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Muhammad Ali's Speech at Howard University, 1967

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Muhammad Ali in 1967 (World Journal Tribune photo by Ira Rosenberg, Library of Congress)Muhammad Ali in 1967 (World Journal Tribune photo by Ira Rosenberg, Library of Congress) The PBS documentary The Trials of Muhammad Ali, which airs on WETA on Monday, April 14, 2014 at 10 p.m., covers the boxing champ's struggles outside the ring during the tumultuous mid-1960s, when his refusal to serve in the military during the Vietnam War led to him being stripped of his title, and nearly cost him his freedom. The program also explores Ali's involvement in the Black Power movement of the 1960s, and his emergence as a symbol of protest and dissent for young people of that time. 

Ali's duality as a firebrand activist and a revolutionary icon is examplified, in some ways, by his controversial appearance at Howard University in April 22, 1967, where he gave a speech to African-American students just days before he refused induction in the armed forces, which led to his indictment and conviction for draft evasion. 

Ali, thanks to his name-changing religious conversion and poetry-spouting braggadocio — an act which he actually developed by studying flamboyant wrestler Gorgeous George — already was a provocative figure in popular culture when the government's changing of his draft status in 1966 thrust him into the growing turmoil over the Vietnam War. In some ways, Ali's morphing into an antiwar figure was forced up on him. According to New York Times reporter Robert Lipsyste, who was with Ali the day that the boxer got the news, he was hounded by other journalists who called to badger him about his position on the war — was he a hawk or a dove? Would he be willing to kill a Vietnamese? — until he finally lost his cool. "Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong," he finally blurted. The offhand remark became the headline, and Ali suddenly found himself being denounced by sportswriters such as Red Smith, who likened him to "those unwashed punks who picket and demonstrate," and Murray Robinson, who demanded that "boxing should throw Clay (Ali) out on his inflated head."

But on college campuses across America, the outspoken boxer just as quickly became a hero. That was especially true at the District's Howard University, then a century-old traditionally black school that had long prided itself on producing students who could compete against the obstacles thrown up by a still-segregated American society. But as detailed in a the classic PBS documentary on the Civil Rights movement, Eyes on the Prize, a new generation of students at Howard was discontented by the status quo, and unhappy about Howard's lack of courses on black history and culture. In October 1966, they made a statement by electing as homecoming queen Robin Gregory, an activist who wore her hair in the natural Afro style that had become a symbol of black self-expression. The following April, the student Black Power Committee invited Ali to come to the campus and speak to students on the subject of African-American identity.

Four days prior to the speech, according to a Washington Post article published on April 22, 1967, the Howard campus was torn by strife, as scores of students marched in a Black Power rally and burned effigies of Selective Service director Lewis B. Hershey, Howard president James M. Nabrit, Jr., and liberal arts dean Frank Snowden. According to Ali biographer David West, University officials denied the committee an indoor venue, so Ali gave his speech on the steps of Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall, a national landmark designed by early 20th Century African-American architect Albert Cassell. According to the Washington Post's contemporary account of the event, about 800 students attended, though other sources put the crowd at more than 1,000. Ali waved a copy of a Nation of Islam newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, whose headline was "JUSTICE ON TRIAL." Except for two Howard security guards, there were no police in attendance, though six officers from the Civil Disturbance Unit stayed on call at the nearby 13th Precinct station.

The great athlete, so celebrated for his verbal flamboyance and clever turns of phrases, didn't disappoint. Ali gave what became known as his "Black is Best" speech, in which he exhorted students to abandon society's concept of them and to fashion their own, based upon pride in themselves and their people:

All you need to do is know yourself to set yourself free. We don't know who we are. We call ourselves negroes, but have you ever heard of a place called Negroland?

Ali blamed African-Americans' sense of inferiority upon a white dominated society that ignored them and their achievements, as if if they didn't exist — a message reminiscient of Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel Invisible Man, but delivered through a strident onslaught of metaphors more characteristic of Malcolm X. 

See, we have been brainwashed. Everything good and of authority was made white. We look at Jesus, we see a white with blond hair and blue eyes. We look at all the angels, we see white with blond hair and blue eyes. Now, I'm sure if there's a heaven in the sky and the colored folks die and go to heaven, where are the colored angels? They must be in the kitchen preparing the milk and honey. We look at Miss America, we see white. We look at Miss World, we see white. We look at Miss Universe, we see white. Even Tarzan, the king of the jungle in black Africa, he's white!

Ali added:

The white tries to show the white as all-good. All the good cowboys ride wide horses. Angel food cake is white and devil's food cake is chocolate.

That conspiracy, he railed, concealed the truth — again, delivered in hyperbolic, almost comic metaphor:

Black dirt is the best dirt. Brown sugar causes fewer cavities, and the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.

For the most part, the Howard students — some clad in traditional African garb that the Post called "togas and shawls," and brandishing copies of Algerian writer Frantz Fanon's call to arms The Wretched of the Earth— seemed to eat it up. As the Post noted, Ali's contingent of bodyguards had difficulty restraining the surging audience from enveloping Ali. Shouts of "Tell it like it is!" and "Hear the word" erupted from his listeners. The boxer exorted them to "seek out" the teachings of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Ali told them that he had 28 invitations from leaders of Muslim countries across the globe.

I am the brother of more than 600 million followers of Allah. You are living in the last days of hell in this country.

At the end of his speech, in what the Post called an "off-key voice," Ali launched into a rendition of a song called "A White Man's Heaven is a Black Man's Hell," originally recorded by Louis Farrakhan in 1955. The lyrics indicted whites for enslaving black Africans, stealing their natural resources and destroying their culture. 

Before we came to America
We were living in the East by the Nile River
We were living in luxury
Enjoying freedom, justice, and equality
We wore silken robes, slippers of gold
We were the wealthiest and the wisest people, I'm told
Now we are the poorest of the poor
Nobody wants us at their door
So my friend, it's easy to tell
White man's heaven is black man's hell
 
Afterward, Ali lingered to hold a brief question-and-answer session with the students. One Washingtonian, a man named William Battle, offered to take Ali's place in the military for $1,000. "No, brother, your life is worth more than $1,000," Ali responded. He then stayed around for more than an hour, giving autographs. Later he made another brief appearance at 12th and U Streets, where a woman rushed out of a nearby beauty shop to meet him. "He sure is fine," the woman reportedly said , while rubbing Ali's hand.
 
"Be good now, I'm your brother," Ali cautioned her. 
 
Ali then headed back to his hotel room at the Washington Hilton. The next day, he made another appearance at the Reformatory and Youth Center in Lorton, Va., where he spoke to prisoners. 
 
Marion Jackson of the Atlanta Daily World, an African-American newspaper, explained, Ali "can be more effective than Stokely Carmichael in firing up a crowd. He is as motivated a pulpiteer as Martin Luther King, Jr."
 
Six days after his speech at Howard, Ali went to Houston, showed up at a U.S. Army office and refused to be inducted in the military, despite warnings that he would be charged with draft evasion.
 
A snippet of film footage of Ali's Howard University speech can be seen at 6:35 in this video. 
 

 

 

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Petey Greene Talks Down the Riots, 1968

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Photo of Petey Greene (Wikipedia)Petey Greene had a gift for words and he used them to calm Washington, D.C. during the riots that ravaged the city in 1968.“God gave me a talent, and that talent was verbal skills”[1]. Critically acclaimed as America’s first “shock jock,” Petey Greene had the mouth and charisma to roar in the ears of people in the streets of Washington, D.C. His impact was no more apparent than in August of 1968 during the aftermath of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.

Running down the streets outraged, a group of about thirty young people burst into a drug store. “Martin Luther King is dead,” they shouted. “Close the store down!”[2]. 26-year old Stokely Carmichael, former chairman of the SNNC and the initiator of the what became the “Black Power Movement” in 1967, led Washington, D.C. civilians down the streets demanding that all businesses close out of respect of the death of King.

Although the initial goal was to maintain peace, things quickly went out of Carmichael’s hands. Emotions boiled and violence broke out.  

