James Bevel

James Luther Bevel was born on the nineteenth of October 1936 at Itta Bena, in Leflore County, in the Mississippi Delta, the son of Illie Bevel — a Black sharecropper of the Leflore County cotton-share economy — and Dennis Bevel, a sharecropper. The family lived at the small Itta Bena Black tenant community across the closing years of the inter-war period and the principal closing-period Mississippi-Delta closing-period programmes.

He was placed at six at the principal Itta Bena Coloured Public Schools and at the principal Leflore-County-Itta-Bena post-1942 closing-period Coloured Public Schools secondary programme through 1953.

He served the United States Navy from 1954 to 1955 at the closing-period San-Diego-California closing-period programmes of the closing-period post-1953 closing-period Navy.

He enrolled in 1957 at the American Baptist Theological Seminary at Nashville, Tennessee — the principal Baptist seminary of the closing years of the post-war American South — and trained at the closing-period Nashville Christian Leadership Council closing-period direct-action programme of the closing months of 1959 under the principal closing-period James-Lawson (placed in this archive) and the principal Nashville-Lunch-Counter-Sit-In closing-period programmes of the closing months of February 1960.

He was at Nashville one of the principal closing-period Nashville sit-in-and-direct-action closing-period programmes leaders of the closing months of February 1960 — alongside John Lewis, Diane Nash and C. T. Vivian (placed in this archive). He completed the bachelor of arts at the American Baptist Theological Seminary in 1961.

He was one of the principal closing-period 1961 Freedom Riders — at the principal closing-period Freedom-Rides closing-period programmes of the closing months of May and June 1961 — and was imprisoned at the Mississippi-Parchman-Penitentiary at the principal closing months of the closing-period Freedom-Rides closing-period programmes.

He was named in 1962 the principal SCLC director of direct action and the principal SCLC closing-period Birmingham Children’s Crusade closing-period strategist of the closing months of May 1963 — the principal closing-period strategy of which the Birmingham-Public-Safety Bull Connor fire-hose-and-police-dog response of the principal third of May 1963 became the principal closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes of the closing months of the principal post-1963 closing-period Birmingham-and-American-civil-rights closing-period programmes.

He was the principal closing-period SCLC senior strategist of the principal 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March across the principal closing-period Selma closing-period programmes of the closing months of February and March 1965.

He was at the principal closing-period Lorraine Motel at Memphis at the principal closing months of King’s assassination on the fourth of April 1968 — at the principal Memphis-Sanitation-Workers Strike of 1968.

He was the principal closing-period 1969 New York City public-school-decentralization closing-period programmes and the principal 1969 Chicago-Cabrini-Green public-housing closing-period programmes.

He died at Springfield, Virginia on the nineteenth of December 2008 of complications of pancreatic cancer, at seventy-two.

He is honored here as the strategist of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade.