March: Books 2 & 3

Book Three begins with the events immediately prior to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which ended Book Two. During the church’s annual “Youth Day,” a bomb exploded, killing four young girls and injuring 21 others. The immediate aftermath saw more violence in Birmingham, including a young Black boy shot in the back by a police officer who never faced charges. At the funeral for the bombing victims, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a stirring eulogy calling out the system that produces such terrible violence. Diane Nash wanted a mass effort to paralyze the city government in Montgomery until Governor George Wallace stepped down and all Alabamians received the right to vote. Dr. King instead called for a rededicated effort to register voters in Alabama’s “Black Belt,” especially in the city of Selma. The county sheriff in Selma cracked down on protesters with the help of a posse armed with guns and cattle prods. The city had all kinds of mechanisms for preventing Black people from registering to vote, so the SNCC planned a series of demonstrations in front of the Selma courthouse. The police broke up all such demonstrations as “unlawful assemblies,” and on the few days that people could gather legally to vote, they were left to languish outside the courthouse for hours with no food, water, or bathroom access. Those who brought provisions, or even took photos, suffered vicious beatings.

After his release from Selma jail, Lewis traveled to raise money for the SNCC, while Bob Moses organized a “mock election” in Mississippi to coincide with the real election and used the results to show how much Black voters were excluded from the political process. With the help of the indomitable Fannie Lou Hamer, Lewis and the SNCC encouraged over 90,000 people to vote in their mock election, but the book shows how their satisfaction was cut short when they learned of President Kennedy’s assassination weeks later. The SNCC doubted newly elected President Johnson’s commitment to civil rights, and the assassination of a president was a visceral reminder of the dangers facing activists.

At the same time, the SNCC members were divided over whether to rely on white volunteers, who were more likely to win press coverage, or elevate a Black leadership. In Mississippi, the SNCC decided to do both by calling for thousands of volunteers, Black and white, to engage in direct action, while also running training programs for Black youth seeking a role in the movement. With the presidential election of 1964 looming, the SNCC adopted a motion to prioritize winning the right to vote for all Mississippians. Since it was a federal crime to interfere with someone trying to vote, the SNCC actions would expose how the federal government failed to enforce its own laws.

As Mississippi prepared for an incoming wave of protests, Lewis was part of efforts to form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which would attempt to challenge the segregated Democratic party for its seats at the national convention. Just as the SNCC began its campaign to register Mississippi’s Black voters, three civil rights workers—James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner—disappeared after having been arrested. Local police told the SNCC that the workers had been released and were likely faking being missing to attract attention. The case of the missing workers did in fact draw enormous national attention—Lewis notes that two of the disappeared were white, and in the course of searching for those three, other missing civil rights workers were also found dead. While the search was underway, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, banning segregation in all public facilities and businesses with over 100 employees, but failing to address voting rights.

In early August, the bodies of the three missing civil rights workers were discovered, and two days afterward, the MFDP met in Jackson to commence its efforts to send delegates to the Democratic convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Their chances seemed promising when many pro-segregation Democrats broke with Johnson over the Civil Rights Act and called for backing the Republican candidate. That Republican turned out to be Barry Goldwater, an Arizona senator who had voted against the Civil Rights Act and whose convention speech implied that those claiming to seek equality were in fact aspiring to tyranny and that “extremism” might be justified in resisting them. President Johnson, reluctant to antagonize either the Southern Democratic party or Black voters, wanted a compromise with the MFDP prior to the convention, while the delegates prepared testimony for the party’s Credentials Committee. When Hamer gave a stirring televised testimony to the committee regarding the harassment and abuse she suffered for trying to vote, Johnson preempted her with an impromptu press conference on military operations in Vietnam. More speakers followed, including King, while Johnson authorized illegal wiretaps in the delegates’ hotel rooms.

Eventually, Johnson offered two voting seats for the MFDP alongside the Mississippi Democrats, with the promise that the Democratic Party would ban segregated delegations in all future conventions. The MFDP unanimously rejected this offer, instead staging a sit-in that the police quickly dispersed. It was a defeat for both sides—the MFDP failed to gain a foothold in the party apparatus, and for all of Johnson’s efforts to appease segregationists, he still lost the South to Goldwater.