Transcripts For CSPAN3 1964 Mississippi Summer Project 20140629

One of their widows was part of a Panel Discussion on the freedom summer. This is an hour and a half. Thank you all for being here. My name is jim campbell. I teach history at Stanford University. It is my privilege and my great pleasure to introduce todays panelists after which im going to shut up. A couple of ground rules. The reason that there are these blinding lights, this event is being recorded by c span, so one consequence of that is they have asked that we use the microphone for questions from the floor. Im afraid theres only one, so my hope would be that i hope we dont get one of these endless cues, but if you do have a question and are able, please come forward and speak into the microphone with your questions. If you are not able, well try to get the microphone to you. The speaker will speak, i hope, i expect quite briefly, and we will then throw this open into a conversation. It is as all of you know if youve been watching your c span today, this is a signal day in american history. Barack obama gave a speech today in austin, texas at the lbj library where there is a civil rights round table taking place there reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and i think it will be very interesting to go through the transcripts in future of the events that they are having in austin. I suspect the conversation that were going to have here might be rather different. Given that this is a conference that focuses on the theme of boundaries, it seemed to me that this is noteworthy that the movement that were going to be talking about today, the movement that emerged in mississippi, and that reached a culmination of sorts in the 1964 summer project, was a movement that challenged boundaries, and a movement that brought different categories of people into different or unexpected kinds of relationships. Most obviously, it challenged in many ways the boundary between black and white. This was a movement which also raised profound questions about the relationship between women and men, between mississippians and those who came from outside of mississippi. Between the young and the older. And the panelists today all have, i think, quite interesting perspectives on each of those boundaries. Let me introduce them and this is not actually i think the order. They have just announce the. These are organizers. They will choose in the order they choose to speak. The first person im going to introduce here is dory ladner. She comes from hattiesburg, mississippi, and she is a Foundation Member of the Mississippi Movement. She was recruited into the movement, among others, by clyde kanard who was adviser to the local naacp chapter. His name will not be mentioned in the events taking place in austin. He should be remembered. Hes one of three mentors that dory would have occasion to bury. The others being vernon damar and metger evers. As a student, she was drawn into protests. She was expelled from jackson state for protesting in defense of the tugalu 9. She participated in sitins. She work with the freedom riders. She was a Founding Member of cofo. She was one of the organ iers of the mississippi summer project. She was director of the project in nach hes, mississippi miss. Shes one of the few people i know that participated in the march in washington and, the selma march and the poor people march. She has continue to work as an activist from the movement to the end of the war in vietnam, to community ak programs to end profort. She eventually would spend her professional career as a social worker practicing in st. Louis and washington, d. C. Rita bender is also a person of an extraordinary civil rights pedigree. She was first drawn into activism as a member of the down ton chapter of core. The congress of racial equality in the Lower East Side of manhattan. She worked along her husband. Michael and rita in 6364. Drove to mississippi in their vw beetle. Opened up their cofo center in the 4th Congressional District in meridian, mississippi. There they endured in extraordinary harassment, which culminated when michael along with his companions were murdered. Rita she continued to work in the movement thereafter. She participated in the Mississippi Free democratic parties. I believe she gathered affidavits for a suit brought by arthur kanoy, another name that should be remembered here today, trying to get the federal officials to intervene against local Law Enforcement in the state of mississippi. She practices as a lawyer. She is today a principal at skellinger and bender in seattle. She and her husband, bill bender are teachers. She went back to mississippi and taught a course on education at university of mississippi and are currently teaching a course at seattle law school. Last but not least, is charlie cobb. He grew up in springfield, massachusetts, and washington, d. C. , but his mississippi roots run deep. His great grandfather in fact was a founder of new africa, an all black colony established in the mississippi delta in the 1880s. If you know where to look urk still see a road sign. After his freshman year at howard, he got on a bus to go to a civil rights training meeting in houston, texas. Stopped off in jackson, and basically never left. As dory ladner says, he got gamed. Charlie would work as a snik organizers chiefly in Sunflower County in the delta. He would in 1964 be one of the primary architects of the mississippi summer project, though he was also someone who opposed the project. It was, im sure many of you have seen this document, this was charlie who wrote the prospectus for the freedom schools, schools intended in his words to fill an intellectual and create a vacuum in the lives of young negro mississippianss and so get them to articulate their own demands and questions. Hes remained an activist in the decade first and he has also worked as a journalist for National Public radio and national geographic, for all africa. Com. Ill embarrass him when i say hes probably person on the brown faculty who never went back for a second year of college. He is also the author of a series of book that are quite extraordinary. Radical equations. Civil rights of mississippi. On the road to freedom, a guided tour of the civil rights trail, and last but not least, and i have a flyer, this is the title we all wish we had, this nonviolent stuff will get you killed. How guns made the civil rights possible, a book that is published is in press right now and will appear in a few months with basic, and we have flyers for the book here and so, without further ado, please join me in welcoming and thanking our speakers. [ applause ] good afternoon, everybody. We intend to leave a lot of time for questions or back and forth or dialog, so im going to be brief, and speak in broad strokes. Most often, the 1964 mississippi summer project or the 1964 freedom summer is described as a string of events devoid of context, and this reflects a Larger Movement a larger problem with how the southern freedom mox has been described by historians, so before getting into a few comments about the 1964 summer project, since im in an audience of historians, i would like to comment on one or two complaints. [ laughter ] i have about the history. Not just of the project. But of the movement. One my perspective, of course, is that of participant, active