January 25, 2015
50 years ago today: Annie Lee Cooper punched Sheriff Jim Clark in the face.
"In January 1965, Cooper stood in line for hours outside the Dallas County Courthouse to register to vote until Sheriff Jim Clark ordered her to vacate the premises. Clark prodded Cooper in the neck with a billy club until Cooper turned around and knocked the sheriff in the jaw. Deputies then wrestled Cooper down as Clark continued to beat her repeatedly with his club. Cooper was charged with 'criminal provocation' and was escorted to the county jail, and then held for 11 hours before being allowed to leave. She spent the period of her incarceration singing spirituals. Some in the sheriff's department wanted to charge her with attempted murder."
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38 comments:
Hmmm...I wonder what political party Jim Clark belonged to? It wasn't mentioned on his wiki page or by anyone talking about this incident.
I wonder why?
It feels like that story ends in the middle.
And LBJ immediately ordered a Marine Expeditionary force be sent into the South under air cover by off shore Navy Carriers.
But LBJ's heavy Texas twang was as usual misunderstood by double minded McNamara and the Marines were sent into SOUTH Vietnam.
Bad ASS.
(And of course Jim Clark was a member of the same party that Bull Connor was a National Committeeman of ....)
You go, Annie Lee. More since SJWs like her and fewer of the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" Soros-funded posers and arsonists.
...and she is still voting to this day!
Whatever you do -- don't go watch this scene in the Selma movie, or the opening scene of Ms. Cooper trying to register to vote and being denied for not demonstrating to the satisfaction of the white registrar that she had sufficient knowledge of civics after she quoted from memory the entire preamble to the Constitution.
Don't go watch it because we all know that it's all made up fiction.
Give em Hell, Mark.
And LBJ immediately ordered a Marine Expeditionary force be sent into the South under air cover by off shore Navy Carriers.
You know, I was going to joke that to talk about Ms. Cooper was offensive and a slam against the memory of LBJ because we all know that he was the real hero. Civil rights were all his idea.
And then, sure enough, someone does make it all about LBJ.
But, in fact, Lyndon "Voting rights were my idea" Johnson didn't do a damn thing. He didn't call out federal troops (as Ike had) when this happened, or when Jimmy Lee Jackson was killed. He didn't do a damn thing until Bloody Sunday was shown on national TV, and then that POS took his time about it.
Gahrie beat me too it. First thing I did was Wikipedia to see what party he belonged to.
Not mentioned but I think it safe to assume that he was a Demmie as were most of the southern segregationists of that time.
Ditto the mayor of Selma. No mention of party in his Wikipedia page.
John Henry
Gahrie beat me too it. First thing I did was Wikipedia to see what party he belonged to.
Not mentioned but I think it safe to assume that he was a Demmie as were most of the southern segregationists of that time.
Ditto the mayor of Selma. No mention of party in his Wikipedia page.
John Henry
I wonder what political party Jim Clark belonged to?
He was a fucking Democrat. Which is all that needs to be said, because Democrats have always been and always will be total assholes that want to destroy our country and enslave the blacks. No need to study anything more in regards to history - by pointing out that the sheriff's political party you already know all you need to know about it.
Because anyone who thinks that political parties have evolved or changed in the past several decades is absurd and ignorant. That is why the Republican party is still beholden to Big Labor Unions, wants to break up big businesses, and are working to make liquor illegal nationwide. Because, just like the Dems, they are the same now as they were then.
A true civil rights hero. Punching a fascist Democrat is always the right thing to do.
IMO, no one captures pictures of Alabama better than Jason Isbell. This song isn't precisely on topic, but it does capture a violent spirit that Jim Clark and his deputies possessed.
It’s Decoration Day.
And I’ve a mind to roll a stone on his grave.
But what would he say.
“Keeping me down, boy, won’t keep me away”.
It’s Decoration Day.
And I knew the Hill Boys would put us away,
but my Daddy wasn’t afraid.
He said “We’ll fight till the last Lawson’s last living day”
I never knew how it all got started
a problem with Holland before we were born
and I don’t know the name of that boy we tied down
and beat till he just couldn’t walk anymore.
But I know the caliber in Daddy’s chest
and I know what Holland Hill drives.
The state let him go, but I guess it was best
cause nobody needs all us Lawsons alive.
Daddy said one of the boys had come by
the Lumber Man’s favorite son.
He said, “Beat him real good but don’t dare let him die
and if you see Holland Hill run.
Now I said, “they ain’t give us trouble no more
that we ain’t brought down on ourselves”
But a chain on my back and my ear to the floor
and I’ll send all the Hill Boys to hell.
It’s Decoration Day
and I’ve got a family in Mobile Bay
and they’ve never seen my Daddy’s grave.
But that don’t bother me, it ain’t marked anyway.
Cause I got dead brothers in Lauderdale south
and I got dead brothers in east Tennessee.
