The Ballot or the Bullet

The Indianapolis-born Reverend Cleage grew up in Detroit and became a pastor in 1951. He initially supported integration efforts, then grew exasperated with inaction among whites toward the goal of civil rights. He befriended Malcolm X and embraced a philosophy that embraced both black theology and black nationalism. In an effort to upend white domination of Christianity, he installed an enormous painting of a black Madonna holding a black baby Christ in his church, which he named the Shrine of the Black Madonna.

In Detroit, Reverend Cleage started black-owned businesses, built housing, organized social services, and focused on young people as the drivers of his progressive efforts. Cleage lived in Houston in the 1980s and 1990s, then returned to Detroit. He died in Calhoun Falls, South Carolina, in 2000, at the age of 88.

Addressed in Malcolm X’s speech as Brother Lomax, Louis Lomax was an African-American writer who taught at Hofstra University. He was born in Valdosta, Georgia, in 1922 and studied at American University and at Yale, where he earned a master’s degree. In 1963, he wrote “When the Word Is Given: A Report on Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and the Black Muslim World.” He supported student protestors, though he criticized what he considered their tactical errors. While working on a three-volume history about African Americans, Lomax died in a car accident in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. He was 47.

Kennedy was the 35th president of the United States, elected in 1960 after narrowly winning the election against Republican Richard Nixon. Kennedy was the son of businessman and former ambassador Joseph Kennedy and his wife, Rose Kennedy; the Kennedys were one of the nation’s wealthiest and most prominent families. His political career began in Massachusetts, whose people he served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Kennedy, elected at 43, was the country’s youngest president ever.

The Kennedy administration’s policies largely focused on international affairs, particularly attempts to stave off the expansion of communism. His machinations in this arena resulted in several disasters and near-disasters: the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and involvement in the conflict between North and South Vietnam. Kennedy didn’t become interested in the civil rights movement until he witnessed events from the 1963 Birmingham Campaign, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The campaign included lunch counter sit-ins, boycotts of Birmingham stores, and marches. The latter led to black protestors being attacked by police dogs and hosed down, all under the orders of Commissioner of Public Safety, Bull Connor.

After witnessing those events, Kennedy gave his Civil Rights Address on June 11, 1963. On November 22, 1963, while visiting Dallas with his wife, Jacqueline, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson, he was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. When asked to comment on Kennedy’s death, Malcolm X described it as “chickens coming home to roost.” As a result of that remark, the NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, forced Malcolm to remain silent for 90 days.

Johnson was the 36th president of the United States. After serving six terms in the House of Representatives, Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1948. Five years later, he became the youngest Minority Leader in Senate history. In 1954, he became Majority Leader after the Democrats regained control of the Senate. He gained a reputation as a masterful politician. Due to his power in the Senate and his influence over the South—Johnson was a Texas native—John F. Kennedy selected him as his running mate in the 1960 election. After Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Johnson succeeded him as president and was elected on his own terms in 1964.

The Johnson administration was characterized by both swift social changes at home—including the passages of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—and the start of the Vietnam War after the Gulf of Tonkin affair in 1964. After signing the Voting Rights Act, which effectively ended segregation in public accommodations, Johnson announced that the Democrats would lose the Southern vote forever. Due to his increasing unpopularity, Johnson announced in 1968 that he would neither seek nor accept the Democrats’ nomination for president that year. He died five years later of a heart attack at his Texas ranch.

Eastland, who went by the nickname “Big Jim,” served in the Senate for 36 years. He represented Mississippi, where he was born and where he owned a sprawling 5,800-acre cotton plantation. Eastland served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for over 22 years and gained a reputation for being firm and immovable in his positions, including support for legal segregation.

Eastland spoke of black people as inherently inferior to whites and accused the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, of aligning with communists. In 1978, shortly before he retired from politics, Eastland met with NAACP leader Aaron Henry to discuss how he could acquire the support of black voters if he were to run for re-election. Learning from Henry that it was highly unlikely that he could secure the support of black voters, Eastland retired from politics and returned to his Mississippi plantation. He died in 1986 at the age of 81. 

