Uri Avnery Muhammad's Sword
23-09-2006
Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism" , in the context of the "Clash of Civilizations" .IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations" .In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On May 29, 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.IS THERE any truth in Manuel's argument?The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith".How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?Well, they just did not.For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?
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Sunday, October 28, 2007
Chavez demands Pope Benedict apologize for Indian comments
Chavez demands Pope apologize for Indian comments
Sat May 19, 2007 12:07am EDT
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez demanded Pope Benedict apologize to Indians in Latin America for saying this month in Brazil that the Roman Catholic Church purified them.
Chavez, who regularly clashes with the Catholic Church in Venezuela but had not directly criticized the Pope before, accused the Pontiff on Friday of ignoring the "holocaust" that followed Christopher Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas.
"With all due respect your Holiness, apologize because there was a real genocide here and, if we were to deny it, we would be denying our very selves," Chavez said at an event on freedom of expression.
In a speech to Latin American and Caribbean bishops at the end of a visit to Venezuela's neighbor Brazil, the Pope said the Church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Indian leaders in the region were outraged by the comments.
Millions of tribal Indians are believed to have died as a result of European colonization backed by the Church, through slaughter, disease or enslavement.
Chavez, who has expanded the rights of indigenous peoples from the Amazon rainforest to the Caribbean, said he felt he was Indian because Venezuelans are a mix of the European race and indigenous peoples.
Chavez spoke only days after Venezuelan media interpreted other comments from the Pope as singling out Chavez as a danger to Latin America when he warned of autocrats in the region.
Chavez, who regularly criticizes world figures such as U.S. President George W. Bush, describes himself as Christian, grew up expecting to become a priest and says his socialist policies have roots in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Sat May 19, 2007 12:07am EDT
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez demanded Pope Benedict apologize to Indians in Latin America for saying this month in Brazil that the Roman Catholic Church purified them.
Chavez, who regularly clashes with the Catholic Church in Venezuela but had not directly criticized the Pope before, accused the Pontiff on Friday of ignoring the "holocaust" that followed Christopher Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas.
"With all due respect your Holiness, apologize because there was a real genocide here and, if we were to deny it, we would be denying our very selves," Chavez said at an event on freedom of expression.
In a speech to Latin American and Caribbean bishops at the end of a visit to Venezuela's neighbor Brazil, the Pope said the Church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Indian leaders in the region were outraged by the comments.
Millions of tribal Indians are believed to have died as a result of European colonization backed by the Church, through slaughter, disease or enslavement.
Chavez, who has expanded the rights of indigenous peoples from the Amazon rainforest to the Caribbean, said he felt he was Indian because Venezuelans are a mix of the European race and indigenous peoples.
Chavez spoke only days after Venezuelan media interpreted other comments from the Pope as singling out Chavez as a danger to Latin America when he warned of autocrats in the region.
Chavez, who regularly criticizes world figures such as U.S. President George W. Bush, describes himself as Christian, grew up expecting to become a priest and says his socialist policies have roots in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Which Party Has More Sense, Pope Benedict XVI?
Which Party Has More Sense, Pope Benedict XVI?
By Dr. Hani Siba’i
18/09/2006
The Head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI (his real name is Joseph Ratzinger), has given a lecture entitled “The Relationship between the Mind and Violence in Islam and Christianity.” The Pope has quoted the following sentences:
“A short while ago, it came to my mind a conversation, published by Professor Theodore Khory, from University of Munster, which was held between the Roman Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and a “learned Persian” Muslim on “Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both”. This meeting took place in 1391 near Ankara, during the Emperor’s stay in his winter residence.
IT seems that this Emperor has recorded this conversation during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402, because his argument was more comprehensive than his Persian counterpart. Pope Benedict XVI then quoted some statement, mentioned by Professor Khory about Jihad in Islam and its relation with violence:
“In the seventh dialogue, as reported by Professor Khory, the Emperor talked about the issue of Jihad, the Holy War. It is certain that the Emperor was aware that the Verse 256 of Surat al-Baqarah says: (There is no compulsion in religion). It is one of the first Suras to be revealed in the Qur’an as scholars stated, and it referred to the period when Muhammad had no power and was subjected to constant threat. But it is also certain that the Emperor was aware of what happened, in the subsequent period, in the Qur’an about the Holy War.”
So we can deduce that the Qur’an states (There is no compulsion in religion) when the Prophet r was weak in Makkah, that is when he was using Taqiyyah (concealment of one’s belief to escape persecution), according to Professor Khory, the Emperor and Pope Benedict XVI. This is confirmed by the Emperor’s knowledge of what was revealed in the Qur’an, in the subsequent period, about the Holy War; that is when Jihad was prescribed in the Madinah period. So Pope Benedict XVI is fully aware and acquainted with what he believes and says, which contradicts the statement made by sheikh al-Azhar Tantawi and some Muslim scholars when they accused Pope Benedict XVI of ignorance of Islam!!!
Pope Benedict XVI then moves to a paragraph of direct insult, ascribed to the Roman Emperor, and he was praising the Emperor and consenting to his resentful analysis:
“Without mentioning much explanation, such as ‘the difference between the treatment of Islam to the believers, the People of the Book and the disbelievers,’ the Emperor has unexpectedly suggested to his Persian counterpart the main question for us, which is the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
I say: who clears the name of the Virgin Mary? Isn’t it the Qur’an revealed by Allah I to His Prophet r? Who clears the Noble Messengers from the accusation of adultery and theft? Isn’t it the Qur’an revealed by Allah I to His Prophet r? How can their hatred and envy reach such a moral degradation?
Pope Benedict XVI continued his transgression, quoting the following statement:
“The decisive statement in this argument against the spread of religion (i.e., Islam) by using violence is: acting in a way which is incompatible with the mind and incompatible with the nature of the Lord. Professor Theodore Khory commented on this statement saying: According to the Byzantine Emperor, who had learned the Greek philosophy, this statement was clear with regards to the Islamic creed. The Choice of the Lord is not absolute and His Will is not linked with any of our saying or even with the mind.”
So, the Catholic Pope deduced that “the Prophet Muhammad r did not bring anything new, that he r conveyed only that which was evil and inhuman and that Islam is a religion that promotes violence, and that Islam is against the mind and intellect,” (Mighty is the word that comes out of their mouths. They utter nothing but a lie) (Surat al-Kahf: verse 5).
Therefore, from the above introduction, I would like to comment on the Pope’s statement, in an attempt to defend our beloved Prophet r and our Great Religion, Islam, praising Allah I who guides us to be Muslims:
First: Al-Baqillani and the Pope
Second: Holy Violence from their Holy Book
Third: the Disgraceful History
Fourth: Conclusion
First: Al-Baqillani and the Pope
Some people might wonder about the relationship between judge Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn at-Tayyib al-Baqillani, from Baghdad, the Great Imam of his time who died in 403 A.H and Pope Benedict XVI?
The connection between the two is that the Emperor in Constantinople had asked the Abbasid Caliph to send him one of the Muslim scholars for a debate with the ancestor of Pope Benedict XVI. The Abbasid Caliph has chosen the distinguished Imam al-Baqillani to debate with them. This debate was mentioned by al-Qadhi Iyyad in his “Tarteeb al-Madarik”, by adh-Dhahabi in his “Siyar A’lam an-Nubala’” and Ibn Khallakaan in “Wafayaat al-A’yan”. Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn at-Tayyib al-Baqillani was a prodigy during his era, very persuasive, the spokesman of the Ummah and the sheikh and defender of Sunnah, a very clever scholar, and knowledgeable of all sciences. He managed to defeat the masters of the Mu’tazili sect and silence all innovators of his time. In short, this prominent scholar did not approach the Christians to ask them for a debate of the so-called “Dialogue of Civilisations;” but it was the Roman Emperor who had pleaded with the Muslims for a debate on the fundamentals of the two religions’ creed.
A short summary about the course of the debate:
Judge al-Baqillani refused to take off his turban when he entered upon the Emperor, and he insisted on not taking off his socks when he was asked to do so. He said: “I do not take them off and I will only enter with my full Muslim dress; I am one of the Muslim scholars and what you request from us (change our dress) is humiliation and dishonour to us. Allah I has elevated us with Islam and honoured us with our Prophet Muhammad r. In addition, when the Kings send their messengers to another king, they should be honoured and respected, and not humiliated, especially if they are scholars; humiliating a scholar is a disgrace before Allah and before Muslims.” The Emperor had no option but to welcome him and accepted his terms and conditions.
This is a lesson for today’s Muslim scholars, especially for those who disgrace themselves when they enter into a debate with the West, to the point that if one of them is asked to take off his garment and turban, or anything that symbolises Islam, such as his beard, he will assent, without hesitation. Rather there are some scholars who are prepared to give up the fundamental basics of Islam, under the pretext of encouraging others to appreciate the Shari’ah! Obviously, this is what cheered Benedict and his company and incited Bush and his band of criminals, and everyone on earth to abuse the religion of Islam and its Messenger, Muhammad, may peace be upon him.
Return to the debate of al-Baqillani:
Due to the length of the debate, I will report only some scenes of it, as follows:
The first position:
Adh-Dhahabi said in the Biographies Part10, page 408, the publication of as-Safa library, Cairo: “The tyrant (the Roman emperor) asked him: ‘What happened to your Prophet’s wife?’ al-Baqillani replied: ‘Just as it happened to Maryam, daughter of ‘Imran; Allah declared their innocence, but ‘Aishah did not come with a child’ and so he silenced him.”
The second position:
Al-Qadi ‘Ayyad said in his book “Tarteeb al-Madarik” Part2, page 210, the publication of dar-al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyah, Beirut, reporting the debate: “The emperor said to him: ‘What do you say about the splitting of the moon which you claim it was a miracle of your prophet?’ al-Baqillani said: “This is true according to us. The moon had split during the time of our Prophet, peace be upon him, until people had seen it. Only present people and those who happened to watch the event had witnessed it.
The emperor asked: “But how is it that not all people had seen it?”
Al-Baqillani replied: “Because not all people were prepared to watch its splitting.”
The emperor asked: “Is there any relationship between you and this moon? Why is it that the Romans and all other nations had not witnessed it, but you, in particular, had seen it?
Al-Baqillani replied: “What about the “table” (i.e. the table which was sent down upon prophet ‘Isa (Jesus), peace be upon him, from the heavens)? Is there any relationship between you and that table? You (the Christians) have seen it, but not the Jews, the Magus, the Brahmans, the atheists, especially your neighbours, the Greeks. They all deny such thing, yet you have seen it while other nations did not.”
The king then asked one of their great priests to intervene:
Al-Baqillani said: “They brought a man with a blond hair, and when he sat, I reported the issue to him and he said: ‘What the Muslim has said is maintained; I know of no other answer, except what he said.’ I said to him: ‘What do you say about the eclipse? Do all people on earth see it or just the people in the region where it takes place?’ the priest replied: ‘It is seen only by those who are in the region where it takes place.’ I said: ‘So what do you deny about the splitting of the moon, since it takes place in a region where only its people can witness it and those who prepare themselves to see it? As for those who are in place where they cannot see the moon, they would not be able to witness it.’ The priest said: ‘It is as you said. No one can deny what you just said; the argument is about the narrators who reported the event.
The king asked: ‘and how to discredit the narrators?’ the priest said: ‘When signs like this one are true, they should be reported by a large crowd to a large crowd, until the necessary knowledge about it reaches us. Had been so, we would have received the necessary knowledge about it. Therefore, since no necessary knowledge about it has reached us, it means that the information is fabricated.’ The king turned to me and said: “Your answer?”
I said: “What is irrevocable and unquestionable for him regarding the “table” is irrevocable and unquestionable for me regarding the splitting of the moon. It would be said to him: had the sending down of the “table” been true, it would have been reported by a large number of people; and so there would be no Jew or Christian or dualist except that he is aware of it by obligation. Since they do not necessarily know about it, it means that the information is fabricated and a lie.”
The priest and the king were startled, and so was the whole gathering, which concluded with that fact.”
The Third Position:
It was said that the Roman king had promised to meet al-Qadi al-Baqillani in one of the Christian congregations. Al-Baqillani attended the meeting, which was characterised by excessive adornment. He was offered a seat next to the king who was displaying all signs of pride, with his crown on, and surrounded by his men. Then came the Patriarch (the Pope in his time) and al-Qadi al-Baqillani greeted him with a question that led to an exquisite conversation between them, as reported by scholars al-Qadi ‘Ayyadh and Adh-Dhahabi:
Al-Baqillani asked him: “How is the family (wife and the children)?”
The question was hard on the Patriarch and everyone in the gathering. They all performed the Cross sign over their faces and condemned al-Baqillani’s question!
The king said: “Don’t you know that the monk abstains from such thing?”
Al-Baqillani replied: “You approve of his abstention of that but you attribute to the Lord of the Worlds a female companion and a child; you don’t deem the Lord of the Worlds above such thing.”
I say: This was the way of our great scholars, who raised themselves above falsehood with their faith. They never sold themselves out with their knowledge, and never offered themselves cheaply at the expense of their religion. They were truly stars in the space of history.
Second: The Holy Violence from their Holy Book!
The Pope Benedict the sixteenth accused Islam of violence! We will not reply against him neither with the Qur’an nor with the Sunnah nor with extracts from the book of Ibn Taymiyyah (The Authentic Reply to those who changed the Religion of Christ”, nor even from the debates of Sheikh Ahmed Deedat, in which he defeated them, may Allah have mercy upon him. But we reply against him from the Old Testament, in which the Pope Benedict and all Christians believe, to know, with sharp proofs, who is the arrogant liar!
These are some of the extracts from some books of the Old Testament:
(1) Deuteronomy, Chapter 20:
Going to the battle after besieging a city that refuses to surrender:
And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.
(2) Deuteronomy, Chapter 12:
These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree.
And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.
(3) Deuteronomy, Chapter 13:
If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,
Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known; Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;
Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.
And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.
(4) Deuteronomy, Chapter 7:
But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
(5) Ezekiel, Chapter 9:
And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.
And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.
(6) Numbers, Chapter 31:
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.
And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the LORD of Midian.
Of every tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the war.
So there were delivered out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war.
And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand of every tribe, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow in his hand.
And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.
And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.
And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.
And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.
And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho.
And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
I say: What would the reply of Pope “Benedict” be regarding all these clear texts, urging for violence and killing of women, children and old people, with no sign of mercy of pity?
How would the Pope Benedict and the Patriarchs reply to these texts urging for the destruction of houses and whole cities upon their inhabitants?
How would the Pope Benedict and the Patriarchs explain this unmerciful incitement for brutality against animals, trees, crops and everything that belongs to their enemies?
The Poet Ahmed Shawqi was right in his condemnation to those who claim to fight in the name of Jesus Christ, who is innocent of them:
You were neither a blood thirsty man nor indifferent towards the weak and the orphans
O bearer of the suffering of mankind many of our sufferings are caused in your name
The disgraceful and bloody history of the Benedict Family:
We are not going to talk about the massacres of Muslims by the Christians during the Crusade wars, but we will rather talk about the massacres carried by the Cross worshippers among each others and with other nations, in the following points:
First: The Slaughter of Saint Bartholomew.
It was the slaughter of the Protestants in all parts of France. They slaughtered by the Catholics, by order of the King of France, Charles the Ninth, following a request from his mother Catherine De Medici on 24th August, 1572.
There were different statements regarding the number of killed people in that massacre, and some assumed it had reached sixty thousand (60,000). Oh, how terrible! In one single day, the grandfathers of Benedict killed sixty thousand Protestants of their own people. It is truly an honourable history!
Second: The losses of the First World War (1914-1918): nearly thirty five million dead (35m).
The arms expenses reached the figure of 2100 billion dollars ($2100B)
The losses of past wars: 207 million dead; most of them during the imperialistic invasions, and also in civil and national wars.
I say: These wars had nothing to do with the Muslims, and there was no al-Qaeda organisation or any terrorism, except the western terrorism, in that period between Christians themselves!
The Nazi of Christian Hitler was a pure Western product!
The Fascism of Christian Mussolini was a pure Christian product!
The Ku Klux Klan groups, which caused terror against African Americans, were a pure Christian American product!
The placing of bags as hood-masks on Muslim prisoners’ heads in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram was inspired from those savage and terrorist groups, who used to burn villages of black people, and used to put hanging posts in front the houses black people to terrorise them!
Not to mention the mafia and inter-continental crimes, which are all a western Christian product!
Third: The American president, William McKinley, who ordered the invasion of The Philippines in 1898, said: “We did not go to the Philippines to occupy it; but the matter was that Jesus Christ had visited me in my sleep and asked me to act like Americans and go to the Philippines to make its people enjoy civilisation”!
Believe it or not! The presidents of the Christians receive divine revelations! McKinley invades the Philippines because the Lord visited him in his dream!
George W. Bush was also visited by the Lord calling him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq! (what for?) so that those populations enjoy civilisation!!
Has democracy been established? Are the people of the Philippines enjoying the paradise of the Christian west?
Of course, the country once called Aman-Allah (a predominantly Muslim state liberated by Muslims), has now become the Philippines with a Muslim minority! The western Christian civilisation is highlighted in the manners and skills of eating dogs and cats and killing the Muslims, exactly what is happening now in the enjoyment of the Iraqi and Afghan populations of the western Christian civilisation, under the leadership of America!
Fourth: Johann Galtung said: “The western countries are a property of the US, and the US is in alliance with God.” (Fahd al-‘Araabi: America which teaches us democracy, p.311).
I say: This is an alliance with Satan obviously, because God does not enjoin evil and immorality. Allah said the truth when He said about them:
(The unbelievers are protectors, one of another: unless ye do this, (protect Each other), there would be tumult and oppression on earth, and great mischief.) Surat al-Anfaal, Verse 73 (8:73).
Fifth: Robert Crush quoted his superior’s command: “I want a count of dead bodies not prisoners of war.” Crush added: “We used to consider as ligitimate dead body anybody over 12 years old.” (America Who Teaches us Democracy: p.342).
