By David Pitts
Washington File Staff Writer Courtesy of the Department of State
(Plaque honors three civil rights martyrs)
Philadelphia, Mississippi -- It is not really a memorial, just a
small plaque on the grounds of the Mt. Zion Methodist Church, located
a few miles outside this small town. The young men it honors are
largely forgotten now. But 37 years ago, their names were front page
news across the nation -- civil rights heroes who had mysteriously
disappeared while helping African Americans to register to vote.
The case was a subject of frequent comment at a conference titled
"International Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity, and Intercultural
Relations," held April 18-22 on the campus of the University of
Mississippi. It was the most important of a number of civil rights
cases that conference attendees discussed.
James Chaney, who was black, and Andrew Goodman and Michael
Schwerner, both of whom were white, were in Neshoba County during what
became known as Mississippi Freedom Summer -- the summer of 1964. They
were part of a large contingent of volunteers determined to break the
back of segregation -- and in particular the state's intimidation of
potential black voters. Neshoba County had a reputation as one of the
most segregated jurisdictions in the state.
On June 17, Mt. Zion Church was burned to the ground, one of 20
black churches to be firebombed across the state during that Freedom
Summer. The federal government's law enforcement agency, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), began a massive inquiry into the
bombings, codenamed "MIBURN" -- for Mississippi Burning.
President Lyndon Johnson and Attorney General Robert Kennedy became
personally involved in the case, urging FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
to aggressively pursue every lead.
But the FBI soon had an even more serious matter on its hands. On
June 21, Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner drove to the site of the burned
church outside Philadelphia to investigate the situation and express
sympathy with the congregation. On the way back, they disappeared. The
FBI interviewed more than 1,000 Mississippians in an effort to locate
the young men before their bodies were eventually found on August 4.
It was later determined that the civil rights workers had been
murdered as a result of a conspiracy between elements of Neshoba
County law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan.
But if segregationists in Mississippi had hoped to intimidate the
civil rights movement, they were mistaken. The crime spurred renewed
efforts in the state to register African Americans to vote and
national indignation over the murders helped President Johnson pass
the 1964 Civil Rights Act which, together with the Voting Rights Act
passed the following year, ended legally mandated segregation in
Mississippi and throughout the South. Seven persons were eventually
convicted of federal civil rights charges relating to the murders and
served prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years.
Driving into Philadelphia on this cool, spring day, there are no
visible signs of the violent struggle that took place here almost four
decades ago. But evidence of the change that was wrought here is
everywhere. On a city street, a black law enforcement officer drives
by in a patrol car -- unthinkable during segregation. At the county
courthouse, black and white employees seem to mix easily in a way that
would not have been possible in the old Mississippi.
And at the city library, black and white schoolchildren read
attentively beside a stand carrying books about African American role
models -- everyone from movie star Denzel Washington to U.S. Secretary
of State Colin Powell. Both the librarians on duty on this day are
African American. Everyone asked in Philadelphia knows about the three
civil rights workers and what happened in Neshoba County during
Mississippi Freedom Summer.
Most, however -- both black and white -- seem reluctant to talk
about it, as if it would open up old wounds. They would rather talk
about Neshoba County and Mississippi today. Mississippi now has more
elected black officials than any other state in the nation, testimony
to the wrenching change that occurred here just a few generations ago,
although African Americans will tell you that there is still much to
be done.
"Change is difficult," remarked one elderly white man.
"But what happened right here in Neshoba County changed
Mississippi, changed the South forever." That change did come is
due to the myriad of civil rights NGOs that were active here, to the
determination of the federal government and courts to end legally
mandated segregation throughout the South, and to the educative role
played by independent media.
But it also is due to courageous individuals like James Chaney,
Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. The plaque dedicated to their
memory, next to a rebuilt Mt. Zion Methodist Church, says:
"On June 21, 1964, voting rights activists James Chaney,
Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who had come here to investigate
the burning of Mr. Zion Church, were murdered. Victims of a Klan
conspiracy, their deaths provoked national outrage and led to the
first successful prosecution of a civil rights case in
Mississippi."
This article was reproduced from the U.S. Department of State's
Office of International Information Programs (usinfo.state.gov).
Links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an
endorsement of the views contained therein.
