Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Coalition-Hawai’i
“Freedom wore an expensive price tag”
1964-Civil Rights Act
Souvenir Book
Hawai’i 1988-2004
www.mlk-hawaii.org
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition – Hawai’i 2004
Officers:
Patricia Anthony. . . . . . . .President
Donald Hayman. . . . . . . .Vice President
Juliet Begley . . . . . . . . . .Secretary
William Rushing . . . .. . . .Treasure
Co-Sponsor: City & County of Honolulu
Mayor’s Office of Culture & Arts
Event Chairs:
Candlelight Bell Ringing Ceremony: Marsha Joyner & Rev.
Charlene Zuill
Parade Chairs: William Rushing & Pat Anthony
Unity Rally: Jewell McDonald
Vendors: Don Hayman
Webmaster: Don Hayman
Coalition Support Groups:
African American Association
AKA Sorority
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity
Ba’hai International
Beta Sigma
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Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Golden Visions Enterprises
Hawaii Government Employees Association
Hawaii Navy/Marine Corps Black History Coalition
Hawaii National Guard
Hawaii State AFL-CIO
Hawaiian National Communications Corporation
Headquarters US Pacific Command
Island Unity Coalition
NCTAMS-Hawaii
National Weather Service
‘Olelo: The Corporation for Community Television
State of Hawai’i
United Nations Association of Hawaii
United States Military
University of Hawaii Professional Assembly
Booklet Editor: Marsha Joyner
© Copyright: Hawaiian National Communications Corporation,
2004. All rights reserved.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Officers: ................................................................................. 2
The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition- Hawaii ........... 5
Time ....................................................................................... 6
“Freedom wore an expensive price tag” .............................. 7
Equality Before The Law...................................................... 9
1964 ...................................................................................... 17
The 1964 Civil Rights Act ................................................... 29
We Shall Overcome ............................................................. 32
Voting Rights Act Of 1965 .................................................. 36
President Harry S. Truman................................................ 39
Nagasaki Peace Bell............................................................. 40
Martin Luther King Jr. 2003 Parade Participants ........... 44
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The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition-Hawai’i
2004 is the 16th anniversary
of the Dr. Martin Luther
King Holiday in Hawai’i.
The Celebration has grown
a lot over these years. The
Holiday was officially
proclaimed by the state
legislature to be the 3rd
Monday of January. Beginning January 16, 1989.
During the heady days of the 80s when the state had lots of
money the Martin Luther King commission was formed by the
state. The interim commission was formed July 1, 1989 to June
30 1990. Then a permanent commission was formed. The State
of Hawai’i Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission, (with
commissioners from many different ethnic groups), won
National awards for its scope and depth of the holiday
celebrations. In 1995 as the state’s money dried up the
commission was sunset. The remaining money was transferred
to the Civil Rights Commission.
To continue the work of the Commission, The Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Holiday Coalition was incorporated in 1995 by a group
of dedicated African-American residents of Honolulu. The
coalition is a non-profit organization, which performs many
community service events that carry on Dr. King's principles of
peace for all mankind. To assist the fledging organization in
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1996 the Civil Rights Commission stepped in with financial aid
and expertise.
Since that time the Coalition has coordinated the Holiday and
other community events, which grow larger every year. At the
request of Mayor Jeremy Harris, since 1998 the City & County
of Honolulu has been the co-sponsor of the Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Holiday.
Time
http://www.time.com/time/2002/bhm/
Colin Powell. Duke Ellington. Tiger Woods. Toni Morrison.
Your family and friends, your neighbors. Black Americans have
helped shape who we are as a nation, and continue to play
important roles in fields ranging from education to
entertainment.
From the painful
passage of the
civil rights
movement to the
political ascent of
Powell, the links
conquests of
Woods and the
lyricism of
Morrison, browse
TIME's words and images documenting the American story that
is celebrated every February.
6
http://www.time.com/time/2002/bhm/
Time Magazine
Covers of AfricanAmericans
http://www.time.com/time/2002/bhm/covers/1.html
How Well Do you know Black History?
Take the Ultimate Black History Quiz!
http://www.bet.com/blackhistoryquiz/
“Freedom wore an expensive price tag”
People, not processes, won the significant
gains of the civil rights movement. Against
incredible odds--and often at great risk--the
thousands of activists in the modern
freedom struggle won victories that
touched their own lives as well as those of
their neighbors and future generations.
