{{Short description|American civil rights activist (born 1939)}} {{Use American English|date = September 2019}} {{Use mdy dates|date = September 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = James Zwerg | image = James Zwerg 1961.jpg | alt = | caption = Zwerg {{circa|1961}} | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1939|11|28}} | birth_place = Appleton, Wisconsin, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | other_names = | known_for = Civil rights activist, Freedom Rider | spouse = {{marriage|Carrie|1965}} | children = 3 | alma_mater = Beloit College | occupation = Minister }}
'''James Zwerg''' (born November 28, 1939) is an American retired minister who was involved with the Freedom Riders in the early 1960s.
==Early life== Zwerg was born in Appleton, Wisconsin<ref name="Post Crescent 053113">{{cite news|last=Gonzalez|first=Tony|title=Accidental Advocate Looks Back|newspaper=Appleton Post Crescent|date=May 31, 2013|pages=A1,A4}}</ref> where he lived with his parents and older brother, Charles. His father was a dentist who once a month provided free dental care to the poor.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> Zwerg was very involved in school and took part in the student protests in high school.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://crdl.usg.edu/people/z/zwerg_jim_1939/?Welcome | title = Zwerg, Jim, 1939- | year = 2011 | work = Civil Rights Digital Library | publisher = Digital Library of Georgia | access-date = 2011-05-16 }}</ref>
Zwerg was also very active in the Christian church, where he attended services regularly. Through the church, he became exposed to the belief in civil equality.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> He was taught that all people are created equal, no matter what race or religion they are.
==College and SNCC== Zwerg attended Beloit College, where he studied sociology and graduated in 1962.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Collection: James Zwerg collection {{!}} Archives |url=https://beloitarchives.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/resources/150 |access-date=2025-02-03 |website=beloitarchives.libraryhost.com}}</ref> He developed an interest in civil rights from his interactions with his roommate, Robert Carter, an African-American from Georgia.<ref name=spartacus>{{cite web | url = http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAzwerg.htm | title = James Zwerg: Biography | first = John | last = Simkin | date = 7 April 2011 | work = Spartacus Educational | access-date = 2011-05-16 | archive-date = April 19, 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140419214456/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAzwerg.htm | url-status = usurped }}</ref> Zwerg recalled: "I witnessed prejudice against him… we would go to a lunch counter or cafeteria and people would get up and leave the table. I had pledged a particular fraternity and then found out that he was not allowed in the fraternity house. I decided that his friendship was more important than that particular fraternity, so I depledged."<ref name=pbs>{{cite web | url = https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/episodes/skindeep/zwergtranscript.html | title = Interview with Jim Zwerg, Civil Rights Activist, United States | work = Peoples Century | publisher = Public Broadcasting Corporation (WGBH) | location = Boston, Massachusetts | access-date = 2011-05-16 }}</ref>
Zwerg participated in a one-semester student exchange program in January 1961 at Nashville's Fisk University, a predominantly black school.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> At Fisk, Zwerg met John Lewis, who was active in the Civil Rights Movement, and was immediately impressed with the way Lewis handled himself and his commitment to the movement.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> Lewis was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a student organized Civil Rights activist group focused on nonviolent direct action. Zwerg joined SNCC and suggested that the group attend a movie.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> SNCC members explained to Zwerg that Nashville theaters were segregated.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> Zwerg began attending SNCC nonviolence workshops, often playing the angry bigot in role-play.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> His first test was to buy two movie tickets and try to walk in with a black man.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> When trying to enter the theater on February 21, 1961, Zwerg was hit with a monkey wrench and knocked unconscious.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /><ref name=spartacus />
==Freedom Rides== In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began to organize Freedom Rides. The first departed from Washington, D.C. and involved 13 black and white riders who rode into the South challenging white only lunch counters and restaurants. When they reached Anniston, Alabama one of the buses was ambushed and attacked.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> Meanwhile, at an SNCC meeting in Tennessee, Lewis, Zwerg and 11 other volunteers decided to be reinforcements. Zwerg was the only white male in the group.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> Although scared for his life, Zwerg never had second thoughts. He recalled, "My faith was never so strong as during that time. I knew I was doing what I should be doing."<ref name=pbs /> The group traveled by bus to Birmingham, where Zwerg was first arrested for not moving to the back of the bus with his black seating companion, Paul Brooks.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" />
Three days later, the riders regrouped and headed to Montgomery.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> At first the bus station there was an eerie quiet, but the scene turned into an ambush, with the riders attacked from all directions. "Mr. Zwerg was hit with his own suitcase in the face. Then he was knocked down and a group pummeled him" (qtd. in Loory 577). The prostrate activist was beaten into unconsciousness somewhere around the time a man took Zwerg's head between his knees while others took turns pounding and clawing at his face. At one point while Zwerg was unconscious, three men held him up while a woman kicked him in the groin. After it seemed that the worst of the onslaught was over, Zwerg gained semi-consciousness and tried to use the handrails to the loading platform to pull himself to his feet. As he struggled to get upright, a white man came and threw Zwerg over the rail. He crashed to the ground below, landing on his head. He was only the first to be beaten that day, but the attack on him may have been the most ruthless (Loory 573–79).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Catsam |first=Derek Charles |date=Fall 2007|url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA183991929&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00393819&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=novasea_ourl&aty=ip|title="Mister, This Is Not Your Fight!": The 1961 Montgomery Freedom Ride Riots |journal= Studies in the Literary Imagination |volume=40 |issue=2}}</ref> Zwerg recalls, "There was nothing particularly heroic in what I did. If you want to talk about heroism, consider the black man who probably saved my life. This man in coveralls, just off of work, happened to walk by as my beating was going on and said 'Stop beating that kid. If you want to beat someone, beat me.' And they did. He was still unconscious when I left the hospital. I don't know if he lived or died."<ref name=pbs />
Zwerg was denied prompt medical attention because there were no white ambulances available. He was quoted as saying "I suppose a person has to be dead before anyone will call an ambulance in Montgomery," as he lay in the hospital bed after being brutally beaten.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Wooten |first1=Deborah A.|last2=Clabough |first2=Jeremy|date=Fall 2012|title=Freedom Riders: A National Geographic Journey in Social Justice through Imagery |journal=Journal of Children's Literature |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=51–57|id={{ProQuest|1266034797}}}}</ref> He remained unconscious for two days and stayed in the hospital for five days. His post-riot photos were published in many newspapers and magazines across the country.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> After his beating, Zwerg claimed he had had an incredible religious experience and God helped him to not fight back.<ref name=spartacus /> In a 2013 interview recalling the incident, he said, "In that instant, I had the most incredible religious experience of my life. I felt a presence with me. A peace. Calmness. It was just like I was surrounded by kindness, love. I knew in that instance that whether I lived or died, I would be OK."<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> In a famous moving speech from his hospital room, Zwerg stated, "Segregation must be stopped. It must be broken down. Those of us on the Freedom Ride will continue.... We're dedicated to this, we'll take hitting, we'll take beating. We're willing to accept death. But we're going to keep coming until we can ride from anywhere in the South to any place else in the South without anybody making any comments, just as American citizens."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/about/pt_103.html|title=Transcript: Eyes on the Prize, America's Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1985|date=23 August 2006|publisher=PBS|access-date=2011-10-06|archive-date=February 4, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170204210918/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/about/pt_103.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Post-Freedom Rides== Later in 1961, Martin Luther King presented Zwerg with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Freedom Award. After a conversation with King, Zwerg decided to enroll at Garrett Theological Seminary.<ref name=spartacus /> He met his future wife Carrie.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> Zwerg was ordained a minister, serving for five years in three rural Wisconsin communities.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> The Zwergs settled in Tucson, Arizona in 1970 and had three children.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> He changed his career several times, including charity organization work and a stint in community relations at IBM.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> Zwerg retired in 1993 after which the couple built a cabin in rural New Mexico about {{convert|50|mile|km}} from the nearest grocery store.<ref name="Post Crescent 053113" /> Zwerg continues to spread awareness to this day about the trials and tribulations of the Freedom Rides and how love is what is most important. He gave a speech on May 18, 2011, at Troy University Rosa Parks Museum. He spoke about the effect the Freedom Rides had on his life.<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://www.proquest.com/docview/867934319|title = Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg to Speak at TROY's Rosa Parks Museum.|id = {{ProQuest|867934319}}}}</ref> In an interview with Lisa Simeone, Zwerg talked about how blessed he was to have been a part of the Movement. "Everywhere we've stopped people have been so gracious and so kind and one of the things that has certainly been rewarding to me has been to see how many people brought their children; seeing a little eight-year-old boy come up to me and talk to me and say, 'May I please have your autograph? Thank you for what you did.' That was pretty special. I appreciated that."<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA166042639&v=2.1&u=23010_scpls&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w&asid=e2f1533df6ad5277d4ca40cbbba6c43b|title = Lisa Simeone, 2001, Interview: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg discuss the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Riders.}}</ref>
== References == <!--- See Wikipedia:Footnotes on how to create references using <ref></ref> tags which will then appear here automatically --> {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{cite news|last=Blake|first=John|title=Shocking photo created a hero, but not to his family|url=https://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/16/Zwerg.freedom.rides/index.html?hpt=C1|access-date=16 May 2011|newspaper=CNN|date=16 May 2011}}
==Further reading== *{{cite book|last1=Arsenault|first1=Raymond|author-link=Raymond Arsenault|title=Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice|date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199755813|url=https://archive.org/details/freedomriders1960000arse|url-access=registration}}
{{Civil rights movement}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zwerg, James}} Category:1939 births Category:Living people Category:People from Appleton, Wisconsin Category:Beloit College alumni Category:Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary alumni Category:American Protestant ministers and clergy Category:American civil rights activists Category:Christian radicals Category:Freedom Riders Category:Nashville Student Movement