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CRMC_161107_13.JPG: "... Until Justice Rolls Down Like Waters And Righteousness Like A Mighty Stream"0
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
17 May 1954 Supreme Court Outlaws School Segregation In Brown Vs. Board Of Education
7 May 1955 Rev. George Lee Killed For Leading Voter Registration Drive Belzoni, Ms
13 Aug 1955 Lamar Smith Murdered For Organizing Black Voters Brookhaven, Ms
28 Aug 1955 Emmett Louis Till Youth Murdered For Speaking To White Woman Money, Ms
22 Oct 1955 John Earl Reese Slain By Nightriders Opposed To Black School Improvements Mayflower, Tx
1 Dec 1955 Rosa Parks Arrested For Refusing To Give Up Her Seat On Bus To A White Man Montgomery, Al
5 Dec 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott Begins
13 Nov 1956 Supreme Court Bans Segregated Seating On Montgomery Buses
23 Jan 1957 Willie Edwards Jr. Killed By Klan Montgomery, Al
29 Aug 1957 Congress Passes First Civil Rights Act Since Reconstruction
24 Sep 1957 President Eisenhower Orders Federal Troops To Enforce School Desegregation Little Rock, Ar
25 Apr 1959 Mack Charles Parker Taken From Jail And Lynched Poplarville, Ms
1 Feb 1960 Black Students Stage Sit-In At "Whites Only" Lunch Counter Greensboro, Nc
5 Dec 1960 Supreme Court Outlaws Segregation In Bus Terminals
14 May 1961 Freedom Riders Attacked In Alabama While Testing Compliance With Bus Desecration Laws
25 Sep 1961 Herbert Lee Voter Registration Worker Killed By White Legislator Liberty, Ms
I Apr 1962 Civil Rights Groups Join Forces To Launch Voter Registration Drive
9 Apr 1962 Cpl. Roman Ducksworth Jr. Taken From Bus And Killed By Police Taylorsville, Ms
30 Sep 1962 Riots Erupt When James Meredith, A Black Student, Enrolls At Ole Miss
30 Sep 1962 Paul Guihard European Reporter Killed During Ole Miss Riot Oxford, Ms
23 Apr 1963 William Lewis Moore Slain During One-Man March Against Segregation Attalla, Al
3 May 1963 Birmingham Police Attack Marching Children With Dogs And Fire Hoses
11 Jun 1963 Alabama Governor Stands In Schoolroom Door To Stop University Integration
12 Jun 1963 Medgar Evers Civil Rights Leader Assassinated Jackson, Ms
28 Aug 1963 250,000 Americans March On Washington For Civil Rights
15 Sep 1963 Addie Mae Collins -- Denise McNair -- Carole Robertson -- Cynthia Wesley -- Schoolgirls Killed In Bombing Of 16th St. Baptist Church Birmingham, Al
15 Sep 1963 Virgil Lamar Ware Birmingham, Al Youth Killed During Wave Of Racist Violence
23 Jan 1964 Poll Tax Outlawed In Federal Elections
31 Jan 1964 Louis Allen Witness To Murder Of Civil Rights Worker Assassinated Liberty, Ms
7 Apr 1964 Rev. Bruce Klunder Killed Protesting Construction Of Segregated School Cleveland, Oh
2 May 1964 Henry Hezekiah Dee -- Charles Eddie Moore Killed By Klan Meadville, Ms
20 Jun 1964 Freedom Summer Brings 1,000 Young Civil Rights Volunteers To Mississippi
21 Jun 1964 James Chaney -- Andrew Goodman -- Michael Schwerner -- Civil Rights Workers Abducted And Slain By Klan Philadelphia, Ms
2 Jul1964 President Johnson Signs Civil Rights Act of 1964
11 Jul 1964 Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn Killed By Klan While Driving North Colbert, Ga
26 Feb 1965 Jimmie Lee Jackson Civil Rights Marcher Killed By State Trooper Marion, Al
7 Mar 1965 State Troopers Beat Back Marchers At Edmund Pettus Bridge Selma, Al
11 Mar 1965 Rev. James Reeb March Volunteer Beaten To Death Selma, Al
