|
Carpenters for Christmas was conceived to counteract a series of church bombings and arson attacks in Mississippi during and following the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. During the summer of 1964, the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) organized a nationally supported campaign that challenged the racial segregation of the Mississippi Democratic Party and the state's systematic exclusion of black citizens from voting. Churches played a central role in this campaign, often housing Freedom Schools, serving as freedom election polling places, and serving as the venue for mass meetings. To counter this central role, segregationist forces began a campaign of terror against civil rights workers and the churches that gave them support. Over the course of Freedom Summer, there were at least three murders, approximately 70 bombings or burnings, over 80 beatings, and over 1,000 arrests of civil rights activists. The COFO incident report, a single-spaced document that offered brief daily summaries, was over ten pages long.〔(Mississippi Burning 1964 LBJ Tapes )〕 In the fall of 1964, numerous churches in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South were burned, bombed or otherwise attacked. Students from Oberlin College and others organized a church rebuilding project to create national support for southern churches. They chose the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Blue Mountain, Mississippi to highlight the problem of church destruction, and in December 1964, with national media attention, the church was rebuilt with volunteer labor and donated materials. The church burned right after Fannie Lou Hamer gave a speech there. The project received widespread publicity in national media, and contributed to broader recognition of need to afford protection to southern churches that supported the civil rights movement. ==Background and context== During the 1960s Holly Springs, and Rust College, was a locus for civil rights activities in (Marshall ), Benton, and Tippah Counties. Partly that resulted from the active support for civil rights from the leadership and students at Rust College, one of the oldest African American liberal arts colleges in the United States. Long before white civil rights workers arrived, Rust College Students, began to challenge segregation of public accommodations. A COFO office and Freedom School was ultimately located near the college on 100 Rust Avenue and North Memphis Street and was referred to as Freedom House. It was the headquarters for the voter registration movement in north Mississippi and the headquarters of the local Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Civil Rights workers stationed at Freedom House began to link to self-contained movements in Marshall and the nearby counties of (Benton ) and Tippah. African American residents of Tippah County were already involved in civil rights activities long before Freedom Summer. (Hazel Foster ), was an NAACP activist. A letter from the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission to the Tippah County Attorney, August 23, 1962 writes: Please furnish this commission with any general information you may have on the above subject (Hazel Foster) regarding activities with the NAACP, if any, or other subversive organizations.〔Digital Archives of Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, August 23, 1962〕 A letter from the Sovereignty Commission on the same date seeks advice from the local circuit judge as to whether Mrs. Foster has registered to vote and inquires of any connection to the NAACP.〔( Letter from Sovereignty Commission )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Carpenters for Christmas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|