And go home to my lord and be free oh, freedom oh, freedom and we wont be afraid ill be buried in my grave and go home to my lord and be free all right freedom, freedom and we wont be afraid ill be buried in my grave and go home to my lord and be free what are we marching for . Freedom. How long are we going to march . Until we are free. All right freedom, Freedom Freedom come and i want to go home freedom, Freedom Freedom come and i want to go home freedom come and i want to home. Freedom, Freedom Freedom come and i want to go home [singing] freedom, Freedom Freedom come and i want to go home i gain my freedom on the others freedom, Freedom Freedom come and i want to go home freedom, Freedom Freedom come and i want to go home oh, freedom, my lord i will be free we shall overcome [singing] those young people singing the anthem of the American Revolution of 1963 were freedom riders. They were a part of the pattern developed in this revolution, a pattern fashioned by events, more than events fashioned to a pattern. Along the way, the negro not only evolved the freedom ride, but also the sit in. The direct Action Campaign. It involved a federal boycott, involved the use of federal troops, kill and been killed, we are about to see them all. As we see them, we will also see the growing participation of young whites in the battle. That participation enlarged the dimensions of the revolution. And they have taken part in increasing numbers, particularly in sit in demonstrations. It was a tactic employed by new by Negro College students in greensboro, north carolina. On february 1, 1960, a group of freshman from greensboros allnegro agricultural college, agricultural and Technical College wrote a new page of southern history. Ignoring the ancient barriers, they seated themselves at a segregated lunch counter. They were refused service. They were asked to leave, but they just sat on studying their textbooks. The police came and took them off to jail. The lunch counter was closed, the seats roped off, but the rebellious child flourished. A few days later, the sit in movement had taken firm root in nashville, tennessee. A hopeful stirring in the collective negro breast. The students gave it both impetus an organization. The signs of segregation hung all over the city, a constant provocation to the students of fisk and every other negro. The attitude of the segregationminded whites could not have been stated more bluntly. Im sorry. Im management. Thats not allowed, we are not allowed to serve in here. I went to the south, and on this particular night, they were having some roleplaying. And in some of the scenes, we cried. [indiscernible shouting and jeering] with such training as this to bolster their dedication, the sit in movement became one of the negroes most effective weapons. The pattern left its mark on the entire south. Everywhere, the negroes were on the march. In jackson, mississippi this year, a sit in group of whites as well as negroes faced grotesque violence. [indiscernible shouting] one negro student was dragged from his stool and brutally beaten. [indiscernible shouting] norman, who offered no resistance, was arrested. The sitters, white and negro, spattered with ketchup and mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper were carted off, and protesting, not protesting to jail. , every society based on slavery, from greece to the american south, lived in fear of slave insurrections, and they occurred. Spartacus lead one before the birth of christ. And 18 centuries later, nat turner led one. Both died for their efforts. The american slave has long since been freed, and in his descendents quest, there has rarely been violence. The potential is there and hangs as ominously over the nation as ever it hung above the plantations yesterday. A major stronghold of the black muslims. For more on that story, here is nbc reporter bob teague. According to the muslims, the white man is the devil, the source of all evil. He hates black men, and black men should hate him in return. Those are the basic teachings of elijah mohammed, the muslim prophet. He also teaches his followers, about 75,000 all told, that christianity has failed black men. The American Government has failed black men. The muslim solution a separate black faith. Right after world war i, a negro leader named Marcus Garvey organized an illfated Campaign Based on the same principles. One of many men who opposed the movement, philip randolph, recalls conditions that led hundreds of thousands of negroes to join the garvey parade. They had come out of the war where they had fought and died and come into the southern communities, where they met a violent racial discrimination. Many soldiers were the victims of police brutality. Some were lynched. Therefore, there was widespread frustration and discord and discontent among negroes. Garvey came along with his doctrine of back to africa, and he painted glowing pictures of what negroes could do, were they to migrate to africa. How they could build Great Enterprises and things of that cap and this caught the interest and imagination of the negroes. Many of them flocked into the garvey movement. The black muslims say theres been little change in the racial picture since garveys days. At a recent muslim rally, their number one spokesman, malcolm x, said their main changes have been brought about not by whites, not by integration groups, but by elijah muhammad. The question is how does muhammad go about helping negroes . He will free you from anything. You find a negro drunk, he doesnt know the truth. Find a negro on dope, he doesnt know the truth. Negroes get drunk because they see white people get drunk. They Smoke Cigarettes because they see white people Smoke Cigarettes. They commit fornication and adultery because when they turn on the television all they see is a white men committing adultery and fornication. They want to be like the white man, so they copy his immoral and social habits. Then muhammad comes along and