Publicly, RAM advocated armed self-defense and provided protection for Malcolm X after he left the Nation of Islam. However, in 1967, Stanford and other RAM members were arrested when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uncovered a plot to assassinate Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young. Wilkins and Young were targeted because they were deemed by members of RAM to be ‘‘enemies to the race.’’ The militants felt that their acceptance by whites as well as their conservatism were antithetical to the black revolutionary philosophy. Stanley’s heinous plot is an example of ultra-extremism. Most militants and separatists limited their disapproval of conservative black leaders to name-calling and scathing criticism.

It was a violent time. So many lost their lives during the Civil Rights Movement, including those who stood for peace and hope for a better future, like John F. Kennedy. In 1968, two more high-profile assassinations would shock the world. On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated. On June 6, 1968, Robert Kennedy, President Kennedy’s brother, was also assassinated.

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VIETNAM WAR Before King’s death, he had been one of the few civil rights leaders to protest against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Wilkins, on the other hand, refused to lead the NAACP into the peace movement that, he felt, fueled the hippie subculture. During this period, Wilkins watched in dismay as the war absorbed all the national funding and resources that had previously gone into Johnson’s War on Poverty program. Wilkins was painfully aware that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 had not magically cured the ills of the country, nor had they addressed racism. Laws could be changed, but hearts were an entirely different matter. With the election of Richard Nixon, Wilkins saw the inevitable erosion of many gains he personally had fought for.

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon B. Johnson is not the first name that comes to mind when blacks consider which president has made the most contributions to civil rights. John F. Kennedy’s name is heard most, although he primarily endorsed civil rights in word and not necessarily in deed. Kennedy did play a significant role in the initiation of one of history’s most important enactments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation in any form. But it was Johnson who rose to the occasion and made sure the act was implemented, signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and implemented several poverty and affirmative action programs to address racism and discrimination. Ironically, Johnson, the man who would make such enormous contributions to civil rights and dare to tackle the issue of poverty in America, was a southerner. Born August 27, 1908 in Stonewall, Texas, Johnson was one of five siblings who lived in a farmhouse in an impoverished community. When, in 1926, Johnson attended Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now known as Texas State University–San Marcos), he had to work to finance his education himself. While teaching Mexican students, Johnson gained insight and compassion for those outside his own race. In 1934, Johnson married Claudia ‘‘Lady Bird’’ Taylor, with whom he had two daughters. Three years later, he was elected to the U.S. Congress and served six years. He joined the Navy during World War II (1941–1945). In 1948, he was elected to the Senate. When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, Johnson served as his vice president. Following Kennedy’s assassination, he was thrust into the presidency during the period of tumult that included the Civil Rights Movement, the rising Black Power Movement, and the Vietnam War. Johnson was president from 1963 to 1969. He died of a heart attack on January 22, 1973.

Roy Wilkins

To compound Wilkins’ worries, his cancer returned in 1969. After another surgery, the doctor was optimistic that he would live many more years. Wilkins contemplated retirement. Minnie retired in 1971 from social work, and it offered them the chance to spend more time together. However, Wilkins was not ready to give up the fight. It was not until 1977 that, at seventy-six years old, Wilkins officially retired. IN RETIREMENT It seemed that everyone wanted to honor Wilkins at his retirement. The Library of Congress asked for his papers. The Smithsonian wanted some of his mementos. And there was still an audience for the great man. Wilkins continued to write newspaper columns and occasionally meet with presidents. He had scarcely finished his autobiography, when on September 8, 1981, he died. Wilkins had a long and extraordinary career. He lived to see the fruits of his labors ripen and to watch the waning public fascination with the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. He lived to see America enter a new era of freedom and equality, however incomplete, and despite the threats raised by the rise of conservative leadership in the 1980s. See also W.E.B. Du Bois; James Farmer; Marcus Garvey; Jesse Jackson; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis; A. Philip Randolph; and Ida B. WellsBarnett. FURTHER RESOURCES Hughes, Langston. Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP. New York: Berkeley Medallion, 1962. NAACP (April 2008). See http://www.naacp.org/home/index.htm. ‘‘Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice.’’ Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs (April 2008). See http://www.hhh.umn.edu/ centers/wilkins. Wilkins, Roy. Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994. Wilkins, Roy. Talking It Over with Roy Wilkins: Selected Speeches and Writings. Norwalk, CT: M & B Publishing, 1977.

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Robert F. Williams (1925–1996)


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Robert F. Williams was president of the NAACP chapter in Monroe, North Carolina and founder of the Black Armed Guard. In Williams’ hometown of Monroe, North Carolina, racial violence was rampant. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that African Americans received no protection from the local authorities or justice in the all-white courtrooms. In the absence of any other form of protection, Williams, in his late twenties, following a brief stint in the Marines, organized blacks in his community in self-defense against attacks by whites during his tenure as NAACP president. He also staged demonstrations against the local Jim Crow swimming pool and led a high-profile campaign to protest the jailing of two young boys who had been arrested for kissing two white girls. In 1959, shortly after publicly endorsing armed self-defense, he was suspended by the NAACP. Two years later, Williams was falsely charged with kidnapping a white couple who had been caught up in the turbulence following a demonstration staged by visiting Freedom Riders. Williams and his family fled to Canada, Cuba, and later to China. Williams’ activism did not stop after his departure from America. In Cuba, he started a radical radio station, Radio Free Dixie, from which he broadcast his incendiary criticism of white racism and violence. He supported the militant climate of the Black Power Movement and the rioting by black youths in their communities. His smoldering slogans ‘‘Freedom! Freedom! Freedom now, or death!’’ epitomized the spirit of a new generation of militant blacks who were fed up with racism, poverty, and discrimination, as well as social, economic, and political oppression. To the militant leaders, like Huey P. Newton, who emerged in the mid-1960s, Williams was a pioneer, a hero, and an archetype of the Black Power Movement. However, Williams was an anomaly compared with leaders like Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Whereas Wilkins favored, almost exclusively, courtroom litigation and genteel meetings with city officials and presidents in tranquil office rooms, and King led a mass movement that yielded passively before violent confrontation, Williams embraced armed self-defense. When Williams and his family returned to America in 1969, he carried on with his civil rights work, but he kept a low profile. His lectures about his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement were devoid of the forceful radicalism that had made him popular and inspired so many youthful firebrands. He died on October 15, 1996.

CHILDHOOD When Robert Franklin, the fourth of five children of John and Emma Carter Williams, was born on February 26, 1925 in Monroe, North Carolina,

Robert F. Williams

every one commented on his striking resemblance to his grandfather Sikes Williams. His grandmother, Ellen Williams, liked to talk to the grandchildren about her husband Sikes and their experiences in slavery. She and her late husband had been slaves until 1865, when North Carolina ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. Ellen Williams’ tales taught her grandchildren important lessons of African American protest. Robert, more than the others, was captivated. He seemed to internalize the mythical figure of the grandfather who had died before his own birth. Sikes was a rebel, and more importantly, he was a legendary figure who had really lived. Born in slavery, Sikes defied the laws that prohibited him from learning how to read and write, with the result that he could do both by the time his freedom came in 1865. He and his wife later attended the all-black Biddle Institute, a school famous for its ‘‘leadership that rejected accommodation to white supremacy,’’ and would later become ‘‘a center of the black freedom movement in North Carolina a century after Emancipation’’ (Tyson, 12). But not much had changed: getting a formal education, then becoming a teacher (which both husband and wife accomplished), flew in the face of the post-war climate of white supremacy in the South. Sikes’ entrance into politics continued his step-by-step commitment to challenging white supremacy. He joined the Republican Party, which was responsible for much progressive legislation for the recently freed slaves during the Reconstruction period in the South (between 1862 and 1877). Sikes aligned himself with blacks and whites to strengthen the Republican influence in his home state. He made speeches and, with another African American man named Darling Thomas, established the newspaper People’s Voice with their own printing press. But these were violent times, aptly labeled the Black Nadir of American race relations. Racist whites formed informal and formal white vigilante groups and organizations to wage an all-out war against sympathetic whites and, especially, African Americans. Violence permeated not only North Carolina, but most of the South, as whites violently seized back political, economic, and social control, undoing much of the progress that Reconstruction had barely begun to achieve for blacks. The North turned a blind eye to the vicious crimes: beatings, riots, murders, lynching, and the destruction and illicit seizure of property owned by African Americans. African Americans, with nowhere to turn for help, learned early on to acquiesce to white oppression. Their survival depended on it. But African Americans like Sikes were a rarity. Sikes had his own rifle, which he kept at the house to defend himself and his family. Ellen Williams inherited his rifle, and every now and then she removed it from its hiding place to exhibit it to her grandchildren. She would show Robert the ancient printing press stored away in the barn, thus authenticating the legendary Sikes in young Robert’s mind. He was spellbound.

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Robert could have listened to stories about Sikes all day long. But there were chores to do, the local Jim Crow school to go to, and church to attend every Sunday at Elizabeth Baptist Church. His mother attended regularly, with Robert and his four siblings trailing behind her. Robert’s father was not a churchgoer. John Williams was not made of the same material as Sikes. Robert observed this early on, and it bothered him. Like most African Americans, Williams kowtowed to whites in public, averting his gaze, instead of staring directly into their eyes, and deferred to them in a hundred other ways. If he acknowledged the existence of lynching or racism, it was in private. He would not think of protesting or challenging the racist practice of Jim Crow and racial etiquette. The closest example of a living rebel in Robert’s life was his Uncle Charlie. Uncle Charlie was rebellious in more ways than one. He was a World War I veteran and had been educated at two historically black institutions, Florida A&M College and Wilberforce University. Like his father Sikes, he returned to North Carolina and taught. His activism seems to have been limited to one incident, but that may have magnified his importance to Robert. The story goes that Charlie ‘‘put up a fierce fight for [his cousin] to take’’ a typing test at a federal agency (Tyson, 9). As Charlie expected, the cousin was barred from taking the test because she was black. Charlie did this to demonstrate what he knew was a case of discrimination. Robert may have also admired Uncle Charlie because he was a man who challenged the proper code of conduct his mother upheld at home: Uncle Charlie drank alcohol and even secretly shared some with his nephew. He also complained bitterly about the passive stance of the black church with regards to procuring civil rights and protection for African Americans. The Williams family lived in a house that had been bestowed to Robert’s grandmother in exchange for her lifetime of servitude to a white family. It was a spacious house built atop a hill. Robert’s father had a good job, working as a boiler washer with Seaboard Air Line. Thus, Robert’s economic status was a measure better than other African Americans in Monroe, as most African Americans in their community were sharecroppers. Notwithstanding this economic benefit, Robert was still forced to live in the segregated part of town and had to abide by the same laws and customs as any other African American. Life in Monroe, while Robert was growing up, was not as violent or racist as in some states in the Deep South, but it was still perilous. When Robert was eleven, he witnessed Big Jesse Hems, a white police officer, beat an African American woman. On another occasion, rumor traveled from house to house that a mob was planning to lynch an African American man named Boyce Richardson who had ‘‘whipped out a knife and nearly sliced the collar off [Chief of Police Elmsley Armfield’s] throat, threatening to kill him’’ after Armfield kicked him off a curb where he was sitting with his son (Tyson, 18). African American men were warned to stay indoors. John

Robert F. Williams

Williams went to work that very night, but he carried his pistol. However, violence was thwarted for that time due to the diligence of a number of whites who did not condone racist behavior. COMING OF AGE Ellen Williams’ guidance was crucial to Robert’s development. In addition to her storytelling, she taught Robert to take pride in himself and not to hate whites. She also taught him about history and influenced him to think critically about world events. As a teenager, there was no awkwardness or insecurity about Robert F. Williams. He grew quickly into the towering and burly frame of his grandfather. As he took on more responsibilities he became, like Sikes, more radically minded. In 1939, Robert got his first job: delivering newspapers. This suited him, undoubtedly because of his grandmother’s influence. Williams was interested in the events that unfurled around him. He began to frequent a local spot where African American men gathered to enjoy one another’s company. There he talked to the older men about local and world news, such as the Holocaust in Germany. Sometime during Williams’ adolescence he formed a vigilante-style organization called X-32 ‘‘‘to make war on white philanderers who fancied Black women after dark’’’ (Tyson, 20). They wore white masks so no one could identify them and patrolled the streets at night to prevent these taboo trysts, even if they were consensual. In Robert’s mind, he was defending and protecting the honor of the women in his community and attacking the perceived enemy: white men who frequently took advantage of black women. Undoubtedly the memory of the attack on the black woman he had witnessed as a child influenced him as a young adult. X-32 served as a vehicle for action, which was much more desirable to him than the sense of powerlessness he had felt years before. Williams knew that justice would not be found in a court of law. On one occasion, the group hurled bricks and rocks at a car that had parked at a popular nighttime stop. The white driver peeled away. A definitive moment in Williams’ development occurred shortly before his grandmother’s death, when she bequeathed her husband’s rifle to him. That rifle was a symbol of his burgeoning manhood and a transferal of power from one radical to another. That Ellen Williams gave the rifle to Robert implies that she knew he was different from the other children and was indeed becoming increasingly more like her husband. Williams Leads a Strike In 1941, sixteen-year-old Williams enrolled in a National Youth Administration job-training program near his hometown. This job was one of scores

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that opened up for African Americans during World War II. The problem was that Williams and the other black youths were forced to do menial tasks like digging ditches, while the white youths were trained for technical skills like stone masonry. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that the black youths were expected to drink water from used Coca-Cola bottles. After some discussion, Williams led a walk-out from the premises. The young men beseeched a high school teacher to help them contact the state office, which intervened and corrected the problem. This was a sweet victory for Williams, but there would be consequences. The FBI began to watch him closely. He would be kept under surveillance well into his adult life. Detroit Riot Williams was only seventeen in 1942 when he moved to Detroit. His oldest brother had found lucrative work with the Ford Motor Company and suggested Williams might give it a try. Williams worked on the assembly line and joined an interracial union. The city itself was an unfriendly place. Racism and fierce competition over jobs, housing, and other resources were rampant and contributed to the frequent fist fights at work and in the streets. Whites were embittered against the African Americans who poured into the North, eagerly searching for the job opportunities created by the war and anxious to leave the oppressive South. The hostile, competitive, and racial climate of the urban North also appeared to foster aggression in blacks who, like Williams, would not back down from a fight. White supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan regularly cruised through African American neighborhoods harassing the inhabitants or sparking fights. When Williams was not working, he indulged in two pastimes: reading and observing the activists in the city. Williams particularly enjoyed reading Langston Hughes, a major figure during the Harlem Renaissance. Williams desired to one day see New York City for himself. As for the radical political front, socialists and communists were common fixtures in Detroit. Most of them were white, and they frequently spoke out against racism in a bold way that Williams appreciated. But Williams was not so interested in their brand of politics. In 1943, Williams, his brother, and another friend were driving to the popular Belle Isle Amusement Park when they found themselves in the middle of a fight. A black man stood alone against several white men. Williams suggested they help him. They broke up the fight only to learn that a racial riot had spread throughout the city. The Detroit riot of 1943 lasted for three days, beginning on July 20. The riot was sparked by a fight between blacks and whites over a card game at Belle Isle. The riot was spurred on, undoubtedly, by the rumors that rippled through African American and white communities, as well as pre-existing

Robert F. Williams

tensions between working-class whites and blacks recently transplanted from the South in search of work and opportunity. Whites and blacks were frequently at odds due to racial prejudice and competition over housing, jobs, and other resources. At the end of the riot, 34 were reported dead and 760 were injured. This was just one of many riots that erupted in the North in this period. These riots highlighted a major shift in the white-black conflict. Prior to the mid-century, African Americans were generally the target of riots, not participants. Despite this, African Americans suffered the most deaths and received the most damage to their personal property. Now, for the first time, blacks began to participate in racial riots.

CALIFORNIA NIGHTMARE When an opportunity to move to California presented itself, Williams thought it would be in his best interests to go. California seemed a better alternative to the hostility of Detroit. Since the end of slavery, African Americans had been drawn to the North, the Midwest, and the West—the farthest reaches of the new and provocative frontier. Like whites, African Americans were caught up in the notion of the West and its promise of a new life, open spaces, and unlimited freedom. But the West was a disappointment to Williams. Rampant racism and police harassment made life difficult. Williams was unhappy, and the headaches he began to experience made life in California unbearable. After only three months, Williams decided to move back home.

BACK TO NORTH CAROLINA AND INTO THE ARMY Monroe, North Carolina, in 1944, was in worse shape than when he had left as a teenager. The influx of African American soldiers to nearby Camp Sutton presented a challenge to whites who were accustomed to black compliance to the way of life in the South. These soldiers were primarily from the North and were not accustomed to the laws and customs of the South. Scuffles between whites and black soldiers were rife throughout the South, including Monroe. Williams and his family heard tales of racial conflict all too frequently, such as when an African American soldier stabbed a white man after having been told to leave a white-only cafe and then being shoved by a white patron outside. Conflicts such as these threatened the safety of black males who resided in North Carolina, because whites often retaliated against any available black male. Williams was a likely target, because it was well-known that he was not a passive type. Williams’ parents, fearing for his life, ‘‘began to think that Robert should not stay in

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Monroe’’ (Tyson, 45). Williams decided to pursue his dream and move to New York. Three months later, after arriving in New York, Williams was drafted.

World War II America’s involvement in the Second World War appeared, at first, a beacon of hope for African Americans. During the war years, blacks not only served the war effort, but remained at the forefront of the struggle for racial equality and justice. As part of the propaganda campaign for the war, the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan, who were the enemies of the Allies, including the U.S., Great Britain, the U.S.S.R., and others) were depicted as evil, since it was their goal to literally rule the world and conquer the democratic nations. Throngs of blacks were eager to participate in the war, as they had participated in all major conflicts since America’s founding. Moreover, prominent leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois as well as ordinary citizens were hopeful that by helping in the fight for democracy abroad, they might achieve the same for themselves on the home front. But the ominous Jim Crow showed its ugly head in the war, and men (and later women) served in segregated units. Blacks made it no secret that they were unhappy with this. Articles on the subject were published in black presses across the nation. Leaders like A. Philip Randolph made desegregation of the military a crusade. Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, gathered several leaders and threatened President Roosevelt with a march on Washington that would flood the nation’s capitol with some 100,000 demonstrators. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which desegregated defense industry and government jobs but did not desegregate the military (that would not come until 1948 with Executive Order 9981). Notwithstanding the indignities of segregation and the racism experienced while in the military, black men and women served with distinction. The Tuskegee Airmen, so-named for the training program at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, were among the most well-known heroes of the war, though many whites had scoffed at the idea that blacks could learn how to fly an airplane. Significantly, all the officers of that unit were black and not white, as was the custom for other all-black units. The Tuskegee Airmen flew some 200 missions to escort bombers into enemy territory and did not lose one bomber. Important films that depict the black experience during World War II include A Soldier’s Story (1984) and The Tuskegee Airmen (1995). Miracle at St. Anna (based on a novel by James McBride) premiered in September 2008.

Robert F. Williams

The innately rebellious Williams did not assimilate well into the army, where Jim Crow culture was sustained. Williams was vexed when only the white soldiers were given coffee and donuts. He clashed with his superiors and refused orders outright. The only aspects of military life that were appealing to Williams were learning how to use weapons and taking a creative writing course. After a year and a half, the army had had enough of the intractable Williams and let him go with an honorable discharge. Once again Williams returned home to North Carolina.

THE FIRST DEMONSTRATION OF ARMED SELF-DEFENSE Williams’ return home was bittersweet. At twenty-one years of age his life had just begun, but no one would hire him. Opportunities for blacks in general were limited, but for a well-known radical like Williams, a career was close to impossible. But if work was hard to find, he found something else: camaraderie, love, and a grand purpose. Bernie Montgomery, a boyhood friend, had just returned home from the war. Montgomery had not been known as a radical. But the war changed him. It changed most black men by making them fearless and aware of their own strength. Back in the South, Montgomery had a difficult time submitting to the indignities of Jim Crow and boldfaced oppression without fighting back, either verbally or physically. Montgomery’s situation was complicated by the fact that he had sustained a serious head injury, which may have adversely affected him mentally. He struck his boss during an argument over his pay and then killed him with a knife. His clothes were still stained with blood when they found him. Williams and other vets protested the death penalty that Montgomery received, but to no avail: he died in a gas chamber in 1947. The local Ku Klux Klan made plans to take Montgomery’s lifeless body and ordered the African American funeral homeowner to remove the U.S. flags that adorned his casket. He refused to do so. When the Klan rode out in their infamous motorcade (which was often escorted by local police officers) to the Harris Funeral Home, they were met by a group of forty African American men— with rifles. Williams was among them. Steely-eyed and defiant, the men watched the hooded Klan members scurry away from the scene. The men that stood off the Klan were mostly veterans, like Williams. These men saw each other frequently at the barbershop or the unemployment office, where they went to collect their weekly payment of $20, a part of their veterans’ benefits. Despite their service to their country, these men were frequently disrespected at the unemployment office, because racist whites did not like the fact that African American men received benefits from the government. These were the very men who collaborated in the effort to grant Montgomery clemency, pointing out that during the trial it

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was not even considered how his head injury might have affected his mental state or that he could have acted in self-defense. Mabel Ola Robinson was just fifteen when she met the strapping Robert F. Williams. She lived in a different black section of town, but not too far from Williams’ home. They knew each other through her sister and his best friend, who were married. They often went dancing, and he walked her home from school. They married in 1947. Shortly thereafter, his mother died, and they moved in with Williams’ father. At first, Mabel did not understand Williams. His radicalness unnerved her. It was inconceivable to her that someone would willfully challenge the system of white supremacy and Jim Crow. She had never known anyone like Williams. But when Williams’ father told her the story of Sikes, she began to understand. When the couple’s first child, Robert Jr., was born in 1948, Williams moved the family to Detroit, Michigan. The move was necessary, for his unemployment payments had ended, and he could find no work in his hometown.

IN SEARCH OF A LIFE Between 1948 and 1955, Williams struggled to pursue his personal dreams and to provide for his family. Williams knew he would have no trouble finding work in Detroit, even if he had to take jobs he did not want. What he really wanted to do, however, was to become a writer, like his literary idol Langston Hughes. But he took a job on the night shift for the Cadillac Motor Company. While Mabel attended Northwestern High School, Williams took care of the baby and composed poems and other stories inspired by his experiences growing up in the South. His fictional story, ‘‘Someday, I’m Going Back South’’ was published in the Detroit Daily Worker in 1949. In this story, the protagonist, a native of the South, moves North, but plans to return to the South to wage a struggle to free his people. Williams had not cared for the grimy, overcrowded, and unfriendly city back in 1942. His feelings did not change. Racism at work was a problem. And the work itself was loud, monotonous, and unsatisfying. Williams’ headaches returned. When Williams was fired, there was no question as to whether he should stay in Detroit. An FBI report stated that Williams ‘‘was discharged from his job with the Cadillac Motor Car Company in Detroit because of excessive absenteeism and threatening his supervisors with bodily harm’’ (Tyson, 63). In 1949, the Williams family returned to Monroe, North Carolina. It appeared that Williams was going to get to study writing after all—with the indirect help of the FBI. Williams had been a person of interest to them since his teens, and as an adult, he drew more attention to himself by having

Robert F. Williams

communist friends. The FBI scoured his hometown looking for incriminating information. They found none. Unbeknown to Williams, the FBI was able to convince businesses not to hire him. Since he could not find any work, he went to school. Williams enrolled in West Virginia State College in Institute, West Virginia. This college was one of the only African American institutions that offered creative writing courses. Williams studied writing and got involved with the university newspaper and literary magazine. He took a course from the militant Dr. Herman G. Candy, who encouraged radicalism. Williams complained that the other students were too interested in material and selfcentered pursuits. At every opportunity, Williams traveled back to his father’s home, where his wife and son lived. When Williams’ second son, John Chalmers, was born, he moved back home. He attended North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham, North Carolina in 1950, but then, in 1951, switched to Johnson C. Smith College, the alma mater of his grandfather, in Charlotte, North Carolina. If Williams expected to find other militants like himself and his grandfather, he was sorely mistaken. Indeed, as an excerpt from a piece that was published in Paul Robeson’s newspaper Freedom, reveals, Williams was shocked to realize that the student body and the professors were ‘‘passive’’ in regard to protest; that the teachers endorsed ‘‘Uncle Tomism,’’ and that the opportunity to ‘‘be the most militant agitators for democracy’’ were squandered on materialistic pursuits (Tyson, 69). The highlight of his enrollment at Johnson C. Smith was going to a lecture by Langston Hughes. In 1953, Williams’ GI bill ran out and he had to drop out of college. Still no one would hire him. Williams left his wife and two sons in Monroe and trekked alone to New Jersey, where he found employment at Curtiss Wright Aeronautics. While in New Jersey, he gravitated towards a host of radicals, some of whom were involved in the American Labor Party and the Communist Party. These friends provided an environment where he was permitted to express his views without censure. However, Williams did not intend to join either party, because he did not agree with their nonreligious bent or their emphasis on class over race. Williams was eventually able to move his family to an apartment in New York, but the neighborhood was almost more volatile than Monroe. Mabel Williams caged herself indoors, fearful of going out. She kept a 9-mm Luger pistol within arm’s reach. Her fear was not unfounded. Neighbors harassed the Williamses, calling them ‘‘niggers’’ and vandalizing their property. The family moved back to Monroe. Williams desperate search for work led him to Los Angeles, California, where he heard there were aircraft workers needed. He was not hired. He roamed from place to place in search of any kind of work. Nearly destitute, Williams entered a recruiting office for the U.S. Marine Corps. In the 1954 photo of Private First Class Robert F. Williams, he is smiling—and he rarely smiled in

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pictures. This time he had a lot to be optimistic about: the marine recruiting office had promised him an opportunity to take journalism classes and to pay for three more years of college in exchange for three years of enlistment. Williams completed basic training with a good feeling. He enjoyed the rigorous exercise, and he was treated well, at first. But when it came time for him to start his new job in information services as promised, he was assigned duties as a supply sergeant. Williams was crushed and angry. He launched a writing campaign to Charles Diggs, Congressman of Michigan, Adam Clayton Powell, President Dwight Eisenhower, and the NAACP. After only sixteen months Williams left the Marines with ‘‘an undesirable discharge and a smoldering bitterness’’ (Tyson, 73). ACTIVISM National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Williams wrote in his autobiography, Negroes with Guns, ‘‘When I got out of the Marine Corps, I knew I wanted to go home and join the NAACP’’ (14). However, the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was in dire straits, largely as a result of the 1954 Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools. In response to that ruling, there had been violent backlash. In some areas of the South, the NAACP was made illegal. Some members lost their jobs. Others were harassed, viciously attacked, or murdered. Williams attended the meeting where the remaining six members wanted to close the Monroe chapter. Williams tried to persuade them against this. The members decided to vote Williams in as the new president, and then all but one or two members stayed on. Williams asserted that they ‘‘turned [the organization] over to me to die … so it would not die in their hands’’ (80). Dr. Albert E. Perry was one of the original members, and he was elected the vice president. Negroes with Guns Negroes with Guns (1962) is the title of the autobiography of Robert F. Williams. The title evokes black empowerment on one hand, and fear and fury on the other. Beginning in slavery, blacks were bound by sundry laws. Enslaved blacks could not marry, read, or write. They could not travel without permission from the plantation owner. And they had no voting or any other civil rights. Blacks were not allowed to carry arms—for obvious reasons. Blacks without guns could not easily rebel against their white masters. Historically, the gun, in any setting, has symbolized power. With a gun, one can protect self, family, and property, as well as exert a threat toward (continued )

Robert F. Williams

someone else. White Americans, since the foundation of the nation, have made free use of this empowering tool. In this context of international war, the victor and the image of military might are glorified. In the American frontier, the gun symbolized unbridled freedom and represented an exciting, though hazardous, period in history. Notwithstanding the lore of gun-wielding black cowboys and frontiersmen, the idea of blacks with guns has been as problematic for conservative whites in the post-emancipation years as it was during slavery. At the end of Reconstruction in 1877, racist whites in the South viewed blacks with guns as an anomaly, an oddity, or an atrocity. For one thing, blacks were for the most part docile under the heavy pressure of economic and political control fortified by physical intimidation. Racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan helped to monitor and suppress black resistance. For another thing, blacks were not permitted to exercise power, and as such, blacks and guns were incongruous to the preexisting social construction that prescribed racist white supremacy and privilege. The few isolated occasions when blacks attempted to arm themselves and protect themselves and their community from anti-black violence and criminal activities were fruitless. During the two World Wars of the twentieth century, blacks, particularly the soldiers, projected an unprecedented confidence and militancy. A number of racial conflicts emerged as a result of black soldiers not kowtowing to social expectation. Williams was one of a number of black soldiers who returned to their communities and physically fought back. Williams’ demonstration of organized armed power was successful in North Carolina. Whites were often flabbergasted by the ‘‘audacity’’ of blacks to challenge them with guns, but they were also forced to back down from what had previously been the unbridled terrorizing of blacks. However, when organizations like the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense armed themselves during the Black Power Movement of the 1960s, the reaction, for many conservative whites, was outrage and fear. The media portrayed ‘‘Negroes with guns’’ in this context as criminals. But the original purpose of guns for the Black Panthers was to protect the community from police harassment and abuse. And it worked.

