Masarykova univerzita v Brně Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Bakalářská diplomová práce

1 For more about King’s nomination for president of the MIA, see Williams, p. 73.

2 “He [James Lawson] really is the person that brought Gandhi’s philosophy and strategies of nonviolence to this country.” – from an interview with Diane Nash; in: Williams, p. 130.

3 Sample from a set of instructions given to the Nashville demonstrators. in: Zinn, p. 20.

4 Cited from a commentary by Louis Lomax in Harper’s magazine, in: Williams, p. 136.

5 Nash recalls: “No matter what they did or how many they arrested, there was still a lunch counter full of students there.” (in: Williams, p. 133.)

6 In Jacksonville, Florida, a black teenager was pistol-whipped by the Ku Klux Klan. In Houston, Texas, another black youngster got kidnapped and the symbol KKK was carved on his chest.

7 A quote by James Bevel (who later married Diane Nash) after Looby’s house was bombed. (in: Zinn, p. 23)

8 Peck was hospitalized and had 53 stitches sewn on his head. Another rider, William Barbee, was paralyzed for life. The FBI actually had information that the Riders would be harassed and that the police planned to stay away, but had done nothing to protect the Riders. in: Williams, pp. 148-149.

9 “If the Freedom Rides had been stopped as a result of violence, I strongly felt that the future of the movement was going to be cut short,” argued Diane Nash. in: Williams, p. 149.

10 Jim Zwerg, speaking to a television reporter from a hospital bed after the Montgomery incident. in: Williams, p. 155.

11 Arriving into Jackson, one if the Freedom Riders started to sing spontaneously. in: Williams, p. 159.

12 It proved to be very brief because the next day, a group of ministers, black and white, arrived and was arrested when trying to use the terminal restrooms and waiting rooms. The group was led by Chaplain William Coffin of Yale University and included Rev. Abernathy and Rev. Shuttlesworth, too. in: Zinn, p. 53.

13 “I’ll never forget this Sheriff Tyson,” Carmichael later recalled, “he’d say, ‘You goddamn smart nigger, […] I’m going to see to it that you don’t ever get out of this place.” (in Zinn, p. 57)

14 By 1963, it was about $250,000; the salaries constituted about one fourth of it.

15 According to the U.S. Census figures for 1960, the median income of a black family was $1100 while that of the white was three times as high. Half of the African American population in Mississippi had no running water in their houses. (Zinn: 64)

16 To obstruct attempts at registering even further, registrars’ office was habitually open only once or twice a month; registrars would be rather slow with their work, enjoy long lunch breaks etc.

17 Caston was, by the way, a cousin of the sheriff and son-in-law of a state representative named E. H. Hurst.

18 Subsequently, Moses drove through the county, from house to house, trying to find witnesses. On three nights, three separate farmers reported that they had seen the incident and agreed that the murderer was E. H. Hurst. Those possible witnesses were threatened by the sheriff and later told exactly what to say in court to support Hurst’s version - self-defense. Thus, Hurst was acquitted.

19 “We ran into all kinds of obstacles,” remarked Cordell Reagon. “The NAACP was saying we were taking their members and other people were saying we were Communists…” (in Williams, p. 165)

20 King had been nicknamed “De Lawd” by SNCC workers, for his “royal” treatment by the media.

21 Only three days after the sentence, an “unidentified black man” paid the fine for King. Chief Pritchett later admitted that he was involved in bailing King out, as a matter of tactic.

22 In the mean time, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth invited King and the SCLC to come to Birmingham (dubbed “Bombingham”), AL, to plan a careful attack on segregation in the city ruled by notorious police commissioner Bull Connor. (in Williams, p. 179)

23 Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, a mother of two and sharecropper who had been evicted from a Ruleville farm after she attempted to register to vote; quoted in McMillen, p. 354. (She then became a field secretary for SNCC.)

24 COFO itself was established already in 1961 during the Freedom Rides, but only in early 1962 was it revived.

25 She said: “Since my child will be a black child, born in Mississippi, whether I am in jail or not he will be born in prison.” Shortly after her imprisonment, she was released. (Zinn: 80)

26 “… not shootings and hangings, but lowering of cotton acreage allotments and raising of taxes.” (Zinn: 82)

27 The “narcotics” in the cargo actually consisted of vitamins and aspirin.

28 In January 1963, Sam Block wrote to the Atlanta office: “These people […] will make you cry to see the way they have been trying to live… We found out that the people… had to tell their kids that Santa Claus was sick and he would be able to see them when he gets well.” (in Zinn, pp. 87-88)

29 “Leflore County has elected itself as the testing ground for democracy,” said Wiley Branton, a lawyer Voter Education Project, who had issued a call for the staff to come to Greenwood. (in Zinn, p. 90)

30 ‘A 1962 Buick with no license tags had been sitting outside the SNCC office all day, with three white men in it – nothing unusual for SNCC,’ notes Zinn.

