An Integrated Project in Georgia

I have two people in the studio with me who have been working on the southwest Georgia project. Charles M. Sherrod at who is the director and Joe Sr. who has been a field worker in the southwest Georgia project was a graduate of the University of California. Now I think we should begin by telling the audience what the southwest Georgia project is. Would you like to do that as director Mr. Sharon. Yes the song was Georgia project is a grassroots organization. I imagine one of the few in the country which has some history behind it. Devolved out of the sit in this thrust which Snick gave to the southern counties of South Georgia. I was found also and I was sent actually in South Georgia to do a voter registration campaign. Terrell County. But thanks just a bit to one town can in the day and

one to Albany Georgia might be familiar to many people as a place where people on mass went to jail for the first time in our country. It was here that barbers. Preaches and teaches and student and a cross-section of the community went to jail in protest against the wrongs of segregation. And it was here for the first time that people across the country knew what must be done and they did allow this protest and all B'nai grew an organization which now encounters some 10 counties. We've been there since that since that time and this town I left for two years and when I came back to South Georgia. We're now trying to develop an autonomous

regional group. This is a group which presents itself to black people. And to white people as a spokesman for black people. We work black and white together. We believe that the solution to our problem is US must be black and white. Well isn't this one of the few projects active projects now which is interracial in the sense that you have just stated it as a virtue. Hardly any of the grassroots operations going on following this Nic period and the really sort of hectic period the impression that one had was that with the rise of the sort of black power attitude that what the black

community was really saying was go into your own communities you who are white and work against racism there and leave us to. And yet who are often charged in the black community. So this project of yours is is a different type of project. I mean it isn't is it is still an interracial and addressing itself in a racially and that is there are many others like that in the south. I can't think of any I actually operates in the way we are right now. In about honest there has an equal say in about us you know that there are groups in the south. I have one of two wines you know who. You might say. Operator flunkies in the situation the typist or some reversal of Roe right. Rivers of 0 5 0.

But an operation staff person can say anything you want to say you know what most of our people sense that they understand it. Again I say this. The U.S. can take over leadership positions in the black community and they don't try and in fact our organizers I suppose in black or white are supposed to take over a leadership position in a community that is developing community leadership and this is where many organizations fail with reason. Well so reason why we have whites working with us. One of the main reason that we understand our society. We understand that whites aside it doesn't care about us. A tinker's day. And they only identify with why. That's just a fact. And so that's another practical reason why we want black and white together.

Well now you are one of the white people who are there and and you are working. Tell us something about the project from your standpoint as a field worker. Tobias is dead. Yes I've been there for two years now. I came down here from I was going to school in New York. If you mean the lodge the seminar and I took two years or took a year out from there to go down with Surat. Yes he was going to the school also and I met him and he convinced several of us to go down to work with him for summer and for some of us for a year in southwest Georgia. And so I have to being there you decided to stay on for a second year and I back up pretty much won't see

Rhonda say in terms of what how I see my role there which is to not be a leader in the community but to do everything that I can to help other people be would be leaders encourage them to speak up and speak out and express themselves. Well now to get I think that that. Communities all over the United States are at a stage now where the necessity for this kind of consciousness and its kind of working is becoming increasingly obvious. I think well since Martin Luther King's assassination for example there's been an absolute spate of interest and concern and confused activity

in that direction in this community. You have a project which has been going for some time. Tell us something about how you go about doing this and what actual practical. Situation should tackle because I think that that many people of goodwill are genuinely confused as to how they can make themselves effective. Yeah well. We have a staff of about 20 some people. And we were come most of us work full time. We make we give on the Little Miami we have we put it together in a common treasury. How do you get the little money that you have. Well Joe only public solicitation people who know about the project what we're trying to do send them money to headquarters in

Albany Georgia and so does some of that come from the local area. Not the money but. You might say equity money you know like people raise passed some of our example a lot of people raise watermelons Peas gave in to us and we can then put them in the freezer. We sow watermelons and sold a lot of vegetables to to the markets and so forth. This is how people helped us you know I mean they don't have the money. Every cent they they have they need it is that it's partly about her and self-survival that that feed us and sleep you know so. We live in guerrilla style. Essentially all of the community as they live you know whatever they have they're willing to to share. Then we have meetings every Saturday.

