Saturday-Monday, November 2-4, 1963: Freedom Vote in Mississippi

The "freedom vote" was a mock statewide general election to parallel the Mississippi gubernatorial election of 1963. It was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of civil rights organizations. Aaron Henry, a black pharmacist from Clarksdale, was on the mock ballot for governor and the Rev. Edwin King, a white chaplain at Tougaloo College in Jackson (and a native of Vicksburg), was on the ballot for lieutenant governor. Ballot boxes were placed in churches, businesses and homes across the state, and voting took place over the weekend. Henry and King "won" the mock election in which more than 80,000 black Mississippians voted. This event showed the country that African Americans would vote if given the chance.
-- Text from Aaron Henry biography, Mississippi Historical Society: @

-- Image from Freedom Summer Digital Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society
* Summary from Civil Rights Movement Veterans: @

* Summary from SNCC Project Group: @

* Photos from rally for Aaron Henry (Hattiesburg, October 29; from Mississippi Department of Archives and History): @
* Election flier (from Amistad Research Center): @ and @

* Pamphlets: Freedom Ballot and Freedom Registration (from Wisconsin Historical Society): @ 

* Freedom Registration pamphlet (from Civil Rights Movement Veterans): @
* "No Small Thing: Visual Rhetoric and the 1963 Mississippi Freedom Vote" (William Lawson, 2008): @

* "Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning" (Aaron Henry and Constance Curry, 2000): @
* Edwin King entry from Civil Rights Digital Library: @
* COFO summary (from Martin Luther King Research and Education Institute): @

* "The Washington Merry-Go-Round" (Drew Pearson, November 4): @

* "Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi" (John Dittmer, 1994; see Chapter 9, "Conflicting Strategies"): @ 

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Friday-Saturday, November 1-2, 1963: Coup in South Vietnam

Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam, is shot and killed on November 2, the day after a military overthrow of the government began.

Clutched by searing flames, a Buddhist monk martyrs himself on a Saigon sidewalk. A few days later, joyous hands hoist a Vietnamese soldier in a victory that belongs both to him and the suicidal monk. Opposition to the regime of South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem had been gathering force like a thunderhead, overshadowing the U.S.-backed war against the Communist Viet Cong. First Buddhists, then students and other dissidents joined against Diem's government -- and the government had no answer but repressive brutality. Then Diem's own generals and the armies they command rose in revolt.

-- Life magazine, November 15, 1963 (link: @) 

-- Photo from Corbis Images. Original caption: In photo just obtained by UPI, the bodies of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem (right) and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, disguised as priests, lie in armored personnel carrier, November 2, shortly after they were slain in revolution. They were reportedly being taken to Army staff headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Airfield. Note bindings on Nhu's hands.

* Short summaries from history.com: @ and @

* Summary from "Vietnam War Almanac" (James H. Willbanks, 2009): @ 
* "Walkthrough: Vietnam in Late 1963" (from Mary Ferrell Foundation): @
* "South Vietnam 1963" (from "U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective," David Sylvan and Stephen Majeski, 2009): @
* "JFK and the Diem Coup" (from National Security Archive): @
* "The Coup Against the Diem Government" (from "Foreign Relations of the United States," U.S. Department of State): @
* "Vietnam, August-December 1963" (from FRUS): @
* "The Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, May-November, 1963" (from the Pentagon Papers, U.S. Department of Defense): @
* "The Vietnam Revolt" (newsreel): @
* "Death of a Regime" (CBS News): @
* "Vietnam Climax" (Life magazine, October 11): @ 

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Thursday, October 10, 1963: FBI surveillance of Martin Luther King

With the FBI increasingly concerned about possible Communist involvement in the civil rights movement, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorizes the bureau to wiretap the Atlanta home of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the New York offices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (of which King was president). The FBI's investigation into King's life, activities and associates began in 1955 and lasted until his death in 1968.

