As the Trump-Musk regime uses White House edicts to escalate its assault on so-called "wokism," government agencies are ceasing all DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) programs and efforts. They are being cautioned to avoid using words and concepts such as "race," "bias," and "equity." No doubt MAGA will soon add "institutional racism," "disparate impact," and "white power structure," to their expanding list of verbotten ideas.
As columnist Jamelle Bouie put it:
[Trump's] attack on DEI isn't about increasing merit or fighting wrongful discrimination; it is about reimposing hierarchies of race and gender (among other categories) onto American society. ... Trump's war on DEI is a war on the Civil Rights Era itself, an attempt to turn back the clock on equal rights ... to restore a world where the first and most important qualification for any job of note was whether you were white and male, where merit is a product of your identity and not of your ability.Please notify us about cancelled programs or withdrawn invitations involving Freedom Movement veterans so that we can track how this new McCarthyism is effecting our community.
According to Google, there were 37,251 visits to the CRMA website during February for an average of 1330 per day. This is approximately 8% higher than February of last year.
On school days, our number of visitors ranged from 1250 to 1850 per day.
Roughly 11% of our visitors came from outside the U.S. in February. 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.
Over the long term however, ever since 2020 our U.S. traffic has been slowly declining. Since two-thirds of our visitors are students (grade school and college) we believe that a significant portion of this decline stems from the unrelenting attacks being waged by Republicans and MAGAites against teachers, librarians, school boards, and universities who dare stand against systemic racism and educate around issues of racial injustice. Nevertheless, we will persevere.
As of March 1st, our online archive contains 10,823 viewable pages, documents, images, and recordings, plus 438 videos in our Vimeo video channel.
Google reports that out on the global internet there are 24,850 backlinks to materials on our site by people, organizations, grade-schools, and universities using us as a trusted information resource.
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. 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.
SNCC & Grassroots Organizing Discussion Series. January-March, 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.
Save A Civil Rights Landmark! In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson was told that if he wanted to keep an eye on the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, he should just look at the St. Johns County Jail in St. Augustine, Florida — because that's where they were all incarcerated. Now the Sheriff proposes to tear down that civil rights landmark. Will you add your voices, as veterans of the movement, to those who do not want to lose this important building? Five County Commissioners will have the final vote on its fate. Please write and let them know that the world is watching!bcc1whitehurst@sjcfl.us
bcc2sarnold@sjcfl.us
bcc3cmurphy@sjcfl.us
bcc5ataylor@sjcfl.us
bcc4kjoseph@sjcfl.usSpell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement. Available March 2025, pre-order now. 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 (pre-order now). A personal history of the 1960's Mississippi Civil Rights Movement by SNCC Field Secretary MacArthur Cotton, who lived it.
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.
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 February were:
Sections, Landing & Reference Pages
- Are You "Qualified" to Vote?—Literacy Tests & Voter Applications
- Poems of the Civil Rights Movement
- Documents From the Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Freedom Rides and Freedom Riders Resources
- Original Freedom Movement Documents
- Freedom Movement Bibliography
- Civil Rights Movement History 1950-1970
- Documents From the 1960s Sit-Ins
- Civil Rights Movement Web Links
- Freedom Movement Photo Album
Individual Pages & Documents
- The Other America, Dr. Martin Luther King. (1967)
- Poems of Langston Hughes
- Photo Album: Freedom Movement Posters
- Civil Rights Movement History: 1961 (Freedom Rides, MS voter registration, Albany GA)
- Photo Album: The Sit-Ins—Off Campus and Into Movement (1960)
- Civil Rights Movement History: 1960 (student sit-ins)
- Photo Album: The Children's Crusade: Birmingham (1963)
- Photo Album: The Freedom Rides (1961)
- Poem: Ain't I A Woman? Sojourner Truth
- Louisiana Voter Application and Literacy Tests
(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 February:
We Shall Not Be Moved: The Life and Times of SNCC 28th Anniversary Conference. 1988
"The New Abolitionists" and the Modern South, Howard Zinn, Joanne Grant, Mary King, June Johnson. 66min.
"The Redemptive Community:" The sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and the birth of SNCC, Sparky Rucker, Julian Bond, Diane Nash, James Forman, Charles McDew, Bob Zellner. 148min.
The Beginnings of the Voter Registration Movement 1961-1963, Julian Bond, James Forman, Bernard Lafayette, Charles Sherrod, Danny Lyon. 146min.
Tom Hayden, 67min.
"In the Middle of the Iceberg": The Movement in Mississippi, 1964-1965, Lawrence Guyot, Victoria Gray Adams, Hollis Watkins, Mendy Samstein, Casey Hayden, James Forman. 124min.
Casey Hayden, interviewed by Blackside. Freedom Summer, Mississippi, Bob Moses, SNCC. 1985. 41 min.
