James Bevel: Biography from Answers.com

James Luther Bevel (1936-2008) was a civil rights activist of the 1960s who aligned himself with Martin Luther King, Jr.

James Luther Bevel was born in the farming community of Ittabena, Mississippi, on October 19, 1936. This civil rights activist, minister, lyricist, and human rights advocate gained a national reputation for both his impassioned activism and managerial efficiency as one of Martin Luther King's top lieutenants in the freedom struggles of the 1960s. Bevel served briefly in the United States Naval Reserve from 1954 to 1955. He received a B.A. degree from the American Baptist Theology Seminary in 1961. He married another civil rights activist, Diane Judith Nash, and had two children: Sherrillyn Jill and Douglas John Bevel. Ordained in the Baptist ministry in 1959, Bevel pastored a church in Dixon, Tennessee, from 1959 to 1961.

Civil Rights Movement

James Bevel was philosophically committed to the notion that religion was part of the larger human rights struggle and that the church should serve as an institution of social change. He was chairman of the Nashville Student Movement from 1960 to 1961. In that same year, he was one of the founding members of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and held the position of Mississippi field secretary. Interested not only in preaching "the good word," but also dedicated to its permanence, he helped to create the Mississippi Free Press in 1960 to publish various religious and social-action pamphlets. In addition, he headed the civil action programs of the Albany Movement in Georgia to fight racism and discrimination.

As one of several young activists working with Martin Luther King, Jr., Bevel was made head of direct action and became a youth training specialist in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which he joined in 1961. Within SCLC his organizational skills and "we-can-do-it" spirit allowed him to evolve into one of its most prominent young leaders. In 1963 he was asked to go to Birmingham, Alabama, as chief organizer of the Birmingham Movement of the SCLC, and in 1965 he became its project director.

Bevel, always involved in several groups at once, helped to sponsor the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) from 1962 to 1964. This group created a statewide coalition of civil rights groups, including SCLC, SNCC, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). This cooperative effort was unique in its attempts to help the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in registering Blacks to vote and making them politically active and socially aware.

In 1965, when the world turned its attention to the violent response of Birmingham, Alabama, to peaceful Black protest, James L. Bevel was there directing the campaign which eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which opened up the political process to Blacks throughout the South. Always distinctive in his informal denim clothing, shaved head, and skull-cap, Bevel went to Chicago in 1966 as King's advance man for SCLC's ill-fated national opening of the housing campaign. In Chicago Bevel was program director of the Westside Christian Parish, where he had extensive dealings with gangs, recalcitrant political leaders, and a rapidly growing antagonism between older, more moderate Black leaders on one hand and young militants on the other. Bevel, who probably conducted as many nonviolence seminars as any single activist, used his skills in demanding that the Blackstone Rangers (a local gang) eschew violence as an avenue toward social change. He even went so far as to show a film on the 1965 Watts Riot in an attempt to forestall violent confrontations with Chicago's police during demonstrations. Though respected and somewhat revered, the young people of Chicago were not as receptive to Bevel's message as his southern audiences.

Composer of Freedom Songs

A man of many talents, James L. Bevel was also noted for his lyrical abilities. As a composer of freedom songs, Bevel's most popular works were: "Dod-Dog" (1959), "Why Was a Darky Born" (1961), and "I Know We'll Meet Again" (1969). This last song is a sentimental testament to Bevel's leader, friend, and mentor, the late Martin Luther King, Jr. With King when he was shot in 1968, Bevel saw his leader gunned down. James Earl Ray was the man arrested, indicted, and convicted of King's murder. Bevel believed that Ray was innocent. He even went to the jail-house and told him so, even though Ray rejected his help and refused to let him into his cell. Bevel told Ray that King was assassinated by capitalists threatened by King's mobilization of the poor or by the military-industrial complex which was aghast at King's denunciation of the Vietnam War and his perceived left wing shift.

Influenced King's Views on Vietnam

Bevel's views on Ray and a possible conspiracy created consternation among his friends and many of King's followers. Yet it was Bevel who convinced King of the connection between the denial of civil rights in America and the war in Vietnam, as well as the plight of the poor world-wide. Bevel actually jarred King's thinking when he left his position as program director at SCLC to become executive director of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam in early 1967. Spring sought to create a national anti-war crusade and, after King had denounced the war, was eventually successful in having him address an anti-war rally that Bevel organized in New York.

