Tape 9, 2000 April / Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 40th anniversary conference videocassette tapes, 2000 / Duke Digital Repository

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Thank you.

0:03

When I first met Charlie

0:07

Sherrod and Lonnie and Tim,

0:13

who would come.

0:18

The crowd was in Europe I think that was.

0:19

I had never been out of Ohio.

0:23

I mean my only place I'd ever been from Ohio,

0:27

outside of Ohio was Orangeburg, South Carolina,

0:29

and I came here as a freshman.

0:35

By the time I had gone home for Christmas,

0:41

I had been arrested like five times.

0:45

My jaw had been broken and my arm had been busted

0:49

because it was the first time in this new world

0:53

of South Carolina having come from Madison, Ohio.

0:57

It was a strange world

1:02

and so when I went to Sumter for Christmas,

1:05

for, I'm sorry, for Thanksgiving,

1:09

and the only reason I went to Sumter is because

1:12

they closed the campus down

1:14

and you had to go somewhere.

1:15

You gotta get up outta here sort of thing.

1:18

So I'd went to Sumter and it was the first time I'd been

1:21

off campus since I'd been placed in South Carolina State

1:24

and we went to a party

1:30

and my friends drank

1:33

and this time I didn't so I was the designated driver

1:36

after going to this party.

1:39

As we were driving home the police stopped me.

1:42

I'd never been confronted by a police officer in my life

1:46

at that time, 16 years old, Sumter, South Carolina,

1:50

and we started talking and the officer said,

1:54

finally said where you from boy?

1:58

I said Ohio, why?

2:01

He said they didn't teach you how,

2:03

(laughing)

2:07

not only did I say why,

I said I'm form Ohio.

2:10

You got the license.

2:11

Can't you read?

2:12

(audience laughs)

2:14

It was the beginning.

2:21

(audience laughs)

2:23

That's when he said what?

2:27

They didn't even teach you how to say yes sir

2:30

and no sir to white men up there?

2:32

I said you gotta be jiving.

2:34

(audience laughs)

2:36

It was an auspicious meeting.

2:39

That man hit me so hard,

2:43

but in from the still mills in Ohio

2:47

I had a few tricks of my own.

2:50

I was hitting and kicking as I went down

2:51

and before his fist slapped my face,

2:54

I had struck him back,

2:57

and his partner grabbed me

2:59

and we just got it on

3:02

down there on the side of the road

3:05

in Sumter, South Carolina.

3:07

They got the better of it.

3:10

Broke my jaw, busted my arm and as they were beating me,

3:12

I was saying to the guys in the car, I'm gonna get you,

3:17

(audience laughs)

3:21

because where I came from

you didn't let your partners be whipped

3:24

and not help.

3:26

That of course was long before I'd ever heard

3:28

of nonviolence and I only knew of direct action.

3:30

(audience laughs)

3:35

So by, you know I got my jaw busted, went to jail

3:38

and when I got out of jail and went to get on

3:43

the train coming from Sumter back to Orangeburg,

3:46

the conductor say all right get on back to the baggage car.

3:51

I said I what?

3:56

Not for $7.82 do I ride with a bunch

3:59

of old cheap suitcases and mangy dogs.

4:03

There are seats here I'm sitting in them.

4:08

I look back now at times on say was I naive

4:12

or just a fool and I think it was a combination.

4:15

It was a combination but out of that combination of things

4:20

I had that reputation of that nigger is crazy

4:28

and so most of the students sort of passed me by,

4:33

in Orangeburg, say hello

4:36

and make wide circles around me.

4:39

(audience laughs)

4:42

So I finally got home and my father decided this little

4:45

venture of meeting your brothers and sisters in the

4:48

confines of a black college just wasn't going to be for you.

4:52

I can't afford to have you there the way you put it

4:56

and besides you going to be killed.

5:00

So my year of penance was to end early with

5:04

the understanding I'm taking you back to that campus

5:08

you stay here there until I get there and come back

5:11

and pick you up.

5:15

I said fine.

5:16

Well on February 1st 1960,

5:19

there were sit-ins in Greensboro.

5:24

Greensboro, Orangeburg is 80 miles from here

5:26

and a group of students came to me

5:31

and we're talking about did you hear

5:33

what they did up in Greensboro.

5:36

I say yes of course I did.

5:37

They said what we want to do that here.

5:40

I said go ahead and do it.

5:42

(audience laughs)

5:44

What's that got to do with me?

5:45

They said we want you to be the spokesperson.

5:47

I said y'all crazy.

5:52

You all are out of your mind if you're going

5:55

to put up with what those crackers

5:58

going to do to you, you do that.

5:59

It's not my place to interfere.

6:02

I've got 24 days in this place and I'm gone

6:05

and I will never see anything south of Cincinnati,

6:08

(audience laughs)

6:12

again in life.

Well I was reading the Talmud

6:18

and you all know all about that part of my life.

6:21

There's a section of the Talmud that

6:24

says if I'm not for myself who will be for me.

6:27

If I'm for myself only what am I?

6:30

If not now when?

6:34

And I thought about that

6:37

and I spent the night thinking about it,

6:38

the night thinking about my life.

6:41

I was born the night Joe Louis knocked

6:45

out Max Schmeling where in

6:48

Madison, Ohio there was jubilation.

6:51

I used to thank my father when he got older

6:55

for several things, not naming me Joe Louis.

6:58

(audience laughs)

7:01

And for every one of my birthdays they

7:05

tried out this old 8mm film of the fight.

