WHAT IS SNCC /PAGE 1 SNCC Relationship and Responsibilities to the Southern Campus. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee owes its very existence to the college campuses and no matter how we may be organ­ izing in communities, no matter how deep our roots may go into the people in the Black Belt, we started growing this little tree of pro­ test in the college communities, we were supported by the Northern college communities, and in fact our name implies that we were intend­ ed primarily to be some coordinating body of students of the South. Moses has used the example of SNCC being like a tree, of its roots as its field secretaries in the soil of the people from whom the roots get nourished. All trees need certain things: they need water, they need sunshine. The little small tree which started growing in I960 got its sunshine (which could be money ) from the North, and its rain from the South, in the presence of Southern students who helped to develop these roots which are now in the communities. Any tree in order to grow has to be continually serviced, by rain and by sunshine. Those of us who joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee tree in 1961 thought it would have roots both in the commun­ ities and on the college campuses. But we began developing only one side, the community. There were a lot of reasons for this. First of all, there were many people who objected to working in the communities. It was an uphill struggle within the ranks of those people very close and dear to SNCC to grant or conceed that the staff should be organizing in the communities. There were many people saying we should only work on the campuses. They were partly right, we should have been on the campuses, and we should have been working in the communities. It is very difficult to assess where the responsibility rests for not deve­ loping the campuses. As the principal administrator of the organiza­ tion I accept my part of the responsibility. I think it was a collec­ tive responsibility; personally, my allegiance, as well as the rest of the staff's, in the beginning was to organize in the community.• We did make some abortive efforts to organize on campuses, but not any type of concentrated effort. Thow wore many po-opie dxaring the first two years of SNCC, such as Marion Barry, who kept raising the question of college organizers, T *"eu3**il in th-o fall of 1962 we sent two tipnr.^ •«** just to do that. Bill Hansen went to Arkansas, started the Arkansas Project, found a home, married and settled down. Bernard Lafayette was supposed to organize campuses, but he went back to school. What is SNCC / Southern Campus / 2 It was obviously a top-sided development in our program. A lot of college groups active in the spring of 1962 began to wither away because of the changing political climate, in part. They were sup­ posed to be a base for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, but actually SNCC itself did very little servicing of those bases. Any creation has to be nourished in order to develop. The people who came from the college groups and were represented from time to time on the Executive Committee or the Coordinating Committee didn't ac­ tually go out and try to proselytize or try to organize other students in their own states. It was not SNCC's fault, completely, that the student movements withered away. It was true that we didn't service them, that we didn't provide a program for them. A lack of planning on the part of the central body had something to do with it. Our lack of resources to carry out tMs kind of program had a lot to do with it. The fact that t^e limited staff Itself was so deeply committed to the commun­ ity projects and didn't want to withdraw from these projects to travel on the campus Is another reason. But the basic reason is the general overxtforked condition In which all of the limited staff people found themselves and the lack of physical resources and personnel with which to implement the program. People recognized that there were no programs for the college campuses. The work-study program was one example of an over-all attemnt to deal with the problem. The money we obtained for the State Leadership Conferences is another example of some effort being exercised. And now we are in 1^61^: we do have 8 college travellers, we do have some transportation, we do have $8,000 exclusively for state conferences, and the question is, what is our obligation? We should have a college program because of the historical roots of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Whatever we are and whatever we shall be has its roots in the Southern Negro colleges. We can draw fro;., the colleges many people to work in our programs. It has been proven that Negroes from Southern schools have helped tremendously in the execution of our program. For example, one of the things that helped the Mississippi Project last summer was that 30 or I4.0 students came from Howard University to work in the state. There are other students w e can draw upon similar to the ones from Howard. I know some Southern students are looking forward to SNCC What is SNCC / Southern Campus / 3 as an organization. They feel that SNCC is a part of them and there­ for shouldn't be isolated from it. I think that there are many students on these campuses whose lives, whose value systems need to be touched by the spirit and the philosophy of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and this can only come about if, in fact, we are on the campuses. I think that there are programs which the coll­ ege campus students are best fitted to carry out. For example, few of us on the staff, to my knowledge, are acquainted with all of the sections of the civil rights bill. This is indeed a tragedy. I have something to say later on about the necessity for us to really take whatever the weaknesses are in the civil rights bill after the election and begin to dramatically point out its weaknesses and to use whatever is good in it as an organizational technique. Part of the college program could be the holding of discussions and workshops on the civil rights bill, on its Implications, and where students in particular areas can use the bill for the benefit of the movement. So, assuming that we have agreed we should work on the campuses, how should we organize? THE STUDENT UNION We could go to the college campuses, indicate we want to organize state conferences, where as many students from across the state as possible can come together. People can go around from college to college talking about this, can set up some sort of steering committee for the state conference. A desirable result from the state confer­ ence would be the formation of a Student Union. A Student Union could be organized in each state on congressional district lines. Every state, we know, has its own congressional district lines. That means, of course, that to the state conference one would have to get more than just students from the colleges. We must get students repre­ senting as many of the congressional districts as possible. These students then agree there is a need for another conference in their state and that they would go out and try to pet more people to come back to a sec d state conference. At the first State Conference ssQifrn people responsibilities within their congressional district to organize, for instance, a third congressional district student union in Georgia. The students in Georgia, for instance, become an important po­ litical force because everybody 18 years old can vote. The young people in Georgia could possibly form a solid block of voters. The What is SNCC / Southern Campus / Ij. same is true in Kentucky where 18 years and older vote. We have to be realistic and recognize that in the United States this kind of organization cannot take place this year. We must estab­ lish a three-year plan for the organization of students across the South into Student Unions. In the congressional districts you could have county student unions. Ultimately it could be broken down on the precinct level. This would be more inclusive than just the college students and it would be a more responsible body than just the college students. Membership into the Student Union could range from 17 to 2£ or 30, arbitrary figures. The Union could have a state central committee composed of 2 delegates from each district, a district central commi­ ttee composed of two delegates from each county, and a county central aommi-b-boo composed of two delegates from the various precincts or beats in that particular county. Now to do all of this, though, means we must have at least 30 field secretaries assigned directly towork on what is called a youth program. Instead of a college campus program we would have a youth program. NEW DEFINITION OF ROLE If SNCC takes on the role of becoming just organizers of Freedom

Demooratio Parties, of "roodnm Sohoo] a, of CoTwiv^iOy Centora, of Student Unions, in articulating the program of SNCC we say that SNCC itself has changed its role. It is now basically a set of organizers and tbpt some of the things it is trying to organize are student unior. in the South, Freedom Democratic Parties, Freedom Schools, voter regis tration campaigns, community centers, maids unions, women's organiza­ tions, the unemployed, the employed, the youth and the old people. Paper on the salary__structure of the Student Nonviolent C oprdinat ing C ommitt ee c

In the early days before 196,1 the spirit of the student revolt led to a prevailing viex-/ that too much orp;aniEational structure was not necessary and the loose organizational form with only one or two people working full time did not necessitate vigorous fund raising, although that problem is always xtfith an organization. Then too, the various local units comprising the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee were often well financed. For instance, the Nashville Student Movement and the Atlanta Student Movement had f extf financial problems in the first two years of their exist- : ence.

When the SNCC decided it won ted astaff, it also agreed that money has the tendency to corrupt peoole, that those of us working in SNCC should not attempt to view our work as,-a job but rather as a dedication to aworthy cause, that it was better to work for this cause without a large pay scale, that in fact we should begin working for forty ($Li.O) dollars a week. We were sixteen at that point and only txjo of those sixteen were married. It was agreed by all, that married people should receive sixty dollars a week. I was asked to administer this payroll, without knowing if In fact we would have money from week to week to meet the payroll. We did some weeks and we did not other x^ieeks. The lack of funds In the spring of 1962 became so acute that at a mooting in June 1962, it was decided to suspend the $i).0 a week mile and x^rhat money could be sent to the field should be sent. At that time we were In a $13,000 deficit which seemed like an awful lot of money to us, especially since we did not have the type of fx.mdraising machinery xtfe noxif have. We hobbled along during the summer x^ith a summer project of some four or five brave volunteers who were the pioneers and showed us, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, that It x^as possible to use Xorhite people in the deep south. They laid the foundation for the Mississippi Summer Project alon with many other bricklayers.

At the June, 1962 meeting of the Coordinating Committee it was decided that SNCC would send Field Secretaries to some five major northern cities: Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland. These cities were suggested because they have a high concentration of Negroes. Since a lot of what \4e do often goes Page 2-- Salary structure of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee* unnoticed, we felt that development Of offices in these cities X\rould act as a propaganda base as well as a fund raising source. They would also be able to put pressure on the news media, result­ ing in more and better coverage. Also the existence of these Northern Offices would create, we hoped, some pressure on the ad­ ministration in Washington. These projections turned out to be correct and we now have (8) staffed Friends of SNCC groups In Northern cities. They have been of inestimable help in providing financial, material and political support for our work. By the fall of 1962 we x^rere getting some money In Mississippi from the Voter Education Project, Theoretically all the staff was .• suppose to get $25 a week. In reality the money was pooled and i-' spent where needed. We were struggling simply to survive"in those days and \ie were forced to pinch pennies. In Mississippi there existed among the band of brothers a spirit of trust in the ad­ ministrative ability of Moses and a willingness on the part of all the brothers and(sisters) to sacrifice in order to try to get the programs off the ground. (I remember in the late xtfinter of 1962 we bought tiro new cars, the first new cars SNCC had ever oWned^and we bought them on time.) The emergence of the Voter Education Project led to a newproblem in SNCC, We could make the money go further if we all chipped in. We had to face the problem we could not all get the $1+0 a week. It x^ras then decided at the Executive Meeting that we should still try to work on the basis of needs, but that we should fix some limits. We decided that every­ one In the organization should receive at least ten dollars a week and if he were single should not receive more than $J_(.5> a week. Married people should receive a maximum of $65 a x-^eek with ten dollars for each child. (It should be pointed out that a critical time in the history of the organization—the summer of 1962--we lost the services of Julian Bond because he x^as married and his wife x%Bob Moses and I. listened to t heir story. It was reporte bact to an Executive Committee and the desision x^ras confirmed they should get this person. Now for Miss Peck. During the summer of I96I4. they x^anted to put on another person, a person with consider­ able experience. Most of t hem would be axiay for the summer and fel a need to have fundraising on the special gift level during those months. Ju^ia Prettyman the Administrator of the New York office, agreed, to their hiring Miss Peck, conferred with me later and I substantiated this decision. This was atemporary appointment and in terms of parties which she initiated and followed through on it as Vv n 1. worth the investment. In the fall the fund raisers reque ea that Miss P«ok continue on the staff since she had proven to be an excellent fund raiser... Page ij.--Salary structure of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Concerning the rest of the staff in New York, x^e formed an emergency personnell committee in New York consisting of Julia Prettyman, Coxartland Cox, Marlon Berry, Joanne Grant of the Nexj York Steering Committee and myself and reviewed applications for jobs for that office. It was in a state of crisis in that people had to be found to handle certain decisions. This Committee agreed to hire those people you see listed at the salary level indicated. A special word should be said about Elizabeth Sutherland xtfho was -formerly an editor with the Nation and with Simon Schuster. She comes highly recommended, for the job as Administrator of the Nextf York office. That office is basically a fund raising office and has payed its dues to this organization. However, she accepts a drastic cut In her present income to work with us, just as many of us have done. It was felt that since she stated this was the minimum for which she could work the committee should, hire her.

In general I think the concept of subsistence wages is an important concept. It Is very difficult to administer If we are not x^illing to recognize that from plaae to place the need for higher or lower subsistence wages will vary. It is also impossible to administer If we are not prepared to accept the premise that for certain things or particular skills we may have to pay people wages which they will ordinarily earn in the labor market. This is the case with our accountant and bookeeper, the former earns less with us than she could otherx^ise. The latter said she had to earn her present salary or otherwise she would have to go back to teaching. We simply could not afford to loose her at that time. I have tried to present for your information what I think are not­ able exceptions to our concept of subsistence. Also I have triedto present some history of how the pay scale developed. Conclusion My recommendauion for the entire report for all the material in my "historical and analytical War & Peace", isthat we review it, , """.uss it, criticize It, close ranks and move forward, the band of brothers we ttr«i STUDENT NONVIC LENT 'COORDIM./TING COMMITTEE 360 NELSON STREET, § W ATLANTA 14, GEORGIA l DI*CC N-EV/C SERVICE •- ,., MAY 31, 1966

. f I REVIEW OF THE DIRECTION OF SNCC- "B A ST AND FUTER

by IVANHOE DONALDSON

{This is a transcript of a speach prepared and delivered by Mr. Donaldson at the May SNCC staff conference. There have been many misconceptions abroad about what occured at the staff conference, largely purpetrated by a hostile press* Unfortunately, many of the friends of SNCC have been confused and misinformed by articles appearing in the New York Times, Washington Post* Los /:ngeles Tines, Herald Dispatch, Atlanta, Inquirer etc. We hope that this transcript of one of the major presentations at the staff conference will clarify the position of SNCC on the questions of "nationalism", "integration", "independent politics", and "community action". This paper is not an extensive discussion of SNCC history or program; it is not meant to.be. It is, rather, a discussion of the political thrust and dir­ ection of SNCC in the past and futer.)

I wrote out sort of a prepared statement. I'm

not going to talk about urbanorganizing as ju.st a u

independent extancy. I can come back, if after what

I've said, people are interested in talking about that.

One is I think that kind of bag (inaudible) I want the presentation to act as a review. The organization needs

a review of its own motion a-n d all I've done in this paper is that I've gone over what in fact I think we are and what I think that direction is.

I think it's important that we begin to revolve around

s ome kind, of program that represents SNCC itself even though people work in independent things and not that the organization talks about soical change that its got to begin to visualize so me concept of a direction,.

It's important that Marion*be here since he's operation inside that Free D.C. movement and that Bill Hall has

s o me ideas...

*Marion Barry is the director of the Washington SNCC office and the Free DC movermnt for home rule in Washing ton, D.C. page two-Direction of SNCC

Other people who are working in cities. I think it's

important in terms of Julian's campaign, what happens

to Little Rock, Pine Bluff, Greenwood, Jackson, in the

cities because I think they represent, you know, the basis

for some kind of dramatic change in this country.

I'll throw out ideas in this paper. I think that

urban organizing programs have to be brought up in

that other, context because I rase serious, question about

all the organizing SNCC is doing. . r

What I'm talking about is just my own attitude and

I'm talking about it because I'm trying to find out

(inaudible) I think we all have to begin to find out • *. - _ •; • » T where we relate to what we call SNCC. You know, we're

doing a lot of different things an d I think it's an important period, given the situation of the world and the situation •I of this country. (/. t this point, Donaldson begins reading

from a prepared text.)

The movement has entej-ed a. now-phas© and perhaps

a critical period. With the passage of the Civil Right

Bill, the Voting Bill, the Economic Opportunity Act, the Supreme Court Ruling on Reaportionment, our system M . .• • i i ""•" • •'.(-.'• . ..'•.,' a f •! :t i •: has begun to muddle and make hazy issues we fought ' • r . :•! : ' • :..:.-; r i ;: ;:'; r :';"•;. so hard to clarify. So though we understand the proposition that man is born free and yet everywhere he is in chains, how we begin to defind and act on that is the main issue we have to deal with at this conference.

The first thing I need to say is that SNCC is very ., ... . j impo rtant--its relationship to raising questions and acting on issues in this country, I think th at S NC C i s an odd type of animal, Although almost invisible to the American public it stands probably as the only true page three-- Direction of EN'CG ... • ;.;.../> :,

independent force in this country at this time and this place in history. However, don't misunderstand me. I'm

not saying CNCC is the force that's to bring about freed- ,

om. I don't think that at all. But on the basis of its

radical mystique, other large institutions go into motion

around the issues We raise ah.d I think that's adequately

true in our history. I think it's important we understand

our history. I'll just give points of my interpretation.

.Although CORE initiated the Freedom Rides, if the

students from Nashville and Atlanta Hadn't come down the rides would have ended and I think we have to understand that. Given the motion of the early days in the south--I remember that SDS with Tom Kayden did

come down and produce that pamphlet. SDS gets a lot of its motion on the fact that there is motion, but they

get more visibility. And I think all of the present motJon

''•*•' ''"•'••••• , in this country pan find its roots within the energy! of

students and I think that CNCC has defined the energy of student s --not'-'fhat I'm saying CNCC has defined that motion. I don't deal with the Montgomery boycott,

so I think that they're all relative in the development

of motion. For that matter even going on b a ck to

Garvey and Douglas, etc. But I'm talking about the

60s and the main thing I'm talking about is changing the establishment,

We feel we're an independent political force.

We need to talk about that afterward that we need to define the problems and develope radical actions around issues. In the past we e s t abli she d sort of va gue concepts

of goals: tlae development of an interacial democracy in this country, of the right of people to participate page four—Direction of SNCC

in decisions that effect their lives, the development of •[ c black leadership, pockets of power-— par ticular "* y in the deep ,

south, /the development of people/ who are able to move

toward these goals with well defined programs /such as/

the demand for integrated public accnaodations, particularly

the right to vote, one man one vote. But recent court actions have ill but phased these particular problems out, even though they're visible to us. I mean the handwriting's on the wall in terns of the right to vote. In terns of the issues we moved around to particularly dramatize the over-all goals.

We nay understand those things nay never really cone about. In these tines it is impossible to raise those particular issues in this country.

So we have some specific success, but the oVerall brutal nature of the American community still exists. So

I think in this new phase we have to zero in on the problem, -i to coin a new space age tern* In zeroing in on i*ne prcbien

I would like to suggest that i?e act on three iavelSs one> through nationalismi , two, connuriity wide action, and three through internationalism.

I recognize that historicaly we've always icted on these levels. All I'm d^in" is redefining our history and redefining what I think is our present notion. Although

I'm going to talk about these levels as definded entities, in reality they overlap. For exanple: nationalism helps organize in the black community. ; ,:

It is important that this group reviews what we are and defines its futuer notion. We have to understand nationalism in its positive ferns and its inportance and its reality in this connunity and the world community and what people do with it, nanely the white press.

Community wide action, I think, politicaly is our most important area and its yexions parts, as I said before. page five— Direction of SNCC

/Speaking of/ independent or 3rd party politics, I think that the black panther party in Alabama and Julian Bond's campaign in Atlanta are healthy methods to begin, to crack open the system. We understand the MFDP and its context of driving of wedges within the establishment we talk about.

I think the whole question of independent politics and what it means needs to be defined within this organization and we need to go out and build whatever that definition becomes. That we agree that this motion which we've always clone --Smith's campaign in Mississippi in'62 was independent politics, the King campaign in. Albany was independent politics, even the A. A, Rander

campaign in Chicago was independent politics given the context in which these independent things took pla.ce. Given another context they can be defined other ways.

Having white organizers to go into the white community to work, I think is very important but I think the context in which they go in to work is also important. I think the white o ganizcrs should go into the white commun­ ity to teach Afro-American history. The white organizers have to go into the white community to organize the white community around black needs, a round black history, the relative importance of blackness in the world today.

That's a level--not an entire thing in itself.

There should also be community action with black (inaudible) such as welfare demands and s upporting of independent candidates. I think that all these levcls--they overlap, but inside the overlaping people do different kinds of things.

I think we have to begin to talk about the market economy and more visible ways of community organizing. But we can not begin to talk about changing this system without defining it. I define it as the market economy or the market system, I just use that word--the wo cl is capitalism.

The American way of life is embodied in the operation of a market economy. A market economy mean's all elements--labor, land , capital necessary to bring goods to the market were bought and sold similar to that of commodities. page six--Direction of SNCC

There, so called commodities were exchanged in contractual

terms; labor for wages, land for rent, capital for interest—for the sole

purpose of the financial gain of the parties involved. Inherent in this

arrangement are a conflict of interest because each party tries to maximize his gain.

Due to the organization of the market system, poverty is systematicaly produced. Labor is bought and sold on a sporadic basis according to supply

and demand. Even if every laborer could negotiate a fair contract, it could be terminated at a ny time. Because of this arrangement, the narket system is exclusive. I think we must understand the market system and the fact that we can not organizae within the market system because this nature of it,

I feel, because of the vary nature of it, all we do in fact is reinforce what it is. Because of these two limits, the movement of the poor must continue to drift between demands for reform and total ©position to tho system, beooming neither strickly reformist or totaly radical.

We need to spend more energies organizing urban areas. Although

SNCC has gotten all of its experience and understanding of the power

structure and other political forms from organizing in the rural areas of the southland, the rality is that 70% of Americans live an urban life and that the major conflicts of interest are taking place in the cities. The cities are the political terrain of the n at on and its power is moving very fast.

Cur political task then be,gins with not only bringing political power to the rural south but confronting the cities confidently as the place of

American life and to seek its political foundation.

And finaly is what I call the international level. There's that old

It seems to me we need to raise the questions of why th. U.S. is involved in the murdering and (inaudible) of governments all over the non-white world. We need to organize protest auctions: both against th>a page seven—Direction of SNCC

war in Vitnam and against the draft. We need to develope programs to

support black resistance in South Africa., and develope strong coalitions with students of the third world.

We need to become students of world history in sorre senses understand the implications of the assassination of Malcolm X in its internafcbonal realm, the frustration of the Hungarian and Spanish revolts which I think are very relevant when you talk about change in the U.S., the development of political motion in the West Indies which is right off our coast (and not just Cuba). But how many of us know what's going on on those other little islands right off the coast of this country? understand the developm nt of political theory in Africa, and in China.

All I'd like to say is thai SNCC is no more than the sum of its parts.

I guess I can apply that definition to the American system. Th e only way it's going to change is '.f we change it. And from that something that represents to me, I think, the mood of a lot of black tccn,-ig<;is on. thr- «t*«»«•••« of this country are th . words from Toba,cco Road a-nrl juot tho'" simple verso that Bays, "Bring dynamite in a crane. Blow it up. Tear it down and start all over again. I'll build me a. town I'll be p

And I think if you're talking about the mood of where people are in this country, acertain group of people, I think thai represents their mood because that's what they want to do. You know. They want to tear it down. Blow it up and build again. And I think that in that respect we have to begin to define what it is we want to sec don in this country and how tha,t relates to what other people are trying to do in other counties. That's why I think it's important we build rela.ti on ships with students of the third world and not with governments of the third world. Because I think they have their ' own internal frustrations in building their countries and inside of thoce government; are students (although in some respects those governments are healthier than what we have here) struggling even to make those work. page eight--Direction of CNCC

V/c have to have continuity and I think that's very important.

Now from today's conversation I've pulled out a few things that I think

we must begin to think of ourselves as guerrillas. A lot is to be learned

from by actions in other countires in past histories. I think we have to build

a resistance movement in this country. It's like living in. occupied France in World War II. It wasn't an outsider--it*8 French citizens who tried to bring some semblance of healthiness to their country. We have to begin

to define what the resistence is that and what is is we're trying to do in thist country.

I don't want to begin to deal with the problem of the group dynamics of SNCC and the dynamics of its history untill the many facits of my project and your project or what we didn't do in Albany or what we should've done in

Selma in 1962 or whether the Free DC movement is good o bad. Now one of the things we can do as a grucup is to review where we've been and decide on some kind of contiunity as to where we're going. Th the Alabama program

(I'm sorry Stokely's not here because I think it'a important to talk about organizing in the cities plus the question then becomes what do you organise

around and what do you organize to do ?) Do you have people in jail ? Do you bond them out or break them out ? The question is legitimate when you talk about raising market system dollars to give back to the market system because of the arrest of your freedom under the system and using a course

that will only go so far in the long run. I'm raising these ideas because I

think this is where I am and Pra trying to find out in terms of my own relations ip with SNCC and its own motion in the future. Because there are groups all

over the cournty who I thihk are willing to do things like hatchet the system

through radical, confrontation. Ther'o a group in called the

X arri their program is just demolish the building;downtown. They have

organized programs. They kick in store windows downtown. They don't

pay rent where they are, they raise a whole lot of holycost. They go to jail

and serve out their time because they havn't been able to deal with the

concept --well, you're at war and when you're at war you go get

your soldiers and bring them back. You don»t comprimise off of:'the esta- Unit VI: Material Things and Soul Things

Purpose: 1. to develop insights bout the inadequacies of pure materialism; 2. to develop some elementary concepts of a new society.

Summary: Starting with a questioning of whether the material things have given the "Power Structure" satisfaction, to raise the question of whether achievement will bring the Negro and/or poor white fulfillment. Then to explore whether the conditions of his oppression have given the Negro insights and values that contribute to the goal of a more humane society. And finally to develop this relevance intp some insights as to the characteristics of a new society." Materials: Statement of discipline of non-violent movements.

Introduction: The last few days we have been exploring in another world—different than the one we live in everyday—the world of the "power structure," and we have made some interesting discoveries: 1. That the "Power Structure" has a lot of power to make things just as they want them to be; 2. That the "Power Structure" has a lot of money that buys—big, luxurious houses, expensive cards, expen­ sive clothing, trips, and all the other things we see on TV and in the movies. But we've also discovered that— 3. The "Pox-irer Structure" is afraid of losing its power and its money; and U. The "Power Structure" is afraid of Negroes and poor whites finding out the "truth" and getting together. Ideas to be developed: 1. The possessions of men do not make them free. Negroes will not be freed by: a. taking what the whites have; b. a movement directed at materialistic ends only. 2. The structure of society can be altered. 3. While a radically new social structure must be created in order to give man the room to grow in, it is not the changing of structure alone that produces a good life or a good world. It is also the ethical values of the individual. U. There are many kinds of power x-re could use to build a new society. Concept: That just taking the "Power Structure's" money and poxirer would not make us happy either. We have seen that having money and power does not make Unit VI: Material Things and Soul Things - 2 the "power structure" happy. We have seen that they have to pay a price for it.

Questions: Would just taking their money and power away and keeping it ourselves make us happy? Wouldn't we have to be afraid and distrust people too? Itfouldn't"we have to make up lies to convince ourselves that we were right? Wouldn't xre have to make up lies to convince other people that we were right? Wouldn't we, too, have to keep other people down in order to keep ourselves up?

Suppose you had a million dollars. You could buy a boat, a big car, a house, clothes, food,.and many good things. But could you buy a friend? Could you buy a spring morning? Could you buy health? And how could we be happy without friends, .health, and spring?

This is a freedom movement: suppose this movement could get a good house and job for all Negroes. Suppose Negroes had everything that the middle class of America has ... . everything the rest of the country has . . . would it be enougliC Why are there heart attacks and diseases and so much awful unhappiness in the middle class ... which seems to be so free? Why the Bomb?

Concept: That the structure of society can be changed. Discussion of a possible new society.

1. Money—should a few people have a lot of money, should everybody have the same, should everybody have what they need? What could we do?

2. Jobs—should men be able, to work at any job they can do and like, regardless of color, religion, nation­ ality? Suppose a man were put out of a job by auto­ mation (like the mechanical picker?), what should happen to him? Should he just sit around? Should he be trained for a new job? Who can train him? When he is old, should he have to depend on his family or be poor? Should he be helped when he is old? Why? Should all workers join together if they wish? Should they share in.the profits? Why?

3. Housing—should every family be able to live x-rhere they wish to live, regardless of race or religion? Why? Should.every family have a decent home? Should it have heat, a kitchen,.a bathroom, hot water, nice . furniture? Why does the kind of house a family has effect their family life? Suppose a family does not have enough money? Does a family have a basic right to good housing?

ho Health—should all people have a right to receive the same medical services regardless of religion or race or money? Should all people be able to receive what­ ever medical services they need regardless of how rich or poor they are? Why? Should people who need special care receive it? Why? From whom? Unit VI: Material Things and Soul Things - 3

S>. Education-should all children be able to go to the same schools regardless of their race or religion? Should all children have the right to get as much education as they are capable of? Suppose they can't afford to go to saecial high schools or to college? Should they still be able to go? Hox-o? Who should pay?

What should be taught in schools? Do we teach myths and lies? Why? Should xre? Should we train people for jobs in schools? To be good citizens? What else should we train people for? culture, resourcefulness, world citizenship, respect for other people and cultures, peace.

What about teaching adults? Should they have a chance too? Should it be free? Should they be able to go to special schools if necessary?

6. Legal—should the laws and the courts treat all people the same? Should the laws be more concerned xd.th protect­ ing the property a man has or the man himself? Why?

7. Political system—should every man have the right to vote? What if he cannot read? Should he still have the right to vote and choose his representative? Should politicians have a right to give out favors? Can they be honest in this system? Suppose people can get good housing, jobs, he health services, etc. in other ways . . . will they need political favors?

8. Mass media—should newspapers, TV, magazines tell the truth? Should that be their basic job? Should they have to support themselves by advertising? How else could they get enough money? -

9. International relations—how should we vrant to treat other countries? Should we want them to be just like us? Should we help them if we have more than they do? Should we work for peace? Can we have peace if we keep building bigger bombs and faster planes (what does fear do, threats? x*hat about children fighting . . .)

10. Cultural life—are artists, actors, musicians and writers important? Why? Should art and acting and music and writing be considered xrork? Should there be free concerts and free plays for everyone to see? Why?

Concept: It is not simply the changing of the structure that will make a good world, but the ethical values of the indivi­ dual.

What if men were just naturally bad to each other—if they didn't care about each other? Would it matter about the structure of society? Are men good to each other because of laws? What is an ethical value? atorial Things .and Soul Things Discuss !,do unto otheric- ,.s you would have them do unto you. •."'.' Do you have a set of values? Are so- aietv's jaws enough? Are your own personal "laws" importants too? Arc they ever more important than society *s laws? Is the movement the germ of a .new society? How do Case people act toward each other in the movement? How Study; do people act toward each other in Freedom School? Statements How does this way of life differ from the way of of discip­ life of.the larger society? We must keep these line of good ethical and spiritual values in the new non­ society which we build. violent movements. Concept? That therce are many kinds of power we could use.to build a better society. What is power? (Power is the ability to move things.) What kinds of power arc there? Discuss. Mississippi Physical Power Freedom Movement Police state _(Power to coerce Federal intervention Intimidation or frighten) Political Power One party. (Power to influence) Vote , _No vote . __ Convention challenge "Unjust laws. Negro candidates. Economic -owcr Citizens Council (Power to bu;_.;. \ Boycott c ontro1, banks, Strikes jobs, etc,

Do these •:-,->--. II balance each other? Do they suc­ ceed in "bringing Lhe twe sides together or do they tend to pull apart? kre there other kinds of power? • " Truth Power (Power to convince or persuade) Does persuasion pull people apart? Is it different kind of power? Can we use truth to reveal the li^s and myuhs? What happens once *:-hey are revealed? Once someone is convinced or persuaded, can they join with us? Is the better world for them too? Soul ?ow(jr (The power"to love) Can you hove everyone like yo** love your family or your friends? What does compassion mean? Is that a kind of love? Is there something in other people that is like what is in you? Can soul "oower change things? How? • ; some notes on education

I have been thinking about this: Mrs. Hamer is more educated than I am. That is — she knows more.

