Mississippi Goddamn Fighting for Freedom in the Belly of the Beast of Southern Racism
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excluded from the centers of power in society and in civil rights politics could stand up and be heard. Her fundamental commitment to a demo- cratic vision and inclusive political practice was not based on a feminist perspective per se, but unconsciously, Baker had laid a foundation for subsequent black and white radical feminist work. MISSISSIPPI GODDAMN FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST OF SOUTHERN RACISM Alabama's gotten me so upset Tennessee made me lose my rest And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddamn. Nina Simone, 1963 During the tumultuous and decisive years of the early 1960s, SNCC played a leading role in the Black Freedom Movement in Mississippi. Young field organizers put the principles that Ella Baker had taught them into practice by working alongside poor and working-class black people in rural commu- nities where white supremacy had seemed impossible to challenge. As a result, the organizers found themselves at the center of a mass uprising that overturned old stereotypes of downtrodden, passive, and terrorized black folk. Americans outside the South, both white and black, became aware of Mississippi Freedom Summer, the grassroots voting rights cam- paign conducted in 1964, only after the revelation that three young work- ers had been ambushed and brutally murdered by segregationists. By risk- ing their lives for justice in the face of vigilante violence, SNCC'S organizers experienced profound change in their lives, but they were sustained by the example of many black people in Mississippi for whom facing such risks had long been the price of defending their dignity. In Freedom Schools that were founded on the radically democratic pedagogy that Baker espoused and exemplified within SNCC, organizers taught literacy skills and aca- demic subjects to young blacks and, in turn, learned about the underlying 298 INDIGENOUS SOUTHERN BLACK LEADERSHIP economic structures of white supremacy from their students. Discovering national stage in 1964 as Mississippi Freedom Summer grew out of years of the enormous power of people acting together to confront injustice and less publicized, but no less arduous, work throughout the state. inequality, SNCC volunteers and staff felt reassured of the vision that had Ella Baker's contacts with grassroots activists in Mississippi stretched drawn them to the organization. back for decades, and she kept in close touch with her friends and allies One of the critical organizing principles that Ella Baker taught, and SNCC there even when her work centered on other places. As SNCC sought to absorbed, was the meaning of self-determination in the context of grass- extend its organizing efforts into rural and small-town communities across roots organizing in the South. For Baker, this principle was not an exclu- the South, Baker turned to veteran activists in Mississippi to teach a new sively racial proposition, as it was often deployed, but simply the demo- crop of organizers about mobilizing the masses of people to confront the cratic idea that an oppressed group, class, or community had the right to power of southern elites. determine the nature of the fight to end its oppression. Such self-control of the movement's leadership by those it purported to represent was essential in Baker's view. Most of SNCC'S Mississippi work in the summer of 1964 was AMZIE AND RUTH MOORE carried out under the auspices of a loose coalition called the Council of Amzie and Ruth Moore were SNCC'S first real contacts in Mississippi in Federated Organizations (COFO). SO, through COFO and the Mississippi i960, and Bob Moses returned to the South to reconnect with them in 1961. Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), SNCC worked to advance the right of Ella Baker had known the Moores for years. In many ways, they were poor black Mississippians to determine their own future. exceptional people, but their story was not unlike that of many other mili- The decision by SNCC to conduct a major grassroots voting rights cam- tant local activists scattered throughout the region who had long fought paign in Mississippi in 1961-64 was audacious. From Baker's long experi- racism and repression without much support from outside the South. As ence in the state and from the local activists with whom she had put them Charles Payne put it, they "had been accumulating political capital for a in contact, SNCC activists knew that Mississippi's notorious reputation was decade, in the form of contacts, networks, knowledge of resources, and well earned. Some within the organization dubbed the project the "Move personal credibility, capital they were able to transfer to the younger activ- on Mississippi," as if an invasion of enemy territory were being