FREEDOM SCHOOLS

BY

VIOLA M. BROOKS President California State Association of Colored Women's Clubs, Inc.

rt n,A"t'Oll h ( '-l in . ·~o rill a tor,

AN ACCOUNT OF A NEW AND POWERFUL INSTRUMENT IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS FIELD TODAY

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COVER: Drawing by Charles White. Used by permission of the artist.

The John Henry and Mary Louisa Dunn Bryant Foundation Los Angeles 29, California

Printed in the United States of America

Printed by the Bryant Foundation for the Cali­ fornia State Association of Colored Women's Clubs, Inc. Additional copies, at twenty-five cents each, may be obtained at the Aquarian Spiritual Center Book­ shop, 1302 West Santa Barbara Avenue, Los Angeles 37, California.

January, 1965. .25

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n fl tl a1 SOMETHING NEW: THE FREEDOM SCHOOL MOVEMENT.

Something new appeared on the American scene in 1964. Something honest, modest, youthful. Some­ thing (now that we can look back on it) very determined, fearless and moral in the finest sense of the word. Something America has needed for a long time. America will yet thank everyone who had anything at all to do with it. For this new thing will have a lot to do in the next few years, literally, with saving America from the social gangrene of discrimination - our country's inheritance from 250 years of slavery followed by 100 years of misery inflicted on "second­ class" citizens through segregation, intimidation, Jim Crow and lynching. The new and powerful instrument is the FREEDOM SCHOOL MOVEMENT. The MISSISSIPPI SUMMER PROJ·ECT and the FREEDOM SCHOOL MOVEMENT grew out of a long succession of struggles for equality. The participants in the Project were and are mainly students, but they have drawn into the work many important adult forces from both inside and outside of Mississippi. That all participants were willing to risk arrests, beatings and even death is an especially noteworthy factor. Coordination of the work of all civil rights organi­ zations in the state was the chief factor guaranteeing their success. The vision of what to do was both modest and practical. The achieved result for the Summer Project was twice what had been expected and projected. The entire effort moved harmoniously toward a continuation of the plan on a twelve-months basis; the summer work merged into fall and winter work, and everyone recognized this was an inevitable direc­ tion in which to move. But the tremendous thing, the great thing, was the maturing of view which occurred as the summer con­ frontation took place: the Freedom Schools served; they met the local need; and leadership was found and was trained and did go back to hundreds of 3 communities where it is right now acting as leaven in the growing political consciousness of urban and rural communities all over Mississippi. More: the Freedom Schools had national impact. Students from all over the country went back to their campuses, carrying with them the story of what Mis­ sissippi really is like. Many nadonal stories appeared in magazines like the Saturday Evening Post, the Reporter, the New Republic, the Nadon and LIFE; and honest accounts of their activities appeared in the New York Times and ocher newspapers. There were radio and television interviews, such as the David Susskind "Open End" discussion with nine of the young people who were down there. A book about the Project and the Schools was written. Many lawyers, many academic leaders, were involved, and took back to their communities the horrifying truth that a police state exists within our borders denying every elementary human right to forty per cent of the American cidzens living there. CHARACTERIZATION OF THE FREEDOM SCHOOLS: For the Project is no Madison Avenue dream, no Advertising Council creation. It is so down-to-earth that it has shaken the very foundations of white supremacy in Mississippi. And the Freedom Schools are nor just "classes," nor are they mere "discussion groups." The Freedom Schools are centers in which local leadership of the liberation movement is being shaped. The Freedom Schools are training camps in which policies and program are examined in the light of experience, and corrective steps are proposed, debated and agreed upon. The Freedom Schools are forums where mistakes can be analyzed freely and where steps to remedy incorrect actions may be critically debated by the participants in the struggles. The Freedom Schools are planning rooms where the younger officers in the a rmy of liberation can examine and correct their own shortcomings, where they can react collectively to emergencies, and where they can participate in mapping tomorrow's cam- 4 paigns on better lines than yesterday's. The hot steel of determination is forged in struggle; but it takes continuing, regular analysis to uncover errors and to evolve correct strategy, and better tac­ tics and methods of work. The Freedom Schools are forms of organization which make continuing, regu­ lar, discussion and analysis possible. But at the same time they are in the midst of struggle, and are effec­ tive channels for coordination of struggle. The con­ solidation and strengthening of the unity achieved in struggle is one of the most valuable functions of the Freedom Schools.

COORDINATION, COOPERATION AND MIRACLES OF COUR~GE. For a long time, ;nd in many parts of the country, we have been needing centers in which leadership could be developed; we have been in great need of training camps where our new and youthful leader­ ship could have experience; we have needed forums where our own efforts, and the actions and policies of the prejudiced could be examined and discussed; we have needed an organized way in which our young people could come to grips with themselves in the sense of recognizing their own shortcomings and attempting to correct them; coordination has been an ideal, but until the Freedom School Movement we did not have the key to practical coordination on a statewide basis. ' For long, too, we have needed the type of program that could and would inspire the cooperation U:ation­ ally of men and women of character and determina­ tion. In the Mississippi Summer Project, with its Freedom School orientation, we found that type of program. It meets the ieeds of this period; it is flexible and adaptable and yet disciplined and practical. When I think of the miracles of courage that grew out of the Freedom School Movement; when I con­ sider the love expressed in death by the three young men of Philadelphia, Mississippi; when I regard the results - two thousand young people trained in the very heart country of Prejudice- I am overwhelmed with happiness and hope! We all owe a great debt of gratitude, and our full 5 support, to the courageous young people who brought into existence in 1964 the greatly needed civil rights training mechanism of the Freedom School Move­ ment. We should give all possible aid to the over-all organization-COFO, the Council of Federated Organizations-and to SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which is the group reportedly providing around three out of every four field workers and dollars at COFO. What better mechanism do we need? What more productive fo.rm of organization does anyone propose for the current period and circumstances? Does any­ one know a better way to assist our youth to the full and useful lives they desire and deserve? Is there any better method of dealing at local levels with multiple­ faced reaction than through trained youth steeled in struggle? To all these questions there is only one answer: The Freedom School Movement is the mechanism and the form of organization best adapted to today's needs in the South; and adaptations of the idea for other parts of the country should be developed as quickly as possible.

A REPORT TO OUR STATE BOARD­ AND A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE. Now I would like to tell you how the Mississippi Project and the Freedom School Movement came to the attention of our Federation in California. It was June of 1964 and we were attending a State Board meeting in Fresno. Our California State Asso­ ciation of Colored Women's Clubs had a heavy agenda, but we made way for a report by a young white student who had flown from New York to Los Angeles the night before expressly so chat she could bring us up to dare on the civil rights situation in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Her report couched us deeply. We decided then and there co find ways to help. The srudenr returned the same day to Los Angeles. The next morning, wanting co gee word about the struggle our to as many people as possible, she visited several newspaper offices. I am going to quote tn full one of rhe stories It written then, as an introduction to what I am going :s to say about Freedom Schools. The article, by Joel Garcia, was headlined AN "OUTSIDER" IN THE DEEP SOUTH: 11 ...... (! When an "outsider" from the North travels to the ~t deep South to fight for civil rights he must expect p beatings and sometimes humiliating experiences. r Even if the "outsider" happens to be a 25-year-old blue-eyed dishwater blond, like Joyce Barrett, a mem­ e ber of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com­ e mittee. Visiting San Fernando this week on a whirl-wind, state-to-state, fund-raising tour, the Philadelphia civil­ rightist told of her personal experiences at the hands of Atlanta, Georgia police and of a man who "beat n me in the street during a sit-in demonstration." "One of the most humiliating experiences I had was when a female secretary in the Atlanta Police n Department, on the orders of police, stripped me of 's all my clothes in front of a cell full of male pris­ '" oners," she said. IS On the pretext of searching her for "hidden weapons" they had her standing nude for about 15 minutes to "cat calls" and abusive remarks by the inmates.

H Miss Barrett, who works, in her words, from dusk 0 till dawn in her fight registering Negroes for civil vote, and living by "scrounging" meals from sympa­ e thetic supporters, said that on another accasion- she

)- was severely beaten by a white citizen of Atlanta, y Georgia, during a sit-in demonstration, and required g hospitalization. IS "That's not the first time I've been in a hospital d though," she said proudly. "Since we're (SNCC mem­ n bers) only given S10 a month 'wages' we sometimes suffer from malnutrition and its effects and require n hospitalization," added the 25-year-old Temple Uni­ versity graduate. SNCC is in the midst of planning its summer pro­ gram in Georgia and Mississippi. The group is trying to form "Freedom Schools" in Mississippi, in order to educate young Negroes in American History, English, mathematics and other basic courses.