Bevel was certainly one of the most influential, though least known, civil rights activists. Martin Luther King, Jr., would not have achieved many of his successes had it not been for men and women like James and Diane Bevel. As one of King's most effective front-men and as a dedicated worker who believed in direct-action, Bevel was a dynamic symbol of the new generation of leaders which included Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, C.T. Vivian, Hosea Williams, and many others of both local and national prominence. Although not as well-known as some of these, Bevel's civil rights record did not go unnoticed. In 1963 he received the Peace Award from the War Resisters League and in 1965 was awarded the prestigious Rosa Parks Award by the SCLC.

Later Years

Following King's death, Bevel left the SCLC after unsuccessful efforts to refocus the organization's priorities on education, international arms reduction, and a retrial of King's accused assassin. He wrote and spoke extensively on nonviolent theology, continued to believe in Ray's innocence, and founded Students for Education and Economic Development (SEED).

By 1980 Bevel's political leanings had shifted to the right and he campaigned for Ronald Reagan. Four years later he ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the House of Representatives from Chicago and, in 1992, was the vice-presidential candidate on the Lyndon LaRouche ticket. Bevel's association with Louis Farrahkan led in 1995 to his participation in the National Day of Atonement/Million Man March movement which encouraged African American males to rededicate themselves as husbands, sons, and fathers.

Early life and education

Born in Itta Bena, Mississippi, James Bevel grew up and worked on a plantation, received schooling in Mississippi and Cleveland, Ohio, and served in the Navy for a time. He attended the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee from 1957 to 1961,^[1] and while attending college re-read Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You (he had first read it while in the Navy and which directly led to his decision to leave the military). Bevel also read several of Mohandas Gandhi's books and newspapers while taking workshops on Gandhian Nonviolence taught by Reverend James Lawson. Bevel also attended workshops at the Highlander Folk School taught by its founder, Myles Horton.

Nashville Student Movement, SNCC involvement in Selma

In 1960, with several of James Lawson's and Myles Horton's other students — Bernard Lafayette, John Lewis, Diane Nash and others — Bevel participated in the 1960 Nashville Sit-In Movement, which desegregated the city's lunch counters. After the success of this early movement action, James Bevel directed the 1961 Nashville Open Theater Movement, and then coordinating the Nashville students continuation of the 1961 Freedom Rides, organized and led by Nash.

While in jail in Mississippi at the end of the Freedom Rides, Bevel and Lafayette initiated the Mississippi Voting Rights Movement, and they, Nash, and others stayed in Mississippi to work on what soon became known as the Mississippi Freedom Movement. Earlier the Nashville students and others developed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and Bevel, Nash, Lafayette and his wife Colia Lidell opened a project in Selma, Alabama, to assist the work of local organizers like Amelia Boynton.

1962 Bevel/King Agreement

In 1962, after several successful years working on and organizing within the Nashville Student Movement, James Bevel was invited to meet with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta. At that meeting, which had been suggested by James Lawson, Bevel and King agreed to work together, on an equal basis, on projects under the auspices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which would end segregation, obtain voting rights, and assure quality education for all American children.^{[citation needed]} They agreed to not stop until these steps occurred, and also to ask for funding for SCLC only if the group was involved in organizing a movement.

Bevel soon became SCLC's Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education, and King remained SCLC's chairman and spokesperson.

1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade and its planned March on Washington

In 1963, after SCLC agreed to assist one of its founders, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, and others in their work on a movement in Birmingham, Alabama, James Bevel came up with the idea of using children to "stand-up" for their own freedom.^{[citation needed]} He spent weeks strategizing, organizing and educating Birmingham's elementary and high school students in the philosophy and techniques of nonviolence, and then directed them to meet at and march from Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church to Birmingham's City Hall to talk to its Mayor about segregation in the city. This action culminated in international public outrage over the cities use of fire hoses and dogs to stop the children from marching to City Hall.

During the Birmingham Children's Crusade, President John F. Kennedy asked King to stop involving children in the campaign. King told Bevel to not use the students anymore, but instead, Bevel told King he would not stop the action,^{[citation needed]} went directly to the children, and asked them to prepare to take to the highways on a march to Washington to question Kennedy about correcting the problem of segregation in America. The Kennedy administration, hearing of this plan, asked SCLC's leaders what they would want to see in a comprehensive civil rights bill, which was then written-up and agreed to by SCLC's leadership, thus ending the need for the children of Birmingham to march the highways to Washington.

Shortly thereafter, in August 1963, SCLC participated in what has become known as the March on Washington, an event organized by labor leader A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, who had been the original planners (with A. J. Muste) of the 1941 March on Washington. Just as the "threat" of the children marching along the highway from Birmingham to Washington led directly to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the threat of the 1941 march led President Franklin Roosevelt to sign the Fair Employment Act, and neither march was actually held.