participant, in the Southern Freedom Movement and the Mississippi Movement in particular. So what am i talking about when i say that . Well, ive been a working reporter almost all of my professional life since leaving the state of mississippi in the late 1960s and one of the earliest lessons ive learn thinking about reporting and the way news worked in the United States and the way it worked in the public mind is that it shaped more by whats left out than by any bias that might appear in copy or in broadcasting. One, its easy to spot bias in news or its easy to spot bias at any level. Its a lot harder to make a judgment or reach a real judgment about something if the information you need to reach judgment about it has been left out, and when it comes to the movement, i think the same thing can be said, and it really oversimplify even this. I mean, Martin Luther king, for example, has been reduced in the public mind to an i have a dream speech. Stokely carmichael has really been reduced in the public mind to someone who shouted out black power and thus destroying the Good Movement of love and nonviolence and redemtive suffering. Julian bond, my friend and former snik colleague likes to summarize the movement, rosa stood up, martin sat down, and the white folks saw the light and saved the day. [ laughter ] that in fact an old problem. This is not a 20th century problem or even a Southern Civil Rights Movement problem, and in speaking briefly about this problem, i feel compelled to make a reference of a complaint by Fredric Douglas way back in 1855 in his autobiography. What he dpland about is William Lloyd gar i son thought that his intellectual growth weakened their cause. They only wanted him to ordinary rate wrongs, although after escaping slavery, i was is now reading and thinking. However, said john a. Collins general agent of the massachusetts anti slavery society, if he did not have, quote, the plantation manner of speech, people wont ever believe you was a slave. It is best that you not seem too learned. The an bligsist went on to say give us the facts. We will take care of the philosophy. I think this is as relevant today as it is now. What is missing there are a lot of things missing from the history. What is particularly noticeable to me, what is missing and crucial to understanding what took place not just in mississippi in 1964, but across the south is the thinking of movement people. I mean, events, actions, and activities did not just come out of nowhere. They were thought about. They were discussed. They were debated and if you really want to understand what happened in 1964 in mississippi, you have to understand the thinking related to the time and place that people who were struggling against a white supremacist system were engage in. This 1964 summer project did not happen independent of this thought and most importantly this thought came not from the top down by intellect tule elets but bubbled from the bottom up from people who werent ordinarily paid attention to who had ideas about taking on, tackling, and in the final analysis, destroying White Supremacy. So to understand the mississippi summer project of 1964, you have to look from the bottom up and not the top down. You have to wonder what got dory ladner from hattiesburg, mississippi, to jackson state, to snic, to nat ches mississippi. Whats going on in her head . A whole lot of people, ms. Fanny lou hamer. A woman with a sixth grade education, lived all her life on a cotton plantation. Yes, she was heroic, yes, she is bold. What is she thinking about. How can we understand what her thoughts represent in terms of the people of mississippi, particularly the black people . And you have to recognize that the roots of the 1964 mississippi summer project sprout from this grassroots determination to dislodge White Supremacy, something people have been thinking about and wrestling with for offer a hundred years, ever since the betrayal of reconstruction. You know, this thought of tackling White Supremacy existed. We had very briefly, if you talk to people and im talking about 1963, 1962, 1961, mississippi, you know, several problems we were grappling in our thoughts. How do you get the country to Pay Attention to mississippi . Nobody cared about mississippi. How do you get the country to Pay Attention to mississippi . How do you get the federal government to Pay Attention to mississippi . And our answer was at once simple and complex. You bring the countrys children to mississippi. The country will Pay Attention to their children in a way that they wont Pay Attention to either charlie cobb or dory ladnero any of a number of other people that made the Mississippi Movement. More specifically, what do you do about murder . How do you handle that when nobody cares about the people who are being murdered . And what is your responsibility to murder . This is a complicated question. For instance, if people are being killed because they are doing things that you are urging them to do, whats your responsibility to them . And thats both a moral question and an ethical question in the sense of really when it comes down to selfdefense, could you really kill somebody . Thats also a question of responsibility, as i said. What are your obligations to people who are endangered because of doing what you asked them to do . And its also a very practical question. What do you have to do to stay alive . These kinds of thoughts shaped the movement. These kinds of thoughts led us outside the boundaries of mississippi to see where we could find at least partial answers to this, and one partial answer as i said was to bring the countrys children to mississippi, expose them, and thats not as cynical as it may sound. Its a common sense approach to tackling this enormous problem that had been building for centuries. And as it turned out, even though i was opposed to the project, the project was successful. Country paid attention to mississippi. Country was irreversibly changed by what maids, share croppers, cooks, gardeners, small farmers, small entrepreneurs did in mississippi. She the change the National Democratic party enough so that in the 20th century we have barack obama. It forced White Supremacists out of the democrat party, although we have another problem of white supreme asifts in the republican party. It brought a range of social issues to the surface, with respect to to gender issues with respect to to womens rights and large issues that are still unresolved, like education. It forced that issue. I think the project and ill conclude with this and im sure youll have many questions, i think the mississippi summer project, and may be biased or partisan toward mississippi, forced the country to have a conversation about what the country should be, that it was reluctant to have and resistant to having, and at least one remaining question for today is can we have that conversation today . Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, charlie. Youve set the tone for us, and i must say that im very happy that we the late lawrence gee and i persuade you had to stay in mississippi. He was on his way to Houston Texas and stopped at the Freedom Party office in mississippi. He stayed. I would like to say gach to all of you and thank you for being here. Georgia is a place that is special to me in a way. Ill just give you a brief little history. My great great grandfather was born in lawrence county, georgia. My great grandmother married and migrated to mississippi and thats how i came into being and going on down to mississippi, i grew up in a house with a very strong mother whose family was very, very independent. Mother taught us from the age on three on up to not ever bow to anyone, no matter what their color was. She grew up in wayne county, mississippi, from the woolet and gates family and they were independent people who owned their own land and were very selfsufficient. Mother started training us to all look white people in the eye when you talk to them. Never look down. Never look back she used to say, i grew up with them. I fought with them, and just fight them. Dont look back. So i grew up with that it was not a valiant kind of lesson but it was one of independence and i took that to heart. So skipping along, i grew up in Palmers Crossing, mississippi, which is right off highway 49 for those of you know mississippi. Palmers crossing was a small g segregated down with a school and church and everybody knew each other. We had a very large extended family that we drew upon. My grandmother and my mother and her ten brothers and sisters. My father was from pearl river county, and his family moved to california quite early on after my parents divorced. My mother remarried and had six children. So going into my schooling, i attended segregated schools. Never had a new textbook. The school we attended had very poor equipment and the teachers were very devoted to us and we learned and made gains in spite of the surroundings and the things that we had to undergo. Dirt roads, sewer running in the streets. I remember the chemistry lab, the toilet rather in the school, running feces running outside of toilet on to the School Grounds before we got a new scho school. All these things came into play, but my dreaming every day was beyond Palmers Crossing and wanting to know what was beyond Palmers Crossing. Hattiesburg, as you know, had two colleges at that time. We couldnt attend those colleges, but i think it had those colleges had an effect on the the climate of White Supremacy and being close to new orleans also tempered it. The college did not lend itself to the black community. I dont remember participating in anything that the college advocated. The colleges, rather. I will say that i grew up in a community which was an outpost of camp shelby. I dont know if you are familiar with camp shelby, and hattiesburg had a dichotomy of being very religious town and also a very night life kind of place and palmers took on all of it, so most the people sold bootleg liquor, made their livelyhoods off of that. The work was very meenl for the most part if you were a not minister or zool school teacher. The sheriff would come up and down my street sticking his hand out. I grew up with an appreciation of the blues and the music and so forth and i also knew about the liquor being sold and i also knew about the church, and all those ingredients went into my being who i am with the foundation that my mother had given us. Going on to the naacp, mr. Clyde kanard, if you dont know him, kenaard. He attempted to enroll in the university of mississippi. He was sentenced to seven years in the pen tenary. Another one of my mentors was killed years later fighting the ku klux klan when they threw a molotov cocktail at his house and he sustained multiple burns and died from smoke inhalation. We went to naacp meetings in jackson, mississippi, when mr. Daytons sister. I met meg evers a man who communicated with us at the age of 14, he could make me understand that i was living a life that was not fruitful in the sense that segregation had its limitations, meaning we didnt have sidewalks, pafed streets, we couldnt sent down in woolworths, although we go downtown to pay bills and we couldnt stop at the kourn. I remember buying pea nut brittle, and going to segregated toilets. I figured white ladies and colored women. White water fountain and the colored water fountain and after graduating from high school, i went to jackson state, i was president of the dorm council. Was called in after prayer, called into the deans office and wanted to question me about a prayer. I couldnt understand that and coming from Palmers Crossing, where i had not participated in anything political to my knowledge, organizing so forth, the prayer was questioned, so dean gills said, we want to know about this prayer the matron had told him, so i became very adamant, and then was send to the dean of students, dean rogers who had attended harvard and come back and gotten his ph. D. From dwinsity school, and he said im going to him you before i ship you. All of that going into my head, my sister joyce was there as a bystander and i started saying well i dont want to participate here if you dont if you are going to question my prayer. Who are you to question my prayer . I didnt realize all of that. My mother would have been surprised at that. Insulting an elder. Jackson state, the students were going to have a sit in at the library. One of sisters of jackson state drove us to tugalu, that school was founded by the american missionary and the United Church of christ, they had a continuous integration of staff, since the 18 70s. The doctor, we went into the mansion and talked to him, it said if we participated, we will be sent to the pen tenary. We were public state students. Dr. Rider, a white man from Mississippi State said you should have a prayer meeting at jackson state. We took his work for it. We attempted to have a prayer meeting the following week. We gathered around the reflecting pool after the library closed. The president came running out of his house, flailing his arm, knocked my sisters roommate down on the ground and started screaming and we ran to our dorms, and he ordered the girl who had fallen to be sent home that night. She was living in ocean springs, mississippi, on the gulf coast. And the next morning, i saw canine dog on the campus. I didnt know that they had police dogs but to make a long story short, we attempted to march in solidarity with the students in tugalu. I sustain tear gas burns on my head and my back and we were running and the dogs were chasing after us. We ran into the black community, running up and down, and i ran into a ladies house, the lady said come on in baby and washed tear gas off my face and my back. They said come and sit on the porch. The police were running up and count the alley with these dogs and all of us were able to get into a house. Someone told us that white women in that community which live in the adjoining neighborhood let some of the students crawl under their houses to escape from the police. None of us were arrested. None of us had to go to the hospital. We went back to the campus. The president called an early spring break, and school was over. So when we returned, school was out for the summer. And i enroll at tugalu college, into emphasize one thing, when i got back to tugalu i met all of the freedom riders that remained in the mississippi. There were many who decided they were going to stay in mississippi and or beganize and they had been in macomb, mississippi. Working with the students there with bob moses. I was like where have you been . Ive been looking for you all of my life and it was just a good feeling. So tugalu was an