MIAMI UNIVERSITY

The Graduate School

Certificate for Approving the Dissertation

We hereby approve the Dissertation

of

Rhonda Gilliam-Smith

Candidate for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

______Chair Dennis Carlson

______Reader Kate Rousmaniere

______Reader Denise Taliaferro Baszile

______Reader Lisa Weems

______Graduate School Representative Mary Jane Berman

ABSTRACT

FREEDOM ACTS: A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE STUDENT NON-VIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED

by Rhonda Gilliam-Smith

There are two tensions in critical pedagogy. One is between the universalistic and the particularistic critical pedagogy models. The other tension exists between the community and the schools. Critical pedagogy as universalistic is good, but we need to know how critical pedagogy can be used more specifically on American soil by African Americans. Secondly, we also need to reclaim education as a community project. Understanding SNCC’s social dramas through the lens of Theatre of the Oppressed as reflected in Critical Pedagogical practice helps educators understand how they can best engage the community in reclaiming the task of educating its youth.

This dissertation is a social history of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and its relationship to Augusto Boal’s, Theatre of the Oppressed. Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal, 1979) was developed out a community based educational program that uses theatre as a tool for social and cultural transformation. I focused on SNCC’s several freedom acts of the early 1960’s: The Sit-Ins, , , and the Free Southern Theatre. SNCC, a student lead social movement, was established February 1, 1960 with the first sit-in and is considered by many historians as the catalyst for social change during the that increased voting registration, civic engagement, collective and individual transformation. This dissertation thus represents a recovery of memory, and an attempt to make use of this historical memory to re-think critical pedagogy as dramaturgical and community-based. In re-covering and re-working the memory of SNCC’s militant pedagogy from the early 1960s, I am informed by Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, which in turn is related to Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the Oppressed, and through Freire to the work of Henry Giroux and others in critical pedagogy.

An historical analysis was conducted on these freedom acts by examining archival data, interviews and secondary sources to understand the specific ways in which SNCC’s freedom acts reflects Augusto Boal’s (1985) Theatre of the Oppressed Forum Theatre’s main techniques: Protagonist/Antagonist, Spectator/Actor, and the Joker. I also explored the particular features of SNCC’s social dramas that don’t necessarily fit neatly into Boal’s model. In general, SNCC’s freedom acts exhibited critical pedagogical practices (Freire, 1996) by helping the oppressed and the oppressor reach conscientization, valuing dialogue, and providing opportunities for the oppressor and the oppressed to gain a greater understanding of oppression through carefully questioning every aspect of society.

In the final analysis, I provide a conceptual framework (Giroux, 1992) from the techniques learned from studying SNCC’s community engagement work and its radical pedagogy and practices. SNCC’s Freedom Acts were, individually and collectively transformative, reflective of Forum Theatre, and can be used today as a radical pedagogical framework for black communities to reclaim education promote critical pedagogy in the community and in local schools.

FREEDOM ACTS: A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE STUDENT NON-VIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Educational Leadership

By

Rhonda Gilliam-Smith Miami University Oxford, Ohio

2008

Dissertation Director: Dennis Carlson

© Rhonda Gilliam-Smith 2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract………………………………………………………………………….. Dedication……………………………………………………………………….. Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………1 Statement of Problem, Purpose, and Significance of Study ……………………………………………………..3 Boundaries of the Study…………………………………………………………………....9 Methodology Overview……………………………………………………………………13 Organization of the Dissertation……………………………………………………….14

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………17 Background of African American Social Drama……………………………………..17 Discourse of Freedom…………………………………………………………………26 Discourse of Non-Violence……………………………………………………………32 Theoretical Frameworks………………………………………………………………….34 Performance Theory…………………………………………………………………..34 Theatre of the Oppressed …………………………………………………………..37 Theatre of the Oppressed in America………………………………………45

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Theatre of the Oppressed and Critical Pedagogy…………………………48 Description of Theatre of the Oppressed ………………………………....51 Spectator/Actor……………………………………………………….52 Protagonist/Antagonist………………………………………………53 The Joker……………………………………………………………..54 Scholarship on Boal and Theatre of the Oppressed……………………..58 Critical Analysis: Forum Theatre and SNCC………………………………………..60 Conclusion of the Literature Review…………………………………………………62

CHAPTER 3 METHODS

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..64 Social History Methodology…………………………………………………………….65 Living Black History……………………………………………………………...66 Re-Membering History…………………………………………………………..67 Research Design and Methods………………………………………………………...71 Interviews…………………………………………………………………………….70 Primary and Secondary Sources……………………………………………………72 Historical Scholarship: Chronologically…………………………………………….72 Freedom Acts as Social Drama……………………………………………………..75 The Greensboro Sit-Ins………………………………………………………………76 Freedom Summer…………………………………………………………………….78 Freedom Schools……………………………………………………………………..79 The Free Southern Theatre………………………………………………………….79 Historical Research Literature: Narratives………………………………………………….81 Analyses………………………………………………………………………………………82

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CHAPTER 4 1. The GREENSBORO SIT-INS

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..86 History of the Sit-Ins…………………………………………………………………….87 Spectator/Actors………………………………………………………………….87 ………………………………………………………………..91 Merrell Proudfoot…………………………………………………………….93 Ralph Johns…………………………………………………………………..94 Wilma Player………………………………………………………………….97 Protagonist/Antagonist…………………………………………………………99 The Greensboro Four………………………………………………………100 Other SNCC participants…………………………………………………..105 The Joker………………………………………………………………………….107 ……………………………………………………………………108 Congressman ………………………………………………….112 Summation………………………………………………………………………………..118

CHAPTER 5 2.FREEDOM SUMMER 3. FREE SOUTHERN THEATRE

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………120 Freedom Summer Project……………………………………………………………..121 Freedom Summer Prospectus……………………………………………………..125 Freedom Schools……………………………………………………………………127 Critical Pedagogy Analysis...... 129 Community Engagement Programs………………………………………………133 Analysis……………………………………………………………………………..135

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Mississippi Theatre Project………………………………………………………..137 as the Joker……………………………………………………………140 The Free Southern Theatre……………………………………………………………143 John O’Neal………………………………………………………………………….145 Vision and Objectives………………………………………………………………148 as Curriculum………………………………………………………..151 Analysis……………………………………………………………………………………..154

CHAPTER 6

OVERVIEW AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CRITICAL PEDAGOGY Radical Pedagogy and Practice

Overview of the Research…………………………………………………………….162 SNCC Reflecting Critical Pedagogy………………………………………….……..165 Freedom Acts: Reflect Theatre of the Oppressed………………………………166 Freedom Acts: Uniquely different from Theatre of the Oppressed……………170 Freedom Acts: Success and Limitations………………………………………….173 Implications for Critical Pedagogy………………………………………………….176 Coming to self-understanding...... 177 Situating oneself in history...... 178 Knowledge to power...... 182 Understanding the limitations of our institutions, or even our age...... 184 Final Words……………………………………………………………………………….186

REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………….189

APPENDICES A Inform Consent Form……………………………………………………………..200 B (SNCC Archives) SNCC Suggested Readings.……………………………….201

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C (SNCC Archives) Freedom Summer Prospectus…………………………..205 D (SNCC Archives Free Southern Theatre….…………………………………215 E (SNCC Archives) Freedom Summer Personal Notes….………………….217 F (SNCC Archives) John Lewis’s Intimidation Letter……………………….221 G (SNCC Archives) Peace Corps Western Union.…………………………….222 H (SNCC Archives) Western Campus Instruction Photos………………….223 I (Sites of Historical Archival Data Collection)……………………………….224

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Dedication

In loving memory of my mother, Joan A. Gilliam This one’s for you mama, this one’s for you.

Your encouragement and love has remained in my heart and has been the source of inspiration in making this dissertation possible.

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Acknowledgement

No person is an island, no person stands alone. Each one is his brother and sister. Each one is his or her friend.

I would not have been able to have accomplished what I had at Miami University if it were not have been for the support and encouragement I received from a lot of good people. I first give honor and glory to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who has blessed me with the mental, physical and spiritual capabilities that this degree demands. I sincerely thank the late Bishop Johnnie L. Johnson who encouraged me to return to school. I thank my church family at Bethlehem Temple and at Hope For You for their prayers. I thank the Department of Educational Leadership under the leadership of Dr. Kate Rousmaniere for supporting my research with teaching and graduate associate positions. I appreciate receiving the Hugh Harrison Scholarship and Outstanding Doctorate Student Awards. I thank the department for supporting me financially for the several out of town conferences I attended and also for the times I traveled out of state for the collection of historical archives. Dr. Rousemaniere’s contribution on my dissertation committee was great. Her knowledge of history was invaluable throughout the research and writing stages of my dissertation. With Dr. Rousemaniere’s direction, I was able to understand the process of thinking and writing historically. I especially thank Dr. Mary Jane Berman, Director for the Center of American and World Cultures for her friendship and support in allowing me to work with the Freedom Summer 2004 Reunion Conference. Working on this project inspired me to consider SNCC as a topic for the study. Thanks Dr. Berman for all of the support the Center provided me during the national data collection and international travel phase of the research.

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I am grateful to the inspiration and support I received from Dr. Denise Taliaferro Baszile. Dr. Baszile’s commitment for inspiring her students is phenomenal. And, the fire she possessed is contagious! Dr. Baszile’s clear thinking really helped out-I needed that. Dr. Baszile’s contribution to my dissertation committee truly helped me to broaden my ideas even farther. I thank Dr. Lisa Weems for the way in which she made complex ideas so much easier for me to comprehend. I really learned from her unique style of teaching. In addition to her contribution to me during the research phase of my work, Dr. Weems was always open to just listening to my ideas - I appreciate her for that. I truly want to thank my dissertation chair, Dr. Dennis Carlson for his guidance and support during the two years of writing this work. Dr. Carlson allowed me to take my ideas as far as I could defend them. His patience towards me during this whole process was extraordinary. I learned a great deal from his intellectual prowess. And, the impact of his careful instruction and guidance will remain with me for some time. My friends were very important to me. I thank the Miami Posse for hanging on in there with me: Robyn Floyd, Jane Gregg, Michelle Carmichael, Lillian Hawkins, Deborah Jackson, and Shewanee Howard. We shared long nights of study, joys and pains, but more importantly, great memories. Thank You. A special thanks to Cheryl Edmondson. Cheryl, you were always there when I needed help. Thank you for being there to fill in for me when I could make the meetings and other deadlines. You are a solid rock of a friend and I will never forget your support and friendship. Last, by not least, is my family. They have been the ones that have listened to me in times of joy and frustration. They have sacrificed doing what they wanted so that my work could me done. In some cases, they have put aside their own goals to support mine. I sincerely appreciate my husband Dan who has been there with me in so many ways. I am grateful for my sons, Brandon and Daniel for inspiring me to continue striving towards my dream. And, finally, I thank my extended family, Dora and Nettie. Your prayers and expressions of love kept me going on.

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CHAPTER ONE

Let us not deceive ourselves. The problem before us now is not the Negro but ourselves; not civil rights but the city; not love but the creation of that America which could have been and should have been, and never was. 1

Introduction

In this chapter, I introduce the dissertation topic and present a rationale for why the topic is important. The following components are part of this chapter: the introduction, statement of problem, purpose and significance of the study, general theoretical framework, and overview of methodology and organization of the dissertation. The impetus for researching the topic of this dissertation began many years ago while I worked as a pipe fitter by day and a community educator at night and on weekends. The children in my inner city neighborhood began to congregate at my home to hear stories, learn to read and just have fun learning about their history and the world. Being a union pipe fitter, I had not attended a teachers college and was therefore not trained in teaching methods or teaching philosophies. Yet, I noticed that the children aged six to thirteen were enthusiastic about learning. Instead of playing outside, they would rather sit on my front porch and learn. This interested me because it dispelled the myths that black kids do not want to learn and that these children would rather play than study. How was it possible that these students who told me that they did not like school, loved learning after school? What teaching methods did I employ that inspired these volunteer students to want to learn? What pedagogy and practice was I drawing upon that resonated with these students? Where did it come from? As a community educator, I relied upon the methods of teaching that I learned from my

1 All of the quotes listed on the first page of each chapter in this dissertation have been taken from Lerone Bennett’s book, The Negro Mind (1964). Bennett, was also author of Before the Mayflower (1962). These quotes served as the pathos of the dissertation and in particular, each chapter. By pathos I mean that I have included his quotes because they reflect the mood and personal experiences of the civil rights participants. 1

African American culture and history. Through my family, I learned reading and life skills by using dramatic presentations and storytelling that had an emphasis on their political and social conditions. They did this by telling stories of overcoming obstacles in the face of adversity and having us construct empowering stories as well. In addition to this form of community based curriculum, my mother, like other community based educators, possessed a passion and love for teaching children and her wisdom came from surviving and overcoming oppression as a black person in America. By reflecting upon the role of drama in my own life, I explored the history of African American social protest and theatre. For centuries, the black community had historically provided the black community with art and drama centers. These centers encouraged people to use art and performance as forms of protest, teaching citizens how they could mix art and social protest in their performances. For example, I recalled that community theatres such as Karamu in Cleveland, Ohio, where I grew up, provided the community with a way to understand performance as a social protest. These professional theatres provided the black community with a form of social commentary and critique of their current social conditions that inspired spectators to action. In addition to the performative curriculum of the black community, the black community has historically taken active role in educating its own. Community educators were our elders, college students, concerned citizens, community organizers and church leaders. These individuals once held important roles in educating our youth. They were also engaged in helping teachers and the schools teach students. Organizations like the YWCA and YMCA were involved in educating its youth by providing educational programs that focused on the educational and cultural needs of the inner city. These organizations also provided a space where the community would gather and plan events to inspire and educate its residents. Churches, high schools and black organizations also provided resources, talent and expertise in educating the community. If it takes a village to raise and teach a child, then school leaders can use the wisdom of community workers and educators to inform their work in the public realm. As I consider the work of this project, I have revisited a historical time in history when grassroots black organizations, along with community workers were engaged in

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educating residents; both young and old. To address this concern, I have revisited the transformative work done by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the early 1960’s in conjunction with a performance perspective as it relates to social action and drama. These two areas may add some much needed insight on how the black community today can reclaim its role in educating its own.

Statement of Problem, Purpose, and Significance of Study

The current age is one in which we risk losing the collective memory of social drama as a form of radical pedagogy within black communities. This dissertation thus represents a recovery of memory, and an attempt to make use of this historical memory to re-think critical pedagogy as dramaturgical and community-based. In re-covering and re-working the memory of SNCC’s militant pedagogy from the early 1960s, I am informed by Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, which in turn is related to Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the Oppressed, and through Freire to the work of Henry Giroux and others in critical pedagogy. My interest is in understanding SNCC’s dramaturgical social drama as a form of critical pedagogy, and more particularly as a form of African American pedagogy that is similar to, but also distinctively different from, the universalistic model put forward in Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. By using the universalistic categories of Theatre of the Oppressed to interpret SNCC’s concrete, historically and culturally specific social drama, I also am interested in addressing another issue that has been raised in recent years regarding the use of universalistic models of “emancipatory” education within diverse cultural sites and diverse communities of “the oppressed.” The post structural turn in educational research is associated with a return to trying to understand the specificity and uniqueness of cultural movements and groups rather than trying to understand their common or universal traits. This has relevance for the development of forms of critical pedagogy that specifically are rooted in black cultural heritages and are responsive to the needs of African Americans. This dissertation thus addresses the need for a culturally responsive critical pedagogy—in both schools and community sites--by

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reflecting upon the transformative pedagogy developed by SNCC in an earlier era. As a research project, the dissertation addresses several specific questions: In what ways is the dramaturgical pedagogy developed by SNCC in the early 1960s similar to and different than the universalistic model developed by Boal’s in Theatre of the Oppressed? What might educators and other cultural workers learn from this study about the importance of performance and drama as teaching tools and as forms of critical reflective practice, or praxis? My interests in the cultural studies of education and critical pedagogy are closely interrelated throughout this dissertation. The cultural studies of education, first of all, is a border-crossing field, so that I am already “doing” cultural studies of education research by positioning this dissertation at the intersection of different “fields” or interpretive communities in education. Beyond this, the cultural studies of education informs this dissertation in the concern with the recovery of counter-narratives of struggle and resistance among subaltern peoples, and the concern with the question posed by Gayatri Spivak (1996): “Can the subaltern speak?” This dissertation attempts to hear the voices of the subaltern, and to let them speak for themselves as much as possible, in their own words. Their counter-narratives speak to a particular language of resistance, freedom, and social drama in African American cultural history. The cultural studies of education also orients this dissertation toward understanding social actors as performers, consciously or not. Performance theory takes on many forms in cultural studies, and I draw upon a very limited literature of performance theory in this dissertation. But in general, performance theory focuses our attention on how people perform a sense of self that is either free and self-affirming or repressed and oppressive, and how they might learn to re-perform identity and self in new ways. SNCC called upon poor black people in the South to reflect on how they performed and participated in their own oppression, and how they might perform as free people armed with the rightness of a cause. SNCC used drama to act-out protest demonstrations in advance, but it is also clear that the protests themselves were staged dramatic events, with SNCC student protesters as actors on a stage and reporters as audience.

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Finally, critical pedagogy—represented most directly by Theatre of the Oppressed--provides a language that links SNCC’s social drama with emancipatory education and a critical political theory of schooling. That critical theory of schooling largely has accepted the neo-Marxist presumption that public schools have, for the most part, served to reproduce class (but also race and gender) inequalities more than they have challenged such inequalities. For African Americans, the reproductive theory of public schooling has not just been a theory; it has been lived and experienced. Thus, while African Americans continue to look to public schools, and to progressive-minded teachers, to help overcome what Carter G. Woodson called the “mid-education of the Negro,” African Americans have also looked to themselves, and their own communities, for an education of freedom and self-affirmation, and in this regard, drama always has played a prominent role. Critical pedagogy has been criticized, by Elizabeth Ellsworth (1989) and others, for speaking in a universalistic language of “transcendental signifiers,” like “emancipation,” “the oppressed,” and “dialogue,” that are not easily translated into the specific situations that educators face. Furthermore, such transcendental signifiers do not address the specific struggles and perspectives of diverse groups of the marginalized who cannot be easily lumped together into one category: the oppressed. The view I take in this dissertation is one of trying to balance universalistic language (which I still believe is useful and needed) with the particularity and specificity of the model of dramaturgical pedagogy developed by SNCC. The diagram below represents the study as emerging out of the intersection of three interrelated but distinct fields of educational research and inquiry: the history of education, the cultural studies of education, and critical pedagogy (as represented primarily through Theatre of the Oppressed). As research in the history of education, this dissertation project is designed to contribute to the historical record on SNCC and the use of social drama pedagogy in the civil rights era in the South. By focusing on SNCC as an educational movement involved in educating poor blacks in the South, the dissertation shifts educational historian’s attention somewhat away from formal public schooling to recognize that education also occurs in communities and through social

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movements, and that perhaps the most democratic and progressive education has always occurred outside of public schools. As an historian of education, my interest is in setting the record straight and telling the story of SNCC in a way that is true to the historical record, and that integrates the study of SNCC within a progressive history of civil rights pedagogy in the South (Shramm-Pate & Jeffries, 2008).

While Freire was working with poor Brazilian farmers with literacy education, his mentee, Augusto Boal, was beginning to serve the poor through dramaturgical methods. Freire and Boal’s work was historically situated within the Brazilian culture; its particular problems and perspectives. Both of these Brazilian education models are effective to an extent; because they do promote learning in a broad sense. But they do not provide specific techniques for culturally and socially disenfranchised groups in

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America. Addressing the particular problems and perspectives of the American Deep South of the 1950’s and early 1960s required a pedagogy that utilized the specific cultural learning style of black people. Black people survived the Atlantic Slave Trade and four hundred years of inhumane servitude throughout the American South by relying upon a form of critical pedagogy that utilized a form of drama (Boal, 1985), critical thinking (Freire, 1974) , and imagination (Greene, 2000). Implementing the strategies of Theatre of the Oppressed, a radical pedagogy and practice, and an understanding of African American culture historically, may be what educators’ need to make critical pedagogy more responsive to the needs of African American learners and also prepare the educators that work with them. Freire’s (1964) and Boal’s (1974) work developed out of concrete, historical struggles, and has been presented in terms of universalistic categories of the oppressed and the oppressor, emancipation, freedom, justice, and even humanity. To some extent, this has reflected a modernist concern with unifying models and universalistic principles and in recent years there has been a shift back toward recognizing the specificity, uniqueness and even singularity of struggles. This dissertation is an attempt to answer the question whether a universalistic model--Theatre of the Oppressed—is useful in helping us understand a specific form of social drama, like that developed in the civil rights era in the South by SNCC. Theatre of the Oppressed reflects some of Freire’s Critical Pedagogy model in problem-posing dialogue, and the continual exchange between teacher and student, (Dwyer, 2004). These universalistic models like Theatre of the Oppressed can be of value and do help us make sense of SNCC’s form of social dramas. I also explore the particular features of SNCC’s social dramas that don’t necessarily fit neatly into Boal’s model. Boal’s (1985) theatre’s main techniques are: Protagonist/Antagonist, Spectator/Actor, and the Joker. The protagonist/antagonist techniques are two diametrically opposed positions that represent the oppressed and the oppressor. The protagonist is the person experiencing the oppressive treatment and is often referred to by Boal as "the oppressed.” The protagonist is always the main character and represents Boal’s Theatre’s participants and audiences. As the protagonist, the oppressor is empowered

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by moving from a position of powerlessness to making proactive choices. Conversely, the antagonist is the person who prevents the protagonist from using his or own free will. The antagonist represents the oppressor (Boal 1979). The antagonist role employs several strategies to prevent the protagonist from making choices that empowers them. I situate this research around Henry Giroux’s radical pedagogy. Giroux (1992) asserts, “Radical education is interdisciplinary in nature, it questions the fundamental categories of all disciplines, and has a public mission of making society more democratic” (p. 10). Giroux (1983) suggests that what is needed is a radical pedagogy which transforms ideas into actions. In chapter six, I respond to Giroux’s (1981) request that educators need to search for a radical pedagogy that is a comprehensive critical theory of education which “bridges the gap between educational theory on one hand and social political theory on the other” (p. 63). I argue that Theatre of the Oppressed, critical pedagogy, African American history and cultural tradition may be combined as an effective strategy that educators, administrators and community workers use as radical pedagogy. In addition to offering a counter narrative of SNCC’s historical events and actions, I hope that this study may revive interest in disenfranchised communities in forming social movements that utilize the dramatic arts as a strategy and transformative artists, as their leaders. Social movements can be a powerful force in the continuing struggle against oppression. Eyerman (2006) writes, “Social movements move individuals, their emotions and cognition, as they forge individuals into collectives and empower groups” (p. 193). Performance as social protest is a way to move individuals in a collective way to make change. To address this need, Norman Denzin (2003), argues for a radical theatre as a way to fight against the dominant power structures, racism, and privilege. Denzin (2003), quoting W.E.B. Dubois writes, “The problem of the twenty-first century will be the problem of the color line and modern democracy cannot succeed unless peoples of different races and religions are also moved from a performance standpoint” (p. 5).

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Boundaries of the Study

It is important to include the three boundaries of the study because of the already documented, vast amount of material on the civil rights movement, and the huge social, geographical, political/cultural areas that it covers. The first boundary of this social history project is temporal. I have focused on SNCC, 1960-1965. February 1, 1960 marks the beginning of SNCC during the non-violent era up until 1965, when the then, national chairman, John Lewis succeeded his post to in 1966. When Carmichael oversaw SNCC during the second half of the 1960’s, SNCC’s original non-violent ideology and social actions changed dramatically to what would be later called the Movement. I believe the strategies that were employed during the second half of SNCC do not fit within the realm of this study, but may be explored for future research. To fill-in the history of the early years of SNCC, I had originally secured interviews with Bob Moses, , , John Lewis and John O’Neal (See Appendix A). Due to circumstances out of my control, I was unable to interview Moses, Bond and Reagon. Instead, I used interviews of these individuals which were conducted previously by oral and social historians. In addition to the narrators I initially wanted to interview, there are hundreds of other narratives and stories of the civil rights movement that could have been used in this study. I have chosen to use: James M. Lawson, Ella Baker, , Staughton Lynd, Sally Belfridge, William Thomas, Merrill Proudfoot, Augusto Boal, Julian Boal, John Lewis, the Greensboro four, and several unknown participants. I chose to use these narrators because they were individuals that had a direct connection with policy making, creating curriculum, and/or participated in demonstrations as actors/participants. I’ve included in this dissertation because he publicly gave credit to SNCC’s volunteers and has continued in the struggle. It is important to include these individuals because it suggests what is possible when people have a mind to work and how others can and are influenced by them. I cannot deny that it is my intent to tell a particular story; one that frames the subject of this study through the lenses of Theatre of the Oppressed and radical pedagogy. Therefore, the voices chosen, I feel, reflect the purpose of this

9 study. Carlson (2003) on history as storytelling writes, “The story of history…is a narrative production, and as a narrative, it also frames the past to tell particular stories of the present” (p. 52). These narratives reflect what I believe to be the “soul” of the movement. By that I mean that the movement was not a political, social or economic question, per se; it was a question of the moral consciousness of America being reflected back upon itself and having to face its own image. Julius Lester (Bloom, 2003), a well-known activist, musician and professor, and member of SNCC asserts, “There is a need for a new analysis. The quality of any political movement can be no better than the quality of its ideas and the way in which those ideas are expressed. Revolution is first and foremost; a question of morality, a question of values, and a question of the inner life of people” (p. 532-533). The inner-life of SNCC’s participants was exemplified in their actions as social activists. In their case, words were put into action. Thus, we can see the inner life of the participants. The second boundary of this social history project is SNCC’s social dramas or freedom acts. SNCC’s field secretaries conducted several freedom acts to promote social transformation. They include: Freedom Summer, Freedom Schools, Free Southern Theatre, the Greensboro Sit-Ins, Mississippi Free Democratic Party (MFDP) and the . I have not included in this project MFDP and the Freedom Riders. Although these two freedom acts contributed to social change in the South, I felt that the scope of these actions did not resonate within the focus of this study which was curriculum and pedagogical in nature. I have not discussed in any detail other aspects of SNCC’s social history which include: SNCC’s confrontation with black militancy and white conservatives plotting against the non-violent movement; the issue of gender relations and how women fought to gain respect within SNCC; interracial dating and sexuality; and race relations within SNCC. I have not included other disenfranchised groups in the South such as, poor whites or Native Americans. These groups were oppressed as well and are worthy of study. Their story and contribution to education research and social science is important. I have approached this section of the discourse of freedom and non-violence with great caution. I am not attempting to

10 define either of these terms, for I share similar sentiments with Borenstein (2005) when she writes, “Definitions have their use in much the same way that road signs do; they make it easy to travel. They point out the directions. But you don’t get where you’re going when you just stand underneath some sign, waiting for it to tell you what to do” (125). Instead, I preferred to use a poststructuralist perspective by providing discourse analyses of the two key terms of this study. According to Foucault (1979), freedom is both a discourse and a practice that has deep roots in Western soil, and we might add in African and African American soil. I situate the language of freedom and non-violent protest within a cultural history, to reveal what SNCC participants understood about the terms and how they practiced the ideas of freedom and non-violence. The terms performance, social drama, role-playing and theatre and drama are used throughout this dissertation. The use of social drama, drama and performance are used interchangeably. These terms pertain to the type of drama SNCC’s participants were using as expressed in the Freedom Acts. The use of role-playing is used specifically to denote what Freedom School’s trainers used as a method to prepare demonstrators for the protest. The term theatre is used to denote Augusto Boal’s theatre. In the section of the Free Southern Theatre, the term is used again. In this case it is used to describe John O’Neal form of social theatre. The third boundary of this study is the geographic scope. I have concentrated this study in the American South and not the North. Documents show that the civil rights movement was fought not only in the South but also in the North. According to Theoharis & Woodward (2003), major cities in the North; Detroit, New York, Boston and Cleveland were active in the movement. Theoharis & Woodward argue, “There were tens of thousands of people who were active in freedom movements of varying ideologies outside of the South from 1940-1980’s. There are many untold and unfamiliar stories of the activist working in the North” (2). Although there is a body of work about the North’s civil rights movement, I have chosen to focus on the South because of the specificity of SNCC’s social actions and their impact upon black Mississippians’ transformation. Another reason why I have concentrated my research on the South is because Mississippi was the center of the vortex of racism and many of

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the strategies that SNCC field secretaries used were based there. Bob Moses, activist and field secretary for SNCC, “The South is another world and Mississippi is the middle of the Iceberg concerning racism.”2 Moses (Belfrage, 1965, p. 16) contended that Mississippi was a closed society, the vote was the key to opening its door, and that “Negroes in Mississippi were not concerned about sitting in the lunch counters; they did not have the money to eat in those places anyway.” There were many Northern students volunteering in the movement and they needed to understand the climate of the South before working there. W. J. Cash (1941), a Southern historian, wrote in The Mind of the South: There exists among us, both North and South, a profound conviction that the South is another land, sharply differentiated from the rest of the American nation, and exhibiting within itself a remarkable homogeneity. Tolerance, in sum, was pretty well extinguished all along the line and conformity made a nearly universal law. Criticism, analysis, detachment; all those activities and attitudes so necessary to the healthy development of any civilization, every one of them took on the aspect of high and aggravated treason. (139) Education in the South was a politically and racially charged institution that perpetuated the disparity between the whites and blacks; the rich and the poor. Pertaining to education, there also existed in the mindset of the South that the instructed black man cannot be trusted because of the possibility of him being in proximity of white women and therefore, “inclined to commit rape” (p. 178). Cash continues, “Thus, the black man would be more useful to them if they focused his instruction solely on elementary and mechanical, and if at all possible, we shall rigidly veto the idea of academic schools for him” (p. 178). Cash’s 1941 book was on SNCC’s required reading list for new SNCC members (see appendix C). This book helped to educate Northern volunteers to the politics, mindset and culture of the South. Under Reconstruction, the Democratic Party

2Quote from Bob Moses’ keynote address at the Cincinnati, Ohio AESA conference. 12

in the North grew by large numbers because of the population of poor whites who were increasingly angry and hateful for the Freeman blacks and the Republican Party that they belonged to. After Reconstruction, it was necessary for the whites to gain back political power and white supremacy as they had it during slavery. Thus, the Democratic Party grew strong in the South with conservative democrats and white supremacists. Cash writes, “For twenty years to come, the South must balance precariously between what is necessary to establish full sway for the Democratic Party to divorce the Negro from the ballot” (p. 148). It is from this cultural and political climate of the South that blacks carried a heavier burden to bear in struggling against racist practices and policies in education, social/economic status, voting rights and politics. Therefore, it is from this backdrop that SNCC’s freedom acts were constructed up and against the South’s status quo to promote human rights and to gain their freedom against oppression.

Methodology Overview

This study utilizes a social history methodology. A social history is most appropriate because I am using historical data (primary and secondary sources), taped interviews, and narratives to tell a story of SNCC’s freedom acts. These several forms of historical sources place SNCC’ freedom acts within a particular historical, cultural and social context. Understanding these contexts helps us to understand SNCC’s leaders’ motivation for doing what they did to promote blacks’ freedom in the South. According to Kate Rousmaniere (2004): Social history is the history of social groups and individuals, and usually this implies groups that did not play an active part in the processes of intellectual or political history such as women, African American and native peoples, immigrants, children, workers, people with disabilities, the poor, and the disenfranchised or marginalized groups. (p. 45)

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SNCC’s freedom acts and texts deserve to be studied in relationship to several social and cultural historical lenses that reflect both sides of the analysis: textual and event analysis. Marable (2006) writes, “Reconstructing the hidden, fragmented past of African Americans can be accomplished with a multi-disciplinary methodology employing the oral history, photography, film, ethnography, and multimedia digital technology, an approach I call living history” (xx). For this social history, I use interviews, primary and secondary sources to tell the story of how SNCC’s workers challenged the racism and oppression in the South using a social drama that identified with African American heritage and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. This social history project, in some way, has been a work in the collection of knowledge to reveal un-voiced truths. Carlson asserts that this kind of history is, “An archeologist of knowledge; a genealogist of truth production, tracing dominant truths back through various discourses and practices to reveal the interests that lie behind their production and enunciation and the power relations that have been involved in organizations” (Carlson, 2003, p. 56). I say this to prepare the reader for the background of African American social drama and performance theory in chapter two. The purpose of this is to discuss the idea that drama served as a political project, and as a political project has been co-opted to take power and voice away from the underclass and to serve the power structure of the elites as represented during the Greco-Roman period. The Roman eras reflects the political and intellectual thought and ideals of the West and therefore, influences the way art and drama has been expressed in Europe and the .

Organization of the Dissertation

This dissertation is divided into six chapters. Chapter two reviews the literature that lays the important theoretical foundations for this dissertation: Performance theory and Augusto Boal’s, Theatre of the Oppressed (Forum Theatre). Forum Theatre has three major tenets: Protagonist/antagonist, spectator/actor and the Joker. I have also included an historical survey of the African American’s social drama experience and how it informed SNCC’s dramatic pedagogy. This discussion includes African Americans’

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social dramas during the African Diaspora, the two hundred fifty years of slavery primarily in the South, the creative and artistic Harlem Renaissance, and lastly, the civil rights movement. Chapter three highlights the research methodology and procedures used in the study, which consists of the following sections: purpose and objectives of the study, the participants, methods, and data analysis. I conducted a social history of the SNCC’s freedom acts: Sit-ins, Freedom Summer and the Free Southern Theatre. Chapter four presents the results and interpretation of SNCC’s first and most historically significant freedom act, the Greensboro sit-ins. I report the findings of the data analysis as they pertain to patterns, themes and metaphors that reflect in general dramatic performance. As for the dramatic performances, I have looked for expressions that contain traditional dramaturgy terminology (Courtney, 1987) which include, acting, acting-out, action, actor, “as if”, and “a lead role.” Moreover, I report on how the Greensboro sit-ins reflect Theatre of the Oppressed tenets. Chapter five presents the results and interpretation of SNCC’s subsequent freedom acts: Freedom Summer, Freedom Schools and the Free Southern Theatre. I reconstruct these projects by utilizing interviews from key participants, and primary and secondary sources. Furthermore, I reconstructed the event through SNCC’s participants’ narratives and the media of the day which include: newspaper accounts, documentaries, and Freedom songs. The narratives were analyzed through Theatre of the Oppressed framework. Chapter six presents the overview and implications for critical pedagogy. In this section, I include the specific ways the freedom acts reflected Theatre of the Oppressed tenets and implications for critical pedagogy. I ask the question, now what? What does it matter to understand SNCC’s Freedom Acts as drama? I discuss the lessons from the past that we can learn and unlearn from SNCC’s freedom acts. I suggest that educators employ a radical pedagogy using what we have learned from the study. I include examples how social drama as pedagogy may be used in the community and higher education. I discuss the implications for policy and curriculum and how the results of

15 this study may provide a radical pedagogical framework for educators to put ideas into practice.

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CHAPTER TWO

Literature Review

The Negro not only dons a mask; he becomes, in many instances, the mask he dons. Behind the public mask is a man who fears, cries, bleeds, loves, defecates, and hates.3 (p. 9)

Introduction

This chapter is a literature review of the cultural history of social drama among African Americans, as well as a literature review of two major theoretical lenses I employ to study SNCC’s social drama. These theoretical lenses include a performance theory borrowed from cultural studies and a theory of critical pedagogy grounded in Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, with connections to Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. My aim is to show how SNCC’s brand of social drama emerged out of the specificity of African American cultural history in the South, and also how it reflected many of the universalistic principles associated with Theatre of the Oppressed. I also want to explore how performance theory can be used to interpret SNCC’s freedom acts.

Background of African American Social Drama

Social dramas have been embedded within the African American experience over the past three centuries and have informed, to a certain degree, SNCC’s social dramas. These past actions involved challenging the policies and practices of the dominant culture that used them as a means of control and oppression. Blacks’ use of this kind of resistance drama throughout history has laid the foundation for SNCC’s membership to readily embrace drama for social change in the South. Historically, African Americans’

3 Lerone Bennett.(1964). The Negro Mind. 17 social dramas were staged against oppressive practices and policies that began centuries ago and continue on today. It was necessary to include an historical survey of African Americans’ social drama in this dissertation because it is a story of emancipation throughout history that reveals the actions and ideas of socially oppressed peoples’ resistance against oppression. Educators, social historians, and politicians critiquing the present social and economic conditions of blacks, often begin their critique with a historical analysis. Cornel West (1994) argues that understanding both the social and historical analyses of black culture (churches, families, and values) and the economic and political structures (slavery, Jim Crow, and disparity factors) are crucial because these analyses provide us with a framework of the total structures behind the black condition in America today. Hill & Hatch (2003) quoting Lloyd G. Richards argues that much of blacks’ history in America and specifically, blacks in theatre was not written down. In the foreword to A History of African American Theater, Richards writes: History is made in four ways: First, by those who participate in the event. Second, by those who observe the event and will pass their version on by word of mouth, embellishing, forgetting or adjusting as the circumstances demand. Third, by the professional observer who writes and whose accounts end up in a chronicle in the library. And fourth, by those who do not write. (xii) African dramaturgical history fits within the last category; it was not recorded and therefore, most dramatists begin their historical survey of drama by citing the Greeks when Alexander the Great overthrew the Phoenicians in 332 B.C. We now understand that drama/theatre originated not with the Greeks but in Central Africa over 5,000 years ago when ancient African dramatists, griots, storytellers and medicine men performed ritual and performance as teaching tools (Hill & Hatch, 2003). This is important because the use of drama changed dramatically when the Greeks, and eventually, the Romans were in power. Drama, under these civilizations, reflected the dominant cultures’ values. Drama was used to perpetuate the status quo of the elites and silence the underclass.

