SCOPE50 News The Fight is Not Over!
SCOPE50.org February 2017
Women's March on Washington
Jo Freeman participated in and took photos of the Women's March on Washington, along with inaugural and pre-inaugural protests. Her stories, plus lots of photos, can be seen at:
The third URL is the Women's March. It begins:
"Dear Mr. Trump:
I just returned from the Million Women's March on Washington, one of 673 that took place around the world today. I want to thank you for making this possible. It was your "locker room talk" that gave us the kick in the pants we needed to get off our asses. Women and the men who support us have been complacent far too long. Thanks to you, we now know that was a mistake."
SCOPE50 stands in support of all of the protests that have been taking place since January 20, particularly the Women's March. We also stand in support of those who advocated for refugees in airports across the country. We will be partnering with some of these organizations going forward, so we will be on the front lines and will be on the right side of history.
Report from Joseph Ruggiero, Antioch, California
In January 2016 we launched a voter registration drive. Jennifer Westerman and I had been part of the SCOPE project 52 years ago. We were able to get four activists involved, and we registered at least 700 people. We began monthly meetings in September 2016 with eight people showing up. Next week our monthly meeting will have 20-30 people. In March we will have our first event with a group of 100-125 in attendance. We want a united front of Labor and the Democratic Party. In our monthly newsletter we list other groups' activities, especially Planned Parenthood. We now have seven activists involved.
Dr. King once said "Education is the key." We have four books about the Movement which our group distributes to spread the word. We also distribute the SCOPE50 t-shirts. "The Freedom train is coming" – let's get on board!
Our group has developed three rules: (1) You must be NON-VIOLENT. (2) You must work for social change. (3) We never assign tasks – we ask because we want people to work for whatever their passion is. At our next meeting, a fourth rule will be proposed: Get people's phone numbers or e-mail so they can be contacted about events.
SCOPE E-book
We still need chapters for the ebook on SCOPE. Until we have enough chapters for a book, we will post them to http://www.sclcscope50th.org/your-story. So far, the only one that is publishable is Bruce Miroff's story of the Charleston, SC project. Check it out for a model of how to write the story of your own county. Some of you have written first drafts but not final drafts. Some have only promised. Get them in. Jo Freeman is acting as book editor. Send them to her at jfrbc@ymail.com (one of her many e-mail addresses).
The Penn Center
A few days before President Obama left office, he established in Beaufort County, South Carolina, the country's first national monument to the Reconstruction era. The monument designation covers historic sites around St. Helena Island, including the Penn Center, which has a long history of supporting the black community, first as the South's first educational institution for former slaves and then during the Civil Rights Movement as a place where SCLC conducted training and planned for new campaigns and where Dr. King often went to write.
Also included is the Brick Baptist Church, adjacent to the Penn Center, which was built in 1855 by slaves who were relegated to its balcony out of the sight and presence of white worshipers. After the Civil War Battle of Port Royal in 1861, slaves assumed control over the church.
Downtown Beaufort will be featured in the recognition since Reconstruction had some of its earliest and most significant impacts in Beaufort County, South Carolina. Also recognized is the Camp Saxton Site in Port Royal where on January 1, 1863, Union General Rufus Saxton assembled 3,000 slaves from the surrounding Sea Islands to read the Emancipation Proclamation. It was the first reading in the South.
At the same time, President Obama established monuments to the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama, and to the 1960s Freedom Riders in Anniston, Alabama. In a statement, President Obama said, "I am designating new national monuments that preserve critical chapters of our country's history, from the Civil War to the civil rights movement. These stories are part of our shared history."
The President's Proclamation also contains the fascinating story of Robert Smalls, the most influential African American politician in South Carolina during the Reconstruction Era. Smalls was born in Beaufort in 1839. At the age of twelve, he was hired out by his owner to work in Charleston, where he learned to sail, rig, and pilot ships.
