Greene County Democrat

Tag: Civil Rights Movement

  • “5th Little Girl”, Sarah Collins Rudolph, sole survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham speaks at Second Baptist Church Black History program

    “5th Little Girl”, Sarah Collins Rudolph, sole survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham speaks at Second Baptist Church Black History program

    by John Zippert, co-owner

    On February 15, Second Baptist Church hosted a Black History program that brought Sarah Collins Rudolph to Greene County to talk about her experience as the sole survivor of the September 15, 1963 bombing, by the Klu Klux Klan, of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Sarah Collins Rudolph was the younger sister (aged 12 at the time) of Addie Mae Collins, one of four girls tragically killed in the bombing of the church, in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement.


    Sarah Collins Rudolph was in the ladies restroom in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church, with four other young ladies – her sister Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14 years old. They were taking a break between Sunday School and a Youth Day program at the church.


    When the bomb exploded around 10:22 in the morning, Sarah Collins Rudolph said she had just walked across the rest room from the other four to wash her hands in the sink. The Klan placed the bomb in an outside stairway that led to the basement that was adjacent to the women’s rest room. The last thing she remembers before the blast, was Denise McNair asking her sister Addie Mae Collins to adjust a sash on her dress.


    Four of the girls were killed instantly by the blast and Sarah survived with serious injuries from the bomb, including glass and other fragments that cut her eyes, face, arms, legs and other parts of her body. She was rescued and sent to the hospital by the first church members that dug through the rumble from the explosion.


    Sarah was confined to the hospital for weeks after the explosion. She was blind in her right eye and had it replaced with a prosthetic eye. Her many cuts healed leaving visible scars both physical and psychological. She says, even today, when she hears loud noises, she revisits the terror of the bomb explosion. She relates this to PSTD experience by soldiers in war, reliving their combat experiences.Sarah was not able to attend the funerals of her sister and the other three girls because she was in the hospital. When she returned to school, she received no special counseling or other assistance to adjust to the explosion which changed her life.


    She finished high school and then worked in various capacities at industrial fabrication plants and domestic work, taking care of elderly and sick people. She married three times. She said that she eventually found a church in Birmingham that helped her to understand that by accepting Christ and his teachings could help her to live a fuller and more meaningful life.


    She testified at the trials of the three KKK members, who were eventually brought to justice for the horrendous crime of bombing the church in 1963, including ‘Dynamite Bob” Chambliss, Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton.
    In the mid 1990’s more than thirty years after the bombing, she began giving interviews and speaking out about her life and experiences. She tried unsuccessfully to get compensation for herself and families of other victims of racial and civil rights crimes. So far she has been unsuccessful in getting any compensation from the state of Alabama or the Federal government, for her injuries and suffering from the 1963 bombing of the church.


    In her travels to speak on the bombing and being the only survivor, she met Tracy Snipe, a professor at Wright State University in Ohio, where he teaches history, politics and related subjects. Snipes collaborated with Sarah Collins Rudolph to write a book on her life including the 1963 bombing. The book is entitled “the Fifth Little Girl”. At the end of the Second Baptist Church Black History Program, participants were able to purchase copies of her book ($30.00) and have it inscribed to them by her.
    The program at Second Baptist Church was sponsored by United Purposes, and its community partners. The organization is headed by Miriam Leftwich, who organized the program and introduced Ms. Rudolph. The program also featured information on Black History, singing, poetry reading , and a liturgical dance presentation, mostly by young people to honor the guest speaker.


    This program had a very profound impact and impression on this writer and others who attended the program and were not aware that there was a fifth little girl, who survived the bombing , that has lived another more than six decades to give first-hand testimony about one of the most consequential events of the Civil Rights Movement and Black History in America.

