T. J. Jemison
Encyclopedia
Theodore Judson Jemison better known as T. J. Jemison, is the former president of the National Baptist Convention
, having served from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African American religious organization. He oversaw the construction of the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee
, the headquarters for the Convention.
In 1953, while minister of a large church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
, Jemison helped lead the first civil rights
boycott
of bus service. The organization of free rides, coordinated by churches, was a model used later by the Montgomery Bus Boycott
in Alabama, which started in 1955. Jemison was one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
in 1957.
In 2003 the 50th anniversary of the Baton Rouge bus boycott was honored with three days of events, organized by a young resident born two decades after the action.
in central Alabama
, where his father, the Rev. David V. Jemison, pastored the Tabernacle Baptist Church. He came from a family of prominent ministers and strong churchgoing women. Jemison earned a bachelor's degrees from Alabama State University
, where he joined Alpha Phi Alpha
fraternity. He earned a divinity degree at Virginia Union University
to prepare for the ministry, and later did graduate study at New York University
.
Within a few years, Jemison became involved in an early civil rights action. In 1950, the city had ended black-owned buses, requiring all residents to use its monopoly system. It was racially segregated
by law; in practice, black citizens had to sit at the back half of the bus or stand, even if seats in the front "white" section were empty. Jemison said later he was struck by "watching buses pass by his church and seeing black people standing in the aisles, not allowed by law to sit down in seats reserved for whites. 'I thought that was just out of order, that was just cruel'."
Making up 80% of the passengers on the system, African Americans were fed up with standing on buses while "white" seats remained empty, particularly after the company had raised fares by 50% from ten to fifteen cents in January 1953. Rev. Jemison took up the issue with the Baton Rouge City Council; he testified on February 11, 1953 against the fare increase and asked for an end of the practice of reserving so many seats for whites. The City Council met that demand, without abolishing segregation per se; they passed Ordinance
222, which established a first come-first served system: it allowed black passengers to board the bus from the back and take any empty seats available, while white passengers boarded from the front. The bus companies' white drivers largely ignored the ordinance.
When bus drivers harassed black passengers' seeking to enforce the ordinance, Jemison tested the law on June 13, 1953 by sitting in a front seat of a bus. The next day the bus company suspended two bus drivers for not complying with the ordinance. The drivers' union responded by striking
for four days. That strike ended on June 18, 1953 when Louisiana
Attorney General Fred S. LeBlanc
declared the city's ordinance unconstitutional on the ground that it violated the state's segregation laws.
That same day Willis Reed
, later publisher of the Baton Rouge Post, founded the United Defense League (UDL), chief organizer of the bus boycott. He knew the black riders had economic impact. Others involved were Jemison and Raymond Scott. They planned to bring suit against the City to desegregate the buses and began the boycott June 20, 1953.
The UDL set up a free-ride network, coordinated by the churches, to compensate for the lack of public transit. This was its signature action for the boycott, adopted for later ones. "While the Baton Rouge boycott lasted only two weeks, it set protest standards, and is growing in recognition as a precedent-setting event in the history of the modern American civil rights movement."
The organizers of the later Montgomery, Alabama
bus boycott in 1955 used the model of the free-ride system when they began what became a year-long boycott in that city. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
wrote, Jemison's "painstaking description of the Baton Rouge experience proved invaluable."
With most of the black bus riders refusing to ride, by the third day, the buses were almost entirely empty. The boycott lasted only eight days, as Rev. Jemison called it off after successful negotiations between black leaders and the city council. The following day, the city council passed an ordinance under which the first-come, first-served, seating system of back-to-front and front-to-back was reinstated; in addition, they set aside the first two seats on any bus for white passengers and the back bench for black passengers, while allowing anyone to sit on any of the rows in the middle. To comply with state segregation laws, blacks and whites were prohibited from sitting next to each other within this arrangement.
While a number of boycotters wanted to continue the action to attack segregation directly, the majority approved the compromise.
. It is a headquarters for the Convention. He publicly opposed the Gulf War
and the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas
to the United States Supreme Court.
Toward the end of his term as President, Jemison faced criticism caused by his support of the boxer Mike Tyson
, who was convicted in a rape case against a black woman. He was strongly criticized both by church members and observers.
at the 1994 convention.
