Humble Place, Humble People, Big Events

blog.preservationnation.org/2013/08/21/five-saved-civil-rights-sites-commemorating-the 50th-anniversary-of-the-march-on-washington/#.UhUk82RVR91

March on Washington for Job and Justice
en.wikipedia.org

Hello Everyone:

I noticed that we are oh so close to the 2,000 page view mark.  I feel so humbled by your continued support.  It makes sitting in front of the computer less lonely.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  In advance of the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice, August 28, 1963, I thought I might present five historic monuments that commemorate the events and people that participated in the modern Civil Rights Movement.  These are not necessarily big boldfaced places.  Rather, they're more modest sites that played a large role in the in the fight for racial equality.  When I say modern Civil Rights Movement, I'm referring to the activity that took place between the mid-fifties through the sixties.  The Civil Rights Movement in the United States actually sprang to life in the nineteenth century, picking up steam after the Civil War (1861-65).  My intention today is to tell about five places that loomed large in American history not stand on some soapbox and preach.  Rather, I'd like you to use this post to reflect on how far we've come in the struggle for true equality and how much further we have to go.

The Rosa Parks Bus
glogster.com

On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks made history by refusing to give up her sit in the "whites only" section of a Montgomery, Alabama bus when ordered to do so by driver James F. Blake.  This courageous act of defiance landed her in jail and sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  Mrs. Parks was not the first to take such a stand.  Irene Morgan made her stand in 1946, Sarah Louise Keyes in 1955, and members of the Browder v. Gayle lawsuit (Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith) were arrested months before.  Their actions helped revive the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-twentieth century.  The actual bus was found decades after this action lying unprotected in a field, deteriorating.  In 2002 the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, where Mrs. Parks and her family eventually moved to, restored this iconic bus to its 1955 appearance and placed on permanent exhibition.

The Daisy Bates House
nps.gov

 At first glance the Daisy Bates House in Little Rock, Arkansas is just another unassuming house on a quiet street.  However, within the walls of this modest looking house, big things took place.  Daisy Lee Gaston Bates and her husband were leading figures in the African American community in Little Rock.  They published the African American community newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, which publicized the U.S. Supreme Court's desegregation rulings.  Ms. Bates was the principal organizer and guiding force of the "Little Rock Nine," a group of student who integrated Central High School in Little Rock.  The house became a haven and command central for the "Little Rock Nine."  Daisy Bates went on to become a nationally recognized Civil Rights figure for her work to desegregate Central High School.

The Lorraine Motel
tnhistoryforkids.org

The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee is the site of the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King at the hands of James Earl Ray.  The Rev. King was in Memphis to support the strike by the city's sanitation workers.  An assassin's bullet cut down the Rev. King as he stood on the balcony of his room. The motel was built in 1925 as a "whites only"  establishment.  By the end of World War II, the motel became an African American motel, hosting jazz musicians such as Cab Calloway and Count Basie.  It is now home to the National Civil Rights Museum, following a difficult fight to save the motel from foreclosure or demolition.

Freedom Rides Museum
tripadvisor.com

A humble Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, Alabama that became the launch pad for a daring act of defiance.  The Freedom Riders were a group of Civil Rights activists who rode interstate buses in the segregated south to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings which declared segregated public buses unconstitutional.  The first Freedom Ride left Washington D.C on May 4, 1961 for the city of New Orleans.  The riders encountered frenzied mob violence in Alabama.  Despite the frenzy, the Freedom Rides continued, inspiring subsequent civil rights campaigns such as voter registration throughout the South.  This modest bus station could have been demolished but remains as a witness to the bravery of the men and women who boarded the buses and raised their voices in Freedom songs.  It is currently the home of the Freedom Rides Museum, which encompasses the courthouse where former U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr presided over important civil rights cases.  This bus station is next door to the place where, in 1961, an integrated group of students used nonviolent means to protest segregation.

F.W. Woolworth Building
nps.gov

 A Woolworth Five and Dime store in Greensboro, North Carolina that became the site of student activism that would change the face of segregation forever.  On February 1, 1960 four first year students from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina sat down in four vacant sits at the "whites only" counter at the five and dime.  Franklin McCain, Joseph MacNeil, David Richmond, and Ezell Blair had no idea what would happen when they sat down to order a cup of coffee.  They were ignored by the waitresses, the store manager, and a police officer.  They were taunted by some and praised by others.  The next day they were joined by nineteen others, the day after their number grew to eighty-five, black and white students.  Before the week was out this number rose to 400.  They organized shifts so no one would miss class.  This movement snowballed into Hampton, Virginia and Nashville, Tennessee.  By the end of the summer thirty-three southern cities, including Greensboro integrated their restaurants and lunch counters.  The following years, 126 cities followed suit.

These modest buildings that I've just presented to you had enormous impact on the course of American history.  The people that inhabited them and the events that took place within these walls propelled this country forward into the twentieth century and beyond.  The people were not politicians, they were private individuals who had enough and took a stand.  Their actions resonate today through the people and events that seek change and social justice across the globe.

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