#james orange

Response of Martin Luther King, Jr., to allegations by the city of Memphis, TN, that he and others were engaged in a conspiracy to incite riots or breaches of the peace, April 4, 1968. 

“The defendants are not presently and have never been engaged in any conspiracies as alleged in the complaint.”

Record Group 21: Records of District Courts of the United States

Series: Civil Cases

File Unit: City of Memphis vs Martin Luther King, Jr., et. al., Civil C-68-80

Transcription: 

Born: December 16, 1938

Died: February 26, 1965

Jimmie Lee was born in Marion, Alabama. Father of one daughter, he was a Vietnam Veteran and a deacon at his church. Jackson tried several times to register to vote, but he was repeatedly blocked the unfair obstacles many blacks faced when it came to registering.

On February 18th, 1965 Jackson ,along with his mother and grandfather, took part in a night march to protest the arrest of civil right’s leader, James Orange. The march was met with violent opposition from segregationists and police officers.

Jackson and his family ran to Mack’s Cafe, but the police caught up with them. An officer by the name of James  Fowler shot Jimmie Lee in the stomach, claiming he thought he was reaching for a gun. Fowler apologized for killing him but maintained that it was in self defense, until 2007 when he was finally charged with the murder. He pleaded to manslaughter and served 6 months. He was also investigated for the killing of another black man, by the name of Nathan Fowler in 1966.

Jimmie Lee Jackson inspired Selma march

GEORGE CURRY

(NNPA)—Although Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis captured the headlines, it was the death of 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson that inspired the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March.

After fighting in the Vietnam War, Jackson had returned home to Marion, Ala., which also happens to be the birthplace of Coretta Scott King, about 30 miles northwest of Selma in the soil-rich Black Belt…

On 18 Feb. 1965, about 500 protesters marched to the Perry County Jail in Selma, AL to show support for the civil-rights worker James Orange, who had been arrested.  The protesters were met by Alabama State Troopers, who attacked the crowd.  26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot twice in the stomach and then beaten as he tried to protect his mother and 82-year-old grandfather from being attacked.  Jimmie Lee Jackson died in the hospital on 26 Feb. 1965, and was the inspiration for the organized march from Selma to Montgomery on 7 March 1965.  They never made it out of Selma.

As 600 marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams, they were also attacked and beaten by Alabama State Troopers. Protesters were chased back into their neighborhoods where the beatings continued. An elderly woman was clubbed on the steps of her church.  John Lewis had his skull fractured.

The march finally took place two weeks later.  After it was over, a white mother of five from Detroit, Viola Liuzzo, was driving one of the marchers home to Selma. A car of Klansmen pulled up beside her and shot her in the face.  Viola Liuzzo was the third person to die in the days surrounding “Bloody Sunday.”

At the heart of these protests and marches were voting rights.  Since the Civil War, Southern elections officials had created a maze of voting obstacles for people of color. Making blacks pay a fee to vote was one. And there were tests given only to black voters to assure they were smart enough to cast a ballot — a test often administered by illiterate white election officials. If the initial questions were answered correctly, there might be additional questions: How many bubbles on a bar of soap? How deep is depth? How many grains of sand on the Gulf Shores beaches?