The Police

"Almost invariably," says the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, "the incident that ignites disorder arises from police action. Harlem, Watts, Newark, and Detroit -- all the major outbursts of recent years -- were precipitated by routine arrests of Negroes for minor offenses by white police. But the police are not merely the spark. In discharge of their obligation to maintain order and insure public safety in the disruptive conditions of ghetto life, they are inevitably involved in sharper and more frequent conflicts with ghetto residents than with the residents of other areas. Thus, to many Negroes police have come to symbolize white power, white racism, and white repression. And the fact is that many police do reflect and express these white attitudes. The atmosphere of hostility and cynicism is reinforced by a widespread perception among Negroes of the existence of police brutality and corruption, and of a 'double standard' of justice and protection -- one for Negroes and one for whites."

Obviously, the police spark was present in Memphis. The injudicious use of Mace seemed the worst excess of the first month. It was far short of the injudicious use of rifle fire by state police against rampaging students at Orangeburg, South Carolina, at about that same time, but something less than even-handed and cool-headed protection of all citizens, including those exercising constitutional rights of protest.

At the mass meeting on Tuesday night, February 27, after the Reverend Mr. Kyles' impassioned speech before the City Council, the Reverend Malcolm Blackburn thanked Mr. Kyles for "calling attention to our blindness."

"We have been blind to conditions of life in America," he told the crowd, "for none of us noticed or questioned how we were surrounded by police in the Council chamber this afternoon, and counted like cattle as we entered our chamber . . . . ! If none of us can stand in the aisles or around the walls because of the fire laws, then next time we ought to see to it that the police do not, either, because we don't need them!"

Then, pointing into the ranks of upturned faces, all black, he added, "We don't need them watching us in this mass meeting, either!"

"And we don't need two or three policemen on every other corner during our marches," he went on, "or helicopters circling overhead, when we have shown that we can march peacefully and with dignity without some damned cop . . .!" His arm shot out for emphasis and the end of his sentence was lost in applause.

Bishop J. 0. Patterson attempted to deal gently with the Negro policemen who apparently had been singled out, but in so doing he made the point again. "I feel sorry for our Negro policemen," he said. "Most of them are nice fellows. But now they have been assigned a task that is contrary to the Bible. The Bible says that the law is for sinners, not the righteous."

The police were always very much in evidence before and during the marches downtown or when workers and sympathizers attended meetings at city hall. They talked back and forth on walkie-talkies. They cruised in police cars with shotgun muzzles visible above the dashboards.

Little wonder the crowds were sparse for the marches. Rumor had it that the mayor was greatly pleased at the report that only 120 people showed up for one of the marches, and concluded that the strike would play out. But at the mass meetings in Negro churches and at the rallies in the union hall, when no police were in evidence, the meeting places were packed and jammed.

One other police incident during the first month was noteworthy. On Thursday night, March 1, three policemen -- two patrolmen and a lieutenant -- arrested two negroes outside the church where a mass meeting was being held. They charged them with jaywalking. one of those charged was Gerald Fanion, and the other was Edward Harris, photographer for the Tri-State Defender.

Police commissioner Frank Holloman personally appeared in city court the next day and asked that the charges be dropped. "We have been trying to keep the peace in our community," he explained, "and if a mistake is made the best thing to do is to admit it and try to correct it."

Judge Ray Churchill granted the motion and commented, "I think this is a wonderful step forward. In all my experience I believe this is the first time anything like this has happened."

Police Chief J. C. MacDonald announced that the three officers had been suspended and said they had made an "error in judgment."

"I never have, and I never will tolerate harassment of citizens by police," he said.

The past record of the Memphis Police Department in this crucial area of relations with Negro citizens has not been a notably bad one, as these things go in the South and the nation. In a special report of the Southern Regional Council on Memphis as among southern cities which had made most progress by 1964, Benjamin Muse wrote: "In few cities have the police been so largely and favorably identified with the civil rights advance. Public order has been maintained in Memphis -- tranquility in which negotiations could quietly proceed and insurance against disorder which enabled desegregation steps to be confidently taken. With small exceptions, police brutality, which is incompatible with any durable public order, has been absent, but the police 'mean business,' and the public knows it." But, perhaps ominously for the crisis that was to come in 1968, the report pointed out that in the sit-ins of 1961, police were deployed in numbers that some considered excessive, arrests were made in great quantities with very many of the cases subsequently dismissed, and complaints of rough handling of demonstrators were numerous. All of this was under a former police commissioner, but it is indicative of the kind of police relations with Negro citizens that underlay the outburst of feeling against police in 1968. In that same 1964 report, incidentally, the Memphis press was praised for its role in fostering successful desegregation, but once more an ominous note was sounded: " . . . Those demonstrations [of 1960-61] were larger and more disruptive than many realized -- owing to the policy of the Memphis press of minimizing the publicity."

Incredibly, albeit incidentally, it was reported on February 27 that 3,000 Tennessee National Guardsmen were to bivouac in Memphis on March 9 for one day of riot control practice. Other drills were to be staged simultaneously in Nashville and Knoxville. The practice was planned to acquaint Guardsmen with the topography of the city and identify potential trouble spots. Details were not revealed. The Guardsmen would be outfitted, the report said, in full field gear, including weapons.

The drill took place on schedule, but without incident. The Guard avoided "areas of existing tension."