Freedom Riders to appear on Oprah

As part of the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, some of those who participated in the historic civil rights actions will appear on the Oprah show:

This week Oprah Winfrey will tape a TV show in Chicago with some of the Freedom Riders who long ago trekked courageously to the South to press for civil rights.

Imagine, two of those surviving activists from the front lines in the fight against segregation are Santa Rosans.

Retired pastor Francis Geddes, 87, is one. Geddes, now a member of Church of the Incarnation, was locked up in 1961 as part of an interracial group that agitated to integrate the coffee shop at Mississippi's Jackson Airport.

“What I learned from being jailed in Jackson,” he said as he prepared to fly to meet Oprah and his fellow Freedom Riders, “is that I didn't have to be afraid of anything else in my life.”

CHICAGO BECKONS also to Santa Rosa's George Houser, who first opposed Jim Crow in the South not with the Freedom Rides that began on May 4 of 1961 but with the 1947 anti-segregation campaign that inspired the Rides.

Houser, who's 94, was a leader of the ‘47 Journey of Reconciliation. He and late African-American civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and others boarded Trailways and Greyhound coaches in Southern states to test the Supreme Court's 1946 landmark decision barring segregation on interstate buses.

$550,000 grant to be used to preserve "Eyes on the Prize" footage

Unedited interviews of footage from the groundbreaking civil rights documentary "Eyes on the Prize" will be preserved, thanks to a $550,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to Washington University:

The original documentary film and interview footage were donated to the University Libraries in 2001 as part of the Henry Hampton Collection. The collection is one of the largest archives of civil rights media in the United States and contains materials on other topics as well.

“Hampton’s Eyes on the Prize remains the definitive work on the American civil rights movement, even more than 20 years after its release,” says Shirley K. Baker, vice chancellor for scholarly resources and dean of University Libraries. “With the generous assistance of the Mellon Foundation, Washington University can continue to protect and preserve these priceless archives for students, scholars and the general public for generations to come.”

Among those interviewed for the documentary were Curtis Jones, cousin of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American boy murdered in Mississippi in 1955; Coretta Scott King, wife of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; and Burke Marshall, head of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Kennedy administration. The footage from all these interviews and many more is held at the Film & Media Archive, a unit of the University Libraries’ Department of Special Collections.

“These records are a crucial part of Americans’ cultural history and heritage,” says James E. McLeod, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences and vice chancellor for students. “This partnership between Washington University and the Mellon Foundation ensures that both the documentary itself, along with the interviews that gave life to its stories, will always be available as a source of information and inspiration.”

Preview of PBS "Freedom Riders" documentary

Robert Redford to play Branch Rickey in new Jackie Robinson film

Robert Redford, star of one of the all-time great baseball movies, The Natural, will return to the diamond as star of a new biography of Jackie Robinson:

The focus of the story is about the relationship between Robinson and Rickey, who is responsible for integrating the sport in America, as well as other innovations including the use of batting helmets. Author Jimmy Breslin's new biography of Rickey was released March 17.

"No one really knows the Rickey part, the political maneuvers and the partnership they had to share," Redford told the Los Angeles Times, which reported the announcement. "It's the story underneath the story you thought you knew."

Freedom Rider Joan Mulholland speaks at Central Virginia Community College

As the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Freedom Rides, continues, Freedom Rider Joan Mulholland shared her experiences with an audience at Central Virginia Community College this week:

“I was a white Southerner and I felt we had a responsible to live out the best of our culture, to do unto others that which is done unto you,” said Mulholland during the panel discussion. “I just felt that things were terribly wrong, we were not practicing what we preached.”

Comprised mostly of black and white college students, the Freedom Riders travelled on trains and buses across the South in 1961, determined to break down the barriers of segregation. They journeyed through Virginia on their way to the deep South, including one stop in Lynchburg.

Wearing a T-shirt bearing the word “ERACISM,” Mulholland gave a first-hand account of her role in the Freedom Rides, which got her arrested and jailed at Mississippi’s notorious Parchman State Prison Farm.

“Fear is counterproductive and it slows you down from doing what needs doing,” Mulholland said.