Unhappy with the result, Jemison filed a lawsuit to try to overturn the election result. Eventually, through the appeals process, the election of Dr. Lyons was upheld, and Jemison individually, as well as a co-plaintiff and their counsel, was ordered to pay $150,000 in punitive damages. By a later court order, Jemison and his co-plaintiff were required to pay the other side's attorney fees. The court found that Jemison had concocted evidence to justify the suit.
National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.
The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. is the largest predominantly African-American Christian denomination in the United States and is the world's second largest Baptist denomination...
, having served from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African American religious organization. He oversaw the construction of the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, the headquarters for the Convention.
In 1953, while minister of a large church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...
, Jemison helped lead the first civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
of bus service. The organization of free rides, coordinated by churches, was a model used later by the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign that started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public transit system. Many important figures in the civil rights movement were involved in the boycott,...
in Alabama, which started in 1955. Jemison was one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...
in 1957.
In 2003 the 50th anniversary of the Baton Rouge bus boycott was honored with three days of events, organized by a young resident born two decades after the action.
Early life and education
T. J. Jemison was born in 1918 in SelmaSelma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama, United States, located on the banks of the Alabama River. The population was 20,512 at the 2000 census....
in central Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, where his father, the Rev. David V. Jemison, pastored the Tabernacle Baptist Church. He came from a family of prominent ministers and strong churchgoing women. Jemison earned a bachelor's degrees from Alabama State University
Alabama State University
Alabama State University, founded 1867, is a historically black university located in Montgomery, Alabama. ASU is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund.- History :...
, where he joined Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha is the first Inter-Collegiate Black Greek Letter fraternity. It was founded on December 4, 1906 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Its founders are known as the "Seven Jewels". Alpha Phi Alpha developed a model that was used by the many Black Greek Letter Organizations ...
fraternity. He earned a divinity degree at Virginia Union University
Virginia Union University
Virginia Union University is a historically black university located in Richmond, Virginia, United States. It took its present name in 1899 upon the merger of two older schools, Richmond Theological Institute and Wayland Seminary, each founded after the end of American Civil War by the American...
to prepare for the ministry, and later did graduate study at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
.
Career
Jemison was first called as a minister at Mt. Zion First Baptist Church in Baton Rouge in 1949. He was concerned chiefly with internal church matters, such as the construction of a new church building. At the time, his father was serving as President of the National Baptist Convention, the association of African-American Baptist churches established in 1895.Within a few years, Jemison became involved in an early civil rights action. In 1950, the city had ended black-owned buses, requiring all residents to use its monopoly system. It was racially segregated
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
by law; in practice, black citizens had to sit at the back half of the bus or stand, even if seats in the front "white" section were empty. Jemison said later he was struck by "watching buses pass by his church and seeing black people standing in the aisles, not allowed by law to sit down in seats reserved for whites. 'I thought that was just out of order, that was just cruel'."
Making up 80% of the passengers on the system, African Americans were fed up with standing on buses while "white" seats remained empty, particularly after the company had raised fares by 50% from ten to fifteen cents in January 1953. Rev. Jemison took up the issue with the Baton Rouge City Council; he testified on February 11, 1953 against the fare increase and asked for an end of the practice of reserving so many seats for whites. The City Council met that demand, without abolishing segregation per se; they passed Ordinance
Local ordinance
A local ordinance is a law usually found in a municipal code.-United States:In the United States, these laws are enforced locally in addition to state law and federal law.-Japan:...
222, which established a first come-first served system: it allowed black passengers to board the bus from the back and take any empty seats available, while white passengers boarded from the front. The bus companies' white drivers largely ignored the ordinance.
When bus drivers harassed black passengers' seeking to enforce the ordinance, Jemison tested the law on June 13, 1953 by sitting in a front seat of a bus. The next day the bus company suspended two bus drivers for not complying with the ordinance. The drivers' union responded by striking
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
for four days. That strike ended on June 18, 1953 when Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
Attorney General Fred S. LeBlanc
Fred S. LeBlanc
Frederick Saugrain LeBlanc, Sr., known as Fred S. LeBlanc , was a 20th century politician in the U.S. state of Louisiana who served two terms as his state's attorney general and was firmly allied with the anti-Long faction of the predominant Democratic Party.-Background:LeBlanc graduated in 1916...
declared the city's ordinance unconstitutional on the ground that it violated the state's segregation laws.
