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Those Who Were Not There: the Cold War Against the Civil Rights Movement, Fellowship, June 1989

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Those Who Were Not There: the Cold War Against the Civil Rights Movement, Fellowship, June 1989 Those Who Were Not There THE COLD WAR AGAINST THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT Anne Braden The famous billboard that appeared throughout the south in the late '50s and early '60s. Photo said to be taken by an undercover agent at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Highlander Folk School. To Martin Luther King's right are Aubrey Williams, president of SCEF, and Myles Horton, Highlander director. In left foreground, head down, is Abner Berry, reporter for Communist Party paper The Daily Work~. When photo appeared in newspapers, Horton said he hadn't known who Berry was. Photo: Dale Ernsberger, The Nashville rennessean. here is a subplot to the 1964 Mis­ we didn't set foot in Mississippi that sissippi Summer-and indeed to sununer. We were labeled communists Tthe entire civil rights movement of and subversives. Those who were the 1950s and '60s-that is rarely men­ putting their lives on the line had tioned in its recorded history. It's the enough problems in 1964; they didn't story of those of us who were not there. need the added burden that our pres­ We were missing, not because we ence would bring. weren't committed to the movement, It was certainly no great loss to the but because the people on the front Mississippi movement that I was not lines, people we respected deeply, felt it there during the Summer Project. was wiser for us to stay away. There's nothing I could have done that My late husband, Carl, and I were others weren't doing. Thus, Carl and I among those people. By 1964, I had spent time that summer organizing been involved in civil rights activity for people all over the country to demand fifteen years, and Carl, who was ten federal intervention against the terror years older than I, for much longer. But in Mississippi. But the story of our ex­ clusion from Mississippi, and efforts to Anne Braden has been working for peace exclude others, is worth telling now for and social justice in the south for 41 years. the light it sheds on the efforts in high She is co-chair of the Southern Organizing places to control the movement that Committee for Economic and Social Jus­ was shaking the nation to its roots. tice, on the board of the National Rainbow Carl's and my reputation as "notori­ Coalition, and a member of the racial jus­ ous communists" had its origins in the tice working group of the National Coun­ early 1950s, when we sold a house in a cil of Churches. segregated neighborhood to a black 9 couple in Louisville, Kentucky where ence. We kept the door open so that lat­ Leadership Conference (SCLC) argued we lived. This was at the height of the er, when the mass black movement passionately for our inclusion, and pre­ cold war abroad and anti-communist broke the south's police state, an inter­ vailed. Soon the most dedicated stu­ witch hunts at home. An ardent local racial movement was (and still is) pos­ dent leaders had decided to reject divi­ prosecutor labeled the house transac­ sible, although even today it is hardly sive labeling and to let no one tell them tion a communist plot designed to stir assured. with whom they could associate. We up trouble between the races, and But always in those years, we had to became very close to the young people, charged us with conspiring to over­ fight on two fronts. We had to stave off and they accepted our help in many throw the governments of Kentucky attacks of segregationists, and we had quiet ways, probably because SCEF re­ and the United States. The result was to fight for our right to be part of the ally wanted to see SNCC develop on its intense community hysteria. People civil rights movement. In 1958, HUAC own, free from control by any of the talked on the streets about how we came south and subpoenaed us, along older organizations, including ours. should be lynched; we became symbols with other civil rights activists, mostly But SNCC's association with us of evil and targets of combined anti­ white. Carl told the Committee his be­ caused them some trouble. For exam­ black and anti-red emotions. Carl was liefs and associations were none of ple, in 1962, Bob Moses, the brilliant sentenced to fifteen years in prison and their business, for which he spent a dedicated SNCC leader in Mississippi, spent almost a year there before we year in prison in 1961-62. HUAC struck invited Carl to come to that state to raised his $40,000 bond and were able terror into human hearts in those days, conduct workshops on civil liberties. to fight back and win the case three and many civil rights