>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC.
>> Betsy Peterson: I want to
welcome you all today to this first
of a series of programs
that are part of a project
that the American Folklife Center
has been working on for a while,
and the series is called, "Many
Paths to Freedom, Looking Back,
Looking Ahead at the Long Civil
Rights Movement".But before we
welcome our guest today, I want to
acknowledge just a few key partners
and collaborators both within
the Library and externally.
Within the Library, I want to
acknowledge the input and assistance
of our colleagues at the
Veterans History Project,
the Motion Picture Broadcast
and Recorded Sound Division,
Education Outreach, the Manuscripts
Division, Prints and Photographs,
the Office of Strategic Initiatives.
And a special thanks to
our co-sponsors for today,
the Library's Chapter
of Blacks in Government.
As you can see it -- it
truly takes a village
of federal cultural institutions
and divisions to make all
of this good work happen.
Our external partners include the
SNCC Legacy Project and I hope some
of those individuals associated
with that project are here
in the audience today.
And perhaps others are
in attendance as well.
But very importantly, I want
to thank our major partner,
the Smithsonian National Museum of
African-American History and Culture
with whom we have been working
with over a five-year period
on a national collecting initiative,
the Civil Rights History
Project, mandated by Congress.
It's been a pleasure to
collaborate with Lonnie Bunch
and the National Museum of
African-American History
and Culture staff including,
and I just want
to acknowledge them all here,
Kinshasa Holman Conwell, Rex Ellis,
Elaine Nichols, Carlos Bustamante,
Dorey Butter, Deirdre Cross,
and others that I'm sure
I am forgetting here.
So please forgive me for that.
As the collecting phase of
this project is winding down,
we at the Center have been
working hard to make interviews
with movement veterans
available in their entirety
for audiences worldwide
and for future individuals
through our online
portal at the project.
And please, bookmark
that URL right there.
Go to it and go to it repeatedly.
If you haven't already done that,
you'll get or if you do do that,
excuse me, you'll get instant
notices about when the site launches
which should be imminent and
information about upcoming programs
over the next few months
in this series.
We hope you will continue
to return to the Library
over the next few months.
We have a long, several-month period
of terrific programs, lectures,
round-table discussions with
this series as well as programs
that will be happening sponsored
by other divisions throughout
the Library in celebration
of the 50th anniversary
of the March on Washington
and the Civil Rights Act.
Please come and please
enjoy today and what I would
like to do now is introduce Guha
Shankar, our Folklife Specialist
on staff who has been coordinating
and spearheading this Civil
Rights History Project on behalf
of the American Folklife Center.
I would also like to
acknowledge Kate Stewart
who has been working doggedly
and with great perseverance
and excellence on the
project as well.
I want to turn it over to Guha who
will introduce our speakers today.
So please welcome Guha
and welcome to you all.
[ Applause ]
>> Guha Shankar: Thank you
and to reiterate Betsy,
really a great showing.
Lovely to see you all here.
Let me just say one or two
words about the series.
It's scheduled to be many different
things at many different times.
It features activists, scholars,
artists who will address a range
of topics on the theme of the
struggle for freedom, social justice
and equality for African Americans
and the long Civil Rights Movement
as you see the title behind me.
Programs in the series aim to
present audiences with a range
of perspectives on the topic,
highlight the Library's
unparalleled collections
about the freedom struggle, and
explore questions about the legacy
and influence of the movement.
Today, in order not to take too
much of the time, we have a special
and terrific program
with Glen Pearcy.
It's called "Documenting the Freedom
Struggle in Southwest Georgia".
Glen Pearcy is an award-winning
filmmaker and photographer
who has written, produced
and directed dozens
of films including documentaries for
PBS and Turner Network Television.
He's done programs for labor
unions, consumer organizations,
environmental groups,
government agencies
and political organizations.
Television and radio spots for
public interest groups, foundations,
political candidates,
and commercial clients.
He does not do bar mitzvahs or
weddings, I don't think [laughter].
His film work which began in 1968 --
>> Unidentified speaker:
He's [inaudible].
>> Guha Shankar: He did?
I stand corrected [laughter].
There is an interactive
portion, not yet but --
you can tell me about that later.
His film work began in 1968, as he
will tell you, when he and his wife,
Susan, who is also here, joined
an important organizing effort
for the Civil Rights Movement,
the Southwest Georgia Project.
The Library of Congress
acquired his film materials
from Southwest Georgia for its
permanent collections in 2012
and he was nominated for an Academy
Award in 1975 for the third film,
Fighting for Our Lives , a
feature-length documentary film
of the United Farm
Workers' 1973 grape strike.
He'll be joined today later in
the program by another colleague
of mine, David Klein,
Assistant Professor
of Virginia Tech University.
We in the Library have no problems
in shamelessly exploiting
our clients and patrons.
David was here doing research in
the Korean War and the involvement
of African-American soldiers and I
said, "Hey, would you mind joining
in the conversation with Glen?"
And this is how all
things work together.
About five years ago when David
and I started working together
on the Civil Rights History Project,
he said to me at one moment,
"You know, there's this guy up the
street from you in Barnesville,
Maryland who has this
amazing collection of films."
Five years ago to this day,
thanks to the mediation of David,
this is how it all works.
David, as I said, is
Assistant Professor
in the History Department
of the Virginia Tech.
His research focuses on 20th
century US social movements,
oral history and public history.
He has a particular interest in
the role of religious, progressive
and social movements including the
Civil Rights and Women's Movements.
He is one of the research
scholars and interviewers
for the Civil Rights History
Project, which when it launches,
will feature over a
hundred interviews screened
in their entirety on
the Library's portal
and through various
social media outlets
like the Library's YouTube channel.
And you will hear David's
mellifluous questions every once
in a while wafting
across the screen.
So keep him in mind when you see
him in just a couple of minutes.
