Marvin X: My life in the global village--notes of an artistic freedom fighter

My Life in the Global Village—Notes of an Artistic Freedom Fighter


by

Marvin X (El Muhajir, the Migrant) 
 



What a superb slice of history and analysis this is, Brother Marvin!!! Long may you think and write in this vein.--John Woodford, former editor of Muhammad Speaks and Michigan Today, professor emeritus University of Michigan  


Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland.

Photo Adam Turner

Elder, Esteemed author, editor, publisher, UC Berkeley emeritus professor Ishmael
Reed and Marvin X. Marvin X also taught at UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, San Francisco State
University, Fresno State University, University of Nevada, Reno, Mills College, Laney College,
Merritt College and Kings River Community College.
photo Wanda Sabir

"If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars. Just go stand at 14th and Broadway and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.... His play One Day in the Life is the most powerful drama I've seen."--Ishmael Reed, author, editor, publisher, MacArthur Genius Award Winner

 Dr. Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, Oakland CA

"Don't beat yaself, Jackmon, enjoy yaself. One day at a time, one day at a time.... Marvin X was my teacher; many of our comrades came through his Black Arts Theatre, e.g., Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Emory Douglas, Samuel Napier, et al."--Dr. Huey P. Newton, co-founder Black Panther Party (quoted in Marvin X's docudrama One Day in the Life, the longest running North American African play in Northern California (1996 through 2002, Recovery Theatre production, San Francisco; also produced in New York at Sista's Place, Brooklyn, NY; Brecht Forum, Manhattan, New York; Kimako's Blues Theatre, Newark, New Jersey, produced by Amiri Baraka). 



"Marvin X is the most free Black man in non-free America.... Courageous and outrageous, he walked through the muck and mire of hell and came out clean as white fish and black as coal."

--James Sweeney


“There are more people who love you than hate you, just know that, Marvin X!—A Black Woman

Every day is a holy day to me, yes, a holiday. Every day is a party and a prayer. I don't pray five times a day in the traditional Islamic manner--I can't do anything traditional or orthodox, orthodoxy is not my style. Fa salli li rabbika! (So pray to your Lord!).

Because of my spiritual practice,  and there are those who say I am not a Muslim. For sure, I am not Sunni, if anything, I am Nation of Islam, thus closer to the Shiites and Sufis, especially the Suffis in the West African revolutionary tradition of those who fought the colonialists and neocolonialists. Put me in the camp with the Senegalese Sufi BAMBA, the Sufi Saint whose holy city, Touba, is more sacred than Mecca to many West African Muslims.

Many Super Sunni Black Muslims (more Arab than the Arabs) have never heard of Bamba or any other West African Muslims, going back to Ghana, Mali and Shanghai, the Islamic empires of West Africa. Yes, those Muslims who traveled to America before Columbus; those Africans who created the University of Timbuktu, while the Europeans were in the Dark Ages, especially until the African and Arab Muslims conquered Spain in 711 when Tariq crossed the straights of Gibraltar  (Gebal Tariq, mount of Tariq) and spent a thousand years in Moorish Spain, and would have conquered Europe until stopped by Charles Martel in the battle of Tours, France.

We learn painfully that history repeats itself. Often we never learn from history, thus we repeat it to the pain of our children who suffer from our mistakes. Not long ago, Black Arts Movement co-founder, Askia Toure,  lectured at University of California, Merced. He prefaced his remarks with an apology to the students for the condition they are in due to us elders not finishing the work so they would not need to reinvent the wheel to liberation. After his remarks, I took the mike and told the students while we did not finish our liberation, it was due to the overwhelming power of the US Government that came at us with military force, disinformation campaigns, agent provocateurs, snitches and opportunists. In short, the Black Liberation Movement was sugar coated with agents who did every thing in their power to abort our liberation movement, including the Civil Rights Movement.

Alas, the FBI began with the Marcus Garvey Movement around 1914 or a year or two later. It continued through the era of the Civil Rights Movement, including the time of Martin Luther King, Jr. Brother Jones who was MLK, Jr.'s lawyer and works at Stanford University on the MLK, Jr., papers said, "It was not hard for me to write about MLK, Jr., all I had to do was transcribe the FBI tapes! They had every word!"

Were we not under surveillance throughout slavery? No North American Africans could meet without a white person (even a child) present, especially a church meeting. And then came the Black Codes when three or more NAF could not meet or stand on the corner. And then the Slave Catchers (precursors of the police) could catch us and/or kill us if we resisted, though they had to compensate the massa for the loss of his property.

The only reason NAF kill each other today is because they are not of value, no longer chattel property, although they are more valuable incarcerated than dead. In prison they are worth between $50, 000 to $60,000 per year. At the Alameda County Jail that serves Oakland, a correctional officer (the most powerful union in California is the Correctional Officers Union--they tell the Governor what to do!) told a departing inmate, "Keep coming back! Keep coming back! I got me a yacht, now I want to get my son one!"

As a lightweight Muslim, I am against violence except in self defense. This is why I went into exile for refusing to fight in Vietnam: Toronto, Canada, Mexico City and Belize, Central America. I must tell the story of my arrest in Belize, Central America (British Honduras then) 1970. I was taken to the Minister of Home Affairs. He read my deportation order which said "Your presence is not beneficial to the welfare of the British Colony of Honduras, therefore, you shall be deported back to the USA. Your plane departs at 4pm. Until then you are under arrest." I was taken to the police station, told to sit down in the lobby, not in a cell, nor was I handcuffed. Soon I was in the center of a circle of Black police. And when the circle was full, they asked me to teach them about Black Power, the very reason I was being deported. One officer said, "Broder, you come down here to teach us so I don't know my they deporting you. White hippies come down here all the time smoking dope and they do nothing to them." When an uncle tom police officer came into the station and walked pass the circle, they pointed to him and said, "He Black mon wit white heart, Black mon wit white heart!" "Teach us Black Power, Brother," they begged.

It was surreal, but I said, "My brothers, Marcus Garvey came to Belize in 1923 and told you to get the Queen of England off your walls. It's 1970 and you still got that white bitch on your walls. Get that bitch off yo walls!" The police cracked up and said, "Broder, you all ite, you all ite!"

Time came for the ride to the airport. A little mulatto motherfucker, the same motherfucker who arrested me at the home of my radical friends, Evan X Hyde, Ishmael Shabazz, et al., arrived to take me to the airport. (See my autobiography Somethin' Proper, Black Bird Press, 1998)

They had to throw me on the plane and slam the door shut because I resisted: my wife (Barbara Hall, aka Hasani)  was pregnant on an island in the jungle, a five hour ride from  the city.  (See the film The Mosquito Coast, I rode on that same boat through that same jungle).  I didn't want to leave without her, a student I'd met at Fresno State College/now University, where I'd been invited to lecture three courses and enrolled 70 students in the Black Studies Department, until Gov. Ronald Reagan found out I was a Black Muslim who'd refused to fight in Vietnam.

Governor Ronald Reagan said, "Get Marvin X off campus by any means necessary."

At the same time, 1969, Gov. Reagan removed Angela Davis from teaching at UCLA because she was a Black Communist. Angela remembers well my case at Fresno State. She and I were in the media almost daily. According to the Fresno Bee Newspaper, Gov. Ronald Reagan entered the State College Board of Trustees meeting (as Governor he was president of the Board) to find out how he could get Marvin X off campus by "any means necessary," yes, quoting Malcolm X!).

 Angela Davis, Marvin X and Sonia Sanchez

During this time I was also attending my draft trial in San Francisco, supported by Los Angeles students who called themselves the United Black Students of California who told the media, "We want Marvin X on campus, not in Vietnam, not in Jail....

They invited me on a tour of Los Angeles colleges and universities, including LA City College, Compton College, Southwest College, LA State College and UCLA.  At UCLA they took me to the BSU meeting room where John Huggins and Alprintis Bunchy Carter were assassinated. The UCLA visit was very painful for me since I'd meet Bunchy and Eldridge Cleaver when the staff of Black Dialogue Magazine was invited to visit the Soledad Prison Black Culture Club, 1966, chaired by Eldridge Cleaver and Bunchy Carter.

After observing the military order of the club, it was clear to me the brothers had an army in prison. Indeed, prison Guru and Griot Kumasi says, "While you brothers and sisters had your revolution on the outside, we had our revolution inside the prison walls. Yes, George Jackson was our Messiah! It was kill or be killed. So what do you think we did?" The Black Culture Club was not only the beginning of the Black Liberation Movement inside California prisons, it was the beginning of the American prison movement, according to Griot Kumasi.

 Black Dialogue Magazine staff who visited the Soledad Prison Black Culture Club, 1966:
Aubrey LaBrie, Marvin X, Abdul Sabrey, Al Young, Arthur Sheridan, Duke Williams. Most of us were members of the Black Students Union at San Francisco State College/now University.

