Walker -- Report and Analysis of Community Organizing in Gulfport Miss. (Samuel Walker Papers, 1964-1966; Archives Main Stacks, Mss 655, Box 2, Folder 1)
View
@ Wisconsin Historical Society
Walker, Samuel
Description
This 1965 report by two volunteers on their community organizing efforts in Gulfport, Mississippi, is fascinating from several respects. The authors depict Gulfport as a more liberal, wealthier, and whiter part of Mississippi than most other COFO centers, primarily due to its tourist industry and air force base. The black community also differed, say the authors, because its wealthy--and allegedly corrupt--leaders had a vested interest in maintaining the white-dominated status quo. The authors record their discouragement with their Freedom Summer work and their sense that, as white volunteers, they were perpetuating a form of the existing white power structure and not making permanent changes in the poorer people's consciousness, status, or institutions. They go on to describe 1965 efforts at community organizing in which poor blacks successfully challenged the black leadership's collusion with the white power structure and felt empowered by their experiences. One of the most interes
Text
Reports And Surveys
Copyright to these documents belongs to the individuals who created them or the organizations for which they worked. The principal organizations have been defunct for many years and copyright to their unpublished records is uncertain. We share them here strictly for non-profit educational purposes. We have attempted to contact individuals who created personal papers of significant length or importance. Nearly all have generously permitted us to include their work. If you believe that you possess copyright to material included here, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org. Under the fair use provisions of the U.S. copyright law, teachers and students are free to reproduce any document for nonprofit classroom use. Commercial use of copyright-protected material is generally prohibited.
Record Contributed By
Wisconsin Historical SocietyRecord Harvested From
Recollection WisconsinKeywords
- African Americans
- Black Power
- Civil Rights
- Civil Rights Movements
- Clergy
- Community Centers
- Council Of Federated Organizations (U.S.)
- Else, John
- Head Start Programs
- Labor Unions
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
- National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People
- Police
- Segregation
- Social Perception
- Volunteers
- Voter Registration
- Walker, Sam