USA TODAY’s “Seven Days of 1961[1]” explores how sustained acts of resistance can bring about sweeping change. Throughout 1961, activists risked their lives[2] to fight for voting rights and the integration of schools[3], businesses, public transit and libraries. Decades later, their work continues to shape debates[4] over voting access, police brutality and equal rights for all.
A crowd of young Black men and women peacefully marched through downtown Jackson, Mississippi, demanding the same rights as white Americans[5]. It was March 1961. They stood in solidarity with nine Black students from Tougaloo College [6]arrested for attempting to check out books from the city’s public library for white residents.
Police officers confronted the crowd with swinging batons and canisters of tear gas. Police dogs growled and chased after the protesters.
During the civil rights movement, Black faith leaders and college students helped overhaul the U.S. legal system and persuade many white Americans that racial segregation was grossly unjust. But 60 years later, the tactics police use to suppress civil rights demonstrators remain largely unchanged.
A USA TODAY analysis [7]of law enforcement officials’ response to the most significant civil rights movements of the past six decades shows police have repeatedly responded to free speech gatherings with violence and arrests – using attack dogs, tear gas, batons and more to suppress freedom fighters gathering in public spaces and arresting activists, sometimes on felony charges, despite First Amendment and other protections that allow Americans to legally challenge the government.
Law enforcement officials say use of force is sometimes necessary to protect themselves, others and property. But activists and decades of research suggest a militarized response to protests can escalate violence, leaving demonstrators scrambling to protect themselves.
James Farmer, the national director of the Congress of Racial Equality in the early to mid '60s, estimated that more than 5,000[8] civil rights demonstrators were arrested[9] between February 1960 and May 1962, requiring bonds exceeding $2 million, equivalent to more than $17 million today.
Decades later, the murder of George Floyd[10], who was Black, by a white Minneapolis police officer once again revealed deep-rooted racial divisions and injustices across the nation. His death prompted millions[11] of Americans [12]and people across the world[13] to take to the street to demand the safety of Black people and an end to systemic racism.
They, too, were met with violence and arrests even while peacefully protesting, revealing a failure among law enforcement to distinguish between people gathered to express political opinions and those breaking laws.
Researchers at the investigative website Bellingcat and the University of London human rights research group Forensic Architecture[14] identified more than 1,000 instances of police brutality against civilians during protests in the five months after Floyd’s death. The database includes hundreds of examples of police using tear gas, pepper spray and less-than-lethal weapons on protesters. And in at least 23 states, police failed to protect demonstrators from violent counterprotesters, Amnesty International[15] reported.
Many law enforcement leaders also continue to enjoy close ties with racist, far-right groups, including those known to commit hate crimes against oppressed communities. The FBI,[16] which once looked the other way when Ku Klux Klan members attacked civil rights era activists, has repeatedly warned in recent years about law enforcement links to "militia extremists, white supremacist extremists and sovereign citizen extremists."
“For all that’s changed, the kind of law enforcement response in some ways looks very much the same,” said Erin Pineda, a professor who researches protest movements at Smith College in Massachusetts and the author of “Seeing Like an Activist: Civil Disobedience and the Civil Rights Movement.” “It’s all the vein of the 1960s. There’s a lineage there.”
'Seven days of 1961,' a series on Americans that stood up to racism and changed history
Jasper Colt, USA TODAY
In the early 1960s, African Americans and their allies who lawfully protested illegal segregation laws and other Jim Crow-era policies were often hit, tear gassed or arrested by law enforcement. In many communities, these officials also allowed white supremacists to assault, threaten and murder those working toward a more equitable nation.
When the Freedom Rides, a campaign to ride buses across the South in 1961 to desegregate public transportation, arrived in Alabama on May 14, their buses were attacked by a mob of white supremacists[17], due to collusion among local police, an FBI informant and the KKK, according to Raymond Arsenault, author of “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.” The planned assault was reported to the FBI in advance, but officials didn’t take action to prevent the violence, the Justice Department[18] concluded.
One bus was set on fire by a white mob and many of the Freedom Riders were left beaten and bloodied.
“Law enforcement was always the main institution that enforced white supremacy,” Arsenault said. “The police, sheriff, prison guards, the judges, to some degree the whole system was organized as a means of racial control.”
Criminal charges were also used to intimidate and punish protesters.
In early March 1961, nearly 200 Black students and young adults were arrested and charged with breaching the peace[19] during a peaceful march[20] to the statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina, aimed at ending segregation in the city’s businesses. Two years later, the Supreme Court[21] ruled that the state had tried to criminalize “the peaceful expression of unpopular views,” and it overturned the students’ convictions.
In Albany, Georgia, police chief Laurie Pritchett explained in a 1976[22] interview [23]that he trained his officers not to respond with violence specifically to avoid drawing national media attention, allowing him to quietly arrest as many as 2,400 demonstrators between 1961 and 1964. He asked sheriffs in surrounding counties to keep protesters in their jails to prevent demonstrators from overwhelming his limited facilities.