When Williams became president of the Monroe chapter of the NAACP, he undoubtedly planned to give the chapter a makeover, as it had something of a poor reputation. Nor was it actively challenging discrimination, injustice, or racial violence. Under Williams’ leadership, the Monroe chapter took a turn for the better. Membership boomed. The NAACP tended to draw from the black middle class, but Williams recruited new members from unorthodox places, such as barbershops, pool halls, and street corners.

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The NAACP was not the only organization undergoing a resurgence in Monroe. The Klan experienced a revival, due in large part as a response to the desegregation of public schools. The Klan became increasingly visible about town, holding rallies and acting out violently against local blacks.

Union County Council on Human Relations Williams also helped establish the interracial Union County Council on Human Relations. The aim of this organization was to ‘‘promote equal opportunity for all citizens in employment, education, recreation, and all other phases of community life’’ (Tyson, 83). Dr. Perry was elected president, J. Ray Shute was vice president, and Williams’ wife Mabel was the secretary. Shute, a white liberal and former mayor of Monroe, was generous to Williams, helping him find a job with a textile factory as a security guard and gifting him a used car so that he could make the commute. Williams’ association with whites, through the Council on Human Relations, with his communist friends, and at the mostly white Unitarian church he attended, set him apart from future militants. Williams was not a separatist. But his radicalism would eventually alienate him from many of his white supporters.

Swimming Pool Campaign The young African American boy who drowned in a lake near Monroe in the summer of 1957 was not the first to die in that way. Scores of African American boys drowned each summer because they had no safe swimming pool available to them. The local swimming pool at the Monroe Country Club was for whites only. Emboldened by his newfound organizational strength, Williams launched a campaign to desegregate the Monroe Country Club swimming pool. As he saw it, the pool was funded by federal money, and, therefore, whites had no right to prohibit African Americans from using it. Though Williams felt that something drastic needed to be done to prevent the unnecessary drowning of black children, he began by using techniques that were vintage NAACP, such as sending letters to the city and to the Parks and Recreation Commission, rather than by staging dramatic demonstrations. The Commission agreed to meet with a small delegation of African Americans. Among them was Dr. Perry. The delegates requested a separate time for African American children to use the pool. The Commission rejected that idea because they would not allow blacks to use the same pool as whites. They said it would be too expensive to maintain separate pools, but promised some day, when there were funds to do so, to build a separate swimming pool.

Robert F. Williams

Williams next sought assistance from the Council on Human Relations, but their response was not at all what he had expected. Although at the inception of the organization, the members had bravely vowed to support integration in all its forms, the white members objected to the swimming pool campaign. Even these progressive whites had been tainted by the system of racism. Mabel Williams cynically commented to her husband that ‘‘White fools don’t want you to sit beside them on the bus … you really think they’re gonna let you jump in the water with them half-naked?’’ (Tyson, 84). Other whites on the council believed ‘‘the campaign impolitic and untimely’’ (Tyson, 85). This polarization between the blacks and whites contributed, in a large way, to the dissolution of the organization. When negotiation failed to produce any results, Williams turned to demonstration. Williams and Dr. Perry led eight youths to the pool, where they stood in protest at the gate. The objective was to force a test case, allowing the NAACP to lead a battle in the court system. However, their protests caused the Klan to implement its own campaign. In Williams’ words, they schemed ‘‘to get rid of us, to drive us out of the community, directed primarily at Dr. Albert E. Perry, our vice-president, and myself’’ (Williams, Negroes with Guns, 16). Black Armed Guard Williams and others tried various means of protecting themselves and the black community from Klan intimidation and violence. Local ministers went to county and city officials for help. Williams wrote that their pleas were rejected ‘‘on the grounds that the Klan was a legal organization having as much constitutional right to organize as the NAACP’’ (Williams, Negroes with Guns, 17). Williams led a futile campaign to bring an end to Klan activities by sending appeals to the governor and the president. Williams reasoned that if the government would not help, or even enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, blacks had to defend themselves. Williams received a charter membership to the National Rifle Association (NRA), and organized the Black Armed Guard, consisting mostly of black veterans. Confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan The summer of 1957 sizzled with tension. In the wake of numerous death threats and several motorcades featuring rancorous whites wearing white robes and hoods shooting into the air, Williams prepared the Black Armed Guard. The group assembled numerous weapons, especially rifles and helmets, and dug foxholes. Training sessions were held and the Guard members participated in nightly vigils. The women crafted a system for passing messages by phone for emergencies. Mrs. Crowder, a kindly, bespectacled

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elderly woman, kept rifles behind the walls of her house. Williams himself taught his wife and two boys how to use a gun. But the gun offered Mabel Williams little comfort. She later recalled the frightening times ‘‘when the four of us—me, Rob’s father, and the two boys—we’d sit up all night with our guns, afraid someone would come kill us while Rob was at Dr. Perry’s’’ (Tyson, 88).

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is the most notorious racist or white supremacist organization in America. But it is not the only one, nor is it, as some believe, a phenomenon restricted to the South. Although the organization was founded in the South in Tennessee, in the wake of the Civil War (1861– 1865), there are KKK groups throughout America. One of the main purposes of the KKK when it was founded was to help maintain social, economic, and political control over blacks in the South. When the organization migrated to other areas, the objectives stayed much the same. Prime targets of the KKK were individuals who tried to resist or challenge white supremacy. Sometimes the KKK conducted nightly visits, wherein ‘‘nightriders’’ rode through black sections of town on horses wearing hooded masks and robes. Sometimes they augmented their rides with scare-inducing ghastly effects, like howls, gunshots, and the use of a gibberish language. Sometimes the KKK left frightening symbols upon the property of blacks, like burning crosses or nooses to serve as a warning or threat. Although they conducted most of their activities after dark (reinforcing the superstition of evil spirits that appear only after sundown), they also held marches through the town during the day. The KKK was not beyond implementing actual violence against blacks. In fact, a number of brutal attacks and murders were implemented by the KKK. Lynchings were carried out by unmasked white mobs and town citizens or the KKK. The use of masks by the KKK was employed for the fear factor, as well as to hide the identities of whites from blacks and, in some cases, from other whites. KKK members were known to comprise most of the white male citizens in a town, including law enforcement and town officials. The KKK maintains its membership even today, But most members do not wear masks or robes and, because of laws and the fact that the KKK is looked down upon by mainstream society, the vicious crimes have been reduced drastically. Yet hate crimes still happen, though various groups and formal agencies maintain a watch over racism and racist organizations such as the KKK.

Robert F. Williams

The moment the Black Armed Guard had been preparing for arrived that fall. Someone heard that the Klan planned to attack Dr. Perry at his home. When the motorcade roared into Dr. Perry’s neighborhood, firing their guns at his house, they saw a stunning sight. Some sixty African Americans, hunkering in fortifications and entrenchments, pointed their rifles and fired— cautiously, as they had been instructed—at the ground, sending the Klan scurrying out of the neighborhood. It was only then that the city council stepped in, banning the Ku Klux Klan from staging motorcades in Monroe. This victory was momentous for blacks in Monroe, as well as for the history of African American protest. It was an unprecedented organized demonstration of self-defense against racial violence. But Williams reported that ‘‘only three Negro publications—the Afro-American, the Norfolk Journal and Guide, and Jet—reported the fight’’ (Williams, 21). Shortly after this demonstration, Dr. Perry was falsely charged with and convicted of having performed an abortion on a white woman. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Desegregating Monroe Schools Three years prior to the climactic confrontation at Dr. Perry’s home, the NAACP had achieved a great feat by winning the famous Brown v. Board of Education case. The result was the eradication of separate schools for blacks and whites. The celebrations were brief, however, for integrating schools in the South proved to be an ordeal in itself, another harrowing chapter in the struggle for civil rights. The ruling meant little to many whites in the South. Indeed, in most towns, whites completely ignored the ruling. And opposition was vicious. Sweet-faced youths shouted and spewed venomous words at the first group of black students. In places like Little Rock, Arkansas, the national guard had to be called in, but they did little to shelter the African American students from the cruel taunting and harassment that continued throughout the school year. African American teachers also suffered, as they were rarely hired in the predominately white schools. In early October 1958, Robert and Mabel Williams were the first to attempt to integrate the East Elementary Schools in Monroe with their two young boys. They sent a letter protesting the lack of inclusion of black students and teachers in Monroe schools to the school board. The letter surreptitiously wound up in the local paper for all to see. The town was up in arms. But the Williamses were unable to follow through with enrolling their children into the local white school due to a subsequent campaign that absorbed their time and focus. The Kissing Case In late October, Williams was consumed with an entirely different issue. Two young African American boys, aged seven and nine, were roughly

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ushered into the county police station, where they were first beaten and then tormented by police officers during the course of their detainment. The young boys, David Ezell Simpson and James Hanover Grissom Thompson, had quite innocently kissed or (to their peril) been kissed by white girls while at play. Despite their young ages, the boys were accused of rape. There were numerous variations to the story of what happened on that fall day in October. According to Thompson, he and Simpson were playing in water with some white children, when one of the boys suggested they play the kissing game with some white girls nearby. Sissy Sutton, one of the girls, agreed and sat in his lap, and on the lap of one of the white boys, and kissed them on the cheek. Later, at home, the girl told her mother. The dramatic events that ensued would haunt Simpson and Thompson for the rest of their lives. Historically, black males would have been lynched for merely touching, looking at, or speaking to a white woman. Williams instructed the armed guard to watch over the boys’ mothers. Although a mob formed shortly after word circulated through the white community about what happened, they did not wage an attack. A sensationalized scandal followed, and the two mothers’ reputations were smeared, resulting in the loss of their jobs. The London News Chronicle broke the story in a sympathetic manner. The story spread quickly to the continent where outraged Europeans launched several demonstrations on behalf of the two young boys. Williams remembered that ‘‘only then did many American newspapers begin to express ‘concern’ about the ‘Kissing Case’ ’’ (Williams, Negroes with Guns, 24). Williams downplayed his contribution to the case in his autobiography, but his actions greatly elevated his status in the civil rights community. Williams went first to the NAACP office, but they would not take on a controversial case involving rape. Without the support of the NAACP, Williams embarked on a whirlwind speaking tour, making television and radio appearances to expose and protest the outlandish charge against the two boys. Thus, the world first took notice of Robert F. Williams, the smalltown hero. Williams and other members of the local NAACP formed the Committee to Combat Racial Injustice. Through this organization, Williams provided further support to the two boys. Only later, when the case gained notoriety, did the NAACP get involved. Meanwhile, the children were sentenced to up to fourteen years at a reformatory and were transferred to Morrison Training School. Overwhelming public pressure forced the judge to change his verdict. When the boys were freed in 1959, their families left Monroe. NAACP Suspension The episode that marked Williams forever as a militant, a man to be feared, and got him in trouble with the national office of the NAACP, started with

Robert F. Williams

two upsetting court cases involving black victims. In one, a white man was acquitted after he kicked a black maid down a flight of stairs at a hotel. In the other, a white man was acquitted of an attempted rape charge against a pregnant black woman, even though a white neighbor testified on the woman’s behalf. During that trial, the defendant’s attorney referred to the white man’s wife as a ‘‘pure flower of life,’’ and pandered to the racism that was prevalent among local whites when he asked rhetorically, ‘‘Do you think this man would have left this pure flower for that?’’ Frustrated and angry, the African American women who sat with Williams in the courtroom verbally attacked him. He was the one who had persuaded the victim’s brothers not to retaliate, telling them to take legal recourse instead. The women heaped blame on Williams. After that trial, Williams faced reporters and made the following notorious statement: We must be willing to kill if necessary. We cannot take these people who do us injustice to the court and it becomes necessary to punish them ourselves. In the future we are going to have to try and convict these people on the spot. [These court decisions] open the way to real violence. We cannot rely on the law. We get no justice under the present system. If we feel that injustice is done, we must right then and there on the spot be prepared to inflict punishment on these people. I feel this is the only way of survival. Since the federal government will not bring a halt to lynching in the South and since the socalled courts lynch our people legally, if it’s necessary to stop lynching with lynching, then we must be willing to resort to that method. (Tyson, 149)

Williams’ words outraged and horrified whites and sent an uneasy ripple through the civil rights leadership. Ultimately, the NAACP sought to distance itself from the militant Williams. His public endorsement of selfdefense endangered the organization’s hard-won reputation and compromised its leverage with city, state, and federal contacts. Williams felt he was justified in what he said, especially considering the circumstances. But his opinion was not supported by any of the prominent civil rights leaders. He was informed that he was suspended from the NAACP. Williams tried to defend himself, explaining to Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, in a telephone conversation, that he was reflecting his own views and opinions, not those of the NAACP. On June 3, 1950, Williams appealed to the Committee on Branches in New York. Williams was reprimanded and informed that he would be suspended for six months. The Crusader Weekly Newsletter and Other Campaigns Temporarily expelled from the NAACP, Williams undertook a venture of his own. Debuting on July 26, 1959, The Crusader featured his philosophy on self-defense, as well as the civil rights struggle in Monroe, North Carolina

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and abroad, international news, and articles that countered the prevalent negative portrayals of blacks and Africa. After Williams was reinstated to the NAACP and resumed the presidency of the chapter in Monroe, the national office had little more to do with him. He did not much care. He had proved that he could be productive without national support. So he continued on, wielding his rifle and demonstrating his belief that community work, nonviolence, and self-defense could go hand in hand. In 1960, Williams provided pivotal support for a women-led project called CARE, or Crusaders Association for Relief and Enlightenment. CARE provided food, clothes, and other essential items to poor blacks in the community. Williams went on a lecture tour to request financial assistance and donations. Williams was a favorite in Harlem. His supporters there assisted with the CARE program and also helped fund his arsenal of guns. Malcolm X, a prominent militant and Muslim minister, frequently invited Williams to speak at his temple. Other supporters included actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (both deeply involved with the conservative contingent of the Civil Rights Movement), W.E.B. Du Bois’ wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and the black historian John Hendrik Clarke. In 1960, after the famous sit-in at a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina, Williams led his organization in a sit-in campaign of its own. Williams and a dozen blacks staged the first sit-ins at Gable’s Drug Store and Jones Drug Store. At both locations, the managers closed the lunch counters. Williams’ activists were never violently attacked by whites in Monroe. Williams reasoned that this was because whites knew that he and his group had guns. During one demonstration, Williams was arrested for trespassing. While Williams was occupied with the resulting legal proceedings, Monroe blacks continued to stage sit-ins, and The Crusader encouraged blacks to boycott the various lunch counters at downtown stores that refused to serve them. The sit-in movement in Monroe continued throughout the next year, but its success was questionable. The authorities were not easily persuaded to open up the town’s lunch counters to blacks. In contrast to other sit-ins taking place elsewhere in the nation, there were a limited number of participating activists, few arrests, and not a lot of media attention. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilized violent backlash against those participating in the sit-ins to engender sympathy and force the American government to intervene. However, Williams used armed self-defense to prevent violent attacks. Thus, there was very little if any actual violence attending the Monroe sit-ins, which reduced their newsworthiness. Moreover, Williams’ message did not draw the sort of attention that won legions of white and black admirers to King’s camp. Whites tended to be highly leery of Williams’ volatile statements and his endorsement of self-defense, as they found him threatening.

Robert F. Williams

Meanwhile the swimming pool campaign had begun to bear fruit. One Sunday in 1961, a mob of several thousand whites descended upon Monroe to halt the demonstrations of black picketers who were still demanding that they be allowed to swim in the only swimming pool in town. Williams described in his book Negroes with Guns (1962) how he was driving on the highway when someone from the white mob hit his car, causing both cars to get trapped in a ditch. Williams and some teenagers were in the car when they were approached by a white man with a bat, while the mob chanted ‘‘Kill the Niggers!’’ Williams brandished his Army .45. The mob hurled rocks at his car, while three police officers who were already at the scene watched and did nothing. Williams got out of the car with his weapon, then punched an officer who tried to take his gun. Another officer took out his gun. A teenager, who was in the car with Williams, convinced the officer otherwise when he leveled his .45 at him. The white mob let Williams and the teens go when the chief of police gave orders at the behest of Steve Presson, a member of the Monroe City Council. Williams eventually joined the picket line at the swimming pool. As a result of this demonstration, the pool was closed for the rest of the year. Violence against the blacks of Monroe escalated following the swimming pool campaign. Armed whites drove through black neighborhoods, firing off their rifles. Volunteers of the Armed Black Guard frequently fired back with warning shots. Williams’ home was attacked one night by the State National Guard. Williams approached the FBI. Congressman Frank Kowalski of Connecticut beseeched Attorney General Robert Kennedy to help. Kennedy called for an investigation, resulting in an interview with the chief of police, who denied that there was anything going on. In the wake of this blaring injustice, Williams prepared his chapter to launch a broad campaign. He created a ten-point program that included a demand for the city to end employment discrimination, build an additional swimming pool, and initiate the desegregation procress of public schools. On August 15, 1961, Williams read those demands to the Monroe Board of Aldermen, to no avail. But Williams had a backup plan. He would stage more demonstrations. In the meantime, he invited a group of young Freedom Riders to come to Monroe.

FREEDOM RIDERS The seventeen Freedom Riders who arrived in Monroe were confident that nonviolence was the best approach for protest. The Freedom Riders, black and white activists, comprised a group of nervy college students who challenged a law that upheld segregation on interstate travel and facilities and were devoted to the principles of nonviolence and direct action. They wanted an opportunity to show Williams just how effective nonviolence

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was. Though highly skeptical, Williams watched them as they established ‘‘Freedom House’’ to train new recruits and formed the Monroe Non-Violent Action Committee. When the activists breezily commented on the friendliness of the police officers and told Williams that he had, perhaps, misgauged the climate of his community, Williams warned them that the cordiality they had experienced in their limited time in Monroe was a ruse. The demonstrations started out peaceably enough with the picketing of the Monroe Courthouse. On the third day, all that changed. Whites spat in the faces of the activists and jeered at them. One of the activists was arrested. In the days to follow, isolated outbreaks of violence were reported throughout the community. One activist was shot in the stomach; another went missing. Williams contacted the governor’s office, attempting to get help to find the missing youth. The governor’s office blamed him for the violent eruption. What had transpired confirmed to Williams that nonviolence provoked violence. Williams’ armed demonstrations had never produced such horrific violence. In the wake of the nonviolent demonstrations, he scrambled to protect the activists and his community. But conditions were steadily worsening, with the violence spilling out into the community, affecting residents who had nothing to do with the demonstrations. Williams returned home to figure out his next strategy. Increasing numbers of outsiders streamed into the community, exacerbating the situation. Williams’ phone rang constantly—parents looking for their children; people calling to inform Williams that some of the activists had been arrested or were in need of medical attention. Whites roared through the neighborhood randomly firing shots. Williams had more than enough to deal with when, one Sunday, a white couple who had driven into his neighborhood was brought to him. They said they were lost. Williams was told that the couple had been seen the previous day driving through the neighborhood emblazoning a sign on their car that read ‘‘Open Season on Coons.’’ The term ‘‘coons’’ was used by whites to refer to blacks. Although Williams was suspicious of the couple, he felt he could not leave them alone with the restive black crowd outside his door. He insisted that the couple come into his home and stay until the situation cooled down. Before long, Williams received a call from the police chief, who threatened that he would be lynched before the night was over. Williams had had death threats many times before, and had always responded by rounding up his guards, or by keeping armed vigil with his family. This time was different. Monroe was in chaos, presenting an opportunity for racist cops to get rid of him. Someone alerted him to a television report about troops being assembled to besiege his home. Williams feared this would provide a prime opportunity for the police chief to carry out his threat. He and his family fled to New York that night.

Robert F. Williams

Once in New York, Williams, thinking he had averted disaster, began to plan a publicity campaign to expose the roots of the pandemonium that had broken out in Monroe. He had no idea that he was a wanted man until, watching the news on television, he found out that he was being charged with kidnapping the white couple he had sheltered in his home. He could hardly believe that it was his photo, grim-faced, glaring back at him on the screen. Last Williams remembered, he had seen the couple off to safety after he offered them refuge in his home. In hindsight, Williams figured that the couple had been part of a plot to frame him. As told by the white couple, the account of what happened that night in Monroe shifted constantly. Williams did not think there was any possible way he would turn himself in, knowing all too well that the court system did not mete out justice for blacks. He decided he could not stay in America, for there would be no place to hide. Williams and his family would flee the country. IN EXILE Canada Canada was Williams’ first choice for exile. It had been a haven of choice for black slaves who had braved the treacherous journey to freedom. With the assistance of several socialist friends, Williams and his family arrived there safely, and lived for a while with a white family. But they were in constant fear. FBI ‘‘Wanted’’ posters of Williams hung in public places, and one white couple who briefly hid the Williams was visited by the FBI as well as Royal Canadian agents. They left a warning for Williams that he would, undoubtedly, make it back alive to America when they found him. It became clear that Canada was not a safe place. Williams’ friends helped put together an escape plan to Cuba. Cuba Williams’ first two trips to Cuba were recent. On his first visit, in 1960, he went as a delegate of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, an organization established in New York to support Fidel Castro’s regime. During that trip he had the opportunity to meet Castro. In his late twenties, Castro had led an armed revolution to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista. During Batista’s reign, years of protest and civil disobedience demonstrations had been met with arrests, torture, violence, and greater limitations on freedom. In 1959, when Castro took over power in Cuba at the age of thirty-three, the Cubans were overjoyed. Castro, however, was an enemy of the American government. Despite this, he was an idol to many black militants. Williams admired him and even emulated him in small ways, like growing out his

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beard and taking up the habit of smoking cigars. During Williams’ second trip to Cuba—a personal invitation from Castro—he had been offered permanent residency, which he declined. Williams and his family arrived in Cuba in 1961. Though he longed to be in America, Williams could relax somewhat and resume his activism. He started a radical radio station, Radio Free Dixie, which featured a fusion of racial commentary with soulful ballads, jazz, and protest music. He continued the publication of The Crusader in America. During the race riots of the 1960s, Williams attacked the system and institutions of racism with blistering commentary and praised the young rioters for lashing out at the white oppressor. During this period he displayed a radicalism that was more dramatic than before. In America, Williams became a cult figure to emerging black militants. His book, Negroes with Guns (1962), was written during his exile in Cuba. It had a significant influence on organizations such as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the Deacons for Defense and Justice, for whom it was considered essential reading. Both organizations engaged in armed resistance to defend their communities. But the situation in Cuba was far from ideal and getting worse. Communists residing in Cuba presented a problem. ‘‘I find many of [the Cuban Communists and Communist Party USA members in Cuba] to be very notorious racists’’ he wrote to one former communist, and it was reported by the FBI that ‘‘Williams ‘has stubbed his toes with the Communist Party of Cuba’ because of his ‘criticism of [the] Communist Party for barring Negroes from leadership’ ’’ (Tyson, 292, 294). It became increasingly difficult to continue his broadcasts and his work due to the attempt of the Cuban government to censor him. It was not long before Williams knew that his future was not in Cuba. But it would be no easy task to leave. China In 1965, Castro allowed Williams to go to North Vietnam to speak to black troops. The Cuban leader fully expected him to return, but Williams had other plans. The trip was a ruse. After addressing the troops, he and his family moved to Beijing, China. Both Cuba and China were enemies of the U.S. during this time—a fact that was not going to make Williams’ status back in the States easy. Williams enjoyed greater freedoms in China and was treated like a celebrity, provided with a chauffeur, limo, and personal attendants. In China, Williams carried out his activism without interference. He continued his radio program and stayed in touch with black liberation movements in America. He regularly donated money to individuals (such as Fannie Lou Hamer, a black civil rights activist who was heavily involved in voter registration and social welfare programs in Mississippi) and organizations (such as the militant Revolutionary Action Movement [RAM] and the

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Republic of New Afrika [RNA], a black nationalist group founded in 1968). The RNA elected Williams as president-in-exile. Following Malcolm X’s assassination, ‘‘Richard Gibson, editor of Now! magazine in New York, wrote to Williams in 1965, ‘Malcolm’s removal from the scene makes you the senior spokesman for Afro-American militants’ ’’ (Tyson, 297). Mao took no offense when Williams decided it was time to return to America. Williams made a deal with the United States: he would be able to return in exchange for valuable information on the cultural, social, and political life in China. Mao was hopeful that Williams would help prepare the way for a new relationship between the two countries. Williams visited Africa and London before he made his final return to America.

RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES On September 12, 1969, a group of black militants waited with bated breath as Williams climbed off the plane in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit was a place of huge significance for the times. In 1967, a race riot had culminated in a mass exodus of whites, leaving the city mostly black. For the first time in the city’s history, a black mayor was elected. The black leaders of Williams’ day had been proponents of nonviolence, but the leaders of African American protest in the late 1960s were edgy, ultra-radical, and militant like Williams. As they waited at the airport, they fully intended to accept Williams as their leader, although they expected him to adjust his ideology whenever his did not match up to their own. However, Williams surprised them all, including the media who greeted him with questions and befuddled expressions. Neither Robert nor Mabel Williams fit the image of a black power proponent. For one thing they did not wear afros, and for another, Williams appeared ‘‘almost embarrassed by his status’’ (Tyson, 302). Most significantly, Williams appeared subdued. Gone was the fiery rhetoric that made his admirers marvel. And to black militants’ dismay, he was critical of their programs. He was not anti-American. He did not endorse black separatism. He had white friends and was not averse to their participation in the movement. He was open to forging alliances with conservative black leaders and organizations. And most surprising of all, he did not appreciate the reckless and romanticized manner in which some of the militants wielded guns. A few months later, Williams canceled his memberships in RAM and the RNA, and retreated to live the quiet life. Williams’ son offered one reason for Williams’ withdrawal from public activism: he simply desired to live a long life without drama. With the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and other activist leaders, Williams had no interest in becoming a martyr or getting embroiled in the fractious organizations of the Black Power Movement or political or cultural programs in which he did not believe.

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Williams’ new life appeared to be everything he wanted it to be. He worked for a year at the University of Michigan at the Center for Chinese Studies. After a year, he and his family moved to Baldwin, Michigan, an oasis of abundant lakes and rivers, where Williams could spend countless hours fishing and enjoying the lush wilderness. He supported himself and his family with lecturing—though he spoke for no charge at prisons. Mabel became a social worker, and later took a job as the project director at St. Ann’s Lake County Senior Meals and Human Services Programs. They both remained committed to activism through their NAACP membership and were heavily involved in their small-town community. In 1976, Williams’ kidnapping charges were finally dropped. The last years of Williams’ life, as well as his death, were tranquil. On October 15, 1996, Williams lay on his bed on the brink of death, surrounded by his loved ones. His wife, who had stood by his side through violent times and peaceful times, tenderly held his hand. He died from Hodgkin’s disease at the age of seventy-one. See also Stokely Carmichael; W.E.B. Du Bois; Fannie Lou Hamer; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X; Huey P. Newton; and Roy Wilkins. FURTHER RESOURCES Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power. Directed by Sandra Dickson and Churchill Roberts, 2004. Sabir, Wanda. ‘‘Growing Up Revolutionary: An Interview with John Williams, Son of Mabel and Robert F. Williams.’’ Freedomarchives.org (December 2007). See http://www.freedomarchives.org/Reviews/Growing%20up%20Revolutionary.pdf. Tyson, Timothy B. Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Williams, Mabel. Robert F. Williams: Self Respect, Self Defense, and Self Determination. San Francisco: Freedom Archives, 2005. Williams, Robert F. Negroes with Guns. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1962.

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Whitney Young was the executive director of the National Urban League from 1961 to 1971 and a member of the Civil Rights Big Six. When the gregarious and extroverted Young became the executive director of the National Urban League in 1961, he did so just as the wave of student sit-ins and other demonstrations of the Civil Rights Movement was taking the world by storm. No one expected Whitney Young to be a civil rights leader. But everyone knew he was destined for big things. Growing up in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky, he dreamed of becoming a doctor. After playing a pivotal role as a mediator between black soldiers and white officers while in the army, he realized that his gifts might be better used elsewhere. He earned a master’s degree in social work in 1947 and began a long and lucrative career with the Urban League. But the primary aim of this organization was to find work for blacks, not to engage in civil rights activism. Over the next twenty years, Young built a considerable reputation among blacks and whites. His genial personality won the trust of white businesses and important philanthropic organizations. He was a natural, shrewd, and charismatic leader. He effortlessly opened up unprecedented opportunities for blacks in the workforce, attracted the support of wealthy philanthropists to fund various programs and the operation of Urban League offices, and facilitated steady and sometimes staggering growth of whatever project was set before him. In 1961, at the age of forty, he became the executive director of the National Urban League. Once at the helm, Young orchestrated a radical course correction, an act that boggled the minds of his colleagues and affluent allies. Young decided that in addition to doing the social work, the Urban League should become a civil rights organization. More impressively, he convinced conservative whites that that was the right thing to do and that they ought to fund it. He managed this same feat during the height of the Black Power Movement. As a civil rights leader, Young did not fit the mold. His style was subtle, moderate, and exceedingly polite and friendly. If it were not for the fact that he was openly aligned with the major civil rights organizations of the day, one could easily confuse him with Booker T. Washington, the famous accommodationist and influential black leader of the nineteenth century. This made Young all the more intriguing, because, unlike Washington, he was not an enemy of the radicals—he was their friend. Despite this, his reputation with conservative and wealthy whites did not suffer. In fact, it flourished.

