Crisis in Civil Rights

(See Cover)

On a bus traveling through the Deep South, a youthful Negro said calmly: "We can take anything the white man can dish out, but we want our rights. We know what they are--and we want them now." In the midst of a sleepless night in his Justice Department office in Washington, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, 36, hung up his telephone and said wearily: "It's like playing Russian roulette." And in Montgomery, the capital of Alabama and the birthplace of the Confederacy, Governor John Patterson, 39, wearing a pure white carnation in his lapel, complained bitterly: "I'm getting tired of being called up in the middle of the night and being ordered to do this and ordered to do that."

The young Negro, the young Attorney General and the young Southern Governor were central figures last week in a national drama. It was a drama of conflict and violence. It saw U.S. marshals and martial law in Alabama. It saw cops with police dogs on patrol in Mississippi. It was the drama of the Freedom Riders, and it represented a new and massive assault against segregation in the U.S. South.

The assault was launched late last month when a band of six whites and seven Negroes set out to ride by bus from Washington to New Orleans. The integrated trip was sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality, a Manhattan-based organization. Its purpose was to prove, by provoking trouble, that Southern interstate travel is still segregated in fact, although integrated by law. The original Freedom Riders passed with little incident through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Then they came to Alabama--where they found the trouble they wanted.

For that, they could in part thank Governor John Patterson. A militant segregationist who solicited Ku Klux Klan support in his election campaign, Patterson once said that integration would come to Alabama only "over my dead body." In his inaugural address Patterson declared: "I will oppose with every ounce of energy I possess and will use every power at my command to prevent any mixing of white and Negro races in the classrooms of this state." Said he as the Freedom Riders approached: "The people of Alabama are so enraged that I cannot guarantee protection for this bunch of rabble-rousers."

Thus confident that state authority would not stand in their way, Alabama mobs attacked the Freedom Riders in Anniston and Birmingham. Battered and bruised, the original Freedom Riders decided to discontinue their bus trip and fly from Birmingham to New Orleans.

But what they had started was far from ended. Until then, little active support had been given the Freedom Riders by the Negro students who last year fought and won the sit-in battles against segregated Southern lunch counters (TIME, Feb. 22, 1960 et seq.). When the first Freedom Riders gave up, these students took over. They vowed that they would travel all the way to New Orleans by bus--or, literally, die trying. They were tactical disciples of Martin Luther King Jr., the Negro minister whose Gandhian methods of nonviolence won municipal bus integration in Montgomery in 1956. Willing to suffer beatings and endure jail, the students last week jumped onto regularly scheduled buses and headed south.

In Montgomery, the new Freedom Riders were mauled by another mob. Again Governor Patterson failed to act--and at that point Attorney General Bobby Kennedy reluctantly sent in 400 U.S. marshals, a force that was later increased to 666. The marshals (mostly deputized Treasury agents) were led by Deputy Attorney General Byron ("Whizzer") White, who met with Patterson in a long and angry conference. White carefully explained that the U.S. was not sponsoring the Freedom Riders' movement, but that the Government was determined to protect the riders' legal rights (see box). John Patterson was having no part of such explanations. Alabama, he cried, could maintain its own law and order, and the marshals were therefore unnecessary. He even threatened to arrest the marshals if they violated any local law.

Even as White and Patterson talked, Montgomery's radio stations broadcast the news that Negroes would hold a mass meeting that night at the First Baptist Church. All day long, carloads of grim-faced whites converged on Montgomery.

That night the church was packed with 1,200 Negroes. In the basement a group of young men and women clustered together and clasped hands like a football team about to take the field. They were the Freedom Riders. "Everybody say 'Freedom.' " ordered one of the leaders. "Freedom," said the group. "Say it again," said the leader. "Freedom!" shouted the group. "Are we together?" asked the leader. "Yes. we are together," came the reply. With that, the young Negroes filed upstairs and reappeared behind the pulpit. "Ladies and gentlemen," cried the Rev. Ralph Abernathy as the crowd screamed to its feet, "the Freedom Riders."

"Give Them a Grenade." Slowly, in twos and threes, the mob started to form outside the church. Men with shirts unbuttoned to the waist sauntered down North Ripley Street, soon were almost at the steep front steps of the church. "We want to integrate too," yelled a voice. Cried another: "We'll get those niggers." A barrage of bottles burst at the feet of some curious Negroes who peered out the church door. The worst racial battle in Montgomery's history was about to begin.

