Clifton Walker. Courtesy of the Clifton Walker family....Feb. 28, 1964: Clifton Walker Murdered...LEST WE FORGET

Walker’s murder remains a cold case. The Department of Justice closed the case.

The traditional narrative in textbooks about the Civil Rights Movement leaves out stories like this that are examples of the widespread and often fatal white supremacist violence against African Americans.

Walker was one of many Black veterans killed in the fight for democracy on their return to the United States. As W. E. B. Du Bois said, “We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting.”

Hiram Rhodes Revels
Former United States Senator Sep 27, 1827 - Jan 16, 1901 (age 73)U.S. Senator, minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and a college administrator. Born free in North Carolina, he later lived and worked in Ohio, where he voted before the Civil War. LEST WE FORGET

During his time in Washington, the press praised Revels for his well-crafted speeches and diplomatic approach to a tense congressional environment. His signature issue was civil rights, including the integration of schools and equal opportunities for Black workers. Revels urged a moderate view on the restoration of Confederate citizenship. While the Radical Republicans in Congress called for harsh punishments to be meted out to Civil War rebels, Senator Revels took a milder view. He argued for the immediate restoration of citizenship to former Confederates, along with the secure enfranchisement, education and employment eligibility of African Americans.

Revels resigned from the Senate after a year to accept the presidency of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, located in Claiborne County, Mississippi. He also served as an instructor in philosophy. This position at the historically Black Alcorn allowed Revels to directly participate in the intellectual enrichment of African Americans—a cause for which he had fought while serving in the Senate.

In addition to his administrative and teaching roles, Revels remained involved with the Methodist Church, continuing to preach publicly until the end of his life. Revels died on January 16, 1901, while attending a meeting of Methodist ministers in Aberdeen, Mississippi.

Jimmie Lee Jackson   December 16, 1938 to February 26, 1965.Alabama state trooper shot Jimmie Lee Jackson in the stomach as he tried to protect his mother from being beaten at Mack’s Café. LEST WE FORGET

King visited Jackson at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma four days after he was shot. Jackson was conscious, and King recalled his words during the eulogy he delivered to the overflowing Zion Church: “I never will forget as I stood by his bedside a few days ago … how radiantly he still responded, how he mentioned the freedom movement and how he talked about the faith that he still had in his God.  Like every self-respecting Negro, Jimmie Jackson wanted to be free ... We must be concerned not merely about who murdered him but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderer” (King, 3 March 1965). Many were enraged that no case was opened against James Bonard Fowler, the Alabama state trooper who shot Jackson. Fowler acknowledged shooting Jackson at close range in an affidavit given the night of the shooting and told his story publicly in 2005 for an article in Sojourners Magazine. He claimed that Jackson attempted to take his pistol from him, and called the shooting self defense. Marion police chief T. O. Harris claimed that protesters had attacked law enforcement officers with rocks and bottles, but news reporters on the scene saw troopers beating protesters as they tried to escape, and black witnesses said no bottles were ever thrown. Forty years later, in May 2007, Fowler was indicted for Jackson’s murder.

In the weeks following Jackson’s death, SCLC organized a march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capitol. An SCLC brochure explained that Jackson’s death was “the catalyst that produced the march to Montgomery.” On 7 March 1965, the day the march first set off from Selma, Sheriff Jim Clark’s deputies attacked demonstrators with tear gas, batons, and whips. Images of the attack were nationally televised and at least one  network interrupted regular programming to broadcast the violence of “Bloody Sunday.” Two white civil rights workers, Viola Liuzzo and Reverend James Reeb, were later killed during the campaign.  In August, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law.

Marian Anderson greeting members of the audience at the ceremony held in the auditorium of the U.S. Department of the Interior at the dedication of a mural painting commemorating a free public concert given by her on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, 1939...LEST WE FORGET

By this point, Anderson was also an active supporter of the civil rights movement, giving benefit concerts for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the NAACP.  In 1963, Anderson sang at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  The same year, she was one of the original 31 recipients of the newly re-instituted Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Anderson began her farewell tour at Constitution Hall on October 24, 1964.  It ended at Carnegie Hall on April 18, 1965.

Marian Anderson had over 1,500 songs in her repertoire, sang in nine languages, and performed on four continents.  She received national honors throughout her life including the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal in 1939, the United Nations Peace Prize in 1977, and a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991.  In 1980, the United States Treasury coined a half ounce gold medal with her likeness, and in 2005 a commemorative postage stamp was issued in her honor.

On April 8, 1993, Marian Anderson died in Portland, Oregon at the home of her nephew, conductor James DePriest. She was 96 years old.

Oscar J. Dunn (ca. 1825-1871 LEST WE FORGET

n 1868, Dunn ran for Lt. Governor, partnering with white Republican Henry Clay Warmoth.  When the Republican ticket of Warmoth and Dunn won the statewide contest by 64,941 to 38,046, Dunn was inaugurated Lt. Governor on June 13, 1868.  As Lt. Governor, he was also President pro tempore of the Louisiana State Senate, becoming one of only seven black men in that body and the only former enslaved person to serve there.

