Bay Area Friends of SNCC Newsletter

Bay Area Friends of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee

January 1965 Berkeley, California

Underground Education: The COFO Freedom School

	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 mould.
	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.

from a poem by Joyce Brown, 16
Freedom School pupil
McComb, Mississippi

There are 108 students attending the McComb Freedom School. After it was bombed, the students continued classes on the burnt grass only yards from where three explosions had ripped out a wall. Joyce Brown's poem was instrumental in moving the community to provide another meeting place for the School. Professor Staughton Lynd, Freedom School Director, cites this incident as a case where "the presence of a Freedom School helped to loosen the hard knot of fear and to organize the Negro community."

The Freedom School project was proposed in late 1963 by Charles Cobb, a Howard University student. The purpose, he said, "is to create an educational experience for students which will make it possible for them to challenge the myths of our society, to percieve more clearly its realities, and to find alternatives — ultimately new directions for action." A year later there were 41 functioning schools in 20 communities in the state of Mississippi with an enrollment of 2,135 students — twice the number expected and planned for.

Group discussion is the heart of the Schools' activities. As one COFO Guide to teachers suggests: "In the matter of classroom procedure, questioning is the vital tool. It is meaningless to flood the student with information he cannot understand; questioning is the path to enlightenment... 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."

In their war against the academic poverty of Mississippi, where four times as much is spent per capita for the white student as for the Negro student, the Freedom Schools try to offer as many academic courses as they can: chemistry, algebra, remedial reading and math, Negro History, journalism. But they go far beyond mere formal classes of instruction. They are focal points for personal expression against oppression on the one hand, and for personal growth and creativity, on the other. In the words of Mrs. Carolyn Reese, administrator of the Hattiesburg Freedom Schools, "The Freedom Schools mean an exposure to a totally new field of learning, new attitudes about people, new attitudes about self, and about the right to be dissatisfied with the status quo. The children have no conception that Mississippi is a part of the United States; their view of American history is history with no Negroes in it. It's like making a cake with no butter... The children are learning that somebody is supposed to listen to them. They are writing letters to the editor of the Hattiesburg newspapers, and learning where to direct their complaints."

Every school is different, and teachers are encouraged to bring their own supplies and to use their own imagination. A typical day's schedule might look like this: Early Morning (7-9) Concentrated individual work on areas of students' particular interest or need. Morning (9-12) Academic curriculum. Afternoon (2-4 Or 5) Non-Academic curriculum: recreation, cultural activities, and some tutoring. (It is too hot in the afternoon for much concentrated work). Evening (7-9 or later) Work with voter registration activities, or special events like a visiting folk singer on evenings when no political work is needed.

In the few months the Freedom Schools have been in existence they have brought rich returns. "I think the Freedom School is inspiring the people to lend a hand in the fight," reports Ralph Featherstone, 25 year old Director of the McComb school. "The older people are looking to the young people, and their courage is rubbing off. The school makes the kids feel they haven't been forgotten. It makes them feel that at last something is coming down to help them. They feel the school is for them." The most valuable legacy of this summer's schools, he feels has been the Negro History courses. "The only thing our kids knew about Negro history is about Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver and his peanuts."

At the end of the Mississippi Summer project the Freedom Schools continued. In several areas they are running jointly with the regular public school session. They offer subjects — such as foreign languages — not offered in the regular schools, and students are attracted to the informal questioning spirit of the Freedom Schools and academics based on their experiences as Mississippi Negroes.

The Freedom School program can develop as an aid in enabling students to make the transition from a Mississippi Negro high school to higher education. The Free Southern Theater is touring the Schools with a production of In White America. 25 performers, including Pete Seeger, the Chag Mitchell Trio, and the Freedom Singers have toured the Schools. In these and other ways the Schools provide a center for educational and cultural activies unavailable before.

Most Schools have their own mimeographed Newspaper, written, edited, and published by the students themselves. The average author of an article is between 13 and 15 years of age, and is the first to insist on connecting the Freedom Schools to the opening of Mississippi's closed society. A "Declaration of Independence," written by the Freedom School students of Hattiesburg begins:

"In the 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".

And after detailing the rights they have been denied by the government of Mississippi, the Declaration ends:

"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 do hereby declare independence from the unjust laws of Mississippi which conflict with the United States Constitution."

Small wonder that a bill was hurriedly introduced in the State Legislature prohibiting any schools not licensed by the county superintendent of education, and forbidding license to any school that "counsels and encourages disobedience to the laws of the state", a direct attack on the life of the Freedom School system.

