To Write in the Light of Freedom
Page 12
By Edma Mary Schols
The Local News
This is a brief preview of the Freedom School here in Holly Springs, Mississippi. The classes that they are teaching here are in French, Art, English, Religion, History, Biology, Dancing, and the names of some of the teachers are Peter, Sandra, Bettina. Etc. My teacher that teaches me dancing practices with us the different things you can do with your waist, legs, fingers, arms, and body.
In my art class we learn how to sketch the eye, mouth, hand, and face.
Yesterday we learned how to sketch Moses holding the Bible. The outside people are wondering what it is like to be going to Freedom School. Well, this is my opinion: we are one big happy family and I think that is the way we will be forever. This is to you people that are talking about being afraid to attend the Freedom School and afraid to register and vote: you are missing one of the most important parts of your life. This is to you parents, especially you that are talking about the fact that you have children: you should talk this over and come to a decision and stand up and be counted as citizens of today’s world.
Tuesday night there was a mass meeting held at Chulahoma Church. The meeting started at 7:30 PM. They had about 150 members at this meeting.
By Mavis J. Farrow
Freedom’s Journal (McComb, MS)
With the help of local activists including NAACP members C. C. Bryant and E. W. Steptoe, McComb was one of the first places where SNCC gained a foothold. The McComb Freedom’s Journal helps demonstrate the importance of African American history to the Freedom School students. As in other schools across the state, McComb Freedom School students were anxious to position themselves within the longer African American freedom struggle and honor black heroes from the past. As explained in this issue of the Freedom’s Journal, McComb Freedom School students named their paper after America’s first black newspaper, which was originally published in New York City in 1827. Although the editors of the McComb paper inaccurately credited Richard Allen as the editor of the original Freedom’s Journal (the first editors were actually John B. Russwurm and Samuel Cornish), they clearly wanted to pay homage to the pioneering African American publication. Besides adopting the name of the nation’s first black newspaper, the producers of the McComb Freedom School newspaper also modeled their cover illustration after the classic abolitionist symbol “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” Their attention to black history is evident throughout each issue of this newspaper.
McComb Freedom School students were significantly impacted by their community’s short but powerful tradition of youth activism. As one of the first SNCC projects in Mississippi, McComb was home to a courageous group of young African Americans who in 1961 had staged a walkout of their city’s Burglund High School after fellow student Brenda Travis was expelled for trying to integrate a local bus stop. This highly visible and courageous protest helped set the tone for future youth activism and three years later continued to influence McComb Freedom School students. One of the veterans of the 1961 Burglund walkout, Curtis Hayes, even wrote a guest essay in an issue of the McComb Freedom’s Journal. The essays and poems published in this newspaper illuminate the ways McComb Freedom School students were claiming leadership roles in their community and even challenging older residents who they felt were not active enough.
July 24, 1964
Dedication
We are naming our newspaper Freedom’s Journal in honor of Reverend Richard Allen. He was editor of the first Negro newspaper and we are proud to borrow from him the name of that paper. We have in mind Allen’s plans to help solve the problem of slavery in America.
We feel the need to continue the work done by this great man because: too long the public has been deceived by the aims of many American organizations; too long the things that rightfully belong to us are not given; too long others have done our speaking for us.
It is our earnest wish to express our true feelings about Mississippi and its people in our journal.
Dorothy Brown
Isn’t It Awful?
Isn’t it awful not to be able to eat
in a public place
Without being arrested or snarled at
right in your face?
Isn’t it awful not to be able to go to
a public library and get an interesting book
Without being put out and given a
hateful look?
Isn’t it awful not to be able to sleep
peacefully nights
For fear you may get bombed because
you want your rights?
Isn’t it awful not to be able to get
your schooling where you please?
Just because of our race, color and
creed we cannot feel at ease.
Edith Moore
Freedom’s Journal
Editor: Barbara JoAnn Lea
Editors of the week: Dorothy Vick, Edith Moore, Jacqueline Nobles.
Staff Members: Bernell Eubanks, Thelma Eubanks (cover), Georgia Patterson, Sandra Thompson, Gloria Jackson, Paula Moore, Steve Sephus, Sue Sephus, Dorothy Brown, Marionette Travis, Melvin Carter, Donald Tate, and others.
Ministers and Freedom Project
There used to be a time when Negro Mississippians were filled with doubt as to whether other people from other places cared enough to help them. From our talk with the Rev. Don McCord and the Rev. Harry Bowie we now know differently.
When asked about FREEDOM in Miss. the Rev. Bowie stated that “a man who isn’t free is a man who is dead. He is like a robot: he moves, walks, talks and breathes, but still he is dead.”
