SCOPE50 Newsletter - July 2017

             SCOPE50 News                     

 

The Struggle Continues!                                                                

       SCOPE50.org                                                                                                                                        July 2017

 

SCOPE50 Annual Board Meeting:

The SCOPE50 Annual Board meeting was held on Seabrook Island, South Carolina, June 21-24. (Highlights of the minutes were distributed to the e-list on July 20.)  One of the decisions made by the Board was that we will hold our next Annual Meeting at the same place in May 2018; however, the Board will have phone conferences throughout the year.   On June 22 we held a mass meeting on Johns Island where members of the Board spoke to the community at large.  The Board felt that this was a successful meeting, and most of the reaction we have received since was positive as well.  The mass meeting was streamed live on the SCOPE50 Facebook page, and nearly 300 people watched the meeting.  Also, a front-page article appeared in the  July 21 issue of the local islands newspaper, The Island Connection.  Below is a photo of Board members Lanny Kaufer, Richard Smiley, Jo Freeman, Mary Whyte and John Reynolds, which was taken at the mass meeting.

 

 

 

During the week, a number of the Board members toured a number of the significant sites in Charleston, including some of the tourist attractions.  But we also visited Mother Emanuel AME Church, which that week was commemorating the second anniversary of the massacre of nine church members who were attending Bible study on June 17, 2015.  Jo Freeman and I attended the Sunday church service at Mother Emanuel on June 25.

 

Operation Breadbasket: An Untold Story of Civil Rights in Chicago, 1966–1971

Cathy Deppe, who worked on the SCOPE project in Greene County with Thomas Gilmore, as well as the Christmas project in Birmingham, has forwarded information about a book that her brother, Martin Deppe, recently wrote about Operation Breadbasket.  Begun by Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement, Operation Breadbasket was directed by Jesse Jackson.  Rev. Martin Deppe was one of Breadbasket's founding pastors.  "Under the motto, 'Your Ministers Fight for Jobs and Rights,' the program put bread on the tables of the city's African-American families in the form of steady jobs."

 

According to a description of the book on Amazon, Rev. Deppe "traces Breadbasket's history from its early "Don't Buy" campaigns through a string of achievements related to black employment and black-owned products, services, and businesses. To the emerging call for black power, Bread­basket offered a program that actually empowered the black community, helping it engage the mainstream economic powers on an equal footing.  Deppe recounts plans for Breadbasket's national expansion; its sponsored business expos; and the Saturday Breadbasket gatherings, a hugely popular black-pride forum.  Deppe shows how the program evolved in response to growing pains, changing alliances, and the King assassination.  Breadbasket's rich history, as told here, offers a still-viable model for attaining economic justice today."

 

Cathy Deppe has shared some of her brother's recent experiences talking about the book.      After speaking at the Human Rights and Social Justice Institute, he met Rev Al Sharpton who informed him that he had read the book and his whole staff was now reading it.  Rev. Deppe   was among a group that Jackson honored at the event, including C. T. Vivian, Andrew Young, Fr. Mike Pfleger, and Jeremiah Wright.

 

 

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity 

We need to keep our eyes on the Trump Voter Commission.  What are they trying to do with the voting process?  This commission was primarily set up because Trump claimed that millions illegally voted in the 2016 election.  The Commission has been trying to obtain voter information from states, but many states have resisted this effort.  The voting process is important to this country.  We may once again be called upon to bear witness to disenfranchised voters.  We can't allow this administration to move us back sixty or so years.  SCOPE50 will partner with organizations such as the National Conference of Black Legislators to see how this commission is impacting various communities, particularly the black vote.

 

 

Charleston Workers Renew Region's Ties to the Highlander Center

    – Excerpts from a Portside article by Kerry Taylor, July 19, 2017

Seventy years ago, a group of cigar factory workers from Charleston, South Carolina, traveled almost 500 miles to the Highlander Folk School, a leadership training school founded in East Tennessee in 1932.  There, the workers introduced the school's musical director to a gospel song that had boosted their spirits during a protracted strike the previous year.  Highlander staff taught the song to thousands of labor and civil rights movement activists over the years and, as its popularity spread, "We Shall Overcome" became an anthem for human rights causes worldwide.

