From Selma to Montgomery

The Long March to Freedom

Barbara Harris Combs

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136173752
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de Norteamérica

On March 7, 1965, a peaceful voting rights demonstration in Selma, Alabama, was met with an unprovoked attack of shocking violence that riveted the attention of the nation. In the days and weeks following "Bloody Sunday, " the demonstrators would not be deterred, and thousands of others joined their cause, culminating in the successful march from Selma to Montgomery. The protest marches led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a major piece of legislation, which, ninety-five years after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, made the practice of the right to vote available to all Americans, irrespective of race. From Selma to Montgomery chronicles the marches, placing them in the context of the long Civil Rights Movement, and considers the legacy of the Act, drawing parallels with contemporary issues of enfranchisement.

In five concise chapters bolstered by primary documents including civil rights legislation, speeches, and news coverage, Combs introduces the Civil Rights Movement to undergraduates through the courageous actions of the freedom marchers.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

One moment in time can change the course of history. In his special message to Congress entitled “The American Promise,” delivered on March 15, 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson acknowledged such. In person, before a joint session of Congress held at 9:02 p.m., President Johnson said,

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.¹

President Johnson spoke about the events of Sunday, March 7, 1965, which would come to be known as Bloody Sunday. On that day, a peaceful voting rights march ended in a violent, unprovoked attack against unarmed civil rights demonstrators in the Black Belt community of Selma, Alabama. Oftentimes we think that such moments just happen; however, that is seldom the case. Selma and so many other watershed moments in history arise because of a confluence of factors, which occur at just the right time to bring about social change.

This book is called From Selma to Montgomery: The Long March to Freedom. Today, Selma, Alabama, is known for its important role in the Civil Rights Movement, but its history is much longer and more complicated than that one event. Selma, Alabama, is also the site of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest's last major battle.² Forrest, the Confederate general that Union General William T. Sherman termed a “devil” and once said “[should be] hunted down and killed if it cost 10,000 lives and bankrupts the [national] treasury,” would go on to become the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.³ Montgomery, Alabama, also has an entangled history. Incorporated in 1819, Montgomery, Alabama, is the capital city of the state and served as the first capital of the Confederate States of America. Conversely, Montgomery is also the location of the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, a seminal event in the modern civil rights struggle. Today, Montgomery's city seal is a six-pointed star, which contains the words “Cradle of the Confederacy,” “Birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement,” and “City of Montgomery.”⁴ Selma and Montgomery are places certainly; however, freedom is an amorphous concept, with different markings pre and post emancipation. Post emancipation, it was difficult to reach accord about what freedom would mean to and for America's formerly enslaved citizens.⁵ Yet despite the uncertainty about what form freedom takes, what it looks like, and when it has been attained, mankind's pursuit of freedom is never in doubt.

FREEDOM—A DEEPLY HELD AMERICAN VALUE

Freedom is an entrenched American ideal. Early European American colonists, immigrants, came to the “New World” in pursuit of religious freedom. Many immigrants still come to the U.S. today on that same quest. The early settlers' yearning for freedom inspired them to fight in the Revolutionary War for American independence. Sparked largely by the Industrial Revolution and the Louisiana Purchase, which made opportunities for landownership available to white settlers, soon the mass quest for economic freedom began in earnest in the United States. Of course, these “crusades” for freedom were often at the expense of the Native American indigenous population of the United States and the growing slave population trapped into captivity in a foreign land. The westward expansion of Native Americans through forced removal efforts like the Trail of Tears did not silence the cries for freedom from other disadvantaged groups such as women and those fighting for the abolition of slavery. With some notable exceptions, during the Gilded Age (the period from Reconstruction to the turn of the century), America saw enormous growth that attracted more people to the area. World War I and later the Great Depression threatened to cripple the country, but these challenges also reaffirmed the American value of freedom. America would market itself as the symbolic icon of freedom—at home and abroad. In his 1932 bid for president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a campaign pledge to pull the country out of depression and give Americans a “New Deal.”⁶ In many ways, Roosevelt's New Deal programs changed the way Americans viewed their government. During this era, the concepts of freedom, liberty, and democracy became increasingly linked and intertwined.

FREEDOM AND AFRICAN-AMERICANS—WHAT IS FREEDOM?

Perhaps no word is more synonymous with the black liberation movement in America than freedom. A brief examination of the cultural and historical usage of the word reveals its common utilization. Historian John Hope Franklin and his co-author title what many consider the quintessential work about the history of African-Americans, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans.⁷ In April 1865 the War Department enacted the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, more commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau. The Freedmen's Bureau existed from 1865 to 1872 and was established for the express purpose of assisting freed men and women by providing them with food rations, clothing, medicine, educational opportunities, and, in some cases, land.⁸

The word “freedom” was also common in songs. In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois discusses the power of the lyrics “O Freedom.” DuBois writes:

Through fugitive slaves and irrepressible discussion this desire for freedom seized the black millions still in bondage, and became their one ideal of life. The black bards caught new notes, and sometimes even dared to sing,

“O Freedom, O Freedom, O Freedom over me!