CHILDHOOD Whitney Moore Young, Jr. was born July 31, 1921 on the campus of the Lincoln Institute in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky, the second of three children

Whitney Young

(Arnita was born in 1920, and Eleanor was born in 1922). The Lincoln Institute was an all-black school set up like a college campus. The mostly white teachers lived on campus, as did the principal of the school, who lived in a three-story house. Like most black schools in the early twentieth century it was geared towards vocational training, offering courses in home economics, nursing, agriculture, construction, industrial arts, and steam and maintenance engineering. Both Whitney’s parents, Whitney Sr. and Laura Young, attended the Institute as youths. Whitney Sr. even taught there for a year before moving to Detroit, Michigan, where, thanks to his engineering degree, he found work at the American Car and Foundry Company and the Detroit United Railway. In 1918, Young married Laura and fought in the armed forces during the latter stages of World War I. After the war, he returned to Detroit and worked as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. Young seemed settled, until the administration of the Lincoln Institute coaxed him back, telling him they wanted him to join the faculty. Young returned to Kentucky a few years later with his wife and Arnita, but the job he was promised turned out to be a ruse. The white principal explained that they actually wanted him to work on campus as the janitor. Young did not get upset. He was an old pro at accommodating whites, as were most blacks in the early twentieth century. It would prove to be his greatest weapon. Young agreed to work as the campus janitor, but only if he was allowed to teach a course in ‘‘janitorial engineering.’’ The principal liked the idea. But unbeknown to him and the rest of the campus, Young also taught straight engineering, bringing in experts to supplement his lectures. Whitney Jr. grew up in a splendidly placid world, knowing very little of the racism that was rampant beyond the borders of the Lincoln Institute. But he never forgot his first glimpse of it at the age of five when he and his parents went to the movies. Whitney Jr. wandered off from his parents into the white-only section of the theater, and the whites got upset with this outrageous behavior. Whitney’s parents reprimanded him, and Whitney Jr. felt the sting. Off campus, public facilities and places were segregated by custom, not by law. The socialization of a black child was as imperative as any other aspect of human development. Survival depended upon ‘‘staying in your place’’ and ‘‘by not talking back’’ (Weiss, 6). Whitney Sr. practiced this shrewdly, because his status depended upon it. For example, when Whitney Sr. returned home from shopping and discovered that the clothes he had bought for his son did not fit, it was Laura, not Whitney Sr., who complained to the store. In those days, blacks were not allowed to try on clothes in stores. Nor could they talk back. But it was more acceptable if a woman complained than a man. Retribution for blacks violating the codes of racial etiquette did not affect black women to the degree it did black men.

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Of the two parents, Laura was the most overtly radical. She regularly ignored the white and black signs posted on restroom doors and water fountains. She defiantly used the restrooms for ‘‘whites’’ and also drank from fountains that were clearly marked for ‘‘whites.’’ She had a forceful energy and an immense heart. Laura was known around campus as someone to go to when in need. Laura fed the homeless, nursed the sick and shut-ins back to health, sent money with notes, and made good manners a top priority. Whitney Jr. was once spanked for not greeting a black person they passed in the street. The Youngs would never be considered wealthy, but they had more than most, and they were extremely generous with their resources. Family time and education were both stressed in the Young household. The family spent a lot of time together, going on walks, socializing with other upwardly mobile black families, playing baseball and cards, and singing around the piano. The Youngs began educating their three children as early as possible. All the children were tutored by a white woman before they entered school. Because of this jump start, Whitney Jr. entered the second grade at the Lincoln Model School at only five years old, and stayed till he was twelve. During his school years, he encountered men who impressed him because of their material achievement and aura of success. He met Julius Thomas, the industrial relations director of the National Urban League and a physician. It was the encounter with the physician that made young Whitney decide he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up. In 1933, he entered Lincoln Institute. In the same year, Whitney Sr. became the first black principal of Lincoln Institute. So much for being a janitor—his patience, likeability, and contributions to the school had paid off. However, the new job was not particularly desirable, for the Institute was in dire straights. Because of lack of money, it was debatable if it would last another year. But Whitney Sr. was a remarkable strategist and a talented fundraiser. He established a ‘‘Faith Plan,’’ in which teachers agreed to receive a cut in pay while he worked on getting the Institute back in shape. He traveled around the state with a group of teachers, students, and the school choir, visiting churches and organizations to beseech financial assistance. He devised a scholarship fund that would benefit both blacks and whites. He worked closely with the state legislature to receive help from the state and implement other measures. In a short time, Whitney Sr. had turned the institute’s finances around and actually increased enrollment. As a man in a position of authority, Whitney Sr. was treated differently from other blacks. This was largely because whites knew that he had leverage in the black community. Treating him with a slightly greater measure of respect was an advantage for them, especially if, for example, a white business owner wanted to cater to black customers.

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Whitney Jr. appeared to thrive at Lincoln Institute—even if he did experience some pressure because his father was the principle. Whitney Sr. certainly expected the best from his children—as he did from the entire student body. He ‘‘preached to his students [and his children]: read books, work hard, and strive for excellence …’ if you want to improve yourself, your community, your state, your country, and the world, start with yourself’’’ (Weiss, 13). As far as building friendships was concerned, Whitney Jr. exhibited a natural easy-going personality that made him popular with everybody. His grades were above average, and he was active in sports, especially enjoying tennis and basketball. In 1937, Whitney Jr. graduated. He was only fifteen years old and had bested everyone academically, including his sister, who was the Institute’s salutatorian.

KENTUCKY STATE INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE There was no question as to whether or not any of the Young children would attend college. All three attended Kentucky State Industrial College in Frankfurt. Despite the fact that Young had been groomed for this next phase of his education, his school grades took a shocking nosedive. During his first year, he received several Cs, Bs, and one D. Perhaps his poor grades can be attributed to his overwhelming popularity, for Young was a jocular, friendly guy. He was involved in sports and he worked to earn extra money, though tuition was free for locals. And one can imagine he was the type of guy who was easily distracted by any and all activity on campus. Kentucky State Industrial, an all-black school, was similar to the Lincoln Institute. There were rules to abide by: no drinking alcohol or smoking, attendance at chapel services was required once a week, and students had to attend the first three Sundays of each month. Young had a breezy college career. After he started dating, his grades improved somewhat. But they dipped again in his junior year, when he was heavily involved again in extracurricular campus activities and was vice president of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. That year he met Margaret Buckner from Aurora, Illinois. Young pursued her, but she did not give in quickly to his advances, as she was already in a relationship. So, in fact, was Young. But their friendship grew. In his senior year, they started seeing each other exclusively, quickly becoming inseparable. Everyone called them ‘‘Junior and Pookie,’’ like they were a couple starring on a popular television show. And indeed they were both very popular. He was so well-liked that he was elected class president in his senior year. At graduation in 1941, Mary McLeod Bethune, the indefatigable civil rights activist and leader in black women’s organizations, gave the commencement address.

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ARMED FORCES Young still wanted to be a doctor, but there were obstacles to overcome. And he needed to save money, so he took several odd jobs during the summer, working as a busboy and a dishwasher at a hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. He also taught math and coached basketball at Rosenwald High School in Madisonville, Kentucky. When he was able, he visited Margaret, who was in her last year at Kentucky State Industrial College. When America entered World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Young decided to enlist. This decision was undoubtedly bolstered by the fact that as a soldier he would receive money for education. He also hoped to receive medical training for free. However, all the black medical schools were full, and so he had to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to study electrical engineering. Young arrived at MIT with three other black men. They had talked among themselves and decided that they were not going to be segregated. In the early twentieth century, the armed forces were not yet desegregated. Surprisingly, the white officers obliged and assigned them to quarters with whites. Only one of Young’s roommates gave him any trouble. He was from Mississippi, where the color line was rigidly enforced in every aspect of life, and was visibly uncomfortable with Young. He complained to an officer on the first day, and returned sulking. He said not a word to Young for three weeks. But thanks to Young’s disarming personality, it would not be long before he penetrated his roommate’s rough exterior and made a friend. Their relationship bloomed in small ways: Young helped him with some math problems, and they exchanged a few words, then they were laughing together. But even Young was shocked when he was asked to be the best man at his wedding. In 1944, Young took a five-day leave for his own wedding, and he and Margaret married on January 2. They honeymooned for one night at a Chicago hotel and spent some time together the next day before Young was off to Rhode Island State College in Kingston. Margaret went back to Kentucky State, where she was teaching freshman composition. That spring, Young was reassigned to the 1695th Engineer Combat Battalion. The soldiers of the battalion were all black, but the officers were white. The white officers did not know what to expect when they first laid eyes on Young, who at over six feet tall and weighing close to 200 pounds was impressive looking. But they had not expected him to have a college degree. Young was promoted to first sergeant, given administrative duties, and was in charge of relaying orders. He no longer had to do any of the grunt work that the black soldiers were doing. One of his most important unofficial jobs was to serve as a liaison between the black soldiers and white officers. The relations in Young’s battalion were similar to those that existed throughout the military, and were representative of the hostile racial climate in America. Whites treated the black men poorly and rarely rewarded them.

Whitney Young

Black soldiers, in turn, could be belligerent, refusing to obey orders and grumbling back at their officers. After a time, white officers began to fear them. Indeed, they were outnumbered, and the blacks were armed. This was where Young stepped in, effectively negotiating a working relationship between the soldiers and the officers. For example, he spoke to the officers about the men’s needs and demands. He then went to the soldiers and got them to agree to follow orders or to remedy whatever problems they had. Sometimes the black men voiced their issues with Young himself, because he had leverage with the whites and worked so easily with them. Thanks to these experiences, Young began to reconsider his life’s work. He had a knack for negotiating, and it concerned him to see how blacks were being treated. He wanted to do something about it. Getting to know the black soldiers was enlightening too. Young’s own life in Kentucky had been drastically different from theirs. Most of them came from poor communities. Many of them were in the army because there were few opportunities for work elsewhere. Upward mobility was not a consideration, given the fact that they were inadequately equipped to compete in the workforce due to the poorly funded schools in the North. Teachers cared little about empowering their black students to strive for lives that would take them out of the ghetto, where those who came from the North lived. Young was frustrated to observe that these soldiers had little self-respect or interest in self-improvement.

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA Young arrived in New York in early January 1946 and was honorably discharged on January 12. Home was now in Minnesota, for Margaret was studying for her master’s degree in educational psychology at the University of Minnesota. Young did not know for certain what he wanted to do next, but he knew he wanted to go to graduate school. He also knew something else: he wanted to help improve the social conditions of blacks. He had a vague notion that social work was the place to start, if only because that was the direction his friends kept pressing him to take. Young went to John C. Kidneigh, the associate director of the University of Minnesota School of Social Work, to flesh out his ideas and discuss what opportunities might fit his experiences and interests. Kidneigh was pleased to meet an ambitious young man so deeply interested in helping his race. After several minutes, Kidneigh knew exactly what Young had been grasping for, and he had the answer: the Urban League. The Urban League was founded in 1910 in New York City at the start of what is known as the Great Migration (1910–1970), the mass migration of blacks from the South to locations throughout the North, primarily to the

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major cities. Although segregation was prohibited in the North, most blacks lived in overcrowded and cheaply built slums or ghettos. Housing was not the only problem blacks faced; unemployment was a serious dilemma. Without jobs, blacks could not buy food, clothes, or other necessities for themselves or their families. Poverty and lack of opportunity gave way to other issues, like high crime and frustration. The Urban League was one way to address joblessness. The Urban League was a collaborative effort between blacks and whites, involving three main organizations: the Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes, the Committee for the Improvement of Industrial Conditions among Negroes in New York, and the National League for the Protection of Colored Women. Two of the key players in the early formation of this organization were Ruth Standish Baldwin, the widow of an extremely wealthy railroad magnate, and Dr. George Edmund Haynes, the first African American at Columbia University to receive a Ph.D. The National Urban League had made significant headway in negotiating with white business owners to employ blacks and train blacks to be prepared for the workforce. During the Great Depression, the organization lobbied on behalf of blacks, who were not included in many of the relief and recovery reforms of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Young agreed with Kidneigh that the Urban League would fit his aspirations. Kidneigh undoubtedly realized that Young would do well in whatever career he choose to pursue. Getting admitted to the master’s program was another challenge. If Young had done better in undergraduate school he would have had an easier time getting accepted. But his grades were not spectacular. And, he had taken very few courses dealing with social work. Nonetheless, Young was accepted, largely because he included an impressive letter from a white captain he had met in the military, who glowingly gave account of how Young kept peace aboard the ship that carried the soldiers home. Young started taking classes in the spring of 1946. He was able to pay for his studies through the GI Bill, which covered tuition and living expenses. He supplemented this money with a job at an athletic club. During the next two years, Young was assigned to two different social agencies. The first was the Hennepin County Welfare Board, where he worked on cases of whites and blacks. In his second year, he was placed at the Minneapolis Urban League, where he shadowed the industrial secretary to various meetings and to employment bureaus, gaining considerable experience on the administrative side of the organization. He met with and interviewed individuals seeking work, and he made reports to the board. When Young sat down to write his thesis on the history of the St. Paul Urban League, he had a surfeit of information and experience from which to draw. But Young went several steps further by conducting interviews in the community, doing research at the local library, and scouring old newspapers. The final product totaled ninety pages.

Whitney Young

ST. PAUL URBAN LEAGUE Young’s attention to detail, sincerity, and professionalism gained him an easy foothold into a position with the National Urban League. Out of graduate school, he took a job as industrial relations secretary to the St. Paul Urban League in the fall of 1947. Young worked under S. Vincent Owens, who had a reputation for turning out stellar leaders. Young was immediately put to the test. Not only was his job to find work for blacks, but he was charged with the task of improving the quality of those jobs and to ensure that blacks who had found employment were being promoted. Young saw to it that blacks received training. He also went into businesses and studied them. For example, when he entered Schuneman’s department store, he observed high numbers of black clientele but no black workers. He convinced the president of that company to hire blacks, then undoubtedly helped supply the employees. Young’s volunteer work kept him involved in the community, sustained his ability to network, increased his visibility, and helped develop him as a leader. Young was a board member of the NAACP, the Associated Negro Credit Union, and the Crispus Attucks Home. He joined the YMCA Men’s Club, the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and the No Name Club. This last organization, made up of black professionals, was particularly important because it permitted Young and the other members to address social concerns, to problem-solve, and to encourage one another’s personal development. Despite his many obligations, Young made family and friends a priority. Margaret managed the home front, splitting her time between being a homemaker and director of teenage and young adult activities at the Hallie Q. Brown Community House. In the evenings, Whitney and Margaret talked over their days, played with the new baby, and dreamed of a successful future. The weekends were largely filled with social activities with other couples. There were parties, dances, picnics, and jaunts to the theater or a concert. Young was a man deeply committed to his community. He believed in being involved at the grassroots level. But he also knew that his work and his busy schedule were preparing him for something grander. Making friends with Lester Granger, then leader of the National Urban League, fed Young’s ambition. When Young met Granger, the latter was in his fifties, bespectacled and balding, and a well-seasoned leader. But word had it that Granger was becoming less progressive and more moderate in his management of the organization. Also, funds were dwindling. In contrast, Young was tall and robust and full of energy and optimism, with a head full of wavy black hair. He approached his work with zeal and had a fresh outlook. But he was still learning.

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OMAHA URBAN LEAGUE Granger watched Young’s professional growth with pleasure. When, in 1949, M. Leo Bohanon transferred from the Omaha Urban League to a chapter in St. Louis, Young was one of six candidates Granger recommended to fill Bohanon’s position as executive director. Young seemed destined for the job, and started his first day on February 1, 1950. Part of Young’s approach as the executive director was to increase the NUL’s exposure in the community, as well as to tackle head-on those businesses that prohibited the hiring of blacks. Young had to ramp up his negotiation skills. Many whites had no interest in hiring blacks at all. But Young was successful with a substantial number of companies by pointing out that employing blacks would benefit them financially. Young backed up his arguments with facts and impressed the managers with his personality. Young’s confident and optimistic persona and temperament helped immensely during these negotiations, and helped encourage whites to step out of their comfort zone. For many white business owners, Young was the first black they had sat down and talked with. Although Young’s work was not directly involved in grassroots social activism, his job had the same objective and yielded the same results. The focus of the NAACP (and future organizations) was to integrate society. The NUL strove to integrate the workforce, while addressing the financial needs of the black community. Young relied on negotiation, rather than direct action, to break new ground in all-white companies and businesses. All in all, Young secured ninety-three firsts for blacks in a variety of occupations in Omaha. On most days, Young did not go straight home from work. Instead he made time for his volunteer interests. He continued his involvement as a board member of the local chapter of the NAACP. He added to his commitment to the Boy Scouts by becoming a board member. Whitney and Margaret made new friends from the church they attended, St. John’s A.M.E. Church, and participated in many church activities. Young was a staunch integrationist. Although he attended an all-black church, he struggled to integrate Omaha’s businesses, as well as its neighborhoods. He and his wife specifically looked to purchase a home in a mostly white neighborhood. They found one they liked and moved in, which encouraged more blacks to move in. But eventually, this caused the whites to move out. Integration was not an easy process. In 1951, Young played a leading role in the move to desegregate low-rent federal public housing in Omaha. This was a long, grueling process that involved a lengthy series of meetings and talks. But Young’s tactics worked—‘‘by the end of 1952, [he] reported that all hotels and eating places in the downtown area, as well as motels and tourist camps on the outskirts of the city, served blacks without discrimination’’ (Weiss, 50).

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Young did not always rely on negotiations alone. There was a local grassroots organization called the De Porres Club that Young called upon in times of need. The De Porres Club utilized direct-action demonstrations. One of the reasons the Urban League did not undertake these tactics themselves was because they were a non-confrontational and conservative organization, and as such, they were able to attain more success with whites. Whites would have been less inclined to associate with a radical organization. Radical demonstrations would have undermined their efforts. But this did not stop Young from shrewdly seeking out the predominately white De Porres Club. When he was able to get a cab company to hire black workers, members of the De Porres Club rode in the cabs and told the cab drivers that they supported the hiring of black drivers. Young wanted to make a point with the cab company that whites would be comfortable with driving in cabs with black drivers. On other occasions, Young and the De Porres Club worked as a team. During negotiations, as a last resort, if he saw that a discussion was not going well, he would mention that he had heard that the De Porres Club was considering staging a demonstration against the company. This indirect threat normally produced instantaneous results in Young’s favor. Other times, as when the club boycotted the Coca-Cola Bottling Company to demand the hiring of black workers, Young appeared and handled negotiations. Young was careful to limit his interactions with the club. He might go to a meeting or stop by briefly at a demonstration to show his support, but he was not among the picketers, and he never officially joined the group. Because Young was a leader of the NUL, he stayed clear of any behavior that might undermine his good standing with the Urban League or with white business leaders.

ATLANTA UNIVERSITY Young was not certain what to do when, in 1953, he received an offer to become the new dean of the Atlanta University School of Social Work in Georgia. Young went to his friend, Art McCaw, who was on the board of the Urban League and someone whose opinion he respected, to help him work through his dilemma. There was a part of Young that felt this was an opportunity not to be considered lightly, and yet the pay was less than what he received as the executive director at the Omaha Urban League. Furthermore, if he stayed, he stood a chance to fill the position of executive directorship in Philadelphia. But McCaw told Young to take the Atlanta job, and so he did. In December 1953, Lauren, Young’s second daughter, was born. In the following month, the Youngs were unpacking boxes, putting up framed photographs on the walls, and settling into their new brick home for faculty

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in Atlanta, Georgia. Margaret was not happy about the move to Atlanta, mostly because she did not want to live in a Jim Crow environment, and she particularly did not want to raise her children under such oppressive laws and rules. She worried over the affect of segregation on their girls. But Margaret made the most of a miserable situation. She taught courses in education and psychology at Spelman College, an institution for black women, and avoided Jim Crow buses and facilities if at all possible. She made the children use the restroom at home before leaving for an outing so they did not have to use the ‘‘black-only restrooms,’’ and she did not use the parks or go to certain other segregated places. Young faced similar challenges, but he responded to them differently. If anything, Young thrived in the face of adversity. One challenge entailed the School of Social Work itself. The school was floundering. Like his father two decades ago just starting out as the principal of Lincoln Institute, Young set out to save the school. He made huge changes: he integrated the student body, increased faculty salaries, and adjusted the curriculum. His changes brought forth significant growth. Young also tackled Jim Crow in the community. He was a board member of the NAACP in Atlanta. He also founded the Atlanta Committee for Cooperative Action and was involved in the Atlanta Citizens Committee on Economic Opportunity and Employment. He was co-chairman of the Greater Atlanta Council on Human Rights. The Greater Atlanta Council on Human Rights was formed in 1958. One of its major campaigns for that year was to desegregate public libraries in Atlanta. After negotiations failed, the organization pursued legal recourse. Young and a professor who taught at Spelman College in Atlanta spearheaded efforts to find appropriate plaintiffs. That was no easy task, because the plaintiffs not only had to be beyond reproach, but they had to be fearless or at least willing to face unknown dangers. It was common knowledge that plaintiffs faced threats, intimidation, and harassment. Many lost their jobs and could be barred from employment everywhere in the city. However, on May 19, Young received an unsuspecting and pleasant surprise. A member of the library board called, asking for Young’s group to hold off on the lawsuit. On that same day, the board held an emergency meeting and agreed to desegregate the libraries. At the end of that week, black students from the local colleges and universities tested the libraries. No one reported any problems or hassles. The Atlanta Committee for Cooperative Action (ACCA) comprised young black leaders from the Atlanta community. This organization presented a bold new alternative to the general acceptance of accommodationism in the community. Since Booker T. Washington had made accommodationism extremely popular in the nineteenth century, these blacks continued to practice it. In one sense, it was an effective way to get along with whites. And it was the one ideology that (historically) both whites and blacks approved. Whites permitted blacks to enjoy some sense of achievement (though drastically limited

Whitney Young

compared to the limitless economic and social mobility of whites), and blacks could live with little fear of violent backlash or intimidation. Young gave a speech at the Urban League’s annual conference in 1959. Despite the move to Atlanta for a job unaffiliated with the Urban League, Young had remained in contact with people he knew from his old office, as well as with its executive director, Lester Granger. The speech that he gave was important not only for its content, but because of what would come of it. Lindsley F. Kimball was in the audience that day. Kimball was the vice president of the General Education Board. He had significant connections with major philanthropic organizations. Later, he would serve as the executive vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation. When Kimball heard Young speak and saw the effect he had on the audience, he was more than impressed. It was well-known that Granger was no longer as effective as he had once been. The time for him to retire was drawing near. Kimball figured Young would be a marvelous candidate to succeed Granger. Kimball got in touch with Young and started to work on getting him thinking about leaving Atlanta. Young was receptive. As much as he enjoyed being in the thick of the action, his wife was not happy there, largely because of the Jim Crow laws, and she was concerned that their daughter was not getting the best education possible or the best opportunities. Young considered Kimball’s suggestion: take a sabbatical (an extended period away which faculty take for rest or pursuit of other projects or academic interests) from the university and attend graduate school for a year. Both knew that the sabbatical would transition Young into possible leadership of the NUL, ideally the position of executive secretary (if Granger could ever agree to retire). The break would give Young time to refresh himself, as well as to prepare himself for greater responsibilities. Young agreed. As he made preparations to leave, Young participated in another ACCA campaign in Atlanta. He helped publish A Second Look: The Negro Citizen in Atlanta (1960). White Atlantans had worked long and hard to project a positive image to the rest of the nation, especially the North. The Civil War (1861–1865) had devastated all hopes of ever returning to the Old South, or antebellum period, which depended upon black slave labor and was based mostly on an agricultural economy. Journalist and long-standing editor of the Atlanta Constitution Henry W. Grady popularized the term ‘‘New South’’ to refer to its industrial advancements, economic growth, and purported improvement in race relations. Leaders in Atlanta were particularly proud of their alleged progress in terms of industrial growth and blackwhite relations. But ACCA’s publication exposed several ‘‘inequalities that black Atlantans experienced in education, health services, housing, employment, justice, law enforcement, and policy making’’ (Weiss, 64). Before ACCA distributed the publication to local businesses and prominent white leaders in the city, the members asked the conservative black leaders to look it over. Surprisingly, the accommodationist leaders approved

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of it and were relieved that a group bolder than they had the courage to undertake such a campaign. ACCA was even more pleased when major newspapers, such as the Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Daily World, published in-depth articles about the book. ACCA had not anticipated that the publication would inspire a new generation of activists. Following the famous sit-in at a Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth’s lunch counter involving students from North Carolina A&T College, black and white students took part in sit-ins throughout the South. A number of students, including those who studied under Young, participated in local sit-ins in Atlanta, Georgia. Young was extremely supportive of these young activists. It was Young to whom they turned for advice and encouragement. Young’s support of the local sit-in movement was no secret to anyone. Because of his support, there were those who accused Young of masterminding the demonstrations. But Young acted largely as a resource for the students (not a leader like King was to the black citizens in the Montgomery Bus Boycott). His role involved cheering them on and offering advice along the way. Others implored Young, because of his influence, to persuade the students to stop demonstrating. But he would not. He was proud of what the students were doing, and was more than thrilled to be of any kind of assistance. HARVARD UNIVERSITY Young’s colleagues, his students, and the administration were sad to see him go north after seven years in Atlanta. They sensed that Young was off to greater ventures and would not be returning. Margaret enjoyed the atmosphere in Harvard so much better. It was a welcome break for her from the heaviness of the social climate in Atlanta. Young began his studies in the fall of 1960. He studied social sciences, thanks to a General Education Board Fellowship, which gave him monies to cover his tuition and living expenses. That spring, right on schedule, the Urban League launched its campaign to hire a new executive director. There were seven candidates, including Young. Most of the others were in their fifties and had served in top positions with the Urban League. Young was the youngest and currently on leave from his duties at a university, taking classes at Harvard University. On paper, Young had the least experience and was not currently actively involved in the League. Against those odds, Young got the job, with an official start date of October 1, 1961. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE Employees and leaders in the Urban League craved change, and they certainly got that under Young’s leadership. Young brought the sort of energy

Whitney Young

to his job that made everyone feel secure and relieved. Emboldened by the challenges ahead, Young formulated steps to restructure the affiliate offices, improve the organization’s public image, raise more money, and—most radically—facilitate the transition of the Urban League into an active partner in the Civil Rights Movement. These objectives would require the skill of a steady, confident, and skilled hand. Young’s first test was the move to a predominately white neighborhood. The first black family that had tried to move in was deterred when whites who did not want them in their neighborhood broke all the exterior windows of the house. The black family changed its mind and moved to another neighborhood. Young’s real estate agent contrived a brilliant plan to avert resistance. He told the neighbors that they were fortunate to have a neighbor like Young. He told them that the Youngs were wanted in other upscale and prominent neighborhoods, but he chose this one. The ploy worked, and the Youngs moved in. White neighbors poured on the kindness, offered to help them unpack, brought cookies, and asked for play dates with their children and Young’s two girls. Young was personally invited to join the neighbors’ association. Young was not the only one to face challenges in the community. When Marcia started her first day at the integrated New Rochelle High School she faced a dubious situation. Not only was she the new girl, but her father had instructed her to not fall into the pattern of associating only with blacks. At high school, the blacks and whites generally socialized separately, so when Marcia declined the offer to sit with the other black girls at lunchtime, she had to sit alone. Eventually, she was welcomed to sit with a group of white girls. At work, Young displayed nonstop energy and expected everyone to keep up. He saw to it that all the affiliate offices adjusted their programs to be in alignment with the national office. This structure had worked well for the NAACP. Rather than allow each affiliate office to make up its own objectives, they had to follow instructions from one central office. Although this did away with the individual character of each organization (sometimes at the cost of neglecting local issues and needs), it increased productivity and efficiency. Bringing about uniformity to the Urban League also enhanced its public image. Young believed that the image that the Urban League projected was critical to its success, for it was important to attract blacks in the community as well as philanthropists and corporate sponsors. During a pep talk to Urban League executives in Young’s first year, Young advocated professionalism. He developed new programs, demonstrating the UL’s commitment to the community and the fact that the organization was active, lively, and thriving. Some of the programs included after-school tutoring, workshops targeting high school dropouts (to prepare them for college), counseling for black families, homes for special needs children, assistance to black veterans, and a host of other projects.

