March: Books 2 & 3

William Campbell: “Look, the violence is going to get worse and worse until someone is killed. How can it be the right thing to do to continue putting young people in harm’s way? What do you think, John?”

Lewis and his fellow activists often faced the dilemma of whether to push on with disruptive actions that could exact a frightening toll on their volunteers or to curtail such actions to clear the way for a negotiation among politicians. Lewis generally favored maximizing (peaceful) pressure, rather than compromising on what ought to be fundamental human rights, and he fought never to signal to the forces of segregation that violence could help them achieve their aims.

“I know that an education is important and I hope to get one, but human dignity is the most important thing in my life. This is the most important decision in my life—to decide to give up all if necessary for the freedom ride, that justice and freedom might come to the Deep South.”

Lewis was in school to follow his childhood dream of becoming a preacher, and he had opportunities early in life to pursue an education and career. However, once he immersed himself in the student movement, he could not abandon the cause or the people with whom he organized and marched. Lewis recognized that he was living in a profoundly important historical moment and that he would do everything possible to bring about meaningful social change.

“If there is an arrest, we will accept that arrest. And if there is violence, we will accept that violence without responding in kind. We will not pay fines because we feel that, by paying money to a segregated state, we would help it perpetuate segregation.”

Nonviolent resistance required careful attention to tactical details. Every action had to align with the intended message. Submitting to arrest, or even a beating, was necessary to avoid resorting to violence. Refusing to pay bail, which meant spending a longer time in jail, compelled the forces of segregation to spend more of its own time and resources locking people up for the crime of requesting basic services. Every action, however small its effects, had to chip away at the foundations of segregation without giving it a valid excuse to defend itself through violence.

Diane Nash: “Mr. Farmer, We want to resume the Freedom Ride. I’m calling to ask for your support.”

James Farmer: “You…You realize it may be suicide? You could be massacred.”

Diane Nash: “We realize that—but we can’t let them stop us with violence. If we do, the movement is dead.”

As the challenge to segregation escalated, the forces of Jim Crow responded with unrelenting brutality, confident that they had the support of the police, local government, and a vast majority of white citizens. Violence against protesters was intended to deter further protests. It was for that reason that Nash, Lewis, and others insist on pushing forward, to prove that their determination carried greater weight than all the institutions designed to perpetuate segregation.

Bus driver: “I’m supposed to drive this bus to Dothan, Alabama, through Montgomery, but I understand there’s a big convoy down the road. I only have one life to give, and I’m not going to give it to CORE or the NAACP.”

John Lewis (narrating): “It may sound strange, but at the time I was more shocked that this white bus driver even knew enough about us to reference CORE by name. People were starting to notice us, even if we didn’t change their minds.”

Without publicity, the civil rights movement would have no chance of advancing its aims. The movement could hardly guarantee that publicity would directly contribute to their goals or make the public more sympathetic, but without a broader audience, the machinery of Jim Crow would simply go on operating without fear of scrutiny or accountability. A racist bus driver’s awareness of CORE and the NAACP did not make him less racist, but it did show that he was aware of outside forces that were beginning to influence his calculations.

“Please tell the Attorney General that we’ve been cooling off for 350 years—if we cool off any more, we will be in a deep freeze. The Freedom Ride will go on.”

One of the most common refrains from political leaders, especially well-meaning liberals sympathetic in principle to the goals of the movement, was that the activists should “cool off,” suspending any direct action and wait for those in power to arrive at a compromise solution. Lewis and others had two responses to this request: First, delay was more likely to give politicians an excuse to delay still further, whereas constant pressure would compel them to act. Second, Black Americans had been waiting centuries simply for the right to be treated equally, and it was absurd to suggest that they were being too hasty for wanting their constitutional rights.

RFK: “Look, the country belongs to you as much as to me. You determine what’s best just as well as I can, but don’t make statements that sound like a threat. That’s not the way to deal with us.”

King: “It’s difficult to understand the position of oppressed people. Ours is a way out—creative, moral, and nonviolent. It is not tied to Black supremacy or communism, but to the plight of the oppressed. It can save the soul of America.”

During the civil rights movement, there was widespread concern among white public opinion that Black activism could be coopted by radical elements or otherwise serve their interests. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover believed that the movement’s demand for “equality” meant the movement consisted of communists seeking to tear down American society. In this statement, King is asking the attorney general to think from the perspective of Black people, to recognize that their challenge is not against America as such, but against a fundamental injustice within American society, and that the movement’s success will only make America stronger and freer.

Stokely Carmichael: “We forget too soon the jailings and beatings suffered by our brothers and sisters fighting every day. If we are met with violence, we must be able to defend ourselves.”

