CRMA
Civil Rights Movement Archive
Monthly Newsletter
November 1st, 2025
Table of Contents
Website Report
Our Sister Sites
Announcements
Top Ten Most Viewed
New Movement Documents
New Letters & Reports
New Stories & Narratives
New Thoughts & Commentaries
In Memory, New Tributes
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), New Answers
New Poems
New Photos, Art, & Posters
Recent Books
Recent Films/Videos
Please Donate.
With a Little Help From Our Friends,
We'll keep on keeping on.
Ever since we established the CRMA (originally known as "CRMVet") in 1999, it
has been almost entirely funded by personal donations from Freedom Movement
veterans and individual supporters. We carry on this work with almost zero
institutional support, foundation grants, or philanthropic contributions. So
if you find our CRMA site useful and worthy, please click
donate to keep us alive and growing.
You can donate via check, your bank's Bill Pay service, or
PayPal. Thank you for anything you are able to contribute.
Website Report
As of November 1st, our online archive contained 11,596 viewable pages,
documents, images, and recordings, 486 videos in our Vimeo video channel, and
listings for 696 Freedom Movement veterans.
According to Google, there were 36,812 visits to the CRMA website during
October for an average of 1187 per day. This is approximately 52%
higher than October of last year. But there is an unexplained
mystery.
When we dig deeper we see that whereas normally 75-80% of our visitors at this
time of year are from the U.S, last month the U.S. percentage was only 47%.
Back in September there had been a sudden spike in visitors from China, and
last month in October there was an enormous jump — 43% of all
our visits were from China. We have no explanation for this. (An AI experiment
gone wacky? A change in educational curriculum? A change or temporary glitch
in Google Analytics? Something else?) We don't know. However, when we subtract
visits from China from our October totals, we arrive at an average of 765
visitors per day which is essentially the same as October of last year, and a
normal distribution of domestic and international visitors.
Our Sister Sites
 |
SNCC Legacy Project (SLP). SLP preserves and extends SNCC's legacy.
Although SNCC the organization no longer exists, we believe that its legacy continues and needs to be brought forward in ways that continue the struggle for freedom, justice and equality today. |
 |
Movement History Initiative.
A collaborative effort by multiple organizations to build an integrated platform for preserving — and continuing to make freely available to the public — the history, thoughts, stories,
strategies, images, videos, and materials of up-from-below peoples' struggles for freedom, justice, and equality. It is being created by veterans of the 1960s Freedom Movement and modern-era, grassroots social-
justice activists in Black communities who share their lives-lived experiences from the inside-out to combat distortions, false-narratives and censorship. And to provide momentum for movement building
today. |
 |
SNCC Digital Gateway (SDG). A joint project of SLP and Duke University,
SDG tells the story of how young activists in SNCC united with local people in the South to build a grassroots movement for change that empowered the Black community and transformed the nation. |
 |
Black Power Chronicles. The SNCC Legacy Project created the Black Power Chronicles (BPC) in 2015
to help fill the informational void that exists in our historical record about the impact of the Black Power Movement in local communities throughout America. |
 |
SCOPE 50. Preserving Civil Rights and the Story of Voting. Website of SCLC/SCOPE project activists. |
 |
Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. Empowering the next generation, passing it on to carry it on
by preserving the history of the Mississippi Movement. |
 |
Teaching for Change and
Zinn Education Project.
Provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world by promoting and supporting the teaching of people's history in middle and high
school classrooms across the country. |
Announcements
From Protest to Power Podcasts . SNCC Legacy
Project (SLP). The central theme of these visual podcasts is the ongoing
effort of the Black community to achieve the power to define its existence in
America.
Movement Art: If you are aware of any works of art related to the
Freedom Movement such as paintings, drawings, murals, statues, and so on,
please take a look at our Civil
Rights Movement Art page to see if we already have an image of it in our
collection. If it isn't included in our collection please email us an image we
can post, or a weblink, or some other information that we can use. Thanks.
Movement Materials: Please continue to email to us documents, letters,
reports, stories, and other Southern Freedom Movement materials from the
period 1950-1970. See Submissions details.
Top Ten Most Viewed
According to Google, here are the top-ten, most-visited sections and
individual pages in October.
(Note that Google does not count how often PDF files are accessed. Since most
of our documents are in PDF format, the "Top Ten" lists are not all that
accurate.)
