San Francisco Freedom School

July 24, 2010

Student Activism in the Fifties

Supplemental Readings

They Closed Their Schools (excerpts detailing how Barbara Johns engineered the student strike at Moton High…..…………………..1

Student Strike at Moton High (VA) (April, 1951).....................6

Student Protests & Boycotts — Orangeburg, SC (April-May, 1956).........................................................................................7

Rachel Maddow’s Mega-Takedown of Fox News’ “Scare White People; Tactic.................................................................9

Conservatives Try To Bash USDA Anti-Racism Suit, Shirley Sherrod.....................................................................................9

On the Question of Diversity..................................................12

Student Strike at Moton High (VA) (April, 1951)from CRMvet.org

Moton — named after Robert Russa Moton who succeeded Booker T. Washington as head of the Tuskegee Institute — is the Black high school in Prince Edward County Virginia's segregated

school system. Farmville, the local white high school, has a cafeteria, gym, school nurse, shop classes, and lockers for students; Moton has no such facilities — it does not even have restrooms for the teachers.

Originally built to accommodate 180 students, by the early 1950s more than 450 pupils attend Moton. It is so crowded that three classes are simultaneously taught in the

auditorium, while other classes are taught in old, hand-me-down school busses. When the state of Virginia offers money to improve Moton in 1947, the all-white School Board refuses to accept it. (Since Blacks are denied the right to vote, they have no voice in electing the School Board.) Instead, the Board builds three "tar paper shacks" — freezing cold in the winter, sweltering hot in the spring — which do little to relieve the terrible over-crowding at Moton.

In the winter of 1950, Moton student Barbara Johns — niece of Alabama civil rights leader Rev. Vernon Johns — begins organizing a student strike to protest poor school conditions. She calls a secret meeting of four other trusted students to discuss the problem and plan a strategy. Slowly, carefully, they increase the clandestine committee, first to 10 and then by the Spring of 1951 to 15 of the most respected students at Moton. By April they are ready to act.

On April 23rd they lure the principal out of the school with a false phone call reporting truants causing trouble downtown. Then they forge announcements calling an immediate school assembly in the auditorium. Strike committee leaders ask all teachers to leave the room and then Barbara takes the stage, speaks to the issue and asks the students to go out on strike to protest over-crowding and inadequate facilities. 450 students — almost the entire student body — answer her call. When the principal returns from downtown he tries to talk them out of striking, but their commitment is firm — the strike is on!

The student strike committee tries to meet with the school superintendent about their demands for adequate facilities, but he refuses to see them and threatens them with expulsions. The following day, 200 of the student strikers meet with local NAACP leaders who attempt to get them to call off their strike. They refuse. With their organization solid and their commitment firm, the NAACP and many of the parents now swing to their support. National NAACP leaders

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meet with students and parents and propose that they go beyond pushing for better schools — that they demand desegregation.

At a mass meeting on the third day, the students and their adult supporters collectively decide to sue for integration and to continue the strike until May 7, when the school year ends. The lawsuit that the NAACP files on their behalf — Davis et al v. the County School Board of Prince Edward County, VA, et al — becomes one of the five cases that are later consolidated and decided under the name in 1954.

Student Protests & Boycotts — Orangeburg, SC (April-May, 1956)from CRMvet.org [ ---text bracketed, italicized and in Arial 11 font is from “Civil Rights and Campus Wrongs: South Carolina State College Students Protest, 1955-1968,” William C. Hine. The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Oct., 1996).]

IN 1956……Orangeburg, SC, is a small, politically conservative, town of 14,000 in the middle of the state. The majority of its population (60%) are Black, there are two Black colleges (Claflin

and South Carolina State), and segregation is rigidly enforced.

In response to the [1954 U.S. Supreme Court] Brown decision, parents in Orangeburg SC sign a petition asking that city schools be integrated.

[fifty-seven black residents of Orangeburg presented a petition to the school board insisting that the board "take immediate concrete steps leading to early elimination of segregation in public schools." The petition was drawn up and circulated by local leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The petitioners represented a cross-section of the local black

community including share croppers, bricklayers, carpenters, and maids as well as the owners of a taxi company, a coffee shop, and a funeral home. The Orangeburg petition was one of approximately sixty petitions that local branches of the NAACP drew up across the South]

The White Citizens Council (WCC) uses economic terrorism (firings, evictions, foreclosures, etc) to force those who signed the petition to remove their names. Blacks organize a counter-boycott of stores owned by members of the WCC. The Citizens Council then orders distributors to halt all food deliveries to Black-owned markets so that Blacks will be forced to shop at the white-owned stores in order to eat.

