M artin Luther King Jr. Special Edition_____
(Elje ^pnrtlanb (JDbsertier
January 19, 2000
-
"A
CALL
TO
A C T I 0 N
C7
Il
MARCH FREEDOM DAYS: MOMENTS IN CIVIL RIGHTS HISTORY
B y J anus A dams
“G hana is Free!” Just b efo re m id ­
night on M arch 5,195 7 , on a path lit by
a trium phal arch o f co lored lights that
beam ed from endless row s o f flow ers,
the parade o f dignitaries began; G h a­
naian chiefs from every region looked
exquisite in their royal robes as they
werejoined by representatives from ti fty-
six countries, including A frican A m eri­
can Ralph Bunche (U ndersecretary o f
the U nited Nations and N obel Peace
Prize laureate), Corettaand Martin Luther
K ing, C ongressm an A dam C layton
Pow ell, publisher John H. Johnson.a nd
labor leader A. Philip Randolph. A tm id-
night, the Union Jack w as low ered on
Parks the sum m er before her historic
arrest.
W hen Clark was fired for her Civil
Rights w ork in 1956, H ighlander’s leg­
endary founder, M yles H orton, re­
cruited her to direct the w orkshops that
becam e know n as the “m ovem ent half­
w ay house.” H er voting rights literacy
project kept her in contact with male
leaders. Sheperceivedaw eaknessinthe
m ovem ent and told them so: They were
minimizingtheroleofwomen. ‘T h e woik
the w om en did during the tim e o f civil
rights is w hat really carried the move­
ment along. The women carried forth the
id eas... It would never have taken ofl'if
som e w om en hadn’t started to speak
up.” W om en were speaking up in every
field.
represents a victory over patterns o f
bias that have im peded black profes­
sionals in every field. It also raises issues
about the quality o f o ur new s and our
histories. If the press w as so biased in its
gallery, how unbiased w as its report­
age? If researchers rely on sources so
“discolored” by racism, w hat does this
say about our history and o ur truths?
“ Hoi iday on B roadw ay’' opened in the
M ansfield T heater - a sellout for three
straight weeks. It w ould be a hard climb,
but Billie H oliday w as headed back to
the top. Her audiences loved her -
forgave her. She had given them years
o f pleasure and they wanted more.
“G od bless the child that’s got his
ow n,” she thought, having learned that
lesson a long tim e before. For weeks
she had been stew ing over a mother-
daughter squabble when her m other
w ouldn’t lend her som e m oney. Then,
in one flush m om ent o f inspiration, an
entire song fell from her head to the
page - it becam e one o f the most endur­
ing lyricsofall time:“God bless thechild
that’s got his ow n.”
M arch 2 1 ,1960, Sharpeville: aday o f
tragedy. M arch21,1965,S elm a:adayof
resurrection. T w o days, tw o peoples at
a crossroads m arked freedom.
M arch 21,1960, in South A frica was
the day set by the people o f Sharpeville
to fight the “pass law” - the odious rule
that “nonw hites” produce, on dem and,
This is an excerpt from the book.
"Freedom Days Permission for re­
print was given by John Wiley and
Sons, Inc.
s For A
lifetime
R emembering
Martin Luther
King, Jr.
British colonial rule; the red, yellow, and
green national flag o f a new day, G hana
took its rightful place. The ancestral
hom e o f the Ashanti w as free." A t long
last the battle has ended!” the new
nation’s liberatorand president, Kwam e
Nkrum ah, declared in front o fa crow d o f
one hundred thousand. "G hana, your
beloved country, is free forever,” he
sa id to “th ech iefs.. .the youth, the farm­
ers, is free forever,” he said to “the
c h ie fs...th e youth, the farm ers, the
w om en, w ho have so nobly fought and
w on this battle.”
In response, a pretest m arch from
Selm a to M ontgomery w as set for March
P ie M a r c n l 948 issue o f N egro Di­
gest responded with an article by Ollie
Stewart, staffreporter for the Baltimore
A fro-A m erican, that ranked cities ac­
cording to these criteria: incidences o f
a n tib la c k v io le n c e (ly n c h in g s ,
kidnappings, m ob attacks), access to
public services (schools, hospitals, li­
braries, parks), community life(churches
and youth centers), jo b opportunities
(police, fire, teaching, civil service ca­
reers), and norisegregated transporta­
tion. In an article provocatively titled
“A m erica’s Ten W orst C ities for N e­
groes,” the cities were:
an insidious passbook. To be w ithout it
w as to be subject to fine, imprisonment,
banishment, o r forced labor. A s prear­
ranged w ith officials, ten thousand
peaceful protesters gathered at the po­
lice station without passbooks to aw ait
a prom ised change o f law. Instead, at
1:40 p.m., police raged tow ard them,
firing directly into the crow d o f stunned
m en, w om en, and children. W hen the
carnage w as done, 69 blacks had been
‘ J
killed and 180 had been w ounded in the
historic Sharpeville massacre.