25 Mar 1965 Civil Rights March From Selma To Montgomery Completed
25 Mar 1965 Viola Gregg Liuzzo Killed By Klan While Transporting Marchers Selma Highway, Al
2 Jun 1965 Oneal Moore Black Deputy Killed By Nightriders Varnado, La
9 Jul 1965 Congress Passes Voting Rights Act Of 1965
18 Jul 1965 Willie Wallace Brewster Killed By Nightriders Anniston, Al
20 Aug 1965 Jonathan Daniels Seminary Student Killed By Deputy Hayneville, Al
3 Jan 1966 Samuel Younge Jr. Student Civil Rights Activist Killed In Dispute Over Whites-Only Restroom Tuskegee, Al
10 Jan 1966 Vernon Dahmer Black Community Leader Killed In Klan Bombing Hattiesburg, Ms
10 Jun 1966 Ben Chester White Killed By Klan Natchez, Ms
30 Jul 1966 Clarence Triggs Slain By Nightriders Bogalusa, La
27 Feb 1967 Wharlest Jackson Civil Rights Leader Killed After Promotion To "White" Job Natchez, Ms
12 May 1967 Benjamin Brown Civil Rights Worker Killed When Police Fired On Protesters Jackson, Ms
2 Oct 1967 Thurgood Marshall Sworn In As First Black Supreme Court Justice
8 Feb 1968 Samuel Hammond, Jr. -- Delano Middleton -- Henry Smith -- Students Killed When Highway Patrolmen Fired On Protesters Orangeburg, Sc
4 Apr 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated Memphis, Tn
CRMC_161107_16.JPG: 26 Feb 1965 Jimmie Lee Jackson Civil Rights Marcher Killed By State Trooper Marion, Al
CRMC_161107_19.JPG: 25 Mar 1965 Civil Rights March From Selma To Montgomery Completed
11 Mar 1965 Rev. James Reeb March Volunteer Beaten To Death Selma, Al
CRMC_161107_21.JPG: 3 Jan 1966 Samuel Younge Jr. Student Civil Rights Activist Killed In Dispute Over Whites-Only Restroom Tuskegee, Al
CRMC_161107_24.JPG: 30 Jul 1966 Clarence Triggs Slain By Nightriders Bogalusa, La
CRMC_161107_27.JPG: 4 Apr 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated Memphis, Tn
CRMC_161107_30.JPG: 7 May 1955 Rev. George Lee Killed For Leading Voter Registration Drive Belzoni, Ms
17 May 1954 Supreme Court Outlaws School Segregation In Brown Vs. Board Of Education
CRMC_161107_33.JPG: 28 Aug 1955 Emmett Louis Till Youth Murdered For Speaking To White Woman Money, Ms
CRMC_161107_37.JPG: 1 Dec 1955 Rosa Parks Arrested For Refusing To Give Up Her Seat On Bus To A White Man Montgomery, Al
CRMC_161107_40.JPG: 24 Sep 1957 President Eisenhower Orders Federal Troops To Enforce School Desegregation Little Rock, Ar
29 Aug 1957 Congress Passes First Civil Rights Act Since Reconstruction
CRMC_161107_45.JPG: 1 Feb 1960 Black Students Stage Sit-In At "Whites Only" Lunch Counter Greensboro, Nc
25 Apr 1959 Mack Charles Parker Taken From Jail And Lynched Poplarville, Ms
CRMC_161107_49.JPG: 30 Sep 1962 Paul Guihard European Reporter Killed During Ole Miss Riot Oxford, Ms
CRMC_161107_50.JPG: 3 May 1963 Birmingham Police Attack Marching Children With Dogs And Fire Hoses
CRMC_161107_51.JPG: 12 Jun 1963 Medgar Evers Civil Rights Leader Assassinated Jackson, Ms
11 Jun 1963 Alabama Governor Stands In Schoolroom Door To Stop University Integration
CRMC_161107_57.JPG: 15 Sep 1963 Addie Mae Collins -- Denise McNair -- Carole Robertson -- Cynthia Wesley -- Schoolgirls Killed In Bombing Of 16th St. Baptist Church Birmingham, Al
CRMC_161107_65.JPG: "... Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
CRMC_161108_015.JPG: Michael Donald
A landmark lawsuit prompted the Southern Poverty Law Center to build a memorial to commemorate those who died during the Civil Rights Movement.
