Head Start Meets the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi (1966)

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And we've been struggling for weeks and stayed away from them. - Marion Wright is one of the few Negro members of the Mississippi Bar, and a founding director of CDGM. - There isn't a political deal involved here. Let them prove it. Sargent Shriver himself a couple months ago said this was the best program in the nation and what we're going to have to ask him is how that changed all of a sudden. The problem that was wrong with this program is that you were too good. [crowd acclaims] And the problem that was wrong with this program is that all of a sudden, Negroes find out that they can run things as well and better than white folks could run them. [cheers] - As we look across the United States... - Richard Boone is a former OEO Director of Community Action. - This program stands out as about the only big program in which poor people have and must continue to have the chance to help themselves out of poverty. - Support from labor groups,

churchmen and independent citizens was coming in from all parts of the country, even at the OEO offices in Washington. Staff members signed a petition to save CDGM. - Your program is a great example of an effort of a people to move beyond all this into basic programs to help themselves. - We want you people to stand up and speak and let OEO and everybody else know we ain't turning around. - If this CAP takes over, then our people will be without work or anything to do. They'll all be employed by professional people. We feel like the professional people is already in position to get jobs and whatnot. But we want to try to help the people that's on the common level. - Of course, they won't hire them.

Who they are hiring now. If this factor into place is the one that haven't taken no part in no movement and no nothing than the ones that brought it, they and the ones that... and the ones that hadn't did anything but sit back and criticize down the ones has got the job. - I think that something is happening here that the poor people of Mississippi and when I say poor people, I do not refer only to the poor colored people but the poor people of Mississippi cannot afford to have. And that is if people can sit down and pick for you the people who will represent you, then those people can pick any person they choose. - See, I want people to think about struggling and controlling your own program and running the debate again because we ain't never had chance to run nothing in your life. - We don't need that Mr. Charlet to operate CDGM for us.

We've done it and we can do it again and we are going to do it again. - And we ain't gonna let nobody but I mean nobody, nobody ain't gonna pick out five or six Toms that's gonna set there and you can see the wisdom teeth first because he's grinning. [cheers] - Fanny Lou Hamer brought the enormous energy of the Civil Rights Movement to the Fight for CDGM. - The first thing you see is his wisdom tooth and he's getting ready to say, yassir! [crowd laughs and applauds] But you know, something I'm not disgusted I feel better than I've felt in a long time. Because all of these people here we've got to do something.

And we've been down so long we ain't got no other way to go but up. [cheers] The people from Harlem said, babies, tell us when you want us to come. The people in Watts say, honey, we're coming! See, because the Toms have been using us too. The citizens for progress and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Said, baby, we are all the way with you. And we got to let people know how we feel. We are not satisfied because we know this poverty program if these politicians handle it with the few Toms that they got picked out. We'll be in the worse of shape people in the next two years, we've ever been in our lives. We are not going to have it. We're going to fight for what means something to us. So now we're ready to tell it because you see,

we want people all over America to know that we're fighting on a principle. And we're going to say, now, go and tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go and tell it on the mountain to let my people go. Now everybody sing that, you know it. [singing] Go tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain to let my people go. - The struggle went on for another two months. Finally, just before Christmas, the OEO compromised. A reduced CDGM program was funded for another year. Poor Blacks in Mississippi have won more than a grant. They have won a share in the power that others have had for themselves.

- [singing] Go tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere.

Head Start Meets the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi (1966)

In mid-1960s Mississippi, the struggles for community control of Community Action Programs (CAPs) were grafted atop a bubbling political battle between the grassroots Black Freedom Struggle and the white segregationist political elite. One focus was the Head Start program, which provided preschool education to low-income residents—in Mississippi, virtually all participants were Black. The program was administered by the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM), which was staffed and led by Black community members, many of whom were active in civil rights activism. Many white Mississippians viewed CDGM and the Head Start program as a front for subversive activity, and multiple Head Start centers were burned down. Local white political leaders eventually pressured the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO, the federal agency that oversaw War on Poverty programs) to defund CDGM and put the Head Start program in the hands of a white-majority board (with a few moderate African Americans). In this clip from a 1966 NET Journal episode called Head Start in Mississippi, black activists and community members rally to save CDGM’s funding and restore its control of Head Start. It includes an electrifying speech by legendary grassroots leader Fannie Lou Hamer, and generally shows how battles for community control of War on Poverty programs intersected with the fight for Black freedom.

LHead Start in Mississippi | Thirteen WNET | December 26, 1966 This clip and associated transcript appear from 52:01 - 58:25 in the full record.

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