770 Chapter 29 From Camelot to Watergate: 1961–1975
students in 1960 to provide a focus for the sit-in
movement and to conduct voter registration drives in
the South, actions that more than any other roused the
fury of southern segregationists.
In May 1961 black and white foes of segregation
organized a “freedom ride” to test the effectiveness of
federal regulations prohibiting discrimination in inter-
state transportation. Boarding two buses in Washington,
an integrated group of thirteen volunteers took off
across the South toward New Orleans. In Alabama they
ran into trouble. At Anniston racists set fire to one of the
buses, and in Birmingham they were assaulted by a mob.
But violence did not stop the freedom riders. Other
groups followed, many deliberately seeking arrest to test
local segregation ordinances. The resultant court cases
repeatedly broke down legal racial barriers throughout
the South.
This protracted struggle eventually yielded practi-
cal and moral benefits for southern whites as well as
blacks. Gradually all but the most unwavering defend-
ers of segregation changed their attitudes. But this
took time, and many blacks were unwilling to wait.
Some blacks, contemptuous of white prejudices,
were urging their fellows to reject “American” soci-
ety and all it stood for. In the North, black national-
ism became a potent force. Elijah Muhammad, leader
of the Black Muslim movement, loathed whites so
intensely that he demanded that a part of the United
States be set aside exclusively for blacks. He urged his
followers to be industrious, thrifty, and abstemious—
and to view all whites with suspicion and hatred.
“This white government has ruled us and given
us plenty hell, but the time has arrived that you taste a
little of your own hell,” Muhammad said. He scorned
Martin Luther King, Jr., and others who advocated
Christian nonviolence. “What fool can love his
enemy?” Muhammad asked. Another important
Black Muslim, Malcolm X, put it this way in a 1960
speech: “For the white man to ask the black man if he
hates him is just like the rapist asking the raped, or
the wolf asking the sheep, ‘Do you hate me?’” “If
someone puts a hand on you,” he advised blacks on
another occasion, “send him to the cemetery.”
Ordinary southern blacks became increasingly
impatient. In the face of brutal repression by local
police, many began to question Martin Luther King’s
tactic of nonviolent protest. After leading a series of
demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963,
King was thrown in jail. When local white clergymen,
professing themselves sympathetic to the blacks’
objectives, nonetheless urged an end to “untimely”
protests, which (they claimed) “incite hatred and vio-
lence,” King wrote his now-famous “Letter from
Birmingham Jail,” which contained this moving
explanation of why he and his followers were unwill-
ing to wait any longer for justice:
[W]hen you take a cross-country drive and find it
necessary to sleep night after night in the uncom-
fortable corners of your automobile because no
motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day
in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and
“colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger”
and your middle name becomes “boy”... then you
will understand why we find it so difficult to wait.
Source: Copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; copyright renewed
1991 Coretta Scott King.
The brutal repression of the Birmingham demon-
strations, captured in newspaper photos and on televi-
sion broadcasts, brought a flood of recruits
and money to the protesters’ cause. Pushed
by all these developments, President
Kennedy reluctantly began to change his
policy. His administration had from the start
given lip service to desegregation and
encouraged activists’ efforts to register black
voters in the South, but when confronta-
tions arose the president hesitated, arguing
that it was up to local officials to enforce the
law. After Birmingham, however, Kennedy
supported a modest civil rights bill.
When this measure ran into stiff opposi-
tion in Congress, blacks organized a
demonstration in Washington, attended by
200,000 people. At this gathering, King
delivered his “I Have a Dream” address,
looking forward to a time when racial preju-
dice no longer existed and people of all reli-
gions and colors could join hands and say,
“Free at last! Free at last!” Kennedy sympa-
thized with the Washington gathering butWhites pour mustard and ketchup over black students (and one white) who were
integrating a lunch-counter.