'Mississippi Fdo. Sa••••' - San Francisco State...
Transcript of 'Mississippi Fdo. Sa••••' - San Francisco State...
'Mississ ippi F....do. Sa••••', '
Typical SNCC poster, now seen throughout the South
tired. Now I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."
COFO is the coordinating groupfor the registration drive being condueled by four civil rights organizations in the state: :f\;AACP CORE,SCLC, and SNCC.
Other Mississippi Summer Projects include:
Freedom Schools: These will implement voter registration work, tosupply political education for thestate's Negroes Projected are tendaytime and three resident schools.Daytime schools are designed for10th, 11th, and 12th grade pupils, tooperate five days a week. and giveinstruction in rerned ial reading,math , baSIC grammar, as well as political science, humanities, journalism and creative writing.
The resident schools will be attended by more advanced studentsfrom all over the state .
The stud ents are exp ected to provide the future nucleu s of leadership in vital social and political action.
Community Centers: These willprovide services normally denied theNegro community. The centers willbe staffed by experienced socialworkers, nurses, librarians and artsand crafts teachers, Instruction willbe given in pre-natal and infant careand general hygiene; other programswill concentrate on adult literacy andvocational training. Thirty thousandbooks now in SNCCs office in Greenwood will be distributed to thesecommunity centers .
Research Program: This will attempt to study the fund amentalstr ucture of Missi ssippi , as th e voterre gistration and other programs sta r tto change th e political and economicstructure of the benighted state.Skilled personnel are ne eded to makethis research program wo ·k.
White Community Project: This istruly a dramatic and daring undertaking. It will attempt to educateMississippi whites in the direction ofdemocracy . Thirty southern whilestudents have recently joined thecivil rights movement and will attempt pilot projects in the wh ile community, " An attempt will be madeto organize poor white areas to makesteps toward eliminating bigotry,poverty and ignorance," says a SNCCannouncement.
Law Student Project: A numberof law students from all over thecountry will come to the state " tolaunch a massive legal offensiveagainst tyranny, " SNCC sa ys. " Thetime has come to challenge everyMississippi law which deprives Negroes of their rights , and to bringsuit against every state and local official who commits crimes in thename of his office. "
The slogan of SNCC - and manyother civil rights organizations, legal,civic and labor groups supporting theSummer Project is "ONE MAN ONE VOTE."
The Mississippi Summer Projecthas sent appeals to all interested individuals and organizations throughout the nation. Trained personnelare needed to help, to teach, to organize; and funds are needed to buyschool supplies, pay for the upkeepof the Freedom Schools, pay forprinting, buy materials for nursingand baby care cl asses, buy books andrecorders for the schools , providescholarship mon ey to ena ble Ne grostudents to work in Mississippi andreturn to sch ool in th e fall. tor emodel bu ild ings and schools andcomm unity centers , and to buy oldbuses to tran s port vote worke rs .
The add re ss is ::\I iss issip pi Summer Project. Stu
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va idity oC the "official" federal elections this fall.
Finally, voter registration workerswill assist the campaigns of "Freedom Candidates" - Negro men andwomen who will be running for congressional office, The entrenchedwhite congressmen who've beenelected and re-elected for te rm afterterm by a small number of whitevoters , with no real opposition , andproviding no voice for the majorityof the working people - white orNegro _ . are being opposed in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, andNorth Carolina.
FREEDOM PARTYIn Mississippi a Freedom Demo
era tic Party is running four Negroes- three for Cong ress , one for theSenatc v- to counteract the existenceof a small Democratic Party that belongs to a few white people who haveregistered to vote under unfair voting laws.
One of the women running forCongress, a middle-aged wom an , Mrs.F annie Lou Hammer, 20th chi le! ina family of sh arecroppe rs , told awrite r for The Nation magazine :
" All my life I've been s ick and
to mobilize the Negro community andassist in developing local leadershipand organization. A registrationcampaign started in February andwill be implemented during the long,hot summer,
It will be mainly an educationalproject. "Freedom Registrars" WIllbe established in every precinct, withregistration books closely resemblingthe official books of the state.
These Freedom Registration bookswill serve as a basis for challengingthe official books, to question the
VIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE8% RAYMOND STREET, N.W. ATLANTA 14, GEORGIA
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violence , and perhaps even encour(Ige violence .
