MISSISSIPPI CHALLENGEKILLED 228 -143

Issue

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

theDodged

The Minority Report of the Electionssubcommittee recommended that the Chal­lenge be sent back to the subcommitteefor more open hearings. As CongressmanHawkins from California said, "Mr. Speak­er, the committee majority found that theprimary question for them to considerwas, "Was there an election?" and itfound out that there was ......Of coursethere was. No one has denied that. Butthe iss u e raised by this challenge iswhether there was a valid, constitutionalelection and whether qualified citizens couldavail themselves of the electoral and poli­tical processes of the' state in which theylive ......that is the question which the com­mittee should more thoroughly consider:'

Lawrence Guyot, Chairman of the Miss­issippi Freedom Democratic Party, com­mented, "It was shocking to us that thevote taken ...had little to do with the majorissue we raised - did the state-endorseddisenfranchisement of more than 90% of theNegroes in Mississippi render the Con­gressional elections illegal? Was the Con­gress of the United States going to allowto sit among them men elected by a systemof murder, terror and economic slavery?Rather than face those questions, Congress

Moreover, as the official report for dis­missal complained, "The fact is that thecontestants did not avail themselves of theproper legal steps to challenge their al­leged exclusions from the registration booksand ballots prior to election, nor did theyeven attempt to challenge the issuance ofthe Governor's certificate of election, inFederal District Court, after the electionwas held."

On September 17, 1965 the challenge to unseat the whiteCongressmen from Mississippi was dismissed from theHouse' of Representatives, by a vote of 228 to 143. Themotion for dismissal, coming from the Chairman of theHouse Elections Subcommittee, did not mention any of the

real issues of the Challenge.Instead the motion called for dismissal

on "technical" grounds. The MississippiCoqgressmen had valid certificates of elec­tion on file in the office of the Clerk of'the House; they had taken the oath ofoffice administered by the Speaker of theHouse.

Published byThe Student Nonviolent Coord inating ,Committee of Ca Iifornia

MOVEMENT

DELANO, CALIFORNIA - The cry in theSan Joaquin Valley north of Bakersfield, inthe grape fiels now at the peak of harvesttime, is Huelgal Huelgal It means Strikelin Spanish and is the cry of the rovingpicket lines of the independent NationalFarm Workers Association (FWA) and theAgricultural Workers Organizing Com­mittee, AFL-CIO (AWOC).

According to one source it is the largeststrike of agricultural workers in the Valleysince the Modesto cotton strike of 1938.For the growers it is a foreboding displayof unity between the two organizations,which have not cooperated in this waybefore.

On Sunday, September 26, nearly 1000farm workers marched in Delano. Gather­ing in a park before the march, the child­ren ran races and broke pinatas filled withcandy; Then the farm workers and theirfamilies marched through the residentialsection of Delano, carrying signs announc­ing the strike and shouting Huelgal andViva la Causal

Workers are asking $1.40 an hour plus25¢ a box. Before the strike began, thegrowers were paying $I.l5 and $I.l0 plus1O¢ a box. As more and more local workershave left the fields, the growers have boostedwages slightly in an attempt to recruitestrikebreakers from outside the area.

The growers have also moved into thecourts to obtain temporary res t r a i n i n gorders against "mass" picketing. One ord­er, issued at the Lucas ranch, limits picketsto five and prohibits shouting. It is imposs­ibe for picketers to talk to scabs in thefield without shouting.

In 'the face of severe pressures (for thestory about harassment by police and grow­ers see page 5), the strikers have stoodfirm. Each morning at 4 a.m. crews ofpickets move out to find which fields

CONTINUED PAGE 4 A PROUD STRIKER waits as grower's tractor driver comes around to lay down anotherboiling cloud of dust. Note thick layer of dust on back of car. Huelga means strike.

STRIKE IN THE GRAPES!

OCT

1965

VOL 1NO. 10

Carroll County, Mississippi niT HAS AKLU KLUX KLAN, ASHERIFF, AND AMFDP"Carroll County, Mississippi is a bleak

district in ~he South. It has:No industryNo librariesNo movie theatersNo hospitals.It is the 14th poorest county in the

nation. None of its schools, white or black,are accredited. What does it have? In thewords of one SNCC volunteer, Larry Gam­ble of Stockton, "it has cotton, a sheriff,a Klan, and a Freedom Democratic Party:', Out of this has come one of the bestorganized MFDP counties in Mississippi.The local people, tired of a split schoolsessibn, split so that their children couldgo pick the white man's cotton, took to thestreets and endecht.

The drive was begun by Mrs. LeolaBlackmon', whose 8 year old son attendsthe Black Hawk school in Carroll County.She raised the question in an MFDP meet­ing. The local people decided to take ac­tion, at first with a petition. They got230 sigpatures on the petition, but theschool superintendant refused to halt thesplit session.

School Boycott

The parents then decided' to boycott theschools at the beginning of the Summersession. The first week of the boycottmost of the children stayed out of school,but the schools remained open. Parentswere afraid their children would be flunked,or they would be fined, or their welfarechecks would be cut off. Children beganto filter back into the summer session.

At a discussion at jeff's Chapel on why

the boycott had failed, someone suggestedthat the only way to close down the schoolswas to stop the buses, to block them withtheir bodies. The idea spread quickly: thebuses would not run on Monday.

Monday morning attempts were made toblock the school buses. At Black Hawkschool, Mrs. Blackmon's 8 year old sonwasamong them. As the Sheriff and his deputiesbegan to clear them away, one of thedeputies slapped the child. Mrs. Blackmongrappled with the deputy and was thrownto the ground by tWo men and choked. Shewas arrested and released on $1000 bond.The doc tor's examination showed hershoulder had been damaged.

But children at the Black Hawk schoolwere walking out again. Monday afternoon acounty-wide meeting was held and a marchon the Negro school in Carrolton planned.They decided to try to block the busesagain on Tuesday morning.

There was no need to block the buses thenext day. The Superintendent had closed theschools. The split session was ended.

The Gees

The whole county used to be owned by theGee family, who still own most of thesharecroppers land and the banking in­terests. The Sheriff is the owner powerfigure, with large landholdings in nearbyLeflore County.

The son, Clint Gee, dropped out of col­lege recently and leased a service sta­tion. His favorite pastime is driving his1965 Ford Mustang, which prominently dis­plays a pistol on the dashboard and a riflewi~h scope in the back. He follows civil

rights workers around as they canvass, andhas been getting bolder and bolder. His

intimidation has kept many potential Ne­gro ,voters from the polls.

The night before Larry Gamble left toreturn to California the FDP office wasburned to the ground. All the registrationrolls, the records, were lost.

"Most of the rednecks are cowards,"says Larry, "but there are some - likethe ex-sheriff - who if they decide tokill you will do it in broad daylight andlooking straight at you. And they'll knowthey're doing it for Christ and Chris­dan Civilization."

No Luck With Poor Whites

Some attempts were made to organizein the poor white community. It was almostimpossible for an integrated group to dothis. Though the ythites are making thesame wages as the Negroes - in someplaces as low now as $1.75 a day - theyjust won't work with Negroes. They believeeverything they have been taught.

A typical poor white community in Car­roll County is "Little Texas:' DUring theDepression, the whites lynched, burned,and ran out the Negroes who owned theland in this section. They wanted theirown territory and they got it. Larry wasrun out of Little Texas when he wasrecognized as an MFDP worker.

Was the FBI of any help to the civilrights worke~s? None. "When the officewas burned, they did nothing. When the ex

Sheriff came into the MFDP office drunk,and threatened to kill the workers, the

FBI was snotty and did nothing. When 60of us marched to end the split session, theFBI man was there for 5 minutes and thentook off. They were completely worthless:'

The Challenge

Larry feels that state-wide coordinationof the FDP is very weak. Where there aretwo offices, one for COFO 'and one for theMFDP, decision-making gets mixed upand there is considerable confusion. SNCChas taken steps to remedy this. Seven or

. eight of the old SNCC staff members, jesseHarris, among them, have formed what iscalled "The Team:' They travel fromproject to project in the state trying to co­ordinate and carry information from oneto the other.

The challenge of the MFDP failed to

capture the active attention of the FDPmembers in. Carroll County, who weremore interested in such local issues as thesplit session ai'd integrating the schools.Before the office burned down, about 20local people were planning to travel toWashington to lobby, but funds were thendiverted to pay for a new office.. The staff felt it was necessary to develop

consciousness in the local people of stateand federal laws that affected them, aswell as working on local issues. One suchlaw, passed at the same time the Miss­issippi legislature was "liberalizing" theirvoting laws, reqUired children not living withtheir parents to pay a prohibitive fee in orderto attend school. This hit the Negro com­munity severely; many parents have lefttheir children with relatives while theyseek work outside the county.

Some Very Personal

On The WashingtonI sat and watched while the Congress of

the United States of America voted todismiss the Challenge. I watched as thenumbers grew higher. Then I got sick andhad to leave.

I knew before I got to D.C. what wouldhappen. But seeing the Congress of theseUnited States play their political games withno thought or care for the life of a blackMississippian, it sickened me.

I left the Capitol building and went towhere the silent watchers were waiting. Ireported that Congress was in the processof dismissing the Challenge.

An awful dead feeling of complete des­pair, filled the air.

One of the girls, about 20, got hysterical.She screamed and cried, shook and wept.1 tried to comfort her. She cried and wailed,"how can'they do this to us?"

The chief police officer came over andasked me if he could do anything. I toldhim what he could do with his stick, hisclub, l told him what he could do with his70 to 80 armed Boy Scouts that he neededfor the silent Mississippi watchers whowere trying to he the cOl}science of theCongress. I told him what he could tellthe congressmen who could make a decisionthat could do this to this girl.' And 1 toldhim to leave us alone, we could take careof our own.

A car drove up and took the girl awayto the church to rest.

1 looked around and saw I was not theonly one crying.

