Thunder of Freedom: Black Leadership and the Transformation of 1960s Mississippi

14. Black and White Issues with SNCC Workers

239 14 Black and White Issues with SNCC Workers Summer 1967 The spirited Edgar Love paid careful attention to the SNCC workers as early as 1964. In 1965 he helped out at the community center and talked about freedom to the plantation folks he lived with. He came from Refuge, a delta plantation where he lived with his parents in a house provided by “The Man.” In those early years, hearing his steps was exciting to Henry and me because he was the first plantation person to join in the movement work. He came to learn more clearly about the movement, and he had the specific, passionate goal of organizing his people on dozens of plantations. He knew them better than any of the Holmes leaders and organizers. In the dark of night he went onto the plantations and talked up the news of the movement, where it was going, how they might together change their condition. Then, by day, he returned to the center to report his progress and plans. It was risky and dangerous work; but his dream was to organize those poorest, most marginal people. In 1966 Edgar’s innate curiosity and desire to learn pushed him to pursue more movement action and leadership. He also started taking on work at the FDP office in Lexington with Henry. There he learned to handle such problems as registration attempts, harassment, and welfare and worked in the rest of the county communicating with and troubleshooting for movement leaders and people with problems. After the federal Voting Rights Act passed but before a federal registrar was assigned to the county, not much of a dent had been made in the thousands of After being kicked off a white man’s delta plantation for movement organizing and voter registration work, Edgar Love became a full-time movement staff worker. Here he speaks to a crowd, protesting the brutality of a black policeman we all called “Fats.” Black and White Issues with SNCC Workers 241 blacks still not registered. For the first time, the county FDP took on a bold advertising campaign. I wrote a simple, pointed script aimed at those most fearful of attempting to register—the teachers, preachers, plantation workers, and town dwellers, and the FDP paid for a several-minute spot on WXTN, the Lexington radio station. One movement person in each of those categories read his or her lines over the radio announcing that he or she was a teacher, a preacher, or a plantation person or lived in a town and still was going to register to vote. Edgar was the first to read his script, “Hello, I’m Edgar Love. I live on a plantation and I’m going to register to vote. All plantation people have the right to register and no longer need to be afraid.” When he returned home after the broadcast, he found out the white plantation owner had kicked him off the plantation, telling Edgar’s dad that Edgar could no longer work or live there. In many ways he was relieved. Getting kicked off by “The Man” became freedom for Edgar. That’s when Edgar started as a full-time FDP organizer; he became an essential, all-around countywide local staff worker. He received subsistence movement pay of ten dollars a week from the FDP. Alone or with outside white volunteers, he took on the dangerous job of canvassing all the delta plantations, talking to people and showing them how to register . He drove them in the movement van to the courthouse and then, after the federal examiner came in, to the post office. During the latter part of 1966, he spent more time in the FDP office taking over for Henry and handling welfare and other problems of the people, getting out notices for meetings, and generally doing the day-to-day staff work. He became a replacement for Henry in the office; however, he was a worker much more than an organizer. Like Alec, he was constantly doing things rather than “getting things done” by building mechanisms, which was Henry’s style of organizing. Although Edgar was a staff person performing many of the tasks of campaign work, he was also a leader. He could legitimately function as a leader where Henry and other outsiders never should. By 1966 and 1967, when Black Power and bolder stances were being taken by blacks, Edgar was the first...