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Uncle Tom Uncle Tom is an epithet used commonly by radical blacks to describe conservative blacks. The term was derived from the Harriet Beecher Stowe novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), but the meaning used by radical blacks has little to do with the character from that book. That Tom, a black slave, was portrayed as a martyred hero. Over time, the definition of Uncle Tom has altered to refer to a black person who is subservient to whites, especially one who would not ever oppose, defy, or challenge whites in any way. Along with this definition comes the idea that the ‘‘Uncle Tom’’ has assimilated white behavior and speech. Blacks who call other blacks ‘‘Uncle Tom’’ challenge the authenticity of the other person’s racial identity and portray him to be something of a ‘‘sellout,’’ another epithet for someone who betrays his own group. During the years that saw the rise of the Black Power Movement and the dimming of the popularity of civil rights leaders, the term was immensely popular. Among the prominent leaders to be called Uncle Toms were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young. The term and its implicit condemnation appear to be an ill match with such civil rights luminaries, since these men’s lives and careers were dedicated to fighting against racism, oppression, and discrimination, and to seeking social justice. As a result, black radicals appear to have created a new meaning for the term ‘‘Uncle Tom’’: an objection to the policies of conservative blacks. Thus, the term began to be used to describe any black who did not embrace the black power agenda. In time, conservatism, pacifism, integrationism, and even middle classism began to be associated with the image of a sellout or Uncle Tom. Conservative black leaders shake their heads at this phenomenon, which so thoughtlessly dismisses their ideals.

The Urban League was profoundly helped by the donations that Young raised. Young was a powerful fundraiser. He exuded confidence at meetings with donors. His straight talk was tempered by his charisma and the trust that he built so easily with many wealthy whites and philanthropic organizations. Young knew the right words to speak, and he was able to adjust his message according to his audience. By this time he had fine-tuned and gone beyond the abilities he had first exhibited while in the military, and could convince both blacks and whites to come to agreement on just about any issue. Young’s efforts ‘‘paid off’’ handsomely in the following year, as the numbers reflect: Bethlehem Steel, which had contributed $2,500 in 1961, gave $4,000 in 1962; General Electric and General Motors both raised their gifts from $2,500 to

Whitney Young

$5,000; Kaiser Industries’ donation jumped from $100 to $5,100; Western Electric’s gift rose from $2,500 to $7,000; and IBM’s donation went from $1,650 to $7,500. U.S. Steel, which had not contributed at all in 1961, gave $5,000 for 1962. All told, corporate gifts totaled $153,000 in 1962 and $527,000 the year after. (Weiss, 93)

While Young spearheaded changes and improvements to the NUL, he kept an eye on the progress of the Civil Rights Movement. He privately pondered his organization’s role in the events that were unfurling, events that had captured the attention of America and the world. Due to his personal interest as well as the fact that he felt it was the responsible thing for his organization to do, Young wanted desperately to be a part of the struggle. Given the historic goals of the organization to raise the economic status of blacks and to desegregate workplaces, civil rights were not, in his mind, extending too radically beyond their scope. Young did realize that to many in his organization—as well as his donors—this step would be seen as a drastic undertaking. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT The Civil Rights Movement was, arguably, the largest and most important period of African American protest. It was led predominately by blacks themselves. The NAACP made significant contributions with a series of legal wins, the most well-known being the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 that ended the legal practice of segregation in public schools in the South. The next milestone was the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which spawned a wave of similar demonstrations in other areas across the South. The sit-in movement began in 1960 and continued through the decade in the South. In 1961, black and white college students, representing the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), launched the Freedom Rides, which challenged—and ultimately put an end to—segregated interstate transportation and facilities. Because of the tremendous media attention, most anyone could list the major organizations involved in the struggle for civil rights, as well as their leaders: James Forman, the executive secretary of SNCC; James Farmer, head of CORE; and Martin Luther King, Jr., the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Women were also active participants in the movement, notably Dorothy Height, who was at the helm of the National Council for Negro Women (NCNW). Young knew them all, but he was closest to Roy Wilkins, since he had been a long-standing member of the NAACP. As early as 1962, Young began to prepare the soil for the Urban League’s entrance into the Civil Rights Movement. In that year, he told an audience at the ‘‘annual convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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[that the Urban League was] ‘a necessary and important ally’ in the civil rights struggle’’ (Weiss, 101). Also, in 1962, Young and a former trustee of the NUL met with President John F. Kennedy to discuss pressing social issues in black communities such as education, equal employment, housing, and health care. These were also concerns of the prominent civil rights organizations, although segregation and voting rights were what largely drove the mass demonstrations. Kennedy in his first year as president was a symbol of hope for blacks, as well as for the nation as a whole. He was youthful, charismatic, and winsome. He had the sort of star quality that could disarm conservative southerners who, in that period, were as resistant to change as civil rights organizations were forceful in their demands for it. Blacks believed Kennedy would be the one to usher in racial progress. But Kennedy proved to be a guarded supporter. Though the ills of segregation were obvious, he moved cautiously and slowly. He feared that if he took a strong and active role in achieving progress for blacks, he might provoke a national crisis, given the opposition and resistance of whites in the South. He also thought overt and speedy change might compromise the security of his presidency. Although Kennedy listened attentively to what the two men had to say and even appeared agreeable to the idea that the federal government should take an active role in addressing the social problems that blacks faced, the meeting made little, if any, tangible headway towards a definitive program for blacks. Young did not give up on building a relationship with the president, but his unproductive meeting motivated him to forge ahead with his own plans. In a 1963 memo to League executives, Young detailed the criteria for NUL involvement in the Civil Right’s Movement and why it should contemplate joining the struggle. He stated that affiliates ought not to initiate or participate actively in picketing and boycotting, but that they needed to be visible and to communicate effectively with the protesters. It was essential for the league to be sufficiently involved to maintain the respect of the black community and to take a leadership role in resolving some of the crises. (Weiss, 101)

Not everyone in the League backed Young from the start. As the skeptics saw it, the NUL was a social-service agency, not a social-activist organization. In that day, civil rights demonstrations were perceived as radical and revolutionary. The naysayers were also concerned that the radicalization of the Urban League might undo pivotal connections to and relationships with government officials and financial contributors. Most donors to the League based their support on its moderate stance as much as on the good works it accomplished in black communities. To convince the skeptics within the League as well as tentative white financial contributors, Young had the

Whitney Young

success of the ongoing stream of demonstrations, such as the campaigns King waged in the Deep South that forced the involvement of President Kennedy. Growing pressure from blacks within the community also swayed the skeptics. Soon the question the executives asked one another was not ‘‘Should we join?’’ but ‘‘When will we join?’’ Eventually, they looked to Young for the answer. But his approach was calculated and cautious; there would be no sudden and drastic action from Whitney Young. Council for United Civil Rights Leadership The year 1963 began with an unprecedented meeting, and Young was invited. Stephen Currier was well-known among elite foundations and philanthropic organizations. He and his wife, Audrey Bruce Currier, had established the Taconic Foundation in 1958. This foundation was different from most in that it reflected Currier’s interest in the ‘‘radical’’ civil rights organizations of the day. It was his idea to put the heads of the organizations into one room and to facilitate the establishment of an elite group called the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership (CUCRL). There were several participants, but the most famous were Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, James Forman, John Lewis, Dorothy Height, and the newcomer Whitney Young. The importance of that meeting and subsequent get-togethers is highlighted by the fact that each organization until that moment had acted independently. Although the organizations remained autonomous, the effort to come together to talk, to acknowledge each other’s role, and to combine forces for fundraising endeavors proved indispensable. But the meetings were also at times contentious. The various leaders often vied for money and media attention, and it was often difficult to come together on a plan of attack. For example, if Wilkins called for a moratorium (the cessation of demonstrations), he was hard-pressed to convince the front-line organizations like SNCC and CORE to agree. Conflict was often caused by personality differences, especially between Wilkins and Forman. Wilkins and Young were the most conservative leaders in the group, mainly because their organizations did not engage in direct action as the others’ did. But Wilkins was less diplomatic than Young during the meetings and exuded overbearing qualities (the NAACP was the longest running and, arguably, the mightiest of the organizations in terms of numbers and political influence). James Forman of SNCC was as dogmatic as Wilkins, but from the opposite perspective. His youthful idealism and aggressiveness showed itself at most meetings. John Lewis, Forman’s alternate, was much more composed and amicable. Young played an instrumental role in these meetings; he utilized his negotiating and mediating skills to forge truces and help settle disputes.

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March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom The objectors were not completely silent the day Young announced that he had been contacted by A. Philip Randolph, the leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Randolph wanted Young to participate in a march he was planning. In the years before the Civil Rights Movement, Randolph was legendary for his role in procuring wage increases and better hours for black porters and for the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces. In 1963, Randolph, at seventy-four, was as noble in his appearance as he was esteemed for his contributions to the cause. Randolph was a portrait of elegance—tall and lean, with a crown of snow-white hair that was a striking contrast to his brown skin. When he spoke, it was with the profound resonance of the Harvard elite, although he had actually attended City College in New York. No one could refuse Randolph. Young did not plan to either, even if his decision created some dissonance among some in the League. From the start, Young made it clear that he would only participate in the march if all the leaders involved agreed to a conservative demonstration. It was thus largely Young’s doing that the forthcoming march set a light and non-malevolent tone. Young participated in the planning meetings and had private conversations with President Kennedy, who was anxious about the gathering. He worried that the march might provoke strife in the nation or ignite a riot. But Young and others reiterated over and over that the purpose of the march was to conduct a large-scale demonstration for a peaceful call to racial equality and for improvements in employment and other areas. Kennedy gave the okay, but he was not completely at ease. Kennedy was not the only one who was anxious about the march. Young had a lot riding on the event as well. He had his own reputation, as well as that of his organization to think about. If the march failed, his career and quite possibly the Urban League itself might be done for. Young’s vigilance over the planning of the march and the speeches that each leader would give bothered the leaders of the other organizations, and SNCC most of all. SNCC had hoped for a more aggressive approach to the march, for they saw it as an opportunity to let loose and exert radicalness. Although the actual march played out majestically and without violence, SNCC activists grumbled that the day was too passive, too watered down. Nonetheless, Kennedy was relieved. He was also so excited by the demonstration that he invited the major leaders back to his office afterward. This paved the way for a good working relationship between civil rights leaders and subsequent presidents that continues to this day. Urban League Tactics Young returned to the NUL office in triumph. The day had been a momentous one for the nation, as well as for Young and the League. As one of the

Whitney Young

speakers, Young’s status as a civil rights leader had been sealed, initiating the League’s entrance into the Civil Rights Movement. In the next few years, the Urban League did not organize or participate in direct-action demonstrations. But it did participate vicariously through Young’s acknowledged role and symbolically through the public support it garnered. This approach was arguably insignificant. But as Young had explained back in 1962, the League represented an important ally, affirming the interests of the blacks they reached and legitimizing the movement to rich, ultra-conservative philanthropists. Young personally lent his negotiating power to meetings with more than one president. His high visibility only helped strengthen the League. March on Selma, Alabama The Selma march, a campaign launched by King’s SCLC, took place in 1965. The first attempt was marked by violence, as police officers beat demonstrators as they tried to march to the Alabama capital. That day was so violent it became known as ‘‘Bloody Sunday.’’ The second attempt was shortened because King did not want to defy a local court injunction prohibiting the march. The media reported on the violence in graphic video and words, gaining immense national attention. When the march finally occurred, Young was there, fresh and inspiring as he spoke under the shadow of the Alabama state capitol. He was one of many prominent leaders who gave a presentation that day. BLACK POWER MOVEMENT Black Power Ideology Young watched in despair as his youngest daughter, Lauren, grew her hair out into a billowy brown afro. Lauren’s inspiration was Angela Davis, an activist associated with the Black Power Movement. The afro was more than a trendy hairstyle; it was a powerful symbol of resistance, of race consciousness, of everything that threatened to undermine all of Young’s work. Young knew the man, Stokely Carmichael, who had coined the term ‘‘Black Power’’ at a 1966 rally in Greenwood, Mississippi. Carmichael had once been a part of the civil rights struggle as a prominent SNCC activist. The term alarmed civil rights leaders, including Young, and irreparably tore a rift between older and younger generations. Although young black militants insisted the term was a positive call for black pride and self-determination, Young knew well that it was heavily laden with anger and a radicalness he could not embrace. The fiery term infused an ideology of black separatism and a militancy that had been simmering in the nation’s ghettos since the 1940s.

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The Riots The riots that erupted in 1964 and lasted through the remainder of the decade in the northern cities reflected the militant spirit of the Black Power Movement. Although black power leaders like H. Rap Brown instigated some of the riots, other militant organizations, like the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, tried to calm blacks down and, in some cases, prevent the outbreak of riots within the confines of black communities. The riots were largely a result of the frustrations of young black youths who were overwhelmed by the racism, despair, and hopelessness engendered by living in overcrowded, dilapidated, and rat-infested ghettos and exacerbated by incidences of police brutality and harassment. The race riots were largely contained within black environments. The riots could last for days and involved looting, the destruction of local businesses and property, and the setting on fire of cars and buildings. Few deaths occurred during the actual riots. More deaths resulted when police officers or national guardsmen arrived to restore order. The riots stoked fear and confusion in the hearts of whites—including those who gave money, year after year, to organizations like the Urban League to improve their chances for a better life—who did not understand the underlying problems that caused the riots. In this perilous hour, Young became an advocate for the rioters. He endeavored to articulate their needs to the media, to the president, and to others of influence and power. In numerous speeches, Young tried to show his doubting audience an alternative way of looking at what was happening, and why. ‘‘The riots made white Americans aware of the problems faced by blacks and brought them face-to-face with the realization that those problems threatened the future of the nation’’ (Weiss, 130). Young plunged into action. He published To Be Equal (1967), which put forward in-depth solutions to the many social and economic problems of blacks in America. He developed the idea of compensatory action and, in discussions with President Lyndon B. Johnson, contributed to ideas that resulted in Johnson’s War on Poverty program and the formation of affirmative action. Shifting Focus Young tried to forge connections with Black Power organizations. He attended black power conferences. But generally, black militants were critical of Young. They called him ‘‘Whitey Young,’’ and castigated him for aligning himself with whites rather than with militant blacks, for pushing integration, and for refusing to subscribe to ‘‘blackness,’’ as it was culturally exemplified. But Young was a creative opportunist, making the most of the new times, doing his best to stay in step with the new movement without compromising

Whitney Young

Affirmative Action Affirmative action is a hotly contested issue in America. The first instance of this concept can be found in Executive Order 10925, issued in 1961 by John F. Kennedy. This initial attempt was bolstered by Lyndon B. Johnson when he issued Executive Order 11246, which resulted in the establishment of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Johnson continued to push for equality for blacks through his own interests and through discussions with such civil rights leaders as James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality and Whitney Young of the National Urban League. Johnson coined the term ‘‘affirmative action’’ during a speech at Howard University in 1965. The purpose of affirmative action was to help diversify institutions, workplaces, and other public spaces. It was also employed to address the practice—deliberate or not—and law-enforced custom of barring blacks and other minority groups, including white women, from exclusively white-male environments. As Young conceived it, affirmative action was to be a temporary remedy to the disparities and problems blacks faced. The term provokes mixed emotions to this day. Many conservative whites excoriate affirmative action policies, claiming that to give preference to one race over another is in itself discrimination. The term ‘‘reverse discrimination’’ was coined to describe situations in which affirmative action favors the marginalized. Some conservative blacks agree, and feel that the policy is degrading. Other blacks recognize it is not the best solution but feel that it has engendered progress and is still very much needed to ensure that marginalized groups are not discriminated against. In the 1990s, a black man named Ward Connerly launched a nationwide campaign to eliminate affirmative action. In 1997, California banned all forms of affirmative action in the state. In 1998, the state of Washington followed suit. In 2000, Governor Jeb Bush (President George W. Bush’s brother) abolished affirmative action in college admissions in Florida. Civil rights leaders are dismayed over these recent developments. To them, it is not yet time to dismantle the pivotal gains that have been achieved. Economic, political, and social disparities are still serious problems in black communities. They fear that to take away policies that level the playing field might prove disastrous.

his beliefs or the premise of the NUL. He established a New Thrust program ‘‘to develop a range of special projects aimed at building economic and political power where most blacks were concentrated’’ (Weiss, 181). At the 1968 annual CORE convention, he outlined his shift in tactics. CORE and SNCC were formerly integrationists, but in 1966, these organizations became militant due to dissatisfaction with pacifist techniques,

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conflict with white members of their organizations, and a desire to exert more control over the direction of the movement and their lives. During his speech, Young referred to his audience as ‘‘brothers and sisters,’’ and affirmed the audience’s advocacy of black power. His speech ‘‘astonished and delighted them.’’ He later had to justify his speech on a radio program, explaining that his support of black power did not include endorsement for violence or black separatism (Weiss, 183).

Great Society The Great Society Program was an ambitious and laudatory step taken to address poverty and racism in America. Put into place in the mid-1960s by President Lyndon B. Johnson (although John F. Kennedy had wrestled with some of the concepts prior to his assassination), the program was specifically created to meet the needs of disadvantaged minorities. A number of programs operating today are by-products of Johnson’s program, including the Job Corps (to provide job training), the Peace Corps, Upward Bound (to prepare inner-city youths for college), Food Stamps, and Head Start (for children). An array of anti-poverty programs was created under the banner of the ‘‘War on Poverty.’’ Johnson’s programs were both visionary and timely, especially considering the barrage of race riots that inflamed black communities in the North in the same decade. These riots occurred due to neglect and rampant problems associated largely with poverty and racism. However, America’s increasing embroilment in the Vietnam War siphoned away monies that had previously funded Great Society programs and dominated the president’s attention. As a result of this, augmented by the political conservatism of the 1980s, many of the gains that had been achieved were diminished.

Young closed out the decade with controversy. He went to Vietnam in 1966, to investigate how black soldiers were being treated. Young reported problems, such as blacks being prohibited from advancement, to President Johnson. In 1967, he went again to Vietnam, this time at Johnson’s behest as a member of a delegation charged to report on the elections that took place there. Young’s report was positive, but civil rights leaders felt he should not have gone, since they were in disagreement with America’s involvement in the war. Despite the dissention he created among black leaders, the decade ended on a tremendous note when, in 1969, Johnson awarded Young the Medal of Freedom.

Whitney Young

INTO THE 1970S Young was still a major figure at the start of the new decade. As a result, he continued to be away from home frequently, which put a strain on his wife and children who missed him and wanted to see more of him. Although Young was enamored of his role and the attention he generated, he sometimes agonized over not having more time for his family. He thought seriously about leaving the NUL for some other opportunity. It was during this time of reflection that Young accepted an invitation to join several delegates to participate in a dialogue between African Americans and Africans in Lagos, Nigeria. During the conference, Young and several others wandered to the beach for a swim. On March 11, 1971, Young tragically drowned. He was forty-nine years old. See also Stokely Carmichael; Angela Davis; James Farmer; Dorothy Height; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis; A. Philip Randolph; and Roy Wilkins. FURTHER RESOURCES Dickerson, Dennis C. Militant Mediator. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. National Urban League (April 2008). See http://www.nul.org/history.html. Weiss, Nancy J. Whitney M. Young, Jr., and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. Young, Whitney. Beyond Racism: Building an Open Society. New York: McGrawHill, 1969. Young, Whitney. To Be Equal. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

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Appendix 1: Executive Order 8802 Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, less than six months before the American entry into World War II, Executive Order 8802 prohibited government contractors from engaging in employment discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. REAFFIRMING POLICY OF FULL PARTICIPATION IN THE DEFENSE PROGRAM BY ALL PERSONS, REGARDLESS OF RACE, CREED, COLOR, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN, AND DIRECTING CERTAIN ACTION IN FURTHERANCE OF SAID POLICY June 25, 1941 WHEREAS it is the policy of the United States to encourage full participation in the national defense program by all citizens of the United States, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, in the firm belief that the democratic way of life within the Nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders; and WHEREAS there is evidence that available and needed workers have been barred from employment in industries engaged in defense production solely because of considerations of race, creed, color, or national origin, to the detriment of workers’ morale and of national unity: NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes, and as a prerequisite to the successful conduct of our national defense production effort, I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and I do hereby declare that it is the duty of employers and of labor organizations, in furtherance of said policy and of this order, to provide for the full

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and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin; And it is hereby ordered as follows: 1. All departments and agencies of the Government of the United States concerned with vocational and training programs for defense production shall take special measures appropriate to assure that such programs are administered without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin; 2. All contracting agencies of the Government of the United States shall include in all defense contracts hereafter negotiated by them a provision obligating the contractor not to discriminate against any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin; 3. There is established in the Office of Production Management a Committee on Fair Employment Practice, which shall consist of a chairman and four other members to be appointed by the President. The Chairman and members of the Committee shall serve as such without compensation but shall be entitled to actual and necessary transportation, subsistence and other expenses incidental to performance of their duties. The Committee shall receive and investigate complaints of discrimination in violation of the provisions of this order and shall take appropriate steps to redress grievances which it finds to be valid. The Committee shall also recommend to the several departments and agencies of the Government of the United States and to the President all measures which may be deemed by it necessary or proper to effectuate the provisions of this order. Franklin D. Roosevelt The White House June 25, 1941

Appendix 2: Executive Order 9981 On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, establishing the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. Although segregation in the military services did not officially end until President Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of defense announced the abolition of the last all-black unit on September 30, 1954, Executive Order 9981 began the process of desegregating the armed forces of the United States. Whereas it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who served in our country’s defense: Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority invested in me as President of the United States, and as Commander in Chief of the armed services, it is hereby ordered as follows: 1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale. 2. There shall be created in the National Military Establishment an advisory committee to be known as the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, which shall be composed of seven members to be designated by the President. 3. The Committee is authorized on behalf of the President to examine into the rules, procedures and practices of the armed services in order to determine in what respect such rules, procedures and practices may be altered

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or improved with a view to carrying out the policy of this order. The Committee shall confer and advise with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Air Force, and shall make such recommendations to the President and to said Secretaries as in the judgement of the Committee will effectuate the policy hereof. 4. All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government are authorized and directed to cooperate with the Committee in its work, and to furnish the Committee such information or the services of such persons as the Committee may require in the performance of its duties. 5. When requested by the Committee to do so, persons in the armed services or in any of the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall testify before the Committee and shall make available for use of the Committee such documents and other information as the Committee may require. 6. The Committee shall continue to exist until such time as the President shall terminate its existence by Executive Order. Harry S. Truman The White House July 26, 1948

Appendix 3: Selected Excerpts from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 An Act to enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the ‘‘Civil Rights Act of 1964.’’

TITLE I—VOTING RIGHTS Section 101 (2) No person acting under color of law shall— (A) in determining whether any individual is qualified under State law or laws to vote in any Federal election, apply any standard, practice, or procedure different from the standards, practices, or procedures applied under such law or laws to other individuals within the same county, parish, or similar political subdivision who have been found by State officials to be qualified to vote; (B) deny the right of any individual to vote in any Federal election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or

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omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election; or (C) employ any literacy test as a qualification for voting in any Federal election unless (i) such test is administered to each individual and is conducted wholly in writing, and (ii) a certified copy of the test and of the answers given by the individual is furnished to him within twenty-five days of the submission of his request made within the period of time during which records and papers are required to be retained and preserved pursuant to title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (42 U.S.C. 1974-74e; 74 Stat. 88): Provided, however, That the Attorney General may enter into agreements with appropriate State or local authorities that preparation, conduct, and maintenance of such tests in accordance with the provisions of applicable State or local law, including such special provisions as are necessary in the preparation, conduct, and maintenance of such tests for persons who are blind or otherwise physically handicapped, meet the purposes of this subparagraph and constitute compliance therewith. TITLE II—INJUNCTIVE RELIEF AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN PLACES OF PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION Section 201 (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. (b) Each of the following establishments which serves the public is a place of public accommodation within the meaning of this title if its operations affect commerce, or if discrimination or segregation by it is supported by State action: (1) any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests, other than an establishment located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence; (2) any restaurant, cafeteria, lunchroom, lunch counter, soda fountain, or other facility principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises, including, but not limited to, any such facility located on the premises of any retail establishment; or any gasoline station; (3) any motion picture house, theater, concert hall, sports arena, stadium or other place of exhibition or entertainment; and (4) any establishment (A) (i) which is physically located within the premises of any establishment otherwise covered by this subsection, or (ii) within the premises of which is physically located any such covered establishment,

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and (B) which holds itself out as serving patrons of such covered establishment. (d) Discrimination or segregation by an establishment is supported by State action within the meaning of this title if such discrimination or segregation (1) is carried on under color of any law, statute, ordinance, or regulation; or (2) is carried on under color of any custom or usage required or enforced by officials of the State or political subdivision thereof; or (3) is required by action of the State or political subdivision thereof. (e) The provisions of this title shall not apply to a private club or other establishment not in fact open to the public, except to the extent that the facilities of such establishment are made available to the customers or patrons of an establishment within the scope of subsections (b). Section 202 All persons shall be entitled to be free, at any establishment or place, from discrimination or segregation of any kind on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin, if such discrimination or segregation is or purports to be required by any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, rule, or order of a State or any agency or political subdivision thereof. Section 203 No person shall (a) withhold, deny, or attempt to withhold or deny, or deprive or attempt to deprive, any person of any right or privilege secured by section 201 or 202, or (b) intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person with the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by section 201 or 202, or (c) punish or attempt to punish any person for exercising or attempting to exercise any right or privilege secured by section 201 or 202. Section 204 (a) Whenever any person has engaged or there are reasonable grounds to believe that any person is about to engage in any act or practice prohibited by section 203, a civil action for preventive relief, including an application for a permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order, or other order, may be instituted by the person aggrieved and, upon timely application, the court may, in its discretion, permit the Attorney General to intervene in such civil action if he certifies that the case is of general public importance. Upon application by the complaint and in such circumstances as the court may deem just, the court may appoint an attorney for such complainant and may authorize the commencement of the civil action without the payment of fees, costs, or security.

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(b) In any action commenced pursuant to this title, the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs, and the United States shall be liable for costs the same as a private person. (c) In the case of an alleged act or practice prohibited by this title which occurs in a State, or political subdivision of a State, which has a State or local law prohibiting such act or practice and establishing or authorizing a State or local authority to grant or seek relief from such practice or to institute criminal proceedings with respect thereto upon receiving notice thereof, no civil action may be brought under subsection (a) before the expiration of thirty days after written notice of such alleged act or practice has been given to the appropriate State or local authority by registered mail or in person, provided that the court may stay proceedings in such civil action pending the termination of State or local enforcement proceedings. Section 205 The Service is authorized to make a full investigation of any complaint referred to it by the court under section 204(d) and may hold such hearings with respect thereto as may be necessary. The Service shall conduct any hearings with respect to any such complaint in executive session, and shall not release any testimony given therein except by agreement of all parties involved in the complaint with the permission of the court, and the Service shall endeavor to bring about a voluntary settlement between the parties. Section 206 (a) Whenever the Attorney General has reasonable cause to believe that any person or group of persons is engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of any of the rights secured by this title, and that the pattern or practice is of such a nature and is intended to deny the full exercise of the rights herein described, the Attorney General may bring a civil action in the appropriate district court of the United States by filing with it a complaint (1) signed by him (or in his absence the Acting Attorney General), (2) setting forth facts pertaining to such pattern or practice, and (3) requesting such preventive relief, including an application for a permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order or other order against the person or persons responsible for such pattern or practice, as he deems necessary to insure the full enjoyment of the rights herein described. (b) In any such proceeding the Attorney General may file with the clerk of such court a request that a court of three judges be convened to hear and determine the case. Such request by the Attorney General shall be accompanied by a certificate that, in his opinion, the case is of general public importance. A copy of the certificate and request for a three-judge court shall be

Appendix 3

immediately furnished by such clerk to the chief judge of the circuit (or in his absence, the presiding circuit judge of the circuit) in which the case is pending. Upon receipt of the copy of such request it shall be the duty of the chief judge of the circuit or the presiding circuit judge, as the case may be, to designate immediately three judges in such circuit, of whom at least one shall be a circuit judge and another of whom shall be a district judge of the court in which the proceeding was instituted, to hear and determine such case, and it shall be the duty of the judges so designated to assign the case for hearing at the earliest practicable date, to participate in the hearing and determination thereof, and to cause the case to be in every way expedited. An appeal from the final judgment of such court will lie to the Supreme Court. In the event the Attorney General fails to file such a request in any such proceeding, it shall be the duty of the chief judge of the district (or in his absence, the acting chief judge) in which the case is pending immediately to designate a judge in such district to hear and determine the case. In the event that no judge in the district is available to hear and determine the case, the chief judge of the district, or the acting chief judge, as the case may be, shall certify this fact to the chief judge of the circuit (or in his absence, the acting chief judge) who shall then designate a district or circuit judge of the circuit to hear and determine the case. It shall be the duty of the judge designated pursuant to this section to assign the case for hearing at the earliest practicable date and to cause the case to be in every way expedited. TITLE III—DESEGREGATION OF PUBLIC FACILITIES Section 301 (a) Whenever the Attorney General receives a complaint in writing signed by an individual to the effect that he is being deprived of or threatened with the loss of his right to the equal protection of the laws, on account of his race, color, religion, or national origin, by being denied equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof, other than a public school or public college as defined in section 401 of title IV hereof, and the Attorney General believes the complaint is meritorious and certifies that the signer or signers of such complaint are unable, in his judgment, to initiate and maintain appropriate legal proceedings for relief and that the institution of an action will materially further the orderly progress of desegregation in public facilities, the Attorney General is authorized to institute for or in the name of the United States a civil action in any appropriate district court of the United States against such parties and for such relief as may be appropriate, and such court shall have and shall exercise jurisdiction of proceedings instituted pursuant to this section. The Attorney General may implead as defendants

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such additional parties as are or become necessary to the grant of effective relief hereunder. TITLE IV—DESEGREGATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION: DEFINITIONS Section 401 (b) ‘‘Desegregation’’ means the assignment of students to public schools and within such schools without regard to their race, color, religion, or national origin, but ‘‘desegregation’’ shall not mean the assignment of students to public schools in order to overcome racial imbalance. SURVEY AND REPORT OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES Section 402 The Commissioner shall conduct a survey and make a report to the President and the Congress, with two years of the enactment of this title, concerning the lack of availability of equal educational opportunities for individuals by reason of race, color, religion, or national origin in public educational institutions at all levels in the United States, its territories and possessions, and the District of Columbia. TITLE VI—NONDISCRIMINATION IN FEDERALLY ASSISTED PROGRAMS Section 601 No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. Section 603 Any department or agency action taken pursuant to section 602 shall be subject to such judicial review as may otherwise be provided by law for similar action taken by such department or agency on other grounds. In the case of action, not otherwise subject to judicial review, terminating or refusing to grant or to continue financial assistance upon a finding of failure to comply with any requirement imposed pursuant to section 602, any person aggrieved (including any State or political subdivision thereof and any agency of either) may obtain judicial review of such action in accordance with section 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act, and such action shall not be deemed committed to unreviewable agency discretion within the meaning of that section.

