The March Continues

The Montgomery bus boycott made the city a famous part of the civil rights movement.  Rosa Parks is often referred to as the First Lady of the  movement, and of course everyone knows how Martin Luther King continued his fight for the rights of the black people.

So of course, there are a few sights to see.  The Dexter Avenue Baptist church where MLK preached is one place on the list, as is the Rosa Parks Museum, where they have set up a recreation of the bus and Rosa's arrest.

But the key place to visit here is the Civil Rights Memorial Center.  Their slogan is ' The march continues' and that is a key part of the centre.  Although the memorial is confined to the years of 1954 to 1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated, the centre doesn't just focus on what happened nearly sixty years ago, it reminds us that the fight for true equality carried on long past that and indeed, is still ongoing now.

The civil rights memorial itself is nice enough, but the real thing to do when you are here is to read the case studies.  They make it easy to do, with just a short outline of each story.  They make very uncomfortable reading.

The stories range from those of bombings, like that of a baptist church in 15 September 1963, which killed four schoolgirls from the youth choir, and arrests, through to those of horrendous individual murders and lynchings by the Klu Klax Klan and other white racists.

Most of these stories are shocking, with people being murdered simply because they were black, or were a white person who associated with black people, but perhaps one of the worst cases was that of Emmett Till, who died on 25 August 1955.

He was a young boy who had a stutter and had been taught to whistle when he got stuck.  Eight days after moving to Mississippi from the less racist north, Emmett went to buy sweets and never returned. It appears he may have whistled 'at' a white woman when he was stammering.  Her husband and some friends beat him to death and left his body in a river.  When he was found, they only way he could be recognised was by his ring.  His mother refused a closed casket for the burial; the sight of his body caused an outcry amongst the black community and apparently was on the mind of Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat.

But the really terrible thing is that these horrible acts weren't confined to the sixties.  The case that sparked the creation of the memorial was that of nineteen year old black boy, Michael Donald, who was walking to a store in Mobile Alabama when he was attacked by two members of the KKK, was brutally beaten and had his throat cut before they strung him up in a tree.  It was 1981.  It was at least, the first time that the United Klans of America was held responsible in law for such a murder, with the ruling in 1987 granting $7 million to his mother, putting them out of business and forcing them to turn over their HQ building to meet the payment.

Then there was nineteen year old Amy Robinson, killed in Fort Worth, Texas,   by Robert Neville and Michael Hall as part of a wager to see how many people they each could kill, the only criterion being that the victims be non white.  This was 15 February 1998.

And in the same year in Denver, after shooting Oumar Dia, nineteen year old Nathan Thill said "In a war, everyone wearing an enemy uniform is an enemy and should be taken out." Oumar's 'uniform' was the colour of his skin.

We all know that there are still cases of extreme racism in the USA, the UK and elsewhere.  Thankfully these days it is better than it was, and most people will not tolerate the kind of racial abuse and violence that is described above.  But that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist.

I used to work in Human Resources, and I saw some cases where people would be openly racist.  In fact this was as - if not more - likely to be someone from one ethnic group or one ancestral country being racist about someone from another group or country as it was to be from a white person.

But I also saw plenty of examples of people who were inadvertently treating people differently.  Not necessarily in ways that actually made any difference to them, but just in assumptions that they made, or lack of consideration that someone might have different beliefs or needs.

But still I was shocked when we came to the States and in these southern cities some of the people we spoke to would openly say things like 'London is a great city, but how can you stand to live there with all those black people; it's like being in Arabia'.

We would always say that we never found it a problem and that in fact we much preferred living in a diverse society, but there was obviously no way we were going to change their opinion in an exchange in a shop, so we didn't prolong those conversations.  But it is clear that racism is still very much in evidence here, although from what we heard, the focus seems to have shifted to be more against Muslims these days.

Civil Rights have improved drastically, but there is a long way to go yet before we can really say that people are not treated differently, or given less opportunity because of their origins, their gender, their disability, or their sexuality.