    Sarah in the hospital with both eyes bandaged from the bomb explosion
    Sarah in the hospital with both eyes bandaged from the bomb explosion

  • Spot students honor Trailblazers

    The Greene County Children’s Policy Council, SPOT students held their annual Trailblazers program Friday, June 14, 2024, at the Robert Young Community Center. This year’s theme: Celebrating Achievement and Pride honored all honorees from 2019 and three new foot soldiers of the local civil rights movement. The new honorees were Ms. Wadine Williams, Mrs. Mary Williams (posthumously) and Mr. John Henry Rice (posthumously). Each year the SPOT students (Strategically Preparing our Teens) interview and present their research on individuals in the Black Belt region who played a role in the Civil Rights movement. This program was a culmination of the student’s research for the 2023-2024 school year.
    Names of all the honorees from the program inception were called. Family members lit candles to honor their deceased loved ones when their name was called. The living honorees were presented with a beautiful, engraved statue. A delicious meal was enjoyed by all.
    According to Judge Lillie Jones-Osborne this program serves to honor those individuals who made life easier for the current generation and a way for the current generation to learn about their history. Next year’s program will be dedicated to the young students who received a freedom diploma because of their participation in the civil rights movement in Greene County. You may contact Judge Jones-Osborne if you would like to be interviewed for next year’s program.

  • Newswire: Entertainment icon and Human Rights Activist Harry Belafonte dies at 96

     Harry Belafonte speaking with African refugees


    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    Renowned singer, actor, producer, and legendary civil rights trailblazer, Harry Belafonte has died at the age of 96.
    His publicist confirmed that the beloved icon died of congestive heart failure at his home in New York.
    In addition to his children Adrienne Belafonte Biesemeyer, Shari Belafonte, Gina Belafonte, David Belafonte and two stepchildren Sarah Frank and Lindsey Frank, Belafonte leaves behind eight grandchildren: Rachel Blue Biesemeyer, Brian Biesemeyer, Maria Belafonte McCray, Sarafina Belafonte, Amadeus Belafonte, Mateo Frank, Olive Scanga, and Zoe Frank.
    Known globally for both for his artistic ingenuity and humanitarian ideals, Belafonte became an early, vocal supporter of the Civil Rights Movement, a confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and financial backer of countless historic political and social causes and events, including the anti-Apartheid Movement, equal rights for women, juvenile justice, climate change and the decolonization of Africa.
    He was one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington and led a delegation of Hollywood luminaries including his best friend Sidney Poitier, as well as Paul Newman, Sammy Davis, Jr, Marlon Brando, Rita Moreno, Tony Curtis, James Baldwin, Burt Lancaster, Joanne Woodward, Diahann Carrol, Bob Dylan, Mahalia Jackson, Peter, Paul and Mary and Joan Baez, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis and Tony Curtis.
    The following is from Belafonte’s bio on the HistoryMakers:
    Born to immigrant parents in Harlem on March 1, 1927, Harry Belafonte spent much of his youth in his mother’s home country of Jamaica.
    Though difficult, life in Jamaica was full of rich cultural experiences that influenced Belafonte’s art.
    At the beginning of World War II, Belafonte returned to Harlem with his mother and brother. He had trouble integrating into the new environment and later dropped out of high school to join the U.S. Navy.
    After Belafonte was honorably discharged, he went back to New York, where he worked odd jobs until two free tickets to the American Negro Theatre (A.N.T.) changed his life.
    Belafonte auditioned for the A.N.T. and earned his first leading role in Juno and the Paycock. In 1953, he made his film debut opposite Dorothy Dandridge in Bright Road. He won a Tony in 1954 for his performance in Almanac.
    At the same time, Belafonte developed his singing talents, having parlayed a series of nightclub performances into a record contract. His third album, Calypso, topped the charts for thirty-one consecutive weeks and was the first record to sell more than 1 million copies.
    Belafonte also secured a television outlet with his hour-long special, Tonight with Belafonte, which won him an Emmy. He became the first African American TV producer and his company, HarBel, went on to produce one Emmy nominee after another.
    In the early 1950s, Belafonte developed a strong relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Belafonte worked tirelessly to mobilize artists in support of the civil rights movement.
    In 1985, he again rallied the global artistic community to raise awareness of the famines, wars and droughts plaguing many African nations.
    USA for Africa raised more than $60 million for this cause with “We Are the World” and Hands Across America.
    A longtime anti-apartheid activist, Belafonte hosted former South African President Nelson Mandela on his triumphant visit to the United States.
    Belafonte maintained his commitment to service as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.
    “The lifelong commitment, courage, global leadership, and legacy of The Honorable Harry Belafonte will always be cherished and remembered by billions of people throughout the world,” said NNPA President and CEO, Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. “Belafonte was a gifted, talented and transformative freedom fighter for all of humanity. The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) salutes the memory of Harry Belafonte and recommits to the struggle for freedom, justice and equality that Belafonte so boldly epitomized and embodied.”