7:07

Within one minute and 28 seconds of the first

7:15

round Joe Louis the Brown Bomber knocked out

7:17

Max Schmeling the Great White Hope of the western world

7:21

and what my father was say is look at the crowd,

7:26

look at the crowd and it was full of men with Swastikas on.

7:31

He said these are people you're gonna have to deal with.

7:39

He used to call him pecker woods all the time.

7:43

He said these pecker woods are going to make

7:46

your life hell and I think and I'm four years old.

7:49

(audience laughs)

7:54

When we going to cut the cake?

7:56

When we going to get the Kool-Aid?

7:58

(audience laughs)

8:00

And he's talking about you have to

8:02

do something for the race.

8:05

You are a race baby and that's the first time

8:09

I've ever heard anything,

8:11

a boy or girl,

8:14

this man talking about you a race baby

8:15

and I'm talking about when we going to get the Kool-Aid.

8:18

(audience laughs)

8:22

But that started very early for me which

8:23

taught me something later with my own child

8:26

of those early lessons come back and guide you.

8:29

That night when I was thinking about these students

8:35

from Claflin for most of them college who'd

8:39

asked me to leave them,

8:43

be the spokesman in these sit-ins,

8:45

all of those things came back.

8:47

The pictures of the fight,

8:52

Yankee Stadium Field with Nazis screaming,

8:55

discussions of my father about

8:58

you know they killed three black people

9:01

killed in Detroit after that fight.

9:03

Four black people were killed in Cincinnati after that fight

9:06

and Lord knows how many they killed down site South

9:10

after that fight and don't you ever forget it.

9:13

So that night after I thought about where I had

9:19

come from and what I was supposed to do,

9:24

I knew the next morning that I was supposed

9:28

to be involved in this movement.

9:33

So I went back to these people and apologized

9:36

for my being flippant and said I will do

9:45

whatever I can to help

9:49

and joined the Orangeburg Movement

9:56

for Civic Improvement and was chairman of the Orangeburg

10:01

Movement for Civic Improvement

10:06

and we would sit in by the 6th of February.

10:09

The first one started on the 1st and on the 6th

10:14

and I was leading demonstrations not knowing a thing

10:19

about what was happening except they said if these

10:24

white folks at you don't hit him back.

10:30

Well that makes sense to me because the last time I--

10:33

(audience laughs)

10:36

We'll do that until we figure out

10:47

something else, at least until I get enough

10:48

of y'all to join me.

10:51

(audience laughs)

10:52

And we were having sit-ins

10:54

and that first sit-in was on March 6th.

10:57

I went to jail.

11:01

That next week I was in jail

11:04

and by March 12th lead a demonstration of 1500

11:06

students in Orangeburg which

11:12

1200 of them us went to jail.

11:15

We were put into an outside enclosure

11:20

and attacked with water hoses

11:23

and then we got the call

11:29

and as I think I mentioned this morning.

11:31

The only thing I knew about Dr. King

11:34

was what I read in newspapers and magazines

11:37

but when they mentioned Miss Baker,

11:43

when I mentioned to our advisors in Orangeburg

11:45

that Miss Baker, a letter came asking us

11:48

this meeting Miss Baker sent the letter

11:51

and I remember Reverend Cullum telling me that

11:55

Miss Ella Baker said that she wants you to do something.

11:59

You can put your life in her hands

12:04

and we talk on the phone after that

12:08

and we were sort of ready and when I came here

12:12

there was already a sense that we were like Charlie said,

12:19

I know the names I knew the Charles Sherrod's,

12:25

I knew the Diane Nash I knew the Lonnie Kings,

12:29

I know that Charlie Joneses and what we had

12:33

shared was I remember and we talked about them.

12:37

The first thing is what do you remember about it

12:42

and we talked about the Brown decision

12:44

and just about everybody had a copy of the Jet

12:49

with the picture of Emmett Till in it.

12:55

We had a common sense of remembering what

12:59

was happening to our people but that thing on it

13:04

that picture which I have today

13:09

of Emmett Till lying in his coffin.

13:12

So we all started at a, sort of ground when we got here.

13:18

I thought that compared with people like Charlie

13:23

who it been a world traveler and Lonnie from Atlanta.

13:26

I'd never been to Atlanta and these people from Nashville.

13:33

I said great God of Zion I'm up here

13:37

with all these hot city people,

13:40

hot shots and the thing, the statement was Jim Lawson

13:44

because Jim is from my hometown and I knew growing up that

13:49

he had been in prison and he had

13:54

been in prison as a pacifist.

13:57

I knew what a pacifist was and I knew there been hours

14:00

of discussion about going to jail for ideas,

14:04

for beliefs because we had an example from

14:10

our small little colored community of Madison, Ohio

14:14

of someone who had a scholarship, courage, compassion

14:18

and commitment and it was Jim

14:26

who were going to school with my aunts and stuff

14:31

and so the idea of going to jail

14:34

for an idea was already acceptable to me

14:40

and so when we came up here

14:45

there were people who argued

14:50

and discussed the whole nonviolent philosophy.

14:52

Most of these people were from Nashville.

14:55

Diane and Bernard and Bevel

15:00

and the whole concept of discussion

15:07

and a discussion of a beloved community was discussed

15:10

and I felt that we were already in it because these people

15:16

I saw already as kindred spirits

15:22

and brothers as a sort of in a common sort of

15:27

and sisters in a common sort of struggle.

15:31

So we cleaved very quickly.

15:35

We all came together very, very quickly and we talked.

15:39

I met Tim and there was a feeling

15:44

that we came from the same backgrounds

15:47

wherever we came from for the most part.