But, not if knowledge is a lot of different information, not if knowledge is exolaining that information in many different ways: explaining in politically, or it terms of history. Not if knowledge means a lot of different facts in my heed*

Not if knowledge means being ready to get a job in the machine society. Not if knowledge is knowing abort injustice, becuase I know ^'hat, too. I know what is unjust, I know what to say in Atlantic ^ity or Washington. I know the things I feel and the words to speak. I know what every citizen deserves. I know what every human being dieserves.

She knows too. But she knows something else. What does she know?

She knows that she is good.

If she didn't know that, she couldn't get up and sing the way she sings. She wouldn't sfoand there, with her head back and singl She couldn't speak the way that she speaks and the way she speaks is this: she announces 1

I do not announce. I apologize.

I am a poet. I write very beautiful poems and many people love the poems. But a poem, and anything someone feels deeply, must bespoken, announced. I give my poems to people and let them read the poems. I should stand up and announce the poems. A poem, in this revolution, is like an announcement; it is an announcement about truth and justice, hunger and cold, and about caring for people. We have to shout these things. We have to announce theml

I cannot announce. There is something inside me... and it is IN rather than MISSING FROM MF. Something inside me that makes me hide in all kinds of ways.

I am proud of the poems. I know that they are good. People who rea^ them say t they are good. I know it in myself, I trust the poems, I trust my mind which, after all, produced the poems. If I did not trust the poems, I wouldn't give them to people to real.

BUT THERF IS SOMETHING WRONG. THERE IS SOMETHING I DO MOT-TRUST. MD TT MAKE'. ME HIDE. It makes me hide in a strange way. A physical wayl I sit in the corner instead of in the middle of the room. My hands shake. My throat closes up. My chest gets tight. Why? Why? Why?

Becuase somehow I don't trust part of myself. I DON'T LIKE PART OF MYSELF. That's why I hide it. Mrs. Hamer never hides. She knows more than I know. She knows she is good. And somehow — I think I am not good. I am not worth while. Even thought I have worthwhile things to say, even though somebody ask; me to say them, even though I am sick and tired of people being silent, sick and tired of injustice and suffering.

I still cannot announce. She can announce. I believe that is because she is not ashamed of herself, of her body, of herstrong voice, of anything about her. I believe she is not ashamed because she knows she is goodl BUT HOW DOFS SHE KNOW? Did she leann it in school? From SNCC? Or maybe it is that I 'know' something. Maybe I was taught soemthing. MAYBE I WAS TAUGHT THAT I WAS BAD. 2 some notes on education

I believe th"s self-hiding and apologizing is true of many people. Even when they have plenty to say, the words with which to say it, the sense of justice which demands that it be said, and the knowldege (intellectually) that they have the absolute right to say it.

And I believ3 this ability to announce which Mrs. Hamer has - is part of what drain the * intellectual' to her. And I believe she knoxvs more. She knows she is good.

Not because Negroes are good. That is meaningless. Because human beings are good. More universal than race, and far more personal than race...altho her strength in announcing is related to being Negro in some sense. For one thing, additional confidence stems from the presence of justice 'on our side', from the history of victories now, from the determination to be free as Negro, from the fact that everything she tells is absolutely true.

But - why can't we all be announcers? We know the facts, and we have the deter­ mination (or do we) to be free.

She knows. She knows she is good.

How does she knoxv? Did she learn it in school? Did she learn it from SNCC? Does she really know it?

Or do we 'know' something else? Did we learn something else in the schools, and the cities end towns?

Were we taught something she wasn't taught? Perhaps taught that we are bad.'

The question is not now whether we are hung-up. I think that is clear. We, staff. We, poets. We, Americans. We, intellectuals.

I know that I am. And the question is not whether release is desirable. It certainly is. My poems are only.half poems - and I only half free. I want to be free. I want to announce these poems, because they are true and good and beauti­ ful. ..and I must 'know' that I am also.

The questions are - some of them anyxvay:

Why Mrs. Hamer announces and I don't? Where did she learn this and I didn't? Is it learned? Or is its opposite learned? Is goodness a given? Badness a lesson? Why did she survive learning badness?

What can we do?

I believe goodness is given. Man is good. Children allowed to grow freely at home, freely in their society - freely, meaning naturally - do NOT learn shame. It does not matter that the sider society is telling them they are bad. It really does not matter as much as other things matter. If it did, then northern intellectual middle class Negroes would be less hung-up than Mississippi Negroes and, in their personal lives, I believe they are much more hung up, more apt to apologize, to be unable to announce. Why?

We were born 'pood' - able to announce, to be physically free as far as physical slavery is psychological and not physical (jails).

If we are born 'good', then 'badness' is taught. Shame is learned. I learned it.

Mrs. Hamer did not learn it in spite of beinp a Negro in the Delta of Mississippi.

It is learned somewhere else. The question is - where did I go that she did not go, learn what she did not learn - shame - so that, in this sense, she knows more. She knows that she is good.

I went into society. I was there. And that is where I learned that I was bad. Bad: not racially inferior, not socially shameful, not guilty as white southerner, not 'culturally deprived,' not unequal as woman...but Bad.

Personal, separately, individually BAD. It had very little to do with racial guilt, just as Mrs. Hamer's personal 'goodness* has little to do with being Negro. Race adds to, it does not cause this kind of personal - I am good, I_ am bad. 3, Some notes on education, cont., . . .. Society - the whole thing. Which works so incredibly well, so subtly, so totally that it is almost impossible to trace the course of learning badness.

... . • - • Each person has to dig into his own special history. We can merely talk . about some, of the institutions which taught us shame;— some taught better than others because they captured us first, or at the most Vulnerable time,', or more' subtly. • -.'-'"/' Every institution has worked with every other institution to see that we are completely smashed t> as ourselves. It does not follow that replacing these with new instutituions will prevent this recurring: an instutition is, by nature, un-natural. Selves are natural; community is natural. I don't want to talk about the necessity of instutitions, because I just don't know whether that is so or not. I want to talk about some institutions which helped to smash me..

the family: Suffice it to say, because my mother did- not receive Enough love and was also smashed by the-time I-was born, she'did not give me enough. It is not her fault, things happened, in the family, which taught shame. Little things- like not being told.where babies come from and being made to feel 'bad' for even asking, like sex is hidden and shameful, it is shameful to run outside without clothes, it is 'wrong' to play with this child and instead you must play with that child and, at age siJK, you must stop playing with the cook's little boy - he is not only male, he is black/ So we grew,, to use a term, in insectmity. and-guilt. • ' the school: and we tremble in fear the first day. the public school system in America is so horrible, so seek, so damaging that many never recover. The first battle is between teacher and khiId, Usually, she is'teaching because she doean't have anything else to do and is undeipaid, under-rated, smashed. The child must pay for her"frustratipns. Second battle is between conformity and creativity. It is for the most part, only a skirmish. Few children will ask cretive questions, or act naturally, more than four or five times. If you are bored.with reading DICK AND JANE and say so, op. twist in your seat, or drop your pencil - you've had it. And in addition to smashing your nature, you learn very soon something is wrong with you to ask sucK questions in the first place and confusion sets in@ conformity and shame. It's one or the other. No matter what you feel, you must act the opposite way — assuming you have the natural feelings left.

I used to throw up in class once a week. And my brother, by third grade, had a severe stomach ulcer. He was seven years old. Of Course! And we were not exceptional! the church: seems to exist because of an idea that man is evil and must atone for that evil. And, to continue . to exist, must disseminate that idea.

.. , • *. The problem is — you cannot atone. You were born bad. That is "original sin" and no matter what you do, you are a sinner.

Even little babies are sinners. Irregardless of the degree of fundamentalism, every religion that I ever heard of, is based on some aspect of the doctrine of man's eveil nature. U. Some notes on education, cont.,

For this reason, without pretending to be subtle, the church is a fully accredited anti-human, Inhuman institution. It exists because man Is bad.

I enter high school.! am almost finished. I have learned to mistrust every single feeling I have, and to repress these feelings, and to act in the rpposite way. So, I am guilty, repressed, and mae or less schizoid.

I join clubs. Madfe grades. Go to college for. the finishing touches and everyth ngi is reinforced with the additional factor that now I am finally doing something "worthwhile."

I am not worthwhile, but college is - sol I give it all. I've got. Maybe it will compensate for my badness. I,emerge, I crawl out, clutching a diploma, a trFnscript,va strange accumulation of meaningless data, a place in society. I fit exactly. I was made to fiti . Sometimes I wiggle and stretch. I gdt smashed. After all the gnades and honors, I am still guilty. Made to feel shame. I .stop wiggling. Or, at best, finally, I outcast myself - but the self I outcast has its scras. I write (never announce' T adComplish (never live), I relate (never touchJ, I am witty (not joyful), and freedom is a kind of Historical concept about people and governments, unrelated to me. •••-•-, • <, ' I DO NOT KNOW I AM NOT FREE.

And my fellowmen have no remote idea what produces their concerns and migraines, their ulcers and-sterilities, frigidities,; and crack-ups ... and donH want to know;

So we build bombs. We are fairly confident that we are under control, but you can't be' too sure about the Russians. And, even about us, nowadays, so we girdle ourselves with HUAC-FBI-CIO and nothing breaks forth .... which can't be easily-covered again.

I learned! was bad, that something was wrong with me. Once I ceally learned it, I lc.aor.ed it ever and: ever. Having too much shame to read the poems, I do not read the poems and the-*- I am ashamed for not reading the poems and so it goes and it is a statement of miraculous and beaufiful man that he has survived at all!. I was there. Mrs. Hamer was not there. Not in. And it is very ironic that segregation, in a very real sense, freed the Negro from a society which enslaves the self. Segregatio n, separation, denial of choice, feelings of inferiority, hunger, poverty - are negative. To keep someone way from society is negative... .:. BUT THE SOCIETY IS ALSO NEGATIVE. Society, in and of itself was and is NOT '" desirable, WKS and is destructive. The right to choose is desirable, and essential.

I learned shame. Somehow, the shame was directly related to my physical self.

That is why I cannot announce. Reach out* Which is the aame thing.

V 5>. some notes on education, cont.,

And that is why we lack full power. That is why the poems are less than they really are. nd the movement, And the staff..

And the", (lack of full power of selves due to shame) THAT IS HOW AMERICA has' dcs „'royed what SNCC might have been.

HUAC did not need to come to Atlanta. Ml we had to' do was to refuse to break out, to smash out, of what we had learned at home, in'school, and in SNCC, the Instutitionl ,. ,... ANd that is tragic.

The maintaining of SNCC for its won sake, the creation of an institution, the maintaining of an institution, the party line, the values, the • isolation of each other, of non-SNCC people, the judgments, the conformity, the rigid refusal to burst is because enough people in SNCC are afraid to be free!

Absolutely threatened.by the possibility of becoming free and that is why,.' enough people in SNCC prefer "revolution" to freedom. We don't want to be free. We are afraid to be free. We don't know what it means to; be free. It's almost unknown,. We fear the unknown and, at the same time, we have-an inkling that freedom would be good. ,. '[.-•"•' But we are bad.- -. • • - , ...... , Freedc would be fun.

But we are bad, • .•' • ..

We are a protestant culture, guilty. We are bad. We do not deserve freedom. We aust atone. Be solemn, atone, Be somebody, clutch power. Be SNCC, hold . tight .... but do not be free.. • .- : .-.. . .

SNCC is afraid to be free, but the people of Mississippi are not afraid to be frei! .

And Mrs. Hamer knows more th^an I. •• .•;."••.,. ;. .,,,.

What else? The negative - being kept away from society - is'strengthened by positive elements: Negroes maintained a closeness with the earth (whihh is of course ironic),.with .physical earth; a closeness with each other in the sense of community developed out of dependence, some of which is very desir­ able in spite of ,the 'self-sufficiency ethic; a matriarchal sociey, which while it must not negate the man, will be proven to be a better and healthier structure; the strength of boing poor.

All of these have ambiguities. Obviously. And I have a poem which goes... at the end? "poverty ... negates; the streny+b. af being poor"

And another poem:: 6. some notes on education, cont.

' -•' • '-"'•-.'• ..-:• .. -.-- • --; .-.. when people dont have anything • .---. .,.,- . they have community I have walked alone --.-.• • f^ children ran i to me at mm • I have stood alone t'f-Ji . • and feathers fell

when my hands ./-v. <<„:.. were empty ...h :'• they were , held Mrs. Hamer knows that she is good. She does not believe she is bad. She is not afraid to announce. She is not afraid to be free. Because more than anything else, society did hot get the chance to teach her otherwise. Finally, I perhaps know something that she does not know. The fact that I know that she knows more, is to know something she does' not know. To stand up and sing is joy. To be aware of the self who stands up and sings joyfully - is an additional joy. That's all. To know justice and speak out is good and a joy. To know already what Camus said of justice is good and a joy. But to enjoy the clean prose of Camus is an additional joy. That's all.

i> .... We are good. To live is to experience that goodness with others and with earth; to be joyful, enjoy The 'good' education should increase joy. •' The 'good' education should allow us to know we are good and others are good and earth and music are good... because knowledge of goodness is an additional joy! ...... And we have ,the right to be free. Freedom is.good and we deserve it. We, too. .,'"'' •'" >"•-•::• •• .. .-•' I .. * . . ; ''•' • ...'-'....-.:.- . ;,- js Jane "Stembridge iJ ^W\ %HJ**^J&&j$^

Tho Missisalipi Summer .'rojeot

Tho Mississippi Summer Project in completed,, Bridgeheads were established in tho "cloned society of Mississippi, and this fall they will not be evacuated as some friends feared and opponents hoped; they will bo held and extended. "Tho Negroes of that state are never again going to be abandoned./' John Lawis, Chairman of SHCC, wrote in a letter to President Johnson. (The project was run by COPO, the Council of Federated Organizations, which is for all practical purposes SNCC, the 3 fcudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, aided by CORE). The Summer Project was not firhtinr* people but inequality and injustice; many of its participants have commented on the mood of love permeating it. Yet the images of warfare are not unjustified. The casualty list of the project1"' •* shows tho death of three staff workers and of five Misslssippiana connected with it; many wounded; at least twenty churches burned to the ground and considerable other property damage; the losses sustained by local supporters fired from their jobs 'or otherwise danagedj and the vast suns of ransom paid to tho local authorities (they called it bail ). The thousand volunteers ••- students, ministers, doctors, lawyers •»•> who came to work with the .rojeot staff have shown conspicuous bravery in tho face of the enemy, simply by sticking it out on a job Which started in June under a cloud of violence perpetrated by its opponents. In a popular movie of s ->me years ago, Bad Day at Black Rock," Spencer Tracy showed admirable courape ~>n tho screen by staying around in a"little town after soma local characters had told him, "get out by sunset or we'll kill you." Those same words wore spoken by roal-lifo villains to quite a number of young men and women freshly arrived from shootered camousea in Iowa or California, and they too stayed, almost as a matter of course. Local Negro children of twelve or thirteen, raised in the philosophy This paper was prepared by several members of the Atlanta Project, The Atlanta Project is an affiliate of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee which is working in the Vine Ci.ty area of Atlanta on urban ghetto organizing. The position paper is not official policy of SNCC, but represents the thinking of most individuals on the Atlanta Project and some other individuals in the civil rights movement.

The questions raised in this paper are not easy to articulate. Committment and honesty were necessary for people to take painful experiences and formalize them into the kind of thinking you will find here.

Be responsible about what is said. Be honest in your reactions to what is said. Try to evaluate the experiences you will be having in Mississippi in the light of this paper.

Starkly stated, this paper is asking you to consider at every moment of your presence in the Negro community, whether or not you should be there. Keep asking yourself why you are there, what you can learn, what tensions are created by your presence.

We will discuss this paper at the orientation to be held for all out-of-state resource teachers working with CDGM this summer. Any written reactions will be appreciated. PREFACE

In attempt:*ns? to analyse where the movement is going, certain questions have arisen as to the ''- t'ire roles Dialed by vjhite personnel. In order to make th:' s issue clearer, we have written a few paragraphs, stemming from our observations and experiences, which tJerve as a preview to a broader study on the subject.

The ansx^/ers to these questions lead us to believe that the form of white participation,, as practiced in the past, is nor-j obsolete0 Some of the reasons are as follows?

The inability of whites to relate to the cultural aspects of

Black soc'etv; attitudes that whites, consciouslv or unconscious­ ly, brin"- to Black com^uni ties about themselves (western superior­ ity) and about Black People (paternalism); inabilitv to shattdr white-sponsored coTim^'n't^ rrrrths of Blacv inferforitv and self- negation; inability to combat the views of the Black eommunitv that white or-anizers, bein^ "x-ihite", control Black organizers as puppets; insensitivity of both Black and white workers towards the hostility of the Black community on the issue of interracial

"relationships" (ses); the unwillingness of whites to deal with the roots of racism which lie within the white community; whites, though individual "liberal", are symbols of oppression to the

Black community -•- due to the collective power that whites have over Black lives.

Because of these reasons, which force us to view America through the eyes of victims, we advocate a coisc'ons change In the role of whites, which will be in tune with the developing self-conscious­ ness and self-assertion o^ the Afro-american oeople. .5

In concluding, we state that our position ^oes not stem from

"hatred" or "racism" against white people, but from a conscien­ \ tious effort to develop the best methods of solving our national problem. 3 The myth that the Negro is somehow incapable of liberating cJL himseif, is lazy, etc. came out of the American experience. In the books that children read, whites are always "good" ( good symbols are white ), Blacks are "evil" are seen as "savages" in movies, their language is referred to as a "dialect", and Black people in this country are supposedly descended from savages.

Any white person who comes into the Mov-«anent has these concepts in his mind about Black people, if only subconsciously. He cannot escape them because the whole society has geared his subconscious in that direction.

Miss America coming from Mississippi has a chance to represent all of America, but a Black person from neiflier Mississippi or New

York will ever represent America. So that white people coming into the

Movement cannot relate to the Black experience, cannot relate to the word "black", cannot relate to the "Nitty Gritty", cannot relate to the experience that brought such a word into being, cannot relate to chitterlings, hog's head cheese, pig feet, ham hocks, and cannot relate to slavery, because these things are not a part of their experience.

They also cannot relate to the Black religious experience, nor to the

Black church unless, of course, this church has taken on white manifestations,

Negroes in this country have never been allowed to organize them­ selves because of white interference. As a result of this, the ster­ eotype has been reinforced that Blacks cannot organize themselves.

The white psychology that Blacks have to be watched, also reinforces this stereotype. Blacks, in fact, feel intimidated by the presence of whites, because of their knowledge of the power that whites have over their lives. One white person can come into a meeting of Black people a.nd change the complexion of that meeting, whereas one Black person would not change the complexion of that meeting unless he was an obvious Uncle Tom, People would immediately start talking about

"brotherhood", "love", etc.; race would not be discussed.

If people must express themselves freely, there has to be a climate in which they can do this. If Blacks feel intimidated by whites, then they are not liable to vent the rage that they feel about whites in the presence of whites especially not the Black people whom we are trying to organize, i.e., the broad masses of Black people. A climate has to be created whereby Blacks can express themselves. The reason that whites must be excluded is not that one is anti-white, but because the efforts that one is trying to achieve cannot succeed because whites have an intimidating effect. Oft times the intimidating effect is in direct proportion to the amount of degradation that Black people have suffered at the hands of white people.

It must be offered that white people who desire change in this country should go, where that problem (of racism) is most manifest. That problem is not in the Black community. The white people should go into white communities where the whites have created power for the express of denying Blacks husnan dignity and self-determination.

Whites who come into the Black community with ideas of change seem to want to absolve the power structure of its responsiblity of what it is doing, and saying that change can only come through Black unity, which is only the worst kind of paternalism. This is not to say that whites have not had an important role in the Movement. In the case of Mississippi, their role was very key in that they helped give Blacks the right to organize, but that role is now over, and it should be.

People now have the right to picket, the right to give out leaflets, the right to vote, the right to demonstrate, the right to print.

These things which revolve around the right to organize have been accomplished mainly because.-oftthe entrance of white people into

Mississippi, in the summer of '64. Since these goals have now been ^> 3 accomplished, their (whites) role in the Movement has now ended.

What does it mean if Black people, once having the right to organize, are not allowed to organize themselves? It means that Black's ideas about inferiority are being reinforced. Shouldn't people be able to organize themselves? Blacks should be given this right. Further

(white participation) means in the eyes of the Black community that whites are the "bKftias" behind the Movement and Blacks cannot I function without whites. This only serves to perpetuate existing attitudes within the existing society, i.e., Blacks are "dumb", "unable to i i take care of business", etc. Whites are 'femart", the "brains" behind everything.

How do Blacks relate to other Blacks as such?' How do we react to Willie Mays as against Mickey Mantle? What is our response to

Mays hitting a home-run against Mantle performing the same deed?

Is our interest in baseball ordered by our appreciation of the artistry of the game, or is it ordered by the participation of Negroes in

Baseball? One has to come to the conclusion that it is because of

Black participation in baseball. Negroes still identify with the Dodgers because of Jackie Robinson's efforts with the Dodgers. Negroes would instinctively champion all-Black teams if they opposed ail- white or predominately white teams. The same principle operates for the Movement as it does for baseball: a mystique must be created whereby Negroes can identify with the Movement.

Thus an all-Black project is needed in order for the people to frs'2 themselves. This has to exist from the beginning. This relates to what can be called "coalition politics". There is no doubt in our minds that seme whites are just as disgusted v/ith this system as we are. But it is meaningless to talk about coalition if there is no one to align ourselves- with, • because of the lack of organization in the white communities. There can be no talk of "hooking-up" unless 4

Black people organize Blacks and white people organize whites. If

these conditions are met, then perhaps at some later date- and if we are going in the same direction- talks about exchange of personnel,

coalition, and other meaningful alliances can be discussed.

In the beginning of the Move-m ent, we had fallen into a trap whereby we thought that our problems revolved around the right to

eat at certain lunch counters or the right to vote, or to organize our c&

communities. We have seen, however, that the problem is much

deeper. The problem of this country, as we had seen it, concerned

old Blacks and old whites (and therefore) if decisions were left

to the young people, then solutions would be arrived at. But this

negates the history of Black people and whites. We have dealt

stringently with the problem of "Uncle Tom", but we have not yet

gotten around to Simon Legree, We must ask ourslves who is the

real viilian? Uncle Tbm or Simon Legree? Everybody knows

Uncle Tom, but who knows Simon Legree?

So what we have now (in SNCC) is a closed society. A clique.

Black people cannot relate to SNCC, because of its unrealistic, non

facial atmosphere; denying their experiences of America as a racist

society. In contrast, SCLC has a staff that at least maintains a

Black facade. The front office is virtually all-Black, but nobody

accuses SCLC of being 'racist".

If we are to proceed towards true liberation, we must cut ourselves

off from white people. . . We must form our own institutions, credit

unions, co-ops, political parties, write our own histories. IDne

illustrating", example, is the SNGC "Freedom Primer". Blacks

cannot relate to that book psychologically, because white people

wrote it and, therefore it presents a white viewpoint. V To proceed further, let us make some comparisons between the Black Movement of the ( early) 1900's and the Movement of the

1960's -- the NAACP with SNCC. Whites subverted the Niagra

Movement which, at the outset, was an all-Black Movement. The name of the new organization was also very revealing, in that it p.-~..

We are now aware that the NAACp has grown reactionary, is con­ trolled by the power-structure itself, and stands as one of the i.main roadblocks to black freedom, SNCC, by allowing the whites to remain in the organization, can have its efforts subverted in the same manner, i.e., through having 'them play important roles such as community organizers, etc. Indigenous leadership cannot be built with whites in the positions they now hold.

These facts do not mean that whites cannot help. They can part­ icipate on a voluntary basis. We can contract work out to them, but in no way can they participate on a policy-making level.

The charge may be made that we are "racists", but whites who are sensitive to our problems will realize that we must determine our own destiny. If persons insist on remaining because of their longevity, or because they have feelings that we are indebted to them.

We, as Black people, must re-evaluate our history, pur ideas of self, the world, Africa and her contributions to mankind. We must take the credit for our contributions to this society and to the world. Credit will be given to white people where it is due, but surely out contributions must be given credit. These myths ( of inferiority and "savagerjl ) must be broken by Black people, so that no mistake can be made about who is accomplishing what for whom. This is one way to break the myths.

As to the charge of "Black racism", as against white supremacy: we can say that the racial makeup of any organization does not anake it racist, -i.e., supreme court makeup of all white judges, Black churches and Black businesses being all Black. The naming of the newspaper, "Nitty-Gritty", which served to polarize the feel­ ings of race, illustrated in a very graphic manner the attitudes that whites have towards cultural aspects of our society. The whites were opposed to the name and Blacks were affirmative on the issue. The alternative was the "Atlanta Voice" surely such a name could not speak to the needs of grass-roots Black people. Black people can say to the "Nitty-Gritty": I can see myself there. Can say to Mays hitting a home run: I see myself there. Can say to the Atlanta Project: I see myself there! Q I In an attempt to resolve an Internal crises that ir now confr ntin- SNCC, the Black-":hite issue ( which is causing eruptions that ar--~ seriously hampering our struggle for self- determination ) must now be dealt with. In an analysis of our history in this country, we have boon forced to come to the conclusion that J4OO years of oppression and slavery suffered In this country by our Black forebears parallels in a very graphic way the oppression and colonization suffered by the African people. Hie questions can be rightfully asked, what part did the white colonizers play in the liberation of independent African Nations; who were the agitators for African independence? Answers to those questions compel us to believe that our struggle for liberat­ ion and self- determanation c-nn o:~ly be carried out effect­ ively by Black people. The necessity of dealing with the question of Identity is of prime importance in our own struggle. The systematic destruction of our links to Africa, the cultural cut-off of Blacks in this country from Blacks In Africa are not situat­ ions that conscious Black people in this country are willing to accept. For are conscious Black people in this country willing to accept an 'ducational system that teaches all aspects of western civilization and dismisses our .^fro- American contribution with one week of inadequate information (Negro History VJeek) and deals with Africa not at all. Black people are net willing to align themselves with a western culture that daily emasculates our beauty, our pride and our manhood. It follows that white people boing part of western civlcization in a way that Black people could never be are totally indequate to deal with Black identity which is key \C to our struggle for self-determination. V/hen It comes to the question of organizing Black people, we must insist that the people who come In contact with the Black masses T« not white people who, no matter what their liberal leanings are, are not equipped to dispel the myths of western superiority. Y/hite people only serve to perpetuate these myths; rather, organizing must be done by Black people are able to see the beauty of themselves, are able to see the important cultural contributions of tfro-\mericans, are able to see that this country was built upon the blood and backs of our Black ancestors. In an attempt to find a solution to ourdilema, we propose that our organization (SNCC) should be Black staffed, Black controlled and Black financed * We do not want to fall Into a similar dileraa that other Civil Rights organizations have fallen. If we continue to rolyupon white financial support we will find ourselves wntwined in the tentacles of the white power complex that controls this country. It is also important that a Black organization ( devoid of cultism ) be projected to our people so that it can be demonstrated that such organizations are viable. More and more we see Black people in this country being used as a tool of the white liberal establishment. Liberal whites have not begun to address themselves to the real problems of Black people in this co ntry; witness their bewilderment, fear and anxiety when Nationalism is mentioned concerning Black people. An analysis of their (white liberal) reaction to the word alone (Nationalism) reveals a very meaningful attitude of whites of any ideological persuasion towards Blacks in this country. It means that previous solutions to Black problems 3 In this country have beer. inaC.?. in tho interests of those whites dealing with thooo problem" .:-.Ai. rot in the best interest's of Black people In this country have been made In the interests of those whites dealing with those problems and not In the. best interestof Black people in this country, Whites can only sub­ vert our true search and struggle for self-determination, self- identification, and liberation In this country. R^-evaluation of the white and Black roles must NOW take place so that whites no longer designate roles that Black people play but rather Black people define white people's roles, To long have we allowed white people to interpret the importance and meaning of the cultural aspects of our society. Be have allowed them to tell us what was good a^out our *fro- Araerican music, art and literature. How many Black critics do we have on the "jazz" scene? HOY/ can a white person who is not a part of the Black psyche ( except in the oppressor's role) Interpret the meaning of the Blues to us who are manifestations of the son<~s themselves? It must also be pointed out that on whatever level of con­ tact that Blacks and whites come together, that meeting or'con­ frontation in not on the level of the Blacks but always on the level of whites. This only means that our everyday contact with whites is a reinforcement of the myth of white supremacy, Whites are'th3 ones who must try to raise themselves to our humanistic level. We are not, after all, the ones who are responsible for a renocidal war in Vietnam; we are not the ones who are responsible .'or Neo-Colonialism In Africa and Latin "merlea; we are not the ones who held a people in animalistic bondare over lj.00 years. - - We reject the American"Drean as defined by white people \3

4- and must work to construct an American reality defined by Afro-Americans, i l3:

One point I would like to emphasis is the failure on the part of conscious whites and Blacks in dealing with the

American reality in terms of differences, Ue are beginning to emphasize the analysis of the differences between Black and white people. There has been an escapist attitude on the part of SNCC of l.goking at the problem as if race did not matter. This negates the special history of Black people in this country, mainly the slavery period and the inhuman forms of segregat­ ion we have been forced to sugfer. Another important point is that most Blacks and whites tend to view Blacks in the light of the myth that the power structure has created and perpetrated in this country. Black people are considered as "citizens" along the same lines as white people in this count­ ry, when in reality, Black people are a semi-colonlalized people, victims of a domestic colonialism. Our introduction into this country occured during the same time as the par­ tition of Africa and Asia by the European powers, so that the American institution of slavery \

WU tn«y bi-ought to it their -whole American background of racism and paternalism so that Black culture was potrayed as something being base, second-rate or below the culture of the United States, which was considered "serious" or "real". One graphic example of this is modern Afro- American music. This music which is rooted in the whole experience of our people in this country was not even named by Black people. Modern Afro-American music is named "jazz", which is a term that is derived from white American society. It is white slang for sexual intercourse; so that our music which may be called the mains tram of our culture was looked, upon as being base and second-rate or dirty and containing sen- sousness, sexuality and other exoticisms. This however says more about the white American psyche than It does about aspects of Afro-American culture; One of the criticisms of white militants and radicals is

i that when we view the masses of white people we view the overall reality of America,we view the racism, the bigotry, and the distortion of personality, we view man's inhumanity to man; we view in reality 180 million racists. The sensitive white intellectual and radical who is fighting to bring about change is conscious of this fact, but does not have the courage to admit this, ^hen he admits this reality, then he must also admit his involvement because he Is a part of the collective white America. It Is only to the extent that he recognizes this that he will be able to change this reality. Another concern Is how does the white radical view the Black Community and how does he.view the poor white community in terms of organizing. So far, we have found that most white radicals have sought to escape the horrible reality of America by going (^. into the Black Community and attempting to organize Black people while neglecting the organization of their own. people's racist communities. Now can one clean up some- one ele^N g yard when one's own yard is untidy? Again we feel that SNCC and the civil rights movement in general is in many aspects similar to the anti-colonial situations in the African and Asian countries. We have the whites in the Movement corresponding to the white civil servants and mis­ sionaries In the colonial countries who have worked with the colonial people for a long period of time and have developed a paternalistic attitude toward them. The reality of the colonial people taking over their own lives and controlling their own destiny must be faced. Having to move aside and letting this natural process of growth and development taking place must be faced. These views should not be equated with outside influence or outside agitation **;Ut should be viewed as the natural process of growth and development x^ithin a movement; so that the move by the Black militants in SNCC in this direction should be viewed as a. turn towards self-det­ ermination.

