Lillian Smith Book Awards for 2001

From Southern Changes, Vol. 24, No. 1-2, 2002 pp. 15-17

Each year, the Southern Regional Council hosts the Lillian Smith Book Awards in honor of the most liberal and outspoken of white mid-twentieth century Southern writers. In works such as Strange Fruit (1944) and Killers of the Dream (1949), Lillian Smith wrote boldly on issues of social and racial justice, calling persistently for an end to segregation. The Smith Awards honor authors today who, through their writing, carry on Smith's legacy of illuminating the condition of racial and social inequity and proposing a vision of justice and human understanding. The 2001 Smith Awards honored the works of four writers. Pam Durban received the fiction award for So Far Back (New York: Picador USA, 2000). Natasha Trethewey received the poetry award for Domestic Work (Saint Paul: Graywolf Press, 2000). Hal Crowther received the non-fiction award for Cathedrals of Kudzu: A Personal Landscape of the South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000). Robert P. Moses received a special lifetime achievement award, recognizing his years of civil rights service in the Mississippi Delta and Boston as well as his book, co-authored with Charles E. Cobb, Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001). Following are excerpts from Durban, Trethewey, and Crowther's acceptance speeches and a review of Moses and Cobb's Radical Equations. So Far Back Lillian Smith Book Awards juror Pegram Harrison introduces Pam Durban:

In So Far Back, Pam got the history of Charleston, its architecture, its mores, the names of its people, just right. She also got "just right" the complex, painful, horrific relationship that existed then and now among blacks and whites in that particular part of the world. She presents it sensitively, eloquently, and in such a way that you feel that there may be some hope for us after all. She says she didn't set forth to include a moral in her book, that all she did was follow her characters as far as they took her. Well, I think that the fact that her characters took her as far as they did suggests that her profoundly insightful presentation of those tragic relationships emerged from her innate decency and sensitivity. Her book is elegiac, graceful, atmospheric, and elegant. It raises issues that we deal with today. We are fortunate to have Pam Durban use her powers of fiction to help us understand our complex frightening past.

Pam Durban:

For a short time in the early 1970s, I lived on a plantation on the Edisto River south of Charleston. The place was very old. I've seen it marked on a French trading map, dated 1698. When I lived there, the outlines of that older world were still visible: the big house on the river bluff, surrounded by live oaks; the shape of rice fields still sketched in the marshes; a row of falling down shacks back in the pines.

At the time, the importance of that place, its meaning as anything more than a world of ease and beauty was invisible to me. Nothing in my education or upbringing had taught or encouraged me to see or to understand it as anything other than the setting of the great Southern romance of the past. Growing up in the South in the 1950s, I'd been raised on stories in which it seemed to me that we white Southerners were the only ones who had lived there. And so I grew up blind and I grew up innocent of the larger story of Southern history. But I write in part to discover what I know and so I wrote So Far Back to explore and question the stories about the Southern past in which I was raised. Those stories and the innocence they often insist on, are the source of the inherited blindness of nostalgia which for so long has shaped the history of the South as it has been past down by generations of white Southerners.

I did research in all of the major Southern archives--in the South Caroliniana Library, the South Carolina Historical Society, and the Southern Historical Collection in ChapelHill. I was glad to find the stories there in those primary sources, reach beyond the nostalgia, in a million pieces. It is there in letters, diaries, newspapers, magazines, books of law, and books of architecture. Then I had to research into myself to see if I could imagine the past without nostalgia and I found that it was hard work. I saw how ingrained those attitudes were about race and history and how easily I could find and warm to them.

I set the novel in Charleston and the surrounding countryside because that place feels to me like the center of the slaveholding world and the place where white South Carolina's idea of itself was planted and grew and flourished. My intention was to bring to life that world and the world of the city of Charleston in order to question its assumptions and to trace the influence of its attitudes and opinions down to the present time. I did this not to refute or to deny what I found but to widen my sense of the South's history beyond the romance on which I was raised in order to understand my people's part in creating the story that we black people and white people have lived together for so long. In a way I wrote this book with my character Louisa's resolve not to hand the story on unchanged. It seems to me that it is necessary to know and to acknowledge the part we play in things because, by acknowledging who you are and what you have done, you break down the belief in your own innocence and that is a healing act.

Domestic Work Lillian Smith Awards Jury Chair Patricia Derian presented the Smith poetry award to Natasha Trethewey:

Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi and attended Atlanta schools. She is the daughter of a poet and a very early reader. Natasha is the future of writing fulfilled and is now an assistant professor at Emory.

Her book is not only beautiful looking, but it is filled with beautiful, wonderful poems, just really spectacular.

Drapery Factory, Gulfport, Mississippi, 1956

She made the trip daily, though
later she would not remember
how far to tell the grandchildren--
Better that way. She could keep those miles
a secret, and her black face
and black hands, and the pink bottoms
of her black feet a minor inconvenience.

She does remember the men
she worked for, and that often
she sat side by side
with white women, all of them
bent over, pushing into the hum
of the machines, their right calves
tensed against the pedals.

Her lips tighten speaking
of quitting time when
the colored women filed out slowly
to have their purses checked,
the insides laid open and exposed
by the boss's hand.

when she recalls the soiled Kotex
she saved, stuffed into hag
in her purse, and Adam's look
on one white man's face, his hand
deep in knowledge.

Natasha Trethewey:

My parents met at Kentucky State College. My father was a poor white boy from Canada who wanted to go to college and got out a guide to American colleges and universities and picked a really cheap one where he could get a track scholarship. So, he rode the bus and hitchhiked all the way down from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and ended up at an historically all-black college, very surprised. But he stayed and there he met my mother.

Because I was going to grow up both black and mixed-race in the South, my father always told me that I had something to say, that I had stories that needed to be told. However, some time ago when I was in graduate school, I was told that I was too concerned with my message to write real poetry. In that statement was imbedded the idea that a message had no place in a poem. Perhaps what was meant also had something to do with the kind of subjects deemed appropriate: social justice and universal understanding not among them, being too political.

Like any writer, I love words, the sound of them, the way that they feel in my mouth when I speak them. The way that figurative language can make the mind leap to a new apprehension of things. But I have always been more concerned with people than with words. Poet Phil Levine has said, "In my ideal poem, no ideal words are noticed. You look through them into a vision of people." Levine's is a vision that reminds us that words are not mere playthings, nor are they pure sound, divorced easily from their meaning and power. We know all too well the weight they carry. I am honored then most to be recognized for using them not only in the service of art, but also in the service of justice and understanding. Cathedrals of Kudzu Pegram Harrison introduced non-fiction winner Hal Crowther:

Hal Crowther, author of Cathedrals of Kudzu, is a journalist and an essayist. E.B. White said, "An essayist can pull on any sort of shirt, be any sort of person, according to his mood or his subject matter. He can be a philosopher, a scold, a jester, a raconteur, a competent, a pundit, a devil's advocate, and an enthusiast." Hal Crowther wears all these shirts and more. His essays are carefully constructed. They are of a piece. They are finely written. His writing is often lyric and often acerbic. It is always analytic. It is always incisive. He rejoices in spotting unclothed emperors. He gives unstinting praise where it is due. He enshrines with all their warts and faults some of his favorite authors such as James Dickey, Walker Percy, and Cormac McCarthy, and his other heroes, Judge Frank Johnson and Doc Watson. And he sings lovely songs to that god-given quintet: trees, drinking, dogs, poetry, and Southern belles. He deplores and excoriates racism. And he takes a lick at nostalgia and the myth of the old South. We are richer for his profound insights and skilled presentation.

