50 years of social change
http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20100415/NEWS/4150352/1001/news
Civil rights veterans recall '60s, eye future
Deborah Barfield Berry
April 15, 2010
WASHINGTON The plan that summer day in 1961 was for 22 students to
protest a law banning black residents from using the public library in McComb.
But the library was closed. And instead of 22 students, Hollis
Watkins and Curtis Hayes were the only ones to show up at the meeting
place, a local office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee. Instead of staging a sit-in at the library, they decided
to target the local Woolworth store.
"We would not be defeated. We knew Woolworth was right down the
street and had a lunch counter that we couldn't eat at,'' recalled
Watkins, then a 19-year-old college-bound student. "We wanted to let
them know we were not afraid to go to jail.''
Watkins spent 34 days in jail. He never got a chance to eat at that
counter. Instead, for decades Watkins traveled across Mississippi
working in small towns from McComb to Hattiesburg registering blacks to vote.
Watkins and thousands of others were members of SNCC, a group of
students from mostly black colleges determined to dismantle
segregation at public accommodations throughout the South.
Veterans of that movement are gathering in Raleigh, N.C., this week
to celebrate the group's 50th anniversary. The conference runs today
through Sunday. Organizers say teaching young activists to get
involved in social change is the major focus.
"Our hope is that these young people will say, 'Gee, I could do
something like that,' '' said Julian Bond, an original member of SNCC
and former chairman of the NAACP. " 'We still have tremendous
problems in the country. ... Maybe these gray-haired people can show
me how to do it. Maybe I can learn from them about how social change
is accomplished, how movements are built.' ''
SNCC veterans say they were spurred to act when four college students
in Greensboro, N.C., staged a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter
in 1960. Many students already had been active in youth branches of the NAACP.
"We all ended up on college campuses, so it was ripe for this sort of
thing,'' said House Majority Whip James Clyburn, who was then a
student at South Carolina State College. "So when those four students
sat down, it proved to be a catalyst.''
Other sit-ins and protests were taking place from Nashville to
Orangeburg, S.C. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was so moved by the
student effort that he asked Ella Baker, who worked for him at the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to help them organize, SNCC
veterans said.
Two months after the Greensboro sit-in, Clyburn and nearly 200 other
students met at what is now Shaw University in Raleigh.
Soon afterward, SNCC began conducting sit-ins, marches, voter
registration drives and freedom rides. Volunteers teamed with local
organizers, particularly in rural communities. They often relied on
locals to house and feed them.
White students joined the protests in the South, and folks up North
also protested at stores to show their support. "Some people were
heard to say, 'By sitting down, these young people are standing up,'
'' said Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who attended those first meetings.
SNCC volunteers "were taking chances the older organizations didn't
dare to take,'' Bond said. Volunteers were beaten. Others lost their
jobs. Some lost their lives. Most were jailed. Still, the ranks swelled.
"You come to that point where you lose the fear and you are prepared
to walk into hell's fire,'' said Lewis, who himself was beaten during
the "Bloody Sunday" march across a bridge in Selma, Ala. "You are
prepared to die for what you believe in whether it was during the
sit-ins or the freedom rides or during the marches.''
In Mississippi, Watkins said, SNCC workers sometimes were beaten as
they tried to register black voters.
"We would be chased by white folks, some with guns trying to catch us
to kill us,'' recalled Watkins, president and co-founder of Southern
Echo, a leadership development and education program in Jackson. "The
danger was not as much out in the open as it would be behind the scenes.''
It was particularly dangerous when black and white young activists
traveled together through the South, Lewis said.
But nearly six years after SNCC began, the organization began to die.
While SNCC was instrumental in pressing for the Civil Rights Act of
1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Lewis said, there were few
breakthroughs in places like Mississippi, where most black people
still were not registered to vote. Volunteers still were being
beaten. Some died.
Tensions also flared between more radical factions of SNCC, led by
Stokely Carmichael, and those who wanted to continue nonviolent
protests. Members began to turn on each other.
"We weren't having many victories,'' said Lewis, who left the group in 1966.
Eventually, financial support also began to dry up. SNCC died a
"natural death,'' Lewis said.
Despite its short history, SNCC veterans say the organization made
its mark on the civil rights movement.
Today, Mississippi has more black elected officials than any other state.
"We can clearly see a lot of progress has been made. But I'm hoping
we don't go to sleep on that," Watkins said. "Racism is still alive
and well not only in Mississippi but in other parts of the country.''
---------
Civil rights group reflects on past, looks to future
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/7432729/
Posted: April 16, 2010
Raleigh, N.C. Fifty years after the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee was born at Shaw University, civil rights activists
gathered on the Raleigh campus Friday to recall their past
achievements and call for continued activism for civil rights.
The group its SNCC initials were usually pronounced "snick" was
established on April 15, 1960, in the aftermath of the Greensboro
lunch counter sit-ins two months earlier. It became a major player in
the civil rights movement that decade, organizing sit-ins, voter
registration drives and so-called freedom rides across the South.
"I feel that it was probably the most significant turning point in
the history of this country," said SNCC member Arkansas Benston, who
took part in the famed Selma-to-Montgomery march in Alabama in 1965.
"I was on the bridge. I got my head beat in that day," Benston said.
