Floyd Mann

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Floyd Mann (died 1995) was the Director of Public Safety for the state of Alabama in 1961, when the nonviolent Freedom Riders came into the state seeking an end to segregation. The state's governor at that time, John Patterson, was resisting Attorney General Robert Kennedy's demands that the Freedom Riders be protected from the Ku Klux Klan and others who were attacking them at their Alabama stops. Patterson was a committed segregationist who called the Freedom Riders "fools" and "agitators" for whom he did not want to "play nursemaid".

Kennedy sent a representative down to talk to Patterson, who had his entire cabinet attend the meeting. He based his repeated refusal to protect the nonviolent demonstrators from the Klan on his argument that such protection was impossible to provide, and well beyond the capabilities of local or state law enforcement.

Frye Gaillard's 2004 book, Cradle of Freedom, picks up the story there. Gaillard writes: "Far more than the Kennedys...the governor understood the magnitude of [white] rage - the beast that was waiting out there in the streets."

"He returned to Floyd Mann, his director of safety, and declared once again: `We can't protect them. Tell him, Floyd.'

"Mann, however, took them all by surprise. `Governor,' he said, `you tell me to protect them, and I will protect them.' "

And there the tide began to turn. The Freedom Riders did come to town, and Mann saw to it that they were protected. He even got personally involved. In the article at www.majorcox.com entitled, "Heroic Act: Floyd Mann Stood Out Among Alabama Lawmen", Major W. Cox relates the following story:

"On May 20, 1961 Floyd Mann earned his place in American history. On that day, Colonel Mann, serving as Governor John Patterson’s Public Safety Director, waded into a mob, armed with clubs and baseball bats, at the Montgomery Greyhound bus station and saved William Barbee’s life."

"In his book, The Judge, author Frank Sikora gives an excellent account of events leading to Mann’s heroic deed. According to Sikora, Barbee was among a group of Freedom Riders who arrived at the bus terminal when a group of about two hundred white people suddenly appeared. The trouble started when a Montgomery Klansman, Claude Henley, with about twenty followers, began cussing and slapping a photographer taking pictures as the Freedom Riders disembarked from their bus."

"The crowd turned nasty and "wholesale rampage" began according to Sikora, "the two hundred swelled into a hate-filled mob of nearly one thousand ... Blacks and some of their white companions on the bus were beaten while Montgomery police officers stood by and attended to such mundane functions as directing traffic." Here is a description from the text of The Judge:"

" 'A young black, William Barbee, was knocked to the pavement, then struck repeatedly with a heavy club; the mob was shouting, ‘Kill him! Kill him!’ It might have happened but for the sudden intervention of Colonel Floyd Mann, the Alabama Public Safety Director, who drew his pistol and ordered the attackers back, threatening to shoot if they didn’t. At that point, Mann called for his state troopers whom he had stationed several blocks away. Their arrival restored order to the terminal.' "

Colonel Mann died in 1995; even though he was a segregationist himself, he deserves to be remembered for his principles and courage. He spoke up when it counted, and he took a stand for humanity, stationing himself between nonviolent demonstrators and those who would harm them, even though the demonstrators' political views were well at odds with his own.