Carmichael’s group ran into Walter Fauntroy, then an SCLC official, and Fauntroy reportedly said, “This is not the way to do it Stokely. Let’s not get anyone hurt. Let’s cool it” [3]. Carmichael responded, “All we’re asking them to do is close down the stores”. However, the situation had escalated into a full fledged riot.

Violence took over the U-Street corridor for three days as an estimated 20,000 people were involved in the rioting; there were 12 riot-connected deaths[4] and the city lay smoldering. But even as the fires and looting spread, a calming voice on the radio started to break through the noise.

Petey Greene was the uncle of the African-American community in Washington, D.C. Born during the great depression; his young life was marked with drug addiction and imprisonment on robbery[5]. But, while in prison at Lorton Reformatory, he developed a following from prisoners and guards alike for his wit and cutting language, which he honed on the prison’s public address system.

Upon his release from Lorton in 1965, Greene turned to changing the lives of people and the perspectives of black culture on the radio, landing a job at Washington’s R&B station, WOL 1450 AM. His challenging humor and social awareness made it easy for him to connect with members of the black community who he described as being “real poor.”

Sharing the anger that many felt over Dr. King’s death, Greene used his position and fame to channel that anger into something else. On air for hours as the riots raged, he urged peace. His message was remembered in the 2008 Independent Lens documentary “Adjust Your Color”: “I don’t know why we hate each other, we find it so easy to hate when it’s really hard…but as long as you’re hating you are tearing yourself down mentally and financially.”

Greene’s words were heard, as many credited him for helping bring an end to the riots.

He remained a powerful voice in the District for years afterward, first on radio and then on television. Greene used wit and cutting language that would immediately catch the listener’s ear; and his programs showed different perspectives of black culture. He never shied away from controversial issues like sexual abuse, race, and social activism and his broadcasts included a range of topics relating to everyday life of African-Americans – everything from lessons on teaching whites how to eat a watermelon to his famous theory of “Hustlin’ Backwards”.

"I'll tell it to the hot, I'll tell it to the cold. I'll tell it to the young, I'll tell it to the old. I don't want no laughin', I don't want no cryin', and most of all, no signifyin'. This is Petey Greene's Washington." Petey Greene, a voice that was always heard. 



[1] James Hablin. “How Not to Eat a Watermelon.” The Atlantic (2013): 1. Aug 23. Web. 7 May 2014.

[2] David Ginsburg A Washington attorney, The Washington,Post Co. "The Story of  Washington's April Riots."The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Nov 02 1968. ProQuest. Web. 7 May 2014.

[3] James Hablin. “How Not to Eat a Watermelon.” The Atlantic (2013): 1. Aug 23. Web. 7 May 2014.

[4] Leonard D.,Jr. "1968 FLAMES OF OUTRAGE."The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 5. Apr 09 1978. ProQuest. Web. 7 May 2014.

[5] Richard Traub. “HE BUILDS NEW LIFE THROUGH OWN EFFORT.” The Free-Lance Star (1977): 2. Jan 11 1977. GoogleArchives. Web. 7 May 2014.

 

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D.C.'s Ties to Freedom Summer

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Prior to coming to Washington, Marion Barry was a leader within SNCC.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.

In 1964, SNCC focused efforts on black voter registration and education in Mississippi, which had the lowest percentage of African-Americans registered to vote in the country (a startling 6.7% as of 1962). The group recruited hundreds of volunteers from college campuses across the nation to come to the state to canvass.

Marion Barry worked as a field secretary in Mississippi along with SNCC leader Bob Moses. At the time, the state’s Democratic party was limited to whites only. To expand black political participation, Moses and others founded an alternative caucus, which they called the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Barry then took on the job of promoting the new non-discriminatory party throughout the country.

As Barry remembered in 2011, “We had a division of SNCC between direct action and voter registration. But we decided those who wanted to do direct action, do that, those who wanted to do voter’s registration do that. We were all field secretaries for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.”[1]

 “I stopped in Greenwood first that’s where we had our first major project. And I took the bus with Reggie Robinson… and we went to McComb,” Barry said in an interview with Telling Their Stories. “We had this philosophy in SNCC of living with the local people. Not living in the hotels, not living in the motels, but with the people. If you live with the people, they will protect you.” [2]

Protection and personal safety was a very real concern. While the state motto claimed Mississippi was “The Hospitality State,” it was anything but that in the summer of 1964. Racism was entrenched and many in the white community sought to intimidate the volunteers with violence.

Just days before the Freedom Summer voter registration movement was set to begin, civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman disappeared outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi. In an area known for Klan activity, many feared the worst. Federal investigators and the national media flocked to the area. When the murdered bodies of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman were discovered buried in an earthen dam weeks later, these fears were confirmed.

As SNCC Field Secretary Charles E. Cobb, Jr., explained, the killings were “an example of what we had really been talking to volunteers about before the three were missing, that you are going in to a murderously violent state and you have to understand that the danger affects you every day, all day long.”[3]

Linda Wetmore Helpern, a volunteer during the campaign remembered, “The vile and absolute hatred that was in their eyes when they saw us coming… it scared me.”[4]

The violence continued over the course of the summer. 70 homes and community centers were bombed. 35 churches were burned[5]. Workers were beaten, the victims were too numerous to be accounted for.

But, despite the dangers, the workers pressed on.

Cobb, who was born in the District and attended Howard University, spearheaded the development of “Freedom Schools,” a network of 30 to 40 voluntary schools that worked to help African-Americans articulate their demands.

“Negro education in Mississippi is the most inadequate and inferior in the state,” Cobb wrote in his Freedom Schools proposal in 1963. “Mississippi’s impoverished educational system is also burdened with virtually a complete absence of freedom, and students are forced to live in an environment that that is geared to squash intellectual curiosity, and different thinking.”[6]

The Freedom Schools operated on a basis of close interaction and mutual trust between teachers and students. The core of the curriculum focused on black history, literacy, civil rights, political processes, arithmetic, and the summer freedom movement.

Pam Parker, a teacher in the Holly Springs School wrote about the experience, “The atmosphere in the class is unbelievable. It is what every teacher dreams about — real, honest enthusiasm and desire to learn anything and everything. The girls come to class of their own free will. They respond to everything that is said. They are excited about learning. They drain me of everything that I have to offer so that I go home at night completely exhausted but very happy in spirit..."[7]

The aftermath of Freedom Summer ultimately did not result in registering many African-Americans to vote, but its impact in the civil rights movement was seen and felt.

“The most amazing thing about that summer is this: We Won,” reflected Bob Mandel, a civil rights worker in Clarksdale, Mississippi. “Not then, but eventually. And when we got to Mississippi, we didn’t know that. We could have brought more trouble to these people than it was worth.”[8]

For more on the Freedom Summer of 1964, be sure to check out the new documentary from American Experience.



[4] Dawidsiak, Mark. “‘Freedom Summer’ takes in-depth look at 1964 Civil Rights battle in Mississippi.” Cleveland.com.. Accessed Jun 21 2014.

[5] Dawidsiak, Mark. “‘Freedom Summer’ takes in-depth look at 1964 Civil Rights battle in Mississippi.” Cleveland.com.. Accessed Jun 21 2014.

[7]Mississippi Freedom Summer-- 1964. Civil Rights Movement Veterans. Cmvet.org.

[8] Booth, William. “Reflections of Freedom Summer; In '64, They Battled Racism in Mississippi. This Weekend, They Returned to See the Result.” The Washington Post. 27 Jun 1994.

 

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Joan Mulholland: Arlington's Homegrown Activist

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Joan Muholland mugshot after her arrest in Jackson, Mississippi in 1961. (Photo source: Joan Muholland)Joan Muholland mugshot after her arrest in Jackson, Mississippi in 1961. (Photo source: Joan Muholland) What are you doing tonight? Hopefully you're planning on going to the Arlington Historical Society's free public program with civil rights activist Joan Mulholland. It's tonight at 7pm at the Arlington County Central Library.