Hal Crowther:

H.L. Mencken said once that his writing was "free of moral purpose. I am never much interested in the effects of what I write. I live in a deliberate vacuum." That is exactly the opposite of my attitude toward my work. I have never written a word without that stump preacher's prayer that everyone who reads it will see the light and accept the spirit. When I look at the list of past winners of the Smith Award, I see a lot of my friends and also my idols and role models. Several, like Denise Giardina, Will Campbell, and John Egerton, are both. I always thought of myself as a kind of an Atticus Finch, a careful small town liberal who might risk tar and feathers for a principle to do the right thing, but who is kind of uncomfortable when he sees men sitting in church without neckties.

What I love about Southern liberals, epitomized by the SRC, is that they are practical, hard-working, no-nonsense liberals and they have had to be. Down here, people committed to progress and justice had real dragons to slay and real crosses to bear. They didn't waste their time or energy on the nitpicking and backbiting that provides the Rush Limbaugh's of this world with easy charicatures of liberals. Down here, our liberals want your heart and your vote. They don't want to prune your vocabulary. Liberals are a minority in this country. We can't afford to squander our capital on the Lilliputian language wars. We can't afford to appear petty or ridiculous.

"Drapery Factory, Gulfport, Mississippi, 1956" Copyright 2000 by Natasha Trethewey. Reprinted from Domestic Work with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Race and Redistricting: Myths, Truths and Facts

By Todd A. Cox

From Southern Changes, Vol. 24, No. 1-2, 2002 pp. 13-14

Federal court decisions regarding redistricting over the past several years have caused some to question how district line drawers can create redistricting plans that will provide all voters equal opportunity to elect candidates of choice. Since Shaw v. Reno, the courts have clarified the criteria for drawing district lines and made it clear that race can be a factor in redistricting and these clarifications have supported lawmakers and grassroots organizers who sought redistricting plans that allow fair representation for minorities in many states and localities since 2000.

But, the process of redistricting is not complete throughout the South. States like Louisiana and North Carolina are still developing plans and, more importantly, countless communities across the South have yet to draw new city council, county commissioner, and school board plans. For this reason, it is imperative that local activists supporting fair representation for minorities are well informed of the role which race may play in redistricting. Line drawers may still try to argue against creating districts that fairly reflect minority voting strength. These arguments will essentially be based on myths about the role of race in redistricting. In order to advocate for the creation of fair redistricting plans, be prepared to debunk these myths.

Myth: Race cannot be considered during redistricting.

Truth: It is okay to be conscious of race during redistricting. It is, however, important to avoid violating "traditional redistricting principles." These include: making sure that the districts are compact and contiguous (ensuring that all parts of the district touch); respecting political subdivisions; and preserving communities of interest.

States and local jurisdictions are permitted to express and meet political goals even if the result is the creation of majority-minority districts. Hunt v. Cromartie, issued in April 2001, is the latest word from the U. S. Supreme Court on the role of race and politics in redistricting. In that case, a group of white voters sought to have North Carolina's new 12th and 1st Congressional Districts ruled unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The Supreme Court, however, found the 12th District constitutional. The Court pointed out that the North Carolina General Assembly simply sought to create a district containing very loyal Democratic voters and in so doing created a district that had a large concentration of African Americans who tend to vote Democratic, writing, "A legislature trying to secure a safe Democratic seat is interested in Democratic voting behavior. Hence, a legislature may, by placing reliable Democratic precincts within a district without regard to race, end up with a district containing more heavily African-American precincts, but the reasons would be political rather than racial."

Myth: Jurisdictions are not required or permitted to create majority-minority districts.

Truth: Jurisdictions are permitted and may even be required to create majority-minority districts. Those drawing lines during the redistricting process are required to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which forbids the adoption of redistricting plans that have the result of denying voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process because of their race, color, or membership in a language minority group. Those drawing lines must avoid creating redistricting plans that result in diluting the voting strength of minority voters. Dilution occurs when concentrated minority populations are fragmented or split between districts or over-concentrated in a district, resulting in minority voters having less of an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice than other voters.

Despite the requirement that line drawers not dilute minority voting strength, some individuals and groups may still advocate for dismantling a majority-minority district and spreading its voters between various districts in order to achieve some partisan political advantage. The determination of whether a particular redistricting plan violates Section 2 is very complicated and specific to the area being examined. It requires complex political and social science analyses of electoral behavior and of a community's political history. Without this analysis, it would be inappropriate for those drawing district lines to dismantle majority-minority districts or fail to create them merely based, for example, on anecdotal information of minority electoral victories or hypothetical promises of future success.

Myth: The redistricting process is closed to the public.

Truth: Redistricting should be an open process. The redistricting process is open for participation by anyone, including individuals and grassroots organizations.

To get involved, first, educate yourself about the redistricting process in your state and community. Find out the redistricting schedule, the timing for hearings and developing plans, and how you can participate. You should get a copy of any proposed redistricting plans from the body charged with redistricting in your community and find out if the state or local government will provide the public access to redistricting computers so that you may develop your own alternative plans. Also, you should familiarize yourself with the census population data for your community, evaluating population characteristics and assessing the various demographic trends that have developed over the last decade. This data is available from various sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau.

Second, assemble the information you need to make your case for a fair redistricting plan and share it with redistricting officials. Make sure information proving the need for the creation of a particular majority-minority district is included in the redistricting record. This can take the form of letters, public hearing testimonials, studies, reports, articles, or expert analyses and should include:

• maps showing that reasonably compact majority-minority districts can be drawn;
• an examination of whether voting is racially polarized in your community;
• an assessment of the history of discrimination in your community and in the state, particularly to voting;
• a list of current electoral practices that have a discriminatory impact on the ability of minorities to cast an effective vote;
• an assessment of the extent to which minority candidates are excluded from nominating processes;
• an assessment of the social and economic disparities between minorities and whites in your community and the state in areas such as education, employment, and health;
• examples of overt or subtle appeals to or reference to race that have been made in elections;
• a record of the electoral successes and losses suffered by candidates of choice of minority voters;
• the lack of responsiveness of the governing body being redistricted to the needs of the minority community; and
• an assessment of how insubstantial a jurisdiction's policy reason may be for not creating majority-minority districts and maintaining the current plan.