Michael Donald was walking to a store in Mobile, Alabama, in 1981 when two Klansmen abducted him. They beat him, cut his throat and hung his body from a tree. He was only 19.
In a groundbreaking lawsuit, the Center proved that the United Klans of America was responsible for Donald's death. This same organization committed some of the worst hate violence during the civil rights era, including the church bombing that killed four girls in Birmingham in 1963 and the slaying of Viola Liuzzo during the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march in 1965.
In 1987, an all-white jury awarded Donald's mother $7 million. This historic verdict put the United Klans out of business and forced the group to turn over its headquarters to Bealah Mae Donald, the victim's mother.
CRMC_161108_018.JPG: The Idea for a Memorial
After the Michael Donald verdict, Center chief trial counsel Morris Dee and Mrs. Donald were honored at a state NAACP conference. Dees was stunned to learn that many youth there did not know the names of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers and others who died during the Civil Rights Movement.
It troubled Dees that the teenagers enjoyed the benefits of the Movement but had little knowledge of its sacrifices. He vowed to create a monument to honor the memory of the civil rights martyrs and to educate future generations about the important events of the Movement.
To design the memorial, the Center turned to Maya Lin. As a Yale University student seven years earlier, she had gained national prominence when her design was selected to honor soldiers killed in Vietnam.
CRMC_161108_030.JPG: Johnnie Mae Chappell: The Forgotten
The names of all those who lost their lives to racial violence during the Civil Rights Movement will never be known.
The media often paid little attention to the death of black people. Many murders were never fully investigated.
Johnnie Mae Chappell was one of these forgotten victims.
She was gunned down along a roadside in Jacksonville, Florida, on March 23, 1964. Her killers -- enraged by the prospect of racial equality -- shot her from a passing car. Two detectives were fired for exposing a police cover-up in the case.
Only four months old when his mother was killed. Shelton Chappell devoted his life to uncovering the facts surrounding her death. In 1966 -- six years after the dedication of the Civil Rights Memorial -- one of the fire detectives located Shelton. Together, they pushed for justice and recognition for Shelton's mother.
In 2000, the Memorial was re-dedicated to the memory of Johnnie Mae Chappell and all the other victims of racial injustice whose stories will never be known.
CRMC_161108_040.JPG: Louis Allen
31 Jan 1964
Liberty, MS
Farmer and logger Louis Allen witnessed the murder of voting rights activist Herbert Lee in 1961.
After enduing years of threats, jailings and harassment, Allen, 42, told the FBI the truth about the murder and made plans to move out of state. He was shot the night before he was to leave.
CRMC_161108_042.JPG: Rev. Bruce Klunder
7 Apr 1964
Cleveland, OH
Bruce Klunder was a minister who believed his life must be his sermon. He demonstrated against segregated hospitals, schools and housing.
At a demonstration to stop construction of a black-only school, Klunder, 26, lay down behind a bulldozer and was crushed.
CRMC_161108_044.JPG: Henry Hezekiah Dee
2 May 1964
Meadville, MS
Sawmill worker Henry Dee was hitchhiking home when Klan members abducted him and Charles Moore, tied them to trees, beat them, weighted them down and threw them into the Mississippi River.
They were among the many victims of a Klan campaign to intimidate civil rights workers and black people in Mississippi in 1964.
CRMC_161108_046.JPG: James Earl Chaney
21 Jun 1964
Philadelphia, MS
Risking his life to scout Mississippi for civil rights recruits, James Chaney became a trusted ally to activist Michael Schwerner.
While driving Schwerner and Andrew Goodman home from a KKK-burned church, Chaney, 21, was stopped by a deputy sheriff, turned over to the Klan, shot three times and buried.
CRMC_161108_048.JPG: Michael Henry Schwerner
21 Jun 1964
Philadelphia, MS
A social worker from New York City, Michael Schwerner, 24, moved to Mississippi with his wife, Rita, to open a civil rights center.
