Race Relations: How Far Have We Come In 50 Years?

Mississippi, Summer 1964

Missouri, Summer 2014

In the summer of 1964, the state of Mississippi was ablaze with danger and protests over the treatment of black citizens there. Today, 50 summers later, the situation is much the same, but this time the location afire is Missouri.

In both cases, killing was a catalyst for the outrage. In Mississippi, it was the murder of 3 Civil Rights movement workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner by members of the Ku Klux Klan. In Ferrguson, Mo., it was the shooting death of a young black man, Michael Brown, by a white police officer.

To understand the situation unfolding in Ferguson, you have merely to turn on your television set. But if you live in the DC area, you might want to consider visiting the Newseum to view the exhibit 1964: Civil Rights at 50 so you can consider the 2 confrontations and what as a package they say about America.

The Newseum exhibit is divided into 4 sections. They are:

• The Civil Rights Act
• Freedom Summer: Prepping for Trouble
• Freedom Summer: Mississippi Burning
• Freedom Summer:  The Fight for Voting Rights

In conjunction with the exhibit, the Newseum held a special program with participants in the Mississippi Freedom Summer in June. Two of the key speakers claimed that America is backsliding on Civil Rights and issued warnings that seem highly prophetic in light of the Jefferson situation.

"We are not a country that wants to own its history," said Bob Moses, Freedom Summer organizer and former head of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). "We have to ask - are we a country that pays attention to its history? We're not out of this, not by a long shot."

Rita Schwerner Bender, the widow of the slain Michael Schwerner, said "We are at a very dangerous 

place in this country. We need to know where we were to know where we are now."

Georgia Congressman and noted Civil Rights era leader John Lewis has also spoken on race issues at the Newseum. Last week, on Meet the Press, Lewis said images emerging from Ferguson "looked like it was Baghdad"  and called the situation a "shame and a disgrace." 

"People have a right to protest, people have a right to engage in peaceful nonviolent action and the press has a right to cover what is going on. We have to get police officers and local elected officials to respect the dignity and worth of every human being," said Lewis, who was severely beaten and arrested numerous times during 1960s protests.

Perhaps the most telling connection between the 2 outbreaks separated by 50 years is the wording contained in the Newseum exhibition. In 1964, the activist protesters in Mississippi fully expected to be arrested and carried $500 in bail money. The Mississippi police meanwhile stockpiled more tear gas and riot guns. Change Mississippi to Missouri and add 50 years, you could write the same sentence. Except I imagine bail is more than $500 today.

DC's Ties to Freedom Summer

Welcome to this week's Friday Flashback. Each Friday in the Flashback we offer a post about some part of the past and its relationship to DC. Sometimes, we will write a new entry. Others times, we will showcase articles that previously appeared in The Prices Do DC or some other online publications. But no matter who does the writing, you can trust that you will learn something important from the Flashback. 

The 1964 Freedom Summer movement in Mississippi does not generally conjure up images of the nation’s capital. But a few of the organizers had strong ties to the District.

Long before Marion Barry became the “Mayor for Life” in Washington, D.C., he was a Civil Rights activist working with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.

To continue reading this post, which 1st appeared in Boundary Stones, click here.

Freedom Summer 1964 and Its Impacts Today

Welcome to this week's Friday Flashback. Each Friday in the Flashback we will offer a post about some part of the past and its relationship to DC. Sometimes, we will write a new entry. Others times, we will showcase articles that previously appeared in The Prices Do DC or some other online publications. But no matter who does the writing, you can trust that you will learn something important from the Flashback. 

While great strides were made during the Civil Rights Movement, America today is backsliding when its comes to protecting the rights of all its citizens, 2 leaders from that 1950s/1960s movement warned this week.

Bob Moses (photo by Bruce Guthrie)

Bob Moses, former head of the SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and Rita Schwerner Bender, the widow of slain civil rights worker James Schwerner, delivered their remarks following a premiere showing of part of the new documentary Freedom Summer at the Newseum. Both Moses and Schwerner Bender were featured in the film.

"We are not a country that wants to own its history," Moses said. "We have to ask - are we a country that pays attention to its history?"

Moses says that recent Supreme Court action overturning provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and individual state actions across the country suppressing voters' rights threaten democracy. ""We're not out of this, not by a long shot," Moses said.

The former SNNC leader said that America was established "on a Constitutional fault line" of freedom and slavery. "I think we are a country that lurches. In the 1950s and '60s we lurched forward, but in the '80s with (President Ronald) Reagan, we lurched backward. We have never agreed on the 14th and the 15th Amendments. We need an affirmative right to vote."