It was enormously difficult for the SNCC to maintain its commitment to nonviolence. The horrific violence inflicted on the protesters exacted a heavy psychological toll, and many had an understandable desire for revenge or at least a reluctance to suffer more without the ability to fight back. It was also difficult for the SNCC to enforce a single position on all its members, as it was a revolving door of various leaders, volunteers, and allied organizations whose priorities were always changing. Lewis had tried to expel Carmichael, but so long as Carmichael’s message found purchase, there would be room for him at the table, and Carmichael would end up succeeding Lewis as chairman of the SNCC.

“While we had made progress elsewhere, one city continued to earn its label as ‘the most segregated city in the South,’ subject to so much violence that it was nicknamed ‘Bombingham.’ Shuttlesworth made a promise that afternoon to Dr.

King: ‘I assure you,’ he said, ‘if you come to Birmingham, this movement will not only gain prestige—but it will really shake this country.’”

Organizations like the SNCC and SCLC frequently debated where to focus their efforts, since there was no shortage of potential targets. In 1963, Alabama elected George Wallace as governor on a platform of defending segregation against the “tyranny” of the federal government. His public defiance guaranteed that protests against his government would garner national attention. To score a victory against the most vocal champion of segregation would shake the system to its foundations.

President Kennedy: “We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations on the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talks. It is time to act in Congress, in your state and local legislative bodies—in all of our daily lives…A great change is at hand, and our task…—our obligation—is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.”

A presidential statement in support of civil rights legislation was an enormous victory for the movement, but it also added new layers of complexity. Now that it was a matter of assembling votes, Kennedy insisted that further direct actions would dilute support for such a bill. In his statement, he equates police repression and protests as equally troublesome. King called for a March on Washington right around the same time to prove that they would not wait for politicians to solve their problems for them but would make sure that their voice was heard right up until the point that the government backed up its promises with actions.

“My friends, let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution—by and large, American politics is dominated by politicians who build their careers on immoral compromises, and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic, and social exploitation. There are exceptions, of course. We salute those. But what political leader can stand up and say, ‘My party is the party of principles?” […] Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington?’”

This passage considers the idea of The Civil Rights Movement as a Revolution. For many involved at the time, “revolution” was a complicated word. The movement’s members were undoubtedly pursuing major change, but the term struck many as a call for violence. After his first draft was criticized for being too strident, Lewis modified his language to suggest a “social revolution,” was underway, a change in laws and attitudes, but one that did not require the shedding of blood. Rather, the corruption of the political system called for a new kind of politics, which would then make other kinds of revolution unnecessary.

“Four little children murdered in the house of the Lord—how could our quest for human dignity spawn such evil?”

Many famous civil rights campaigns were met with harassment or violence, but the bombing of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham was an act of terrorism. The four young victims were targeted for no reason other than their church being a center for activism to help secure Black Americans the right to vote. The above question asks how such a horrific act could derive from such a basic request, forcing the country to either rethink its priorities or confess that its professions of equality were a falsehood.

“As chairman of SNCC, I sent a telegram to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara describing what was happening. The Defense Secretary’s office responded by saying the base command ‘may not intervene in behalf of persons not under his command.’”

Following the March on Washington, civil rights leaders had every reason to expect the support of the Kennedy administration, at least with respect to the deployment of federal power to stop segregation where federal law required it. When the SNCC asked that the airmen at a base near Selma, Alabama no longer have leave privileges in the segregated city, the attorney general found a legal loophole to deny the request, despite his personally committing himself to the cause to Lewis a few months before. It was a harsh reminder to the leaders of the movement that any progress they made could be reversed at any moment.

Amelia Boynton: “Sheriff Clark, it doesn’t seem like a very Christian thing to let people drop dead on your courthouse steps.”

Clark: “If they’re so thirsty, then they can get outta line and get something to drink. Ain’t nobody stopping ’em. But if I see any of you n****** trying to bring ’em anything—if I see you so much as talking to ’em, I’ll arrest you for…for…for molestin’ people trying to register to vote.”

Among the many cruelties of Jim Crow, one was its criminalization of attempts to carry out the true spirit of the law. Black Americans in Selma, Alabama could spend hours outside the courthouse waiting to register to vote, despite knowing they had no reasonable chance of registering. Clark asserted that as long as they stood there, as they were theoretically attempting to register, any efforts to offer aid, even food or water, would be construed as efforts to interfere with registration. This decision was obviously in bad faith, but it is representative of many exercises of power under Jim Crow that violated federal law and the Constitution itself while perpetrators claimed fidelity to local laws.

“The plan was to stage our own election, with our own candidates. This would give Black women and men a sense of what it was like to actually vote, and dramatize the exclusion of African-Americans from the electoral process.”

