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May 15, 1961, Birmingham

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, center, and a group of Freedom Riders discuss plans at Birmingham’s

Greyhound Terminal after drivers refused to carry them farther. One day earlier, a bus was bombed

in Anniston and passengers on a second bus were beaten in Birmingham. The Freedom Riders

were student activists and other volunteers who challenged segregation on interstate buses

and in bus terminals. Later, these riders caught a plane out of Birmingham to New Orleans.

Surrounding Shuttlesworth, clockwise from left, are Ed Blankenheim, Charles Person, Ike Reynolds,

James Peck, the Rev. Benjamin Cox and two unidentified Freedom Riders.

NEWS FILE

Black and white images, captured with an unflinching eye, endure as reminders of Alabama’s not-so-distant past:

Freedom Riders who defied segregation huddling at a Birmingham bus station after a mob attack; the first black graduate of the

University of Alabama walking in solitude across campus on her first day of classes; National Guard troops with unsheathed

bayonets in rural Sumter County; a teenage marcher arrested with hundreds of others on the streets of Birmingham;

the grieving mother of a child killed by a bomb. These Birmingham News photographs of the

civil rights movement have not been seen by the public. Until now.

UNSEEN. UNFORGOTTEN.

NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED IMAGES FROM THE ARCHIVES OF

S U N D A Y , F E B R U A R Y 2 6 , 2 0 0 6 | S E C T I O N E

BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2006 | 2E

Years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck

down the doctrine of “separate but equal”

in 1954, laws in Alabama and Birmingham still kept

blacks and whites apart in classrooms and waiting

rooms, on playing fields and on city buses.

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was beaten

as he tried to enroll his children in a white

high school, and his home was bombed on Christmas,

the day before he integrated Birmingham buses. But as

the words in one civil rights anthem say, Shuttlesworth

just kept on a-walkin’, kept on a-talkin’,

marching up to freedom land.

CHALLENGING SEGREGATION | 1956-1961

Dec. 26, 1956 Six days after a U.S. Supreme

Court ruling took effect ordering Montgomery city buses to integrate,

the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and others challenge the law in Birmingham by

joining white passengers on a city bus. Shuttlesworth boarded the bus hours

after a bomb exploded alongside his Collegeville house.

NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS

June 5, 1956 The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth preaches at Sardis Baptist Church in

Birmingham on the night he helped to start the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights — a week after Alabama Attorney General John Patterson outlawed the NAACP. The church “was

packed,” Shuttlesworth said later. “The thing you have to remember is that I was challenging the whole segregation law. I was saying what

I wanted to say, and I was screaming against segregation.”NEWS FILE/TOM HARDIN

April 4, 1961A single, dangling lightbulb and a

coal-burning stove show the conditions in some black schools in Jefferson

County. Birmingham schools were not integrated until September 1963.

NEWS FILE/ED JONES

Spring 1957Members of the Ku Klux Klan rally

in East Lake. At the time, the state’s fourth-grade textbooks said this about the Klan: “The loyal white men of Alabama saw they could

not depend on the laws or the state government to protect their

families. They had to do something to bring back law and order,

to get the government back in the hands of honest men who knew how to run it.”

NEWS FILE/WILLIAM PIKE

About this section The previously unpublished photographs in this section were researched by Alexander Cohn, a former photo intern at The Birmingham News.

The archived images represent the work of several former Birmingham News photographers who covered the civil rights movement. Photographers: Robert Adams, Don Brown, Norman Dean, Anthony Falletta, Tom Hardin, Jack Hoppes, Lou Isaacson,

Ed Jones, Tom Lankford, Vernon Merritt, William Pike and Tom Self. Text: Barnett Wright and Jeff Hansen. Page design: Napo Monasterio.

April 19, 1956During sentencing for the 1956 beating of entertainer Nat “King” Cole at Municipal

Auditorium, which is now Boutwell Auditorium, Jesse Mabry, E.L. Vinson, Mike Fox and Orliss Clevenger cover their faces inside a Birmingham courtroom. Each received the

maximum sentence of 180 days in jail plus fines. Cole was not injured but canceled several subsequent tour dates in the South and went home to Chicago.

NEWS FILE


Oct. 28, 1958 Signs of segregation were common. At the Birmingham jail,

the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth encounters barriers as he posts bail after being arrested for sitting in the white section of a city bus.

NEWS FILE

Robert E. Chambliss, center, was among 100 white protesters who arrived later in an attempt to block

Shuttlesworth from entering Terminal Station, according to published reports. Chambliss was convicted in 1977 of murder in Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

bombing, which killed four girls in 1963.NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS

The confrontation

“This is a good day to die,” Lamar Weaver recalled hearing as attackers hurled a brick through the

window of his Cadillac convertible and tried

to overturn the car outside Terminal

Station. Weaver said he was later arrested

for reckless driving, running a red light and

striking a pedestrian. He was fined $25

and was told to leave Birmingham, which he did.


