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"Looking back, it is clear that the introduction of Birmingham's children into the campaign was one of the wisest moves we made." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Why We Can't Wait, p. 97
"The Birmingham Movement was blessed by the fire and excitement brought to it by the young people. Jim Bevel had the inspiration of setting D-Day, when students would go to jail in historic numbers." --Ibid. p. 99
"I think his most significant mobilization was here in Birmingham when he [James Bevel] recruited the children from the public schools." --Wyatt Tee Walker interview with R. Kryn, 6/2/88
MARCH ON WASHINGTON, 1963
Objective: Consolidate small sit-in wins across the south and the major Birmingham victory.
"Nobody knows it, but the [1963] March on Washington was directly parallel to our understanding of what Gandhi did in India. We were sitting around, talking about how are we going to unite all of these little sit-in movements across the south into one national movement and James Bevel said 'Let's have a salt march to the sea.' I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said, 'Let's march on Washington.' And we didn't do it the same way Gandhi did. But we accomplished the same purpose." --Andrew Young, TV interview, June 2, 1977
"King's interest in mass action in the nation's capitol stemmed in part from an idea that had circulated among some of the movement's younger staff workers, such as James Bevel and Ike Reynolds." --David Garrow. Bearing the Cross, p. 266
"The March on Washington was Jim Bevel's idea." --Bernard LaFayette, interview with R. Kryn, 9/18/87
SELMA RIGHT-TO-VOTE, 1965
Objective: Force Alabama and the U.S. government to uphold the constitutional right to vote for all.
"My former husband and I . . . deliberately made a choice. We weren't going to stop working . . . until Alabama Blacks had the right to vote." --Diane Nash-Bevel interview in Voices of Freedom, p. 173
"James Bevel spent some time walking alone outside the Torch Motel . . . Suddenly he had an idea that he felt sure would bring home the situation as nothing they had tried before: They would march to Montgomery [from Selma]." --Charles Fager. Selma 1965, p. 86
"Dr. King confirmed that Bevel's plan for a march to Montgomery had become official."
--Charles Fager. Ibid., p. 86
"Dr. King's speech [in Montgomery] was impressive as usual, but the remarks of James Bevel got closest to the whole point of the struggle. Waving up at the capitol, Bevel said, 'Those police up there on the steps know we belong inside. Thirty-four percent of the seats in there belong to us. We don't want these steps. We want the capitol.'" --Robert H. Brisbane. Black Activism
CHICAGO OPEN HOUSING MOVEMENT, 1966
Objective: End discriminatory practices in renting and selling of housing.
"Bevel went to Chicago, where his restless, brilliant strategic mind found a more promising situation, and began laying the groundwork for what was to become Dr. King's massive . . . open-housing campaign there in the summer of 1966." --Fager, Selma 1965 pp. 169-70
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