He will also be one of our featured
guests next month in the same series
that we're presenting along with
a colleague, Adriane Lentz-Smith
from Duke University talking
about the role and impact
of African Americans in World War
I and in the Korean War and how
that influenced their activism and
you know, in the freedom struggle.
So, without further ado,
let me please welcome our featured
guest for today, Glen Pearcy.
[ Applause ]
>> Glen Pearcy: Thank you, Guha.
Guha and David Klein, who'll you
meet later, are the ones responsible
for this day so I take no
responsibility [laughter].
Guys, can we not see if we can
knock the lights off those screens
so we can see the photographs
as good as we can?
My first exposure to the
movement came in March of 1965.
I was a college student
and I was a photographer
for my college newspaper when the
Selma-to-Montgomery March started.
And you all may remember
these photographs.
This is Bloody Sunday.
These are the only photographs
you'll see that are not mine.
These are news photographs and
when the marchers attempted
to start the march from
Selma to Montgomery,
they were met by state troopers
and police and turned back.
There were a lot of
serious injuries that day
and among them was John Lewis
who was, as you all know,
was a congressman in Georgia and
has been for quite some time.
He's in the upper left
quadrant, upper left photo.
He was beaten badly that day.
We went down.
By we, it was me as a
photographer and two reporters
from my college paper,
and went down and we went
to Montgomery rather than Selma.
SNCC was organizing in Montgomery
and they were doing daily marches
to the state capitol to
try to deliver petitions
to Governor George Wallace.
As I'm sure you all know, the
church is a central meeting place
for the movement.
And SNCC's medium, the
Jackson Street Baptist Church
in Montgomery having
daily mass meetings.
I'm sure most of you also know that
music is central to the movement.
It always has been and
there'd been many iterations
of the SNCC Freedom Singers,
whoever was at church that day,
whoever got up and sang, those
were the Freedom Singers.
I don't know the names of these
people but they could sing.
James Forman was the lead organizer
in Montgomery while John Lewis was
in Selma and James was this kind
of the senior member
of SNCC in some ways.
He was at the ripe old age of
35 at this time, born in 1928.
James had served in the
army during the Korean War.
His usual uniform was a
sport coat over overalls.
This is Forman getting
people ready for one
of the daily marches on the capitol.
And every day, during this period,
the marches would attempt to go
to the capitol and we
would be, they would be met
by police who blocked the path.
And lots of college kids would
come down from the north to work
with the local black
kids, local black adults.
And this is what happened every day.
People were stopped, not
allowed to get to the capitol
and when they stood there around and
wouldn't go back, they were turned
around by police on horseback.
James Bevel, one of Dr. King's
lieutenants, "After a few days
in Montgomery, we went
over to Selma to cover some
of what was happening over there."
This is the White Citizens
Council sign outside of town.
And the next couple of photographs
were taken in and around Selma.
The persistence of the Selma
and Montgomery demonstrators
and the national media
attention that it provoked,
that it had received,
provoked a white countermarch
in Montgomery during this period.
I especially love the woman in the
center in her pearls and gloves.
Dr. King was not present
on March 7th Bloody Sunday
but during the march later,
during the effort later,
I am not sure whether
this photograph was taken
in Brown's Chapel in Selma which
is where the marchers gathered
and where the march
originated or back in Montgomery
at the Jackson Street
Baptist Church.
After Bloody Sunday on the
seventh, there was a second attempt,
two days later, I think, on the
ninth which was also turned around.
And by that time, there had been so
much media attention and there was,
I think, even some federal
involvement that on March 16th,
there was a third attempt.
And that one was successful.
The marchers, I think, marched
for the better part of a week,
arriving in Montgomery, leaving
on the 16th of March and arriving
in Montgomery on the 24th and
there was a rally on the 25th.
Left to right here is on the
far left is Ralph Abernathy,
then James Forman who I spoke about
earlier, Dr. King is in the center,
John Lewis is on the far right.
I do not know the name of the person
between Dr. King and John Lewis.
I bet there's somebody
in the audience who does.
If so, speak up.
I guess not.
And I believe this is in
Montgomery on the 24th or the 25th
when the marchers finally
got to the state capitol.
Two years later, my wife Susan
and I joined the Southwest
Georgia Project.
This is one of her
paintings from the period.
SNCC sent Charles Sherrod
to Southwest Georgia in 1961
as its first field secretary.
And in 1966, Stokely Carmichael
was elected chairman of SNCC
and reorganized SNCC as
an all-black organization.
But Sherrod wanted to keep whites
in the Southwest Georgia Project
so in an amicable parting
of the ways,
it became independent
of SNCC in 1966, '67.
We were, we went down in '67.
In Southwest Georgia, at least
and many parts of the country,
by then the days of big marches
and demonstrations were passing
and it was evolving into more local
organizing economic development,
that sort of thing.
So my photography from this
period is not event-oriented
but is much more intimate and also
because we spent such a long --
well, a relatively long period
of time there, a year or two,
we got to know people, lived in
their homes, so that my photography
from this period of
-- is much more kind
of portrait and intimate oriented.
This is children of the Hall family.
We lived in a shack on their
farm and were frequent visitors
to their home and got
to know them well.
Rosie Jones on the right,
in case it wasn't evident,
is blind which accounts
for her expression.
Picking cucumbers, one of
the first things Sherrod did
with us white kids from the
north was give us a taste
of life in the field.
Another one of Susan's works from
her late Van Gogh period [laughter].
I love this one.
A few portraits of staff people
on the Southwest Georgia Project.
Randy Battle was a young
organizer at the time.
You'll meet him later in
the film I'm going to show.
Somebody told me Stick's real name
once but I could never remember it.
So it's Stick.
Another one of Susan's works,
also from her Van Gogh period.
I remember this day very well.
All I can think about when
I see these photographs is
grinding poverty.
Barely able to make it.
I remember this day very well too.
These are two of the
Brown family children.