Photo from June 22, 1963, following a meeting at the White House between civil rights leaders and administration officials to discuss pending legislation and the planned March on Washington. From left are King, Kennedy, the NAACP's Roy Wilkins and Vice President Johnson.

* JPEG of request and authorization (Kennedy's signature is in lower left-hand corner): @ 
* Text of FBI memo, October 10 (from "From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover," 1991): @ 
* PDF of August 30 FBI memo calling King "the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation": @ 
* FBI files on "Surreptitious Entries (Black Bag Jobs)": @  
* "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Case Study" (from "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on  Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans," 1976, United States Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations of with Respect to Intelligence Activities -- aka the Church Committee): @

* Department of Justice review of FBI's activities (1977; go to Part 2 of 2, page 113, "FBI Surveillance and Harassment of Dr. King"): @

* "The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald,  Frank Church, et al." (National Security Archive, 2013): @

* FBI entry from MLK Research and Education Institute: @

* "The FBI's War on King" (American RadioWorks): @ 

* "King Address That Stirred World Led to FBI Surveillance" (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, August 2013): @ 

* "The FBI and Martin Luther King" (David J. Garrow, The Atlantic magazine, July 2002): @ 

* "The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From 'Solo' to Memphis" (Garrow, 2001): @ Author's website: @

* "The Pursuit of Justice: Martin Luther King" (chapter from "Robert Kennedy and His Times," Arthur M. Schlesinger, 1978): @ 

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Thursday, October 10, 1963: Linus Pauling wins Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO -- Dr. Linus C. Pauling, noted biochemist whose opposition to nuclear tests mas made him a controversial figure in the United States, yesterday was awarded the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize.

     In addition to announcing the belated award, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee announced it had divided the 1963 Peace Prize between the International Red Cross Committee and the Red Cross League.

     The award made Pauling the first man in the 62-year history of the Nobel prizes to be honored twice. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1959. Mme. Marie Curie, co-discoverer of radium, won one prize and shared another.

     While the committee did not disclose why it named Pauling ... it generally was believed he was honored for his efforts to outlaw nuclear testing.

     Announcement of the award to Pauling came on the day that the partial nuclear test ban agreement by the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union formally went into effect.

     Pauling long has been in the forefront of movements to ban the bomb. Only last year, he went almost directly from a picket line in front of the White House to President Kennedy's dinner for Nobel Prize winners inside.

     -- United Press International, October 11

     -- Photo from Corbis Images, April 29, 1962

* Entry from Nobel Prize website: @

* Linus Pauling Online (Oregon State University): @

* Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement (Oregon State): @

* Earlier post on Pauling's White House protest (April 29, 1962): @ 

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October 1963: 'Louie Louie'

The Kingsmen's version of the 1957 song is released on Wand Records (having already been released in April on the smaller Jerden Records). It enters the Billboard Hot 100 charts in November, peaking at No. 2 in December 1963/January 1964.

In February 1964, amid reports that the governor of Indiana had suggested the song not be played on radio stations in the state because of what sounded like obscene words, the FBI investigated. The bureau found no evidence of obscenities in the muddled lyrics.

* Listen to song: @
* "The 'Louie Louie' lyrics" (from louielouieweb.tripod.com): @
* Summary from HistoryLink.org: @

* The Louie Report ("The blog for all things 'Louie Louie' "): @

* " 'Louie Louie' through the ages" (Peter C. Blecha, 2007): @
* "The Kingsmen's infamously innocent 'Louie Louie' back in front of the feds at downtown Federal Building" (The Oregonian, 2013): @
* Billboard chart history (from www.song-database.com): @

* List of cover versions (from andymartello.com): @

* "Was 'Louie Louie' Banned in Indiana? " (from Purdue University): @

* "Indiana Gov. Puts Down 'Pornographic' Wand Tune" (Billboard, February 1, 1964): @
* " 'Louie' Publishers Say Tune Not Dirty At All" (Billboard, February 8): @
* "The FBI Investigated the Song 'Louie Louie' for Two Years" (from Smithsonian.com): @

* FBI files: @

* "Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock 'n' Roll Song" (Dave Marsh, 1993): @; author's website: @

* Entry from "The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made" (Marsh, 1989): @

* "Louie Louie: Me Gotta Go Now" (Dick Peterson, 2006): @ 
* 2011 radio interview with original lead singer Jack Ely ("The Allan Handelman Show"): @

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Monday, September 16, 1963: Prince Edward County schools

     
     FARMVILLE, Va. -- Negro children return to school in Prince Edward County today for the first time since public schools were closed four years to avoid desegregation.

