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Chapter  4

Learning to Secure and Use Civic Rights:

Through Changing the Individual

Highlander Folk School

Although Highlander Folk School worked with persons suffering discrimination in civil and political rights similar to those suffered by the participants in the IAF/CSO and MM projects, Highlander's emphasis on learning was greater, on learning to become a competent, problem-solving, first-class citizen. To solve a problem might well require that an organization be formed or an existing one redirected, but learning was the prior requirement. Learning, of course, was to be continuous, growing out of experience as well. This emphasis on learning goes back to the very beginning of the school and has remained so. As Myles Horton, Highlander's director, once described his approach, "What is too big for one person to handle can be figured out by all of us together. We will have a new kind of school--not a school for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, but a school for problems."

Helping people, especially the socially and economically deprived, learn to deal with problems too difficult for individuals to solve without help from their fellows became the focus of Highlander's work. Solving the problems, however, was not Highlander's purpose. Its purpose was to help people learn to solve their own problems in their own way-=providing only that they accepted responsibility for working in accordance with democratic principles. Commitment to the democratic process was, for Highlander, a given. What these principles have meant in action will be explored below. That Highlander's work in the field of community leader training should be treated in some detail is well justified because of all the projects supported by the Emil Schwarzhaupt Foundation (EFS), the most far-reaching results were probably those achieved by, or under the aegis of, Highlander Folk School.¹

It was the Highlander project on Johns Island, near Charleston, South Carolina, in voter registration and civic education, which Esau Jenkins, assisted by Septima Clark and Bernice Robinson, struggled to promote, which led to the very substantial work in this field by Highlander undertaken later throughout the South by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).² It seems ironic that the highly successful work on Johns Island should have so deeply involved the teaching of reading, writing and arithmetic--the very activities excluded in Myles Horton's statement about Highlander's mission. But the irony is peripheral. Horton had excluded the "three R's" as his central concern. In the case of Johns Island and later throughout the South, the three R's became a means to achieve that which was central for Highlander--the development of effective citizens.

The history of Highlander is a significant one, but much of it has been treated in Aimee Horton's doctoral dissertation³ and in a book by Frank Adams. Therefore, only as much of the school's background and history will be introduced here as may be needed to provide a context for its work in citizenship education.

Highlander Folk School was established in 1932 at Monteagle, Tennessee, on property provided by Lillian Johnson, a former professor at the University of Tennessee. She had been trying to do individually, within the local community, the kinds of things that Myles Horton later undertook, with her encouragement, through the school.⁵ In 1934, Highlander received its charter as a school from the state of Tennessee. The charter stated that the school was empowered to engage in "adult education, the training of rural and industrial leaders in general academic education." It was, in short, to become a residential school for adults.

Among the seminal influences in Horton's conceptualization of the school was his contact with Professor Robert Park of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago.

Through Professor Park .. , he [Horton] came to view involvement in the situation as vital to understanding. Through Park he also came to comprehend more fully the importance of social movements in the forming and reforming processes of society. From the writings of Lester Ward, he derived the concept of conflict as a basis for initiating social change by presenting people with problems which demand solutions. His ideas on the pragmatic evolving of educational programs of interaction with groups of people attempting to cope with problems had their beginnings in a series of community meetings in a rural church....

After looking at various models of adult education institutions, he decided to "find the place, the people, the situation" and, with his broad goals and notions of relating education to social movements, to "simply start and let it grow." He predicted: "It will build its own structure and take its own form."⁷

And so it did, continually evolving as it sought to help people learn to cope with those problems which arose from the ferment of social change. Initial efforts focused on the plight of local woodcutters who struck for higher pay. Educational activities were not carried on primarily in classes but in strategy meetings of strikers and meetings of a new community organization, the Cumberland Mountain Workers League, organized to support the strikers' wage demands and to better community living conditions. In such meetings, Highlander teachers were both participating members and resource persons, raising questions, providing information and suggesting alternative courses of action. Out of these efforts Horton "concluded that conflict or crisis could be utilized effectively as a basis for initiating a program of education for social change."⁸ This was based on the further premise that "people could solve their own problems provided their natural leaders could be given basic training in leadership techniques."⁹

Consistent with the idea of working in relation to a social movement, almost all of Highlander's educational program between 1937 and 1947 was increasingly tied to the needs of labor unions, especially CIO unions. Highlander staff not only conducted workshops for union members and staff but joined in picket-line activity. At the beginning, the Highlander labor education program was successful whereas, in Horton's opinion, such programs conducted under either Catholic or Communist-affiliated auspices were not because they had preconceived answers and Highlander did not.¹⁰

But Highlander and the unions eventually parted company. The school's emphasis on democratic values and the responsibility of the individual for developing himself in a community context ran counter to the goals of union officials. Highlander's educational approach may have been too open-ended for union officials who already knew what they wanted their members to think. The Highlander interest in the labor movement as a means for improving society did not fit with the interest of union officials in strengthening their union as a pressure group and their own roles in it."

Next, the school undertook to develop a program in which members of the Farmers' Union and labor unions in the South might join, but the farmer-labor focus never caught on. As Myles Horton recognized in retrospect, the program failed because "we were trying to create something to respond to."¹² But the social situation began to change after World War II, and especially after 1950. During the war, hundreds of thousands of black people gained new experiences in the armed services, factories and cities. These led to rising expectations on the part of blacks throughout the South, culminating in the South-wide civil rights movement. Hence, the residential workshops on school desegregation, organized by Highlander, benefited from a mutually re-enforcing relationship, similar to that which had obtained earlier between the school and the emerging CIO unions for which it provided training.

A New Focus for Highlander: Community Leadership

In October 1952, Myles Horton had forwarded an application to the Foundation for a grant to enable the school to train community leaders. Because the request was couched in general terms, I undertook to visit the school in March 1953. The upshot was a revised application, in which he said:

The core of a rural citizenship movement must be the bringing together of farm families on a community basis for discussion of their problems and pooling of their efforts....We now propose to train community rather than organizational leaders in the use of discussion, role-playing, audiovisual aids and other methods for promoting rural citizenship. This implies not only initial training but a continuous relationship involving refresher courses, discussion materials and supervision. ¹³

Horton asked for financing on a three-year basis at an estimated cost of $14,700 per year or a total of $44,100. This was approved in April 1953.¹⁴

Horton's original application to the Foundation had been referred to the Chicago committee for a recommendation. Its report stated in part:

In our opinion, Highlander Folk School is in a position to make a real contribution to the furthering of democratic purposes in the South. Its leadership is indigenous to the South. It is centrally located from the standpoint of working in that region. It is one of the very few agencies working there which is making a forthright effort to promote participation of all citizens in public affairs without restriction as to race or creed. The South faces serious problems of land use, education, health, housing, etc. To cope with these the improvement of citizen participation is vital. Basic to improvement of such participation is the training of leadership.¹⁵

The actual unfolding of events went beyond this somewhat academic formulation. To a degree, this can be seen in Highlander statements of purpose at different stages of the work. These were not inconsistent with one another but reflected increasing sophistication in the development of objectives as a result of ongoing experiences in communities.

In 1953, the aim had been articulated thus: "The purpose of our program is to develop community leadership. The measure of success of this program is the extent to which these leaders can help build a spirit of cooperation between all groups within the community in solving their problems. The methods used in solving problems must be democratic and benefit the largest number."¹⁶ (Note the reference to "all groups," a concept which was later modified.)

Speaking to a Highlander workshop in 1961, Myles Horton enlarged on his views about the purposes of Highlander's education program. He recognized the end of the period of testing which had begun in the Sea Islands six years before.  Commenting on what he saw as unique in the Highlander efforts, he said it was not because they taught people to write checks or to register to vote or even to read and write. These were part of the world that is and they might be useful and good things. But one could learn to write for the purpose of forging a check.

What was needed was the concept of what ought to be--human brotherhood, dignity and democracy.

We have kept our eyes firmly on the ought to be, and it seems to me that in our schools we have succeeded in making a pattern of procedure so that all the things that are needed down here, the specifics in the is circle--begin to move together in a direction of what ought to be, and this is the difference.¹⁷ This is the magnetic pull.

Take, for instance, an old man who had never learned to read and write, and who wouldn't want to go into an ordinary school where he would be treated as a kid. What happens to him in the citizenship school? Well, of course, the teacher must start where the man is. But at the same time he is thought of always in terms of what he can become. And because the teacher thinks of him that way, this man can think of himself that way too. That is the way I think about our classes. I think they [our classes] really are different from the kind that are being carried on in Chattanooga on the radio where teachers teach segregated classes, and the people are taught to read. (But the teachers don't talk about anything significant because if they did they might get into trouble.) Of course, some of those people are going to learn to read. But I don't think that the relationship of the teacher to the people can possibly produce the kinds of results which we are achieving in the citizenship schools because we are getting results not only in terms of reading and writing but in terms of intelligent first-class citizens--hundreds and hundreds of them--simply because we began by assuming that they could be citizens.¹⁸

In an interview in 1967, Herman Blake put the matter somewhat more succinctly:

When I asked Myles Horton to recall for me just what he set out to do in the Sea Islands, he stated that his purpose was very simple. He wanted to develop the leadership in the rural South through a process of getting the folk to articulate their problems as they saw them and then develop indigenous programs to attack those problems. His goal was not community development in terms of organization and programs, but people development in terms of their ability to articulate their problems and the development of self-confidence that they could resolve these problems. Such efforts, however, were to come only after the grassroots residents of a particular community had requested the assistance of the Highlander Folk School.¹⁹

Getting Started

Even before the ESF grant was made, Horton had stated his intention to shift Highlander's focus from training individuals who came to workshops primarily because of some organizational connection; so some participants had begun to come because of a concern about some community problem. And, indeed, the workshops on school desegregation scheduled at Highlander in the summer of 1953 attracted persons, such as Septima Clark, who were not sent by or on behalf of an organization but who came because they wanted to do something about a problem which concerned them. It may well be, of course, that such workshops had little immediate impact on desegregation of specific schools. Aimee Horton suggests that in the end the impact was less on actual desegregation than on the development of a concept of civic power on the part of blacks, which might in turn lead not only to desegregation but to the achievement of many other benefits.²⁰

It is, however, correct to say that the ESF grant had been requested to underwrite training of community leaders who would return to their homes and try to enlist others in the attempt to solve community problems. Furthermore, it was intended that assistance would be given to them after they returned home. The focus was to be the kinds of problems faced by a community group rather than the program of a particular organization. More specifically:

The Highlander staff would expect to identify about five rural communities [perhaps counties or small watershed areas] principally in the Tennessee Valley in which the necessary interest and cooperation can be found. The staff would work with the local people over a period of years to help them organize to deal with their community problems. ²¹

Many years later, Myles Horton recalled the preliminary negotiations concerning his application: "I asked you in 1953, `Can we experiment with the money and try out some things? There are lots of ideas about the community I've rejected. Maybe I was wrong. Could I try them now?' And you agreed we could. You were the first foundation willing to give us money for an undefined and unproven program. It was the most valuable grant Highlander received." He added that he wanted to try these other approaches even though they did not square with his own training and experience. Horton went on to say: "Altoona was a test of the possibility of using staff from the outside-which was the conventional wisdom at the time. The program in Kodak was a test of the `whole community' approach." By the time we went to Johns Island, I was through with experimenting with others' ideas about people."²³

The initial organizing efforts (in Monteagle, Highlander's home community, as well as in Whitwell, Tennessee, and Altoona, Alabama) were not successful. This was partly because principles and methods borrowed from others were inadequate, partly because the field staff at hand was insufficiently experienced to work effectively under the difficult conditions encountered and, in part, because there was no sense of a problem needing to be solved.

