Room 210 Civil Rights was designed to help students in Randy Turner's eighth grade communication arts at East Middle School in Joplin, MO, with their third quarter research project on the American civil rights movement. The site contains news and articles on civil rights. Though Mr. Turner no longer teaches in the Joplin School District, this site will remain online and continue to be updated to serve those who are researching the civil rights movement.
Students may research any of the following topics during the third quarter Civil Rights research project in Mr. Randy Turner's eighth grade communication arts class at East Middle School:
-Freedom Riders
-Montgomery Bus Boycott
-Little Rock Nine
-Jackie Robinson's First Year in the Major Leagues
-Mississippi Murders/Freedom Summer
-Murder of Emmett Till
-Birmingham Church Bombing
-Assassination of Martin Luther King
-Assassination of Malcolm X
-Assassination of Medgar Evers
-Bloody Sunday/Selma March
-March on Washington/I Have a Dream
-Brown v. Board of Education
-Negro Leagues Baseball
-President Kennedy and the Civil Rights Movement
-President Johnson and the Civil Rights Movement
-Black Panther Party
Students may research another topic, but it must be related to the American Civil Rights Movement and must be approved by Mr. Turner.
(The author is an eighth grader in Mr. Randy Turner's communication arts class at Joplin East Middle School.)
Three men were murdered on June 21, 1964, at 10:15 pm
in Neshoba County, Mississippi. They were driving along the road when a police
officer named Ceil Bryans pulled over the Ford station wagon. When a mob
attacked the car and dragged James Chaney an African American out of the car
and was beaten brutally then shot three times. Schwerner was taken out of the
car and through the heart, next was the murder of Andrew Goodman. Next the mob
poured a quart of gas on the station wagon and lit it on fire. The murders took
a bulldozer and buried the bodies at a near by dam hoping none would never find
them.
James Chaney was driving down a back road in Neshoba County,
which is dangerous territory for an African American activist. A person who
spoke out against a white person would not be seen ever again alive. The FBI
wouldn't protect the activists for the Freedom Summer so everyone had to be
careful what they did or said so they would be alive the next day.
Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman had been in a training facility
in Oxford, Ohio training college age people for protesting and helping
the African Americans register to vote. ( http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmjustice4.html and
http://meridianstar.com/inaug/x681147670/Historic-moment-reminder-of-civil-rights-work) one
of the churches in Neshoba County had been burned down by the Ku Klux Klan when
they were looking for Michael Schwerner because they didn't like that he had
help many African Americans register to vote during the Freedom Summer of
1964. On their way back from the burned down church the activist were
pulled over for speeding and then were incarcerated the local jail for the
arson of the black church they had just visited to take in the damage of the
bombing and were held for a few hours while the Ku Klux Klan gathered to murder
the activists and showed them a picture of the Ford station wagon James Chaney
had been driving. One of the police officers that arrested James Chaney, Andrew
Goodman, and Michael Schwerner was part of the Ku Klux Klan. One of their
friends back in Oxford, Ohio, was worried and was telephoning everyone
looking for where the missing activists had gone. Michael Schwerner asked the
officer so he could tell his wife where he was. (http://crime.about.com/od/history/p/ms_burn2.htm) She finally
phoned the CORE and got James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner
released from their imprisonment. The activists sped for Oxford, Ohio on Highway
19 trying not to be caught at night in Neshoba County home to many Ku Klux Klan
members. The mob of Ku Klux Klan had been gathering on Highway 19 for several
hours just waiting for the activists and arguing such a sick thing as who gets
to shoot whom first. The Ku Klux Klan intercepted the Ford station wagon and
dragged out James Chaney the African American, who was driving, beat him then
shot him three times wanting him to suffer for just having a different skin
color than the "dominant" race. Next restraining Andrew Schwerner
knowing what he was going to receive for doing the right thing a standing up
for the African Americans of the world. This brave activist was shot through
the heart, then Andrew Goodman's murder. I imagine that the Ku Klux Klan
members watched Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner's blood drain onto the dirty
street. The only problem the Ku Klux Klan had was the car so they got a quart
of gasoline and drenched the car with it then lit it with a match and watched
it burn. The Ku Klux Klan hid the bodies in a dam where they laid there for
about three months decomposing. (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/slain-civil-rights-workers-found) The
FBI spent $800,000 interviewing some of the townspeople and some of the Ku Klux
Klan members, and they finally found out the details of the night of the murder
of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney. (Page 270 of Freedom
Summer) After the murder of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner
a New York Times reporter wrote this poem:
"Here's
to the state of Mississippi.
