Civil Rights Movement

My parents’ words were pretty explicit back in 1963: “Don’t go to any demonstrations or sign petitions … stick to your Ph.D. studies”.

But the farther I got from New York, the sooner those words were forgotten. In fact, I got diverted and radicalized the first week of school when I invited a fellow graduate school African American classmate from this university for a beer in College Park, and we were refused service. Signs that said “We reserve the right to refuse service” were posted all over the area. This occurrence encouraged me to join CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, and get involved in the civil rights movement.

From 1963 to 1964, schools, private housing and hotels in the state were mostly segregated — including in Montgomery and Prince George’s County. In 1964 our CORE chapter was joined by the NAACP and Baltimore chapters of CORE at the Maryland General Assembly, and we vowed to sit in until a public accommodation bill was passed — it eventually was.

The university system was not sympathetic to integration. CORE was not permitted to meet on the campus, so we formed a Students for a Democratic Society chapter. Hyattsville, College Park and Takoma Park all had their “ghettos.” Langley Park and Adelphi were “sundown” towns: After dark, blacks on the streets were escorted by police to the border with Washington.

Remnants of tobacco families still dominated state and local politics. There were few Latino or Asian students and teachers, and only one black player was on the university football team in 1963. The university chaplains had an ongoing problem over the university president’s refusal to allow Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak on the campus. The Emergency Student Civil Liberties Committee was established in February 1964 to inform students about restrictions on freedom.

In the summer of 1964, our CORE chapter worked with the SDS chapter in Cedar Heights near the D.C. line, a town with unpaved streets, mediocre sewage and a barbed wire-topped fence separating it from the closest shopping center.

We started a summer “Freedom School,” community cleanup and voter registration drive, and we had our first contact with Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Reports by The Washington Star and The Baltimore Sun on the plight of Cedar Heights came to the attention of King’s Christian leadership conference, which wanted to tear down the fence because the proximity to Washington would grab the attention of the media. However, our position was that the community needed to make that decision — not us or the Christian leadership conference.

The community members voted down King’s and the Christian leadership conference’s offer to bring outside protesters to topple the fence. They feared that the action would leave their community facing racist neighbors. We respected their decision while the Christian leadership conference was disappointed. Keep in mind that, at that time, there were active Ku Klux Klan, Nazi Party and White Citizen Council groups in this county, and they often showed up at our demonstrations to taunt us.

In February 1965, Selma, Alabama was about to implode. I was chairman of the local CORE chapter and worked in social work in Montgomery County. I called national CORE for assistance in getting to Selma for the planned march to Montgomery, Alabama. They suggested contacting a religious organization for sponsorship. I called the national Unitarian Universalist Church, and they agreed to send me.

The morning of my departure, my sponsors called to inform me that a Boston Unitarian Universalist minister, James Reeb, had offered to represent the church in my place. I understood and dropped my efforts to get to Selma. Reeb went and was murdered by pipe-wielding white racists, as depicted in the film, Selma.

The struggle continues.

Michael Tabor is a 1964 university graduate from the American Studies department. He can be reached at esiegel2@igc.org.