FAMOUS SUMMERS

YEARS OF CHANGE

1961-1967

By Lorraine Jones

The push for desegregation and civil rights became a nonstop priority for the black community during the 1960s. Youth participation in civil rights efforts became prevalent during this decade as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) emerged and strove o desegregate public facilities and register black voters. While many African Americans began to embrace their African heritage and develop a sense of black culture and identity, many others became exhausted with the harsh treatment and unattainable standards they aced from white society.

Commonly referred to as The March on Washington, The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, on August 28, 1963, brought over 200,00 people to the nation’s capitol to protest racial discrimination and show support for civil rights legislation that was pending in Congress.

Photo credit: Getty Images

During the spring of 1961, student activists launched the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals.

Photos courtesy: Birmingham Public Library Archives

1961: Freedom Summer

After the 1960 Boynton v. Virginia decision overturned the conviction of an African American law student for being in a “whites only” bus terminal restaurant, a group of six white and seven African American civil rights activists took part in bus trips, known as Freedom Rides, through the South to protest segregated bus terminals. The group attempted to use “whitesonly” restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in various Southern states such as Alabama and South Carolina. On their journey from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, the activists endured arrests by police officers and immense violence from white protestors, sparking international attention.

In May 1961, in Rock Hill, S.C., John Lewis, a black Freedom Rider and member of SNCC, and other activists were viciously attacked as they attempted to enter a whites-only waiting area. Then, when the Freedom Riders stopped in Anniston, Ala., on May 14, the group was met by 200 white protesters. The mob pursued the bus in motor vehicles, and when its tires blew out, someone threw a bomb into the bus igniting the vehicle. Once the Freedom Riders escaped the flames, they were brutally beaten by the mob. Such harsh treatment garnered national and international attention influencing hundreds to join the cause. After a summer of Freedom Rides, the Kennedy administration pushed for the Interstate Commerce Commission to issue regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals in the fall.

1962: Ole Miss Integration

In October 1962, James Meredith, a U.S. military veteran, became the first African American student to attend the University of Mississippi, officially integrating the school. In preparation

James Meredith between U.S. Marshal James McShane (left) and Justice Department’s John Doar, University of Mississippi, October 1, 1962

Photo credit: Marion Trikosko, Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress

for the enrollment, President John F. Kennedy ordered federal marshals to Oxford in anticipation of the protests and uproar.

On Sept. 29, Mississippi governor and segregationist Ross Barnett advocated for supporters to block Meredith’s entry to the campus in a speech at an Ole Miss football game. The next day when Meredith arrived, he was greeted by 500 federal marshals assigned for his protection. After a riot by approximately 2,000 to 3,000 protesters erupted, Kennedy called in the Mississippi National Guard and Memphis Army troops led by Brig. Gen. Charles Billingslea. As Southern segregationists fought state and federal forces on campus to prevent integration of the school, two men were killed and more than 300 people were injured. Ultimately, the riot was suppressed by the 30,000 soldiers stationed on campus. The following day, Meredith attended his first class at Ole Miss, an American history course, as he made history himself. Many historians consider this event the last battle of the Civil War.

1963: March On Washington

In the aftermath of the violent attacks on civil rights activists in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, a civil rights activist who founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the nation's first major black labor union, executed a mass protest in the nation’s capital. A quarter of a million supporters assembled near the Lincoln Memorial to demand an end to segregation as well as fair wages and economic justice, voting rights, and many other long-awaited civil rights protections for African Americans.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech at the March on Washington, 1963

Photo credit: Corbis

People of all ages participated in the March on Washington.

Photo credit: Corbis

The march harnessed and utilized the power of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to bring racial equity. It included speeches from NAACP president Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, civil rights veteran Daisy Lee Bates, actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and King, whose historic “I Have a Dream” speech became one of the most famous orations in American history. This demonstration also featured musical performances from artists such as Marian Anderson, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Mahalia Jackson (who goaded King into ad-libbing the “I have a dream” refrain in his address).

The magnitude of this protest influenced President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The momentum the march created contributed to the war on poverty and implementing Medicare and Medicaid, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

1964: Civil Rights Act, Mississippi Murders

On June 21, 1964, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman disappeared near the town of Philadelphia, Miss. Schwerner and Chaney worked for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Goodman was an activist who volunteered to work on voter registration, education, and civil rights as part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project.

The three men had gone to Neshoba County to investigate the burning of Mt. Zion Church, a former CORE Freedom School, which had been burned after church members were beaten by the Ku Klux Klan.

Later, while driving through Philadelphia back toward their headquarters in Meridian, the men were arrested and held by the Philadelphia sheriff’s deputy, who later aided Klan members in their torture and murder. While in search of the missing men, investigators uncovered the bodies of eight other African Americans: Herbert Oarsby, a 14-year-old who was wearing a CORE T-shirt; 19-year-olds Henry Hezekiah Dee and Eddie Moore; and five unidentified men. Although U.S. Sen. James Eastland of Mississippi told President Lyndon Johnson he believed the disappearances were a publicity stunt, eventually Johnson ordered the FBI to assist local law-enforcement officers in the search for the missing men.

On August 4, 1964, their bodies were discovered buried on the secluded property of a Klansman. Nineteen men were indicted on federal charges, and seven of them were convicted of violating the victims' civil rights. The case was reopened decades later, and in 2005 Edgar

This Civil Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal.

Photo courtesy U.S. Library of Congress

Ray Killen, a 1960s Ku Klux Klan leader and Baptist minister, was convicted on manslaughter charges. A witness testified that Killen went to Meridian to round up carloads of Klansmen to ambush Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. Their disappearance sparked national outrage and helped spur passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

1965: Watts Riot

During the 1960s, much anger boiled over from the black community’s longstanding grievances and growing discontentment with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. On August 11, 1965, a young African American motorist, Marquette Frye, was pulled over by a white police officer for suspicion of driving while intoxicated. A group of onlookers at the scene of his arrest escalated tensions between officers and the crowd resulting in violence. After the news broke of Frye’s arrest, violence on an even larger scale emerged in Watts, a deeply impoverished predominantly black neighborhood in the South Central Los Angeles area.

This series of riots and chaos lasted for six days, claiming the lives of 34—23 of whom were killed by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers or National Guard troops. In addition, approximately1,032 people were injured and 4,000 were arrested. After the riots, city officials and leaders neglected the issues and failed to improve the social and economic conditions for African Americans living in Watts. The LAPD also began the first implementation of a paramilitary unit, Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), to combat urban violence.

The Watts Riots broke out August 11, 1965, in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles. It lasted for six days, resulting in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries and 4,000 arrests, involving 34,000 people and ending in the destruction of 1,000 buildings, totaling $40 million in damages.

Photos credit: Getty Images

1966: Black Power Movement Begins With Stokely Carmichael Speech

After the shooting of James Meredith during his one-man "March Against Fear," Stokely Carmichael and others sought to complete the march in his honor and Carmichael was later arrested because of it. Once released, Carmichael made a speech calling for black Americans to reject the existing ideals of a society that restrict their full potential. "We have to stop being ashamed of being black!" Carmichael exclaimed. He told his audience that black is strong, resourceful and beautiful.

Carmichael, the youngest person to be imprisoned for his participation in Freedom Rides, is also known for coining the black nationalism slogan “Black Power” during this speech. The mantra caught the nation’s attention, with various people interpreting it differently. Many white Americans assumed that “Black Power” automatically meant antiwhite, associated it with violence,