Civil rights marchers were attacked by police at the Edmund Pettus
Bridge outside of Selma on their first attempt, prompting Martin
Luther King Jr. to lead another march a few weeks later that
successfully made the journey from Selma to Montgomery.
SNCC member Junius Williams said the movement taught him how to fight
for change effectively, and he later took the effort to the North.
"I learned how to keep cool in a hot situation," Williams said. "I
learned how to walk through the shadow of the valley of death."
SNCC was dissolved in the 1970s, but organizers of the anniversary
celebration said the civil rights pioneers can still teach lessons to
today's activists.
"They hear firsthand from the people who stood up and said, 'No. My
future's ahead of me, but my country needs to recognize me as a full
citizen,'" said Cash Michaels, chief reporter of The Carolinian
newspaper in Raleigh.
Younger people like Albert Sykes came from Jackson, Miss., to hear
how his predecessors made such a difference.
"We have all the tools necessary to us to be able to make the same
amount of change, if not more, that members of SNCC and other members
of the civil rights movement were able to make," Sykes said.
The four-day celebration has drawn appearances from entertainer Harry
Belafonte and actor Danny Glover, and U.S. Attorney General Eric
Holder is scheduled to address the conference on Saturday.
---------
SNCC veterans mark 50 years of social change
4/14/2010
BY DEBORAH BARFIELD BERRY
WASHINGTON -- The plan that summer day in 1961 was for 22 students to
protest a law banning blacks from using the public library in McComb, Miss.
But the library was closed. And only Hollis Watkins and Curtis Hayes
showed up at the meeting place, a local office of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Instead of staging a sit-in at the
library, they decided to target the local Woolworth store.
"We would not be defeated. We knew Woolworth was right down the
street and had a lunch counter that we couldn't eat at," recalled
Watkins, then a 19-year-old college-bound student. "We wanted to let
them know we were not afraid to go to jail."
Watkins spent 34 days in jail. He never got to eat at that counter.
For decades after that sit-in, Watkins traveled across Mississippi
working in small towns from McComb to Hattiesburg registering blacks to vote.
Watkins and thousands of others were members of SNCC, a group of
students from mostly black colleges determined to dismantle
segregation at public accommodations throughout the South.
Veterans of that movement are gathering in Raleigh, N.C., this week
to celebrate the group's 50th anniversary. The conference, which runs
April 15-18, features civil rights leaders and workshops. Organizers
say teaching young activists to get involved in social change is the
major focus.
"Our hope is that these young people will say, 'Gee, I could do
something like that,' " said Julian Bond, an original member of SNCC
and former chairman of the NAACP. "We still have tremendous problems
in the country ... Maybe these gray-haired people can show me how to
do it. Maybe I can learn from them about how social change is
accomplished, how movements are built."
SNCC veterans say they were spurred to act when four college students
in Greensboro, N.C., staged a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter
in 1960. Many students had already been active in youth branches of the NAACP.
"We all ended up on college campuses so it was ripe for this sort of
thing," said Rep. James Clyburn, now majority whip for the House of
Representatives but then a student at South Carolina State College.
"So when those four students sat down it proved to be a catalyst."
Other sit-ins and protests were taking place from Nashville to
Orangeburg, S.C. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was so moved by the
student effort he asked Ella Baker, who worked for him at the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to help them organize, SNCC
veterans said.
Two months after the Greensboro sit-in, Clyburn and nearly 200 others
students met at what is now Shaw University in Raleigh.
Soon after, SNCC began conducting sit-ins, marches, voter
registration drives and freedom rides. Volunteers teamed with local
organizers, particularly in rural communities. They often relied on
locals to house and feed them.
White students joined the protests in the South and folks up North
also protested at stores to show their support. "Some people were
heard to say, 'By sitting down these young people are standing up,'"
said Rep. John Lewis, D.-Ga., who attended those first meetings.
SNCC volunteers "were taking chances the older organizations didn't
dare to take," said Bond. Volunteers were beaten. Others lost their
jobs. Some lost their lives. Most were jailed. Still, the ranks
swelled. During Freedom Summer in 1964, nearly 1,000 mostly white
volunteers joined SNCC workers in Mississippi, Bond said.
"You come to that point where you lose the fear and you are prepared
to walk into hell's fire," said Lewis, who himself was beaten during
the "Bloody Sunday" march across a bridge in Selma, Ala. "You are
prepared to die for what you believe in whether it was during the
sit-ins or the freedom rides or during the marches."
While SNCC was instrumental in pressing for the Civil Rights Act of
1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Lewis said there were few
breakthroughs in places like Mississippi where most blacks were still
not registered to vote. Volunteers were still being beaten. Some died.
Tensions also flared between more radical factions of SNCC led by
Stokely Carmichael and those who wanted to continue nonviolent
protests. Members began to turn on each other.
"That's what happens to a movement when you don't have victories,"
said Lewis, who left the group in 1966. "We weren't having many victories."
Eventually, financial support also began to dry up. SNCC died a
"natural death," Lewis said.
Despite its short, six-year history, SNCC veterans say the
organization made its mark on the civil rights movement. In part
because of SNCC, Bond said, blacks have been elected to run cities,
states and the country. And young blacks can go anywhere they choose.
"We played an important role and that role has never gotten the
proper attention," Bond said. "But we did it because it was the right
thing to do."
--
Contact Deborah Barfield Berry at dberry(AT)gannett.com
.
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