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Reprint from Saturday Evening Post The Saturday Post FOCNDKU IV 1728 111 Demonstrating for civil rights, youthful Negroes kneel and pray before the City Hall in Albany, Ga. They were arrested by police when they refused to disperse. Negro Youth's New March on Dixie A new generation of Negro leaders is pressing home the bitter battle against segregation in the Deep South. • By ben h. bagdikian Robert Parris Moses is a twenty-seven-year- . old Negro of soft voice and hesitant manner whose life up to February of 1960 was focused on his native New York City, scholarly work in the Ivy League and teaching in an expensive private school. He had never been in the South and had never wanted to go. But he did go, at last. On the morning of August 29,1961, Moses was walking in khaki chinos and a T shirt down the dusty main street of Liberty, Mississippi (population, 642). There he was struck down by a cousin of the local sheriff and beaten on the head until his face and clothes were covered with blood. Considering where he was and what he was up to, the violence is not surprising. Moses—A.B. Hamilton College, M.A. Harvard, Ph.D. candidate—was trying to upset the social structure of the Deep South and change party politics in the United States. His method: helping rural Negroes register to vote. "One day at home in New York," Moses told me, "I saw a picture in The New York Times of Negro college students 'sitting in' at a lunch counter in North Carolina. That was in February, 1960. The students in that picture had a certain look on their faces—sort of sullen, angry, determined. Before, the Negro in the South had al ways looked on the defensive, cringing. This time they were taking the initiative. They were kids my age, and I knew this had something to do with my own life. It made me realize that for a long time I had been troubled by the problem of being a Negro and at the same time being an American. This was the answer." Robert Moses and his project are significant, but more significant still is the new generation of American Negro that he typifies. It is a body of young men and women who will make an impression on the history of their country. It is the first generation of American Negroes to grow up with the assumption, "Segregation is dead." It has transformed integration from a legal contest to a mass movement, fighting not for future change but for results here and now. Sensitive to the emergence of colored men all over the world, conscious that there is a time bomb ticking in the crowded Negro slums of the United States, the Negro college students of 1962 are welded into one of the most fiercely united, dynamic and optimistic social movements of our time. Characteristically, they seek out the toughest problems in the toughest places. Liberty, Mississippi, is the county seat of Amite County, where 54 percent of the population is Negro. Of the 5000 voting-age Negroes, one is registered to vote. Moses and his friends were—and are—conducting semisecret schools to coach local Negroes how to pass registration tests. What happened to Moses is not unique; a week later a colleague was kicked to semiconsciousness, a month later another was shot dead. Much is at stake, for Amite is one of 137 counties in the South where Negroes are a majority but have few votes. Such counties are the backbone of a powerful conservative white force in American politics. When Negroes begin voting in these counties there will be profound changes in Southern and national politics. Nonviolent themselves, the students appear unmoved by the violence of others. In 1960 their battleground was the lunch counters. In 1961 it was Freedom Rides on buses. From 1962 onward it will be the ballot box, and in this they march with a massive army. With them are all major Negro civil-rights groups, strengthened by $325,- 000 in cash from the Field Foundation in Chicago and the Taconic Foundation in New York. Backing the vast drive to register Southern Negroes to vote is the United States Department of Justice, which gives the movement moral support and intervenes with lawsuits and court orders to strike down barriers.