They lived with their
parents and 11 siblings
in that shack behind them
on Ichauway Plantation.
Ichauway Plantation was 28,000 acres
and was owned by Robert Woodruff,
Chairman of the Board of Coca-Cola
who would have his friends come
down for quail hunts
and that sort of thing.
The Browns were not uncommon.
There were plenty of shacks like
this with field workers and people
who took care of the land.
This is Susan's work again.
This is the Hawkins
family home in Baker County
where we were living and working.
In addition to picking cucumbers
in the field, Charles made sure
that folks like us lived with a
local family for a period of time.
This was a lovely family.
The house had no running water,
no bathroom, no refrigerator.
This is Mrs. Hawkins.
The Project's headquarters was
in Albany which is the center
of Southwest Georgia
and just a block or two
up the street was the
local pool hall.
In the film I'll show shortly,
Charles Sherrod mentions women
sewing and clothing cooperatives.
That's one of the Project's
endeavors
and Susan made this wood cut while
observing the women who you will see
in the film doing that kind of work.
As you can probably tell, I like
most of Susan's work in this period,
almost all of it, but this one I
especially like and it, believe me,
does a nice job of capturing the
power and determination of many
of the women and mothers
we knew at the time.
While we were down there, I
started fiddling around with film
and -- motion picture film.
I shot just silent scenes at
first that are not much different
than the still photographs
you've seen.
Just kind of still
photographs that moved.
But later, I came back down in 1969
to record a series of interviews
with the idea of making a
film about the Project's work.
There was just one problem
which is that I didn't know how
to make movies [laughter].
And the film you're about to
see, I'm afraid reflects that.
It suffers from a number
of shortcomings.
It has no narration to give you
a context and an explanation
of what you're about
to see or have seen.
People aren't identified with
subtitles so you're unlikely
to know who's talking to you.
So that there's often lack of
context for what you're viewing.
I'm going to try to
remedy this a little bit
by briefly telling you a little
bit about what you're about to see.
The film opens with an off-camera
voiceover account from a woman
who was an eyewitness to the murder
of a young black man named Junior
Nelson at the hands of a white man.
And that story is followed
by scenes from his funeral.
That's followed by Charles Sherrod
who I've told you is the Director
of the Project who talks
about that murder and talks
about the Project's work.
One of the things I'd like to
call your attention is he talks
about the importance of land,
land ownership for blacks
in the community because that
will relate to a little more
of what I'll say after the film.
Following Charles is a man named
Walter Patmon who had the courage
to run for office which
was a big deal then.
He ran for coroner and as you'll
hear, he lost by 200 votes which he
and everyone else considered
a victory.
Following him, you'll
hear from Ida Mae Young,
who could well be the model for
the woodcut of the woman at the end
of the slide presentation.
Wonderful, strong, powerful
woman who will tell you
about her children getting
in trouble at school
because they talked
back to some white kids
and how the school
authorities handled that.
She'll be followed by
Randy Battle who's one
of the Project staff I mentioned.
He'll talk a little bit
about the movement's effect
on black self-consciousness,
especially among the young.
And the last speaker in the
film is Attorney C.B. King,
a monumental figure in the
movement-- a civil rights lawyer.
He went off to law school, came
back to his hometown of Albany
where he practiced for
the rest of his life.
He was the only black
attorney in the region.
And as you will hear
in his interview,
C.B. had the wonderful ability
to speak in grandiose language
that often flummoxed his
opponents in the courtroom
as well as the judge [laughter].
C.B. has passed away but as a
measure of how things change,
the federal courthouse in Albany,
I believe, now bears his name.
[Film begins, noises]
Female speaker: I was up there
at the store getting groceries.
[traffic noise ]
When I come out of the
store I came out to look
for them two boys to come home.
I was on my way to come home --
me and him was getting groceries.
When I walked out the
fight was on them.
They was gathering up so many guns
and things and it shook me up,
you know, it frightned me.
I'm not used to nothing like that.
And I soon got away and
come on away from up there.
I wasn't up there when
all those [inaudible]
and different things was
happening up there, I had left.
But I did see the gun up in there.
Keeping the people away
from this dead boy--
Male speaker: You saw that?
Female speaker: Yeah, I saw it.
I really saw it.
I heard the shooting.
I sure heard it.
But, now, to see him shoot him --
I just thought it was somebody--
since with all that was going
on -- somebody shot, you know,
to scatter the people
and stop the fuss.
I didn't know nobody was shot until
I heard the people making a noise
about [inaudible] "shot
Junior Nelson,
[inaudible] shot Junior Nelson."
[ Singing ]
>> Charles Sherrod: The white man
who murdered Junior
Nelson is still free.
A thousand white men who murdered a
thousand black men are still free.
Well, that's the nature
of Southwest Georgia.
That's the nature of the South.
In Southwest Georgia, we walk
with death daily, every day.
How can you expect a little boy
like this to come up knowing
about what happened to his father,
without hating white people?
We don't have to teach a
young boy like this to hate.
Wherefore from the early days of
his life until the day he dies,
if our country remains the same,
he would be constantly bombarded
by a racist society, by hatred, by
discrimination, by all this evil.
He'd been taught that, that the
black is ugly and evil and no good.
And a black man should
be ashamed of himself.
But the Southwest Georgia
Project is attempting to throw
out these indoctrinations.
We are trying to show him
that black is what, James?
Beautiful!
And that black is to be proud.
And he believes that now.
We are teaching him to love.
But not to love and forget.
To love and remember all the
evils that had been done to us,
but to in so remembering, to
get such a commitment in life,
a commitment to go on despite
the fact that we are like people
who have been sent into
a jungle of racism.
The lion of racism come
to us to devour our flesh.
And we have nothing
but our bare hands
to subdue this racist
lion of our society.
But that's what we plan to do.
Whatever, whatever's necessary,
we plan to subdue this lion,
this racism, this evil.