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TITLE VII—EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY: DISCRIMINATION BECAUSE OF RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, SEX, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN Section 703 (a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer— (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; (2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. (b) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employment agency to fail or refuse to refer for employment, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, or to classify or refer for employment and individual on the basis of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. (c) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for a labor organization— (1) to exclude or to expel from its membership, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; (2) to limit, segregate, or classify its membership, or to classify or fail or refuse to refer for employment any individual, in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities, or would limit such employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee or as an applicant for employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or (3) to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an individual in violation of this section. (d) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for any employer, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee controlling apprenticeship or other training or retraining, including on-the-job training programs to discriminate against any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in admission to, or employment in, any program established to provide apprenticeship or other training. (e) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, (1) it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to hire and employ employees, for an employment agency to classify, or refer for employment any individual, for a labor organization to classify its membership or to classify or refer for employment any individual, or for an employer, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee controlling apprenticeship or other training or retraining programs to admit or employ any individual in any

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such program, on the basis of his religion, sex, or national origin in those certain instances where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise, and (2) it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for a school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning to hire and employ employees of a particular religion if such school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning is, in whole or in substantial part, owned, supported, controlled, or managed by a particular religion or by a particular religious corporation, association, or society, or if the curriculum, of such school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning is directed toward the propagation of a particular religion. (f) As used in this title, the phrase ‘‘unlawful employment practice’’ shall not be deemed to include any action or measure taken by an employer, labor organization, joint labor-management committee, employment agency with respect to an individual who is a member of the Communist Party of the United States or of any other organization required to register as a Communist-action or Communist-front organization by final order of the Subversive Activities Control Board pursuant to the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950. (i) Nothing contained in this title shall apply to any business or enterprise on or near an Indian reservation with respect to any publicly announced employment practice of such business or enterprise under which preferential treatment is given to any individual because he is an Indian living on or near a reservation. OTHER UNLAWFUL EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES Section 704 (a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate against any of his employees or applicants for employment, for an employment agency to discriminate against an individual, or for a labor organization to discriminate against any member thereof or applicant for membership, because he has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice by this title, or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this title. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION Section 705 (a) There is hereby created a Commission to be known as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which shall be composed of five members,

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not more than three of whom shall be members of the same political party, who shall be appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. One of the original members shall be appointed for a term of one year, one for a term of two years, one for a term of three year, one for a term of four years, one for a term of five years, beginning from the date of enactment of this title, but their successors shall be appointed for terms of five years, except that any individual chosen to fill a vacancy shall be appointed only for the unexpired term of the member whom he shall succeed. The President shall designate one member to serve as Chairman of the Commission, and one member to serve as Vice Chairman. The Chairman shall be responsible on behalf of the Commission for the administrative operations of the Commissions, and shall appoint, in accordance with the civil service laws, such officers, agents, attorneys, and employees as it deems necessary to assist it in the performance of its functions and to fix their compensation in accordance with the Classification Act of 1949, as amended. The Vice Chairman shall act as Chairman in the absence or disability of the Chairman or in the event of a vacancy in that TITLE VIII—REGISTRATION AND VOTING STATISTICS Section 801 The Secretary of Commerce shall promptly conduct a survey to compile registration and voting statistics in such geographic areas as may be recommended by the Commission on Civil Rights. Such a survey and compilation shall, to the extent recommended by the Commission on Civil Rights, only include a count of persons of voting age by race, color, and national origin, and determination of the extent to which such persons are registered to vote, and have voted in any statewide primary or general election in which the Members of the United States House of Representatives are nominated or elected, since January 1, 1960. Such information shall also be collected and compiled in connection with the Nineteenth Decennial Census, and at such other times as the Congress may prescribe. The provisions of section 9 and chapter 7 of title 13, United States Code, shall apply to any survey, collection, or compilation of registration and voting statistics carried out under this title: Provided, however, That no person shall be compelled to disclose his race, color, and national origin, or questioned about his political party affiliation, how he voted, or the reasons therefore, nor shall any penalty be imposed for his failure or refusal to make such disclosure. Every person interrogated orally, by written survey or questionnaire or by any other means with respect to such information shall be fully advised with respect to his right to fail or refuse to furnish such information. Source: Civil Rights Act (1964). Historical Documents in United States History. April 1, 2008. See http://www.historicaldocuments.com/CivilRights Act1964.htm.

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Appendix 4: Selected Excerpts from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 An Act to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act shall be known as the ‘‘Voting Rights Act of 1965.’’

Section 2 No voting qualifications or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color. Section 3 (a) Whenever the Attorney General institutes a proceeding under any statute to enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment in any State or political subdivision the Court shall authorize the appointment of Federal examiners by the United States Civil Service Commission in accordance with section 6 to serve for such period of time and for such political subdivisions as the court shall determine is appropriate to enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment (1) as part of any interlocutory order if the court determines that the appointment of such examiners is necessary to enforce such guarantees or (2) as part of any final judgment if the court finds that violations of the

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fifteenth amendment justifying equitable relief have occurred in such State or subdivision: Provided, That the court need not authorize the appointment of examiners if any incidents of denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race or color (1) have been few in number and have been promptly and effectively corrected by State or local action, (2) the continuing of effect of such incidents has been eliminated, and (3) there is no reasonable probability of their recurrence in the future. Section 4 (a) To assure that the right of citizens of the United States to vote is not denied or abridged on account of race or color, no citizen shall be denied the right to vote in any Federal, State, or local election because of his failure to comply with any test or device in any State with respect to which the determinations have been made under subsection (b) or in political subdivision with respect to which such determinations have been made as a separate unit, unless the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in an action for a declaratory judgment brought by such State or subdivision against the United States has determined that no such test or device has been used during the five years preceding the filing of the action for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color: Provided, That no such declaratory judgment shall issue with respect to any plaintiff for a period of five years after the entry of a final judgment of any court of the United States, other than the denial of a declaratory judgment under this section, whether entered prior to or after the enactment of this Act, determining that denials or abridgments of the right to vote on account of race or color through the use of such tests or devices have occurred anywhere in the territory of such plaintiff. An action pursuant to this subsection shall be heard and determined by a court of three judges in accordance with the provisions of section 2284 of title 28 of the United States Code and any appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court. The court shall retain jurisdiction of any action pursuant to this subsection for five years after judgment and shall reopen the action upon motion of the Attorney General alleging that a test or device has been used for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color. If the Attorney General determines that he has no reasons to believe that any such test or device has been used during the five years preceding the filing of the action for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, he shall consent to the entry of such judgment. (b) The provisions of subsection (a) shall apply in any State or in any political subdivision of a state which (1) the Attorney General determines maintained on November 1, 1964, any test or device, and with respect to which (2) the Director of the Census determines that less than 50 per

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centum of the persons of voting age residing therein were registered on November 1, 1964, or that less than 50 per centum of such persons voted in the presidential election of November 1, 1964. A determination or certification of the Attorney General or of the Director of the Census under this section or under section 6 or section 13 shall not be reviewable in any court and shall be effective upon publication in the Federal Register. (c) The phrase ‘‘test or device’’ shall mean any requirement that a person as a prerequisite for voting or registration for voting (1) demonstrate the ability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter, (2) demonstrate any educational achievement or his knowledge of any particular subject, (3) possess good moral character, or (4) prove his qualifications by the voucher of registered voters or members of any other class. (d) For purposes of this section no State or political subdivision shall be determined to have engaged in the use of tests or devices for the purpose or with the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color if (1) incidents of such use have been few in number and have been promptly and effectively corrected by State or local action, (2) the continuing effect of such incidents has been eliminated, and (3) there is no reasonable probability of their recurrence in the future. (e) (1) Congress hereby declares that to secure the rights under the fourteenth amendment of persons educated in American-flag schools in which the predominant classroom language was other than English, it is necessary to prohibit the States from conditioning the right to vote of such persons on ability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter in the English language. (2) No person who demonstrates that he has successfully completed the sixth primary grade in a public school in, or a private school accredited by, any State or territory, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in which the predominant classroom language was other than English, shall be denied the right to vote in any Federal, State, or local election because of his inability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter in the English language, except that in States in which State law provides that a different level of education is presumptive of literacy, he shall demonstrate that he has successfully completed an equivalent level of education in a public school in, or a private school accredited by, any State or territory, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in which the predominant classroom language was other than English. Section 10 (a) The Congress finds that the requirement of the payment of a poll tax as a precondition to voting (i) precludes persons of limited means from voting or imposes unreasonable financial hardship upon such persons as a precondition

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to their exercise of the franchise, (ii) does not bear a reasonable relationship to any legitimate State interest in the conduct of elections, and (iii) in some areas has the purpose or effect of denying persons the right to vote because of race color. Upon the basis of these findings, Congress declares the constitutional right of citizens to vote is denied or abridged in some areas by the requirement of the payment of a poll tax as a precondition to voting. Section 11 (a) No person acting under color of law shall fail or refuse to permit any person to vote who is entitled to vote under any provision of this Act or is otherwise qualified to vote, or willfully fail or refuse to tabulate, count, and report such person’s vote. (b) No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for urging or aiding any person to vote or attempt to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for exercising any powers or duties under section 3(a), 6, 8, 9, 10, or 12(e). (c) Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address, or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both: Provided, however, That this provision shall be applicable only to general, special, or primary elections held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, or Delegates or Commissioners from the territories or possessions, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. (d) Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of an examiner or hearing officer knowingly and willfully falsifies or conceals a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. Source: Voting Rights Act 1965. Historical Documents in United States History. April 1, 2008. See http://www.historicaldocuments.com/Voting RightsActof1965.htm.

Appendix 5: Excerpt from the Black Panther Party Ten Point Platform and Program (October 1966) What We Want What We Believe 1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community. 2. We want full employment for our people. 3. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalist of our Black Community. 4. We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings. 5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society. 6. We want all black men to be exempt from military service. 7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people. 8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county, and city prisons and jails. 9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States. 10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace.

Source: Hilliard, David. Huey: Spirit of the Panther. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006, pp. 31–35.


Appendix 6: Icons in Their Own Words The following section contains quotes pulled from the essays, autobiographies, speeches, interviews, and other publications of the twenty-four icons of African American protest featured in these two volumes. W.E.B. DU BOIS: ON THE POWER OF PROTEST, 1907 W.E.B. Du Bois wrote the essay ‘‘The Value of Agitation’’ in 1907. In this essay, Du Bois defended his endorsement of African American protest, and, in doing so, challenged the prevailing anti-black attitudes, laws, and practices in the United States. We are confirmed in our belief that if a man stand up and tell the thing he wants and point out the evil around him, that this is the best way to get rid of it. May we not hope then that we are going to have in the next century a solid front on the part of colored people in the United States, saying we want education for our children and we do not have it today in any large measure; we want full political rights and we never have had that; we want to be treated as human beings; and we want those of our race who stand on the threshold and within the veil of crime to be treated not as beasts, but as men who can be reformed or as children who can be prevented from going further in their career. If we all stand and demand this insistently, the nation must listen to the voice of ten millions.

Source: Foner, Philip S., ed. W.E.B. Du Bois Speaks: Speeches and Addresses, 1890–1910 . New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970, pp. 174–178.

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IDA B. WELLS-BARNETT: A SOLUTION TO THE LYNCHING EPIDEMIC, 1909 Ida B. Wells-Barnett spoke the following words in ‘‘Lynching, Our National Crime,’’ a speech she gave at the National Negro Conference in New York in 1909—almost two decades after she singlehandedly pioneered an anti-lynching campaign. Is there a remedy, or will the nation confess that it cannot protect its protectors at home as well as abroad? Various remedies have been suggested to abolish the lynching infamy, but year after year, the butchery of men, women, and children continues in spite of plea and protest. Education is suggested as a preventive, but it is as grave a crime to murder an ignorant man as it is a scholar. True, few educated men have been lynched, but the hue and cry once started stops at no bounds, as was clearly shown by the lynchings in Atlanta, and in Springfield, Illinois. Agitation, though helpful, will not alone stop the crime. Year after year statistics are published, meetings are held, resolutions are adopted. And yet lynchings go on.… The only certain remedy is an appeal to law. Lawbreakers must be made to know that human life is sacred and that every citizen of this country is first a citizen of the United States and secondly a citizen of the state in which he belongs. This nation must assert itself and protect its federal citizenship at home as well as abroad. The strong men of the government must reach across state lines whenever unbridled lawlessness defies state laws, and must give to the individual under the Stars and Stripes the same measure of protection it gives to him when he travels in foreign lands. Federal protection of American citizenship is the remedy for lynching.

Source: Wells-Barnett, Ida B. ‘‘Lynching, Our National Crime.’’ In Can I Get a Witness?: Prophetic Religious Voices of African American Women: An Anthology. Edited by Marcia Y. Riggs and Barbara Holmes. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997, pp. 146–150. MARCUS GARVEY: RADICALISM DEFINED, 1923 Marcus Mosiah Garvey’s second wife, Amy Jacques-Garvey, published the Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey in 1923 during an intense campaign to deport him back to Jamaica by those who opposed his views on black separatism and nationalism and his ambitious programs to empower blacks. Garvey, the leader of the massively popular Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), was eventually deported in 1927. The following quote comes from an essay entitled ‘‘Radicalism.’’ ‘Radical’ is a label that is always applied to people who are endeavoring to get freedom.

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Jesus Christ was the greatest radical the world every saw. He came and saw a world of sin and his program was to inspire it with spiritual feeling. He was therefore a radical. George Washington was dubbed a radical when he took up his sword to fight his way to liberty in America one hundred and forty years ago. All men who call themselves reformers are perforce radicals. They cannot be anything else, because they are revolting against the conditions that exist. Conditions as they exist reveal a conservative state, and if you desire to change these conditions you must be a radical.

Source: Jacques-Garvey, Amy, ed. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1923, pp. 18–19. THURGOOD MARSHALL: ON SECURING AND ENFORCING CIVIL RIGHTS, 1942 Thurgood Marshall, who later argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the monumental Brown v. Board of Education case that declared segregated schools unconstitutional in 1954, spoke the following words in his speech ‘‘The Legal Attack to Secure Civil Rights’’ during the NAACP’s Wartime Conference in 1942. Thus it seems clear that although it is necessary and vital to all of us that we continue our program for additional legislation to guarantee and enforce certain of our rights, at the same time we must continue with ever-increasing vigor to enforce those few statutes, both federal and state, which are now on the statute books. We must not be delayed by people who say ‘‘the time is not ripe,’’ nor should we proceed with caution for fear of destroying the ‘‘status quo.’’ Persons who deny to us our civil rights should be brought to justice now. Many people believe the time is always ‘‘ripe’’ to discriminate against Negroes. All right then—the time is always ‘‘ripe’’ to bring them to justice. The responsibility for the enforcement of these statutes rests with every American citizen regardless of race or color. However, the real job has to be done by the Negro population with whatever friends of the other races are willing to join in.

Source: Marshall, Thurgood. ‘‘The Legal Attack to Secure Civil Rights.’’ In The American Civil Rights Movement: Readings and Interpretations. Edited by Raymond D’Angelo. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001, pp. 189–194. ROY WILKINS: ENCOURAGING YOUNG ACTIVISTS, 1959 Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP (1955–1977), was among the speakers who addressed young demonstrators at a Youth March for Integrated Schools in 1959. Following is an excerpt from his speech. So you are here to say by your presence and in your resolutions that you want integrated schools for all American children. You have every right to say this

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to your government and to all among the citizenry who will listen. No one has a better right, for in so speaking, you are demanding only that the high pronouncements and glorious traditions of this beloved bastion of freedom be vindicated, and that we be about the business of building the kind of world in which your generation can preserve freedom.

Source: Wilkins, Roy. Talking It Over with Roy Wilkins: Selected Speeches and Writings. Norwalk, CT: M & B Publishing, 1977, pp. 21–23. JOHN LEWIS: ON GETTING ARRESTED FOR THE FIRST TIME, 1960 John Lewis, SNCC chairman (1963–1966), faced violence and was arrested numerous times during civil rights demonstrations. In the following excerpt from his autobiography, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998), he explains the rush he felt following his first arrest in 1960 while participating in a sit-in in Nashville, Tennessee. But I felt no shame or disgrace. I didn’t feel fear, either. As we were led out of the store single file, singing ‘‘We Shall Overcome,’’ I felt exhilarated. As we passed through a cheering crowd gathered on the sidewalk outside, I felt high, almost giddy with joy. As we approached the open rear doors of a paddy wagon, I felt elated. It was really happening, what I’d imagined for so long, the drama of good and evil playing itself out on the stage of the living, breathing world. It felt holy, and noble, and good. That paddy wagon—crowded, cramped, dirty, with wire cage windows and doors—seemed like a chariot to me, a freedom vehicle carrying me across a threshold.

Source: Lewis, John. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998, pp. 100–101. FANNIE LOU HAMER: THE STRUGGLE FOR THE BALLOT, 1962 Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer described in the following excerpt from her autobiography, To Praise Our Bridges (1967), the moment she decided to register to vote in 1962. Until then I’d never heard of no mass meeting and I didn’t know that a Negro could register and vote. Bob Moses, Reggie Robinson, Jim Bevel and James Forman were some of the SNCC workers who ran that meeting. When they asked for those to raise their hands who’d go down to the courthouse the next day, I raised mine. Had it up high as I could get it. I guess if I’d had any sense I’d a-been a little scared, but what was the point of being scared. The only thing they could do to me was kill me and it seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember.

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After leaving the registration office, Hamer lost her home, her job, and nearly her life. Source: Hamer, Fannie Lou. ‘‘To Praise Our Bridges.’’ In Mississippi Writers: Reflections of Childhood and Youth. Edited by Dorothy Abbott. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985, pp. 321–330. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: IN DEFENSE OF NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION, 1963 In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957–1968), wrote ‘‘Letter from Birmingham City Jail’’ (1963) while imprisoned for his participation in a demonstration. The letter was a response to a public statement given by Alabama clergy who denounced his organized remonstrations. The following is an excerpt from that letter. You may well ask, ‘‘Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn’t negotiation a better path?’’ You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

Source: King, Martin Luther, Jr. ‘‘Letter from Birmingham City Jail.’’ Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1963, p. 5. MALCOLM X: MILITANCY RECONSIDERED, 1963 At the onset of Malcolm X’s activism, his radicalism was evident in the following words from his 1963 speech ‘‘Message to the Grass Roots.’’ In this address, Malcolm X gives his definition of a revolution—something he believed at that time was necessary to address the grievances of African Americans. A revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no compromise. Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. And you, sitting around here like a knot on the wall, saying, ‘‘I’m going to love these folks no matter how much they hate me.’’ No, you need a revolution. Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms, as Reverend Cleage was pointing out beautifully, singing ‘‘We Shall Overcome’’? Just tell me. You don’t do that in a revolution. You don’t do any singing; you’re too busy swinging. It’s based on land. A revolutionary wants land so he can set up his own nation, an independent nation. These Negroes aren’t asking for no nation. They’re trying to crawl back on the plantation.

Source: Malcolm X. ‘‘Message to the Grassroots.’’ American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches. November 10, 2007. See http://www.americanrhetoric. com/speeches/malcolmxgrassroots.htm.

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WHITNEY M. YOUNG, JR.: ADVOCATING FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS BEYOND BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS, 1964 Following the explosion of race riots in African American communities in the North, Whitney M. Young, Jr., Executive Director of the National Urban League (1961–1971), published a plan of action in his book To Be Equal (1964) to address the needs of African Americans extending beyond the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. The following is an excerpt from that book. The basic issue here is one of simple logic and fairness. The scales of justice have been heavily weighted against the Negro for over three hundred years and will not suddenly in 1964 balance themselves by applying equal weights. In this sense, the Negro is educationally and economically malnourished and anemic. It is not ‘‘preferential treatment’’ but simple decency to provide him for a brief period with special vitamins, additional food, and blood transfusions.

Source: Young, Whitney M. To Be Equal. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964, p. 25. MALCOLM X: RECONSIDERING BLACK SEPARATISM, 1965 Following a life-changing pilgrimage to Mecca, the sacred city in Islam, Malcolm X, who once called whites ‘‘blue-eyed devils,’’ reconsiders his black separatist philosophy in this excerpt from a 1965 interview with acclaimed African American photographer Gordon Parks. Remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant—the one who wanted to help the Muslims and the whites get together—and I told her there wasn’t a ghost of a chance and she went away crying? … Well, I’ve lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping Black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument.

Source: Ali, Noaman. ‘‘Interview with Gordon Parks.’’ Malcolm-x.org. November 10, 2007. See http://www.malcolm-x.org/docs/int_parks.htm.

ROBERT F. WILLIAMS: ON THE WATTS RIOT IN LOS ANGELES, 1965 Robert F. Williams established the radical radio station, Radio Free Dixie, while exiled in Cuba. The following is an excerpt from a 1965 broadcast concerning the Watts Riot, one of many that erupted in the 1960s. Yes, Los Angeles, Los Angeles is a warning to oppressor racist beasts that they can no longer enjoy immunity from retribution for their brutal crimes of

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violence and oppression of our people. Let them be apprised of the fight. That we are going to have justice or set the torch to racist America. The masses of our people want relief from their misery.… We must protect ourselves. We must defend ourselves. We must meet violence with violence.… Let us resist tyranny to the death. Resist, resist, resist! Burn, burn, burn! Death to the oppressor! Down with the thug cops! To the streets and let our battle cry be heard around the world! Freedom, freedom, freedom now or death!

Source: Mosley, Walter. ‘‘Aug. 11, 1965: The Day Oppression Exploded.’’ The Freedom Archives. November 10, 2007. See http://www.freedomarchives. org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/2005-August/001332.html. STOKELY CARMICHAEL: ON BLACK POWER, 1966 Stokely Carmichael, chairman of SNCC (1966–1967), was a harbinger of the Black Power Movement. The following excerpt comes from a speech, entitled ‘‘Black Power,’’ which he gave in 1966 in Berkeley, California. We cannot have white people working in the black community—on psychological grounds. The fact is that all black people question whether or not they are equal to whites, since every time they start to do something, white people are around showing them how to do it. If we are going to eliminate that for the generation that comes after us, then black people must be in positions of power, doing and articulating for themselves. That’s not reverse racism; it is moving onto healthy ground; it is becoming what the philosopher Sartre says, an ‘‘antiracist racist.’’ And this country can’t understand that. If everybody who’s white sees himself as racist and sees us against him, he’s speaking from his own guilt.

Source: Carmichael, Stokely. ‘‘Black Power.’’ Sojust.net. November 10, 2007. See http://www.sojust.net/speeches/stokely_carmichael_blackpower. html. HUEY P. NEWTON: ON ARMED RESISTANCE, 1967 Huey P. Newton was the minister of defense for the Black Panther Party beginning in 1966. The following excerpt comes from his article, ‘‘In Defense of Self Defense,’’ published on June 20, 1967, in the Black Panther newspaper. Black people must now move, from the grass roots up through the perfumed circles of the Black bourgeoisie, to seize by any means necessary a proportionate share of the power vested and collected in the structure of America. We must organize and unite to combat by long resistance the brutal force used against us daily. The power structure depends upon the use of force within retaliation. This is why they have made it a felony to teach guerrilla warfare. This is why they want the people unarmed.

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The racist dog oppressors fear the armed people; they fear most of all Black people armed with weapons and the ideology of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. An unarmed people are slaves or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If a government is not afraid of the people it will arm the people against foreign aggression. Black people are held captive in the midst of their oppressors. There is a world of difference between thirty million unarmed submissive Black people and thirty million Black people armed with freedom, guns, and the strategic methods of liberation.

Source: Hilliard, David, and Donald Weise, eds. The Huey P. Newton Reader. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002, pp. 134–137. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH: MILITANCY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF AN ADVOCATE OF NONVIOLENCE, 1969 In a 1969 oral history interview, preserved in the L.B.J. Library, A. Philip Randolph, the distinguished leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a civil rights pioneer, explained militancy in the following excerpt. Militancy consists largely in their idea of achieving an objective by any means necessary. That’s what they’re for. Now that involves violence and so forth, and I am definitely opposed to calculated organized violence in order to achieve our civil rights objective. In the first place, after you have had violence you still have the problem. Violence doesn’t solve the problem. It may attract attention to it but then you still have the problem, because the problem is involved in relationships between forces and groups with respect to an idea.… Many of [the militants] have no concept of the history of revolution. They haven’t given time to try to find out what the mechanism, the structure, and so forth of revolutionary developments are. But they’ve grasped this, and some of them misconstrue riots for revolution.… [The militants are] quite impatient and they perhaps are making a contribution, because the older Negro leaders are not disposed to enter upon new adventures and things of that sort, you know; and you need this new force to come in and through dialogues if you can have them, why, ideas are changed, points of view are modified, tactics and strategy will undergo transformation.…

Source: Transcript. A. Philip Randolph Oral History Interview I, 10.29.69, by Thomas H. Baker, Internet Copy, L.B.J. Library. ELLA BAKER: ON THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1969 In her speech, ‘‘The Black Woman in the Civil Rights Struggle’’ (1969), Ella Baker gives her distinctive perspective on a controversial topic. Historians, as well as some women activists of the civil rights era, frequently criticized

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the lack of inclusion of women in the male-dominated Civil Rights Movement. I was a little bit amazed as to why the selection of a discussion on the role of black women in the world.… I have never been one to feel great needs in the direction of setting myself apart as a woman. I’ve always thought first and foremost of people as individuals … [but] wherever there has been struggle, black women have been identified with that struggle.

Source: Grant, Joanne. Ella Baker: Freedom Bound. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998, pp. 227–231. ANGELA DAVIS: AN ACTIVIST DESCRIBES HER CALLING TO ACTIVISM, 1969 In Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974), Angela Davis, following several years of extensive study in New York, Massachusetts, France, and Germany, recounts her desperate longing to be a part of the Black Power Movement while a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego (1968/69). She subsequently joined the Black Panther Political Party, the Student Nonviolent Coordinatin Committee (SNCC), and the Che-Lumumba Club. I was like an explorer who returns to his homeland after many years, with precious bounty and no one to give it to. I believed my energy, my commitment, my convictions were the treasure I had accumulated, and I looked high and low for a way to spend it. I roamed the campus, examined the bulletin boards, read the newspapers, talked to everyone who might know: Where are my people? It was as if I would be churned up and destroyed inside by these irrepressible desires to become a part of a liberation movement if I did not soon discover an outlet for them. Therefore, I turned to the radical students’ organization on campus.…

Source: Davis, Angela. Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York: International Publishers, 1974, pp. 152–153. ELAINE BROWN: POLITICAL AGENDA OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, 1973 In 1973, before Elaine Brown became the minister of defense of the Black Panther Party, she made an unsuccessful bid for the Oakland City Council, along with the organization’s co-founder Bobby Seale. In the following excerpt from her autobiography, A Taste of Power (1992), Brown asserts the party’s objective. Our agenda was to overthrow the United States government. It was to defend the humanity of our people with armed force. It was to institute socialist revolution. That was not the program of the Republican Party. It was not the program of the Democratic Party. It was not the program of the traditional white-endorsed, black-faced candidates. It was not the program of the

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NAACP or the Urban League. It was not even the program of the black nationalists or SNCC or the radical Peace and Freedom Party. It was still the program of the Black Panther Party.

