March: Books 2 & 3

When Lewis and other Freedom Riders arrived in Jackson, they were promptly arrested. They refused to post bail so as to deny financial support to the system of segregation. While King demanded a more concerted response from the Kennedy administration, Lewis and others were sent to a notorious prison farm in Mississippi, where the warden warned them that there would be no newspapers to publicize their plight. The prisoners resisted the guards’ attempts to dehumanize them, singing “freedom songs” even after the guards confiscated their mattresses, sprayed them with firehoses, and deprived them of toothbrushes. Over a month after their arrest, someone posted bond on the prisoners’ behalf, and as the Freedom Riders continued throughout the summer, the Justice Department successfully called for the Interstate Commerce Commission to affirm the integration of bus travel.

Returning to Nashville, Lewis campaigned for equal employment opportunity, but as protesters continued to endure harassment and violence, some members began to question the commitment to nonviolence. The main voice of dissension was Stokely Carmichael, who regarded nonviolence purely as a tactic rather than as a way of life. In response, Lewis helped to arrange Carmichael’s expulsion from the group. The SNCC then turned its efforts to registering Black voters in the South, especially Mississippi, where only 5% of eligible Black citizens had registered, and those who either registered or helped others to do so faced serious threats of violence.

At the second anniversary meeting of the SNCC in 1962, Carmichael and others argued that protesters should no longer accept violence passively and ought instead to respond in kind. Lewis was elected to the central committee and was therefore able to overrule Carmichael’s position, but discipline continued to waver at many protests. Attention then shifted to Alabama following the inauguration of its virulently racist governor, George Wallace. Under King’s leadership, several groups descended upon Birmingham and forced a national debate over segregation. Bull Connor proved ruthless in suppressing protests, promptly arresting King and setting a prohibitively high bail. From jail, King wrote his highly influential “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” which espoused resistance to unjust laws as the truest form of respect for the law. The SNCC and other advocates prepared Birmingham’s young people to take part in the marches, and the arrest of nearly one thousand children put the city on the defensive. Connor attempted to snuff out protests by using firehoses and attack dogs, but the appearance of these brutal images on national television generated enough outrage to compel the city to begin desegregating. One month later, in June 1963, civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated by a Klansman in Jackson, Mississippi, prompting President Kennedy to issue a national address on the need for civil rights legislation.

Kennedy’s call for legislation coincided with King’s announcement of a large march on Washington, DC, in late summer 1963. As the newly elected chairman of the SNCC, Lewis was immediately thrust into debates over whether a march on Washington would help or hinder progress on legislation. Many in the SNCC dismissed the march and legislation alike as empty gestures, but A. Philip Randolph had used the threat of a march to force the desegregation of the defense industry during World War II, and he would lend his enormous prestige and skill to King’s planned march as well. Randolph, King, Lewis, and other civil rights leaders then visited the White House to negotiate. Kennedy worried that further demonstrations, especially in Washington, would erode support for civil rights in Congress, while Randolph and King insisted that the march was necessary to publicize the struggle, that the organizations were restless for action, and that there was never a proper time to challenge unjust structures. Not present at the meeting was Malcolm X, a top spokesman for the Nation of Islam, who argued that Black people would never receive fair treatment in a white-dominated society and so should opt instead for self-reliance.

Lewis then traveled to New York City for a meeting of what would later be called the “Big Six,” the leaders of the groups primarily responsible for organizing the March on Washington. Randolph accepted leadership of the March but took on Bayard Rustin as his deputy, a brilliant and tireless organizer who was nonetheless controversial due to his homosexuality. The leadup to the March featured some encouraging signs, from Robert Kennedy pledging his support for the March and Malcolm X tacitly endorsing it by being in Washington at the same time, but upon arriving in Washington, Lewis found himself in trouble due to the draft of his planned speech. The Catholic Archbishop of Washington was planning to bless the event, but objected to Lewis’s description of “patience” as a “dirty and nasty word.” The morning of the march, Lewis and other leaders found that the people had gone on to the Lincoln Memorial ahead of them, and when they arrived, further arguments erupted over Lewis’s speech. The archbishop objected to language of “revolution” and “the masses” as the terminology of atheistic communism, while Randolph asked him to tone down his scathing critiques of the US government.

Lewis spoke sixth at the March and was the longest-living speaker of the event. He demanded that the federal government enshrine the right of “one man, one vote” for all eligible adults and produce a civil rights bill that could take down the police state of Jim Crow. He demanded equity in pay for equal work, care for the destitute, and access to a decent education. He denounced a political system that criticizes peaceful protest while condoning police brutality, and he called for “Black Masses” all over the country to keep up the effort until they receive the freedom they deserve as American citizens and as human beings. The March then became a signature moment in history with King’s delivery of his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech. However, the joy of the march was undone only weeks later by the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which killed four young girls.