planned. ists" whom Bob Moses and Ella Baker would introduce them to.4 They were Some of the most brazen and vicious southern segregationists in the South eager to receive the help that SNCC was offering, especially with the under- were at the helm of state government there, and Mississippi had a long standing that local leadership would remain in charge. history of unchecked, often officially sponsored racial violence toward the Amzie Moore had grown up dirt poor and left Mississippi for the first black population. Many national civil rights leaders had simply written off time when he was drafted into the military during World War II. He had the state. As Andrew Young, then an SCLC staff person, put it :"We knew the joined the Black and Tan Party, a group of Negro Republicans active in depths of the depravity of southern racism. We knew better than to try to the South during the 1930s, and later he helped found the Regional Coun- 1 take on Mississippi." cil for Negro Leadership. After the war, Moore served as the head of the Baker's perspective on Mississippi was precisely the opposite of Young's. Cleveland, Mississippi, chapter of the NAACP. AS the owner-operator of a She felt that the movement had to organize within the belly of the beast of small gas station, he had a greater margin of economic independence from southern racism rather than on its safer margins. This viewpoint was an whites than most black people in and around Cleveland. But even indepen- expression of her class politics as well. In her words, "If you were supposed dent black business people were hardly immune to racist discrimination. to be interested in bettering the lot of the have nots, where ... [would] be a During the 1950s, Amzie and his wife, Ruth, suffered constant harassment better start [than] ... in the rural areas ... [where] people had the hardest and economic reprisals as a result of their activism. Ruth Moore, a beauti- 2 lives?" Baker taught SNCC activists to look to the rural towns and planta- cian whose small business also gave her a certain independence, was as tions of Mississippi—"areas of greatest direst need . where people had active, committed, and fearless as her husband. Ella Baker and Ruth Moore [the] least"—as their central organizing challenge.3 This was not a chal- maintained a close relationship, even when Ruth's and Amzie's marriage lenge to be undertaken lightly or quickly. The project that burst on the fell apart during the early 1960s.5 300 MISSISSIPPI GODDAMN MISSISSIPPI GODDAMN 301 Amzie Moore, like Ella Baker, had numerous run-ins with the national heard my way through the world. I listened to Amzie. I just listened and office of the NAACP. He felt that the officers in Washington and New York listened. I watched him, how he moved."9 Moses was immediately con- were sometimes insensitive to the perilous conditions faced by organizers vinced that the national movement had to support the kind of work that in the Deep South. An outspoken militant, Moore often slept with a gun Amzie and Ruth Moore had been doing in Mississippi. The initial contacts under his pillow.6 He was as intolerant of the snobbery of local black elites between Moses and the Moores were the organizational beginnings of the as he was of the vitriolic racism of Mississippi whites. In 1955, he com- efforts that would peak in the summer of 1964 with the national focus on plained: "The Negroes with money are in a world of their own here in the the Mississippi movement, Freedom Summer, and the Mississippi Freedom State of Mississippi. They live to themselves and they don't want things to Democratic Party. change . they are not interested in the freedom of the common Negro When Bob Moses said, "We did for the people of Mississippi what Ella of Mississippi, but they buy their fine cars, furs, homes and stay very much Baker did for us,"10 he meant that SNCC field organizers and volunteers 7 to themselves." Despite their slight degree of economic independence, tried to absorb the wisdom of indigenous leaders, to build respectfully on Ruth and Amzie Moore never enjoyed much financial stability, and by the the preexisting strength within the communities where they organized, mid-1950s they had been pushed to the verge of financial ruin. White- and to provide whatever was lacking—funds, time, youthful energy, and owned banks and businesses, in a carefully concerted effort, threatened certain skills. In other words, Moses followed the example that Baker them with foreclosure and bankruptcy. After Amzie Moore insisted that had set within SNCC. She never professed to having created SNCC'S ide- these problems were the result of his NAACP activities, the national of- ology; rather, she identified and nourished the radical democratic tenden- fice had offered some help, but the couple's financial situation remained cies apparent in the thinking of many of those who were drawn to the precarious.