Third, some jurisdictions--including many in the South--are required to submit their redistricting plans to the federal government for review under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Under Section 5, certain jurisdictions with a history of discrimination in voting ("covered jurisdictions") must submit any changes in law that could affect voting, such as redistricting plans, to either the Department of Justice (DOJ) or the federal district court in the District of Columbia for review to make sure that the law is not racially discriminatory. Even if a jurisdiction is only partially covered by Section 5, congressional and state legislative redistricting plans for the entire state must be submitted for review. Most jurisdictions submit voting changes to the DOJ which has sixty days to review and decide either that a given change is not discriminatory and approve or "preclear" it or that the change is discriminatory and disapprove or "object to" it. The states covered entirely under Section 5 are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. States of which only certain counties or towns are covered under Section 5 are: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and South Dakota.

The DOJ welcomes the participation of individuals and community groups during the Section 5 process. Your goal should be to assist the DOJ in making a decision and your comments should include your perspective on the facts leading to the creation of the proposed redistricting plan. Your letter should be addressed to Chief, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, P.O. Box 66128, Washington, D.C. 20035-6128. The envelope and first page should be marked "Comment under Section 5." Also, you may call the DOJ with your comments at: 1-800-253-3931 or: 202-307-2385 or arrange to meet with the Department to discuss the proposed plan. You may check the status of the DOJ's review by visiting the Voting Section's website at: www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/index.htm. After the DOJ has made its determination, you should receive a copy of the decision if you participated.

It may be beneficial for you to seek the assistance of experts--a demographer, historian, or political scientist--who can help you in collecting and developing the information you will need during the redistricting process. A demographer uses census data to draw or redraw redistricting maps and can analyze the proposed redistricting plans and create alternative plans on your behalf. A historian will study the political and social history of your community, providing information about race relations and the interests that all members of your community have in common, and that, therefore, should be respected during the redistricting process. A political scientist will analyze election information to determine voting patterns among voters, including the degree to which minority voters have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. You may also wish to seek the aid of an attorney who can suggest the types of experts you need, provide advice about the redistricting process, and provide important legal arguments on your behalf in court or before the DOJ.

Redistricting offers a chance to maintain or alter the political dynamic on elected bodies. The right to vote is one of the most precious rights we enjoy in this country. Participating in redistricting gives true meaning to the right to vote by helping to create electoral plans that afford all voters an opportunity to participate in the political process.

At the time of this writing, Todd A. Cox was an Assistant Counsel with the Washington, D.C. office of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. For more information about its political participation program or to request copies of publications, call: 1-800-221-7822.

Beyond the Printed Word: The Making of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?"

From Southern Changes, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1997 pp. 22-26

When Black Belt Press publisher Randall Williams suggested in 1978 that the Southern Regional Council publish a guidebook to civil rights historic sites in Montgomery, Alabama, former SRC Executive Director Steve Suitts married that proposal to his longtime interest in regional radio and came up with the concept of a civil rights radio documentary project focusing on the five state capitals of the Deep South. From this initial conception of what would later be named Will The Circle Be Unbroken?,Suitts guided program development, oral histories, and fund raising for the series until his resignation as SRC's executive director in 1995. Suitts is still a consultant for the project. In addition, he now works as a writer, and is an adjunct faculty member with the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts at Emory University.

In a January, 1997 interview with Allen Tullos, Suitts reflected on his long involvement with the civil rights radio project.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? has taken even longer to produce than most of the media efforts the Southern Regional Council has undertaken fifteen years. It will actually be sixteen years from the point of planning to the point of broadcast. The project changed over this time. If we had finished the enterprise in the middle of the 1980s, it would not be what we are going to be broadcasting in the late 1990s. But the essence of it is there, and I think it is true to what the overall mission was from beginning to end.

This mission had two parts that allowed us to keep the faith through the thick and many patches of thin. First, we felt it was important to give voice and attention to a part of a social movement that defines the best part of the South, before many of the people who participated in it were no longer alive to tell their stories. The radio project was also an institutional effort to try to have the Southern Regional Council move beyond the printed word as the sole medium by which it tries to reach people around the country.

Reaching the hearts and minds of people is something we were thinking a lot about in 1980, when Jimmy Carter had been defeated for a second term and Ronald Reagan had declared that poverty no longer existed and that civil rights was no longer a major issue in America. It was a time to rethink. And it's appropriate that the series finally emerges into the public domain at a time when people are beginning to realize that in a democracy you cannot simply fiddle with the enforcement of good laws and expect the people to remember why those laws ought to be there.

Hearts of Dixie

We chose the five capitals of the Deep South simply for the symmetry of it and because we felt there was, at that time, no recognition of the history of the local movements in these cities. In virtually every part of the public domain of those state capitals there are monuments to all sorts of histories of the South, primarily the Confederate's history, but hardly any monuments to the history that changed the South from being a place of oppression by law to a place where equality of law was the abiding spirit and ambition.

Once we, the scholars and activists who were involved in this series, had good discussions and lots of debate among ourselves, we did develop an important perspective of how each of these state capitals, while very individual in their own stories, captures some important theme that ran through much of the Southern civil rights movement.

Jackson, Mississippi, showed vividly the problems of violent resistance, of how tenaciously, how violently whites were unwilling to give even an inch, much less a bit of human dignity. Little Rock represented the concept of federal intervention, the way that federal support in the end backed the movement. The Atlanta programs look at the idea of negotiated settlement, the deals that were cut and the compromises that were made in this process.

Montgomery features the importance of mass organization and Columbia shows how the courts were used as a route to social change. It's not that any of these things didn't happen in other communities; it's just that they happened in a particularly emphasized way in those particular state capitals.

Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Deeds

The important story in each of the cities' programs in the radio series is not that there was an individual person but that there were many individual people, some of whose voices get played out in the series more often than others simply because they didn't die; because they were available; because their words may have been remembered; or because their recollections are more vivid or their ability to tell a story is more emphatic.

But none of that discouraged us from holding onto the notion, which most of the people we interviewed reiterated, that this was a movement in everyday life. Ordinary people in the South at that time had to make some difficult decisions about courage and conviction and right and wrong, be they black or white, male or female. What rose out of this were extraordinary deeds done by people who lived ordinary lives.

Now, I think there's an incredibly important message there, since Americans and especially Americans in the latter part of the twentieth century, have a real notion that activism is something which a handful of people who belong to a public interest group somewhere engages in and that social change or political change or economic change is something which you either watch on the evening news or read about someone else doing. Activism is not seen at this point in our history as being something that's clone in the first person. Hopefully, our story will remind people that in a democracy, change occurs only when people think that it's done in the first person and they think they can do something about it.

Changes in the Airwaves

George King has produced a program which is really quite different from what would have been produced had we succeeded in our grant applications by the mid-'80s. Part of this difference has come about because George brought in some ideas of his own. But the program willalso be different because it's ten to twelve years later, and things have changed.

Originally, we had hoped that this series could be on commercial radio as well as public radio. At that time, there was a real search for programming going on in AM commercial radio. This was before AM radio fell into its monolithic mania with talk radio, but when FM radio had emerged as the source for music. So AM commercial radio was looking for something.

By the 1990s, when George came along, the radio market had changed. AM radio had found talk radio, most of it foul and disingenuous--people coming up with clever phrases to demean other people. Unfortunately, a lot of people enjoy that--particularly men, according to the demographics of American radio. So, there was no real opportunity to move in.

