You Tell Us More, But In The Meantime : Tell Me More : NPR She said he told her, "I got you the right to vote. During his four-day trial in 2008, the accusing daughter testified that she was repeatedly molested by him, beginning when she was six years old. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Bevel proposed organizing the Alabama Voting Rights Project, and co-wrote the project proposal with his wife Diane Nash. She. It must have been even more painful to tell. A loud opponent of American involvement in Vietnam, which he viewed as an extension of white oppression of nonwhites, Mr. Bevel was instrumental in Dr. Kings increasingly vocal opposition to the war. Bevel then called off plans for the children's march. And it's something I had the support of so many people to do, up until 2004. His brother - and we were all present, either on the phone or live. [26][27] A year earlier, Bevel had denounced the deprogramming of a Moon follower and called for the protection of religious rights. [17] Activists encountered severe violence at that time and retreated to regroup. She testified Tuesday that he had sexual intercourse with her when she was 15 in the early 1990s after he pressured her by saying the sex would relieve him from demons that were sapping his strength. Mr. Bevel had been released from prison in November because he had pancreatic cancer.. The Struggle Continues Kingian Style Nonviolence By Sherry Cannon And when she told me that everything I told her about what's happening as I was telling her that really hurt me. Accuracy and availability may vary. In the '80s he broke ranks to join the controversial Lyndon LaRouche, and in 2007 he was arrested on charges of sexually abusing one of his daughters. Fannie Lou Hamer | National Women's History Museum Six weeks later, he died of pancreatic cancer. And we just - it just didn't worked because he reverts back to his role as the leader or the person who has to teach and help everybody to understand his perspective. Eventually, the Freedom Riders reached their goal of New Orleans, Louisiana, generating nationwide coverage of the violence to maintain Jim Crow and white supremacy in the South.[16]. "[33] When Bevel introduced LaRouche at a convention of the 1996 National African American Leadership Summit, both men were booed off the stage. The accuser, one of his daughters, was 13-15 years old and lived with him in the Leesburg apartment. And when I got the confirmation from other siblings that it happened to them as well it was something I had to do. James Luther Bevel, (born Oct. 19, 1936, Itta Bena, Miss., U.S.died Dec. 19, 2008, Springfield, Va.), American minister and political activist who played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. In May 2007, Bevel was arrested in Alabama on a charge of incest committed sometime between October 1992 and October 1994 in Loudoun County, Virginia. He was recently released on bond while appealing a 15-year. In a Post story chronicling Lieses decision to come forward about the abuse, she described a trauma room, where her father slid onto her bed fondling her. Liese formerly Mills before creating a new last name to replace her ex-husbands says she forgave and let go long before the trial. After serving seven months, he was freed awaiting an appeal; he died of pancreatic cancer in December 2008 and was buried in Eutaw, Alabama. His contention that convicted assassin James Earl Ray was not guilty of Kings murder embarrassed many in the movement. At the time, Bevel was living in Leesburg, Virginia, and working with LaRouche's group, whose international headquarters was a few blocks from Bevel's apartment. MARTIN: How did you become aware that this was wrong? From the Helen L. Bevel Archives, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Bevel&oldid=1146647965, Statements by Rev. The Movement began to stage regular marches to the county courthouse, which had limited hours for blacks to register as voters. Orrin has undergone years of counseling to deal with the abuse she said she suffered from her father. [40], In 1961, Bevel married activist Diane Nash after he completed his seminary studies. Bevel suggested recruiting students in the campaign. James L. Bevel, 71, a top lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr. who is also credited with helping to conceive and organize the Million Man March, faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced. The Rev. When:August 3-4, 2016, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm daily Trainers:Mary Lou Finley, Pam Smith & Gail Schechter With remarks on nonviolence by Sherri Bevel, daughter of Chicago civil rights activists James Bevel and Diane Nash LEARNyCONNECTyORGANIZE The beloved community Six Principles and Six Steps How to conduct a nonviolent campaign On August 28, 1963, SCLC participated in what became known as the March on Washington, an event organized by labor leader A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, who had planned an earlier 1941 March. The accuser was one of his daughters, who was 1315 years old at the time and lived with him. We'll talk about that in just a few minutes. James Luther Bevel, (born Oct. 19, 1936, Itta Bena, Miss., U.S.died Dec. 19, 2008, Springfield, Va.), American minister and political activist who played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Martin Luther King Jr., the head of the SCLC. (The completed march, which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, took place two weeks later.). To fight those feelings, she decided to track down her attacker. [7], Prior to his time with SCLC, Bevel worked in the Nashville Student Movement, which conducted the 1960 Nashville Lunch-Counter Sit-Ins, the 1961 Open Theater Movement, and recruited students to continue the 1961 Freedom Rides after they were attacked. After years of failed attempts to draw the concern of family members, Mills pursued charges