Eldridge Cleaver and Marvin X outside the house where Eldridge and Little Bobby Hutton

had a shootout with the Oakland police. Little Bobby was murdered in cold blood by the

pigs after he  and Cleaver surrendered. Cleaver was wounded and escaped into exile. When Cleaver returned from exile as a Born Again Christian, Marvin helped organize his Christian ministry. When Cleaver died, Marvin organized the memorial in Oakland. His former wife Kathleen and daughter Joju attended but told Marvin, "It was nice Marvin but there were just too many Muslims on the program." Cleaver's son Ahmad Eldridge Cleaver is a Sunni Muslim, lives in the Persian Gulf. Daughter Joju married Geronimo Pratt after his release from prison. They have a child. Throughout his years in prison, Geronimo and Eldridge communicated. After the death of Bunchy, Geronimo became head of the Los Angeles chapter.

photo Muhammad El Kareem

Eldridge Cleaver and Alprintis Bunchy Carter, who was assassinated in the BSU meeting room at University of California, Los Angeles, along with John Huggins

As I looked at Eldridge Cleaver chairing the Black Culture Club meeting, and as I observed his co-chair Bunchy and the military order of the meeting, to myself I noted "Boy, if that Eldridge ever gets out of prison he will be a dangerous motherfucker. I knew Bunchy had been a leader of the 7,000 member Slauson Street gang, so I knew he was bad, to say nothing of his persona as a poet. We smuggled out their writings and published them in Black Dialogue Magazine, against instructions from the guard who attended us. We published what I consider Cleaver's most positive essay on the Black woman that later appeared in his classic Soul On Ice, My Queen I Greet You. No matter his love letters to Beverly Axelrod, his lawyer/lover who smuggled his manuscript out of Soledad, My Queen I Greet You is the essay that rocked my soul because it gave all praise to the Black Woman, Queen of the Universe. While in prison, Eldridge had been a Muslim, so he knew Elijah Muhammad's teaching that the Black woman was indeed the Queen of the Universe, the Mother of Civilization. When he was released from prison, I was the first person he hooked up with (See his Post-Prison Writings). We founded a cultural center called The Black House on Broderick Street in San Francisco, 1967. He attended a SNCC student conference at Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn. While there, he met Kathleen Neal, a SNCC Secretary. They were in love and soon married.

After being deported from Belize for being a Black Power advocate and "Communist" I was delivered to Terminal Island Federal Prison. The brothers had an election in the big yard and appointed me Nation of Islam Minister. Three of us met in the big yard and Brother Narcellius 15X Bel-Lee said, "Marvin X, you the smartest, so you the minister.  Brother Smith, you the secretary and I'm the captain." Election over. There was no contesting of the election! We met the next Sunday in the chapel! (See my Court Speech, Black Scholar Magazine, April-May, 1971).

When we talk about religion and violence as Karen Armstrong has done in her latest book by the same name, we know how the Muslims called prayer on a pyramid of Christian heads in Moorish Spain. We also know the Christian Crusaders were knee deep in blood when they conquered Jerusalem. Fasalli li Rabbika! Murder is murder! Somebody hep me! (James Brown) So it is not religions who oppress and commit mass murder, it is men doing so in the name of religion and no religion is exempt. La kum dinu kum waliya din (to you your way and to me mine) says Al Qur'an.

I pray going out and coming back to my house, something I began doing during my life as a Crack addict. I soon learned coping is the most dangerous time in the life of a dope fiend, most especially during "tweeker's hours" or that time of night after twelve in the morning when one is often broke or with only enough for that last high, but a time when one is severely mind altered and can make mistakes in judgement. Once I bought a rock off the ground because it was in a plastic bag.

I got it from a person I knew but I asked him to make it right the next day. He asked what you gonna do about it, kill me? Go ahead, I've died five times already. I did nothing but a few weeks later I saw him with a brand new face someone had given him. Allah is God! Everything goes around comes around. Better ax somebody as they say in the Big H, Houston, Texas, yeah, down in the Dirty South!

So one never knew what was going to happen in the street while getting dope, e.g., one could get killed, robbed, tricked with bunk dope, any number of things. I was always happy to make it back to my space after navigating through a mind-field of wretched, scandalous Negroes as I noted in my monologue to the docudrama One Day in the Life ("The most powerful drama I've seen," said Ishmael Reed). In the TL, the dope dealers weren't always Black, often they were Vietnamese. "Yeah, ma nigguh, I got ice cream, ma nigguh, ice cream!" And Castro sent his Cuban rejects to the TL, for a while they had the best dope. Cuban unity had them soon opening shops on San Francisco's Market Street, doing legal business.

Numerous times I was indeed robbed, bum rushed, beaten, teeth knocked out, forced to remain in the dope house at gunpoint, knife point, etc, but I made it back. Sometimes my friends and/or fellow dope fiends were dumbfounded when I stopped to pray before leaving my room (most often a funky, wretched Hindu Hilton, i.e., SRO ( Single Room Occupancy hotel room). I had to explain to them I was putting the armor of God around me. Dope fiends didn’t care about me praying, long as I hurried up and made the run into the wicked TL).



So even now, I pray everyday, all day, when going in and coming back. I pray when I'm driving through the streets, especially when riding through San Francisco's Tenderloin where I spent so many years as a dope fiend, homeless, sleeping in alleys, doorways, cardboard boxes, Transbay Terminal Bus Station, shelters.

These days when I ride through the wretched streets of the TL or Tenderloin, that multi-cultural ghetto one block from the affluent Union Square shopping area of SF, I pray and pray, "Oh, Allah, why did you save me from these streets? Why did you take so many of my friends but keep me alive and allow me to escape? Thank you Almighty God Allah, thank you, thank you, thank you. Al Humdulilah!

Now and then I would see some of the people I used to know back in the day. I wondered how they were still alive, especially the dope dealers. They had to be working with the police, just like the prostitutes who turn tricks with any John and with the pigs who get information from them on whomever. How these same dope dealers still selling dope thirty years later?

Until lately, when I would ride through the TL, I used to look for my friend and actor, JB Saunders, who recently made his transition. JB was multi-talented, actor, singer, but lacked discipline, the difference between an  amateur and professional, although he got paid for acting but lacked discipline, something I had to learn from my association with Sun Ra when he worked with me at my Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, 1972. We also taught together at UC Berkeley until they removed the entire radical faculty in Black Studies and hired what we call "tenured negroes".

Sun Ra scolded me about teaching freedom to my actors while he arranged the musical production of my play Flowers for the Trashman, renamed TCB or Take Care of Business (See The Drama Review, ed. by Ed Bullins, 1968). "Marvin, your actors don't need freedom, stop teaching them freedom. They need discipline! Not freedom, don't you see how free, wild and crazy they are? Stop teaching them that freedom, justice and equality. Teach discipline, that's what I teach my musicians!”

Marvin X and Sun Ra outside Marvin X's Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco CA, 1972. Both lectured in the Black Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley, 1971-72.

Freedom finally killed JB. Sun Ra noted, "All those people who talked about freedom are dead! Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., They all dead. I didn't come here to play Jesus, they ain't crucifying me!"

I must mention the time I invited him to my room at the Jefferson Hotel in Oakland. JB spent a minute or two but said he had to get back to San Francisco because Oakland was too quiet. So even though I had dope, JB caught the BART or subway back to SF.

Before his transition I used to drive around the seedy streets of the TL looking for my buddy and often find him on a corner near Jones and Leavenworth or Ellis and Taylor, by Glide Church which saved all us dope fiends from starvation, thanks to Rev. Cecil Williams and his wife, poet Janice Mirikitani, although a dope fiend cannot starve in San Francisco because  besides Glide Church, there is St. Anthony's, Salvation Army, St. Martin De Porres and a few churches in the Black community.

One time I ran up on JB on a corner. It was the first of the month when dope fiends used to get checks, a day of high drama, Negroes and other multi-cultural dope fiends literally running through the TL coping and rushing back to their hovels. That day JB said, "Hey, Teach, let me bless my teach today." He went into a liquor store and returned with a half pint of Hennessy, "This is for you, teach!" I said thanks, JB. He said, "Teach, I gotta go, gotta make a run." I said, JB, I can give you a ride, but he said, "Teach, I can get there quicker than your car," and he took off running like Superman flying in the friendly sky without leaving the ground. Rest in peace JB! A true trooper!

Oakland rapper Hammer said, "We got to pray to make it through the day." I am thankful and thoughtful (Sly Stone song) that I awaken each morning with the breath of life. A few years ago a friend called me singing the blues. I told him, "Be thankful nigguh, you got up this morning. Yesterday I was at the hospital signing books in the cafeteria when a group of people walked in with respirators, they can't breathe, nigguh, so be thankful you can breathe. You need to kiss the ground and give all praise to Allah your black ass got up this morning!"



If everyday ain't a holy day, what are they, unholy days, days of sin and wretchedness, sloth and slumber? So I'm thankful and thoughtful. I'm having the time of my life, having fun living and teaching at my Academy of da Corner. Of course I teach through my writing as well. But it's fun. Sometimes life is painful, like death of a loved one or death of anyone, like the global killing fields happening as I write this Xmas Eve, 2015.

Let me recall the cold December of 1968 when I interviewed ancestor James Baldwin with no heat in his New York apartment. He said, "How can they talk about the Prince of Peace while they bomb the hell out of Vietnam? Your condition proves they don't believe in Jesus Christ, just look at your condition! Ain't nothing else happened here but us, nothing. I applaud the black fathers who raise sons in this wretched land. It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad!"

Oh, Jimmy, indeed, the world has now gone mad, stark raving mad. Mass killing in America from coast to coast, in the hood, in the schools, workplaces, churches. I feel much like theologian  Karen Armstrong. After a lecture on her recent book Religion and Violence, she was asked how she felt about the world. She said, "I feel dread." And so it is a dreadful time to be alive, and yet I wouldn't have wanted to miss this time. As my ancestors said, "bottom rail top." And Sun Ra used to say, "You didn't let me enjoy your gladness so I don't want to enjoy your sadness."

But we must understand the nature of war and we have been at war since we were kidnapped and brought to these shores to work for eternity for free. Can you imagine to work for life without possibility of parole? In war there are casualties, sons, lovers, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, friends, downed on the battlefield.

At least tell your people and warn them we are in a fight with the true and living devil, in blackface and white face. Have no illusions some of these nigguhs/Africans ain't devils. Who brought us down to the ships? AB would say, who, who, who?

"The king sold the farmer to the ghost....

In the Atlantic ocean is a railroad of human bones...!"

Read Dr. Walter Rodney’s monograph on West Africa and the Atlantic slave trade and How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. 