Despite the long and obvious buildup toward trouble, only a handful of Montgomery cops were present--and they looked the other way. Into the breach moved a squad of U.S. marshals--the men Patterson had said were not needed. Contrary to Justice Department statements, the hastily deputized marshals had no riot training. They moved uncertainly to their task until a mild-looking alcohol tax unit supervisor from Florida named William D. Behen took command. "If we're going to do it, let's do it!" he yelled. "What say, shall we give them a grenade?" Whereupon Behen lobbed a tear-gas grenade into the crowd.

The crowd retreated temporarily, but kept up a fusillade of bottles, rocks and paving stones. Inside, Martin Luther King took the pulpit to say: "The ultimate responsibility for the hideous action in Alabama last week must be placed at the doorstep of the Governor of the state. We hear the familiar cry that morals cannot be legislated. This may be true, but behavior can be regulated. The law may not be able to make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me."

"Have Him Call Me." Back at the white mansion on South Perry Street, John Patterson and his family had finished an informal dinner of charcoal-broiled steaks on the terrace. The Governor was following the progress of the riot by telephone. When Public Safety Director Floyd Mann phoned that the mob was growing, Patterson declared martial law, ordered Adjutant General Henry Graham, a National Guard major general, to lead his troops to the church. Then Patterson called Bobby Kennedy to report that the Guard had gone into action, but that the general could not guarantee the protection of Martin Luther King.

Kennedy exploded. Earlier he had seriously considered sending in federal troops, had reassured King by phone that he was safe in the church. Kennedy's voice rose as he worked over Patterson: "Have the general call me. I want him to say it to me. I want to hear a general of the U.S. Army say he can't protect Martin Luther King." Patterson backed down, admitted that it was he, not the general, who felt that King could not be protected. As it turned out, General Graham was capable of protecting King and everyone else. He kept the Negroes in the stifling hot church until the mob was dispersed, then escorted them home early in the morning.

Yale's Revenge. After the church riot, Bobby Kennedy urged the Freedom Riders to go slowly. But the Freedom Riders in Montgomery were determined to push on to New Orleans by way of Mississippi, a state ruled by Governor Ross Barnett, who had once declared: "The Negro is different because God made him different to punish him." Barnett, noting well what had happened in Alabama, assured Attorney General Kennedy that Mississippi would protect the students from violence. Kennedy was deciding to trust Barnett and withhold federal forces from Mississippi when he got word that still another integrated bus contingent, led by Yale University Chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr., was starting out for the South. Cracked Harvardman Kennedy: "Those people at Yale are sore at Harvard for taking over the country, and now they're trying to get back at us."

On Wednesday morning the student Freedom Riders appeared at Montgomery's Trailways bus terminal--ready to head for Mississippi. Alabama National Guardsmen lined both sides of the street in front of the terminal, surveyed the area from the second level of a garage across the street. At 7:15 the first bus pulled out for Jackson carrying twelve Freedom Riders, six National Guardsmen and 16 newsmen. Once out in the countryside, the bus was convoyed by three planes, two helicopters and 17 highway patrol cars. Bobby Kennedy followed the progress of the convoy by a special telephone rig that let him monitor police radio messages.

Aboard the bus, Freedom Rider Jim Lawson held a workshop on tactics for the riot that might come: "If we get knocked down, I think the best bet is to stand where we are if we can--or kneel where we are." But the only man in Alabama who lifted a finger at the Freedom Riders was a farmer, who thumbed his nose. At a rest stop, while Guardsmen glared at empty fields, Lawson disavowed the armed guard: "We appreciate the Government's concern, but protection does not solve the problem of segregation."

Polite Police. At the Mississippi line a similar escort, but with fixed bayonets, picked up the caravan for the trip to Jackson. Someone hurled a rock at the bus, but most of the spectators just stared, took pictures, or waved derisively.

At the Jackson terminal the crowds were hanging out of the windows of nearby buildings. "Get your teams ready," said Lawson. In pairs, the Freedom Riders walked into the "white" waiting room. A Jackson policeman politely asked two Negro girls to move on, and when they refused, arrested them for causing a disturbance. In similar fashion the remaining Freedom Riders--one white and eleven black--were arrested, including eight who actually entered the white rest room before being led away.