It is very ironic and curious how a1'are whites in this country can champion anti-colonialism in other countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, but when Black people move towards similar goals of self-determination in this country they are viewed as racists and anti-white by these same pro­ gressive whites. In proceeding further, it can be said that this attitude derives from the. overall point of view of the white psyche as it concerns the black people. This attitude stems from the era of the slave revolts when every white man w

was a potential deputy or sheriff or guardian of the State, Because when Black people got together among themselves to work out their problems, it became a threat to white people, because such meetings were potential slave revolts. It can be maintain­ ed that this attitude or way of thinking has perpetuated itself to this current period and that it Is part of the psyche of white people in this country whatever their political per­ suasion might be. It is part of the white fear.-guilt com­ plex resulting from the slave revolts. There have been examples of whites who stated that they can deal with black fellows on an Individual basis but become threatened or menaced by the presence of groups of Blacks. It can be main­ tained that this attitude is held by the majority of progress­ ive whites in this country. It is a. very grave error to mistake Black self-assertion for racism or Black supremacy. Black people in this country more so than the colonial peoples of the world know.what it means to be victims of racism, bigotry, and slavery. Real­ izing our predictament from these inhuman attitudes it would be ridiculous for us to turn around and perpetuate the same reactionary outlook on other people. We more than anyone else re.alize the importance of achieving the type of society, the type of world whereby people can be viewed as human beings. The means of reaching these goals must be, however, from the point of view of respecting the differences between peoples a and cultures and not pretending that everyone is the same and the refusal to respect differences is one of the reasons that the world is exploding today/ Also expanding upon the differ­ ences among oeooles and the resoect it should be accorded: £ fl if one lookos &.t "integration" .&$ progress then one is really perpetuating the myth of white supremacy. One is saying that Blacks have nothing to contribute, and should be willing to assimilate into the mainstream of Great white civilization, i.e. the west* A through re-examination must be made by black people concerning the contributions that we have made in shaping this country. If this re-examination and re-evaluation is not made, and Black people are not given their proper due and respect, then the antagonisms and contradictions are going to become more and more glaring, more and more' intense until a national explosion may result. When people attempt to move from, these conclusions It x^ould be faulty reasoning to say they are ordered by racism, because, in' this country and in the west, Racism has funct­ ioned as a type of white nationalism when dealing with Black people. We all know the havoc that this has created through­ out the world and particularly among non-white people in this country. Therefore any re-evaluation that we must make will, for the most part, deal with identification. Who are Black people; what are Black people; what is their relationship to America and the World? It must be repeated that the whole myth of "Negro Citizen­ ship", perpetuated by the irhite Power Elite, has confused the thinking of radical and progressive blacks and whites in this country. The broad masses of Black people react to American Society In the same manner as colonial peoples react to the vf west in Africa, and Latin.American, and have the same relation- ship - that of the colonized towards the colonizer* \ \

MISSISSIPPI: STRUCTURE OP THE MOVEMENT ANB PRESENT OPERATIONS

;0F0 PUBLICATION # 6 Labor Donated Mississippi: Structure of the Movement, Present Operations, and Prospectus for this summer.

What is COPQ? The Mississippi Council of Federated Organizations Is a federation of ail the national civil rights organizations active in Mississippi, local political and action groups and some fraternal and social orga­ nizations. Anyone active under any of these groupings is entitled to attend COFO conventions and participate in policy-making decisions of the organization.The COFO staff, consisting of anyone working full time with any civil rights organization in Mississippi, implements the decisions of the COFO conventions, and prepares recommendations for tho consideration of the COFO convention. Below the level of the state­ wide COFO convention, there are district organizations corresponding to the five Congressional districts. These district- organizations are presently in the planning stages for practical purposes. The staff, however, is broken down into Congressional districts, with five dis­ trict directors; this organization structure actually functions. The state organization has four standing committees: Welfare and Relief, Political Action, Finance and Federal Programs. The district ergani- aations have, or will have, similar standing committees. Br. Aaron E. Henry of Clarksdale, State President of the NAACP, is President*of the Council of Federated Organizations. Robert Moses, Field Secretary and' Mississippi project Director for SNCC, is the Program Director, who supervises the Mississippi staff and is elected by it. David Dennis, Mississippi Field Secretary for CORE, is Assistant Program Director, and is similarly elected. How is COFO financed? The expenses for COFO's projects are paid by direct grants from na­ tional civil rights groups as these groups volunteer to contribute. This accounts for nearly all of COFO's income. Expenses of staff wor­ kers are paid by the national civil rights groups also, the arrange­ ment s varying with the group. Ai? present, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee supports COFO projects In the First, Second, Third, and Fifth Congressional Districts as well as the state COFO office in Jackson. The Congress of Racial Equality assumes responsi­ bility, on a direct-to-the-project basis, f»r the Fourth Congressional District. COFO does not solicit funds for. itself, by agreement with the civil rights organizations which support it, for it is felt chat • it would thus compete with the supporting groups. Negligible amounts are sent directly to COFO, however, and these moneys are. not'credited to any national civil rights organization. Usually such small donations are earmarked for particular projects, such.as the book drive or wel­ fare relief (Food for Freedom) funds, and are dispensed according to the direction of the donor. ' ••'-,•' What is COFO's relationship to National Civil Rights Organizations? C«£*i represents the- effort of all. civil rights workers in Mississippi to coordinate their efforts In one direction for maximum efficiency. Staff members, however, are paid by separate organizations and do not lose the organizational identity or their affiliation with the national office of whatever organization they work-for..SNCC.and CORE wwrkers work together on joint "COFO" projects, -and thus must make" all plans ; and decisions in common; on the project they are not separate. But they maintain their special relationship with the organization which hired and pays them. COFO •- Short History COFO has evolved through three distinct phases in Its short history. In its first phase it was little more than an ad hoc committee called together after the Freedom Rides of I96I, in a successful effort to obtain a meeting with Governor Ross Barnett. This committee of Mis­ sissippi civil rights leaders proved a convenient vehicle for chan­ neling the voter registration programs of the Voter Education Project into Mississippi. This Injection of funds led to the second phase of COFO as an umbrella for voter registration drives in the Mississippi Delta, and other Isolated cities in Mississippi. During this period, beginning in February 1962, COFO added a small full-time staff, most­ ly SNCC and a few CORE workers, and developed a voter registration program. The staff worked with local NAACP leaders, and SCLC citi­ zenship teachers in an effort to give the Mississippi Negroes the broadest possible support. COFO continued essentially as a committee with a staff and a program until the fall of 1963. There were many doubts about the validity of COFO during this period; some thought it should be abandoned. But always, we come back to the inescapable fact that the Negro people in Mississippi needed some organization which could belong to them (as opposed to their belonging to it) which would serve as a unifying force among the Isolated Negro com­ munities . The emergence of the Ruleville Citizenship group, and the Holmes County Voters League, testified to the possibility of starting strong local groups. We felt the need to develop horizontal ties araong these groups, with the strongest common denominator possible within the general aims of the Civil Rights Movement. Thus there was continuing effort on our part to cut across county and organization al lines and have people from different areas meet with each other, to sponsor county^ regional and statewide meetings, to bring students together from different parts of the state for workshops, to help send groups outside of the state to meetings, conferences, workshops and SCLC citizenship schools - anything to help break the despair of aloneness the isolated Mississippi Negro feels. During this se­ cond phase we began to feel more and more that the "Committee" could be based In a network of local adult groups sprung from the Movement an we worked the state. We are presently In the third stage which really began with tho Free­ dom Vote for Governor campaign of the fall of 1963. This marked our first statewide effort 'snd "coinoided "with the establishment 6f ;o ',..- statewide office in Jackson and a trunk line to reach into the Mis­ sissippi Delta and hill country. During this stage we have broadened the staff to include more CORE and SNCC workers and more citizenship teachers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, have establi­ shed working relations'-! with a great many local organizations, and have established in our own minds the validity and necessity of COFO. We envisage' the fourth stage in which the funds, program and staff for the long pull are worked out with the major civil rights groups and other interested organizations and individuals across the country, in which we reach down into every Negro community to organize ana train local people to lead Mississippi through the next difficult years of transition. - 3 - What are COFO's programs? COFO works in two major areas. Most of Its resources are directed toward various voters' activities. It has a large and growing number of programs, however, which come under a classification of "educational and social". Each program can be described briefly. The "educational and social" programs are the Freedom Schools, Federal Programs, Literacy, Work-Study, Food and Clothing, and Community Centers projects.

A, The Freedom Schools are planned for the summer of 1964. , Freedom Schools will be geared to high-school age children and will run for six weeks during the summer. The students will be given remedial instruction in basic educational skills, and exposed to cultural Influ­ ences which are not normally available to them, but the main emphasis of the schools will be to implant habits of free thinking and ideas of how a free society works. Hopefully, too, the schools will lay the groundwork for a statewide youth movement, which would coordinate pro­ jects of special interest to young people, such as a statewide school boycott in sympathy with voter registration efforts. B. The goal of the federal programs project is to make the programs, of the federal government which are designed to alleviate poverty and ignorance reach the people of Mississippi. Such programs as the Area Redevelopment Act, the Manpower Development and Training Act, and such bureaus as the Farmers Home Administration and the Office of'-Manpower, Automation and Training cannot benefit the people of Mississippi as things now stand because the normal channel of Information, the State agencies, do not properly present these programs. The federal'govern­ ment insists that any federal aid be given on a nondiscriminatory and integrated basis, and the State of Mississippi is not- reconciled to 'this. So private agencies must act as liason between the federal pro­ grams and the people they are designed to help. COFO projects in thi program so far have included a Conference on Jobs and Job Training, where leading industrial gnd governmental officials discussed the expan­ sion of job training opportunities in Mississippi in connection with tho space facility now being built by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and a planned conference with the National Sharecroppers Fund to present agricultural opportunities to Mississippi farmers sched­ uled for the end of February. C The literacy project at Tougaloo College is a research project under the direction of John Diebold and Associates company, and is financed by an anonymous grant to Tougaloo College. The goal of the project is to write self-instructional materials which will teach adult illiter­ ates in lower social and economic groups to read and write, guch edu­ cational materials do not now exist, and they must be developed before . there can be any comprehensive program to eliminate illiteracy in Mississippi. Staff workerw are being trained to develop these materials under the direction of the Diebold group.. D. The Work-Study project is an attempt to solve one of the more pressing staff problems in the Southern Movement, that of the conflict between full-time civil rights work and school for "the college-age worker. Under the work-stud^/ program, students ppend a year in full-time field work for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, under the direction of COFO field staff, and with special academic work designed to comple­ ment their field work and keep them familiar with learning a.nd intellec- _ 4 - tual discipline. After this year of field work, they get a full schol­ arship to Tougaloo College for one year. The academic expenses of the project-, both the Toutaloo scholarships and the first-year scholastic program, are financed by a grant from the Field Foundation. Project and personal expenses of the work-study group during the first year of field work are financed by SNCC. the group plans to expand next year to other campuses, but this year it is based in Jackson and Tougaloo. E. The food and clothing program is a privately-financed distribution program of the-necessities of life for persons whose needs are so basic that they cannot feed their families one meal a day per person. Food The adequacy of dietary levels are measured by two criteria: caloric intake (quantity) and nutritional content (quality). The caloric intake of some--not all--poor rural Mississippians is at some--not all--tlmes sufficient. These times are usually 1. when they receive government commodities, 2. when the tenant *r low-income farmer receives money frorr his cotton and other minor crops, usually in early and mid-fall, and 3. when landlords give credit to tenant families, usually from late March to July. The rest of the time the poor rural families, the under- and un-employed, fare as best they can. • Usually this means tightening their belts, surviving off one meal a day, adults going without so that children may eat--in short, it means starving. Even when people get enough feed, it is largely starches and fats. There is great reliance on corn bread, sweet potatoes, rice and fat or side pork. Even the government commodities are hot sufficient for adequate nutrition. The poor in Mississippi do not get enough protein, calcium, essential vita­ mins and minerals for proper nutrition. Our goal, of course-, is to see that these people are ultimately paid a living wage--but malnutrition can be cut down by distribution of a few food commodities and massive distribution of inexpensive vitamins. Clothing The clothing situation of both the urban and rural poor is desperate. Mothers do not go around the house in dirty robes or ragged dresses or even in their slips because they are basically unclean, but because the; have nothing to change into. Fathers don't lounge around in the filthy, smelly overalls they work In during the day because they are too lazy to change their clothes, but because they have nothing else to put on*- Children do not walk around barefoot because they want to pat their feel in the Mississippi mud, but because their parents cannot buy them shoes And in the winter the Mississippi mud becomes hard, frozen ground. Shelter Many people in the deep South live in housing unfit for human habitation the I960 census showed that in Mississippi over 50$ of the rural occu­ pied farm housing was classified as either deteriorating or dilapidated.. Furthermore, more than 50$ of the rural occupied homes have no piped water and more than 75$ have no flush toilets, bathtubs or showers. For Negroes the housing situation is even worse. The i960 census showet that in Mississippi, 66% of all Negro housing was "dilapidated or deter idrating"--?!^ in rural areas. More than 90$ of rural Negro homes in Mississippi have neither flush toilets nor bathing or shower facilities COFO's food and clothing program cannot cope with poverty this serious (State welfare aid is totally Inadequate), but it helps, especially In some especially pressing areas. The program gives special considera­ tion to persons in need because of their participation in other COFO programs, such as attempting to register to vote. Food distribution is along the same lines as government commodity programs administered by the counties. There is presently no vitamin distribution, but it could probably be arranged if administrative difficulties could be resolved (i.e. securing the cooperation of doctors). Clothing distri­ bution involves a national coordinating effort. Sympathetic persons and groups ooThet clothing in drives all over the country and ship them to Mississippi with the cooperation of a national relief agency. At present COFO has no program to deal with the housing conditions of Mississippi, but when the community centers are better organized, COFO can begin a program of home-repair workshops and volunteer youth corps assisting people to repair their homes, all working out of ar community center. F, The community centers program projects a network of community cen­ ters accross the state. Conceived as a long-range institution, these centers will provide a structure for a sweeping range of recreational and educational programs. In doing this, they will not only serve basic needs of Negro communities now ignored by the state's racist political structure, but will form a dynamic focus for the development of community organization. The educational features of the centers will include job training programs for the unskilled and unemployed, literacy and remedial programs for adults as well as young people, public health programs such as prenatal and infant care, basic nutri­ tion, etc. to alleviate some of the serious health problems of Negro Mlssissippians (for instance, Negro infant mortality rates in some counties are so high as to invite comparison with "underdeveloped" nations.), adult education workshops which would deal with family relations, federal service programs, home improvement and other infor­ mation vital to the needs of Negro communities, and also extracurricu­ lar programs for grade school and high school students which would not only supplement educational deficiencies but would provide opportunity for critical thought and creative expression. Each center would have a well-rounded librae—to which Negroes in many communities now have no access.

Though the community centers program is primarily educational, some.of each center's resources would be used to provide much-needed recrea­ tional facilities for the Negro community. In most communities in Mississippi the only recreation outside fif taverns is the movies, and for Negroes this means segregated movies. If there is a movie theater in the Negro community, it is old, run down, and shows mostly out-of- date, third-rate Hollywood films. The film program of the centers will not only provide a more agreeable atmosphere for movies, it will bring films of serious content which are almost never shown in Mississippi, where ideas are rigidly controlled. Other recreational offerings will ,be music appreciation classes, arts and crafts workshops, drama groups, discussion clubs on current events, literature and Negro achievement, etc., peq pal clubs, organized sports (where, equipment allows), and occasional special performances 'by outside entertainers, such as folk festivals, jazz concerts, -etc. Organized story-telling for young chil­ dren will.be entertaining, and will introduce them to the resources of the center's library and to reading for pleasure in general. The development of this wide range of social and educational programs has emerged almost Inevitably out of the urgent necessity to create Institutions outside the existing structure to meet the vastly neglec­ ted needs of the Negro communities of Mississippi. But COFO's primary objective remains in the area of voter education, because it is only by the creation of a broadly-based and informed electorate that Mis­ sissippi's system of racial oppression can be destroyed ultimately. Thus, most of COFO's staff work is presently In the area of voter reg­ istration. Through neighborhood canvassing, mass meetings, and citi­ zenship classes teaching the difficult registration form, COFO's staff members work continuously to encourage as many Negroes as possible to register to vote. In areas wheee there are already local organizations COFO workers provide incentive and technical skill to voting efforts. But often the COFO worker must work in areas where teere are no estab­ lished community groups and in such places he must undertake the organ! zation of the local people into a durable civic structure. All this voter activity must operate under extremely .hostile conditions In the past two years alone, hundreds of civil rights workers have beer arrested in the course of promoting registration efforts: for distri­ buting leaflets ("littering the sidewalks", "publishing libel", etc.J, for picketing, and for an untold variety of trumped-up charges ranging from armed robbery to traffic violations. In addition, workers have been beaten frequently, often by local or state officials, and sometime even shot. (One, Jimmy Travis, missed death by inches last winter when he was hit with a bullet in the neck.) But local citizens are often the worst victims of the atmosphere of political oppression which exist in Mississippi, for they are not only subject to harassment, intimida­ tion and arrest, but economic reprisals as well. Countless numbers have lost their jobs, been evicted from plantations, or had their credit suddenly discontinued for the simple act of attempting to regis­ ter. But despite these conditions, thousands of Negroes, in the past two years have filed into county courthouses around the state in an effort to become qualified voters. In,Mississippi, however, to attempi to register is rarely a guarantee of gaining the right to vote. By means of arbitrary powers endowed in local registrars, the state has ensured the systematic rejection of Negro applicants. For instance, one requirement for successful registration is a correct interpreta- tion of a section of the Mississippi constitution. &s a result, of some sixty thousand Negroes who have attempted to register in the past four years, only about six thousand have been Inscribed on the voting red Is .

The frustration of regular efforts to register voters led to the "Free com" concept of political action. In the fall of 1963, COFO held a statewide nominating convention to choose a. candidate for Governor of Mississippi. Dr. Aaron Henry, state president of the NAACP, was nominated. His campaign was, of course, unofficial--COFO provided its own machinery for voting—but it served a number of very important purposes . The first was to lay a groundwork for political organization around the state for serious candidates for public office. Secondly, the campaign dramatized a few basic truths about Negro participation in Mississippi politics. 1. The first contention was that Negroes do not vote because of justified fears of physical and economic intimidation and also - 7 - because of discriminatory registration practices, not because they are apathetic and have no idea of where their political interests lie. The Freedom Vote clearly supported this con­ tention: when they were given a chance, 83,000 Negro Mississip- pians did in fact vote. 2. The second contention was that if Negroes were registered without discrimination and intimidation, they not only would vote, but that their votes would change the results of Missis­ sippi elections, and therefore of the political structure of the state, now dominated by white, conservative racists. Aaron Henry's 93,000 votes certainly would hove influenced an elec­ tion where the losing official candidate received only about 130,000 votes, and the winner arount 200,000, if they had been registered. The third reason for the campaign was to provide a forum for discussion of the real issues In Mississippi; discussion of this kind is not possible in the context of regular Mississippi political campaigns. Perhaps the most significant result of the Freedom Vote campaign was in the area of organizational development. For the first time a genuinely statewide operation took effect. A central office was set up in Jackson to coordinate activities around the state. The five congressional district offices, established In September, became organizational bases for penetration of neighboring cities and towns and in practice expanded their operational scope beyond the city in which they were based. The campaign workers made contact with cities and towns previously untouched by the movemtnt. The Freedom Registration program grew logically out of the Freedom Vote idea. The plan of the Freedom Registration is to register a large proportion of the 425,000 Negroes of voting age in Mississippi on the COFO Freedom Registration books, using COFO requirements, rather than the official state registration requirements. The COFO requirements 1 would be the same as the state requirements concerning age, residence and good moral character, but COFO registration would have no literacy or poll tax requirements. Local people will serve as registrars in every community, under the supervision of a County Board of Registrars. Polling places will be put wherever people normally go--churches, business places, lodge halls, beauty parlors and barbershops, etc. Reg­ istration books would be open in the evenings and on Saturday and Sun- ,day. The idea would be to encourage registration, not i»o make It difficult and inconvenient. This will be consistent with our belief that voting should by the dslvic authorities, as the taking of oral polio vaccine is. • - In the fall elections, those persons who are freedom registered and who produce their freedom registration cards, will be entitled to vote in the freedom elections. Negro candidates will run against the regular •party candidates in both the freedom and the official elections, and thi comparison of totals Is expected to prove that Negroes are now denied what would be a significant voice In Mississippi political affairs. In these political campaigns, where there is no question of actually winning public office, the question is raised as to why put forth all the effort. Besides the value of the campaigns in organizing Negro communities, and the dramatic demonstration of the denial of the right to vote, there is one more Important reason. One of the most effective ways to create interest in voter registration is to have candidates running who discuss the real issues publicly, and who attract the attention and interest of the Negro community simply because there is great novelty in a Negro candidate for public office. The discussion of the issues Is especially important because regular party campaigns do not normally allow a forum for honest debate of the state's real problems. Also the mass communications media do not permit those who oppose the official economic and racial policies a wide audience for their views. A political campaign with federal guarantees of equal time is one of the few opportunities to reach a large audience with an accurate presentation of the COFO goals and programs. Negro candidates in this fall's elections will create this discussion, at least in the Negro community. Related to the Freedom election activity is a planned challenge of the Mississippi Democratic party. In i960, both parties published civil rights platforms which, if Implemented, would have brought racial and economic justice closer to reality. They were, however, not enacted. In 1964, the civil rights organizations must bring this discrepancy of promise and accomplishment to the attention of the American public. There will be activity at the national conventions around this theme. COFO In Mississippi plans to send a "freedom" delegation to challenge the right of Eastland Democrats to represent the people of Mississippi. Beginning with precinct conventions in February which send delegates to the county conventions, then to the district and state conventions and finally to the Democratic National Convention, COFO plans to chal­ lenge the segregationist Democratic delegates on all levels and over as large an area as possible. The challenge will be based on: 1. attempts to participate in the regular party conventions, 2. presumed expulsion, 3. duplication of party conventions in rival, "freedom" proceedings, 4. election of rival, freedom delegates at all levels, and 5. presentation of the tate Freedom delegates at the National Demo­ cratic Convention to challenge the seating of the regular delegates. The most recent COFO convention also voted to challenge the Republican 4 National Convention in some more modified manner, but more specific plans have not yet been made.

Much of this projected political and educational activity depends upon a staff much larger than is now in operation, or could be In permanent operation, on COFO's budget. COFO plans to provide the necessary man­ power with a massive summer project, using college students from all over the country, but especially from Southern Negro colleges to organ­ ize the Mississippi Negro community, register voters both on the county and the Freedom books, operate the Freedom Schools, begin the community centers projects. The participants will be divided into three categor­ ies for administrative feasibility. The Freedom Schools would have one overall director for the state and district supervisors for each Con­ gressional district. The community centers would be organized on the same basis. Political activity is already organized this way; the summer project would add to the present structure of political activity besides a general beef-up, two new categories: mobile unites of four men and a car which would fill gaps In the state political program plus moving into crisis areas if the regular staff is depleted; also two or three "saturation" areas where masses of field workers would concentrate on a city (as many as one worker to every twenty eligible Negroes.) to register every possible Negro, both official and freedom, and promote other protest activities. COFO, 1017 Lynch, Jackson, Miss. •-•• -' - •• THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee exists pri­ marily because racial segregation is rampant in the United States and the people within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee feel that these problems of racial discrimination and segregation should be eliminated. There exists within SNCC at this present time some 210 staff people, some 200 other people working as volunteers, many people across the United States working in the Friends of SNCC groups. Undoubtedly these many people associated with SNCC have become involved in* the movement for a variety of reasons. And, therefore, lacking this' general consensus on what we are about, It seems only appropriate that each Individual speak from his own conviction as to why he feels we should organize. Therefore I shall not attempt to project my Ideas as universal within SNCC» I speak only for myself.

Whenever we are asked what Is the difference between SNCC and other civil rights organizations we are essentially being asked, "why do we organize, who, where, when, how and what?" Why Do We Organize? Obviously we are organizing because we feel that racial segregation is wrong. We are organizing be­ cause we ourselves have within us so many drives to end racial segregation that we feel that the best expression of these drives is to get other people to act in accordance with what we believe. I believe we also organize because people who suffer from discrimination and segregation are denied a sense of dignity. In June, as you will recall, we had a'long discussion on why we are organizing, and there was much discussion around the question of dignity. We were trying to find some umbrella, some over-all objective, arou- i which we could close, or gather around, or form some type of consensus. Tt was then we projected the concept that a person working in Mississippi, a person earning $2-$3 a day, was being denied a sense of dignity, was being exploited econom­ ically and that this exploitation made it very difficult for him to hold'hia h.ood high, fco say to his family, nI am a man", in whatever full, sense offche Vtti-iu w« usually use it. Als o a man without a job has a very difficult time holding his head high. These are the questions. 2

He is a man being deprived of his dignity. A student, going into a lunch counter, knowing that he can buy coffee pots in the five and ten cents store, but unable to buy coffee at that lunch counter, Is being denied a sense of dignity. It is almost four years now since the student movement started. Many of us forget that the students who sat in, who were the historical forerunners to whatever we are doing now and will do in the future, were basically concerned about the caste system. The caste system In the United States denied them a sense of dignity. It was an affront to their existence, to their edu­ cation and, one may say, to their sense of being an American. But, stripped of all this, it was undignified to say to a college- trained, student, "come into the five and ten cent store, buy a coffee pot, but don't buy a cup of coffee". And also, the caste system had to be destroyed. In destroying bits and pieces of segregation, including the sitting at a lunch counter, forcing the owner to recognize that lunch counter discrimination was wrong, the students were helping to break down the larger area of the caste system. For the caste system re-enforces basic attitudes and these attitudes obviously will not be changed unless' people chip away bit by bit, step by step. Let us take this concept of dignity and look at what we have organized. Let us begin with the Albany Movement in 1961. Charles Sherrod, Cordell Reagon went into Southwest Georgia and they were attempting to organize a movement in Albany. First of all they were Interested in voter-registration in the surrounding counties. But they believed at that moment there was too much fear in Terrell and Lee, in Dawson, in Baker County, too much fear for the people to attempt to go down to register to vote, and that this fear had to be overcome. One of the ways that it could be overcome was by showing in Albany, Geprgia, the largest metropolis in that area, that people were not afraid. In order to displace the fear of Albany, people had to be organized into some form of movement. There were many civil rights groups in Albany, Georgia in 1961, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was another. It These are the questions. 5

came with the voter-registration project; its organizers assisted in the formation of the Albany Movement, trying to constantly pro­ ject the local people as the people who should lead In that area. We were organizing basically to break down the fear in Albany and the surrounding counties, and once the fear disappeared and once the people felt that they could move on their own, then going to the voter-registration booth in Albany and the surrounding counties would not be that difficult. Time has proven this theory correct. Just last month the King-for-Congress campaign was a justification of that rationale. In Mississippi we were concerned about voter-registration in the underprivileged areas, in the bayous, In the small cities. We started in McComb, gathered a few forces, went into the Delta, said COFO could be a viable entity. We are now organizing around political objectives, trying to force the nation to see what is wrong in the state of Mississippi, •' • • I contend we are also trying to bring hope, we are trying to give a sense of dignity to the people, wherever we mork, be it Arkansas, Mississippi, A.labama or Georgia. Underlying all of our actions, we believe if the people themselves can feel a new spirit, a new sense of dignity, that they would easily gather together in some organizational form and begin to take certain steps of their own in order to help alleviate the suffering and the depraved human conditions in which we and they find ourselves. I am simply ad­ vancing dignity as a concept around which we can operate, around which we can give some definition to our work and some meaning to the lives of the people with whom we are working and around which we can also relate to them what it is that we are doing.

We have said we want to change the system, the system of -segregation, ie system of discrimination.. We have said that it 3 n°" '*'**»• poople, it is not the segregationists, it is not the

discriminate^ wnn is -n blame, but rather it is the system. Now

we did not carry the analyse „f the system perhaps to other con­

clusions. We did not say, except-. ;.:I.n , -few instances, that the- system of segregation is wrapped up in the-.itu-^j^W system of

political and economic exploitation, and this is a is,-.. gut when • ' --- . These are the questions. 4 we spoke of changing the system of segregation we did not complete­ ly speak of an overhaul in the economic and political institutions of this country. Who Do We Organize? We are going to organize people. What types of people? We are going, to organize old people and young people, people without jobs, people with jobs. We have been concerned with organizing two groups•of people: the students and the adults in the community. We. should organize the young people in grammar schools. We should organize high-school students. We should organize those groups of students or ex-students who have dropped out of high-school, who have not gone to college. We should organize the college students. These are four categories of young people that we should attempt to organize. On the level of the adults, we should organize the women. We must be aware -that both within and without SNCC subtle and blatent forms of discrimination against women exist,. We should conscious­ ly endeavor to correct this situation. We should organize the old people, people 50, 60, 70 years old. These are the people who have never had very much,- who understand what, we are talking about. We should organize the unemployed, young and old. SNCC as an entity has not been concerned with organizing unemployed people. We simply have not done that. -We could organize the maids in the towns where we work and we could organize the men who are working in certain factories. Or we can work conjointly with some unions to help organize these people. Where Do We Organize? Every city in the United States has people that can be organized. Every major city, every small village, North, South, East, West. Therefore we have to say: we only have so much time in our lives; we have limited resources, we have limi" id people, limited money, limited time, limited paper on which to write and to propagandize, and therefore we have got to consciously define an' area for ourselves where we can organize.

