CRMA
Civil Rights Movement Archive
Monthly Newsletter
August 1st, 2025
Table of Contents
News
Our Sister Sites
Announcements
Website Report
Top Ten Most Viewed
New CRMA Video & Audio
New Movement Documents
New Letters & Reports
New Thoughts & Commentaries
Activist Roll Call, New Names
In Memory, New Tributes
New Discussions
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), New Answers
New Poems
New Photos, Art, & Posters
Recent Books
News
For months now, the MAGA Regime has been waging an unrelenting assault on our
history and values by scrubbing struggles for racial justice and equality, and
DEI concepts and efforts, from government websites, national parks, museums,
and schools. And not just matters related to race, but also anything
pertaining to global-warming climate-change, gender freedom and equality,
economic inequality, health & safety, and so much more.
Last month, they continued their campaign by issuing a series of executive
orders and plans described (by them) as "Preventing Woke AI in the Federal
Government." Clearly, their goal is to ensure that all AI implementations
used by the federal government conform to MAGA political orthodoxy. In other
words, not Artificial Intelligence but mandatory ideological
indoctrination.
We of the Civil Rights Movement Archive and our Sister organizations in the Movement History Initiative
stand against the MAGA regime's Orwellian censorship and distortion of our
history. We remain committed to freely-providing to everyone an
up-from-below, inside-out, and lives-lived, perspective
on the Civil Rights and other freedom and social-justice movements that
shaped — and continue to shape — American
history and culture to this day.
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.
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. |
 |
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. |
 |
Movement History Initiative, John Hope Franklin Center, Duke University. |
 |
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
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
Fovement.
SNCC & Grassroots Organizing
Discussion Series. Spring, 2025. SNCC veterans and humanities scholars
explore SNCC's organizing work and its connections to life, community, social-
justice struggles today. In-Person and Live-Streamed.
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.
Website Report
As of August 1st, our online archive contained 11,407 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 13,180 visits to our website during July
for an average of 425 per day. This is approximately 7% more than July of last
year. This low overal number reflects our traditional summer-doldrums when
most U.S. schools are out of session.
Roughly 25% of our visitors came from outside the U.S. in July. On average
over the course of a year, international users make up 15%-20% of our users.
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.
Top Ten Most Viewed
According to Google, here are top-ten, most-visited sections and individual
pages in July.
(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
- Freedom Movement Bibliography
- Our Stories & Interviews
- Freedom Movement Photo Album
- Civil Rights Movement History 1950-1970
- Freedom Rides and Freedom Riders Resources
- Freedom Movement Videos
- Civil Rights Movement Major Topic Resources
- Poems of the Civil Rights Movement
- Roll Call of Freedom Movement Veterans
Individual Pages & Documents
- The Other America, Dr. Martin Luther King. (1967)
- Civil Rights Movement History: 1960 (student sit-ins)
- In Memory: Rev. Thomas Gilmore
- Photo Album: The Freedom Rides (1961)
- Poems of Langston Hughes
- Civil Rights Movement History: 1961 (Freedom Rides, MS voter registration, Albany GA)
- Photo Album: The Children's Crusade: Birmingham (1963)
- Louisiana Voter Application and Literacy Tests
- Poem: Ain't I A Woman? Sojourner Truth
- Bigger Than a Hamburger, Ella Baker. Address: SNCC founding conference (1960)
Top Ten Sections & Pages That Others on the Internet Link To
Google reports that out on the global internet there are 18,995 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 Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR)
- The Other America, Dr. Martin Luther King. (1967)
- Are You "Qualified" to Vote?—Literacy Tests & Voter Applications
- List of Oral Histories: Columbia University
- Public Opinion
Polls on Civil Rights Movement activities 1961-1969
- Interview: Fatima Cortez,
2012
- Nonviolence, Self-Defense & Provocateurs
- Civil Rights Movement History: 1961 (Freedom Rides, MS voter registration, Albany GA)
- Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story Comic Book. (Fellowship of Reconciliation)
Our CRMA Video
Channel on the Vimeo hosting service provides videos created by Freedom
Movement veterans (or their immediate families) and videos created by others
that are substantially about Movement veterans. When you visit the channel,
please consider adding yourself as a "follower" for social-media metrics.
Thanks.
New Videos Posted in July:
Larry Rubin, SNCC, 1961-65, Georgia, Mississippi. 2006. 89 min..
Reginald Robinson, SNCC field secretary, McComb, Mississippi, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee. 2006. 79 min.
Cleveland Sellers, Holly Springs Mississippi, MFDP, SNCC program secretary. 2007. 121 min.
Charles Sherrod, SNCC Southwest Georgia, voter registration project, Albany Civil Rights Movement. 2007. 86 min.
Frank Smith, Mississippi Freedom Labor Union (MFLU), 2006. 60 min.