Source: Brown, Elaine. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992, p. 323. JAMES LEONARD FARMER, JR.: REMINISCING ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1985 James Leonard Farmer, Jr. was the national director of CORE (1961–1966) and one of the leaders of the Freedom Rides, which were conducted to test legislation that prohibited segregation in intrastate travel and public facilities. In the following excerpt from Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement (1985), Farmer reflects on Dr. Martin Luther King’s Montgomery Bus Boycott and his program of nonviolence. Here was a movement of black Americans flying in the face of the American cult of ‘‘the big fist wins.’’ Here was a movement dedicated to the proposition that one could win without using any fists at all, except those pounding within the soul. King’s Montgomery protest not only repudiated the violent machismo of America; it also stirred to awakening another America—the America of Emerson and Thoreau, of the Quakers, of the abolitionists, the America of principle and compassion. A part of America was born again, one might say, and the rebirth lasted through the decade of the sixties.

Source: Farmer, James. Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1985, p. 186. ROSA PARKS: ON PROGRESS SINCE THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1992 Rosa Parks, the woman who was arrested and lionized for not giving up her seat on a Jim Crow bus in 1955, expressed her thoughts on the impact of the Civil Rights Movement in her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story (1992). My life has changed a great deal since 1955.… I look back now and realize that since that evening on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, we have made a lot of progress in some ways. Young people can go to register to vote without being threatened and can vote without feeling apprehensive. There are no signs on public water fountains saying ‘‘Colored’’ and ‘‘White.’’ There are big cities with black mayors, and small towns with black mayors and chiefs of police.… All those laws against segregation have been passed, and all that progress has been made. But a whole lot of white peoples’ hearts have not been changed. Dr. King

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used to talk about the fact that if a law was changed, it might not change hearts but it would offer some protection. He was right. We now have some protection, but there is still much racism and racial violence. In recent years there has been a resurgence of reactionary attitudes. I am troubled by the recent decisions of the Supreme Court that make it harder to prove a pattern of racial discrimination in employment and by the fact that the national government does not seem very interested in pursuing violations of civil rights. What troubles me is that so many young people, including college students, have come out for white supremacy and that there have been more and more incidents of racism and racial violence on college campuses. It has not been widespread, but still it is troublesome. It seems like we still have a long way to go.

Source: Parks, Rosa, with Jim Haskins. Rosa Parks: My Story. New York: Scholastic, 1992, pp. 186–187. LOUIS FARRAKHAN: MANY PATHS, ONE GOAL, 1995 Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam Minister, is one of the most controversial black leaders of the twenty-first century. Historically, he has been a critic of prominent protest organizations. In the following excerpt of a speech Farrakhan gave at the 1995 Million Man March, he demonstrates a change of heart. We must belong to some organization that is working for and in the interest of the uplift and the liberation of our people. Go back, join the NAACP if you want to, join the Urban League, join the All African People’s Revolutionary Party, join us, join the Nation of Islam, join PUSH, join the Congress of Racial Equality, join SCLC—the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, but we must become a totally organized people and the only way we can do that is to become a part of some organization that is working for the uplift of our people.

Source: ‘‘Minister Farrakhan Challenges Black Men: Transcript from Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Remarks at the Million Man March.’’ CNN.com. November 10, 2007. See http://www-cgi.cnn.com/US/9510/ megamarch/10-16/transcript/index.html. JESSE JACKSON: ON THE EDUCATION OF AN ACTIVIST, 2000 The following is an excerpt from a 2000 Teen Ink interview with Jesse Jackson in which he discusses his preparation for protest work. Many who left school [to join the Civil Rights Movement] never came back; I was tempted to do the same thing. I was just as fascinated; it became a very personal thing because of my own pain and rejection and denial of access based on the race law.

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[Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor] called me in one day and said, ‘‘I know you’re inspired by Mike.’’ (That’s what he called Dr. King.) ‘‘But,’’ he said, ‘‘Mike has his Ph.D. And a lot of guys are talking, protesting and doing a good job. But because Mike is so prepared with his B.S. degree and his doctorate, having read the great books, his sense of philosophy and history, his contributions will outlast theirs. He’s prepared for the struggle.’’ ‘‘So, if you are as committed as you say you are, you must decide now to be a student of the movement, not just a student in the movement. You will cease to be a student at some point, and so your commitment to the struggle must be your commitment to prepare to offer something of substance to it.’’ And so I did not leave school; actually I became president of the student body. Then I went to graduate school, which was enormously important to me in terms of preparation. And the irony of all is that—the ultimate irony—after finishing two years of seminary, Dr. King came to Chicago. I had six more months to finish. He said to me, ‘‘You will learn more theology right here in this room with me in six months than you’ll learn in six years of seminary.’’ I said, ‘‘It’s easy for you to say, you have your Ph.D.’’ And I asked my wife who said, ‘‘I know you want to finish, but the unique opportunity to work with Dr. King may be such that if you remain focused it may be worth the risk.’’ So, I left the seminary to work with him.

Source: Interview with Rev. Jesse Jackson, Civil Rights Leader. Teen Ink. November 10, 2007. See http://www.teenink.com/Interviews/article/5456/ Jesse-Jackson-Civil-Rights-Leader. AL SHARPTON ON AL SHARPTON, 2002 Al Sharpton emerged as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement and continues to maintain a vigilant watch over issues that matter to and affect contemporary African Americans. His omnipresent crusade to smite racism in the twenty-first century has made him a figure of ridicule to some and a modern hero to others. Sharpton’s perspective on his importance is summarized in the following statement. If there were no injustice, if there were no racism, there would be no need for an Al Sharpton.

Source: Sharpton, Al. Al on America. New York: Kensington Publishing, 2002, p. 190. DOROTHY HEIGHT: WHAT WOMEN OF COLOR WANT, 2003 Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women (1957–1998), wrote the following in her autobiography, Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir (2003).

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Women of color around the world have common problems and common dreams. Whether affluent or needy, living in the northern industrialized world or the developing South, educated or illiterate, we all want to improve the quality of life for our loved ones and our communities. We want to participate in our nations’ development. We long for loving child care and access to nutritious food and good health for our families. We seek training and skills for better-paying jobs. We expect equal wages for equal work.… And yet black women universally have been denied education and barred from political power. The systematic denial of women’s central role in nationbuilding has been as costly to the nations concerned as it has been harmful to women and their families.

Source: Height, Dorothy. Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir. New York: Public Affairs, 2003, pp. 232–233. SPIKE LEE: EXPOSING THE PROBLEM IS PART OF THE SOLUTION, 2005 Spike Lee has produced films for the big screen that explore racism, the lives of radical activists such as Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X, and the African American experience. He is notorious for stirring up controversy. In the following excerpt from Lee’s That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It, he explains part of his function as a filmmaker. And that’s something I’ve been accused of: of raising questions without having answers. But I’ve never felt it was the film-maker’s job to have all the answers. I think, for the most part, if we choose to do so, we have more of a provocateur role, where we ask these questions and hopefully they will, by the way that they are asked, stimulate and generate some discussion and dialogue. But to find answers for racism and prejudice in films? You can’t do that.

Source: Lee, Spike. That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005, p. 3.

655


Glossary accommodationism. A philosophy in which blacks concede to the attitudes, traditions, or practices of opposing views or policies, such as segregation. apartheid. The system of racial segregation practiced in South Africa between 1948 and 1993. Black Nadir. A period of extreme adversity for blacks that occurred between 1877 and the early twentieth century, marked by anti-black violence such as lynchings and race riots, the establishment of Jim Crow laws, and the erosion of civil rights gained during Reconstruction. ‘‘Nadir’’ was coined by an African American scholar named Rayford Logan in his book The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877– 1901 (1954). black nationalism. An ideology that promotes black social, economic, and political independence from whites and the establishment of black self-government. Black Power Movement. A period, which occurred concurrent with the Civil Rights Movement, of political activity by black organizations that espoused any combination of the following: racial pride, black separatism, black nationalism, and militancy, and/or actively promoted the protection and political, economic, and social needs of blacks in impoverished communities. boycott. The act of abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with some one or some other institution, organization, or establishment as a form of protest. Buddhism. A major religion in Asian countries that venerates the teachings of Gautama Buddha, an Indian religious leader of the sixth century B.C.E. capitalism. An economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations. Christianity. A major religion in the United States and in the West, which is based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Holy Bible. civil disobedience. The refusal to obey certain laws for the purpose of influencing legislation or policy, characterized by the employment of nonviolent demonstrations. Civil Rights Movement. A period spanning the 1950s and the 1960s of large-scale black protest for full legal, social, and economic equality.

658

Glossary

Cold War. A state of political hostility and tension that existed from 1945 to 1990 between the Soviet Union and the United States and their respective allies. colonialism. The control of a nation over another country. Colonialism in Africa, particularly during the nineteenth century, often resulted in the mistreatment and subjugation of indigenous peoples and the exploitation of land and resources. This phenomenon sparked many liberation movements. In 1956, Tunisia was the first country in Africa to gain its independence. Today, there are 53 independent African countries. communism. A system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state. Confederate flag. A twentieth-century symbol of the South. The term Confederate refers to the eleven southern states that seceded from the United States of America (the Union), largely over the issue of slavery, and then engaged the Union in the American Civil War (1861–1865). The Union’s victory ended slavery in the United States. cracker. A pejorative used by blacks to refer to a white person; the term is believed to have originated from the sound of the ‘‘crack’’ of the bullwhip the plantation overseer used to punish black slaves. demonstration. A public display of protest that takes a variety of forms, such as rallies, sit-ins, picketing, boycotts, and marches. direct action. Any demonstration employed to achieve an immediate or direct result. discrimination (or racial discrimination). The making of a distinction, generally against a person, based on race. disfranchisement. The state of being deprived of the right to vote. Fifteenth Amendment. A modification to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1870 during Reconstruction, for the purpose of prohibiting the restriction of voting rights for recently freed black slaves. Applies to any U.S. citizen regardless of race, color, or previous state as a slave. Fourteenth Amendment. A modification to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868 during Reconstruction, for the purpose of granting recently freed black slaves due process of law and equal protection. Garveyism. The philosophy of Marcus Garvey, the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). The three tenets of Garvey’s philosophy include the concepts of race first, self-reliance, and nationhood. ghetto. A section of a city characterized by substandard housing and inhabited by disadvantaged and impoverished residents; also referred to as a slum. Great Migration. A period between 1910 and 1950 characterized by large-scale relocation of blacks from the South to the North to escape segregation, antiblack violence, racism, and catastrophes, like a boll weevil infestation and flooding, in some parts of the South. Southern blacks went North to follow the employment opportunities that increased as a result of World War I. Harlem Renaissance. A renewal and flourishing of black literary and musical culture between 1912 and the 1930s in the Harlem section of New York City. Hinduism. A major religion of India that emphasizes freedom from the material world through purification of desires and elimination of personal identity.

Glossary

Holocaust. A systematic mass slaughter of mostly Jews in Nazi concentration camps beginning with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933 and ending with the victory of the United States and its allies in World War II (1939–1945). integrationism. A belief or philosophy that supports the inclusion or incorporation of blacks into white society and the elimination of racially segregated public institutions and facilities. Islam. The religious faith of Muslims, based on the teachings and life of the prophet Muhammad as recorded in the Qur’an. Jim Crow. Term originating from a minstrel show song in the early nineteenth century referring to a practice and legal policy of segregating or discriminating against blacks in public places, public transportation, employment, etc. Judaism. A religion of the Jews based on the writings of the Old Testament and teachings in the Talmud. Ku Klux Klan (KKK or the Klan). One of numerous white supremacist organizations established to terrorize, intimidate, and attack blacks, as well as whites who sympathized with blacks, Jews, Catholics, and other groups. This organization was established in 1866 by veterans of the Confederate Army and remains active throughout the United States. Historically, members wore white robes and white cone-shaped masks. lynching. A term mostly used to refer to a killing by hanging, but it can indicate any illicit murder by any other means. Lynchings were most common during the American frontier (1865–1890) between whites and other whites or immigrants over alleged crimes, competition, or disputes. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, blacks were primarily, but not exclusively, targeted in the South. Black males were charged for alleged rape crimes whether or not an actual crime had been committed. Racial lynching was largely employed to maintain the social, economic, and political supremacy of whites. Middle Passage. The forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. Treated as cargo and transported in horrendous conditions, many Africans died on the journey. The term ‘‘middle’’ refers to the area of the triangular trade voyage that occurred between West Africa, the West Indies, and colonies in North America. militancy. The quality of being aggressive or combative. nigger. An ethnic slur used to refer to black slaves. During and after slavery, blacks also used the term to refer to one another. Employed by blacks, the term can be used in a familiar, neutral, or derogatory manner. Those who protest the use of the word by whites or blacks will frequently use the term ‘‘N-word’’ instead. nonviolence. The policy, practice, or technique of refraining from physically harming another person or defending oneself from a physical attack. Pan-Africanism. A philosophy that advocates the political alliance or union of all African nations and African descendents. passive resistance. Opposition to a government or to governmental laws by the use of non-cooperation and other nonviolent demonstrations, such as boycotts, sitins, and marches. picketing. The presence of a person or group of persons stationed outside an establishment to express grievance and to discourage entry by patrons. Picketers, or participants in a picket, will often vocalize slogans and carry signs.

659

660

Glossary

prejudice (or racial prejudice). An unfavorable opinion or feeling towards someone based on race. racial consciousness (or race consciousness). The awareness and advocacy of racial heritage, culture, and traditions. racial etiquette. Informal rules, practices, customs, and traditions that regulate social relations, conduct, and speech behavior between blacks and whites. racial profiling (or racial stereotyping). The practice of making a negative or positive judgment based on an individual’s race. For example, to pass a black male on a street and assume he is a criminal or perpetrator is a form of racial profiling. racism. Hatred or intolerance of another racial group. Reconstruction. The effort following the end of the Civil War (1861–1865) to provide assistance and legal reform for recently freed blacks in the South. In this period, American soldiers enforced black male suffrage (women were not yet allowed to vote) and the establishment of black politicians in the South. Through violence and intimidation, white southerners gradually retook political control over the region. By 1877, all the gains achieved for blacks were lost and Reconstruction officially ended. One of the longest lasting effects of Reconstruction was in education and the establishment of numerous historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) Red Scare. Two periods in U.S. history, between 1917 and 1920 and 1947 and 1957, that were characterized by a heightened state of fear and suspicion of Communist infiltration of the American government. redneck. One of several pejoratives used by blacks to refer to whites. One speculation is that the term originated from a description of poor southern whites whose skin, particularly the neck region, turned red as a result of working out under the sun. reparations. Term referring to a popular issue among some blacks who feel the descendents of slaves in the U.S. should receive monetary or other restitution. segregation. The legalized separation of blacks and whites in the United States. self-defense. A philosophy that endorses the protection of oneself and one’s community or property if attacked. separatism (or black separatism). The advocacy of withdrawing socially, economically, and/or politically from the white establishment. sit-ins. A form of demonstration made popular during the 1960s with youths who entered white-only public places, like restaurants, where they sat down at lunch counters and refused to leave to protest Jim Crow laws. slavery. The phenomena of forcing individuals into a state of bondage, where they are deprived of all freedom and made to work without payment. American slavery lasted from 1654 to 1865. It is estimated that twelve to fifteen million slaves were transported from Africa to America, mostly coming from the West Coast of Africa. Because records were not kept on the slaves, African Americans are unable to track their lineage. Slavery sustained the economic system of the antebellum South, where blacks toiled on plantations or in white homes. Slavery was generally abandoned in the North. Northern abolitionists, or individuals calling for the end of slavery, made critical contributions in helping slaves escape to the North. socialism. A system of social organization based on the collective ownership of production and distribution of goods and property. According to the philosopher

Glossary

Karl Marx (1818–1883), the development of a society included the stages of capitalism, socialism, and communism. Uncle Tom. A pejorative to describe blacks who are subservient to whites. This term was frequently applied by black power proponents to refer to civil rights leaders who advocated integrationism. white supremacy. The belief that whites are superior to other races; this belief includes the advocacy of social, economic, and political domination by whites. whitecapping. With regard to race relations, the term refers to the late nineteenthand early twentieth-century phenomenon in the South in which white farmers used violence and intimidation to prevent black land ownership and to control the black population. women’s suffrage. The struggle for women’s right to vote. White women led this struggle, but blacks, like Ida B. Wells-Barnett, made contributions. The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S Constitution was ratified in 1920, granting all women full voting rights.

661


Bibliography BOOKS Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Appiah, Kwame Anthony, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. 5 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Asante, Molefi Kete, and Mambo Ama Mazama, eds. Encyclopedia of Black Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005. Berry, Mary Frances. Black Resistance/White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America. New York: Penguin Group, 1994. Bonilla-Silva, Eduard. White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001. Brundage, W. Fitzhugh, ed. Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Buckley, Gail. Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military. New York: Random House, 2001. Carson, Clayborne, Emma J. Lapsansky-Werner, and Gary Nash. African American Lives: The Struggle for Freedom. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005. Chafe, Williams, H., ed. Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South. New York: New Press, 2001. Chalmers, David M. Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987. Chalmers, David Mark. Backfire: How the Ku Klux Klan Helped the Civil Rights Movement. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Clark, Kenneth B. Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Clark, Robert F. The War on Poverty: History, Selected Programs and Ongoing Impact. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 2002. Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and Franklin, V.P. Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

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Dobratz, Betty A. The White Separatist Movement in the United States: ‘‘White Power, White Pride!’’ Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Dovidio, J.F., and S.L. Gaertner, eds. Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism. New York: Academic Press, 1986. Fairclough, Adam. Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890–2000. New York: Viking, 2001. Feagin, Joe R. Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. New York: Routledge, 2000. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Cornel West. The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country. New York: Touchstone, 2002. Guerrero, Ed. Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Helsing, Jeffrey. Johnson’s War/Johnson’s Great Society: The Guns and Butter Trap. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000. Jacobs, Ronald N. Race, Media, and the Crisis of Civil Society: From Watts to Rodney King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Joseph, Peniel E. Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. New York: Routledge, 2006. Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims in America. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994. Lincoln, C. Eric. and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African American Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990. Perry, Barbara. In the Name of Hate: Understanding Hate Crimes. New York: Routledge, 2001. Robinson, Cedric J. Black Movements in America. New York: Routledge, 1997. Smiley, Tavis. Doing What’s Right: How to Fight for What You Believe—and Make a Difference. New York: Anchor, 2000. Upton, James N. Urban Riots in the 20th Century: A Social History. Bristol, IN: Wyndham Hall Press, 1989. Van Debert, William L., ed. Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan. New York: New York University Press, 1997. Ward, Brian E. Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. West, Cornel. Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.

WEB SITES African American Web Connection. AAWC.com (June 2008). See http://www.aawc. com/paa.html. Black History. Archives Library Information Center (June 2008). See http:// www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/black-history.html. McElrath, Jessica. ‘‘African American History.’’ About.com (June 2008). See http:// afroamhistory.about.com. Taylord, Quinard. Blackpast.org (June 2008). See http://www.blackpast.org. ‘‘The Story of the Movement—26 Events.’’ PBS.org (June 2008). See http:// www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/01_till.html.

Index 21st A.D. Socialist Club, A. Philip Randolph and, 476 25th Hour, 334 Abbott, Robert S.: letter condemning Marcus Garvey, 201; opponent of Marcus Garvey, 196 Abernathy, Ralph: Ella Baker and, 15–17; Jesse Jackson and, 260 Abyssinian Baptist Church, Adam Clayton, Powell, Jr. and, 498 Accommodationism: black power and, 70; Booker T. Washington, 118, 444; opinions of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 535 ACTION, John Lewis and, 362 Adams, Luella, Dorothy Height and, 238 Advance (American Communist Party), Angela Davis and, 86 Affirmative Action, 619 AFL-CIO, A. Philip Randolph and, 488 African American Council, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106 African Communities League: Marcus Garvey, 182, 189; Pan-African flag, with UNIA, 193 African griots, 55 African Legion, at Marcus Garvey parade, 198 African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church: A. Philip Randolph, 468–70; Roy Wilkins, 548

Africa Times and Orient Review, 187 Afro, definition and history, 80 Afro-American Association, Huey P. Newton and, 424 Afro-American League, 535 Afro-American Women and Their Progress, 531 Afrocentricity, 193 Afrocentrism, 193; definition and history, 318 Alabama Normal School, Rosa Parks and, 449 Albany Movement, voter registration in Georgia, 303–4 Alexander, Deacon, 95 Alexander, Kendra, Angela Davis and, 96–97 Ali, Duse Mohammed, 187 All African Peoples Revolutionary Party (AARP), 75 Allred, James, Thurgood Marshall and, 402 Al on America, 510 Alpha Suffrage Club, Ida B. WellsBarnett and, 539 Amenia Conference, 557 American Baptist Theological Seminary, John Lewis and, 343–44 American Colonization Society (ACS), 187, 197

Index

666

American Communist Party, Angela Davis and, 95 American Labor Party, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 128 American Negro Academy, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 115 American West Indian News, Ella Baker and, 6 American Youth Congress, Dorothy Height and, 242 An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, 408 Angry Black Man image, 379 Anne Arundel County, Maryland schools, Thurgood Marshall and, 400 The Answer, 323 Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 174–75 Anti-Lynching Committee, London, 531 Apartheid: Jesse Jackson’s stand against, 278; Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 297; Miriam Makeba, 74–75 A & P Campaign, Al Sharpton and, 501–3 Apollo Theater, 495 Are Prisons Obsolete?, 81 Armed Forces and Defense Industry, A. Philip Randolph and segregation, 482–85 Arnett, Bishop Benjamin, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 114 Asante, Molefi Kete, 193 A Second Look: The Negro Citizen in Atlanta, 609 Associated Communities of Sunflower County (ACSC), Fannie Lou Hamer and, 227 A&T Four, influence on Jesse Jackson, 264 Atlanta Committee for Cooperative Action (ACCA), Whitney Young and, 608–9 Atlanta Council on Human Rights, Whitney Young and, 608 Atlanta University: W.E.B. Du Bois and, 115–16, 125–26; Whitney Young and, 607–10 Autobiography of Malcolm X, 331

Back-to-Africa Movement, 187, 197 Bagnall, Robert, 200–201 Baker, Ella, 1–26, 1f; Black Power Movement and beyond, 25; childhood, 3–5; Fannie Lou Hamer and, 222; In Friendship, 14–15; Journey of Reconciliation, 12–13; life after the NAACP, 12; marriage, 7; Mississippi Freedom Summer, 21–23; Montgomery Bus Boycott, 14; NAACP, 2, 7–13; National Negro Congress, 1935, 6–7; New York City Branch of NAACP, 13–14; Rosa Parks and, 453; sit-in movement, 17; Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1, 15–17, 297; Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), 19–21; starting out, 5–6; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 17–19, 24–25; Young Negroes’ Cooperative League (YNCL), 6; Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), 19 Baker, Georgianna Ross, 3 Baldwin, Ruth Standish, early formation of the Urban League, 604 Baltimore County School Board, Thurgood Marshall’s suit and, 399 Bamboozled, 333–34 Banks, Walter, 496–97 Baptist Church, Ella Baker and, 4 Barbershops, history in the Black community, 516 Belafonte, Harry, 161; Freedom Farm and, 229; In Friendship, 15 Bell, Sean, Al Sharpton and, 517 Bennett, Gwendolyn, 124 Bensonhurst, Al Sharpton and, 508–9 Beret, 37 Bethune, Mary MacLeod, Dorothy Height and, 244–45 Bevel, James, 224 Biddle Institute, Robert F. Williams and, 573

Index

Big Six: Dorothy Heights as part of, 251; James Farmer as part of, 132, 149–50; John Lewis, 338; Whitney Young, 615 Birmingham, Alabama demonstrations, Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 304–5 Birth of a Nation, 122, 321, 540; Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 539–40 The Birth of a Race, 321 Black, Lucille, 10 Black Armed Guard, Robert F. Williams and, 572, 585 Black Christmas, Jesse Jackson, 272 Black College: The Talented Tenth, 322 Black Congress: Elaine Brown and, 34–35; rally on Ed Lynn’s behalf, 91 Black Cross Nurses, at Marcus Garvey parade, 198 Black dolls, 409 Black Dolls as Racial Uplift 1900–1970, 409 Black English (Ebonics), 44; Bobby Seale, 43 Black Expo, Jesse Jackson and, 273–74 Black Flame Trilogy: The Ordeal of Mansart, 129 Black Manifesto, 279 Blackman, 104 Black Nadir of American race relations, 573 Black nationalism: A. Philip Randolph’s criticism of, 475–76; Elaine Brown, 34; Marcus Mosiah Garvey, 125, 156, 191 Black Panther, origin of logo and name, 426 The Black Panther, 430 Black Panther Party for Self Defense: Angela Davis and, 87; beret, 37; Betty Van Patter’s murder, 47–48; birth of, 426–29; clenched-fist salute, 428; death of the first Black Panther, 434–35; Denzil Dowell campaign, 430–31; Elaine Brown, 28, 37–42; chairman, 45–46; minister of defense, 46–49; Eldridge Cleaver, 429–30; Free Huey Campaign, 432–33;

667

Huey P. Newton, 418; investigation by COINTELPRO, 419, 433–34; J. Edgar Hoover, FBI, 39; James Forman, 74, 92; point seven, 427–29; problems with Us Organization, 38; school, 437; sexism in, 40–41; Stokely Carmichael, 74; war on drugs, 437–38 Black Panther Political Party (BPPP): Angela Davis and, 92; merger with SNCC, 92–95; raid on headquarters, 98–99; rally on Ed Lynn’s behalf, 91 Black Power: The Politics of Liberation, 70 Black Power Movement: Angela Davis, 81, 89–95; Dashiki, 500; definition, 68; Dorothy Height and, 253–54; Elaine Brown and, 32–33; Ella Baker and, 25; H. Rap Brown, 71; ideology, 617; Louis Farrakhan, 156; Martin Luther King, Jr. disagreements, 306; Pan-African flag, 193; riots, 618; Robert F. Williams, 572; Rosa Parks and, 464; Roy Wilkins and, 566–67; shifting focus, 618–20; Stokely Carmichael, 54, 67–72; Thurgood Marshall’s thoughts, 413; Whitney Young and, 617–20 Black Reconstruction: An Essay toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America 1860–1880, 125 Black Star Line: crew at Marcus Garvey parade, 198; Garvey project, 194–95 Black Star Steamship Company of New Jersey, 199 Black Student Alliance, 35–36 Black Student Union, Angela Davis and, 89–92 Blaxploitation, 322 Bloody Sunday, 267, 307, 359–60, 463, 565–66 Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude ‘‘Ma’’ Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, 81 Booker T. Washington Junior High, Rosa Parks and, 449

Index

668

Boston University, Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 292–93 Boswell, Hamilton, James Farmer and, 137 Bow tie, history of, 163 Boycott, James Farmer and, 132 Boys’ Fellowship House, James Farmer and, 142–43 Braithwaite, Hilton, 102 Brandeis University, Angela Davis and, 86–88 Brawley, Tawana, Al Sharpton and, 507–8 Brentano’s book store, influence on Al Sharpton, 497 Bronx High School of Science, Stokely Carmichael and, 57 Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, Dorothy Height and, 241 Brooklyn College, Al Sharpton and, 504 Brotherhood, 421 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, A. Philip Randolph and, 7, 478–81 Brown, Elaine, 27–51, 27f; Black Congress, 34–35; Black Panther Party, 28, 37–42; chairman, 45–46; minister of defense, 46–49; Black Student Alliance, 35–36; childhood, 29–32; exile to France, 50; first female leader of Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, 438–39; going west, 32–33; Huey Newton and power in the Black Panthers, 42–50; politics, 43–45, 46–49; power and violence, 45; rebuilding a life in the United States, 50; Thorazine, 39 Brown, H. Rap, 71; Angela Davis and, 93 Brown, James, Al Sharpton and, 504–5 Brown, Jerry, 47 Brown v. Board of Education, 60, 587; black dolls, 409; Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 293; Thurgood Marshall and, 392 Bruce, Beverlee, Elaine Brown and, 33 Bruce, Blanche Kelso, 525–26 Buckner, Margaret, 601–2