Sixth: In Italy, and until recently (in 1762), “prisoners’ bodies were destroyed on the wheel of torture bone by bone, or tied up to the tail of a provoked horse, then dragged on the ground.” (Wall Durant: The Story of Civilisation, Translated by Fuad Andrew Samg, 39-40, p.176)
I say: Of course I haven’t mentioned the issue of investigation trials because they are not worth mentioning, for they are among the successive sordid atrocities committed by Benedict’s ancestors and his catholic fellowmen against Muslims in Andalusia!! A very decent Christian Western civilisation, indeed!!
Seventh: The Eradication of the Indigenous:
In his book The Conquest is Ongoing (Translation by Mia Zabahan, p.13), Noam Chomsky pointed out that the Europeans’ conquest of the world brought about two unprecedented disasters in history: The destruction of the indigenous in the western hemisphere and deterioration of Africa, where slave trade soared high.” Chomsky attributes the most significant factor behind the Europeans’ success to their conquest of the world: “Europe’s ability to foster and manipulate the culture of violence.”
Eighth: The Bangali capital Dākhā was booming at the time that the Europeans dubbed it the Manchester of India, as a reference to the British industrial Manchester! So, what happened to its people under the promoters of the Western Christian civilisation? Its populace, according to Chomsky, shrank from 150,000 to 30,000 due to British terrorism!!
Ninth: The so-called civilised Europeans killed 10 million people from Zaire! Noam said, “Churchill would set up the principle of chemical attack, then would say, ‘It is completely right to use lethal gases against uncivilised tribes’, p.43. This is what they have done in the past and what they are doing at present in Afghanistan! Otherwise, how Benedict would interpret the presence of the Christian NATO in Afghanistan? Are they offering cakes, manna and quails to the poor and wronged Afghani people? Or are they showering them with tons of explosives and lethal gases which utterly wipe out villages! What are those who claim to be Jesus followers doing in Afghanistan? Aren’t they spreading violence, murder, destruction in the land? Aren’t they committing rapes and arrogantly destroying land? Who has killed one and half million Iraqis during the unjust sanctions against Baghdad? Aren’t the perpetrators, the leaders of the so-called civilised Christian Western civilisation? Who has killed more than 200,000 people in Iraq since the invasion in 2003? Aren’t they the civilised Christian West and its sheep-like collaborators? Where is the blush of shyness, Benedict?”
Tenth: A witness from your folk: Before his death, the Spanish historian Las Casa wrote in his will: “I think that Allah will pour his wrath on Spain because of the atrocities committed, and because most Spanish people benefited from the blood-soaked wealth usurped along the coasts and amidst slaughter and destruction.” (Chawsky: p.58) I (the author) would say: “Wouldn’t it be wise to follow in the footsteps of the Spanish historian Las, Benedict? Wouldn’t it be wise to resort to reason and speak out the truth, and wash your hands of the followers of your creed who have committed crimes against humanity at large? So which group is wiser than the other, Benedict?
The best of arguments:
With the foregoing, it has become clear to us which group has more sense than the other. So, is it the one which disgraces their prophets or the one which honours them? What wisdom do you claim you have, Benedict, when you believe in the Prophet Lut’s incestuous relationship with his two daughters? This is the shocking extract from Genesis 19:30-38:
“Lot left Zoar and retired with his two daughters to a cave in an adjacent mountain. In Gen. 19:30-38, Lot's daughters incorrectly believed they were the only females to have survived the devastation. They assumed it was their responsibility to bear children and enable the continuation of the human race. On two subsequent nights, they got their father drunk enough to sleep with them, and they became pregnant. The first son was named Moav (Hebrew, lit., "from the father" [meh-Av]). He was the patriarch of the nation known as Moab. The second son was named Ammon or Ben-Ammi (Hebrew, lit., "from our nation"). He became the patriarch of the nation of Ammon.”
So, imagine: drinking alcohol and committing illegal sexual intercourse, and not just a simple illegal sexual intercourse by an ordinary person. It is an act by an infallible prophet, who committed incest with his two daughters and not just one, which means, a lineage of illegal sexual intercourse. So, this is the secret behind the spread of dissoluteness, incest and committing the forbidden by doing what Lut’s people used to do, homosexuality and lesbianism. One would argue, why one should at all be surprised since a prophet, pure and infallible as he was, would commit incest with his two daughters? Do such brains deserve respect when they believe in lies such as these forged against Allah’s Messengers?
Where are the brains of those people who claim that the son of god was living in a woman’s womb? Why his father (the god) abandoned him and did not intervene in his crucifixion and sordid murder? Where is the wisdom of this father (the god) who stood and watched his son’s crucifixion by those criminals? Where is your brain, Benedict, when you believe that the Prophet Jacob fought with Allah as mentioned in Genesis 32:
“But when the man saw that he was not able to overcome Jacob, he gave him a blow in the hollow part of his leg, so that his leg was damaged. And he said to him, Let me go now, for the dawn is near. But Jacob said, I will not let you go till you have given me your blessing. Then he said, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel: for in your fight with God and with men you have overcome. Then Jacob said, What is your name? And he said, What is my name to you? Then he gave him a blessing. And Jacob gave that place the name of Peniel, saying, I have seen God face to face, and still I am living. And while he was going past Peniel, the sun came up. And he went with unequal steps because of his damaged leg. For this reason the children of Israel, even today, never take that muscle in the hollow of the leg as food, because the hollow of Jacob's leg was touched.”
Imagine (May Allah bless our brains, we Muslims) Prophet Jacob were fighting Allah, the Lord of the two worlds, and the Lord were begging him to let him go because the dawn was setting, and the Lord did not know the name of Jacob and would ask him what his name was, and would give him the name of Israel!! Then, there is the latest funny and saddening story of that muscle in the hollow of the leg which the Israelis do not eat because Jacob's leg was touched!! Thank Allah for the blessing of brain! (We should have forged against God a lie if we returned into your creed, after God delivered us from it.) (The Qur’ān, 7:89) Where are their brains, when they believe that Jesus accused Messengers before him of theft! This is not a lie which we have forged against Benedict and his followers! Evidence in John:10 says: “Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.”
Imagine and think deeply about the fact that Allah’s Messengers were thieves and robbers!! This is a great lie! Now, Benedict, the truth is at last discovered, and it has become crystal clear to every sane person ‘which group has more sense’!!
By Dr. Hani Siba’i
18/09/2006
The Head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI (his real name is Joseph Ratzinger), has given a lecture entitled “The Relationship between the Mind and Violence in Islam and Christianity.” The Pope has quoted the following sentences:
“A short while ago, it came to my mind a conversation, published by Professor Theodore Khory, from University of Munster, which was held between the Roman Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and a “learned Persian” Muslim on “Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both”. This meeting took place in 1391 near Ankara, during the Emperor’s stay in his winter residence.
IT seems that this Emperor has recorded this conversation during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402, because his argument was more comprehensive than his Persian counterpart. Pope Benedict XVI then quoted some statement, mentioned by Professor Khory about Jihad in Islam and its relation with violence:
“In the seventh dialogue, as reported by Professor Khory, the Emperor talked about the issue of Jihad, the Holy War. It is certain that the Emperor was aware that the Verse 256 of Surat al-Baqarah says: (There is no compulsion in religion). It is one of the first Suras to be revealed in the Qur’an as scholars stated, and it referred to the period when Muhammad had no power and was subjected to constant threat. But it is also certain that the Emperor was aware of what happened, in the subsequent period, in the Qur’an about the Holy War.”
So we can deduce that the Qur’an states (There is no compulsion in religion) when the Prophet r was weak in Makkah, that is when he was using Taqiyyah (concealment of one’s belief to escape persecution), according to Professor Khory, the Emperor and Pope Benedict XVI. This is confirmed by the Emperor’s knowledge of what was revealed in the Qur’an, in the subsequent period, about the Holy War; that is when Jihad was prescribed in the Madinah period. So Pope Benedict XVI is fully aware and acquainted with what he believes and says, which contradicts the statement made by sheikh al-Azhar Tantawi and some Muslim scholars when they accused Pope Benedict XVI of ignorance of Islam!!!
Pope Benedict XVI then moves to a paragraph of direct insult, ascribed to the Roman Emperor, and he was praising the Emperor and consenting to his resentful analysis:
“Without mentioning much explanation, such as ‘the difference between the treatment of Islam to the believers, the People of the Book and the disbelievers,’ the Emperor has unexpectedly suggested to his Persian counterpart the main question for us, which is the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
I say: who clears the name of the Virgin Mary? Isn’t it the Qur’an revealed by Allah I to His Prophet r? Who clears the Noble Messengers from the accusation of adultery and theft? Isn’t it the Qur’an revealed by Allah I to His Prophet r? How can their hatred and envy reach such a moral degradation?
Pope Benedict XVI continued his transgression, quoting the following statement:
“The decisive statement in this argument against the spread of religion (i.e., Islam) by using violence is: acting in a way which is incompatible with the mind and incompatible with the nature of the Lord. Professor Theodore Khory commented on this statement saying: According to the Byzantine Emperor, who had learned the Greek philosophy, this statement was clear with regards to the Islamic creed. The Choice of the Lord is not absolute and His Will is not linked with any of our saying or even with the mind.”
So, the Catholic Pope deduced that “the Prophet Muhammad r did not bring anything new, that he r conveyed only that which was evil and inhuman and that Islam is a religion that promotes violence, and that Islam is against the mind and intellect,” (Mighty is the word that comes out of their mouths. They utter nothing but a lie) (Surat al-Kahf: verse 5).
Therefore, from the above introduction, I would like to comment on the Pope’s statement, in an attempt to defend our beloved Prophet r and our Great Religion, Islam, praising Allah I who guides us to be Muslims:
First: Al-Baqillani and the Pope
Second: Holy Violence from their Holy Book
Third: the Disgraceful History
Fourth: Conclusion
First: Al-Baqillani and the Pope
Some people might wonder about the relationship between judge Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn at-Tayyib al-Baqillani, from Baghdad, the Great Imam of his time who died in 403 A.H and Pope Benedict XVI?
The connection between the two is that the Emperor in Constantinople had asked the Abbasid Caliph to send him one of the Muslim scholars for a debate with the ancestor of Pope Benedict XVI. The Abbasid Caliph has chosen the distinguished Imam al-Baqillani to debate with them. This debate was mentioned by al-Qadhi Iyyad in his “Tarteeb al-Madarik”, by adh-Dhahabi in his “Siyar A’lam an-Nubala’” and Ibn Khallakaan in “Wafayaat al-A’yan”. Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn at-Tayyib al-Baqillani was a prodigy during his era, very persuasive, the spokesman of the Ummah and the sheikh and defender of Sunnah, a very clever scholar, and knowledgeable of all sciences. He managed to defeat the masters of the Mu’tazili sect and silence all innovators of his time. In short, this prominent scholar did not approach the Christians to ask them for a debate of the so-called “Dialogue of Civilisations;” but it was the Roman Emperor who had pleaded with the Muslims for a debate on the fundamentals of the two religions’ creed.
A short summary about the course of the debate:
Judge al-Baqillani refused to take off his turban when he entered upon the Emperor, and he insisted on not taking off his socks when he was asked to do so. He said: “I do not take them off and I will only enter with my full Muslim dress; I am one of the Muslim scholars and what you request from us (change our dress) is humiliation and dishonour to us. Allah I has elevated us with Islam and honoured us with our Prophet Muhammad r. In addition, when the Kings send their messengers to another king, they should be honoured and respected, and not humiliated, especially if they are scholars; humiliating a scholar is a disgrace before Allah and before Muslims.” The Emperor had no option but to welcome him and accepted his terms and conditions.
This is a lesson for today’s Muslim scholars, especially for those who disgrace themselves when they enter into a debate with the West, to the point that if one of them is asked to take off his garment and turban, or anything that symbolises Islam, such as his beard, he will assent, without hesitation. Rather there are some scholars who are prepared to give up the fundamental basics of Islam, under the pretext of encouraging others to appreciate the Shari’ah! Obviously, this is what cheered Benedict and his company and incited Bush and his band of criminals, and everyone on earth to abuse the religion of Islam and its Messenger, Muhammad, may peace be upon him.
Return to the debate of al-Baqillani:
Due to the length of the debate, I will report only some scenes of it, as follows:
The first position:
Adh-Dhahabi said in the Biographies Part10, page 408, the publication of as-Safa library, Cairo: “The tyrant (the Roman emperor) asked him: ‘What happened to your Prophet’s wife?’ al-Baqillani replied: ‘Just as it happened to Maryam, daughter of ‘Imran; Allah declared their innocence, but ‘Aishah did not come with a child’ and so he silenced him.”
The second position:
Al-Qadi ‘Ayyad said in his book “Tarteeb al-Madarik” Part2, page 210, the publication of dar-al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyah, Beirut, reporting the debate: “The emperor said to him: ‘What do you say about the splitting of the moon which you claim it was a miracle of your prophet?’ al-Baqillani said: “This is true according to us. The moon had split during the time of our Prophet, peace be upon him, until people had seen it. Only present people and those who happened to watch the event had witnessed it.
The emperor asked: “But how is it that not all people had seen it?”
Al-Baqillani replied: “Because not all people were prepared to watch its splitting.”
The emperor asked: “Is there any relationship between you and this moon? Why is it that the Romans and all other nations had not witnessed it, but you, in particular, had seen it?
Al-Baqillani replied: “What about the “table” (i.e. the table which was sent down upon prophet ‘Isa (Jesus), peace be upon him, from the heavens)? Is there any relationship between you and that table? You (the Christians) have seen it, but not the Jews, the Magus, the Brahmans, the atheists, especially your neighbours, the Greeks. They all deny such thing, yet you have seen it while other nations did not.”
The king then asked one of their great priests to intervene:
Al-Baqillani said: “They brought a man with a blond hair, and when he sat, I reported the issue to him and he said: ‘What the Muslim has said is maintained; I know of no other answer, except what he said.’ I said to him: ‘What do you say about the eclipse? Do all people on earth see it or just the people in the region where it takes place?’ the priest replied: ‘It is seen only by those who are in the region where it takes place.’ I said: ‘So what do you deny about the splitting of the moon, since it takes place in a region where only its people can witness it and those who prepare themselves to see it? As for those who are in place where they cannot see the moon, they would not be able to witness it.’ The priest said: ‘It is as you said. No one can deny what you just said; the argument is about the narrators who reported the event.
The king asked: ‘and how to discredit the narrators?’ the priest said: ‘When signs like this one are true, they should be reported by a large crowd to a large crowd, until the necessary knowledge about it reaches us. Had been so, we would have received the necessary knowledge about it. Therefore, since no necessary knowledge about it has reached us, it means that the information is fabricated.’ The king turned to me and said: “Your answer?”
I said: “What is irrevocable and unquestionable for him regarding the “table” is irrevocable and unquestionable for me regarding the splitting of the moon. It would be said to him: had the sending down of the “table” been true, it would have been reported by a large number of people; and so there would be no Jew or Christian or dualist except that he is aware of it by obligation. Since they do not necessarily know about it, it means that the information is fabricated and a lie.”
The priest and the king were startled, and so was the whole gathering, which concluded with that fact.”
The Third Position:
It was said that the Roman king had promised to meet al-Qadi al-Baqillani in one of the Christian congregations. Al-Baqillani attended the meeting, which was characterised by excessive adornment. He was offered a seat next to the king who was displaying all signs of pride, with his crown on, and surrounded by his men. Then came the Patriarch (the Pope in his time) and al-Qadi al-Baqillani greeted him with a question that led to an exquisite conversation between them, as reported by scholars al-Qadi ‘Ayyadh and Adh-Dhahabi:
Al-Baqillani asked him: “How is the family (wife and the children)?”
The question was hard on the Patriarch and everyone in the gathering. They all performed the Cross sign over their faces and condemned al-Baqillani’s question!
The king said: “Don’t you know that the monk abstains from such thing?”
Al-Baqillani replied: “You approve of his abstention of that but you attribute to the Lord of the Worlds a female companion and a child; you don’t deem the Lord of the Worlds above such thing.”
I say: This was the way of our great scholars, who raised themselves above falsehood with their faith. They never sold themselves out with their knowledge, and never offered themselves cheaply at the expense of their religion. They were truly stars in the space of history.
Second: The Holy Violence from their Holy Book!
The Pope Benedict the sixteenth accused Islam of violence! We will not reply against him neither with the Qur’an nor with the Sunnah nor with extracts from the book of Ibn Taymiyyah (The Authentic Reply to those who changed the Religion of Christ”, nor even from the debates of Sheikh Ahmed Deedat, in which he defeated them, may Allah have mercy upon him. But we reply against him from the Old Testament, in which the Pope Benedict and all Christians believe, to know, with sharp proofs, who is the arrogant liar!
These are some of the extracts from some books of the Old Testament:
(1) Deuteronomy, Chapter 20:
Going to the battle after besieging a city that refuses to surrender:
And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.
(2) Deuteronomy, Chapter 12:
These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree.
And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.
(3) Deuteronomy, Chapter 13:
If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,
Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known; Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;
Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.
And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.
(4) Deuteronomy, Chapter 7:
But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
(5) Ezekiel, Chapter 9:
And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.
And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.
(6) Numbers, Chapter 31:
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.
And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the LORD of Midian.
Of every tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the war.
So there were delivered out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war.
And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand of every tribe, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow in his hand.
And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.
And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.
And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.
And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.
And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho.
And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
I say: What would the reply of Pope “Benedict” be regarding all these clear texts, urging for violence and killing of women, children and old people, with no sign of mercy of pity?
How would the Pope Benedict and the Patriarchs reply to these texts urging for the destruction of houses and whole cities upon their inhabitants?
How would the Pope Benedict and the Patriarchs explain this unmerciful incitement for brutality against animals, trees, crops and everything that belongs to their enemies?