Sections, Landing & Reference Pages
- C.R. Movement History 1950-1970
- Freedom Movement Bibliography
- Freedom Movement Photo Album
- Poems of the Civil Rights Movement
- Our Words, Articles & Speeches
- Roll Call of Freedom Movement Veterans
- Freedom Movement Videos
- Civil Rights Movement Web Links
- Our Stories & Interviews
- Civil Rights Movement Major Topic Resources
Individual Pages & Documents
- The Other America, Dr. Martin Luther King. (1967)
- C.R. Movement History: 1960 (student sit-ins)
- Birmingham Manifesto, Shuttlesworth & Smith. April 3, 1963
- Poem: Ain't I A Woman? Sojourner Truth
- C.R. Movement History: 1961 (Freedom Rides, MS voter registration, Albany GA)
- Louisiana Voter Application and Literacy Tests
- Photo Album: Freedom Movement Posters
- Alabama Voter Literacy Test
- Poems of Langston Hughes
- Documents From the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Top Ten Sections & Pages That Others on the Internet Link To
Google reports that out on the global internet there are 35,807 backlinks to
materials on our site by people, organizations, grade-schools, and
universities using us as a trusted information resource. The Top-Ten linked to
pages by number of sites are:
- CRMA Home Page
- Civil Rights Movement Web Links
- Are You "Qualified" to Vote?—Literacy Tests & Voter Applications
- Public Opinion Polls on Civil Rights Movement activities, 1961-1969
- C.R. Movement History: 1963 Jan-June (Birmingham, Greenwod, Danville)
- Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story Comic Book. (Fellowship of Reconciliation)
- C.R. Movement History: 1961 (Freedom Rides, MS voter registration, Albany GA)
- C.R. Movement History: 1960 (student sit-ins)
- Speech to Anti-War Protest, Dr. Martin Luther King. (April 15, 1967)
- C.R. Movement History: 1963 July-Dec (Mass Protests, March on Washington JFK assassination)
| ???? | The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and Enforcement Act of 1870, description of long-standing law requiring federal law enforcement offices to enforce the Constitution and civil rights. By implication countering FBI claims that they had no legal standing to defend southern Blacks or protect civil rights activists. Unsigned, undated. |
| ???? | Mississippi State and County Government Salaries. Unsigned, undated. |
| 56-60 | Listen! Some Reasons Why Everyone Should Register and Vote, Mississippi. Unsigned. Undated (probably 1956-1960) |
| 1963 | SNCC and the Big 10 of the March on Washington confidential memo. Political continuation of march coalition. Eleanor Holmes, SNCC. 9/6/63. 3 pages. |
| ???? | Teacher training application form, SCLC Citizenship Schiools. Undated. |
| ???? | Answers to Citizenship Test on Constitution and Government. Unsigned, SCLC Citizenship Schools. For learning how to pass literacy test. Undated. 7 pages. |
| 1964 | Responsibilities of Project Leaders Unsigned Louisiana CORE. Undated (possibly 1964). |
| 1964 | Observations and Recommendations re youth program. T.A. Lassiter, Louisiana CORE. Undated (possibly 1964 or 1965). |
| 1964 | Study Questions (possibly for freedom school). Ronnie Moore, Louisiana CORE. Undated (possibly 1964 or 1965). |
| 1964 | Community Survey Report. Unsigned Louisiana CORE. Undated (possibly 1964 or 1965). |
| 1964 | Decisions Made at the Recent Executive Session Unsigned, SNCC. Memo re staff hiring authority, field reports, staff discipline, Administrative Council members. 2/24/64. |
| 1965 | Speech by state attorney re Quadricentenial celebration. Speech by state attorney re Quadricentenial celebration. St. Augustine FL SCLC chapter affiliate. January 1965 |
| 1965 | An Open Letter to All Potential Customers of Hammermill Co., re boycott in support of Selma voting rights campaign. Unsigned SNCC. Undated (probably February or March 1965). |
| 65-67 | Do You Think Negroes Should Own Their Own Stores and Businesses? Flyer. Unsigned, Opelousas, LA. Undated (probably 1965-1967). |
| 1965 | Rules of Procedure for Executive Committee Meetings Unsigned, SNCC. 3/5/65. |
| 1965 | Executive Committee Meeting August 23, 1965, summary. Unsigned, SNCC. 8/23/65. 4 pages. |
| 65-67 | Sweet Potatoe Marketing Co-Op flyer, Louisiana (possibly Feliciana parishes). Unsigned CORE. Undated (possibly 1965-1967) |
| 1966 | Memo to Central Committee re whites work in white communities decision. Jack Minnis, SNCC. 8/2/66. 3 pages |
| 1967 | Sunflower County Political Handbook, Freedom Information Service (FIS). Undated 1967. 20 pages. |
| 1968 | Program Coodinator's Report for the Poor People's Campaign Bernard LaFayette, SCLC. 8/13/68. 3 pages. |
| 1968 | Statement on James Earl Ray and James Bevel of SCLC re assasination of Dr. King. Rev. Ralph Abernathy, SCLC. 1/28/68. |
| 1969 | Dear Fellow Freedom Fighters memo to supporters. Rev. Ralph Abernathy, SCLC. 4/23/69 |
WATS & Phone Reports (Log of daily phone-in reports)
SNCC May 20, 1964 . Pascagula arrests, Greenwood imprisonment of welfare mother.
