To Write in the Light of Freedom
Page 16
Freedom
Freedom means to be free,
And buzz around like the bumble bee.
To be Free, Free, Free.
To fly up in the air,
And go to places everywhere.
To be Free, Free, Free.
To have your rights,
To roam the streets at night.
To be Free, Free, Free.
To be free like a bird in the air,
To walk through the forest so mild and fair.
To be Free, Free, Free.
Rosalyn W.
As a Negro I Want to Be
As a Negro I want to be equal as every man
Able to walk hand and hand,
Able to live a happy life
As every other man’s children and wife.
I want to be equal and superior
To those men that call Negroes inferior
I want to prove I’m just as good
As any race and white man should.
As a Negro I want to be
As any other man on this earth, free;
For I am like a white man, given a birth,
Both black men and white men are parts of this earth.
Sadie Yvonne C.
Freedom Story
Once upon a time there were two little girls, talking one day. These girls were Negro children who had recently moved from big cities like California, New York, Chicago, and other places. They were talking about how different Mississippi was from any place else they knew of.
So one little girl said to the other one, Why is Mississippi so different from other places? In other places you can go anywhere you want to. To different movie theaters, drive in theaters, and different stores. The other girl said, That’s what I wanted to know. In Mississippi I don’t see any places that are Integrated. Nothing but white people go to places down here. The two girls talked a long, long time. Then they finally went home. When one of the girls got there her mother told her that they would be moving back to New York. Because she didn’t like it down here at all. The Negroes didn’t have hardly any places to go to. The next day this family moved and went back to their own house and didn’t ever come back.
Rosalyn W.
July 30, 1964
Report from Jackson
By Lelia Jean Waterhouse
On arriving in Jackson July 25, 1964, Rose, Sarbie, Dorothy and I along with our coordinator Mark went to plan the convention. First we elected officers; they were:
Chairman—Joyce Brown, McComb.
Asst. Chairman—Roscoe Jones, Meridian.
Secretary—Lelia Waterhouse, Meridian.
Asst. Sec.—Delmas Henderson, Columbus.
Treasurer—Malcolm Taylor, Vicksburg.
Asst. Treasurer—Dorothy Gathright, Meridian.
Second we outlined the program for the Convention: Saturday—
9:30–10:00 Registration and Credentials.
10:00–11:00 General Assembly
11:00–12:30 Committees 1–4.
12:30–1:30 Lunch at the School.
1:30–3:00 Committees 1–4.
3:00–6:00 General Assembly.
First Keynote Address: Vote on resolutions from Committees.
(Suggested Keynote Speakers, Bob Moses, Fanny Lou Hamer.)
6:00–8:00 Dinner at home
8:00 Free Southern Theater.
Sunday—
The program will be similar to Saturday.
The suggested platform areas for the Committees were: education, public accommodations, voting, housing, health, federal aid, etc.
The trip to Jackson was very enjoyable and I know that everyone had a nice time.
FREEDOM DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO HOLD DISTRICT MEETING
The Fourth District Meeting of the Freedom Democratic Party will be held here at the School on Sunday, August 2, at 3 p.m. EVERYONE IS URGED TO ATTEND.
Places Are Still Needed for Convention Delegates
Any one who can possibly house and/or feed one or more of the delegates to the Freedom School Convention on August 7, 8, 9, is asked to call the school—482-1845.
This is very important as we are expecting over 100 people. Most of the delegates will be Negro Freedom School students from across the state, and the rest will be coordinators, most of whom will be white. It is very important that we find housing for these people so please try to let us know.
The House of Liberty
I came not for fortune, nor for fame,
I seek not to add glory to an unknown name.
I did not come under the shadow of night,
I came by day to fight for what’s right.
I shan’t let fear, my monstrous foe,
Conquer my soul with threat and woe.
Here I have come and here I shall stay,
And no amount of fear, my determination can sway.
I asked for your churches, and you turned me down,
But I’ll do my work if I have to do it on the ground;
You will not speak for fear of being heard,
So you crawl in your shell and say, “Do not disturb.”
You think because you’ve turned me away,
You’ve protected yourself for another day.
But tomorrow surely must come,
And your enemy will still be there with the rising sun;
He’ll be there tomorrow as all tomorrows in the past,
And he’ll follow you into the future if you let him pass.
You’ve turned me down to humor him,
Ah: Your face is sad and grim.
For even tho’ your help I ask,
Even without it, I’ll finish my task.
In a bombed house I have to teach my school,
Because I believe all men should live by the Golden Rule.
To a bombed house your children must come,
Because of your fear of a bomb.