Where have we organized in the past? On the college cam­ puses and In the communities. During 1960 and the early part of 1961 the student movements on the campuses organized people, young people, who then motivated and forced into motion a lot of the These are the questions. 5 community forces, primarily in the big cities. In 1961 it became quite apparent that the student movement had to go beyond the la rge communities because many of these problems were in the process of being solved. But the cities of 50,000 or less were unorganized and there was very little motion in these places. A degree of complacency was setting in in the United States. We went into Albany, Georgia. We went into McComb and some of the cities of the Delta. One of the greatest features of Albany was that we demonstrated to the country that there were significant numbers of people in the Black Belt, in the hard-core areas of the South, in the smaller cities, that also wanted to be free.

The Black Belt area in the United States is basically un­ organized. It's in the rural areas. We can predict that not many of the civil rights organizations, if any, are going to be willing to go and work in these areas where we have been working: Southwest Alabama, where we have not succeeded to any appreciable degree, Southwest Georgia, Black Belts in Mis sissippi and Arkansas. The Black Belt is an area that we can properly stake out as a terri­ torial entity for ourselves. There is a danger, however, in this form of organization and we must be aware of this. The population statistics show that there is a move from the rural areas to the cities. Therefore in the major cities, in a lot of the ghettoes, in a lot of the pockets of black people there will be found many people who have come from these rural areas. The decision that we then have to make for our­ selves is whether or not it is best to go into these rural areas or better to come into the cities. Given the resources that we have, given the way in which we have been working in these rural areas, I say that we should continue to work in the Black Belt. We must begin to find some way to transplant what we are doling to certain areas of the major cities in the South also. There are other reasons why we should concentrate on the Black Belt at this particular moment. The significance of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was not so much in what it

Immediately accompli shed in Atlantic City, but wihor in wh^t it accomplished for the future. In the Call to the Convention in 1968 These are the questions. 6 there is a stipulation that the National Democratic Party shall set up a committee to review State Parties and that no State Democratic machine can come to the Convention and be represented if it is deny­ ing people the right to participate in that machinery. We know, as Claude Sitton has aptly pointed out, that the greatest problem, the greatest inequities in the electorial process, the greatest difficulty in people participating in the political machinery are going to occur in the Black Belt across the South. From now until 1968 we should establish a four-year plan; A pla n for four years of activity in the Black Belt areas of the South so that we can go into every county, at least in the Black Belt area, and begin to document some of the inequalities in the electorialIprocess, or rather in the political machinery, a nd be able to present this kind of a unified claim to the Democratic Convention in 1968. To do that we cannot wait until the year 1968 because it means getting our roots into those fertile areas now so that by 1967 the people have confidence in us and are willing to work with us on this program.

That's organizing in the communities in the Black Belt. It does not seem that we have to give up the other area of organiza­ tion in the major cities. Most of the college campuses do exist in and around certain cities. We can set up two types of organizers, those on the college campuses or youth organizers In cities, and those in the communities. The college campus organizers can attempt to get people in the major cities to translate some of our programs into those areas. Let's make it concrete. Why can't the Nashville student movement be revitalized and people begin to set up Freedom Schools in some of the ghettoes of Nashville? Why can't we here in Atlanta, for instance, even those of us who work in the Atlanta office, set up a Freedom School in Buttermilk Bottom and begin to teach o~o or two hours a week in the Freedom School? We know that we cannot organize everything. We cannot work in every city. Therefore I would say let us forget the Northern cities. There are many people up there who can work on it. We just can't do everything. SNCC cannot save the world.

When Do We Organize? We organize now. Where Do We Organize? We organize in the Black Belt areas of this country These are the questions. 7 and in the poor sections of the cities. How Do We Organize? We organize people in Freedom Schools, in Community Centers, in voter- registration programs, in federal research programs. We organize people into maids' unions, we organize them in student groups, college groups, unemployed, drop-out groups, high-school groups, grammar school groups. We organize the old people. And Why Do We Organize? We organize in order to give people a new sense of dignity, to give them the machinery, the tools with which to fight their particular battles. NO m IN rp rr 852 Short street ~° IfREEDOM ~ JjrnooL! aSSSTSS"1 Here is the story that no Mississippi newspape d'-res „„• print:

More than a thousand students in Issaquena and Si*ar*»y counties have refused tc go back to school because the principal, following the orders of an all-white school board, has not permitted them to wear SNCC pins, kost of these students are now attending Freedom Schools which they themselves organized in local churches. It all started in the last week of January, when Becky Merrill, 19, who was born in Issaquena county and has been an active COFO worker there, gave out some pins that show a Negro and a white shaking hands, and the letters SNCC. That stands for Student Nonviolent .Coordinating Committee, the militant civil rights organization which started COFO. About twenty high school students from Sharkey county who had never been active in the Freedom Movement before, decided they liked the SNCC pins and wanted to wear them to school the next day. Ten members of the Issaquena county Mississippi Stu­ dent Union (MSU) also wore the pins. One of them said: "We had no special plan in mind, we just wanted to wear the pins, that's all." When the principal of the school, a Negro appointed by an all-white school board, found out that the students were wearing the SNCC pins, he called them into the office. He told them that he didn't mind the students wearing pins, he just didn't ' want them to wear that pin. He didn't say why. "That night," said one of the students, "we got together with a lot of other kids and we all decided to wear the SNCC pins on the next school day, which was Monday." Monday morning the principal called all of them into his office—or tried to. But there were too many students with SNCC pins to fit into his office J So he made them stand in the hallway and come into his office one by one and give their names to the secretary. One hundred and seventy-nine students came into his office to show that they were not afraid. Then the principal did not know what to do. He told all the students to wait in the hallway while he went to talk to the white Superintendent of the school board. Two hours later he came back and told the students to take off their SNCC pins and go back to class. Hardly anyone took off the pin, but everybody tried to get back into their classroom. But now the teachers were afraid. They told the students that the students could not come to class unless they took off the SNCC pins. The students kept their pins on. They went back to the office and told the principal that they wanted to go back to class but the teachers wouldn't let them in. Then the principal led all the students to the gym and told them to wait again. This time he stopped all classes while he talked to all the teachers. Then he came back and "he said he wanted to talk to us." "We decided," said one of the students, "that we wanted to ask him some questions. We asked him, how would he feel if his own daughter was forced to bend over, touch her toes, and get whipped on the backside like we do. And we asked him, how come there was no colored people on the school board even though 70 per cent of the county is colored people? And we asked him, was he registered to vote?" Then the principal stopped them asking more questions, and told them to get back to class. However, by that time the school day was about over, so the students went home. That was Monday. - 2 -

Tuesday morning, February 2, "so many kids came to school wearing JSHX pins that we couldn't count them all," said one of the students. The principal b-gan the day by calling a general assembly. He said that he would li :;; to no more questions. Then he read from a book a rule saying that "any s+j.d X wi disrupts school can be suspended or expelled by the principal." He told the siadepts that the SNCC pins were disrupting school. Any student who wore a pin the next day would be suspended, and any student who wore a SNCC pin on Thursday, said the principal, would be expelled and not allowed to go to school anywhere in Mississippi. The students wore their pins to class all the rest of that day. Wednesday morning, February 3, more than 300 students wore* SNCC pins. The prin­ cipal had to start the day out with another assembly. He announced that he was suspending everybody who wore a pin. But only the 179 students whose names he had taken on Monday were actually suspended. Everybody who wore a pin that day then went home. That night the parents and students in the community held a meeting. Most of the parents thought that the students should have the right to wear any kind of pin they wanted to. hany of the parents were members of the Freedom Democratic Party, They and the students decided that the only way they could win their right to wear the SNCC pins was by getting all the other students out of school too. The principal said that he would let the students back into school only if they would sign a promise not to participate in any kind of civil rights activity, inclu­ ding wearing SNCC pins. The students and parents saw that the principal was taking orders from the white school beard. If they signed the promise, they could not work for COFO any more. They could not join the Freedom Democratic Party. They could not join the Mississippi Student Union. They could not have mass meetings, and they could not go together to the court house to register, if they signed the promise. They refused to sign the promise. The next day, 7CO students in the elementary schools were kept at home by the parents. The same day, the school board refused to sit in the same room with the parents' committee to discuss the situation. Since then, the school board and the newspapers and the radio stations have tried to cover up the boycott in Issaquena and Sharkey counties. They hope that the other students in the state of Mississippi will not find out. Three days after they were suspended, the striking students set up Freedom Schools, likT the COFO Freedom Schools last summer. Some of the older students teach the younger ones. Some Northern white students who are members of SNCC or COFO are hel­ ping to teach, also. Other Freedom Schools in the state have sent pencils, paper, and books to help out, "We are ready to stay in Freedom Schools for the rest of the year," said one of the students. "The teachers in high school never did try to teach us anything. They don't care about us or about Freedom." "So what if we don't get our diplomas," added another student, a senior in high school. "All we can do in this county is chop cotton anyhow. We don't need a diploma to chop cotton." "We want our Freedom]" MISSISSIPPI SUMMER PROJECT WORKERS III STATE AS OF JUHB 29, 196^

I.COLUMBUS

328-9719 office 328-0601 Mrs, Davis' home across the street Addresss 1323 6th Ave,

Communications ; (Matt Harris left)

Staff

Donald White Willie Blue Gerry Austin Emma Bell Mel Carter

Volunteers

Brace Amundson VR (SW) Wayne Anderson VR (SW) Joel Bernard VR (SW) Pete Ilorall VR (SW) Bernard Wasow (SW) Research David Llorens VR (SW) John Buffington VR (SW) Steven Fraser VR Margaret Dobbins FS Coordinator Neil Eklund FS Stu Ewen FS Sylvia Woog FS Isaac Coleman Joseph Maurer Bruce Glushakow Warren Galloway Ron Bridgeforth Robert Lavell Marvin Griffin (local) Rev, Roy Valencourt Richard Nheelock (law student)

. Holly Springs •

1257 - office Address - 100 Rust Ave.

Communications s Carl Young

Staff Ivahhoe Donaldson Cleveland Sellers Larry Rubin GREENWOOD (Stokely Carraichael, the head of all 2nd district projects, is in charge of Greenwood). 4-53-1282 -office 453-7871 - office Address; 708 Ave. N

Communicationsj Stu Hauso

Staff

Stokely Carraichael Eli Zeretsky Albert Garner Dick Frey Matthew Hughes (Willie McGee) Ruth Howard Sam Block

Volunteers

William Hodes Robert Masters Philip Moore Carol Kornfield Adam Kline Fred Magranai-: Margaret Aley Bambi Brown Howard Iriyama Gloria Wise Richard Miller Caroline Egan Ronald Mersenery lay Rohrbaugh (car) Rita Rohrbaugh (car) Peggy Reiman Wendy Klein Paul Klein Evelyn Ellis - CC Brett Breneman - CC Linda Wetmore - federal programs Marcus Winter - federal programs Ed Bauer - CC (federal programs) Sally Belfrage - FS Judy Walborn - FS

ITTA BENA 25^-7562 254-7637 - Willie McGee Address; P„0„ Box 5^9

Staff

Willie McGee

Volunteers John Paul Roy Torkington HOLMES COUNTY 5989 - home in Tchula oownso Addresss Route # 2, Box 56k

Staff Hollas Watkins Carol Mathews Doris Wilson

Volunteers

Robert Berger VR (SW) Peter Orris VR (SW) Robert Osman VR (SW) Edwin Wilson VR (SW) Mike Kenney VR (SW) Mario SaVio VR (SW) Cephas Hughes VR (SW) Steve Bingham VR (SW) Marshall Ganz VR (SW) Robert Garrosfalo VR (SW) Nicholas Bosanquet - FS Coordinator Eddie Black FS Coordinator Annie Marie Williams - FS Coordinator Betty Carstens FS Katey Newman FS John Friedland FS Jerry Parker FS James Bonds FS Don Hamer FS Martha Honey FS Nancy Smith FS Larry Stevens FS Bruce Detwiler FS Gene Nelson CC Mary Cole CC John /.Hen CC Su Nichols CC Joel Aber

GREENVILLE 335-2173 - Freedom House Address? 90lf Nelson

Communicationss John Sawyer

Staff

Charlie Cobb (also working the counties) Pam Trottman Bob Wright Louis Grant Fred Anderson Jesse Davis Ray Raphael Claude Weaver Murial Tillinghurst George Rowell (Greenville cont°d)

Volunteers

Grace Brooks - FS Coordinator Pat Vale FS Candy Brown FS Kay Prickett FS Karol Nelson FS Natalie Tompkins FS Dick Rowe Minister Larry Benton Ji i Adams Adrian Allan Larry Lockshin Morton Thomas John Sawyer Lisa Anderson Lyn Hamilton Valarie Hogan Brian Leekely Robert Dalgoff Ken Kitnis Vicki Halper Sharon Kaplan Margaret Ann Kerr Barbara Mulnick Nancy Schieffelin Virginia Steele Les Turner

HOLLANDALE 827 - 4033

Staff Earl Harris

ISSAQUEENA Staffj Lewis Grant

RULEVILLE

756-4619 - Mrs. Hamer°s house 756-4834 - Charles McLaurin's house Address s 626 Lafayette

Communicationss Dale Gronemeier

Staff

Charles McLaurin (also working out of Cleveland) John Harris Lois Rogers Margaret Block Fannie Lou Hamer James Black (Ruleville cont°d) 6

Volunteers lis Fusco FS Coordinator Rev. Jim Corson NCC Jeff Sacher Ml hael Yarrow Gretchen Schwartz Joseph Smith George Winter James Dann Charles Scattergood Leonard Edwards £Law student) Dennis Flannigan (going to Cleveland) Dona Howell Lester Gait Jerry Tecklin Larry Archibald Peter Burr Glenn Fetty Ron Richards (?) George Robbing Linda Davis Lynn Hulse Jean Komzen Ellen Siegel Christine Powell Chris Hexter Parish elly Linda Seese David Gerber Heidi Dole

BOLIVAR COUNTY ( SHAW & MOUND BAYOU)

843-5292 - Margaret Block 843-9334 or- 84-3-5295 - Lois Rodgers 843-2504 Amzie Moore Address? 6l4 Chrisman

Staff

John Bradford Margaret Block Amzie Moore Lois Rodgers

Volunteers

¥ally Roberts -FS Coordinator Lisa Vogel FS Fred Winn CC Bonnie Guy Judy York CC Judy Michalowski Heather Tobis Katherine Logan Charles Sowerwine Jonathan Black Robert Hargreaves Linnell Barrett Grace Morton 7 CLARKSDALE 624-9167 - office 624-2913 - Dr. Henry0s drug store Addressi 429 Yazoo

Communicationss Yvonne Klein

Staff Lafayette Surney James Jones Doris Newman Annie Pearl Avery

Volunteers Sanford Siegal FS Coordinator Lisa Mandel Robert Mandel Robert Newberry Mathew Zwerling Charles Stewart Lew Sitzer Fred Winyard John Suter 5, Zeman - CC Les Johnson FS Jay Stedman Al Goodman Margaret Hazelton Mary Gergtz Su Gladstone Joe Youngerman Stan Boyd Paul Kendall Catherine Quinn David Batzka Mark Fast (went homo, may return)

JACKSON

352 - 9788 - office Address'o Box 2896, 1017 Lynch St.

Communications; Bob Weil, Bill Lights Emmie Schrader, Margaret Roses Bob Byers Wats line Operatorss Casey Haydens Jeannie Breaker- Penny Patch

Staff Bob Moses Dave Dennis Jesse Morris Mendy Samstein Dick Jewitt Matteo Suarez Annell Ponder Staughton Lynd McArthur Cotton Lois Chaffee Margaret Burnham Jimmy Bolton Margaret Cunningham Helen 0°Neal Hunter Morey Alma Bosley Euvester Simpson Dona. Moses (Jackson, cont'd)

Volunteers John Bundy FDP Jeff Acorn FDP Tim Lynch FDP Vincent Tranquil!! FDP Karen Pate FDP Ruth Schein Secretary Sherwin Kaplan Law student Bill Robinson Law student Dori Ladner Barney Frank James Wilcox Tom Wahman Su Wahraan Clinton Hopson Laxj student Andy Rust Audio- Visual Steve Smith Fed. Programs Rachel Brown Fed Programs

Bob Cohen Music Caravan Su Cohen Music Caravan George Albertz Roger Lauren Edward Rudd Sherry Everett

VICKSBURG

636-1592 - office Address? 1016 Hossley

Communications t

Staff

Andrew Barnes

Volunteers Neil Hindman - FS Coordinator John Hunter CC Jan Handke CC Howard Stromquist Pat Thomas Jonathon Steele Ann Popkins Hank Chaiklin Frank O'Brien Richard Gould Holly Van Home Mary Jo Cronin Elane Singer Lisa Werner Brian Bunlap r JHITE COMMUNITY PROJECT . (Incomplete) 1 ** '- » Staff i Ed Hamlett D& Sam Shirah Volunteers

Bob Bailey Gene Guerrero Margie Henderson Tom Hill Markya Matthews R. Pardun John Parkmon Judy Schiffer John Strickland D.W. Tiberiis Michael Waddell Gremille hitman Charlie Smith Nelson Blackstock Diana Burrows Sue Thrasher Soren Sorenson

SOUTHWEST (now in Jackson) •r Jesse Harris George Green Joe Harrison Freddie Green Sherry Everett Joe Bateman

IV. CARTHAGE

6081 - phone in general store f mile from FR & CC Address? c/0 Mrs, Winston Hudson, Harmony Community, Route 2

Volunteers

Annie Clay Pamela Gerould Johnathan Fast Connie Claywell Jennie Franklin Clark Gardner Carole Gross Anne Lindsay Hank Werner Judith Worner Jane Adams 10 > CANTON

859-9982 - office 859-4289 - Mrs, Robinson's Address? 838 Lutz

Communications? Mary McGroarty

Staff

George Raymond Theodius Hewitt Jim Collier Marcellus Byrd Joe Lee Watts Landy McNair Hattie Palmer Andrew Greene

Volunteers (Rural Madison County) Dorothy Teal Tom Foner Jody Keesecker Rev. Paul Zimmerman G« Dean Zimmerman Mike Peori Nancy Jervis Joan Abramson Susan Fennel FS Sharon Anderson Gloria Bishop Margaret Benes Than Porter Earl Bessey Barbara Sinon Nancy Cooper Madeline Levine Eob Gilman Margaret Bobbie Tom Manoff Joan Coinan Susan Sanford Sally Schidler Phil Sharpe Richard Schwartz Sandy Watts Panola Thonas Cynthia Small Marcia Hall Tom Jones Arlene Bock Martha Wright Jack Calma Bill Carney Al Gould Ann Harrison (NCC) Pete Praetz FS Nancy Wright FS

FLORA (out of Canton)

David Gabel Jin Ohls Doug Baty MERIDIAN H"

482 - 6103 - office (outgoing calls) 485-9286 office (incoming calls) Address? 2505f Fifth St,

Staff

Preston Ponder

Communications ? Louise Herney

Volunteers

Andrew Schiffrin David Kotz John Stevenson Edna Perkins Peter Rabinowitz Richard Swanson Eleanore Teidnan Pat Wheiland Mark Levy - FS Betty Levy FS Ronnie de Sousa Gail Falk Tina Duncan Marylyn Loonard Walter Hacknan Paul Miller Carl Morgan Diana pachella

V. LAPREL (Still in Hattiesburg) 426 - 9163 phone in Howard Hotel Address? 309 S. 4th Ave, (Howard Hotel)

Staff

Doug Smith Leslie McKinney

Volunteers

Bob ^.hrenreich Leigh Stelzer Lawrence Landeman Jimmy Garrott FS Ton Watts FS Marcia Moore FS Gwen Robinson HATTISSBUR_ G 582 -9993 - office Communicationss Terri Shaw Address? 507 Mobile St.

Staff

Sandy Leigh Shiela Michaels Howard Mobley

Volunteers

Margaret Hyatt Linda Harailton David Owens Ben Gershman Law student Anthony Beaulieu Walter Waters Bill Ninde Nicholas Ellis Malcolm Zaretsky Diane Runkle Paula -^ace Greg Kaslo Herbert Randall Morton Mulvain Stewart Rawlings Lome Cress Lawrence Spears Robert Stone Lanise Jackson James Nance Mary Banks (local) Joyce Brown (Research) Carol Reese FS Coordinator Arthur Reese FS Coordinator Beth More FS Doug Baer FS Pat Yorck FS Mary Gallatly CC Dave Hawk VR Jacob Blum VR Chris Wilson VR Hohnanne Winchester VR Paul Terrell VR 13 GULFPORT-BILOXI

S63- '0131 - Mrs. Travis5 home in Gulfport Address? 2905 Harrison

Coramunications; Mike Ingraham

Staff Lawrence Guyot Dickie Flowers Henry Bailey Eddie Stevenson Benny Jackson

Volunteers

Cathy Cade Research A. Hausfater FS Florence Jones FS Mary Lou Gillard FS George Tessare Steve Miller Ellen Lake Sam Walker David Cleverdon Gwen Cooper Tom Rowe Barry Goldstein Gene Murphy Gibbs Kinfierman

PASCAGOULA-MOSS'POIST

^75-7055 Address ?

Communications ? Ron Ridenour

Staff Charles Glen Georgia Martin Linda Wilson

Volunteers Fred Meeley Merme McKay Rita Koplowitz Roger Barnhill Joe Liesner John Catalan John Else IICC Mary Ellikson FS Debbie Rand FS Su Ryerson FS Mary Larson FS Barry Clemson VR Hedra Winans VR Tony O'Brien FS HAT IS 1

i—i

I! » A BAND OF BROTHERS, !t ?? tt A CIRCLE OF TRUST n ttsSt BY JIM FORMAN

TiiBLE OF CONTENTS WHAT IS SNCC: A SUBJECTIVE HISTORY 1 —21 1. Before Atlanta —A Dream .....i...i....l —5 2. ^e Atlanta Beginnings ...... 6 —§ 3. A History via The Offices ...... 9 — 12 4. The Early Struggle For Organizational Independence 13 —21 BOOK, THE SECOND COLLECTED PAPERS AROUND SPECIFIC ISSUES 5. These Are The Questions (How, Why & Where we organize) 6. Our Responsibilities and Relation­ ship to Southern Campuses 7. A Brief History of Fund Raising and explanation of Salary Scales.

THE DOCUMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PREPARED FOR THE SNCC STAFF RETREET OF NOVEMBER 1964 AND ARE NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN ANY FORM WHATEVER. ( Copyright Pending) jim Forman -WHAT IS SNCC

I have been constantly thinking of my own answer to this question even from before the last staff meeting. I havd discovered that to answer this question satisfactorily for me the answer has to begin in 1957 and <58 before SNCC even existed.

I was in graduate school at Boston University and hadc ompleted a novel which has never been published. One of the minor themes in the novel was the formulation of a movement of young people of both races which would use non-violent techniques to usher in social change. Much of the concern of the novel was the larger matter of the human frustration, exnecially of the young Negro in the hip- cities and this movement was one of the alternatives they exnlored.

There were certain charisteristics of this organization as it was formulated in the novel that appeared to me to be unique: a. It would attempt to be a mass organization with some degree of coordination of the various elements within the group, yet would be dedentralized. If in specific cities oreven areas within cities large numbers of people were needed in the street the organ­ ization would be able to have those people out quickly because of a block by block organization. b. The second distinctive feature was that the organizdrs would work on a sacrificial basis. This was deliberate. They would work for only what they needed because of the corruptive e ffeet of money in this society. If peonle were working out of dedication not for material rain I felt that the group would be strong and incorruptable and it would be almost impossible for peonle to come in and steal them awayfrom certain Ideals by offers of large sume of money.

The third charact^ Lstic was that the nucleus of the organization was composed mainly of young black intellectuals from North and South. And emphasis on the South, because the feeling was that too many young Negroes were migratinr north and loosing themselves in the labor markets In the cities when their skills could be better utilized in the Southern situation. WHAT IS SNCC Page 2

The fourth characteristic is one of technique. The organizer would teach In a school in the south, get a group of people around him and expand this group to more and more people. The reasoning for this was that the opposition was better defined in the south. This did. not mean that we were rejectinr the real necessity forw ork in the north but were confining the effort to the South since the organization work was easier in a situation where the enemy was more visible.

The riropram of the organization, would be broadly socialistic and humam" tarian as onnosed to a religious oriented group working for the needs of the peonle as they themselves recognized these needs. This novel was finished in the summer of 1959, sent to two publishers who were not interested In publishing it.

The student sit-in movement had begun in I960. One of the central characters of the novel had gone south to teach and had been writing back to the north d escribing the social situation there. This was, I adrrr't it, an ego wish extension on my part. This was what felt was needed and what I wanted tod o.

T^ere was in the book some criticism of the NAACP as being too middle-class in its orientation. There was little mention of either SCLC or CORE, mainly because they -'ere relatively recent groups, bu*~ the book stated the new organization w ould be Neg-ro led if only because the masses of Wegro youth needed symbols of leadership with whom they could Identify and respect. The lonr years of frustration inherent in the segregated system had made it impossible for Negro youth to look up to p-enerally accepted "Negro Leaders" and I use thet erm advisedly, knowing the ambivalencies and ambiguity surrounding the word "leader". The feeling was, and is, that Negro youth needed some viable and valid symbols, s ome identity anchor, and what could best fill this need, than some militant, incorruptable organization firbting for their rights, and led not by whites however sympathetic they might be, but by Negroes. WHAT IS SNCC Page 3

There you have a capsule of my ideas and attitudes in 1958. In I960 I found a chance for action by working in Tent City with the Emergency Fayette County Committee in Tennessee. Most of you will recall that indicent where an entire Negro community wasevicted from their farms for registering to vote and the story of the tent city they defiantly established. There were some distasteful incidents within the committee itself but these belong to history, and to my memories. They are reminders to me of the baleful effects that dissention can hav on even the most idealistic group. The people who suffer^are usually the ones the organizers are supposed to serve and not the organizers themselves.

In 1961 I met a number of you whow ere involved In the birth stages of the student movement. I can remember talking to Jim Bevel, Daine Nash, Paul Brooks, Bernard Lafayette about the necessity of creating an organization of the kind I had written about where people would take time out f rom school to o*vanJ.za. We all a rreed at least to the extent that neonle had Co take time out and do something. Exactly what? There were as many ideas as people. Simultaneous tothis thinking, there was a seminar held in Nashville by the National Student Org­ anization which wasbeinr led by Tim Jenkins. The major topic of discussion was people dropping out of school towork. A third factor, and a very important one was the decision of a New York school teacher

named Rob HQses to go into ^Mississippi to work on voter registration. (And. the story of those first days, alone and isolated in the most violent a nd most mysteriously sinister of the Southern states rdally needs tobe told.)

Leaving Nashville a number of us were thinking of some group that would go round to . ..rious c ommuni ties organizing indigenous community organizations like the original Fayette County Civic and Welfare League, w' ich would, speak out of the peoples needs. Some people in Nashville though the ideal group to d o t;is would be the infant S1CC. But afe that time SNCC in Nashville in 1961 was not t 00 well understood and highly regarded. Diane was working but even she had difficulty explaining to people In Nashville how S^C was organized. But she did have faith.

I went from Chicago to Monroe, N. C. and the story of Monroe should be WHAT IS SNCC Page k known to most of you. I left Monroe -4th abroken head and measureless enthusiasm. I had seen there what a group of young agitators, willing to work with local people could do. The experiencd in Monroe showed what couldbe done by a group w ill Ing to make certain sacrifices in terms of dramatizing and protesting certain issues. I was now certain of the critical need for such an organization.

I returned to Chicago and to teaching in tie fall 6f 1961, but I simply could not devote to the students the necessary time and ene*a?gy that they deserved. This worried me because I took teaching seriously and had been a g ood teacher, but I was now completely hung-up on making the attempt to fulfill the dream I had outlined in the book.

It is important to realize that the kind of movement I was thinking about-^as based, on the need in the United States for constant agitation — for people to agitate, agitate, and agitate -- for their rights. Also, that the answers did not necessarily have to lie with the agitators, but that if they made the society succifiently uncomfort­ able and jittery, then the total societywould itself move to ameliorate the basic injustices. I remember reviewing the history of the Negro protest here, and remarking on the almost complete absence of MASS agitation. With the exception of A. Phillip Randolph's march on Wash­ ington for jobs there wasn't much mass agitation until the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This was in my life experience a very important example of mass commu'ii ty c ooperation. Accustomed a s I was to seeing Negroes fightingeadh other in the Chicagos treets and hearing "Niggers can't stick together, Niggers can't do nuthin together", I was botheredevery time I heaaid that and was not convinced that it was true. So the Montgomery ^us Bovcott seemed to disprove bv example thats treet cliche, sn^ I stil1 maintain that the a?eal effectiveness of that boyco'; was not primarily in Montgomery but Its effect on the psychology of Negroes across the entire country.

Considering these things I felt a need for this group of organizers and aritators. I thought of them as technicians bringing to the people the tools and techniques which would allow them to move forward, because my experiences in Monreo and Fayette County left no doubt at all in my mind that Negroes in the South were ready to move. All they needed were the skills and tools that the organizers could bring. WHAT IS SNCC Page 5

Then I received a call from Paul Brooks in St. Louis. "You remember that group we have been talking about organizing?""" "Yes" T said. . ' "Well SNCC is gonna do that." .... "Yes?" I asked. "Yeah", he said. "The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is going to take on a group of people. Therefs going to be a meeting in McComb." "McComb?" "Yeah man, McComb, Mississippi. Some people are going towork on voter registration. Some on direct action. Diane asked me to call you, she wants you to work with us on direct action. Will you do it?" "Well", I said. "Man just wait a minute now. This requires just a slight degree of thought. You don't just say am I willing to. leave'. my job and so forth just like that." So then there was some talk. about subsistence pay and ihhe need to have a meeting and so on. There were in fact some meetings. The direct action peonle mot . In. Chicago. and after many conversations with f rionds and with Mildred-.I decided to do it. . .__• '-:.." "•••

.1 resigned ray teaching job and went on substitute basis- which'T presume I still have in Chicago. I was due to go to McComb and while waiting I sat there in Chicago through the first McComb crisis extremely'.' ._; frustrated because I had no information which I could use to help, publicize the situation there.

