A Time for Justice Video Viewing Guide

As you watch the VIDEO, take notes on the following events. They are listed in order.

1. Murder of Emmett Till

- In 1955, Emmett Till (14 yo) bought candy in a Mississippi store

- On the way out, he said something to the store owner’s wife
- That night, he was brutally murdered
(weights were put on him, and he was thrown into the river)
- His funeral was held in Chicago
(the coffin was open at the request of his mother so that the world could see what was done to
him)
- An all white jury was selected for the trial of his murderers
- The jury deemed the two white men innocent
- Later, these murderers admitted what they did

2. Montgomery Bus Boycott

- Black people met in a church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955

- They were angry over the unjust arrest of Rosa Parks
- Black people were forced to sit in the back of buses
- In 1955, Martin Luther King Jr. (26 yo) was chosen to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Black people instead chose to walk or organize their own carpools or taxis instead of
taking the buses
- City buses often ran with very few people in them
- The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days
- In 1956, a federal court order banned segregation on buses

3. Integration of Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.

- In Little Rock, Arkansas (1957), 9 black students were attempting to enter an all-white
high school
- They were blocked by an angry mob of white people and by police
- The children were harassed by the mob and unable to enter the school because of the
police
- One child was able to make it to a bus and to safety
- On September 25th, 1957, the 1000 members of the 101st airborne division came
(enforcing the 1954 Brown vs. Board decision and let the children into school)
- Each student was assigned a paratrooper to be their personal guard

4. Lunch-counter sit-ins
- In the winter of 1960, many young people (mainly black college students) began a series
of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters that refused service to black people
(spanned across the nation in dozens of cities)
- They would be denied service and the police would be called on them
 - They were committed to being nonviolent no matter how violent others were with them.

5. Freedom Rides
- In May of 1961, two groups left Washington by bus to show the violation of
anti-discrimination laws in interstate travel
(These were all students that would likely be killed or gravely injured)
- In Virginia and the Carolinas, they were intimidated greatly
- Once they entered the Deep South, the bus was surrounded and the tires were punctured
- Klansmen followed their bus out of Anniston and then set the bus on fire
- A highway patrolman was on the bus and was able to evacuate everyone. If he hadn't
been there, they would’ve all burned to death.
- The riders of the second bus had been beaten by Klansmen in Birmingham, Alabama.
- The riders were insured protection until the Montgomery city limits by state police.
(There were supposed to be patrol cars and an aircraft following them)
- The patrol cars had disappeared, and an angry mob brutally beat the Freedom Riders.
- A few days later, they were arrested in Jackson, Mississippi.

6. Birmingham, Ala.
● demonstrations
- In Selma, Alabama, people began to boycott and protest
- Even MLK Jr. was arrested

● “Letter from a Birmingham jail”

- MLK Jr. had been criticized for going “too far, too fast”
- He wrote from jail that after all he had seen and after all that had been done, he hadn’t
done that at all.

● bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church

- At the Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church, a group of girls were changing into their
choir robes after their Sunday school lesson
- The church was then blown apart by a bomb and many young girls were killed
- The bomb had been placed by the Ku Klux Klan.
- Finally many white people were able to understand the cruelty and hate black people
were suffering from.

7. Voting rights actions

● registration drive
- In 1964, hundreds of students traveled from the north on the backroads of Mississippi.
- They had come in order to help black people register to vote.
 - Many didn’t want to because they greatly feared white harassment.
- Many black people risked their lives, their jobs, and their families, to make a stand and
register to vote.

● murder of civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss.

- On June 21st in 1964, near Philadelphia, Mississippi, three workers were held by the
Neshoba County deputy sheriff and were charged with speeding
- The three were ordered to return to Meridian. They were soon followed by two cars.
- They found the car and realized the men had disappeared.
- Because two of the men were white, their disappearance sparked national attention.
President Johnson sent 100 FBI agents and 200 Navy members to Neshoba County to
find the three men.
(They were searching the high grass and combing the river for bodies)
- During the process, they found other bodies belonging to nameless black people
- A paid informer led the FBI to an earthen dam where the bodies were. It was found that
the three men were beaten and tortured before they were shot and killed. They were then
buried to hide the evidence.
- The federal government charged the murderers with civil rights violations, but the state of
Mississippi refused to press murder charges.

● murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson

- After the arrest of 700 children in Marion Alabama who were marching in protest, an
organization and prayer meeting was held in a church.
- Local state police were gathered outside among 100 citizens they had armed and
deputized.
- Shots were heard from Mac’s Cafe where those fleeting the beating were taking refuge.
- Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black man, had tried to prevent his mother and grandfather from
being beaten. He was thrown to the ground by a state trooper. Then he was shot. He ran
as he continued to be shot at, and fell between the church and post office.
- He was only 26. He was well-liked and a deacon of his church.
- They carried him four miles to the black burial ground in the rain.

● “Bloody Sunday”
- Angered by Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death, a large group of black people planned to walk
54 miles from Selma to the statehouse in Montgomery. They wanted to present their
grievances to the governor himself.
- State troopers were lined up on one side of a bridge. They told the black people to not go
any further and to stay where they were.
- They were then chased by the troopers and many people were trampled. The black people
were beaten by the police. 13 people were killed.
- 14 days later, President Johnson called for a Voting Rights Act to be passed by Congress.
He ordered federal troops to watch over the march.