To which all the counties are involved some 10 counties now involved come and talk of. Us you know I mean they don't have the money every cent they they have they need it is that it's partly about her and self survival my method feed us and sleep with us you know. So we live in guerrilla style. Essentially all of the community as they live you know whatever they have they want to to share. Then we have our meetings every Saturday. To which all the counties are involved some 10 counties now involved come and talk about genocides like such stopgap measures as. How do you get on a welfare unemployment compensation Ollie's pension

poverty program the sort of thing to talk about stock stopgap measures. And they also attempt to develop cooperatives credit unions for example last. Last but we just don't do it. This is information. We don't go into it until people read it for example last week. And on Saturday a man was murdered by a white man. I relate to the situation very briefly. The man was going to be you know in a cafe and the white cop came in and she this is software. Insol George in a wall we charge at little city between car deal Georgia and Albany lives area urban area in southwest Georgia. So he told this black man to get out and he was on red so he got up when he couldn't walk for a vast because he had a scald his ankle was a very deep

one and so he pushed him and then as my man told him to stop pushing you know he was hurt he pushed him again you know he said in the man turn around on that he was going to have to continue pushing on him like that you know I should have been round. They was all for that. And so this is a good natured youth. You want to take me. You think you can take me nigga. And what if he was Santa and he went for his gun and then he went for his gun this black man went up on him took him down and was beating him and they rushed the loss to the to the south side. Well another black man saw them fired and he came to stop the fight. He went down picked the black man off the top of this white car and as you came up another white man coming out of a grocery store knocked him down with some some object and as he was good enough the same white man who worked in the stalls and Tenet and my store shot him to death.

The public was legal to stand all around like man was then all right. They saw everything would happen and he lay there. He wasn't allowed to be approached to see even his mother and his brother weren't allowed to come to his aid as he lay there in his blood. So the cops came out and after an hour or so and took him and put him in a police car and I'm now molasses to go in the police car and still they weren't allowed to get in the police car wasn't. And they supposedly took him to the hospital where he died there. Around the situation we organize a co-op to grow shift and any time we have a situation where we can guide the emotions and the feelings of the people taught some constructive or construction.

We do and we work on voter registration. This is our election year and we will be promoting numerous candidates I want to which will be a man who will run for Congress. And South Georgia also we. We work on education and we are anti the education system as it exists. We know that it must change. You see what's happening in the country that we are trying at the grassroots grassroots level. To change at least the attitudes for us toward education and the little sector where we hold some influence the way we're doing it and what we call the new university I thought we reigned together young people all people in between. It's people who know of in the school we will graduate from college people in cars in high school at all levels of education. Bring them together. Let them set up set up their own curriculum let them be their

own teachers and students and those of us who've finished grad school and so for we are one among them you know just another student another teacher we're all teachers and we all students in this process and we let them see what the educational system has done and is doing to them and what will be their response to this. Say we have a very close confrontation so you know we talk about black power we talk about black history. We talk about it. We taught we what we've been taught in our country. We talk about everything right across the board and we talk openly and honestly there's no way we can write to the point speaking to the truth without fear. And these meetings will be attended by both black

and white people and I don't I'm not now talking about your actual organizational staff but in these 10 counties there's 10 counties set up. Are there deprived white people who are included with the with the black community. Is there some effort in your organization too. Well you know the Martin Luther King's The Poor People's March. And I know that there are organizations and certainly the potential exists at least for the fact that that people who are economically deprived and culturally deprived whatever their color. Are beginning to perhaps sense that they have certain problems in common. Is what's been your experience or is there still a very direct cleavage. No this is has not been our experience. We are dealing with black people.