In addition, with the permission of the Federal Communications Commission, the limits on cross-ownership of stations--on one company or person owning several different stations--had been removed almost to the point of elimination. One can virtually own as many radio stations as you can buy today in America. Those limits used to be very strict--less than ten nationally and no more than two within the same market.

Having more and more radio stations in fewer and fewer hands has meant that national canned programming has filled up the AM commercial radio time, that the national talk shows do not. So there really has not been a chance to get into the commercial radio market for the last six or seven years.

This development meant that non-commercial radio was really the only avenue for us. However, during the same time period, non-commercial radio has become more widespread. There are many more stations. The listenership is much larger, although still not very diverse. And so I think the impact of the programming can still be as substantial as we had envisioned in our more ambitious strategies.

The other major difference between the programs as we originally envisioned them in the early '80s and what has been produced is that we had foreseen having a more narrative style. We had foreseen programming where some important voices of people in these local places told their stories and then their own stories captured the stories of many other people in their own communities. We saw them in some ways as much more personal stories than what the present programs show.

What George has led in producing is a very lively, rich set of voices which has a narrator who is fairly active in trying to emphasize and tie together the voices. It's much more of a standard format for radio documentaries. It is probably a necessity. I think to try to introduce the more personal narrative form today in the market of telecommunications would probably be a very difficult sale.

In addition, George chose to add music to the formats, to enliven it so that there's a combination of music and story. The music emphasizes the story and might even bring in new listeners, especially young folks. Even as recently as five or six years ago, when the Council was attempting to distribute other radio programming under the banner of Southways, which mixed together music and analysis and stories, we got enormous resistance. Radio stations wanted either a story, a documentary program, or a music program. It is a tribute to George and to the story that is being told that we have been able to get the public radio community excited about telling it with music.

The essentials of what we're trying to do in 1997 are the same as they were in 1981: to give people who listen to radio a sense that there was a great movement in communities throughout the South and that something remarkable happened, a moment of grace in Southern history, when people recognized that they could pull together and that they could, with good will and hard work, do extraordinary good with each other.

Completing the Circle
After a five-year hiatus due to funding shortages, the Southern Regional Council was able to resume work on its Civil Rights Radio Documentary in 1990, when SRC finally received a grant from the National Endowment of Humanities. SRC hired award-winning documentary producer George King to script and produce the series. Originally trained as a documentary filmmaker in the United Kingdom, King produced "trigger films" in the early 1970s which were intended to trigger discussion and problem-solving within communities and were screened extensively on European television networks and at the Berlin and Edinburgh film festivals. Since moving to the United States, King has worked in New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta writing and producing documentaries for film, television, the theater, and radio. In a December 1996 interview, King reflected on his six years of working on Will The Circle Be Unbroken?.

I started working on the radio project in 1991, and I spent about a year writing twenty-five scripts. I remember that every time I would run into [then-SRC Executive Director] Steve Suitts in the corridor, I would repeat the mantra, "It can't be done, Steve." I wanted him to recognize the sheer volume of work that he was asking to be done--that I did not believe one person could do this in a year. By the end of the year, I had nine people working with me, as we scrambled in the last few months to get all the scripts finished.

Mining the Archives

Fairly early on, we conducted a national search to find any kind of recorded materials on civil rights in the South. After we read through hundreds of transcriptions of interviews, we started creating patterns according to themes and events.

So these scripts really evolved, then, out of the material that we gathered. We didn't look at the history of a community and say, "Within this community, these are the stories we should try to tell, and let's try to find people who can tell them."

The way these scripts evolved was much more, 'These are the stories people are telling us. Let's try and see if they can tell the story of what happened in this community." A rag-tag army ended up completing the scripts by the summer of 1992. We sent them to NEH and received for a grant to make a pilot in '93.

For the pilot, I decided to do a prologue and five programs on Little Rock, Arkansas. I'd spent a lot of time in Little Rock, myself and done a lot of original interviews there, so I felt more confident about this city than I did about any of the others. I knew we had we had good material, and there was also a tremendous amount of archival material to back it up.

Frequently you'd rifle through people's papers and you'd see "Tape. Box 52." In box 52, you'd find some old reel-to-reel tape, and you'd put it on, and it would be amazing. It would be a speech by Governor Faubus that had vanished from sight otherwise. Or it would be some campaign slogans from a race in 1948 in Little Rock.

During our research we uncovered a lot of archival oral history interviews that were (lone for academic purposes and were never intended for broadcast. So we had all of these wonderful interviews that were going to sound like junk compared to what you hear on the radio. But fortunately, with new digital technology, we were able to enhance the sound and filter out a lot of the extraneous noise. We also had to resort to baking some of the tapes in ovens because the oxide had started flaking off.

Around the same time, we decided we wanted to put music in the programs, and not just music that had been part of the movement. In an attempt to engage listeners, I thought it would be interesting to try and put popular music into the soundtrack as a way of connecting people to a moment in time. Songs serve as locating points. If you play somebody a tune by Martha and the Vandella and if they were old enough to have heard it at the time it was recorded, they re member what was going on in their lives and what they were doing.

My decision to use popular music from that time was also based on the fact that there was some amazing music that came out of the '40s, '50s, and '60s in this country--blues, R&B, country, gospel, rock and roll. So we brought on a music researcher named Thom Watson, who's clone an enormous amount of laboring in the vineyard, looking for appropriate music.

Bringing it Home

As we put together the pilot programs on Little Rock, we had the idea to play them for focus groups made up of community leaders and movement participants. They could tell us whether we got everything right in both fact and emphasis and if we hadn't, where we'd run off the rails.

Reconnecting the programs back to the local communities was so valuable; so many things came from that. They knew a lot of the people in the communities so they could say, "You folks never talked to Betty? You've really got to go talk to Betty, and here's her phone number."

Sometimes, I would arrogantly claim that we had been to every archive in this country and that I knew where every sound bite was. And then, the person I was talking to would say, "Well, I've got twenty interviews under my bed, actually." So you were humbled by such things periodically, and the collection grew and grew.

When we took the first roughly-edited shows into Little Rock to the focus groups, one of the first comments was, "You don't get a sense of what we opposed, of the people we faced. They're not in these programs. People won't understand or believe what we were up against." That made a lot of sense, and we then went out and tried to interview segregationists, or find interview material from them. But it turned out to be no easy task to have those folks come forward and talk about their attitudes in an honest way. We found a few, but, boy, it's been rare. What we've had to do is use the more sensational material we found in archives. which gives you a flavor of the conviction or sense of righteousness that segregationists had, but it doesn't really explain much about the roots of prejudice.

However, just in the way that oral history can skew, there is a danger that in a small focus group of five people, one person can dominate it and say, "This is all wrong. My grandfather is obviously the most important person, and you've ignored him." I think we were very fortunate that this never happened. I don't believe anybody in these groups put their ego in the way or were overly protective or defensive about individuals or their communities.

