LABORERS KEPT OUT OFLABOR CONFERENCE

hour minImum wage for a eight-hour day,free medical care, social security ancaccident insurance, government compen­sation for people who cannot get full-timtwork and equal hiring practices, workin~

conditions and wages for all workers,

,)'The young civil rights leader campaignedon a platform calling for a $2.00 minimumwage, improved urban renewal programs,repeal of the right to work law and anend to the literacy test for Georgia voters."Talking with the people in my districtto see what they want done" gave Bondthe issues that led to his victory.

"I see this campaign as a chance toprove that the ordinary citizen has deci­sion making power," he emphasized.

Georgia held special primaries in Mayto implement the U.S. Supreme Court's"one-man one-vote" decision for the newlyreapportioned state House of Representa­tives. Twenty-four Negroes were can­didates, 17 running on the Democratic ticketand 7 on the Republican. The general elec­tion is scheduled for June 16. No less than6 Negroes are expected to win, givingGeorgia Negroes their first legislativevoice since Reconstruction.

VICTORY SEEN AS START OF GEORGIA

FREEDOM DEMOCRATIC PARTY

April 14, 60 MFLU members tried toattend the eighth annual Farm Labor Con..;ference, held in Greenville. A Union or­ganizer said that though "the Conferencedealt with the fates of thousands ofNegroes", none were invited by the ~pon­

sors -- the US Department of Labor Bureauof Employment Security, the MississippiDelta Council (an owners' organization), theState Extension Service and the State Em­ployment Office.

:When MFLU members got to the Con­ference, they were stopped by GreenvillePolice Chief Burnley. Then a Delta repre­sentative of the State Employment Servicesaid that eight members could attend theafternoon Conference session. The entiredelegation asked to attend; they also saidthey wanted to go to the morning sessionon cotton-chopping. They were told thatthe morning session was over, even thoughit had begun at 11:00 and the MFLU grouphad arrived at 11:30.

The eight who attended the afternoonmeeting said the Conference Room waslarge enough for 50 to 100 more people.They left early, because the afternoon topicwas uninteresting, and joined the rest ofthe delegation picketing theteting.

MFLU members wantegrams andletters sent to Labor Sec ,ary WillardWirtz protesting that no Negtoes were in­vited and few were allowed to attend.

Union membership is increasing rapidly.More ,than 100 attended a ,workship inShaw to discuss MFLU goals and purposes.Most of the members are cotton-choppers,haulers and laborerS, but the MFLU isalso trying to organize more skilled work­ers, such as tractor drivers.

,SOME BOUGHT OFF BUT MANY JOIN, -

To keep his drivers out of the Union,the owner of the Dunlease plantation nearGreenville offered them an increase of$7.50 for a ten-hour day. Though hisdrivers agreed to accept the increase andnot become MFLU members, drivers onother plantations are interested in the Union:­Seventy of the 450 Greenville Union mem­bers are tractor drivers.

, More than 600 MFLU members have goneon strike in Shaw, Rosedale, Laymontand Glen Allen. Union members in Shawhave cleared and planted a three-acreFreedom Farm to help feed 130 strikersthere, but donations of canned food arealso needed. (Send to COFO, 830 Nelson,Greenville)

(just before this issue of THE MOVEMENTwent to press, we received word that tractordrivers in Washington County, Mississippihave struck on one plantation. The driversand their families - roughly 80 people ­have been evicted. Efforts are being madeto set up a tent city to house them,)

George Balhs

AGRICULTURAL 'WORKERS STRIKE

SNCC Worker Wins Georgia Primary

Freedom' Labor Union Formed

together and the people are talking, heis interested in several things. First, hewants discussien from as many people aspossible. Second, he knows that if a groupof people start talking about their prob­lems, they will find that many of theirproblems are the same. His role then isto find a way to bring that group of peopleto see that many of their individual prob­lems are common problems and that ifthey confront the system together, theymay be - able to do something about theirproblems. •

That's just the beginning. From thatpoint on the good organizer constantlyraises questions: "How is this problem(CONTINUED PAGE: 4, <.;uLUMN 1)

SNCC Communications Director JUlianBond ran in the Democratic Primary asa candidate to represent his district, newlycreateCl through reapportionment, in theGeopgia state legislature -and won.

Twenty-five years old, Bond was theyoungest candidate running in the stateprimaries. He is a leader of the AtlantaStudent Movement and former managing edi­tor of the Atlanta inqUirer, the city'sNegro newspaper.

(For a personal analysis of the Bond campaign by a SNCC field worker, see 'page 3)

HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM HOUSE

COFO WORKERS SING AT A MEETING IN THE

organizer wants to get the people withwhom he has been talking one by one totalk with each other -- first in a smallgroup where they won't shy away fromsaying what they said to him alone, thenin bigger and bigger groups. These biggergroups become organizations.

The first kind of group the organizerbrings together is informal' -- that is,it doesn't have a constitution or electedofficers and special jobs for the people'in the group. He does this because he wantspeople to get comfortable with one anotherbefore they start dividing up work in veryspecialized areas.

This kind of organizing is frequentlyenhanced by mass marches, direct actiondemonstrations and the like. Negroes inMississippi for a long time called theSNCC workers "freedom riders" •They hadseen the freedom rides on television orhad heard about them. The "rides" werea break into Mississippi. 'lf they' hadn'tbeen followed up by door-to-door work withthe people in the State, they would have •been largely meaningless. But, if theyhadn't occured, the door-to-door work mighthave taken many more months r~'-,re itbegan to be successful. Similan) , rheSelma-Montgomery march opened people inPerry, Wilcox, Lowndes, Dallas and othercounties in Alabama fo' the idea that theycould begin' to do something to changetheir lives. The -appropriate balance be­tween direct-action and door-to-door com­munity, organizing is a subject of con­'inuous discussion and debate in SNCC.