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Simply stated, theatre/drama became westernized when during the Greco-Roman period. Most people consider the Ancient Greeks as the progenitors of what we now call theatre. Although the Greeks did not invent theatre or drama, they did provide us with a good definition of the word. Drama, translated in Greek means “to act” or “to do” (Arendt, 1959). Aristotle’s observation of the structure and purpose of theatre was built on Greek tragedy, iron-clad rules of theatre, the power of the ruling class, and a hero that exemplified a man that reflected the dominant cultures values and morals (Lovelace, 1996). In addition to promoting the ruling classes’ values into theatre, Aristotle envisioned theatre merging the ruling classes’ authority and acceptance with theatrical language and symbols (Schoeps, 1977). Europeans continued the Greco- Roman traditions of theatre and art and considered drama or theatre to be the role of the privileged and a space where spectators would go and watch. Colossal theatres were constructed to show comedic and tragic performances. Africans engaged in drama centuries before the Greeks and in significantly different ways than the Greeks. The Greeks’ epitomized the ruling classes as the standard of what is good and beautiful; whereas, Africans’ drama reflected the social and cultural perspectives of the masses. Drama was used as an instrument to express creativity and social protests against oppressive powers. Africans valued the common folk’s culture and promoted the issues that interested them. Robert Ferris Thompson (1983) argues that Africans viewed art as functional, rather than for appreciation for the aesthetic. Africans’ nomadic lifestyle, the harsh, dry dessert, and unavailable material for artwork and drama (stage and theatre) helped to shape their philosophical worldview and methods of creating art and drama. Because of these factors, art become functional and often included the poor in the creation of the art and drama. These ancient, African dramatists as far as 2,500 years ago were griots, storytellers and medicine men. There have been evidence found indicating the use of an ancient form of drama, or ritual and performance used as a way to teach, critique the status quo, entertain, and develop citizens. Generally, community educators were not part of the elite educators who taught at the schools or universities. They came from among the

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common people and were elders of the village. They voiced the concerns of the people while providing hope, knowledge and general information. Africans brought with them this understanding of the role of art and drama to the New Land. Since the first day Africans were taken from the West Coast of Africa (during the Slave Trade years 1607-1860) to the present day, they have, in one form or another, fought for freedom and resisted oppression. The expression of this understanding was found in a rich culture of singing, storytelling, dancing, hand- clapping and drums that inspired congregants to participate as part of a spiritual and intellectual learning experienced (Walker, 2008). Thompson (1983) argues that art and drama was a political charge of griots and storytellers. Thompson also argues that his dramatic work was deeply spiritual and that West African spirituality reflected the idea that change comes from within the individual and within the community. These ideas of the political storyteller, political spirituality and the political dramaturgy, informed Black Liberation Theology, thus forming the black church as a means to empower people. Drama and storytelling was anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and ontological, providing Africans a way of knowing and understanding the world (Margret Thompson Drewal, 1992). The personal style of African peoples employed oral histories and storytelling as a means to capture and re-tell history from generation to generation. African American social dramas for freedom were as much a part of the Negro experience in slavery as the very nature of slavery itself. These acts of resistance included different roles including, black slaves playing the role of Uncle Tom or the African trickster, Anansi. Anansi, one of the most famous characters of the West African folklore tradition, was depicted as a spider that played the role of trickster or con man. Anansi was unsuccessful in attempting to trick people for the sole purpose of gaining money or free food. He always wanted something for nothing, and in the end, his antics backfired. In most cases, Anansi finds himself in more trouble than before. Anansi (Ananse) stories revealed powerful lessons to both young and old audiences. The moral of his stories were crime never pays, and honesty is the best policy. Robert Pelton (1980) writes of Anansi, “He is both fooler and fool, maker and unmade, willy and stupid, subtle and gross, the High God’s accomplice and his rival” (p. 27-28).

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Anansi is important to understand because his role in African American cultural studies is profound. He plays a number of roles; some as a fool and some as an clever soul overcoming obstacles. His best quality is that he is persistent. Pelton writes, “Yet, his persistent self-assertion helps to bring the world into being” (p. 28). In this tale we see the foundation of many stories enslaved blacks told their children about resistance and overcoming; tales that would be retold even to the civil rights movement era. Oftentimes, the metaphor of animals would be used as representations of those in power and the underclass. The fox or lion for example, would represent the village ruler. While the lamb, mouse or turtle represented the oppressed citizens. Animal representations were constructed as puppets and used by storytellers as visual aids for adults and children. Rulers’ authority could not be challenged in public; hence the use of these puppets as authority figures, played a major role in subversive theatre. As subversive theatre, these stories informed citizens’ on what the oppression was and the ways in which they could resist. When blacks arrived from African and landed on the plantations, they brought these stories and created additions forms of subversive drama to resist domination. During slavery, public and private conversations of black folk were highly monitored and analyzed for subversive, anti-white sentiment. If blacks’ conversations were determined to be threatening, then harsh punishment would be executed upon the guilty party. In addition to the role storytellers played during slavery in America, black females subjected herself to the sexual whims of the master by playing the submissive role with the white master in order that her family would be safe. Numerous slave narratives report that black women’s’ roles also included; master’s confidant, wet-nurse, and teacher to the master’s children. House servants played the ignorant role in order to be privy in certain social meetings so that they could pass vital information from the Big House back to the slave’s crib. House servants role also included nurse, wet-nurse, house keeper, confidant and friend of house mistress, and nanny to her children. In Things my mama told me: The Wisdom that shapes our lives, Olga Samples Davis (2004) describes the many life lessons she learned from her mother and other black women in the community. Because of the various roles black women

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played, they learned vital, social and cultural information of the South and transferred it to their children so that they might survive the harsh life they would soon face. As an example of art imitating reality, these same roles were reflected in Hollywood films during the 1930’s until the 1960’s. Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen are just two examples of the roles black women played as maids. These films however, failed to tell the counter story of the black maid and how her daily experiences informed what she taught her children at night. While watching one of these films with my own mother, I recall my mother saying that those movies did not tell the whole story. She went on to say that as being a black maid for rich white people, she was in close proximity to the social and cultural mores, unwritten rules and codes of behavior of the upper class. She therefore brought home to us some of the hidden information she learned about achieving upward mobility. This navigational knowledge of society norms is priceless because it rarely gets transmitted in schools and in the media. The Black church developed during slavery and captured the spirit of their African traditions by practicing similar rituals, symbols and performances which proved to be a form of pedagogy for spiritual transformation and social learning. The call and response methodology of singing, storytelling, and sharing in the black church was an excellent way to engage both teacher/preacher and student/congregant in the learning process. The preacher speaks directly to the congregation in such a way that elicits a verbal response of affirmation from the congregants such as “amen and preach it brother” (Walker, 2008, 1). The black preacher also plays the director’s role by encouraging the audience to participate in his performance. He sings with the choir, conducts short dramatizations and uses the congregants as actors in his play. Walker argues that the interplay between actors and audience proved be another integral part of African theatre that was passed down through generations in the black church (ibid). The black preacher often uses liberating bible stories as examples of how blacks could rise above oppression and declare their liberation. In many of these sermons, preachers draw congregants into an impromptu skit that utilizes both antagonist and protagonist roles. In the end, the protagonist would win by resisting the attacks of the antagonist. The call and response method of singing, storytelling and sharing was an excellent

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method used during the civil right movement by imparting knowledge and creating a sense of community. Corporate singing was also a way to engage both teacher/activist and student/participant in the learning process. This call and response was evident during SNCC’s rallies. One of SNCC’s participants would begin a rally with a familiar chant to the crowd, “What do we want?” the crowd responded saying, “Freedom.” “When do we want it?” and the crowd would scream, “Freedom Now.” This show of passion for freedom and justice “would continue for some time until the crowd was worked up and ready for the battle, in the form of non-violent action” (Belfrage, 1965, p. 255). Senator Barack Obama discusses in his 2008 Race Speech how the black church fulfills its mission to the congregation and community by declaring messages of freedom and hope. Obama’s describes how audiences are moved from spectator to actor as a way to engage and promote personal growth and spiritual liberation. Not only have black preachers assumed the role as community educator, but they have become drama leaders and performers. Preachers are often part of the same social and economic levels as their congregants and thus are able to voice the concerns of the people, preach hope, and share information about progressing in society. According to Obama, the black church’s inspirational messages and atmosphere inspired hope in many congregants. He asserts: In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity: "People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears;

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until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild. The civil rights movement would not have been as successful if the black church had not played a key role part in motivating congregants to action. SNCC activism relied heavily on the social drama practices of the Black church. Obama’s speech describes the role that the Black Church has played in organizing and inspiring Black political and social consciousness. SNCC’s social dramas continued the protracted struggle for freedom. They were representative of black culture and revolutionized the way in which social dramas were used by educating, organizing and mobilizing people during the early 1960’s civil rights movement. During the 20th century, blacks continued to play heroic dramatic roles in order to inch them further along the freedom trail. Jack Johnson, a prize winning boxer, played the free black man’s role during the 1930’s. Johnson defied public opinion and sparked public disdain by dating white women, buying expensive cars and living extravagantly. His lifestyle was unheard of for most men and especially black men during 1930’s Depression. , the great actor/activist, demanded to play dignified roles in Hollywood. Robeson (1936)4 asserts, “I am a singer and an actor. I am primarily an artist. Had I been born in Africa, I would have belonged, I hope, to that family which sings and chants the glories and legends of the tribe. I would have liked in my mature years to have been a wise elder, for I worship wisdom and knowledge of the ways of men.” In December 1963, after five years of exile in Europe, Robeson returned to the United States where he was asked by reporters if he would participate in the civil

4 www.africanamericans/paulrobeson. 24 rights movement. He responded, “Yes, I have been part of it all my life” (ibid). The similarities to Robeson and SNCC were astounding so much that John Lewis, chairman of SNCC honored Robeson at his 67th birthday gala in New York 1967, when he said, "We of SNCC are Paul Robeson's spiritual children. We, too, have rejected gradualism and moderation. We are also being accused of radicalism, of communist infiltration (Robeson, 2006).” Lewis was referring to how SNCC, like Robeson, was largely ignored by the status quo Negro organizations of the day (NAACP and SCLC) because of their different perspectives on civil rights tactics. The NAACP wanted to move slow and gradual to change the racist practices of whites in the South by working through the courts. This slow and evolutionary approach was considered gradualism. SNCC’s membership however, wanted to use a grassroots approach and move toward the idea of freedom now, not later or some day. SNCC’s Freedom Acts helped to facilitate the gradual change strategies to more . Also attending Robeson’s gala were many black entertainers who played significant roles in the civil rights movement including: , , Ruby Dee, Dizzy Gillespie, and John Coltrane. These artists/activists used their talents, time and resources to support the civil rights movement. There were non-actors playing roles. In addition to African Americans’ social dramas acted in behalf of oppressed people, other social groups around the world in the sixties began to protest oppression. Richard Lackey (2006), civil rights activist and social justice advocate writing about roles played and social drama asserts: Gandhi designed a raid on a salt works in which demonstrators calmly walked across the boundary where they were beaten down by soldiers. Vietnamese monks sat in meditative positions in the streets of Hue, in front of tanks, to help bring down the dictatorship in 1963. Philippine participants in "people power" mass action overthrew a government partly with flower necklaces for the dictator's soldiers. (2) African American’s social drama was for a particular purpose- freedom. The social dramas discussed in this dissertation were direct action and non-violent social drama. What did freedom mean to SNCC? In what specific ways did they struggle for

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freedom? Furthermore, if freedom was the goal of the movement, I suggest that the methodology of obtaining that freedom was through non-violent social action. These discussions are important because they enable us to gain a greater understand SNCC’s freedom acts as praxis for transformation. It is important to remember that Blacks during the civil rights movement viewed freedom as a process and an outcome. Notes taken from a young, white girl attending Freedom Summer training session indicate that Bob Moses and employed several disciplines in teaching what freedom meant to the movement, (see appendix E). Freedom as a process involved what they actively engaged in to get what they wanted. Freedom as an outcome was the result of the protracted struggle; equality, equity, fair housing, voting rights and the freedom to choose.

Discourse of Freedom

The discourse and practice of freedom has a long history in America. I begin this analysis by examining the Jeffersonian idea of freedom. Carlson (2003, p. 4) argues that the West’s discourses and practices of democracy have been involved in a contradictory idea of freedom which originated from the Greek culture. America’s idea of what freedom means started with the Greco-Roman idea of freedom and has changed only slightly, throughout American history. When the first European settlers arrived from England to what is now called, America in 1492, they sought freedom from oppression and with it, the ability to be free to practice their religion and live their lives unencumbered with mandates from authoritarian rule. They also desired the freedom to choose their own destiny and to enjoy the many opportunities that were possible for them in the New Land. According to an American history historian, Eric Foner (2006), “Freedom-or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably-is deeply embedded in the documentary record of our history and the language of everyday life” (9). History records that the wars5 that were fought in and outside of our country’s

5 “American Revolution fought for freedom from England rule. The Declaration of Independence lists liberties among mankind’s inalienable rights. “The Civil War to bring about a new birth of freedom, World War II for the 26

boundaries have been centered on the idea of freedom and the price men and women have paid to secure their freedom. President Franklin D. Roosevelt detailed his idea of freedom in his now famous, Four Freedoms speech on January 1941, State of the Union address to Congress 6 which consisted of; (1) freedom of speech and expression, (2) freedom to worship God, (3) freedom from want, and (4) freedom from fear. At the time Roosevelt delivered this great treatise on freedom, many blacks in the North, and especially in the South, was not enjoying Roosevelt’s idea of freedom. Roosevelt’s four kind’s freedoms were violated in the South against blacks. In the beginning of the 20th century, Blacks were still experiencing the last vestiges of slavery and the burden and shame that it brought upon them. The American Slave Trade established slavery as law. And as law, was a curse on every black child born in the South, and many blacks in the North. Blacks understood experientially and ontologically the idea of wanting to be free, despite the fact that many of them could not read the Constitution that defined and declared it. During slavery, several noted people spoke out against the practice and atrocity of slavery. Fredrick Douglas (1855) speaking of his experience from bondage to freedom writes in My Bondage and My Freedom writes: For ten or fifteen years I had been dragging a heavy chain, with a huge block attached to it, cumbering my every motion. I had felt myself doomed. The contest was now ended; the chain was severed; God and right stood vindicated. I WAS A FREEMAN, and the voice of peace and joy thrilled my heart. (p. 337)

Four Freedoms, the Cold War to defend the Free World. The current war in Iraq has been given the title, Operation Iraqi Freedom, (Foner, 2006, 9).” 6 President FDR speech to the 77th Congress, The Four Freedoms January 6, 1941. In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms; The first is freedom of speech and expression --everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants --everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

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Therefore, if blacks during the 1940 reflected upon the great ideals of freedom that President Roosevelt professed, then they would have known that the President’s idea of freedom was not allocated for them. I could not find any direct statement linking SNCC’s idea of freedom with Roosevelt’s idea of freedom. On the other hand, there are several references linking blacks’ understanding the Constitution as a right for all Americans. Blacks also understood that they were not exercising their rights as found in the Constitution. Black people understood and trusted the words of the nation’s Constitution, while knowing that the ideals that it purported were not realized in their everyday lives. Blacks tended to trust the nation’s Constitution and the federal government over the local and State government’s law and practices. I (McDew personal conversation) asked Chuck McDew, a SNCC’s second executive secretary, what was SNCC’s motivation for the struggle for freedom? Chuck McDew, replied, “A lot of people didn't understand our motivation and inspiration [for the sit-ins]. For me, and most others, it came directly from the Constitution. When citizens are wronged, they have the right to petition the government, and that's what we could do." The State and local laws in the South favored Jim Crow and the status quo of subjugating blacks. SNCC’s freedom acts challenged many of these local and State laws while appealing to the higher power of the national government. SNCC’s freedom acts were two fold, they sought personal as well as collective transformation. They also understood that having freedom meant being treated as a human being and that the struggle was to “overcome a social problem, but also a personal problem” (Stuart, 1984, p. 354). Blacks during the 1940’s did not enjoy Roosevelt’s four freedoms because they were subject to the atrocity of an American form of terrorism in the South by having to endure lynching, bombings and beatings. There were four social and political conditions set that hindered their freedom. First, Blacks did not have freedom of speech and expression. Due to the intimidation of white police and local citizens, blacks were physically and verbally abused as a form of discouragement to prevent them from speaking out against the racist policies and practices they were under.

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Second, in many cases, blacks did not have the freedom to worship God because they were intimidated when attending places of worship. Reports show that several church burnings occurred in the South. Many of these burnings occurred during services and were the cause of four young black girls’ deaths. Black churches in the South were the location of community learning centers. Many of these churches held Freedom Schools. The idea of educating blacks was in direct opposition to racist subjugation of black folk. Education then, and now, is a radical practice and must be treated as such. Thirdly, blacks did not experience the freedom from want because the poverty level of blacks in the country was well below other groups. Many blacks lived as share- croppers and in homes that were throw backs from slavery; mere huts and shacks. In addition, many blacks worked as low skilled domestics and day laborers. Blacks’ wants were surpassed by their needs. Blacks needed to have the right to pursue, Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as found in the constitution. And lastly, blacks did not experience, freedom from fear. Blacks in the South were fearful of what whites could and would do to them if whites felt that blacks resisted the status quo. and the are just a couple examples of where blacks feared for their lives in the effort to attend white schools or even speak to a white woman. In a recent interview for this dissertation with Charles McDew, a key civil rights worker of the 1960’s, I asked him a question concerning white terror imposed upon blacks in the South. McDew remarked, “The fear of whites was so heavy that if I wanted to have sex with a white woman, I was physically unable. I had to go to up North, like Atlanta, Georgia to do it. There, we were less fearful of being killed if someone found out." This understanding of the struggle for freedom for blacks in America has drawn its ideas and passion from the past. Richard King (1988), civil rights historian argues, “the civil rights movement did not operate in a vacuum” and that there were, “a continuity of religious institutions and practices, rituals, stories, and theologies linking the slave experience with protest movements (28).” SNCC’s leaders revolutionized the movement with their interpretation of freedom and the means by which to obtain it. By that I mean, with every strategic action, SNCC leaders decisively chose to preface it

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with freedom, such as: Freedom Summer; Freedom Schools; the Free Southern Theatre; Freedom Rides; and the Mississippi Free Democratic Party (MFDP). Stuart (1974) seems to sums up SNCC’s key players’ understanding of freedom when he writes, “Blacks were trying to establish their own being at the same time they were attending to achieve their people’s becoming” (p. 354). Being treated as a human being and in some cases treated like a “man”, would be the philosophical underpinnings of much of the rhetoric, actions and language of the movement. The civil rights movement was two-fold in its scope and sequence. In the first part, it was a citizens’ movement- demanding freedom for black Americans as stated in the U.S. Constitution. In the second part, it was a human rights movement. In this idea, blacks insisted that they (black people) should be treated with the dignity and respect as being human. Stuart suggests that freedom is a “Natural state of man and conversely, oppression is not an option and to exist one must fight oppression to be” (p. 353). Therefore, the freedom acts were a response to black people’s desire for freedom and justice. The terms freedom and justice in this dissertation will be used interchangeably. Another way freedom was viewed by proponents of the civil rights movement was a process in which people would have the right to redefine themselves. Blacks throughout their four hundred years in this country have been named, defined and managed by whites who believed that it was their responsibility to oversee the black race. After many years of resistance, blacks during the early 1960’s created social acts which would redefine themselves as free agents and as free agents, carve out their own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. For Charlie Cobb, a secretary with SNCC 1962-67, freedom meant, “getting black people to challenge themselves,” (Stuart, 1974, p. 133). Larry Guyuet (Stuart) adding to this idea that freedom as a process and product writes, “To battle institutions we must change ourselves.” He adds, “Every step in the fight against racism and discrimination was preceded by a deeper and more profound struggle that involved confronting oneself” (p. 134). asserted that, “Freedom is like a birth; till we are fully free, we are slaves” (Batra, 1984, p. 27). Martin Luther King (Washington, 1986) discussed his three criteria for expressing freedom in a speech to a crowd in Nashville, Tennessee in 1962. King said that

30 freedom is “The capacity to deliberate or weigh alternative; expresses itself in decisions, and responsibility-that is the obligation of the person to respond if he is questioned about his decisions” (p. 120). The idea of freedom was paramount to SNCC’s theoretical and philosophical underpinnings. SNCC’s fight against oppression manifested itself as an educational endeavor, whereby the name of freedom prefaced and framed every one of their freedom acts. It is important to note that when I use the word freedom in this dissertation, it is consistent with SNCC’s discourse and practice of freedom. SNCC’s usage of the word freedom appeared to have been reflected in the capacity of an individual to act, speak, think, and live as one chooses without being subject to any restraints and restrictions. SNCC’s freedom acts embodied a form of liberatory social drama. After comparing SNCC’s social dramas with Theatre of the Oppressed tenets, it appeared that the freedom acts were social dramas which had a powerful effect upon both the actor and the spectator. In one way the participant was transformed by engaging in social change actions. The spectators were transformed because they saw the action of others and were inspired. They also benefitted by the social change brought about by the social action. For example, after months of the sit-ins, blacks could begin to sit at the once segregated lunch counters. Stuart (1974) argues, “Blacks were trying to establish their own being, while at the same time; they were attempting to achieve their people’s becoming” (p. 354). Cornel West, the prophetic, pragmatic scholar, when asked of what he believes freedom to be by talk show host Tavis Smiley on January 15, 2007, remarked: What does it mean to be free as a black man? It means that you think for yourself; that you habitually vision greatness. It means that you are bold, have love, and are giving. These things are opposite of ‘the white man’ which is fear, hatred and greed. And, to be free, is be free to first do God’s work; work for others and fight for justice. For SNCC, what freedom meant and how freedom was achieved is central to understanding the rationale behind the freedom acts. To address these issues, SNCC

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members’ social justice work involved a two prong mission: promote personal and community empowerment. The black church influenced the civil rights movement. Doing social justice work, was spiritual. The idea of doing God’s work is setting the captives free. Setting the captives free was a theme that resonated throughout the bible and was used in SNCC’s messages and music.

Discourse of Non-Violence

What philosophical perspective did SNCC’s founders adapt as a framework for the freedom acts? How were they able to transform a society without the use of violence? If freedom was the object of the movement, then non-violent social action was the methodology of obtaining that freedom. In this section, I discuss why SNCC chose this specific methodology of resistance, something about Gandhi and his message, and why his ideals resonated with many blacks in the 1940’s and beyond. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Lawson, and Howard Thurman, studied the Hindu principle of , or non-violence, and , or non-violent action, advocated by Mahatma Gandhi. These leaders drew inspiration from Gandhian principles and combined them with the principles of Christian love taught in the New Testament to create the non-violent movement of the early to mid 1960’s (Williams, 2005). In 1936, Howard Thurman, a distinguished religious leader and educator at Howard University, made a visit to India to meet with Gandhi and to discuss his non- violent philosophy. Thurman’s conversations with Gandhi represented the first formal exchange between an African American religious leader and Gandhi (Fluker, 1998, p. 6). Inspired by the success of Gandhi’s campaigns, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and SNCC’s organizers helped thousands of black and white activists spread nonviolent protest strategies in mass, public non-violent demonstrations (Williams, 2005, p. 4). Gandhian teachings and philosophy consisted of Gandhi’s unique idea about truth and non-violence, faith in God, basic equality of man, and self-restraint and humility (Batra, 1984; Attenborough, 1982). Gandhi’s advocacy of non-violence was

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based on the basic belief that people cannot morally resort to violence against their fellow creature, if confronted with love and non-violent actions. He believed that, “Violence or even self-defense could only lead to humiliation and injury to peaceful freedom-fighters” (Batra, 1984). Gandhi viewed truth as an expression of love, firmness and strength. He also recognized the subjective nature of truth for mankind - truth was often influenced by a person’s own self-interests. Gandhi believed, “To deny one’s material wants as well as any emotions that run counter to a spirit of ahimsa required strength” (ibid. 8). Attenborough (1982) citing Gandhi writes, “It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings” (7). Nelson (1971) quoting Gandhi writes, “Well, if it comes true, it may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of will be delivered to the world” (p. 155). Gandhi’s prophetic message seemed to come into fruition when a young, black minister entered the scene from a small black congregation in Birmingham, Alabama; this man was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks on the movement’s non-violent strategy in many of his writings and credits Mahatma Gandhi as his model for non-violence resistance strategies. King speaking on non-violence writes, “This method was made famous in our generation by Mahatma Gandhi, who used it to free his country…and has been used in Montgomery, Alabama” (Washington, 1986, p. 86). King elaborates on the impact and intent of violence, he writes, “That this method is that it does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding” (ibid, p. 87). According to James Forman (Grant, 1974), SNCC’s first general secretary:

Non violence is neither a mere tactic, which may be dropped on any occasion nor an inviolable spiritual commitment. It is somewhere between the two – not a philosophy, not a tactic, but a strategy involving both philosophical and tactical elements, in a widening direct action campaign to redeem the American promise of full freedom for the Negro. (p. 378)

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SNCC’s field secretaries trained the volunteers in non-violent strategies as the basis for the social dramas. They believed that when oppressors are confronted with people acting out of love and non-violence that they would be convicted of the evils of hatred and racism and would cease the oppression. SNCC’s leaders believed that people are basically good, and would change their ways if confronted with goodness.

Theoretical Frameworks

There are two theoretical frameworks used in this dissertation: Performance theory and Theatre of the Oppressed. In the Theatre of the Oppressed section, I have included a section on Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed theory. Boal and Freire’s work is similar in many ways and I wanted to show the merging of the two pedagogies.

1. Performance Theory as a Theoretical Framework

The first theoretical framework I want to explore is a performance theory pieced together from cultural studies and social theory. Perhaps the earliest influential sociologist to advance a performance theory of everyday life was Erving Goffman. To Goffman, the self is no more (nor less) than the “face” that people present to other people in social interactions. The presentation of self in everyday life is the presentation of a managed face and body, as an actor assumes a role in a staged play. Of course, Goffman was talking about performance of self as something that people did not explicitly think about as performance or drama. But he did explore forms of self- presentation that were relevant to understanding the racial drama being played-out in the South in the 1950’s and 1960’s. For example, he refers to a form of face management among southern whites he calls civil inattention. Civil inattention is when a person stares at another person not to show admiration, but disgust, and a kind of repulsive stare as to intimidate the individual. Goffman (1963) writes:

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It is possible for one person to stare openly and fixedly at others, gleaning what he can about them while frankly expressing on his face his response to what he sees-for example, the “hate stare” that a Southern white sometimes gratuitously gives Negroes walking past him. It is possible for one person to treat others as if they were not there at all as objects not worthy of a glance. (p. 83) Performance on learning and meaning-making has been the subject of study for many years. Researchers agree that drama plays a key role in helping learners’ understanding and knowledge building. Children learn in the beginning of their lives how to use play as a way to express themselves and learn valuable skills. Saul Smilansky (1968) suggests how the power of socio-dramatic play meets the needs of culturally disadvantaged children. According to Smilansky, socio-dramatic play develops three main areas with children: “creativity, intellectual growth, and social skills” (p. 12). By learning these valuable social skills at a young age, people have a framework for learning how to use role-playing as a means to gain more complex skills needed later in life. The use of role-playing does not stop with adolescence and adulthood. Role-playing as a strategy of teaching for learning was used in Freedom Summer’s workshops. Freedom Schools used role-playing with the children. This method encouraged students to image what could be and to act within that imagined space. Richard Courtney (1980) asserts, “Thought and action is a whole way in which we create meaning. When we think and do together, we ourselves make a drama with the environment so that we understand it” (8). For Courtney (1995, 1990, & 1980), life is more drama than stage, and any effective education curriculum recognizes both imagination and dramatic actions as key elements in the way people live out and transform their lives. He believes that educators must be versed in understanding the relationship between imagination and dramatic actions in order to best utilize the student’s feelings and experiences in the learning process. Adults do not use child’s play per se to learn more complex skills in life, but they do use the frameworks of role- playing to gain agency in life. Adult role-playing helps them to gain skills in reclaiming power that has been relinquished during their life time. Shor (1996) in his book, When

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Students Have Power, discusses the idea that “power is a learning problem and learning is a power problem” (p. x). If students are to gain agency in classrooms, then scholars must take their critical theories and pedagogies out of the halls of the university and into public spheres. Soyini Madison (2005) asserts that human beings are natural performers and as performers we demonstrate our experiences and understanding of the world through social performances. Goffman (1959), Bruner (1986), Victor Turner (1982), and others, Madison asserts that all social and cultural performances take place under structure or anti-structure. Structure is law, order and authority, while anti-structure is human action beyond systems and constraints. Anti-structure social performances can take place in informal, popular settings. Gary Allen Fine (1995), citing Johnston and Klanderman, argues from a performative view of culture which stresses that social movements shape and are shaped by the society; social movements shape and mold symbols, values meaning, icons and beliefs to suit the movement’s aims. Fine further suggests that social movement’s dramatic images are both told and demonstrated through the group’s narratives. These culturally specific stories provide the group with several benefits: a basis of community and collective action, mobilization techniques, appropriate behaviors and roles to play, and identification with the central ideas of the movement. Kathleen Berry (2000) asserts, “Dramatic art theories and practices, informed by cultural studies, can offer possible, real, everyday resistances and alternative formations” (p. 37). She warn that examining cultural studies through drama is “Terrifying and risky business for actors, students, directors and others rehearsing cultural interrogation through dramatic arts must eventually reflect on themselves” (37). Therefore, educators using drama as a means to understand culture, must first understand their own biases and perspectives before engaging in the process. Norman Denzin (2003) argues that performance is “an act of intervention, a method of resistance, a form of criticism, and a way of revealing agency” (p. 9). Denzin suggests that performance becomes public pedagogy, intersects politics, institutional sites and embodied experiences. Performance is an example of what others

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might call critical pedagogy. Denzin also suggests that performative as a site of resistance, he writes, “Meaning and resistance are embodied in the act of performance itself. The performative is political, the site of resistance” (p. 245). SNCC’s Freedom Acts were educational in nature, yet embodied a political agenda. The participants’ performing in restricted areas or segregated sites, dared to change the social and economic conditions they were in by what they thought to be leveling the playing field. In this dissertation, I suggest that SNCC’s participants’ social dramas proved to be critical pedagogy performed in public. Actors and spectators, whites and blacks gained an understanding of the seriousness of segregation in public spaces in the South. SNCC’s members told their personal stories during meetings and at rallies. These stories helped to define SNCC’s organization, mission and ideology. They realized how the principle behind segregation was disingenuous to the development of society. SNCC’s social dramas dared to bridge the gap between the white world and the black world by performing freedom acts in places of oppression and authority. These places included segregated lunch counters, schools, pools and theatres. Goffman’s critique is valuable in this study because it explains a type of performance that southern whites would perform in front of blacks. These hate stares, although physically harmless, affected some blacks psychologically and emotionally. It prevented some from daring to enter into segregated spaces and challenge the status quo. SNCC’s Freedom Acts were performed in the presence of the hate stares. Hate stares were not exclusively and white person’s role, blacks as well used the hate stares to present a determined and defiant persona.

2. Theatre of the Oppressed as a Theoretical Framework

The second theoretical framework of this dissertation is the pedagogy of reviews Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. In this section, I begin with a historical analysis of the life and philosophy of Augusto Boal. Next, I review of the literature which addresses Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Finally, I discuss in detail

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the techniques of Boal’s Forum Theatre and how forms of his techniques were manifested through SNCC’s freedom acts. Theatre of the Oppressed is attributed to Augusto Boal’s work that uses drama as pedagogy for social transformation among poor people in Brazil during the 1960’s. Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal (Boal 1995, 1992, 1985/1974), developed Theatre of the Oppressed during the 50’s and 60’s as participatory theatre for the purposes of transforming theatre from a monologue of traditional performance into a dialogue between the audience and the actors on stage. According to Boal (1985), Theatre of the Oppressed’s basic aim was to humanize humanity. Boal was concerned about peoples’ struggles against poverty and injustice and his theatre was created to provide these individuals with an outlet to express their concerns and fears. In this, his work was humanizing. It gave voice to the voiceless. A sizable body of work began to emerge in The Drama Review (TDR) during the early 1990’s. Mady Schutzman (1990) and Jan Cohen-Cruz (1990) began writing about Boal and his work when he conducted several workshops in New York City at NYU. While the Cohen-Cruz article purports the positive impact on Boal’s NYU visit, Schutzman troubles the impact of Boal’s work in North America as opposed to South America. Theatre of the Oppressed is a community based education which uses theatre as a tool for social and cultural transformation. It has four types of theatre: Image Theatre, Forum Theatre, The Cop in the Head and The Rainbow of Desire. Image theatre is a series of physical exercises and games designed to uncover essential truths about society, culture and self. Forum theatre, the form of which SNCC pedagogy most resembles, is a problem solving technique. The audience becomes spec-actors as situations are dialogically discussed and addressed by suggesting several social engaging strategies that will be acted in the real world at a later time. Boal’s third form of theatre is Cop in the Head. This theatre helps individuals explore and recognize their own internal voices, fears and oppressive thoughts that often prohibit them from becoming emancipated. Rainbow of Desire, the final technique created by Boal, helps one to deconstruct their own story of tension in the several relationships he or she is

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involved in. The ultimate goal is to help the person understand the roles they play in their life and a greater understanding of the roles others play. In the next section I discuss in detail Augusto Boal’s life, the creation and impact of Theatre of the Oppressed. Throughout the remaining part of this chapter and the course of the dissertation, when referring specifically to Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and its techniques, I also refer to them as Boal’s drama or Boal’s theatre. Augusto Boal was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro in 1931. As a young man, he worked alongside his father, a baker and participated in local theatre. His interest and participation in traditional theatre continued up unto the time he moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he eventually earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in the early 1950’s. Upon returning to Brazil, Boal was asked to direct the Arena Theatre in Rio de Janeiro. At the Arena Theatre, Boal wanted to reach impoverished people he began his experimentations in participatory theatre in the 1950’s-1960’s. He reached out beyond the traditional stage and organized performances in the streets, factories, unions, churches, and in the slums. He was a political activist and a member of the Worker’s Party prior to developing Theatre of the Oppressed in the 1970’s. The experiences Boal gained from the Arena Theatre informed his understanding of a kind of participatory theater where theatre was a language that would foster democratic and cooperative forms of interaction among participants, accessible to all (Boal, 1985). It is unclear why Boal abandoned his professional work as a chemical engineer for theatre. One reason may be that when Boal returned home to Brazil in the early 1950’s, he faced a radically different Brazil than when he left. Brazil during the 1950’s and 60’s was undergoing a major class and economic war that created huge economic and social disparities between the rich and the poor.7 Boal felt there was a need to recruit educated, progressive thinkers that would challenge and defeat the status quo. Drawing upon his experience working with poor people at his father’s bakery and doing theatre may have attributed to his decision. In addition, Brazil had a history of creating

7 http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/HISTOR~6.htm 39 dynamic art and culture following periods of social oppression. Brazil, like America, had its share of racial strife and oppression. During the slave trade of the 16th–19th centuries, enslaved Africans from the West coast were treated like human cargo throughout the New America, Brazil, and Europe. Brazil took in a few million of these slaves and with them they fused their West African customs into the fiber of Brazilian culture. Building upon the customs and traditions of their culture, each generation fought oppression in the face of the oppressor by composing songs, stories, and drama. As black Brazilians struggled to survive against degradation in the New Land, they joined the struggle with Brazil’s poor, peasant farmers and developed creative ways of resisting oppression. By the end of the 1950’s, Brazil invested money into its infrastructure and in April 1960, Brasilia became the official capital and hopes were high for a new era of growth and development. Unfortunately, weak leadership and more economic woes by the mid 1960’s, inspired a military coup to rise up in 1964 and once again, oppressive leadership ruled for another twenty years. During these years, educators such as Paulo Freire and his friend Augusto Boal, began to fight oppression by educating the Brazilian poor with transformative and participatory practices. Paulo Freire, who was ten years older than Boal, was a lawyer and educator who employed literacy programs to promote poor people’s sense of efficacy and power. People were transformed by becoming literate. Augusto Boal, a chemical engineer used theatre to inform people of their political rights. Boal returned to Sao Paulo during the early 1970’s and began to experiment with new forms of theatre. He later called this work Theatre of the Oppressed. He developed a process whereby audiences could stop a performance and make suggestions that the actors would then carry out. In a now familiar story of the development of Forum theatre, a woman in the audience was so frustrated by an actor who could not understand her suggestions that she came on stage and began to play the role herself. For Boal, this was the birth of the Spectator-Actor and became a method to democratize his theatre. More specifically, Boal’s theatre was considered a rehearsal theater which was designed for people who wanted to learn and practice ways of fighting oppression in their daily lives. During Boal’s (1974) Forum Theater, the actors begin with a dramatic situation

