So, it’s Black History Month, and it feels time to revisit some ideas from my time at EMCC.
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This idea comes from a lecture on the “short” civil rights movement, from 1960-1965.
The lynching of Emmett Till, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the Civil Rights Act of 1957 helped lay the foundation for the youth sit-in protests which began in 1960. By this time, the three predominant activist Civil Rights organizations were the NAACP (especially with their legal strategy) the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (led by MLK) and the Congress of Racial Equality (a pacifist organization from WWII-period).
In May 1961, CORE initiated the Freedom Rides. The rides tested to see if federal desegregation laws would be enforced in interstate transportation in states where segregation was the local practice. They quickly found out that the answer was NO:
The mixed success of these efforts led to future fruit. SNCC representatives like Bob Moses came to MS and soon were involved in the 1964 Freedom Summer. As northern students volunteered to register black voters, the deaths of three activists in Philadelphia, MS forced a national spotlight on the horrendous political conditions in the south and, along with the 1965 Selma protests, helped create the political capital to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
As for Dr. King and the SCLC, their efforts to force change in Albany, GA floundered when national media could not be attracted to watch the protests. So, in 1963, the “Project C for Confrontation” led to the abuse of child protestors by Police Chief Bull Connor and helped develop the national consciousness for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act are some of the most important pieces of legislation passed in American History. However, almost as soon as this legislation passed, black uprisings in the urban north soured many white moderates on additional Civil Rights legislation. This sentiment could not stop the impending social revolution. But still, the Civil Rights Movement crested at a federal level around this time.
Anthony Pratcher II, Ph. D. 