7 But they will probably never get off the ground, said Miss Barrett, because Mississippi recently enacted a new law in its legislature that will hamper their operation. "The law will require that any person, organization, corporation, or association conducting a school within a county has to secure a license from the Superintend­ ent of Education in that county," she explained. The bill will allow the superintendent to determine whether the school is in fact a bonafide educational institution and whether the school intends to counsel and encourage disobedience to the Mississippi laws, she added. "We don't expect to be issued a license," she added, "because other stop-gap measures have also been passed before to keep us from doing our work." The Temple University graduate said she has been arrested four times- three times during sit-ins and once for passing leaflets. What is the attitude of the southern Negro to her work? "We've had most of our luck with the younger Negroes and senior citizens. The middle-aged groups usually have a home and children and are afraid to participate in demonstrations," she answered. Explaining the purposes of the non-violent group she said SNCC is stressing education of the Negro. "But most important we try to make them realize the role they are playing in the crisis that exists today," Miss Barrett said. The general tenor of Southerners usually depends on the size of the community SNCC is working in. If it is a large city like Atlanta people won't easily recognize them as they would in a small community of 56,000 such as Albany. "But for the most part, the white community is tremendously hostile to such groups as SNCC, NAACP and CORE," she said. Mass media of communications are also usually hostile ro our movement, she added, and anytime a demonstration or incident occurs it is always slanted. The stare-hopping SNCC member will leave this week for San Francisco where she will attend a con­ ference and will then leave for Albany, Georgia, to 8 I, continue her work in the civil-rights hotbed. :l. She added that any donations for the civil rights r movement could be sent to SNCC at 6 Raymond Street, N.W., Atlanta 14, Georgia, 30314. • I, 11 SNCC- WHAT DO THESE INITIALS MEAN? The letters "SNCC" (pronounced "SNICK") mean "Smdent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee." e The Committee is not a membership organization. I It is an agency stimulating, aiding, assisting, fostering, :I the growth and development of local protest move­ i, ments, especially in the South. It elects an Executive Committee, which in mrn I, employs the small SNCC staff and develops program. They also encourage formation of ''Friends of SNCC" groups in Northern and Western urban centers to help in raising funds. In 1964, twenty-four Southern protest groups were represented in SNCC. In January of that year, there were 139 staff people. The average age was 22; 80 per cent were Negro. Of the 139, 125 were field secretaries, 12 were office workers at the Atlanta headquarters, one was Chairman, and one was Executive Secretary. The main office was at 8\;2 Ray­ mond Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30314. Telephone: 404-688-03 31. THE PROGRAM OF SNCC. The heart of the idea back of SNCC is finding and assisting and training local leadership. Since SNCC is a smdent organization, much of its work is on college and high school campuses. But it understands the need to coordinate city and country civil rights efforts, and so it sends many of its most capable leaders from the college campuses to the small towns. Thus urban and rural leadership coordi­ nate.

"The article by Mr. Garcia used by permtsswn of the San Fernando SUN. At the October, 1964 Awards Banquet of the San Fernando Valley Press Club, an organization of professional San Fernando Valley newsmen, Mr. Garcia's story, in the semi-weeklies division, won first place in feature story. Because the SUN has consistently reported race news with honesty, and in its editorials has fearlessly advocated civil rights equality, Editor and Publisher Robert K. Straus received in 1964 a bronze plaque expressing the gratitude of the San Fernando Valley civil rights leadership. 9 In scores of communities SNCC members have helped to create, organize and guide protest move­ ments. Bur these are not identified as SNCC projects; rather, SNCC workers help the local communities to grapple with their own· specific problems, solving these problems through correct strategy, good organi­ zation, riming, and right choice of personnel. Direct nonviolent acrion, voter registration work and study classes have been central to the SNCC approach ro program. THE LEGAL BASIS FOR THE RIGHT TO VOTE. Since voter registration campaigns continue to be central to civil rights struggles in the South, a few words of historical review of the legal basis of the Negro's right to rhe vote is in order here. Prior to the Civil War, Negro slaves did nor vote. After the murder of. Lincoln by white supremacists, and disgusted with President Andrew Johnson's eagerness to serve the former slave owners, Congress passed a number of measures recognizing the right of Negroes ·to vote. First was the Civil Rights Ace of April 9, 1866. Second, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Con­ stitution. Adopted by Congress in June, 1866, it was ratified by the Scares and became a part of our Con­ stitution on July 28, 1868. Third, the Reconstruction Aces of 1867. They sec up conditions for the readmission of che defeated Southern Scares. Among these were adoption of con· sritutions guaranteeing universal suffrage, disfran­ chisement of Confederate leaders, and specific endorsement of the Fourteenth Amendment. Fourth, ratification by the Scares of che Fifteenth Amendment. The Fifteenth Amendment is all-important co us today as the main legal basis for our struggle. Ic is so important that I am giving it in full : "Section 1: The right of citizens of che United Stares to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United Scates or by any Scare on account of race, color, or previous condition nf servitude. Section 2: The Congress shall have power to enforce chis article by appropriate legislation." The Fifteenth Amendment became a pare nf our 10 Constitution in 1870. It has just as much validity as any other Amendment. Yet since the end of the Reconstruction Period, that is, since 1876, neither party has made the slightest effort to enforce it. • During Reconstruction (1868-187 6) , all southern States were forced to recognize the right of the Negro to vote. In South Carolina there were more Negroes than whites in the State Assembly. In Mississippi, the State Legislature was evenly divided between Negro and white legislators. Senators H. R. Revels and B. K. Bruce, both Negro, represented Mississippi in the United States Senate. Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina elected Negro Lieutenant Governors. In Mississippi, Lieutenant Governor P. B. S. Pinch­ back was Acting Governor of Mississippi for 43 days. Scores of Negroes in southern states were elected to various other offices. The Reconstruction Legislatures made extensive and valuable contributions to the advancement of American life. But through connivance in high places in both parties, and through terror, fraud, intimidation and the murder of literally thousands of Negroes, followed by the passage during the 1890's of unconstitutional Jim Crow state constitutions in the South, the South­ ern Negro was disfranchised. VOTING RIGHTS IN THE SOUTH IN THE 1950's. As recently as the 1950's the Southern Regional Council made a study of the voter situation . in the South, revealing appalling deprivation of this most basic human and civil right. Working with consult­ ants in ten Southern states, Margaret Price prepared a precise and accurate summary of the voter-registra-

