Integration Report I

Montgomery, Alabama, 1960. City of the famous bus boycott. The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, whose pastor was Martin Luther King. Officers of the peace, citizens of Montgomery, waiting as Negroes prepare to march on the municipal building in support of sit-ins who demonstrate against lunch counter segregation. This is Monroe, North Carolina. The town where local NAACP president Robert Williams created headlines when he said, "Sometimes violence must be met with violence." Many asked, "Why?" Because some of the people who had thought that it would be better to settle these cases violently, uh I had been able to persuade them that we should use the courts and go into the courts. So, this thing had uh had boomeranged. And uh I was being held responsible for having brought these cases to court. That there was a trial where a Negro maid had been kicked down a flight of stairs uh by a white man, and that uh this man hadn't even bothered to come to his own trial, and that he had uh he had also uh been acquitted. And uh there was a demonstration as a result of this and uh in the courtroom by the Negro women of the community. And uh they had approached me and uh had said, "Well, you said that you would see that these people would be punished because uh through the organization we would have competent counsel. And uh that if it hadn't been for you that these people would have been punished. And uh they wanted to know what I would recommend that they do from then on." And so, I recommended that that they meet violence with violence. That uh Negroes must be prepared to cross attacks, that they must be willing to fight, that they must be willing to die and to kill if necessary, that uh there was no law, no 14th Amendment uh to the United States Constitution to equal but protection in the South, and that therefore they didn't have any deterrent, so they would have to create the the deterrent force themselves by meeting violence with violence. Nightmares are not the sole property of Southern sleepers. This is Brooklyn, New York, where headlines tell of repeated incidents of police brutality. Perhaps I'm not the right person to talk about this case, but I feel it so deeply uh and so closely that I'll not rest until somebody pays for the death of Al Garrett, were he my brother. The thing I'm angry about a number of things. Not only about Edward Silver, the District Attorney of this county, who has thus far failed to arrest the policeman who shot him to death, but I'm angry with a lot of my Negro brethren who don't even get angry about the fact that a poor man lied dead in his grave tonight. Attorney Thomas Russell Jones deplores the slaying. killed as a result of a policeman's bullet fired at him while he was in custody in the 79th Precinct on Gates Avenue. This man who had not even committed any crime, he failed to put a bottle or trash in a can. And this trigger-happy cop took him in. Marched him into the police station, and there's some testimony that Al Garrett was being marched to the police station, he suddenly put up his hands and said, "Oh, you're not going to do that to me." And marched holding his hands all the way to the precinct. Anybody who's been a Negro for long knows what that means. Any man here in this room knows what you do, why you do a thing like that. Greenville, South Carolina. In this church, whose pastor is J.S. Hall, a group protests the treatment accorded Jackie Robinson at the local airport. Local NAACP president A.J. Wittenberg describes the incident. The manager of this airport told them that this was not the waiting room for Negroes, that the one around at the back at the side. Mr. Robinson came and told them that he was an interstate passenger, that that segregation was unlawful. Then he summoned the policeman and told the policeman, "If these Negroes sit arrest Mr. Robinson said to this manager, he said that "If I sit down, will you really arrest me and I'm an interstate passenger?" He readily said, "Yes." He said, "You a Negro, aren't you?" They are marching on the airport. Words of protest are read there as a group remains outside singing. Youths march in the streets of the nation's capital petitioning for integrated schools. Congressman Charles Diggs of Detroit gathers the petitions. A voice from Africa. Our struggle Tom Mboya of Kenya. our human struggle. The struggle in Africa is one for nothing less and nothing more than the eradication of poverty, disease, and ignorance. And in this context, you and ourselves are all engaged in the same struggle that can aptly be summarized in terms of a struggle for political freedom, for economic opportunity, and for human dignity. This is my message to you. And I, and millions of other people, join you today in solidarity for the success of the struggle in which we are all involved. Thank you. A voice from America. Martin Luther King. As I stand here and look out upon the thousands of Negro faces and the thousands of white faces intermingled like the waters of a river, I see only one face. That is the face of the future. Yes, as I gaze upon this great historic assembly, this