Many of the most famous actions of the civil rights movement sought a direct change in policy regarding segregation and voter registration. The Freedom Vote, in contrast, sought no direct impact at all; its effect was intended to be purely symbolic. Namely, by giving Black Americans the chance to vote, even in a mock election, the Freedom Vote aimed to help them realize the value of voting in a real election and thereby encourage them to contribute to efforts to turn the exercise into a reality.

“I kept thinking about Medgar Evers and the little girls in Birmingham. Now the president who represented hope for so many people had been murdered.”

The assassination of President Kennedy was a tragedy for the whole nation, but it carried particular significance for civil rights advocates, who finally believed they had an advocate in the White House with whom they had established a personal connection. Whatever the motives of the killer, they could not help but feel that his death was a blow to their own efforts, and they would have to begin all over again to establish federal support for civil rights in an environment where no one was safe from an assassin’s bullet, not even the president.

“During the presidential election of 1964, SNCC intends to obtain the right for all citizens of Mississippi to vote, using as many people as necessary to obtain that end.”

Lewis frequently points to the tactical disputes within the SNCC, one of the most significant being the effort to focus on voter registration in advance of the 1964 presidential election. Opponents pointed out that the value of such a strategy would exhaust itself after the election, while advocates, including Lewis, envisioned a mobilization of Black voters that would then propel itself into future election cycles. The wisdom of one position versus the other hinged on whether Congress could pass legislation to enforce the constitutional protection of the right to vote.

“It quickly became clear that we were right to believe the country would respond differently once young white people started dying alongside the countless Black activists who simply disappeared without a trace.”

The murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner comprised one of the signature atrocities of the civil rights era, later memorialized in the 1988 film Mississippi Burning. Without detracting from its horrors, Lewis points out that it gained such widespread attention in part because two of its three victims were white. In other words, white victims received a level attention not normally accorded the countless Black victims of Klan activity in the Jim Crow South.

“Doctors who evaluated volunteers returning home from Freedom Summer described the symptoms of the emotional and physical toll as ‘battle fatigue,’ marking ‘a crisis in the lives of those youths who experience them.’”

Lewis emphasizes the extraordinary toll that civil rights volunteers endured in their efforts to secure their rights. While their tactics might have been nonviolent, even passive, they dealt with such extraordinary violence that their experience could be reasonably compared to that of a soldier on the battlefield, and in their case, the situation was all the more difficult for being unable to inflict direct damage on the enemy in return for the harm they received.

“The Credentials Committee vote was postponed, and Johnson appointed an ‘Emergency Subcommittee’ to create a proposal to address the Mississippi situation. We later learned that President Johnson’s men were using FBI wiretaps on the MFDP office—as well as Dr. King’s and Bayard Rustin’s hotel rooms—”

Even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Lewis and his fellow activists could not rely on the support of the White House. When they formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the segregated party, Johnson was more concerned with his reelection prospects than the enforcement of the very laws he helped pass, and he resorted to dirty tactics to advance his interests. It was a troubling reminder that any support from the government was at best fleeting and at worst reversible.

“What moved me and impressed me was his [Malcolm X’s] sensitivity to the fact that our being in Africa was very dangerous for us. He knew there were people back in America who did not like us trying to link the movement in Africa to what was happening in America.”

Lewis and his fellow activists visited Africa in search of a solution to the dilemmas dividing the movement at home, and his unexpected encounter with Malcolm X both provided a solution and added new layers to the problem. While Lewis found that Malcolm was in fact a nuanced and serious thinker worthy of respect, Malcom’s suggestion of internationalizing the struggle for civil rights would not readily align with Lewis’s efforts to secure an alliance with the Johnson administration, even after Johnson’s electoral victory in 1964. The more powerful the movement’s political allies became, the more sensitive the movement’s leaders were to maintaining power.

“Last year, from Africa, [Malcolm X] wrote these words to a friend: ‘[…] The main thing is that we keep a united front, wherein our most valuable time and energy will not be wasted fighting each other.’ However we may have differed with him [Malcolm X], or with each other about him and his value as a man—let his going from us only serve to bring us together, now.”

Martin Luther King Jr. regretted toward the end of his life that he had not made amends with Malcolm X, and the popular imagination still tends to regard them as polar opposites. The eulogy by actor Ossie Davis, as recounted by Lewis, shows how the aims of the two great leaders were more closely aligned than either recognized. This quotation in particular notes that whatever differences the two men may have had paled in comparison to their similarities in challenging white supremacy in the United States.

“I don’t see how we can send troops to Africa, and he [President Johnson] can’t send troops to Selma, Alabama.”

Following the brutal encounter on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Lewis shows that he learned from Malcolm X how to link the struggle for Black equality in America to global events. The United States was intervening in the Congolese Civil War as part of its rivalry with the Soviet Union, yet it would not dispatch federal troops to enforce the laws within its own borders. Lewis calling out this apparent hypocrisy revealed the country’s consistent opposition to Black liberation not only at home but also abroad.