teaches black people the glory of blacks. Instead of the black man imitating the white man, he tries to be himself. He tries to display high moral qualities rather than the low moral qualities. It is feared by some whites that the muslims advocate violence, but thats not exactly the case. They say they dont believe in starting a fight, but if white men mistreat them, they will not turn the other cheek. That brand of militancy has shortly after midnight on june 12, medgar evers stepped into his car on his driveway. He was silhouetted against the carport light behind him. A shot from a highpowered rifle shattered the nighttime solace. Evers fell, fatally wounded. He was 37. He had been field secretary of the naacp mississippi for nine difficult years. Dont shop for anything on castle street. Lets let the merchants down on capitol street feel the economic pinch. Let me say this to you i had one merchant to call me, and he said, i want you to know that i talked to my National Office today, and they want me to tell you that we dont need nigger business. These are stores that help to support the White Citizens Council, a council dedicated to keeping you and i secondclass citizens. So let us not trade at these stores. Lets urge our friends, our relatives, our neighbors not to trade at these stores. Finally, ladies and gentlemen, and this is final, we will be demonstrating here until freedom comes to negroes here in jackson, mississippi. [applause] in late may, evers had opened a fullscale Action Campaign fullscale direct action against the segregation of the city. The movement lacked mass support from the citys 50,000 negroes. Sit in demonstrators at a lunch counter were doused with mustard and ketchup the first day. A white demonstrator and two negroes would be arrested. Jackson police use this violence as justification for arrests during later demonstrations. They occasionally club surrender our national favored by global elements in this country. This heightened piece of the revolution resulted in under that was not unreasonable because these people have found through the encouragement of the president or the attorney general that it pays to get out of the streets and demonstrate and carry on and i would predict that if the civil rights bill passes, it would mean further, more violent demonstration. The movement is based on false and in the case decided recently in savannah, georgia, testimony shows that the factual basis of the Supreme Court decision was entirely wrong. The outcome of all this, i think, is to hasten a showdown as to whether the United States would remain a predominantly white nation with those Cultural Values or whether it will become reasingly africanized murder, the willful wanton destruction of human life has been rare in the revolution. It. People cannot dismiss 19 n 1889 and 1959 3800 3008 hundred 19 euros were lynched. We have no antilynching was now. A white man who freely acknowledged a history of Mental Illness set out to walk from chattanooga, tennessee, to jackson, mississippi, where he hoped to persuade the government to alter his racial stance. He made it to alabama where a white man shot him dead. Simpson, father of six, is free on bond after being charged with murder. No date is set for his trial. In june, a negro killed a white man. That happened in lexington, north carolina. The victim died on the way to the hospital. At 24yearold auto mechanic, who, like hundreds of others in lexington that june night, had been caught up in an emotional storm. Rioting had broken out at the edge of the white and negro sections, apparently stemming from attempts of a small negro group to enter restaurants. 500 whites faced 100 and grows. Negroes. Lines surged, rocks were hurled and shots fired from the negro side. Fred leach fell to the street. Another man was wounded but not seriously. Eventually, three of the negroes, 18 to 21 years of age, were charged with the killing. They will stand trial in october. The most tragic fact leach apparently was only an innocent bystander. A man who found his destiny suddenly tied to the fury of the mob. It was the violence of a mob in yet another American City that some six years earlier had the mob had developed an additional weapon in the battle federal intervention. It was that that placed racial tensions on the front page of every newspaper in the capital. The city of course was, little rock. The reporter was and is herbert cavanaugh. Little rock was an unlikely place for a federal state showdown tied to segregation. There had already been some desegregation in the states and the governor was not considered a man devoted to segregation. But circumstances got out of control and Central High School became the pivot in this federalstate struggle. I remember the night of september 24, 1957, when the first battledragged army troops arrived on this street. It was a scene income principle incomprehensible to the 50 or so townspeople looking on. One man turned to a companion and said, you wont get many people to full around with those fool around with those guys, which prompted one man to respond yeah, but its a hell a school. Run it was the disorder of the day before that led president eisenhower to send in the troops of the 101st airborne. State and local police were unable that day before to control the mob, which reacted in bitter violence on learning nine negroes had entered the school as students. A couple of weeks earlier, state militia militia had barred the negroes from the school. Now on black monday, september 23, the nine negroes went in but were asked to leave three hours later in a move to soothe the mob. School time, the morning of the 25th, troops of the 101st airborne, a perimeter was established around the school, beyond which we could not go. It was, i remember, quiet. Im not sure most of us had yet absorbed historic scope of this moment. At 9 25, with a military escort party still in a strange quiet, six negro girls, three negro boys entered Central High