>> My name is Charles Sherrod.
And I've been in Southwest
Georgia since 1961.
Southwest Georgia, the development
of Southwest Georgia is akin
to the development
of my innermost self.
For somewhere along the way, I have
put my blood and I have put my soul
into its work and development.
People who live in Southwest
Georgia are mostly farmers.
Men who have farmed all their
lives, know nothing but farming.
Land is the source of power,
the source of all power.
It's the source of life.
And with land a man holds
in his hand the mechanism
to control his destiny.
If a people is going to
rise, it must have land.
And so we're trying to
get a 4800-acre plot
of land in Lee County.
We have a network of
sewing bees, you might say.
They're really groups of old women,
middle-aged women getting together
and making blankets, quilts,
and dresses and so forth.
In many cases, the women have not
accepted money which they make
from the quilts as their personal
income but have pooled the funds
and used them to further
community development.
I hope that one day that this
would lead to a sewing factory,
a central sewing factory around
which we will build a large number
of a chain of factories, you
may say, in different counties.
In politics, we've had
several people to run
for office in South Georgia.
We've never won.
In another sense, we've never lost.
Because of people who are trodden
underfoot, any attempt to get
from under the foot of this
white man, this white racisim
in Southwest Georgia is
a success, believe me.
>> Male speaker: That you and I
as white citizens and believers
in the Christian religion,
we realize that the
principles set forth
by our forefathers cannot succeed
and stand up to the test by bowing
down to any concessions
or demands from any
of the atheist so-called
ministers of the Negro race.
[ Cheers and applause ]
>> Walter Patmon: I did a lot
of voter's registration work.
And last year, 1968,
I ran for coroner.
I ran against a white man.
Here in Clay County, you know.
I did, I think, right well
for the first kick off.
That's the first time a black
person have ever ran in Clay County
since reconstruction days.
And we ran a good race.
I think the white guy
beat me about 200 votes.
And I think that's
excellent for the first time.
And that's why when we
attempted to run for coroner,
we figured we could get enough
black people registered,
well, a Negro could win.
And then we aren't finished.
We're going to run a Negro in
every election that would come
up in Clay County from now on.
[ Music ]
>> Ida Mae Young: I'm
the mother of nine kids.
My children have been going
to school ever since '65.
And every time they went, I
had trouble out of my two.
I went to work and I went to the
schoolhouse and went and went
and went until the day that
they picked up my children.
Before my children
was picked up, well,
it comes about the children got
where they couldn't
get along in school.
This is with the white children.
They couldn't get along with
the white children in school
so they start picking at them.
They're picking at
those two children.
From the day of November the fourth,
that when my two children was
picked up, they was picked
up from the school house.
They took the children
about 30 miles from home
and didn't even tell
us nothing to nobody.
They didn't even come
by and let us know,
just like they was
kidnapping my children.
Then they went on back home,
saddened and wounded and crying
and shedding tears,
where was the children?
Yet we didn't even know.
So I said, "Lord," I said,
"what can I do, Jesus?"
So the only way that we could
tell where our children,
that we had to make a telephone
call to Washington, DC to HEW.
Because it was so hurting to
me that my children was taken
out of their home and
crammed into a detention home
for no reason in the world!
And the white children
were going free!
Ain't missed a day out of school!
Not doing nothing to nobody
but the black children.
>> I just kept going and going
and going and I'm still going
and I'm not going to turn around.
I'm going to continue to go on.
I'm going to continue to
send my children on to school
so that they will be able
to have the education
that I think that they need to have.
>> But this is one reason
why that I really know
that why my children was picked up,
see because I'm a civil
rights worker.
I've been working in civil rights
for a long time, five long years!
And it's brought about a lot of
enemies after I was doing this
because there was time that
we'd be going to the polls
and the white people would
be rolling their eyes at me
because I was bringing
in so many carloads
of people to vote, you know.
And they knowing that they wouldn't
vote for their man, you know.
And so they would be
rolling their eyes at me.
But this is the way
that they thought maybe
that they could do to stop me.
But I won't be stopped.
See, I'm going to continue
and continue and continue
so you better get the detention
home and ready everything else
because I'm getting psyched to get
myselfready for them [laughter].
And that's just the way
I'm going to do that thing.
They doing their thing and
I'm going to do my thing.
[ Singing ]
[ Silence ]
>> Randy Battle: It
was around late 1964
that black folks really start
sitting down and, you know,
talking about, again
talking and thinking
about what they really wanted.
Because you know, by then
you had the hamburger stand
and the movie theaters and
the restaurants, you know,
and that kind of stuff
and the motel.
It was about '64 that
the emphasis started
to be put on black and proud.
That it weren't so much of being
able to mix up with white folk.
That was the thing but it was
what you thought of yourself.
It was how you looked at yourself.
The freedom didn't depend totally
upon how much money you made,
that money and cars and houses
and association was comfort.
That it was comfortable to be able
to go sit down in a restaurant
and eat, you know, a
hamburger or some dinner
and not have somebody
throw coffee on you.
You know, that it was comfortable
to be able to afford that.
But that, if you went in there
and nobody threw coffee on you
and you was nervous, that you
know, that you had a hang up.
You know, because you should have
went in there and got your hamburger
and your coffee and said,
"The hell with them folks.
They throw some coffee on me.
I'm going to throw
some back on them.
Or I'll hit them outside here with
this damn chair I'm sitting in."
>> You cannot say I don't feel like
you can tell me to love everybody,
and that I'm the only
one loving myself.
That everybody isn't showing
an interest in my love.
I think that what younger folks say
is that young black folks say is
that the time has come
now that we talk
about blackness and only blackness.
That everything we talk about,
we talk about it as being related
to a black person in this
country and the world
and how it's been related to them
before and how you change that now.
>> So now, I'm saying that we have
to do is that we have to, you know,
get control of ourselves,
that we have to,
you know, become a black unit.
