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. But, look­ tus in its ongoing structure, as it was shop. ing back, I'm proud of what the SCEF doing with other "adult" organizations. That spring, I had written a pam­ did. We did find and nurture many Rev. Wyatt T. Walker, then executive di­ phlet called HUAC: Bulwark of Segrega­ whites whose presence made a differ- rector of King's Southern Christian tion, part of our educational campaign

10 Fellowship June 1989 on what the witch hunts were doing to an unbelievable scene that many of us It is my belief that somewhere, the movement. SNCC had ordered heard about years ago: of President somehow, those in power made up quantities to distribute. That day in Kennedy himself taking Martin King to their minds that although they could Ohio we learned that the pamphlets the White House rose garden to tell not stop this movement, they must con­ had disappeared. Bob Zellner, a lead­ him that he must get rid of Jack O'Dell tain it; confine it to attacking segrega­ ing white SNCC activist (whom SCEF and a key white supporter, Stanley tion and voting restrictions. They had had recruited from an Alabama cam­ Levison. to keep it at all costs from challenging pus) said he asked a Council of I have thought about that in recent economic inequities that could lead to Churches official where the pamphlets years. I knew neither Levison nor basic changes in the distribution of were. "I took them up," was the reply O'Dell in the '60s, but later I came to wealth. Hence their determination to Bob and others vowed they'd find the know Jack well, through the Southern keep out any person who might have pamphlets and distribute them in Mis­ Organizing Committee for Economic such ideas. The attempt to shut the sissippi. A few days later, James and Social Justice, with which I now movement off from thoughts of eco­ Chaney, Andy Goodman and Mickey work, and the National Rainbow Coali­ nomic reform didn't work. As early as Schwemer were murdered, and in the tion, that he helped build. He is the 1963, SNCC had turned to economic is­ ensuing crisis no one had time to look most brilliant political analyst I know sues. ("What good is it to sit at the for the pamphlets. We had more, of today, a deeply moral person, totally lunch counter if you can't afford the course, and eventually thousands of dedicated to the struggle for human hamburger?" became a slogan.) As the copies were circulated in the south. rights. But he is just one soft-spoken decade progressed, economic inequity That day in Oxford, I saw Bob man. How could the most powerful moved higher on SNCC's agenda, and Moses on the campus. He was remorse­ figure in the world, the president of the also on Martin King's, as he launched ful, and embarrassed. "There was noth­ United States, be so frightened of one the Poor People's Campaign in 1968 ing we could do about it," he said, "we man? What were all these people afraid and went to Memphis to assist garbage fought for Highlander (the educational of? No~dy was trying to tum the civil workers. And that was when he was center in Tennessee that was also la­ rights movement into a communist rev­ murdered. beled communist) and the National olution. The people under attack were But economic justice remained the Lawyers Guild (that was sending totally dedicated to the stated goals of unfinished part of the civil rights revo­ teams to Mississippi) and won. You the movement and respectful of its lution. That fact explains much about and Carl were just more than we could leadership. our national dilemma today. Despite all win. We'll talk later." We never did, In part, the special attack on whites the gains for racial justice the great about that. It was not necessary. The reflected knowledge in high places that masses of people of color are in worse "fight" Bob referred to was with NCC any development of viable black/white economic condition than they were in officials. There were limits to what was coalitions would signal basic changes the late 1960s. possible; we understood that. in who held power in the south and the Today, through the efforts of the Other forces were also trying to con­ nation. But I think something else was Rainbow Coalition, a quickening labor trol who worked in Mississippi. SNCC also involved. The organizations most movement, and many religious groups, leader Jim Forman, in his landmark under attack-SCEF, Highlander, the the issue of economic justice is back on 1972 book The Making of Black Revolu­ Lawyers Guild-had an important the agenda of social reformers. It is the tionaries, describes meetings that sum­ characteristic in common. They all had resonsibility of those of us who hope to mer where foundation officials and roots in the 1930s. That meant, of see the 1960s revolution completed to representatives of the Kennedy admin­ course, that communists may have keep it there, and to tear down, once istration wrung their hands over the in­ been involved in them at one time. and for all, the fences built by cold war volvement of the Lawyers Guild. "We But more important, they harked thinking to limit the ideas that people worked hard during the '30s and '40s, back to a time when economic justice seeking justice can explore. 0 fighting forces such as the Lawyers was on the agendas Guild," Forman quoted Kennedy advis­ of all social reform­ er Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., as saying to ers, whether they SNCC people. "We find it unpardon­ were communist, so­ able that you would work with them." cialist, Christian, rad­ Forman found that comment "blind ical or liberal. By the and arrogant." Mississippi activists early 1950s, the cold were desperate for courageous war and witch hunts lawyers. The Lawyers Guild had re­ had severely crip­ cruited the young and the brave pled all movements throughout the nation. They saved for social justice. Es­ lives in Mississippi that summer. sentially, the new It sometimes seemed that the targets civil rights move­ of anti-communist attack were mainly ment, sparked by whites who stood with blacks in the Rosa Parks' stance on civil rights struggle. But not always. a Montgomery, Al- I ==== One of the most intense attacks was re­ abama bus in 1955, Arkansas Attorney General Bruce Bennett outlines for the served for Jack O'Dell, a black man ac­ reflected the fact that Tennessee legislature the ramifications of "conspiracy" to inte­ cused of earlier communist associa­ the black passion for grate the south, 1959. Names on the blackboard refer to Myles tions, who became the master organiz­ freedom was the one Horton, Highlander Folk School director; Carl and Anne er of voter registration and fundraising thing too powerful to Braden, Southern Conference Educational Fund; and Charles for SCLC. Parting the Waters documents be crushed. Gumillion, SCEF and Highlander board member. Photo: Joe Rudis, The Nashville Tennessean.

Fellowship June 1989 11