15:53

We were the sons and daughters of working

15:56

class people, working people.

15:58

I remember and if you had any sense of shame

16:02

from where you came I remember when Tim claimed

16:07

told me he was raised in his first crib

16:10

was the bottom drawer of the bureau

16:12

in his parents' bedroom and then said

16:17

and I moved up to the third drawer.

16:20

I said well,

16:22

(audience laughs)

now if that isn't upward mobility.

16:25

(audience laughs)

16:27

And we all had an appreciation,

16:31

a thirst for knowledge and a commitment to doing

16:34

something as Sherrod mentioned earlier we didn't know

16:41

what it was going to be but we knew it was going to be

16:49

something and you came to trust in each other by spending

16:52

time talking together, learning together, planning together.

17:00

I remember with pride when Jim got kicked out of Vanderbilt.

17:07

He was in graduate school.

17:13

The School of Theology there,

17:15

and you know my thing was you see

17:16

in the Christian School of Theology

17:21

they done kicked him out.

17:23

They're not serious about nothing them Christians.

17:26

And you know I was continuing with my other rebellion.

17:29

(laughing)

17:36

But that was, I hadn't seen him since

17:39

I was a kid but I had this feeling that

17:42

we were kindred souls and then there were all these

17:46

others and we started in the early discussions

17:50

when we talked about the Student Coordinating Committee,

17:52

the Coordinating Committee, non-violence was kept out of it

17:57

and it was then in a concession where Lonnie talked about

18:03

those purists, the nonviolent purists that kept us together,

18:09

kept us on the road and so it became a thing

18:18

that after a mantra that we must have this

18:21

in the spirit of non-violence and love.

18:24

I never told a man that I loved him in my life.

18:29

Wasn't too many girls I said more than I liked you.

18:32

(audience laughs)

18:35

And here we were talking about love, a word

18:37

and a concept I use all the time now because

18:43

it was through the movement that I came to understand

18:45

the deeper meanings of agape and loving my fellow man,

18:50

my brothers and my sisters and there came a time

18:57

that I understood how you can love somebody

19:01

and an idea so much that you would die for it

19:09

and that became the case with all of you all.

19:13

I remember when we first went me, Tim Jenkins,

19:17

Josh Rod, Charlie Jones, when we decided that we were

19:25

going to drop out of school and spend full time helping

19:30

to build the movement at whatever cost that was going to

19:35

take and we found out about that cause very quickly when

19:38

Charlie Jones hit a little back dog owned

19:43

by big white lady driving through Alabama.

19:47

It became the first ideologicals with the ministerial

19:52

students Jones and Sherrod was saying,

19:59

the lady came, the mean white lady came out and said

20:03

oh my God my baby is gone and he got polio

20:05

and if y'all could just give me a few dollars

20:10

to make him happy so I can buy a new dog.

20:13

Jenkins, dog ran in the street.

20:20

(audience laughs)

20:23

We don't have extra money to pay for this woman's dog.

20:25

Let's get out of here.

20:29

We're standing out there debating and in the spirit

20:34

of non-violence we should pay for this dog.

20:39

Should have had a dog on a leash.

20:45

(audience laughs)

20:47

The big white lady got tired of our discussion.

20:50

(audience laughs)

20:53

And told us if you don't pay for this dog you

20:56

will never make it out of Alabama alive.

20:59

(audience laughs)

21:03

White folks have a way

21:07

(audience laughs)

21:08

of defining issues.

21:11

So we moved to a different level.

21:14

It became no longer matter of compassion.

21:18

It became Sherrod, no let's go we ain't going dog.

21:24

Let's go.

21:30

Like how dare she threaten us.

21:33

The Christian brothers had stopped talking about

21:36

paying for the woman's dog which

21:38

Nathan and I said all along we shouldn't do and we prepared,

21:41

but we wouldn't have left there alive.

21:45

The woman was right.

21:47

There was a white man,

21:48

a man who looked like an old Colonel Sanders.

21:49

He had a white linen suit.

21:52

I remember that.

21:53

Had a white linen suit on and he came out as this crowd

21:54

was gathering around us in Pell City, Alabama

21:58

and he told us, he was sort of like

22:02

the local head white man in town.

22:04

(audience laughs)

22:09

And he told these boys didn't do nothing wrong.

22:11

I saw the whole thing.

22:15

The dog ran out now in the street

22:18

and they couldn't help hit him.

22:19

So y'all just let him alone and told us y'all

22:21

better get out of town quick and I remember

22:24

we started driving towards, turned to the highway

22:30

driving towards Mississippi outrunning

22:37

because people were getting the cars coming behind us.

22:41

I never forget this but when we got to Mississippi

22:44

the border of Mississippi we stopped,

22:47

scared, running from a mob from Alabama

22:50

but still scared go to go into Mississippi.

22:54

(audience laughs)

22:56

I swear.

23:01

I know each one of us was in that car remember

23:02

that day because Sherrod too was trying

23:09

to use the bathroom along the way.

23:12

Man said one drop, blow your brains out.

23:16

It was a terrible time.

23:20

Speaking of time.

23:23

(audience laughs)

23:25

Thank you Martha.

23:26

They'll be time to continue this later.

23:28

We're trying to keep a rather close schedule

23:31

and so and I realize that I had drifted off

23:34

of it but it was here 40 years ago that

23:40

I learned the deeper meanings of comradeship and love

23:45

and trust and a willingness to do anything to help bring

23:53

about a change and I knew at different points

24:00

along this journey that we wouldn't all get there together.