That staff members were not ready is apparent from the Highlander staff meeting reports for this period. In a report on the community leadership training program in Monteagle, Tennessee, a project begun in August 1953, a staff member summarized the steps taken to form a democratically run organization in Monteagle which would consider the possibility of improving the local public school. She reported discussing with several of her contacts her proposed introductory remarks about the purpose of the meeting and the kind of organization she had in mind. Their advice was to drop any reference to problems and issues other than school improvement because it would "confuse the people." Later in her report, she questioned Myles Horton's position that because she was working for Highlander under the community leadership program, she should not accept a post in the organization as recording secretary. She felt it was arbitrary to say that a community "educator" cannot hold office in the initial stages. She did not seem to understand that her Highlander role would, in the minds of other residents, inevitably affect and even compromise the organization role. Thus, hiring that local resident as a staff person was an unsuccessful experiment.

Her confusion about her role may have had something to do with a specific and rather significant failure. She reported that she spoke with eleven people about coming to an evening meeting to talk about trying to revive the Monteagle Civic Club. They all agreed to try to come. On the afternoon of the day of the meeting, she met three of them and reminded them of the meeting. They all said they would try to be there. No one came.²⁴ Something was obviously wrong. (Perhaps it was the fact that the subject of the meeting was her idea rather than a need expressed by people in the community.)

When Highlander later sent people to Altoona, Alabama, and Whitwell, Tennessee, to begin the rural citizenship training program, Myles Horton cautioned the trainees against becoming a center of interest in community meetings. He pointed out that people should do their own planning--the trainee was to be in a helping position, playing no organizational role or trying to mastermind procedures or plans for a community project.²⁵

To give the staff a common experience from which to evolve a more detailed approach to the program, it was decided they should become acquainted with one or two people in Altoona and Whitwell, presumably to seek an entry point. It was evident that Highlander contact with Altoona was very slight, having been limited to persons whom they knew only through their organizational membership in the Farmers' Union and not as members of the community. It was decided, although not without controversy among themselves, to introduce themselves as "part of an organization which we have named the `Alliance of Southern Communities.'" They said they were "interested in a community leadership training program." (This would certainly seem to be a very abrupt tactic to use in any community, let alone a rural community in the South.) In later conversations with several townspeople, they referred to frictions in the community caused by the Farmers' Union.²⁶

In staff discussions there was concern about how to keep the staff persons in the background and yet maintain the interest of the people through something they could tackle themselves. One member expressed the need to clarify to people "what we mean by a democratic way of functioning in a community and the conception that the foundation of democracy is based in communities." They wanted to initiate a democratic process and were concerned about what they could do to bring about its development since no one in the community had evinced any previous interest in such a process. Even though Horton had said he wanted to test ideas recommended by others, he must have been uncomfortable about operating on principles not congenial to Highlander's philosophical commitments. The approach in Altoona did not take into consideration where people were in their thinking or what, if anything, they wanted to do.

Commenting on this early experience, Blake said:

The reports indicate that the trainees had considerable naiveté and lack of sophistication about how to accomplish their goals. ... There was a general feeling of apprehension about HFS activities of any sort in Altoona, Alabama ... and in a report of a field trip in mid-November 1953, the staff worker wrote, "I was really shocked by the spread of mistrust and suspicion of outsiders which had been injected into rural life--it was far beyond anything I had expected.²⁷

Horton soon recognized that these initial community organizing efforts had failed. He wrote:

In our haste to get community projects underway at the beginning of the program we did not sufficiently examine the community issues. We pushed staff people into leadership positions before they were ready.... In Alabama, we were unable to develop the leadership rapidly enough to rise above the factionalism that had made community organization difficult. ²⁸

At this juncture, Horton was trying to discover how to "get a handle" on the community. By the end of the first year, however, it had become apparent that something could be done in a community where a local leader knew and trusted Highlander. But a project could not be "cooked up" for a community. Leadership could be developed when people were challenged by an idea which involved them, and to be successful, there needed to be a crisis or, at least, a sense of a problem calling for new thinking. It had become unmistakably clear to Horton that Highlander must listen to people and discover their perception of themselves. Then the effort could begin to widen these perceptions, one good way to bring this about being to talk and reflect on actions they had taken.

Kodak, Tennessee

Horton's next move was in response to a request for help from an insurance agent for the Farmers Union in Sevier County, Tennessee (near Kodak, a town about forty miles east of Knoxville). The agent said: "Why, the roads are bad, the schools are bad, farms are going to pot, everything is bad--can't get people to meet-they won't talk--they won't do anything."²⁹ Later, Horton reviewed the situation in that area in these words:

In Kodak, there was the need for stimulation and sharpening of desires for community life. Prior to the development of the Kodak project, there were no community-wide activities or organizations. There were a few narrow interest organizations like the Farm Bureau which met once a year. There was a small local PTA made up of women who were not involved in any activities in which the men-folk participated.... Only one or two individuals in the area could be regarded as community leaders. There was a feeling of isolation from the adjacent towns and communities and actual indifference to their own community. The indifference was compounded by a feeling of inertia, and this was the quality of life which prevailed in Kodak at the time we began. ³⁰

Horton suggested to the Farmers' Union agent that they tour around and find out if people were interested.

We spent the day riding around, sitting around the store, talking to people, going to the farms, talking to people, and he did most of the talking. I asked a couple of questions getting him started and then when we got back home I said, "Max, what did you find out?" He said, "Well, what do you think we should do?" I said, "Well, you did all the talking, you asked the questions." He said, "Did I?" I reminded him what had gone on and in summarizing the situation himself, he found out he had made a pretty good survey of the interests of the people. And they all said the same thing he did. They thought it was a very good idea to get together, but nobody would do it.

Well, before night, he had gotten the point; somebody had to do it, So I said, "Well, now, why don't you, yourself, get the people together; go over and talk to somebody that has a central meeting place in mind and just get together and start off." That's the way you get things going; by doing it.³¹

A meeting place was decided upon, and Horton was invited but could not attend until the third meeting. By that time, they had perhaps 200 people meeting in the school in a relatively small rural community. They became interested in a milk cooperative, an idea being actively promoted by the agricultural extension agent. Horton sent them some pamphlets and put them in touch with a rural sociologist at the University of Tennessee: "one of the kind that learned to work in Highlander over the last few years, whom I could trust not to talk over their heads." The people were asked, "How many cows do you have? How much money do you have?" They hadn't thought of that. They just thought a milk cooperative was a good idea. The sociologist helped them draw a map of the community. Instead of sending out schedule takers, Horton encouraged the idea of "dozens of people getting data from each other. Many got acquainted for the first time." When they added up the cows there were not enough, so they decided to organize an adjacent community. "Well, after six months do you know what happened? They voted unanimously not to have a coop, but as a result of this survey, they had found out what their community was. They knew everyone there. There was about a half-dozen committees and I had thirty-six names of people who were potential or who would become community leaders in the process."

Horton continued:

Now, projects are wonderful. You never run out of projects if the people are developed. It starts out very happy that these people are critical enough, analytical enough, to decide that they didn't want a co-op; that it would have been fatal; that they couldn't have sustained one. Well, in one community, they got electricity they hadn't had before. They got roads built they didn't have before. They got a new school building built. They got a community center built. A lot of things they hadn't set out to do, but they did [them].. .³²

On another occasion, three women came to talk with him about how to use the community center the community had built. He suggested coming to a workshop at Highlander and then they could decide together. "Well," they said, "we were told that you could tell us what to do." I said, "I'm telling you.... I haven't the slightest idea what you should do. I'll probably never know. You will finally tell me sometime. I don't know, but you will work it out."³³

They and many others did work it out. In a progress report to the Foundation, Horton commented:

There are frequent organizational meetings on community problems. Different groups have been brought together which include women. They succeeded in having feed-stuffs exempted from the Tennessee Retail Sales Act. The community led a general protest against repeated cutbacks of tobacco acreage allotments and favorable congressional action was received as a result. They resolved differences in hostilities which had blocked building necessary county roads. They helped to defeat legislation which would have resulted in loss of school funds. They developed committees for various problems and broke through their isolation to avail themselves of expert technological assistance from Knoxville and other adjacent sources. They succeeded in blocking premature organization of a milk cooperative and are now developing a firm foundation for such a project. In their study of cooperatives they learned to use outside experts and learned methods to be used in making a survey. The resulting survey involved substantial citizen participation out of which came a number of leaders. This issue resulted in leadership emerging through the process of action.

Quality of life today and its overall activities of community interest marks a great change from the general apathy of the past and the few narrow interest groups which previously operated with no concern or reference to the other people. The people in this community have achieved an identification with their area.³⁴

These are no mean achievements. Others have tried elsewhere for similar results but have failed. As Horton pointed out in a letter to R J. Blakeley (March 26,1955), the obstacles in Sevier County (where Kodak was located) were great but a community of interests did emerge; persons came to the fore as recognized leaders and concrete changes occurred. And not least of all was the fact that for the first time, significant numbers of women and young people were beginning to assume leadership roles. Previously, they had taken little part in community affairs.

However, there was a further point to be noted. Until three women came to him to talk about how the community house should be used, he had not encouraged anyone from the community to come to a Highlander workshop. He wanted to know if this would make a difference. He concluded that it did because, compared with Johns Island, for example, the program broke down when imagination and courage were called for. They were limited to conventional solutions. Horton's perception of what was going on in the communities in which Highlander was working did not come as a revelation "on the road to Damascus." There was an evolution of method and of understanding, including a growing conviction as to the inappropriateness of other people's ideas about working with members of a community. His evaluation of what had occurred was, however, not always entirely correct. Commenting in 1956 on the Kodak, Tennessee, project at the end of the third year, he stated:

The changes which have resulted in Kodak, while not as dramatic, are of greater significance to the field of community organization than the developments on Johns Island. The problems, community structure and issues are more typical of those found in the conventional rural area.... this project involved universalities applicable to most of the South. The same cannot be said for Johns Island, where we have a segment of the population ... which is so far down in the economic and social scale that any community activity manifests itself dramatically.³³

Some years later, his judgment was different. Horton commented that in his view there was one critical respect in which the Kodak project did not fulfill his hopes. It did not lead to further organizing. It did not spread beyond the initial area of Highlander-stimulated activity.³⁶ This point underscores a decisive difference between the Kodak and Sea Islands projects. The simple, direct attack on illiteracy as a barrier to voter registration was to grow far beyond the hopes of anyone involved. Thereafter, the Johns Island program spread not only into the whole South but also grew in sophistication from voter registration to participation in precinct and party activity, to concern with qualifications of candidates, to gaining access to boards of voluntary community organizations, to becoming informed on issues through learning to read newspapers critically, and in other ways.

Why the difference? One basic reason was in how Horton started. In Kodak, he tried what others said would work--in effect going into a community and telling people that community development was a good thing. Fortunately, he found a person trusted in the community through whom to work. But in the Sea Islands, the idea of the citizenship school came from the people. In Kodak he urged people to do something because it was good for them, and it did not really take. In Kodak, the plant was an annual but in the Sea Islands it was a perennial. "If it is to work, the people must have the power of making decisions about what they want to do."³⁷

Johns Island

If replication and spread of important activities and involvement of large numbers of people are valid tests, then the most significant part of our Highlander story concerns the educational efforts on the Sea Islands, which led ultimately to a citizenship education program throughout the South under the aegis of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Southeastern Georgia Voters Crusade and other civil rights organizations.

Background. The Sea Islands lie in a chain a short distance off the South Carolina and Georgia coasts. Johns Island, the largest, is about thirty-two miles long and thirty miles wide and is located some fifteen to twenty miles south of Charleston. Extending southward from Johns Island, are Wadmalaw, Edisto and Daufuskie islands. The population of Johns Island was over 6,000; the others, fewer. The black residents speak a Gullah dialect, which did not make Horton's initial contacts easier. There are more blacks than whites on these islands by a considerable margin. Many blacks own their own farms, and, indeed, in 1950 about 60 percent of the housing on Johns Island was owner-occupied.³⁸ In addition, many residents went into Charleston to work in homes, in factories and at the Navy Yard. Even though both a black and a white high school existed on Johns Island, there was a high level of illiteracy, especially among older black residents. The median number of years of school completed was only 7.5 years in 1960.

The events which led to Highlander's involvement with Johns Island began with Anna Kelly's³⁹ attendance in 1953 at a Highlander workshop on school desegregation. The following summer she persuaded Septima Clark to attend a similar workshop.

Clark brought to the workshop her long experience in working with and helping others. Also relevant is the fact that she had started her teaching career on Johns Island and later became a teacher in Charleston. She was involved in community affairs, playing an active part in forcing integration of the tuberculosis program in Charleston County. Participating in the fundraising campaign of her sorority to help finance diphtheria immunizations for children, she sought to have the children on Johns Island included. (Sixty-eight children on the island had died of diphtheria the year before.) Action was finally taken when the danger of the disease spreading, through domestic workers, to the city dwellers became apparent. Then the county health authorities took steps to provide temporary clinics at Haut Gap High School on the island.

At the 1954 Highlander workshop on the United Nations, Septima Clark described and gave the background of the health program: "We furnished the transportation, did the follow-up, helped with the registration, and in that way we were able to get the mothers to come out." These mothers with three or four young children each were unable to get to the Charleston County Health Center where they customarily held clinics because it was too far away. In short, the sorority did the job of mobilization in the community that the regular county health service had not done. ⁴⁰

But Septima Clark wanted to know what could have been done to prevent the children's deaths the year before. "I just would like to know--how are you going to get these people to feeling as if they want to ask for something that is actually right? For example, there is a group of people living in the community with sixty-eight children who died of diphtheria, and nobody said anything about it, nobody asked for a nurse, nobody asked for a special clinic or anything of that type--what's wrong? How are you going to get them to think for themselves? ^"41  Discussion continued on what could be done. Clark wondered whether someone appointed by the governor would respond to pressure.

One of the group leaders responded:

an appointed officer is always put in office by the elected ones. The pressure is always felt. All these problems are practical, and the people who live there now know the practical aspects. . . . You've got a good high school. Well, that's the place to start. People come together, children come together in the high school. You invite the health commissioner, the county health commissioner, or whoever, to come and listen. Or to come and contribute. If he doesn't come, you put it in the form of a resolution. This place needs a mobile health clinic. Copy goes to the newspaper. That may not be very popular, but after that's done three times, everybody on Johns Island will certainly know that something needs to be done. And then you will get something done.... The first thing is that the people themselves must know what to do. And the way to know what to do is to get together .... 42

And so through the workshop discussion process, the range of possibilities was widened.

We must now become acquainted with Esau Jenkins, workshop participant, and a person with whom Septima Clark was to work closely.⁴³ Esau Jenkins had been encouraged by Septima Clark to attend the residential workshop on the United Nations at Highlander in August 1954. Workshop discussion turned up the fact that he was president of the PTA, superintendent of the Methodist Sunday School, assistant pastor of his church, president of the Citizens Club (200 members concerned with community improvement and schools), chairman of the Progressive Club (fifteen members organized to provide financial assistance to those in need of legal aid) and a member of the executive board of the Charleston NAACP. In November of 1952, recognition had come to him in the form of a citation from Omega Psi Phi, on nomination of the Charleston chapter, awarded for "Political Action."

Furthermore, Jenkins was a self-made man. In spite of meager formal schooling, he had built up a bus line with four buses. Even the bus line is part of our story. "One of his passengers had asked him to help her learn to read and write so that she could get her voter registration certificate and become a `first class citizen.' Mr. Jenkins not only responded to her request, but secured and circulated copies of the South Carolina constitution and voting law among all his nonvoting passengers."⁴⁴

In an interview in 1963, Jenkins said, "I would start for Charleston about 6:45 or 7:00 A.M. and arrive 7:30 to 7:45 A.M. for those going to work at 8:00. Those starting at 9:00 A.M. would stay on the bus. While driving, I would talk about definitions of words in the constitution of South Carolina, procedures relating to voting and voter registration. After arrival, we would hold class. Before registration days, we would do this two or three days per week."⁴⁵ But memorizing sections of the state constitution, while it helped a few to register, was no substitute for learning to read. This goal he could not reach.

Finding a Way to Work Together. In discussing Jenkins' participation in the 1954 Highlander workshop, Aimee Horton noted:

Esau Jenkins and several other Sea islands participants provided one complex of problems for the workshop agenda: the complexities involved in arousing and inspiring some 2,000 Negroes (on Johns Island), isolated, psychologically as well as physically, from changes in the nation, in the South, and even in nearby Charleston. These people were dominated, still, by the plantation world of their parents, a world where government, school, jobs, everything that controlled Negro life belonged to the white man. How to convince people of their rights to better schools and health services? Of their rights to vote for those schools and services? Of their rights to vote for those schools and services by voting for officials to represent their interests? Of their rights, in fact, to vote, to be citizens?⁴⁶

Toward the end of the week's workshop, discussion turned to what each participant intended to do when he returned to his community. Jenkins' concerns were summarized in a Highlander report:

The week's workshop stimulated Esau's interest in developing more political action on the island by finding and interesting more people in getting the Negro population registered. Esau planned to run for trustee on the Board of Education, "not that there is any hope of getting elected," Esau said, "but I want to prove that a Negro can run for office and not get killed.”⁴⁷

To introduce Highlander staff to the island, Jenkins invited them to attend a NAACP-sponsored dinner given in Charleston for Judge Waring and Thurgood Marshall, on November 6, 1954. (Judge J. Waties Waring, member of an old Charleston family, had handed down the decision outlawing exclusion of blacks from Democratic party primaries.) Zilphia Horton accepted Jenkins' invitation to attend as well as his invitation to stay at his home that weekend. "The purpose of this trip was to further investigate Esau's possibilities as a potential trainee for democratic leadership under the ESF grant, to learn more about Johns Island as a possible demonstration community and to establish friendly contacts."⁴⁸ On the basis of her report, it was decided that "Johns Island had good possibilities as a demonstration community."

In the following month (December), Horton and a staff member attended a meeting of the Citizens Club⁴⁹ on Johns Island. In addition to Jenkins, two other participants in Highlander Workshops, Septima Clark and Anna Kelly, were present. Myles Horton, when asked to "speak," tried to engage the group in general discussion, but with meager success. Evidently, the traditional meeting pattern was too strong. In the next few days, Horton also met with several black leaders who were active politically in Charleston and on Johns Island. It became clear they needed to know more about the political situation, and, perhaps more important, there were too few people to undertake the individual contacts needed to build a political base. But Jenkins was either unable to grasp or unwilling to respond to Highlander's offer to help him develop such a group of leaders.

Eventually it was Jenkins' decision to run for school trustee that provided the incentive for blacks on Johns Island to register. To run for school trustee, it was necessary to get 100 signatures. That he was able to get them demonstrated not only the support he had but also the willingness of his neighbors to put themselves on record in behalf of what might become a dangerous enterprise. His strategy of trying to get a group of blacks to register each month throughout the year maintained the momentum. By spreading registration efforts over the year, there would be less chance of alarming whites on the island .⁵⁰ Jenkins lost by only 100 votes, but he got 192 out of the 200 black votes. Fifty voters registered between January and the election; only 200 had registered in the preceding ten years. More important, Jenkins had appointed a committee to promote registration. An organizational structure was beginning to grow.

Several months later, Myles Horton commented on the Citizens Club:

From conversations Esau holds with the people as he goes about the island, it is obvious that the monthly meetings of the Citizens Club provide a general adult education program. Everything is discussed, although the focal point is citizenship and registration: farm problems, school problems, health and world affairs. . . . Judging from the conversations I overheard, these problems are discussed long after the meetings are held. It had been almost three weeks since the last meeting and people were still discussing things that had been talked about at the last meeting⁵¹

Having decided that Highlander might make a significant contribution on Johns Island, the question was how best to proceed. Local leadership would have to take the responsibility, but for Highlander to play a role, someone on the staff would have to be familiar with what was going on.

The file then records an important event: "Arranged [in February 1955] with Septima ... , to make reports on Johns Island.^"52 Horton noted:

I told her that I hoped to have some funds to carry on the work during the summer, but in order to get the money we need to have some reports. I asked her to dig back in her memory and try to get down some of the things she did in connection with Esau and also to get some bench marks starting at the time that she started working with Esau or at the time he came to Highlander. . . . At that point I told her we would all work together until we decided what information we wanted....⁵³

Horton continued to make visits to Johns Island through 1955. At first, he could not understand more than half of the Gullah dialect and could get only surface impressions. "I had to naturalize myself into the situation to feel comfortable and free. [He was applying Professor Robert Park's principle concerning the importance of involvement in the situation as vital to understanding.] Then they could be comfortable and free and I could start to learn. It was a gestation period."⁵⁴

But there were other reasons for moving slowly. There were differing perceptions of the problem. Esau Jenkins seemed to feel that getting blacks into public office was all that was needed, that black voters would solve black problems. Horton felt that this view was too superficial. A more fundamental change was needed which depended not only on making good the right to vote but also on raising the level of sophistication with which the suffrage was exercised. It was only later, as Jenkins became involved in the civil rights movement with greater understanding and effectiveness, that he began to see the broader implications of voter registration.⁵⁵ And it took time before Horton and Clark could develop a basis for working together effectively. "The first year was a year of dialog between us."⁵⁶

It took time also for an effective working relationship between Highlander and Esau Jenkins to develop. On Jenkins' side was his conviction that a public meeting was an occasion for a speaker rather than involvement of those in attendance in a discussion. In this view he was probably responding to the expectations of the audience: only after members of the community had begun to share in leadership tasks and had become aware of new possibilities were they likely to have much to contribute to a discussion. Horton's frustration over Jenkins' manner of dealing with a problem came from something more than a belief in the value of discussion. He felt he could help Jenkins in other ways: suggesting tactics and strategy in dealing with the power structure, indicating tasks needing to be done which others could do even while learning.

When Horton suggested, however, that these others might do more, Jenkins did not respond.

I found it difficult to get the idea across to him that we might be of some help working in the background. Every time I suggested working with him he started talking about meetings. He did warm up to the idea of bringing the tape recorder along and letting some of the leaders listen to the workshop discussions at Highlander. . . . I suggested that we might work with the committee members and some of the other political leaders on the island or combine such a workshop with the political leaders of Charleston. He said he wanted to talk this over with other people but is definitely interested in some sort of follow-up.... The idea of a leadership training program is meaningless but he can think in terms of getting people active... He thinks entirely in terms of speaking.⁵⁷

On the other hand, Horton was not altogether clear about how to proceed. And noting his own disappointment about the difficulty of establishing a more functional working relationship with Jenkins he pointed out that Jenkins did not immediately grasp the idea of lieutenants or sub-leaders who could take responsibility and act on their own--not in competition with but in support of his own efforts. One difficulty may have been that although Horton was beginning to talk about specifics ("getting people active"), he was also continuing to use words (for example, "leadership training program") which may have been too abstract.

Horton felt, too, that he had to remain in the background, that it was important that there be black models for the black community. The time had come for white people to stand aside.⁵⁸ Septima Clark pointed up a different aspect of the matter when she said, "Knowing that the students of the school were still living in the shadow of the plantation, the teachers had suggested to Myles Horton that white visitors be kept to a minimum for the first three years. By the end of that time, we felt that the fear of losing jobs and other harassments would be out of their minds."⁵⁹ At the same time, Horton believed a "good political action program on Johns Island would set a pattern for Charleston as well as other islands, and might be the basis for a continuous program there for a number of years."⁶⁰ Given the rather low opinion Charleston blacks held of Sea Island blacks, this was a brave conclusion.

It was Horton's growing conviction that the Sea Islands would provide a good opportunity to test Highlander's approach to the objectives of the citizenship project. Reporting on a March 6, 1955, visit, he said: "Visited other Sea Islands including St. Helena, Edisto and Wadmalaw. . . . After interviewing a few of the people from the area, I decided that the chain of Sea Islands ... had problems similar to those of Johns Island, which would give our project value as a pilot project."⁶¹ He also saw that a successful program could make a significant contribution to the development of a black power base in the "low country" area of South Carolina.⁶²

However, Jenkins could see that he would need help if voter registration were to increase, and he appointed a person in each of the fifteen church congregations to be responsible for reminding members of the Citizens Club meetings. He was also asking persons "to instruct people in how to register, interest them in the importance of voting and actually carry them to the place of registration...⁶³

There was some evidence that progress was being made toward the objectives of leadership development. A letter from Jenkins to Horton, dated April 28, 1955, stated: "My ideas of community leadership have changed in many ways. I have found that giving others something to do in helping make better citizens in the community is very important. My old way of doing was slow. ⁶⁴

Broadening the Leadership Base. In the summer of 1955, Septima Clark accepted an offer to serve in the Charleston and Sea Islands area as a Highlander staff member during the summer months when she was not teaching school.⁶⁵ During the spring and summer of that year, leadership was very much on the minds of both Myles Horton and Septima Clark. Horton expressed his concept of leadership when he said: "There are underdeveloped but not `good' or `bad' leaders. We start with people as they are. If a person functions as a leader or is thought of by his neighbors as a spokesman for them, he has a potentiality for democratic leadership. Often the role in which a person finds himself, develops his latent abilities and reshapes his attitude."⁶⁶

During the spring of 1955, Septima Clark talked with Esau Jenkins about how he might involve others. Regarding training and new leaders, she thought it important for him to put the people to work who have registered, particularly those who have gone out and gotten other people to register.

"Nothing has been done," she said, "but to give them recognition." She will work with Esau on some program for them regardless of how indirectly it may affect the registering and voting program. She understands the importance of giving people jobs to do. [He went on to note:} Plans for meeting Saturday night: The main purpose of the meeting will be to get Esau to understand that developing new leaders, supplements rather than conflicts with his program .... ⁶⁷

In talking with Clark about how to get Jenkins to grasp the possibilities, Horton reminded her of how she had organized her grade school teaching by using the more advanced pupils to teach the others. And she responded by giving comparable examples from her work with church groups.⁶⁸

On March 19, 1955, when Myles and Zilphia Horton, Septima Clark and Esau Jenkins met to discuss plans, they used the opportunity to try to develop further Jenkins' abilities as a leader. Before the meeting, Clark tried to develop a method or style through conversations with him. Her method was primarily to ask questions. "What happened to Perry after he registered?" Jenkins replied, "I said, `Go back and get others.' " Further questions brought out the fact that Jenkins had bought copies of various black newspapers and given them to four men to report on at the meeting. She asked, "What did you do when these people came in and reported?" He said, "I told them to go out and get two more people registered. . . ." He seemed to have a fixation on registration of voters and could see the need for more help to get this done, but he had not yet grasped the importance of having more people doing different things to a common end.⁶⁹

At the March 19 meeting, Clark tried to emphasize the opportunities for broadening participation as problems were aired:

When the question came up of how many school-age children were on the island, talk turned to the possibility of a house-to-house survey. Septima mentioned men who had been her students at one time and thought they would help. Esau's response was that his daughter who was a school teacher could probably get the information. Septima pointed out that ... all the help possible would be needed to get sufficient votes to elect a Negro to the school board. Esau responded favorably, mentioning a number of other people. (Septima is still trying to convince Esau that she knows what she is talking about here and has a genuine interest in the island.)

He ended up by inviting Septima and me to help out in any way we could and said he hoped to send some young people from Reverend Washington's church to Highlander this summer. Septima suggested two other people who might come and said she would try to help pay their expenses in return for what Highlander had done for her.⁷⁰

On another occasion, Clark underscored the need to involve every segment of the community, even those who made bootleg whiskey.

Some years later, Horton and Clark were recalling the period when they were trying to get Jenkins to see how to broaden the leadership base. Horton remembered that Clark had been talking about reaching every part of the community, socially as well as geographically:

We work with the natural leaders. That, Esau learned. We sat here at Highlander and drew a map of Johns Island. I said, "Esau, you've got to get the votes on Johns Island. Who do you have in this community? Who do you have in this one, who do you get in this one?" He didn't have anyone. And I said, "When you go back, get somebody in this community--find somebody." He said, "There are no leaders there." And I said, "There's a leader anywhere in relation to the people in their community, a neighborhood leader. You go back and find your leaders, and send them up here for a Highlander workshop."

People came to Highlander from six different sections of Johns Island. Then Esau was in a position to work with those people on an Island-wide basis, and that's when he started moving, Leaders on other islands said to him, "What is it that you have that we don't?" And then Esau was able to pass on these ideas. That's how it's spreading. Not spreading by Esau going and doing it on those other islands, but Esau is kind of a symbol of the effective way to do things.

........

Just like people come to Highlander and ask us for help, they come to Esau and say, "Will you come over and speak, hold a meeting, organize us?" Esau says to them, "No, that's not the way." But before he came to Highlander, he would have said that's the way. In fact, that's what he did. He was trying to do it all himself. Now he says, "Look. We've started these adult schools. We've started monthly meetings. We start these weekend conferences. We've sent people to Highlander. This is how it's done. I'll help you to do it that way. But I won't come in and do it for you because it's no good." He tells them at the very beginning the thing that most people spend a lifetime never learning. He uses what he learned: the Highlander method of involving other people.

He's training other people, and they, in turn, are beginning to do likewise. This thing is relatively simple when you start analyzing it, but it's relatively unused as a method of working with people. ⁷¹

Over the following months, Septima Clark continued to report on Johns Island activities. Some entries from these reports follow:

A report of a special meeting called on May 29, 1955, at the Methodist Center on Johns Island indicated its purpose had been to discuss the need for Negroes to organize and get registered and learn how to spend money more wisely. There were over 163 men and approximately 100 women present. "When invited to ask questions, there was not a question asked. I think the next thing to do is to get those tongues loosened up." Mrs. Clark also commented: "It is astounding to see so many young men following, and it gives me much hope. The island is going to lead in citizenry. It is way ahead of the city now. These people meet regularly the year round." ⁷²

After a Citizens Club meeting on June 6, 1955, she noted: "Twenty-eight more persons registered since the previous meeting."

Sometimes ground seemed to be lost. In a report on a Citizens Club meeting on September 6, 1955, Septima commented: "There is still a lack of participation by the group. There were no group or committee reports and Esau will talk too long. He says that he has to talk when he can catch the people. Some of the people got angry and walked out."

The minutes of the Citizens Club on Johns Island for September 1955 show that people were returning from Highlander to give reports and were showing greater interest in community involvement. The people who attended Highlander workshops appeared to become a central core group. By the middle of 1956, twenty leaders on Johns Island had participated in a workshop.

Expanding Activity. In October 1955 a planning meeting was held in Charleston to prepare for a series of five one-day workshops to be held on different islands in Charleston County. Horton commented on the discussion:

The enthusiasm with which the people present agreed to assume responsibility is an indication that the leadership training program has produced results. Such a response would have been impossible earlier. There is already an understanding on the part of the people that they can involve potential leaders in local situations. All, however, feel it is necessary for people to get a more intensive training experience before they can become the kind of leaders who can be counted on to stand up against opposition.

He was especially gratified with the initiative shown by the group and their recognition of the need to involve at least one person from each island in future planning sessions. His decision not to take part in the initial planning sessions was vindicated, but there was some disappointment: "I had hoped that we could develop people in their own communities to the place where they could assume responsibility without the residential experience, but so far there is little indication that this can be done successfully." ⁷³

At a subsequent meeting, held to plan a workshop for the Charleston area, a participant said: "What we have in mind is a whole day or afternoon meeting, with groups discussing such things as the health problem in the community, the potential strength that can be developed through the PTA, and the importance of voting, rather than someone getting up and speaking and then sitting down. The workshop angle. ..."⁷⁴ This was some evidence that the idea of a "speaker" was losing force.

But, still, Horton found it necessary to stress local involvement. He pointed out that "whatever you want to do ... you need more people to understand what you are doing. You don't need to decide now what the solution will be because you aren't in a position to carry anything out. You don't have enough people with you. Maybe the people who are going to help carry out this thing need to be in on the planning."⁷⁵ And at another point, he said:

If we find that people [from other communities] are hesitant about workshops, we can invite them to visit one and decide for themselves. We don't have anything to sell; it's a service that in some cases has been helpful and in other cases we are not so sure. Let's plan here for three [communities] we are going to have. That's the way we move ahead.⁷⁶

The final decision about content was that each workshop would have subgroups on consumer cooperatives, housing and voting. The workshops were to have taken place in January of 1956, but that had to be given up because the school district refused to allow the use of a school for the meeting. Also, a demonstration voting machine [was not] forthcoming. The workshops were rescheduled for February.

In the course of the sessions, Horton was convinced anew about the value of using audiovisual materials which could be related to participant experiences. The movie showing people from Johns Island at a Highlander workshop was especially useful.

