#albanymovement

Lesson 86: C.B. (Chevene Bowers) King

Chevene Bowers King was born in Albany, Georgia in 1928 into a family that was already famously connected to the cause of civil rights (please look up the extraordinary life of Clennon Washington King Sr.). Known to his friends as C. B., King earned his law degree from Case Western Reserve University and rose to prominence as a civil rights attorney, holding the distinction of being the first (and for a long time, the only) Black attorney in southern Georgia, frequently finding himself arguing cases before the all-white judges and all-white juries of the day (and, dismayingly, sometimes seeing his successes later reversed).

In the earliest days of the Albany Movement, King took on a particular client; one Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (no relation). When the civil rights marchers of the Albany Movement filled the city’s jails in the early 1960s, C.B. King led the legal team that came to the protesters’ defense and negotiated their release. While visiting a Dougherty County jail in 1962, Sheriff Cull Campbell assaulted him with a cane. A photograph of a bloodied and bandaged C.B. made the New York Times and was widely circulated; a year later during the March on Washington, organizer (and future Congressman) John Lewis angrily cited this incident in his speech.

King was also the first African-American to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia since Reconstruction (1964), and the first to run for Governor (1969). Although he did not win either race, his campaigns inspired large numbers of Black people to register, setting a slow but significant course change for Black candidates for local and regional offices. He also participated in --and conducted the legal research for-- drafting the bylaws for New Communities, Inc., a project spearheaded by his brother Slater. He remained a mentor for generations of Black law students who came to his small Albany firm.