Martin Luther King Jr. Special Edition
tTbe T lortlanh (Dbsvruer
January 19,2000
V.
SEPTEMBER FREEDOM DAYS
M O M EN TS IN CIVIL RIGHTS
HISTORY
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On September 6, 1960, in Rome,
Rafer Johnson made Olympic de­
cathlon history, winning a gold
medal. On merit alone, it was a stellar
triumph, but what he did for African
Americans in the throes o f the Civil
Rights era was what Jesse Owens
had done at the height o f Jim Crow.
O f the sixteen records set in Berlin in
1936, Owens had set four. In the
brutal Civil Rights era, Johnson won
the ten-event decathlon, the most
grueling of all the Olympic trials, and
he, too, set a record. So definitive
was each m an’s victory that it could
not be misconstrued as a fluke. Yet,
meaningful as this was, was as mean­
ingless as it should have been. There
seems to be something very wrong
with viewing black achievement
through the prism o f white negativ­
ity, with burdening ourselves to
prove things that we should have
never admitted into doubt.
“Free Huey!” rallies. As the trial
wound its way toward the jury and a
verdict, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover
publicly declared w ar on the Black
Panthers, topping the headlines for
Septembers, 1968.
The Black Panther Party is “the
greatest threat to the internal secu­
rity o f the country,’ Hoover pro­
nounced.
“ S ch o o led in th e M arx ist-
Leninist ideology... leaders.. .travel
extensively all over the United States
preaching.. .not only to ghetto resi­
dents, but to students in colleges,
universities and high schools as
well.” Clearly, the Panthers were a
threat, but not for the reasons Hoover
alleged.
He was known as the best all-
around boxer ever: Sugar Ray
Robinson. “The greatest combina­
tion o f brains, brawn, and boxing
skill the modern prize ring has
seen,” said sportswriter Dan Parker.
On the night o f Septem ber 12,
1951, to that list o f credits was
added the record for gross receipts
in a n o n h e a v y w e ig h t fig h t:
$767,626.17. For his rematch with
E ngland’s black cham p, Randy
Turpin, 61,370 fans packed New
Y ork’s Polo Grounds to see Sugar
Ray retake his crown.
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Since the days o f the Under­
ground Railroad, images o f “free­
dom” and “trains" had been inextri­
cably linked. These two words con­
jured notions o f space, distance,
movement, and a long-awaited des­
tination well worth the ride. And so
it was that the inspiration for the
Freedom Train chugged from dream
to reality. An idea attributed to then
4
TO
A C T IO N "
C23
CELEBRATES
THE DREAM OF
DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
J
'wo-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry
every night. They are undernourished, ill clothed, and
SI l’ l IM IS I k S
In the fall o f 1968, the murder
trial o f Black Panther Party co­
founder Huey Newton was front­
page news. IfNewton was convicted,
he faced execution. IfN ew ton was
exonerated, high-level city, state,
and federal officials faced their own
demise in this presidential elec­
tion year which turned to riot over
the assassination o f Martin Luther
king, the draft, and the war in V iet­
nam. The battle for public opinion
was on. To raise both public con­
sciousness and defense funds. Pan­
thers and supporters crisscrossed
the country in a frantic round o f
CALL
ALBINA COMMUNITY BANK
On September 29, 1967, he stood on the dock overlooking the
Annapolis, Maryland harbor, where his great great great great
greatgrandfather was dragged ashore on September 29, 1767.
two centuries ago.
:
Photo credit: Moneta Sleet. Jr.
Bv J anus A dams
"A
shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds...
There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however,
is that we now have the resources to get rid of it.”
Attorney General Tom Clark, it would
cross 23,000 miles o f track through
North and South. But true to the
journey toward freedom in the United
States, the Freedom Train, which
rolled on September 17,1947, would
make more than a few stops along
the way.
sciousness in the community.” Two
weeks later, another appreciative,
consciousness-raised crowd would
rally in front o f the Hotel Theresa to
greet G hana’s president, Kwame
Nkrumah.