People were excited to see themselves and others they knew.... Because it was not part of the movie, the commentary was personalized and perhaps added to the feeling that the movie was concerned specifically with the people in the audience and their problems. It also illustrated the necessity for the kind of inspiration and training in a residential setup which we have so far not been able to duplicate in the field.⁷⁷

Learning to Read. Through 1955, Horton kept thinking about what could be done about the question Esau Jenkins had raised at the 1954 workshop: "Could Highlander help him to teach more people to read than he could reach on the bus?" Jenkins kept pushing for help. He wanted help on registration. He wanted a school. He was so impressed with Highlander that he expected it to provide something right away. If a conventional approach had been offered, he would have accepted it.

Horton read up on literacy programs which had been conducted elsewhere. He inquired about what had been done previously on the island. Clark, too, had been thinking about a school for adults. The need became obvious to her when she found that parents were unable to give the birth dates of their children during the diphtheria inoculation campaign. And the people themselves had talked about it. Beginning in 1954, there were several unsuccessful attempts to find a classroom: the Methodist Center, a house, a church, the high school.⁷⁸

Horton discovered that adult education funds were largely unspent because students did not enroll. The school supervisor said the failure to attend was because they did not want to learn. "But Esau had gotten them to want to learn. So how can you get more people to want to? Why did Esau's people want to read? So they could vote. The reason was specific and immediate. I saw, 'This was it.' They wouldn't go back to regular school with regular teachers and sit in children's seats. Therefore, we needed lay persons to teach and a different place to meet."⁷⁹ Furthermore, learning the alphabet and how to read was an immediately available achievement; it was not necessary to wait a long time to gain the benefits. And literacy could open new possibilities for expansion of the civil rights program.⁸⁰

Horton had no specific method in mind but knew that Clark had taught literacy during the war. Even though her approach should prove to be a trifle old-fashioned, he "didn't care about that." He was more concerned "about the fact that Septima cared and would keep pushing it." And her sense of the need to keep the program practical would more than make up for any weaknesses in method. He recalled: "I tried to think through what I had learned on the island. I role-played it in my mind to see how it might come out. I take an idea that comes from the situation and try to think through a program that fits it."⁸¹ This time, certainly, he thought even better than he could have hoped.

Looking back, in 1974, Horton commented that it was Clark who with Bernice Robinson as the teacher developed the Citizenship School program. She was in charge. If he had suggestions he made them to her. "Other than the original analysis of the Johns Island situation, a guess that a nontraditional and non-threatening physical setup was necessary, and nonacademic teachers were required, the burden fell on Septima."⁸²

In the latter part of 1956, two developments went forward simultaneously on Johns Island. Jenkins had been thinking about a building to house a kind of cooperative supply enterprise. He tried to buy an old school from the county but was outbid by a white man. Later, Highlander was able to lend the money to acquire the same building (at a profit, of course, to the first purchaser). This was paid off at the rate of $100 per month from earnings of the cooperative store and from contributions--a very substantial achievement for so poor a community.⁸³

In November 1956, the Progressive Club was planning to establish an adult school, but after considerable delay they were turned down by the school superintendent (who, presumably, was afraid of losing his job), and when they tried to get the use of a church center, that was denied them too. (The minister's wife was teaching in the public school system and was probably afraid she would lose her job if the center were so used.) Jenkins then suggested the use of the old school building for the adult school.

In discussing the adult school, Jenkins later said, "I believe it was providential that we didn't get those other schools because our teaching would have been limited to certain things, and certain things we couldn't have said, such as teach them how to become better citizens, how to take part in voting, civics and government, and what not, because of being afraid of somebody going to run us out of the building."⁸⁴ Nor would Clark have been happy depending upon the public adult school. "Let's don't ... get a teacher who will follow the usual teaching procedures.... Let's ... get someone with a fresh viewpoint, somebody who will work with us, who is interested in the Highlander program and would be willing to follow suggestions from the school."⁸⁵ At last, Esau Jenkins was beginning to see the realization of a dream--the possibility of blacks registering, not because they had memorized some paragraphs but because they had learned to read.

Writing some years later, Clark said, "The [Highlander] school had lent us money without interest to obtain the school building, the school had agreed to provide other funds with which to pay modest expenses, including Bernice's transportation, and to furnish material, equipment and supplies. And just as important--perhaps more important--was the promise that Highlander would permit members of its staff to supervise the school's program and operation."⁸⁶

The "Bernice" referred to was Bernice Robinson, Clark's cousin and a beautician in Charleston. She was also active in the NAACP in Charleston. She had been encouraged by Clark to attend the Highlander United Nations workshop at which Esau Jenkins had expressed his wish to get an adult school started there. But when asked to be the teacher, she demurred at first because even though she had been helping Jenkins on Johns Island and in Charleston, she didn't think she could succeed, lacking any training as a teacher. But both she and Clark knew that it would not work if a white person sent by Highlander were to be the teacher. And she recalled that while still in elementary school, she had held sessions for other children during the summer months.

It did not take her long to find out the approach had to be from the adult level. She recalled the first citizenship class meeting on Johns Island in January 1957:

1 entered that class armed only with materials I had secured from two of my sister-in-laws who were teaching in the public schools, grades 1 through 3, which I found out immediately was too elementary to present to adults. I knew then I would have to build a curriculum that would meet their expressed needs. I secured an original money order and traced it on onion skin paper, then on to chart board, making enough copies for all students to practice upon. I used order blanks from catalogs to teach and meet that specified need. Esau had an original copy of the application for voter registration, but the printing was so fine, I had Highlander to reproduce it in larger type by stencil cutting and mimeographing. Later I hand-printed the application on chart board and tacked it on the classroom wall. These things I had to plan and prepare myself since I was unable to have the expertise of Septima because she was out West fundraising for Highlander during the time the first class became operative. She wasn't able to get down to Johns Island until the last two weeks of the project. I had her to teach the session that night because I wanted to see whether her approach was anything similar to mine. To my surprise she presented the lessons in the, same manner as I had been doing. I had written on the blackboard those difficult and unusual words found on the application blank for voter registration, supplied the definitions of each so that the students would understand what they were reading, also breaking them down in syllables for easier pronunciation. ⁸⁷

The methods used were not complicated. At Clark's suggestion, each student learned to write his own name by tracing the cardboard example prepared by the teacher. The methods were effective because the students were learning what they most wanted to know. "And perhaps the greatest single thing it accomplishes is the enabling of a man to raise his head a little higher; knowing how to sign their names, many of those men and women told me after they had learned, made them feel different. Suddenly they had become a part of the community; they were on their way toward first-class citizenship."⁸⁸

Because the students were adults and wanted to read for reasons important to them, Clark prepared special reading materials: laws and regulations relating to voting, social security and taxes:

I remember going to the school board office to inquire about laws relating to the duties and functions of the board.... And then I took this information . . . and rewrote it in simple, easily comprehensible words. My purpose, of course, was not only to teach them how to read and write, but to teach them at the same time things they would have to know in order to start on their way to becoming first-class citizens.⁸⁹

Later, each student was provided with a mimeographed booklet called "My Reading Booklet."⁹⁰ In it was information about Highlander; a brief statement about the meaning of the United States of America; a statement of the registration law and requirements for the particular state in which the schools were to he held; a short resume of information pertaining to political parties in the state; a section on taxes and procedures for paying them; an explanation of social security; an explanation of health services available, and the locations of clinics; the form of address when writing to public officials; and a money order blank along with instructions on how to fill it out.

One elderly woman, who worked as a cleaning woman in a white farmer's home, learned:

to read and write well; in fact, she read a story at one of the school closings. She is also able to do simple arithmetic and serves acceptably as clerk at our Progressive Club and takes care of the sales there from one weekend to another. . . . So the adult school has been of incalculable benefit to her, not only in helping her get a better paying job, but ... in lifting her to a happier plane of life as a literate citizen. ⁹¹

At the first class meeting, twelve out of fourteen persons could not read or write at all. The teacher made a chart of the alphabet and illustrated each letter with a picture of fruits, vegetables and items from their own homes. She used flash cards of words related to their life. She then had those who could read, however haltingly, read simple stories aloud to the class, and they discussed these stories. Words the reader had stumbled over became the words for spelling lessons. Recruiters for classes never embarrassed anyone by asking about that person's own literacy, but always about "a friend" who could not read or write.

The first school had run two nights per week, two hours per night, for two months; the second school for three months. At the Johns Island citizenship school closing on February 26, 1958, all twenty-six adults who had attended for five months and were eligible to vote were "able to read the required paragraph at sight and sign their name in cursive writing to obtain their registration certificate."⁹² That this effort succeeded where previous efforts on Johns Island had failed was due in part to the fact that this was their own program--directed to keenly felt needs, taught by people they knew and trusted, and which they had helped to plan from the beginning.

All of this was done in spite of, rather than with the cooperation of, the public school. But beyond the factor of persistence, the spirit in which the students were treated was of the utmost importance. In Clark's words:

We treat these people as adults and give them very challenging responsibilities. We say, "It is your responsibility to be a citizen, in the fullest sense of the word, even though you don't read or write. Even though you are a Negro on an isolated island, you have . . . this responsibility." And then they say, "How can we exercise these responsibilities when we are not allowed to vote? We're segregated, and uneducated." And then we say, "You'll have to find a way to become citizens of South Carolina and of the world and we will help you." ... We challenge something that seems to be important. We use local people they know as a teacher, so there won't be a problem of adjusting to an unfamiliar person.... So you have a combination of a strong challenge, and local people with whom they are familiar, doing the teaching, ⁹³

These, then, were elements essential to the success of a specific citizenship class. But what became of broader significance was the fact that a program emerged for developing and maintaining citizenship classes. Here the critical elements were: (1) bringing potential leaders and teachers to Highlander for a workshop. In addition to learning how to organize and run a class, it was necessary to win the leaders' confidence in Highlander's sincerity; (2) recruiting lay teachers (mostly) who were willing to give their services for a modest honorarium of fifty dollars for the course; (3) developing materials appropriate to the students; and (4) providing supervision and support for the lay teachers. ⁹⁴

Evidence of Growing Political Power. The year 1958 was critical for the voter registration effort in South Carolina because every voter would be required to re-register (registration being valid for a ten-year period). When the people on Johns Island learned that the registrars were being more rigid than they had been, they organized monthly meetings, on re-registration. They reviewed the application blank and made sure that everyone understood it and could read it. As a result, not a single person who had attended the school the year before and up to the time of re-registration failed to pass. Over 600 blacks on Johns Island were re-registered that year.⁹⁵ The voting rate was nearly 100 percent.

For blacks, nevertheless, it was a continuing struggle against obstacles. Myles Horton and Septima Clark described their trouble in getting copies of the South Carolina statutes. Book dealers refused to sell them to "Negroes," yet without these books, they were having great difficulty discovering what the legal options or requirements might be. For example, payment of taxes above a certain amount was an optional way of qualifying to register, but registrars were not so informing applicants. They finally managed to get twelve copies of the statutes through the help of a lawyer in Virginia.

