The Civil Rights Movement in the South

"What and When Was the Civil Rights Movement?"

"To most Movement veterans, the post-WWII U.S. Freedom Movement was but one episode in the long struggle of Black Americans for Human rights in this country. A struggle that began 400 years ago when the first slaves were brought to these shores and tried to escape, and when Native Americans first fought to defend their homelands. A movement that continues to this day in on-going struggles to win justice, dignity, and equality for all regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or economic level; struggles for fair pay and decent working conditions; and struggles to have every vote counted, every child  educated, every senior cared for every ill person treated, and every human soul accorded a fair share of the Tree of Life" (1).

The African American Civil Rights Movement refers to the series of social movements, acts of resistance, and demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of individuals who strove for equal recognition under the law and an end to Jim Crow segregation--the legal mandate that called for 'separate but equal' facilities for blacks and whites in the South. The decade-long struggle triggered the real ugliness of racism in the South, as it challenged the closed societies of Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama, who resisted integration; the deaths of Civil Rights martyrs like Vernon Dahmer, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr. and countless others. Yet, it did achieve ground-breaking historical change in the legislation of the United States. Significantly, the Movement brought about the inclusion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "which banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin in employment practices and ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace, and by public accommodations". Other Acts that follows included the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Immigration and Naturalization Services Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (2).

Some key events led to the gathering steam that become the Civil Rights Movement in the South. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court passed the Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that ruled segregation of public schools unconstitutional. In Bolling v. Sharpe, the Supreme Court ruled the segregation laws of Plessy v. Ferguson (Jim Crow) unconstitutional. That same year, the young teenage boy, Emmett Till is kidnapped, pistol whipped and murdered by two klansman for having whistled at a shop owner's wife in Money, Mississippi.

In 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, initiating the Montgomery bus boycott. This event leads to other bus boycotts throughout the South, including one in Tallahassee, Florida in 1956. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, out of paranoia concerning communist infiltration in the U.S., initiates COINTELPRO to "investigate and disrupt" and suspicious groups operating in the U.S.

1956-65, Movement to integrate southern universities begins. 

In 1957, the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) names Martin Luther King as its chairman; Governer Orval Faubus of Arkansas attempts to prevent the integration of Little Rock High School by calling out the National Guard. The next year, the NAACP Youth Council state sit-ins at lunch counters in Wichita, Kansas. In less than a month, Dockum stores--the Wichita chain that segregated its clientele had become integrated. This event preceded the famous sit-ins at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC, which sparked a series of like events. In 1960, SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) is formed in North Carolina. 

1961, Freedom Riders a group of protestors organized by CORE (Congress on Racial Equality) to ride interstate buses across the South to protest against segregation); they are assaulted at a Greyhound Bus Station in Montgomery.

1962, James Meredith is prohibited by Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett from becoming the first black student at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss); Fannie Lou Hamer attempts to register to vote; later the next year, Hamer is badly beaten by segregationists in Winona, Mississippi. 

1963, Dr. King completes his Letter from a Birmingham Jail; Medgar Evers is murdered by Byron de la Beckwith in Jackson, MS. Four young girls are killed at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Birmingham Riot of 1963.

1964, Freedom Summer: Three civil rights workers--James Cheney (MS), Michael Schwherner and Andrew Goodman (NY) are murdered by sheriffs in Neshoba County, MS. Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed.

1965, Voting Act of 1965; Raylawni Branch and Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong, both African Americans, attend the University of Southern Mississippi.

1966, James Meredith begins the March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, MS. He is injured by birdshot; Stokely Carmichael uses the term "Black Power."

1967, Trial of accused murderers of Civil Rights workers Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman. Seven of the eighteen suspects are convicted. Edgar Ray Killen is later convicted as conspirator of the murder in 2005.

1968, Memphis sanitation workers are killed in the line of duty; Memphis sanitation Worker Strike begins. King delivers the Mountaintop speech; He is killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

(Events listed here.)

A Timeline of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954-68)

The "I-Narrative" and Southern Folk Characters

"The I-Narrative," or simply the first-person narrative, can be thought of as a story that is written primarily from the first-person perspective. The author refers to him- or herself as "I" throughout. However, it may not be as simple to define as that.