But the war and killing goes on and on, even as I write there is bleeding around the world, throughout the global village, Syria, Nigeria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan. Does it matter who the killers are and why they kill, for the net result is death. Does it matter if they are Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Yoruba, Communist, Socialist, straight, gay, lesbian, transgender. They all murder. As Dr. Armstrong said, sometimes they get high killing. Sometimes they kill out of boredom. Indeed, some years ago young brothers said to me, "OG, you know what we do when we get bored? We get our bulletproof vests, UZIs and ride through the hood shootin' nigguhs."

Yes, if the pigs ain't killing us, we killing us cause we bored or over some pussy and dick shit, or jealousy, envy and other aspects of our full blown addiction to white supremacy Type I and II (Dr. Nathan Hare). Guru Bawa taught about our addiction to the one billion ten million illusions of the monkey mind!



But you ain't gonna take the J out of my joy, devil! I live in the no stress zone. Very few things in life are really important, Aristotle said. I work hard, pray hard and play hard.

I am so thankful to see my children grow into adulthood, but even more fascinating is watching my grandchildren grow up. I never imagined grandchildren. They make us know eternity. And they say the damnest things.


I gave two of my grandchildren some money for Xmas, well, I told them it was for Black Day. My eight year old grandson asked, "When is Black Day?" I replied, "Black Day is everyday. And spend it with Black people." Now we are a family of smart mouth people, so my smart mouth grandson, Jah Amiel said, "Grandfather, a Black man invented Legos! So I'm gonna get some Legos." My daughter said, "Dad, he's just joking with you." While babysitting that night, he had told me original jokes all night, most fell flat, but he got me with the Legos lie." Of course his most famous line was said to me when he was two years old, "Grandfather, you can't save the world but I can!"

Now don’t think his four year old sister, Naima Joy, doesn’t have a smart mouth too. But let’s start with their mother, Amira, a lawyer (Yale, Stanford Law School). I once asked Amira did she know John Coltrane’s tune Naima? She replied, “Oh, Dad, come on, where do you think I got her name from?"

Attorney Amira Jackmon

On the way home from attending a black version of Cinderella at San Francisco’s Fulton Street African American Cultural Center, Naima said, “Grandfather, can you come over our house and talk with me in the living room on the sofa for about thirty minutes?” You know I replied in the affirmative. How could I decline such a shocking invitation from my three year old granddaughter?


One day I was babysitting Naima and Jah at my apartment that has an absence of toys for children. She was looking for something to play with and found a plastic imitation plant with a baby polar bear on it. She said, “Grandfather let me see that.” I said, “Okay, but don’t tear it up and put it back together.” “Oh, Grandfather, I can do that easily, “ and she took it apart and put it back together systematically or easily. “Didn’t I tell you I could do it easily, Grandfather?”

Left to Right: Marvin X, grandson Jah Amiel, director Stanley Nelson, Attorney Amira Jackmon and daughter Naimah Joy at Shattuck Cinema, Berkeley showing of Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution. Marvin appears in the film. He and Stanley Nelson participated in the Q and A. Marvin's grandson said, "It was too much shooting!"

Naima Joy refused to leave arms of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf at Laney College Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary, Feb. 7, 2015. Jah Amiel is standing below his sister.

photo Kenny Johnson

Oakland's Black Arts Movement artists at Laney College BAM 50th Anniversary celebration. Naima Joy and Jah Amiel surround Mayor Schaaf. Mayor issued proclamation in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement.

photo Kenny Johnson

                     Review: Marvin X 2015

February 7, 2015, Laney College Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration; panel on Black Women in the Black Arts Movement. Left to right: Elaine Brown, Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson, Kujichagulia, Aries Jordan. Standing Marvin X, producer.

photo Ken Johnson

February 7, 2015

Marvin X produced the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Black Arts Movement at Laney College, Oakland. On January 4, 2016, the City of Oakland will hold a planning meeting on  renaming 14th Street, downtown Oakland, the Black Arts Movement Cultural and Economic District.

Marvin X and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf share a "poetic moment" before she issues proclamation honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, of which Marvin X is a co-founder.

photo Ken Johnson

Marvin X and daughter Nefertiti on BAM inter-generational panel, Laney College. She told her father, "Dad, you say pass the baton but you won't pass the baton! We're qualified and ready, so pass the baton!" Yes, she's a smart mouth too!

Kujichagulia and daughter Taiwo at BAM/Black Power Babies panel, Laney College. Kujichaulia said, "Yes, I brainwashed my children to keep them from addiction to white supremacy!"

April 25, 2015

The San Francisco International Film Festival screening  of Stanley Nelson's documentary film Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. Marvin appears in film. Scheduled to be shown on PBS, February, 2016.

Stanley Nelson's film Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

Director Stanley Nelson, Marvin X and Fred Hampton, Jr. at the San Francisco International Film Festival screening of Nelson's Vanguard of the Revolution.

May, 2015

The indefatigable, peripatetic poet/playwright/activist at University of California, Merced. He lectured in Professor Kim McMillon's class on his writing and role in the Black Arts Movement.

Marvin X and students at the University of California, Merced. Professor Kim McMillon says, "My   students love Marvin X! They loved reading and performing his first play Flowers for the Trashman."

See Black Fire, ed. by LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal, Black Classics Press; also SOS: Calling All Black People, edited by Sonia Sanchez, James Smethurst and John Bracey.

 In 2014, the University of California, Merced, celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, produced by Kim McMillon and Marvin X. The Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra performed for the first time.

May 21, 2015

Marvin X participated in the Sun Ra Conference on Afro-futurism at the University of Chicago. He performed in a concert with Sun Ra Arkestra musicians Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, also David Boykin, conference planner who invited Marvin X to a recording session where he read with Chicago musicians and poet Kasembe.

Marvin X in Chicago recording studio

June, 2015

Featured Authors

Denise Nicholas Eugene B Redmond Dianne M. Pinderhughes Bill Strickland Sandy Holman Marvin X Terris McMahan Grimes Marion J Woods

Marvin X

Marvin X

photo Adam Turner

Marvin X (Jackmon) was born May 29, 1944, Fowler CA. He grew up in Fresno and Oakland, graduated from Edison High School, Fresno. Attended Merritt College where he was classmates with Black Panther co-founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Merritt was also the roots of the Bay Area Black Arts Movement. The BAM journal Soulbook was published by students at Merritt. Marvin was a contributor. He attended San Francisco State College where is first play Flowers for the Trashman was produced by the drama department while he was an undergrad. His writings appeared in the Bay Area BAM publications Black Dialogue, Journal of Black Poetry and Black Scholar. Other publications include Negro Digest/Black World, Black Theatre Magazine and Muhammad Speaks. His first collection of poetry Fly to Allah is now considered the seminal work of the genre Muslim American literature. His writings include: In the Land of My Daughters, poems, Love and War, poems, In the Crazy House Called America, essays, Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality, essays, How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, essays, The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables. Marvin is currently producer of the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour.

He participated in Juneteenth festivals in Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco:

Marvin X at Berkeley Juneteenth Festival, 2015. Left: MC James Sweeney, longtime friend and supporter. Marvin X told the Father's Day crowd, "We not only acknowledge the fathers but all the mothers who are fathers as well!" In  Oakland Marvin X received an award from the 8th Annual Oakland Juneteenth Festival, produced by Barbara Howard.

photo Harrison Chastain

December 5, 2015

Marvin X receives life-time achievement award from PEN Oakland

PEN 2015 Award winners and presenters: Avotcja Jiltonilro, Marvin X, Lincoln Bergman, Al Young, Peter Harris, Jack Foley, Nanette Deetz, Deborah Miranda

photo Tennessee Reed

                      His writings appear in the following works:

Marvin X is available for readings and speaking coast to coast. Send letter of invitation to jmarvinx@yahoo.com. Call 510-200-4164

Marvin X performing with the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra at the Malcolm X Jazz/Arts Festival, Oakland CA 2014

photo collage Adam Turner 

Marvin X, David Murray and Earl Davis: Marvin reads "Dope" by ancestor Amiri Baraka

Harlem, New York reception for Marvin X at the home of Rashida Ismaili

Fans of Marvin X at Berkeley Flea Market, Berkeley CA

 Dr. Cornel West and Marvin X

Bay Area Black Artists gather in memory of slain journalist Chauncey Bailey. Outside Joyce Gordon Gallery, 14th and Franklin, downtown Oakland.

Poet/playwright/activist Marvin X and actor/activist Danny Glover attended San Francisco State University together, were members of the Black Student Union. Danny was an actor at Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco, 1966, co-founded by Marvin and playwright Ed Bullins.

Marvin X is available for media interviews, reading, speaking and performance of the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra coast to coast. Send letter of invitation to jmarvinx@yahoo.com. Call 510-200-4164

Marvin X at Oakland rally in support of Black churches and artists

Oakland Steps Out for Faith with a Joyful Noise

On Saturday, Nov. 7, churches and community leaders in Oakland and the Bay Area stood in solidarity with Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in West Oakland, which is shown above. Left to right are Pleasant Grove church choir (bottom Left), SambaFunk! Drummers (top left), Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Pastor Thomas Harris of Pleasant Grove, City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney and Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan and Pastor Amos Brown of Third Baptist in San Francisco (top right) , Rev. Ray Williams of Morning Star Baptist and Marvin X, founder of the Black Arts Movement (bottom right). Photos by Ken Epstein. Collage by Adam L. Turner.

By Paul Cobb and Ken Epstein

The city of Oakland has long been considered the citadel for progressive civil rights and political movements involving activism for racial and social inclusion and equity.
In response to neighbors’ complaints about the loud sounds of music coming from churches, ministers and churches called for a public demonstration of respect for its churches instead of using the police and fines to punish their congregations.

More than 30 pastors stood in solidarity with Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. They were joined by city and county officials along with the SambaFunk! drummers, church choirs, gospel soloists and Black Arts groups.

True to its radical and revolutionary roots, Oakland is redefining respect for religion. Ministers called for the city to declare itself, to be a sanctuary city for its sanctuaries.