Targeted by Ku Klux Klansmen, he was shot to death with civil rights colleagues James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.
CRMC_161108_051.JPG: Andrew Goodman
21 Jun 1964
Philadelphia, MS
Andrew Goodman, 20, a promising actor and musician, left a comfortable life in New York to spend the summer of 1964 fighting racism in Mississippi.
On his first date in the state, Goodman, along with Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, was arrested by a deputy sheriff, then shot and buried by Klansmen.
CRMC_161108_053.JPG: Charles Eddie Moore
2 May 1964
Meadville, MS
Charles Moore, who climbed from poverty to a teacher's college, was caught in a Ku Klux Klan backlash against Freedom Summer 1964, when hundreds of college students combed Mississippi to register black voters.
Moore, 19, and companion Henry Dee were kidnapped, whipped and drowned in the Mississippi River.
CRMC_161108_054.JPG: Rev. James Reeb
11 Mar 1965
Selma, AL
Unitarian minister James Reeb of Boston followed his conscience to Selma to march in support of black voting rights.
He and two other ministers made a wrong turn after dinner that took them past a notorious segregationist cafe. Reeb, 38, was clubbed by a white man shouting racial epithets and died of a fractured skull.
CRMC_161108_056.JPG: Viola Gregg Liuzzo
25 Mar 1965
Highway 80, AL
Upset by television scenes of voting rights marchers being beaten in Selma, 39-year-old Viola Liuzzo drove alone from Detroit to Alabama to volunteer in the Voting Rights March.
Ku Klux Klansmen shot the mother of five as she transported a marcher along the highway in Lowndes County.
CRMC_161108_059.JPG: Jimmie Lee Jackson
26 Feb 1965
Marion, AL
Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old farmer, participated in a nighttime voting rights protest. State troopers attacked the marchers, and Jackson was beaten and shot while trying to protect his mother and grandmother.
His death helped spark the Selma-to-Montgomery march and the eventual passage of the Voting Rights Act.
CRMC_161108_062.JPG: Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn
11 Jul 1964
Colbert, GA
A model Army officer and Washington, DC, educator, Lemuel Penn, 48, was gunned down by Georgia Klansmen as he drove home from summer reserve training at Fort Benning.
He was a victim of random violence by white supremacists outraged by a civil rights law signed by President Lyndon Johnson nine days earlier.
CRMC_161108_066.JPG: Samule Leamon Younge Jr.
3 Jan 1966
Tuskegee, AL
Raised in the black middle class, Sammy Younge Jr. was energized by the Civil Rights Movement and began to challenge both white and black elites.
A white gas station attendant shot him after an argument over segregated bathrooms. Younge, 21, was the first black college student killed for civil rights activism.
CRMC_161108_068.JPG: Jonathan Myrick Daniels
20 Aug 1965
Hayneville, AL
An Episcopal seminary student from New England, Jonathan Daniels came to Alabama to support black voting rights in the Selma area.
The first white activist in "bloody" Lowndes County, he was arrested at a demonstration and jailed. Daniels, 26, was shot by a part-time deputy sheriff moments after his release.
CRMC_161108_070.JPG: Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer
10 Jan 1966
Hattiesburg, MS
Vernon Dahmer, a well-to-do businessman, offered to pay toll taxes for those who couldn't afford the fee required to vote.
The night after a radio station broadcast Dahmer's offer, his house was firebombed. Dahmer, 57, fought off the terrorists while his family escaped. He died the next day from severe burns.
CRMC_161108_072.JPG: Ben Chester White
10 Jun 1966
Natchez, MS
Plantation caretaker Ben Chester White, known as a trusted worker and generous friend, was not involved in civil rights work.
But in a bizarre plot to lure Martin Luther King to southern Mississippi to assassinate him, Ku Klux Klansmen tricked White, 67, into looking for a lost dog, and then murdered him.
CRMC_161108_075.JPG: Wharlest Jackson
27 Feb 1967
Natchez, MS
Husband, father of five and treasurer of the Natchez NAACP, Wharlest Jackson earned a promotion at a tire and rubber plant.
Whites held most jobs there, and black employees often found threatening Klan notes, Jackson, 36, was killed three weeks later when a bomb planted on his truck exploded.