For underneath her borders, the devil draws no lines,
If you drag her muddy rivers, nameless bodies you will find.
The fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes.
And the calendar is lying when it reads the present time.
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of,
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be a part of."
(Page 247 of the book Freedom Summer)
Here is another quote from Matt Jones of SNCC's Freedom
Singers.
"We have our head and cried,
Cried for those like Lee who died
Died for you and died for me,
Died for the cause of equality,
But we
will never turn back
Until we've all been free
And we have equality,
And we have equality.
In the first trial there was a hung jury because one of the jurors couldn't
convict a preacher Edgar Ray Killen the mastermind of the murders of James
Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner who was a Ku Klux Klan
member. On the second trial they convicted Edgar Ray Killen of three
accounts of manslaughter. This was a lesser charge. He was convicted of the
maximum sentence of sixty years in prison and Edgar Ray Killen is still in
prison today. While Edgar Ray Killen was in jail he confessed to a multitude of
unsolved crimes that involved his racism. (http://www.wapt.com/r/29873834/detail.html)
The civil rights era has influenced the present
greatly. If James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner had not stood
up for what they believed in then we might not have equal rights today. James
Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are hero for what they did to
influence our world today.
Bibliography
Watson, Bruce- Freedom Sumer – Hudson Street, New York,
New York: Penguin Group, 2010
(The author is an eighth grade student in Mr. Randy Turner's communication arts class at Joplin East Middle School.)
A
life started it all.Not a life
beginning, but a life ending, a life being taken away.It started a revolution.It started a revolution so big, that
the impact was made at a very great price.At least three lives were taken that year, the year of
1965.Many peaceful citizens were
arrested, beaten, and assaulted while marching on the pathway to equality, to
the city of Montgomery, Alabama.Join this paper as it travels back to the year of 1965, when protestors
of all races and religions united together as one to make the long march from
Selma, Alabama to the capitol city of Montgomery as they fought for voting
rights among all.
The Beginning of the Selma Voting Rights Campaign
“Click.”
The bullet is released from the state trooper’s gun as it lands in the body of
twenty-six-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson.His unconscious body falls to the ground, leaving his poor mother
unprotected from a trooper’s nightstick.He is rushed to a nearby Selma hospital, but unfortunately, dies eight
days later.His life was one of
many that inspired protestors and civil rights activists to take action and put
a stop to the injustice being done in the nation of the “free” when he was shot
on the evening of February 18, 1965.Jackson was an African American church deacon from the town of Marion,
Alabama, who decided to join in one of the public voting marches taking
place.There, he was shot.On the other side of the gun stood an
Alabama state trooper, trying to break up the march.On his side was a young man lying cold on the ground.This wasn’t the first violent action
displayed in the voting rights marches; it was one of many since the first
march that took place on February 1, 1965.
On
January 2, 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
and Dallas County Voters League in their campaign for voting rights.After a number of unsuccessful attempts
from the SNCC, only two percent of the black population was on voting polls. The
SCLC had been planning a campaign since the earlier months of 1964 with a focus
on national attention when discovering that this attention could be gained
through protests.With the help of
Martin Luther King Jr. and David Abernathy from the SCLC, a march from the town
of Selma, Alabama, to the capitol building in Montgomery, Alabama, was
organized.The committees chose
the town of Selma, because this town was known for hard-core, violent law
enforcement under the order of local county Sheriff Jim Clark.When the SCLC marched in Birmingham,
they learned that unprovoked violence would gain attention.Thus, this was their key.Hopefully, in the minds of the civil
rights workers, President Lyndon B. Johnson would see the cruelty being done
and consider making a new voting rights legislation.This, along with the reaction from the nation when seeing
the Alabama news coverage, would start a new era.
