In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma

Chronology

171 Chronology 1820: Selma is founded; Cahawba (south of Selma) is selected as state capital. 1826: Alabama state capital moves from Cahawba to Montgomery. July 29, 1940: Bernard LaFayette Jr. is born in Tampa, Florida. May 17, 1954: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka: the U.S. Supreme Court issues a landmark decision that rules having separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. December 1, 1955: Montgomery Bus Boycott begins. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. launches a successful 381-day protest that leads to desegregation of public transportation. January 1957: Dr. King and others form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which becomes an organizing force in the civil rights and nonviolence movement, with Dr. King as its president. Fall 1958: Bernard LaFayette Jr. begins college in Nashville at American Baptist Theological Seminary. February 1, 1960: First segregated lunch counter sit-ins at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, by four black students, who continue to sit at the counter after being refused service. February 27, 1960: First arrests for the Nashville Student Movement ongoing lunch counter sit-ins in which Bernard LaFayette Jr. is involved. April 19, 1960: Bernard LaFayette Jr. with the Nashville Student Movement and more than four thousand others march to city hall and meet 172 Chronology with Nashville mayor Ben West. He publicly acknowledges that he feels segregation is morally wrong. April 1960: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) founded at Shaw University, providing a venue of support for young black activists. Bernard LaFayette Jr. is a founding member. November 9, 1960: John F. Kennedy is elected president. May 4, 1961: Freedom Rides begin from Washington, D.C., a strategy for black and white activists to challenge local laws that maintain segregation on interstate travel. Bernard LaFayette Jr. later joins as a Freedom Rider. May 21, 1961: Armed mob of more than two thousand gathers at Selma bus station to attack the Freedom Riders journeying from Montgomery to Jackson; the bus is diverted. Bernard LaFayette Jr. is on the bus and one of those previously attacked at the Montgomery bus station. November 1, 1961: Interstate Commerce Commission ruling goes into effect desegregating interstate travel. Spring 1962: Bernard LaFayette Jr. returns to college at Fisk University in Nashville. November 1962: Bernard LaFayette Jr. marries Colia Liddell, his first wife. He visits Selma to do research. January 1963: Bernard LaFayette Jr. from SNCC arrives in Selma to direct the Alabama Voter Registration Campaign. Spring 1963: Bernard LaFayette Jr. trains youth in Birmingham in strategies of nonviolence. May 2–5, 1963: Children’s Crusade in Birmingham: hundreds of schoolchildren march to the mayor’s office to protest segregation. Chronology 173 May 14, 1963: First mass meeting and memorial service held for Mr. Boynton. May 1963: Bernard LaFayette Jr. is arrested on a trumped-up charge of vagrancy as he drives in his car in Selma. June 10, 1963: President Kennedy sends National Guard to desegregate the University of Alabama after Governor George Wallace blocks the door to the admissions office to prevent black students from enrolling. June 12, 1963: Tri-state conspiracy: Medgar Evers killed in Mississippi, Benjamin Cox targeted in Louisiana, and Bernard LaFayette Jr. attacked in Alabama. June 19, 1963: President Kennedy proposes a broad civil rights bill following a June 11 television address urging public support of equal treatment to all, despite race. Summer 1963: Bernard LaFayette Jr. begins voter registration project in Wilcox County. August 28, 1963: March on Washington: Dr. King delivers “I Have a Dream” speech and meets with President Kennedy about a civil rights act. Fall 1963: Bernard LaFayette Jr. returns to college in Nashville and continues his work in Selma on a monthly basis. September 15, 1963: Birmingham bombing; four girls killed. October 7, 1963: “Freedom Day”: more than three hundred blacks attempt to register to vote in Selma and are arrested. November 22, 1963: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. January 8, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson delivers his first State of the Union address and supports the civil rights movement. 174 Chronology January 14, 1964: Colia and Bernard LaFayette Jr.’s first child, James Arthur, is born in Nashville. Summer 1964: Freedom Summer, the vast effort to register black voters in Mississippi, supported by SNCC, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and other groups. Bernard LaFayette Jr. begins working with Chicago Campaign. July 2, 1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964 is signed by President...