  • Newswire : On 50th Anniversary of King Assassination, We have work to do

     

    NEWS ANALYSIS by Rev. Jesse Jackson

     

    mlk

     Dr. ML King at 1963 March on Washington

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – The 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination comes amid a fierce struggle for the soul of America. We will celebrate the progress that has been made since Dr. King was taken from us in 1968, and decry the agenda that is still unfinished.
    But we cannot ignore the systematic effort – from the highest offices of government – to roll back his legacy, to make America more separate and unequal, to reverse the progress of the last years. From the White House and across the great cabinets of the federal government, civil rights are being systematically undermined.
    President Trump has set the tone personally, slandering immigrants and seeking to ban Muslims, while noting there were “very fine people” among the neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville. He pardoned former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, allowing him to avoid accountability for racially profiling Latinos. He terminated the Obama program that protected the DACA children, and sabotaged every bipartisan effort to protect these children who know no other country than the U.S. He called for NFL players protesting against discrimination to be fired, while slurring “s–hole countries” in Africa. In different departments, his appointees have moved relentlessly to roll back enforcement of civil rights, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions leading the way.
    DOJ lawyers reversed their position on voting rights cases, like that in Texas, essentially opening the door for voter suppression. Sessions forced a review of Obama-era consent decrees with police departments, even as Trump praised brutal police tactics. He drastically limited the use of court-enforced consent decrees themselves, eviscerating the primary instrument of civil rights enforcement.
    Sessions has also declared that civil rights laws protecting against workplace discrimination do not apply to transgender workers. His labor secretary disbanded a 40-year-old division enforcing laws against discrimination in the workplace. His education secretary, billionaire Betsy DeVos, disemboweled the department’s office of civil rights and pushed to move public funds to support voucher programs, while calling for deep cuts in the staff and budget of the education department.
    His secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, has gutted enforcement of civil rights and fair housing laws, at the very moment the department must disburse billions in disaster recovery Community Block Grants that could help reverse past wrongs. Carson even pushed to strike the words“inclusive” and “free from discrimination” from HUD’s mission statement.Abroad, Trump has expanded the endless wars without victory that King warned against.
    He has slashed taxes on the wealthy and corporations while targeting basic programs for the vulnerable – from food stamps to Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid – for deep cuts. He sought to repeal Obamacare, which would have deprived millions of health care.This is a direct and sustained assault on Dr. King’s legacy.
    Dr. King fought for integration against discrimination. He marched for equal opportunity against entrenched inequality. He championed non-violence against violence. He campaigned for voting rights, knowing that democracy offered the best chance for change. He called for an end to the war in Vietnam, realizing that the bombs being dropped on Vietnam were landing in the poor neighborhoods of four cities.
    At the end of his life, he was organizing a broad coalition of poor people, across lines of race, religion and region, to march on Washington to demand basic economic rights. No representative of the administration will appear in Memphis as we mark the anniversary of his assassination. More reason that a new generation must take up the mission of his life.He taught us that “change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” He knew that the progress that the Civil Rights Movement was making would generate a fierce reaction. He called on us to “rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful struggle for a new world.” We have work to do.