24:07

So I'm happy proud to be able to celebrate with you

24:13

and those of us who made it on thus far, thanks.

24:18

(applause)

24:22

-

I really want to apologize for the time.

24:34

I just want to make sure that we all get

24:36

some lunch a little bit later.

24:38

I think they were hearing in these talks a different

24:41

sense than the traditional of what leadership can be of

24:47

something that can be created by people

24:53

themselves when they decide to act

24:58

or they can be quiet unassuming kind of thing

25:00

that really makes pivotal and important decisions

25:05

that can change the course of history

25:11

and right now we'll hear from Joyce Ladner.

25:14

I'll say this when we're doing the program as

25:18

you know we're doing all of this last minute and everything.

25:20

So we were trying to put in people before their

25:23

SNCC accomplishments and their present-day accomplishments

25:28

and one of the reasons that we just totally gave

25:33

up on the whole project.

25:36

We just say we're going to put people's names

25:37

in is that when we came to Joyce's name there

25:39

were so many accomplishments on both sides we said

25:41

it'll take up half a page.

25:44

So I won't say anything else and let her to come

25:46

and talk to you about the spirit of Miss Baker

25:50

and organizing in Mississippi.

25:54

(applause)

25:57

-

I was about to say good morning but it's good afternoon.

26:05

The war stories remind me, that I've heard from the three

26:09

previous speakers, reminds me of a time back in the sixties

26:17

when we used to hear people who came out in the 30s

26:21

movement and we used to say God I'm so sick

26:26

of the thirties and I could imagine that some of you may

26:30

well feel like my son and my niece.

26:38

My sister Dories daughter, when we

26:42

tell them watch this program.

26:46

Recently I told my son watch freedom songs.

26:49

It's coming on (mumbling).

26:52

He said what is it about, SNCC?

26:54

(laughing)

26:56

I say yes.

26:59

He said I already know all about SNCC.

27:00

Mom you taught,

27:04

I said you don't, you got to see the real SNCC.

27:06

He said well what is this you been

27:08

telling me all my life then?

27:10

That wasn't a real SNCC?

27:12

But I think that first I want to thank the organizers

27:13

for bringing us together so that we can tell

27:17

the war stories because they're deeper meanings hidden

27:20

within all of them and the second is that

27:24

in remembering Miss Baker I think she would want us

27:28

to remember the legacy of doing

27:32

because she was indeed a doer.

27:37

She was quite an elegant speaker but you can probably

27:39

count the number of times that she was the keynote speaker

27:43

on or she tended to one to shy away from that role.

27:49

I'm going to make two points one is that to describe

27:54

what Mississippi was like when Miss Baker's philosophy

27:58

began to resonate in the state

28:03

and why did it resonate

28:07

and then to say a few things about

28:13

the lessons she taught us.

28:16

All of us necessarily have to be autobiographical

28:19

in making our comments and so I was was a high school

28:21

senior at 16 years old in 1961 on Easter weekend

28:26

when SNCC was founded.

28:30

Probably don't remember having read about it

28:33

in the Hattiesburg Mississippi American Newspaper

28:37

because it censored everything.

28:40

I do remember it did carry some information

28:42

about the sit-ins that were occurring.

28:44

Nevertheless we were, all of us,

28:49

not all of us but I was particularly blessed

28:53

because have a sister Dorie who was coming later today

28:56

who was only 15 months older than I and I could not

29:01

remember a time in our lives when race was not the

29:04

central most important thing that we focused on.

29:07

I have always been and I've always carried both of burden

29:12

and the blessing of the strong racial consciousness

29:18

and perhaps it came from my mother who taught us that

29:24

you look white people dead in the eye and don't blink.

29:32

I remember when Dorie and all the salesman

29:38

and the insurance collector came around our house deferred

29:44

to her and she always calls it a certain way you carry

29:50

yourself in order to keep your dignity so

29:54

that white people don't walk over you.

29:57

So when Dorie and I were at the grocery store,

30:00

Hudson's grocery a block from our house

30:04

and we're looking at magazines,

30:07

the magazine rack and Dorie had bought some donuts

30:10

and she, I remember clearly because she probably

30:16

just gotten her first bra but we were entering puberty

30:19

and I was the younger and certainly

30:23

had not yet but mine 28 AAA bra.

30:25

(audience laughs)

30:29

That was the size I remember clearly the first one.

30:30

There's this man.

30:36

A cashier, white cashier in the store

30:37

who all four of his fingers on the right

30:39

hand haven't cut off for some reason

30:42

and he walked up behind her and try to touch bra

30:45

and she turned and took the bag of donuts

30:49

and began beating him on the head

30:51

and we ran all the way home and we can told Mother.

30:53

Mother guess what happened?

30:56

And we told her and she said you should have killed them.

30:58

(audience laughs)

31:01

So that we were taught to stand up

31:05

for our beliefs and another thing she taught us

31:06

she becomes the plural because we learned

31:10

this within this all black community called

31:14

Palmers Crossing outside, 4 miles from Downtown Hattiesburg.

31:17

We were taught to stand up for my beliefs

31:21

and if you couldn't stand up for them

31:24

that Mother used to say that they're not worth very much

31:26

if you can't stand up for what you believe in.

31:30

Beliefs can't be worth much to start with

31:31

but they taught us how to survive with dignity

31:34

and I was walking a tightrope.

31:38

They told us that we could indeed stand tall

31:40

and have the courage of these convictions

31:44

and carry ourselves in such a way that if a white

31:46

man makes a pass at you and they did

31:49

and they were quite plentiful,

31:52

you stand proudly and don't even respond

31:54

and just walk away like a lady and it worked.