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from everyday life and then would try to find solutions to their problems. Some examples included: parents trying to help a child get off drugs; a person who is being evicted from his or her home tries to fight back; an individual confronting racial or gender discrimination seeks support; or simply a student in a new community who is shy and has difficulty making friends learns social skills. Audiences were urged to intervene by stopping the action, coming on stage to replace actors, and then acting out their own ideas. Boal (1995, p. xxx1) asserts, “theatre is a form of knowledge: it can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build a future, rather than waiting for it.” Boal (1998) also describes his Forum Theatre as, “A reflection on reality and a rehearsal for future action. In the present, we re-live the past to create the future” (p.9). Boal’s revolutionary theatre drew the attention of the government and in 1971, the military dictatorship in Brazil arrested and tortured him. After four months of imprisonment he was released and sent into exile; spending five years in Argentina, two in Portugal and eight in France before returning to his home in Rio. After returning from exile, Boal continued his work in Argentina, developing Invisible Theater, aimed at getting around the repressive political climate that he found there. Invisible Theater transforms public space into a public stage creating theatrical situations in public places, but in a way in which the public is unaware that a spectacle is being acted out. By- standers are drawn into a discourse about social oppression, and urged to take immediate action that might affect the scenario being played out, (Boal, 1978). There were three distinct situations that helped to shape and inform Boal perspective on how to use theatre more productively for the oppressed people in Brazil (Boal, 1995). The first experience began at the start of 1960’s when Boal traveled extensively with his theatre company, Teatro de Arena de Sao Paulo (the Arena Theatre of Sao Paulo). Boal’s troupe performed throughout Brazil’s poor areas. People in these areas lived in abject poverty and made less than 50 US dollars a month (Boal, 1999). At this time, Boal’s troupes consisted of very idealistic artists who wanted to present theatrical performances that supported peasants’ struggles for economic equality and social justice. Boal (1995) writes:

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As idealistic artists, we could not be accomplices to such cruelty. We rebelled against it, our blood boiled, we suffered. We wrote and staged plays, spirited violent pieces, aggressive in their anger against injustice. We taught the peasants how to fight for their lands-we who lived in the cities. We taught the blacks how to combat racial prejudice-we who were almost white. We taught women how to struggle against their oppressors. Which oppressors? Why us…and we were virtually all men. (p. 1) Boal’s comment suggests that he is critiquing his own privilege, and calling into question the idea of leading the oppressor away from the position of privilege to a being more reflective of their attitudes and beliefs. Boal begins to understand in a more personal way the issues poor people face during their struggles against oppression. The experiences of these peasants, informed his plays and the way in which he presented his work. His idea of what theatre could do was just beginning to take shape. Boal sees his theatre breaking the rules of established systems that oppress individuals and groups and playing a democratizing role in bringing all people together. The second situation that shaped Theatre of the Oppressed’s transformative ideology involved Boal’s troupes when they were forced by an audience of peasants to put their words into action and help fight the class revolution which was going on in their village. As a theatrical troupe, they were not even trying to become engaged in the process of liberation for the oppressed peasants. Boal’s plays left audiences feeling revived and ready to resist oppression, but only to be disappointed when the actors refused to take up arms to fight. Boal’s scripts reflected the villagers’ struggles and oppression, but fell short of actually assisting them in the struggle. Here is Boal’s (1995) account of what happened to cause him to change the focus and purpose of his theatre troupe: One fine day we were performing one of these splendid musical plays for an audience of peasants in a small village in the North-East- and we sang the heroic text,

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Let us spill our blood. At the end of the show a huge peasant, a great big strapping colossus of a man, came to us, on the verge of tears. Here’s a fine thing-people like you, young town’s people, who think exactly like us. We’re right with you; we also think we must give our blood for our land. After lunch, we’ll as go together, you with your guns, we with ours, and send the colonel’s bullyboys packing. I replied that we did not have guns and that our guns were theatrical props, they were not real weapons. (7) According to Boal (1995), when the peasant realized that Boal’s guns were not real and the theatrical troupe was not willing to really shed their blood, the peasant said, “So, when you true artists talk of the blood that must be spilt, this blood you are singing about its our blood you mean, not yours” (p. 7). Boal (1999) recalls being ashamed at that moment when he realized that he was just acting. He also remembered that “Che Guevara wrote a very beautiful phrase; solidarity means running the same risks” (p. 8). This experience changed Boal’s agit-prop (agitation propaganda) theatre and led him to formulate “simultaneous dramaturgy,” in which actors present a problem, audiences suggest solutions, and the actors then enact them (ibid. p.8). Boal’s theatre became a solution-oriented theatre. The third and last situation that informed Boal’s perspective involved again another audience member. This time, it was a woman in the audience who challenged the actor’s solution to a problem. According to Boal (1995), a few actors were acting out a scene in a play that involved a domestic issue of a woman who was deciding what to do with an abusive husband. Several different scenarios of possible solutions had been acted out on stage. The audience had already given suggestions to the troupe as to what the woman could do with her husband, when finally, an irate woman approaches the stage. Boal’s recounts the story of a large woman in the audience who made several suggestions. Each one of her suggestions was acted out on stage, but not to her satisfaction. The actions she took would change the way in which Boal would

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conduct Forum Theatre from that point on. Boal recounts the story of what happened next when the woman challenged Boal and his troupe. Boal (1995) writes:

Boal: Madam, we are doing our best to try your suggestion, but you are never satisfied. Lady: No, you are not! Because you are a man you don’t want to try something that a woman is telling you to do! Boal: Madam, we are doing our best to understand what you want, we are trying to make the explanation as clear as possible. If you are not satisfied, why don’t you come on stage yourself and show us what you mean by a very clear conversation what is that? (p. 7) The woman did as Boal suggested and came on stage to dramatize how she would resolve the situation if the actor where her husband. She grabbed the actor-husband, hit him with a broom handle, and then scolded him harshly. Boal’s troupe tried with no success to pull the large woman away from the thin actor. After the woman completed her form of resistance on the actor-husband, she was satisfied to sit down and remained quietly thereafter. This was a revelation for Boal. From that point on, Boal’s changed the format of his theatre. He realized, when the spectator herself comes on stage and carries out the action she has in mind, then the act becomes personal, unique, and non-transferable. No other actor can fulfill the role of protagonist except the oppressed. The oppressed finds agency by learning from his theatre’s transformative building techniques and find ways to use them in their daily lives. Therefore, they learn how it feels to gain agency, (Boal, 1995). Following these three incidents in Boal’s theatrical career, “Theatre of the Oppressed” and “Forum Theatre” came to life. Adrian Jackson, (Boal, 1995) Boal’s translator writes: Forum theatre was born that day. Forum theatre is, the audience not only comments on the action, it intervenes directly in the action, taking the protagonist part and trying to bring the play to a different end; it is no longer a

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passive receiver, it is a gathering of spect-actors (active spectators) who bring their own experience and suggestions in the question, What is to be done?” (xviii) Boal’s Forum Theatre reflects the symbiotic relationship between theory and practice. His philosophy of theatre suggests that audiences or spectators should not be passive spectators but engaged actors taking action to transform their reality. Through several theatrical techniques, Boal’s theatre aims to help participants invent new ways of confronting oppression. Boal’s work is democratizing; it provides a space, place and framework for individuals and groups to express alternative ways of challenging the status quo.

Theatre of the Oppressed in America

Boal’s work has been described as a movement by Ken Gerwertz (2003), editor of the Harvard University Gazette. He writes, “As the founder of a movement that has become worldwide in scope, Boal is also frank about his hopes for the people who are touched by his teachings” (p.2). While working with students and faculty at Harvard, Boal professed that the goal of his work there was to seduce them to take what they learned in the workshop and to take it out in the streets (p. 2). At the 2006, Theatre and Pedagogy of the Oppressed conference at UNC, Boal was the featured artist/scholar and spoke to a crowed auditorium via a live broadcast. His remarks: My work [Theatre of the Oppressed] in Sao Paulo was to confront injustice and oppression of Brazilians. Working also in the prisons using Theatre of the Oppressed we work to do these things; establish the dialogue with prisoners and the prison manager, discover main issues, and to use PTO as a rehearsal for reality to make people understand and to understand is to see. Stimulate people to aesthetic capacity to see their reality and the world then join solidarity to them both. In doing the work we transform and in the transformation we are transformed. All techniques are intros

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that should be turned to the outside reality. Not only for the protagonist but used for antagonist. By transforming the world, we transform ourselves. Theatre of the Oppressed was created from, by and for the oppressed to eliminate the oppression. We don’t make theatre, we are theatre. My definition of a citizen is if you transform socially; participants, decide, think, and reflect. The purpose is having people produce their own space. Use the space together to reflect. Use space to rehearse for revolution, transformation and change. 8 In Brazil and throughout the world, Boal has mainly worked with poor, imprisoned and working class people. In America, Boal’s work has mainly been with middle class white students and university professors. His workshops are expensive to attend and generally, only those who can do attend. This may be a short coming in Boal’s theatre in America - the disenfranchised people who need to attend don’t. In many cases, they do not know anything about it. Ironically, disenfranchised groups may do better at understanding Theatre of the Oppressed because they have personal experience of oppression in their daily lives and they are the ones that can utilize what they have learned from the workshops, to where they live and work. Advantaged groups find it more difficult to understand and perform the protagonist role. They also feel guilty in playing the antagonist role. I observed this first hand in May 2006 when I attended the conference at the University of North Carolina as a participant/observer. Boal’s son, Julian Boal, who now co-directs with his father, conducted a workshop leading a group of mostly college professors and drama students in the techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed. While some of the participants were comfortable with playing both the role of protagonist and antagonist, many others I noticed, seemed to be uneasy in playing the role of the antagonist. Julian professed, “groups in America and in some parts of the West have been more difficult to train.” He argued that “the groups attending his workshops were not part of the oppressed groups

8 Conference Webcast May 18, 2006 at the Theatre and Pedagogy of the Oppressed Conference at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 46

such as the peasants in Brazil, the prisoners in France, and the poor, disenfranchised black South Africans. In the West, there was a less sense of urgency to do something about oppression.” 9 The groups that Boal primarily works with in America are the college educated people who sometimes wrestle with their own guilt as playing the role of oppressor. These people may be college students, professors, and community directors. During these workshops, the advantaged groups preferred rather to change the oppressive actions of the antagonists, than to take the position as protagonist. Privileged groups have difficulty understanding what social and cultural oppression feels like from the disadvantage groups’ points of view. Understanding this, Boal stresses the need that the dominant culture and privileged members of society understand that they are in many ways oppressed by their own ideology, and through Theatre of the Oppressed they too may find transformation from guilt and condemnation. Adrian Jackson (Boal, 1995), in his foreword to Rainbow of Desire asserts: “Boal’s pedagogy never delivers the finished article to its audiences to be digested whole--if anything it delivers a process, a provocation. His work “thrives on dissatisfaction” and implicitly asks, do not be satisfied with less that you need, are you satisfied? The greatest benefit of his work is that people leave the workshop with a ‘sense of determination” and the mind to “sort things out” (xxiv). Boal’s theatre is transformative because it brings a society’s antagonists and protagonists together while working to create ways in making society more just.

It may appear that his work falls short of being transformative in America. It does have some drawbacks. But while I witnessed some unease among the scholars and students during the process, there were other participants that represented community centers, k-12 schools, and civic organizations that vowed to incorporate the work into their practices upon returning home. These participants reported working in disadvantaged areas.

9 Recorded session at May 19, 2006 Theatre of the Oppressed Conference in Chapel Hill, N.C. 47

Theatre of the Oppressed as Critical Pedagogy

Boal and Paulo Freire share similar ideas about social transformation and the urgency of people understanding their own agency. Boal (1970), like Freire (1964), believes it is vital to bring both the oppressed and oppressor together so that both may regain their humanity and engage in dialogue to transform society. Freire (1970) asserts, “A pedagogy must be forged with, not for, the oppressed (whether individuals or peoples) in the incessant struggle to regain their humanity” (p. 30). Freire was born in Recife, Brazil during hard economic times. From his experience in living in poverty as a child and working with poor peasants while employed with the Social Service of Industry, (government service in Brazil) he developed an educational philosophy and pedagogy that valued the poor, by creating two-way dialogues, literacy programs and a term and method he called, “praxis”. According to Freire (1970) praxis is the, “human activity that consists of action and reflection…it is transformation of the world…It requires theory to illuminate it….Human activity is theory and practice; it is reflection and action” (p. 106). Theatre of the Oppressed reflects critical pedagogy by providing participants the opportunity to practice transformative ideals into practice. Freire’s work is radical, because it is transformative; changing the realities of people from oppressed to free. Paulo Freire (1970) asserts: The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side. (20)

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Freire (1970, p. 53), as critical educator asserts, “knowledge emerges only through the invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world with the world and with each other.” Boal’s interactive theater is rooted in the pedagogical and political principles specific to the popular education method developed and articulated by Freire in these four points (1970): 1) To see the situation lived by the participants; 2) To analyze the root causes of the situation, including both internal and external sources of oppression; 3) To explore group solutions to these problems, and 4) To act to change the situation following the precepts of social justice.

Boal’s theatre builds participants’ understanding and knowledge in much the same way that Freire’s work empowered the Brazilian peasants. Boal references his friend many times in interviews and in his writings. According to Boal, he and Freire met at several conferences during the 1960’s and Boal was inspired by his work. In an interview with Juan Gonzalez (2005), Boal was asked about the influence of Freire. Gonzalez asked, “Many people have said you began to implement in theatre some of his ideas and perspectives. Could you talk about how you began to develop the Forum Theatre and your Theatre of the Oppressed? Boal replied: Paulo Freire was a very good friend of mine, and he started more or less in the 1960’s. We had the impression that we have met for all our lives. And his work inspired me, of course, and did develop parallel one to another. But of course, he wrote the Pedagogy of the Oppressed first, and my title Theatre of the Oppressed is homage to him. Well, how it started, when I was in the 1970’s. In his book, Legislative Theatre, Boal accounts the encounter he had with Freire in 1996 at the University of Nebraska, at the Omaha Pedagogy of the Oppressed conference which included a Theatre of the Oppressed section. He mentioned that Freire was in poor health at the conference and how he asked Freire if he could accept the Medal of

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the City of Rio de Janeiro when they returned to Brazil. Later that day, Boal was asked as president of the session to make a speech. In his speech, Boal (1998) gave honor and accolades to his life-long friend by saying: That’s the nature of geniuses; they discover or invent the obvious, which no-one has seen. The same happened with Paulo Freire, he invented… a method, his method, our method, the method which teaches the illiterate that they are perfectly literate in the languages of life, of work, of suffering…With Paulo Freire, we learned to learn. For me to exist, Paulo Freire must exist. (p. 128) According the International Theatre of the Oppressed Organization (ITO, 2006), Theatre of the Oppressed’s essential idea is to “humanize humanity.” Boal has never claimed that Theatre of the Oppressed is an ideology or a political party. Boal (ITO, 2006, 2) also contends, “It is not dogmatic or coercive and is respectful of all cultures and is a method of analysis and a means to develop happier societies”

Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed has specific goals and practices that inform the way its teachers teach theatre and what they expect from the students. Listed below are three main goals of Boal’s theatre curriculum. Theatre of the Oppressed pedagogy (Cartei & Picher, 2006) informs a curriculum that: 1. Understands that every human being is capable of acting, and that to survive, we necessarily have to produce actions and observe those actions and their effects on the environment. The spectator and actor co-exist within the same individual. Thus, Theatre of the Oppressed can also be considered, subjective. 2. Employs a social ethic that values human solidarity and cooperation; and its purpose is to help restore dialogue among human beings. It places dialogue at the center of the learning process: all human relations should be a dialogic nature. 3. Provides learning opportunities for every human being (student and teacher) to understand their situation and seeing him/herself in the situation. That language

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is body language; understanding that the body has lived experiences. TO helps people to recover a language they already possess. They learn how to live and transform in society by playing theatre.

Description of Theatre of the Oppressed’s Forum Theatre

Boal (1985, p. 121) considers theatre as “a language capable of being utilized by any person, with or without artistic talent” and a place and space to “show in practice how the theatre can be placed at the service of the oppressed, so that they can express themselves and so that, by using the new language, they can also discover new concepts.” Boal’s vision of the role his theatre plays in the service of the oppressed is to change the people-spectators passive beings into “subjects, into actors, transformers of the dramatic action” (ibid). Adrian Jackson, (Boal, 1995) observes, “The rules of his theatre are made to fit the participants, not vice versa. Boal’s theatre is not didactic, but pedagogic, in the sense of a collective learning” (p. 7). Boal’s Forum Theatre workshops are described as follows: A small group of 15 – 20 participants are assembled in a hall or room, and Boal presents a short lecture concerning Theatre of the Oppressed. Boal begins his talk with his personal history and how he came to create Theatre of the Oppressed. He gives credit for his radically different theatre to the influences of his past audiences (socially and economically disadvantaged). He details three short stories of how these audiences helped him to re-think how theatre should be done in order to value the experiences of the oppressed. His theatre also provides an educational experience for those participants, both oppressed and the oppressor, to be transformed. After this short, historical lecture, Boal discusses the three main ideas of this theatre: Spec/Actor, Antagonist/Protagonist and the Joker.

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Spectator/Actor

The first element Boal discusses with the audience is the Spect/Actor. The Spec/Actor represents everyone in the audience. In real life, most people remain the spectator - just watching the performance and actions of those in power. The challenge is to encourage life’s spectators to engage in the transformation of their own lives. The spectator assumes the protagonist role, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions, discusses plans for change-in short, and trains him/herself for real action. In this case, the theatre is not revolutionary in itself, but it is surely a rehearsal for the revolution. Boal (1985) asserts, “The liberated spectator, as a whole person, launches into action. No matter that the action is fictional; what matters is that it is action!” (p. 122). Theater of the Oppressed is practiced by bridging the gap between actor (the one who acts) and spectator (observer); thus naming this person as spect-actor. Spect/Actors have the opportunity to both act and observe and they engage in self- empowering processes of dialogue that help foster critical thinking. The theatrical act is thus experienced as conscious intervention, and as a rehearsal for social action, is rooted in a collective analysis of shared problems. Nick Crossley (2005) referring to Merleau-Ponty’s concept of conscious intervention argues, “We act, qua bodies, in a meaningful and purposeful way without the intervention of reflective thoughts and often with a form of knowledge or understanding that is not consciously available to us” (p. 18). Forum theatre does not suggest concrete answers or truths. It does however, create space and time to hear alternative views and perspectives. In upcoming chapters, I detail how SNCC’s members portrayed the role of protagonist in many of their staged resistance rehearsals. The Greensboro’s first sit-in was practiced in a college dorm room the night before by the Greensboro four sat at the Woolworths lunch counter. Freedom Summer activities were often rehearsed with participants to show them how to protect themselves against the often brutal and violent attacks of the police during marches and demonstrations. The Free Southern Theatre’s objective was to use theatrical methods to train and help empower black Mississippians.

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Protagonist/Antagonist

The second element Boal’s discusses is the protagonist/antagonist. In this staged scenario, there would be at least two actors; the protagonist and the antagonist. The antagonist’s job is to oppress and intimidate the protagonist in some way or fashion. The protagonist’s job is to identify his or her agency within the scene and to resist the oppression by taking action. The audience’s role moves from being spectators to actors as they individually decide to say “stop”, then take the role of protagonist and to demonstrate what they would do in that particular situation. According to Boal (1985) the spectator assumes the protagonist role, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions and discusses plans for change. Thus, the protagonist trains him/herself for real action. The antagonist is told to continue the oppression against the protagonist and not retreat, while the protagonist takes ownership of his or her agency by discovering effective ways to resist and overcome oppression. The antagonists in society are often those individuals in power who perpetuate injustice and discrimination; and without effective resistance from the protagonist, rarely relinquish it. Traditional thinking led SNCC’s people to believe during the civil rights movement that whites were the antagonists and by being the ones in power, resisted the oppressed strategies for freedom. The oppressors staged violent, overtly and covertly acts against black and white protestors in the streets, schools, restaurants, court houses and other institutions in the South. As discovered in this study, the roles played by the antagonists and protagonists were interchangeable.

In chapters four and five, I detail accounts of how the protagonist and antagonist produced the culture of the civil rights movement in the South. Dennis Carlson (2003) commenting on Gramsci and culture writes, “Culture is, from Gramscian standpoint, produced through battle which means that the dominant culture is only constituted through opposition and negativity” (p. 14). In this case, SNCC’s members

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understood the roles of both the protagonists and antagonist in their meetings and training sessions. But more importantly, they understood (not agreed with) the rationale behind white racist ideology. This unique standpoint of oppressed people educates them in a real-life way. Gramsci argues that these individuals become “organic intellectuals.” Carlson (2003) writes: The organic intellectual emerges out of a particular class or identity group and helps that class or group engage in both critique and re-presentation, in both deconstructing the hegemonic “common sense” that keeps them oppressed and constructing a counterhegemonic voice as part of a project of empowerment. (p.15) I take the position that SNCC’s participants were organic intellectuals, in a sense. They emerged out of an oppressive experience to help black Mississippians’ be transformed. Many of the young people involved with SNCC continued their education and social justice work after leaving Freedom Summer 1964.

The Joker

The third element Boal discusses is the Joker. The Joker plays two roles which are demonstrated in four ways; staging, analysis, problem posing and discussion leader. One role of the Joker is to stay out of the drama by positioning him or herself close to the audience and facilitating questions. As a facilitator, the Joker conducts a scene analysis and moderates the protagonist’s and spect/actor’s suggestions. The Joker is positioned close to the audience and is concerned with hearing what the audiences’ perceptions’ and critiques. The Joker asks the spectator audiences several questions that elicit critical thinking and analysis of the scene and what the possible outcomes of the protagonist’s actions may be. The Joker promotes dialogue within the audience by creating a line of questioning that encourages the protagonist to consider the outcome of his or her actions. The Joker might ask: If you do that, then what could you expect the antagonist to do? Or, does the action you just took transform the oppressive situation to a more empowering space? The objective is not to frighten actors into

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submission or inactivity, but provide alternative ways to do something about an oppressive situation. Audiences are moved from passivity into action. Boal’s (1985) pedagogy never delivers the finished article to its audiences to be digested whole-if anything, it delivers a process, a provocation. The greatest benefit of his work is that people leave the workshop with a ‘sense of determination” and the mind to “sort things out” (xxiv). After each scene, the Joker stresses to the audience that they must take these strategies outside the walls of the room and change their world. The session ends with the Joker getting permission from the audience to end that session and discussion. Upon completion of the scene, the audience creates another real-life scene to act-out with the help of the Joker. The antagonist will continue to antagonize while the audience, possible protagonists have several chances to stand up, yell out “stop”, and then enter the scene and dramatize how he or she would resist the antagonist’s oppressive acts. This scenario continues until the spect-actors have exhausted all possibilities. The Joker then questions each protagonist’s interaction and asks the audience whether this was this the best way to handle the situation?

The second role the Joker plays is to enter into the drama by suggesting props and other scenarios that problematize the skit. This role provides the Joker with the power to intervene in the scene by problematizing the scene (Boal, 1995). There may be a time in the scene that merits the Joker’s intervention; his/her involvement adds a new opposing element to the scene and the role of the Joker in this case is the exact opposite of the protagonist. Playing a problematizer heightens the tension between the protagonist and antagonist. Jackson (Boal, 1995) asserts the Joker plays the role of the “difficulator” and challenges the spect/actors to consider the choices that they have made enacting out a play. He writes, “Boal’s entire theatrical career is based upon the disruption and subversion of theatrical ritual, even his own ritual” (p. xviii). For Boal, the problematizer and difficulator are the same people; they trouble established ways of thinking and try to promote critical thinking among the theatre’s participants. Boal’s (1985) explained why and how the Joker plays this changing role:

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The “joker’s” is a magical reality’ he creates it. If necessary, he invents magic walls, combats, soldiers, armies. All the other characters accept the magic reality created and described by the Joker. To fight he uses an invented weapon; the ride, he invents a horse, to kill himself, he believes in the dagger that does not exist. The Joker is poly-valent; his function is the only one that can perform and role in the play, being able even replace the protagonist when the latter’s realistic nature prevents him from doing something. The outlook of the Joker actor must be that of the author or adaptor which is assumed to be above and beyond that of the other characters in time and space. He knows the development of the plot. When he is not acting, he is omniscient. But when, he takes on the role as one of the characters, then he requires only the outlook of the charger he is interpreting. On stage, he functions as a master of ceremonies, he verifies the structures of the performance and when necessary, he can be assisted by the coryphaeus or the choral orchestra. (pp. 182-183) Boal emphasizes the purpose of this theatre which is to rehearse what you have done and learned, then perform it on the outside. Boal then asks participants to consider a particular social problem and think about the role of the protagonist and antagonist.

Below is Boal’s (1985, p. 139) detailed description of what Forum Theatre is: 1. Every performance will begin always with a dedication to a person or event. It can be a song sung by all, a scene, or simply a recited text. It can also be a sequence of scenes, poems texts, etc. 2. First the participants are asked to tell a story containing a political or social problem of difficult solution. a. Choose a situation that happens in real life. b. Try to bring to the improvisation a situation or result that is desired, but unrealized in real life.

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c. You must swap roles between protagonist and antagonist, spectator/actor and the Joker. 3. Then, a ten or fifteen minute skit portraying the problem and the solution intended for discussion is improvised or rehearsed and subsequently presented. When the skit is over, participants are asked if they agree with the solution presented. At least one will say no. At this point, it is explained that the scene will be performed once more, exactly as it was the first time... But now, any participant in the audience has the right to replace any actor and lead the action in the direction that seems to him most appropriate. Anyone may propose a solution. The other actors have to face the newly created situation, responding instantly to all the possibilities that it may present (139). All of Boal's explorations were efforts to transform the “monologue” of the traditional performance into a “dialogue” between the audience and the stage. He believed that dialogue is the most common and healthy dynamic between humans, and that all humans desire and are capable of participating in dialogue, and conversely, that monologue can feed into oppression. The Spectator/ Actor’s role suggests that all people have the potential to be actors in their own lives, rather than spectators. As actors, people realize that they can resist and challenge systems of oppression. In Boal’s theatre, the audience becomes both spectator and actor depending upon the scenario. In the drama, the Spectator/actor roles are discussed by the audience and suggestions on what the protagonist should do are welcomed. The choices of scenarios used in this drama are important because they reflect the protagonists’ real life social dilemmas. These real life situations acted on stage provide the actors with possible solutions to their problems. The stage is a safe space where people with similar struggles meet and share their experiences and ways to overcome these challenges. The ultimate goal of these scenarios is to help people realize their agency and the possible of being free from the oppressive forces in their lives.

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The Joker is the key participant in Forum Theatre. He or she appears out of an “esthetic and social stimuli need and brings together all of the experiences and discoveries made in the play and present them to the spectator to facilitate more discussions and dialogue” (Boal, 1979, p. 173). Boal’s Joker is positioned between the audience and the stage. The Joker creates opportunities within the drama for the protagonist and antagonist to think and act critically about issues concerning justice, transformation, domination and oppression. Theatre of the Oppressed serves three major purposes. First, students and teachers learn what the social, cultural and economic issues are that they all must face. Second, through dramatic “rehearsals” participants discuss and understand the myriad possible solutions to their social issues. And lastly, by rehearsing these situations on stage, all participants are equipped with the knowledge and experience to act in the real world the issues enacted in the rehearsals. In chapter three, I discuss Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre in more detail.

Scholarship of Boal and Theatre of the Oppressed

New York University scholar, Jan Cohen-Cruz, and one of Boal’s greatest supporters of his work in America, writes about her first encounter with Boal when he conducted a 12-day workshop at NYU in January 1989. Her account of his workshop provides an explanation of Boal’s critique of oppression in America. According to Cohen- Cruz (1990), Boal articulated three principles regarding exercises in each workshop: 1) no violence expressed, rather pleasure is preferred; 2) no competition; and 3) talk about and work on your own oppression, not someone else’s. This idea of working on your own oppression was addressed by Boal and provided the spect/actors with an explanation of what Boal thinks about oppression. Concerning Boal, Cohen-Cruz remarks: I don’t mind working with middle-class people-I’m middle class myself. Why use theatre of the oppressed only with the poorest, the most miserable people? And won’t there always

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be people more miserable than we are? Whoever I work with I say, “Let’s fight against what is oppressing us here and now.” Sometimes by doing this we discover that we are also oppressors-and we find ways of changing…I think that theatre of the oppressed methods should be used to help other people…I don’t mind working in “imperialist countries” like most of Europe and the U.S. – there are plenty of oppressed people in these places. I want to work with oppressed people wherever they are. (p. 46) Mady Schutzman (1990) problematizing the idea of what Boal’s work was trying to accomplish in America writes, “transposing a third-world aesthetic act of resistance to a first-world aesthetic of self-help in as much as North America represents the oppressors, the privileged colonists, and Latin America represents the disempowered oppressed (p. 78). Schutzman further argues, “We in North America ought not too quickly toss away Boal’s theatre as irrelevant to contemporary politics. While as symbolic categories “oppressor” and “oppressed” can sustain certain theoretical arguments, such a simple division, clearly misrepresents the actual conditions of millions of people on both continents” (p. 79). Boal’s work resonates with the ideals of Antonio Gramsci, Mikhail Bakhtin, Paulo Freire and Bertolt Brecht. Schutzman, asserts, “Actors and spectators learn about the dialectic of the oppressor and oppressed within themselves as well as society” (p. 80). Leigh Anne Howard (2004) illustrates in this article, Speaking theatre/Doing pedagogy: Re-visiting Theatre of the Oppressed, that, “one can make the transition from theory to practice by combining critical pedagogy with interactive performance practice” (p. 218). Pedagogy of the Oppressed informs students that they are oppressed and Theatre of the Oppressed helps students to think critically about oppression in three ways; act to inform, promoting dialog, and decision making. Boal work puts action with understanding to create a critical pedagogy that is more effective than knowledge about oppression.

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Paul Dwyer (2004) writes in Making bodies talk in Forum Theatre, that while Theatre of the Oppressed has some apparent benefits to the spect/actors, “we may not ever learn if, or precisely how, audience members apply the lessons of this theatrical experience…”(p. 208). Dwyer basically found anecdotal benefits from the Theatre. What empowerment and/or efficacy do the performers of Theatre of the Oppressed gain? How does their efficacy manifest itself in the real world? There has not been a study up to this point that tracts spect/actors agency transition from Theatre of the Oppressed stages to real world situations. I hope that by studying SNCC member’s freedom acts may provide some insight into this problem. SNCC’s pedagogy’s differs from most Forum Theatre scenarios because the pedagogy they employed derived from their real life and real time experiences of blacks and white students understanding oppression and oppressor and making meaning and change within those boundaries.

Critical Analysis: Forum Theatre and SNCC

The three main techniques of Augusto Boal’s (1985) Theatre of the Oppressed Forum Theatre are: Protagonist/Antagonist, Spectator/Actor and the Joker. These three techniques are apparent in SNCC’s freedom acts: Sit-ins, Freedom Summer and the Free Southern Theatre. These “freedom acts” as I call them, involved men and women acting out strategies to promote equality for blacks in Mississippi, and in the process revealing who they were as human beings. In this study I apply Boal’s techniques to an analyses to three major SNCC events of the civil rights era. On February 1, 1960, in Greensboro, N.C., a group of four black male students from North Carolina A & T sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter and demanded to be served. Each man rehearsed his part the night before. Playing the role of protagonist, each man prepared in advance to challenge the racist practices of the management at Woolworth’s. On the day of the event, the men arrived at Woolworth’s lunch counter neatly dressed and well-mannered. Freedom Summer was an educational and training center for non-violent demonstration training (Carson 1995; Zinn 1970).

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In the fall of 1963, SNCC workers decided to stage a mock election as a rehearsal for the real thing. This staged rehearsal prompted the creation of the Mississippi Free Democratic Party and its first candidate. As an educational component in the training of workers, SNCC planned Freedom Summer that same year to hold a larger training session that would include students and adults from all over the nation. Some of these students came from privileged backgrounds. These privileged students’ role would be that of the antagonist. They learned with the protagonist; poor, black Mississippians, new ways to overcome oppression in their own lives. SNCC leaders believed that if whites were a part of the “struggle” then the media and society at large would be more likely to look and listen to the issues. For this dissertation, I am addressing Freedom Schools as a sub-division of Freedom summer. Freedom Schools (Emery, Braselmann & Reid Gold, 2000) were driven by the Freedom School’s curriculum that emphasized five main principles and these principles, reflect all but one of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed ideals. They were: 1. The school is an agent of social change. 2. Students must know their own history. 3. The curriculum should be linked to the students’ experiences. 4. Questions should be open-ended. 5. Developing academic skills is crucial. (Literacy, black history and mathematics) Number five, “developing academic skills” on this list do not reflect Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed ideals. This is where SNCC’s pedagogy differs from Boal and Freire’s work. Promoting the academic skills of poor, black, Mississippians were important to SNCC educators because they believed that academic skills were important transforming the lives of students. Freedom Schools taught academic skills: reading, writing, literacy and arithmetic. Freedom Schools also used drama as a technique to teach black history, engage the student, and facilitate student’s agency. The Free Southern Theatre’s (FST) objective was to aide blacks in their struggle for freedom using theatrical methods and

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was undoubtedly the most dramatic and engaging of the freedom acts. John O’Neal, FST’s director, set out to dramatize the struggle for liberation for rural blacks in the South by urging blacks to become engaged in all aspects of drama and theatre. O’Neal used public places for his dramas such as churches, parks, and the streets. Marable (2006) writes, “Effective, history deals with events in terms of their most unique characteristics, their most acute manifestation. An event consequently is not a decision, a treaty, a reign, or a battle, but the reversal of a relationship of forces, the usurpation of power, the appropriation of a vocabulary turned against those who had once used it” (p. 154). The events I discuss in chapter four and five are SNCC’s freedom acts and how they reflect Theatre of the Oppressed and African American social drama. As an event, I will examine the “reversal of relationship of forces” such as the power relations between Southern blacks and the white establishment. As an event, I examine what Marable (2006, p. 154) calls the “appropriation of a vocabulary turned against those who had once used it.” In that regard, I analyze SNCC’s actions in terms of a language of social drama, and in particular, the categories of Forum Theatre: Spect/Actor, Antagonist/Protagonist, and the Joker.

Conclusion

I began this chapter by identifying three strands of literature that relate to the dissertation’s problem statement, which is that we need to know how critical pedagogy can be made more concrete when used by African Americans on American soil. The first literature review includes African American’s social drama. It is important to include this in the dissertation because it is a story of emancipation throughout history that reveals the actions and ideas of socially oppressed people against the dominant culture. The second literature review included in this section is on performance theory and social dramas. As performative theorists, Denzin, Madison and Berry argue that human beings are natural performers, performance is a way of revealing agency and a method of resistance. I have included Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Boal’s vision of the role his theatre plays in the service of the oppressed is to change people-spectators

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as passive beings into subjects, actors, and transformers of the dramatic action. The three main techniques of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed Forum Theatre are: Protagonist/Antagonist, Spectator/Actor and the Joker. Spect/Actors have the opportunity to both act and observe, and engage in self-empowering processes of dialogue that help foster critical thinking. Boal’s theoretical frameworks are very similar to Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Both of these theoretical frameworks share similar attributes, but differ in the application of the theory. Theatre of the Oppressed stresses the use of dramaturgical techniques, while Pedagogy of the Oppressed stresses literacy. Last, I have taken a look at the literature that addresses the limitations of both Theatre of the Oppressed and Pedagogy of the Oppressed disenfranchised groups in America. This review helps us understand the framework for the argument that SNCC’s workers social dramas reflect in significant ways the techniques employed in Boal’s theatre. Black folks’ space in the South was limited to the segregated spaces that oftentimes, lacked the resources that white folks’ spaces had. SNCC’s participants challenged the spaces of the dominant culture by invading them. It was not so much that they wanted to eat with whites; it was the fact that they wanted the choice to eat where they wanted to and that certain facilities were cleaner, more financially sound, more comfortable, etc. For blacks during the civil rights movement, the freedom to choose was what they were fighting for. This body of literature lays the foundation for the rest of the dissertation and informs this work in understanding the importance of employing drama as praxis for educators and learners in promoting transformative education.

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CHAPTER THREE Methods

White radicals (and others) whatever their personal limitations, constructs acts to the end. They do not shrink from conflict or combat….Radicals suffers with the oppressed. They feel the blows, they weep. They hunger, they thirst. (p. 97)10

Introduction

This chapter highlights the research methodology and procedures used in the study, which consists of the following sections: researcher’s perspective, research design and methods, primary and secondary sources, freedom acts as social drama and the analysis of interview texts. The purpose of this study was to provide the field of education with a more concrete critical pedagogy that can be used with disenfranchised groups in American soil. This research study was guided by a poststructuralist inquiry approach. Since this study aimed at moving beyond universalistic models of critical pedagogy toward understanding and including concrete examples of disenfranchised groups’ social drama’s pedagogy, a poststructuralist perspective was an ideal guiding framework as it is committed to challenging universalist models and the fundamental assumptions of Western thought and the Enlightenment ideologies, (Carlson, 1998 & Quantz, 1992). Throughout this study, I have employed an overarching constructivist ontological paradigm. I did not claim to interpret the interview data to present an unbiased or neutral truth. Instead, I am interested in the truths constructed about SNCC by those interviewed, and the narratives within with they produced and deployed these truths. As a child of civil rights activists, I witnessed firsthand how important the struggle for freedom and human dignity is to a community of oppressed people. The

10 Lerone Bennett (1964) The Negro Mind. 64

powerful lessons of resistance my parents taught me through their participation in non- violent marches, sit-ins and mass demonstrations in order to dismantle defacto segregation in the Cleveland Public Schools, has been with me all of my life. These lessons of resistance and self-determination have shaped my outlook and choices that I have made in my life. Because of my propensity to idealize social groups whose purpose is the liberation of oppressed people, I have tried to not make this solely a nostalgic project. I have worked at being open to the material that did not reflect what I think the outcome should be. To do this, I constantly reflected upon my thinking about the material and my interpretation throughout the whole process of analysis and writing.