Colored Water Fountain
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Equality Before The Law
“For on this generation of Americans falls the burden of
proving to the world that we really mean it when we say all men
are created free and equal before the
law.”
Robert F. Kennedy
When Robert Kennedy became attorney
general, the civil rights struggle was
entering a new phase of activism. In
February 1960, four black college students in Greensboro, North
Carolina sat in at the “whites only” section of a segregated
Woolworth’s lunch counter and launched a national wave of
similar protests. Fifteen months later, in May 1961, a small
group of Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C. by Greyhound
bus aiming to integrate interstate bus terminals throughout the
South. The mob violence they encountered, and local police
indifference to it, precipitated Justice Department involvement
in protecting them and upholding their rights.
Relations between the
Justice Department and
the growing civil rights
movement were both
close and heated.
Challenged by the
courageous actions of
movement activists, the
attorney general and his staff helped to desegregate schools and
public facilities, integrate the public universities of Alabama and
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Mississippi, shape new civil rights legislation, and support the
registration of black voters throughout the South. Although
many civil rights workers questioned the Justice Department’s
depth of commitment, the two groups shared common goals and
worked closely together.
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COMMENTARY Honolulu Advertiser August 24, 2003
March on Washington: Pledge, more than speeches, made
day memorable
By Marsha Joyner
"Fellow Americans, we are gathered here
in the largest demonstration in the history
of this nation. Let the nation and the world
know the meaning of our numbers." '
— A. Philip Randolph, speaking in the
shadow of the Lincoln Memorial
A. Phillip Randolph
Through
the magic of a 10-inch black
& white television complete
with rabbit ears, my baby girl
and I watched and watched
and watched: August 28,
1963, Highlands Air Force
Base, N.J. I was a brand-new
mother. It was one of the first
events to be broadcast live
around the world, via the
newly launched
communications satellite
Telstar.
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As I searched the crowd for my mother, (Elizabeth Murphy
Oliver, Afro-American Newspapers editor), we watched the
entire historic event unfold. We, all of America, had never seen
anything like this.
Blacks from every village and hamlet, big cities and little towns,
the light folks and the dark folks, the professors and the
students, the dock workers and the Pullman Porters, The United
Auto Workers, AFL-CIO, bus after bus, on foot and in cars, gay
and straight, men, women, children, black, brown, red, yellow
and white, they came, challenging the government of the United
States.
No one knew what to expect. Holding onto my six-month-old
Marilyn, tears running down my face, I remained glued to the
tiny screen.
As the day went on, the speeches sort of ran together. With the
most hard-hitting speech of the day, John Lewis, (whose speech
made the Catholic archdiocese very uncomfortable), Whitney
Young, Roy Wilkins (the acknowledged leader of the civil rights
movement), A. Philip Randolph, (the leader of the march). And
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous speech.
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More than the speech, it was the delivery. After that day, the
mantle of leadership shifted from Wilkins of the NAACP to the
young minister King.
Bayard Rustin was named chief coordinator of the march,
overcoming some skittish opposition based on his being a
pacifist, socialist and homosexual.
You must remember that all of the speeches were making
demands. They asked for full civil rights, for racial and social
justice, and for a $2 hourly minimum wage, across the board,
nationwide.
Looking back, I recall that there were very few
women invited to participate except the
singers. Yet, in city after city, organization and
logistics for the SNCC fell to women.
Fanny Lou Hamer of Mississippi, the woman who changed the
face of the Democratic Party forever, had just gone through the
worst beating imaginable. She was not even mentioned by any
of the speakers.
The words he, him, brothers, brotherhood and all men, ran
throughout the speeches. And when King did mention females,
it was "little girls and sisters."
Even Coretta Scott King said she watched the march from her
hotel room.
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"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this
promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned;
instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its
colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked
insufficient funds."
The "returned check" part of the speech made headlines. That is
what blacks understood. For whites, the press made the "I have a
Dream" part what is remembered today.
Of the 50 sentences in the speech, only nine are
about the dream. The media have reduced King
from an activist, a challenger of the system, to a
dreamer ("I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply
rooted in the American dream.")
I, for one, resent the mythical King that the establishment has
created. Our young people do not know the full measure of the
man and the struggle.
All they know is "I have a Dream." This was
and is the most insidious public-relations ploy
to reduce and diminish the entire movement.