  • The Women’s March organizers are planning ‘A Day Without A Woman’ strike

    By: Desire Thompson, VIBE
    womens-march-leader
    Womens March leader

    The minds behind the Women’s March on Washington aren’t giving up on the people. Their latest move hints at an economic boycott titled, “A Day Without A Woman.”
    The announcement was made Monday (Feb. 6) through their social channels with little detail. What has been shared is the general statement, “The will of the people will stand.” Last month, over a million women from all over the world came together in solidarity to protest the election of President Donald Trump, climate change, immigration laws and unlawful police practice. The Women’s March on Washington brought 500,000 people to the city, making it the most recent largest demonstration in the area. Crowd specialists reportedly stated the Women’s March brought three times the number of people than Trump’s inauguration ceremony.
    CNN reports after the exposure of several companies lining up with Trump, the organization made up of Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez, Linda Sarsour and Bob Bland, released a statement on those boycotting companies like Uber and Nordstrom. “At a time when our foundational principles of freedom and equality are under threat, The Women’s March is committed to engaging in actions that affirmatively build community, strengthen relationships and support local, women- and minority-owned businesses,” The Women’s March said in a statement.
    General strikes thrived during the Civil Rights Movement and other labor movements. Strike4Democracy is currently planning a general strike on Feb. 17. So far, 16,000 people plan to take part in it. Last year, actor Isiah Washington attempted to launch a boycott where African Americans didn’t spend, work or attend school. Middle-class African Americans have been known to spend a hefty amount in a retail market, even with specks of racial inequality proving that black families have less access to substantial goods and services than white families. Nonetheless, the Women’s March organizers have stressed the importance of inclusion.

  • Emmett Till’s accuser admits it was all a lie

    emmett-till

    By Stacy M. Brown (The Washington Informer/NNPA Member)

    More than six decades after the horrific, racially-motivated murder of Emmett Till, the White woman who accused the Chicago teenager of verbally and physically accosting her in Money, Miss., in 1955, has admitted she lied, according to a new book.

    Till had allegedly whistled at and groped Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year-old White woman, while at a country store in the small town.

    After the encounter, Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband, and J.W. Milam tracked young Emmett down, kidnapped him, tortured him, shot him, and then tied his battered body to a cotton gin fan using barbed wire and dumped him in the muddy Tallahatchie River. Later, the two men were acquitted of the murder by an all-White, all-male jury after an hour’s deliberation. Till’s brutal killing and photos of his open casket at his funeral helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.

    During the trial, Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett, who was 14, had made physical and verbal advances toward her, a sensational claim that increased tensions surrounding the case. She testified that Emmett had grabbed and threatened her inside the store – and that he had used an “unprintable” word when he told her he had been intimate “with White women before.”

    But according to a 2007 interview, newly revealed in the book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” Carolyn Bryant admits that it never happened.

    “That part’s not true,” she told writer Timothy Tyson, according to “Vanity Fair,” though she claimed she could not recall what happened the rest of the evening at her husband’s country store, where Emmett stopped by briefly on Aug. 24, 1955, to buy two cents worth of gum.

    Till was shot in the head and was found with barbed wire wrapped around his neck; one of his eyes was gouged out. “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she is quoted as saying. Bryant’s testimony was out of the earshot of the jury, but helped to frame the case publicly.

    “I was just scared to death,” she said in court. The two killers later admitted their guilt, after their acquittals.

    Emmett Till’s murder became the flashpoint in the American Civil Rights Movement. Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett’s mother, had even insisted on an open casket at his funeral, leading to photographs of his battered corpse being spread across the country, which helped focus public attention on what was happening in the heart of the country.

    In 2004, the FBI reopened the case to see if any accomplices could be hauled to court, but a grand jury decided three years later that there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges.

    The young Carolyn Bryant went into hiding after the murder trial — divorcing and marrying twice more — and remained mum on the case until she gave the interview with Tyson, the “New York Post” reported.

    Bryant is now known as Carolyn Bryant Donham. Donham told Tyson that she “felt tender sorrow” for Emmett’s mother, who died in 2003, but Tyson doesn’t mention if Donham expressed guilt or apologized.

    Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has said she thought about Emmett when she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., a few months after his death.

    The shocking crime was memorialized in the arts and literature; in Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s play “Dreaming Emmett,” a Langston Hughes poem, and a song by Bob Dylan.

    The whereabouts of the now-82-year-old Donham are unknown.

    The Washington Informer is a member publication of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Learn more about becoming a member at http://www.nnpa.org.

