In this episode, Matt and Carol travel back into Tennessee for a covert operation which took them through:
Then came the time to head north again to their next lair, Millington, TN. To be inconspicuous they hid themselves in the trees during their mission.
The enemy tried several different methods to find them, casual deer crossing behind their trailer, caterpillar's falling from the trees, and even pretty looking butterflies.
Despite the enemies efforts, the Matteson's began their surveillance of the local area. Matt went on a recon hike around the base looking for enemy encampments, none were noted at the first investigation. Carol took the "Blue Beast" (BB) and headed for a known large encampment of people at a building called Navy Gateway Inn (NGIS), under the guise of doing laundry. She met up with an informant who passed on valuable information about the laundry facilities, and times to stay away to avoid being detected.
Believing that their site was secure they headed into Memphis to recon some of the attractions.
The first stop on their Memphis mission was the National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Hotel.
There appeared to be two entrances to the museum, one appeared to be for those requiring anonymity, and one for the general public. Without the proper code word the Matteson's were forced to use the front entrance, exposing themselves to possible enemy detection and surveillance.
Arriving there the Matteson's realized it would take some time to investigate and evaluate this museum. Matt took a chance and photographed the outside of the hotel for identification.
This hotel was the hotel that Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) stayed at and was assassinated at. The wreath at room 306 indicated the room MLK had stayed in that fatal night. The pedestals out front of the hotel tell stories related to the civil rights movement.
Entrance into the museum required all personnel to pass through a metal detector (actual). The first portal investigated was the story of slavery and how it was really an international business.
These are the notes from the Matteson's case file on the museum.
Negros did not just arrive as slaves from Africa, the business was like a triangle. Europeans would buy slaves from Africa, then ship them to the Americas in trade for products from the Americas.
Many of these enslaved were either kidnapped from their homes, or were prisoners of war. Once onboard a ship they were kept in cramped quarters, stripped, and the men were chained. Those chains usually caused festering wounds that could end in death. The women were usually sexually abused by the crew, including the captain. They were fed twice a day, if onboard provisions were available. Imagine dealing with deadly diseases like dysentery, malaria, small pox, and scurvy. One-in-five died during the 3,000 mile journey. Some enslaved resisted captivity either refusing to eat, or jumping overboard. Whether it was abuse, malnutrition, disease, or jumping overboard, 20% of the enslaved passengers died.
You might be asking yourself how many of these Africans became prisoners of war, simple, tribes/kingdoms fighting other tribes/kingdoms, and the victor collected the spoils.
Before white man even got to Africa, Africa was known for its craftspeople, scholars, architects, mathematicians, hunters, and farmers. The way those empires grew was through trading gold, ivory, iron... and yes, slaves.
Then the Europeans came into the picture and wanted a piece of the slave-trade action. Here is a little secret... they began arriving in the 1400's, and joining in the slave-trade business.
Now that the Europeans began colonizing the Americas, the demand for slaves skyrocketed. With that explosion, a new kind of war was started, human trafficking. The way the Europeans made it work for themselves... they exploited the conflicts between the kingdom rulers. One way they did this was supplying weapons. Look at it this way, by the 1820's it equated to four slaves coming to Americas for every one European. This trafficking business lasted 366 years transporting over 12M involuntary immigrants to the Americas, the largest known forced migration.
TAKE NOTE: From a former slave who wrote a book in 1829 called "Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World". He pointed out that the constitution was written that all men were created equal, and was it not true.
Our forefathers were flawed from the beginning, partially because some of them owned slaves.
In 1808 Congress outlawed the importation of African slaves, which was a small hit on the market. By the 1720's the slave population was growing on its own, meaning children were being born into slavery in America.
Like many commodities, the price for the enslaved rose too. In 1805 a slaveholder could have bought a slave for $200.00, but by 1860, the price was about $750.00. Why such a jump in the price... northern slave holding states didn't want to lose "their" property, so they sold them at a very marked up price to Southern slaveholders.