Many
small marches were held in the month of January as the progression of the
campaign in Selma and Marion increased; many marchers were arrested, but there
was little violence for the first month of the campaign.It wasn’t until February that police
attacks against peaceful protestors increased and became very forceful.On February 1, 1965, the first march
from Selma to Montgomery was attempted with seven hundred seventy people being
arrested as the march was stopped by police officers.This was the very beginning of the revolution.
March 7, 1965 marked a day in
history to be remembered for generations to come.On this day, hundreds of protesters both black and white
were attacked by Alabama state troopers and police.They were beaten, hit, and tortured with tear gas, a toxic
that causes people to vomit and become nauseating.This gruesome event became known as “Bloody Sunday,” because
indeed, it was quite bloody.
The
day started out like any normal day, with a clear blue sky and a few purple
clouds here and there.Only, it
wasn’t a normal day.On this day,
a march was to be held in honor of Jimmie Lee Jackson and to protest his death
during a voter registration drive held previously by the SNCC.The march was originally planned to be
led by Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.But, as it turned out, Dr. King could
not attend the march due to many missed church services and the need of a
sermon; he had also received many death threats and was convinced by his staff
not to come.At half past noon, two
hundred fifty marchers were already gathered around Brown’s Chapel, ready to
face any danger.They were being
taught by SCLC staffers a technique of kneeling and protecting their bodies if
ever attacked.King had sent a
messenger, Andy Young of the SCLC, to give word to co-leaders Hosea Williams,
James Bevel, and John Lewis that the march was to be delayed until the
following Monday.Seeing that the
march could not be stopped, a call was made to Dr. King and it was decided
young John Lewis, along with another co-leader, would lead the great march.Andy, Hosea, and Bevel flipped coins to
see who would join Lewis, and by fate, Hosea won.And so, the march was assembled.Many protestors had come straight from church and were still
wearing their Sunday outfits.The
Medical Committee for Human Rights had also traveled to Selma from New York to
prepare for any confrontation and injuries.Rumor had it that Sheriff Clark had issued a call for more
deputies the night before.Around
four in the afternoon, the marchers were gathered as John Lewis read a
statement for the benefit of the press and Andy Young said a small prayer as
everybody knelt.Next thing you
know, six hundred people set out to be “roughed up a little bit,” expecting
nothing worse than that…
The
six hundred marchers, including a white SCLC staffer by the name of Al Lingo,
marched east out of Selma onto Highway U.S. Route 80.As they passed through the black sections of town, cheering
and singing could be heard from several onlookers and marchers, but as the
march branched out towards the river and down Walter Street, a silence was
flushed over the crowd as a feeling of holiness replaced the noisy excitement
possessed before.The march was
very disciplined; there was no pushing or shoving to get to the front.The protestors were organized in two
rows, with John Lewis and Hosea Williams at the front, Albert Turner and Bob
Mants behind them, Marie Foster and Amelia Boynton behind them, and a crowd of
people of all ages and races filed in the back.
Actually, at the very back, four
ambulances followed along in case of any violation to the protestors.As the march neared the edge of the
Edmund Pettus Bridge, a group of armed white men could be seen gathered around
a nearby building.This was not a
surprise to the marchers, but quite a few other surprises were definitely
made.Clear across the other
side of the bridge was a swarm of uniformed Alabama state troopers.Among that swarm of cops was a group of
deputies that Sheriff Clark called his “posse.” Some were on horseback, while
others just stood, but they all had clubs that could very well be compared to
baseball bats.Camera crews and
news reporters form channels such as ABC were wedged in where there was space,
and cop cars were lined along the bridge; one of them holding Commander Al
Lingo and Sheriff Clark, himself.The marchers continued silently onto the bridge, but they didn’t get
very far.About fifty feet away
from the swarm of troopers, Major John Cloud, another trooper, held a bullhorn
to his mouth as he spoke a message to the civil rights marchers.Apparently, they had two minutes to
disperse back to their church and homes.If not, physical force would be used.At this time, several troopers slid masks onto their
faces.The marchers, not sure what
to do, stood there until Mr. Lewis proposed the idea that they should kneel and
pray, which is what they did.Less
than a minute after the warning, Major Cloud gave troopers the order to
advance.What happened next was
total chaos.Troopers came forward
swinging bullwhips, billy clubs, nightsticks, shooting guns and even spraying
tear gas.The effect of this was
almost immediate.The marchers had
no chance to retreat, and people began choking, coughing, vomiting, weeping,
and worse.Leader John Lewis was
swung against the left side of his head with a club, a young teen had a huge
flow of blood out the side of his head, and many women were lying on the nearby
grass, such as Ms. Amelia Boynton.While this occurred, many protestors curled up in the “prayer for protection”
position, covering what they could.Several white onlookers cheered, while the blacks kept quiet.The torture didn’t end until the mob of
marchers pushed to the front of the bridge and were chased all the way back to
Brown’s Chapel.