Nor can the students expect eventhe abstract satisfaction of justice inthe courts. Mississippi judges arelittle better, on the whole , than Mississippi policemen-r-and in the wholestate , there are only three lawyerswilling so far to take civil ri ghts defense cases . All three are Negroes.
The National Lawyers Guild hasplans to send volunteer lawyers tothe South to help. The Guild has organized a Committee to Assist South-
By SIDNEY ROGERlli_lu,t"h"r Sta ir
"One Man One Vote" is theear call being sounded by huneds of idealistic young Amerins - Negro and white, stunts lind workers alike - from
very part of the Uni"ted States,ho are knowingly facing injurynd death to bring freedom toississippi this summer - free-
~oms guaranteed by the US Constitution. More than 1000 are ex-
eted ultimately to become inolved in this heroic, historicenture for democracy.Field workers of the "Mississippiummer Project" - undertaken byveral organizations, led by the Stunt Non-Violent Coordinating Comiltee (SNCC) - say a breakthroughmust be made this summer in Mis· ippi to give Negroes some hoper the future."
TERROR HEGINSAlready the terror has begun fore first of the advan ce groups ofined young m en and women wh ove gone into the sta te-the mostckwar d , prejudice-ridden , povertyicken and violent section of thelion.~lississippi's 42 percent Negroulation has long been denied the
· plest fundamental rights. Thehite power structure of that statehich also bitterty exploits its poorhile population-is not ready toive up its stranglehold on educa-· n, wealth, the land, public office,niority in Washington and the hal-
box. Thc power structure-s-withpolice, its goons and lynch mobs
d its frightencd , miseducated whitepopnlation- will not hesitate to comit murder this sununer to perpete itsclf.
Already there hav e been reportsmissing youths , burnt cars, and
irrings of the lyn ch ers.Young registration workers haven trained in the techniques of , J
n-violence. This means if they are ....,... .t ,ulted they do not answer back. If o.
ey are attacked physically, they do I
t hit back. They must learn to pro- ,,- -II themselves without fightingek, and their teachers have warnedem that death is only one of many ~
ngers they face. IAmong the variety of dangers girlse is rape by policemen and guardside the jails. Girls at the orientan program at the Western Colleger Women in Oxford , Ohio, dis
ed the fa ct that women are oftenrsewhipped in jail if they don'tbmit to their jailers.Veteran civil rights activists talked ern Lawyers, which now has an oCthe students in the training ses- fice in New Orleans and is lining up
. ns about arrests on trumped-Up volunteer legal talent to respond toarges, conditions in jails. beatings, requests for assistance.ootings, bombings, etc. The boys But even if th ey 're successful ,d to learn how to fall, how to col- mo st ca n' t practice directly in Missis-pse in such a fashion as to keep sippi. They can only give ad vice. Andm being badly hurt; the girls had th e best legal talent is unlikely todiscuss possibilities they never dent the hatred of a racist judge.
earned would happen to them. N egro and white civil r ights leadIn every case, th ey all had to agree ers throughout. t~e l!~ited Stat~slemnly that str iking back, or other- have been cautioning citizens that. Itse answering with violence, was - Jl.l ay be necessary to start dem<,mstI a-olutelv forbidden , ~lOns .th. rol~ghout the country, lI1cl~d-
. . . . 1I1g vigils m front of F ederal build-D~splte ~hp: d~n~el s , they are mov~ in gs , demanding that th ere he Fed-• mto MISSISSIPPI by the scores, by eral intervention and protection forhun.d r~d~ . • these remarkably courageous young
In ~ISSISSIPPI.' !~e st~te ~as been people facing terror in order to teachepanng for this mvasron, Armor- people to vote--in order to brin gcars, policemen with riot}~uns and the "American way of life" to one
ar gas shells, steel cages Iitted .onto of the last outposts of "colonial"bage trucks to transport prison- feudalism in the United Stales ., and large halls and other stations Here are some of the projects
e being set aside as types of "con- planned:ntration camps." Voter registration. This is considThough the police cla im they in- ercd paramount. Voter registrationnd to protect all citizens, it is be- wo rk e rs will operate in every coun tyming clear that- in view of the ir a nd im portant u rban area in theevious records - th ey will more state . These young f iel d workers wi llten than not turn their backs on be in volve d in a su mmer-lon g d r ive