About James Bevel
James Luther Bevel (October 19, 1936 – December 19, 2008) was an American minister and a leader and major strategist of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. As a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and then as its director of direct action and nonviolent education, he initiated, strategized, and developed SCLC's three major successes of the era: the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, the 1965 Selma voting rights movement, and the 1966 Chicago open housing movement. Bevel suggested that SCLC call for and join a March on Washington in 1963 and strategized the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches which contributed to Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Prior to his time with SCLC, Bevel worked in the Nashville Student Movement, which conducted the 1960 Nashville Lunch-Counter Sit-Ins, the 1961 Open Theater Movement, and recruited students to continue the 1961 Freedom Rides after they were attacked. He helped with initiating and directing the 1961 and 1962 voting rights movement in Mississippi. In 1967, Bevel was chairman of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. He initiated the 1967 March on the United Nations as part of the anti-war movement. Bevel's last major action was as co-initiator of the 1995 Day of Atonement/Million Man March in Washington, D.C. For his work, Bevel has been called the strategist and architect of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and, with Dr. King, half of the first-tier team that formulated many of the strategies and actions to gain federal legislation and social changes during the 1960s civil rights era. In 2005, Bevel was accused by one of his daughters of incest. Three others accused him of sexual abuse that allegedly occurred when they were children, though he was never charged with those crimes. Bevel was tried for incest in April 2008, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years in prison and a fine of $50,000. After serving seven months, he was freed awaiting an appeal; Bevel died of pancreatic cancer in December 2008 and was buried in Eutaw, Alabama. Together the groups became collectively known as the Selma Voting Rights Movement, with James Bevel as its director. Feeling an inner call to become a minister, Bevel attended the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee from 1957 to 1961 and became a Baptist preacher.
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