They labeled him a communist because he had
the gall to challenge the American system.
When that did not work, they labeled him a dreamer. Don't get
me wrong, I am a dreamer, and dreams have to come first before
there is any action. King inspired action; he WAS action. He
was always in motion.
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Also very troubling is the media's portrayal of King's "March on
Washington," not seeing all of the other people who made it
possible.
As a result of the groundwork laid 22 years earlier for the 1941
March on Washington, Randolph was prepared for the
leadership role he held in the 1963 March.
With Bayard Rustin as the main
organizer of the march, Randolph was
able to unite the many civil rights
groups and union leaders that
comprised this national call for masses
of people to take action.
The civil rights movement did not
begin with King. It began when the first
slave refused to be taken alive in
chains. What counted most at the Lincoln Memorial was not the
speeches, eloquent as they were, but the pledge of a quarter
million Americans, black and white, to carry the civil rights
revolution into the streets. The task became the fulfillment of the
pledge through nonviolent uprisings in hundreds of cities.
You asked if I was there? In the shadow of the Great
Emancipator, on that 100th anniversary, every heart and every
soul of black America was there.
I stood in front of my television, raised my hand, took the pledge
and continued the revolution in the streets. I have been on the
stony road for the past 50 years.
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As we commemorate the March on Washington, do I sound
upset? I am! As president of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Coalition-Hawai’i, I speak to audiences at every level. They all
know "I have a dream" and nothing else. No one ever asks me if
the check, which came back marked insufficient funds, has been
paid. No one ever asks me if we are still on that lonely island.
Or what does it mean to be the veteran of creative suffering?
Absolutely not one person — not one person — has ever asked
me about the "Demands of the March on Washington" as read
by Rustin and presented to President John F. Kennedy; or "The
Pledge," as read by Randolph, that everyone in attendance
vowed to live by.
Does anyone still have a copy of the pledge? No, it is lost in "I
have a dream."
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1964
"Granted that we face a world crisis which leaves us
standing so often amid the surging murmur of life's restless
sea. But every crisis has both its dangers and its
opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom. In a
dark confused world the kingdom of God may yet reign in
the hearts of men."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The year in review:
In recalling 1964 we celebrate the enormous potential of Black
people.
While we achieved many “firsts”, we also suffered a
disproportionate numbers of causalities.
January 1964
The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified,
ending the poll tax. (01/23/64)
• January 11, 1964, Luther L. Terry, M.D., Surgeon General
of the U.S. Public Health Service, released the report of the
Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and
Health. That landmark document, now referred to as the
first Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health, was
America's first widely publicized official recognition that
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cigarette smoking is a cause of cancer and other serious
diseases
February 1964
• February 7 - A jury trying Bryon De La Beckwith for the
murder of Medgar Evers in June 1963 reports in Jackson,
Mississippi that it was unable to agree on a verdict,
resulting in a mistrial.
• Rep. Howard W. Smith, in a "southern strategy" to defeat
the Civil Rights Act, moved to add "sex" to one of its
provisions. After heated debate, the House of
Representatives voted to pass the amendment, which added
the word "sex" to the discriminatory bans of race, color,
religion, and national origin in Title VII of the bill.
(02/08/64)
• Cassius Clay Wins Heavyweight Title:
He knocks out Sonny Liston in the seventh round of their
fight to become the heavyweight champion. The following
day he announces his conversion to Islam and changes his
name to Muhammad Ali.
March 1964
• March 8 - Malcolm X, suspended from the Nation of Islam,
says in New York City that he was forming a black
nationalist party.
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• March 27: 17:36:14.2. Epicenter 61.0 north, 147.8 west,
southern Alaska, depth about 33 km ... Magnitude 9.2,"
This earthquake generated a seismic sea wave (tsunami)
that devastated towns along the Gulf of Alaska and left
serious damage at Alberni and Port Alberni, Canada, along
the west coast of the United States, and in Hawaii
• Sidney Poitier was the first Black to win an Oscar for Best
Actor. Actress Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for Best
Supporting Actress in 1939. (1964)
• April 2 - Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, 72, mother of Governor
Endicott Peabody of Massachusetts, is released on $450
bond after spending two days in jail in St. Augustine,
Florida, because of her participation in an anti-segregation
demonstration there.
Summer
• The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a
network of civil rights groups that includes CORE and
SNCC, launches a massive effort to register black voters
during what becomes known as the Freedom Summer.
