Whites in the Civil Rights Movement

Whites in the Civil Rights Movement:

The Movement as a Cooperative Effort

James McMahon

The traditional narrative of the modern civil rights movement, as it is taught to most high school students anyway, is that starting in the mid 1950’s African Americans began making active and organized attempts to battle racial discrimination. Notable individuals, such as a Martin Luther King and James Farmer, formed massive organizations that engaged in both local grass roots efforts and highly publicized national demonstrations. They were met with tremendous violence and other resistance from bigoted white people, but eventually their persistence campaigns of non-violent direct action forced U.S. presidents Johnson and Kennedy, the Congress, and the Supreme Court, to support their calls for equality with legislation and judicial precedents. This common version of the civil rights movement certainly contains a lot of truth because the actions of African Americans, both as organizers and participants, in this movement were tremendously important, but it is also incomplete. African Americans were the majority of participants and they also did meet tremendous white resistance; especially in Mississippi, Alabama, and other parts of the Deep South. However, white men and women took significant roles in the struggle for African American rights as founders and leaders in national organizations, participant’s en mass, and as celebrity advocates. The civil rights movement was a fundamentally cooperative enterprise between African Americans and numerous white participants who shared the same ideology. I am not attempting to deny the vital role of African Americans as architects of their own freedom, and as the dominant demographic involved, nor do I intend to restrict the sense of their agency by claiming that Caucasians were the real leaders. The role of African American participants is well known and well documented so it does not need to be reiterated, but white participation was also significant. Clearly African Americans were not the only ones that cared about civil rights; they just had the most to gain.

First of all, many of the major national organizations that advocated for civil rights count white men and women among their founders and leaders. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the best known organizations in the civil rights movement and by far the oldest that took a major part in the modern civil rights struggle, was founded in 1909 at a conference of eight people that included both white and African American members. Indeed, the organizer of the conference and probably the driving force behind the creation of the NAACP, according to their current website anyway, was a wealthy white man named Oswald Garrison Villard. Villard even served as chairman of the board for the NAACP from 1911-1914¹. Two other white founders were Henry Moskowitz (since removed from NAACP website), a Romanian Jew, and William English Walling, a descendent of slaveholders and a noted labor reformer^{2 3}. One of the other early leaders, prominently featured in the history section of their website, was a white college professor and publisher named Joel Elias Springarn who became board chairman in 1915, after Villard withdrew from the position, and was president of the NAACP from 1929-1939. In later years, including the height of activity in the 50s and 60s, the NAACP would be led by black men but white cooperation and financing continued to be vital⁴. The NAACP developed and continued to be successful through the mutual effort of white and African American leadership, and even though some historians, such as Dittmer, have derided the national NAACP for its moderation and unwillingness to sponsor direct action protests, this organization was still instrumental in many great achievements of the civil rights movement.

The Congress of Racial Equality, created in Chicago in 1942 by six students who met through the Fellowship of Reconciliation (a passivist group), is another major organization in which white activists made a significant impact as founders and leaders. CORE, known to be a little bit more radical than the NAACP, played a significant role in the civil rights movement through organizing various non-violent direct action protests and supporting the activities of other organizations. The two people that provided much of the impetus for the creation of CORE were George Houser, a white seminary student who had been previously jailed for protesting the draft in WWII, and James Farmer, an African American working as the secretary of race relations for the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Houser and Farmer then went on to serve together as the primary leadership figures and organizers, along with Bayard Rustin (also African American), through the first few years⁵. A few year after founding CORE, Houser and Rustin also served as the co-leaders of the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation through the upper south to test the supreme court decision of Morgan vs. Commonwealth of Virginia⁶. Of the four other founders, Homer Jack and James Robinson, both men, and Bernice Fisher, a woman, were white as well⁷. In the 1950’s Houser and many of the other white members reduced their role in the organization considerably in favor of pursuing other project, such as black civil rights in Africa, because they were satisfied with the rapid growth of the civil rights movement in the United States and believed that African Americans should be the visible leaders⁸. It is clear, however, that of CORE was intentionally founded as a cooperative effort between white and African American members, and their national advisory committee continued to include white members, such as Houser, well into the 1960’s⁹.