The First Amendment and religious freedom were embraced by a coalition that included the Oakland NAACP, the Post News Group, Baptists, Methodists, Muslims, Mormons, COGICs, AME, Catholics, the Black Arts Movement, Soul of Oakland, Oakland Private Industry Council, Pastors of Oakland, Baptist Ministers Union, Seventh-day Adventists and many others.

The event took place Saturday, Nov. 7 in front of the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church on Adeline Street in West Oakland. It was the response to a city noise complaint against Pleasant Grove that kicked off the current solidarity movement.

Speaking at the event, Amos Brown of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco said his church has faced similar attempts to silence worship.

He told the crowd that earlier this year “two rogue cops” entered his church one afternoon to tell parishioners to quiet down during a service, where a gumbo band was playing in honor of a church member who had passed away.

But he told the police: “We are going to sing, we are going to shout. We’re going to let nobody tell us to shut up.”

The arts community and the religious community are coming together, said Theo Williams of the SambaFunk! drummers, who performed at the event.

“We came here to stand with you in solidarity,” he said. “This is monumental.”

Said Mayor Libby Schaaf, who spoke after Theo Williams, “This city has some strong roots, and these roots are in our faith community and our arts community.” “My city has some SambaFunk!,” she said.

City Councilmember and Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan, who is a rabbi, urged people to raise their voice and sing out in praise.

“It is a miracle that we are still here to sing praises,” said Kaplan, referring to the holocausts faced by Black people during the Middle Passage, Jews during World War II and indigenous people in the United States during the Trail of Tears.

“We give thanks that we have survived to this day,” she said. “Let us use this as a force to unite.”

Bishop Joseph Simmons of Greater St. Paul Baptist Church praised church and community members who have spoken up about attacks on the right to worship.

“I want to thank the people who complained because your complaints made us stand up,” he said.

Rev. Ray Williams of Morning Star Baptist Church said people have to stand up to forces that want to push them out of the city.

“We used to steal away to Jesus to worship,” he said. “(But) we aren’t going to steal away anymore. We’re here to take back what gentrification has taken away from us.”

 “We need our council members to have the courage to challenge chase bank for reneging on it’s promise to Oakland,” said Post publisher Paul Cobb.

Marvin X said, "No silencia por farvor. We're not singing Silent Night! You're not taking our drum."

The Revolutionary role of SNCC Women

Department of Defense. "Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)." 1967.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army, gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the US Army Intelligence Command and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the preparation of this counter-intelligence study.

Users may submit comments, suggestions, or queries pertaining to this study to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army, Washington, D. C. 20310, ATTN: DSCC.
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NOTE: This sector of the US intelligence network ignored the central role of Black women in SNCC. These white men who worked for the National Security State had greater fear of Black Men and, thus, vastly underestimated the powerful leadership of young (and not so young) Black Women. It is one reason why the Black Liberation Movement grew and developed- inspite of COINTELPRO and the National Security State's onslaught on militant Black organizations of the 1960s and 70s. Hence, the rise of an Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, Kathleen Cleaver, Sonia Sanchez, Toni Cade Bambara, Safia Bukari, Fran Beal, Nina Simone, Black Feminism/Womanism... BlackLivesMatter Leadership of today.

 

Below are fotos of just a few of SNCC Sisters who played leading roles in the evolution of SNCC and the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960s to the present-- SEA

Sister Ella Baker- Veteran Activist-Inspirer of SNCC Founders.

Sister Diane Nash- FreedomFighter and Leader For Life (seen here leading a Nashville desegregation demo).

SNCC and Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Leader, Sister Fannie Lou Hamer of Ruleville, MS speaking in 1964.

SNCC Leader, Sister Joyce Ladner.

SNCC Leader, Sister Gloria Richardson of Cambridge, MD confronting the National Guard in 1967.

SNCC Leader Sister Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson with Brothers Jim Forman, Cleveland Sellars, and Kwame Ture around 1966.

SNCC Leader, Sister Gwen Patton Woods with Jim Forman, Willie McRay, James

Baldwin and Joan Baez on the March 25, 1965 Selma to Montgomery, AL march.

She was also responsible for Brother Malcolm X's ability to speak to Tuskeegee Students

just weeks before his assassination.

A SNCC Sister holding a Freedom School Class in Alabama ca 1966.

SNCC Sisters at a Atlanta meeting ca 1966.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Founding and National Headquarters 1
2. Policy Statements 2
3. Organization 3
   a. National Leadership 4
   b. Finances 5
   c. Transportation 5
   d. Publications 5
   e. World Travel 6
4. Contact with other Organizations 6
5. Support by Communist and New Left Organizations 7
6. Personalities 8
7. Activities 17
Conclusion 20

INTRODUCTION

The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is an organization which seeks to capitalize on the discontent of Negroes who want immediate economic and social equality. Although SNCC was created in 1960 as a nonviolent civil rights organization concentrating on Negro voter registration campaigns in the South, by 1965 SNCC had renounced its policy of non-violence and integration to advocate political and economic power for the Negro and to agitate against the United States involvement in Vietnam.

This transformation of SNCC accelerated in May 1966, when Stokely Carmichael became national chairman. That summer Carmichael popularized his slogan, "Black Power," which to him meant "bringing this country to its knees" and using "any force necessary" to attain Negro goals. The switch changed SNCC from the traditional-type civil rights organization to a militant anti-white hate group.

Carmichael and the current SNCC national chairman, H. Rap Brown, have gained a great deal of notoriety by traveling throughout the United States and the world preaching hate and openly espousing urban guerrilla warfare to achieve "Black Power." Although, they cannot be held responsible for the violence in US cities in the summer of 1967, they most certainly have made their contribution to civil unrest.

1. FOUNDING AND NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS: In April 1960, a group of Negro and white college students, meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, formed the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee as a vehicle to coordinate their civil rights activities. At its second meeting, held in the middle of October 1960, in Atlanta, Georgia, SNCC became a permanent committee and started an outline for a constitution. SNCC then stated that its general principle was to be a continued policy of non-violent pressure to force desegregation. Its national head-quarters opened at 197 1/2 Auburn Street, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia. Several years later it moved to 360 Nelson Street, S.W., in Atlanta. As of April 1965, SNCC may have had some 250 field workers, but it was soon forced to cut that number in half due to financial problems.

2. POLICY STATEMENTS

a. SNCC can no longer be considered a civil rights group. It has become a racist organization with black supremacy ideals and an expressed hatred for whites. It employs violent and militant measures which may be defined as extreme when compared with those of more moderate groups. Some of its early leaders, such as John Lewis, have had to step down because of a conflict with the "New Way." In the fall of 1966, a position paper, written by dissident members, clearly showed that the organization's new "Black Power" philosophy was the product of months of planning. This policy change came as the result of internal discussion within the committee over the role of white workers within the organization. White workers have been released by SNCC, and the caucasian member in SNCC is almost non-existent today. Present leaders have proclaimed they have rid themselves of the white man so that they can truly work for black power. These SNCC leaders have become so active nationally that they not only represent the change in SNCC itself but the change in the militant Negro in every sector of the country. SNCC leaders also claim to represent Negro discontent with the war in Vietnam and the disproportionate number of Negroes drafted and serving in the "Racist Imperialist War."

b. The policy of SNCC is best described in some of its earlier organizational pronouncements and in numerous statements of its leaders. Early in 1966, a SNCC policy statement provided a basis for its actions. The following is a synopsis of that statement:
 

SNCC has the right and responsibility to dissent with U.S. foreign policy concerning Vietnam; the U.S. has been deceptive in its claims about the freedom of the Vietnamese and colored people in the Dominican Republic, the Congo, South Africa, Rhodesia, and in the U.S., itself; SNCC has been involved in the black people's struggle for liberation and self-determination in this country for the past five years; SNCC work has taught that the U.S. government has never guaranteed the freedom of oppressed citizens; SNCC workers have often been victims of violence and confinement by U.S. government officials; the murder of Samuel Young in Tuskeegee is no different than the murder of peasants in Vietnam; Samuel Young was murdered because U.S. law is not being enforced; Vietnamese are murdered because the U.S. is pursuing an aggressive foreign policy in violation of international law; SNCC recalls the indifference, suspicion, and outright hostility with which reports of violence have been met in the past by government officials; elections in this country, in the North as well as the South are not free; SNCC questions, then, the ability and even the desire of the U.S. government to guarantee free elections abroad; SNCC sympathizes with and supports the men in this country who are unwilling to respond to a military draft; SNCC notes the inconsistency of a supposedly 'free' society where responsibility to freedom is equated with the responsibility to lend oneself to military aggression; SNCC asks where is the draft for the freedom fight in the U.S.; SNCC encourages those Americans who prefer to use their energy in building democratic forms within this country and believes that work in the civil rights movement and with other human relations organizations is a valid alternative to the draft.

c. In late May 1967, SNCC issued the following policy statement:

"In our staff meeting held during the past week, the organization voted that the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee is a human rights organization, interested not only in human rights in the United States, but throughout the world; that in the field of international relations, we assert that we encourage and support the liberation struggles of all people against fascism, exploitation, and oppression. We see our struggle here in America as an integral part of the world-wide movement of all oppressed people, such as in Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Latin America. Furthermore, we support the efforts of our brothers in Puerto Rico, who are presently engaged in a fight for independence and liberation there."

d. "We shall seek to build a strong nationwide black antidraft program and movement to include high school students, along with college students and other black men of draft age. We see on reason for black men, who are daily murdered physically and mentally in this country, to go and kill yellow people abroad, who have done nothing to us, and are, in fact, victims of the same oppression that our brothers in Vietnam suffer. Our major thrust will be in the building of national freedom organizations which will deal with all aspects of the problems facing black people in America. The political objective will manifest itself in the creation of a viable, independent political force. The economic objective will be:

(1) To expel the exploiters who presently control our community.

(2) To gain economic control of our communities.

