The relocation of about 50 immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, initiated last week by Florida’s governor, has revived memories of strikingly similar tactics used by southern segregationists 60 years ago.
As word of the relocation spread, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library quickly drew historical parallels to the Reverse Freedom Rides during the Kennedy administration.
In 1962, a group of conservatives, intent on responding to desegregation efforts during the civil rights movement, sponsored one-way trips to the north for black citizens.
Hundreds of black Americans were brought to cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, recruited by members of a segregationist group called the White Citizens Council, with false promises of jobs and housing.
One of the targeted destination points was Hyannis Harbor—a village on the Cape Cod Peninsula—where the largest group of riders arrived in the spring of 1962 before being provided temporary housing at Camp Edwards near Otis Air National Guard Base.
In what many condemned as the same tactic, the group of migrants sent by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to Martha’s Vineyard this week eventually had to be taken to the same Cape Cod military base to receive shelter and humanitarian aid.
“Reverse Freedom Rides are not well known to many people and it is important to understand that this tactic of using people as political pawns was used 60 years ago by segregationists and white supremacists,” explained Tanisha Sullivan, NAACP chapter president of Boston.
“It’s important for us to reinforce and highlight that parallel so people can see that this kind of racist behavior and these racist tactics are still being used today,” he added.
Immigrants on Wednesday’s planes did not know they were being transported specifically to Martha’s Vineyard and were induced to board planes with “shows of labor assistance and immigration relief in Boston,” the group Lawyers for Civil Rights wrote in a news release.
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Although DeSantis confirmed that he arranged the flights, the migrants were in Texas, not Florida. For months, DeSantis has talked about his plans to get Florida involved in redirecting immigrants from the southern border in a way that will maximize heartburn for Democratic leaders.
His administration secured $12 million in the state budget to pay for the relocation of immigrants and has repeatedly threatened to use the money to send them to liberal strongholds. Martha’s Vineyard did not expect the group, and the decision was strongly condemned by the White House, immigrant advocates and Democratic officials. DeSantis has also come under fire from public officials and citizens of his state for using Florida taxpayer dollars for the cause.
DeSantis’ move is part of a series of moves by Republican governors, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, to move immigrants to northern liberal cities and so-called blue states to protest the Biden administration’s southern border policies.
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The two governors have been frequent opponents of President Joe Biden over his immigration and southern border policies since taking office. Biden, attacking the governors’ tactics, accused Republicans of “playing politics with people” and “using them as props.”
Representatives from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library pointed to similarities in the escalating battle between red-state leaders and the Biden administration over the U.S.-Mexico border and the revival of the Reverse Freedom Rides, a parody of the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress of Tribals. Equality (CORE) in 1961.
“To embarrass Northern liberals and humiliate blacks, Southern White Citizens’ Councils started so-called ‘Reverse Freedom Rides,’ giving blacks one-way tickets to northern cities with false promises of jobs, housing, and better Zoe. The library recounted in a tweet.
At the time, President John F. Kennedy’s administration received correspondence from leaders in the targeted states, asking the federal government to intervene in the “cruel and merciless farce” orchestrated by the segregationists.
“If they pay the cost of their traffic in human life and their misery, their attitude will doubtless change,” read a letter released by the Library, which referred to Southern segregationists.
The Reverse Freedom Rides were planned by the White Citizens’ Council, at one point “the most powerful political force organized in opposition to racial integration,” historian Clive Webb, a professor at the University of Sussex in England, wrote in an academic article. the Reverse Freedom Rides published in 2004;
The walks, Webb wrote, were used to restore some of the political power of the White Citizens Council and were formed in part as a reaction to white businessmen, civic leaders, and parents who saw that outright opposition to desegregation would harm their communities.
The White Citizens Council’s strategy was to use the Reverse Freedom Rides “as a public relations exercise that would immediately politically embarrass their Northern liberal critics and thus restore their support to white Southerners.” Northern politicians and newspapers condemned the rides, calling them cruel and inhumane.
Members of the White Citizens Council in New Orleans and Little Rock, Arkansas, were instrumental in organizing the walks, according to the article. The campaign was first started by George Singelmann, who recruited black families through advertisements promising “Free Transportation plus $5.00 for Expenses to any Negro man or woman or family (no limit on size) desiring to immigrate to the Capital of the Nation or in any northern city of their choice,” Webb wrote, citing one of the ads.
Members of the White Citizens Council also recruited in prisons and advertised their “services” to the NAACP. The group made promises to help black families find work and, in other cases, guaranteed jobs in their new cities, according to Webb’s investigation.
The White Citizens’ Council campaign continued until 1963 after support waned and funding ran out, according to the article.
“The harshest aspect of the Citizens’ Council campaign is that it undermined the only means by which some impoverished African-Americans could withstand the oppression of their lives, a sense of hope,” Webb concluded.
The suffering of black citizens who migrated north in the Reverse Freedom Rides “is most vividly illustrated” by the events in Hyannis, where 96 black Americans were sent over the course of several months, Webb wrote.
By 1965, all but one of the families remained in Hyannis after the riders soon discovered the jobs they had been promised did not exist, his article said.
The riders were forced out by the White Citizens Council and told they should contact the federal government, the NAACP or the National Urban League in an effort to “embarrass” President Kennedy, said Dr. Traci Parker, Afro teacher. -American Studies at the University of Massachusetts and an expert on the civil rights movement.
“These are all very similar. Makes you wonder what playbook DeSantis is playing from.” Parker remarked. “This is really part of a history of bigoted, white segregationists who want nothing to do with people of color.”
Another similarity is many black families who left the South in the Reverse Freedom Rides did so freely because they believed they would find better work and “escape the horrors of living under such an oppressive regime as Jim Crow,” added Parker.
But lessons learned from previous Reverse Freedom Rides led the community on Martha’s Vineyard to rush to welcome and help displaced immigrants as soon as they arrived, Parker said.
Island cities, as well as community and nonprofit groups, joined the effort to help the migrants with donations and shelter, food and care, according to a Facebook post from Dukes County government.
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The response from the Martha’s Vineyard community was no surprise to those who have been actively involved in civil rights and civil rights issues in Massachusetts, according to Sullivan with the NAACP, because the island has historically been open and welcoming to newcomers.
“The parallels with the Reverse Freedom Rides are important to keep shouting, not just to raise awareness, but to reinforce the importance of remembering our collective history. the aspects of it that bring us joy and pride, and the aspects of it that shame us,” Sullivan said.