CRMC_161108_077.JPG: Clarence Triggs
30 Jul 1966
Bogalusa, LA
Army veteran and mortician Clarence Triggs began marching for justice after moving to Bogalusa and finding that federal civil rights laws had made little impact on the isolated paper-mill town.
Triggs, 24, was shot while walking along a highway during a tense period of civil rights demonstrations and racial violence.
CRMC_161108_079.JPG: Benjamin Brown
12 May 1967
Jackson, MS
As a teenager, Ben Brown fought for justice by protesting, boycotting and signing up voters among Mississippi blacks.
At 21, he quit the movement, got married and took a job, only to be caught in a student protest near Jackson State University and shot in the back by police.
CRMC_161108_081.JPG: Samuel Ephesians Hammond Jr.
8 Feb 1968
Orangeburg, SC
College freshman Sam Hammond, a gifted athlete who wanted to be a teacher, was in a crowd of South Carolina State University students protesting segregation and police brutality.
Police opened fire on the unarmed students, killing Hammond, 18, and two other young men and wounding, 27.
CRMC_161108_083.JPG: Henry Ezekial Smith
8 Feb 1968
Orangeburg, SC
College sophomore Henry Smith, 19, became an activist to end entrenched segregation around South Carolina State University.
Shaken by the police beatings of two women at a segregated bowling alley, he joined a protest on the edge of campus and died when police fired indiscriminately at the unarmed students.
CRMC_161108_085.JPG: Delano Herman Middleton
8 Feb 1968
Orangeburg, SC
A high school student on his way home from basketball practice, Delano Middleton, was caught between a civil rights protest and police gunfire at South Carolina State University.
Seven bullets struck Middleton, 17, when he stopped to watch the protests before meeting his mother, who worked at the school.
CRMC_161108_087.JPG: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
4 Apr 1968
Memphis, TN
Prophet and strategist of the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., 39, led a revolution in the United States -- the end of legal discrimination -- and won the Nobel Peace prize.
Focusing on economic inequities, he was in Memphis to support black city workers on strike when he was assassinated.
CRMC_161108_090.JPG: Cynthia Morris Wesley
15 Sep 1963
Birmingham, AL
Gifted with musical talent, Cynthia Morris Wesley, 14, was asked to usher and sing for Sixteenth Street Baptist Church's Youth Day.
She was straightening her dress and hair when the Klan bomb exploded.
CRMC_161108_092.JPG: Virgil Lamar Ware
15 Sep 1963
Birmingham, AL
A-student Virgil Ware, 13, was riding on the handlebars of his brother's bicycle, excitedly planning a paper route. Neither had heard about the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing earlier that day.
Two white youths, inflamed by a segregationist rally, drove by on a motor scooter decorated with Confederate flags and shot him.
CRMC_161108_094.JPG: Carole Robertson
15 Sep 1963
Birmingham, AL
Chosen for her poise and maturity to be one of the first black children to integrate public schools, Carole Robertson 14, was days away from becoming a Birmingham pioneer.
She died in the blast of the Klan bomb at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
CRMC_161108_096.JPG: Denise McNair
15 Sep 1963
Birmingham, AL
Denise McNair, 11, knew that life was not fair for blacks. "I want to march," she told her mother.
On Youth Day at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, she was looking in the mirror next to a stained glass window when the Klan's dynamite bomb went off.
CRMC_161108_099.JPG: Addie Mae Collins
15 Sep 1963
Birmingham, AL
Addie Mae Collins, 14, was a quiet, serious student from a large family. She and her sister Sarah Jean were combing their hair after Sunday school at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church when a Ku Klux Klan bomb exploded, killing Addie Mae and three other girls.
Sarah Jean was blinded in one eye.
CRMC_161108_105.JPG: Medgar Evers
12 Jun 1963
Jackson, MS
As the NAACP's first Mississippi field secretary, Medgar Evers exposed some of the South's most violent racists. His bold actions made him a hero to blacks and a mortal enemy to many whites.
After a late-night NAACP strategy session, Evers, 37, was assassinated in front of his home. He wife and children were waiting up for him.