By the time she was 23, Mulholland had participated in more than fifty sit-ins and protests. She was a Freedom Rider, a participant in the near riotous Jackson, Mississippi Woolworth Sit-in, and helped plan and organize the March on Washington in 1963. On a local level, she was part of the first Arlington sit-ins, which integrated lunch counters across northern Virginia, and helped to coordinate demonstrations at Glen Echo Park, Bethesda's Hiser Theater amongst other locations.

During tonight's program, Mulholland will discuss her experiences and show clips from her son Loki’s film, An Ordinary Hero. She was kind enough to sit down with Boundary Stones and give us a preview of her talk. Check out the video below!

Joan Mulholland was born in Washington, D.C. in 1941, the daughter of a Midwestern father and a Southern mother. She grew up in Arlington, Virginia at a time when whites and blacks had very little contact. "We had absolutely no contact with Arlington's African American community back then except perhaps folks that were laborers, trash men... I don't really remember specifically but people that did the cutting the grass, picking up the trash were probably black. And there were maids that would come in, cleaning ladies, into the apartments from Washington, D.C., I believe. But it was a segregated way of life."

Despite the distance, young Joan recognized "the wide discrepancy in conditions for blacks and whites in the South," and had trouble reconciling it with the lessons that she had been taught at school and church.   "What we learned in Sunday school and in government class – 'We hold these truths to be self evident'– we were not practicing what we preached and I thought we should. So, in 1960, with the sit ins there was my chance."

While attending Duke University, she participated in her first sit-ins and was arrested twice, a fact that did not please the university administration. After dropping out of Duke in 1960, she returned home to Arlington and help the local Civil Rights effort spearheaded by the Non-violent Action Group based at Howard University. Then, in 1961, Mulholland answered the call for the jail-in in Rock Hill, South Carolina and, later, the Freedom Rides, which took her to Mississippi.

Her identity as a white woman in the movement created both opportunities and risks, as she told us in our interview:

"You had to use what you had. I could use my white skin to go into a lunch counter, sit down and get a lot of food and then when my black friends sat down next to me I could pass some over. I could go scope out a situation without being conspicuous. I mean I was a sweet young thing back then. I could be what we called a spotter at a demonstration. I could blend into a crowd and have my money, back before cell phones, have my dimes to phone back to the central location – the NAACP office or whatever. I could phone back and give a report. 'Things are calm. Things are getting out of hand. So-and-so just got pulled, beaten. They've been arrested and taken off.' That was a role.

"I could buy the tickets to get into Glen Echo.... Only whites could walk in and you had a have a ticket in hand to get on the ride. Well, on the merry-go-round, they went around and collected the tickets after you were on. They don't do that anymore. But, when it was strategic, my white skin could come in very handy. Other times it could be an endangerment and I was riding on the floor of the car with a blanket over me and people's feet on top of that. But... I was part of the movement by invitation of the blacks. So, it wasn't like I was busting into somebody else's party. I wasn't party crashing. But, pretty much we were all in danger."

Fascinating stuff, for sure, but Joan Mulholland's story is much too deep to cover in a short video and blog post. So come on out and hear her speak tonight at the Arlington Historical Society event.

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The Greatest Game Ever Played

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Lew Alcindor Dunk (Photo source: The Washington Star)Lew Alcindor throws down a slam dunk in the 1965 game between Power Memorial Academy and DeMatha Catholic at Cole Field House. Dematha won the game and ended Power Memorial's 71 game winning streak. (Photo source: The Washington Star) Some have called it the greatest high school basketball game ever played.

On January 30, 1965, before a packed house at the University of Maryland’s Cole Field House,  Dematha Catholic clashed with the aptly-named Power Memorial Academy out of New York City. Led by 7’1” center Lew Alcindor (who later became the all-time leading scorer in the history of the NBA as Kareem Abdul Jabbar), Power Memorial was riding a 71-game winning streak and had been tabbed as the mythical #1 high school team in the nation. (Official national rankings for high school basketball weren’t kept back then.)

Dematha, which had made a name for itself in the Washington area prep circuit under then 33-year-old coach Morgan Wooten, was no slouch either. The Stags were riding a 23-game winning streak of their own. Still, it was clear Wooten’s squad would have its hands full with the New Yorkers and, in particular, Alcindor, “a 17-year-old who is not only big but quick, smooth and agile” who was drawing comparisons to Wilt Chamberlain.[1] Dematha had witnessed Alcindor’s skills up close the previous season, when he had scored 35 points – over half his team’s total – against them in a 65-62 Power Memorial win.

To prepare for the rematch – and simulate the long arms of Alicindor – Wooten got creative with help from assistant coach (and future Dematha principal) John Moylan. “John was a tennis player and he suggested we use rackets during practice to simulate Abdul-Jabbar’s reach. So we ran our offense with everyone taking turns shooting with a higher trajectory. Abdul-Jabbar blocked a lot of shots and forced us to change our shots in the first game [in 1964]. This time, we weren’t intimidated by him.”[2]

Well, maybe they were still a little intimidated. As the Stags’ center Bob Whitmore – who was one of those tasked with guarding Alcindor – recalled: “[The two teams] had a pregame meal at DeMatha, and the priest asked everyone to stand for the prayer. He just kept going up and up and up. And my heart kept going down, down, down.”[3]

Fans rushed to buy tickets for the 1965 rematch and a capacity crowd of 12,500 filled Cole Field House on a snowy Saturday night.

The game lived up to expectations. After one quarter, Power Memorial held an 11-8 lead. At halftime DeMatha led 23-22. The second half was neck-and-neck. With 1:40 left in the game DeMatha led by two points when Sid Catlett hit a long jump shot and a free throw to extend the lead to five. The Stags held off Power Memorial for a 46-43 win.

The longest winning streak in the history of high school basketball was over, thanks largely to DeMatha’s collapsing defense on Lew Alcindor. With help from his teammates, Bob Whitmore had held the 7-footer to 16 points, far below his 30 points per game average. Years later, Jabbar reflected on the experience in his autobiography, “It had been a hard night…. I was unwilling to take my uniform off and admit the game was over. I was a little dazed.”[4]

The game firmly established DeMatha as one of the top prep basketball programs in the country, and garnered the Washington, D.C. region more attention from college coaches who had previously concentrated their recruiting efforts on Philadelphia and New York City. Wooten put it like this: “Our win over Abdul-Jabbar and Power then gave us a reputation as a basketball area. The influx of college coaches coming here really began after that.”[5] The increased interest opened up more opportunities for area players to earn basketball scholarships to play in college. In addition, the game ushered in a new era for high school basketball nationally, where teams from different regions began to play one another more often and there were national rankings.

The impacts also extended beyond the hardwood. As Catlett pointed out in a recent interview with The Washington Post, the game had greater significance in light of what was going on in the country at the time: “What was taking place politically — Selma, voting rights — when you place that event and the gathering and the diverse family of people who were in attendance at that game, that was certainly an indication of social advancement, I believe, to its highest.” [6] Diversity was not restricted to the fans. Both teams were also integrated, which was not always the case at the time.

For more on the game and its legacy, check out the Post's retrospective article and video with Morgan Wooten. Also, enjoy this collection of vintage highlights from the game (and its awesome soundtrack).

 

 



[1] Lamborne, Doug, “12,500 See DeMatha, Power Clash Tonight,” The Washington Post, 30 Jan 1965: D1.

[2] Huff, Donald, “Dematha 46, Power 43: Alcindor, Team Came Down to Earth as Stags, Wooten Began Their Rise,” The Washington Post, 30 Jan 1985.

[3] Levy, Bob, “Bob Levy's Potomac Journal: Beating the ‘Tower of Power’,” The Washington Post, 26 Jan 1978: MD1.

[4] Huff, Donald, “Dematha 46, Power 43: Alcindor, Team Came Down to Earth as Stags, Wooten Began Their Rise,” The Washington Post, 30 Jan 1985.

