Indignation rallies
I am becoming increasingly weary with constant rage-baiting. Whether it’s an influencer on social media who posts false memes, or a Twitterer who floods the zone with hate speech, or anyone—whether influencer or a poster just starting out—who gets their kicks from keeping the pot stirred, I am so done with the noise.
It’s not healthy, people.
It’s also not new.
As I’m working on my autobiographical fiction novel, social media working title Middle Earth Houston, I’m keeping historical events as accurate as possible. That’s obvious for things like the assassination of President Kennedy. But I’m also nailing down local protests, local festivals, local leaders who took action (either positive or negative). The story is being told within correct historical context.
One recurring occurrence I did not remember at all, not even in nightmares when my brain’s processed memories I’m working through: Indignation rallies. A genuinely big deal in Houston in the early 1960s.
From our comfortable perch in 2026, you’d be forgiven for thinking that these indignation rallies were staged in objection to Houston’s slow movement towards integration. That maybe a bunch of citizens got together to make a statement about the homelessness or poverty of veterans who’d returned from World War II. That perhaps indignation rallies called attention to hunger and food deserts—although not called that in 1960—in Houston’s inner city.
If that’s what you thought, you’d sadly be wrong. John Birch Society sponsored indignation rallies, hate fests one and all.
If they were not rallying against integration, they were rallying against JFK’s membership in the Catholic church.
If they weren’t yelling about Jews controlling the world, they were screaming about traitors in the military who recommended the State Department negotiate with the Vietnamese government before jumping feet first into a conflict we didn’t understand.
If they weren’t arguing that showing a Bircher movie narrated by Ronnie Reagan in a Baptist church was their right under the First Amendment, then they were sitting in PTAs, angry that principals and teachers were allowing Blacks and others they didn’t approve of to sit next to their precious Billy Bobs. Birchers were especially perturbed by people who said that Bircher movie violated separation of church and state when shown in a church or school. Those “separation” people were wrong-wrong-wrong. So said the Birchers.
And they held indignation rallies, even as they proclaimed they were not Birchers, reading from the Bircher script. The invocation at a planning meeting in support of a Bircher for governor of Texas rally began thusly: “[I pray that] we can return at least this state to the kind of government You have ordained.”
They expressed massive indignation that the State of Texas was moving in the “wrong” direction. Even as Birchers publicly disavowed their Bircher memberships, so they could work in secret. Make it make sense.
The Bircher indignation rallies never seemed to catch on, thank goodness. They lasted only from 1960-1962, as far as I can tell. In that short span, they generated tons of documents. Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas holds the archives of the National Indignation Convention of Texas. Five linear feet, five boxes.
The final mention of an Indignation Rally in Houston: January 3, 1963. Either Birchers infiltrated a genuinely social event, or Houston’s social butterflies were ridiculing them. The Slippery Rock Booster Club held its annual meeting at a Mexican restaurant owned by a Chinese immigrant.
Their announcement: This Friday, the club is holding its first annual Bluebonnet Trek, Indignation Rally, Colt Baseball and Domed Stadium Set-To, and Third Annual Christmas Party. The event gets underway at 5 p.m. and don’t ask when it will end. Go Rockets!
The last serious Indignation Rally took place on July 5, 1962 at Houston’s Shamrock Hilton Hotel (how did these people afford the Shamrock?). They protested the “recent Supreme Court ruling on required school prayers,” stating that it would be “a giant religious rally” that would have representatives of six major faiths as speakers.
Despite Mrs. Milton A. Koska’s letter to the editor asserting that Americans should simply ignore the ruling and do as they pleased, most religious leaders in Texas affirmed and supported the Supreme Court decision. Even Southern Baptists! You know it’s a good decision when Southern Baptists can’t find a reason to complain.
Because religious leaders understood that a forced Baptist prayer in one school could mean a forced Catholic prayer in another. They weren’t even thinking fifty years down the road to forced Muslim or Wiccan prayers. They just knew their turf.
So I searched for the Houston Post article about that indignation rally, which had been downgraded to an indignation meeting by July 4.
