Freedom Facts and Firsts. Jessie Carney Smith
Texas, gathered “thousands” to be with families and friends. At one time 30,000 blacks gathered at Booker T. Washington Park in Limestone County, Texas (also known as Comanche Crossing), for the event.
The modern Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s reinvigorated Juneteenth celebrations, as many African American youths linked the freedom struggle to the historical struggles of their ancestors. Student demonstrators involved in the Atlanta civil rights campaign of the early 1960s wore Juneteenth freedom buttons. In 1968 Juneteenth received another regeneration through the Poor People’s March on Washington, when the Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy called for people of all races, creeds, economic levels, and professions to come to the nation’s capital to demonstrate support for the poor. At the end of the 1970s, Representative Al Edwards, a Democrat from Houston, introduced a bill to make Juneteenth a state holiday. The Texas legislature passed the bill in 1979, and Republican Governor William P. Clements Jr. signed it into law.
Texas made Juneteenth an official holiday on January 1, 1980, and it became the first state to grant Juneteenth government recognition. Several states have since issued proclamations recognizing the holiday, but the Lone Star State remains alone in granting it full state holiday status. Today, Juneteenth is promoted not only as a commemoration of African American freedom, but also as an example of self-development and respect for all cultures. June 19 celebrations reinforce the idea that the Emancipation Proclamation did not bring immediate freedom to American blacks, but that true freedom was a protracted struggle lasting many generations.
Linda T. Wynn
Protests
Albany Movement (1961–1962)
The city became a focal point for one of the first large-scale community protests against segregation after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. These efforts involved a coalition of organizations, including the NAACP youth chapter at Albany State College, the Baptist Ministers’ Alliance, the Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led by Martin Luther King Jr. The coalition tested the Interstate Commerce Commission ruling outlawing segregation in public transportation facilities at the Albany bus terminal on November 22, 1961. Albany State students attempting to use the “whites-only” waiting room and restaurant were arrested and jailed; two students were expelled from the college for their participation, leading to additional protests against school administrators. A second attempt was made on December 10 by an integrated group of SNCC activists who were also arrested. More protest rallies and marches led to mass arrests, but the subdued actions of Albany Police Chief Laurie Pritchett limited negative press coverage. King came to lend his support on December 15 and was also arrested. Protests continued through the spring and summer of 1962 with limited success. King and others learned important strategic lessons from the protests, however, and young activists such as Cordell and Bernice Johnson Reagon emerged from the Albany Movement.
Fletcher F. Moon
Atlanta Race Riot (1906)
This event was part of the larger context of violence directed toward blacks during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In Georgia, the racial climate was such that white supremacy values dominated the rhetoric and platform of the Democratic gubernatorial contest between Hoke Smith and Clark Howell. The five local newspapers controlled by whites published sensationalized and unsubstantiated reports of white women being raped by black men, as well as allegations of other destructive behavior by blacks against whites in the 18 months preceding the outbreak of violence. Black sections of the city were characterized as breeding grounds for vice and became the focus of a “crusade” against the supposed negative influences on the rest of the city. On September 22, 1906, a mob of whites gathered on Decatur Street in Atlanta, then moved toward the center of the city, attacking blacks and destroying their businesses on Auburn Street in the heart of the African American community, as well as other property owned and used by blacks in the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods. The violence continued until September 27, as the reported size of the mob grew from several dozen whites to as many as 5,000 and spread to Brownsville, a black middle class suburban area of the city.
Local police and state militia on the scene did little to restrain the violence.
Local police and state militia on the scene did little to restrain the violence, offering virtually no protection to the blacks being victimized and in some cases actually joining the mob in the mayhem and destruction. Twenty-five people died as a result of the riot, with hundreds more injured, thousands fleeing the city in fear, and an untold amount of property damage and loss. Hundreds of homes were burned, leaving over a thousand people homeless, while businesses were also looted by the mob before being subjected to other destructive actions. No mass arrests of whites took place during or after the riot, despite the numerous instances of mob violence and criminal behavior, much of which was done in the presence of law enforcement authorities. Booker T. Washington and some other black leaders gathered afterwards in Washington, D.C., to address the rebuilding of areas affected by the riot. W.E.B. Du Bois, an Atlanta resident at the time, channeled his anger and frustration into the creation of the poem “The Litany of Atlanta.” Du Bois and many other African Americans saw the Atlanta riot and similar acts by whites as proof that racial intolerance would continue, that blacks did not receive “equal protection” under the laws of the land, and that the accommodation and self-help philosophy of Washington could not work in a climate of racial hatred.
Fletcher F. Moon
Back to Africa Movement
Efforts to move Africans and people of African descent in the United States back to Africa began in the early part of the nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth. Fostered by news and rumors of planned revolts, white Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries began to see free black people and newly freed slaves as a problem. Some white Americans believed, as did many African Americans, that black people could not achieve equality in the United States. While the majority of free African American leaders in the nineteenth century were against a movement back to Africa—also known as colonization—there were some African Americans in favor of emigration and the establishment of a new black homeland. The most prominent advocate of these efforts in the early nineteenth century was Paul Cuffe. A wealthy businessman, Cuffe transported 38 Africans from the United States to Liberia. In 1817 he met with an untimely death; this was the same year the American Colonization Society was established. This society was established by white Americans in an effort to solve the “problem” of the free black presence through the establishment of a Liberian settlement. The most well-known champion of the back to Africa movement was black nationalist Marcus Garvey, a twentieth-century advocate. Garvey, like other proponents of the back to Africa movement, believed black people could not achieve equality in the United States. He claimed that all people should have their own homeland, and Africa belonged to black people. He hoped that his organizations, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Black Star Shipping Line, would help to make the dream of a mass emigration to Africa possible. However, once deported from the United States, his plans for the movement were never realized.
Rebecca S. Dixon
Birmingham Bus Boycott (1956)
The Birmingham Bus Boycott was one of the first actions of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), which was founded by the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth when the NAACP was banned in the state of Alabama. Initially, it requested the hiring of black policemen for the black community. This request finally necessitated a lawsuit against Birmingham’s Personnel Board to make civil service jobs available to all. Subsequently, all “white only” signs were removed, but no blacks were