Tape #1, location unknown (possibly Tabernacle Baptist Church), undated (17 minutes). Recording opens with the singing of an unidentified hymn; an unidentified speaker directs a collection; crowd sings Old Time Religion and then chants “Freedom Now!”; Rev. Lewis Lloyd Anderson introduces Martin Luther King, Jr.; King speaks briefly before tape ends, telling a joke and referencing President John F. Kennedy’s June 1963 speech on civil rights. Recording ends. The singing of the two hymns fills the bulk of this tape.

Dallas County, Ala. Sheriff's Department Civil Rights Surveillance Recordings, 1965 (source)

Dallas County (Ala.). Department of the Sheriff (publisher)

1965

Tapes #2 and #3, location unknown, January 25, 1965 (16 minutes). Recording opens with King talking; discusses court injunctions relating to voter registration and movement car pools; violence perpetrated by “white people on the lunatic fringe” and his theory that white guilt drives much of the white violence; discusses an incident that day in which Annie Lee Cooper, an African American woman who had been waiting to register to vote became involved in an altercation with Sheriff Jim Clark and others (this incident is discussed in the books Protest at Selma by David J. Garrow and Selma 1965 by Charles E. Fager); references the Montgomery bus boycott and tells the crowd “there are some difficult days ahead. It’s still midnight in Selma.” An unidentified speaker introduces the hymn I Feel Like Going On and announces that Ralph Abernathy will speak next. Recording ends.

Dallas County, Ala. Sheriff's Department Civil Rights Surveillance Recordings, 1965 (source)

Dallas County (Ala.). Department of the Sheriff (publisher)

1965-01-25