My Daddy got shot right in front of his house
he had no one to fall on but me.
It’s Decoration Day
and I’ve got a mind to go spit on his grave.
If I was a Hill, I’d have put him away
and I’d fight till the last Lawson’s last living day.
I’d fight till the last Lawson’s last living day.
I’d fight till the last Lawson’s last living day.
To be honest, at that time the South was One Party. There were about 300 Republicans in Georgia in 1965, and The State Chairman lived down the street. His name was Bob Snodgrass and Bob was regarded as a Ripley's Believe It Or Not oddity.
The politics was primarily rural v. Urban with a rule that counted rural votes 3 times an urban vote. But it was done inside the Democrat Party.
And it hasn't changed much and is done inside the GOP Party. Atlanta was seen as the GOP wing of the state poltics with its integrated police since 1949, and a liberal Newspaper, and a team (Georgia Tech) that would play against northern schools that had black players. Driving Miss Daisy was very real.
Party labels are not that much of a slander anymore since they got reversed 30 years ago.
Wiki: "In 1978, a federal grand jury in Montgomery indicted [Sheriff Jim] Clark on charges of conspiring to smuggle three tons of marijuana from Colombia. Clark was sentenced to two years in prison and ended up serving nine months."
She was deeply affected by Winston Churchill's death the day before?
Because anyone who thinks that political parties have evolved or changed in the past several decades is absurd and ignorant
That's not my point. (although I do think the Democrats are still the party of racism)
My point is that this is yet another attempt by the left and its allies to white wash history. It is something that needs to be constantly pushed back on before the leftist lies become accepted history. The perfect example of this is the insistence that the fascists were rightwing, and the unwillingness to acknowledge that they were in fact Leftwing, and the darlings of American media and Leftwingers.
Does anyone doubt that if Jim Clark had been a republican that it would have been in the first sentence of the wiki article?
Annie Lee Cooper photo.
History’s bad-ass of the day:
See that picture? It was taken in 1965 in Selma, Alabama.
That’s Annie Lee Cooper, a maid at the only hotel in town that allowed blacks.
When the county sheriff, Jim Clark, started roughing up the crowd of black Alabamians that were waiting to be registered to vote, Annie Lee Cooper said, “Ain’t nobody scared around here.”
Jim Clark shoved her.
Annie Lee Cooper punched that guy right in his bastard head.
This picture is the attempt by three officers to hold Annie Lee Cooper down so they could arrest her.
It took two pairs of handcuffs to hold her.
Annie Lee Cooper. Fearless bad-ass lady of History.
#21 from Care and Feeding of Republics:
Authority needs to be punched in the jaw twice daily.
That's right, they were Dems at the time, right wing Dems who were welcomed with open arms into the Repub party after the Civil Rights Act. To say that they were left wing is just plain wrong, of course.
Immortalized by Tom Lehrer:
But during National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark
Are dancing cheek to cheek
Anonymous @1/25/15, 1:11 PM
That's right, they were Dems at the time, right wing Dems who were welcomed with open arms into the Repub party after the Civil Rights Act.
In 1952 Eisenhower got 48% of the vote in the South - defined as the 11 states that once comprised the Confederacy- which means that the rise of the Republican Party in the South occurred well before the 1964 Civil Rights Act. IIRC, in 1940, Republicans got 22% of the Presidential vote in the South.
Those who voted Republican in 1952 in the South tended to be younger, better educated, more prosperous and more likely to have migrated to the South than the average. Virginia, Texas, and Florida voted for Eisenhower, not Mississippi or Alabama.
As others have noted, many decades passed before the South became Republican majority in state legislatures.
To say that they were left wing is just plain wrong, of course.
Pretty much agreed with you.
http://www.claremont.org/article/the-myth-of-the-racist-republicans/#.VMVEmC7o7IU
To suggest that the promoters and defenders of Jim Crow were anything like conservatives, now or then, or whatever else "right wing" means, is just plain wrong, of course.
Actually, they did have more in common with the left, inasmuch as like the left, they viewed society in terms of perpetual classes and as a class struggle. There was the Southern aristocracy at the top and then the poor white trash below. And while they may have been poor, ignorant, trash, at least they weren't like them coloreds. That's the left's way of thinking.
That's right, they were Dems at the time, right wing Dems who were welcomed with open arms into the Repub party after the Civil Rights Act.
There are only two parties and when the one issue that compelled your allegiance has dissipated, you stop and reevaluate.
When, after 100 years, the Democrats caught up to the Republicans and the rest of civilization, the ties that bound were no more.
The Southerner was now free to look at the other issues that remained and found they had little in common with the Democratic platform and were much more aligned with the small government / lower taxes propounded by the Republicans.
There was no "flipping" of issues or welcoming with "open arms".
It was simply where they landed when their pet issue was mooted.
No way Alice Cooper could have been that old.
