To Write in the Light of Freedom
Page 19
White People Harassed Again
A middle-aged couple were only able to talk with Rabbi Allan Devine for half an hour on the evening of July 25th. A Ruleville policeman then drove up and told them “You better not talk with him.” It seemed that he was under orders from the Mayor. This has happened before: On July 4th, a local white man had been talking about civil rights with workers at the Community Center when Ruleville police arrested him and charged him with disorderly conduct. Charles McLaurin, SNCC project director for Sunflower County, said, “The incident tonight again indicated that Mayor Dorrough is scared to death that there will be a break in the solid white South; he is afraid that whites talking with us may begin to see how Dorrough and his ilk are ruining Mississippi.”
Theater Owner Won’t Obey
Charles McLaurin, SNCC project director for Sunflower County, and LaFayette Surney, SNCC project director in Clarksdale, were refused at the main entrance of Honey Theater in Indianola on July 25th. McLaurin told the manager that separate entrances were outlawed by the new bill, but he said “We aren’t changing our policy here”, and stood with his keys ready to lock the door. McLaurin and Surney then left.
Indianola Registration Continues
On July 24th, 18 Indianola Negroes tried to register. At Thursday’s mass meeting, a policeman pulled a pistol. And the Indianola paper and police chief Bryce Alexander have been redbaiting. But this didn’t keep the Indianola people from the courthouse. They all took the test with no trouble.
The Ruleville Student Action Group
This group is concerned with freedom, which is the most important thing for us all. This group is for youth, for students, for people who want direct action.
Why WE Want Direct Action
1.We want our school teachers to vote
The teachers at our school are scared to vote because (a) they think they will lose their jobs, and (b) because our principal won’t vote, and he won’t vote because he makes enough money to support himself and his family.
2.We want better schooling
For instance, in our history classes, we want to be able to speak, not only of what the books say, but of freedom also.
What We Want to Do
1.We will try to make the teachers of our school vote.
2.We will picket the school, and with your help we will surely win.
It is up to you to participate in this program, and with your help they will surrender.
3.We will meet every Wednesday and Friday. If you want to stand up for your rights in this school—
Come to our meeting:
4:30 p.m.—Wednesday and Friday at the community center
7:30 p.m.—Fridays, at Williams Chapel
We Are Encouraging You to Fight for Your Freedom
Eddie Johnson
on behalf of the
Ruleville Student
Action Group
The Freedom Democratic Party is a political party for the Negroes. It is a political party for whites. It welcomes everybody. It is the only political party in Mississippi for both whites and Negroes.
The Freedom Democratic Party is NOT the regular Democratic Party of Mississippi. It is called the Freedom Democratic Party because it stands for the Freedom of the Negro people.
The regular Democratic Party does everything possible to stop Negroes from becoming a part of the political life of Mississippi. It allows only whites to join with it.
The regular Democratic Party does not support the National Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of the entire United States. This is because the National Democratic Party does not favor stopping Negroes from voting.
The Freedom Democratic Party is very different. It tries to do everything possible to have Negroes take part in the political life of Mississippi. It welcomes the Negro people. This new party is also different because it supports the National Democratic Party. It stands for the same things as the National Democratic party.
In the month of August all the Democratic Parties of the US will have a meeting. This is a meeting of the National Democratic Party. If the new Freedom Democratic Party gets enough people to support it, then the meeting in August will support the new political party of Negroes and whites. If the Freedom Democratic Party gets enough people to support it, then the meeting in August will not support the all-white old Democratic Party of Mississippi. The old Democratic Party of Eastland, Stennis, and Gov. Johnson.
This would be a big step forward in the fight for Freedom. A big step forward because the National Democratic Party that meets in August makes a lot of laws for the entire United States. We want laws that are for Freedom. We want this meeting, therefore, to support the new freedom Democratic Party.
The new party is for both whites and Negroes. But right now almost all whites are against this Freedom Party. Support for the Freedom Democratic Party must come from Negroes.
How can Negroes give their support to the new party? How can we have laws for Freedom? We can support the new party by filling out the Freedom Forms. Those are the forms that young people are taking door to door all over Mississippi. Filling out the form shows that Negroes want more than $3 a day pay. Shows that we want equal rights. Shows that we want Freedom. Shows that we want to vote.
Those Freedom Forms are just like the forms used many places up North for people who want to vote. People who have signed the form if they lived up North could vote. The number of forms filled out is one way of showing the number of people who are not allowed to vote just because they live in Mississippi. Of course even more people than those who sign should have the right to vote. These forms are very important because they show to the whole world that we want to vote. They are very important because they show support for the new Freedom Democratic Party. And this Party needs support if it is to go to the August meeting of all the Democratic Parties.
Nobody in Mississippi sees the names of people who sign with the Freedom Democratic Party. Nobody but people working with the new party of Freedom. Everybody should fill out these forms. Everyone should show that they want Freedom.