Rev. McCord made a comparison between Berlin and Mississippi. He said, “Berlin is a city with a wall through it and the people cannot visit from one side to the other. In Mississippi a wall has been built up by terror, intimidations, beatings, and bombings.” He also stated that it’s time to tear down the walls to show that people can live together in peace and harmony.
Rev. Bowie was asked about the three missing civil rights workers. He said that their actions encouraged him to come to Mississippi. The Rev. McCord felt that “the three missing workers made me realize for the first time how serious the situation is. People from the outside are needed to make the whole country start to watch and see what has been going on in Mississippi for a long, long time.”
Marionette Travis
Weekly Quotation
“So long as one man is chained, no one is free.”
Rousseau (we think)
THE FREEDOM DEMOCRATIC PARTY WILL SOON BE HOLDING PRECINCT MEETINGS. PLEASE TRY TO ATTEND.
The House of Liberty
I came not for the fortune, nor for fame,
I seek not to add glory to an unknown name,
I did not come under the shadow of night,
I came by day to fight for what’s right.
I shan’t let fear, my monstrous foe,
Conquer my soul with threat and woe.
Here I have come and here I shall stay,
And no amount of fear my determination can sway.
I asked for your churches, and you turned me down,
But I’ll do my work if I have to do it on the ground,
You will not speak for fear of being heard,
So crawl in your shell and say, “Do not disturb.”
You think because you’ve turned me away
You’re protected yourself for another day,
But tomorrow surely must come,
And your enemy will still be there with the rising sun;
He’ll be there tomorrow as all tomorrows in the past,
And he’ll follow you into the future if you let him pass.
You’ve turned me down to humor him,
Ah! Your fate is sad and grim,
For even tho’ your help I ask,
Even without it I’ll finish my task.
In a bombed house I have to teach my school,
Because I believe all men should live by the Golden Rule.
T
o a bombed house your children must come,
Because of your fear of a bomb,
And because you’ve let your fear conquer your soul,
In this bombed house these minds I must try to mold,
I must try to teach them to stand tall and be a man.
When you, their parents, have cowered down and refused to make a stand.
Joyce Brown
The Golden Rule
The Freedoam School is nice and neat,
Everything is awful sweet.
Every day we jump and sing,
Thanking God for everything.
Every time I go to school,
I always keep the Golden Rule,
So if you go to the Freedom School,
Please don’t forget the Golden Rule.
Stephanie Nobles
age 12
Lawyers Help in Fight for Freedom
During this fight for the Negroes’ freedom and liberty, lawyers, both Negro and white have been sent to Miss. from the north to take affadavits to show discrimination toward the Negro workers.
Clint Hopson, a Negro law student presently working in the state, says that he was sent here to work with COFO. He has worked with other civil rights organizations as well. Clint said that this is not his first time in the South.
“I feel,” stated Mr. Hopson, “that this is my fight as well as anybody else’s, and I intend to do as much as possible to help by doing whatever I can in any way I can.”
Paula Leona Moore
The Freedom Train
The Freedom Train is coming, coming, coming, coming,
The Freedom Train is coming,
And we’ll all get aboard.
There’s Sally, Jane, and Tom,
There’s our Freedom teachers,
One, two, three, and four,
Five, six, seven, and more.
Deborah Ann Watson
age 11
Opinion: The Way to Freedom
We are accustomed to say that the truth makes us free. It does nothing of the kind. It is the knowledge of the truth that creates freedom. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” We are now at the stage where the main emphasis must be laid on the dissemination of the truth. We need, as we have never before needed, a Campaign of Education. Freedom, to a great extent, depends upon our potentials and our horizons. Sometimes we feel that we are free only because we are satisfied with our limited achievements, goals, aspirations. As Jefferson stated, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; and that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Thelma Eubanks
Harriet Tubman: A Brief Biography (1823–1913)
She was born on the eastern shore of Maryland, a slave property. Harriet was not cut out for slavery at all.
As she grew into her teens and got married, she began to think of a way to escape. She asked her husband, sister and brother to come with her, but none of them did. Her mind was made up, though, and she successfully escaped to Philadelphia. There she got a job and was free, but she still was not satisfied. Harriet wanted to help her relatives and friends escape from slavery. She did just that, by way of the Underground Railroad. Making nineteen trips back to the South, Harriet freed more than three hundred slaves.
After riding-in all the people she could, Harriet settled down. She was given a small pension of $20 a month on which she died poor, but great.
Dorothy Vick
Don’t Weep
Oh, Negro of the America,
Why doth thou weep so?
Is it because you are from Africa?