 

In the footsteps of the tobacco workers, three Charleston food and hospitality industry workers attended an education and organizing workshop at Highlander earlier this month sponsored by Raise Up for $15, the Southern expression of the national "Fight for $15," the SEIU-backed movement for a livable wage and union rights for low-wage workers.

 

In the years between the tobacco workers' visit and this month's workshop, hundreds more Charleston-area workers and activists have made the trek to Highlander.  None made more of an impact on Highlander (and U. S. history) than Septima P. Clark, a Charleston teacher.  Highlander cofounder Myles Horton was so impressed by the literacy and citizenship education work being done by Clark and her associates on the Sea Islands near Charleston that he soon invited her to join the staff.  In 1961 the Citizenship School they developed was adopted by King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as its educational and leadership development program. 

 

Bill Saunders of Johns Island, South Carolina, still remembers witnessing Clark's 1959 arrest at Highlander on trumped up charges that she had violated state liquor laws.  Saunders fumed in anger and frustration as he watched police brutalize Clark and take her away.  The bitterness has remained with Saunders, who is now 82.

 

Shortly after Clark's arrest, Highlander, located at the time in Monteagle, was closed by the state of Tennessee.  The closure culminated a long campaign of harassment and intimidation directed at the school and its leaders.  It reopened as the Highlander Research and Education Center on farmland in New Market, Tennessee, its location since 1961.

 

 

A new Poor People's Campaign

A portion of the above Portside article made reference to a new Poor People's Campaign.  Organizers are planning a series of protests spotlighting poverty and economic disparities coinciding with the 50-year anniversary of the campaign spearheaded by Martin Luther King, Jr. in the final months of his life.  This group does not appear to be affiliated with SCLC.  You may wish to check out their website:  https://poorpeoplescampaign.org/  

SCOPE50 Newsletter - October 2017

             SCOPE50 News                     

 

The Struggle Continues!                                                                

       SCOPE50.org                                                                                                                                        October 2017

 

 

 

John Doar History Trail

New Richmond, Wisconsin, opened its new John Doar History Trail with celebratory events and informational panel displays on August 24-26.  The celebration featured two unique panel discussions – on the Civil Rights Era and the impeachment inquiry into President Richard Nixon – with panelists (including Bob Moses) who experienced the events firsthand.  The History Trail winds through New Richmond and includes six panels providing Doar's history.  At his death at age 92 in 2014, The New York Times described John Doar as "a country lawyer from northern Wisconsin who led the federal government's on-the-ground efforts to dismantle segregation in the South."

 

Doer's accomplishments include:

      Helping James Meredith become the first African-American admitted to the University of Mississippi.  Doer escorted Meredith to the admissions office in 1962.

   Defusing a potentially deadly riot in Mississippi in 1963 following the funeral of civil rights activist Medgar Evers who was murdered by an American white supremacist.

   Serving as a chief prosecutor in 1967 in a federal case against Klan/police conspirators in the killings of three voting rights workers in the famed "Mississippi Burning" trial.

   Acting as special counsel in 1974 to the U. S. House Judiciary Committee's investigation of President Richard Nixon for the Watergate Scandal, which eventually led to Nixon's impeachment and resignation.

 

President Barack Obama presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Doar in 2012.  Obama, when presenting the medal to Doar, recalled the events of the 1960s:  "John escorted James Meredith to the University of Mississippi.  He walked alongside the Selma-to-Montgomery March.  He laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  I think it's fair to say that I might not be here had it not been for his work."

 

Remembering Dick Gregory:

Dick Gregory, who died on August 19 at the age of 84, was one of the first black comedians to find mainstream success with white audiences in the early 1960s. He rose from an impoverished childhood in St. Louis to become a celebrated satirist who deftly commented upon racial divisions at the dawn of the civil rights movement and helped bring national attention to fledgling efforts at integration and social equality for blacks.