What drove this price increase... cotton plantations in the South. Knowing what was coming down the road, Northern tobacco plantations in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware sold their slaves for huge profits.
SIDE NOTE NOT IN MUSEUM:
Q: Did free blacks own slaves
A: Yes. It is proposed that free blacks owned black slaves as far back as 1654, and continued through the Civil War.
My notes will provide some insight, but readers can go online and type in "Did blacks own black slaves" for more information. I used information from a sight called "The Root".
There appears to be some discussion as to why free blacks would have owned black slaves. One theory was for personal reasons, like protecting a family member from being sold off, another was for position in the community of slaveholders and profit. Here was an interesting tidbit, blacks could own "white" indentured servants in Virginia. By 1724 blacks owned slaves in Boston, by 1783 in Connecticut; by 1790, 43 blacks owned 143 slaves.
One notorious Black slaveholder, Nat Butler, in Maryland "regularly purchased and sold Negros for the Southern trade."
When the Civil War was drawing close, black opportunistic slave holders in New Orleans offered up their slaves to the Confederacy, fearing that they could become enslaved themselves. This was their statement: "The free colored population [native] to Louisiana... own slaves, and they are clearly attached to their native land... and they are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana... they will fight for her in 1861 as they fought [to defend New Orleans from the British] in 1814-1815."
The number of black slaveholders was not near the number of white slaveholder, but owing slaves was owing slaves, numbers don't matter.
1830 was the year closely looked at, of the more than 2,000,000 slaves, black slaveholders owned roughly 12,900 slaves. In 1830 approximately 13.7% of the black population was free, meaning about 319,600 were free blacks. That broke down to the following:
54 owned between 20 and 84 slaves; 172 owned 10 to 19 slaves; 3,550 owned between 1 and 9 slaves.
Remember that it was mentioned that some of the slaveholders owned family members to protect them, that would have been the latter group. With that said, not all those were kind to the family. Some were husbands that bought their wife, some were wives that bought their husband. If there was a problem in the marriage, the wife or husband might have sold their spouse off. In one case a women with a son bought her husband, the husband said something to the son that he didn't like, and the son sold the husband to another slaveholder.
Back to the museum.
By 1860 America had nearly 4M slaves, doubling since 1830. To give you an idea of the value of slave labor, it was estimated to be worth $3,000,000,000.00.
1830 saw America producing more cotton than all the other nations combined, and by 1860, America was exporting 3.8M bales of cotton, or roughly 1.5B pounds of cotton. How were they able to export that much cotton... simple, slaves; each slave was EXPECTED to pick 120 pounds of cotton per day, some were able to pick as much as 300 pounds per day.
How did this affect the world during the Civil War? First look at a statement made by South Carolina Senator James Hammond: "What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton... Cotton is King."
The fact of the matter was that all the cotton produced was sent either to northern mills, or to England. Once war began and cotton was no longer being exported from the South, the northern mills got their cotton from Egypt.
So, what else was slave labor used for to enhance the status of slaveholders, that would have been sugar and rum.
In the 1760's one enslaved laborer was EXPECTED to produce 200 pounds of sugar per year, resulting in 3.5 hogsheads (casks) of sugar and approximately 110 gallons of molasses.
Give partial thanks to Christopher Columbus for spreading slavery worldwide. In his travels he introduced this "new spice", called sugar, to the new world. Spain and Portugal established sugar plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean; here in what is now Louisiana, plantations grew as well.
The sugar business was not easy for slaves, it was very demanding, but plantation owners were only concerned with profits. Plantations were in subtropical climates where the heat was just one hazard for slave laborers who grew the crop by hand, harvested it with machetes, and boiled the liquid in cauldrons until it crystalized. The turnover rate was about three-years before new slaves were needed, which meant constantly importing new slaves.
