Day 3:
Settings, Part II: World, the US, the Community

(VHS.1831)

Professor Harvard Sitkoff presents an overview of America in the aftermath of World War II, depicting a conflict between a rising wind of change and the sense of complacency brought on by economic prosperity and the growth of the middle class. According to Sitkoff, social change was also enfeebled by the fear generated by McCarthyism.

Sitkoff believes that President Kennedy provided little leadership on civil rights.  He characterizes him as a follower, a centrist, a man for whom things came too easily.  But in the last ten months of his presidency, there was a marked shift in his attitude for which he is still remembered.

Borrowing the words of Julian Bond, he describes President Johnson as an "activist, human-hearted man."  Although he achieved much, his personal flaws were his undoing.

As long as the movement remained in the South, neither Kennedy nor Johnson were forced to press the middle class to advance the cause.  As the movement moved North, that consensus shattered.

Bob Moses (with Anne Braden) talks about his work as a field secretary for SNCC in Mississippi. Besides talking about his own beating at the hands of Billy Jack Caston in Liberty County, Moses also talks about the pistol-whipping of John Hardy in Walthall, the murders of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney in Philadelphia and the murder of Herbert Lee in Amite County.

He characterizes Mississippi as a "closed society we were trying to open." He also speaks about the impact of white volunteers on the dynamics of SNCC.

Anne Braden begins to talk about white participation in the movement. Her remarks are incomplete on the videotape.