Tom Hayden, interviewed by Blackside. Mississippi Freedom Project, MFDP, JFK, FBI, Dr. King. 1985. 36 min.
John Lewis, interviewed by Blackside. Nashville, nonviolence, Freedom Rides, SNCC, March on Washington. 1979. 62 min.
John Lewis, interviewed by Blackside. Voting rights, Selma, Dr. King, SCLC, SNCC, nonviolence, March on Washington. 1985. 36 min.
Andrew Young, interviewed by Blackside. Birmingham, Selma, SCLC, Dr. King, Malcolm X, Albany, GA, SNCC. 1985 . 90 min.
SLP: Statement On The 65th Anniversary Of The Sit-In Movement, February 1st, 2025. 4min.
New Audio recordings added in February
Julian Bond Interview by Evan Faulkenbury, SOHP. 48min.
Bill Perlman Interview SNCC 50th Conference. By Max Krochmal, SOHP. 52min.
Wyatt T. Walker Interview by Evan Faulkenbury, SOHP. 45min.
1964 To All Locals Affiliated With the Central Labor Council, New York City, Labor fund appeal for freedom schools. UFT. Undated (probably early 1964) 1964 UFT Adopt a Freedom School Project fund appeal. Al Shanker, Sandy Adickes, Norma Becker, UFT 1964 Memo to Norma Becker, re Freedom Schools. Penny Patch, COFO. 2/22/64 1964 Memo to Norma Becker, re Freedom School teacher application. Penny Patch, COFO. 3/02/64 1964 Note re Freedom Summer petition for more federal judges. To or from Len Holt? Signature illegible. 5/17/64. 1964 The Poor White Project. Unsigned (COFO? SCEF?). Mississippi Freedom Summer project. Undated. 1964 Dear Friend support appeal for Freedom Summer Poor White Project. James Dombrowski, SCEF. Undated 1964 1964 Dear Jane, objection to handling of letter to President Johnson in parents newsletter. Kay Raphael 1965 Clarence Edmonds CORE Louisiana staff acceptance memo. 1/11/65. 1965 Jerome Robinson CORE Louisiana staff acceptance memo. 1/11/65. 65-68 Over 30. Elizabeth Tornquist, SSOC. Critique of "Don't trust anyone over thirty" meme. Undated (1965-68). 6 pages. 1966 Negro-White Voter Registration in the South. Unsigned VEP. State & county level statistics a year or so after Voting Rights Act. Undated (probably late summer 1966). 34 pages. 1966 Deliberate Depopulation of Whole Areas: A Protest. Albert Solnit, SSOC. Critique of redevelopment, exploitation and economic injustice in Eastern Kentucky. August 1966. 10 pages. 1967 The Peace Called War, Lyndon Johnson's Poverty Program. David Nolan, SSOC. February 1967. 9 pages. 1967 University Reform, Univ. of Virginia student council campaign platform of Alan Ogden, SSOC. May 1967. 6 pages. 1968 The Ridgeville Story: The Invisible Indian is Becoming a Force Leon Gutherz, SCLC. Undated 1968. 1968 Youth as a Class. John and Margaret Rowntree, SSOC. February 1968. 31 pages. 1969 American Women: Their Use and Abuse. Lynn Wells, SSOC. 23 pages. Application Forms & Personnel Files
Debbie Berustein CORE Personal information form. 1/9/65 Henry Brown CORE Personal information form. 1/21/65 Lois Chafee CORE Personnel Information, 1/21/65 SCEF Southern Patriot, April 1954. Senator Eastland (D-MS) attacks SCEF
SCEF Southern Patriot, October 1954. School integration media distortion, Louisville KY housing segregation.
SCEF Southern Patriot, January 1955. SCEF leader Braden sentenced to 15 years for 'sedition,' Mississippi whites vote to abolish public schools to prevent integration
SCEF Southern Patriot, February 1955. Southwide Conference on Compliance With the Supreme Court Decision on Segregation in Public Schools
3/7/67 SNCC Seven SNCC Workers Indicted, re anti-Vietnam War & draft protests WATS & Phone Reports (Log of daily phone-in reports)
SNCC April 11, 1964. Hattiesburg arrests, Pine Bluff AK, New York.
SNCC April 11, 1964. New Orleans LA, Infield NC
SNCC April 11, 1964. Mississippi cross burnings.
SNCC April 11, 1964. Hinds & Rankin County cross burnings, Mississippi.
SNCC April 11, 1964. Cliff Vaughs arrested, voter registration in Batesville.
SNCC April 13, 1964. Hattiesburg MS, Washington DC.
SNCC April 15, 1964. Holiday on Ice segregation and arrests in Jackson, unions.
SNCC April 15, 1964. Hattiesburg MS harrasment, arrests, court cases, DoJ. Infield NC election candidates.
