According to Google, there were 12,477 visits to our website during August for an average of 402 per day. This is approximately 2% more than August of last year. This low number reflects our traditional summer-doldrums when most U.S. schools are out of session. Roughly 23% of our visitors came from outside the U.S.
Ever since 2020, our traffic has been declining. Since two-thirds of our visitors are students (grade school and college) we believe that much of this decline stems from the vicious and unrelenting attacks being waged by Republicans and MAGAites against teachers, librarians, principals, school boards, and universities who dare stand against racism and educate around issues of racial justice. Nevertheless, we still stand and will persevere.
As of September 1st, our online archive contains 10,266 searchable pages, documents, images, and recordings, plus 384 videos in our Vimeo video channel.
Google reports that out on the global internet there are 52,030 backlinks to our site by people, organizations, and schools using us as an information resource.
(Note, however, that more than 20,000 of those backlinks are suspicious because they come from a single unidentifiable website and go to a single webpage in our "Our Stories" section. I have no idea what caused this. A benign possibility is that it was caused by a glitch in someone web server. A malign possibiility is that it may indicate some kind of hacker training or experimentation. The most likely possibility is that it's just an instance of weird Internet BS. But, in any case, a more accurate backlink count for out site is probably around 32,000, which is still quite good.)
Ever since we established the CRMA (formerly 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.
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.
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.
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.
Now Available! Unlawfully Incarcerated At Age Thirteen, by Emmarene Kaigler Streeter, 2024. The personal story of one of the 17 Black girls arrested in Americus, Georgia in July, 1963, jailed under horrific and deplorable conditionsand, and not released until September 13, 1963. Sometimes referred to as the "Stolen Girls of the Lee County Stockade." Available on Amazon.
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.
According to Google, our top-ten, most-visited sections and individual pages in August were:
Sections, Landing & Reference Pages
- Are You "Qualified" to Vote?—Literacy Tests & Voter Applications
- Site Search: Civil Rights Movement Archive
- Freedom Rides and Freedom Riders Resources
- Documents From the Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Original Freedom Movement Documents
- Freedom Movement Bibliography
- Poems of the Civil Rights Movement
- Roll Call of Freedom Movement Veterans
- Freedom Movement Photo Album
- Freedom Movement Videos
Individual Pages & Documents
- Poem: Ain't I A Woman? Sojourner Truth
- Civil Rights Movement History: 1960 (student sit-ins)
- Louisiana Voter Application and Literacy Tests
- Alabama Voter Literacy Test
- Civil Rights Movement History: 1955 (Emmett Till, Montgomery Bus Boycott)
- Civil Rights Movement History: 1961 (Freedom Rides, MS voter registration, Albany GA)
- Civil Rights Movement History: 1963 Jan-June (Birmingham, Greenwod, Danville)
- How Long? Not Long, Dr. King's March to Montgomery speech, 1965
- Poems of Langston Hughes
- Speech to Anti-War Protest, Dr. Martin Luther King. (April 15, 1967)
(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.)
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 August:
When Desegregation Came to Sand Springs, by James W. Russell (CORE), 2023. Story of how courageous students and CORE activists fought for school desegregation in one Oklahoma town, 30min.
Victoria Gray Adams, interviewed by Blackside. COFO, MFDP, SCEF, SCLC, SNCC, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Alabama. 1985. 28 min.
Melba Pattillo Beals, interviewed by Blackside. Little Rock Nine, desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School. 1985. 48 min.
Gordon Carey, interviewed by Blackside. CORE, vice chairman & field secretary, nonviolence, sit-ins, Freedom Rides.1985. 29 min.
Ivanhoe Donaldson, interviewed by Blackside. SNCC field secretary, Danville, VA, Freedom Summer, Mississippi, Selma, AL. 1979. 37 min.
Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), interviewed by Blackside. SNCC, voting registration, the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, Bayard Rustin. 1988. 91 min.
Dave Dennis, interviewed by Blackside. Mississippi & Bob Moses, CORE, Freedom Rides, COFO, Algebra Project. 1985. 61 min.
Virginia Durr, interviewed by Blackside. Segregation and Montgomery Bus Boycott, harassment of pro-integration southerners
Interview #1, 1979. 34 min.
Interview #2, 1985. 43 min.Reverend James Lawson, interviewed by Blackside. Nashville, SNCC, FOR, nonviolence, Freedom Rides, Meredith March, Memphis strike. 1985. 53 min.
Hollis Watkins, interviewed by Blackside. SNCC, McComb, Mississippi, Fannie Lou Hamer. 1985. 32 min.