Exceptional School in that you could sit on the grass. Boys could come in the dorm. People like pete segar will come on campus, joan baez came on campus, bob dylan came on campus. It was a place for growth and development. We were going to jackson every week and participating with the freedom riders and going to the Freedom House and learning how to do Community Organizing and learning ideas from diane nash and james bell about nonviolence so on and so forth. When school let out this year, i committed myself to the movement. I went home in 62, mother, im going to yak son. Im going to work with bob moses and get my freedom and i dashed out the door, before mother could turn around, i was gone, and caught the bus and went to the Greyhound Bus station and got on bus and went to the Freedom House, on rose street. We stayed there. I was only female staying there, and i have a very strong personality, i guess, because staying with those guys like lawrence geeot and curtis hayes, harless and others. It was challenging, but i stood i think they were kind of scared of me at times. Werent you charlie . But i did i didnt cook or sow. Mother said good to school and get april education. Dont depend on my man can take care of you. You can marry when you cant do anything else. I didnt learn those things. I had to help babysit, mother had several children. I learned how to clean. In the Freedom House, kol by would come over and cook. She was a jackson resident who was president of the North Jackson naacp, she said she didnt know how to cook either, she was the only female she had a sister and a lot of brothers. She watched what her brothers were doing and she would come in and scramble eggs for us and make some bread or something and have a big pot of eggs and grits for us and thats how we started bonding with mr. Evers, and bob would take us i remember going to macomb, mississippi, with stolely carmichael. We went to liberty, mississippi, for the not Justice Department, one of organizations that was fighting for human rights, to observe us, and we stayed in liberty all day long and thats where mr. Herbert lee had been killed in i think 61. We stayed there, and i remember observe being the white water fountain and colored water fountain and waiting for them to attacking us. I remember they told stokely, you got these shorts on, you got to leave. After leaving there. We went back to jackson, we were traveling across the state and august of 62, we went up to clarksville, mississippi. To found cofo. This umbrella organize was one that sponsored the freedom summer prj, and i didnt know anything about sundown laws. Dave dennis who was driving our car, there were three cars in the car, myself included and lester mckinney. The Police Stopped the car, arrested dave, took him back, and dave said fols you had. With followed him. The police said get the f out of clarks dale. We spent the whole day trying to figure out how to get out of there. To bring it all back down to freedom summer, but this was the background for all the things that i had encountered and im feeling em met till murder and im feeling the clyde kanaard arrested, and im thinking that im committed to this and old miss was being integrated, you would turn the radio on and all these rebel yells and people beginning to fight and James Meredith is trying to get into ole miss. I made a commitment to continue working for the movement. All of those ingredients were there, and i wasnt the only one who joined, but i was one thrrpt very many others, and bob had about whatever ten of us, ten or eleven of us who work the whole state, and we were riding these cars, Emerson Moore had a big car we were riding in like bonnie and clyde and so forth and usually, i didnt drive, and Willie Peacock was brought into the movement, in greenwood, mississippi. He was on his way to medical school but his father brought Willie Peacock to bob moses and says im bringing my son to you to help bring about freem in this state and they were masons and i didnt understand but i knew that was some other language being spoken that was going on, so Willie Peacock was delivered to bob for the intent and purpose to work for human rights, and there were many others of us in the state who felt that way, but we did not know that there were people outside, you know, each today, i read newspaper articles, dr. Emily crosby sent me some newspaper articles that had been printed back in 62. I had never read them because in the state of mississippi there was a wall of silence. We had no information coming in and no information going out, and we didnt know anything that was going on, and today im reading news now that i had never seen before. But i wanted to stop by saying i lived in a closed society, and mississippi continues to perpetuate the ill use the word insanity in a larger sense, the lowest wages are being paid in the state. We have the highest infant mortality rate, the schools are still not up to standard. The wealth is not distributed, not that thats theres that much, people are still relegated to subservient positions and i continue to marvel and wonder what is in the minds of people. I dont understand, and what the conservative socalled conservative movement coming in place, everybody in the state for the most part is poor, but they still try to uphold a certain standard based on White Supremacy, but if you talk to a white person one on one, they will identify with you, but when they get to the larger audience, they change, and i dont know what thats all about, but i will answer your questions. Thank you. [ applause ] im going to keep my comments very short because i know that all of you would like to participate in this discussion, so im going to do a little bit of a rif on something that charlie was talking about, and thats what i call laundered history. There are many ways to whitewash, launder, or rob history of its messy contradictions and significant value. I personally hate anniversaries and jim campbell and i have had this discussion many times because they run the risk of contributing to the damaging process of diluting history. Rather than such anniversaries being times for examining and teaching the realities of what occurred and why it matters, they are often reduced to maude lynn or sentiment al events which so simplify the reality of what occurred as to reduce the events to a point in which theres little to be learned from it. An example, i was awakening early within morning a few days ago and therefore i apologize for not remembering who the speakers were in what im going to tell you because i was listening with half an ear, but it was one of the Early Morning commentary programs, and a former staff person for Lyndon Johnsons administration was speaking and the other person was a historian, and they were being interdude specifically as to johnsons role in the passage of the 64 Civil Rights Act. The white house man said, well, Everybody Knows Lyndon Johnson was the master of the senate and Lyndon Johnson knew how to pressure his former colleagues, how to he had the goods on them, he knew how to get their votes. The historian says, no, thats not really what happened. Lyndon johnson could have cared less about the passage of the 64 Civil Rights Act until the Movement Made him care. I think what he was saying is, to borrow a phrase from bob moses, the Movement Made a space. The