•Today, with a 2 to 1 majority in both Senate and House, the Democratic Party could pass ennabling legislation, could enforce the Fifteenth Amendment. Probably no single federal action would do more to end the horrible injustice of race discrimina~ion. The Fifteenth Amendment expressly gives Congress power to t·stablish a way to register every Negro of voting age in the United States, and to protect him in the exercise of that right. The Census Bureau could be given the task of federally registering voters at the time their representatives ask census questions. The President has power to order such a law, when passed by Congress, to be carried out. All organizations interested in preserving and strengthen­ ing our Constitution should demand that Congress and the President act to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment. 11 tion situation throughout the South for the Council, drafting her report in 1957. The Price Report ("The Negro Voter in the South" ) revealed that: "In the 13 Mississippi counties listed as having a population of more than 50 per cent Negro, a total of 14 votes was cast [by Negroes} in the three elec­ tions on which information was available for 1954. Five of the counties had no Negroes qualified and three had one registered who never voted. In the seven counties having more than 60 per cent Negro population, two votes were cast by Negroes in 1954." (p. 21) "In the early spring of that year ( 1955), Gus Courts, a Negro grocer at Belzoni, Miss., was told to move from his home and withdraw his name as president of the local NAACP chapter. He was forced to move his grocery store and advised to remove his name from the voting rolls. He refused and in November, 1955, he was shot and seriously wounded by a group of men in a car who fired into his store. "Recovering from his wounds, Courts told a reporter: 'I've known for a long time it was coming, and I'd tried to get prepared in my mind for it. But that's a hard thing to do when you know they're going to try to slip up and steal your life in the night and not in the bright. It's bad when you know you might get shot just walki9g around in your store. That's a hard kind of life to lead.' "Courts was puzzled as to why anyone would want to shoot him, for, 'I've never been a troublemaker and I've never had on handcuffs. I'm 65 years old and I've never had the vote. That's all I wanted.' "Courts' predecessor as NAACP president in Bel­ zoni, the Rev. George Washington Lee, was killed May 7, 1954. The United Press, in a story from Belzoni on the Courts' shooting, gave this background on the Lee death: "The Reverend Lee was shot, allegedly on the day he refused a request from a white citizen that he remove his name from the voters registration list. In that death, first of three race killings in Missis­ sippi this year, Lee reportedly was driving · down a 12 Belwni street when a car in which rwo white men and a Negro were riding suddenly came from behind and a shotgun blast shattered the Negro's car.' "A coroner's inquest returned a verdict of accidental a death and made no reference to the wounds in the l dead man's face.'' (pp. 21-22) "Medgar E. Evers, state secretary ot the NAACP in i. Jackson, Miss., said in 1955 (AP, Jackson, Aug. 20, :l 1955) that one of the Citizens Councils' primary e aims is to eliminate Negro voting. Asked what steps 0 had been taken up to that time to purge Negroes from voter registration lists in Mississippi, he answered: "'The place most people know about is Hum­ phries County. There were a number of Negro voters 0 there ... the employer would have a (voters) list and if he found this person's name ... he'd say, "we s can't employ you until you get your name off this 0 list." :l " 'By this method they knocked down registration y to about 90 names and they started getting down to . D the hard core and other types of pressure were used They'd come and tell them, "You've lived in this if you want to stay a community for a long time and here in peace, you'd better get your name off this ,,r After they started making personal visits, the It list." to extent that there are now only e Negroes gave in the about 3 5 left.' It to the organization of the Citizens Councils, u "Prior Humphries County had 126 Negroes registered. A random check by the AP of three neighboring Delta counties in 1955 showed that Negro registration in It Sunflower County had dropped from 114 to 0, in ·r Montgomery County from 26 to 0 and in Yazoo d County from 125 to 90." (p. 42) l­ 1954: THE SUPREME COURT OUTLAWS d "SEPARATE BUT EQUAL" SCHOOLS. n Of tremendous legal and moral importance was d the Supreme Court decision of May, 1954, against "separate but equal" schools. civil rights workers in the y Even then, however, of the need to make the e South were very conscious central to all their activity. t. right to vote to move, the forms of ;- But the direction in which and struggle to use, even the forces a organization 13 available, were not yet clear. Suddenly, in fact almost overnight, a powerful mass approach to struggle developed in Montgomery, Ala­ bama, over the issue of discrimination in the seating practices on buses. ALABAMA: 1955. THE BUS BOYCOn. Rosa Parks- praise her name! - when she refused to be pushed around in a Montgomery bus, really started something. From her action flowed a year-long struggle ending in victory. But a great deal more flowed from it. Four years later Martin Luther King looked back on the bus boycott and the organization that developed around it, the Montgomery Improvement Association. Sj,eaking at Bethel Baptist Church on December 3, 1959, he said: "Four years ago we assembled in the Holt Street Baptist Church and expressed in strong and courage- . ous terms our determination to be free. When we came-togethet on that brisk and cold night in Decem­ ~r our minds were filled with the dark memories of past oppression. We knew that the shadow of injustice was still athwart our path, and the dust of discrimination had not been removed from our longing souls. "The result of our determination to organize against these evils, particularly as they expressed themselves in bus segregation, was the Montgomery Improvement Association. Little did we know when we brought this organization into being that we were starting a movement whose influence would be felt in large cities and small villages of America, in the sunny climes of Africa, and the rich soils of Asia, indeed throughout the whole civilized world. Little did we know ·on that night that we were starting a movement that would change the face of Mont­ gomery forever and leave for unborn generations an imperishable legacy of creative nonviolent struggle. "The achievements of the bus boycott are so well known that we need not pause to mention them in great detail at this time. Suffice it to say that our year­ long united struggle gave Negroes everywhere a new sense of digniry and destiny and provided a powerful and creative approach to rhe crisis in race relations. 14 "I firmly believe that one day all of America­ including those who have opposed us- will be proud of our achievements." At the time Dr. King spoke, Montgomery was in the midst of a struggle to end discrimination in the city's parks and swimming pools, and to begin the desegregation of schools. He had historic words to say regarding segregation: "We must continue to courageously challenge the system of segregation. It must be our firm conviction that segregation is an evil that we cannot possibly accept. Segregation is evil because it seeks to repudi­ ate the principle that all men are created equal. Seg­ regation is wrong because it relegates men to the status of things, and makes them objects to be used, rather than persons to be respected. Segregation is wrong because it gives the segregated a false sense of inferiority, while leaving the segregator confirmed in a false sense of superiority. Segregation is wrong because it assumes that God made a mistake and stamped upon certain men an eternal stigma of shame because of the color of their skin. "Therefore, we must not rest until segregation is removed from every area of our nation's life. Segre­ gation is a cancer in the body politic, which must be removed before our democratic health can be realized. And may I say co you that we must not be deluded into complacent acceptance of an outmoded doctrine of separate-but-equal because of the present erection of beautiful school buildings in many southern com­ munities. The fact remains that separate facilities are inherently unequal, and so long as segregated schools exist the South can never reach its full economic, political and moral maturity." "Our little message co the white community is simply this: We who call upon you are not so-called outside agitatOrs. We are your Negro brothers whose sweat and blood has also built Dixie. We yearn for brotherhood and respect and want to join hands with you to build a freer, happier land for all. If you fail to act now, hiscory will have to record that the great­ est tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." 15 1960: THE COORDINATION OF STUDENT REVOLT AGAINST JIM CROW. FORMATION OF SNCC. There had been no central clearing-house for school­ desegregation efforts. Bus boycotts, housing discrimi­ nation in education, and a multitude of other specific issues were still local struggles; there was no coordina­ tion on a southwide basis. You will remember the student sit-ins that devel­ oped in many Southern cities in the spring of 1960. They, roo, were uncoordinated- at first- and to a considerable extent they were spontaneous expres­ sions of student revolt against the whole system of Jim Crow. Inability to buy a cup of coffee or a coke or a milkshake at "white only" drugstore lunch coun­ ters sparked the sit-in movement. By Easter of that year it was possible to have the first sourhwide conference of sir-in leaders. This meeting was held in Raleigh, North Carolina. Prob­ lems of coordination and communication were dealt with. A temporary coordinating committee was set up, and an office was opened in Atlanta, where later on in the year (October, 1960) another conference was held and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com­ mittee came into being, with a structure based on one representative from each Southern state and the Dis­ trict of Columbia. In short, it took refusal to sell a milkshake to a Negro student to spark the movement that led directly toward coordinated civil rights struggle on a southwide basis. And it u·as· that very factor of coordination- on a broader basis than students alone could provide- that led to COFO, the Mississippi Summer Project and the highly successful Freedom School Movemt:·.'Zt of today. THE FREEDOM RIDES OF 1961. The Freedom Rides of 1961 drew support from individuals and groups never before reached. SNCC leadership was of course among the most active of those participating. The brutal reception that many of the Freedom Riders received at the hands of white bigots, and a growing realization that the development of local 16 leadership throughout the South was all-essential, led to a decision "to TAKE the freedom movement to the millions of exploited, disfranchised and degraded 1- Negroes of the Black Belt." i- LC THE VOTER REGISTRATION PROJECT

1- OF AUGUST, 1961. In terms of intimidation and violence to prevent r­ Negroes from registering to vote, ~hree counties in ). Mississippi were among the worst: Walthall, Pike a and Amite Counties. ;- As targets for its first voter-registration project, SNCC picked these three counties. Amite County is one of 137 counties in the South in which"Negroes are a majority. The population of the county seat of Amite e County, a rown called Liberty, is 642 . Liberty is a typical rural Mississippi town. Writer Ben H . Bag­ ,_ dikian noted in a report in the Saturday Evening it Post that of 5,000 Amite County Negroes of voting age, only one was registered to vote [1961]. >, The leading organizer of the August, 1961, voter Ll registration project in Mississippi, Robert Moses, went to Liberty to change that situation. On the main street of Liberty, reported Post writer Bagdikian, "he e was struck down by a cousin of the local sheriff and beaten on the head until his face and clothes were covered with blood." The leadership of the drive continued its work in many cities and towns of the state. A tremendous outpouring of local student support resulted. In McComb, where the drive started on August 7, 1961, a turning point was reached. Non-violent direct action by hundreds of McComb students led rapidly to the development of a state­ wide voter registration program. Dogs, hoses, beat­ ings and arrests did not halt the program. NOV. 1961: SIXTE'EN FULL-TIME VOLUNTEER WORKERS STEP FORWARD. A change in the whole movement became possible when sixteen students volunteered to drop their schooling for a year or more, and go into the most reactionary rural areas for continuous civil rights work. 17 These brave young people, to whom we all are so much indebted, knew they" faced arrests and beatings and possible murder. They knew there was no money to pay · them salaries or even to pay for legal defense when they were arrested. Someone had to go, and they went. At subsistence pay: sometimes ten dollars a week; sometimes ten dollars a month.

THE ALBANY MOVEMENT: 1961-63. A massive protest against everything meant by the words "Jim Crow" developed in Albany, Georgia, in October, 1961. During th~ two years that followed there was a great deal of violent action on the parr of the police against the movement: Police kicked and beat a preg­ nant Albany woman (Mrs. Slater King) causing the death of her unborn child; an attorney (C. B. King) "had his head cracked open by Dougherty County Sheriff D. c: Campbell"; Baker County Sheriff John­ son was charged with beating and shooting a Negro youth (Charles Ware), but the sheriff got off. On complaint of a store owner whose place was picketed because Negroes could get no jobs there above janitorial and other menial jobs, nine civil rights workers were arrested on charges of "con­ spiracy to injure a juror for assent to a verdict in a federal case." (Penalty: Ten years andj or $15,000 fine.) The only white defendant, who happened also not to be a resident of Georgia, was a SNCC field worker. She was charged with perjury revolving around the question of whether she had or had not seen the picker linear the store. (Penalty for perjury conviction: Five years and/ or $5,000 fine.)

MISSISSIPPI, 1961-62: FORMATION OF COFO. In the winter and spring of 1961-62, only 25,000 Negroes were registered on the voter rolls of Mis­ sissippi. The population of the state was about 2.000.000. Of this, 42 per cent were Negro. But the Negro voter list came to only a little more than I per cent of the total population. The \'«hire Citizens Councils were in full control ,,f rhe siruarinn: and the biggest industrial and agri­ culrur,d corporations backed them to the very hilt 18 ;o of the daggers they held against the hearts of all the gs Negroes in the state. ~y With an almost "zero" showing in civil rights a se hundred years after the Civil War had supposedly id set the Negro free, it was crystal clear to every SNCC rs worker in Mississippi that there was no way to break the hold of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Councils in Mississippi except through a coordinated, planned effort on the part of all the leading civil ne rights forces. m Accordingly, in that state, the NAACP, CORE, SCLC and SNCC formed COFO,- the Council of a Federated Organizations - as the over-all, umbrella ce organization which from then on coordinated all civil g­ rights struggles in Mississippi. he AUGUST, 1962. ~) SOUTH CAROLINA: lty CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) in the late n- summer of 1962 reported on a five year struggle ifO to register voters in South Carolina. James T. McCain and Frank Robinson had many experiences ras to recount: ~re a Negro and a leader of vil "Rev. Fred C. James, by running for city tn­ Sumter CORE, set a precedent a daily la council. In Columbia, according to 'The State,' 00 newspaper, 'the predominantly Negro Ward 9- was Iso more than enough to make the difference' of 14 votes !ld by which Lester Bates nosed out his ultra-segrega­ ng tionist opponent in the mayoralty election ... lOt "In Sumter County, registrars have begun using technicalities to bar Negroes from registering. This has long been the practice in Clarendon County where, in 1958, an applicant reported to me that she had been ~0. refused a certificate because she mispronounced the 100 word 'indict' in reading a portion of the state consti­ [is­ tution. And in Williamsburg County, Negroes-some out of them teachers and college graduates- were sum­ the marily refused registration certificates because in the I I registrar's opinion, they could not read or write ... are threatened with loss of :rol "Negroes frequently with physical violence, if they dare to ~ri­ job and even ~ilt exercise their voting rights." 19 MRS. FANNIE LOU HAMER OF RULEVILLE, MISSISSIPPI.

