The Martyrs: Sixteen Who Gave Their Lives for Racial Justice by Jack Mendelsohn

in 1966, the minister of the Arlington Street Church in Boston published this history of the civil rights movement told through the stories of sixteen tragic deaths. A woman in the church who was moving to be nearer to her children gave me a first edition of the book, signed by the author, as a present. She thought I would appreciate it, and I do, very much.

The book, in 10 chapters, collects martyrdom stories, some well known, others not, northerners and southerners (though all the murders take place in Mississippi and Alabama) black folks and white, men and women, workers in the civil rights movement, and innocents caught up in the struggle. Familiar characters like Dr. King, and John Lewis, appear, but their work isn’t the focus. National events such as the March on Washington or the Voting Rights Act might be referred to, but not detailed. The book includes an index.

Though the work is non-fiction it isn’t dry, the stories are deeply felt and personal. Each chapter ends with heart-break; you know these are martyrs, but there is hope and passion in their struggle. Looked at now from 60 years on, there is both horror at the small advances sought at the time and that bigots would not concede . Because Mendelsohn writes of very contemporary events, many of the criminals in the story are not brought to justice, let off by equally bigoted law enforcement or juries, or still on the loose. Because I read it 60 years after the events, it was satisfying to know what the author could not: that some who escaped consequences initially would eventually be brought to justice.

The book begins in 1955 with the murder of The Rev. George W. Lee. Each chapter is given a title, this one being, “A Man Who Was Somebody” and a subtitle with the date of their death. Chapter II tells the story of Herbert Lee, a farmer, shot in 1961 for doing organizing work with SNCC, and Louis Allen, a witness to the shooting who was murdered in 1964 for testifying at the trial. Chapter III concerns a white man, William L. Moore shot to death in 1963 while walking alone on a pilgrimage to Jackson, Mississippi wearing a sandwich board sign advocating racial justice. Chapter IV, is Medgar Evers, murdered in 1963, whose killer, Byron de la Beckwith, would finally find justice three decades later. Chapter V is the story of the four girls killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, during the terrible year of 1963. Chapter VI tells of three organizers from CORE, murdered as they worked in Mississippi in 1964. Chapter VII concerns Jimmy Lee Jackson, whose murder in Mississippi on February 26, 1965 sparked the famous march from Selma to Montgomery. Chapter VII covers the Unitarian minister James Reed, beaten to death on March 11, 1965 after responding to Dr. King’s call to come to Selma. Viola Liuzzo, another who responded to the call is the subject of Chapter IX, shot to death as she worked to transport marchers from Montgomery back to Selma in her car. The final chapter is another death that summer, Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an episcopal minister who went to Selma for the march then stayed on to conduct a “ministry of presence” for the episcopal church, shot shortly after being released from jail following a protest he participated in.

Only James Reeb, who was a member of the congregation of Jack Mendelsohn’s church in Boston, was personally known to the author. The other stories are meticulously researched from newspaper accounts and other books as well as personal interviews that Mendelsohn conducted while on sabbatical from his church job. In his Preface, Mendelsohn writes, “This book is written as a modest contribution to the faith that people will respond to injustice when a sufficient mass of evidence and facts is put before them” and then he admits that while 16 deaths may be sufficient for his purpose of persuasion, that for a chronicle of “all the deaths of those who have been slain for racial reasons since the 1954 Supreme Court decision, several volumes would be required.”