SNCC Gathering Hears New Directions for Movement

John Lewis, SNCC's 24-year-old chairman, who has been arrested once for every year of this life, delivered the closing address of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's Spring Conference (March 27-29): Roughly 200 Negroes and 100 whites, mainly students, listened to his words in the chapel of the Gammon Theological Seminary, in Atlanta, Ga.

"Our people, they're pushed against a wall. They're saying they want it all and want it now. Those of you who work in the fields of the Mississippi delta know that our people are restless...In 1964 the demand is for something basic, the right to vote, to determine our own destiny...We will not only change the South, we will change the whole structure of the country...It must be, as much as possible, a nonviolent overthrow..."

After applauding Lewis, the audience stood, clasping hands, swaying and huming, while a minister gave the final prayer,"...and Lord, give us the courage to do what we know is right, to face the police with their guns and dogs and help our people this year, in 1964..."

In response 300 voices sang softly, almost in a whisper, the last words of the conference, "We shall overcome someday."

SNCC'S Philosophy

Since its start in 1960, SNCC's philosophy and approach have changed a great deal. When the group began it hoped merely to coordinate the numerous student action organizations that were springing up throughout the South. Few people thought that Studet Nonviolent Coordinating Committee would become a movement in its own right, initiating action and carrying out programs with an army of field workers.

In the fall of 1961 SNCC began the effort which has made it one of the most important groups in the freedom movement. Staff workers moved into the Black Belt areas and started voter egistation dives.

Today it is clear that the vote is only the beginning. SNCC's slogan is "One man, one vote," but many members speak of "One man, one job." In Lewis's words, "...There must be some basic change in our economic and political stucture... The masses must rise up to bring the changes about."

In discussing the role of the vote in the assault on segregation, the students quickly linked the goals of the southern freedom movement to those of labor and disamament. While talking of nonviolence in Mississippi, they spoke of the strikes and layoffs in Hazard, Ky., and the Mexican-American political victories in Crystal City, Texas.

Such broad thinking typified the attitudes of SNCC members at the meeting. Most of them believe that they are in the vanguard of a revolution, and feel the responsibility of leadership. Those who work in the Deep South know that their own lives and the lives and futures of others depend on their ability to make correct decisions. For this reason SNCC wokers at the conference analyzed problems from every angle, looking to the experiences of other American social movements as a basis for their own actions.

One part of SNCC's philosophy has not changed: the firm commitment to nonviolence. Some workers may joke about starting "a small Mau-Mau" or quietly express their belief that unless victories come soon in the South, race warfare could erupt. But these fears only increase the sense of urgency and dedication toward proving that nonviolent tactics can succeed. It seems tragically certain that there will be violence in Mississippi this summer; yet it is equally certain that such violence will not come from anyone associated with SNCC.

The Summer Project

One of the major purposes of the spring conference was to plan the Mississippi Summer Project. This massive attack on segregation in Mississippi is being organized by the Council of Federated Organizations, a statewide organization composed of SNCC, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Viewing Mississippi as the central battlefield in the fight for equal rights, COFO aims at recruiting up to 2000 workers, mostly out-of-state students, for a many-faceted attack on the political, social and legal structures of the state.

The largest number of workers will participate in the voter registration drive which is to operate in every rural county and important urban area in the state. These workers will be involved in a summer-long drive to mobilize the Negro community and to develop local leadership and organization.

At present, about 20,000 Negroes, of a total of over 400,000 eligible, are registered in the state. The registration campaign will enroll new voters in Freedom books, closely resembling the official state rolls but lacking a literacy requirement. These books will then serve as a basis for challenging the official records and the outcome of the coming elections.

On a more direct level, workers will conduct the campaigns of four congessional candidates, (one of whom will challenge the senate seat of John Stennis (D-Miss.). They will also organize a Freedom delegation to the Democratic National Convention in an attempt to upset the official Mississippi delegation.

To help in the development of political leadership, COFO will establish ten daytime and three resident Freedom Schools--"to de-brainwash the kids," one SNCC worker said. The schools, which will operate five days a week, will include remedial work in reading, math, and grammar, as well as seminars in political science, the humanities, journalism, and creative writing. About 100 teachers--many of them professionals on summer vacation--will instruct the students, who will be 10th, 11th, and 12th graders.

In addition to the Freedom Schools, community centers will provide social services normally denied the Negro community in Mississippi. Staffed by experienced social workers, nurses, librarians, and teachers in the arts and crafts, the centers will provide instruction in hygiene, pre-natal and infant care, adult literacy and vocational training. The 30,000 books now in SNCC's Geenwood, Miss. office will be distibuted to the six centes now being planned.