GETTING TO THE ROOTSNCC's organizing techniques have been

called "radical", and that is an ,a~curatestatement if by "radical" one means goingto the root of things. Getting to the rootof things means getting to the people,because at the root of America's problemsis the fact that a very few people makemost of the important decisions for mostof the people., When an or~anizer has brought people

""hal Is An Organizer?

POLITICAL, ECONOMIC ACTION

Published byThe Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of Ca lifornia

MOVEMENT-1HI

The Mississippi Freedom Labor Union(MFLU), formed early in April, 1965, hasat least 1200 members working for betterwages and conditions in six Delta regioncounties.

Workers in Shaw, Washington County,who started the MFLU, were being paid

--------------------------------- $1.75 daily for ten hours of cotton-chopping."We felt we should be getting a fair pricefor what we were working for," GeorgeShelton of Shaw said. "Members of ourUnion have gone on strike. They will onlywork for $1.25 an hour."

The Union has been organizing in Bol­ivar, Holmes, lssaquena, Sharkey, Sun­flower and Washington counties. All mem­bers have signed pledges promising to workwith the MFLU, through "strikes, picket­ing, boycotts, collective barg!lining and non­violent _action" to make the people theywork for meet Union demimds"

The MFLU is demanding a $L2~ per

San Francisco:

SOUTI-lWEST GEORGIA-- -- >+-

Organizing efforts will continue in this,SNCC's oldest project and 22 county area,and new ground will be broken in ;;tdjoiningc3unties. Economic, as well as political,organizing will take place. Programs simi­lar to the development of a maid's unionill Americus last summer will continue.A number of volunteers are needed.

ARKANSASThe Arkansas SNCC staff is planning a summer program under local leadership

s'pplemented by 50 to 100 volunteers. Political organizing will be done in 31Arkansas counties. A Freedom Center program will be implemented in f~ur cities:f'''=' Bluff, Uttle Rock, Helena and Forrest City. Classes will be held for young:rgeople and adults on- voter registration, political issues, Negro history, literacyand various skills. Community meetings will shape the, growth of independentpolitical organizations.

SNCC Plans Summer Pro-jects

ALABAMAExpansion will also occur in the Alabama

black belt. Thirty-five SNCC workers arepresently organizing in -ten counties andby the end of the summer- local move­ments should be active in triple that number.The emphasis will be on opening up areasfor further work as well as building organ­izations which are run by local people.

MISSISSIPPI

SNCC will work with the MississippiFreedom Democratic Party's summer pro­gram. Over 400 volunteers will do intensivepolitical organizing. The program will in­clude holding workshops on political ques­tions, building bl~ck clubs and strengthen­ing FOP county organizations. The mostimportant task will be to create an atmos­phere where local people can continue todevelop leadership skills.

There has been a great deal of recentdiscussion of what an organizer is, whathe does, who he is. This discussion goeson in SNCC and among people inter,:estedin SNCC's work. The following are somenotes and thoughts on the work of SNCCfield secretaries, In particular, these ideasseem to me to be applicable to the workdone by those organizers who have beenmost successful in developing local grass::'roots organizations that remain functioningafter the organizer leaves the community'and goes on someplace else.

An organizer likes people -'- all kindsof people. He takes people the way theyare. 1 would say that for most SNCCworkers this attitude applies to' 'the enemy"too -- that SNCC people are not inter­ested in the annihilation of their opponents.Th~s attitude is _especially relevent to ourtime. Relevent practically because a min­ority movement must finally live at peace~with the majority, even if this is afterQe~ conflict. Relevent morally because inthe' time of The Bomb it is good that'here are people in motion, furthering theirinterests, who do not see the eliminationof their opponents as a precondition tothe realization of their values. 1 do notmean-that this coincidence of the practicaland the good always exists; when it doesnot, the decisions to be made are deeplyagoniZing and ultimate goals are sacri­ficed to realism and practicality.

AN ORGANIZER LISTENS

An organizer doesn't like to do all thetalking. He talks; he listens; he asksquestions. He operates on the principle thatthe people in the streets, in the neigh­borhoods, in the fields, in the plants, onthe unemployed lines, on the welfare rolls

- know better than he what they want andneed -- but they don't 'know how to get it.

An organizer begins his work with aconversation. First he talks with peopleone at a time., He's always trying to getpeople talking, so he can listen. Then the

/

Excerpts From a Long Poem

missiles & gunsmoney & cansslots & walls

cause life can be ours

WANT TO SAy ...."

to be planted and grownin 2 Billion wayswe can each call our own

CHARLIE COBB

And somedaymaybeif i give america a chancei'll be able towear the uniformand have the gunof the copthat shotjimmy Lee jackson

cause we want to diecause deep downwe knowWE are lifeand we have been taughtthat's badand must be destroyed(our life)cause that's a threatto

or be the commanderof the armythat will send the bombsto blow-up more peopl

we take these thingsand use them tokill and hurtbe AFRAIDand be Unhappyand to lose lifebut to mostly kill

and the things they haveare likemissiles & gunsmoney & carsslots & walls

So we throwawayour livesand take insteadtheir things

i won't have to cryfor the jimmy lee jacksonscause 1'1l have the right .along with the Responsibilityto kill themfor godand my countrywhich i'll have learned aboutstanding at attentionin uniform

that's what will happento mewhen i'm givenequality••••

and all the peoplewho don't make warsbut just kill and get killed in them

kill some moreor bury the deadwishing mostlythat itall would endso they could go homewhich is not on the battle field killingthat's just Patriotic Dutyand Responsibility

So people who cry forRev Reeband the jimmy Lee jacksonsshould really cryfor all the killingthat has got to stopand all the uniformsthat have got to be torn off

the copin Selmapulls the triggerthatkills for alabamafor god and alabamaas he's been taughtjust 1i10'\ his brother

who foughtor bombedor gassed

in south viet nam last week

"I

THE RIGHT TO PETITIONMrs. Gray and Mr. Featherstone also

supported Congressman john Undsay's(Rep, N.Y.) proposed amendment that wouldempower the President to appoint Federalregistrars to any area where fifty personshave sworn that they have been denied theright to vote. Mrs. Gray said, "We believevery deeply that people who have beenvictimized should be able to directly peti­tion their government for redress of suchgrievances, and that the initiative shouldbe in the hands of the people and not solelydependent on involved political and bureau­cratic procedures."

