Frank Cieciorka
(1939 — 2008)

SNCC, Mississippi, Arkansas, 1964-65

Frank Cieciorka's, The Rape of Lady Liberty ~ A Discussion, 2023.

While a student at San Jose State in the early 60s I was active with the San Jose Friends of SNCC. I graduated in '64 just in time to volunteer for Freedom Summer. At the end of the summer I was put on SNCC staff as a field secretary & worked in Mississippi & Arkansas until I returned to San Francisco in June, 1965. In San Francisco I worked on The Movement newspaper as art director and production manager until '69. After that I worked with a publishing/propaganda collective called "Peoples' Press" until I moved further north in California in 1972 (Humboldt County) where I built a house/studio and scratched out a living as a watercolor painter.

My year in Mississippi was certainly one the most profound experiences in my life and helped shape my political consciousness to this day. I'm saddened that this country hasn't done more to eliminate poverty and racism in the intervening forty years.


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