Peniel E. Joseph's Freedom Season - An Essential Text
In 1963 the Civil Rights struggle came alive
Francis Hamit
Publisher: Basic Books, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group
467 pages with notes, bibliography, acknowledgments and index
ISBN: 978-1-5416-7589-6
1963 was the year I graduated high school in Marin County, California. It was in Mill Valley at Tamalpais High school, considered the toughest high school in the county because we had Black students. The farther you went North in Marin, the more you encountered the Jim Crow prejudices of the deep South. But at Tam High we were down with the Struggle. In the Drama Department our teacher, Dan Caldwell, did something very brave and subversive. Rather than another Broadway musical, he chose Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” as our class play. The play is a not-so-subtle push back against the excesses of the McCarthy era, the early 1950s.
Parents objected to the theme and some of Miller’s language. Dan pointed to the language in the Samuel French contract that forbade us from changing a line of the play. His defiance taught us more than dramatic art: it was a lesson in courage, Of not giving in to political or cultural bullies. He put his job on the line and won. He taught there for more than 30 years. The theater is named after him.
We were very aware of Civil Rights. Some of us also participated in demonstrations and protests. The Vietnam War was already on the horizon. As were the Hippies and Timothy Leary’s poison promotion of the drug culture. But in that moment it was Civil Rights. White kids wanted to help. We had been too young to be Freedom Riders. It was our time.
Peniel E. Joseph’s “Freedom Season” is a narrative history of that year, filled with hope, but also murder and tragedy, as Jim Crow terrorists tried to preserve the political system that had served them so well for almost a century. Jim Crow infected the North as well.
The primary change agent in 1963 was the author James Baldwin. His novels and essays were lyrical and their critical reception paved the way for the Struggle. He became a best-selling author, read by the larger white community. These days, military and intelligence strategists talk about seizing the narrative and dominating the Information Space. That is what Baldwin did for Civil Rights in 1963. He was not so much a leader as an influencer. He raised our consciousness.
As Joseph details in this even-handed and thoroughly researched account, he was not the only one. The Black Civil Rights movement had its “Old Guard” and they resented upstarts such as Martin Luther King. Jr. and Malcolm X. There were rivalries and internal dissension. Joseph details it all. Voters’ registration in Mississippi, the Birmingham March, The initial reluctance of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Bobby Kennedy to get involved. The courageous activism and murder of Medgar Evers, the Birmingham church bombing that killed four innocent Black girls and the assassination of JFK himself . All one story like a novel.
These events resonate down the corridors of time to the present day. This is an essential text for anyone seeking to understand today’s politics, especially in the face of the Trump Administration’s efforts to erase history and create a new Jim Crow order.
Highly recommended. *****
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