On
Tuesday, March 9, 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. led a march, only to be turned
around.Thus, came its nickname,
“Turnaround Tuesday.”After what
had happened the previous Sunday, the civil rights activists decided to go to
court with their case and plea for armed forces to protect their marchers.The judge delayed his decision until
the next Thursday, and during this day, a march was held.The crowd of one thousand five
hundred marchers singing “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round” was met at the
Pettus Bridge by the same forces present on Bloody Sunday.When asked to turn around, the
diversely spread religious and racial contents of the march knelt down and
prayed.At the order of Dr. King,
they then got up, turned around, and marched back to Brown Chapel A.M.E.
Church.Dr. King’s reasoning for
ending the march was to protect his fellow protestors; he didn’t want further
violence.That night, after the
march had disassembled, three white ministers heading along the road were
attacked and beaten with iron pipes.One of the three, Reverend James Reeb suffered a serious injury to the
head and later died in a hospital bed.His death gained national attention and influenced President Lyndon B.
Johnson to introduce the Voting Rights Bill.
The
death of Reverend Reeb definitely gained national attention.After the incident, Governor Wallace,
the governor of Alabama, flew down to personally tell the president that he
didn’t have enough force to protect the civil right activists.The president took the matter into his
hands and ordered troops, marshals, National Guardsmen, and FBI agents down to
Selma for protection.He also made
a speech about the horrible occurrence of Bloody Sunday, but many skeptics
thought that it took a white minister’s death to get the president
involved.Others thought
otherwise.Nobody really knows.
Anticipation
hung in the air as everyone waited for the final decision to be made.Would the civil right leaders be
granted the forces they requested?While some leaders were in the court room, others were outside in the
busy Washington traffic.They
stood linked by the arms and wouldn’t move until the police had to practically
carry and drag them out of the busy street of Pennsylvania Avenue.A huge mob of clergymen, activists, and
churchmen were all gathered outside the White House for a second time in two
days.This day marked the twelfth
of March.The huge mob totaled to about
four thousand people.They
demanded that the president reconsider voting rights and protection for the
people in Selma protesting.
(Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 1965)
Clergymen and civil right leaders
spent four hours talking to President Johnson about the situation in
Selma.Two of these hours were
focused on the officers that so roughly handled the peaceful marchers, while
the other two were based on legislation for black voting rights to stop the
current violence.The president
claimed that he took full responsibility for the cruel actions in Selma and
that he had prepared a message on voting rights for the Congress.The Justice Department was working on a
follow up bill.
(Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 1965)
All the while, seventy-five FBI
agents were present outside the White House to monitor the clergymen gathered
around the perimeter.Thirty-six
people had been arrested and were fined a fee of ten dollars for disorderly
conduct.Some paid the amount just
to rejoin the protest, while others simply refused.And more and more clergymen gathered around the Lutheran
Church of Reformation, two blocks from the Capitol, as buses brought more
people.The clergymen that
negotiated with Congress said that they sensed President Johnson seemed to be
feeling pressured.
(Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 1965)
And then, the decision was finally
clear.After seeing the taping of
Bloody Sunday and considering the constitutional rights, Federal Court Judge
Johnson decided to side with the protestors and their case.“These rights may be exercised by
marching, even along public highways,” he said.And with that, he ordered the government not to interfere
with the march organized to take place starting March 21, 1965.That night, Dr. King sent a telegram
around the country asking ministers of all faiths to come to Selma for the
march.The protest for voting
rights would indeed take place.
A
crowd.Gathered around Brown’s
Chapel was a crowd of nearly three thousand two hundred citizens of the U.S.
nation.These people of diverse
race and religion banded together for the big march aiming to take place that
day.This crowd held a combination
of people, from ministers, to leaders, to common townspeople.Big celebrities like Harry Belafonte
and Ralph Bunche even joined in on the activity.