Several hours later, the second contingent of Freedom Riders, including CORE National Director James Farmer, planted themselves in the waiting room. "You all have to move," said a police captain. No one stirred. "You all going to move?" asked the captain. "No," came the reply. "You all are under arrest," said the captain.

Spreading Action. Back in Washington Bobby Kennedy issued a statement outlining the Government's position of impartial enforcement of the law. Later in the day Kennedy publicly requested a "cooling-off period." But the very next morning Coffin, three other whites and three Negroes defiantly sat down at the Montgomery Trailways bus terminal and were arrested for breach of the peace.

As the Freedom Riders were taken to Alabama and Mississippi jails, others headed south to take up the crusade. Action was spreading fast on other fronts in John Patterson's home state. Birmingham businessmen, who had been trying to attract outside industry to their fading city, sent Patterson a sharp wire complaining that the riots had torpedoed their campaign. The Justice Department brought suit against four local Alabama police officials, including Birmingham's Commissioner Eugene ("Bull") Connor, to enjoin them from interfering with interstate bus traffic. Justice's charges: the cops had not only failed to respond quickly to the riots but had actually withdrawn from some trouble spots to give the mobs a free hand.

Declared the Montgomery Advertiser--one of many Southern papers roasting the Governor: "Patterson is not the exclusive author of Montgomery's troubles by any means, but he is the chief author because his is the supreme responsibility as chief guardian against disorder."

Latter-Day Crusader. Ironically, John Patterson built his political career in large part on a reputation for enforcing the law. He was raised in wide-open Phenix City, where the gamblers and the madams catered to soldiers from nearby Fort Benning. Patterson played the slot machines as a kid, drank his share of "wildcat" whisky and, with time out for Army service during World War II and in Korea, turned into just another easygoing Alabama lawyer. But in 1954 his father, Albert Patterson, was murdered by racketeers 17 days after winning the Democratic nomination for state attorney general on the promise to clean out Phenix City. Says John Patterson: "I was practicing law and going fishing and enjoying my days off, but when they shot down my daddy, I became a crusader."

At 33, Patterson was elected to his dead father's job, led the fight to mop up the mob in Phenix City. More important, he became a hero to many an Alabama voter by putting the N.A.A.C.P. out of business in the state for refusing to disclose membership lists. He fought Negro boycotts of stores in Tuskegee and of buses in Montgomery.

O.K. for the K.K.K. In 1958 Patterson started out way back in the pack in the race among the Democrats for the Governor's mansion. He gained ground fast. With no program of his own to speak of, Patterson made himself the chief critic of the clownish reign of James ("Kissin' Jim") Folsom, the outgoing Governor. Using his attorney general's stationery, Patterson sent out a letter to the Ku Klux Klan mailing list, which declared: "A mutual friend, Mr. R. N. Shelton, of ours, in Tuscaloosa, has suggested that I ask for your support." When it turned out that Shelton was the Grand Dragon of the state Ku Klux Klan, Patterson professed astonishment. Said the Advertiser: "If this innocent, this Fearless Fosdick, is so dense that he doesn't know that he is riding around with a Klan chief, how in the world can such a man investigate and bring to book the Folsom gang and the gangsters he talks about?"

A Favor Rewarded. John Patterson was elected Governor of Alabama, and he set right out to make a segregationist record. He expelled students from Alabama State College for Negroes who took part in sit-ins, promised to close down the University of Alabama if it accepted a Negro. If anyone pushed for school integration, Patterson said flatly, "I will be one of the ones leading the trouble."

In 1959 Patterson dropped by Jack Kennedy's Georgetown home for breakfast and emerged so impressed that 13 months before the convention he became the first Southern Governor to back the young Senator for President. Alabama still went for Lyndon Johnson in Los Angeles, but Patterson got his reward this spring when Charles M. Meriwether, his old campaign manager, was nominated by Kennedy as a director of the Export-Import Bank. Meriwether was eventually confirmed by the Senate despite reports of connections with the Klan.

Vagabond Toad. One morning last week, Governor Patterson strode briskly down the cherry-red carpeted staircase in the Governor's mansion and out onto the marble terrace for breakfast. Already at the table were his wife Mary Jo (called "Tuti"), their twelve-year-old son Albert L., and their eight-year-old daughter Barbara Louise. Cardinals flitted through the gigantic water oaks and pecan trees on the mansion lawn, and a squad of six Negro trusty prisoners in white uniforms trimmed the grass while the Governor attacked a plate of muffins and bacon. Suddenly a furor arose in the yard. "They've found the horned toad," cried Tuti. "I hope they don't kill it."

