From May 28--Our Friendship and Work With Rev. James Bevel, MLK's Direct Action Coordinator

The man pictured on the left with Dr. King was Rev. James Bevel. Martha and I worked closely with him, and he was a our friend throughout the 90's and early 2000's before his tragic end. When he visited Philadelphia he stayed in our home in Upper Darby. I worked with him here and during my consultancy in Houston, when we ran political campaigns. He asked me to do historical research for him on the life of Lyndon Johnson, which I did. He asked out of a belief that LBJ might have been America's best President, notwithstanding the Vietnam War, because he made the Emancipation Proclamation real through his backing of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act. 

Rev. Bevel was one of the National founders of the SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and helped coordinate the Freedom Riders operations into the Jim Crow States to fight Segregation and Discrimination. From there, he became the Direct Action Coordinator of the SCLC, Dr. King's organization (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) which was the leading vehicle for the Civil Rights movement, and became one of the handful of Dr. King's inner Circle. You will see him depicted by the Rapper/Actor Common, in the recent Civil Rights historical film "Selma".

 In later years, he was the primary initiator of the Million Man March, and personally persuaded Louis Farrakhan and other Black leaders to participate in that event in a meeting which I was briefed on before the March occured. Rev. Bevel was a main speaker at that event in DC.

I bring up Rev Bevel for a specific reason, which is the events of the last 48 hours. He related to us his experiences in Birmingham Alabama, during one of the hottest phases and most tragic circumstances in the fight for Civil Rights. KKK terrorists had bombed the home of Dr. King, the Gaston hotel, and the homes of other Civil Rights leaders and Pastors. Activists who had grown weary of SCLC's strategy of non-violence started rioting and bloody violence and reprisals ensued. King was blamed and eventually jailed there.

After Dr. King was released from Jail in Birmingham, he and Rev Bevel met to discuss strategy. It was a highly charged situation in which racist Sheriff Bull Connor had brutalized peaceful protesters and activists with heavy violence, using attack dogs, tear gas, and police batons. It was Bevel who came up with the idea of and organized the famous Children's March in May of 1963. A major event was held at the 16th St Baptist Church, in which Bevel called upon people to March in support of Dr King, and go to jail if necessary to end segregation. Before the strike against segregation ended, over 4,000 children were jailed. Many were set upon by Dogs and firehosed and the children spent up to two weeks in jail. This was filmed and broadcast around the World when it happened. It was so atrocious, that the Prime Minister of India Nehru called President Kennedy on the phone and threatened to cut off relations with the US if the Federal government didn't intervene. 

JFK begged Dr. King to stop using the children, but Bevel would only agree if JFK would allow the children to have a March on Washington, and he agreed. Bull Connor was finally fired after 7 terms, Governor Wallace backed down, and the integration of Alabama began.
The postscript was that four months later, September 15, 1963 the 16th St. Baptist Church was bombed by the Klan, killing 4 children, and injuring 20. Angela Davis was a member of that Church and lost her best friend. Two months later, President Kennedy was assassinated.

When the Church bombing occurred, Rev Bevel told us that he literally lost it, and immediately began calling up every healthy Male he knew and told them to bring their firearms. He who had pioneered and led the movement for non-violence founded by Gandhi and Dr. King, in the spirit of Jesus, was ready to go the other way and begin hunting and shooting White men. But, he had an epiphany and realized that violence was what the racists wanted, that this played right into the hands of J Edgar Hoover and his allies in giving them the pretext needed to shut them down and discredit everything.

Rev Bevel told Martha and I that he realized that Jesus had made one terrible error in his mortal presence on Earth, when he used violence to chase the Money Lenders out of the Temple, because when he did that, he was undermining his own mission by exercising his Wrath which should only reside with God the Father, as opposed to his mission to redeem Mankind with the power of Universal Love. He said he learned this from the Bible and Dr King.

Well, you can argue with his Theology, but he stuck with it, and never capitulated to hatred. He was the on the ground coordinator for the famous Selma campaign in 1964 with our other beloved friend Amelia Robinson. He was there in the parking lot as a witness with his collaborators at the Lorraine Hotel on the day Dr King was shot, April 4, 1968. He had some moments, understandably where he once again wanted to pick up a Gun and find White men to shoot, but he fought it off.

He was both deadly serious, driven, and hilariously funny. He actually suggested to Martha and I while we were talking at our place, that we should give up Sex for a year as an act of Solidarity for those people unjustly incarcerated in America. He said that would add a sense of urgency to our mobilization to get them freed! I asked him if he was going to give up Sex as well. He said "What are you crazy? I could never do that! I'm a Bull!"

That was Rev Bevel. He later got involved in some weird causes. He died of Pancreatic Cancer in 2008 after a Jail term, accused of abusing his daughter, but what he did accomplish with Dr King still stands, unsullied, and what he taught us is still in my living memory and benefits us all to this day.