Then the voting was over. People gather-

Notes

D.C. Challengeed around the Con2:resswomen and otherleaders. 1 listened while Mrs. Hamer gotup, tears in her eyes, spoke. While Mrs.Grey, Mrs. Walker and others stood up.all with tears in their eyes.

But I could not look at them. I couldnot take my eyes off a young Mississippiwoman sitting with her baby in her lap.I stood, watching the baby and listening tothe words of sorrow.

Finally I turned to face, to stare atthe great white Capitol building.

As I watched, I saw a big red-facedman standing on the steps to the Capitol.He was making funny gestures at us, wav­ing and laughing. I started to walk throughthe crowd towards the steps. Before Icould get there, some of mYfriends stoppedme. They held me gently by the arms andlet me watch the red-faced man. Theyknew me too well to let me go.

Finally the man went back in the Capitol.Finally our speakers got done speaking.Finally our people went home. Finally Iwas left alone, watching the Capitol.

I watched the Capitol for a while longer,until the stench rose in my nostrils fromCapitol Hill. It rose like the smell ofdead fish laying in the hot sun for tendays. When I could not Stand the smellany longer I left.

I left the Hill and returned to my red­eyed people, returned to the church and thepeople to whom love is enough of a reasonfor any action.

By Lou King

"Who killed the Challenge?""I," said the President.

MISSISSIPPI CHALLENGE KILLED CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

found that we, the Negro citizens of Miss­issippi, did not have the legal authorityto bring these questions to the floor."

Who Killed it?The question of why the 'Challenge we

lost and indeed not even debated in thehouse is not difficult to answer. Those whoworked closely on the Challenge feel thatthe major force behind the gagging ofdebate was the President, Lyndon BainesJohnson, Johnson exerted pressure on allthe Congressmen to drop the issue, claim­ing that the voting Rights bill would takecare of the problem in the future, ManyCongressmen used the Voting Rights Billas an excuse not to take a stand on the

-Challenge,They claimed that discrimmanon m t:lt:C­

tions would be solved by the registrationof Negro voter.s. The MFDP disagrees.There are only nine federal registrars in

~ 7

WE NEED VOLUNTEERSThe SNCC Regional Office in San Fran­cisco needs office personnel. If you canoffer your services, please call 62,f}-4577.

Mississippi, five of which were assignedin the last week, of September. The MFDPis calling for registrars in everyone of the82 counties of Mississippi.

Without federal registrars Negroes can­not be registered. And even if the VoterRegistration Act is en.forced, it will not'bring jobs to those fired for registering;it will not stop the terror and fear ofreprisals in Mississippi.

MFDP W.ill Continue

"Our challenge to illegal representationis not ended. We will work for implemen­tation of the voting rights act; we willrun mass registration campaigns, and wewill run candidates against all five con­gressmen and Senator Eastland in the 1966elections."

The Challenge, even though 'lost, hadpositive results. The denial of civil rightsfn Mississippi was publicized throughout thecountry. Thousands of people in NorthernCalifornia alone signed petitions urging theunseating of the white delegation.

The Challenge also exposed the problemsthe movement faces in confronting the fed-

eral government. One person who workedon the Challenge for many months put itthis way, "The Congressmen have theirown private club, they served on committeestogether, they'owe each other favors. If aCongressman fJ::.om the San)oaquin Valleyis concerned with cotton farms in his area,and he sits on a committee with a Miss­issippi Congressman, he is going to worryabout that man's vote on agricultural billsand not want to get in bad with him."

"The clique of law makers have loyaltiesto their colleagues which makes their re­lationship to their constituency secondary.The problem is how can we exert enoughpressure on the politicians so that theylisten to the people who elect them, andnot the congressional in-crowd."

The "in-crowd" worked hard to see thatthe Challenge would not be debated on thefloor. It is generally agreed that McCor­mack, Speaker of the House, was respon­sible for the delay in printing the deposi­tions of the Mississippians who were re­fused the right to vote. The clerk whostalled' on the printing was simply anemployee of the House, not a policy maker.As one Challenge worker in California put it,

"it adds up to a conspiracy to try to dumpthe Challenge."

There were some Congressmen who choseto respond to their constituents, and notEstablishment pressure. Gubser, from the10th Congressional District of Californiachanged his vote on the Challenge in re­sponse to enormous public pressure. Hestated, on the floor of the House, .. I be­lieve I am correct in saying that no otherCongressional district outside the Stateof Mississippi is so intensely interested inmatter as my own.; ....more than 2,000miles away from the state of Mississippi••••Signed petitions, with hundreds of names,urging my support of the Challenge, havebeen sent to my office. The city councilof my largest city passed a resolution witha unanimous vote urging my support of themove to unseat Mississippi's Congress­men."

As Gubser changed his potition, becauseof the public pressure, so may otherCongressmen in the years to come. TheMFDP is going back to Mississippi to re­build itself. The Challenge is not lost,only extended.

FOR 200 YEARS WE'VE BEEN WORKINGMississippi Freedom Labor Union

"Everybody should be on strike becauseyou are not getting anything for your work.Why work and be hungry when you can gainthe union some support? All the people thathave children really should be on strike,as well as the parents. "''by make yourchild work for low wages when all of yourlife you have been working for nothing?Why buy the white- man steak when youcan't hardly eat neckbones? As cheap as

chicken is, you can't eat it but once a weekon Sunday. Wake up and think. We asNegroes want to be equal and get highwages. For over two hundred years w,e havebeen working for nothing. Please join theunion, because if you are not in a union,you just aren't anywhere..."

From a leaflet published by the Missis­sippi Freedom Labor Union

The first strike, held last spring by the

STRIKE CITY in Trippet

Mississippi Freedom Labor Union (l'vIFLU)was not successful, state chairman GeorgeShelton said, because too many people"were scared they were going to lose alot, because they were not getting sup­port" and because many plantation workersW'2re not contacted.

"Now we have about six counties andtwo or three hundred people on strike,"Shelton said. "We don't have enough mon­ey to send out newsletters so that oneplace will know what's going on in otherplaces, but people are still Willing tostrike, even if it calls for suffering."

However, he said, "If we don't havea car in some of these places, it willbe just as it was before in the springstrike -- a lot of people on the plan­tations will be missed. We will also haveto have a fair amount of food and clothing

FOR NOTHINGfor that many people."

When MFLU members discussed thefall strike at their September statewidemeeting, they talked about ways to strength­en the union.

A woman from Leflore County said theirlocal members wouldn't agree to strike,because "the people don't want to suffer."

A Shaw County woman said, "We've suf­fered, but we understand you can't geteverything you want. We must keep onworking and striking."

People from Shelby and Sunflower Coun­ties said they couldn't join the strike, be­e a use their membership wasn't largeenough.

A man from Tribbett County said, "Whatis' the number needed to strike? For every­one that walks off the plantation not to goback, that hurts the white man."

To raise money for the strike, MFLUmembers are writing letters, touring Nor­thern cities and setting up sewing and lea­ther cooperatives.

Some members from McComb Countywant to set up a cooperative gas stationand use profits from it to run a chickenfarm. A group of 100 union members isgoing to Washington to lobby for a mini­mum wage bill and to ask the Departmentof Agriculture to issue surplus food tostrikers.

A Freedom Labor Union recently startedin Tennessee, which has over 100 members,including tractor drivers, also in planninga fall strike.

The'Riot Moves to the Courts SPECIAL TO THE MOVEMENT BY A LOS ANGELES CORRESPONDENT 3

R_IGHTS OF CITIZENS OVERLOOKED BY JUDGES, PUBLIC DEFENDERS

Courts Twist Laws In EffortTo Keep VVatts -DefendentsFrom Receiving Counsel

A big problem was that of supplying counsel for the defendents, most of whom couldnot afford private counsel. The Public Defender's Office was not able to handle thelarge number of cases.

State law provides that if the Public Defender refuses to supply counsel, the courtmust supply other counsel, with compensation. The court then ruled that inabilityto provide counsel did not constitute refusal, and thus the court refused to supply thedefendents with lawyers. The attorneys responded to this by attempting to advise alldefendents to ask for jury trials, tying up the courts.

The court prevented this by refusing to allow the attorneys to s~e the defendents.The only way for an attorney to see an individual defendent was to claim to be hislawyer. lf he did this, he waived his right to be a court-appointed counsel, thus thwart­ing the purpose of attorneys. fn the felony cases still pending the attorneys are thusfaced with a dilemma -- should they hold out for the principle that the court should

. provide and compensate counsel for the defendents, or should they yield to the moreimmediate needs of the defendents and become volunteer counsels?

-- from an interview with Arnett Hartsfield, ACLU attorney.

--Claiborne Moss, slave in Georgia. born in1857, interviewed by members ofthe FederalWriters Project in 1938, recorded in LAYMY BURDEN DOWN: A Folk History ofSlavery. Uni versity of Chicag;o Press.

~

!tI~

\j

~lII

all, each one was a minor victory•In contrast, the puhlic defender was busy

making deals with the district attorney -­"plead guilty on COUlllS one and three:and the D.A. will dismiss COUDlS twoand four and you'll get off with a fine:'

The "amateur" criminal lawyers werehelped by the fact th;lt In many cases,perhaps hundreds, the police bad madebad arrests, and kllew it. But rather thansimply release the prisoners, die policetried to bluff their way through arraign­ments and preliminaries.

judges helped the police all 100 often.Since they are no more than manal men,their anger at the six days cl auardry wasreflected in their decisions. Still. as calmreturned to the city and to die courts,and as the overwhelming caJrudar loadeased, judges began to' pay more atteutionto the niceties of 'the law. As die riotfaded from pressing memory more andmore

•people were being dismissed by die courts.Nonetheless, innocent people wbo bad the

misfortune of being arraigned just afterthe riot now must stand trial. die victimsof assembly-line justice.

The Municipal Courts, ramrodded bya city attorney just a shade to the leftof William Howard Taft, were ferociousin their handling of misdemeanor cases.judges would hear nothing about bail re­ductions, leaving stand the irony of bailbeing higher ($1500) in misdemeanorthan in felonies.

