UNIVERSITE JOSEPH KI-ZERBO

UNITÉ DE FORMATION EN LETTRES,

ARTS ET COMMUNICATION
DEPARTEMENT D’ETUDES ANGLOPHONES

MASTER
Civilisation et Littérature Américaines

WHITE ALLIES AND THEIR ROLES IN THE CIVIL

RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE USA FROM THE
1950s TO 1970s

Présenté et Soutenu par :

Abdoulaye DRABO

Dirigé par :
Dr. Jean ZIDA
Maître de Conférences
Année universitaire: 2016/2017
 DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to my father Mr. Boussouma DRABO and to my mother Mrs. Haoua
DRABO. Thanks a lot for your unconditional support. May Allah the Almighty bless you!!!

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would first like to thank my thesis advisor Dr. Jean ZIDA in the Department of
Anglophone Studies, University Joseph KI-ZERBO. The door to Dr. ZIDA’s office was always
opened whenever I ran into a trouble spot or had a question about my research or writing. He
consistently allowed this paper to be my work, but steered me in the right direction whenever
he thought I needed it.

I would also like to thank the other lecturers of the English department, Dr. Bakary
KONATE, Dr. Donat HIEN, Pr. Elisabeth ROBERTSON, who were involved in my training
and in this research project. Without their passionate teaching and advice, the work could not
have been successfully conducted.

I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Michel PODA in the Department of Anglophone
Studies, University Joseph KI-ZERBO, as a co-reader of this thesis, and I am gratefully
indebted to him for his very valuable comments on this thesis.

I would also like to acknowledge Dr. André KABORE in the Department of Anglophone
Studies, University Joseph KI-ZERBO, for accepting to be the president of the jury of this
master thesis and I am also gratefully indebted to him for his very valuable comments on this
master thesis.

I address my sincere thanks to my parents and all my family members for the support they
gave me during the writing process of this work.

I would also like to thank Brother Jean Bruno SOME, Brother Raoul, Brother Zini Paul
TOE, Mr. Dominique MAVOUNGOU, Mr. S. E. MAMPASSI and Dr. Jean Christophe
KOUSSOUBE for their indirect unconditional support.

Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my friend and fellow student Serge
Lazare OUEDRAOGO, who really helped me in the writing process of this Master Thesis.
Thanks a lot and may God reward you!

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 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

AJC: American Jewish Congress

CORE: Congress of Racial Equality
CRA: Civil Rights Act
CRH: Civil Rights History
CRM: The Civil Rights Movement
KKK: Ku Klux Klan
MOWN: March on Washington Movement
NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NAG: Nonviolent Action Group
NCCIJ: National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice
NCRR: National Conference on Race and Religion
NYA: National Youth Administration
SCLC: Southern Christian Leadership Conference
SNCC: Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
SPLC: Southern Poverty Law Center
SDS: Student for a Democratic Society
SCOPE: Southern Community Organization and Political Education
UAW: United Auto Workers
US: The United States
VRA: Voting Rights Act
WPA: Works Progress Administration
WCC: White Citizens Councils
YMCA: Young Men’s Christian Association

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION ....................................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGMENT ....................................................................................................... ii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ............................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................................................... iv
GENERAL INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................1
CHAPTER ONE: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: EXPLANATION OF CONCEPTS
AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ...................................................................................7
1.1. EXPLANATION OF CONCEPTS ...........................................................................7
1.1.1. The Notion of Civil Rights in the U.S. ...............................................................7
1.1.2. The Significance of the Civil Rights Movement ................................................8
1.1.3. The Significance of “White Allies” ...................................................................9
1.1.4. The Significance of African Americans .............................................................9
1.2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ............................................................................ 10
1.2.1. Abolition of Slavery and Institutionalization of Racism ...................................10
1.2.2. The Major Incentive Incident: The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Rosa Parks’
Refusal (1955-1957) .....................................................................................................11
1.2.3. Major Focus and Importance ........................................................................... 12
1.2.4. The Spread of the Movement ........................................................................... 13
CHAPTER TWO: THE ROLES OF WHITE ALLIES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR RACIAL
EQUALITY ......................................................................................................................... 16
2.1. THE ROLES OF WHITE JURIDICO-POLITICAL ACTORS ...................................16
2.1.1. Warren Earl (1891-1974) .................................................................................... 17
2.1.2. Jack Greenberg (1924-2016) ............................................................................... 18
2.1.3. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) ................................................................. 19
2.1.4. Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) (1908-1973) ........................................................ 21
2.2. THE ROLES OF WHITE RELIGIOUS LEADERS ................................................... 22
2.2.1. Rev. James J. Reeb (1927-1965).......................................................................... 23
2.2.2. Rev. Bruce W. Klunder (1937-1964) ...................................................................24
2.2.3. Eugene Carson Blake (1906-1985) ......................................................................25
2.2.4. Mathew H. Ahmann (1931–2001) .......................................................................26
2.3. THE ROLES OF WHITE CIVIL SOCIETY ACTORS .............................................. 28
2.3.1. Williams Lewis Moore (1927-1963).................................................................... 28
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 2.3.2. Viola Gregg Liuzzo, (1925-1965)........................................................................29
2.3.3. James Zwerg (born 1939) .................................................................................... 31
2.4. THE ROLES OF WHITE ACADEMIC ACTORS ..................................................... 33
2.4.1. Barbara Henry (born 1932).................................................................................. 33
2.4.2. Juliette Hampton Morgan (1914-1957) ................................................................ 34
2.4.3. John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) .......................................................................36
CHAPTER THREE: THE PROTEST METHODS OF THE CRM AND THE SPECIFIC
ACTIONS TAKEN BY WHITE ALLIES ............................................................................ 38
3.1. Boycotts: The Montgomery Bus Boycott ...................................................................38
3.2. Sit-Ins: The Influential Greensboro Sit-Ins (1960) ...................................................... 40
3.3. Marches: The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom .......................................41
3.4. Civil Disobedience: Freedom Rides ........................................................................... 44
CHAPTER FOUR: THE IMPACT OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF WHITE ALLIES IN THE
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT............................................................................................. 46
4.1. IMPACT ON AFRICAN AMERICANS .................................................................... 46
4.1.1. Political Impact ...................................................................................................46
4.1.2. Social Impact ......................................................................................................47
4.1.3. Economic Impact ................................................................................................ 48
4.2. IMPACT ON WHITES IN GENERAL ......................................................................49
4.2.1. Political Impact ...................................................................................................49
4.2.2. Social Impact ......................................................................................................50
4.2.3. Economic Impact ................................................................................................ 51
4.3. IMPACT ON WHITE ALLIES .................................................................................. 52
4.3.1. Political Impact ...................................................................................................52
4.3.2. Social Impact ......................................................................................................53
4.2.3. Economic Impact ................................................................................................ 55
4.4. IMPACT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MOVEMENT ............................ 55
4.4.1. At the Political Level........................................................................................... 55
4.4.2. At the Social Level .............................................................................................. 57
4.4.3. At the Economic Level ........................................................................................ 57
GENERAL CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 59
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 65
A/ MAJOR SOURCES .........................................................................................................65
1) BOOKS .................................................................................................................. 65

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 2) DISSERTATIONS ................................................................................................. 66
3) JOURNAL ARTICLES .......................................................................................... 66
4) INTERNET SOURCES.......................................................................................... 68
5) ADDRESSES .........................................................................................................71
6) TV AND MEDIA SOURCES................................................................................. 71
B) SECONDARY SOURCES .............................................................................................. 72
1) BOOK(S) ............................................................................................................... 72
2) DISSERTATION(S)............................................................................................... 72
3) JOURNAL ARTICLES .......................................................................................... 72
4) INTERNET SOURCES .......................................................................................... 73
RESUME ......................................................................................................................... 74
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 74

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The Modern Civil Rights Movement (CRM) was a movement which rallied millions of
people in the United States of America (USA). It aimed to defend the civil rights of African-
Americans in the USA. The movement rooted in the 19th century but it reached its peak in the
1950s and 1960s. African-Americans supported by some whites called “white allies” organized
and conducted the movement. Together, they run after the core goals of the struggle through
many measures. They sometimes used legal means, petitions and nonviolent protest
demonstrations in order to peacefully reach the ultimate goals of the struggle. The CRM is
regarded as the greatest social upheaval of the USA. In fact, the movement was mainly run in
the South of America because African Americans were numerous in this part of the USA and
also because it was in that place that unfair treatments in education, economic opportunity,
political and legal actions were most visible. Started at the end of the 19th century, America
states and local governments voted laws, known as Jim Crow Laws 1, which intended to
segregate blacks from whites. These laws restricted the voting abilities of blacks and, by the
same token, deprived the black community socially, economically and politically. Under such
conditions, the movement was therefore stressed on three areas of discrimination and
segregation: social public facilities, education, and voting rights. It was in that vein of
objectives, white allies against the will of white racists and some African Americans got
involved in the struggle for racial equality.

Yet, despite helping African Americans, white allies’ roles and impacts seem to remain
overlooked so far, as not much research has been carried out in this field and those who dealt
with the matter of whites’ implication omitted to highlight the impacts their cooperation has
had on the struggle and its conflicting groups. The literature review below stands as a proof of
it. On account of this gap, I deemed it necessary to address this issue of the involvement of
white allies in the CRM through research in order to reveal to which extent white allies’
collaboration impacted on the movement and its conflicting groups basically at the political,
social and economic levels. To do so, I try to know on the one hand how white allies of these
groups cited above got involved in the CRM, and on the other hand, what impacts their
involvement has had on blacks, on whites in general, on white allies themselves and on the
movement itself.

1 Jim Crow was a set of laws and social customs requiring racial segregation.

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 Generally speaking, many people have tried to address the issue of the CRM through
different ways. On the one hand, some talked about the movement by shedding light only on
African Americans’ deeds. This group is the largest one. One of the scholars we can mention is
Sanford Wexler. In his book The Civil Rights Movement: An Eye Witness History (1993), he
lays emphasis on what blacks did during the movement to get their freedom. Attention was paid
to blacks. Wexler surveyed the history of the CRM in the USA by laying emphasis on the social,
political, and economic issues African-Americans were faced with and simultaneously, he
revealed how African Americans conducted the struggle at the social, political and economic
levels to free themselves from the white domination.

Bruce J. Dierenfield in his book The Civil Rights Movement (2013), tells the unusual and
hard story of the way millions of ordinary African-Americans fought to dethrone racial
segregation, to exercise their voting rights and to improve their political, social, and economic
conditions. This book stresses on Martin Luther King Jr. as well as other famous black leaders
that led the CRM. Through the telling of the story of these leaders, Dienrenfield shows how
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other African Americans’ fight against racism impacted
blacks’ political, social and economic status in the American society.

In Sitkoff Harvard’s book The Struggle for Black Equality (1981), blacks’ roles in the
movement are stressed once again. The roles that whites played remained in darkness. Harvard
simultaneously stressed on the description of the key figures of the struggle, mainly blacks, and
the description of the vigor of the organizations of the battle by emphasizing on the way African
Americans fought for their civil rights with Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X and other blacks
as leaders. By the same token, he showed how the African American community arrived in a
collective way to defy segregation and to move from a lower political, social and economic
status to an upper status regarding these three areas.

Cashman Sean Dennis, in his book African American and the Quest for Civil Rights
(1992), shows how blacks fought to be free. Stress was laid on African Americans’ actions
during the movement. Cashman, describes the deep challenge African Americans experienced
in the USA and he highlights the support of African-American leaders such as A. Philip
Randolph, Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others within their historical context.
He made the history of civil rights workers and at the same time he explained how the collective
effort of African-Americans writers, artists, singers, and athletes gave a real and wider
understanding of the humanity and culture of black Americans.

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 Hana Markova, in her bachelor’s thesis entitled: “The African American Civil Rights
Movement: As a Long Lasting Process of Struggle for Freedom” (2008), lays emphasis on what
blacks did to free themselves, but does not mention what whites did to help free blacks.
Markova pinpoints the role of black leaders and the different organizations of the movement.
She shows how black leaders organized themselves to achieve the overall goals of the struggle
which were to improve African Americans political, social, and economic conditions.

On the other hand, another group of few writers tried to talk about the issue of the
involvement of white allies in the struggle in some of their writings and they do not bring into
light the impacts white allies’ collaboration has had on the struggle and on its different warring
parties at the political, social and economic levels. Among these people, we have Krissah
Thompson. In her article entitled “In March on Washington, white activists [are] largely
overlooked but strategically essential” (2013), Thompson lays emphasis on what whites did to
help free blacks during the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. She took the case of a
young boy called Eric Kulberg. The latter asked for a day-off from his boss in order to take part
in the March on Washington despite knowing that he would lose his job if he went there
(Thompson 2013). In fact, Kulberg was not the only white who took part in that march. There
were many other whites who participated in the march in order to reach the goal of the march
which was to have “jobs and freedom” for everybody living in the USA. In her work, she did
not evoke the political, social, and economic effects white allies’ contribution in the march has
had on the short and long terms of the movement and its conflicting groups.

Michaela Lupačová in her Master’s thesis, “John F. Kennedy and His Role in the [CRM]’’
(2009), only stresses on what Kennedy did to help free blacks. In fact, he was not the only white
who helped to free blacks. She put emphasis on what Kennedy did during his early political
career, his presidential campaign and during his political office for the movement to be
successful. She overlooked to give a critical analysis of the social, and economic effects of his
role on the movement and on the movement conflicting parties.

In her book Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights (2002),
Cynthia Stokes Brown describes how four white allies, Virginia Foster Durr, Waties Waring,
Anne Braden, Herbert Kohl, joined unambiguously the black community in their fight for the
discharge of African Americans as well as for their own liberation from the evils of racism.
These people were not the only white people who took part in the fight for racial equality. There
were many other whites. Brown, only stressed on the role played by these four people and did

3
not show the impacts their cooperation has had on the struggle and its conflicting groups at the
political, social, and economic levels.

As it appears in the literature, while one group only focuses on blacks’ roles in the CRM
to underline the effects of their fight on their political, social, and economic standings, the other
one underlines the involvement of white allies in the movement but did not tell how important
were their contributions for the movement and how their collaboration impacted on the
movement and the different conflicting groups of the struggle at the political, social, and
economic levels. Generally speaking, white allies’ involvement in the CRM was not really
focus on and those who did it omitted to underline the impacts of their collaboration on the
struggle and its different warring parties mainly at the political, social, and economic levels.
Yet unless specific studies on the matter of their implication are undertaken to reveal the
important roles played by white allies in the CRM and show the impacts of their cooperation
on the movement and it different conflicting groups mainly at the political, social, and economic
levels, there will always be what could be called a gap in the history of the movement, and a
kind of injustice done to those white allies who believed in racial equality as a human universal.
In such regards, the current study hopefully seeks to fill this gap and do justice to the white
allies of the CRM by approaching the issue more objectively in an investigation into the history
of the movement in order to put on light the roles and impacts of white allies in the success of
the struggle for racial equality. Such an investigation will help us understand better to which
extent white allies got involved in the CRM and how their involvement impacted on blacks, on
whites in general, on white allies themselves, and on the CRM at the political, social, and
economic levels. In this respect, I put forth two assumptions: in the first place, I assume that
white allies got involved in the CRM in various ways. My second assumption contends that the
involvement of white allies in the struggle impacted on African Americans, whites in general,
white allies themselves, and the implementation of the movement substantially at three levels:
political, social, and economic.

Knowing that there is a large variety of theories in social sciences, I deem it necessary to
combine two theories in my research work. The first one is Peter Kropotkin’s Theory of Mutual
Aid. This theory suggests that humans need cooperation to address individual concerns as well
as collective ones. This, for Kropotkin, underlines the human need for social relationships that
cannot be fulfilled through individualistic behavior. Kropotkin views cooperation or
collaboration as “fundamental to human and social development and the majority of examples
he cites are of ‘equal’ citizens engaged in mutually beneficial acts or behavior” (Munn-Gidding

4
153). He also notes that forms of localized cooperation endure or re-appear even after the rise
of bureaucratic government. For Peter Kropotkin, mutual aid is as old as the history of
humankind:

The mutual aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply
interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that it has been
maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes
of history ... whenever mankind had to work out a new social organization, adapt
to a new phase of development, its constructive genius always drew the elements
and inspiration ... from that same ever-living tendency. (Munn-Guidding 152)

As can be understood from Kropotkin’s Theory of Mutual Aid, cooperation, and

collaboration to address human concerns such as political, social and economic issues go
beyond racial considerations. Such a theory is important to our study in a sense that it would
better bring light on the why and how white allies got involved in a struggle for black civil
rights in a white-dominated society and at the same time it will permit us to know the impacts
this cooperation and collaboration had had on the CRM and its different conflicting groups.