If you noticed, I did mention rum. That one enslaved laborer that made 200 pounds of sugar, turned it into molasses, produced roughly 73.5 gallons of rum. The rum was not distilled in the South. Barrels of molasses were sent north to Rhode Island, where it was turned into rum. Between 1709 and 1807 Delaware distilled 11M gallons of rum. Some of the rum stayed in the colonies for consumption, some went to Africa to buy more slaves. In the 1760's 130 gallons of rum could buy a male slave, 110 gallons for a female, and 80 gallons for young girls. I don't know where young boys fell, it wasn't indicated.
People coming to Jamestown in 1607 were looking to find gold, but found something better... tobacco.
Once crops were planted, someone had to tend and harvest it...slaves of course. Each slave was responsible for about two acres, or about 10,000 to 20,000 plants. The first slaves were actually white and black indentured servants that worked for their eventual freedom. When the willing slaves got scarce, the unwilling were forced into action. This didn't take long, because by 1620 Africans were being brought over to work the fields. By 1640 Jamestown was exporting 1.5M pounds of tobacco to England, off the backs of slaves.
This was where the whites of Virginia began creating laws that stripped blacks of rights, with the target being slavery. With Virginia becoming reliant on tobacco by 1790, nearly 40% of Virginians were slaves.
Are you starting to get the picture that slavery was more than just cotton.
Here was another crop that used slavery... rice. Each slave was EXPECTED to produce 2,000 pounds of rice yearly from the five acres they were responsible for.
Rice only became a crop in America when the British brought it and slaves from Barbados. Once in the lowlands of South Carolina, the British not only had their slaves from Barbados but they enslaved hundreds of American Indians too.
Believe it or not, most of the richest plantation owners were the rice planters. Rice had become known as "Carolina Gold". How did these plantation owners become so rich... exporting to the Caribbean sugar plantations. The slaves these plantations used were more valuable for their knowledge of cultivating the difficult crop of rice. A lot of the slaves would have come from the west coast of Africa, stretching from what is now Senegal to Nigeria. The Lowcountry of South Carolina had become so dependent on rice in 1708, most of South Carolina's population was enslaved.
In 1850 the largest plantation was valued at more than $500,000.00 (today's price: $15,000,000.00). This plantation had almost 1,100 slaves, producing about 4M pounds of rice a year.
The North was not innocent regarding slavery. While slavery was being abolished in the north, many still profited from slavery. Rhode Island shipping tycoons got rich outfitting ships that transported captives, New York bankers insured the ships that carried captives, Massachusetts distillers imported molasses from Caribbean sugar plantations and distributed the rum to Africa. England was not innocent either, they used cotton from Alabama for textiles.
Slaves had fought the cause for equal treatment for many years, and one such man was Dred Scott.
He and his wife lived in a free state during the time their owner worked elsewhere. In his case, Dred Scott v. Sanford, the Supreme Court ruled against him, stating that blacks were not citizens and had no standing in court.
Another slave took a different route, he escaped. He was born into slavery in 1838, taught himself to read, and escaped.
As a free man, his writing and speaking career spanned 60 years and he spoke eloquently about the struggles of the slaves and freed. You may know him as Frederick Douglass.
The next part of the investigation took Matt and Carol into a theatre, where the informant spoke of the evolution of civil rights. Once they obtained this information the informant ushered them to another room where the story began.