The Freedom Democratic Party will hold meetings in Sunflower County. It will hold meetings all over Mississippi. It will elect people to go to a County meeting. It will elect some people to go to a state meeting. People can support the Freedom Democratic Party by going to meetings that are held in their town. Everyone should go to those local meetings.
We must support this new party. It is OUR party. We must work for Freedom. No change comes unless our people work for change. We demand change. We demand freedom.
Fill out a Freedom Form! Support the Freedom Democratic Party of Mississippi.
Freedom Flame (Shaw, MS)
On July 19, 1964, the New York Times ran a story that infuriated African Americans across Mississippi. Among a number of racist and inaccurate statements taken from white civic leaders living near Shaw was a statement from a Cleveland, Mississippi, sheriff who claimed that “95 per cent of our blacks are happy.”82 Organizers in Shaw responded with a letter-writing campaign to the northern paper, giving local people a voice against the oppression. Galvanized in part by the letter-writing campaign, African Americans living in Shaw organized picket lines, boycotts, and mass meetings to protest the very real racism that constantly limited their freedom and economic and political opportunities. Students from the Shaw Freedom Schools played major roles in nearly all local movement activity. The Shaw Freedom Schools were dominated by older teenagers, young people who were standing at the cusp of adulthood and ready to claim leadership roles in their community. These burgeoning leaders organized through the Shaw Freedom School’s Freedom Flame and the school’s large Mississippi Student Union chapter, which in the late summer of 1964 led a boycott of the local McEvans High School. The leadership that emerged from the Shaw Freedom School helped energize and lead a growing local movement well into the fall of 1964 when the local Freedom School was still holding voter registration classes.
August 5, 1964
; M.S.U. Students Score Victory in McEvans High School Boycott
Shaw M.S.U. News
The Shaw Mississippi Student Union is composed of about 75 members. The officers are: President—Aaron German; Vice President—Charles Bonds; Secretary—Mary Crawford; Assistant Secretary—Doris Brown.
There are also four committees, each of these committes has a Chairman; Welfare Committee Chairman—Vinson Flakes; Program Committee—Rebecca Flakes; Action Committe—Ruby Richard; Membership Committee—Willie Crawford
Hopefully we want to increase our membership. We had some members join our club on our last meeting night. We meet on every Monday night.
We are progressing rapidly, and with the students’ cooperation we want to keep the movement going and create a stronger one in the future.
Shaw Parents Organize
Thirty five parents from Shaw are organizing a Parents Association to try to meet with the school board and the teachers of McEvans High School in Shaw. After a discussion Wed. August 4, the problems of inept and oppressive teaching at the local Negro schools, they agreed to try to open negotiations concerning . . . (cont. on pg. 2)
Untitled
The Junior Class of McEvans High School sponsored a spaghetti supper in the cafeteria on Fri. July 31, 1964. Plates were sold to three of the volunteers. They went over to the cafeteria to get their plates and decided to eat there. They were accepted by everyone except the principal. “Oh, no; you don’t eat here.” He said, “You must see the superintendent first.” “Where does he live?” asked Morris Rubin, a summer volunteer. “In Shaw,” said Mr. Alexander. “And you expect us to walk over there to ask him if we may eat in the cafeteria?” “That is exactly what I expect,” repeated the principal. I’m very disappointed, said Morris, “but I will eat outside.” So he and the other volunteers sat outside on the ground and ate.
“Let’s boycott the cafeteria!” someone suggested. Right away everyone agreed.
On August 3, 1964, the students boycotted the cafeteria.
Another Shooting
Five volunteer workers coming from Jackson to Shaw, on August 4, had stopped between Louise and Indianola on the highway, because of a flat. As they started to leave, they were shot at by some local whites of Mississippi.
Acknowledgments
As with the Freedom Schools themselves, this book was a community effort only made possible through the contributions of a wide range of activists, archivists, and historians. Numerous Freedom School students, teachers, and organizers helped teach us about the Freedom Schools and the Civil Rights Movement, offered valuable feedback and commentary, and even at times donated copies of Freedom School newspapers or pointed us to their location in archives. We are particularly grateful to Hymethia Washington Thompson, Homer Hill, Eddie James Carthan, Liz Fusco, Wally Roberts, Sanford Siegel, Areyla Mitchell, Herbert Randall, Roscoe Jones, Anthony Harris, Glenda Funchess, Charles Cobb, Dave Dennis, Bob Moses, Staughton Lynd, Sandra Adickes, Hollis Watkins, Heather Booth, Ira Landess, Mark Levy, Paula Pace, Daisy Harris Wade, Joseph Ellin, Stanley Zibulsky, Barbara Schwartzbaum, Colia Clark, and Lawrence Guyot. Many of these extraordinary people have welcomed us into their homes and lives, serving us coffee and tea and giving moments of their time to help us better understand their remarkable histories. Some of these interactions occurred in short spans during conferences or even at times outside of meetings, and surely many of these busy activists have since forgotten about our discussions. But the insights shared by these special individuals have both inspired and educated us. As historians we are grateful for your willingness to share resources, and as citizens we treasure your long-lasting contributions to our society. Without your work and dedication to education and activism, neither the Freedom Schools nor this book would have been possible.
