I would like to add my name and a few things of my experience in the Freedom Movement. After meeting Martin Luther King Jr. in New Haven (at the home o Chaplain Bill Coffin) when he was promoting the Freedom Rides, I later responded to a phone call from Hosea Williams who was asking me (and others like me) to get groups of students to come to St. Augustine FL 1964 and later to Selma AL 1965. I became a member of the SCLC and worked in both those places.
In St Augustine, My job was to raise bail money for demonstrators who had been jailed by Sheriff Hoss Manucy and his gang of KKK officers. I was put to work in the back office of the dentist, Dr. Hayling, one of the leading members of the local NAACP. There is more to this story, and I will add bit and pieces — but this is a starter.
In the spring of 1965 I went to Selma, where I joined the group that was being held by the AL state police in the area of Brown's Memorial Chapel. We were trying to get to the Sheriff's Clark's office and make our protest. It was there that I met a number of the SCLC leaders — Jim Bevel, John Lewis (who became a friend in later years) and others.
More when I can get back to this. I'm very glad to learn of the crmvet.org and wish you well.
Dick Unsworth
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