(3) To create an economic system which will be responsible to and benefit the black community, rather than a few individuals.

e. "Our cultural objective will be:

(1) To destroy the myths and lies propagated by white America concerning our history in Africa and in this country.

(2) To develop an awareness and appreciation of the beauty of our thick lips, broad noses, kinky hair, and soul. In obtaining these objectives, we will work with all other black groups who are fighting for the same goals."

f. On 1 August 1967, the Detroit News claimed that it received a black power pamphlet circulated by SNCC, which denied that it printed this pamphlet; the News stated it had quoted it verbatim. In essence the pamphlet called for the Negro to fill himself with "hate for all white things. We must disrupt the white man's system to create our own." The title of the document published was "We Want Black Power." "We cannot train an army in the local park, but we can be ready for the final confrontation with the white man's system. The black man in America is in a perpetual state of slavery no matter what the white man's propaganda tells us. We are not alone in this fight, we are a part of the struggle for self-determination of all black men everywhere."

g. In relation to the recent Arab-Israeli War, SNCC, on 15 August 1967, charged that Israel was guilty of atrocities during its war with the Arabs. In its monthly newsletter, it called Israelites, "Zionist terrorists who deliberately slaughtered and mutilated Arab men, women and children." It also stated that Israel forced itself into being in 1947 by parlaying the United Nations votes of the United States, "White Europeans and Australians," to vote for the Israeli partition plan.

h. Franklin Alexander of the W.E.B. DuBois Clubs of America (DCA), although not directly connected with SNCC, has commented on SNCC's policy with some inside knowledge, although just how much of Alexander's statement is fact and how much opinion remains uncertain. In August 1967, he expressed his feeling that the current group activity under consideration by leadership of SNCC was on "ghetto guerrilla organizing." This concept produced violent disagreements in SNCC, but the broad revolution section prevailed in the discussion and is now dominating SNCC activities. This has caused serious financial and organizational problems. The main personality among SNCC leadership stressing this philosophy is Harold Ware, an associate of Stokely Carmichael. Ware has been strongly influenced by the writings and discussions of Robert Williams, a Negro expatriate, now residing in China. Alexander is of the opinion that SNCC could be expected to become a para-military revolutionary underground organization dedicated to continuing terrorist activities in the urban centers of the U.S.

3. ORGANIZATION

a. National Leadership -- The national leadership of SNCC has passed through the hands of Marion Barry, Charles McDew, John Lewis, Stokely Carmichael, to H. Rap Brown, the current chairman. Behind these national leaders were assistants and an Executive Committee of workers, from which the leaders are chosen. There is also an Adult Advisory group of the Executive Committee. This Adult Advisory group consists of people from different movements, organizations, and areas of the country. Some members are known to the public; some have kept their association with SNCC secret. This has led to speculation concerning the true membership of this important group and just what outside organizations have an influence on SNCC. During its early days, Martin Luther King was believed to have been a member. Possibly, this Adult / dvisory group is an amorphic body of no specific or permanent members, varying in composition from time to time. The present national officers of SNCC are:

(1) H. Rap Brown, National Chairman

(2) Stanley Leroy Wise, National Executive Secretary

(3) Ralph Featherstone, National Program Director

(4) Ethel Minor, Communications Director of SNCC

(5) James Foreman, International Director of SNCC

(6) George Washington Ware, Program Director of Campus Affairs

(7) Bill Mahoney, SNCC National Press Relations Officer

b. Finances

(1) SNCC claims to be a non-profit organization. As such, it has purchased automobiles and paid monthly phone bills of $1,000, salaries for up to 150 people and numerous other expenses. With the adoption of its militant policy, SNCC lost much of its northern financial backing and faced a financial crisis.

(2) SNCC had originally set a dues system to obtain needed finances, but this has apparently fallen by the wayside. It has solicited contributions by mail and personal contact. Its aid may now be coming from fund-raising affairs, from friends who seek contributions and hold parties to raise money in the North, from a touring SNCC group of Freedom Singers who appear at benefits on SNCC's behalf, from the sale of recordings and Freedom songbooks, and from benefits by entertainers such as Pete Seeger, Dick Gregory, Harry Belafonte, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Stokely Carmichael received payments of $1000 to $3000 for speaking engagements at various colleges. SNCC has received funds from the Southern Regional Council and Southern Conference Educational Fund; however, it still remains in financial difficulty because of its loss in popularity among northern whites. SNCC will possibly have to find financial aid from new sources in order to alleviate its current financing shortcomings.

c. Transportation -- Transportation has been a prime necessity for SNCC organization and leaders. It set up the "Sojourner Motor Fleet" in Atlanta, Georgia, to provide automotive transportation for its workers. Air travel has been on commercial flights and is frequently used as its national leaders travel throughout the country for meetings and speech making jaunts.

d. SNCC Publications

(1) The Student Voice was first issued in June 1960. It had been SNCC's intermittent official publication, although it has not appeared since late 1966. The Student Voice is a corporate organization and owns its own equipment. In order to defray some expenses, it has taken on some commercial printing. It has also published a history of the American Negro.'

(2) The Movement, a monthly newspaper, was published by SNCC in California until 1966. The publishers separated from SNCC at that time, but maintained their continued support of SNCC policies. In June 1967, they stated they full supported the SNCC "Black Power" philosophy.

(3) Several chapters of SNCC and Friends of SNCC have also published newsletters and pamphlets, such as, The Drummer in Cleveland, and The Voice of Washington SNCC in Washington, D. C. Posters, fliers, and circulars have also appeared at SNCC pickets, demonstrations and rallies.

e. World Travel

(1) SNCC leaders and their aides travel throughout the world to attend meetings and give speeches. These meetings vary from groups of International Civil Rights workers to communist sponsored meetings and to lectures on revolution.

(2) Charles McDew, of SNCC, has traveled to Mexico where he may be in contact with many persons in Mexico with Communist backgrounds. In the fall of 1966, Vernon Crutchfield, a field worker for SNCC, stated that he and other representatives of SNCC made an all-expense paid trip to Russia, and that white there he was offered a free scholarship to attend a Russian school. Ralph Featherstone, of the Executive Committee of SNCC, visited Japan to lecture and visit the Hiroshima City celebration in the fall of 1966. In the spring of 1965, John Lewis made a trip to Africa on what he called a "Mission of Learning" and to improve relations between the liberation movement of Africa and the civil rights struggle in this country. On 13 July 1967, SNCC announced that James Foreman was to leave for Russia. In 1965, Stokely Carmichael made an expense-free trip to Guinea with ten other SNCC workers. This trip was arranged by Harry Belafonte. There they took lessons in revolution from President Sekou Toure, the pro-Communist president of Guinea. In 1967, Carmichael also made his well publicized trip to England, Cuba, North Vietnam, and Algeria, spreading his words of hate and attracting aid from foreign sources.

4. CONTACT WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

a. SNCC has had contact with other civil rights and nationalist organizations. During its early days it worked through the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League (UL), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Conference Educational Fund, Inc. (SCEF), and the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC). In early 1966, SNCC started a chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in Lowndes County, Alabama, intended as a political civil rights group and a third party slate. The BPP has Maxwell Stanford, head of Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), as a member. Two of SNCC's well-known leaders were members of the Nonviolent Action Group (NVA). Franklin Alexander, a member of the Du Bois Clubs of America (DCA), worked closely with SNCC members in the riots on 17 May 1967, in Houston, Texas. DCA is a front organization of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA). The Puerto Rican Independence Movement (MPI) has made an agreement with SNCC, according to Ponce Directore Jenaro Rentas Rodriguez, to create riots and racial problems in New York and other U.S. cities through the coordinated efforts of Puerto Ricans and Negroes. This agreement was supposedly made prior to Stokely Carmichael's recent visit to the Latin American Solidarity Organization (LASO), in Havana, Cuba. Stokely Carmichael has also conferred several times with members of black national groups, such as, the Nation of Islam (NOI) and RAH.

b. SNCC's militant attitude has aggravated the leaders of the moderate civil rights group like SCLC. SCLC is lead by Martin Luther King, Jr., who in September 1966, said he could not countenance the current violent approach resorted to by SNCC and hoped he would not have to take a public stand against SNCC. Attempts have been made to reconcile the two groups. On 13-14 June 1967, a secret meeting was held with SNCC and CORE representing militant groups, and SCLC, NAACP, and UL representing the moderates. Some progress was made and common goals set. Relations were soon to be strained again, however, by the continued militant activities of Brown and Carmichael.

c. The increasingly militant policies of SNCC have infuriated right-wing organizations throughout the country. The Minutemen delivered an ultimatum to SNCC headquarters in July 1967, for Stokely Carmichael and others to "Vacate Georgia forthwith" under pain of violent reprisal. The American Nazi Party has held numerous counter-demonstrations at SNCC rallies. In general, there is the ever present danger of extended violence in the confrontations of SNCC with groups of the radical right.