The second theory I use is Critical Race Theory (CRT). Critical Race Theory was
developed, in part, as a response to the shortcomings of Critical Legal Studies(CLS). This
theory examines, dismantles and challenges racial inequality in the American society. It is based
on the fact that the question of race and racism are the product of power relations and social
thought. As far as our research is centered on the question of the struggle for racial equality,
this theory can be helpful for us to understand more the why and how of white allies’
involvement in the battle for racial equality and how their collaboration impacted on the
struggle and its different conflicting groups at the political, social, and economic levels.

This research aims at assessing the roles and impacts of white allies in the CRM from the
1950s to the 1970s. Our objectives are to examine how white allies got involved in the CRM
and how their involvement impacted on blacks, on whites in general, on white allies themselves
and on the movement itself.

The deductive method of analysis will be pivotally used to check the hypotheses. While
analyzing the roles and impacts of white allies in the CRM, I will make reference to some
specialized opinions on the key white allies’ implication in order to understand more their roles
and impacts. In a research of such an importance, it is mandatory, to quote Ouédraogo (2018)

5
verbatim, that “all through my research work, special care...be taken to separate truth from
disinformation, and biased analysis from objective and pragmatic analysis” (7).

The 1950s-1970s have been chosen specifically because the struggle for racial equality
reached its peak during that period.

The outline of my research will go through the following steps:

The first chapter concerns the CRM, explanation of concepts and its historical background; the
second chapter brings out the roles of white allies in the struggle for racial equality; the third
chapter addresses white allies’ roles in the protest methods and the specific actions taken by
them; and the fourth chapter underscores the impacts of the involvement of white allies on the
different warring parties of the movement and on the movement itself mainly at three levels:
political, social and economic.

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CHAPTER ONE: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: EXPLANATION
OF CONCEPTS AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The CRM was a seminal upheaval which impacted on the history of the USA. Its objective
was to establish social justice by permitting African Americans to gain equal rights under the
law in the United States of America. Despite the fact that the civil war had officially and legally
ended slavery, African Americans continued to be victims of segregation and discrimination
mainly in the American South. By the mid-20th century, African Americans had had more than
enough of injustice and violence against their race. For this, they, with the support of many
other whites called ‘’white allies’’ mobilized and launched an unprecedented fight for racial
equality (History.com, 2009).

1.1.EXPLANATION OF CONCEPTS

1.1.1. The Notion of Civil Rights in the U.S.

How does the American public define and understand the term “civil rights’’? As it is
mentioned within the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Constitutionfacts.com,
2019), this declaration grants the best of human rights to each American living in the USA
(NPS2 2016). Basing on this aspect of the Declaration of Independence, the American public
sees itself as a public free from any sort of injustice such as discrimination, segregation,
restriction of freedom etc. Rebecca Hamlin defines civil rights as “guarantees of equal social
opportunities and equal protection under the law, regardless of race, religion, or other personal
characteristics.’’ (Hamlin 2019). For the American public, civil rights are these sets of laws
which assured them protection, security, and equality everywhere in the American society
regardless of their origins, disabilities, etc. Civil rights are also perceived by Americans as the
set of laws designed to protect each American citizen from unjust treatment. They perceived it
as the rights of each American to be treated equally with others everywhere in the USA and to
be free from unjust discrimination in a number of settings, such as education, employment,

2 National Park Service

7
housing, public accommodations, […] (Reuters 2019). Relying on these various perceptions
of civil rights, all citizens in America understand that it is forbidden to interfere in another
person's civil rights because it would be seen as a violation that would create an action for injury
(Reuters 2009). Having this principle in mind anyone, provided that he lives in America, can
complain if he thinks his rights guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence are not respected
and it is a duty for the American government to protect the rights of all citizens in the country.
Despite having a clear understanding of the meaning of civil rights, a large group of white
racists refused to respect blacks’ rights. They treated African Americans as inferior people;
which revolted the black race and led them into the Civil Rights Movement, the very one which
proved to be of great significance for the African American community.

1.1.2. The Significance of the Civil Rights Movement

The CRM was a struggle provoked, organized and led by African Americans in the middle
of the 1950s to late 1970s. The movement was a peaceful and non-violent reaction to
segregation, racism, and discrimination. It aimed to achieve the same civil rights with those of
whites. The movement was also aimed at fighting for equal rights to employment, housing, and
education.

In fact, the movement signaled that African Americans were fed up with all the injustices
they were victims of from white racists. African Americans made a list of all their grievances
related to discrimination and used it as the core goals of the struggle. In that vein they were
determined to achieve full freedom, justice, and equality. They desired to see positive change
toward their race in every social, political and economic aspect of their society; in a few words
they just wanted to receive fair treatment in their society. The movement was a struggle which
has had a deep and lasting effect on the American legal and political institutions as it came to
transform the way of life imposed by Jim Crow laws. The movement also made of the thirteenth,
fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments well-known in America and, by the same token, forced
the implementation of the last two Amendments (the fourteenth and fifteenth) which had been
eroded by segregationist laws mainly in the South. In this fight for racial equality African
Americans sometimes relied on the support of some white Americans called ‘’white allies’’.

8
1.1.3. The Significance of “White Allies”

During the era of the Modern CRM, the roles of the allies were popularized because of
their presence in antiracist activism, male allies in the battle for women’s rights and straight
allies in LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer). Additional allies have been
identified since the 1960s in the struggle for the civil liberties of people with disabilities,
transgender individuals and other oppressed groups. Generally, when there is a struggle of this
kind, it is often led by members of the group which is victim of marginalization and oppression
with the support of allies coming from the non-marginalized group. The roles of these allies
have always consisted in providing unshakable support and necessary resources to the
disadvantaged group. In the case of the CRM, African Americans received the support of a
minority of whites called ‘’white allies’’ of the CRM. They provided multiform aids to the
African American community. While some worked to end the system of oppression that gave
them (whites) greater privilege and power, others worked as advocates for the oppressed black
population, not only by speaking up against the systems of oppression, but also by challenging
their fellow whites to do the same. In general, the roles of the ally were to make his group,
which was a dominant one, aware of the injustice it spread around and support the activism of
members of the dominated group that desire to free itself from the injustice imposed on it by
the dominant group (Mizock 2016). In the case of the CRM ‘’white allies’’ sided with African
Americans. What does this label (African Americans) mean? What does it stand for?

1.1.4. The Significance of African Americans

The term ‘’African American’’ came into being ‘’in a December 1988 news conference
at Chicago's Hyatt Regency O'Hare Hotel, where leaders of seventy-five black groups met to
discuss a new national black agenda, Jesse Jackson announced that members of their race
preferred to be called "African-American." The campaign he then led to replace the term
"black" met immediate success among African American opinion makers and more gradual
acceptance in the national press. ‘’ (Martin, 1991) In fact, the term refers to all black people
who live in the U. S. and who have a black ancestor and also who are legally recognized by the
American laws as American citizens. In this vein, the Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary defined
the term ‘’African American’’ as ‘’an American of African and especially of black African
descent.’’

9
 As a matter of fact, the core goal of the switch from ‘’Black’’ to ‘’African American’’
was to secure Blacks’ cultural trait with what they received as heritage from their ancestors and
establish a clear connection between the deportees and their ancestral homeland (Smith, 1992).
As Ting-Toomey et al. say ‘’the label, or labels, that an individual chooses ultimately connects
them with a group identity that has been acknowledged within society’’ (Ting-Toomey et al.,
2000). The desire to be connected with their motherland coupled with the desire to have the
same civil rights as those of whites pushed African Americans to lead a series of uprisings in
the USA every time they felt that their rights were boycotted as African American citizens. This
was the case when they stood up to claim the abolition of slavery and the blatant
institutionalization of racism in the USA.

1.2.HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

1.2.1. Abolition of Slavery and Institutionalization of Racism

The first Africans stepped on the continent of North America in 1619 as people who
entered into a contract with their white masters. This contract made of Africans indentured
servants. Because of Trans-Atlantic trade, millions of Africans went to America under the
guidance of whites. This presence of Africans on the land of America gave birth to a new social
order in American colonies. The core element of this new social order was centered on the issue
of race. Although, according to the Declaration of Independence (1776), all men were created
equal, blacks were seen as properties by their white masters. They were qualified for being
slaves. To solve once for all this matter of slavery in the colonies, the abolition of slavery was
grafted to the Civil War, also known as the Union War (1861-1865), as part of fundamental war
objectives. The Proclamation of Emancipation issued in 1863 enforced the enfranchisement of
all slaves of the confederacies. All these events gave rise to the so-called Reconstruction era.
During the period of the so-called reconstruction, three amendments3 were enacted. These
amendments were aimed at positively modifying the social position of the newcomers (blacks).
Though the period of reconstruction was seen as an era during which every person living on the
land of America should be treated on an equal footing, new white groups of resistance and
organizations arose, the central objective of which was to threaten African Americans and

3 13th Amendment from 1865 abolished slavery, 14th Amendment, passed in 1866, guarantees citizenship
to all persons born or naturalized in the United States; and according to the 15th Amendment, the right to vote
cannot be denied “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude” (U.S. Congress, “The 13th, 14th
and 15th Amendments,” HERB: Resources for Teachers, https://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1524 accessed
September 9, 2019.)

10
prevent them from trying to exercise their rights. The South part of the Union started passing
laws called Black Codes. These sets of laws were aimed at maintaining blacks as inferior to
whites and limiting their civil liberties. These laws marked the establishment of segregation in
the USA. In 1896, the Supreme Court of the USA announced in the Plessy vs. Ferguson that
separate facilities for white and black people were legal as long as they were of equal quality.
This verdict made racial segregation legal and permitted it to be rooted in the American society.
The signs of segregation were present everywhere in America mainly in the realms of public
life such as restaurants, schools, theaters, cinemas, swimming pools and transport facilities. On
account of this new way of living in the American society, desegregation became one of the
capital goals of the civil rights fighters. During the First World War, African Americans were
given a chance to serve their new country; however, despite these new sacrifices African
Americans made in the war, they received no fair treatment in the American society. Changes
regarding racial equalization did not occur. The black community was still segregated despite
all its war efforts. With the starting of the Second World War African Americans were provided
new chances at the economic level due to the development of the industry sector in the USA.
Large numbers of African Americans moved from the South of the USA to the North. In terms
of economic conditions, the Second World War brought some positive changes to blacks. In
the 1950s, that is a decade after the Second World War, the United States Supreme Court made
decisions in a series of successful cases which gave more freedom to African Americans
(Lupačová 7-8) and they also helped to develop and strengthen in African Americans the desire
to have a specific struggle which will bear the goal of fighting against the evils of racism their
community was suffering from. This new African American state of mind led them to use Rosa
Parks’ refusal and create a boycott called the Montgomery bus boycott which is seen as the
major incentive incident which conducted to the Modern Civil Rights Movement.

1.2.2. The Major Incentive Incident: The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Rosa Parks’ Refusal
(1955-1957)

Montgomery, the capital city of Alabama, is known for having provided home for the
leaders of the confederate states when they were first constituted in 1861. It is also known to be
the place where Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president of the confederacy. More than
100 years later, racial segregation evolved and permeated almost every aspect of the
Montgomery people’s lives as it was the case throughout most of the Southern states. In
Montgomery, racial segregation was everywhere, blacks and whites were more divided than

11
ever. Schools, restaurants, movie theaters, public water fountains and city buses were all
segregated in Montgomery, black passengers were obliged to pay their fares at the front, then
had to board the bus from the rear side. In Montgomery City Bus lines, the rows of seats in the
front were reserved for white people by law and custom. Blacks had to sit in the back of the
buses or in a kind of no man’s land in the middle of the bus, on condition that no whites desired
these seats. What’s more, blacks had to give their seats whenever a white passenger was left
without a seat in the bus. No signs described these unjust rules, but all the people of
Montgomery knew them. Despite the spreading of these unjust laws and the fact that they were
well-known, Rosa Parks, a 43-year-old seamstress and a former secretary of the National
Association for the Advancement of Color People (NAACP) chapter, took an action on
December 1,1955 which gave birth to a protest that would become later an integral part of the
CRM. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, after working hard all that day at a Montgomery
department store, left when the closing time buzzer rang. She boarded a Cleveland Avenue bus,
which was half empty and took the first seat on row 11 just after ‘the white’ section. As the bus
move from stop to stop, the ‘white’ section filled up and a white passenger was left without a
seat. The bus driver, James Blake, who had once evicted Parks from a bus in 1943 for refusing
to respect the established rules which favored whites in Montgomery city buses, ordered the
blacks in row 11 to move back, since Montgomery’s segregation law prohibited whites and
blacks to sit in the same row in a bus. All the blacks moved except Rosa Parks. When she
refused to budge, Blake called the police, and Parks was arrested for not respecting the
municipal code segregating the races in Montgomery (Wexler 67-68). News of Rosa Parks’
arrest soon swept throughout Montgomery and this was seen as the event needed to attack and
defy the issue of segregation in Montgomery and everywhere in the USA. Because of TV,
newspaper, roadside advertising made around Parks’ arrest, this arrest drew people’s attention
and they used it as the major focus to set off “the Montgomery bus boycott’’.

1.2.3. Major Focus and Importance

Long before Rosa Parks’ refusal, many inhuman treatments were done to blacks.
However, none of them pricked them up as the above event. Rosa Parks’ refusal came as the
last straw that was being waited for. It came as the sparkle needed for African Americans to
raise against white segregationists who eroded them the rights of citizenship guaranteed by the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments through the implementation of segregationist laws
called ‘Jim Crow Laws’ in the South. It came to consolidate the belief that blacks needed to

12
stand up as one person to change everything and create a society with no segregation and
discrimination rules, a society in which justice will be for all and not for a group of people.
Moreover, Rosa Parks’ arrest, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott, has been seen
by many historians of the movement as one of the most significant events in the 20 th century.
Most of them considered the boycott to be a stepping stone in the long journey to attain racial
equality in the USA. They portrayed the boycott as a boycott which revealed the desire of large
numbers of blacks, if not a whole community, to mobilize and protest racial segregation in the
USA. The boycott opened up many doors of opportunities for the black community to give the
evidences which testified that their race is not an inferior race and that they should not be treated
so. The result which came from the defiance of Parks’ arrest proved that Jim Crow Laws were
unlawful and that they could be defeated if the whole African American community came
together to face the issue of racism defended by Jim Crow Laws enactors. The Montgomery
bus boycott was the cornerstone on which the revolution against racial inequality took support
to organize and spread all over America and this revolution had repercussions on the entire
world thanks to the messages it spread and also thanks to the tactics of non-violence used by
the charismatic leader of the revolution whose name was Martin Luther King Jr 4.

1.2.4. The Spread of the Movement

In the USA, what started as a simple bus boycott in Alabama would very soon become a
gigantic movement which contaminated the whole country. Thanks to his powerful rhetoric
capacities, King travelled all around the country to inspire the black youth and other minority
groups to stand up for their rights. In early 1960, a group of black students in Greensboro
decided to take action against the racist decision to deny restaurant services to black people.
When they took seats and asked for coffee, they were refused and asked to leave at once before
the police were called to arrest them for illegal behavior. Like a straw fire, “the movement
spread to 54 cities in 9 states though students were physically assaulted” (SAHO 2011).
Following such events, black students all over the South began to follow King’s strategy of
non-violence and successfully organized peaceful protests against segregated restaurants,
transportation, swimming pools, theaters, libraries, beaches and public parks.
The CRM, due to its noble cause, would not only be the hobby horse of African
Americans to fight for equality in their country. As the movement in the USA became well-

4 Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and civil-rights activist who had a seismic impact
on race relations in the United States, beginning in the mid-1950s (Biography.com, 2014).