To create a basis for support and to bring closer together the schools of the North and the South, COFO is proposing to its Northern supporters that their community, school or organization "adopt" one of the Mississippi Freedom Schools. The Freedom Schools need money and supplies. Students in the north can correspond with Freedom students, exchange tape recordings or art exhibits, exchange visitors. The gap, so profound, so complete, between the world of the Freedom student in Mississippi, and the rest of his nation, can be bridged. One half of this effort has been begun, in 20 communities in Mississippi. More must come from outside.

Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round

by Charleane Hill

(From the Benton County, Mississippi Freedom Train Newspaper)

As everyone already knows Antioch Missionary Baptist Church was burned on October 31, 1964. I was a member of that church.

We as Negroes know it is a trend for us to have our churches burned if there is any sort of political meeting being held there; but this sort of thing should not frighten any of the Negroes unless they are Uncle Toms. If there were any Uncle Toms around they should know by now that "Mr. Charlie" doesn't love them any more since they are fighting for equality, freedom, and justice.

We as a community don't feel that our church was burned just because Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer spoke there on October 30, or because civil rights workers were there, but because we became organized as a group and started to fight for what we deserve and should have had a long time ago. I now feel that the people of Antioch Community will be much stronger in this work. As Mrs. Hamer said, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired." We as Negroes are American citizens whether 'they' know it or not, and we intend to get our rights.

I am sure some of "Uncle Toms' Mr. Charlies" thought we wouldn't have any freedom vote going on at Antioch, but we did. We used the church lawn. I was the first to arrive there with the voting equipment, and felt very proud of myself for having that kind of courage. I wasn't even frightened for one moment of the three day Freedom Vote which we held on the burned grass of the church lawn.

We plan to rebuild our church through the help of people and organizations across the United States.

This sort of harrassment will never stop us for we are determined to have our rights, and we will not settle for anything less. At least I will never let any of our Uncle Toms or Mr. Charlies turn me around. Please to all of you people who read my article don't let anything turn you around now, for there is no need to turn around. Keep on pushing, and maybe someday these white people will realize who we are, what we want, and what we should have. Maybe they will develop some love for human beings, as well as God, for I feel that if they don't have a pure and true love of all men and women, they don't have a pure and true love for our Lord God who will save all men who obey his word.

Negroes Win Community Elections In Miss.

Five Negro farmers were elected to positions on community Agricultural Stabilization Committees for the first time in the state's history December 3rd. In Benton County Negroes swept the top three positions. The Committees determine cotton allotments and are crucial to the livelihood of cotton farmers in the area.

The ASC Committees are composed of 5 members: Chairman, Vice-Chairman, 1st Member, and two alternates. Backed by COFO field workers, Negro farmers won in Holmes County: Chairman, and two alternates; in Benton County: Chairman, Vice-Chairman, and 1st Member; in Madison County: Chairman and alternate.

A number of the elections will be contested by COFO. It is felt that more Negroes would have won had there not been discrimination and intimidation. Many Negroes were left off the voting rolls, others were refused ballots. In Benton County a COFO worker involved in the election was arrested for 'perjury' and held on $2,000 bond. In Madison County 4 election workers were arrested: one had his arm broken in jail. In Marshall County there were five arrests in one week, all of ASC election workers. A COFO pollwatcher in Madison County was approached by former Governor Ross Barnett and asked if he were a 'white man.' When he replied yes, Barnett moved away, and a group of whites began to throw stones at the volunteer, one hitting him on the side.

The victor in Madison County, Negro farmer Luther Honeysucker, received 53 votes — all write-ins — defeating four white candidates, who received 49, 44, 43, and 38 votes each.

The three Benton County Negro farmers who won top ASC positions in Community B went to the office of the Southern Advocate newspaper in Ashland with an advertisement they wanted to run. They had the money to pay for it, but the editor refused to run it. The text ran:

	"To all citizens of Community B in Benton County:
	This is to inform you of our intentions as your committeemen —
	We do not intend to serve our race exclusively.
	We do not intend to cast stone for stone.
	We intend to carry out our function with justice and equity.
	We regard this as an opportunity to serve all citizens of Community B
	Regardless of race, as good, true, and honest committeemen."

L. B. Paige, Chairman
Clabon Jackson, Vice-Chairman
Sarah Robinson, 1st Member

Book Review — A Civil Rights Worker Looks at the 'Closed Society'

James W. Silver, Mississippi: The Closed Society, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World 1964, 243 pp.

Professor Silver's work, Mississippi: The Closed Society, is tough and factual. It is an effort worthy of an important student of Southern history.

Professor Silver has recorded the parallel between events in the 1850's and the 1950's; he concludes that the circumstances which took Mississippi out of the Union are remarkably like contemporary events which began piling up in the state after the Supreme Court decision of 1954. Likewise, the small planters, petty shopkeepers and tradesmen, whose sensibilities gained political power in the "crisis" of the 1850's, carved in their own image the White Citizen Council "fire-eaters" of our own time.