move was movement was the earned insurgency. So where does that take us now . Well, it takes us back to my complaint about anniversaries. Because just as the johnson memorials of this week, all of this celebration of this week is talking about the wonders of the man, he didnt like me too much either, so were even. [ laughter ] no, no, you can tell that story. There is a story. Anyway, you know, unfortunately, anniversaries can become a part of reducing history to little more than just sound bites, and sent i mental its. Why does it matter . You as historians know better than i do if we dont know our history, if we cant learn where we came from, how can we decide where we have to go . How can we understand our place in the long continuum. How can our children and our grandchildren understand their roles . So keep up your work. Its terribly important. Thank you. [ applause ] all right. Im going to ask everyone to turn his or her mike on. The floor is now open. Again, in deference to the people who are recording this, if you have questions im going to ask that you come forward to what are one of the two microphones. Hi. I have a question for charlie cobb about you mentioned being opposed to the freedom project when it first started and i think that was an off the cuff remark but i do know there were questions about the strategy of using White College students and also of just the way of bringing in this program and im hoping you can speak a little more about that, please. The opposition to the freedom summer offers an interesting illustration of organizing and the tensions that can exist within Community Organizing. To avoid giving you a long complex answer, i mean, i always saw myself as an organizer in mississippi, and i felt that although it was slower, the process of building at the grassroots got disrupted when you had a huge influx of people who could do far more efficiently what local people could do too. I felt that you got more from taking the time to have local people do it than having outsider people do it. You know, the opposition is miscast as racial opposition. I think the opposition was outsider versus insider. I think stokely and i used to talk about this and stokely, you know, if he was here, he would say, you know, if youve got a College Student who can bang out a leaflet in one minute efficiently and a High School Student who would take ten minutes to type out a leaflet, its better to take the ten minutes with the High School Student because the High School Student will be in possession of that leaflet and in a sense possess the movement. This is the organizers approach and you have to make organizers and local people. From the perspective of the local person, people from the outside were a good thing. They became less isolated, they forced more attention on their situation . She backed me in a corner and said charlie, im glad you came here. Why cant there be more people like you . What answer i can give . I just remained silent. Without exception every Single Person we worked with in every Single Community in which we worked who favored the project. And i was and those of us who was organizers was resistant to the project were kind of the odd people out. In the final analysis, though i dont know the con try diction is. You cant on the one hand say you think people should have say so about the decisions that affect their lives. You cant on the one hand say that people should take charge of their own lives and turn around and say i dont like your decision about what you want to do with your life. So im not going support you. Its a con tcon try diction you live with. Its far more complicated than what ive told you. She was in favor of the project. I was in favor of it because some of the things said to you today made me feel that we needed outside intervention. And i was only out of the state maybe twice in my life. California and chicago. And i didnt have books to read and newspapers to read. I wanted other people from the outside to come in to take news out it may simplistic, but take news out of it news come in. And i think we call it mississippi the closed society. So i was in favor of young people i had already met some students from Stanford University who had come in to the state and were enlightening. They went to the dealts and so forth. I wanted outside people to come in and carry the message out. We didnt have we had poor communication and i felt isolated and i was one of the wants who wanted it. I wanted the curtain to be pulled back on mississippi. I wanted people to look into the state and see what was going on. What was happening to it. Megahad been murdered. We wanted everybody to know that. I want everybody to know that. I wasnt getting news but i wanted people outside to know it. Good afternoon. Thank you all for service and your work in the movement. Im curious i would like you to speak about the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. When we think about the Voting Rights act, theres a lot of attention paid to the Voting Rights act. I get the feeling that the academic Democratic Party pay played ee eediv eediv eed pivot. The challenge of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party changed the Democratic Party. Its interesting to me that if you go into Political Science party. They dont study it. They study advertising, they study all kinds of things. But its hard to find any courses on the Mississippi Freedom and Democratic Party. Even though they forced what ultimately became known as the mcgovern rules which expanded the petitimpetition of women an minorities. It grows. So it changed the National Democratic party. There simply would not be, in my view, a barack obama without the mfdps challenge in 1964. And as i said, its puzzling and surprising to me that poly sci parties dont study it. They were not making a protest. Thats often lost. S of not making a protest. The mfdp was saying that the socalled regular Democratic Party of mississippi was ill legi legitimate. It didnt follow its own rules, it did not follow the rules of a National Democratic party, the mfdp, did in electing the 68 delegates, and therefore was a legitimate party. And nobody denied the fact that black people were denied the right to vote. Denied the right to participate in the political process. It was not a protest. This was seat us. We follow the rules. These people did not follow the rules. Theres a lot more to the mfdp which deserves a whole panel at your next association meeting. I guess i would like to add to it that the mfdp came very, very close to being seated by the credentials committee. It was johnson pulling every string that he could pull that ultimately defeated the seating of the party. And it lead to a lot of frustration within the movement as i think many of you many of you know. But it was never the less, as charlie says, a very, very significant moment in american history. Thank you. I would like to thank all three speakers for their reflections, and ask you to say a little bit more about something that a few of you sort of hinted around, which is what some called the politics of respectability, and when we think about what was in peoples heads, what people were thinking about and fearing about, we know that actually not long after the freedom summer that there were many white sp m supremacists and thats really what these outsiders had come