We talked about what an organization like the YWCA is trying to do, in this country today as it works on a program of desegregation and integration. Since I carry that major responsibility, I have the task of interpreting what it is that we mean when we say that we’re working so that there will be no vestige of segregation within the association life and within the community. I was pleased at the response because here were women who already had accepted that as a national goal. The thing that was puzzling them was how they could be more effective in Jackson, where the barriers are so high and where the reprisals are threatened on every side.

I reached for several examples and mentioned Partners for Progress in Atlanta. One of the women most hopeful in the group

As all of this proceeded, Mrs. Logan had asked for some matches. They hadn’t come, so we reminded the hostess, and she said, “Well, if you wanted matches, get them yourself.” Well, then, this gave us a warning,, and I think at that moment all of us remembered, you know, like what mother said don’t do–it all came to us at that moment that we were told not to be out after dark by ourselves, not to go anywhere without having everyone aware of where we were. All of this, you know, came before us very clear.

But there were, the Negro help that was in the kitchen came to the door, and they looked on, and they were very much concerned. We began to see Negro busboys who were nonexistent before this, began to appear, and they were sort of removing ashtrays that weren’t quite dirty, and they were just sort of hovering about. Well, after a while, one of them, the waitress brought out the famous fruit salad, which was the most beautiful fruit salad I had ever seen. Meanwhile, we had one of our group made a call to Doris Wilson to let her know where we were.

Then, the man who had seated us, came over and he said–and this is the part that I want also to stress–he said, “Are y’all from Jackson?” Mrs. Harvey said, “Oh, yes.” I think Mrs. Logan and I were about to say that we’re from New York, but once she had said this, and he followed saying, “Are you sure?” And, she said, “Yes,”

But there was three children in the group and they had not said one word, all the time the class had been in session over the several days. Suddenly, she looked at one child’s face when they were in a discussion, and they were talking about this, and were asking why is it that anyone acts like Uncle Tom. Why do you think he does this? Someone said, “Well, because white people act like they are better.” And this child interrupted and said, “white people are better than colored people because…” She never got the sentence finished because the whole group pounced on her. And, said this young teacher–and I think trying to silence them–said, “Oh, don’t do that. Of course I don’t agree with her, but…” And she said, “I realized at that moment that I had added that extra blow, and that we had all shut her off.” So, she sat there.

The thing I felt out of this was that all I could do was to say this was very well-known experience with anyone who is in the teaching profession, but that the important thing was that she would have another opportunity, and that she might try different things. We talked about different kinds of methods that might be used and how she might pursue this. The thing she said was, “I kept saying to myself, here’s the moment, I’ve been praying for it, and I was the one who destroyed it.” I think that when we hear about what’s going on, and what the young people are doing, I think there will be many mistakes that are made, but I had a feeling that there are some very fine, sensitive, highly trained people who really are trying to do a job, and who really know that no matter what else happens in Mississippi, that the changes in Mississippi will come as both white and Negro children and adults get some new sense of self, so that they will rise up and claim the freedom that is their own birthright. I came back really feeling that we could many times wish that in communities all over the country there were little children gathering, looking at the problems of the century, and then trying to see what harm had come to them through it, but also that they had this kind

However, that evening in Jackson, we were taken to Campbell College, which is a Negro college, and we attended a meeting of WomanPower Unlimited. I’d say there were about fifty women there from the colored community, a couple of white people. The chairman was Mrs. Harvey to whom Miss Height referred, quite a dynamic woman, and I’m sure a very powerful leader. We started with a prayer, and then she reviewed how this organization had come into being. Now, the women were very simple, for the most part, unpretentious women, and they first began to realize what they could do when the Freedom Riders came down there a few years ago, many of them without lodging or food and very little money. The colored community of these women were called upon to provide food and lodging, and they did it. Evidently, for the first time, they realized how great their power was. I think it was Mrs. Harvey said God’s power they learned is unlimited and God will not limit the power of the people who do his work. And the leaders are very, very thrilled.