The Poet Ahmed Shawqi was right in his condemnation to those who claim to fight in the name of Jesus Christ, who is innocent of them:
You were neither a blood thirsty man nor indifferent towards the weak and the orphans
O bearer of the suffering of mankind many of our sufferings are caused in your name
The disgraceful and bloody history of the Benedict Family:
We are not going to talk about the massacres of Muslims by the Christians during the Crusade wars, but we will rather talk about the massacres carried by the Cross worshippers among each others and with other nations, in the following points:
First: The Slaughter of Saint Bartholomew.
It was the slaughter of the Protestants in all parts of France. They slaughtered by the Catholics, by order of the King of France, Charles the Ninth, following a request from his mother Catherine De Medici on 24th August, 1572.
There were different statements regarding the number of killed people in that massacre, and some assumed it had reached sixty thousand (60,000). Oh, how terrible! In one single day, the grandfathers of Benedict killed sixty thousand Protestants of their own people. It is truly an honourable history!
Second: The losses of the First World War (1914-1918): nearly thirty five million dead (35m).
The arms expenses reached the figure of 2100 billion dollars ($2100B)
The losses of past wars: 207 million dead; most of them during the imperialistic invasions, and also in civil and national wars.
I say: These wars had nothing to do with the Muslims, and there was no al-Qaeda organisation or any terrorism, except the western terrorism, in that period between Christians themselves!
The Nazi of Christian Hitler was a pure Western product!
The Fascism of Christian Mussolini was a pure Christian product!
The Ku Klux Klan groups, which caused terror against African Americans, were a pure Christian American product!
The placing of bags as hood-masks on Muslim prisoners’ heads in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram was inspired from those savage and terrorist groups, who used to burn villages of black people, and used to put hanging posts in front the houses black people to terrorise them!
Not to mention the mafia and inter-continental crimes, which are all a western Christian product!
Third: The American president, William McKinley, who ordered the invasion of The Philippines in 1898, said: “We did not go to the Philippines to occupy it; but the matter was that Jesus Christ had visited me in my sleep and asked me to act like Americans and go to the Philippines to make its people enjoy civilisation”!
Believe it or not! The presidents of the Christians receive divine revelations! McKinley invades the Philippines because the Lord visited him in his dream!
George W. Bush was also visited by the Lord calling him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq! (what for?) so that those populations enjoy civilisation!!
Has democracy been established? Are the people of the Philippines enjoying the paradise of the Christian west?
Of course, the country once called Aman-Allah (a predominantly Muslim state liberated by Muslims), has now become the Philippines with a Muslim minority! The western Christian civilisation is highlighted in the manners and skills of eating dogs and cats and killing the Muslims, exactly what is happening now in the enjoyment of the Iraqi and Afghan populations of the western Christian civilisation, under the leadership of America!
Fourth: Johann Galtung said: “The western countries are a property of the US, and the US is in alliance with God.” (Fahd al-‘Araabi: America which teaches us democracy, p.311).
I say: This is an alliance with Satan obviously, because God does not enjoin evil and immorality. Allah said the truth when He said about them:
(The unbelievers are protectors, one of another: unless ye do this, (protect Each other), there would be tumult and oppression on earth, and great mischief.) Surat al-Anfaal, Verse 73 (8:73).
Fifth: Robert Crush quoted his superior’s command: “I want a count of dead bodies not prisoners of war.” Crush added: “We used to consider as ligitimate dead body anybody over 12 years old.” (America Who Teaches us Democracy: p.342).
Sixth: In Italy, and until recently (in 1762), “prisoners’ bodies were destroyed on the wheel of torture bone by bone, or tied up to the tail of a provoked horse, then dragged on the ground.” (Wall Durant: The Story of Civilisation, Translated by Fuad Andrew Samg, 39-40, p.176)
I say: Of course I haven’t mentioned the issue of investigation trials because they are not worth mentioning, for they are among the successive sordid atrocities committed by Benedict’s ancestors and his catholic fellowmen against Muslims in Andalusia!! A very decent Christian Western civilisation, indeed!!
Seventh: The Eradication of the Indigenous:
In his book The Conquest is Ongoing (Translation by Mia Zabahan, p.13), Noam Chomsky pointed out that the Europeans’ conquest of the world brought about two unprecedented disasters in history: The destruction of the indigenous in the western hemisphere and deterioration of Africa, where slave trade soared high.” Chomsky attributes the most significant factor behind the Europeans’ success to their conquest of the world: “Europe’s ability to foster and manipulate the culture of violence.”
Eighth: The Bangali capital Dākhā was booming at the time that the Europeans dubbed it the Manchester of India, as a reference to the British industrial Manchester! So, what happened to its people under the promoters of the Western Christian civilisation? Its populace, according to Chomsky, shrank from 150,000 to 30,000 due to British terrorism!!
Ninth: The so-called civilised Europeans killed 10 million people from Zaire! Noam said, “Churchill would set up the principle of chemical attack, then would say, ‘It is completely right to use lethal gases against uncivilised tribes’, p.43. This is what they have done in the past and what they are doing at present in Afghanistan! Otherwise, how Benedict would interpret the presence of the Christian NATO in Afghanistan? Are they offering cakes, manna and quails to the poor and wronged Afghani people? Or are they showering them with tons of explosives and lethal gases which utterly wipe out villages! What are those who claim to be Jesus followers doing in Afghanistan? Aren’t they spreading violence, murder, destruction in the land? Aren’t they committing rapes and arrogantly destroying land? Who has killed one and half million Iraqis during the unjust sanctions against Baghdad? Aren’t the perpetrators, the leaders of the so-called civilised Christian Western civilisation? Who has killed more than 200,000 people in Iraq since the invasion in 2003? Aren’t they the civilised Christian West and its sheep-like collaborators? Where is the blush of shyness, Benedict?”
Tenth: A witness from your folk: Before his death, the Spanish historian Las Casa wrote in his will: “I think that Allah will pour his wrath on Spain because of the atrocities committed, and because most Spanish people benefited from the blood-soaked wealth usurped along the coasts and amidst slaughter and destruction.” (Chawsky: p.58) I (the author) would say: “Wouldn’t it be wise to follow in the footsteps of the Spanish historian Las, Benedict? Wouldn’t it be wise to resort to reason and speak out the truth, and wash your hands of the followers of your creed who have committed crimes against humanity at large? So which group is wiser than the other, Benedict?
The best of arguments:
With the foregoing, it has become clear to us which group has more sense than the other. So, is it the one which disgraces their prophets or the one which honours them? What wisdom do you claim you have, Benedict, when you believe in the Prophet Lut’s incestuous relationship with his two daughters? This is the shocking extract from Genesis 19:30-38:
“Lot left Zoar and retired with his two daughters to a cave in an adjacent mountain. In Gen. 19:30-38, Lot's daughters incorrectly believed they were the only females to have survived the devastation. They assumed it was their responsibility to bear children and enable the continuation of the human race. On two subsequent nights, they got their father drunk enough to sleep with them, and they became pregnant. The first son was named Moav (Hebrew, lit., "from the father" [meh-Av]). He was the patriarch of the nation known as Moab. The second son was named Ammon or Ben-Ammi (Hebrew, lit., "from our nation"). He became the patriarch of the nation of Ammon.”
So, imagine: drinking alcohol and committing illegal sexual intercourse, and not just a simple illegal sexual intercourse by an ordinary person. It is an act by an infallible prophet, who committed incest with his two daughters and not just one, which means, a lineage of illegal sexual intercourse. So, this is the secret behind the spread of dissoluteness, incest and committing the forbidden by doing what Lut’s people used to do, homosexuality and lesbianism. One would argue, why one should at all be surprised since a prophet, pure and infallible as he was, would commit incest with his two daughters? Do such brains deserve respect when they believe in lies such as these forged against Allah’s Messengers?
Where are the brains of those people who claim that the son of god was living in a woman’s womb? Why his father (the god) abandoned him and did not intervene in his crucifixion and sordid murder? Where is the wisdom of this father (the god) who stood and watched his son’s crucifixion by those criminals? Where is your brain, Benedict, when you believe that the Prophet Jacob fought with Allah as mentioned in Genesis 32:
“But when the man saw that he was not able to overcome Jacob, he gave him a blow in the hollow part of his leg, so that his leg was damaged. And he said to him, Let me go now, for the dawn is near. But Jacob said, I will not let you go till you have given me your blessing. Then he said, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel: for in your fight with God and with men you have overcome. Then Jacob said, What is your name? And he said, What is my name to you? Then he gave him a blessing. And Jacob gave that place the name of Peniel, saying, I have seen God face to face, and still I am living. And while he was going past Peniel, the sun came up. And he went with unequal steps because of his damaged leg. For this reason the children of Israel, even today, never take that muscle in the hollow of the leg as food, because the hollow of Jacob's leg was touched.”
Imagine (May Allah bless our brains, we Muslims) Prophet Jacob were fighting Allah, the Lord of the two worlds, and the Lord were begging him to let him go because the dawn was setting, and the Lord did not know the name of Jacob and would ask him what his name was, and would give him the name of Israel!! Then, there is the latest funny and saddening story of that muscle in the hollow of the leg which the Israelis do not eat because Jacob's leg was touched!! Thank Allah for the blessing of brain! (We should have forged against God a lie if we returned into your creed, after God delivered us from it.) (The Qur’ān, 7:89) Where are their brains, when they believe that Jesus accused Messengers before him of theft! This is not a lie which we have forged against Benedict and his followers! Evidence in John:10 says: “Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.”
Imagine and think deeply about the fact that Allah’s Messengers were thieves and robbers!! This is a great lie! Now, Benedict, the truth is at last discovered, and it has become crystal clear to every sane person ‘which group has more sense’!!
Friday, October 26, 2007
Black Churches Torched
Black Churches Torched
http://www.ncfbc.org/html/news.html#JUL2007
White Supremacy Organizations·
American Nazi Party · Aryan Brotherhood · Aryan Nations · Christian Conservative Church · Christian Identity · Ku Klux Klan (KKK) · National Alliance · The Posse Comitatus · The Order · White Aryan Resistance (WAR) · White Patriot Party · World Church of the Creator (WCOTC)
Selective Chronology
Julian Bond
1900
July 24-27 Black homes and schools destroyed in New Orleans race riot.
August 12 Whites attack blacks in New York.
November 6 William McKinley reelected President; Theodore Roosevelt elected Vice-President.
1901
March 4 North Carolina’s George H. White Leaves Congress; last black member for more than 25 years.
September 6 President McKinley assassinated. Roosevelt succeeds him.
October 16 Booker T. Washington (BTW) dines with President Roosevelt at The White House, creating and uproar.
1903
W.E.B. Du Bois’ (WEBD’s) Souls of Black Folk is published, Helping to organize criticism of BTW.
1904
August 16 Paul Reed and Willis Cato seized from jailers at their murder trial In Statesboro, Georgia, and burned alive.
1905
July 11-13 A group of black intellectuals meets near Niagara Falls and adopts resolutions demanding racial equality.
1906
April 13 Clashes erupt after white civilians taunt black soldiers in Brownsville, Texas; three white men die. President Roosevelt dishonorably discharges the soldiers.
September 22-24 Twenty-one die in Atlanta race riot.
1908
White anti-black riot in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown, Springfield, Illinois, prompts concerned whites to call for a conference which leads to founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
November 3 William Howard Taft elected President.
1909
February 12 White liberals and black intellectuals, including Jane Addams, Mary White Ovington, WEBD, Oswald Garrison Villard, and John Dewey form the NAACP.
March 31 U.S. occupation of Cuba ends.
November 18 U.S. warships ordered to Nicaragua.
1910
April The National Urban League (NUL) is formed in New York.
1911
March 7 Twenty Thousand U.S. troops dispatched to Mexican border.
1912
November 5 Woodrow Wilson elected President.
1914
April 21 U.S. forces seize customs house at Vera Cruz, Mexico; Marines occupy the city.
June 28 Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand assassinated.
1915
January 14 Two hundred whites storm jail in Monticello, Georgia, and lynch four blacks, members of Daniel Barber family.
June 21 Supreme Court outlaws “grandfather clauses” used to deny blacks the franchise in Guinn v. United States.
December 4 Dormant Ku Klux Klan revived under new charter granted by Georgia.
1916
March U.S. troops enter Mexico in search of Pancho Villa.
May U.S. Marines land in Santa Domingo, remain until 1924.
November Woodrow Wilson reelected President.
1917
April 2 Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes first woman seated in House of Representatives.
April 16 United States enters World War I. Three hundred thousand blacks will serve in the war; 1400 will be commissioned as officers.
July 1-3 At least 40 blacks killed in East St. Louis, Illinois, race riot.
July 28 NAACP organizes a silent march of 10,000 down Fifth Avenue to protest racism.
August 23 Black soldiers and white civilians clash in Houston, Texas; 17 whites, two blacks are killed. Thirteen blacks are later executed.
1918
February 19-21 Organized by WEBD, the first Pan-African Congress meets in Paris, concurrently with the Paris Peace Conference.
July 13- October 1 More than 25 race riots occur across U.S., leaving over 100 dead and thousands wounded. Eighty-three lynchings recorded in 1918.
November 11 World War I ends.
1920
August 1-2 Marcus Garvey’s (MG’s) Universal Negro Improvement Association’s (UNIA’s) National Convention meets in New York; MG speaks to 25,000 at Madison Square Garden
November 2 Warren G. Harding elected President.
1922-23
October to October An estimated 500,000 blacks leave the South. Klan violence increases. Oklahoma placed under martial law because of terrorist activity by Klan.
1925
May 8 A. Phillip Randolph (APR) organizes the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
August 8 Forty Thousand Ku Klux Klansmen march down Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue.
1926
May 10 U.S. Marines land in Nicaragua.
1927
March 7 In Nixon v Herndon, the Supreme Court strikes down a Texas law excluding blacks from Democratic primaries.
December MG, convicted in 1925 for mail fraud, released from federal prison and deported.
1928
November 6 Herbert Hoover elected President. Illinois Republican Congressman Oscar DePriest elected, the first black since 1901.
1929
January 15 Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) born in Atlanta.
October 29 Stock market crashes, beginning of Great Depression. Ten lynchings recorded in 1929.
1930
March 31 After President Hoover nominates North Carolina Judge John J. Parker to the Supreme Court, the NAACP leads a successful campaign against his nomination.
June 7 The New York Times announces that the word “Negro” will be spelled with a capital “N.”
1931
April 6 Nine black youths accused of raping two white women go on trial in Scottsboro, Alabama.
1932
November 8 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) is elected President, promising a “New Deal” to fight the Depression.
1934
July Souther Tenant Farmers’ Union organized.
November 7 Black Democrat Arthur Mitchell defeats Rep. DePriest in Chicago.Elijah Muhammad-born Elijah Poole in Georgia in 1897- succeeds W.S. Fard as leader of the Nation of Islam.
1935
June 25 Joe Louis defeats Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium.
1936
August 9 American Olympian Jesse Owens wins four Gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, embarrassing Adolph Hitler.
December 8 NAACP successfully files Gibbs v. Board of Education in Montgomery County, Maryland, equalizing white and black teachers’ salaries.
November 3 FDR reelected.
1937
March 26 William H. Hastie becomes the first black federal judge.
June 22 Joe Louis becomes the heavyweight champion by defeating James J. Braddock.
1938
December 12 In Missouri ex rel. Gaines the Supreme Court Rules states must provide equal, if separate, facilities within their boundaries.
1939
March Daughters of the American Revolution refuses Marian Anderson permission to sing at Washington’s Constitution Hall; Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes arranges her appearance on Easter Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial, where 75,000 gather to hear.
September 3 Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.
October 11 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is organized.
1940
February Richard Wright’s Native Son becomes a best seller.
March Hattie McDaniel becomes the first black to receive and Oscar for her role as “Mammy” in “Gone With the Wind.”
April Virginia Legislature adopts black composer James A. Bland’s “Carry Me To Old Virginny” as the state song.
May 26-June 4 British Expeditionary Forces retreat from Dunkirk.
June 10 MG dies in London.
September 27 FDR meets with black leaders to discuss discrimination in the military.
October 8 Senate kills anti-lynching bill.
October 9 White House declares War Department policy is “not to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations.”
October 16 Benjamin O. Davis Sr. makes Brigadier General, becoming the highest ranking black in the armed services.
October 25 FDR meets with Committee on Participation of Negros in the National Defense Program.
November 5 FRD reelected; Henry Wallace elected Vice-President.
1941
April 12 APR announces “plans for and all-out March of ten-thousand Negroes on Washington are in the making” to protest discrimination in the defense industries and the military.
April 28 Supreme Court rules that separate railroad facilities must be substantially equal.
May 1 March on Washington (MOW) Committee issues a formal call for a July 1 march.
June 13 New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia and Eleanor Roosevelt met with APR and MOW leadership.
June 15 FDR issues a memorandum saying “I shall expect the Office of Production Management to take immediate steps to facilitate the full utilization of our productive manpower.”
June 18 FDR meets with MOW Committee leaders.
June 22 Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union.
June 25 FDR issues Executive Order 8802 establishing the Fair Employment Practices Commission (EEPC).
June 28 APR announces the MOW will be postponed.
October 20-21 FEPC holds its first hearings in Los Angeles.
December 7 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters World War II December 8.
1942
March Fifty black organizations declare “that the Negro people were cool to the war effort because of continued racial discrimination.”
June 16 Eighteen thousand blacks pack a New York MOW rally.
June 26 Twenty-six thousand overflow Chicago MOW rally.
June Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is organized by and interracial group in Chicago.
November 3 Democrat William L. Dawson elected to Congress from Chicago.
1943
May 12-August 2 Forty killed in race riots; troops called out in Mobile and Detroit.
1944
April 3 In Smith v Allwright the Supreme Court rules the white-only primary unconstitutional.
August 1 New York Democrat Adam Clayton Powell elected to Congress.
November 7 FDR reelected President.
December 13 Black women permitted to enter the Women’s Naval Corps (WAVES).
1945
March 12 New York establishes the first state FEPC
April 12 FDR dies; Harry S. Truman (HST) succeeds him.
May 7 Germany surrenders.
June United Nations Charter Approved.
July 16 First atomic bomb exploded.