13
known and supported by all freedom fighters around the world, the movement would crawl into
other parts of the world where freedom was legally confiscated. In the 1960s the CRM
“produced a ripple effect beyond its USA focus” (Mwamba 2017). As King’s famous phrase
“let freedom ring” (Mwamba 2017) really rang the bell in the USA, its loud ringing echoed
beyond the USA borders to move other oppressed people outside America.
In the 1960s, black South Africans lived in a situation which, to a greater extent,
paralleled what African Americans experienced in the USA. Though there were some violent
movements in South Africa against the apartheid regime, many anti-apartheid activists were
inspired by King’s non-violence theory. Following the success of such events as the gigantic
March on Washington, many anti-apartheid fighters became convinced that the same results
could be achieved in South Africa provided that the movement was well organized and led.
Many activists were confident, and some of them were all the more so since their case was
taken in hands by the most famous non-violent anti-racist figure Martin Luther King who,
dealing with apartheid in 1964 declared, “Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe are among
many hundreds wasting away in Robben Island prison...which uses torture and sadistic forms
of interrogation to crush human being, even driving some to suicide” (SAHO 2011). When
asked to know whether the CRM gives them hope for a freer South Africa, a South African
political anti-apartheid activist, Albie confirms, “At a given stage, the CRM made a major
impact on us...When the sit-ins started in the USA, I felt I was there” (SAHO 2011).
The methods adopted by the CRM inspired Africans who were under European colonial
rule to fight for independence. One of the pioneer countries to adopt the CRM struggling
methods was Ghana who got its independence on March 1957. For example, ‘' King represented
Black America during Ghana [….] ‘s Independence Day celebration in March 6, 1957 [….] and
was a bulwark anti-Apartheid activist’’( Kwarteng 2015).
This trip to Ghana could be considered as the first evidence of the international
recognition of the CRM. Martin Luther King was almost venerated by Ghanaians as the most
charismatic non-violence apostle of the twentieth century. More importantly, his name was
associated with the CRM in a way that when this movement was talked about, Martin Luther
King was automatically thought of.

After Ghana it was the turn of Zambian freedom fighters to be inspired by the methods
of the CRM. In fact, following the success of King’s visit to Ghana, Zambian freedom fighters
felt close to Martin Luther King. Latter on one of their leaders, Kenneth Kaunda, who ‘’ in 1960
emerged as the leading African politician in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia (which

14
would become Zambia in 1964) visited the United States for the first time, and met Martin
Luther King, Jr’’ (DeRoche 2008) to take advice and orientations in order to peacefully conduct
Zambia to independence from British rule. Upon his return to Zambia, a civil disobedience was
successfully organized around the country and Britain was compelled to grant Zambia
independence only four years after the beginning of the movement.

In Europe, the CRM would also have a powerful echo. Following the success of King’s
speech in Washington, Asian and black minority groups in Britain would be inspired by the
Montgomery bus boycott to boycott buses in Bristol, England which ruled Asians and Africans
out of any position as a bus driver. ‘’This movement was successfully led by Paul Stephenson,
a young black British social worker, until the Bristol Omnibus Company balked at its
discriminatory regulations and granted access to Asians and Africans permission to apply for
positions as bus drivers ‘’ (Kelly, 2013). These cases in Africa and Europe have been considered
just to show how influential the CRM became not only in the USA, but almost in every country
where people were legally oppressed or discriminated against. Other movements in South
America, in the Middle East and in Asia were also said to inspire from the struggling methods
of the CRM. That is just to say the CRM could be mentioned on the short list of the most
powerful twentieth century national movements which had so big an impact overseas. What did
white allies do in the CRM?

15
CHAPTER TWO: THE ROLES OF WHITE ALLIES IN THE STRUGGLE
FOR RACIAL EQUALITY

In the fight against the racist system, white allies played various roles from different strata
of the American society. Each white anti-racist, provided that he felt the black race was being
segregated, took upon himself the duty of fighting in order to free the black race from where he
was. They ranged from white juridico-political actors to white academic actors.

2.1. THE ROLES OF WHITE JURIDICO-POLITICAL ACTORS

The definition of political actor inside INFOCORE 5 refers to all persons who have been
accorded at least some abilities of political power and/or authority in a specific society who
engage in activities that can have a crucial influence on decisions, choices, policies, media
coverage, and outcomes associated with a given conflict (Wolfsfeld 1). As it is said in this
definition, a political actor is someone who has been granted political strength to behave as
someone who received official responsibility or official legal power to act or implement the
rules needed to regulate life in a particular area. He is the person who can have an influence on
the making and enforcement of policies that have an impact on society. In his work, he is most
often helped by another group of professional people called judicial actors. They are those who
are in charge of the questions of laws. There are many kinds of judicial actors but in this
research work we stressed only on the two most important types of judicial actors which are the
judges and lawyers. According to Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (third edition), a
judge is a person who is responsible for a trial in a court and decides how a person, who is guilty
of a crime should be punished, or who makes decisions on legal matters; the same dictionary
defines a lawyer as someone whose work is to give advice to people about the law and speak
for them in court when they are accused of having done something wrong (Cambridge
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). In other terms, the judges and lawyers are the people whose
work is to implement the enacted laws of a given area and make people know the laws which
regulate their lives in their society. Regarding the importance of these two groups in a society,
we see how important was the role of white juridico-political allies during African Americans’
civil rights movement. For the purpose of concision only four people, who are considered as
the most committed ones, have been chosen to analyze the role and importance of white

5 (In)forming Conflict Prevention, Response and Resolution

16
juridico-political allies in the black struggle for racial equality. There are: Warren Earl, Jack
Greenberg, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

2.1.1. Warren Earl (1891-1974)

Born in Los Angeles, California, Warren studied at Bakersfield High School and
graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1912. After occupying a number of
district attorney posts in 1942, Warren was voted as the Governor of California. ‘’In 1954,
Warren was chosen as the Chief Justice of the United States by General Dwight D. Eisenhower
as he believed that the political, economic and social thinking that Warren represented was
important to be introduced in the court. During his mandate as the Chief Justice of the United
States, Warren was popular for being a free thinker and his thundering decision on ‘Brown v.
Board of Education (1954) made him particularly famous. Talking about the case he asserted
that "in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal." Such statements made him famous as liberal and
judicial activist. ‘’ (TheFamousPeople.com, 2017)
As can be understood, Warren’s suggestion is not only concerned with the Brown versus
Board of Education case. Rather, it goes beyond to call the whole Jim Crow Laws system into
question. Could law separate citizens of the same country while pretending to keep them equal?
The answer is certainly negative, because it can undoubtedly be stated that separation is
tantamount to inequality as reality proved it on the ground with poor “Colored only” public
facilities compared to the luxurious white facilities. For sure, by delivering a decision against
separate education, Warren decided to follow his common sense to the detriment of a self-
contradicting judicial system. Much to the satisfaction of the whole black community, the
court’s decision legally sanctioned segregation in the USA.
In addition to the Brown decision, the Warren Court made many other important decisions
on civil rights, including those involving freedom of the press, the rights of defendants and
voting. All these decisions abode by Warren’s conviction that America could not go any further
in defending freedom and human rights abroad while turning a deaf ear to African Americans’
legitimate demands for civil rights at home. In 1964 Warren headed the committee that
investigated the assassination of President Kennedy, which convicted Lee Harvey Oswald as
the lone assassin of the president. Warren retired from the Court in 1969 (Wexler 326), leaving
behind a landmark contribution to the improvement of African American social and juridical
status as some of his fellow counterparts such as Jack Greenberg did.

17
2.1.2. Jack Greenberg (1924-2016)

Jack Greenberg was born on December 22, 1924. He worked as a lawyer and later became
one of the USA’s most effective champions of the civil rights fight. He had taken the reins of
the National Association for the Advancement of Color People Legal Defense and Educational
Fund Inc. (LDF) for 23 years. Greenberg in his struggle to tear down Jim Crow’s hold on
African Americans’ life used the law as his weapon to defend the rights of African Americans
before the United States Supreme Court. For this purpose, he transformed his LDF into a law
firm which made the voices of oppressed people heard in America and all over the world.
Greenberg was involved in more than 40 civil rights cases before the Highest Court of the USA.
One of these cases was Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education. In this case,
Greenberg was able to convince the judges of the Supreme Court to declare that there couldn’t
be any further hesitations nor delay in the efforts to desegregate schools everywhere in the USA
(LDF Thurgood Marshall Institute 2017). This decision helped to fight against segregation in
all the USA and the case was later considered as one of the five cases that led to the landmark
1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown versus Board of Education, which declared an end to
the “separate but equal” system of racial segregation in the American public schools (Shaw
2017).
Other cases Greenberg argued before the Supreme Court were the 1971 Griggs v. Duke
Power Company, an employment discrimination case, and the 1972 Furman v. Georgia, a
dispute that gave four years as the maximum of the amount of time provided to cease the
practice of death penalty across the USA (LDF Thurgood Marshall Institute 2017). The
Supreme Court held as decision that death penalty violated the cruel and unusual punishment
clause of America’s Eighth Amendment (Shaw 2017). Griggs’ case, in particular, was seen as
the case which paved the foundations of the decree stipulating that the workplace protections
by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employment decisions that, appear neutral, otherwise
have a hidden impact on racial minorities (LDF Thurgood Marshall Institute 2017).
He also litigated the Meredith v. Fair case in 1961, which resulted in James Meredith’s
integration in the University of Mississippi (UM). The decision which stemmed from this case
helped integrate the UM.
In 1963, when the CRM was having the wind in its sails, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
called Greenberg to represent him and all other demonstrators with the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC), just as they launched a march against Jim Crow Laws in
Birmingham, Alabama (idem). He answered to that call and helped represent Rev. Dr. Martin

18
Luther King Jr. in 1963 when he was imprisoned in Birmingham, Alabama, after leading the
march against segregationist laws. The episode led Dr. King to write his influential “Letter from
Birmingham Jail.” (Shaw 2017).
In sum, Jack Greenberg was a white lawyer who believed in racial equality in America.
This justified the reason why he used the law as his legal weapon to help achieve through the
courts what the American political system had denied Southern African Americans: voting
rights, equal pay for equal work, impartial juries, equal access to medical care, equal access to
schools and other benefits of citizenship largely enjoyed by whites. He took his’ leave on
Wednesday 22, October 2016 at his home in Manhattan, at 91. After the analyses of these two
judicial actors, it will be interesting to analyze the roles and impacts of some white political
actors who helped African Americans to fight American apartheid. For this purpose, we start
with John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) to end with. Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ).

2.1.3. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) was the 35th chairman of the USA during the peak of the
CRM. He was born in Brooklyn, Massachusetts, then he graduated from Harvard University in
1940. He served as an officer in the USA Navy during the Second World War and was elected
to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1952. While he was campaigning
for the presidency in the late 1960, Kennedy phoned Mrs. Coretta Scott King to express his
sympathy with her husband, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was in jail for his participation
in a mass sit-in in Atlanta, Georgia. This act from Kennedy made of him popular in the African
American community and he was promoted there as the “candidate with a heart”. Blacks saw
in JFK a white politician who would support their cause if he passed the presidential elections.
With that belief in African Americans’ minds, JFK won large numbers of black voters. The fact
of having large black voters heavily contributed to Kennedy’s narrow victory over Vice-
President Richard M. Nixon. At the age of thirty-three, JFK became the youngest elected
president in American history. After his election, blacks were waiting for him to react firmly
against the segregationist laws but Kennedy, at first, was reluctant to taking any landmark
decisions on civil rights issues. Only members of his administration began to act in favor of
African Americans’ civil rights. In September 1962, Kennedy, after being forced by street
protests, took a decisive and firm stand on civil rights issues. He started enforcing a federal
court order to permit James Meredith, a black student, to register at the University of
Mississippi. To solve this matter at the political stance Kennedy federalized the Mississippi

19
National Guard and dispatched federal marshals to Mississippi to escort James Meredith to the
University. Thanks to this political action from JFK, Meredith was allowed to register at the
UM. The spread of the news led African Americans to trust more the Kennedy Administration.
They began to see the positive effects of their votes in favor of JFK. In fact, this action was not
the only one from JFK and his administration. On June 11, 1963 at the University of Alabama,
Kennedy used federal troops to enforce a school desegregation order which permitted African
Americans to attend public schools in Alabama without being segregated. To back up all the
achievements concerning civil rights his administration won, in the evening of June 11, 1963
in a nationwide televised address. JFK delivered a message which was considered to be his
strongest on civil rights. In this address, he called on the Congress of the USA to enact a
comprehensive civil rights law which will ban racial segregation in the American society
(Wexler 315).
On June 19, 1963, a week after his historic address on civil rights, JFK sent a civil rights
bill to the Congress which later became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He claimed in this bill
that: “the time has come for the Congress of the United States to join with the executive and
judicial branches in making it clear to all that race has no place in American life or law…”
(Soreson 199). For JFK, time was up for all American politicians, all members of the American
judicial body, and legislators to come together and enact a strong law which would clearly ban
racial segregation everywhere in American life. For that, he proposed in his bill to outlaw
discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. He also proposed the
prohibition of racial segregation in schools, employment, public accommodations and of
unequal application of voter registration requirements. In sum, thanks to JFK, the African
American community, after intensive debates and oppositions in the Congress, won one of the
most important legislative pieces of the CRM. Even if Kennedy himself was not present,
because of his assassination, his civil rights bill moved into the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under
President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s presidency, and transformed the American society. Lyndon
Baines Johnson was the one who firmly supported and finally signed JFK’s Civil Rights bill
into law.

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2.1.4. Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) (1908-1973)

The fight against American apartheid found an important ally in President Lyndon Baines
Johnson6. LBJ was the dominant presidential figure of the CRM. Compared to other presidents
before him, he was one of the presidents who succeeded in providing support to civil rights
organizations and he also created a common front against the segregationist politicians who
wanted to maintain the black race as an inferior one. He was the one who signed Kennedy’s bill
into law. By signing this bill into law, he opened the door to a legislation which was forged
from years of grassroots mobilizations and political maneuvering to finally legally force the
suppression of the evils of racism from the American society. The bill granted total power to
the federal government to desegregate and forbid segregation in public facilities. It also gave
the federal government legal power to struggle against segregation in workplace, accelerate the
enforcement of desegregation in all American public schools, and restrict many other
segregationist practices. In fact, LBJ made the African American dream come true in a period
deprived of hope for the black race. That legislative piece was considered to be the greatest
success in the fight for racial equality because it desegregated education, employment, and
public facilities all over America. In that way the segregationist laws were abolished and race
discrimination became an illegal practice in the USA. In addition to this thunderbolt legislation
piece, on March 15,1965, President LBJ addressed the full Congress during a special session
following the violent attack civil rights marchers were victim of when Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. organized a march on Selma for the voting rights of African Americans, in those terms he
said:
I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. […] There is no
Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There
is only an American problem […] every American citizen must have an equal right to
vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty
which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to insure that right. Yet the
harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting
simply because they are Negroes […]. […] Wednesday, I will send to Congress a law
designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote […] There is no Constitutional
issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is
wrong--deadly wrong--to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this

6 Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was born in Stonewall, Texas, in 1908.

21
 country. […] But even if we pass this bill the battle will not be over. What happened
in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of
America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full
blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it's not just
Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry
and injustice. And we shall overcome. (Hudson, 1969)

What can be understood from LBJ’s speech is that it is not normal to prevent African
Americans from exercising their right to vote. They must be given their right to vote as any
other white American citizen. He believed that all human beings are equal before God and
before the American Law. On account of that African Americans should be treated on the same
footing as any other Americans. They should not be outcasted from the American life. For that,
he sent a voting rights bill to the congress which later turned into the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The objectives of this Voting Rights Act of 1965 were to outlaw the discriminatory voting
practices adopted in many southern states after the Union War, including literacy tests as a
prerequisite to voting. Thanks to this Act, African Americans arrived to put into exercise their
right to vote in the American society. If white juridico-political actors were involved in the fight
against Jim Crow Laws, the contribution of white religious leaders should not be neglected.