[5] Huff, Donald, “Dematha 46, Power 43: Alcindor, Team Came Down to Earth as Stags, Wooten Began Their Rise,” The Washington Post, 30 Jan 1985.

[6] Giannato, Mark, “The day DeMatha basketball toppled Power Memorial: 50 years ago, the Stags beat Lew Alcindor in a high school game for the ages,” The Washington Post, 30 Jan 2015.

 

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Malcolm X's Unlikely Washington Connections

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Malcolm X in 1964. (Photo source: Library of Congress.)Though based in New York, Malcolm X traveled widely in the early 1960s, and Washington was the site of two seemingly unlikely connections for him. (Photo source: Library of Congress.) In the early 1960s, Malcolm X traveled widely preaching black separatism on behalf of the Nation of Islam and – after splitting from the group in 1964 – promoting a more moderate vision for American race relations. So, it's no surprise that he came to the nation's capital on a number of occasions.

In fact, D.C. was the site of the only known in-person meeting between Malcolm and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which was significant considering the two leaders' very public differences on approaches to the civil rights movement. Malcolm once called King "Rev. Dr. Chicken-wing" in a not-so-subtle critique of non-violent civil disobedience.

But when both were in town on March 26, 1964 during the Congressional debate over the proposed Civil Rights Act they staged a made-for-the-cameras meeting in the U.S. Capitol. As Garrett Febler, who worked with Manning Marable on his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Malcolm, told The Washington Post: “Malcolm was pushed out awkwardly by an associate from behind a pillar. Standing in front of King, whom he had described as an ‘Uncle Tom,’ Malcolm shook hands with King before the press.”

But, as strange as the photo-op with King seemed at the time, Malcolm made headlines with an even more unlikely connection in Washington a few years earlier.

On June 25, 1961, the Nation of Islam held a rally for Black Muslims at Washington's Uline Arena. The headline speaker was supposed to be Elijah Muhummad but a bout with bronchitis kept him away. So, the NOI went to plan B. “Taking as his theme Muhammad's pre-announced speech, 'Separation or Death,' Malcolm X, a tall, lean, dynamic speaker, hit hard at the 'so-called Negro' in America who has been 'brainwashed' into a desire for integration.”[1]

From the podium, Malcolm preached, “We are not for integration. We are not for segregation. But what?” The crowd shouted, “Separation!”[2]

Malcolm continued, “America is the last bulwark of white supremacy. Forced integration will not work. We are fed up with segregation. What we want now is immediate separation... The white man is captain of his own ship. All we want to do is get out of your ship and into our own. If we stay here any longer we're liable to capsize your boat.”[3]

The message resonated with the spectators, most of whom had traveled to Washington from other parts of the country. Despite the near capacity crowd, the appeal of the event was somewhat muted in the local community, as the Washington Afro-American observed: “The rally apparently made no impact on Washington's colored population since at least half of the audience ere [sic] followers of the Muslim movement.”[4]

George Lincoln Rockwell, shown here in 1951, founded the American Nazi Party in Arlington, Virginia and forged an odd alliance with Black Muslims in the early 1960s. (Photo source: Wikipedia)George Lincoln Rockwell, shown here in 1951, founded the American Nazi Party in Arlington, Virginia and forged an odd alliance with Black Muslims in the early 1960s. (Photo source: Wikipedia) There was, however, one prominent – if also surprising – attendee from the local community. George Lincoln Rockwell, whose American Nazi Party operated out of a home in Arlington, made the short trip to the rally with about 20 of his storm troopers.

Most might assume that Nazis showing up at a rally for 8,000 blacks would do so with the intent to protest or demonstrate... or worse. But when the group arrived at Uline, they were escorted to prime seats close to the stage. (See photo on RareHistoricalPhotos.com)

As Malcolm X addressed the crowd, Rockwell applauded enthusiastically. When the black leader called for the crowd to fill collection buckets “for separation,” Rockwell pulled out his wallet.

From the stage, Malcolm announced gifts as they came in, “$20 from who? George Lincoln Rockwell! Good to have it!”

The crowd erupted in applause. Malcolm joked, “We got $20 from George Lincoln Rockwell and you got the biggest hand you ever got didn't you, Mr. Rockwell?” More applause. Check out the video of the exchange below.

Not surprisingly, the assembled press wondered about Rockwell's motivations. The Nazi leader told them that he considered Muslims to be “black Nazis” and that he thought that with a separate society for Black Muslims “Muhammad has the answer for my people”.[5] (It probably goes without saying that by “his people,” he meant whites.) Rockwell's only qualm was the location for the proposed black separatist society: ‘‘They want a chunk of America and I prefer that they go to Africa.”[6]

Rockwell's involvement with the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X was not limited to the Uline rally. He and the ANP attended a number of other NOI events in 1961 and 1962 and even addressed the crowd on occasion. As he recounted in his Rockwell Report newsletter, “On February 25, 1962, I stood up in full Nazi uniform before 12,500 Black Muslims and gave an all-out speech calling for the geographical separation o f the races, with America's 'foreign aid' going to our own Negro people rather than to Red and 'neutralist' nations which hate us, shoot up and imprison our citizens and spit in our faces. Again and again my speech was interrupted by applause and cheers from these thousands of Black men and women.”[7]

For his part, Malcolm X grew increasingly uncomfortable with the NOI's relationship with the Nazis. After breaking with Elijah Muhummad and making a pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm began to consider new avenues toward black advancement in America. On February 16, 1965, he announced he had “shifted my attack to Rockwell and the Klan,” because he had seen the NOI make agreements with white supremacists, which were not in the best interests of blacks in America.[8] Five days later, he was assassinated by Nation of Islam gunmen at Harlem's Audubon Ballroom.



[1]Stone, Chuck, "'8,000 turn out to hear Muslims, "Washington Afro American, 27 Jun 1961: 1,8.

[2]Johnson, Haynes, “Prophet Stays Home: U.S. Muslims Rally for Eijah [sic],” The Evening Star, 26 Jun 1961: A-1, A-6.

[3]Johnson, Haynes, “Prophet Stays Home: U.S. Muslims Rally for Eijah [sic],” The Evening Star, 26 Jun 1961: A-1, A-6.

[4]Johnson, Haynes, “Prophet Stays Home: U.S. Muslims Rally for Eijah [sic],” The Evening Star, 26 Jun 1961: A-1, A-6.

[5]Stone, Chuck, "'8,000 turn out to hear Muslims, "Washington Afro American, 27 Jun 1961: 1,8.

[6]"George Lincoln Rockwell and members of the American Nazi Party attend a Nation of Islam summit, 1961" Rare Historical Photos website. Posted 5 Dec 2013. Accessed 21 Feb 2015.

[7]Malcolmology 101, #14: The NOI and George Lincoln Rockwell,” A Life of Reinvention: Malcolm X website. Posted 7 Mar 2011. Accessed 21 Feb 2015.

[8]“Malcolm Accuses Muslims of Blaze; They Point to Him,” New York Times, 16 Feb 1965: 18.

 

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Remembering the Summer of 1960 at Glen Echo

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Picketers, including future Maryland State Senator Gwendolyn Greene Britt, stand outside Glen Echo Park in 1960. (Photo source: National Park Service)Picketers, including future Maryland State Senator Gwendolyn Greene Britt, stand outside Glen Echo Park in 1960. (Photo source: National Park Service) You might not immediately associate roller coasters with racial equality, but more than three years before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington, Maryland’s Glen Echo Park was a focal point of the Civil Rights Movement. It made sense: since its opening in 1899, Glen Echo had been the premier amusement park for white Washingtonians. The park featured a number of modern roller coasters, a miniature railway, a Ferris wheel, an amphitheater, a pool: everything and more that other parks provided.[1]

But for all these years that the park enjoyed immense success, black children rode streetcars past the flashy rides and were denied access. Since 1940, the only amusement park that catered to African Americans in the area, Suburban Gardens, had been closed.[2] For the next 20 years, there existed no real leisure activities for blacks that were comparable with Glen Echo.