In 1862, Smalls navigated the CSS Planter, a Confederate ship, through Charleston harbor, past the guns of Fort Sumter, and turned it over to Union forces. This courageous escape made him an instant hero for the Union, and he soon began working as a pilot for the U. S. Navy. Smalls and his family used prize money awarded for the Planter to purchase the house in Beaufort once owned by the family that had owned him.
Smalls was elected to the South Carolina General Assembly from 1868 to 1874. In 1874 Smalls was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives, where he served five terms, until South Carolina voters ratified a new constitution that effectively eliminated African Americans from electoral politics and codified racial segregation in law for decades to come.
Albert Turner
The nomination of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General has brought back into focus the treatment of Albert Turner and his wife Evelyn in 1985. Albert Turner worked as Field Secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In later years he was a leader in Perry County. Turner helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery march and was a participant on Bloody Sunday. Albert Turner and his wife were true freedom fighters during that period. Mrs. Turner is still fighting today.
Albert and Evelyn Turner and other leaders of neighboring counties in Alabama were indicted by the Department of Justice in 1985, charging them with various types of voter fraud, mostly having to do with marking absentee ballots.
In a piece written by Jo Freeman: "The Justice Department spent a lot of taxpayer money trying to convict eight blacks for doing 'normal' politics when done by whites. U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions was the one who tried Albert Turner, his wife, and one other worker in federal court. Fortunately, a lot had changed in 20 years. For one thing, juries were no longer composed strictly of white men. The judge threw out most of the charges and a jury of seven blacks and five whites acquitted the three on all charges. They too saw 'normal politics' in what the three were charged with."
In addition to the confirmation of Sessions as Attorney General, Jo warns that particular attention should be paid to whom Sessions chooses to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice; this position also has to be confirmed by the Senate.
Donations to SCOPE 50
In the last Newsletter we mentioned that SCOPE50 will accept any donations that people wish to make, no matter how small. And since we are a 501(c)3, non-profit organization, donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. To make it even easier, we are now set up for donations to be made on our website, www.scope50.org. There is a "donate" button on the top right of the page, and donations will go directly into the SCOPE50 bank account.
Grant-seeking
SCOPE50 is in need of someone to help search for and write grants as we go forward during the year. So far John Reynolds has been doing this on SCOPE50's behalf. We now have a Grant Management tool to help us to put together proposals. If someone is willing to work on this, they can use this tool as well. Please e-mail John (JohnR99773@aol.com) if you are interested in helping with this.
West Hunter Street Baptist Church
Founded in 1881 as Mount Calvary Baptist Church, the congregation moved in 1906 to a Gothic Revival stone sanctuary on West Hunter Street in Atlanta, Georgia.
Throughout the modern civil rights movement, the church served as a headquarters for many civil rights workers and organizations. The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy served as pastor of the church from 1961 until his death in 1990. While pastoring West Hunter, Dr. Abernathy continued his work as a civil rights activist.
Subsequent to Dr. King's passing in 1968, Dr. Abernathy took over as President of SCLC and carried forth national initiatives such as Operation Breadbasket and the Poor People's Campaign. Through-out his life, Dr. Abernathy organized economic justice and labor initiatives as well as served as a peace negotiator during times of national social conflict, such as the 1973 siege at Wounded Knee.
Following the congregation's relocation in 1973, the building continued to be used as a site for community development and civil rights programs. Hosea Williams used the site as the home office for his Feed the Hungry Program during the late 1970s. Today the site is owned and maintained by the Ralph D. Abernathy III, Inc., a non-profit developed to preserve the cultural history of the site and surrounding community, and the legacy of Rev. Abernathy.
Congress has passed a law, directing the National Park Service (NPS) to conduct a Special Resource Study to determine whether West Hunter Street Baptist Church meets the criteria for inclusion in the national park system and to make recommendations to the Secretary of Interior, which would then forward the recommendation to Congress. The criteria includes the significance of the site, its suitability, feasibility, and need for NPS management.