Social History Methodology

Louis O. Mink (Henretta, 1979) presents a type of social history methodology, Mink asserts that the, “action model that offers one a means of reconciling the competing organizational priorities of chronology and analysis” (p. 1315). Mink’s model addresses questions of chronological concerns as well as narrative life-stories. Thus, Mink’s action model “focuses attention on the importance of human agency even as it depicts the limiting forms structure and geographies of the historical context” (p. 1315). To achieve this, I employed three intertwined and uniquely interrelated concepts: social history, living black history, and re-membering. Why these three together? I believe that these underlying onto-epistemological traditions best supports the social history of SNCC and the subjective perceptions of the actors. The type of historical narrative I have told was not an attempt to recreate the past or present events as facts, but rather to portray the past as a force that shapes, not defines our present. I believe that the why we do history is just as important as the how we do history. Throughout the inquiry process, I have reflected upon Lisa Weems (2006) question that asks ethnographers to consider. She writes, “How do we take into account the idea that ethnographic writing involves negotiating the storied lives of others… (linking representations to constructs such as respect and responsibility) without collapsing into

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a naïve fantasy of the ethnographic text…as a project of redemption advocacy or total identification (p. 1007)?” To avoid collapsing into a naïve fantasy of the texts, I have included texts that offer a different perspective of the event. I realized that I respect the nature of SNCC’s social justice work and have tried to not let that respect to lean my analyses to only report the success of the movement. In the analysis section, I have also included SNCC’s failure and limitations. Nevertheless, conducting a social history and cultural study of SNCC has been a transformational experience. Learning how young people resisted oppression and took a stand against the status quo by using radical, educational strategies has made a powerful impact on me. The affect of doing this research project may not be reflected in this dissertation, but has made its impact on my consciousness. Denise Taliaferro Bazsile (2006) asserts, “To come to the point where one understands the significance of education as a process of self-actualization, as a practice of freedom, is to come also into the realm of dangerous knowledge” (p. 98). Doing radical research is dangerous knowledge to me because it removes my ignorance of the past and confirms my obligation as researcher and educator to continue the struggle for freedom.

Living Black History

While progressive social history hinges upon social history methods, living black history and re-membering offer a culturally specific component upon which attempts to explain the why we do history. Manning Marable (2006) suggests that “Being true to black history, for me means accepting and interpreting its totality. The historian’s task is to preserve everything that has substantive significance and to resist the temptation of imposing our own latter-day perceptions on the content of subject” (p. xix). As living black history it is imperative that the activist-intellectual best honor our ancestors by recording and interpreting accurately what they actually said and did, and then making information available to the widest possible public as we can.

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Re-member-ing History

Modern history has maintained a type of status quo in its historical methodology. It has constructed and published what was supposed to have been the reality of the past. This type of modern history honors and privileges the European actions, perspectives and acquisitions while silencing the oppressed. I, like many critical pedagogues will include in my methodology a type of re-member-ing of history and challenge those myths of the grand narratives that we read in most history books. bell hooks describes this type of history in Pinar’s (1998) edited book, Curriculum: Toward New Identity as, “history as memory work” (p. 263). As part of those who were left out of ‘his-story’, I strive to tell the story as one of the silenced ones. hooks so eloquently articulates the idea of re-member-ing when she writes, “To re-cover from history is in part, dependant on reconceptualizing and re-membering the suppression, the contradiction, the pain, the fiction that is history” (p. 269). As I write this social history – another story of SNCC, I can’t help but realize the fire within and how I will exploit that fire to fuel this project. This story of SNCC, in part, is my story. It’s our nation’s story. I envision this untold story as a fire which illuminates everyone around it, so shall this story illuminate the readers. I share Denise Taliaferro Baszile’s (2006) hope in the fire. Baszile writes: The fire, then, is our ability to tell and to hear our own counter/stories. In the sharing of counter/stories, the elements of the fire-a freedom dream, oppositional-collective consciousness, agency, hope and courage-become possible. (p. 10) As I considered writing this social history, I understood that my history is embedded within African American’s history and because of this my own transformation is associated with my work on this dissertation. Manning Marable (2006) writes: Knowledgeable civic actors can draw important lessons from history, which does incrementally increase civic capacity. Historical amnesia blocks the construction of potentially

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successful social movements. As the gap between the past, present and future diminishes, individuals can acquire a greater sense of becoming the “makers” of their own history. Thus, for the oppressed, the act of reconstructing history is inextricably linked to the political practices, or praxis, of transforming the present and future. (p. 37) This historical analysis project is motivated by two important movements that have had major impacts in my life; the civil rights movement and dramatic performance. First, as a child of civil rights parents, I saw firsthand how important it was for everyday citizens to become involved in the struggle for human and civil rights. Both of my parents were involved in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), United Freedom Movement (UFM) and SNCC. My mother believed so much in the ‘cause’ that she led a group of protesters to lay prostrate in front of a moving bulldozer to prevent the construction of a defacto segregation supported school in Cleveland, Ohio.11 Secondly, as a dramatic performer, I discovered that the use of theatre was an effective method to exercise my responsibility in the ongoing struggle for human and civil rights. My first experience with theatre was at Karamu in 1967. Karamu, one of the nation’s first black theatres, hosted several guerilla theatre productions12. The was just beginning to take form and the use of theatre was a crucial part of its strategy to awaken, power to the people perspective. There, I witnessed how the stance of the body, the flint-like facial expressions, dress code and hair (the larger the Afro the better) played powerful roles developing the courage and conviction of the protesters. In addition to theatre, storytelling served two purposes. On one hand, it empowered me as I told my own story and while listening to the other women’s stories of oppression within the skilled- trade industry. Secondly, storytelling provided me with the tools to articulate a strategy

11 On April 4, 1964, a group of protesters in Cleveland, Ohio stormed a construction site in a black neighborhood to prevent another school from being built. It was at the scene of this nationally covered event that the Rev. Bruce Klunder was accidentally killed by the moving bulldozer. Photographs of the event were published throughout the world and my mother was photograph in one photos taken by Jet Magazine. 12 Guerllla Theatre exemplifies what a change theatre should look like. “It must be a radical theatre group that will promote effective protest or social confrontation.” R.G. Davis. (1966). Guerrilla Theatre.. The Tulane Drama Review. 10(4). pp.130-136. 68

and method for social transformation. At the time I began to tell stories, I had not earned a college degree nor was I fluent in articulating theoretical discourses. I believe that there are untold stories of unknown individuals within the civil rights movement that are yet to be told. I hope by researching SNCC and Theatre of the Oppressed I may add valuable insights to the body of knowledge in the history of education and cultural studies of education. By gaining an understanding of how SNCC’s participants described their freedom acts in terms of dramaturgical performances, I hope to provide educators with a framework to utilize drama and performance as the impetus for social transformation. As a researcher and part of this African American experience, my personal transformation unfolds during the process of conducting this history project. While SNCC’s stories are not my own, I feel a sense of solidarity with their struggles and experiences. While working with SNCC’s narratives, I have been changed, and in many ways, grown stronger because of it. This story of SNCC in part, is my story, and it’s our nation’s story. Although the focus of my research is SNCC and its praxis of social transformation through drama, I can’t help but include this storytelling as part of my own story. Dennis Carlson (2004) writes: As storytellers, educational researchers and scholars also cannot avoid questions having to do with the moral of their story; and this leads to questions about the purpose of the story. Why did this story get written? Progressive stories, at their best, help individuals and groups deconstruct the beliefs and practices that keep them oppressed or disempowered, and face the reality of their situation. (22) My approach in conducting a social history of SNCC was to gain an understanding of how SNCC’s participants articulated their social and political discourses and practices as a form of critical pedagogy. SNCC’s freedom acts seemed to demonstrate a work that challenged two binaries: discourse/practice and theory/practice. By challenged, I mean that they their social ideology of non-violence and theory of freedom were demonstrated in the several freedom acts. They used their bodies as texts to be read and analyzed by participants, antagonists, and the media. This embodied language of

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freedom was radical in as much as it transformed the civil rights movement from a movement that was dominated by the NAACP and SCLC of older, middle class black men to young, and often poor black men and women who would have not otherwise been engaged in the process. And, having participated in this way, SNCC members experienced agency that they would not have otherwise enjoyed.

Research Design and Methods

The four roles that I performed in this study were researcher, data collector, interviewer and interpreter. The design selected for this study combined a historical analysis and a discourse analysis design. Because the study proposed to understand SNCC’s pedagogy and praxis in relationship to Theatre of the Oppressed, the use of interviews and the collection of primary and secondary data were necessary to document SNCC participants’ ideas and practices. An important step in research design is to determine the unit of analysis. Therefore, the unit of analysis or the focus of the study was concentrated on SNCC members’ actions and narratives and how their narratives reflect a pedagogy that was consistent with, differed from, and were unique to, Theatre and Pedagogy of the Oppressed ideals and techniques. For this information, I have collected data from several perspectives of this unit analysis: SNCC members, SNCC’s freedom acts, and SNCC as reported by the media. 1. Conducted two interviews. 2. Collected primary and secondary documents. 3. Analyzed pertinent historical research literature. 4. Analyzed visual texts of SNCC’s social dramas.

Interviews Part of the sources collected consists of two interviews. One participant engaged in taped recorded telephone interview and the other participant engaged in a face-to- face taped interview and both interviews were transcribed. The list of interview questions and informed consent form is located in the appendices ( A-1, 2, & 3). I

70 initially contacted John O’Neal by email to inform him of the study. I then mailed O’Neal the informed consent form. O’Neal answered around O’Neal was a civil rights activist and founder of the Free Southern Theatre. As one of the living, original members of SNCC and one who was willing to be interviewed, O’Neal’s comments add a unique and original perspective of SNCC during the early years. The second interview began by me contacting Dr. Rich Momeyer, a Miami University Philosophy professor and friend of Congressman John Lewis and asked him if he could ask Mr. Lewis to take time for a face to face interview with a student (myself). Rep. Lewis, was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the May 5th 2007 Miami University graduation ceremony. After conducting a face-to-face taped interview with Congressman John Lewis I had the opportunity to join him in the Freedom Summer walking tour on Western Campus. Congressman John Lewis was executive secretary of SNCC from the beginning in 1960 until 1966 when Stokely Carmichael assumed leadership. Rep. Lewis is currently a Congressman (D) Atlanta, Georgia. He is also known for participating in the Edmond Pettus bridge walk, where he was almost beaten to death by angry police. I have not included a full copy of the transcriptions in the dissertation, but have included much of the interview in the body of chapters four and five. There were no potential risks and/or discomforts in conducting these interviews. There were no monetary benefits given to the subjects for their participation in this research. The non-monetary benefit to the subjects may be an opportunity for them to discuss their participation in the civil rights movement and have it recorded for future scholarly research. The potential benefit to society that may be expected from this research is a contribution to research and scholarship in the area of the civil rights movement history, critical pedagogy and drama as an educational praxis. I hope that as a result of this research, there may be a new way to utilize critical pedagogy in urban classrooms utilizing Theatre of the Oppressed framework.

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Primary and Secondary Sources

Part two of the data collected was primary and secondary sources. This part of the data collection covered 18 months of traveling to African American historical and educational sites around the American South and New York City. From March 2006 until September 2007, I traveled to ten cities in five states: New York, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Mississippi. Primary and secondary data sources consisted of letters, memos, meeting minutes from Freedom Summer, Freedom Schools, SNCC, and several SNCC members’ narratives. In Memphis, Tennessee and Birmingham, Alabama, I did not collect any new data, but gained a greater understanding of the civil rights period by visiting the historic museums and visiting famous civil rights sites around each city. I visited Miami University’s Western Historical Archives of Freedom Summer 1964 and the Reunion. (See Appendix I)

Historical Scholarship: Chronologically

I have included in this section the historical research from leading scholars of the civil rights movement and a discussion on what I consider were SNCC’s three freedom acts. This information provides this study with the setting, environment, and to some extent, the chronological history of SNCC. I have also looked at how historical scholars’ analyses demonstrate any themes that relate to drama or theatre. My historical research questions were: 1. How do these scholars write history as they see it in terms of the performance of SNCC? 2. What images, narratives, signs or symbols are used in their social history analysis? The researchers include, but not limited to the following: Clayborn Carson (1991 & 1981); (1988); Richard King (1992); Manning Marable (2006 & 2000); Daniel Perlstein (1990); and Barbara Ransby (2003).

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I began this chronological history of the civil rights movement by considering how the struggle for freedom and equality in the South during the 50’s and early 60’s was fought on several fronts. Much has been already written about the civil rights movement, (Belfrage 1965; Branch 1988; Chafe 1980; Carson 1991; & Erenrich 1999). For several years preceding the first Greensboro sit-in on February 1, 1960, there were several advances in civil rights for blacks in the South.13 These historical measures practiced in Southern cities provided black citizens with some level of success in the struggle for civil rights and inspired social action in Greensboro, North Carolina. In

13 In 1941, On January 15, A. Philip Randolph calls for 10,000 African-Americans to march on Washington, D.C., to protest racial discrimination in hiring for defense industries. In 1942, Committee of Racial Equality, later renamed Congress of Racial Equality, is founded. In 1947, Fellowship of Reconciliation organizes "Journey of Reconciliation," April 9–23, in which integrated group activists ride interstate buses in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky to test compliance with the Morgan decision. In 1949, Truman’s Administration proposes legislation to make lynching a federal crime, create a new FEPC, abolished poll taxes in national elections, and ends segregation in interstate transportation, but none of the bills are brought to a vote in the Senate. Bennett College sociology professor Edward Edmonds lead delegations of parents to the school board to protest inferior educational facilities. Edmonds also demands the white-only swimming pool at Lindley Park be opened to blacks. In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously rules in Brown v. Board of Education that public school segregation violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and in 1955 orders that desegregation proceed "with all deliberate speed." December 1, 1955 refuses to change seats on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. December 21, 1955 ends in victory. In 1957 The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is founded to coordinate localized southern efforts to fight for civil rights. August 29, 1957, Congress passes the Voting Rights Bill of 1957, the first major civil rights legislation in more than 75 years. And in 1957, resistance to school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas and causes President Eisenhower to dispatch more than 1,000 paratroopers to enforce a federal court order as an estimated 200 reporters cover the events. In 1959, after Virginia legislature repeals its compulsory school attendance laws, Prince Edward County closes its schools on June 26 to avoid desegregation.

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1958, Martin Luther King came to Bennett College (Greensboro) to speak to a standing room only crowd. King’s (Chafe, 1980) proclaimed, “American racism must be bought to the court of justice and eradicated through active, loving protest” (p. 83). The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) war against white supremacy and social injustices was enacted by and many times for, middle class blacks. Besides the several protests for equal rights in the South, there still remained a need for a social movement that would engage more poor black Southerners. The social and political climate of the South was ripe for a large, grassroots centered social movement that would bypass the time-consuming political and legislative systems. Bob Moses, a SNCC field secretary and educator often speaks of this time in the South as extreme racism and inequality for black saying, that “Mississippi is the middle of the iceberg” concerning racism and segregation (NYT, 1983). Resistance at the personal level to racism began stirring in Greensboro and in 1959, Ezell Blair Sr., father of Ezell Blair Jr., (one of the Greensboro four) and a shop teacher at Dudley High School led a drive to pressure merchants to employ minority sales personnel in non-traditional jobs. It was against this backdrop and in this environment that the four young men would jumpstart the civil rights movement by staging the Greensboro sit-ins. According to three of the original four sit-in demonstrators (whose narratives will be addressed in more detail in chapter four) their adolescent upbringing in Greensboro, their formal education in segregated schools, and their social environment helped to foster a “sense of pride, model of strength and purpose of activism” (Chafe, 1980, p. 76). Ezell Blair Jr., who reported being inspired by his father’s protest in 1959, visited the segregated lunch counter at the Union Bus Terminal in January 1960. Upon asking to be served he was swiftly denied food service. Ezell Jr.’s initial protest may have been the catalyst for the now famous Greensboro sit-ins and subject of this dissertation. Growing sentiments began to grow among young people that desired change in resisting oppression. James M. Lawson Jr.’s keynote speech reached over two- hundred students gathered at the first SNCC conference in Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960. Lawson expressed the frustrations of a younger

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generation of black Americans that were eager for social justice and equal opportunities. He pointed out the past and current injustices of an affluent society that sought to continue the status quo: “Already the paralysis of talk, the disobedience of piety, the frustration of false ambitions, and the insensitiveness of an affluent society yearns to diffuse the meaning and flatten the thrust of America’s first major non-violent campaign” (Towns, 2002, p. 125). Farmer’s comments reflected the sentiments of other leaders and participants of the newly formed SNCC that believed that, through staged, non-violent acts of resistance, whites would relinquish power and level the playing field with blacks in the South. In addition to offering a counter narrative of SNCC’s historical events and actions, I hope that this study may revive interest in disenfranchised communities to form social movements that utilize artists as its leaders and the arts as a strategy for social transformation. Not much has changed over the past forty-eight years concerning the social, educational and economic conditions for poor blacks and other disenfranchised groups. Poor blacks and Latina/Latinos still lag behind whites in educational achievement gaps in school and in income (U.S. 2006 Census). On this subject of race, W.E.B. Dubois (1903) writes, “The problem of the twenty-first century will be the problem of the color line and that modern democracy cannot succeed unless peoples of different races and religions are also from a performance standpoint.” Social movements can be a powerful force in the continuing struggle against oppression. Eyerman (2006) writes, ‘”Social movements move individuals, their emotions and cognition, as they forge individuals into collectives and empower groups” (193). SNCC’s freedoms acts empowered Mississippians to become engaged in the social and political processes and thus created some social change in their lives.

Freedom Acts as Social Drama

For this study, I am particularly interested in understanding how SNCC’ workers’ actions and words reflected the dramaturgical techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed Forum Theatre, and how these actions where used a social change strategies in light of

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dramaturgical ideas, metaphors, and narratives. SNCC’s freedom acts served as visuals texts in the eyes of both participants and observers. When people do drama, they become tools for learning. Drama is considered media for Henry (2000) who writes, “In drama people use themselves as media, in a reality located between subjectivity and objectivity, improvising to find meaning” (p. 57). Shakespeare wrote many centuries ago, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and each man in his time plays many parts.”14 SNCC’s activists appeared to have played many parts throughout their several years as social reformers. Among the movement’s freedom acts: The Sit-ins, Freedom Riders, Mississippi Free Democratic Party (MFDP), Freedom Schools, Freedom Summer and the Free Southern Theatre. All of these may be considered social dramas, but due to the scope of this work, I plan to omit the Freedom Riders and MFDP.15 For this analysis, I will compare SNCC’s freedom acts - the sit-ins, Freedom Summer and Free Southern Theatre - with Theatre of the Oppressed Forum Theatre’s three main techniques: protagonist/antagonist, the joker and spectator/actor. In The Human Condition, Arendt (1959) asserts, “In acting and speaking, men [sic] show who they are, reveal actively their unique personal identities and thus make their appearance in the human world, while their physical identities appear without any activity of their own in the unique shape of the body and sound of the voice” (159). Freedom acts involved blacks and whites; men and women acting out strategies to promote equality for blacks in the American South and by promoting equality, these acts revealed who they were as human beings.

The Greensboro Sit-Ins

The first of the four freedom acts I discuss are the sit-ins. The sit-ins ushered in an enthusiastic, young people’s-supported movement that utilized direct action and

14 William Shakespeare. As You Like It. 2/7. 139-167. 15 The Freedom Riders and MFDP were not included in this research because I did not find much evidence that their activism involved a majority of younger students. These acts were geared to the adult sector of the group. I am mainly interested in the young adults and students who may have participated in the struggle. 76

educational programs as the impetus for social change from 1960-1965. I argue that SNCC employed an organic form of critical, dramaturgical pedagogy that reflecting upon it today, seems to be a homegrown, community based and participatory democratic version of Augusto Boal’s, Theatre of the Oppressed of the 1970’s. On February 1, 1960, in Greensboro, N.C., a group of four black male students from North Carolina A & T University sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter and demanded to be served. Each man rehearsed his part the night before. On the day of the event, four men arrived at Woolworth’s lunch counter neatly dressed and well-mannered. While they sat waiting for service, hot coffee, food and other debris was heaped upon their heads by angry white customers. With the help of the media, this staging was captured on film and reported in newspapers and TV throughout the country and around the world. Eyerman (2006) asserts that the social dramas “were amplified and diffused to a much wider and broader audiences when they occurred on camera and broadcasted through the media; this enlarges the audience of potential supporters and opponents, who may be moved by what they see and hear” (p. 210). Within days of the first sit-in, the outcry of hundreds of young people, both black and white throughout the country, sparked similar demonstrations in their respective cities. This initial act of resistance launched a kind of organic, grass-roots social movement that engaged young students from around the country, both black and white, to work shoulder to shoulder with Mississippians in a group-centered, participatory democratic educational experience. Young college students began conducting sit-ins at their home sites of discrimination. Eventually, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the NAACP and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) took notice and assigned Miss Ella Baker to oversee the first Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s conference at her Alma Mator Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. The sit-ins were the impetus for all of the subsequent freedom acts conducted by SNCC. From that moment on, the struggle for civil rights utilizing performance became a crucial strategy for social change throughout the decade.

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Freedom Summer

The second of the freedom acts that I discuss is Freedom Summer. Freedom Summer (Carson 1995; Chilcoat and Ligon 2004, 1999, 1998: Zinn 1970) was an educational and non-violent demonstration training event. In the summer of 1961, Robert Moses, a philosophy student in New York was asked to go down to Mississippi by SNCC to lead other SNCC workers in registering black Mississippians to vote. There, Moses and SNCC volunteers led weekly classes on voting registration that included the social and political importance of voting. This initial voting registration campaign was successful and by the following year, more money, time and talent were allocated for the voting registration campaign to continue. In the fall of 1963, SNCC workers decided to stage a mock election as a rehearsal for the actual election which would be held in November of that same year. The mock election was so successful that it prompted the creation of the Mississippi Free Democratic Party and its first candidate. SNCC’s objective was to establish and execute initiatives that would successfully register thousands of blacks to vote. As an educational component in the training of workers, SNCC planned Freedom Summer that year to hold a larger training session that would include over 800 white and black college students from Ivy League Schools in the North. SNCC leaders believed that if whites were a part of the “struggle” then the media and society at large would be more likely to look and listen to the issues. In addition, white bodies were considered more valuable than black ones, and if rich, young white people were involved in the movement then their participation would readily draw the press and federal protection. In this staging, SNCC sought to penetrate the barrier to blacks’ social and educational liberties; voter registration, housing and education. SNCC’s perception about the media covering its events with white participation was correct. It was at a Freedom Summer event that , and Andrew Goodman left the Western Campus for Women, in Oxford, Ohio during the summer of 1964. The three left of June 20, 1964 to investigate the possible incident of a church burning in Mississippi. Within two days of arriving in Neshoba County, they

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were killed by the police and KKK members. Upon hearing about the fate of the three civil rights workers, the young students became more dedicated to the struggle for freedom and social justice.

Freedom Schools

In addition to the voting rights campaign, new educational strategies were simultaneously being developed in response to the need for a black centered curriculum which supported a social and political agenda. Therefore, Freedom Summer evolved into Freedom Schools. Freedom Schools (Chilcot & Ligon, 1999, 1998, 1994; Perlstein 1990) provided blacks with the necessary education and voting rights that they were denied them in the South. The Freedom School’s curriculum emphasized five main principles (Emery, Braselmann & Reid Gold, 2000):

The Free Southern Theatre

The third and last of the freedom acts I discuss is The Free Southern Theatre (FST). In 1963, , John O’Neal, and Gil Moses created the theatre while working with the Freedom Schools. FST objectives and mission fulfilled one of Freedom Summer Prospectus’s strategies recommended by James Forman. It drew its name from the general theme (freedom) civil rights movement of the times and the belief that theatre should be free to all. In a taped interview at The Drama Review (Moses, G. & O’Neal J., 1965) O’Neal asserts, “We mean we are seeking a new kind of liberation; liberation from old forms of theatre, old techniques and ideas -- a freedom to find new forms of theatrical expression and to find expression in people who have never expressed themselves in theatre before” (p. 65). In my interview with O’Neal, I asked him several questions concerning his participation with SNCC and the Free Southern Theatre. The civil rights movement stressed freedom. O’Neal theatre used dramaturgical methods to help transform black individuals in the South. O’Neal argues:

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Free as in, Freedom movement. Also, we meant free as in no charge because we believe that art comes from the stories that people tells and from their stories we processed and gave it back to them so why should you charge for it. We were giving them back what they had given to you. We also said that free from the perspective of free from the old inferiority presumptions. … We saw ourselves as radicals on all of these fronts; economically, artistically and socially. John O’Neal, FST’s director, set out to dramatize the struggle for liberation for rural blacks in the South by urging blacks to become engaged in all aspects of drama and theatre. O’Neal (Fabre, 1983) asserts that the benefit of FST to the people was, “To re- interpret their history, experience and culture in order to counter white stereotypes and to devise new ways of fighting white oppression” (p. 55). FST’s connection to the movement, according to O’Neal, was to support the movement’s “political manifestations” by providing a space and place for those political actions to first have “thought, reflection and criticism” (p. 65). FST’s objective was to aid blacks in their struggle for freedom using theatrical methods and was undoubtedly the most dramatic and engaging curriculum of the Freedom Acts. As members of FST, black Mississippians became the writers, players and producers of most of the plays that were staged in the cotton fields of the South, community centers, and churches, beside the remains of bombed buildings, and on streets corners. Interestingly, the theatre was constructed as a forum. At the end of each play, debates, dialogues and group discussions were organized to allow everyone to voice his or her interpretation. FST’s pedagogy and practice reflected a critical pedagogical approach to teaching and learning. Paulo Freire (1970, 1993) asserts that oppressed people need pedagogy that: humanizes people, promotes dialogue, reflection and action, and provides a space where teacher and student learn together. O’Neal’s (Genevieve, 1983) hope for FST was that it “Expressed the will and supported the interests of the common people and to define the function of the artist and his [her] commitment to the community” (p. 56). O’Neal (interview) describes his theatre in critical pedagogical terms in suggesting that, “We had a practice because the idea was

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to stimulate critical and reflective thought was the phrase that we used to describe it….It was to challenge people to be more engaged in the process and the thinking about their lives and so forth.” This study will provide another perspective of how educators may utilize drama and performance as part of a critical pedagogy of personal and social transformation. In particular, my interest in positioning this study on a historical moment - the civil rights movement and more specifically SNCC - is that I may develop an historical story of the emergence of a radically new form of pedagogy and praxis that can be employed in education today. I have looked to the past in order to inform the present and future education for social justice practices. My hypothesis is that SNCC, enacting several dramatic strategies for freedom during the early 1960’s, expressed many of the features of Theatre of the Oppressed and is thus a precursor to Theatre of the Oppressed. I address the need for a more culturally responsive critical pedagogy by reflecting upon the transformative work done by SNCC. In doing this, I address how drama can be used today as praxis of freedom within schools, communities, and cultural and social organizations.

Historical Research Literature: Narratives

Part three of this data collection consists of several narratives from SNCC’s membership. Narratives from primary and secondary sources include: Bob Moses, The Greensboro four (Ezell Blair Jr., Joseph McNeil, Dave Richmond, and Franklin McCain); Miss Ella Baker, William Thomas, Staughton Lynd, Wilma Player, and James Foreman. I chose to use these narrators because they were individuals that contributed to SNCC’s policy making, helped to design the curriculum, and/or were the actors/participants who participated in the demonstrations. I examined these narrative life-stories and paid close attention to the words, images, signs or symbols they used in their description which reflect a dramatic pedagogy. These narratives are reported and analyzed in chapters four and five. These narratives were analyzed to gain an understand SNCC members accounts in relationships to the major themes and ideas of Theatre of the

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Oppressed and Pedagogy of the Oppressed and in what specific ways do their narratives differ from Theatre of the Oppressed and Critical Pedagogy tenets? The themes that guide this analysis are: The Joker, Spectator/Actor and Protagonist/Antagonist.

Analyses

I examined SNCC’s freedom acts as concrete expressions of many of the guiding principles behind Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. I argue that these two social drama discourses and practices-one identified with an African American heritage and the other with Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed-help illuminate the particular character of SNCC’s social drama and link it to a broader dramaturgical pedagogy. I have analyzed the data by describing the images, themes, metaphors, representations and actions employed by SNCC participants and secondary sources to determine to what extent SNCC’s freedom acts were reflective of the principles of Theatre of the Oppressed. I have also analyzed data by comparing the images, themes, metaphors and actions employed by SNCC, images represented in the archival data and compared them against the major tenets of Theatre of the Oppressed. This textual analysis was guided by three main tenets of TO; Protagonist/Antagonist, The Joker and Spect-Actor. First, I briefly describe the tenet of each idea is stated (Theatre of the Oppressed textual explanation), the data derived from the social history (SNCC’s social acts) will be carefully compared as I looked for similar and synonymous language, ideals and images. For the data analyses of the personal narratives, I used Denzin’s qualitative content analysis method. Denzin (1989) challenges the researcher in Interpretive Interactionsm to be cognizant of how an historical study is analyzed. I followed his five phases of the interpretive process: deconstruction, capture, bracketing, construction, and contextualization (p. 31). Phase one: Deconstruction, according to Denzin, “Involves a critical analysis and interpretation of prior studies of the phenomenon in

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question” (p. 31). Pertaining to the phenomenon in question; I have not found any prior studies or research linking the social actions of SNCC’s members to be reflective as praxis of Theatre of the Oppressed’s Forum Theatre’s techniques as embodied language of freedom. Phase two: “Capture means that the researcher secures multiple instances of the experienced being studied” (ibid). In this work, I capture the experience of the members of SNCC using their narratives, primary and secondary data, and when appropriate, media representation. In this capturing, I will provide a “thick description” as opposed to a “thin description”. A thick description (Denzin, 1989, 31) attempts to rescue the meanings and experiences that have occurred in the story and tried to capture the interpretation persons bring to the events that have been recorded and/or spoken. As reporting on thick description, I will report a fair amount of a person’s personal narrative as to “take the reader to the heart of the experience that is being interpreted” (32). Phase three: Bracketing leads the researcher to attempt to isolate the key or essential feature of the process under examination” (31). In this work I bracket the experiences of the subjects by seeing them through the lens of Theatre of the Oppressed four techniques: The Joker, Protagonist/Antagonist, and Spector/Actor. Phase four: “Construction describes the attempt to interpret the event or process fully” (31). In this, I will analyze in each narrative to determine in what specific ways do member’s social actions resembled Theatre of the Oppressed. And lastly, Contextualization: This occurs when the researcher locates the phenomenon back in the worlds of lived experience” (31). Moreover, like Denzin (2003), my purpose in researching and re-telling the story of SNCC in relationship to Theatre of the Oppressed is to “advance the critical performative pedagogy that turns ethnographic into the performative and the performative into the political” (viii). To a certain degree, my work as researcher has involved participating in conferences and social protests that are relevant to this project. I have conducted a form of action research by participating in Theatre and Pedagogy of the Oppressed Conference and The Highlander School Center for Research 75th Anniversary in September, 2007. As participant/observer in these projects, I gained an understanding of how SNCC participants’ may have felt learning how to conduct social dramas. In the

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winter of 2007, I assisted in the Cincinnati’s Drop-In Center’s Poor People’s March in downtown Cincinnati. There, I walked hand and hand with dozens of homeless people and other supporters marching in the cold to keep the homeless shelter open. During this walk, participants performed an historical re-enactment of the first day of the homeless shelter. I visited China in the fall of 2007 and stood in the center of Tiananmen Square, where the student resistance movement may have influence the student protest in 1989. Finding the ‘truth’ of the study was not my goal. While remaining constant to the premise of the historical moment in time, 1960-1965, my concern was to expand my understanding of the affects of SNCC freedom struggles beyond 1960-1965. To what extent has the past’s protracted struggle for freedom influenced our present thinking and actions about the struggle for freedom and justice today? I have begun to reconsider several things; how I interpret the past; my understanding of racism and how to resist against oppression in meaningful and productive ways. So, what does this mean to this project and how have I analyzed the information? In response to these conditions, I have added more voices and images to SNCC’s historical story. These stories engage the conversation in dynamic ways; some contradict accounts and others support it. Narratives from Barack Obama, Gandhi, Leroi Jones, Nelson Mandela, J. F. Kennedy and two of Miami University’s faculty, Rick Momeyer and Tammy Kernodle present an broad perspective of what social justice is and some specific ways to promote it. And finally, I avoided “doing harm” (Magolda & Weems, 2002, 502) to the interviewees and to myself. As a qualitative researcher, there are risks involved in interviewing and data collection. According to Magolda and Weems (2002): “Qualitative researchers are bound to consider the risk of harm their participants. As researchers engaged in constructing meaning of situations, there are moments of uneasiness, conflict, and misunderstanding” (502). Concerning harm done to self, Magolda & Weems argue that “the risk of inducing harm to the self come in the form of compromises and sacrifices, and are part of the

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‘productive discomfort’ (Herzfeld, 1996) of engaging in researching the lives of others” (502).

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CHAPTER FOUR

The Greensboro Sit-Ins

The Freedom Movement set up a lively exchange of influences, the first effect of which was to create a mood, a Stimmung; a collective state of mind, to which each individual contributed and by which each was molded.16 (p. 19)

Introduction

In this chapter, I historically and theoretically present the results and interpretation of SNCC and the first Greensboro sit-ins using descriptive narratives and visual texts. Marable (2006) asserts, “Reconstructing the hidden, fragmented past of African Americans can be accomplished with a multi-disciplinary methodology employing the tools or oral history, photography, film, ethnography, and multimedia digital technology, an approach I call living history” (xx). I reconstruct the first sit-in by utilizing interviews from key SNCC participants and from additional primary and secondary sources and the Freedom songs. Historically, I present the results and interpretation by including a “thick description” and narratives of key historical figures (Denzin, 1989). Their narratives tell a rich story about the elements and thoughts about the event itself and are noteworthy in capturing and analyzing the common themes and ideas of the movement in light of Boal’s work. The results are presented in several ways. I begin by discussing the history of SNCC’s first successful sit-in on February 1, 1960 and by analyzing the narration of key individuals. Second, I describe the themes from Boal’s Forum Theatre: Protagonist/Antagonist, Spectator/Actor and the Joker. Included in this analysis is SNCC’s freedom acts in relationship to critical pedagogy that I am using in this dissertation as a framework for analysis. Third, I present the narratives or stories of SNCC’s sit-in participants or media by reporting what I found in existing scholarship, interviews and primary data. From the narratives, I have examined what SNCC’s

16 Lerone Bennett (1964). The Negro Mind. 86 participants reported in respect to Boal’s Forum Theatre tenets. I have also examined what SNCC’s members understood about their direct actions as a role played in order to create social change in Mississippi. I position myself within this historical analysis as a researcher and my goal was to find relevant sources that report how SNCC actors’ social actions were constructed and reported by the participants and the media. I have analyzed the texts to determine in what specific ways do they reflect or differ from Boal’s theatre and critical pedagogy. In doing this, I hope to gain a greater understanding of how educators may use a social drama, similar to the ones used by SNCC’s participants, to promote a curriculum and pedagogy that respects and reflects marginalized groups.

1. History of Sit-Ins The Spectator/Actors According to civil rights historian, Aldo Morris, civil rights activists’ conducted sit- ins years before the highly published February 1, 1960 event. Between 1957 and 1960, sit-ins were held in at least fifteen cities; beginning with Oklahoma City and Kansas City (Morris, 1981). But it wasn’t until the Greensboro sit-in that social protests expanded to the grand level it reached throughout the country. The history of the sit-ins begins with the Greensboro 1960 sit-ins. These actions ushered in an enthusiastic, young people’s- supported movement that utilized direct action and educational programs as the impetus for social change from 1960-1965. These young people reflected Boal’s spectator/actor’s role. As a non-violent, social act whose purpose was to challenge the discriminatory policies and practices of a local cafeteria, the students wanted to integrate the segregated lunch counter. The policy of the store would allow black customers to shop for clothing and supplies but were required to leave the store immediately. If they wanted to eat, they had to order their food from the counter and then use take-out service immediately. Or, in many cases, blacks were encouraged to use the restaurant’s kitchen’s back door to order and pay for food. It was not uncommon to see black people eating from paper bags down the streets from most

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restaurants. This was a direct indication that they had to eat on the run, rather than eat in most establishments. Reed (2005) argues: The Ballad of the Sit-In--The time was 1960, the place the USA/February 1st became a history making day/Greensboro across the land the news spread far and wide when silently and bravely youth took a giant stride. Sit-ins and their follow up the freedom rides, were dramatic actions garnering national media coverage, they were not typical of the movement’s development. More typical was the slow, long-term process of community organizing, and an example of this kind of work, which was also a high point in the freedom song movement. (p. 22) The sit-ins revealed how SNCC’s members and supporters challenged societal power by forging relationships with the non-dominant black culture and with some white individuals, and together, they directly challenged the power structures of Greensboro, North Carolina. SNCC’s direct actions were created to defy the white power structures of the South’s public facilities. The freedom acts were the manifestation of an idea that people could usurp authority and reclaim power by creating contested dramas that disrupted the status quo. These were powerful strategies to promote change because the atrocities of their non-violent dramas did not originate in the gentile act of sitting at lunch counters. The atrocity came from the dominant culture’s response to the non- violent dramas. Foucault (1997) asserts, “Effective history, however, deals with events in terms of their most unique characteristics, their most acute manifestation. An event, consequently, is not a decision, a treaty, a reign, or a battle, but the reversal of a relationship of forces, the usurpation of power, the appropriation of a vocabulary turned against those who had once used it” (p. 154). The language of the South was for years that blacks had their place in society. Blacks theoretically agreed. Yet, they did have a place in society and that place extended out from the separate, but unequal places they were allocated to. Blacks also wanted to the right and freedom to choose their place in society.