I was supposed to be waiting on somo money from Diane. While I had some money of my own I felt that this St organization that I was to work w ith was to meet certain tests. One of these, to be serloua, was either to follow up on the commitment to send the money or at least explain why it was not forthcoming. The waiting became unbearable after a few days and I made some calls myself. I managed to speak to Chuck Jones at the Buyland Supermarket in McComb and he informed me that there was no one in the Atlanta office and sugrested I go there to handle it. WHAT IS SNCC SECTION TWO: THE ATLANTA BEGINNINGS. Page 6 I caught a plane to Atlanta. I had been informed by Chuck Jones that the key to the SNCC office would be at the SCLC office. No one there had ever heard of any key, naturally. I ended up jimmying open the door with the help of a sympatheric gentleman called Mr Mangrum who w worked with an insurance company in the same building.

There it was — the national offices of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. One room. Greasy walls. A faint light from a dusty plactic skylight overhead. The mustiness, the smell, the mail scattered all over the floor. While I stood looking at the mail on the floor I realized that the phone was ringing. Newsweek wanting news from McComb. " Sorry I cannot give out any information at this time. Can I take your number?" I didn't have any information to divulge but I figured that the national office of a group engaged in what was then the hottest protest going couldn't afford to appear totally ignorant. The phone again. More news on McComb, Sorry. I'Ll take your number and our communi cations dfipartmp.nt will be in touch. Whatever else I knew I at least knew that the organization was alive The phone never stopped ringing but it was always newsmen, no one from SNCC who could give me any information. I asked myself " What time does the next plane leave for Chicago?" How in Hell could an organization be involved with such a massive protest in McComb and not have anyone in its office all week? Couldn't understand it. The mail all over the floor? Didn't understand it. Papers all scattered over desks? Didn't understand it. The room was so large that five people couldn't enter at the same time. Actually there have been cases of people coming to work for us and being so discouraged by the first days experience that they have left. I can understand and sympathize.

Then I began to realize what was really in store for me. I couldn't leave cause if I locked the office I'd have to jimmy it open to get '• back in. It was clear I'd have to sleep there. I'd have to make arr­ angements with the people downstairs. But I was in the office. I was in charge. Where were the rest of the group? Was there anyone to answer the phone if I went out? What was my assingment, what was I supposed to be doing? I thought to orient myself somewhat by looking through the files. What files? There weren't any to speak off. Utter WHAT IS SNCC?/ PAGE 7 THE ATLANTA BEGINNINGS organizational waste.

The first person to come in from the group i^as Charlie Sherrod, coming from MCComb. That Saturday every one came straggling in with tales of violence and fiOr0e civil strife. We had a long meeting trying to figure what our organizational future was and where we were going. Does that sound familiar? It is important, to me, to explain how I came to SNCC. I thought that the need was for writers to publicize the situation from the inside. So the agreement was that I was coming South to go into Mississippi and record the history as it happened. Something, incidentally, that is still not being done enough by SNCC.

In the Chicago meetings the Direct Action faction had divided the South into areas — six or seven states with four or five field secretaries. I had taken the states of Mississippi and Tennessee. When McComb erupted everyone was put into Mississippi. This weekend we drafted a plan called Move on Mississippi (MOM) which we tried to get support for and I discuss that later on. In Atlanta that weekend the staff tried to evolve a structure that would be workable for all members and answer our needs. There was a division between the voter registration people and the direct action folks, a rift so deep that if it were not healed the organization was finished before it had well begun. The direct action people felt that voter registration was an establishment red herring to stop the disruptive effects of our sit-ins, freedom rides and street demostrations. Chuck Jones was Voter registration director and chaired the meeting. The question arose who would stay in Atlanta in the office? A compromise was reached — both wings would be in the field but would function within the administration of an Exec. Secretary who would serve both wings. Then the question of who would be the Executive Secretary, Then as now everyone wanted to get back on the firing lines. Since I was sort of neutral in the Action/vote controversy people began to ask me to serve. I recall SandraHayden asking and Dora Wiescoff also. All ^ want ed was to help out in the movement and to record the activities. The people in Direct Action said that if I didn't take the post they simply weren't returning to the field.

I had to really examine my own aincerity. I asked myself. " So you go to Mississippi and write and if the movement falls apart because of your refusal to serve who have you helped? What have you done? WH^T IS SNCC/ PAGE g THE ATLANTA BEGINNINGS •I/here precisely does the difference between your wishes and the organ­ ization's needs begin and end? It was obvious that you have some organizational experience, and regardless for your own dislake of administration, if thats what the need is at this time you will have to do it. I needed to see the organizations conflicts resolved and the group survive. But living in Atlanta, I told myself, you canft adminstrate and write too, I was really hung up I really had been planning to write for so long, and specifically to write about the things I had seen in the South. I finally to accept the challenge of staying in Atlanta and sublimating my writing aspirations into the SNCC dream.

This decision bears directly to the idea I had developed in the novel, lore was just such a group, young people, young educated iJegroes willing :o work for no money willing to struggle to make real this dream of a o ;roup of militant organizers working out of faith and trust, 'his touched deeply on my intellectual integrity. I had been pushing for ;uch a group, knowing that it couldn't happen in a vacuum or In some >ody!s mind. It needed time and people with similar attitudes. How hen could " leave, go to Mississippi or back to Chicago? Or would I eally be honest to the things that we had all be s&ying and stay to ork at creating this kind of organization.

.ien too there was the problem of money, ^eople ressisted the idea of iking part in fund raising, there was this faith that ^arry Bellefonte /ould be the person to provide any money that was needed. There were ither hangups too which I wasn't sure would be resolved. Personality nflicts and the idealogical dispute of direct action vs voter regis- ration. Someone was needed to mediate between the two groups if this S to be resolved, I decided to accept. But I figured on working yself out of a job r soon as possible so that I could go to the ield to write. As soon as we were established and on our feet .-ganizationally, I promised myself.,.. Page 9 WHAT IS SNCC SECTION Tjqi

THE HISTORY OF THE OFFICES We are at present making preparations to purchase a building to house the Atlanta operation and there is to be discussion of this at the retreat. Thinking about this building I am reminded tof the various offices and the people who playedflifferent role s in them which are a parts of our history as much as the violence and terror.

Our first office, after we found it no lbnger possible to work out of the SCLC office space was at 197 Auburn Avenue, form there we moved to 135 Auburn and from there to 6 Raymond Street where research and photo­ graphy are now. We sort of expanded into Sg Raymond where the offices curnently are located. But these addresses mean more than just street references -- they represent stages of our developement, working condi­ tions, events and people; people working on staff and people from the community who helped keep us going. Let's start with 197i Auburn. It was here that Mr Mangrum helped me jimmy open the door to enter into the chaos I have already described. It was essentially a one room cubicle. Four walls, a desk, a ceiling and a little plastic dome which was ostensibly to let in light. The room was allegedly airconditioned in the summer and heated in the winter, but being without ventilation it became unbearably hot in winter and we had to clamber up on the desk to unscrew the dome so that air might come in. We were lucky not to lose any staff to suffocation. I was joined by Norma Collins who came from Baltimore to work. She was an excellent typist and calculating machine operator and very efficient but her coming brought the problem of a second desk. First we had to figure out how to get one, then how to fit it into the office and still have space to move. We just can't talk about this office without talking about certain people in the community who really helped out. The office was in the building where theSoutheastern Fidelity Insurance Company had its offices and Mr. Mangrum was their office manager. There was Mrs Turner who ran a health therapy center. She opened her office to us and soon one or the other of the staff was sleeping back on her bed. Eventually we began to use her massaging room for storage. Then there were the girls who worke -ed for the insurance company. They worked downstairs but had a room accross from us where they ate their lunches and came to relax. When the saw our crowded conditions they kinda felt sorry for us and relinOjUished WHAT IS SNCC/PAGE 10 THE OFFICES their lunch room for our use. We struck up a very early acquaintance with the office manager Mr Mangrum who became our staunch ally and supp­ orter. He had at first believed that SNCC was a part of SCLC and was being aided financially by them. This was understandible because of our worked for a time out of SCLC's offices and the fact that SCLC never did anything to tell people otherwise. Mr. Mangrum became very concerned about conditions in the office and beg -an bringing people from the community committee for human rights to se see conditions there. One morning he brought up a gentleman. He was saying how terrible conditions wrere because when people came in from the field they were sleeping in the office and the staff was sleeping sometimes in Mrs Turners physical therapy office. He really was horri­ fied and tried to get Mr Cochran at the YMCA to put us up. That didn't work out because of a previous misunderstanding that we had had with the "I1'. See, that first weekend we had all stayed there. I sort of assumed that we had an agreement with the "Yw for staff to stay there and I had, in fact, stayed there for some 20 or 25 days. Suddenly Mr. Cochran presents a bill for $129.00 which there was no money to pay. I explained that eventually it would be paid but in the meantime I had to leave. Mr Mangrum, our protector, was most indignant because we had been evicted from the "Y" and wanted rne to go on local radio to dennoun- ce Mr Cochran and the YMCA which I would not want to do . He also sugg­ ested that we put out a fact sheet proclaiming: "DO YOU KNOW THAT SNCC HAS NO MONEY FOR ITSELF: DO YOU KNOW THAT SCLC IS NOT SUPPORTING SNCC?" and gener lly publicize our bad financial situation. His office was on the same floor as ours and seeing our need for space — if two people came in to help out the office couldn't accomodate the crowd. So we were gradually creeping all over the building. We used three rooms ours, the lunch-room, Mr "angrums and by this time we had infiltrated into poor Mrs Turner's im....saging room too. Mr ^angrum went around the neighborhood and lined up some services for

us. I recall that he found some beauty shops that wouiu Y do the girls hair . ^e persuaded a laundry on Hunter street to take our clothes free. Now we don't take advantage of these offers but when we were on Hunter that tailor did all my shirts and was very friendly, allways willing to do anything that he could. Generally people in the communi- were very sympathetic about what we were trying to do and the difficult time we were having. They knew that xve were borrowing from Peter to P WHAT IS SNCC/PAGE U THE OFFICES to pay Paul, and literally matching pennies to skimp along. There was Mr Beaman who had a restaurant which he let us use for meetings whenever we needed it. Some weeks we monopolized the rear of his restaurant for two or three days. He never ever raised any objection whatsoever. Very important to our being able to function at all during this

period was Mr Kasuth Hill the owner of Hi3_x« sOffice and Church Supply Co. He sold us all our office supplies and even gave us credit. By august of 1962 we owed Mr Hill $500 for supplies. It just didn't seem as though we would ever catch up to this debt. As soon as we paid him a little we'd run down and get the two reams of paper and a box of carbon that we just had to have, so the debt continued on. Then, too, although he gave us every discount he could it was very expensive buying in small quantities but we had neither the money or storage space that we would need to buy in bulk.

Once I came back from a trip. I may have been put in jail then or something and Mr Hill came over. " Look Jim", he said, " I'm worried. I'd like you to try to pay up this bill as soon as possible. If some­ thing did happen to you I'd never be able to collect." Wfe felt very badly about not being able to pay him but it was just too large an amount for us at that time. When we moved from 197! it was also because of Mr Hill.

Sometime later he told us that he was leasing his office to the state and moving next door to a warehouse. There was lots of space and we < could move in rent free if we wished. We leaped at this not only for economic reasons but because we xvere really cramped. We had stolen just about all the space that we could from the people in the building and needed more. Wo were gonna move downstairs, but Mr Hill showed us a huge upstairs loft. 'We could have it but it needed paint. After our painting party — I remember Bill Hansen came down from Cambridge Md. just in time to have a paint brush stuck in his hand — we had this huge office, about three times the size of the present one.

We had four desks and four telephones and room to operate. We just couldn't believe that we wrere moving up in the world so rapidly. This was at 135 Auburn. We stayed there that summer when we had what was in fact our first summer project sending 3 or 4 white kids into South west ueorgia. There was Penny Patch, Peggy Damon, Kathleen Conwel WHAT IS SNCC/ PAGE12 THE OFFICES and Ralph Allen who brought some books down on our first book drive, and idea ^ulian thought up. So we stayed at 135 all that summer, through the Albany situation. ( Incidentally it was this summer that we lost Julian Bond who had begun setting up the very necessary communications section to tell people that we did in fact exist as a seperate organization and needed funds. Julian was expecting an addition to the family and needed some money. We didn't have it and the .Atlanta Inquirer which he had helped found was offering him S5 bucks a week. We wrestled with that one and the only thing we could come up with was that Julian should take the job -- we just had no money. That experience led us to revise our pay scales as regard married couples as soon as we could sfford it. And Julian didn't stay out long.) But as it began to get cold we began to know that we would ultimately have to move from 135. See it was a warehouse and Mr. Hill was not sure whether he would buy it and go to the expense of reconverting it. In October we realized that we had to get out before it got too cold. WE started looking and saw this place it was on Hunter right above Nukie Baby's. It was three smsll rooms which we knew would be too small but we didn't have any alternative. It was agettin cold. So we had stationery printed up with that address because we were sure that we were going to move. Then we discovered that the lady next door to it was moving, this was at 6 Raymond. The rent was $5 less and we figured it would be better to convert the house into an office. So we did that moved into 6 Raymond Street. We were all elated. I had an office, Dotty Miller-Zellner had an office, Ruby Doris had an office and Norma had the front office, for the first time. Julian , who was still over at the Inquirer was elated. ^e was predicting that we had started a new era for SNCC, that SNCC was here to stay, thatb there was no questiO any longer but we would survive. Its kind of interesting though because that same winter at one point we didn't have any heat at 6 Raymond and the people had to burn up wood to keep warm in the new office. That January I got sick and had to go to the hospital. I remember Dottie coming to see me and I started to cry. Later in 1963 when the Atlanta School for Sales education which had the offices over Sg Raymond folded we were able to move up to the present offices. This year we will be moving again, I hope. WHAT IS SNCC SECTION FOUR: '*he Early Struggle For Organizational independence.

It appears to me to be extremelY important that we all come to some understanding of the real struggle that took place for our1 survival and and independence as a seperate and equal organization, free to make and carry our own policies to completion. If we understand this it will give us insights into our real position in the whole spectrum of the Civil Rights Movement and the things that we will have to do. My chief purpose in recording it in brief here is so that we may all know some­ thing of the long tortuous path that has brought us to this place where we now stand organizationally.

We faced at the outset two very real public relations problems here in Atlanta. The first was simply to establish in the minds of the public who we were and what we were about. The second was related; it was having to correct the illusion in the minds of those few people who knew that we existed, that we were an arm of SCLC and was being run and supported financially by them. This grew out of the close relationship we had had at the time when we worked out of their office.

It got strenght when Louis L0max( but thats another story) wrote in The Negro Revolt that the students got $10 percent of all SCLC's income. Thus any supporters we had, and then they must have heen many cause the student revolution was the thing, saw no need to send us contributions dirct. So for this reason alone we needed to establish that we were independent, needing support, could in fact recieve our own money, had our own programs, and it was necessary to do this without getting into a public fight with SCLC, After that first weekend in Atlanta when SNCC was reorganized, we met with Dr M L King and ev, Abernathy to discuss our recently formulated plan for Mississippi (MOM) . We wanted them to go in with one of the waves of volunteers we were planning to send in during the coming spring Both gentelmen th. .ght it was very creative planning. We mentioned that we thought that we needed $25,000 to realize it and that we thought it could be raised in New -^ork. He then told us that they had received $11,000 from District 65 in ev/ ~ork, of which a third had been earmark -ed by the union for the Student Movement, He would check his books and the matter and let us know. Other important subjects were discuss -ed at some length. These centered around the problems facing the new student group. I recall a feeling of nerviousness when one of us said, (tye previous page is really 13) WHAT IS SNCC/ Page 14a THE EARLY STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

" Well, you know, let us recognize Martin, that you have a platform and a forum from which to speak to the Country, We have an action program and organizers to put it over. It seems to me that these two need to come together. If you can do certain things then we might be prepared to lend our programs and workers to your platform..." I don't recall the answer, but clearly that never happened. Mrs Baker, our advisor and friend, was in that meeting. She was former -ly executive director of SCLC. She began in her principled and very gently direct manner began raising a series of questions. She reopened the question of other organizations having allegedly received funds m marked by the donors for the student movement. He asked for specific examples and one was raised but the circumstances were truly complicat­ ed and vague so we were unable to clarify the situation much. Mrs aker was also critical of certain Public relations techniques of SCLC, suggesting that their techniques could be sharpened up so as not to suggest that ther were really more involved in certain situations t than ther really were. Like for example the very common habit of send­ ing and publicizing telegrams protesting conditions in a certain area in which students were working, which created the impression that the sender of the protest telegram was also the agent of the mass protest. But this is a very common if not quite right te linique in Civil Rights public relations. After the meeting we worked on a leaflet on McComb with the help of a young volunteer named Julian Bond. McDew and Chuck ^ones also went over to SCLC and picked up a check for $1000.00 which came from the District 65 funds. During this period the people in the field were establishing the history of fortitude and courage in the face of hardship and danger that you all knew, and in which many of you shared. Not just the everpresent dang r but the hardship; not eating for extended periods, riding a mule ( a razor backed mean old mule -*• understand too), trudgi 15 miles a day along highways to get to the people, going into new and dangerous areas and sleeping in cars parked in alleys, this kind of harship is what I mean. Back in the office there were difficulties too. It was during this period that I developed an ulcer, and experienced the lowest levels of depression and real dispair at our chances of survival that I have ever had. WHAT IS SNCC/ PAGE 15 THE EARLY STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE.

Organizationally we were infants. Adminstratively we xvere in very poor shape with our books in a bad way. It was hard to discover how much money, if any at all, we did have. So just surviving became a chellenge which I saw in these terms: SNCC was an idea. A group of young people banding together in a circle of mutual trust to work for social change. We were not then acceptable to many groups, even to other Civil Rights groups. There were those that called us communist, called me personally a communist, and tried in many ways to drive wedges between the members of the group and betw ween the group and its supporters. This became my challenge to make the idea a reality, and a vigorous viable one, in the face of a great many forces around us which were trying to destroy us.

The question of money was critical. We did have a payroll to meet. When we were broke in Atlanta it meant people in the field didn't eat and "' 1 this was depressing to me. We needed certain things desperately. Once it was a car and a movie projecter for Mississippi. Those things were unbelievably hard to come by. We opened the office at S.30 and closed anytime after midnight. There were at first only Norma and myself wording there full-time, ^ccassionally field people would come in, Charles Jones would be there from time to time. Then Dorothy Zellner and Julian Bond started coming In from time to time to help us. In the early days the critical weakness was in communications. I had some experience in the area of getting news peleases to news papers but it was physically impossible. At first it was so long and complicated process getting out a mailing everything — return address, stamps, receivers address had to be done seperately. We had to go to Connie curry's office to use her mimeo and for some time we had to postpone getting a mimeo even though we knew . that eventually we would have to have one. We tried to get Julian to come work in communications, e came worked for two days then we didn't see him for a mo^ch, hen finally in the latter part of ecember he ' agreed to come work for SNCC. ( -1- remember during the freedom walk which was much later Dottie Miller then being courted by Bob Zellner was doing communications. Bob was on the March and the press began asking why the first name in every release was Bob Zellner's and why all his activities were so scrupulously and carefully recorded. The answer of course was that his own true love was doing the releases) 0 WHAT IS SNCC/ PAGE16 THE EARLY STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. But to get back to where we were— we had realized that it was necessary to begin sending out material which said "SNCC IS AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT ORGANIZATION" and to keep sending this out until it made an impression on people from whom we needed support. We were doing this and I can recall one civil rights leader to whom I went when we needed something desperately. His reply to my request was " Well if you are an independent organization you better start acting like one," This I thought really saddening because •*• remember that whatever I was asking him to do was not for myself or even for SNCC but really for the total struggle,

There was a meeting at the Phyllis Wheatley "Y" here in Atlanta that I shall not easily forget, I was there talking to Jim Woods of SCLC for whom I have the greatest respect, and someone in the meeting rais­ ed the question of how SCLC got its funds. Woods replied that this was done mainly on MLK's image. "That image is worth $250,000 to us annually"he said, ' " How does SNCC raise its money?" I was asked. I replied, that we weren't raising any to speak of, but that we wanted to do-so.on the basis of public contribution around our program,rather than on.the basis of any single image of a leader personality. Not only did we not have such an image, ^ explained , -but I was sure that we would never have one or want to degelope one. We discussed what 'SNCC felt were certain weaknesses in the BigYLeader principle of organization. This was a position SNCC took then when it was hard and difficult to do. We have stuck to it and have reaped great strengh from it. I don*t think we have any reason to doubt the validity of it. Too many times / hfeve we seen masses of people in the streets, aroused and willing to /stay there in the face of brutality until RO*ICT real, progress wa^ won / from the power striatum, ,only to see the big leaders off somewhere / . in some -cosy negotiating room make decisions in which the wishes of t> people were not really represented. Contrast this to MFDP at Atlantic City where because of the policies we have insisted on and adhered to the decisions reached there was the decision of .the people themselves, despite the long procession of 21eaders" who came to advise, here at least it was the people who spoke for themselves, . But then back in -1961 and 62 this was a hard position to take and maintain. WHAT IS SNCC/ PAGE 17/ THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE Then, at the meeting, I told the group about the need for a car and movie projector in Mississippi, how in this country with all of its affluence and wealth it seemed impossible for us to get just $400 to buy a projector to send to Mississippi, I remember that so vividly, I think, because I was almost crying — I was actually crying inwardly. I talked about this ironical situation in this affluent country, where a group of young people could come together in brotherhood and trust, to work not for themselves, in fact to renounce comfortable jobs and career prospects, to reject opportun­ ities toamass money, especially in this society, and to devote themsel­ ves on a basis of real personal sacrifice to doing the work that the society had declined responsibility for— the work of creating a socie­ ty of decency here, and yet it did not seem that we were to be permitt­ ed to survive.

But ! told them that it was O.K. we were going to make it. We would get some money and it would only be a matter of time. 1 predicted that when •v*e did people would be willing to help and associate with us who were not wiling to do so when we really needed them. Imsaid that we would not forget,

^art of the reasonfruit I was so disturbed at that particular meeting was that I had, in a sense, humiliated myself a few days before. I had

gon^ ^vor t0 dTt King's houce to ask him for $500 for the organization.

Not as a gi?t, but that he should merely fulfill his commitment on the

money that DiS-^ict 55 had sent# «Q had said then in thac .. , meeting\

that a third was ouiq. Of this third ($3000) we had recieved the

$1000 and the balance was due. I was asking for $500 of this, beofore

I approached this subject we v.ad had. a long discussion parts of which had to do with personalities of people we knew and which made me extremely uncomfortable. Then I approached the question of funds asking for the money so that the payroll could go out for a few weeks. He said that he would have to check with the organization. I said that if they couldn't give us the money at least to loan it to us. We would

H get some money and Pay them back. e said he would check and let ma kn 1Vl 1 know on ond.ay. here the mau+-er encUH

«* are here, so we did make it. We u^rowod a grcat doal that year. We iw , , "ed on a series of calculated risks, . -rowing here then borrowing from somo,. ., „, pe else to pay the first, buying things .„ WHAT IS SNCC/ PAGE/ 19 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE from somewhere else to pay the first debt, buying things on credit. Chuck McDew did an excellent job combing the college campuses, struggling here and there for a few coins to keep us afloat. By une of 1962 we were $13,000 in debt. ( This was not to be the last'' time by any means in the Spring of 1964 when we were planning the Missi­ ssippi Summer project vie were $30,000 in debt.)

Jim Dombrosky of SCEF came into Atlanta that June and talked to me at length I guess he was preparing me for the fold-up, ^c said " Jim don't bo disheartened. If SNCC goes under you shouldn't feel bad. You kids have done all you could and there are many bigger organizations tl that have folded for lack of funds, I don't see how you can possibly come out from those debts you are under.

Even though organizations had failed for financial reasons I couldn'T accept that this was inevitable for us, I couldn't accept that in a country where lots of money can be raised for all kinds of programs, and for civil rights on the basis of action and program, the student movement, at the time the most active, could not survive ahd raise as much money as the other groups. The critical thing *• felt was that our story was not being adequately told, secondly, that we did not have tho northern organization to capitalize of sources that existed there, and thrd and most important we ourselves were to blame for allowing the first two situations to exist. There was in fact money being contributed to the student movement, I knew this from my personal experience in trying to raise money for th tent city in *' ayette county, "any people x spoke to were saying then. " Now we are giving all the support we can to the Student Movement," X' et here was the student movement broke, indebt, not having any money, and never ever having any money.

Objectively there were things working against us raising funds. We were based "1 the South and few staff people were willing to leave the field to go north and got money. Then too, we had been depending on NSA and NSM to raise funds for us. ihe Southern Freedom Fund of NSA had sounded like a good idea and were willing to get funds for r Somehow it just never worked out that way in practise. It was clear that somehow we would have to develope our own fund raising machinei WHAT IS SNCC/PAGE 20/ THE EARLY STRUGGLE

Our meeting in June 1962 was something of a turning point for us. soon after we were to start our own northern fund programs. We D had the beginnings of an office in Chicago. Mrs aker and Bill Mahoney were in ew York putting together an organization there. Our first arnegie Hall affair was in the works , That winter we were to move to 6 aymond Street. We even got two new cars that winter, the first in our history. They were two 63 Valiants one of which went to Frank Smith, the other to Sam Block. The SNCC motor fleet had begun. This winter marked the change in the big question hanging over us. It xvas not will SNCC survive, but rather it was becoming " what will the form, content, structure and relevance of our surviti- ival be? That June too the ¥oter Education project enters the picture. They wanted to work for social change, would give money for voter registrat -tion, but needed to protect their non-political tax-exempt status. What we were faced with was a source of much needed funds but there was the real possibility that these funds would limit our freedom of activity. We did manage to operate on VEP funds for a while. All of this was very intensely discussed at our first staff meeting at Dorchester in "^une 1962, Just what were the implications of the VEP program and were we in fact selling our hard x-\?on independence? And how long could the marr. age betxveen NSM and SNCC be expected to last. The NSM which had begun with a principal purpose of raising money for SNCC was beginning its own tutorial and action programs . As they developed into more and more of a seperate entity it became clear that they could'nt raise enough funds for us and their own i needs at the same time. This was understandible and there has al­ ways been the most friendly relationship between both groups. The other memorable thing about this pivotal meeting is that Bob Moses spent most of it in the hospital. It was the first time that we had alilbeen together in our history so we let our hair down and all got a 1: tie high at a party on the first night. I was driving towards the camp and Bob and Dorie Ladner were also'going towards camp. Bob hopped unto the rear of the car. I was driving very slowly and he holding very firmly when BLAM he hit the highway. He hit his head pretty hard, but Moses always had a pretty tough boad. We should have all known better, but I guess you can chalk it up to the fact that we were all a little dilerious at being together and we were a little high. But that was a real cloud over that meeting and we all wore pretty worried. What is SNCC / page 19 X. I Tb-e Early Struggle for Survival I x-jant to make some assessments of what our survival during this period meant. We survived and were growing. It was obvious that we were becoming a vital force in the Civil Rights movement and that this was now inevitable. Why? It was inevitable because we were no longer merely an Idea, x^e were, to use Bob's image, a tree with its roots In the people. Not only xjere we a tree but the roots of that tree x^ere made UP of action oriented intellectuals who were in a real sense more free than their counterparts in older groups. Be­ sides x>tfe had. more creative freedom and more intellectual dynamism within our organization than in any other group that I was aware of. Much of our strength came too from those people in the group who were not intellectuals in the academic sense but who represented in their ideas and approach a balance to the university trained people x^ithin SNCC. Then too, our role of agitators, rabble-rouser3 who were always forcing the Issue brought a new dynamism to the movement in the sou* There was a time when a certain stillness was hovering over the move­ ment but the creative competition that existed between the Civil Rig.' groups broke this open. For example, when in 1961 we had 16 people on staff in the South this was the largest staff of any group workint in the Deep South. Other groups have taken th«ii' cue from us and increased their staffs and broadened their programs. This has help the movement immensely. Last week, I was on the Joe Pinney show in Los Angeles. PInney kept trying to open me UP by leading, picking kinds of questions. "Well, Jim foreman", he said, "I and many white folks are concerned about SNCC but I understand many Negroes are not?" My answer to the was that In our opinion not enough people of our race were sufficien and deeply concerned about the Issues. But that we would continue t agitate thom, so that they would join with us in embarrassing the entire country over race relati^^ and other social evils. That we would do this to the n^-ut where the country couldn't Ignore all the internal a .fiat«-»n« The example of the Civil Rights bill is illustr tlve. Dep-'lte lts obvious short-comings and inadequacies it is bas. callv due t0 the kind of creative social disruption that was lead b; * handful of students who were also agitators and disturbera ur wu- peace. This was our role. PR-11 SNCC-1966 Comments by Stokely Carmichael, Chairman Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Over the years, SNCC has been concerned above interpreted by the press as a boycott on voting al­ all with making changes in the daily life of impover­ together. ) ished Southern Negroes — basic changes, not "token­ We seek, then, to create power bases which can ism." Almost from its start, in 1960, SNCC realized make important changes in daily life on a local level that political and economic power was the key to this and go on to change statewide or nationwide patterns and that Negro-controlled political groups must be of oppression through negotiation from strength rather formed to achieve it. than weakness. Negroes cannot form political alliances with the white community until they have that strength Disenfranchisement, maintained by racist terror, and until there are whites with whom they can form made this impossible at that time. The right to vote coalitions — which is not the case in the Deep South had to be won, and SNCC workers addressed them­ today. But it is one of our hopes and goals to en­ selves primarily to winning the vote from 1961 to courage poor whites to build a base with which poor 1965. That struggle was eased, though far from won, Negroes may eventually combine their strength. with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. SNCC workers could then address themselves to the Essential in the process of organizing Negroes to logistics of self-determination: getting a Negro sheriff win power is the conquest of fear and the development into office, winning power. of "black consciousness:" self-respect, pride in the history of black people, our culture and institutions. Black power means that in Lowndes County, Ala. We must change the attitude expressed by an Alabama (80% Negro), for example, if a Negro is elected tax Negro who voted for the white sheriff on May 3, say­ assessor, he will be able to tax equitably and channel ing "We aren't ready to have a colored sheriff. The funds for the building of better roads and schools white folks wouldn't have liked that a bit." serving Negroes. If elected sheriff, he can end police The acquisition of political power responsible to brutality. Where black people lack a majority, it black people is the current stage in our struggle to means proper representation and sharing of control. create a society in which people can make free choices On the state or national level, it means that black as equals about all aspects of their daily lives. This is people can say to white authorities, "We need X mil­ our goal and our concept of integration. Too often lion dollars to fix our roads, and we have X million the goal "integration" has been based on a complete votes behind us." Without power, they can only say acceptance of the fact that in order to have a decent "Please — we need it." house or education, Negroes must move into a white The thrust of our program today is, therefore, neighborhood or go to a white school. What does this political organizing to win that power. This will vary mean? First of all, it reinforces among both Negroes according to the situation in each community. In At­ and whites the idea that "white" is automatically better lanta, Julian Bond is running in the Democratic pri­ and that "black" is by definition inferior. Secondly, it mary — but with an independent platform geared to allows the nation to focus, for example, on a handful the needs of his constituents. In certain Alabama of Negro children who finally get by Southern racist counties, we found that Negroes did not feel they mobs and into white schools, and to ignore the 94% could win redress within the Democratic Party — the who are left behind in unimproved, all-black schools. party of George Wallace, "Bull" Connor and Al Such situations will not change until Negroes have Lingo; the party whose Chairman in one county was political power — to control their own school boards, a man accused by the federal government of evicting for example. With the achievement of such control, Negroes for registering to vote. We therefore helped Negroes can become truly equal — and integration form freedom organizations which nominated inde­ then becomes relevant, meaningful. pendent candidates for county office on May 3 of this None of this thinking is new in SNCC. "Pro-black" year — also the date of the Democratic primary. Be­ has never meant "anti-white" — unless whites make it cause of an Alabama law which could have been used so. We continue to believe, as always, that SNCC's to invalidate the freedom conventions on the grounds leadership must be black. We have concluded that that people cannot vote in two primaries, SNCC ad­ Negroes make the best organizers in Southern Negro vised Negroes in the freedom party counties not to communities because they encourage the idea that vote in the Democratic primary. (This decision was Negroes can do something for themselves. This re- leases *e energy and creativity which produce change

which emphasize 52^.?^ c tion and organizing Jitv8 I ' Polltlcal educa- black commS needT We I CT °f What the SM trk ef°r fa^ys re WOrkmg to et m AssoclallOT federal registrars- at § <*e other new direct^T«„ represents an- counties STem. We^lsot V ^ ? 6°° urban orlantS?, Z& "" *" ™<*™™ h cific areas of ioh hi , working ln the spe- publie facial Wet?' SCh°°1S' and s»d hdping Negro communities t0 Ti^to? ^P^' S h 0 «ton f,o m his °h0™ de'aSf SeflNSr ' t ST time to overcome tL „ .™- SNCC works full- raeisrs. ZIZZ^SZ'™ ""^ "S "hitt as of June, 1966. This figure fluctuates somewhat. one, white and V^^ZS's^T " "^