     The children are attending free private schools set up only a month ago at the urging of President Kennedy.

     Trustees of the Prince Edward Free School Association expect between 1,200 and 1,600 Negro pupils to enroll.

     At least two white children were to join the Negroes in the first classroom integration in Prince Edward. They are Richard D. Moss, son of Dr. C.G. Gordon Moss, dean of Longwood College and an outspoken critic of the school closing, and Letitia Tew, 7, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W.W. Tew of Throck. Tew is a tobacco farmer.

     White children in Prince Edward have attended private segregated schools since 1959. They must pay tuition.

     The free schools were set up as a one-year emergency measure while the 11-year-old legal battle against segregated public schools is carried back to the U.S. Supreme Court.

     -- The Associated Press, September 16

    -- Photo from Corbis Images. Original caption reads: "School doors swung open 09/16 for children of Prince Edward County, where public schools had been padlocked since 1959 in advance of court-ordered integration. Neil Sullivan (L), director of schools, smiles as Alfred Brown hoists the American flag in front of the school building, and other students recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Note: The county's public schools would reopen in September 1964. ("Prince Edward Schools Open After 5 Years": @)

* "Negroes Welcome New School" (Associated Press, September 17): @

* "The Lock Begins to Open" (Ebony magazine, November, Page 63): @

* "Prince Edwards' 'Massive Resistance' " (John Alfred Hamilton, Nieman Reports, 1962): @

* "Massive Resistance in a Small Town" (Humanities magazine, September/October 2013): @

* "Moton School Strike and Prince Edward County School Closings" (from Encyclopedia of Virginia): @

* "The Closing of Prince Edward County's Schools" (from Virginia Historical Society): @ 
* Edward H. Peeples Prince Edward County (Va.) Public Schools Collection (from VCU Libraries): @

* "The Tragedy of Public Schools: Prince Edward County, Virginia" ("A Report for the Virginia Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights," January 1964; from Peeples collection): @

* "A Study in Infamy: Prince Edward County, Virginia" (Picott and Peoples, Phi Delta Kappan, May 1964; from Peeples collection): @

* Robert Russa Moton Museum, Farmville, Virginia: @

* DOVE (Desegregation of Virginia Education project): @

* "The Educational Lockout of African Americans in Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1959-1964" (Terence Hicks and Abul Pitre, 2010): @ 

* "Southern Stalemate: Five Years Without Public Eduation in Prince Edward County, Virginia" (Christopher Bonastia, 2012): @

* TV footage (from Television News of the Civil Rights Era, 1950-1970, University of Virginia; scroll down to Prince Edward County clips): @

* "Locked Out: The Fall of Massive Resistance" (video; from Classroom Clips): @

* "The Legacy of Massive Resistance" (audio; from "With Good Reason" program, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities): @ 

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Wednesday, August 28, 1963: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

     More than 200,000 Americans, most of them black but many of them white, demonstrated here today for a full and speedy program of civil rights and equal job opportunities.