31 Dick Gregory also helped organize the Chicago Friends of SNCC to send food to Mississippi in the winter.

32 The Justice Department agreed to postpone a lawsuit against some of the officials.

33 The suit was officially called Moses v. Kennedy (Robert Moses v. Robert Kennedy). (in Zinn, p. 203)

34 On June 7, singer Lena Horne gave a benefit performance in Jackson. Afterwards, Medgar Evers spoke to the audience: “Freedom has never been free… I love my children and I love my wife… And I would die, and die gladly, if that would make a better life for them.” (in Williams, p. 221)

35 “Two trials were held for the accused assassin of Medgar,” recalled his wife Myrlie. “Both ended in hung juries… This man was also accorded a major parade […] on his way home. People had banners that were waved, welcoming the hero home.” (in Williams, p. 224)

36 Between June 1962 and January 1964, altogether only 13 blacks were registered in Leflore County. The county’s black electorate rose from 268 to 281 – only 2 percent of black adults. (in McMillen, p. 362)

37 This was a part of Lewis’ original speech intended for the historic March on Washington, August 28, 1963. After having witnessed many incidents of brutality and ignorance in Birmingham, AL, including a governor (George Wallace) blocking the entrance to the University of Alabama when black students sought admission (and being ‘removed’ by the National Guard), President Kennedy finally delivered a new civil rights bill to Congress on June 19. This had been awaited with great expectations by the movement, and to galvanize pressure on the Congress to pass the legislation, the united front of civil rights groups arranged for a march on Washington. King and the SCLC, the NAACP, CORE and SNCC put all their organizational skills into the effort. “Freedom buses” and “Freedom trains” brought people from all parts of the United States. In the end, 250,000 people (including 60,000 whites) took part in the largest human rights demonstration in U.S. history. John Lewis’ proposed speech was so fiery that he was asked by the organizers to “tone it down”. The most controversial parts – a direct attack on the federal government – had to be softened. Together with James Forman, he finished the modified version of the speech only minutes before he was scheduled to speak. He then expressed SNCC’s support for the bill, “with reservations.” (in Williams, pp. 195-202, and Zinn, pp. 190-191)

38 Lowenstein spent some time in South Africa as a political observer in the late 1950s.

39 “Who can legitimize people? How do a people get legitimate? Now these were notions that were coming out of the work itself,” commented Moses. (in Sinsheimer, p. 225)

40 “[We] put their top man out there to get them to participate in the whole thing,” Hollis Watkins of SNCC argued, “because basically they hadn’t been participating very much.”

41 “…but for the freedom of the human spirit…that encompasses all mankind.” – Ella Baker, speaking to a mass meeting in Hattiesburg, MS, in 1964. (in Zinn, p. 106)

42 “‘Cause the organization had been born with the idea of integration… at least the organization could integrate itself,” remarked Moses. (in Sinsheimer, p. 229)

43 COFO recorded over two hundred incidents in the three weeks of the campaign.

44 Williams claims the figure to be 93,000.

45 Williams reports 800, three-quarters of them white, including approximately 300 women. (p. 230)

46 Ironically enough, SNCC stressed the importance of “clear-cut” look to avoid such charges. One participant commented that in general, the students “gleamed as if they had been polished.” (in Rachal, p. 333)

47 These were Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer (of Ruleville), Mrs. Victoria Gray and Rev. John Cameron (both of Hattiesburg).

48 John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

49 “The church is the only thing that the Negroes can call their own,” reflected Stokely Carmichael. “The movement developed largely out of the churches, and if God can start a movement, hooray for God.” (in Rachal, p. 325)

50 A New York Times reporter summed up: “The task of eliminating discriminatory practices would still be left to the federal courts. Thus it represents no departure from the underlying principle of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960.” (in Zinn, p. 207)

51 In December, the FBI arrested 21 white Mississippians in connection with the murders. Charges against them were dropped in state court. Six of them were later taken into custody for violating federal civil rights laws.

52 The leaders were Aaron Henry, Fannie Hamer, Victoria Gray, Ed King and Annie Devine.

53 In front of the television cameras, she cried: “If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America: Is this America? … Where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hook, because our lives be threatened daily?” (in Williams, p. 241)

54 Mrs. Hamer, speaking at the convention, after being asked if she fought for equality with the white man.

55 In 1968, the regulars from Mississippi, as well as half the delegation of Georgia, were denied seats precisely because of the racial discrimination in the delegates’ selection. (in Stoper, p. 20)

56 “Underlying all of these tensions was the fear that whites would attempt to take over a black movement – or worse yet – that they felt entitled to do so on the basis of their superior education and political skills.” (in Sinsheimer, p. 237)

57 James Baldwin was really upset: “It cannot be true, it is impossible that the federal government cannot do anything.” One senior Justice Department attorney told Zinn in person: “I believe they do have the right to receive food and water. But I won’t do it.” (in Zinn, pp. 162, 164)

58 In addition, COFO broke up after the NAACP left the ever-quarreling coalition to assume its own independent course.

59 It was one of the last speeches that he gave. Three weeks later, Malcolm X was shot dead in Harlem.

60 The only southern state that exceeded Mississippi in number of black voters was Georgia.

61 Martin Luther King, Jr., was deeply disturbed by this shift: “I’m trying desperately to keep the movement nonviolent, but I can’t keep it nonviolent by myself. Much of the responsibility is on the white power structure to give meaningful concessions to Negroes.” (in Umoja, p. 563)

62 From a biographical sketch by Jim Benston, online text

63 “We have to stop being ashamed that we are black,” exclaimed Carmichael. (in Jeffries, p. 184)