A third national organization that is particularly notable for the impact it had on the civil rights movement is the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (a rather ironic name considering that the group later began to advocate violence). It is true that the call to form the SNCC came from Martin Luther King and Ella J. Baker, both famous African Americans, and starting in 1964, right after the famous “Freedom Summer” in Mississippi, the SNCC began to limit the role of whites. However, prior to 1964 white students played very important roles as leadership figures¹⁰. In addition, the call to the youth leadership meeting at which the SNCC was founded makes absolutely no mention of race what-so-ever, and merely calls upon “students of the South” involved in the quest “for Freedom and Human Dignity in America”¹¹. Both white and African American students were welcome and representatives of both races attended.

White students and other leaders served as important voices and many important goals were achieved through their cooperation with African American members. As an example, one of the early leaders of the SNCC was a white student named William Hansen who established the presence of the SNCC in Arkansas and then served as the project director of that state from 1961-1964^{12 13}. He took part in many meetings of the relatively small coordinating council during those years, as evidenced by the minutes of those meetings and pictures taken of students around a discussion table, although the extent of his influence is unclear as he is not mentioned very often^{14 15 16}. Another example of an influential white member was a young man named Bob Zellner. He was described by a leader of the organization as being one of the few white southerners involved with civil rights from the beginning, and he soon became the organizations first white field secretary. He was the only notable white organizer involved in the 1961 McComb movement, where he was visiting Mississippi in an attempt to recruit white students on college campuses; he was beaten and jailed for his participation. Zellner was then later put in charge of the Council Of Federated Organizations project in Greenwood Mississippi during the 1963 Freedom Summer, a cooperative effort between the SNCC, SCLC, and CORE. During that time his wife, Dorothy Zellner, also gained a certain amount of importance in the Mississippi movement¹⁷. Further evidence of his influence, a report by another SNCC activist attempting to recruit white students across the south specifically cites Zellner and indicates that his methodology for recruitment continued to be extremely influential¹⁸. Perhaps the most notable white leadership figure in the SNCC, however, was historian Howard Zinn. While he was a faculty member at Spellman College he became one of two faculty advisors, along will Ella Baker, and likely took part in a number of meetings held by the executive coordinating committee^{19 20}. Indeed, minutes from meetings held in December 1963 and April 1964 indicate that he made substantial contributions to discussions. In particular he made a number of comments about how responsibility within the organization should be allocated, and summed up important objectives for the SNCC^{21 22}. Additionally, he helped to publicize the work of the SNCC by publishing a book entitled “SNCC: The New Abolitionists” in 1963²³.

One of the other national civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is admittedly an exception in terms of white cooperation as it was fairly homogenous in its early leadership. The main impetus for its founding came from Martin Luther King and Ralph Davis Abernathy (both African American), the sixty person founding council consisted exclusively of African American ministers, and the Executive Board of Directors established soon after was made up entirely of African Americans as well²⁴. However, many of the most famous demonstrations and initiatives in which this group was involved, such as the 1963 March on Washington and the Freedom Summer, had white men and women among their organizers because they were done in cooperation with other groups that did include white leaders^{25 26}.

One other white leadership figure worth mentioning, who was not officially affiliated with any of the aforementioned organizations, is Father Nathaniel Machesky. As a grassroots organizer he was not a national leadership figure, but his contribution is still notable and did achieve attention on a national level, as can be seen by an article in Jet Magazine²⁷. He was a Franciscan priest who established a mission for African Americans in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1950 meant to provide services that could increase quality of life for local minorities. One year later, as part of this goal, he established a school for African American children. Over the next decade he established a market where African Americans could buy cheap groceries, called the Greenwood Cooperative Club, a credit union where African Americans could obtain loans if denied by local banks, and several other businesses that specifically employed African Americans. Initially he did not get directly involved in the civil rights movement, although he did provide vocal encouragement for issues such as voter registration, because he was afraid that it would threaten his mission, but that changed in 1967 when he and two other local clergymen established a grassroots organization called the Greenwood Movement. They then instigated a boycott of white stores that did not offer employment and equal treatment to African Americans, and, despite early setbacks and backlash from the white community, their boycott eventually proved devastatingly effective. Many white merchants began hiring African American employees as well as using courtesy titles such as “sir” and “ma’am” when addressing African American customers. The city government was also, eventually, forced to begin hiring African American police officers and taking other serious steps to appease the Movement^{28 29 30}. He was a white man, initially from out of state, that was able to obtain the respect, trust, and cooperation of local African Americans. It was through this that he was able to help them obtain greater agency in the city of Greenwood, once again showing the civil rights movement as a corporate endeavor.