CRMC_161108_107.JPG: Paul Guihard
30 Sep 1962
Oxford, MS
The only journalist killed during the Civil Rights Movement, Paul L. Guihard was shot in the back with a .38 pistol while covering the riots that erupted when James Meredith became the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi.
The FBI concluded Guihard, 30, was murdered but no one was charged.
CRMC_161108_110.JPG: William Lewis Moore
23 Apr 1963
Attalla, AL
Postman and pacifist William Moore was on a one-man crusade for human rights when he set off walking across the Deep South. He carried a letter for the Mississippi governor, urging tolerance.
Ignoring warnings to turn back in Alabama, Moore, 36, was shot in the head as he rested beside a highway.
CRMC_161108_112.JPG: Cpl. Roman Ducksworth Jr.
9 Apr 1962
Taylorsville, MS
Army M.P. Roman Ducksworth Jr. was an emergency leave to visit his wife and newborn child when he was slapped awake on a Trailways bus, hauled outside and shot dead by a policeman.
Ducksworth, 27, may have been mistaken for a "freedom rider," testing bus desegregation laws in the South.
CRMC_161108_114.JPG: Herbert Lee
25 Sep 1961
Liberty, MS
Cotton and dairy Herbert Lee attended NAACP meetings and escorted civil rights leader Bob Moses into rural Mississippi to persuade blacks to register to vote. Lee's efforts made him a target of white supremacists.
During an argument, a white neighbor, who was a state legislator, shot Lee, 49, but was not charged.
CRMC_161108_116.JPG: Mack Charles Parker
25 Apr 1959
Poplarville, MS
Military veteran Mack Parker never got his day in court to fight a charge that he'd raped a white woman.
Three days before trial, in a lynching reminiscent of the 1920s, Parker, 23, was dragged from a county jail by a hooded white gang, shot and thrown in the Pearl River.
CRMC_161108_118.JPG: Willie Edwards Jr.
23 Jan 1957
Montgomery, AL
A church-going family man with a new job delivering groceries for Winn-Dixie supermarkets, Willie Edwards Jr. , 24, was kidnapped by the Ku Klux Klan and forced to jump to his death in the Alabama River.
The Klansmen mistook him for another man rumored to be dating a white woman.
CRMC_161108_120.JPG: John Earl Reese
22 Oct 1955
Mayflower, TX
John Earl Reese was dancing in an east Texas cafe where drive-by shooters fired nine bullets through the walls and windows.
Reese, 15, was fatally wounded, and two cousins were hit, victims of young white men who were upset with plans to build a better school for blacks.
CRMC_161108_122.JPG: Emmett Louis Till
28 Aug 1955
Money, MS
Fun-loving Emmett Till of Chicago was on summer vacation with relatives when he apparently whistled at a white woman.
Two white men kidnapped, beat and shot Till, 14, and three him in the Tallahatchie River. Though his killers were acquitted, Till's brutalized face. photographed in his casket, helped launch the civil rights movement.
CRMC_161108_125.JPG: Rev. George Lee
7 May 1955
Belzoni, MS
Years before Mississippi's civil rights movement, printer and preacher George Lee was spreading the gospel of voter registration among black in the Delta. By 1955, he had enrolled 95.
Death threats followed, but Lee told his wife, "Somebody's got to stand up." Lee, 51, was gunned down while driving home.
CRMC_161108_128.JPG: Lamar Smith
13 Aug 1955
Brookhaven, MS
Lamar Smith was a farmer whose passion was politics. He believed his county's 460 black votes mattered, even when both candidates were white.
After campaigning against an incumbent county official, Smith, 63, was shot in broad daylight on the courthouse lawn. No one eyewitness would testify against his white killer.
CRMC_161108_132.JPG: The Martyrs
The Memorial honors 40 people who lost their lives during the struggle for civil rights between 1954 and 1968.
They range in age from 11 to 67. Eight were white, and 32 were black. Five were females, and 35 were males.
They came from all walks of life. They were students and farmers, ministers and truck drivers, a homemaker and a Nobel laureate.
Some were murdered because of their civil rights activities.
Others were killed by Klansmen to strike terror in the Movement.