5. SUPPORT BY COMMUNIST AND NEW LEFT ORGANIZATIONS: There is no evidence to prove that SNCC is a communist front organization. There is ample evidence indicating communist support and infiltration, however, since SNCC first came into being in the early 1960's. SNCC has always Claimed that it does not concern itself with the outside interests of its workers, nor does it care if a member is a communist. SNCC states its only concern as the belief and intention of its members to work for civil rights. Communist aid does not represent total alignment and complete collaboration of SNCC with the CPUSA. It does mean that the communists do support and influence SNCC activities to a limited extent. In November 1962, Dan Rubin, CPUSA Youth Leader, New York, stated that the CPUSA would establish groups of young people in the North who would give aid to SNCC in the South. Ben Davis, National Secretary, CPUSA, in May 1963, pointed out tremendous work done by the "Student Nonviolent League" and indicated "we" should understand the importance of getting "our own people" into work of this kind in the South. Carl Bloice, of the Youth Commission of the Northern California District of the CPUSA, spent time with SNCC, and indicated that among SNCC leadership, most of the Marxist classics were familiar books. In 1963, SNCC received checks from or through individuals with CPUSA affiliations. Adult Member, Executive Committee, SNCC, was a member of the CPUSA in 1953. Charles McDew, who resigned as Chairman of SNCC in June 1963, and went to Mexico, is described as knowing many persons in Mexico and the U. S. who were of communist background who apparently does not care to hold title position with SNCC in Atlanta, is described by newspapers as a Field Secretary for SNCC and is considered by Atlanta Police to be third in command of SNCC after the Chairman and Executive Secretary. As of January 30, 1963, was a member of the Youth Club, an affiliate of the CPUSA of Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware (CPEPD). SNCC has received financial support from SCEF, the Louis M. ?? Foundation (known to give aid to communist front groups), and the Women's Peace and Unity Club. Ella J. Baker, Adult Member, SNCC Executive Committee, has associated with individuals known to be CPUSA members. Information received in mid-December 1963, revealed that John Lewis was a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. As of June 29, 1963, was a member of the CPUSA, in New York City. ardent supporter of SNCC, was a CPUSA member. of Atlanta, another ardent SNCC supporter, was identified as a CPUSA member in December 1952.

6. PERSONALITIES

a. STOKELY CARMICHAEL

(1) Stokely Carmichael, while on the Meredith Freedom March in Mississippi in June 1966, coined the slogan "Black Power," which shortly afterwards split the civil rights movement into two camps, moderate and extreme. He and H. Rap Brown have preached violence throughout the nation. In the summer of 1967, he traveled to Havana, Cuba, and Hanoi, North Vietnam, to take part in communist activities and attack "white racism" in the U.S.

(2) Carmichael was born in Trinidad, West Indies, on 29 June 1941. His father was a native of the British West Indies and his mother was Panamanian. His family moved to Bronx, New York, in 1952. Carmichael became a US citizen on April 27, 1953, by derivation from the naturalization of his father. he graduated from the Bronx School of Science in New York City, in June 1960. While in high school he was a member of a group that seemed unusually devoted to left wing activities. Eugene Dennis, Jr., son of the former General Secretary of the CPUSa, was a close friend and fellow high school student of Carmichael's in the Bronx. Young Dennis played a prominent role in the founding of the DCA. In Carmichael's senior year, he and some classmates went to Washington, D. C., to picket the House Committee on Un-American Activities. he later attended Howard University in Washington, D. C., where he obtained a degree in philosophy in 1964 While at Howard he joined the Nonviolent Action Group, an affiliate of SNCC. In June 1961, he participated in freedom rides and experienced the first of his numerous arrests Two years after graduation from Howard he became chairman of SNCC. In this position from the spring of 1966, until May 1967, he traveled throughout the United States speaking at churches, high schools, colleges, and street rallies. Carmichael claims he established his idea of "Black Power" from a book he considers his "bible," The Wretched of the Earth, by the West Indian Negro, Frantz Fanon. His recent activities and statements show his concentration on preaching violence and hate, and how violence usually follows his speaking engagements.

(a) On 17 July 1966, Carmichael told a large rally in Philidelphia, Pa., of a plan to oust all white businessmen and landlords from Negro areas of the city. According to Carmichael, cooperatives will be formed to buy out white businesses and apartment houses in the Negro sections -- "We will force them to sell to us by moving out of their apartments and boycotting their businesses."

(b) During his speech in Detroit, Michigan, on July 30, 1966, he urged Negroes to stop begging white people for what "we deserve by birth." He also stated he had experienced so much law and order in this country that he now wanted to try "a little taste of chaos."

(c) On 2 August 1966, Carmichael appeared in the Vine City area of Atlanta, Georgia, and shouted "Black Power" when police were attempting to arrest a Negro for a minor traffic offense. A riot resulted. On August 8, eight members of SNCC were arrested when they disrupted traffic as they picketed the Atlanta Housing Authority.

(d) Carmichael at the Mount Morris Presbyterian Church in Harlem in New York City, on 29 August 1966, said, "In Cleveland they're building stores with no windows. All brick, I don't know what they think they will accomplish. It just means we have to move from Molotov cocktails to dynamite."

(e) In Selma, Alabama on 5 November 1966, Carmichael was arrested when he attempted to incite a riot at city hall during a campaign rally for Black Panther Party candidates.

(f) On 24 May 1967, Carmichael told some 7,000 UCLA students that, for negroes, the war in vietnam is a matter of survival rather than morality. He said that more than 30 per cent of the fighting force in Vietnam is Negro, whereas only 10 per cent of the US population is Negro. A Washington Post article stated that recent statistics show that Negroes comprise about 23 per cent of the fighting force in Vietnam. Carmichael is "against coalition at this time because it will not benefit the black man...we will not be defined by a white society. We will struggle to create our own terms and have them recognized."

(g) On 11 June 1967, Carmichael was arrested in Prattville, Alabama, for disturbing the peace after an incident in which police claim an aggressive Negro gathering harangued and fired on police and white passers-by. Police quoted Carmichael as saying, "We came here to tear this town up, and we're going to tear it up." Carmichael led the gathering and later stated that the trouble was started by Klansmen and police brutality.

(h) During racial violence in Atlanta, Ga., on 18 June 1967, Stokely Carmichael appeared on the scene accompanied by a group of individuals, some of whom were connected with SNCC. Carmichael immediately began to harrass the police and was finally arrested for disorderly conduct -- failure to obey an officer to move on. After the violence on June 19, Carmichael, who was out of jail on bond, held a press conference and announced that a protest meeting would be held at St. Joseph's Baptist Church that night. At this meeting he attacked the Atlanta police force and incited the crowd with inflammatory statements. Further rioting resulted.

(i) Stokely Carmichael reached a new height of international fame when he travelled in the summer of 1967, to the Cuban held Latin American Solidarity Organization Conference (LASO). On his way to Cuba he stopped in Britain. There Carmichael allegedly said, "If the British did not accept our principles, I would burn down their homes and factories." While at the LASO Conference, he said, quoting from Major Ernesto Che Guevara, the Cuban guerrilla leader, "Hatred is an element of the struggle, transforming (man) into an effective violent, selective and cold killing machine." In reference to Guevara on guerrilla warfare, Carmichael said, "You are an inspiration not only to black people inside the United States, but to the liberation struggle around the world. Please keep on fighting, you are helping to inspire us. Do not despair, my comrade, we shall overcome." When asked whether Black Power can be equated to communism, he answered: "Communism can be many things -- Russian, Czech, Yugoslav, Cuban. The system we like best is the Cuban." About the CPUSA, he said, "There are no proletarians in the U.S. Communist Party. It is the party of the rich." He said, "Forty per cent of the troops in Vietnam are Negro, and some good may come of it because when they come back they will be trained to kill in the streets." The American Negro's battle, he said, must be fought on two fronts: "The fight against racism and the fight against capitalism. Racism is a result of capitalism." According to Reuters, Carmichael envisions the possible assassination of President Johnson and British Prime Minister Wilson as acts of vengeance for the murder of Negro leaders. Carmichael said his three greatest heroes were assassinated black nationalist leader Malcolm X, Ernesto (Che) Guevara, and Mao Tse-tung.

(j) Because of these and similar statements, the US State Department is considering revoking Carmichael's passport. Since his stay in Cuba, Carmichael has travelled to North Vietnam. Carmichael's draft status is 4-F as of March 13, 1967. Previously he had been classified 1-Y because of a psychiatric test showing "chronic schizophrenic with psychopathic, pseudoneurotic and paranoid trends."

(k) In May, 1967, Carmichael relinquished his National Chairman position in SNCC ostensibly to return to Negro problems as a field worker; however, he has remained in the lime-light and has not returned to field work in Washington, D. C., as he indicated at the time of his resignation.

b. RAP BROWN

(1) In taking office as Stokely Carmichael's successor as National Chairman of SNCC, Brown stated that he hoped he would not be as publicly prominent as Carmichael. In an apparent effort to stress that he was as militant as Carmichael, he stated that he couldn't count the number of times he has been arrested and stated that he faces a trial in Selma, Alabama, on morals charges. Carmichael also assured news reporters that Brown was "a bad man."

(2) Brown's real name is Hubert Geroid Brown. He is reported to have acquired the nickname "Rap" during his early days as a civil rights worker when his fiery speeches caused audiences to shout, "Rap it to `em baby."

(3) Brown was born on October 4, 1943, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. he attended Southern University for two years, dropping out in 1962, because "they couldn't teach me anything." Due to flat feet and torn ligaments, Brown failed to pass physical examinations and was classified 1-Y by his draft board. From 1962 to 1963, Brown worked with Carmichael in a group called the Nonviolent Action Group, which was based at Howard University in Washington, D. C. Following this Brown and Carmichael worked with SNCC in Mississippi and Lowndes County, Alabama. From December 1966 to May 1967, he served as SNCC's Alabama Project Director. In May 1967, Brown was designated as SNCC National Chairman, succeeding Carmichael.

(4) Brown's activities and speeches have been numerous. During the summer of 1967, Brown traveled widely, making many speeches, inciting violence, and spreading hate.

(a) On 9 June 1967, Brown and other leading SNCC personalities held a press conference in Chicago. They indicated that SNCC would launch a nation-wide protest against the drafting of Negroes and would instruct Negroes on how to avoid the military draft. Black Draft Workshops were held in Chicago several days later.

(b) Brown, in Prattville, Alabama, on 11 June 1967, said "We recognize and accept yesterday's action by racist white America as a declaration of war...We are calling for full retaliations from the black community across America."

(c) On 14 June 1967, Brown spoke in Dayton, Ohio, on the request of a known CPUSA member from 1946 through 1948. After Brown's speech, groups of Negro youths caused disturbances there. On 15 June 1967, Brown, still in Dayton, called for massive civil disobediance and "damn the laws of the United States." On this same date Brown also turned up in riot-torn Cincinnati and told an audience that "SNCC has declared war."