• The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).It also
sends delegates to the Democratic National Convention to
protest—and attempt to unseat—the official all-white
Mississippi contingent.
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June, 1964
• Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in
June 1964 and sent to Robben Island maximum security
prison. He was held there until April 1982 when he was
transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. In
December 1988 he was moved to Victor Verster Prison
near Paarl and held there until his release on 11 February
1990.
• Title VII a prohibition against discrimination in
employment on the basis of sex as a result of action by
Congresswoman Martha Griffiths (D-MI) and in an attempt
by Southern members of Congress to block its passage.
June 10, 1964
• Before the Senate could vote on the Civil Rights Act of
1964, it first had to end the 75 day filibuster that delayed
that vote. After weeks of careful organizing, head counting,
and skillful persuasion, the bill's supporters had enough
votes to achieve cloture, end debate, and force a vote on
one of the most important bills of the 20th century.
July 2
• President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
making segregation in public facilities and discrimination
in employment illegal.
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August
• Ashe Joins Davis Cup Team Aug 1, 1964
Tennis great Arthur Ashe becomes the first African
American to play on the United States Davis Cup team.
• Three Mississippi civil-rights workers are officially
declared missing, having disappeared on June 21. The last
day they were seen, James E. Cheney, 21; Andrew
Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had been
arrested, incarcerated, and then released on speeding
charges. Their murdered bodies are found after President
Johnson sends military personnel to join the search party. It
is later revealed that the police released the three men to the
Ku Klux Klan. The trio had been working to register black
voters. (Aug, 5,-1964)
September 14, 1964
• Leontyne Price and A. Phillip Randolph Awarded Medal of
Freedom
• President Lyndon B. Johnson awards the Medal of
Freedom to opera singer Leontyne Price and labor activist
A. Philip Randolph for their courage and contributions to
the ideals of freedom and the well being of others.
• I Spy, starring Bill Cosby premieres
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October 1, 1964
• Race riots break out in Harlem and other U.S. cities
Harlem, New York: (1 killed, 100+ wounded)
Rochester, New York: (4 killed, 350 wounded)
Paterson, New Jersey: (100+ wounded)
Chicago injure over three hundred people.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
St. Augustine, Florida
October 4, 1964
• Church Bombed in Vicksburg
A black church in Vicksburg, Mississippi is bombed. Two
people are killed in the bombing of the church, which had
also been used as a center for voter registration.
October 15, 1964
• 1964 Tokyo Olympiad Sprinter Bob Hayes of the U.S.
equaled the world record of 10 seconds flat in the 100
meters, but stunned the crowd with a sub-nine second,
come-from-behind anchor leg to lead the U.S. to set a
world record in the 4x100 meters.
• Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia became the first runner to win
consecutive marathons.
• South Africa was banned from participating in the Olympic
Games by the IOC because of South Africa's racist policy
of apartheid.
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October 24, 1964
• Northern Rhodesia, a former British protectorate, becomes
the independent Republic of Zambia, ending 73 years of
British rule.
1964 Election
• President Johnson was nominated for re-election by
acclamation at the Democratic convention in Atlantic City.
Senator Goldwater ran for the republican nomination, He
was opposed by Nelson Rockefeller, but was nominated on
the first ballot.
• Goldwater promised "a choice and not an echo." Goldwater
suggested the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam if
necessary. He called for deep cuts in the social programs.
He also called opposed much of the civil rights legislation.
He suggested that social security become voluntary, and
that Tennessee Valley Authority be sold. Johnson
campaigned on a platform of continued social programs,
and a limited involvement in Vietnam.
• The election of 1964 was the first election since 1932 that
was fought over true issues, and which brought ideology
into Americans politics. President Johnson won by a
landslide
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December 10, 1964
• King Awarded Nobel Peace Prize Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent
philosophy, leadership and actions for equality during the
Civil Rights Movement.
• 1964 Nobel Prize in medicine is for the discoveries concerning
the mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid
metabolism.
December 14
• The Supreme Court of the United States rules, in Heart of
Atlanta Motel v. United States 379 US 241 1964, that, in
accordance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
establishments providing public accommodations must
refrain from racial discrimination.
The Wars:
• Indigenous people everywhere wanted freedom; the chains
of colonialism broken.