1963 Mailman's Letter. Anti-segregation letter carried by William Moore (CORE), when he was murdered by the KKK in Alabama on April 23, 1963 1963 Mississippi CORE Projects in 4th Congressional Districts Map 1963 Louisiana CORE Projects in 4th, 5th, and 6th Congressional Districts Map 64-65 Free Southern Theater Documents 1964 Civil suit complaint against Pike County MS (McComb) law enforcement for their repression against Black civil rights. Carsie Hall, SNCC, and many individuals. Undated (possibly November 1964) 1966 CORE: Fact Sheet Q. A. brochure. Unsigned. Undated (probably 1966) 1966 Program booklet, James Farmer tribute. Unsigned, Northeastern Region CORE. Undated (probably 1966). 1966 CORE: Chapters in the Northeastern Region. Unsigned, Northeastern Region CORE. Undated (probably 1966). 1966 Louisiana College Campus Project. Unsigned, CORE Southern Regional Office. Undated (probably 1966). CORE Scholarship Education Defense Fund proposal. Documents & Reports: SNCC Atlanta Vine City Project 1966. 1966 Rough Design of a Tenant's Rights Handbook, unsigned SNCC (Mendy Samstein?). Undated 1966. Atlanta GA, Vine City project 1966 Suggestions for Drawings for Tenant's Rights Handbook, unsigned SNCC (Mendy Samstein?). Undated 1966. Atlanta GA, Vine City project 1966 Report on meeting with Atlanta Housing Authority, unsigned SNCC (Mendy Samstein?). Undated 1966. Vine City Project 1966 Notes/examples of tenant issues, unsigned SNCC (Mendy Samstein?). Undated 1966. Vine City Project 1966 Proposals on Housing (handwritten), unsigned SNCC (Mendy Samstein?). Undated 1966. Atlanta Project. 1966 Press Release re rent strike eviction. Unsigned SNCC. Undated 1966. Vine City Project 1966 Support Julian Bond flyer. Special election to re-instate him. Unsigned SNCC. Undated 1966. Atlanta Project. Application Forms & Personnel Files
1964 Charles Fenton questionaire 1964 Kenny Johnson questionaire 1964 David Kramer questionaire 1964 R.P. McPhail questionaire 1964 Willie Mellion questionaire 1964 Daniel Mitchell questionaire 1964 Geraldine Maddocks reference query re Albert Montgomery WATS & Phone Reports (Log of daily phone-in reports)
SNCC, February 27, 1964. Canton MS Freedom Day preparations, Hattiesburg arrests & trials.
SNCC, February 27, 1964. Natchez MS, Pine Bluff AR.
SNCC, February 28, 1964. Canton MS Freedom Day, Cambridge MD arrests
SNCC, February 28, 1964. Canton MS update, Albany GA, Cambridge & Princess Ann Co. MD.
SNCC, February 28, 1964. Natchez MS shooting
SNCC, February 29, 1964. Ruleville, Meridian, Canton, Hattiesburg, MS.
Vietnam War & Military Draft Documents
1967 Miscellaneous Anti-Vietnam War, various authors & organizations. 1967. (35 documents) 1967 Two anti-war poems, unsigned. Undated 1967. 1967 Vietnam Summer, various authors & organizations. (4 documents) 1967 Spring Mobilization direct action documents, New York City. Various authors. Summer 1967. (6 documents) 1967 Montreal Expo '67, Anti-Vietnam War Protest, various authors & organizations. (7 documents) 1967 The Resistance: newsletters, Fall 1967. (6 documents) 1967 The Resistance: organizing materials, Fall 1967. (12 documents) 1967 Beyond Prayers to an Unjust King, unsigned New York City Resistance statement. Fall 1967. 6 pages 5/70 Flyer: National Student Strike opposing Vietnam War & supporting Black Panthers, Unsigned NSS. Undated (possibly May 1970) 2/71 Why We Protest, anti-Vietnam War flyer. National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC), Student Mobilization Committee (SMC). Undated (possibly Feb. 1971) Documents from the Northern Wing of the Movement
1964, March Mrs. Eaton & James Baldwin Challenge Civil Libertarians, ECLC. 1964, July Statement on the Federal Governments Power to Act in Mississippi, William Ryan (D-NY). ECLC. Critique of Washington's inaction re protecting the civil rights of Blacks in the South 1966, Fall Rights, Police Questioning of Law Abiding Citizens, a Proposed Set of Rules. Charles Reich, Yale Law School 1966, Dec Rights, ECLC First 15 Years, 1951-1966 1968, Spring Rights, Government Power vs Citizen Power, CIA and National Students Association (NSA) 12/66? Our Traditional Liberties, AFT 1570. Statement opposing free speech restrictions on UC Berkeley campus and defending the 1964 Free Speech Movement agreement. Undated (probably Dec 1966 or Jan 1967) 5/1/70 Yale University Student Strike, protesting Vietnam War and New Haven Nine Black Panther trial. 7 documents Students for a Democratic Society Documents
1965 Thoughts on Berkeley, Paul Goodman. New York Review of Books. Re Free Speech Movement. Undated 1965. 1965 Bibliography of the American Economy. Lee Webb, SDS. February 1965. 1965 SDS Bulletin, May 1965 Vol 3 #7. SDS March on Washington, Mississippi Challenge, National Council. 1965 Memo from Paul Potter to SDS activists re anti-Vietnam War efforts and internal development. May 1, 1965 1965 Memo to Bruce Hartford re SDS literature. Judy Pardun, SDS. 6/22/65. 1965 On Organizing Poor Whites, Casey Hayden, SNCC/SDS. Aug 27, 1965 San Francisco State College Student Activism Documents (1966-1969)