2.2. THE ROLES OF WHITE RELIGIOUS LEADERS

In any human society, religion is granted a capital importance. Many great thinkers see
religion as inborn in human. They also believed that all the aspects of society ranging from
economic to political areas are led and checked by it. It dictates human social conduct, social
behavior and also provides social sense of morality etc. (Nath 82). Religion, as is said, is very
important in human life because it is seen as the support on which social life leans. In this
respect, religious leaders are also as important as religion. They have a great influence on social,
political, economic and domestic matters. Religious leaders are the ones who are supposed to
tell the truth everywhere at any time even if their life is in danger. Some of the white religious
leaders respected this principle during the CRM era by giving support, at the peril of their lives,
to the struggle for racial equality. They decided to take side with African Americans during the
dark period of American history just because, for them, truth was with the African Americans.
In joining the movement, they rallied millions of people, mainly whites, to the struggle. Among
these white religious leaders who sided with the African Americans, only four have been chosen

22
because of the attractiveness of their works. They are: Rev. James J. Reeb, Rev. Bruce W.
Klunder, Eugene Carson Blake, and Mathew H. Ahmann.

2.2.1. Rev. James J. Reeb (1927-1965)

Reeb, the son of a well-to-do oil equipment distributor, was born in Casper, Wyoming.
He graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1953 and received a master’s in theology
from the Conwell School of Technology at Temple University (TU) in 1956. After his
graduation, he headed the youth division of the West Branch Young Men’s Association in
Philadelphia and later he was an assistant pastor of All Souls Unitarian-Universalist Church in
Washington (Wexler 323).
Reeb was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which was
established in 1957 to organize the action of local protestors’ groups throughout the South
America. The core goal of this civil rights organization was to redeem ‘’the soul of America’’
through nonviolent and peaceful resistance. It was under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr...
As a member of that organization, Rev. Reeb went to Selma to join black protestors who
were protesting for their voting rights following the attack the nonviolent demonstrators were
victims of on March 7, 1965. Reeb went there to fight against white segregationists who eroded
black voters the voting rights. For Reeb, all human beings are equal; no human being is superior
to the other. So the white racists must stop rejecting African Americans simply because of their
skin color. African Americans must be included in American social life and be treated on an
equal footing as white Americans. On March 9, 1965, after eating dinner at an integrated
restaurant Rev. Reeb was beaten to death by white racists men for his support of African
Americans civil rights. His death resulted in a nationwide outcry against the activities of white
supremacists in the Deep American South. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The latter addressed a
press lecture in which he lamented the cowardly attack against Rev. Reeb and asked all
Americans, regardless of their origin, to pray for his protection and the same day he eulogized
Reeb by saying:

James Reeb symbolizes the forces of good will in our nation. He demonstrated the
conscience of the nation. He was an attorney for the defense of the innocent in the
court of world opinion. He was a witness to the truth that men of different races and
classes might live, eat, and work together as brothers (Krog 2009).

23
 As it can be understood from what King said about Rev. Reeb, he was a person who
believed in equality in the American nation. For Rev. Reeb, racism has no place in the social
life of Americans; so it must be purely outlawed and wiped out of Americans’ minds. Rev.
Reeb did not pass away for nothing because his memory was also invoked by President Lyndon
B. Johnson when he delivered a draft of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to the Congress of the
USA. Through his fearless commitment in taking anti-racist actions until his death African
Americans gained the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Being in the same school of thought as Rev.
Reeb, other religious leaders such as Rev. Bruce W. Klunder also got involved in the battle for
racial equality and fought until death for the cause of African Americans.

2.2.2. Rev. Bruce W. Klunder (1937-1964)

Rev. Bruce W. Klunder was a white Presbyterian minister who firmly took a stand against
racial separation in the USA. He got involved in the struggle against American apartheid. He
became involved in the civil rights fight because for him American politicians, as well as
American judicial body members and legislators, must be pressed on to put an end to the evils
of racism which was fretting American democracy.
Rev. Klunder headed the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and
in 1962, he led a restaurant sit-in in Sewanee, Tennessee. He sometimes protested alone to
prevent white racists from furthering their bad ideas about race. Rev. Klunder demonstrated for
African Americans in order to permit them to receive fair housing treatment and he also
protested against racially segregated public accommodations and racial discrimination in hiring.
In 1963, when black Clevelanders launched a yearlong protest with the aim of ending de
facto segregation and other discriminatory policies within Cleveland’s public schools, Rev.
Klunder supported them and sometimes advised them in the use of several nonviolent and
peaceful protest techniques during the slump. He advised them to use picketing, mass protests,
peaceful negotiation, sit-ins, boycotts, and sometimes legal action to defeat segregation in
Cleveland City School District.
Rev. Klunder himself followed these struggling strategies once and that led to his death.
When the Cleveland City School District decided to build new schools that would have
reinforced the pattern of segregation in Cleveland City schools, Klunder took the lead in
attempting to stop the project of the construction. As it was reported,

24
 ‘’On April 7, Klunder and several others went to the construction site where
a bulldozer was preparing ground for the black school. Three protesters threw
themselves to the ground in front of the bulldozer. Bruce Klunder went to the back
of the vehicle and laid down on the muddy ground. When the bulldozer operator
reversed directions to move away from the protesters in front, the huge machine ran
over Klunder, crushing him to death.’’ (Bullard, 1989)

What we can understand from Rev. Klunder’s action is that segregation has no place in
American social life; blacks and whites must come together as brothers everywhere, including
schools. He saw in the construction of that school a way of perpetrating and maintaining racial
teachings in the USA and was ready to die for the liberation of African Americans and also for the
liberation of white racists whom he saw as prisoners of the idea of supremacy which led them to
make segregation and discrimination legal on the American land. Rev. Klunder died for his beliefs
which can be summarized in two words, Equality and Justice. In the fight against racial segregation,
Eugene Carson Blake, who was also another white religious man, joined the battle to fight until
equality ran down like waters in the American society.

2.2.3. Eugene Carson Blake (1906-1985)

On November 7, 1906 Eugene Carson Blake was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was
the child of Lulu and Orville Prescott Blake. In 1928, he graduated from Princeton University
with a Bachelor of Arts and four years later in 1932, he won a Bachelor of Theology from
Princeton Theological Seminary. Eugene Carson Blake was well known for his forthright stand
against racial inequality in America. Blake was seen as an ardent advocate of the CRM in the
USA and also considered responsible for bringing thousands of white American Christians into
the struggle for racial equality. In his fight, he helped change the attitude of white American
churchgoers toward the efforts made by the leaders of the movement such as Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr.
In 1963, Eugene Carson Blake made people know well what he thought about racial
segregation when he himself, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and eight other civil rights leaders
called all the USA for a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (Light et al. 2013). He
participated in the March with other organizers as to say in America jobs and freedom should
be for all regardless of their origins. Blacks must be given jobs if they deserve it, instead of
refusing them jobs simply because of their color skin. By the same token, they must be given

25
freedom and opportunities as any other whites. When the large folk of human beings composed
of many whites reached the Lincoln Memorial after the March, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake
delivered a strong speech which clearly showed the purpose of the March and its participants.
He declared,
Yes, we come to march behind and with these amazingly able leaders of the
Negro American...They have offered their bodies to arrest and violence, to the
hurt and indignity of fire hoses and dogs...for this just cause...We come to present
ourselves this day, our souls and bodies...We come in prayer...We come in faith
that the God who made us...will overrule the fears and hatred that so far have
prevented the establishment of full racial justice in our beloved country...And
we come in that love...which reconciles all men of every color, race and nation
into true community. (CRH 7 4)

As it can be understood, Blake’s speech was full of acknowledgment that all men were
created equal in dignity and rights. In addition to his spiritual support, Blake’s presence and
speech stood as a forceful appeal for all religious leaders to come together in order to achieve
a racially integrated society. Mathew H. Ahmann, another white religious leader of the CRM
also reinforced by his presence the fact that white religious leaders and their community must
not remain dumb and deaf about the struggle for racial equality. But what did Mathew H.
Ahmann do in the CRM?

2.2.4. Mathew H. Ahmann (1931–2001)

Ahmann was born in St. Cloud, Minnesota on September 10, 1931. Ahmann grew up in
a white community and, from an early age, witnessed segregation towards black people. When
he witnessed a black man being treated unfairly because of his skin color, he was outraged to
such an extent that he decided to take actions against racism. As a graduate of St. John’s
College, Ahmann then attended the University of Chicago (UC) for graduate studies. But after,
he left to become a civil rights fighter because, for Ahmann, injustice must be banned from the
USA. In his fight against American apartheid in Chicago, he worked with Sargent Shriver who
was President Kennedy’s brother-in-law, to convince Catholic leaders, church members, and
churchgoers that they should act in the struggle against racial segregation. Mathew H. Ahmann

7 Civil Rights History

26
created and then became the director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice
(NCCIJ), an organization that encouraged Catholic leaders and Catholics in general to learn
what racial equality means and why all Americans should be treated on an equal footing. He
also discussed with them on the way they should take action to help civil rights fighters attain
civil rights for everyone in America. Ahmann traveled all over the USA to sensitize people,
mainly Catholics, and involve them in the CRM by the creation of groups of civil rights fighters.
In 1963, he organized the National Conference on Race and Religion (NCRR) which was the
first meeting in which leaders of the three main religious groups of the USA, Protestants, Jews,
and Catholics came together to denounce Jim Crow Laws and spoke out in favor of equal civil
rights for all Americans. Mathew H. Ahmann was fully engaged in the CRM as he responded
to calls everywhere he thought he could help attain equality. This was the case when Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. launched an appeal to all religious leaders to come and rally to the
greatest March of the struggle. Ahmann responded affirmatively and joined the March. He was
one of three religious leaders invited to speak at the meeting of the historic March. At 32 years
old, he was the second speaker at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In the speech
he delivered at the March, he said:

We are gathered a long 100 years after Lincoln declared slavery at an end in the
United States. Yet, slavery is all too close to us as we demonstrate for equality and
freedom today...we have permitted racial discrimination to remain with us too long...
But we are gathered ...to dedicate ourselves to building a people, a nation, a world
which is free...of discrimination based on race, creed, color or national origin... There
is no turning back (Murray 2014).

From his speech we can understand that he called about the moral obligation of Americans to
reject segregation and racial inequality, specifically addressing the Americans who were skeptical
of the movement. For Ahmann, they must all come together to build an interracial community. For
this purpose, he went further to prove his goodwill by joining acts to words as he became personally
involved in the activities of the CRM. After the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the
civil rights leaders initiated another march in 1965. This march was called Selma, Alabama March
for Voting Rights. Ahmann responded to the call launched by Reverend Ralph Abernathy who
called for religious leaders to come to Selma and support the demonstrations. Ahmann organized
nuns, priests, and other Catholics all over the nation to travel to Selma, Alabama to attend the
planned route of the demonstration (CRH 11). In sum, Mathew H. Ahmann fought for his belief

27
about civil rights and he did a great work for his dream to come true in America. The CRM, despite
being a struggle for the recognition of blacks’ civil rights, gained whites’ support from all walks of
life. In addition to religious leaders, African Americans were helped by many white civil society
actors.

2.3. THE ROLES OF WHITE CIVIL SOCIETY ACTORS

The modern CRM, because of its noble causes, gained support from wide range of people.
Many people, mainly white antiracists, from different horizons came to give a hand to African
Americans during that social upheaval. Many of them were convinced of the decency of their
actions. This prompted them into devoting themselves fully to the struggle to the detriment of their
lives and privileges as whites. All that they wanted at that time was the restoration of blacks’ identity
in their nation. They wanted to free the whole black community from the harms of racism and
liberate their own race from the idea of supremacism. For that, they used diverse forms of actions
to fight, until death, Jim Crow Laws which made segregation and discrimination legal in the USA.
In the following lines, we will shed light on the deeds of four white people who attracted our
attention by the kind of their protestation and also by the way they rejected segregation and
discrimination in the American society. These white antiracists were: Williams Lewis Moore, Viola
Gregg Liuzzo, and James Zwerg.

2.3.1. Williams Lewis Moore (1927-1963)

Moore was a postman and a member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a core
arm of activism at the time. He got involved in civil rights activism for African Americans
during the heydays of civil rights. In the early 1960s as a member of the CORE, he staged a
solo freedom journey to denounce Jim Crow Laws. In all, he undertook three civil rights
protests in which he marched to a capital to hand-deliver letters he had written denouncing the
evils of racial segregation and discrimination. This made of Moore a well-known white figure
of the struggle against the American apartheid (Johnson 2013). The ‘’mailman’’ viewed racial
separation as inhuman treatment. For him, whites should not be separated from blacks because
no race is superior to the other. Moore wanted to expose and dismantle the legal discrimination
which was harming African Americans in their society mainly in Mississippi, as he believed
that racial oppression should not be given any room in the American society. That is why he
was determined to organize lone protest marches to deliver his anti-segregationist letters.
28
 Unfortunately, in April of 1963, the mailman was murdered when he was leading his third
march during which he set off to deliver the most important letter in his life. For that protest
march, William Lewis Moore decided to walk from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Jackson,
Mississippi where he hoped to hand-deliver his letter to Gov. Ross Barnett urging him to accept
integration. The postman wanted Barnett to completely change Mississippi's racial hierarchy
(Johnson 2013). After his death, his letter was found and opened; in it the mailman addressed
Barnett in the following terms:

The white man cannot be truly free himself until all men have their rights. Each is
dependent upon the other […]. Be gracious. Give more than what is immediately
demanded of you. Make certain that when the Negro gets his rights and his vote
that he does not in the process learn to treat the white man with the contempt and
disdain that, unfortunately, some of us now treat him. (Johnson 2013)

As it can be understood from Moore’s third letter, the freedom of the white man is linked
to that of African Americans. If whites wanted to be free they must start by dismantling racial
segregation from their society; therefore Gov. Ross Barnett must accept integration. He showed
that, the black race and the white race are interrelated. Each race is dependent of the other.
Though the letter was addressed to Barnett, it called beyond all white racists all over America to
stop segregating blacks and accept integration. Moreover, he challenged them not to transform
the black mind, which only seeks for equality and justice, into a racist mind. What Moore wanted
was to have an American society ridden of inequality based on skin color. This was a worth-
dying reason for Moore and he did die for it as he was murdered during his one-man anti-racist
tour, leaving behind other determined white actors such as Viola Gregg Liuzzo to perpetuate the
anti-racist move.

2.3.2. Viola Gregg Liuzzo, (1925-1965)

On April 11, 1925, Viola Gregg Liuzzo was born in California, Pennsylvania. She was
born as a poor white and faced an unfortunate childhood of instabilities resulting from poverty
(Ness 1). But this did not prevent her neither from telling the truth about what she really thought
on the American apartheid nor getting engaged in the battle against white supremacy. Liuzzo
viewed racial discrimination was a wrong practice which soiled and spotted American values.

