Welcome to Sojourn to the Past

Civil rights leader Myrlie Evers-Williams is perhaps best remembered as the widow of Medgar Evers, the Mississippi state field secretary for the NAACP who in 1963 was gunned down in the driveway of his home in Jackson. In the years since the assassination and two hung juries that left the accused gunman, white supremacist Byron De la Beckwith, a free man, Mrs. Evers has continued to wage a lonely war to keep her husband’s memory and dreams alive and to bring his killer to justice. Her diligence eventually paid off when Beckwith was brought to trial for a third time and finally, in 1994, found guilty of the murder of Medgar Evers, more than 30 years after the crime.

Ms. Evers-Williams is a phenomenal woman of great strength and courage. Her dedication to civil rights and equality is exemplified by her activist role, linking together business, government, and social issues to further human rights and equality. On February 18, 1995, she was elected to the position of Chairman of the National Board of Directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). With the support of a strong member base of the NAACP, she is credited with spearheading the operations that restored the Association to its original status as the premier civil rights organization.

Evers-Williams says that she “greets today and the future with open arms.” This credo has carried her through years of struggle and success. Her children and six grandchildren remain her strongest supporters in her continued fight to secure equal rights for all people, and to preserve those rights for future generations.

We feel both proud and grateful to have someone such as Ms. Evers-Williams practicing Sojourn Living and fighting for equal rights for all.

In 1965, a group of klansmen from Birmingham were sent to Selma, Alabama, with orders to keep the marchers under surveillance. At a stoplight, they noticed a green Oldsmobile with Michigan license plates driven by a white woman with a young, black male passenger. For the klansmen, the car and the passengers symbolized the two most despised aspects for the Civil Rights Movement: outsiders and race mixing.

Viola Liuzzo was a white mother from Detroit who had been shuttling marchers between Montgomery and Selma for three days. She had become known as a tireless and cheerful worker. By all descriptions, Viola was an extraordinary woman. At age 36, with five children at home, she had gone back to school to become a medical lab technician. She worked only for a few months and then quit in protest over the way female secretaries were treated. With the encouragement of her friend, she became one of the few white members of the National Assocation for the Advancement of Colored People. On March 7, 1965, Viola and her husband were watching the news when they saw the first clips of state troopers attacking Selma marchers. Tears rolled down Mrs. Liuzzo’s face and she brooded over the scene for days. Despite her husband’s concern, she got in her car and headed for Selma alone.

After the klansmen had spotted her and her young, black passenger they began to follow them. Surprisingly, Mrs. Liuzzo didn’t seem too concerned, and soon both cars were racing down the highway at 100 miles per hour. About 20 miles outside of Selma, the klansmen pulled up beside the car and one aimed his pistol out the window and shot Mrs. Liuzzo, shattering her skull. LeRoy Moton, her passenger, grabed the wheel and hit the brakes, and the car crashed into an embankment. When the klansmen walked over to inspect their work, Moton faked his death while they shone a light in the car. As soon as they left, Moton flagged down a truck carrying more civil rights workers, and although he was terrified, he was uninjured. Viola Liuzzo was dead.

After two trials (one being a hung jury where the klansmen were found not guilty), the three klansmen were eventually found guilty and each sentenced to 10 years in prison. This was the first conviction of murder in a civil rights case and was a landmark in southern racial history. It was also the first time the federal government successfully prosecuted a case of civil rights conspiracy.

 As intense a story as this is, we can look at it as a learning opportunity. It’s important that every day, in every way possble, we experience history in order to inspire the future.

In the basement of the ladies’ lounge of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, four young girls waited nervously for the worship service to begin. Addie Mae Collins, 14, and Denise McNair, 11, were in the choir. Carole Rosamond Robertson and Cynthia Diane Morris Wesley, both 14, had been chosen to serve as ushers. On the outside wall of the church, beneath a stone staircase, a dynamite  bomb had been planted eight hours earlier. It exploded at 10:22 a.m.shaking the whole church and killing the four young girls instantly. In the end, more than 20 people were hospitalized with injuries.

There had many bombings in Birmingham designed to stop the black struggle for equality, but nothing had been as evil as the dynamiting of children during Sunday School. The news spread quickly, and it sickened people of all races and all political allegiances throughout the world.

The FBI immediately investigated the bombing and discovered Klansmen planned it in response to the new school desegregation order. An eyewitness saw four white men plant the bomb, but inexplicably, no one was charged with the crime at that time. Two decades passed with no further action in the case. Then, in the mid 1990′s, it was reopened, and the U.S. Attorney, Doug Jones, successfully prosecuted Thomas Blanton in May 2001 and Bobby Cherry in May 2002. Both were sentenced to life in prison.

The Sixteenth Street bombing brought national attention to the evils of racism. More importantly, it made whites, who would never experience it themselves, feel the pain of racism. The day after the bombing a white lawyer named Charles Morgan gave a speech in Birmingham. He asked his audience: “Who did it?” and gave his own anguished answer: “We all did it…every person in this community who has in any way contributed…to the popularity of hatred is at least as guilty…as the demented fool who set that bomb.”

 At Sojourn Project, we use these stories from the past as learning experiences of the impact that hatred can have. We encourage you to embrace the differences you discover in your community. Differences are what make the world such a beautiful place.

Minnijean Brown-Trickey (born September 11, 1941) was one of a group of African-American teenagers known as the “Little Rock Nine.” Brown, along with eight others (Thelma Mothershed, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, Melba Pattillo, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Daisy Bates, and Ernest Green) faced down an angry mob and helped to desegregate Central High on September 25, 1957, under the gaze of 1,200 armed soldiers. Brown-Trickey was later suspended in 1957 due to an incident in which her bowl of chili was spilled on a white student in the cafeteria; she was expelled in February 1958 after verbally abusing a white female student, even though the girl had provoked her beforehand. After living in Canada for much of her adult life, Brown-Trickey has returned to Little Rock to continue to pioneer civil rights.

During the Sojourn trips, Minnijean conducts a class in Little Rock, Arkansas, on tolerance, bigotry, hate groups, and the ongoing struggle for social justice. Her firsthand experience with blatant racial hatred is uniquely poignant, and as a lifelong activist, Brown-Trickey is able to articulate the encounter with clarity and perspective. Her testimony not only exposes students on a Sojourn to the effects of injustices of the past, but also serves as a noteworthy example of how they can act to prevent future intolerance and discrimination. Students discuss how to develop personal action plans to face intolerance in themselves, their families, their schools and neighborhoods.