Press Conference Announcing the Continuation of the Freedom Rides
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: May 23, 1961?
Location: Montgomery, Ala.?
Genre: Film
Topic: Freedom Rides
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Details
King, Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis, James Farmer, and Wyatt Tee Walker host a news conference at Abernathy’s home to announce the continuation of the Freedom Rides after violence against the riders temporarily halted the campaign.1 During the press conference, King addresses concerns that the rides are negatively affecting America’s international image, declaring that “it is not only impractical but it is immoral to urge people to accept injustices, oppression, and second class citizenship” just to “satisfy the whims and caprices of a few people who would say that this is hurting us in international affairs.”2 The following transcript is taken from two sources of film footage of the press conference.
[Walker]: Lewis. L-E-W-I-S.
[Reporter]: John Lewis?
[Walker]: John Lewis from Troy, Alabama. [gap in film]
[King]: Mr. James Farmer, the national director of CORE, will be here in a few minutes. He had difficulty getting a cab [recording interrupted]
[words inaudible] as a way of opening this conference that we met with the students some four hours last evening and discussed many matters concerning the whole Freedom Ride and the goals ahead. And it was a unanimous feeling of all of the students present that the Freedom Ride should and must continue. So that we would like to make it palpably clear that the students will continue the Freedom Ride.3 Now we will not specify the exact time that the ride will resume, but it will continue. The students decided today that they will have a workshop on nonviolence for the rest of the day in order to purify themselves and in order to delve deeper into the meaning of the philosophy and method of nonviolence. The Reverend James Lawson of Nashville, Tennessee, the project director of the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference and staff consultant of Southern Christian Leadership Conference will be flying in at noon in order to begin the workshop this afternoon and Mr. Farmer and I will assist him in this.
[Reporter]: Can you repeat his name, sir?
[King]: The person coming in?
[Reporter]: Yes [recording interrupted]
[King]: [recording interrupted] and I’ll add onto that is how soon will things develop after that, whether it’ll be a matter of days. I would simply say that the ride will take place in the not too distant future. It is not far off. Now a lot of this will be determined by our conference later on and as soon as Reverend Lawson comes in. But we all, we have all agreed, to the fact that it should continue and it shouldn’t be too long.
[Reporter]: By continuing, do you mean it will go through Mississippi and basically end up in New Orleans?
[King]: Yes, the destination is New Orleans and—
[Reporter]: Through Jackson?
[King]: this will go the same route as has been announced in the past.4
[Reporter]: Dr. King, do you expect, sir, that you will have the escort of federal marshals or have you made any arrangements to obtain any such escorts?
[King]: The students have made it crystal clear that [phone rings] the ride will take place with or without federal protection. This will be requested but if it is not given, this will not at all block the Freedom Ride. [doorbell rings]5
[Reporter]: What about reports that other students are coming in from other states to augment the Freedom Rides?
[King]: There are other students who are standing by in other states and students from all over the country who are willing to join this massive campaign to break down segregation in waiting rooms, at lunch counters within the waiting rooms, and on the buses.
[Unidentified speaker]: [You?] Ryan.
[Reporter]: Have any of the students involved in the current ride been notified of any difficulties with their schools because of absence?
[King]: I think John Lewis can answer that.
[Lewis]: There’s a possibility for the students at Tennessee State University—It is possible for them to be expelled—6
[Reporter]: Can’t hear. [gap in film]
[Lewis]: About ten I believe for the most part.
[Reporter]: Dr. King when you started off you [recording interrupted]
[King]: Well there will be white students. I don’t know how many at this point, but it will definitely be interracial when it resumes.
[Reporter]: Do you mean new white students who have not participated, in other words, not ones who have left?
[King]: Well whether those who have left will come back is something I, I don’t know at this time but there will be new white students.
[Reporter]: Dr. King, Governor Barnett of Mississippi has said he will give a full escort to the riders non-stop through Mississippi. Would that be in your mind a satisfactory conclusion to the Freedom Ride?7
[Walker]: Can I interrupt just a moment [recording interrupted]
[Abernathy]: Could you lean over, Jim? Speak louder.