School. Theurt order carried out by federal government using its ultimate power. An hour later after a few onlookers ignored requests to move on, troops dispersed them. One resistor was struck. Another nicked by a bayonet. The next night, a broadcast of the condemnation of what he considered a military occupation. We are now in occupied territory. Evidence of the naked force of the federal government is here apparent in the unsheathed bayonets in the backs of schoolgirls. And in the bloody face of a worker who was bayoneted and then felled by the butt of a rifle at the hands of the United States and its 101st air force division. There are now 36 negroes going to Central High School, altogether 126 going to school in little rock on a disaggregated basis. This is a little less than 2 of all negro students. Elsewhere, there has been voluntary desegregation of Department Stores in the city. Plans are under way for restaurants. The City Auditorium and parks have been desegregated. The Swimming Pool has not. The events of september 1957 generated considerable resentment in the south against such use of federal power. Later, however, a somewhat different view, particularly among the business interests in the south, who noted the reluctance of new businesses to move into arkansas because of the racial strife. Otherwise, the mystery still remains why did it happen here . All that we have so far seen, the fleet of riots, dissidents, violent and nonviolent political action, are methods in the struggle, but another struggle has raised among negroes and whites on the validity of these methods. Those close to him said he was trying to atone for having said that the the most celebrated of all negro students fell from grace when he actively criticized young negro leaders as puerile and undisciplined. He urged self improvement. Could be owner or manager of a Big Department store, and their selfimprovement. A negro can aspire to raise himself out of the ghetto. In los angeles, california, an orthodontist would seemed to have made it. With his wife and two children, he has lived and worked in this long segregated world for seven years, but even here, there is still that subtle, barely discernible, yet essential difference between the worlds of the white and the negro. Listen carefully. Coming to los angeles, i decided that i would not segregate myself, that i would seek an office in an area open to any person who would seek my services. The most prominent area appeared to be welsh boulevard, and this was the only place where i look for office space. I contacted the landlord, who said he would be happy to rent to me, but that he thought he should check with the other not too far away from me, whom i met on the Tennis Courts when we were going over to one of the playgrounds for tennis instruction. This has been several years ago, and from this, we have developed a very close friendship. She happens to be a caucasian. This is incidental. There is the meaning of the two friendships, two people who have much in common. I find myself enjoying friends for friends sake. Race has nothing to do with this. Many times when i am in areas where i meet people, i feel that usually, i am meeting them as an individual, and if it were not for the fact of my high visibility, i would say that they would possibly face me the same way, and this is the thing that we are hoping could be erased, that we will meet one another as individuals and just enjoy each other as persons. We went back east last summer to visit my wifes mother and father in south carolina. We had some trepidation about the trip south because we rented a car in new york and drove down through virginia, north carolina, and into south carolina. We expected problems when we needed restroom facilities, but at the point that we needed them, we drove into a station, and after asking the attendant, who was very courteous, to gas us up. He did so, and he asked us if we would like to use the restroom and presented a key, which was not to a segregated facility. The thing that hurts is when you do not expect it to find it. Dont expect to be segregated or discriminated against, to thing that hurts is to find it. We had it happen to us in cedar rapids, iowa, when we were on the way to california from chicago. I was tired too tired to drive further safely and stopped at a motel that had a sign outside, vacancy, until the attendant came out, saw my face, went back into the office and came back to report that there was no vacancy. On our trip to south carolina, i visited we were visiting our cousins in charleston. One day, we wanted to go to the store, and the store was across the playground, and the playground was right in the middle, so we had to walk around the playground and get to the store, and i thought the fastest way to get to the store was ride was right through the park. It felt kind of odd that you had to go around something, but you could not put your foot in something because something might happen. You didnt want to disturb anything. We had lived in california for the greater portion of the time the children have been growing. Gayles schooling has been all along in schools where there was no segregation, so that after graduating from los angeles high school, we decided to send gayle to Bennett College in greensboro, north carolina. Very often, we find that in the integrated schools, that there is not enough activity for the negro girls, meaning they are not able to participate from the standpoint of just being other girls. As far as the negro girls, here again, this race issue comes up. I went to an integrated high school, and i found no problems here with racists. In los angeles, we call it one Big Happy Family because nobody has any problems, and i have gone out with caucasian boys before, and i found no problems here because i was welcomed into the group is just one of their gang, and i have had parties of my own where i have invited all of my friends white, caucasian, and oriental, and i found no