On Sunday, March 21, 1965, three
thousand two hundred marchers started walking towards the capitol once
more.This time they were
successful.The civil rights activists
traveled twelve miles a day by foot and slept in fields at night.After traveling seven miles from Selma
the first day, though, only three hundred select marchers were allowed to walk
along Highway 80.The other two
thousand were taken back to Selma by trains, cars, and buses of transportation.This time, the march was also given
security.Twelve planes and
helicopters flew over the protestors to restrain any sudden violence done to
the peaceful marchers.
By the time they reached
Montgomery, on Thursday, March 25, 1965, the crowd led by Martin Luther King
had increased from three hundred people to twenty-five thousand people.It was a truly unbelievable sight.They tried to deliver their petition to
the governor, but he wouldn’t accept it; they weren’t even allowed on the
Capitol Building’s steps!During
this time, Martin Luther King gave one of his speeches, thought to also be one
of his most powerful, about the horrible treatment and injustice done to the
black people of Alabama.By six in
the evening, the marchers were taken back to Selma by different means of
transportation.They were advised
to leave the city before dark.As
a young woman by the name of Viola Liuzzo traveled home that night from the
march, she and a young colored man she was taking home were both attacked.In the end, she was killed by the Ku
Klux Klan, while the other passenger was brutally injured.This was another sad death taken
for the righteous cause.
On
August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, a law stating
that states couldn’t restrict any type of people from voting, whether they be
judged by race, religion, etc.It
empowered the national government to enroll the citizens, previously denied, on
the voting list.That very same
day that the president passed the bill, three hundred black voters were
registered in Sumter County, Georgia after a two week black opposing drive was
dropped.The race had finally been
completed.The battle had been
won.And, indeed, our nation had
overcome.
(Jamie Sullivan is an eighth grader in Mr. Randy Turner's communication arts at Joplin East Middle School.)
Andrew
Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney were the three civil rights
workers murdered during Freedom Summer on June 21st 1964 in Neshoba
County, Mississippi. Goodman and Schwerner were both Jewish and from New York
and Chaney was a black Mississippian from Meridian. Neshoba County deputy
sheriff and member of the White Nights of the Ku Klux Klan Cecil Price and had
arrested all three of them and later released them. After being released they
were all shot in the chest and additionally Chaney was beaten with a chain.
Their bodies were found several weeks later buried in an earthen dam. Forty
years later, Edgar Ray Killen, at 80 years old, was charged with three counts
of murder. But there’s more to the story than just this…
The
summer of 1964 was known as Freedom Summer which was a campaign in the U.S. to
get blacks registered to vote, which in Mississippi was illegal at the time.
Over 1,000 out-of-state volunteers participated in Freedom Summer alongside
thousands of black Mississippians. Most of the volunteers were from the North
and 90% were white and many were Jewish. (McAdam 66) Over the 10 weeks that it
was going on, four people were severely wounded, thirty-seven businesses were
bombed or burned and not to mention the murder of Goodman, Schwerner and
Chaney. (Carson 114)
All
three men had just finished a week-long training on the Western College for
Women in Oxford, Ohio. Local Klansmen knew about some of the activities going
on between the three civil rights workers. Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of
the KK, had issued an order to kill Michael Schwerner. Schwerner was in
Philadelphia, Mississippi in Neshoba County, a dangerous place for civil rights
workers to be at, with Goodman and Chaney inspecting the ruins of Mount Zion
United Methodist Church, which had been burned 5 days earlier because it had
been a meeting place for many other civil rights groups. (http://crmvet.org/tim/tim64b.htm#1964csg)
According to Wallace Miller, a member of the KKK who had broken his vow of
silence 2 weeks after Freedom Summer, the Mt. Zion church had been burned to
lure Schwerner into Neshoba County so the Klan could kill him. The three men
were aware that their station wagon’s number had been given to members of the
White Citizens’ Council and the KKK so before leaving Meridian they told other
Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) workers about their plans and set
check-in times as apart of standard security procedures. (http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/dredgingupthepastwhymississippiansmusttellourownstories/)
Later
that afternoon, Cecil Price had arrested Chaney because he had allegedly been
driving 35 miles over the speed limit. Price also arrested Goodman and
Schwerner for “investigation”. He brought them to the county jail and they were
not allowed any phone calls. While in jail, Price notified Edgar Ray Killen who
got some of the Klan together and planned to kill the three workers. Killen was
later identified as the ringleader of the Klansmen. The Klan planned an ambush and after setting it up, Chaney
was fined $20 and the three men were told to leave the county. Price followed
them to the edge of town and then pulled them over. He kept them with him until
the Klan had arrived. Once they arrived Schwerner was dragged out of the car
and shot once through the heart. Goodman was shot next and then Chaney was shot
three times and beaten with a chain. The Klan then drove the Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE) car into a swamp and set it on fire. They buried the three
men’s bodies in an earthen dam and then they used a bulldozer to cover them up.
