Bombingham 79Reagon, Bernice Johnson:
(1942– ): Albany pro-
tester and founder of
Sweet Honey in the Rock,
a choral group that sings
civil rights standards.a wretched jail only to be expelled from college. Afterward, the crowd vented
their frustrations through music. Bernice Johnsonand Rutha Harris –
preachers’ daughters with operatic ambitions – joined tenor Cordell Reagon
(who later married Johnson) in singing such inspirational and adaptable songs
as ‘This Little Light of Mine,’ ‘Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round,’
‘If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus,’ and especially, ‘We Shall Overcome.’
These powerful songs rocked the churches with thunderous handclapping
and foot-stomping and became movement standards. ‘Nobody knew what
kept the top of the church on its four walls,’ one participant recalled. ‘It was
as if everyone had been lifted up on high.’
Still, the Albany Movement could not force immediate integration any-
where. A boycott of white businesses produced a sharp decline in sales, but
the city commissioners refused to negotiate. When blacks entered hotels,
restaurants, and theaters, they were arrested for breach of peace. When the
demonstrators kept coming, the wily police chief, Laurie Pritchett, was
ready for them. He had studied the Montgomery bus boycott and Freedom
Ride and concluded that violence attracted the media like bees to pollen,
which then pressured the federal government to intervene. So to prevent any
‘nigger organization’ from taking over the town, the chief arrested demon-
strators with a velvet fist and received glowing press coverage. The beatings
took place off-camera. In jail, the authorities broke a white demonstrator’s
jaw and kicked Slater King’s pregnant wife Marion so badly that she miscar-
ried. Most effectively, Pritchett undercut the jail, no bail strategy by sending
the demonstrators to rented jails up to thirty miles away. In a war of attrition,
the Albany Movement ran out of marchers before Pritchett ran out of jails.
Without consulting SNCC, Anderson asked his old friend, Martin Luther
King, to rescue the movement. King expected to make a speech and then
leave, but at the end of an emotional rally, Anderson asked King to lead a
march on city hall the next day. Boxed in, King could only agree and was
jailed. Although King vowed not to accept bond, his attorney hammered out
a verbal agreement with the mayor and police chief that would release him
and all local activists. In return for an end to the demonstrations, the city
promised to comply with the ICC desegregation ruling and initiate biracial
negotiations. It was all a ‘hoax,’ King realized later. Different theories account
for King’s bailing out on Albany: SNCC was jealous of SCLC; city officials
were intransigent; Anderson was literally hallucinating; the demonstrators
needed to get out; King wanted to get out. Once King was released, federal
district judge Robert Elliott – a segregationist appointed by Kennedy –
forbade him from leading any more marches, an order King obeyed. Dozens
of local blacks marched without him and were arrested. The low point
came when blacks rioted to protest against police abuse, prompting sheriff
Pritchett to ridicule the movement for ‘them non-violent rocks.’ Tired of this
Pritchett, Laurie(1926–
2000): Police chief who
stifled the Albany Move-
ment by using restraint.