Bruce Boynton
- Amelia Boynton Robinson (mother)
Bruce Carver Boynton (June 19, 1937 – November 23, 2020) was an American civil rights leader who inspired the Freedom Riders movement and advanced the cause of racial equality by a landmark supreme court case Boynton v. Virginia.
Early life
Boynton grew up in Selma, Alabama.[1] His parents were civil rights activists, known in their community as Mr. and Mrs. Civil Rights, because of their participation in events like the Bloody Sunday march of 1965.[2] His mother, Amelia Boynton Robinson, was beaten during demonstrations for voting rights in 1965, and 50 years later was honored by then-President Barack Obama.[3]
Boynton v. Virginia
In 1958, Boynton ordered a cheeseburger while sitting in a whites only part of a restaurant at a bus station in Richmond, Virginia. He was arrested for trespassing after he refused to leave the restaurant and spent one night in jail. He was a law student at Howard University at the time,[4] and decided to fight his arrest in court. At trial, he was represented by Martin A. Martin.[5] He lost his case, but decided to appeal, until finally his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. His case, known as Boynton v. Virginia, was argued by Thurgood Marshall, who later became a justice of the Supreme Court. The court overturned Boynton's conviction, affirming that racial segregation in public transportation was illegal.[2][3]
In 2018 U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said of Boynton: "He did something that very few people would have the courage to do. He said no. To me he's on par with Rosa Parks," referring to the Black woman who did not give up her seat in the front part of a segregated bus to a white man.[6] Summarizing his impact, Thompson went on to say, "All he wanted was a cheeseburger, and he changed the course of history."
Boynton's actions inspired the Freedom Rides in 1961, where activists rode interstate buses through the Southern United States to protest segregated bus terminals.[7] While the Freedom Riders were arrested in a few southern states, including Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina, the actions prompted the then President John F. Kennedy to pass orders for a strict enforcement of the federal anti-discrimination laws.[3]
Career
Boynton received a law degree from Howard University; however, Alabama refused to give him a law license for six years while they "investigated the circumstances" of Boynton v. Virginia.[8][9] He was forced to move to Chattanooga, Tennessee to practice law until Alabama granted him a license in 1965.[10] He worked as a civil rights attorney for most of his career until he retired. He served as Alabama's first Black special prosecutor.[11]
In 2018, Phillip McCallum, executive director of the Alabama State Bar, issued an apology for the delay in granting Boynton's license.[8]
Death and legacy
Boynton died on November 23, 2020, at the age of 83, two weeks before the 60th anniversary of his landmark case.[12][11] His death was announced by former Alabama State Senator Henry Sanders.[3] His daughter Carver Ann Boynton said the cause was cancer.[8]
On the day he died, the Dallas County Commission of Alabama voted to rename an annex of the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma in honor of Boynton and another prominent black lawyer, J. L. Chestnut, Jr.[8]
References
- ^ Gaillard, Frye; Lindsay, Jennifer; DeNeefe, Jane (March 2, 2010). Alabama's Civil Rights Trail: An Illustrated Guide to the Cradle of Freedom. University of Alabama Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-8173-5581-4.
- ^ a b "Civil Rights Icon Bruce Boynton Dies At 83". NPR.org. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
- ^ a b c d "Bruce Boynton, who inspired 1961 Freedom Rides, dies at 83". Seattle Times. Associated Press. November 24, 2020. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
- ^ Arsenault, Raymond (March 11, 2011). Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Oxford University Press. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-19-979242-9.
- ^ Tushnet, Mark V. (February 24, 1994). Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936–1961. Oxford University Press. p. 308. ISBN 978-0-19-535922-0.
- ^ "Bruce Boynton, who inspired 1961 Freedom Rides, dies at 83". Times Union. November 25, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
- ^ "Bruce Boynton, who inspired 1961 Freedom Rides, dies at 83". AP NEWS. November 24, 2020. Retrieved November 26, 2020.
- ^ a b c d Genzlinger, Neil (November 27, 2020). "Bruce Boynton, Plaintiff in Landmark Civil Rights Case, Dies at 83". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
- ^ Cahela, Brannon (November 24, 2020). "Courthouse Annex to be named for Boynton, Chestnut". The Selma Times‑Journal. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
- ^ "ATTY. BRUCE BOYNTON". The Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, & Reconciliation. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
- ^ a b "Civil Rights Icon Bruce Boynton Dies At 83". NPR.org. Retrieved November 26, 2020.
- ^ "Bruce Boynton, the man who inspired 1961 Freedom Rides, dead at 83". New York Post. Associated Press. November 25, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
- v
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(timeline)
groups
- Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
- Atlanta Student Movement
- Black Panther Party
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Committee for Freedom Now
- Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
- Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
- Council of Federated Organizations
- Dallas County Voters League
- Deacons for Defense and Justice
- Georgia Council on Human Relations
- Highlander Folk School
- Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
- Lowndes County Freedom Organization
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
- Montgomery Improvement Association
- NAACP
- Nashville Student Movement
- Nation of Islam
- Northern Student Movement
- National Council of Negro Women
- National Urban League
- Operation Breadbasket
- Regional Council of Negro Leadership
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Regional Council
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- The Freedom Singers
- United Auto Workers (UAW)
- Wednesdays in Mississippi
- Women's Political Council
- Ralph Abernathy
- Victoria Gray Adams
- Zev Aelony
- Mathew Ahmann
- Muhammad Ali
- William G. Anderson
- Gwendolyn Armstrong
- Arnold Aronson
- Ella Baker
- James Baldwin
- Marion Barry
- Daisy Bates
- Harry Belafonte
- James Bevel
- Claude Black
- Gloria Blackwell
- Randolph Blackwell
- Unita Blackwell
- Ezell Blair Jr.