Dick Gregory was one of the earliest celebrities to support the Civil Rights Movement.  He was in Montgomery in 1965 to support SCLC and the Selma to Montgomery March.  He continued to support SCLC when Dr. King went to Chicago in 1966.  Dick Gregory was by his side and shared his home in Chicago with some of us who were in Chicago with Dr. King.  He served on the SCLC Board of Directors until 2016. Gregory went on to tackle many issues in the country, including the Vietnam War and prison reform.  Not only did Gregory give voice to these issues but he was willing to make sacrifices on behalf of what he believed in.  Essentially he gave up his career, and his fasting around a number of issues affected his health.   After his death of a severe bacterial infection, his son Christian Gregory stated that "Years of severe fasting, not for health but for social change, had damaged his vasculature system long ago.  He always reminded us, many of his fasts were not about his personal health but an attempt to heal the world."

 

When Dick Gregory died, we lost a Civil Rights giant. 

 

Hosea Williams Mural

On September 21 a mural was dedicated in honor of Hosea Williams in Atlanta.  Created by visual artist Fabian Williams, the fluorescent, glow-in-the-dark mural is installed at Studioplex on Airline Street in the Old Fourth Ward between Auburn and Dekalb streets. The towering mural depicts Williams in his trademark overalls (his "freedom suit") with his arms outstretched.

 

 

Barbara Williams Emerson, Hosea's daughter (and a member of our SCOPE50 Board of Directors) stated: "Fabian Williams and Studioplex have done a tremendous service for the City of Atlanta by creating this very contemporary image.  The mural delivers Hosea Williams and potentially his body of work to a generation of Atlantans who missed out on his leadership and don't know his story of perseverance or his aggressive approach to activism, social responsibility, and politics. Now, this dynamic mural challenges them to learn and act. Who knows? It might spark a new group of Hosea followers. All they have to do is Google him or study his papers at the Auburn Avenue Research Library or join the work at Hosea Helps, the organization he started nearly 50 years ago. But first, he has to get on their radar. This mural does exactly that. Hosea Williams is back!"

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Statue

The other event that took place in Atlanta was the unveiling of a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the grounds of the Georgia Capitol.  The statue stands at the intersection of Capitol Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.  It was purposely placed at that location so that it faces the King Center, Ebenezer Baptist Church, and the Auburn area, where Dr. King was born, preached and marched.  The statue paying tribute to Dr. King made its public debut on August 28, the anniversary of his "I Have a Dream" speech.  

 

 

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said, "This tribute is important and a lasting statement about the value of inclusion, the strength of our diversity and the power of grace and how it changes hearts.  This statue comes at a time when there are many conversations about historical monuments going on nationally and within the state.  When the time comes, I'm confident in the city of Atlanta that we will walk it together as we have again, again and again."  Other statues on the Capitol grounds include Confederate General John B. Gordon and segregationists Senator Richard Russell and Governor Eugene Talmadge.  The sculpture's installation comes more than three years after Georgia lawmakers endorsed the project.  Bringing the statue into reality took multiple struggles.  Officials had to negotiate with Dr. King's family for the right to use his image.  Then the artist selected for the project was killed in a motorcycle accident.  After a lengthy screening, sculptor Martin Dawe was chosen to replace him.  Dawe said he knew other tributes to King had been criticized and he set one goal:  Make the statue look like the man.

Victory in Texas

In August a federal court in Texas permanently blocked the state's latest version of its discriminatory voter photo ID law, SB 5.  This law was designed to suppress the vote of black and Latino Texas voters.  The law allowed some forms of photo ID like gun permits to be used to vote, but not many other photo IDs disproportionately held by minorities, like public university IDs and state or federal employment IDs.  The Campaign Legal Center, which represented Texas voters in challenging these discriminatory voter photo ID laws, said that while they are grateful that the court once again agreed that the Texas photo ID law was written in order to discriminate, they also know that this will not be the last fight to secure voting rights for all American citizens.

 

Presentation by Lanny Kaufer: "My Summer Working for Martin Luther King Jr.

On October 15, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Ojai, California, hosted Lanny Kaufer and guitarist Roger House for the multimedia presentation "My Summer Working for Martin Luther King Jr." and a celebration of National Multicultural Diversity Day.  Lanny's presentation centered around a slideshow of approximately 200 slides, many of which have music embedded to represent the "soundtrack" of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's.

