SCOPE50 News The Struggle Continues!
SCOPE50.org March 2018
Honoring John Lewis
For John Lewis and everyone he has touched in his time as a leader of the Civil Rights movement and as a member of Congress, February 3, 2018, was a very special day. City and state officials gathered with Lewis and the community in Troy, Alabama, to honor the historic Pike County native.
Mayor Jason Reeves officially proclaimed Saturday, February 3, as John Lewis Day and presented Lewis with a key to the city and unveiled a portrait of Lewis painted by artist Ronald McDowell, who sculpted the Rosa Parks statue at Alabama State University and has been commissioned to sculpt the Martin Luther King Jr. statue at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. Mayor Reeves also unveiled a historic marker detailing Lewis' legacy, which he said will be placed downtown and will be part of a program that all kindergarten students will participate in.
Lewis said that being honored in his hometown was particularly special to him. "I am so honored and deeply moved," Lewis said. "I saw the (John Lewis Day banner) when I drove up and started crying and I've been crying ever since." "You must never ever give up, you must never ever give up hope," Lewis said. "If it were not for God Almighty and the wonderful people around me, I would not be here today… As long as there is breath in my body, I must try to do something to help others."
Rep. Terri Sewell, the first black woman elected to represent Alabama in Congress, said that Lewis is the reason she could get to the place she is today. "I grew up in Selma and year after year I would see that pilgrimage reenacting the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge," Sewell said. "As a little girl, I could only dream of one day leaving Selma; when I saw him, I knew anything was possible." Sewell presented the congressman with a plaque with a picture of herself and Lewis on that historic bridge with a personal note thanking Lewis for his example and his mentorship.
Remembering Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker (Excerpts from The New York Times)
The Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, who was chief of staff to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a key strategist behind civil rights protests, died on January 23 in Chester, Virginia. Dr. Walker preached against intolerance and racial inequality for six decades from pulpits across the South, in New York City and in five of the world's seven continents. He helped supervise South Africa's first fully representative elections in 1994, when Nelson Mandela's rise to power ushered in the end of the apartheid regime.
But much of his impact was felt closer to home. For 37 years he was a towering community figure as the pastor at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, and from 1965 to 1975 he was a special assistant on urban affairs to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York. In both posts he was a strong advocate of affordable housing and better schools in the low-income neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan.
Dr. Walker's work as a civil rights advocate began in 1953, soon after he finished his graduate studies at the historically black Virginia Union University in Richmond. He had met Dr. King while both were students. Dr. Walker joined the fledgling Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1961 and served until 1964 as its executive director and, unofficially, as Dr. King's right-hand man. At SCLC, he devised a structured fund-raising strategy and organized numerous protests, including a series of anti-segregation boycotts and demonstrations in Birmingham, Ala., that came to be known as Project C. The C stood for "confrontation," and the project is regarded as the blueprint for the civil rights movement's success in the South.
In an interview, Dr. Walker said, "I was fully committed to nonviolence, and I believe with all my heart that for the civil rights movement to prove itself, its nonviolent actions had to work in Birmingham. If it wasn't for Birmingham, there wouldn't have been a Selma march, there wouldn't have been a 1965 civil rights bill. Birmingham was the birthplace and affirmation of the nonviolent movement in America."
Dr. Walker helped circulate "Letter from Birmingham Jail," one of the most important documents of the civil rights movement, in which Dr. King argued for civil disobedience as a legitimate response to racial segregation. He also helped organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which culminated with Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
Scholars and activists alike say his management skills were crucial in turning SCLC from a largely volunteer organization into a national power in the civil rights movement, with a million-dollar budget and 100 full-time workers.
SCOPE50 Fundraiser
The SCOPE50 fundraiser held on Seabrook Island, South Carolina, on February 23 was very successful. (Check out the photos on our website and Facebook page!)
The goal was to sell 200 tickets. That number was reached a week before the event and so online reservations had to be shut down. SCOPE50 Board member Mary Whyte and President John Reynolds had worked tirelessly for several months planning this event, along with a small group including Roni Berttucci, Heidi Lantin, Amy Myers, Barbara Burgess and Gloria Reynolds. Music was provided by the Visions Band. We have had wonderful feedback from those who attended the event. We were pleased that Lynn Goldsmith Goldberg and her husband Larry were able to attend. Lynn was a Brandeis student in 1965 who volunteered for the SCOPE project and was assigned to St. Matthews, South Carolina. Lynn was accompanied to the fundraiser by Melvin Hart, a member of the family that hosted Lynn during the SCOPE project, and other members of the St. Matthews community. Lynn graciously donated one of her baskets (www.lynnartbasketry.com) for the fundraising silent auction.
Hope's Kids
Alan Venable, another Brandeis student who volunteered for the SCOPE project and was assigned to South Carolina, published a book (Hope's Kids) a few months ago about his experiences that summer in 1965. The paperback can be purchased on Amazon.com.
March for Our Lives:
SCOPE50 supports the March for Our Lives event organized by the students of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and young people across the country. On Saturday, March 24, young people and their families will march in Washington, DC and in cities throughout the country to demand an end to gun violence and mass shootings in our schools. We urge SCOPE50 members to support these young people and provide whatever assistance they may need from us.
The Promotion of Nonviolence
One of the missions that the SCOPE50 Board adopted at its annual meeting last June was to promote nonviolence as articulated by Dr. King. At the fundraiser on February 23, John Reynolds called for a promotion of non-violence in communities around the country on April 4, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. He asked those in attendance to listen to the words and read the teachings of Dr. King and then share this with their friends and neighbors. He also suggested that people light a candle or stop for a few minutes wherever they are at about the time that Dr. King was killed (6:01 p.m. CST) on April 4, 1968, and reflect on his teachings.
Voter Registration
SCOPE came into being when Dr. King sent out a message for folks to come South in 1965 to help register black people to vote. That is still our mission, as well as telling the story of the efforts and sacrifice that went into the SCOPE voter registration project. There is still a need to protect our voting rights and encourage people to register and vote. One of the immediate things that SCOPE50 members should be aware of is the filing deadline for people who decide to run for office in 2018. For example, in South Carolina the filing period opens on Friday, March 16, for a two-week period, but filing deadlines are different across the country. Another concern is the states that have ID requirements, such as South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, just to name a few. In South Carolina, we are partnering with the League of Women Voters and the Sea Islands Action Network, as well as churches and high schools, to help people get the proper ID's. People can get in touch with their local Board of Elections for help in getting students registered to vote. In most states, students who are 17 can register. We encourage you to get involved in these efforts in your communities.
Jo Freeman reports that one of the national groups that has prioritized voting and running for office is Women's March, with its Power to the Polls campaign . They met in January in Las Vegas to launch Power to the Polls ( www.powertothepolls.com ), one year after the historic Women's March on Washington. Their hope is to channel the energy and activism of the Women's March into tangible strategies to create change in 2018.