problems here, but going to school, to an allNegro College, when people talk about the other races, there is a problem they do not like to since they have lived in the south, they dont associate with these people. I found it very strange myself. When we went to charleston, i was left there because the expense would have been too great for me to come back and go right back to school. I like to swim a lot, and i could not go anywhere because there werent any pools where negroes could go. These things happen still today in los angeles. Where you dont expect these things to occur, they still do. This, unfortunately, is part of the american scene and part that we feel must be eradicated. I might add that when i outgrow the present facilities at my office, facilities of my office, which i hope to do, i would like to go into one of the newer, class a buildings. I have doubts as to if i would be accepted or acceptable in the building of my choice. I dont feel, still today, that i can go to any institution and present my Financial Statement and have this Financial Statement examined simply on facts of its financial compatibility with my ability to repay or whatever it is i desire to do, but that is the factor of my being a negro. I feel likewise that should i desire to purchase a home, shall we say, in bel air or brentwood, beverly hills, or some of the prime residential areas in los angeles, i dont feel that i would be readily acceptable by the realtors, possibly by the neighbors i dont know but these are things that are the snags in this almost perfect picture. The fact that i still feel that i do not have the right of free choice in a socalled free society. Quiet change, as in durham, north carolina, nashville, tennessee, louisville, kentucky, and austin, texas, has been given little attention. But precious few pages in the record of Human Experience are given to times of peace. Theres no question that the speed of todays communications has decidedly increased the tempo of this revolution. Tactics seen in one place are adopted in another. And when you heard the mayor of chicago echo hundreds of southern officials and claim the demonstrations would cease if reporters ignore them, they knew the revolution had spread. Television and its adjunct are playing a role, and they are to be found in what is both a place and expression, madison avenue. Outside the building from which i am speaking to you, there were pickets last week. Negro actors who claim television does not fairly employ or depict negroes. Their view is supported by the labor secretary of the naacp, herbert hill, an outspoken critic of the contribution madison avenue has made to the integration movement. The contribution madison avenue has made to the negro revolt i think is an inadvertent one, and that is they have so dramatized some of the fantasy of the american scene that they made the negro acutely aware he was not part of that scene. They eat meat and drive automobiles and buy the products sponsored on radio and television, yet, i have never seen a negro on a commercial, nor a television program, nor have i heard a negro used on a commercial on radio. We do not have special Advertising Campaigns for the negro community. The negro purchasers, the negro housewife should be part of the major advertising campaign, not the separate one developed for the negro radio station. The negro family, especially the negro youngsters, who consistently watches the television screen, cannot but have a great sense of unreality after a while because he is never there. In the commercial, nor in the future program, nor in the movie. It is the invisible man. The people who run madison avenue are frightened Little People who in many cases are the victims of their own fantasy, the victims of their own makebelieve. I believe the negro question is the fundamental moral issue, the issue that permeates all the Current Issues of society. It is precisely the treatment of the negro that all of the hypocrisy in American Life comes out. Exerting political power is the classic means of advancement of minorities in america, but apparently seems to slow. But their political power is increasing, both as voters and holders of public office. This can be seen in massachusetts. The highest elected negro Public Servant in the United States is the attorney general there. Last november, voters elected Edward W Brooke over a white opponent. He speaks as a negro who must appeal to every kind of voter. A negro, if he aspires to high elected office, must member that he represents all of the people, not just the negro people but the white people also, and he must campaign on the issues of his particular office. I did so campaign on the issues of massachusetts. I talked about the ills of massachusetts government. I talked to people up and down the commonwealth. I listened to their problems with housing and education, and with feeding and clothing, and i directed my campaign toward them. I think when this is done, the White Community will accept mn regardless of his race or creed to elective that. Congressman william dawson, for a time the most powerful negro in the country, is an oldstyle political boss. His power base is an efficient machine on chicagos south side, a district which is 99 negro and economically depressed. From this slum area, dawson can command margins of 100,000 democratic votes, enough to carry the state of illinois. Dawson has never been a race leader. He has accommodated to the rules of the club and has enjoyed harmonious relations, even with colleagues from the deep south. In new york city, the leader of the Carver Democratic Club is councilman jay raymond jones, sometimes called the fox, considered by many as the most powerful negro politician in new york state. Jones is a conscious race leader with strong convictions about the importance of economics and the need grow revolution in the negro revolution. As a political leader and as councilman, i see the role of the negro politician as one