[ Singing ]
>> C.B. King: The question is asked
relative to racism and the law.
Certainly, I think that my response
to it is that it's very obvious
that there is racism rampant or
rife not only on the state level
but the local level as well.
It pervades the whole of the state
of Georgia and the region hereabout.
What I'm saying another way is
that the people who are responsible
for the promulgation of the
laws unconscionably participate
or indulge themselves in the
creation of laws that are calculated
to serve those who have power.
This of course means
the whites in the state.
It also is evident, that
is in terms of racism,
in how the law is interpreted.
The judges interpret the law in
such a way as to serve the ends
which are certainly
antagonistic to those of blacks.
One of the great deprivations
experienced by black people
in the region hereabout is
the scarcity of black lawyers.
Take myself, for instance.
I am the only black attorney within
a radius of over a hundred miles.
And of course, this
means that the interest
of many black clients
go wanting at the hands
of white attorneys
or attorneys at all.
I see my role as a lawyer that of
carrying on this war of attrition.
This is to say that it's my
commitment to do everything I can
to alter fulfillment of what
apparently is the purpose of the law
in its relation to blacks.
That is to say that where blacks
were taken out and subjected
to the barbarity of lynch mobs,
they're now legitimately taken
into the courtroom and
the same end is achieved.
>> So I think that this is
more important than any effort
at my part to analyze it.
Simply say to whites who are
concerned about the direction
in which America is headed,
that there is yet little time,
that something has to
got to give something
in a very, very, very positive way.
It has got to come about or
else, America will not be America
in the sense that white
people like to feel secure
in thinking about America.
[ Music, end film ]
[ Applause ]
>> Glen Pearcy: Thank you very much.
Nice of you to sit through that.
I'd like to do a couple
of short additions
since as Guha has framed the series;
it's about the movement
kind of past and future.
You heard Charles talk
in the film about land.
And it was his dream at the time
to get a large piece of land.
You may have noticed he talked
about 4800 acre plot
of land in Lee County.
They got the land and they
got even more, 5735 acres
and they got in 1968 or '69.
At the time, I think it was
the largest piece of land owned
by blacks in the country.
And what immediately followed
was a five-year drought.
So their farming operation really
suffered and they had a great deal
of difficulty making the
payments on the loans.
And by 1985, they were
deeply in debt
and they ended up losing the land.
The Project was called New
Communities and I'm going
to show you a very brief interview
with Charles in 1985, just days
or weeks before -- weeks
before they lost the land.
You will find out shortly thereafter
that with another brief clip I'd
like to show you that the
problem was not only natural,
namely the weather,
but it was also human.
Here's this little
clip from Charles.
What is it -- 16 years after, or 16,
17 years after the
land was acquired,
when it was about to be lost.
If I can get the mouse to work.
>> [film clip] Charles Sherrod: Well
our plight is not unlike thousands
of farmers in the country, in
Southwest Georgia, you know,
we had five straight
years of drought.
And that was five straight
years of taking us under.
And with along with the
policies of FHA, the way they --
you're never on time
and they don't allow you
to utilize your money up front.
Well, we were about
to lose our land.
And it is the thing of a lot
of pain to me, to my family
and to other families that
associated with this Project.
And we don't see any way out of it.
We appealed to the country.
I've been on TV and the newspapers
and I've made it known all the ways
that I know how, every leading
civil rights organization,
religious denomination in the
country knows about our plight.
But I guess, times are so hard
for them and the kind of goals
that they have that they're
unable to turn towards us
at this time of our greatest need.
We held on about as long as we can.
We obtained this land when
Martin Luther King died,
around that time -- about 1968.
We got this land.
I had an opportunity to talk with
Martin Luther King when he came
to the City Auditorium in Albany,
Georgia, and asked him to be a part,
on the board, a part of this
whole attempt and he agreed.
Shortly after then,
in April, he died.
But it could be a part
of our dream, you know,
of our dream for this piece of land.
But the sun is shining today, you
know, and I'm here on our land,
for these last few days maybe.
But who can tell?
There may be a miracle.
The money may still
come from somewhere.
I'm still holding out to
faith that it will happen.
But if it doesn't happen, then
I'm not going to kill myself.
I'm going to pick up from
where I am and move on.
>> Glen Pearcy: Would you be having
a piece of land if this one goes?
>> Charles Sherrod: Hopefully.
If it's the will of our
people, if it's the will
of God then we'll get
another piece of land.
[end clip]
>> Glen Pearcy: So
a few years later,
there was a class action lawsuit
against the U.S. Department
of Agriculture by black farmers
because there has emerged a lot
of evidence that the USDA
had been discriminatory
in its loaning practices
in the '80's.
And while white farmers
were getting plenty
of loans, black farmers weren't.
Charles' wife Shirley was
working in that field at the time
and she was driving a little
bit south alerting farmers
to this lawsuit and trying to
get them to participate in it
and recover some of the
losses that they experienced
because of discrimination.
And this is so typical of Shirley.
You may recognize her name
from another USDA flap a
couple of years ago [laughter].
Shirley's driving around in Alabama,
recruiting farmers
to join the lawsuit.
She's driving back home to Georgia.
Suddenly, it dawns on her.
Wait a minute; we ought to
be a part of this lawsuit.
We had New Communities.
We had -- it's a measure of
Shirley's, I don't know what,
she's out there working for
everybody else and it suddenly dawns
on her, hey, we have
to be a part of this.
So they joined the lawsuit as New
Communities and I'd like to share
with you another little clip
to bring the story
full circle to today.
>> [film clip] Charles Sherrod:
If it's the will of our people,
if it's the will of God, then
we'll get another piece of land.
>> Glen Pearcy: On July 8, 2009,
new communities won an award
of $12 million from the United
States Department of Agriculture
because it had been
discriminated against in the denial
of loans during the 1980's.