Are you afraid of what you know?
My “Granny” always told me
(of course she’s passed on now)
That Negroes could be what they want to,
No matter what or how.
She told me of the Africans,
Captured by the Whites;
Brought to the Americas
Through they knew it wasn’t right.
Work on fellow Negroes!
And get your equal rights.
I am there beside you,
For we all, we all must fight.
E. Le Verne Moore
Voter Registration Moving Nicely
Attempts to get people to register to vote for regular elections as well as for Freedom Registration are proving successful.
As a Freedom Registration worker, Freddie Green of COFO stated, “Freedom Registration is a form of challenging the Democratic Party.” She said that through Freedom Registration it is hoped that we will be able to send some Negro representatives from Mississippi to the National Democratic Convention.
Miss Green feels that Freedom Registration is one way of getting people to help themselves. It also shows that Mississippi Negroes do care about their future.
If you haven’t registered for Freedom Registration, forms can be obtained from the Freedom House, 702 Wall Street.
Edith Moore
ONE ONE
X
MAN VOTE
McComb Freedom Fighter
Curtis E. Hayes, a local civil rights worker, lived in McComb from 1944–1961, and graduated from Eva Harris High School (Brookhaven) as salutatorian of his class.
After finishing high school, Hayes went to Wisconsin where he got job making $1.75 an hour. Previously he had earned $2.00 a day working evenings after school, and $4.00 a day working summers in Mississippi.
The community in which Curtis lived had two Negro families, although segregation was practiced in this part of Wisconsin. His roommate who was white, often asked Curtis what he had done to help his race. After repeatedly being questioned on this issue, Curtis decided that he would return to Mississippi and learn all that he could about the civil rights movement and about what he could do to help.
When Curtis returned home toward the end of the summer of 1961, he managed to meet Robert Moses and discuss the movement with him.
After talking to Moses, Curtis decided to spend the remaining part of the summer working in the movement, and then begin the fall semester at Jackson State College. But by the beginning of the semester he had been arrested, and because of the arrest he was not accepted at school.
After JSC refused to admit him, Curtis continued to work in the movement. While working for civil rights, Curtis has been arrested some ten times and has spent about one hundred twenty days in jail. He has been jailed in McComb, Jackson, Greenville, Indianola, Greenwood, and Ruleville. Curtis has organized voter registration projects throughout the state.
Barbara Jo Ann Lea
SOMEONE FROM McCOMB IS GOING TO ATTEND THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION IN AUGUST. IT MAY BE YOU! DON’T FORGET TO FREEDOM REGISTER
Some Thoughts on Freedom
FREEDOM is going to the public libraries.
FREEDOM is eating in any public place.
FREEDOM is standing up for your rights.
FREEDOM is attending schools of your choice.
FREEDOM is having a voice in your government.
FREEDOM is racial equality, justice and fraternity.
FREEDOM is happiness for all.
FREEDOM is being able to voice your opinion.
FREEDOM is attending a church of your choice.
FREEDOM is making use of public recreational facilities.
FREEDOM is being able to think for yourself; being able to form your own opinion.
FREEDOM is the right to publish fact and opinion without censorship.
FREEDOM is . . .
You’re Free to Laugh
Tom: Why shouldn’t you tell a secret in a garden?
Dianne: Because the corn has ears.
Zachary Patterson
age 12
August 11, 1964
Editor
Barbara JoAnn Lea
Editors of the Week
Sue Scolaus
Marilyn Sarter
&
nbsp; Viola Williams
Cover
Thelma Eubanks
Freedom’s Journal is a published weekly (or thereabouts) in McComb, Mississippi. Comments and articles from all readers are most welcome. See us at the Freedom House or else mail material care of this paper [indecipherable].
A Word from the Editors
The editorial board takes this space to praise the Negro youth of McComb for a splendid job in helping the Freedom Movement of this town. The Negro Youths have proved that they are willing to help their race in any way that they can. They have attended the Freedom School and helped the workers in every way they could.
But many of the adults in McComb are a great disappointment to their race. Some will not let their children attend Freedom School because they are afraid. They will not even Freedom Register. A few adults, like their children, will support their race in every way they can.
Very few people are playing an active part in the civil rights movement. They want their rights but don’t want to fight for them. Therefore the younger generation is doing more for the Summer Project than most adults in our community.
The students have helped by canvassing for Freedom Registration and also by passing out leaflets. They have also helped by attending Freedom School every day and participating in the daily classes. They also helped by convincing others to attend Freedom School.
If only the adults of the community would wake up and see what they are really doing to their children by keeping them at home, the Summer Project in McComb would probably be the most successful in the state.