It appeared that there was a definite fight for equal rights in the United States. Many southern states retained laws that kept black from being equals, and could punish whites for associating with blacks. Here are some examples:
- It was unlawful for a Negro and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards. (Alabama, 1930)
- Any public hall, theatre, opera house, motion picture show, or any public place of entertainment or public assemblage which was attended by both white and colored persons, shall separate white race and the colored race. (Virginia)
- The Sexton (church officer) shall not bury any colored persons upon ground set apart for or used for the burial of white persons. (Georgia, 1910)
- Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools. (North Carolina)
- All person licensed to conduct a restaurant shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively. (Georgia, 1942)
- It shall be unlawful for a Negro and white person to play together or in company with each other in ANY game, of cards, dice, dominoes, or checkers. (Alabama, 1930)
- The Commander-in-Chief is hereby authorized to organize four independent companies of infantry, to be composed of colored men. Such four companies shall not be attached to any existing regiment. (Connecticut, 1879)
- All persons are prohibited from contests and other such activities involving personal and social contacts of the white and Negro races. (Louisiana, 1956)
- All marriages of white persons with Negros, Mongolians, or Mulattoes, are illegal and void. (California, 1906)
- The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled. Colored troops shall be under the command of white officers. (North Carolina, 1913)
- It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race. (Georgia, 1932)
It was our findings that despite an 1896 court case, it didn't solve inequality between the races. That case was Plessy v. Ferguson, which the US Supreme Court declared that separate accommodation for whites and Negro was constitutional. What the court failed to acknowledge was that separate accommodations did not not mean equal, and Southern lawmakers ensured there was inequality, this was made possible earlier through the "Jim Crow" laws. This could be considered the blossoming of civil rights, the black community was tired of being treat as second-class citizens.
A question arose during this segment of the mission: How would I have felt serving my country as a black serviceman, being asked to possibly pay the ultimate price for a country that treated me as a second-class citizen? Many of the black soldiers did have that same question, because it wasn't until around 1948 that the military ended segregation in the services.
The women of the 6888th ("Six-Triple-Eight") Central Postal Directory were sent to Europe with the sole mission to ensure morale building letters from home got to the troops. What was the big deal about this group of women, they were an all black battalion of the African American women's Army Corp. One of the members remembered being told that they would not be liked by the Europeans, but that wasn't true, they were welcomed into any establishment they visited, and cheered when walking along the streets. It was a white American in the US that spread the fear.
Reading the above laws in place, one could tell that these Jim Crow laws were in place for a long time. It wasn't until around 1957 that changes began appearing, but slowly.
- National Association of Colored Women, started in 1896. Their purpose was to show the progress of the African American woman.
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), established in 1941; an outgrowth of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), an interracial, pacifist, Quaker-led group. Believed in non-violent solutions.
-National Urban League (NUL), originally called the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negros, was founded in 1910. The purpose was to help African Americans adapt to urban life and achieve success.
The reality was that there were many blacks speaking out about the inequality, some were lynched, others threatened, still others formed organizations that would stand up to the tyrant white racist machine. One of those organizations many of you may have heard of was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The organization was made up of blacks from smaller organizations that didn't survive and white progressives, starting back in the early 1900's.
While NAACP attacked the problem from the legal side, another group known as the Nation of Islam (NOI) went about questioning if the effort was even worth it, believing that blacks should separate and become self-sufficient.
By 1950's NOI gained traction and many black businesses started, and a new leader of the movement was born, his name was Malcolm X.
Malcolm X started out as Malcolm Little, the son of a Georgia preacher. His father was killed by white supremists, which led Malcolm to begin a life of petty crimes, ending in a prison stay at a Massachusetts prison. While in prison he was turned on to the NOI ideals, and by the late 1950's was their national spokesperson.
Have you asked yourself why he changed his name. He changed his last name to "X" to identify with the lost African family name. Keep in mind that slaves were generally given the last name of their owners.
SIDE NOTE: Malcolm X latter in the 60's grew to understand some of the ideals of the nonviolent groups and separated himself from the NOI. He journeyed to Mecca, changed his name, and returned to the United States. No longer a part of the NOI, NOI assassinated him.
Throughout the exhibits were statements of racism that did not set well with Matt, and here is a prime example from a "white supremist: "IF NECESSARY, EVERY NEGRO IN THE STATE WILL BE LYNCHED, and it will be done to maintain white supremacy". James K. Vardaman, Governor of Mississippi, 1907. It was my impression that these kind of people were, and are not supreme to anybody, they are Satan himself.
TAKE A BREATHER...
My notes indicated earlier that the slow process of equality started in the 1950's. One such instance was the court case Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas. This case involved black children going to a white schools. The Supreme Court in 1954 declared the separate schools based on race, were unconstitutional; that was a unanimous vote.
