TULARE COUNTYRENT STRIKE1MARCH

AN ANGRY MEETINGOn July 6, the League called a mass

meeting at Summerville, Tennessee to dis­cuss the WTVP. The meeting was describedas a panel discussion on the WTVP andthe "so called freedom schools," but allthe speakers except one were leaders ofthe League. About 300 people were at themeeting, which is far more than usual.The speeches, which were made by someof the leaders of the League, were pri­marily slanted against the white civil rightsworkers. After the meeting was over and theLeague leaders left, the audience, whichhad not been allowed to voice its opinionduring the meeting, stayed on and held theirown meeting. People from other parts ofthe county (including one girl from BentonCounty, MisSiSsippi) said that if the civilrights workers were thrown out of Somer­ville, they would be welcome in their areas.People got up and talked about low wages.They talked about the fact that they didn'tlike the way the League leaders hadn't letthe people speak, and that they were makingcharges without naming people. As one civilrights worker who was there reported,"It was a revolution of the people."

GAP IN AGE AND MONEYThe reason for the split has been at­

tributed to the gap that existed betweenthe members of the League and the membersof the audience that night. The Leaguemembers have been active in the move­ment since 1959 and are the better offmembers of the Negro community, whileat the same time the people that composedthe audience represented the people who arecomparatively new to the struggle--theyoung and the laborers. The members ofthe League have suffered years of har­rassment and intimidation; the members ofthe audience and those who support theWTVP are, in a sense, just beginningtheir struggle.

TIlE YOUNG MOVEMENTA new civil rights organization in the

area is the West Tennessee Voters Pro­ject (WTVP) which was organized in May,1964 when the Fayette County' Student Unionasked COFO workers from Holly Springs,Mississippi, to come in and help them or­ganize public accommodations tests. Theproject has continued since then and is nowstaffed mostly by students from CornellUniversity. (Ed. note: there has been abook written on the Fayette Project -­Step by Step, published by W.W. Norton)

The immediate impetus for the organiza­tion of the TFLU seems to have grown·outof a split between the League and the WTVP.In recent weeks, leaders of the League havebeen talking against the WTVP, chargingthat they are communist, that they arewhites that are trying to take over, andthat they are there only for sex.

TIlE OLD MOVEMENTThe first civil rights activity in the area

was started in 1959 when the Fayette CountyCivic and Welfare League began to organ­ize voter registration. At that time theNegroes were thrown off their land and oneof the first civil rights cities was es­tablished. The people have continued to beactive in the civil rights movement and haveorganized to such an extent that they havelearned how to poll-watch and count bal­lots. At the present time there are about3600 registered Negroes and about the samenumber of registered whites in the county.

In the last election Negroes supporteda local white man for sheriff and a Negrominister for tax assessor. Both men lost.Most of the poll watchers and ballot coun­ters weren't allowed into the polling places.lf the election had been fairly conductedthe voting would have been very close.

field, is a tractor driver from FayetttCounty who works for two dollars a day.On the same day that the union was formed,Springfield was elected chairman and wasalso fired from his job.

The TFLU is primarily centered aroundFayette County, Tennessee, the poorestcounty in the South and the fourth poorestin the United States. Negroes there areemployed as sharecroppers, tenant far··mers, and renters. Some are small landowners. In one area, tractor drivers andcotton chopper.s are paid $2 per day. Thesharecroppers in this area have had theirshares cut down to six acres. Since thishas happened, they are forced to work asday laborers for $2 per day in order tosupport their families.

TENNESSEE FREEDOM LABOR UNION

POOREST COUNTY ORGANIZESThe idea of a Freedom Labor Union is

spreading throughout the South. On thenight of July 22, 1965, a Tennessee Free­dom Labor Union was formed. Its memberscome from four counties in Tennessee-­Fayette, Haywood, Hardaman, and !ipton.The chairman of theTFLU, William Spring-

10c

~MARCH OF FARM WORKERS from Linnell Labor Camp to Visalia in protest against i

rents being raised by the Housing Authority. Nearly 350 people partici ated.

Published byThe Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of California

MOVEMENT

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

THE

VIVA!

How have the Negroes won their battles? They have united before the dogs, the firehoses, police brutality and electric cattle prods. When they are threatened, they singtheir fight song, "We shall overcome." When everybody expects them to run, insteadthey kneel down' and pray. When they seem beaten, they make victo-:-y out of their defeat.They use the only things they've got, their bodies and their courage and with these theycontinue to overcome.

We the farm workers have the same weapons -- our bodies and our courage. But wehave hardly begun using these weapons. In McFarland the farm workers followed thepath already traveled by the Negroes. Here we showed the power of unity and this wonus some of the money which the boss has been stealing from us. -

In the rent strike once again the farm worker is showing what he learned from theNegr.o movement. We have learned that when we unite, we have been able to make thegovernment come to our call and correct its imperious manner against the poor people.The Housing Commission of Tulare County is afraid of organized people.

Each day the working people are proving their courage more and more as the Negroesdo in their movement. The day in which we the farm workers apply this lesson with thesame courage which has been shown in Alabama and Mississippi, thiS will be the dayin which the misfortune of the farm workers will end.

Reprinted from ~l.. Malcriado, newspaper of the Farm Workers Associatior.. Delano,California. Tr~nslatedby Maria Vargas.

The Voice Of The Farm Workers

SAME AS THE NEGROE.

VISALIA, CAUFORNIA -On July 16, 350 farm workers and sup­

porters lead by a white habited nun, shout­ting "viva liberty", "viva dignity" marchedsix miles down a narrow dusty road inTulare County, California, to attend aregularly scheduled meeting of the CountyHousing Authority. The March was calledto protest recent rent raises in the county­owned housing in which the farm workerslive at Woodville and Linnell Farm LaborCamps.

When the marchers arrived at the of­fices of the County Housing Authority theywere told that the Housing Authority wasnot meeting because of a lack of a quorum.The march continued on to the nearby Vi­salia Presbyterian Church where a rally washeld, labor journalist Paul Jacobs spoke,and a petition was drawn up and signed.The petition was addressed to the Boardof Supervisors of Tulare County and waspresented to them after the rally broke upand the march continued on for another mileand a half to the Tulare County Hall.

The petition read: "Residents of Wood­ville and Linnell who marched six milesto meet the Tulare Housing Authority andwho were ignored, ask the Tulare CountyBoard of Supervisors to intervene and askthem to lower the rent in the substandardhousing that they own and operate."

What the march was protesting, as thepetition points out, was the May rent raiseson the housing that the farm workers livein, and the condition of the housing itself.One lady, who has lived in Linnell for threeyears, and who had taken a day off fromher job in the tomato fields where sheworks ten hours a day for $12.50 a day,explained the reason for the protest: "Wewere paying $18.50 for rent (a month)and five dollars for the next cabin be­cause there are only four people allowedto live in each cabin. There are some fam­ilies that have 8, 10, 12 children. They haveto rent three or four cabins. Starting themonth of June it was that we have to pay$25 for the first cabin and $10 for the se­cond cabin. There are people that have fourcabins; that means that they have to pay55 dolIars. "

Since the first of June when the rentswere raised, 500 to 600 people in the twofarm labor camps have refused to pay theirrent to the Housing Authority and haveopened an 'account in the local Bank ofAmerica and payed the old rents to the

.account. The organizers 'of the protestmarch and the rent strike came from theFarm Workers Association, (a Spanish-

AUGUST

1965

VOL 1

NO 8

)

***

STATE

Coleman

--Drew Pearson

tt (Governor Coleman).is .one of the shrewdest op­ponents ofthe Supreme Courtever to be nominated to ajudicial post to carry outdecrees of the SupremeCourt."

Confirmed ***

These senators voted against the appoint­ment:

On July 26 the Senate confirmed theappointment of J. P. Coleman to the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.The vote was 76 to 8.

Price: $10 a year. It's expensive butworth it. Write to SNCC, 1316 MasoniAve., San Francisco 17. Ask for a sub­scription to the KEY LIST MAILING.

Every 2 weeks, SNCC reprints articles,original writing and analysis -- 40 pagesof material of crucial interest in themovement.

t t (Governor Coleman).is the only person with thelegal experience and skillto consistently outmaneuverthe Federal Courts, Cong­ress and the Executive. Heis the thinking man's seg­regationis t. "

--RepresentativeJohn D. Conyers, Michigan-

The Clerk of the House of Representa­tives has, after much delay, submitted theprinted depositions of the Mississippi Free­dom Democratic Party to the Speaker.Everything submitted by the FDP wasprinted. The Challenge is now officially inthe hands of the House Subcommittee onElections and Privileges.

Jacob K. Javits (Rep.), New YorkWayne Morse (Dem.), OregonClifford P. Case (Rep.), New JerseyJohn Sherman Cooper (Rep.), KentuckyPaul H. Douglas (Dem.), IllinoisPhilip A. Hart (Dem.), MichiganGaylord Nelson (Dem.), WisconsinWilliam Proxmire (Dem.), Wisconsin

Three other Democrats were pairedagainst the nomination: Walter F. Mon­dale of. Minnesota, Maurine B. Neubergerof Oregon and Vance Hartke of Indiana.

They PrintedThe Depositions

,

Enough copies of the depositions wereprinted for the Subcommittee. Cop i e sshould be available later for each Housemember. Authority for printing additionalcopies for the public rests with the HouseAdministration Committee, and copies maynot be available unless continued pressureis applied to individual Congressmen andto committee members.

By Senate ***

CITY .... ._ .._.....

ADDRESS.

PLEASE SEND ME THE NEXT 12 ISSUESOF THE MOVEMENT. ENCLOSED IS $1.(mail to 1316 Masonic Ave., San Francisco)

NAME ...

TO WHOM THISIMAY CONCERN

I am Mrs. Willie M. Griggs, a Negromidwife of Shaw, Mississippi.

Let me, for a few-minutes, have yourattention on the subject "My State andMy Nation."

I choose this subject because I feelthis is my State and my Nation. 1 amnot asking to be mayor, governor orpresident; I only want to be acceptedin this God-created (not man-created)world. Because I feel that God madethis world for me, too, or he wouldn'thave made me.

Abraham Lincoln said in his address,"Our fathers brought forth on this con­tinent a new nation conceived in libertyand dedicated to the proposition thatall men are created equal." But per­sonally, are we? Are we rea~ly?