August 6 Hiroshima destroyed by U.S. atomic bomb.
September 2 Japan surrenders; World War II ends. More than one million blacks served.
1946
February 7 Senate filibuster kills bill for permanent FEPC.
February Malcolm Little sentenced to ten years in Massachusetts prison for burglary.
June 3 In Morgan v Virginia the Supreme Court outlaws segregation in interstate bus travel.
December 5 HST names committee on Civil Rights to investigate racial injustice.
1947
April 9 CORE sends “Freedom Riders” on a Journey of Reconciliation through the upper South to test Morgan v Virginia.
April 10 Jackie Robinson joins the Brooklyn Dodgers.
October 29 HST’s President Committee on Civil Rights releases “To Secure These Rights.”
1948
January 12 In Sipuel v University of Oklahoma the Supreme Court rules a state must provide a legal education for blacks if it offers a legal education to whites.
March 31 APR tells a U.S. Senate Committee he will urge black youth to refuse induction in the armed services unless discrimination in the Selective Service System is ended.
May 3 In Shelley v Kraemer the Supreme Court rules restrictive housing covenants unenforceable.
June 9 Attorney Oliver Hill elected to the Richmond, Virginia, City Council.
July 14 Southerners walk out of the Democratic National Convention to protest a civil rights plank.
July 26 HST issues Executive Orders 9980 and 9981 creating a Fair Employment Board to end racial discrimination in federally employment and a President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services.
November 2 HST elected President.
1950
June 5 In Sweatt v Painter the Supreme Court rules that equality in education requires more than identical physical facilities. In McLaurin v Oklahoma the Court rules that, once admitted to a previously all-white school, a black student cannot be segregated within the school.
June 27 U.S. enters the Korean War.
1951
February 2 Martinsville Seven executed in Richmond for raping a white woman.
April 24 University of North Carolina admits its first black student.
May 8 Willie McGee executed in Mississippi for raping a white woman.
May 24 Washington D.C., court outlaws segregation in District restaurants.
July 12 Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson calls out the National Guard to suppress a riot against a black family who moved into an all-white neighborhood in Cicero, Illinois.
October 1 The 24th Infantry, the last all-black Army unity, deactivated.
December 25 NAACP leaders Harry T. and Harriet Moore assassinated in Mims, Florida.
1952
January 12 University of Tennessee admits black students.
August Malcolm Little released from Massachusetts prison.
November 4 Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE) elected President; Richard M. Nixon (RN) elected Vice-President.
December 30 Tuskegee Institute reports 1952 was the first lynching-free year in seventy-one years.
1953
March 5 Jospeh Stalin dies.
May 7 French forces surrender at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam.
June 8 In District of Columbia v John R. Thompson Co., Inc. the Supreme Court upholds desegregation of Washington’s restaurants.
June 19 Bus boycott protesting unequal treatment begins in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
June 27 Korean armistice signed.
June Dr. Walter Ridley becomes first black graduate of a University of Virginia professional school.
August 4 Riot against integrated housing begins in Chicago.
August 20 Soviet Union announces the explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
1954
May 17 In Brown v Board of Education the Supreme Court rules unanimously that segregated public schools are inherently unequal and unconstitutional, overturning 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson.
June 29 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsored coup overthrows the government of Guatemala.
July First “White Citizens Council” organized in Indianola, Mississippi.
July 21 U.S. refuses to sign Geneva Accord on Indochina.
September 7-8 Public schools in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., desegregated.
September Bobby Bland enters the University of Virginia Engineering School.
November 2 Black Detroit Democrat Charles Diggs elected to Congress.
October White Citizens Council chapter organized in Selma, Alabama.
1955
January 18 DDE established President’s Committee on Government Policy to enforce a non-discriminatory policy in federal hiring.
April 11 Roy Wilkins becomes the NAACP’s Executive Secretary.
May 7 NAACP leader Rev. George Wesley Lee killed in Belzoni, Mississippi.
May 31 In Brown II, the Supreme Court orders schools integrated “with all deliberate speed.”
July 22 Alabama enacts a “Pupil Placement Law” to circumvent school desegregation.
August 1 Georgia teachers are ordered by the State Board of Education to resign from the NAACP or face firing.
August 13 Political activist Lamar Smith killed in Brookhaven, Mississippi.
August 28 Fourteen-year old Emmett Till kidnapped and murdered in Money, Mississippi
November 25 Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) prohibits segregation in public vehicles and waiting rooms used in interstate travel.
October 10 Supreme Court orders Autherine Lucy admitted to the University of Alabama.
October 22 John Earl Reese killed in Mayflower, Texas, by nightriders opposed to black school improvements.
December 1 Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus.
December 5 Parks convicted; a successful one-day boycott held to protest her arrest. MLK is elected leader of boycott organization, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).
1956
January 30 MLK home bombed in Montgomery.
February 1 MIA files lawsuit against bus segregation.
February 3 Autherine Lucy admitted to the University of Alabama.
February 7 Alabama students riot; Lucy suspended.
February 21 Montgomery grand jury indicts 115 boycott leaders. Bayard Rustin arrives in Montgomery to advise MLK.
February 28 Rustin, Stanley, Levison, Ella J. Baker organize “In Friendship” in New York to assist southern activists.
February 29 Lucy expelled for making “false” and “outrageous” statements about university officials.
March 11 Nineteen senators and 81 representatives in Southern Manifesto, promise to use “all lawful means” to reverse Brown v Board of Education.
March 22 MLK convicted of leading illegal boycott.
April South Carolina State College students boycott classes to protest official harassment of NAACP.
April 11 Singer Nat “King” Cole attacked on stage in Birmingham.
April 23 Supreme Court overturns South Carolina bus segregation law.
May 27 Florida A&M University students in Tallahassee begin boycott of segregated busses.
June 1 Alabama outlaws NAACP.
June 5 Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and others organize the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) in Birmingham.
June 5 In Browder v Gayle three-judge district court rules Montgomery’s bus segregation is legal.
June 30 Tallahassee bus service suspended.
October 23 Hungarian uprising begins.
November 4 Soviet troops attack Budapest and crush Hungarian revolt.
November 6 DDE defeats Stevenson soundly.
November 13 Supreme Court affirms Montgomery bus segregation ruling.
December 20 MIA ends bus boycott.
December 23 Tallahassee boycott ends; city continues segregation.
December 25 Bomb destroys Shuttlesworth’s home.
December 26 Shuttlesworth, others arrested for breaking Birmingham’s bus segregation law.
December 27 Tallahassee bus segregation declared illegal.
1957
January 10-11 Sixty meet at Atlanta’s Ebeneezer Baptist Church to form “Southern Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolence”; MLK is chosen Chairman.
January 23 Willie James Edwards forced by Klansmen to jump to his death from a railroad bridge in Montgomery.
February 14 MLK is elected President of Southern Negro Leadership Conference in New Orleans.
March MLK visits Ghana to attend independence ceremonies.
May 17 MLK addresses 15,000 at Prayer Pilgrimage in Washington at Lincoln Memorial.
June MLK meets Vice President RN. Blacks at Tuskegee, Alabama, begin boycott to protest gerrymander removing nearly all blacks from city limits.
August Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) hold first convention in Montgomery.
September 9 Civil Rights Act becomes law.
September 24-25 DDE orders federal troops into Little Rock to halt interference with integration of Central High School.
October 4 Soviet Union launches artificial satellite Sputnik.
1958
January Baker sets up SCLC offices in Atlanta.
January 31 U.S. launches satellite Explorer
February 12 SCLC begins “Crusade for Citizenship”
May Rev. John Tilley becomes SCLC Executive Director.
June 23 MLK, Roy Wilkins, APR and NUL’s Lester Granger meet with DDE
July 15 DDE sends U.S. Marines to Lebanon
August 19 NAACP Youth Council members in Oklahoma city begin lunch counter sit-in demonstrations.
September 3 MLK arrested in Montgomery.
September 20 MLK stabbed while autographing Stride Toward Freedom in New York.
October 12 Atlanta synagogue bombed.
1959
April 15 Tilley resigns; Baker replaces him on temporary basis.
April 25 Mack Charles Parker, accused of rape, is taken from his jail cell and lynched in Poplarville, Mississippi.
September 7 U.S. Civil Rights Commission asks DDE to appoint federal registrars in areas where blacks are denied vote.
December Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
1960
February 1 Four Greensboro students stage sit-in at Wollworth’s Department store.
February 17 Alabama grand jury indicts MLK for tax evasion.
March National Liberation Front (NLF) steps up was against U.S. backed Diem regime in South Vietnam.
March 3 Vanderbilt University expels James Lawson for sit-in participation.
March 7 Felton Turner of Houston beaten and hung-upside down in a tree, initials KKK carved on his chest.
March 19 San Antonio becomes first city to integrate lunch counters.
March 20 Florida Governor Leroy Collins calls lunch counter segregation “unfair and morally wrong.”
April 8 Weak civil rights bill survives Senate filibuster.
April 15-17 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized at SCLC-sponsored conference at Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina.
April 19 Nashville civil rights lawyer Z. Alexander Looby’s home bombed.
April 21 1960 Civil Rights Act becomes law.
May 5 Soviet Union announces it has shot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane.
May 28 All white Alabama jury acquits MLK.
June 24 MLK meets Senator John F. Kennedy (JFK).
June 28 Rustin resigns from SCLC after condemnation by Rep. Powell.
July SCLC volunteer Robert Moses, traveling for SNCC, meets Amzie Moore in Mississippi Delta.
July 31 Elijah Muhammad calls for an all-black state. Membership in Nation of Islam estimated at 100,000.
August Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker replaces Baker as SCLC’s Executive Director.
September North Vietnam backs NLF against U.S. backed Diem regime.
October 19 MLK, fifty others arrested at sit-in at Atlanta’s Rich’s Department Store.
October 26 MLK’s earlier probation revoked; transferred to Reidsville State Prison.
October 28 After intervention from Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), King is free on bond.
November 8 JFK defeats RN, inning by 119,000 votes out of 68,800,000 cast.
December In Boyunton v Virginia, Supreme Court prohibits segregation in waiting rooms and restaurants serving interstate bus passengers.
1961
January 11 Riot suspends two black students desegregating University of Georgia.
January 18 DDE’s farewell address warns against “acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex.”
January 31 CORE’s Tom Gaither, nine students arrested in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
March 13 CORE announces Freedom Ride.
April 17 CIA trained Cuban exiles unsuccessfully invade Cuba.
May 4 CORE Freedom Ride begins from Washington D.C. to New Orleans to test Boynton v Virginia.
May 14 Freedom Riders attacked by mobs in Anniston, Alabama and Birmingham
May 17 Nashville students take up Freedom Ride.
May 20 Riders assaulted in Montgomery.
May 21-22 Riders besieged in Montgomery church; RFK sends federal marshals.
June-August Justice Department initiates talks with civil rights groups, foundations on beginning Voter Education Project (VEP).
July SCLC begins citizenship classes; Andrew J. Young hired to direct the program. Moses arrives in McComb.
September James Forman becomes SNCC’s Executive Secretary.
September 23 ICC, at RFK’s insistence, issues new rules ending discrimination in intersate travel, effective December 1, 1961.
September 25 Voter registration activist Herbert Lee killed in McComb, Mississippi.
October SNCC workers Charles Sherrod and Cordell Reagon arrive in Albany, Georgia.
November 17 Albany Movement formed
December 1 Albany “Freedom Riders” arrested.
December 11-15 Five hundred arrested in Albany.
December 16 MLK arrested in Albany
December 18 Albany truce; MLK leaves town.
1962
January 18-20 Student protests over sit-in leaders’ expulsions at Baton Rouge’s Southern University, the nation’s largest black school, close it down.
February 26 Segregated transportation facilities, both interstate and intrastate, rules unconstitutional by Supreme Court.
March SNCC workers sit-in RFK’s office to protest jailings in Baton Rouge.
March 20 FBI installs wiretaps on Levison’s office.
April 3 Full racial integration of military reserve units, except the National Guard, ordered by the Defense Department
April 9 Corporal Roman Duckworth shot by a police officer in Taylorsville, Mississippi.
June Leroy Willis becomes first black graduate of the University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences.
June Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara visits South Vietnam, says, “We’re winning this war.”
June SNCC workers establish voter registration projects in rural Southwest Georgia.
July 10-August 28 SCLC renews protests in Albany; MLK in jail July 10-12 &July 27-August 10.
September 9 Two black churches used by SNCC for voter registration meetings burn in Sasser, Georgia.
September 30-Oct.1 Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black orders James Meredith admitted to Ole Miss. Meredith enrolls; riot ensues. French photographer Paul Guihard and Oxford resident Ray Gunter are killed.
October Leflore County, Mississippi, supervisors cut off surplus food distribution in retaliation against voter drive.
October 23 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) begins Communist Infiltartion (COMINFIL) investigation of SCLC.
October 14-28 Cuban Missile Crisis
November 7-8 Edward Brooke selected Massachusetts Attorney General, Leroy Johnson Georgia State Senator, Augustus Hawkins first black from California in Congress.
November 20 RFK authorizes wiretap on Levison’s home telephone.
November 20 JFK upholds 1960 campaign promise to eliminate housing segregation with “stroke of a pen”.
1963
January SNCC’s Moses, six others, sue RFK and J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director, for failure to enforce laws demanding protection of civil rights workers
January 9-10 SCLC meets in Dorchester, Georgia, to plan Birmingham campaign.
January 28 Harvey Gantt enrolls in Clemson College
February SNCC workers begin project in Selma.
February 6 MLK and Walker meet in Birmingham with ACMHR Board.
February 28 SNCC worker Jimmy Travis shot outside Greenwood, Mississippi.
March 5 Mayoral results delay Birmingham campaign until run-off.
April 2 Albert Boutwell defeats Eugene “Bull” Connor for Mayor of Birmingham.
April 3 SCLC organizes ACMHR begin Birmingham protests.
April 12-20 MLK writes “Letter From Birmingham City Jail”
April 23 Baltimore postal worker and CORE volunteer William Moore killed in Atalla, Alabama, while on a march from Baltimore to Jackson, Mississippi.
May Buddhist revolt begins against Diem regime in South Vietnam.
May 2-7 SCLC organizes children’s demonstration in Birmingham.
May 8 SCLC suspends demonstrations.
May 10 ACHMR and SCLC sign Birmingham desegregation agreement.
May 31 Danville, Virginia, demonstrations begin.
June 11 Alabama Governor George C. Wallace fails to halt admission of black students at University of Alabama; JFK federalizes National Guard and promises additional civil rights legislation.
June 12 Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers in assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi.
June 12 After night rioting, SCLC suspends demonstrations in Savannah, Georgia.
June 21 Danville grand jury indicts SNCC workers for “inciting the colored population to acts of violence against the white population.”
June-August Civil rights protests in almost every American city.
July 12 Modified martial law declared in Cambridge, Maryland
July 22 MLK and other civil rights leaders meet JFK to discuss March on Washington. Burke Marshall, RFK and JFK tell King to end relationship with Jack O’Dell and Levison.
July 22 FBI requests wiretaps on New York home of SCLC lawyer Clarence Jones; RFK approves.
August 2 Savannah desegregation agreement reached.
August Three SNCC workers and CORE worker indicted for inciting insurrection in Americus, Georgia. Federal grand jury in Macon indicts nine Albany Movement leaders and SNCC worker for conspiracy to obstruct justice.
August 28 Two hundred and fifty thousand at March on Washington as MLK gives “I Have A Dream” speech.
September 15 Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church bombed; four girls are killed. Later that day, a white youth shoots and kills 13-year-old Virgil Ware.
October 21 RFK approves wiretap on MLK’s home, New York and Atlanta SCLC offices
October 22 Two hundred and fifty thousand school children boycott Chicago’s segregated schools.
November 2 U.S. sanctioned coup in South Vietnam leads to Diem’s overthrow and murder
November 22 JFK assassinated in Dallas
December 3 MLK meets President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ)
December 23 FBI holds Washington meeting to discuss discrediting MLK.
1964
January 5-7 FBI conducts microphone surveillance of MLK’s room at Washington’s Willard Hotel; 14 other “bugs” are used against him between January, 1964 and November, 1965
January 27 FBI installs “misur” (microphone surveillance) at MLK’s Milwaukee hotel room.
January 31 Louis Allen, witness to September 25, 1961 Herbert Lee slaying, killed in McComb.
January-February James Bevel and Diane Nash draft plan for massive Alabama right-to-vote demonstrations.
March 12 Malcom X announces withdrawal from the Nation of Islam.
March 28-April 4 SCLC demonstrations in St. Augustine, Florida
April 26 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) founded in Jackson.
Spring Alabama Governor Wallace enters Democratic Presidential Primaries in Maryland, Wisconsin and Indiana.
June 13 Summer volunteers begin training in Oxford, Ohio
June 21 CORE worker Mickey Schwerner, volunteer Andrew Goodman & CORE volunteer James Chaney disappear near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
July 2 1964 Civil Rights Act-integrating public accommodations-becomes law.
July 7 FBI installs three additional “technical surveillances” at Atlanta SCLC office.
July 11 Ku Klux Klanmen shoot and kill Lt. Colonel Lemuel Augustus Penn near Colbert, Georgia
July 12 The lower half of Charles Eddie Moore’s body and the headless body of Henry Hezekiah Dee pulled from Mississippi River near Tallulah, Louisiana; FBI believes they were murdered by Klansmen May 2
July 18-August 30 Racial disturbances sweep urban America
July 29 SCLC, NAACP, and NUL agree to demonstrations moratorium until after the presidential election; SNCC and CORE reject moratorium.
July Walker leaves SCLC; Young becomes Executive Director
August 2-3 North Vietnamese boats allegedly attack U.S. ships in Gulf of Tonkin; LBJ orders retaliatory attack.
August 4 Bodies of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney are found in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
August 7 House (416-0) and Senate (88-2) pass “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution,” approving U.S. action in Southeast Asia
August 22-27 MFDP contests seating of all-white regular Democrats at Atlantic City Convention.
