Volume 24, Number 51

November 13, 2022 Matt Jacobson

Barbara Frances Jones is presented for the Sacrament of Baptism by her family on the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost. Father Sammy Wood was the celebrant and Father Victor Conrado was the preacher. Fathers Jacobson and Smith assisted at the altar. Mrs. Grace Mudd was the MC. Brother Thomas Bushnell, BSG, chanted the litany. Dr. Mark Risinger and Ms. Julie Gillis were acolytes. Mr. Charles Carson was the crucifer. Mr. Rick Miranda and Mr. Luis Reyes were torch bearers. Click on any photo to enlarge.
Photo: Jason Mudd

FROM ANGELINE BUTLER: ON MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

I am Angeline Butler. My parents were teachers: the Reverend and Mrs. Isaac Bartley Butler, a Baptist minister, a principal of the Crossroads School in Eastover, South Carolina, a farmer, and a community leader. College for me was Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee. I was only fifteen. I was favored by Dr. John W. Work II of the Fisk Jubilee Singers and Dr. and Mrs. Nelson Fuson, who were American Friends. We went to the First Baptist Church to see the Rev. James Morris Lawson, Jr., speak about Jesus Christ, Gandhi, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and the practice of nonviolence, a creative strategy for changing segregation in the South.

Ms. Angeline Butler. Click here to learn more about Ms. Butler or look for her after Mass at Coffee Hour!

My ears perked up when he brought in examples of Jesus Christ as a leading pacifist. I wanted to hear more. “Love ye one another” and “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight...” I attended these workshops on nonviolence. Soon, I was testing at downtown lunch counters—a necessary part of placing oneself in the actual situation to see if one could be nonviolent in the face of rejection, violence, and racism—and meeting with a group of fifteen students, calling ourselves “The Nashville Student Nonviolent Central Committee.” Amongst us were Marion Barry, Jr., and John Lewis.

On February 27, 1960, we students were arrested for refusing to vacate the McClellan’s, Woolworth’s, and Walgreens department store lunch counters in Nashville. We refused bail. That first charge was only $50. Several weeks later, the Governor of the State issued a new warrant for our re-arrests. This time, the fine was $500 in cash for each of the 106 students arrested, all under twenty-one. The new charge was “Conspiracy to Obstruct Trade and Commerce.”

After our release, we went to the Highlander Folk School, owned by Myles Horten in Monteagle, Tennessee, for a retreat. Myles Horten, who graduated from Union Theological Seminary, invited Civil Rights groups and labor groups to Highlander for workshops and held integrated workshops for youth in the summertime.

There, I met the greatest person I would ever come to know. That was Septima Poinsette Clark of Charleston, South Carolina, founder of the “Citizenship Schools” and Director of Education at Highlander. She trained Rosa Parks, then Secretary of the NAACP in Montgomery, who often went to Highlander workshops with NAACP President E.D. Nixon.

Septima Poinsette Clark. Photo shared by Angeline Butler.

Septima Clark was a quiet person, always carefully listening, as she taught others how to read and to write portions of the constitutions in their state using biblical texts by writing on brown paper cleaner bags for a blackboard. Septima held these citizenship sessions on the front porches of Black people’s homes, in their yards, and in the Black merchants’ storefronts. On one particular weekend, attorney Thurgood Marshall was present. The white community could not know of these efforts or Septima Clark would face the KKK or the White Citizens Council’s wrath. Septima Clark registered over 300,000 voters and, later, had over 2,000 teachers. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) housed the Citizenship Schools after 1962. Amelia Boynton was the gateway to Selma. This work led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

We students quickly chose “Voter Education and Voter Registration” as the focus of our new project in Nashville. While attending the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University, we canvassed door to door. We were tireless teenagers and we meant business! We organized the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960, with the guidance of Ms. Ella Baker. Were it not for the progressive churches in our various communities, Black people would not know each other or know whom we could trust to become involved with us in bringing about social change. — AB

Ms. Angeline Butler is a member of Saint Mary’s and currently a lecturer in Africana Studies at the John Jay College for Criminal Justice. She previously taught as an instructor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California. She holds a BA from Fisk University and an MA from Columbia University, with additional studies at The Juilliard School of Music and UCLA. In addition to her important work with the Civil Rights Movement, Angeline is also known for her singing and acting career.