     It was the greatest assembly for a redress of grievances that this capital has ever seen.
     One hundred years and 240 days after Abraham Lincoln enjoined the emancipated slaves to "abstain from all violence" and "labor faithfully for reasonable wages," this vast throng proclaimed in march and song and through the speeches of their leaders that they were still waiting for the freedom and the jobs.
     There was no violence to mar the demonstration. In fact, at times there was an air of hootenanny about it as groups of schoolchildren clapped hands and swung into the familiar freedom songs.
     But if the crowd was good-natured, the underlying tone was one of dead seriousness. The emphasis was on "freedom" and "now." At the same time the leaders emphasized, paradoxically but realistically, that the struggle was just beginning.
     -- New York Times (link to front page below)
     -- Aerial photo from Associated Press; Lincoln photo from New York World-Telegram and Sun
    

-- Summaries and links

* National Museum of American History: @

* Federal Highway Administration: @

* Civil Rights Digital Library: @

* Civil Rights Movement Veterans: @
* PBS: @

* NPR: @
* 50th Anniversary March on Washington website: @

* "One Dream" (Time magazine): @

-- Printed materials
* Program (from Wright State University Libraries): @ and @

* Final organization plans (from Tulane University Digital Library): @
* "An Appeal By The March Leaders" (from Social Welfare History Project): @
* Other materials (from crmvet.org): @
* Other materials (from Library of Congress): @

-- Videos

* Universal Newsreel: @ 

* Same newsreel as above, with different narration: @
* U.S. Information Agency: @

* "The March" (James Blue): @

* "The Bus" (Haskell Wexler): @
* Edith Lee-Payne: @

* Hollywood roundtable: @

* "Reflections on the 1963 March on Washington" (George Washington University, 1998): @

-- Photos
* Library of Congress (search for March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom): @
* National Archives (search for Civil Rights March on Washington): @
* Walter P. Reuther Library: @
* Life.Time.com: @
* Time LightBox: @
* Smithsonian Magazine: @

-- Speeches

* Audio and transcript of King's speech (from American Rhetoric): @

* Video: @

* Early draft of speech (from Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change): @
* Annotated version of 1963 speech in Washington (by Clayborne Carson, director, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University): @
* Post on earlier "I Have a Dream" speech (November 27, 1962): @
* "Freedom March on Washington" (from PRX; album includes other speeches from event): @
* "Two Versions of John Lewis' Speech" (from billmoyers.com): @

-- Radio
* Educational Radio Network coverage (from WGBH): @

-- Oral histories
* Smithsonian Magazine: @
* Capitol Hill History Project: @
* Robert Romer: @

-- Books / magazines / newspapers
* "The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights" (William P. Jones, 2013): @
* "Nobody Turn Me Around: A People's History of the 1963 March on Washington" (Charles Euchner, 2010): @
* "Like A Mighty Stream: The March on Washington, August 28, 1963" (Patrik Henry Bass, 2002): @

* "Memory, History and the March on Washington" (by Clayborne Carson): @
* Life magazine, August 23 (pages 4 and 63): @

* Life magazine, September 6: @

* The Crisis, October (NAACP magazine): @

* Ebony magazine, November (coverage starts on Page 29): @
* New York Times front page, August 29: @

* Washington Post front page, August 29: @
* "I Have a Dream ... / Peroration by Dr. King Sums Up A Day The Capital Will Remember"  (New York Times): @

* Associated Press, August 28: @
* Miami News, August 28: @ and August 29: @

* Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 29: @

-- President Kennedy's meeting with march leaders (August 28)

* "JFK, A. Philip Randolph and the March on Washington" (from White House Historical Association): @

* Kennedy statement (from American Presidency Project): @

* Photo (from JFK Library): @

-- Earlier post

* Plans for March on Washington (July 2, 1963): @ 

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Saturday, July 6, 1963: Greenwood, Mississippi

In a cotton field just south of Greenwood, Mississippi, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Theodore Bikel and the Freedom Singers take part in a folk music festival-rally organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which had been working to get blacks registered to vote. Dylan sang "Only a Pawn in Their Game," which he had written after the June 12 shooting death of Medgar Evers. (In its account of the event, The New York Times referred to Dylan as "Bobby Dillon.") 
     Photos by Danny Lyon
* Excerpt from "No Direction Home" (Robert Shelton, 1986): @
* Entry from www.pophistorydig.com: @