Another proposal that was supported byboth Mrs. Gray and Mr. Featherstone wasan amendment that would deal with economicand physical intimidation of registeredvoters. Mr. Featherstone suggested lan­guage changes in the proposed bill thatwould "deal with economic intimidation bydenying the benefits of Federal programsto persons impeding others in regard totheir right to vote. The proposal is similarto Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,and would be particularly effective through,for example, the Com m u nit y Credit Cor­poration and other such agricultural pro­grams in the South."

THE LAW CHANGES,WE LAWMEN ARE THE SAME."Though Governor Wallace's term ex­

pires in january of 1967, Sheriff Rainey'sin Neshoba County extends to january 1968,and that of Jackson, Mississippi, law en­forcement officials until july 1969.

"Unless the subcommittee takes forth­right action to require new elections in theareas affected by this bill, the pr.oblem ofcivil rights intimidation, violence and ter­ror will increasingly occupy the Congressand the President for the next severalyears.

"Fourth, as so eloquently stated beforethe subcommittee by the dis tin g u ish e dChairman of the Committee on Educationand Labor, the poor black people of theSouth, who are in the greatest need of theprogram and benefits of the War on Pov­erty, who need most to be brought into theGreat Society, will be waiting on the out­side for years after passage of this billunless a provision for new elections beincluded. Our experiences with the refus­als of the state and local authorities toprovide the benefits of federal programs toall--much less, under grossly discrimina­tory conditions, to the Negro citizens of theSouth--would fill volumes of testimony."

MFDP Leader,

SNCC Worker Testify

"FREE ELECTIONS OR TERROR"

NURSERY SCHOOL FORRURAL CHILDREN IN ALBANY

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

Editorial office: .584 Page Street, San Francisco,California MA 6-4577Editorial Group:Terence CannonBernice Glannjeanette Harrisjean Humejudi LynchBrooks Penney

The Albany Georgia Nursery School opensthis spring for fifteen children of workingmothers. "It will not be the purpose of thenursery school to teach children how toread, count, or memorize nursery rhymes,"emphasizes Mrs. Wendy Roberts, organizerof the school and one of tbe two teachers."Rather, the purpose will be to offer anenvironment where pre-school children cangain feelings of confidence, pride and worthin themselves.". Parental involvement will be a signifi­cant part of the program. The nurseryschool will be family centered. Parentswill be encouraged to attend picnics, qpenhouses, informal discussions and meetingsto better acquaint them with what the schoolis attempting to accomplish.

Several learning areas will be stressed:language development, concept formationand perceptual discrimination.

Underlying all activities and experienceswill be the' idea of instilling a positiveself-image. There will be mirrors so thatchildren can gain a sense of identity. Manyof these children have never seen theirown reflection.

Books and stories that relate to real lifeexperiences of the children will be used.If a child feels good about himself andcan do things himself, the transition tofirst-grade will be a positive. one. Thiswill have a marked effect on his attitudein relation to his education.

DURING THE SUMMER: TRAININGDuring tht< ::;U1l1mer vacation the school

will be a cen er to train people from var­ious communities in the Sout.h in nurseryschool techniques. The trainees will beinvolved in a work-study program of sem­inars, observation and participation.

Training sessions, which will be free,will involve workshops in art, music, dance,literature and science, as well as programsin child development, concept formation,importance of play, and other areas ofnursery school education as applied to theNegro child' from the rural and semi­rural South.

The resource persons will arrive in Al­bany prior to the students to familiarizethemselves with the community. The work­shops will be geared toward the use ofinexpensive ways of making equipment.

Staff persons will accompany trainees totheir communities to talk to people aboutwhat they hope to set up. To ensure thatactual nursery schools will be set up as aresult of the training program, the train­ees must have broad financial support ­from local groups working on poverty pro­posals, civic clubs, churches and civilrights clubs.

\.

The risks of war and the effect of wardemands for natonal unity and a halt ofsocial movements at home led tb,e SNCCExecutive Committee to endorse the DecentMarch on Washington against the war inVietnam, sponsored by the Students for aDemocratic Society. Among the speakers atthe March was SNCC field secretary RobertParris. Among those participating in theMarch was a bus load of Mississippi Negroeswho came to Washington to demand a changein our Vietnam policy.

Who decides is intimately related to whatis decided. The problem today is to get theAmerican people' into the American deci­sion-making I:focess.

Mrs. Victoria Gray of the MississippiFreedom Democratic Party (MFDP)andRalph Featherstone of SNCC testified be­fore a House Juciciary Subcommittee con­cerning Johnson's Voting Rights Bill. Bothconcurred with numerous other civil rightsgroups and individuals in asking that anamendment calling for new elections withinsix to nine months in the affected areas beadded to the legislation.

In his testimony. Mr. Featherstone said:"First, it should be pointed out that many

of the states most affected by the bill willnot hold state or local elections for thenext two or more years. This means thatdemocracy--in its true meaning of gov-

• • ernment by the people as distinct from the

bill's present thrust of only the right tovote--is years away in many of thesestates.

