| February 28, 2019 -- Eerie view, sobering questions |
Today's story
Dateline:
National Civil Rights Museum. Memphis, Tennessee.
It's an eerie feeling to look through a bathroom window at an assassin's sightline. But that's one view at The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.
The museum includes the Lorraine Hotel, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, as well as the boardinghouse across the street from which James Earl Ray fired the fatal shot.
But this museum is also amazingly comprehensive.
With a winding flow that takes visitors past Suite 306 where Dr. King stayed the night before he was killed, it frames a picture not only of the Civil Rights Movement but also of slavery and the Jim Crow system of laws and practices that precipitated and necessitated the movement.
Consider, as a sample:
- The trans-Atlantic slave trade, which brought 10 to 15 million abducted Africans to the Americas, was the largest forced migration in human history.
- One enslaved laborer was expected to pick at least 120 pounds of cotton per day; some could pick 300 pounds, one half acre, per day.
- On the cusp of the War Between the States in 1860, the nation had nearly 4 million slaves who were worth more than $3 billion (roughly $10 trillion in today's economy); investment in "human property" exceeded investment in all America's banks, factories, and railroads combined.
- White Americans viewed slavery as a "business necessity." Profiteers included Southern plantation owners, Northern bankers, shippers and distillers, and textile manufacturers in England.
- In his opinion in the Dred Scott case in 1857, US Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney wrote:
"... as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, ... the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit." (Yes, Taney really wrote that!)
- In 1896, the US Supreme Court established the concept of "separate but equal" in regard to education and public facilities; but even after that ruling, white teachers were paid three times more than black teachers and investments in school infrastructure favored white students by as much as a ten-to-one ratio.
For me, the most profound moment at the National Civil Rights Museum occurred when I rounded an interior corner and found myself only a few feet from a towering hulk of a burned-out Greyhound bus.
It was a replica of the Freedom Riders bus that was torched by Ku Klux Klansmen (some still in church attire) near Anniston, Alabama, on Sunday, May 14, 1961 (Mothers Day), in an attempt to burn alive civil rights Freedom Riders, without regard for other travelers who were also onboard.
The documentary Freedom Riders shows the savage brutality inflicted by the Ku Klux Klan on those brave activists in Birmingham, Alabama, filmed by news crews as it happened.
The documentary then poses this question: "Could you get on the bus?"
"Could I?" Had I, a Northern white boy, known what was happening in the Deep South in 1961, "Would I?"
Those are sobering questions amplified by statistics from those Freedom Rides.
- May 4, 1961: The first rides begin in Washington, D.C., when 13 riders (7 blacks and 6 whites) board two interstate buses (a Greyhound and a Trailways), bound for New Orleans, with the intention of whites and blacks sitting together and inter-racially using segregated bus station facilities in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
- May 14, 1961 (Mother's Day): The Freedom Riders on the Trailways bus arrive in Birmingham, Alabama, and are beaten with metal pipes, clubs, and chains by Ku Klux Klansmen for 15 minutes; by the time city police arrive, the Klan is gone.
Commissioner of Public Safety, Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor, tells news reporters, "Our people of Birmingham are a peaceful people," and blames the problem on "these meddlers from out of our city."
- Same day: The Ku Klux Klan attacks another bus, a Greyhound, near Anniston, Alabama, setting it on fire in an attempt to burn alive the Freedom Riders; all passengers escape the flames.
- May to December 1961: Amazingly, the Freedom Riders keep coming. They consist of more than 436 women, men, blacks, whites, adults, and college students. They travel on interstate buses in interracial groups and sit wherever they choose; most are arrested and imprisoned in the infamous Mississippi State Penitentiary known as Parchmen Farm.
Consider also these excerpts from the Freedom Riders documentary:
- "Freedom Riders story is a story of white privilege to beat blacks who do not have the privilege to ride buses." --narrator
- "[After the first group of Freedom Riders were beaten,] Students at Fisk University decided to continue the Freedom Ride. It was a tough decision. It was final exam time. Many of the students were the first persons in their family to go to college, often at great expense to their parents." --narrator
- "We all signed our last wills and testaments last night. ... We cannot let violence overcome nonviolence."
--Diane Nash, Fisk student and co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- "We can't act as nursemaids for agitators. You can't guarantee the safety of fools. And that's what these folks are. They're fools."
--Alabama Gov. John Malcolm Patterson
- "There are people who come on the TV in my own living room and tell me I'm a racist and a redneck. I just want to punch them damn agitators right in the face. I got to hate somebody. I got to hate somebody."
--journalist, quoting Southern sentiment
- "The women were screaming, 'Kill the niggers,' and they had babies in their arms."
--Freedom Rider in Montgomery, Alabama
- "Go back to Africa."
--sign held by a pro-segregationist in a mob crowd
- "We were blind to the reality of racism and afraid of change."
--segregationist resident of Nashville, Tennessee
As I wrote in a previous blog, "That's the way it was back then."
Reader response: After my most recent blog, a reader commented, "You have an uncommon sensitivity about slavery, etc."
My reply: "The
Living Legacy Pilgrimage is an uncommon experience that evokes sensitivity."
Next blog: "Racist Brutality: Fannie Lou Hamer"
is a powerful, eye-opening, mind-expanding experience into the depths of segregation, racism, and injustice inflicted by White supremacists onto African Americans from the end of slavery to the mid-1900s.
It is also rife with stories of courage and determination by those who physically and vocally resisted injustices. Thus, it is an inspiration for citizens today to continue the ongoing struggle for justice and equality now.
Thank you for reading my stories.
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| God bless everyone ... no exceptions Robert (Bob) Weir |
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| Cell: 269-267-6586 Message: 269-978-6803 Email: robtweir@aol.com |
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| Visit my web site Contact me via email Cell: 269-267-6586 Message:269-978-6803 |
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| Author of: Cobble Creek short stories Brain Tumor medical memoir Peace, Justice, Care of Earth John McConnell biography Dad, a diary of caring and questioning memoir of parental care Editor of: Power Up Your Brain by David Perlmutter, Alberto Villoldo Spontaneous Evolution by Steve Bhaerman, Bruce Lipton Sportuality: Finding Joy in the Games by Jeanne Hess Full Cup, Thirsty Spirit by Karen Horneffer-Ginter Decipher Your Dreams by Tianna Galgano Manifestation Intelligence by Juliet Martine Reclaiming Lives by Rosalie Giffoniello Putting Your Health in Your Own Hands by Bob Huttinga Awakening the Sleeping Tiger by Kathy Kalil Man on the Fence by John R. Day. Other client works in process Contributing Writer to: Encore and other magazines |
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Photos related to this story: all shot at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee
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Lorraine Hotel marquee.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, suite 306 at the Lorraine Hotel.
Above: A wreath marks the spot where Dr. King was standing when he was shot.
Below: The same balcony, eerily viewed from a window in the boarding house near where James Earl Ray stood when he fired the fatal shot.
A replica of the Greyhound bus on which Freedom Riders rode when it was burned by Ku Kluk Klansmen near Anniston, Alabama, on May 14, 1961.
A sculpture of an African American worker walking past a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus represents the resolve of those who refused to ride the buses during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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