40 Facts About James Bevel

1.

James Luther Bevel was a minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

2.

James Bevel suggested that SCLC call for and join a March on Washington in 1963.

3.

James Bevel strategized the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, which contributed to Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

4.

James Bevel helped with initiating and directing the 1961 and 1962 voting rights movement in Mississippi.

5.

In 1967, James Bevel was chairman of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.

6.

James Bevel initiated the 1967 March on the United Nations as part of the anti-war movement.

7.

In 2005, James Bevel was accused of incest by one of his daughters and abuse by three others.

8.

James Bevel was tried in April 2008, convicted of incest, sentenced to 15 years in prison, and fined $50,000.

9.

James Bevel was born in 1936 in Itta Bena, Mississippi, the son of Illie and Dennis James Bevel.

10.

James Bevel was one of 17 children and grew up in rural LeFlore County of the Mississippi Delta and in Cleveland, Ohio.

11.

James Bevel worked on a cotton plantation for a time as a youth and later in a steel mill.

12.

James Bevel was educated at segregated local schools in both Mississippi and Cleveland.

13.

James Bevel attended workshops at the Highlander Folk School taught by its founder, Myles Horton, who emphasized grassroots organizing.

14.

Vivian and others, James Bevel participated in the Nashville Sit-In Movement organized by Nash, whom he would later marry to desegregate the city's lunch counters.

15.

The Open Theater Movement, led by James Bevel, had success in Nashville, the only city in the country where SCLC activists had organized such an action.

16.

In 1962, James Bevel was invited to meet in Atlanta with Martin Luther King Jr, a minister who was head of the SCLC.

17.

James Bevel soon became SCLC's Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education to augment King's positions as SCLC's Chairman and spokesperson.

18.

James Bevel spent weeks developing strategy, recruiting and educating students in the philosophy and techniques of nonviolence.

19.

James Bevel proposed organizing the Alabama Voting Rights Project, and co-wrote the project proposal with his wife Diane Nash.

20.

In 1966, James Bevel chose Chicago as the site of SCLC's long-awaited Northern Campaign.

21.

James Bevel worked to create tenant unions and build grassroots action to "end" slums.

22.

From previous discussions with King, and from work of American Friends Service Committee activist Bill Moyer, James Bevel organized, and directed the Chicago open housing movement.

23.

Muste, David Dellinger, representatives of North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, and others asked James Bevel to take over the directorship of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.

24.

James Bevel was influential in gaining King's support for the anti-war movement, and with King's agreeing to participate as a speaker James Bevel agreed to lead the antiwar effort.

25.

James Bevel 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.

26.

James Bevel was in the parking lot of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis and witnessed King's assassination on April 4,1968.

27.

James Bevel continued to oppose the Poor People's Campaign, but served as its Director of Nonviolent Education.

28.

James 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.

29.

James Bevel never submitted the collected petitions and left the state the following summer.

30.

In 1992, James Bevel ran on LaRouche's ticket as the vice presidential candidate.

31.

In May 2007, James Bevel was arrested in Alabama on a charge of incest committed sometime between October 1992 and October 1994 in Loudoun County, Virginia.

32.

At the time, James Bevel was living in Leesburg, Virginia, and working with LaRouche's group, whose international headquarters was a few blocks from James Bevel's apartment.

33.

James Bevel pleaded not guilty to the one count charged and maintained his innocence.

34.

James Bevel said that he had no interest in getting her pregnant.

35.

James Bevel's bond was revoked and he was taken into custody.

36.

James Bevel received an appeal bond on November 4,2008, and was released from jail three days later, after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

37.

James Bevel's attorney requested that the Court of Appeals of Virginia abate the conviction on account of James Bevel's death.

38.

James Bevel's attorney appealed the denial of the abatement motion to the Supreme Court of Virginia.

39.

In 1961, James Bevel married activist Diane Nash after he completed his seminary studies.

40.

James Bevel married two other women in the following decades, and had told the court during his incest case that he had 16 children born of seven women.