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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” JANUARY 2019 | VOLUME ONE, ISSUE ONE

On August 11, 1965, before a crowd of onlookers alarmed by what they saw, a 21-year old African-American motorist, Marquette Frye,

was pulled over and arrested, along with his mother and brother, by a California Highway patrolman, thus setting off the Watts Riot, one of the largest urban uprisings in U.S. history. It was on this day that a white patrolman pulled Marquette Frye over for reckless driving near the predominantly black neighborhood of Watts. A patrolman struck Frye on the head with a baton, knocking him unconscious. The mother was shoved when she tried to intervene. Another officer pulled a shotgun on them.

The gathering crowd began yelling and throwing rocks at the officers for what onlookers saw as police brutality. More than 1,000 people joined in that night, throwing bricks and bottles at officers and motorists in an uprising that swelled to as many as 30,000. The police sealed off most of South-Central Los Angeles. It took some 3,900 National Guardsmen to quell the six days of unrest, which finally ended on August 17. The riot claimed 34 deaths, more than a thousand injuries, millions in property damage and put a spotlight on the conditions of urban life in America.

The uprising that hot summer night came after decades of disillusionment over the segregation and hostility that greeted the hundreds of thousands of black southerners who had fled to California during the Great Migration. While Los Angeles did not have overt Jim Crow laws, restrictive covenants and unspoken customs barred African-Americans from most of the city's housing stock and cordoned them off into the South-Central section of the city. African-Americans faced attack

when they sought to move into white neighborhoods: A cross was burned on the front lawn of the singer Nat King Cole when he moved his family into the all-white neighborhood of Hancock Park.

The year before the riot, California voted overwhelmingly to legalize housing discrimination in the form of Proposition 14, an amendment to the state constitution. The proposition gave homeowners and landlords the right "to decline to sell, lease or rent such property to such person or persons as he, in his absolute discretion, chooses." When Dr. Martin Luther King went to Los Angeles to fight the proposition, white Angelinos picketed his speech and carried signs such as "King Has Hate, Does Travel." Then-Gov. Edmund "Pat" Brown, a Democrat, opposed the proposition and instead supported the Fair Housing Act that the proposition sought to undo. Brown was ousted from the Governor's mansion, in part for the stand he took, by Ronald Reagan who supported Proposition 14 and opposed the Fair Housing Act.

While much has changed since the Watts uprising, there is a sobering distinction between that traffic stop in 1965 and current-day cases in the news. Walter Scott in North Charleston, SC, Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, Eric Garner in Staten Island, NY, and others whose cases have made headlines, died in their interactions with police. Marquette Frye survived his arrest and died of pneumonia in 1986 at age 42. His mother, Rena Price, died of natural causes in 2013 at age 97.

Source : Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Journey of America's Great Migration

PIKES PEAK SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE TELEPHONE: (719) 368-6423 603 S. El Paso St., Suite B, COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 80903 communication@pikespeaksclc.org

OUR MISSION: In the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is renewing its commitment to bring about the promise of “one nation, under God, indivisible” together with the commitment to activate the “strength to love” within the community of humankind.

Watts 1965

PIKES PEAK SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

NEWS AND HISTORY

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EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION

“See, revolution is the extension of evolution. Evolution is a gradual and mysterious change that leads to revolution, which is quick change. When a woman gets pregnant, the first nine months of pregnancy is evolution. When her water breaks, that’s revolution – quick change. It’s time to change the world.”

Dick Gregory Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies. New York: 2017.

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BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

In my continuing efforts to educate myself, I have found the following books to be extremely helpful. It would be difficult to identify favorites – they are all excellent! Hawk

Tears We Cannot Stop (A Sermon to White America) Michael Eric Dyson, 2017

What Truth Sounds Like (RFK, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America) Michael Eric Dyson, 2018

Baldwin: Collected Essays James Baldwin (The Library of America)

Baldwin: Early Novels & Stories James Baldwin (The Library of America)

I’m Still Here (Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness) Austin Channing Brown, 2018

Trouble I’ve Seen (Changing the Way the Church Views Racism) Drew G.I. Hart, 2016

America’s Original Sin (Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America) Jim Wallis, 2016

Defining Moments in Black History (Reading Between the Lies) Dick Gregory, 2017

White Fragility (Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism) Robin Diangelo, 2018

Sundown Towns (A Hidden Dimension of American Racism) James W. Loewen, 2005

Bearing the Cross (Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) David J. Garrow, 2004 What books or videos have had an influence on you? Let us know! We’ll list them in future issues.

communication@pikespeaksclc.org

https://aclu-co.org/issues/racial-justice/ The ACLU of Colorado works to preserve and extend constitutionally guaranteed rights to people who have historically been denied them on the basis of race. They are committed to upholding racial equality and combating racism in all forms through litigation, community organizing and training, legislative initiatives, and public education to address the broad spectrum of issues that disproportionately and negatively impact people of color.