Still, I never know for sure if someone is remembering something accurately. In some of the many original interviews that I did, I couldn't be sure if people were trying to reposition themselves in history so they would look better than they were. To offset these pitfalls of oral history, I introduced another layer into the feedback process: a scholar with local knowledge. We identified scholars in each city with specific local knowledge, people like Mills Thornton in Montgomery, Cliff Kuhn in Atlanta, and John Dittmer in Jackson. Involving the scholars was very useful indeed for fact-checking and for balancing what the community was giving us.

So out of these three methods--one of which is the scholar, one of which is the community, and the third of which is the material that we actually had--the scripts and then the programs evolved.

Of course, this process of reworking the shows based on feedback from local focus groups and local scholars is very time-consuming. It becomes an expensive prospect--you might even be doubling the cost--but I think it was critical for the integrity of the project.

Chutes and Ladders

By 1995 we had received a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that gave us almost enough to finish the production side. Six months later we got another grant from the Ford Foundation for distribution--a facet which most independent producers very frequently ignore until it's too late.

Because every public radio station in this country is essentially an independent entity, you have to "sell" your program to all of these individual stations throughout the nation while hundreds of other people are trying to get their programs onto the same limited air time. And then there's the challenge of getting your program placed in a time slot where there's actually going to be an audience. And then the challenge of getting an audience. To meet these challenges, we are fortunate not only to have Public Radio International distributing our program, but also to have been able to hire our own people to enhance the publicity, marketing, and outreach PM is providing.

Getting an independent production on the air is an incremental process, however you do it. You seldom get totally funded up-front for any of these kinds of projects; it's a question of getting the resources that you can at any given moment and then doing enough to be able to demonstrate to somebody else that you've moved up the ladder four rungs--that you've brought in these other people and that you now have these additional resources. So it's a real game of chutes and ladders, where sometimes you move up and sometimes you slide down.

As I've moved up and down over the last six years, I've learned a tremendous amount about the South and particularly about black life in the South. It's been an extraordinary privilege. Now, when I hear the convoluted arguments people make on AM talk radio about "We've kind of equalized things out now" and "Affirmative action is wrong because it's now giving unequal rights to people," I know that the speakers know nothing of this history.

You can tell that they have no experience with what black folks went through, or experience today. Unless you understand the history of violence, of segregation, of discrimination--second class citizenship, economic sanctions, redlining, inferior education, lack of political power, lack of respect--you are basing your opinion on only half of the story. It's been an education which I really value, and it's something that I will never forget.

Forty-Eight Books Nominated for Lillian Smith Book Award for 2011

The Southern Regional Council (SRC) recently announced that forty-eight books have been nominated for the Lillian Smith Book Awards for 2011, to be presented in Decatur, Georgia on September 4, 2011.

SRC is an inter-racial organization founded in 1919 to combat racial injustice in the South. SRC initiated the Lillian Smith Book Awards shortly after Smith's death in 1966 to recognize authors whose writing extends the legacy of the outspoken writer, educator and social critic who challenged her fellow Southerners and all Americans on issues of social and racial justice. Since 2004 the awards have been presented by SRC in a partnership with the University of Georgia Libraries, whose Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses a historic collection of Lillian Smith's letters and manuscripts. The Georgia Center for the Book became a partner in 2007, when the awards ceremony first became part of the Decatur Book Festival.

The number of nominations is up this year, in comparison to the forty-three nominations for 2010, apparently reflecting a growing interest in the awards. The award recipients for 2010 were Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940 by Amy Louise Wood and The Price of Defiance: James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss by Charles Eagles.

Atlanta Student Movement Begins with the Publication of "An Appeal for Human Rights," March 14, 1960

On March 14, 1960, Atlantans opened their newspapers to discover "An Appeal for Human Rights," the manifesto that marked the beginning of the Atlanta Student Movement. The Southern Regional Council interviewed many of the participants for its Peabody Award-winning audio series, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, an Audio History of the Civil Rights Movement in Five Southern Communities and the Music of those Times.

Click on the image below to view a video adaptation of portions of the episode of Circle chronicling the events leading up to the publication of the Appeal. Following the image is the full transcript of the episode describing the Atlanta Student Movement.

WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN?

A Personal History of the Civil Rights Movement in Five Southern Communities

EPISODE 22: THE ATLANTA STUDENT MOVEMENT

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Written By: Cliff Kuhn, Steve Suitts and George King with Vertamae Grosvenor

ANDREW YOUNG¹

The leaders in that period were not the mayor, not the president; it was four college freshmen that started the sit-in movement, see? It was actually high schools kids who got upset because their parents couldn't register to vote that got the Voting Rights Act, see? And so in all of my lifetime, social change has come from the young while they were in school, see?

SERIES THEME MUSIC: "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?"
[The Staple Singers]

NARRATOR

You are listening to Will The Circle Be Unbroken?, a personal history of the Civil Rights Movement in five southern communities and the music for those times.

During The 1940's And '50's, the Atlanta style emerged as the city's response to racial conflict. Accommodation and compromise guided the approach of the city's leaders-black and white. Warren Cochrane was a member of the small group of ministers, academics, business and professional men who made up Atlanta's black leadership.

WARREN COCHRANE²

Now, we didn't have strength enough or voting power enough to elect anybody in those days. And what we had to do was use whatever strategy we could.

We worked with the business community because they wanted the best leadership we could get, they did not want rabble-rousers. Our job was to keep the rabble-rousers out.

NARRATION

Following the victory of democracy in World War II, and the historic 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation, no small group of men--- of any color --- could manage the forces of racial change. A new, younger generation would challenge the Atlanta style.

MUSIC
"There Is Something On Your Mind"
[Bobby Marchan]

MARY ANN SMITH WILSON

Each college student at that time, especially black college students, brought with them a peculiar kind of history that made everything gel, you know, two or three years later.

JULIAN BOND

There was this accumulation of things that PUSHED on the minds of young people; young black people in 1960.

NARRATOR

Young black American students coming of age at the end of the fifties had grown up in a period of rising expectations. They had witnessed the Montgomery bus boycott on TV, and followed the efforts of Little Rock students in the pages of Jet magazine. In 1960, Julian Bond was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

JULIAN BOND

They had these Little Rock kids who were our peers, and they were so brave and so courageous, that you couldn’t help but say,"Gee, I hope if I’m ever TESTED in this way, I can behave the same way."

Our classmates included African students, who were so smug in their condemnation of our inaction. They’d say, Listen, we’re freeing OUR nations; we’re leading revolutions; we’re escaping the yoke of colonialism. All of Africa will be free before you people can drink a cup of coffee. And you know, that hurt.

NARRATOR

Student Morris Dillard…

MORRIS DILLARD

The pain had reached a point where all you needed was a spark, in the form of a tool—a mechanism through which you could protest. And of course that was provided by the sit-in movement in North Carolina. Greensboro.

MUSIC
"C’mon Everybody"
[Eddie Cochran]

NARRATOR

On February 1, 1960, four black college students startled the nation when they sat in at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. By April, thousands of young people were sitting-in across the south.

JULIAN BOND

It had happened other places before, and they never caught on, they never spread. It may have been that the Associated Press and United Press broadcast fairly neutral descriptions of what was happening. And any newspaper reader could pick that up and say, "Oh, this is how you do it." It’s like an instruction manual.

