Non-Violent Direct ActionNon-Violent Direct Action

http://www.montgomeryboycott.com/video_ednboycottbegins.htm

Montgomery, Alabama 1955• Montgomery’s segregationist policy

– Bus law insisted blacks sit in middle & back– Blacks had to give up seats in middle to

whites– Rosa Parks, civil rights activist, broke bus law– She was arrested & convicted– What we now call the Civil Rights Movement

(CRM) is often said to have started with the actions of Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, on 1 December 1955

• Bus boycott begins– Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)

previously founded to organize blacks in town– MIA organized bus boycott– Boycott lasted 381 days– On day 1 buses were empty as 10-15,000

blacks turned out to hear the newly elected MIA president, a little-known, young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK)

Power of Non-Violence• Boycott successful

– Blacks made up most bus passengers– Bus line revenues down 65%– 2/3 of blacked carpooled, 1/3 walked

• First major example of power of non-violence– Challenged discrimination by refusing to

cooperate with it– Showed black people how powerful they

could be it they worked together

• Rosa’s day in court– December 1956: SC declared

Montgomery’s bus laws to be illegal– Meant all segregation bus laws illegal– Implied that all segregation of public

services was illegal

Dec. 5, 1955: Bus boycott begins

Why was the Montgomery incident so important? Was it because of the victory won or the way in which it was achieved?

Foreshadowing Evil• Boycott leaders subjected to

intimidation– MLK arrested twice– Local judges declared carpooling illegal– Churches & homes burned down– Racially integrated buses shot at by snipers

• Local juries turned a blind eye– Seven bombers and snipers charged– All were white men– All were acquitted by white juries

1957 #1 Hit Wake Up Little Suzy

Profile: Martin Luther King, Jr.• Many black Americans played an

important role in the 1950s & 1960s CRM. One leader emerged above all of the others …– Baptist minister of the CRM– Mesmerizing speaker– Believed passionately in non-violent protest– Favored actions such as bus boycotts & sit-

ins– December 1964: Awarded Nobel Peace

Prize– Not afraid to face confrontation– Subject to considerable violence– Not all CRM activists agreed w/ his methods– April 4, 1968: Assassinated by Earl Ray– Many theories that Ray was simply a hit

man hired by King’s opponents

Direct Action Gathers Pace• Montgomery success spurred new groups

– MLK formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which ran conferences on handling police, law and media & taught activists non-violent techniques

– Black & white college students set up Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

– Activist James Farmer formed Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

• Together these groups stages protests …

James FarmerMLK (SCLC) Ella Baker (SNCC)

Blueberr

y Hill,

1957 #2

Non-Violent Protest Examples• Greensboro, North Carolina, 1960

– SNCC students staged sit-ins, attempting to end segregation in restaurants

– W/in 1 week 400 students were sitting-in

• February 1960, Nashville Tennessee– 500 students sit-in in libraries, churches,

restaurants– Colleges expelled them but relented

when 400 professors threatened to quit– Students attacked & abused– Mayor Ben West eventually was

persuaded– May 1960: Nashville desegregated

Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson, and Mark Martin stage sit-down strike after being refused service at an F.W. Woolworth

luncheon counter, Greensboro, N.C. 1960

1960’s #1, Cathy’s Clown

‘Freedom Rides’• May 1961: CORE begins ‘freedom rides’

– Many states ignored SC desegregation order

– ‘Freedom riders’ deliberately rode buses in Birmingham, Alabama to highlight this

– Riders faced great violence

• SNCC takes up ‘freedom rides’ in support– Same violent reaction resulted

– 200 ‘freedom riders’ arrested, 40 days in jail

– Alabama Governor, John Patterson, didn’t protect riders

– Alabama’s Director of Public Safety, Floyd Mann, protected riders from being murdered

– Patterson eventually caved to tremendous pressure from John F. Kennedy to protect riders

Freedom Riders organized by the Congress of Racial Equality evacuate

a bus set afire by a mob outside of Anniston, Alabama, in 1961

1961 #1 Hit: The Lion Sleeps Tonight

How had the civil rights situation improved by 1963?

• 11 June 1963: Time of hope & fear– JFK was committing himself & nation to

wide ranging civil rights laws and regulations

– W/in hours of JFK’s speech, in Mississippi, black activist Medgar Evers was murdered by a known racist

– Previously, such murders were not even investigated

– In this case, police found killer & brought him to court

– All white juries twice deadlocked, acquitting him

Medgar Evers

Veteran of Normandy, June ’44

Buried w/ full military honors @ Arlington Cemetery

“No soldier in this field has fought more courageously, more heroically than Medgar Evers.” –former AmVet Chair

Byron De La Beckwith

Fertilizer salesman

Member of White Citizens’ Council

murderer

Finally convicted in 5 February 1994

Died in prison, 2001

Ghosts of Mississippi

1962 # 1 Hit, The Duke of Earl

Woolworth sit-in May 28 1963, Jackson, MS.

“This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. A huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I'm covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things.” – Hunter Gray

Seated, left to right, are Hunter Gray (John R. Salter, Jr.), Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), and Anne Moody

What evidence is there that civil rights actions increased racial tensions? Is this an argument against them?

Activity: You are a member of SNCC

• You are a member of SNCC in the early 1960s. Someone asks you why you are part of the movement, suggesting that all you and the other civil rights groups have achieved is a bus ride, getting beat up and being arrested. Give an answer to this criticism. You could mention:– The practical advances made since the

1950s (for example, desegregation)– The moral importance of these

advances– Why you believe non-violence is the

right tactic– Where you think your protests might go

from here

Fin

PSDs on Non-Violent Direct Action• The great glory of American democracy is the right of people to protest

for right. There will be no crosses burned at any bus stops in Montgomery. There will be no white persons pulled out of their homes and taken out on some distant road and murdered. There will be nobody among us who will stand up and defy the constitution of the Nation.– From MLK’s speech at Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955

• "Another Negro woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights, too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negroes, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses on Monday”

– The flier promoting the Boycott

PSDs on Non-Violent Direct Action

• A law may not make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me. It can also stop him from refusing to serve me in a restaurant.– King writing to President Eisenhower in

1957 after the President expressed his view that the laws cannot make people behave in a moral way