to do. Had come to breach the ultimate culture barriers as seen as the most shocking that could be i wondered whether any these issues were talked about explicitly within the movement. Especially as when you were planning it, thinking about it, or during it. All right. A long and short answer, i suppose. Young people we engage in sex more than we talked about sex. Unapp getticly, i think. The argument about sex is an old argument respect to black struggle. Its not unique 1964 summer project or the 1960s or corp. Or somebody like that. I mean, the same people who are raising this in 1964 were raising it about black fbis returning home after world war i i. Before that go all the way back. They use various terms. Social equality. Its an old and tired argument that happily seems to be dying, at least a slow death. I will not discuss it. [ laughter ] my name is mike from the university of washington tacoma. There was an africanamerican factory worker whose car was bombed and he was murdered. I think it was in 1963. Was it 66 . Yeah. The thing that i often think about the montgomery busboy cot or the movement in mississippi is about the class politics or birmingham there were a lot of factory workers and working class people of various kinds. Do you think in mississippi most of the people in the movement were either students or in rural kind of places . Or was there a black working class that played some kind of role in it or not . Ive always wondered how it worked out well, i know him. He was one of the adults who sign up to work with us when we were trying to get the freedom Democratic Party ballots ready to take to Atlantic City convention, but you had armstrong there were few factories in the state of mississippi, and so the working class consisted of people who were working on a coast for the shipping company or was not that much organized labor, so to speak. Im not quite sure, you know, mississippi was not that industrialized. I think in the cities, there were people doing for the most part, africanamericans in the cities, if they were working in were doing pretty menial jobs. But in so that sense they were working class people. They were not factory people, for the most part. Agricultural workers not Industrial Workers is the best way to understand workers in mississippi. Certainly in those days. Hi, my name is daniel. I teach at wane state university. Someone asked the question about White Supremacists use of the fear of interracial sex as a Political Tool to bring whites together to, i think, opposed integration and thwart the movement. Im interested in the ways in which White Supremacists used Sexual Violence or sexualized violence to also thwart the movement. Im wondering if any of you could talk about the ways in which black women activists and black women in general in mississippi were more vulnerable to acts of sexualized violence instead of perhaps physical violence in the way that men were vulnerable, too . From whom . From whites. White men in particular. I can remember going to have bathroom in brooke haven, mississippi. I was on a trailway buzz going to mccall, mississippi. We went into the bathroom that the bus station was about as big as this table. I went into the bathroom. When i came out there were two beefy white men saying black this is not your bathroom. Your bathroom is in the back. They were swinging their hands over my head. I walked to the back, and looked and then it was time to get on the bus. So i can remember another time that i was in the jail in jackson, mississippi for picketing in december of 1962. I was put in jail along with charles, a student. And i was in a cell block by myself and jailer miller came to the cell block and said in the Civil Rights Movement did they teach you how to go with white men . And i said no, sir, were sisters and brothers. They said okay theyll be here to get you out soon. At my first point it was my first point being incarcerated. I was vulnerable and at risk. But at no time ever attacked physically or verbally. Just a quick comment on this. One of the people who spoken about this some of you might know. Theres an interview not in her book. She talking about being stopped by police on highway 49 and on the side of the road, two cops made her take her pants off. And one then looked at the other and said, do you want some of that . They thought about it and said no. And they left her go. They left with her naked. She tells a story, this is in her book. You might have a remembrance of this. In the jackson movement, when students were there was the mass incar ration and they were incarcerated at the fairgrounds, she tells the story that some of the women there were subjected to pelvic exams, and thats the only place i have seen the story told. It its one of the places to look. Perhaps you might know about it. I have seen papers from but on the medical committee from ive seen documents about that testimony. Testimony about that in the papers from the medical committee on human rights but one or two documents. Maybe john could talk about it . I dont want to put you on the spot but do you know anything about it . [ inaudible ] thank you for all the work you have done. Im rebecca hill. I would like to ask you about the International Politics and now looking back what you think the significance of that, you know, of vietnam, israel, i remember from the snick papers being shocked to see hate mail to nathan following a fundraising lerlt that went out because the position on israel. So i just its always stuck in my mind. So i wanted to hear what you think now about how it happened. What the impact was for the movement. International politics under go several different phases in the organization. The first face is an obvious one. The emergence of independent african nations about the time it is born in the early 1960s. I mean, just that image of africans throwing off the change of colonialism and an influence on snicc. The so dwan we use in the Voter Registration campaign. One man one vote comes from the independence movement. And remember at historically black college and universities, you had a presence of african students. Who are engaged in conversation with us as students and as activists. Interesting specifics for instance with the emergence of one of the spurs, for instance, to the activism of the nonviolent Action Movement which was Howard University campus group. With the emergence of independent african nations and diplomats in washington, d. C. , nay were encouraging discrimination in housing, and because they more often drove between washington, d. C. , and new York United Nations and if they wanted to get something to eat, in are a lot of incidents. There were enough incidents for john kennedy and which was secreta secretary of state . To form a special protocall was. Whose idea was sort of somehow if we can figure out how to distinguish between africans and black americans. We can solve this problem. And that spurred from the Howard University campus, you know, a lot of protests along what was then before i95 route 40. And john kennedy had a rather flippant attitude about this. He said, i always fly to new york. Why dont the africans fly to new york instead of driving to new york . What eventually ended this, of course, was the 1964 Supreme Court 1964 public accommodations act. The other important influence certainly brought to