Bunche, Ralph, 60; James Farmer and, 137 Bundy, LeRoy C., East St. Louis riot and, 538 Burey, Vivian (Buster), 397, 410 Burns, Helen, 261 Burns, Jesse Louis, 261 Burns, Tibby, 260–62 Butler, Tubal Uriah ‘‘Rab,’’ Stokely Carmichael and, 55 Calloway, Cab, 395, 400 Calverton, V.F., James Farmer and, 137–38 Calypso music, 55 Capitalism, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106 Carmichael, Adolphus, 54–56 Carmichael, Mabel, 54–56 Carmichael, Stokely, 53–78, 53f; Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, 74; Black Power, 54, 67–72; early years in Trinidad, 54–56; Fidel Castro and, 73; Free Huey Campaign, 432; Ho Chi Minh and, 73; Kwame Ture (African name), 54; Lowndes County Freedom Organization, 65–66; marriage and change, 74–75; Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and, 63–64; Mississippi Freedom Summer, 54, 61–63; move to Guinea, 75–77; move to New York, 56–59; Parchman Penitentiary, Mississippi, 61; Selma, Alabama, 64–65; SNCC, 24, 61–63, 66–67; Toure Sekou and, 73; world tour, 72–73 Carrie A. Tuggle School, Angela Davis and, 84 Carter, Bunchy, Los Angeles Black Panther chapter and, 36 Carter, Jimmy: Dorothy Height and, 255; John Lewis and, 362 Castro, Fidel: hero of Huey P. Newton, 423; Stokely Carmichael and, 73 Central America, Marcus Garvey and, 186 Chambers v. Florida, Thurgood Marshall and, 403

Index

Chaney, James, 152 Charter Group for a Pledge of Conscience, 24 Che-Lumumba Club, Angela Davis and, 95 Chicago Freedom Movement, 268–70 Chicago Theological Seminary, Jesse Jackson and, 260 Chicago Women’s Club (Ida B. Wells Club), 533–34 Chisholm, Shirley, 503 Civil disobedience: James Farmer and, 132; Jesse Jackson, 266 Civil Rights Act of 1964: John F. Kennedy and, 301; Lyndon B. Johnson and, 23, 301, 496; Rosa Parks and, 462–63 Civil Rights Movement: Al Sharpton, 494; Bayard Rustin, 22; Black Power movement and, 34–35; Dorothy Height, 235, 250–54; Elaine Brown and, 33, 35; Ella Baker and, 1; Fannie Lou Hamer, 208; Fellowship of Reconciliation and, 139; funds raised by In Friendship, 15; Highlander School, 461; James Farmer and, 132; John Lewis, 344; Martin Luther King, Jr., 293–303; Nation of Islam and, 166–70; Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, 388; passive resistance, 34; Rosa Parks and, 461–64; Roy Wilkins and, 561–66; SNCC and, 18–19; Stokely Carmichael, 54; Thurgood Marshall and, 411; V for victory, 144; Whitney Young and, 613–17 Clark, Septima, 454 Clarke, Edward Young, 200 Clarke, John Henrik, 193 Clay, Cassius (Muhammad Ali), Malcolm X and, 384 Cleaver, Eldridge: Black Panther Party for Self Defense, 429–30, 433–34; Elaine Brown and, 41; expulsion, 435 Clenched-fist salute, Black Panther Party for Self Defense and, 428 Clinton, Bill, Jesse Jackson and, 260, 281 Clockers, 334 COINTELPRO, 39, 419, 433–34

669

Cold War, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 128 Coleman, Julia P., letter condemning Garvey, 201 Coleman, Maude, Dorothy Height and, 238 Collier, Jo Etha, 229 Colonialism: black power and, 70; Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 297 Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace; Encyclopedia of the Negro Preparatory Volume, 127 Colored High and Training School, Thurgood Marshall and, 395 Columbia University, Ella Baker and, 5 Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 255 Committee against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, 486 Committee for the Improvement of Industrial Conditions among Negroes in New York, 604 Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes, 604 Committee to Combat Racial Injustice, Robert F. Williams and, 588 Communism: African Americans and, 96; Angela Davis and, 81, 86–87; Elaine Brown and, 33; first Free Angela campaign, 97–98; NAACP and, 13–14; Stokely Carmichael and, 58; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106, 128 Community Alert Patrol, 91 Confederate flag, John Lewis and, 362–63 Congress for Racial Equality (CORE): after resignation of James Farmer, 153–54; Bayard Rustin, 12; James Farmer, 132, 144–51; Jesse Jackson, 266–67; Journey of Reconciliation, 1961, 13; Ku Klux Klan, 60–61; leadership: black or white, 151–53; as part of COFO, 213; relationship to FOR, 139; Stokely Carmichael and, 58, 60; V for victory, 144; wartime inception, 403–4 The Conservator, 534 Conyers, John: reparations bills in Congress, 279; Rosa Parks and, 463

Index

670

Cookman Institute, A. Philip Randolph and, 471 Coolidge, Calvin, Marcus Garvey and, 202–3 Coordinating Committee for Employment, Dorothy Height and, 242 Cosby, Bill, views on Ebonics, 44 Council of Federated Organizations (COFO): convention, 1965, 225; Fannie Lou Hamer, 213; Mississippi Project, 20; Stokely Carmichael, 61–63 Council on African Affairs, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 128 Council on United Civil Rights Leadership (CUCRL): big six, 149–50, 251; Whitney Young and, 615–16 Cozer Theological Seminary, Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 291–92 Cracker, childhood games of Angela Davis, 82 Crawford, Russell, 13 The Crisis, 8, 11, 59, 121–25, 405 Crooklyn, 332, 334 Crosswaith, Frank, Garvey Must Go Campaign, 200–201 Crown Heights, Al Sharpton and, 510–11 Crump, Charlotte, 10 Crusade for Citizenship: Ella Baker and, 16; Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SNLC, 298 The Crusader, 589–91 Crusaders Association for Relief and Enlightenment (CARE), Robert F. Williams and, 590 Cuffe, Paul, 187 Currier, Stephen, 149–50, 355, 615 Daley, Richard, Jesse Jackson and, 267 Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil, 124 Dashiki, definition and history, 500 Davis, Angela, 79–104, 79f; afro, 80; Che-Lumumba Club, 95; childhood, 81–83; early education, 84–86; Free

Huey Campaign, 432; frustration with black power organizations, 91; going to Cuba, 96–97; her life since freedom, 102–3; jail, 102; left SNCC, 95; Montgomery bus boycott, 83–84; prisoner rights, 99–100; raid on Panther headquarters, 98–99; on the run, 101–2; SNCC duties, 92–95; Soledad brothers, 100 Davis, Frank, Sheriff in Cairo, 536 Davis, Ossie, 321, 388; eulogy for Malcolm X, 388 Day of Outrage, Al Sharpton and, 507 Deacons for Defense and Justice organization, 69 Dee, Ruby, 388 Defense Advisory Committee on Women in Services (DACOWITS), Dorothy Height and, 248 De La Beckwith, Byron, 217 Democratic National Convention, 1964: Fannie Lou Hamer, 221–23; Roy Wilkins and, 564 Demonstrations: Angela Davis, 84; Dorothy Height, 242; Free Angela, 81, 97–98; Jesse Jackson, 260; John Lewis, 338; in Trinidad, 55 De Porres Club, Whitney Young and, 607 Destructive Generation, 438–39 Detroit riot, Robert F Williams and, 576–77 Devine, Annie, congressional challenge, 225 Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 292–93 Diallo, Amadou, 512–13 Dickerson, Ernest, Spike Lee and, 323 Dinkins, David, 503 Direct action: Ella Baker, 17; James Farmer and, 140; Jesse Jackson, 266; Martin Luther King, Jr., 295; Thurgood Marshall, 411 Discrimination: Elaine Brown and, 34; James Farmer, 141–42; MFDP and, 63–64; NNC and, 7; W.E.B. Du Bois, 108

Index

Disfranchisement: Stokely Carmichael, 61–63; W.E.B. Du Bois, 116 Dorothy I. Height Leadership Institute, 257 Do the Right Thing, 326–28 Douglass, Frederick, 525, 532 Dowd, Jerome, influence on Thurgood Marshall, 397 Dowell, Denzil, Black Panther arrests and, 430–31 The Dozens, game defined, 421 Du Bois, Burghardt, 115–16 Du Bois, Mary, 107, 110 Du Bois, Shirley Graham, Pan-African thought, 73 Du Bois, W.E.B., 11, 59, 105–30, 105f; Atlanta University, 115–16, 125–26; betwixt and between, 110–11; Booker T. Washington and, 116–19; childhood, 106–8; The Crisis, 122–25, 405; Fisk University, 111–12; Harvard University, 112–13; high school, 108–10; on his own, 128; influence on Huey P. Newton, 424; influence on Thurgood Marshall, 397; the intellectual activist, 116; Marcus Garvey and, 190, 195–96; NAACP years, 120–22, 557; Niagara Movement, 119–20; Pan-African thought, 73, 124; return to the NAACP, 126–27; Roaring Twenties, 124–25; Roy Wilkins and, 551; the social scientist, 114–16; The Souls of Black Folk, 116, 471, 549; the Talented Tenth, 322; University of Berlin, 113–14 Duke University lacrosse case, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and, 515 Duluth Thirteen, 550 Durr, Virginia, Rosa Parks and, 453 Dusk of Dawn: An Essay toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept, 126 Dynamite Hill, 81–82 Eason, James W.H., turning against Garvey, 201 Eastern Boys School, Stokely Carmichael, 56

671

Eastern Regional Training Conference, Ella Baker, 13 Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks, 44 Ebonics. See Black English Elisabeth Irwin High School, New York, Angela Davis, 85 Ellington, Duke: In Friendship, 15; Thurgood Marshall and, 400 Ellison, Ralph, influence on Huey P. Newton, 424 Emmanuel Baptist Church, Dorothy Height and, 237 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, 2007, 341 Encyclopedia Africana, 129 Engineer Combat Battalion, 1695th, Whitney Young and, 602–3 England, Marcus Garvey, 186 The Equal Rights League (ERL), 540–42; Arkansas riot, 541–42 Eugenics law (involuntary sterilization), Fannie Lou Hamer, 213 Europe, Marcus Garvey, 186 Evers, Medgar, 217 Fannie Lou Hamer Day, 231 Fanon, Frantz, 72 Farmer, James, 131–54, 131f; Assistant Secretary, HEW, 153; big six, 132, 149–50; childhood, 133–36; closing of an era, 153–54; CORE, 132, 144–48, 150–51; draft letter, 141; Fellowship of Reconciliation, 137–48; Freedom Rides, 148–49; Harlem riot, 152–53; March on Washington, 151–52; Mississippi Freedom Summer, 152; Open Society, 153–54; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1998, 154; Seminary school, 137–38; shifting focus to the North, 152–53; Wiley College, 136–37 Farmer, Winnie, 140–46 Farrakhan, Louis, 155–80, 155f; after Malcolm X, 170–73; becoming Louis X, 164–66; bow tie, 163; childhood, 157–59; community,

Index

672

Farrakhan, Louis (continued) 158–59; criticism of Malcolm X, 386; education, 159–62; endorsement of Jesse Jackson, 1984, 278; Honorable Minister of NOI, 156, 173–77; introduction to the Nation of Islam, 162–64; letter to Bush regarding 9/11 attacks, 179; lingering criticisms, 173–74; Million Man March, 177–79, 332–33; St., Cyprian’s Episcopal Church, 159 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): Angela Davis poster, 79f, 80; Black Panther Party, 39; black power organizations, 69–70; COINTELPRO, 39, 419, 433–34; investigation of Martin Luther King, Jr., 298; surveillance of civil rights leaders, 150; surveillance of Marcus Garvey, 196; surveillance of Robert F. Williams, 576, 580 Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States, 385 Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, Jesse Jackson and, 271 Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR): history, 139; James Farmer, 132, 137–38; James Lawson, 345–46 Field Foundation, John Lewis and, 361 Fifteenth Amendment, Thurgood Marshall and, 404–5 Fisher, Bernice, FOR, 139–40 Fisk Herald, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 112 Fisk University: Fannie Lou Hamer, 215; W.E.B. Du Bois, 106, 111–12 Flags of Our Fathers, 312 Floyd, John, Black Panther Political Party, 91 Forbes, Flores A., 427 Forman, James, 74, 92; big six, 149–50; Free Huey Campaign, 432; James Farmer and, 132; SNCC, 353–54 Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks, 323 Fountaine, Gwen, 437–38 Four Little Girls, 333

Fourteenth Amendment, Robert F. Williams and the Black Armed Guard, 585 Frame Up: The Opening Defense Statement Made, 81 Freddie’s Fashion Mart, Al Sharpton and, 511–12 Frederick Douglass, 195–96 Freedom Farms Corporation, Fannie Lou Hamer and, 228–29 Freedom Riders: James Farmer, 132, 148–49; John Lewis, 350–51; Martin Luther King, Jr., 303; Robert F. Williams, 591–93; SNCC activists, 19; Stokely Carmichael, 54, 60–61 Freedom Singers, raising money for SNCC, 20 Freedom Vote, Fannie Lou Hamer and, 223–25 Free Huey Campaign, 432–33 Free Speech and Headlight, 526 Friends of Freedom in Mississippi, Ella Baker and, 20–23 Friends of Negro Freedom: A. Philip Randolph and, 476; Garvey Must Go Campaign, 200–201 From Swastika to Jim Crow, 123 Fund for Educational and Legal Defense, Ella Baker and, 20 Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker, 25 Gandhi, 72, 299; hero of James Farmer, 138, 140; Huey P. Newton and, 425; influence on civil rights leaders, 299; Jesse Jackson and, 266; Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 292, 294, 295, 300 Garcia, Elie, visit to Liberia, 197 Garner v. Louisiana, Thurgood Marshall and, 412 Garvey, Amy Ashwood, 189, 199–200 Garvey, Amy Jacques: activist for Garvey’s parole, 203; second wife of Marcus Garvey, 182, 200 Garvey, Marcus Mosiah, Jr., 124, 156, 181–205, 181f; to America, 189–90; arrest for mail fraud, 199–201; burgeoning activist,

Index

185–89; childhood, 183–85; deportation, 203–5; dilemma, 194–201; Dorothy Height and, 240; golden days of UNIA in the United States, 190–94; Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 542; influence on young Malcolm X, 368–70; in the interim, 202; to jail again, 202–3; Jesse Jackson likened to, 273; labor protests in Jamaica, 185–86; Louis Farrakhan, 159–60; mass appeal in New York, 191–94; political activist in Jamaica, 186; the trial, 201–1; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 195–96 Garvey, Sarah, 184 Garveyism, 192; Earl Little, 368 Garvey Must Go Campaign, Friends of Negro Freedom, 200–201 Gavel, definition and history, 414 George Weitbreit Mechanical Arts High School, Roy Wilkins and, 549–50 Gestures: The Origins and Distribution, 144 Get on the Bus, 332 Ghana, W.E.B. Dubois and, 129 Ghosts of Mississippi, 217 Gibson Island Club, Thurgood Marshall and, 397 A Girl Like Me, 409 Goetz, Bernhard, involvement of Al Sharpton, 506 Gomer, Nina, 114, 128 Goodman, Andrew, 152 Goodman, Robert O., Lt., Jackson’s rescue mission to Syria, 276–77 Gosnell, William, work with Thurgood Marshall, 399 Grady, Henry W., 522, 609 Granger, Lester, Urban League and, 605–7 Grant, Joanne, 25 Gray, Victoria, congressional challenge, 225 Greater New York Federation of Churches, Dorothy Height and, 242 Great Migration: James Farmer, 139; Marcus Garvey, 189; Whitney Young and the Urban League, 604

673

Great Society Program, 620 Green, Lucille, 473 Greenville Public Library, Jesse Jackson’s first protest, 265 Gregory, Dick, 152 Guevara, Che, 72 Guinea, West Africa: John Lewis, 358–59; meeting with Malcolm X, 359; Stokely Carmichael, 75–77 Hall, James, influence on Jesse Jackson, 263–64 Hamer, Dorothy, 226–27 Hamer, Fannie Lou, 23, 62, 207–31, 207f; before activism, 212–13; changing course, 1965, 225–31; childhood, 209–12; congressional challenge: 1964, 225; 1968, 227; Democratic National Convention, 1964, 221–23; Ella Baker and, 222; Hamer versus racial violence, 221; life of activism, 213–18; Mississippi Freedom Summer, 218–23; political challenges, 218–19; poverty programs, 227–29; registering to vote: first attempt, 214–15; return to America, 223–25; secretary-at-large, COFO, 215–16; sharecropping family, 210–13; special elections, 1965, 226–27; testimonials, 219–20; West Africa with SNCC, 223; Winona arrest, 216–18 Hamer et al v. Sunflower County, 229 Hamer v. Campbell, 226 Hamer versus racial violence, 221 Hamilton, Charles V., 70–71 Harambee, 34 Harlem: Ella Baker, 5; Marcus Garvey, 189; Thurgood Marshall, 400–401 Harlem Renaissance: Alain Locke, 60; Dorothy Height and, 240; Roy Wilkins and, 552; Thurgood Marshall, 400–401 Harlem Youth Council, Dorothy Height and, 241–42 Harper, Frances Watkins, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 529

Index

674

Harris, George W., letter condemning Marcus Garvey, 201 Harris, Joseph, 228–29 Harvard University: W.E.B. Du Bois, 106, 112–13; Whitney Young and, 610 Hat, Dorothy Height and AfricanAmerican culture, 234 Hawkins, Yusef K., 508–9 Hayling, Robert, 305 Haynes, George Edmund, early formation of the Urban League, 604 He Got Game, 334 Height, Dorothy, 233–57, 233f; big six, 149–50, 234; car accident, 1941, 247–48; childhood, 235–39; Civil Rights Movement, 250–54; director of Phyllis Wheatley YWCA, 246–47; Eleanor Roosevelt and, 244–46; James Farmer and, 132; Marcus Garvey and, 240; Mary McLeod Bethune, 244–46; Mary S. Ingraham and, 243; militancy, 253–54; Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964, 254; New York University, 239–40; post-Civil Rights era, 255–57; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 255, 282; social work, 241; women’s work, 243–50; young adulthood, 241–42; youth movement and activism, 241–42 Hekima, Angela Davis and, 99–100 Highlander Folk School, Rosa Parks and, 453, 461 Hilliard, Asa, 193 Hilliard, David, 431–32 Hippie Movement, 90 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), 314 Hitler, Adolf, W.E.B. Du Bois criticism of, 126 Holocaust, W.E.B. Du Bois criticism of, 126 Home Relief Bureau, Dorothy Height and, 241 Hoover, Herbert, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 539 Hoover, J. Edgar: investigation of Martin Luther King, Jr., 298;

obliteration of the Black Panther Party, 39 Horizon, 120 Horowitz, David: criticism of Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, 434; Elaine Brown and, 47–48; liberalism versus conservatism, 48 Hose, Sam, 116 Hotel Messenger, 474 Houser, George, FOR, 139 Houston, Charles Hamilton, 60, 392, 398 Howard Beach protest, Al Sharpton and, 506–7 Howard University: during American Reconstruction, 59–60; James Farmer, 132; Stokely Carmichael, 54; Thurgood Marshall, 397–98 Huey P. Newton Foundation, 440 A Huey P. Newton Story, 333–34 Hughes, Langston, 124; Robert F. Williams and, 576, 581; Thurgood Marshall and, 397 Hulett, John, LCFO, 65–66 Hussein, Saddam: Jesse Jackson and, 281; Louis Farrakhan and, 178 Hutton, Bobby (Lil Bobby): death of the first Black Panther, 434–35; first member of Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, 427 If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance, 81 Illinois Hunger Campaign, Jesse Jackson and, 273 Impey, Catherine, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 530–31 In Battle for Peace, 129 Independent Political Council, A. Philip Randolph and, 472–73, 476 Indianola Eighteen, Fannie Lou Hamer and, 214–15 In Friendship, Ella Baker and, 14–15 Ingraham, Mary S., Dorothy Height and, 243 Inside Man, 334 Institute for Colored Youth, 314–15

Index

Integrationism: Malcolm X and, 382; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106 Intercommunal Youth Institute, Huey P. Newton and, 437 Intergroup Committee on New York Public Schools, Ella Baker and, 10 International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, 197–98 Inter-Ocean, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 531 Islam, Malcolm X and, 385 It’s About the Money, 282 Jackson, Jesse, 259–84, 259f; Al Sharpton and, 500–501, 509–10; Bill Clinton and, 281; Black Expo, 273–74; Chicago, 267; Chicago campaign, working with King, 268–70; childhood, 261–64; Cuban mission, 278, 280; early activism, 266–67; Farrakhan’s endorsement, 176; first protest at Greenville Public Library, 265; a Garvey-like leader, 273; ideas on politics, 274–76; Illinois Hunger Campaign, 273; Iraq mission and Sad dam Hussein, 281; Jena Six, 284; King’s assassination, 271; North Carolina A&T, 265; Operation Breadbasket, 260, 269–70, 272–73, 500–501; Operation PUSH, 260, 274–76; Poor People’s Campaign, 270–71, 308; 1984 Presidential Campaign, 276–78; 1988 Presidential Campaign, 280–82; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 282; publications, 282; PUSH/EXCEL, 275–80; Resurrection City, USA, 271–72; Shadow Senator, 260, 280–81; Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 260, 266–74; speaker at Savor’s Day, 172; Special Envoy for the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa, 281; Stanley ‘‘Tookie’’ Williams, 284; Syrian mission, 276–77; into the Twenty-first Century, 282–84; University of

675

Illinois, 264–65; Wall Street Project, 282; Yugoslavia mission, 282 Jackson, Jimmie Lee, death during voting rights demonstration, 64, 267 Jackson, Jonathan, Angela Davis and, 100–101 Jack Spratt Coffee House demonstration, 142–44 Jamaica: birthplace of Marcus Garvey, 183–84; Garvey’s return in 1914, 189; labor protests and political organizing, 185–86 James, Estelle, description of Garvey’s deportation, 203 Jena Six, Jackson’s support of, 284 Jews and Blacks: A Dialogue on Race, Religion, and Culture in America, 510 Jim Crow laws, 5; A. Philip Randolph and, 470; Al Sharpton and, 496; Angela Davis’ southern childhood, 83; Brown v. Board of Education, 60; Dorothy Height and, 238; early legal actions after emancipation, 523; Elaine Brown and, 34; James Farmer and, 133; Jesse Jackson and, 262; John Lewis and, 342; Thurgood Marshall and, 392, 398–99; W.E.B. Du Bois, 112, 116 Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, 324 Johnson, James Weldon, Roy Wilkins and, 551 Johnson, Lyndon B.: Civil Rights Act of 1964, 23; Great Society Program, 620; history, 568; James Farmer and, 153; Kerner Commission Report, 152, 252; Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and, 222; reaction to riots, 71; Roy Wilkins and, 563–64; Thurgood Marshall and, 393, 413 Johnson C. Smith College, Robert F. Williams and, 581 Journeymen Bakers and Confectioners Union, Harlem Branch, A. Philip Randolph and, 476

Index

676

Journey of Reconciliation: Ella Baker, 12–13; James Farmer, 139, 145–46; Supreme Court segregation case, 406–7 Jungle Fever, 328–30 Kanawha (Antonio Maceo), 197 Karenga, Ron: problems with Black Panthers, 38–40; rally on Ed Lynn’s behalf, 91; US, black culturalist organization, 35 Keep America Out of War Committee, 140 Keep Hope Alive, 282 Kennedy, Jack: Civil Rights Movement, 301, 614; Elaine Brown and, 32–33; March on Washington for jobs and freedom, 616; Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 302, 304–5; Roy Wilkins and, 563; Thurgood Marshall and, 413 Kennedy, Robert: Freedom Rides and, 148–49; John Lewis and, 361; Martin Luther King, Jr., 304 Kentucky State Industrial College, Whitney Young and, 601 Kenya, Thurgood Marshall, 411 Kerner Commission Report, 152, 253 Khaddafi, Muammar, Louis Farrakhan and, 178 Kimball, Lindsley F., Whitney Young and, 609 King, Coretta Scott, 292–93 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 285–309, 285f; Alabama marches, 65; Angela Davis and, 84; assassination, 271, 308–9; attitude toward Black Power Movement, 35; big six, 149–50; Black Militants and Separatists as rivals, 306; campaigns in the South, 303–5; childhood, 286–88; Civil Rights Movement, 293–303; coming of age in the Jim Crow South, 288–89; Crusade for Citizenship, 298; Ella Baker and, 1, 14–17; Fellowship of Reconciliation and, 139; Freedom Rides and, 303; high cost of fame, 298–300; higher learning, 289–93;

I’ve Been to the Mountaintop, 308–9; James Farmer and, 132, 147; Jesse Jackson and, 260, 268; last campaigns, 306–8; Malcolm X and, 384, 386; March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 305; meeting with John Lewis, 344–45; Mississippi Freedom Summer and, 306; move to Chicago, 307–8; negotiations with Vice President Nixon, 297; NOI and, 167–68; politics, 302–3; Poor People’s Campaign, 270–71, 308; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 282; protesting Vietnam War, 308; Rosa Parks and, 462; sit-in movement, 300–302; Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SNLC), 285–310; Stokely Carmichael and, 59; Time Man of the Year, 305 Kirkpatrick, Frederick Douglas, 69 Kissing Case, role of Robert F. Williams, 587–88 Ku Klux Klan: Birth of a Nation, 122–23; Deacons for Defense and Justice, 69; Edward Young Clarke meeting with Marcus Garvey, 200; Ella Baker and, 20; history, 586; Malcolm X and, 368; Robert F. Williams confrontation, 585–87 Labor Movement, A. Philip Randolph and, 477–81 Lampkin, Daisy, 9 La Nacion, 186 La Prensa, 186 Last Hustle in Brooklyn, 322 Lawson, James, John Lewis and, 345 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Dorothy Height and, 234 League for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience against Military Segregation, 486–87 Lee, Spike (Shelton Jackson), 311–35, 311f; growing up in the Civil Rights era, 313–20; Ida B. Wells-Barnett comparison, 311; Malcolm X and, 330–31; marriage and family,

Index

332–34; Morehouse College, 320–22; New York University Institute of Film and Television, 322–24; radical black films, 325–32; starting out, 324–25; student Academy Award, 324 Legal Lynching: Racism, Injustice, and the Death Penalty, 282 Letter from Birmingham City Jail, 304 Levison, Stanley: In Friendship, 15; SCLC, 15 Lewis, John, 337–63, 337f; American Baptist Theological Seminary, 343–44; big six, 149–50; Blood Sunday, 359–60; Bobby Kennedy and, 361; childhood, 338–43; civil rights leadership, 352–54; Council on United Civil Rights Leadership (CUCRL), 355–56; Freedom Rides, 350–51; Guinea, West Africa, 358–59; influence of Dr. King, 340; James Farmer and, 132; LCFO, 67; life after SNCC, 360–63; Malcolm X and, 386–87; March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 354–55; meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., 344–45; Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 358; Mississippi Freedom Summer, 356–57; Nashville Student Movement, 345–50; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 338, 351–52; U.S. House of Representatives, 362–63; voter registration, 356 Lewis, Theophilus, Garvey Must Go Campaign, 200–201 Liberia, colonization of, 182, 194, 197–99 Liberty Hall, 191 Lincoln Institute, 598–601 Lincoln Memorial, 490 Lincoln University, Thurgood Marshall and, 396–97 Little, Ella, 370–74, 385 Little, Malcolm (birth name of Malcolm X), 368 Living Way, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 524–25

677

Locke, Alain, 60 Long, Huey Pierce, 419 Long Branch Baptist Church, Jesse Jackson, 263 Long Hot Summer (1965–1969), 70, 565 Loudin, Frederick J., 532 Louima, Abner, 512 Louis X, Louis Farrakhan, 164–66 Love, J. Robert, Pan-Africanism, 186 Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), Stokely Carmichael and, 65–66 Loyalist Party, Fannie Lou Hamer and, 229–31 Loyal League, Asberry Wilkins and, 547 Lucy Diggs Hall for African American women, 248 Lucy v. Adams, Thurgood Marshall and, 392 Lyceum, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 524 Lynching: anti-lynching campaign, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 526–31, 534, 536; Elijah Muhammad as witness to, 163; Emmett Till, 340–41; epidemic, 528; James Farmer and anti-lynching bill, 136; noose, definition and history, 283; Roy Wilkins demonstrations against, 556–57 Lynn, Ed, Angela Davis and, 91–92 Lyons, Maritcha, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 529 Lyons v. Oklahoma, Thurgood Marshall and, 405–6 Magida, Arthur J., 157, 331 Makeba, Miriam, 74–75 Malcolm X, 65–66, 365–89, 365f; Angela Davis and, 87; assassination, 170; back in America, 387; Betty Sanders (Betty Shabazz), 378, 429– 30; childhood, 368–71; El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, 385–87; influence on Huey P. Newton, 424–25; James Farmer and, 150; John Lewis and, 359, 386–87; living with the Swerlins, 370–71; Louis Farrakhan and, 167–70; Malik el-Shabazz, 384–85;