Sunflower County is the home county of Senator Easdand. It is 68 per cent Negro. Part of the Delta, it has been represented in the House by a white Congressman, Jamie Whitten. In June, 1963, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer of Rule­ ville, Sunflower County, was returning to Mississippi from a trip to Charleston, S.C. Because she was a known worker for civil rights, she "was arrested in Winona, in Montgomery County, 60 miles east of Indianola, the county in which she was born. Along with others, she was taken from the bus to the jail," reported Jerry DeMuth in The Nation (June 1, 1964). Mr. DeMuth then quoted Mrs. Hamer: "They carried me into a room and there was two Negro boys in this room. The state highway patrol­ man gave them a long, wide blackjack and he told one of the boys, 'Take this,' and the Negro, he said, 'This what you want me to use? ' The state patrolman said, 'That's right, and if you don't use it on her you know what I'll use on you.' "I had to get over on a bed flat on my stomllch and that man beat me .. . that man beat me till he give out. And by me screamin', it made a plain­ clothes man- he didn't have on nothin' like a uni­ form- he got so hot and worked up he just run there and started hittin' me on the back of my head. And I w as tryin' to guard some of the licks with my hands and they just beat my hands till they turned blue. This Negro just beat me till I know he was give out. Then this state patrolman told the other Negro to take me so he take over from there and he just keep beatin' me." Mr. DeMuth then continued: "The police carried Mrs. Hamer to her cell when they were through beating her. They also beat Annelle Ponder, a SCLC worker who was returning on the bus with her, and Lawrence Guyot, a SNCC field secretary who had traveled from the Greenwood SNCC office to investi­ gate the arrests." He quoted Mrs. Hamer: "They whipped Annelle Ponder and I heard her screamin'. After a while she passed by where I was in the cell and her mouth was 20 bleedin' and her hair was standin' up on her head and you know it was horrify in'." •r CYNTHIA, CAROLE, DENISE, ADDIE MAE, JOHNNY, VIRGIL.

All over the South, the demon of Prejudice showed its bestial nature.

)I Four little girls attending Sunday School in the a basement of their Alabama church were blown to n bits by dynamite, and two boys were killed imme­ ff diately thereafter, all six deaths the direct result of g unchecked white supremacy practices which to this day are permitted by the Power Structure. l, Emmett Till ... Mack Parker ... Medgar Evers ... a long, long list. With the murderers, when arrested, 0 able to avoid retribution because the Power Structure l­ has shown by its actions in hundreds of cases that it d does not want them punished - that it needs these I, doers of evil deeds to enforce the evil policies of n Prejudice at local levels. u And still the Good People are silent. h SCLC LEADS WIDESPREAD EDUCATION' e CAMPAIGN. 1- Meanwhile, a public relations campaign for na­ i- tional civil rights legislation was going into high n gear throughout the country. I. One of the purposes of the many speaking dates, y the many huge public meetings, was to acquaint the d public with the details of struggles going forward in !S many parts of the South. Another was to get finan­ :r cial help for those struggles. Still another purpose d was to build a spirit of unity on a nationwide basis in support of the liberation movement which many d were calling a social revolution. h President Kennedy gave the movement for civil rights legislation his whole-hearted support. Under d the inspired leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, d Dr. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker and other prominent church leaders, the Southern Chris­ tian Leadership Conference carried the message of e faith and struggle for civil rights into every major e population center of the United States. On the Pacific Coast, a sister organization came 21 into being: the Western Christian Leadership Con­ ference. In various communities,' organizations comprised of delegates from many city-wide bodies were formed, of which Los Angeles' UCRC (United Civil Rights Committee) was typical. These delegated bodies were able to coordinate civil rights struggles on a wide range of related issues at the local level. And they were able to assist mightily in getting audiences and support for spokesmen and causes spread over the nation. Hearings were held before the House Judiciary Committee on the pending civil rights bill. The tone i of the civil rights forces is well reflected in these words from SNCC's testimony: SNCC TESTIMONY BEFORE HOUSE · JUDICIARY COMMinEE, MAY, 1963. "We, the ...... srudems who make up the staff of the Student Nonviolem Coordinating Committee, and the thousands that make up its base, have staked our lives on the principle that an imerracial democracy can be made to work in this coumry, even in the fields, bayous, and deltas of our deep South. "We have not spared ourselves in attempting to make that faith good. We call on the federal govern­ ment to do likewise. We would have it understood that we are not calling on the country for what she might do for us, but rather to inform her of what she must be prepared to do for herself." AMERICUS, GEORGIA, 1963. On August 8, 1963, 250 people gathered at the Friendship Baptist Church of Americus, Georgia. They were a part of the Sumter County Movement. Voter registration, and the right to use the front door of a local theatre, were the issues in Americus. Police stood outside the church, waiting for the people to come out. For protection, and to demonstrate their unity, the 250 stayed together as they came out, walking a block away ro a "colored" restaurant. ·On the sidewalk out­ side the cafe they sang "We Shall Overcome." A city marshal, a sheriff, two state patrolmen and eighteen police rushed the group, trying to get at 21-year-old 22 Don Harris, SNCC field secretary, whom they re­ garded as the leader. Shooting in the air and using their clubs freely, they arrested five leaders, including three SNCC field workers. Three of the five arrested were trampled by police and beaten.

CATTLE PRODS AND TWO-FOOT CLUBS. The next evening, August 9th, 175 peOple gathered at the Allen Chapel A. M. E. Church of Americus. When they left the church they went to the police station to protest the brutal beatings of August 8th. John L. Barnum, Jr.,. Treasurer of the Sumter County Movement, at once wrote down what hap­ pened: "They intended to pray and protest the arrests and brutal beatings of last night. They left the church and walked four blocks in orderly columns of two's, not blocking the sidewalk. The police officers were armed with guns, two-foot clubs, electric cattle prod­ ders and black jacks. Officers came down into a field where the group had walked. When they got there the City Marshal and Police Chief Chambliss asked them if they had a permit to parade and told them to disperse. But before any response could be given the officers started bludgeoning groups of boys and girls with clubs, and the battery-operated cattle prodders, which gave a severe shock and left burn mar!G on the flesh." 16-year-old Johnny Boynton had to have four stitches to dose a head wound; Mitton Wilkerson, 19, required twenty stitches on his head; Emanuel McClendon, 67, three stitches; Thomas Douglas, 16 years old, had to have six stitches on his head. His back and arms were burnt by the cattle prods. Archie B. Porter, 18, was shot at while on his way to his home; he was beaten and arrested; and when e his mother went to the police station to make inquiry D about her son, she, too, was thrown into jail. On August 17th 35 protesters, praying at the e police stat:on, were arrested, bringing the total in k jail to more than 200. Among the 35 was Zev Aleony, a field worker for the Congress of Racial y Equality (CORE), who was charged with "attempt­ [} ing to incite insurrection." d 23 THE AUGUST 28, 1963 MARCH ON WASHINGTON.

Only eleven days after the arrest of the 35 at Americus, came the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. A Civil Rights Bill was in Congress, and the March, it was felt, would dramatize the need for -the bill and the support behind it. NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, CORE and the Urban League united under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters l and his able deputy Bayard Rustin, and brought more than two hundr~ thousand people to Wash­ } ington and out again in the same day, in the largest demonstration our Capital City has ever seen. The nation listened, listened attentively, as Martin Luther King made his famous speech "I Have A Dream." The nation heard Roy Wilkins tell of the d~th of the gteat . pioneer of protest, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois. The nation -was moved by Mahalia Jackson's interpretation of the spirirual "I Been 'Buked and I Been Scorned." The lesson of unity - unity - unity was learned by colored America as it had never been learned before. And the need for help to youth on the firing line was realized deeply as a 23-year-old young man from Nashville spoke.