"Second, it has historically been true inthe South that the Negro has been deniedthe right to vote either through violenceor intimidation or through restrictive vot­ing qualifications and frequently throughboth.

"We believe that passage of the billwithout requIring new elections will leaddirectly to a degree of terror and intimi­dation yet unseen in the civil rights move­ment. This bill in effect leaves violence andintimidation as the only out for those whowould prevent Negro voting.

"Third, much of the national revulsionSubscriptions: and disgust with racial events in the South$1 per year: individual copies. concern law enforcement and police bru-$20 per thousand per month, tality. Who can forget the murder of thebulk sub scriptions. three civil rights w 0 r k e r s in N e s hob a

• .. County, Mississippi, the murder of James

Reeb, and, in the same spirit, the refusalof Governor Wallace to do his duty to pre­vent a potential mass murder on the marchfrom Selma to Montgomery.

LIFE T5 EEDITORIAL: THE 50 TH

The question, "Who decides?" , was raisedin the April issue of The Movement byJimmy Garrett and related to the Southernmovement. But isn't it time to ask thequestion of all America?

Who decicies the fate of our cities? Urbanrenewal legislation requires "maximumfeasible citizen participation" ir. the re­newal process. Yet ineveryNegrocommun­ity across the land urban renewal' is oneof the most despised Federal programs.The slogan, "urban renewal is Negro re­moval", is common in the ghettos of theNorth. Nor is the feeling limited to Negroes.In some cases it is Mexican-Americanremoval, in some Puerto Rican, in others·senior citizens of old Anglo-Saxon sto'ck.Each of these groups is poor and powerless.Urban renewal agencies do not operate i.ntheir behalf.

Who decides? Perhaps it is the banks,the savings and loan associations, and theprofessional agency personnel who mustkeep renewal projects going if their Fed­eral grants are to continue.

Take the War On Poverty: there is aFederal requirement for citizen partici­pation. Yet organizations of the poor andthose representing poverty neighborhoodshave had to fight city poverty councils andmayors to force compliance with the lan­guage of the legislation which initiatedthe war on poverty. By and larg~. thepoor have had to fight the established socialwelfare agencies (with their -respectableBoards of Directors) and the political ap­pointees of c~ administrations.

In looking at urban renewal and the waron poverty it would be a mistake to viewthe problem simply as one of city ad­ministrations sabotaging well intentionedand well planned Federal programs.

It is impossible to specify thf' complexinterplay of Executive and Congressionalpower here. "Ufe With Lyndon", in othercolumns of this paper, indicates the waypower is used by the Executive' Branch ofthe Government. No doubt key legislators,many of them Southern, are able to holdup programs initiated by the ExecutiveBranch. Suffice to say that neither thePresident nor Congress have' made anystartling efforts to pass or implement le­.gislation that would begin to meet the prob­lems of the cities or the poor. Nor havethey been outspoken critics of the imple­mentation of thelOe programs when it failsto include participation by the poor.

Let's put the whole question another way,"Whose government is it?" Is it the gov­ernment of the people or of the narrowvested interests -- the corporations, thefinancial centers of power?

Ask the queston of our schools: Liberaleducational theory suggests that studentslearn by making their own mistakes, that

. ideas and action are intimately related, thatstudents should be able to relate actionand ideas and that universities and collegesare independent centers of intellectual andsocial activity serving as reservoirs for thebest values of our ~ociety. But what hap­pens? The Administration of the Universityof California did everything it could tofrustrate the efforts of students to relateideas to action. Schools daily trade theirindependence for grants from Federal ag­encies and large private foundations. Pro­fessors look more li:<e businessmen hust­ling for another contract, too busy to takeseriously their obligations to students orto independent intellectual inquiry. lf the­values of colleges and universities are gOIngto be preserved, it wilt largely be due tothe work of the students.

Finally, the question, • 'Who decides?"must be raised regarding the formation ofAmerican foreign policy. Has there beenany great public debate over the war inVietnam? Has the government given eventhe minimum of information necessary forserious debate? The answer is clearly,"no". For that reason, pUblic discussionof Vietnam itself becomes a political actby suggesting that there are two sides tothe question -- not just the official viewof Rusk-Bundy-Johnson. james Reston,writing recently in the S.F. Chronicle,noted that President johnson now acts onthe advice of a handfull of close advisors.These advisors have, according to manyreports in the press, closed themselvesoff from criticism of our policy in Viet­nam. Policy in the Dominican Republic nowseems to be determined as a result ofthe debate between the CIA and the FBIover how many Communists belong to therebel forces.

THE AR JEeT PAGE 3

Nevv Territory, Nevv Methods

SOME PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON THE BOND CAMPAIGN

This summer the Student Non-Violent Co­ordinating Committee plans to enlarge itspresent staff of six staff workers and onevolunteer in Arkansas with 50 to 100volun­teers. The project will concentrate on voterregistration and community organization; ,Freedom Schools and Community Centersare also planned. Presently the project isoperating in 13 counties centered aroundFreedom Centers in Pine Bluff, Helena, andForrest City; but with the coming of thesummer and tbe coming of the fifty volun­teer's, the plans call for the project's en­largement into 31 counties in the state'sDelta area.

NEW VOTING LAWS ARE KEY) As of March 1st, all elections in Ar-ffrtsas must be held under the provisions of

j1 new registration procedure that wasadopted in a state-wide referendum lastNov. 3rd. This new amendment to thestate constitution outlaws the poll tax (peoplehad to re-register every year). sets' up asystem of permanent registration with onlyage and residence requirements, makes thecounty clerk the Registrar instead of thesheriff, and puts in provisions to safe­guard against election fraud (which wasrampant in the past.) It is around thesenew provisions to the state constitution thatthe Arkansas project plans to center itsactivities.