Here in Mississippi, our wages areextremely low (as if we don't worklonger hours). Ten hours a day is thesystem.

Another thing is our history. I feel ifwe had a part in your history books(without being a slave) you would un­derstand us better. You see we weren'talways slaves. We fought in wars too.Maybe we weren't as smart in our booksas you were so we were made into foolsbecause of our lack of knowledge. Ibelieve we had some great heroes, onlytheir names weren't recorded or thecredit was given to you. Maybe themedals were given to us and you (whites)got the credit, with your name writtenfor all the records.

I don't want you smiling at me be­cause you feel it your duty or that youhave to. I want my people to work withyou without asking themselves, are theytruly being friendly or just pretendingso they can stand next to my black faceso their theirs can shine out whereasit wouldn't shine among their own race.

Let's be reasonable. In the eyes ofGod we are equal. But man don't thinkso. We as Negroes are judged by theworst one of us. Whereas you (whites)are judge by our president in mostcases.

We were ignorant but we can be justas intelligent as you. We have, too, onour side great men, doctors, scientists,etc. We can work together without beingcompletely invisible.

Let's face it, we are liVing each dayin this world t0gether and I do believewe can help each other. If I extendedmy hand to you now, saying let's befriends, would you accept it with feelingsof Superiority over me because my skinis black? Or because I am a Negro? Orwould you accept it with gratitute?

Yours very truly,Willie M. Griggs

chased out of five camps now by thefarmers. Migrant workers are mostly Ne­groes from Florida.

Although this strike may be small, ithas tremendous implications for the sys­tem of migrant labor on the East Coastfrom Mississippi to Maine. As far as weknow, there has never been a successfulstrike by migrant workers. A staff membersays the living conditions of the migrantsare the same as those of the laborersin the Mississippi Delta.

After the migrant workers have gone,'SNCC workers will be working with per­manent residerits of the Eastern Shore.It is the same farmers who pay migrantslow wages that control the shore, econ­omically and politically, and are respon­sible for keeping the wages of the localwhites and Negroes low. In Denton, thereare permanent residents, both Negro andwhite, who are very poor -- generallyfactory workers. SNCC has had severalinterracial meetings with them.

,~.

Mississippi Freedom Labor Union, toldthe House Committee that federal sub­sidies go only to landowners, and never tosharecroppers. Hawkins said sharecrop­pers were told how much to plant, whento plant it, and when to pick it.

Prison Labor UsedIn further testimony, Hawkins said that

on a plantation owned by Senator JamesO. Eastland (D-Mississippi) workers re­ceived such. low wages they were forcedto operate illegal liquor stills to supple­ment their income. Hawkins also said thatSenator Eastland uses prison labor on hisfarm.

Median income for Mississippi Negroesacross the state is $660. Negroes in ru­ral areas, like Mr. Hawkins' home inShaw,average $474 a year, according to a re­port issued by the Student Nonviolent Co­ordinating Committee.

Nearly 1,000 members of the MississippiFreedom Labor Union have been on strikein Mississippi's Delta counties fo. Ee ­

eral months. They are demanding $1.25minimum wage for all workers, and an endto child labor.

The House sub-committee hearing tes­timony is made up of Mrs. Edith Greenfrom Oregon, Augustus Hawkins from Cali­fornia, Dominic Danniel from New Jersey,and James Roosevelt from California.

FROM THE lNATS REPORTS

SNCC ORGANIZES MIGRANTSDENTON, MARYLAND. Four SNCC peoplewere arrested in mid-July for trespassingin a migrant workers camp, Wadeell'sCorner Camp. The four workers, SteveFraser, Great Neck, Long Island, TomHolt, Danville, Va., Frank Bass, Green­wood, Miss., and Roosevelt Vaughn, Starks­ville, Miss., were arrested by the Dor­chester county police when they went tothe camp to take part in a meeting toorganize a strike.

As soon as they entered the cainp, theywere arrested by the police, who knewthat they. were coming because of theleaflets SNCC workers passed out, announc­ing the meeting. The meeting was heldanyway. Civil rights workers stood inthe road, and ~50 migrant workers stoodon the other side of the property line.The staff taught the workers "We ShallOvercome" and other songs. They werehoping to have people from all campsin the county, but people from other caJ:l1ps

- did not come. SNCC workers have been

A

GEORGE SHELTON, SHAW ORGANIZER

A spokesman for the National CottonCouncil, a lobbying group of wealthy cot­ton farmers, said cotton was a $15 billion­a-year industry L1'."t employed nine millionpeople. He said that the industry was un­able, however, to pay day workers $1.25an hour.

Representative James Roosevelt (D-Cali­fornia) asked the Cotton Council spokes­man, "Do you mean that this is what ittakes to grow cotton. . .that it takesslavery? lf so, I'd rather not see cottongrown."

Hawkins, one of the organizers of the

1(.--Itt.LA", J", ..t;I : L I.ALj

(L . (Jd A/-..:..~ .t.t'/~/.; ~. ~...-rd ..~.

LETTER sent to THE MOVEMENT by one of the officers or me striking Freedom LaborUnion. The address, Box 194, Shaw, is a union headquarters.

SomehowThey Can't Afford it

FARM WAGE HEARINGSDoes It Take Slavery?

WASHINGTON, D.C.--A House committeeseeking to extend mirnmum wage coverageto farm laborers has heard from the workersthemselves for the first time.

The House Committee on Labor andPublic Welfare heard, July 15, from share­croppers and cotton pickers, including arepresentative from the Freedom LaborUnion of cotton workers in Mississippi'sDelta region.

Aaron German and Andrew Hawkins, fromShaw MFLU, told the committee that work­ers in their area earned 30¢ an hour.Hawkins said "kids have to drop out ofschool because their parents can't supportthem on the wages they make."

NAACP CONVENTION

Some Members Complain About "Restrictions"

MODERATE DEMOCRATIC BODY FORMED

Is There Truth In This ?"Dignitary leaders tend to be either handpicked by the white power structure or

catapulted into fame by white press coverage of some mass event••.Many dignitaries are self-styled leaders; they rule by the divine right of self-decree.

Like those who come to power by white appointment, they are leaders without followers.They exist on their reputation in, and alliance; with, the white world. On the other handthose Negroes with large followings (the late Father Divine, Bishop Jones, Sweet DaddyMcCollugh and Elder Michaeux) are either not known or not accepted by whites, andthus not regarded as leaders••.

Unlike white rulers, dignitary leaders regard power as synonymous with prestigeand charisma, rather than the ability to influence the behavior of others. The influenceof tnese dignitary "power-wielders" is easily undermined; either by the oppositionof the Negro masses or that of influential whites. As eunuch leaders, th8Y must be contentwith a pawnshop power, acqUired by their readiness to peddle the Negro's welfarefor white favor. At best they serve as electric contacts in the circuit of white-Negropolarity. Many are "window-dressing" Negroes, selected for token or symbolic positionsby white politicians seeking to capture, retrieve, or retain Negro allegiance. Set apartfrom other Negroes, they are led (and misled) by white remote control. This hand-me­down power is the basis of their authority.

-- from THE BLACK ANGLO-SAXONS by Nathan Hare

SDS Proiect

WEST OAKLANDRESIDENTS FIGHTDESTRUCTION

action of their supporters across the coun­try, generated the pressure for the pas­sage of the civil rights act and the comingvoting rights bill. The white moderates -­the 13% of the whites who did not vote forGoldwater last November -- will have adifficult time finding leaders who have notalready discredited themselves in the eyesof many Negroes.BIG FIGHT AHEAD

The Democratic Conference -- "like thecampfollowers who scavange behind thelines and then try to take all the creditfor the war", in the words of one FOPworker -- seeks to grow through com­promise and accomodation based on anavoidance of political discussion. By tokendesegregation and avowed support of theDemocratic administration, they hope tocapture the Negro vote. By shunning theactive civil rights movement they seek tomake themselves palatable to the whitevoters. Most observers feel that an openclash with the FDP, which seeks to or­ganize a mass grass-roots base and iscommitted to full and open political dis­cussion within the ranks, 'is unavoidablein the near future.

It's been a turbulent July for the con­servative Oakland, California HousingAuthority. The Authority ,decided to employJob Corps workers in a "beautificationprogram" in the Peralta Villa housing pro­ject. When the residents of the project,who had not been consulted, awoke tofind their backyard fences being torn down,they mobilized to stop the work.

Three days after the Job Corps workersarrived at Peralta Villa, about 80 tenantscame together at a meeting and formedthe Peralta Improvement League (PIL).

PIL members picketed and sat-in andbrought the Authority's program to a qUickstop. Roving groups of residents would spotdestruction and then rally forces until thework ceased. The Sit-ins included sittingin wheelbarrows.LABOR GROUP EMBARRASSED

The Alameda County Central Labor Coun­cil was caught in the middle of the dis­pute. The Housing Authority had contractedthe Job Corps teenagers through the LaborCouncil. The Council withdrew them to awaita resolution of the dispute.

At press-time, the controversy is movingtoward a resolution. Tenants demanded tosee the plans for the beautification programbefore the August 9 meeting of the Hous­ing Authority. Refused this, they organizedbuilding meetings, in which they drew upplans of their own.

The PIL has also picketed the businessplaces of the Housing Commissioners. Aone-day phone-in, during which tenantskept the phones of housing officials con­stantly busy with such questions as "Whydid you tear down our fences?" took place.

Public Housing officials have been thrownfor a loop by these events. Mistaken intheir assumption that it would all blow away,they tried to intimidate PIL activists withthreats of eviction and other scare tactics.

Even more upsetting to the authoritiesare PIL's tactics. Tenants marched, ralliedand petitioned early in June to get R.J.Guichard, Housing Authority Executive Dir­ector, to appear at a public meeting. Whenhe refused, 60 tenants appeared at the Julymeeting. With the aid of police, the Com­mission locked out all but eight, allotedfive minutes to each, and interrupted themduring their talks.

The PIL tenants have been aided in theirfight by the West Oakland project of SDS,Students for a Democratic Society. Thisproject is similar to SDS ,efforts in otherNorthern cities. Students have encouragedand helped to build community organiza­tions (hat will give voice and power toresidents of impoverished areas.BART DISCRIMINATES

Some SDS members have been workingwith another group, the Unemployed RightsCommittee (ORC). ORC, together with theOakland Direct Action Committee, SDS,the Richmond Protest Council and Progres­sive Labor, demonstrated at the tunnel siteof the Bay Area Rapid Transit, demandingthat BART hire local construction workers.