(http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim64.htm#1964csg)
The
bodies of the three men were found in August 1964. (Ball 111) There were 21 men
accused of their murders some of them including Edgar Ray Killen and Cecil Ray
Price. (The Telegraph Herald Dec. 4 1964) Immediately after the men turned up
missing, SNCC and COFO workers had been calling the FBI and asking for an
investigation but the FBI agents wouldn’t investigate because it was a local
matter. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered an investigation and FBI
agents began swarming around Philadelphia, Mississippi where Goodman,
Schwerner, and Chaney were arrested. (http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim64.htm#1964csg)
During
the hung jury of Edgar Ray Killen’s first trial, one woman of the jury couldn’t
bring herself to convict him because she believed a man of God could not have
been apart of the conspiracy. Later she regretted her decision and admitted she
was wrong.
On
January 6, 2005, Killen was arrested for three counts of murder. His trial was
rescheduled for April 18, 2005, and began on June 13, 2005 while he was in a
wheelchair because he broke both of his legs while chopping lumber at his rural
home in Neshoba County. Killen was found guilty of manslaughter on June 21,
2005: the 41st anniversary of the crime. The jury dropped charges of
murder but still found him guilty of recruiting the mob that killed the three
men. His maximum sentence of 60 years in prison was sentenced on June 23, 2005.
He was sentenced 20 years for each count of manslaughter and was eligible for
parole after serving for at least 20 years. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a.SFJt7oi4&refer=topworldnews)
On
August 12, Killen was released from prison with a $600,000 appeal bond. He
claimed that he was not able to use his right hand and that he now had to
permanently use a wheelchair to get around. But on September 3, a police
officer had reported seeing Killen walking around “with no problem”. At a
hearing on September 9, more officers had also reported seeing Killen driving
and one officer said that he shook hands with Killen using his right hand. A
judge had ordered him back to prison saying that he believed that he had
committed a fraud against the court. (http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/clarionledger/access/1775397761.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Sep+10%2C+2005&author=Jerry+Mirchell&pub=The+Clarion+Ledger&edition=&startpage=A.1&desc=Killen+ordered+back+to+prison)
On March 9, 2006, Killen was removed from prison to a hospital in Jackson,
Mississippi to treat his injured leg from a logging accident in 2005. He is
still in jail serving his 60 years for the murders of the three civil rights
workers; one of the most important events in the civil rights movement.
Bibliography
Book sources
Ball, Howard. Murder in Mississippi. Lawrence KS:
University Press of Kansas, 2004
Ball, Howard. Justice in Mississippi. Lawrence KS
66045: University Press of Kansas, 2006
Huie, William. Three Lives for Mississippi.
University Press of Mississippi/Jackson: WWC Books, 1965
McAdam, Doug. Freedom Summer. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press, 1988
Carson, Claybourne. In Struggle. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1981
(Note: The author, Madeline Fichtner, is an eighth grade student in Mr. Randy Turner's communication arts class at Joplin East Middle School.)
The clock froze at 10:22 as the explosion rocked 16th
Street Baptist Church. The girls in the basement bathroom were Denise McNair,
Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Robertson, and Sarah Collins.
Only Sarah survived, and she was blinded. It was Sunday, September 15th,
1963, a day that would be remembered as Birmingham Sunday. The men who did this
horrendous crime? Thomas Blanton, Bobby Frank Cherry, Robert Chambliss, and
Herman Frank Cash. Three were convicted; Herman had died a few years before he
could be convicted. In Birmingham, bombings were common. So common, in fact,
the city had become known as “Bombingham.” There hadn’t been any serious
injuries until September 15th. But the story doesn’t end there.