In the mass protests undertaken by large number of participants, another aspect of the movement, some of the most common and effective tactics used by many organizations, especially those pioneered by CORE, inherently required a cooperative effort between white and African American participants. For example, according to one CORE recruitment packet, the organization’s typical strategy for a sit-in protest, one of the most frequently and effectively used throughout the civil rights movement, required white and African American members to work together. They would send three groups of people into the same venue, one group would be all white, another all African American, and a third group would include people of both races³¹. Of course not all sit-ins were bi-racial, for instance the many of the sit-ins that took place in Greenwood Mississippi included only African American activists, but bi-racialism was the ideal according to CORE³². Similarly, the freedom rides, both the Journey of Reconciliation and those in 1961, were intentionally organized to include individuals from each race. Indeed, the inherent philosophy of CORE, likely shared by many of the other organizations as well, that equality between Caucasians and African Americans could only be attained though cooperation and mutual desire³³.

In fact, the role of white individuals in the civil rights movement needed to go, and did go, far beyond a few notable individuals acting in an organizational capacity. It is one thing for CORE to say that they ideally desire white participation in their protests and quite another to actually find white advocates sufficiently motivated to risk arrest, injury, and even death to agitate for African American rights. Yet, despite those risks, thousands of whites, particularly college students, still took active part in marches and direct action protests. One major example is the freedom rides, both those organized by CORE and others that sprang out of them. Both the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 and the freedom rides in 1961 included an approximately equal number of white and African American participants, and riders of both races persevered despite suffering extreme hardships^{34 35}. At many stops along the way freedom riders of both races were beaten badly by Klansmen and other segregationists, many spent time in local jails, and one CORE bus endured a firebombing. In Mississippi a number of freedom riders were hauled off to Parchman penitentiary where, as a result of their hunger strikes and freedom songs, riders of both races were even deprived of their beds^{36 37}. Indeed, one white freedom rider from the SNCC, Jim Zwerg, describes in an interview how white “nigger-lovers” were often the first targets for violence and received the worst beatings^{38 39}. A well known example of this is James Peck, a white man and the only person to participate in both the Journey or Reconciliation and the Freedom Rides, who was arrested in 1947 and then badly beaten twice in 1961^{40 41 42}. Some white participants even suffered stigma from their own families due to their participation, as can be seen in the case of Zwerg and a letter written to another rider, John Dolan, by his father⁴³. Their role was important, though, because of the solidarity with African Americans that it demonstrated, and the attention it helped draw. Like it or not, the goal of the movement was to gain wider political support and white audiences seemed to identify more if white participants were involved⁴⁴.

Another prime example of a time when white participation was extensive and important was the so-called “Freedom Summer” of 1964 in Mississippi, and the related but smaller mock election project of 1963 as well. Hundreds of white college students representing the SCLC, CORE, the SNCC, and the NAACP worked with the local SNCC and COFO branches to help register African American voters, teach in “Freedom Schools”, and otherwise assist the COFO. John Dittmer, a noted historian on the topic, talks about the tensions between these white visitors and local African Americans, both in the movement and in the community, and this tension is certainly reflected in the orientation briefing that many of these college students received from Dr. Vincent Harding^{45 46}. However, one participant at least, a woman named Terri Shaw, described a warm reception and a great deal of support from local African Americans. Many students, such as Terri, lived in the homes of African American locals, and the positive response to voter registration drives and freedom schools demonstrates that these volunteers were accepted by many residents; at least on some level⁴⁷. Indeed, the white volunteers proved necessary, although some might argue otherwise, because they provided much needed man power and allowed the COFO and SNCC in Mississippi to operate on a much larger scale then would have been possible with local African Americans alone. Despite any racial tensions, the white college students did prove capable of collaborating with local African American activists to achieve a certain degree of success. The presence of white volunteers also ensured a level of media attention and national awareness directed toward the issues in Mississippi that would have been extremely unlikely otherwise⁴⁸.