August 28 Rioting breaks out in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
August 30 LBJ signs Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
September 6 14-year-ole Hearbert Oarsby’s body pulled from the Big Black River near Canton, Mississippi, dressed in CORE tee-shirt.
September 11 SNCC delegation visits Guinea, West Africa.
September 25 LBJ says “We don’t want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys. We don’t want to…get tied down in a land war in Asia.”
September 28-30 SCLC Convention endorses LBJ.
October 14 MLK wins Nobel Peace Prize
October SNCC’s John Lewis and Don Harris meet with Malcolm X in Nairobi.
October Nikita Krushchev falls from power in Soviet Union.
November 3 LBJ defeats Barry Goldwater with 61% of the popular vote.
November 18 Hoover calls MLK “the most notorious liar in America.”
1965
January 2 MLK,SCLC join Selma vote campaign.
January 5 MLK discovers FBI blackmail letter and tape.
February 1-5 MLK in Selma jail.
February 3 Malcolm X speaks in Selma
February 6 Viet Cong attack U.S. base at Pleiku; LBJ orders bombing of North Vietnam.
February 9 MLK discusses need for voting legislation with Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, Vice President Hubert Humphrey and LBJ.
February 18 State troopers attack marchers in Marion, Alabama, wounding Jimmie Lee Jackson
February 21 Malcolm X assassinated at New York’s Audubon Ballroom.
February 26 Jackson dies; Bevel proposes Selma to Montgomery March.
March 2 LBJ orders continuous bombing of North Vietnam.
March 7 Police, trooper attack marchers at Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge.
March 8 Three thousand five hundred U.S. Marines land at Da Nang.
March 9 MLK leads marchers to site of March 7 attack, turns around.
March 11 Rev. James Reeb dies after attack by Selma Whites.
March 15 LBJ announces voting rights legislation
March 16 SNCC Montgomery marchers attacked by mounted police.
March 22-25 Selma to Montgomery march. Detroit housewife Viola Liuzzo murdered as she drives marchers back to Selma.
April 17 Twenty-five thousand march against was in Washington; SNCC’s Moses speaks.
April 28 LBJ sends Marines to Dominican Republic
June 2 Black deputy sheriff Oneal Moore killed by nightriders near Varnado, Louisiana.
July 18 Willie Brewster killed by nightriders in Anniston, Alabama.
August 20 Seminary student Jonathan Daniels killed by deputy in Hayneville, Alabama.
June-September SCLC runs SCOPE program, registering voters in 51 Southern counties.
July 28 LBJ announces 50,000 additional U.S. troops will go to Vietnam.
August 6 Voting Rights Act becomes law.
August 11-16 Watts riot in Los Angeles;35 die
August 12 MLK calls for negotiated end to Vietname war; offers to act as negotiator.
October 15-16 Nationwide anti-war demonstrations held.
Oct-Dec. Bevel establishes SCLC presence in Chicago.
1966
January 3 Student civil rights activist Samuel Younge killed in dispute over wites-only restroom in Tuskegee, Alabama.
January 3 North Carolina civil rights attorney Floyd McKissick succeeds James Farmer as Director of CORE.
January 6 SNCC condemns U.S. policy in Vietnam as neocolonialist aggression.
January 7 MLK announces Chicago Freedom Movement.
January 10 Georgia legislature refuses to seat SNCC staff member Julian Bond.
March 22 Seven SNCC workers arrested in anti-apartheid protest at South African Consulate in New York.
May 16 Stokeley Carmichael succeeds Lewis as Chairman of SNCC
June 6 James Meredith shot while on “March Against Fear” in Mississippi.
June 7-26 MLK, Carmichael, McKissick and others continue Meredith’s march. SNCC’s Willie Ricks leads cries for “Black Power”
June 10 Ben Chester White killed by Klan in Natchez, Mississippi
July 1-9 CORE’s national convention endorses “Black Power.”
July 5 LBJ criticizes “Black Power.” Roy Wilkins calls it “a reverse Ku Klux Klan.”
July 12-15 West side riot in Chicago.
July 18-23 Cleveland riot.
July 30 Clarence Triggs slain by nightriders in Bogalusa, Louisiana.
July 30-August 25 Chicago Freedom Movement demonstrations
August Eighty member police strike force raids Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, SNCC office.
August 26 Chicago agreement ends protests
October 14 MLK refuses to sign statement condemning “Black Power”
November 14-16 at SCLC staff retreat, MLK urges shift toward socialism.
December 5 Supreme Court unanimously rules Bond must be allowed to take his seat in Georgia legislature.
1967
February 25 MLK delivers first public attack of war in Vietnam
February 27 NAACP activist Wharlest Jackson killed by bomb after promotion to a “white” job in Natchez, Mississippi.
March 25 MLK and Dr. Benjamin Spock lead anti-ear march in Chicago.
April 4 Two hundred thousand attend Spring Mobilization against the war; MLK speaks. Four hundred thousand march in New York April 15.
April 9 Carmichael and SNCC’s George War arrested in Nashvile for inciting to riot, SNCC office raided
May 11 National Guard fires on black student protest at Jackson State, killing civil rights worker Benjamin Brown.
May 12 H. Rap Brown succeeds Carmichael as SNCC Chairman
May 16 Police fire “several thousand rounds” on dormitories at Texas Southern University;481 arrested.
July LBJ authorizes increase in U.S. Vietnam forces from 480,000 to 525,000
July 12-15 Riot in Newark leaves 26 dead; in Detroit July 23-27, 43 dead
July H. Rap Brown arrested on federal charges of inciting Cambridge riot; Dayton, Ohio, charges with “criminal syndication;” Maryland indicts him on arson charge .He is arrested in New York for carrying a weapon across state lines while under indictment.
July 27 LBJ appoints National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
August 26 FBI extends Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to “Black Nationalist Hate Groups” including SCLC
October 2 Thurgood Marshall becomes first black Supreme Court Justice.
November 30 Senator Eugene McCarthy announces his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination
1968
January 15-16 SCLC staff meets to prepare for Poor People’s Campaign
January 16 Lucius D. Amerson takes office in Macon County, Alabama, first black Southern sheriff since Reconstruction.
January 21 North Vietnamese troops attack U.S. base at Khe Sahn
January 23 North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo
January 31 Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese regulars launch the Tet offensive.
February 8 South Carolina State students Samuel Ephesians Hammond, Delano Herman Middleton and Henry Ezekial Smith killed, three wounded by South Carolina law enforcement officials firing at protesters.
February 12 Memphis sanitation workers strike for higher pay and union recognition.
February 23 Memphis police break up march of sanitation workers
February 29 Kerner Commission, named by LBJ to investigate riots, condemns white racism in U.S.
March 4 FBI plans to disrupt Poor People’s Campaign
March 12 McCarthy wins 42% of the vote in New Hampshire primary.
March 16 RFK announces he will be a Presidential candidate.
March 18 MLK speaks to Memphis sanitation workers and promises to lead a support march.
March 28 Sanitation workers march turns violent
March 31 LBJ says he will not run for reelection
April 4 MLK assassinated in Memphis. Ralph Abernathy succeeds him as SCLC President.
April 5-9 Widespread rioting across the U.S.; 39 die
April 9 MLK buried in Atlanta
April 10 Congress passes Civil Rights Act.
April 15 Chicago Mayor Richard Daley orders police to “shoot to kill”
April 16 Memphis sanitation workers win recognition, call off strike
May 12 Poor People’s Campaign opens in Washington D.C.
June 5 RFK shot in Los Angeles hotel.
June 6 RFK dies
June 17 Supreme Court rules against discrimination in the purchase or lease of property.
June 24 Police close down Poor People’s Resurrection City.
July 16 Poor People’s Campaign ends.
November 5 RN elected president, defeating Humphrey and Wallace. Democrat Shirley Chisholm defeats Republican James Farmer, becoming the first black women ever to serve in Congress. Eighty blacks elected across the South
http://www.outreach.olemiss.edu/Freedom_Riders/Timeline.html#1900
http://www.ncfbc.org/html/news.html#JUL2007
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American Nazi Party · Aryan Brotherhood · Aryan Nations · Christian Conservative Church · Christian Identity · Ku Klux Klan (KKK) · National Alliance · The Posse Comitatus · The Order · White Aryan Resistance (WAR) · White Patriot Party · World Church of the Creator (WCOTC)
Selective Chronology
Julian Bond
1900
July 24-27 Black homes and schools destroyed in New Orleans race riot.
August 12 Whites attack blacks in New York.
November 6 William McKinley reelected President; Theodore Roosevelt elected Vice-President.
1901
March 4 North Carolina’s George H. White Leaves Congress; last black member for more than 25 years.
September 6 President McKinley assassinated. Roosevelt succeeds him.
October 16 Booker T. Washington (BTW) dines with President Roosevelt at The White House, creating and uproar.
1903
W.E.B. Du Bois’ (WEBD’s) Souls of Black Folk is published, Helping to organize criticism of BTW.
1904
August 16 Paul Reed and Willis Cato seized from jailers at their murder trial In Statesboro, Georgia, and burned alive.
1905
July 11-13 A group of black intellectuals meets near Niagara Falls and adopts resolutions demanding racial equality.
1906
April 13 Clashes erupt after white civilians taunt black soldiers in Brownsville, Texas; three white men die. President Roosevelt dishonorably discharges the soldiers.
September 22-24 Twenty-one die in Atlanta race riot.
1908
White anti-black riot in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown, Springfield, Illinois, prompts concerned whites to call for a conference which leads to founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
November 3 William Howard Taft elected President.
1909
February 12 White liberals and black intellectuals, including Jane Addams, Mary White Ovington, WEBD, Oswald Garrison Villard, and John Dewey form the NAACP.
March 31 U.S. occupation of Cuba ends.
November 18 U.S. warships ordered to Nicaragua.
1910
April The National Urban League (NUL) is formed in New York.
1911
March 7 Twenty Thousand U.S. troops dispatched to Mexican border.
1912
November 5 Woodrow Wilson elected President.
1914
April 21 U.S. forces seize customs house at Vera Cruz, Mexico; Marines occupy the city.
June 28 Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand assassinated.
1915
January 14 Two hundred whites storm jail in Monticello, Georgia, and lynch four blacks, members of Daniel Barber family.
June 21 Supreme Court outlaws “grandfather clauses” used to deny blacks the franchise in Guinn v. United States.
December 4 Dormant Ku Klux Klan revived under new charter granted by Georgia.
1916
March U.S. troops enter Mexico in search of Pancho Villa.
May U.S. Marines land in Santa Domingo, remain until 1924.
November Woodrow Wilson reelected President.
1917
April 2 Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes first woman seated in House of Representatives.
April 16 United States enters World War I. Three hundred thousand blacks will serve in the war; 1400 will be commissioned as officers.
July 1-3 At least 40 blacks killed in East St. Louis, Illinois, race riot.
July 28 NAACP organizes a silent march of 10,000 down Fifth Avenue to protest racism.
August 23 Black soldiers and white civilians clash in Houston, Texas; 17 whites, two blacks are killed. Thirteen blacks are later executed.
1918
February 19-21 Organized by WEBD, the first Pan-African Congress meets in Paris, concurrently with the Paris Peace Conference.
July 13- October 1 More than 25 race riots occur across U.S., leaving over 100 dead and thousands wounded. Eighty-three lynchings recorded in 1918.
November 11 World War I ends.
1920
August 1-2 Marcus Garvey’s (MG’s) Universal Negro Improvement Association’s (UNIA’s) National Convention meets in New York; MG speaks to 25,000 at Madison Square Garden
November 2 Warren G. Harding elected President.
1922-23
October to October An estimated 500,000 blacks leave the South. Klan violence increases. Oklahoma placed under martial law because of terrorist activity by Klan.
1925
May 8 A. Phillip Randolph (APR) organizes the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
August 8 Forty Thousand Ku Klux Klansmen march down Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue.
1926
May 10 U.S. Marines land in Nicaragua.
1927
March 7 In Nixon v Herndon, the Supreme Court strikes down a Texas law excluding blacks from Democratic primaries.
December MG, convicted in 1925 for mail fraud, released from federal prison and deported.
1928
November 6 Herbert Hoover elected President. Illinois Republican Congressman Oscar DePriest elected, the first black since 1901.
1929
January 15 Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) born in Atlanta.
October 29 Stock market crashes, beginning of Great Depression. Ten lynchings recorded in 1929.
1930
March 31 After President Hoover nominates North Carolina Judge John J. Parker to the Supreme Court, the NAACP leads a successful campaign against his nomination.
June 7 The New York Times announces that the word “Negro” will be spelled with a capital “N.”
1931
April 6 Nine black youths accused of raping two white women go on trial in Scottsboro, Alabama.
1932
November 8 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) is elected President, promising a “New Deal” to fight the Depression.
1934
July Souther Tenant Farmers’ Union organized.
November 7 Black Democrat Arthur Mitchell defeats Rep. DePriest in Chicago.Elijah Muhammad-born Elijah Poole in Georgia in 1897- succeeds W.S. Fard as leader of the Nation of Islam.
1935
June 25 Joe Louis defeats Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium.
1936
August 9 American Olympian Jesse Owens wins four Gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, embarrassing Adolph Hitler.
December 8 NAACP successfully files Gibbs v. Board of Education in Montgomery County, Maryland, equalizing white and black teachers’ salaries.
November 3 FDR reelected.
1937
March 26 William H. Hastie becomes the first black federal judge.
June 22 Joe Louis becomes the heavyweight champion by defeating James J. Braddock.
1938
December 12 In Missouri ex rel. Gaines the Supreme Court Rules states must provide equal, if separate, facilities within their boundaries.
1939
March Daughters of the American Revolution refuses Marian Anderson permission to sing at Washington’s Constitution Hall; Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes arranges her appearance on Easter Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial, where 75,000 gather to hear.
September 3 Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.
October 11 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is organized.
1940
February Richard Wright’s Native Son becomes a best seller.
March Hattie McDaniel becomes the first black to receive and Oscar for her role as “Mammy” in “Gone With the Wind.”
April Virginia Legislature adopts black composer James A. Bland’s “Carry Me To Old Virginny” as the state song.
May 26-June 4 British Expeditionary Forces retreat from Dunkirk.
June 10 MG dies in London.
September 27 FDR meets with black leaders to discuss discrimination in the military.
October 8 Senate kills anti-lynching bill.
October 9 White House declares War Department policy is “not to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations.”
October 16 Benjamin O. Davis Sr. makes Brigadier General, becoming the highest ranking black in the armed services.
October 25 FDR meets with Committee on Participation of Negros in the National Defense Program.
November 5 FRD reelected; Henry Wallace elected Vice-President.
1941
April 12 APR announces “plans for and all-out March of ten-thousand Negroes on Washington are in the making” to protest discrimination in the defense industries and the military.
April 28 Supreme Court rules that separate railroad facilities must be substantially equal.
May 1 March on Washington (MOW) Committee issues a formal call for a July 1 march.
June 13 New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia and Eleanor Roosevelt met with APR and MOW leadership.
June 15 FDR issues a memorandum saying “I shall expect the Office of Production Management to take immediate steps to facilitate the full utilization of our productive manpower.”
June 18 FDR meets with MOW Committee leaders.
June 22 Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union.
June 25 FDR issues Executive Order 8802 establishing the Fair Employment Practices Commission (EEPC).
June 28 APR announces the MOW will be postponed.
October 20-21 FEPC holds its first hearings in Los Angeles.
December 7 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters World War II December 8.
1942
March Fifty black organizations declare “that the Negro people were cool to the war effort because of continued racial discrimination.”
June 16 Eighteen thousand blacks pack a New York MOW rally.
June 26 Twenty-six thousand overflow Chicago MOW rally.
June Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is organized by and interracial group in Chicago.
November 3 Democrat William L. Dawson elected to Congress from Chicago.
1943
May 12-August 2 Forty killed in race riots; troops called out in Mobile and Detroit.
1944
April 3 In Smith v Allwright the Supreme Court rules the white-only primary unconstitutional.
August 1 New York Democrat Adam Clayton Powell elected to Congress.
November 7 FDR reelected President.
December 13 Black women permitted to enter the Women’s Naval Corps (WAVES).
1945
March 12 New York establishes the first state FEPC
April 12 FDR dies; Harry S. Truman (HST) succeeds him.
May 7 Germany surrenders.
June United Nations Charter Approved.
July 16 First atomic bomb exploded.
August 6 Hiroshima destroyed by U.S. atomic bomb.
September 2 Japan surrenders; World War II ends. More than one million blacks served.
1946
February 7 Senate filibuster kills bill for permanent FEPC.
February Malcolm Little sentenced to ten years in Massachusetts prison for burglary.
June 3 In Morgan v Virginia the Supreme Court outlaws segregation in interstate bus travel.
December 5 HST names committee on Civil Rights to investigate racial injustice.
1947
April 9 CORE sends “Freedom Riders” on a Journey of Reconciliation through the upper South to test Morgan v Virginia.
April 10 Jackie Robinson joins the Brooklyn Dodgers.
October 29 HST’s President Committee on Civil Rights releases “To Secure These Rights.”
1948
January 12 In Sipuel v University of Oklahoma the Supreme Court rules a state must provide a legal education for blacks if it offers a legal education to whites.
March 31 APR tells a U.S. Senate Committee he will urge black youth to refuse induction in the armed services unless discrimination in the Selective Service System is ended.
May 3 In Shelley v Kraemer the Supreme Court rules restrictive housing covenants unenforceable.
June 9 Attorney Oliver Hill elected to the Richmond, Virginia, City Council.
July 14 Southerners walk out of the Democratic National Convention to protest a civil rights plank.
July 26 HST issues Executive Orders 9980 and 9981 creating a Fair Employment Board to end racial discrimination in federally employment and a President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services.
November 2 HST elected President.
1950
June 5 In Sweatt v Painter the Supreme Court rules that equality in education requires more than identical physical facilities. In McLaurin v Oklahoma the Court rules that, once admitted to a previously all-white school, a black student cannot be segregated within the school.
