SFFS at SFSU - Fall 2012 Semester - visitors welcome!!

LAST UPDATED: September 28, 2012
Below is the course schedule of PLSI 357 at SFSU (Political Movements: Lessons from Freedom Summer).

This is the course that was developed over six summers as the SF Freedom School (2005-2010), which took place in the Parish Hall of St. Francis Lutheran Church.  This Fall (2012) will be the FOURTH time this course has been taught at SFSU.

Fall 2012 Class is at Hensil Hall room 439
MONDAYS and WEDNESDAYS from 2:10 to 3:50 pm
PLEASE DROP IN WHENEVER!  questions? mke4think@gmail.com

Textbook: Lessons from Freedom Summer  
The Southern Freedom Movement as a case study of how social movements happen, illustrating the Key Components of a successful social movement:

• identifying the problem
• doing your homework (research)
• personal relationship and community building
• building an infrastructure
• development of local leadership
• creating coalitions
• strategic use of the arts
• strategic use of nonviolent direct resistance
• learning how to deal with the contradictions within the movement



Chude Allen

• and being in the right historical moment.

August 29th : Community
Movie: When We Were Colored 

September 5th : The 1968 Strike and the 2012 Experimental College
Movie: SFSU on Strike 

September 10th: Black Labor History (infrastructure)

September 12th: Ida B. Wells and A. Philip Randolph (research and infrastructure)
Movie: 10,000 Men Named George 

September 17th: NAACP (infrastructure and research)
Movie: With All Deliberate Speed

September 19th : Why become an Activist?
Guest Speaker: Chude Allen

Wazir Peacock

September 24th: personal relationships, local leadership, identifying the problem
Movie: You Got to Move

September 26th : The Montgomery Bus Boycott - coalitions, local leadership and the strategic use of nonviolent direct action. Movie: Boycott (excerpts) 

October 1: Sit Ins and the formation of SNCC
Movie: When We Were Warriors 

October 3:  The Strategic Use of Nonviolent Direct Action
Guest Speaker: Bruce Hartford   

October 10:  Effective Communication Workshop
Guest Speakers: Will Nelson and Kelly Corwin, SFSU Exco students

October 15: Freedom Rides 
movie: Freedom Riders (excerpts) 

October  17: Freedom Rides
Guest Speaker: Mimi Real (Freedom Rider)  

October 22: The White Power Structure in Mississippi  

October 24: Freedom Summer – Mississippi 1960-63
Movie: Freedom Song 

October 29: Freedom Summer
Movie: Eyes on the Prize  

October 31: Guest Speaker: Wazir Peacock   

November 5: Lessons from Freedom Summer  

November 7:  Selma to Montgomery
Movie: Eyes on the Prize: Bridge to Freedom (excerpts)   

November 14: Guest Speaker: Jimmy Rogers (SNCC organizer in Lowndes County, Alabama)  

November 26: From Civil Rights to Black Power 
Movie: Orangeburg Massacre   

November 28: Guest Speaker: Phil Hutchings
SNCC, 1963-70, Georgia, Maryland, Tennessee
Phil was one of the most effective urban organizers of the Sixties and Seventies.  In 1966, he was the leading SNCC field secretary in Newark, NJ--"the urban Mississippi."  Phil became a national SNCC leader in 1968. He was actively involved in the anti-Vietnam War and peace movements and was one of the founders of the Venceramos Brigade. For many years, Phil lived in Detroit where he was involved in organizing young people around issues of education, community control of educational institutions and drug abuse. He was a regular columnist for the Guardian newspaper and a board member of PRSC, an organization in support of independence for Puerto Rico. After moving to the Bay Area of San Francisco, he has worked on organizing multi-racial/multi-ethnic coalitions (e.g., Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and Just Cause), neighborhood organizing and serves as a technical and financial consultant for non profit organizations. He was the grants director for the Vanguard Foundation. He is an active participant in the Bay Area Veterans of the CivilRights Movement and consultant to neighborhood organizations.