My teeth were set on edge by the repeated contention that the National Indignation Convention was an independent organization, and that it “was a public convention—no one must join anything.” When, of course, every NIC leader quoted was a Bircher.
The religious leaders who spoke against the Supreme Court ruling were the following: Rev. James McKeehan, pastor of Lindale Assembly of God; Rev. Philip Blair Jones, pastor of Bethel Independent Presbyterian Church; Rev. W.O. Guest, Baptist lay preacher; Father Bernhard Lickteig, superior of the Carmelites; Rev. Robert Ingram, rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church; and, Rev. Ercel Carter, pastor of the Evangelical Methodist Church. Walter Keith, a “Houston businessman,” also spoke.
I am stating their names and affiliations clearly and purposely. Should you be a member of one of these churches—and they were all Christian churches, contrary to the misleading initial announcement—please ensure your church tells its history correctly. Ask the hard questions. Why would these six men support forced prayer in public schools?
The final news article on July 6 correctly reported on the meeting, which by then had been downgraded yet again, this time to an indignation panel. Those six pastors were not fighting for religious freedom. They were “defending the Christian faith.” One recommendation from the pastor of Bethel Independent Presbyterian: Christian parents should take their children out of public schools.
Hmm, wonder who that move would benefit financially? It’s always been a matter of follow the money.
The Carmelite superior misinterpreted SCOTUS’ ruling as pro-atheist, which played right into the hands of the Bircher sponsors. The Pentecostal preacher said the ruling was part of a larger movement to deny the existence of God and that he was rising up in the name of the Lord Jesus. (Sigh.) The Baptist lay minister said the ruling took away everyone’s right to pray.
The Houston businessman along with a member of the Houston school board (Bob Eckels, for Houstonians who are surely nodding along) declared that this was not a matter for the federal government. Heck, it wasn’t even a matter for the state of Texas. No, decisions like this should be left up to independent school districts. Or perhaps even individual teachers.
The reporter did not mention any attendees other than the speakers. So much for a “giant rally.”
As I read these news articles, and others, I realized that rage-baiting has been around forever. It’s taken on different names in different eras. Even when the indignation is grounded in reality, such as the 1970s indignation rallies in the Philippines, it’s focusing on anger, on division, on rage.
I get it. Quite often, there’s a lot to be angry about. In 1960s Houston, the Black community would have been justified had they held indignation rallies. Or had people rallied against our awful treatment of veterans who had given their all. Or kids going to bed hungry. Plenty to rile us up.
But even Birchers understood after only two or so years of these indignation rallies, or meetings, or panels, that they had to change tactics. Their strategy stayed the same. Their goals never changed. The hate they spewed raged within them.
They changed their tactics. Less overt hate. More people on school boards. Birchers involved in PTA, Boy Scouts (rarely Girl Scouts), Bible clubs. Under the radar.
I was therefore surprised when I saw that socialists in the Philippines chose the Indignation Rally moniker for their protests. They vented real anger. I’m not a historian of the Philippines, so I cannot judge whether the rallies succeeded, either short- or long-term.
Filipinos must have deemed them successful, because in 2025, they chose the same name for anti-corruption demonstrations.
Perhaps it will indeed require that we reach a constant state of rage before we can move past the injustices of our current era. I hope not. With everything that is in me, I hope not.
The American indignation rallies of the 1960s were built on lies. The people behind them had one clear, steadfast goal: To make sure that only white Protestant Republican men could succeed. (That Catholic priest in 1962 was truly naïve. Didn’t he understand that his allies were at best temporary? He was a tool, not a friend.)
I’m going to continue attempting to reach people without anger, without hate. From where I sit, the most effective means of bridging political gaps comes through face-to-face relationships, persistence, caring, doing good even when “they” don’t. And never, ever giving up.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else is commentary.
Postscript: The above does NOT apply to witnessing a violent injustice or unconscionable slander. Our bodies produce adrenaline for just those occasions. I am speaking about political discourse and convincing others of policy or legislation.