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The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against blacks—they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, African Americans had had more than enough of prejudice and violence against them. They, along with many whites, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades.

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The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was a watershed in the history of the United States: after years of campaigning against the laws of Jim Crow and racial oppression, the Civil Rights Movement had obtained a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court that threw out back the doctrine of "separate but equal" that had been used to justify official racism for half a century. Although Brown itself was only the first step in dismembering school segregation in the South - a process that would take decades of legal processes, with uncertain results - it was more important because of its immediate political utility, as it gave the rights movement civilians the legitimacy of the Supreme Court's decision in declaring that state-sponsored segregation was unwarranted and inappropriate.

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Emmett Till was born in 1941 in Chicago and grew up in a middle-class black neighborhood. Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, in 1955 when the fourteen-year-old was accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who was a cashier at a grocery store.

Four days later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped Till, beat him and shot him in the head. The men were tried for murder, but an all-white, male jury acquitted them.

Till's murder and open casket funeral galvanized the emerging civil rights movement. More than six decades later, in January 2017, Timothy Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Tilland a senior research scholar at Duke University, revealed that in a 2007 interview Carolyn admitted to him that she had lied about Till making advances toward her. The following year, it was reported that the Justice Department had reopened an investigation into Till's murder.

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Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

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Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

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On December 1, 1955, nine months after a 15-year-old high school student, Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested, Rosa Parks did the same thing. Parks soon became the symbol of the resulting Montgomery Bus Boycott and received national publicity. She was later hailed as the "mother of the civil rights movement".

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Desegregating Little Rock Central High School, 1957

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Desegregating Little Rock Central High School, 1957

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Following the decision of the Supreme Court in the Brown case, the school committee of Little Rock, Arkansas, voted in 1957 to integrate the school system. The NAACP had chosen Little Rock to push for integration, rather than the deep south, because Arkansas was considered a relatively progressive southern state. However, a crisis arose when Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called the Arkansas National Guard (United States) on September 4 to prevent nine black students who had sued for the right to study at an integrated school from attending school. vocational (high school) downtown Little Rock.

The governor himself was not a segregationist extremist, but he had received a lot of pressure from the most conservative wing of the Arkansas Democratic Party, which controlled state policy at the time, having declared the previous year that he would investigate the possibility of putting the state of Arkansas in line with the decision made in the Brown case. Faubus pleaded against the immigration and against the order of the federal court that required it.

Faubus's order confronted him with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was determined to implement the orders of the federal courts, even though he was not very enthusiastic about ending segregation in public schools. Eisenhower ordered the National Guard (United States) deployed by the governor to return to his barracks, and deployed elements of the 101st Army Airborne Division to Little Rock to protect the students.

The students were able to attend the vocational school, although for this they had to go through a wall of whites insulting them and spitting at them the first day of classes and the rest of the year they had to endure the continuous harassment of their classmates. Faubus was reelected as governor the following year and would be reelected three times more.

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The method of Nonviolence and Nonviolence Training

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The method of Nonviolence and Nonviolence Training

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Historically, nonviolence training was used extensively during the civil rights movement, in Gandhi's campaigns in India against the British, and in recent years in the struggles against nuclear technology, against U.S. policy in Central America and Southern Africa and for the rights of farm workers, women and people with AIDS, to name a few.

The purpose of training is for participants to form a common understanding of the use of nonviolence. It gives a forum to share ideas about nonviolence, oppression, fears and feelings. It allows people to meet and build solidarity with each other and provides an opportunity to form affinity groups. It is often used as preparation for action and gives people a chance to learn about an action, its tone, and legal ramifications. It helps people to decide whether or not they will participate in an action. Through role playing, people learn what to expect from police, officials, other people in the action and themselves.

Nonviolence training can range from several hours to several months. Most typical in the United States are sessions that run up to eight hours and have 10-25 people with two trainers leading the discussion and roleplays. Areas covered in a session include:

· History and philosophy of nonviolence, including role plays on the use of nonviolence and nonviolent responses to violence.

· Roleplays and exercises in consensus decision making, conflict resolution, and quick decision making.

· A presentation of legal ramification of civil disobedience and discussion on noncooperation and bail solidarity.

· Exercises and discussion of the role of oppression in our society and the progressive movement.

· What is an affinity group and what are the roles within the group.

· A sharing of fears and feelings related to nonviolence and nonviolent action.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that the philosophy and practice of nonviolence has six basic elements.

First, nonviolence is resistance to evil and oppression. It is a human way to fight.

Second, it does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his/ her friendship and understanding.

Third, the nonviolent method is an attack on the forces of evil rather than against persons doing the evil. It seeks to defeat the evil and not the persons doing the evil and injustice.

Fourth, it is the willingness to accept suffering without retaliation.