O n M arch 21, 1965, thousands o f f i t / ;
people gathered in Selma, A labama, for
the five-day Selm a-to-M ontgom ery
B rooks S taffing
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'isted Bir.mmgrtarn. Alabama a:
gs to attack cro
rdered th
loyed high p re tisure water host.
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7,1965. Beyond the need to publicize the
incident, the long m arch also allowed
tim e for the story to appeal to the na­
tional conscience. For SC L C ’s Rev.
James Bevel the march was deeply rooted
inG andhi’steachings: “W henyou have
a great violation o f the people an honor­
able m eans and context in w hich to
e x p re s s
and
e lim in a te
th a t
g rie f.. O therw ise the m ovem ent will
break dow n in chaos.”
Dr. K ing was not expected in Selm a
that day. A coin toss am ong SCLC
deputies put Hosea W illiams in the
lead w ith S N C C ’s chairm an, John
Lewis, as his second. A fter a prayer
assem bly a, B row n’s Chapel, marchers
in the carnage w ere teargassed and
trampled; the day w ould becom eknow n
in infam y as “Bloody Sunday .” As news
footage swept the air. thousands o f
outraged people headed to Selm a forthe
defining march o f the era.
If, as it is said in the history o f the
m o v em en t, R osa P arks w as “T h e
M otherofC ivil Rights", then the grand­
m other w ould surely be “ M other C on­
science,” Scptima Clark. To Clark, lit­
eracy held the key to freedom. A gifted
teacher and organizer, she honed her
skills as a South Carolina public school
teacher and em pow ered generations
with her innovative citizenship educa­
tion w orkshops for adults at the High­
lander Folk School in I ennessee There,
in 1955, she trained N A A C P activist
1 .Columbia, SouthCarolina
6. Annapolis, M aryland
2. Greenville, SouthCarolina
7. Birm ingham , Alabama
3. Alexandria, Louisiana
8. M iami, Florida
4. Atlanta, Georgia
9. H ouston, Texas
5. Jackson, Mississippi
10. W ashington, D.C.
On March 16,1827, the African Ameri­
can press w as bom with the first issu eo f
Freedom ’s Journal. “W e wish to plead
our ow n cause," the opening editorial
declared, clearly stating its goal: “to
v indicate our. ..brethren, w hen o p ­
pressed." A century and a h alf later,
Benjam in F. Clark, a Howard Univer­
sity graduate student, reviewed cover­
age o f contem porary tw entieth-cen­
tury oppression. How true w as the black
press to its foundingprinciples?C lark’s
1969 doctoral dissertation, “The Edi­
to rial R eaction o f S elected B lack
N ewspapers to the Civil Rights M ove­
m ent," reported both good and bad
news.
And,on March 19,1947, Louts Lautier
o f the A fro-A m erican and W ashington
bureau ch ief o f the Negro Newspaper
Publishers Association becam e the first
black reporter credentialed to cover
Congress from within its chamber.
Clearly, the desegrcgationofthe press
)
march. T hree w eeks earlier, unarmed
p ro testers had been b etray ed and
storm ed by police on what w ould be
know n as Bloody Sunday. N ow , deter­
m ined and defiant, they retraced their
route as the w orld looked on. Singing
"A in 'g o n n a let nobody turn m e'round."
they crossed the Pettus Bridge. The
m ovem ent had com e to a crossroads. So
gratuitous w as the earlier violence that
an arm y o f foot soldiers twenty-five
thousand strong dropped w hat they
were doing, headed for Selma, and joined
the freedom fight.
“We are prone to judge
success by the index of
our salaries or the size
of our automobiles,
rather than by the
quality of our service
fw
and relationship
to humanity”.
-M artin Luther King Jr.
O n M arch 2 7 ,1 9 4 8 , ten days out o f
jail on a drug possession charge, Billie
H oliday w alk ed onto the stage o f
C arnegie Hall. She w as a sellout. And
she sang her heart out - thirty three
songs in all. During interm ission, a box
o f gardenias arrived; som eone had re­
membered hertrademark. She went back
o n stag eto triu m p h . Despite the predic­
tions, it looked lik esh e w as going tube
able to reclaim her career. She tried
coming backto life, larking in on friends,
m any o f w hom w ere fearful for their
ow n reputations and rejected the “jail­
b ird." O ne, L ena H om e, hearing that
w ork, especial ly in New York, but as an
“ex-con” she w as prohibited from work­
ing w here alcohol w as served - that
included nightclubs, the places where
singers m ade th eir living. W hat to do
next? Her agents cam e up with a novel
idea. O ne m onth later, on April 27,
Regence
BlueCross BlueShield
o f Oregon
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