Have no fear, the South was not about to have any of that decision, even with the second Supreme Court Brown ruling that stated: with all deliberated speed"; unfortunately it left an undefined timeframe. The South resisted for almost 10 years after the decision before they give an inch.
Forced integration happened around 1957 though. That forced desegregation occurred in Little Rock Arkansas, where nine black students were bused to Little Rock Central High School. One of the students was a senior in 1958, and was asked not to walk with the graduating class... "to prevent trouble".
A desegregation crisis existed before Little Rock. 1955 saw several black bus riders get arrested, the most memorable was Rosa Parks in September of 1955.
The 60's rolled around and so did more efforts in promoting equal rights and defeating Jim Crow laws. The South was where the biggest portion of the fight occurred. By this time the movement had people like Martin Luther King Jr and the NAACP, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced snick), and CORE.
SNCC organized sit-ins at lunch counters that only served whites, many were assaulted, and even arrested. There was a group of students from a Friendship College that applied a different tactic, they were known as "The Rock Hill Nine". Their approach was simple, instead of being bailed out, they chose to stay in jail... "Jail, No Bail". This was a successful tactic, and other groups followed suit, including SNCC.
Next phase was to create a crisis for the southern segregationists, and this was done through a "Freedom Ride". The Supreme Court had struck down laws on bus segregation on interstate travel in Boynton v. Virginia. CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) created that crisis when Freedom Riders came down from Washington D.C. to Rock Hill, SC, and exited the bus and entered the whites-only section of the bus station... mission successful.
The idea of the freedom ride was to force southern states to accept desegregation, but this trip was not a total success. The goal was to ride all the way to New Orleans. The original 13 riders left D.C. on 4 May. The first challenge for one the riders was encountered in Charlotte, NC. The rider stepped up to a shoe shine chair for whites-only... and was promptly arrested, he chose to spend two nights in jail. When they arrived in Rock Hill, May 9th, both black and white Freedom Riders were attacked as they attempted to enter the segregated waiting room. This was only the beginning of trouble.
May 13th they arrived in Atlanta, GA, and met with Martin Luther King Jr., who warned them that there was more trouble to come thanks to the KKK. The KKK made the statement: "You will never make it through Alabama".
The buses arrived Anniston, AL, 60 miles from Birmingham, where the first bus was attacked by KKK, smashing windows, and slashing tires. The vandalized bus was later run off the road by 40 cars, and set it ablaze.
When the bus rolled, one of the Freedom Riders fell out and was beaten with a baseball bat before several Highway Patrolmen broke up the mob. When the second bus made it to Anniston, some the Freedom Riders were beat unconscious. The buses made their way to Birmingham, the situation got worse. The Public Safety Commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor, was given heads up regarding protection, his response was to allow the KKK mob to beat on the riders for 15 minutes before he sent police. Here is the really bad note, the FBI had infiltrated the KKK and knew of the conspiracy, but did not inform the Justice Department. The FBI did nothing to stop the violence.
The Justice Department finally got involved, only after extreme beatings that almost resulted in deaths. The Freedom Riders did get to New Orleans, but not by bus... the Justice Department put them on planes to New Orleans.
The frenzy did not only affect blacks, but white too.
When the bus was burning, several whites went to help the riders, providing them with water, including this 12 year old girl. Her description of that night was "a hellish event". The KKK decided not to punish her because she was only a child, but her family could have been harmed.
Politicians in the Kennedy administration did not want to get involved with civil rights, but rather pay more attention to the Cold War. The mob attacks finally caught the attention the the administration. Russia figured they would use the civil unrest against us, and that was why Kennedy did something, though very little.
The SNCC students in Nashville heard about the bus attacks and quickly sent 10 students to pick up where the CORE riders left off. As soon as they arrived in Birmingham, they were arrested, and the next day "Bull" Connor drove them to the state line hoping they wouldn't return... no go, they were back in Birmingham the next day. This time the Freedom Ride was going to Mississippi.