And because you’ve let your fear conquer your Soul.
In this bombed house these minds I must try to Mold;
I must try to teach them to stand tall and be A man,
When you their parents have cowered down and refused To take a stand.
Joyce Brown
McComb Freedom School
Declaration of Independence
By the students of the St. John’s Methodist Church Freedom School, Palmer’s Crossing, Hattiesburg, Miss.
In this course of human events, it has become necessary for the Negro people to break away from the customs which have made it very difficult for the Negro to get his God-given rights. We, as citizens of Mississippi, do hereby state that all people should have the right to petition, to assemble, and to use public places. We also have the right to life, liberty, and to seek happiness.
The government has no right to make or to change laws without the consent of the people. No government has the right to take the law into its own hands. All people as citizens have the right to impeach the government when their rights are being taken away.
All voters elect persons to the government. Everyone must vote to elect the person of his choice; so we hereby state that all persons of twenty-one years of age, whether black, white, or yellow, have the right to elect the persons of their choice; and if these persons do not carry out the will of the people, they have the right to alter or abolish the government.
The Negro does not have the right to petition the government for a redress of these grievances:
For equal opportunity.
For better schools and equipment.
For better recreation facilities.
For more public libraries.
For schools for the mentally ill.
For more and better senior colleges.
For better roads in the Negro communities.
For training schools in the State of Mississippi.
For more Negro policemen.
For more guarantee of fair circuit clerks.
For integration in colleges and schools.
The government has made it possib
le for the white man to have a mock trial in the case of a Negro’s death.
The government has refused to make laws for the public good.
The government has used police brutality.
The government has imposed taxes upon us without representation.
The government has refused to give the Negroes the right to go into public places.
The government has marked our registration forms unfairly.
We, therefore, the Negroes of Mississippi assembled, appeal to the government of the state, that no man is free until all men are free. We so hereby declare independence from the unjust laws of Mississippi which conflict with the United States Constitution.
Student Editorial
CHARITY ONLY: NOT WANTED
Every Negro who has done any amount of traveling in the past few years (since the white man discovered the Negro) can well appreciate the position of a colored traveler sitting on a train with a white man commiserating with him. Attempting to read his paper to find out, perhaps, if Willie Mays is still hitting above .400 or if the invasion of Cuba is really going to come off, he finds himself collared by a loquacious, conscience stricken Caucasian who is bent on solving the entire race problem by one personal act of charity. This position would have been just as effective with any number of outlines that could be readily supplied by almost any Negro—“For the last time, I don’t want to marry your daughter,” or “For the last time I don’t want to go home with you for dinner,” or perhaps, “For the last time I don’t want a job in your front office.”
Like the jokes told by Dick Gregory, Nipsey Russell and Godfrey Cambridge, this situation has a bitter humor that brings instant laughter but yet makes a lasting and serious psychological point—the white man is still condescending to offer only charity.
Emma P.
Notice to Students of the Meridian Freedom School
The FREEDOM STAR is your paper and any articles which you would like to submit for publication are welcome; we are only sorry that we cannot print all of the poems, articles, and stories which are handed in to us. Some of the things that were submitted too late for this issue will appear in the next.
August 19, 1964
The Freedom School Convention of August 7–10, 1964: Three Reports
The convention started Saturday morning at 9:30am with the chairman opening the meeting by introducing the officers and telling where each officer was from. Members of the executive committee were Joyce Brown, Chairman (McComb); Roscoe Jones, Assistant Chairman (Meridian); Lelia Jean Waterhouse, Secretary (Meridian); Delmas Henderson, Assistant Secretary (Columbus); Malcolm Taylor, Treasurer (Vicksburg); Dorothy Gathright, Assistant treasurer (Meridian).
On Saturday there were four committees and workshops that met. They were Public Accommodations, Housing, Foreign Affairs, and Medical Care. On Sunday the four committees and workshops that met were Federal Aid, City Maintenance, Job Opportunities, and Voter Registration.
It was moved that a copy of the entire platform be sent to each mayor in the state of Mississippi, the Governor, to the state senators and representatives, and the President of the United States. Furthermore, a copy will be sent the Library of Congress for its permanent records.
Lelia Jean Waterhouse
The convention was very nice and enjoyable for everyone. I had a very nice time: it was a great experience for me to attend a convention like this one. The Coordinators and students were very friendly.
Charles Thurman (Greenwood)
On August 7, 1964, the Freedom Schools and the Mississippi Student Union met at the Baptist Seminary for a convention. The convention was very good from the start to finish. There were many Freedom Schools from all over the state to make the convention.
