Birth of A Civil Rights Activist
At first assigned to St. Veronica's Church in Milwaukee, in 1963 Groppi was transferred to St. Boniface, the latter parish having a predominantly African-American congregation. It was then that Groppi became interested in - and active in - the cause of civil rights for Africans Americans, participating in the 1963 March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 on behalf of the Voting Rights Act, also working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference voter registration project, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., during the summer of 1965.
Later in 1965, he returned to Milwaukee, becoming the advisor to the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Youth Council, organizing protests against the segregation of Milwaukee public schools. He also became second vice president of Milwaukee United School Integration Committee (1965–1966) and advisor to the Milwaukee NAACP Youth Council (1965–1968).
Read more about this topic: James Groppi
Famous quotes containing the words civil rights activist, rights activist, birth of, birth, civil, rights and/or activist:
“I’ve never been afraid to step out and to reach out and to move out in order to make things happen.”
—Victoria Gray, African American civil rights activist. As quoted in This Little Light of Mine, ch. 3, by Hay Mills (1993)
“I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn’t love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country ...”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)
“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 1:18,19.
“At birth man is offered only one choice—the choice of his death. But if this choice is governed by distaste for his own existence, his life will never have been more than meaningless.”
—Jean-Pierre Melville (1917–1973)
“When civil fury first grew high,
And men fell out, they knew not why;
When hard words, jealousies, and fears,
Set folks together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For Dame Religion, as for punk;”
—Samuel Butler (1612–1680)
“But you must know the class of sweet women—who are always so happy to declare “they have all the rights they want”; “they are perfectly willing to let their husbands vote for them”Mare and always have been numerous, though it is an occasion for thankfulness that they are becoming less so.”
—Eliza “Mother” Stewart (1816–1908)
“...I was confronted with a virile idealism, an awareness of what man must have for manliness, dignity, and inner liberty which, by contrast, made me see how easy living had made my own group into childishly unthinking people. The Negro’s struggles and despairs have been like fertilizer in the fields of his humanity, while we, like protected children with all our basic needs supplied, have given our attention to superficialities.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 19 (1962)