Finally, an attack

Lamar Weaver, an early supporter of civil rights, greets

the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and his wife, Ruby, in the

whites-only waiting room at Birmingham’s train depot, Terminal Station. One day

earlier, the Alabama Public Service Commission ruled that

the waiting rooms must remain segregated. Minutes after this

photo was taken, police ejected Weaver from the waiting

room, and he was attacked by a mob of more than 100 white

protesters. The Shuttlesworths later boarded a train.NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS

March 6, 1957,Bridging the divide

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2006 | 4E-5E

THE ROAD TO CHANGE

FREEDOM RIDERS | 1961

May 24, 1961, near Cuba, Ala. National Guard troops protect a Trailways bus carrying Freedom Riders near the Mississippi state line as it travels from Montgomery to Jackson, Miss., on U.S. 80 outside of Cuba. The troops were called out after prolonged violence in Montgomery.

NEWS FILE/NORMAN DEAN

May 19, 1961Jim Zwerg opens the door for fellow Freedom Rider Paul Brooks as they

enter the Birmingham Greyhound Station. Zwerg and Brooks were arrested coming into Birmingham from Nashville. They were separated from other

riders, but rejoined the group two days later. Their contingent of Freedom Riders later left for Montgomery, where Zwerg

was beaten unconscious and hospitalized for several days.NEWS FILE

May 15, 1961 Freedom Rider Genevieve Hughes reads about an attack on a Greyhound

bus in Anniston. Hughes, inside the Birmingham Greyhound Station, had been a passenger on that bus, which was firebombed.

Aides to the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth picked up Hughes and other Freedom Riders in Anniston and gave them a ride to Birmingham.

Greyhound refused to carry Freedom Riders farther. Freedom Rider Esther Bergman, left, joins Hughes at the station.

NEWS STAFF/ED JONES

May 17, 1961 While being taken to jail, Freedom Riders sing in the rear of a Birmingham paddy wagon.

From right are Carl Bush, William Harbour and Rudolph Graham. Police said the men were arrested “for their protection.” Later that night, they were taken to the Alabama-Tennessee state line and

released. Freedom Rider Catherine Burks Brooks said that Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor personally dropped them off and told the group not to come back.

NEWS FILE

Bold volunteers — Freedom Riders — challenged the custom of segregation in 1961 after the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in interstate bus and railroad stations. Bus riders, black and

white, set out from Washington; their arrival in Alabama met with violence. Mobs attacked several buses, firebombing one in Anniston. In Birmingham and Montgomery, whites

beat some riders and federal marshals had to be called out to prevent attacks. A Birmingham News front page headline asked, “Where were the police?”

May 17, 1961 Police cover the windshield of a Greyhound bus carrying Freedom Riders from Nashville at the

Birmingham depot. Police said they did it for the riders’ safety because a mob had gathered around the bus station.

NEWS FILE

May 17, 1961 A Greyhound

bus driver faces passengers waiting at the Birmingham Greyhound Station as Freedom Riders

are held aside by Birmingham police.

NEWS FILE


When talks with Birmingham business leaders to share jobs, lunch counters, fitting

rooms and water fountains at downtown stores foundered, the Rev. Martin Luther

King Jr. turned to civil disobedience. “We would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the

conscience of the local and the national community,” King said. Protesters began weeks of attempted marches in April and were countered by fire hoses, police dogs

and arrests. During his own jailing in Birmingham, King wrote that he wanted “to create a situation

so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”

THE WORLD TAKES NOTICECIVIL DISOBEDIENCE | 1963

April 8, 1963 Customers sit at a downtown Birmingham lunch counter, which closed

rather than change its “whites-only” policy. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference had come to Birmingham with a plan to

integrate downtown businesses, and protesters staged sit-ins in defiance of segregation laws.

NEWS FILE/LOU ISAACSON

April 6, 1963 Birmingham Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, surrounded

by media, points as marchers are arrested outside the federal courthouse on Fifth Avenue North. A series of marches and mass demonstrations

over the next five weeks led to hundreds of arrests.NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS

May 7, 1963 Birmingham police arrest Parker High School student Mattie Howard in front of the Carver Theatre. Youths became an integral part of the civil rights movement when the

Children’s Crusade began on May 2. The plan was for college and high school students to demonstrate, but many came with their younger brothers and sisters. Howard’s arrest came during the sixth day of the Children’s Crusade. Photos of her arrest appeared in several publications outside Alabama.


May 3-9, 1963 Civil rights leaders

disagreed on whether to use students as part of the movement, but

public perception changed after photos showed the children

being arrested, sprayed by fire hoses and

dodging police dogs. Here, a police officer

takes away protest signs. Moments later,

firefighters turned hoses on protesters.