Several smaller projects will complete the COFO campaign. Some workers will do extensive research into the political and economic structure of Mississippi to provide background material for COFO's political work. Others--about 30 Southern white students who have recently joined the civil rights movement--will enter white communities to try to extend to poor white areas the movement's attack on bigotry, poverty, and ignorance.

Mississippi's Reaction

One thing is sure: Mississippi isn't going to take the invasion lying down. The state legislature has been busy in recent months making laws to welcome visitors--enlargement of the state highway patrol and restrictions on picketing, demonstrations, breach of the peace and boycott. One bill currently before the legislature would effectively outlaw all of COFO's Freedom Schools.

"If the school bill goes through, it's guaranteed that everyone--all the demonstrators and teachers--will go to jail this summer," Mrs. Dorothy Zellner, head of the Boston Friends of SNCC, said recently.

Other preparations include the purchase of an armored vehicle by Jackson police and the contruction of large compounds to serve as emergency jails. In addition, a number of Mississippi cities have agreed to pool their police forces in case of civil rights demonstrations.

How much these tactics will be used is anybody's guess. The rumors which make their way northward range from "wholesale jailing" to "sporadic harrassment." COFO recruiters do not hesitate to warn prospective applicants of the possibility that they may be beaten, or shot at, and are discouraging northern white girls from applying. The real truth right now is that probably no one--not even Mississippi officials--really knows what will happen.

The Two Souths

One of the questions confronting SNCC is whether or not nonviolence can succeed in Mississippi and the "hard-core" South. Howard Zinn, former chairman of the History Department of Spelman College and presently a SNCC advisor, offered the Theory of the Two Souths at the conference. In the First South, which inclcdes Atlanta, Ga., Richmond, Va., and Nashville, Tenn., nonviolent sitins, mass demonstrations, and boycotts eventually result in integrated lunch-counters and de-segregated schools, he said. But in the Second South, the Black Belt area--Albany, Ga., Danville, Va., and Jackson, Miss.--nonviolent actions end only in broken bones, jail terms, and death.

SNCC field workers are now seeking methods to make nonviolence work in the Second South, where Zinn says, "the smell of slavery still lingers." The worst regions are Southern Virginia, Southwestern Georgia, Eastern Arkansas, and all of Mississippi. In these areas machine guns and bombs are freely used against the Negro population. According to Robert Moses, SNCC project director in Mississippi, there have been 180 cross burnings, five killings, several shootings, and at least three whippings in Mississippi since the Ku Klux Klan reorganized shortly after President Kennedy's death.

Zinn insisted that only federal intervention and protection could make nonviolence successful in the Second South. He expressed the hope that a SNCC lobby in Washington, D. C., could convince the President that he must act to prevent the failure of nonviolence.

Staff workers spoke bitterly of federal inaction. "When we phone and tell them that a Negro has been beaten, they do nothing. Maybe they'll act this summer when they realize the racists are going to be shooting at white girls."

"It's not that the FBI is stupid or malicious," said Zinn, "they're just cold.--They just don't care." To solve this problem he proposed a special federal police force, designed to enforce the Constitution in the South, to stand armed at the polling booths, and to follow civil rights workers wherever they go in the Second South. This force should not only enforce the law, but should try to act before--not after--people are shot.

Negro White Unity

Over one-third of the students at the Atlanta conference were white, in sharp contrast with past meetings. "It was encouraging to see so many whites, especially those from southern colleges," said Robert E. Wright '65, chairman of the Harvard Civil Rights Coordinating Committee and a summer SNCC field-worker.

In addition to the physical closeness of whites and Negroes, there was a constant stress on interracial cooperation. On the first night of the conference, the students joined in singing "We Shall Overcome," the themesong of the movement. After the group sang three verses of the song, James Forman, SNCC'S executive secretary, quickly made his way up to the stage and whispered in the ear of one of the song leaders. The singer nodded, and shouted out the next verse, "Black and white together."

In line with this stress on Negro-white cooperation, SNCC workers constantly emphasized the importance of white participation in the summer project. Frank Smith, a Negro field worker from Mississippi, explained, "The average Negro in Mississippi hates everybody white--they've never met a white person on their side." He paused and then continued, "No Negro can build up a Negro's confidence in a white man; the cat has to come down and do it himself. It's a very tender process."

Besides fostering interracial friendship, conference members contended that the white has a special role in the movement. "The Negro rights worker must convince the Negro sharecropper to believe him," one field secretary said, "but the white worker is believed by virtue of his color. This is one of the real tragedies of the South."

SNCC's emphasis on interracial cooperation, is leading toward an expansion of its activities to an entirely new area--the poor white community. One field worker expressed this change saying, "We aren't a Negro movement--we're a movement of the poor."

This theme was repeated throughout the conference, Forman echoed it when he said that SNCC must go into white communities, the labor unions