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1. 1. Solomon's Temple, Augustus' Altar, and Edwin's Roads: Peace in the Political Imagination

Paul J. E. Kershaw

in Peaceful Kings: Peace, Power and the Early Medieval Political Imagination

What did early medieval authors think about when they thought about peace? Early medieval political culture is impossible to understand without a full awareness of the foundations upon which it was ... More

What did early medieval authors think about when they thought about peace? Early medieval political culture is impossible to understand without a full awareness of the foundations upon which it was constructed, and the inherited thought and imagery with which it was built. Briefly discussing the linguistic issues involved in the subject, this chapter uses Bede's famous image of the peace of King Edwin of Northumbria's reign as a means to explore the various currents that fed into the early medieval political imagination. Biblical material, and the forms of its re‐use in early medieval culture is addressed — with emphasis upon the treatment of Solomon — as is the legacy of antiquity through an examination of the late history of the ara pacis of Augustus and the reconfiguration of Rome's central precincts. Byzantine, Augustinian, early Irish, and ‘Germanic’ notions of peace also come under scrutiny.Less

The Heart of the Movement: Boycotts, Sit-Ins, Freedom Rides, Mass Demonstrations

Elaine Allen Lechtreck

in Southern White Ministers and the Civil Rights Movement

The chapter reveals the violence associated with the Civil Rights Movement, the courage of African American activists (Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers) and the small minority of southern ... More

The chapter reveals the violence associated with the Civil Rights Movement, the courage of African American activists (Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers) and the small minority of southern white ministers who joined them. In Montgomery, Alabama, Robert Graetz provided taxi service for demonstrators. Andrew Turnipseed paid the salary of James Love, who signed the Mobile bus petition, when his parishioners would not. No southern white minister would participate in freedom rides, but John Morris organized a Freedom Ride after the violence subsided. The group was arrested. Joseph Ellwanger was harassed in Birmingham. Hundreds of black protestors were arrested and tortured. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Edwin King was arrested and tortured. The Klan and other white supremacist groups flourished. Black activists and some whites were murdered in Mississippi. As Edwin King commented, “Good white people could do nothing in the face of madness.”Less

“Christ Did Not Build any Racial Walls”: Church Desegregation Campaigns, 1961–65

Stephen R. Haynes

in The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation

This chapter describes church desegregation campaigns between 1961 and 1966, with major focus on Albany, Atlanta, Birmingham, Jackson, Mississippi, Saint Augustine, Selma and Montgomery.

“I Don’t Mind My Light Shining,”: Speech Delivered at a Freedom Vote Rally in Greenwood, Mississippi, Fall 1963

Maegan Parker Brooks and Davis W. Houck

in The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is

In the fall of 1963, Allard Lowenstein and Bob Moses organized a “mock election” called the Freedom Vote to show that disenfranchised black Mississippians would cast a ballot if given the ... More

In the fall of 1963, Allard Lowenstein and Bob Moses organized a “mock election” called the Freedom Vote to show that disenfranchised black Mississippians would cast a ballot if given the opportunity. They fielded an integrated ticket composed of black Clarksdale pharmacist Aaron Henry and white Tougaloo College chaplain Reverend Edwin King to run for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively. The people behind Freedom Vote also formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. By late October, the campaign had gathered momentum and publicity and Freedom Vote rallies were held across the state. One such rally took place in the town of Greenwood in the Mississippi, with Fannie Lou Hamer as a speaker. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s speech, in which she quoted extensively from the Bible to warn Mississippi blacks that they would go “straight to hell” with their oppressors if they did not take action and vote.Less