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As we've been reporting over the past few months, the MAGA Regime is waging an unrelenting attack on our history, our values, and our democracy. Last month, for example, they continued their campaign with a direct assault on the Smithsonian, demanding that the institution align itself with the president's political agenda (meaning MAGA ideology and dogma).
This month our focus is on our resistance to autocratic thought-suppression.
In a time of increasing censorship and thought-suppression, our Movement History Initiative (MHI) is 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 to provide momentum for movement building today.
We are not alone. Many other groups and organizations are also in the fight to defend freedom of thought and preserve Black history. A few examples include:
Response to the White House Directive to Review Smithsonian Institution Museums Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)
Statement Regarding the White House Review of Smithsonian Institution Museums, American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
Freedom to Learn Network, #HandsOffOurHistory. Convened by the African American Policy Forum.
Black History Is American History Affirmation, sign-on petition. Multiple organizations.
Statement by Legal Defense Fund (LDF) April 27, 2025
Stand Against Trump's Erasure of Black History, sign on petition. Color of Change.
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.
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 collaboration among veterans of the Freedom Movement of the 1950-1906s and today's activists and grassroots organizations to preserve — and continue 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. 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.
From Emmett Till to SNCC & Beyond: Words, Music & Art with Peggy Dammond Preacely (SNCC) and many others. Benefit for the Highways Performance Space. Saturday, October 11, 8:30pm (PDT). 1651 18th St., Santa Monica, CA.
Borrowed Land, Stolen Labor, and the Holy Spirit: The Struggle for Power and Equality in Holmes County, Mississippi, by Diane T. Feldman. University Press of Mississippi. 2025. Chronicles the profound history of a low-income county that became a pivotal site for Delta organizing during the Civil Rights Movement.
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.
As of October 1st, our online archive contained 11.528 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 22,156 visits to the CRMA website during September for an average of 739 per day. This is approximately 20% more than September of last year. There are 19,844 links on the global internet to our site.
On school days, our number of visitors ranged from 561 to 924 per day.
Roughly 34% of our visitors came from outside the U.S. in September — which is quite high for us. On average over the course of a year, international users make up 15%-20% of our users. Also of interest is that 3,349 came from China. We haven't been tracking visitors from specific countries, but that number from China seems unusually high (we have no explanation). In any case, we are proud that our Freedom Movement of the 1960s is still of interest to people around the world and that our site still stands as a free, publicly-available, un-censored international information resource.
According to Google, here are the top-ten, most-visited sections and
individual pages in September.
(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
- Site Search: Civil Rights Movement Archive
- C.R. Movement History 1950-1970
- Freedom Movement Photo Album
- MLK Speeched & Writings,
- Freedom Movement Bibliography
- Freedom Movement Videos
- Poems of the Civil Rights Movement
- Our Words, Articles & Speeches
- Roll Call of Freedom Movement Veterans
- Civil Rights Movement Web Links
Individual Pages & Documents
- The Other America, Dr. Martin Luther King. (1967)
- C.R. Movement History: 1960 (student sit-ins)
- Louisiana Voter Application and Literacy Tests
- C.R. Movement History: 1963 July-Dec (Mass Protests, March on Washington JFK assassination)
- C.R. Movement History: 1961 (Freedom Rides, MS voter registration, Albany GA)
- C.R. Movement History: 1963 Jan-June (Birmingham, Greenwod, Danville)
- Poem: Ain't I A Woman? Sojourner Truth
- Photo Album: Freedom Movement Posters
- Alabama Voter Literacy Test
- Photo Album: The Freedom Rides (1961)
Top Ten Sections & Pages That Others on the Internet Link To
Google reports that out on the global internet there are 19,844 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 are:
- CRMA Home Page
- The Other America, Dr. Martin Luther King. (1967)
- Are You "Qualified" to Vote?—Literacy Tests & Voter Applications
- Public Opinion Polls on Civil Rights Movement activities, 1961-1969
- 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: 1963 July-Dec (Mass Protests, March on Washington JFK assassination)
- Speech to Anti-War Protest, Dr. Martin Luther King. (April 15, 1967)
- Final Plans for the March on Washington, 1963
- We Charge Genocide, Civil Rights Congress (CRC). 1954
1947 Journey of Reconciliation collection 5 documents
Segregation on Common Carriers. James Wallace
About the Journey of Reconciliation. CORE
Journey of Reconciliation miscellaneous documents.
NAACP Contact List for Journey of Reconciliation.
