SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference Volume 24 - Highlander, SSOC and Organizing in the White Community: "We Knew That We Were Not Free"
FEATURED SPEAKERS Bob Zellner (SNCC Field Secretary) Sue Thrasher (Southern Students Organizing Committee) Sharlene Kranz (SNCC Staff) Margaret Lauren Herring (COFO Worker) Candie Carawan (Highlander Center) Ed Hamlett - (White Southern Students Project)
Though Black-led and powered by the energy of the Black population, Whites have always been part of the Southern Freedom Movement. Indeed, as all the panelists note, in its largest sense the southern struggle was not just for Black-only freedom. Three "White" organizations were of particular importance to SNCC: The Highlander Center founded in the 1930s to begin addressing the needs of poor Appalachian Whites embraced the civil rights struggle providing one of the few southern sites for integrated discussion and planning; the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF) which reflected a White southern radical organizing tradition and was one of SNCC's earliest supporters; and finally, the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC), young White southerners who took seriously SNCC's call for Whites to organize White communities. The panel discusses the work of all these organizations as well as the remarkable success of the Washington, DC-based Jews for Urban Justice organization which also developed in response to SNCC's work. SNCC Field Secretary Hollis Watkins steps forward and speaks of the impact of White organizing work on the Black community.
Executive Producer: SNCC Legacy Project, Inc., Documentary Sub-Committee, Karen Spellman, Courtland Cox, Sharlene Kranz, Jennifer Lawson Gittens, Judy Richardson, Joyce Ladner, Charlie Cobb Producer: Natalie Bullock Brown/Ascension Productions Series Editor: Joseph Brandon Johnson Volume Editor: Janet Gustafson