NEWS FILE/ED JONES

May 3-9, 1963 Youths are pummeled

by water from a fire hose during a

Children’s Crusade demonstration

in downtown Birmingham.

NEWS FILE


Black students’ attempts to enroll at the University of Alabama and the University of Mississippi were thwarted and sparked legal battles. Integration of Birmingham public schools in 1963 brought violence. Lawyer Arthur D. Shores’

home was bombed Aug. 20. On Sept. 3, after James Armstrong registered his sons at Graymont Elementary, a phone caller warned, “How would you like to see all your kids lying in a casket?” That night another bomb hit the

Shores home and gunfire erupted nearby. Schools closed, then reopened a week later with 24 black children joining 5,500 white children in nine schools. Five days later, a bomb killed four girls at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

DIFFICULT LESSONSDESEGREGATING THE SCHOOLS | 1962-1963

Sept. 15, 1963Birmingham Mayor Albert Boutwell after news

circulates that the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed. “All of us are victims. Most of us are

innocent victims,” Boutwell told a stunned city that evening. Birmingham News columnist

Walling Keith is at right.NEWS FILE/ROBERT ADAMS

Sept. 15, 1963 Juanita Jones, center, comforts her sister, Maxine McNair, whose daughter Denise McNair died

with three other girls earlier that day in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. At left is Clara Pippen, mother of the two women. The man at right is unidentified. The bombing

occurred days after black students began to integrate Birmingham city schools.NEWS FILE/VERNON MERRITT

June 12, 1963, TuscaloosaVivian Malone, the first black student to graduate from the University of Alabama, crosses the campus during the first

day of classes. One day earlier, Gov. George Wallace made his stand at the schoolhouse door in Tuscaloosa. James

Hood, another black student who started classes with Malone, later dropped out. Malone graduated in 1965.


Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 1962, Oxford, Miss.Mississippi National Guardsmen detain a student

protester on the University of Mississippi campus after James Meredith tried to enroll. Meredith became the first

black student to graduate from the school in 1963. Two people were killed and hundreds injured during

unrest that accompanied Meredith’s matriculation.NEWS FILE/NORMAN DEAN

The reactionWest End students boycott class

to protest the enrollment of Marcus and Josephine Powell.


Sept. 10, 1963,Groundbreaking steps

West End High School student Patricia Marcus returns to a car after her

first day in class. Birmingham News photographer Robert Adams also

photographed Marcus sitting alone in the classroom. He said his photos that

day were significant because they were the first images of a

black student at West End High. The school is now 98 percent black.


GAINING A VOICE


In Alabama, “there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered”

to vote, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. observed. Making changes cost blood. In Mississippi, three men were killed and buried in an

earthen dam in June 1964 when they tried to investigate the burning of a black church used to register voters. In Alabama, protests at the

Selma courthouse failed in early 1965, and a march to Montgomery was blocked by tear gas grenades and state troopers with billy clubs.

Two weeks later, King reorganized marchers for the five-day, 54-mile walk that led not just to Montgomery, but also to the Voting Rights Act

of 1965. A Detroit woman was shot to death as she helped in the march.

On the WebGo to al.com/unseen for more photographs and recorded interviews with the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, U.S. Rep. John Lewis and the photographers.

THE FIGHT FOR VOTING RIGHTS | 1964-1965

June 27, 1964, Neshoba County, Mississippi

Law enforcement officials search for three missing civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss. The bodies of James Chaney,

Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were found Aug. 4 buried 15 feet beneath an earthen dam. The three activists had

recently stopped in Birmingham on the way to Philadelphia, Miss., according to Bishop Calvin Woods, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church.

NEWS FILE/DON BROWN

March 7, 1965, Selma

Using batons and tear gas, Alabama state

troopers break up the march from Selma to

Montgomery at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The clash became known as “Bloody

Sunday.”NEWS FILE/TOM LANKFORD

Feb. 9, 1965, Montgomery

Johnnie Carr, right, of the Montgomery Improvement

Association, registers to vote along with several other city residents.

The MIA was formed in 1955, after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus. Carr, a

longtime friend of Parks, became president of the MIA in 1968.

NEWS FILE/ED JONES

March 21-25, 1965, Selma to Montgomery Thousands of marchers walk 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery to bring attention to the low numbers of black registered voters in the South. Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee (SNCC) workers John Lewis and Bernard Lafayette had been trying to register more voters in Dallas County and surrounding counties since 1963.NEWS FILE/JACK HOPPES

Jan. 18, 1965, SelmaThe Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. kicks off a voter registration

drive at the Dallas County Courthouse. With King are the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, left; the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, right;

and the Rev. Andrew Young, far right.NEWS FILE/ED JONES

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