They used the money to
buy a new piece of land
to replace the 5,735 acres
that had lost in 1985
as a result of that discrimination.
This new land comprises
1,638 acres and was named
"Cypress Pond Plantation"
at the time.
Before the Civil War, it was
the largest slave plantation
in all of Georgia.
The plantation features
a large elegant home,
from which 150 slaves were sold in
one day alone in December of 1859.
Jefferson Davis stayed here while
fleeing from the Union Army.
Now this land will be developed as
an agricultural and community center
for the benefit of all poor
citizens of Southwest Georgia,
the original vision for
New Communities in 1969.
They have renamed the land Resora,
which means "leads with love
and embodies the essence
of the human spirit."
As Dr. King often said, the arc
of the moral universe is long,
but it bends towards justice.
[ Music, end film clip ]
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Guha Shankar: So, we have a
little bit of time for Q and A
and a moderator discussion
led by David Kline
and you do have some time to ask
questions, but David's going to pick
up on some of the themes
that Glen touched upon here.
>> David Cline: Great,
can you all hear me?
Okay. So, I want to start -- first
I want to -- I'm just going to --
we're just going to have a
few questions back and forth
and then we'll open it
up to everybody else.
But I wanted to start by talking
about something called the
Student Interracial Ministry.
This is how I found Glen
when I was researching
and it's also how Charles
and Glen first met.
So, when the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee was created
at a meeting Easter weekend, 1960
at Shaw University in Raleigh.
At that very same meeting and
not too many people know this,
there were a group
of seminarians there
from Union Theological
Seminary in New York City
and then there was a
group of black seminarians
from Gaman [assumed spelling].
And they all sort of got together
in the hallway or something,
looked at each other
and said, "Okay,
we're part of the student movement,
but we're also going into the church
and we have to change the church.
Let's do something
ourselves as well."
And what that -- what that
something was was called the Student
Interracial Ministry, which
in its early expression,
the idea was when seminarians
had to work in churches
to gain impractical experience,
they would do that in a
church of another color.
So black seminarians would
go into white churches,
white into black churches.
And this is how the project
sort of began and ran.
This project, by the
way, ran until 1968.
In 1964, Charles Sherrod -- the
phrase he used to me was he --
he took a movement sabbatical
from Southwest Georgia.
I think maybe the one and only
time he left Southwest Georgia.
To go to Union, he
had a BD, he had a --
in divinity, but he
wanted to get a Master's.
And so he was at Union Seminary and
sort of introduced Union Seminary
to what was going on
in Southwest Georgia.
And that summer, came
back to Southwest Georgia
with five seminarians, the next
summer with 20 and then more
and more and overall I think it
was 44 seminarians went down there.
So I wanted to start with that
and ask Glen to talk about being
at Union, meeting Charles and
sort of put this all in a kind
of a little bit of
a spiritual context.
I know that communicates in the --
in the footage, but I'd just
like to hear that story from you.
>> Glen Pearcy: Working?
David's got it right.
Susan and I were recruited at
a meeting at Union Seminary
in '67, went down in '67, '68.
There were other seminaries
from Union elsewhere.
Charles is an ordain Baptist
minister talking about whites going
to black churches and blacks
going to white churches.
I mean, you heard the
music in that church.
I mean, there's nothing
as transformative as that.
Very moving and it -- the music
alone is enough to change your life.
When I graduated from
Seminary, I -- I'm a --
I requested ordination in my
church to go back to Georgia,
which my church being a good liberal
protestant denomination granted.
So that's -- that's the connection,
but for me the biggest connection
of all is being in those churches.
>> David Cline: I also wanted to
ask about, you know, many historians
of the Civil Rights Movement
when they write about Albany,
have called it a failure, they
focus on King's work in Albany.
It wasn't able to get
concessions moved on the movements
over in Albany, which is as far from
the truth as it's possible to be
when you look at it through the
lens of the Sherrods and others
in the movement and how that
movement continued and continues
to today, as you can see.
So, one of your fellow seminarians
who went down with Sherrod
and actually ended up staying
there for 10 years, Jose Fister,
in 1968 wrote something that I want
you to respond to if you would.
And he wrote at that time in 1968,
he's looking forward and he's saying
in order for the Southwest
Georgia Movement to survive,
we'll need a long-range
perspective on the movement
and a generous definition
of progress.
And I wonder if you
can respond to that.
>> Glen Pearcy: Just to drop a name,
I was talking with Shirley a few
days ago in preparation for today.
And unprompted, she said to me, "You
know, all the history books talk
about the Albany Movement as a
failure and they talk about that
because that was one place
where King got run out of town."
You know, Charles and Shirley
have been doing this for 50 years,
folks and -- and as
you can see from --
I wanted to show these two
little clips at the end to --
to show you how this thing
has come full circle.
I mean, you know, if you
look at the land issue --
victory in '68, failure in '85,
I'm not going to kill myself,
I'm going to keep on going.
Victory in 2008 or '09
or whenever it was.
I mean, you talk about a long-term
vision, that's what victory is
and it's -- History books
to the extent they reflect
that opinion have it wrong.
>> David Cline: And maybe
we can illustrate that,
we can team tell this
little story from 2009,
we were down there
together in the area.
And the Sherrods organized
a bus tour --
there were a bunch of former
volunteers, I got to tag along.
And the bus tour went out into all
the counties where these young men
and women had worked
50 years earlier.
And I had -- I had the
best seat, I got to say.
I was sitting right behind Shirley
Sherrod and Charles Sherrod.
And her cell phone kept ringing
as we were driving around.
And she -- the first time she said,
"Yeah, we're about an hour away."
And then, "Yeah, we're
about 15 minutes away.
Yeah, we're about 5 minutes away."
And finally, I leaned forward
and said, "What's going on?"
And she said, "Just you wait."
And we pull off the highway and
there's about three police cars
and a fire truck sitting there.