[The black community fought back, and economic siege warfare gripped Orangeburg. To divide the white community, the NAACP organized a selective buying campaign. Black leaders decided to patronize some white businesses while avoiding twenty-three others that were placed on a selective buying list. Blacks were urged not to purchase Coca-Cola, Standard Oil products, Sunbeam Bread, or to conduct business at Home Motors and Beckers' store for women.The General Assembly formed a nine-member committee to investigate the connection between communist infiltration and NAACP activities at the college. They also enacted a measure prohibiting membership by state employees and public-school teachers in the NAACP.]

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Fred Moore, Student Council President at South Carolina State College (SCSC), organizes SCSC and Claflin College students to support the community. They ask college administrators to stop buying food from white distributors who are blocking food deliveries to Black neighborhoods. When the administrators refuse, the students organize hunger-strikes in the school dining halls, mass meetings, and freedom marches in solidarity with Black citizens who are being denied the necessities of life.

[The General Assembly's determination to root out subversion aroused the ordinarily quiescent faculty. On April 2, in an uncharacteristic display of solidarity, 176 of 190 faculty members adopted resolutions defending the NAACP and in support of "the American democratic form of government" and "the Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court." Led by Faculty Study Commission Chairman and sociology professor R. C. Henderson, they opposed the legislative assault on academic freedom and insisted they could not teach effectively "if pressures and attempts at intimidation are leveled at us ? no matter from whence they

come."This wave of discontent alarmed Governor Timmerman, a dedicated segregationist. Announcing that subversive elements were reportedly organizing demonstrations at South Carolina State, the governor sent the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) to the campus to conduct surveillance and uncover misconduct. Timmerman's actions only incited further indignation among students.14 Fred Moore announced that students would not tolerate the presence of law-enforcement officials on the campus: "This is not a mental institution nor a penal institution but an

institution of higher learning, attended by free people in a free land." With that declaration, virtually the entire student body of 1,500 went on strike. Moore announced that the students would not return to class until Timmerman rescinded his decision to send law enforcement personnel to the college.

President Turner, declaring that "I am in no position to tell the Governor what to do, or what not to do," warned students that their failure to return to class would result in expulsion. There were also hints from white leaders that the college would be closed permanently if students defied demands to return to class. Negotiations between Turner and Moore, however, revealed that student concerns shifted from Timmerman's actions to Turner's reign over the institution.16 Prodded by several faculty members, students drew up a list of grievances that centered on Turner's aloof and arbitrary leadership. They insisted on reforms: an end to what they described as disciplinary hearings resembling an "inquisition," the selection of students to serve on campus committees based on competence and not the president's "petty, personal and private likes and dislikes," a revised publication policy for the campus newspaper, the extension of "common courtesies and fair treatment" to students, and a guarantee that there be no reprisals for participation in the strike. For good measure, students conducted a vote of confidence on President Turner. Of 716 who voted, 614 voted no confidence, 100 abstained, and two voted that they did have confidence in him.17 With threats to expel students looming, the six-day strike ended. Retribution was swift. The board of trustees, with the full support and approval of white leaders and the press, expelled SGA President Fred H. Moore for violating unspecified college regulations. Board members indicated that the faculty resolutions were "unwise and untimely." However the board praised Turner for "his sane leadership."]

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Fred Moore, Alice Pyatt, Alvin Anderson, Barbara Brown, and 11 other student leaders are expelled from school. Moore is just two weeks from graduation. 1500 students participate in protest marches and demonstrations against the expulsions.

After several days of training in the tactics of Nonviolent Resistance using the CORE Rule For Action, on February 25th some 40 students from South Carolina State and Claflin College try to sit-in at the Kress store in downtown Orangeburg. The lunch counter is closed and the stools removed to prevent Blacks from sitting at a "white-only" facility. For three weeks the students sit-in and picket.

