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 four 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 Freedom Summer blooms with hope while 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. 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.

From Blue Arcs Media / VotingInfoHQ.com: your unconventional hub for Democrats and Blue voters. Thanks for listening, be good to yourself.

S2 | Ep 24

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