Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black BeltBloody Lowndes is the true story of the people of rural Lowndes County, Alabama, who organized a radical experiment in democratic politics in 1966. Winner of the 2010 Clinton Jackson Coley Award for the Best Book on local history from the Alabama Historical Association Early in 1966, African Americans in Lowndes County, Alabama, aided by activists from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), established an all-black, independent political party called the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO). The group, whose ballot symbol was a snarling black panther, was formed in part to protest the barriers to black enfranchisement that had for decades kept every single African American of voting age off the county’s registration books. Even after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, most African Americans in this overwhelmingly black county feared violent retaliation from whites if they dared register. Amid this intimidating environment, the LCFO’s experiment in democratic politics inspired black people throughout the country to fight for civil and human rights in new and more radical ways, from SNCC organizer Stokely Carmichael, who used the county’s program as the blueprint for Black Power, to California activists Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, who adopted the panther as the namesake for their new, grassroots organization: the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, which became the national organization of black militancy in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on an impressive array of sources ranging from government documents to personal interviews with Lowndes County residents and SNCC activists, history professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries reveals the remarkable full story of the Lowndes County freedom struggle and its contribution to the larger civil rights movement. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 7 | |
The Making of a Grassroots Social Movement | 39 |
School Desegregation White Resistance and the African American Response | 81 |
The Federal Government and the Fight for Freedom Rights | 117 |
The Birth of the Original Black Panther Party and the Development of Freedom Politics | 143 |
Black Power and the Election of 1966 | 179 |
Other editions - View all
Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama's Black Belt Hasan Kwame Jeffries Limited preview - 2010 |
Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama's Black Belt Hasan Kwame Jeffries Limited preview - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
African Americans Ain’t Alabama April ascs August ballot Birmingham Black Belt black candidates black community black farmers Black Panther Party black political Black Power black protest boycott Calhoun civil rights Coleman committee County Freedom Organization county’s courthouse Democratic Party Democratic primary desegregation election February federal Folder 9 Fort Deposit Frank Miles freedom politics freedom rights freedom struggle Hammonds Haynes Hayneville Hayneville High Hulett Hulett Interview Jackson John Hulett July landowners lccmhr lcfo leaders Lowndes County Freedom Lowndes movement Lowndes Signal Lowndesboro March mass meetings Mississippi Montgomery Advertiser movement activists naacp Negro November participate party’s people’s public schools racial registrars school board sclc Selma September 1998 sharecroppers sheriff sncc activists sncc organizers sncc’s Southern Courier Stokely Carmichael third party tion Tuskegee University voter registration Voting Rights W. E. B. Du Bois wanted wats Report white candidates White Hall York