Many became symbols that spurred on the struggle for social change.
"Most of those who made the Civil Rights Movement weren't the famous; they were the faceless. The weren't the noted; they were the nameless -- the unknown women and men who risked job and home and life.
Let us gather here not in recrimination, but in reconciliation, remembrance and renewed resolve."
-- Julian Bond
CRMC_161108_135.JPG: An Open Timeline
Lin left a blank space between the first and last entries on the Memorial timeline. Here she explains why.
The timeline on the Memorial begins with the Supreme Court's 1954 decision outlawing school segregation and ends with Dr. King's death in 1968.
I left a space between these events to signify that the struggle for human rights began well before 1954 and continues to this day.
As visitors put their hands in the water and touch the words on the Memorial, I hope they feel a connection to those who died and to the Civil Rights Movement.
And as they see their own reflections in the water, I hope they contemplate what we can do in our time to make "justice roll down like waters."
CRMC_161108_140.JPG: Civil Rights Memorial Design
Maya Lin was a 28-year-old architect known for her design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial when the Southern Poverty Law Center asked her to create a memorial to civil rights martyrs.
When I got the call from the Center, I was surprised there wasn't already a monument to those killed in the Movement.
I was surprised again as I read the Movement's history. I was searching for the right design. There was so much I didn't know, so many names that I didn't recognize.
On my first trip to Montgomery, I came across a quote from the prophet Amos that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech:
"We are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
Immediately, I knew that the memorial would be about water and that these words would connect the past with the future. Sitting on the plane, I sketched the memorial design on a napkin.
CRMC_161108_146.JPG: We Must Take Sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
-- Elie Wiesel
CRMC_161108_150.JPG: The March Continues
The great triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and '60s continue to inspire those who seek justice today.
The people of Montgomery who refused to ride in segregated buses and the people who marched from Selma to this city for the right to vote serve as models for today's activists.
Around the world, the American Civil Rights Movement shines as a beacon of hope, inspiring millions to work for human rights.
As long as there are people willing to take a stand for justice, the march for civil rights will never end.
CRMC_161108_158.JPG: Hate's Continuing Toll
Despite the tremendous gains made by the Civil Rights Movement, hate and discrimination are still deeply entrenched in our society.
In its most extreme form, hate continues to claim the lives of those caught in its path.
Every year, people are still being killed because of the color of their skin or because of characteristics like their religion or sexual orientation that make them seem "different."
In a number of places around the world in recent years, ethnic and religious differences have triggered deadly campaigns of genocide.
For every victim remembered here, there are many others who have lost their lives to hate.
CRMC_161108_161.JPG: Amy Robinson
15 Feb 1998
Fort Worth, TX
Nineteen-year-old Amy Robinson was the victim of a wager.
"We had a bet going to see who could shoot and kill the most people between the two of us," her killer Robert Neville told reporters, referring to his friend Michael Hall.
"No matter if it was blacks or Mexicans -- anybody as long as they weren't our color," he said. "We were just a bunch of white supremacists wanting to go out and kill someone of another race."
Neville explained the dark-haired Robinson, who had a mild cognitive disability, was targeted because "she trusted us a lot [and] she wasn't white, she was in between."
CRMC_161108_165.JPG: Oumar Dia
18 Nov 1998
Denver, CO
Oumar Dia immigrated to the United States in 1995, leaving his native Senegal to provide a better life for his family. Three years later he was dead, shot at a downtown Denver bus stop by 19-year-old Nathan Thill.
"Do you know you're a nigger?" Thill asked as he leveled a pistol at Dia's chest. "Are you ready to die like a nigger?"
In a television interview just three days after the shooting, Thill said the murder was "an act of passion. In a war, everyone wearing an enemy uniform is an enemy and should be taken out."
Dia's uniform? The color of his skin.
CRMC_161108_167.JPG: Billy Jack Gaither
19 Feb 1999
Sylacauga, AL
"I grabbed Billy Jack and threw him to the ground, cut his throat... [and I] got the ax handles which was leaned up against the door of the car and started beating him with it. When I gave out of energy and couldn't do it anymore, the fire got to going and the tires started burning real well and I drug him into the flame and we stood there for a few minutes and then we left."