The Alabama Project and the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement

Weeks after the March On Washington, in September 1963, a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham killed four young girls attending Sunday School. James Bevel responded by proposing the Alabama Voting Rights Project, co-wrote the project proposal with his then wife, Diane Nash, and the two soon moved to Alabama and began to implement the project along with Birmingham student activist James Orange. Starting in late 1963 they organized Alabama until, in late 1964, SCLC and Dr. King (SCLC's Board and King had opposed and did not work on the Alabama Project) came to Selma to work alongside the ongoing Bevel/Nash Alabama Voting Rights Project and the SNCC's Voting Rights Project — which was headed at that time by Reverend Prathia Hall and Worth Long (Bernard Lafayette had been its first chairman). The Alabama Project and its SNCC counterpart then became collectively known as the Selma Voting Rights Movement.

The Selma Voting Rights Movement officially began in early January, 1965, grew, and had some successes. Then, on February 16, 1965, a young man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, went with his mother and grandfather to participate in a nighttime march led by Reverend C. T. Vivian to free James Orange, who was being held in jail in Marion, Alabama. After the street lights were turned off Jackson was shot in the stomach while defending his mother from an attack by the Alabama State Troopers, and he died a few days later.

When James Bevel heard of Jackson's death he called for a march from Selma to Montgomery to talk to Governor George Wallace about the attack in which Jackson was shot.^{[citation needed]} During the first march a group of marchers — including SNCC Chairman John Lewis and Amelia Boynton — were bludgeoned and tear-gassed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on what then became known as "Bloody Sunday". After a court order cleared the way for the march, hundreds of religious, labor and civic leaders, and many celebrities and citizens alike, walked the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery. Before this final march occurred, President Lyndon Johnson had gone on national television to address a joint session of Congress and demanded that it pass a comprehensive Voting Rights Act.

Because of the unprecedented success of the 1963-1965 Alabama Project, in 1965 SCLC gave its highest honor—the Rosa Parks Award—to James Bevel and Diane Nash.

The 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement

In 1966, Bevel chose Chicago as the site of SCLC's long-awaited Northern Campaign.^{[citation needed]} There he at first worked on "ending" slums, and created tenent unions, and then, choosing the main theme of the action—from previous discussions and agreements with Dr. King and from the ideas and work of American Friends Service Committee activist Bill Moyer--strategized, organized, and directed the Chicago Open Housing Movement. This movement ended within a Summit Conference which included Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

As the Chicago movement neared its conclusion A.J. Muste, David Dellinger, representatives of North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, and others asked Rev. Bevel to take over the directorship of the Spring Mobilization Committee Against the War in Vietnam.^{[citation needed]} After researching the war, and after getting Dr. King's agreement to work with him on this project, Bevel agreed to lead the antiwar effort. He renamed the organization the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, brought many diverse groups into the movement, and strategized and organized the April 15, 1967 march from Central Park to the United Nations Building. It became the largest demonstration in American history to that date. During his speech to the crowd that day, Bevel called for a larger march in Washington D.C., a plan which evolved into the October 1967 March on the Pentagon.

Bevel, who witnessed King's assassination on April 4, 1968, reminded SCLC's executive board and staff that evening that Dr. King had left "marching orders" that if anything should happen to him Rev. Ralph Abernathy should take his place as SCLC's Chairman.^{[citation needed]} Bevel opposed SCLC's next action, the 1969 Poor People's Campaign, but in order to handle any problems which may have occurred he took on the role of its Director of Nonviolent Education.

1969 to 1984

After leaving SCLC in 1969, Bevel went on to found the Making of a Man Clinic in 1970 and the Students for Education and Economic Development (SEED) in the early 1980s.^{[citation needed]} Bevel ran as the Republican candidate for Illinois' 7th Congressional District in 1984.

Moon and LaRouche involvements

In 1989 Bevel, together with Ralph Abernathy, organized the National Committee Against Religious Bigotry and Racism, a group backed by the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon.^[2]^[3] Bevel denounced the deprogramming of a Moon follower as reminiscent of the "pre-civil rights mentality" and called for the protection of religious rights.^[4] That same year Bevel took part in a public protest against the Chicago Tribune because of that newspaper's use of the word "Moonies" referring to Unification Church members. Bevel handed out fliers at the protest which said: "Are the Moonies our new niggers?"^[5]

