Hands On the Freedom Plow: Women in SNCC
Rosalyn Pellas began the panel
discussion by showing a film about Diane Nash. In the introduction Julian Bond
narrates about the life of the courageous founder and leader of SNCC. Diane Nash was slated to become the
coordinator of the Freedom Riders Movement. It was a turning point in the
movement that demonstrated Diane Nash‘s tenacity and determination to liberate
the African American people from the jaws of Jim Crow segregation. Attorney General Robert Kennedy urged her to
stop the Freedom Riders. Several riders had been severely beaten by white
racist mobs at the bus station. Her reply to one of the people in the Kennedy
administration showed her toughness. When tasked whether she was aware that if
she proceeded the freedom riders would probably be killed, she replied “Sir you
should know we all signed our last will and testament… We cannot allow violence
to overcome non-violence.”
After the film, the panel discussion
began. Rutha Harris began civil rights was taught in her home by her father, a
preacher, as the difference between right and wrong. “That what civil rights were
called before it became civil rights” Rutha Harris said. Rev. Harris was a preacher during the 1930’s.
While he was alive he was a man who fought for the poor and downtrodden. He
left Mt Zion Baptist Church in Albany, Ga. because the deacon board would not
allow him to build an outreach mission in the church’s adjacent alley. He left that church because of his
desire to aid poor people. He became the pastor of Mt Carmel Baptist Church. He
died in 1951.During the Albany movement, Debbie Amis Bell stayed at her home.
She said that our house was one of the safe houses for the movement. “Our house
was one of the “Freedom Houses”, providing, food clothing and shelter.
Debbie Amis Bell spoke next. “Like a
divining rod leads to water, my background led me to the Civil Rights Movement,
specifically to SNCC. I am the child of American Communists. My father, an
African American, born in Chicago to a missionary family, attributed his left
politics and activism to Ida B. Wells, whom he knew from belonging to the NAACP
there. From the NAACP, he went to the Communist Party and in the 1930’s played
a significant role in bringing together the defense team for the nine
Scottsboro Boys, who were falsly accused of raping two white women in Alabama.
My father also worked with the committee to free Angelo Herndon, another
Communist Party activist, who was charged with “attempting to incite an
insurrection” for organizing the poor in Georgia under the slogan “Jobs or Relief.”
My mother, a white member of the party,
made a considerable contribution to fighting racism through her community work.
She was ostracized by her family for marrying my father in the 1930’s at a time
when interracial marriages were frowned upon and were actually illegal in many
states.
While Debbie’s parents were strong
supportive members of the Communist Party U.S.A. Debbie made the decision to
join of her own volition in the 1950’s She felt it was the only organization
that address the multifaceted issues of “racism, peace, health and the general
quality of life of our country.”
Debbie Amis Bell is a suffer of Parkinson’s
Disease. Her husband Dave Bell assisted her by continuing to read the prepared
statement, a portion of the book “ Hands
on the Freedom Plow” “ In April 1960, my senior year at West Chester
College in Pennsylvania , I eagerly accepted when the Communist Party asked me
to attend a student civil rights conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, as an
observer. This meeting turned out to be the founding conference of SNCC.” She
was greatly impressed by the organization of the meeting and never in her life
had she seen African Americans in the number or with the determination to
undermine segregation in the south. “Virtually all of the strategy centered on
equal access to all public facilities. There was a fierce sentiment that we
students” black, brown,red, yellow and white, “were not only of contributing our bodies to the Movement but directed and coordinating our own programs. The
conference was spirited and emotional; the community participated in rallies ,
and there were inspiring accounts by those who had been in the sit-ins. Singing
was everywhere. Amid this heady atmosphere , SNCC was born”
At this point the room was struck by the
powerful yet beautiful voice of Rutha Harris. She sung This Little Light of Mine ,I’m goin let it shine…
After she finished singing, Diane Nash
recounted the experience of jail. She talked of the risks; the loss of the bail
money; people losing their jobs at the moment of arrest; they had to register
people to vote; and of course the most threatening gruesome risk of all: the
lost of her unborn child, if she elected to go to jail. Diane would have her
child in prison , a painful experience . She remembered praying that night.
When she decided to go to jail, six months pregnant, she felt that nothing
could stop her. She felt “invincible.”Nothing was allowed in prison, she told
the audience.”No vitamins; pills not even a toothbrush.” She devised several
means of coping with life in the prison. There were hundreds of cockroaches.
They were so loud at night she slept mostly in the day. When she went to bed
she would wet and wash her clothes and take them off and let them dry out while
she was asleep. In this way she always had clean clothes to wear. “There were
no visits”, Diane Nash said. “We were totally isolated. One white woman did try
to break the isolation. She was in the next cell and she would smuggle copies
of the condensed Readers Digest to her.
Debbie Bell stated that during her stay
in jail she was handed over to a black trusty, who issued a pair of oversized
green me’s boxer shorts and a green shirt. She was also given a pair of shoes
with no shoe laces She was alone and frightened and since the prison was a 24
hour facility, the bed was yours for eight hours only. The first facility was an
open bay with no walls or privacy. There was one act of kindness, the trusty
moved her from bed to bed daily so that she could avoid the degrading internal
search. As a Freedom Rider she was a threat to the other prisoners. The next
time she went to jail she was placed in a single isolated cell. She was put in that cell because she had
started a fast. “The solitary cell was isolated and absolutely empty. There
were no accommodations –no bed , no sink, only a cold , hard concrete floor .
