James Peck (14 December 1914 - 1993[1]) was a civil rights activist. He is the only person who participated in both the Journey of Reconciliation (1947) and the first Freedom Ride of 1961.[2]
Contents |
During World War II he was a conscientious objector and an anti-war activist, and spent two years in jail. After the war he became a "radical journalist,"[3] and joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), where he worked as the publicity officer. Peck was the author of a memoir, Freedom Ride (Simon & Schuster, 1962).
During the 1961 Freedom Ride, on May 14, Peck was on the second Trailways bus leaving Atlanta, Georgia for Birmingham, Alabama. The first bus, a Greyhound, left an hour earlier and was burned in a firebombing in Anniston, Alabama, seriously injuring the passengers. An hour later the Trailways bus pulled in at the terminal in Anniston[4] and eight Klansmen boarded and assaulted the Freedom Riders. Peck, a frail, middle-aged man at the time, was severely injured in the beating[3] and required fifty stitches.[5]
Later, in Birmingham, Peck, who was white, and Charles Person were the first to descend from the bus into a crowd of Klansmen who, with the organizational help of Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor, were waiting for the Freedom Riders. Howard K. Smith, reporting on-the-scene for CBS, described the ensuing violence on the radio, in words cited by John Lewis in his autobiography, Walking with the Wind: "Toughs grabbed the passengers into alleys and corridors, pounding them with pipes, with key rings, and with fists. One passenger was knocked down at my feet by twelve of the hoodlums, and his face was beaten and kicked until it was a bloody pulp." Lewis adds, "That was Jim Peck's face."[6][7] Peck was taken to Carraway Methodist Medical Center, a segregated hospital, which refused to treat him; he was later treated at Jefferson Hillman Hospital.[8][9]
|
|
Wikis
Facts
Map
Search
