LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Ruth Bryant was in San Francisco when her attorney called.
It was Oct. 17,1968. She had just been indicted on a conspiracy charge along with five others back in Louisville, the lawyer said. She needed to come home.
Bryant was baffled. She was a physician's wife, a mother of four and a respected community activistwho'd fought for open housingand served on a mayor's advisory committee.
Now she was being accused of plotting to destroy several properties in the West End, including blowing up an oil refinery across the street from her home.
She barely knew some of her co-defendants, a mix of youngBlack militants and middle-class business owners.
But city leaders had identified them as organizers behind four nights of rebellionseven months prior, during which dozens of businesses throughout the Parkland neighborhood were burglarizedand set aflame.
Looking back:In Louisville's Parkland neighborhood, the scars of 1968 uprising are still visible
The officialsrefused to believe the rebellion could be connected to decades of oppression Black residents faced, spurred on by the recent assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther KingJr. and the reinstatement of a local white police officer who'd struck a Black real estate broker earlier that month,people familiar with the case said.
"I think they wanted scapegoats," said Cheri Bryant Hamilton, Bryant's daughter. "And they wanted to stop dissent."
The trial of the Black Six, as the group came to be known, was one of the first cases of its kind, repeated in cities nationwide as white officials sought to hold Black people responsible for destroying property in mostly spontaneous fits of rage— while neglecting to address underlying issues that led to the eruptions.
Though the defendants eventually received a directed verdict of not guilty, handed down by a judge who said prosecutors failed to make their case, thecharges had served their purpose, Hamiltonsaid.
Activism quieted. Life went on as it always had.
Fifty years later, the case has all but disappeared from local memory, a casualty of white-led institutions that would rather ignore embarrassing chapters of their histories than learn from them,legal historian Kurt X. Metzmeier said.
"Many of the underlying issues have changed in their mechanisms, but they haven't changed in their substance," Metzmeier said. "We still have segregation, we still have poverty, we still have a police force whose mechanisms are repressive."
On May 24, The Courier Journal, the Frazier Kentucky History Museumand Lean Into Louisvillewill host a panel discussion about the case, seeking to share lessons that can be applied today.
Panelists include Manfred Reid and Sam Hawkins, two members of the Black Six; Bill Allison, a defense attorney in the case; Ken Clay, a witness to the rebellion; and Hamilton, a former Metro Council member whose mother passed away in 2013.
Ahead of the event, here's what to know.
Tensions simmer before rebellion
In 1968, Louisville was seen as a quiet city, where southern charm blended with northern progressive beliefs.
The city had just passed an open housing law, a major win for Black residents. And when King was assassinatedApril 4, destruction did not occur as itdid elsewhere.
But an undercurrent of tension remained. Urban renewal had wiped out a thriving Black business districtalong Walnut Street. Police were known to harass Black people while walking their beats, Metzmeier said. And few jobs were available to those stuck in poverty.
Bryant could feel the pressure rising, her daughter said. To city officials, she commented: "I feel like we're sitting on a powder keg. I feel the presence of dynamite. If we don't do something for these people, they're going to explode."
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On May 8, the keg was punctured.
Around 4:30 p.m., Reid— then a 31-year-old real estate broker — stopped to help a friend pulled over by police at 24th and Broadway.
Charles Thomas, a school teacher, had been accused of stealing cash and checks from a nearby drugstore, according to Courier Journal archives. Reid thought the two officers arresting him must have had the wrong guy.
As the men protested Thomas'arrest, a small crowd formed. The officers called for backup, and two more arrived.
"One policeman came after us with a blackjack," a police weapon, Reid said. "His name was (Michael) Clifford. He attacked me."
Reid and Thomas were bothcharged with breaching the peace.
All four officers involved in the arrests were suspended at the behest of Black community leaders, and a police board quickly decided to fire Clifford. But on May 23, a separate board reinstated him.
Four days later, Black leaders met with the mayor and police chief to voice concerns about the decision.
Atthe meeting were local activists Samuel Hawkins, 25, and Robert Kuyu Sims, 21, along with James Cortez, 41, of Washington, D.C.
Bryant had met Cortez in the nation's capital several weeks earlier, Hamilton said. Cortez had told her he was close with Stokely Carmichael, a well-known political organizer who originated the term "Black Power," and she thought he couldbring Carmichael to speak in Louisville.
'Still brothers':
Bryant suggested Hawkins, a member of the newly formed Black Unity League of Kentucky, meet Cortez while he was in D.C. soon after.
When Reid and Thomas were arrested, the league wired $100 to Cortez to bring him to Louisville, according to Courier Journal archives.
On May 27, the trio led a rally in the heart of the Parkland neighborhood, demanding that police stop "brutalizing our Black brothers."
Within a week, all three would be accused of planning to purchase dynamite to blow up oil refineries in the West End.
The powder keg bursts
At the intersection of 28th and Greenwood, about 350 people gathered May 27 to hear Carmichael speak.
Pamphlets advertising his visit had made their way through the neighborhood, and many were curious what the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had to say.
There was one catch: Carmichael never planned to attend.
Cortez had lied about his connections with the renowned organizer, residents later discovered. But at the rally, he accused city officials of preventing Carmichael's airplane from landing.
Witnesses— in newspaper articles and court statements— differ on what happened next.