June 27 U.S. enters the Korean War.
1951
February 2 Martinsville Seven executed in Richmond for raping a white woman.
April 24 University of North Carolina admits its first black student.
May 8 Willie McGee executed in Mississippi for raping a white woman.
May 24 Washington D.C., court outlaws segregation in District restaurants.
July 12 Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson calls out the National Guard to suppress a riot against a black family who moved into an all-white neighborhood in Cicero, Illinois.
October 1 The 24th Infantry, the last all-black Army unity, deactivated.
December 25 NAACP leaders Harry T. and Harriet Moore assassinated in Mims, Florida.
1952
January 12 University of Tennessee admits black students.
August Malcolm Little released from Massachusetts prison.
November 4 Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE) elected President; Richard M. Nixon (RN) elected Vice-President.
December 30 Tuskegee Institute reports 1952 was the first lynching-free year in seventy-one years.
1953
March 5 Jospeh Stalin dies.
May 7 French forces surrender at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam.
June 8 In District of Columbia v John R. Thompson Co., Inc. the Supreme Court upholds desegregation of Washington’s restaurants.
June 19 Bus boycott protesting unequal treatment begins in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
June 27 Korean armistice signed.
June Dr. Walter Ridley becomes first black graduate of a University of Virginia professional school.
August 4 Riot against integrated housing begins in Chicago.
August 20 Soviet Union announces the explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
1954
May 17 In Brown v Board of Education the Supreme Court rules unanimously that segregated public schools are inherently unequal and unconstitutional, overturning 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson.
June 29 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsored coup overthrows the government of Guatemala.
July First “White Citizens Council” organized in Indianola, Mississippi.
July 21 U.S. refuses to sign Geneva Accord on Indochina.
September 7-8 Public schools in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., desegregated.
September Bobby Bland enters the University of Virginia Engineering School.
November 2 Black Detroit Democrat Charles Diggs elected to Congress.
October White Citizens Council chapter organized in Selma, Alabama.
1955
January 18 DDE established President’s Committee on Government Policy to enforce a non-discriminatory policy in federal hiring.
April 11 Roy Wilkins becomes the NAACP’s Executive Secretary.
May 7 NAACP leader Rev. George Wesley Lee killed in Belzoni, Mississippi.
May 31 In Brown II, the Supreme Court orders schools integrated “with all deliberate speed.”
July 22 Alabama enacts a “Pupil Placement Law” to circumvent school desegregation.
August 1 Georgia teachers are ordered by the State Board of Education to resign from the NAACP or face firing.
August 13 Political activist Lamar Smith killed in Brookhaven, Mississippi.
August 28 Fourteen-year old Emmett Till kidnapped and murdered in Money, Mississippi
November 25 Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) prohibits segregation in public vehicles and waiting rooms used in interstate travel.
October 10 Supreme Court orders Autherine Lucy admitted to the University of Alabama.
October 22 John Earl Reese killed in Mayflower, Texas, by nightriders opposed to black school improvements.
December 1 Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus.
December 5 Parks convicted; a successful one-day boycott held to protest her arrest. MLK is elected leader of boycott organization, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).
1956
January 30 MLK home bombed in Montgomery.
February 1 MIA files lawsuit against bus segregation.
February 3 Autherine Lucy admitted to the University of Alabama.
February 7 Alabama students riot; Lucy suspended.
February 21 Montgomery grand jury indicts 115 boycott leaders. Bayard Rustin arrives in Montgomery to advise MLK.
February 28 Rustin, Stanley, Levison, Ella J. Baker organize “In Friendship” in New York to assist southern activists.
February 29 Lucy expelled for making “false” and “outrageous” statements about university officials.
March 11 Nineteen senators and 81 representatives in Southern Manifesto, promise to use “all lawful means” to reverse Brown v Board of Education.
March 22 MLK convicted of leading illegal boycott.
April South Carolina State College students boycott classes to protest official harassment of NAACP.
April 11 Singer Nat “King” Cole attacked on stage in Birmingham.
April 23 Supreme Court overturns South Carolina bus segregation law.
May 27 Florida A&M University students in Tallahassee begin boycott of segregated busses.
June 1 Alabama outlaws NAACP.
June 5 Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and others organize the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) in Birmingham.
June 5 In Browder v Gayle three-judge district court rules Montgomery’s bus segregation is legal.
June 30 Tallahassee bus service suspended.
October 23 Hungarian uprising begins.
November 4 Soviet troops attack Budapest and crush Hungarian revolt.
November 6 DDE defeats Stevenson soundly.
November 13 Supreme Court affirms Montgomery bus segregation ruling.
December 20 MIA ends bus boycott.
December 23 Tallahassee boycott ends; city continues segregation.
December 25 Bomb destroys Shuttlesworth’s home.
December 26 Shuttlesworth, others arrested for breaking Birmingham’s bus segregation law.
December 27 Tallahassee bus segregation declared illegal.
1957
January 10-11 Sixty meet at Atlanta’s Ebeneezer Baptist Church to form “Southern Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolence”; MLK is chosen Chairman.
January 23 Willie James Edwards forced by Klansmen to jump to his death from a railroad bridge in Montgomery.
February 14 MLK is elected President of Southern Negro Leadership Conference in New Orleans.
March MLK visits Ghana to attend independence ceremonies.
May 17 MLK addresses 15,000 at Prayer Pilgrimage in Washington at Lincoln Memorial.
June MLK meets Vice President RN. Blacks at Tuskegee, Alabama, begin boycott to protest gerrymander removing nearly all blacks from city limits.
August Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) hold first convention in Montgomery.
September 9 Civil Rights Act becomes law.
September 24-25 DDE orders federal troops into Little Rock to halt interference with integration of Central High School.
October 4 Soviet Union launches artificial satellite Sputnik.
1958
January Baker sets up SCLC offices in Atlanta.
January 31 U.S. launches satellite Explorer
February 12 SCLC begins “Crusade for Citizenship”
May Rev. John Tilley becomes SCLC Executive Director.
June 23 MLK, Roy Wilkins, APR and NUL’s Lester Granger meet with DDE
July 15 DDE sends U.S. Marines to Lebanon
August 19 NAACP Youth Council members in Oklahoma city begin lunch counter sit-in demonstrations.
September 3 MLK arrested in Montgomery.
September 20 MLK stabbed while autographing Stride Toward Freedom in New York.
October 12 Atlanta synagogue bombed.
1959
April 15 Tilley resigns; Baker replaces him on temporary basis.
April 25 Mack Charles Parker, accused of rape, is taken from his jail cell and lynched in Poplarville, Mississippi.
September 7 U.S. Civil Rights Commission asks DDE to appoint federal registrars in areas where blacks are denied vote.
December Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
1960
February 1 Four Greensboro students stage sit-in at Wollworth’s Department store.
February 17 Alabama grand jury indicts MLK for tax evasion.
March National Liberation Front (NLF) steps up was against U.S. backed Diem regime in South Vietnam.
March 3 Vanderbilt University expels James Lawson for sit-in participation.
March 7 Felton Turner of Houston beaten and hung-upside down in a tree, initials KKK carved on his chest.
March 19 San Antonio becomes first city to integrate lunch counters.
March 20 Florida Governor Leroy Collins calls lunch counter segregation “unfair and morally wrong.”
April 8 Weak civil rights bill survives Senate filibuster.
April 15-17 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized at SCLC-sponsored conference at Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina.
April 19 Nashville civil rights lawyer Z. Alexander Looby’s home bombed.
April 21 1960 Civil Rights Act becomes law.
May 5 Soviet Union announces it has shot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane.
May 28 All white Alabama jury acquits MLK.
June 24 MLK meets Senator John F. Kennedy (JFK).
June 28 Rustin resigns from SCLC after condemnation by Rep. Powell.
July SCLC volunteer Robert Moses, traveling for SNCC, meets Amzie Moore in Mississippi Delta.
July 31 Elijah Muhammad calls for an all-black state. Membership in Nation of Islam estimated at 100,000.
August Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker replaces Baker as SCLC’s Executive Director.
September North Vietnam backs NLF against U.S. backed Diem regime.
October 19 MLK, fifty others arrested at sit-in at Atlanta’s Rich’s Department Store.
October 26 MLK’s earlier probation revoked; transferred to Reidsville State Prison.
October 28 After intervention from Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), King is free on bond.
November 8 JFK defeats RN, inning by 119,000 votes out of 68,800,000 cast.
December In Boyunton v Virginia, Supreme Court prohibits segregation in waiting rooms and restaurants serving interstate bus passengers.
1961
January 11 Riot suspends two black students desegregating University of Georgia.
January 18 DDE’s farewell address warns against “acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex.”
January 31 CORE’s Tom Gaither, nine students arrested in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
March 13 CORE announces Freedom Ride.
April 17 CIA trained Cuban exiles unsuccessfully invade Cuba.
May 4 CORE Freedom Ride begins from Washington D.C. to New Orleans to test Boynton v Virginia.
May 14 Freedom Riders attacked by mobs in Anniston, Alabama and Birmingham
May 17 Nashville students take up Freedom Ride.
May 20 Riders assaulted in Montgomery.
May 21-22 Riders besieged in Montgomery church; RFK sends federal marshals.
June-August Justice Department initiates talks with civil rights groups, foundations on beginning Voter Education Project (VEP).
July SCLC begins citizenship classes; Andrew J. Young hired to direct the program. Moses arrives in McComb.
September James Forman becomes SNCC’s Executive Secretary.
September 23 ICC, at RFK’s insistence, issues new rules ending discrimination in intersate travel, effective December 1, 1961.
September 25 Voter registration activist Herbert Lee killed in McComb, Mississippi.
October SNCC workers Charles Sherrod and Cordell Reagon arrive in Albany, Georgia.
November 17 Albany Movement formed
December 1 Albany “Freedom Riders” arrested.
December 11-15 Five hundred arrested in Albany.
December 16 MLK arrested in Albany
December 18 Albany truce; MLK leaves town.
1962
January 18-20 Student protests over sit-in leaders’ expulsions at Baton Rouge’s Southern University, the nation’s largest black school, close it down.
February 26 Segregated transportation facilities, both interstate and intrastate, rules unconstitutional by Supreme Court.
March SNCC workers sit-in RFK’s office to protest jailings in Baton Rouge.
March 20 FBI installs wiretaps on Levison’s office.
April 3 Full racial integration of military reserve units, except the National Guard, ordered by the Defense Department
April 9 Corporal Roman Duckworth shot by a police officer in Taylorsville, Mississippi.
June Leroy Willis becomes first black graduate of the University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences.
June Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara visits South Vietnam, says, “We’re winning this war.”
June SNCC workers establish voter registration projects in rural Southwest Georgia.
July 10-August 28 SCLC renews protests in Albany; MLK in jail July 10-12 &July 27-August 10.
September 9 Two black churches used by SNCC for voter registration meetings burn in Sasser, Georgia.
September 30-Oct.1 Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black orders James Meredith admitted to Ole Miss. Meredith enrolls; riot ensues. French photographer Paul Guihard and Oxford resident Ray Gunter are killed.
October Leflore County, Mississippi, supervisors cut off surplus food distribution in retaliation against voter drive.
October 23 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) begins Communist Infiltartion (COMINFIL) investigation of SCLC.
October 14-28 Cuban Missile Crisis
November 7-8 Edward Brooke selected Massachusetts Attorney General, Leroy Johnson Georgia State Senator, Augustus Hawkins first black from California in Congress.
November 20 RFK authorizes wiretap on Levison’s home telephone.
November 20 JFK upholds 1960 campaign promise to eliminate housing segregation with “stroke of a pen”.
1963
January SNCC’s Moses, six others, sue RFK and J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director, for failure to enforce laws demanding protection of civil rights workers
January 9-10 SCLC meets in Dorchester, Georgia, to plan Birmingham campaign.
January 28 Harvey Gantt enrolls in Clemson College
February SNCC workers begin project in Selma.
February 6 MLK and Walker meet in Birmingham with ACMHR Board.
February 28 SNCC worker Jimmy Travis shot outside Greenwood, Mississippi.
March 5 Mayoral results delay Birmingham campaign until run-off.
April 2 Albert Boutwell defeats Eugene “Bull” Connor for Mayor of Birmingham.
April 3 SCLC organizes ACMHR begin Birmingham protests.
April 12-20 MLK writes “Letter From Birmingham City Jail”
April 23 Baltimore postal worker and CORE volunteer William Moore killed in Atalla, Alabama, while on a march from Baltimore to Jackson, Mississippi.
May Buddhist revolt begins against Diem regime in South Vietnam.
May 2-7 SCLC organizes children’s demonstration in Birmingham.
May 8 SCLC suspends demonstrations.
May 10 ACHMR and SCLC sign Birmingham desegregation agreement.
May 31 Danville, Virginia, demonstrations begin.
June 11 Alabama Governor George C. Wallace fails to halt admission of black students at University of Alabama; JFK federalizes National Guard and promises additional civil rights legislation.
June 12 Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers in assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi.
June 12 After night rioting, SCLC suspends demonstrations in Savannah, Georgia.
June 21 Danville grand jury indicts SNCC workers for “inciting the colored population to acts of violence against the white population.”
June-August Civil rights protests in almost every American city.
July 12 Modified martial law declared in Cambridge, Maryland
July 22 MLK and other civil rights leaders meet JFK to discuss March on Washington. Burke Marshall, RFK and JFK tell King to end relationship with Jack O’Dell and Levison.
July 22 FBI requests wiretaps on New York home of SCLC lawyer Clarence Jones; RFK approves.
August 2 Savannah desegregation agreement reached.
August Three SNCC workers and CORE worker indicted for inciting insurrection in Americus, Georgia. Federal grand jury in Macon indicts nine Albany Movement leaders and SNCC worker for conspiracy to obstruct justice.
August 28 Two hundred and fifty thousand at March on Washington as MLK gives “I Have A Dream” speech.
September 15 Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church bombed; four girls are killed. Later that day, a white youth shoots and kills 13-year-old Virgil Ware.
October 21 RFK approves wiretap on MLK’s home, New York and Atlanta SCLC offices
October 22 Two hundred and fifty thousand school children boycott Chicago’s segregated schools.
November 2 U.S. sanctioned coup in South Vietnam leads to Diem’s overthrow and murder
November 22 JFK assassinated in Dallas
December 3 MLK meets President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ)
December 23 FBI holds Washington meeting to discuss discrediting MLK.
1964
January 5-7 FBI conducts microphone surveillance of MLK’s room at Washington’s Willard Hotel; 14 other “bugs” are used against him between January, 1964 and November, 1965
January 27 FBI installs “misur” (microphone surveillance) at MLK’s Milwaukee hotel room.
January 31 Louis Allen, witness to September 25, 1961 Herbert Lee slaying, killed in McComb.
January-February James Bevel and Diane Nash draft plan for massive Alabama right-to-vote demonstrations.
March 12 Malcom X announces withdrawal from the Nation of Islam.
March 28-April 4 SCLC demonstrations in St. Augustine, Florida
April 26 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) founded in Jackson.
Spring Alabama Governor Wallace enters Democratic Presidential Primaries in Maryland, Wisconsin and Indiana.
June 13 Summer volunteers begin training in Oxford, Ohio
June 21 CORE worker Mickey Schwerner, volunteer Andrew Goodman & CORE volunteer James Chaney disappear near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
July 2 1964 Civil Rights Act-integrating public accommodations-becomes law.
July 7 FBI installs three additional “technical surveillances” at Atlanta SCLC office.
July 11 Ku Klux Klanmen shoot and kill Lt. Colonel Lemuel Augustus Penn near Colbert, Georgia
July 12 The lower half of Charles Eddie Moore’s body and the headless body of Henry Hezekiah Dee pulled from Mississippi River near Tallulah, Louisiana; FBI believes they were murdered by Klansmen May 2
July 18-August 30 Racial disturbances sweep urban America
July 29 SCLC, NAACP, and NUL agree to demonstrations moratorium until after the presidential election; SNCC and CORE reject moratorium.
July Walker leaves SCLC; Young becomes Executive Director
August 2-3 North Vietnamese boats allegedly attack U.S. ships in Gulf of Tonkin; LBJ orders retaliatory attack.
August 4 Bodies of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney are found in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
August 7 House (416-0) and Senate (88-2) pass “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution,” approving U.S. action in Southeast Asia
August 22-27 MFDP contests seating of all-white regular Democrats at Atlantic City Convention.
August 28 Rioting breaks out in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
August 30 LBJ signs Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
September 6 14-year-ole Hearbert Oarsby’s body pulled from the Big Black River near Canton, Mississippi, dressed in CORE tee-shirt.
September 11 SNCC delegation visits Guinea, West Africa.
September 25 LBJ says “We don’t want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys. We don’t want to…get tied down in a land war in Asia.”
September 28-30 SCLC Convention endorses LBJ.
October 14 MLK wins Nobel Peace Prize
October SNCC’s John Lewis and Don Harris meet with Malcolm X in Nairobi.
October Nikita Krushchev falls from power in Soviet Union.
November 3 LBJ defeats Barry Goldwater with 61% of the popular vote.
November 18 Hoover calls MLK “the most notorious liar in America.”
1965
January 2 MLK,SCLC join Selma vote campaign.
January 5 MLK discovers FBI blackmail letter and tape.
February 1-5 MLK in Selma jail.
February 3 Malcolm X speaks in Selma
February 6 Viet Cong attack U.S. base at Pleiku; LBJ orders bombing of North Vietnam.
February 9 MLK discusses need for voting legislation with Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, Vice President Hubert Humphrey and LBJ.
February 18 State troopers attack marchers in Marion, Alabama, wounding Jimmie Lee Jackson
February 21 Malcolm X assassinated at New York’s Audubon Ballroom.
February 26 Jackson dies; Bevel proposes Selma to Montgomery March.
March 2 LBJ orders continuous bombing of North Vietnam.
March 7 Police, trooper attack marchers at Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge.
March 8 Three thousand five hundred U.S. Marines land at Da Nang.
March 9 MLK leads marchers to site of March 7 attack, turns around.