The BART contractor is hiring out-of­town people to do the 7-year job. 99per cent of the workers are white. A lotof jobs are at stake, and rank-and-filersin East Bay laborers locals are movingwith URC to get their unions to forceBART to hire local men who need the jobs.

Claude Ramsey is not a favorite of mostMississippi Negroes. He has not helpedorganize the $3.00 a day cotton choppersof the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union.He has not opened the doors to thousandsof qualified Negroes into the carpenters,plumbers or electricians unions. Many re­member the 1964 Mississippi Labor Councilconvention, where Ramsey assured the ad­vocates of segregated unionism that he wouldnot be intimidated by what he called "pres­sure tactics" of civil rights groups -- in­cluding his new allies -- seeking Negrorepresentation in some of the trade unions.

In the race for the Negro vote ClaudeRamsey and the Democratic Conferencehave gotten off to a bad start. The bigquestion remains -- how much money is thenational party willing to give the group?Mississippi Negroes are acutely aware ofthe lessons of the civil rights movement;they have seen that only the direct actionof their organizations, united with the direct

church representatives, which reached theconvention floor, was defeated on a simi­lar argument, that it was worded in sucha way as to go beyond domestic affairs,and that it addressed itself directly toforeign powers -- as well as ignoring others'righ):s in its abbrogation of the right totravel.

The passage of the resolution condemning'South African apartheid and U.S. economicsupport of it was defended on the basis of"undeniable local racist oppression similarto our own" supported by $800,000,000of U.S. money invested in the South Africa,'1economy. The resolution also cited as a dan­ger of continued apartheid "possible es­calation into world conflict." Many dele­gates felt this contradicted the reasonsgiven for not allowing the Vietnam reso­lution on the floor.

CONTRADICTIONSOne delegate described it as .,a con­

vention of contradictions, at the bottomof which were people who would have gonealong with more meaningful activity thanthe people on top."

The entire convention, top to bottom, didface certain issues with common purpose.The great danger to the stated objectivesof the anti-poverty program was identifiedas the already evident degeneration into"an pxtension of white welfare paterna:"iism"; the resolutIon on economIC aavance'­ment called for determination of programsand their operatIon by "the people andgroups to be represented, rather than byselection of individuals or institutions notrelated to them."

Investigation of urban renewal pro­grams on a community-wide rather than aunit basis was urged, as weU as advo­cation of rent receivership laws to combatslumlord housing code Violations.

The resolution on political action calledfor increased voter registration activity,lauded the Supreme Court's one man-onevote reapportionment decision, and empha­sized active opposition to passage of theDirksen amendment. The civil rights reso­lution called for discouragement of "thegrowing tendency of the part of federal,state and local governments to excludecompetent Negroes with civil rights iden­tification and experience from policy anddecision - making positions" in agenciescharged with implementing the 1964 CivilRights Act.

Excludes, Rights Workerspotentially huge Negro vote," one obser­ver commented.

Critics point out that if the DemocraticConference is serious about challengingthe segregationists, why do they inviteonly middle class, urban Negroes to theirorganiZing meeting? How about the poor,the unemployed and the people who liveon the plantations in the delta? lf theDemocratic Conference claims to back thenational party, why didn't it seek supportfrom the Freedom Democratic Party, theonly political group in the state which gaveits total support to the national party lastAugust and November?DOESN'T BOTHER DIXIECRATS

So far the state's dixiecrats are unp~r­

terbed by the development, probably be­cause, with the exception of miniscule par­ticipation of Negroes, no programmaticquestions involving the status quo in Missis­sippi as yet distingUish the' two groupsfrom each other.

NAACP's Washington lobbyist, were at­tacked on the floor over their refusal totake a more militant position against theappointment of Mississippi segregat~onist

ex-Governor Coleman to the Fifth CircuitCourt of Appeals.

NEVER HEARD OF BOGALUSAThe San Francisco delegation's Bogalusa

resolution was introduced to the Resolu­tions Committee by Clinton White of Oak­land and pushed in the Committee for ap­proval by Jefferson Thomas, one of theoriginal" Uttle Rock Nine." The San Fran­cisco group had wanted the resolution toask for a national boycott of Crown Zel­lerbach, but the national committee re­torted that this would be impossible toachieve. The resolution was approved afterbeing amended to a request that all NAACPoffices withhold patronage from CrownZellerbach products, and that the Board ofDirectors "prepare a list of all CrownZellerbach products by brand name fordistribution to the chapters." The resolutionhad been presented to the Louisiana dele­gation for approval, and while LouisianaNAACP did not oppose the resolution, theysaid they did not know anything aboutBogalusa -- some 90 miles from NewOrleans.

Delegates favoring the Mississippi Free­dom Democratic Party CongressionalChal­lenge were disturbed tha~ no specific sup­port for the Challenge was suggested byNAACP leaders, and pressed for a strongerresolution onMissis::;ippi Congressionalre­presentation. The resulting resolution,while not specifically mentioning the MFDP,urged Congress to • 'exclude from its mem­bership all present members from Missis­sippi by utiliZing its authority under theConstitution...without delay."

VIETNAM MOVE KILLEDA resolution on Vietnam was introduced

to the Resolutions Committee on the groundsthat the convention was discussing the free­dom of peoples. "This," remarked onesource, "is as far as any mention ofpeace got at the convention." The reso­lution reportedly was not approved on thegrounds that "civil rights and the peacemovement should be separate," and thatsuch a resolution was entering the sphereof foreign affairs • 'outside the NAACPbailiwick." The resolution requesting for­<:;ign countries to refuse visas to Mormon

UP FOR GRABS"Everybody wants to form a political

machine which can buy, beg or steal the

-, A new political group, the MississippiDemocratic Conference, has sprung up inthis state with the announced purpose ofchallenging the dominance of the state'sdixiecrats and electing candidates loyal tothe national party. Claude Ramsey, presi­dent of the state AFL-CIO, and Charles.Evers of the NAACP spearheaded the driveto organize the conference and invitedhundreds to the organiZing meeting lastSunday. Only 125 showed, including 27Negroes.

No Negroes or whites active with theFreedom Democratic Party, COFO, SNCC,or CORE were invited, continuing the policyor sometimes forcible exclusion of civilrights oriented Democr;ats practiced byRamsey and Evers at ear lier planning meet­ings.

MILD ON COLEMANAnother crisis on the convention floor

appeared when the subject offederaljudicialappointments came up. Executive secretaryRoy Wilkins and Clarence Mitchell,

A variety of impressions, both criticaland hopeful, were brought back by Westernregion delegates from the NAACP conven­tion held in Denver June 28 to July 3.Cited on the plus side by delegates wereworkshops and sweeping resolutionsin areas of housing, economic advancementand community organization, a strong en­dorsement of direct action as strategicallyvital in furthering the goals of civil rights,and an increased emphasis on the roleof youth in the movement.

Criticisms were levelled largely at"organizational rigidity." The conventionwas structured on unit rule, decided uponwhen the Association's five regional groupsmet in caucus. The result was efficientin terms of system but seemed finallyincapable of reflecting rank-and-file mem­bership views as the convention progressed."If the membership had not been so res­tricted by organization," said one delegate,"they might have been more progressive."

The closed operation of the ResolutionsCommittee was likened to that of a "starchamber"; delegates complained that theycould not tell what was going on. TerryFrancois of the San Francisco delegationtried to gain admission to the Committeeproceedings and was refused. When'theresolutions approved for a vote were broughtto the floor, they were presented to themembers in printed form. "While you weretrying to find out what a resolution said,"one member reported, "they were alreadycalling for a vote." Delegates are stillwithout copies of the resolutions as amendedduring the session.

BIRMINGHAM VETOEDOne of the high points in conflict came

when the Alabama delegation requested thatthe next convention be held in Birgminham;the NAACP was outlawed in Alabama forten years and has just recently been recog­nized as legal in that state. Peter Hili,spokesman for the Alabama delegation, no­ted a convention invitation to NAACP fromthe president of the Birmingham Chamberof Commerce. However, Los Angeles hadalready been agreed upon for the nextconvention, and the western region, fightingto retain this decision, gained support fromEastern region delegates by agreeing to

- vote for Atlantic City as the Site of theconvention a year following.

This deal was met with a floor demon­stration by the Southeastern delegation,carrying placards reading" Are you afraidto come to Alabama?" Popular member­ship sympathy appeared to lie with theAlabama NAACP, a Birmingham conventionwould be a meaningful gesture of supportfor the South.

Individuals could not vote, however, be­cause of unit rule, and the other four re­gional delegations had committed them­selves to the Los Angeles-Atlantic Citycompromise. In censure, Region Fivewalked out of the convention. "Of courseLos Angeles has problems in civil rights,crucial ones," observed one delegate. "Butthe Birmingham convention plan was an im­portant symbolic gesture, and its defeatmay have cost us Southern youth supp'ort."

l Mother Speaks Out

,WE WANT UNIONS,WE WANT ACTION'

''It looks bad when a kid can't go to school and be taught the truth, and the teacherscan't spend their time on their books helping the kids with their lessons. They'll talkabout someone running for office or someone being a "Communist." They tell the kidsthat a Communist is a person trying to make someone do something he doesn't want todo. Well you know that is just what the Appalachian Committee is fighting against. Theyare fighting people being driven to non-union mines to work no matter how small thewages or how far it "is from home. They say go back to the mines or you can't have thefood stamps, or being afraid towearth~stickerof a Candidate if the money power doesn'tlike him. Could it be they don't like him because he is a union man? Or being afraid notto vote for a man, afraid you will lose a job. Is this freedom? Is this giving a man hisfreedom?

We want unions, we want them so the operators can't make us do the things we don'twant to do. That is against the union contracts. We want work in here that pays enoughso, we don't neeg, to go to the food stamp office and be made to feel like we are nothumans. The way 1 see it the laboring man needs his freedom. It still spells out the bigshot wants to tell the little man what to do., The' reason Berman Gibson has been called "Communist" is because he is a union

wan. He believes a man should be paid a decent wage. Why can't they prove he is aCommunist? The reason is because he is an old country boy, raised in Knott County,Kentucky. He believes every man should have his freedom. Where do they get this pro­paganda? It's just their evil minds. They are trying to hurt our organization, but we haveenough common sense to know why they spread such filth. It is time for some of thewhite collar men to wake up. We poorly educated have been ignor~nt long enough. We'rewise to most politicians.