Some people in our staff are white but black people have white people have not insisted on coming to our meetings and fact I mean they are trying to damage our means I mean this do your killing just deal murderousness deal bombings there still are people getting kicked off a plantation I mean their steel plantations that's a fact. And people still own plantation needing to get all plantations. But among the poor whites there's no tendency in the in that area to try to feel a community of interest with the black community not as not and not in an hour. And now experience does exist a phenomenon of where there is big money you know big my own sense of. People get sixty dollars a week. You know are little more than that. You have the power to program in Albany. You have people coming to the meetings you know in them white people you know white poor people come to the meetings in the.

Some of them have jobs in the poverty program but just a handful. But you can see I mean I can see what what the possibilities are. If you had money to do this sort of thing why people would come on the basis of economics to work with blacks together. You see what our attempt is to get black people together and when we don't have any money. An operation has to operate out of commitment to changing the society as it as it exists. And however bad it is for a black man is not that bad for the white man of what a white poor man. You see he's still white. He holds on to it. The whiteness like you know life and death and with the black man you know he's trying to hold on to whiteness too. We're trying to show him the value of our common experience and what it

can mean in the future and slowly he is coming around to see that there must be more suffering and there must be more suffering and then we have to suffer and we are suffering alone because we have we have a few whites with us that's no solace you see. But we understand what a problem is this is not a problem with us it's not our problem we are in a situation because we are somehow inferior land I like that word but I live in a working with why is this the white man make mistakes a white man is human using and therefore they would to call say for example Joe and call him a son of a bitch. If they want to call Joe A SON OF A BITCH YOU say so that they can call him a cracker and south Georgia the same because the certain strengths grow out of relating with people you know and because you see yourself in a different light.

And I suppose the problem. In relation to the same sort of ideas which are pretty well current in this area at least it revolves very heavily at the moment around this right of self-defense business. Where does your organization stand on this issue. Well we stand for openness. As an organization we promoted self defense. So it is not aggression we promote nonviolence. But when a man comes to your house that's a different story. You and I can tell people to do it. I'm not sure that that I will do. You see if a man can't injure my family my wife my baby then the strong possibility that I may lay down my life.

And he may. You know have to accept whatever consequences that that me so we can speak to that the people the people know what to do for as a people in our projects. So I know they say and I mean everybody's got a gun. Everybody's got a rifle. And not just to hunt coon squirrels and rabbits. And yet there has been. No she I think that let me put it another way. What many people seem to be afraid of is that when they hear that black people have guns and black people talk about the right of self-defense they seem to have the concept that that black people are going to invade white communities and start sort of shooting people up. Now there has been to my knowledge at least no evidence of this happening. Have you had in

what your experience was down there just as your history of use at all in fact is. Just to take it one one point it in issue one example going back to those youth who were who was killed in town of Warwick. What happened was a group of whites gathered around with guns you know to hold off black people from attending to the boy who was lying there you know and dying right in front of them. And then what happened later happened when they finally see the man that the boy's mother took out a warrant for him and he was the store clerk was arrested after some hassle over getting the warrant. The store clerk was arrested came before and this case came before the grand jury and the next day happened to grand jury. Happy to be in session and the. And then the. So it was relief released and what they claim was that the youth had had a

knife and had a detector. The police officer had attacked that the store clerk and his always seems you would happen said. Fantastic fear on a part of whites. Of a black man with a weapon you know and they're an fabrication that goes on making up stories in the case of this the black people did not attack the white community. There wasn't anyone even in the whole group that had a weapon the white cell had the weapons and was totally ridiculous you know. But they can get away with it they have the they own the press and they and the sheriff you know call and tell their story to the press and if we're going to tell me Don't believe us me. And they the juries are all white. Yet the grand jury is white the law enforcements are white so they have all the power and

so they think that they hold the truth too and they can do whatever they want with it. Yes but Mr. Sharon has just finished saying that everyone has guns. The significant thing it seems to me is that in spite of the fact that they have the gun and it appears that even under the kind of pressure that you're talking about they are not used in terms of attack on the white community but they are. The concept is still the concept of self you know this is people have had guns. First place they are. They live in a rural community and hunting is a big thing. People have guns shotguns around the house for years. What I don't support unlike the white stuff and my eyes go all the counties ought to those little small cities they have. Two and Three shotguns. The drought is pick up truck easy and they have