49TH IN EVERYTHING-Arkansas is 49th in per capita income,

49th in money spent per pupil in publicschools, and 49th in teachers' salaries.55% of the students (black and white)graduated by Arkansas colleges every yearleave the state; with 6.5% of the popula­tion in general leaving the state between1950-60. (Arkansas is first in one thing,however--the University of Arkansas hasthe number one football team in the nation.

- - - - - EXCEPT POLITICAL POWERPolitically, Arkansas has the most pow­

erful delegation, man for man, in the UnitedStates Congress. Representative E.C. Gath­erings is the third ranking Democrat on theAgriculture Committee and is the chair­man of the subcommitte~ on cotton. Rep­resentative Wilbur Mills is the chairmanof the Ways and Means Committee. Rep­resentative Oren Harris is the chairman ofthe Commerce Committee and Represen­tative James Trimble is the fifth rankingDemocrat on the Rules Committee. SenatorWilliam Fulbright is the chairman of theForeign Relations Committee and SenatorJohn L. McClellan is the chairman of theGovernment Operations Committee and isthe third ranking Democrat on the JudiciaryCommittee.

On the state level, the D e moe rat i cmachine is very strong. Orval Faubus is inhis sixth term as governor and somemembers of the State Legislature makehim look green. However, Arkansas is nowunder court order to reapportion both stateand federal districts--this may changethings considerably. In addition, the Re­publican Party is gaining strength andalthough it has nothing really to offereither the Negro or the poor in general inthe state, it can break the seemingly un­breakable Democratic machine.

The State of Arkansas has two distinctlydifferent areas. The northern and western

• parts of the state are in, the Ozark moun­, tain country. This area is very sparsely

Populated and has almost no Negroes.There are about ten counties in the statethat have no Negroes living in the entirecounty. This is because the system ofslavery never flourished in this section forthe land was not conducive to the planta­tion system. (A white community projecthas been considered for this area.)

According to the 1960 census report,Ark a n s a s has ~ total pop u I a t ion of1,786,222. Around 450,000 (25%) of theseare Negroes. Somewhere in the vicinity of210,000 of these are of voting age and as ofOctober 1, 1964, (the last time anyonecould register), there were approximately85,000 registered Negroes in the state.

LIVING CONDITIONSBetween 1950 and 1960,8.9% of the Negro

people left the state. The reasons for thisunusually high migration lie in the deplor­able conditions under which people -- es­pecially Negro people -- live in Arkansas.The Negroes who remain live mostly inthose counties bordering on the Mississ­ippi River and the ~outhern counties of the

~

state. Some of these counties have as high as61% Negro population. Most have between;30-50%.

In rural areas, 40% of all Negro dwel­lings are "deteriorated" and 41 % are"dilapidated." (Th.e U.S. Census Bureaudefines "dilapidated" as housing which"does not provide safe and adequate shel­ter and its present condition endangersthe health, safety, or well-being of theoccupants." ) Forty-four percent of allNegro housing is without piped water; 66%is without flush toilet facilities or any atall.

The median income of white families in1960 was $3,678, that of Negro families,$1,636. Thirty percent of all Negro fam­ilies in Arkansas exist on less than $1,000

JAMES JONES. DIRECTOR OF THE

SNCC ARKANSAS PROJECT

per year. (Th.e U.S. Government sets thefigure of $3,600 per year as that incomebelow which a family may be said to bepoverty-striken -- 80% of the Negro fam­ilies fall into'this catagory). The medianyearly income for individual whites is $1,788that of individual Negroes, $712. Only 3.2 %of Negroes over 25 years old, living inrural areas have completed high school.GenE!rally, all conditions of life are worsein the rural areas than in the cities, andmost of the Negroes live in rural regions.

SNCC IN ARKANSASAfter working briefly in Little Rock,

SNCC moved into Pine Bluff and the sur­rounding counties in ear ly 1963. BecauseSNCC has been under:;taffed since the be­ginning, it was not until February 1964,that work was expanded to Helena and thecounties in that area of the state. Latethat year another project in Forrest Cityand surrounding counties was begun. Thestate headquarters was then moved fromPine Bluff to Little Rock.

At the' present time there are threemain project areas with offices in For­rest city, Helena, and Pine Bluff. Out ofthese three field offices, and the stateoffice, thirteen counties are presently beingworked.

PINE BLUFFNEGRO CANDIDATES

The project in Pine Bluff covers fourcounties -- Jefferson, of which Pine Bluffis the county seat, Lincoln, Cleveland, andDesha. The boundaries of this project area,as well as the others, are not fixed, byany governmental lines and can be changedat any time. Due to the lack of staffmost of the work in the past two yearshas been limited to Jefferson and Lin­coin counties. In Pine Bluff the projectbegan with sit-ins in early 1963, out ofwhich was formed the Pine Bluff Move­ment. Since that time the voter registra­tion of Negroes in the area has nearlydoubled, bringing the total to about 40%of the eligible Negroes. Jefferson Countyand Pine Bluff in particular, have come along way in the past two years -- CivilRights workers are not frequently arrestedany more and people are willing to talkabout opening up job opportunities for Ne­groes. Of course. nothing much has beendone, but it is a start. Future plans forPine Bluff call for a Freedom School­Community Center which will house a li-

brary and include training workshops forthe jobs that are opening up for Negroes.

Political strides have also been made inthe area. Last fall, two local Negroes ranfor positions on the School Board. ArthuJ;"H. Miller won by approximately 600 '0540. (His opponent attempted to contestthe election but could not prove his alle­gations.) Two candidates ran for state re­presentative from Jefferson County (fortwo different positions). One was Ben Grin­age, presently the project director for thearea, the other James A. Bagsby, chairmanof the Pine Bluff Movement. Both lost butthe voter turnout was encouraging andplans are being made for the 1966 elections.