As with the Freedom Rides, white volunteers in 1963 and 1964 took tremendous risks in traveling to Mississippi, risks that they were acutely aware of due to memos that all accepted students received from Bob Moses and the orientations they underwent. In the memos Moses makes the possibility of arrest clear, and orientations specifically discussed how to protect vital organs if subjected to a beating^{49 50}. These tips were likely useful because there are many examples of violence against volunteers during those summers from klansmen, members of the citizens council, and other white supremacists that were ready for them. For instance, Terri Shaw describes the beating of a Rabbi and two students after a morning of canvassing in which they where punched, kicked, and hit with an iron bar. Additionally, a list of incidents compiled at the time shows an alarming number of arrests, beatings with weapons, and threats; well over a hundred^{51 52}. The most famous example of student sacrifice, of course, is the three students, Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, who were killed by klansmen for their activities in voter registration and encouraging a boycott of white owned stores in Meridian^{53 54}.

A third notable example of African Americans and white Americans actively working together for civil rights on a fairly large scale is the bi-racial group of women known as “the Wednesdays” or “Wednesday’s Women”. According to a report from a program coordinator named Polly Cowan, their goal was to act through various women’s organizations, such as the YWCA and the National Council of Jewish Women, to build connections between white and African American women throughout the south; particularly in areas of conspicuous racial tension. They did not engage in the kind of direct action protests favored by CORE, the SCLC, and the SNCC. Instead, they sent small bi-racial teams of women to various southern cities who would live in the community for a time, talk to resident women of both races, and attempt to encourage a dialogue between the white and African American locals by appealing to empathy, morality, and the need to maintain peace^{55 56}. Much of their activity seems to have occurred in Mississippi in 1964 and was related to the Freedom Summer voter registration. The Wednesdays Women did not take part in the canvassing and other protests, but according to Silvia Weinberg Radov, one of the women, they intended their visit as a show of support for the college students and the idea of voter registration⁵⁷.

Another example of extensive white participation in civil rights protests that featured a strong presence from members of both races are many of the marches that took place throughout north and south to agitate for African American equality. As previously mention, the March on Washington and likely other marches were co-organized by whites and African Americans, and whites also made up a significant number of the participants in many of these marches. In many pictures of the famed March on Washington, in 1963, it appears that the crowd was about equally spit between African American and white. This was likely truly the case, but certainly white men and women did constitute a significant portion of the approximately two hundred thousand marchers^{58 59 60}. As another example, in a famous picture taken during the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, the third attempt after bloody Sunday and a court injunction, Martin Luther King can be seen clearly walking beside a white Rabbi named Joshua Heschel with other white men nearby⁶¹. Similarly, several other pictures also show large numbers of white participants taking part in the march. They do not appear to be in equal numbers by any means, it could be that all pictures come from the beginning or the end of the march when numbers were highest, and certainly some came out of curiosity or a desire to get on the news^{62 63 64}. However, the fact remains that a large number of white Americans showed their support of African American Voting rights. These were, of course, hardly the only marches to include a show of bi-racial support. For instance, a picture from a CORE newsletter shows a picture of several white individuals joining a picket to agitate for equal opportunity hiring at a bank in St. Louis, and a picture from Jet magazine features a sign from a civil rights march in Syracuse bearing the phrase “white support for black power”^{65 66}. Not all marches included extensive white participation, including many of the marches in Mississippi described by Dittmer, but clearly whites played a meaningful role by publicly demonstrating significant bi-racial support for African American rights in a number of marches⁶⁷.

Also on the note of mass participation, it would be remiss not to specifically mention the significant role that Jewish whites played in the civil rights movement. At one point, when responding to looting of Jewish stores during race riots, Martin Luther King was quoted as saying “as a group, the Jewish citizens of the United States have always stood for freedom, justice, and an end to bigotry. Our Jewish friends have demonstrated their commitment to the principle of tolerance and brotherhood in tangible ways, often at great personal sacrifices”⁶⁸. At various times national Jewish organizations advocated politically for the cause of African Americans, such as when five such organizations formally requested in 1962 that JFK to investigate the bombing of an African American Church in Georgia, or the strong support for the civil rights bill formally issued by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith^{69 70}. A number of major Jewish organizations also formally endorsed the 1963 March on Washington and approximately fifteen hundred members of the American Jewish Congress flew from major cities across the nation to take part⁷¹. As previously mentioned, Jewish Rabbis took part in the Selma to Montgomery march, in fact five were jailed for their participation, but even more significant than that- on the second day of the march, and possibly subsequent days, hundreds of African American marchers wore yarmulkes out of respect for Jewish contributions to the movement in Alabama⁷². The decision by all the largest national Jewish organizations to overtly support and help finance the movement for African American rights, not formally reached until the mid 1950’s, was not easy and this clear show of solidarity was not without consequences⁷³. One major example of the sacrifice some Jews endured for their participation was the 1958 bombing of the oldest temple in Alabama simply because of the association that it had with the civil rights movement⁷⁴. In addition, the two white students, Goodman and Schwermer, killed along with a young African American friend during the Freedom Summer Voting Campaign were both Jewish⁷⁵.