The chief executive of the state of Alabama whirled into action. "Hey," he yelled. "Hey, don't you all kill that toad!" Patterson jumped up from the table and sprinted across the lawn to save a horned toad, a family pet that is consigned by Tuti to a vagabond's life in the garden.

Worst Insult. Back at the table, Patterson told a visitor that he had no apologies to make for any of his actions during the weeks of crisis. The Kennedy Administration was to blame, particularly Bobby Kennedy. "He has no idea of conditions here," said Patterson. "God Almighty, what he's trying to do is provoke a civil war. They try and get you to admit you can't or won't guarantee law enforcement, and then they twist your words because the marshals are on the way anyway. That Bobby Kennedy is just treacherous, that's what he is. I don't trust him and he don't trust me." A hurt tone crept into Patterson's voice. "To say that I couldn't enforce the law is the worst insult they could have thrown at me. The Kennedys couldn't get enough votes in Alabama this morning to wad buckshot.

"I'm a segregationist, and I tell you 98% of the people down here feel the way I do. There shouldn't be any battles over rights. There shouldn't even be court fights. We have to give the colored people pride in themselves and pride in their communities. A fellow who's making money, he doesn't worry about things like riding buses."

Blunt Warning. On a tour of the mansion, Patterson later pointed out a deer head on the wall, paused at a picture of the 1868 Alabama legislature, which had ratified the 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizens "due process" of law. Nearly one-third of the men in the picture were Negroes. "I keep it as a historical curiosity," said Patterson. He gestured toward a picture of Confederate General Joseph ("Fighting Joe") Wheeler.*"I'm related to Wheeler. My mother's mother's mother was a Wheeler."

Before leaving for his office, Governor Patterson fired a parting shot: "If they attempt to integrate the schools, it will be just like last Sunday night was."

It was just that sort of talk that had helped land John Patterson in his present mess and had brought federal forces into his state. If he had kept his mouth shut and accepted his responsibility to maintain law and order, the Freedom Riders would probably have passed through Alabama with little incident--just as they had passed through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. As the Freedom Riders themselves admit, segregation would have returned to Alabama before their bus was out of sight. Says a CORE lawyer: "A trip like this is like hacking your way through the jungle with a machete. After you've gone, the jungle grows right back."

Instead, Patterson helped set off integrationist movements that last week were spreading throughout the South. In Florida, the N.A.A.C.P. ordered a segregation test of all rail and bus facilities. In New York, CORE headquarters announced that it was sending field secretaries to New Orleans, Jackson and Montgomery. In Nashville, more students were ready to go to Jackson, where the 27 arrested Freedom Riders were fined $200 each and given suspended sentences of 60 days. At week's end, 22 of the 27 were still in jail because they refused to ante up any money.

The boldness and bravery of the Freedom Riders won over most of the old-line, conservative Negro leaders, leaving only a few doubters, who were shrugged off by the students as "Uncle Toms." "These kids are serving notice on us that we're moving too slow," said Thurgood Marshall, the N.A.A.C.P. lawyer who won the school segregation case. "They're not content with all this talking." Said Martin Luther King: "I think all of this is unfortunate, but I think it is a psychological turning point in our whole struggle, just as Little Rock was a turning point in our legal struggle.* The people themselves have said we can take it no longer. If we can get through this, I think it will mean breaking the backbone of massive resistance and discrimination."

None Too Soon. Over the Voice of America, Bobby Kennedy last week reminded the world that the U.S. has an Irish Catholic for President, and added: "There is no question about it. In the next 40 years a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother has." And at Columbia, S.C., Howard University President James Madison Nabrit Jr. told the graduating class of Negro Benedict College: "Swifter than you can imagine, you will have all the rights and privileges of every other citizen in the U.S." That time cannot come too swiftly for young Negroes of 1961--and the John Pattersons of the South can do little to stop them.

*Confederate Cavalry Commander Wheeler survived to fight as a U.S. general in the Spanish-American War.

*Prodded by a federal court, Little Rock last week said that next fall it will integrate four junior high schools and complete the integration of its high schools. Even so, Little Rock expects to have only 49 Negroes in racially mixed classes next fall.

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