One of the most important things to tell about is the way the different schools talked together to make the convention platform. The students in the convention had one thing in common; we all live in a state where Negroes have very little to say about the ways government is being run.
This is the reason the convention was a great success. The students at the convention have made a great start toward showing Mississippi and the world that the young people of this state are looking out not only for the Negroes, but also for the whites of this “great” state of Mississippi. (By great I mean that Mississippi is telling the other states that it is for the Right and Right alone. This and only this is what this state is doing.)
In closing I would like to say that a copy of the convention platform will be sent to Governor Johnson, the Senate, the Representatives, the Library of Congress, and the President of the United States of America.
Roscoe Jones
Negroes in the United States
We, in the United States, want to belong to our country because each and every citizen in it has a chance to say how he wants his government to be run. We want to feel that we can vote for laws and officials, and that the majority of the voters choose. We want to be free to think and to judge and to choose. We want to be able to accept what most people vote to have.
Linda W.
Letter to the Editor
(Note: The following letter was written by Phil’s English class 1B for publication in the Meridian Star, which for some reason, chose not to print it.)
To the Editor:
What does freedom mean to Negroes? The word freedom means to be free and have all the equal rights that belong to each man regardless of race, color, or creed. We were forced to leave Africa; we were born in America, and we should have the rights of any American. We are not treated like human beings. America is not the land of the brave and free. Some Negroes have the same education and skills like any white man but we are denied to have the same jobs.
Our Day Freedom Now
That was our day, June 21, 1964
When our freedom fight began.
Yes, it was Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman’s day, too.
And that’s why they died for you and me.
After forty-eight days of struggle they’ve gotten their peace.
We must now fight for our rights.
We can’t let freedom die because Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman
Died.
But we must continue the struggle they begun.
Three men’s death began our fight
But if three men strengthen the freedom movement
Just think what 20,000 hands can do.
So the best thing we can do for them
Is to love our enemies as well as our friends.
And fight for their freedom as well as our freedom.
What are we going to do?
Fight for “Freedom,” That’s our aim.
Deseree Page
Interview with Tina Duncan
Q. How is your home different from down here?
A. I come from the San Joaquin Valley in central California—and the weather is very much the same except it is more humid here. The valley is an agricultural area so the towns are quite small and most of the area is covered with grape vines and orange groves and various other kinds of fruit. A little to the south of where I live cotton is grown also.
Q. Are there dogs and cats running around the streets like there are here?
A. Yes.
Q. Do some people burn wood?
A. Yes—in the winter to keep warm.
Q. How does “downtown” look in your town?
A. My home town is very small—and the downtown area consists of only one street. People come there to shop and talk to one another.
Q. Do you think Ronnie is very famous around the school?
A. I have no idea, is he?
Q. Do you like teaching here?
A. I like it very much because most of the students are nice and want to learn.
Q. Do any of your students talk back to you?
A. Sometimes my class gets too noisy—but I quiet them down.
Q. Do you like all of your students?
A. Yes.
Q. Do some houses up where you live
look as bad as some down here?
A. Yes—and you’ll find this to be true all over the country.
Q. Do they have cows and horses and things in your home town?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you have any sisters or brothers?
A. Yes two brothers 19 and 13 years old.
Pat T.
Freedom News (Palmer’s Crossing, MS)
Students attending Freedom Schools held in the Priest’s Creek Missionary Baptist Church and St. John’s Methodist Church of Palmer’s Crossing banded together to produce the Freedom News. A small community located just outside of Hattiesburg, Palmer’s Crossing was home to some of Mississippi’s most enthusiastic and impressive Freedom School students. Collectively, the Priest’s Creek and St. John’s Freedom Schools enjoyed perhaps the best-trained faculty in the entire Freedom School system. Overwhelmed by the number of students who arrived for classes, the Palmer’s Crossing Freedom School administrators requested additional teachers to meet their enrollment needs. Many of the new arrivals were veteran New York City teachers who belonged to the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). As opposed to some Freedom School volunteers who had never before taught, many UFT members were experienced educators who had dedicated their lives and careers to instructing young people. Some had also previously worked with underprivileged African American youths in northern schools. Another Palmer’s Crossing teacher was a Columbia and Yale University–educated college professor.
As is evidenced in the essays that follow, students in the Palmer’s Crossing Freedom Schools were tremendously excited about their classes and the movement that was enveloping their community. They used the African American history lessons to reflect on their ancestors’ experience and dream of a better future for themselves. One of the most significant contributions made by the students in the Palmer’s Crossing Freedom Schools was their “Declaration of Independence,” which was distributed throughout the state and even reproduced in some of the other Freedom School newspapers.