 

 

The Church announcement states, "Lanny also sings, raps, and plays guitar and harmonica to add more musical flavor to the program as he shares his personal accounts including working for Dr. King's SCOPE Project in Virginia in 1965 and witnessing the incredible courage of the African-American people of the South who stood up for their rights, at great personal risk, after 300 years of oppression.  The presentation will include the history of Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist who was murdered in August of 1965 while protecting the life of 17 year old Ruby Sales.  In 1991 Daniels was designated as a martyr in the Episcopal Church, and is recognized annually in its calendar."

SCOPE50 Membership Application - Reminder

On August 16 we sent you an e-mail concerning the SCOPE50 Board decision to create membership categories; a copy of the membership application was attached to the e-mail.  If you have not yet sent your membership application to me (John Reynolds), please don't forget to do so.  Sending in the membership form is a first step in preserving our history.

 

If you have questions or need me to send you another copy of the form, please e-mail me at JohnR99773@aol.com.

 

 

 

 

SCOPE50 March 2018 Newsletter

             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 50^th 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.  

SCOPE50 News January 2018

             SCOPE50 News                     

 

The Struggle Continues!                                                                

       SCOPE50.org                                                                                         January 2018

Answering the Call  -- by Sherie Labedis

Three times in my life I have felt called.  SCOPE called first.  Forty years later the call came again, this time to write a book about SCOPE Summer (You Came Here to Die, Didn't You). 2017 brought the call to participate in a new PBS series, "We'll Meet Again," produced and reported by Ann Curry.  I couldn't turn down an opportunity to tell part of the SCOPE story. 

 

"We'll Meet Again" is about the connections people form when they are thrown together by powerful, life-changing circumstances.  These connections are dynamic and last over time, as you know.  "Who do you remember from SCOPE Summer that you have not seen or heard from since?"  That was the question I was asked last February by Blink Video, who shot the video for PBS.  I had an answer.  When I wrote my book, I tried to contact and interview everyone involved in the project in Pineville, SC. 

 

I knew my answer immediately: Louis "Lefty" Bryant.  When we four white volunteers from the San Francisco area found that we lacked the "soul" and "color" to move people in Pineville to register, we asked Hosea to send us someone who could.  Lefty arrived.  Remember at the training in Atlanta when the staff reiterated that we participate in no direct action because we couldn't register voters from jail?  Well, the first thing Lefty got us to do was desegregate local restaurants – or at least try.  The last time I saw Lefty, he dropped me off at Allen University in Columbia, SC, in the Fall of 1965 and drove away.  I wanted to know what happened to this professional civil rights activist, but my book was not a research project, so I gave up on the search.  Now, here was an organization who wanted to do the research to find him and then to reunite us on camera. 

 

The format for the series is similar to "Finding Your Roots" with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  I traveled with a film crew to Berkeley and Santa Barbara, CA, and then to Charleston and Pineville, SC.  Blink interviewed folks in Pineville who had been part of the project, and filmed pertinent locations including our church, which was burned to the ground.  We met with two professors who provided research and members of Lefty's family and friends.  Our search and reunion are half of the series fifth segment, "Freedom Summer."  The other half follows Fatima Cortez-Todd and her search from the summer of 1964 in Louisiana.  Hours of video were made and it will be a lesson in film editing to see what the final hour-long product will be.

 

"Freedom Summer" airs on February 20, 2018, however, each segment is about "human history, — not from the point of view of kings or politicians or generals — but of everyday people on the front lines of massive events they have no way to control. Their stories tell us something about what we are made of." (Ann Curry)

 

 

​

 

 

We SCOPE folks know about connections.  Almost 53 years later, we are still telling our story in hopes that it will illuminate another time of trouble where problems were met and solved in a way that changed this country.  I wonder where SCOPE will call me next?