Brazilian Military Revolt 1964
Dhofar Rebellion: Oman 1964-75
Maly-Chinese Violence: Singapore 1964
Panama: Anti-American Rioting 1964
Thailand War 1964-87
VP Coup: Bolivia 1964
Gulf of Tonkin Incident 1964
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PRP Rebels: Congo (Zaire) 1964-97
Gbenye's Insurrection: Congo 1964
Rann of Kutch Dispute 1964-5
Syrian Urban Unrest 1964
Tanganyikan Army Mutiny 1964
Zanzibar's Revolution 1964
July 30, 1964
• On this night, South Vietnamese commandos attack two
small North Vietnamese islands in the Gulf of Tonkin. The
U.S. destroyer Maddox, an electronic spy ship, is 123 miles
south with orders to electronically simulate an air attack to
draw North Vietnamese boats away from the commandos.
August 4, 1964
• The captain of the U.S.S. Maddox reports that his vessel
has been fired on and that an attack is imminent. Though he
later says that no attack took place, six hours after the
initial report, a retaliation against North Vietnam is ordered
by President Johnson. American jets bomb two naval bases,
and destroy a major oil facility. Two U.S. planes are
downed in the attack.
August 7, 1964
• The U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution,
giving President Johnson the power to take whatever
actions he sees necessary to defend Southeast Asia.
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1964 Greatest Hits
# 1. Twist and Shout - Beatles
# 2. Under The Boardwalk - The Drifters
# 3. I Saw Her Standing There - Beatles
# 4. Dancing In The Street - Martha and the Vandellas
# 5. You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling - Righteous Brothers
# 6. I Get Around - Beach Boys
# 7. I Want To Hold Your Hand - Beatles
# 8. Where Did Our Love Go - Supremes
# 9. My Guy - Mary Wells
# 10. Chapel Of Love - Dixie Cups
1964 Top Movies
Mary Poppins
My Fair Lady
Goldfinger
Viva Las Vegas
A Fistful of Dollars
Elvis: Roustabouts
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love
the Bomb
Cost of Living:
a new home: $20,500.00
a new car: $2,300.00
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a first-class stamp: $0.05
a gallon of regular gas: $0.30
a dozen eggs: $0.54
a gallon of Milk: $0.95
a loaf of bread $0.21
June 10, 1964
Civil Rights Filibuster Ended
At 9:51 on the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Robert C.
Byrd completed an address that he had begun fourteen hours and
thirteen minutes earlier. The subject was the pending Civil
Rights Act of 1964, a measure that occupied the Senate for fiftyseven working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier,
Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey, the bill's manager,
concluded he had the sixty-seven votes required at that time to
end the debate.
The Civil Rights Act provided protection of voting rights;
banned discrimination in public facilities—including private
businesses offering public services—such as lunch counters,
hotels, and theaters; and established equal employment
opportunity as the law of the land.
As Senator Byrd took his seat, House members, former senators,
and others—150 of them—vied for limited standing space at the
back of the chamber. With all gallery seats taken, hundreds
waited outside in hopelessly extended lines.
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Georgia Democrat Richard Russell offered the final arguments
in opposition. Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, who had
enlisted the Republican votes that made cloture a realistic
option, spoke for the proponents with his customary eloquence.
Noting that the day marked the one-hundredth anniversary of
Abraham Lincoln's nomination to a second term, the Illinois
Republican proclaimed, in the words of Victor Hugo, "Stronger
than all the armies is an idea whose time has come." He
continued, "The time has come for equality of opportunity in
sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will
not be stayed or denied. It is here!"
Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough
votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once
in the thirty-seven years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for
any measure.
The clerk proceeded to call the roll. When he reached "Mr.
Engle," there was no response. A brain tumor had robbed
California's mortally ill Clair Engle of his ability to speak.
Slowly lifting a crippled arm, he pointed to his eye, thereby
signaling his affirmative vote. Few of those who witnessed this
heroic gesture ever forgot it. When Delaware's John Williams
provided the decisive sixty-seventh vote, Majority Leader Mike
Mansfield exclaimed, "That's it!" Richard Russell slumped; and
Hubert Humphrey beamed. With six wavering senators
providing a four-vote victory margin, the final tally stood at 71
to 29. Nine days later the Senate approved the act
28
itself—producing one of the twentieth century's towering
legislative achievements.
Reference Items:
Graham, Hugh Davis. The Civil Rights Era: Origins and
Development of National Policy. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1990.
Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert
Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights.