Activists in the 1960s sometimes spent weeks preparing for the racist abuse and physical violence they faced from law enforcement and white residents[24].
In Nashville, Tennessee, weekly workshops[25] on the principles of nonviolent direct action were held in the basement of a church by the Rev. James Lawson, the southern director of the Congress of Racial Equality.
“I worked to equip them with a clear understanding of the history and philosophy of nonviolence,” said Lawson, who studied nonviolence in India. “It’s that good history that then became the flowering of nonviolent teaching in ’61 during the Freedom Ride, especially in jail.”
With so many activists being arrested, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee devised a tactic to fill the jails and overwhelm local authorities.
In Rock Hill, South Carolina[26], nine Black men who had been arrested during a sit-in at a lunch counter in January 1961 refused to pay bail and served their prison sentences, a strategy dubbed “jail, no bail."
The “jail, no bail” tactic was then used by Freedom Riders in a Mississippi prison. At least 300 Riders[27] were incarcerated in 1961 and many reported being intimidated by guards and stripped of necessities, including their mattresses.
“By staying in jail, they gained the ability to turn the jail cell itself or the prison cell into a site of protest,” said Pineda, the Smith College professor.
Decades after the civil rights era, police again responded with violence during another important freedom movement: the Black Lives Matter protests. After seven years of demonstrations against the police killings of Black people, the loosely organized group re-emerged as a national player after police officer Derek Chauvin was seen on video kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes on Memorial Day 2020.
Demonstrations became violent or destructive in about 220 locations, but more than 93% of the 7,750-plus protests across the country were peaceful, according to a report by the U.S. Crisis Monitor. [28]
More than 13,600 people were arrested during the Black Lives Matter protests as of June 6, according to the FBI.[29] Police arrested many for “unlawful assembly” or breaking curfew orders.
Prosecutors have dropped or decided not to file charges in thousands of cases[30] because protesters were exercising their First Amendment rights and hadn't engaged in violence or damaged property. But hundreds of protesters are still facing legal consequences.
“It’s not uncommon for police at protests to mass arrest people often in a way that won’t sustain scrutiny once the judicial process takes a look at the circumstances,” said Maggie Ellinger-Locke, the mass defense committee chair with the National Lawyers Guild. “This is how the police treat people exercising their constitutional rights.”
Several cities and departments changed their use of force policies[31] in response to backlash over the way police handled Black Lives Matter protests, but in some places, the violence persisted.
In late June 2020, a federal judge issued an order temporarily[32] restraining Portland police’s use of tear gas and rifles designed to fire small plastic rounds that inflict pain or deliver tear gas.
Days later, officers fired smoke grenades, pepper spray and rubber bullets[33]; declared the protest a riot; [34]and deployed tear gas on a crowd outside the police union building. A judge later concluded police had violated the order[35] several times and sanctioned the department.
Tai Carpenter, president of the activist group Don’t Shoot Portland, said that night stood out among the blur of the summer’s protests because of its violence.
“It was just really traumatizing to watch,” Carpenter said. “Not only were they fine with inflicting violence on people, they were blatantly breaking the order.”
Law enforcement agencies in Portland and other cities defended their crowd control tactics, saying that criminals and outside agitators were using the protests to riot, loot, vandalize property, injure officers and set fires.[36][37]
Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association, said officers were forced to rely on impact weapons and “hands-on options” during protests to stop people from committing crimes when tear gas was prohibited.
“Part of our frustration is we can’t do our job,” he said. “Basically our elected officials and some judges gave the rioters carte blanche to be able to do what they wanted to do.”
There are many variables that affect an officer’s decision to use force during a protest, and nonlethal munitions may be necessary to protect people, property and other police officers, said Vince Hawkes, director of global policing for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the world’s largest professional organization for police leaders.
“With tear gas or pepper spray or one of those tactics, the goal is to disperse the people,” he said. “If protesters are running and smashing windows and setting cars on fire and the crowd dynamic shifts from a peaceful protest to violence, then the tactics of law enforcement have to change.”
But research conducted by a presidential commission formed in the late 1960s[38] found that officers escalating force – like using weapons, tear gas, mass arrests and other tools – can cause peaceful protesters to become violent.
A joint investigation [39]by Kaiser Health News and USA TODAY into law enforcement actions at protests across the country found some officers may have improperly fired "less lethal" projectiles at peaceful protesters. The report, published in 2020[40], found at least 60 protesters sustained serious head injuries, such as a broken jaw, traumatic brain injuries and blindness, because of the use of the projectiles.