SNCC May 23, 1964 . Hattiesburg, Canton shots fired.
SNCC May 30, 1964 . Canton freedom day arrests, violence, telegram to RFK, highway attack/violence.
COFO May 31, 1964 . Jackson night harrassment and window breaking of COFO office, police "visit" to office. .
COFO June 24, 1964 . Moss Point & Pascagula lawyers phone report about Kirschenbaum & Ridenour arrests
Documents from the Northern Wing of the Movement
| 3/12/45 | NY State | State Commission Against Discrimination, law establishing. |
| 6/1/48 | NAACP NJ | Report on Black woman being held in peonage in Trenton NJ. Clifford Moore, NAACP. 5 pages. |
| 10/5/53 | NCADH | Some Facts on Segregated Housing in America. Unsigned National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. 4 pages |
| 3/14/55 | NCADH | Address to Housing Conference, Loren Miller, National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. 6 pages. |
| 1/04/64 | OFC | Minutes of Operation Freedom Meeting, Browley & McKart. |
| 1/30/64 | ???? | Memorandum for the Discussion, regarding opposition to apartheid in South Africa. No location, unsigned. |
| 9/9/64 | CORE NJ | Police incidents in Passaic County New Jersey, August & September. Unsigned |
| 8/66 | SNCC PA | Questions We Should Ask Ourselves ..., re Philadelphia dynamite case and police. Unsigned Philadelphia SNCC |
| 66-70 | AAAWV | The Real Demands. Boston MA Afro-Americans Against the War in Vietnam. Afro-Americans Against the War in Vietnam (AAAWV). Undated (probably 1966-1970) |
| 66-68 | CRIS | Proposal: Civil Rights Information Service , Chicago IL. Robert McNamara III. Undated (possibly 1966-1968). 9 pages. |
| 66-68 | CORE | How Long Can the U.S. Government be Hypocritical Liars to Black People at Home and Abroad. Re U.S. support for apartheid in South Africa and the Vietnam War. Unsigned CORE. Undated (probably 1966-1968) |
New Letters & Reports From Mississippi Freedom Summer
| 6/21 | Dear Mother, John Stevenson. Arrival in Meridian. |
| 6/25 | Dear Mrs. M, Chips Somerwine? Letter from training session describing Freedom Sumer and requesting financial help. 3 pages. |
| 7/16 | Dear Snoopy, Wally Roberts. News from Shaw. |
| 7/19 | Honey, Roy Torkington. Testimony before LeFlore County Grand Jury |
| 7/21? | Rights Worker Writes, Gretchen Schwartz. (Sunnyvale Standard) Report from Indianola, arrests & difficulties. |
| 7/27 | To: SAF-SNCC, George Winter. Report from Sunflower County. 4 pages |
| 7/24 | Dear Folks, Doug. Update from Crenshaw community. |
| 7/25 | Dear Mom, Dad, Grandma, Bob, and Bill, Jerry Parker. Intimidation on the road. Holmes County |
Black Power Chronicles
Gaynelle Henderson, interviewed by Greg Carr, Howard University. Henderson Travel Service, Afro-centric tours and African Diaspora Heritage Trail. Undated.
Jennifer Lawson, interviewed by Josh Myers. Birmingham and Lowndes County AL, SNCC, Tuskeegee University, NCNW, Pan-Africanism, CLR James, and Walter Rodney. May 17, 2017
Jay Nightwolf, interviewed by Josh Myers. The Black Power Movement and its connections to the American Indian Movement and the historical ties between African Americans and Native Americans, highlighting their shared struggles and the role of Native Americans in the Underground Railroad before the Civil War.