The Freedom Riders had a bit of a problem with finding a bus driver willing to drive them. The Justice Department brokered a deal with the Alabama officials, so the state police escorted the bus to the Montgomery city limits. Apparently there should have been Montgomery police waiting at the bus station, but when they arrived, no police... good sign of trouble to come.
That's right, the riders were immediately attacked, and several ended up in the hospital. The assaulted riders vowed to continue on their purpose... to Jackson, MS.
Our beautiful government brokered a deal with the Mississippi governor to not interfere in his efforts to arrest the Freedom Riders, and that was what he did.
The Freedom Riders were sent to Mississippi State Prison, Parchman Farms. This prison in the middle of the delta, and was operated like a cotton plantation, where prisoners were often whipped, and some were shot dead. The hope of the governor was to break the spirit of the Freedom Riders, but it only strengthened them, and they became more committed to their cause.
This also energized the civil rights community, CORE, SNCC, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), formed a Freedom Riders Coordinating Committee, sending more than 400 Freedom Riders into the South between June and August of 1961.
A quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr regarding Montgomery, AL, in 1963: "Place yourself in the position of a Negro baby born and brought up to physical maturity in Birmingham... You would be born in a Jim Crow hospital... You would attend a Jim Crow school... You would have found a general atmosphere of violence and brutality... where the silent password was fear. YOU WOULD BE LIVING, IN FACT, IN THE MOST SEGREGATED CITY IN AMERICA."
How segregated was Birmingham. City businesses segregated the workplace, the city government segregated government. If that wasn't enough, the KKK frequently bombed black homes, churches, and businesses, reminding them that THERE WOULD BE NO DESEGREGATION. Remember that Public Safety Commissioner "Bull Conner", he was arguably the most powerful person at the time, controlling the police and fire departments. In other words, he would tell the police and fire when and how to respond... bad man.
A quote from "Bull" Connor: "DAMN THE LAW. DOWN HERE , WE MAKE OUR OWN LAW."
During the days of the movement it was important to have discipline, anyone wanting to participate needed to sign a document agreeing to the movement's ethics:
Apparently the movement added an 11th commandment:
It took children dying in Birmingham for President Kennedy to take action and create a new Civil Rights Bill. On Sept. 15th, 1963 four girls were killed at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, later that same night the police killed a young boy, and white thugs took the life of another boy. His bruised ego thought he needed to wake up, since he wasn't really desiring to be involved earlier in the movement. Plus it was an embarrassment in front of international leaders.
There was more to come... a march on Washington D.C.. The march in the 60's came from an idea back in 1941.
A gentleman by the name of Asa Philips Randolph wanted to march on Washington D.C. and compel President Roosevelt to end discrimination in defense industry hiring practices. The demands were: End discrimination in jobs, End discrimination in housing, Abolish Jim Crow in the military, and Establish a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee. In the final hour before the march, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee, and outlawing discrimination in the defense industry.
1963's walk on Washington D.C. had similar demands: Meaningful civil rights laws, Massive federal work program, Full and fair employment, Decent housing, The right to vote, and Adequate integrated education.
Washington D.C. authorities were preparing for a large unruly crowd to show up on their doorstep:
2550 local police officers
1700 National Guardsmen
350 club carrying firemen
300 newly sworn-in police reserve
4,000 soldiers made ready for riot duty
24-hr availability to judges to handle arrests
2,000 specially trained parade marshals
292 outdoor toilets
21 portable water fountains
22 first-aid stations
80 nurses
40 doctors
80,000 box lunches
Was the march a success... 250,000 people showed up, more than dreamed off and it was peaceful, but the media missed the point, Dr. King's speech reduced to one line, and Congress did not embrace Kennedy's Civil Rights Bill until after his assassination. The march turned out to be a day in time, and no issues really addressed.
There is a lot to see and read at this museum, so I am jumping forward a bit.
There were three marches from Selma, the third one was the successful 51-mile march from from Selma to Montgomery. With those marches, blacks finally achieved the right to vote in 1965.
This was room 306.
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