In the Municipal Courts, justice wasa summary thing. With the city's publicdefender working hand-in-gJove with thecity attorney, guilty plea followed guiltyplea. Assured of leniency -- maybe a fineor short sentence, weary of serv.ing "deadtime" (time served before trial whichusually is not counted in the seutence).burdened with responsibilities at home -­defendents pleaded guilty of misdemeanors.

Most of those who pleadedguilty probablydid. so because they were. (After all, noteveryone arrested was ~nt ofthe ,charges.) But more than a few mighthave beaten the charges if they bad been,adequately defended•

For example, MarqueneandRonaldFrye,whose arrest triggered the six~y insur­rection, pleaded guilty to drunk drivingand resisting arrest. When provided withcounsel -- Wirin and Malone - and someinvestigators, they changed their plea andnow face a jury triaL._

Hundreds of others will not be so for­tunate. There are not enough volunteerattorneys, the courts are working'desperately to clear their calendars, theundermanned public defender's office mustnecessarily concentrate on the cases thatinvolve the worst abuses of police power.

The United States Constib1tion guaran­tees a trial in criminal cases withoutdelay. That doesn't mean they have tobe slapdash.

"The Ku Klux got after Uncle Will once. He was a brave man. He had a little marethat was a race horse. Will rode right through the bunch before they ever reali~ it washim. He got on the other side of them. They kept on after him. They went down to hishouse one night. He wouldn't run for nothing. He shot two of them, and they went away.Then he was out of ammunition. People urged him to leave, for they knew he didn't haveno more bullets; but he wouldn't, and they came back and killed him.

They came down to Hancock County one night, and the boys hid on both sides of the'bridge. When they got in the middle of the bridge, the boys commenced to fire on themfrom both sides, and they jumped jnto the river. The darkies went on home when theygot through shooting at them; but there wasn't no more Ku Klux in Hancock County. Thebetter-thinking white folks got together and stopped it.

The Ku Klux kept the niggers scared. They cowed them down so that they wouldn't goto the polls. I stood there one night when they were counting ballots. I belonged to theCounty Central Committee. I went in and stood and looked. Our ballot was long; theirswas short. I stood and seen Clait Turner calling their names from our ballots. I wentout and got Rube Turner, and then we both went back. They couldn't call the votes thatthey had put down they had. Rube saw it.

Then they said, "Are you going to contest this?"Rube said, ··Yes." But he didn't because it would have cost too much money. Rube

was chairman of the committee. ~

The Ku Klux did a whole lot to keep the niggers away from the polls in Washingtonand Baldwin counties. They killed 'many a nigger down there.

They hanged a Ku Klux for killing his wife, and he said he didn't mind being hung, buthe didn't want a damn nigger to see him die.

But t~ey couldn't keep the niggers in Hancock County away from the polls. Therewas too'many of them:'

perior Court of the constitutional rightto bail (in the heat of the riot, the dis­trict attorney had urged that rioters beheld without bail ). Bail was set.

Then four men -- Wirin and Gorenfeldof the ACLU, Arnett Hartsfield of UCRC,and Stanley Malone of the Langston LawClub -- argued in chambers and in courtfor bail reductions in felony cases.

In most cases, bail was reduced froman astronomical- $5000 t.o the moremanageable $500 and $1000. This is notto say that the bail reduction sprung every­one; for many, the cash premium of 10percent to the bondsman was impossibleto raise, no matter what' the bail. Butit did give more people a chance fortheir freedom.

A few people,. with no prior convictions,and with overwhelming responsibilities athome, were released on their own recog­nizance. The number was small, but con-.sidering th~ original.stance of no bail at

TESTIMONY OF AN EX·SLAVE

The Ku- Klux Klan .During Reconstruction

First, ACLU chief counsel A.L. Wirin-reminded the presiding judge of the Su-

rights organizations, desperately. or wist­.fully seeking help. Partly out of sympathyfor the rioters' grievances if not theirmethod of protest, and partly out of a senseof duty to the courts, some 150 attorneysvolunteered to serve on a defense panelset up by the American Civil LibertiesUnion and .the United Civil Rights Com­mittee.

At last count, more than 706 indigentshad requested ACLU-UCRC attorneys, andthey were parcelled out to some 85. Mostof the 85 were younger men, with littleexperience in criminal law, recruited fromthe ranks of the ACLU Lawyer's Division.Experienced in business law, tax law,personal injury and probate, they appearedfor clients unlike any they had ever beforedefended.

Held Without Bail

of money spent for compensatory pre-schoolprograms, a reduction in class size, a"Master Teacher Corps" specializing inteaching the disadvantaged, and the estab­lishment of "Advancement Schools" to im­prove basic skills and utilize the talentsof ghetto reSidents.. In Employment and Housing the Speaker

proposes the establishment of State-spon­sored public works projects, the creationof various new jobs in schools and hos­pitals and the like, special loans for smallbusinesses, low-cost housing, and studiesof the relationship of lending laws andpractices to integrations. Two other pro­posals deal with state disaster prepared­ness and riot insurance.

The Speaker's proposals are at theirweakest when it comes to law enforcement.Of six specific proposals in this area,five have to do with increased penaltiesfor arson and the possession of Molotovcocktails, greater controls over dangerousweapons, and more parole officers and High­way Patrolmen. Only one proposalis clear-

'. ly aimed at police-community relationsand that has to do with increasing thenumber of Negro police officers assignedto Negro neighborhoods. No mention ismade of police review boards or any othermethods for airing minority grievancesagainst the police. -

'lhere will be other pressures for in­jecting Watts into the legislative arenanext year. Part of them will have to dowith the coming elections and the politicalmileage to be found in social disorder.

COLEMAN BLEASE

LOS ANGELES -- lf the Watts insurrectionproved anything, it is that justice for thepoor is measured in small, very smalldoles.

Once the fires were out, the brokenglass swept from the sidewalks and theghetto settled into a wary truce, approxi­mately 4100 people were in jail, chargedwith everything from burglary (looting1to plain drunk. . .

The law came down, hard, on the ar'­rested rioters.

Approximately half of the arrestees ob­tained private counsel, if they could affordit, or if they could pay $10 down and $10week after week. The other half were in­digents, forced to turn to the public de­fender's office or somehow find volunteercounsel.

Those who had no prior experience withthe courts put their· faith in God and theirlives in the hands of the public defenders.About half of the indi ents called the civil r

The heart of the Speaker's proposals isthe creation of special state programs in"priority areas" characterized by highpopUlation den sit y, unemployment; illi­teracy, school dropouts, substandard hous­ing, criminal activity and similar evidencesof "serious social malfunction." In edu­cation he proposes an immediate tripling

SACRAMENTO - Watts as an historicalevent is over. But Watts as a political.event is just beginning. Any resemblancebetween the two is (as they say in the

. movies) strictly coincidental. For poltiicshas its own purpose. It imposes its ownstandards of judgment on historical events.

Consider these responses of state legis­lators. An Assemblyman testified that Wattsmeans we need medical care for the aged.For him Watts is a symbol of the illsof society and a chance to get a littlemore political mileage for his pendingmedicare bill.

Then there is the Senate Interim Com- .mittee on Transportation: It rushed to LosAngeles to hold hearings to vindicate therole of the California Highway Patrol,which had been made a scapegoat for therio! by Chief Parker.

And there is Assemblyman Charles Con­rad, a Republican from Los Angeles andone-time minority leader of the Assembly:he introduced a resolution, at the cur­rent special session of the legislature,commending Chief Parker for his role inquelling the riots. The resolution willno doubt thrust Conrad, and possibly theRepublican Party, into the middle of araging controversy over police practicesin Los Angeles.

Beyond these responses, there is shapingup a more profound reaction to Watts. Itwill reflect a sharp political division overthe nature of the explosive forces at workin our society.

At one pole of the reaction will be thosewho see in Watts the need to get toughwith those who get out of line. At the otherpole will be those who view Watts as theresult of vast social and economic in­equality. Most politicians will huddle in themiddle.

It's diffict,\lt to predict which one ofthese contending views will predominatewhen the legislature gets down to legis­lating on the subject next year. One im­portant clue can be found in legislativeproposals put forward recently by jesse M.Unruh, Speaker of the Assembly.

Unruh's Program

CONFLICT INlEGISlAlURE

cont~nued from front pageGRAPE STRIKE BIGGEST SINCE 1930'S

growers will try to work. In many casesthe strikebreakers do not know they arebeing asked to work behind picketlinesuntil they reach the field. A large per­centage never show up the next day afterthey learn from the shouting pickets whatis at stake.

Strikebreakers have been recruited bythe growers from as far away as Texas,according to observers in Delano. Afew of the scabs live in Delano, but com­munity pressure has been brought to bear'on them by the strikers. In some casesthe homes of contractors and workers

who are ignoring the picket lines havebeen picketed.

"In Delano, it is often brother againstbrother, or cousin against cousin," saysCesar Chavez, head of the militant FarmWorkers Association. In many cases, mem­bers of the picket line will be close friendsof those in the fields. Most of that is ended,now. We have the area around Delanocleared ~up, and the growers must gofurther arid further away to recruit strike­breakers."

The Teamster-s' Union has issued astatement saying that they will honor the

picket line of the agricultural workers.Howev<er, according to the reports of severalAWOC picketers, this promise is hollow.What actually happens is that the teamsterwill stop his truck short of the picket line,get out, and allow a company representativeto drive it across. The truck is them loadedor unloaded, driven back across the picketline, the teamster gets back in and drivesaway.

At a mass meeting in the Delano FilipinoCommunity Center the evening after themarch, this and other problems were dis-cussed. .

Attending this meeting were represent­atives of the Amalgamated Clothing Work­ers, Mexican-American PoliticalAssociat­ion, Fresno Council for Civil Unity, Calif­ornia Democratic Council, CommunityServices Organization, and Student Non­violent Coordinating Committee, who spokein support of the strike.