SNCC first went into Lincoln County inthe spring of 1963, but harrassment hascontinued longer in that county than inP~ne Bluff. SNCC workers 'were arrestedcC?,nstantly on minor traffic violations (oncefour were arrested in a period of oneweek). On one occasion, a worker wasarrested at two o'clock in the afternoonfor not having a light over his licenseplate. On election day last fall, one of the

> ,.' workers was beaten in front of a polling<.J

, "place. Local people who have cooperatedhave also been threatened and harrassed.

Despite this, registration has increasedand a Lincoln County Civics Club created.In November, William Green, a local farmer,ran as an independent candidate for staterepresentative from Lincoln County. At­tempts were made to keep his name offthe ballot, but failed. (92 names on thepetition were challenged, but sufficient peo­ple came to, court to testify that the signa­tures in question were in fact theirs.)Mr. Green lost the election and is notthrough with his troubles. In the electionfor Justice of the Peace in his townshiplast fall, he ran without opposition, however,when he appeared to be sworn in for hissecond term, he was told that his electionas ' Justice was invalid because his nameappeared on the ballot twice (once for Jus­tice, once for state rep). The refusal toswear him was in clear violation of thestate constitution.

HELENAINTIMIDATIONS

SNCC first went into Helena in November1963, but because of a lack of staff andpolice harrassment, were forced to' leave.Three months iater two SNCC workers re­turned to Helena and there has been some­one there ever since. The Helena projectincludes four counties bordering the Miss­issippi River (phillips, Monroe, Lee, and.Arkansas), but lack of staff has limited

I approached the campaign with some mis­givings and ambivalence ...! felt, and I stillfeel, the threat that American "politics"has on people who "play the game" ...On the other hand I felt that Julian on thefloor of the Georgia State Legislaturewouldinherently focus attention on the politicsthat he ,articulated. In Julian's politics I

, have. faith, so in the end, I based mydecision to work on knowing Julian ..•

What is clearest to me in the cities,is that the politics that runs things isout of the hands of the people who needto use it most ...Julian's campaign; then,was a chance for me to explore the poss­ibilities of people being able to use thepolitics that exist. Within i!le confines oftoday's "political realities" I don't thinkwe've (SNCC), ever had such a real op­portunity before.•.

Like most communities, the ·i36th Dis­trict has been ripped and torn apart. Ju­lian was like a sewing needle .•. it is im­portant to understand that, during the cam­paign, Julian was SEEN and KNOWN. Peo­ple voted for someone they knew and feltcomfortable with. Very important: a pol­itician who took the time to walk streets,knock on doors and know people, a poli­tician who was not threatened by a con­stituency that was organized around is­sues and not the politician. I think thatliterally 100% of the people I canvassedhad never had anyone come to their house,sit down and seriously talk to them abouttheir community. Imagine a politician sug­gesting that he wasn't the most relevantthing in politics! Imagine that politicianwinning I

We did not need the Negro democraticmachine in terms of the politics we wereorganizing, which was politics that did notbelong to the politicians, which meant that

most work to Helena and West Helena.For the first six months police har­

rassment was fairly constant. On one oc­casion three staff members were arresteein the same afternoon; two were chargedwith inciting a riot, the third with cartheft, the car in question belonging to oneof the other workers. On another occasion,the police broke into the house where theSNCC people were living and arrested themfor vagrancy; their bond was set at $1500each. The police are always arresting SN:CCworker:s and people who are working withthem for minor charges which, when totaledup, has come to mean quite a bit of timeand money...- On three occasions the police have-brokeninto mass meetings and intimidated thepeople attending. Last summer several

':houses were fired into by whites and therewas an unsuccessful attempt to bomb theFreedom House. When a mob of about 150whites gathered on the road in front of thehouse on a hot July night last summer theSNCC workers inside were forced to fleeand spend the night sleeping in a corn field.

Despite this 2,000 Negroes were regis­tered and parts of the Civil Rights Billwere tested. The voter registration amend­ment just barely carried Phillips Countyand it was the increased Neg-ro vote that

, did it.

--.fORREST CITYIn December 1964, two SNCC workers

moved into Forrest City, the seat of St.Francis county, to open up a new project.The Forrest City project covers five coun­ties (St. Francis, Mississippi, WooIrud,Cross and Crittenden), three of which borderthe Mississippi River.

Up u~til now most of the a(;tivity has,been in making contacts and talking to

people about the kinds of programs theywish to have in their areas. There hasbeen some testing of public accomodationsin Forrest City -- this is what the peoplehave wanted to do.

Forrest City has experienced consid­erable industrial expansion, for a city of12,000, in the last fewyears. Two factorieswith a combined work-force of almost 2,500have moved into the area. Both hire a fewNegroes but only in menial capacities.One of the plants has a union but theother is unorganized. One of the imme­diate things that Negro residents of For­rest City talk about is wanting more andbetter jobs at these places. A letter hasbeen sent to the' SNCC Research Depart­ment asking them for all the informationpossible on these businesses.

we were taken seriously by this machinebecause if we w"n we couldn't be control­led by them, which seriously threatens theoperation of this machine. Especially ifwh~t we do catches on and extends itself.Leroy Johnson (Negro Senator) wants "pol­iticians" that he can control and use forhis political ends ...

Negro politics in Georgia is ~till newenough and open enough for Negroes, toforce a wHole new concept of what poli­tics is.