racks. Right behind. Two or three guns. How many rifles stacked up right. I was shocked when I started there it is. You know automatics and self. So I mean this this is outlandish and they have been right there ready. But you don't see black people don't you know see black people run around with guns by you might have pissed on the see when a glow compartment. They don't matter I would brandishing the shack. Well you're white Joe. What's the attitude of the white community toward you as one of the field workers in this. Do you come into contact with them very much and if so in what terms. Well being a white person is kind of interesting down there because when if if I'm by myself alone in an area where a local stat was missing from you with me

and you're a lot of interesting things you know me and what you are so you know that's really aren't you also know I'm from Berkeley and the other Berkeley and picked up a little twinkle next year. Thank you. Yeah but when whenever I am with black people in it and it is an obvious situation that I am not their employer. That's about the only time you see black and white to do anything together as a ploy you're telling me employee what to do how to do it. In those situations reaction a very hostile you know police and just very pleasing no cars or threats I mean do you try ever to do to talk to these people and does it ever do any good. Yes I've attempted different gauges to talk to talk to people to

buy my feelings and what our project was trying to do. But I have found that for the most part it is done. There is no significance and I've come to see that this I don't feel that it will until our operation has a sufficient base of power that people will listen to it. On that basis and then maybe attitudes can be changed to how I was and now I have the hope that my people will be open to some kind of change. If they're forced to let you think they have to be for it. If you don't think it's going to be voluntary That's right. And very definitely feel that way and I have seen comes from two years of experience from there. You know and beat my head against the wall numerous because from time

to time I've had people out of the South that tell me that there are white people who are not racist but that they are in a sense more frightened. Then then the black people because they are within their own ranks. So much of minority I remember meeting a woman who was here for a medical conference a white woman and obviously a highly intelligent woman and she mentioned that she was from the hospital staff of a certain town in the south. And I said something which showed that I felt sorry for her. You know I mean that she was in such a place and with the kinds of attitudes that I knew existed in this place. And I was not attacking her. You know it was simply an old

kind of weather situation to find yourself in because I had sensed that her attitudes were so evil his attitude and she burst into tears. Right in my office. And told me of instance after instance where white people had attempted to do something and their businesses had been bankrupt or their paper's been closed down or whatever it was and you know that where a white person especially if that white person had some standing in the community tries to cross this barrier and that the hostility that they get from the rest of the white community is really formidable. And that was really in a sense at the root of my question is Were there any whites do feel that there's something more that there's latent cooperation.

Or is it pretty general just the fact that they live in a separate community in their minds and I think I think that. Why it's probably who would like to to help change the situation. Well they are willing to accept whatever has to be accepted as a result and I don't think the same thing with white minded black folk and those who aren't willing to accept the committment. What were the dangers and so forth the commitment to change will bring about. And so I mean I have not I know some whites who are willing to stand up. I know some of them were blacks and I will not stand up in that in that respect. I understand probably what I mean.

My my to that can with the woo energy that do have in the low resources that we do have. We can put them on. Get those who own the stray you know or those who sound on those who you know need to go to get their minds to go. We gotta put our energies where we can get the most return since we just have a few resources to move out. Have you any idea what the percentage. I know this sounds like a stupid question but so many times one hears it said well the black people who feel this way or who are doing anything are just a tiny minority and they they just you know they're just very vocal but they don't really have a following in the black community. Now what is your own version of of that situation. Part of it is true that there are a small

number of people doing things. A small number of people who are vocal an articulate. But that is not true that there are a small number of people who follow a small number of people who who listen. A small number of people whose attitudes whose feelings whose aspirations are spread by people who are vocal they do speak for us. Each Rap Brown Stokely Carmichael Dr. King passed and others they speak they all speak for large numbers of black people. And so as white people understand it perhaps they will see that what black people us and then arises that open up man. We want to share. We want to share the power. We want to share in the decision making process due to the say of where the country moves from here. A mower that if you

aren't willing to share then you will have nothing to share. And that comes out to me verse strong and confident yet. And scenes that whites either are not listening or they are not willing to share. I'm not willing to shout upon my country and that is the case then the same kinds of riots and and more of our increasingly guerrilla warfare of the type of the Viet Cong use in the cities is going to occur over and over and over. It will push the people who riot and people who are vocal and a militant violent militant way into a corner and on the ground. Well not supposing it to go into this one step further that all the white cops in Salem or wherever were you know went there. Let's not say where they are but just weren't there.