'They want us' to stay where we are now. All they want of us is to go to the polls onelection day and vote their way. We're tired of promises, we don't want promises, wewant action. 1 would like to know how many people in office have tried to help the laboringmim. 1 don't mean food stamps.

What we want is jobs, and jobs that will pay a decent wage. It's a disgrace for a manto work all week and then have to buy the food stamps so he can eat.

Some men are being trained today. What will they work at when they are trained? Willthey go to some other state to make money and spend it there? We need jobs here sowhen we make money, our state and county will prosper, not some other state. We willalways be in poverty on $1.25 an hour and food stamps. We know this helps the peoplenow, but this can't go on forever. lf the food stamps should stop this day, people wouldbe starving. We haven't gotten an~here toward the work we need." RACHEAL BREWER--Reprinted from "Voice for loh~ pnrl 111<:tke" ~ee PEOPLE'S PAPERS column thisissue). The Appalachian Committee for Full Employment is active in eastern Kentucky,where coal miners, led by Mr. Berman Gibson, have been on strike for several y~ars.

FROM THE ARKANSAS PRO.lECT

HARD WORK ON MANY ISSUESTHE FRONT STOOP of a family in West Helena, 'Arkansas. Photo by D. Shaw.

PERSONAL REPORT

SPECIAL TO THE MOVEM'ENT

WEST HELENA --1 arriveCl In West Helenaon Thursday June 10, 1965 about 2 p.m.in the afternoon. After a short period ofgetting acquainted, I took off with anotherworker to do some voter registration can­vassing. While I was visiting people to talkwith them about registering to vote, I gotsome ,first impressions of the city of WestHelena. The street we worked on was un­paved. The houses were mostly unpaintedthree room shacks, with 8 or more people'living in them. A large ditch running alongthe side of the road separated the "side­wal,k" from the '!street". It was very hotso most of the people who were home weresitting on their porches. There was dearthof shade trees and no grass at all.

No Poll tax-- but fear'

Negroes in Arkansas have been able toregister and vote as long as they paida one dollar poll tax. Many of the peopleI met that day have never been registered,however. We seemed to frighten somepeople, especially the older ones. Otherstold us they hadn't registered before be­cause they had not been able to afford thepoll tax. A few seemed uninterested andour explanations of the new law did not seemto make a difference.

In November 1964 the Arkansas elec­torate voted to end the poll tax. A dollardoes not seem to be much to have to payto register, but the more 1 talked to people,the more 1 could see how prohibitive thepoll tax has been. In order to registerin the past the people have had to go tothe sheriff's office. Now voter registrationtakes place at the office of the countyclerk in the court house.

Many people we spoke with seemed visi­bly relieved to learn they do not have togo to the sheriff's office to register. Inspite of the ease, (compared to Missis­sippi) people are worried and frightenedabout going down to register. People areconcerned about their jobs, their homesand the welfare of their children. Theyknow that a woman in the community wasforced to move because she and her familyhad been friendly to a white SNCC workerthis spring.

The Westside Voter's League, oursponsors here in West Helena, are be­

'coming more and more effective. Localpeople who aren't afraid to take standsfor what they believe and who work to

make it possible for SNCC to be here finda vehicle in the activities of the leagueThe Voter's League sponsored a FreedomDay about two weeks ago during whichmembers used their cars to take peopleto the court house so they could register.They also went from door to door to en­courage people to gp out to register. TheLeague sponsors our community center,taking an active part in helping us workout problems like how to get shelves forthe center library, distributing clothingfrom the north and making arrangementswith the city government for use of va­cant property as a playground. A specialcommittee meets once a week to workout some of th~se problems.

The Westside Voter's League has initiatedconversations with the mayor of West He­lena about some of the problems that existin the community. Groups have spoken tothe mayor about the need for more outdoorrecreational areas for the Negro people,Negro policemen in the community andequal job opportunity. A committee is nowplanning to contact individual bUSinessmenin the community about making more jobsavailable to us on an equal basis.

We turn to the Voter's League for helpin raising bail money, for help to furnishthe house we rented and for places toput up people, who visit the project whenthere is no more space in the FreedomHouse. This Sunday the Westside Voter'sLeague is giving a Family Feast in honorof all the SNCC workers in the state. Weare expecting about 40 workers in town andJim Jones, the SNCC Project Director, willbe giving a talk.

Active community center

I've spent a good bit of time helping toorganize and run the Community Center.We have four people working in the center;three full time and 1 am in and out nowthat our schedule has been settled. Wespent the first two weeks getting the feelof what a center meant in this community.We registered over 100 children by theend of the first week. Programs are nowrunning for children and adults.

The five to seven year olds come tothe center each morning. Children from 8to 11 and teenagers have friendship clubs.Classes in Negro History, arithmetic, Ar­kansas Politics and arts and crafts areheld for children and teenagers.

Watched whites leaveOur teenagers are a great group. They

run the 'program for the five to seven yearolds in the mornings, taking responsibilityfor planning activities with the childrenand carrying them out. The teenagers arealso our militants. When one of their groupwas asked to go to the rear door of arestaurant to be served, they decided thata group needed to go and test the place-- We WERE SERVED. Next we went tothe local "private club" swimming pool.We didn't get in, but we did have a greattime watching all of the white folks leavewhen they closed the pool because we werethere. The adults in the Westside Voter'sLeague are following through on the poolbusiness with complaints and negotiations inthe city of Helena. Next the teenagers areplanning to go to the movie in town thatseats us upstairs and the white folks down­stairs.

Adult programs at the center includeclasses in reading and writing, arithmetic,Arkansas politics and Negro History. 1 amteaching Negro History. We spend abouthalf of our period talking. The concernsof the group seem to grow out of thelesson and at the same time are the causeof what we are studying. At the last session,­one lady said that she saw no differencein the "Freedom of Choice" school inte­gration plan and the methodical way Africanfamilies were split when they were firstbrought to this country.

The "Freedom of Choice" plan meansthat Negro children of this county in the1st, 4th, 7th and 10th grades can chooseto go to the white school this fall. Be­cause the Negro school is so inadequatethe people realize there really is no choice.

They have written letters of protest in­diVidually and the Westside Voter's Leaguehas sent a petition to the Office of Educationin Washington, D.C. to protest the plan.In the discussion it was brought out thatthe way the plan has been set up it couldactually serve to discourage the childrenfrom making the transfer to the white schoolbecause there would be so few Negroes inthe completely new and hostile environmentof the white school.

Singing and talking

Two exciting programs 'at the center aregroup singing and discussions. The childrenreally are a singing group. It happens thattwo of us have guitars and that makes for

great fun leading songs. Discussions aremore difficult. People are used to sayingwhat they think will be approved of. Theytend to shy away from things that are con­troversial or call for a personal opinionthat needs to be backed up. Many feelthat if one cannot say something good, heshouldn't say anything at all. This atti­tude is very obvious in the children andthey are surprised and pleased to get thefeeling that you really want to hear whatthey think. Once they can feel that though-­they can begin to talk.

The adults are much more cautious andit is not difficult to see the worry on theirfaces. There are people in the communitywho carry information over to the WhiteTown and in a couple of instances peoplehave been intimidated as a result. A localschool teacher was recently advised by amember of the department of education tostay away from meetings of the WestsideVoter's', Leagu'e. In any case, our smallermeetings are the most productive. Peopleget a chance to practice hearing themselvesand get to know that their ideas are goodones which are helpful to others as well.Already the people who talk in the smallerd~scussions are feeling freer about sayi,ngwhat they think in the meetings ofthe West­side V?ter's League.

MYRTLE GLASGOW

GOUlD FREEDOM CENTER near Pine­Bluff. Photo by Ben Grinage.

•

NANCY AND GENE TURITZ

MISSISSIPPI - SUMMER '65

The Pioneering Days Are OverFreedom Is Still Ahead

SPECIAL TO THE MOVEMENT

THREE MEMBERS of the MFLU, on strikefor better pay and working conditions.

county, a marketing cooperative now sellingits first crop of okra, and a Freedom La­bor Union. This summer Operation Head­start, a pre-school program administeredby Mr. Robert Miles through the ChildDevelopment Group of Mississippi com­petes with the segregated Headstart pro­grams administered by the county govern­ment. (The Poverty Program, of whichHeadstart is part, is supporting segre­gated schools --there are a Negro and aWhite pre - school in Batesville, be­sides ours.) This summer has also broughtliteracy classes, the possibility of a Maid'sUnion, and a parents' group to talk abouteducation and to desegregate grades 1-4this Fall.

Real ThreatAutomationAfter this experience on the Hays Plan­

tation, a Freedom Labor Union was or­ganized. The men have talked seriouslyof a strike and are not afraid because thingscould not be much worse. But when theytalk about beating up tractor drivers, burn­ing cotton fields, or slashing the tiresof the trucks which haul people to the fields.they admit that none of 'these acts willmake a dent in the power of the plantationowner. He is prepared to automate morequickly if his Negroes demand a livingwage. There are already chemicals andweed killers which will do the job moreefficiently and less expensively than humanlabor even at the wage paid now. The boss­man says he keeps his people on the landjust as a favor; he doesn't need them;it's only tradition. Plantation people knowthat the threat is real.

Conditions DesperateAt the last" meeting of the Freedom

Labor Union held at Black's Chapel onthe Hays Plantation, it was decided thatmeetings should be held every other weekrather than every Friday evening. Whilethe strike in Shaw continues, there areno plans here. In Shaw, wages were sud­denly lowered to $1.75 a day putting peoplein a desperate and frightening situation.Their anger provided impetus. The strike

. began among day laborers who live in thetowns where intimidation, violence and thepossibility of losing one's home is not asimmediate a threat. Yet even now sincethe strike has begun, there is great questionas to its ultimate effectiveness. Uke theplantation people in Panola, these peopleknow that their only hope is to leave thecotton field, but they also have nowhereto go.

To what do these people look forward?Each' year they work less and less. Lesschopping, less picking. They are soon goingto be unemployed. Their problems are thesame as those of the unemployed in theNorth. How can they strike? How can theydamage the bossman financially so he willcome to terms? Is their only future a wel­fare dole in a Northern city? Here welfareis not given to Movement people. They at­tend meetings until 11:30 PM after get­ting up at 4:00 and working in the fieldsuntil 6:30 or 7:00 PM. They know therehas got to be some course of action forthem.