31:58

We knew we couldn't turn around and beat too

32:02

many people over the head with donuts for fear

32:06

that we could have been killed but we,

32:10

I remember some things that had an impact on

32:18

us that became threads throughout the larger,

32:20

that were threads throughout the larger society

32:23

but they followed us as well from the time of childhood.

32:26

The Brown decision I remember very very clear clearly

32:30

and how the local newspaper covered it.

32:33

I read the newspaper from the time I was very little.

32:36

I used to spend a dime a day to buy this paper

32:40

and know that it was referred to the day the decision

32:46

was handed down what's was referred to as Black Monday

32:51

but we didn't get, there was no rush integrate,

32:56

no attempt at all to desegregate that Hattiesburg schools

32:59

or the schools anywhere Mississippi.

33:04

What we got were new public schools.

33:05

They built the county built us a new school

33:08

that we had always needed and that was their

33:12

way of staving off any attempts to say that

33:15

we were unequal or that we have unequal facilities.

33:21

We lived in a very, very closed society

33:24

but it was possible to get in certain information.

33:27

I don't even remember maybe I heard national news

33:31

on the radio but we got a new television,

33:35

we got a televisions station WDAM in Hattiesburg

33:39

in about 19, it was about was the late fifties

33:43

and they were very, very racist but I do remember seeing,

33:46

oh wait it was an NBC affiliate so David Brinkley,

33:53

(mumbles) and David Brinkley.

33:56

That was the one window of national news

33:57

that we saw but was most important was that we had this

33:59

friend an older man who came by our house all the time.

34:05

We called him Cuz for cousin.

34:09

He really wasn't our cousin but others referred

34:11

to him as Dr. McLeod and he was a race man.

34:15

He sold herbal medicine.

34:18

Today he'd be in vogue.

34:20

Back then my mother said I wouldn't take anything

34:21

that Cuz gave you, it might poison you.

34:23

(audience laughs)

34:25

She said that those roots that he's boiling

34:26

I don't know what's in them, but Cuz was a race man.

34:29

He was a member of the local NAACP.

34:33

I was 10, 11, 12 maybe a little older.

34:35

But probably not 10 but 11, 12, 13

34:39

and he brought us weekly the Chicago Defender,

34:43

the Pittsburgh Courier and we got

34:46

the monthly Ebony and the Jet.

34:49

It was funny I think Charles referred to it as the Jet.

34:53

Black people in the south always called Jet magazine

34:57

the Jet and that is where we got information.

34:59

He also brought books.

35:04

I read the first biographies about black people

35:07

because I don't know where he got the books

35:11

from but I guess he ordered them but he brought them,

35:14

he introduced us to literature on black people

35:18

and he used to tell us you girls are

35:21

going to have to change things.

35:22

It'll be your generation that's going

35:24

to change things when you get older.

35:27

We, several references were made to the veterans

35:29

of World War II and I would add World War I.

35:35

My Uncle Archie went to France

35:38

and the French asked him if you would pull down his pants

35:40

according to him and show them his tail

35:44

because they had been told that

35:48

black people were kin to monkeys and had tails.

35:49

He told us this and I remember this as a little girl

35:54

sitting on his back porch when he talked about

35:56

how disappointing it was to come back home

35:59

and see how terrible conditions were but he going to France

36:03

had given him a perspective that was very different.

36:08

The veterans of World War II especially were very,

36:11

very important because they were sent abroad to fight

36:14

for freedom with the expectation that they

36:18

were also going to reap some benefits.

36:22

They came home and saw the white soldiers reaping

36:25

the benefits but they did not and many of these

36:28

people were the founders of the then underground

36:31

NAACP in Mississippi, throughout the state.

36:34

I cannot emphasize enough how important

36:38

the role of these men were.

36:46

They were the ones who, I always felt that my generation

36:49

was the one that they felt would be,

36:54

ours was a generation that would change things

36:58

that the environment was pregnant with possibilities

37:01

of all kinds of change but it was almost as if

37:06

they were on the precipice of it but knew it was to come.

37:08

I refer to ours as the Emmett Till generation

37:13

because I cannot think of a single thing that

37:16

had a more profound impact on some of the people

37:19

who came into SNCC who had seen the cover

37:22

of the Jet Magazine cover of Emmett Till's

37:25

body where he,

37:30

they didn't do any cosmetic

37:33

surgery or whatever to the face of him

37:36

and in the 1980s I asked Mrs. Mobley, his mother

37:38

why did you have him buried open casket without them,

37:44

they pulled him out the river so he was

37:51

not, he didn't look like her, anyone's son.

37:54

It was just an awful picture.

37:57

And she said I wanted the world to see what

37:59

they did to my baby and we were his age.

38:01

We were in terms of psychosocial theory

38:06

or whatever we identified with him.

38:12

I felt personally if they killed a 14 year old

38:16

they could also kill me, they could come my brothers.

38:21

We knew that men were lynched but we'd never

38:24

known a child being lynched before and I believe that

38:28

on a deeply profoundly personal level

38:32

that had a strong galvanizing effect on all of us.

38:36

That image is with me still.

38:44

It became etched in our consciousness.

38:46

We were also very, very fortunate to have mentors.

38:49

Eileen Beard a woman was a member of our church.

38:53

Eileen Beard was the sister of Vernon Dahmer.

38:58

Mr. Dahmer and Clyde Kennard,

39:02

who lived in that same community

39:07

and Medgar Evers were the three

39:12

mentors that I had who were killed

39:15

and I thought about this recently.