Half a century later, Mulholland is a mother of five sons and has taught for 30 years in Arlington County public schools. She calls her decision to join the Freedom Rides one of the most important in her life.

“The ’50s had been really boring, but suddenly it was like wildfire and who knows what will start a wildfire,” she said, urging the younger generation to continue the fight against prejudice. “Something will happen. Be ready for it and look out for it,"

David French, surgeon for the civil rights movement, dies

David French, a surgeon who helped victims of racial violence during civil rights demonstrations of the '60s, died March 31 at age 86:

The health care provider and public servant organized first-aid efforts during major civil rights marches, including the historic –and bloody--voting rights march from Selma, Ala. to that state’s capitol in Montgomery in 1965 that was led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

During one Mississippi protest in 1966, French and his wife Carolyn Howard used their family van as an ambulance to provide first aid for casualties when the non-violent demonstrators were attacked by locals, including police, opposed to the civil rights march on the state capitol, according to a Washington Post obituary.

60 Minutes plans stories on unsolved 1964 murder of Louis Alen

On his blog, Jackson Clarion-Ledger reporter Jerry Mitchell, who has been instrumental in bringing attention to unsolved murders of the civil rights era, notes that CBS' 60 Minutes is doing a piece on the unsolved 1964 murder of Louis Allen:

Hank Allen, the son of Louis Allen, believes retired sheriff Daniel Jones had something to do with his father’s 1964 ambush killing.

60 Minutes is airing a story on the cold case at 6 p.m. CDT Sunday, April 10, on CBS.

FBI records from 1964 name Jones as a suspected member of the Ku Klux Klan — an allegation Jones later admitted to the FBI.

In an interview with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes, Jones was asked if he could say he had nothing to do with the murder.

“No sir, I wasn’t involved in it,” he responded.

Told he could clear the whole thing up by taking a lie detector test, Jones replied to Kroft, “Well, then it ain’t getting cleared up.”

A preview of the program can be found at this link.

New book names trigger man in Malcolm X assassination

A new book published today offers startling revelations about the assassination of Malcolm X:

After Malcolm X was gunned down in 1965 at Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, three men — who viewed him as an enemy and hypocrite for renouncing the Nation of Islam — were quickly arrested and prosecuted. The case was closed for law enforcement, but many have doubted that police captured the right men.

Marable, who began studying Malcolm X in 1969 and founded the African American studies program at Columbia University, uses the biography, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” to search for answers and name five alleged conspirators. Only one has served time for the crime.

While the 592-page book also examines Malcolm X’s life, it is the research into his death, which publisher Viking Press describes as “the never-before-told true story of his assassination,” that could prove most controversial. Marable goes further than any other mainstream scholar in pointing to specific individuals who he alleges plotted to kill the minister. The man who fired the first and deadliest shot, Marable alleges, is still alive, while another conspirator has died. The book does not include definitive information about the fate or whereabouts of the other two.

Myrlie Evers speaks at Jackson State University

Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King contributions honored in Missouri ceremony

The contributions of two women of the civil rights era, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, were recognized during a program in Cape Girardeau Sunday:

Several speakers, singers and dancers were part of the sixth annual Memorial Tribute, which committee director Debra Mitchell-Braxton said is to recognize Women's History Month and to bring Parks' and King's legacy to life.

"Rosa Parks was the 'mother' of the civil rights movement and Coretta King was the 'first lady,'" Mitchell-Braxton said. "What we're trying to do is keep the dreams of these two women alive. You have to have leaders; we need more leaders in our community."

The congregation's singers performed a gospel song, "I'm Still Holding On," about keeping God close in order to deal with struggles.

"When I first heard it I was going through a lot," choir member Gwen McGee said. "But, these last 20 years have been good."

Speakers highlighted the women's accomplishments, among them fighting for peace and resisting racial segregation, and youth from House of Prayer performed a play focusing on the history of the African-American culture and the importance of God in its history.

Geneva Allen, a member of St. James, called the women "she-roes" who fought for the rights black Americans and women have today. Both women were Christians and both fought for equality, she said.

"Thanks to God that they were both trailblazers," she said.

