Civil rights photos3.indd
Transcription
Civil rights photos3.indd
NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED IMAGES FROM THE ARCHIVES OF UNSEEN. UNFORGOTTEN. May 15, 1961, Birmingham The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, center, and a group of Freedom Riders discuss plans at Birmingham’s Greyhound Terminal after drivers refused to carry them farther. One day earlier, a bus was bombed in Anniston and passengers on a second bus were beaten in Birmingham. The Freedom Riders were student activists and other volunteers who challenged segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals. Later, these riders caught a plane out of Birmingham to New Orleans. Surrounding Shuttlesworth, clockwise from left, are Ed Blankenheim, Charles Person, Ike Reynolds, James Peck, the Rev. Benjamin Cox and two unidentified Freedom Riders. NEWS FILE S U N D A Y , Black and white images, captured with an unflinching eye, endure as reminders of Alabama’s not-so-distant past: Freedom Riders who defied segregation huddling at a Birmingham bus station after a mob attack; the first black graduate of the University of Alabama walking in solitude across campus on her first day of classes; National Guard troops with unsheathed bayonets in rural Sumter County; a teenage marcher arrested with hundreds of others on the streets of Birmingham; the grieving mother of a child killed by a bomb. These Birmingham News photographs of the civil rights movement have not been seen by the public. Until now. F E B R U A R Y 2 6 , 2 0 0 6 | S E C T I O N E SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2006 | 2E CHALLENGING SEGREGATION | 1956-1961 BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT Years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the doctrine of “separate but equal” in 1954, laws in Alabama and Birmingham still kept blacks and whites apart in classrooms and waiting rooms, on playing fields and on city buses. The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was beaten as he tried to enroll his children in a white high school, and his home was bombed on Christmas, the day before he integrated Birmingham buses. But as the words in one civil rights anthem say, Shuttlesworth just kept on a-walkin’, kept on a-talkin’, marching up to freedom land. Dec. 26, 1956 Six days after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling took effect ordering Montgomery city buses to integrate, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and others challenge the law in Birmingham by joining white passengers on a city bus. Shuttlesworth boarded the bus hours after a bomb exploded alongside his Collegeville house. NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS Spring 1957 Members of the Ku Klux Klan rally in East Lake. At the time, the state’s fourth-grade textbooks said this about the Klan: “The loyal white men of Alabama saw they could not depend on the laws or the state government to protect their families. They had to do something to bring back law and order, to get the government back in the hands of honest men who knew how to run it.” NEWS FILE/WILLIAM PIKE April 4, 1961 A single, dangling lightbulb and a coal-burning stove show the conditions in some black schools in Jefferson County. Birmingham schools were not integrated until September 1963. NEWS FILE/ED JONES June 5, 1956 The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth preaches at Sardis Baptist Church in Birmingham on the night he helped to start the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights — a week after Alabama Attorney General John Patterson outlawed the NAACP. The church “was packed,” Shuttlesworth said later. “The thing you have to remember is that I was challenging the whole segregation law. I was saying what I wanted to say, and I was screaming against segregation.” NEWS FILE/TOM HARDIN About this section The previously unpublished photographs in this section were researched by Alexander Cohn, a former photo intern at The Birmingham News. The archived images represent the work of several former Birmingham News photographers who covered the civil rights movement. Photographers: Robert Adams, Don Brown, Norman Dean, Anthony Falletta, Tom Hardin, Jack Hoppes, Lou Isaacson, Ed Jones, Tom Lankford, Vernon Merritt, William Pike and Tom Self. Text: Barnett Wright and Jeff Hansen. Page design: Napo Monasterio. SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2006 | 3E March 6, 1957, Bridging the divide Lamar Weaver, an early supporter of civil rights, greets the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and his wife, Ruby, in the whites-only waiting room at Birmingham’s train depot, Terminal Station. One day earlier, the Alabama Public Service Commission ruled that the waiting rooms must remain segregated. Minutes after this photo was taken, police ejected Weaver from the waiting room, and he was attacked by a mob of more than 100 white protesters. The Shuttlesworths later boarded a train. Robert E. Chambliss, center, was among 100 white protesters who arrived later in an attempt to block Shuttlesworth from entering Terminal Station, according to published reports. Chambliss was convicted in 1977 of murder in Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, which killed four girls in 1963. NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS The confrontation Finally, an attack “This is a good day to die,” Lamar Weaver recalled hearing as attackers hurled a brick through the window of his Cadillac convertible and tried to overturn the car outside Terminal Station. Weaver said he was later arrested for reckless driving, running a red light and striking a pedestrian. He was fined $25 and was told to leave Birmingham, which he did. NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS April 19, 1956 During sentencing for the 1956 beating of entertainer Nat “King” Cole at Municipal Auditorium, which is now Boutwell Auditorium, Jesse Mabry, E.L. Vinson, Mike Fox and Orliss Clevenger cover their faces inside a Birmingham courtroom. Each received the maximum sentence of 180 days in jail plus fines. Cole was not injured but canceled several subsequent tour dates in the South and went home to Chicago. NEWS FILE Oct. 28, 1958 Signs of segregation were common. At the Birmingham jail, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth encounters barriers as he posts bail after being arrested for sitting in the white section of a city bus. NEWS FILE SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2006 | 4E-5E FREEDOM RIDERS | 1961 THE ROAD TO CHANGE May 24, 1961, near Cuba, Ala. May 17, 1961 National Guard troops protect a Trailways bus carrying Freedom Riders near the Mississippi state line as it travels from Montgomery to Jackson, Miss., on U.S. 80 outside of Cuba. The troops were called out after prolonged violence in Montgomery. While being taken to jail, Freedom Riders sing in the rear of a Birmingham paddy wagon. From right are Carl Bush, William Harbour and Rudolph Graham. Police said the men were arrested “for their protection.” Later that night, they were taken to the Alabama-Tennessee state line and released. Freedom Rider Catherine Burks Brooks said that Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor personally dropped them off and told the group not to come back. NEWS FILE/NORMAN DEAN May 15, 1961 Freedom Rider Genevieve Hughes reads about an attack on a Greyhound bus in Anniston. Hughes, inside the Birmingham Greyhound Station, had been a passenger on that bus, which was firebombed. Aides to the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth picked up Hughes and other Freedom Riders in Anniston and gave them a ride to Birmingham. Greyhound refused to carry Freedom Riders farther. Freedom Rider Esther Bergman, left, joins Hughes at the station. NEWS STAFF/ED JONES NEWS FILE Bold volunteers — Freedom Riders — challenged the custom of segregation in 1961 after the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in interstate bus and railroad stations. Bus riders, black and white, set out from Washington; their arrival in Alabama met with violence. Mobs attacked several buses, firebombing one in Anniston. In Birmingham and Montgomery, whites beat some riders and federal marshals had to be called out to prevent attacks. A Birmingham News front page headline asked, “Where were the police?” May 17, 1961 May 19, 1961 Jim Zwerg opens the door for fellow Freedom Rider Paul Brooks as they enter the Birmingham Greyhound Station. Zwerg and Brooks were arrested coming into Birmingham from Nashville. They were separated from other riders, but rejoined the group two days later. Their contingent of Freedom Riders later left for Montgomery, where Zwerg was beaten unconscious and hospitalized for several days. NEWS FILE May 17, 1961 Police cover the windshield of a Greyhound bus carrying Freedom Riders from Nashville at the Birmingham depot. Police said they did it for the riders’ safety because a mob had gathered around the bus station. NEWS FILE A Greyhound bus driver faces passengers waiting at the Birmingham Greyhound Station as Freedom Riders are held aside by Birmingham police. NEWS FILE SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2006 | 6E April 8, 1963 April 6, 1963 Customers sit at a downtown Birmingham lunch counter, which closed rather than change its “whites-only” policy. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference had come to Birmingham with a plan to integrate downtown businesses, and protesters staged sit-ins in defiance of segregation laws. Birmingham Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, surrounded by media, points as marchers are arrested outside the federal courthouse on Fifth Avenue North. A series of marches and mass demonstrations over the next five weeks led to hundreds of arrests. NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS NEWS FILE/LOU ISAACSON CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE | 1963 THE WORLD TAKES NOTICE May 7, 1963 Birmingham police arrest Parker High School student Mattie Howard in front of the Carver Theatre. Youths became an integral part of the civil rights movement when the Children’s Crusade began on May 2. The plan was for college and high school students to demonstrate, but many came with their younger brothers and sisters. Howard’s arrest came during the sixth day of the Children’s Crusade. Photos of her arrest appeared in several publications outside Alabama. NEWS FILE/NORMAN DEAN May 3-9, 1963 Civil rights leaders disagreed on whether to use students as part of the movement, but public perception changed after photos showed the children being arrested, sprayed by fire hoses and dodging police dogs. Here, a police officer takes away protest signs. Moments later, firefighters turned hoses on protesters. NEWS FILE/ED JONES May 3-9, 1963 Youths are pummeled by water from a fire hose during a Children’s Crusade demonstration in downtown Birmingham. NEWS FILE When talks with Birmingham business leaders to share jobs, lunch counters, fitting rooms and water fountains at downtown stores foundered, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. turned to civil disobedience. “We would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community,” King said. Protesters began weeks of attempted marches in April and were countered by fire hoses, police dogs and arrests. During his own jailing in Birmingham, King wrote that he wanted “to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.” SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2006 | 7E Sept. 10, 1963, Groundbreaking steps West End High School student Patricia Marcus returns to a car after her first day in class. Birmingham News photographer Robert Adams also photographed Marcus sitting alone in the classroom. He said his photos that day were significant because they were the first images of a black student at West End High. The school is now 98 percent black. NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS The reaction West End students boycott class to protest the enrollment of Marcus and Josephine Powell. NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS DESEGREGATING THE SCHOOLS | 1962-1963 DIFFICULT LESSONS Black students’ attempts to enroll at the University of Alabama and the University of Mississippi were thwarted and sparked legal battles. Integration of Birmingham public schools in 1963 brought violence. Lawyer Arthur D. Shores’ home was bombed Aug. 20. On Sept. 3, after James Armstrong registered his sons at Graymont Elementary, a phone caller warned, “How would you like to see all your kids lying in a casket?” That night another bomb hit the Shores home and gunfire erupted nearby. Schools closed, then reopened a week later with 24 black children joining 5,500 white children in nine schools. Five days later, a bomb killed four girls at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Sept. 15, 1963 Birmingham Mayor Albert Boutwell after news circulates that the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed. “All of us are victims. Most of us are innocent victims,” Boutwell told a stunned city that evening. Birmingham News columnist Walling Keith is at right. NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS June 12, 1963, Tuscaloosa Vivian Malone, the first black student to graduate from the University of Alabama, crosses the campus during the first day of classes. One day earlier, Gov. George Wallace made his stand at the schoolhouse door in Tuscaloosa. James Hood, another black student who started classes with Malone, later dropped out. Malone graduated in 1965. NEWS FILE/NORMAN DEAN Sept. 15, 1963 Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 1962, Oxford, Miss. Juanita Jones, center, comforts her sister, Maxine McNair, whose daughter Denise McNair died with three other girls earlier that day in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. At left is Clara Pippen, mother of the two women. The man at right is unidentified. The bombing occurred days after black students began to integrate Birmingham city schools. Mississippi National Guardsmen detain a student protester on the University of Mississippi campus after James Meredith tried to enroll. Meredith became the first black student to graduate from the school in 1963. Two people were killed and hundreds injured during unrest that accompanied Meredith’s matriculation. NEWS FILE/VERNON MERRITT NEWS FILE/NORMAN DEAN SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2006 | 8E THE FIGHT FOR VOTING RIGHTS | 1964-1965 GAINING A VOICE Jan. 18, 1965, Selma The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. kicks off a voter registration drive at the Dallas County Courthouse. With King are the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, left; the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, right; and the Rev. Andrew Young, far right. NEWS FILE/ED JONES In Alabama, “there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered” to vote, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. observed. Making changes cost blood. In Mississippi, three men were killed and buried in an earthen dam in June 1964 when they tried to investigate the burning of a black church used to register voters. In Alabama, protests at the Selma courthouse failed in early 1965, and a march to Montgomery was blocked by tear gas grenades and state troopers with billy clubs. Two weeks later, King reorganized marchers for the five-day, 54-mile walk that led not just to Montgomery, but also to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A Detroit woman was shot to death as she helped in the march. March 21-25, 1965, Selma to Montgomery Thousands of marchers walk 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery to bring attention to the low numbers of black registered voters in the South. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) workers John Lewis and Bernard Lafayette had been trying to register more voters in Dallas County and surrounding counties since 1963. NEWS FILE/JACK HOPPES March 7, 1965, Selma Using batons and tear gas, Alabama state troopers break up the march from Selma to Montgomery at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The clash became known as “Bloody Sunday.” NEWS FILE/TOM LANKFORD Feb. 9, 1965, Montgomery June 27, 1964, Neshoba County, Mississippi Johnnie Carr, right, of the Montgomery Improvement Association, registers to vote along with several other city residents. The MIA was formed in 1955, after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus. Carr, a longtime friend of Parks, became president of the MIA in 1968. Law enforcement officials search for three missing civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss. The bodies of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were found Aug. 4 buried 15 feet beneath an earthen dam. The three activists had recently stopped in Birmingham on the way to Philadelphia, Miss., according to Bishop Calvin Woods, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church. NEWS FILE/ED JONES NEWS FILE/DON BROWN On the Web Go to al.com/unseen for more photographs and recorded interviews with the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, U.S. Rep. John Lewis and the photographers.