-- Steven Mullins' statement to police, March 3, 1999
Bill Jack Faither's mutilated body was found on February 20, 1999. Mullins would later say he killed Gaither "because he was a faggot."
CRMC_161108_170.JPG: Balbir Singh Sodhi
15 Sep 2001
Mesa, AZ
Immediately after the September 11th attacks, Balbir Singh Sodhi, who ran a local Chevron station, went shopping for an American flag to demonstrate his support for the United States.
Four days later, he was shot and killed while tending to the grass in front of his store. Frank Roque, his killer, said that Sodhi looked like a terrorist and boasted that he had murdered a "towel head."
"My father had a lot of friends, but no enemies," Balbir's son Sukhwinder Singh said later. "The word hatred was not in his vocabulary at all, but he ended up falling from the bullet of hate."
CRMC_161108_176.JPG: David
1994
Rwanda
In one of the worst outbreaks of ethnic violence since the Holocaust, more than 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of just 100 days in 1994.
David was one of the thousands of children who were slain.
Most of the killers were members of the Hutu ethnic majority; most of the victims were members of the Tutsi minority.
The international community, including the United States, failed to intervene in the genocide even after it was clear that Hutu extremists -- with the support of the Rwandan government -- were systematically hunting down and murdering their Tutsi neighbors.
CRMC_161108_191.JPG: Wall of Tolerance
The Wall of Tolerance records the names of people who have pledged to take a stand against hate, injustice and intolerance.
Those who place their names on the wall make a commitment to work in their daily lives for justice, equality and human rights -- the ideals for which the civil rights martyrs died.
If you are prepared to work for these ideals and to stand against hate and intolerance, add your name to the wall.
CRMC_161108_197.JPG: Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.
And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
-- Robert Kennedy, Cape Town, South Africa, June 6, 1966
CRMC_161108_199.JPG: The March Continues
Thank you. Your name is about to appear on the Wall above you.
After you leave the Civil Rights Memorial Center, your name will continue to appear on the Wall -- both to honor your pledge, and to inspire others to a stand.
CRMC_161108_232.JPG: The March Continues
The Wall of Tolerance displays the names of people who have pledged to fight hate and to promote tolerance.
We invite you to take the pledge as well. To start, touch one of the buttons below.
CRMC_161108_253.JPG: ... Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Wikipedia Description: Civil Rights Memorial
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Civil Rights Memorial is a memorial in Montgomery, Alabama to 41 people who died in the struggle for the equal and integrated treatment of all people, regardless of race, during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The memorial is sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The names included in the memorial belong to those who died between 1954 and 1968. Those dates were chosen because in 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unlawful and 1968 is the year of Martin Luther King's assassination. The monument was created by Maya Lin, who is best known for creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Civil Rights Memorial was dedicated in 1989.
The concept of Maya Lin's design is based on the soothing and healing effect of water. It was inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s paraphrase "... we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. ...", from the "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. This passage in King's speech is a direct reference to Amos 5:24, as translated in the American Standard Version of the Bible. The memorial is a fountain in the form of an asymmetric inverted stone cone. A film of water flows over the base of the cone, which contains the 41 names included. It is possible to touch the smooth film of water and temporarily alter the surface film, which quickly returns to smoothness. As such, the memorial represents the aspirations of the American Civil Rights Movement against racism.
Tours and location
The memorial is located downtown at 400 Washington Avenue in an open plaza in front of the Civil Rights Memorial Center, which was formerly the offices of the Southern Poverty Law Center and which moved across the street into a new building in 2001. The memorial may be visited freely 24 hours a day, 7 d ...More...
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I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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2016 photos: Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
Seven relatively short trips this year:
two Civil War Trust conference (Gettysburg, PA and West Point, NY, with a side-trip to New York City),
my 11th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including sites in Utah, Nevada, and California),
a quick trip to Michigan for Uncle Wayne's funeral,
two additional trips to New York City, and
a Civil Rights site trip to Alabama during the November elections. Being in places where people died to preserve the rights of minority voters made the Trumputin election even more depressing.
Number of photos taken this year: just over 610,000.
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