King biographer Taylor Branch laments downfall of non-violence

During a speech in a Baltimore church, historian Taylor Branch, author of an acclaimed three-part biography of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, lamented the disappearance of the non-violence philosphy that King used during the civil rights movement:

"We don't really understand the dividends that nonviolence has paid," he said of the strategy for social change.

"Nonviolence set off a broad and wonderful expanse of freedom. It was not just the gains made for black people," he said. "Later, women's rights advanced out of this movement. So did the rights of gays and the disabled people who had been shunted aside."

He said that King and other civil rights leaders used nonviolence as a valuable and "potent tool" in the 1960s, particularly in Mississippi, during the era of the Freedom Riders and the peaceful protests. "For Martin Luther King, nonviolence was a leadership doctrine," he said.

But by the time of King's death in 1968, it was being discredited by others in the movement as being "old-fashioned" and "pious." He cited Stokely Carmichael and others as deflecting attention away from the nonviolent philosophy as they advanced their own, more strident approaches.

"Stokely Carmichael became more fashionable," said Branch. "Nonviolence became nonrespectable in the New York Review of Books."

Hank Thomas, original Freedom Rider, honored by Mississippi Senate

Hank Thomas, one of the original Freedom Riders, was honored by the Mississippi Senate last week:

Thomas says when he rode to Jackson he was not even allowed in the Capitol building because of his race.

"This is my first time ever in this capitol. So you can imagine as I am thinking "50 years ago...". No, as the Senator said I wouldn't even be allowed in here. And to get this kind of honor, it gave me chills," Thomas said.

New book profiles Branch Rickey, the man who signed Jackie Robinson

The Albany Times Union has the lowdown today on a new biography of the legendary baseball genius Branch Rickey, written by Jimmy Breslin.

Rickey was the Brooklyn Dodgers executive who signed Jackie Robinson to break the major league color barrier:

Breslin's new book, "Branch Rickey: An American Life," tells a classic American bootstrap story. With belief in hard work and faith in God and in the equality of all men, Branch Rickey climbed from poverty to success in the quintessential American industry: baseball. Breslin shows us that when we talk about Jackie's courage, we have to acknowledge Rickey's courage, too.

Robinson is, of course, a role model, for anyone who has to face being a "first." Branch Rickey is also a model, showing us that making a profit doesn't have to be separate from making social change.

Few of us will have the opportunity to enact history in the dramatic way that Jackie Robinson did. But we all have opportunities to be like Branch Rickey, who ensured the moment could happen.

March 15 anniversary of President Johnson's call for Voting Rights Act

Yesterday, March 15, was the 46th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson's call for a National Voting Rights Act in the wake of Bloody Sunday in Selma:

“I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy,” Johnson began. “I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.”

“Their cause must be our cause, too,” Johnson said. All Americans “must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

The White House drafted legislation, which arrived on Capitol Hill on March 17, that banned literacy tests, named federal vote registrars and imposed federal penalties on anyone who interfered with voting in local, state or federal elections.

Today would have been Ralph Abernathy's 85th birthday

Civil rights pioneer Ralph Abernathy, known as Martin Luther King's right hand man, was born 85 years ago today:

At age 26, Abernathy became full-time minister at the First Baptist Church, Montgomery’s largest black congregation. Three years later, a man he’d met while at school in Atlanta became minister at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The two soon became good friends. That man’s name was Martin Luther King Jr.

The turning point in Abernathy’s life – and indeed, a turning point for life in America – came on December 1, 1955 when a black woman named Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus to make way for white riders. She was a coworker of Abernathy’s at the NAACP, and her arrest led King and Abernathy to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) in order to organize a boycott protesting Montgomery’s policy of segregated busing.

Three quarters of the city’s bus patrons were black, and the well-organized boycott had an immediate impact. When King was arrested and given a sentence of 386 days in jail, it brought national attention to the protest. The boycott would last over a year, until December 1956, when a federal ruling found bus segregation to be unconstitutional. Angry whites responded by firebombing Abernathy’s home and church, as well as those of King.