39:19

That is so ironic that these three men who

39:24

had such a profound influence on my life we're all,

39:26

died for their beliefs.

39:30

Mr. Dahmer and Mrs. Dahmer,

39:33

Brother Beard and Sister Beard as we called them

39:35

in our church and Clyde Kennard used

39:38

to take Dorie and me with them to Jackson to the state

39:39

NAACP meetings in the 50s when we were in high school.

39:43

I don't know mentors, I think mentors,

39:48

you seek mentors out as much as they,

39:51

and this is a message I like to give to the young people

39:53

here today that is not just a matter of older

39:57

people saying we want to mentor young people

40:00

but young people also have to seek out the older people.

40:03

It's possible that the reason that they took us

40:06

likely is because they knew we had this interest and race.

40:09

We talked about it you know and it was then that we saw

40:12

people like Ruby Hurley who was the first black woman

40:18

lawyer I ever saw and probably didn't know one existed.

40:22

She was the southeastern regional director Of the NAACP.

40:24

So she would come and speak.

40:28

Then Gloucester Current director of branches spoke.

40:30

So we saw these outside people coming in to this late

40:33

and all the meetings we held at the Masonic Temple

40:37

up the street from Jackson State College.

40:39

We also organized, the same mentors especially

40:43

Clyde Kennard and Mr. Dahmer helped us to organize and NAACP

40:48

youth chapter in the very late 50s and Clyde

40:54

was a very, how many of you know,

40:59

have heard of Clyde Kennard?

41:03

All older people but the younger people don't know him.

41:05

He came back home after having been in the military,

41:08

having been a student at the University of Chicago,

41:11

his father died, came back to Hattiesburg

41:13

to help his mom run the farm.

41:16

Wanted to finish, go back to college so he applied

41:19

to Mississippi Southern College now the University

41:22

of Southern Mississippi twice,

41:25

I believe it was two times maybe three.

41:29

But any at any rate it was in the late 50s

41:31

and they planted some, they arrested him for having $3.50

41:33

worth of stolen chicken feed in his car.

41:41

Sent him to the Forrest County Jail.

41:44

Then sent him to Parchman State Penitentiary.

41:46

He got cancer and was literally dying

41:49

by the time Governor Ross Barnett gave him

41:52

a pardon for something he never, I mean it was awful.

41:54

I have never cried yet I still feel the tears

42:00

that one day will come over how terrible they

42:03

treated him but he got out after the pardon,

42:06

went to the University of Chicago.

42:09

It was Billings Hospital and died within I believe

42:12

it was a month or 6 weeks from cancer.

42:15

He was a very quiet person who moved easily

42:20

without you're noticing his presence except

42:25

there was a profundity to the,

42:30

I must confess also that I had

42:39

a crush on him for some reason

42:41

even though he was an older man.

42:43

He was early 30s I don't know.

42:46

But he was an older man.

42:49

I was maybe 14, 15 and up to 16 but

42:50

there was also a network of students

43:02

in the high schools around.

43:04

I knew Leslie Mclemore who stood up

43:06

to criticize us, the organizing of this conference

43:09

from high school because he lived in northern Mississippi

43:16

and I lived in Southern Mississippi but what

43:20

facilitated a lot of the people was joining

43:22

the younger people my age joining the movement

43:26

or getting active in the movement was that

43:29

we were also active in certain high school organizations.

43:31

Like I believe you were state president

43:34

when I was state president.

43:37

Tri HAWA, you were state president of HAWA.

43:38

So we traveled around.

43:40

A lot of us, I have been out of Mississippi

43:43

once maybe twice to go up to New Orleans

43:46

but most of us travel within that close circle.

43:50

I often wonder how did I high school teachers

43:54

and especially music teachers teach.

43:58

Where do they learn opera when they taught Dorie

43:59

who had a great voice, taught her how to sing opera

44:03

or where did they get their books from

44:06

because our librarian had $150 a year

44:11

to replenish the, to buy books

44:15

and we got the hand me down,

44:22

used textbooks from the white schools

44:23

after they use them 5 years, we got them

44:25

and I bristle even today when I walk past

44:28

the public library that was for a whites-only

44:32

because as a child I wanted more books to read than

44:36

there were available and they didn't give them to us.

44:40

Anyway we went to college to Jackson State

44:43

in the fall Of 61, the following 60 and

44:48

this again I began to see some of those same freshman

44:53

in my class as some older upperclassmen

44:58

that I've seen it the Masonic Temple at the state wide

45:02

NAACP meeting.

45:07

One of the students an older student was James Meredith.

45:11

We used to sit before he well he's very strange now

45:15

but back then he was very,

45:19

very strange.

45:21

(audience laughs)

And because this is all on tape

45:26

I won't say how strange he is.

45:28

(audience laughs)

45:31

But he wasn't strange then

45:32

and we knew absolutely nothing about the fact

45:34

that he applied to go to Ole Miss, nothing

45:38

and I was as close to him as the

45:40

other small group around him.

45:44

He was an upperclassman, been in the military,

45:46

was married and but we could recognize

45:49

who each other was in a way.

45:55

I don't know if I'm getting through to you.

45:58

As a freshman every Wednesday afternoon was free time.

46:03

So you could sign up always to go downtown

46:08

and that meant to shopping.