Another USA TODAY investigation [41]found that more than 200 people who identified themselves as active or retired law enforcement officers signed up to join the Oath Keepers, an armed, extremist, anti-government group linked to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Law enforcement officials are rarely disciplined, if at all, for their connections to these groups, activists argue. [42]
Since Floyd's death, national efforts at police reform have stalled in Congress[43]. And in Minneapolis, residents voted this month not to replace the city's police department[44] with a new Department of Public Safety.
Like their predecessors, some Black Lives Matter protesters have organized and trained to protect themselves from police officers.
In 2020, hundreds of Black and white activists gathered in Louisville, Kentucky, to challenge systemic racism. A police officer fatally shot Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, in her home while serving a “no-knock” search warrant. Protesters questioned whether police would be so quick to kill a white woman under similar circumstances.
Talesha Wilson[45] created basic training for people who were protesting Taylor's death on how to participate in a demonstration and protect themselves from police.
“Abolition work, working against the government, working against police, that can be very dangerous work,” Wilson said.
Wilson took part in protests after the 2014 death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri[46], and had been in touch with activists across the country.
But she was shocked by the speed with which police officers used tear gas against activists on the first day of protests in Louisville. As she ran frantically to her car, she saw others trying to find cover and using milk and water to wash out their eyes.
“I just remember not being able to breathe, and burning and running,” she said. “People were hurt … physically hurt and mentally hurt.”
Wilson isn't alone in her work. Organizers, activists and medics have also disseminated best practices for dealing with police and crowd control weapons through illustrated infographics[47], zines[48], visual guides[49] and YouTube videos[50]. Videos show demonstrators donning gas masks and using leaf blowers to diffuse clouds of tear gas, batting canisters back toward police officers with tennis rackets and lacrosse sticks, and crafting shields out of plywood and umbrellas to protect themselves from rubber bullets and pepper spray.
Now a growing number of lawmakers are taking steps to limit protesters' freedom to assemble altogether.
Since Floyd's death, nearly 100 bills have been proposed in 35 states that would expand activities that are illegal during a riot, like “taunting police” and “camping” on state property, and impose harsher penalties, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law.[51]
“It’s a really dangerous, really scary erasure of constitutional rights and makes it harder for movements to speak out,” said Ellinger-Locke, of the National Lawyers Guild. “Exactly what these bills are designed to do is to curb protests and shut down activists.”
Americans stood up to racism in 1961 and changed history. This is their fight, in their words.[52]
References
- ^ Seven Days of 1961 (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ activists risked their lives (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ integration of schools (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ continues to shape debates (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ white Americans (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ from Tougaloo College (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ A USA TODAY analysis (sevendaysof1961.usatoday.com)
- ^ estimated that more than 5,000 (www.crmvet.org)
- ^ civil rights demonstrators were arrested (www.crmvet.org)
- ^ George Floyd (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ millions (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ of Americans (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ people across the world (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ Forensic Architecture (blmprotests.forensic-architecture.org)
- ^ Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org)
- ^ The FBI, (www.justsecurity.org)
- ^ their buses were attacked by a mob of white supremacists (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ Justice Department (www.clearinghouse.net)
- ^ breaching the peace (www.mtsu.edu)
- ^ a peaceful march (www.richlandlibrary.com)
- ^ the Supreme Court (mtsu.edu)
- ^ 1976 (docsouth.unc.edu)
- ^ interview (docsouth.unc.edu)
- ^ white residents (wagingnonviolence.org)
- ^ weekly workshops (jameslawsoninstitute.org)
- ^ Rock Hill, South Carolina (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ At least 300 Riders (mscivilrightsproject.org)
- ^ U.S. Crisis Monitor. (acleddata.com)
- ^ according to the FBI. (s3.documentcloud.org)
- ^ dropped or decided not to file charges in thousands of cases (www.nytimes.com)
- ^ changed their use of force policies (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ a federal judge issued an order temporarily (www.opb.org)
- ^ officers fired smoke grenades, pepper spray and rubber bullets (www.facebook.com)
- ^ declared the protest a riot; (twitter.com)
- ^ concluded police had violated the order (casetext.com)
- ^ outside agitators (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ using the protests to riot, loot, vandalize property, injure officers and set fires. (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ a presidential commission formed in the late 1960s (https://ift.tt/3qx7nDc)
- ^ A joint investigation (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ published in 2020 (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ USA TODAY investigation (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ activists argue. (www.brennancenter.org)
- ^ national efforts at police reform have stalled in Congress (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ Minneapolis, residents voted this month not to replace the city's police department (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ Talesha Wilson (www.courier-journal.com)
- ^ Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ illustrated infographics (www.instagram.com)
- ^ zines (ia800902.us.archive.org)
- ^ visual guides (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ YouTube videos (www.youtube.com)
- ^ International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ Americans stood up to racism in 1961 and changed history. This is their fight, in their words. (www.usatoday.com)
from GANNETT Syndication Service https://ift.tt/3qEAPqy
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