March 11 Rev. James Reeb dies after attack by Selma Whites.
March 15 LBJ announces voting rights legislation
March 16 SNCC Montgomery marchers attacked by mounted police.
March 22-25 Selma to Montgomery march. Detroit housewife Viola Liuzzo murdered as she drives marchers back to Selma.
April 17 Twenty-five thousand march against was in Washington; SNCC’s Moses speaks.
April 28 LBJ sends Marines to Dominican Republic
June 2 Black deputy sheriff Oneal Moore killed by nightriders near Varnado, Louisiana.
July 18 Willie Brewster killed by nightriders in Anniston, Alabama.
August 20 Seminary student Jonathan Daniels killed by deputy in Hayneville, Alabama.
June-September SCLC runs SCOPE program, registering voters in 51 Southern counties.
July 28 LBJ announces 50,000 additional U.S. troops will go to Vietnam.
August 6 Voting Rights Act becomes law.
August 11-16 Watts riot in Los Angeles;35 die
August 12 MLK calls for negotiated end to Vietname war; offers to act as negotiator.
October 15-16 Nationwide anti-war demonstrations held.
Oct-Dec. Bevel establishes SCLC presence in Chicago.
1966
January 3 Student civil rights activist Samuel Younge killed in dispute over wites-only restroom in Tuskegee, Alabama.
January 3 North Carolina civil rights attorney Floyd McKissick succeeds James Farmer as Director of CORE.
January 6 SNCC condemns U.S. policy in Vietnam as neocolonialist aggression.
January 7 MLK announces Chicago Freedom Movement.
January 10 Georgia legislature refuses to seat SNCC staff member Julian Bond.
March 22 Seven SNCC workers arrested in anti-apartheid protest at South African Consulate in New York.
May 16 Stokeley Carmichael succeeds Lewis as Chairman of SNCC
June 6 James Meredith shot while on “March Against Fear” in Mississippi.
June 7-26 MLK, Carmichael, McKissick and others continue Meredith’s march. SNCC’s Willie Ricks leads cries for “Black Power”
June 10 Ben Chester White killed by Klan in Natchez, Mississippi
July 1-9 CORE’s national convention endorses “Black Power.”
July 5 LBJ criticizes “Black Power.” Roy Wilkins calls it “a reverse Ku Klux Klan.”
July 12-15 West side riot in Chicago.
July 18-23 Cleveland riot.
July 30 Clarence Triggs slain by nightriders in Bogalusa, Louisiana.
July 30-August 25 Chicago Freedom Movement demonstrations
August Eighty member police strike force raids Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, SNCC office.
August 26 Chicago agreement ends protests
October 14 MLK refuses to sign statement condemning “Black Power”
November 14-16 at SCLC staff retreat, MLK urges shift toward socialism.
December 5 Supreme Court unanimously rules Bond must be allowed to take his seat in Georgia legislature.
1967
February 25 MLK delivers first public attack of war in Vietnam
February 27 NAACP activist Wharlest Jackson killed by bomb after promotion to a “white” job in Natchez, Mississippi.
March 25 MLK and Dr. Benjamin Spock lead anti-ear march in Chicago.
April 4 Two hundred thousand attend Spring Mobilization against the war; MLK speaks. Four hundred thousand march in New York April 15.
April 9 Carmichael and SNCC’s George War arrested in Nashvile for inciting to riot, SNCC office raided
May 11 National Guard fires on black student protest at Jackson State, killing civil rights worker Benjamin Brown.
May 12 H. Rap Brown succeeds Carmichael as SNCC Chairman
May 16 Police fire “several thousand rounds” on dormitories at Texas Southern University;481 arrested.
July LBJ authorizes increase in U.S. Vietnam forces from 480,000 to 525,000
July 12-15 Riot in Newark leaves 26 dead; in Detroit July 23-27, 43 dead
July H. Rap Brown arrested on federal charges of inciting Cambridge riot; Dayton, Ohio, charges with “criminal syndication;” Maryland indicts him on arson charge .He is arrested in New York for carrying a weapon across state lines while under indictment.
July 27 LBJ appoints National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
August 26 FBI extends Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to “Black Nationalist Hate Groups” including SCLC
October 2 Thurgood Marshall becomes first black Supreme Court Justice.
November 30 Senator Eugene McCarthy announces his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination
1968
January 15-16 SCLC staff meets to prepare for Poor People’s Campaign
January 16 Lucius D. Amerson takes office in Macon County, Alabama, first black Southern sheriff since Reconstruction.
January 21 North Vietnamese troops attack U.S. base at Khe Sahn
January 23 North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo
January 31 Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese regulars launch the Tet offensive.
February 8 South Carolina State students Samuel Ephesians Hammond, Delano Herman Middleton and Henry Ezekial Smith killed, three wounded by South Carolina law enforcement officials firing at protesters.
February 12 Memphis sanitation workers strike for higher pay and union recognition.
February 23 Memphis police break up march of sanitation workers
February 29 Kerner Commission, named by LBJ to investigate riots, condemns white racism in U.S.
March 4 FBI plans to disrupt Poor People’s Campaign
March 12 McCarthy wins 42% of the vote in New Hampshire primary.
March 16 RFK announces he will be a Presidential candidate.
March 18 MLK speaks to Memphis sanitation workers and promises to lead a support march.
March 28 Sanitation workers march turns violent
March 31 LBJ says he will not run for reelection
April 4 MLK assassinated in Memphis. Ralph Abernathy succeeds him as SCLC President.
April 5-9 Widespread rioting across the U.S.; 39 die
April 9 MLK buried in Atlanta
April 10 Congress passes Civil Rights Act.
April 15 Chicago Mayor Richard Daley orders police to “shoot to kill”
April 16 Memphis sanitation workers win recognition, call off strike
May 12 Poor People’s Campaign opens in Washington D.C.
June 5 RFK shot in Los Angeles hotel.
June 6 RFK dies
June 17 Supreme Court rules against discrimination in the purchase or lease of property.
June 24 Police close down Poor People’s Resurrection City.
July 16 Poor People’s Campaign ends.
November 5 RN elected president, defeating Humphrey and Wallace. Democrat Shirley Chisholm defeats Republican James Farmer, becoming the first black women ever to serve in Congress. Eighty blacks elected across the South
http://www.outreach.olemiss.edu/Freedom_Riders/Timeline.html#1900
What Does it Mean to See a Black Church Burning?
What Does it Mean to See a Black Church Burning?
Michele M. Simmsparris
Excerpted from, What Does it Mean to See a Black Church Burning? Understanding the Significance of Constitutionalizing Hate Speech, 1 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 127-151 (Spring 1998) (Citations and Footnotes Omitted)
A. A Historical Background of the Significance of Black Churches: Beyond a Monolithic Construct of African-American Religion and Religiosity
Notions of religious faith and freedom have shaped much of American political and social philosophy. For many Americans religion is not just a way of thinking, but a way of life. In African-American history, "the church" has long stood at the center of Black communities establishing itself as the pre-eminent source for religious enrichment and secular development.
To capture a sense of the shared historical experiences of African- Americans, in particular African-American Christians, the phrase "the Black Church" evolved. The phrase has developed into a term of art for expressing the centrality of Black churches in Black communities. Although the term, "the Black Church" isa bit misleading, it presents a tangible quality to the intricacies of racial and religious interstionality unique to African- American history. For many African-American Christians, despite their denominational differences, Black churches have always represented a triumvirate of religion, community, and home. Thus, in an attempt to convey the significance of Black Churches in Black communities, scholars have repeatedly asserted that "Black history and Black church history intersect[ed] at so many points as to be virtually identical." Hence, despite the presence of myriad factions of Black churches in America, the depiction of the monolithic Black Church is pervasive throughout African-American historiography as a matter of historical course.
Even though history illustrates many moments in which the social and political experiences of African-Americans either affected or were affected by Black churches, aspects of Black history and Black church histories in many ways remained distinct. In essence, the term "the Black Church" is a misnomer. The term "the Black church" implies that all Black churches share or have shared the same aspirations and strategies for creating cohesive African-American communities. This is far from true.
A deconstruction of the monolithic Black church begins with the acknowledgment of the innumerable differences found among Black communities and the reflection of those differences within their community churches. Black communities differed from region to region. They were divided along social lines, composed of persons from different economic levels, and maintained varying political philosophies. Black communities in the inner cities of the United States have traditionally differed from those in rural areas. Ultimately, the needs and concerns of the members of these varying communities were also dissimilar from area to area. Therefore, like all other Americans, social stratification was a reality of Black Americans. For African-Americans such stratification was affected by the wide range of attitudes toward race, class, gender, education and political affiliation. The social differences that countenanced each sub- community of the larger Black community was also reflected in the identities of Black Churches.
The diversity of Black communities was reflected in the variety of Black Churches. African-American community churches varied in denominational affiliations, theological practice, and regional location. In The Negro Church in America, the sociologist E. Franklin Frazier noted, "Methodist and Baptist denominations were separate church organizations based upon distinctions of color and what were considered standards of civilized behavior." Not only did Black churches differ culturally and ideologically, but each church also differed in the ways it evolved.
Many Black churches were created in response to racial segregation. Many African-American churches were established in response to African-American dissatisfaction with the teachings of "white churches." Some were established simply to bring varying forms of Christianity into Black communities which already had either one or several established Black churches. Consequently, the concerns of independent Black churches reflected the varying concerns of their congregants.
Nevertheless, despite their regional, denominational, and theological differences, Black churches maintained striking commonalities. Black churches were consistently at the social and religious centers of Black communities. The interwoven fabric of the secular and the ecclesiastical within many Black religious institutions created a base upon which African-Americans could organize politically and persist spiritually. Black churches were not only given to the teachings of Christianity but they were faithfully relied upon to address the specific issues which affected their members.
Since the establishment of the first independent African-American church in America in 1773, Black churches have flourished. Even though many African-American churches were created in reaction to racial discrimination and segregation, what developed was more than separate places to worship for African-Americans. Instead, churches became religious institutions devoted to addressing the needs of members of the Black community.
B. Understanding the Church as a Community
The Negro church was not only an arena of political life for the leaders of Negroes, it had a political meaning for the masses. Although they were denied the right to vote in the American community, within their churches, especially the Methodist Churches, they could vote and engage in electing their officers. The election of bishops and other officers and representatives to conventions has been a serious activity for the masses of Negroes . . . . For the Negro masses, in their social and moral isolation in American society, the Negro church community has been a nation within a nation.
In church-centered Black communities, the relationship between one's community and one's church was intimate. Far more than just a place to worship, the Black Church was a nation within a nation. The meshing of Black community life with the religious experiences of African- Americans precipitated the birth of the dichotomy between church and religion found within the construction of Black religions. For many African- Americans, church was not only a place to receive religious instruction on the doctrines of Christianity, church was a community in which to learn about one's world.
Black churches were organizational sites for social and political activities, centers for economic development and growth. As microcosms of the larger society, Black churches provided an environment free of oppression and racism for African-Americans. In Black Churches, African-Americans were consistently exposed to social, political, and economic opportunities which could be sought and had by all members equally.
The representational structure of African-American churches confirmed Black preachers as both religious and community leaders. The sermons of many Black preachers expounded messages of Christianity analogized to the daily experiences of African-Americans. Thematic expressions of overcoming oppression and "lifting while climbing," were first articulated in church sermons.
Using their authority as religious leaders, Black preachers incorporated the teachings of Christianity into political manifestos. Slavery, emancipation, and the continued struggle for civil rights, provided the context for analysis of Biblical stories such as the escape of the Jews from Egypt. The idea of "freedom through collective deliverance," as articulated in the Book of Exodus, gave African-Americans a sense of political and community direction through religious belief and expression. The notion of divine intervention which permeated the lessons of Exodus did not translate seamlessly into a positive mandate for African-Americans to overcome oppression. Yet, the teachings of African-American churches nurtured the motivations of Black people to oppose and overcome racial persecution. African-Americans' belief in divine intervention, coupled with a community spirit to struggle and to overcome social, political, and economic hardships, inspired many Black Church members.
C. Finding a Home in the Church
During the decades of slavery in America, slave associations were a constant source of concern to slave owners. For many members of white society, Black churches and religious meetings symbolized the ultimate threat to white existence. Nevertheless, African-American slaves established and relied heavily on their churches. "Religion offered a means of catharsis . . . African-Americans retained their faith in God and found refuge in their churches." However, white society was not always willing to accept the involvement of slaves in Christianity. As one slave recounted "[t]he white folks would come in when the colored people would have prayer meeting, and whip everyone of them. Most of them thought that when colored people were praying it was against them."
Religious exercises of slaves were closely watched to detect plans for escape or insurrection. African-American churches took on an air of militancy in the eyes of white Americans. Insurrections such as Nat Turner's in Virginia, born out of the religious inspiration of slaves, horrified white Americans. Understanding the potential end which could result from the religious experiences of African-American slaves, many white Americans opposed the participation of Blacks in Christianity.
Despite the social adversity that opposed their existence, Black churches were established, and served as integral parts ofBlack communities. According to E. Franklin Frazier, during times of slavery, and well after emancipation, "the [Negro] church gave support to [Negro] family life [and was] the most important agency of social control [among Negroes]." Insofar as whites could not understand and were afraid of Black religiosity, "the Negro church with its [unique] forms of religious worship was a world which the white man did not invade." Therefore, out of this history of separation and exclusion, Black Churches rooted themselves as the souls of the communities in which they stood.
After emancipation, as racial domination thrived in reconfigured forms, Black churches became virtually the only place for African-Americans to find refuge. As African-American Christians moved from slavery to emancipation their religious practices and houses of worship also changed. They moved away from the "hush-harbors" that they retreated to for solace as slaves, and built churches. Just as the prayer meetings which took place in slave "cabin room[s]" were devoted to countless pleas for deliverance from slavery, the sermons that were given in Black churches addressed the post-emancipation needs and concerns of members of Black communities.
Inevitably, Black churches became sources for Black empowerment. Black churches, such as H.H. Proctor's Congregational Church housed schools, employment bureaus, shelters for the aged and orphans, and meeting places. "In 1886 [African-Americans] organized the National Baptist Convention, in an attempt to reduce the influence of white national bodies among blacks." Black churches worked collectively to deal with Black issues, especially racial discrimination in segregated schools, neighborhoods, and businesses.
As racially motivated violence and terrorism ran rampant across the country, Black churches were staunch in their resistance. In 1908, The Christian Index published the "Colored Methodist Bishops' Appeal to White America-1908." In their statement, church leaders responded to the surge of mob violence and lynchings occurring across the country, denouncing terrorism waged against Black persons and imploring the country to suppress the spread of anti-Black violence. As anti-Black terrorism proliferated into the twentieth century, Black churches grew increasingly vehement in their calls for castigation of racial violence. However the more involved Black Churches became in sparring against the racial intolerance and violence targeted against them, the more the churches and their members were chastised.
By the commencement of the Civil Rights era, Black churches were well established social and political power bases for African-Americans. The enormous presence of Black churches in African-American communities, naturally, sanctioned them with the political power to lead Black people in the movement for civil rights. Yet, Black Churches were torn on whether and how best to get involved in the movement. Some churches and church organizations were completely opposed to any involvement in the political struggle for civil rights. Yet, those that chose to participate did so fervently, organizing by rallies, protests, and marches, while teaching the lessons of Christianity and community involvement. Ultimately, racism made individual African-Americans the targets of racial violence. Racism plus the concentrated political power of African-Americans in Black churches confirmed African-American churches as the central targets for racial violence waged against the entire Black community.
D. Sometimes When There's Racial Hate . . . There's Fire
Extra-legal violence has been an effective means of communicating racial hatred throughout American history, especially as a method of social and physical control. Fire in particular was used not only to inflict physical harm upon disfavored persons in communities, but to send messages which threatened further harm to either persons or property. The pages of American-African history document an undeniable record of the racially motivated use of fire to either threaten or inflict harm upon African- Americans.
During the Civil Rights Movement, "the church functioned as the institutional center" for Black mobilization. Churches provided "an organized mass base and meeting place," for African-Americans to strategize their moves in the fight against racial segregation and oppression. As Black Churches became the epicenter of the social and political struggles for African-American equality, they increasingly became targets for racially motivated violence. Thus, a broad assault on members of a Black community could effectively take place by burning a Black church. The bombing and burning of Black churches translated into an attack upon the core of civil rights activism, as well as upon the larger Black community.
The most infamous example of church destruction, occurred on Sunday, September 15, 1963. When the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was fire bombed, the explosion was felt by the entire Black community. Not only were four children killed in the attack and several people injured, but a community's sense of security within their church was forever shaken.
The burning of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church signified the depths to which racial hatred could fall. Like many other churches bombed before and after, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was attended predominantly by African-Americans. Throughout the Civil Rights Movement, the Church was active in the struggle to desegregate southern public schools and supported the call for equal rights for Black people in America. Even though the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was implicated in this crime, members of the KKK were not the only persons responsible for similar acts of terror throughout the country. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.
In January 1957, four Black Churches were bombed in Montgomery, Alabama. In April, two were burned in Bessemer, Alabama. In 1958, burned churches were reported in Birmingham and Memphis. In 1959, a church was reported to have been burned in Roscoe, Georgia. In 1963, a church was reported to have been bombed in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. In Vicksburg, Mississippi, two people were killed in a church that had been used to register for Black voters when it was bombed in 1964.
Starting in 1964, Meridian, Mississippi, was added to the list of places in which Black churches were attacked. In January 1968, two more Black churches were bombed in Meridian. On February 22, the New Hope Baptist Church, "site of a Head Start program and civil rights activities," was torched. On February 23, the parsonage of the Newell Chapel Methodist Church was finally burned after a previous failed attempt.
As a result of the violence, some churches were forced into social incapacitation. Members of the First Union Baptist Church in Meridian were so afraid of being bombed that they opposed using the church for a much needed Head Start Program. Thus, racially motivated arsons, though not successful in destroying the souls of Black communities, managed nonetheless to inflict a significant amount of harm on churches, their congregants, and surrounding communities. FN110] In the end, the message of racial hate was burned into the memories of African-Americans and revisits us every time one of our churches burn.