the our attention the al the argument that arms struggle for independence was mentally liberating. You get the psychiatrist who was working. This kind of argument and he was widely read by people. He was a name, you know, right up there with thinkers that we wanted to think about. And, you know, and lastly, the liberation movements later on in the 60s in southern africa. Mozambique, south africa. Not southern africa. A number of these leaders wrote, you know, were read iing kenyar he meets malcolm x. And of course, the vietnam war is fornltd us, essential as young guys all of draft age. So aside from our political disagreement with the vietnam war. Theres a practical question of what to go do if you get drafted. And very few guys went into the army and until you really reach the height of the antidraft movement, the army much didnt care to have us. University of south carolina. And thank you very much for sharing your stories with us. I have a comment and a question. The comment is that im so glad youre telling a lot more about what happened in hatties burg. I spent many years of my career at the university of southern mississippi, and one of the most moving and gratifying things ive ever seen as a historian was seeing the Africanamerican Community in hatties burg come together with the faculty of the university that had killed its first black applicant. And yet, in the years i was there in the 90s it was something to scidsecidsee daisy. And many orals in the program. I got teach freedom summer courses and they would speak to our classes. It was just extraordinary, and all of you have the benefit of all the work that all of those historians and the community did together. The tip of your fingers on internet. You are such a hero there. And one of the most moving things i ever saw at Palmers Crossing when victoria ray adams lead special Church Assembly that was going on with the summer volunteers who had come back and all of the people who had hosted them. The comment the question is this. In the New York Times this past sunday, many of us saw the article that was talking about how the state of mississippi is planning to build a she pointed out that one of her concerns is about the nature of the efforts to benefit off of tourist dollars in various places to benefit off the interest in the civil right the movement. Do you feel like thats what is happening now in mississippi, do you think that haley basher and the republicans s s aspiration having an effect. What did you think is happening . Is it something that need to be on the other end for lot of places . I think you have to be on the alert once again to this question of launderering of history. I dont think that haley basher would tell us in history that some of you would tell. Im sure he wouldnt tell the same history that any of us would tell. Mississippi and just about all southern states. Particularly when they were active movements began discovering about a decade or so ago that there was money to be made from civil rights tourism. As is the head of chamber of commerce, they toll me when i was working on a travel to civil rights sites we moved from civil war to civil rights. Thats all about money. Its all that is all about. I dont know the cynical reporter in me said its probably unstoppable. And the hatties berg is supposed to be developing the Civil Rights Museum without participation of the Community People jackson, mississippi, as far as i know is going to build a museum next to the mississippi museum. Im cynical about the himself i are is that is being told. I have yet to see a true picture of historically. Around the status of the mississippi museum. It is the case that proposals of this has been going on forever. It finally got over the bar when barber sort of gave it. It was no coincidence at the time when he was testing president ial prospectives. Prospects. Theres ample room for cynicism. There was a decision made, and it was handle when they announce there had were going to be two museums but they would be separate but funded equally. [ laughter ] you can marge some of the responses which were a lot like these. But it should also be said that the main impetus came from people within the Veterans Community themselves. Who wanted that and insisted on that. There is a group of mississippi veterans in the Civil Rights Museum and they are represented on the board of that museum. I think dianes position. She said to me that her advice to people was that alarmed me as a historian. I think my sense is a majority of the people in the mississippi Veterans Community are probably in favor of the movement. But i also take the position that its up to them to decide and not to me. And not us. Thank you very much. My name is kerry. A long time professor at the university of wyoming in africanamerican studies. I appreciated this panel a lot. I wanted to ask you a short question. Process to change the world around you to transform it to remake the world and certainly you did that through the engagement and have since. Im curious on the other side. It changes us, too, as people. Im curious how you felt your experience in the particular moment of your struggle changed you. I was once told you cant battle institutions without changing yourself first. And i think that is true. What is raise is something long and complicated. I can tell you this piece of the impact of the work in mississippi on me personally. Im a guy in mississippi in washington, d. C. You had to in order to work m n meaningfully in that community. In order to earn the right to work in those communities. People were judging you on term of your seriousness and commitment. In order to do that, you had to learn how to listen to people. You had to learn how to speak to people. In my later life as a reporter bouncing all over the world often in communities that i knew very little to nothing about, i found that those skills that i got in mississippi were valuabl valuable. Yes. Im ray from the university of south florida. Im sorry. He pointed to me well, my work in mississippi has continued throughout my life. I said i dead candidadedicated bringing about change. To this day im actively engaged in a struggle that is about bringing peace and social change. I went to visit dr. Norm at m. I. T. I was ape tending a womens liberation conference at boston university. I made a detour to visit with him. I felt that i was in the presence of someone an intelligent yule figure in bringing about change that i would learn something about him. We a mutual admiration meeting. I felt good because he said that you shouldnt be thanks me i should be praising you. I said we need allies. Theres a constant struggle to keep meeting new people to keep exchanging ideas. You never once sit down and say i did this but cost knowledge and to learn from people. Sorry about the prior interruption. Im from the university of south florida. Im curious about your sense of the Northern College volunteers and trained in ohio. I remember the kind of famous story about the student the night before he goes to mississippi and he asks god and the 0 voice of god comes out the top of the dorm room, ill go as far as memphis. Ill tell you what they were thinking. Im curious about two things. One, your sense of how those volunteers behaved. How well the training was, and what the longterm legacy was for them. Did they did their commitment