Over 90% of the strikers, says CesarChavez, have never been on a strike before.The tenacity and energy with which theycarry out this exhausting and frustratingaction is even more remarkable when thisis known.

SPEC IAL TO THE MOVEMENT

Then when 1 began my 'job' as trans­lator, the interviewer questioned me con­stantly as to whether I was not twistingstatements around.

One example will give the flavor of theState Employment Department represen­tative's attitude. We picked up a farmworker late Saturday afternoon. He hadnot eaten his dinner yet, and had plannedto go shopping, but he cooperated.

After about 50 minutes, the state inter­viewer became strangely redundant, askingthe same questions over and over. Thiswent on for about 20 minutes, so when theinterview was about an hour and a quarterlong, the weary grape-picker grew verydisgusted and said he could not go on. Hewas very hungry and his children had nomilk. After some debate the interview waspostponed until after dinner. When we cameback, the grape-picker had gone. I went tohis wife, who told me that she thought thestate did not want the workers to strike.

The questionnaire used in the interviewonly involved 8 or 10 questions. It seemedvery simple to me.

By Bob Barron

State Employment OfficeHostile To Strikers

As a concerned urban Mexican-Ameri­can, I went to see the Delano strike onthe 26 and 27 of September. When I got tothe Asociacion National de TrabajadoresCampesinos (National Farm Workers As­sociation), I was immediately put to work.

I was asked to translate the testimonyof striking farm workers for the StateDepartment of Employment, which wassupposed to be "certifying" the legitimacyof the strike, so that the Department wouldno longer refer workers to the strikearea. As it happened, the matter turnedout to be a rather disorderly affair inwhich enthusiastic strikers were turnedinto disgusted non-cooperators.

The first question that came to me whenI started was why no one from the statetested the proficiency of my Spanish, sinceincompetancy could 1e a d to mistakes.Secondly, the state never explained whythey were not supposed to get out of theirlate-model cars to go interview the strikers,and why I, a taxpayer acting without pay,was supposed to go get the strikers attheir homes and bring them to the publicservants.A LONE PICKET in a cloud of dust whipped up by high-speed tractor. This was a

common harrassment tactic used by growers.

Guerilla Warfareby Terence Cannon

In the GrapesHOW A RURAL STRIKE IS FOUGHTIf I were to compare a strike of agri-'

cultural workers to a factory strike, Iwould say this: it's like striking an indus­trial plant that has a thousand entrancegates and is 40 square miles large. Andif that isn't .bad enough, you don't knoweach morning where the plant will be,or where the. gates are, or whether itwill be open or closed, or what wages willbe offered that day.

A -typical day was Monday, September27.

4:30 AM A picket line crew of 12,mostly Mexican-American farm workers,a few Anglos, led by Dolores Huerta ofthe Farm Workers Association (FWA),meet at the Filipino Community Centerfor breakfast. It's cooked by the wivesof Filipino strikes at the AWOC head­quarters.

5:00 AM We start off in 6 cars andhead for our "sector," 40 square milesof grapes, cotton and county roads northof Delano. It is pitch-dark. We burrowinto the darkness, past empty packing­sheds, through the small town of Rich­grove. Dolores has heard that a certaingrower will be hiring.

5:30 AM We reach the ranch, parkthe cars and stand on top of them, lookingfor signs of early morning activity -­trucks loading with boxes, buses leavingto pick up workers -- but we see nothing.We do see some lights on Road 192,so we drive to the intersection, douseour lights and wait. In all of the 40 squaremiles there seem only the twelve of us.Then a car barrels down Road 192,passes us, disappears in the darkness.It is a worker's car. More headlights:the familiar white pickup truck of a growerspeeds past (all the growers' trucks arewhite, and all have the whip antenna ofa two-way radio). When a convoy of 4cars passes, we run to the cars and tryto follow them. At an intersection thestriker's car ahead of us runs out of gasand the driver asks us to take her toa gas station.

Here's where you being to understandthe problems involved. The nearest gasstation is 15 miles away on Highway 99.Two cars now have to leave the rovingpicket. We're gone an hour.

6:30 AM We have no idea where the

rest of the group is. For a while we driveat random, touring the main gates of someof the major growers. No luck. We stopto ask a lone AWOC picket in front ofa packing shed. As we're standing thereanother caravan appears. Six cars fullof workers, followed by a white growers'bus, followed as if being herded alongby three white grower's trucks, the linecompleted by the car of the Tulare CountySheriff's Office. The whole line moves inone unit at 60 miles an hour past us.

Again we jump in our cars and followthem. As we catch up, the Sheriff's carslows down to the legal speed and isolatesus from the line of strikebreakers. Thepolice car dawdles along, until we losesight of the caravan. Fortunately for us,

'the tactic is troublesome but not too smart.'We would still have been lost, if two grow­er's trucks hadn't conveniently blocked offa private road nearby and let us knowexactly where the strikebreakers are.

Now there's nothing we can do. We don'twant to separate, we don't know where ourgroup is, and we can't take the time togo all the way back to Delano to report.So we take down the location, in case wemeet someone.

7:00 AM We find a Filipino picket line.They turned back three cars of workers.The picket leader, a young man in his20's for whom this is his first strike,tells us how it happened. He is fL!ll ofsympathy for the strikebreakers -- theytold him their landlords were going tocut off their electricity and gas; theyowed money; they needed food. "Just likeus," he said. "It was tough for them toturn around and go back, but they saidthey didn't want to hurt the strike, theydidn't want to cross rhe picket line."

Two weeks before, when the strike hadjust begun, Mexican-Americans had cros­sed the picket lines easily, saying "it'sjust a Filipino strike." They had comea long way since then.

The Filipinos told us they had seen aMexican.,.American picket line a mile away.It turned out to be our group. We hadlost two hours by not having a two-wayradio. Every grower's car has one.

7:30 A:'vl The line was at the Caratanranch, from whose property all the strik­ing Filipino workers had heen forcibly

evicted, the doors and wmdows of theirhouses nailed shut,- and their belongingspiled on the highway•.

A portable packing shed was on the sideof the road, perhaps 10 feet from thepicketers, and a dialogue had been goingon for at least an hour. Dolores felt thatif we had all· been there from the be­ginning the workers would have come off.The strikebreakers were beginning to de­bate among themselves, but when the twocounty police cars came up and parked,and Caratan's son began to strut up anddown, their resolve weakened, and theline wasn't large enough to pressure theminto walking off.

Still the dialogue went on. The teen­age girls are the best at needling, bait­int, teasing and cajoling the workers. Whena worker would come out of the field witha box for the shed, the entire line woulddirect its attention to him, arguing inrapidfire Spanish. The rest of us, whoseSpanish was limited, stood on the top ofthe cars and yelled "Huelgal Huelgal"(Strike, Strike) at the workers still inthe fields.

It is a bitter experience, and a bafflingone for workers who have never been onstrike before, to stand a few feet awayfrom a person who is taking their jobaway, and try to argue them into givingup their wages for an indefinite future,for the principle of negotiation. The farmworker lives in a shifting, unpredictableworld: where will the ne.!'t month's wagescome from? What crops are ripe? Who'shiring? To ask him to give up what tittlesecurity he has -- a job he has righthere, right now, for a better f.!:tture -­is difficult enough for experienced unionorganizer s.

8:30 AM Caratan struts back and forthin front of the picketers with a Polaroidcamer~. (Everywhere you go you are photo-

graphed -- by the police, by the growers ).He tried the previous week to run a pick­eter's car off the road, but only succeededin losing the boxes on the back of histruck. We are still talking and shouting.The county police stay in the back. Twocarloads of Filipinos join the picket line,and the morale goes up.

9:30 AM Afraid that we are gettingthrough to the workers, Caratan moves

the picking operation into the center ofhis property, a half mile away from thecounty road. They move the packing shedand the boxes away from us, down therows.

When the area has been cleared, Cara­tan drives up a caterpillar tractor, parksit in front of the line, holds down the ac­celerator and lets it idle; the sound drownsout our voices. Every grower has donethis every day of the strike. We just stopyelling and wave the signs. Cesar Chavez,head of FWA, wants the pickets to stayon one field all day, so the workers inthe field will not think the growers havedefeated us with these tactics.

10:30 AM Caratan is not content withthis. The fixed high-school pipsqueak grinis still on his face, but he's unhappy,so he uses Grower Tactic #2. He waitsuntil the .wind is blowing from the fieldtoward the line, and then drives the trac­tor up and down in the two-inch dust, whip­ping it around in tight circles. The dustboils up in thick clouds, cover ing and hidingthe picketers. He keeps this up for halfand hour, but his attention span is short,and finally he parks it and lets it rev.

At noon we have sandwiches, apples,and soda. We've given up hope of pullingthis particular gang off the field, but willstay to continue our presence. Doloresfeels that though they work today, perhapsthe next day they won't go oui:. Someof the strikers are demoralized, sometake it in stride. It is hot; the countypolice are still there, Caratan is stillthere.

A young woman striker tells us that in5 years of picking in the San JoaquinValley, she has never seen a toilet pro­vided in the fields. One is reqUired bylaw, and the growers promised SecretaryWirtz that toilets would be provided (hewas particularly shocked at the lack oftoilets ). None have been provided and nonewill be.

At 1 PM I have to return to Delano.The rest stay. This has been going onfor three weeks. Often, the people on theline know or are related to people workingin the fields. Sometimes they are suc­cessful. Sometimes not. Everyone is tired,particular ly Dolores, who has I think,eight children, and went to sleep at mid­night the night before.

INTERVIEW WITH CESAR CHAVEZ OF FWA 5

We're Somewhere Between a Movement And. an Industrial Union

the major prob­an agricultural

Is this different from theway AWOC organizes?

Stopped by PoliceSaturday night, September 25, three cars­

ful of Kern County deputies and a paddywagon stopped a carload of Filipinos. Ittook the cops nearly 25 minutes to takethe names and addresses of everyone in thecar all the while a photographer from KBAKmaneuvered around the car and took mugshots of all occupants with a telephotolens.