[Farmer]: Yes, certainly. Well my own feeling is it would not be a successful culmination of the trip in as much as one of the purposes of the Freedom Ride is to test the unsegregated use of all facilities at bus terminals and rest stops for interstate passengers and if it’s a nonstop trip across Mississippi under escort it means that such testing will not be possible. This, I think, would be in a sense a frustration of the goals of the Freedom Ride.
[Abernathy]: Then I might add this: the final destination will be Louisiana but it certainly will not be the first stop. And we feel that it would be a grave infringement upon the rights of individuals to take them where they do not wish to go at that particular time and there will be some stops in Mississippi. [gap in film]
Would you call this kidnapping, taking individuals beyond their destination against their will? And I said in my thinking, I’m not an attorney, rather I certainly think that it would be a form of kidnapping.
[Farmer]: May I add, Reverend Abernathy, I think it would also be deportation, by taking people from one state line to the other state line without stop.
[Unidentified speaker]: [words inaudible] [gap in film]
[Abernathy]: Countries like Ghana and Lib—[recording interrupted]. The question is what type of effect do you feel that the incidents [recording interrupted]
[King]: My only answer to that is the answer that I gave a few minutes ago: that it is not only impractical but it is immoral to urge people to accept injustices, oppression, and second class citizenship in an attempt to wait until the so-called opportune time. The time is always right to do right and we cannot wait, we cannot continue to accept these conditions of oppression in order to satisfy the whims and caprices of a few people who would say that this is hurting us in international affairs.8 The thing that is hurting us most is the continued existence of segregation and discrimination, and we think we’re rendering a great service to our nation. For this is not a struggle for ourselves alone; it is a struggle to save the soul of America.9
1. The night before the news conference, representatives from SNCC and SCLC including King, Wyatt Tee Walker, Ralph Abernathy, James Farmer, Ed King, Diane Nash, Bernard Lee, and Paul Brooks, among others, met at the Montgomery YMCA to discuss the future of the rides. According to John Lewis, some students at the meeting pleaded with King to go on the next Freedom Ride. King, who was on probation following a 1960 traffic violation, declined (Lewis and Michael D’Orso, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement [New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998], pp. 163–164; Samuel Hoskins, “‘Freedom Riders’ Vow to Continue,” Chicago Daily Defender, 24 May 1961; see also “A Disappointing King,” The Crusader 2, no. 31 [5 June 1961]). James Farmer (1920–1999), the grandson of a slave, was born in Marshall, Texas. He earned a B.S. (1938) from Wiley College and a B.D. (1941) from Howard University. Farmer, a conscientious objector, worked as race relations secretary for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) from 1941 to 1945. In 1942, at the behest of FOR, Farmer cofounded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a nonviolent, direct action organization, for which he would later serve as national director from 1961–1966. After leaving FOR, Farmer became a union organizer. From 1959–1960 Farmer was program director of the NAACP, and left the organization to devote full time to CORE. Under his direction, CORE organized the 1961 Freedom Rides, a campaign modeled after the Journey of Reconciliation, an interracial bus ride in 1947 to test compliance of the Supreme Court ruling declaring segregation in interstate travel unconstitutional. Throughout the late 1960s Farmer served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1969–1970), executive director of the Coalition of American Public Employees (1977–1982), and a distinguished professor at several universities, including Mary Washington College (1985–1994). Farmer’s autobiography Lay Bare the Heart was published in 1985.
2. King also spoke of the possibility that protesters may be killed on the campaign: “We would not like to see anyone die. We do not consider ourselves martyrs. We all enjoy life and want to live, but the philosophy of the non-violence involves the spirit of willingness to die for a cause. We are willing to face anything—even if it is death” (“Freedom Riders’ Sight Miss. as Next Target,” Los Angeles Times, 24 May 1961). The day after the press conference, Attorney General Kennedy pleaded with protesters for a cooling-off period: “It would be wise for those traveling through these two states to delay their trips until the present state of confusion and danger has passed and an atmosphere of reason and normalcy has been restored” (“Attorney General’s Pleas,” New York Times, 25 May 1961).