NARRATOR

Atlanta students took note of this new strategy, where young, committed activists would simply sit-in at segregated facilities—refusing to leave when they were denied service because of their race. Direct and confrontational—as a tactic, it was a radical departure from the Atlanta tradition of quiet compromise and private negotiations.

Morehouse college students Julian Bond and Lonnie King recall how Atlanta’s new era of public protest began.

LONNIE KING

On the second of February 1960 I was talking to one of my best friends at the time a guy named Joseph Pierce. We were reading the paper and I was talking about what happened up in Greensboro.

JULIAN BOND³

I was in Yates and Milton’s Drug Store one day, which was a campus hang-out, killing time between classes, smoking and drinking coffee. And a fellow came up to me, and I didn’t know him well at all. He showed me a newspaper headline from the Atlanta Daily World. It said Greensboro students sit in for third day.

LONNIE KING

I said Julian, you see this newspaper and have you read it?

JULIAN BOND³

He said, Don’t you think it ought to happen here? I said, I’m sure it will.

LONNIE KING

I says, I think we need to make it happen and I’d like to have you help us.

JULIAN BOND³

I said, "What do you mean, we?" He said, "You take this side of the drug store and I’ll take the other side and we’ll put together a little meeting of students."

ACTUALITY: STUDENT MEETING

NARRATOR

At the meeting, the students decided to involve all six of Atlanta’s black colleges in the effort. The college presidents soon got word of things and encouraged the student leaders to draft a list of their grievances.

Student leader Mary Ann Smith…

MARY ANN SMITH WILSON

We were very attentive to what the presidents had to say. They said that we would sponsor it, pay for it, you know-you students write it, express your grievances in writing, expose it to the world, well through the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and we’ll pay for it. And maybe we can initiate some activity this way. Some across-the-table type meetings, negotiations, and what have you.

JULIAN BOND

Well, this very first statement we put in the paper, "the Appeal for Human Rights" listed a LONG list of grievances, police protection; the extension of city services; parks, and things like that. So from the very first, there was this sense that this was about more than lunch counters.

LONNIE KING⁴

We published it on about the twelfth of March 1960 where we set forward certain things.

JULIAN BOND³

It caused a shock wave to go through the Atlanta community when it was published. Governor Vandiver (who was famous as, No-Not-One-Vandiver "Not-one-black-child-will-ever-enter-a- Georgia-public-school-while-I’m-governor, Vandiver"). Said, This sounds as if it had been written in Moscow, if not in Peking.

GOVERNOR ERNEST VANDIVER⁸

That statement was skillfully prepared. Obviously, it was not written by students. Regrettably, it had the same overtones which are usually found in anti-American propaganda pieces.

MARY ANN SMITH WILSON

Well, all of a sudden you, I won’t say hilarity, but because it was published in the New York Times, I think. New York Times. Letters came in from student governments all over the country.

MUSIC
"Walk Don’t Run"
[The Ventures]

NARRATOR

Atlanta University's college presidents -- part of the older black leadership, were caught in a dilemma. While it was difficult to argue with the students' demands, endorsing them would jeopardize the Atlanta style of private negotiation and threaten the power of the older leaders in the community.

Lonnie King...

LONNIE KING³

They saw themselves being replaced. That I think caused a great deal of problem. You had the old guard black leadership who were upset about these young upstarts who were coming in here. For that many to make gains in a year or less that they had been working on as they saw it for 30 or 40 years. Then, of course, the whites who were in power didn't want to give up anything without you just taking it from them.

NARRATOR

But the students would not be quieted, and they had their own sense of style.

JULIAN BOND

Part of what we wanted to do was to demonstrate that Atlanta students were going to be the best organized; the most disciplined; because this was then the largest collection of black college students in America.

MARY ANN SMITH WILSON

Each student leader from the various campuses would go and sort of pick students that would go to represent your college, who wanted to participate. That's the way the first one was done.

JULIAN BOND

We wanted to be the best. And surpass whatever had been done before, and whatever would be done afterward. So we wanted to hit the maximum number of places with the maximum number of people.

NARRATOR

Two of the groups at Atlanta's first sit-in demonstration were led by Julian Bond and fellow Morehouse student Charles Black.

CHARLES BLACK⁵

We had cased all the joints you might say. We knew exactly how many seats there were in every place; we knew where the nearest telephones were; we knew where to put observers so they could see everything that was going on and relay messages; the whole works—we had planned it very carefully.

JULIAN BOND

200 students went all over Atlanta; different groups to different places...I took a group of people down to the City Hall cafeteria.

NARRATOR

Again, Charles Black...

CHARLES BLACK

The group that I led was at the Terminal Train Station. The city leadership was taken quite by surprise. They didn't know what to do. There were lots of reports of policemen turning around in the middle of the street in their cars. After getting the call from one place and then another, they were just spinning around, not knowing what to do.

NARRATOR

Despite the publication of the Appeal for Human Rights and sit-ins in other cities across the South, the students' occupation of ten different segregated public facilities took Atlanta by surprise. When the confusion abated, most of the students were arrested and taken to jail.

JULIAN BOND

And we were all convicted and bound over to the grand jury, and bonded out, and came back to Paschal's Restaurant for a celebratory chicken dinner. We were all heroes and heroines.

MUSIC
"You Better Leave Segregation Alone"
[James Bevel, Joseph Carter, Bernard Lafayette, Samuel Collier]

NARRATOR

Atlanta's older black leadership was divided. Most felt that the students' radical tactics would jeopardize their own patient work to desegregate Atlanta. But some worked along with the students; black business leader Jesse Hill...

JESSE HILL

My job was, to get them out of jail, I really did, I was pretty busy, I had quite a team...I had black professionals, doctors, lawyers, school teachers who gave me there properties...We had funds, we had bonding capacity. We were equipped. We were ready for war.

JULIAN BOND

We got out of jail because black business people here put up their property and their cash to get us out. So their immediate response was supportive and helpful. But their second response was, Gee, that's great that you've done this thing. And now that you've done it, you don't have to do it again. Let us handle it. We can deal with it. We have relationships with the White power people downtown; let black power and White power get together and work this out. That's the way we've always done it, and that's the way we'll do it now.

LONNIE KING

The people who were in the leadership at that time were unelected.

CHARLES BLACK⁵

They didn't think that Atlanta was such a bad place for them. They had always had pretty good relations with the white folk. They had always put their few votes with the Northside white vote to elect fairly decent city officials, they thought.

JULIAN BOND

And I think some of us were willing to say, well, that's great, "you know, you can do it." And others said, "No, we've been depending on you to do this all this time. You haven't done it with the rapidity and speed that we insist it be done. So we're gonna have to take this into our hands again, and go for it and do something else."

NARRATOR

Again, student Morris Dillard...

MORRIS DILLARD

We created the infrastructure that was required to support a movement of this sort.

MARY ANN SMITH WILSON

Hectic, that's all I remember, telephones ringing and getting flyers for the next meeting and seeing who's going to speak, setting up the program.

MORRIS DILLARD

Housewives drove carpools and they had food and they did all kinds of things that were necessary to keep the operation running.

