Civil Rights History: African American Pioneers and Martyrs Honored
JOURNEY TO JUSTICE
2:43 p.m. CT Jan. 9, 2018
Ellie Dahmer, wife of Vernon Dahmer of Hattiesburg, who was killed in 1966 by the Ku Klux Klan, pauses as she recalls the tumultuous period surrounding the firebombing of her home and the death of her husband, while touring the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson on Friday. during a private preview. Dahmer was targeted because he encouraged fellow African-Americans to register to vote during the Jim Crow era. (Photo: Rogelio V. Solis, AP) The family of Vernon Dahmer Sr., who died defending his family from the Ku Klux Klan, toured the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson on Friday.
January 8, 1867: Congress granted African-American men of the District of Columbia the right to vote, overriding President Andrew Johnson’s veto. It was the first law in U.S. history that gave the right to vote to black men. The legislation helped pave the way for the 15th Amendment, which in 1870 granted African-American men the right to vote by declaring that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
January 9, 1866: Six months after the Civil War ended, leaders of the northern American Missionary Association founded the Fisk Free Colored School to educate those freed from slavery, male and female. By the next month, 600 were attending. Four years later, the Fisk Jubilee Singers were started, and they toured the world to help raise money for the school, performing in 1873 for the Queen of England.
January 9, 1967: Civil rights leader Julian Bond, who helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while a student at Morehouse College, was finally seated in the Georgia House. Following his election in 1965, the Georgia House refused to seat him after he had criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Georgia House was required to seat him. He went on to serve two decades in the Georgia Legislature and even hosted Saturday Night Live. In 1971, he became president of the just-formed Southern Poverty Law Center and later served a dozen years as chairman of the national NAACP. He died in 2015.
January 10, 1854: A judge jailed Margaret Douglass of Norfolk, Virginia, for instructing free black children to read and write in her home. She had decided to do so “being greatly interested in the religious and moral instruction of colored children and finding that the Sunday school where they were allowed to attend was not sufficient.” The judge overturned the jury’s $1 fine and said he was jailing her for a month “as an example to all others in like cases.”
January 10, 1957: Southern Negro Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration (later known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) was organized in Atlanta with Martin Luther King Jr. as its head. Sixty African-American ministers from 10 states formed the new organization, including Ralph Abernathy, Joseph Lowery, Fred Shuttlesworth and C.K. Steele. That same day, four churches and the homes of two pastors involved in Montgomery Bus Boycott, were bombed in King’s hometown of Montgomery, Alabama.
January 10, 1966: Vernon Dahmer Sr. died after the Ku Klux Klan attack him and his family in their home near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Upset with his push for voting rights, Klansmen firebombed him and his family while they were sleeping. Dahmer grabbed his shotgun and fired back at Klansmen, enabling his family to escape safely out a back window. Flames from the blaze seared his lungs. On his deathbed, a reporter pressed him on why he pushed for voting rights. Dahmer explained, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.”
Vernon Dahmer died on Jan. 10, 1966, while defending his family from an attack by the Ku Klux Klan. His work was recognized by the Mississippi Legislature in 2016.
January 11, 1870: The first Legislature in Radical Reconstruction met in Mississippi. Nearly a third of the 106 state representatives and nearly a sixth of senators were African American. At least 226 black Mississippians held public office during Reconstruction. The Legislature ushered in free public schools and had no property requirements to vote.
January 11, 1985: Reuben Anderson became the first African American to serve as a justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court. In 1965, he became one of the first black students at the University of Mississippi, thanks to law school dean Joshua Morse III, who later recruited Anderson, Yale University professors and others to found the North Mississippi Rural Legal Services to provide legal help for the poor before being forced out as dean. In 1967, Anderson became the first African American to graduate from the law school. Afterward, he served as a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, which challenged schools that refused to desegregate before serving in a series of judgeships.
January 12, 1948: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the University of Oklahoma Law School cannot bar students based on race — a decision that helped lead to the landmark 1954 decision desegregating public schools. Ada Sipuel’s parents had survived the 1921 burning of black homes and businesses in Tulsa, and the family moved to Chickasha, where she was born and grew up. She became valedictorian of her local high school and decided to become a lawyer after hearing Thurgood Marshall speak. With the support of her family, she applied to the University of Oklahoma Law School, which rejected her strictly on the basis of race. The Supreme Court ordered her admission. Although segregated from classmates in the classrooms and cafeteria, she recalled them welcoming her and joining her to eat. She graduated in 1952 and began practicing law. In 1992, Oklahoma Gov. David Walters appointed her to the University of Oklahoma’s Board of Regents, and the law school named a garden to honor her. She died in 1995.
January 13, 1966: Robert C. Weaver became the first African-American Cabinet member in history when President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him as Secretary of Housing and Urban and Development. He had previously served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of the members of “Black Cabinet,” which informally advised the president. He died in 1997.
January 13, 1990: Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected governor since Reconstruction as he took office in Richmond, Virginia. He later served as mayor of Richmond.
January 14, 1963: Alabama Gov. George Wallace delivered his inaugural address, telling the crowd, “Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever!” Asa Carter, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote his speech. Before he died, Wallace apologized to African Americans for his actions.
Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
2:43 p.m. CT Jan. 9, 2018
Ellie Dahmer, wife of Vernon Dahmer of Hattiesburg, who was killed in 1966 by the Ku Klux Klan, pauses as she recalls the tumultuous period surrounding the firebombing of her home and the death of her husband, while touring the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson on Friday. during a private preview. Dahmer was targeted because he encouraged fellow African-Americans to register to vote during the Jim Crow era. (Photo: Rogelio V. Solis, AP) The family of Vernon Dahmer Sr., who died defending his family from the Ku Klux Klan, toured the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson on Friday.
January 8, 1867: Congress granted African-American men of the District of Columbia the right to vote, overriding President Andrew Johnson’s veto. It was the first law in U.S. history that gave the right to vote to black men. The legislation helped pave the way for the 15th Amendment, which in 1870 granted African-American men the right to vote by declaring that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
January 9, 1866: Six months after the Civil War ended, leaders of the northern American Missionary Association founded the Fisk Free Colored School to educate those freed from slavery, male and female. By the next month, 600 were attending. Four years later, the Fisk Jubilee Singers were started, and they toured the world to help raise money for the school, performing in 1873 for the Queen of England.
January 9, 1967: Civil rights leader Julian Bond, who helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while a student at Morehouse College, was finally seated in the Georgia House. Following his election in 1965, the Georgia House refused to seat him after he had criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Georgia House was required to seat him. He went on to serve two decades in the Georgia Legislature and even hosted Saturday Night Live. In 1971, he became president of the just-formed Southern Poverty Law Center and later served a dozen years as chairman of the national NAACP. He died in 2015.
January 10, 1854: A judge jailed Margaret Douglass of Norfolk, Virginia, for instructing free black children to read and write in her home. She had decided to do so “being greatly interested in the religious and moral instruction of colored children and finding that the Sunday school where they were allowed to attend was not sufficient.” The judge overturned the jury’s $1 fine and said he was jailing her for a month “as an example to all others in like cases.”
January 10, 1957: Southern Negro Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration (later known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) was organized in Atlanta with Martin Luther King Jr. as its head. Sixty African-American ministers from 10 states formed the new organization, including Ralph Abernathy, Joseph Lowery, Fred Shuttlesworth and C.K. Steele. That same day, four churches and the homes of two pastors involved in Montgomery Bus Boycott, were bombed in King’s hometown of Montgomery, Alabama.
January 10, 1966: Vernon Dahmer Sr. died after the Ku Klux Klan attack him and his family in their home near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Upset with his push for voting rights, Klansmen firebombed him and his family while they were sleeping. Dahmer grabbed his shotgun and fired back at Klansmen, enabling his family to escape safely out a back window. Flames from the blaze seared his lungs. On his deathbed, a reporter pressed him on why he pushed for voting rights. Dahmer explained, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.”
Vernon Dahmer died on Jan. 10, 1966, while defending his family from an attack by the Ku Klux Klan. His work was recognized by the Mississippi Legislature in 2016.
January 11, 1870: The first Legislature in Radical Reconstruction met in Mississippi. Nearly a third of the 106 state representatives and nearly a sixth of senators were African American. At least 226 black Mississippians held public office during Reconstruction. The Legislature ushered in free public schools and had no property requirements to vote.
January 11, 1985: Reuben Anderson became the first African American to serve as a justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court. In 1965, he became one of the first black students at the University of Mississippi, thanks to law school dean Joshua Morse III, who later recruited Anderson, Yale University professors and others to found the North Mississippi Rural Legal Services to provide legal help for the poor before being forced out as dean. In 1967, Anderson became the first African American to graduate from the law school. Afterward, he served as a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, which challenged schools that refused to desegregate before serving in a series of judgeships.
January 12, 1948: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the University of Oklahoma Law School cannot bar students based on race — a decision that helped lead to the landmark 1954 decision desegregating public schools. Ada Sipuel’s parents had survived the 1921 burning of black homes and businesses in Tulsa, and the family moved to Chickasha, where she was born and grew up. She became valedictorian of her local high school and decided to become a lawyer after hearing Thurgood Marshall speak. With the support of her family, she applied to the University of Oklahoma Law School, which rejected her strictly on the basis of race. The Supreme Court ordered her admission. Although segregated from classmates in the classrooms and cafeteria, she recalled them welcoming her and joining her to eat. She graduated in 1952 and began practicing law. In 1992, Oklahoma Gov. David Walters appointed her to the University of Oklahoma’s Board of Regents, and the law school named a garden to honor her. She died in 1995.
January 13, 1966: Robert C. Weaver became the first African-American Cabinet member in history when President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him as Secretary of Housing and Urban and Development. He had previously served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of the members of “Black Cabinet,” which informally advised the president. He died in 1997.
January 13, 1990: Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected governor since Reconstruction as he took office in Richmond, Virginia. He later served as mayor of Richmond.
January 14, 1963: Alabama Gov. George Wallace delivered his inaugural address, telling the crowd, “Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever!” Asa Carter, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote his speech. Before he died, Wallace apologized to African Americans for his actions.
Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
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