SPEECH OF SNCC CHAIRMAN J'OHN LEWIS. "We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of. For hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here. They have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages ... or no wages at all. While we ) stand here, there are sharecroppers in the Delta of Mississippi who are out in the fields working for less ) than three · dollars a day for twelve hours of work. While we stand here, there are students in jail on trumped up charges. Our brother, James Farmer, along with many others, is also in jail. We come here today with a great sense of misgiving. "It is true that we support the present civil rights bill in the Congress. We support it with great reser­ vations, however. Unless Tide Three is put in this 24 bill, there is noching to prOtect young children and old women from police dogs and fire hoses, their penalty for lt engaging in peaceful demonstrations. In its present form this bill will >S not procect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, s, who must live in constant fear d in a police state. It will not protect the hundreds of people who have been arrested on phony charges. What about n the three young men- SNCC field sec­ retaries - in Americus, p Georgia, who face the death penalty for engaging :s l in peaceful protest? It "As it stands now the voting section of this bill 1- } will not help thousands of black people who want to ;t vote. It will not help the citizens of Mississippi, of Alabama and Georgia who are qualified to vote but n lack a 6th grade education. "One man, one vote," is \ the African cry. It is ours, too. It must be ours. Let us e tell the Congress: One man, one vote. I. "We must have legislation that will protect the s Mississippi sharecropper who is put off of his farm because he dares to register to vote. We need a bill that will provide for the homeless and starving d people of this nation. We need a bill that will ensure d the equality of a maid who earns $5 a week in the home of a family whose income is $100,000 a year. e We must have a good FEPC bill. Cl "Let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution. By and large, American politics is dominated by politicians who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic and social exploitation. There are exceptions, of course. We salute those. But what political leader can stand up and say, 'My party is the party of principles.' The party of Kennedy is ) also the party of Eastland. The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. Where is our party? Where ) is the political party that will make it unnecessary to have Marches on Washington? "Where is the political party that will protect the citizens of Albany, Georgia? Do you know that in Albany, Georgia, nine of our leaders have been in· dieted not by Dixiecrats but by the Federal Govern­ ment for peaceful protest? But what did the Federal Government do when Albany's Deputy Sheriff beat Attorney C. B. King and left him half·dead? What 25 did the Federal Government do when local police officials kicked and assaulted the pregnant wife of Slater King, and she lost her baby? "To those who have said, be patient and wait, we must say that we cannot be patient, we do not want to be free gradually. We want our freedom and we want it now. We are tired of being beaten by police­ men. We do not want to go to jail, but we will go to jail if that is what we must pay for love, brother­ hood and peace. "All of us must get in this great social revolution sweeping our nation. Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and every hamlet of this nation, until true Freedom comes, until the unfinished revolution of 1776 is complete. In the Delta of Mis­ sissippi, in southwest Georgia, in Alabama, Harlem, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and all over this na­ tion -the black masses .are on the march. You must go home from this March and help us to get our Freedom. "We will not stop now. All of the forces of East­ land, Barnett, Wallace and Thurmond will not stop this revolution. If we do not get meaningful legisla­ tion out of this Congress, the time will come when we will not confine our marching to Washington. We will march through the South- through the streets of Jackson, Danville, Cambridge, Nashville, and Bir­ mingham- with dignity and spirit we have shown here today. By the force of our demands, our deter­ mination, and our numbers, we shall splinter the seg­ regated south into a thousand pieces and put them together in the image of God and democracy. Wake up, America!" UNREBUKED, UNREPENTANT PREJUDICE. It is against this background of confrontation with arrogant, unrebuked, unrepentant and inhumanly cruel prejudice that the Freedom School Movement must be seen. It is against the serious lessons learned in that struggle, and against the mounting unrest of colored America, and the need to evolve better tactics, that this new and highly adaptable, highly fruitful, form of stru~le must be considered. It is against the record of national inaction by the 26 white community a.r a whole in the face of a moral l crisis of staggering dimensions, that the new method of coping with racism must be regarded. e HOW THE FREEDOM SCHOOL MOVEMENT e STARTED.

D In December, 1963, a young SNCC staff member named Charles Cobb submitted a written proposal in the form of a "Prospectus For A Summer School Pro­ n gram" for consideration by his fellow-workers. 'S The introduction stated: "It is, I think, just about universally recognized that d Mississippi education, for black or white, is grossly i- inadequate in comparison with education around the 1, country. Negro education in Mississippi is the most inadequate and inferior in the State. Mississippi's im­ it poverished educational system is also a burden with virtually a complete absence of academic freedom, and students are forced to live in an environment that is geared to squash intellectual curiosity, and different p thinking. University of Mississippi Professor James l­ Silver, in a recent speech, talked of 'social paralysis n . . . where nonconformity is forbidden, where the 'e white man is not free, where he does not dare express ,f a deviating opinion without looking over his shoulder.' This 'social paralysis' is not limited to the white com­ n munity, however. There are Negro students who have r- been thrown out of classes for asking questions about the Freedom Rides, or voting. Negro teachers have n been fired for saying the wrong thing. The State of re Mississippi destroys 'smart niggers' and its classrooms remain intellectual waste lands. "In our work, we have several concerns orientated around Mississippi Negro students: "1. The need to get into the schools around the state and organize the students, with the possibility of a statewide coordinated student movement develop· ing. "2. A student force to work with us in our efforts around the state. at "3. The responsibility to fill an intellectual and m creative vacuum in the lives of young Negro Missis­ sippians, and to get them to articulate their own 1e desires, demands and questions. More students need 27 ro stand up in classrooms around the srate, and ask their teachers a real question. "As the summer program for Mississippi now shapes up, it seems as if hundreds of smdents as well as professional educarors from some of the best uni­ versities and colleges in the North will be coming to Mississippi ro lend themselves to the movement. There are some of the best minds in the country, and their academic value ought ro be recognized, and used to advantage. "I would like to propose summer Freedom Schools during the months of July and August (1964), for tenth and eleventh grade high school smdents, in order to: "1. Supplement what they aren't learning in high schools around the state, "2. Give them a broad intellectual and academic experience during the summer ro bring back ro fel­ low smdents in classrooms in the state and "3. Form the basis for statewide student action such as school boycons, based on their increased awareness. "I emphasize tenth-and-eleventh-grade students, be­ cause of the need ro be assured of having a working force that remains in the state high schools putting to use what it has learned." Mr. Cobb then proposed a curriculum in which supplementary education, cultural programs, political and social studies, literature and film programs were central; with special projects (such as a student news­ paper) and organizational steps (such as statewide student conferences) a parr of the plan. "If we are concerned with breaking the power srrucmre," he scared, "then we have ro be concerned with building up our own institutions to replace the old, unjust, decadent ones which make up the existing power structure. Education in Mississippi is an insti­ tution which can be validly replaced, as much of the educational institutions in the state are nor recognized around the country anyway." A program was projected to set up day schools "in about 20-25 towns ... and one or two boarding, or residential, schools on college campuses." "Although the local communities can provide school buildings 28 and staff housing (and, for residential schools, stu­ dent housing), all equipment, supplies and staff will have to come from outside. A nationwide recruitment program is under way to find and train the people and solicit the equipment needed." Twenty communities had already indicated they wanted such day schools and would cooperate. The plan estimated that each day school would need a staff of 15, and that the total number of students per school would average 50. The boarding schools, in the 1963 proposal, envisioned a student body of be­ tween 150 and 200 per school. The day schools, it was expected, would attract "high school students from the immediate area only" since living quarters were not provided. The boarding schools, like the day schools, were projected on a basis of six-weeks sessions. Intensive training, and "an additional goal of bringing together and training high quality student leadership" were l the objectives of the boarding schools.

THE SHAPING OF THE CURRICULUM.

Powerful new forces were now becoming inter­ g ested. Educators, clergymen, civil rights figures came g together in New York on the week-end of March 21-22, 1964 and worked on curriculum. The preliminary outline was based on a four-area 1 approach to the problem: ( 1) Leadership Develop­ e ment. The history of the Negro liberation movement; the goals, purposes and methods of the movement; e organizational skills, such as public speaking, press and publicity, getting other people to work, organiz­ r ing mass meetings and workshops, keeping records, :1 canvassing, duplicating techniques, typing, etc. ( 2) e Remedial Academic Program. Improved comprehen­ g sion in reading, fluency and expressiveness in writ- . ing; improved mathematical skill; filling the gaps in e knowledge of basic history and sociology, especially d American; the American economic and political sys­ tem; art, music and literature of various classical n periods, emphasizing distinctive features of each style; If knowledge of and ability to use scientific ·method. h ( 3) Contemporary Issues. More developed views of ;s some current issues; an introduction to "thinking of 29 local difficulties in a context of national problems;" procedures for the investigation of problems- rudi­ mentary research. ( 4) Non-academic Curriculum. Help students "ro meet each other as completely as possible, in order to form a network of student lead­ ers who know each other;" "give students experience in organization and leadership" (field work such as voter registration, student publications, student gov­ ernment); "improve their ability to express them­ selves informally (through creating writing, drama, talent shows, semi-spontaneous discussions, etc.)." A Freedom School prospectus states: "The aim of the Freedom School 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 program. That is, the students will study problem areas in their world, such as the administra­ tion 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 expe­ rience of the students." As to the purpose of the schools, the prospectus states: "The purpose of the Freedom Schools is to create an educational experience for students which will make it possible for them to challenge the myths of our society, to perceive more clearly its realities, and to find alternatives - ultimately new directions for action." And on participation in struggle: "The Freedom School teachers and the voter regis­ tration workers should meet to plan together the most useful participation of the Freedom School stu­ dents, so that the total program will contribute both intensive intellectual development and practical expe­ rience to make them better potential leaders." . The basic theme of the Freedom Schools, as they opened in Mississippi in the summer of 1964 was: the student as a force for social change. Social change in Mississippi. 30 FINAN'CIAL ASPECTS OF THE FREEDOM SCHOOL PROGRAM. During the spring of 1964 budget estimates were iS made. 1- Room, board and use of school facilities (in the :e case of boarding schools) was figured at $10 per per­ iS son per week. For two schools, with an average of 200 students I· and 45 faculty members and staff each, the cost estimate was $34,200. That was for six weeks. 1- For twenty day schools, with 50 students and 15 a, teachers on the average in each day school, the esti­ mated cost was $79,900. This meant a total estimated cost for the Freedom II School Program of $114,100. 1, HOW THINGS WORKED il OUT IN PRACTICE. le By July 26, 1964, there were 41 functioning Free­ y dom Schools in twenty communities across the state, l· with an enrollment of 2,1 35 students. d This was twice what had been projected for the summer. lt There were 175 full-time teachers in the Freedom Schools. Recruitment of 50 ro 100 more was in process . .s Some of the day schools had as small a class as 25 ; some had an enrollment of 100. e Freedom School Director Dr. Staughron Lynd of ll Atlanta was able ro report of the rural community of ,f Carthage that when the Freedom School staff arrived, d the entire Negro community was assembled at the church ro greet them; and when, two days later, the staff was evicted from its school, the community again appeared with pick-up trucks ro help move the library ro a new school sire. Bur that is not alL The community, with the help of summer volunteers and e a National Council of Churches minister, set to work I· to build its own community center! h Professor Lynd calls the Hattiesburg Freedom School System the "Mecca of the Freedom School world." In July, in Hattiesburg, there were more than y 600 students in five schools. "Each teacher has been rold ro find a person from the community ro be trained ro rake over his reach­ e ing job at the end of the summer," said a July report. 31 "Here, as in Canton," states Professor Lynd, "there can be no doubt that the success of the school stemmed from the intensive civil rights campaign in the community during the months of the winter and spring." Holly Springs set up a very successful Freedom School. Meridian, Mound Bayou, Marks, Ruleville, Indianola, Biloxi, McComb ( 108 students in the McComb Freedom School), and many other com­ munities, found immediate and strong support for the Freedom School Movement.