  • ‘Realizing the Dream’ program honors Wendell Paris, Isabel Rubio and Fan Yang

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    Shown above Isabel Rubio and Wendell Paris

    The 28th year of the Realizing the Dream program to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. was held this weekend in Tuscaloosa.
    The program, a joint effort of Stillman College, University of Alabama, Shelton State Community College and the Tuscaloosa SCLC, includes a legacy awards banquet, a concert and community breakfast and march on the third Monday – National Holiday for DR. King.
    At the awards banquet Friday evening at the Sellers Auditorium in the Bryant Conference Center on the UA campus, Wendell Paris, long-time civil rights leader from Sumter County was honored with the Mountaintop Award. Paris, a native of Sumter County, moved with his family to Tuskegee and attended Tuskegee University where he joined SNCC. Paris also worked for many years with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives at their Rural Training and Research Center in Epes, Alabama. Paris is now an Assistant Pastor at the New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi.
    Isabel Rubio of Birmingham received the Call to Conscience Award for her work with the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, on behalf of full equality for Latino people. Fan Yang, a PhD student at the University of Alabama, was given the Horizon Award for her work with Heart Touch, an outreach organization with Asian-American students and community members.
    John Quinones of ABC-TV news and the developer of the What Would You Do? television show, which poses ethical and moral questions with viewers of scenarios with ordinary people, was the keynote speaker for the banquet.
    Quinones who was born in the barrios of San Antonio, Texas gave the story of his life and success in television attributing many of his opportunities in broadcasting to the work of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement.
    His theme was that there are many stories in our communities that will not get told unless we work to tell them.
    Kirk Franklin, renowned gospel artist gave the concert

  • More than 50 House Democrats join John Lewis boycott of Trump inauguration

     

    By: Greg BlueStein, Atlanta Journal Constitution

    congressman-john-lewis

    Cong. John Lewis

    A growing number of House Democrats, 50 as of this writing, say they won’t attend Donald Trump’s inauguration after he criticized Georgia Rep. John Lewis as “all talk” and insulted his Atlanta-based district.

    Trump called the district a “crime infested” area that is “falling apart,” a day after the Democrat told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he will skip Trump’s inauguration next week because he doesn’t see him as a “legitimate president.”

    Other Democrats are citing that early-morning Twitter barrage for their decision to avoid this week’s inauguration festivities. California Rep. Mark Takano, California Rep. Ted Lieu and New York Rep. Yvette Clarke all said on Twitter Saturday they will not attend the swearing-in ceremony to stand in solidarity with Lewis. “For me, the personal decision not to attend Inauguration is quite simple: Do I stand with Donald Trump, or do I stand with John Lewis?” Lieu said in a statement. “I am standing with John Lewis.”

     

    In an interview with Meet the Press on Friday, Lewis said he felt that Donald Trump was not a legitimate President because of the involvement of Russia in the elections. Lewis who was very active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s said he would not attend Trumps’ Inauguration. Trump responded on twitter criticizing Lewis as a person who just talks and should do more to improve his district.

    Clarke tweeted: “When you insult @repjohnlewis, you insult America.”

    Several other Democrats, including Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva and California Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, had previously announced plans to boycott the event.

    Some Republicans are urging them to reconsider. Among them is Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, one of the most vocal Trump critics in the GOP, who wrote that the inauguration isn’t about Trump but “a celebration of peaceful transfer of power.”

     

  • Bernie Sanders would apologize for slavery if elected President

    Written By NewsOne Staff

    Bernie Sanders

     Bernie Sanders campaigning

    Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders became known for his work during the Civil Rights Movement and was the first candidate to explicitly declare that Black Lives Matter, but would he address slavery if elected president?
    Well, yes. In fact, the Democratic candidate said Wednesday at an event in Philadelphia that he would issue a “necessary and overdue” apology about the horrific system, The Hill reports: “An American president has yet to muster up the courage to formally apologize for the 400 heinous years of rape, death and inhumanity that occurred during the enslavement of black people in this country that still impacts million of slave descendants,” an audience member told Sanders before asking whether he’d apologize for it.
    “Want the short answer?” Sanders asked in response. “Yes.”
    His response isn’t all that surprising. In July, Sanders said the nation should apologize for slavery. He later reiterated his statement, saying, “as a nation we have got to apologize for slavery, and of course the president is the leader of the nation.”