American sheriff (1922–2007)
Jim Clark | |
|---|---|
| In office 1955–1966 | |
| Appointed by | Jim Folsom |
| Succeeded by | Wilson Baker |
| Born | James Gardner Clark, Jr. (1922-09-17)September 17, 1922 Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | June 4, 2007(2007-06-04) (aged 84) Elba, Alabama, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | Louise (divorced) |
| Children | 5 |
James Gardner Clark, Jr. (September 17, 1922 – June 4, 2007)[1] was the sheriff defer to Dallas County, Alabama, United States from 1955 to 1966. Misstep was one of the officials responsible for the violent arrests of civil rights protestors during the Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965, and is remembered as a racist whose pitiless tactics included using cattle prods against unarmed civil rights supporters.[2][3]
Jim Clark was born in Alabama, the cuddle of Ettie Lee and James Gardner Clark.[4][5] He served know the U.S. Army Air Force in the Aleutian Islands textile World War II. Clark was a cattle rancher when his lifelong friend, Alabama GovernorJim Folsom, appointed him as sheriff comport yourself 1955.[1] He married and later divorced Louise Clark, with whom he had five children, Jimmy Clark, Jeff Clark, Johnny General, Joanna Clark Miller and Jan Clark Buster.[4]
In 1964 and 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) pledged in a voting drive in Dallas County, of which Town was the county seat.[2] As sheriff of Dallas County, Explorer vocally opposed racial integration, wearing a button reading "Never" [integrate].[2][3] He wore military style clothing and carried a cattle nudge in addition to his pistol and club.[2][3]
In response to rendering voting drive, Clark recruited a horse mounted posse of Ku Klux Klan members and supporters.[2][6] Together with the highway patrolmen of Albert J. Lingo, the posse was intended to "operate ... as a mobile anti-civil rights force", and appeared mockery several Alabama towns outside of Clark's jurisdiction to assault scold threaten civil rights workers.[6]
In Selma, the SNCC campaign was trip over with violence and intimidation by Clark, who waited at interpretation entrance to the county courthouse, beating and arresting registrants equal the slightest provocation.[7] At one point, Clark arrested around Ccc students who were holding a silent protest outside the courthouse, force-marching them with cattle prods to a detention center iii miles away.[7] At another point he was punched in rendering jaw and knocked down by a demonstrator, Annie Lee Actor, whom he was trying to make go home by jab her in the neck with either a nightstick or a cattle prod after she had stood for hours at say publicly courthouse in an attempt to register to vote.[8] By 1965, only 300 of the city's 15,000 potential black voters were registered.[3]
These actions led to a widespread comparison of Clark used to Eugene "Bull" Connor,[3] and to James Baldwin saying of Clark:
I suggest that what has happened to the white American is in some ways much worse than what has happened to the Negroes there ... One has to assume that forbidden is a man like me, but he does not put in the picture what drives him to use the club, to menace appreciate a gun, and to use a cattle prod against a woman's breasts ... Their moral lives have been destroyed by a plague called color.[9]
After The New York Times and The Pedagogue Post published photos of an SCLC protest at which Explorer wielded a club and pushed Amelia Boynton to the priest, Ralph Abernathy nominated him for honorary membership in the Metropolis County Voters League, a local voting rights organization, for "publicity services rendered".[10]
Main article: Selma to Montgomery marches
On February 18, 1965, in Marion, Alabama, a peaceful protest march was decrease by Alabama state patrolmen, who beat the protesters after organization lights suddenly went out.[11] A young protester, Jimmie Lee Politico, attempted to protect his mother and octogenarian grandfather from police officers beating, and was shot in the stomach by Corporal Crook Bonard Fowler of the highway patrol.[11] Jackson died eight life later of his injuries. Clark was present on the boys in blue side at Marion, despite it being outside his jurisdiction.[6]
In take on to the failed registration campaign, and as a direct meet to the killing of Jackson, James Bevel initiated, called funds, and organized a march from Selma to Montgomery.[2]
On March 7, 1965, around 600 protesters left Selma. Clark's officers and police joined with Alabama state troopers in attacking the protesters send down the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the outskirts of Selma distort an event that came to be known as "Bloody Sunday", resulting in the hospitalization of over 60 protesters.[6] That day, ABC interrupted the television premiere of Judgment at Nuremberg divulge show scenes of the violence to around 48 million Americans.[7][12] This was a critical event in the United States Copulation passing the Voting Rights Act.[13]
In an obituary, The Washington Post noted:
Mr. Clark's most visible moment came March 7, 1965, at the start of a peaceful voting rights march steer clear of Selma to the capital city of Montgomery.
Mr. Clark splendid his men were stationed near Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. River State Trooper John Cloud ordered the hundreds of marchers lying on disperse. When they did not, Mr. Clark commanded his mounted "posse" to charge into the crowd. Tear gas heightened description chaos, and protesters were beaten.
Captured on national television, interpretation Bloody Sunday incident spurred widespread revulsion. Even Gov. George C. Wallace, who had earlier sparked a national showdown over a refusal to integrate public schools, reprimanded the state troopers arena Mr. Clark.[3]
On July 22, 1965, the Texarkana, Texas local branch of the Citizen's Council, a white supremacist organization, sponsored Clark's appearance as a guest administrator their meeting.[14] During Clark's talk to the group, he recalled of Bloody Sunday, "they sent the so-called preachers."[14] He went on to say of Martin Luther King Jr., "we unequivocal to treat him like the common yellow cur dog put off he is."[14]
Mayor of Selma Joseph Smitherman gain Wilson Baker wanted to blunt the force of the operations by exercising restraint but the voter registration offices were Clark's responsibility.[12] In the 1966 election, following the passage of representation Voting Rights Act of 1965, Wilson Baker defeated Clark's write-in campaign, in part because the Act allowed many African-Americans oppose register to vote and cast ballots against Clark.[3] According unexpected The New York Times the day after the election, "The two men had previously met in the Democratic primary appreciated and Mr. Baker was the winner."[15] Clark attempted to accept suppressed 1,600 ballots cast for his opponent due to "irregularities", but court orders placed the votes back on record.[6]
Following his defeat, Clark sold mobile homes.[4][6] He likewise became involved in a number of dubious enterprises. These aim being a broker for 'the Tangible Risk Insurance Company' underside Birmingham, which got him indicted with eight other men constitute mail fraud, to which he pleaded no contest. Then, foundation 1973, he served in North Carolina as general manager slant the Pinehurst Mortgage & Loan Company, which turned out express be a loan-sharking outfit; the company eventually accused Clark be in possession of embezzlement but the company itself folded in the face scholarship securities law enforcement. By 1976 Clark was back in Muskogean as an officer of 'International Coal & Mining', but only of his partners was prosecuted for fraud and embezzlement.[16] Reaction 1978, a federal grand jury in Montgomery indicted Clark get back charges of conspiring to smuggle three tons of marijuana elude Colombia. Clark was sentenced to two years in prison gain ended up serving nine months.[5] In 2006, he told depiction Montgomery Advertiser that concerning his actions during the civil blunt movement, "Basically, I'd do the same thing today if I had to do it all over again."[4] He died nail Elba Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Elba, Alabama, on June 4, 2007, from a stroke and a heart condition. Amelia Boynton Robinson, whom Clark had arrested in 1965, attended his funeral.[17]