I want to repeat that last sentence:"Negro politics in Georgia is still newenough and open enough for Negroes toforce a w,hole new concept of what politics

~is," not to mention other deep south states.lmmediately after it became clear thatJulian had won, I thought that we (SNCC)~ould have pulled off the same thing in

,all of the Districts where Negroes hadwon. There were districts in Georgia wherenobody even bothered to qualify. I guessthese seats are still open... lmagine tenSNCC guys in the Georgia House com­mitted to organizing their districts to usingthe seats in the House to meet communityneeds defined by the community.

I think that what we will increasinglyfind, especially in the urban South, arechances to explore American politics andthe ways it can be shaped (if it can ataU) to meet our needs. This can mesh andhook up with the radical forms of ourown (like FDP).

Admittedly there are dangers inherentin this exploration. (pressure of tradi­tional politics, isolation, the fact that somepeople will be corrupted.) However, I amfascinated with the idea of communitiesmoving in and out of traditional Amer­ican political forms. It implies a cre,,:-

( CONTINUED PAGE 4, COJ...UMN Z)

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~wzSEND SNCC

YOUR GREEN STAJ':TPS

SNCC PICNIC

BAY AREA EVENTS

JACK MINNIS

.During the Memorial Day Weekend theMid-Peninsula Friends of SNCC office inPalo Alto was broken into. Papers werestrewn about the floor, and water waspoured over everything. Tv,v typewriterswere sledge hammered, and part of themailing list was stolen.

LIFE WITH LYNDON IN THE GREATSCCIETY/

THE POVERTY MAIDS

There will be a SNCC Picnic on Sunday,june 20, at Indian Campgro.und, TildenPark, Berkeley, from 2' p.m. til dark.Dinner is at 5 p.m. - food, beer. Donation$1.25, children 75¢. Money will be sentto Southern Voter Registration Drive.

NORTHERN OFFICEVANDALIZED

On February I, Lyndon announced that he was launching yet another battle inthe war on poverty. He said he had instructed his Secretary of Labor to use existingfunds and laws for what he called his Job Development Program. Lyndon said thatthere is a labor shortage in employment areas such as domestic service, and hewanted Secretary Wirtz to do something to provide more trained servants forfamilies which don't like to do their dirty work for themselves.

The Washington Post calls the new program "dignifying the service jobs thatare necessary to running a modern home and meeting the needs of family lifetoday." The Post did not explain just how you--could inject dignity of any kind intoa relationship which requires that one person, in order to live, bind himself to thepersonal service of another. Nor did the Post explain what's to become o( thosefamilies that can't afford to hire someone to run "a modern hoine" for them. Butthe Post did describe one of Lyndon's job Development Programs which is underwayin LaGrange, Georgia.

Lyndon's Office of Manpower and Training (OMAT) got together with a retiredschool teacher, Emmy Murray, in LaGrange. OMAT put up the money to redecoratean old roadhouse, and to equip it with various househo'ld appliances. Emmy is nowteaching prospective household servants "cleanliness and work discipline", whichis to say she's teaching Negro women how to ackiress Miss Anne and Mr. Charlie .J­

with the proper degree of deference, teaching them how to shuffle their feet and tuP'~

their forelocks and convince the white folks of their profound satisfaction with a .•.life of servitude,

The top wage available to the best-trained household servants in LaGrange -­that is, the top graduates of Emmy's careful instrtiction -- is $4 per day. If the ser­vant works every 'day of the year (and this is usually the case) she makes $1,460per year. This is just half of what Lyndon says (out of the other side of his mouth)is necessary for a minimum subsistence, and about one fourth of what is reallynecessary for a decent standard of living. And this is being done with federal taxmoney from Lyndon, the Second Great Emancipator of Black America.

There are two kinds of people in LaGrange who will be employing Emmy'sgraduates. The first kind is represented by the Callaway family. They own Call~­

way Mills, a textile manufacturer which is LaGrange's largest employer, em­ploying more than 3,000 persons in a town of 23,000, The Callaway family ownsthe mills in a peculiar way. They don't own the stock of the corporation personally.Rather they control tax-exempt foundations, which, in turn, own the stock. In thi:;way dividends paid by the mills to the foundations are free of federal incometax.

Callaway Mills received more thajl. $600,000 of federal money last year aspart of Lyndon's program of subsidiZing the textile manufacturers. lf they usedall this to employ household servants for the various branches of the family,they'd be able to hire about 410 servants at the going wage. Thus the Callawayscould use the money Lyndon gave them, which is tax free, to employ more ser­vants than an Oriental Potentate, the servants having been trained to the peakof servile perfection with money supplied by Lyndon from the federal taxes fromwhich the Callaways are exempt.

The second kind of prospective employers for Emmy's graduates are the workersin the Callaway Mills. Diane McKaig, who works in the Atlanta office of Lyndon'sLabor Department, explains that these Callaway employees don't make muchmoney (she doesn't explain why, nor does she compare the amount they makewith the amount the Callaways make), so the servants - - she calls them "home­making aides", a bit ,of double - talk worthy of Lyndon himself - - have to be"taught to make low-cost dishes, including surplus foods:' She doesn't say whetherthe servants will be pre" ri.ng s rplus foods for themselves, or for the Callawayemployees - - perhaps bot11, considering the general level of wages.

The white female Callaway employees, of course, can't work in the mills unlessthey can find ,Negroes to care for their children and homes while they're at the

,mills. Since the Callaways don't pay their workers much the workci"s can't paytheir, Negro servant much. So the upshot of Lyndon's new job program, is to pro­vide cheap and well-trained servants for the Callaway employees, at a price theemployees can afford to pay without reqUiring a raise from the Callaways.

The Callaways exploit their white workers at low wages, and the white workersexploit theu- Negro servants at even lower wages. Lyndon lavishes hundreds ofthousands a year on the Callaways, in the form of textile subsidies, and prOVidesfederal money with which to train Negro servants for the Callaways and theirwhite mill employees.