The closed society, then, dates from Antebellum times of trouble. Its characteristics are basically these: a set of premises called a 'Way of Life' that is not negotiable; a resistance to change which finds an ideological roosting place in Conservatism; and a proclivity to equate dissension with treason.

This work is an indictment of tyranny, and a document of its efficacy and power to maintain itself, buttressed by public opinion and every institution, public and private. The fact of intimidation of Negroes, of coercion of dissenting whites, of raw and arbitrary excesses of power, brings Mississippi, "as near to approximating a police state as anything we have yet seen in America."

Yet, if tyranny is described and documented, lacking are the premises for revolution. It is clear that Silver is an academician and not an activist; like Faulkner he cannot make a committment to action. For to discuss the state within the limitations of a "closed society" is to assume that Mississippi exists in a vacuum; that she is not part of a larger framework of the nation, and bound up in its complex of economics, laws, and politics. And it is demonstrable that Mississippi is.

Perhaps most obvious are the large chunks of Federal money that hold the Mississippi economy together: the new Allen C. Thompson airport, built with Federal money, and the large payrolls of the several military and other Federal installations, totally segregated and discriminatory in their hiring practices. The same is true of the new University of Mississippi hospital; built with the assistance of the Hill-Burton Act, it remains one of the most segregated institutions we have ever seen. Aside from huge Federal 'grants', there is the presence of large corporations such as Standard Oil, which wield significant power within the state.

States Rights and local autonomy are not merely the myths which many have supposed. They are euphemisms for the assimilation of national wealth to a 'Way of Life' that reinforces segregation and backwardness for Mississippians black and white, and its justification. Not only have they become basic tenets of the Republican Party, but the Democrats regularly issue patronage and power to the men who hold these attitudes. We cannot recognize the fact that Mississippi is inextricably bound up in intercourse involving every area of American life without seeing the implications: that the problem of Mississippi is a microcosm of the American problem.

The assumption of the Closed Society somehow implies a unique quality about Mississippi which exaggerates her attitudes and sets them distinctly apart from the rest of the country. We must recognize that if Mississippi has the vicious institution of segregation, the North is also characterized by a vigorous racism; if the Southern university buckles under irrational political forces, there are few Northern universities which are models of academic freedom; if Southern unions contribute funds to the defense of Evers' killer, there is 'white backlash' among Northern union members. And if there is Orthodoxy in Mississippi, Senator Fulbright has pointed out some 'unthinkable thoughts' that characterize our foreign policy.

It is helpful to examine such extremes as Mississippi. But there is a danger to be avoided: the feeling that if such extremes can be pushed into the 'Mainstream' the job is done. A broader analysis would show in its proper perspective what our country faces. It would recognize that racism is a built-in feature of the American Way of Life, the ideology of democracy and freedom notwithstanding.

National SNCC Needs Photo Supplies

The Photo Department of SNCC's Atlanta office needs the following:

35 mm film Tri-X and Plus-X, 36 exposures. The department's four photographers shoot about 40 to 50 rolls a week when things are hot. They can immediately use a hundred rolls and more.

3 new Gossen 'Lunasix' exposure meters.

Any Heiland Pentax equipment, especially lenses.

Any and all dark-room equipment.

With adequate supplies of this equipment (particularly film), the department can serve local Friends of SNCC with good photos of what is happening in the South.

Send your contributions of the above items directly to: Photo Department, SNCC, 6 Raymond Street, N.W., Atlanta, Georgia.

Federal Funds for Segregation

Atlanta — A loan of $5,000 from the Public Housing Administration has been granted to the city of Aberdeen, Mississippi which will enable the city to begin preliminary planning on its program for 25 low-rent housing units. The preliminary loan will allow Aberdeen to prepare a development program which will probably serve as the basis for an annual contribution between the Federal Public Housing Administration and the city Housing Authority.

Aberdeen Mayor Howell testified last February 14th before the state legislature that federal funds for urban renewal could be used to maintain segregation. Howell said, "if we tear down those slums and provide nice housing for Negroes we can prevent them from moving into our white neighborhoods". He went on to add, "as freakish as it may sound, we are using urban renewal to maintain segregation."

The Sound of Un-American Music

Mr. Tavenner: "What type presentation did the folk singers, Silverman and others, present for the entertainment of the delegates?"

Mr. Quinlan: "In general they can be characterized as anti-American. Such songs as 'We Ain't Gonna Study War No More,' 'We Shall Overcome,' and various sit-in movement songs. And they sang Negro spirituals as well."