Hollis Watkins, Mississippi voter registration, McComb, Hattiesburg, Greenwood, Holmes County, Pike County Nonviolent Direct Action Committee, Southern Echo. 2004. 31 min.
Edwilda Allen Issac Interview. By George Gilliam, William Thomas, Mason Mills, of The Ground Beneath Our Feet project. Moton High School student strike Prince Edward County, VA. Barbara Johns, Massive Resistance to school integration campaign. 2000. 7 min.
Vera Jones Allen Interview. By George Gilliam, William Thomas, Mason Mills, of The Ground Beneath Our Feet project. Moton High School student strike Prince Edward County, VA. Barbara Johns, Massive Resistance to school integration campaign. 2000. 47 min.
| 1955 | Southwide Conference on Compliance with the Supreme Court Decision on Segregation in Public Schools. Memo from Jim Dombrowski, SCEF, to Thurdood Marshal, LDF 1/17/55. 4 pages. |
| 1964 | Florida Spring Project, SCM-SCLC. Protests in St. Augustine. 3 pages. |
| 1963 | SCLC Annual Report 1962-1963, September 1963 |
| 63-64 | Don't Buy in Down Town Williamnston flyer. Williamston unit SCLC. Undated (probably 1963 or 1964) |
| 1964 | Proposal of Organization, report from SSOC-SCEF Nashville conference, April 3-5, 1964. See also We'll Take Our Stand. 4/4/64. 3 pages. |
| 6/64 | SNCC Washington Lobby personal info form for participants lobbying Congress regarding Freeom Summer. June 13-July 4, 1964. June 13-July 4, 1964. |
| 1964 | In White America, play program. Free Southern Theater. Undated summer |
| 1964 | Declaration of Independence, drafted by Palmers Crossing freedom school students (later adopted by MFDP convention). Undated (probably late July or early August |
| 7/64 | Composition Books of freedom school student Gwendolyn Merrill. Hattiesburg MS. Handwritten. Undated summer 1964. 7 pages. |
| 7/64 | Draft precinct resolution, calling for the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). July 25, 1964 |
| 7/64 | Poster Party for MFDP Instructions, memo to freedom school teachers re organizing precinct meetings. Hattiesburg MS. July 1964 |
| 7/64 | Memo to Mississippi Summer Project Librarians re accomplishment, problems, suggestions. Virginia Steele, Library Coordinator. 7/28/64. 5 pages. |
| 1965 | List of Home Newspapers, CORE Louisiana staff members. Undated (possibly 1965). |
| 1965 | MFDP Washington Newsletter, Congressional Challenge. Undated (probably February 1965). 3 pages. |
| 1965 | Dear Friend, letter to supporter describing 1965 COFO summer project. Karen Pate, financial secty. 6/11/65. 3 pages. |
| 1965 | Freedom What can be done in Mississippi in the coming months? Flyer. Hattiesburg MS. 8/18/65 |
| 1966 | Fannie Lou Hamer Appeal ruling, Sunflower County voting rights case. March 11, 1966. 7 pages. |
| 1966 | Registration: Statewide Public Hearing, Mississippi. Margree Edwina Miller. 8/13/66. 9 pages. |
| 1966 | Letter to Victory Gray, John Doar, DoJ. Delayed response to complaints regarding May and June primary elections in MS. 8/20/66 |
| 1967? | Mississippi Workshop flyer for anti-repression and rights protection meeting at Mt Beulah. Nine organizations. Undated (possibly 1967 or 1968). |
| 1967 | MFDP Executive Sessions agenda and schedule. January 27, 1967. |
| 1967 | Statement on behalf of Negro citizens of Sunflower County MS, re lack of enforcement of Voting Rights Act. National Committee for Free Elections in Sunflower. 4/26/67. 8 pages. |
| 1967 | National Conference on Black Power July 20-23, 1967. Newark NJ. Flyer and registration form. |
| 1967 | SCLC Department of Voter Registration and Political Education Annual Report to the Convention. Hosea Williams, SCLC. 8/14/67. 6 pages. |
| 1967 | Keynote Address to 10th Annual SCLC Convention, Sidney Poitier. 8/14/67. 7 pages. |
| 1967 | Mississippi Delegation Position Paper, National Conference for New Politics (NCNP), Chicago IL. 8/29/67. |
| 1968 | Proposed Program for Mississippi re Poor People's Campaign. Hall, Cottonreader, Porche, Mohead, Wright, SCLC. 1/14/68. 5 pages. |
| 1968 | Staff meeting memo re Poor People's Campaign organizing and mule train. Hosea Williams, SCLC Department of Voter Registration and Political Education. 3/26/68. 5 pages. |
| 1969 | Statement by Ralph David Abernathy, President SCLC, re poverty and Poor People's Campaign second chapter. 4/16/69. 3 pages. |