What is SDS, recruitment flyer. SFSC. October 1967
A Proposal for Election Day, four members of SDS (PL faction). October 1967
SFS: Another Berkeley or Another Columbia, unsigned Bay Area Labor Committee (PL?) Political analyses
Movement Against Political Suspensions (MAPS), Nov '67-Jan '68
MAPS documents, dated. (18 documents)
MAPS documents, undated. (20 documents)
11/12/64 Jake Friesen, MCC Conversation with Mark Weaver re white southern point of view. MS. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) 11/25/64 Stahly & Martin, MCC Report on Mississippi Trip. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) 12/16/64 Jake Friesen, MCC Report on Mississippi Delta. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) 12/16/64 Jake Friesen, MCC MCC Response (Recommendations), MS. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) 1/22/65 Lyn Busch, CORE Note to Bruce Hartford, re N-VAC & CORE in SoCal (handwritten) 5/3/65 Judy Richardson, SNCC Letter to Staughton Lynd, re residential freedom school project. 4/5/65 Judy Richardson, SNCC Letter to Esau Jenkins, re residential freedom school project. 4/5/65 Judy Richardson, SNCC Letter to Rennie Davis, re residential freedom school project. 4/8/65 Judy Richardson, SNCC Letter to Monroe Sharp, re residential freedom school project. 5/26/65 Judy Richardson, SNCC Letter to Danny Beagle for John McFerren, re residential freedom school project. 6/26/65 Judy Richardson, SNCC Letter to Stokely Carmichael, re residential freedom school project. 6/29/65 Judy Richardson, SNCC Letter to Lawrence Guyot, re residential freedom school project. 10/12/65 Wilfred Unruh, BCS Diary of a Visit to Gulfport MS, Board of Christian Service (BCS) 8/66? Bruce Hartford, SCLC Dear Anya, letter describing Freedom Movement work in Alabama, summer 1965. Undated (probably late August 1965) 1966 Lyn Busch, CORE Note to Bruce Hartford re jail sentence of friend, CA. Undated 1966. 3/66 Bruce Hartford, SCLC Memo to R.T. Blackwell, SCLC, re the possibility of using the film "Salt of the Earth" as an organizing tool. 3/31/66 R.T. Blackwell, SCLC Memo to Bruce Hartford re "Salt of the Earth" 8/66? Bruce Hartford, SCLC Dear Goldmans, note to Mari Goldman requesting Conscientious Objector draft status support letter. Undated (probably July or August 1966)
Victoria Gray Adams Interview for Eyes on the Prize 1985.
1965 The Congress of Racial Equality and Its Strategy, Marvin Rich, CORE. Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, January 1965 1966 Why They Cry Black Power, SNCC's Version of What Sparked the Racial Outbreak in Atlanta. I.F. Stone. 9/19/66.
Jon Gower Davies - SNCC, 1964. MS Bill (William) Minter - SNCC, 1946-1956 & 1965, MS GA
No new answers added this month.
No new poems added this month.
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.
Love Letter from Pig: My Brother's Story of Freedom Summer, by Julie Kabat. University Press of Mississippi, 2023. Based on primary-source materials, the personal story of volunteer Luke Kabat and the Meridian MS (Lauderdale Co.) project.
No Ordinary Joe: Lesson From a Life of Community Organizing for Social Change, by Jerome Christensen. Wordshop at Fourth & Sioux, September 2023. Life of Civil Rights Movement activist and community organizer Joe Morse.
Standing, by Ernest McMillan. August, 2023.
My Country Is the World: Staughton Lynd's Writings, Speeches, and Statements against the Vietnam War, edited by Luke Smith. Foreword by Staughton and Alice Lynd. Haymarket Books, 2023.
The Struggle of Struggles, by Vera Pigee (1924-2007), edited by Frangoise Hamlin, University Press of Mississippi. 2023. New edition of Vera Pigee autobiography chronicles Coahoma County MS, NAACP, Women's leadership, grassroots organizing, citizenship schools, voter registration, and the Baptist church.
A Day I Ain't Never Seen Before Remembering the Civil Rights Movement in Marks, Mississippi, by Joe Bateman, Cheryl Lynn Greenberg, and Richard Arvedon. How the civil rights movement unfolded in a small rural town, far from the cameras.
Stayed On Freedom: The Long History of Black Power through One Family's Journey, by Dan Berger, Zoharah Simmons and Michael Simmons. An authorized biography of Zoharah Simmons and Michael Simmons that brings into focus the lives of two unheralded Black Power activists who dedicated their lives to the fight for freedom. Basic Books, January 2023.
By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners, by Margaret Burnham, 2023. Investigation of Jim Crow-era racial violence, the legal apparatus that sustained it, and its enduring legacy. If the law cannot protect a person from a lynching, then isn't lynching the law?
Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, by Sam Pollard & Geeta Gandbhir, Multitude Films in association with The Atlantic. Story of the local movement and young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who fought not just for voting rights, but for Black Power in Lowndes County Alabama. 2022. 90min.
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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