ALABAMA HERITAGE
  • Magazine
    • Current and Back Issues >
      • Back Issues 141-150 >
        • Issue 147, Winter 2023
        • Issue 146, Fall 2022
        • Issue 145, Summer 2022
        • Issue 144, Spring 2022
        • Issue 143, Winter 2022
        • Issue 142, Fall 2021
        • Issue 141, Summer 2021
      • Back Issues 131-140 >
        • Issue 140, Spring 2021
        • Issue 139, Winter 2021
        • Issue 138, Fall 2020
        • Issue 137, Summer 2020
        • Issue 136, Spring 2020
        • Issue 135, Winter 2020
        • Issue 134, Fall 2019
        • Issue 133, Summer 2019
        • Issue 132 Spring 2019
        • Issue 131, Winter 2019
      • Back Issues 121-130 >
        • Issue 130, Fall 2018
        • Issue 129, Summer 2018
        • Issue 128, Spring 2018
        • Issue 127, Winter 2018
        • Issue 126, Fall 2017
        • Issue 125 Summer 2017
        • Issue 124, Spring 2017
        • Issue 123, Winter 2017
        • Issue 122, Fall 2016
        • Issue 121, Summer 2016
      • Back Issues 111-120 >
        • Issue 120, Spring 2016
        • Issue 119, Winter 2016
        • Issue 118, Fall 2015
        • Issue 117, Summer 2015
        • Issue 116, Spring 2015
        • Issue 115, Winter 2015
        • Issue 114, Fall 2014
        • Issue 113, Summer 2014
        • Issue 112, Spring 2014
        • Issue 111, Winter 2014
      • Back Issues 101-110 >
        • Issue 110, Fall 2013
        • Issue 109, Summer 2013
        • Issue 108, Spring 2013
        • Issue 107, Winter 2013
        • Issue 106, Fall 2012
        • Issue 105, Summer 2012
        • Issue 104, Spring 2012
        • Issue 103, Winter 2012
        • Issue 102, Fall 2011
        • Issue 101, Summer 2011
      • Back Issues 91-100 >
        • Issue 100, Spring 2011
        • Issue 99, Winter 2011
        • Issue 98, Fall 2010
        • Issue 97, Summer 2010
        • Issue 96, Spring 2010
        • Issue 95, Winter 2010
        • Issue 94, Fall 2009
        • Issue 93, Summer 2009
        • Issue 92, Spring 2009
        • Issue 91, Winter 2009
      • Back Issues 81-90 >
        • Issue 90, Fall 2008
        • Issue 89, Summer 2008
        • Issue 88, Spring 2008
        • Issue 87, Winter 2008
        • Issue 86, Fall 2007
        • Issue 85, Summer 2007
        • Issue 84, Spring 2007
        • Issue 83, Winter 2007
        • Issue 82, Fall 2006
        • Issue 81, Summer 2006
      • Back Issues 71-80 >
        • Issue 80, Spring 2006
        • Issue 79, Winter 2006
        • Issue 78, Fall 2005
        • Issue 77, Summer 2005
        • Issue 76, Spring 2005
        • Issue 75, Winter 2005
        • Issue 74, Fall 2004
        • Issue 73, Summer 2004
        • Issue 72, Spring 2004
        • Issue 71, Winter 2004
      • Back Issues 61-70 >
        • Issue 70, Fall 2003
        • Issue 69, Summer 2003
        • Issue 68, Spring 2003