Bevel moved to Omaha, Nebraska, in November 1990 as the leader of the "Citizens Fact-Finding Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations of Children in Nebraska", a group organized by the Schiller Institute.^[6] The group, associated with economist and conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche, distributed petitions seeking to reopen the state legislature's two-year investigation into the Franklin child prostitution ring allegations. Bevel never submitted the collected petitions and left the state the following summer.^[7] In 1992, Bevel ran as the vice presidential candidate on LaRouche's ticket while that perennial candidate was serving a prison sentence for mail fraud and tax evasion.^[8] He engaged in LaRouche seminars on issues like "Is the Anti Defamation League the new KKK?"^[9] When he introduced LaRouche to a convention of the National African American Leadership Summit in 1996, both men were booed off the stage and a fight broke out between LaRouche supporters and black nationalists.^[10]

1995 Day of Atonement/Million Man March

Louis Farakhan credits Bevel with helping to formulate the the 1995 Day of Atonement/Million Man March in Washington, D.C.^[11] Its main sponsor was the Nation of Islam.^[12]

Criminal charges

In May 2007, James Bevel was arrested in Alabama on charges of incest committed sometime between October 1992 and October 1994 in Loudoun County, Virginia; Bevel was living in Leesburg, Virginia at the time and working with LaRouche's group, whose international headquarters was a few blocks from Bevel's apartment.

The accuser, one of his daughters, was 13–15 years old at the time, and lived with him in the Leesburg apartment. Three of his other daughters have also alleged that Bevel sexually abused them, although not with intercourse. Charged with one-count of unlawful fornication in Virginia, which has no statute of limitations for incest, Bevel pleaded innocent and continued to deny the main accusation. His four-day trial in April, 2008, included "testimony about Bevel's philosophies for eradicating lust, and parents' duties to sexually orient their children". During the trial, the accusing daughter testified that she was repeatedly molested beginning when she was six years old.^[13]^[14]^[15]

During the trial, prosecutors used as key evidence against Bevel a 2005 police-sting telephone call recorded by the Leesburg, Virginia police without his knowledge. During that 90 minute call, Bevel's daughter asked him why he had sex with her during her teen years, and she asked him why he wanted her to use a vaginal douche afterward. Bevel's response to his daughter was that he had no interest in getting her pregnant. Bevel's statements were used against him during the trial after he denied committing sexual acts with his daughter.

On April 10, 2008, after a three-hour deliberation, the jury found Bevel guilty, his bond was revoked, and he was taken into custody.^[16] The judge sentenced him on October 15, 2008, to 15 years in prison and fined him $50,000. After the verdict, Bevel claimed that the charges were part of a conspiracy to destroy his reputation, and said that he might appeal. He received an appeal bond on November 4, 2008 and was released from prison three days later, six weeks before his death at 72 in Springfield, Virginia.

Notes

^ http://www.etext.org/Politics/LaRouche/larouche.program.03
^ Leigh, Andrew (October 15, 1989). "Inside Moon's Washington;The Private Side of Public Relations: Improving the Image, Looking for Clout". The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.): p. b.01.
^ Sargent, Frederic O. (2004). The civil rights revolution: events and leaders, 1955-1968. McFarland. p. 137. ISBN 9780786419142.
^ "Call Deprogramming 'Spiritual Rape' Church Chiefs Denounce Whelan Acquittal". Omaha World - Herald (Omaha, Neb.): p. 23. November 8, 1988.
^ Hatch, Walter (February 13, 1989). "Big names lend luster to group's causes - Church leader gains legitimacy among U.S. conservatives". The Seattle Times (Seattle Times Company): p. A1.
^ Dorr, Robert (Mar 10, 1991). "Franklin Stories Called LaRouche 'Moneymaker'". Omaha World - Herald (Omaha, Neb.): p. 1.B.
^ Dorr, Robert (Sep 20, 1992). "Activist in Franklin Probe Is LaRouche Running Mate". Omaha World - Herald (Omaha, Neb.): p. 7.B.
^ Civil rights leader convicted of incest - USATODAY.com
^ LaRouche Connection Master List 1991-1995
^ Manning, Marable (Spring 1998). "Black fundamentalism". Dissent (New York): pp. 69–77.
^ Boyd, Herb (May 18, 1996). "Farrakhan gave Brooklyn four hour speech". New York Amsterdam News (New York, N.Y.) 87 (20): p. 3.
^ Willis, Deborah; Cottman, Michael H. (1995). Million Man March. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 0517887630.
^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080410/ap_on_re_us/king_confidant_charged;_ylt=AtJlKKorhaIbee5HuuephAGs0NUE
^ MyFox Atlanta | Civil Rights Leader Bevel Charged with Incest
^ Allegations Pour In Against Civil Rights Leader Accused Of Incest - News Story - WRC | Washington
^ Bill Brubaker, "Incest Verdict Is Bittersweet For Daughter Of Minister", WashingtonPost.com (April 12, 2008)