against her father, and in April, Bevel was convicted of incest. And unfortunately not all of us are able to see the abuse even things that are obvious. The biracial daughters of Reverend James Bevel, an influential sit-in leader and protest organizer, bemoan their absentee father, a civil rights "Daddy Dearest" who "speaks in political theory all the time" and lambastes interracial relationships. Please subscribe to keep reading. MARTIN: How many siblings do you believe were abused by your father? In March 1965, Mr. Bevel, a fiery orator, spoke at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma, Ala., the starting point of a symbolic march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where demonstrators had been beaten two days earlier a day remembered as Bloody Sunday in a first attempt to march to Montgomery to protest discriminatory voting practices. It includes this line: I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', Lord, keep on a-talking, Lord, marching up to freedom land. James Bevel Obituary - Death Notice and Service Information - Legacy.com The Rev. On February 16, 1965, Jimmie Lee Jackson, his mother, and grandfather took part in a nighttime march led by C. T. Vivian to protest the related jailing of activist James Orange in Marion, Alabama. 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Particularly my - one of my - little sister, not the youngest one that was in the household, but particularly her because I had, I had sought to protect to her. [32] He engaged in LaRouche seminars on issues including "Is the Anti Defamation League the new KKK? Housing in the area was segregated in a de facto way, enforced by covenants and real estate practices. Bevel also attended workshops at the Highlander Folk School taught by its founder, Myles Horton, who emphasized grassroots organizing. And my sisters and my brothers also, you know, because my brothers were also stood behind us 100 percent and said, you know we have to do something. He was 72. MARTIN: And you did try to tell your mother what was happening? Orrin, a 40-year-old mother, has spent most of her life trying to reconcile her feelings about her father. He served in the U.S. In 1992, he was vice presidential running mate to political maverick Lyndon LaRouche, who has a home in Loudoun County but at the time was in a federal prison for a tax conviction. They could go to jail for this. But her father, who one relative said had been sexually abused as a child himself, refused to get help and give them custody of his daughter, she said. He doesn't understand the whole dynamics of what's going on now. The Court of Appeals affirmed this judgment. In the 1960s, Bevel was a leader in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, two of the stalwart organizations that led efforts to desegregate the South. She wants to help them by starting a monthly support group, WhiteSpace SafeSpace, that will meet at her gallery. But Bevel testified and denied the charge. Ms. MILLS: I don't, I don't think he's mentally ill. In 2008 Bevels legacy was tarnished when he was found guilty of having engaged in an incestuous relationship with a teenage daughter in the 1990s. [13] Virginia had no statute of limitations for the offense of incest. ", (For more information about the support group, call Orrin at 722-4671.). This rally was attended by tens of thousands of peace activists who followed the growing counterculture movement. Following the nationwide publicity generated by Jackson's death and the previous attack on peaceful marchers, hundreds of religious, labor and civic leaders, many celebrities, and activists and citizens of many ethnicities traveled to Selma to join the march. Eventually, her former husband agreed. "Saying 'I'm sorry' is a game we play. James L. Bevel, 71, a key architect of the 1963 Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Ala., and other pivotal moments of the civil rights movement, was convicted earlier this year of a. This was financially backed by the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, which appeared to be trying to improve its controversial image by allying with such respected leaders. Historian Taylor Branch quotes King in At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 19651968 (2006) as saying that "Andrew Young had given in to doubt, Bevel to brains, and Jackson to ambition", and said that the movement had made them and now they were using the movement to promote themselves. I love him for his role in the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the vote I was able to cast that helped put a man of color in the White House. Bevel never submitted the collected petitions and left the state the following summer. James Bevel, one of the architects of the civil rights movement, a chief lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King, was also a child molester. "There is something that reeks of moral depravity when an individual, whose sworn responsibility is to protect and serve and is fired for what. [36], On April 10, 2008, after a three-hour deliberation, the jury convicted Bevel of incest. James Bevel Obituary (2008) - Atlanta, GA - Atlanta Journal-Constitution In the 1960s, Bevel was a leader in the Southern Christian Leadership. At a family reunion, three other daughters had also alleged that Bevel sexually abused them. He was 72. When she approaches people and identifies herself as James Bevels and my daughter, many are very welcoming and attempt to help her in any way possible, not knowing that she and I have been estranged for decades. Bevel was convicted of incest in April 2008. [23] Bevel continued to oppose the Poor People's Campaign, but served as its Director of Nonviolent Education. Weeks of demonstrations and marches resulted in King, Ralph Abernathy, and Shuttlesworth being arrested and jailed. Recently, Mills shared her story in the Washington Post Magazine, and she joins