Joseph Lowery Quotes

This quotation was documented by an FBI illegal wiretap of King and his associates. The illegal wiretap had been insisted upon by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who was a racist and somewhat of a paranoid about communists. However, Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy personally approved the illegal wiretap.

This was of course in addition to their moral position as taught by their religions.

His strategy was to fill the jails of Birmingham, and asked the young people to help. The next days saw virtually all the Birmingham high school students our of school and in the streets protesting which was then against the un-Constitutional laws of Birmingham and Alabama. The students were arrested by the droves and the white authorities, believing that they were being firm against “radical lawbreakers”, fell into the trap, and became a travesty to most of the country and the rest of the world and the hundreds of jailed students beaten and assaulted raised the consciousness of whites as well as Blacks.

At the time the Democratic Politicians of the South went to extremes from refusing to register Black voters to countenancing assault, torture and even murder of Blacks who organized voter registration. When the racists switched to the Republican party, is was Republican politicians who tried to make voter registration and voting more difficult for minorities, but the means and degree of these efforts were very mild compared to what is was when Rustin uttered this quotation.

Earlier, a virtually all white police force in nearby 67% Black Ferguson, had shot an unarmed black young man who was 20 feet away with his hands up, 7 times killing him and then leaving the body uncovered on the street for over 4 hours. Many people of all races began to peacefully demonstrate in Ferguson and were met with military assault weapons pointed at them and military armored vehicles, with the police illegally (as later determined by the courts) were interfering with the right to protest. The demonstrations turned to riots and there was looting and arson of business establishments. The demonstrations started to spread to nearby St. Louis and other cities as the news spread. While the Ferguson officials had behaved so badly and stupidly, the St. Louis mayor exhibited democratic leadership that was an example for others. Slay was then a 4 term mayor, being reelected more than any other mayor in St. Louis history, and was one of the outstanding politicians in America.

She was one of the first prominent white southerners to denounce racial segregation. Also, she supported Martin Luther King’s protest organization in Montgomery long before most other whites.

There was a large contingent of whites who showed up—many invited and expected and many who came on their own.

Connor turned out to have been of great assistance to the Civil Rights Movements. His red-neck, ignorant, virulent, irrational hatred and his position made him an iconic, living, hyperbole of the American Southern Racist.

Kennedy was initially very opposed to a civil rights march on Washington and seemed very annoyed to the Blacks in attended. But when faced with the reality of the fact that the March was going to take place and he could not prevent it, he turned around and did everything he could do to protect the marchers and enable the historic event.

At that time the law prohibited Negroes from sitting anywhere in a public bus except the rear. Blacks, if there were not enough rear seats had to stand in the back even if there were many vacant seats in the “white section” of the bus. This was typical of the racial discrimination that existed at that time. That is what all the civil rights demonstrations and boycotts of that era was all about—eliminating government discrimination against Blacks. The Federal Courts including the Supreme Court ruled that the bus segregation was unconstitutional, and the awful practice ended in Montgomery.

This phrase was also to be used over 100 years later by Malcolm X. See {624101} and {38291}.

This quotation was documented by an FBI illegal wiretap of King and his associates. The illegal wiretap had been insisted upon by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who was a racist and somewhat of a paranoid about communists. However, Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy personally approved the illegal wiretap.

J. Edgar Hoover, the racist FBI Director, and the Chief of Police of the all white Washington DC Police Force, had made phone calls and sent memos to as many important people they could reach, warning that there was bound to be violence if 100,00 militant Blacks tried to march on Washington. There were twice that number planned for by Bayard Rustin, the man in charge of the March planning, but 250,000 showed up. There were very few incidents and no injuries and deaths as a result of some brilliant planning by Rustin and the cooperation of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy—the President’s brother—with Rustin. However, the fear spread by Hoover and others caused the major league baseball games to be cancelled, liquor stores to be closed, stores and offices throughout the city were intimidated and closed. But it was one of the best organized and peaceful social/political demonstrations in history.

She and many of the other white activists were called “do-gooders” by the Southern authorities of communities which were integration demonstration targets. The term was derogatory in the South, but Mrs. Peabody and others were proud of the term as that was exactly their purpose—to do good. Mrs. Peabody, and the wives of a number of wives of Christian Bishops, black and white, went to a restaurant in St. Augustine and requested service which was contrary to the segregation laws of Florida at the time. The women were arrested. The act of civil disobedience in integrating the restaurant was one act of a planned desegregation strategy worked out with Martin Luther King’s SCLC organization. The mature age of the women and their prominent husbands brought a great deal of newspaper coverage which is just what the demonstrators wanted. The photo is of Mrs. Peabody getting arrested. See {637404} and {637405} for more on this incident.

The law enforcement officers were the ones who broke the law when they beat and brutalized the peaceful civil rights marchers. The “white niggers” refer to the white marchers including clergy.

His home was right in the midst of the major riot area. The government had just instituted the draft to provide soldiers for the Civil War. The rich could avoid the draft by paying a modest fee. The Irish of New York were at just slightly above the Negro in the New York Socioeconomic scale and the two groups competed for the low skilled jobs. Many Irish felt that they were being forced to fight to free the Southern Negroes who when free would come to New York and compete for their jobs. They rioted and killed over 100 Blacks.

The benefit concert had been organized by a musical group called The People's Artists and it featured baritone Paul Robeson and folk singer Pete Seeger both great musicians with leftist political views. The beneficiary organization was The Civil Rights Congress which was fighting for a stay of execution for six African-American youths sentenced to death in New Jersey. Peekskill, only 25 miles from New York City had 3 major demographic groups: Lower and middle class white workers, middle class blacks who vacationed in the area, and liberal white intellectuals many of whom were Jewish who also vacationed in the area. Robeson had given a speech on Paris a few weeks earlier that was misquoted and the American Legion and others who had been fired up by this editorial and other anti-Communist, anti-Black and anti-Semitic rhetoric. The Concert was attacked by an organized white group who beat ticket holders and staff. The local police did not intervene, and in the aftermath of what had turned into an assault over 700 whites from the Peekskill area applied for membership in the KKK (Klu Klux Klan). See {72167} for Robeson's misquoted statement which was one of the triggers for this assault. The attack galvanized many groups of the area who were not going to let the thugs deny free speech and the following month the concert was performed. The concert itself was free from violence, though marred by the presence of a police helicopter overhead and the flushing out of at least one sniper's nest. An incredible Twenty thousand people showed up. Security, organized by labor unions, was tight with union men standing in a protective circle around the entire concert grounds and sitting with Robeson on the stage. The Musicians performed without incident.