New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act
The struggle for equality for Americans of African descent
continues despite the significant advances made during the
1950's and 1960's. The question arises as to whether the struggle
for Civil Rights has actually benefited the descendants of the
many who sacrificed jobs, properties, reputations, and even their
lives. Has the American civil rights movement become
irrelevant?
Years of sacrifice culminated in the passage of legislation of the
1964 Civil Rights Act. When the bill was introduced, there was
lengthy debate of its contents. Southern congressmen fought
against it with every breath. However, the public mode was
behind change, and change is what was received with the
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passage of this bill. It
was the most
significant piece of
legislation to date, and
it has had a lasting
effect in the elimination
of discrimination and
segregation.
The act included 11
titles that covered a
variety of issues.
Included below is a
sampling of the most
significant titles:
1. Outlaws arbitrary discrimination in voter registration and
expedites voting rights suits;
2. Bars discrimination in public accommodations such as
hotels and restaurants;
3. Any motion picture house, theater, concert hall, sports
arena, stadium or other place of exhibition or
entertainment;
4. Authorized the national government to bring suits to
desegregate public facilities and schools;
5. Extends the life and expands the power of the Civil Rights
Commission;
6. Provides for federal financial assistance to be terminated or
withheld from educational institutions and programs that
practice racial discrimination;
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7. Prohibits private employers from refusing to hire or from
firing or discriminating against any person because of race,
color, sex, religion, or nation origin.
Title VII was the most significant of all the sections. However,
when initially introduced by Kennedy prior to his death, it was
only to apply to government employment. After much debate
and revision before congress, it was changed to private sector
employment only. Federal, state, and local government
employment were excluded from the law.
Southern congressmen tried to sabotage the bill by adding, "sex
- gender" to the original bill. They thought that this would surely
kill the bill. To their dismay, the bill was passed with the gender
specification intact.
Author: Kevin Hollaway
A. Phillip Randolph
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We Shall Overcome
President Lyndon Johnson stunned
many of his listeners when during a
speech urging the passage of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, he
closed with the words, "And we
shall overcome."
"We Shall Overcome" seems to
have first been sung by striking
tobacco workers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1945. In the
1960s the song became the all-but-official anthem of the civil
rights movement.
The post-war era marked a period of unprecedented energy
against the second class citizenship accorded to African
Americans in many parts of the nation. Resistance to racial
segregation and discrimination with strategies such as civil
disobedience, nonviolent resistance, marches, protests, boycotts,
"freedom rides," and rallies received national attention as
newspaper, radio, and television reporters and cameramen
documented the struggle to end racial inequality. There were
also continuing efforts to legally challenge segregation through
the courts.
Success crowned these efforts: the Brown decision in 1954, the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act in 1965
helped bring about the demise of the entangling web of
legislation that bound blacks to second class citizenship. One
32
hundred years after the Civil War, blacks and their white allies
still pursued the battle for equal rights in every area of American
life. While there is more to achieve in ending discrimination,
major milestones in civil rights laws are on the books for the
purpose of regulating equal access to public accommodations,
equal justice before the law, and equal employment, education,
and housing opportunities. African Americans have had
unprecedented openings in many fields of learning and in the
arts. The black struggle for civil rights also inspired other
liberation and rights movements, including those of Native
Americans, Latinos, and women, and African Americans have
lent their support to liberation struggles in Africa.”
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Pages 1 & 8 of 8 only
The Library of Congress
34
35
Voting Rights Act Of 1965
August 6, 1965 should be commemorated
as the day of deliverance.
Almost one hundred years after the 15th
amendment to the US. Constitution
granting voting rights to everyone, nonwhites in America had not enjoyed the
full measure of freedom.
The cost of freedom was exceptionally high.
Southern blacks who tried to register to vote--and people of
other races who supported them--were typically harassed, beaten
or killed. People from Hawaii participated in the voter
registration campaign in the southern states.
For years, hundreds of thousands of people had worked and died
to secure human rights for everyone in the U.S. July 2, 1964
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed The Civil rights Act into
law. Yet some of the southern states still resisted granting voting
rights to everyone. The physical abuse was unimaginable and
the economic manipulation deplorable for those who tried to
register to vote.
The Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights ended three
weeks--and three events--that represented the political and
emotional peak of the modern civil rights movement. On
"Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights
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marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got
only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where
state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear
gas and drove them back into Selma. Two days later on March
9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a "symbolic" march to the bridge.
On Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for
Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping in fields. By
the time they reached the capitol on Thursday, March 25, they
were 25,000-strong.
“At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place
to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom.
So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at
Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama (March 7,
1965) . There is no Negro problem. There is no southern
problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an
American problem” President Johnson said in his message to
Congress three weeks after the televisions images of Bloody
Sunday were shown to the world.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which required equal access to
public places and outlawed discrimination in employment, was a
major victory of the black freedom struggle, but the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 was its crowning achievement.
The Act had an immediate impact. Within months of its passage
on August 6, 1965, one quarter of a million new black voters
had been registered.
37
Winning the right to vote changed the political landscape of the
United States. When Congress passed the Voting Rights Act,
barely 100 African Americans held elective office in the U.S.;
today there were more than 10,000.
The biggest impediment to voting is not the KKK or the white
citizens council or economic sanctions; it is apathy. . Today, far
too many people do not appreciate or do not know of the
struggles that women and minorities have gone thru for the right
to vote.
The Voting Rights Act was costly—100 years, thousands were
arrested and served time in jails across America, while others
gave their lives for the right to vote. People stand today on the
ground won by people yesterday, it is a debt we owe.
Marsha Joyner
38
President Harry S. Truman
By 1947, as
the Cold War with the Soviet Union
intensified and the nation was
becoming increasingly antiCommunist and intolerant, Harry
Truman astonished everyone by
suddenly supporting civil rights.
Truman had been outraged at the
murder and assaults on dozens of
black veterans of World War II.
Although he once held strong racial
biases -- he had used the word
"nigger" freely in his speech -- in
1947 he decided to make civil rights a
national issue.
He authorized a fifteen-man
committee on Civil Rights to recommend new legislation to
protect people from discrimination. Speaking from the steps of
the Lincoln Memorial, Truman became the first president of the
United States to address the NAACP. He promised African
Americans that the federal government would act now to end
discrimination, violence, and race prejudice in American life.
Shortly afterward, his panel issued its report confirming that
segregation, lynching, and discrimination at the polls had to be
ended.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_truman.html
39
Nagasaki Peace Bell
"We are deeply moved and very much
gratified that the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Coalition has chosen to hold its annual bellringing ceremony at the Nagasaki Peace Bell
to honor the birthday of the American Nobel
Peace prize awardee." said Katsuichi Fukahori,
leader of the Nagasaki Bell Presentation Committee delegation
and an atomic-bomb survivor.
The Nagasaki Peace Bell is a gift to the people of the City and
County of Honolulu from the survivors of the atomic bombing
of Nagasaki and their supporters. Recognizing that true steps to
peace must begin with acknowledgment of harmful actions in
the past, the survivors in Nagasaki wished to make a gesture of
reconciliation to the people of the city of Honolulu, which
sustained a military attack by their country on December 7,
1941.
Working through the organizing efforts of the Congress Against
Atomic- and Hydrogen-Bomb Committee of Nagasaki and the
Nagasaki Prefecture Hibakusha Membership Association, these
victims began a lengthy process of raising funds and negotiating
with the mayor and the city council-of Honolulu for acceptance
and placement of the peace bell monument at a location
acceptable and appropriate for the general public. Through
mutual efforts the groups in both cities saw the success of the
project in the dedication ceremony which took place on
December 7, 1990 on the grounds near the city hall, Honolulu
40
Hale, when the peace bell was rung for the first time to the great
satisfaction of the delegation of sixty or more of the Nagasaki
Hibakusha in attendance.
Since that date the bell has been sounded on August 9 of the
year and on the day observing the birthday of the American
peacemaker and promoter of non-violence, Martin Luther King,
Jr. Additionally, it has become the site of observances of
important occasions in the continuing struggle to end the
production and use of nuclear weapons.
There are two other peace bell monuments of the same design,
which were given to the city of Leningrad (now once more St.
Petersburg), Russia and to a city in Manchuria, which felt the brunt
of the Japanese military action. In 1996 the Nagasaki Hibakusha
reaffirmed their commitment to the spirit of the bells by sending
each of the three cities a gift of $10,000 for the maintenance of the
monuments.
At the base of the monument a plaque is inscribed with the
following message:
Nagasaki, the city devastated by the bitter tragedy of a nuclear
bomb, dedicates this Nagasaki bell as a symbol of the rebirth of
Nagasaki and the desire of its citizens for peace in the future
through sincere reconciliation and reflection on the folly of
war.