(d) Brown was the featured speaker at a meeting is Houston, Texas, on June 19. The meeting was held to protest charges filed against five Texas Southern University students. Of particular interest was Brown's statement about the possible ways Negro women could serve. He mentioned, as an example, that the white "Boss" could "get his bacon and eggs with arsenic instead of salt." With specific reference to Houston, Brown stated that it was necessary that SNCC obtain the full cooperation of the Negro community to organize a "set up" in Houston similar to that which had been used in Cincinnati. He insisted that this was a "must" and could not be delayed. He also told them to arm themselves and that they could possibly take over Minutemen caches to aid in their armament. After the meeting had been in progress for some time, all news reporters and white people were requested to leave. Following their departure, Brown lectured on rioting. At the outset of a riot, Brown instructed, the city should be "hit" in the main business area. He explained that the police would concentrate on this central area. Then, simultaneous outbreaks in scattered ghetto areas would cause the police to be spread so thin as to become ineffective. Brown also urged that Negroes be trained to turn on fire hydrants in order to interfere with the use of high-pressure hoses to disperse rioters. Those present were also encouraged by Brown to buy firearms and ammunition. Finally, Brown counseled that rioters should dress in regulation army uniforms or fatigue clothes when the National Guard or other troops are called in. This attire, he pointed out, would confuse the soldiers and enable the rioters to gain possession of jeeps, which are often equipped with machine guns.

(e) At a later speech at SNCC headquarters in Washington, D. C., Brown said that Negroes will get home rule in Washington, "and if it must be gotten by going into the streets, that will be dictated by Lyndon Baines Johnson." He repeatedly said that if violence erupts, it will be the fault of the white community. He did not say how SNCC would get home rule but, that it will form "freedom organizations" to apply pressure on Congress. Concerning the resorting to arms, he said, "If it comes to the point that black people must have guns, we will have means and ways to obtain those arms." he accused the white power structure of "escalating genocide" against the Negroes. Brown said that it was the policy of SNCC to conceal the assignment of its workers when some asked him about the whereabouts of past National Chairman Stokely Carmichael.

(f) On June 23, 1967, Brown held a press conference at Los Angeles. Brown made anti-Vietnam War statements and wanted Negro soldiers out of the war and sent home to "fight the real war."

(g) Cambridge, Maryland, for several years has experienced racial violence, the most recent of which, according to local and state officials, was caused by Brown. The second ward in Cambridge is a Negro area, and since 1963 violence between second ward Negroes and the white community has occurred frequently. Latest violence erupted over a controversy concerning the predominately Negro Pine Street Elementary School. On 24 July 1967, Brown told Cambridge Negroes, "You should burn that school down and then go take over the honkie's school." "Honky" is a SNCC created word for whites. He told the crowd that "if America don't come `round, we got to burn it down. You better get some guns, brother," he said. "The only thing the honky respects is a gun. You give me a gun and tell me to shoot my enemy, I might shoot Ladybird." Cambridge officials charged that Brown's statements caused the following violence. Brown later declared that what he said at Cambridge was no different from what he had told black people everywhere. "I was just instructing my brothers what they had to do to gain respect. Look, we stand on the eve of a black revolution. If you tell any bit of truth about the honky, it is inflammatory." Until Cambridge, Brown had been advocating defensive measures by the Negro. After the Cambridge riots, Brown declared, "Man, Cambridge was beautiful and we're going to see more of it." This statement and later racial disturbances indicate SNCC's departure from defensive to offensive measures. Brown was arrested at National Airport in Northern Virginia by the FBI and turned over to the local authorities in Alexandria, Va. William M. Kunstler of New York was Brown's lawyer at this time. Brown was held on $10,000 bond awaiting extradition proceedings. While at his arraignment he said, "If they can afford a Detroit in Alexandria, I'm prepared to give it to them." His followers continued, "We're going to take the word back to D.C." In a mimeographed statement distributed to newsmen at the Alexandria Courthouse, Brown declared, "I consider myself neither morally nor legally bound to obey laws made by a body in which I have no representation. Do not deceive yourself into believing that penalties will deter men from the course they believe is right. We stand on the eve of a black revolution." During the trouble in Cambridge, Brown said to 400 cheering listeners, "get your guns...if you gotta die, wherever you go, take some of them with you. I don't care if we have to burn him down or run him out, you gotta take over those stores, gotta take your freedom."

(h) Brown was held in Federal Detention House, New York City, on weapons charges, on 19 August 1967, and on the following day repeated his call to American Negroes to "Arm yourselves...Freedom is yet to come." In a statement issued from his call, Brown said his confinement will not "rebuild Detroit or save America from its due fate." Kunstler. Brown's attorney, told newsmen on 20 August that SNCC has been unable to meet Brown's bail, although the organization has raised about $20,000 in cash, bonds, and bankbooks. Kunstler said four bail bondsmen had refused to put up $25,000 bail money for Brown. Brown's detention prevented him from appearing at rallies in Cincinnati and Baton Rouge, La. Leonard Ball, SNCC Chairman in Cincinnati, said the rally there was a success eve without Brown. A county policeman who attended the rally, from which newsmen were barred, said many people left when they learned Brown would not appear. Kunstler, read a statement from Brown on the 20 August. It charged that Brown was a "political prisoner." "If it takes imprisonment or even death to expose America for what it is, then this is my destiny..." Brown said. "To all black brothers and sisters across America who are caught behind enemy lines: I say the fight has not yet matured. Arm yourselves, for freedom is yet to come." Brown signed his statement, "Yours in Rebellion," Kunstler said Floyd McKissick, had joined him as an attorney working for Brown's release. Brown was released from jail on 22 August after his bail was reduced from $25,000 to $15,000. SNCC quickly produced a check for the $12,500 it had raised and another for $2500 from a New Yorker identified only as Robert Langston.

(i) On 10 September 1967, H. Rap Brown spoke at Lincoln High School in East St. Louis, Illinois. Following his typical speech of hate and violence, unruly crowds formed and fires, window breaking, and sporadic gun fire occurred.

c. OTHER NOTABLE SNCC PERSONALITIES:

(1) JOHN ROBERT LEWIS -- Lewis was born 21 March 1940, at Troy, Alabama. He was educated at the American Baptist Theological Seminary, Nashville, Tennessee, from 1957-1961, and at Fisk University, Nashville, from 1961-1963. He replaced Charles McDew as Executive Chairman of SNCC on 15 June 1965. He was arrested ten times between 20 February 1961 and 11 January 1962, for his participation in civil rights activities. Lewis made a trip to Africa on what he called "a mission of learning, or an attempt to cement the relation between the liberation movement of Africa and the civil rights struggle in this country." He has since left SNCC because of its increased militancy.

(2) STANLEY LEROY WISE -- Wise was born on 12 June 1942, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and attended Howard University. He has been with SNCC for several years as an organizer. In May 1967, he was elected National Executive secretary, the second highest position in SNCC. He accompanied Carmichael during his Negro college tours in March and April 1967, and when white newsmen questioned Carmichael, he referred them to Wise. Wise also had accompanied Lewis to Europe in April 1966, to raise funds.

(3) PALPH FEATHERSTONE -- Ralph Featherstone, the National Program Director for SNCC, is a former Washington, D.C., school teacher and SNCC field secretary. He became a member of the SNCC Central Committee in 1966. He was born on 26 May 1937, in Washington, D.C. He was active in field work in Alabama and Mississippi, and worked as a radio announcer at one time in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a member of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee, a communist front group. He made a trip to Japan in the fall of 1966, with Professor Howard Zinn of Boston University, to make lectures and attend celebrations.

(4) JAMES RUFUS FOREMAN -- Foreman, one-time National Executive Secretary, is now the International Director of SNCC. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 4 November 1928. He attended the University of Southern California in 1952, and received his BA degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago in 1957. He has been very active in demonstrations, has been arrested a number of times, and has had contact with communists both here and abroad.

(5) CLEVELAND L. SELLERS, J R. -- Sellers was born on 8 November. 1944, in Denmark, South Carolina. He was National Program Director of SNCC, third highest office until May 1967. He attended Howard University. In 1964, he worked for SNCC as a field worker in the Mississippi voter registration. He travelled with Carmichael in early 1967. He rejected the draft in May 1967, when called for induction.

(6) GEORGE WASHINGTON WARE -- Ware who is presently Program Director of Campus Affairs for SNCC, was arrested in Nashville on 22 August 1967, on a Tennessee sedition charge. He was taken to jail to await grand jury action and was held on $10,000 bail. Ware denied his guilt, but said he favored violence, if necessary, to gain Negro power. Ware was released on 25 August 1967, when his bail was provided by Reverend Andrew N. White.

(7) IVANHOE GAYLORD DONALDSON -- Donaldson was made a member of SNCC's Central Committee in May 1966, and in September 1966, he was made the New York field secretary. He was born on 17 October 1941, in New York City and attended Michigan State University. In 1962, he became active in civil rights in Mississippi.

(8)COURTLAND VERNON COX -- cox was born on 17 January 1941, in New York City. He attended Howard University with Carmichael and both his parents were from the British West Indies. He invented the "Black Panther" Label for SNCC's party in Alabama and was put on SNCC's Central Committee. He substituted for Carmichael in May 1967.

(9) WALTER LEON JENKINS -- In August 1967, Jenkins was arrested by the Baton Rouge police and booked on charges of inciting arson, simple battery, and public intimidation. He had been active at a Negro rally at the Capitol Building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on 20 August 1967. He is reportedly a leader of the Black Advancement League of Baton Rouge, which is associated with SNCC. In the past he was associated with NAACP but believes that its methods are outdated. It was later revealed by him that he has been in the employ of CORE, under the name of Billy Brooks. Records later showed that Billy Brooks has a police record in several different towns.

