I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle“With this history of the civil rights movement focusing on Everyman-turned-hero, the commoner as crusader for justice, Payne challenges the old idea that history is the biography of great men.”—Kirkus Reviews “Remarkably astute in its judgments and strikingly sophisticated in its analyses . . . it is one of the most significant studies of the Black freedom struggle yet published.”—David J. Garrow, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Bearing the Cross “This extremely important book clearly reveals the logic of how ordinary people propelled the civil rights movement. . . . [It] provides a basis for optimism as we approach the next century.”—Aldon Morris, author of The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement |
Contents
SETTING THE STAGE | 7 |
TESTING THE LIMITS Black Activism in Postwar Mississippi | 29 |
GIVE LIGHT AND THE PEOPLE WILL FIND A WAY The Roots of an Organizing Tradition | 67 |
MOVING ON MISSISSIPPI | 103 |
GREENWOOD Building on the Past | 132 |
IF YOU DONT GO DONT HINDER ME The Redefinition of Leadership | 180 |
THEY KEPT THE STORY BEFORE ME Families and Traditions | 207 |
SLOW AND RESPECTFUL WORK Organizers and Organizing | 236 |
CARRYING ON The Politics of Empowerment | 317 |
FROM SNCC TO SLICK The Demoralization of the Movement | 338 |
MRS HAMER IS NO LONGER RELEVANT The Loss of the Organizing Tradition | 363 |
THE ROUGH DRAFT OF HISTORY | 391 |
EPILOGUE | 407 |
The Social Construction of History | 413 |
NOTES | 443 |
INTERVIEWS | 489 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aaron Henry active activists Amzie Moore arrested became Black Power Block Bob Moses boycott campaign canvassing CDGM church Citizenship Schools Civil Rights Movement COFO coro cotton County Delta developed early Ella Baker federal Forman Freedom Summer going Greene Greenwood Gus Courts Hamer Highlander Hollis Watkins Holmes County interview involved Jackson jail Johnson killed King leaders leadership Leflore Leflore County lives lynchings mass meeting McComb McGhee Medgar Evers ment Miss Baker Mississippi move Myrlie NAACP Negro nonviolence organizers participation person police political Press racial Reverend role rural SCLC sense Septima Clark Silas sit-ins SNCC workers SNCC's social Soul Is Rested South southern staff story Struggle summer T. R. M. Howard talk things thought tion told took town tradition trying violence vote voter voter-registration wanted Willie Peacock women York young Zellner
Popular passages
Page 1 - Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.