(From hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee, October 4, 1962).

Street Scene — Election Talk — Harlem, Georgia

Posters flapping, horn blaring, the King-for-Congress truck rolled suddenly into Harlem — the principal center of business and pleasure on the black side of Albany, Ga. — at about 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon in mid-April. With a gambler named Suitcase and two sharecroppers, I was standing in front of Ware's Place, a bar with few and ill-matched chairs and tables, a great deal of cement floor for dancing, and very fine accoustics.

The poster made a paper skirt round the trailer of the truck. They masked the cab: Register Now to Elect Your Candidate C. B. King to Congress against a background of the candidate's profile. Attorney C. B. King is the legal department of the Negro movement in southwest Georgia. For years he has defended almost every voter registration worker and demonstrator arrested in this corner of the South..... King bears the hopes of thousands for whom 'the law' has never meant more than 'the cops,' and bears, at his hairline, a scar received two years ago at the hands of the late, cane-wielding Sheriff Cull Campbell of Dougherty County. On April 4, he became the first Negro since Reconstruction to seek the Democratic nomination for Representative to Congress from Georgia's Second District.

... the candidate, in shirt sleeves, got up and stooped slightly to the microphone. He told the people that they had a question for him. Not just those listening, but everybody, all up and down the street: those brave or strong enough to stand around the truck; all those too fearful; the cynical ones; those in the bars who couldn't care less. There was a question in the air.

'Why does a Negro — a black boy — presume to run for the Congress of the United States? How does he dare?' King waited for the question to draw up memories of fear, and then he dispelled them: 'Why not? I have the right to run.' It was a challenge to those inside the bars and pool halls, an affirmation for those gathered by the truck. He waited again, while his audience whooped and applauded. Their response was as strong as their claim to the right of representation has been weak, and as sincere and long as their desire now to assume it at last. King talked about what politics have been in southwest Georgia: long years of representation for and by the rich. Why was a black candidate needed in southwest Georgia? That was a better way of asking the question.

'But black's got nothing to do with it. What you and I have in common is our experience, not our skin. I've picked cotton at a half cent a pound. I've shaken peanuts for 50 cents a day. That was years ago, but things aren't much better now. The experience of poverty...'

But why does a black man bother to run for Congress? What really might the faraway and inscrutable federal legislature do about poverty in southwest Georgia? King would work for federal aid to education; better job training for the young, retraining for the unemployed; an increase in the funds set aside for the old, sick, inform; an increase in the minimum-wage law and its extension to cover all domestic and agricultural workers.

'What I propose, the whites on the Hill will call communism. But what do they call their subsidies to the cotton industry? Our women who toil in white kitchens, tend and nurse white children for $10 and $12 a week need a subsidy too.....'

I raised my eyebrows at Suitcase. It was fine to hear these things being said in Harlem, on a street corner, to these people. He nodded back. 'It's a long shot,' he said, 'but it's worth it. I'm registered. You ever hear of that? A gambler registerin' to vote? It must be worth it.'

Suitcase did not feel one way or the other about the very first demonstrations in Albany. They had had their genesis in the churches and schools, not in Harlem, and though he watched them and listened to the talk, he was not moved to participate. Then one day a cop roughed him up on the street, saying that he had seen him in that 'nigger mess.' Suitcase protested loudly and the roughing got worse. That was what did it, he says. He saw then that, being black and poor, he was going to be part of the movement whether he liked it or not, and he decided that if he were going to be beaten, he might as well be beaten for something. So he joined a march. It was at least a way of getting back at the cop, a way of affronting the whites.

... In albany, from the date of King's announcement (of his candidacy) to the closing day for registration, nearly 500 Negroes registered. In Tifton, Ga., the only other major town where figures were immediately available, about 350 were registered.

Suitcase is back with the movement, but it doesn't mean he wants to become a SNCC field secretary. He figures King will lose, but thinks that a series of such campaigns will make a political force of Negroes in southwest Georgia. He spends some time every day going over these long odds for Harlem people and has taken at least a dozen of them down to register. It is something to do, one hope, a gamble.

At a rally in Tifton, Ga., in late April, Attorney King said, 'You'll vote for me because I'm black, and if anyone asks you why, you can say, 'Well, we've tried the other color for 300 years now.....' King is gambling that representation for Negroes will mean something, that our political process, like our legal process, can accommodate certain needs.

Suitcase is gambling too: playing for that long money and hoping that the day won't come again when he must look for nothing but the short.

(From "Gambler's Choice in Georgia" by Peter de Lissovoy, reprinted from The Nation, June 22, 1964. Peter de Lissovoy was a SNCC field secretary in Albany, Georgia).