4.4: Major Civil Rights Organizations

American Race Relations

• The crisis in American race relations is caused by resistance to segregation in public schools and a radical change in the Negro's perception of himself. The first Negroes arrived in the US as slaves and were treated inhumanely. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 made the Negro a depersonalized cog in a plantation machine. After emancipation in 1863, the Negro faced oppression and inequality. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 established the doctrine of “separate but equal,” which ended up plunging the Negro into exploitation. Today, there is a modern version of the Ku Klux Klan in respectable white citizens' councils.

  • Negroes lost faith in themselves under conditions of subservience and exploitation, leading to racial peace. True peace is the presence of positive forces like justice, goodwill, and brotherhood. As circumstances changed, the Negro migrated to urban areas, improved his economic life, and gained a new sense of self-respect and dignity. This undermined the South's negative peace as the white man refused to accept the change. The current tension in race relations can be explained by this revolutionary change in the Negro's evaluation of himself and determination to struggle for justice.

• The determination of Negro Americans to win freedom from oppression stems from the same longing as oppressed peoples worldwide. The struggle for freedom has developed slowly and is not going to end suddenly. When oppressed people rise against oppression, there is no stopping point short of full freedom. There are two possible answers to the struggle against injustice: resorting to physical violence and corroding hatred. Violence solves no social problems and creates new and more complicated ones. If the American Negro and other victims of oppression succumb to the temptation of using violence, their legacy will be an endless reign of chaos.

4.5: Black Women’s Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement

Empowerment

• Staff was involved in crucial constitutional revisions at the Atlanta staff meeting in October. A large committee was appointed to present revisions to the staff. The committee was all men.

  • Two organizers were working together to form a farmers’ league. Without asking any questions, the male organizer immediately assigned the clerical work to the female organizer although both had had equal experience in organizing campaigns.

• Although some women in Mississippi projects have been
  working as long as some of the men, the leadership group in COFO is all men.

  • A woman in a field office wondered why she was held responsible for day-to-day decisions, only to find out later that she had been appointed project director but not told.

  • A fall 1964 personnel and resources report on Mississippi projects lists the number of people on each project. The section on Laurel, however, lists not the number of persons, but "three girls."

• One of SNCC's main administrative officers apologizes for the appointment of a woman as interim project director in a key Mississippi project area.

  • A veteran of two years' work for SNCC in two states spends her day typing and doing clerical work for other people in her project.

  • Any woman in SNCC, no matter what her position or experience, has been asked to take minutes in a meeting when she and other women are outnumbered by men.

• The names of several new attorneys entering a state project this past summer were posted in a central movement office. The first initial and last name of each lawyer was listed. Next to their names was written: (girl) to identify their gender

  • Capable, responsible, and experienced women who are in leadership positions can expect to have to defer to a man on their project for final decision-making.

  • A session at the recent October staff meeting in Atlanta was the first meeting in the past couple of years where a woman was asked to chair.