Now what was the reaction of the --
>> Glen Pearcy: I just
asked David about this.
I had this reaction and I
wasn't sure everybody else did,
he confirms that most of
the bus felt this way.
"Oh, crap, what are
they going to do now?"
You know. This is --
this is 40 years later,
they're still going to mess with us?
Well, they were there
to escort us into town.
It was the black sheriff
and the black --
>> David Cline: Fire chief.
>> Glen Pearcy: --
fire chief and members
of the school board,
to escort us into town.
This was Dawson, Georgia
in terrible Terrell County.
Dawson is where, months before
we arrived there in '67,
the local project house
had been shot
into with a 50-caliber machine gun.
Now we're getting escorted by the
black sheriff and the black chief
of police and the black fire chief,
a measure of something for sure.
>> David Cline: Absolutely
an incredible moment.
I -- one final question,
which is I wonder
if you could just tell us a
little bit more about, you know,
you were very humbling
saying you didn't know how
to make films at this point.
Obviously, you learned as the
academy agreed a few years later.
I wonder if you could talk
about your growth as an activist
and as a filmmaker, the work that
you did with farm workers and sort
of where you saw this moment in
your life and how that pushed you.
>> Glen Pearcy: Well, it
was a formative moment,
both personally and professionally.
The film is -- has a lot of
weaknesses as you all witness,
but it -- I started
making films then and I --
I've continued ever
since and it's been --
been my career and
I've been privileged
to be witness to things like this.
Susan and I, a few years later,
went on from Georgia and worked
with the United Farm Workers --
made a film there and after that,
I made films for the labor movement
and other progressing organizations.
So, it was a watershed for me and --
Much as I wince at the shortcomings
of the film, I also -- it's some of
the best photography I -- I've done.
And it's a -- was a privilege
to be present to be able to --
to photograph the real folks, the
real heroes of -- of the movement.
>> David Cline: And I'll just
say, as somebody who's interested
in history and came following
this trail so many years later,
is just such a treasure trove to
find this and we're so grateful
to you for bringing this to
the Library of Congress --
Library of Congress for taking
in this tremendous collection.
So, let's turn it over to
you for questions, for Glen.
Anyone like to start us off?
Yes?
>> Female speaker: What
happened to the two children
that were picked up and taken away?
>> Glen Pearcy: You mean
the Ida Mae Young story?
>> Female speaker: Yes.
>> Glen Pearcy: You know, it's been
so long I guess I can't remember.
I think they were basically
thrown out of school, probably.
Typical of this kind of struggle.
But that family, you don't
mess with that family.
>> Female speaker: How did
they get them back [inaudible]?
>> Glen Pearcy: She
had this -- they --
she didn't know where they
were, nobody would tell her.
She said she had to call Washington
D.C. I don't know all the details,
but they finally found
their kids, but I don't --
I honestly don't know
whether they ever went back
to that school or not.
But just -- just typical, just what
folks had to -- folks had to endure.
Nine kids in that family and you saw
-- you saw how strong that woman is.
Don't mess with Ida Mae Young.
Anybody else?
>> Guha Shankar: Glen, I want to
take you back to the very beginning.
And how did you end
up in Montgomery?
You sort of alluded to it a little
bit, but I wanted to take you back
to 1965, if you want to talk
about that, if you would.
>> Glen Pearcy: Uh, Guha's going to
make me do another name-dropping.
As I said, I was on
my school newspaper
when Bloody Sunday happened.
The -- I think he was
managing editor at that time,
he was the next-year president.
There's the Harvard Crimson, Donnie
Graham was the managing editor
of the Crimson at that time.
Donnie said, "You know,
we should cover this."
And had enough commitment to do
it that he loaned us his car.
So three of us got in Donnie
Graham's mustang convertible
[laughter] and drove
down to Montgomery
overnight, drove overnight.
And it took a couple of days,
at least a couple hours to --
to get acclimated, by which I mean,
you know, three Harvard white boys
in a mustang drive around the
black part of town and trying
to take photographs of
the SNICC mass meetings.
Well, it all worked out, but I have
to say, that's a tribute to Don --
Donnie's vision that guided
him through 30 or 40 years
as publisher of the Post.
>> David Cline: Anybody else?
>> Male speaker: Glen, do all of
your films sever around civil rights
or do you do other subjects as well?
>> Glen Pearcy: No, I would say
that -- I would say that this film
and the farm worker film
are my two movement films.
Since then, I've done
other similar things for --
the most similar things
are stuff I've done
for labor unions in the 70s and 80s.
I've done some other work for --
that I'm particularly pleased with
for local, national, organizational.
Alliance for Justice -- their
struggle with the courts,
court appointments, Supreme Court --
that kind of stuff
is what I've done.
>> Male speaker: What
was the reaction,
in reference to your
immediate family?
I know if I had a child at that
age, you're driving in a convertible
in that part of the
country during that time,
I'd be -- I'd be a nervous wreck.
>> David Cline: No, that -- if
we were nervous, it soon passed.
We were -- within a few days,
we were part of the family.
>> Male speaker: No, your
family, your mom, your dad?
>> David Cline: Oh, that, oh that!
[laughter] Sure, I mean, Susan
and I come from St. Louis,
both raised in good
Midwestern Republican families
who were probably scared to death
when we went down to Georgia.
Probably disapproving, but -- but
-- My father would never tell me,
but my mother whispered to me years
later that -- that he started --
he joined a couple of
Dr. King's marches,
which was very gratifying to me.
You know, people are who
they are and people change.
And you should be grateful for that.
Thank you for that question.
Anybody else?
>> Thea Austen: Here comes the mike.
>> Male Speaker:
[ Inaudible ]
the film at the end [inaudible]
Southwest Georgia Project did they
use that as a way of aiding
support -- how did they use that?
>> Glen Pearcy: That's
a good question
and the answer is mostly,
I'm not sure.