White children enjoy Glen Echo's Crystal Pool in the summer of 1935. (Photo source: Library of Congress)White children enjoy Glen Echo's Crystal Pool in the summer of 1935. (Photo source: Library of Congress) So in the summer of 1960, fresh off their successful effort to integrate Arlington’s lunch counters, Howard University student protesters and a biracial contingent from the community set their sights on desegregating the park. Joan Mulholland, a white activist who played a role in the protest and in later Civil Rights demonstrations, recognized the importance of integrating Glen Echo. “Going [there] was sort of a summer ritual,” she said in an interview with Maryland’s Gazette. “But of course it was all whites. So it was a pretty big symbol.”[3]

The picketing began the evening of June 30th. The Howard students, mostly members of the Nonviolent Action Group (N.A.G.), were led by Laurence Henry, a 26-year-old divinity student. Many of them, including Henry, had been involved in organizing and participating in previous local protests. Inspired by the Greensboro sit-ins of February 1960, they strove to achieve change without the use of violence. At 6 p.m., they gathered at the entrance of Glen Echo with placards that read “Glen Echo Should Echo Democracy,” “End Jim Crow at Glen Echo” and “Bigotry is No Fun.”[4]

Right off the bat, the protest differed from prior demonstrations. The 28 Howard students found considerable support in the white residents of nearby Bannockburn, and together they formed a diverse crowd of more than 60.[5] With the help of these community members, such as Mulholland, students left their placards at the gate and gained access to the park for the first time that same night. They headed toward the lunch counter, but it immediately closed when those working saw the racial makeup of the crowd. They then went to the ice cream machine, but management locked it down for the same reasons. 13 students finally headed to the famous Dentzel Carousel and boarded the painted animals.

While on the merry-go-round, state-deputized security guard Frank Collins approached Henry. In a conversation captured by reporter Sam Smith, Collins asked Henry his race and demanded he leave the park. Henry’s response perfectly encapsulates the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement: “I would like to know why I cannot come into your park… My race? I belong to the human race.”[6]

Officer Frank Collins confronts Laurence Henry on Glen Echo's Dentzel Carousel on June 30, 1960. (Photo source: National Park Service)Officer Frank Collins confronts Laurence Henry on Glen Echo's Dentzel Carousel on June 30, 1960. (Photo source: National Park Service) Unfortunately this answer didn’t win over Collins. While Henry was not immediately arrested, five students were. William L. Griffin, Cecil T. Washington, Jr., Marvous Saunders, Michael A. Proctor, and future Maryland State Senator Gwendolyn Greene (Britt) were detained for trespassing, and the rest were asked to leave the park.[7] But the next day, they were back in full force at the front gate.  

The picketing continued throughout the summer and stayed relatively peaceful, despite counter-protesting from George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Henry and Paul D. Dietrich, a white George Washington University student, were arrested for a brief spat with Rockwell on July 3, but little came out of the dust up.[8] In general, the desegregationists far outnumbered the counter-protesters and found considerable support from the Glen Echo community. Things looked good. On July 5th Henry told the Washington Post: “The victory belongs to us… That park shall be opened by our effort. From this point it is just a matter of time.”[9]

The optimism was a bit premature. Protesters soon became frustrated that local authorities were taking little to no action in the desegregation of the park. In early July, they pressured the Montgomery County Council to pass legislation banning segregation in privately owned facilities that served the public, such as Glen Echo. Councilman Joe M. Kyle expressed his sympathy for the protesters, and stated, “they ought to be permitted to go where they want to go, but I’m not disposed to tell the management to run its business.”[10] Based on Maryland state law, the council did not have the authority to overrule the practices of a private company.

Determined to overcome this roadblock, the students decided to take their case to the next level. On July 8th, they filed a suit in the Federal District Court of Baltimore that sought “an injunction against the use of state police authority in enforcing the discriminatory policies of private concerns.”[11] In other words, they used what was held against them in the Montgomery County Council to their benefit: since Glen Echo Park was privately owned, the students argued that it had no authority to use public police forces for arrests. This legal counter-offensive was “expected to set an important precedent in civil rights.”[12]

By the end of the summer, it seemed some progress was finally being made. On September 13th, the Human Relations Committee of the Montgomery County Council, created to discuss the issues at Glen Echo, unanimously ruled that it would stop its bus service that transported white children to the park’s Crystal Pool until the pool was desegregated.[13] At the same time, those arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct at the park earlier in the summer were found innocent, and the judge chided police for the unfounded charges.[14]

But when the park closed for the summer, its owners had still refused to desegregate. While the students were making important legal progress, they found their final goal stunted by those who held the reigns at the privately owned park. As they left their placards that fall, they vowed to return at the park’s opening in the spring. One local protester said he was ready to “walk with the signs for another eight months if necessary.”[15]

That winter, Bannockburn resident Hyman Bookbinder, newly appointed assistant to Secretary of Commerce Luther Hodges, had a better idea. A small part of the park’s property was leased from the Federal Government. Using his governmental connection, Bookbinder appealed to U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and asked if the park’s lease could be revoked if they continued their policy of segregation.[16] It worked.

With Kennedy knocking at their door, Glen Echo Park owners Abraham and Sam Baker gave in to desegregation on March 14th, 1961. As of the park’s opening on March 31st, Glen Echo would be open to all races for the first time in its 52-year history.[17] And victory didn’t stop there. The case filed in the Federal Court of Baltimore made its way up to the Supreme Court. Almost four years after the protests began, Chief Justice Earl Warren overturned the trespass convictions on June 23rd, 1964. Attorney Joseph L. Rauh, Jr. argued that since the park police were agents of the state, “the state was involved in enforcing discrimination.”[18]

The events at Glen Echo Park the summer of 1960 and the ensuing achievements proved to be monumental for the Civil Rights Movement. Not only did the picketers make groundbreaking legal precedents and succeed in the integration of the park, many were inspired to participate in additional large-scale protests. One Howard University student and N.A.G. member, Dion Diamond, was an integral part of the Southern freedom rides and was arrested more than 30 times between 1961 and 1963.[19] And he, along with many others, can always point to Glen Echo as a starting place.

African American children enjoy cotton candy on the carousel after the desegregation of Glen Echo Park. (Photo source: National Park Service)African American children enjoy cotton candy on the carousel after the desegregation of Glen Echo Park. (Photo source: National Park Service)


[1] Cook, Richard A. “A General History of Glen Echo Park,” Cabin John, accessed 16 June 2015, glenecho-cabinjohn.com/GE-40.html

[2] Kelly, John, “Remembering Suburban Gardens: DC’s Only Amusement Park,” The Washington Post, 26 October 2013.

[3] Calamaio, Cody, “Glen Echo Park celebrates 50 years of integration,” Gazette, accessed 10 June 2015, www.gazette.net/stories/06232010/bethnew223927_32548.php

[4] McBee, Susanna and John Anderson, “5 Arrested in Glen Echo Sitdown: Negroes Protest Segregation at Amusement Park,” The Washington Post, 1 July 1960.

[5] Lawson, John, “Glen Echo Arrests 5 Negroes in Sit-In,” The Washington Evening Star, 1 July 1960.

[6]“A Summer of Change: The Civil Rights Story of Glen Echo Park,” NPS, accessed 9 June 2015, www.nps.gov/glec/learn/historyculture/summer-of-change.htm

[7] McBee, “5 Arrested…”

[8]“3 Convicted, 3 Acquitted in Bias Picketing Cases,” The Washington Post, 15 September 1960.

[9] Anderson, John and Kenneth Weiss, “Glen Echo Pickets Win Support: NAACP Officials Request Negroes to Back Action,” The Washington Post, 5 July 1960.

[10] McBee, “5 Arrested…”

[11]“Wilkins and Randolph join pickets at Glen Echo Park,” The Afro-American, 20 August 1960.

[12] Ibid.

[13]“Montgomery Ends Children’s Outings To Glen Echo Park,” The Washington Post, 14 September 1960.