Wallace was the 45th governor of Alabama and served four terms. He retired from politics in January 1987. He built his power off of promising the white electorate that he would maintain segregation in Alabama, famously declaring, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” On June 11, 1963, on the same day as President Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address, Wallace put on the political show of blocking two African-American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling at the University of Alabama. The stunt was nicknamed Wallace’s “stand in the schoolhouse door.” Several days later, Wallace made a deal with President Kennedy that he would end this political stunt, in exchange for first being allowed to make a speech in defiance of the federal order to desegregate the university.

Wallace’s political stunts were preparations for a presidential run. He wanted to run for election in 1964 as a neo-Dixiecrat but begged off in favor of supporting Barry Goldwater’s bid for the presidency. Wallace then ran in 1968 as the candidate for the American Independent Party, a far-right party with a segregationist platform, which he created. Wallace’s message appealed to enough of the electorate to win him 13 percent of the popular vote and the electoral votes of five states. In 1972, Wallace ran again. He finished second in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary and won in Maryland and Michigan. He got news of these two primary wins a day after being been shot in an assassination attempt.

Wallace ran for the presidency for a final time in 1976. By then, he was wheelchair bound and decided to throw his support behind Democrat Jimmy Carter instead. Wallace died in Montgomery—he was born in Alabama and spent his entire life there—in 1998 at the age of 79.

Romney was chairman of American Motors Corp. from 1954 to 1962 and served as Republican governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969. He also served as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1969 to 1973. He ran for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1968 but spoiled his chances by claiming that the military had misled him into supporting the Vietnam War. Moreover, Romney, who had been born in Mexico to American parents who lived on a Mormon colony, was not a native-born citizen, a fact that would likely have disqualified him from the presidency regardless of his views on the Vietnam War.

Romney is now best known as the father of former Massachusetts governor, 2012 Republican presidential nominee, and U.S. Senator from Utah, Mitt Romney. 

Henry is most famous for the line, “Give me liberty or give me death!” He made the statement at the second Virginia Convention in 1775, where he pressed for the need to secure the Virginia militia with the arms it would require to fight the British. Henry was the first governor of Virginia after American independence. He served from 1776 to 1779 and again from 1784 to 1786.

Henry was born to a Scotsman, John Henry, and pursued law after failing in his efforts to become a storekeeper and a farmer. Henry demonstrated remarkable ability as an orator. He later declined attendance at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and opposed ratification of the Constitution on the basis that it neither sufficiently secured the rights of states nor of individuals. Henry reversed this view due to his satisfaction with the Bill of Rights, which he helped to compose. He declined offers to serve in the new federal government due to failing health. He did, however, run for office in 1799 for the Virginia state legislature, but he died at home before he could take office. 

Russell was a Democratic senator from Georgia who served from 1932 to 1971. In March 1956, Russell co-authored, with South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, “The Southern Manifesto,” which articulated the South’s opposition to desegregation. The manifesto was signed by 19 senators and 81 representatives.

In 1972, the Russell Senate Office Building was named for Russell, due to his colleagues’ admiration for his oratorical abilities. The building, to this day, retains Russell’s name. Russell, who started his career as an attorney and served as governor of Georgia from 1931 to 1933, died in 1971. 

Born William Franklin Graham, Jr., Graham was the world’s most famous Christian evangelist, so popular and respected that he filled stadiums with followers who were eager to hear him preach. In May 1957, around 13,000 people gathered at Madison Square Garden in New York City to hear him speak. He later formed the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Graham was also an adviser to presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. Even Kim Il-Sung, the first leader of Communist North Korea, invited Graham to preach in the churches that the government had sanctioned in its capital, Pyongyang.

Graham disavowed segregation during the Jim Crow era and preached before integrated audiences, unlike other white Southern fundamentalist ministers. Graham, however, was also heard on tape making anti-Semitic remarks to Richard Nixon, about how liberal Jewish people were in control of all media and responsible for pornography. In 1993, he said that AIDS could be a judgment from God. Graham died in North Carolina, where he was born, in 2018, at the age of 99.