SEPTEM BERS
It is said that you can’t
change the hearts and minds
of men. There have always
been leaders who knew that
the first priority was often to
change the behavior o f men -
hearts and minds could fol­
low in their own due time.
One such leader was Joseph
E. R itter, C atholic A rch­
bishop o f the Diocese o f St.
Louis.
On September 21, 1947,
as he integrated parochial
schools. Archbishop Ritter
presented his diocese with an
ultimatum. In short, he threat­
ened to excommunicate those
who actively protested the in­
tegration order o f the diocese.
Those who resisted school desegre­
gation did so at peril to their eternal
souls.
But for African Americans, ac­
c u sto m e d to em p ty w ords,
freedom ’s meaning was best ex­
pressed by the planners’ action: the
Freedom Train would travel only to
cities that accepted a non-segrega­
tion policy. To be an authorized
depot, a city was asked to proclaim
a “Community Rededication Week”
o f activities recommended by the
American Heritage Foundation, a
committee specifically organized
to manage the project.
BjaHEBEI—
When Alex Haley was a boy in
Henning, Tennessee, the stories his
grandmother told were not always
welcome. “Oh, Maw,” Alex’s mother
would say. And his grandmother
would snap back, “ If you don’t care
who and where you came from, well,
I does!” But then would come the
days of summer when other, older
aunts came to visit the Henning
homestead and young Alex would
“sort o f scrunch m yself down be­
hind the white-painted rocker hold­
ing Grandma." That was a first cal 1 to
adventure for the boy who would
retrace her stories back to Africa
and w rite Roots, the book that
launched the great American genea­
logical quest.
On September 29, 1967, he stood
on the dock overlooking the An­
napolis, Maryland harbor, where his
great-great-great-great-great-grand-
father was dragged ashore on Sep­
tember 29, 1767, two centuries ago.
How he came to know that was a
story in itself - a story that began on
the porch w ith Grandma.
Those wondrously woven threads
would knot themselves into the tap­
estry o f who A lex was and the adven­
turer-folk historian-writer he would
become. The strange words would
beckon a trail to "Naplis,’ Annapo­
lis. Massa John’s plantation records
dated the arrival of his cargo, “Toby"
who knew himsel fas “Kintay,” Kunte
Kinte, and who was bom four days
upriver from “ Kamby,” Gambia.
The following is an excerpt from
the hook “Freedom Days". Per­
mission fo r reprint was given by
John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
For years, New Y ork’s black
communities had been unofficially
off-limits to diplomats - except,
o f course, for such segregated
nightspots as the Cotton Club. But
all that changed on September 19,
1960, when Dr. Fidel Castro, pre­
mier o f Cuba, angered by the inap­
propriate treatment he’d received
at a downtown hotel, moved uptown
to a suite at Harlem’s black-owned
Hotel Theresa.
From his perch at the Hotel
Theresa, Castro obviously enjoyed
the moment for all it was worth -
and the need for solidarity against
the mistreatment o f people of color
world-wide was a point well worth
making. Among those with whom
he held audience at the hotel were
Premier Nikita Khrushchev o f the
Soviet Union, Malcolm X, the press,
and a grateful Harlem community,
which mainatained a steady vigil.
As historian John Henrik Clarke re­
called years later, “The symbols were
absolutely magnificent. Fidel Castro
in a black-owned hotel, Khrushchev
meeting him in the lobby, the com­
munity surrounding the hotel day
and night, Castro occasionally com­
ing to the window to wave. It was an
event in the development o f con-
V
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Albina Community Bank Prides in
Providing Business Loans To Serve In
The Community
2002 NE M artin L uther K ing , J r . B lvd . P ortland , O regon 97212
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Clark County Transit Benefit Authority
P.O. Box 2529
Vancouver, WA 98668-2529
(360) 695-0123
www.c-tran.com
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