The cops gave nobody a ticket. Theybrought no charges. When asked why thecar had been s'topped, the cops said theywere making a "confidential investigationrelating to the strike."

There have been many tactics used to har­rass the roving picket lines. The growershave set up their insecticide rigs by theroad and sprayed the strikers with chemi­cals. They have displayed pistols and riflesin a menacing manner, and posted armedprivate Security Guards at fields beingstruck.

Labor Camp EvictionsThe Caratan Ranch has three private

labor camps which housed Filipino work­ers, many of whom had lived there forup to 30 years. Their belongings weretossed out on the ground, armed guardsevicted the workers; the windows werEnailed shut and the doors padlocked. Camp#3 was later used to house imported strike­breakers.

A favorite grower tactic is to plow upthe dust in front of the strikers withtractors. This builds a boiling cloud ofdust, almost as effective as tear gas.During .this the police watch patiently, evenwhen the dust blows in their direction.

Another is to push down the accelleratora tractor and leave it idling at full blast,which drowns out the cries of the pick­eters so they cannot be heard in the field.

At last notice, the use of injunctions andrestraining orders on the part of growershad increased. The language of these or­ders was indefinite and sweeping, andseemed to infringe on such common ac­tivities as talking and meeting. As yet theyhave not been legally challenged by theunions, but action is being considered.

At press time, "routine:' police har­rassment was reported on the increase.This may be an indication that the stikewas being felt by the growers.

them, crowded around the car, threateningthe Sheriff with the loss of his job.

By the end of two weeks of strike, thesethreats had not kept five growers from beingarrested for harrassment and assault. Onlytwo strikers were arrested.

The Sheriff's Offices of Tulare and KernCounties are not usually as considerate ofthe pickets. They spend most of their timein the fields either in pleasant conversa­tion with the growers or asking the picketsunfriendly questions.

What islem instrike?

Imported scabs. Yesterday we saw twobuses of strikebreakers come in fromFresno, and one from LA. One growerhad a crew of 40 scabs, some less than13 years old.

Some of the scabs are union membersfrom other industries; they will come outof the fields when you tell them thereis a strike. We also have spies workinginside the field gangs to convince themthey should leave the job. But withoutthree years of growing membership itwould have been impossible. Basically it'sguerilla warfare. The growers even haveairplanes and helicopters.

AWOC uses the standard union organi­Zing procedures. Community organizingis tough; it never stops. In union organi­zing, once you get a contract you stopworking. Everybody has a way of keepingtheir members in, except us. The Churchcan keep people in -- if you leave yougo to Hell. The Unions can keep members-- if you leave you lose your job. Withus -- nothing like that.

Chavez Group BeatenThis doesn't mean things have been plea­

sant. On Thursday September 23 the FWAhad a picket line in front of the home ofone of the scabbing contractors. It wasnight. A few Delano police had been on thescene for a while but left. 15 growers, mostof whom had been drinking, showed up andbegan to punch the pickets, Cesar Chavezamong them. A crowd of about 300 Mexi­can-American workers gathered, and wereupset when the pickets did not hit back.

One of them ran to the headquarters ofthe other striking union, AWOC, where ameeting was in progress. The meeting wascalled off and 400 Filipinos arrived on thescene, ready to take on the growers. Cha­vez by this time had managed to get toa phone, and called the Sheriff, who droveup several minutes later. The Sheriff, aMexican-American, but no friend to the farmworkers, shouted that he'd arrest the nextperson who touched anyone else. A grow­er, who obviously didn't think this appliedto growers, grabbed a picket and was ar­rested. The Sheriff pushed the man in hiscar, as the rest of the growers. irate that"their" police force was being used against

HARASSMENT BY GROWERS, POLICEPersecution by authorities is consider­

ably less in the present grape - pickersstrike than in any preVious action of thissort in the San JoaqUin Valley.

Why? It's hard to say. "The Sheriffhasn't been excellent, but he's acting betterthan before/' said Cesar Chavez, headof the Farm Workers Association (FWA)."Why all of a sudden are they acting nice?They're not even using dogs. It's too goodto be true."

The only answer Chavez could suggestwas that he had announced that membersof SNCC and CORE were taking part inthe strike, and he had heard a policeofficer say "We don't want another Sel­ma here ..

(L to R) GROWER, HIS SON and two

Tulare County ::iheriff's Department men

How do you organize? Doyou have workshops?

We organize one-to-one. lf I have todrive a worker somewhere in my car,he's a captive audience. Then we talkabout the Association and what it means.This kind of organizing spreads from per­son to person. We have had no member­ship drive in two years, but we have2000 members.

We have no contracts with the growers,so we can't help our members in thatway P7imarqy. We service our membersin other ways, like our credit union. 16months ago' we had $37 in our CreditUnion, this month we have $26,000. Inservicing our members they learn howto help themselves; in that way it's aneducational program. We help to get aguy a driver's license. We are workingon setting up' autonomous community or­ganizations: a coop drugstore, coopera­tive service stations -- the profit fromwhich will go into a workers welfarefund. lf the labor movement had estab­lished consumer cooperatives, it wouldbe strong today. I'm convinced that'S oneof the reasons it's not.

issues. That takes time, and sometimesit seems as if you get lost on unimpor­tant issues. We're experimenting.

-».:1>

UNIONS

AWOCThe first director of the Agricultural

Workers OrganiZing Committee, AFL-CIO,was Norman Smith, ex-UAW organizerwho led some of the auto Sit-down strikesin the 30's. Beginning in 1959 he traveledthrough the California valleys recruitingorganizers and giving speeches. Occasion­al strikes wece called. Wages were forcedupward but no contracts signed.

In the winter of 1960-61 AWOC and theAFL-CIO United Packinghouse Workerscalled a general strike in the ImperialValley lettuce harvest. This stirred ahornet's nest of jurisdictional conflict inthe AFL-CIO palace guard. At the criticalpeak of the strike, George Meany orderedAWOC to pull out. The strike collapsed.

Directorship was turned over to AlGreen, veteran union organizer from thePlasterers Union. Under his leadership,AWOC is a strong political voice for thefarm workers. AFL-CIO financial com­mitment has been cut back. Many AWOCoffices have been closed, most organizerslaid off.

Exactly.Now we have to think about what that

implies. The danger is that we will be­come like the building trades. Our situa­tion is similar -- being the bargainingagent with many separate companies andcontractors. We don't want to modelour­selves on industrial unions; that wouldbe bad. We want to get involved in poli­tics, in voter registration, not just con­tract negotiation.

Under the industrial union model, thegrower would become the organizer. Hewould enforce the closed shop system;he would check off the union dues. Oneguy -- the business agent -- would be­come king. Then you get favoritism, cor­ruption. The trouble is that no institutioncan remain fluid.

But no movement can stayformless very long, jf it'ssuccessful.

That's right. We have to find somecross between being a movement and beinga union. The membership must maintaincontrol; the power must not be centeredin a few. Maybe we would have some sys­tem where the jobs were rotated. It isimportant to remain free to work on many

FARMTHE TWO

The Farm Workers Association was or­ganized three years ago by activists in theCommunity Service Organization (CSO),a Mexican-American civic group foundedby Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foun­dation.

Three CSO staffers: Cesar Chavez, na­tional' director, Dolores Huerta, lobbyist,and Gilbert Pedilla, vice president, pulledout to start the Farm Workers Associa­tion.

FWA activities are concentrated in Kern,Tulare, and Kings Counties. Until the pres­ent grape strike, FWA strikes have beensmall and against single growers. By at­tempting to build a real power base in thefarm communities, it is constantly at warwith more politically oriented groups.

FWA recently picketed the conventionof the MeXican-American Political As­sociation (MAPA) - another offshoot ofCSO - because MAPA leaders were serv­ing as labor department consultants onfarm labor recruitm~nt, under the gov­ernment established farm labor wage. FWAwants to bargain with growers, not gov­ernment, for wages.

We want to set up the machinery forjoint wage' negotiations, grower-wide, inthis area. There must be a system towages and working conditions, not justup to every. grower. We also want to putthese contractors out of business.

Mj'T10 l.

fARM~OJWRS.ASSOCI ~T\0\

What do you hope to getfrom this strike?

You mean through a closedshop and a hiring hall?

Striking Grape Pickers Need Your HelpThe farmworkers on strIke are undergoing severe financial difficulties. Many are

in need of food. Money is needed for gas, telephone, mimeograph paper, and food.Send'donations to FARM WORKERS ASSOCIATION c/o SNCC, 1316 Masonic, San Fran­cisco, California 94117.

Cesar Chavez is the headof the 2000-member Na­tional Farm Workers Asso­ciation (FWA), 9n 'indepen­dent organization of Span­ish - speaking agriculturalworkers in the San JoaquinValley of California. Theinterview took place at theFWA headquarters in De­lano, September 25, 1965,during the largest farmworkers strike since 1938.

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than turning education over to the pro­fessionals. It provided social services andmedical programs, which demonstrated thecorruption and inadequacies of state andfederal offerings. All this was heady stufffor a schizophrenic government agencywhich must represent at once both the bestand worst of the Great Society,

Perhaps more significant, most of thecommunities in the CDGM program were"movement" communities, and most ofthe committees corresponded to local FOPleadership. (This was a source of conflictwith the movement as well as SenatorStennis. Civil rights activists charged thatfederal monies were co-opting communitysupport.)

of lesser significance, but more spec­tacular in Stennis' charges, was that manyCDGM staff simply refused to give upmovement involvement and associations,There were some instances of using CDGMresources to support movement activities.

Yet the program had been "saved",and the threatened withholding of funds I

did not happen. Miraculously, the demorali­zation of the central staff had little effectupon the communities or their work inthe centers. Despite the fact that manypeople have not yet received their salaries,and that many who can ill afford it havepaid for expenses out of their pockets,the communities are enthusiastic aboutcontinuing the program.