Journey of Reconciliation, Houser & Rustin, CORE/FOR. 15 pages.???? 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) 1964 Responsibilities and Procedural Requirements. Ronnie Moore, Louisiana CORE. Undated 1964. 1964 Clinic on Non-Violence. Unsigned CORE. Louisiana. 2/8/64. 2 pages. 1964 Action Memo: Greenwood Mississippi re Senate filibuster against Civil Rights Act and relationship to Greenwood. Unsigned SNCC. 4/1/64. 2 pages. 1964 Senate Passes Bill, SNCC Memo #42 re Civil Rights Act. 6/19/64. 3 pages. 1964 Urgent Memo re dangerous time lapses in incident reports. James Forman, SNCC. 6/26/64. 1964 Statement correcting false media story regarding position on nonviolence and nationalism. John Lewis, SNCC. 7/1/64 1964 Freedom Press newsletter. Hattiesburg MS. August 1964. 4 pages. 1964 Freedom Registration as of August 3rd. Unsigned COFO 1964 Memo to Freedom Summer library coordinators. Virginia Steele, COFO. 8/7/64. 4 pages. 1964 Summary of terrorism in Mississippi, June 21-August 19. Unsigned. COFO? 1964 COFO Financial Report 5/6/64-9/27/64. 1964 Dear Friend, memo on campus Friends of SNCC organizing and program. Unsigned SNCC. 10/24/64. 8 pages. 1964 Organizing outline and plans November-December 1964. Unsigned Louisiana CORE. Undated (progably November 1964). 4 pages. 64? 65? Laws Against False Arrest by Policemen. Murphy Bell, CORE. Analysis of charging cops with "false arrest" in some civil rights cases. Undated (possibly 1964 or 1965). 64? 65? Canvas Sheet, door-to-door canvas worksheet. Louisiana? Unsigned CORE. Undated (possibly 1964 or 1965). 64? 65? Complaint Information forms for reporting violations of the Civil Rights Act or denial of voting rights. Unsigned Louisiana CORE. (Used prior to passage of Voting Rights Act). Undated (possibly 1964 or 1965). 64? 65? Organizing a Purchasing Co-Op form/questionaire. Unsigned CORE. Undated (possibly 1964 or 1965). 64? 65? CORE Testing Form for compliance with Civil Rights Act of 1964. Unsigned. Undated (possibly 1964 or 1965). 64? 65? Statement: What Freedom Schools Will Mean to Louisiana. Unsigned CORE. Undated (possibly 1964 or 1965). 1965 Women in Poverty. U.S. Department of Labor. July 1964. 8 pages. 1965 Letter to Yale Rabin re research work. Jack (Minnis?), SNCC. 7/22/65. 2 pages. 1965 Statement, re phony trial of assassin who murdered Jonathan Daniels in Lowndes County AL. Rev. John. B. Morris, ESCRU. 1967 Some Simple Facts About the Fair Labor Standard Act (Minimum Wage Law). Usigned SRC. February 1967. 8 pages 1967 A Minimum Wage Campaign for Local Groups, unsigned SRC. February 1967. 4 pages. 67-68 Workers Defense League Docket (WDL) 1967-1968. 8 pages. 1968 SNCC organizational chart. Created by Senate Govenment Operations Committee as part of investigation of "Riots, Civil, and Criminal Disorders" based on unreliable law enforcement intelligence. June 1968. Later reproduced and displayed by Freedom Summer 30th Anniverdary Reunion 1994 1968 Poor Peoples Campaign Continues statement. Unsigned SCLC. Undated 1968 (possibly summer). 3 pages. Documents from the Northern Wing of the Movement
1/23/51 NCADH Constitution, National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. 5/20/52 NCADH New Cities, the Promise and the Threat, Charles Abrams. National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. 8/14/53 AFSC Excerpts From a Letter to HHFA Administrator, Jane Reinheimer, AFSC. Re housing discrimination. 3 pages 1954 NCADH Voluntary Home Mortgage Credit Program, National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. 1955 NCADH Literature List, National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. Undated 1955. 66-70 AAAWV The Real Demands. Boston MA Afro-Americans Against the War in Vietnan (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
7/4 Mr. & Mrs. [unclear] Pomerance? (handwritten), Cathedral Childress. Thanks and praise for their son's work as a Freedom Summer volunteer in Batesville MS (handwritten) 7/5 Dear Church Members and Friends , Larry Spears COFO. Description of first week in Hattiesburg. 2 pages. 7/5 Dear Mom, Dad, Bob, and Bill , Jerry Parker? Letter from Tchula about Oxford training and work in Holmes Co. MS. 4 pages. 7/5 Dear Mama and Papa, Terri Shaw. Draft of letter about work in Hattiesburg. 7/8 Hi! Judy. Letter describing activites in Shaw (Bolivar Co.) 3 pages. 7/11 Letter from George Winter , re work in Ruleville (Sunflower Co.) 7/11 Dear Friends, Linda Seese. Letter about difficulties and hard work in Ruleville (Sunflower Co.) 7/11 Letter From Mississippi, Abe Sayer. Meridian MS 7/6-12 Excertps From Letters From Nancy Schieffelin, Greenville MS. 2 pages 7/13 Honey, note from Roy Torkington. Re work in Itta Bena. LeFlor Co. 7/15 Dear Ones, Judy. Letter from Shaw (Bolivar Co.) 4 pages 7/15 Dear Mother, John Stevenson. Note from Meridian MS 7/15 Dear Mr. & Mrs. Barrow, Robert Stone. Re McComb MS. 9/17 Memo to Mississippi Project Parents Committee, Nancy Bowles Ellin. Re collection of letters written by her husband Joe from Hattiesburg.
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party: "Race Has Kept Us Both in Poverty," Mike Miller, SNCC. The Movement, May 1965.
Suppressing Voting Rights: Jim Crow Compared to MAGA, Bruce Hartford. Sept. 2025
Preface: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party:
Lessons From Another Day. Mike Miller, April 2020What Were The Failures of the Civil Rights Movement?. Mike Miller. March 2024
Second Draft: The Democratic Party Convention - 60 Years Ago. Mike Miller. August 26, 2024
SNCC 28th ~ The Music of the Movement
SNCC 28th ~ The SNCC Woman and the Stirrings of Feminism
SNCC 28th ~ Alabama Bound: Selma, and the Lowndes County Black Panther Party, 1964-1966
SNCC 28th ~ Discussions with SNCC Veterans and Students
SNCC 28th ~ The Rise and Triumph of Black Power 1965 - 1966
SNCC 28th ~ The 1960s, and the American Democratic Tradition
No new answers added this month.
No new memories or tributes added this month
No new poems added this month.
Pins of the Civil Rights Movement
Freedom Movement Art, Special Collections
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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