Arsnick: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas

23. “Field Report, Phillips, Monroe, Arkansas and Lee Counties”

23. “Field Report, Phillips, Monroe, Arkansas and Lee Counties” James O. Jones, one of the students expelled from AM&N for participating in civil rights activities, became a field secretary for SNCC after his college plans were temporarily derailed. After participating in a variety of protest activities in Pine Bluff, Jones and other SNCC supporters began exploring the possibility of organizing in other counties. The following document is a field report that describes efforts to organize in Phillips County, one of the most notoriously racist areas in the state. When Jones arrived, African Americans there still maintained a strong, collective memory of the Elaine Massacre of 1919 when more than one hundred black Arkansans were killed after trying to form a union for agricultural workers. FIELD REPORT 26 Senatorial District (Phillips, Monroe, Arkansas and Lee Counties) To: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee From: James O. Jones, Joseph Wright, Larry Segel and Thomas Allen RE: work in Phillips County from July 18 through July 21st. One of the big problems that we have had in Helena is securing a place for a mass meeting. We decided to have a small meeting at some of the bars. Friday night July 18, we held a small meeting at the (Hut) American Legion Building. The manager at the Hut turned off the vender machine and we had about an hour and a half meeting. 191 Source: Box 10, folder 17, “Arkansas Projects, Jan. 27–May 8, 1964,” Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Papers, 1959–1972, Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., Atlanta The meeting was on Voter Registration. We also related some statistics on Philip County. The Civil Rights Bill was outline and explain. There were interesting questions raised concerning the civil rights bill. Seemingly the most common questions raised was does the civil rights bill means we can go to white places without being arrested and has full protection of the law.1 It seems that this was the first time people really realized our purpose for being in Helena. The SNCC staff discuss the reaction of the people toward the leflet with freedom written on them. The discussion was thought of because of the limit amount of knowledge that exist among the people in Helena. People feel that when the word freedom is used you mean integration and without a question integration is not what they want. We printed 2 thousand leflets on register and vote with some additional information. The door to door campaign was used. We received tremendous response. We received a number of phone calls people wanting to know what we plan to do in terms of candidates running and that they will tell their friends to register. There is an existing organization in Helena call the Voter League. The Voter League consists of people that Negroes don’t trust. We have had some dealing with these people. Voter League often endorses people like Lester Graves a candidate for prosecuting Attorney, who is almost a racist. We have been attending the League meeting and raising several questions on getting candidates to speak before Negro ordiance and give to the press their exact platform. These candidates will not do that neither will the league ask them to do so. This way they cannot give the Negroes one platform and white another. This voter League also gives invitations to ministers and very many middle class people where as we attend we carry working people young people and college students. One terrible attitude that existed here in Helena was the prolaterian did not believe they could do nothing and there was a complete absent of self confidence. These are the people we spent a great deal of time with in convincing them they can do something and that they are not an out cast lost and cannot do nothing. Another thing you have in Helena is a large numbers of young people that have one year in college but they just drift around the pool hall and other places. To them some body such as the SNCC workers, are what they needed to help them along. The places where the civil rights demonstrations took places last year were tested after the civil rights bill was past. The only people that will go to these places are these people I just finish describing in the above paragraph. 192 “FIELD REPORT, PHILLIPS, MONROE, ARKANSAS AND LEE COUNTIES” Yesterday in Helena they were...