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1960: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

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1960: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

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Included Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown as members

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Initiated by James Farmer and CORE and joined by Nashville, TN SNCC, organized by Diane Nash. One of the number of violent attacks of the Freedom Riders in Montgomery received national attention (John Lewis was one of those attacked) and, ultimately, Robert Kennedy (bowing under national and international pressure) petitioned ICC and, on 11/1/61 interstate travel was desegregated. Stokely Carmichael was youngest participant at age 19.

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Courtesy Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Following the momentum of student-led sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennesssee in early 1960, an interracial group of activists, led by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Executive Director James Farmer, decided to continue to challenge Jim Crow segregation in the South by organizing "freedom rides" through the region. They used as their model CORE's 1946 "Journey of Reconciliation" where an interracial group rode interstate buses to test the enforcement of the Supreme Court's decision in Morgan v. the Commonwealth of Virginia which outlawed segregation in interstate travel. White southern segregationists resisted CORE's efforts. When most of the demonstrators were arrested in North Carolina, the police effectively aborted the Journey of Reconciliation.

Recalling that failed effort 15 years earlier, James Farmer organized a new generation of black and white activists to travel on interstate buses to test the 1960 United States Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia which reiterated the earlier ruling prohibiting racial segregation in interstate transportation.

This time CORE organized a dozen activists who were paired into two interracial sets of Freedom Riders who would travel on Greyhound and Trailways buses, respectively, from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, Louisiana. The Freedom Riders left Washington on May 4, 1961 and traveled without incident across Virginia and North Carolina. They encountered violence for the first time at the bus terminal in Rock Hill, South Carolina when several young white males beat black riders who attempted to use a "whites only" restroom.

The Freedom Riders continued, however, and crossed Georgia without incident. When the activists reached Alabama on May 14 the attacks intensified. The Greyhound riders were met in Anniston by a mob whose members threw rocks and slashed the bus's tires. The driver managed to drive the bus a few miles out of town. When he stopped to repair the tires, white supremacists firebombed the vehicle. For that group the Freedom Ride had ended.

The riders in the Trailways bus were also assaulted by Anniston whites. They managed to get to Birmingham where they encountered a larger mob who beat them with baseball bats, lead pipes and bicycle chains.

Infuriated by the news of the vicious assaults, Diane Nash, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), organized a new contingent of Freedom Riders in Nashville. The second group departed from Nashville on May 14 to reinforce the beleaguered CORE Riders in Alabama.

Upon their arrival in Birmingham on May 17, Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Conner ordered his police officers to place the activists in protective custody. The following morning law officials transported the riders back to the Tennessee state line, leaving them on the side of the highway. Instead of abandoning the campaign, Nash led the resilient activists 100 miles back to Nashville to regroup.

On May 20, the Nashville riders were back in Birmingham where there were no incidents. Then all of the Freedom Riders traveled on to Montgomery where a mob of men, women and children carrying baseball bats, tire irons and bricks met them at the terminal. As the riders departed from the bus, the angry gang swarmed, beating the passengers. They attacked SNCC activists John Lewis and Jim Zwerg, who both sustained severe injuries. When White House observer John Seigenthaler attempted to protect two of the Freedom Riders, Susan Wilbur and Susan Hermann, an attacker knocked him unconscious.

The nationally televised attack strengthened the resolve of the Freedom Riders. James Farmer arrived to personally lead the rest of the group to Jackson, Mississippi. Law enforcement officials protected them as they traveled across the state. Once in the bus terminal in the Mississippi capital, Jackson city police arrested all of the demonstrators for violating a recently passed breach of the peace statute. They were convicted and fined $200 each. When the riders refused to pay, the judge sentenced them to 90 days in jail.

In an effort to intimidate the marchers, Mississippi officials transferred the now nearly one hundred men and women freedom riders to the state penitentiary at Parchman where they were subject to beatings and inedible food and repeatedly strip searched. Prison officials confiscated the blankets and mattresses of all of the activists. When other demonstrators arrived in Jackson they were also arrested and sent to Parchman where they faced similar conditions. By the end of the summer over 300 women and men were incarcerated there.