References

"James L. Bevel, The Strategist of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement", a 1984 paper by Randy Kryn, published with a 1988 addendum by Kryn in Prof. David Garrow's "We Shall Overcome Volume II" (Carlson Publishing Company 1989)
"Revision of 1960s Civil Rights Movement History" by Randy Kryn, May, 2000
"Movement Revision Research Summary Regarding James Bevel", by Randy Kryn, October, 2005, published and put on the internet by Middlebury College.
"Advocate of the People's Rights: James Luther Bevel, The Right To Vote Movement", compiled by Helen L. Edmond, 2007 (Lulu.com)

External links

The History Makers: Rev. James Bevel
James Bevel's website
James Bevel profile The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: James Bevel

v • d • e African-American Civil Rights Movement

Topics and events (timeline)	Albany Movement · Birmingham campaign · Black Power · Brown v. Board of Education · Chicago Open Housing Movement · Civil Rights Act of 1964 · Civil Rights Act of 1968 · Emmett Till · Freedom Riders · Mississippi Freedom Summer · Greensboro sit-ins · Greyhound Bus Station (Montgomery, Alabama) · Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections · Little Rock Nine · March on Washington · Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party · Montgomery Bus Boycott · Nashville sit-ins · Poor People's Campaign · Selma Voting Rights Movement · 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing · Twenty-fourth Amendment · Voting Rights Act of 1965

Activists	Ralph Abernathy · Victoria Gray Adams · Ella Baker · James Bevel · Stokely Carmichael · Shirley Chisholm · Dorothy Cotton · Claudette Colvin · Vernon Dahmer · Annie Devine · Medgar Evers · Chuck Fager · James Farmer · James Forman · Marie Foster · Prathia Hall · Fannie Lou Hamer · Dorothy Height · Lola Hendricks · Aaron Henry · Myles Horton · T. R. M. Howard · Jesse Jackson · Jimmie Lee Jackson · T.J. Jemison · Judge Frank Johnson · Matthew Jones · Clyde Kennard · A.D. King · Coretta Scott King · Martin Luther King, Jr. · Bernard Lafayette · James Lawson · Bernard Lee · John Lewis · Viola Liuzzo · Joseph Lowery · Clara Luper · Malcolm X · Thurgood Marshall · James Meredith · Amzie Moore · Bob Moses · William Moyer · Diane Nash · E. D. Nixon · James Orange · James Peck · Rosa Parks · Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. · A. Philip Randolph · Amelia Boynton Robinson · Bayard Rustin · Charles Sherrod · Fred Shuttlesworth · Modjeska Monteith Simkins · Kelly Miller Smith · Charles Kenzie Steele · C. T. Vivian · Wyatt Tee Walker · Roy Wilkins · Hosea Williams · Judge John Minor Wisdom · Andrew Young · Whitney Young

Activist groups	Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) · Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) · Highlander Folk School - Leadership Conference on Civil Rights · Montgomery Improvement Association - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) · NAACP Youth Council · National Council of Negro Women - National Urban League - Operation Breadbasket · Regional Council of Negro Leadership - Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) · Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) · Women's Political Council

Historians	Taylor Branch · Clayborne Carson · Michael Eric Dyson · Chuck Fager · Adam Fairclough · David Garrow · David Halberstam · Diane McWhorter

v • d • e LaRouche movement

History	Lyndon LaRouche · Views of Lyndon LaRouche · LaRouche criminal trials · Lyndon LaRouche U.S. Presidential campaigns

Organizations	Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität · Citizens Electoral Council · European Workers Party · Executive Intelligence Review · LaRouche movement · Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement · National Caucus of Labor Committees · Schiller Institute

People	Nicholas F. Benton · James Bevel · Michael Billington · Amelia Boynton Robinson · Anton Chaitkin · Jacques Cheminade · Billy Davis · Robert Dreyfuss · Jeremiah Duggan · Roy Frankhouser · Sergey Glazyev · David P. Goldman · Victor Gunnarsson · Janice Hart · Hulan Jack · Kenneth Kronberg · Stanislav Menshikov · Theo Mitchell · Laurent Murawiec · Webster Tarpley · Nataliya Vitrenko · William Warfield · Frederick Wills · Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Defunct	California Proposition 64 (1986) · Fusion Energy Foundation · North American Labour Party · Party for the Commonwealth of Canada · U.S. Labor Party

Critics	Chip Berlet · Daniel Patrick Moynihan · John Rees · Mike Royko

Politics portal Wiktionary · Wikibooks · Wikiquote · WikiSource · Wikimedia Commons · Wikinews · Wikiversity

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Donate to Wikimedia

James Bevel

Contents