us now. Who can they turn to? One of the things that I was hoping for and some of my siblings were hoping for when we started this process with my father was that we could start to understand it. Children of the Movement - amazon.com Im very proud to be the daughter of a man who contributed so much to the world through his civil rights work, one of his daughters, Chevarra Orrin, of Winston-Salem, N.C., told The Associated Press. And what really helped me was the fact that I had such a support system. Do you see it that way? He was one of seventeen children. James Luther Bevel (October 19, 1936 December 19, 2008) was a minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Bevel was later instrumental in organizing the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., an event that was credited with helping to usher in the Voting Rights Act (1965). James Luther Bevel, one of 17 children, was born on Oct 19, 1936, in Itta Bena, in central Mississippi, and divided his childhood between there and Cleveland, where he worked in the steel mills as a teenager. He renamed the organization the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, recruited members of many diverse groups, and organized the April 15, 1967 march from Central Park to the United Nations Building in New York City. He was free on bond, appealing the conviction, when pancreatic cancer killed him. Bevel selected the student teams for the buses. I mean, I remember being afraid of being taken from my home, you know that that was an option that I could be leaved and I would have to stay at a foster home, and I had these horrible images that foster homes would be worse. King asked Bevel to refrain from recruiting students, and Bevel instead said that he would organize the children to march to Washington D.C. to meet with Kennedy about segregation, and King agreed. "We know that the defendant is dying," said Prosecutor Gigi Lawless. In 1968, Mr. Bevel was at the Memphis motel where Dr. King was assassinated, and in a bizarre post-mortem, he claimed that the man who was arrested for (and later convicted of) the shooting, James Earl Ray, was not the killer and that he had evidence which he declined to reveal that Mr. Ray was innocent. And yes, she dismissed it in that regard. 3. The Rev. Sherrilynn is also estranged from her brother and from both of her adult children. [24], In the 1980s, Bevel supported Ronald Reagan as president. [6] Bevel strategized the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, which contributed to Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. [citation needed] During his speech to the crowd that day, Bevel called for a larger march in Washington D.C., a plan that evolved into the October 1967 March on the Pentagon. MARTIN: So in his world, he decides what true and not true. James Luther Bevel (born 1936) was a civil rights activist of the 1960s who aligned himself with Martin Luther King, Jr. James Luther Bevel was born in the farming community of Ittabena, Mississippi, on October 19, 1936. I secured political freedoms for you." She married James Henry Bevel in Corpus Christi on January 27, 1956. And know that it could come back to them pretty harsh. The Rev. Ms. MILLS: Right, because I always wrote letters. It happened in the Memphis area when she staying with her father while her mother was out of town. [28][29], Bevel moved to Omaha, Nebraska, in November 1990 as the leader of the "Citizens Fact-Finding Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations of Children in Nebraska", a group organized by the Schiller Institute. Thank you so much for speaking with us. She later, she asked me to recount a tale - some other woman who in new environment, what happened. In the 1960s, Bevel was a leader in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student. How should we think about those two James Bevels? As an adult, Orrin asked her father why he had not provided for his children. But he was also a child predator, who exploited the trust of his family by molesting his daughter Aaralyn Mills. Three months after the March on Washington, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson ascended to the Oval Office. She is telling us her story of rape and recovery. He worked on a cotton plantation for a time as a youth and later in a steel mill. That really made me feel not just powerless but that, what can you do? He died on December 19, 2008, Springfield, VA. James Bevel Biography He had 2 children Sherri Bevel, Douglass Bevel. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Orrin and several of her siblings finally took action against him four years ago out of concern for his 7-and-a half-year-old daughter. One, their own stories, each of them being able to tell their stories to me and for us to share. James L. Bevel, a fiery top lieutenant of the Rev. I wrote her I love you letters, and you know, this was my day letters. Bevel was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi, on 19 October 1936. He is a celebrity civil rights leader. After the success of this action, and with the aid of SCLC's Ella Baker, activist students from Nashville and across the South developed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). (Rebecca Drobis/COPYRIGHT REBECCA DROBIS 2008). Do you think that's what it was? Bevel died Friday in Virginia. James Bevel was one of the key strategists of the civil rights movement. In spite of everything, I was a happy kid, resilient, she says. That was our hope, but he wasn't ready to look at himself. I've never known him to be a liar. And I'd never see my brothers and sisters again. You had moved on with your life, but there was another young girl, another child he had had through a subsequent marriage. Related Videos Bloody Sunday (TV-14; 4:10) No one wants the government in their home. "He confronted Bevel, who had been a mentor to Jackson and Young, as 'a genius who flummoxed his own heart'.