Laurie Pritchett (December 9, 1926 – November 13, 2000) was city Chief of Police in Albany, Georgia, best known for his actions in 1961 and 1962 suppressing the city's civil rights demonstrations by the Albany Movement.
Early life
Pritchett was born in Griffin, Georgia in 1926. He attended Auburn University and South Georgia College. He was an Army veteran and graduated from the National Academy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville. Pritchett worked in his hometown as a police officer for 12 years before he arrived in Albany as Chief of Police.
Pritchett's suppression of the Albany Movement
The Albany Movement began in 1961 and was designed to eliminate segregation in the city of Albany by the use of non-violent protest. It started when three young members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—Charles Sherrod, Cordell Reagon, and Charles Jones—came to Albany for a voter-registration drive. They began encouraging the local people to challenge the city's policies of segregation on public transit, in public facilities such as libraries and hospitals, in voting, and in employment. The movement faced a great deal of resistance from both white and conservative black citizens. The major civil rights organizations came together to form one cohesive group, called the Albany Movement. After this group formed, several demonstrations took place. Consequently, tensions ran high in the community and the police department got involved to suppress the marches, sit-ins, and other peaceful acts of defiance.
Previous movements in other cities had often relied on images of police brutality, broadcast nationwide, showing violent actions being taken towards peaceful demonstrators. However, in Albany, the city's chief of police Laurie Pritchett had studied Martin Luther King Jr. and his non-violent strategies. Pritchett decided to use non-brutal methods of suppressing protest to avoid negative attention. Pritchett knew that if his police responded with violence, they would be criticized, only further fueling the movement. He also charged demonstrators with disturbing the peace rather than violating the laws of segregation. Many community members praised Pritchett's ability to maintain order in Albany. After learning Dr. King's intentions, Pritchett began teaching the Albany police department how to effectively deal with the non-violent protesters. He insisted that they not use violence or force. His intentions were to "out-nonviolent" them. Pritchett went on to further explain that "the men were instructed that if they were spit on, cussed, abused in any way of that nature, that they were to not take their billyclubs outs."
When preparing his police officers to use less violent ways of dealing with the protests, Pritchett was surprised by how his department reacted. In an interview he stated, "You know, it was strange that the, the men, I did not expect the police department personnel to, to readily accept this position." During this same time, Pritchett realized that Dr. King's appearance would bring in many members of the news media, which could either hurt the police department or help them. The media played a big role during the civil rights movement, and with the nation watching, Pritchett was concerned with how people would view the city police tactics. He stated, "We knew that if [Dr. King] came in we were going to have mass media as I instructed and, and lectured to the men that the news media could either be our ally or our enemy and we wanted them as an ally.".