As civil rights workers, we are nowno longer leaders. We can no 'longer ~sk

the questions that start people thinking,and to which we have possible answers.We and they know that everyone shouldleave the plantations, but together we askhow ..

For the independent farmer in PanolaCounty, the situation is less depressingalthough the price of cotton does decreaseyearly, and men are forced to find newcrops. For someone to be called an in­dependent farmer is to say that he is freefrom foreman, overseer, and bossmen. He

continued on last page

$1.25"

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Y.

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Don't WGIll"rl\~\\

lhon Sl.25 ~r.\\\~'l

ain't worthMr. Nelson reports that in a meeting

with Mr. Hays about minimum wage, Mr.Hays said, "Ain't a man on this placeworth $1.25 an hour," to which Mr. Nelsonreplied, "Don't you call yourself a man,and don't you work on the place?" Mr.Nelson was not given any work from Jan­uary 1 when the petition was submitteduntil June when Mr. Hays suddenly askedhim to work as a tractor driver at $8.00a day, $3.00 more than anyone else ispaid. Mr. Nelson knows that Mr •Hays wouldlike to buy him off; he says that he hasto watch the bossman more carefully now.

night, and is keeping her children as pri­soners until they work off the debt. Atthe same hearing for which Mrs. Rodgerswrote her affadavit, James Roosevelt ex­claimed in surprise, "Do you mean thisis what it takes to grow cotton -- that ittakes slavery?"

On the Hays Brothers and Hall Planta­tion, the situation is slightly different.Mr. Hays who testified in the depositions'aken here during the winter said that hedid not mind if his people registered,yet he too has intimidated those peoplewho are strongest in the Movement. Longbefore the beginning of the strike in Shaw,Mr. and Mrs. Roland Nelson, Mr. EllisBerry, Mr. Charles Moore and severalothers decided to present Mr. Hays witha petition protesting conditions on hisplace -- this without the suggestion ofany outsider. The demands were simple:

TO MR. CARLTON C HAYS: WE THEUNDERSIGNED TENANTS OF YOURPLANTATION, DEMAND THAT YOUTAKE ACTION ON THE FOLLOWINGREQUESTS IMMEDIATELY:

That seed tickets be issued for allcotton ginned. Since mules were former­ly furnished to us at no cost, you shouldnow furnish us with tractors at no cost.

That we work an 8 hour day at $1.25an hour, with time and a half for over­time. (Present hours about 12 a day;wages $3.00)

That we be paid for our. work eachSaturday at 12:00 noon. (Mr. Hays payshis tenants Saturday night so that theyare unable to buy food for the weekon Saturday afternoon, their only freetime.)

That settlement be by compress weightsand that we receive records from thecompress. (Plantation owners keep allrecords, and tenants get none so thatthey are paid or owe at the bossman'swhim.)

That you repair' all houses so that theyare sealed against the cold and havescreens, indoor plumbing, and runningwater. (Sharecroppers' shacks have noneof these things. It snows in Mississippiin the winter.)

That you supply fertilizer to us at nocost.

That the interest on money borrowedfrom you be 6%. (There is no work allwinter so the tenant must borrow againstpayment for future work.)The petition was signed by about half

of the adults,on the-place -- approximately50. The only demand met was a reductionof interest from 10% to 6 %.

"You

SlavesCotton

What is freedom?Panola presents possibilities for what

can develop in Mississippi, yet it alsopresents tremendous problems. When thedangerous work is over, when the peoplewant freedom, when civil rights workersand meetings are no longer a novelty, wemust face the reality of economics in Mis­sissippi and in the United States. Whenpeople can register, they must ask them­selves what they have registered for. Theymust ask why they have a labor union;why they want to desegregate the schools.Must they, like Lawrence Guyot, head ofthe FOP, de~and lncome, not jobs?

Usually there are no answers. Many ofthe early SNCC workers have left Missis­sippi for the unopened counties of Ala­bama, Arkansas and Louisiana. They re­fuse to face such questions. The people wholive on the plantations face some of themost serious problems. They, like poorpeople all over this country, have no placeto go, and few ways of making their si­tuation known. This is certainly the mostdiscouraging problem in Panola county, andone that cannot be presented in theory.Each person has his own story, his ownstruggle, and his own unanswerablequestions. _• Throughout the Delta area, plantationowners terrorize and intimidate the peoplewho live on their land. Two investigatorsfrom the Justice Department were run offthe Fred Taylor Junior Plantation in Maywhen they stopped to talk to Mrs. Rodgers,a woman who lives there with her twelvechildren. Mrs. Rodgers has registered tovote even though she expects to be evictedany day. She has refused to let her child­ren work. Her brother in-law was justreleased on $1,000 bond after having spenta year in Parchman, the state peniten­tiary. He became active in the Movement,registered and was jailed on a trumped-upcharge of perjury because he had once beenconvicted falsely of selling liquor. (Theconviction came at the time he joinedthe Movement.) Mrs. Rodgers wrote anaffadavit for a recent minimum wage hear­ing of House Committee on Labor and PublicWelfare. The last sentence ofher testimonywas, .. Uving in Mississippi is like livingin a penitientiary." Her youngest childrencannot read or write because she has hadno money for their clothes or school lunches .

In the Southwestern- corner ofthe county, plantation owners arenot as wealthy as Fred Taylor andare therefore more threatened bythe Movement. On nights of massm'eetings, road blocks have been'set up to stop those returning home.,Several men have been beaten. CiVil'lrights workers visit the town of ..

!Curtis and the towns that surround,~it at night, and then with caution. ­Two workers were arrestedfor trespassing last year, and theplantation owner who made the

, arrest contemplated throwing them ,.in the Tallahatchie River, but de- t~,

cided on the Batesville Jail. •la­One man came into town to tell'.

us a story which we have not yet •';,1

been able to verify. It seems thatabout a month and a half ago awoman was sent to Parchman byher boss for writing a bad check.This plantation owner now hasguards around her shack day and

BATESVILLE, MISS. -- In many waysPanola County is like Mississippi itself. ,Located in the northwestern area of thestate, this county of 35,000 combines bothrolling hills where small independent Ne­gro farmers have their land and the flatrich plantation land of the Delta where thewhite man rules. Only sixty miles fromMemphis, Tennessee, the county seat ofBatesville (pop. 3,500) is built around asquare where farmers come to sell wa­termelon, tomatoes, and beans. Cotton, soybeans, and potatoes are the big cropshere. Agriculture involves almost every­one.

Batesville has some industry -- an alum­inum plant, a corset factory, a hosieryplant, yet very few Negroes hold anythingbut janitorial jobs. Seventeen women appliedfor jobs at the corset factory, and onehas received word that she may have ajob when a new section of the building iscompleted. It is noticeable that the popula­tion is either young or very old. Bates­ville is on the train line and the road toSt. Louis, Detroit and Chicago. Youngadults do not stay here permanently, butoften travel North and then South -- thingsare not much better elsewhere.

Ufe in Panola County centers around ag­riculture and the church. Sundays and oftenweekday evenings are spent singing andpraying. The church gives strength to manywho have joined the Movement. Biblicaltexts and the gospel of non-violence areoften synonymous, but there are those whosay, "I'm on my knees praying with a gunby my side." Humility, submission, pa­tience and the idea that God can do it allare familiar in the sermon of the Negropreacher. It is he and his deacons whorefuse to allow mass meetings, who nod•• All right" when registration is mentioned,and then admit that they themselves wouldnot go down to the court house. Says aNegro man, "We have a singin' shoutin'religion, and we loves it."

Voters League began itThe Movement (Sum~r Project Vol­

unteers) came to Panola County on June21, 1964 -- the day the three civil rightsworkers were reported missing. Since 1959there had been a Voter's League in thecQunty. Organized by independent farmersand a few ministers, the League antagonizedmembers of the community, both black andwhite, who feared change. Of its leaders,two left the county. Reverend Ferguson wasdismissed from his church by an angrycongregation. Mr. Kuykendall moved Northin 1962 after his house was shot into, across burned on his property, and his twelveyear old daughter -- accused of stealing acandy bar -- had been beaten so badly thatshe was hospitalized.

Among the first leaders of the L,eaguestill active today are: Mr. Robert J. Miles,ill independent farmer, now president of:he marketing cooperative, county FDP:hairman, and perhaps Panola County'snost revered freedom fighter; the ReverendW.G. Middleton, now 87 years old and pre­,ident of the Voter's League whose bullet­~iddled Jeep --the red necks do not sparenen of God -- carries him to every meeting,n the county; Mr. C.J. Williams who~loquently expresses his own ideas and the)hilosophy he has learned from the Move­nent. Introducing summer volunteers in:hurch, he says, "We were all in jail to­~eth,er in Jackson, black and white, and notme got oLit until all could get out. These)eople," he says, referring to us, "arelOt here to help you, but because they knowhat they are not free until you are free."[be League initiated the first successful'oter registration case -- United States vs.)ukes (1962). On May 28, 1964 an injunction19ainst the registrar was initiated pavinghe way for the voter registration campaignIf last summer.

Because there had always been peoplehinking, talking and acting in Panola Coun­y, the Movement caught on rapidly. The:ounty is now one of the most advancedn the state of MississippL It has active'oter Leagues in three towns, a county­lide FDP which meets every other week,freedom school which continues even when

here .re no civil rights workers in the

WE NEED VOLUNTEERSThe SNCC Regional Office in San Fran­cisco needs office personnel. lf you canoffer your services, please call 626-4577.

PEOPLE'SPAPERS

The fact that she couldn't learn the sys­tem, and could therefore only learnherself. She is free to build on what sheunderstands, and continuously reshapewhat she builds based on this under­standing. Shape and reshape withoutthreaten_fng herself.IT BECOMES IMPORTANT FOR US TO

understand how Mrs. Hamer is beginningto act on her realization that she isn't/doesn't have to be bound by what thesystem designates her as, and commandsher to be responsible to. Her rejectionof these designations makes her a weed;a threat to the harmony and continuity ofa carefully trimmed lawn. She is thecrabgrass on this lawn.