46:12

Dorie are we go up to see Medgar whose

46:14

office was on the second floor of the Masonic Temple

46:18

and I remember because of that said we have met him

46:21

and when we were in high school and one time we went

46:25

to talk to him and he would always tell us what

46:30

was going on and the NAACP chapters around the state

46:33

and one time he told us that there was going

46:39

to be a sit-in and we said really can we join?

46:43

We didn't know what they were going to sit in what

46:45

or where or what and he said

46:48

well yeah you can.

46:53

And we said all that's great.

46:55

Tell us when.

46:57

And he said I'll let you know letter

46:58

and each time we went by his office he would say something.

47:00

It was vague and you do not to ask too many questions

47:03

because having information could be dangerous to you

47:08

if you were ever pressured enough to give it up

47:12

so finally he told us you really can't,

47:16

he said I would never be able to explain

47:20

to your parents why you were arrested.

47:24

That would be important to me because one time

47:27

he has seen my mother in a grocery store

47:29

in Palmers Crossing and she'd given him some money

47:31

and said will you give them give this to Joyce.

47:34

He just ran into her accidentally.

47:37

He came on campus and found me

47:39

and gave me this money Mother sent me but finally

47:40

he told us that the sit-in was going to be on such a date

47:44

and it was within a short period of time.

47:51

My memory is not very good but maybe a week or two

47:53

or so and he said what you can do is try to organize

47:57

the students on Jackson State's campus

48:01

and that was a, talk about being ingenious.

48:04

So we began to do things like

48:09

Dorie was present dorm counselor

48:11

so we had a meeting one night and the dormitory,

48:14

regularly scheduled meeting.

48:17

She (mumbling).

48:18

Everything in Mississippi at the

48:21

time was opened with a prayer.

48:23

So I to give, she said you give the prayer

48:24

and I'm talking about oh dear Lord there are

48:27

perilous times ahead.

48:29

Please protect us as we go into this danger and so on.

48:31

The next morning we were called before the dean of students,

48:36

Dean Rogers.

48:40

He asked what did I mean about the prayer and perilous times

48:41

and Dorie, most of you know Dorie,

48:45

she's, well she's a hell raiser and the guys in SNCC were

48:50

scared of her and that's why I say the thesis

48:54

about men dominating women in SNCC,

48:57

well they never dominated Dorie.

49:00

She dominated them if anything (laughs),

49:02

but anyway that's an aside,

49:04

but we, I said what do you mean asking me about

49:06

what I said to my god.

49:12

You have no right to question me about my relationship

49:14

with Jesus and Dorie jumped in and said

49:19

as a man of the cloth how could you

49:22

because he was also an ordained minister.

49:25

So we went off on him and walked out of there

49:28

and he said well you're right, you're right

49:33

and we walked out of there laughing you know.

49:36

(audience laughs)

49:38

but what we began to talk about the,

49:43

well what we actually did was told,

49:49

you spread rumors so they could never get back to you

49:54

but something is gonna happen and we gotta be ready

49:58

as students to support it when it goes down.

50:01

At Tougaloo what happened was 8 Tougaloo students

50:05

or 9 Tougaloo students sat in at the public library,

50:08

the Jackson Public Library sponsored by the NAACP chapter

50:11

on the campus and supported by Medgar and he organized it

50:16

actually and what happened was that because they didn't go

50:20

to Woolworth's or the Crest store because they wanted

50:25

to attack a facility that was taxpayers,

50:29

black people pay taxes too.

50:34

Tax supported by blacks.

50:37

What we did was a number of us at that point got together

50:39

and said start spreading the rumor again that couldn't be

50:45

traced back to the one person that there was going to be a

50:49

prayer-meeting in front of the library at 7 that night.

50:51

So what happened is that the guys got

50:58

it first because they had free range.

51:02

They didn't have curfews like girls and so on.

51:05

So we are the women decided to go to the library so by the

51:08

time we got out there it was seven o'clock.

51:13

Here's Emmett Burns who was also a minister

51:17

and a student was in the middle

51:21

of his prayer, when out of the blue, we heard this noise.

51:25

Stop it, stop it, shut up and everybody was looking.

51:30

Where is this coming from

51:34

and it was Jacob Reddicks the president of the college.

51:36

He ran through.

51:39

He was absolutely out of control.

51:41

He was in a frenzy and like what is this?

51:42

What's going on?

51:45

Stop it and his arms was flailing

51:46

and one of my two roommates, Margaret and Eunice,

51:48

he took Eunice by the shoulder and pushed her

51:52

like that on the ground and then we turned on him

51:55

and the rest, they brought a lot of police on the campus

51:59

that night and the next day we tried to march down

52:07

to the courthouse when the Tougaloo students were

52:12

being arraigned and they shot, all I remember

52:15

is saying oh lord they're killing us.

52:18

It was tear gas canisters being shot

52:20

and it sounded like guns and I hid

52:24

and we ran into different people's homes.

52:28

I never forget there was this older black lady

52:33

and we were just knocking on her front door.

52:36

I heard the radio I reached I had through the the hole

52:38

in the screen and unlatched and ran in the house

52:44

and told her what happened.

52:47

And she said come on and nobody's coming to my house.

52:49

At the funeral home some of the kids were

52:52

hidden in the embalming room.

52:54

It was bedlam but I never forget this lady kept ironing

52:56

and it was on the radio and she kept

53:02

saying it's a low down dirty shame.

53:04

These white folks are treating these children like dogs

53:06

and she, I mean she was quiet and soft-spoken.

53:09

And she was talking to herself you know.

53:11

Eventually they got back to campus.

53:14

They closed school early the next day.

53:16

Sent us home for spring break and when we came back

53:18

it was quieted down.