Slowly, an increased awareness and sense of confidence was beginning to have an effect. In a meeting at her home in Charleston, Clark commented on Johns Island, "They were able to put in a magistrate over there who has been just, using the law as it should be, not giving any special favors at all, but being fair." Jenkins replied:

Well, he wasn't that way when he was elected. At that time, we didn't have enough Negroes voting. . . . If two colored persons went into the court, he was fair enough, but not against a white person. I could see his point of view. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and if the white folks voted him there I couldn't see him going against them, unless he had a little bit of money. But I told them, when we organized a Progressive Club, that we were going to have to do some voting to be recognized on the island.... And they began to see that and that's why we started up this registration and organized a club, and after we started voting more heavily, then the magistrate began to think that some day they might vote enough to vote me out so I better be kind of nice.

What really made the magistrate change according to Jenkins was that three people decided to run against him. By sending a white man to jail for contempt of court when the white man tried to prevent a black from testifying, he got the support of the blacks and his margin of victory was approximately equal to the number of blacks who voted.⁹⁶ Emphasis on registration and voting was a constant theme, By 1963, there were 800 registered voters on Johns Island, about 30 percent of the eligible adults.

Soon, other political initiatives were being taken. Conversations were held with the leadership of political groups in South Carolina such as the South Carolina Political Action Committee (which emphasized black registration and voting) and the Palmetto State Voters Association (which took the further step of recommending candidates). The entire membership of the Progressive Club of Johns Island joined the Palmetto State Voters Association. Arrangements were made for Highlander workshops which members of these political organizations were encouraged to attend.⁹⁷

These conversations indicated further the way in which the Highlander-supported program, emphasizing literacy education tied to voter registration, was moving onto a wider stage, offering an effective outlet to political stirrings in black communities in the South. The steady proliferation of the program was beginning to provide eloquent testimony to the value and significance of the Highlander concept of education for citizenship. As statewide political organizations were formed the Highlander program provided support by training leaders who began to work within these organizations, as well as through workshops cosponsored by the organizations.

But pending the success of these efforts, other tactics, such as a threat to demand desegregation of the white high school were found to provide useful leverage. At a PTA meeting on Johns Island on January 5, 1958, Esau Jenkins asked the principal if the superintendent had responded to a letter about a business course for children in high school. The principal said, "No, [but] I don't think we need the setup here." Jenkins: "You think our children are dumber than the children on the other islands?" Principal: "No, but we are far behind." Jenkins "This was the first high school built from the sales tax, and you have been in charge since it started. You and your teachers must have failed to do good work if these children can't enter a business course." The teachers, one by one, got up and recited their qualifications and tried, but failed, to insult Jenkins. Elijah "Buddy" Freeman entered the discussion saying: "Esau is right. We have more colored landowners on this island than on the other islands. We are taxpayers and demand those rights for our children." The teachers then said: "Can you judge us? You are limited in your education." Freeman: "No, but if you say we are too backward to get more courses and that our children can't take it, something is wrong with your training." Jenkins: "We mean to ask for a business course for our children with a teacher . . . who has been trained in that special field and no makeshift. If we are refused, we will send our children wanting that teaching to register at St. John [the white high school] . If they refuse them, we will take the case to court. We are tired of being abused, and we are not asking teachers to do one thing but stay out of the way. Now you can go tell [the superintendent] I say so and all the other parents who want it. Show your hands, parents. Very well, that's enough said." A petition was drawn up and sent to the superintendent. Two weeks later, the principal sent for Jenkins. A room had been fitted for the commercial course. The new teacher was introduced.⁹⁸

The incident reveals the importance of courage and determination on the part of community leaders through citizens club meetings, citizenship classes and Highlander workshops to gain benefits which were reasonable but which were denied them, not only by the white power structure but also by the black school staff. The staff's antagonism probably reflected not only concern for their own jobs but also an effort to establish their own distance from less well-educated blacks. The Highlander-supported program of literacy education combined with voter registration and community-leader development was beginning to show tangible results.

Spreading the Citizenship Education Program to Other Islands

From the beginning of the ESF project, Myles Horton had been concerned with the need to develop the program so that it might spread throughout the South. During the second three-year grant period (beginning in 1956), the success of the citizenship school and accompanying voter registration efforts became evident. Toward the end of 1958, Horton began to see more clearly the potential in the Sea Island literacy schools and year-round citizenship education pattern as developed by the people themselves. He wrote:

I can think of no faster or more effective way to bring about integration than to assist Negroes in a program of their own making. They stay excited about what they are doing because they are doing it. Part of the pattern is becoming clear. With an experimental project we could soon determine what elements in their program could be adapted to other Southern communities.⁹⁹

Criteria for Expansion. It was not Highlander's intention, however, to move into whatever situation offered itself. First, certain guiding criteria must be met: "Is the need urgent universally throughout the South? Is this an educational concern in which we can educate leaders who will lead the community to constructive action rather than try to burn up our energies in organizing the community action ourselves? Is this a concern of adults, with whom we are chartered to work? Is this an effort which will bring people to residential sessions at Highlander?" The latter point was critical because, in Horton's experience, "a person who has been to a Highlander session at Highlander is several times more effective than a person with whom a Highlander staff person has worked only in his own community. There is something about the experience of living and working together and being closely associated without outside distractions for a period of days or weeks which heightens the educational process."¹⁰⁰

The Sea Islands certainly seemed to offer an obvious next step. Following his visit there, Horton reported:

Each island has a preponderance of Negro population and it is the determination of the Negro people to push through to integration that will determine the outcome of the current social crisis. Each island . . . encourages its population to think of itself as a "community." Each island is located not too far from a city, making it possible for an educated people to relate themselves to the community registration and voting programs and the public school integration or bus integration efforts of the townspeople, who seem to initiate and spearhead social movements in this period of history. Further, and of significance, is the fact that most of the inhabitants of these islands are economically independent--that is, they own their own land or are small businessmen--and not subject to losing their jobs and livelihoods if they speak out or act for integration which may be unpalatable to bosses or employers.

By encouraging the people of Johns Island, who have been to Highlander and who have received education and inspiration through the adult school there, to reach out to .. . the islands to the south of them, the Johns Island project will move forward in quality and in depth of understanding of the people connected with it. Education . . . mushrooms when the students of one area become teachers in another. Students may gain enough understanding to guide their own actions constructively but need to gain an even deeper understanding of the principles involved and inevitably do so--when they move out to teach others.¹⁰¹

The opportunity came in the spring of 1958. Clark and Jenkins were invited by a resident of Wadmalaw Island (who had attended a meeting of the Progressive Club on Johns Island and seen the Highlander movie on integration) to hold a meeting there. Before the date set, Jenkins met with a few interested community people and encouraged them to organize a group. Some 200 people came to the meeting, which encouraged Jenkins very much. His efforts since 1955 to get something started had at last met with success. "Many promised to come with him to Highlander in June and July."¹⁰²

Soon interest was expressed by others. Between December 1, 1958, and February 26, 1959, four citizenship schools were held: on Edisto Island, Wadmalaw Island, Johns Island and in North Charleston. One hundred and six persons were enrolled, ranging in age from fifteen to seventy-six. Sixty certificates were given for perfect attendance. Of the enrollees, fifty-six were registered to vote.¹⁰³ Of the remainder, thirty registered before the end of school. In addition, six one-week residential programs were held on Johns Island. They dealt with cooperatives, driver education, social security, today's cash crops, income taxes and health services. ¹⁰⁴

Out of the first citizenship school on Wadmalaw Island in 1958 came organization of the Board of Concerned Members of Wadmalaw Island. The board celebrated its fifteenth anniversary on March 18, 1973. In 1958, there were no registered black voters on the island; fifteen years later there were over a thousand. A black woman became a member of the precinct executive committee, which supported the candidacy of a white legislator. Through his efforts they got legislation to send school buses down side roads, to have mail delivered to individual boxes, and to establish three day care centers. Most important, many women were for the first time becoming involved in civic affairs."¹⁰⁵

At a meeting on St. Helena, Esau Jenkins told the audience that it was necessary to work on voting the year-around. He advised them to appoint a committee on registration and voting with a leader from each community and to offer a reward to the one getting the largest number to be registered. He suggested they check each member's certificate number and keep a record of it and that they work with those needing help in reading and writing, Above all, they were to take no money from any candidate to get voters to the polls but only to use money from their club.¹⁰⁶

It should be noted that the full range of activity which Jenkins had started did not spread in its entirety to other islands. "But the citizenship school was easy to grasp and was relatively non-threatening.... The beauty of it was that after two or three. months in a citizenship school, the educational process had raised their sights, disclosed new possibilities."¹⁰⁷ Other programs related to the franchise could then be started.

On Edisto Island, one outcome was the "each-man-get-a-man" campaign. "Every man in the school agreed to make apt effort to get another man to qualify and register and . . . at the end of the first month of their school, the teacher took nine of them to Charleston to take the qualifying tests, and seven of the nine passed and had their names added to the rolls of voters.""' Even after the schools closed with the beginning of farm work, monthly meetings were held to study the laws relating to registration and voting and to consider candidates and issues on the sample ballots for forthcoming elections. An important adjunct to the teaching methods was the introduction of films which described voting procedures and the meaning of an election and enumerated and described human rights.

The "Final Report of the Edisto Adult School for 1959-1960" shows that the adult citizenship school met from November 3 to March 4 with forty-seven enrolled, ranging in age from twenty-one to seventy-two. Their schooling ranged from none to eighth grade. Subjects included reading, writing, arithmetic, citizenship, sewing and some handwork, Along with reading and writing went letter-writing and the Bible; along with citizenship went history of our country and "progress of the Negro." "The music in the singing school . . . helped in many ways. It added more spirit and interest to the work.... It also helped people to take their minds off of themselves and center them more on one another and the goal toward which we are working."¹⁰⁹ About one hundred blacks were registered on Edisto of whom about eighty registered through the adult school.

Addressing a Highlander staff member attending a meeting on Edisto, a resident said:

You heard the expressions in our skit. They wrote out their own notes first and then they worked together in groups of four to pool their ideas, thus giving them some experience in group work.

Adults who give such fine cooperation and are willing to improve themselves, to share with others, are great potential leaders in their community. Many were afraid to come to the school. Some were ashamed to admit what they did not know. Some were afraid of losing their jobs. But little by little they are catching on and expressing regret that they did not come but will come next time.¹¹⁰

There was fear, but they persisted. It has been suggested that several factors may have produced a more aggressive spirit in the Sea Islands. Blacks were a majority of the population. Many were longtime landowners. The very isolation of the Sea Islands populations may have encouraged a greater feeling of independence among blacks than was the case elsewhere in the South. Some had participated in successful strikes in the fishing and oyster industries. And there was evidence, too, of memories of a time following Reconstruction when family members had held the franchise."