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As early as the 1940’s, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) were conducting sit-ins. The first sit-in was in August 1958, when 35 members of the NAACP’s Youth Council participated. This sit-in was not successful because of the strong opposition from Southern politicians. The Greensboro sit-in seemed to be the right time and right place for individuals to make the sit-ins successful. Gramson (1997) asserts, “The trick for activists is to bridge public discourse and people’s experiential knowledge, integrating them in a coherent frame that supports and sustains collective action” (p. 12). The time was ripe for a student-led movement and SNCC’s members’ strategy may have found a way to create the first successful sit-in as a way to connect black sentiment of racial practices with a collective movement. The Greensboro, North Carolina sit-ins were held at the F.W. Woolworth lunch counter on February 1, 1961 and were able to create national attention. Within weeks, the sit-in campaigns had spread like wildfire in nearly a dozen cities, primarily targeting Woolworth’s and S.H. Kress stores. Interestingly, the term “spread like wild fire” has been commonly used by authors and even SNCC’s participants years later to describe how the Greensboro sit-ins spread throughout the South in just a matter of a few weeks. While conducting research for this dissertation, I came across an obscure reference in the 1965 Journal of Negro History. Lou Emma Holloway, author and book critic, originally makes the comment while reviewing Merrell Proudfoot’s Diary of the Sit- In (1962). Holloway writes: On February 1, 1960 upon the campus of North Carolina A & T College, there emerged a spontaneous expression against the long wicked practice of a vicious dualism and inconsistency within a nation professing a democratic society. So heated was the flame and impact of this spontaneous and non-violent expression called the “sit-in movement,” instigated by a small group of college students, that it spread like wild fire throughout the South-igniting flames in the hearts and minds of Negro and white students unlike any other social

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movement ever experienced in this country. This abrupt social epidemic or explosion startled the older generation of both races in the South and touched the entire national conscience to a point that the national mind was momentarily blank and unable to formulate an immediate comment or decide on a panacea. (p. 64) Holloway’s analysis of the movement suggests that the impact of what these four men did was real and not hype. Secondly, rarely have I found social critique during this time period as told by a female. Lou Emma’s critical perspective is shown in this article and other book reviews that she wrote during the 1960’s. There is not much found on this author, but it appears that females contributed to the civil rights discourse. There needs to be more research in this area. The most effective way to gain insight into how SNCC’s participants’ social actions reflected Boal’s theatre is to start by presenting the narratives of those involved. SNCC was a movement that resisted traditional leadership models; rather it utilized participatory leadership. Each person relied upon his or her skills to promote individual and collective transformation. Therefore, I have outlined SNCC’s story by drawing upon several participants’ narratives. What did they have to say about what they were doing? How do they feel about their participation? In what specific ways do they describe what they were doing? Several of these narratives come from well-known individuals in the movement. Their story has been told and re-told to present them as a type of hero, an example for all. The work that SNCC was trying to do was to avoid the hero worship mentality. Ella Baker and Bob Moses avoided the celebrity of being civil rights leaders, knowing that the work was for others and society, and not themselves. The narratives in this dissertation reflect effective history principles. The idea of good/bad and right/wrong will not apply to the historical analysis of this work. As effective history, this project as Carlson suggests, “Seeks to trouble the truth/falsehood binary oppositions that governs modern histories” (2003, p. 57). In what ways do their accounts reflect or differ from Boal’s Forum Theatre three techniques: Spect/Actor, Protagonist/Antagonist and the Joker.

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James Lawson

James Lawson, a divinity student at Vanderbilt University, and major tactician and theoretician of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, vision of the possibilities of blacks in the South, proved to be a beacon of light for the thousands of young people who would eventually work with SNCC. Lawson was also a key organizer of the first sit-in in Nashville, Tennessee and delivered the keynote address at the first SNCC conference held at Ella Baker’s Alma Mater, Shaw University. His speech reached a few hundred students attending the conference and is credited to have inspired many of them to participate in the freedom struggle. Lawson’s speech at the Shaw’s First SNCC Convention April 1960 states: Historian and civil rights activist (1997) writes: The nonviolent movement is asserting get moving, the pace of social change is too slow. At this rate, it will be at least another generation before the major forms of segregation disappear. The choice of the nonviolent method, “the sit-in,” symbolizes both judgment and promise. It is a judgment upon middle-class conventional, half-way efforts to deal with radical social evil. Such nonviolence strips the segregationlist power structure of its major weapon: the manipulation of law or law enforcement to keep the Negro in his place. Furthermore, such an act attracts, strengthens and sensitizes the support of many white persons in the South and across the nation. (Harding, 1997, p. 130) Lawson’s speech marks the transition from the male dominated and middle-class black elites to a student-led movement civil rights movement. By the end of this conference, it appeared to some extent, that Martin Luther King Jr. was to share some of the power and limelight with a whole new set of activists. This moment in time reveals something about change. We can plan to change things; but it takes a particular set of circumstances, people, and timing to make change happen. This is how Hardy describes the conference’s moment of transition:

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Because he (M. L. King Jr.) was the freedom movement leader best known to the press, King was initially the focus of attention for the small press contingent at Shaw. But in the course of the first evening’s speeches, they had to deal with the powerful speeches and presences of James Lawson and Ella Baker. Baker was acknowledged by the students as their prime mentor. Lawson, the official coordinator of the conference, and Baker both encouraged the students to think about forming an independent organization of their own. By the time the evening was over, the students had become the center of the weekend. (p. 96) Student direct actions did not go without retaliation from whites. While the students’ role in the sit-ins appeared to be protagonist’s, whites played the antagonist’s role, and in doing so, provided the media with rich visual texts for the eagerly awaiting audiences and media consumers. Antagonists to the movement would try anything they could to stop the progress. If they were not using physical force, then letters and other forms of communication would be use. In one instance, John Lewis received a letter from a white supremacist threatening his life (See Appendix F). The letter was written and sent just a couple of days before the three men were killed in Mississippi (Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney). Intimidation was the price that the activist had to pay for to achieve social justice. Peace and power does not come about without a price. Harding (1997) writes: After the initial surprise at these challenges to the laws and traditions of segregation, resistance to the student actions became real. In some places it came in the form of arrests by the local police. In other situations the police stood by as white citizens took affairs in their own hands. Angry, frightened, and determined to maintain their historic positions of domination and control. White people frequently attacked the students. Sometimes sit-in participants were dragged from the lunch-counter stools and

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beaten. Ketchup was poured on their head. Lighted cigarettes were pressed into their hair and on their exposed necks and shoulders. Women swung handbags at them, and men and boys used sticks and bats. Consistently, the students refused to allow themselves to be diverted from their central purpose or from their nonviolent stance, and they chose not to strike back at their attackers. (p.83)

Merrell Proudfoot

Besides the voices of the more well-known participants in the movement, there were many unknown females, older white people, educators, and business owners that played a role in supporting the young activists and the movement. This is one story of a white, male college professor’s role in supporting and documenting the first Sit-in. Proudfoot’s role reflects the spectator/actor. His participation reveals how he moved from being just a spectator to becoming an actor in the movement. Merrell Proudfoot’s book Diary of the Sit-in (1962, may be the only day-to-day diary of the first sit-in recorded and published. Proudfoot, a white Professor at Knoxville College, participant and strong supporter of the movement kept a daily account of the Nashville, Tennessee sit-ins during the first few weeks following the February 1, 1960 Greensboro sit-in. Michael S. Mayer (Proudfoot, 1962/1990), introduction to Proudfoot’s diary writes, “Proudfoot invites the reader into the inner world of the sit-ins; it offers insights into the movement and raises issues confronting the movement” (xxxv). Proudfoot suggests that the events of 1960 made history, and the echoes of those events are with us today. Merrill Proudfoot (1962/1990) writes: Negroes want restrictions removed; they want to know that they are free, although it will probably be a long time before many care to eat at the downtown lunch counters…What has happened here this summer has been truly amazing! For the first time in Knoxville the Negroes have become a united, inspired force, moving together

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toward the accomplishments of goals they ought to have attained years ago. (p. 175) Not everyone in Nashville believed in the sit-ins, more specifically, white people. Whites’ responses of disapproval and disgust of the Negro’s social movement were covered on local television, in newspaper commentaries, and most every other public and private place in the South. Proudfoot’s conversation with Mr. Byrl Logan, a white, assistant manager of a local restaurant represents the counter argument of many Southern whites toward the sit-in movement. Logan suggests a rationale for the things he thinks Negroes hoped to gain from the sit-ins. Logan argues (1962/1990), “And what have the Negroes in Nashville really accomplished? Nothing, so far as I can see, except that they can now buy a hamburger in a few places where they couldn’t buy one before” (p. 12). Proudfoot’s participation is important because it reveals that there were other people supporting the sit-ins that may have not sat at the lunch counters or taken a traditional leadership role. His story indicates that actors are not only the ones seen; actors were also the people who were engaged in the work- even behind the scenes.

Ralph Johns

The next two narratives tell the story of two people - one white, the other black - who participated in the sit-ins. In each of these stories, we see that although they were not present by sitting in, the roles they played as spect/actors were important in providing SNCC students with other kinds of support. Most of the accounts of the first sit-in give credit to the Greensboro four. There are a couple of sources that suggests that a number of lesser known people claimed to have initiated the first sit-in. These people were spectators in different areas in Greensboro, but claimed that they could no longer just be just a spectator while others were being oppressed. On January 17, 1979, Eugene E. Pfaff, Jr. an oral historian for Greensboro Public School Library interviewed Ralph Johns, a downtown business owner in Greensboro at the time of the first sit-in. Johns claims that he was instrumental in initiating and inspiring the first sit-in. In response to John’s claim, McNeil argues that Ralph Johns had talked to some students

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prior to the first sit-in but does not remember Johns playing a major role. This interview has been addressed in the first part of this chapter (review Joseph McNeil). In agreement with McNeil, other sources argue that Ralph Johns embellished his story concerning his part in the movement.

Eugene Pfaff (EP): What was the status of the law regarding serving blacks at eating establishments? Ralph Johns: The North Carolina law was no blacks could be seated with whites in any eating establishment or place of entertainment, or use the same toilet or drinking facilities. EP: What is your assessment of the reaction of the news media—local newspapers, national press, national and local television and radio—the city administration, the A&T college faculty and administration, the Greensboro Police Department, and the general population of Greensboro and Guilford County? RJ: The news media was very liberal and honest in the reporting of these sit-ins. Their thinking was very liberal, and it was of great help to those of us who planned day to day. I kept in touch with Jo Spivey to let her know what would happen next. The local press sent out news, and national press and television gave it the push to grow as fast as it did. I did not envision this until three days later—realized this was big, a historical revolution that would make the world sit up and take notice. EP: What was the attitude of the A&T student body and the general mood on the campus? RJ: A & T and the student body were very much together in a cohesive action. Day after day, the crowds became bigger,

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more tension [built up], more cities joined, [and] more colleges. EP: What sort of training was necessary for the protestors, that is, to avoid anger at taunts, cigarettes being crushed out in their faces and scalps, blows, being pulled off stools, and so forth? RJ: Meetings were held, cell movements, training by CORE and NAACP to teach and cope with any situation that would be determined—detrimental to the movement. It was becoming very unbearable at Kress' and Woolworth's—white hate groups drink—dunking—dumping catsup or mustard on some of the students, insulting white students, calling them “nigger-lovers,” [and saying,] “We'll get you tonight.” Pushing, punching, all the aggravations bordering on assault and threats. White Councils and KKK started a sit-in reverse by sitting in the stools and chairs. Woolworth's and Kress' were losing a fortune. EP: What was the degree of violence from white hecklers? What was the effect of their holding the seats for white patrons? Could you describe the degree of tension in the situation, and how did it make itself felt? RJ: Violence from white hecklers was kept at a minimum, due to the constant watching over by police and detectives of Greensboro. Whites took turns about subbing for one another in seating. Blacks would scuffle now and then to beat the white hecklers to seats. Blacks would bring books and homework while sitting and studying, while one white dumped sugar on a black student's head. The interviewee suggested that there were some instances of violence, but due to the presence of police, it was “kept at a minimum.” Others say that the level of violence

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was high. The police would turn their faces and bodies the other way when violence was being executed on blacks. Abuse was not limited to physical. Having the presence of the KKK around and sitting next to you was emotional and psychology abuse. Even the faces of the angry white citizens were enough to instill fear in some people. One must remember, many blacks in the South dared to protest openly against whites, and by doing these social dramas were risky, if not dangerous acts.

Wilma Player

Another spectator/actor role was that of Dr. Willa B. Player, president of Bennett College, a private black college during the first sit-in. Although she was not a visual actor in the movement, the role she played supported the students’ cause. Player’s role is an example of how people outside the eye of the camera and the ones that did not sit on the lunch counter, were also important to the success of the cause. The role of spectator/actors for education can be just as vital. Schools’ spect/actors are the shareholders: teachers, students, parents, community leaders and local businesses. Many of these spec/actors are not in the schools as administrators or in the classroom as teachers, but because of their connection with students provide leadership, direction and mentorship to the learners and faculty within a learning community. Player’s story: Wilma Player: I first learned of the Woolworth’s sit-ins [1960] when we were all called downtown and heard the A & T student present his case. We, as members of the community, were trying to get a hold of what was really happening. Ezell Blair, was asked to defend his actions, which he did admirably. Here were students who were realizing that as citizens and as students at a liberal arts college; they were being denied their equal rights, both under the law and under the constitutional beliefs, and freedom of expression. I defended them. I called the Bennett faculty into a meeting and told them what was happening. We went back to the purpose of a liberal arts college, and in defining those and what the girls were

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doing. We decided that they were carrying on the tenets of what a liberal education was all about-freedom of expression, living up to your ideals, building a quality of life in the community that was acceptable to all, respect for human dignity and personality. It was recognition of values that applied to all persons as equals, and all persons who deserved a chance in a democratic society to express their beliefs.

By the fall of 1962, almost the entire student body at Bennett had become active in daily picketing. I never equivocated on it at all: it was so clear to me that what these people were struggling for was within their rights. Because of that the students were very cooperative. They would always come to me first to tell me what they were going to do or what they were planning, or what it was all about, and they would ask me if I had any suggestions. So, it was a communication and a give-and-take that was so open that the students never did anything behind your back. Player’s role as supporter to the young men represents the role higher education leaders can play as community stakeholders. She realized the responsibility of leading a liberal arts college and the role it played in promoting freedom, justice and human rights. During the 1960’s and early 1970’s, college campuses were institutions of radical and progressive thinkers and actors. With the support of thousands of students and faculty, these centers of transformation, help to create political and social change in America and around the world. What prevents colleges and universities today from fulfilling its transformative and progressive role in society? What new changes are we facing in our society that higher education leaders can make an impact in being the change they talk and write about? These SNCC’s participants seemed to have played both the spectator and actor roles during the sit-ins. Spectator/Actors have the opportunity to both act on social issues and to observe those social actions. They engage in self-empowering processes

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of dialogue that help foster critical thinking. The theatrical act is thus experienced as conscious intervention and as a rehearsal for social action rooted in a collective analysis of shared problems. The Spec/Actor represents everyone in the audience. Boal’s theatre challenges life’s spectators to engage in the transformation of their own lives. The spectator assumes the protagonist role, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions, discusses plans, and trains him/herself for real action.

The Greensboro Four at Woolworth’s lunch counter

Protagonist/Antagonist

The antagonist’s role is to oppress and intimidate the protagonist in some way or fashion. The protagonist’s job is to identify his or her agency within the scene and to resist the oppression by taking action. The antagonists in society are often those individuals in power who perpetuate injustice and discrimination and without effective resistance from the protagonist, rarely relinquish it. In this case, SNCC members understood the roles of both the protagonists and antagonists in their meetings and training sessions. But more importantly, they understood (not agreed with) the rationale behind whites racist ideology.

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The Greensboro Four

Ezell Blair Jr. (aka Jibreel Khazan), Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond were freshman at the Agricultural Technical College in North Carolina. On January 31, 1960, the students rehearsed what role they were going to play at the lunch counter the next day. The following day was February 1, 1960, and each student was dressed in conservative clothing; a white pressed shirt and trousers, and accented with a black tie. Before sitting down at the lunch counter, each student purchased a few schools supplies. They then moved to the lunch counter, sat down, ordered coffee and apple pie. At this first seating, the men were refused serviced and asked to go home. At the second seating the next day, the students ordered food, and refused to leave until they were served food. This time however, the students were beaten by other customers and arrested. This simple, yet profound act was in defiance of both law and local custom, which forbid black people of any age from sitting down to eat where white people ate. Within a few days, many other cities began to do sit-ins and within two months, it has spread to several cities and other states in the South. Franklin McCain was born in Union County, NC and moved to Greensboro where he attended Dudley High School with Ezell Blair. Franklin was raised to believe that if he had just behaved and lived respectfully, then opportunities would be open to him. He would recall what his parents told him was, “The Big Lie”.17 He shortly realized that doing what was expected of him as a Negro in the South would not provide him the opportunities he desired to fulfill his dreams. He knew that he had to do something about the racist practices and policies in Greensboro. Franklin McCain: We asked for service and the assistant manager came over and said it was a store policy not to serve Negroes. We told him we already had been served at counter nine, the toiletries counter, and showed him our receipts. He said he meant he didn’t serve Negroes at the lunch counter that it was primarily local

17 www.newsreel.org 100

custom, and we said we thought it was a bad custom and something should be done about it… We had the confidence of a Mack truck…I probably felt better that day than I have ever felt in my life. I felt as though I had gained my manhood …and not only gained it, but….developed quite a lot of respect for it.18 Ezell Blair Jr. was a student at Dudley High School and by 1959, he and his family was well acquainted with racism in Greensboro. Ezell Blair Sr., a shop teacher at Dudley High School, led a drive to pressure merchants to employ minority sales personnel in non-traditional jobs. It was against this backdrop and in this environment that Ezell Jr. and the other three young men who would jumpstart the civil rights movement by staging the Greensboro sit-ins. According to three of the original four sit- in demonstrators their adolescent upbringing in Greensboro, their formal education in segregated schools, and their social environment helped to foster a “sense of pride, model of strength and purpose of activism” (Chafe, 1980, p. 76). Ezell Jr. was inspired to become an active participant in the civil rights movement by watching his father. On January 31, 1960 Ezell considered that his parents may be embarrassed if he got into trouble and asked them, “I may get in trouble because tomorrow [February 1, 1960] we’re going to do something that will shake up this town” (Chafe, 1980, p. 74). In 1959, Blair Jr. visited the segregated lunch counter at the Union Bus Terminal in January 1960 and upon asking to be served he was swiftly denied food service. Ezell Jr.’s initial protest may have been the catalyst for the now famous, and subject of this dissertation, the Greensboro sit-ins. He vowed then to continue to fight for social justice. Ezell Blair: Some Negroes say we’ve moving, but not fast enough. I say that if it takes two or maybe three months to gain equal service with the white people in a chain store that has a hundred years of history behind it, we’ve done something pretty big…A group of twenty Negroes students from A & T College occupied luncheon

18 An Eyewitness History of the Civil Rights Movement. (1999). p.123 101

counter seats, without being served at the downtown F. W. Woolworth Co. store late this morning—starting what they declared would be a growing movement. Today’s twenty-man action followed the appearance at 4:30 p.m. yesterday of four freshman from Scott Hall at A & T who sat down and stayed, without service, until the store closed at 5:30 p.m. Today’s group came in at 10:30 a.m. Each made a small purchase one counter over from the luncheon counter, then sat in groups of three or four as spaces became vacant. There was not a disturbance and there appeared to be no conversation except among the groups. Some students pulled out books and appeared to be studying.19 Joseph McNeil, a Wilmington, NC native graduated from Williston High School. Upon graduation, McNeil and his family moved to New York City. In the North, he experienced integration practiced in many of the public facilities. He witnessed blacks eating at restaurants and attending events that were illegal for them in the South. After living a while in the North, McNeil applied for North Carolina A & T State University. One day he experienced not being served a hot dog at the Greensboro Greyhound terminal. From that moment on, McNeil knew that he had to do something to change segregation in the South. Eugene Pfaff, an oral historian for University of NC at Greensboro interviewed Joseph McNeil. Below is the transcript of his interview.20

Eugene Pfaff (EP): What sort of things happened that night of January 31 [1960] that acted as an immediate catalyst? Was there anyone who suggested, "All right, this is what we should do, let's do it." That sort of thing?

19 An Eyewitness History of the Civil Rights Movement. (1999). P.125

20 Interview with Joseph McNeil, October 14, 1979, Greensboro VOICES, University Libraries, University of NC at Greensboro.

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Joseph McNeil (JM): Well, if you go back to the idea of how the whole sit-ins originated, I don't think any one person, certainly not any one person, can say, "Well, this is my baby, and this is the way I ran with this thing" or did this or that.

From my own point of view, before going to college, we had talked about doing sit-in-type things; subsequently, my reading tells me that they were doing sit-in-type things someplace else [the NAACP Youth Council of Oklahoma City took steps to end lunch counter segregation in August, 1958]. The concept was probably—you know, it's not a seed that was born in somebody's mind in the sixties. What led us, I guess, in acting that particular night was that we met, we talked, and we discussed the need to do something like this. I had previously met a fellow named Ralph Johns, who said he would be helpful to us if we would do something like this.

EP: What role did he play in the instigation of the sit-ins?

JM: He played—Ralph was a good guy. He was a good guy to lean on. He also was a local business man in the community and he knew various things that, perhaps, we didn't know then. He would, perhaps, have the press connections that we didn't have; something of that nature. He was also an adult, and we were—you know.

EP: Did you have a series of meetings with him, or was this a one-time conversation?

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JM: It was not the case where we had a series of meetings or anything like that, and I don't think it was a one-time conversation; I think it was something that we talked about in passing.

In an oral history project taken on February 24, 2008, the Newsday.com webcast from Long Island, New York, interviewed Joseph McNeil, one of the Greensboro four for the program entitled, Living to Tell: Civil Rights Now. Below is a transcript of his interview which was taken from the webcast video.

Joseph McNeil: February 1, 1960 three of my colleagues, David Richmond, who is no longer with us right now, Ezell Blair Jr. (Jihreel Khazam) and Franklin McCain sat down at a segregated lunch counter and ordered apple pie and coffee, and were not served. We advised the store, it employees and the store manager that we would sit and continue to sit until they were served us. The store manager called the police. And the policeman came and walked back and front behind us. Then he took his nightstick and thumped it in his hand in a threatening manner. We continued to sit. We didn’t get served coffee or apple pie. We told the store manager that we would be back that we would keep coming back until they served us. It was important that we would be non-violent. That if we were not non-violent then we would not accomplish what we wanted to accomplish. And that was to bring attention to segregation; its negative impact on life and it was an evil practice. There wasn’t anything nobler than to stand up for human rights- civil rights and to choose to be non-violent. And in hindsight, it worked. Why include so much of the Greensboro four narratives? What purpose does it serve educators to know the smallest detail of these young men’s personal lives and their

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actions the day of the event? First of all, I take a personal interest in what their motivations were. They were not coerced into doing this by the NAACP or any other established organization. Their narratives gave no indication that any other adult led the cause that day. These young men deserve the time and space in this dissertation because they reflect the demographics of a group in society that is in dire need for some intervention. Young, black men today have been described as being an endangered species. They are our ‘troubled citizens’ who are failing in schools, being imprisoned, and killed every day on American streets by each other and the police. What these stories reveal is that these four young black men had a sense of hope. In the face of what they were told by their parents and an unjust society, and in spite of it all, they had hoped. Educators play an enormous role in providing hope to disenfranchised groups. Teachers and educational leaders meet young, troubled youth everyday in classrooms and miss the opportunity to give hope to their dreams. I have also chosen to include the narrative of other SNCC participants in the body of this dissertation because it reflects my theoretical perspective. As researchers and educators, we often give more credence to the scholarship of the dominant culture and to those non-groups that situate themselves in it than the voices of the ‘other.’ As an effective history project, what these men say about their actions is just as important as ‘legitimate’ scholars’ critiques. Denise Taliaferro Baszile’s (2006) work as a curriculum theorist and activist, asserts that she is, “guiding students to Black cultural/intellectual scholarship, no matter how traditional unacceptable it maybe” (p. 98).

Other SNCC participants

There were other stories of the sit-in movement that are not so well known as the Greensboro four. Females played a significant role in the sit-ins. Many of them worked tirelessly to recruit participants, mobilize, and organize meetings and protests. SNCC was designed so that no one, charismatic leader would take credit or recognition for the group’s social actions. Many young people, both black and white, participated in the sit-ins and experienced the same maltreatment as the well-known social activists.

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Their non-violent responses to such violence created a photographic opportunity for the world to see the actual ugliness of hatred and bigotry. For SNCC, this non-violent, directed action was a powerful way to dramatize their ideology of equality and integration without going violent. Candy Anderson is one of those students and her story deserves to be heard. Her story reflects the dimensions of Boal’s Forum Theatre in ways others have not expressed. In this story, we see elements of the abuse the protagonists took from the antagonists. Candy Anderson: There was a rope around the stools, showing that the counter was closed. We climbed over the rope. A policeman stood there and said quite clearly, “Do not sit down,” and we sat down…I became suddenly aware of the crowd of people standing behind us…Young kids threw French fried potatoes at us, and gum, and cigarette butts. I looked down the counter at Barbara Crosby in a straight pink skirt and nice white blouse, and at Stephan in a dark suit, with a calculus book…The policeman simply lined up behind us and peeled us two by two off the stools…The crowd in the store shouted out approval. They said about Barbara and me…Oh, white, white, white, white! Three patty wagons were blinking at us from the street. Once more we had to walk through those crowds. Someone spit right in front of me…The TV cameras took lots of pictures and we drove off to the Nashville city jail.21 ( student, on participating in a sit-in at McClellan’s variety store in Nashville, Tennessee, in February 1960, in Zinn’s SNCC: The New Abolitionists (1964)

Unknown student: We want the world to know that we no longer accept the inferior position of second-class citizenship. We are willing to go to jail, be

21 An Eyewitness History of the Civil Rights Movement. (1999). P.126 106

ridiculed, spat upon and even suffer physical violence to obtain First Class Citizenship. (Statement in a SNCC 1960 newsletter at Barber-Scotia College, Concord, North Carolina, in Baker’s Southern Patriot article of June 1960).22 These narratives reveal how the protagonist’s identified with his or her agency within the scene and to resist the oppression by taking action. They also tell what the antagonist was doing against the activists.

The Joker

Boal places two major roles of the Joker. First, the Joker’s role is to stay out of the drama by positioning him or herself close to the audience and facilitating questions. The second role is to enter into the drama by suggesting props and other scenarios that problematize the skit. The Joker demonstrates these roles in four ways: staging, analysis, problem posing and discussion leader. The Joker facilitates the scene analysis by moderating the protagonist’s and spect/actor’s suggestions. The Joker promotes dialogue within the audience by creating a line of questioning that encourages the protagonist to consider the outcome of his or her actions. The Joker might ask: If you do that, then what could you expect the antagonist to do? Or, does the action you just took transform the oppressive situation to a more empowering space? The objective is not to frighten actors into submission or inactivity, but provide alternative ways to do something about an oppressive situation. SNCC claims to have shunned a hierarchy of leadership where the policies and practices of the organization were created by a few people at the top, but instead, utilized participatory leadership and the leadership that originated from the bottom. SNCC participants were encouraged to attend the strategic planning meetings and vote on the issues. That being said, SNCC did have teachers, mentors, and facilitators that guided and inspired these young people. Among the most influential of these teacher-

22 An Eyewitness History of the Civil Rights Movement. (1999). P.129 107

leader-mentors were Ella Baker, John Lewis and Bob Moses. Ella Baker has been said to have been the (Ransby, 2003) “architect and grandmother” of the civil rights movement. Bob Moses, Baker’s protégé, exhibited a profound capacity of knowledge, insight, direction which was crucial for the successful Freedom Summer projects of 1964. Moses will be discussed in detail in chapter five. For this section, I discuss SNCC’s most influential participants and facilitators, Miss Ella Baker and Congressman John Lewis. Baker asserts “strong people do not need strong leaders” and these words sums up what she thought about personal leadership and agency (Ransby, 2003, p. 98). John Lewis, SNCC’s first elected field secretary played a powerful role in establishing SNCC’s brand in Mississippi. Both Baker and Lewis’s contributions are important to understanding the role of the Joker in the historical narrative. Both of these workers and activists reflect critical pedagogical practices and as their role as teacher, mentor and facilitator, reflects Boal’s Joker character. I have included Baker’s lengthy biography to underscore the making of such a leader: Baker’s views on educational practice and pedagogy and how she exemplifies Boal’s Joker. I have also included Lewis’s interview and speeches to demonstrate how he felt about SNCC, its workers and the role they played in the civil rights movement.

Ella Baker

Baker’s life and upbringing helped to form and shape her ideology about social justice, education and empowerment. Baker, a black female and leader during the civil rights movement, experienced oppression from the all-male civil rights leaders of NAACP and SCLC. It may have been from this position of oppressed that informed her pedagogy and practice to the young people she served. Baker was born in the year 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia and moved to Littleton, North Carolina at a young age where she and her family became well acquainted with . But before dying in 1986, she left a legacy that includes significant contribution to the NAACP, SNCC, Mississippi Freedom Movements and the advancement of liberatory pedagogy in schools across the country. After graduating

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from Shaw University in the South, she moved to New York City in 1927 and lived in Harlem and participated in the Harlem Renaissance. It was then that Ella’s radical ideology and activism flourished. She loved to participate in debates and eventually became known as a dynamic speaker. According to Ella (Dallard, 1990, pg. 32), “New York was the hotbed of radical thinking, wherever there was a discussion, I’d go. It didn’t matter if it was all men and maybe, I was the only woman, it did not matter.” According to Tayari kwa Salaam (2003, p. 154), “Curriculum theory needs to include the voices of African American women…Women in general and in particular those who dispute as well as resist what is established and who refuse to accept what is considered socially and societally true.” Above everything else, Baker was a black woman and being so, entitled her to a unique way of seeing things and added special insight to the struggle of freedom for humanity. Patricia Hill Collins (2000, pg. 9) asserts, “U.S. Black women have produced social thought designed to oppose oppression… Social theories reflect women’s efforts to come to terms with lived experiences within intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender sexuality ethnicity, nation and religion.” What was Baker’s social theory? Where is it documented? Cedric K. Johnson (2003), political scholar believes that, “The task of assessing Baker’s political outlook is made difficult by her marathon commitment to organizing—she did not leave a sizable paper trail of ideas.” Barbara Ransby, scholar, historian and Ella Baker’s biographer, has amassed an extraordinary amount of information on Baker’s liberatory pedagogy and practices. Ransby (2002, p. 132) asserts, “Baker’s theory of social change and political organizing was inscribed in her practice.” Baker was a behind the scenes leader and a humble woman who democratized SNCC by empowering local and regional leaders. She also de-emphasizing legal battles and strived to give more attention to grassroots struggles. Her work with Freedom Summer and Freedom Schools was vital. She was a strong proponent for community based models of learning in which parents were empowered to help define priorities and design curricula for their children. Commenting on her simplistic, yet profound leadership style, Ransby (2002, pp. 155-170) quoting Baker writes, “After all, who was I? I was female. I was old. I didn’t have any Ph.D. I did not loathe raising questions.

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I did not just subscribe to a theory just because it came out of the mouth of the leader.” Baker is a good example of what Gramsci calls the new intellectual when he writes, “The mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence, which is an exterior and momentary mover of feelings and passions, but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organizer, permanent persuader not just a simple orator” (1993, 2).

After SNCC’s founding conference at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC, Ella Baker wrote the following article entitled, Bigger than a hamburger, in the Southern Patriot in May 1960. Baker writes: The Student-leadership Conference made it crystal clear that current sit- ins and other demonstrations are concerned with something much bigger than a hamburger or even a giant-sized Coke. Whatever may be the difference in approach to their goal, the Negro and white students, North and South, are seeking to rid America of the scourge of racial segregation and discrimination — not only at lunch counters, but in every aspect of life. In reports, casual conversations, discussion groups, and speeches, the sense and the spirit of the following statement that appeared in the initial newsletter of the students at Barber-Scotia College, Concord, N.C., were re-echoed time and again: We want the world to know that we no longer accept the inferior position of second-class citizenship. We are willing to go to jail, be ridiculed, spat upon and even suffer physical

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violence to obtain First Class Citizenship. By and large, this feeling that they have a destined date with freedom, was not limited to a drive for personal freedom, or even freedom for the Negro in the South. Repeatedly it was emphasized that the movement was concerned with the moral implications of racial discrimination for the "whole world" and the "Human Race." This universality of approach was linked with a perceptive recognition that "it is important to keep the movement democratic and to avoid struggles for personal leadership." It was further evident that desire for supportive cooperation from adult leaders and the adult community was also tempered by apprehension that adults might try to "capture" the student movement. The students showed willingness to be met on the basis of equality, but were intolerant of anything that smacked of manipulation or domination. This inclination toward group-centered leadership, rather than toward a leader-centered group pattern of organization, was refreshing indeed to those of the older group who bear the scars of the battle, the frustrations and the disillusionment that come when the prophetic leader turns out to have heavy feet of clay. However hopeful might be the signs in the direction of group-centeredness, the fact that many schools and communities, especially in the South, have not provided adequate experience for young Negroes to assume initiative and think and act independently accentuated the need for guarding the student movement against well-meaning, but nevertheless unhealthy, over-protectiveness. Here is an opportunity for adult and youth to work together and provide genuine leadership — the development of the individual to his highest potential for the benefit of the group. Many adults and youth characterized the Raleigh meeting as the greatest or most significant conference of our period. Whether it lives up to this high evaluation or not will, in a large measure, be determined by the extent to which there is more effective training in and understanding of non-violent principles and practices, in group dynamics, and in the re-direction into

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creative channels of the normal frustrations and hostilities that result from second-class citizenship.

John Lewis

John Lewis’s story sets the stage for examining SNCC’s freedom acts. His narrative reflects Boal’s themes in these particular ways. He described SNCC members as actors that played protagonist and antagonist roles. It is interesting that he uses the idea of history tracking down SNCC’s members to play the roles that they did. In this account, Lewis explains the possibilities of what SNCC believed the dramas could achieve. According to Lewis, whites and blacks played roles that were both oppressive and oppressed. During role playing, rehearsals, and scenarios young white SNCC participants played the role of aggressive policeman, angry restaurant managers and store owners, and even infuriated white townspeople. The role of antagonist and protagonist were practiced interchangeably; blacks playing the antagonist and white playing the protagonist. In these role plays, black participants learned how to protect themselves against violent acts. They were taught to, remain claim, don’t fight back, protect their face, head and other vital body parts while being abused. They were told to not resist during the arrest. While blacks learned how to protect themselves against violence, and to perfect non-violent social action, whites gain an understanding of how oppressive it is to be the oppressor. The antagonist role helped them to realize that being human was to treat others as humans. This was exactly what civil rights non-violent protest was all about. They thought that if whites understood their own depravity by being unjustifiably hateful and violent, then maybe, the aggressors and the world would see the ugliness of racism in America. Blacks played the antagonist role and whites played the protagonist role. Role playing helped everyone understand the conditions both blacks and whites experienced in the South. Boal’s theatre rehearsals were meant to inspire hope in the participants so that they could take what they practiced out in the real world. Here, black and whites

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reflect the roles of the protagonist and antagonist as non-violent action against the racism in Jackson, Montgomery, and other cities in the South. The idea of history calling individuals into participating in role playing was a common idea to many in the movement. SNCC participants and even supporters of the movement believed that history has called them to make the social changes that they did. Some believed that SNCC’s social actions were somehow initiated and inspired by the prayers of their enslaved ancestors. Lewis’s remark reflects this idea as well. In this account, we see that SNCC did know that they had to rehearse the indignities of racism so that they would be prepared to respond in the real world. As protagonists, they practiced beforehand how to respond when lighted with a cigarette or drenched in hot coffee. SNCC’s white volunteer would often play the role as antagonist. In some cases, it was reversed. In this situation, students were introduced to the feeling of being both antagonist and protagonist. Understanding the role of oppressed and oppressor was important to SNCC. This transformative, experiential learning opportunity enabled SNCC participants to stay focused on the goal of social change. They knew what was at stake—freedom. And, they understood the indignity and ridicule blacks experienced throughout the many years in the South.

The caption reads: Come and let us build a new world together. The visual text demonstrates the humility and non –violent ideology SNCC professed. Who could have been intimidated by three, young black men bowing down as in prayer and asking almost apologetically, to help them change the racist system? Not all blacks agreed to this non-violent strategy. And to some extent, the non-violent strategy was not successful. John Lewis would eventually get beaten almost to death in the Bloody Sunday event on the Edmund Pettis Bridge on March 7, 1965. Many historians argue

113 that this date and event marked the end of the non-violent movement. From this point on, the black power movement grew in interest and participation. John Lewis (JL): The civil rights movement was drama at its best. We all have roles to play and some people their role better than others. We didn’t seek to be actors in a drama; history tracked us down and said this is the role you play. This is the role you must play.

