Jim Clark (sheriff)
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Sheriff Jim Clark of Selma, Alabama, was responsible for the violent arrests of civil rights protestors. He was satirized by Tom Lehrer in the song National Brotherhood Week as dancing "cheek to cheek" with Lena Horne (Hollywood's first black starlet).
Selma was a town of around 30,000 inhabitants. Around 1% of eligible blacks were registered to vote, and registration was made deliberately difficult. When SNCC organized a "Freedom Day" on October 7, 1963, Clark ordered a photographer to take pictures of the 250 blacks who lined up to register, asking what their employers would think of the pictures. Police beat SNCC workers who tried to bring food and water to those in line.
At one protest a club-wielding Clark arrested a respected member of the local community, Amelia Boynton. Pictures showing Clark pushing Boynton to the ground were printed in the New York Times and Washington Post. Ralph Abernathy of the SCLC mockingly nominated Clark for honorary membership in the Dallas County Voters' League "for publicity services rendered." According to Wilson Baker, director of public safety, When Clark heard this on a surveillance tape made of the meeting, "[h]e'd scream bloody murder that he'd never do it again, he wouldn't fall into that trap again and go out the next day and do the same thing" [1]
Clark's actions were reportedly against the wishes of Joseph Smitherman, Mayor of Selma, who was wary of the effect of adverse publicity on the town's efforts to bring in new industries.
[edit] References
- ^ Steven Kasher, The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68 (New York: Abbeville Press, 1996)
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