I. F. Stone's Weekly, June 6,1966

Behind the Hostile Press Campaign Unleashed by the Election of Stokely Carmichael SNCC Does Not Wish to Become A New Version of the White Man's Burden We hope white liberals will not be taken in by the press equality, the job will have to be done by Negroes themselves. campaign against the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Com­ These are not tasks for a summer adventure in between mittee since Stokely Carmichael succeeded John Lewis as na­ classes. They can only be accomplished if Negroes are mo­ tional chairman. White sympathizers with the Negro have to bilized to carry on for themselves. In such areas as the Black keep several things in mind. One is that in any movement Belt, where the Negro is a majority, this means seeking ma­ the leverage exerted by the moderates depends on the exist­ jority rule and that means Negro majorities. Otherwise the ence of an extremist fringe. The second is that a certain Negro is at the mercy of t white minority. In Lowndes amount of black nationalism is inevitable among Negroes; county, Alabama, for example, where the Negro third party, they cannot reach equality without the restoration of pride Black Panther movement, originated, the white Sheriff has in themselves as Negroes. The third is that this cannot be deputized every white man over 21. To be a deputy is to achieved unless they learn to fight for themselves, not just have the right to carry a gun, and to have a kind of hunting as wards of white men, no matter how sympathetic. SNCC license to shoot Negroes. is reacting against a new version of the White Man's Burden. This is the background against which one must read Car­ michael's statement, "We feel that integration is irrelevant; it Fresh Approach to Southern Politics is just a substitute for white supremacy. We have got to go No white man really knows what it is like to be shut into after political power." He asked an audience in Washington the ghetto. "The Negro," as Martin Luther King said in a last week-end, "How are you going to integrate a share­ vivid phrase on CBS Face The Nation May 29, "is still smoth­ cropper making $3 a day with a plantation-owner making ering in an air-tight cage of poverty in the midst of this very $20,000 a year?" affluent society." For the white sympathizer, the struggle Some people were shocked by Mr. Carmichael's angry re­ against the ghetto is an act of philanthropy, for the Negro, mark, "We want quality education, not integrated education." it is a battle to save himself, not just from poverty but from But here I believe he expresses the reaction of Southern Ne­ a corrosive self-contempt. The ghetto dweller distrusts the groes to the bitter experience of integration. The Wall St. white SNCC worker. Mr. Carmichael's idea of recruiting journal (May 26) carried a story, "The Invisible Wall" on black SNCC workers from Northern ghettoes is psychological­ the ostracism and the humiliation visited on those few Ne­ ly sound. His idea of using white SNCC workers to organ­ groes who have often literally risked their lives to get into ize the Southern poor white to the point where joint action white schools. Many are leaving. This frightened handful between white and black becomes possible opens fresh pers­ in white schools only distracts attention from the need for first pectives in Southern politics. rate education in the Negro schools. This is just as true in The wonderful white boys and girls who went South in the North where the Negro schools are segregated by the the past few years helped to thaw out the Negro from poli­ flight to the suburbs. Only by improved schooling can the tical deep freeze. But now that the battle has shifted from Negro be fitted to compete as an equal in a hostile white the simpler symbolic acts of sitting at a segregated lunch world. To dismiss this as Negro nationalism is neither fair counter or in a segregated waiting room to the harder and nor perceptive... more complicated tasks of winning a real economic and social Notes on Organizing

by Charles McLaurih" '""•" •

Since I am under the impression that SHCC workers are organizers, I think that this is what they should do.- • ,., ;

A SNCC worker should never take a leadership role in the community unless he is in his own community. A SNCC worker shoul.d give- the res­ ponsibility of leadership to the communtty person or persons whom he has or is building. The SNCC;worker should give form and guidance to the peoples' organization, and/or their programs.

I think that in each area one faces different kinds of problems. I've attempted to .state some of the problems found in small communi-:, ties sach as Ruleville and Indianola, Miss.

The larger, more middle-class communities will be somewhat different. ; ' ' -: -..-. ....

I think you at first meet the pepple on their own terms,, or you loose. '

Entering the Community . . •

There are two ways to enter a community: the invited and the uninvited way.

The invited is the easiest* because you .know that somebody wants you. Somebody will put you up for a while, and through .this person or per­ sons, you will meet others. -

An invited person goes to live with X person in Y community, Mr. X* czrries the person to church on Sunday. He introduces him to his friends and neighbors. You are there to do a job which at this time .. is undefined; so you act friendly, smiling and greeting the ladies as they approach you. Then, with your warm, friendly "face you say to the people; "I want to do something for this community." That after- . noon you are asked out to someone's home for dinner.. Go, because this is one time you will be able to talk with a family, or maybe . several families. Remember, try to answer all questions asked of you at this point, because you are on trial. You must impress, as well as express.

An uninvited worker faces many.difficulties; first, he is unexpected and in many cases unwated by the do-nothing leaders of the community.- He is a stranger to the people, and therefore, he is alone in a strange place. If he is to be successful, he must become a part of the community. " - 2 -

How One Becomes a Part of the Community

First, get a place to stay. It is best to get a place in the community, with a well-known family. Once you have a place to stay, you have made the first contact in the community?! however, in many cases it will not be as easy as writing words on paper.

It may just happen that you are not able to find a place for weeks; but do not give up. You may have to get a room in a rooming house; but try to stay as close to the community as possible. This will enable you to spend long hours in the community without worrying about a way borne afterwards.

Making Contact

Since you have found a place to stay, say with a family, then the work starts, and it starts just as do most things, in the home.

You should spead as much time as the family has talking to them, because they have information about the people — both white and black. They have been there all of their lives; they know the community; they know the people who will help. Take time and talk to them; ask questions, for it is here tltt you get real community education.

Now you know the key people in the community, from this talk with the family. But some of them work work out; do not get discouraged. Keep on pushing.

Canvas the whole community one afternoon. Talk with the people, laugh with them, joke with them; do most anything that gets some attention on you, or on some kind of conversation. It is very important to learn what bugs them.IE may happen that they are thinking about trying to get the vote. You'll know when they talk.

The most important thing is to move the community by action; ,the commu­ nity will move when the people move. The people will mere when they are motivated.

Some Ways of Motivating People

Canvass two or three days, the first week. Do not worry too much about what you hear from the people. If you just talk and ask questions, some of them may talk about Chicago or Welfare checks; this is good, this is what is on their minds presently.

During canvassing, be sure to take down the names and addresses of the people who talked, who seemed to you that there is hope in them. This could be only two people; or it could be ten. No matter what the number is, these are contacts. You have a small group of people. Now you need a place to meet with them. Try to get a church or an empty building if you cannot get either, use one of the person's homes for a meeting place. Again, start with the people where you live; ask to hold the meeting there. BUILDING LEADERS - 3 - The reason for using this home is that you have now found that dependable leadership does not exist, You must, from this little group, find and build a leader or leaders. How? In this meeting, plan some kind of action. You put suggestions before the group. Let them talk over the suggestions, about paved streets, stop signs, street lights, or recreational facilities, and how the vote can get these and more.

You may need to hold ten or more of these kinds of meetings; at the same time, trying to get a church, getting the word out about the house meeting by leafletting or word of mouth. But let it get outJ Elect a chairman to chair the meetings; you should not do this after the first meeting. Each meeting, give more and more of the respon­ sibilities to this group, and as the group grows, form committees so as to involve more of the people.

To overcome the fear, many of the things above mentioned will apply. By getting the people together, they will see that they are not alone. By stopping by each one's home as much as possible, you will let them know you are sincere, in what you say and do — that you not only care about the meetings but you are interested in continued progress in their community add family life. The feeling of being close together will help overcome the fear.

Apathy will disappear when you give the people some responsibility, hen you subject them to association with each other, through the conversations of personal and community problems, the apathy will disappear. At first the family educated you; now together they are educating each other.

uspicion comes from mistrust. So many have led" us wrong, that it is hard to trust people we don't know. You must be friendjv, reliable, and most of all trustworthy. With this, suspicion will disappear. When the people trust you and trust your judgment, suspicion will be a thing of the past.

Charles McLaurin SNCC: THE BEGINNING OP IDEOLOGY Staughton Lynd Five years ago this fall C. Van Woodward published an essay enti­ tled "The Populist Heritage and the Intellectual," directed against "the disenchantment of the intellectual with the masses" so character­ istic of the Eisenhower years. Woodward called on Intellectuals to maintain tho tradition of Henry George, Henry Demarcst Lloyd and Upton Sinclair, writers and thinkers who had thrown themselves into tho pop­ ular movoments of their day. He said; One must expect aid wven hope that there will be future upheavals to shock tho seats of power and privilege and furnish the periodic therapy that seems necessary to the health of our democracy. Nut one cannot expect them to be any more decorous or seemly or rational than their predecessors. "The intellectual," Woodward concluded, "must not be alienated from tho sources of revolt," Woodward's article was itself part of a tradition: the prophetic tradition of American intellectuals who have called on their fellow- craftsmen to join them in radical action. Emerson had issued such a call in his "Kmerican Scholar." He said, In l837° "Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it he Is not yet man. Without it thought can never ripen into truth," Emerson wont on: "Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not," As if anticipating the circle of students singing "Wo Shall Overcome," Emerson wrote: I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in hhe ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb abyss bo vocal with speech. The speech of which Emerson wrote, issuing from sharod suffering and action, and articulating what is latent there, is not easy. Ife is all too easy to write about one's summer in Mississippi: so many have. But these reports rarely reach tho level'of intellectual encounter. Too often their tono is merely adulatory, and consciously or uncon­ sciously the fund-raising purpose hovors over the words, I believe that tho intellectual who fully engages himself must emerge with critical as well as positive responses, and his responsibility ends only when he has attempted to communicate thses. It is just here that inhibitions crowd in. For, th begin with, surely "the movement" is already magnificently articulate? Its leaders are themselves scholars-in-action. James Forman left graduate work in African studios to go to Fayotte County, Tennessee. Robert Moses, be­ fore he went to Mississippi, had majored in philosophy and mathematics at Havorford an d Harvard. The young man at tho Jackson COFO office who, lato on June 21, roceivod the telephone report that Michael Schwerner, James Chancy and Andrew Goodman were missing, is a specialist in Jap­ anese culture, Tho young woman who took" my place at the end of tho summer as director of the Mississippi Freedom Schools had been an Eng­ lish instructor at the University of Washington. Now SNCC even has its own research department, headed by Jack Minnis, a candidate for the doctorate in Political Science at Tulane. SNCC offices are uniformly strewn with magazines and paperback books; the songs of the movement testify, in a different way, to its articulateness. Nor is SNCC anti- intellectual in tho manner of tho Russian Narddniks, who were ready to exchange Shakespeare for a pair of boots. At tho Oxford orientation session which preceded the Mississippi Summer Project, Bob Mosos twice drew on Camus in public speeches: onco, comparing race prejudice to the plague which infects every one; again, after the three wero reported missing, to say that there was no escape from guilt, that so long as tho problem existed we would all bo both victim . and executioner.

Such a movement would seem to leave little more to bo said. And there are other inhibitions. Sometimes one hesitates to speak because one has been asked not to. Thus I attended a SNCC staff meeting just before the Summer Projects began, about which I feel free to say only that It onco more affirmed the position that SNCC staff members should not carry weapons. Sometimes ono hesitates to speak because the thing experienced appears to lie too deep for W3rds. I attended a 3N0C staff meeting at Oxford after the disappearance of tho three which began with the song "Come by here, Lord," verse after verso after verse with one person after another in tho room taking the load. And that is all I Know to say about It, But there are times when one hesitates to spoak because one fears rejection, or because one feels that, as a temporary participant, one has no right to speak, or because (In the case of the civil rights movement, and if one is white) the privilege of speaking seems appro­ priately to fall to those who have suffered in silence so long. At these moments, I feel, one is actually failing in commitment: holding back a part of oneself. The point Is precisely that dialogue should begin among all of us as we really are, with all our secret shames and hidden glories* The intellectual has a responsibility to take his place in the ring but also, as Professor Woodward said, to "shape" and try to make sense" of the movement In which he participates (these words havo patronizing overtones in this context, yet is not exactly the intellectual's job to shape and make sense of experience?) If the scholar-in-action repudiates the role of participant observer, he should at least be an observant participant, Thoreau quarrelled with the abolitionist movement until, as he put it, the memory of his country spoiled his walk; but when ho did speak out, In "A Plea for Captain John Brown," he spoke the more forcefully because ho spoke with the whole of himself. He who aspires to be a man for all seasons must bo prepared to recognize, as More was, the season for plain speaking. The foregoing makes a pretentious preface to some jottings from a scholar's summer notebook: and yot it Is tho one thing I want most to say. There is now going on within Sncc, and within the civil rights movement generally, a fascinating intellectual ferment. The need for broader alliances, uniting white and black, North and South, is conceded on all sidc^. But some talk of a Populist alliance between Negroes and labor, while other suspect the Administration of using the AFL-CIO VVII^CO-T^VO^TT +-~ /i~w,r:.o+-? ,-,„+•,-, cvw/vi mi-^«.« „•**-* +-v,~^ Wh0 think the Freedom

FDP must grow into a third party, l^amy speak of appealing to Nations, even of moving to Africa, Others think the movement should keep clear of all suspect and subversive causes. Many confess that they are not prepared to die for a .hamburger on d the vote, and see no answer to the Negro's problem but socialism. Bob Moses, in contrast, insists that his concern is "limited gains," and Jim Forman agrees with his former teacher, St, Clair Drake, that the movement should seek first the political kingdom. This dialogue is going on among full-time workers ordinarily too overwhelmed by tomorrow's metting to give their minds to the issues. Moreover, there is in SNCC -- along with the paperbacks, and the buEL sessions, and tho hostile-yet-nostalgic ambivalence toward higher education — a mystique of action which forever interrupts the process of thinking ahead. What is in the making in the movement Is simply a long-run plan, a strategy. But talk of this sort tends to got labelled "ideology." And so the ideology which, willy-nilly, is ber-inning, wears the end of ideology as a mask; and the movement backs into the future with its eyes closed. What tends to be forgotten, it seems to mo, is that an ideology is an articulated hope. Movement need hope. Newcomers to Mississippi this summer were astonished that Northern whites were so readily accep­ ted as teachers in the Freedom Schools, and that Negro youn.g3t.ers In Mississippi showed so little bitterness and hate. Howard Zinn, discus­ sing tho problem with me, conjectured that the reason is that Southern Negro youngsters still havo hope that the American dream will come true fur then; whereas children growing up in tho Northern ghettopes see nothing ahead, I an Inclined to go one step further, and to argue that violence; and black nationalism --, whether they express themsolves in Harlem or among S23CC, ctaff — are symptoms of despair about the future. Many.- if not most, . SNCC staff whom I know at all well believe with a part of their ralnde that the American dream can bo realised, and moreover re- f-or.rt] -.o tho value of this belief from tho standpoint of public relations; ye^, with another part of thomselves despair, feeling that so deeply pre­ judiced a society as ours can never create a permeating atmosphere of equal it y „ Tb Thu.fetho enealty for non-ideological thinking is an undercurrent of despair; a tendency to restrict the focus of vision to the next, and the next, and the next tactical action: and a failure to make contact with groxips who might be partners in a more broadly-conceived movement. From one standpoint.this can be viewed _as a commendable pragmatism, a creative refusal to be drawn into stale political bickerings. But it can also bo viewed as a withdrawal from reality: as a refusal to face such questions as, How can you win power in Mississippi as Negroes move North? Can you get freedom if you don't get jobs also? Perhaps the fact that the Freedom Democratic Party paid so much attention to being seated and so little to program reflected not just strategy, but the difficulty SNCC itself experiences in facting programmatic problems. At a memorial service for Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman in Neshoba County, whore they were killed, Bob Moses condemned America's action in bombing North Vietnam: he slid tho lesson of the deaths was that men must stop killing. Yet at Atlantic City Moses' party pledged allegiance to the man who ordered the bombing. The dilemma of victim and execution­ er is literal and cruel. But must It not be faced? SPECIAL REPORT FROM STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE 6 RAYMOND STREET, NW ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30314 February 25, 1965

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ACTIVITY In.Dallas County, Alabama

The Justice Department has been active in litigation and investigation in the state of Alabama since passage of civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 and has brought some action under the Civil Rights Act of 19 64. A culmination of this activity occurred on January 15, 196 5, when the U.S. brought suit against the state of Alabama (defendants being the state and its Secretary of State) to prevent use "of a difficult literacy test instituted in September, 1964, as one of the state's voter registration requirements. The government contends that the new test v iolates the educational requirements for voting of the Civil Rights . Act of 1964. This suit is similar to statewide suits pending against Louisiana (two such suits) and Mississippi. Previously, individual suits have been lodged against boards of registrars in various Alabama counties, contend­ ing discrimination of one variety or another. The govern­ ment's current suit is seen to be applicable to all of Alabama?s G7 counties, and, if ever ruled on favorably, would en; oin the state from engaging in any act which would deprive Alabama citizens of their right to register and vote. Whatever the promise of this new suit, it might be instructive to view the last few years of Justice Department activity in strife-torn Dallas County, where voter registration activities had been conducted by SNCC since 196 2, to determine the Department's actual accomplishments in coming to the relief of Alabama's citizens. A brief tabulation follows: U.S. v Victor B. Atkins, et al: Suit was filed against Dallas County Board of Registrars on April 13, 19 61. The Justice Department had first to get a court order to examine records of registrars after delaying tactics by the Board. An injunction was sought to prevent further discrimination in voter registration by the registrars. Meanwhile, new registrars were appointed so the U.S. District Court denied granting the injunc­ tion on grounds that the new board had not engaged in discriminatory acts. The Court did enjoin against the board's not allowing persons to reapply after failing the registration test. -2- The Justice Department appealed the case and +he District Court was instructed by the Appellate Court t<~ issue an injunction asainst the registrars' rejecting applicants for minor errors when otherwise qualified, against using tests without first submitting to the court the answers by which the test was to be graded, to stop using oral tests, and to give persons the reason for their rejection. This relief was granted on November 2, 1963, thirty months after litigation was started. Judge Cameron, federal judge who sat on the panel which heard the appeal, concurred with Judge Thomas's earlier remark that "The whole country should be proud of the job now being done by the present Board of Registrars of Dallas County."

U.S. v Dallas County, et al: Complaint was filed by / the Justice Department on June 26, 1963, against the- County, Sheriff Clark, the State District Solicitor Blanchard McLeod, and Dallas County Solicitor Henry Reese. This was an"attempt to get federal district Court to enjoin conduct of these officials from intimida­ ting potential Negro registration applicants. Judge Thomas refused to grant relief, which would have, among other things, prevented Sheriff Clark and his agents from attending voter registration meetings. Appeal of this decision by the Justice Department on June 27, 1963, failed. This injunction was to have been preliminary to a hear­ ing, which was then postponed by the District Court to an unspecified date because of unrest in Selma. The Justice Department succeeded in getting a hearing, but only after first requesting a writ of mandamus from the appeals court. The threat of this writ possibly forced the District Court to set a date for the hearing, and the Appellate Court then had no necessity to issue the writ. On October 15, 1963, before Judge Thomas, the hearing was held. Judge Thomas then denied the request for an injunction on March 19, 1964. The Justice"Department has.the case on appeal.

U.S. v McLeod, et al: Filed by the Justice Department November 12, 1963, naming as defendants Blanchard McLeod, the state District Solicitor; Sheriff Jim Clark; State. Circuit Judge James Hare; M'.H. Houston, Clerk of the Circuit Court; the Foreman of the Circuit Court Grand Jury; and the Dallas County Citizens Council's officers. The Justice Department sought to enjoin these persons from conduct intimidating persons attempting to register and asked that the County -3- Grand Jury be temporarily restrained from requiring Justice Department personnel to appear until a court hearing could be conducted about this procedure. This was shortly after the Justice Department had become embroiled in controversy with the state, having to do with voter registration demonstrations and an , incident whereby Martin Luther King was transported in a Justice Department rented car from Birmingham to Selma. It was a clear attempt to investigate and em­ barrass the Justice Department Federal Circuit Judge Thomas refused to issue an order restraining the defendants' harassment techniques. On November 13, 196 3, the Court of Appeals reversed Judge Thomas's decision, and thereby prevented the Grand Jury of Dallas County from calling up such persons as Burke Marshall and John Doar, who were busily engaged in doing the business of their office. Incidentally, a letter of Burke Marshall's (see Congres­ sional Record, Feb. 7, 1964, page 2425) reveals that such Justice Department activity hardly warranted harrassment by Alabamans. Marshall explained the function of the Justice Department's man-on-the- scene Henderson, who was later sacked for the King car incident: "Mr. Henderson has been particularly val­ uable to the U.S. in keeping this Department advised as to the scope and nature of planned demonstrations. On each of such assignments, the local FBI agents were aware of Mr. Henderson's presence and, I believe, the local sheriff and the Chief of Police are also aware of his presence. To date I have received no complaint about Mr. Henderson's handling of his assign­ ments. On the contrary, it has happened that local law enforcement officers have sought and obtained information from Mr. Henderson in their preparation for handling tense situations." Judge Thomas issued the court order as directed by the Appellate Court on November 14, 196 3. From december 5-18 hearings were held before Thomas's court to resolve the matter of U.S. v McLeod, et al. On March 19, 1964, Judge Thomas ruled against the Justice Department, dissolving the previous injunction. The Justice Department asked Jodge Thomas that a temporary injunction be granted pending appeal. This was denied on March 30, 1964. The case is now on appeal. -it- State Circuit Judge James Hare issued an injunction during July, 1964 against demonstrations by all. groups in Selma. The Justice Department.asked Judge Thomas to overrule Hare. This move was combined with the following two suits. U.S. v. Clark, et al: On September 2, 1964, former Attorney General Kennedy filed suit against Sheriff Clark, his deputies and posse, State Solicitor McLeod, State Judge James Hare, County Judge Reynolds, and the City of Selma. The Justice Department asked for a three Judge panel to hear the arguments and issue an< injunction against the defendants on the grounds that "the defendants have used, their official posts to maintain and enforce racial segregation in' public facilities and accomodations to preserve white supremacy." and that "throughout their respective tenures in office the defendants have engaged in a pattern of conduct with the purpose of preventing desegre­ gation of public accomodations and of inter­ fering with the exercise by Negroes of their right to vote." U.S. v Warren County et al: Also filed by the Justice Department on September 2, 1964, was this suit against five Selma restaurants for violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act dealing with discrimination in public accomodations. On December 7, 1964, hearing.on U.S. v Warren Co., et al was conducted in Selma before a three judge panel which included Judge Thomas. On December 8, 1964, hearing was begun on U.S. v Clarke, et al. On December 24, 1964, the hearings were completed. Briefs must be filed by both sides by mid-February, and the court is expected to rule within the next few months. -

This history of Justice Department activity spotlights the legal state of affairs in Selma and Dallas County: the impotency of the. courts to relieve an inevitable situation produced,by cases not yet ruled on or that remain tied up in the federal court system on appeal. Congressman Resnick's (NY) recent remarks in the; Congressional Record seem.well founded: ' ; "As early as 1961, soon after the passage of the 1960 Civil Rights Act, the Justice Depart­ ment filed, suit against the Board of Registrars of Dallas County. Four years and five more Federal suits later effective relief is yet to be forth­ coming, and the first voting referee is yet to be appointed. The extraordinary concentration of the legal resources of the Justice Department has been to no avail." -5- Sheriff James Clark, with three federal suits pending against his brutal actions, continues to outrage the nation. And the lines of applicants continue to queue up so that Negro citizens may have their brief, futile encounter with the Dallas County Board of Registrars. The Justice Department has broken their activities down to a fine science, as displayed by this statement in­ cluded by the Department in January, 1964, during a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee: "During the fiscal year over 30,000 records were photographed in 11 Alabama counties. Some 31,000 applications in 12 Alabama counties were processed of which 23,000 were analyzed to determine whether cases should be filed. Some 10,000 were processed in cases where the Division has received favorable judgements or concluded successful negotiations. In six Alabama counties, voter registration records are photographed at regular intervals and must be processed on a continuing basis. Since the close of the fiscal year, records have been photographed in an additional 14 Alabama counties." Perhaps we need to charge the Justice Department with something more than a mindless mechanical approach to a vital problem. On January 21, 1965, Judge Thomas was petitioned by NAACP lawyers to issue an injunction against Sheriff Clark's repressive acts. Thomas granted this relief on January 23, saying: "Under the guise of enforcement there shall be no intimidation, harrassment, or the like, of the citizens of Dallas County legitimately attempting to register to vote, nor of those legally attempting to aid others in registering to vote, or encouraging them'.' On the scene was U.S Deputy Marshall Fountain, policing the Federal Judge's ruling for the Justice Department. He chose to enforce the ruling to its strictest letter, even denying registration drive leaders the right to speak to applicants in line or bring them food and water. Inspection of the statement of Judge Thomas's rule given above indicates this Justice Department man's sudden zeal for enforcement exceeded the bounds of the court order. There were no complaints from Sheriff Clark, at whom the injunction was aimed. And there have been no complaints from him since then. TO OVERCOME FEAR by Charles McLsiurin The first: poople th»t I accompanied to t he Sunflower Ccmnty Coiii-t;hmio0 m .Indianola, Miss, gave me th© spirit and courage to continue.

I mil always remember August 22, 1962 as the day that I became a man. It was on this day that I was to test myself for courgge and the ability to move in the face of fear and daiger, danger such as I had never faced before. About 7:30 a.m. that morning, I had been arround to the homes of people who had given me their names as persons willing to go to the courthouse and attempt to rebister to vote. I was very disa­ ppointed, I had only b een able to find three of the ten. The other because of fear had left home rather than say so to me.

Since, I was going down to the Courthouse for my first time I too was afread; not of dying and not of the man (Mr. ^harlle) per say, buy of the powers the sheriff's department, the police department, the courts; these are the powers and the forces which keep Negroes in their so-called places. The night riders would not be so fearful If it wasn't for the sheriff who TOPId be on their sides, or the policemen who would arrest the Negroes vho had been shot by the mob, for breach of the peace. The Negro just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. So for this reason and many others, this poor Negro must face a hostile police court, he must stand before a prejudice judge and be sent to the County Farm or the State prison, for a crime committeed by others whos skin happened to be lighter and brighter, this is the system and the effects of 't.-'at system and of the people subjected to the system.

So much &> r the in-between. About 8 a.m., I had only three people to go to the courthouse, this was the day I learned that the numbers were not important. I learned that a faithful few was better than an uncertain ten.' 1

These three old ladies whom ages ranged from 65 to 85, knew the white man and his ways, they knew him because they had lived worked and raised families on this plantations, and on this day, they would come face to face with his sons and daughters to say, "We Must be Free;" Now'.

Tommie Johnson, son of one of the ladies active in the move­ ment in Ruleville was to carry us down in his car. About 8:30 fommie came to Y/here I was staying and we went to pick up the three old ladies. After we had them in the car; off we went, down the highway south on I4.9 highway.

