America The Beautiful, Your Ugly History Repeats Over and Over
How the Freedom Riders set out to awaken a slumbering conscience of the country
To behold such pictures as above should make everyone comprehend the pain African American people have suffered too many lifetimes and to no fault of their own but from a population who is guilty of doing such acts and now fear the repercussion of their past, immediate or ancestry. For those people who can’t comprehend BlackLivesMatter, need to not only take a candid look at the above picture but learned the history of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. Until history is acknowledged and corrected, it will continue to repeat itself for generations to come and no one will ever be completely content in society. Injustice for one, is no justice for all.
The above photo depicts a shameful stain in America history where the Freedom Riders who just wanted their piece of the American dream for all were brutally beaten by the local police in various states as they colluded with the FBI, KKK and other white supremacy groups. In the above photo, James Peck, a Freedom Rider from New York, was attacked in Birmingham, Alabama at the local bus station, sixty years ago. This incident has all the resemblance of the atrocities happening to people of color today, at the hands of racist groups, a racist political system and law enforcement, the same as yesterday’s history.
Sixty years ago, 1961, Black and White civil rights activists joined forces to gain equal rights for all people as thy set off on a trip that would be like none other through the American racist south. In the face of the federal court banning racial discrimination in interstate travel, these activists wanted to test the reality of this federal ruling. For the first time, they sat where they wanted to on buses, sat in terminal waiting rooms, used the restrooms and sought service at the depot restaurants.
What these Freedom Riders faced was beyond describing as they traveled from Atlanta, Georgia to Anniston, Alabama, a two day trip. The Ku Klux Klansmen being well aware of their agenda, forced their first Greyhound bus off the road, firebombed it and beat the escaping passengers bloody while the FBI stood idle by.
The second Trailways bus left Atlanta an hour later with seven Freedom Riders who were headed to Birmingham, Alabama, who met an even worse fate at the hands of the Ku Klux Klansmen, FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, politicians, and the Birmingham police law enforcement who were instructed by Eugene “Bull” Conner, a sixty three year old ultra-segregationist public safety commissioner, to do whatever it took to stop them. The KKK, FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, Eugene “Bull” Conner and the Birmingham police department were aware of the Freedom Riders planned attack the night before the arrival of the bus, headed by the Eastview Klavern of the Klan who had an FBI informant, Gary Thomas Rowe, a local high school drop and local machinist who dreamed of being in law enforcement, in their midst. During this meeting a pack was formed to allow the Ku Klux Klan to do whatever they wanted to the Freedom Riders for an agreed period of time before the arrival of the police at the bus station. Confirming the hatred toward the Freedom Riders could be heard in a statement made by Det. Sgt. Tom Cook, who oversaw racial relations, stated, “I don’t give a damn if you beat them, bomb them, murder or kill them.”
In Birmingham, the Freedom Riders were met by a mob of white men armed with every imaginable piece of weaponry possible, e.g. pipes, baseball bats, chains, you name it they had it as they bludgeoned the Freedom Riders and some bystanders suffered were left bloody, groggy and battered. One required 53 stitches while nine others were hospitalized.
During the 1960s, Bull Conner was a visible outspoken opponent of and did all within his power to prevent the evitable down the road. He and his cohorts’ goal was to stop integration, two years after beating the Freedom Riders bloody, he used fire hoses and police dogs again civil rights group becoming the south’s symbol of Southern resistance to racial justice.
Hoover and the FBI could have prevented the blood bath but chose to do nothing even though they were responsible for upholding federal law which had mandated prior that these Freedom Riders had a right to freedom to ride the bus and for interstate travel. During the Kennedy’s administration, Robert and John Kennedy took a mild stance for justice and civil rights but opted not to move forward or do anything as J. Edgar Hover labeled the civil rights movement as a communist-inspired group, to undermine their integrity and progress. Eugene “Bull” Connor on national television lied to the news media regarding the police lack of interference in the beating of the Freedom Riders claiming many of the police officer had taken off due to Mother’s day and the others who eventually responded were slow in coming due to visiting with family.
The role of white supremacy groups, KKK, FBI, Law Enforcement and others regarding the Freedom Riders being beaten badly was kept secret for 14 years until it all came up in a testimony before Congress. How could this be kept a secret? The country saw what was happening. It was the power that be who tried to sweep their heinous acts under the rug, hiding it only from themselves, for the country knew of these atrocities, but too many stood idle by while others feared for their lives and families.
America is forever stained with the Jim Crow South, as the same behavior rears its head all around the Country today with the same racist mentality and the suppression of people of color. The past must never be forgotten, as the racist perpetrators would have people of color to do, as they pass laws denying voting rights to all people of color and perpetuating a racist system to disenfranchise other American from their equal rights guaranteed under he Fourteenth Amendment.
In conclusion, accountability is the glue to change. Since slavery the Black man and woman as Dr. Martin Luther Jr. stated, have been given a promissory note and the time has come for America to pay up as its vaults are filled being able to do so. America belongs to no one, while the native Americans were the first settlers, let’s embrace that truth and move forward for all others migrated or were brought to America from another country. Lastly, a lie cannot and will not hold water forever, but will leak sooner of later as the truth springs forth. Columbus did not discover America! You can’t discover a place already inhabited. The lies need to stop.
For additional reads:
Six decades later, undeniable progress has been made, but we’re still waking up.