It was
youth Sunday at the church that served as the center of the civil rights
movement. (Currie 12). The spiritual leader of the church was reverend Fred
Shuttleworth, whose home had been bombed no less than three times. Five little girls were primping in the
bathroom of the church. The girls were Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins,
Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Robertson, and Sarah Collins. No one knew that these
laughs might be their last. What happened next would be forever burned into the
minds of Americans.
The
bomb under the steps went off at 10:22 on September 15th, 1963.
"It sounded like
the whole world was shaking," said Reverend Cross later in court.
"And the building, I thought, was going to collapse!" (http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/birmingham_church/4.html). On the other side of the wall was a bathroom containing the
girls. The explosion injured 16 people other than the girls: nine black males,
five black females, and two white females. (FBI files). Denise’s body was
pulled out first followed by Addie, Cynthia and Carole. A boy named Virgil Ware
and James Robinson died also that day after being shot. (Currie, 17). A mayor’s
aide, Charles Vann, was on his way to the scene and saw Robert Chambliss. He
later told the press that the man was “looking down toward the 16th
street Baptist church like a firebug watching his fire.” (http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/birmingham_church/5.html)
The girls that died that day were all
exceptional children. Cynthia always wanted to help others and was adopted by
Mr. and Mrs. Wesley. Cynthia was said to be a delightful young lady. Carole
always just wanted to teach history and dance in her free time. Carolyn Lee
Brown said, “[Carole] was a very giving, outgoing person.” Carole was in the
band, and she was supposed to play at her first football game the following
day. Obviously, she didn’t get to. Carole had a bible in her pocketbook the day
of the explosion, which her mother still keeps. Addie was a quiet girl and, given she hadn’t died, probably
would have become a social worker, or even a teacher. Her sister said, “to know
Addie is to love Addie.” After she was killed, her other sister, Junie,
frequently had panic attacks. Denise was involved in the cause in which she
died for. She wanted nothing more than to fight for the cause of equal rights.
Her aunt, Helen Pegues, said, “ I think she spent most of her time trying to do
for other children.” But they would never get the chance to. (Brimmer, 34-37)
(4 little girls). The explosion blinded Sarah Collins. She spent two full
months in the hospital with 21 shards of glass embedded in her face. (Currie,
16, 21). Denise had a chunk of concrete imbedded in her skull. (4 little
girls.)
Immediately
after the explosion military jets of bomb experts were flown to Birmingham to
investigate. Activists believed that Governor Wallace was behind the murders,
as he had said a few days earlier, “we need a few first-class funerals to stop
integration in Alabama.” And that was exactly what happened. But instead of
dousing the flames, it only made them burn brighter than ever. (www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/september/bapbomb_292609)
Rev. John Bevel said, “it was like someone was hitting me with hot steel, and I
felt personally insulted because it was like they knew these children was using
this church and it was like they knew these children was using this church and
they really felt insulted because these children has defeated them, right? So
its like they’re coming back on these children to say, ‘we will tech you a
lesson’ and its like, ‘no, we will teach you
a lesson.’” (4 little girls) Rev.
John Cross said that the people responsible would be brought to justice
(Currie, 32) and within days the police had four suspects. (http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/1963_birmingham_church_bombing.htm)
The civil
rights leaders, including rev. bevel and martin Luther king Jr., wanted to plan
a mass funeral, but Carole Robertson’s family wanted a quiet, private funeral.
At the mass funeral, there was singing and a speech by Dr. King. (4 little
girls)
The first arrest was of Robert
Chambliss. On October 8th, 1963, he was convicted of murder and
possession of 122 sticks of dynamite. He was found not guilty of murder and got
six months of jail time for the dynamite.
The
case remained unsolved until bill Baxley, attorney general of Alabama requested
the original FBI files and discovered that J. Edgar Hoover had a lot of
evidence against Chambliss that hadn’t been used in the original trial. (www.4littlegirls.com)
In
November of 1977, a 73-year-old Chambliss was tried again. His defense attorney
was Arthur Hanes Jr. (4 little girls) He was convicted of one count of murder.
