(C) Verite News New Orleans
This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



This Week in History: 1963 [1]

['Jerry Mitchell', 'More Jerry Mitchell']

Date: 2023-07-21

In this July 21, 1963, Associated Press photo, Gloria Richardson, head of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, pushes a National Guardsman’s bayonet aside as she moves among a crowd of African Americans to convince them to disperse in Cambridge, Md. Richardson, an influential yet largely unsung civil rights pioneer whose determination not to back down while protesting racial inequality was captured in a photograph as she pushed away the bayonet of a National Guardsman, died Thursday, July 15, 2021, in New York, according to Joe Orange, her son in law. She was 99. Credit: Associated Press

July 21, 1963: When a National Guardsman poked his bayonet at Gloria Richardson in Cambridge, Maryland, she pushed it away, refusing to back down during protests against racism and inequality.

The image of Gloria Richardson, head of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, taking a courageous stand appeared in newspapers around the world. Her actions also inspired change. Two days later, she and others signed the Treaty of Cambridge in the office of U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy to address desegregation, housing and employment inequities. The victory came after a quarter century of struggle.

Richardson grew up in segregated Cambridge, where the communities were literally separated by a street named Race. She began her activism while a Howard University student, protesting segregated seating at Woolworth’s lunch counters. In 1962, she and others created the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee to aid the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s efforts to break down the barriers that barred Black residents from decent jobs, housing and health care.

When Black residents began protests because of the discriminatory treatment in the city, White residents hurled eggs at the protesters, who became targets of violence when nightriders, white terrorist groups, attempted to bomb their homes. Richardson encouraged protesters to defend themselves. After two white men were wounded in a shootout with Black protesters, the governor sent in the National Guard, which stayed in the city for nearly a year. Richardson continued to stand up against them.

“It got very scary, with the threats against us, and with whites coming through the Black community, shooting,” her daughter, Donna R. Orange, told The New York Times. “She just marched right past them.”

Although Richardson signed the Treaty of Cambridge, she didn’t support the document in public.

“Why would we agree to submit to have our civil rights granted by vote when they were ours already, according to the Constitution?” she said. Richardson became a national symbol, one of six women listed as “fighters for freedom” at the March on Washington program.

Fearing that she was becoming an icon, Richardson stepped back from leadership, but not before her example inspired such activists as former SNCC chairman Stokely Carmichael, who used the term “Black Power” during movement rallies.

“They looked to Ms. Richardson as the sort of uncompromising Black radical leader they should emulate,” Joseph R. Fitzgerald, author of “The Struggle Is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation,” told the Times. In the book, Richardson described her strategy in fighting the forces opposing good: “If everything else doesn’t work, then I think you should make it uncomfortable for them to exist. You have to be in their faces ’til it gets uncomfortable for politicians and corporate leaders to keep opposing activists’ demands.”

Join Verite’s Mailing List | Get the news that matters to you

Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Close window X Republish this article This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Unless otherwise noted, you can republish most of Verite’s stories for free under a Creative Commons license. For digital publications: Look for the “Republish This Story” button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).

You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.

You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.

Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.

If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola @VeriteNewsNola For print publications: You have to credit Verite. We prefer “Author Name, Verite News” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Verite News” and include our website, veritenews.org

You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.

You cannot republish our photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Tim Morris

Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.

You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.

You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.

Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.

If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola on Facebook @VeriteNewsNola on Twitter. If you have any other questions, contact managing editor Tim Morris. This Week in History: 1963 <h1>This Week in History: 1963</h1> <p class="byline">by Jerry Mitchell, Verite <br />July 21, 2023</p> <br /> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://veritenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/OnThisDay-FinalLogo_page-banner-2-1200x151-1.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-7754" /></figure> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://veritenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GloriaRichardson-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-7890" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">In this July 21, 1963, Associated Press photo, Gloria Richardson, head of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, pushes a National Guardsman's bayonet aside as she moves among a crowd of African Americans to convince them to disperse in Cambridge, Md. Richardson, an influential yet largely unsung civil rights pioneer whose determination not to back down while protesting racial inequality was captured in a photograph as she pushed away the bayonet of a National Guardsman, died Thursday, July 15, 2021, in New York, according to Joe Orange, her son in law. She was 99. </figcaption></figure> <p>July 21, 1963: When a National Guardsman poked his bayonet at Gloria Richardson in Cambridge, Maryland, she pushed it away, refusing to back down during protests against racism and inequality. </p> <p>The image of Gloria Richardson, head of the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/multimedia/cambridge-movement.html">Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee</a>, taking a courageous stand appeared in newspapers around the world. Her actions also inspired change. Two days later, she and others signed the <a href="https://snccdigital.org/events/treaty-of-cambridge/">Treaty of Cambridge</a> in the office of U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy to address desegregation, housing and employment inequities. The victory came after a quarter century of struggle. </p> <p>Richardson grew up in segregated Cambridge, where the communities were literally separated by a street named Race. She began her activism while a Howard University student, protesting segregated seating at Woolworth's lunch counters. In 1962, she and others created the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee to aid the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s efforts to break down the barriers that barred Black residents from decent jobs, housing and health care. </p> <p>When Black residents began protests because of the discriminatory treatment in the city, White residents hurled eggs at the protesters, who became targets of violence when nightriders, white terrorist groups, attempted to bomb their homes. Richardson encouraged protesters to defend themselves. After two white men were wounded in a shootout with Black protesters, the governor sent in the National Guard, which stayed in the city for nearly a year. Richardson continued to stand up against them. </p> <p>“It got very scary, with the threats against us, and with whites coming through the Black community, shooting,” her daughter, Donna R. Orange, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/18/us/gloria-richardson-dead.html">told The New York Times</a>. “She just marched right past them.” </p> <p>Although Richardson signed the Treaty of Cambridge, she didn’t support the document in public.</p> <p> “Why would we agree to submit to have our civil rights granted by vote when they were ours already, according to the Constitution?” she said. Richardson became a national symbol, one of six women listed as “fighters for freedom” at the March on Washington program. </p> <p>Fearing that she was becoming an icon, Richardson stepped back from leadership, but not before her example inspired such activists as former SNCC chairman <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stokely-Carmichael">Stokely Carmichael</a>, who used the term “Black Power” during movement rallies. </p> <p>“They looked to Ms. Richardson as the sort of uncompromising Black radical leader they should emulate,” Joseph R. Fitzgerald, author of "The Struggle Is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation," told the Times. In the book, Richardson described her strategy in fighting the forces opposing good: “If everything else doesn’t work, then I think you should make it uncomfortable for them to exist. You have to be in their faces ’til it gets uncomfortable for politicians and corporate leaders to keep opposing activists’ demands.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-verite wp-block-embed-verite"> <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://veritenews.org/join-our-mailing-list/ </div> </figure> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-verite wp-block-embed-verite"> <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://veritenews.org/our-commitment-to-listening/ </div> </figure> <p><a href="https://veritenews.org/join-our-mailing-list/"><em>Join Verite’s Mailing List</em></a> | <a href="https://veritenews.org/our-commitment-to-listening/"><em>Get the news that matters to you</em></a></p> This <a target="_blank" href="https://veritenews.org/2023/07/21/this-week-in-history-1963/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://veritenews.org">Verite</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/veritenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/cropped-Verite-icon.png?fit=150%2C150&ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://veritenews.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=7888&ga3=319934958" style="width:1px;height:1px;"> Copy to Clipboard

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://veritenews.org/2023/07/21/this-week-in-history-1963/

Published and (C) by Verite News New Orleans
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 US.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/veritenews/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.