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As
the 50th anniversary of King's death approaches on April 4,
Singleton and others have been reflecting on the man who
inspired them and the legacy he left behind.
It was early 1961 and the then 24-year-old college student was
protesting against Woolworths' racially segregated southern
lunch counters at a picket line outside the company's Hollywood,
California, store when King was introduced to him by a mutual
acquaintance.
"He marched with us in front of the Woolworths store and that
really made me, from that point on, an organizer," said
Singleton, now 81.
Soon after that meeting, Singleton organized a group of
University of California Los Angeles students to travel to
Jackson, Mississippi, to enforce federal desegregation laws at
the train terminal.
They were known as the Freedom Riders, and among the group was
Singleton’s wife, Helen, now 85. She, too, was inspired by King.
"He was able to make you feel that, whatever burden you might be
carrying, carry it with dignity and hope. And then also take
action," she said.
The Singletons and hundreds of other young Freedom Riders were
arrested and jailed. But by November 1961, the federal
Interstate Commerce Commission's ruling prohibiting segregation
on interstate transportation facilities was being enforced
across the South.
"We won that battle," said Bob Farrell, 81, who was arrested in
Houston, Texas, in one of the last organized Freedom Rides in
August, 1961. "Inside of one year we contributed to changing
public policy that had been there since the beginning of the
20th century."
But the civil rights struggle was far from over. King was killed
on a motel balcony in Memphis by an avowed segregationist on
April 4, 1968.
Farrell traveled to Atlanta for his funeral.
"I can remember what it was like finally getting over to
Ebenezer Baptist Church and preparing for the great march to
Morehouse College where Dr. King was going to be temporarily
buried," he said.
"The silence, the silence once the body came out of the church,
the silence on that long march and then the memorial celebration
at Morehouse College with the speakers," he said. "It was just
something I've never experienced before or since."
The Singletons and Farrell agree there has been significant
progress in racial equality in the five decades since King's
death, but all are dismayed at the current state of U.S. race
relations.
"The fact that, 50 years later, there's so much still to be done
just demonstrates to me and to others how deep, how very, very
deep white supremacy, its premises and the dynamic that still
propels our nation, is still there," Farrell said.
(Reporting by Jane Ross; Editing by Paul Tait)
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