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216 7 7 7 7 7 7 “Applause literally rocked Mason Temple,” exclaimed the TriState Defender in a report on a “Freedom Rally” for the Volunteer Ticket, July 31, 1959, that drew 5,000 black Memphians to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and local speakers. “Thunderous applause” repeatedly interrupted black Memphis political candidates Russell Sugarmon, Benjamin Hooks, Rev. Roy Love, Rev. Henry Bunton, and others. The crowd roared as speakers ripped into “Uncle Toms,” declaring , as one speaker did, “Let this night be the burial of uncle toms of all shapes, forms and fashions!” “We’re going to fight till hell freezes over and then skate across on the ice,” yelled Lt. George Lee to deafening cheers. Placard-waving youth demonstrated for Russell Sugarmon, whose campaign for commissioner of public works had been vigorously opposed by white Memphians. In his speech, Dr. King declared that he “had never seen such enthusiasm at a meeting of Negroes.” “I am delighted beyond power of word to see such magnificent unity,” King cried, urging listeners to “[w]alk together children, for we just want to be free!” “Something [is] going to take place that never took place before,” he predicted.1 A scene not from 1968 but 1959, only seven years after naacp official Ruby Hurley despaired about the “conservative influence [that] dominates the thinking” among black Memphis leaders, this rally accompanied a vigorous effort to register voters and elect black officials to the all-white city government. The number of African Americans registered to vote in the August election had soared to an unprecedented 55,000, out of a total of 186,000 registered voters in Memphis. Besides Sugarmon’s hard-fought race, Benjamin Hooks sought a juvenile court judgeship, and ministers Roy Love and Henry Bunton were campaigning for the school board. Elihue Stanback, an officer in the Binghampton Civic League, was running 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 WeWere Making History Students, Sharecroppers, and Sanitation Workers in the Memphis Freedom Movement 7 Memphis Freedom Movement 217 independently for city tax assessor. O. Z. Evers, president of the league, would have been running for city commissioner had he not been forced to drop out of the race under threat of being fired from his job at the post office.2 Panicked that racial bloc voting might usher an African American into the city commission in 1959, Shelby County representatives had convinced the state legislature to alter the process by which Memphis city commissioners were elected. Until now, the top four vote-getters won positions for nondesignated seats, which might have allowed African Americans voting as a bloc to elect a black candidate. After the changes, each post was voted on separately, ensuring that whites would likely win every post, since white voters were in the majority. However, when six white men announced their candidacy for commissioner of public works, to replace mayoral candidate Henry Loeb, it became evident that if whites split their votes, a black candidate might very well win. As the Tri-State Defender put it, “The word is out across the country that, for the first time in modern history, Negroes have a good chance of being elected to local offices. Negro voters are having a love affair with history.”3 Three weeks after the rally, on August 20, 64 percent of Memphis’s registered black voters turned out to the polls, with many in heavily African American wards lining up before 7:00 a.m. or casting ballots as late as 10:00 p.m. Sugarmon and Hooks won 94 percent of the black vote, with Love and Bunton close behind. Voter turnout among white Memphians reached the even higher rate of 73 percent, however, making the overall turnout the largest ever in Memphis. Aided by the last-minute withdrawal from the race by four of the six white candidates for commissioner of public works, leaving one clear leader, white voters avoided splitting their votes and defeated Sugarmon. The black candidates for other offices were also defeated. And Edmund Orgill’s withdrawal from the mayoral race shortly before the election helped usher Henry Loeb, an avowed segregationist, into the mayor’s office.4 This shutout of African Americans from elected office despite their strenuous efforts in the political process illuminated the formidable challenges faced by black Memphians. In rural plantation areas, where blacks formed the vast majority of agricultural...

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