Certainly organizations and members of many faiths, such as Catholics and Protestants, joined in the struggle for civil rights as well, but it is harder to single them out as a cohesive group. They did not seem to have the same unified political and social force as the major Jewish groups working together, or the close cooperation between the NAACP and the American Jewish Congress. However, in textbooks and high school classrooms, the Jews are the least likely of all white participants to be mentioned at all. This could be because the many instances of anti-semitism among African Americans does not fit with the notion of a struggle against racism. It could be the implication, perpetuated by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency itself, that the overwhelming support was really due to a selfish hope that equal rights for African Americans would also lead to an end of discrimination against Jews⁷⁶. Either way, Jewish groups and Jewish protesters did make a sizable contribution to the civil rights movement, and their efforts should be recognized.

Finally, the role of white celebrities in publicizing and supporting the movement should not be forgotten either. One of the greatest celebrity advocates of full equality and integration between African Americans and Caucasians was the famous actor Marlon Brando. When most people think of Brando they think of his famous roles in movies such as “On The Waterfront” and “The Wild Ones”, or his infamous alcoholism and notoriously difficult personality. However, as many people may not know, he played a major role in the civil rights movement, particularly in the 1960’s. According to an issue of Jet Magazine from 1968, he gave approximately ten percent of his annual income to the SCLC and to a fund sponsored by the NAACP for the children of Medgar Evers (a civil rights leader in Mississippi who was assassinated)⁷⁷. He also took part personally in a number of protests including the famous March on Washington in 1963, the CORE protests for equal housing rights in California, and a rally at Tougaloo College in Mississippi after the shooting of James Meredith⁷⁸. Most notably, in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination he gave up the lead role of a major movie, “The Arrangement”, just before the start of production in order to devote himself to the civil rights movement full time. He was also not the only celebrity to devote his time and money to the cause of equality and desegregation as a number of other stars joined the March on Washington, pledged money, and other wise showed solidarity with the African American cause as well^{79 80 81}. Paul Newman in particular became highly involved, joining Brando in the March on Washington and the CORE protest on housing bias, and agreeing to pledge at least one percent of his income to civil rights organizations⁸². It could be argued that the involvement of such celebrities drew attention away from the vital roles being played by hard working African American organizers and participants, but their vocal involvement likely also helped draw the kind of national attention that the civil rights struggle required in order to succeed.

Obviously, there are many other individuals, organizations, demonstrations, and initiatives that also demonstrate cooperation between whites and African Americans in the modern civil rights movement. With time, patience, and access to additional primary sources, such as the CORE papers, it would no doubt be possible to write several books on the subject. For one thing, African Americans may officially have legal protection against discrimination, but this nation is still far from achieving equality for all people. The civil rights struggle continues to this day. However, the examples presented herein should be enough to demonstrate that cooperation between African Americans and whites was a major feature of the civil rights movement on all levels- from founders and leaders of major organizations all the way to mass participation and grassroots efforts. Certainly, at the height of the movement the major leaders in the spotlight were black, which was only appropriate, and the majority of participants were still African American, as was only to be expected since they were the ones most powerfully affected. However, many of the documents cited throughout, and many others that could be cited, offer a clear sense that both white and African American advocates for equality were in the civil rights struggle together. The role of white participants and the philosophy of bi-racial cooperation that pervaded many organizations and protests should not be forgotten.

Sources:

Arsenault, Raymond. Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Oxford University Press, 2006, 24

Cowan, Polly. “Wednesdays in Mississippi”- Report from Polly Cowan, Project Coordinator”, 1964. Excerpt. Wednesdays in Mississippi: Civil Rights as Women’s Work. From Jewish Women’s Archive. http://jwa.org/media/wednesdays-in-mississippi-excerpts-from-report-from-polly-cowan-project-coordinator-1964 (last accessed 4/17/2012)

“Greenwood Miss. Buissiness Boycott ‘100 Percent,” Jet Magazine, May 16, 1968, 44

The History Of CORE. http://www.core-online.org/History/history%20opening.htm (last accessed 4/18/2012)