Donations to CRMA are now Tax-Deductable! The IRS has approved us as a 501c3 nonprofit eligible to receive tax-deductable donations. See our Donations Page for details.
According to Google, 31,324 people visited the website during March for an average of 1010 per day. Roughly 14% of our visitors came from outside the U.S. This is roughly 40% higher than the number who visited us last March (though, of course, that was the first month of the pandemic).
— Bruce Hartford, Webspinner.
Ever since Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement established the CRMA (formerly known as "CRMVet") in late 1999, it has been funded by personal donations from Freedom Movement activists and individual supporters. We carry on this work without any institutional support, foundation grants, or philanthropy contributions of any kind. So if you find our CRMA site useful and worthy, please click here to make a donation to keep us alive and growing. Thank you for anything you are able to contribute.Please consider converting your PayPal donation to an automatic monthly contribution by checking the "Make this a monthly donation" box on the amount screen when it pops up.
SNCC Digital Gateway. SNCC Legacy Project & Duke University. Tells the story of how young activists in SNCC united with local people in the Deep South to build a grassroots movement for change that empowered the Black community and transformed the nation.SNCC Legacy Project (SLP). SLP was begun to preserve and extend 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 liberty.
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.
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.
Chicago SNCC History Project. Tells the Stories of Chicago Area Friends of SNCC (CAFSNCC), its relationship to SNCC, it's pivotal role in shaping the fight for freedom in Chicago between 1960-1965, and preserves that history as a legacy for the young people who are continuing the fight for freedom, justice and peace.
SCOPE 50. Preserving Civil Rights and The Story of Voting. Website of SCLC/SCOPE project activists.
Organizing Our Strength for Tomorrow:
A Call to Gather on SNCC's 60th Anniversary
A virtual online gathering, October 14-16, 2021
SNCC 60th Anniversary Conference.Now Available: It's in the Action: Memories of a Nonviolent Warrior. Personal memoir and observations by one of the key central figures in the Freedom Movement. From student sit-ins to the Freedom Rides to the battles for voting rights and a fair share of political and economic power, C.T. Vivian was on the ground in the action.
Available online & in some theaters: Son of the South a film based on Bob Zellner's autobiography, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, written & directed by Alabama native Barry Alexander Brown and produced by Spike Lee. The story of how a White Southerner, from a KKK background made the decision to join the Civil Rights Movement as the first white field secretary for SNCC.
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 1951-1968. If you have paper-based materials, please make good quality photo-copies and postal mail them to us for scanning and uploading (see About Us for postal address).
1952 A Primer for Political Action (brochure), unsigned NAACP. Undated (probably 1952) 1961 Crisfield MD sit-in report, Unsigned, CIG and/or NAG. Late December 1961 1962? Some Notes on Leading Discussions, Unsigned, HERC. Undated (probably between 1961 and mid-1964) 1963? Suggestions, Julian Bond, SNCC, Undated (possibly 1963) 1963 The Constitution as it Affects Negros, unsigned. Undated (probably July 1963) 1963 Report re Coleman on Negroes (referring to Gov. Coleman), MS, unsigned, SNCC 1964 Convention Challenge, re organizing the COFO convention in Jackson MS, April 1964. Unsigned, COFO 1964 Freedom Schools in Mississippi 1964, Liz Fusco, Freedom School Coordinator. 1964 Profiles of Typical Freedom Schools, COFO. 1964 Books Needed in Mississippi Freedom Schools, Undated. Unsigned, COFO 1964 Memo re Materials to Bring With You to Mississippi, for Freedom School teachers. Undated (probably June '64). Unsigned, COFO. 1964 Resources for Teaching Negro History, Undated. Unsigned, COFO 1964 First Session Freedom Schools, Undated (probably late June or early July '64), Unsigned, COFO 1964 Support Justice in Mississippi, Unsigned SNCC or COFO. July 19 1964 1964 Approximate Time Table of the Statuatory Challenge, unsigned MFDP. Undated (probably late 1964 or early 1965) 64? '65? ASCS organizing handbook, unsigned, MFDP. Undated (probably either late 1964 or late 1965) 1965 Memo on the Relationship Between Federal Registrars and the Jury System. Guyot & Higgs, MFDP. Undated (possibly August or September 1965) 1965 Dear Friend, fund appeal related to voting-rights. Martin Luther King, SCLC, February 1965 (during the Selma voting rights campaign) 1965 Suggested Action for Including New Elections in Voting Legislation. Unsigned, many groups. Undated (possibly April of 1965) 65? 