And. You see you'd still have the question which keeps recurring in my mind is there would still be the poverty there would still be the lack of jobs there would still be the lack of I mean how major In other words do you feel the changes have to be because troops and cops and National Guards and things like that are really hired people. I mean they are not the base structure. And when you talk about change and sharing how do you conceive of that being achieved. The riot Commission may pour riot commissions you know pool people and country one or more.

And the people who rioted rioted because out of the fear is out of aggravated frustrations over the years. You know that loss of no money no food no clothing no no power. And that at the base of all of this. Lee White racism and the president took a long time didn't say anything about it. And whites aside in general as far as black people concerned hasn't said a thing about it. Where the thing must change is basically air in the wheel of this country. The will of the country must change at this point. Our country is

not willing to share the power and when that will come to me when it went when I going to fall I realize that they are not going to have nothing and nothing nothing unless black people have something then they're going to have the will to change. Now I want to have the wood that means is that they're going to change in the federal government. They're going to change the state government. They're going to change the local government. Each level of government a black man is going to be respected. The culture of the black man is going to be studied in education. Our backgrounds going to give him his rightful place in our society and we will have power. Our frustration Imam we won't have to ride in the street to do to feel that he's there that he exists.

That there are needs and that those who govern and who supposedly represent really represent people. You say that when that kind of change comes about that that's the kind of basic change that I'm talking about. And right now our country is unwilling to make even approaches to that kind of basic change. They would rather take it all in you know as like they do in a church is saying we come to church and we start talking about our problems and NGO divil for me and I divide and Joey you divide them from me and I differ from you and you know different from you. And we also Well you know somehow we can get over this problem we are you know we just somehow love each other. The problem will just go away. And don't don't raise your voice like that Joe don't become emotional about this thing. You know we can reason that gather and change our situation as human. And you know don't thank you so why Joe don't think this of black. Sure are. You're human beings.

That's what we often get the 400 300 years of violence perpetrated against you folks. Joe forget Joe up. You're bringing up the fact that you were brought up as a racist you know brought up believing that you that you could do anything and so I man forget all about that somehow you know these things are going to change and we all go on to flew into the mainstream of American life you know together so the president can say we shall overcome. I gather you don't quite believe that. So how much of us don't believe that. Well what do you know ideas Joe as to how. These changes can and will or should come about because you know the change is going to take a lot of work you know a lot of periods.

I have a great amount of respect for the for the people who are espousing Black Power philosophy and telling whites to go and work in their own communities because there is a lot of work to be done there. And certainly anything that people can do to to shake people into into realisation of what is going on ought to be done. But what I personally feel is that the changes will come when people can get themselves together enough in their minds and and as a group. At the grassroots level in particular to be able to stand and demand what they want and need so they make people listen and respond. But the change will come when a kind of power base of some kind.

I don't know exactly how it will come about it will be in the political and economic cooperative type of thing like some of things we're trying to do in southwest Georgia. It may come the way it is in her looks like it's hitting in some cities where groups are being driven underground underground and opting for self-defense and for guerrilla type tactics too. It hit away at the white power structure but I don't see anything wrong with with me being in a position where I am now because the change through change the quiet community I mean. Well what change will come when the white community from pressure applied to it

from the outside from the black community. And I think that the main emphasis important now is is the building of a base of power in the black community that seem to be the most important. You know all different ways he's mentioned. And then oh my god yes that's what I was going to say you don't mean power in the sense of just physical IMing or but power in the sense of economic political social and also the self-defense aspect of of the situation. What else would you like to tell us about Georgia. You say that whoever is listening to us though we need money.