Fifth, a nonviolent resister avoids both external physical and internal spiritual violence- not only refuses to shoot, but also to hate, an opponent. The ethic of real love is at the center of nonviolence.

Sixth, the believer in nonviolence has a deep faith in the future and the forces in the universe are seen to be on the side of justice.

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Robert F. Williams and the debate on nonviolence

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Robert F. Williams and the debate on nonviolence

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"WE MUST be willing to kill if necessary. We cannot take these people who do us injustice to the court and it becomes necessary to punish them ourselves...we cannot rely on the law.

"We get no justice under the current system. If we feel that injustice is done, we must right then and there on the spot be prepared to inflict punishment on these people...Since the federal government will not bring a halt to lynching in the South and since the so-called courts lynch our people legally, if it's necessary to stop lynching with lynching, then we must be willing to use this method."

This wasn't a quote from Malcolm X or the Black Panther Party for Self- Defense. The statement was made by little-known Black activist Robert Williams in 1959.

He made the remarks to reporters in Monroe, N.C., after a white man was acquitted of brutalizing and attempting to rape a Black woman--an event that happened in front of several witnesses.

Williams became the symbol of Black militancy well before the late 1960s. His contributions, which have largely been ignored, are chronicled in a documentary showing on PBS stations this month called Negroes with Guns, named after Williams' 1962 book.

While the civil rights movement continues to be heralded for its nonviolence in the face of white supremacist terrorism, debates raged over the right to armed self-defense throughout the main civil rights organizations of the day.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. argued that the strategy of nonviolence would expose the brutality of Southern racism and Jim Crow. Williams argued that Blacks had always been nonviolent, which he described as "sado-masochism," and that submission in the face of attack was humiliating and invited more attacks.

Williams came of age in the post-Second World War economic expansion and expected more than previous generations of Blacks. In 1943, at the age of 18, he moved to Detroit to live with relatives who'd migrated there to get auto industry jobs.

Here, he first came into contact with socialists and radicals--relationships he would maintain for most of his life. In the summer of that year, 5,000 white sailors formed a roving mob that went on the rampage against local Blacks. Williams was caught up in the riot as confident Blacks fought back.

After a stint in the military, Williams returned to Monroe, N.C., where he became active in the local chapter of the NAACP--recruiting Black veterans and women. His NAACP chapter organized against segregation--including a highly publicized fight to integrate a swimming pool.

Tensions came to a boil in the town in the aftermath of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. Local white business leaders helped to re-organize a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, with rallies numbering as many as 16,000 attendees.

When the Klan organized a motorcade to come through the Black area of town, Williams' NAACP chapter armed themselves to stand up to them. After local Blacks shot at and repelled the Klan, the local city council banned the Klan from "night rides" for fear it would lead to confrontation.

Williams gained national notoriety when he helped lead a campaign that freed two young Black boys--aged 8 and 10--from reform school for the "crime" of kissing a young white girl in a game.

Williams' outspoken nature and confrontational tactics not only caused tension between he and local white authorities but with the NAACP's national office as well. When Williams made the statement that white lynchers should be met with lynching, NAACP President Roy Wilkins led a campaign to have Williams removed as local president--even though members fought to keep him.

By 1961, the polarization between the white racists in town and the Black community had reached a fever pitch. Racist white youths were enraged that Black and white Freedom Riders--anti-segregation activists from the North--had targeted their town.

In the midst of the rioting, a white couple mistakenly drove through the Black are of town and were in danger of being killed. Williams and his wife kept the couple in their house until they could guarantee them safe passage to the police.

When the couple was turned over to the authorities, the Williamses were charged with kidnapping. Convinced they'd be killed, the Williamses and their two children fled to Cuba where they were given political asylum.

Williams spent most of the civil rights movement outside in exile, where he broadcast "Radio Free Dixie" which advocated armed struggle for Blacks in the South. Eventually the Cuban government shut down the broadcast for fear that Williams' message could be taken up by Black Cubans as well.

Williams' ideas influenced the Black radicals who came after him later in the sixties--Malcolm X, the Deacons of Defense, the Black Panthers and many others. This new film's importance lies in not just exposing a new generation of fighters to the important legacy of Robert Williams but also in shedding new light on some of the important political debates of the civil rights era.

Those who want to know more about his life should read Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power.

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Occupation of buildings and trips for freedom

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Occupation of buildings and trips for freedom

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The Civil Rights Movement received an injection of energy when students from Greensboro, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee and Atlanta, Georgia began to "occupy" the counters of local shops at lunchtime in protest of the segregation of the establishments. The protesters were recommended to dress formally, sit quietly and take alternate seats in case white supporters wanted to join. Many of these occupations resulted in physical and brutal evictions by school authorities.

