Mr. Nixon is one of the least known key figures of the civil rights movement. he played a hand in the creation of several foundational Black political organizations and recruited many of the future leaders of those organizations.
Edgar Daniel Nixon was born in Montgomery, Alabama on July 12th, 1899. A trade union leader and close associate of A. Philip Randolph, Nixon was the leading activist in Montgomery from the 30's through the 60's. Despite a limited education, his efforts and strategic vision lead to the founding of over a dozen prominent grass-roots organizations, each tailored to achieve a different goal with a particular focus and strategy.
As a young man E.D. displayed incredible focus, forcefulness and strategic acumen and so he was trained by the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters as an organizer. In 1940 he organized 750 Black men to march on the Montgomery County Courthouse to demand the right to register to vote. He became president of the Voters League of Montgomery in 1944. He was also leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) in Alabama.
Undoubtedly it is the E.D. Nixon who coordinated the choice of Rosa Parks as the icon of the Montgomery bus boycott as well as his organization of the boycott itself. E.D. was able to recognize that Rosa Parks had the wherewithal to sustain a legal fight to challenge public transportation segregation for the year that it would take to obtain justice. Previous candidates lacked Rosa Parks wherewithal and understanding of what the fight would entail. For years Parks served as a secretary with the NAACP, so she had an experienced apprehension of the political side of the struggle.
Once Parks was arrested, Nixon moved quickly to arrange her bail and coordinate a meeting to plan the scope and strategy of the planned boycott Nixon called together many of the most prominent preachers in Montgomery to organize the effort. He was greatly disappointed to find that the Preachers were fearful and advocated a course of action that would keep the bocott lowkey, below the radar of the white community.
E.D. challenged their manhood and called them all cowards. The Rev. Dr. King stepped forward to defend his manhood and with that he accepted the Presidency of the newly created (by E.D. Nixon) Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC). In anticipation of the religious leaders trepidation, Nixon had previously pushed for King to be chosen to lead the SCLC because his lack of experience in Montgomery, would likely make him less likely to be intimidated. His selection of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to be the leader and front man of the Boycott is the foremost legacy of E.D.'s efforts.
During the boycott, which lasted over thirteen months, 17,000 black people in Montgomery walked to work or obtained lifts from the small car-owning black population of the city. Eventually, the loss of revenue and a decision by the Supreme Court forced the Montgomery Bus Company to accept integration. The boycott came to an end on 20th December, 1956.
Nixon and Martin Luther King also created the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) as a way to enact other radical strategies in a way that could bypass the conservative and mainstream concessionist perspective of the NAACP. At the time, and as was often the case, the NAACP was far behind the curve in supporting the burgeoning grass-roots efforts across the south and north that erupted into the full-blown civil rights struggle. The NAACP did not endorse Dr. King's provocative non-violence approach seeing as it was an untried strategy that could potentially backfire by angering the NAACPs conservative Black and liberal white supporters. The NAACP endoresed protracted and dignified legal fights, not uneducated negroes demanding their rights in the streets. E.D. Nixon was just such an "uneducated Negro".
Edgar Daniel Nixon died in Montgomery, Alabama, on 25th February, 1987 after retiring from the front lines of the civil war battles due to a feeling of being neglected, diminished and pushed to the side. When an attempt was made to recruit him to join the Committee to Combat Racial Injustice (CCRI) E.D. Nixon put his feelings on paper and wrote the following:
"for 25 years I have been working in this feel to help bring freedom to un-freed people. I have organize over 15 organizations including the Montgomery improvement association, and it was I who found rev. king. As a spokesman he is very good but no one man can do this job, but when people give all recognition to one because of his academic trainging and forget other who do not have that kind of training but are making a worth while contribution to the cumity that make it hard. You can hardly find a project in Montgomery that I did not start bit but after it got going I have been left out of the picture. I have spent long hours and thousand of my own money to bring about these things and now exist and each time I be push in the background, frankly I do not care to be hurt any more. I just want to be let alone now."
What E.D. Nixon shows is that It's not Education or Academic Skills or understanding the vernacular of a particular social science that counts when it comes to community organization. It's the strength of your message, the boldness and strength of your leadership, and the example you set.
E.D. Nixon, took part in the core movement that resulted in the civil rights victories of the mid 60's and he did it in relative obscurity, whereas MLK, Malcolm X and others share an enduring glow in the spotlight. The name of E.D. Nixon is destined to always remain in a peripheral position in talk of the civil rights movement. A position which belies his stature as the true voice of the people and the heart, soul and nuts of the civil rights movement.
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