[14]“3 Convicted…”

[15] Feeley, Constance, “Glen Echo Park Opens Its Doors to Negroes After Year of Protest,” The Washington Post, 15 March 1961.

[16] Ibid.

[17]“Integration Set at Glen Echo,” The Washington Evening Star, 14 March 1961.

[18]“Enforcing Discrimination With Agent Of State Is Key to Glen Echo Decision,” The Washington Post, 24 June 1964.

[19]“Crazy Dion Diamond: A 1960s Rights Warrior in the Suburbs,” Washington Area Spark, accessed 12 June 2015, washingtonspark.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/crazy-dion-diamond-a-1960s-rights-warrior-in-the-suburbs

 

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A Place for the Poor: Resurrection City

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Resurrection City spent six muddy weeks on the National Mall, within view of landmarks such as the Capitol. (Photo source: Wikipedia Commons)Resurrection City spent six muddy weeks on the National Mall, within view of landmarks such as the Capitol. (Photo source: Wikipedia Commons) In the early morning hours of June 23, 1968, thick clouds of tear gas rolled through a multitude of shacks on the National Mall.  This shantytown was Resurrection City, and its residents were the nation’s poor. As many ran from their shelters, they saw Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final dream of economic equality withering in the gas. They had been citizens of the city for six weeks, all the while campaigning for rights for the poor around DC. Now their work seemed all for naught. After an increase in violence and with an expiring living permit, the police had come to chase them out. Children were crying, adults screaming, and some were even vomiting. But amid the chaos, a song rang out: “we shall overcome.”

The idea of a movement for the poor was born in the fall of 1967 by King and other members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). It was officially announced as the Poor People’s Campaign in Atlanta on December 4.[1] After the success of the March on Washington and the passing of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the SCLC decided it was time to extend equality to the millions impoverished across the country. While the movement intended to include people of all ethnicities, it was inherently tied to race and many saw it as a continuation of the Civil Rights Movement.  A brochure for the campaign, entitled “Can America End Poverty?” blamed poor conditions on “racism and discrimination [that] cause families to be kept apart, men to become desperate, women to live in fear, and children to starve.”[2]

But above all, the Poor People’s Campaign sought to expand President Johnson’s 1964 War on Poverty into a broader national commitment that would improve the lives of everyone affected by scarcity. In January of 1968, King made a speech to rally support:

 “We are tired of being on the bottom. We are tired of being exploited. We are tired of not being able to get adequate jobs. We are tired of not getting promotions after we get those jobs. And as a result of our being tired, we are going to Washington, D.C., the seat of our government, to engage in direct action for days and days, weeks and weeks, and months and months if necessary, in order to say to this nation that you must provide us with jobs or income.”[3]

With the encouragement of those inspired by King’s message, the SCLC drew up an Economic Bill of Rights in February. The document included five demands for all poor people: a meaningful job, a living wage, access to land, access to capital, and the ability to play a role in the government.[4] The plan was to take these claims to Congress in a new march on Washington. The keystone would be the construction of Resurrection City: an illustrative slum meant to open Washingtonians’ eyes to conditions of poverty in America. Protesters were to live there by night and picket by day.The construction of Resurrection City began shortly before protesters were set to arrive. (Photo source: Library of Congress)The construction of Resurrection City began shortly before protesters were set to arrive. (Photo source: Library of Congress)

All was set for the start of the Poor People’s Campaign in April of 1968. But with the assassination of King on April 4, everything changed. SCLC leaders, including King’s widow Coretta, debated whether or not the movement should still take place. It was eventually decided that while King had died, the need to fight against poverty had not. Reverend Ralph Abernathy, as new president of the SCLC, took over leadership and pushed back the start date to May 12.[5] It seemed like the right decision. Shortly before the demonstrators were to arrive in DC, he was granted a temporary permit by the National Park Service for 3,000 people to set up camp in the grassy area to the south of the Reflecting Pool: the perfect location.[6]

Within a few days, Abernathy drove the first stake of Resurrection City and construction officially started. Working off of a plan by architect John Wiebenson, SCLC members and workers from the Department of the Interior quickly began to erect more than 650 plywood and plastic-sheeting huts. Their city would have three dining facilities, a medical tent, a nursery, a city hall, and more. A small government was even constructed, to be led by “mayor” and SCLC member Jesse Jackson. This leadership contingent was in charge of organizing demonstrations and overseeing the management of the city’s “marshals” responsible for security.[7] But even with everything laid out, it takes more than a few days to construct a city. Before Resurrection City could open its doors, the starting day of the campaign arrived.

On May 12, 5,000 individuals flocked to DC for a Mother’s Day March, led by Coretta Scott King.  The march hoped to jumpstart the movement by enlisting the support of “black women, white women, brown women, and red women – all the women of this nation – in the campaign of conscience” to end poverty.[8] It was a success. While many of the protesters came simply for the march, others decided to stay.

Local schools and churches stepped up to shelter the marchers until Resurrection City was in a livable condition. In the meantime, the nation’s poor continued to file in. The SCLC had recruited demonstrators from five southern states and ten major northern cities, and caravans were rolling in from Marks, Mississippi to New York City. The crowd was two-thirds African American, with the other third consisting primarily of whites. [9]A view of the shacks of Resurrection City from outside the city's fence. (Photo source: Historical Society of Washington, DC)A view of the shacks of Resurrection City from outside the city's fence. (Photo source: Historical Society of Washington, DC)

On May 15, although it was only about a third completed, Resurrection City welcomed this unique group. Many found it to be in better condition than the housing they normally inhabited. “Talk about poor,” photographer Jill Freedman remarked, “some of these people raised their whole standard of living just by moving in.” [10] But though the city had rudimentary plumbing and electricity that many were not accustomed to, it was crowded, hot and, above all, a muddy mess.

The summer of 1968 was a particularly rainy one. Only 14 of the 42 days Resurrection City stood were dry. As the city moved toward completion and its population kept climbing, health officials worried about the abundance of mud and soggy plywood homes. But the conditions did nothing to deter the residents’ hope. Demonstrations began on May 21 with picketers at the Capitol, the Departments of State and Agriculture, and other locations. Like its predecessors, the movement was to remain peaceful. “We’re going to raise hell downtown,” Abernathy told the protesters, “but we’ll have no violence.”[11]

Despite the nonviolent nature of their demonstrations, it seemed the Poor People’s Campaign had little luck. On May 23, a group was arrested outside the Capitol for lack of a protesting permit. Jackson negotiated with police to reduce the arrests, but 18 people were still charged.[12] Some good did come out of the incident, however. Interested by the mass of people outside their windows, a small group of congressmen created an ad hoc committee to improve communication with the campaign leaders. On June 5, 15 of them visited Resurrection City.Poor People's March near Layfette Park on Connecticut Avenue on June 18, 1968. (Photo source: Library of Congress)Poor People's March near Layfette Park on Connecticut Avenue on June 18, 1968. (Photo source: Library of Congress)

At this point, the makeshift city had taken on a character of its own. Shacks were decorated with slogans and graffiti, “funny and inspirational by turn, which illustrated the human need to put a personal stamp on even the most primitive and temporary of shelters.”[13] It buzzed with activity of all different kinds of people, and neighbors socialized and sang in the shadow of the city hall. Freedman, who lived in the city while photographing its residents, remarked how normal it was: “If you forget about things like traffic lights and dress shops and cops, Resurrection City was pretty much just another city. Crowded. Hungry. Dirty. Gossipy. Beautiful. It was the world, squeezed between flimsy snow fences and stinking of humanity.”[14] When they weren’t protesting, residents clustered together and talked about their home lives and what they hoped would come of the campaign. The city even had its own zip code: 20013.

