Will The Circle Be Unbroken? Program Listings
Staff
Vol. 19, No. 1, 1997 p. 30
PROLOGUE
Race relations and social conditions across the American South prior to World War IL Written by Julian Bond. >COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA The use of litigation through the courts as a route to social change.
THE ROAD TO LITIGATION
Formation of the statewide NAACP in South Carolina. Thurgood Marshall and the 1941 equal pay for black teachers lawsuit, and challenging the all-white democratic primary.
UNDER COLOR OF LAW
Briggs vs. Elliot, the lawsuit in rural Clarendon County to challenge segregated schools. On appeal it became part of Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended segregation in the South.
HEY HEY, HO HO SEGREGATION’S GOT TO GO
Repercussions from Brown vs. Board of Education. Desegregation of public schools in Columbia. 1960’s boycotts and marches.
ORANGEBURG
The Orangeburg massacre–three students are killed by state troopers while protesting on their campus at South Carolina State University.
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA The birth and evolution of the strategy of a mass movement.
THE CRADLE OF THE CONFEDERACY Social conditions in Montgomery after WWII. The antecedents to the bus boycott: Rev. Vernon Johns, the NAACP and the Women’s Political Council.
WALK AND PRAY
The bus boycott, Part I: Rosa Parks’ arrest and the establishment of the Montgomery Improvement Association under the leadership of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
THE BUS BOYCOTT
The bus boycott, Part II: Tactics, strategies and events during the year long boycott.
MY FEET IS TIRED, BUT MY SOUL IS RESTED
The bus boycott, Part III: The settlement of the boycott, Dr. King leaves Montgomery for Atlanta.
ROCKING THE CRADLE
Montgomery after the boycott: apathy and internal conflict, the freedom rides and the Selma marches.
LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS The practice and implications of federal intervention to protect individual civil rights.
THE JIM CROW YEARS
Social conditions and social change in Little Rock and East Arkansas, 1940-1956.
NINE FOR JUSTICE
The desegregation of Little Rock public schools 1954-1957. The history and context behind the effort to integrate Little Rock’s prestigious Central High School.
SOLDIERS IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE
The desegregation of Little Rock public schools, Part II: 1957-1958. President Eisenhower sends in federal troops to protect the rights of nine black school children.
THE LOST YEAR
The desegregation of Little Rock public schools, Part III: 1959-1960. The Women’s Emergency Committee forms to pressure re-opening of the public schools as integrated institutions.
THE 1960s
A review of civil rights activism in Little Rock and East Arkansas during the 1960s. Describes the process of a growing militancy and rifts within the movement.
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI The violent resistance encountered by civil rights workers and the strategies that evolved to challenge that resistance.
AMERICAN APARTHEID
Social conditions in Jackson and rural Mississippi between 1940 and 1960, including the formation of white Citizen’s Councils and the state Sovereignty Commission, and the opposition organized by the NAACP, led by Mississippi field secretary, Medgar Evers.
THE BIRTH OF THE JACKSON MOVEMENT
Chronicles Medgar Evers’ early leadership, the library sit-in, the Freedom Rides and the beginning of 1960’s movement in Jackson.
THE DEMONSTRATIONS
Medgar Evers’ murder and funeral, and the subsequent elementary and high school students’ mass protests.
FREEDOM SUMMER
1964 and the Freedom Summer campaign that brought northern students into Mississippi to register and educate voters.
POWER AND RESISTANCE
The late sixties and the formation of the anti-war movement, black power and the killing of the Jackson State University students by state troopers.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA The process of negotiated settlements and the manipulation of public information to both protect and challenge the status quo.
PRELUDE OF A MOVEMENT
Social conditions in Atlanta between 1940 and 1960 and early voting rights protests.
THE ATLANTA STUDENT MOVEMENT
The Atlanta Student Movement, 1960-61–one of the largest and best organized student protests in the nation. Conflict between the older and younger black leadership.
CROW AND MOLASSES
The extended and tumultuous process of desegregating the Atlanta public schools, 1954-1970.
THE CITY TOO BUSY TO HATE
Describes how Atlanta’s business and civic leadership in order to provide an acceptable climate for business, carefully created and maintained the myth that the city had no racial conflicts, and desegregated peacefully and willingly.
THE RISE OF BLACK POLITICAL POWER
Over a twelve-year period, describes the changes, and provides perspective on the transformation of Atlanta from a city led by white politicians to one with black leadership.
EPILOGUE
Bringing the listener up to date. From the people who made the Movement, responses to the following questions: What did the Movement achieve? Is the Movement over? Is there still a need for a Movement today? Written by Julian Bond.