66? What Would it Profit a Man to Have the Vote and Not be Able to Control It? (original document). Courtland Cox, SNCC. Undated (probably late '65 or early '66) 1967 Letter to Amzie Moore, re formation of MUTENC committee, Joseph Harris. July 11, 1967 Documents from the Northern Wing of the Movement
7/64 CORE Why We Say Bank of America Discriminates 8/3/64 CORE Memo to members re PR parnership with L.A. Free Press, Sylvia Richards, L.A. CORE 8/3/64 CORE Stem the Tide of Hate, joint statement against formation of White Citizens Council in L.A. 3/24/66 Minutes, Berkeley CA Committee for Independent Political Action, unsigned. 4/66 VFP Report on Results of Voters for Peace Poll, Karen Sue Dayno, VFP Chicago, IL. April 1966
New Letters & Reports From Mississippi Freedom Summer
7/26 Report from Hattiesburg, T. Shaw, Delta Ministry? 7/26 Letter regarding research & information, Mary Jennings 7/30 Reports from Clarksdale, July 28-30, Fraser & Loris Thomason (DM?) 7/30 The District One Project July 17-30, W.M. Weber, DM 7/31 Report from Starkville, unsigned
Joanne Gavin Answers to Jon Hale's Freedom School Questionnaire, 2008 Rep. Kastenmeier (D-WI) Interview by Anne Romaine re MDFP & Democratic Party. 1966 Meg Redden Freedom Summer ~ A Memoir (LA) Jimmy Rogers Interview by Paul Murry for article on Fr. Morrisrow, 2013 Alice Tucker My Integration SuperHero (MS)
Affidavits of Repression, Retaliation & Violence
1958 Affadavit of Willie Woodson, re FBI hostility to NAACP in Mound Bayou, March 16, 1958 1964 Affadavit of Louise Watson, re bomb found at Pike County MS church. 1964 Affadavit of Lula Jackson, re burning of Mount Vernon Church, June 21 1964 1964 Affadavit of Rev. H.L. McKnight re burning of Mount Vernon Baptist Church, June 21 1964 1965 Affadavits of Robert Gahtan and Bernice Crosby, re mass arrests in Jackson MS, crowded jail conditions and police beatings, June 14, 1965 1965 Affadavit of Walter Gilbert, re Carthage MS church burning, October 15 1965 (handwritten) 1965 Affadavit of Lynn Hollander, re Carthage MS church burning, October 15 1965 (handwritten)
62? '63? Sick And Tired, Youth Night Address to the American Baptist Convention, Marian Wright, ABC, undated (possibly 1960-63) 1967 Organized Labor and the Black Worker, United Electrical Workers & Machine Workers of America (UE), August 1967
No new commentaries added this month.
Alice Tucker Pretlow - School Integrator, 1964-73, MS Meg Redden - CORE, 1964, LA
Jesse Morris, SNCC
No new answers added this month.
Molly Lynn Watt: Billie Holiday Sings "Strange Fruit" Sarah R: Sarah R. on G's 80th
Freedom Movement Art NEW! Freedom Singing
NEW! Museums, Centers, Monuments & Memorials
FILM & VIDEO:It's in the Action: Memories of a Nonviolent Warrior, by C.T. Vivian with Steve Fiffer. NewSouth Books, 2021. Personal memoir and observations by one of the key central figures in the Freedom Movement. From student sit-ins to the Freedom Rides to the battles for voting rights and a fair share of political and economic power, C.T. Vivian was on the ground in the action.
Fire at the Freedom House, by Matt Rinaldi. Personal memoir of a white activist working Attala County, Mississippi, in 1966 under the organizing direction of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) led by Lawrence Guyot and Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer.
Julian Bond's Time to Teach: A History of the Southern Civil Rights Movement, by Julian Bond, Danny Lyon, Pamela Horowitz, & others. Beacon Press (2021). History & analysis of the Freedom Movement based on Julian's course lecture notes and his personal insights.
My Race to Freedom: A Life in the Civil Rights Movement, by Gwendolyn (Gwen) Patton. NewSouth Books, 2020. Autobiography & Movement memoir by a long-term stalwart of the Freedom Movement — Montgomery Bus Boycott & Montgomery Improvement Association, student sit-ins, Freedom Rides, student activism at Tuskegee, voter-registration and rural organizing, Selma and the March to Montgomery.
Year Forever in my Veins, by Faith Holsaert. Backbone Press, 2020. Chapbook of poems growing out of letters home to mother and sister during year working with SNCC in Southwest Georgia.
