They were afraid of what she would say By John D. Due, Jr., Special to CNN (Editor’s Note: John D. Due, Jr. is an attorney who has been a civil rights and community activist for more than five decades, primarily in the state of Florida but also in Mississippi, where he risked his life to organize people to vote. In 1964, he defended Martin Luther King, Jr. when King was arrested in St. Augustine. His wife, Patricia Stephens Due, who led the first jail-in of the nation during the civil rights movement, died last year.) The summer of 1963 was hot. I’m not even talking about the weather. Young black activists were beginning to question their commitment to non-violent tactics. Blacks were tired of feeling like their lives didn’t matter as government officials in the South watched, condoned, and/or led attacks against non-violent demonstrators. Blacks were tired of the slowness and failure of the Kennedy Administration to act. Blacks were tired of the reeking hypocrisy of the “New South” states like Florida, which tried to pretend that racial oppression didn’t exist within their borders. Both my wife Patricia and I were at the March on Washington that hot summer. She could have spoken that day. But they were afraid of what she would say. Florida’s Tarnished Image Patricia had been arrested in April 1963 for demonstrating in front of a Tallahassee movie theater. She was a leader of the Tallahassee chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an interracial group that used non-violent tactics to fight discrimination, and had significant influence with the national organization. She was arrested with about 200 students mainly from black college FAMU (Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University) but also from white colleges Florida State University and the University of Florida. Florida Governor Leroy Collins had been nurturing an image of a new style Southern Governor – one of moderation – so as to support tourism and investment in the planned Disney World attraction. Florida was supposed to be a “New South” state that was different from Alabama with the police and Klan violence in Birmingham against youth in 1963, and neighboring states of Georgia and Mississippi. The case of Due v. Florida State Theater stemming from the students’ arrests was an embarrassment to the state, and was followed by demonstrations in St. Augustine with students from Florida Memorial College led by black dentist Dr. Robert Hayling, who was then the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) youth advisor. Florida’s "New South" image was tarnished after the Tallahassee and St. Augustine demonstrations, and sabotaged the plans of Vice President Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy Administration, which had high hopes of having Miami Beach host the 1964 Democratic National Convention. After the arrests of the college students in St. Augustine, I recall being in our apartment studying for the Florida Bar when Dr. Hayling called to ask Patricia for help. Could she use her influence with the national CORE to enlist their support in trying to block the Democratic National Convention from taking place on Miami Beach? Naturally, she said yes. She called the national CORE office and sent a telegram to President Kennedy. She was not going to let Florida be portrayed as an idyllic paradise when she knew what blacks were experiencing there. Rising anger among black youth Patricia was not quite 24 in 1963, but she was well-respected by youth chapters of civil rights organizations throughout the state because of her leadership of the sit-ins in Tallahassee in 1960 and arrests and subsequent jail-in when she was only twenty years old. Anger was growing among young student activists because of the police violence directed against them. After the St. Augustine demonstrations, Zev Aelony, a CORE field organizer, had gone to Ocala, Florida, to assist the new CORE chapter there. He was arrested and beaten in jail. When Patricia went to Ocala to try to visit Zev in jail, she was arrested along with the massive numbers of youth from the Youth Council of the Marion County NAACP who followed her there. There was a growing black mood that America was not protecting Black people but instead was assassinating its leaders in a war. The purpose of the March on Washington was to demand that Kennedy and the federal government pass a civil rights bill and use its national police powers to protect black people in the same way it protected South Koreans and Cubans. The Southern filibuster by the old and “New” southern states was no longer accepted as an excuse. Some of the young people derisively called Dr. King “Dr. Coon.” They were ready for a change. This was the context in which Patricia and I were invited by the Miami CORE chapter to travel as VIP guests on the Freedom Train which had been organized by the organizers of the March on Washington. The Freedom train would leave from Jacksonville and make stops along the Florida East Coast Railroad route in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and to D.C. to pick up freedom fighters. Many of them were young, not yet in their 20s. Many were field workers