KING STABBED – Martin Luther King, Jr. was signing books at a Harlem department store when a black woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd and stabbed him with a letter opener. She then started beating him with her fists. King was rushed to the hospital with the blade still in his chest near his heart. If he had sneezed, he would have died. It took a three hour operation to remove the weapon. It could have been worse, the assailant had a loaded gun in her purse. Whitcomb p. 235
MONTGOMERY BUS ABUSES – Here are some things Montgomery bus drivers did that led to the boycott:
– most drivers made African-Americans pay in the front and then reboard the bus by the back door, even if it was raining
– one driver forced a man off the bus at gun point because he did not have the correct change
– some drivers called African-Americans “black apes”
– one diver made a pregnant woman give up her seat to a white woman
– a driver shut the door on a blind man’s leg and drove off
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EMMITT TILL
14 year old Emmitt Till was born and raised in Chicago, but he had relatives in Mississippi. Emmitt’s father had died in WWII and he was raised by his mother. He grew up in a middle class neighborhood and was popular in school. He was the class clown. In 1955, his great uncle Moses Wright visited from Money, Mississippi. A few days later, he returned, bringing Emmitt’s cousin with him for a visit. Emmitt begged his mother to go too. She relented, but tried to indoctrinate her son about the facts of life in the South for African-Americans. She emphasized that Emmitt needed to grovel if he had any encounters with whites. Emmitt promised to behave himself. Three days later, Emmitt was standing on a street corner with his cousin and some friends. Emmitt was joking around and bragging about how much better blacks were treated in Chicago. At that point, a white woman entered a small grocery store across the street. One of his friends dared Emmitt to go talk to her. Emmitt took the dare, not realizing he was about to cross a line in the segregated South. He entered the store where the woman worked as a clerk for her husband who owned the store. It is still unclear what happened, but most likely Emmitt bought some gum and then flirted with Carolyn Bryant. What seemed to him to be good clean fun was deeply upsetting to Carolyn. When her husband returned three days later from a business trip, his tearful wife told him of the incident. Early in the morning of August 28, 1955, Roy Bryant and his half brother J.W. Milam banged on the door of Moses Wrights home. They demanded to see his nephew and kidnapped at gunpoint. Driving down a country road, Emmitt refused to be cowed and mentioned that he had white girlfriends up North. This was the point where Bryant decided a beating would not be enough. In a barn, Emmitt was savagely beaten and then shot in the head. His body was weighted down with a cotton gin and thrown in the river. Three days later, after Moses reported him missing, the body was found in terrible condition. Mamie Till came down to identify the body and at the funeral insisted on an open coffin so people could see what had been done to her son. She allowed Jet magazine to take pictures and run them in an issue about the murder. It was not long before Bryant and Milam were arrested. It was common knowledge that they did it. At the trial, Moses Wright identified them as the kidnappers and a black teenager named Willie Reed testified as an eye and ear-witness to the beating. However, the all-white jury was most impressed by the testimony of Carolyn Bryant who claimed Emmitt threatened her and grabbed her. It did not take long for the jury to bring back a verdict of innocent. A few months later, Bryant and Milam sold their story to Look magazine for $4,000. They readily admitted to the murder showing no remorse. Bryant sneered that the murder was justified as an example for other uppity blacks (that’s not the word he used throughout the article). The result of the trial was not justice, but it had the positive result of opening Northerners’ eyes to the situation in the South and it inspired the Civil Rights Movement. Rosa Parks mentioned it as a motivation for her not to move to the back of the bus. In 2007, Carolyn Bryant showed a little remorse as she admitted she had lied on the witness stand. In 2018, the Justice Department reopened the case.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/emmett-till-story
THE ASSASSINATION OF EL-HAJJ MALIK EL-SHABAZZ
Malcolm X was assassinated on Feb. 21, 1964 as he prepared to give a speech to his Organization of Afro-American Unity at a ballroom in New York City. His father had been killed when he was six by white supremacists. Malcolm Little grew up to be a petty criminal and was sentenced to prison at age 21. In prison, he converted to Islam and took the name Malcolm X. He became a disciple of Elijah Muhammad and gradually rose in the Nation of Islam. He preached the NOI’s philosophy of black separatism, but added the belief in armed self-defense and the phrase “by any means necessary”. His provocative views and speaking ability made him famous. Too famous, as far as Elijah Muhammad was concerned. When Malcolm made a crack about Kennedy’s assassination being “the chickens coming home to roost”, Muhammad had the excuse to suspend Malcolm from the NOI. Malcolm went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and returned renamed El-Haff Malik El-Shabazz. He founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity and toned down his anti-white rhetoric.