Awesome. Too bad she didn't put a bullett in his brain. Civil rights would be achieved quicker if the citizens treated government officials they way government officials treated the citizens. Just look at how quickly George Wallace learned his lesson.
Wallace learned his lesson so quickly that he renounced segregation even before he was shot.
Meanwhile, Ms. Cooper resorting to violence was not MLK's way -- and that is the way that won civil rights. The civil rights movement would have been dead in its tracks if their had been the violence and revolution that was preached by the black militants and Malcolm X types.
Just look at how quickly more civil rights advances happened because of the riots after King was killed. Or after the riots that broke out over the next 45 years, including Ferguson. That is to say, there were no civil rights advances. Worse, things have gone backward socially.
"Awesome. Too bad she didn't put a bullett in his brain. Civil rights would be achieved quicker if the citizens treated government officials they way government officials treated the citizens."
That would have been the worst possible thing she could have done, not only for herself, but for all blacks in American, and in the south, and for the civil rights movement, which would have immediately been characterized as a violent insurrection threatening the whole of American society, and put down, violently.
Mark,
The satyagraha doesn't work against violent ideologues. The Nazis had to be killed, at least most of their leaders.
Bull Connor should have been shot and his body hung in the public square.
But I'm sure MLK's way will work against ISIS. Nonviolence is good for somethings, and is great for violent ideologues who then don't have to fear retribution.
MLK is dead and the black homicide rate is higher than it was when he was alive. Black people would have been better off if they had taken arms up against their oppressors. They would have self respect, something they don't have now.
Cook,
Black people are still treated like shit and they don't have self respect. The worst possible thing that could have happened to them has happened to them. They were killed, beaten, and pissed on by racists and treated like children by liberals.
They would be better off if they had self respect than they are with your pity.
MLK was a nice guy and very brave. But he was naive. White society has backed him because it was in their self interest. Nat Turner was a better American.
The U.S. was started by violent people who wanted to overthrow their oppressors for just reasons. Thankfly our founders were not naive like MLK.
For some reason, probably the overwhelming one-sidedness of party identification among journalists--Democrats are stereotyped by their elite and Republicans by their rank and file.
There is little daylight between the Democrat rank and file and the Republican rank and file on abortion and same-sex marriage or even creationism (60% of Republicans and 40% of Democrats hold young-earth creationist views; and there were not enough Republicans in California to pass Proposition 8.) There is little daylight between the Republican and Democrat elite on immigration.
A couple people pointed out that the segregationists as Democrats was all 50 years ago. Thankfully they refrained themselves from actually saying "At this point what does it matter?"
It still came through loud an clear.
After WWII, when the Democrat segregationists ruled the south, there was a massive outmigration of blacks to the north.
For the past 20 years, there has been a significant migration of blacks back to the south.
Hmmmm... They leave when those nice progressive Dems are in power. Then return when return when those mad-dog racist Republicans take over.
Might they know something we don't?
Blacks have long been saying (Dick Gregory back in the 60's for example) that northern racism is much harder for blacks to deal with than southern racism.
And those of you from Madison and around? Don't throw rocks at the south. You live in a pretty fragile glass house yourselves.
Madison may be the most racist city in the US by the numbers. Far worse than any southern city.
John Henry
"MLK was a nice guy and very brave. But he was naive."
MLK was hardly naive, however much your condescension toward him may convince you he was. He knew full well he was a marked man and would likely be assassinated...yet he carried on, with that knowledge.
MLK was wise enough to know that letting anger and pure emotion drive the tactics and actions of those fighting for civil rights--to the extent where they might begin responding with violence to the provocations they faced--would destroy all sympathy for their cause they had managed to gain, and would have frightened white America into believing they were a wildly dangerous threat to be put down as swiftly as possible, with whatever tactics. The retrograde elements in government and law enforcement would certainly have reacted brutally, and would have been broadly supported in this by the American public.
It is not "pity" (as you seem to think) to see this frank reality, it is an understanding of why MLK held to his strategy and philosophy of non-violent protest. It is this that allowed them to succeed to the extent they they did, limited as it was.
I first registered to vote in 1968, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I had to read a section of the Alabama constitution and explain what it meant, a literacy test really.
The official emblem of the Alabama Democratic Party, that appeared on all election ballots, was a white rooster in a circle, with the words "White Supremacy" across the top, and "For the Right", across the bottom.
Cook,
MLK was naive. He may have known he would be assassinated. He didn't know blacks would end up as government wards with no self respect living in segregation 50 years later anyway.
You are naive as well. And your condescension and pity toward blacks is the inevitable white liberal reaction to MLK's actions. Blacks needed to maintain their self respect and take their freedom from their oppressors. It's far too late for them to do that now.
MLK's inept idealism may have been excusable. Your staunch defense of his naïveté is a white liberal defense mechanism. Blacks still have it bad but you get to feel better about yourself. That's why we get an MLK holiday.
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