$e drove pass an American service station operated by three white brothers known as the Woolenhams. Thesewere bad brothers. They were known to beatup Negroes getting off the Gnayhound bus when it put them off there. Ihey also pulled guns on Negroesufao asked for air in there car tires. As. we passed $his station I could not help but watch to see if they noticed the car, for tthis car had taken six brave ladles down weeks earlier, and all the - 2 - white people knew it.on and on passing the people In the cotton fields; trucks and busses along the sides of the highway; men women and children moving to rhythm of the beat of the hoe; vsrking hoping and forever say "lord my time ain't long" this work will soon be over, I'll be free. . . Now Doddsville, five miles south of Ruleville. Doddsvill© Is the home or v.a. senator Eastland, Jpmes, 0. Eastland that is i'he light turned red just as our car reached the 5«fc«raec tion 1 and we stopped. A stragge little place this was, five or six buildings old and run down from the ^ears when cotton was King and the- Negroes were even more plentiful than they are toda^r. Doddsville wP!iere many years ago the burning oI HeRar<,„0 rraa a Sunday spectacle where whites young and old delighted at tbis eveil which killed the spirit o the old Negroes and set the s tage for the place- i fixing of young ones not yet born. On and, on my eyes taking in as much at a glance as possible. The old ladies talking telling the stories of the years gone by; i me with knees shaking mouth closed tightly so a s to not let them hear the fear in my voice.I am feeling -the movement of the car and the rumbling of the motor asw e move on and on towards our des­ tination, Indianola, county seat of Sunflower County, As we move pass the lettle tov/n of .Sunflower one Of the old ladies said, "Woft't be long now", At that moment my heart seemed , to stop;, fear so much fear, realizing what danger could lie abead for us especial me. A. smart Nigger trying to change a way of life liked by everyone; at lease it seemed that way . Indianola, the city limits of Indianola, state of Mississippi; county of Sunflovi/er I am the police. These are the TO rds of Indian­ ola's trusted police officer, Officer Shark. As we move into the to pass the numbers of Gas stations along 82 highway I could almost sp'eak -now. T was going to face the man (Mr. Charles) in the Courthouse. I was filled with fear but this I must do; do this or continue to die. Not that I was dead and walking as, such, but one i who is alive in real life but dead in mind dead in ability to say tj do or to act in a way that would give attention to ones present in' society. , We turned off the'highway and again we drove south, this time through a neighborhood, a v/hite neighborhood. Then around a corner and there was the courthouse the police station and the sheriff's department. All of. the big powers together. \7e .pulled up In front of the Courthouse. \e building was an old faded brick type wth a •four door that opened on a different street. As I opened the door to get out I got a feeling in my stomach that male me feel weak sweat started to form on my forehead and my became moist. At this point I Was no longer in command, the three old ladles were leading me, I was following them. T^ey got out of the car and went up the walk to the courthouse as if this was the long walk that lead to the G0iden Gate of Heaven, their/heads held high. I watched from a short distance behind them; the pride with which they walked. The strong convictions that they held. I watched as they waLked up the steps and into the building. I stepped outsid - 3 - outside the door and waited, thinking how it was that these ladies who have been victimized by white faces all of their lives v/ould suddenly walk up to the man and say, I_ want to vote. This did something'to me. . It told me something. It v/as like a voice speak­ ing to me, as I stood there alone, in a strange place and an un- know land. This voice told me that although these old ladies knew risk involved in there being here they were still will to try. It said you are the light, let it shine and people will know you, and they will follow you, If you show the v/ay they v/ill go, with or wi thout you.

*"o they did, I ask one night; I told them what to do and when that day came I followed them. The people are the true leaders. Me need only to move them; to show them. Then watch and learn.

^he ladies came out of the courthouse and found me day dreaming ^hey told me that the man in the office had told them that the office was closed, at that I v/ent to s ee. I tried to open the door but it was locked. I knocked but no one opened the door. I went bad to v/here the ladies were and w e went back to the car.

As we drove away I looked back at this place, called Indian­ ola for one day real soon I would make a speech on these grounds. Surrounded by hundreds. That dream came true 3§ years later. Mien we held one of the greatest Freedom days in the state around the courthouse.

Charles Mc I * u •>•.'_ n March 28, 1965"

una PEOPLE B&coais CORRUPT

First of all, you have to figure out what you are working £or. It's not enough to know what you're against—like I'm fighting segregation, or the system, or the power structure. In order to get the kind of world you want— a world without segregation and violence and misery—you have to know what you are for. Uhat I think we are all working toward is people having enough to eat and wear, and enough room to live in comfortably, and being able to do the that they enjoy and not being afraid of getting punished for expressing themselves. I think that's what the Movement is all about when you come down to it. Things like seeing that people have money or jobs or economic or political power are not basically what we're working for. If it were possible Tor people to get enough to eat and wear and for them to do what they enjoyed, without their getting money or economic or political power, that would be fine. Because money and economic and political power are only one means to an end, ,-*•' and the end is what really counts.

It seems to most people who are trying to bring about change (like civil rights workers) that the only way you can get a better life for people is by getting them more jobs and more money. And the only way to obtain money and jobs is by getting political power. Since the power in this country is held by a power structure consisting of President Johnson and the Democratic Party, and behind them the big corporations, it seems like the only way to get what people need is to get control of the power structure, so as to put some of the control over economic and political matters into your own hands.

So some people who are trying to change things end up working very hard at doing what will make them accepted by the power structure. They talk about dressing respectably and worry about Red-baiting; they try to get into the Democratic Party; they decide on courses of action, like demonstrating (or not demonstrating) on the basis of whether that action is "politically necessary"; and they urge compromise with the power structure, like accepting the two seats at Atlantic City. Of course, such a person has become corrupted. In trying to become part of the power structure, he is forced to lose his militancy; he forgets the people he should be fighting for. He has been taken over by the syst em.

Other people who are trying to bring about change talk as though they are completely opposed to the system. They prove to you how corrupt and brutal it really is ("Life with Lyndon" is a great example of this); they say that since the power structure is so immoral, what we should do to get power is to be smeaky and underhanded ourselves; they say that since the power structure works like aniefficient and ruthless machine, we must be efficient and disciplined and ruthless ourselves in order to get power; they, too, base their actions on what is "politically necessary."

This second person probably sounds quite different from the first, because the first seeks to gain power by being accepted into the power structure, the other by fighting the power structure and taking its power away. However, both have a number of very important things in common. They both want to take over the power structure. This means that they are both forced to base their actions, not on what the people they represent want, but on the nature of the power structure itself. And they both end up becoming like the system they oppose, although in different ways.

over UHY PEOPLE BECOME CORRUPT—p.2

It is easy to see that the first person is v;rong. It is harder to under­ stand how the second person is YJrong, but I will try to explain why I think he has fallen into the same trap the first has.

Back at the beginning, I asked what we Y/ere working for, and I suggested that economic and political power were only means to an end. They are not necessarily the only way you can bring about a world in which people are free to enjoy themselves. In fact, the present system is based on money and power, and Y;e know all about the misery and cruelty which is a result of that system. But the fact is, the second person is trying to take over a system he knows is bad, using the very means which make it so awful.

"Where he has gone wrong is that in his own thinking and acting he has not gone beyond the way things are now. The system says that money and power are important and that you have to be rjrthless and efficient to get them; so he is ruthless and efficient to get hold of money and power. Just like the compromiser, he has forgotten the people he is working for, and their basic desires. Instead, he lets the values and structute of the system determine what he does. He cannot bring about any changes in the way things are, because instead of working to bydld something new, he is all caught up in reacting to the system. , He, too, has been taken over by the system.

I am going'-to.write another paper later, explaining what I think we should be doing—how we'have to act in terms of what we want, which is free people building their own lives, instead of being forced to react to the system we are stuck with now. .

Barbara Brandt To: SNCC Staff From: Tina Harris

Who is responsible?

For four-hundred years, "human beings" have been robbed of ther humanity. No-where in the history of the world has a group of people suffered this particular kind of savage slavery. We are litee "bastard" children, for even the name Negro connotes a peculiar kind of "bastardry." We have been expected to adopt the puritan ethics of a dominant white culture, ethics which we all know were practiced by the "master" during the daylight houBs. At night it was conv eniently forgotten. And yet, black people are expected to be super-human, if we drink, fight, forni­ cate, we're degenerate,and irresponsible,

^or the last couple of weeks here in Atlanta and elsewhere, I have been observing an unusual phenomona, which is a widely held attitude by a great many of our intolerant staff members that they are "responsible" while those of us who allow ourselves to engage in somewhat very human means of outlet are "irrelsponsible." For an example, someone remarked to me that a certain group were acting in an irresponsible manner because they drank while on the road. ihis responsible "freedom fighter" admitted that he was in the movement because he had rejected the hypocritical pseudo- liberal values of his parents. Hov/ever, it never occurred to him to question hi self as to what his conduct might be, if he had to spend long hours, doing one-night stands, to express to members of a cancer ridden society what the "freedom movement" is all about. Did this responsible SNCC worker ever get to know any one of these gentlemen, or did his phony liberalism prejudice that? It seems to me that if we are going to use the values of middle class America as a criteria for determining Y/ho is responsible, then that criteria should apply to everyone, black or white.

For example, a certain young lady seems to be undergoing some mental upheavals, she hasn't been to work, or if she does appear, very little is accomplished. Her work is either done by others or simply left undone. However, #ur young lady has not been prohibited from partying, mavieing, etc., which as ai individual is probably her means of letting off steam. There has been no human cry that this particular young lady is irresponsible. On the other hand, one of my black brothers remarked that if he had his way, he would fire a certain black sister because she drinks, (she aparently was seen drinking on the job.) I wonder, brother — if you have ever tried to find out why our sister drinks, is it because she's irresponsible or maybe like the young lady above is also undergoing some mental upheavels. I think it's time for us all to stop and do a little soul searching. For if we are intolerant of each other, then vie are even more criminal, than the worse rascist. The Mississippi Freedom Schools Deeper Than Politics

Liz Fusco

THE ORIGINAL PLAN for Freedom Schools devel­ study of the realities of Mississippi in the light of oped from Charles Cobb's dream that what could be Nazi Germany in 1935. The so-called "Citizenship Cur­ done in Mississippi could be deeper, more fundamental, riculum" set up two sets of questions. The "primary" more far-reaching, more revolutionary than voter regis­ set was: 1) Why are we (teachers and students) in tration alone: more personal, and in a sense more trans­ Freedom Schools? 2) What is the Freedom Movement? forming, than a political program. The validity of the 3) What alternatives does the Freedom Movement offer dream is evidenced by the fact that people trying des­ us? The "secondary" set of questions (which seemed perately to keep alive while working on voter registra­ to me more important because more personal) was: tion could take seriously the idea that Mississippi needs 1) What does the majority culture have that we want? more than for Negroes to have the right to vote. 2) What does the majority culture have that we don't want? 3) What do we have that we want to keep? The decision to have Freedom Schools in Mississippi seems to have been a decision, then, to enter into every The continual raising of these questions in many con­ phase of the lives of the people of Mississippi. It seems texts may be said to be what the Freedom Schools were to have been a decision to set the people free for poli­ about. This was so because in order to answer them it tics in the only way that people really can become was necessary for the student to confront other ques­ free—and that is totally. It was an important decision tions of who he is, what his world is like, and how he for the staff to be making, and so it is not surprising fits into or is alienated from it. that the curriculum for the proposed schools became At the beginning of the summer, with rare, amazing everyone's concern. They worked and argued about exceptions, the kids who were tentatively exploring what should be taught, about what the realities of us and the Freedom Schools were willing to express Mississippi are, and how these realities affect the kids, about themselves only one thing with honesty and and how to get the kids to discover themselves as hu­ passion (without characteristically saying what they man beings. And then Staughton Lynd, the director, thought the white man wanted to hear) : as soon as came in to impose a kind of beautiful order on the they could gather enough money for a ticket they were torment that the curriculum was becoming—torment going off to Chicago, or California! To leave the state because it was not just curriculum: it was each person was their ambition, and about it they were certain, even on the staff painfully analyzing what the realities of though they had not thought any further than that, not his world were, and asking himself, with what pain I even where the money was to come from, and certainly can only sense, what right he had to let the kids of not what they would find elsewhere or what they would Mississippi know the truth, and what right he had to do. Some sense of "go home to my Lord and be free"— keep it from them until now. And because of these some vague hope of a paradise beyond—seemed to sessions, the whole concept of what could be done in inspire their programless passion for the North. But at Mississippi must have changed. It was because the peo­ the end of the summer almost all of these kids were ple trying to change Mississippi were asking themselves planning to stay in Mississippi. the real questions about what is wrong with Mississippi that the summer project in effect touched every aspect Within the flexible structure of the Freedom School of the lives of the Negroes in Mississippi, and started it was natural that a confession of—an insistence on— to touch the lives of the whites as well. the desire to rush northward led to a discussion of the condition of the Negro in the North, about which most As I see it, it was this asking of questions that made the of the teachers could speak specifically. And then came Mississippi summer project different from other voter the news stories about Harlem, Rochester, and Medford, registration projects and other civil-rights activities Massachusetts, and the kids were interested, and wor­ everywhere else in the South. And so it is reasonable ried. But they did not change their minds just because that the transformations that occurred took place be­ the truth about the North began to shatter their dream cause for the first time in their lives kids were asking of it as a paradise. Their need to escape stemmed from questions. The curriculum itself was based on the ask­ the fact that they really did not know what it was about ing of certain questions, in connection with the kids' Mississippi that they hated. They felt that what was interest in their Freedom School teachers (mostly intolerable for them had something to do with the Northern, mostly white, mostly still in college), in con­ white man, something to do with getting only $3.00 nection with Negro History, African culture, and even a day for 10 hours work chopping a white man's cotton, the academic subjects, as well as in connection with the something to do with the police—but they had not yet

November 1964 17 articulated the connections among these things. And don't they do this at our school?" was the first ques­ they had not connected these things with their expe­ tion asked; and then there began to be answers which rience of repression at home and in school. And so led to further questions, such as "Why don't our teach­ the very amorphousness of the enemy was threatening ers register to vote, if they presume to teach us about to them. citizenship?" "Why can't our principal make his own decisions instead of having to follow the orders of the No Hiding Place white superintendent?" "Why do we have no student In the Freedom School patterns began to be seen, pat­ government?" or "Why doesn't the administration take terns that were real and could be dealt with. So the the existing student government seriously?" kids began to see two things at once: that the North Always in the end, the main question was why are we was no real escape, and that the South was not some not taken seriously—which came also out of why there vague white monster doomed irrationally to crush are no art classes, no language classes, why there is no them. Simultaneously, they began to discover that they equipment in the science labs, why the library is inad­ themselves could take action against the injustices equate and inaccessible, the classes overcrowded. This which have kept them unhappy and impotent. is of course the question that the adults were asking Through the study of Negro history they began to about the city, county, and state, and the question the have a sense of themselves as a people who could pro­ Freedom Democratic Party asked—at the Democratic duce heroes. As they began to learn about the move­ National Convention. ment, they saw in the story of Joseph Cinque of the The students were taken seriously in the Freedom Amistad a parallel to the kinds of revolt that the Schools. They were encouraged to talk, and their talk­ movement represents. They saw that Joseph Cinque, ing was listened to. They were assigned to write, and in leading a mutiny on that slave ship instead of their writing was read with attention to idea and style asserting his will to freedom by jumping into the shark- as well as to grammar. They were encouraged to sing, waiting waters, was saying that freedom is something dance, draw, play, laugh and think. All of this was that belongs to life, not to death, and that a man has painful as well as releasing because to be taken se­ responsibility for bringing all his people to freedom, riously requires that one take oneself seriously, believe not just for his own escaping. Connections between the in oneself, and that requires confrontation. past and the present were continually made—at first by the teachers, then by the students: "Who do you Tangibly, what was set in motion out of this experience know that is like Joseph Cinque?" "How is Bob Moses of joy and pain was the thing the Mississippi staff had like Moses in the Bible?" "How is he different?" "Why hoped could happen in Mississippi, but could not did Harriet Tubman go back into the South after she totally formulate. In the spring, the Student Nonviolent had gotten herself free in the North?" "Why doesn't Coordinating Committee in Mississippi had tried to Mrs. Hamer stay in the North once she gets there to organize a Mississippi Student Union, bringing together speak, since she doesn't have a job on that man's plan­ kids from all over the state. There was good response, tation any more, and since her life is in so much but not on the scale the MSU was soon to achieve out danger?" "What do you think about Frederick Dou- of the Freedom Schools. This summer the kids began lass' talking so straight to the President of the United to talk boycott of the schools, but they were able to States?" "And how does the picture of Jim Forman discipline their thinking so that boycott would not in the Emancipation Proclamation issue of Ebony sug­ just be acting out their frustrations, but careful, con­ gest that same kind of straight talking?" "Who do sidered, programmed, revolutionary action along the you think tbe movement is proving right—Booker T. lines of the Montgomery bus boycott and African rev­ Washington or W. E. B. DuBois?" "And what comment olutionary action. The kids were able to come together on your own upbringing is made by the fact that you in the middle of the summer, in Meridian, and draw all knew about Booker T. Washington but most of up a series of resolutions which said with terrible clar­ you had never heard of W.E. B. DuBois?" "Why are ity what they felt about their world: what a house the changes of gospel songs into Freedom Songs sig­ should be—even what the federal government should nificant?" "What does 'We Shall Overcome' really be. And they were able to ask why it was that the mean in terms of what we are doing, and what we people did not have a voice, and to assert that their can do?" voices would be heard. The seriousness of their con­ cern is reflected in the final statement following the Beginning to sense the real potency of organized Ne­ list of grievances drawn up by the McComb Freedom groes in Mississippi, the kids in the Freedom Schools School: found an immediate area of concern in the Negro schools they attended or had dropped out of: the so- We are twelve Pike County high school students. Until called "public" schools. They had grievances, but until we are assured our parents will not suffer reprisals, drawn into the question-asking, had only been able until we are sure this list of grievances is met with serious to whine, accept passively, or lash out by dropping out consideration and good will, we will remain anonymous. of school or getting expelled. By comparing the Free­ dom Schools with the regular schools, they began to The McComb students are sending the list of grievances become articulate about what was wrong in the reeular to the newspapers and the school officials, city officials, schools and the way things should be instead. "Why senators, and the President of the United States. Out

18 Liberation into the world: "Look at me—I am no longer an invis­ Schools were not just a place where kids could be in­ ible man." ducted into the movement, a convenient source of can­ vassers. They were something else, and in realizing this, And back again into themselves. Whomever the Free­ the skeptical directors were themselves transformed by dom Schools touched they activated into confrontation, the Freedom Schools. The Schools provided the experi­ with themselves, with the world, and back to themselves ence through which people, because we needed them, again. On one level it was the white teacher saying to emerged as discussion leaders, teachers, organizers, the Negro girl that nappy hair vs. "good hair" is not a speakers, friends, and persons. I know this because in valid distinction, that it is a white man's distinction, leaving the Freedom School in Indianola, the county and that the queens in Africa—in Songhai, Mali, seat of Sunflower County where the Movement had Ghana, Ethiopia—had nappy short hair. On another been resisted for three years, and where, when we came level, it was the Northern i>egro student-teacher saying in, the people did not know how to cross arm over arm to the kids yearning I\orthward that he himself had to sing "We Shall Overcome," I learned for the first gone to an almost completely (or completely) segre­ time in my life that with kids you love, to disconnect gated school, and that his home was in a ghetto. On is to suffer. another, it was a senior (who had been suspended from the split-session summer school for participating in the movement and took Freedom School academic courses Expanded Horizons instead) saying of Robert Frost's "The Road Not The transformation of Mississippi is possible because Taken," that the man took the road that needed him the transformation of people has begun. And if it can more: "because it was grassy/and wanted wear/. . .and happen in Mississippi, it can happen all over the South. that has made all the difference." On another level, it The original hope of the Freedom School plan was was the white and Negro Freedom School teachers that there would be about one thousand students in sitting with the adults in the evening classes talking the state coming to the informal discussion groups and about what kids want and deserve, and hearing the other sessions. It turned out that by the end of the adults express some of their concern by forming a summer the number was closer to three thousand and parents' group to support the kids' action against the that the original age expectation of 16-17-18- year olds schools. On still another, it was the junior high school had to be revised to include persons all the way from kids in the community coming over in the evening to pre-school age up to 70-year olds, all anxious to learn sit with the adults who were learning their alphabets, about how to be Free. The subjects expanded from the one kid to one adult, and everyone, including the staff, Negro History, Mississippi Now and black-white rela­ crying with awe for the beauty and strangeness and tions to include typing and foreign languages. In fact, naturalness of it. On all levels, it was the whites, the these aspects of the program were so successful that Northerners, listening to the Mississippi Negroes, read­ the continuation of the Freedom Schools into the reg­ ing what they wrote, taking them seriously, and learn­ ular academic year will involve a full-scale program ing from them. of tutorials, independent study and longer range work with art, music, and drama as well as exploration in Visible results of the Freedom Summer include the greater intensity of the problems raised in the summer kids' drawings on the walls of Freedom Schools and sessions. COFO offices all over the state, as well as kids' applica­ tions for scholarships (National Scholarship Service To think of kids in Mississippi expressing emotion on and Fund for Negro Students), and even more, appli­ paper with crayons and in abstract shapes rather than cations for the Tougaloo Work Study Program, which taking knives to each other; to think of their writing commits them to staying to work in Mississippi. In and performing plays about the Negro experience in addition, there is the real possibility that the Negro America rather than just sitting in despairing lethargy teachers in the regular schools (the teachers who have within that experience; to think of their organizing to sign an oath not to participate in civil-rights activ­ and running all by themselves a Mississippi Student ities or try to vote) have this fall begun to experience Union, whose program is not dances and fund-raising for the first time in their lives student challenges that but direct action to alleviate serious grievances; to are not adolescent testing or insolent acting-out but think, even, of their being willing to come to school serious insistence that freedom is in truth and that after school, day afer day, when their whole associa­ they will have the truth! tion with school had been at best uncomfortable and dull and at worst tragically crippling—to think of these Most significantly, the result of the summer's Freedom things is to think that a total transformation of the Schools is seen in the continuation of the Freedom young people in an underdeveloped country can take Schools into the fall, winter, spring and summer plans place, and to dare to dream that it can happen all over of the Mississippi Project. Some project directors, who the South. There are programs now, as well as dreams. had been in Mississippi since 1961 participating in the There are experiences and results to learn from. And slow, sometimes depressing, always dangerous work of it may well be that the very staffs of the Freedom voter registration, first thought of the Freedom Schools Schools in Louisiana, Georgia, etc., will be the kids as a frill, detrimental to the basic effort. At best, they who were just this past summer students themselves in considered them a front for the real activity. But the the Freedom Schools in Mississippi—and who discov­ project directors came to realize that the Freedom ered themselves there.

November 1964 19 The NATIONAL GUARDIAN is an independent publication with an editorial con­ science. In its 16 years of publication, it has dared to raise issues and report 2,0 cents events which are at the heart of our nation's future. We invite all who have not NATIONAL yet done so to subscribe today. Return this coupon to: NATIONAL GUARDIAN 197 E. 4th Street New York 10009 Please enter my subscription to: NATIONAL GUARDIAN / / full year sub $7 / / student sub $3.50 per year / / Canada and Mexico $8 / / 10-week introductory sub $1 OUARDIAN I enclose $ Bill me for $ ^^^ the progressive newsweekly NAME ADDRESS

CITY ZONE STATE.

A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM THE MISSISSIPPI WAY OF LIFE Freedom Schools open a door to the world Freedom School theme by a 10-y earmold in Hatttesburg, Mississippi: "Well, it was this bus driver, I was on the first straight seat on the bus, and want, think what they want, say any­ he told me to move back. I said, 'I will riot. I paid a dime and two pennies for a thing they choose." had been burned liThearby Natchez Just transfer and I'm not moving.' He said, 'You know white people must get on this In schools across the state teachers before the McComb school was to open, bus.' I said, 'You know colored'people must get on this bus, too..'" fought rigidity. Day after day they would so the church which- was to house it remind students, "I am not Miss Jones. backed down at the last moment. Then By Joanne Grant trine: "As a permanent member of the I am Kathy.". .. "Not 'Yes sir,' The name the Freedom House—civil rights workers' Guardian staff corrmpondent Negro race I'm sick and tired of any­ is Bob." The young northern college stu­ headquarters—was bombed. Since no JACKSON, MISS. thing that smacks of paternalism." dents or professional teachers who staff­ church could be found for the school, its CROSS THE STATE youngsters ex­ ed the schools found they were dealing first session Was held on the lawn of the Other resolutions sought solutions for with students who were wise beyond their A pressed similar attitudes in the Miss­ every discriminatory practice in the life bombed out Freedom House. When Joyce's issippi Summer Project's Freedom School years..Theirs was a wisdom born of daily of the Mississippi Negro. One on hous­ fear, hrutality, deprivation. poem was read to a secret meeting of a Classes, in poetry, in school newspapers. ing, for example, called for a building dozen Negro businessmen, they were The Impact of the program oil the state's code with these minimum requirements: THEY WERE WISE, but unlearned. They moved to tears and a home was found educationally-deprived Negro youngsters "A complete bathroom unit, a kitchen were 10-year-olds, fifth graders, who for the school and its 100 students. was readily apparent at a convention held sink, a central heating system, insulated could not read; 14-year-olds who could PROBLEMS WERE SIMILAR elsewhere. at the end of the second session Aug. 8 walls and ceilings, laundry room, pan­ not spell. But they were children who When the Freedom School staff arrived In Meridian, Miss. At the convention, try space, an adequate wiring system pro­ could define freedom thus: "Freedom is In Carthage, the entire Negro commun­ organized and run by the students, were viding for at least three electrical out­ to be able to go in" (a Meridian 12-year- ity was assembled at the church to greet about 75 delegates from 41; Freedom lets in the living room and kitchen and old) and "Freedom is like when you them. Two days later the staff was evict­ Schools with a registered attendance of ed from the school; the community again 2,135. They adopted a platform—with a appeared with pick-up trucks to help program for "our state, our nation and move the library to a new school. Then our world" with resolutions on subjects the Carthage community began build­ ranging from medical care to foreign af­ ing its own community center to house fairs. They also resolved that "copies Qf a library, a winter Freedom School and this platform be sent to the President, adult classes. every Congressman, the Library of Con­ gress, the Governor and every member of Among the results of the summer's the Mississippi legislature." Freedom School program has been the Resolutions had been drawn up by the unifying of Negro communities in many students in each school before the con-; areas. In addition, the program has pro­ yention, then were consolidated into a vided a glimpse of a far broader world platform by delegates at workshops on for its 2,000 Negro students. It has been voter registration, medical care, housing, a small bridge with white Mississippians education, jobs, federal aid and foreign (white children attended Freedom Schools affairs. There was vigorous discussion, for short periods In Vicksburg and Holly both in workshops and in plenary ses­ Springs). It has helped develop local sions, which expressed the essence of the young Negro leadership. It has taught Freedom school aim of freeing the chil­ young Americans from other parts of dren from the strictures of the Missis­ the country that, as the Freedom School sippi system of education. The system is convention theme put it: Freedom is a described In a Freedom School report: struggle. "The Mississippi educational system is geared to teach the Mississippi Educa­ AS THE SECOND of the summer's ses­ tional Way of Life: Dissent is heresy. sions ended, plans were being developed Ignorance is safer than Inquiry. Fear per­ Photo by Mark Levy for the schools to continue through the vades the academic atmosphere." I'LL DO MY WORK IF I HAVE TO DO IT ON THE GROUND . winter In each of the state's 26 summer Joyce Brown's poem was heard in the school in Meridian too project areas. Half of the budget of BUT THE DISCUSSION at the work­ make $40 a week and a white man with $100,000 will provide scholarships for at least two such outlets in the bedroom volunteers who give up a year of college shop on education illustrated particu­ and bath, at least a quarter of an acre the same job makes $100, you should make larly the students' revolt against almost $100" (a 10-year-old in Jackson). to teach In Mississippi and for local of land per building lot and a basement students. (Contributions to the budget all aspects of the state's education sys­ and attic." They were students who, like those in tem. Points covered: lack Of vocational the rural community of Carthage, where may foe made out to Freedom Schools courses, foreign language instruction SUCH RESOLUTIONS CAME from chil­ there is no Negro public school, were ex­ and mailed to the Council of Federated and kindergarten; inadequate labora­ dren like the Hattiesburg Freedom School posed in Freedom School to E. E. Cum- Organizations, 1017 Lynch St., Jackson, tories, libraries and classrooms. When student, Robert MacAfee, who wrote in mings and James Joyce's Portrait of the Miss. Information on tax exemption is some students proposed a resolution on a paper entitled Segregated Schools (Sep- Artist as a Young Man. When this re­ available from the Freedom School Co­ academic freedom for teachers, lively erate but Equal?): "Most of the white porter visited the Meridian school, the ordinator at that address.) debate developed over whether this meant kids live in these big large fine houses French class was discussing existential­ The Mississippi legislature had adopt­ a teacher might be free to force his ideas you know. If they need anything, their ism and reading aloud Jean Paul Sartre's ed a package of anti-Summer Project on the students. Others argued freedom parents simply go and buy it for them. The Respectful Prostitute. They were bills. One was designed to outlaw the for teachers to teach Negro history and But me, you see,-1 live in this little three- Freedom Schools, but it Is doubtful If room shack and my mother only makes students who, like Joyce Brown, wrote voter registration. Still others "argued for poetry. Joyce, who began voter regis­ the state's power structure has recog­ unqualified academic freedom' so teach­ $15 a week and with four children how nized the long-lasting significance of the ers could teach "different forms of gov­ can a person live with rent being $24 a tration canvassing at 12, is now a 16- year-old Freedom School student in Mc­ schools. The law has not been enforced, ernment." One said: "I hear all this about month and still be able to feed us . . . the schools have flourished and the stu­ communism. I want"to learn about It in And if I walk to school and want to take Comb and chairman of the Freedom School, convention. She wrote in "House dents, from 6 to over 70, will not easily school." Focus of the discussion on edu­ a few shortcuts, I have to go by the white be re-molded into the Mississippi educa­ cation was the age and timidity of elementary school where there is a white of Liberty": "I asked for your churches, and you turned me down,/But I'll do my tional system; Palmer's Crossing Free­ teachers: "How can we listen to a teach­ cop standing on the corner where he tells dom School students adopted a Declara­ er talk about citizenship and democracy me, 'Hey Nigger, you not suppose to come work if I have to do It on the ground;/ You will not speak for fear of being tion of Independence listing their griev­ and voter registration when he is afraid this way, if J catch you here again I'll put ances and ending: to go down and register?" you In jail.' So'I have to walk two blocks heard,/ So you crawl in your shell and out of my way,to go to school." say, 'Do not disturb.'/ You think be­ "We, therefore, the Negroes of Miss­ The foreign' affairs workshop resolu­ issippi assembled, appeal to the govern­ At orientation sessions before the Free­ cause you've turned me away,/ You've tion began: "We support strict enforce­ protected yourself for another day." ment of the state, that no man is free ment of the Monroe Doctrine." It called dom Schools opened, volunteer teachers until all men are free. We do hereby de­ for non-intervention by European coun­ —many in the state for the first time— Joyce was writing of one of the most clare independence from the unjust laws ties In the Western Hemisphere and for had to learn how to leave something of urgent problems which faced many of of Mississippi which conflict with the TUB, "nonmilltary" pressure to force Latin value with children who were products of the Freedom Schools—finding a build­ United States Constitution." American governments to refrain from the Mississippi, system. Staughton Lynd, ing to house the classes. Two churches accepting "military aid from the Com­ Freedom School director, expressed it munist bloc." At the plenary the resolu­ thus to teachers for the Jackson schools: tion was deleted from the platform after "You must stress to the students: it is Additional copies of this reprint from the August 29, 1964 issue are available a participant said Of the Monroe Doc­ their school; they can study what they from NATIONAL GUARDIAN at 10« each. *, trif 6U SPECTATOR^ Reprinted from the NATIONAL GUARDIAN of Revelation in Mississippi GREENWOOD, Miss. August 8th, 1964 OMETHING is happening in Mississippi today which the press Shas largely ignored. To most people, the name of the state stands for beatings and bombings, church burnings and fear. These are real enough. But Mississippi today is also the scene of anothsr phenom­ enon, of an extraordinary humanization. The white volunteer in the Summer Project, or the visitor like myself, walks down a street in the Negro community of some town which has been "opened up": Greenwood, Hattiesburg, Holly Springs, He is a stranger to the local people but they stop him, greet him, ask how long ha is stay­ ing, does he know so-and-so who is also in the Movement. Without seeming "grateful," a better-off Negro will insist on paying for his dinner. And the Negro community quickly becomes home; he feels safe there. If a car passes, he watches to see if it contains white men or black, and when the pas­ sengers turn out to be black (or fellow whits workers), he relaxes.. He eats in Negro restaurants; it is a strange sensation to go into a white place. Suddenly everything is inverted, and with the inversion comes a new identity. Not that the white man "becomes a Negro," but that he begins to feel he has found a new self through others, through the very people who are, in some eyes, his enemies. Inspirational cliches? No, just the experience of an American in one part of the world where human beings seem to be moving forward instead of standing still. Missis­ sippi was a blank on the map b:- fore; today, hundreds of young Drawing by Ernest Crichlow people study the names of its counties and speak of them with emo­ tion. In the Freedom Schools, the words to be learned from a blackboard are directly related to the current struggle: convicted, levying, testimony, adhering. At headquarters in Jackson (known as the COFO office because the project is being carried out in the name of a rather mythical coalition of civil rights organizations; actually SNCC is doing 4/5 of the job) reporters stream through and old friends meet unexpectedly. The Greenwood office, like Jackson's, is manned around the clock; workers eat casua'ly, sleep Jttlc—often on desks or sitting up in chairs—and Jim Forman, SNCC's executive secretary, mens the floor at midnight. REVOfcUTIONARY CUBA comas to mind; there is the spirited sing­ ing and that humor which is directed toward oneself as often as toward' the opposition. Even the climate is the same. To make this comparison may be a disservice to the Movement, for SNCC has enough trouble with red-baiting. And of course what is happening in Mississippi has no particular political orientation. But the project is a threat to the established Southern order, and is meant to be. The redneck meets that threat by concocting a homemade bomb or calling the Greenwood office at 2 am. and growling, "Kiss ma-h ass." Those above him on the social ladder are more, rational, like the police commissioner who passed by that same of fie 3 one afternoon and let himself be embroiled in an unusual discussion with a large number of the project works rs. He admitted the reason for his opposition to Negroes voting—power. It would be naive not to acknowledge some of the project's problems and weaknesses: the fear and resistance among local Ne­ groes who have a little to lose; the limited success of the com­ munity centers compared to the Freedom Schools; the confusion and inefficiency. One of the big questions, which cannot now be be answered, is: What will happen when the white volunteers leave —as most, but not all, are expected to do? This ruction arises not only in terms of renewed violence but also on the less dramatic scale of situations such as that faced by Sally Belfrage, daughter of the GUARDIAN editor-in-exile, who has organized donated books into a library at Greenwood and must find a literate local person to maintain it com; fall. PROBLEMS AND ALL, the spirit remains—and other whites feel it too. An orthodox Jewish folk singer commented: "It reminds me of the Hassidic movement in Judaism: it's like fresh air. These people take cliches and give them new meaning; the preachers interpret Biblical legends in ways I.never heard before—but ways that make s^nse." A nurse trained in psychiatry said in Holly Springs: "There are so many beautiful people among Mississippi Negroes; in one sense, they don't seem deprived at all." She had, I think, discovered that the South is not a four-letter word as many outsiders feel, think­ ing primarily of the white racist. The South is Negroes, mostly; it is a rural and small town people who haven't been made neurotic by technological one-dimensionality. And she went on to say: "I wonder \vhat will happen to the white volunteers when they go back to their Northern, middle-class worlds. They may be very depressed." For the remarkable truth Is, a great many of those who have been to Mississippi this summer <&•. are sorrowful when the time comes to leave. —Elizabeth Sutherland Tho Mississippi Summer Project