of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who had been jailed and brutalized. They were angry in mood but also felt a building joyous excitement, singing freedom songs all along the way… The Speakers When Patricia and I arrived in Washington, we learned that each of the leaders of the various civil rights organizations that were part of the freedom movement would be permitted to speak. The NAACP, SNCC, SCLC, the National Urban League, the Porter’s Union (A. Phillip Randolph had organized the 1943 March on Washington), the National Council of Negro Women, as well as CORE. We learned that CORE’s national director, James Farmer, had not arrived. Farmer had been in Louisiana to help the CORE chapter there and had not returned, nor had anyone heard from him. This was a frightful situation. NAACP Mississippi Field Secretary Medgar Evers had just been assassinated in June. Patricia had gained national notoriety and respect within CORE because of the jail-in and because she had initiated the process which derailed the Kennedy Administration’s plans to have the 1964 Democratic National Convention on Miami Beach. Patricia should have been the substitute speaker representing CORE to replace Famer. But I believe Black male chauvinism and the politics of control took over to prevent Patricia from speaking. The organizers believed they could not control what she would say. Rather than being the speaker, Patricia and I were assigned choice positions on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking up a few feet away from the speakers. Floyd McKissick, a Black attorney who organized CORE in North Carolina, was ultimately chosen to speak on behalf of CORE. (He later became CORE’s national director.) I don’t remember what he said because of the last speaker. John Lewis was the SNCC speaker and he displayed the hot anger in his demeanor that the young activists were feeling. But I remember less about what he said and more about what he was not permitted to say – that we were going to march through Georgia like Sherman marched through Georgia. But the organizers did not permit him to say this and edited his remarks. I don’t remember much about what he actually said because of the last speaker. UAW CIO-AFL labor leader Walter Reuther and other white speakers placed an emphasis on employment and housing. I thought Whitney Young, the national director of the National Urban League, had the most intelligent speech – stating the critical problem and the critical things that must be done. But the setting was not a college seminar. We had come to the March feeling angry. Feeling hopeless about the United States of America. We did not need a lesson plan. We needed a song. We needed Church. The Last Speaker Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the last speaker. Patricia and I heard gospel singer Mahalia Jackson cry out before he spoke, “Detroit! Give them the Dream Speech!” And he sang "I Have A Dream…" I can testify as a witness with my wife about the oceanic wave of love and hope that was felt by 200,000 people after Martin sang his song. That love and hope replaced the anger and hopelessness. After the speech, Patricia and I were talking about how we were going to get to New York to go to CORE’s headquarters. A white couple with that rapture on their face said, "You people need a ride to New York? We will take you.” And they took us straight to the national office of CORE on 38 Park Row. The Aftermath That night, CORE’s national director James Farmer finally appeared in the CORE office. Still scared to death, he described how local black supporters had arranged for him to travel hidden in a casket with a funeral director so he could make it to the airport and flee to New York. The White KKK in Louisiana had been out in force to assassinate him. (The white KKK was not the regular KKK-but a specific terrorist organization active in Louisiana, southwest Mississippi, and Canton and Meridian, Mississippi). So even in the immediate aftermath of the March on Washington, a stark and oppressive reality continued to confront us. But we didn’t feel alone. I have spent the past few months in Tallahassee, Orlando, Sanford, Marianna, and other parts of Florida in support of civil rights and youth groups as they have tried to mobilize and navigate the aftermath of the Dozier boys’ school murders and the Trayvon Martin killing and Zimmerman verdict. I have also been working hard with local sheriffs to find new ways to combat the schoolhouse to jailhouse syndrome of our black youth. What today’s young people must never forget is that it is possible to confront hate, racism and discrimination and transform our anger and hopelessness into hope and impact through our actions. That is what Patricia did, and that is what we should all aspire to do. She may not have been permitted to speak at the March on Washington, but Patricia Oatesricia’s voice was never silenced. She and other foot soldiers will continue to make a difference for generations to come. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John D. Due, Jr.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 19:13:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015