The program closed at the end of Aug:ust, a huge success despite the politicSand conflicts between the' board, the staffand OEO. Most communities reported ratherspectacular successes in working with thechildren, many of whom had entered theprogram no~ng their names,

dOC

ia \fro~ the radical Delta Ministry, whichowned the Academy, and the FreedomDemocratic Party, which had used it asheadquarters during the June demonstra­tions. The problems of "amateurism" mat­tered less than what OEO admitted laterto be the "political" problem of CDGM'sconnections with the civil rights move­ment.

The Board of Directors, under pres­sure from OEO to comply or see the pro­gram collapse, instructed the staff to makethe move. Levin and his staff, virtuallyto a man, voted the following day to re­sign and serve the communities withoutpay until an interim staff, provided byWashington, could be trained. Their po­sition was that the move was logisticallyimpossible given the time remaining, andin general undesirable since the natureof the program reqUired access to a met­ropolitan area. Further, it seemed as ifOEO was less concerned with solving sub­stantive problems than with dodging theflak from Stennis;

A compromise came out of fl seriesof frantic negotiations among the Board,the staff and OEO. The staff's dedsionto resign won the concession to remainat Mt. Beulah, But the price of the com­promise was a 'raft of misunderstanding,mistrust and alienation between the staffand the Board, and the "promotion" ofLevin. For the remaining two weeks the'project director was to work on develop­ing future programs, and to stop makingpolicy.

The changes demanded by 'OEO in­volved bas,ic structural issues, There wasclearly more ,involved than amateurismor irresP,Onsibility; Levin and his staffrepresented a radical political directionwhich OEO, a creation of the Johnson andKennedy administrations, cannot allow,

HEAD START in Mississippi was a radi­cally conceived program which offeredits participants, most of whom are civilrights activists, new tools for communityorganization, It offered both parents andteachers a direction away from a stateeducation system unworthy of the name.It encouraged the exciting notion of com­munity participation in education rather

The CDGM staff was aware, of course,of the problems and was making everyeffort to set. them right when the ulti­rriatum from OEO struck, It almost wreck­ed CD9M. At a meeting with ProjectDirector Tom Levin, and the Board, OEO'representatives demanded that the centralstaff relocate from the Mt .. Beulah Aca­demy near Jackson to a college campusin a _remote area of the state. The motivewas to disassociate the federal program

Without StenniS, CDGM was in trouble.The staggering job of setting up so am­bitious a program, the logistical prob­lems in coordinating centers ranging from'the Delta to the hill lands to the coast,'plus the experimental projects -- all meanttrouble for a seven weeks program, al­ready harassed by just being in Missis­sippi.

Most pressing were fiscal problems.OEO, in a weak public statement answ­ering StenniS' charges, found no illicituse of funds, but found some "fiscal ama­teurism."

From CDGM's point of view, however,much more serious was the fact that thefinancial plan was not working, and thatfunds and payrolls were not getting tothe communities. Due to a conspiracy offactors -- few local people understoodgovernment red tape, harassment by audi­tors from OEO and the Senate, someadministrative incompetence -- the localcommittees were, simply not getting thefunds to operate. Many had gone heavilyinto debt, and the money (which eventuallywould arrive) was not in sight. The cen­ters lived op promises, and the goodwill of a federal program.

Another factor complicated CD GM' sfiscal and administrative problems. Oneof the premises of the program was thetraining of Mississippians for responsiblepositions in the organization. This wasno fiction to satisfy OEO rhetoric, butas the program got underway it was fre­quently the case that trainees were givenresponsibilities without a structure forlearning in such an intensive administra­tive area.

Mississippi Counterattacks. Jhe War On Poverty•

6

wi:CDGM's HEAD START program -- as

oplJosed to the others in the state, spon­sored by local boards of education -­was developed and run by community peo­ple, with a minimum of direction froma central staff. While CDGM importedapproximately 150 white resource teachersto live and work in these communities,the tone and spirit of the programs wereset by local leadership.

Perhaps that is why Mississippi's Sen­ator Stennis, the national spokesman forthose forces in the state which foughtthe program from the outset, demandedin a telegram to OEO head Sargent Shriverthat the program be investigated, Stennischarged mishandling of funds and thatCDGM had subsidized civil rights organi­zations in the state,

Senator Stennis, as one OEO officialexplained, unlike Eastland, enjoys ameasure of respect in Washington liberalcircles. He might have added that Stennisenjoys a measure of power, sitting as hedoes on the Senate appropriations sub­committee when appropriations for theViet Nam war are under congressionalconsideration.

In any case the Child Development Groupwas in trouble. Under fire from StenniS,OEO brought pressure on the Board ofDirectors for changes which would attemptto head off Stennis' charges.

The Office of Economic Opportunity(OEO) sponsored what may have beenthe pithiest program of its short life thissummer in Mississippi.

Under Project HEAD START, approxi­mately 6,000 Negro pre-school childrenspent seven weeks in child developmentcenters in 75 Mississippi communities,By mid-August, Washington had announcedthat HEAD START was to become a per­manent feature of the war on poverty,But there was little rejoicing in the Mis­sissippi communities, It appeared that ifthese centers were to be re-funded at all,the budget would be sliced by two-thirds,and the program of the sponsoring group,the Child Development Group of Mississippi(CDGM), would be tailored to fit theinterests of the Great Society,- - .-

The "Right" To Be Middle Class

jOr\N IJO\Vi\I\:\

BOOK REVIEW

DARK GHETTO: Dilemmas of Social Power,by Kenneth B. Clark, Harper & Row,1965, $4.95

Dr. Kenneth B. Clark says,"To deny the Negro the right to exchange

lower-class suffering for middle-classsuf­fering on the grounds, in certain ways de­fensible, that the good life is not so goodafter all, is to make for a group the kindof moral decisions each individual has theright to make for himself, whether he choosegood or ill. It would be psychologicallynaive and even cruel to ask the oppressedto transform the values of American culture,Before they can be motivated to try, theyneed to experience those values for them­selves with all the satisfactions and allthe frustrations and anxieties,"

Read it again, I think there's somethingeerie about this passage. 'Why does it seemon the face reasonable, liberal, but at thesame time out-of-focus, unreal, off-center?

First, who would deny the Negro this"right"? Since Dr. Clark doesn't meanthe NAACP or the Urban League, as hemakes clear in the rest of his book, hemust mean the Movement: SNCC, SDS,Core, maybe Martin Luther King; cer­tainly the" Communists," maybe the Mus­lims.

'''by does he use the word "deny"? Howwou'ld we deny the l'\egro this "right"?By arguing, and he says it is "in certain

ways" defensible, that middle - classAmerica isn't satisfactory? Or is he im-

,plying that we will cloud the Negroesbrains? How do we come by this power?Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer says, "Americais sick, all of it, from the Federal Gov­ernment on down. We were treated as badlyin Washington as we are in Jackson."Did we deny Mrs. Hamer the right todecide to become middle - class? Is shethe victim of radical indoctrination?

That's a "moral" decision, Dr, Clarksays. Not a political judgment. A moraldecision that presumably the Negro is freeto make, if certain parties don't deny himthat chance. He has the "right" to make thatchoice. But Dr, Clark is concerned thatsomeone is stepping in the way of his mak­ing that decision. Someone, you would ima­gine, who had been there and come backto tell the tale. Two kinds of people havebeen there-: middle - class - raised youngpeople who have seen middle-classdomand turned against it; and Mrs. Hamer andher friends who have come from the cottonfields and the pantries of the South and foundout how middle-class, liberal, mainstreamAmerica acts. It acts like an oppressor.

Dr. Clark uses the word "oppressed."The Negroes are oppressed, he says. Butit would be cruel to ask them to changemiddle-class America, change its "valuesand culture," Are the Negroes oppressedby d culture? Dr. Clark uses those wordSin one sentence. Or are they oppressed by

power? Would it be cruel to ask Negroesto transform the power that oppressesthem? We think they must. Dr, Clark thinksit would be psychologically naive, (Not"politically" naive, )Why? Because ittreadson the right Negroes have not to challengetheir oppressor?

Dr, Clark says they must "experience"the values that oppress them before theycan change those values (if it be valuesthat oppress them). How do they objectivelyexperience those values without beingchanged to the point that they don't wantto alter American values at all? Dr, Clarkshows in another part of his book thatthose Negroes who do "experience" thesevalues are often changed so that they ceaseto fight and begin to scramble for the"satisfactions" ofthe middle-class system.Is that, behind it all, what Dr, Clark wants?

When everybody's middle-class in theGreat Society will that then be the defini­tion of integration ?

A harlem man quoted by Dr. Clark says,"No one with a mop can expect respectfrom a banker, or an attorney, or menwho create jobs and all you have is a mop,Are you crazy? Whoever heard of inte­gration between a mop and a banker?"

Does this man agree with Dr. Clark?Are they saying the same thing? Is itcruel to ask this man to transform thevalues of American culture?

TERENCE CANNON

The printing project had produced educa­tional materials relevant to rural Mis­sissippi children where literally noneexisted. The health program was ableto get each child not only a physical exam­ination, but treatment in many cases. (HEADSTART programs typically provide $20in the health budget to be spent entirelyon the physical. CDGM believed that exam­inations are useless when parents cannotfollow up with treatment; therefore theypaid doctors"$3 per child for examinations,did most of their own lab work usingdoctors from the Medical Committee onHuman Rights.)

It is not clear at this writing whetherthere will be future CDGM programs.The Child Development Group, as onemight suspect, was organized to receiveand administer poverty funds. lf financialassistance is not forthcoming, the Groupwill dissolve. OEO has encouraged CDGMto submit proposals. Their best adviceis, however, that the budget figure shouldnot exceed $3 million for 9 months, afigure considerably less than the grantfor the summer ($1 - 1/3 million forseven weeks, the largest HEAD STARTgrant made to any private organization.)

Yet even if a grant is received and thestructural concessions made, there remainsthe question raised by the summer experi­ence -- whether a genuine poverty programis possible. It seems to be inevitablethat when the poor organize they willslam headlong into the power interests, whoare so skilled and so entrencljed in thepolitical fabric of this country, that theycan practically dictate the terms of sur­vival.

