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The Resource I've got the light of freedom : the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle, Charles M. Payne

I've got the light of freedom : the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle, Charles M. Payne

Creator
Summary
This momentous work offers a groundbreaking history of the early civil rights movement in the South. Using wide-ranging archival work and extensive interviews with movement participants, Charles Payne uncovers a chapter of American social history forged locally, in places like Greenwood, Mississippi, where countless unsung African Americans risked their lives for the freedom struggle. The leaders were ordinary women and men--sharecroppers, domestics, high school students, beauticians, independent farmers--committed to organizing the civil rights struggle house by house, block by block, relationship by relationship. Payne brilliantly brings to life the tradition of grassroots African American activism, long practiced yet poorly understood. Payne overturns familiar ideas about community activism in the 1960s. The young organizers who were the engines of change in the state were not following any charismatic national leader. Far from being a complete break with the past, their work was based directly on the work of an older generation of activists, people like Ella Baker, Septima Clark, Amzie Moore, Medgar Evers, Aaron Henry. These leaders set the standards of courage against which young organizers judged themselves they served as models of activism that balanced humanism with militance. While historians have commonly portrayed the movement leadership as male, ministerial, and well-educated, Payne finds that organizers in Mississippi and elsewhere in the most dangerous parts of the South looked for leadership to working-class rural Blacks, and especially to women. Payne also finds that Black churches, typically portrayed as frontrunners in the civil rights struggle, were in fact late supporters of the movement
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
xiv, 525 pages, [24] pages of plates
Note
"A Centennial book"--Half title page
Contents
  • 5.
  • Greenwood: Building on the Past
  • 6.
  • If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me: The Redefinition of Leadership
  • 7.
  • They Kept the Story Before Me: Families and Traditions
  • 8.
  • Slow and Respectful Work: Organizers and Organizing
  • 9.
  • A Woman's War
  • 1.
  • 10.
  • Transitions
  • 11.
  • Carrying on: The Politics of Empowerment
  • 12.
  • From SNCC to Slick: The Demoralization of the Movement
  • 13.
  • Mrs. Hamer Is No Longer Relevant: The Loss of the Organizing Tradition
  • 14.
  • The Rough Draft of History
  • Setting the Stage
  • Bibliographic Essay: The Social Construction of History
  • 2.
  • Testing the Limits: Black Activism in Postwar Mississippi
  • 3.
  • Give Light and the People Will Find a Way: The Roots of an Organizing Tradition
  • 4.
  • Moving on Mississippi
Isbn
9780520085152
Link
Instance
Label
I've got the light of freedom : the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle
Title
I've got the light of freedom
Title remainder
the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle
Statement of responsibility
Charles M. Payne
Title variation
I have got the light of freedom
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
This momentous work offers a groundbreaking history of the early civil rights movement in the South. Using wide-ranging archival work and extensive interviews with movement participants, Charles Payne uncovers a chapter of American social history forged locally, in places like Greenwood, Mississippi, where countless unsung African Americans risked their lives for the freedom struggle. The leaders were ordinary women and men--sharecroppers, domestics, high school students, beauticians, independent farmers--committed to organizing the civil rights struggle house by house, block by block, relationship by relationship. Payne brilliantly brings to life the tradition of grassroots African American activism, long practiced yet poorly understood. Payne overturns familiar ideas about community activism in the 1960s. The young organizers who were the engines of change in the state were not following any charismatic national leader. Far from being a complete break with the past, their work was based directly on the work of an older generation of activists, people like Ella Baker, Septima Clark, Amzie Moore, Medgar Evers, Aaron Henry. These leaders set the standards of courage against which young organizers judged themselves they served as models of activism that balanced humanism with militance. While historians have commonly portrayed the movement leadership as male, ministerial, and well-educated, Payne finds that organizers in Mississippi and elsewhere in the most dangerous parts of the South looked for leadership to working-class rural Blacks, and especially to women. Payne also finds that Black churches, typically portrayed as frontrunners in the civil rights struggle, were in fact late supporters of the movement
Awards note
Lillian Smith Book Award, 1995
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Payne, Charles M
Dewey number
323/.09762
Government publication
government publication of a state province territory dependency etc
Illustrations
  • illustrations
  • maps
  • plates
Index
index present
LC call number
E185.93.M6
LC item number
P39 1995
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • African Americans
  • Civil rights movements
  • African American civil rights workers
  • Civil rights workers
  • Mississippi
  • African Americans
  • Civil rights movements
  • Greenwood (Miss.)
  • African American civil rights workers
  • African Americans
  • Civil rights movements
  • Civil rights workers
  • Race relations
  • Mississippi
  • Mississippi
  • Civil Rights Movement
  • Negers
  • Mississippi
  • Greenwood (Miss.)
Label
I've got the light of freedom : the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle, Charles M. Payne
Link
Instantiates
Publication
Note
"A Centennial book"--Half title page
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 443-487) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
  • 5.
  • Greenwood: Building on the Past
  • 6.
  • If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me: The Redefinition of Leadership
  • 7.
  • They Kept the Story Before Me: Families and Traditions
  • 8.
  • Slow and Respectful Work: Organizers and Organizing
  • 9.
  • A Woman's War
  • 1.
  • 10.
  • Transitions
  • 11.
  • Carrying on: The Politics of Empowerment
  • 12.
  • From SNCC to Slick: The Demoralization of the Movement
  • 13.
  • Mrs. Hamer Is No Longer Relevant: The Loss of the Organizing Tradition
  • 14.
  • The Rough Draft of History
  • Setting the Stage
  • Bibliographic Essay: The Social Construction of History
  • 2.
  • Testing the Limits: Black Activism in Postwar Mississippi
  • 3.
  • Give Light and the People Will Find a Way: The Roots of an Organizing Tradition
  • 4.
  • Moving on Mississippi
Control code
ocm31134152
Dimensions
25 cm
Extent
xiv, 525 pages, [24] pages of plates
Isbn
9780520085152
Lccn
94024645
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
n
Other physical details
illustrations, map
System control number
  • (Sirsi) o31134152
  • (OCoLC)31134152
Label
I've got the light of freedom : the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle, Charles M. Payne
Link
Publication
Note
"A Centennial book"--Half title page
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 443-487) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
  • 5.
  • Greenwood: Building on the Past
  • 6.
  • If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me: The Redefinition of Leadership
  • 7.
  • They Kept the Story Before Me: Families and Traditions
  • 8.
  • Slow and Respectful Work: Organizers and Organizing
  • 9.
  • A Woman's War
  • 1.
  • 10.
  • Transitions
  • 11.
  • Carrying on: The Politics of Empowerment
  • 12.
  • From SNCC to Slick: The Demoralization of the Movement
  • 13.
  • Mrs. Hamer Is No Longer Relevant: The Loss of the Organizing Tradition
  • 14.
  • The Rough Draft of History
  • Setting the Stage
  • Bibliographic Essay: The Social Construction of History
  • 2.
  • Testing the Limits: Black Activism in Postwar Mississippi
  • 3.
  • Give Light and the People Will Find a Way: The Roots of an Organizing Tradition
  • 4.
  • Moving on Mississippi
Control code
ocm31134152
Dimensions
25 cm
Extent
xiv, 525 pages, [24] pages of plates
Isbn
9780520085152
Lccn
94024645
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
n
Other physical details
illustrations, map
System control number
  • (Sirsi) o31134152
  • (OCoLC)31134152

Subject

Genre

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