Breaking Unjust Laws–A 50 Year Celebration
By: Terry Donnelly
One would have had to be in a cave recently not to realize
that today, August 28, marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. But, I am compelled to add my
two-cents worth.
In 1963 King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at
the end of the Federal Mall and delivered the speech that became his opus.
From 1955 until his 1968 assassination, King and his civil
rights devotees had many moments in the media spotlight as news spread far and
wide informing a mostly unfamiliar population of Americans about the plight of
black Americans in the former confederate states. The thunder roll started
slowly. Minstrel-like volunteers furtively traveled to black churches and
secret meetings spreading news about the movement. Then, during the summer of
1955, in rural Mississippi, two brothers who were Ku Klux Klan members killed
Emmitt Till, a Chicago teenager visiting family. Till’s death sentence crime
was talking to a white woman. His mother put her son’s horrifically beaten body
on display and media covered the story. The gruesome photos gave northern
readers a first glimpse of Southern hate crimes.
Within three months of Till’s murder, Rosa Parks turned
thumbs down to a then legal request that she relinquish her bus seat to a white
man. Her arrest and subsequent jailing caused another media stir and launched
the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott.
The significance of the boycott was twofold. One, it
resulted in the first chink in the armor of Jim Crow laws when a year later a
federal court ruled that there could be no more discrimination on public
transportation. The second was the first broad public glimpse of the young pastor
of the Dexter Street Baptist Church. The thus far unheralded 26 year old had
been elected by his flock to lead the boycott under the umbrella of the
Montgomery Improvement Association. Guess who.
Between 1956 and 1963, event after event continued framing
the Civil Rights Movement. There were more court decisions–many brought about
by actions of civil disobedience perpetrated under the leadership and watchful
eye of Dr. King. His name was becoming a household word by April of 1963 when
he and Dr. Ralph Abernathy were arrested in Birmingham, Alabama after a
peaceful protest sponsored by another King led organization, The Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Many blacks were not convinced that breaking laws, even
unjust laws, was the way to effect change. It did not matter that all protests
were completely nonviolent, strictly following the teachings of Gandhi as
taught to King by Jawaharlal Nehru. While in his cell, King wrote a letter to
those who thought breaking laws, even with peaceful protest, was wrong. The “Letter
from Birmingham Jail” addressed the naysayers with steely determination to keep
the movement going. A serendipitous side effect of King’s letter of reprimand
to elders was that it struck a massive chord in the spirits of young blacks who
were getting fed up with the unconscionable rule of Jim Crow that had been in
place since 1876.
King wrote and the youth heard loudly and clearly:
“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom
eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American
Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and
something without has reminded him that it can be gained.”
If the “I Have a Dream” speech is King’s opus, then the “Letter
from Birmingham Jail” is Opus #2.
Two weeks after King and Abernathy were freed, the
“Children’s Crusade” was staged to protest the arrest. Birmingham’s school
children went out in waves marching through the streets. Notorious bad guy Bull
Connor had his officers arrest the marchers. As soon as one group was arrested
and hauled off to jail, another group left the park. Thousands of kids were
handcuffed and spent the night in jail. They sang songs and had fun as if the incarceration
were a friend’s slumber party. The next day, after their release, they did it
all again. Connor got so frustrated that he turned fire hoses and dogs on the
children. The ensuing mass media coverage made nightly news and front pages
across the country. The Civil Rights Movement was for real.
Next, to keep the heat on and set the tone for the continued
fight for equality, SCLC organized The August March on Washington. The group
was learning the power of the relatively new medium of television. They made
sure the cameras were rolling and microphones live when Dr. King stood on the
steps at the feet of Abraham Lincoln and started delivering his remarks. An
hour before he spoke he looked out on the mall at over a quarter million
people. The masses, the moment, the media, and the aura of the man sitting in
the huge, stone chair inspired Dr. King to deviate from his prepared text and
deliver from his heart the words with which we all are so familiar: “I have a
dream today…”
The movement went on for two more years, finally coming to a
jubilant conclusion with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and cemented into history
with the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
On August 16 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting
Rights Act into law, it melded with the 15th Amendment, all the
federal court decisions, and new laws that chipped away at discrimination. Finally
banished were any legal restrictions against anyone’s wish to exercise his or
her constitutionally given right to equality.
Legal unblocking does not end the discussion. Equality will
not be achieved until all people are judged by the “content of their
character.” Because bigotries still exist we continue to recognize August 28,
1963. We celebrate not just one man, but also all people who fought and are
still fighting for unbiased equality.
We shall overcome–someday!
Much of the data for
this column were retrieved from First You Hear Thunder, Terry’s historical fiction account of the Civil Rights Movement.