The memorial focuses on the African American history, but it acknowledges these other areas of discrimination too.  It has created an electronic Wall of Tolerance, which has names of people who are committed to justice, equality and human rights.  We both added our names to the wall, and would like to think that we can say that we live up to that commitment in our daily lives.

"The only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

The other significance of the 4 February in Montgomery was that it would have been Rosa Parks' 100th birthday, which made it an interesting day to be visiting the Civil Rights places here.

But first we need to set the scene of the poor state of civil rights in 1955 Montgomery, Alabama.  As I mentioned in the Martin Luther King posting, segregation was still very much a part of the life of an African American back then.  Workplaces, schools, shops, restaurants, bars, toilets - everything was segregated.

Black people were banned entirely from some places that white people went, and where they were allowed, they were segregated to particular areas, which you could be certain would be the most undesirable section.  People even had to use different water fountains.

And then there was segregation on the buses.  In 1955 the US Supreme Court and then the Interstate Commerce Commission had recently ruled bus segregation as unconstitutional and banned it on all buses travelling between states. But this did not apply to buses  that were purely within a state, as the US system of legislation allows individual States to set their own rules.

In Montgomery this meant that Jim Crow (a commonly used perjorative term for negro generally used to describe segregation legislation) rules of bus segregation were applied.  These stated that the front of the bus was reserved for white people, and blacks were never allowed to sit there.

Black people, who were by far the majority of the bus users, were expected to fill up the bus from the back and if only seats at the front remained, they had to stand rather than sit in them.  But if a white person got on, and there was no seat available at the front, then those people in the first black row were required to give up their seats and stand.  Generally black people followed the rules, but occasionally someone would refuse, and they would be arrested.

On 1 December 1955, a black woman named Rosa Parks got the bus home from her job as a seamstress, and was sat in the front row of the black section.  The bus was full,  so when some white people got on, the black people in the front were told to move. They all moved except for Rosa, who refused.  When she continued to refuse, the driver, James Blake, called the police and she was arrested.

Now when this story is told, it is often assumed that Rosa Parks was just a normal woman, tired after the end of her work day, who just decided there and then that she would not stand when asked.  But that is not the case.  In fact, when you look at the facts, it seems quite likely that this was a planned protest.

In 1955 Rosa Parks was 42 years old and, alongside her normal job, she worked as a secretary in the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and investigated cases for them.  She had recently been on a course for civil rights activists, learning about non violent protest.

And this was not her first brush with the driver, Blake.  Some drivers would make a black passenger pay at the front, then make them get off and reboard at the back door.  This had happened to  Rosa and the driver, Blake, had then driven off before she could reboard.  She had vowed never to use a bus that he was driving again.  And yet on this day she did.

 

In her own words, she said of the incident "The only tired I was, was tired of giving in." So when you look at all of this together, it does rather seem that Rosa, probably acting as part of a plan by  Edgar Nixon, President of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, was looking for an opportunity to make her protest.  Mr Nixon wanted a test case to challenge the segregation legislation, and he needed a person of good character to be that test case.

Of course the fact that this may have been a planned protest does not make it any less valid.  It was not a manufactured situation - she was arrested for failing to comply with segregation laws.

This wasn't the first time someone had been arrested, but this time, the black community decided to do something about it.  Jo Ann Robinson, a member of the Women's Political Council (WPC) of Montgomery, put out a leaflet to all of the black community calling for them to boycott the buses on Monday 5 December, when Rosa's case was to be heard.

 

The trial went ahead, and she was found guilty, but appealed.  In the meantime, black people stayed off the buses.  And not just for the one day.  They cycled, hitchhiked, organised car pools, organised a car service for the price of the bus fare, used mules, walked long distances, and some were given lifts by their white employers, but they did not take the bus.

The newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), led by the new Baptist minister in town, one Dr Martin Luther King Junior, was demanding a compromise for the buses.  It did not ask for its preferred solution of a complete end to segregation, but instead sought a simple division of the bus, so that whilst a black person may still have to stand if their section was full, even if the white section was empty, they would never again have to give up their seat for a white person.