41
Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson 1900
Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the
slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
42
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God,
where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world,
we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.
43
Martin Luther King Jr. 2003
Parade Participants
JOINT MILITARY HONOR COLOR GUARD
HPD MOTORCYCLES
ROYAL HAWAII BAND
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. COALITION- HAWAI’I
1. REFUSE TRUCKS
2. MOUNTED POLICE
3. MAYOR HARRIS
4. HPD EXPLOYERS
5. MAYORS TEAM
6. GRAND MARSHALL
7. EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES
8. DEMOCRATIC PARTY
9. AFL/CLO H.G.E.A. W/BAND
10. HAWAII STATE TEACHERS ASSOC.
44
11. U.H. PROFESSIONAL ASSEMBLY
12. KAPPA ALPHA PSI
13. REPUBLICAN PARTY
14. MOMS KITCHEN
15. GLCC
16. BLACK NURSES ASSOC.
17. FREEDOM BAIL BONDS
18. PHI BETA SIGMA FRAT. ZETA SORO.
19. TRINITY MISSIONARY CHURCH
20. AFRO AMERICAN HERITAGE COMMITTEE
21. DELTA SIGMA THETA SORO.
22. 25TH INFANTRY ARMY BAND
23. CROSS ROADS CHURCH
24. HAWAII CIVIL RIGHTS COMM.
25. HAWAII STATE COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF
WOMEN
26. ALPHA KAPPA ALPHA SORO.
27. ALPHA PHI ALPHA
28. BAHAI YOUTH
29. RAINBOW COALITION
30. HAWAII COALITION AGAINST LEGALIZED
GAMBLING
31. LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS
32. CIVIL UNIONS-CIVIL RIGHTS
41. PFLAG
42. DIGNITY
43. AMERICAN FRIENDS (AFSC)
44. AMERICA CORPS TO END VIOLENCE
45. HICKAM AFRO AMERICAN HERITAGE
46. VETERANS FOR PEACE
45
47. HONOLULU BLACK NURSES ASSOCIATION
48. MOMAYA
49. PRINCE-HALL GRAND LODGE
50. REFUSE & RESIST
51. STAND UP FOR AMERICA
52. FIRE DEPT (2 FIRE TRUCKS)
46
“Freedom wore an expensive price tag”
www.mlk-hawaii.org
47
everychild.onevoice.
You’re the kind of parent that would do anything for your child. And so would we. We’re
the Hawai’i State PTSA, and we support better education, more resources, and safer
schools in the life of every child. Because from homework to recess, from friendships to
family, your child’s development never stops. And neither will we.
ourvoice.theirfuture.
Hawai’i State PTSA ~ 77th Annual Convention
Kona Coast on the Big Island ~ May 14-16, 2004
King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel
Parents, guardians, educators, students and community leaders are invited to attend.
Seeking corporate sponsorships, exhibitors & advertisers. Call for more information.
We are a leader in reminding legislators and the
general public of its obligation to children and
pride ourselves in being a powerful voice for
children, a relevant resource for parents, and a
strong advocate for public education. Call today
to find out how you can form a PTA unit or
become a member of your school’s PTA.
Hawai’i State
P. O. Box 30254, Honolulu, HI 96820-0054
Phone 834-7872 ~ Fax 834-1617
Email: [email protected]
http://www.hawaiiptsa.org
Unity Rally
January 19, 2004
11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Kapiolani Park Bandstand, Honolulu
MC’s Aphonso Braggs & Micki Fine
Among the Entertainers are:
Azure McCall –Jazz Vocalist
Bobby Thurbsby’s NightTrain Blues Band
Bootsie - Vocalist
Chris Vandercook & Company
Fred Walker
Franchize Rappers
J. GHOTTI - Rapper
Jerry Wilson & Group
Kimberly Bradford R & B Vocalist
Kuumba West African Dance & Drums
Lielehua Step Club
SmokeTrain & Company
Shirley Sypert’s Keiki’s Vocal Dance Expressions
Rubina Collier
City Of Refuge Gospel Choir
Hickam Gospel Choir
Trinity Gospel Choir
Food, Crafts Games & Rides for Children
Jewell McDonald - Chair Unity Rally; Patricia Anthony – President
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition-Hawaii