That same day Willis Reed
Willis Reed
Willis Reed, Jr. is a retired American basketball player, coach and manager of basketball teams. He spent his entire professional playing career with the New York Knicks. In 1982, his outstanding record and achievements were recognized by his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall...
, later publisher of the Baton Rouge Post, founded the United Defense League (UDL), chief organizer of the bus boycott. He knew the black riders had economic impact. Others involved were Jemison and Raymond Scott. They planned to bring suit against the City to desegregate the buses and began the boycott June 20, 1953.
The UDL set up a free-ride network, coordinated by the churches, to compensate for the lack of public transit. This was its signature action for the boycott, adopted for later ones. "While the Baton Rouge boycott lasted only two weeks, it set protest standards, and is growing in recognition as a precedent-setting event in the history of the modern American civil rights movement."
The organizers of the later Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
bus boycott in 1955 used the model of the free-ride system when they began what became a year-long boycott in that city. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
wrote, Jemison's "painstaking description of the Baton Rouge experience proved invaluable."
With most of the black bus riders refusing to ride, by the third day, the buses were almost entirely empty. The boycott lasted only eight days, as Rev. Jemison called it off after successful negotiations between black leaders and the city council. The following day, the city council passed an ordinance under which the first-come, first-served, seating system of back-to-front and front-to-back was reinstated; in addition, they set aside the first two seats on any bus for white passengers and the back bench for black passengers, while allowing anyone to sit on any of the rows in the middle. To comply with state segregation laws, blacks and whites were prohibited from sitting next to each other within this arrangement.
While a number of boycotters wanted to continue the action to attack segregation directly, the majority approved the compromise.
Presidency of the National Baptist Convention
Jemison's best-known achievement of his tenure as President of the National Baptist Convention was the construction of the Baptist World Center in Nashville, TennesseeNashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. It is a headquarters for the Convention. He publicly opposed the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
and the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....
to the United States Supreme Court.
Toward the end of his term as President, Jemison faced criticism caused by his support of the boxer Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...
, who was convicted in a rape case against a black woman. He was strongly criticized both by church members and observers.
Controversy regarding 1994 transition of NBC leadership
Approaching the end of his tenure (as a result of term limits), Jemison selected Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson as his successor. Richardson was defeated by Dr. Henry LyonsHenry Lyons
Reverend Henry J. Lyons is a former President of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc..-Early life:Henry was raised by his grandfather, a Deacon named Booker T. Lyons. His own father, who was only 16 when Henry was born, played a minimal role in his childhood. He attended Gibbs Junior College...
at the 1994 convention.
Unhappy with the result, Jemison filed a lawsuit to try to overturn the election result. Eventually, through the appeals process, the election of Dr. Lyons was upheld, and Jemison individually, as well as a co-plaintiff and their counsel, was ordered to pay $150,000 in punitive damages. By a later court order, Jemison and his co-plaintiff were required to pay the other side's attorney fees. The court found that Jemison had concocted evidence to justify the suit.
Legacy and honors
- Jun 19-21, 2003, the 50th anniversary of the bus boycott and its participants were honored with a community forum and three days of events; organizers were by Marc Sternberg, a 30-year-old resident, Southern UniversitySouthern UniversitySouthern University and A&M College is a historically black college located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Baton Rouge campus is located on Scott’s Bluff overlooking the Mississippi River in the northern section...
, Louisiana State UniversityLouisiana State UniversityLouisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
, and major organizations. He said, "Before Dr. King had a dream, before RosaRosa ParksRosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"....
kept her seat, and before Montgomery took a stand, Baton Rouge played its part." - 2007, Mt. Zion First Baptist Church established the annual T.J. Jemison Race Relations Award in his honor. It was first awarded that year to Jesse BankstonJesse BankstonJesse Homer Bankston, Sr. was a politician within the Democratic Party of Louisiana, a businessman, and, at his death at the age of 103, a member of the board of Louisiana Public Broadcasting...
, a Democratic politician in Baton Rouge.
External links
- 1953-2003 Baton Rouge bus boycott 50th Anniversary
- Commemorative history of the Baton Rouge bus boycott, Louisiana State University