The boycott made Martin Luther King Jr. a nationally known figure, his impassioned speeches turning him into the face of the Civil Rights Movement while Abernathy remained largely in the background. The two men formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, with the aim of taking what they had learned in Montgomery and spreading organized, nonviolent civil rights protests throughout the South.

During the next thirteen years, King's and Abernathy’s tireless leadership brought the struggle for civil rights to Albany, Birmingham, Mississippi, Washington, Selma, St. Augustine, Chicago and Memphis as they helped spearhead marches, sit-ins, and other non-violent actions aimed at winning equal rights for African Americans. Abernathy was with King when he delivered the famous “I Have a Dream” speech during the August 28, 1963 March on Washington that helped gain passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965).

FBI reopening investigation into 1965 murder of minister in Selma

The FBI is reopening the investigation into the 1965 beating death of Unitarian minister James Reeb in Selma, Ala.:

In 1965, three men — Elmer Cook, William Stanley Hoggle and Namon O’Neal Hoggle — were tried for murder, but the all-white jury acquitted the trio, despite testimony identifying the attackers.

A fourth man indicted, R.B. Kelley, was never prosecuted. He gave authorities the names of those he said attacked the ministers.

He denied playing a role himself, but police found a club in his car, according to FBI records.

At least one of those men, Namon O’Neal ‘Duck’ Hoggle, is alive.

Decades later, questions remain about the fairness of the trial. One juror, Harry Vardaman, was the brother of a key defense witness, Ben Vardaman. During jury selection, the judge refused to dismiss two white potential jurors who admitted they despised white civil rights workers for sharing meals with black Southerners.

All 13 black potential jurors were struck from the panel, causing the jury to be all white.

During the trial, defense lawyer Joe Pilcher suggested to jurors that “certain civil rights groups have to have a martyr, and they were willing to let Reeb die.”

In March 1965, Reeb, 38, traveled to Alabama in response to Martin Luther King Jr.’s invitation to ministers to join the Selma to Montgomery March. So did his friends and fellow Unitarian ministers, Clark Olsen and Orloff Miller.

On the night of March 9, the three white ministers had just finished dinner in downtown Selma at Walker’s Cafe, a historically black restaurant that had also opened its doors to white patrons.

Did James Earl Ray assassinate Martin Luther King for KKK reward?

Forty-three years have passed since the assassination of Martin Luther King, but investigators are still seeking information about the crime.

In his blog, investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger points to circumstantial evidence reported in a new book that James Earl Ray may have killed King for the $100,000 reward offered by the KKK:

Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock, co-authors of the upcoming book, Seeking Armageddon: The Effort to Kill Martin Luther King Jr, are investigating that possibility.

Before escaping from prison in 1967, James Earl Ray reportedly learned of a $100,000 bounty that the White Knights were purportedly offering for King’s assassination.

On March 29, 1968, Ray (using the alias Harvey Lowmeyer) entered the Aeromarine Supply Co. in Birmingham and purchased a .243-caliber rifle.

The next day, Ray came back to the store and returned the rifle, exchanging it for a .30-06 rifle Remington Gamemaster. The owner told FBI agents that Ray had said his brother had told him it was the wrong kind of gun.

After King was assassinated, the FBI examined a series of telephone calls that Sam Bowers, imperial wizard for the White Knights, made in 1967 and 1968.

Bowers called Birmingham the same day that Ray bought the rifle.

“This could be very important, even if all it shows is that Bowers — or someone in Bowers’ amusement company — called a pay phone in Birmingham,” Wexler said.

Myrlie Evers talks about Medgar Evers' legacy

In this video, Myrlie Evers, wife of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and a civil rights pioneer in her own right, talks about his work and his legacy:

Video: Recreation of Bloody Sunday crossing of Edmund Pettis Bridge held Sunday

Marchers mark 46th anniversary of Bloody Sunday

Activists staged a recreation of the march across Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 46th anniversary of Bloody Sunday:

Participants included U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who was injured in the melee in 1965, as well as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Law enforcement officers attacked civil rights demonstrators marching toward Montgomery across the bridge on March 7, 1965. The movement only grew, and the Selma-to-Montgomery march was held later in response.

The march is credited with helping build momentum for passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.