You can't see it. Yes I think about the. Answer. I think we can help people. And the main reason for that is that we're supported exclusively by listeners. And there's another reason and that is that all of the causes in this community and in a sense in this nation explain their problems at this microphone and it could become a nonstop fundraising. And so there is that this rule that you know if people are interested in your organization they will contact us and we can put them in touch with you. We don't do the U.S. because we we we may not. I would like to asked and people are interested in our project on the

Contact Us station for. And we can get together on so. Well and the point is I think that that over this station particularly recently there has been a great deal of discussion along the same line about the local situation. And you know I think it's fascinating for the audience to have the opportunity to hear a discussion out of a totally different context because I suppose that a lot of the work that you're doing in the 10 counties in Georgia is with. It's not city conditions but also. Row boat boat. Are most of the towns there is it is there any appreciable amount of outside industry or anything in that part of Georgia and this is

going on today. Yeah they had a gigantic Firestone plant. Yes that's common. So Albany Yeah and Albany and all the plants coming albums. So what does that aid in the in the I mean I assume that the that the influx of industry into the South as it's connected at least with the possibility of a reasonably priced labor. But does the advent of new job opportunities and so on strengthen the type of organization that you're working with. I mean does the fact that that more people have a job so they can eat give them more independence and more tendency to do. I too want to act politically and in terms of the sort of terms that you're asking about how does it act as a as a as a separate pick

as a as something which increases apathy and withdrawal on the part of the black community. Well as both I mean depends on and a vision. Some people get a job and that's life you know and then they sell their souls to the job. They aren't willing to risk on losing the job for about a life and so on the other hand there are other people who really listens and when they're done with a little bit of money where they could do to look at mining again and see for themselves. So in the penicillin a white man but just an Ohio man still in charge on his job. And soften them up. Unionization there is against uni. You mean zation the whole apparatus a system that they're not that many unions in the south and not the many you know whatever

whoever pushes you know you know unions who are willing to come down there and do the kind of organizing that needs to be done and I want to think like Firestone but we don't need Albany. Do they does the American Federation of Labor send organizers into a place like the Firestone plant on the moves and Albany. Oh they haven't as yet they may. They haven't as yet. And I'm the sentiment now. I mean they have steel structures up and recently they have been through and they're recruiting people. You know to to for that to jobs is it time for them to act is now in educating the commune because I'm not them and I and as a people don't. Just like that become union people and willing to stick together and pull out and signed union cards of. They need better wages or something like that. They got the. E the CA man out with us to give us the resources who already we

already have contacts that give us the resources to go in and organize the people and educate the people about the need for unions and what the strengths are what their weaknesses are. The emphasis on the strength of unions you know so they'll be ready to be unionized when and when these when more of these industries come in because their common lives abound. Large numbers of unions I mean large numbers of industries are coming in and they're going to be for example satellite industries around the rubble and history and fire stuff. Well we don't have the resources to do it I thought that we could. We had to put all the small resources into getting people to go to to see that they need to be together to act. Well now in a situation that at least has some resemblance namely the Mexican-American cultural workers the delay no area finally when the people themselves had

withstood the pressure and were striking continue to be they did ultimately get support from the Labor people. Hallo. Yes. Have you approached any of the top people in the in the labor movement to discuss things like this with them directly. We've talked with some labor people. And he'll talk to him and let you know that you do when you have now so you know and. You know they have priorities and I don't think the South is the pride class as a place where and great risk. They have the less return from their capitalistic point of view. That's my you know I understand. And so they are willing to take the risks

inherent in making any move in the south. Also that I'm a greater the greater pressures are being applied in in the cities in the north now and that is where people are afraid of outbreaks of violence you know went in and are moving to dry patch this up with with industry Union following consequence. Is there anything else I that you would like to say or to tell us how many things we can talk all night. But I think we live in a pretty good picture of the way things are there and what we're trying to do. Well may I thank you both for coming in. Thank you.