Vietnam War, Military Draft, & GI Movement Documents
1965 The Anti-War Convention, Nov 25-28 and YSA-SWP Perspective, Stephen Fox. 12/4/65. 6 pages. 1966 NCC Summer Project, National Coordinating Committe to End the War in Vietnam (NCCEWV). Undated 1966. 1967 Feiffer on Vietnam 1965-1966 cartoon collection. Unsigned SPU. Undated 1967. 28pages 1967 Labor's Responsibility for Peace, unsigned IWW. Undated 1967 1967 Underground Press Syndicate publications list, unsigned War Resistors League (WRL). Undated (possibly 1967) 1970 Notes From the Underground #1, Daniel Berrigan S.J. Anti-draft fugitive. Undated (presumed April 1970). 4 pages. 1971 People's Peace Treaty: A Strategy for Ending the War, New University Conference, Irving Chapter. Undated (possibly 1971). 10 pages. Documents from the Northern Wing of the Movement
3/17/65 CNVA Direct Action for a Nonviolent World, New England Committee for Nonviolent Action newsletter #56 4/12/65 CNVA Direct Action for a Nonviolent World, New England Committee for Nonviolent Action newsletter #57 5/17/65 CNVA Direct Action for a Nonviolent World, New England Committee for Nonviolent Action newsletter #58 1968 P&FP California Peacy & Freedom Party State Minutes & Reports, Feb-Nov. (13 documents) 3/68 P&FP Peace & Freedom News, Founding Convention Set, 18 year old vote, Stop the Draft Week, more. 8 pages
1/17/61 B.E. Murph, NAACP Memo to Amzie Moore re Organizing youth council, MS 1/26/61 Amzie Moore, NAACP, RCNL Letter to Jane & Kerina, re voting and poverty in MS 1/27/61 Aaron Henry, NAACP Letter to supporters, re Trammell campaign 3rd Congressional District, MS. 2/15/61 Rev. Schaller, NYC Note to Amzie Moore re need for children's clothing. MS 3/23/61 Medgar Evers, NAACP Note to Amzie Morre re Julie Wright and NAACP Youth Meeting. MS 1962 Eunice Holsaert (Madre) Dearest Faith. Letter to Faith Holsaert in Albany GA. Undated (presumed 1962) 10/18/62 Daddy (Holsaert) Faith, lamby, note to daughter in Albany GA 11/9/62 Eunice Holsaert (Madre) Dearest Faith. Letter to Faith Holsaert in Albany GA. 11/9/62 11/27/62 Eunice Holsaert (Madre) Dearest Faith. Letter to Faith Holsaert in Albany GA. 11/27/62 1963 Eunice Holsaert (Madre) Dearest Faith. Letter to Faith Holsaert in Albany GA. Summer 1963
Melba Beals Pattillo Interview for Eyes on the Prize by Blackside re Little Rock Nine, school integration. 1985. 20 pages. Julian Bond Interview, by Evan Faulkenbury, SOHP. November 19, 2013. 8 pages Stokely Carmichael Interview for Eyes on the Prize by Blackside re SNCC, Black Power, Lowndes Coutny, Malcolm X, etc. 1988. 67 pages. Virginia Durr Interview by Blackside re Alabama, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, etc. 1975. 16 pages. Virginia Durr Interview for Eyes on the Prize by Blackside re Alabama, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, E.D. Nixon, etc. 1096. 17 pages. Casey Hayden Interview for Eyes on the Prize. Freedom Summer, Mississippi, Bob Moses, SNCC. 1985. 17 pages Tom Hayden Interview for Eyes on the Prize. Mississippi Freedom Project, MFDP, JFK, FBI, Dr. King,. 1985. 15 pages John Lewis Interview for Eyes on the Prize. Nashville, nonviolence, Freedom Rides, SNCC, March on Washington. 1979. 18 pages John Lewis Interview for Eyes on the Prize. Voting rights, Selma, Dr. King, SCLC, SNCC, nonviolence, March on Washington. 1985. 19 pages Bill Perlman Interview, SNCC 50th Conference. By Max Krochmal, SOHP. April 16, 2010. 21 pages. Rev. John Reynolds Four Holes Freedom School, 1969 South Carolina Wyatt T. Walker Interview, by Evan Faulkenbury, SOHP. March 15, 2013. 16 pages Andrew Young Interview for Eyes on the Prize. Birmingham, Selma, SCLC, Dr. King, Malcolm X, Albany, GA, SNCC. 1985 32 pages
Remarks of Murry W. Latimer given at Mississippi College (private, white-only in 1964) re race and economics in Mississippi. May 30, 1964. 24 pages.
CORE: Congress of Racial Equality (1942-1970)
Statement on the 65th Anniversary of the Sit-In Movement, SNCC Legacy Project (SLP)
No new names added to the Roll Call this month
No new memories or tributes added this month
No new answers added this month.
No new poems added this month.
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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