As part of the study, the NPS hosted two public information meetings (on February 2 and February 9) to provide the public an opportunity to learn about the study process, ask questions, speak with national park staff, and share information for the study. Anyone wishing to submit comments or get further information should go to http://parkplanning.nps.gov/WestHunterBaptistStudy or email Keilah_Spann@nps.gov. If people are interested in doing an oral history with the National Park Service about West Hunter Street Baptist Church and/or SCOPE, please contact John Reynolds (JohnR99773@aol.com). He is in contact with the National Park Service about this. The oral histories can be done over the phone.
SCOPE50 Facebook page
We announced in the December Newsletter that a SCOPE50 Facebook page had been created. We encourage you to look for the SCOPE50 page, "like" it, and request to be a Friend. As we mentioned, you should be careful not to confuse our page with that of the SCOPE Project page, which has no connection to our organization.The South is Back! by Jo Freeman
President Trump may be from New York, but if you look at the power positions in the federal government, it's clear that the South is back in the saddle. Recently the Brookings Institution published a chart showing the percentage of House Committees chaired by southerners since 1956. It is almost back to where it was when we were working in the South, after being down for decades. During the civil rights movement over fifty percent of Congressional standing committees were chaired by Southerners. (a bit fewer in the Senate than in the House). In 1965 (89th Congress) fully two-thirds of the standing committees were chaired by Southerners. In the last Congress (i.e. through 2016) it was exactly 50 percent in House and 37.5 percent in the Senate. It will be close to that in the new Congress, though a few Committee chairs remain to be decided.
What's particularly striking is that over a third of the House chairmen come from Texas!!
(See chart on page 6)
Over a hundred years ago, the Southern states used disfranchisement to achieve control of Congress. Keeping the vote small made it easier to be repeatedly re-elected. Regular re-election increased seniority. Seniority increased power. Southern Members of Congress (MCs) used their committee power to keep bills they did not like bottled up so they could never come to a vote. Domestics and farmworkers were left out of Social Security and Unemployment Insurance to appease Southerners, whose strength on the committees could have kept those bills from becoming laws. Anything affecting civil rights was particularly subject to delay and demise. James O. Eastland, the Senator from Mississippi from 1943 to 1978, was chair of the Judiciary Committee from 1956 to 1978. All appointments to federal judgeships went through his committee. The Department of Justice was subject to its oversight. He chaired its Subcommittee on Internal Security, which combed the civil rights movement looking for Communists. Anyone who thinks the feds didn't do enough to support the civil rights movement should keep in mind that Sen. Eastland (among others) was always lurking in the background, carrying a very large stick.
As the cry is raised about "voter fraud" in the 21th Century, remember that this was one of the rationales for restricting the vote in the 19th Century. It worked. The percentage of the voting age population who actually voted in the South reached its nadir in 1924 at only 18.8 percent-- one-third the percentage of the rest of the country. South Carolina had the lowest voting rate that year at 6.4 percent. While turn-out rose after the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, it never caught up with the rest of the country.
With the last election, the South is back, only now the Committee chairs are Republicans rather than Democrats. They are also all white. In 1965, two Committee chairs were black (from NY and IL). Seniority no longer opens the doors it did in the 1960s, but it still confers benefits. Southern Republicans have replaced Southern Democrats as the power brokers in the House and the Senate. Even the new Cabinet is trending Southern. Over a third (depending on how you count) of the proposed new Cabinet members spent a major portion of their lives in a Southern state, either as children or adults. After President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, he said the Democratic Party has "lost the South for a generation." In 2017, it's been two generations at least; going on three. Both parties have changed in the last 50 years; not always for the best. But Southern power in the federal government has returned.
This is part of an annual collection and publication of data by the Brookings Institution of Vital Statistics on Congress. https://www.brookings.edu/multi-chapter-report/vital-statistics-on-congress/ Southern states are defined as the 11 Confederate states, not the 15 former slave states or the 17 legal segregation states.
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