The Freedom Riders failed to reach New Orleans, Louisiana. However the international attention their efforts received forced Attorney General Robert Kennedy to petition the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to outlaw segregation in interstate travel. Unlike the earlier Supreme Court rulings which segregationists largely ignored, the ICC immediately imposed sanctions and penalties for the violation of its order. On November 1, 1961, the new order went into effect across the nation.

The Freedom Rides illuminated the courage of black and white youth and highlighted the leadership of Diane Nash. The Freedom Rides also inspired rural southern blacks to embrace civil disobedience as a strategy for regaining their civil rights. That inspiration would be seen in subsequent campaigns such as Mississippi's Freedom Summer in 1964 and the Selma Movement in 1965 as well as in dozens of much less heralded efforts to register to vote or to integrate the region's public schools.

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Following the momentum of student-led sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennesssee in early 1960, an interracial group of activists, led by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Executive Director James Farmer, decided to continue to challenge Jim Crow segregation in the South by organizing ... Read MoreFreedom Rides (1961)

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SNCC provided a significant portion of the funding for the Freedom Summer campaign that was primarily made up of white college student volunteers and black clergy.

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Summer 1964

In 1963, violence aimed at halting civil rights struggle in Mississippi was intensifying. The federal government continued its reluctance to intervene. And most of the nation was largely unaware of the terror and denial unfolding in Mississippi. Therefore, COFO decided to bring attention to conditions by bringing the nation's children to Mississippi. For its part, the state responded, that if they came, they would be treated as invaders.

For many whites in Mississippi, like Jackson Mayor Allen Thompson, the prospect of hundreds of mainly white volunteers coming to the state signaled a second "War of Northern Aggression." And as Mayor Thompson put it, "They won't have a chance." So before the summer began, the number of state troopers doubled. The state legislature passed dawn-to-dusk curfews, and Ku Klux Klan numbers expanded. The legislature tried to outlaw planned Freedom Schools. Crosses were burned in 64 of the state's 82 counties on a single night.

The ten weeks that comprised the "long hot summer" centered around several goals: to establish Freedom Schools and community centers throughout the state, to increase black voter registration, and to ultimately challenge the all-white delegation that would represent the state at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Project director Bob Moses had no grand premonitions about what the summer project might accomplish. "Maybe we're not going to get many people registered this summer. Maybe, even, we're not going to get very many people into Freedom Schools. Maybe all we're going to do is live this summer. In Mississippi, that will be so much."

Freedom Summer included more than 44 projects, grouped by congressional districts across the state. These projects ranged in size and scope. For example, Hattiesburg had more than 50 volunteers and staff while some projects had as few as two workers. Most projects built upon existing movement activity and relationships with local Black leaders.

Yet other aspects of the summer project, such as the establishment of Freedom Schools marked a new element in the Mississippi Movement. In a state where funding for white schools sometimes quadrupled the amount spent on Black schools, all but three summer projects had Freedom Schools. Work-shop style courses ranged from basic reading and math, civics, African-American history to modern Africa and French.

The summer project also made it possible for the Movement to expand into areas of the state that had experienced little civil rights activity in the past. Issaquena County, located in the southern Delta region, had no registered Black voters despite being a majority Black population. Unita Blackwell was one of several local women who attempted to register at the courthouse that summer. "I was just starting to learn about myself and history in a brand-new way," she said after her registration was denied. The experience marked the beginning of her development as a SNCC organizer.

Midway through the summer, the project's emphasis shifted from voter registration towards challenging the Mississippi Democrat's all-white delegation. Local people began attempting-without success- to attend delegate selection meetings. A Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) had been formed in April and a delegation of MFDP members was selected to challenge the so-called "regular" delegates at the national Democratic Party convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey in August.