Black Church fires set by arsonists in the 1990s revivify images of Black people excluded from participating in the Christian faith, lynched by angry mobs, and watching their churches torched during the 1950s and 1960s. Images of anti-Black terrorism are so indelible that they are recreated as African-American churches burn in the 1990s. In places like Amite County, Mississippi, during the last year, the smoking remains of burned or burning Black churches have re-inscribed the message of racial hatred which permeated the 1960s.
In Amite County, Mississippi, racial hate is unquestionably apparent. Graffiti writings of scrawled racial epithets and swastikas on the walls of burned Black churches articulate the unrelenting presence of racism. It is not surprising that Amite County, once deemed one of the two most notorious "church burning capitals of the world," is again a major target for attack. In Amite County, "Black residents [here] have long been the victims of [other] racially motivated attacks--mailbox shootings, cross burnings, hooded Klansmen yelling racist slurs while riding through Black neighborhoods." Such incidents illustrate how far we have not come with regard to eradicating racial terrorism. Therefore, when the Springhill Freewill Baptist Church was burned in 1996, the flames rekindled the fear and outrage produced by the burning of Black Churches a generation earlier.
The arsons of the 1990s inspire fear based not only on what was learned in Black history books, but rather on the recollections of real experiences. Margaret Tobias, a current resident of Amite County, not only "witnessed church bombings of the 1960s, she survived an attempted arson on her home in 1965." Now, thirty years later, as member of the Springhill Freewill Baptist Church, Tobias is, again, a witness and victim of church desecration.
Among the most disturbing aspects of the burning of Black Churches today is the demolition of the comfortable myth that such acts of terrorism ended with the Civil Rights Movement. According to the late Rev. Dr. Mac Charles Jones, former Associate to the General Secretary for Racial Justice, National Council of Churches, "[o]ver the past four years (1992-1996) there have been more Black Churches burned than during the entire Civil Rights Movement." From January of 1995 through July of 1996, more than seventy Black and multiracial churches were burned. More churches were burned during that eighteen month period than during the previous five years combined. As one commentator wrote, the era of "night riders, cross burnings, church burnings, home burnings, and farm burnings" was thought to have passed. Instead the burnings of Black Churches across the country teach us that racial violence is an ugly fact of our American reality.
To burn a Black Church is to conjure up images of past and future fires set to harm members of Black communities. It is in this context of violence and the communication of violence that incidents of cross burning like that which was addressed by our nation's Supreme Court in R.A.V. must be understood. Contextually the historically racist meaning of fire as a threat is understood by arsonists and victims alike. Consequently, whether fire is used to burn a cross or a church such expression must not be viewed solely as "speech," but rather as an incontrovertible threat.
Fundamental to the problem of racial terrorism is our government's willingness to constitutionalize hateful speech, which creates an environment that nourishes hatred against Black communities and results in burned churches. By the time a church is burned to the ground the harm has already been done, and in every case the harm is irreparable. Although some may argue that there is a clear difference between cross burning and church burning, given the history of the expressive meaning of both such argument would stand without merit. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul vividly illustrates the consequences of inaction in the face of racial intolerance.
Michele M. Simmsparris
Excerpted from, What Does it Mean to See a Black Church Burning? Understanding the Significance of Constitutionalizing Hate Speech, 1 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 127-151 (Spring 1998) (Citations and Footnotes Omitted)
A. A Historical Background of the Significance of Black Churches: Beyond a Monolithic Construct of African-American Religion and Religiosity
Notions of religious faith and freedom have shaped much of American political and social philosophy. For many Americans religion is not just a way of thinking, but a way of life. In African-American history, "the church" has long stood at the center of Black communities establishing itself as the pre-eminent source for religious enrichment and secular development.
To capture a sense of the shared historical experiences of African- Americans, in particular African-American Christians, the phrase "the Black Church" evolved. The phrase has developed into a term of art for expressing the centrality of Black churches in Black communities. Although the term, "the Black Church" isa bit misleading, it presents a tangible quality to the intricacies of racial and religious interstionality unique to African- American history. For many African-American Christians, despite their denominational differences, Black churches have always represented a triumvirate of religion, community, and home. Thus, in an attempt to convey the significance of Black Churches in Black communities, scholars have repeatedly asserted that "Black history and Black church history intersect[ed] at so many points as to be virtually identical." Hence, despite the presence of myriad factions of Black churches in America, the depiction of the monolithic Black Church is pervasive throughout African-American historiography as a matter of historical course.
Even though history illustrates many moments in which the social and political experiences of African-Americans either affected or were affected by Black churches, aspects of Black history and Black church histories in many ways remained distinct. In essence, the term "the Black Church" is a misnomer. The term "the Black church" implies that all Black churches share or have shared the same aspirations and strategies for creating cohesive African-American communities. This is far from true.
A deconstruction of the monolithic Black church begins with the acknowledgment of the innumerable differences found among Black communities and the reflection of those differences within their community churches. Black communities differed from region to region. They were divided along social lines, composed of persons from different economic levels, and maintained varying political philosophies. Black communities in the inner cities of the United States have traditionally differed from those in rural areas. Ultimately, the needs and concerns of the members of these varying communities were also dissimilar from area to area. Therefore, like all other Americans, social stratification was a reality of Black Americans. For African-Americans such stratification was affected by the wide range of attitudes toward race, class, gender, education and political affiliation. The social differences that countenanced each sub- community of the larger Black community was also reflected in the identities of Black Churches.
The diversity of Black communities was reflected in the variety of Black Churches. African-American community churches varied in denominational affiliations, theological practice, and regional location. In The Negro Church in America, the sociologist E. Franklin Frazier noted, "Methodist and Baptist denominations were separate church organizations based upon distinctions of color and what were considered standards of civilized behavior." Not only did Black churches differ culturally and ideologically, but each church also differed in the ways it evolved.
Many Black churches were created in response to racial segregation. Many African-American churches were established in response to African-American dissatisfaction with the teachings of "white churches." Some were established simply to bring varying forms of Christianity into Black communities which already had either one or several established Black churches. Consequently, the concerns of independent Black churches reflected the varying concerns of their congregants.
Nevertheless, despite their regional, denominational, and theological differences, Black churches maintained striking commonalities. Black churches were consistently at the social and religious centers of Black communities. The interwoven fabric of the secular and the ecclesiastical within many Black religious institutions created a base upon which African-Americans could organize politically and persist spiritually. Black churches were not only given to the teachings of Christianity but they were faithfully relied upon to address the specific issues which affected their members.
Since the establishment of the first independent African-American church in America in 1773, Black churches have flourished. Even though many African-American churches were created in reaction to racial discrimination and segregation, what developed was more than separate places to worship for African-Americans. Instead, churches became religious institutions devoted to addressing the needs of members of the Black community.
B. Understanding the Church as a Community
The Negro church was not only an arena of political life for the leaders of Negroes, it had a political meaning for the masses. Although they were denied the right to vote in the American community, within their churches, especially the Methodist Churches, they could vote and engage in electing their officers. The election of bishops and other officers and representatives to conventions has been a serious activity for the masses of Negroes . . . . For the Negro masses, in their social and moral isolation in American society, the Negro church community has been a nation within a nation.
In church-centered Black communities, the relationship between one's community and one's church was intimate. Far more than just a place to worship, the Black Church was a nation within a nation. The meshing of Black community life with the religious experiences of African- Americans precipitated the birth of the dichotomy between church and religion found within the construction of Black religions. For many African- Americans, church was not only a place to receive religious instruction on the doctrines of Christianity, church was a community in which to learn about one's world.
Black churches were organizational sites for social and political activities, centers for economic development and growth. As microcosms of the larger society, Black churches provided an environment free of oppression and racism for African-Americans. In Black Churches, African-Americans were consistently exposed to social, political, and economic opportunities which could be sought and had by all members equally.
The representational structure of African-American churches confirmed Black preachers as both religious and community leaders. The sermons of many Black preachers expounded messages of Christianity analogized to the daily experiences of African-Americans. Thematic expressions of overcoming oppression and "lifting while climbing," were first articulated in church sermons.
Using their authority as religious leaders, Black preachers incorporated the teachings of Christianity into political manifestos. Slavery, emancipation, and the continued struggle for civil rights, provided the context for analysis of Biblical stories such as the escape of the Jews from Egypt. The idea of "freedom through collective deliverance," as articulated in the Book of Exodus, gave African-Americans a sense of political and community direction through religious belief and expression. The notion of divine intervention which permeated the lessons of Exodus did not translate seamlessly into a positive mandate for African-Americans to overcome oppression. Yet, the teachings of African-American churches nurtured the motivations of Black people to oppose and overcome racial persecution. African-Americans' belief in divine intervention, coupled with a community spirit to struggle and to overcome social, political, and economic hardships, inspired many Black Church members.
C. Finding a Home in the Church
During the decades of slavery in America, slave associations were a constant source of concern to slave owners. For many members of white society, Black churches and religious meetings symbolized the ultimate threat to white existence. Nevertheless, African-American slaves established and relied heavily on their churches. "Religion offered a means of catharsis . . . African-Americans retained their faith in God and found refuge in their churches." However, white society was not always willing to accept the involvement of slaves in Christianity. As one slave recounted "[t]he white folks would come in when the colored people would have prayer meeting, and whip everyone of them. Most of them thought that when colored people were praying it was against them."
Religious exercises of slaves were closely watched to detect plans for escape or insurrection. African-American churches took on an air of militancy in the eyes of white Americans. Insurrections such as Nat Turner's in Virginia, born out of the religious inspiration of slaves, horrified white Americans. Understanding the potential end which could result from the religious experiences of African-American slaves, many white Americans opposed the participation of Blacks in Christianity.
Despite the social adversity that opposed their existence, Black churches were established, and served as integral parts ofBlack communities. According to E. Franklin Frazier, during times of slavery, and well after emancipation, "the [Negro] church gave support to [Negro] family life [and was] the most important agency of social control [among Negroes]." Insofar as whites could not understand and were afraid of Black religiosity, "the Negro church with its [unique] forms of religious worship was a world which the white man did not invade." Therefore, out of this history of separation and exclusion, Black Churches rooted themselves as the souls of the communities in which they stood.
After emancipation, as racial domination thrived in reconfigured forms, Black churches became virtually the only place for African-Americans to find refuge. As African-American Christians moved from slavery to emancipation their religious practices and houses of worship also changed. They moved away from the "hush-harbors" that they retreated to for solace as slaves, and built churches. Just as the prayer meetings which took place in slave "cabin room[s]" were devoted to countless pleas for deliverance from slavery, the sermons that were given in Black churches addressed the post-emancipation needs and concerns of members of Black communities.
Inevitably, Black churches became sources for Black empowerment. Black churches, such as H.H. Proctor's Congregational Church housed schools, employment bureaus, shelters for the aged and orphans, and meeting places. "In 1886 [African-Americans] organized the National Baptist Convention, in an attempt to reduce the influence of white national bodies among blacks." Black churches worked collectively to deal with Black issues, especially racial discrimination in segregated schools, neighborhoods, and businesses.
As racially motivated violence and terrorism ran rampant across the country, Black churches were staunch in their resistance. In 1908, The Christian Index published the "Colored Methodist Bishops' Appeal to White America-1908." In their statement, church leaders responded to the surge of mob violence and lynchings occurring across the country, denouncing terrorism waged against Black persons and imploring the country to suppress the spread of anti-Black violence. As anti-Black terrorism proliferated into the twentieth century, Black churches grew increasingly vehement in their calls for castigation of racial violence. However the more involved Black Churches became in sparring against the racial intolerance and violence targeted against them, the more the churches and their members were chastised.
By the commencement of the Civil Rights era, Black churches were well established social and political power bases for African-Americans. The enormous presence of Black churches in African-American communities, naturally, sanctioned them with the political power to lead Black people in the movement for civil rights. Yet, Black Churches were torn on whether and how best to get involved in the movement. Some churches and church organizations were completely opposed to any involvement in the political struggle for civil rights. Yet, those that chose to participate did so fervently, organizing by rallies, protests, and marches, while teaching the lessons of Christianity and community involvement. Ultimately, racism made individual African-Americans the targets of racial violence. Racism plus the concentrated political power of African-Americans in Black churches confirmed African-American churches as the central targets for racial violence waged against the entire Black community.
D. Sometimes When There's Racial Hate . . . There's Fire
Extra-legal violence has been an effective means of communicating racial hatred throughout American history, especially as a method of social and physical control. Fire in particular was used not only to inflict physical harm upon disfavored persons in communities, but to send messages which threatened further harm to either persons or property. The pages of American-African history document an undeniable record of the racially motivated use of fire to either threaten or inflict harm upon African- Americans.
During the Civil Rights Movement, "the church functioned as the institutional center" for Black mobilization. Churches provided "an organized mass base and meeting place," for African-Americans to strategize their moves in the fight against racial segregation and oppression. As Black Churches became the epicenter of the social and political struggles for African-American equality, they increasingly became targets for racially motivated violence. Thus, a broad assault on members of a Black community could effectively take place by burning a Black church. The bombing and burning of Black churches translated into an attack upon the core of civil rights activism, as well as upon the larger Black community.
The most infamous example of church destruction, occurred on Sunday, September 15, 1963. When the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was fire bombed, the explosion was felt by the entire Black community. Not only were four children killed in the attack and several people injured, but a community's sense of security within their church was forever shaken.
The burning of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church signified the depths to which racial hatred could fall. Like many other churches bombed before and after, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was attended predominantly by African-Americans. Throughout the Civil Rights Movement, the Church was active in the struggle to desegregate southern public schools and supported the call for equal rights for Black people in America. Even though the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was implicated in this crime, members of the KKK were not the only persons responsible for similar acts of terror throughout the country. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.
In January 1957, four Black Churches were bombed in Montgomery, Alabama. In April, two were burned in Bessemer, Alabama. In 1958, burned churches were reported in Birmingham and Memphis. In 1959, a church was reported to have been burned in Roscoe, Georgia. In 1963, a church was reported to have been bombed in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. In Vicksburg, Mississippi, two people were killed in a church that had been used to register for Black voters when it was bombed in 1964.
Starting in 1964, Meridian, Mississippi, was added to the list of places in which Black churches were attacked. In January 1968, two more Black churches were bombed in Meridian. On February 22, the New Hope Baptist Church, "site of a Head Start program and civil rights activities," was torched. On February 23, the parsonage of the Newell Chapel Methodist Church was finally burned after a previous failed attempt.
As a result of the violence, some churches were forced into social incapacitation. Members of the First Union Baptist Church in Meridian were so afraid of being bombed that they opposed using the church for a much needed Head Start Program. Thus, racially motivated arsons, though not successful in destroying the souls of Black communities, managed nonetheless to inflict a significant amount of harm on churches, their congregants, and surrounding communities. FN110] In the end, the message of racial hate was burned into the memories of African-Americans and revisits us every time one of our churches burn.
Black Church fires set by arsonists in the 1990s revivify images of Black people excluded from participating in the Christian faith, lynched by angry mobs, and watching their churches torched during the 1950s and 1960s. Images of anti-Black terrorism are so indelible that they are recreated as African-American churches burn in the 1990s. In places like Amite County, Mississippi, during the last year, the smoking remains of burned or burning Black churches have re-inscribed the message of racial hatred which permeated the 1960s.
In Amite County, Mississippi, racial hate is unquestionably apparent. Graffiti writings of scrawled racial epithets and swastikas on the walls of burned Black churches articulate the unrelenting presence of racism. It is not surprising that Amite County, once deemed one of the two most notorious "church burning capitals of the world," is again a major target for attack. In Amite County, "Black residents [here] have long been the victims of [other] racially motivated attacks--mailbox shootings, cross burnings, hooded Klansmen yelling racist slurs while riding through Black neighborhoods." Such incidents illustrate how far we have not come with regard to eradicating racial terrorism. Therefore, when the Springhill Freewill Baptist Church was burned in 1996, the flames rekindled the fear and outrage produced by the burning of Black Churches a generation earlier.
The arsons of the 1990s inspire fear based not only on what was learned in Black history books, but rather on the recollections of real experiences. Margaret Tobias, a current resident of Amite County, not only "witnessed church bombings of the 1960s, she survived an attempted arson on her home in 1965." Now, thirty years later, as member of the Springhill Freewill Baptist Church, Tobias is, again, a witness and victim of church desecration.
Among the most disturbing aspects of the burning of Black Churches today is the demolition of the comfortable myth that such acts of terrorism ended with the Civil Rights Movement. According to the late Rev. Dr. Mac Charles Jones, former Associate to the General Secretary for Racial Justice, National Council of Churches, "[o]ver the past four years (1992-1996) there have been more Black Churches burned than during the entire Civil Rights Movement." From January of 1995 through July of 1996, more than seventy Black and multiracial churches were burned. More churches were burned during that eighteen month period than during the previous five years combined. As one commentator wrote, the era of "night riders, cross burnings, church burnings, home burnings, and farm burnings" was thought to have passed. Instead the burnings of Black Churches across the country teach us that racial violence is an ugly fact of our American reality.
To burn a Black Church is to conjure up images of past and future fires set to harm members of Black communities. It is in this context of violence and the communication of violence that incidents of cross burning like that which was addressed by our nation's Supreme Court in R.A.V. must be understood. Contextually the historically racist meaning of fire as a threat is understood by arsonists and victims alike. Consequently, whether fire is used to burn a cross or a church such expression must not be viewed solely as "speech," but rather as an incontrovertible threat.
Fundamental to the problem of racial terrorism is our government's willingness to constitutionalize hateful speech, which creates an environment that nourishes hatred against Black communities and results in burned churches. By the time a church is burned to the ground the harm has already been done, and in every case the harm is irreparable. Although some may argue that there is a clear difference between cross burning and church burning, given the history of the expressive meaning of both such argument would stand without merit. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul vividly illustrates the consequences of inaction in the face of racial intolerance.
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