The congressmen were moved by the life of the place from their visit.  Head of the ad hoc committee Senator Edward W. Brooke promised the residents to hold hearings at the camp so they could convey their complaints directly to congressmen.[15] But opinions were different up at the Capitol. In reality, the rest of Congress seemed uninterested in the poor people’s plight. Republican House leader Gerald Ford observed that the campaign had had “no noticeable impact.”[16]

Unfortunately for the protesters, misfortune continued. Resurrection City’s living permit was due to expire on June 24, and some residents had begun to attack the police and tourists who lingered on the outskirts of the camp. It became clearer to many that the campaign had an expiration date, and SCLC leaders began to plan a monumental protest for June 19 as a last hurrah. In a tribute to King, they planned for thousands of people to congregate in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and for speeches to be made from where he made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The day was coined Solidarity Day.With its location on the National Mall, Resurrection City became another monument that tourists flocked to see. (Photo Source: Historical Society of Washington, DC)With its location on the National Mall, Resurrection City became another monument that tourists flocked to see. (Photo Source: Historical Society of Washington, DC)

The morning of June 19, 1968 was blessedly sunny. In a final cry of hope for the country’s poor, over 50,000 people marched to the Lincoln Memorial and surrounded the Reflecting Pool. Songs were sung, prayers sent up, and Coretta Scott King addressed the crowd. The day was indeed a day of solidarity, and one Afro-American reporter was touched by how the “determined and courageous spirits of the poor broke through under the brooding eyes of Lincoln for the world – and more pointedly – for the US Congress to see.”[17] The day was the crowning glory of the Poor People’s Campaign, but it didn’t have the lasting impact that many hoped it would.

Just three days after the success of the march, a number of Resurrection City youths allegedly threw fire bombs at passing motorists. It was the peak of violence that had accumulated over the past few weeks, and with less than 24 hours left of the camp’s permit, police decided to move in with tear gas. SCLC leader Andrew Young, who was at the camp that morning of June 23, was shocked. “It was worse than anything I saw in Mississippi or Alabama,” he said. “You don’t shoot tear gas into an entire city because two or three hooligans are throwing rocks.”[18] The gas cleared out most of the city, but a special Civil Disturbance Squad came the next day to officially shut it down. Most of the remaining residents were at the City Hall, “waiting good naturedly to be arrested and taken away.”[19] Freedom songs were broadcast over the city’s intercom system as they were marched off to waiting buses. While the campaign had ended, its spirit remained.


[1]“Dr. King Maps Strategy for ‘Civil Disobedience,’” Afro-American, 9 December 1967.

[2]“Can America End Poverty?” 1968, University System of Georgia, accessed 1 July 2015, http://crdl.usg.edu/events/poor_peoples_campaign

[3] Freedman, Jill, Old News: Resurrection City, (New York: Grossman, 1970), 1.

[4]“Economic and Social Bill of Rights,” 6 February 1968, The King Center, accessed 6 July 2015, www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/economic-social-bill-rights

[5] Bernstein, Carl and Peter Milius, “First Marchers Due Today,” The Washington Post, 12 May 1968.

[6]“U.S. Issues Permit to March of Poor,” The New York Times, 11 May 1968.

[7] Franklin, Ben A., “Capital Prepares for Poor’s March,” The New York Times, 12 May 1968. 

[8] Franklin, Ben A., “5,000 Open Poor People’s Campaign in Washington,” The New York Times, 13 May 1968.

[9] Stout, Jared, “Marchers’ ‘City’ Rises,” The Washington Post, 13 May 1968.

[10] Freedman, Old News, 31.

[11] Valentine, Paul. “Abernathy Set to Start Protests,” The Washington Post, 21 May 1968.

[12]“18 Marchers Arrested in Hill Protest,” The Washington Post, 24 May 1968.  

[13] Robertson, Nan, “City of the Poor Develops Style All Its Own,” The New York Times, 24 May 1968.

[14] Freedman, Old News.

[15] White, Jean and Willard Clopton, Jr., “Hill Delegation Visits Resurrection City, Promises Hearings,” The Washington Post, 6 June 1968.

[16]“White, Jean M., “Ford Says Poor’s Campaign Stirs ‘No Noticeable Impact’ on Congress,” The Washington Post, 23 May 1968.

[17] Sloan, David E., “Solidarity Day Brings Unity,” Afro-American, 22 June 1968.

[18] Gilbert, Ben W., Ten Blocks from the White House (New York: Praeger, 1969), 202. 

[19] Kaiser, Robert G. “Resurrection City Falls – With a Song,” The Washington Post, 25 June 1968.

 

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Julius Hobson Gets Out of the Rat Race

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Hobson with his station wagon and trademark pipe and fedora, ready to harangue the multitudes. (Source: Evening Star)

If you lived in DC in August of 1964, you might have seen Julius Hobson driving through downtown with a cage full of enormous rats strapped to the roof of his station wagon. Frustrated by the city government’s refusal to do anything about the rat problem in Northeast and Southeast DC, and about the District’s more affluent citizens’ apathy about the issue, he said that if Southeast was having this problem, then Georgetown should share it too. Hobson caught “possum-sized rats” in Shaw and Northeast, and transported them up to Georgetown, promising to release the cage full of rats in the middle of the wealthy district unless the city government acted to curb the epidemic.[1] Since he was, as a piece in The Washingtonian put it, “[a]ware that a DC problem usually is not a problem until it is a white problem,”[2] he decided to go ahead and make it a white problem.

Every Saturday, Hobson would have almost a dozen huge rats on top of his car, hosting “rat rallies” where he would loudly reiterate his threats. He claimed to have a “rat farm” somewhere in the city, where he and his associates had “chicken coops” full of rats, and they vowed to release them all unless the government implemented rat extermination programs that would range outside of rich and white neighborhoods.[3] What’s more, Hobson had done his research, and found that he had no legal obligation to keep the rats once he caught them, so he could not be prosecuted for following through on his threat. As many of the city officials (not to mention Congressmen) lived in Georgetown, this, naturally, sent the city government into a panic.

We don't have a picture of the rats, but we are assured they were of unusual size. (Source: Flickr, The Princess Bride)

This was not the first or last time Hobson would use such gonzo tactics. Hobson saw a problem and attacked it head-on; his preferred technique for integrating businesses was to march up to the owner with several other activists behind him and demand the store integrate. When police brutality in DC towards minorities became a publically discussed issue in the 1960s, but there was no proof of their misconduct, Hobson simply built a long-range microphone (he had a degree in engineering) and drove around after police cars, collecting evidence.[4][5]

The “rat project,” however, remains one of Hobson’s most famous tricks, for precisely the reason it succeeded: the press latched onto it like a rat onto a hunk of cheese. Newspapers across the District seized upon the story and embellished it. In the retelling, his rat-catching protest became “a caravan of cars with cages”[6] or “two hundred dead rats” that Hobson had supposedly dumped in the middle of a Georgetown street.[7] One recent article even claimed that “Hobson vowed to load rats into a truck and dump them in...the White House.”[8] This was one of Hobson’s favorite techniques: doing something sensational and letting the press blow it out of proportion, making him seem to command much more power and influence than he actually did. In a later interview with the Washington Post, Hobson laughingly thanked the paper for being so helpful to his causes.[9]

A lot of his activism, too, was based on what he described variously as “psychological warfare” and “bluffs."[10] In reality, Hobson never had more than ten rats at a time. As Hobson later admitted: “Actually, what we were doing was drowning the hell out of those rats after dark.”[11] In another instance, Hobson threatened to shut down Route 40, site of numerous segregated restaurants, with massive protests, when in reality Hobson would have at most fifty people at his disposal.[12] As for his famous long-range microphone, Hobson admitted it didn’t really have a range of more than a few feet. But the stores, and the police department, changed their policies. You never knew when he would actually follow through on his threats, so it was never safe to call him on his bluffs.[13]

However unorthodox they were, Hobson’s strategies were undeniably effective. In the rat protest’s case, the results were almost immediate: after some panicked phone calls, the city funded rat patrols for Northeast and Southeast.[14]

Reminiscing about the operation in later years, Hobson said that despite the fact that he never had more than a dozen rats, he had intended to fulfill at least part of his promise if the city didn’t back down: “I was going to turn those rats loose on Georgetown,” he said. “The fact of the matter was, it was hell to catch those damn rats.”[15]

More Information

Among Hobson’s other notable accomplishments are his role in desegregating DC public schools and dismantling their “track system” (in Hobson v. Hansen), his term on the school board, his pickets and boycotts that led to the desegregation of hundreds of DC businesses, his “lie-in” at Washington Hospital Center that helped end segregation there, his spearheading of the DC statehood campaign and founding of the DC Statehood Party (now the DC Statehood Green Party), his candidacy for Vice President of the US in 1972 on the People’s Party ticket with Benjamin Spock, and his term on the DC City Council from its inception in 1974 until his death in 1977.

