Peace and Resist Podcast

It's time for Part 5 of our series on John Lewis and the Voting Rights Movement!! After the March on Washington in 1963, the infamous Birmingham Church bombing occurs, killing for young girls. The overall response from the local Black community is powerful in the duality of it: the forgiving love and the call to action. Protests bloom and jails fill up with John Lewis getting locked up again. Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, and others help to create the Freedom Summer in Mississippi with the Mississippi Democratic Party (MFDP!) - proving with Black voters that given the ability to vote with reasonable ease, the community will show up. JFK is assassinated in 1963 and that puts his Civil Rights Act in jeopardy - and John Lewis knows it. The SNCC relocates to Mississippi after a series of weak, terroristic moves by the KKK across nearly 75% of the counties in the state. The Freedom Summer blooms with hope and the backlash from white supremacists and the police continues - including the murder of 3 voting activists in Mississippi. John writes a speech, which includes the idea that Voting is Patriotic. The Movement splinters as a result of what John Lewis describes as the turning point of the Civil Rights Movement, as the activists of the Freedom Summer chase their most ambitious goals. Selma is decided on as the city for the next mass demonstration after the March on Washington and the reasons are clear. Ella Baker, Stokely Carmichael and his car, Dick Gregory, 50 Freedom schools are set up, and much more. Thank you for listening, keep on resisting. VotingInfoHQ.com Primary sources: Walking with the Wind / MARCH - books 1, 2, 3