        • Issue 67, Winter 2003
        • Issue 66, Fall 2002
        • Issue 65, Summer 2002
        • Issue 64, Spring 2002
        • Issue 63, Winter 2002
        • Issue 62, Fall 2001
        • Issue 61, Summer 2001
      • Back Issues 51-60 >
        • Issue 60, Spring 2001
        • Issue 59, Winter 2001
        • Issue 58, Fall 2000
        • Issue 57, Summer 2000
        • Issue 56, Spring 2000
        • Issue 55, Winter 2000
        • Issue 54, Fall 1999
        • Issue 53, Summer 1999
        • Issue 52, Spring 1999
        • Issue 51, Winter 1999
      • Back Issues 41-50 >
        • Issue 50, Fall 1998
        • Issue 49, Summer 1998
        • Issue 48, Spring 1998
        • Issue 47, Winter 1998
        • Issue 46, Fall 1997
        • Issue 45, Summer 1997
        • Issue 44, Spring 1997
        • Issue 43, Winter 1997
        • Issue 42, Fall 1996
        • Issue 41, Summer 1996
      • Back Issues 31-40 >
        • Issue 40, Spring 1996
        • Issue 39, Winter 1996
        • Issue 38, Fall 1995
        • Issue 37, Summer 1995
        • Issue 36, Spring 1995
        • Issue 35, Winter 1995
        • Issue 34, Fall 1994
        • Issue 33, Summer 1994
        • Issue 32, Spring 1994
        • Issue 31, Winter 1994
      • Back Issues 21-30 >
        • Issue 30, Fall 1993
        • Issue 29, Summer 1993
        • Issue 28, Spring 1993
        • Issue 27, Winter 1993
        • Issue 26, Fall 1992
        • Issue 25, Summer 1992
        • Issue 24, Spring 1992
        • Issue 23, Winter 1992
        • Issue 22, Fall 1991
        • Issue 21, Summer 1991
      • Back Issues 11-20 >
        • Issue 20, Spring 1991
        • Issue 19, Winter 1991
        • Issue 18, Fall 1990
        • Issue 17, Summer 1990
        • Issue 16, Spring 1990
        • Issue 15, Winter 1990
        • Issue 14, Fall 1989
        • Issue 13, Summer 1989
        • Issue 12, Spring 1989
        • Issue 11, Winter 1989
      • Back Issues 1-10 >
        • Issue 10, Fall 1988
        • Issue 9, Summer 1988
        • Issue 8, Spring 1988
        • Issue 7, Winter 1988
        • Issue 6, Fall 1987
        • Issue 5, Summer 1987
        • Issue 4, Spring 1987
        • Issue 3, Winter 1987
        • Issue 2, Fall 1986
        • Issue 1, Summer 1986
    • Digital Features
    • Links of Interest
    • Bonus Materials >
      • Adventures in Genealogy
      • Alabama Heritage Blog
      • Alabama Territory
      • Becoming Alabama >
        • Creek War Era
        • Civil War Era
        • Civil Rights Movement
      • From the Vault
      • History in Ruins
      • Places in Peril
      • Recipes
  • Online Store
    • Customer Service
  • About Us
    • Awards
    • Meet Our Team
    • News
    • Writer's Guidelines and Submissions
  • Search
  • Donate
Published by The University of Alabama,
The University of Alabama at Birmingham,
and the Alabama Department of Archives and History

