James Reeb

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Unitarian Church ( All Souls Church ) in Washington, where Reeb was pastor.

James Reeb (born January 1, 1927 in Wichita , Kansas , † March 11, 1965 in Birmingham , Alabama ) was an American Unitarian theologian , pastor and civil rights activist . After participating in one of the Selma to Montgomery marches , he was murdered by white racists on March 11, 1965 .

Live and act

Reeb was born on New Years Day 1927 in Wichita , Kansas , and grew up in Kansas and Casper , Wyoming . After serving in the US Army at the end of World War II, studied first at Reeb Lutheran St. Olaf College and later at the Reformed or Presbyterian Princeton Theological Seminary theology . He married Marie Deason on August 20, 1950, and the couple would later have four children together. After graduating in June 1953, Reeb first worked as a Presbyterian preacher, but later converted to the Unitarian Church and in the summer of 1959 became an assistant pastor and in 1963 finally a full pastor of the Unitarian All Souls Church in Washington, DC A year later, however, Reeb moved to Boston , around there for those of Quakers founded organization American Friends service Committee to work in the social sector. From the early 1960s he also began to get involved in the growing US civil rights movement for the rights of African-Americans and became a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference .

On March 7, 1965, Reeb and his wife watched on television as the police attacked protesters of the first Selma-to-Montgomery march initiated by Martin Luther King ( Bloody Sunday ). The background to the march was the call by the civil rights movement to include black US citizens on the electoral roll. The following day, Martin Luther King called on clergymen across the country to support him in a second march attempt, which prompted Reeb to fly to Selma the same day and take part in the second march on March 9 as a Unitarian clergyman. His wife and four children stayed in Boston. However, the second march did not reach Alabama's capital, Montgomery , as intended , but was broken off prematurely after a common prayer at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. When Reeb took to the street on the evening of March 9 after a restaurant visit with friends, he and his colleagues were attacked by several white men with batons, causing Reeb serious head injuries. Several hours passed before Reeb was treated at a Birmingham hospital, where doctors had to perform brain surgery. While Reeb was on his way to the hospital, Martin Luther King held a press conference condemning the attack and asking everyone to pray for Reeb. James Reeb died two days later.

After Reeb's death, vigils were held in his honor across the country. President Lyndon B. Johnson condoled Reeb's widow and referred to Reeb in the launch of the Civil Rights Act on March 15, 1965. The Suffrage Act was passed on August 6, 1965. Martin Luther King referred to Reeb as the nation's conscience.

Four people were arrested after the attack on Reeb but released shortly afterwards. In April 1965 three of them (Elmer Cook, Stanley Hoggle and O'Neal Hoggle) were charged with murder , but acquitted by an all-white jury despite incriminating testimony. A fourth defendant (Kelley) had previously fled to Mississippi . In 2011, it became known that the FBI had re-investigated the four suspects.

The Unitarian universalist church in Madison , Wisconsin is named after James Reeb. The events surrounding the Selma to Montgomery marches and the suffrage laws were also taken up in the 2014 film Selma . There Reeb is played by the Boston actor Jeremy Strong .

literature

  • Steve Fiffer and Ardar Cohen: Jimmie Lee & James: Two Lives, Two Deaths, and the Movement that Changed America , Regan Arts 2015, ISBN 978-1941393482
  • Duncan Howlett: No Greater Love: The James Reeb Story , Skinner House Books 1993

Links and sources

Individual evidence

  1. UU World: FBI reopens investigation into murder of James Reeb
  2. James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Congregation (JRUUC)