By Garry Blanson
Please travel back in time with me to the “Historic Happenings” that took place in Monroe, Louisiana during “The Summer of 1964.”
In April 1963, John Reddix (D.D.S.), president of the local NAACP chapter (and a leading civil rights leader in Monroe, Louisiana) made an urgent request of CORE’s (Congress Of Racial Equality) Southern Regional Office that a CORE “Voter Registration Drive” be initiated in Ouachita Parish (at that time, the NAACP chapter in Monroe was all but defunct).
On December 9, 1963, members of C.O.R.E., Brendon Sexton, Tom Valentine, and Mike Lesser, came to Monroe and took over the old NAACP offices. Now, let’s get to some of the events that occurred here in the city of Monroe, Louisiana, in 1964!
When the CORE members arrived in Monroe, they found the high school age group to have the most enthusiasm (they decided to utilize this nucleus for sit-ins to test discrimination and segregation policies of local libraries and public accommodations).
When the CORE members decided to have sit-ins at several of the local libraries, “22 Black Youth” along with their parents and several CORE members were arrested (the 22 children were arrested on charges of trespassing, while their parents and CORE workers were jailed on charges of contributing to the delinquency of minors). Also, CORE members worked with a “Unity Committee” of workers to point out practices of employment discrimination at the segregated paper mill and four container plants of the Olin Mathieson Plant in West Monroe.
The first Mass CORE Meeting for Voter Registration in Ouachita Parish was held at Mt Calvary Baptist Church in West Monroe, Louisiana (although 100 people were expected, only 18 Negroes showed up). Several White police officers were stationed along the way to the meeting to discourage Black People from attending the meeting. The White police officers warned the Black Citizens that they would arrest them if they went to the CORE meeting (some of the CORE members reported that “the streets in Monroe, La. were patrolled by automobiles with members of the Ku Klux Klan, or the White Citizens’ Council, all using citizen’s band two-way radios.
Their cars were armed with the favorite weapons of the southern bigot, baseball bats, and shotguns). During the long summer of 1964, “292” additional Negroes were registered to vote in Monroe. The lone Negro attorney that was dispatched to Monroe with other White attorneys was Attorney Lolis E. Elie (CORE’s Chief Southern Attorney).
