Stepping foot on Claflin University’s campus in Orangeburg, South Carolina, is walking onto “Freeland,” the name that was given to the campus during the Civil Rights Movement.
It is a legacy that endures and that I experienced in Ministers’ Hall at Claflin, when I sat with some of the elders from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Their presence inspired me, because I knew what they had done as teenagers through the sit-in movement and how it changed the world.
I had barely settled into my seat when civil rights activist Judy Richardson began to read a startling statement.
She and others had learned that the grant funding for the lecture series “SNCC and Grassroots Organizing” had been terminated, the result of cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities. The move was tied to broader belt-tightening by the Trump administration. But it also came amid a societal shift away from diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that many have seen as the natural extension of the civil rights battles waged in the 1960s.
Nevertheless, Ms. Richardson and the group did what they’ve done for the last 65 years – they pushed ahead with a steely determination and love in their hearts.
Over those next few hours, I sat with the elders and learned about SNCC, from their efforts to build political power to the care and concern they expressed for people who had been harmed by racism and classism. Their defiance was different from the despair that I had seen in recent months due to the current administration, and was a compelling reminder of what is birthed when courage meets candor.
What also jumped out to me was how youthful the elders looked. Ms. Richardson, reportedly 81 years old, is still vibrant and full of songs, with palpable energy. Books might say she was the former field secretary for SNCC, but those who are familiar with the work know she is a forever field secretary.
My dear Aunt Joyce has a line that she recites often: “Wherever you go, represent.” These SNCC members represent timeless dedication to righteousness – the resolve to stare down death and choose life. Some of those deaths were the result of government neglect, others the result of Jim Crow, under the umbrella of a nation that Martin Luther King Jr. said was “approaching spiritual death.” Where Dr. King is with us in spirit, the elders remain, forever young and marked by those experiences.
That history, and more importantly, honesty, can help us cut through the divisive rhetoric of the present time. There are some who see the removal of social safety nets, murals, and much more as the end of a progressive era.
I am reminded of a familiar refrain from SNCC: “Those who believe in freedom cannot rest.” America has largely been out of tune regarding that refrain, but its greatest defenders of democracy and its tillers for a better world have not.
In our cover story this week, Story Hinckley introduces readers to some of those modern tillers, individuals who were moved by the injustice of George Floyd’s murder to strive for change. Momentum has been difficult to sustain, but as one source tells Story, “Even though there has been a swing back, there are still people pushing forward.”
