12019-03-12T23:56:56+00:00Stanford University Pressaf84c3e11fe030c51c61bbd190fa82a3a1a1282413plainpublished2019-08-20T16:43:37+00:00AnonymousOn December 28, 1957, the New York Amsterdam News declared 1957 the “Year Negroes Fought Back.” “In 1957, the Negro found himself standing up and slugging it out with racial bigotry in the bayous of Mississippi, on the streets of Chicago, in the Quaker lands of Pennsylvania, the citrus areas of Florida, the schoolrooms of Little Rock, Ark., and on the sidewalks of New York City,” the Amsterdam News noted. “There was scarcely a place in the 48 states where some attempt was not made to check the rising progress of the Negro race and there was no place in the United States where the Negro did not rise to the challenge and show his willingness and determination to fight it out no matter what the odds.” The photo accompanying the story was of Chicago Defender journalist Alex Wilson, who was beaten by white men in Little Rock while he was covering that city’s school integration crisis.