QUESTIONING AS THE VITAL TOOL.

The Freedom Schools of 1964 found that discus­ sion was the key co the development of under­ standing. One of the COFO guides for Freedom School teachers stated: "In the matter of classroom procedure, question­ ing is the vital tool. It is meaningless tO flood the student with information he cannot understand; questioning is the path tO enlightenment. It requires a great deal of skill and tact to pose the question that will stimulate but not offend, lead to unself­ consciousness and the desire to express thought ... The value of the Freedom Schools will derive mainly from what the teachers are able to elicit from the students in terms of comprehension and expression of their experiences." "The formal classroom approach is to be avoided; the teacher is encouraged to use all the resources of his imagination."

THE COORDINATOR OF THE FREEDOM SCHOOLS LOOKS BACK ON 1964.

By September of 1964, Liz Fusco, COFO Freedom School Coordinator, was looking back on the Mis­ sissippi Summer Project, and looking forward to a continuation and expansion of Freedom Schools: "The staff in Mississippi understood what Charlie (Cobb) was dreaming because they, too, were daring to dream that what could be done in Mississippi could be deeper, more fundamental, more far-reaching, 32 more revolutionary than voter registration alone: more personal, and in a sense more transforming, than a political program. "The decision to have Freedom Schools in Missis­ sippi, then, seems to have been a decision to enter into every phase of the lives of the people of Mis­ sissippi. It seems to have been a decision to set the people free for politics in the only way that people really can become free, and that is totally. It was an important decision for the staff to be making, and so it is not surprising that the curriculum for the proposed schools became everyone's concern ... "It was the asking of questions, as I see it, that made the Mississippi Summer Project different from other voter registration projects and other civil rights activities everywhere else in the South. And so it is reasonable that the transformations that occurred - and transformations did occur -out of the Freedom School experience occurred because for the first time in their lives kids were asking questions ... "It was out of the experience of asking these questions that the transformations occurred. At the beginning of the summer, with rare amazing excep­ tions, the kids who were tentatively exploring us and the Freedom Schools were willing to express about themselves only one thing with honesty and passion, without the characteristic saying of the thing they think the white man wants to hear: that thing was that as soon as they could gather enough money for a ticket they were going off to Chicago, or to California! To leave the state was their ambi­ tion, and about it they were certain, even though they had not thought any further than that, even in terms of where the money was to come from, and certainly not in terms of what they would find there and what they would do there. Some sense of 'go home to my Lord and be free'-some vague hope of a paradise beyond - seemed to inform their passion for the north, their prograrnless passion. "But by the end of the summer almost all of those kids were planning to stay in Mississippi ... "Through the study of Negro history they began to have a sense of themselves as a people who could produce heroes. They saw in the story of Joseph 33 Cinque of rhe Amistad a parallel ro the kinds of revoirs rhar rhe Movement, as they began ro learn about ir, represented. They saw rhar Joseph Cinque, in leading a mutiny on rhar slave ship, instead of asserting his will to freedom by jumping off rhe ship into rhe shark-waiting waters, was saying that free­ dom is something rhar belongs ro life, nor ro death, and rhar a man has responsibility for bringing all his people to freedom, nor just for his own escaping ... 'The students were taken seriously in the Freedom Schools. They were encouraged to ralk, and their talking was listened to ... Whoever the Freedom Schools touched rhey activated into confrontation, with themselves and with rhe world and back again ... "Most significanrly, rhe result of rhe summer's Freedom Schools is seen in the continuation of rhe Freedom Schools into rhe fall, winter, spring, summer plans of rhe Mississippi Project ... They were, instead of anything superficial, and will go on ro be, the experience- nor rhe place- in which people, because we needed rhem, emerged as discussion leaders, as reachers, as organizers, as speakers, as friends, as people ... "The transformation of Mississippi is possible because rhe transformation of people has begun. And if ir can happen in Mississippi, ir can happen all over rhe Sourh."

FREEDOM THEATRE

A project originated by SNCC workers Doris Derby, Gilbert Moses and John O'Neal, working wirh William Hutchinson, drama instructor ar Touga­ loo, was rhe Free Southern Theatre. Starring early in 1964, ir had developed by the summer into a thriving, important contributing force in rhe life of rhe Freedom Schools. Ir toured rhe Freedom Schools of rhe stare in August wirh irs production "In White America." Theatre workshops in rhe Freedom Schools intro­ duced students "to rhe experience of rhear~e through partici parion." Prof. T.ynd stared rhar rhe aim of rhe Theatre "is rhe creation of a fresh rhearrical style which will combine the highest standards of craftsmanship with 34 a more mumate audience rapport than modern theatre usually achieves." Among other objectives, the Theatre strives ''to emphasize the universaliry of the problems of the Negro people; to strengthen communication between Southern Negroes; to assert that self-knowledge and creativiry are the foundations of human dignity." Sponsors of the Free Southern Theatre include Harry Belafome, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Theodore Bike) and Lincoln Kirstein, general director of the New York City Ballet.

FREEDOM SLATE AND FREEDOM DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

The 1961 voter registration drive of SNCC under the leadership of Robert Moses, followed by the formation of COFO and the adoption of its policy of a continuation and stepping-up of the drive, with a coordination of the efforts of all the civil rights organizations of the state, resulted in a decision to run a Freedom Slate at a Freedom Election to coincide with the official elections ( 80,000 votes had been polled for Aaron Henry for Governor in the unofficial and much handicapped election con­ ducred by the civil rights movement in 1963; there were then .125,000 unregistered Negroes of voting age in Mississippi.) At the same time as the June 2, 1964 primary, four Negro candidates ran for office on the Freedom Democratic Party ticket, which was of course excluded from the regular all-white election machinery. The four were: Mrs. Victoria Gray and Rev. John Earle Cameron, both of Hattiesburg; Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer of Ruleville; and James M. Houston of Vicksburg. As Vice-Chairman of the Freedom Delegation to the Democratic National Convention, Mrs. Hamer testified before the Credentials Committee, exposing the criminal violence of white Mississippi against Negroes, and the illegal denial of voting rights which keeps Mississippi Negroes in the status of subjects rather than citizens. To the shame of white America, the Convention took no principled stand against ;') those who keep America in turmoil by unconstitu­ tionally blocking Negro access to the ballot. On their return from the Atlantic City struggle to unseat the white Mississippi Democratic Party delegation, a new election struggle was mapped: Mrs. Hamer was to oppose incumbent Congressman Jamie Whitten of the Second Congressional District in the Nov. 3, 1964 election; Aaron Henry, state NAACP Chairman, was to oppose Senator John Stennis; Mrs. Victoria Gray was to run against Rep. William Colmer in the Fifth District; and in the First and Fourth Congressional Districts, Harold Roby and Mrs. Annie Devine were to oppose Reps. Thomas Abernethy and Arthur Winstead respec­ tively. The temporary control of the Republican Party by Barry Goldwater's forces achieved at that party's National Convention in San Francisco, added compli­ cations to the vote "in Mississippi. On November 3, 1964 Mississippi white Democrats voted overwhelm­ ingly for Goldwater as the best man to protect their racist institutions; and Mississippi Negro voters who had broken through the registration barrier went overwhelmingly for Johnson. An astounding degree of unity and discipline in the Negro community was indicated when the all-Negro town of Mound Bayou voted 100% for Johnson. All but one ( Roby) of the Freedom Democratic Party-endorsed Negro candidates having been enjoined by the state from participating in any Free­ dom Democratic Party activity, the election work of the candidates was carried on under the threat of possible prison sentences.

FREEDOM REGISTRATION.