This technique was not new - the Congress of Racial Equality had used it to protest against segregation in the midwest during the 1940s - but in 1960 it managed to attract national attention. The success of the occupations in Greensboro caused an epidemic of estidantiles campaigns in all the south of the country. Probably the best organized and disciplined of these and the one that brought the most immediate results was that of Nashville, Tennessee. By the end of the 1960s occupations had spread to every southern and border state, and had even reached Nevada, Illinois and Ohio. The demonstrators did not focus only on the food counters, but also on parks, beaches, bookstores, cinemas, museums and other public spaces. When they were arrested, the student demonstrators made "jail-no-bail" vows, that is, they refused to pay bail and spent the time in jail sentenced to prevent the campaign from spending all of its funds on bail, and also to get the attention of the public.

The activists who led these occupations, including Ella Baker, formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960 to deepen these non-violent confrontation tactics. His first campaign, in 1961, was the so-called freedom rides, which consisted of bus trips by activists to the deep south to end the segregation of these companies in the bus terminals, as required by federal law.

These trips were an extremely dangerous mission. In Anniston, Alabama, a bus was attacked with incendiary bombs, forcing its passengers to flee for their lives. In Birmingham, where an FBI informant reported that public safety commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor had motivated the Ku Klux Klan to attack a group of passengers for freedom "until it looked like a buldog had fished them". The passengers were brutally beaten. In the gloomily quiet town of Montgomery, a crowd attacked another bus full of passengers for freedom, causing John Lewis to lose consciousness with a wooden box and beating Life magazine photographer Don Urbrock with his own camera. A dozen men surrounded Jim Zwerg, a white student at Fisk University, and beat him with a suitcase until he bit his teeth. When they were taken to jail, they also did very badly. They were piled up in dirty, small cells and beaten sporadically. In Jackson, Mississippi, some male prisoners had to do forced labor under a heat of 100 ° Farenheit. Others were transferred to the Parchman penitentiary, where their food was intentionally salted and the bunks were removed from their cells. Sometimes the dolls were tied to the walls and their cells were closed excessively on hot days, hindering their breathing.

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In 1962 Robert Moses, representative of the SNCC in Mississippi, joined the civil rights organizations of the state -SNCC, NAACP and CORE- to form the COFO (Council of Federative Organizations). Mississippi was the most dangerous of all the southern states, and despite this, Moses, Medgar Evers of the NAACP and other local activists undertook door-to-door voter education projects in rural Mississippi, while trying to recruit students. to his cause. Evers was killed the following year.

Although COFO worked directly with the people of Mississippi, James Meredith successfully sued the University of Mississippi to allow him to study there. He won his claim in September 1962, but state governor Ross R. Barnett blocked his admission to the University, proclaiming that "no school will be integrated into Mississippi while I am governor." After the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals declared Governor and Lieutenant Governor Paul B. Johnson, Jr. in contempt with fines of more than $ 10,000 each, they still refused to allow Meredith to enroll in the College. Then Meredith had to be accompanied by marshals of the United States Army to enter the campus on September 30, 1962.

White students and other whites started riots that same night, throwing rocks at the marshals taking care of Meredith in the Lyceum Hall, and then shooting the marshals. Two people were killed, including a French journalist. 28 marshals received gunshot wounds and another 160 were injured. After the Mississippi Highway Police left the campus, President Kennedy sent the regular army to suppress the segregationist uprising. Meredith was able to start her classes the next day, thanks to the presence of the army.

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Some student activists had criticized the SCLC and other more visible civil rights organizations for not committing to freedom travel. In response, the SCLC committed a good portion of its prestige and resources to a desegregation campaign in Albany, Georgia, in November 1961. King, who had been personally criticized by some SNCC activists for his distance from the dangers faced by organizers local, personally intervened in the campaign led by SNCC organizers and local leaders. The campaign was a failure in immediate terms, due in large part to the cautious tactics of Laurie Pritchett, the local police chief, who managed to contain the movement without having to resort to violent attacks against the protesters who outraged the national opinion, and also due to divisions among the black community. Prichett also agreed with all the prisons within a radius of 100 km from Albany to receive arrested protesters and a lot of space in his prison. In addition to these arrangements, Prichett considered King's presence a danger, and allowed his release to prevent the black community from mobilizing for him. King retired in 1962 without getting any significant victory. The local movement, however, continued with the struggle and made significant achievements in the following years.

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The Albany movement proved very educational for the SCLC when it launched the Birmingham campaign in 1963. The campaign focused on a specific goal, the desegregation of merchants from downtown Birmingham, instead of seeking complete desegregation, as in Albany . The brutal response from local authorities played out in favor of the campaign, particularly the attitude shown by Eugene "Bull" Connor, the public security commissioner who had just lost the election to mayor to a less furiously segregationist opponent, but refused to accept the authority of the new mayor.

The campaign used a variety of non-violent methods of confrontation, including building occupations, protests in local churches and a march to the county building to initiate a voter registration campaign.