The day of the assassination, he told his security detail not to frisk people entering the ballroom. When he got up to speak, a disturbance broke out in the audience which distracted the security. A man ran up to the stage and fired a shotgun blast into El-Shabazz’s chest. Two others fired numerous shots into his body from handguns. He was hit 21 times. He died with his pregnant wife and four daughters witnessing from the front row. The shotgun-wielder was Talmadge Hayer. He was shot in the leg by security and mobbed by the crowd. The other two gunmen were identified as Thomas Johnson and Norman Butler. They were arrested one week later. In the trial, Hayer confessed and claimed that the other two were innocent. All three were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Butler (renamed Muhammad Aziz) was paroled in 1985, Johnson (Khalil Islam) in 1987, and Hayer (Mujahid Abdul Halim) in 2010. A reopening of the case exonerated Butler and Johnson in 2021. It is now believed that they were innocent. As far as Hayer and his partners were concerned, it is believed that they were either commanded by the NOI or assumed the organization wanted El-Shabazz dead.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/malcolm-x-assassinated
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Malcolm_X
https://time.com/5778688/malcolm-x-assassination/
THE FREEDOM SUMMER MURDERS
On June 21, 1964, James Cheney (a 21-year-old African-American), Andrew Goodman (a 20-year-old white) and Michael Schwerner (a 24-year-old white) were murdered. The highly publicized murders were a factor in moving civil rights further. In the 1960’s, white supremacists were concerned with an “invasion” of white college students to push for an end to segregation. CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality) had led the movement in Mississippi. Members set up Freedom Schools to educate blacks about their rights. Another goal was to register blacks to vote. In opposition to CORE, the White Knights of the KKK was determined to stop these efforts through violence and intimidation. In June, 1964, Schwerner and Chaney spoke to the congregation of a Baptist church. Soon after, the Klan burnt the church down. On June 21, the trio went to the church to investigate. Schwerner and Chaney were on a KKK wanted list, so when they entered Neshoba County they were pulled over for speeding and taken to jail. They were held for seven hours and not allowed a phone call. They were released on bail. When they drove off, they were chased by three cars full of cops and/or KKK members. There was a total of 10 men who participated. They were forced to stop and were shot to death. The bodies were buried in an earthen dam. An autopsy found that Goodman was probably still alive when he was buried. When the trio went missing. President Lyndon Johnson forced FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to send in the FBI. Over 200 agents searched for the three men. The search discovered other black victims of white attacks and finally, after 44 days, the bodies were found after an informant disclosed the location. The state courts refused to hear the case, so the federal government stepped in. The trial in federal court began in October, 1967. 18 men were accused of violating the trio’s civil rights (The federal court could not charge them with murder.) The all-white jury found seven defendants guilty. The segregationist judge gave them only 3-7 years in prison. When he was questioned about the leniency of the sentences, he said: “They killed one n—–, one Jew, and one white man. I gave them what they deserved.” Since justice was not served, an investigative journalist named Jerry Mitchell joined a teacher and three students in investigating the case. They produced a documentary that reawakened interest. In 2005, Edgar Killen was arrested. He was a preacher who was one of the ring leaders. He was convicted of manslaughter on the anniversary of the murders. The positive impact of the murders was they helped get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Chaney,_Goodman,_and_Schwerner
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/slain-civil-rights-workers-found