* Freedom Singers biography (from The New Georgia Encyclopedia): @
* "Northern Folk Singers Help Out at Negro Festival in Mississippi" (New York Times, July 7; from www.bobdylanroots.com): @

* Earlier post on death of Medgar Evers (June 1963): @
* Earlier post on forming of SNCC (April 1960): @

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Tuesday, July 2, 1963: Plans for March on Washington

     NEW YORK -- Leaders of the six largest national Negro groups decided today to march on Washington Aug. 28 in "the strongest action, numerically speaking, that we have ever held."
     The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said the demonstration will press for civil rights legislation and dramatize the Negro unemployed situation.
     He said the march will not be limited to Negroes. "We'll have machinery that will control the demonstration. No acts that could be considered civil disobedience will occur," he added.
     The march is scheduled to coincide with debate in Congress on President Kennedy's civil rights bill.
     -- Associated Press, July 2

Note: The Associated Press photo shows the leaders of the six groups. From left:
   * John Lewis, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
   * Whitney Young, National Urban League
   * A. Phillip Randolph, Negro American Labor Council
   * Martin Luther King, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
   * James Farmer, Congress of Racial Equality
   * Roy Wilkins, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
* "Proposed Plans for March" (planning document; from crmvet.org): @ 

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Wednesday, June 12, 1963: The death of Medgar Evers

Medgar Evers, the NAACP's field secretary in Mississippi and a leading figure in the civil rights movement, is shot and killed outside his home in Jackson. Within days, Byron De La Beckwith is arrested and charged with the killing. Beckwith is tried twice in 1964, both trials ending in hung juries; he is eventually convicted in 1994.

The bullet that killed Evers then went through a window in his house. Photo by Flip Schulke.

Evers' casket at the train station in Meridian, Mississippi. His casket was taken to Washington, where Evers, an Army veteran who fought in World War II, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Photo by Flip Schulke.

Resources
* A Tribute to Medgar Evers (Mississippi Public Broadcasting): @

* "Mississippi Negro Leader Slain" (Miami News, June 12): @

* Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers Was Killed 40 Years Ago Today" (Associated Press, 2003): @

* "The Legacy of Medgar Evers" (Clarion-Ledger, Jackson): @

* Entry from NAACP: @

* Entry from Mississippi Writers Page (University of Mississippi): @

* Entry from Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute (Stanford University): @
* Entry from PBS: @
* "Fifty Years: Remembering Medgar Evers" (John R. Salter Jr.): @
* FBI files on Evers: @
* Speakers at funeral service and coverage of procession (June 15, Jackson; from archive.org): @
* Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute: @

Books
* "Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, the Trials of Byron De La Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South" (Maryanne Vollers, 1995): @

* The Ghosts of Medgar Evers" (Willie Morris, 1998): @

* "Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers" (Adam Nossiter, 1994): @

* "The Autobiography of Medgar Evers" (2005): @
* "Mississippi Martyr" (Michael Vinson Williams, 2011): @

* "Remembering Medgar Evers: Writing the Long Civil Rights Movement" (Minrose Gwin, 2013): @. Video of Gwin reading from book: @
* "We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth's Sit-in and the Movement it Inspired" (M.J. O'Brien, 2013): @

Magazines
* Life, June 21 ("A Trail of Blood -- A Negro Dies"): @
* Life, June 28 (cover story): @
* Jet, June 27: @
* The Crisis, June-July, 1973: @
* "Where Is The Voice Coming From?" (Eudora Welty, July 1963, The New Yorker): @
* Draft of Welty's story (Clarion-Ledger): @

Video
* "Justice Delayed" (Martin Kent Films): @ and @

Photos
* Slideshow (CBS News): @

Songs
* "Ballad of Medgar Evers" (SNCC Freedom Singers): @

* "Only a Pawn in Their Game" (Bob Dylan): @
* "Too Many Martyrs" (Phil Ochs): @

* "Medgar Evers Lullaby" (Judy Collins): @ 

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