Zora Hurston, whose autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road, was written under pressure by her publishers. As her popularity began to wane, Hurston was urged to create an autobiography to stimulate interest in her life and work. The author and folklorist was a very private person (despite her larger-than-life persona and impulse to perform), the details of her private life were her own. Therefore, most scholars of her work believe that much of the content of Dust Tracks is fictionalized. 

from: zoranealehurston.com

Hurston's strategy in her own autobiography can be understood in some ways as part of the author's natural impulse to "adorn" or to "embellish" her life's story. In this way, Hurston's life story becomes absorbed as another item the author's many fictive works, leaving the "true Zora" a mystery and her persona just another fictional character. However, the impulse to reconstruct the self through the I-Narrative may be more of a means to discover the true self, after all. Don Nix defines the dual purpose of the "I Narrative" in this way:

In your own I-narratives, what might be your purpose? To create a persona endowed with all the positive traits that you find honorable or admirable--or would it be more of a soul-seeking project?

The I-Narrative that Hurston offers us belongs strictly to the genre of literature. However, other southern characters are presented and maintained through folklore. In order to fully appreciate how these characters come to life, there are some terms you should be familiar with:

Eye Dialect: Often storytellers (whether oral or textual), use eye dialect to mimic the sounds of their characters' dialects. Dialect--the versionof a spoken language a person uses--can index their cultural, socio-economic, educational, and regional backgrounds. Dialect tells us a lot about a person, and that person's use of dialect tells us a lot about the region he or she comes from. 

Authors Joel Chandler Harris and Thomas Nelson Page are two southern writers from the 19th century. Page was an attorney who wrote short stories of the Old South, while Harris transcribed tales he heard from African American slaves while he served as an apprentice on a plantation in Georgia. As you read the works of these two authors, think about how they use eye dialect. How does it contribute to the construction of the characters in the narrative? 

Welcome!

Welcome, Students, to English 1010, section 210, Honors. This semester we will be focusing on Southern Popular Culture, which includes everything from southern talk, southern sounds, southern rituals, festivals, food, faith, and many of the unique quirks that make the South the unusual, troubled, joyful, and special place it is.

I am Dr. Julie L. Lester, and I am an assistant professor of English at Southwest Tennessee Community College. I earned my Ph.D. and Masters in African American Literature at the University of Memphis, and I have been here at SWTCC since I graduated in 2011. I am looking forward to this semester, and to exploring southern culture, as well as helping you to develop and hone your writing skills. As this is a writing class, we will be doubling our focus on southern popular culture with lessons on writing and composition, research, mechanics, grammar, as well as perfecting our facility with different rhetorical methods: narration, cause and effect analysis, comparison and contrast, and an analysis of literature, which is designed to culminate the semester by combining all the skills learned in previous assignments.

For the first two weeks of our time together, we'll be looking at the Southern Character and the Southern Storytelling Impulse. Whether you are a native-born southerner, or a transplant from the North, East, or West, you are well-acquainted with the southern impulse to talk. Sharing stories, building on a long- and well-honored vernacular tradition, and indulging in the occasional tall tale are quintessential southern qualities. Perhaps there is a member of your family, a close friend, or a figure from your childhood who was a consummate storyteller? Our first text we will be looking at is by a favorite author of mine--and a true blue southerner, Zora Neale Hurston.

Hurston rose to fame as a short story writer, ethnographer, and folklorist from Eatonville, Florida--the first incorporated all African American town in the U.S. So enamored of her hometown was Zora that she chronicled the lives of the folk she grew up with in compilations of short narratives, such as Mules and Men, and in her fiction, as in the 1938 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. She has become, since Alice Walker rediscovered her in 1970, an American treasure, and her reputation for her storytelling endeared her to her friends and fans alike.

As you read Hurston's text, think about the ways the author creates herself as a character in her own story. Even though Dust Tracks was published as her autobiography, Hurston, who was infamous for her tendency to embellish, always kept the 'whole truth' to herself. Her actual birthdate is still unknown, as are the details of her life. The only record we truly have, is what Hurston chose to disclose--and those details create a persona we come to know as Hurston. In what ways do southern storytellers create themselves as fictional entities?