A part of the political activity in Mississippi dur­ ing the 1964 campaign was the use of unofficial voter registration books by the Freedom Democratic Party, for Negroes not allowed to register on the official books. Freedom Registrars covered the rural communities to give every Negro an opportunity to register to vote in the unofficial balloting conducted by the Freedom Democratic Party. 36 l- A REPORT FROM McCOMB. le What is it like to be black and to live in a rural ty Mississippi town today? What is it like to be a !: SNCC field secretary in rural Mississippi? !(1 McComb is the town in which the Student Non­ :t violent Coordinating Committee started its first :e registration project on August 7, 1961 under the n direction of Robert Moses. ). Moses was arrested August 15, 1961 at nearby .e Liberry in Amite County while taking three Negroes d to register. SNCC worker John Hardy was pistol s. whipped by a registrar in one of the nearby counties and was then arrested for inciting a riot. Herbert Lee, 52-year-old student at the SNCC Amite County y Voter Registration School was shot and killed by a 's state representative in Liberty the following month. i- A witness to the shooting, James Allen, was later murdered. Organized efforts toward integration resulted in the arrest of 109 people. r By the rime rhe Mississippi Summer Project Free­ :> dom School opened in McComb in 1964, there were 108 students ready to risk their lives in order to e learn the techniques of struggle. The murder of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, underlined the risks but did not alter their deter­ mination to organize, study and struggle. The following report, made by Mendy Samstein, a SNCC field secretary with the Project in McComb, reflects the situation in that town on the night of September 20, 1964: • • • It is hard for someone who has not lived in McComb these past months and in the Negro com­ munity of that small town in the southwest corner of Mississippi to understand the reality behind the two bombings of September 20. The following account is written to convey some of that realiry. The first bombing comes at 10: 50. Most of the Negroes of McComb are in bed - but only some are sleeping. These days most Negr~ adults in McComb don't fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning. Then the blast. That sickening, anguishing sound that has been heard 12 previous times over the last three 37 months- that sound that Negroes in McComb have come ro know so well. And everyone in McComb hears the sound of rhe blast- McComb is a smaii rown and very, very quiet. Ar night the sound of the blast can be heard for miles. And so ronight the blast is heard for the 13th time- and shortly later for the 14th time. Tonight the sound is more anguishing- for the pain grows worse with each bombing. Every Negro in McComb instantly knows what that sound means. And then the moments of rorment that folJow­ whose house, who is dead? It's not mine. Then who? My neighbor, my friend- my mother, my brother, my son, or maybe SNCC again. Who? And one's stomach aches with pain and the pain seeps up into rhe chest and rhe head and comes our of every pore. Who? Is someone dead? The fear and the suspense grows- the anguish becomes unbearable. People grab whatever clothing they can find and run out into the streets. The pain increases with each bombing. The 13th takes place at 10:50. The bombers know no restraint -they don't even wait until the Negro community is all in bed. It doesn't matter to them that the cafes are still open and that there are Negroes in the streets. They come anyway - the police are their friends and they certainly need nor fear apprehension. This is the l )th bombing, nor ro. speak of four church burnings. and no one arrested. And this is a town of 15,000 where everyone knows everyone's business. People quickly learn the news - it's Mama Quinn's house. It couldn't be worse. Everyone loves Mama Quinn. She owns a popular cafe. She is kind and good to everyone. But more than that, she is a tower­ ing figure of strength. She can't be intimidated. Three years ago she was one of the first to welcome Moses and lend him and the SNCC workers her support. Her cafe has always been open - despite the threats. And this summer, again she leads the community. She serves black and white, night after night. And the pressures increas~. Threats. The police raid her place twice- the f1rst time they plant a bottle of whiskey and it cost her S150. She holds meetings of 38 the Citizens League, a newly-formed group of Negro business people, banded rogether, meeting secretly ro lend aid and comforr to the SNCC effort. They meet twice a month ro plaJ;~ buying land for a com­ munity center. Mrs. Quinn wants ro offer the land she has in the back of her house- and this despite the increased hazards that would bring into her life. Finally, they succeed in making Mama Quinn close her cafe- she gets the final warning. She would rather dose than be forced ro srop serving the SNCC people. And so it was Mama Quinn- and it couldn't be worse. It comes at 10:50. And rwo little children are hurt. Oh my God. they could have easily been killed - if they had nor been in the rear of the house. The house is almost demolished. They weren't out to frighten tonight. Mama Quinn was ro be killed. Line up mothers and fathers :md sh(X>t down their children before their eyes. How much can a human being rake? And here comes the police. They know who did it- they might have planned it themselves. They have been after Mama Quinn for a long rime. Her white land­ lord, when he rold her she must close down if she didn't stop serving the SNCC people, replied when Mama chose to close down: "Good, now I can go tell the Sheriff and Police Chief and you wouldn't be bombed." Here comes the police. The same police who have beaten our fathers and raped our daughters- and put our children in jail. Right now two little boys sit behind bars in the county jail, sentenced to a year for making "threatening and obscene phone calls to '' white woman." And the phone rings in rhe Negro community night and day with thre:ns not to asso­ ciate with those SNCC workers. Some come from the pol ice themselves. And now the pol ice stride into the Negro community. They wear helmets, carry dubs and shorguns. They will pretend to investigate. Actually they come to intimidate the vicrims and gather up whatever evidence lies around before tlie FBI can get to it. They come to arrest the people whose house has been bombed. They've done it before. The p:mern repeats itself. A house is bombed,

.'\9 the victim is thrown in jail. Mr. Dillon is in jail­ his house was bombed, on August 28. The highway patrolman told his wife that she better stop cooperat­ ing with COFO or the next time the dynamite will be dropped in the middle of her house. The sheriff makes a similar threat. N ow the police are coming. They will probably arrest Mama Quinn. (Actually, they arrest her daughter, teacher in the Freedom School this summer, and the baby sitter.) How much can a human being take? And in the midst of the pain and anguish, comes the second thud. Its on the other side of town. Who now? My, mother,. father, sister, brother? God damn, how much blood do they want? They got the church -Society Hill - the movement church. Its doo;s were closed this summer, but it has always been the center of the movement in South McComb. All the Freedom School kids belong to Society Hill. It's Bryant's church. The NAACP holds its meetings there. I spoke there this summer. SNCC workers were there the past Sunday and the Sunday before. Next door lives Alma Jackson, the mother of eight children, who lived in Amite County and who , three months ago, was dragged out of her home by 10 armed men and taken to a field where she was beat and cut up and left for half dead. Her children don't like McComb- they wish they were back home where their friends are. But mother has told them they can't go back. Mother lies in bed awake at night. She lives next door to the church. It was the only place she could find that she could afford. But she knows that one night they are going to bomb the place. Her life is never-ending fear. Is this America? The church is demolished. It was a terrible blast. The police are here, certain again to see that all clues are removed and destroyed. And where is the Federal Government? But no, the local police must handle the situation; they are the upholders of the law. The Federal Government has no authority. And so the police stride in. The Negroes crowd in the street, brooding, anguishing. To the police this is a mob. So they tell the press: 3,000 Negroes gather in the street. Yet the entire Negrq population of McComb is just over 3,000. 40 l11is doesn't matter. Cover up the real srory. Paint a ty picture of rioting Negroes. Play on Northern fears. t­ This is what the press will pick up. And so Mike Il Wallace calmly and objectively explains to morning if national TV viewers that last night the Negroes of g. McComb reacted with violence- the rest- to two y, bombings follows but is not heard. And so the story ;n of the murder of a community goes untold. •

A REPORT FROM SACRAMENTO.

~s But Mississippi is not the only state in which

10 discrimination, segregation and bigotry flourish. n, California on November 3, 1964 amended its :h constitution to legalize hate. :e California has a good law - the Rumford Act­

~r which provides penalties for acts of discrimination ;n in housing. But orga-nized realtors (speaking for ' s bigots in general) got an amendment on the ballot :e to nullify the Rumford Act. St The overwhelming majority of voters in California ta have thus taken their stand on the side of prejudice. n It is time for those who believe in democracy to IS organize and begin the long, uphill, necessary fight

"0 to win the majority of voters to accept equality as >r a major premise upon which our system must rest. They must learn, too, that without it, the American Dream itself will fail.