7

Dislodge Powerquo.

~he power structure with powerful commun­ity organizations supported wholly or in partby the church means that many churchmenwill withdraw their financial support. Thus,we are faced in the church with an internalproblem of securing wide agreement so thatfunds may continue to be channeled intocommunity organization. It is easy to per­suade a middle-class congregation to helppay for services to the poor. It is extremelydifficult to persuade them to share power.It is even more difficult to persuade them to'work through the conflict process. Fre­quently, it is the mid<;Ue-class congregationwhich calls upon its pastor to be the arbiterin a community dispute, usually in the nameof reconciliation. Too often in these casesreconciliation means to restore the status

Reinhold Neibuhr, a Protestant theo­logian, has written that wherever there isinjustice in society, there is some signifi­cant disproportion of power, and whichevergroup it is that benefits from the exploita­tion can b'e dislod~ed onl~ when poweris raised against it. If the church is to

be about its business of social justice,,then it must recognize the implicationsfor community organization in Neibuhr'sstatement.

Dan Dodson offers a good summary. "Inthis time of great confrontation the churchwill have forfeited its right to the allegiancesof man, if she allows herself to become ahandmaid to the power order which is. Theaspirations of the poor in these greaturban centers shall not be blighted by theglitter of the magnificent crosses of theaffluent. Community organization may bethe testing point at which this determinatiohis made. In the name of service, mankindshall not be debased. The cup of watergiven in His name which compromisesthe receiver is a hollow mockery."

QuoReconciliation =StatusObviously, the use of power for social

change has become a major issue for the,church because so many of our majordenominational churches are a part ofthe status 'tuo power structure. To challenge

nouse has offered this integrative processto those it deems to have potential and offersadjustment to the rest. As Saul Alinskyhas said, offering social adjustment tothe poor is treason of the highest order.

Settlement 'HouseOut-of~Date

Today the settlement house style, of'ministry is under attack from many quart­ers of the church. As· more Protestant

and Catholic clergymen are expo~ed tomass organization by Saul Alinsky, andas more churches help sponsor SNCCorganizers in California, the more piercingwill be the criticism of the churches'welfare colonialist ministries in the ghetto.The problems will not disappear over-,

'night, however. For example, how willthe Protestant churches in Los Angeles'which support settlement houses'in Wattschoose . to use the large sum of moneythey have sec-1Jred recently .for enabling

the people to 'organize in order to shapetheir own future or will the money be usedin paternalistic programs determined bywhich suburbanites? Some changes in thechurch's standard pattern of ministry can beevidenced in the San Francisco Bay area

~ where the church is aiding community'organiza,tional efforts in San Francisco andOakland. In some cases the church is helpingto pay organizers. Also, across the countrythe church has supported community organ­ization in the Woodlawn area of Chicago,Rochester, and money is being contributedtoward the future organization of such citiesas Kansas City, St. LouiS, Buffalo, andSyracuse.

Beheaded LeadersThe church as a part of the power order

,has approached the powerless in a well­defined way. As Dan Dodson of New York .University has written, "they have gottenthe bright ones of the powerless involved,got them to participate, alienated them intheir sentiments and memories and identityfrom the group': of which they are a part,made them ashamed of their heritage-­every group has had to wrestle with thephenomena of group self-hate--got them totake stock in the mythologies of the Amer­ican Dream--that every person will berewarded according to his initiative andhis ability. Ultimately when they have beensandpapered sufficiently to their specifica­tions they are transmuted into the dominantgroup. Thus we have always siphoned off thepotential leadership of the minority andleft the group to stew in its own problems.We have, as a consequence, never solvedthe problem of the slums. They standas a monument to the integrative processof the Dower order in every large Amer­ican city." Traditionally, the settlement

The Church and Society

THE ~HURCH MUST HELP UPSET THE STATUS QUOBy Dave Knotts

~ Dept. of Urban ChurchUnited Presbyterian Church--. -

A major issue which is facing the churchestoday is the use of power for social change.Traditionally, the church as a part of theEstablishment has chosen to work in povertyareas and among people suffering frominjustice in ways that would not upset thestatus quo. This has meant that the churchhas often operated a settlement house inthe ghetto which offer~ to the communitya kind of "ministry of philanthropy"-­goods (food and clothing) and services(coun$eling and recreation) being offeredto the people. Nothing or very little is saidabout mass organization in order to enablethe people to acqUire the power to deal withthe power structure and to correct injust-ices. '

Frank BruinsBakersfield

LETTERS

Yours for freedom,

To the Editor:

In the July issue of "The Movement"appeared an article entitled "Fighting Agi­business" which described in some detailthe present structure of corporation agri":culture in the Delta area of Mississippi.Following is a slight'rewrite of that article,with a few name changes. It still is just asaccurate, but has been changed to tellsomething of the story of the agriculturalworkers in California. Changes are under­lined:

The union is fighting the rich farmerwho operates his .I:aIlcl1 as if it were ahuge industrial corporation. Foreign visi­tors come to Kern County Land Company,which QYill§ more than 200 square milesin~ county alone. This English con­trolled corporation is typical of the grow­ing concentration of agriculture in America.From the time of civil war to about 1930,the land of California's Central Valleywas ,divided among increasing numbers ofsmall farmers and renters. But since thenthe trend has reversed. Small farmersand renters have dwindled~se farmland costs too much for poor people andvery little decent land is for sale. Forthe Negro there is practically none atall.

I believe that you can take it fromthere. Suffice it to say, that at least inmy experience with agriculture in "thisarea, the remainder of the article caneasily des c rib e the farm day-laborerssituation in the San Joaquin Valley aswell as in the Delta counties of Miss­issippi. 'Wages, when you work, are alittle higher, but the lack of any job tenuremore than makes up the difference.

Report From Arkansas SNCC

Proiect Tightly Orga·ni~.eCl, But Elections Lost

Please Send Me The Next 12 Issues of The Movement~

(mail to 1316 Masonic A~'q San Francisco)

Address .. _...___------

PEOPLE'SPAPERS

(A monthly listing of news~papers and publications putout by com m un i t Y andgrass roots organizations.) l

m f d P news letterNews directly from the Mississippi front.State office, MFDP, 507 North FarishStreet, Jackson.'

el malcriadoNow published in English as well asSpanish. Militant voice of the Farm WorkersAss'ociation. Box 894, Delano, California.$2 a year.

news letter from Dr.Ben Yellen'

Muckraking newsletter'by a Brawley, Cali­fornia Councilman attacking the big growersof Imperial Valley. 128 South 8th Street,Brawley, California. Contributions.

what's happening,\ newspaper in which teenagers of NewYork express their views. c/o Mr. F.E.Campbell, 32 West 131st Street, New YorkCity.

of the oroaue::;l ever "C"'": it prohibited2 or more persons in Gould from gather- 'ing to discuss any problems relating totheir school.

Discipline on the project was unusuallytight (for a SNCC project). One staff mem­ber and one volunteer 'were asked to leavefor Violating security regulations and fordoing poor work. Two state-wide staff

,meetings were held during the summer tocompare projects and air grievances. Re­lations with the Atlanta SNCC office weregood, and there were few financial crisis.

Enclosed IS $1.00

State

Injunction

Arkansas has a "Freedom of Choice"integration plan. Students submit twochoices of schools they wish to attend.In Gould none of their choices were honored.The principal of the school refused to speakto a student delegation, and gave weak ex­cuses about the failure of the 'choice' planwhen questioned. SNCC planned a demon­stration, but the school board got an in­iunction against it. The injunction was one

Local Group

In Forrest City, SNCC worked with alocal group, the St. Francis AchievementCommittee. The Committee was started by 6local men who wanted to go bowling, and'had to integrate the local bowling alley to ,do it. 100 to ISO now attend its weeklymeetings. They are working on improvingthe local schools, and ran candidates in theschool board elections. The issues theyraised give an idea of the condition of theArkansas Negro high schools. They cam­paigned for the formation of a PTA, open

. School Board meetings, a lunch program,a library (all students pay a $1 "libraryfee," but there are no new books in theschool library), science labs, a waterfoun­tain. The principal of the school asked hisstudents to raise the money for theirschool. They went into the community andraised $1700. No one knows where themoney went.

In Gould (population 200'0, 80% Negro),the high school students were active invoter registration. There are 500 studentsin the school, which is a wood structurewith gaping holes, condemned 11 years ago.The library has 150 books.

City ..

ther volunteer in West Helena, Arkansas,reporting on the elections.

"Elections over - we lost - all 25 Ne­gro candidates across the state did. Ourpeople just didn't go to the polls. Werein the cotton fields, etc., etc. Polls opened8 a.m. closed 6:30 p.m. People leave forfields 6:30-7 a.m., return about same timep.m. Also, the black middleclass here

BEN GRINAGE, state project director

up,,"

(teachers and such) actively fought us ­one principal told his teachers how to voteover the PA system it's rumored - otherBlack "rich" folk paid folks not to vote.The issue was QUALIFICATIONS - I'm sodamned sick of that word I could throw

Name ..

The Arkansas SN,CC project differs frommost other SNCC projects in the South,according to California volunteers, VinceO'Conner and Brian Rybolt. There'is har­rassment, but no police terror. The onlyvoting requirements in Arkansas are resi­dence requirements.

The focus of the SNCC project has been, on community services - recreation, free­

dom centers,' freedom schools - and onlocal e'lections.

They did not work on a Freedom Demo­cratic Party, but on a Negro "politicalforce," a group that will run candidateswhen they have a chance to win, or endorseliberal candidates.

