Replicating history in a bad way? White activists and black power in SNCC's Arkansas project

Arkansas Historical Quarterly

Volumn 67, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 268-287

  Wallach, Jennifer Jensen ^a  

^a GEORGIA COLLEGE AND STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61049106877     PISSN: 00041823     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (57)

1. Stokely Carmichael and Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) (New York: Scribner, 2003), 306.
2. Brian Ward, "Forgotten Walls and Master Narratives: Media, Culture, and Memories of the Modern African American Freedom Struggle," in Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle, ed. Brian Ward (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001), 8-9.
3. Many movement scholars have critiqued this tendency toward stark periodization. See, for example, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past," Journal of American History 91 (March 2005): 1233-1263.
4. For a rejoinder to Hall, see Sundiata Keith Cha-Jua and Clarence Lang, "The 'Long Movement' as Vampire: Temporal and Spatial Fallacies in Recent Black Freedom Studies," Journal of African American History 92 (Spring 2007): 265-288.
5. Others have tried to rescue the Black Power movement from oversimplification and demonization. See, for example, Peniel Joseph, ed., The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era (New York: Routledge, 2006),
6. and Jeffrey O. Q Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2004).
7. C. Vann Woodward, "What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement?" Harper's Magazine, January 1967, p. 37.
8. For a critique of several scholarly works that embrace a "turning point" thesis, see Winifred Breines, "Whose New Left?" Journal of American History 75 (September 1988): 528-545.
9. The Jewish Americans, DVD, directed by David Grubin (Sherman Oaks, CA: JTN Productions, 2008).
10. Quoted in Jonah Raskin, For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 76.
11. Casey Hayden, preface to Mary King, Freedom Song: A Personal Story of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement (New York: William & Morrow: 1987), 7.
12. Quoted in Carson, In Struggle, 241.
13. Emily Stoper, "The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: Rise and Fall of a Redemptive Organization," Journal of Black Studies 8 (September 1977): 22.
14. For more information on the Mississippi Project, see Sally Belfrage, Freedom Summer (New York: Viking, 1965);
15. Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988);
16. and James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries (Washington, DC: Open Hand, 1985), 422.
17. Stoper, "Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee," 23, 24.
18. Both Clayborne Carson's landmark In Struggle and the latest SNCC monograph, Wesley Hogan, Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC's Dream for a New America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), highlight the Mississippi experience. Neither had much to say about the activities of the much smaller Arkansas Project.
19. In his important article, "In the Storm: William Hansen and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas, 1962-1967," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 63 (Winter 2004): 404-419,
20. William Hansen Papers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Atlanta, GA;
21. Jack Baker, "Ex-workers for SNCC Tell Why Group Faded in State," Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock), February 26, 1967, sec. A8.
22. Memo to Friends of SNCC Offices from Arlene Wilgoren, April 3, 1965, Arkansas SNCC Project, May 7, 1965-March 21, 1976, box 149, folder 2, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Papers, 1959-1972, King Center [hereinafter, SNCC Papers - King Center].
23. For one hint at a small conflict, see Mitchell Zimmerman to Hardy, November 18, 1965, box 8, folder 8, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee-Arkansas Project Records, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison [hereinafter, APR]. In this letter, Zimmerman admits to "growing to detest" an unnamed SNCC co-worker.
24. Riffel, "In the Storm," 404-419;
25. John A. Kirk, "The Other Freedom Summers: SNCC in the Arkansas Delta, 1962-1967" (Paper presented at the British Association of American Studies Conference, Glasgow, April 1999).
26. Randy Finley, "Crossing the White Line: SNCC in Three Delta Towns, 1963-1967,"
27. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 65 (Summer 2006): 135.
28. See Finley, "Crossing the White Line," 117-138, for a summary of SNCC activities in the state
29. Roy Reed, Faubus: The Life and Times of an American Prodigal (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997), 303;
30. John A. Kirk, Redefining the Color Line: Black Activism in Little Rock, 1940-1970 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 156, 169-171. In helpful comments on this essay, John A. Kirk points out that although the desegregation of Little Rock did occur peacefully, it also occurred relatively late.
31. Kirk, Redefining the Color Line, 168;
32. Adam Fairclough, To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987), 253.
33. For an early attempt to define the term, see Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation (1967; reprint, New York: Vintage, 1992).
34. Carson, In Struggle, 240.
35. Gloria House, "Black Power," in A Circle of Trust: Remembering SNCC, ed. Cheryl Lynn Greenberg (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998), 161;
36. The responses of white members of the SNCC Arkansas Project to Black Power are better documented than black reactions. This is likely due, in part, to the fact that Black Power did not threaten black membership in the organization. Thus, black members did not have to make the same kind of difficult decisions about leaving the group or attempting to stay in it that whites did. Furthermore, in Arkansas, many of the record keepers were white, including Bill Hansen, Arlene Dunn, Nancy Stoller, and Mitchell Zimmerman. Whites were often given office jobs so that blacks could be freed up to work in the field. In addition, white members Howard Himmelbaum, Collin Minert, and Vincent O'Connor seem to have been responsible for donating the Arkansas Project records to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin where they remain; Howard Himmelbaum, telephone interview with author, July 24, 1997; Christopher Hexter and Alicia Kaplow to Collin Minert, August 18, 1966, box 8, folder 7, APR;
37. See, for example, "White Integration Leader in Pine Bluff Is Married in Cincinnati to Negro," Arkansas Gazette, November 11, 1963, sec. A2.
38. Doug Smith, "Mood Is Changing Among Snick Youths," Arkansas Gazette, June 7, 1964, sec. All.
39. Anne Reeves, "Hansen Resigns SNCC Post; Says Negroes Should Lead but He'll Stay as Advisor," Arkansas Gazette, August 26, 1964, sec. A10.
40. Reeves, "Hansen Resigns SNCC Post."
41. Howard Zinn, "Kennedy: The Reluctant Emancipator," Nation, December 1, 1962, p. 375.
42. "SNCC Hurting for Funds; Arkansas Employees Unpaid and Outlook Appears Dim," Arkansas Gazette, March 25, 1964, sec. A5. 43 Hansen interview.
43. Carmichael, Ready for Revolution, 565.
44. Arlene Wilgoren Dunn, "My SNCC Story," unpublished manuscript in author's possession.
45. Mary Carey, "O'Connor on the case: Activist keeps eye on town affairs," Amherst Bulletin, March 24, 2006, http://www.amher-stbulletin. com/story/id/32400372006/(accessed May 13, 2008).
46. Mitchell Zimmerman, '"Black Power'-Another Definition," Arkansas Gazette, July 13, 1966, sec. A6.
47. Little Rock Field Report by Howard Himmelbaum and Mitchell Zimmerman, July 2, 1966, reel 3, SNCC Papers-Microfilm.
48. Michael Thelwell, "Black Power," in Circle of Trust: Remembering SNCC, 153.
49. Baker, "Ex-workers for SNCC Tell Why Group Faded in State"; Himmelbaum interview.
50. Central Committee Meeting transcript, March 6, 1967, reel 3, SNCC Papers-Microfilm.
51. Shaw interview; Toni Morrison, "The Talk of the Town," New Yorker, October 5, 1998. Available at http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998/10/ 05/1998-10-05-031-TNY-LIBRY-000016504 (accessed July 20, 2008).
52. May 29, 1966, Press Statement: Rev. Ben Grinage, Ark. State Project Director, S.N.C.C., folder 335, ACHR Papers;
53. Chris Kazan, "State SNCC Chief Attacks New Policy and Threatens to Resign," Arkansas Gazette, May 25, 1966, sec. Bl.
54. Kazan, "State SNCC Chief Attacks New Policy, Threatens to Resign." 78 "Director of SNCC Resigns and Joins Relations Council," Arkansas Gazette, July 1, 1966, p. 12 A.
55. Michael Simmons, "In Search of a Left Agenda: A Personal Journey," unpublished manuscript in author's possession.
56. Jim Jones, interview by Robert Wright, October 15, 1970, Bunche Collection. 83 Millard Lowe, correspondence with author, July 1997.
57. "SNCC in Arkansas,"ACHR Papers. Although undated, this report was likely written in autumn 1966 or later.