~r "Negro women and their organizations have a ae tremendous responsibility and opportunity to offer ae leadership in the struggle for a better life in our re homeland," said Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune at the tg Civic Auditorium in Oakland, California, during her inaugural address as President of our National Asso­ ciation of Colored Women :t. 's Clubs. But es what kind of organization- what kind of struggle- will win the majority? For this is a strug­ gle to rid our country of a social cancer - and cancers o, are not cured with aspirin. re Without any doubt, education is going to play a 1t great part in that process, perhaps the decisive part. ae But leadership, initiative, for that education must g. s: • (650 McComb ciizens, on Nov. 17. 1964, signed a public statement urging compliance with law; and Negroes were re served in white restaurants there- for rhe first rime in living 0. memory.) 41 come from ourselves- from the victims of discrimi­ nation. The discriminatOrs will gloss over differences that are best brought our into the open. Through hun­ dreds of hidden channels they will move against equality, while sweet-talking cooperation. Wherever they can, they will sidetrack our just grievances, minimize our complaints, delay and delay "steps'' through "channels." And they will flatter. And they will divide. Particularly. they will seek to .rplinter and divide our federated organizatiom, for in these they recognize powerful coordinated strength which challenges their domination. And if we allow this, if we allow such trend.r to continue for long, we are conquered. It is up to us, who want democracy ro succeed, and who know that irs success depends on ending discrimination more than on any other one facror, -it is up ro us to rake leader.rbip in educt~tion against prejudice and for democracy to the whole community. It could well be that an adaptation of the Freedom School idea can be carried out in every parr of the country, and not just the South as now. 1 t could be that we should study very carefully the history of the bus boycott, the sir-ins, the voter­ registration campaigns, the ways in which civil rights efforts have been coordinated, the election struggles, the school desegregation efforts, and related subjects. And the idea of seminars, classes, workshops, panels, plays, exhibits in any and all of the various fields that tend to educate both Negro and white to the ideal of equality, is excellent. But "one-shot" approaches, "occasional" seminars are not enough 111 roday's critical circumstances. \IV e must learn the lesson of continuity, of orga­ nized. coordinated ways of working. In our Association we are projecting the idea of seasonal educational efforts, with a large affair (whether a workship, an area conference, a church­ and-club sponsored seminar, an art show, or any other form of educational acriviry) each season in each area. Thus a Winter Seminar, and a Seminar in Spring, and in the Summer and in the Fall gives us a regular pattern. which, as we master it, will in 42 1- the course of time develop into monthly meetings every bit as important in our various communities lt as the huge monthly Friday Morning Club meetings 1- are in Los Angeles. ;t And another thing: our women's clubs are not "copying" an essentially white club such as the Friday s, Morning Club of Los Angeles. We are developing something new and needed: a continuous, adaptable :y approach to the central question of our times- ending discrimination- using variotts forms of meetings, re initiated by various clubs in our federation, and based ·h on their potentialities, their special fields and their if forces, coordinated at the district level by our Districr re Executive Boards, with our State Education and Literature Department providing ttid and a.r.ri.rtcmce with outlines, printed material, and such other forms of help as it finds most useful w the clubs. lf1 We are urging all of our leadership forces, state, St distriCt and at the club level, to look into the question y. of working with the main delegated bodies of civil m rights workers; for among such federated bodies we will find many opportunities to serve, as well as many new friends of both racial groups; and we will nor ly hesitate to ask them to participate with us in our :r­ seminars and workshops- for such participation will lts help them as much as it helps us. :s, It is possible that we can convince some of these ts. delegated bodies to do as COFO did in Mississippi. )S, I for one believe that the Freedom School approach us to the problem of developing a trained and expe­ to rienced local leadership is one of the most produc­ lt" tive elements in the civil rights field today. An 10 adaptation of the Freedom School idea in other states is not only quite possible, but is now being projecred for Georgia and Alabama by the young people who were so successful in Mississippi during the past year. of Coordination by the main delegated bodies in the au civil rights field would mean centers for education :h­ rep,ardiug cir·il right.r in et·ery commm1ity in the .rtate. ,ny The value of such a development should be clear to tn everyone who appreciates the size of the educational 1ar task confronting us in this stare as a result of passage ves in Novemher 1964, of the Amendment writing dis­ in crimination inro the Stare Constitmion of California. ·r------~----~~---

The ladies of our great California State Association tl of Colored Women's Clubs stand ready tO carry their c full share of responsibility in shaping, and in carry­ ing on, educational work in coordination with the main civil rights bodies. In fact, our Education and y Scholarship Program, adopted at our 1964 conven­ h tion, calls for working with the whole community­ s with all organizations and individuals willing tO get in there and pitch -for education that strengthens Sl our objective of full equality. ll It is by moving to strengthen the civil rights cause, d it is by helping to improve the general level of e understanding in our various communities regarding the great values the American Negro brings tO American life, that we can assiSt the liberation struggle most. Our thanks tO the dear young people of the Freedom School Movement, whose courage and action in the face ·of death itself, has given new impetus to our cause! Our condolences to the families and friends of those who were murdered in this righteous battle: the young people who died gave the last full measure of devotion to our country and our people - no one could have done more, and no one could deserve more than they the certain, if delayed, recognition by the nation of their roles as true heroes of our time of travaiL And our hopes, based on the bright accomplishments of the past year, that the Freedom School Movement will find the increased support it needs and must have to expand its work tO keep pace with the expanding need of roday.

For taday more than ever is the time tO be "Lift­ ing As We Climb;" now more than ever we need · ~ Deeds Not Words;" tO give strength ro our people, now is the time for "Leadership In Education;" and for "Human Rights, Human Dignity, The Time Is Now!"

A PRACTICAL POSTSCRIPT.

Dear Reader:

Greetings and best wishes to you from the Califor­ nia State Association of Colored Women's Clubs, Inc., 44 the Young Adults Department and rhe National Asso­ ciation of Girls Clubs (California). We invite you to rake part wirh us in this work. The ladies of the District Executive Commirree of your area will be happy ro meet and know you and help you get started as a member of the California Stare Association of Colored Women"s Clubs, Inc. Our Association is a federation of club women who see "the great need of co-operative work for the general uplifr of our group." Our clubs carry on many different activities, all of them directed roward rhar end. One aspect of rhe life of our Association is rhe Education and Scholarship Program. The publication you have just finished reading is a parr of rhar pro­ gram. If you think rhe material in ir is of importance and if you believe it would be a good thing ro have more people know rhe facts ir contains, rhen rhere is something you can do to rake part with us right now: May we suggest rhat you first join one of the clubs of rhe federation in your Disrricr. Second, talk over with rhe club president or rhe chairman of Education, Literature and Music, how you can besr function in rhis particular program. Once you are a parr of rhe federation, rhen pitch in! Starr working in your club ar once! There is much ro do. Here are examples of the sorr of rhing you can do ro help rhe Education and Scholarship Program of our federation: See rhar many individual members of your church ger and read rhis publication and other publications of our Education and Scholarship Program. Perhaps rhe women of your club can put a copy or copies in rhe hands of each member of the Ministerial Association of your area. Someone from your club could present a reporr on rhe current siruarion in rhe South ar a lodge or union meeting. In fact, rhe federated way is to organize an approach ro the question so that a number of the club members are actively taking part, and so that you visit a number of lodges or clubs in connection with the program you are working on. Wherever our people gather socially you will find 45 an opportunity to carry forward one parr or another of our Association's program. A club project could be to mail a copy of "Freedom Schools" ro all the leadership people you can. Con­ gressmen should have it; ministers need it; reporters and commentators should have copies, for the factual information it contains. Perhaps your club can arrange with a broadcasting station for a free time-space to schedule it over the air. Book reviewers can be seen; and newspaper editors. If any newspaper editor you can reach will prim "Freedom Schools" in irs en­ tirety, in a single issue or serially, that would be a great accomplishment for your club, and the paper and its readers would be the better for your having taken the initiative to ask that it be primed. Our Association cannot incur any financial cost to it in connection with any reprint or broadcast; but we are happy ro have the material it contains reach a wider audience. One of the greatest contributions our people have made ro the culture of our country is the contribmion of music, especially spirituals, hymns and folksongs. Today we are witnessing a great rebirth of interest in this kind of music, and it is a very healthy thing that this is so. Our Education work can and should be carried on in connection with the large folksong gatherings and with the smaller neighborhood gather­ ings. Many of the greatest songs of the liberation struggle in the Somh and all over the country are our Jongs. Buc over the years they have become a part of a common culture, white and black. Those who sing them, and those who are in the audiences, are already spiritually prepared in varying degrees tO hear about Equality, about Freedom, about an end to the long and terrible night of Discrimination through which we all have Jived. Such gatherings are of high importance because of the moods they evoke and the unity they create. When the Freedom Singers reach into the past for these words: ,.... and as I cttt the weeds that grew on father's grave, father's grave, I swore no child I bore would be a slal'e . .. " 46 they are transforming hearts and attitudes, and we should be there to help them. Bur we don't just go there -like that. The feder­ ated way is to meet with them, to work our with them a way in which we can aid and support rhe work they are doing; meanwhile establishing where and in what way we can bring our message of Education to the people they reach. But we do this, we work in this w;t)'. wirh all the people who are at the center of the real struggle for an end to Discrimination. The problem, you see, is largely <>ne of improvi11g om methodJ of work. We must learn how best to develop understanding wherever we go, wherever we can. But we know rhar as witnesses of Truth our words and our actions will have an effect on the process of Change now going on. We need your help, dear Reader. And of course we invite you ro rake pan with us in this great work.

47 LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION

We are happy ro place in your hands an account of the FREEDOM SCHOOLS and the events leading up to them. In the South today the FREEDOM SCHOOLS are playing a tremendous role in educating, orgamz· ing and preparing r!-ie young people for their part in the most important struggle of our time: ending discrimination. Until discrimination ends, until equality is a fact and not just a word, until all citizens have the same rights and privileges, the future of our country will be in doubt. In fact; there can be no future for the American Dream of democracy without solving the problem of discrimination. We cannot have First Class Citizens and Second Class Citizens and have Equality. All must be First Class. And if the myth of racial superiority must go in order to achieve equality, then let it go. This study text is part of the Scholarship and Education Program of the California State Associa­ tion of Colored Women's Clubs, Inc. It gives a brief account of some of the main struggles in the South which led to the creation of the Mississippi Summer . Project and the Freedom School Movement; and it describes in some detail the way in which the Freedom Schools operate in the various communities in Mississippi. Civil rights activity needs the support of organized, sustained educational work. Such educational work, through seminars, workshops, study texts and other means, can change for the better the thinking of an entire community. Our Federation is taking the initiative in this field, and at the same time is con· ducting a Scholarship campaign for our young · people, to help them get started toward college degrees. If you purchased this pamphlet at one of the study classes of our Association's Education and Scholarship Program, half of the money you paid went into the Association's Scholarship Fund. Scholar­ ships, too, are part of Leadership in Education. VIOLA M. BROOKS, State President, California State Association of Colored Women's Clubs, Inc. JACQUE CLACK, Chairman, DeNrtment of Education, Literature and Music. 48