Index

678

Malcolm X (continued) Martin Luther King, Jr., and, 384, 386; Muslim Mosque, Inc., 169, 384–85; Nation of Islam (NOI), 375–83; Organization of Afro-American Unity, 169; prison, 374–76; Rosa Parks and, 462–63; soapbox orating, 367; Sophia, 372–73; split with Nation of Islam (NOI), 384; street life, 371–74; trip to Mecca, 385 Malcolm X, 330–32 Mandela, Nelson, 75 Manning, Sarah Mae, 157–58 Mansart Builds a School, 129 March on Washington for jobs and freedom, 151–52, 251–52; A. Philip Randolph and, 485–86, 488–90, 616; Jesse Jackson, 267; John Lewis and, 354–55; Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 305; Whitney Young and, 616 Marion County Courthouse, Angela Davis and, 81 Marshall, Thurgood, 9, 60, 391–415, 391f; childhood, 393–95; feelings about Montgomery Bus Boycott, 411; high school, 395–96; on his own, 399–400; Howard University, 397–98; to justice and beyond, 412–14; Lincoln University, 396–97; NAACP, 392, 400–412; Assistant Special Counsel, 400–401; Chief Legal Officer, 402–3; Spingarn Medal, NAACP, 408; trip to Kenya, 411; United States Supreme Court, 413–14; unleashing the Civil Rights Movement, 411–12 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Whitney Young and, 602 Matthews, Victoria Earle, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 529 Mayo, Isabelle Fyvie, Ida B. WellsBarnett and, 530–32 McCauley, James, 444–45 McCauley, Leona, 444–45 McGhee, Frederick, Roy Wilkins and, 549

McKenzie, Fayette, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 125 McKissick, Floyd, 69; CORE, 151 Mecca, Malcolm X and, 385 Meredith, James, 67–69 Message to the Blackman in America, 331 Messenger: politics, 475–76; Randolph and Owen, 474–75 The Messenger, 324–25 Metropolitan Youth Conference on Equality, Ella Baker and, 13 Metzger, Thomas, White American Political Association and, 176 Miles, Lillian, 361–62 Milgram, Morris, 153 Militancy: CORE after 1966, 153–54; Elaine Brown and, 33; Louis Farrakhan, 156; SNCC, 24; Stokely Carmichael, 54 Million Man March: Dorothy Height’s involvement, 256; Louis Farrakhan, 156, 177–79, 332–33 Miracle at St. Anna, 312, 335, 578 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP): Democratic National Convention, 1964, 221–23; Ella Baker and, 20–23; Fannie Lou Hamer, 208, 219; Freedom Vote, 223–25; John Lewis, 358; Martin Luther King, Jr., 306; Roy Wilkins, 564; Stokely Carmichael, 63–64 Mississippi Freedom Labor Union (MFLU), Fannie Lou Hamer and, 225–26 Mississippi Freedom Summer, 21–23; Dorothy Height and, 254; Fannie Lou Hamer, 218–23; James Farmer and CORE, 152; John Lewis, 5356–357; Stokely Carmichael, 54, 61–63 Mo’ Better Blues, 334 Mojave Desert, 40 Montgomery Bus Boycott: Angela Davis, 83–84; December 1, 1955, 455–57; December 2, 1955, 457–58; Ella Baker, 14; James Farmer, 147; Jesse Jackson, 266; Martin Luther King, Jr., 293–97; Rosa Parks, 458–61; Thurgood Marshall beliefs, 411

Index

Montgomery County, Maryland schools, Thurgood Marshall and, 400 Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 294, 458–61 Montgomery Industrial School, Rosa Parks and, 448 Moon, 120 Morehouse College: Martin Luther King, Jr., 289–91; Spike Lee, 320–22 Morgan v. Virginia, Thurgood Marshall and, 406–7 Morris Park Avenue Dukes, Stokely Carmichael and, 57 Moses, 183 Moses, Bob, 64 Motley, Constance Baker, 406–7 Muhammad, Elijah, 156, 162–63, 330; Malcolm X and, 375–76 Muhammad, Wallace Fard: NOI founder, 156, 163–64; restructuring NOI, 172–73 Muhammad Speaks: NOI’s organ, 169–70; organ of Nation of Islam, 381 Murray v. Maryland, Thurgood Marshall and, 399 Muslim Mosque, Inc., Malcolm X and, 169, 384–85 Muste, A. J., James Farmer and, 132, 141–42 My Story, 445 Nail, John E., letter condemning Marcus Garvey, 201 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave, 525 Nash, Diane, Nashville Student Movement, 345–50 Nashville Student Movement, John Lewis and, 345–50 National Action Network, Al Sharpton and, 509–10 National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Angela Davis and, 102

679

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP): Amenia Conference, 557; Bayard Rustin, 22; communism and, 13–14; The Crisis, 122–24; Daisy Lampkin, 9; Ella Baker, 2, 7–13; founding of, 121–21; Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 535–36; James Farmer, 132, 146–47; Joel Elias Spingarn, 121; Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), 403; Mary Church Terrell, 59; New York City Branch, Ella Baker, 13–14; New York Youth Council, 6; as part of COFO, 213; Raymond Parks, 450; Robert F. Williams, 572, 582–84; suspension, 588–89; Rosa Parks, 444, 450–51; Roy Wilkins, 551–69; Scottsboro Case, 557–58; Spingarn Medal, Thurgood Marshall, 392, 400–412; Walter White controversy, 560–61; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106, 120–22, 557; World War II and, 558–61 National Association for the Promotion of Labor Unionism, A. Philip Randolph and, 476 National Association of Colored Women: Daisy Lampkin, 9; Mary Church Terrell, 59 National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, 538–39 National Brotherhood Workers of America, A. Philip Randolph and, 476 National Centers for African American Women, 257 National Club, Marcus Garvey and, 186 National Council of Negro Women (NCNW): Daisy Lampkin, 9; Dorothy Height, 234, 246–57; Freedom Farm and, 229; Mary McLeod Bethune, founder, 244–46; new Washington headquarters, 1995, 257 National League for the Protection of Colored Women, 604 National Negro Congress (NNC): A. Philip Randolph, 482; Ella Baker, 6–7, 14; James Farmer, 136

Index

680

National Press Association, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 526 National Race Congress, W.E.B. DuBois and, 122 National Urban League (NUL): Civil Rights Movement and, 613–17; Daisy Lampkin, 9; Omaha, 606–7; as part of COFO, 213; St. Paul, 605; tactics, 616–17; Whitney Young, 598, 603–10; Executive Director, 610–13 National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC), Fannie Lou Hamer and, 229–31 National Youth Congress, Dorothy Height and, 242 National Youth Movement, Al Sharpton and, 503–4 Nation of Islam (NOI), 155–80; Civil Rights Movement and, 166–70; growth status and financial woes, 171–72; Malcolm X, 375–83; murder of Malcolm X, 1387; restructuring, 172–73; troubles, 170–71 Native Son, 379 Negroes with Guns, 72, 582–83 Negro Factories Corporation, Garvey project, 194 Negro Fellowship League (NFL): East St. Louis riot, 537–38; Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 536–37 Negro National News, Ella Baker and, 6 Negro Political Union, 202 Negro Press Association, 525 The Negro World, UNIA, 191, 204 New Age, 109 The New Negro, 60 New School, Ella Baker and, 5 New South, improved conditions after the Civil War, 522, 609 Newton, Huey P., 417–41, 417f; Alameda County Jail, 424–25; Angela Davis and, 93; beret and uniform, 37; Black Panther Party, 28, 36–42; Black Panther Party for Self Defense, 418, 426–29; California Penal Colony (1968–1970), 433–34; childhood, 419–23; Cuba, 438–39; death on

August 22, 1989, 440; drugs, crime, and marriage, 440; Elaine Brown and, 42–50; freedom, 435–36; Free Huey Campaign, 432–33; heroes of his childhood, 422–23; higher education, 439; higher learning and the Black Power Movement, 423–24; learning to fight, 420; murder, assault, and kidnapping, 431–32; persona, 436–37; return from Cuba, 49–50; return to the United States, 439; Soul Students Advisory Council, 425; stabbing of Odell Lee, 424; the Throne, 436 Newton, Walter, 419–20 New York Age, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 529 New York City Board of Education’s Commission on Integration, Ella Baker and, 10 New York City Council, Ella Baker and, 13 New York City Public Library, Ella Baker and, 6 New York State Christian Youth Council, Dorothy Height and, 241–42 New York University: Dorothy Height, 239–40; Institute of Film and Television, Spike Lee, 322–24 Niagara Movement, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106, 119–20 Nigger (N-word): Al Sharpton and, 515–17; childhood of Angela Davis, 83; childhood of Marcus Garvey, 185; Dorothy Height, 237–38; Ella Baker and, 3 Nixon, E. D.: Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 294; Rosa Parks and, 453, 460 Nixon, Richard, 297 Nkrumah, Kwame, 75–77 Nobel Peace Prize, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 306 Nonviolence: Elaine Brown and, 33; Ella Baker and, 18–19; Jesse Jackson, 266; Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 294 Nonviolent Action Group (NAG): Stokely Carmichael and, 54, 60

Index

Noose, definition and history, 283 North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, Jesse Jackson and, 260, 265 North Carolina College for Negroes, Robert F. Williams and, 581 Obama, Barack, endorsement by Louis Farrakhan, 179 Office of Economic Opportunity, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and, 498 Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO), funding of Hamer’s poverty programs, 227 Open Wide the Freedom Gates, 235 Operation Breadbasket: Al Sharpton, 499–501; Jesse Jackson and, 260, 269–70, 272–73 Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity), Jesse Jackson and, 260, 274–76 Organization of Afro-American Unity, Malcolm X and, 169 Our Own, 186 Owen, Chandler: friend of A. Philip Randolph, 473; Garvey Must Go Campaign, 200–201 Pace, Harry H., letter condemning Marcus Garvey, 201 Pan-Africanism, 73; flag (UNIA flag), 193; Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 542; Marcus Garvey, 186; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106, 124 Parchman State Penitentiary: Stokely Carmichael and, 61; James Farmer and, 148 Parent Body of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, 104 Parks, Gordon, 321 Parks, Raymond, 449–50 Parks, Rosa, 443–66, 443f; Angela Davis, 83–84; Black Power Movement, 464; childhood, 444–49; Civil Rights movement, 461–64; courtship and marriage, 449–50; early activism, 450–55; Ella Baker and, 14;

681

first bus protest, 451–55; John Conyers and, 463; life after the Civil Rights Movement, 464–66; Montgomery Bus Boycott, 458–61; NAACP, 450–51; politics and religion, 463; prelude to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 455–58; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 282; Selma to Montgomery march, 463–64; thoughts on Malcolm X, 462–63; voting rights, 451 Passive resistance: Angela Davis and, 88–89; Civil Rights Movement, 34 Peace Information Center, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 128 Pearlmutter, Nathan, 174 Pennsylvania Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, 237 Perry, Albert E., Robert F. Williams and, 582–87 Philadelphia High School for Girls, Elaine Brown and, 28 The Philadelphia Negro, 115 Phyllis Wheatley, 199 Phylon, 126 Pickens, William: Garvey Must Go Campaign, 200–201; Roy Wilkins and, 551 Picketing, Mississippi Freedom Summer, 221 Pine Level, Alabama, Rosa Parks and, 445 Plessy v. Ferguson, Thurgood Marshall and, 399, 408 Poitier, Sidney, 321 Politics, Elaine Brown and, 43–45, 46–49 Polygamy, Huey P, Newton and, 423–24 Poole, Elijah (birth name of Elijah Muhammad), 163 Poor People’s Campaign, King, Martin Luther, Jr. and, 270–71, 308 Poverty programs, Fannie Lou Hamer and, 227–29 Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr., 69; Al Sharpton and, 497–99; Dorothy Height and, 242; life and times, 498 Prejudice, in Jamaica, 189

Index

682

Presidential Medal of Freedom: Dorothy Height, 255, 282; James Farmer, 154; Jesse Jackson, 282; Martin Luther King, Jr., 282; Rosa Parks, 282 Proctor, Samuel, influence on Jesse Jackson, 266 Progressive Era, 530 Project Womanpower, Dorothy Height and, 255 Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and His Nation, 157, 331 Protective Association, Ida B. WellsBarnett and, 542 Pulliam, Joe, effect on Fannie Lou Hamer, 212 PUSH/EXCEL, Jesse Jackson and, 260, 275–80 Racial consciousness: Al Sharpton, 497; Du Bois’ writings in The Crisis, 122; Nation of Islam, 164; Roy Wilkins, 550–51 Racial etiquette, 444 Racial profiling, Thurgood Marshall and, 403 Racial violence, NNC and, 7 Racism: Angela Davis’ Alabama community, 85; calypso music against, 55; childhood games of Angela Davis, 83; Elaine Brown and, 34; James Farmer and, 136; Marcus Garvey’s work, 182; Thurgood Marshall and, 397; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106 Radio Free Dixie, Robert F. Williams and, 572 Rainbow Coalition: Jesse Jackson, 260; Rainbow/PUSH, 281–82 Randolph, A. Philip, 467–92, 467f; becoming a radical socialist, 472–73; Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 478–81; Civil Rights Activism: 1925– 1935, 477–91; Civil Rights Activism: 1935–1979, 482–91; criticism of Garveyism and black nationalism, 475–76; desegregation in the military, 578; early years, 468–71;

final years, 491–92; In Friendship, 15; Garvey Must Go Campaign, 200–201, 475–76; James Farmer and, 132, 137, 147; Messenger, 474–75; opposition to, 476–77; organizations, 476; President, NNC, 7; private life, 481–82; soapbox oration, 473–74; social activism: 1916–1925, 473–77; Washington Prayer Pilgrimage, 297; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 124 Randolph Institute, 490–91 Reagan, Ronald, Thurgood Marshall and, 413–14 The Reason Why the Colored American is not in the World’s Exposition, 532 Reconstruction, Howard University, 59–60 Record, Cy, James Farmer and, 136–37 Redneck, childhood games of Angela Davis, 82 Red Scare, NAACP and, 14 Reeb, James, Reverend, 65 Reparations: definition and history, 279; Jesse Jackson, 278; Nation of Islam, 164 Reparations Committee of Descendants of the United States, Mother Audley Moore and, 279 Resurrection City, USA, Jesse Jackson and, 271–72 Reverse discrimination, 277 Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM): definition and history, 567; Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, 424–25 Rich, Matty, 330 Riots of 1964, Roy Wilkins and, 564 Riots of 1965, Roy Wilkins and, 566 Robert Hall Boycott, Al Sharpton and, 501 Robeson, Paul, 161 Robinson, Jimmy, James Farmer and, 142, 146 Rockwell, Norman, 134 Rogers, Joel A., Garvey Must Go Campaign, 200–201

Index

Roosevelt, Eleanor: advocacy for African Americans, 483, 556; Dorothy Height and, 244–46; James Farmer and, 138 Roosevelt, Franklin D.: A. Philip Randolph and, 483–85; New Deal programs, 7, 556 Rustin, Bayard, 12, 22, 486–87, 503; In Friendship, 15; SCLC, 15 Sample, D. S., Reverend, influence on Jesse Jackson, 263 Sanders, Betty (Betty Shabazz), 378, 429–30 Sarah, 323 Savior’s Day, 172 School Daze, 325–26 School of African Philosophy, Marcus Garvey and, 105 Schuyler, George, Garvey Must Go Campaign, 200–201 Schwerner, Michael, 152 Scott, Emmett J., 321 Scottsboro Case, Roy Wilkins and, 557–58 Seale, Bobby, 418; beret and uniform, 37; Black Panther Party, 28–42; Elaine Brown and, 43–44; expulsion from Black Panthers, 439–40 Segal, Ben, James Farmer and, 140 Segregation: Ida B. Wells-Barnett refusing seat on train, 522–23; James Farmer and, 132; Jesse Jackson and, 262; NNC and, 7; Rosa Parks childhood, 449; Stokely Carmichael and, 58; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106, 113 Self-defense: armed, Black Power Movement, 74; The Crusader weekly newsletter, 589–91; Elaine Brown and, 33; Robert F. Williams, 572, 579–80; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106 Selma, Alabama: Martin Luther King, Jr., 306–7; Rosa Parks and, 463–64; Stokely Carmichael and, 64–65; Whitney Young, 617 Separatism: CORE after 1966, 153–54; disapproval of Huey P. Newton, 431; Elaine Brown, 34; Ella Baker and, 1;

683

Louis Farrakhan, 156; Martin Luther King, Jr. disagreements, 306; Nation of Islam, 164; Stokely Carmichael, 54 el-Shabazz, Malik, 169, 384–85 Shadow senator, Jesse Jackson as, 260, 280–81 Shadyside, 197 Sharecropping, 210, 339–40 Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton, 516–17 Sharpton, Ada Richards, 494–95 Sharpton, Al, 493–517, 493f; Abner Louima and, 512; activism, 499–505; Adam Clayton, Powell, Jr. and, 497–99; Amadou Diallo and, 512–13; awakening of racial consciousness, 497; Boy Preacher, 495–96; campaign for the Presidency, 514–15; childhood, 494–95; Crown Heights, 510–11; early New York protest, 506; James Brown and, 504–5; Jesse Jackson and, 260, 500–501, 509; mayoral campaign, 515; N-word, 515–17; the Sharpton persona, 505; tax evasion and embezzlement charges, 508; U.S. Senate campaign, 511; Vieques Island, 513–14 Sharpton, Alfred Charles, 494–95 Shawarbi, Mahmoud Youssef, help for Malcolm X, 385 Shaw University, Ella Baker and, 4 She’s Gotta Have It, 325 Simmons, William J., Ida B. WellsBarnett and, 525 Simon, Peter, name taken by Huey P. Newton in Cuba, 438–39 Singleton, John, 330 Sit-in movement: Angela Davis and, 86; beginnings in 1960, 58; Ella Baker and, 17; Martin Luther King, Jr., 300–301; Robert F. Williams and, 590 Skin-color prejudice, Spike Lee and, 320 Slavery: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 520–21; Maroons, 184; Moses as symbol, 183; Robert F. Williams’ family, 573; Roy Wilkins’ family, 547; in Trinidad, 55; W.E.B. Du Bois, 108

Index

684

Soapbox oration: A. Philip Randolph, 473–74; definition and history, 367 Socialism: A. Philip Randolph, 472–76; Angela Davis and, 91; Black Panthers and, 44–45; Huey P. Newton, 424; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106, 122 Soledad brothers, Angela Davis and, 100 Somers Junior High School, Al Sharpton and, 497 Sorbonne, Angela Davis, 87–88 The Souls of Black Folk, 116; influence on A. Philip Randolph, 471; influence on Roy Wilkins, 549 Soul Students Advisory Council, Huey P. Newton and, 425 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC): Bayard Rustin, 12; Chicago campaign, 268–70; Crusade for Citizenship, MLK, Jr., 298; Ella Baker, 1, 15–17; Jackson resigns over differences, 273–74; Jesse Jackson, 260, 266–74; Martin Luther King, Jr., 285–310; Operation Breadbasket, 260, 269–70, 499–501; organizing young activists, 59; as part of COFO, 213; Resurrection City, USA, 271–72 Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), Ella Baker and, 19–21 Southern Negro Youth Conference, James Farmer, 136 Southern Regional Council, John Lewis and, 361–62 Southwest Student Leadership Conference on Nonviolent Resistance to Segregation, Ella Baker and, 17 Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking, 325 Spingarn, Joel Elias, founding of NAACP, 121 Springfield Republican, 109 St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church, Louis Farrakhan and, 159 Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins, 546 Stead, W. T., 533

Sterling High School, Jesse Jackson and, 262 Stokely Speaks: Black Power to Pan-Africanism, 77 Straight from the Heart, 282 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): Black Panther Political Party merger with, 92–95; campaign for Gregory Clark, 93–94; delegation to Guinea, West Africa, 223; development of, 1; Diane Nash and, 347; effects of Black Power philosophy, 69–70; Ella Baker and, 1, 17–19, 24–25; Fannie Lou Hamer, 208, 213–14; John Lewis, 338, 351–52; Journey of Reconciliation, 1961, 13; Lowndes County Freedom Organization, 64–65; new program of militancy, 24–25; as part of COFO, 213; Roy Wilkins and, 562; Selma, Alabama, 64–65; Stokely Carmichael, 61–63, 66–67; violence after Dr. King’s assassination, 94 Summer of Sam, 334 Sunflower County Progress, Inc. (SCPI), Fannie Lou Hamer and, 227–28 The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1879, 114 Swastika, 123 Swerlin family, foster family of Malcolm X, 370–71 Swimming Pool Campaign, Robert F. Williams and, 584–85, 591 Talented Tenth, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106 A Taste of Power, 28, 42 Temple University, Elaine Brown and, 32 Tenants and Consumers League, A. Philip Randolph and, 476 Terrell, Mary Church: National Association of Colored Women, 59; sit-ins, 58–59 Thaddeus Stevens School of Practice, Elaine Brown and, 30 Third Ward Women’s Political Club, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and, 539

Index

Thomas, Earnest ‘‘Chilly Willy,’’ 69 Thorne, Richard, 423–24 Three Years in Mississippi, 68–69 Thurman, Howard, James Farmer and, 137–48 Tilden High School, Al Sharpton and, 501 Till, Emmett, 340–41 To Be Equal, 618 Tolson, Melvin B., 136 Toure, Ahmed Sekou, 73–77 Travis, Brenda, Ella Baker and, 19 Trickster, importance in slavery, 447 Trotter, William Monroe, 119–20 Trotter, William Trotter, 540–41 Truly, Harry, Black Student Alliance, 35–36 Truman, Harry, NAACP and, 560 Ture, Kwame, 75–77 Turner, Henry McNeil, 525–26, 529 Turner, Nat, 469 Tuskegee Airmen, 578 Tyler, George, 195 Uncle Tom, definition and history, 612 Union County Council on Human Rights, Robert F. Williams and, 584 United Brotherhood of Elevator and Switchboard Operators, A. Philip Randolph and, 476 United Christian Youth Movement, Dorothy Height and, 241 United States Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall and, 413–14 United Youth Committee Against Lynching, Dorothy Height and, 242 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 124; flag (Pan-African flag), 193; golden days for Garvey, 190–94; Ida B. WellsBarnett and, 542; Marcus Garvey, 182, 189; organization in the United States, 190; projects and problems, 194–97 University of Berlin, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 106, 113–14 University of California, San Diego, Angela Davis and, 89–95

685

University of California, Santa Cruz, Huey P. Newton and, 439 University of Frankfurt, Angela Davis and, 88–89 University of Illinois, Jesse Jackson and, 264–65 University of Minnesota: Roy Wilkins, 550–51; Whitney Young, 603–4 University of Pennsylvania, W.E.B. DuBois and, 114–15 Up from Slavery, 117, 182, 188 Urban League. See National Urban League (NUL) US Organization: problems with Black Panthers, 38–40; rally on Ed Lynn’s behalf, 91; Ron Karenga, 35 Van Patter, Betty, Black Panthers and, 47–48 Van Peebles, Mario, 330 Vaughn, Gus, Rosa Parks childhood and, 446–47 V for Victory, 144 Vieques Island, Al Sharpton and, 513–14 Vietnam War: King’s protests, 308; Roy Wilkins and, 568–69; Whitney Young, 620 Voting rights: Fannie Lou Hamer, 213–14; Rosa Parks, 451; Roy Wilkins, 565–66 Voting Rights Act of 1965: impact of Fannie Lou Hamer, 219; John Lewis and, 360 Walcott, Louis Eugene: becoming Louis Farrakhan, 170; birth name of Louis Farrakhan, 157 Walker, Wyatt Tee, 302 Wallace, George, 360 Washington, Booker T.: accommodationism, 118; Atlanta Compromise speech, 118; influence on Huey P. Newton, 424; influence on Marcus Garvey, 188; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 116–19 Washington, Bishop Frederick Douglass, inspiration to Al Sharpton and, 495

Index

686

Washington Prayer Pilgrimage, Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 297 Washington Temple Church, Al Sharpton as a young man, 495 Watchman (newspaper), Marcus Garvey and, 186 Watts, Los Angeles, 70 Watts Riot, Los Angeles, Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 307 Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 519–43, 519f; African American Women’s Clubs, 538–39; anti-lynching crusade, 526–31, 533; anti-lynching crusade abroad, 531–32, 534, 536; early life, 520–26; Equal Rights League, 540–42; Equal Rights League and the Arkansas riot, 541–42; fighting for recognition at the World’s Fair, 532; final years, 542–43; first speaking engagement, New York, 529–30; journalism, 524–26; Marcus Garvey and, 190; Negro Fellowship League, 536–38; organizational achievements, challenges, and protests, 534–40; preparing for activism, 523–26; Protective Association, 542; refusing seat on segregated train, 522–23; social activism after marriage and children, 533–34; Spike Lee comparison, 312; teaching to support the family, 521–22; Universal Negro Improvement Association, 542; Women’s Club movement, Illinois, 532–33 Wenders, Elaine, Elaine Brown and, 45 ‘‘We Shall Overcome,’’ 18, 295 West Virginia State College, Robert F. Williams and, 581 When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, 335 White, Walter, 11; disagreements with W.E.B. Du Bois, 557; divorce and remarriage, 560–61; Roy Wilkins and, 551, 553; Thurgood Marshall and, 401, 403; W.E.B. Du Bois and, 127 Whitecapping, 339

White City Roller Skating Rink campaign, James Farmer and, 143 White supremacy: Atlanta Compromise speech by Washington, 118; message of NOI and, 167; Mississippi Freedom Summer, 23 Wilberforce University, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 114 Wiley College, James Farmer and, 132 Wilkins, Roy, 545–69, 545f; attitude toward Black Power Movement, 35; big six, 149–50; Black Power Movement, 566–67; childhood, 547–50; Civil Rights Movement, 561–66; Democratic National Convention, 1964, 564; James Farmer and, 132, 146–47; John F. Kennedy and, 563; Lyndon B. Johnson and, 563–64; Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 564; demonstration and arrest, 555–57; Du Bois controversy, 557; as Executive Secretary of NAACP, 1954, 561; from office to field, 554–55; Scottsboro Case, 557–58; World War II, 558–61; retirement, 569; riots of 1964, 564; riots of 1965, 566; Thurgood Marshall and, 401; Uncle Tom moniker, 567; University of Minnesota, 550–51; Vietnam War, 568–69; Voting rights, 565–66; Washington Prayer Pilgrimage, 297 Williams, Ellen, 573–75 Williams, Hosea, Bloody Sunday, 360 Williams, Robert F., 72, 571–96, 571f; activism, 582–91; armed self defense, 579–80; back to North Carolina, 577–79; Black Armed Guard, 572, 585; California nightmare, 577; childhood, 572–75; coming of age, 575–77; confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan, 585–87; desegregating Monroe schools, 587; Detroit riot, 576–77; drafted into the Army, 579–80; in exile, 593–95; Freedom Riders, 591–93; Kissing Case,

Index

587–88; leading a strike, 1941, 575–76; NAACP, 582–84; suspension, 588–89; return to the United States, 595–96; in search of a life, 580–82; Swimming Pool Campaign, 584–85, 591; Union County Council on Human Rights, 584; U.S. Marine Corps, 1954, 581–82 Williams, Sam and Elizabeth, 548–49 Williams, Stanley ‘‘Tookie,’’ Jackson’s support of, 284 Williams Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, Fannie Lou Hamer and, 208, 213 Wilson, Lionel, 47, 49 Wilson, Woodrow, W.E.B. Du Bois and, 122 Winston-Salem Teachers’ College, Louis Farrakhan and, 162 Witnessing and Testifying: Black Women, Religion, and Civil Rights, 219 Women, Race, and Class, 81 Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers & Torchbearers, 1941–1965, 347 Women’s suffrage: Daisy Lampkin, 10; Du Bois’ writings in The Crisis, 122; Mary Church Terrell, 59 Woodson, Carter G., influence on Thurgood Marshall, 397 Works Progress Administration, Ella Baker and, 7 The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History, 127 World Community of al-Islam in the West, 172 World’s Fair, 1893, Ida B. WellsBarnett and, 532 World’s Fair, 1965, New York, Al Sharpton and, 496 Worlds of Color, 129

687

World War II, African American perspective, 578 The Wretched of the Earth, 72 X, chosen surname of Nation of Islam members, 331 X-32, vigilante-style organization of Robert F. Williams, 575 Young, Laura, 599–601 Young, Whitney, 597–621, 597f; big six, 149–50; Black Power Movement, 618–20; childhood, 598–601; Civil Rights Movement, 613–17; Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, 615–16; Harvard University, 610; James Farmer and, 132; Kentucky State Industrial College, 601; March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 616; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 602; Omaha Urban League, 606–7; into the 1970s, 621; St. Paul Urban League, 605; University of Minnesota, 603–4; Urban League, 598, 603–10; Vietnam war, 620 Young, Whitney, Sr., 599–601 Young Negroes’ Cooperative League (YNCL), Ella Baker and, 6 Young People’s Community Forum, Ella Baker and, 6 Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA): Dorothy Height, 244, 248–57; Ella Baker, 19; integration and, 246–50; Mary S. Ingraham, 243; Negro Leadership Conference, 1950, 247; Office of Racial Justice, 254; Phyllis Wheatley branch, 246–47 Youth Committee against War, James Farmer and, 138 Youth Committee of One Hundred, Ella Baker and, 6 Zongo, Ousmane, Al Sharpton and, 514


ABOUT THE AUTHOR GLADYS L. KNIGHT has written extensively on individuals, issues, and topics relevant to African American history. She has contributed to numerous Greenwood publications, including The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature (2005), The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore (2005), Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era (2006), Encyclopedia of American Race Riots (2006), and the forthcoming Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture.

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