Internal Republican politics caused Dunn to organize a challenge to Governor Warmouth at the statewide Republican Convention in 1870.  He unsuccessfully challenged Warmoth for the governorship and later led a radical faction of Lincoln Republicans who attempted to have Warmoth impeached for corruption.  Warmoth found allies among the former slaveholders and temporarily became a Democrat to frustrate Dunn and other Louisiana Republicans who opposed him.  Warmoth was reelected governor in 1870 but with Pickney Benton Stewart Pinchback, another African American, as his running mate.  When Warmoth was finally impeached in December 1872 and removed from office, Lt. Governor Pinchback briefly served as the nation’s first black governor.  Dunn however never saw that day.  On November 22, 1871, Oscar James Dunn died at the age of 45 of congestion of the brain although some claim he was poisoned by his political enemies.  He was survived by his widow, Ellen Boyd Marchand and the couple’s three adopted children, Fannie, Charles, and Emma.

The Orangeburg Massacre took place in Orangeburg, South Carolina at South Carolina State University on February 8th, 1968. LEST WE FORGET

Nine officers were held responsible for the shootings and were brought to trial on charges of excessive force at a campus protest. All nine were acquitted of all charges. The only person who was charged and sent to prison as a result of this incident was Cleveland Sellers, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) representative who was convicted of inciting the riot that had led to the shootings.  Sellers was later pardoned for his role in the incident.

The day after the shootings Governor Robert E. McNair spoke of this as “one of the saddest days in the history of South Carolina”.

February 1, 1960 | The Greensboro Sit-Ins....LEST WE FORGET

The “Greensboro Four” late in the afternoon sat on four bar stools at the segregated lunch counter and asked for coffee. When they were refused service, they remained at their seats until closing. The next day over twenty students returned with them including some from the all female Bennett College. The third day included over 60 persons followed by over 300 on the fourth day. With promotion of the sit-ins in the media, the sit-in tactics spread to other cities in North Carolina and eventually throughout the southeast. This Greensboro sit-in is credited as being the major and most influential sit-in of the civil rights era.

Eventually, Woolworth’s and other stores gave in to the sit-ins due to loss of financial business and the negative public relations occurring with the publicity.  Many of those participating in the sit-ins received verbal taunting and physical abuse, but attempted to abide by the non-violent method of protest advocated by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ronald Erwin McNair was an African American NASA astronaut and physicist. Lived: Oct 21, 1950 - Jan 28, 1986 (age 35) LEST WE FORGET

McNair flew his first mission on February 3, 1984, as a mission specialist on STS 41-B, which marked the first flight of the Manned Maneuvering Unit.  This was the first landing of the Space Shuttle Challenger on Kennedy Space Center’s runway on February 11, 1984.  The flight culminated in McNair achieving 191 hours in space.

In 1986, Dr. McNair was given a mission specialist position on STS 51-L, which was the final flight of Challenger.  On January 28, 1986, one minute and fifty-three seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Challenger exploded, killing all of the crew on board. This included McNair along with Michael J. Smith, Judith Resnick, Francis “Dick” Scobee, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, and Gregory Jarvis.

In honor of Dr. McNair, Congress provided funding for the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program. It encourages minorities from low-income families and first-generation college students to pursue graduate studies.

Dr. McNair received many awards including the following: National Society of Black Professional Engineers Distinguished National Scientist Award (1979), Friend of Freedom (1981), and Who’s Who Among Black Americans (1980).  He was presented with an honorary doctorate of law from North Carolina A&T State University in 1978, an honorary doctorate of science from Morris College in 1980, and an honorary doctorate of science from the University of South Carolina in 1984.

In addition to his career as a physicist and astronaut, Dr. McNair held a fifth degree black belt in karate and was also an accomplished performing jazz saxophonist.

Dr. McNair is survived by his wife, Cheryl, and their two children.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. LEST WE FORGET

Fame
D.L Chandler	
Black America Web Featured Video

The numbers of African-American players in Major League Baseball have been declining since the seventies, with just under 70 players total. However, those dozens of players all owe a great debt to Jackie Robinson, who broke another race barrier on July 23, 1962 after becoming the first Black player immortalized in Cooperstown.

Robinson took up sports in Pasadena in high school, following on the footsteps of his brother, Mack Robinson, who was an Olympic silver medalist. While at UCLA, Robinson became the first athlete to earn varsity letters in four sports: baseball, football, basketball, and track.

Jackie Robinson: ‘I Cannot Stand and Sing the Anthem. I Cannot Salute the Flag’
African-American baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson wrote in his autobiography that he couldn't sing the anthem or salute the flag because "I know that I am a black man in a white world."

Dr. Eliza Ann Grier (1864-1902) LEST WE FORGET

By 1899, however, Grier moved her practice to Greenville, South Carolina where she specialized in obstetrics and gynecology.  In 1901 she contracted influenza and could not see patients for six weeks.  Facing the loss of her practice, Dr. Grier wrote a plea for financial assistance to Susan B. Anthony.  The famous suffragist could not help her but sympathetically forwarded her request to the Woman’s Medical College.  It is not known if the College provided help.

Later in 1901 Grier moved to Albany, Georgia partly because her brother, Dr. R.E. Grier, also practiced medicine there.  Tragically, after struggling for eight years to become a physician, Dr. Eliza Ann Grier died in 1902 at the age of 38 after only five years of medical practice.  She was buried in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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