SO IN ATLANTIC CITY, SHE DISCOV­ered that "political realities" were notfor people, and that she certainly couldn'tuse them to get what she wanted. Thepolitics that operate in this country couldnot accept her particular political weed.For, like crabgrass, if not uprootea, itcarries the potential of taking over thewhole lawn.

arkansas voiceArkansas Freedom movement. 4 pagesmimeo. Written by local people and SNCCstaff. SNCC, 700 West 9th St., Little Rock.Contributions.

fillmore stand!Published by Freedom House, 1258 Fill­more St., San Francisco, California. Newson poverty program, housing'-tenant union,police brutality. $1.50 a year.

(A monthly listing of news­papers and publications putout by community andgrass­roots organizations.)

voice for jobs & justicePublished by the Appalachian Committeefor Full Employment, 501 High St., Hazard,Kentucky. News of the striking coalminers,Appalachian poverty program, I i v i n gconditions. Published weekly. Contribu­tions.

west tennessee freedom pressBox 277, Somerville, Tennessee. News­letter of West Tennessee Voters Project.4 pages mimeod. News from Fayette County(poorest in the South). Contributions.

e1 malcriadoNewspaper of the Farm Workers Associa­tion, Box 894, Delano, California. Writtenin Spanish. 16 pages. Militant voice offarmworkers. $2. a year.

cotton at the rate of three dollars a day.It belonged to the cop who whipped heads"to keep the niggers in line" for thewhite folks interested only in maintainingtheir "way of life." Her life was definedby ways and means of survival in a systemthat punished (in fact destroyed) "smartniggers" outside of it, who sought toparticipate in it. She was locked out ofany way of moving up to run things. Thatwas "white folks business'" and blacks inMississippi "don't mess with that." Thepenalties are too severe, ranging fromeconomic reprisal to assassination.

GIVEN,THIS LOCK-OUT FROM PARTI-.cipation in the way her life is shapedand run, the meager material supportfor living, and the daily pressure, of beingblack in Mississippi, one finds oneselfwondering why she didn't shrivel up andwaste away. The key to this survival seemsto lie in her ability to draw on things thatthe system has not absorbed. There areat least two things:

That part of herself that she would liketo be, but can't even hint at to the sys­tem for fear of destruction. The Forumshe has found where she can be thatpart of herself. What she taps fromother people like herself who are alsolocked out -- the countless undefined waysthey sustain each other from day to day

"

By Charlie Cobb

lems as a black Mississippi sharecropperwas that she could never live her lifedecently (in whatever way she definesthis --from a house with adequate plumb­ing, to being judged on her own merits).A decent life has been denied her inevery pOSSibility of the word. Perhaps ifwe trace back and try and catch a glimpseof what her life was (and still is for thoselike her) we can begin to understand whatshe is growing herself to be.

MOSTLY, HER LIFE WASN'T HERS.It belonged to the plantation owner forwhom she picked, planted, and chopped

CRABGRASS POLITICIAN

"Legal De Facto Segregation

understood, and certainly diffused sunlightof "our American way of life" (whichcan be equated in hypocrisy and oppressionwith ••our 'Mississippi way of life"), butfrom the thousar.ds of excluded and op­pressed like herself, who see in her growtha fertility which they themselves can achieve-- seeds that they are qualified to plantand grow -- their lives.

CENTRAL TO MRS. HAMER'S PROB-

the Southeach with

Political fearSenator Kuchel represents the dilemma of

many Republicans who have voted for civilrights legislation.-The Republican Party isopposed to the one man, one vote decisionsbecause of the fear (whether right or wrong)that it would lose many legislative bodiesto urban-based Democrats. Senator Kuchel,co-authored the Dirksen Amendment alongwith every other Senate Republican, sav'eClifford Case of New jersey. But, likeSenator jacob javits of New York, he hashad second thoughts.

FANNIE LOU HAMERThe people in

are like seeds,the potential to grow andspread more seeds~formoregrowth: creatinggardens andforests of themselves -­lawns oj living. They areplanted in their lives.

MRS. FANNIE LOU HAMER GREW UPas a black sharecropper on a plantationin Sunflower County, Mississippi. Aroundher and binding her, were the structuresof a county-state-country that restricted(from a shotgun blast to deprivement ofmaterial needs to exclusion from its in­stitutions) her functioning as a free person.Everything that controlled her life oper­ated without involving her, beyond man­dating acceptance as law, "our way oflife." The reality of her life was and is,that there was no way for her to live alife within this governing structure that shecould define, without an understanding ofhow to manipulate the structure to operatefor her benefit. Which really means speak­ing the language, and knowing the pro­cedure of the structure, in order to beable to claw to the necessary positionsfor manipulation.

AND STILL IF IT WAS TO MEET ALLof her needs, she must be in a positionon top (a responsible position, which meansto learn and accept the already definedqualifications necessary for that position)running the operation of it, which meansthe control and exclusion of most people,geared to the maintainence of the peopleon top. Most of us are trapped like shewas, caught between varying forms ofovert and latent oppression, stemming fromthe same restrictions.

HOWEVER, WHAT MRS. HAMER HASbegun to do, is grow her own life. Whatpeople must understand about this growthis that the roots of this growth are notin the "political realities" (for she waspushed out of that into a cotton patch)which "you people" are told they have tounderstand in order to make use of "demo­cratic process." The energy for her grow­ing comes not from the artificial, vaguely

~The Dirksen Amendment has been defeated. The issues surrounding it are still signifi -cant, as explained in this commentary by ACL U representative Coleman Blease.The issue has been joinedl After months Javits, who had irttroducedareapportion- gation as well. The Negrfl vote is heavily

of behind-the-scenes battles and weeks of ment amendment remarkably similar to the concentrated in urban areas. A devaluationhearings, the United States Senate is about Dirksen Amendment, provided the key vote of the urban vote, which is the only thingto vote (perhaps has, by the time this in preventing the Dirksen Amendment from :ontemplated by the Dirksen Amendmentreaches print) on the Dirksen Amendment. passing the Senate Judiciary Committee. must therefore be a devaluation of theThe vote will come on a motion by Sen- Javits' way out of the dilemma was to Negro and the ethnic vote. Thus, thoughator Everett Dirksen to amend the substance propose unacceptable (to Dirksen) amend- it may seem paradoxical, majority ruleof his constitutional amendment to overturn ments which would bar racial discrimina- means increased (ethnic) minority influ-the Supreme Court's one man, one vote tion and require that any non-population ence. For the ethnic voting power will bedecisions into another resolution already on apportionment bear "a reasonable rela- increased by getting its equal share of thethe Senate floor. Dirksen was forced to this tion to the needs of the state}' vote.strategem after the civil rights lobby block- Kuchel would appear to hold similar Three last points should be made. First,ed the passage of his drastic proposal in views, judging from his public testimony the Dirksen Amendment, as it is nowthe Senate Judiciary Committee. By his on the one man, one vote issue. Senator phrased, provides that "The people of alatest move, Dirksen hopes to by-pass the Kuchel testified before the Senate Judi- State may apportion one house of a bi-judiciary Committee completely. His stra- ciary Subcommittee on Constitutional cameral legislature upon the basis of fac-tegy requires two steps; first, a majority Amendments that any constitutional amend- tors other than population•• }' Becausevote to substitute his constitutional amend- ment on reapportionment "must, of course, this provision amends, and thus overrides,mentfor the resolution now on the floor; continue to be subject to judicial review, " other conflicting provisions of the Consti-second, if successful, a two-thirds vote as to reasonableness and as to fidelity tution, it can be read to allow a, deliberatefor passage. The measure would then go to with constitutional guarantees," Moreover, and purposeful racial discrimination in ap-the House. Kuchel suggested thatthe amendment should portionment in violation of the Fifteenth

The civil-rights lobby, composed of var- not be ratified by malapportioned legis la- Amendment (as now construed by the courts)ious members of the Leadership Conference tures (rather by the people) and should only prohibits purposeful racial discrimina-on Civil Rights -- the AFL-CIO, ACLU, contain some provisions to allow the people tion, it does allow de facto discrimination.NAACP, CORE, AJC, ADA and many others, a means of initiating the apportionment pro- Thus, even if the Dirksen Amendment weresees the upcoming Senate vote (or votes) cess via a constitutionally-provided initia- amended to make it specifically subject toas the crucial test of Dirksen's efforts to tive process. None of these features are in the Fifteenth Amendment (which Dirksen hasreturn state governmenttotqeruleofvested (or forseeably will be in) the Dirksen repeatedly refused to do), it would notinterest, including the vested racial inter- Amendment. Kuchel, consistent with these prevent the effective dilution and devalua-e'sts of the South. The vote is expected to views, should vote against the Dirksen tion of the urban-based ethnic vote.be very close. It is imperative that, among Amendment. Lastly, Senator Dirksen has suggestedothers, Senator Kuchel be reached imme- that he might amend his proposal to permitdiately by letter or wire. Minority power the people to apportion one house on the

There is a root cause to the political basis of "geography" or "political sub-problems of Senators Kuchel and Javits, division." A moment's reflection shouldIt is not clearly seen by virtually all in convince one that this also would not pre-the civil rights movement that voting equal- vent the basic evil of de facto discrimina-ity is essential to avoid de facto discrim- tion. It should be remembered that Georgiaination in voting. As Senator Paul Douglas used political subdivisions (counties) as theput it, "districting by area can easily be basis for effecting a political segregationused as a vehicle to deny effective repre- of the races not only in its state legisla-sentation to racial or religious groups which ture but for state wide races as welLtend to live in segregated areas," Only when this basis was overturned by

Segregated communities produce not only court order in the lower house of thede facto discrimination in school and other Georgia legislature did Negroes get electedpublic services, but de facto political segre- to that body.

Into the Democratic PartyThere was one alternative open to them,

but it was an alternative which involveda great risk. They could exert enoughinfluence to change it. In 1896 the Pop­ulists endorsed William Jennings Bryan,the Democratic nominee for President.The Republicans jumped on the chance tobrand Bryan along with his Populist sup­porters, as eccentric radicals. The "silverinterests" in the Democratic Partyexploited the Populist demand for increasedcirculation of money, and soon the wideplatform of the People's Party was nar­rowed to a fight over whether US moneywould have a gold or silver standard.When Bryan was defeated, the Populistslost their final chance.

The Populists were called inflationary,Bryan was called a mad man. The alter­native to isolation, when building a coali­tion was impossible, had been fusion withthe Democrats. The risk was clear, thechance was taken, and the Populists lost.Yet many Populist demands were eventuallymade part of the American establishment.The Mississippi Freedom Democratic PartYis not the Populist Party, nor is the labormovement today the same as it was in the1890's. Youth on the left are no longerbound by the prejudices of the old social­ist parties. Yet we should look at our his­tory and find out what it tells us abouttoday. Will we be isolated, or swallowedup? Or shall we try to build the kind ofcoalition that the Populists could not, inour fight to make America a democratic,integrated and truly free nation?