Kojo Nnamdi, interviewed by Ray Baker. Washington DC. Black Power Movement, anti-colonialism, Center for Black Education, Black Panther Party, SNCC, Daily Drum radio broadcast at Howard University. Undated.
James Phillips & Nelson Stevens, conversation facilitated by A.B. Spellman. Potter's House in Washington, DC. Coalition of Black Revolutionary Artists (AfriCOBRA), Black Arts Movement, influence of music and the broader cultural context of the 1960s and 1970s. Undated.
Frank Smith, interviewed by Dr. Clarence Lusane, Howard University. SNCC, Black Power, impact of Civil Rights Movement on the Black Community. Undated.
Irving and Elvira Williams, interviewed by Karen Spellman, Univ. District Columbia. Improving lives in Africa, Adventures in Health, Education, and Agricultural Development (AHEAD). Undated.
Howard students who participated in sit-ins, freedom rides, and voter registration, 1960-1964. Unsigned. Undated (possibly 2014)
No new answers added this month.
No new memories or tributes added this month
No new poems added this month.
Before I'll Be a Slave...
Freedom Movement Art
Freedom Movement Art, Special Collections
Recent Books by or About Movement Veterans:
Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement.
Atria/One Signal Publishers (Simon & Schuster) March 2025. The little known
story of how four activists in the 1950s created and built a semi-clandestine
network of Citizenship Schools across the Jim Crow South. A network that
formed a foundation for the Freedom Movement's voting rights battles of the
1960s. Septima Clark, Esau Jenkins, Bernice Robinson, and Myles Horton of the
Highlander Center.
Mississippi's Black Cotton.
By MacArthur Cotton and John Obee, foreword by Nikole Hannah-Jones. University
of Georgia Press. May 1, 2025. A personal history of the 1960's Mississippi
Civil Rights Movement by SNCC Field Secretary MacArthur Cotton, who lived it.
If Anybody Should Ask
You ... This Is What Happened: A Memoir, by Gwendolyn J. Dennis-Mack.
2024. The personal story of an African American high school girl who joined
the movement of young people to desegregate American classrooms in Deep South
Georgia.
More Voices
of Civil Rights Lawyers: Continuing the Struggle, by Kent Spriggs.
Stories and descriptions by 23 Civil Rights Lawyers about their struggles to
advance and maintain human rights in the United States South.
Putting
the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching, Second Edition. By
Menkart, Murray, and View. 2024. Lessons, quizzes, images, essays, articles,
primary source documents, and poetry, to help teachers go beyond a "heroes and
holidays" approach to teaching about the Freedom Movement in K-12 classrooms.
The focus is on people of color, women, youth, organizing, culture,
institutional racism, and the interconnectedness of social
movements — Desegregation of Public Spaces, Voting Rights,
Black Power, Labor and Land, Transnational Solidarity, and Student
Engagement.
Unlawfully Incarcerated At Age Thirteen, by Emmarene Kaigler Streeter,
2024. Personal story of one the "Stolen Girls of the
Lee County Stockade
arrested in Americus GA, and imprisoned in 1963.
Marching in Montgomery, by John J. Hartman. IPBooks. 2024.
First-hand account by a participant of the March 1965 voting rights protests
in Montgomery Alabama in support of the movement in Selma AL.
Ma Lineal: A Memoir of Race, Activism, and Queer Family, by Faith
Holsaert. Memoir of NYC childhood, SNCC in Southwest Georgia, and raising her
own children in the coalfields of West Virginia.
The Rise and Fall of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, by
Martin Oppenheimer. Native Publishers, 2024. Concise history including the
historical antecedents, the Greensboro sit-ins, Freedom Summer, the violence
of KKK and police, and its demise around 1973.
As always comments, suggestions, corrections, and submissions from Freedom
Movement activists are welcome. Veterans of the Southern Freedom Movement who
are listed on the website's Roll Call are encouraged to contribute to the
website their stories, thoughts, documents, and memories & tributes of those
who have passed on by emailing them in to us.
If you're not already a subscriber to the monthly email version of this
newsletter, send us your email address and let us know you'd like to be added
to the list. To unsubscribe (heaven forfend!) do the same.
— Bruce Hartford
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