There were some who engaged in the sit-ins and some who engaged in stand in, kneel in and some that participated in marches. We just didn’t wake up one day and we just didn’t have a dream one day that we were going to sit-in or that we were going to march or that we were going to get beat. We prepared ourselves. We had role-playing that we would take a desk or a table and make it appear to be a lunch counter or a table in a restaurant. We would put people through a certain amount of discipline or training. I used to sit from time to time during those early days that we have to find a way to make it real. We have to dramatize the issue not just the reality setting in or the reality of a march. We have to put a face or to put a group of bodies on the issue. I saw people young and some not so young that was prepared to put their bodies on the line. There were people that were willing to be obedient, to be killed or some of us left to go on a freedom ride. There were young people as students and we wrote letters. It was almost like a will saying that if something happened to me this is what you are supposed to do. It was drama, but it was reality.

We were dramatizing our hopes, our dreams and maybe to some degree dramatizing the possibilities, the unknown of what could be.

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A group of blacks and whites to try and rise and attack the camp together in Montgomery in Selma or Birmingham.

I don’t think the group of us knew. I don’t think the great majority of us knew that we were participating in a drama. Some of us did. We knew it. We had to make it real. It was, on one hand, you could rehearsal but that rehearsal in a matter of minutes and hours not days became real. It was the real thing. We were proctors. How are you are going to sit? What are you going to sit at a lunch counter and you are going to look straight ahead? If someone put a lighted cigarette out in your hand, were you going to continue to look straight ahead? What would you do if someone put a lighted cigarette out down your back, or poured hot water, hot coffee or hot chocolate down you? If someone kicked you- were you going to keep your cool and we were prepared for the test? We were put to the test.

Well, from time to time we would have an interracial group to play it. Sometimes it would be a group of white young people who would come up and maybe take a puff off of a cigarette or cigar and blow the smoke in your face. Maybe the interracial groups of blacks and whites would harass you. They made it real. Then the next day or the next hour or two you’d go out and sit in or mourn and it became real. Someone would hit you. I remember being hit more than once. Someone would arrest me. It is a struggle of a lifetime. We were in a drama and we were actors on a stage.

Well the media played such a great role. Well I’ll tell you if it hadn’t been for the media and it hadn’t been for the writers and the photographers the movement would have been like a bird

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without wings. The movement would have been like a choir without a song. It was very dangerous to be a photographer. It was very dangerous to have a pencil and a pad. The people that were with us wanted to know what was going on so we can only attack those of us that were involved in the movement. They attacked the members of the media or the press. They would take the cameramen’s pencils, pads and camera.

Prior to this interview, I had a brief conversation with Mr. Lewis. He talked about SNCC as a social drama and the roles he and other’s played. This was before the actual taping. Therefore, this interview is a continuation of that conversation. My questions in the taped interview are related to what he previously discussed. John Lewis’s comments reflect several tenets of Theatre of the Oppressed. First, he uses dramaturgical language in how he describes SNCC’s actions. Directly attributes SNCC’s actions to “actors on a stage.” His narrative highlights the interracial relationships and the antagonist roles whites played. Lewis describes how the role-playing techniques that helped SNCC participants to prepare for the real protest that would eventually come the next day. Some of SNCC’s participants knew they were in a drama, while others did not. Lewis asserts that SNCC was dramatizing their hopes, dreams and the possibilities of being free in an oppressed society. Secondly, it is important to note that SNCC knew they were performing social dramas in rehearsals and in real life. Lewis’s account describes one of the areas I focus on in this dissertation; social protest as performance. As a performance, SNCC’s participants engaged as spectators/actors, jokers and protagonist/antagonist. They employed role-playing as a method to prepare for the real drama. An impact of SNCC’s drama seemed to have influenced the Peace Corps. Mary King (King, 1987), a close worker with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a staff member of SNCC asserts, “The Sit-ins were a catalyst for the Peace Corps concept. The 1964 Mississippi volunteers were to be inspiration for the federally supported VISTA program (Volunteers in Service To America), these programs began one year after the Mississippi

116 project” (p. 368). In addition to social activism, Peace Corps volunteers adapted the teach-ins and other strategies of SNCC. Many of the SNCC participants joined the Peace Corps following their work with SNCC (see appendices H & F). This is important to include because I feel that it demonstrates the impact of SNCC’s social dramas and how they reached the White House and other politicians (Sergeant Shriver) in profound ways by inspiring President J. K. Kennedy to act on global social issues. In 1960, SNCC’s first field secretary, send a Western Union Telegram to then, Senator John F. Kennedy, (see appendix G). This story from Terry Gugliotta, an original Peace Corps volunteer, demonstrates how similar the Peace Corps were with SNCC. The ability of SNCC members’ work, which originated in Greensboro and Mississippi, to reach national and worldwide proportions were phenomenal. In Gugliotta’s (1997) story, we see how much of SNCC’s strategies were utilized by the Peace Corps around the world. Gugliotta reports on an interview he had with a Peach Corps participant, Ernest Orona. Terry Gugliotta writes: In 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued an Executive Order creating the Peace Corps. Kennedy's idea, was for young people to serve their country in places like Asia, Africa, and Latin America and assisting people in community development. This included training people in public health and recreation, building roads and schools, and teaching everything from farming to English, math and science. Volunteers were trained to assist host countries in community development, public health and teaching. Their field exercises included construction, public recreation, urban development and social welfare in Spanish-speaking areas of New Mexico. SNCC’s participants from the Northern cities received a real education in culture and diversity. For some of them, it was the first time that came in contact with black people. Others could never believe that Americans would be in sub-standard housing and living conditions as the poor, black Mississippians. This perspective and training prepared Peace Corps volunteers for traveling and serving in other parts of the world. Academic preparation reflected on a global scale what Freedom Summer and Freedom

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School’s curricula were. Peace Corps academic area studies were: Spanish, Communism and world affairs. Volunteers were also immersed in language training. Volunteers learned community development and worked on their physical and mental stamina. College campuses across the nation scrambled to be a part of the excitement and UNM was no exception. Universities were interested in having the Peace Corps recruitment on their campuses once they realized students were drawn to this humanitarian service. Peace Corps volunteers learned important lessons of the power structures of the third world communities and who in the village carried the most influence with the people. American students realized how power was negotiated in different cultures and brought that understanding to work they continued in the States. The Peace Corps has had its share of criticism. Over its forty years of existence, there have been claims that “Peace Corps volunteers were agents of a neo-colonial power and the particular administration that it happened to be under” (Knippers Black, (1999, p.227). Furthermore, Peace Corps volunteers often did their own thing once they arrived at the location. These issues are important to take into account because it reveals the nature of things when we discuss idealist programs. There are always counter stories to tell. Likewise, SNCC’s leaders combated with other members various visions and directions. Stokely Carmichael was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with SNCC’s progress and implementation. He saw that the resources were tied to policies that restricted blacks have full control of the organization. He pushed for a more radical SNCC where blacks would be self-determined to do what they needed to do. Still, SNCC has inspired many groups around the world to fight for change at the grass- roots level.

Summation SNCC’s social dramas were part African American social drama, Theatre of the Oppressed dramaturgy and critical pedagogy. I assert that the ways they challenged the South’s racist practices and policies were primarily through rehearsed social dramas that reflected Boal’s theatre and Freire’s Critical Pedagogy. To better understand how SNCC’s sit-ins demonstrated Boal’s Theatre and Critical Pedagogy, I have told SNCC’s

118 participants’ story by including the following narratives: the Greensboro Four, a local restaurant manager, SNCC’s opponents, SNCC’s field secretary and mentors, community supporters and the media. Text analysis on these narratives has revealed that SNCC students rehearsed protagonist types of roles before conducting their non-violent social dramas. Included in these scenarios were the antagonist roles. Images and texts analyses suggest that white policemen and angry white onlookers often played the antagonists role by showing overtly aggressive and violent acts. Community supporters like Bennett College President, Wilma Player and a local restaurant manager, one white and one black, moved from being spectators to actors in the movement. Their transitions were inspired by observing the passion and social actions of SNCC’s participation. Actors have the power to influence spectators if their actions touch the heart and hope of the observer. In addition, spectators turned actor do not necessarily act in the open. These actors lend their support by working behind the scenes rather than participating in the more public demonstrations such as the sit-ins and marches. Wilma Player offered her campus for meetings, mentored and advised the students earlier on in the movement. Ralph Johns is said to have inspired the Greensboro four to act upon what they believed. Ella Baker is considered the single most inspirational actor in the movement. Baker was teacher, mentor and facilitator of SNCC participants and in this her actions reflect Boal’s Joker’s characteristics. In general, SNCC’s freedom acts exhibited critical pedagogical practices by promoting the humanity of both oppressed and the oppressor, valuing dialog, and providing opportunities for the oppressor and the oppressed to gain greater understanding through questioning every aspect of society. SNCC’s social actions did not stop at the sit-ins; they evolved into working to promote voter registration and educating students. In the next chapter, I discuss SNCC’s Freedom Summer, Freedom Schools and the Free Southern Theatre and their relationship to Theatre of the Oppressed.

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CHAPTER FIVE Freedom Summer and the Free Southern Theatre

If freedom is orphaned in America today, it is not because her attackers are strong; it is because men who say they love freedom are timid and passionless and afraid.23

Introduction

In this chapter, I discuss Freedom Summer and the two projects that evolved from it: Freedom Schools and the Free Southern Theatre. I include narratives and historical research The Mississippi Freedom Summer Project was established in 1963 as a method to empower blacks and change the social landscape of the South by: increasing voter registration, teaching reading and writing skills, and civic education. Originally, Freedom Summer’s mission was to increase voter registration in Mississippi, which up until then, very few blacks were registered voters, or even voted in elections. Bob Moses was asked by the Congress of Federated Organizations (COFO) to head this project with the support of SNCC’s directors and with the strong participation of people that had grown over the three years of SNCC’s existence. Initially, Freedom Summer was organized in Mississippi, but due to white racist retaliation against SNCC workers, SNCC’s training center location forced the project to be moved to a safer place. Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio agreed to host the summer project in 1964 (see appendices F & I). Freedom Summer’s organizers realized the need to provide an educational component in addition to the voter registration project. The educational component involved training participants in non-violent and self-protection strategies

23 Lerone Bennett. Page 87. 120 which would protect them against physical harm done by white Southerners. Staughton Lynd, a white young lawyer and activist, created Freedom Schools along with Ella Baker and others to promote black Mississippians cultural and educational advancement. The project succeeded in establishing 50 Freedom Schools and provided a place where young blacks could receive remedial instruction and classes in black history. Similar to reporting the results in chapter four, I discuss these projects by utilizing interviews from key participants, and primary and secondary sources. Furthermore, I have discussed the event through SNCC’s participants’ narratives and the media of the day which included: newspaper accounts, documentaries, and Freedom songs. The narratives were analyzed through Theatre of the Oppressed and critical pedagogy framework. Theatre of the Oppressed tenets are: Protagonist/Antagonist, Spectator/Actor and the Joker. I have employed these lenses to determine to what extent has Freedom Summer and its two projects (Freedom Schools and the Free Southern Theatre) reflect, differ, and/or provide educators with a critical pedagogy that is culturally specific to African Americans on American soil.

Freedom Summer Project

SNCC’s sit-ins, pray-ins and kneel-ins had proven to be successful strategies since its established date on February 1, 1960. Areas that once were segregated became integrated and SNCC’s membership grew to mobilize a strong community of workers willing to make change in their communities. But with these successes, white retaliation grew more violent and frequent. In late 1961, the Kennedy administration, offered civil rights groups monetary aid “if they would turn their efforts to voter registration” (King, 1987, p.19). It also became apparent to SNCC that the black community needed to move past demonstrations and on to other social issues that would improve the quality of their lives. SNCC’s field directors began to understand what Ella Baker meant at the first SNCC conference when she said, “This [SNCC’s

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mission] is bigger than a hamburger” (Ransby, 2003). Freedom Summer was a response to this effort to engage the political engagement of blacks in Mississippi.

A new strategy was created to provide educational opportunities and Freedom Summer was expanded to include Freedom Schools. James Forman, SNCC’s first director and one of Ella Baker’s mentees, was instrumental in designing the project’s objectives and mission. Forman created the Prospectus for the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and Freedom Schools, were included in the document. This document, as presented in part, has been a valuable source of information for several fields of study, which include; curriculum and instruction, community engagement theorists and practitioners, community workers, educators, historians and sociologists (see appendix C). Freedom School administrators’ today have designed their curriculum after Forman’s prospectus. The revived Freedom School movement was reborn in 1992 under the leadership of Marion Wright Edelman and the Children's Defense Fund's (CDF) Black Community Crusade for Children program. This revised program’s mission is to advance the Freedom Schools’ vision of an education for all children through the CDF Freedom Schools program. During Edelman’s speech at Miami University on February 2, 2005, she expressed the urgency for black communities around the country to invest in children today, because the price of educating these students in the future will be much more than we can afford to pay. Edelman argues, “We will not be able to afford another generation of children growing up with the lack of skills and abilities needed to compete in the 21st century.” Freedom Summer was a response to the need for SNCC to address social and educational issues and an attempt to clarify how the Mississippi Summer Project would tactically engage the community in more concrete ways. Forman raised critical questions as the theoretical basis for Freedom Summer’s objectives and strategies (Emory, Braselmann & Gold, 2004).

1. In SNCC we had often wondered: How do you make more people in this country share our experiences, understand what it is to look in the face of

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death because you’re black, feel hatred for the federal government that always makes excuses for the brutality of Southern cops and state troopers? 2. We often wondered: How do you make a fat, rich country like the United States understand that it has starving people within its own boundaries, people without land, people working on Senator Eastland’s plantation for three dollars a day or less? 3. We often wondered: How can you make the people in the United States exercise their responsibility to rid themselves of racist politicians who fight every progressive measure introduced in the halls of Congress? 4. We often wondered: How can we find the strength to continue our work in the face of the poverty of the people, to do everything that shouts to be done in the absence of so many resources?

Forman’s response to these questions was to create Freedom Schools. He realized that blacks needed an educational component with the social actions and voter registration they were doing. Forman’s Prospectus of the Mississippi Freedom Summer24 It has become evident to the civil rights groups involved in the struggle for freedom in Mississippi that political and social justice cannot be won without the massive aid of the country as a whole, backed by the power and authority of the federal government. Little hope exists that the political leaders of Mississippi will steer even a moderate course in the near future (Governor Johnson’s inaugural speech notwithstanding); in facts, the contrary seems true: as the winds of change grow stronger, the threatened political elite of Mississippi becomes more intransigent and fanatical in its support of the status quo. The closed society of Mississippi is, as Professor Silver asserts, without the moral resources to reform itself. And Negro efforts to win the right to vote cannot succeed against the extensive legal weapons and police powers of local and state

24 The document is from: SNCC, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Papers, 1959-1972 (Sanford, NC: Microfilming Corporation of America, 1982) Reel 39, File 190, Page 1039. The original papers are at the King Library and Archives, The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Atlanta, GA.

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officials without a nationwide mobilization of support. A program is planned for this summer which will involve the massive participation of Americans dedicated to the elimination of racial oppression. Scores of college students, law students, medical students, teachers, professors, ministers, technicians, folk artists and lawyers from all over the country have already volunteered to work in Mississippi this summer—and hundreds more are being recruited. There were local newspapers that covered the young people’s movement around the country and locally. I interviewed Allen Howard for this dissertation to gain an understanding of the role local citizens played in SNCC and Freedom Summer. Howard wrote for the Cincinnati Call & Post during the early 1960’s, and is now a columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer. I asked Howard what he remembered about the student movement in Cincinnati during the early SNCC years. Howard comments:

I don’t remember a lot of the names, but I know Robert Weaver, he was one and probably he was the most active one involved in the Mississippi voter registration. Most of the material he packaged and carried down there was put together in my office. He was there every day almost.

One incident I remember in particularly was on a Saturday afternoon. I got a call from him and I said Robert, what do you want me to do? There were a lot of them on a Saturday morning and it was nothing like a carload of us coming to Miami to the Western College for women during sessions on voter registration. That’s where I first met Julian Bond and the late Fannie Lou Hamer. They did get involved in protest movements. There were marches; special marches, special days and they were all involved in that. The singing of the songs, like, . Then it lead up; if you are trying to catalog significant things there seems to have been an outgrowth of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and

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SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) which worked in conjunction with CORE. CORE got most of the publicity but SNCC was kind of just coming in off the ground. What was the local media doing to promote the movement?

Howard’s report is important to include in this work because it adds to the conversation of the local media’s role in covering Cincinnati’s part in Freedom Summer. It also provides insight into the participation of local young people that cared about civil rights and social justice.

Freedom Summer Prospectus

Forman’s introduction to Freedom Summer’s Prospectus, indicates his understanding of the dire need for a program that would support SNCC participants’ direct actions. This prospectus was written in the spring of 1964 and by this time, SNCC’s work in the community achieved some level of success, but there still remained a need for more workers with experience in several field to support the several issues facing Mississippians. Forman’s prospectus reflects the idea of a community engagement framework that involves the support from several resources in the community to help improve the conditions of minorities and other disenfranchised groups. Forman argues that everyday citizens must be engaged in the process for Mississippians social transformation. Forman argues for the need of many Americans including: college students, law students, folk artists, ministers and educators to work in Mississippi to help improve the social, political, and educational conditions of its residents. Forman writes: Either the civil rights struggle has to continue, as it has in the past few years, with small projects in selected communities with no real progress on any fronts, or there must be a task force of such a size as to force either the state and the municipal governments to

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change their social and legal structures, or the federal government to intervene on behalf of the constitutional rights of its citizens. In this section, Forman argues for the necessity of an integrated project which would bring hundreds of young black and white students together for the purpose of improving the condition of blacks in the Mississippi. This was a risky endeavor. Forman and others believed that if whites were involved, then the media would more likely take notice of the project, and maybe, it would be a safer environment for the volunteers to work in. Surly, having so many white students working in Mississippi, may subdue the violence. Forman lays out his rationale for the timing of the Mississippi Freedom Project. Here he links this project to the March on Washington in August 1963 and its impact on gaining the attention of the whole country in participating in the General election. He argues the need for more attention to be paid for Mississippi, which at the time of this writing, received little national attention and gained little social progress compared to other cities in the South. In addition, 1964 was a general election year, and blacks in Mississippi, were far behind other Southern and Northern States in political power and presence. Forman also lays out the conditions and conducts of the volunteers. The major condition he demanded is that volunteers that were arrested doing social justice work must deny bail and go to jail instead. He believed that once community leaders realized that the overcrowding of jails would not solve the problem of controlling the volunteers and that they would be forced to address the communities’ social evils head on, then the problems blacks faced would be addressed. Forman writes: Within the state COFO has made extensive preparations since mid- January to develop structured programs which will put to creative use the talents and energies of the hundreds of expected summer volunteers.

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Freedom Schools

James Forman details each aspect of the freedom schools in the Prospectus. The curriculum and community engagement strategies were in response to SNCC’s mission and objectives. Here is his blue-print for the design and execution for the schools. Here, he highlights four major areas that will guide the scope of the project: General Description, Curriculum, Students and Staff. Freedom summer educators were concerned with making sure students knew their and other’s history and culture. They wanted to challenge them to exceed in reading and other academic classes. In Mississippi, many people were not enrolled in schools, and those that did attend, were not getting the kind of education that would help them gain agency and self-esteem, while obtaining important academic skills. Forman writes: General Description. About 25 Freedom Schools are planned, of two varieties: day schools in about 20-25 towns (commitments still pending in some communities) and one or two boarding, or residential, schools on college campuses. Although the local communities can provide school buildings, some furnishings, and staff housing (and, for residential schools, student housing), all equipment, supplies and staff will have to come from outside. A nationwide recruitment program is underway to find and train the people and solicit the equipment needed. In the schools, the typical day will be hard study in the morning, an afternoon break (because it’s too hot for an academic program) and less formal evening activities. Because the afternoons are free, students will have an opportunity to work with the COFO staff in other areas of the Mississippi Freedom Summer program, and the additional experience will enrich their contribution to the Freedom School sessions.

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Curriculum. The aim of the Freedom Schools’ curriculum will be to challenge the student’s curiosity about the world, introduce him to his particularly “Negro” cultural background, and teach him basic literacy skills in one integrated problem. That is, the students will study problem areas in the world, such as the administration of justice or the relation between state and federal authority. Each problem area will be built around a specific episode which is close to the experience of Mississippi students.

Students. Students for the Freedom Schools will be recruited through established contacts with ministers, educators, and other organizational contacts in the state. Around a hundred applications have already been returned, and we do not anticipate that written applications will form the bulk of the students selected. A statewide student organization, the Mississippi Student Union, has recently been formed, and will be important to the recruitment of students. Students who have shown evidence of leadership potential will be encouraged to attend the state-wide boarding schools, to meet students from other parts of the state, and lay the foundation of a much broader student movement.

Staff. Both professional and nonprofessional teachers will participate in the staffing of the schools. Professional teachers will be sponsored by the professional teachers’ associations, the National Council of Churches, the Presbyterian Church and other institutions with educational resources. The nonprofessional teachers will be selected from among the applicants for the summer project. A special delegation of Chicago high-school students, who have taught Negro history to other students their

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own age under the auspices of Chicago’s Amistad Society, will work as student teachers in the Negro history program.

Critical Pedagogical Analyses

Freedom Schools (Emery, Braselmann & Reid Gold, 2000) were driven by the Freedom School’s curriculum that emphasized five main principles that reflect all but one of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed ideals. They are: 1. The school is an agent of social change. 2. Students must know their own history. 3. The curriculum should be linked to the students’ experiences. 4. Questions should be open-ended. 5. Developing academic skills is crucial.

In this section, Forman laid out the several projects and programs that defined Freedom Summer along with its subsequent projects: Freedom Schools and the Free Southern Theatre. Forman’s vision for transformative was extensive—involving many people of all levels of talents and abilities coming together to make change in Mississippi’s communities. Freedom Summer reflected critical pedagogy (Freire, 1974) in several ways: dialogue, banking, conscientization, liberatory education and the culture of silence. Voter registration and education projects were the primary and most politically focused aspect of the Freedom Schools. These two projects were successful in improving the political power and voice of Mississippians. After conducting voting registration campaigns, black voting rates increased and in years after 1964, became involved in the political process. The Mississippi Free Democratic Party (MFDP) was launched out of the voting registration campaigns. Freedom Summer/Schools’ political engagement projects empowered people, and challenged Mississippians “culture of silence” (Freire, 1974) by opening a once close door, of political involvement.

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Mississippians’ conscientization, a process by which the learner advances towards critical consciousness is reflected by their curriculum. Freedom Schools challenged the students’ curiosity about the world, introduced them to their particularly black cultural background, and taught them basic literacy skills. Freedom summer employed art, music and singing as cultural representations of blacks that were not valued or respected by the South’s school system. Freedom Singers and the Freedom Songs they sang, touched the movement in emotional ways that traditional curriculum could not. These schools helped students to understand their own reality as part of their learning activity. Classes in the democratic process and citizenship helped students to understand themselves and the culture of racism that they lived in. They were also encouraged to challenge the system of oppression. Students were taught critical thinking skills, reading and literacy. This curriculum reflects Freire’s liberatory education and was a very important step in moving students from passive social and cultural roles to more assertive roles in society. Boarding schools focused on teaching leadership skills to students, while valuing students’ innate abilities and talents. These same cultural skills and talents had not been valued and promoted in the schools they were currently attending. Freedom Schools’ teacher to student ratio was 50 to 15. The small ratio, created a classroom where the student could have at many times enjoyed a one-on-one relationship with teachers. The schools offered class times that reflected students need to work the fields during the day. In some cases, black teachers, who were working the cotton fields also needed flexible teaching schedules. This valuing of teacher’s needs was very important to achieving its mission. When teachers’ needs are met, they are most likely able to be better teachers and reflect upon what was working and not working in their classrooms Freedom Summer curriculum mission was to, “challenge the students’” curiosity about the world, introduce them to this particularly “Negro” cultural background, and teach them basic literacy skills in one integrated problem. What did it mean then to challenge students’ curiosity? Mississippi’s students for so many years lived and learned in a culture that did not present them any opportunity to hope for a better life or to fulfill their own dreams. Transforming the lives of Mississippians was the

130 heart of Forman’s prospectus. Black voters were disenfranchised in the South. Racist policies and practices created a climate of intimidation and fear for blacks trying to register to vote, thus, SNCC members realized a need to create a project that would promote blacks political power. The success of SNCC’s organizational skills attracted the attention of several established black organizations. During the fall of 1963, NAACP, CORE, SCLC and other organizations banded together in 1962 and formed the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). Bob Moses, then 31 years old and a Harvard educated man was chosen to be its director. Moses began with getting out the vote initiatives in the South and specifically, Mississippi where the number of new voter registrations numbers were very low. In the fall of 1963, COFO began an ambitious voting rights project for the following summer, that would later be called, Mississippi Freedom Summer. This campaign would involve hundreds of student volunteers across the nation to come down to Mississippi to help encourage registration. As a reaction to the hundreds of new, young students coming down to Jackson, Mississippi in April 1964, local whites reacted by conducting massive cross burnings and other scare tactics to intimidate the students and thus, hindering the movement. The city’s major, Allen Thompson, encouraged by the white citizens, to increase the police workforce and increase the number of shotguns and armored personnel tanks. Furthermore, the State of Mississippi declared martial law. From these series of events, it became evident that student volunteers needed a safe place to gather and to learn how to protect themselves against the violent attacks of the white Mississippians and the city and state police. Several Northern cities were considered as safe sites for these students to gather, but it was the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio that eventually became SNCC’s Freedom Summer training site. This training was scheduled to last from June 1964 until 800 students returned home or returned back to their colleges in the North when September came. The most famous story that has come out of Freedom Summer was the deaths of three volunteers who were killed by police in Neshoba County: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. These three men left Oxford, Ohio on June 21st responding to a message of a church bombing in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The

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news of their deaths hit Freedom Summers students hard, but only a few decided to leave for home. They were committed to the cause of educating disenfranchised Mississippians. The three dead bodies would later be found in a shallow lake in Philadelphia, MI and would stir a national outcry that eventually reached the desk of President Johnson. Later that summer, Johnson was forced to sign the Civil Rights Acts of 1964. Miami University philosophy professor, Dr. Rick Momeyer was a volunteer at Freedom Summer in June 1964. He has been a fighter for social justice ever since attending Fisk University in the 1960’s. Momeyer was joined by several hundreds of other white and black participants who were committed to fighting for social justice. Miami University’s Western Campus hosted the 40th anniversary of Freedom Summer in September 2004. Many of the original Freedom Summer participants returned to share their stories and insights of what it meant to embark upon making real change in the lives of Mississippians. As oral historian on this project, I learned firsthand that the passion they had then, still lived on forty years later. Many claimed that they continued to live a life committed to social justice. In addition, many interviewees cried when re- telling their stories about the inspirational words of Bob Moses; learning about the deaths of the three Freedom Summer participants; and the awesome experience of facing and addressing racism by putting your life on the line. These stories are in Western Campus’s archives. Chris Gray (Gray, 2005), a reporter for the Cincinnati City Beat newspaper, interviewed Momeyer and asked him questions concerning his role in Freedom Summer, the deaths of the three volunteers, and Freedom Summer in general. Momeyer’s comments:

Rick Momeyer: Moses told us that, “In Mississippi, civil rights workers didn’t just go missing and reappear days later. Our brothers were killed by the KKK and we should deal with it.” Any romantic notions about helping Negroes were disabused. Any idea that their privilege would protect them was erased….Few had any real understanding

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of how life was like for blacks in Mississippi…We showed them [trainers at Western Campus] to protect themselves, to fold up, cover their head, neck and genitals. And we showed them the importance of non-violence, both tactically and philosophically…

It [Freedom Summer experience] shapes your sensibility about your country, about how people live, about what’s fighting for… It was a success because it helped President Johnson to sign the and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And Freedom Schools helped reach out to a lot of black Mississippians and let them in on what went on outside of Mississippi. Rep. Lewis is the living saint of the movement, proof that you can survive worse than what I survived and still believe in democracy.

Community Engagement Programs

SNCC’s community engagement projects are exemplar models for institutions of higher learning community engagement programs. Freedom school’s curriculum showed that educating people was a community endeavor and that everyone should participate. They were also inclusive. SNCC realized that poor, white people were coming to their schools and wanting to be empowered as well. They responded by including a white community’s component. It addressed not only the educational and economic needs of whites, but their culture. From these integrated programs, interdisciplinary subjects, and political perspective, it indicates that Freedom Schools were doing radical, critical pedagogy work.

The Arts: Though the community centers program is primarily educational, some of each center’s resources would be used to provide much-needed recreational facilities for the Negro community. In most communities in Mississippi the only recreation

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outside of 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., pen-pal clubs, organized sports (where equipment allows), and occasional special performances by outside entertainers, such as folk festivals, jazz concerts, etc.; organized storytelling for young children will be entertaining, and will introduce them to the resources of the center’s library and to reading for pleasure in general.

Community Centers: The community centers program projects a network of community centers across 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 social service provisions of the State, but will form a dynamic focus for the development of community organization. The educational features of 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 nutrition, etc.

Research Project—A number of summer workers will devote themselves to research on the economic and political life of

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Mississippi. Some of this work can be done outside the state, but much will need resources which can be found only in Mississippi. In addition, a number of people will be asked to live in white communities to survey attitudes and record reactions to summer happenings.

Legal Projects—A team of lawyers and at least 100 law students are expected to come to Mississippi to launch a massive legal offensive against the official tyranny of the State of students will be dispersed to projects around the State to serve as legal advisers to voter registration workers and to local people.

White Communities—Until now, there has been no systematic attempt by people interested in the elimination of hate and bigotry to work within the white communities of the Deep South. It is the intention of the Mississippi Summer Projects to do just that. In the past year, a significant number of Southern white students have been drawn into the movement. Using students form upper Southern states such as Tennessee, and occasionally native Mississippians, SNCC hopes to develop programs within Mississippi’s white community. These programs will deal directly with the problems of the white people.

Analysis

Forman’s Prospectus, reflects Freire’s (2003) conscientization process. These programs created educational opportunities for learners to move toward critical consciousness. This process is the heart of liberatory education. The process of conscientization involves identifying contradictions in experience through dialogue and becoming part of the process of changing the world. Forman incorporates segments of

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society that were places and practices of oppression in black Mississippians history and were at times, overlooked by the usual means of direct-action and boycotting. Forman’s strategy was to engage these areas as places of investigation, transformation.

Freedom School community centers promoted the recreational

and educational needs of black citizens. White community centers were off limits to blacks. Swimming pools and other recreational centers were segregated (see side photo). When, and if, blacks did swam in these pools, they would be vigorously chased away. In some instances, chlorine bleach would be thrown into the water while the young, black kids’ swam. In addition in the recreational services, Freedom School centers major purpose was educational. In these centers, reading and writing skills were taught to young and adult students. Furthermore, social issues were provided: family support systems, pre-natal services and young mother’s training. Black culture was appreciated. Black community artists found a welcome home and a receptive place to share their art in these community centers. Centers were also places for community meetings were groups would discuss issues that directly affected the community. Freedom Summer’s staff also addressed the needs for supporting community research programs. Adult workers devoted themselves to the economic and political life of the community. Some of these researchers were asked to live in the community to gain access to the attitudes and reactions to Freedom Summer. White volunteers would be asked to live in white communities to learn what whites’ felt about the summer project. Forman argues that a majority of poor whites were excluded in voting booths as well. Poor whites contributed to the high poverty levels in Mississippi along with many blacks. SNCC’s white students were sent to these poor whites neighborhoods to improve their social and economic conditions. Community centers today are receptive to community education programs. Years before I earned an education degree, my neighborhood community center

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opened its doors to a storytelling/drama program I created for kids. There, I used stories as a method of promoting students’ creativity and critical thinking. The center provided learning opportunities for teacher and student. By allowing adults in the community to share their knowledge with children, it promoted agency and learning for both teacher and student. This learning experience was very empowering to me as well as the students I taught and eventually I enrolled in college. The students’ appreciation for learning and their knowledge of how stories and storytelling can be use to promote their creativity and oratory skills were increased. Today, under the direction of Marion Wright Edelman, the new Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools (CDF) is waging a strong comeback. CDF’s schools are growing in number across the United States with the help of an aggressive teacher leadership training program. According to CDF”s literature, the mission is “To create supportive, nurturing, literature-rich environments that set high expectations for all children, through a focus on literacy, cultural heritage, parental involvement, servant leadership, and social action.” In addition to supporting children, CDF has a strong community empowerment program. Its goal is to empower the black community by building bridges between families and creating mentoring programs.

Mississippi Freedom Theatre Project

Forman’s Prospectus included The Theater Project—Sponsored by the Tougaloo Drama Department. The use of the arts and drama played critical roles in valuing the learners’ experiences and engaging in critical social issues. With the introduction of SNCC’s theatre, this indicates that the theatre project was a literal performance strategy meant to inspire people to act. This theatre may have been designed to utilize performance as a social project. Forman continues: This summer will also mark the beginning of a repertory theater in Jackson, Mississippi. The actors will be Negro Mississippians; the plays will dramatize the experience of the Negro in Mississippi and in America; the stage will be the churches, community centers and

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fields of rural Mississippi. Using the theater as an instrument of education as well as a source of entertainment, a new area of protest will be opened. From this project, John O’Neal, and others headed this section and name it the Free Southern Theatre. Freedom School workshops strategies were designed to help white and black recruits to survive intimidation and fear tactics while working and teaching students in Mississippi. These workshops were similar to role-playing techniques. Below is a list of self-defense strategies suggested for recruits to use while in Mississippi and Bob Moses and others would lead these workshops. (See archive I) 1. Beware of cars without tags. 2. Never be the last the leave a meeting or go out alone. 3. Keep your ears tuned for car accelerators outside. 4. Watch out for cops without badges. 5. If you are awakened suddenly thinking there is danger, wake everyone up. 6. Need to know the specific details of conditions where you will be living.

Mississippi Freedom Theatre taught techniques of survival such as playing dumb with law officers. If stopped by an officer, SNCC workers were taught to play dumb to what the officer might say. They should not provoke the police officer with clever comments during the interrogation. King (1987) argues, “If you are stopped by police, don’t resist; go to jail” (p. 373). According to SNCC historical archives, there were several role playing and scenario themes that SNCC instructors would employ to promote volunteers understanding what they might expect going working in Mississippi’s oppressive society. (See Appendix H). Below are the actual scenarios used during Freedom Summer training sessions.

The Cell (Four persons, white, same sex) A white civil rights worker is thrown into a cell with three ardent segregationalists. As the jailer opened the cell, he identifies the civil rights

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worker to the inmates—“Got some company for you fellas, one of those Northern nigger-loving agitators. Now treat him nice.” Police Harassment (Seven persons, white and Negro, male and female) Two state troopers stop a carload of five civil rights workers for speeding on a little used highway. (Variation: one of the troopers notices a white girl sitting with a Negro boy on the back seat and proceeds to drag the Negro worker out of the car and beat him to “remind him of how we expect our niggers to act.” The Guest (Seven persons, white and Negro, male and female) A white civil rights worker who is staying with a Mississippi Negro family receives an anonymous note or phone call warning him that unless he clears out of town by midnight, the family will be attached and the house burned to the ground. Variation: A white civil rights worker and the family are having a late supper and a brick is thrown through the window with the message mentioned above (remind him of how we expect our niggers to act). The father of the family immediately jumps from the table and goes to get his shotgun.

Canvassing (Five persons, white and Negro, male and female) An integrated team of civil rights workers visit a Negro home to try to persuade the adults of the family to register to vote. Variation: While the team is talking with the family, the plantation owner arrives on the scene with a shotgun. Other possible situations: Suggested non-violent counter-offenses to particular tragic incidents such as the disappearance of the three workers near Philadelphia, Mississippi. a. An encounter with two white Mississippi students (Member of ATTACK)

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b. An ambush of three civil rights workers (two whites and one Negro), in which the Negro is single out and beaten. c. A picket line outside a Federal Court House which is attacked by a group of stone throwing white teenagers (for role playing use dried prunes for rocks).

The Joker

The Joker tenet is reflected in the Freedom Summer Project. Boal places two major roles of the Joker. First, the Joker’s role is to stay out of the drama by positioning herself/himself close to the audience and facilitating questions. The second role is to enter into the drama by suggesting props and other scenarios that problematize the skit. The Joker demonstrates these roles in four ways; staging, analysis, problem posing and discussion leader. The Joker facilitates the scene analysis by moderating the protagonist’s and spect/actor’s suggestions. The Joker promotes dialogue within the audience by creating a line of questioning that encourages the protagonist to consider the outcome of his or her actions. The Joker might ask: If you do that, then what could you expect the antagonist to do? Or, does the action you just took transform the oppressive situation to a more empowering space? The objective is not to frighten actors into submission or inactivity, but provide alternative ways to do something about an oppressive situation. The skits utilized the facilitator’s skills to lead the process. Moses, as the Joker, taught teachers how to lead those scenarios. Freedom Summer’s Joker seems to have been Bob Moses. If there was a single person who made the most indelible mark on SNCC’s social transformation project it would be Moses. Moses has been credited to being a figure in making SNCC was it was; a promoter of self-directed leadership, community collaboration and personal empowerment. His understanding of people and their innate leadership skills enabled him to inspire hundreds of volunteers to doing remarkable work in Mississippi.