The Newseum is currently featuring an exhibit entitled Make Some Noise: Students and the Civil Rights Movement. Moses borrowed that title for his closing.

"The noise we should make is the Preamble to the Constitution. It says We, the People. It does not say We the President, or We the Congress, or We the Supreme Court. It just says We the People. It is a fact that this generation has got to bring about Constitutional citizenship for all the people in this country," Moses said.

Rita Schwerner Bender
(photo by Bruce Guthie)

Schwerner Bender said current trends in the country are disturbing. "We are at a very dangerous place in this country," Schwerner Bender said. "We need to know where we were to know where we are now."

She is convinced that racism was, and continues to be a problem, a major problem in America. Her former husband James and fellow civil rights workers Andrew Goodman and James Chaney were the subject of a massive manhunt after they were reported missing in Mississippi on this date in 1964. Eventually their bodies were discovered buried in a field, murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and a Mississippi deputy sheriff. "The investigation only happened because 2 of the 3 were white. That says a great deal about the racism that still exists in this country," Schwerner Bender said.

"The Civil Rights Movement created the space  in which some politics could happen, or maybe more accurately were forced to happen. Politicians were not so anxious then to take on their southern brothers," she said.

The situation is somewhat analogous to today, Schwerner Bender said. "A Congress that will not act is unacceptable," she said. "We have to demand rights for all our people before we slide back. We're not in a very good place right now and we need to make the noise so that the government has to do right by all of us."

Extra! Extra! Read All About It
More on the film Freedom Summer

Retracing a summer of terror. (from CNN)

Freedom Summer takes an in-depth look at the 1964 civil rights battle in Mississippi (from The Plain Dealer)

A half-century battle for voting rights. (from Consortium News)

Reliving 1964's Freedom Summer at the Newseum

This Polumbaum photo captures the essence of the era.

Even though he had fought in the South Pacific in World War II, photographer Ted Polumbaum was always very clear about the most frightening times of his life - those occurred 50 years ago when he was photographing the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi that came to be known as Freedom Summer.

"He was much more afraid in Mississippi than he ever was in World War II," Polumbaum's widow Nyna said this past weekend at the Newseum, where she and her daughter, Judy, appeared at an Inside Media taping to talk about Polumbaum's 1964 photos for Time magazine. Those photos captured the attempt of committed young southerners and northerners to register black voters in hate-filled towns all over Mississippi.

Earlier, Nyna had given more than 200,000 of her husband's photos to the Newseum and some of the most dramatic of those shots form the basis for the institution newest exhibit 1964: Civil Rights at 50.

Polumbaum began his documenting in Ohio, where the young white and black volunteers were being trained for what they were about to encounter. "They were told the government would not be able to help them at all," Nyna said. "They should be prepared to be beaten, shot, and maybe even killed."

In actuality, 3 of the volunteers did end up losing their lives, the victims of racists who were willing to take any measure to keep blacks from being able to vote. Chillingly, one of those subjects, 21-year-old Andrew Goodman is captured in one of Polumbaum's shots of the training. "Goodman was really good at playing the brutal Southern white racist," Nyna said. "I was always amazed at the enormous maturity and incredible bravery of these young people."

Nyna said her husband said the scariest personal moments came when he first arrived and stayed at a for-whites-only motel. "He was terrified going home at night to the white motel," Nyna said. "After that, he always stayed in black neighborhoods to be safer."

There was never any question that Polumbaum, long a social activist, would seek out the dangerous Mississippi assignment. "This was something that wasn't a new idea for him. He was committed and wanted to go," Nyna said. "He always said that this was one of the transformative events of his life."

Actually, Polumbaum's career in photography was the result of a stand he made during the time of the Communist witch hunts. After he returned to Yale University (where he and Nyna met) from World War II, Polumbaum had been active in the John Reed Club, an organization which tried to bring Marxist speakers to the New Haven campus.

After college, he was working in 1954 as a television news writer when U.S. marshals came to the Polumbaum's home to arrest Ted for "subversion in education." He invoked the 5th Amendment when he was forced to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was immediately blacklisted from TV and had to "find a new way to make a living." He returned to his earlier love of photography and then spent decades taking pictures of some of the biggest events of the times.

Nyna said she hopes that people will be inspired by the actions captured in her husband's photos, especially young people who have no real awareness of the sacrifices made in the name of Civil Rights.
"That history, which may be very much a blank to them, is really very much alive," she said. "The struggle is not yet over. There is still much more to do."