He was sentenced to life in prison and died there in 1985.
In
1988, Frank Herman Cash was indicted but never formally charged and died before
the charges could be pressed. 1n 1997, Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank
Cherry were charged with murder. Blanton was tried and convicted on May 1st,
2001. (http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1744).
It took the jury just
two hours to convict him. (www.4littlegirls.com).
Cherry’s trial was pushed back because he was deemed
“too mentally unstable to help the lawyer with his own defense. Later he was
ready to stand trial, and on May 22nd, 2002, he was convicted of the
murder of all four girls and was sentenced to life in prison. (http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1744)
Bobby was said to be
an uneducated, abusive redneck. (Currie, 20).
Next year will be the 50th anniversary of
the bombing. Remember the girls who paid the price for a nation’s ignorance.
And as it was said, “On Birmingham Sunday, the blood ran like wine, and the
choir kept singing of freedom.”
Mr. Randy Turner's third quarter civil rights research project at Joplin East Middle School will be featured at the Joplin School District's Technology Fair Monday, April 2, at the Joplin High School's 11'12th Grade Center at Northpark Mall.
Eighth graders Stella Ndauwa, Amy Koch, Jamie Sullivan, Megan Hickey, Keisha Grunden( all featured in the accompanying video) and Jennifer Nguyen (who did the camerawork), will represent the class at the show.
The King Center, established by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow, Coretta Scott King, is adding thousands of documents online for the first time today:
There is the handwritten draft, complete with cross-outs, of Martin Luther King's acceptance speech for the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. There are notes about the ending of King's iconic I Have a Dream speech. And there are charming letters he received from children.
These and other King papers — 200,000 documents in all — will be available online for the first time today, as the nation marks Martin Luther King Day.
The King Center Imaging Project, financed and overseen by JPMorgan Chase, offers free public access to the papers at www.TheKingCenter.org.
The link to the King Center can be found in the links section on the right hand side of this page.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even 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.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there 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.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your closest friend and associate to say something good about you. And Ralph Abernathy is the best friend that I have in the world. I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow.
Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there.
I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but "fear itself." But I wouldn't stop there.
Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy."
Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.
Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee -- the cry is always the same: "We want to be free."
And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.
And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis.
I can remember -- I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.
And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying -- We are saying that we are God's children. And that we are God's children, we don't have to live like we are forced to live.
Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers are on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that.
Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be -- and force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: We know how it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.
We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do. I've seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there, we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around."
Bull Connor next would say, "Turn the fire hoses on." And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denominations, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water. That couldn't stop us.
And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing "Over my head I see freedom in the air." And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, "Take 'em off," and they did; and we would just go in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome." And every now and then we'd get in jail, and we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn't adjust to; and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham. Now we've got to go on in Memphis just like that. I call upon you to be with us when we go out Monday.
Now about injunctions: We have an injunction and we're going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let dogs or water hoses turn us around, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.
We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around he tell it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and saith, "When God speaks who can but prophesy?" Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow the preacher must say with Jesus, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me," and he's anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."
And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many years; he's been to jail for struggling; he's been kicked out of Vanderbilt University for this struggle, but he's still going on, fighting for the rights of his people. Reverend Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list, but time will not permit. But I want to thank all of them. And I want you to thank them, because so often, preachers aren't concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry.
It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here! It's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.
Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively -- that means all of us together -- collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.
We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."
And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy -- what is the other bread? -- Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on town -- downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.
But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank. We want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. Go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something that we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We are telling you to follow what we are doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies here in the city of Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an "insurance-in."
Now these are some practical things that we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here.
Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school -- be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....
Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother.
Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to a church meeting, an ecclesiastical gathering, and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem -- or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effect.
But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that those men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles -- or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" The question is, "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.
Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.
You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?" And I was looking down writing, and I said, "Yes." And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, your drowned in your own blood -- that's the end of you.
It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had merely sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply,
Dear Dr. King,
I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School."
And she said,
While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.
And I want to say tonight -- I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in inter-state travel.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.
If I had sneezed -- If I had sneezed I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great Movement there.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering.
I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.
And they were telling me --. Now, it doesn't matter, now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us. The pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with on the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."
And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
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!!
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.