In the corner of the cell there was a recessed hole in the floor that served as
a toilet. I was miserable. For three days I was there ,I heard and saw no other
human being except the black male trusty who befriended me. He risked his own
standing to bring me pencils and paper
and mailed the notes I had written to my parents. I spent time writing letters
and singing freedom songs to myself. When I ran out of the precious paper, I
wrote on the toilet paper. This experience fortified me, and I continued to
demonstrate and work for equality.”
At this point Rutha Harris broke out
into another song “O Pritchard O Kelly
open them cells…”
Diane Nash then spoke. She said the
white men would come out in mass and do as
much violence as possible. They would attack demonstrators in a mob , even
though they were non violent. One account in Parting the Waters a book written by Taylor Branch. “Jerome Smith ,
one of the New Orleans students who had responded to James Farmer’s plea to
take up the first Freedom ride, had been so inspired by reports of the
outpost in Mc Comb that he organized a Freedom Ride to the Mc
Comb Greyhound station in November, shortly after finishing his sentence at
Parchman. After a white mob beat them severely at the station , bloodied Smith
vowed to send another team of riders… The next attempt attracted forty FBI
agents, a squadron of police, a score of reporters and a white mob of five
hundred. The cordon of officers allowed the Negro riders to achieve the first
known peaceful integration of a bus station waiting room in Mississippi
history-it lasted three minutes, while their bags were being unloaded- but the
mob took out some of its anger on the white reporters observing in the
background. Simmon Fentress, Time’s Atlanta bureau chief, was thrown into a
plate glass window, several others were bruised or cut. The attack prompted an
outraged editorial in The New York Times,
whose correspondent, Claude Sitton , believed he escaped beating because
the mob had mistaken him for an FBI
agent.” because of the violence Diane Nash met with others students from Fisk
University and other college campuses in Nashville to decide whether to continue the freedom rides. It was
at this time the Kennedy administration tried to stop the freedom rides. Diane
and the other students decided they would not give into to the Kennedy
administration’s demands.
Debbie Bell added more evidence of the
violence used against demonstrators. “Working with the Atlanta movement”, she
said, “I demonstrated frequently and went to jail quite a few times. On a
typical day, we Atlanta field secretaries and the Atlanta Committee on Appeal
for Human Rights (COAHR) representatives would march downtown, recruiting local
residents along the way. We would go from one restaurant to another picketing and sitting in . Our
demonstrations brought out the KKK in full regalia .One of the restaurants we
targeted belonged to Lester Maddox and was famous for its chicken. Maddox and
his employees used baseball bats, which they called “drumsticks,’ to intimidate
and hit sit-inners. Maddox was elected Governor in 1966.” He was a Lt. Governor
when the author of this article attended Morehouse College and GSU during the
early 1970’s. “ Debbie Bell further stated both the KKK and Maddox targeted the
women and the girls for attack. Needless to say, the assailants were never
arrested, but the demonstrators were , often, by the black officers of the
Atlanta Police Department. We were usually charged with disturbing the peace
Sometimes our bail was posted immediately and we were released. Other times we
spent hours or days awaiting release, or we choose jail without bail.
Martha Noonan recounted the violence and
injustice brought about because of the lack of criminal prosecution. Thirteen
white men raped a black woman. One was a Sunbeam bread person who left the
truck outside during the perpetration of the act. The woman died after the rape
because of the infections and internal injuries.
After Martha Noonan listed the names of
those who died during the civil rights struggle in Mississippi, Rutha Harris
began to sing Ain’t Goin Let Nobody Turn
Me Around . “ Singing has always been my joy, said Rutha Harris. She has
been solo since she was a child. Bernice Johnson and Rutha Harris had travelled
“ 50,000 miles in nine months in a compact Buick. According to Taylor Branch in
Parting the Waters , “Cordell Reagon
, an extroverted performer with a clear tenor voice, had discovered in the SNCC
workshops two gifted singers , Rutha Harris and Bernice Johnson, both of them
preachers’ daughters studying voice in the hope of becoming opera stars.”
Debbie recounted that she stayed in
Atlanta and worked in the civil rights movement. She stayed there because she
had ties to family and friends. She elected not to reveal her party
affiliation. She attended West Hunter Street Baptist Church, the pastor at that
time was Rev. Ralph Abernathy.
Diane Nash and Martha Noonan brought the
meeting to a close. Diane Nash talked about her experiences with Judge Moore.
When he refused to deliberate on the contributing to the delinquency of minors
charge, Dianne insisted that he do so. He refused and she made note of it and
threatened to do it again. She also said she sent him a letter by certified
mail stating the same. Dianne wanted as many people as possible to know about
her predicament she contacted journalists, entertainers, civil rights
activists, Jet Magazine, and every Civil Rights organization. She let them know
she was going to have a child in prison. At the end Martha Noonan in answering
a question from the audience about family pressures, remembered her parent’s
threat. They had raised her well and gave her a good education. They did not
like her involvement in the Civil Rights movement. They told Ms. Noonan “If you
went back down south, you can’t come back home.”
Comments
Post a Comment