Mississippi
& Freedom Summer - Cozzens, Lisa. "The Civil Rights Movement
1955-1965." African American History. http://fledge.watson.org/~lisa/
blackhistory/civilrights-55-65 (25 May 1998).
1965 - Selma
Senators Everett Dirksen and Hubert Humphrey and Speaker of the House John McCormack watch as President Lyndon Johnson signs the 1964 Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964, The White House, Washington, DC
National Archives and Records Administration, Lyndon B. Johnson Library
New Page 5
Teaching With Documents:
Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation
Workers - Courtesy of the National
Archives
Background
The name of Martin Luther King, Jr., is intertwined with the history of the
civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States. The
Montgomery bus boycott, the freedom rides, the Birmingham campaign, the March on
Washington, the Selma march, the Chicago campaign, and the Memphis boycott are
some of the more noteworthy battlefields where King and his followers--numerous
in numbers, humble and great in name-- fought for the equal rights and equal
justice that the United States Constitution ensures for all its citizens. King,
building on the tradition of civil disobedience and passive resistance earlier
expressed by Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Gandhi, waged a war of nonviolent direct
action against opposing forces of racism and prejudice that were embodied in the
persons of local police, mayors, governors, angry citizens, and night riders of
the Ku Klux Klan. The great legal milestones achieved by this movement were the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In the later 1960s, the targets of King's activism were less often the legal
and political obstacles to the exercise of civil rights by blacks, and more
often the underlying poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and blocked
avenues of economic opportunity confronting black Americans. Despite increasing
militancy in the movement for black power, King steadfastly adhered to the
principles of nonviolence that had been the foundation of his career. Those
principles were put to a severe test in his support of a strike by sanitation
workers in Memphis, Tennessee. This was King's final campaign before his death.
During a heavy rainstorm in Memphis on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation
workers had been crushed to death when the compactor mechanism of the trash
truck was accidentally triggered. On the same day in a separate incident also
related to the inclement weather, 22 black sewer workers had been sent home
without pay while their white supervisors were retained for the day with pay.
About two weeks later, on February 12, more than 1,100 of a possible 1,300 black
sanitation workers began a strike for job safety, better wages and benefits, and
union recognition. Mayor Henry Loeb, unsympathetic to most of the workers'
demands, was especially opposed to the union. Black and white civic groups in
Memphis tried to resolve the conflict, but the mayor held fast to his position.
As the strike lengthened, support for the strikers within the black community
of Memphis grew. Organizations such as COME (Community on the Move for Equality)
established food and clothing banks in churches, took up collections for
strikers to meet rent and mortgages, and recruited marchers for frequent
demonstrations. King's participation in forming a city-wide boycott to support
the striking workers was invited by the Reverend James Lawson, pastor of the
Centenary Methodist Church in Memphis and an adviser to the strikers. Lawson was
a seasoned veteran of the civil rights movement and an experienced trainer of
activists in the philosophy and methods of nonviolent resistance.
At that time King was involved in planning with other civil rights workers
the Poor People's Campaign for economic opportunity and equality. He was also
zigzagging by airplane through the eastern United States meeting speaking
engagements and attending important social events as head of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Nevertheless, King agreed to lend his support to the sanitation workers,
spoke at a rally in Memphis March 18, and promised to lead the large march and
work stoppage planned for later in the month.
Unfortunately the demonstration on March 28 turned sour when a group of rowdy
students at the tail end of the long parade of demonstrators used the signs they
carried to break windows of businesses. Looting ensued. The march was halted,
the demonstrators dispersed, and King was safely escorted from the scene. About
60 people had been injured, and one young man, a looter, was killed. This
episode prompted the city of Memphis to bring a formal complaint in the District
Court against King, Hosea Williams, James Bevel, James Orange, Ralph Abernathy,
and Bernard Lee, King's associates in the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC).
The outbreak of violence deeply distressed King. In the next few days he and
fellow SCLC leaders negotiated with the disagreeing factions in Memphis. When
assured of their unity and commitment to nonviolence, King came back for another
march, at first scheduled for April 5. In the meantime, U.S. District Court
Judge Bailey Brown granted the city of Memphis a temporary restraining order
against King and his associates. But the SCLC's planning and training for a
peaceful demonstration had intensified. Lawson and Andrew Young, representing
the SCLC, met with the judge April 4 and worked out a broad agreement for the
march to proceed April 8. The details of the agreement would be put into place
the next day, April 5.