Corrupt Alachine

The Faubus political machine in Arkan- ...sas is very corrupt, O'Connor and Ryboltreported. "For a candidate to win in theNegro community, he has to receive atleast 75% of the vote - the extra 25%

• is what's thrown out." There is no secretballot, and no voting machines. The ballotsare stamped with a number, which corres­ponds with the voter's name. A SNCCproject director, who was supposed to be apol! watcher in Forrest City was turnedaway at gunpoint. There is a regulationthat all polling booths must be on cityproperty. A booth set up at a BeautySalon in the ghetto was declared invalidafter the election, and all its votes thrownout.

The project devoted much of its time t()supporting Negro candidates and register­ing Negroes to vote in congressional andschool board elections.

At press time, THE MOVEMENT re­ceived a letter from Myrtle Glascoe, ano-

LARRY LOCKSHIN

Martin Van Buren

$1 per year, individual copies$3 per hundred per month,bulk subscriptions.

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THE MOVEMENTis published monthly by the staff of the'Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committeeof California.

"Them Negroes they being kept down too.lf we form an organization, we just gotto have them; if we don't, them politicianswill pull us to pieces and use us oneagainst the other." '

In Strawberry Plains, we talked to bothwhite and Negro families. The man mostvocal in his desire for action is Negro,and with him, white homes were reached.In Sevierville, the county seat, we workedwith a Negro gir1 bor.n in the county.Again, whites were responsive. -

Just the' BeginningBy the end of the summer we had gained

valuable information about Sevier and itspeople, and had made solid contacts invarious communities. We hope that in eachcommunity organization will begin; that'point is almost reached., Once this hap­pens, the people in the community groupscan get together and form a county-wideorganization.

Integrated A rea

People Understand

We also worked in ::;trawberry Plains.The people here are a little better offthan in Mill Creek, but the bad roads"floods, and corrupt county officials arethe same. This area is integrated; Ne­gro and white families live side by side inrelative peace. In 1960 a white girl wasenrolled in an all Negro school, and themost trouble came from the school board,not the people of the community.

There is a long history of relative racialpeace in the predominately white Ap­palachaians. During the civil war, the moun­tain farmers, too poor to own their ownslaves, volunteered by the thousands forthe Union. After the war, they retained theracial tolerance and Republi'can heritage.

While there has been segregation in

Sevier County, the basic independence ofthe farmer and the drives for unionizationcreated a broader feeling of unity. Theyspeak of "us" and "them," and the "us"includes the Negroes. Like one man said,

We noticed immediately that the peopledisplayed a high degree of political under­standing. They spoke of better roads, floodcontrol, jobs and unions. They talked aboutthe corrupt politicians who steal theirtax money, the big farmers who are forc­ing them off the land, and the employersat Gattlinburg who don't pay them enough.They talked of the rich as opposed to thepoor, in terms of "us" and "them."

Most important, they knew the needfor organization; they knew they did nothave power because they Were 'not to­gether. We did not have to explain whathad to be done. They wanted to knowhow. As one man asked, "I know wegot to have unions, but 'how do we doit?"

The people of Mill Creek are farmers,but they are being forced off the landto stay alive. A few work at the Bircher'stextile mill for $62.50 per six-day week.Others find temporary jobs on construc­tion crews. Sometimes the women work, andsometimes they are the only ones to havea job. An old man who gets no welfaremakes - legs for stools to be sold at atourist shop in Gattlinburg. He gets 18cents a leg. Some just can't find work.

Taxes are high. One man with a 26acre farm has his land assessed at $18,000, and the tax is over $5 per hundredof assessed valuation. During winter ,-theroads are snowed in, and som'etimes thepeople can't get out for a week.

LI FE WI TH LYNDON IN THE GREAT SOC IETY 8

THE CHALLENGE IS DEAD,SO IS THE GOVERNMENT

The Mississippi C.hallenge is over. It failed to secure representation for MississippiNegroes in the House of Representatives, as it had failed to secure that representationin the Democratic National Convention. It failed, not because Mississippi Negroes didn'tknow how to handle themselves in politics, not because the members of the House didn'tunderstand the issues, or weren't fully informed, not because the people of the UnitedStates were kept from knowing what was going on (for they have little effective voice inwhat is done in Washington). The challenge failed (who can dispute it?) becaUSe the words ofFrederick Douglass, spoken to white American 113 years ago, are as true today as then:

" .•.your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your nationalgreatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicJng are empty and heartless; your de­nunciation of tyrants, brassfronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality,hollow mockery ... a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are thepeople of the United States, at this' very hour."

Omar Burleson, chairman of the Committee on House Administration, wrapped it allup very neatly wherl,' explaining why the Committee recommended dismissal of the chal­lenge, he said: .....all of the contestants in this case contend that Negroes have beensystematically excluded from regiStering and voting in the State of Mississippi. Buteven if these charges are true 1 say to you, this House in the past has refused to declarea seat vacant where large numbers of voters were known to be illegally disfranchised."(emphasis added)

So much for the constitution of the U.S., the courts, the judges, the senators and rep­resentatives, and all the rest of the machinery which stands behind and enforces the lawsof the United States. By their own measure they are a fraud.

Such is the example which Lyndon's Great Society sets before the world.Federal Aid

We began our field work in the MillCreek community of Sevier County, firstcontacting a rural preacher, who invited usto speak to his congregation.

Mill Creek lies on the other side of a­mountain from the one main highway ofthe county. The dirt road to Mill Creekruns over Pine Mountain, and then into, acrater-like valley surrounded by moun­tain peaks. Occasionally we saw a houseto the side of the road; deeper into theback country the houses turned into shacks.Finally, two nice farms appeared off to theright; we crossed a crude, plank bridgeand entered Mill Creek.

We spoke to the congregation and werereceived with a mixture of Warmth, curT:"osity, susl?icion and aloofness. We talkedto many of the people, and some becameinterested. After that, we came and talkedto the people in their homes.

The aim of the Southern Mountain Pro­ject is to develop a grass roots movement,among the isolated, disinherited, and im­poverished whites and Negroes in the Ap­palacians. It is upon this basic premise -­that only from t)le inherent power of peoplethemselves, solidly organized, can truechange come -- that the project is based.Since political and economic exploitation ofthe people and their land perpetuates thesystem, then it will be political and eco­nomic solutions that the movement mustseek.

Organizing Begins

LittleThe lack of any housing program means JACK MINNIS

iliM mmy~iliep~p~ liw ~ ~~~'~ ~

or housing of the lowest kind. Almost allhave out..houses, and only some have run­ning water. There are no recreationalfacilities in the county outside the onehigh school. Federal funds come rarely,for the county is staunchly conservativeRepublican. Their Representative con ­sistently vetoes relief progr§lms. The wel­fare administrator is part of the samecourthouse gang that runs the governmentin the county. Welfare is almost unob­tainable, and if received, the amount fora month is barely enough to buy a week'sfood.

Over half the residents of Sevier Countyearn much less than the $3,000 povertylevel set by the federal government, andmany make less than $1,500. A fourthdo not own an automobile, a radio, or atelevision. For all practical purposes, theyare cut off from the outside world. Over85% of the people belong to no other socialorganization except the church. To useonly the word "poverty" in describing lifein the A-ppalachians is like using only theword "bright" to describe the sun. .

The county government offers few ser­vices. The roads are all dirt and rock.In response to people's complaints, thecounty officials do nothing more than oc­casionally grade the roads, and everyelec­tion time I promise to pave them. Thereis the constant threat of floods (in a countythat is an intricate part of the TennesseeValley Authority). Every year flood damageruns into the millions, and often lives arelost. Ironically, there is no piped waterto the houses; each family must dig theirown well or tap a near-by stream.

The major casn crop of the area istobacco. At the county level, tobacco al­lotments are controlled by the same bigfarmers that are driving the mass oJ smallfarmers off the land. A small farmer islucky to get an allotment of over .2 ofan acre, which may return a profit of fiftydollars for a year's work.

Most of the falJ1ilies grow some of whatthey need on their own land, and a fewcrops that can be sold on the open market.But the land is not fertile enough and far­mers are forced to borrow on their futurecrops. They never have enough to buy allthey need, and they can't repair theirmachinery. They own land, but they areland poor.

Courthouse CorruptionThe citizens of Sevier County also face

the constant harassment of corrupt andstupid county officials. Political controlis centralized within the courthouse andit is the county judge who runs the court­house. The people are isolated from oneanother; there is little opportunity for themto join in any type of a political organi­zation. They are made to feel that poli­tics is corrupt, and county officials are un­removable, so they do not vote. They haveno political power; in a practical sense,they are disenfranchized.

Hunt for JobsThis forces farmers to look for addi­

tional work. Many become semi - skilledlabor on construction crews at $1.25 anhour; for some there are jobs at the fewfactories in the metropolitan Knoxville.But jobs are hard to find, and hard toreach from an isolated farm. During thewinter snows, construction work stops.Some women work but it is a fortunatefamily that sees a weekly pay check allyear round.

The economy of Sevier county is gearedto Gattlinburg, the gateway to Great Smok­ey Mountain National Park, through which85,000 cars pass every week during thesummer and fall tourist season. During thisperiod people come from fifty or sixtymiles away to find work. Women are forcedto compete with college students. Touristbusiness is assured; minimum wage lawsdo not apply; so the women are forcedto work six or seven days a week, earninganywhere from a $1.50 a day to $40 aweek.

::;mall farmers, traditional backbone oftheregion's prosperity, are facing ruin becausethey cannot compete with the larger indus­trial farms. Except for the resort 'town ofGattlinburg, which employs thousands atbelow subsistance pay, and a textile millowned by a national board member of the'john Birch Society the area lacks regularindustry. The rich mountain resources havebeen exploited for' generations at the ex­pense of the area's greatest resource, itspeople.

A llotment Squeeze

Deep inside 'the natural beauty and splendor of theAppalachian Mou.ntains is Sevier County, in east Tennes'­see, Sevier County is a prison of poverty, frustrationand helplessness for most of the 24,OOq people who livethere.

This summer, the South­ern Conference EducationalFund (SCEF) sponsored the"Southern Mountain Pro­jed" to organize poor whitesand Negroes there.

Organizing Poor Whites,Negroes In Appalachia

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