Williams and Lewis stopped the marchers and were told by Major John Cloud that their assembly was unlawful, so they would have to disperse. Before instructions could be given to the marchers, Cloud issued a command for the troopers to advance, attacking the demonstrators with clubs and tear gas. Lewis was among many who were wounded as a result of the attack, which continued as the marchers retreated in the direction of the church. The violence was recorded by the media, and the resulting international news coverage led to the overturning of Wallace’s ban by a federal judge and a successful march led by King two weeks later.
Fletcher F. Moon
Boston Riot (1903)
This event took place in the context of a struggle between different approaches to racial progress for blacks at the turn of the twentieth century, epitomized in Booker T. Washington’s “Tuskegee Machine” and William Monroe Trotter, leader of the “Negro Radicals.” Two years earlier Trotter and his colleague George W. Forbes founded the Boston Guardian newspaper which directly challenged Washington’s ideas and methods. The actual confrontation between Washington and Trotter took place on July 30, 1903. At a meeting of the Boston branch of the National Negro Business League. Trotter and Forbes led a group of approximately 30 people to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and interrupted Washington’s speech with a series of probing questions until police were called to the scene. Trotter was arrested, fined $50, and sentenced to 30 days in jail. The incident was exaggerated in the local press as the “Boston Riot,” and Trotter was portrayed as a “martyr” by supporters for his willingness to openly challenge Washington and suffer the consequences of his actions. W.E.B. Du Bois was not present at the event, but he later joined Trotter and other radicals to establish the Niagara Movement as an alternative to Washington’s power and influence.
Fletcher F. Moon
The black community in Selma intended to move forward with or without the presence of King.
Cambridge, Maryland, Demonstrations (1963–1967)
The racial and economic situation in this community for African Americans was bleak in 1963, with widespread poverty, discrimination, segregation, and high unemployment levels experienced by blacks, who made up a third of the city’s 11,000 residents. In January of that year, college students from Baltimore and New York City began sit-ins and other protest activities. Local resident and Howard University graduate Gloria Richardson emerged as a leader, promoting black pride and taking a more militant stance than most established civil rights organizations did in addressing community issues and concerns. As boycotts, picketing, and marches continued, their efforts were met with strong opposition from angry whites and the local police. Demonstrations turned violent as some protesters chose to retaliate when attacked, instead of shielding themselves only and “turning the other cheek” in the manner of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights leaders who advocated non-violent resistance. Numerous arrests were made, and on June 11 rioting broke out, with destruction of white-owned stores and other businesses and shooting of firearms.
Fires destroyed two city blocks, as white firemen refused to enter the area without protection.
A state of martial law was declared, as tensions remained high in black and white communities. After Richardson refused to meet with state officials, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy became a part of efforts to end the violence and address the numerous community problems that led to the outbreak of violence. Kennedy promised that the federal government would intervene to establish desegregated accommodations in public venues, improve public housing, integrate the public school system, and develop a biracial commission to address employment/unemployment issues. Troops remained in the Cambridge area until May 1965, but problems in the community resurfaced in July 1967. The National States Rights party and the Ku Klux Klan came to the city to protest school desegregation, and Richardson responded with a radio broadcast denouncing the two racist organizations.
The situation escalated when Hubert Gerold “H. Rap” Brown, a well-known young militant and Black Power advocate, came to Cambridge on July 24, 1967. Brown urged local blacks to “burn this town down” if their demands were not met. He was also widely quoted as saying “It’s time for Cambridge to explode,” as rioting broke out in the black section of the city that evening after a shooting was reported. Fires destroyed two city blocks, as white firemen refused to enter the area without protection from law enforcement officials. Maryland Governor (and future Vice President of the United States) Spiro T. Agnew ordered the state contingent of the National Guard into the city to restore order. Brown was arrested afterwards by Maryland authorities and charged with arson, inciting to riot, and disturbing the peace. The Cambridge incidents marked the shift from nonviolence to more militant civil rights activism.
Fletcher F. Moon
Chicago Freedom Movement (1966)
The Chicago Freedom Movement represented one of the most ambitious campaigns for African American civil rights in the North. An alliance of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), the Chicago movement attracted the attention of the national media and made the nation aware of racial problems African Americans faced under the system of de facto segregation in the northern region of the United States. The underpinning for the “northern” movement began in the summer of 1965, when the Chicago civil rights community asked Martin Luther King Jr. to lead a demonstration against segregation in education, housing, and employment. The CCCO, which was founded by the Chicago Urban League, the Chicago NAACP, and other activist organizations like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), sought to fuse the growing protest energies that emerged between 1963 and 1964, when African American parents protested against the city’s inequitable educational system.
In 1964 activists Albert Raby called the CCCO together. During the summer of the following year, the CCCO staged daily marches against the school system’s educational policies and urged Mayor Richard J. Daley to remove Superintendent Benjamin Willis. Chicago had never before experienced such a sustained demand for racial justice. In January 1966, King announced plans for the Chicago Freedom Movement, which signaled a shift from the South to the North. He appointed Bernard Lafayette to help plan and execute the campaign’s direct non-violent action campaign. After the 1965 Los Angeles riots, it seemed critical to illustrate how the methods of non-violence could be transported to the North, thereby bringing attention to how economic exploitation adversely affected northern blacks.
Considered a city impregnated with a southern mindset, Chicago practiced a brand of politics that made this appealing to many. Daley exerted a high degree of influence and power, which placed him in position to transform many of the racist practices that directly impeded black progress. The SCLC also initiated Operation Breadbasket, an enterprise under the direction of Jesse Jackson that was aimed at eradicating racist hiring practices by companies doing business in black neighborhoods. Despite its southern mindset, the “Windy City” also provided a supporting cast with substantial succor among black and white clergy and activists, who were in the struggle’s forefront against racist hiring practices, police brutality and discrimination in housing and education. Later, that month King moved his family to Chicago where they resided in one of the slum areas on the city’s west side.