29
She also regarded racial segregation as a dehumanizing practice against blacks, which
convinced her to combat it.
On March 16, 1965, when she was 39 years old, Liuzzo left her family for the last time
to join the civil rights march on Selma-to-Montgomery. When she arrived in Selma, three days
later, she began her active civil rights work to end racial injustice. In Selma, she worked at a
hospitality desk and also gave her personal car to drive civil rights workers from Selma to and
from Montgomery […] (Ness 6). As many African Americans were in racial troubles at the
time of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, Liuzzo worked hand in hand with African Americans
of Selma in a kind of desk which received all the victims of racial prejudice, with the aim of
providing them with multiform aids. To do more than what she was already doing, she
volunteered her own car as a civil rights car and sacrificed her personal safety, privileges for
the black cause. West described Liuzzo as “a white person who was doing everything she could
to help the black people as if she was black herself.” (Qtd. in Ness 6). She identified herself
with black people in the American South and most often referred to those people fighting for
black equality and justice as “[her] people”. She felt their pain very profoundly and was not
blind to their grievance (Ness 7). When she began her civil rights work in Selma, on the first
day, she met a 19 years old boy named Leroy Moton, a transportation coordinator and a civil
rights worker. She signed her car over Moton in order to transport marchers. After the march
was completed there were messages of warnings of violence everywhere in Selma. In the view
of avoiding this violence, some preventive measures were taken in order to better assure the
safety of the marchers and all those who were indirectly involved in the march. One of the
measures taken at the time was to avoid driving a car alone. The basic objective of this measure
was to keep marchers from finding themselves alone in non-hospitable places. Nevertheless,
Liuzzo, though she heard about this measure, decided to ride in her car despite all the severe
warnings. After the march, Moton met Liuzzo at St. Jude with her car full of civil rights
marchers who needed transportation from Montgomery to Selma. Liuzzo took the ruffle and
began to drive back to Selma. During the ride back, Liuzzo and her passengers experienced
violence, mainly verbal harassment from people along the highway, but they arrived in Selma
safe. After arriving in Selma, Moton told Liuzzo he still had work to do and needed to make
another trip back to Montgomery to pick up another group of civil rights marchers. Excited
about the events of the day, Liuzzo was not ready to go back home and rest; so she offered her
service so as to drive Moton to Montgomery. As Liuzzo and Moton got back onto the highway,
he became suspicious about the trip because the highway was unusually deserted; however, he
let Liuzzo drive on. Moton and Liuzzo soon noticed that a red car was behind them with a driver

30
and three men. They began to approach them in the left lane. It was then that the men in the car
broke down their car-windows and pointed their guns at Liuzzo and Moton. The men in the car
discharged fourteen shots on Liuzzo and Moton. Liuzzo’s car then drove off the highway into
a wall and she died on the spot (Ness 7).
What can be understood from Liuzzo’s action his that she was a courageous white woman
who dared to act against the segregationist wind which was blowing on the American society.
Despite all the dangers which warned her against siding with African Americans, she never
stopped her fight until she met death on the fighting ground. Viola Gregg Liuzzo was not, in
fact, the only white woman who spoke up against whites’ racial oppression over blacks. There
was another woman called Virginia Foster Durr. That said who was Virginia Foster Durr? What
did she do during the CRM?

2.3.3. James Zwerg (born 1939)

On November 28, 1939, Zwerg was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. He lived there with his
family. Zwerg attended Beloit College, where he studied sociology. He developed a passionate
interest in the civil rights struggle during his stay with Robert Carter, his colored roommate
from Alabama (John 2011). When Zwerg witnessed his friend and roommate being segregated
in lunch counter, restaurants and cafeteria as white racists left the place when they saw him,
Zwerg decided that time was ripe for him to engage in civil rights struggle. He recalled one
day:
I witnessed prejudice against him… we would go to a lunch counter or cafeteria
and people would get up and leave the table. I had pledged a particular fraternity
and then found out that he was not allowed in the fraternity house. I decided that
his friendship was more important than that particular fraternity, so I depledged.
(Public Broadcasting Corporation 2011)

As we see from this quotation, Zwerg was really touched by what his friend Carter went
through. He used this act as an incentive to get involved in the CRM. For Zwerg, time was up
to stand up and do something to change the status quo. For that, in January 1961 he attended a
one-semester student exchange program at Nashville's Fisk University, a predominantly black
school (Tony 2013). In this University, Zwerg met John Lewis, who was active in the Civil
Rights Movement and immediately impressed by the way Lewis was committed to the
movement (idem). Lewis was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

31
(SNCC), a student organized civil rights activist group focused on peaceful and nonviolent
direct action. Zwerg joined the SNCC and suggested that the group attend a segregated movie
theater (idem). Despite SNCC members explained to Zwerg that Nashville theaters were
segregated (idem) he wanted to showed that all human beings are created equal, no matter the
color of their skin. Through Zwerg’s action, we see that he was a white male whose belief in
civil equality had no limit. He fought to dismantle segregation in American public facilities in
order to permit blacks to be free and live at ease in a society which is also their own.
In 1961, the CORE began to organize Freedom Rides everywhere in the USA. The first
departed from Washington, D.C. and involved 13 African Americans and some white allies’
riders. They rode into America’s south challenging white-only lunch counters, cinemas,
theaters, swimming pools and restaurants. When they reached Anniston, Alabama one of the
buses was ambushed and attacked by a mob of angry white racists (idem). When SNCC
members heard that, they decided to go in reinforcements. Zwerg without having second
thoughts although afraid for his life decided to join the new convoy. He was the only white
male in the group (idem). The group freedom riders traveled by bus to Birmingham, Alabama
where Zwerg was first arrested for not moving to the back of the bus with his African American
seating companion, Paul Brooks (Tony 2013). Three days later, the interracial riders regrouped
and drove to Montgomery (idem). When they reached Alabama, at first, the bus station was
silent and strange but soon turned into an ambuscade in which the riders were aggressed from
all sides. Mr. Zwerg, the white freedom rider, was severely beaten until he became unconscious
(idem). He got up at hospital and but still remained determined to fight for civil equality. In a
famous speech from his hospital room, Zwerg declared:

Segregation must be stopped. It must be broken down. Those of [them] on the

Freedom Ride will continue.... [They]'re dedicated to this, [they]'ll take hitting,
[they]'ll take beating. [They]'re willing to accept death. But [They]'re going to keep
coming until they can ride from anywhere in the South to any place else in the South
without anybody making any comments, just as American citizens. (Public
Broadcasting Service 2011)

From Zwerg’s declaration, we understand that he reaffirmed his determination to continue

fighting for civil rights in order to put an end to segregation against African Americans. He was
even ready, in his freedom ride, to bear hitting and even die for the African American cause so
that every African American could go everywhere from South to North, just as other Americans

32
did, without being discriminated. Zwerg was determined to transform the jangling discords
world of America into a beautiful world of brotherhood. Despite people could think about
whites as inherently racist in general during the CRM era, it should be noted that some of them
did not have a racist mind. Among them we had some white academic actors. They were those
who sometimes taught people how to see the race issue and sometimes wrote to denounce the
evils of Jim Crow Laws.

2.4. THE ROLES OF WHITE ACADEMIC ACTORS

The civil rights movement was not an ‘’orphan movement’’. It gained large and
multiform supports from all those people who at the time thought that racial segregation was
wrong. White academic actors did not live on the fringes of that movement. They were those
people who for the sake of racial equality defied the segregated rules which separated black
schools from white ones. They taught willy-nilly blacks who dared to come and attend classes
in the whites-only schools. They sacrificed their lives in favor of the safety of racial
equalization. Other white academic actors wrote to denounce the misdeeds of racial
segregation on blacks. This also attracted a wide readership to understand how racial
segregation is harmful to humanity. They were, Barbara Henry, Juliette Hampton Morgan,
and John Howard Griffin.

2.4.1. Barbara Henry (born 1932)

Barbara Henry was a white American teacher most famous for having taught Ruby
Bridges, the first African-American child to attend William Frantz Elementary School an all-
whites school. After two months in New Orleans, she received a call from the superintendent
of William Frantz Elementary School offering her a teaching position in that school. Before
accepting the teaching position, she asked to know if the school will be integrated. To the
question she was asked by the superintendent, “Would that make any difference to you?”,
Henry answered by the negative. The superintendent’s retort that “The police will have [her]
name” showed that the school would not be integrated, which could not be acceptable for
Henry who taught in a segregated school before coming to New Orleans (Bridget 2012). On
the first day of the academic year in 1960, Henry and Bridges' radical refusal to be intimidated
caused them to become well-known figures in the African American civil rights struggle. As
soon as Bridges enrolled in the school and entered the classroom, white parents went in and

33
withdrew their children. And all the white teachers except Barbara Henry refused to teach if
Ruby would continue to attend class in William Frantz Elementary School (Eileen 2002).
Though media did not spread the news about Barbara’s refusal to deny teaching to the black
girl, maybe for fear such a gesture would cause a domino effect around the USA by
encouraging other anti-racist white teachers to take the same actions, she was celebrated both
locally and nationwide by the African American community as a hero. She deserved such
honors from the black community, all the more since it was serious risk for a white woman to
challenge one of the core racist rules which commanded clear separation between colored and
white schools. Her action put her at risk of being clandestinely lynched by white supremacist
groups such as the Ku Klux Klan which did not spare white people who dare bring public
support to the civil rights struggle in the USA. All these risks notwithstanding, Barbara Henry
decided to follow one of the golden rules of model professional teachers which is to banish
any form of discrimination from school. By teaching the only one black school girl left in the
classroom after all whites withdrew their children from the school, Barbara preferred saving
the right of one powerless individual to education to the detriment of a large racist group
claiming for racial segregation. Just as “Mrs. Henry was the nicest teacher [Bridges] ever had”
(Eileen 2002), she was considered as one of the nicest white teachers black civil rights activists
had ever seen. Barbara’s reputation then equaled such unforgettable civil rights supporters as
Juliette Hampton Morgan.

2.4.2. Juliette Hampton Morgan (1914-1957)

Juliette Hampton Morgan was a public school teacher, a librarian and a civil rights activist
in Montgomery, Alabama. She was the only daughter from a well-to-do white family. Morgan
was a member of the community that fought against racial segregation and pushed for
integration (Morgan 2009). As a teacher and librarian, she spoke out against the acts of injustice
she witnessed against African-Americans by writing letters to denounce it. She was castigated
and ostracized by her white community for her racial views and she was threatened by white
segregationists who wanted to prevent her from siding with African-Americans. Despite all
these acts, she sided with African-Americans.
In Montgomery, Alabama, Morgan used to watch white racists threaten and humiliate
African American men and women who paid the same 10-cent fare she paid in order to board
a bus. This outraged Morgan and she began writing letters to the Montgomery Advertiser and
the city's local newspaper, to denounce the injustices she witnessed on the Montgomery city

34
buses. In these letters, Morgan said segregation was un-religious, un-Christian and totally
wrong. For that, she invited the citizens of Montgomery to do something to put an end to racial
discrimination. As a result, for her commitment to the struggle, she was fired from her job. To
join act to word, she once rebelled against a bus driver when she witnessed the latter segregating
an African American woman who paid her fare and then leave the front door of the bus to re-
enter through the rear door, as was the custom in Montgomery. While the African American
woman was getting ready to enter the bus by the back door, the white bus driver started up the
bus and pulled away, leaving the woman behind. This was abnormal for Morgan. As a reaction
to that injustice, she jumped up and pulled the emergency cord. Morgan demanded the bus
driver to stop and open the door and let the colored woman board (Graham 2002). This showed
the extent to which Morgan was against racial disparities. She went further to assert in one of
her letter that,
There are so many Southerners from various walks of life that know you are right.
[...] They know what they call 'our Southern way of life' must inevitably change.
Many of them even are eager for change, but are afraid to express themselves – so
afraid to stand alone, to walk out naked as it were. Everyone who speaks as you
do, who has the faith to do what he believes right in scorn of the consequences,
does great good in preparing the way for a happier and more equitable future for
all Americans. You help redeem Alabama's very bad behavior in the eyes of the
nation and the world. I had begun to wonder if there were any men in the state –
any white men – with any sane evaluation of our situation here in the middle of
the Twentieth Century, with any good will, and most especially with any moral
courage to express it (Teaching Tolerance, 2009)

Morgan’s impressive assertion reminds us of the words of Norbert Zongo (1949-1998),

suggesting that “the worst is not the wickedness of bad people but the silence of good people”
(Infowakat.net 2016). By insinuating so in her letter, she was convinced that so many white
Americans like her disapproved of racial segregation but preferred keeping quiet for fear of
reprisals. As for her, she preferred voicing out her contempt against racial segregation through
almost daily concrete actions, which delved her into an alone- against-all battle as the whole
white community ridiculed her and her actions altogether. It is true that other white people took
occasional actions against racism in the USA but Morgan’s anti-racial actions became recurrent
and by writing against white racism in the media, she became one of the fewer white women
who dare fight officially in the media for racial equality in the USA. Although Morgan’s anti-

35
segregationist actions were considered by whites as hopeless, she finally enjoyed much more
respect among the black community as the friend of blacks. In spite of her anti-racist writing
ban, she continued discussing unofficially with other whites who shared her ideas and provided
an impetus for them to refuse keeping quiet for good. Like Juliette Hampton Morgan, John
Howard Griffin was another white academic ally who wrote to denounce racial segregation.

2.4.3. John Howard Griffin (1920-1980)

In 1920, Griffin was born in Dallas, Texas. He was the son to John Walter Griffin and Lena
May Young. During the 1940s and '50s, Griffin wrote many essays about his blindness and his
personal life, followed by his spontaneous and miraculous return of sight in 1957. He was a white
American journalist and writer who wrote about racial equality in the USA. He is well-known
for his project to temporarily pass as an African American and travel through the Deep South of
1959 to see how African Americans lived there under segregation (Sarfraz 2011). Griffin could
not understand why black people were being unfairly treated by white racists. For that, he felt
the desire to experience the life of African Americans in the South, but in order to do so, he
needed to blacken his skin.
In the fall of 1959, Griffin decided to investigate firsthand the plight of African
Americans in the South, where racial segregation was legal and where blacks had
been disenfranchised since the turn of the century and locked out of the political
system. He also investigated the way whites were struggling to maintain dominance
against an increasing CRM. Griffin consulted a dermatologist for aid in darkening
his skin, being treated with a course of medication, sun-ray lamp treatments, and skin
creams. After that, he spent weeks traveling as a black man in New Orleans and parts
of Mississippi (with side trips to South Carolina and Georgia), getting around mainly
by bus and by hitchhiking. (Connolly 2009)
Griffin was victim of many insults from his fellow whites who ostracized him because of
his decision to pass black at a moment when several African Americans embraced passing as
some way to flee separatism in the USA. Passing in the USA was the fact colored people took
measures including change of lifestyle, and most importantly, change of skin color by chemical
products to appear white, in order to escape racial violence. Simply put, passing in the USA
consisted of colored people changing their skin color by means of chemical products to become
white. Passing was then a one-way road, namely going from black to white. Griffin’s action was
highly symbolic in a sense that he decided to take the opposite and forbidden way by passing

36
from white to black, which means he was ready to be at risk of being lynched as a black man.
After such an experience, Griffin wrote his bestselling book called Black Like Me which earned
him more fame and respect than his previous writings had done so far. In the book, he put in light
the problems blacks encountered in the segregated Deep South of America when they need food,
shelter, and toilet and other sanitary accommodations (Connolly 2009). In fact, white allies of
the CRM did not always act alone. Some of them, fought against racism through the struggling
methods used by the leaders of the movement.

37
CHAPTER THREE: THE PROTEST METHODS OF THE CRM AND
THE SPECIFIC ACTIONS TAKEN BY WHITE ALLIES

The modern CRM demand for reform met great and violent opposition. Nevertheless,
African Americans leaned on peaceful and nonviolent tactics of protest methods to break the
silence they were in. Led by the charismatic leader, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who drew
inspiration from the Indian Mahatma Gandhi’s ways of resisting British rule, proposed to his
fellow blacks four protest methods which were boycotts, marches, sit-ins, and civil
disobediences. White allies who rallied to the movement also embraced these protest methods
and some of them worked to provide multiform aids to help the protest methods reach their
goals.

3.1. Boycotts: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

A boycott is a peaceful act of voluntary and intentional refusal from using, buying, or
dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of demonstration, generally for
moral, social, political, or environmental motives. The objective of a boycott is to inflict some
economic loss on the target, or to indicate a moral offense, to try to impose the butt to change
a bad behavior or a rule. One of the most famous boycotts during the CRM was the Montgomery
Bus Boycott. The Montgomery bus boycott was a peaceful political and social protest campaign
to denounce the policy of racial segregation on the public transport of Montgomery, Alabama.
It was a seminal event in the CRM. It began on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks, a local
seamstress and civil rights activist, refused to give up her seat to a white person. Her arrest
enraged the Montgomery’s African American community. Mobilized by the eloquent and fiery
oratory of a newly arrived minister, Martin Luther King Jr., the community, in a crowded mass
meeting, unanimously agreed to boycott the buses in Montgomery.