This book was also made possible by the support of dozens of archivists, research assistants, and funding sources. We would particularly like to thank Jennifer Brannock, Cindy Lawler, Diane Ross, Ashley Bowerman, Michael Edmonds, Craig Simpson, Elaine Hall, Kathryn Hughes, Kevin Schlottmann, James Danky, Cynthia Lewis, Christine Pawley, Jacky Johnson, Curtis Austin, Stephanie Bolivar, Katherine Fleck, and Andy Kraushaar. These people gave hours of their lives helping us find, access, and transcribe the manuscripts. In some cases they worked late into the night and made special exceptions. In others, they gave us places to sleep. We are grateful for your help and hope our appreciation shows through in the care that we have put into this work. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have in producing it. Further thanks go to scholars including Sabrina Strings, Jessica Johnson, Jessie Dunbar, Crystal Sanders, Wesley Hogan, Nan Woodruff, Hasan Jeffries, Jerma Jackson, Heather Williams, Genna Rae McNeil, Stan Thangaraj, Charles Bolton, Michelle Purdy, Harvey Graff, Peg Thoms, Christina Greene, Ken Goings, Kevin Boyle, William Van Deburg, Joseph Arena, Walter Rucker, Ronald Williams II, our editor Craig Gill, and the anonymous reviewers for the University Press of Mississippi for helping us think about the structure of this book and offering valuable comments about ways to improve the introduction.
Finally, we need to thank our sources of funding for this project. These newspapers were found all over the country and we conducted much of the research while in graduate school. Those trips would not have been possible without much-needed financial support from the Ohio State University Department of History, Pennsylvania State University’s Africana Research Center, the American Federation of Teachers, the University of Wisconsin–Madison Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America, and the College of Charleston Department of Teacher Education.
Notes
1. Sue Sephus, “I Have Been to School,” Freedom’s Journal, August 24, 1964, 2, Box 98, Folder 9, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Records (hereafter, SNCC-King), 1959–1972, The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Atlanta, GA (hereafter, King Center); Affidavits from Ruleville appear in Box 11, Folder 37 of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Papers (MFDP Papers), King Center; Charles Cobb, “Charlie Cobb: The Mississippi Educational Wasteland,” Box 2, Folder 13, MFDP Papers; and Joyce Brown, “Houses of Liberty,” Box 14, Folder 4, MFDP Papers. For more on Mississippi public schools, see Charles C. Bolton, The Hardest Deal of All: The Battle Over School Integration in Mississippi, 1870–1980 (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2007).
2. Albert Evans, “Why I Deserve Freedom,” Student Voice of True Light, July 20, 1964, Box 2, Folder 3, in Ellin (Joseph and Nancy) Freedom Summer Collection (hereafter, Ellin Papers), The University of Southern Mississippi Historical Manuscripts Collection, Hattiesburg, MS (hereafter, USM).
3. “Freedom School Report,” July 10, 1964, Box 6, Folder 3, Staughton and Alice Lynd Papers (hereafter, Lynd Papers), Kent State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives, Kent, OH.
4. Vernon Lane Wharton, The Negro in Mississippi, 1865–1890 (New York: Harper & Row, 1947), 182.
5. Wharton, The Negro in Mississippi, 181–198; Bradley G. Bond, ed., Mississippi: A Documentary History (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), especially 125–145; and Nicholas Lemann, Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006).
6. For more on the end of Reconstruction, see W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1935); C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951); and Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988). The phrase “Jim Crow” is derived from a minstrel show character in the nineteenth century. Minstrel show performers were often whites who painted their faces black for on-stage stereotypical performances of African Americans. For more on African American life in Jim Crow Mississippi, see Neil R. McMillen, Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim
Crow (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1990).
7. Sir Harry Johnson, The Negro in the New World (New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1969, orig., 1910), 440–445. For more on the ways African American slaves learned to read and write, see Heather Williams, Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2005); and Janet Sharp Hermann, The Pursuit of a Dream (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981).
8. For more on black Mississippians’ responses to education during and immediately after the Civil War, see Christopher Span, From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse: African American Education in Mississippi, 1862–1875 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). For more on Reconstruction-era black independent schools, see Christopher M. Span, “Alternative Pedagogy: The Rise of the Private Black Academy in Early Postbellum Mississippi, 1862–1870” in Chartered Schools: Two Hundred Years of Independent Academies in the United States, 1727–1925, ed. Nancy Beadie and Kim Tolley (New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2002).
9. “Mississippi School Law,” Hinds County Gazette, April 20, 1870, 1; Stuart Grayson Noble, Forty Years of the Public Schools in Mississippi, With Special Reference to the Education of the Negro (New York: AMS Press, 1918); Bolton, The Hardest Deal of All, especially 3–9; and Span, From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse, especially 117–176.