Peace and Freedom. Simon Hall

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ that there was a “certain level of agreement within SNCC” about the war, but that this did not “settle the question as to whether SNCC as an organization should take a stand.” He argued that civil rights work was more acceptable to the wider American public than peace work, and that while peace groups would gain from associating with the black movement, civil rights groups would suffer. Indeed, Zimmerman asserted that SNCC ran the risk of being “seriously injured by being identified with dissent on Vietnam.” Opposing the war would, he argued, hand the movement’s enemies an effective means of red-baiting them, compromise the organization’s fundraising capability, and curtail any further cooperation with the federal government. Moreover, Zimmerman felt that the peace movement was doomed to fail, and that “left wing dissent on Vietnam will have no significant impact on either our foreign policy, or on public opinion.” The young activist concluded that “while we care a great deal about both Vietnam and civil rights, we can’t do anything to help the Vietnam situation, and we can hurt ourselves by trying.”⁹

      SNCC finally debated Vietnam at a staff meeting held at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta at the end of November. The discussion, which took place on the evening of November 29, was generally supportive of taking an antiwar position. Marion Barry—a former graduate student at Fisk who had played a leading role in the Nashville student movement—and his allies, who feared that opposing the war would damage the organization, were in the minority.¹⁰ Gwendolyn Patton, for example, urged that SNCC “talk to the people about how rotten the country is that we live in. The MONSTER we live in.” James Forman recognized the importance of the draft to an organization in which 80 percent of the staff were eligible, but also cautioned against shifting their focus. Forman explained that the peace movement did not have grassroots work going on, that SNCC could “relate things to people where we work,” and urged that any action on Vietnam be made relevant to current work with black people.¹¹ Cleveland Sellers recalled Courtland Cox’s role in persuading SNCC to adopt an antiwar policy. According to Sellers, Cox took the floor and “waxed eloquently” on the parallels between Vietnam and black America—“Mississippi and Vietnam; they are very much alike. Think about Vietnam’s Ky and Senator James O. Eastland…. Think about the problems of Mississippi’s poor, disenfranchised blacks and the problems of Vietnam’s poor, disenfranchised peasants … consider the similarities between Vietnam’s National Liberation Front and SNCC. They ought to be very much alike!’”¹² The discussion, which apparently involved much “debate and hassle,” concluded with a decision to authorize the Executive Committee to draft an antiwar statement that would subsequently be released to the press.¹³

      It is tempting to try to link the position on the war to the developing factionalism within SNCC. Clayborne Carson has argued that during 1965 the organization was torn by a dispute between “floaters” such as Bob Moses, who opposed centralizing and bureaucratizing trends within the group, and “hardliners” like Cleveland Sellers and James Forman, who favored greater discipline to make the organization more effective.¹⁴ There are indications that the “Freedom High” or “floater” faction within SNCC was keener than “hardliners” on antiwar activism. Bob Moses, for example, had been the black staff member most active in antiwar activities, while at the November staff meeting Marion Barry spoke out against opposing the war on the grounds that it would harm the organization’s health. James Forman also warned against SNCC shifting its attention away from black concerns. Ultimately, however, there is insufficient evidence for such a convenient dichotomy. Both “hardliners” and “floaters” opposed the war, most came to support SNCC’s adoption of an official antiwar stance, and, ultimately, very few black SNCC field secretaries involved themselves in efforts to build an interracial antiwar movement.

      The racist murder of a black SNCC worker, Sammy Younge, Jr., in Alabama, provided the catalyst for the release of a militantly antiwar statement by the organization.¹⁵ Younge, a U.S. navy veteran enrolled at Tuskegee Institute, was shot to death by Marvin Segrest, a white gas station employee, on January 3, after he tried to use a restroom that was for “whites only.” Cleveland Sellers recalled that “the absolute absurdity of a man having to die for attempting to [use] a toilet filled us with rage,” and the contradiction between “the freedom that Americans were killing and dying for in Vietnam and the race hatred that motivated Sammy’s murder” was evident to all.¹⁶ For SNCC communications director Julian Bond, Younge’s death provided him with an epiphany on Vietnam. He recalled that it “crystallized everything. Everything became so stark.” The fact that Younge was a veteran made his murder even more powerful.¹⁷

      On Thursday January 6, 1966, the day after Younge’s funeral, SNCC issued its antiwar statement.¹⁸ The organization asserted its “right and responsibility” to dissent with American foreign policy when it saw fit; accused the U.S. government of being “deceptive in its claims of concern for the freedom of the Vietnamese people”; and it drew a parallel between America’s democratic claims in Southeast Asia and its alleged inaction and indifference to murder and law-breaking in the South. SNCC also questioned America’s leadership in the Cold War struggle against communism. The group suggested that the “cry of ‘preserve freedom in the world’” was “a hypocritical mask behind which [America] squashes liberation movements which are not bound, and refuse to be bound, by the expediencies of United States cold war policies.” SNCC noted the disproportionate drafting of African Americans, expressed solidarity with draft-resisters in America, asked “where is the draft for the freedom fight in the United States?” and called on those who preferred to “use their energy to build democratic forms in this country” to work with civil rights and human rights organizations as a “valid alternative” to the draft.¹⁹ Indeed, concern over the inequities of the Selective Service System played an important role in SNCC’s opposition to the war. The disproportionate drafting of black Americans was an understandable cause of concern for the organization, and a good deal of the discussion at the November 1965 staff meeting had been centered around this.²⁰

      SNCC’s antiwar pronouncement came during a period of great turmoil for the organization, which was increasingly turning away from its nonviolent, interracial roots and embracing black separatism and armed self-defense. Evidence of increasing radicalization was not hard to find. In the summer of 1965, for example, SNCC workers founded the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama, designed to win political power for local blacks. The all-black party took a black panther as its symbol. The year 1966 saw SNCC’s Atlanta Project, located in the Vine City neighborhood, take an anti-white, racially separatist line. In May 1966 John Lewis would be replaced as SNCC chairman by the twenty-four-year-old Stokely Carmichael—and by the end of the year the remaining white members of the organization would be expelled. Julius Lester, who joined SNCC after Carmichael’s election, wrote that the “angry children of Malcolm X” were replacing the idealistic activists of the early 1960s.²¹

      As well as earning SNCC the wrath of the establishment, the ire of liberals, and the condemnation of former allies in the civil rights struggle, the war also had serious repercussions for Julian Bond, who had recently won election to the Georgia state legislature.²² He was preparing to take his seat, representing the 136th district in Atlanta, when the antiwar statement was released—a statement that he endorsed. Amid accusations of “treason,” Bond was denied his seat on January 10; his struggle to regain it occupied much of the next twelve months and was finally resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in December.²³ Bond recalled that James Forman told him he was naïve, but “who would think that you would win the election, and then have the election declared null and void … I couldn’t believe that when it happened…. of course I woke up fast, quickly. But … I had no idea that would happen.”²⁴

      Support for Bond’s right to be seated came from a wide variety of sources. John Lindsay, Republican mayor of New York, said that he wished that he still practiced law so that he could represent him.²⁵ Martin Luther King led a march in support of Bond and declared that “our nation is approaching a dangerous totalitarian periphery when dissent becomes synonymous with disloyalty.”²⁶ The would-be legislator also received overwhelming backing from his СКАЧАТЬ