I made it for Charles
and the project he used
for fundraising and organizing.
I'm sure he did, but -- I
had the fault of many people
who make works that, you
know, you finish it --
you want to make the piece,
you want it to be good
and then you're on
to the next thing.
And I'm not an organizer.
I'm a lousy organizer and so I -- my
intent was to put this in the hands
of people who are good
organizers so they can use it.
Good question because I know
you're a good organizer.
>> David Cline: I'll just say,
I think it was used that way
for at least a little while.
And when I was following the
breadcrumb trail, I started to hear
from people, "Oh, hey there was this
guy, Glen Pearcy, who was down there
and he shot, you know,
took some photographs."
Great photographer, set up --
you actually set up a dark room,
right -- and shot this footage.
So then I was on that
trail to sort of find it.
But I don't think it had been
seen in like -- in quite a while.
>> Glen Pearcy: Speaking of
which, I would encourage anybody
who has a question about any
of the still photographs,
maybe nobody does, but I didn't want
the film to overwhelm the stills.
Anybody has a question about
still photographs they saw,
I'd be happy to answer them.
>> Male speaker: I have the
same question about the stills,
which is how were they used?
>> Glen Pearcy: Same answer.
[Laughter].
Same -- I mean, I -- I don't think
about -- you know, it's strange.
I don't think about -- I don't
follow up on how they're used.
I take the photographs and I'll
tell you one way they were used.
David was there, we were
back a couple years ago
for the 50th anniversary of
the founding of the project,
which was founded in '61 and
I took a dozen or two dozen
of the photographs from Georgia
town and put them up on a board
and people came by
and -- and were moved.
"I know him.
I know him."
And for me, it was --
it was difficult because that
beautiful shot of the Hall children
in their kitchen, two in
the back, one in front --
somebody came up and said,
"Well, he's dead, he's dead,"
in several of the photographs.
Those are always children.
I suddenly realized, those
are children in my mind.
They can't be dead.
Look at those children, you
know, they're alive forever.
Anyway, that's just me.
>> Male speaker: Glenn, it
seems that the technology
of making the sorts of images
that you made 50 years ago
is much more available now.
That I wondered if we have the same
interests in generating the sort
of document that you generated in
answering to social problems then,
the environmental problems
and societal problems today?
>> Glen Pearcy: I don't know.
I think there are filmmakers
and photographers
out there doing that sort of thing.
We're in a different period now and
the -- the country is not in a --
in a revolutionary period-- that
may be a little big, but you know,
it was a -- So you know, Susan
and I were lucky to have been
at the center of that
for a few years.
And you know, what
does Woody Allen say?
"90% of genius is showing up."
Well, we were lucky enough to
be there and I was lucky enough
to have camera in my hand.
I must make one little
comment about that.
I've been working on the stills
for Guha for some time now.
By today's standards, I'm
astonished at how few images I made.
Now I made dozens, but
a still photographer
with a digital camera today, takes
dozens every minute, you know?
A still photographer today
in that situation would take
at least a 100 times as
many photographs as I took.
And it's partly because
of the technology.
You had to get the -- you
had to shoot the film,
you had to buy the
film, you had to --
I built a darkroom in the back of
the shack we lived in, you know?
You had to process it with chemicals
and all that sort of stuff.
It was all more --
everything was more precious
and you didn't just rattle it off.
You thought about what you were
going to shoot and then you shot it.
But, anyway.
>> Guha Shankar: Actually, I
like that one editorial comment
about just pick up
at that last point --
we at the American Folklife
Center and I think Maricia Battle
and others who curate photography
collections are the heirs
to the legacy of photographers who
just put their cameras on automatic
and just shoot away until
they don't know what's
in front of their camera anymore.
And it's a pleasure to
watch somebody like Glen,
who is such a meticulous craftsman.
I've had a chance to see some of the
photographs -- who frames the shot,
Who actually knows what it
means to like shoot in context,
who actually knows how to like --
give you something about the
visual image and those images
of Jenkins Church are
absolutely stunning.
The shot of Dr. King is
just, you know, luminous.
And maybe, you know, somebody
who has shot 15,000, you know,
shots of that might've
been able to pick one,
but it's right -- right
to Glen's hand.
So I think there's something about
discipline that Glen's talking
about in terms of his craft,
which is really, really important,
which I think gets lost in this
digital age that we now inhabit.
>> Glen Pearcy: I just, really have
to tell you, just very briefly.
And this is not patting
myself on the back,
it's letting you know how
much things have changed.
Some of those -- many of those
photographs are the only frame I
took of that scene.
The one I like of the little
boy on the bed watching his,
I think it's his older
cousin, practice the trombone.
I don't know if you noticed that
or not, that's just one frame.
There's not seven of those
or 77 of those, there's one.
The shot of Rosie and
her son, the blind woman.
There's two or three frames of that.
You know, the training
we went through then --
training, the way we learned then,
was you find the right moment
and then you take the picture.
You don't put your camera up and
let it rattle on and then go back
and look through all 127
frames and find the right one.
You found the right one
before you take the picture.
>> David Cline: This may be a
obvious point, but I just want
to add, what an incredibly important
part of the movement witnessing is,
being there and witnessing
in this way
and allowing other
people to be there.
And that's certainly -- I
think of like the strength
of Emma Till's mother
in having an open casket
and the incredible
impact of that image --
that that image had
witnessing around the country.
>> Female Speaker: Do you have any
still photographs of the funeral of,
I believe his name was Junior,
in the beginning of the film?
>> Glen Pearcy: The funeral
that was in the film?
No. I was totally occupied with the
little motion picture camera I had,
so I don't have any stills of that.
>> Guha Shankar: Okay, I
think that wraps it up.
Please, a round of applause for
Glen Pearcy and David Kline.
[ Applause ]
[ Silence ]
>> This has been a presentation
of The Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.