unprecedented gathering of young people, I cannot help thinking that 100 years from now the historians will be calling this not the beat generation, but the generation of integration. And Bayard Rustin. ON OCTOBER 25TH, WE CAME HERE 10,000 STRONG AND WE DIDN'T SEE ANYBODY. WE SAID WE WOULD COME AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. WE DOUBLED THE NUMBER AND THIS TIME WE GOT INTO THE WHITE HOUSE. MY FRIENDS, THAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MEANING OF TODAY'S SESSION. THAT WE ACTED, BLACK AND WHITE TOGETHER, OLD AND YOUNG, BUT MOSTLY MUCH YOUNGER THAN I AM, AND YOU HAVE DONE YOUR JOB, YOU HAVE WON YOUR VICTORY, AND YOU CAN GO BACK HOME AND TELL EVERYBODY THAT YOU COME HOME TO THE VICTORY OF HAVING HAD FOUR YOUNG PEOPLE, YOUR OWN AGE, SPEAK TO THE POWER OF THIS NATION IN THE WHITE HOUSE, AND THOSE THIS is a victory and the dawn is dimly seen. Only dimly. This is not Montgomery, nor Monroe. This is Glendale, Queens, in the city of New York. A Negro mother speaks. In order to get a better education for our children, we were ready, willing, and anxious to go to other schools. We had been asked that the parents not go to Glendale because of the tension from the parents in Glendale. The schools to which we were going, the parents of those schools did not want our children there. Children from Bedford-Stuyvesant's overcrowded schools were being transferred to the spacious ones in Glendale. Some of the parents did not send their children. However, the ones that were anxious for their children to get a good education, they didn't fear anything because when you are anxious to achieve something, you forget about fear. A reporter interviews some of the picketing mothers. Do your children go to this school, ma'am? No, they don't. They go to a religious school not far away. Uh well, what is the reason for your presence on the picket line today? I believe the children of Bedford-Stuyvesant area deserve their own school. They shouldn't have to be bused and used as pawns by politicians. And you, ma'am, how many Do you have two children? Are you going to keep them out? I couldn't decide that right now. Did you keep them out today? Yes. What was the reason? Your reason? I'm protesting the school transfer because they're bypassing underused light schools. It's not the schools they can put these children in. So, there's no reason for this transfer. Well, do you feel there are other schools in their own neighborhood? That's right. These children shouldn't be shipped 3 or 4 miles. Is there any hint of segregation in this present protest? No. No, definitely not. This is a southern city where department stores refuse lunch counter service to Negro students. Warnings of arrest, threats of jail terms, and violence all fail to put out what burns in the hearts and minds of the youngsters. If we can get This is all we want. See if the public servant man is is genuine, then let people stop spending that dollar there, man. Let him feel the hard economical hurt. Yeah. That's the If you don't leave, I have to warn you you should be arrested and charged with trespassing. You I'm I'm not leaving. Yes, sir. I told you you're not welcome in this store, all right? Charged with trespassing. I'll be right back for more in just a minute. YOU WILL BE ARRESTED IF YOU LEAVE THE STORE. YOU WILL NOT LEAVE THE STORE. You will not have to show warrant here to arrest you if you don't leave. Is that right? Do you understand that? Yes. Please stay out of this now. I'm talking to her. Talk to this white couple. It's time to arrest people who cannot walk in this store. They're on the other side. Pardon? You will be arrested if you leave. What position are these people in if you don't leave? We're not having any problem with anybody, but charge you with trespassing. You will be arrested. Okay. Okay, man. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome someday. Deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome someday. We'll be all right. We'll be all right. We'll be all right someday. Deep in my heart, I do believe that we'll be all right. They call us Steven. They call us animals. I mean, they ridicule us everywhere they go. They ridicule us, you see? It's envy. We've come a long way with nothing, you see? We could have the salary another man is getting. Same job, BUT HALF THE SALARY. AND THAT MEANS A THAT MEANS A WHOLE LOT TO KNOW that that you aren't in some mud hole trying to fight for something that nobody else gives a damn, but that every that your fellow your fellow Negroes are with you, and that means an awful lot to anyone who's fighting for something for an ideal. I might be going out on a limb, but I do believe there is a lot of respect for this movement. Hunter College students sympathetic to the sit-ins rally around NAACP official Jim Farmer and Jackie Robinson and tomorrow's victory. Truth shall make us free. Truth shall make us free. Truth shall make us free someday. Deep in my heart, I do believe truth shall make us free someday. We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday. Deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome someday.