The failure of the non violent protests in Albany, Georgia is the least studied of the movements in the Civil Rights movement. There was a lot of information on the site I used, someone typed sixty-two pages of information, to save time I'll give some of the more important information and just put a link for the site for anyone interested. I found the paper interesting.
Between November 1961- August 1962 Cordell Reagon and Charles Sherrod, both of which were SNCC members, were sent get the African American community registered to vote. Together they founded the Albany movement. The problem with their non violent protests was that it was too broad a movement on all areas of segregation. They spread protests out to bus stations, libraries, and lunch counters all over the city. The police chief of Albany, Laurie Pritchett, carefully studied the movement's strategy. He used mass arrests, but avoided dramatic and violent incidents that would attract any publicity. He spread the prisoners out to different jails all over Southwest Georgia to prevent his jail from filling up. After almost a year with almost no outstanding results, the movement soon lost its momentum and was stopped. The protests in Birmingham were more successful because they learned from the mistakes they made in Albany.
This is a great quote that you picked out! It is so powerful, most of the things that King says are very powerful. I enjoyed reading about the failures of the non-violent protests in Albany. It is great that they learned from their mistakes. The states in the south definitely had a challenge when it came to these protests. The African American race is lucky they had such a strong person like King to lead them to gaining their rights.
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