Tho Mississippi Summer Project is completed. Bridgeheads were established in tho "closed society' of Mississippi, and this fall they will not be evacuated as some friends feared and opponents hoped; they will be held and extended. "The Negroes of that state are never again going to be abandoned^' John Lawls, Chairman of SNCC, wrote in a letter to President Johnson, (The project was run by COFO,, the Council of Federated Organizations, which is for all practical purposes SNCC, the S tudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, aided by CORE)- The Summer Project was not fighting; people but inequality t and injusticej many of its participants have commented on the mood of love permeating it* Yet the images of warfare are not unjustified,, 'The casualty list of the projoct^- '" shovis the death of throe staff workers and of five Mississippians connected with it; many wounded; at least twenty churches burned to the ground and considerable other property damage; the losses sustained by local supporters fired from their jobs or otherwise danagedj and the vast sums of ransom paid to the local authorities (they called it bail )« The thousand volunteers -- students, ministers, doctors, lawyers »«. who came to work with the .reject staff have shown conspicuous bravery in the face of the enemy, simply by sticking it out on a job which started in June under a cloud of violence perpetrated by its ooponents„ In a popular movie of s ~>me years ago, Bad Day at Black Rock,' Spencer Tracy showed admirable courage -in the screen by staying around in a"little town after some local characters had told him, "get out by sunset or we'll kill you." These same words were spoken by real-life villains to quite a number of young men and women freshly arrived from shootered campuses in Iowa or California, and they too stayed, almost as a matter of course. Local Negro children of twelve or thirteen, raised in the philosophy w of yielding and lying low, went out to canvas for voter registration, were harrassed. beaten, kicked out of jobs and schools,, and went back to canvas some more,,

'The ways of opening in a state whose men in power had operated under the banner of .never,, wore several and they were interdependent.

The P^e e d, .^m„, Sc h p o Is , with classes for all ages* and students from 8 to 82, were a fii'st attack on the state of semi-illiteracy in which the "seperate but equal" myth of public education had left the Negro youth of Mississippi, There were classes in reading and writing, typing, arts and crafts, sewing, nutrition;. French.- citizenship, and history-, Starting at the beginning of summer^ when are supposedly glad to bo let out of school, their overwhelming popularity proved how sorely -chey had been needed. And they did more than teach skills: for the first time, these children had teachers not afraid to give them an undistorted view of American and world history, to tell them what 'really happened during the Civil War and the Reconstruction period, Public schools in the Poop South endanger a proper character development of Negro children who are officially taught that the whites are the Master Race; the Freedom Schools began giving the antidote. They continued all through the summer, and are now kept going with evening and weekend classes,

The iipmmur^ty^A^O.iers. provided social services and - . recreation for adult Negroes whose social needs until now hnr? Uoen virtually igr.crr-j ..'i*y~-fchc state: libraries, children day .caro, health and citizenship courses, arts, musiCj, ping-pong, dances, and whatever else was needed and could be provided for. More important the any of these seperate activities, the centers could begin to give a sense of

community, of common fate and common oower, to scattered individuals. From the beginning, the centers were meant as permanent institutions, but in these first hectic months . they hove been housed in church basements, old schoolhouses, or at times even in a back room In the COFO office; new and attractive buildings are planned for several of them. The aim of tho centers and schools Is not to make the Negroes of Mississippi more acceptable to the white community, not to help a young man who is studying French and wearing an Ivy League suit get service at the segregated counter of a *>-and"10; they want to assist the local Negroes in the reform of society as a whole,. They lead directly and unavoidably to political activity. The political action of the Sgmmc:?' 'roject was twofold: voter registration, and registration for tho Mississippi

Freedom Democratic I'artya VR, as voter registration was called, is a long and uphill striggle., A century after the

Emancipation Proclamation;, less than J% of tho adult Negroes of Mississippi a.re registered ^oter3- aga.inst more than 60% of the whites. In some counties with a majority of the population Negro, there is noi? one registered non-white voter,, The courthouse registrar has an unchecked veto over any registration attempt and has used this consistently to keep out the Negro, no matter how well educated0 COFO workers have helped local Negroes study the rep:istration tests, have arranged Freedom Days to encourage registration, and have accompanied prospective voters to the courthouses; local authorities have used every form of vi /ience and intimidation to keep them ai*;ay0 There h-ve been arrests tinder the flimsiest pretevts or without any pretexts,,- Private and municipal anql st?ate employers have told Negro employees, "if you register, you're fired,'1 thus openly breaking the Federal Law, Negroes who dared register havo had their houses bombed and fired into„ In spite of all this,, COFO has found a continuing stream of men and women this summer willing to climb those courthouse steps and risk their livelihoods and even their lives,.The work has not produced a great new number of Negro voters, but it has produced a solid file of affidavits signed by peoole deorived of this basic democratic, c nstitutional rirht, It has produced a whole arsenal of testimony with which the Federal Department of Justice could end the feudalism of Mississippi.. Because so- few Mississippi Negroes are registered voters (and even those f-i-w are c insistently barred from the primaries), the Missjj^i.p^xi._J,;pi^ was founded, The paar'sy is open to all citizens, black and whites and it has pledged itself to the platform of the National Democratis Party -— unlike the Mississippi Democratic -Party which went its own way as early as I9I4S,, and which is not no much a political Party anymore as a power machine to fill certain offices with certain people, Using registration forms based on a northern model, the Mississippi F„Def. launched a statewide 'freedom registration campaign,, and by mid-August the COFO head office in Jackson had counted 56,000 F»D,P, registered voters, Precinct, County, and State Conventions have been held, and one of the bright mDments of this summer's work was the conditional recognition of the F,D„P, delegation at the Democratic Convention In Atlantic City, the retreat of the delegates of the Mississip d Democratic P.*rty, and the definite commitment to truly representative delegations for 1968a

There was more, COFO brought folk singers, musicians, and the Free Southern Theater to tour the rural areas of Mississippi where few peonle had ever seen live entertainment,, COFO distributed food and clothings to the unemployed, and took a special responsibility for ai1 those who h?d lost their jobs or their land because of their stand for civil rights, COCO made the nation reiember the Forgotten Man of Mississippi, Summing up, COFO started 2li community centers, founded at least 30 Freedom Schools with well over three thousand pupils, and conducted voter registration campaigns in forty towns and villages in the state, And this huge job was done, as a visiting minister from the National Council of Churches wrote home, by young men and women In hot anfl crowded stores and homes turned civil rights offices, among the unpaved and battered roads of Negro Mississippi.,»amidst a climate of external savagery,"

Traveling through the state, from north to south and from east to west, Holly Springs is the first project town, followed by the cluster of Ciarksdale, Marks, Batesville, and Crenshaw. Coahoma and Panola counties have become familiar names to everyone in the Summer Project,, (Because of the power of the Mississippi county sheriff, and because there are very bad, bad, and not-so-bad sheriffs, county bord^rlinec became as important to COFO workers as frontiers to the European Underground in World war II), Clarksdalo, which closed its two swimming pools right at the beginning of the summer rather than obey the laWj, put itself on the COFO map through Its sheriff Ben Collins, a rather picturesque figure who used to spray civil rights workers with a room veodorizer,, Reading about Mr, Collins in the field reports, one finds oneself thinking at first, He's not such a bad guy, he has a sense of humor," but a more thorough study of the material shows how deadly wrong such an impression would be. There is nothing hum reus about the intimidations, the firings from fobs, the beating of prisoners, Ben Collins is on the record as having said, "When those COFO boys are gone, I'll kill all the niggers here who worked with them,"1 However, the COFO boys will not goj (It is certain that the three men murdered near Philadelphia at the start of the summer were martyrs to their cause In the most real sense; the national reaction to their disappearance saved the lives of many of their colleagues), Clarksdale had an extensive summer program, staffing four Freedom Schools plus a fifth on^ in nearby Marks; the community center was established in what was described as a cleaned up former greasy spoon restaurant, COFO in Clarksdale hsd some completely dark hours after the city engineer nulled the light meter out of the wall; surprisingly, this man appeared one day at the end.1 of the summer to tell the volunteers that he really liked them very much, Clarksdale also has the dubious honor of boasting a church, the First Christian Church of the Disciples of Christ, where a (white) northern minister of that same denomination was turned away because he was connected with the civil rights cause,. One may assume that Christ's disciples themselves would have been unwelcome there too,

Coahoma and nearby Panola county had an intensive VR and Freed m Registration drive, inspired by the presence of 6

Dr. Aaron E, Henry, a veteran civil rights man and now chairman of the Freedom Democratic Party, Panola County was especially important because a federal Injunction had sharply curtailed the veto powers of the circuit clerk there, and every day twenty to thirty men and women were found at the courthouse waiting to register; the county sheriff demonstrated local respect for the law by enlivening the proceedings -/Ith the presence of his police dog right in the c our thous c .,

Going downstream along the Mississippi In the Delta, the next centers of civil rights work were Sunflower and Bolivar c -unti s, with the towns Cleveland, Drex^r, Ruleville, Indianola, Shaw, &nd Mound Bayou, SNCC workers came to Huloville in 1962 and inspired the formation of the Ruleville Citizenship Club, around which voter registration has centered ever since,, Fannie Lou Hammer has been the great leader here, (After the first attempts at registration, the Negroes almost without exception lost their jobs. Unemployed women were taught quilting to raise some money, the scraps for their work coming the Ruleville Manufacturing Dompany, After a while0 the company •«- which has a head office and president in New York •»« made it its policy to burn all cloth scraps )o Ruleville now has Its Freedom School., community center,, and Freedom Registration drive golnc?:, Ihe Freedom School was particularly important, for here, as in several other counties, Negro children in public schools constantly missed classes because they were sent ou '•: to do fund" raising" for the schools0 From the age of eight on, children have to put in on®- or more days of cotton picking, x^ith no one knowing where tho money from the cotton goes — peonage in 19ol\ America, Midway through the summer, the sheriff of Sunflower County told the volunteers that from then on all bail, no matter what the charge, would be *500 per person or more — something new in American legal history. Civil rights workers, arriving with certain illusions, tried to have talks with the mayors of Ruleville and Drew, but, they report, these talks broke down because at some point or other the town fathers started to ask lewd nuestions about the Interracial orgies they Page 7 shott through the jaw on August 15; in the hospital, a police officer was overheard to tell a white woman, "They finally got the nigger Silas," The woman said, "Really?" Tho policeman answered, "Yes, isn't it won­ derful?" Nevertheless, Greenwood had a hundred pupils in the Freedom School and the Freedom Registration gained all through tho summer.

From Greenwood:, U.S. highway 82 East loads to Stark- vill, West Point, and Columbus near the Alabama I :rnder, Starkville was virrin territory; no one from any civil rights organization had gone there before the summer. Its exploration began on August 1, when two volunteers (ares 18 and 19) asked to be driven there from Columbus, dropped in the morning, and picked up in the evening. There they were, standing alone on a dirt road, as lost as paratroopers in a jungle; but the local police chief took care of their public relations problem. As they were having a coke in a (Neerro) cafe, he came in with two aides to tell them that the Negroes of Star:??i-".^,e, didn't need any outside agitators. By the time he had finished, the cafe was packed with young people who thus found out what the two volunteers had come for. And they told them, "We've been waiting for you." Ten days later, I)50 people in Starkville had registered for the freedom Democratic Party; and tho police chief had taken the license away from tho cafe where it all started, Starkville now has a Voters League; at one meeting at the end of the summer that same police chif stood near the door and told the arrivals that anyone who went in would be in serious trouble. There were I43 people at, the meeting; only two had turned around at the door and gone home. Nearby Columbus had a Freedom School, and also some prime police harassment. One COFO~or was.put in jail on a parking summons and each day he was aiven another day in jail and another fine of (i$0 as he continued to re­ fuse to be fingerprinted. Finally he was bailed out; the COFO report states quietly, "it does not seem con­ stitutional to put someone 'n jail for life ^n a parking ticket." Pace 8

of August, plus one hundred and eleven arrests on July 16, Freedom Day. Police officers were reported active in slash­ ing of tires on project cars and there is even an affidavit on file of two policemen trying to run down some volunteers walking along the public highway, Here is the text of a swcrn statement in the Greenwood file; not chosen because it is particularly dramatic but rather because of its everyday-ness; it could have happened anywhere this summer In Mississippi: "On July 2^, 196I4 at about 11:30 PM I was driving down T,rcLaurin Street in Greenwood, Miss­ issippi accompanied by S ••- , We were driving people home from the mass meeting which had been held that evening. The police ca'* had been following us since wo left the mass meeting. W •• parked outside Lula's Cafe on McLaurin, T got I got out of the car, intending to r~o into the Cafe, The police car pulled alongside. They asked me for the re­ gistration papers on.the car, I showed them,, Thenthey asked for my drivers liriconse. It was . in the glove compartment of the car. I went po the car, searched in the glove compartment fErthe £ aw, seconds, and then the policeman said "You should have hh.dmth.em in your pocket. That's too long to wait." They arrested me. I gave the keys to ray car to §»-- , but the policeman said "Takchhe keys with you," They tookmmo (Sownto tho station, charged me with having a faulty driver's lineenss and running a stop sign and threw mo in jail. CuFO workers arrived some time later and bonded me out for s, 35e When I got the envelope back containing my valu­ ables (taken from me when I was arrested) all of the jappers I had been carrying "loose in my pocket were mkssing. These include gas receipts, repair •receipts, etc. My wallet was In the evenlope, hiiit It had been stripped of all Identification cards and ppprrs, I went back to Lula's Cafe whore $ehad left my cat,. The car was s2o!ue. People in Lula's Cafe told me that after I loft, other police came, searched the cais, strewed papers around and towed the car away/ We went back down to the station toask about the oar. I was told they didn't have it. 3) told the desk sergeant that I had seen the car parked inthe lot outside. He said: "Go getit then." I got it and drove back to the office, The nest day the car would hardly run at all. I took it to Gray'a Service Station, The mechanic thought it was the float stick and fixed that. The car still wouldn't run at all. I took it to Leroy's Garage. The mechanic there told me it was sugar in the gas tank. The car- is now a total load,"' Another report tolls of an eighty-two year old gardener who told a project director, "I am too old to register," but who was finally convinced to sign the Freedom Demo­ cratic Party rolls "not for himself but to make a bettor world for his grandchildren." Shortly after, he was fired from all four gardening jobs he held in town. GSeenwood id the town, also, of the McGhee brothers, young men who had the courage fro go alone to aj*{ movie theater filled with hostile rednecks. One of them, Silas McOhee, was rage ^

"visualize ta'-rinf place in th.3 COFO offices. (A goo^ psychiatrist would have his work cut out for him in bhe places of Mississippi law enforcement), TP-rew has a community center too, now, and a Freedom School which h d fifty pupils is possibly the first Ameri­ can community to try out the Gestapo gimmick called Schutzhaft. which means arresting people "for their own protection," Local COFO people who found themselvoffirein the town after sunset, wefcc simply put in jail till the following clay. Much more serious and far-reaching than this police harass- . ment are the Sunflower and Bolivar County plans of various "white citizens" grpups for "complete mechanization" and for "the removal of all dilapidated houses". In Bolivar County, a "Planters Club" seeks to do away with a thousands dilapidated houses a year. Since the Negro farm laborers have nowhere else to live, the real purpose of hhis plan to beautify, the countryside is clear enough „

Mechanization, that is to say mechanized farming in the Peltap would lead tho attack from the other end; one COFO man wrote, "The people we are reaching now, will havo left in five years time," The point is that wh&llemechanization of farminr Is in itself a natural development, which could bring greater welfare, the Delta has no plans for retraining the laborers, and Federal plans' in this area are made uel'caaorne, Here the urgency of COFO becomes vcrycclear: while sheriffs keep thorns .gives happy with roughing up prisoners, the more "visionary" sogregafrMnists fore­ see a forced mass exodus of unskilled Mississippians out of their own state. Continuing farther soute, Greenville is reached, and more inland, Greenwood, where SNCC had its national headquarters this summer and a command part of W4TS lines (Wide Area Telephone Ser­ vice) which played a vital pafct inthe communications and security arrangements. The telephone triangle of Greenwood, Jackson, and Atlanta, Georgia, provided a nerve center for the battle of Mississippi, for keeping track of the whereabouts of every COFO man, woman, and car, and for calling on the F.B.I, and the Justice Department in Washington when danger loomod--and on a bad night the hectic Jackson office at 1017 Lynch Street, and the smaller office in Greenwood looked and sounded like one of those under­ ground operational rooms of the n.A.F. during the Battle of Britain. .Groenwood was a tough town for. the , volunteers : there were forty arrests from the first week of.July until the first week Page 10

Still farther down the Miss ssippi comes Vicks­ burg, a tourist town and a center for federal orojects and thus a relatively peaceful place. .It least, thuse early reports say; then comes tPhe somewPiat jarring note that the community center was 'aimed doTwn. (Warren County Sheriff Vernon Luckett, no Sherlock Holmes he, advanced the theory that the fire must have been caused by smoldexuna garbage, although a torch was found ri lit on the spot). Vicksburg had 650 people attending its Freedom Party precinct meeting. A newsletter was start­ ed, a food bank, and a survey in depth of one precinct;, Vicksburg also distinguished itself because some success­ ful contacts were established with the white community. Then,east of Vicksburg, comes the capital, Jackson, Jackson was a center of COFO administration for the Summer Project; It also hrd four hundred pupils in eight Freedom

Schools a n ci >ig voter reg - str" tion campaign. A comm­ unity center is being founded. There will be several Freed' om Schools this fall, one of them a mobile unit. Jackson does not stand mat in Mississippi the way New Orleans stands out in Louisiana; it is simply a somewhat larger town than the ethers. But the "'Northern presence" of volunteersj newspapermen, and the F.B.I, had its effect on the mood of the town; before this s- turner, Mississippi was the enlv state in tho union without its own F.B.I, office (a strange situation for a state which had more than its share of unsolved arson, $urdsr, and defiance of federal law). There is a connection between this summ­ er's work r• nd the recent quiet integration of Jackson's first-graders.

Fast of Jackson lies the SNorth Congressional District which was the special responsibility of CORE (Districts One, Two, Three, and Five were run by S''C0), with Canton, Carthage, Harmony, Meridian, --and Philadelphia, where James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered. The major \nd minor incidents in this district make a long list; a report of July 17 tolls of a New York law student and a reporter for Jet Magazine beaten up by Philadelphia, toughs in full sight of smil­ ing Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, All these places now have Page 11

Freedom Schools and Community Centers, Philadelphia, where Mrs. Rita Schwerner now works, is building its center as a memorial for its three dead, and even here volunteers had the stomach to set up a new Freedom School. In Carthage,, COFO-ers scrubbed and hammered to fix up an empty school building, only to be told when the work was finished that they could not use it; they started afresh somewhere else. In Carthage, too, r0gg had contracted wi th radio station WAG for a series of spot announce- mo nts of the Freedom Democratic Party county convention; a day 1 tor on embarrassed station manager came to ask out since he feared "for the safety of the station and his employees." In xiarmonyj after running up against. the usual real estate ^rodlcm.3, t e project volunteers and local helpers built their own community center for less than fifteen hundred dollars. Meridian had a large Freedom school program, and also, surprisingly, a City Attorney with enough backbone to restrain some local agitators harassing the volunteers. The most successful Freedom .School program of the summer was that of Hattlesburg., eighty miles south of Meridian-, Freedom School registration started on July 1st, and six days later 582 adults and children had signed up. Schools were set up in six churches; there wore courses A n -"aisle, in citizenship, He^ro history, hy­ giene, prenatal care (given by a registered nurse). In the rural center called Palmers Crossing, three miles out of town, a ciommunity center offered day care for s 'all children, recreation, and classes in literacy, health care, end sewing. The Freedom School teachers talked about the Freedom Democratic Party, and afternoon "pre­ cinct teas" were held for those Who didn't attend the schools. The library became so large that it could be distributed over several separate ones. Hattiesburg had an average of sixty volunteers all through the summer, half of whom t"uaht in the Freedom Schools, There had heen aoorehension about where to house all of these oeoole, for seve^l of the Negro families who had originally offered ro v had been in- Page 12 timidated into withdrawing. But once the volunteers showed up, the local people, seeing "Paow they had come all that way," quickly rallied, 'lany ministers - couns­ ellors from the National Council of Churches came to Hattiesburg, and here as elsewhere the new Mississippi Student Union, made up of local high school students, worked with C0F'~> on voter registration. Nearby Laurel had its Freedom School too, a community center, and a strong voter registration program. Mississippi's Southwest is a no man's land of viol­ ence, and it is m. major triumph that voter registration was actually undertaken in Natchez and McComb, and that mcComb had a small Freedom School. Natchez is the e- piscopal see for the Roman Catholic Church in Mississippi, but so far the bishop has not seen Pit to welcome the northern nriests who want to help in his state. Thus Catholic priests can come only as "tourists," in contrast to their Protestant and Jewish colleagues, who, under the National Council of Churches, helped the volunteers with moral support, visits in jail, with chruffcuring them a- round, and trying to get them to eat a regular meal when possible. The Southeast.of the state did better than the South­ west; perhaps the sea wind helps somewhat to blow the cob­ webs out of people's heads. Moss Point, Roscaeouia, Gulf- port, Rlloxl, and Ocean Springs, all saw COFO In action, and the creation of schools and centers, (Wiggins, 25 miles inland, had a sheriff who simply announced that white volunteers could not enter Stone County), In Bi~ loxi, CpFO undertook a White Community Project of contacts with the ministry, journalists, labor leaders, and personnel of the nearby Meesler Air Force "ase. The W..0.'p. had rough sailing,, but enough was achieved to war rand a wider spread­ ing of this oroject. An apartment had been leased in Bil- oxi to serve as headquarters, but at the last moment the landlord (white, and afraid) canceled it, and the project ended up on tho third floor of a hotel "misleadlngly named

The Riviera.". Bilpxi had eighty Freedom School students, and Ocean Springs thirty. The M.S.U., Mississippi Student Page 13 Moss Point near Paseagaula is a town of bitter police harassment and strong civil rights enthusiasm. A quote from a report — again, it could hnve been any­ where in Mississippi: "The five of us plus one young lady fro"1 the community, who Is very interested in working for Civil Rights, went to riat biesburg for some much needed supplies'. At" this "point, rwe had no'mater­ ials, money, office or uany people, \fter stopping at the Court House to see T—• from a distance of course --. we arrived at the Hattiesburg office where we were very impressed with the spirit of the Movement that is so apparent there.. We really have something to work towards in org nizing ourselves in Moss Point, "We also learned that the 3 civil rights workers were arrested in Phil. Miss., released at night and are now missing. The car was found burned. The press and the FBI are everywhere. The 3 went there to in­ vestigate a church burning and beatings of Negroes. We returned to Moss Point abo^t 6 P.M. and attended a lively (civil rights.) meeting. "When we left the meeting, R --nd I went to a cafe and wore goinm to call Hattiesberg. about the recent trouble. I was told by community people about whites throwing poisoned candy and guru around the community. Two small children were supposed to have been poisoned badly. I called end they were to call me beck within the hour, R»— left the cafe to see C -. i walked next door and sot on the lawn when I saw a constable coming. The constable put R in the car and came over to 'ie. "Whatcha doing here boy?" A short dialogue followed, and I was put und­ er arrest "for investigation." "At the jail, we met Highway Patrol, ^ascagoula and loss Point city police, sheriff's deputies and others. The general conversation Was one of harr- assment and intimidation. (?We treat oui> niggers well as long as they stay in their place...we don't want you commie outside agitators coming in...People get killed for less.") Then we went up the elevat­ or, were m .de to face the elevator wall and a highway patrolman took out his billy club, smacked it on his own hand, and said, 'You boys are In for a good whoop­ ing.' "Upon enterinr cell block we were taken to "niager bull pen." Then were shoved inside and officers said, ''Here they are, get'em boys.* This is very unusual practice for whites to be put into th-:s Megro section. The Negroes expressed confusion "nc1 fear. They were moved to beat us. Five minutes later, two officers took us into a white sellblock. This was about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. At the white cell, the officers tried to incite white prisoners to take out their aggress­ ions on the volunteers. ('It's wooping time.') The officers left and white orisoners gathered about. R opened a conversation with one, and eased some of the tension. At this ooint, a T,.ssiopian announced that he hated all niters and nigger-lovers and that CPlFOers were there to be be a ten by the whites. However he was going to let us go. "We lay down and listened to the argument, that lasted about three hours, an wine ther or not to beat us up. Sporadically, police officers and trustees would enter argument, attempting to Incite white prisoners to "do .justice," Morning arrived without real incident. "About 10 a.m. officers took us out of the cell into fingerprinting room. As they were fingerprint­ ing and. mugging me, the officers told R sordid stories about brutality that had been imposed upon fellow OOFOers since the dav efore. An officer told UOiLts^, &*£f Fifiifi^ )

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but R didn't know it) and that a fellow white girl worker '•nc1 been brutally raped nc1- was m her death bed. At this eoint R--~- fainted. Upon awakenin™, the back of his head bleeding, we both were escorted to the lobby where attorneys from COFO in Jackson were wai tin-'.,.. ,L ocal police refused to return personal papers, mainly handwritten notes, and denied they had ever taken them,,.In a subsequent interview, FBI agents expressed no interest in the .mental'harrassment. which "occurred during the~l2 hours spent m, jail,.When taken, to joil, u -^ had been told he was being arrestee an a vagranc P, charge. The following morning the sheriff sa;L'd there were no charges." In Moss Point, as in oth-r towns, there are a few Negro policemen on cho force. 'Aiese get no salary, only a bonus of four dollars per arrest. They are not allowed to book whites, but early this summer they were informed thai; it was oil right to bring in white civil rights workers, At least one of them said he il^ht not care fro, and was fired. Moss Point had many mass meetings; shots were fired into one during the singing at the end, -n^ three -iris were hurt, one badly. Nevertheless, five-hundred people showed up for a meeting scheduled the very next evening, "There was a moment's he3 tation when the singing began, because everyone though of what had happened the night before, but then they raised their voices and sang, 'We Shall Overcome.'" On August 10, the Freedom School at Clucks tadt in Madison 1ounty near Canton, was burned to the ground. A thirteen year old Negro boy wrote about this later, "i think it's a shame how all the good books got burned, how the pencils and tobies got burned, how the church piano and all the good church benches were burned to ashes." A girl wrote, "And to the ona th^t b--rn-d down that build­ ing - you are not hurting us, you are building fire on your own back. Because don't you know God was looking at you? God is going to have /our trio1 one day , and yo r aunts and uncles are not going to be on that jury seat to declare you innocent. xt don't make any difference with God what col­ or your face is. Brother, you will get what's coming, to you." And a boy of seventeen: "...when 1 returned from the play In White America, they told me that our school had been