On March 15 — a cold winter day — Claflin Student Council President Tom Gaither and State College freshman Charles "Chuck" McDew, lead almost 1,000 students on a peaceful march downtown to protest segregation and support the sit-ins. The cops attack them with clubs and tear-gas and the fire department knocks them off their feet with freezing water from high-pressure hoses. Almost 400 of the marchers are forced into a police stockade in the largest Freedom Movement mass arrest up to that time. They are convicted of "Breach of the Peace," but the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the convictions two years later because their side-walk march was a peaceful, orderly petition for redress of grievances within the protection of the 1st Amendment.

Following the arrests and trials, many of the main student leaders leave campus to devote their full energies to the Freedom Movement. Tom Gaither becomes a CORE field secretary and Chuck McDew becomes the second Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

TPM LiveWireJuly 22, 2010

Rachel Maddow’s Mega-Takedown of Fox News’ “Scare White People; TacticVIDEO

Rachel Maddow explained last night that the right-wing tactic of characterizing black people -- like, say, former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod -- as being racist against white people is nothing new in this country. In fact, as Maddow documented, "the

political strategy of terrifying white people about the threat posed by black people" goes back to the 1960s, with the campaign of Alabama Gov. George Wallace, and the "Southern Strategy" that was a part of Richard Nixon's presidential campaign.Maddow continued that now, "making white people feel like they are victims of black people" is one of the "Fox News agenda items" designed to fear-monger about race.

Conservatives Try To Bash USDA Anti-Racism Suit, Shirley SherrodRachel Slajda | July 22, 2010, 8:51AM

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Members of the National Black Farmers Association march outside the USDA in 2002.

In defending his decision to fire Shirley Sherrod, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack explained multiple times that his department has a "sordid" and "checkered" history of both overt and institutionalized racism. But with the term "racism" being tossed around rather a lot recently, it is important to understand both what he meant -- and what role that

acknowledged racism played in Shirley Sherrod's life.

It's also important to understand that Andrew Breitbart's timing of the release of the grossly distorted video of Sherrod, which he admits having had for weeks, may not be entirely random. Congress will soon vote on whether to fund part of a settlement between the USDA and African-American farmers who faced acknowledged discrimination -- farmers like Sherrod and her husband used to be. It's a tiny piece of the upcoming war supplemental bill.

The USDA settlements with African-American farmers are a longtime bête noire of the right, which they deem a giveaway to a core Democratic constituency. It's not clear whether Brietbart's release of the video was specifically intended to hurt the chances of other African-America farmers to receive recompense from decades of discrimination that caused them to lose their farms, but conservatives immediately used the video to attack the settlement. The discrimination claims, known globally as the Pigford settlement, is the elephant in the room, so here's the background.

For years, and continuing through the 1990s, the USDA denied loans and grants to scores of farmers simply because they were African-American. Timothy Pigford finally sued the department in 1997; the suit became a class action with 400 additional plaintiffs and 2,000 farmers thought eligible; and the result was what's known as the Pigford settlement, decided in 1999.

The Pigford settlement offered two tracks: Track A offered $50,000 (plus loan forgiveness and tax offsets) to each eligible African-American farmer who had complained of discrimination since 1983, subject to applications and reviews; Track B offered the possibility of larger damages, provided plaintiffs could show a preponderance of evidence to arbitrators, prove their losses were greater than $50,000 and, of course, wait out the process. Less than 1 percent of the 22,721 class members chose to pursue Track B.

According to multiple sources that TPMmuckraker has not independently confirmed, Sherrod and her husband, Charles, were two of only 170 plaintiffs that chose Track B. Vilsack acknowledged in his press conference that Sherrod was a claimant in the Pigford settlement.

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Earlier this year, Sherrod's story was featured as part of the Fort Valley State University's Middle Georgia Oral History Project. Her story describes her view of the incidents leading up to the end of her case before the Pigford v. Vilsack arbitrator.

Sherrod's story is the first in the collection. The self-described farm girl grew up with five sisters. In 1963, a white farmer murdered her father, but was never prosecuted. The shocking incident inspired Sherrod, a young college student at FVSU, to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. There, she met and married its leader Charles Sherrod.