working in the area of government and the area of law to produce those forces that will react on the economy of the country to the extent that big business will begin to realize that they, too, have a part to play in this revolution. Although jones today is the real power behind harlem politics, congressman Adam Clayton Powell still commands great popular support. Lately, however, powell seems to be losing interest in his influential Congressional Committee chairmanship, and the reverend powell courts the favor of black muslim leader malcolm x, who advocates separation of the races. Behind the scenes in washington, negroes today play an Important Role in the formulation of a ministry to policy. The deputy chairman of administrative policy feels strongly the new negro and politics must be a decisionmaker. I think they unquestionably will be a decisionmaker. They are now in many instances. I must point out that in the kennedy administration, the negroes who have been given an office of power, like the housing authority, is a decisionmaker. I think you will find the treasurer of connecticut thats a decisionmaking job. The same thing with members of the state legislature, members of the Supreme Court like otis smith in michigan. These are not token jobs. These are jobs where they have a real responsibility for carrying out the oath of their office, and i think they are expected to live up to them in terms of all the people. Until a year ago, no negro since reconstruction days has held a seat in the georgia legislature. Now lee roy w. Johnson occupies a seat in the senate and has become a respected member of the body. Periodically, johnson leads young negroes through the state capital. He is a symbol of the opportunities in Politics Today and the aspirations of negroes brought about by the revolution of 1963. The White Citizens Council organized in the mid1950s advocated a new means of controlling southern negroes economic reprisal. Ironically, the negroes borrowed the concept and used it to score their first spectacular breakthrough in montgomery, alabama. As it happened, i lived in montgomery at the time and was the news director of a television station. In the spring or summer of 1955, i heard of a small negroes group called the montgomery improvement association. It was trying to persuade the City Government to make improvements in the segregated park. It wasnt a park. It was a large, vacant lot with a water hydrant peeking above the weeds. This did not fulfill the pledge of separate but equal. Until december 1, 1955. On that day, a negro seamstress, rosa parks, boarded a bus and took a seat. A few stops later, she was told to give her seat to a white passenger who had just boarded. She refused. For those who insist that a moment be pinpointed when the American Revolution of 1963 began, that moment will serve. 4 days later, the negroes declared a boycott for buses. The idea was edward d nixons. He made a guess when he nominated king to meet the boycotts. Montgomery was not disturbed. The citys whitemontgomery was not disturbed. The citys white and negro communities still had their lessons to learn. Old and proud, montgomery was proud of what it considered its good race relations, and it was not an evil city. It did not realize that negroes demanding better treatment could no longer be treated as teenagers are asserting their right to stay out after 9 30. The negroes ask that when he had a seat, he did not have to give it up to a whites. The city did not budge. They waited for the boycott to collapse or for negro leaders to quarrel among themselves and fall out. That did not happen. Mass meetings kept negroes informed and their spirits lifted. Then came the threats. Then the White Community learned that the lead negro was not afraid. Klan meetings were held in crosses burn, and the jokes circulated that every negro seamstress in town was working overtime sewing bedsheets for her white customers. Kings home was dynamited. The Supreme Court outlawed segregation on the buses. Montgomery gave the negro the tactic of economic boycott. It provided him a knowledge of his strength. It developed a method for sustaining enthusiasm during a long struggle. It told the nation and the world, we are interested, and nixon, who nominated king as leader, says, we made a guess and we got moses, for perhaps more than anything else, montgomery gave the negroes their most popular leader. I have given thought to this, and i go on with the feeling that this is a righteous cause and that we will have to suffer in this cause, and that if physical death is the price some must pay, the price i must pay to free my children and the children of my brothers and sisters and my White Brothers from a psychological death, then nothing can be more redemptive. I have always believed unearned suffering is redemptive. If a man has not discovered something so precious that he would die for it, he does not have much to live for. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] in 1963, nbc news broadcast a three hour program on the status of the civil rights movement. Reporting from 75 locations throughout the United States, it includes appearances by activists, scenes from historic events, and comments from integration opponents. Up next on reel america, the concluding 45 minutes of the explores the effects of the civil rights movement, from struggles over school and business integration in new orleans, oklahoma, mississippi, alabama, to the august 1963 march on washington. The report ends with president kennedys june 11, 1963 appeal for civil rights legislation and statements by several u. S. Senators arguing for and against it. We have seen the revolution began in many ways. And the course of this following has many tributaries. Now we are concerned with its effects, which we said are not uniform. One of the difficult fights but one in which the negro has scored impressive gains is in shattering what reverend king has fault the appalling apathy of the good people