And so the slow process of building political sophistication went on. As Septima Clark pointed out, blacks were speaking better, beginning to read other materials, becoming more willing to take places on committees, to serve as poll-watchers or as secretaries of voters' leagues. ¹¹² A letter from Myles Horton to Adolph Hirsch noted:

we have just ended a workshop on Johns Island which brought together people who have been receiving training in the program over the past few years. In addition to the interest in community development and citizenship education, there was a persistent demand for literacy schools. It seemed that through the Schwarzhaupt program we have awakened interest among the Negroes in that area in learning to read. This winter we will have two or three literacy schools going in that area. In every case they will be organized and taught by people trained in the Schwarzhaupt program. In fact, the developments are of such a nature that Mrs. Septima Clark and one of the other people here at Highlander have arranged to spend the next four months in the area.¹¹³

But the achievements were not easily won. Much staff effort was required. On one trip, for example, Septima Clark reported that on a Monday evening she attended a meeting of the Johns Island Citizens Committee and showed three films. On Tuesday, she visited a nursery school, a cooperative store, a community store and called at the homes of two residents. At each place, she distributed literature and told of Highlander's work. On Wednesday, there was a public luncheon meeting at which Esau Jenkins outlined what must be done in working with voters. That evening she attended the closing session of the Johns Island citizenship school (all twenty-six students eligible to vote were successful in registering). The week closed with further visits to surrounding islands to meet people and tell them about Highlander and encourage attendance at its workshops."¹¹⁴

In the fall of 1958, a former Highlander workshop student was able to bring together 400 people at a meeting in Charleston Heights. Fifteen of those in attendance were former Highlander students. Represented were people from nearly a dozen localities. The program began with the presentation of a report by a group from the Kodak project in East Tennessee with slides and pictures of the work that they had done in community improvement. The second part of the program was concerned with registration and voting: difficulties, restrictions, problems of apathy and the need for voter education. The movie on Highlander workshops was also shown. The former Highlander student who was president of the organization sponsoring the meeting hoped to have a thousand names on the registration books in that neighborhood by November. "Then she plans to appoint a committee to ask the commissioner on street improvement to improve the streets in that area." ¹¹⁵

In 1959, classes were held in a rented house on James Island (adjacent to Charleston) with students coming from other islands. Discussions covered cooperatives, drivers' education, voting and registration. When asked why reading and writing were not taught at public adult schools, Septima Clark replied, "The state will not allow people to have anything on registration and voting in their schools. You can't teach citizenship training. They are afraid the Negroes will learn too many facts .... ^"116 In spite of difficulties, the citizenship work went on, and the additional effort was productive. Horton commented the following spring that promotion of the program was no longer necessary; demands were far outrunning Highlander's capacity to respond. The possibilities seemed limitless, but the scope would go far beyond what Highlander could or would want to administer.

Influence on the Charleston Community. One of the significant results of the initial work on Johns Island was the impact it had on developments in Charleston. At a meeting in which the first citizenship school on Johns Island was discussed, Esau Jenkins said that the school had played a significant part. "We have had quite a few times people from Charleston to come into that school and small as it might seem, it was doing something that Charleston don't have, Charleston not doing. We not only teach them about reading and writing, but we talk about civic things." This is especially significant because Charleston blacks tended to look down on Johns Island blacks in a "Can any good come out of Nazareth?" spirit. But good did come. For instance, a Charleston beautician wanted to do something about unpaved streets in her neighborhood, but realized voter registration was the key. She offered her shop as a meeting place if Bernice Robinson would conduct a literacy class, and this was done.¹¹⁷ Later on, Robinson organized a coaching staff for the Voters' Crusade. They schooled voters in going to the polls, in reading the sample ballot and in reading from the South Carolina statutes. "This was her own idea, not part of the established program." ¹¹⁸

At one point, Myles Horton referred to his awareness of the substantial number of Johns Island residents who worked in Charleston:

While we were intellectually aware of this fact and accepted the functional interrelationship between Charleston and the adjoining region to Johns Island, we nevertheless proceeded to operate on the conventional community approach of using only the people on Johns Island. We soon reached limitations where the local leadership just did not have the technical skill which was necessary to carry through particular projects.

Although our only motivation was to bring technical advice to the local leaders, we found ourselves entering into a whole new area which we believe is of fundamental importance. While there has always been a recognition of the functional interrelationships of rural communities and their adjacent urban areas, nevertheless, we have found ourselves actually working with the people of both communities. The technical know-how, skills and personnel from Charleston have been indispensable to the actual achievement of the full potentialities of the Johns Island organization to date.

It becomes clear that in this kind of working relationship, a whole reservoir of technical assistance, of leadership, of guidance advisors, etc., become available to the hinterland. For this process to take place there must be: (1) the actual organization in the underprivileged communities so that people are shaken out of their lethargy and so that they get confidence in themselves and in each other. (2) Once having created the vehicle or organization you are now prepared to make the bridge of confidence and acceptance on the part of the people in the underprivileged community with the circumstances created by the community organization itself.'"

The technical help covered a range of subjects. Persons were invited to meetings for discussion of the political situation in the county and the state or to provide information on the employment situation, union organizing, governmental and community agency services, etc.

The first Charleston resident to begin providing assistance on Johns Island was Septima Clark, and, subsequently, Bernice Robinson became a teacher of citizenship classes organized on the island. Still later, Esau Jenkins began to have a significant impact on the Charleston community. Writing in 1958, Horton reported that Jenkins and Clark had met with key leaders in Charleston to work out a block campaign to register voters with a view to doubling the number from 5,000 to 10,000 for the next election. A black candidate was running for statewide office for the first time. "The pattern was originally set by Esau in his own county."¹²⁰ In the sixties, a new generation of leaders emerged from Jenkins' programs on the island and elsewhere and took over more militant causes such as the strike to organize hospital health workers in Charleston. The rural-urban relationship became a two-way street.

In his summary report written in 1969, Herman Blake wrote:

It is no longer possible to speak of the citizenship program in terms of the Sea Islands only . . . for the program has reached out to embrace the entire county of Charleston, and its impact is felt statewide since Charleston is the largest county in South Carolina. Esau Jenkins is now president of the Citizens Committee of Charleston County, an organization which is affiliated with SCLC and has at least 500 members. It is an umbrella organization for the local civic clubs, with affiliates on Johns Island, Edisto Island, Wadmalaw Island and in Adams Run. They are trying to organize affiliates in other parts of the county, and a similar umbrella organization in every county in South Carolina.... The Citizens Committee has a permanent office in Charleston and places its major emphasis upon four issues. (1) Social Services: Every attempt is made to see that young people and their families get the proper social and health attention. They supply clothes to the needy to make it possible for them to go to school, and they stand ready to assist any family at any time. (2) Voter Registration: Between 1957 and 1967, 18,000 Negroes were added to the voter rolls in the county. This is particularly significant in view of the fact that they all had to come to the county seat on the two days per month when the registration books were open (Charleston County is 132 miles long and about 30 miles wide). As a result of their efforts it is now possible for people to register any day of the year, and in the evenings, at fire stations and similar public locations in their own communities. As of April 1967, Negroes constituted 38 percent of all registered voters in the county. With a growing two-party system splitting the white vote, the Negroes now control the balance of power in the county--particularly since a higher proportion of the registered Negroes vote than do registered whites. The work of the Citizens Committee resulted in the election of a Negro, St. Julian Devine, as alderman for the city of Charleston in June 1967. He is the first Negro elected to public office in Charleston since Reconstruction. (3) School Integration: In all of their meetings and otherwise the Citizens Committee pushes for the integration of the schools, urging young people to select the high schools they feel will be best for them and apply for entrance. Public schools in the Charleston area have been desegregated for only three years or so. A major activity at the present time is the integration of faculty, and this is being pushed diligently. They are now trying to get federal funds cut off to any school district that does not integrate its faculty. They feel that faculty integration will enhance student integration. (4) Credit Union: This is the newest venture of the Citizens Committee and one which will have a profound impact and effect on the population in a short time. It is the first time that nonprofessional people in Charleston County have a credit union available to them. They engage in a strong program of consumer education and make loans up to $700.00 to members. The credit union was chartered in September 1966 and by August 1967 had 223 members with $9,000 in savings and $6,000 in loans.

I attended a meeting of the Johns Island affiliate of the Citizens Committee in August 1967. In a driving rainstorm at least 75 persons attended. At that meeting, a Reverend Goodwin, a former student of Septima Clark, urged the people to register and join the credit union. He pointed out that in his church and other churches as well, all the church officers are required to become registered voters. Bernice Robinson, the main speaker, did an excellent job of explaining the credit union.... She also pointed out that as the credit union grew, they would be able to make larger loans so that people could make even greater use of it. At the meeting they enrolled twenty-six new members in the Citizens Committee and sold credit union shares amounting to $171.50.

To get an independent view of the impact of the ESF project, I talked with Mr. Herbert Fielding, the leading Negro funeral director in Charles ton and the president of the Political Action Committee, an organization affiliated with the Democratic party. Mr. Fielding was unequivocal in his praise for the project and saw it as the key to the change in Charleston County. He first became involved in the local political scene after returning to Charleston from the army in the early 50's. Esau Jenkins and others asked him to run for the House of Representatives in 1952 as a part of an effort to spur the registration of Negro voters. He agreed to do so and ran along with two other Negroes. Their efforts were directed toward getting Negroes registered, and their success in doing so was primarily due to Esau's efforts. Although they lost the election ("we were not shamefully defeated"), they began the process of voter registration in earnest. At that time between five and six thousand Negroes were registered in Charleston County, most of them in the city. In six weeks they more than doubled the city registration.

He felt that there were two barriers to registration at that time, the indifference on the part of the Negroes who saw voting as the white man's business (this included all levels of the Negro community), and the strong opposition to Negro registration on the part of the board of registration and the local newspaper. The indifference was overcome by Esau's persistence. All of those in the program learned a lot from watching him. His folksy way of dealing with the people and understanding their point of view turned the tide in even the most discouraging circumstances. Esau's effectiveness has been increased by his education in leadership and the success of the programs they initiated. ¹²¹

Even in the early sixties, black votes became a factor on the state level in South Carolina. In 1963, Governor Hollings took a strong stand against school integration. He then ran for the Senate against black opposition and lost, the first time such a thing had happened to a South Carolina governor. Charleston County is the largest county in South Carolina, and Esau Jenkins was the organizer of the black vote in that county, which Hollings did not carry. Reaching the point, however, where black voting power could play a decisive role in a statewide election was a slow process. Important in this connection were the residential workshops initiated at the Sea Islands Center on Johns Island in 1963. These workshops, focusing on political action, were a direct outgrowth of the citizenship classes started in January 1957 on Johns Island.

Expansion Beyond the Sea Islands

By 1958, the feasibility of the citizenship school idea had been amply established on the Sea Islands. But would the idea work elsewhere? To find out, Septima Clark went to Huntsville, Alabama, in the fall of 1960 and recruited teachers for and from the community. "Huntsville represented a leap, both in distance and cultural difference from the Sea Islands. But experienced teachers from the Sea Islands and nearby were used as trainers. And it worked."¹²² It worked, but not exactly in the same way. An important difference from the experience in the Sea Islands was that ministers took an active part--some because they wanted to learn to read and write themselves.

I was at the minister's meeting Saturday. Got there a little late but in time to hear what Reverend Snodgrass had to say about the classes. He explained the matter of what he wanted each minister to do and what he thought of their putting forth special effort to see to it they, as well as their flock, take advantage of the classes.

......