The couple traveled overseas, studying at a kibbutz. In 1968, armed with knowledge, the SNCC members returned to Georgia to develop a community. They obtained a 6,000-acre land trust in Lee County, Ga., for New Communities, Inc., established with other black families. They received funding for its development, but then-Gov. Maddox called a halt to further expansion. Despite the roadblock, the group pushed forward and built train tracks, sugar cane mills, grew corn, peanuts, soy beans and also processed meats.

The organization thrived until 1970s when a drought damaged crops causing a major loss of revenues. The group applied for an emergency loan but was denied. "The National Conservancy could have paid the debt on the land, but every time we wanted to do something, the doors closed because we were black," Sherrod said. In 1985, the bank foreclosed on the property.

"They wanted to wipe all traces of us off the land," Sherrod said. "They dug holes, took a bulldozer and destroyed all of our buildings."

Nearly a decade later, the Sherrods filed a lawsuit. After legal wrangling and several incompetent lawyers, the case was brought before a judge who awarded the couple and New Communities, Inc., almost $13 million ($8 million for the land, $4 million in lost income and $1 million in personal damages) in 2009.

Sherrod's story is similar to those of many of the farmers who were denied loans commonly granted to white farmers, which was the reason for the initial Pigford suit and the initial settlement by the government.

But thousands of farmers missed the original Pigford deadline, due to shoddy work by their own lawyers and inadequate promotion, among other reasons. In response to a decades-long movement to re-open the Pigford class, Congress passed another $100 million in the 2008 farm bill to help settle new claims; earlier this year, the Obama administration announced an additional grant -- called Pigford II -- of $1.25 billion.

But the money hasn't been doled out, because Congress hasn't given the okay yet. It missed a March 31 deadline. Then a May 31 deadline. Currently, the money for the new Pigford settlement resides in the war supplemental -- which Majority Leader Harry Reid announced last Friday would be up for a vote some time this week.

Harry Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley, said it "remains unclear" whether the bill could pass with the settlement attached. The money was also included in the unemployment insurance extension; but the Pigford settlement, and other funds, had to be stripped in order to break a filibuster.

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Conservatives immediately jumped on the Sherrod video -- issued by Breitbart in the wake of Reid's promise to bring the war supplemental (including the Pigford settlement money) to a vote -- to condemn the Pigford case.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), for example, tweeted immediately on Tuesday morning, after the Sherrod case hit the news, that many Pigford claims amount to fraud:

Shirley Sharrod fired by Vilsack 4 racism in her USDA position. America needs to know that, not all, but billion$ of Pigford Farms is fraud.

The Washington Times mused that Sherrod resigned because she was afraid the attention would expose "sanctioned conflicts of interest" arising from her own settlement -- though there was zero evidence to that effect. In fact, Vilsack has since acknowledged that her experience as part of the Pigford class makes her uniquely positioned to understand the historical challenges faced by the USDA. Fox News piled on, saying the settlement "thickens the plot."

On the Question of Diversityby Ed Whitfield, (from Diversity Handbook, 2004)

A Brief Look at the Down Side of the Struggle for Diversity in Public Education

The Price of Diversity

Those of us who support neighborhood schools know that there is an argument to bemade for diversity. People can and should learn from each other. Cross-culturalcontact is an important part of the overall educational process and is very importantin a multicultural society. But as we seek these advantages we must ask the price.Certainly it would be unfair to Black children if we required them to accept the statusof lab experiments, to be studied and examined for the benefit of white children'seducation. Certainly it would be unfair to them if we required that they always explainor defend the actions and attitudes of all the other members of their race. Certainlyit would be unfair to them if we consistently put them in situations where theeconomic disparity between their communities and others was an ongoing source ofridicule. Certainly in would be unfair for us to force them to go to schools so far outof their communities that they felt alienated, isolated and unloved. The sad fact isthat we have done all these things and more in the name of diversity.

The busing of children from the area around English Village and MorningsideHomes to Claxton elementary school borders on being criminal. Small children fromthe poorest part of Greensboro took long bus rides each morning to the wealthiestpart of Greensboro. There, too many of them were made to feel insecure, inadequateand unloved in a remote, hostile and unfamiliar surrounding. The parents of thesechildren felt uncomfortable on those occasions when they could find a way to theschool to be involved with the children. How do children who didn't get to go to EmeraldPoint during the summer talk about their vacations with those who spent thesummer on the Riviera? It isn't fair, and it isn't necessary.