This organization can help you to (1) keep up on current events and (2) know where, when and how to get involved.

HONORING HEROES

Alice Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and activist. She wrote the novel The Color Purple, for which she won the National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

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The Focus of Pikes Peak Southern Christian Leadership Conference:

Civil Rights Based on Christian Principles

Although Christian principles are stated or referred to throughout the teachings of Dr. King in the various programs, statements, and documents of the SCLC and in the Kingian Nonviolence methodology, there are specific civil rights and Christian principles outlined in the Mission Statement and Organization Focus regarding civil rights.

Mission Statement In the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is renewing its commitment to bring about the promise of "one nation, under God, indivisible" together with the commitment to activate the "strength to love" within the community of humankind.

Organization Focus

The organizational focus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is to promote spiritual principles within our membership and local communities; to educate youth and adults in the areas of personal responsibility, leadership potential, and community service; to ensure economic justice and civil rights in the areas of discrimination and affirmative action; and to eradicate environmental classism and racism wherever it exists.

CONTACT:

Pikes Peak Southern Christian Leadership Conference 603 S. El Paso Street, Colorado Springs, CO. 80903 Phone: 719-368-6423 Email: chapteroffice@pikespeaksclc.org

Henry D. Allen, Jr.

President

SCLC History

The very beginnings of the SCLC can be traced back to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began on December 5, 1955 after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. The boycott lasted for 381 days and ended on December 21, 1956, with the desegregation of the Montgomery bus system. The boycott was carried out by the newly established Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).

Martin Luther King, Jr. served as President and Ralph David Abernathy served as Program Director. It was one of

history’s most dramatic and massive nonviolent protests, stunning the nation and the world. The boycott prompted Black America to began a new phase of the long struggle, a phase that came to be known as the modern civil rights movement. As bus boycotts spread across the South, leaders of the MIA and other protest groups met in Atlanta on January 10 – 11, 1957, to form a regional organization and coordinate protest activities across the South. Despite a bombing of the home and church of Ralph David Abernathy during the Atlanta meeting, 60 persons from 10 states assembled and announced the founding of the Southern Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration. They issued a document declaring that civil rights are essential to democracy, that segregation must end, and that all Black people should reject segregation absolutely and nonviolently. Further organizing was done at a meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 14, 1957.

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SCLC History (continued) The organization shortened its name to Southern Leadership Conference, established an Executive Board of Directors, and elected officers, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as President, Dr. Ralph David Abernathy as Financial Secretary-Treasurer, Rev. C. K. Steele of Tallahassee, Florida as Vice President, Rev. T. J. Jemison of Baton Rouge, Louisiana as Secretary, and Attorney I. M. Augustine of New Orleans, Louisiana as General Counsel. At its first convention in Montgomery in August 1957, the Southern Leadership Conference adopted the current name, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Basic decisions made by the founders at these early meeting included the adoption of nonviolent mass action as the cornerstone of strategy, the affiliation of local community organizations with SCLC across the South, and a determination to make the SCLC movement open to all, regardless of race, religion, or background. SCLC is a now a nationwide organization made up of chapters and affiliates with programs that affect the lives of all Americans: north, south, east and west. Its sphere of influence and interests has become international in scope because the human rights movement transcends national boundaries.

In Memoriam

Wyatt L. Walker

King’s former chief of staff, Wyatt L. Walker (C), in Montgomery, Alabama in 1961, with Martin Luther King, Jr. (R), and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy (L), died Tuesday, December 23, 2018 at 88 years old.

ALLIES IN THE MOVEMENT

In 1964, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holds photo of civil rights workers (from l.) Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, who were slain in Mississippi earlier that year. Born in New York City, Schwerner and Goodman were among the many Jewish-Americans who worked for African-Americans’ equality. However, white volunteers, and causalities, came from many different religious groups. (John Lindsay/AP)

VIOLA LIUZZO Driven by empathy, housewife and mother Viola Liuzzo went from Michigan to Alabama to support the historic Selma to Montgomery march. But she never saw her family or home again – becoming the only white woman killed outright in the battle for equality for black Americans.

The staunch refusal of Southern states, towns, cities – and many of their citizens – to address the lack of civil and voting rights for African Americans – ultimately spurred protests and support from a wide range of Americans.

MLK SPEAKS "We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good

in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."