In subsequent mass rallies in Montgomery and elsewhere, the meetings often-times

included fervent preaching and spirited singing. ‘’Despite economic intimidation, arrests,
beatings, and bombings, Montgomery’s blacks refused to ride the buses until the US Supreme
Court ruled segregation on them unconstitutional on December 20, 1956 ‘’(Branch 1988;
Robinson 1987). In this famous boycott, African Americans and their white allies collaborated
to fight against the laws and customs which favored segregation on buses. White allies were of
a precious help for African Americans during the use of boycotts to attain the goals of the
movement. While using this method, the leaders of the boycott needed supports to carry on with

38
the boycott. White allies provided them with multiform aids. It was the case with Levison
Stanley David. He was an attorney from New York. He began raising funds to support the
Montgomery bus boycott and befriended with Martin Luther King, Jr. The two men developed
a close relationship in which Levison not only advised King, but also aided him with the day-
to-day administrative demands of the boycott. After the boycott, he worked from 1956 through
the 1960s as an effective and unpaid fund raiser for the SCLC. He raised the funds from a 9,000-
member, American Jewish Congress (AJC) and brought in $600,000 over a period of 8 years.
This does not include his help with several fund raising dinners and concerts held each year in
New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and other cities. Each of these cities brought in as much as
$100,000. The funds that he raised from the Jewish community helped pay for the SCLC office
expenses, staff members, newspaper advertising and litigation. His fund raising made of him a
close friend to Martin Luther King Jr., who headed the SCLC (Terrar 467).
Levison’s financial support of the boycott permitted it to reach its goals as it clear that a
boycott of such importance needed a great financial support to be successful. Levison was
among those whites who fought to find the necessary finances for the boycott and at the same
time for the CRM. He was supported in this work by Glenn E. Smiley.
Glenn E. Smiley8 played a key role in the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott when he
visited Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama. He advised King and his associates
on nonviolent tactics, and he was even able to convince King that nonviolence was a feasible
solution to racial struggle. Smiley, together with Bayard Rustin 9 and others, helped convince
King and his associates that complete nonviolence and nonviolent direct action were the most
effective methods and tools to use during demonstration. Smiley participated by spreading news
of the boycott to his white congregation to call them to side with African Americans in their
battle for racial equalization. Smiley was also in charge of making contact easy with Southern
white people, and racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the White Citizens'
Councils (WCC) (King Encyclopedia 2013). Glenn Smiley’s contributions to civil rights
struggle were so clearly recognized within the movement, precisely in the Montgomery bus
boycott, that Juanita Abernathy, widow of Ralph Abernathy, King’s best friend, said of him:

8 Glenn Smiley was a white civil rights consultant and leader.

9 Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and
gay rights.

39
 He was the pastor for the movement. He was a social worker, that was his
work. He was concerned with people and he was not a pretense. That was
his personality. He always was a calming force in any volatile situation.
He was a logical and brilliant man. (Cavin 225).

As we understood from Juanita’s quotation, Smiley played a crucial role in the movement
and mainly in the Montgomery bus boycott. He was someone who was ready to help the black
community reach its goals and did it so brilliantly as the other white allies who were involved
in the influential Greensboro Sit-ins of 1960 did.

3.2. Sit-Ins: The Influential Greensboro Sit-Ins (1960)

The Sit-ins were another method used by African Americans to fight against segregation
and discrimination in the US.
On February 1, 1960, four black college students walked into the Woolworth's store
of Greensboro in North Carolina. Each ordered a meal, paid for it, kept the receipt,
and took a seat at the whites-only counter where they waited to be served (…). Their
names were Jibreel Khazan, Joseph McNeil, David Richmond, and Franklin McCain.
They were students at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (ATC),
and all were interested in nonviolent protest. For that, they decided to take a
nonviolent stance against segregation. McNeil suggested a sit-in, a total
demonstration of the discipline, control, and passive resistance embodied by the
nonviolence movement. […]. Not knowing what sort of violent opposition they
would face, the four men began their demonstration. They politely requested favor,
and when refused they sat tranquilly at the counter. Despite being asked to move out,
they stayed seated until the store closed, before they left. The protest was very
carefully organized [..] (Christopher chapter 4 lesson 2).
The contribution of white allies in these sit-ins was no less remarkable. As a matter of
fact, the influential Greensboro sit-ins were not the first sit-ins of the CRM but they were the
most influential and significant sit-ins of it. In these sit-ins, some white people joined African
Americans to protest against segregation and discrimination. Among these whites, we have
Ralph Johns who could be considered as the sparks that ignited the CRM in the 1960s. Johns
was among those people who stood as a source of motivation for the students who led the 1960

40
Greensboro Sit-ins. He helped these four young black men to walk into a Woolworth store in
Greensboro, and sit down at the whites-only lunch counter (Abrams 1989).
For Ralph Johns justice and equality are very important for human beings regardless of
their skin color. In defiance of the Jim Crow Laws he encouraged African Americans to claim
for their civil rights by pushing them to take actions and by giving them moral support. Johns
also defied the status quo by hiring some African Americans to his firm or by treating them
with fairness when they came for a service to his businesses. He also displayed signs in his
businesses which showed that he was against segregation and discrimination (Arab American
Institute 2015).
In fact, Ralph Johns was not the only white who collaborated with African Americans in
the Greensboro sit-ins. We also had Edward R. Zane. He served as a chairman of the mayor's
Advisory Committee on Community Relations in 1961, which was integral in securing the
desegregation of Woolworth and the Kress stores. Edward R. Zane, as a member of the
Greensboro City Council worked with the community to reach a compromise between blacks
and whites. Zane led the Greensboro Advisory Committee on Community Relations
representing the City Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Merchants Association in
an effort to dismantle segregation and push for integration. The committee consisted of
representatives from the protesting students and from the business community of the center
during the sit-ins. The students praised him for his fairness and he himself made no secret that
he believed racism was totally wrong. Students who participated in the Greensboro’s sit-ins
remember Edward R. Zane as a key figure who eased the integration of Woolworth and the
Kress stores.
What can be kept from Zane‘s implication in the Greensboro’s sit-ins is that he, like the
above-mentioned white allies, was convinced of racial equality in the American society and
peacefully battled for that. White allies of the CRM spread their actions everywhere the
movement was in full swing as they remained on the frontlines of the marches of the movement,
most specifically the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

3.3. Marches: The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

African Americans in their quest for racial equality in the USA used diverse skillful
techniques to achieve their overall goals. Among these techniques we had marches. The most
famous march of the CRM was called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom or the
Great March on Washington. ‘’It was held in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28,

41
1963. The purpose of the March was to fight for the civil and economic rights of blacks living
in America. At the March, Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial,
delivered his historical "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism.’’
(Suarez, 2003). The March was organized by Martin Luther King. Jr and other African
American leaders, who built an alliance of civil rights, work and religious organizations that
came together under the banner of “jobs and freedom’’ (Bayard, 1963). ‘’The March was one
of the largest political rallies for human rights in the US history’’ (Bayard, 1963) ‘’which
impacted on the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’’ (Picard 2013). Many whites got
involved in that March to permit blacks to reach their goals.
‘’In the March on Washington, some whites joined the March organizers called the “Big
Six” to complete them to the ‘’Big Ten’’’’ (Krissah 2013). Among them, we had Walter
Reuther. Walter Reuther, in 1959 met and made friends with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. While
some labor organizations were slow to come on board with the CRM, President Walter Reuther
committed the UAW’s10 help up front. Reuther joined Dr. King in many of his marches and
gave an address to the crowd on the opening of the historical march to Selma. Again Reuther
joined Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to demonstrate in Birmingham. Reuther was the one
who bailed King out of jail following the demonstration. In 1963 Dr. King felt the time was
right to take their message to the national level and started planning a march on Washington.
As a great thinker, King decided beforehand to hold a march in Detroit to test the waters before
going to Washington. He organized the march from an office at the UAW’s headquarters
Solidarity House, with space donated by Walter Reuther. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also
planned and orchestrated the March of Washington from the same office granted by Reuther.
During the March on Washington, Walter Reuther delivered a speech to the large crowd
gathered before Lincoln Memorial11. Walter encouraged Americans of all races to stand up and
push their political leaders to address segregation and discrimination. As he said,

American democracy is on trial in the eyes of the world… We cannot

successfully preach democracy in the world unless we first practice democracy
at home. American democracy will lack the moral credentials and be both
unequal to and unworthy of leading the forces of freedom against the forces of
tyranny unless we take bold, affirmative, adequate steps to bridge the moral

10 United Auto Workers

11 The Lincoln Memorial is an American national memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United
States, Abraham Lincoln. (WC 2019)

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 gap between American democracy’s noble promises and its ugly practices in
the field of civil rights. (Light and Conley 2013)

For Reuther, Americans should press their politicians to eradicate the question of racial
injustice from the borders of the USA, and by doing so the USA foreign policy would be
credited. In fact, Reuther urged American politicians to ban racial segregation from America
and in doing so, they will be an example for the world. For that, he collaborated with African
Americans in the march on Washington in order to permit them to make the movement a
success. He marched with African Americans to protest against the unfair treatment African
Americans were victim of. He delivered heartbreaking speeches during the marches intended
to denounce all the grievances against African Americans. He provided African Americans with
houses which they used as offices to organize the different marches. He used his financial power
to bail out African American leaders of the movement who were imprisoned because of the
actions they were undertaking in the marches.

In addition to Walter Reuther, there was Rachelle Horowitz. Rachelle Horowitz was an
organizer and strategist during the height of the modern CRM. As a student member of the
socialist party during the late 1950s, Horowitz was encouraged to become involved in the CRM
by party leaders who recognized the leadership potential that she and other young members
possessed. She worked with Bayard Rustin, assisting him with planning for demonstrations and
work organization efforts. At Rustin’s demand, Horowitz served as the person who was
responsible for the transportation of the 1963 March on Washington. Horowitz secured
transportation to drive the leaders, and march participants to Washington, DC and she was also
responsible for driving them back from Washington, DC after the march. Horowitz also assisted
Rustin in running the organizing headquarters of the march in New York ( NPS12 2018).

Thanks to the work of Horowitz and other collaborators, the march on Washington met a
great success which made of it the greatest march of the CRM. African Americans did not limit
themselves only to these three protest methods; they also used a demonstration method called
civil disobedience. White allies were also represented in this struggling method and played a
seminal role in it.

12 National Park Service

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3.4. Civil Disobedience: Freedom Rides

Civil Disobedience is a nonviolent and peaceful refusal to abide by a law. The main goal
of it is to break the law in a peaceful way. Civil disobedience can be hard to completely categorize
because all the other methods are civil disobediences. When talking about civil disobedience the
most common example would be the freedom rides of 1961 led by African Americans and their
white supporters. On May 4, 1961, the Director of CORE, James Farmer led freedom rides with
thirteen riders including seven African Americans and six White antiracists. Among these white
antiracists, we had Genevieve Hughes, one of the three women that participated in the freedom
ride, and Ed Blankenheim. Together as an interracial group they left Washington, DC, from the
Greyhound Terminal and Trail ways buses just to test the decision ruled by the Supreme Court
of the USA after the case Boynton v. Virginia in 1960. The Highest Court ruled that it was illegal
and unjust to segregate people on public transportation buses that was going from one state to
another. On the announcement of this decision African Americans needed white people who were
on their side to test the effectiveness of the ruling. So Genevieve Hughes and Ed Blankenheim
were among those white people who, despite the great threat they could encounter during the
testing of this ruling, got involved in the organization of the freedom rides. Early in the fall of
1960, Genevieve Hughes took a position as CORE's field secretary and, in doing so, was the first
woman to enter in CORE's Field Staff. John Lewis spoke of her, “as graceful and gentle as her
name” but, “not at all afraid to speak up when she had strong feelings about something”
(Arsenault 99). When giving the reason why she joined the Freedom Rides she said, "[she]
figured Southern women should be represented so the South and the nation would realize all
Southern people do not think alike" (Arsenault 99). Here we see that Hughes was really
determined to fight racism in America despite being ostracized by her fellow whites. She was
determined to show that all white southern people were not racists. There were some of them
who wanted to make of the American society an interracial society in which segregation will not
have a room.

During the trip from Washington, DC, to New Orleans, Blankenheim and the other
Freedom Riders faced many acts of violence, mainly in Anniston, Alabama, where their bus
was wolfed in fire by angry white racists groups (Arsenault 99). With this attack, they were
able to prove that the decision was taken on paper but not put into practice on the ground, which
permitted African Americans to reorganize themselves and fight until they made sure the ruling
was respected. Ed Blankenheim also was one of the whites who agreed to give a hand to African
Americans in checking the implementation of the decision from the Boynton vs Virginia case.

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 Ed Blankenheim, while studying chemistry at the University of Arizona, became involved
with the CRM, and joined the CORE. Ed was one of the white people who participated in the
freedom rides of 1961. He started as a member of NAACP Youth Council in Tucson, Arizona
and later became a leader for a division of the CORE known as Students for racial Equality
(Arsenault 102). In 1961 freedom rides, he boarded bus with other civil rights workers to test
the US Supreme Court’s Boynton v. Virginia (1960) ruling which made segregation illegal in
all interstate public accommodations. The aim was to travel on interstate buses into the southern
US practicing non-violent demonstration that challenged the practice of Jim Crow travel laws.
During the travel, they were faced with much violent opposition, including threats, beatings,
and even the risk of being killed every time they traveled from one bus station to another
(Arsenault 102).
With the implication of these white antiracists in the freedom rides of 1961¸ blacks came
to the conclusion that the Boynton’s case was not respected by southern white racists. They
organized again to further their struggle until the case was respected in the South and all over
America despite all the harassment both black and white people were victim of (Weebly 2016).
White allies’ collaboration and cooperation was of a tremendous importance for the African
American civil rights movement which was a long lasting struggle for the complete acceptance
of blacks as equal citizens in the American society. Such a collaboration had significant impacts
on the different conflicting groups and also on the implementation of the movement.

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CHAPTER FOUR: THE IMPACT OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF WHITE
ALLIES IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

The roles played by white allies in the fight against the oligarchic system that works for
them really impacted the struggle and its conflicting groups. White allies’ cooperation and
collaboration helped dismantle racism in the USA and by doing so, their involvement affected
African Americans, whites in general, white allies themselves and the implementation of the
battle at the political, social, and economic levels.

4.1. IMPACT ON AFRICAN AMERICANS

4.1.1. Political Impact

The African American CRM was supposed to be a black struggle for black cause. But in
fact, it had received an interracial support which was not done without impacts left on blacks at
the political level. At the beginning, white allies’ implication was very controversial. Some
blacks accepted them in the struggle because they saw in that involvement an advantage that
blacks must seize in order to reach their goals while on the other side others rejected them
because they thought that white allies would undermine blacks’ leadership and betray them.
Despite this controversy, white allies, convinced of the decency of the role they might play in
the struggle, got involved in the struggle and that implication had greatly impacted the black
race politically.
It was a known fact that one of the core and most critical goal of the movement was to
permit African Americans to vote as any other citizen of the USA as the most charismatic leader
of the struggle Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. outlined it in his speech titled: “A Realistic
Look at the Question of Progress in the Area of Race Relations’’:

African Americans must have the rights and ability to vote. This would be a vote
that would provide African Americans with the opportunities more than anything
else. It would have to be a vote that was not threatened...Get the ballot and
through gaining the ballot you gain political power. And you can call the
politicians and tell them that certain things will have to be done because you
helped put them in office. (Weinblatt 15-16)

46
 King oriented the struggle as one which would provide African Americans with the
Voting Rights Act. He thought that voting is very important for the black community because
it would give them leverage in the American society. For him, it would provide them with a
political capacity that could elevate not only their social, economic status but also their
freedoms (Weinblatt 15,16).
White allies shared that common goal with King and the black community as they
collaborated with them to reach it. White juridico-political actors were among those people who
proposed and facilitated the passage of the bills intended to give African Americans the rights
and advantages mentioned by King. Thanks to white allies’ collaboration African Americans
got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a way of reminding it
is the John F. Kennedy Administration which made a convincing case for the Civil Rights Act
and later LBJ signed it into law. After The LBJ Administration proposed the Voting Rights Act
and the Congress enacted it. In sum, White allies’ contribution permitted African Americans to
be represented within the American political system, to organize politically and achieve election
to local, state, and federal offices. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, proposed and signed into
law by President LBJ, aimed at overcoming legal obstacles at the state and local stages that
prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote. With the passage of this act
African Americans in the Deep South of America gained the rights to vote without being
harassed by legal obstacles and societal intimidation (Weinblatt 54). Their involvement in the
battle impacted African Americans politically in a way that it permitted them to reach their
political goal but their cooperation also impacted African Americans socially.