CHARLES COBB

eeded

For applications contact your nearest

SNCC office

delegati or,

the racist Mi ssi ssippi Congressional

The purpose of the lobby is to unseat

SNCC stoff and FDP leadership.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Student lobbyi sts wi" join in seminars,

workshops, ond Freedom Schools,with

Woshington, D.C. in behalf of the

to join in 0 massive student lobby in

Challenge

Volunteers

Some Personal ReflectionsContinued from Page 3

tion of. instability in these political forms,created by people whose needs are not beinll;and probably will not be met by theseforms anyway. I think it is to our advan­tage to have oppressive government un-:stable. They have to release some oftheir control to steady themselves, orthey try and steady themselves by tighten­ing control which heightens the potentialfor rebellion...

I think that SNCC needs to commit it­self to an all-out effort to get an over­whelming turnout for this election ',' .,The concept we need to focus attentionon is that of people's right to shape anduse politics. lf that can happen in anyone district in Georgia (or anywhere) itposes a threat to current politics all over ...

Julian's opponent was a minister. I thinkthis was the first time since I've been,south, that I've seen a large reactionagainst the ambitions of a minister. Ap­parently, people just draw the line at havinga minister overtlY' involved in "politicaldecision making" ....

What I learned most from the campaignwas, that in the final analysis, organiZingin ~h", urban is the same as in rural areas(though the specific of why may be dif­ferent). What people need -- all over I-­is something they can grab hold to, orbuild, that is their own ....

I found that my own fears about control­ling people or manipulating them blurredin the give and take dialogue (which impliesgive and take of decision making and ideas)with the community. Within the context

,of julian's campaign, at least, I was partof that community.

for power, and there are two basic sourcesof power: money and people. The powerof people can' only be brought to bear whenthose people are organized in democraticorganizations which they control, and inwhich they make the decisions on program

'and policy. The organizer is the catalystwho makes this source of power possible.To organize people who have been exploitedall their lives is a tough job. It demandsof an organizer that he bring out of peoplewhat they have within them but have beentold isn't there -- because they aren't"educated" and "qualified" or because theyare Negroes or because they are poor.To do this' requires of the organizer thathe know who he is and that he not confusewhat he wants with what the people withWhom 'he is working want. Organizing in thisway finally requires a self-disipline anda respect and love for other men that isnot cominon in The Great Society.

MIKE MILLER

CONT. FROM FRONT PAGE

MONEY AND PEOPLETo sum up. The major problem in the.

country today is that a very few people'make the decisions for most of us -­black and white. Basically, these are pol­itical decisions, decisions haVing to do withwar or peace, free and open discussionor elite manipulation of the public, spread­ing of the wealth of the land or greaterconcentration of it. Politics is the struggle

WI7I~-:r;' IS AN ORGANIZER?

thilt:;ydu're working on 'z'elated to thatother' problem we were talking about lastweek?" And, "Who decided that Negroescouldn't vote?" And, "Where did he get

,'the money to run his campaignl' And,, ',"WhY did they give him that money?"

"'Ai1dso forth. These are clearly not neutral, questions. They make people begin to think'about what democracy means, and what

"one-man, one-vote means.' The organizeruses the technique of asking questions be­qms,ehe knows that if he gives the answers,

,peopie won't have to struggle to come to, their'own answers: and, when JJeople d,on't

have tei struggle for something it doesn'tmean _too much to them. Bui: when theygrasp it themselves because ,they found itout, then it can never be taken from them.

Asking questions is part of working your­self out of a job. And a good organizerdoes that too. At some point, people in thecommunities get the knack of asking ques­tions. They begin to see relationships be­tween things in their environment. It's time_ -------------------1,for the organizer to move on. His job hasbeen done: he can go on' to the next countyor state and start work again. The psycho­logical drain that results from this kinaof work is tremendous. It goes againsteverything we are brought up to think ishow one operates. Instead of working your­'self into something and keeping peoplefrom knowing what you know, you do thevery opposite. Let people know what youknow and hope that they will take overyour job. Another important aspect of thisprocess is giving people information thatthey need to make decisions and lettingthem know where they can get more infor­mation. 'This is one of the major roles ofthe SNCC research department.

There are two fundamental things that 1think can be said about SNCC organizerswho do effective work.' These two thingshave to do with the whole character ofSNCC and the movement in the South.

First, SNCC organizers are primarilyconcerned with the most disenfranchisedpeople of the Deep South. They know thata movement for basic social change cannotbe based on the thin layer of Negro mid­dle-class people in the South. Rather, theyseek a movement based' and led by themillions of domestics, day laborers, farm

- worker's and unemployed Negroes of theblack belt. And they hope that working andunemployed whites in the South will them­selves bagin to raise the issues of equalrights, democratic participation and a de­cent standard of living that are now beingraised by the movement.

Second, SNCC organizers aren't afraidto raise those questions, which, when dis­cussed by local people, frequently lead tofundamental challenges to the whole systemof segregation, degredationand exploita­tion in the Deep South -- and in the country.

This approach leads to some of the prob­lems Friends of SNCC have in workingin the North -- and to some of the questionsraised by people about SNCC. It meansthat SNCC isn't projected -- local peopleand local organizations are. It means thatSNCC doesn't have exact timetablesand beautiful programs on paper. lf we didthat, it would mean that we, not the localpeople, were really making the decisions.This is the meaning of that SNCC decisionthat summer projects will be held onlyif they are planned by local "people'sconferences" in the Black Belt states.Mavbe this is the difference betweenJ)NCCand what I call "press release revolu­tionaries" -- those who-announce big plansin the mass media but who don't haveany people with them when it comes toimplementing those plans.

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