MARY ANN SMITH WILSON

And I just didn't realize until it was all over just how totally involved I was, but that was my life for several months.

MORRIS DILLARD

It wasn't a one-time shot and that's what Lonnie was telling us early on is that you've got to be prepared to stay. You can't think that just by mounting a big march downtown that the walls of segregation are gonna come down. No.

LONNIE KING³

And then we began the movement. It was out there. The lines were drawn.

MUSIC
"This Magic Moment"
[The Drifters]

NARRATOR

That fall the students moved their organizing off the campuses and against the private sector.

Rich's, Atlanta's leading department store, although still strictly segregated, was known for treating black customers relatively well.

Lucy Grigsby...

I'm sure more blacks had credit cards at Rich's and more blacks went to Rich's than went to other stores because they felt more comfortable there.

ARCHIVAL RICH'S⁸

Rich's is a personal store. And our success this year and next year and the next will depend so much on how well we all know what we stand for and how well we practice our beliefs.

JULIAN BOND³

There was a saying at least we knew in Atlanta that if Rich's went, so would everybody else. If Rich's decided to sell green shoes at Christmas time, everybody else would sell green shoes at Christmas time too.

NARRATOR

And so Rich's Department Store became a symbolic target for the demonstrators.

Lonnie King...

LONNIE KING⁴

I remember once I sat in Rich's and they closed down the counter. So then I got a call from the police chief. He asked me to come down there. He sent a patrol car down there to get me from our office on Auburn Avenue at that time.

JULIAN BOND

Chief Jenkins had his men pick up the leaders of the student movement, Lonnie King and Herschelle Sullivan, and take them to a meeting at the police station with Richard Rich, the head of Rich's department store.

LONNIE KING

Mr. Rich, he was extremely arrogant, extremely upset with me for quote, "disrupting commerce in his store." And he, he didn't want to hear anything I had to say. He wanted to give me a lecture. And his lecture was, that if you come back to Rich's Department Store again, I'm going to put you in jail.

JULIAN BOND

And Mr. Rich said something he NEVER should have said. He lost his temper. He said, "I don't care if another Negro EVER comes into my store." And he NEVER should have said that, because within a year, we made sure that Negroes DID NOT go in his store, and ran this boycott that eventually resulted in the integration of the Atlanta restaurants, lunch counters and so on.

ARCHIVAL TV AD: RICH'S⁸

Without people Rich's is just another store full of merchandise. Without people our policies are just so many theories.

NARRATOR

Black Atlanta was united behind the student-led boycott. People from different generations and occupations joined the picket lines.

Charles Black...

CHARLES BLACK

Well after it was clear that the students had the support generally of the community, everybody wanted to walk then, all the preachers, all the everybody. And the folk who had done everything they could to stop it were out there marching, young and old.

NARRATOR

Julia Bond, mother of student Julian...

And they just didn't see how they could do without Rich's, but they joined the boycott. Afterwards, so many people who had gone to Rich's and spent so much money learned that it really wasn't necessary. They could do without some of those things.

CLARENCE BACOTE²

My wife was one of those who participated in the boycott. Of course, I must say I was a little selfish then. I didn't care how long they were parading around Rich's. It was saving me money!

LONNIE KING

We got these people in Atlanta, Georgia to send us their Rich's charge cards. And we put them in safety deposit boxes at Rich's. Our slogan was, "Close down your account with segregation, open up your account with freedom, send us your charge card."

MUSIC
"Shop Around"
[Smokey Robinson and The Miracles]

NARRATOR

As the boycott moved into the spring of 1961, Atlanta's white power structure and the older black leadership continued to negotiate. They focused on persuading the students to drop their demands until the city's potentially volatile school desegregation plan took place in the fall of 1961. At a transformative meeting they achieved their goal.

Lonnie King...

LONNIE KING³

It was an extremely emotional meeting, one in which I found people who were supposed to have been on my side, siding with the merchants. It was a very excruciating feeling.

NARRATOR

Mayor Ivan Allen and the city's white business leadership leaned on the older black leaders who in turn pressured student leader Lonnie King to accept the compromise.

LUCY GRIGSBY³

I'm sure more blacks had credit cards at Rich's and more blacks went to Rich's than went to other stores because they felt more comfortable there.

ARCHIVAL RICH'S⁸

Rich's is a personal store. And our success this year and next year and the next will depend so much on how well we all know what we stand for and how well we practice our beliefs.

JULIAN BOND³

There was a saying at least we knew in Atlanta that if Rich's went, so would everybody else. If Rich's decided to sell green shoes at Christmas time, everybody else would sell green shoes at Christmas time too.

NARRATOR

And so Rich's Department Store became a symbolic target for the demonstrators.

Lonnie King...

LONNIE KING⁴

I remember once I sat in Rich's and they closed down the counter. So then I got a call from the police chief. He asked me to come down there. He sent a patrol car down there to get me from our office on Auburn Avenue at that time.

JULIAN BOND

Chief Jenkins had his men pick up the leaders of the student movement, Lonnie King and Herschelle Sullivan, and take them to a meeting at the police station with Richard Rich, the head of Rich's department store.

LONNIE KING

Mr. Rich, he was extremely arrogant, extremely upset with me for quote, "disrupting commerce in his store." And he, he didn't want to hear anything I had to say. He wanted to give me a lecture. And his lecture was, that if you come back to Rich's Department Store again, I'm going to put you in jail.

JULIAN BOND

And Mr. Rich said something he NEVER should have said. He lost his temper. He said, "I don't care if another Negro EVER comes into my store." And he NEVER should have said that, because within a year, we made sure that Negroes DID NOT go in his store, and ran this boycott that eventually resulted in the integration of the Atlanta restaurants, lunch counters and so on.

ARCHIVAL TV AD: RICH'S⁸

Without people Rich's is just another store full of merchandise. Without people our policies are just so many theories.

NARRATOR

Black Atlanta was united behind the student-led boycott. People from different generations and occupations joined the picket lines.

Charles Black...

CHARLES BLACK

Well after it was clear that the students had the support generally of the community, everybody wanted to walk then, all the preachers, all the everybody. And the folk who had done everything they could to stop it were out there marching, young and old.

LONNIE KING⁴

Anyway, I capitulated. As I look back in retrospect, that was probably one of the major decisions that I made that I'm ashamed of.

NARRATOR

Activist Benjamin Brown...

BENJAMIN BROWN⁷

Some of the students felt that Lonnie King, our head, our chairman, had sold them out. And they requested his resignation. So that was one of those real emotional moments in the whole movement. People crying and carrying on, you know.

LONNIE KING⁴

To wrap it all up, Ivan Allen went on television this same night and said that the lunch counters will open up again tomorrow; segregated. The Negroes have agreed to wait and time it with the opening of schools...It became very clear that his job was to try and work out an agreement whereby from a PR point of view, it would appear as if the white folks gave us something as opposed to black folks winning something. You follow me?

NARRATOR

As word got out about the decision to call off the boycott in return for desegregated facilities in the fall, a mass meeting was arranged. Atlanta University professor Carl Holman and attorney Leroy Johnson remember the evening.

