Thomas Ray's Reviews > March: Book Two

There's also an excellent TV movie, /We Shall Not Be Moved/, about the Black Church's role in the Civil Rights Movement:



We Shall Not Be Moved
The Untold Chapter in the Struggle for American Civil Rights
2001

Spiritual battle against prejudice and contempt.

“The battle was...not ours. It was the Lord’s.”—Rev. Abraham Lincoln Woods

Dr. King’s start:

In 1954, Martin Luther King, Jr., age 25, applied to be pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, “where he could...finish his Ph.D. dissertation...and...learn...how to pastor a church. He did all of that. But about two weeks after he mailed in his dissertation, Rosa Parks sat down in the bus.”—Ambassador Andrew Young

Focuses on central battles:

1. Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, Dec. 5, 1955–Dec. 20, 1956

Dec. 1, 1955, police arrested 42-year-old Rosa Parks for refusing to yield her seat in the front row of the colored section of a bus, to a white man.

“Ministers sold their membership on what they wanted them to do. ...They supported it 100 percent.”—Deacon R. D. Nesbitt, Sr.

Buses lost 30,000–40,000 fares daily.

Alabama court tried to halt car pools. U.S. Supreme Court declared bus segregation unconstitutional.

“In Montgomery: The movement got its leader, Martin Luther King. The movement got its method, nonviolent...resistance. And the movement brought to the fore...the political power and activism and religious enthusiasm of the African-American church.”—Dr. Wilson Fallin

2. Little Rock, Arkansas, school desegregation, 1957–1959

Little Rock was “more moderate” than other Southern cities: “fairly liberal.”

Sept. 4, 1957, Governor sent National Guard, keeping African-American students out of Little Rock Central High. White mob surrounds school.

“This guy to the left of me says, ‘We got us a Nigger right here.’...He’s got a rope around his shoulder.”—Melba Patillo Beals

Two weeks later, Governor withdrew National Guard. Students enter school, which is surrounded by mob.

“I heard them say, ‘It’s bad out there. We’re going to have to...let ‘em hang one...to get the other nine out.’”—Melba Patillo Beals

Eisenhower called Army to protect students.

“They assigned us each a guard. Personal bodyguard.”—Melba Patillo Beals

Governor, Sept. 1957: “We are now an occupied territory.”

“That...year...every day...you think you’re going to die.”—Melba Patillo Beals

“We got calls,...every night, that somebody was going to have acid thrown on ‘em,...or that they were not going to make it home the next day.”—Ernest Green

Next year, Little Rock closed all public high schools.

3. Birmingham, Alabama segregation

“Birmingham, Alabama was probably the most segregated city in the South.”—Dr. Wilson Fallin

Alabama outlawed NAACP. Rev. Fred Lee Shuttlesworth tried to integrate Phillips High School....He was beaten, with chains. His wife was stabbed. ...His home was bombed. He said, ‘If we die, then our lives will be one installment on the payment for freedom.’

Young people joined protest marches. They might get hurt....King said, ‘They’ve already been hurt. The Southern way of life, injustice, racism, has hurt ‘em.

“We had been beaten. We had been thrown in jail. We had been the victims of the dogs and the fire hose. . . .We thought that was a small price to pay, to change the world.”—Ambassador Andrew Young

4. 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Birmingham, Alabama, 1963

“It was youth day. Most of our youth were dressed in white. ...The Sunday school lesson for the day was, ‘A Love that Forgives.’”—Carolyn McKinstry

“The children that had been in those Sunday school classes and left a little early to get dressed to take their part at the eleven o’clock worship service.”—Dr. John Cross, Former Pastor, 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham

“Four children in a ladies’ rest room, getting ready for a program.”—Josephine Marshall

“I could smell the smoke of the dynamite, and my heart was in my mouth.”— Rev. Abraham Lincoln Woods, Pastor, St. Joseph Baptist Church, Birmingham

The bodies of Denise, Carol, Addie Mae, and Cynthia were carried out of the rubble.

“And mothers were standing on the steps, pulling out their hair.”—Josephine Marshall

“the bomb that was heard around the world. ...The reaction of the rest of the world is what shamed the people of Birmingham.”—Carolyn McKinstry

In 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, forbidding discrimination in public accommodation.

5. Selma, Alabama, voting rights, 1965

Selma was majority Black. Black voting was suppressed with so-called “literacy tests”—such as, guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. If you guess wrong, you don’t vote. And with poll taxes.

In February, 1965, police killed a Black voting-rights marcher. March 7, 1965, police brutally attacked marchers at the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma. Pictures went all over the world.

In 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

6. Memphis, Tennessee, Garbage Workers’ Strike, 1968

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He has allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 3, 1968

Less than 24 hours later, he was dead, at age 39.

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