Object Description
Title | SAVF-Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee papers (Social Action Vertical File, circa 1930-2002; Archives Main Stacks, Mss 577, Box 46 Folder 48) |
Author/Creator | Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee |
Folder Description | This folder contains information on many of numerous projects SNCC was involved in during the 1960s. Particular highlights include a report on the Migrant Farm Workers Project, a Prospectus for a Freedom Information Center, and a large collection of field reports. By covering such a long time span, the folder also allows some insight into the ways in which the organization changed and developed throughout the decade. |
State | Mississippi; Georgia; Alabama; District of Columbia; New York; Arkansas; Massachusetts; Tennessee; Virginia; Louisiana; North Carolina; Ohio; California; Maryland |
Place | Liberty; Amite County; Albany; McComb; Jackson; Sasser; Leflore County; Greenwood; Atlanta; Selma; Dallas County; Hattiesburg; Greenville; Ruleville; Clarksdale; Neshoba County; Aberdeen; Oxford; Holly Springs; Panola County; Mileston; Philadelphia; Biloxi; Tupelo; Washington; New York; Pine Bluff; Jones County; Madison County; Leflore County; Yazoo County; Coahoma County; Bolivar County; Holmes County; Pike County; Americus; Baker County; Cordele; Thomasville; Dawson; Moultrie; Ocilla; Camilla; Worth County; Boston; Cambridge; Forrest City; Greene County; Hale County; Lowndes County; Little Rock; Lincoln County; Bogalousa; Gould; Aldo; Phillips County; Tuskegee; Macon County; Gulfport; West Point; Columbus; Washington County; Scotland County; Craven County; Laurinburg; Wilcox County; Delano; Tulare; Lynchburg; New Orleans; Alexandria; Dorchester County; Caroline County; Halifax County; Issaquena County; Sharon; Cleveland; Charleston; Crisp County |
Subject | Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.); demonstrations; freedom rides; United States. Department of Justice; police; police brutality; segregation; White Citizens councils; United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation; voter registration; Freedom Day; Congress of Racial Equality; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; labor unions; employment; Peace Corps (U.S.); civil rights; civil rights movements; Council of Federated Organizations (U.S.); law; community centers; freedom schools; intimidation; segregation; Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; education; United States. Civil Rights Act of 1964; bail; arrest; lawyers; federal aid; Poor People's Corporation; Ku Klux Klan; Democratic National Convention (1964 : Atlantic City, N.J.); Democratic Party (Miss.); United States Commission on Civil Rights; migrant labor; Black power; Black Muslims; jail experiences; poor; poverty; Job Corps (U.S.); War on Poverty; Southern Christian Leadership Conference; SCLC; Mississippi Freedom Labor Union; Hammermill Paper Company |
Personal Name | Moses, Robert; McDew, Charles; Forman, James; Guyot, Lawrence; Kennedy, Robert F.; Eastland, James O.; Hoover, J. Edgar; Travis, James; Wallace, George; Neblett, Carver; Zinn, Howard; Conway, Jack T.; Kennedy, John F.; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Randolph, A. Phillip; Truman, Harry S.; Thompson, Allen; Lewis, John; Johnson, Paul B.; Henry, Aaron; Hamer, Fannie Lou; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Bilbo, Theodore Gilmore; Vardaman, James K.; Goodman, Andrew; Chaney, James; Schwerner, Michael; King, Edwin; Carmichael, Stokeley; Cobb, Charles; Lynd, Staughton Lynd; Kunstler, William; Coleman, James P.; Humphrey, Hubert; Bond, Julian; Gray, Victoria; Robinson, Ruby Doris; Donaldson, Ivanhoe; Muhammed, Elijah; Ellison, Ralph; Mbilashaka, Lasime Tushinde; Brown, Rap; Coleman, Tom; Flowers, Richmond, Sr.; Fraser, Steve; Whitman, Gren; Freedom information Service; McLaurin, Charles |
Year | 1962-1968 |
Language | English |
Source | Social Action Vertical File, circa 1930-2002; Archives Main Stacks, Mss 577, Box 46 Folder 48; WIHVS3310-A |
Format | newspaper clippings; flyers; flyers and handbills; transcripts; memoranda; pamphlets; reports and surveys; press releases |
Publisher-Electronic | Wisconsin Historical Society |
Publication Date-Electronic | 2016 |
Rights | Copyright to these documents belongs to the individuals who created them or the organizations for which they worked. The principal organizations have been defunct for many years and copyright to their unpublished records is uncertain. We share them here strictly for non-profit educational purposes. We have attempted to contact individuals who created personal papers of significant length or importance. Nearly all have generously permitted us to include their work. If you believe that you possess copyright to material included here, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org. Under the fair use provisions of the U.S. copyright law, teachers and students are free to reproduce any document for nonprofit classroom use. Commercial use of copyright-protected material is generally prohibited. |
Digital Format | XML |
Digital Identifier | fsSAVFB46F48000 |
Type | Text; Image |
Description
Title | p. 1 |