The state and bus company fought back of course.  They tried to make car pooling impossible by getting insurance companies to refuse to insure the vehicles, but the black community found a company prepared to help them - Lloyds of London.  They tried to ban the car service as an illegal taxi service, resulting in some people, including Martin Luther King being arrested and spending time in jail.  It just gave the boycott more attention.

And alongside all of this, the legal action continued.  They did not in fact pursue Rosa Parks' case, as that would have been through the Alabama courts and so doomed to failure.  Instead, they took out a civil case in the federal courts, where they could hope for a better outcome.

The Browder v Gayle case was decided on 13 June 1956, when the federal courts ruled the segregation on Alabama buses as unconstitutional.  The State appealed, but on 17 December 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the decision, and three days later, ordered the desegregation of Alabama buses.

The boycott ended on the same day.

Meeting a part of Atlanta history

The segregation and civil rights movements are such comparatively recent history that of course it is the case that some of the older people that we pass in the streets would have lived through those times.  We heard a woman in Alabama (we'll get there in a posting soon) say that she was a child during the bus protests, for example.  But usually you don't get to know what people have seen or done, as you just don't speak to them.

But in Atlanta we did meet someone who was a part of a significant development in racial integration.

Fire Station 6, which is just down the road from the King's old home, was opened on 31 May 1894, and stayed operational until 1991.  It was later redeveloped into a museum which has a few old artifacts including a 1927 American LaFrance Metropolitan Pumper Hose Car fire engine.

The link to Martin Luther King is nothing more than proximity, but the station does have its own little bit of civil rights history, as in 1963 this was the first Atlanta fire station to integrate black firefighters into what was previously an all white station.

The sixteen black men did not always have an easy time of it, but the station chief was behind the desgregation and ensured that any issues were dealt with .  How do I know that?  Because one of those original sixteen integrated firefighters was there at the station when we visited.

Bill Callier had been a firefighter at station 16, an all black fire station, but had volunteered to make the move to station 6.  He transferred on 21 November 1963, the day before the Kennedy assassination.  He talked briefly to us about his experience, which he described as generally very positive because of the commitment of his bosses to the integration scheme, and their willingness to act when problems arose.

It was fascinating to meet Bill and hear about such a key time in the Atlanta fire department.  He later left the fire department and moved on to the MARTA transportation system and managed the provision of transport for the Atlanta Olympics, but now that heis retired, he is back at Fire Station 6 as a volunteer guide.

Martin Luther King Junior

One of the most famous people to come from Atlanta is Dr Martin Luther King.  Son of a Baptist Minister of the same name, Michael Luther King Junior was born on 15 January 1929 in the family home, in a nice building in a relatively affluent part of the area where the black people lived.

And yes I do mean Michael.  That was the original name of both father and son.  The father changed his name to Martin, in honor of Martin Luther, when he took over the ministry of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and his son followed suit.

Back then, slavery may have ended, but segregation was still very much in evidence.  Black people were still looked down upon by many white people.  Adults were referred to not by their name or in any other respectful way, but 'boy', 'girl', or worse still that 'N.....' word that I am not even going to write here.

The segregation was not only a determined separation of the 'colored', but also used as a way of demeaning them.  We saw a photo of a restaurant which blacks were allowed to use, but the area they had to eat in was around the back of the toilet block.  This, and much worse, was the culture that MLK (we'll call him that from now on) was born into.

We visited the house where he was born.  With the help of some of his family. It has been restored as closely as possible to how it would have been when he was a child.

We also visited the nearby MLK centre, opposite his father's Ebenezer Baptist church.  The centre has information about his life, and is where he is laid to rest.

So what of MLK?  He had a good education and like his father, became a Baptist Minister.  His first church of his own was the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.  Whether his life and the Civil Rights Campaign would have been different had he been sent somewhere else, we'll never know, but as it was, his life was about to take a very different course.