3. On 24 May two groups of freedom riders traveled from Montgomery, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi, under military escort by the Alabama and Mississippi National Guards. Both groups were arrested at the Trailways station in Jackson after seeking service at the lunch counter and attempting to use the men’s restroom reserved for whites. The following day, demonstrators, led by Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin, and SCLC representatives Abernathy, Walker, Bernard Lee, and Fred Shuttlesworth were arrested on charges of conspiracy to breach the peace after seeking service at the white lunch counter at the Trailways bus terminal in Montgomery (Claude Sitton, “27 Bi-Racial Bus Riders Jailed in Jackson, Miss., as They Widen Campaign,” New York Times, 25 May 1961; “Yale, Wesleyan Professors Jailed in Tense Montgomery,” Boston Globe, 26 May 1961; see also Stuart LeRoy Anderson, 5 June 1961, pp. 245–246 in this volume).
4. The Freedom Ride was originally scheduled to begin in Washington, D.C., on 4 May and make stops in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana (CORE, “Freedom Ride Itinerary,” 24 April 1961).
5. On 23 May, Ed King, administrative secretary of SNCC, sent President Kennedy a telegram requesting authorization for the attorney general to “‘take all necessary steps to handle the situation’” and issue a statement affirming the constitutional rights of the freedom riders “as they seek to use the various modes of inter-state travel” (Edward B. King to Kennedy, 23 May 1961).
6. Tennessee governor Buford Ellington told a reporter on 22 May that the State Board of Education had authorized the expulsion of students enrolled in state colleges if they are found guilty of personal misconduct. In June 1961 thirteen riders were dismissed from Tennessee A&I University; however, a federal judge ruled in December 1961 that the students deserved a hearing before being expelled from the school (“Youths Face Penalty,” New York Times, 23 May 1961; “Judge Backs 13 Ousted Tenn. Student ‘Riders,’” Chicago Daily Defender, 18 December 1961). Some students returned to the school in January 1962 (Pauline Knight-Ofosu, Interview by King Papers Project staff, September 2012).
7. Barnett stated that Mississippi did not want or need federal intervention to protect the freedom riders and that he would instruct the State Highway Patrol to usher the riders through the state without allowing them to stop (“Mississippi Escort,” New York Times, 23 May 1961; Claude Sitton, “Bi-Racial Riders Decide to Go On,” New York Times, 24 May 1961).
8. A few days following the launch of the Freedom Rides, Attorney General Kennedy warned in an address at the University of Georgia’s Law Day celebration that racial conflicts in the South harm not only those involved, but “such incidents hurt our country in the eyes of the world” (“Text of Attorney General Kennedy’s Civil Rights Speech at University of Georgia,” New York Times, 7 May 1961). Several editorials on the Freedom Rides and the violent attacks hurled at them lamented the international ramifications to America’s image, and reported on international coverage of the events in Asia and Africa (John Hughes, “Just a Stone’s Throw Spatters Mud,” Christian Science Monitor, 22 May 1961; “Moscow Sees ‘Savagery,’” New York Times, 23 May 1961). One op-ed piece published in the Washington Post reported that the Russian newspaper Izvestia regarded the violence against freedom riders in Alabama “as another example of ‘wild bestial mores in a country pretending to teach others how to live’” (“Soviet Paper Raps ‘Bestial’ U.S. Mores,” Washington Post, 23 May 1961).
9. During a question and answer period with students and faculty of Inter-American University in Puerto Rico, King said that segregation in the United States is negatively affecting the nation’s image (King, Interview by Inter-American University Students and Faculty, 14 February 1962, p. 401 in this volume).
Source: NyNyFMN, Fox Movietone News Clips, ITN Source, New York, N.Y. Final paragraph from WSB-TV-GU, Newsfilm Collection, Walter J. Brown Media Archive & Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Ga.