Before I'll be a slave

I'll be buried in my grave,

And go home to my Lord

And be free.”⁹

The song lyrics were a declaration that the singer was willing to pay the ultimate price for freedom—his or her life. Facing “trouble” during a 1961 demonstration in Albany, Georgia, SNCC member Bernice Johnson Reagon changed the lyrics of the traditional Negro spiritual “Over My Head” from “over my head I see trouble in the air” to “over my head I see freedom in the air,” and instantaneously changed the mood of the moment.¹⁰ At the height of the period of direct action, civil rights groups and activities directly incorporated the name freedom into their identity. We had Freedom Singers,¹¹ Freedom Summer, and the Freedom Riders. Movement workers lived in freedom houses, and they sang freedom songs. Writing about the music of the era of the black freedom struggle, most commonly known as the Civil Rights Movement, Seeger and Reiser conclude: “Yet, with all its complexity it [the Civil Rights era] yielded to the power of the simple truth articulated by the African-American community: “We want to be free!”¹²

But what does freedom mean? What does it look like? What does it taste like? Earlier, World War I prompted discussion about freedom for blacks at home (in the midst of discussions about affording protection for freedom abroad). After the war was over, scholars like W.E.B. DuBois began to publicly link the ideas of European imperialism and racial injustice. In a 1919 article, which appeared in The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), DuBois outlines the supreme injustice and irony faced by returning black soldiers and encourages them to fight racial injustice at home with the same vigor with which they had fought it abroad. DuBois urges:

We are returning from war! The Crisis and tens of thousands of black men were drafted into a great struggle. For bleeding France and what she means and has meant and will mean to us and humanity and against the threat of German race arrogance, we fought gladly and to the last drop of blood; for America and her highest ideals, we fought in far-off hope; for the dominant southern oligarchy entrenched in Washington, we fought in bitter resignation.

We return.

We return from fighting.

We return fighting.

Make way for Democracy! We saved it in France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the United States of America, or know the reason why.¹³

Similarly, World War II, a conflict waged largely against the same “threat of German race arrogance” of which DuBois spoke, prompted new discussions about the African-American freedom struggle, and on January 6, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union address, popularly known as “The Four Freedoms” speech. As President Roosevelt spoke, Americans were eerily cognizant that the specter of world war was looming.¹⁴ Uncertainty in the world contributed to Roosevelt's election to an unprecedented third term as president of the United States, and while the U.S. had not formally entered the war, President Roosevelt grew increasingly certain that the wartime efforts of the country's allies, especially Britain, could not be sustained without U.S. support. In his remarks to Congress, the president extols the virtues of freedom (for which democracy becomes a pseudonym) and clearly states that aggressions in Europe pose a serious threat to democracy everywhere. His rallying cry falls just short of calling America to arms.¹⁵ President Roosevelt advises listeners:

The Nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America … Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world. For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple … In the future days … we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms: The first is the freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants— everywhere in the world. The fourth is the freedom from fear … that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.¹⁶

Ironically, the democratic way of life underscored as being in danger in “every part of the world” was also unavailable to blacks in America.

The world embraced Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms as key components of basic human rights. Winston Churchill incorporated Roosevelt's four enumerated freedoms into the Atlantic Charter, and later the United Nations Declaration of 1942 included the same ideas. The concepts also undergird the provisions in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But the language of the Four Freedoms speech did not just have impact abroad. President Roosevelt provided a clear elucidation of the basic rights of humanity, and these principles resonated with African-Americans in the United States. The Four Freedoms helped to give shape and focus to the demands of an amorphous long-existing black liberation movement.

Freedom is a metaphysical quest, and black people throughout history have been willing to lay down their lives in search of this intangible pursuit. Blacks wanted to be free, and Roosevelt's statements helped clarify what freedom looked like across the world: it was freedom of religion, freedom of speech, economic freedom, and freedom from fear. During the post-World War II period, African-American demands began to grow louder, more insistent, and more organized. So what is freedom? Freedom is an enigmatic quest. Freedom is an internal and external battle. Freedom is often taken for granted. But perhaps the words of “civil rights icon and mother of the next generation of the movement,” Ella Baker, best sum up this pursuit: “freedom is a constant struggle.”¹⁷

The African-American freedom struggle that emerged in the 1950s and 60s was not new, but the Movement did appear to have a momentum behind it that seemed absent at earlier ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Critical Moments in American History
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series Introduction
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Timeline
• 1 Introduction
• 2 One Moment in Time
• 3 Portrait of a Nation
• 4 Everyday People
• 5 Aftermath
• Documents
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index