Some at the rally saidviolence broke out when a police car sped into the intersection. Officers, however, said they responded after people began throwing bottles from roofs and in the street.
Parkland today:Ravaged by 1968 uprising, this Louisville neighborhood is coming back to life
Mayor Kenneth Schmied soon ordered all off-duty police to the scene and asked Gov. Louie Nunn to activate six National Guard units.
By the time law enforcement arrived, groups of Black youths had split off through the area, breaking into businesses and stealing thousands of dollars of merchandise, according to Courier Journal archives.
Over the next few days, nearly 2,000 National Guardsmen arrived to quell the disorder.
On May 29, two Black teenagers were killed in separate incidents— one shot by an officer and another by a store owner who was charged with manslaughter.
On June 1, police arrested Cortez after a national journalist reported overhearing him discuss plans to purchase dynamite and blow up local oil refineries.
A police court judge quickly convened a "special court of inquiry," where officers presented limited evidence supporting claims Cortez conspired "to destroy public and private buildings."
Hawkins and Sims were implicated in the hearing. Both were arrested and received bonds of $50,000 each.
Two years pass before trial
The accusations sent a wave of hysteria through the city. But the case soon fell apart.
Multiple grand juries declined to indict the defendants. By early October, the charges were dismissed.
Commonwealth's Attorney Edwin Schroering Jr. wasn't satisfied to let the claim go. On Oct. 17, he took a new case to a grand jury— this time adding three defendants and dropping all references to dynamite.
"It was immediately evident to many of us what Schroering and those working with him were trying to do," local civil rights activist Anne Braden wrote in a paper years later. "... They were now preparing for a trial in which they could say these six defendants had planned and plotted the entire uprising and therefore were responsible for the property damage that did occur."
Bryant was dumbfounded. She had worked with Sims and Hawkins and briefly met Cortez, but she barely knew Reid or his business partner, Walter "Pete" Cosby, the sixth defendant.
She was outspoken and a natural organizerwho workedto bring people of different backgrounds together— Black and white, lower- and middle-class, her daughter said.
She wasn't a violent anarchist who wanted to destroy the area she'd fought to rebuild.
"Why they put all of them together, I'll never know," Hamilton said. "They wanted to quiet her, she felt, because she was going to tell it like it was."
The case had immediate and long-term repercussions.
Delays dragged it out for nearly two years, during which it was transferred to rural Hart County and back.
In that time, Bryant withdrew from activism groups. Reid said he lost most of his real estate business and property worth $37,500. Cosby added his reputation took a hit in the community.
"What really bothers me," Bryant told The Courier Journal in October 1969, "is that no one, not a single police officer has ever questioned me about the case. It frightens me that this could ever get this far without someone at least asking me about it."
More:Why most protesters arrested by Louisville police will never be convicted of a crime
On June 22, 1970, the case finally went to trial. Across the next two weeks, attorneys selected jury members and prosecutors presented 22 witnesses, attempting to show how each defendant was involved in the Parkland rally and alleged destruction plot.
By the time prosecution rested, it "had failed to place all of the six together in one spot at any time during or before the disorders," according to Courier Journal coverage. "And the name of defendant Cosby had yet to come up in testimony."
Defense attorneys asked Jefferson Criminal Court Judge S. Rush Nicholson to issue a directedverdict of not guilty, saying prosecutors did not produce evidence needed to meet the misdemeanor conspiracy charges— which carried a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a $5,000 fine.
On July 7, Nicholson obliged.
"To go through all of this and then for Judge Nicholson to throw the case out after they presented the case, that just doesn't happen very much at all," said Allison, an attorney who represented Cortez. "It took a strong, independent-minded judge to do that."
In a press conference following the decision, Hawkins demanded an apology from Schroering.
"The only conspiracy that existed was in his mind and in the mind of the city administration," he said.
Black Six refuse to forget injustice
Bryant didn't stay out of activism long. With the trial behind her, she returned to community groups she'd helped establish. And after she and her husband divorced, she started a company that built homes in the West End, Hamilton said.
Reid, who was not involved in the civil rights movement before the trial, became an outspoken advocatefor affordable housing.
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He currently serves as chairman of the Louisville Metro Housing Authority board of commissioners. And in 2017, he received the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Award.
It was almost impossible for Reid not to become an activist after his arrest.
"It follows you throughout your life," he said of the Black Six case. "You don't get a chance to resume your career. It changes the way you live. The suffering goes on for years because you're dealing with a reaction from the larger community, itself."
Hamilton, who followed in her mother's footsteps and served four terms on Louisville's Metro Council, said Black people still face disparities across societal systems.
But if the Black Six case taught her anything, it's that everyone should still fight for what's right.
"Life is too short to cower in the shadows somewhere," she said."Everybody's got to make a decision to make their city, their community better at whatever level they can."
Reach reporter Bailey Loosemore at bloosemore@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4646 or on Twitter: @bloosemore.
Bridging the Divide: The Black Six
What:A panel discussion featuring members of the Black Six, a group of Louisville residents tried on conspiracy charges related to rebellionin the Parkland neighborhood in 1968.
When:6 p.m. Tuesday, May 24. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
Where:Frazier Kentucky History Museum, 829 W. Main St.
Cost:Free or $10 donation
More info:Register online atfraziermuseum.org/calendar/lets-talk-bridging-the-divide-the-black-six.
Watch online: The event will be livestreamed at www.courier-journal.com.