- Joanne Bland
- Julian Bond
- Joseph E. Boone
- William Holmes Borders
- Amelia Boynton
- Bruce Boynton
- Raylawni Branch
- Stanley Branche
- Ruby Bridges
- Aurelia Browder
- H. Rap Brown
- Ralph Bunche
- Guy Carawan
- Stokely Carmichael
- Johnnie Carr
- James Chaney
- J. L. Chestnut
- Shirley Chisholm
- Colia Lafayette Clark
- Ramsey Clark
- Septima Clark
- Xernona Clayton
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Kathleen Cleaver
- Charles E. Cobb Jr.
- Annie Lee Cooper
- Dorothy Cotton
- Claudette Colvin
- Vernon Dahmer
- Jonathan Daniels
- Abraham Lincoln Davis
- Angela Davis
- Joseph DeLaine
- Dave Dennis
- Annie Devine
- Patricia Stephens Due
- Joseph Ellwanger
- Charles Evers
- Medgar Evers
- Myrlie Evers-Williams
- Chuck Fager
- James Farmer
- Walter Fauntroy
- James Forman
- Marie Foster
- Golden Frinks
- Andrew Goodman
- Robert Graetz
- Fred Gray
- Jack Greenberg
- Dick Gregory
- Lawrence Guyot
- Prathia Hall
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Fred Hampton
- William E. Harbour
- Vincent Harding
- Dorothy Height
- Audrey Faye Hendricks
- Lola Hendricks
- Aaron Henry
- Oliver Hill
- Donald L. Hollowell
- James Hood
- Myles Horton
- Zilphia Horton
- T. R. M. Howard
- Ruby Hurley
- Cecil Ivory
- Jesse Jackson
- Jimmie Lee Jackson
- Richie Jean Jackson
- T. J. Jemison
- Esau Jenkins
- Barbara Rose Johns
- Vernon Johns
- Frank Minis Johnson
- Clarence Jones
- J. Charles Jones
- Matthew Jones
- Vernon Jordan
- Tom Kahn
- Clyde Kennard
- A. D. King
- C.B. King
- Coretta Scott King
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Martin Luther King Sr.
- Bernard Lafayette
- James Lawson
- Bernard Lee
- Sanford R. Leigh
- Jim Letherer
- Stanley Levison
- John Lewis
- Viola Liuzzo
- Z. Alexander Looby
- Joseph Lowery
- Clara Luper
- Danny Lyon
- Malcolm X
- Mae Mallory
- Vivian Malone
- Bob Mants
- Thurgood Marshall
- Benjamin Mays
- Franklin McCain
- Charles McDew
- Ralph McGill
- Floyd McKissick
- Joseph McNeil
- James Meredith
- William Ming
- Jack Minnis
- Amzie Moore
- Cecil B. Moore
- Douglas E. Moore
- Harriette Moore
- Harry T. Moore
- Queen Mother Moore
- William Lewis Moore
- Irene Morgan
- Bob Moses
- William Moyer
- Elijah Muhammad
- Diane Nash
- Charles Neblett
- Huey P. Newton
- Edgar Nixon
- Jack O'Dell
- James Orange
- Rosa Parks
- James Peck
- Charles Person
- Homer Plessy
- Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
- Fay Bellamy Powell
- Rodney N. Powell
- Al Raby
- Lincoln Ragsdale
- A. Philip Randolph
- George Raymond
- George Raymond Jr.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
- Cordell Reagon
- James Reeb
- Frederick D. Reese
- Walter Reuther
- Gloria Richardson
- David Richmond
- Bernice Robinson
- Jo Ann Robinson
- Angela Russell
- Bayard Rustin
- Bernie Sanders
- Michael Schwerner
- Bobby Seale
- Cleveland Sellers
- Charles Sherrod
- Alexander D. Shimkin
- Fred Shuttlesworth
- Modjeska Monteith Simkins
- Glenn E. Smiley
- A. Maceo Smith
- Kelly Miller Smith
- Mary Louise Smith
- Maxine Smith
- Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
- Charles Kenzie Steele
- Hank Thomas
- Dorothy Tillman
- A. P. Tureaud
- Hartman Turnbow
- Albert Turner
- C. T. Vivian
- Wyatt Tee Walker
- Hollis Watkins
- Walter Francis White
- Roy Wilkins
- Hosea Williams
- Kale Williams
- Robert F. Williams
- Andrew Young
- Whitney Young
- Sammy Younge Jr.
- Bob Zellner
- James Zwerg
songs
- "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
- "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
- "Kumbaya"
- "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
- "Oh, Freedom"
- "This Little Light of Mine"
- "We Shall Not Be Moved"
- "We Shall Overcome"
- "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"
- Jim Crow laws
- Lynching in the United States
- Plessy v. Ferguson
- Buchanan v. Warley
- Hocutt v. Wilson
- Sweatt v. Painter
- Hernandez v. Texas
- Loving v. Virginia
- African-American women in the movement
- Jews in the civil rights movement
- Fifth Circuit Four
- 16th Street Baptist Church
- Kelly Ingram Park
- A.G. Gaston Motel
- Bethel Baptist Church
- Brown Chapel
- Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
- Holt Street Baptist Church
- Edmund Pettus Bridge
- March on Washington Movement
- African-American churches attacked
- List of lynching victims in the United States
- Freedom Schools
- Freedom songs
- Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
- "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
- Voter Education Project
- 1960s counterculture
- African American founding fathers of the United States
- Eyes on the Prize
- In popular culture
- Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
- Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
- Civil Rights Memorial
- Civil Rights Movement Archive
- Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
- Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
- Freedom Rides Museum
- Freedom Riders National Monument
- King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
- National Civil Rights Museum
- National Voting Rights Museum
- St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument
historians