(10) WILLIE RICKS -- Ricks, Known as Brown's "Minister of Defense," Showed up in Dayton, Ohio just before Negro violence erupted on 14 June 1967. After a meeting there, Ricks was quoted as saying that he was in Dayton to "make white men get on their knees." He has also been at a number of different demonstrations including one in Washington, D.C., at the South African Embassy.

(11) CHARLES MCDEW -- McDew is a past National Chairman of SNCC who has been involved in many sit-in demonstrations in the South. He was identified as having had extensive contact with communists in the US and Mexico. He left for Mexico after his term of office to live among a colony of leftists.

(12) REVEREND FREDERICK D. KIRKPATRICK -- Kirkpatrick is the leader of the recently formed SNCC Chapter at Texas Southern University (TSU) and has likened President Johnson to Hitler -- "Hilter had his gas chambers for Jews, and President Johnson has his Vietnam for Negroes." Kirpatrick was a leader of the SNCC demonstrations in early 1967 against the University's failure to renew the contract of Mack Jones, Political Science instructor and faculty advisor for the TSU SNCC chapter. This demonstration turned into violence resulting in some arrests.

(13) BILL MAHONEY -- Mahoney has been acting as SNCC's National Press Relations Officer. He was a friend of Carmichael's at Howard University and was active in the Nonviolent Action Group.

(14) VERNON CRUTCHFIELD -- Crutchfield was a field worker for SNCC in Arkansas and stated that he and other representatives of SNCC made an all-expense paid trip to Russia in 1966. While in Russia, he was offered a free scholarship to attend a Soviet school. He may have left SNCC as of 21 September 1966.

(15) MARION BARRY -- Marion Barry was the first National Chairman of SNCC. After leaving this position he became the director of the Washington, D. C. chapter of SNCC. He is no longer the D.C. director of SNCC, but still is quite active in such projects as Pride, Inc. He has obtained a degree of national prominence.

7. ACTIVITIES: In 1960, SNCC served as a coordinating body for civil rights information and assisted in organizing joint activities of civil rights groups. SNCC then became actively involved in the voter registration and direct-action civil rights campaigns in the South from 1961 to 1964. In 1965 it became more militant, shifting some emphasis from the South to the North and voicing opinions regarding US foreign policy.

a. Civil Rights Activity, 1961-1964.

(1) In August 1961, SNCC moved into Pike County, Mississippi, and opened the first voter-registration school for Negroes in the South. The school was supplemented with direct-action movements, including sit-ins, sign-ins, and marches, SNCC also provided schooling for those students who were expelled when they refused to obey a school directive against participation in demonstrations in McComb, Mississippi.

(2) In 1962, SNCC continued its voter-registration projects in Mississippi during the summer months. It received not only physical but economic opposition. SNCC solicited goods for the needy from northern colleges students.

(3) In 1963, SNCC joined other groups in COFO to carry out civil rights projects. The main single activity of SNCC in 1963, however, was the organization of Selma, Alabama, for voter registration. On the national level, John Lewis, then national chairman of SNCC, delivered an aggressive speech in Washington, D. C., denouncing proposed civil rights legislation as inadequate.

(4) In 1964, SNCC played a primary role in the Mississippi Summer Project -- a statewide voter-registration campaign among Negroes aimed at education and job-training. An estimated 900 volunteers assisted in this project. It was at this time that Stokely Carmichael emerged on the scene. He was made SNCC field director in the Mississippi Delta area. Some 200 volunteers remained in Mississippi at the end of that summer and began the Mississippi Freedom Project. In August 1964, members of SNCC aided the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, went to the Democratic National Convention, and unsuccessfully attempted to have the Mississippi delegation integrated. In September 1964, SNCC's young leaders began identifying themselves with the leadership of the emerging new nations of Arica and other underdeveloped parts of the world.

b. POLITICAL ORGANIZING, 1965 -- In 1965, SNCC continued its activities in the rural South and also moved into the Northern cities. In June 1965, approximately 100 college students recruited throughout the U.S. by SNCC went to Washington, D.C., to participate in a lobbying attempt to get the Mississippi Congressmen unseated. SNCC along with DCA and the SDS, sponsored a demonstration in Washington in early August 1965. This demonstration included picketing the White House, as well as conducting workshops on Vietnam, the draft, Puerto Rico, and South Africa. Some demonstrators were arrested when they tried to enter the Capitol grounds. In the summer of 1965, SNCC, under the guidance of Carmichael, helped to organize the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in the Black Belt voting district in Alabama. Negro voter registration rose to approximately 2,000. SNCC later decided to form a separate political party in Lowndes County and in six nearby counties. In September 1965, SNCC issued a 50-page report, in which it sharply criticized the U.S. Office of Education's program for desegregating Southern schools.

c. PROTEST ACTIVITY, 1966

(1) Vietnam Protests -- In January 1966, John Lewis, then the National Chairman of SNCC, issued a statement condemning US policy in Vietnam and urging all Americans to use any method to avoid the draft. When Julian Bond, a SNCC member and an elected delegate to the House of Representatives of Georgia, publically agreed with this, he was refused his seat. This led to demonstrations and publicity. Throughout 1966, SNCC took part in numerous demonstrations against US action in Vietnam, and SNCC representatives, in speeches at conferences and before college groups across the country, denounced US participation in the war. At the XIIth Army Corps Headquarters, Atlanta, Georgia, a SNCC-led demonstration against the Vietnam War in August 1966, erupted into violence and twelve SNCC demonstrators were arrested.

(2) President's Conference on Civil Rights -- After Carmichael's election to the office of SNCC National Chairman, he rejected an invitation to a White House Conference on Civil Rights. He claimed that the conference was merely for propaganda purposes and not really a serious attempt to insure constitutional rights of "black Americans." SNCC also came out at this time against the 1966 Civil Rights bill and called it a "sham," declaring that legislators were voting for the "hypocrisy of President Johnson and his Administration."

(3) Mississippi March -- When Meredith was shot on his Mississippi Freedom March on 6 June 1966, a manifesto was signed by civil rights leaders, including SNCC, calling on the President for massive civil rights reforms. It was during this march that Carmichael began to popularize his call for "Black Power."

(4) Chicago -- Chicago was selected as the site for a pilot project for SNCC to put its "Black Power" doctrines to work. The plan was to get the black ghettos of the city under Negro control in political, economic, and industrial affairs. A Chicago Coordination Committee for Black Power was set up in the latter part of 1966 to form a loose amalgamation, generally composed of SNCC, CORE, Deacons for Defense and Justice, and Associated Community Teams. This was to be an "action group" that would spread the truth about Negro treatment. Demonstrations were held and pamphlets circulated.

(5) General Election in Alabama -- SNCC activity in Alabama in 1966 was mainly centered around the elections of that year. SNCC sponsored slates of candidates as a test run of "Black Power" politics. SNCC candidates were defeated.

(6) Miscellaneous Activities -- SNCC has also engaged in demonstrations, boycotts, sit-ins, marches, and other activities throughout the country. SNCC in Washington, D.C., held a bus boycott of the D.C. transit system for one day and held a sit-in at the South African Embassy. SNCC also had several representatives at the Youth Seminar on Racialism held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 27-30 April 1966, where SNCC made a special plea for the plight of the American Negro.

d. STEPS TOWARD "BLACK POWER," 1967 -- At a national meeting in December 1966, SNCC promoted national anti=draft programs and regional and national anti-draft conferences. SNCC also agreed to set up additional freedom organizations similar to the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, but not to restrict their activities to voter registration. In January 1967, a joint communique was issued by SNCC and the Movimiento Pro Independencia de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Independence Movement) (MPI). This communique called for improved housing conditions, and for Puerto Rican independence. It affirmed the need for a joint struggle against the "oppression" inflicted upon the Negroes and Puerto Ricans. In March 1967, following Adam Clayton Powell's unseating in the U.S. House of Representatives, SNCC announced that it would campaign for Powell's re-election. Carmichael claimed that it was a white man's plot to break up the Negroes when they wanted to run James Meredith against Powell and that this would become an international issue that will affect the whole world. In March 1967, SNCC held a national conference in Nashville, Tennessee, which placed major emphasis on peace-related workshops. SNCC also took a leading part in the Spring Mobilization Committees that held demonstrations in New York and San Francisco on 15 April 1967. During the period 20-23 July 1967, SNCC attended an all-Negro National Conference on Black Power, in Newark, New Jersey. One of the resolutions adopted called for a black militia to train black families in all aspects of self defense and racial survival. Another resolution denounced the Selective Service and the Federal Government and supported a "Hell no, we won't go" attitude toward the draft.

CONCLUSION

The growing popularity of H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, and SNCC indicates a changing temper in Negro racist agitation. More and more Negroes are accepting the SNCC policy of violence and destruction of established social order in the U. S. Recent utterances of SNCC leaders call for Negroes to arm themselves in preparation for guerrilla warfare to overthrow the "imperialist" government of the United States. They seek to destroy the present American economic, political, and social systems in a SNCC-defined attempt to gain "freedom" for the Negro.

The growing discontent of Negroes in the United States creates an ideal situation for the propaganda of the hate-mongers of SNCC. The leaders are actively touring the country to preach their sermons of violence in Negro ghettos, where they constantly stress their concept of "Black Power."

SNCC is not a communist front organization. It may not avoid such classification much longer, however, since it has accepted funds from communist front groups and communists as workers. Communists have the proverbial "foot in the door" and the question of whether this influence will increase is now a matter of conjecture only. Within the scope of current racist agitation in the United States and the activities of Carmichael and other SNCC members abroad, greater communist infiltration of SNCC and increased SNCC-aided violence in American cities is entirely possible. SNCC promotion of black racism and the advocacy of violence can only serve to increase racial tension throughout the country and possibly harm the struggle for civil rights being conducted by more responsible Negro organizations.