This was the message that Young conveyed to King as they were getting ready
to go out to dinner. Moments later, on that evening of April 4, 1968, as King
stepped out of his motel room to join his colleagues for dinner, he was
assassinated.
Other Resources
Books
Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years,
1954-1963. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.
Branch, Taylor. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998.
Carson, Clayborne, et al., eds. The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights
Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom
Struggle, 1954-1990. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Fairclough, Adam. Martin Luther King, Jr. Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1995.
Garrow, David. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow, 1986.
Halberstam, David. The Children. New York: Random House, 1998.
Hampton, Henry, and Steve Fayer. Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of
the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s. New York:
Bantam Books, 1990.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Edited by Clayborne Carson. New York: Warner Books, 1998.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin
Luther King, Jr. Edited by James Washington. New York: HarperCollins,
1986.
Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years,
1954-1965. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
Videos and Software
Eyes on the Prize: A History of the Civil Rights Movement (12
one-hour videotapes). ABC Laserdisc.
Encarta Africana. Microsoft CD-ROM.
Web Sites
The Web site of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project at Stanford
University (http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/)
includes links to biography, articles, chronology, and reference sources about
King. This site also has links to key King documents.
[Defendants'] Exhibit 1 City of Memphis v. Martin Luther King, Jr., [et al.]
1968
Click to Enlarge
National Archives and Records Administration
Records of the United States District Court
Western District of Tennessee,
Western (Memphis) Division
Record Group 21 ARC Identifier:
279325
This exhibit is a flyer distributed to sanitation workers in Memphis,
Tennessee, asking them to "March for Justice and Jobs." Included are directions
for the route to be followed and instructions to the marchers to use "soul-force
which is peaceful, loving, courageous, yet militant."
[Defendants'] Exhibit 2 City of Memphis v. Martin Luther King, Jr., [et al.]
1968
Click to Enlarge
National Archives and Records Administration
Records of the United States District Court
Western District of Tennessee,
Western (Memphis) Division
Record Group 21 ARC Identifier:
279326
This exhibit is a flyer distributed in Memphis, Tennessee, requesting
volunteer assistance and offering instructions to sanitation workers and their
sympathizers for the duration of a strike.
Answer to Plaintiff City of Memphis v. Martin Luther King, Jr., [et al.]
1968
Click to Enlarge
National Archives and Records Administration
Records of the United States District Court
Western District of Tennessee,
Western (Memphis) Division
Record Group 21 ARC Identifier:
279324
This document was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District
of Tennessee, Western Division, April 4, 1968. It gives the response of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Reverend Hosea Williams, Reverend James Bevel, Reverend
James Orange, Ralph D. Abernathy, and Bernard Lee to allegations by the city of
Memphis, Tennessee, that they had been engaged in a conspiracy to incite riots
or breaches of the peace. They also denied that they had refused to furnish
information concerning marches and explained the steps they had taken to ensure
the march would be nonviolent and under control. Dr. King further stated that he
had received threats against his personal safety.
Portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
By Betsy G. Reyneau
Click to Enlarge
National Archives and Records Administration
Donated Collections
Record Group 200
The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) refers to the
reform movements in the United States aimed at abolishing racial discrimination
against African Americans and restoring Suffrage in Southern states.
African-American Civil Rights
Movement (1955–1968)
The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) refers to the
reform movements in the United States aimed at abolishing
racial
discrimination against
African Americans and restoring
Suffrage
in Southern states. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1954
and 1968, particularly in the
South. By 1966, the emergence of the
Black
Power Movement, which lasted roughly from 1966 to 1975, enlarged the aims
of the Civil Rights Movement to include racial dignity,
economic and
political
self-sufficiency, and freedom from oppression by
whites.
Many of those who were most active in the Civil Rights Movement, with
organizations such as
SNCC, CORE
and
SCLC, prefer the term "Southern Freedom Movement" because the struggle was
about far more than just civil rights under law; it was also about fundamental
issues of freedom, respect, dignity, and economic and social equality.