Organize to support Ron Bridgeforth

Ways to support Ron Bridgeforth's defense

• send money:  Checks should be made to "Paul Harris" and sent to him at: 20 Quickstep Lane #1; San Francisco, CA 94115.
• help his wife find a job: She taught African American Literature at Eastern Michigan University, Department of English Language and Literature from 2005-2010
• Attend his sentencing hearing (March 23?), contact monadiane@gmail.com for details.

         contact Mike Miller (415 648-6894 )for details on any of these three ways to help.

Here are excerpts from the SF Chronicle story on November 22, 2011

Ron Bridgeforth was a SNCC organizer in Mississippi in 1964.  He moved to SNCC's SF office after Freedom Summer.  In 1968,

Police were called to a White Front discount store on El Camino Real in South San Francisco on a report of a customer arguing with store employees. Bridgeforth admits he was trying to buy toys and clothing for kids in the community with a stolen credit card.

Bridgeforth said he panicked when police arrived. According to prosecutors, he took a handgun out of his pocket and led the store manager and two police officers to the front of the store. He had jumped into a waiting car with two other men when a third police officer arrived and blocked the getaway car's path.

Authorities said Bridgeforth opened fire, hitting the car but none of the officers, who returned fire. Bridgeforth was shot in the foot, his getaway car crashed, and the men were arrested.

"It was incredibly reckless, stupid and dangerous," he said last week. He called the incident "an aberration in my life."

He was arrested but jumped bail and went into hiding for the next 44 years under an assumed name.

"The politics of the Bay Area were really volatile," he said. "I left because I didn't want to go to jail for the rest of my life." 

After going to New York, Senegal, Gambia, back to LA and SF and then getting married in Atlanta, Bridgeforth

moved his family north and settled in Michigan. He worked as a welder and custodian while earning his bachelor's degree from Wayne State University. In 1993, he graduated with a master's degree in counseling. In 1998, he joined the faculty at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Mich....One of his former students, Kelly Mendenhall, said Bridgeforth transformed her life when she met him in 2000. Once a depressed college dropout, she credits Bridgeforth with motivating her to re-enroll and said he guided her through college.

. . . . Bridgeforth said he and [his wife] discussed surrendering to authorities several times over the years. Each time, they decided against it, saying they wanted to give their sons a normal childhood. Now those boys are in their 30s. They never knew about their father's past until recently, when Bridgeforth said he had to address some legal problems in California.
"My sons didn't ever know their families," he said. That included his sons' 81-year-old grandmother, who Bridgeforth discovered was still alive after an Internet search turned up her name on meeting minutes from community organizations.
"I really thought I had lost my mother, and she thought she lost me," he said.

crmvet.org website - What's New!

28,776 different people visited the CRMVets website during December. On school days that's about 1500 per day (fewer when school is out of session, of course).  The website's annual statistics report for 2011 is now posted at:
http://www.crmvet.org/rpt1201.htm. The reports shows total usage stats for the year as reported by Google (270,570 different visitors in 2011, for example). It also report the most popular pages and sections.

Starting today, we've discontinued the Guestbook and are replacing it with a new Blog that can be found at: http://crmvet.org/wordpress/. We're just setting this up now and it needs to be tested. Please try it out and let me know if there are any problems.

New postings on the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website since our last update:

*Blog* http://crmvet.org/wordpress/

"Veterans Roll Call" (http://www.crmvet.org/vet/vethome.htm)

       George Blevins, CORE Freedom Rider 1961
       http://www.crmvet.org/vet/blevinsg.htm

       Ray E. Holmes, NAACP, CORE, 1960-64, Florida
       http://www.crmvet.org/vet/holmesr.htm

       Alan Reich, MFDP, COFO, 1965, Mississippi
       http://www.crmvet.org/vet/reicha.htm


"In Memory" (http://www.crmvet.org/mem/memhome.htm)

       Mimi Shaw Hayes
       http://www.crmvet.org/mem/hayesm.htm

       Bob Mants
       http://www.crmvet.org/mem/mantsb.htm

     
"The Freedom Movement" (http://www.crmvet.org/info/infohome.htm)

       "SCLC/SCOPE Project," by Maria Gitin (2011)
       http://www.crmvet.org/info/scope1.htm

     
"History & Timeline" (http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhome.htm)