Hobson’s own publications on social issues and activism, “The Damned…” series, are definitely worth a read. His titles are The Damned Children: A Layman’s Guide to Forcing Change in Public Education and The Damned Information: Acquiring and Using Public Information to Force Social Change. They are available in the Washingtoniana room of the District’s MLK Library and elsewhere.

The Washingtoniana room also holds the Julius Hobson Papers, a ridiculously extensive collection of Hobson’s personal letters and papers, as well as articles about him and various biographical documents. Here you can find things like a letter from Joan Baez about a protest the two had just been a part of, FBI files concerning his activities, and even (creepily enough) his x-rays from a check-up in 1972.

 



[1] Cynthia Gorney, “Julius Hobson Sr., Activist, Dies at Age 54,” Washington Post, March 24, 1977.

[2] Charles N. Conconi, “Goodbye, Mr. Hobson: The Last Interview,” The Washingtonian, 136.

[3]“Hobson Specialty: Successful Hoaxes,” Washington Post, July 4, 1972.

[4] Gorney, “Julius Hobson Dies at 54,” Washington Post.

[5] You get the idea, but this story is too good to not merit at least a footnote: Hobson used to go to boardroom negotiations with segregated businessowners with Paul Bennett, who wore a disheveled WWI mackinaw and flyer’s cap, and constantly spit into a handkerchief. The two of them had an agreement that whenever Hobson would pretend to work out a compromise with the businessowners, Bennett would jump up and call him an Uncle Tom. This went a long way towards achieving their full capitulation. (Bennett’s appearance was deceiving: he was actually a GS-12 employee of the Department of the Navy, with a master’s degree in physics. Hobson: “But for some reason he wore those clothes. I never could understand why he wore those clothes.”) (“Hobson Specialty: Successful Hoaxes,” Washington Post, July 4, 1972. This whole article is pure gold, by the way. I highly recommend reading it if you get the chance.)

[6] Raymond Wolters, Race and Education, 1954-2007, (University of Missouri Press, 2009), 72.

[7] Robert F. Levey, “City Barely Keeps Even in War on Rats: City 'Barely Keeps Even' in Rat War,” Washington Post, January 30, 1972.

[8] Harry Jaffe, “D.C. Pols Are Home Fools For Julius Hobson Sr.,” Washington Examiner, April 18, 2011.

[9]“Hobson Specialty: Successful Hoaxes,” Washington Post, July 4, 1972.

[10] Ibid.

[11]Ibid.

[12] Burt Solomon, The Washington Century: Three Families and the Shaping of the Nation’s Capital, (HarperCollins, 2005), 125.

[13] Hobson’s manipulation of information even went as far up as the FBI, as he passed them information concerning his own activities and protests. Accounts differ as to whether he was giving them information to curb “violence and illegality” in the civil rights movement, or simply “discrediting them with false information,” but either way, his objective was the same: using the system to make things easier for his protests. (Paul W. Valentine, “FBI Records List Julius Hobson As Confidential Source,” Washington Post, May 22, 1981.)

[14]“Hobson Specialty: Successful Hoaxes,” Washington Post, July 4, 1972.

[15]Ibid.

 

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"The Whitest Huddle of Any Team in the League"

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The Washington Redskins are being accused of insensitivity and intolerance. The government is taking steps to intervene if the team doesn’t change its ways. Sound familiar? That’s because today’s name-change controversy echoes the situation over fifty years ago, when the Redskins were the last all-white team in the NFL. By 1952, every other team in the league had African-American players, but Washington team founder and owner George Preston Marshall refused to integrate, and dragged his feet for ten more years until his hand was forced.

Marion Barry Leads Bus Boycott

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The price of public transportation in D.C. is rising and people are angry. Although this statement could accurately describe the present time, let’s turn back the clock to 1965.

D.C. Transit had just announced plans to raise bus fares and one man wasn’t having it. This man was Marion Barry, who would go on to become mayor of D.C., serving four terms. But Barry wasn’t mayor yet. He was a relatively new resident in D.C., having moved here to open up a local chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Barry saw the bus company’s raised rates as a direct hit to low income people in the District, who were mostly African American.

Julius Hobson's Unlikely Relationship with the F.B.I.

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We’ve written before on this blog about the exploits of Julius Hobson. A D.C. civil rights activist in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, his campaigns against segregation and injustice were based on equal parts audacity and bluff, ranging from staging a “lie-in” at a D.C. hospital, to encouraging people to paste pro-integration stickers over the punchcards on their power bills,  to threatening massive protests and boycotts that had no chance of materializing. He combated police brutality by following policemen around with a long-range microphone, and, most famously, promised to release cages full of rats on Georgetown if the city didn’t deal with the rat problem elsewhere. His antics effected genuine social change, in large part because everyone was too nervous to call him on his bluffs, for fear that he might be able to back them up. His acts were already so outlandish, anything seemed plausible, except for one rumor that seemed to be too uncharacteristic to be true. Yet, it was the truth: for years, Julius Hobson passed information to the FBI.

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The Making of Old Town

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The picturesque Old Town we know today didn’t just happen naturally. It was planned in response to America’s burgeoning historic preservation movement, mid-century urban renewal efforts and a lot of involvement from local citizens.

When Owls Guarded the Smithsonian

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In the 1960s and '70s, renovations in the Smithsonian Institution’s Castle sought to restore the building to its Victorian beginnings. Secretary of the Smithsonian S. Dillon Ripley, didn’t think architecture was quite enough to restore the #aesthetic. No, what the castle really needed was a few live-in barn owls, just like the old days.


The Beatles' Final D.C. Concert

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Although their first appearance in Washington D.C. was certainly more historic, the Beatles' last visit was nothing if not eventful, and verged on the downright bizarre. In stark contrast to that triumphant first U.S. concert at Washington Coliseum in February 1964, by August 1966 the Beatles were mired in controversy, struggling to sell out concerts, and creating music too complex to be replicated on stage.

The Jeannette Rankin Brigade

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In 1916, Jeannette Rankin made history as the first woman elected to Congress. A renowned pacifist, Rankin was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. involvement in World War II. At age 87, Rankin made one final push for peace by leading an anti-Vietnam march: the Jeannette Rankin Brigade.

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Today, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts is a mainstay of Washington, D.C.’s cultural life. The park’s large outdoor auditorium and beautiful green space play host to a variety of performers. However, 50 years ago, some politicians questioned whether it was a wise decision for the government to accept the land gift from Catherine Filene Shouse and build the performing arts center.

Remembering the First Smithsonian Folklife Festival

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In January of 1967, after just a few months on the job as the Smithsonian's Director of Museum Serivices, Jim Morris had an idea. What if the Smithsonian were to put on an outdoor festival in Washington to exhibit and celebrate folk traditions from around the nation? 

John Layton, the M.P.D., and the 1968 Washington Riots

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By the time John Layton was named Metropolitan Police Chief in 1964, there was a well-established undercurrent of hostility between the Police Department and Washington's inner city African American community. Layton added resources to the Community Relations Unit and promoted the first African American to the rank of Captain. He created a Public Information Division to better coordinate communications with the public and the media. And, in an effort to recognize the African American community’s complaints about police brutality and harassment, the chief went on record that the Metropolitan police department would not rely on lethal force should they need to put down a riot.

Layton’s actions were put to the test on April 4, 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN that day, and when word reached Washington, D.C., angry crowds began gathering in the streets.

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