CARL HOLMAN³

And we'd had this big meeting at Warren Methodist Church at which point the black negotiators found how deep the feeling was about having been betrayed. And we had to go through that evening with the hope that we would keep the black community from tearing itself apart.

LEROY JOHNSON II

And the church was packed. And the students were there looking for blood. And we were sitting on the platform, nervous, trying to make certain that we could appease the crowd in the sense of trying to get them to accept the agreement and they were saying, no, no, no and all hell broke loose.

MUSIC

LONNIE KING³

Oh, man. That meeting.... About 2,000 people had gathered. An array of leaders tried to calm the crowd. And so Martin King's father got up, King, Sr., and he attempted to get them to calm down. He said that he devoted 30 years of his life to the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta and before he could go any further, this lady up in the stands said, "And that's what's wrong." And she proceeded to come down and she read the riot act to everybody there.

JULIAN BOND¹

I can remember this nurse, she was in her uniform, she was a nurse for Dr.

Albert Davis, storming up the center of the church, saying, "You mean to tell me, you know, I tore up my credit card." [LAUGHTER]

Some of the students felt that Lonnie King, our head, our chairman, had sold them out. And they requested his resignation. So that was one of those real emotional moments in the whole movement. People crying and carrying on, you know.

LONNIE KING

Oh, God, the church went up. I mean you've seen these magical moments. The church went up. I mean they just, it was something. I felt sorry for King, because King had laid the groundwork in a lot of ways, but remember now these people are operating on incremental change. And all of a sudden here's revolutionary change.

Martin King by that time had eased in the back, Jr. And when they booed his daddy, he started crying. Tears started coming down...So finally, Martin said, "Let me talk."

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.⁸

We must honestly say to Atlanta that time is running out. If some concrete changes for good are not made soon, Negro leaders of this city will find it impossible to convince the masses of Negroes of good faith of the negotiations presently taking place.

LEROY JOHNSON II

Martin Luther King, Jr. came to the meeting and spoke to that crowd and he said in essence that this agreement may not be all that we want, but it's an agreement we made and I think we ought to accept it. And shift the burden to the white folks and let them break it. But his speech was so terrific and I never thought anybody could have quelled that crowd.

LONNIE KING³

I've never heard a speech like that before or since. His march on Washington speech was nothing compared to that speech that night.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.⁸

Atlanta needs an Amos to cry out, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Atlanta needs another Jefferson to scratch across the pages of history words lifted to cosmic proportions: We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal.

LEROY JOHNSON II

He stopped that crowd and the students then agreed to accept the agreement and that's what happened. But for Martin Luther King it never would have been accepted.

NARRATOR

In the fall of 1961, Rich's Department Store and some other facilities, including the public schools, began to desegregate with a token number of blacks. Although the coalition of students and community members held together, the power of the older black leadership was broken. The new direct action tactics continued through the mid-sixties forcing desegregation into the open. As new leadership emerged, they too would discover the challenges of power—as the Atlanta style proved resilient once again.

MUSIC
"Giant Steps"
[John Coltrane]

CREDITS

Key to Archival Collections
1
Highlander Folk School Collection, Highlander Research and Education Center, New Market, TN
2
WRFG-FM/"Living Atlanta," Collection, courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, GA
3
"Dawn’s Early Light," Ralph McGill Papers, Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
4
Oral History Collection of Martin Luther King, Jr., license granted by Intellectual Properties Management, Atlanta, GA
5
Howard University, Ralphe J. Bunche Oral History Collection, Washington, DC
6
Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library, Special Collections, Atlanta, GA
7
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Southern Historical Collection & Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, Chapel Hill, NC
8
WSB Television News Video Archive, University of Georgia, Athens, GA

Atlanta's Continuing Struggle for a More Representative Federal Bench

Imagine a time when all of the full-time judges on Atlanta's federal district court are white; when circumstances have conspired to create a number of vacancies on the court; when, even in those circumstances, it's far from clear that the court's all-white composition will change any time soon and, if it's going to change, it's far from clear that any new judge will have the demonstrated qualities of empathy and compassion which are all too rare; when it becomes necessary for people of good will to mobilize to assure that the selection process produces a bench that is more qualified and more representative.

The time to which I refer could easily be 2010 or early 2011, but it's not. Rather, I refer to 1978.

Congress had just passed the Omnibus Judgeship Bill, creating scores of new judgeships around the country. In the Northern District of Alabama, two African American judges were appointed under the bill. In the Northern District of Georgia - which had just as many open judgeships - it would be a struggle to get even one African American judge.

Fortunately, out of all the candidates under consideration in Georgia's Northern District, there was one candidate who had that rare combination of qualities around which people of good will could unite. He had been valedictorian of his graduating class at East Depot High School in LaGrange, Georgia; an honors graduate of Morehouse College, and the recipient of a Masters from Atlanta University and a law degree from Northwestern. He had been the first plaintiff to challenge segregation at the University of Georgia, and he had been part of the team that finally brought that segregation to an end - the same team that also brought an end to the all-white jury pools that existed in some Georgia counties. He had been the second African American to be elected to the Georgia Senate since Reconstruction; the first African American to serve on what was then called the Civil Court of Fulton County; and the first African American to serve on the Superior Court of Fulton County. He was known to agonize over sentencing decisions and, among all of his colleagues on the Fulton Superior Court, he had the lowest reversal rate.

With a good bit of effort on the part of people of good will (including a President with whom he had served in the Georgia Senate, including a Senator who had blocked his admission to the University of Georgia, and including people of good will from across the community and across the nation), this candidate in 1979 was appointed to the court, where his many cases ironically included the Jan Kemp case involving free speech at the University of Georgia and where, today, as a Senior Judge, he continues to serve with distinction.

The person to whom I refer is Horace T. Ward.

Today, Judge Ward is a member of the Halls of Fame of the Gate City Bar and the National Bar. He has received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Atlanta University; the Bennie Service Award from Morehouse College; the Merit Award from Northwestern University; the Trumpet Award for Civil Rights Advocacy from Turner Broadcasting System. Atlanta Magazine summed up his career in 1976 when it recognized him as one of 200 people who shaped Atlanta.

In 1978 the appointment of Judge Ward - or any person of color, for that matter - was far from being a foregone conclusion. Even with his impeccable background, his appointment required concerted action on the part of a broad coalition of people who cared about a more representative judiciary.

And so it is today.

As this year began, there were four vacant positions on Atlanta's federal district court and no full-time African American judges. On February 28, the Senate voted to confirm two new judges on that court, including one African American who resides in another federal district. Even with these appointments, however, the court has no judges of color who actually reside in the district.

The President has moved to remedy this situation, nominating two African American candidates for the two remaining vacancies, both of whom actually reside in the district. If these nominations are confirmed, the court will also have its first Black female judges.

These latest nominations are a positive development. But a nomination doesn't always result in a confirmation, especially in a State which has no Senators who belong to the President's party. Just as in 1978, if Atlanta is going to achieve the goal of having a quality federal court which is also truly representative, it will be necessary for people of good will to come together to make it happen.