By the end of Freedom Summer, there had been 6 known murders, 35 known shootings, 4 people critically wounded, at least 80 volunteers beaten, and more than 1,000 people arrested. Except for the case of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman, the FBI failed to take further action when it came to state violence towards civil rights workers and local communities.

For many volunteers, the summer would mark the beginning of a life dedicated to social justice. More than 200 volunteers decided to stay in Mississippi at the end of the summer, some quitting their jobs or dropping out of school. As a state, Mississippi became linked to the nation.

Sources

John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 250-281.

Wesley Hogan, Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC's Dream for America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 156, 167, 269-71.

Laura Visser-Maessen, Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the Grassroots (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016).

Bruce Watson, Freedom Summer: The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy (New York: Penguin Group, 2010), 11-14, 171-76, 183-85.

Freedom Summer, Directed by Stanley Nelson Jr., Firelight Media, January 2014.

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In 1963, violence aimed at halting civil rights struggle in Mississippi was intensifying. The federal government continued its reluctance to intervene. And most of the nation was largely unaware of the terror and denial unfolding in Mississippi. Therefore, COFO decided to bring attention to conditions by bringing the nation's children to Mississippi.

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1965: Lowndes County Freedom Organization

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1965: Lowndes County Freedom Organization

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Stokely Carmichael was one of the co-founders. Came to Lowndes County as a field organizer for SNCC.

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In an address in Greenwood, Mississippi, Carmichael said, We been saying ‘freedom’ for six years. What we are going to start saying now is ‘Black Power.'

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October, 1966: Birth of the Black Panther Party

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October, 1966: Birth of the Black Panther Party

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Co-founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, CA. While they already had the 10-point platform written, the didn't have a name yet. Bobby Seale recalls looking at a flyer from LCFO and choosing the logo because of the idea that Huey had about the panther (can't go left, can't go right so will charge...)

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October, 1966: Black Panther Party for Self-Defense 10-point Program

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October, 1966: Black Panther Party for Self-Defense 10-point Program

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10-POINT PLATFORM 10/15/66

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1967: BPP Opens the First office in Oakland, CA

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1967: BPP Opens the First office in Oakland, CA

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Dropped “for self-defense”

Started selling little red book on UC Campus

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1968: High Profile Events and State Control

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1968: High Profile Events and State Control

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A series of high profile events and violence propel the BPP into the spotlight.

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Short discussion about the killing of Bobby Hutton with Kathleen Cleaver and others.

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Armed BP guards for Betty Shabazz, Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown all join

Armed delegation to Sacramento

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Chicago: "The Black Panther Party in Sacramento," 1968-05-03, Pacifica Radio Archives, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 8, 2021, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-28-vq2s46hn98.

MLA: "The Black Panther Party in Sacramento." 1968-05-03. Pacifica Radio Archives, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 8, 2021. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-28-vq2s46hn98>.

APA: The Black Panther Party in Sacramento. Boston, MA: Pacifica Radio Archives, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-28-vq2s46hn98

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This recording is an actuality, including interviews, of events on May 2, 1968 surrounding a bus trip made by the Black Panther Party from Oakland to Sacramento in support of Eldridge Cleaver. The recording was made by KPFA volunteer Denny Smithson, who rode on the bus with Party members and press.

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September 1968: Huey P. Newton is convicted of manslaughter

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September 1968: Huey P. Newton is convicted of manslaughter

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Huey spent almost 2 years in jail and, after an active "Free Huey" campaign, the charges were overturned and he was released on 5/29/70

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5,000 members

34-30 local chapters

Free Breakfast Program

Rallies drew crowds up to 10,000

Affiliated groups-–Cuba, Algeria…

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Infiltration

COINTELPRO

Cleaver exiled in 1968

1971 pubic phone conversation Huey and Eldridge

1972 Bobby Seale for Oakland Mayor

1982: official end of BPP

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In the early 1970s, the BPP in Oakland supported Seale and Kathleen Cleaver for Mayor and City Council.