       "Alabama Attacks Black Leaders," (1960-1964)
       http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960sullivan


"Letters From the Field" (http://www.crmvet.org/lets/letshome.htm)

       Letter From Jim Boebel (MS) 1964
       http://www.crmvet.org/lets/6405_boebel.pdf

       The School Boycott, Moultrie, GA. Herman Kitchen. 1965
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/kitchen.htm

       Position Paper: Funds-Sources & Staff Salaries. 1965?          
       Joanne Gavin (SNCC) [PDF]
       http://www.crmvet.org/lets/65_gavin_staff.pdf

       Gulfport, MS. Report & Analysis, Sam Walker [PDF] 1965
       http://www.crmvet.org/lets/65_gulfport_report.pdf

       Letter From Natchez, MS, Jim [lastname?] [PDF]  1965
       http://www.crmvet.org/lets/6507_natchez_letter.pdf

             
"Our Stories" (http://www.crmvet.org/nars/narshome.htm)

       Fannie Lou Hamer Interview: "Winona, Mississippi" [PDF]
       (Her description of 1963 Winona jail atrocity.)
       http://www.crmvet.org/nars/63_flh_winona.pdf

       "Bertie County, NC: Taking the 1700s into the 20th Century"
       Hunter Bear (John R. Salter). 2011.
       http://www.crmvet.org/nars/bertieco.htm

       "In the New York SNCC Office," Alan Reich 2011
       http://www.crmvet.org/nars/reich63.htm

       Peter Nemenyi Interview, 2000
       http://www.crmvet.org/nars/nemenyi.htm

     
"Movement Documents" (http://www.crmvet.org/docs/dochome.htm)

       "Heed Their Rising Voices," (SCLC)
       York Times ad of the "New York Times v Sullivan" case
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/60nyt_ad.htm

       "Memo on Organizing," Mike Miller. 1964 (SNCC) [PDF]
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/6410_sncc_miller.pdf

       SNCC Staff Retreat Minutes, November, 1964 [PDF]
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/6411_sncc_staff_min.pdf

       Gulfport MS, "Liberty Bell," 1965. (Local newsletter) [PDF]
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/65_gulfport_newsletter.pdf

       SNCC Executive Committee Minutes, April, 1965. [Large PDF]
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/6504_sncc_excom_min.pdf

       SNCC Alabama Staff Meeting Minutes, April, 1965. [Large PDF]
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/6504_sncc_al_staff_min.pdf

       "SCLC/SCOPE Orientation Brochure," 1965
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/scope1.htm

       List of SCOPE Volunteers, 1965 [PDF]
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/scopevols.pdf

       Program: Martin Luther King Funeral, 1968       [PDF]
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/68_mlk_funeral.pdf

       Alabama map, showing Black Belt counties. [PDF]
       http://www.crmvet.org/docs/al_blackbelt.pdf


"Our Thoughts" (http://www.crmvet.org/comm/commhome.htm)

       "Another Account of the Second Freedom Summer," Jo Freeman
       Review of "My Summer Vacation: 1965" (SCOPE)
       http://www.crmvet.org/comm/freeman2.htm

       "The Dark and Poor Must Join OWS!" Curtis Muhammad
       http://www.crmvet.org/comm/curtis4.htm


"Poetry" (http://www.crmvet.org/poetry/poemhome.htm)
(The Poetry section is one of the most-visited parts of the site.)

       Two new poems by Molly Watt
               "Captive"
               "Race Riff"
       http://www.crmvet.org/poetry/pmolly.htm


"Photo Album" (http://www.crmvet.org/images/imghome.htm)

       New collection: "We're Going to March in St. Augustine"
       http://www.crmvet.org/images/imgstaug.htm

     
"Web Links" (http://www.crmvet.org/crmlinks.htm)
Updated, revised, & expanded.


As always comments, suggestions, corrections, and submissions from Freedom Movement Veterans are welcome. Veterans of the Southern Freedom Movement who are listed on the website's Roll Call are encouraged to contribute to the website their stories, thoughts, documents, and memories & tributes of those who have passed on by emailing them to webmaster@crmvet.org.