ELLEN ESTRIN

Ed~}or~2l.Grou12:

Terence CannonBernice GlennGeorge BallisJeannette HarrisJean HumeJudi LynchBrooks PenneyJackie PenneyRev. Bill Grace

were as opposed to Gompers as they wereto American capitalism. But the socialistswere also split. Some of the socialiststhought of the Populists as small landowners, not part of the worl<:ing class, andtherefore not part of the radical movementwhich they hoped would change America.The Populists had always fought bigbusiness, but many socialists, boxed inby classical revolutionary theories, sawthe farmers as just another part of thebourgeoise, and not an ally of the workingman.

Many other socialists of the late 19thcentury rejected politics, much as the con­servative trade unions did, although fordifferent reasons. For example, the inter­national Workers of the World (J.WW) ad­vocated syndicalist unionism, that is, work­ers seizing control of factories, with littlethought of gaining political power.

The Populists had tried to ally with alabor movement that hardly existed. TheAFL refused a Populist alliance because thefarmers were too radical. The Socialistson the other hand could not break throughtheir own conflicts and isolation long enoughto see that the farmers were fighting thesame enemies as the socialists. The Popu­lists found themselves alone. They wereunable to build the kind of cQalition whichthey felt 'was necessary if they were to evergrow on a national scale.

Subscriptions:$1 per year, individual c.opies$2 per hundred per month, bulksubsciptions.

The views expressed in signed articles arethe opinions of the authors, and do not neces­sarily reflect those of SNCC

THE MOVEMENTEDITORIAL OFFICE:1316 Masonic Avenue, San FranciscoCalifornia, MA 6-4577

!--Os Angeles Committee:Bob NiemannSue DouglasHelen ShermanAndrea TsukamotoLos Angeles address:PO Box 117308 Westwood PlazaLos Angeles 24295-5215

into your meetings; help them, but don'tforce them to participate in decision­making.13. Make each Freedom School session"equal", that is each person there candecide what you do or talk about that day.14. It may be a good thing to get one ofthe young- people to open his house forFreedom Schools.15. Do what you can to contact teacherswho might be willing to participate in work­ing with you. They have a lot to learn.16. Begin to learn Negro History. You'llneed it. It is a very good point of de­parture in discussions.17. Feel free to experiment with new thingsand new ways of doing and feel free tolet the young people experiment too.18. During some discussions it may bethat no one has information. Your jobwould not be to give the information ne­cessarily but to suggest how and whereto find it.

JIMMY GARRETT

(This is the gUide Los Angeles SNCCorganizers were given before they beganworking in Watts to establish a FreedomSchool. )

AMERICAN PEOPLE'S MOVEMENTS

The Populist Party (Part 2)

The Socialists disagreedThe American Labor movement was still

young, and not at all sure how to organizeand keep organized American workers. Wasthe answer to denounce radicalism, avoidmultiple strikes, and to be non-politicalas Gompers advocated? Some agreedstrongly with the AFL ideas. The Socialists

Labor: No A llies ThereAt first the People's Party tried to con­

vince city workers to join with them. Thedominant union in the late 19th centurywas the American Federation of Labor,headed by Samuel Gompers. The AFL wasa craft ullion, organized to protect the in~

terests of skilled workers only. Gomperswas a oautious leader, who believed thatlabor should work on economic issues ofwages and working hours, but not enterpolitical struggles. He was opposed tounions that organized all the workers in anindustry, including the unskilled. He hadseen the problems of the old Knights ofLabor, an industrial union that had grownweak, and believed that only skilled labor­ers could form a stable organization-­their labor was not replacable, and an em­ployer could not find strike breakers whowere as well-trained as the union mem­bers.

It was to the AFL that the Populists hadto t urn to get the help of organizedlabor. Gompers, as the leader of the AFL,was opposed to the farmers; the Populistswere too radical in their demands, and toopolitically oriented for the craft unionist.Gompers, himself, was unable to stop rankand file support of the Populists, and inmany instances members of the AFLjoinedwith Populists in elections. But a formalcoalition was impossible, and the Populists,without organized labor, were too isolatedto even think of gaining national power.

The Populists, 1" thE; form ofthe People'sParty, realized that one way to achievetheir goals of changing 19th century Amer­ican society was by gaining political power.They began as a third party movement,electing Populists to local and state offices.But they soon realized that they alone, asfarmers of the west and south, could notchange America without help from otherpeople in the country. They were facedwith the very same problem that concernsmany of us in the civil rights movementtoday: how could they join with others whowere also being hurt by the undemocraticpolitical and economic control of America?

The Populists felt that the urban workingman and the small farmer had the sameenemies; the railroads that overchanged thefarmer also broke the strikes of railroadworkers who were fighting for a union. Thesame injustices facing the farmer strugglingto survive in a nation of growing corpora­tions and monopolies also confronted themill worker in Massachusetts and the cigarmaker in New York. How does the littleman without a voice, asked the Populists,make himself heard over the rumble ofthe industrial machines of modern America?

continued from front page

IMPORTAN.T

Sunday School classes provide very goodatmospheres for Freedom Sunday School.5. Find out where there are parks, play­grounds, and recreation centers whereyoung people congregate.6. Begin by talking to one or two youngpeople about Freedom Schools, finding outwhat their interests a;re -- who draws,well, who writes well, who plays pianoor sings.7. After getting two or three people to­gether begin the school right where youare if possible. You don't have to announceit is a Freedom School -- just beginto question about the schools, community,police, whatever interests people.8. Do not try to raise money within thecommunity by giving dances. People whodon't have money can be easily antagon­ized. lf you work with high school studentslong enought, they will eventually wantto give their own dances.9. Discuss in nightly meetings all yoursuccesses and failures, little or big. Alwaysquestion, always evaluate your work.10. Stay in that community as much aspossible every oay.11. Try to get a church to have a com­munity meeting on freedom schools. Getlocal people to help leaflet ant! call.12. Begin slowly to bring young people

doors and no solid windows, are occupiedthe year around and have no indoor plumb­ing or sewage. Water is carried in fivegallon jugs from a common hydrant thatservices six or seven huts at once, andthe bathing and toilet facilities are com­munal. There is "one "toilet house for each60 units of housing.

One marcher talked about life in thecamps: "The cabins are not good. They

"are heavy metal and they are much toohot. The weather is about a hundred out­side a'nd it's about 130 or 150 inside.We can't stay inside. We have to cook-­make lunch -- early in the morning, because"after eight in the morning we can't getinto the cabin. We have to cook supperafter 8 or 7:30 at night because we can'tcook during the daytime. It's much too hot.

"We don't have side walks and when itrains it's all muddy and we can't walk.We have to get the water about twenty orthirty feet far from our cabin --not inside,outside, and the showers are pretty far. Wehave to go and take the showers all to­gether; the toilets are not good either."

The Housing Authority has justified therent raises on the grounds that the moneyis needed in fixing up the camps but theprotesters contend that over the past tenyears the Housing Commission, a non-"profit organization by law, has accrued anexcess profit of $130,000. Among the mar­chers the opinion was unanimous that whatthe camp needed was not fixing but tearingdown and rebuilding. One marcher talkingabout Ferris Sherman, executive directorof Tulare County Housing Authority said,"I don't know what he is going to do tofix the camp, because it's not worth fixing.I think we just need a new camp."

THE RENT' STRIKE, I~

1. After moving in, go out in two's orthree's and walk around the community,learn the ground you're going to work,check out the liquor stores, churches,slums, schools, middle income houses,new and old cars.2. Talk to young people about freedomschools.3. Use the existing structures as tools.Talk to mothers on welfare. Find out thenearest office of social welfare. Talk tothe social workers to find out who onwelfare has high school age students.4. Talk to ministers, especially those withsmall churches. Ask their cooperation.

You many not know it but if you workin Freedom Schools, you are also doingcommunity organizing. The Northern Stu­dent Movement (NSM) started out as atutorial project. So did the SDS-ERAP.SNCC's work started as a pilot voterregistration project which was supposedto last one year.

What started as tutorials are now"autonomous organizations capable of beingvehicles for effecting social change". Whatstarted as a pilot voter registration pro­gram has evolved into the most importantgrass roots social movement in this halfof the 20th Century. "

One proposal of me rent strikers is that the camp ue run un a more collective basis,giving the tenant council in the camp some real power. They also demand a completeinvestigation of the financial procedures and camp accounts.

Then rent raise hit the laborers very hard, as any change in balance upsets sussistencelevel incomes, but ithas also become a more fundamental organizing force. Fragmentationof camp living has been overcome in the face o~ an oppressive and unnecessary rent raise.

Laborers see now that organization and concerted action is a prerequisite for change.An unwise administrative decision has reinforced the drive for labor organizationand solidified some discontent over the conditions and handling of farm labor housing.

How An Organi%~r _WorksSOME RAMBLtNQ GUIDELINES FOR

FREEDOM SCHOOL ORGANIZERS

WHY

TULARE COUNTY RENT STRIKE

TWO F Al<.M WUKKERS in the Linnell LaborCamp discuss conditions with SNCC fieldsecretary. Photo by Brooks Penney.

HOME COOLING SYSTEM - You can't live in the Linnell shacks during the day. Thetemperature reaches 130 degrees inside. Photo by George Ballis.

speaking labor union that has been veryactive in the area), from the Migrant Min-::istry (an off-shoot of the California Coun­cil of Churches that works with the farmworkers similar to the manner in whichthe Delta Ministry has been working withstriking farm workers in the MississippiDelta area), from Citizens for Farm La­bor (a Berkeley based organization) andfrom the American Friends Service Com­mittee. Supporters from all over Californiawere present for the march.

Houses in the two camps are one roomhuts -- some would call them shacks -- thatwere built by W.P.A. in 1930 as a tem­porary measure and are still in use. Thehuts are !THine of metal and have no solid

-'+"

LABOR "MOVEMENT"--- TO TRAIN FINKS

THEAMERICA

LIFE WITH LYNDON IN THE GREAT SOCIETY

MOVES TO LATIN

JACK MINNIS

Big Business _Runs It

Guiana in 1963. The general strike was desii1:ned to overthrow the socialist goyern­ment of Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan. Some of the Guianese unionists whose nine monthsof ,pay from AIFID was about to expire at the time of the general strike, were kepton for an additional five months, so they could participate more effectively in theCIA's project of overthrowing the British Guianese Government.