53:22

They expelled the president of student government.

53:23

Now we kept going to Medgar's office.

53:26

One day he said I want your girls to meet Tom Gaither.

53:30

Tom has come to help us get our freedom

53:37

and we said oh that's good, how are you?

53:41

You didn't ask any question questions.

53:44

I didn't ask him what is it going to do.

53:45

He was core organizer who was had come to organize

53:47

Mississippi to get ready for the freedom rides.

53:51

That's what Mississippi was like before

53:56

Miss Baker's philosophy entered.

53:58

There were a lot of people who carried

54:02

on that work underground less than be killed

54:06

and many were killed even without it.

54:10

Miss Baker came into a state that was no longer totally

54:14

closed but a wedge had been put in and it was being pried

54:18

open because they're were the Vernon Dahmers, Amzie Moores,

54:23

Sister Steptoe, Clyde Kennard, I could go on and on of the

54:28

local men and women

54:34

Miss Haymer, my dear cousin Victoria Gray.

54:35

These are people who have taken the stands.

54:41

So by the time the SNCC people came in, direct action

54:44

couldn't be carried out in Mississippi but we also matured

54:49

to a point but we realized that eating in lunch counters,

54:57

eating at a lunch center was not as important as having the

55:00

right to vote and we thought naively

55:04

that if you get some political power,

55:07

then you can change things.

55:09

We hadn't really progressed yet to the point

55:13

where we understood that economic power was

55:15

very, very important.

55:18

Miss Baker taught of several things.

55:21

First of all I saw her as a kind of mother figure.

55:23

She reminded me quite frankly of my momma.

55:26

I never ever thought of calling her Ella.

55:29

Even today if she was still alive I mean

55:33

she would be Miss Baker.

55:35

Miss Baker was kind of secretive.

55:37

No one has said that but I remember asking her

55:39

over and over and when I lived

55:40

in New York and the 70's when I used to

55:42

go over and visit her,

55:44

Miss Baker tell me about your husband.

55:46

(mumbling)

55:48

(audience laughs)

55:50

It was not until I read Joanne's book that I

55:51

got to know who Miss Baker's husband was and she

55:53

didn't really talk very much about herself or was she

55:56

believed personally and it would have been hard,

55:59

she wasn't a talker about the philosophy

56:05

of things to me as much as she was a doer.

56:08

I understand who she was from her actions.

56:11

I think she felt that we should it was important for all of

56:16

us to have a very, to be firmly grounded, have a strong

56:21

sense of identity because it was a source of our strength

56:25

knowing who we, I think she believed

56:29

that we needed to know we were

56:32

because we were going to some turbulent times and whatever

56:34

strength to you could derive from your roots

56:38

and that's why I believe in part the kind of circle

56:42

and embracing of each other in SNCC as brothers and sisters

56:46

came out of that.

56:50

She believed family and a democratic ethos.

56:53

The concept we saw always say that the people decide

56:56

was very very much Ella Baker.

57:01

She also was anti-hierarchical

57:04

and don't get her talking about black baptist preachers.

57:07

Now that's one that you would go off on.

57:12

She also taught me that courage was,

57:15

and my mother taught the same thing is that

57:20

courage is not the answer to fear.

57:22

It is not the absence of fear,

57:25

but the you keep on even in the face of understanding,

57:27

recognizing and accept that fear is a natural reaction to

57:31

dangerous situations but despite it

57:36

and it goes back again to the strength of your beliefs

57:41

have to be such that you risk something.

57:46

A lot of us probably didn't think that we and I

57:50

heard this more from SNCC guys then from women, that we live

57:53

to see 30 years old or I didn't even think about the next

57:58

month not to consider a long term life span.

58:02

She taught me that she did the others of us that

58:08

we had to work with what we had,

58:12

that we had to be resourceful,

58:15

that whatever was available in the environment you used as

58:18

prudently as possible and that you don't stop your work

58:23

because you don't have a lot.

58:28

I mean the $10 a week check this SNCC sent out

58:30

was actually $9.54 after taxes.

58:34

People like Sam Block slept for the first

58:38

several weeks in his car in Greenwood

58:41

before he found someone who would take him in

58:44

but that was what was meant by being resourceful.

58:47

She very, very much taught us that we had to start

58:53

with where the people are.

58:55

That you don't go in and tell people

58:59

that you're to do this your to do that

59:02

but to get a sense of the lay of the land where the people

59:03

are and then try to begin to build, help to work with

59:07

them to build the consensus and she felt that leadership

59:12

emerged out of the local people, that they already had it

59:15

there but you had to be able as facilitators to

59:21

help to bring it about.

59:25

She also told us that we had to be resilient

59:27

and I learned this at the feet of my parents

59:31

that just because you fall down doesn't mean

59:35

that you don't keep getting up so I think that one of the

59:37

reasons that the nonviolent philosophy was able to prevail

59:41

for as long as it did was because we were taught to be tough

59:45

and to understand that times will get rough, that you'd get

59:50

beaten up, I was never beaten common ever in the situation

59:54

but I spent spent a week in jail and it wasn't easy but we

59:58

also knew that this was just

1:00:01

part of what being involved in this

1:00:07

kind of very dangerous social change work meant.

1:00:11

She told us we have to think on her own.

1:00:15

I can't think of anything more important than her

1:00:17

empowering us to be free thinkers and to be critical

1:00:20

thinkers and that's why I some of those,

1:00:25

you remember that SNCC meeting

1:00:28

I believe in the spring of 63 or 64--

1:00:31

Tape 9, 2000 April

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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