Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement -- Americus-Sumter County Movement Remembered Committee

Americus-Sumter County Movement Remembered Committee

I am grateful for the opportunity to post updates on the work and progress we continue to make in telling the Americus story. This is very important to us because we are just beginning to develop our own web site, which will contain photos and documentation of the Americus Movement.

The official name of our organization is the Americus-Sumter County Movement remembered Committee, Inc. (ASCMRC). Founded in January, 2007, the committee consists of veterans of the Americus Movement, including some of the women jailed at the infamous "Leesburg Stockade", as well as other young progressives who were born decades later. A number of our initiatives include:

A bi-annual celebration of the Americus Movement
Establishing a Civil Rights museum
Voter Registration and political participation
Providing academic scholarships to high school seniors
Completing an "Oral History"project. begun in 2007, documenting veterans recollections of the movement.

The Civil Rights Museum will house all the memorabilia being collected from Americus and around the country, which documents the Americus-Sumter County Movement of the 1960's. Included in our collection are photographs, newspaper articles, field reports from SNCC, CORE, and SCLC workers, artifacts, and film from protest marches and "Mass Meetings."

The museum will also focus on the enormous role and contributions of Koinonia Fatm and its impact on the Americus civil rights struggle.

Our committee recently successfully negotiated the acquisiton of the Sumter County jail cell where Martin Luther King was housed for one weekend in January, 1962. That cell has been dismantled, and is being stored pending an announced site for the museum. In addition. we anticipate hosting exhibitions from other institutions, throughout the south, that will continue to advance a collective narrative of the history of an even broader civil and human rights movement, and how it impacted change throughout this country and abroad.

Lastly, we are sounding an SOS to any civil rights worker who may have worked in Americus between 1962 and 1966. We would like for you to share your recollections and experiences with us as part of our oral history. We are also in need of any artifacts, photos, film, printed matter, flyers, etc., that you may have held on to, so that we might reproduce them for our permanent archives.

Peace,
Sam Mahone, Chairman.

Our organization address is:
Americus-Simter-County Movement Remembered Committee (ASCMRC)
P.O. Box 1313
Americus, GA 31709
Phone: (404) 354-7889 Email: artbakari1@bellsouth.net