One preacher wanted to know if reading and writing was going to be taught, he was glad for the "Yes" answer. I think that he wants that for himself. I believe that you have hit the nail on the head and it will only take some hard driving to get it to go in.”¹²³

Yet, in another way, the beginning was the same. It started with a woman who had opened her home to neglected black children and whose work had been brought to Highlander's attention. Invited to a workshop on social needs and social resources at Highlander in March 1960, she came with a carload of men and women from her community. She brought four others to a workshop in May, three in June, three in July, and three to the August workshop.

In July, Clark and the Reverend S. S. Seay, a member of the Highlander executive council, were invited to a countywide mass meeting in Huntsville, called by the newly formed Madison County Voters League. Its purpose was to get a black to run as a candidate in the September election. Reverend Seay was shocked to note that they were starting as late as July 31 to put up a candidate for a September 19 election. He felt that none of them knew anything about the government of their city or even how to preside at a meeting. The league president worked hard on registration day hauling people, but other members failed to appear. Several blacks were not allowed to register because they could not read or write. No records had been kept of those who had registered. The league president then asked Highlander for help, and, together, plans were made including setting up citizenship classes in both Huntsville and the county.

In September, Clark met with former Highlander students in Madison County and worked with the president of the league to find what the people wanted and needed. It was decided to offer a course in Huntsville on leadership training and to offer two classes in the county on fundamental and literacy education. These were scheduled to begin October 4, 1960. It was at this point that the ministers began to push the program. Between October 1960 and the end of February 1961, five classes were set up in Madison County with a combined enrollment of l15, of whom eighty-six registered to vote. By 1960, citizenship education efforts were also underway in several other areas, particularly in West Tennessee; Southeastern Georgia; Montgomery, Alabama; in South Carolina; and, of course, at Highlander itself-with significant results. Support for these efforts continued to be given by Highlander, but with increasing difficulty as a result of attacks on Highlander by the state of Tennessee through the courts (see footnote 1 in this chapter). The fact that it worked in communities like Huntsville helped to persuade the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to embark on its own citizenship education program. And so Highlander ideas (as developed by its staff working with local leaders) were beginning to interact on an increasing scale with the rising expectations of blacks in the South. These expectations involved several well-known elements, the first of which was the move toward school integration. We have seen that when Septima Clark had brought Esau Jenkins to a United Nations workshop in 1954, he found in the discussions inspiration and guidance for his ambition to increase registration and voting on Johns Island. The citizenship education efforts which ensued there provided a ready opening for Highlander to pursue the objectives of the ESF-financed project concerned with developing community leaders. This new thrust constituted the second element--the element of community leadership training and citizenship development which provides the principal focus for this report.

The third element, which provided still another purpose for Highlander was, of course, the civil rights movement. It was following her attendance at a Highlander workshop, in 1955, that Rosa Parks precipitated the Montgomery bus boycott. This led eventually to a whole series of workshops for community adults and for students concerned with the philosophy and tactics of nonviolent direct action. "The Highlander workshop (April 1960) was followed, two weeks later, by a second South-wide meeting, involving the same student leaders, to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)."¹²⁴

Training Citizenship Teachers for Other Organizations

Interest in the citizenship education program continued to mount and led inevitably to a shift in Highlander's role from direct supervision of schools in the field to the training of volunteer teachers recruited by other organizations throughout the South. But in the meantime trouble was brewing for Highlander: segregationist elements were determined to close the school. On July 31, 1959, there was a raid by Tennessee police officers, and the school was charged with selling commercial products (beer, razor blades, etc.) without a license, and with violating segregation laws. In fact, these items had been made available on an informal, revolving-fund basis for the convenience of those students who would not have been served in local stores.

In April 1961, the Tennessee State Supreme Court issued its decision upholding the lower court's order that the school was in violation of the segregation and business licensing laws and should be closed.¹²⁵ In September 1961, the school's main building was padlocked by the district attorney general for Grundy County. Highlander's charter was revoked and its property (valued at $136,000) was confiscated, including the director's home. Speaking to a workshop group on this move, Myles Horton commented, "you can padlock a building, but you can't padlock an idea. Highlander is an idea. . . . You can't kill it and you can't close it."¹²⁶ Later in the same year, Highlander applied for a new charter under the name of Highlander Research and Educational Center. This was granted on August 28, 1961, and soon its educational activities were again going forward in an old house in Knoxville.¹²⁷

Decision to Decentralize. Highlander was not entirely unprepared for the closing of the school. It had already seen the need to delegate responsibility for the citizenship and leader training program to other organizations. This was, at least in part, because it did not wish to create the large administrative structure which would be needed to manage a much larger program spread out over the South. It encouraged other groups, therefore, to disseminate the idea. In December 1960, Myles Horton wrote to a group of organizations in the South inviting them to make use of the citizenship education program. He stated, in part:

Highlander's educational resources are available for the use of any agency or organization which shares its view about the need for citizenship schools, and its convictions about learning and action.... It is prepared to receive supervisors and teachers sent by any one of these agencies, and to hold workshops in which these people will be trained for organizing and conducting citizenship schools in their local communities¹²⁸

The training was designed, first:

To help the teachers learn how to define the special needs of their own communities, and second, how to present the text material which is available. Supervisors will be helped (1) to recognize the different needs in different communities under their supervision, (2) to judge the level of citizenship experience among the students, (3) to organize and administer schools and coordinate schools in the area and (4) to supervise teachers, ¹²⁹

Training Workshop: January 1961. Among the organizations responding to this offer were the Southeastern Georgia Voters Crusade; Chatham County Voters Crusade (Savannah, Georgia); Madison County Civic League (Huntsville, Alabama); Citizens' Committee of Charleston County (South Carolina) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.¹³⁰ As a result, in January 1961, an experimental workshop was held at Highlander to test a curriculum for supervisors and teachers of adult schools and to take a first step in offering the citizenship school idea on a South-wide basis.¹³¹

The training workshop began with a discussion of motivation and recruiting students for a citizenship school. The relationship between motivation to read, and the wish to register, vote and become a first-class citizen was stressed. Content was related to purpose within the learning process. And the fact that recruiting had to be done face to face was emphasized. "Students must be assured that lack of formal education is a misfortune and not a disgrace and that it is possible to learn, even after they are adults." ¹³² The following day's discussion dealt with the need to go beyond achieving the vote, as well as the necessity for everyone to do his part as a member of the community. At the end, Myles Horton summarized the goals of the schools: their involvement was not only with many specific purposes but also with the concepts of what is and what ought to be.

When you teach a student, you think of his present limitations and you try to help him with those. But you think also of what he can become, and it is ill terms of that, rather than the way he is now, that you treat him. This is what I mean by respecting human dignity.

You yourselves, as teachers and leaders, incorporate in every small thing you teach your students to do, the values that lead people to look toward the "ought to be." I think that's the genius of our program.¹³³

Two workshop sessions were then devoted to demonstrations and discussions of teaching method, including how to deal with students at different literacy levels. Attention was also given to such practical matters as when and where to schedule classes, how to use films or an outside speaker, record keeping and recruiting. (In the week-long version of the training workshop, a session was devoted to the relation of the citizenship school to its community and how the adult students could be helped to take part in community work.)

The next-to-last session was devoted to discussion of a follow-up questionnaire to be completed by trainees six months after completion of the training workshops. The purpose was to discover what difference the citizenship school taught by the trainee had made with respect to civic activity, quality of voting and improvement in social relationships in the community. The questionnaire consisted of four items about problems encountered and six topic areas relating to long-range effects on students. Information was requested with respect to problems in getting started (recruiting, finding a meeting place, ordering supplies, community opposition); operating problems (keeping records, grouping students according to ability, presenting text material); and interpersonal problems with coworkers.

The other questions required follow-up by the citizenship school teacher with each student six months after the close of the class. Representative questions were: Did the student register? If not, was literacy the problem? If registered, did he vote? Did he vote a straight ticket or try to choose the individuals he wanted to vote for? Did he get others to vote? If so, how many? How did he get them to vote? What other civic action did he participate in (signing petitions, attending community meetings, serving on committees)? How has he become more effective in community action? By joining organizations? By holding office? Has he contributed service or money to charitable causes (for example, blood bank)? Significant here is the indication that the goal of the program was achievement of a rather sophisticated level of civic activity. The sights had been raised far above Esau Jenkins' first citizenship school, the "school on the bus." The final workshop session was devoted to relating the citizenship schools to what was happening to blacks in the South.

Training teachers only was, of course, not enough; supervisors were needed whose responsibility would be to oversee the efforts of perhaps ten teachers and to help

recruit students for classes, arrange places for schools to meet, organize the schools in his area, help the teacher decide upon material and equipment and the quantities needed, to advise teachers on class programs and community activities, to visit classes and supervise the work of the teachers, to coordinate the work of the area, to plan the time of the year with the teacher (seasons when students are least busy on jobs are best). ¹³⁴

To prepare them for these tasks, they were to take part, with their teachers, in the training workshops and the weekend refresher course. Undertaking such responsibilities was in itself an education for civic competence.

The significance of the workshop, in Highlander's view, was twofold: (1) It marked a shift in role from experimentation, sponsorship and supervision to the training of leadership for other groups; and (2) Other organizations were encouraged to initiate citizenship education under their own auspices, sending teachers to Highlander for training. The plan was simple. The organizations were to recruit and send teachers to Highlander for a week of training. Those who were trained then organized and taught classes in their home communities. After five to six weeks, they returned to Highlander for a weekend refresher course. The whole process depended upon rapid action, effective performance and nominal cost, These, then, were the elements of the program which was to be set up in many communities, especially in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and West Tennessee and to a lesser extent in other Southern states.

Southeastern Crusade for Voters League. Of the several areas in which the citizenship idea took root and flourished, one of the most significant was Southeastern Georgia. In the fall of 1959, Bernice Robinson spoke at a mass meeting in Savannah about Highlander's work. In April 1960, the Chatham County Crusade for Voters League was organized with Hosea Williams as chairman. The league ran a campaign for registration every Sunday and supported the sit-in demonstrations by picketing and engaging in selective buying, but their need was for more leadership rooted in the community. Eleven of their members were sent to Highlander workshops on voting and registration, political education and community development.¹³⁵ They became part of the leadership base which, with the assistance of Septima Clark and Bernice Robinson, led to thirty citizenship schools being organized between September and December 1960.

Although Highlander's ability to furnish financial assistance had been severely curtailed because of efforts by the state of Tennessee to revoke the Highlander charter, it was arranged that Bernice Robinson would go to Savannah to meet with Hosea Williams and his teachers. In addition, Clark and Robinson wrote to Williams committing Highlander's support for a refresher course for the teachers in his Southeastern Crusade Program, to be held at Dorchester Center in June.

In the spring of 1961, Highlander forwarded an application for $11,503 to the Emil Schwarzhaupt Foundation on behalf of the Southeastern Georgia Crusade for Voters which was trying to prepare citizens to register in a nine-county area. Of the 77,400 blacks eligible to register in these counties, only 16,350 were registered at the time. And many of these had registered in Savannah only a short time before. Blacks were in the majority in two of the nine counties and accounted for more than 38 percent in six others. The Foundation granted $5,000 in May, and an additional $6,503 in June 1961, to finance additional teacher training for citizenship classes.

The outgrowth of the original experiment which you supported is a change in our role. This adult education concept is now passed from the experimental, pilot stage