 

 

Additional Information about "We'll Meet Again"

 

Children of WW2 - 01/23/18

Rescued from Mt. St. Helens – 01/30/18

Lost Children of Vietnam - 02/06/18

Heroes of 9/11 – 02/13/18

Freedom Summer – 02/20/18

Coming Out – 02/27/18

 

Time: 8pm (EST), 7pm (CST), 6pm (MST), 5pm (PST)

 

Press release:  http://www.pbs.org/about/blogs/news/pbs-announces-well-meet-again-with-ann-curry-new-six-part-series-premiering-winter-2018/

 

Trailer:  http://www.pbs.org/meet-again/coming-soon/

 

 

Watch Parties

We encourage SCOPE members to organize watch parties to view the February 20 segment of "We'll Meet Again" on the Civil Rights Movement, especially Sherie's portion.  This will be a good opportunity to gather with one another and perhaps make others aware of the SCOPE project and our history.  We are organizing several watch parties in South Carolina. 

 

 

Running for Office and other Electoral Challenges

At the annual SCOPE50 Board meeting, one of the issues discussed was that SCOPE50 could help recruit candidates for public office, such as school boards, state legislature, and Congress, and provide them with information about the political process.  With that in mind, John Reynolds ran for the Seabrook Island Town Council in the November town election.  In addition to several incumbent Town Council members, he was also running against an excellent woman candidate, who is an activist in a local Green Space conservancy organization.  Unfortunately, John was not elected, although the woman did get elected to serve on the previously all-male Town Council.

 

Since we are coming up on the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, this would be a good opportunity for us to begin to work with churches and other organizations in our communities.  In South Carolina we are working with the Sea Islands Action Network and the League of Women Voters.  One of the focuses in South Carolina and Alabama will be on voter ID and helping people to get the official ID's that the states will accept.

 

During the Alabama special election in October, black voters exceeded expectations of their turnout.  The turnout level was greater even than the turnout for Obama in 2012.  A fairly good turnout in the Black Belt of Alabama was expected, but even in other areas, such as Pike County, the turnout was heavy.  This demonstrates that blacks will turn out when they realize that their lives may be affected by a candidate.

 

 

Remembering John Bascom

We received word on Saturday that our brother John Bascom had a fatal heart attack on Friday, January 5.  John Bascom worked with SCLC for a number of years under Hosea Williams, and later as a part-time assistant to Dr. Abernathy.  John was just a few months short of his 80^th birthday.

 

 

​

 

 

 

In Memorium

We also lost Isaac Newton Farris Sr., Dr. King's brother-in-law.  Mr. Farris was a founding member of the King Center Board of Trustees.  He was an entrepreneur who served as a project manager for the construction of the Martin Luther King Center for Non-violent Social Change.  Farris was a deacon and trustee at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he was a member for more than sixty years.

 

Anniversary of the Women's March

January 20 will be the one-year anniversary of the Women's Marches, and marches have been planned throughout the country to commemorate this historic event.  SCOPE50 supports this effort.  The march in Charleston will be a rally for electoral justice and is in honor of the legacy of our own Septima Clark, who was instrumental in the SCOPE project through the SCLC Citizen Education program.

 

Presentation by Lanny Kaufer: "My Summer Working for Martin Luther King Jr.

Lanny Kaufer will be doing his presentation this month at the Naval Base in Ventura County as part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration.

SCOPE50 Newsletter - January 2018

Attached is a copy of the most recent SCOPE50 Newsletter.

Happy New Year!

-John

SCOPE50 Newsletter - October

Attached is the SCOPE50 Newletter for October.

-John

SCOPE50 Membership Application

As you will have noted in the minutes of the recent SCOPE50 annual Board meeting, it was decided by the Board to create membership categories and to send a membership application to all those on the SCOPE50 e-mail list.

 

There are four membership categories: 

 

(1) Legacy Members:  1960s SCOPE Project volunteers and SCLC staff - dues waived

 

(2) Sustaining Legacy Members:  1960s SCOPE Project volunteers and SCLC staff who pay annual dues of $50 or more

 

(3) Sustaining Associate Members:  all supporters who pay annual dues of $50 or more

 

(4) Lifetime Members:  $1,000 one-time donation

 

Attached is a copy of the membership application.  Please complete the form and return it, along with your check (if applicable), payable to SCOPE50, to:

 

John Reynolds

773 Spinnaker Beachhouse

Seabrook Island, SC  29455

 

Please note that all Legacy/Sustaining Legacy members should complete and return the second page of the application.

 

If you have questions, please do not hesitate to e-mail me or give me a call (843-768-0434).

 

--John