 Because Montgomery was where Rosa Parks made her stance against segregation which led to a protest that was to kickstart the Civil Right Campaign. I'll talk about her and the protest in a later posting; for now I'll stick to what it meant for MLK.

As the protest gathered pace, MLK was chosen to lead it.  He preached to the people to have them keep faith with the protest, but most importantly, he constantly pushed the need to make this a non violent campaign.

He started talking about Civil Rights in Montgomery because of this protest, but he continued way beyond that.  In 1957 he helped to establish and run the South Christian Leadership Conference  (SCLC), and in 1959 he visited India to study Ghandi's teachings, becoming further committed to the principles of non violent protest.

His campaigning took him across the USA.  Everywhere he went he called for an end to the racial discrimination and for equality.  He joined with other campaign groups to focus their efforts.  But all the while he insisted on non violent methods.  The Greensboro sit-in protests of 1960 were an excellent example of this in practice, leading to the ending of segregation in nearly thirty lunch counters.

With his campaigning gaining pace, rather than keep a church of his own, he returned to Atlanta and joined his father at his church so that he could be freer to spend time travelling and spreading the civil rights message.

In early 1963 he was arrested and jailed for his participation in a protest in Birmingham Alabama.  Undeterred, in August of the same year he led a march on Washington.  Most people have heard of MLK's compelling speeches and this is where he delivered his most famous 'I have a dream' speech, which has become one of those often quoted phrases, even if people don't actually know any of the rest of what he said.

Of course despite his own commitment to non violence, many of his opponents had no qualms about using violence in reply.  As well as all of the brutal attacks and killings of black people generally, and of some white people who supported the campaign, MLK had threats against him personally.  His home and church were bombed on a number of occasions.

One time he was signing copies of his book in a bookstore when a woman stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener.  They told him afterwards that had he sneezed before he was patched up then it would have killed him.  He later commented that he had received a letter from a little white girl who said that she had heard about this and was very happy that he didn't sneeze.

In 1964, partly as a result of the campaigns led by MLK, but also in part a reaction to enact the wishes of the recently assassinated President Kennedy, the Civil Rights Act was passed which effectively required an end to segregation in publicly owned or run facilities.  In the same year, MLK was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Life wasn't always a bed of roses though.  In the coming years MLK faced criticism from other Afro-American leaders and he tired of the constant threats of imprisonment and personal attacks.  But he persevered.

Then in early 1968 he travelled to Memphis to support the striking sanitation workers where he delivered his 'I've Been to the Mountaintop' speech on 3 April.  This speech, which was to be his last, was almost prophetic.  It was a long speech, but I am going to include the very last section here:

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.  And I don't mind.  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!  And so I'm happy, tonight.  I'm not worried about anything.  I'm not fearing any man!  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!"

The next day, 4 April 1968, on the balcony outside his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, MLK was shot dead.  He was 39 years old.

His funeral service in Atlanta was attended by around 1300 people, but his body was carried in a simple wooden cart pulled by mules. They used another of his speeches, the final sermon that he had given at the Ebenezer Baptist Church only a couple of months earlier on 4 February.

It talked about what he would want people to be able to say about him if he were to die now.  The main thrust being that he wanted people not to remember his Nobel Prize, or countless other awards he had received, but that he had tried to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, be on the right side on the war question and love and serve humanity.

Was he a great man?  I don't know.  There are suggestions that when he was watched by the government he was found to have been an adulterer and perhaps other failings.  But he was a good orator for an important cause and he was determined to keep violence out of his side of the campaign.  He was steadfast in his efforts despite knowing the danger that it clearly put him in.  Does that make him great?  He is certainly a hero to many black people.

What I do know is that he did great things.  Without his belief and encouragement, the Civil Rights Campaign may not have properly got off the ground for many more years.  And had he allowed his side to resort to violence, he would have given his opponents the ability to just call them thugs and criminals and undermine their efforts.  As it was, his tireless work, and perhaps his own assassination, very probably sped up the changes that did eventually happen.