last to the movement in most cases . Do you think it wasnt just freedom summer for them but more of a lifetime commitment . Well, i think a lot of them were changed by the experience. I think they came to mississippi with a certain they came to mississippi with a certain ignorance, and perhaps some prejudic prejudices like in the one i encouraged the most often is people who arent well educated arent smart. Thats part of the culture nay grew up in. Its hard to measure in any kind of quantitative way and give you a quantitative answer. Part of the quantitative answer is i think Something Like 80 of the volunteers really stayed on after the summer and caused the own set of problems. Inside the Mississippi Movement, but thats a substantial commitment from 80 people. And we seesome of the effect of the summer project on the white students who came down in term of what they did later on. Or we see some of the roots in the Womens Liberation Movement for some of these young women, you know, the so often taken out of context. What the women saw were people like dory or like murial or cynthia washington. A range of women who were leaders and organizers. I can go on and on and on. I think it was minimally one of the inspire rations for the Womens Liberation Movement. I think the challenge of the movement represented owned up to a long of people who became involved with it in the south. It was, for the first time, they began to recognize it was possible to organize meanfully for social change and social justice. They werent seeing that in the communities they lived in. The insular and talking about the students. Almost overwhelmingly middle, upper middle class students. They werent seeing anything like they saw in mississippi, and i think i havent talked to every single volunteer. But i think in general what they encounter was influential, inspire rational, and carry it with them for the rest of their lives. Thats coming from a guy who was suspicious of the project. If you pose your questions quickly. Alex from indiana university. So weve talked a bit about ways of assessing and reassiessing te history. How did it affect your thinking about this and history both in term of the degree to which the state the oop rat titus of state was so deep and evil but also in terms of potential fractures within the movement that hadnt been so obvious or maybe think had at the time well, the sovereignty mission has been one of my pet hobbies for recent years. If some of of you have not spent time to get into the files, they are an amazing drove. One of the things about the Sovereignty Commission, at some point i think it was around 1966 when maybe 65 when the Justice Department was very involved in bringing voter rights suit. A memo came down from the director of the Sovereignty Commission to the various investigators on the staff saying destroy the records so we know a lot of records were destroyed, but there was a particular record. This is one of my favorite mississippi stories. There was a particular record that is still there. The record that says destroy the records. So there are a lot theres a lot of stuff there we dont know what isnt there. It is a history of a most incredibly repressive society that just had no qualms about brutalizing people. Did it cause fractures in the movement . Well, i think there were some suspicious that were raised about various people, and in a way that was unfortunate because of part of what the Sovereignty Commission, investigators did was they tried to drop tidbits of suggested disloyalty where they would get around. And so when you dont know how much of anything anybody thought they knew actual was based on reality as opposed to things that were put out there on purpose to cause. Im david from university of massachusetts amherst. I want to pick up on the issue that the fact all you feel the history is not well known by the public. This july after 45 years of struggle were opening up the first Historic Site in the United States dedicated to the memory of w. B. Dubois. What would you like to see historians do to get the story out better . Talk to people. I talk early about revisionist and sit down and say that i think what carmichael meant, i think i knew what bob meant. If they are available, why not go to them saying very simplistic. But i think while people still living you should make every effort to try to get it on record. And argue with them after you consulted them. I think constitutionally. Im thinking of colleges and universities. There ought to be space created for what might be called scholar activists. Who can formally affiliate or associate with colleges and universities with the express purpose of conveying to student and professors in political and not just in black studies departments but in Political Science departments and sociology departments or whatever. There ought to be a way to involve people who come out of the movement. Not necessarily people who have the kind of credentials that are ordinarily academic credentials that are ordinarily mandated by colleges and universities. Thats why i called scholar activists. You ought to figure out a way to do that. And secondly, alongside that, there ought to be a way that the academy can since the window is closing there ought to be a way that colleges and universities can assist movement veterans in getting the story out in writing or minimal ly in digitized form and audio and visually. Thank you all for your work and your sacrifice and comments today. You spoke about recent issues that exist in mississippi today. I have interested in hearing a bit more about the impact of the legacy of the Freedom Movement in mississippi and a project like freedom summer on modern issues in sort of soshl and political matters. A lot of us have been hearing a great deal of the lay late mayor and his activities in jackson, mississippi and the recent campaign after his death of his son. I was wondering for you could speak to that. And whether there are connections. We know that the late nay your was probably influenced by the Mississippi Movement living and being educated in detroit and moving down to mississippi. With the rerepublican new africa and staying there and becoming an activist lawyer who handled a lot of political cases and subsequent was became mayor and died. But before he in is a tidbit, before he expired he was able to sign off on freedom summer. He was actively engaged in helping us to organize freedom summer. He did the ground work for that before he died. But i hear a lot of talk about freedom schools across the country. What the names of s ella baker. Many activists names that i turned around and look, you know, because im so happy to hear them. I think a lot of things we did, we dont even know about. You asked the question, i dont know all the projects that were started. But i do think that we had a great deal of impact across the country. And we are happy to hear the names spring up. One thought in closing. And youll identify yourself. Is one of the organizers of a program a 50th Anniversary Program that is taking place in jackson at the college where she teaches in june. If you are looking to continue the conversation, youll have that opportunity. I suspect that all the people you can continue the conversation with them right now after words. In the meantime, please join me in offering them a vote of thanks