Now, this group has been organized now for several years. Now of course, this summer they have a project, and the project is to take care of the volunteers. One example of what, two examples of what they have done. In Jackson, COFO rented an apartment in the second story of a rather old-fashioned house, and six or seven

Now, there was, there were many memorable moments, but one I think the most rewarding moment to me was at the Freedom School at the church. I’ve forgotten which church it was, Dorothy, you remember? Yes. There were these little children nine, ten, eleven years-old who were the reporters of a newspaper they called “The Freedom Press.” This little boy walked up. Jeanie had one of them, she was sitting in the pew just in front of me, and I think Dorothy’s was across the aisle. I’m sitting in the back, and this little boy came up and asked could he interview me, and I told him I would be delighted. So he said, “What is your name?” and I told him, “Marian Logan.” Then for about fifteen minutes he proceeded to give me this long dissertation, not asking me questions but telling me the whole story of the Mississippi business, you see. It was all so pat and together and everything, like it was well rehearsed. It was pretty wonderful. After a while, he kind of lost me. I don’t know what I was doing. I was looking at other things or thinking about other things. And out of nowhere–and as far as I’m concerned, apropos of nothing–came this remark, “It was just like when we were fighting in the school yard and the principal came out and said ‘you mustn’t fight with each other, you must stick together and fight the white race.’ Now, don’t you think that’s right?” Well, I said, “No, son, I don’t.” So, he said, “Why?” I said, “Well,” and I happened to see the back of Jeannie’s head–you really saved me, you don’t know how, Jeanie–I saw her little blonde head, and then these two teachers, white teachers, came by at the same time, two wonderful young men. And I said, “Well, you see, my friend Mrs. Benjamin sitting there and these two gentlemen. Aren’t they nice? Don’t you like them?” He said, “Oh, yes.” And I said, “Well, you see, you can’t fight a race, you have to fight a system with which you don’t agree, which is against the things in which you believe, which you know are right. I said, “Now, these people are white, and they are for you, so you can’t fight them.” I realized that this boy didn’t consider Mrs. Benjamin, whom he had just met, or the two white teachers as white. Actually, I guess if you’d asked him, he might have said they are our people. I don’t know what he would have said, but he didn’t consider them the enemy, which is the point. The most beautiful thing was the realization on his face, to see a youngster learning something. I can’t describe it. It was just so wonderful. I felt then that my trip was made just through that.

Then he went on to tell me how in school–I asked him were there things that we could do for him or how we could help him. He said that in school that he didn’t know about Booker T. Washington or George Washington Carver, and what not,

So, any how, we came back home, and I got to thinking about all the things that they told us they could use and in Hattiesburg particularly. We talked to so many of the COFO kids there. Wonderful people like Sandy Leigh and that wonderful minister whom they locked up an hour after we left Hattiesburg, Reverend Beech. And also we met the wonderful rabbi who was <…> Did you meet him, Polly? I did. Did you meet him, Dorothy? Yes, in the church, yes. He was just so wonderful. And it hurts so much more. It hurts enough, at least for me, when I just read about people I never heard of, or never knew, and something awful happens to them. That’s tragic enough, but when you know someone–and I don’t know why it should be any different because it makes it be no less awful, you see. But when I read these things when I came back, it really was, it was just too much. It was like Lena Horne told me when she came back from Jackson, and the second day she was back that Medgar Evers was killed. She was so upset about it. Things like that you really feel because you’ve been part of the situation or a community for no matter how short a time it was, you know.

The women were really wonderful. I think they’re trying, they’re working. There were three–incidentally Polly and Dorothy–white women I counted in the community who attended the prayer meeting and who also attended the WomanPower Unlimited meeting. I think that they are really wonderful because imagine what they must take. Because they treat the white even worse than the Negroes, and then also, I think the Negroes have kind of, have built up an immunity to things if it’s possible. You know, maybe they don’t feel it as much because they’re so accustomed to it.

In any case, when I came back, a friend, many friends were calling to see if we got back all right. One particular friend asked–Michael Drury, Lou your remember him?–and she wanted to know what she could do. I said, well, they need everything, and I mentioned sheets. She said, “I’ll go right down to Macy’s on Monday. They’re having a white sale, and I’ll get some sheets.” And I said, I don’t know how it came around, and she said she knew Jack Straus who was the owner or grand “pooh-pa” of Macy’s. So, I said, “Well, listen, you tell him that I said I think he ought to donate a couple of hundred sheets, and if he doesn’t, you tell him I’m going to get a lot of my friends to close their accounts.” Well, when I relayed this to Lou Cowan, he didn’t think this was too good. I haven’t had time to really think on this yet, Lou, but I still think this is what we should do. I think if there are stores that sell things that we need, for people who need more than we do, and we spend like we do in these stores, I think we ought to pressure them the same way that we ask people to pressure and boycott other places in the South.

All right, I’ll shut up [laughter, applause].