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Clayborne Carson (2000) quoting Moses writes: Leadership is in the people…You don’t have to worry about that. You don’t have to worry about where your leaders are, how you are we going to get some leaders. The leadership is there. If you go out and work with your people, then the leadership will emerge…We don’t know who they are; we don’t need to know. But the leadership will emerge from the movement that emerges. (p. 303) What was it about Moses’ background that formed his world view and mission to join the struggle against racial injustice? Moses was born in 1935 in a Harlem housing project where he experienced firsthand the anguish of poverty and discrimination. He watched the first Greensboro sit-in on television while in college and was inspired by it. Moses asserts, “Seeing it opened up a whole new world. Before that, I knew nothing about the South…My image of the southern Negro was fearful, cringing. But the faces of these kids were sullen, determined, and I knew this was relevant to my life” (Jansen & Hammerback, 2000, p. 1). Moses’ commitment to life-long civil rights activism began when he visited his uncle at Hampton University. Moses (Burner, 1994) writes: I had a feeling of release. From the first time a Negro gets involved in white society, he goes through the business of repressing, repressing, and repressing. My whole reaction through life to such humiliation was to avoid it, keep it down, hold it in, play it cool. This is the kind of self- repression every Negro builds into himself. But when you do something personally to fight prejudice, there is a feeling of great justice. (p. 18) Moses is often referred to as a soft spoken, quiet and a contemplative man. When he spoke at Freedom Summer’s workshops, everyone hung on every word and although his words were few, they carried much weight and influence on his audiences. Moses’s

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disposition positioned his stance, not above his students, but right besides them -- as if he was learning with them, not just transferring information to them. Moses’s pedagogy reflected critical pedagogical tenets by not promoting curriculum as a product of banking but a process from which dialog and critical thinking is center. Moses’ workshop leading style resembled Boal’s Joker. He learned from his mentor, Ella Baker the importance of asking questions. Moses often asked SNCC participants to be exposed to dangerous situations. But before they would partake in going to a particular area of the city or enter into a confrontational situation, Moses himself would have reviewed the situation. The role of Joker is important because the Joker would have to understand the situation he or she was overseeing in Boal’s theatre. This experience would allow the Joker to ask the necessary questions needed to advance the cause of freedom and justice. SNCC’s maneuvers would have to be critically planned and engaged before they would send the first volunteer in the ‘battle’. The workshop and scenarios previously mentioned in this chapter were led by Moses. Moses, like Ella Baker, engaged the community in critical thinking and probing questions that facilitated the leadership and agency with the participants. Moses remembers the first time he met Baker and the impact she made on him during their years at SNCC and also, how her mentorship influenced his latest project, The Algebra Project. Ella Baker gave Moses her time, attention and direction as he learned how to promote participatory leadership among the Mississippians and volunteer students. Moses (Moses, 2001) writes: Her interest in me is was what struck me; it was in marked contrast to that of Dr. King, who had met with me because of controversy over my involvement with people who were considered radicals. Miss Baker was actually talking to me…Her interest in me, I think was something I needed because reaching out to really probe into personal things isn’t a particularly strong point of mine. This style that was so much a part of her would be important to the future shape of my work and SNCC”s

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work, and is important to the Algebra Project today. (p. 32)

Free Southern Theater

By 1963, the beginning of the was just beginning to take shape when John O’Neal, (no relationship to Bob Moses) and Doris Derby came together (from the Northern states) to “bridge the gap between the political and the poet in the disenfranchised South” (O’Neal, 1968, p. 71). John O’Neal, a Freedom School worker and dramatist realized the need for students to have an opportunity to learn how to become engaged in society, increase their value of what theatre was, and could be in their lives. O’Neal’s theatre reflects the tenets of Freedom Summer Prospectus. O’Neal reflecting upon his reasoning for using theatre in the movement said, “How could we remain true to ourselves and our own concerns as artists and at the same time remain true to our developing recognition of political responsibility?” (p.71). O’Neal’s work appeared to have been part of a growing black arts movement that utilized drama in the freedom struggle and as a way to transform the lives of black people, both in the North and South. Yet, before O’Neal started his theatre, several black artists and directors had already begun doing transformative theatre. No doubt, O’Neal’s work was inspired by the men and women who preceded him. O’Neal and other artists understood how to use history and current events as revolutionary drama to address the black community’s social issues. (See Appendix D) The civil rights movement’s theatrical component was inspired by ’s award winning play of 1959, The Raisin in the Sun, and once again, the use of theatre as a form of social action and protest took center stage. The play’s protagonists were a black family hoping to rise above the limits of poverty and racism. A significant character in the play was a young, black college student challenging the status quo. Another was a black man in his thirties desperate in making his mark in life by owning his own business. The third character was a young, African male whose confidence in the possibilities of life out shadowed the play’s pessimistic leanings.

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Interesting, the antagonist in the play was not a single person or group, but what appeared to be a racist system, faceless, yet however real and powerful. Hansberry’s critical artistic talents were utilized when SNCC asked her to create a written and pictorial book on the civil rights movement. During the 1960’s, black plays and artists made an impact with black people and the ‘movement’ by representing black folks with voice, focus and radicalism. SNCC collaborated with Hansberry by asking her to produce a book that detailed SNCC participants’ struggles and social justice strategies’ through visual and written texts. The book entitled, The Movement (see appendix B), was sold at all SNCC functions for a minimal price for fund raising and public awareness. The only Freedom School and Free Southern Theatre play whose planning and implementation was detailed was The Life and Death of Medgers Evers (Chilcoat and Ligon, 1998). These stories, like many of Freedom Summer’s plays were improvised. Each story and scenario used real or real life situations as the storyline to inform and promote social action. Theatre for SNCC was not designed to entertain or to serve as catharsis for spectators. Each play or skit demanded that participants discuss the issues, engage the work, and find solutions at best or at least, ideas for taking action in the community. According to the Pam Allen papers quoted in Chilcoat and Ligon (1998, p. 523), it appears that it was more important to touch the heart than to depend upon remote learning. They write: The dialog…except for the quotes is indicated or simply outlined as a series of suggested ideas to carry forward the action of the play. Dialog in the type of play should never be considered as words to be studied by heart and repeated by rote. This play form is particularly well-suited to present ideas of actions. My interview with John O’Neal reveals what he thought about the role theatre played in the movement. In his narrative, he discussed the role of the participants, the antagonists and the protagonists. He explains the meaning behind the name “Free” and how its mission was realized in the theatre’s strategies and goals. The following is from the interview that I conducted with O’Neal June 2007. I asked O’Neal how the Free Southern Theatre get started?

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John O’Neal reports: The fact is that we decided to make a theater in 1963 and created the Toogaloo Drama workshop as our first step in that direction in the fall ’63 and while at the same time I was working to build the Free Southern Theater with Gilbert Moses and Doris Kirby. We were all involved in building for the freedom summers in ’64. My particular task during that time as a part of the COFO, counsel of federated organizations; I actually had two jobs one was to work as a part of the adult literacy education program that we had developed at Toogaloo. We were to apply the techniques of program instruction to the teaching and reading and writing. We wanted to create a book that people who couldn’t read could use to learn how to read. The Free Southern Theatre inspired people to become involved in social protests by acting. In this way, performance as social protest was its purpose. O’Neal discussed why people became involved in his theatre. His narrative reveals the radical impulse of the movement and how theatre was created to meet the needs of the participants and the mission of the movement. O’Neal replies: Most of us got involved in FST when people would come South to work and volunteer in the rights movement. Initially that was where we got our people from. In the early stages, most people had other obligations and commitments as well the work to do in the theater… Our efforts to achieve and to support the struggle for a social justice with our own efforts before they transform society to any extent they transform those of us who are trying to do it….

I would say that the impulse of the Mississippi movement was to attack segregation categorically. It was recognized and understood that the institution of segregation in America was a way of not only controlling and managing people in society it was

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an instrument for the; the way it managed people was by attracting egos and social systems. We were encouraged to think of ourselves as incompetent and disabled. It was a comprehensive system. It started at birth and continued beyond the grave. It constantly came down any notion that we were competent and capable of managing and creating effective community and life for ourselves. In order to attend to that our reasoning was that we have to create an entire alternative to the social and political economic system and challenge the whole thing to change. Everything you could think of like education and we attempted to move in that direction for the Freedom Schools…. O’Neal’s theatre was created to be a reflection of the mission and intent of the movement. To be free was important to everyone in the movement. Like Freedom Summer and Freedom School, O’Neal wanted his theatre to reflect the idea of freedom. I also asked O’Neal to address some of the elements in FST’s dramas. O’Neal reports: We meant free as in no charge because we believed that art comes from the stories that people tells and from their stories we processed and gave it back to them so why should you charge for it. We were giving them back what they had given to you. We also said that free from the perspective of free from old racist presumptions. We saw ourselves as radical on all three fronts; economically, artistically and socially.

We not only performed but we encouraged conversation and dialogue either after a performance, and some of the times, we scheduled them in relationship to the performances that we did… It was something about the material we did; the historical play in radicalized America. People are shocked to see that the themes of struggle for liberation for the right, for political representation and the right to be shed of segregation and for economic liberty. All

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these rights are not struggles that have just started but struggles that have been going on for hundreds of years. Well I don’t think of an audience in actor’s term. Actor is a function that the whole process of communication. The biggest thing is not so much of what is said but what is heard. You can’t hear without actively engaging the process and constructing a meaning for yourself from the experience that you’ve had. So I think that’s absolutely valid. That’s why I think that the spec-actor is such a valid insight. It is important to understand that the Free Southern Theatre and its creators knew something about traditional theatre and used some the traditional theatre methods in the social conscious theatre. I asked O’Neal who were the protagonist and antagonist in his plays and the civil rights movement in general. O’Neal asserts: That is the heart of one of the great problems with my mentor, a guy named Ted Ward, James Theodore Ward who is the author of what I believe to be the best play that was written in the English language in the 20th century bar none. That play is Our Land. It’s an historical drama about what happened to the 48 years in the view. I had the good fortune of having Ted for two years as a writer and residence here in with Free Southern Theater. Ted said of this problem is that the problem with the Negro drama, as he referred to it, that is the Negro can never confront his antagonist. The Negro can never confront his antagonist. He said that the little overseer that you confront in the field is not your antagonist he is a victim of the same forces that you are the victim of and so forth. He went on to give numerous examples of this kind of problem. Then, the true antagonist of the Negro is the; and in today’s terms, a hidden overseer, and is one who controls the economies and the politics of the world. Rarely do they change or even expose themselves to the people they oppress. Finding a circumstance in which we can explore this

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relationship in meaningful and realistic human terms and tell stories that permit us to really get a hold of these kinds of conflicts is kind of hard. I have thought about it. The Free Southern Theatre ideology resembled a few of Boal’s theatre and Freire’s critical pedagogy. O’Neal insisted that all participants in the play be active in writing, directing and acting in the various plays. There were few spectators as such, even those individuals that came to see his plays, were introduced to social issues and then solicited to join in on the struggle in one way or another. The settings for his plays were set in real places around town and among black citizens who knew and added insights in the story. Love for the individual was a central component in this theatre. O’Neal asserts, “The artist, to grow, must be nurtured by those who love him. If he loves not wisely, then his love devours him. If his love is wise, then all love’s the better for it….Black artist to be with people who love and can nurture them…There are limits to the black artist, cultural, political, and economic institutions that incorporate the premises of racism” (O’Neal, 1968, p. 72).

Free Southern Theatre’s Vision and Objectives 1. Theatre should be culturally relevant in the lives of blacks in the South. 2. Theatre should be free to all. 3. Play had to connect to the lives of the community in real ways. Those who live the lives must write the plays. 4. Theatre must make the expectation of making the form integral to participants’ cultural experiences. 5. Create cultural educational program called, Community Workshop program. A way to engage the community and share knowledge of social justice education. (O’Neal, 1968, p. 73) SNCC’s educational programs experienced periods of disappointments and failure, and along with FST, were not as successful as they could have been due to institutionalized racism. With all the good that FST accomplished, they had difficulty in raising enough money to keep the vision alive. Fabre (1983) argues, “The FST’s situation epitomizes

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the predicament of most black theatres once the initial help they had received was withdrawn.” Fabre continues, “The conditions under which they worked forced them to forsake artistic perfection, but the growing concern for professionalism made them revert to the criteria of excellence set up by mainstream theatre to a conception of art that they at first strongly rejected” (p. 57). FST went the way of SNCC; what had began as a non-violent social action strategy to combat racism evolved into a more radical approach to claiming freedom in the South and throughout the rest of the country. Today, O’Neal’s FST is still struggling to transform society. His work is based in New Orleans. O’Neal and his theatre company travel around the country as Junebug Productions and continue to inspire and transform society using the arts. Black actors played key roles in the struggle for freedom. Leroi Jones, aka Amri Baraka (1978) a black arts movement director, created an historical docu-drama recapturing the birth of a new theatre from the civil rights activism and the 1960’s and 70’s entitled, The Black Theatre: the making of a movement. I carefully watched the video and transcribed each participant’s narrative. The video begins with Owen Dodson, who, then, was chair of Drama at Howard University from 1940-1970. He was an African American poet of the Harlem Renaissance tradition. James V. Hatch (1980) remarks, "[Dodson] is the product of two parallel forces—the Black experience in America with its folk and urban routes, and a classical humanistic education.” The remaining part of the documentary highlights several black actors and directors discussing how the role drama plays in social justice and personal transformation during the 1960’s.

Dodson: was a “great inspiration” to the black theatre. Also Paul Robson marched with MLK on his “ speech”. Robson had “anticipated wonder” about life during these times. Ossie Davis gives brief history of the black theatre. “The early 1940’s and right after the war, it was good times for blacks in community theatre. 1940-1949. But when the 1950’s started, people were no longer interested in the black people’s theatre. It 149

was the time of the McCarthy hearings and the Cold War. The 1950-159 were the dry years of black theatre.

James Earl Jones Everyone was black but some had white faces. It was a very strong confrontation between the blacks and whites. But the faces were only a metaphor of what really was going on. The real meaning of the play was about the tendency of power to corrupt. Ossie Davis: James Baldwin would come by and lend his support. Black people have a comedy of survival; after all that we have been through as a people we survive. Our comedy is about our miraculous escape; the miraculous escape of black folk. Our comedy is about how we survive over insurmountable odds.

Leroi Jones/Amri Baraka: We realized that later it must focus on a larger audience. In the lower east side black art begun. Art reflected the Black liberation Movement. We did this by presenting plays, music, art and poetry on every corner in parts of NY in the summer of 1965”. Black theatre must be about making sure it is their ideas (the black community) but making it larger than life. You reorganize it and make it their idea which gives it a bigger impact.

Baraka’s Comment on Dutchman 1964: We won the OBIE award but when it made it to uptown, Broadway, then people had problems with it. When you try to reach the people through art instead of these half-drunk middle class then it becomes something else, like a Force! You must organize. Must be a part of community action.

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Baraka’s Comments on Slave Ship: We had to get our people each in the state of mind as when they first were brought here” Slave ship was really a vignette. The next play that really addressed the issue was, The Motion of History. Theatre must serve a revolutionary function. Otherwise, if it does not serve a revolutionary function then it is some kind of little trinket that the rulers of this country can jiggle around their necks as if they have some kind of like culture. Theatre has to serve to transform society. Artist need to know the history of our society very clearly and lay it out in some kind of revolutionary way. I have detailed and analyzed the Leroi Jones’s video’s narratives to highlight how O’Neal’s theatre reflected the ideology of African American social dramas with the spirit and soul of the civil rights era. What I mean by soul is the embodiment of wisdom and knowledge that comes through a person living in and through struggle. In a world that limits the expression of this knowledge by devaluing the experience in academic, social, and political realms, drama and the arts embraces such wisdom and uses it to engage the disenfranchised in concrete ways. For O’Neal and other dramatists, blacks’ bodies and spirits were the vehicle by which an embodied critical pedagogy of understanding oppression informed them with the know-how to overcome and transform it. O’Neal’s theatre and the Black Arts Movement were unique to Boal’s theatre because it brought with it a history of black folks’ oppression and expression.

Freedom Songs as Curriculum

I have included Freedom songs in this section because they were part of SNCC’s curriculum. Music has always been a method of raising consciousness and evoking powerful passions among its singers and

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listeners. African Americans historically have drawn these elements from music and songs in their struggle for freedom. During slavery, Negro spirituals served as guide posts and navigators to the runaway slaves and abolitionists in their quest to reach the Northern states in America and Canada. These songs were sung by slaves in the very presence of their masters without the master knowing anything about the slaves’ plans for running away. Liberation messages were also found in the gospel songs. For example, Heaven meant the North’s free states; Sweet Chariot meant the underground railroad; the Jordan River meant the Ohio River; and the band of angels meant the Northern emancipators, (Rhodes, 2004). Music played a crucial role in mobilizing, inspiring, and informing participants of the mission, vision and goals of the Freedom movement. Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of , a singing group during the SNCC years and beyond brought the movement’s ideology to the masses through song. Johnson, along with several other singers, opened up events and demonstrations with powerful songs that relayed the movement’s messages, vision, objectives and strategies. On the back roads of Mississippi, many black citizens could not read and write. The dilemma for SNCC was to reach people, and in some way, help them understand the meaning of freedom and ways to fight for that freedom. Bernice Johnson Reagon (Muhammad, 2007) asserts, “Organizing is not gentle. When you organize somebody, you create great anxiety in that person because you are telling them to risk everything…When you get together at a mass meeting you sing the songs which symbolize transformation, which make that revolution of courage inside you…you raise a freedom song” (p. 34). The lyrics of these songs represented a collage of several genres of music: Negro spirituals, modern music, some blues, and local traditional music. Having blended these styles together, they created a powerful medium to reach, teach and inspire workers. Over my head, I see freedom in the air. Over my head, I see victory in the air. There must be a God somewhere.

This old Spiritual was brought to the civil rights movement by Rev. in 1962. In this song, antagonist leaders’ names would be inserted as to specify the song

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for a particular region and situation. During the summer of 1962, Abernathy sang this song at an Albany, Georgia de-segregation demonstration. At this demonstration, one thousand black people were arrested. It reads: Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round. Ain’t Gonna Let Nervous Nelly, turn me round. Ain’t Gonna Let Chief Prichett, turn me round. Ain’t Gonna Let Mayor Kelly, turn me round. Ain’t Gonna Let no jail house, turn me round. Ain’t Gonna Let no injunction, turn me round.

SNCC relied upon the voice of Fannie Lou Hamer to reach hundreds of people in the movement. Hamer’s powerful voice was used to sing SNCC’s signature song, This Little Light of Mine. Hamer began belting out this song with the power of an angel and the soul of a gospel singer. Hamer’s painful past inspired her soulful voice. She had undergone several beatings and threats in her struggle for freedom in Mississippi. Her now famous words, I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, was her signature mark that reflected the urgency of getting involved in making real social change. Another song SNCC used in their Freedom Schools was, Keep Your . The lyrics from this song served as informative and inspirational. It prepared the protestors for the future battles that should expect to fight.

We’re going board that big Greyhound, carryin’ love from town to town.

We’re gonna ride for civil rights, we’re gonna ride both black and white.

We’ve met jail and violence too, but God’s love has seen as through.

The We Shall Overcome song was taught by to SNCC participants at a Nashville sit-in in 1960. This song was adapted from a gospel song and was used as a civil rights movement theme song from the first sit-in and for decades to come. A couple of months after Carawan taught this song, the people who had learned the song

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in Nashville, stood up, held hands and began singing at SNCC’s first conference at Shaw University April 1960. This song, along with the whites and blacks holding hands became the signature image of the rights movement (Muhammad, 2007). Miami University music professor, Dr. Tammy Kernodle asserts, “Music inspired, informed, and unified the movement and served as a document to history.” She details the influence of music in several ways: songs reflected the movement’s protest, songs and singing caused conviction and defiance, and songs promoted the stories of the civil rights movement around the nation by serving as historical resources. SNCC’s singers, Charles Nesbett and Bernice Johnson Reagon, sung before and during marches, sit-ins, wade-ins, and the stand-ins. Fannie Lou Hamer a strong voice: Started singing these songs during the social actions: Wade in the water; This little light of mind; Light of freedom; Lord, Come By Here (aka, Kum Ba Ya, My Lord); Bull Conner’s name and comments were injected in many of the songs.

Analysis

When we consider the role that SNCC played in altering the landscape of the Deep South, we can say that it did make a significant difference. SNCC began with the direct actions of four men with the first sit-in and within a few months, thousands of young men and women, both black and white descended upon Mississippi to work toward voter registration. The sacrifice these students paid with their lives, time, and talent can only be compared to the passion and dedication it took for them to continue the fight in the face of danger and opposition. SNCC’s organization grew to include other projects that addressed more than just sitting down at lunch counters. These projects challenged the political, educational, and social institutions that prohibited blacks their constitutional rights and basic social privileges enjoyed by whites. Forman’s Freedom Summer Prospectus reflected the idea of a community engagement framework that involves the support from several resources in the community to help improve the conditions of minorities and other disenfranchised groups. The specific

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ways in which SNCC’s social dramas reflected Theatre of the Oppressed tenets were primarily their use of critical pedagogical strategies. Freedom Summer reflected critical pedagogy (Freire, 1974) in several ways: dialog, banking, conscientization, and liberatory education. Voter registration and education projects were the primary and most politically focused aspect of the Freedom Schools. Forman’s Prospectus reflects Freire’s (2003) conscientization process. These programs created educational opportunities for learners to move toward critical consciousness. SNCC’s process of conscientization involved identifying contradictions in experience through dialogue and becoming part of the process of changing the world. This process was the heart of SNCC’s liberatory education. In Boal’s theatre, the tenets of having the role of the Joker promote this kind of conscientization are important. There are two major roles of the Joker. First, the Joker’s role is to stay out of the drama by positioning herself/himself close to the audience and facilitating questions. The second role is to enter into the drama by suggesting props and other scenarios that problematize the skit. The Joker promotes dialogue within the audience by creating a line of questioning that encourages the protagonist to consider the outcome of his or her actions. Moses’ pedagogy reflected critical pedagogical tenets by not promoting curriculum as a product of banking but a process from which dialog and critical thinking is center. Moses’ workshop leading style resembled Boal’s Joker. He learned from his mentor, Ella Baker the importance of asking questions. Moses often asked SNCC participants to be exposed to dangerous situations. But before they would partake in going to a particular area of the city or enter into a confrontational situation, Moses himself would have reviewed the situation. The role of Joker is important because the Joker would have to understand the situation he or she was overseeing in Boal’s theatre. The dilemma for SNCC was to reach people and in some way, help them to understand the meaning of freedom and the ways in which to fight for that freedom. Moses, like Ella Baker, engaged the community in critical thinking and probing questions that facilitated the leadership and agency with the participants.

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The specific ways in which SNCC’s social dramas differed or were unique to Theatre of the Oppressed were that they utilized the unique history, cultural values and experiences of the participants. This was important because SNCC’s leadership respected the participants’ voices and experiences and incorporated their experiences into the policies and practices of Freedom Summer Prospectus. The participants connected better with the educators because the educators understood the students’ issues and concerns. Boal’s participants’ seemed to come from the same homogenous group. In contrast with Boal’s actors, SNCC’s protagonists and antagonists were more than theoretical; they actually brought together people who were from different social and cultural backgrounds and perspectives. Race relations within SNCC’s camp were not the main focus of this dissertation, but I did address race as it reflected the protagonist/antagonist theme of the study. According to several SNCC participants’ narratives, both black and white, it appeared that there were major racial tensions between them. These tensions strained the working relationships between the races and may have facilitated the unset of the Black Power Movement. Race relations also played a positive role on an individual level. The protagonist and antagonist roles played by SNCC participants promoted personal reflections. When confronted with the opposite race in tense situations, participants realized their own unconscious racist and prejudice feelings and were forced to address their own issues. What we can learn from this is that doing social justice work is risky business. Social justice workers must be able to manage their own feelings and be honest with where they are in the process of promoting racial equality with individuals and in organizations. Women in the movement had a particularly difficult time. In addition to being treated with the same physical terrorism as the men, the women faced sexual harassment; even the possibility of being raped. What can we learn from this study that informs the way in which educators and administrators working in schools and community centers with disenfranchised groups and more specifically, black students, work more effectively? James Forman argued that everyday citizens must be engaged in the process for Mississippians’ social transformation. Forman’s vision for transformative education was extensive—involving

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many people of all levels, talents, expertise and abilities coming together to make change in Mississippi’s communities. While SNCC workers, both black and white, believed that they were there to help blacks Mississippians, they discovered in the process, that they were working out their own liberation. This information informs educators today as we seek for effective ways to transform the lives of our students, that we are also transformed by learning from the experiences of the students and community. While gaining an understanding of this relationship between black Mississippians and white volunteers and citizens, I learned two important ideas that I feel are important to discuss. First, I originally thought that the protagonists were SNCC workers and the disenfranchised were black Mississippians. I also thought that the antagonists were the white police - Bull Conner, George Wallace, and the business owners that supported segregated policies and practices. As a result of this study, I learned that the protagonists and antagonists were not what one would think that they would be. The protagonists are not always the underdog; for the underdog is at times, its own antagonist. The antagonists were not the white people SNCC workers came in contact with at the lunch counters or protest lines. According to Ted Ward’s narrative, the real antagonist of racism and oppression never shows itself outright; Negroes never really face their antagonists. He argues that “We need to find a circumstance in which we can explore this relationship in meaningful and realistic human terms and tell stories that permit us to really get a hold of these kinds of conflicts.” How did SNCC volunteers respond to these scenarios? How did these scenarios reflect Boal’s protagonist/Antagonist tenets? In addition to the role playing, they were educated about Ghandian non-violent theory. Freedom Summer tactics embodied a non-violent philosophical framework. Grant (1968) citing , writes, “Non violence is neither a mere tactic, which may be dropped on any occasion nor an inviolable spiritual commitment. It is somewhere between the two – not a philosophy, not a tactic, but a strategy involving both philosophical and tactical elements, in a widening direct action campaign to redeem the American promise of full freedom for the Negro” (p. 378). It was important to SNCC field secretaries and teachers to teach

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non-violent philosophy, democracy, personal and collective agency in ways that Mississippi could grasp and execute. Although many SNCC volunteers underwent the non-violent training, not all SNCC volunteers subscribed to the non-violent tactics. Many were agnostic, non-violent people who preferred to withdrawal from the front lines rather than take any physical abuse. Instead, they were given practical training. One SNCC participant narrative explained practical training in this way: We staged one situation, a screaming mob lining the steps to the courthouse while a small band of registrants tried to get through. The inevitable happened….the chanting mob (instructed to be as brutal as possible, and to pull no punches) turned into a clawing, pounding mob, and we volunteer registrants were down in our crouched-up ball. Casualties? A couple of scratches, a sprained ankle, and one cameraman who got swept up was a little bit shaken…We’ve got to be ready for anything, and we must prepare for it ourselves. Once we get South we are non-violent…Some of the staff members walk around carrying sections of hose. This strangely terrible training in brutality may well save lives. Non-violent tactics did not attract everyone who served in the movement. SNCC organizers soon realized that and designed training that best fit their philosophical perspective without diminishing the goal or the organization. The non-violent volunteers were not required to perform social protests on the front line of attack. There was plenty to do besides walking the gauntlet of white retaliation. Mailings, phone calls, teaching in classrooms and other duties were available for those who did not want to face violence without having the option to fight back. What does this suggest to educational leaders who lead people with different educational philosophies and political perspectives? I believe that a program is at its best when a variety of perspectives are heard and valued. There is no one way to design a radical, critical pedagogy program. Educators need to ask, What is the kind of work that needs to be done? What type of individual do we have that best fits the

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task? Whether the educational institution is a school building, a community learning center or a university, educators must have their hand on the organization’s pulse or soul. This knowing is crucial because it helps educators to best design a program that creates and maintains the life and health of the learning program. Once SNCC volunteers completed the training in Oxford, Ohio, they returned back to work in Mississippi. Many brought with them some doubt and fear about what they were to encounter once they began organizing in the South. The role-playing they practiced in Oxford helped these participants to be prepared for the conditions they would face in Mississippi. Black and white volunteers felt differently about their roles in the movement. King (1987) explained, “Some white staff members felt threatened; it meant that their specialness would be gone” (p.369). Some black members of the staff were frightened that they might lose control or that the delicate balance between the white minority and black majority on the staff might be undermined. Some feared the unknown consequences of working with the uninitiated. Others feared the motives of the new volunteers, while another group feared that their lives and others would be lost. The antagonist in SNCC’s scenarios reflected the real ones in the lives of black Mississippian. These antagonists in the role playing were the police, angry white citizens, blacks that did not support the movement, local leaders, and fear. Not all black people were supportive of the movement. Role playing afforded the participants a safe opportunity to confront these groups via staged situations so that they could confront their fear and discover new ways to create change in a particular situation. Role playing was also counterintuitive. Protagonist and antagonist roles surfaced several feelings and behaviors that black and white volunteers hadn’t expected and were reluctant to acknowledge. SNCC found that they were fighting racist and prejudice tendencies within the camp, as well as in the community they served. suggests that volunteers were forced to examine their own unconscious prejudices. Quoting Sally Belfrage, a white volunteer, Carson (1995) writes: We could have stayed home and gone to the beach, or earned the money…for the next summer at old Northern White”-[whites] felt

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that they deserved some recognition, even praise…”I want to be your friend, you black idiot”, was the contradiction, evident everywhere. (p. 133) SNCC’s strategies were not only successful in revealing the hidden racist tendencies of the participants; they resulted in elevating black pride within the organization and community. Blacks started to feel that they no longer needed the support of whites, who were becoming increasingly terse. This new black pride atmosphere became the source of the rift that was beginning to take shape. Belfrage (Carson, 1995) reports: “SNCC is not populated with Toms who would wish to be white. They are not the ones who fill closets with bleaches and strengtheners, who lead compromise existences between reality and illusion” (p. 113). While SNCC workers, both black and white, believed that they were in Mississippi to help empower others, they discovered in the process that they simultaneously, were working out their own liberation. Black Mississippians’ had to face the onslaught of white retaliators to obtain their freedom. Some whites believed that these people (SNCC volunteers) were causing more harm than good. Retaliation from white employers would occur when SNCC would show up in their community. These white employers and landlords threatened black employees and renters that they believed supported the movement in anyway. Some of these intimidators were several white groups in the South that fought against every initiative SNCC created. Groups such as the and a rogue group of young white boys or hoods, as they were called, caused trouble with many SNCC workers. Other antagonist players were the racist politicians, the police department’s leadership, the rank and file, and finally, many, but not all, white citizens. Cars would be vandalized, people mugged and even death were the conditions SNCC workers had to face. Freedom Summer was conceived by several people in 1963: Bob Moses, a field secretary for SNCC and a New York city teacher, Allard Lowenstein, a white civil rights activist, and two local Mississippians and SNCC volunteers, Lawrence Guyot and Fannie Lou Hamer. Guyot, was a young black man and a recent graduate from Tougaloo, College and Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper who had been thrown off a cotton

160 plantation for attempting to register to vote. In addition to these key players creating Freedom Summer, there were a few hundred other young people, both black and white actively engaged in making a difference in the South. They had heard about the work of civil rights activist for the past few years and wanted an opportunity to act upon their desired to make a difference in the world. Freedom Summer and the Free Southern Theatre’s social action training reflected Theatre of the Oppressed and Critical Pedagogy tenets in several ways. Theatre of the Oppressed’s objective is to teach participants how to transform themselves and become social agents in transforming their community. Freedom Schools and the Free Southern Theatre’s role-playing and scenarios created opportunities for participants to perfect non-violent social action, learn about the system of racial oppression and engage in community transformation. Spectator/Actor tenets are reflected in Freedom Summer Project. They were able to bring people together from all over the country, with different backgrounds and races to fight against racism and teach fundamentals to black people in Mississippi. A main tenet of Boal’s theatre was to inspire people to move from spectators of life into active participants for social change. Thanks to the media, America’s awareness of the social and political plight of the South increased. The media well documented SNCC’s social dramas on television telling the story of everyday people who had moved from being spectators to actors.

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CHAPTER SIX

A man who confronts radical problems and articulates radical solutions, a man who transcends we-groups and out-groups, whose loyalties, are to a group beyond groups, a man whose kingdom, so to speak, is not of this world-a man, in short, who is free.25

Overview of the Research

In this final chapter, I pull together a few conclusions of the study and implications for critical pedagogues working with African American students. I argue the need for a more culturally responsive critical pedagogy by reflecting upon the transformative work done through SNCC’s freedom acts. SNCC leaders and participants were more successful in transforming society than most political and legislative tacticians of their day because they promoted: a social justice project, practiced participatory leadership, and integrated a culturally specific curriculum and pedagogy in their work. SNCC’s freedom acts were individually and collectively transformative, reflective of Theatre of the Oppressed, and provided educators with a model that can be used today as a framework for promoting critical pedagogy in the African American community. Unlike other historical analyses of the civil rights movement, and in particular SNCC, which focus on historical events as the object of study, my focus was to examine the specific ways in which SNCC’s freedom acts were similar to and also uniquely different from Theatre of the Oppressed tenets. These freedom acts involved men and women acting out strategies to promote equality for blacks in the American South, and by promoting equality they revealed their own humanity, as Freire and Boal would argue.

25 Lerone Bennett, Jr. The Negro Mood (1964). Page 96. 162

Based upon the results of this study, I argue that educators can create a culturally responsive critical pedagogy by incorporating two elements into their critical pedagogical praxis. The first measure is to add a culturally relevant, interdisciplinary study into the curriculum that includes African American history, drama and music. The second measure is to add a social justice project that struggles against oppressive systems that exploit poor and disenfranchised blacks. Educators who include interdisciplinary studies and a social justice project transfer knowledge from what critical work is to how critical work is implemented. Effective educators shift their knowledge of critical pedagogical tenets to methods for empowering and engaging African American students and other disenfranchised students. A curriculum that includes history, drama, music, and a social justice project can be a vehicle for transitioning critical pedagogy tenets into practice. If students feel that their interests and concerns are important to teachers, then their learning experience is more meaningful, class participation is increased, and students’ empowerment are realized. This dissertation was an historical analysis of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s three strategies for social justice: Sit-ins, Freedom Summer, and the Free Southern Theatre. SNCC, a student-led social movement, was established February 1, 1960, with the first sit-in and is considered by many historians as the catalyst for social change during the civil rights movement that increased voting registration, civic engagement, and individual and collective transformation. Franklin McCain, David Richmond, Ezell Blair Jr., and Joseph McNeil who initiated the sit-ins were also known as the Greensboro four. Their direct actions are credited to have launched the civil rights movement from political gradualization26 tactics to non-violent direct actions. Changing the social structure of the South was a daunting task for SNCC participants. The participants realized that while they were attempting to eliminate the social and economic disparities of the people, they also had to promote black agency and voice that up until then, was silent. Furthermore, SNCC field secretaries were

26 A sociological term used to define the process of social change as a deliberate, yet slow process toward change. Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote, "The tranquilizing drug of gradualization can get in the way." 163

committed to fulfilling the organization’s mission for political clarity, unity, and the determination to construct a more democratic society. SNCC’s founders were able to transform their society because they envisioned a society, not as it was, but the possibility of what society was designed to be. They were willing to move beyond the theoretical ideals of freedom and social change to actually doing something about the problems; such as creating educational programs that began at the grass roots level. They understood that it took a collaborative effort that included residents, educators, higher education leaders and community leaders to bring about change. SNCC’s vision led the activist to strive for political, economic, social and educational progress by; sitting at lunch counters, riding Freedom buses, and creating Freedom Summer. SNCC’s vision was brought into fruition by conducting these social dramas and by gathering support from diverse communities. This study may inform educators working in disenfranchised communities to create a social justice project that utilizes the dramatic arts as a strategy for transformation and dramatic artists as its educators. Like SNCC’s activists, educators also struggle against and also with the oppressive policies and practices of the education field. While critical pedagogy helps students and teachers work together more effectively, there still remains the need to incorporate new ways of teaching by connecting with multi-racial and cultural groups. To be effective, educators must implement a social vision that seeks to understand the complexities of schooling and educating disenfranchised groups. Critical pedagogues seek to gain a greater understanding of their work as social reformers by implementing a social justice project outside the classroom. Freire (1998) argues, “No one constructs a serious democracy, which implies radically changing the societal structures, reorienting the politics of production and development, reinventing power, and abolishing the unjust and immoral gains of the all-powerful, without previously and simultaneously working for these democratic preferences and these ethical demands” (p. 66). Educators employing social justice work outside the class room become fellow laborers in the struggle with SNCC activists and therefore are not exempt from being overwhelmed in fulfilling their role as social change agents. Teachers who share SNCC

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founders’ vision as change agents would wholeheartedly transform their society because they too envision the possibilities of what could be. According to Pinar (2004): To become truly progressive, progressivism must articulate a social vision. The field no longer sees the problems of curriculum and teaching as technical problems, that is problems of how to. The contemporary field regards the problems of curriculum teaching as ‘why’ problems. Such a view requires that we understand what was before considered only something to be solved. Now the contemporary field is hardly against solving problems, but the view today is that solutions to problems do not just require knee jerk, commonsensical responses, but careful, thoughtful, disciplined understanding. (p. 127) Careful, thoughtful, disciplined understanding comes by being open to new ways of doing old things. It involves valuing other perspectives, voices, and communities that heretofore have not been acknowledged or respected. In the Implementation section of this chapter, I elaborate further on how this knowledge can best be put to practical use for students, teachers, and other educational leaders by addressing the question; What can we learn from studying SNCC’s social dramas through Theatre of the Oppressed lens that can provide us with a conceptual framework to make critical pedagogy more culturally specific?

SNCC Reflecting Critical Pedagogy

The major inquiry of this study is a response to the research question guiding the study which was, in what ways is the work of SNCC an example of Critical Pedagogy engaged by a disenfranchised population? As a sub-question, in what ways do SNCC’s social dramas reflect Theatre of the Oppressed techniques? In this section, I argue that SNCC’s freedom acts were: reflective of Theatre of the Oppressed and Pedagogy of the Oppressed tenets and were uniquely different from Theatre of the Oppressed. I also

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discuss its successes and limitations in promoting social change. In general, SNCC’s freedom acts exhibited critical pedagogical practices by helping the oppressed and the oppressor reach conscientization27 (Freire, 1996), valuing dialogue, and providing opportunities for the oppressor and the oppressed to gain a greater understanding of oppression through carefully questioning every aspect of society.

