Arsnick: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas

25. “Hansen Resigns SNCC Post; Says Negroes Should Lead But He’ll Stay as Adviser” (1964)

25. “Hansen Resigns SNCC Post; Says Negroes Should Lead But He’ll Stay as Adviser” (1964) Like other white civil rights workers throughout the South, Bill Hansen found that he was under a great deal of scrutiny, both from hostile whites who viewed him as a race traitor and from liberal whites who applauded him for making personal sacrifices for the cause of civil rights for African Americans. As a result, he was the subject of a great deal of media coverage. By 1964, Hansen began to worry that his local celebrity status was becoming a distraction and was giving the misleading impression that white, rather than black, activists were at the vanguard of the movement. The following newspaper article announces Hansen’s decision to step down as director of the Arkansas Project in favor of black leadership. Hansen Resigns SNCC Post; Says Negroes Should Lead But He’ll Stay as Adviser By ANNE REEVES PINE BLUFF—William W. Hansen Jr. announced his resignation Tuesday as director of the Arkansas project of the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee because he believes the group should be led by Negroes. Hansen, 25, a white man, said that James Jones, 21, a Negro and native of Willisville (Nevada County), had been named acting project director. Jones is expected to be appointed as Hansen’s successor by the executive committee of SNCC, which has national headquarters at Atlanta. Hansen said he would remain with SNCC as a field secretary and work out of the Pine Bluff office, SNCC headquarters for the state. 202 Source: Arkansas Gazette, August 26, 1964, A10 Hansen is formerly of Cincinnati. He married a Pine Bluff Negro, the former Ruthie Buffington, October 12, 1963, at Cincinnati. He announced his resignation at a news conference. “I felt that I should resign because at this point it [SNCC] is essentially , mainly a Negro movement.” Hansen said, “. . . I feel that the situation calls for Negro leadership. The times now demand Negro leadership.” He said, however, that until more white persons allied with Negroes, the civil rights movement would not be complete. “But it is now essentially a movement of Negroes and should be led by them,” he said. “I have always been opposed to white leadership [in civil rights movement] in too many places over the country. White people feel the decisions should be made by them. But it is my personal opinion that [although] no doubt white people play a significant part it is the Negro’s place to take the leading responsibility.” More ‘Projected’ Hansen said that Negroes were becoming more and more “projected into society.” “Responsible Negro leadership has always existed,” he said, “but it has only become apparent through this projection. When Negroes exhibited their leadership the civil rights movement really came to the forefront.” He said that his wife would continue her job as a SNCC field secretary. Hansen said 11 persons were on SNCC’s Arkansas staff. Three of them, including himself, are whites. The other two are Arlene Wilgoren of Boston, a field secretary at Pine Bluff, and Larry Siegel of New York City, a field secretary at Helena who recently went to Atlantic City. Jailed in Mississippi Hansen left Xavier University in 1961 to join a freedom ride to Mississippi, where he was jailed. When he got out, he decided to stay in the civil rights movement and went to Maryland, joined SNCC and helped organize demonstrations at Cambridge. He was sent to Little Rock in 1962 as SNCC’s first representative in Arkansas. He helped organize some sit-ins at Little Rock and then moved to Pine Bluff in January of 1963. He said he submitted his resignation two weeks ago. Jones, who was suspended from Arkansas AM and N college here in 1963 for participating in sit-in demonstrations, has been with SNCC for “HANSEN RESIGNS SNCC POST” (1964) 203 about two years. Until recently he was director of SNCC’s Negro voter registration drive in the Twenty-Sixth Senatorial District with headquarters at Helena. Jones said that SNCC planned to organize in Lincoln, Phillips, Lee, Monroe, and St. Francis Counties primarily to register Negro voters. He said that less than 50 per cent of the eligible Negroes in those counties held poll taxes but that many more than 50 per cent would be registered before the November election. Bagsby Attends James Bagsby, a Negro of Pine Bluff and chairman of...