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When they left the station and drove I'd never seen a blade like that before, I WORE A cap when I went to New York in 1928, "I thought you were older," she said. "Only boys Collegians vs The Klan toward the main highway, they were fol- it was huge. She threatened to slit any but the girl I met at the ten-cent dance on Broad- wear caps in New York. Do men wear them in CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18 lowed by the unmarked car. When traf- 'nigger or nigger-lovers' throat.' And fic thinned out, the car behind them she meant it, too. She would've used way thought I ought to wear a hat. California?" , mitment is fine, but your body's got to suddenly shot forward and pulled along- that knife." That was the last time I wore a cap. That afternoon I bought a hat, but I didn't see be on the line. So we dropped out of side. One of the whites shoved a gun Larry Rubin, like Jack Heyman, also The girl I met at the ten-cent dance was at least the girl again. She had asked me to meet her later came face to face with violence while school. The five of us were getting forty out an open window. Seven shots rang thirty to my twenty. She wasn't good-looking, al- dollars a week. We needed more staff out and the car sped away. hitch-hiking. Rubin, a student from An- at the ten-cent dance, but once was enough. The so we cut the salary in half and doubled The bullets smashed all the front win- tioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, though she had a lot of body, some of the upper dance was full of out-of-town boys and men buying the staff. We did that again to'get more dows and the rear window of the car. spent some time in southwest Georgia, part of which she pushed out at me. That's why I half-minute waltzes for a dime each from crazy- staff till we were getting $10 a week One of the bullets hit Travis in the working with SNCC in the four-county asked her to let me take her to a restaurant or to 'a looking women. The place is still there, upstairs, two each. I figure as long as you can survive, neck, near the spine. He recovered, but area around Albany. He had meant to you don't need anything else. the SNCC office itself was later burned work for only one quarter, then got a movie the next day around four. When I showed up doors from what used to be my favorite theater in "I worked out of the Atlanta office, down. special extension from the college and she ,was surprised that I was wearing a cap, and I '.:•"..-• traveling around as sort of a general "At night," claims McDew, "you have stayed for two. was surprised that she was surprised. It had never In the entrance hall are a dozen or more photo- field supervisor, and also raising funds to stop and think where's the best place "I was hitchhiking into town," he occurred to me to wear anything else. graphs of the girls who are waiting upstairs, and and spreading the word." to sleep—someplace where a bullet or said, smiling (he can smile about it McDew did a fairly good job of a bomb won't hit you." now), "and got a lift from some guy spreading the word. From the original in a pick-up truck. All the while we twenty students, SNCC has grown till VIOLENCE sometimes sneaks up on you, were riding along he kept telling me it now has 150 former students working as harrassment. The friendly cop who how he hated these racial agitators who nostalgia full-time all year round, all of them re- cheerfully gives directions to motorists were stirring up all this trouble. He ceiving only subsistence pay, when they and helps little old ladies across the • said if he ever caught one he'd slash 'by get paid at all. (The present Executive street is usually neither cheerful nor 'im up and showed me this large knife William Saroyan Secretary of SNCC is a former Chicago friendly with SNCC workers. If a SNCC he carried in his pocket. 'I'm ready for grade school teacher named Jim Forman. worker owns a car, he'll be ticketed a 'im if I ever meet one,' he told me. I In Chicago, Forman and his wife had a dozen times a day—for speeding, loud just kept nodding my head and waiting combined income of a thousand dollars mufflers, faulty headlights, you name it. for that ride to end. a month. As Executive Secretary of Or he may be taken to jail, finger- "Finally we got into town and I saw SNCC, he's paid $60 a week.) Last sum- printed, questioned, and eventually turn- two of the other SNCC workers in the THE mer, when vacationing students tempo- ed loose. No charges. If he's actually area walking down the street. He saw rarily joined the ranks, there were 200 thrown in the lockup overnight, then them, too. There's two of 'em now,' he working with SNCC in 13 Southern it might get a little rugged. Other pris- told me, and started playing with that and border states. This summer several oners may be prodded by their keepers knife in his hand. 'Let's you and I get CALIFORNIA times that number are expected. Most to beat up on the workers, a variation 'em.' of them will work in voter registration of the situation where the local peace- "I told him to do what he. wanted, programs, community centers, and "Free- keepers do riot lay a finger on SNCC but to count me out. I kept hoping that CAP dom Schools" in Mississippi. They will workers themselves but will pay a quick those two wouldn't see me and wave or be assisted by hundreds of adults in the visit to a nearby bar and sic some something. That would've been it. So professions — doctors, nurses, teachers, easily-inflamed redneck onto the "niggah I looked around the inside of that truck AND and so on. lovah." for some way to hide my face. Finally One thing is for certain: working for In SNCC's work, violence is not a I pulled out a road map, unfolded it, SNCC will be exhausting—and danger- sometime thing but almost a way of life. and held it up so they couldn't see me. ous. SNCC has dozens of small offices Jack Heyman, a thin, black-haired I got out of that one okay." THE L scattered across the South. It may be a student from Penn State tells of taking room in a Negro family's home where off a quarter to work with SNCC and WHEN THE SIT-IN movement began in a lone SNCC field worker lives, or a hitch-hiking to Atlanta from his home the South, the violence that SNCC NEW A small house which several SNCC in New Jersey. He stopped off in North workers had to face came from the workers share and where local leaders Carolina where sit-ins were going on white mobs. But now, since voter reg- can always be found, sitting and talking in Chapel Hill, home of the state uni- istration has become a major goal of the and planning in the front room or man- versity. "In one place the waitress lifted movement and the basic Southern politi- YORK ning an old, dilapidated mimeograph her skirt and urinated on the demon- cal structure is threatened, the police machine. strators. Another time in North Caro- themselves frequently take a hand in the But while on the inside, there may lina, I got picked up by two guys in violence—often while Justice Depart- HAT be talk, on the outside, there will be a car. They looked at me and said, 'If ment and FBI officials watch (only trouble. there's one thing we hate more than when police use mass brutality, as in A . At 1 P.M. on February 28th of last niggers, it's integrationists.' And there Birmingham, does it get publicity). year, Randolph T. Blackwell, Director we were—driving over back country Last fall, in Selma, Alabama, SNCC noted ;a;uthor of the Voter Education Project, drove roads. I was really scared." Nothing hap- held a "Freedom Day," a day of inten- up to the SNCC office in Greenwood, pened—only because they never found sive voter registration activity. When reminisces Mississippi. He noticed three whites sit- out who he was. SNCC workers "Chico" Neblett and ting in a car without plates parked I met and talked to Jack the day Alvery Williams tried to bring sand- about life, nearby. When Blackwell left at 9:15, after a demonstration, "I was scared wiches to a line of Negroes at the court- they were still there. Blackwell noted as hell last night," he told me. "I was house who were trying to register, state New York, and this with dismay. As he drove away, part of the first wave in a sit-in. We troopers attacked them with clubs and the car pulled out behind him. Black- were supposed to see to it that the other cattle prods and then arrested them. The the high cost well thought better of it and returned group got in.

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