Our Sixties, by Freedom Movement veteran Paul Lauter. University of Rochester Press, 2020. Examination of the values, exploits, victories, implications, and failings, of the "Movement" in the 1960s. Includes chapters about Freedom Summer of 1964, Natchez in the summer of 1965, and a community school in DC, 1966.
Mississippi & After: A Life in Equal Justice Law, by Gil Venable (1942-2019), One Monkey Books, 2020. Memoir of a law student assisting the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Jackson, MS.
Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country ~ The Benton County Civil Rights Movement, by Roy DeBerry, Aviva Futorian, Stephen Klein, and John Lyons. University Press of Mississippi, 2020. History of the Benton movement and personal narratives of local Freedom Movement participants.
A Small Town Rises: A Sharecropper and a College Girl Join the Struggle for Justice in Shaw, Mississippi, by Lee Anna Sherman with Movement veterans Eddie Short and recent college grad Mary Sue Gellatly. Bog Lily Press, 2020. Chronicles the lives of two civil rights activists who met in the tiny cotton-town of Shaw during Freedom Summer and joined forces with local black activist Andrew Hawkins and a host of courageous townspeople to challenge and disrupt the status quo in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.
Tip of the Arrow: the Selma Student Nonviolent Movement, a Study in Leadership, by Charles Bonner. Page Publishing, 2020. An "up-from-below" and "inside-out" examination of, and personal narratives by, the young students of Selma Alabama who from 1963 to 1965 were the tip of the nonviolent arrow in the fight for freedom and equality. Charles Bonner, the author, was one of the main student leaders and then a SNCC field secretary. Today he is one of the boldest civil rights attorneys in California.
Race Man: Selected Works, 1960-2015, by Julian Bond. City Lights Publishers; 2020).
"Troublemaker" Memories of the Freedom Movement, by Bruce Hartford. Westwind Writers, 2019. Personal boots-on-the-ground memoir of four years service in the American Civil Rights Movement, 1963-1967.
Southern White Girl Seeks Social Change: A Twentieth Century Memoir, by Nancy Stoller. Bright Stuff, 2019. A memoir from the dawn of SNCC, women's liberation, and young people who "de-segregated" the US, each body on the line, every eye on the prize.
Acts of Resistance: A Freedom Rider Looks Back on the Civil Rights Movement, by Judith Frieze Wright. Apple Bay Publishing, 2019. A memoir of one person's experience in Mississippi during the early sixties.
Mississippi Reckoning, (novel) by Mitchell Zimmerman. Amazon/Kindle Direct Publishing 2019. The story of a despairing man's pursuit of justice for the victims of segregationist brutality, set against a sweeping backdrop of white supremacy rampant and the civil rights struggles of the 1940s and 1960s.
Son of the South a film based on Bob Zellner's autobiography, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek. The story of how a White Southerner, from a KKK background made the decision to join the Civil Rights Movement as the first white field secretary for SNCC.
SNCC (Trailer). A 2020 film by SNCC photographer Danny Lyon that brings together never seen made during the years he was employed as the staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The images are layered with archival audio recordings of speeches by, and conversations with, John Lewis, Julian Bond, Dotty Zellner, among others, as well as freedom songs that were recorded by Alan Ribback in churches and meetings in Atlanta in the 1960s and recently rediscovered.
1967 NBC News Interview with Martin Luther King, that was never broadcast and not made available until 2018. (27 minutes.)
Traveling With Dr. King, by Sunnylands & Gandhi-King Institute for Nonviolence. 2019. Video remembrance by people who knew and worked closely with Dr. King.
Iowans Return to Freedom Summer, by Keeping History Alive foundation. 2018. Firsthand accounts from six Freedom Summer volunteers from Iowa who reflect on their motivations, fears, triumphs and the life altering events that took place 50 years ago.
Heather Booth: Changing the World, a documentary film by Lily Rivlin. 2017. How the Civil Rights Movement inspired SNCC activist and Freedom Summer volunteer Heather Booth to a lifetime of fighting for social justice.
Stand for Freedom: The Life & Times of Willie B. Wazir Peacock The story of Willie Peacock, one of the original SNCC field secretaries organzing in the Mississippi Delta. YouTube.
They Say I'm Your Teacher, nine minute video by Lucy Phenix about the Citizenship Schools (exerpted from the film You Got to Move: Stories of Change in the South.)
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 to webmaster@crmvet.org.
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