Page Text | Reprint from Saturday Evening Post The Saturday Post FOCNDKU IV 1728 111 Demonstrating for civil rights, youthful Negroes kneel and pray before the City Hall in Albany, Ga. They were arrested by police when they refused to disperse. Negro Youth's New March on Dixie A new generation of Negro leaders is pressing home the bitter battle against segregation in the Deep South. • By ben h. bagdikian Robert Parris Moses is a twenty-seven-year- . old Negro of soft voice and hesitant manner whose life up to February of 1960 was focused on his native New York City, scholarly work in the Ivy League and teaching in an expensive private school. He had never been in the South and had never wanted to go. But he did go, at last. On the morning of August 29,1961, Moses was walking in khaki chinos and a T shirt down the dusty main street of Liberty, Mississippi (population, 642). There he was struck down by a cousin of the local sheriff and beaten on the head until his face and clothes were covered with blood. Considering where he was and what he was up to, the violence is not surprising. Moses—A.B. Hamilton College, M.A. Harvard, Ph.D. candidate—was trying to upset the social structure of the Deep South and change party politics in the United States. His method: helping rural Negroes register to vote. "One day at home in New York" Moses told me, "I saw a picture in The New York Times of Negro college students 'sitting in' at a lunch counter in North Carolina. That was in February, 1960. The students in that picture had a certain look on their faces—sort of sullen, angry, determined. Before, the Negro in the South had al ways looked on the defensive, cringing. This time they were taking the initiative. They were kids my age, and I knew this had something to do with my own life. It made me realize that for a long time I had been troubled by the problem of being a Negro and at the same time being an American. This was the answer." Robert Moses and his project are significant, but more significant still is the new generation of American Negro that he typifies. It is a body of young men and women who will make an impression on the history of their country. It is the first generation of American Negroes to grow up with the assumption, "Segregation is dead." It has transformed integration from a legal contest to a mass movement, fighting not for future change but for results here and now. Sensitive to the emergence of colored men all over the world, conscious that there is a time bomb ticking in the crowded Negro slums of the United States, the Negro college students of 1962 are welded into one of the most fiercely united, dynamic and optimistic social movements of our time. Characteristically, they seek out the toughest problems in the toughest places. Liberty, Mississippi, is the county seat of Amite County, where 54 percent of the population is Negro. Of the 5000 voting-age Negroes, one is registered to vote. Moses and his friends were—and are—conducting semisecret schools to coach local Negroes how to pass registration tests. What happened to Moses is not unique; a week later a colleague was kicked to semiconsciousness, a month later another was shot dead. Much is at stake, for Amite is one of 137 counties in the South where Negroes are a majority but have few votes. Such counties are the backbone of a powerful conservative white force in American politics. When Negroes begin voting in these counties there will be profound changes in Southern and national politics. Nonviolent themselves, the students appear unmoved by the violence of others. In 1960 their battleground was the lunch counters. In 1961 it was Freedom Rides on buses. From 1962 onward it will be the ballot box, and in this they march with a massive army. With them are all major Negro civil-rights groups, strengthened by $325,- 000 in cash from the Field Foundation in Chicago and the Taconic Foundation in New York. Backing the vast drive to register Southern Negroes to vote is the United States Department of Justice, which gives the movement moral support and intervenes with lawsuits and court orders to strike down barriers. |
Language | English |
Source | Social Action Vertical File, circa 1930-2002; Archives Main Stacks, Mss 577, Box 46 Folder 48 |
Publisher-Electronic | Wisconsin Historical Society |
Publication Date-Electronic | 2016 |
Rights | Copyright to these documents belongs to the individuals who created them or the organizations for which they worked. The principal organizations have been defunct for many years and copyright to their unpublished records is uncertain. We share them here strictly for non-profit educational purposes. We have attempted to contact individuals who created personal papers of significant length or importance. Nearly all have generously permitted us to include their work. If you believe that you possess copyright to material included here, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org. Under the fair use provisions of the U.S. copyright law, teachers and students are free to reproduce any document for nonprofit classroom use. Commercial use of copyright-protected material is generally prohibited. |
Digital Format | JPEG2000 |
Digital Identifier | fsSAVFB46F48001 |
Type | Text |