The board of trustees of AIFID includes some persons who could hardly be supposedto be militant representatives of the interests of Latin American workers. The trusteesinclude:

J. Peter Grace -- President of W.R. Grace & Co. (which has sugar growing and re­fining, paper manufacturing, food processing and paint making operations in Peru,Chile, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Central America and Panama~ director of FirstNational City Bank of New York (With vast banking operations throughout LatinAmerica~ director of Kennecott Copper Co. ( with large copper mining operationsin Chile~ director of Brazilian Traction Light and Power Co-; (which producesand distributes about SOYa of the electric power in BraZil and provides and operatesabout 80Ya of Brazilian telephones.)

Berent Friele -- Vice president and director of International Basic Economy Corp.,a Rockefeller Latin Am~rican operation.

Charles Brinkerhoff -- Vice-chairman and director, Anaconda Co. (which owns thecopper that Kennecott doesn't own in Chile~ director of First National City Bank ofNew York; director of ACF Industries, Inc. (one of the'larger armaments makersin the U.S.)

Juan T. Trippe--Chairman of Pan American World Airways (which operates the missilesite at Cape Kennedy under contract with the U.S. Government and which owns, withW.R. Grace & Co., large shipping interests in Latin America ~ director of ChryslerCorp.

Henry S. Woodbridge -- Chairman of True Temper Corp. (manufactures various kindsof tools and railroad equipment~ director of International Power Co. (produces anddistributes electric power in Bolivia, ElSalvador, Mexico, and Venezuela.)

William Hickey -- Chairman, executive committee, True Temper Corp.; Pres. of UnitedCorp. (an investment fund with large utilities holdings y, director of InternationalPower Co.; director of Bolivia Power Co.

Robert Charles Hill--U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, 1957-1961; director, United FruitCo. (which owns most of the banana and other fruit production in Central and SouthAmerica; it was largely in United Fruit's interest that the CIA overthrew the Govern­ment of Guatemala in 1954, in order to restore the banana lands which the Arbenzgovernment had taken from United FruitY, director of International Power: directorof Merck & Co., whose former president, John T. Conner, is Lyndon's Secretary ofCommerce: director of True Temper Corp.Thus, the policy-making board of trustees of 'AIFID includes some of the most

powerful industrialists and financiers in the U.S., who are also large employers of LatinAmerican workers.

The budget of AIFID, according to its head man, Roumaldi, is about $2 million peryear. Of this, the AFL-CIO contributes 11%, business organizations (presumably thecorporations represented on the AIFID board) contribute 8.5% and the Agency forInternational Development (Lyndon's foreign aid agency which is actually an arm ofAmerican big business) contributes the rest,

What all this means, simply, is that the AFL-CIO makes a token contribution to thebudget of AIFID and that the rest of the money is supplied by big business. Unless AIFIDlives in a world different from the one we know, then big business and Lyndon are settingthe policies for AIFID, which, in turn means, that the AIFID trainees are indoctrinatedwith what Lyndon and big business think they ought to know and believe, and then these"trainees" are sent back to Latin America and paid to serve as labor finks for bigbusiness and political finks for Lyndon.

With this kind of record on the AFL-CIO and its "coalitions", we think it would beadvisable for any civil rights organization to consider everything very carefully beforerecruiting workers to be put through a training course financed and created by the AFL­CIO. Maybe the money was given to the A. Phillip Randolph Institute by the AFL-CIO,but who gave it to the union? And what did the AFL-CIO agree to do.in return for themoney? If AFL-CIO's record in AIFID means anything at all, then it establishes thatthe greatest of our labor organizations is wholly capable of cooperating with the U.S.Government and with American corporations to sell out the workers it claims to represent.

Who won't it sell out, if the price is right?

AFL.-CIO. State Department

There's more and more talk, these days, that civil rights organizations need tosnuggle up close to Lyndon's Labor organizations. This is known as the "coalitiontheory." The theory is that, if Negroes are to get what they want, being a minorityof only 10Ya of the population, they're going to have to have allies.

When you look around for possible allies, you look for other elements of the popu­lation who have some of the same grievances that Negroes do. Right away, of course,you see that large numbers of whites don't get paid enough to live on (or can't find jobsat all), don't have decent places to live, can't feed their families, can't send theirkids to college, etc.

In short, 'many whites need the same things that most Negroes need. Thus, theoreti­cally, they ought to be the political allies of Negroes, so the two could work together,politically, to get what both want and need. The theory sounds pretty good, and wethink that some such coalition is the only hope for either whites or Negroes.

But, from here, the "coalition theorists" go on to look around for something more.They want to find organizations with which civil rights groups can ally. Now, the factis that poor whites who are the natural allies of Negroes don't have any organizations.So the coalitionists, instead of working to build the organizations among poor whites,focus on the labor organizations which already exist, and which have plenty of money.Of course, the labor organizations don't even pretend to represent anybody except theirmembers who have jobs and can pay dues, and that representation is often more pre­tense than reality. But this crucial fact often gets lost in all the rhetoric of coalition.

The biggest and most powerfill (with the most money, that is) labor organizationis the AFL-CIO. Therefore, the coalitionists want to make an alliance with the AFL-CIO.As a matter of fact the alliance is already pretty far along.

Not long ago Bayard Rustin and some others set up what's called the A. PhillipRandolph Institute in New York. The purpose of the Institute is to mobilize the politicalstrength of civil rights groups behind the AFL-CIO's fight to get Congress to repealthe part of the federal labor law which permits states to have laws that hinder the unionorganization. Another of the purposes of the Institute is to serve as an "ideologicalclearinghouse" for civil rights groups and to "train" civil rights workers and thosewho want to organize poor whites.

According to Rustin, the Institute now has $80,000. It got $50,000 from the AFL-CIO,and another $30,000 from what Rustin describes as "personal friends". It may be thatthe InstitUte is just what the civil rights movement needs .,- an adequately financedtraining institution in which civil rights workers and poor white organizers can learnwhat they need to know to be effective politically. On the other hand, some of the back­ground facts -- such as the heavy dependence on the AFL-CIO funds -- need to beexamined rather closely. We say this because of what we know about some of the otherorganizations which have been created and financed by the AFL..,CIO.

In 1962, an organization called the American Institute for Free Labor Deve lopment(AIFID) was set up. It grew out of a training school which was conducted in 1960 by anAFL-CIO affiliate (Communication Workers of America) and which was financed withmoney provided by the U.S. State Department, The training school was for Latin Ameri­can labor unionists.

The State Department prOVided enough money not only to put the Latin Americansthrough the training course, but also to pay their salaries for nine months after theyreturned home. George Meany, President of the' AFL-CIO worked with the State De­partment and the Communications Workers of America in setting up AIFID. Therewas some trouble finding a person to head the new organization, because its moneywas to come from an outlet called the Michigan Fund. The Michigan Fund had already

VDeen identified as one of the channels the Central Intelligence Agency uses to put i!!tothe hands of those who will do its bidding in other countries .. Finally an old gentlemannamed Serafina Romualdi was placed at it's head. AIFID was endowed with a specialprojects department, and at its helm was placed William C. Doherty, Jr., son of aformer AFL-CIO vice president,

AIFID "trains" Latin American unionists. It has 14 offices in I"atin American coun­tries. These offices have trained more than 20,000 union members in what AIFLD calls"trade union procedures". Some 300 of the more successful trainees have been broughtto the AIFID headquarters in Washington, D.C. for nine months' further training.This "elite" of Latin American union members get paid travel and living expenseswhile they're at the special training in Washington, D.C., and they are kept on the AIFLDpayroll for nine months after they return to their countries.

One of the "special projects" of the AIFID department headed by William C. Dohertyseems to have been helping to organize and maintain the general strike in British

(Ed. note: for a fuller treatment of this subject, see Sid Lens, Lovestone Diplomacy, The Nation, July 5, 1965, from which much of this information was drawn.)

may contribute to the white economy, asa consumer and producer, but his decisionsare his own. It is the independent farmerin Panola who is benefiting from themarketing cooperative which thiS monthsent its first bushels of okra to the openmarket in Memphis at 8¢ a lb. and Chicago

, at 18¢ a lb.

The co-op began when disgruntled far­mers demanded that Jacobs, the middle­man here, pay them 8¢ a lb. insteadof 4¢ a lb. for okra. Jacobs settled at4 1/2 ¢, and the men refused to sellto him. With the help of a loan fromFarm Home Administration (FHA), thesemen have now established themselves asa marketing cooperative. They are soon

" to receive farm machinery purchased with- the loan -- two double row cotton pickers,

two bean combines, two trucks with IS'beds, two cotton wagons and two pickup

MISSISSIPPI REPORT

Co-op Formed

continued from page 4

trucks. The machines will be availableto members farmers who will continueto receive 4 1/2 ¢ a lb. for okra, thebalance of which is returned to providecapital for the co-op. The men purchasedthree acres of land to build sheds fortheir machinery, and are discussing th.epossibility of using an old school houseas a community centeF which will provideother services. There is great need forspecialists in agriculture and home econ-omics.Workshops discuss the idea of "coopera­tion," which is difficult for a man whohas been in competition with white menwho expect him to have neither intelli­gence nor energy to manage in the bUSi­ness world. The co-op hopes to providemachinery, and a market for small far­mers who alone can't raise capitalfor machines, or raise enough produceto trade in the large and lucrative marketsof the North.

The co-op has not yet discussed its re-

sponsibility toward the plantation peoplewho cannot benefit by their organizationas it now exists. In Shaw, the independentfarmers have donated land for "victorygardens" where the strikers are now grow­ing food for themselves, and marketingsome surplus. Perhaps the co-op herewill be able to purchase land for familieswho can leave the cotton fields.

The Real History

Last night Adult Freedom School metfor the first time in Batesville. Theywanted a typing class, and there wasa discussion of the history of PanolaCounty. "Was the land here cleared whenyou came?" "Were there always plan­tations?" "How were the roads built?"We decided to begin to write the historyof Panola County, a history different fromthe one written by the "white folks."Negroes cleared the land, built the roads.Negroes now live on the land and workit, yet it barely supports them while itmakes the white man rich.

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