Building True Understanding

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We need to know, that it is not simply contact between people, but rather, it is theinteraction of different people as equals that builds understanding and respect betweenthe races.

During slavery there was a considerable amount of contact at all levels (economic,social, and personal intimacy) between Blacks and whites, yet no mutual respectemerged. Each party acted out his role in a historically staged play with the predictableconsequence that everyone's preconceived notion was reinforced by what he saw. Relations of power and domination generated the inequity of the interaction. Itwas like actors standing behind their masks in a Greek play where their real featuresand their real humanity was invisible to the audience and to themselves. This ispretty much what has been observed in many of the relations developed in publicschools in the period of forced busing. White students and teachers who think ofBlack people as lazy and ignorant have been reinforced in that self-fulfilling perceptionby what they saw in these institutions that they had created for themselves. Tothe extent that many Black youth felt alienated and abused by the educational system,whites saw their behavior in response to this as proof of the existing stereotypes.Black people, who felt that whites were hostile, insensitive and deceptive, feltjustified with their observance of the conduct of many white students playing outthose roles.

The interaction as equals, that builds true understanding and respect between people,is only possible when our youth have a sense of their own identity and the tools andskills to succeed. They must feel self-confident, socially aware and have their creativeenergies unleashed. Supportive and nurturing neighborhood schools play a rolein creating the atmosphere in which this can take place. We will need to developmore situations and processes where people do come into contact with each other asequals. This may include athletic competition, extramural academic interaction, culturalexpositions and conscious dialog sessions. The public schools have so farproven not to be very good at this. The task of creating opportunities for interactionas equals may be difficult at first, given the history of racism, cultural isolation andcultural chauvinism. But it can and must be worked out.

The Problem with Magnet Schools

Magnet schools have been raised as a means of developing diversity without coercion,but they too present many serious problems. Magnet schools were developed asa method of achieving integration without forced busing. The idea was to create "superschools" using the latest innovation, best teachers and best resources and putthese schools inside the Black community to attract white students. Seats in theseschools were set aside for the white students who were being sought. It is ironic thatone of the results of a struggle by Black people for access to better educational resourcesfor their children was the establishment of institutions, in the Black community,that are not concerned with better educating Black children, but rather serveonly the purpose of attracting white children.There were instances where quotas were established and Black children were excludedfrom magnet school programs in their communities with empty seats for thepurpose of saving spaces for white children who did not want to go. This was the insanityof using segregation - the forceful exclusion of some children because of their

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race - to fight for integration - the mixing of Black and white children in schoolbuildings. It never made any sense, but when it was questioned, the response wasthat the federal guidelines required it.

Two things are fundamentally wrong with the magnet school concept: First, if weknow better what children really need for their education, we have a responsibility toprovided it for all the children, not just for a select few who get into magnet programs.Second, it obviously makes no sense at all to seek to correct the exclusion ofBlack children from better educational opportunities by excluding them from the bestschools that are placed in Black communities to attract white children. The results ofthe magnet process are as ridiculous as the assumptions upon which it rests. We endup with two separate schools, one overwhelmingly Black and poor, the other majoritywhite and affluent, with different teachers and different classrooms for differentstudents all housed under one roof, sharing only toilet and lunch facilities.

Going Hungry is Not Good Preparation for Famine

Another argument some people will make for diversity is that it will prepare ourchildren for the problems they will face as adults. The idea that we should throw ourchildren into hostile educational environment s at an early age so they can learn todeal with the racism and animosity of the society is pure foolishness. You don't preparefor a famine by fasting. All that might do is condition you to the pain you willencounter but it will not give you the stored up nutrition that will allow you to makeit through it. If you know you are going where food is scarce, it is better to overeatfor a while.

Our children will see enough real racism, discrimination and isolation in the world asadults. As children we need to fill them so full of themselves that they are selfconfidentand no one can make them doubt themselves. That is why the idea of awholesome, nurturing educational environment controlled by the community is soimportant. When our children face the irrationality and insanity of the society, theyshould question the society and not themselves. It is out of creatively questioning thesociety with a deep sense of commitment and responsibility to our community thatwe can inspire the thinking required to answer to the question "how do we fix what iswrong?"

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