Freedom Acts: Reflects Theatre of the Oppressed

SNCC participants seemed to have played both the spectator and actor roles during the sit-ins. Spectator/Actors had the opportunity to both act on social issues and to observe others’ social actions. They engaged in self-empowering processes of dialogue that helped to foster critical thinking. The Spec/Actor represents everyone in the audience. Boal’s theatre challenges life’s spectators to engage in the transformation of their own lives. The spectator assumes the protagonist role, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions, discusses plans, and trains him/herself for real action. Text analyses on these narratives have revealed that SNCC students rehearsed protagonist types of roles before conducting their non-violent social dramas in the real world. Included in these scenarios were the antagonist roles. Images and text analyses of the civil rights movement also suggested that white policemen and angry white onlookers reflected the antagonists’ role by performing aggressive and violent acts. The role of antagonist and protagonist were practiced interchangeably; blacks playing the antagonist and white playing the protagonist. In these role plays, black participants learned how to protect themselves against violent acts perpetrated upon them. They were taught to remain calm and to resist fighting back. If they were arrested, they were taught non-violent protection tactics to protect their faces, heads and other vital body parts. While blacks learned how to protect themselves against violence, whites gained an understanding of how oppressive it is to be the oppressor. Playing the antagonist role helped SNCC participants to realize that being human was to value the humanness

27 The process of the oppressed eliminating the dominant culture negative influences and discovering their own thoughts and values. 166 in others. White students found it very difficult to play such a role because of how it made them feel. Leaders reminded the white participants that that feeling they were experiencing was how the oppressor feels oppression. The protagonist and antagonist roles helped to liberate the actors. The Joker’s role also created situations where SNCC’s participants played both the protagonists and antagonists roles in the struggle for freedom. Role playing often consisted of whites against blacks and vice versa. Imagine, a white person being treated as black and a black person acting like the oppressor. Ella Baker and John Lewis’s contributions are very important to understanding the role of the Joker. Baker and Lewis reflect critical pedagogical practices as their roles as teachers, mentors and facilitators. Moses reflected critical pedagogy by listening, asking questions and allowing the participants to exercise their agency. Baker, as the elder of the movement, represented a moral authority. She was respected because of the respect she gave to everyone else. Respect between teachers and students may begin at the teacher’s level. Teachers must respect each student’s individuality, talents and shortcomings. Showing respect fosters trust with students and they in return, respect teachers and begin to reveal their fears. The most profound element I discovered in this research that effected individual and collective transformation is fear. Subsequently, fear is at the root of an education problem, creating a faulty curriculum and pedagogy. For many of the black Mississippians who participated in SNCC’s freedom acts, their dramatic poses and stances were rooted in an experientially obtained knowledge of the racial issues in the South. These dramatic poses and stances were a form of conscious intervention. Nick Crossley (2005) referring to Merleau-Ponty’s concept of conscious intervention argues, “We act, qua bodies, in a meaningful and purposeful way without the intervention of reflective thoughts and often with a form of knowledge or understanding that is not consciously available to us” (p. 18). SNCC’s black actors did not have to learn a script or be directed on what it felt like to be oppressed. These actors lived all their lives under Jim Crow and acted out of this experience. In many cases, these experienced, grass root actors taught white college student volunteers the oppressed and oppressor’s roles in social dramas.

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Critical pedagogues can learn from their students via conscious intervention strategies in the classroom. Conscious intervention has the potential to reflect critical pedagogy because what is learned though these strategies values students’ experiences and informs teachers’ work. It also enhances the dialogue and reflection in the classroom. Students bring with them to school a wealth of knowledge and understanding on how they can best be taught. They just need a teacher who can bypass the elite-ness of being ‘an educator’ to meet the student where he or she is. And at that place, bond, find common ground, and move toward the goal of liberation. A free student is free in thought and in action. Many of the actions students express in schools come out of this conscious intervention mode. Under the direction of a trained teacher, students have the opportunity to stop and reflect upon the reasoning behind their actions and the results of such actions. I believe that educators using Boal’s theatre tenets (Spect/Actor, Antagonist/Protagonist, and the Joker) combined with an understanding of conscious intervention may best be prepared to utilize students’ lived experiences as the impetus for their individual transformation. SNCC’s freedom acts addressed the indoctrination of Mississippi’s racist ideology and practices that purported that blacks were inferior to whites. SNCC’s educators took a radical approach with many of the residents there by exposing the faulty reasoning of the indoctrination. These approaches consisted of the social dramas that showed blacks that they were human and should be granted the respect as being human. Many of the posters of the day read, “I am a man” am “I am a person.” Later in the movement, people would shout out, “I am somebody.” These affirmations were reflections of SNCC’s social justice work. In today’s society, when this indoctrination becomes imbedded within the consciousness of minority students, it requires an aggressive, radical educational strategy to root out its hold on the student’s mind. Pinar (2002) argues, “Not until African Americans, via political education, can repudiate this internalization, can education proceed” (p. 365). Education must address the student at the individual level; where the student hides behind his or her fears.

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SNCC’s participants realized that they themselves were at times the antagonists in the struggle for freedom. This realization was the most transformative part of the project because it effected change at the individual level. SNCC’s participants’ narratives reveal that they were personally transformed by participating in the movement and gained a sense of pride by seeing so many other blacks participating in the democratic process of voting and challenging the long held culture of Jim Crow. White students returned back to their schools in the North and continued to do social justice work. Many others joined the Peace Corps and were advocates of the poor and disenfranchised around the world. One anonymous student wrote concerning her personal transformation: We want the world to know that we no longer accept the inferior position of second-class citizenship. We are willing to go to jail, be ridiculed, spat upon and even suffer physical violence to obtain First Class Citizenship. This account suggests students’ attitudinal and behavioral changes a result of working with SNCC. Black students’ felt more empowered thus transforming their thinking from being considered an inferior person to being capable and fully human. White students’ reflected upon their positions of privilege and gained a greater understanding of how the system of inequality affects everyone. They learned that privilege has its shortcomings and responsibilities. They were forced to face white guilt in a way that revealed their own racial biases and stereotypes. Personal growth emerged from the individual’s self-reflections when he or she had to confront their own racists’ behaviors and attitudes. Many participants did not know that these attitudes and beliefs existed until they were put in situations that tested them beyond their usual limits. Another way in which SNCC’ freedom acts reflected Theatre of the Oppressed was collaboration. Doing transformative work takes the cooperation of many people in solidarity with one another. The civil rights movement sparked a sense of the collective within the black community, and in part, it started to build a sense of the collective between white volunteers.

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Congressman John Lewis asserts: We never got tired or weary and never become bitter or hostile. We had to keep the faith and we had to keep our eyes on the prize. We had to stay focused. We had to be prepared for a long struggle. Lewis’s accounts suggest that transformation does not happen without struggle and sometimes pain. He constantly refers to “we.” This suggests that SNCC was a collective movement. They valued participatory democracy and shunned charismatic leadership. Transformation extended beyond the personal to the collective. This bonding across cultures is transformative. Educators must find ways to create such cross-cultural pedagogies that include diverse cultures, perspectives, and are reflective of Freire’s critical pedagogy objectives.

Freedom Acts: Uniquely different from Theatre of the Oppressed

SNCC’s freedom acts are also uniquely different from Theatre of the Oppressed. SNCC’s freedom acts differ in four ways. First, unlike Boal’s work in America that teachers colleges students and professors the techniques, SNCC participants were the actual oppressed people of Mississippi. SNCC’s field secretaries went to the back roads of Mississippi and compelled people to learn and join in. Also, young students from Mississippi’s high schools and even younger joined in on the protests. Moreover, Boal’s work in American uses primarily college campuses and other establishments to conduct their workshops and forums. SNCC’s stages on the other hand were the actual places of oppression and not college campuses’ multi-purpose rooms. SNCC’ participants used life’s real stage to conduct its protests. In some cases, demonstrations were held at bombed buildings and other places where violence had occurred. SNCC’s social dramas had a sense of urgency which was acted out in direct response to the day-to- day oppressive climate of the South. In contrast, Boal’s workshops and training throughout the United States, involved college students and professors playing the protagonist and antagonist roles. Although there is a growing participation of

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community based participation at Boal’s American workshops, many front line or grass root people do not attend the Theatre of the Oppressed. These workshops are expensive and because of the cost, eliminate poor people. Secondly, unlike Boal’s work that does not utilize the media and music in the role playing, SNCC capitalized on the role of the media and music in expanding the scope of the stage and the number of participants recruited. The media and music also served as a form of education and instruction. Many of the rural Mississippians were illiterate and by writing lyrics that had SNCC’s mission and course of action in songs was a valuable medium to spread the word and to teach these ideals. The media’ print and visual texts showed SNCC’s freedom acts as staged radical performances to the world. Music also played a major role in stirring up the emotions of the movement. The use of emotions in education work should be explored further to understand the role emotions play in teaching students. The third way in which SNCC’s freedom acts were unique to Theatre of the Oppressed was the opportunity it gave the participants to gain a greater insight into who the oppressor was and how to fight against it. John O’Neal, the Free Southern Theatre director writes: Our efforts to achieve and to support the struggle for social justice with our own efforts, before they transform society to any extent, they [must first] transform those of us who are trying to do it…. Understanding the role of the oppressed and oppressor was important to SNCC. This transformative, experiential learning opportunity enabled SNCC participants to stay focused on the goal of social change. O’Neal’s theatre was able to make some inroads into his vision of transformation at the individual and collective levels. He attributes theatre and the use of social dramas as the impetus for SNCC’s leadership staying on focus. This may suggest to educators that doing transformative work is as, or even more important, than just writing about it. I also argue that critical educators must first reflect upon their own personal biases before doing critical or radical pedagogical work. Using methods found from this study,

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teacher education programs can incorporate a kind of social dramatic lesson that may help future educators discover how they unconsciously feel about the populations of students they may serve. This training should go above and beyond the traditional educational philosophy paper required by most schools of education. In addition to understanding the oppressor’s or antagonist role at the personal level, SNCC participants’ soon realized that the aggressive policemen, angry white citizens, or racist businessmen were not the oppressors on the hidden level. These hidden oppressors in the freedom movement were the social and economic power structures that exploited poor whites and blacks. John O’Neal said the problem with the Negro drama, as he referred to it, is that,” The Negro can never confront his antagonist; the Negro can never confront his antagonist”. He said that the “little overseer” that you confront in the field is not your antagonist. He is a victim of the same forces that you are the victim of. They revealed that rarely does the oppressor change his or her ways, neither do the hidden oppressor expose themselves to the public. The oppressors were not the white police force, Bull Conner, George Wallace, or the business owners that supported segregated policies and practices. Therefore, we now know that the true oppressor of the oppressed in today’s terms is what might be called the hidden oppressor; the one who controls the economies and the politics of the world. Challenging this oppressor takes more than direct action and demonstrations. This hidden oppressor must be brought out of hiding by other more sophisticated means. The Greek word for wisdom is Sophia, which is the root word of sophisticated. Educators’ work should involve sophisticated methods to create circumstances in which we can explore how to expose the hidden oppressor in our educational system. I argue that critical educators working in the educational system with marginalized groups must realize the factors that hinder their progress are not necessarily the lack of school resources or aged school buildings, but an educational economic system that values profit over student progress and oppression over freedom. Understanding what hinders progressive programs in schools is the beginning of moving from stagnation to motivation.

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And finally, SNCC’s Freedom School was uniquely different from Theatre of the Oppressed ideals in their academic curriculum. Freedom Schools taught academic skill; reading, writing and math. Promoting the academic skills of poor, black, Mississippians were important to SNCC educators because they believed that academic skills were important transforming the lives of students. They knew that in order for the black Mississippians to gain access to society, they had to understand basic language and math skills. Students performing well in school were not considered a reflection of the dominant culture’s standards, but necessary criteria for self-actualization and transformation. Freedom Schools also taught blacks skills: beautician, cooking, sewing, and other local skills needed in the area. Some members of SNCC disagreed with the liberal discourse that suggested that blacks should not have to learn a skill or trade. SNCC’s educators believed that it advantaged students’ economic capacity to be able to earn a living and by learning a skilled trade, helped to support their basic needs for food, shelter and the able to find a job.

Freedom Acts: Success and Limitations

Many historians (Parker 1994, Carson 1981, Ransby 2005, & McMillan 1977) agree that Freedom Summer’s mission was successful in its effort to move SNCC’s political protest to community mobilizing by increasing voting registration levels significantly and facilitating citizens’ political awareness. Freedom Schools exceeded its expectation. It originally projected an enrollment of 1,000 students; instead, about 2,500 attended classes in 47 sites around Mississippi (Parker, 1994). Parker argues, “Freedom School teachers opened up their classrooms to the free expression of ideas and taught innovative, non-traditional subjects like black culture and history, creative writing and drama, as well as reading and writing” (p. 15). Freedom school organizers credited the curriculum with helping students to overcome racial distrust and fear and broadening the perspectives of Mississippi’s black youth. Voter registration was increased by thousands, and today, Mississippi has several black elected officials. There has been resurgence in the interest of establishing new Freedom Schools. Marion

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Wright Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund have opened a few schools across the country, with the hope of establishing more. The media’s role in broadcasting and critiquing protests was established then and is now an expected component in social and political analyses. The spirit of freedom and social transformation spread throughout the country like wildfire after Freedom Summer. Volunteers were said to have been transformed personally and were also given a framework to transform the community. Many participants returned back home and were inspired to continue the freedom work in their respective communities in the Northern cities and universities. Mario Savio, a Freedom Summer volunteer later became leader of the Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkley. President John Kennedy is believed to have established the Peace Corps and VISTA by recognizing the work SNCC conducted in the South. Archival sources reveal that SNCC leaders contacted Senator John F. Kennedy for support early in the 1960’s. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Voting Acts of 1964 and 1965 because of the work done and lives lost from SNCC’s participants’ freedom acts. And lastly, protesters around the world have been inspired by SNCC participants, courageous physicality, and performative actions as expressed in the sit-ins, stand-ins, and pray-ins. There is a debate among historians whether Freedom Summer was a success or a failure. Some historians suggest that Freedom Summer was not as successful as it could have been due to the reports from some of the participants that they lived in a “state of unrelieved terror” (Parke, 1994, p. 5). There was a major backlash of white violence and police harassment against SNCC volunteers and black residents in Mississippi’s counties and in many of these counties, blacks were feeling the pain from this back lash. For example, Mary King (1987) argues that Neshoba County was the site of many other bombings, beatings, shootings, and missing black bodies and the site of the three civil rights murders of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner. SNCC’s participants’ continual struggle against violence took its toll. When the non-violent SNCC eventually dissolved in 1966, some said that it was due to burn-out of being terrorized for so long. SNCC workers were just worn out. Stokely Carmichael would assumed power in late 1966 and changed SNCC to a Black Power movement. Black

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Mississippians still lag behind in social and economic levels. Racism and its damaging effects have not been eradicated from Mississippi. Daniel Perlman (1999) argues that by the end of Freedom Summer, many schools struggled to operate in the South and have never created another educational program on the scale as it once was. One reason is that many of the teachers who participated in the Freedom Schools were white college students from the North and had gone back home at the end of the summer. Mississippi schools were left without the expertise of experienced educators. SNCC did not promote any long lasting teacher education programs for qualified black teachers, and therefore, any person desiring to teach in the rural schools, did not receive the necessary training to be qualified teachers. Secondly, activists were beginning to be weary and suspicious of white outsiders and wanted blacks to serve the role of mentor, model and teacher. White SNCC workers outnumbered the black participants and black volunteers discovered that black Mississippi students were admiring the white worker as the great white hope. This was counterintuitive to the mission of the movement; inhibiting black agency and transformation. According to Perlman (1999): The decline of the Mississippi Freedom Schools reflects the limits that circumscribed SNCC’s vision of politics and the pedagogy it fostered. The promotion of self-discovery only made sense when the movement gave students shaped by oppression the capacity and courage to see the oppressive aspects of their lives and an outlet through which to enact their political insights. With SNCC’s growing sense that inequity and oppression were integral elements of American society, activists could no longer conceive of a liberatory pedagogy growing out of students’ American experiences (324). SNCC’s work dissipated in ways that are similar to other socially progressive movements because they were not aware of the realities that hindered or derailed their progress. Sitting at lunch counters and attending white schools did not change the social and racial inequities of the South; it only pacified the oppressed for a season. Educators valuing black culture in critical and radical pedagogies also need to be aware of the

175 realities of doing critical or radical education work. Educators must be aware that the change they seek cannot be found in superficial and temporary measures such as implementing a black history program or sponsoring a hip hop talent show. Nor should educators underestimate the abilities of black students or placate them by allowing them to get away with self-destructing behaviors.

Implications for Critical Pedagogy

How might the results of this study inform critical pedagogy educators today? For this last section, my intent is to provide some insight on how educators can put this knowledge to practical use for students, teachers, and other educational leaders. I argue for a radical approach to improving critical pedagogy by using the information obtained from this study in concert with Giroux’s radical education agenda. Educators should be cognizant of students’ oppressive experiences and provide them with an outlet to enact political action. We could use a curriculum that builds relationships with students, teachers and the community. Having a radical educational perspective may prevent marginalized students from being devalued in the classroom and may also help the social and economic conditions these students must live in. According to Giroux (1992): Radical education doesn’t refer to a discipline or a body of knowledge. It suggests a particular kind of practice and a particular posture of questioning received institutions and received assumptions. We can distinguish three traits: radical education is interdisciplinary in nature, it questions the fundamental categories of all disciplines, and it has a public mission of making society more democratic…The principal reason why radical education as a field is so exciting; we can take ideas and apply them. (p. 10) In this next section, I connect the insights I have gained from this study with Giroux’s line of questioning that may help educators understand how schooling and education can be made more receptive to poor, working class and other disenfranchised

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groups. I have also included some specific examples of how radical pedagogy might be engaged in the community by drawing upon my own work.

Giroux (1992, p. 12) suggests that educators should consider four questions prior to creating a radical education agenda. They are: 1) How does one come to self-understanding? 2) How does one situate oneself in history? 3) How do we relate questions of knowledge to power? 4) How do we understand the limitations of our institutions, or even our age?

How does one come to self-understanding?

Educators need to create teaching and learning environments that foster students’ understanding of self. Most disenfranchised groups must challenge and overcome the dominant culture’s influence and grand narratives of what is socially and educationally accepted and expected from them. SNCC members’ stories of oppression and subsequent agency, linked with critical pedagogical practices, may help educators gain a greater understanding of how to create curriculums that provide learners’ with the opportunities to experience individual transformation. SNCC’s freedom acts provide several possible implications for critical pedagogues desiring to include students’ cultural and experiences in the classroom. Carlson (1998) argues that there needs to be an effort to link personal stories to broader and more generalized contexts of meanings. A significant number of African American educators (traditional and non-traditional) were involved in the educational process. This is important for contemporary educators committed to transformative pedagogy because it suggests that schools can utilize the community members as valued participants in educating their students. SNCC’s participants’ understanding and knowledge of teaching and learning came from each other and the community of Mississippians’ who’s lived experiences of oppression and disenfranchisement created a type of organic knowledge of a curriculum of freedom.

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Some of SNCC’s members had earned high school diplomas and others were enrolled in college. Although the majority of SNCC’s members were people who were not traditionally educated, these individuals reflected a form of intellect that was developed out of the struggles that they had endured. It was from this lived experience and the specialized training from social dramas that SNCC participants acquired unique ways to promote individual and collective transformation that differed from traditional education methods. Parents and community members can serve as mentors, material for after school programs and approved, teacher assistants. Studies suggests that student learn better when the teachers reflect the race and culture of their students, (Milner, 2006). Coming to self-understanding begins with understanding your culture and that knowledge helps students understanding of themselves. SNCC used drama, storytelling, and the arts as transformative curriculum. It is important to have students understand the role storytelling plays in their transformation. Teachers should value students’ creative and artistic abilities and use these abilities in the curriculum design. As an example of helping students come to self-understanding, I have conducted a form of Theatre of the Oppressed’s Forum Theatre with two Miami University professors, Michael Dantley and Ray Terrell. Dantley and Terrell worked with students and teachers from the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Middletown areas on future teacher preparation and leadership development programs. My task was to use theatre as a way to help students understand the obstacles they face which hinder them in achieving their goals. Students responded enthusiastically to each role-playing and dramatization. The highlights of these dramas were that some students understood for the first time why they disliked school and the factors that affected their success. They also understood more clearly their reality and how to best utilize their agency to gain success in school.

How does one situate oneself in history?

Educators need to understand the role of history from a perspective that does not idealize the past, but employs the past to create students’ present and future

178 possibilities. Understanding where we are in history as educators is important; we cannot re-create the conditions of the past but can only learn from them. We have learned from this study how important it was for SNCC’s organizers to understand and value the participants’ cultural and social history. SNCC educators provided the new participants with a list of required reading (appendix). Cash’s, 1941 book, was on SNCC’s required reading list for new SNCC members. The information in this book informed SNCC”s volunteers from the Northern states to the politics, mindset and culture of the Deep South. Cornel West (1994), argues that understanding both the social and historical analyses of black culture and the dominant cultures’ economic and political structures are important. These analyses provide us with a framework to understand the total structures behind the black condition in America today. Educators must learn the historical influences of oppression on their students. They must also understand the current social conditions and provide their students with the resources they need to succeed in the future. Studies have shown that black students need to know more about their historical past and the contributions blacks have made to US history to gain agency in class. Over the last 15 years, there is a growing movement toward including African American history into the curriculums of both black and white schools. Black history museums have spread throughout the country, a countless number of books on black history have been recently published, in 2008, the Smithsonian created Freedom Sisters traveling exhibit, and Tavis Smiley, a black journalist, has created a national database of African American history and exhibit (www.americaiam.org). What does this say about the times in which we live? Why now, has black history become an important part of our nation’s mission to educate all of its citizens? I believe that when we value the contributions of all of our nation’s citizens it reflects the democratic values we strive to espouse. There are obvious advantages to learning African American history, yet Robert Hardy Jr. (1998), a Cornell University professor of African American history, cautions educators that history has its place in transforming black students today. According the Hardy, there are dangers in teaching African American history in schools as a nostalgic project rather than a project that is relevant for students today. Most African American

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students today do not live in the same nucleus black neighborhood as their predecessors of the 1950’s and 1960’s, and therefore have different cultural experiences. Hardy suggests that African American history be taught through an appropriate medium between two lenses. These two lenses are the balance between African American history solely on its contributions without a critique on the dominant culture and where African American is situated within the current discourse. Hardy (1998) writes: The dilemma for teaching African American history is how to select an appropriate medium; in other words, which lens to use at what times, for understanding the African American past. For too long, we examined African Americans through the lens of the dominant society and in the process imposed interpretations on their thoughts and activities that muted black voices and misconstrued their actions. More recently, we have focused the lens on African Americans but have lost sight of the dominant society. We understand a lot more about black people, their travails and triumphs, but we do not understand as much about the context within which they have struggled for racial equality. (p. 3) In addition to situating oneself in history, it is important to understand where we are as educators in history and use all of the available technology and resources at our disposal to help us create the change needed in our schools and communities. Julian Bond, SNCC communications director, knew the importance of creating an intensive communications plan. His plan informed SNCC’s membership on the details of the several projects that they were hosting. It also created a message for the general public. In one way, the message solicited empathy from the public for the social activists, and in another way, the same message solicited public outrage against the white oppressors. SNCC’s communication plan involved using the media, music, simple publications and word of mouth to broadcast the organization’s messages. These grass roots strategies attracted thousands of young people around the country to get

180 involved. Historically, the world today has entered into the age of communication and information. How might educators’ position in history best utilize technology to promote radical pedagogy with their students? Young people over the years are reportedly becoming more interested in making the world a better place. I believe that the youth of today feel that the social, educational and economic disparities of our society are due to part to the lack of a social agenda that addresses the poor and underclass. There is one way we can help eliminate some of this disparity. Today, our society is inundated with the media. Blogs, MySpace and YouTube have become our latest web based community centers. I believe that the future of society rests with the visions and hopes of our youth. We need to find creative ways to inspire this generation of young teachers in becoming social change agents. Radical educators can use these methods to network with young people to engage in social activism and serious dialogue. Educators using more technology in their curriculum and pedagogies beyond the classrooms and into the community and society at large, create ways that values the history and culture of the student. It is important to remember technology is useful as long as it promotes active learning and that the learning impacts the individual and society in transformative ways. As an example of using drama in the community, I was involved with the Cincinnati Museum Center’s Freedom Sisters exhibit. This traveling exhibit features 20 African American women and their role in the struggle for freedom in America. Having an understanding of my role in history and being a recipient of their sacrifice, I was able to use my knowledge and experience in storytelling to help construct the opening dialogue to the exhibit. In addition, I played several historical roles of the females in the exhibit to area teachers. The historical roles I played of Fannie Lou and Ella Baker brought the significance to their contribution to history to life. I believe that community educators reach areas of the community that traditional educators do not. This example shows us the need for more community involvement in cultural and social projects.

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How do we relate questions of knowledge to power?

Giroux (1992) argues, “Pedagogy is always related to power. In fact, educational theories, like any philosophy, are ideologies that have an intimate relation to questions of power. So learning must be linked not just to learning in the schools but extended to shaping public life and social relationships” (p. 18). Freedom School’s educators seem to practice a culturally responsive pedagogy. They valued the process of education more than the products of schooling. SNCC demonstrated through their freedom acts that they subscribed to a philosophy and ideology that questioned power. We learned from this study that SNCC’s freedom acts were created to educate blacks about the idea of power and how blacks could claim the power that was denied them. SNCC’s greatest challenge behind the freedom acts was to challenge the power structures of the South, which included: racism, classism and ignorance. SNCC educators also had to educate blacks by informing them of the overt and covert forms of oppression they had been subjected to for years. Up until then, blacks learned to survive discrimination by avoiding ‘making trouble.’ True, many blacks resisted racism during the years of slavery up until the days of SNCC, but it wasn’t until the Greensboro four sat at the Woolworth’s lunch counter that masses of blacks protested throughout the South and around the country. Educators must finds ways to understand knowledge to power, as Giroux suggests by being open to creating places where students and teachers feel free to have discussions that deconstruct the issues concerning power. In conjunction with critical dialogue, educators must include a social justice project that seeks to deconstruct power that oppresses the students and the community from which they came from. Ira Short (1996) argues in When Students Have Power, “Power is a learning problem and learning is a power problem” (p. x). Boal’s belief in the transformative power of drama was forged out of his work among poor people in Brazil during the 1960’s. Boal developed Theatre of the Oppressed during the 50’s and 60’s as participatory theatre for the purposes of transforming theatre from a monologue of traditional performance into a dialogue between the audience and the actors on stage.

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Theatre of the Oppressed has the potential to utilize critical pedagogy objectives, provide a more productive space for the oppressed voice to be heard and an arena teachers and students to collaborate with social change work outside the classroom. A significant number of young people, possessed by a strong desire to challenge the status quo were successful in making inroads in helping to educate Mississippians. Critical pedagogy combined with a dramaturgical pedagogy maybe one way to transition knowledge into action. If students are to gain agency in classrooms, then scholars must take their critical theories and pedagogies out of the halls of the university and into public spheres. Educators can take radical pedagogical ideas out into these public spheres of learning. These public spheres maybe the local school, a community center, or a theatre for social change. Working with people in the community is the start of doing transformative work. Collaboration builds power by employing a diverse group of stakeholders in the process of educating the students and serving the community. The educational and social strategies SNCC’s leaders employed involved serving both young and old student populations. The inner city and rural areas need pedagogies that serve the interests of young students and the families that raise them. A pedagogy that serves the community and family has the whole community in mind. Serving the parents in these communities benefits the family, school and society. Having a diverse group of workers that reflects the diversity of talent, social and economic levels, and ethnicity will bring a broad perspective of ideas and critical thinking to the planning and implementation phases of the school’s curriculum. The issue of power was addressed during one of the Forum Theatre sessions I conducted with students and teachers. Each participant was asked to think about a time in which they felt powerless in the classroom. They were asked to write the experience and their feelings down on paper. Then they were asked to demonstrate with their body, and not in words what happened. They were directed to show what they felt about the situation and provide some actions on how they would address the dilemma. These workshops proved beneficial for the participants. Teachers and students often felt disempowered by the same bureaucratic policies and practices that each other

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faced. Students and teachers began to understand that they were part of a team working together for the success of both student and teacher. Discussions followed. In the end, teachers and students vowed to work together.

How do we understand the limitations of our institutions, or even our age?

Educators need to understand the limitations of our institutions, or even our age. An institution’s principles and core values can serve as a compass for critical and radical pedagogical departments. Values and visions are only effective if they are implemented. Reflecting upon the effectiveness of an institution’s core values depends upon to what extent does the institution adheres to them. SNCC‘s leadership valued students’ enthusiasm and ideals for social change and incorporated them into Freedom Summer’s curriculum and pedagogy. They taught these freedom ideals to the volunteer teachers. They created a participatory leadership training program around those principles. SNCC’s leadership also welcomed the support from local high school students and higher education leaders. High school students were eager to participate, and because of their enthusiasm, were able to inspire their parents. Higher education institutions realized that they had the responsibility and opportunity to fulfill their mission by promoting democracy and social justice on their campus and in the local community. An example of this from the study was Bennett’s president, Dr. Wilma Player in 1960, when she came to aid of the Greensboro four. Player’s role was to help these four young men get organized. She spent time with them and listened to their concerns. As president of Bennett College (Greensboro, North Carolina), she was able to support the young, social movement by defending them with detractors and by soliciting the support of Bennett’s faculty. She also provided mentorship and some financial support. Player writes about her support to SNCC as a college president: We went back to the purpose of a liberal arts college, and in defining those and what the girls were doing. We decided that they were carrying on the tenets of what a liberal education was all about-freedom of expression, living up to your ideals, building a quality of life in the

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community that was acceptable to all, respect for human dignity and personality. It was recognition of values that applied to all persons as equals, and all persons who deserved a chance in a democratic society to express their beliefs. Institutions must create a vision that understands the social and cultural concerns of the community from which they serve. Mathews (1996) offers a couple suggestions on how educational institutions can fulfill it social and civic responsibility. The first one is to find a means to link learning and community life through the design of the curriculum. The second one is that educational institutions can serve as a center and resource for community building on the community’s terms. The institution must continually ask themselves: What are they doing to help its students, its faculty, its staff and the citizens of the communities it serves to learn how to make informed choices together, an essential skill of civic responsibility and a core competence of a civil society? Radical workers dare to spread the power and responsibility to those that don’t matriculate at the university, but may live in the community. When universities clearly state their vision and live by them, they attract support and future students to the campus. An example in this can be found at Miami University’s Educational Leadership Department (EDL)28. In 1998, the EDL department crafted 16 guiding principles that describe the department's core values. The department’s values as listed on its webpage states, “School leadership is an intellectual, moral and craft practice, and that transformation leadership entails a commitment to equity and social justice, critical thinking, and the forging of collaborative links between educational institutions and communities.” These 16 principles and core values have served as a compass for new students and faculty members seeking to learn and serve in an environment that supports their educational philosophy for critical and transformative pedagogy and practices. I came to this university because I was inspired by reading its values on the web. As a student, I have tried to adhere to its tenets during my time here and have applied those ideals to my research and educational philosophy. Any institution that truly desires to do critical

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pedagogy work should have something in writing to reflect its values and must make sure they are held accountable to living out those ideas.

Final Thoughts

Such a task, in part, suggests addressing the crucial pedagogical challenge of educating individuals and groups as social actors while refusing to allow them to be portrayed simply as victims. Now is the time to act now because the stakes have been as high as the future is dark. Henry Giroux

This project is in part, a response to Giroux’s call to act. I read these words over four years ago and have been inspired ever since to act now on making radical changes with myself first, and then, in my community. SNCC’s story has some interesting revelations to tell us about teaching, performance, curriculum and scripting that may help educators transform their work into radical pedagogy. We now know that educational props and propaganda do not work, at least in the long haul. Educators perform on schools’, college campuses’ and other community sites’ stages. Our performance is rated by surveys, questionnaires and students’ achievement scores. And, at best, we are judged well. These educational stages supply educator/actors with the familiar props and propaganda teaching scripts that we have so easily learned; line by line. Our audience, either willing or forced, come to play the student’s role that they have been coached into performing. There are very few curtain calls and standing ovations waiting for us at the end of the school year. Instead, most of us, find resolution in the fact that, we did our best and we’ll give it a try next year. From the outside looking in, blacks saw whites enjoying the privilege of sitting at lunch counters, attending theatres, swimming in pools, and attending better schools. They believed if only they too could have the opportunity to enjoy these rights and privileges then it would make all things equal. Using Ella Baker’s words, “we need to

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seek more than just a hamburger”, suggests that black people’s most formidable opponents were the set of values and beliefs that were behind the oppressive practices. Metaphorically, many of those material things only served as props. Yet, blacks thought if they possessed those props, it would force the oppressors to treat them more humanely. The props and propaganda in our society’s education system are: New school buildings and books, hi-tech learning labs, and learner friendly classrooms. These are great to have, but if we don’t address the real reasons why black students and other disenfranchised groups have historically failed in our American education system, then we are disillusioning them and ourselves. Education leaders need to create an atmosphere in schools and hopefully the community that promotes our and our student’s imagination. Schools need to create more community engagement programs that foster positive working relationships between itself and the community it serves. Educators need to move outside the walls of schools and collaborate with community educators and leaders with programs that uplift, inspire and educate the community. SNCC’s freedom acts have served as a testament to what can be achieved by only a few people with a passion for social change and the courage to just do it. The results of this study can inform several disciplines whose purposes are to do transformative work. In the field of education, we have the greatest opportunity to reach people where they are in their thinking and to help them work through the difficult task of becoming more human, loving, learning, and free. The impact that SNCC left in American history and the field of transformative education will last for as long as other people are willing to pick up the torch of freedom and carrying it on.

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Imagine the Possibilities

Imagine a pedagogy that inspires students to dream again.

Imagine a pedagogy that is centered within an historical context of the struggle for freedom, hope and empowerment.

Imagine pedagogy where educators, community workers and parents connect with students in such a way that each child knows that he or she is supported and loved at school, home, and in the community.

Imagine a pedagogy that sets educators free to think and do critical work without hindrances.

I imagine myself, in it all and through it all; Making a difference

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Participation and Informed Consent

Dear ______,

My name is Rhonda Gilliam-Smith, and I am working on my doctoral dissertation in the Department of Educational Leadership at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I am contacting you to invite you to participate in a taped, telephone interview research project that will document your participation in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). I am particularly interested in your reflections of the strategies, mission, and purposes SNCC and how SNCC played an important role in the social and political emancipation of Mississippians and other Southern citizens during the period 1960-1965. Through your interview, I hope to enrich the historical record that may benefit from your insight and historical memory.

The recorded telephone interview will last approximately minutes. I will conduct the interview with you, while a telephone recorder will be utilized to record our conversation. The questions asked will pertain to your participation with SNCC, Freedom Summer and Freedom Schools. I will arrange to talk with you at a time that is convenient for you.

If you agree to participate in this study, you have the right not to answer any of the questions and you have the right to stop the interview at anytime, all without penalty. Please be advised that you will be identified by name in this research project and thus the public will connect their remarks to you. A written transcript of your interview will be sent to you. You will then have the right to review your remarks and be allowed to makes changes before sending the transcripts back to me.

Thank you for your participation. We are very grateful for your help and hope that this will be an interesting session for you. You are free to contact the Office of the Advancement of Research and Scholarship (513) 529-3734 or [email protected] for questions about your rights as subject. If you have any further questions about the study, please contact Rhonda Gilliam-Smith at (513) 559-1280 or [email protected]

I agree to participate in the doctorial study SNCC and the Freedom Movement. I understand my participation is voluntary and that my name will be associated with my responses.

Participant’s signature ______

Date ______

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Historical Archives Libraries and Sites

Below are the places and data gathered from each site. 1. Alabama A. Birmingham: Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. 2. North Carolina A. Greensboro: International Civil Rights Museum. B. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference. C. Raleigh: Shaw University, Ella Baker Archives. Home of the first SNCC Conference in April 1960. 3. Mississippi A. Hattiesburg: University of Southern Mississippi. McCain Library and Archives 1. Zeman Freedom Summer Collection a. Collection number, M320, Bx, F6 77 b. Collection number, M320, B1, F7, 10 c. Collection number, M320, B1, F9, 44 d. Collection number, M390, B2, F10, 52 e. Collection number, M390, B1, F6, 13 2. Student Non-Violent Coordination Committee a. 1959-1972 Microfile 3. George W. Chilcoat & Jerry A. Ligon a. Collection number, M382, B1, F7 10 b. Collection number, M382, Bx, F4 29 c. Eileen Barnes Collection Personal Accounts d. Ellin Collection i. Personal Correspondence Series

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4. Tennessee A. Memphis: Martin Luther King and Research Center. B. New Market: Highlander School, Research and Education Center. a. Attended Highlander School’s 75th Anniversary. 5. New York, New York A. New York Public Library: Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts. B. Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture. 1. SNCC papers a. Ruth Schein Collection: Mississippi Freedom Summer. Project Collection. 2. The Freedomways Magazine Archive Collection. a. History of Freedomways Magazine. b. New York Times media coverage of SNCC activities in the South during the early 1960’s. 6. Oxford, Ohio A. Miami University: Western College Memorial Archives

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