Winter 1962: Albany and the Movement Divided

1/25/2012

 
From its inception, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, decided to focus its efforts on African American communities across the South, encouraging education and political participation as a way to create a local leadership that could continue the fight for equality. While the leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) participated in marches and gave public speeches, SNCC sent representatives and volunteers to rural communities in order to, in the words of Alabama’s John Lewis, “[bring] America’s invisible black vote out of the darkness of fear and repression.”
In the fall of 1961, Charles Sherrod and Cordell Reagon, both young SNCC leaders, arrived in Terrell County, Georgia, (nicknamed “Terrible Terrell” for its reputation of racial oppression), to begin a voter education project. Their work soon centered on the city of Albany, and during the winter of 1962, their campaign to empower local black leaders brought to light the growing split between the SNCC and SCLC, a division that demonstrated the complicated nature of the fight for civil rights.

Direct action was not unknown in southwestern Georgia. Albany was the location of Albany State College, an all-black school whose students faced routine harassment from the city’s white population. In early 1961, a student leader named Bernice Johnson organized a rally to protest the college’s apparent unwillingness to protect the student body from overt prejudice. When Sherrod and Reagon arrived in the city, they came to rely on local activists like Johnson as intermediaries between SNCC and the larger black community. In November, SNCC, the local branch of the NAACP, and four other black organizations formed the “Albany Movement” and agreed to focus on a broad plan for change that included fair employment, an end to police brutality, and public desegregation. On November 22, Albany police arrested five SNCC activists attempting to integrate the Trailways bus terminal. Five days later, as the young people stood trial, the Albany Movement, including Sherrod, Reagon, and Johnson, led a six-hundred-person march to city hall. Over 450 were arrested.

In Montgomery and Birmingham, the Freedom Riders used arrest and police negligence to call attention to the plight of southern blacks—the images of the beaten Riders demonstrated the violence that kept segregation in place. Yet in Albany, activists found local leaders prepared for their arrival. The city’s police chief, Laurie Pritchett, had read Martin Luther King’s treatise on nonviolence, Stride Toward Freedom, and determined to fight nonviolence with nonviolence. When confronted with public protest, Pritchett quickly sent participants to jail before attracting negative attention. One SNCC member complained, “We ran out of people before he ran out of jails.”

The situation grew even more complicated on December 15 when Martin Luther King arrived in the city with fellow SCLC leader, Alabama’s Ralph Abernathy. Some in the Albany Movement hoped that King’s presence would put additional pressure on the city and Pritchett to accede to activists’ demands. Instead, Pritchett arrested King and Abernathy while they led a protest march. The men were released on bond only after agreeing to a month-long cessation of demonstrations and the creation of an interracial committee to address race relations in Albany. In return, city leaders promised to conform to federal integration of interstate bus terminals.

King’s presence in Albany angered many in SNCC. While he sat in jail, younger leaders in the Albany Movement warned incoming SCLC members, “We welcome any help from outside, but as of now we need no help.” When King was released, he alienated SNCC activists by excluding them from public press conferences. SNCC’s John Lewis remembered Cordell Reagon’s complaint: “I don’t think that anybody appreciates going to jail…and then you don’t even get to speak on it.” King’s actions in Albany validated the worst fears of SNCC’s young volunteers. After weeks of preparation and the threat of constant persecution at the hands of segregationist officials, SNCC’s activists were overshadowed by the popularity of SCLC. King’s planned protest and arrest did nothing to address the needs of local blacks, and his failure to outfox Pritchett threatened to undermine the entire Albany Movement. As Lewis recalled, “Unlike the members of the old-guard civil rights organizations, especially the SCLC, who…did not step down and suffer the kinds of indignities and injustices that the local people were suffering on a daily basis, we did go out and live and suffer with the everyday people.”

After the Albany stalemate, SCLC and SNCC struggled to share the spotlight, and came to embody different aspects of the fight for equality. SCLC, headed by King, used its ever-present national publicity to call attention to the most overt aspects of southern segregation. SNCC focused its attention on rural Alabama and Mississippi, where activists empowered local communities to make lasting social, political, and economic change.

Comments are closed.

    Becoming Alabama:
    Civil Rights Movement

    Author

    Matthew L. Downs (PhD, Alabama) is an adjunct professor of history at Birmingham-Southern College. His dissertation focused on the federal government's role in the economic development of the Tennessee Valley.


    (Click here to return to main Becoming Alabama page.)

    Archives

    April 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    July 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    July 2013
    April 2013
    January 2013
    October 2012
    July 2012
    April 2012
    January 2012
    October 2011
    July 2011
    April 2011
    January 2011
    October 2010
    July 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010

Online Store
​Customer Service
Meet Our Team
Board of Directors
Corporate Sponsors
News
Join Our Email List

Employment
UA Disclaimer
UA Privacy Policy ​
​Website comments or questions?  

Email ah.online@ua.edu
Published by The University of Alabama, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the Alabama Department of Archives and History
​Alabama Heritage
Box 870342
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
Local: (205) 348-7467
Toll-Free: (877) 925-2323
Fax: (205) 348-7473

alabama.heritage@ua.edu