leaders who were After a tour of the state, Carl wrote a years later. willing to face jail, cattle prods, police routine staff report for SCEF that was We were only two of many victims dogs and the threat of death shrank distributed to the SCEF board by Jim of such attacks in that period. We were from associations that would label Dombrowski. There was a leak some­ among the luckier ones, becuse we re­ them traitors to their country. where, and the report reached the seg­ ceived tremendous support from all We resisted exclusion from the regationist Jackson Daily News, which over the country. But the attacks per­ movement because we felt that SCEF's ran banner headlines reporting a Mis­ sisted for at least twenty years, and still work was unique and important, and sissippi tour by a "communist." Power­ sometimes emerge forty years later, I also as a matter of principle. We be­ ful forces supporting the civil rights think because we never withdrew from lieved tJyt the cold war labeling of movement financially, including the the struggle. people divided and weakened the Voter Education Project that was chan­ In 1957, after the Kentucky case end­ struggle for racial justice. And we had neling foundation funds, reacted in ed, we did not return to our previous powerful allies, brave black leaders fury, not at the Daily News, but at Carl careers as journalists for establishment who stood up to this kind of attack as and SCEF. newspapers. Instead we went to work well as to the police dogs. Ella Baker, Thus, as plans for the 1964 Summer for a regional civil rights organization, the "godmother of SNCC," was one. Project emerged, we knew without be­ the Southern Conference Educational Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who led the ing told that we should not go to Mis­ Fund (SCEF). This group was also la­ Birmingham movement, was another; sissippi that summer. But that spring, beled "communist." Its director, the late he braved fury to accept the SCEF pres­ we did work closely with some white Jim Dombrowski, a white southerner idency at the height of the attacks. students, many of whom we had whom I considered a saint, was a From my perspective, Martin King was brought into the movement, who had Christian socialist in the 1930s social another who resisted the witch hunt. I formed a support group called the gospel tradition. SCEF itself had de­ did not know until I recently read it in Southern Student Organizing Commit­ cended from the Southern Conference Taylor Branch's book, Parting the Wa - tee (SSOC). They were organizaing for Human Welfare, founded in 1938 ters, that Martin once gently warned a what became known as the "white folks and at one time a mass social reform student activist to keep a distance from project", eventually recruiting twenty­ organization. It was one of the first tar­ us. I suppose that is true. But I know five whites to work that summer trying gets of the House Un-American Activi­ that Martin, after tortured soul-search­ to talk to white Mississippians about ties Committee (HUAC) under Martin ing, led a clemency campaign for Carl their interest in supporting the black Dies of Texas, which labeled it a "com­ in the HUAC case and steadfastly re­ freedom movement. The project had its munist front." sisted efforts of the Louisiana Un­ own sessions in June of 1964 at the col­ By the 1950s, SCEF had a single pro­ American Acitvities Committee to get lege in Oxford, Ohio, where the Sum­ gram: ending segregation in the south him to repudiate any association with mer Project was training its 1,000 vol­ and uniting black and white southern­ SCEF. unteers. SSOC activists invited Carl ers to do it. It was run by a board of As for the Student Nonviolent Coor­ and me to conduct a workshop for the brave, beleaguered people, both black dinating Committee (SNCC), when "white folks project." and white, but its main outreach was to black students launched the sit-ins in When we arrived, SSOC leader Ed whites, seeking to show them that de­ 1960, the young people knew nothing Hamlett climbed into our car. "Let's get segregation was in their interest too. of the witch hunts or what had pro­ out of here." he said. He told us that the Carl's and my job was traveling the duced them. But they soon heard that National Council of Churches (NCC), south, looking for whites who were SCEF should be avoided. At the second which was funding the training, had willing to speak and act. We knew we convention in October, 1960, there was declared that we could not be there. He were hardly scratching the surface and a major debate on whether the organi­ took us to the campus home of a facul­ that the mass movement we wanted zation should grant SCEF observer sta­ ty member, where we had our work­ was not possible at that time.
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