4.1.2. Social Impact

While voting might have been the means to achieve change, the persistent effects of
discrimination and segregation in the American society needed to be dismantled. Not only were
African Americans separated from whites, but they were also not divided on an equal basis.
Blacks were given too much poorer public accommodations such as restaurants, restrooms, and
schools. African American schools were rarely given funds that would provide them for any
educational opportunity equal to whites. Segregation was the manifestation of racial
discrimination (Weinblatt 26). Basing on these social conditions of African Americans, it is
obvious that another goal of the CRM was to heighten the social conditions of African
Americans. King put in light the tragedies that African Americans were facing at the time. He
also expressed the persecution and hatred directed at African Americans (King 1957). The Rev.

47
martin Luther King Jr. said, “Men and Women are being shot because they have a desire to
stand up and vote as first class citizens. The homes of ministers and civic leaders are being
bombed. More tragic than all of that, the house of God is bombed” (King 1957). “It was
tragedies of such kinds that civil rights leaders at the time hoped the goals of the movement
would suppress’’ (Weinblatt 17).
In a sense, the cooperation of white allies also helped to settle this matter. White allies’
implication permitted African Americans to reach the social goal of the movement which was
to abolish the separation of whites and blacks. White allies defied segregationist laws by
hopping on buses with African Americans, by eating in the same restaurants with African
Americans, by going to theaters with African Americans. “On March 29, 1963, African
Americans and their white allies, mostly students, marched to downtown theaters with the
intention of sitting in at theaters and skating rinks’’ (Alton 2014). White allies also collaborated
with African Americans by accepting the registration of African Americans in ‘white only’
schools. White allies’ cooperation helped African Americans increase their self-respect and
self-confidence. A poll conducted by the Newsweek in the summer of 1966 showed that two out
of three African Americans felt things were better for themselves and their relatives than they
were before the movement. This change was partly due to white allies.
In sum, the collaboration of white allies with African Americans in the freedom struggle
helped African Americans to make desegregation a reality. White allies contributed to show
white supremacists that being with African Americans in the same bus, restaurants, and schools
was not a crime, not something that devalues whites; rather it only showed that both races were
equal. Thanks to the cooperation of white allies, African Americans soared on different social
fronts such as building schools of high quality, founding churches, creating self-help
organizations, acquiring land, and becoming literate. Also thanks to white allies’ collaboration,
White Americans and African Americans can come together as brothers in different social areas
in the USA. But let us not forget that, the cooperation of white allies also helped African
Americans to reach the economic goal of the movement.

4.1.3. Economic Impact

Despite improvements made in African American economic conditions after the second
World War. African Americans in the mid-twentieth century were still subject to low wages,
poor income, high rate of unemployment, and persistent poverty due to racial disparities in the
American society. Through the CRM, leaders aimed at improving black economic conditions

48
in order to advance their race to a fair and more equal status in society. As a result of constant
segregation and discrimination, African Americans were unable to prosper in a society which
only favored whites. Civil rights leaders took it upon themselves to establish a goal in which
the advancement of African Americans in economic terms would flourish and allow blacks to
have an equal standard of living with whites (Weinblatt 18). This third goal of the CRM was
also shared by white allies.
White allies cooperated with African Americans during the freedom struggle to help them
break all the economic barriers that prevented African Americans from having a decent standard
of living. Some of them hired blacks in their firms. The collaboration of white allies helped
African Americans to move from low-skill and low-wage jobs to a wide range of jobs including
high-skill and high-wage jobs. They helped African Americans obtain jobs in a fair process,
wages equal to those of their white counterparts. Their cooperation helped African Americans
to narrow the income earnings gap between them and White Americans. African Americans
and White allies’ collaboration permitted to create an economy where every person who seeks
employment can secure a job. The collaboration of white allies with African Americans in the
CRM not only affected African Americans but also whites in general.

4.2. IMPACT ON WHITES IN GENERAL

4.2.1. Political Impact

White allies’ cooperation with African Americans in the CRM had greatly affected whites
politically. In the post-civil rights movement era and during the modern Civil Rights Movement
White Americans used to have almost all the political advantages and privileges for them only.
African Americans were faced with many barriers, both legal and extra-legal, to exercising their
right to vote. They were frequently intimidated, threatened and kept from registering to vote.
The presence of the Klu Klux Klan, the enforcement of poll taxes, and the use of literacy tests
all prevented blacks from voting (Weinblatt 53). In 1961, the US Commission on civil rights
stated that “there [were] many counties in the South where a substantial Negro population not
only has no voice in governments, but suffers extensive deprivation, legal, economic,
educational and social’’ (Weinblatt 53).
From this citation, we see that white Americans had a great political power before and
during Civil Rights Movement. But soon, when the Civil Rights Movement outburst, its leaders
bore the sharing of the American politics as a crucial goal of the struggle. As Guinier said,

49
“Black voters’ registration and political participation gradually became the movement’s
dominant vehicle for implementation for its legislative agenda’’ (Qtd. in Weinblatt 53).
As soon as African Americans bore the political goal as a seminal goal of the struggle,
white allies also embraced it and both cooperated to access to this goal. With that cooperation,
the complete possession white Americans in general had on American politics met a decline.
White allies supported African Americans to break all these political barriers which prevented
the black race from getting access to political positions and to voting. Thanks to the cooperation
of white allies, African Americans got the power to create political change. They also had the
ability to elect leaders who would further support their cause. White allies’ cooperation with
African Americans pushed towards the enactment of the two major successes of the CRM,
namely the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Weinblatt 53).
The passage of these acts marked the end of a political sphere only dominated by whites.
Whites lost their political power and therefore must share it with the race they qualified as
inferior. As Weinblatt said,
Previously, whites were the holders of nearly all the political offices because
blacks were unable to vote. When blacks were able to vote, they elected black
officials to office. […]. As soon as blacks were provided with an undeterred vote,
the number of black officials grew. (Weinblatt 70)

With the collaboration of white allies in the CRM, the political sphere of whites got reduced
and they lost their political strength. Whites were no more the masters of the American political
scene because thanks to the passage of the acts which was partly due to the cooperation of white
allies, African Americans got a political strength which permitted them to be politically
represented. The collaboration of white allies with African Americans in the civil rights
movement not only impacted whites in general politically but it also impacted them socially.

4.2.2. Social Impact

A social movement is characterized as efforts to bring about new and fundamental

transformations in the social order. Some viewed it as a collective effort intended to establish a
new order of life in a particular society and others viewed it as the processes through which a
given society undergoes transformations in order to create new connections which would
inevitably lead to a new society. Basing on the above-mentioned definitions of what a social
movement is, and knowing that the CRM was one of it, we understand that one of the foremost

50
goals of the struggle was to reorganize the American social life by fighting against segregation
and discrimination. White allies also embraced this goal when they got involved in the battle.
Their cooperation with African Americans during the movement helped African Americans
break the social barriers that prevented the two races (black and white) to come together in
restaurants, in theaters, in cinemas, in restrooms, in schools, in buses etc, and this seriously
impacted whites in general.
Whites saw in that new organization of the American society a decline in their supremacy.
With the attainment of this goal of the struggle, “whites only’’ public accommodations became
accessible to all Americans regardless of their race. The civil rights fight was both an expression
and implementation of the African Americans’ demand for integration in the American society.
With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, African Americans integrated the American
society and whites in general were really affected by it. The cooperation of white allies with
African Americans helped to integrate the American society and, by the same token, that
collaboration helped to reorganize the American society by giving it a new order. The
collaboration of white allies was an advantage for African Americans and a disadvantage for
whites in general because white allies used their privilege, resources, and power to enact this
social change. White allies helped African Americans to force whites in general to include them
in the American society. Not only did their cooperation impact whites in general politically and
socially but it also impacted them economically.

4.2.3. Economic Impact

White allies’ collaboration with African Americans in the CRM had greatly impacted
whites in general economically. As African Americans and white allies were fighting for
desegregation, white managers were opposed to it and this opposition was fundamentally
economic. They feared accepting blacks because they thought that the result will be the loss of
white customers. In this respect, “when asked in late 1959 by James Lawson and others to begin
serving African Americans, Nashville department store owners Fred Harvey and John Sloan
declined, saying they would lose more business than they would gain” (Limbo, Lawson 2006).
In November 1963, Assistant Attorney General Louis Oberdorfer recognized that,
“Reports of progress in desegregation of privately owned public facilities show
virtually no breakthroughs since the middle of October...Very little change is now

51
 taking place”13. The inequalities of outcomes created strong feelings of injustice on
the part of businesses and menaced to untied existing deals. This went further when
Mayor Ivan Allen of Atlanta makes us know that:

Everything [he] had tried in those areas [hotels and restaurants] had failed. There
had been endless meetings with the hotel and restaurant people over the past three
or four years, and no matter what agreement was reached everyone involved
would be split in every direction. (Allen14 1971)

The collaboration of white allies with African Americans negatively impacted on white
business in general resulting in a decline in their economy. Thanks to the CRM led by African
Americans and white allies, all races made profits. White allies’ collaboration with African
Americans helped African Americans break nearly all the economic obstacles that separated
whites from blacks. In doing so white allies made of African Americans, at the job level,
potential competitors with whites in general who previously had all the privileges for them. “In
a dominant white society, whites held the more desirable jobs and suffered from low rates of
unemployment’’ (Weinblatt 31). Whites no longer had all the jobs for them only. They must
compete with African Americans for getting the job they wanted. This situation also impacted
on whites in general because they lost the privileges of getting the good jobs and that affected
them economically, making things more difficult for them. The fight for racial equalization was
a ‘beautiful’ struggle full of meanings. The fight impacted almost all its participants even the
white allies who provided multiform aids to Africans Americans.

4.3. IMPACT ON WHITE ALLIES

4.3.1. Political Impact

In a country where Whites had the whole decision power, it was risky for Blacks to
venture into a protest movement like the CRM. It was all the riskier since Whites could not
even need to pass laws in order to repress such a movement. A given white group could
violently repress Blacks, but the latter had no legal power to bring their case to court for fair
and equal trial. For white people who decided that the black cause was a noble one and decided

13
Memorandum from Burke Marshall to Robert F. Kennedy 1 (Nov. 13, 1963), available at
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/BMPP-030-006.aspx#, archived at http://perma.cc/YT7U-Y76Y
14
IVAN ALLEN, JR. WITH PAUL HEMPHILL, MAYOR : NOTES ON THE SIXTIES 103 (1971).

52
to bring them their unconditional support, it was riskier as they were regarded by many
politicians as traitors. As a result, they were victims of political propaganda from white radical
groups that advocated for stronger law enforcement to counteract all Whites who dared venture
into supporting former slaves in a CRM.
It was particularly incomprehensible for some groups that white people decided to support
a black community against the white community where they came from. Proposals were even
made at local level to rule what was called “the traitors of the nation” in the South out of any
political competition or position. As a result, though white allies enjoyed great popularity
among the black community, it was difficult for them to gain significant political support from
their white counterparts in order to influence a positive change in African Americans’ living
conditions. Worse white allies’ commitment in favor of the black cause ignited the anger of
white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
The Ku Klux Klan was not a simple civil society organization. They worked in a way as
to take political positions and high offices in order to counteract, by all means, the CRM and
all their supporters. In this framework, white allies were naturally on the shooting lines of white
supremacist groups. In the policy of supremacist groups, there was no difference between
African American civil rights activists and their white allies who became victims of many
threats. The harming capacity of white supremacist groups came to its peak with the
assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy who was blamed for granting too much
room for black civil rights. Even after Kennedy’s death, some whites who were murdered were
reportedly said to have been victims of their commitment on the side of the CRM. Nevertheless,
when the CRM got significant political gains, notably the voting rights, white allies benefited
from mass African American electoral support in local elections. The involvement of the white
allies did not have only political impact on them, for the social impact was no less significant.

4.3.2. Social Impact

At the social level, many Blacks believed that genuine rebellion against a King originates
in the royal palace, and white allies were perceived by some black activists as rebels coming
from the royal white community. So having such people, who better knew the weaknesses of
the white community, was regarded as a great opportunity to make their movement receive a
favorable echo in the white community. But for white allies, what was more important was their
moral satisfaction. They believed in a free America where everybody, with no regard to race,
is treated on an equal footing before the law. That is why many white allies were totally

53
overjoyed following the enactment of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act acts in favor
of Blacks. For some white religious people who supported the CRM, getting civil rights act and
voting rights and other social favors for black emancipation was simply a God’s gift that they
celebrated in alleluias in churches. Following the successes of the CRM, white allies gained
great credence in terms of approval rate in the black community. Some of them reached greater
popularity even though a part of the black community remained wary of such so-called white
allies. An important part of the black community remained wary of white allies whom they
suspected of spying on them. In other words, many black people had difficulties trusting the
good will of white allies in the CRM. For them this movement could not be genuine unless it is
led by an exclusively black community that is the one who is a victim of racial prejudices. To
some extent, it could be argued that some white allies had to undergo some forms of racism
from the black community. Nationalist groups like the Black Panther were a little bit reluctant
to collaborating with white allies, preferring that the movement be led by the Blacks who will
work to build a stronger black community apart inside America. It could even be suggested that
white allies were caught between a rock and a hard place, because while they were somehow
rejected in their own community as traitors, they were neither totally welcomed in the black
community wherein their good will was not so much trusted by some black people. However,
their determination and concrete actions taken on the ground convinced reluctant black people
to trust them and eventually grant them social acclaims in the black community. While they
were being acclaimed by the black community, they faced great threat from white racists.
Because they were seen as traitors they received much harassment from white racists in their
society. They suffered a lot. They were bomb threatened, deaths threatened, murdered, and
lynched.

On 25 August, 1956, the home of Robert Graetz, a white Lutheran clergyman who
supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was a member of the MIA board
(Montgomery Improvement Association, formed on 5 December, 1955, instrumental in
guiding the Boycott), was bombed. (Kristýna 2010)

White allies were socially rejected by the white supremacists’ community while being
accepted and integrated with difficulty in the black community. White allies were not only
socially impacted on; they were also economically impacted on.

54
4.2.3. Economic Impact

At the economic level, white allies who were owners of private facilities such as
restaurants, restrooms, theaters, cinemas greatly suffered from the support they gave African
Americans during the CRM. Before they were known as supporters of the movement, they
used to receive wealthy whites as customers in their facilities and this improved their economic
conditions. But following their cooperation with African Americans in the freedom struggle
they lost this economic advantage and this resulted in an economic decline from their part. By
accepting blacks in their facilities, white allies took the risk of losing their key white customers.
Knowing that African Americans were very poor at the time, they were not supposed to be
customers who could help advance economically. But despite all these challenges white allies
ventured into the struggle because they were totally convinced of the decency of their role in
the battle. As predicted by some of them, they lost their wealthy white customers and this really
affected their businesses.
White conservative people were really hostile to any kind of change; so they did not
accept change in their society, mainly significant and quick change such as the abolition of
segregation and the consequences of bringing new changes which will result in the creation of
a new social order. For that, they were ready to fight against anybody who wanted to bring
change by helping the black community to integrate the American society even if it includes
rejecting their fellow whites by refusing to go to their private facilities or by destroying their
businesses with bombs. White allies suffered from terrible violence upon their businesses. They
saw their restaurants, restrooms, theaters, cinemas firebombed. All these events resulted in
white allies’ economic shutdown. White allies’ collaboration also impacted the implementation
of the civil rights movement.