Freedom Movement Publications
Freedom Movement Press Releases
Documents from the Northern Wing of the Movement
| c1963 | CORE | Constitution and Bylaws, Milwaukee CORE. Circa 1963 |
| 1963 | CORE | Defacto school segregation documents, Milwaukee CORE. 5 documents |
| 12/63 | CORE | Philadelphia CORE Goes Slumming. 5 page report |
| 11/63 | NNPC | Segregation in Milwaukee Schools, Near Northside Non-Partisan Conference. 14 page report |
| 12/10/63 | CORE | Segregation in Milwaukee Schools, Milwaukee CORE. 7 page report |
| c1964 | CORE | CORE Demonstration Rules, Milwaukee CORE. Circa 1964 |
| 1/64 | CORE | Milwaukee CORE Education Committee documents, re school segregation. 3 documents |
| 1/16/64 | CORE | Statement by New York CORE Chapters on School Integration, New York City CORE. pages |
| 2/2/64 | CORE | March for Integrated Schools flyer, Milwaukee CORE. |
| 5/18/64 | CORE | Freedom Day, Freedom School documents, Milwaukee CORE. 6 documents |
| 2/19/64 | Robert Tenny, SCEF? | Prospectus for Atlanta for the White Student Organizing Project, memo. 3 pages |
| 4/6/64 | Pam, SNCC vol | Dear Mom and Dad, letter from SNCC volunteer in Atlanta GA |
| 6/13/64 | Larry Wright, SNCC vol | Dear Gang, letter from Holly Springs by volunteer delivering books to freedom centers. |
| 6/20/64 | John Strand, SNCC vol | Dear Gang, letter from Batesville MS |
| 8/1/64 | Joel Barnard, COFO | Dear Folks, MFDP organizing and freedom registration, repression, 1st Congressional District Mississippi. 5 pages |
| 8/15/64 | Joel Barnard, COFO | Dear Grandma, MFDP convention in Jackson, poverty in Mississippi, organizing. |
| 10/3/64 | Joel Barnard, COFO | Dear Mom, financial woes of West Point Mississippi project. |
| 11/4/64 | Joel Barnard, COFO | Dear Folks, West Point Mississippi project, organizing in 1st Congressional district, poverty, frustrations, hope, danger, repression, activists. 11 pages |
| 11/23/64 | Joel Barnard, COFO | Dear Friends, West Point Mississippi project, fund appeal, organizing, fear, travails, food drive. 3 pages |
| 3/12/65 | Joel Barnard, CORE | Dear Folks, West Point & Clay County Mississippi, COFO, organizing, the movement, activist life, danger, poverty. 15 pages |
| 7/3/65 | Joel Barnard, CORE | Dear Mrs. Sachet, West Point Mississippi freedom center, request for donation of a used car, books, and living expenses. |
| 6/13/66 | Joel Barnard, CORE | Dear Mom, Meredith Mississippi March in Batesville, West Point and Clay County MS. 2 pages |
| 7/24/66 | Joel Barnard, CORE | Dear Mom, West Point and Clay County Mississippi, support needed. |
New Letters & Reports From Mississippi Freedom Summer
| 6/23 | Dear Family, Carl Pomerance. Batesville. |
| 6/25 | Partial letter, Judy. Personalities at Oxford training |
| 6/26 | Dear Christian Friends, Linda Seese? Chaney-Schwerner-Goodman, Mrs. Hamer |
| 6/26 | Notes from Ruleville, George Winter |
| 6/30 | Dear Ones, Judy. Work and situation in Ruleville area. |
| 6/28 | Dear Mother and Dad, John Stevenson. Missing workers and the work in Meridian. |
| 7/1 | Dear Gang, John Strand. Work in Batesville. |
| 7/4 | Dear Friends, Judy. Letter from Ruleville and Shaw. 5 pages. |
| 7/3 | Dear Church Members and Friends, Larry Spears. Oxford orientation and journey into Mississippi. |
| 7/3 | Dear Father and Mother, Ruth Steward. Memphis & journey into Mississippi |
No new commentaries added this month.
No new names added to the Roll Call this month
No new memories or tributes added this month
Updated and enhanced SNCC Conference transcripts:
SNCC 60th #2: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
SNCC 60th #3: Lowndes County Freedom Party (LCFP)
SNCC 60th #4: Making Our Way Into Political Office To Make Change
SNCC 60th #5: Organizing The Black Community To Vote
SNCC 60th #7: Attorneys General and District Attorneys
SNCC 60th #9: Criminal Justice ~ Effecting Change
SNCC 60th #10: Changing The Mission Of The Criminal Justice System
SNCC 60th #11: Economic Power And Economic Security
SNCC 60th #13: The Artist as Activist
No new answers added this month.
The Light Workers, Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
Before I'll Be a Slave...
Meredith Mississippi March, 1966
Freedom Movement Art
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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