Freedom Songs
Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around
SNCC Freedom Singers
Ella’s Song
Resistance Revival Chorus
Engage with the Sources: Ella Baker
Ella Baker: Bigger than a Hambourger
Ella Baker, “Address at the Hattiesburg Freedom Day Rally,” January 21, 1964
Courtsey of the Voices of Democracy: The U.S. Oratory Project
Learn more about January 1964 – Freedom Day in Hattiesburg
Reflect on the following questions:
- What do SNCC veterans and their allies emphasize about the way Ms. Baker treated them and others? What tips or lessons did she emphasize in her work with SNCC?
- What do you think is important in Ms. Baker’s Hattiesburg speech? What can you learn about her approach to the Movement?
- How were her beliefs and strategies reflected in SNCC’s work? Can you think of ways to use her approach today?
Engage with the Sources: Charles McLaurin
Charles McLaurin, “Notes on Organizing”
Judy Richardson Papers, Duke University
Charles McLaurin, “We Were So Deep in the Community”
Think About These Questions:
- What does McLaurin emphasize about leadership? What suggestions does he make for identifying and building leadership?
- What approaches does he suggest for organizing a community?
- What was important about Mr. McDonald reclaiming his gun?
Engage with the Sources: SNCC Field Reports by Colia Liddell, Bob Moses, and Charles Sherrod
Colia Lidell, Field Report on Selma, April 6, 1963
Bob Moses, Field Report on Mississippi and COFO, January 21, 1963
Charles Sherrod, Field Notes on Dawson, Georgia, January 12, 1962
Think About These Questions:
- What did the three SNCC organizers emphasize about their work, their approach, and what they were trying to accomplish?
- What kinds of people are at the heart of their work? What challenges did they face?
- If you were trying to organize today, do you think you could use any of the same strategies?
Engage with the Sources: Lowndes County: “Is This the Party You want?”
Read “Is This the Party You want?” and consider the following questions:
- How does SNCC explain voting and politics?
- What does SNCC emphasize about why people had been excluded from politics in the past? Would this motivate you to get involved?
- What does SNCC emphasize about the importance of unity and building a political party?
Bibliography
Adams, Victoria Gray. “They Didn’t Know the Power of Women.” In Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. 230-40. Edited by Faith Holsaert, et al. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Baker, Ella. “Organizing for Civil Rights. In Moving the Mountain: Women Working for Social Change. 110-12. Ed. by Ellen Cantarow, Susan Gushee O’Malley, and Sharon Hartman Strom. New York: Feminist Press, 1978.
Blackwell, Unita (interview). In Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s. 179-80. Ed. by Henry Hampton, Steve Fayer, and Sarah Flynn. New York: Bantam, 1991.
Bond, Julian, Foreword to The Making of Black Revolutionaries, xi-xiii. By James Forman. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.
Carmichael, Stokely, with Ekwueme Michael Thelwell. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Times of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York: Scribner, 2003.
Cobb, Charles (interview). In My Soul Is Rested: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South. 244-48. Ed. by Howell Raines. New York: Penguin, 1983.
Crosby, Emilye. “’I just had a fire!’ An Interview with Dorie Ann Ladner.” The Southern Quarterly. 52, no. 1 (Fall 2014): 79-110.
Donaldson, Ivanhoe (interview). In Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s. 157. Ed. by Henry Hampton, Steve Fayer, and Sarah Flynn. New York: Bantam, 1991.
Fleming, Cynthia. Soon We Will Not Cry: The Liberation of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.
Forman, James. The Making of Black Revolutionaries. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.
Guyot, Lawrence (interview). In My Soul Is Rested: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South. 239. Ed. by Howell Raines. New York: Penguin, 1983.
Hamer, Fannie Lou. Quoted in My Soul Is Rested: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South. 233. Ed. by Howell Raines. New York: Penguin, 1983.
Holland, Endesha Ida Mae. Quoted in Freedom on My Mind. By Connie Field and Marilyn Mulford. Berkeley, CA: Clarity Educational Films, 1994.
Long, Worth. Quoted in I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. By Charles M. Payne. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Mants, Bob (interview). In A Circle of Trust: Remembering SNCC. 97-99. Ed. by Cheryl Lynn Greenberg. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998.
Mants, Joann Christian. “We Turned this Upside-Down Country Right Side Up.” In Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. 128-40. Edited by Faith Holsaert, et al. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
McLaurin, Charles. “Notes on Organizing.” Judy Richardson Papers. Duke University. ark:/87924/r46689p0q.
McLaurin, Charles. “To Overcome Fear.” Social Action Vertical File. Wisconsin Historical Society. https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/p15932coll2/id/66912/rec/1.
Moore, Amzie (interview). In My Soul Is Rested: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South. 233-37. Ed. by Howell Raines. New York: Penguin, 1983.
Moses, Bob. Interview by Charles Payne. In Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-68. 170-87. By Steven F. Lawson and Charles Payne. Lanham, MD.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006.
Moses, Bob. Quoted in Everybody Says Freedom. By Pete Seeger and Bob Reiser. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988.
Moses, Bob. Report to Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council, Jan. 21, 1963. Civil Rights Movement Archive. https://www.crmvet.org/lets/letshome.htm.
Sherrod, Charles. Quoted in Free at Last? The Civil Rights Movement and the People Who Made It. By Fred Powledge. Boston. Little, Brown and Company, 1991.
Sherrod, Charles. “Organizing in Albany.” In The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954-1990. 143-45. Edited by Clayborne Carson, et al. New York: Viking, 1991.
Simmons, Gwendolyn Zoharah. “From Little Memphis Girl to Mississippi Amazon.” In Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. 9-32. Edited by Faith Holsaert, et al. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Watkins, Hollis (interview). In Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s. 182-83. Ed. by Henry Hampton, Steve Fayer, and Sarah Flynn. New York: Bantam, 1991.