4.4. IMPACT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MOVEMENT

4.4.1. At the Political Level

The commitment of white allies had a non-negligible impact on the implementation of

the CRM. As a matter of fact, they contributed a lot not only financially but also by providing
human capital to organize the black community. In 1964 the Freedom Educational History
Journal sent thousands of volunteers to the South to facilitate black voters’ registration
following the enactment of the voting rights (Spencer 379). They also contributed to the
political training of civil rights fighters in order to raise acute political awareness in the black
community wherein the rate of ignorance was still high. White allies also tried to convince the
55
disenfranchised African Americans citizens to register for vote. White allies’ collaboration with
African Americans in the CRM also eased the implementation of the movement at the political
level through the passage of the two most significant acts of the struggle which were the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Thanks to the commitment of white
allies, the black community reached its political goal of the struggle. The first one, the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 initiated by President Kennedy and signed into law by President Johnson.
This act ended racial segregation everywhere in the USA and prohibited employment
discrimination on the basis of race, color, etc. The Civil Rights Act can be considered as one of
the crowning legislative achievements of the CRM. Thanks to the passage of this act, African
Americans were provided with a piece of legislative which could be used by civil rights lawyers
to protect and defend them in case their civil rights were violated. After a certain number of
violence directed against the black community, President Johnson declared,

At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning
point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord.
So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Ala.... There
is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-
satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there
is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here
tonight.... Wednesday, I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal
barriers to the right to vote.... This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all
elections, Federal, state and local, which have been used to deny Negroes the right
to vote. (Coleman 11-12)

This bill was later transformed into the second act which we know as the Voting Rights
Act of 1965. Its objective was to dismantle legal obstacles that prevented African Americans
from enjoying their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution. Thanks to white allies, the black community benefited from an act which secured
their vote. Political impact was also coupled with social one.

56
4.4.2. At the Social Level

Any politics takes place in society. That is why social awareness was more important than
ever. In the beginning of the movement many black people did not believe much in any success
in a short or long run. For some all the efforts would finally be doomed to failure with regard
to the huge means that the white man had to crash social movements coming from Blacks.
However, as already mentioned before, the involvement of white allies in the CRM convinced
many Blacks that their cause was a noble one, which moved thousands more people in favor of
the movement. Thanks to white allies’ collaboration the demand for Blacks’ inclusion in the
American society met a huge success.
White allies came to support African Americans by cooperating socially with them and
that cooperation impacted greatly on the movement. While white racists were segregating and
discriminating the black community, white allies accepted them in their stores and restaurants;
they spent time with them in theaters, cinemas, schools, lunch counters, and bus stations. They
collaborated with the black community to reach socially shared goals. This collaboration had
short reaching effects on the implementation of the movement. White allies’ participation gave
social leverage and creditability to the movement. Thanks to that they were able in a collective
way to defy and change the social predicament of African Americans through the social
implementation of the movement and also through the economic implementation of it.

4.4.3. At the Economic Level

Money is the sinews of war. Segregation and discrimination made of African Americans
the poorest race of the USA. With such an economic situation, it could be very difficult for
anyone who wanted to lead a social movement to do it easily. On that account, the contribution
of white allies in the CRM was really pivotal for the movement. White allies used their strategic
position in their society to help African Americans find the necessary economic means to
implement the movement and help it reach its key goals. The collaboration of white allies eased
the implementation of the movement at the economic level because white allies financed the
movement. Many white allies put their money into the service of the movement and its leaders
to make the struggle successful. Some white allies organized fund raisings to support the
implementation of the struggle. Some used their own savings to support the actions of the
movement while others used their money to free the black leaders who were imprisoned. Some
white allies used their money to pay the poll taxes that African Americans needed in order to
vote. White allies also used their own money to secure transportations for all participants who

57
wanted to go from one point to another for the movement purposes. White allies helped to
implement the movement financially by mobilizing the needed economic resources. All these
actions help African Americans to “easily” implement the movement.

58
 GENERAL CONCLUSION

In the light of my research on the roles and impacts of white allies in the CRM in the USA
from the 1950s to 1970s, it is clear that some conclusions can be drawn. From the beginning
my research tried to know on the one hand how white allies got involved in the African
American CRM, and on the other hand it tried to know what impacts that involvement has had
on African Americans, on whites in general, on white allies themselves and on the movement
itself at the political, social, and economic levels. To address this issue, I first assumed that
white allies got involved in the CRM in diverse ways. My second assumption contends that the
involvement of white allies in the struggle impacted on African Americans, whites in general,
white allies themselves, and the implementation of the movement mainly at three levels:
political, social, and economic.

Dealing with the roles and impacts of white allies in the CRM, my research effectively
showed that white allies got involved in the struggle for racial equality in different ways. First
it showed that, there were some white juridico-political actors such as Lyndon B. Johnson, John
F. Kennedy who used their strategic positions to enact laws which aimed at protecting the civil
rights of African Americans in the USA and others like Warren Earl, Jack Greenberg, efficiently
interpreted the laws to defend the civil rights of African Americans in courts. In sum, their
contributions helped improve the political, social and economic status of African Americans
because from their actions, African Americans arrived to fill ‘’comfortable’’ in the American
society.

My research also showed that there were some white religious leaders who used their
positions in the white church to defend African Americans’ civil rights and by the same token
they used these positions to convince many other whites to rally the black cause. Some of them
delivered strong speeches intended to denounce Jim Crow Laws and change the status quo.
Their implication impacted not only the conflicting groups but it also impacted the movement
politically, socially, and economically.

My research also testified the presence of some civil society white allies in the struggle
who brought their personal resources into service for the fight against segregation and
discrimination. Their contribution helped enhance the movement by giving it a political, social,
and economic leverage.

59
 My research also reveals that in the struggle for racial equality, there were some white
academic actors who played a pivotal role in the fight for civil rights. Some of them played the
role of counselors for young civil rights activists. By the same token, others used their pens to
write books and articles which influenced the civil rights revolution. My research work also
showed that there were many other white allies who played a pivotal role in the CRM through
the different methods of protest all through the struggle.

Analyzing the boycotts of the movement, precisely the most important one which was the
Montgomery bus boycott, my research work demonstrated that white allies collaborated with
African Americans. Some of them raised funds to support the Montgomery bus boycott. Some
advised King and his associates on nonviolent tactics, and were able to convince King that
nonviolence was a feasible solution to racial tension and other white allies worked to come out
with the day to day administrative demand of the boycott.

Analyzing the sit-ins of the movement, precisely the most successful one which was the
influential Greensboro sit-ins, my research work noticed the presence of white allies in the sit-
ins. Some of them motivated students to pursue the sit-ins while others were fighting to find a
compromise between the conflicting groups.

In the analysis of the marches of the movement, precisely the most seminal one which
was the date March on Washington for jobs and freedom, my research work revealed the
presence of some white allies who helped African Americans during that march. Some provided
financial support to the march while others were in charge of the transportation to get leaders,
organizations, and march participants to and from Washington, DC.

In the look into the civil disobediences of the movement, the freedom rides can be seen
as the most suitable example. In that method, my research work found out that some white allies
played a pivotal role in it. Some of them hopped on buses that drove them to the south just to
disobey the law in a peaceful way. Some boarded buses to test the US Supreme Court ruling
Boynton v. Virginia (1960) that made of segregation illegal in all interstate public
accommodations.

The cooperation of white allies with African Americans in the CRM was of a great
importance. White allies helped African Americans to deal with the question of segregation and
discrimination at every stage of the struggle. They sacrificed their personal safety for the sake
of equality in the American society. Their collaboration had greatly impacted the different
conflicting groups and the movement itself.

60
 My research work revealed that the collaboration of white allies with African Americans
during the CRM had impacted on African Americans at three levels.

Firstly, white allies’ collaboration with African Americans in the CRM impacted on
African Americans politically. Thanks to the cooperation of white allies, African Americans
reached their political goal of the struggle. White allies’ cooperation helped African Americans
to obtain the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which aimed to overcome legal obstacles at the local
and states levels that prevented African Americans to exercise their voting rights. It also
impacted on them in a way that permitted African Americans to be represented within the
American political system, to organize politically and achieve election to local state, and federal
offices.

Secondly, the cooperation of white allies with African Americans during the freedom
struggle impacted on African Americans socially. Thanks to the collaboration of white allies,
African Americans succeeded in the fight against segregation. Their collaboration permitted
African Americans to win the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which intended to break all the social
barriers which prevented African Americans and whites from using the same public facilities.
Their cooperation permitted to abolish segregation in the American society. Thanks to white
allies, African Americans developed a feeling of self-respect and self-confidence in the
American society.

Thirdly, the collaboration of white allies with African Americans impacted on African
Americans economically. White allies cooperated with African Americans during the freedom
struggle to break all the economic barriers that prevented African Americans to have a decent
standard of living. Thanks to white allies’ collaboration African Americans were able to
enhance their economic conditions.

My research work also disclosed that the collaboration of white allies with African
Americans during the CRM also impacted whites in general at three levels.

Firstly, the cooperation of white allies with African Americans impacted politically
whites in general. Whites used to have nearly all the political privileges for them only but with
the implication of white allies in the CRM, they lost these privileges because whites allies
helped African Americans to reach their political goal of the struggle which was to have the
right to vote. Since African Americans got the right to vote, they got the ability to elect leaders
who would further support their cause and by doing so they reduced the political power of
whites in general. Whites lost political grounds. We no more assisted an American society

61
dominated by white politicians only. But a society where African Americans can place their
words because thanks to the collaboration of white allies they got political power.

Secondly, the collaboration of white allies with African Americans impacted socially
whites in general. White allies helped African Americans to reorganize the American social life
by fighting against segregation and this had greatly impacted white in general. Whites used to
have their ‘’whites-only ‘’ public facilities but with that cooperation, we assisted to the
desegregation of nearly all the public facilities of the American society. Whites who previously
saw themselves as superior now saw a decline in their supremacy at the social level because
from then on they must share almost every public facility such as restaurants, restrooms,
theaters, cinemas, schools, etc. with the race they qualified as inferior.

Thirdly, the cooperation of white allies with African Americans impacted economically
whites in general. Many whites knew an economic decline since desegregation was a reality.
Those who sold recorded a loss of their white customers which fact created an economic trouble
for them. Whites in general lost the advantages they had to get all the well-paid jobs and this
fact created a serious economic trouble for them.

My research work also showed that the collaboration of white allies with African
Americans in the CRM impacted not only on African Americans and whites in general but also
on white allies at a threefold level.

Firstly, my research work revealed that the cooperation of white allies with African
Americans impacted on white allies themselves politically. White allies were victims of
political propaganda from white radical groups that advocated for stronger law enforcement to
counteract all Whites who dare venture into supporting former slaves in the CRM. What is
more, white allies lost political support from their white counterparts who, in fact, did not favor
them in their struggle to influence a positive change in African Americans’ living conditions.
They were also victims of harassment from the Ku Klux Klan which was not a simple civil
society organization but an organization which worked in a way as to take political positions
and high offices in order to counteract, by all means, the CRM and all its supporters.

Secondly, my research work found that white allies’ cooperation with African Americans
affected white allies themselves socially. With regard to the situation of white allies during the
CRM, it can be said that they were caught between a rock and a hard place. White allies were
seen as traitors by white racists while they were seen as spies by the black community. They

62
were segregated, threatened to death by white racists while they were also victims of rejection
from the black community. They had difficulties to fit in their own society.

Thirdly, my research work testified that white allies were also victims of economic
troubles because of their collaboration with African Americans in the CRM. White allies’
owners of some private facilities lost their wealthy white customers because of their
involvement in the battle for racial equality, most notably because of their collaboration with
the black community and this loss resulted in an economic decline on the part of white allies.

Having conducted this research with care, it would have been a serious mistake if I had
not evoked the impact of the collaboration of white allies on the implementation of the
movement. With regard to this, my research work found that the cooperation of white allies
affected all the components of the movement, even the movement itself, and this took place at
three levels.

At the political level, the cooperation of white allies with the black community helped
African Americans to have a considerable political support which eased black voters’
registration following the enactment of the voting rights. White allies’ cooperation also
contributed to the political training of civil rights fighters in order to raise acute political
awareness among the black community wherein the rate of ignorance was still high. What is
more, the collaboration of white allies helped African Americans to fight against the political
predicament the black community faced in the American society which was the denial of the

voting rights to Blacks. Thanks to them, African Americans ‘’easily’’ got the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

At the social level, the collaboration of white allies with African Americans increased
social awareness of African Americans and this provoked a huge support to the movement.
White allies’ participation gave social leverage and creditability to the movement. Thanks to
that cooperation the black community was able in a collective way to defy and change the social
predicament which prevented them from fulfilling their potential in their society.

At the economic level, the cooperation of white allies helped African Americans to find
the necessary economic means to implement the movement and help it reach its key goals.
Many white allies put their money into the service of the movement and its leaders to make it
successful. Some white allies organized fund raisings to support the implementation of the
struggle. Others used their own savings to support the actions of the movement.

63
 With regard to the analysis of the roles and impacts of white allies in the CRM, my two
hypotheses, which respectively state that white allies got involved in the CRM in diverse ways
and that this collaboration had impacted on the different warring parties and the movement
itself at the political, social, and economic levels can be said valid. The history of the CRM had
been told years and years without really stressing on the roles and impacts of white allies in the
success of the movement and on its different conflicting groups. This research work has come
out as a filler of this gap.

Using Peter Kropotkin‘s theory of mutual aid and the critical race theory, this research
work hopefully has contributed to make the roles of some white allies in the CRM more visible
and, by the same token, has revealed the impacts of their collaboration on the different warring
parties and the movement itself mainly at the political, social, and economic levels. However,
we must admit that a few limits can be recognizable to the current research paper. Indeed, it
cannot pretend having achieved an exhaustive analysis of the roles and impacts of white allies
in the African American CRM, because of the relative lack of literature on the roles and impacts
of white allies in the movement. Further research should therefore continue so as, through time,
to unravel all the buried significant roles and impacts of white allies in the CRM.

64
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RESUME
Cette étude vise à mettre en évidence les rôles et l’impact des « alliés blancs » dans le
Mouvement Afro-américain des Droits Civiques aux Etats-Unis entre 1950 et 1970. Elle a
principalement cherché à découvrir les moyens par lesquels les « alliés blancs » se sont
impliqués dans le mouvement et les impacts de cette implication sur les Afro-américains, sur
les Blancs-américains en général, sur les « alliés blancs » eux- mêmes, et sur le mouvement.
Pour ce faire, nous avons employé deux approches sociologiques dont la première est basée sur
la théorie de l’Entraide Mutuelle de Pierre Kropotkin et la seconde est basée sur la théorie de
l’examination critique de la question de race « critical race theory » pour examiner le rôle et
l’impact des « alliés blancs » dans la lutte des Afro-américains pour l’égalité raciale, toute chose
qui a révélé que les « alliés blancs » ont réellement joué un rôle particulier dans le mouvement
par leurs positions stratégiques dans la société américaine et leur présence effective à toutes les
étapes de la lutte. Il s’est avéré également que l’implication des « alliés blancs » dans la lutte a
eu un impact significatif sur le mouvement et sur les différents groupes protagonistes aux plans
politique, social et économique. Grâce à la collaboration des « alliés blancs », les Afro-
américains ont atteint leurs objectifs de manière relativement facile. Puisque cette étude a rendu
visible l’apport et l’impact des « alliés blancs » dans le mouvement, ce dernier ne devrait plus
être perçu comme un mouvement uniquement mené par les Afro-Américains mais plutôt
comme un mouvement ayant bénéficié de l’implication d’une minorité de Blancs. Et l’objectif
du présent mémoire était de mettre en évidence les rôles et l’impact de ces « alliés blancs » dans
le Mouvement Afro-Américain des Droits Civiques.

ABSTRACT
This study seeks to bring out the Roles and Impact of white allies in the African American CRM
in the USA from the 1950s to 1970s. It basically tries to know how white allies got involved in
the CRM and what impact that involvement has had on African Americans, on whites in
general, on white allies themselves and on the movement itself. In this respect, we used two
sociological approaches. The first is based on Peter Kropotkin’s Theory of Mutual Aid and the
second one on Critical Race Theory. These theories have been used to examine the Roles and
Impact of white allies in the African American struggle for equality, which have revealed that
white allies played specific Roles in the CRM because of their strategic positions in the
American society and their participation in every step of the struggle. Then, they also prove that
the involvement of white allies in the struggle impacted the movement and its different
conflicting groups substantially at the political, social and economic levels. Thanks to the
collaboration of white allies, African Americans ‘‘easily’’ reached their goals. The study shows
that white allies were really important for the success of the CRM. Thus, the CRM should no
longer be seen as a movement that had been only conducted by African Americans, but one that
benefited from the support of a minority of white people called “white allies”. It is the aim of
this research to make that Roles and Impact more visible.

Key Words: The USA, Civil Rights Movement, White Allies, Roles, Racism, Impact

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