Freedom Summer
Sydney Wolfe (also known as)
Colby Shockburg (Southern Male African American Voter)
"Should we die slaved without trying? Should we let our spirits fall and then rise without our hope? No, we should live free or die hard trying to succed." ~Sydney Wolfe~
Beat
My Heart Shall Be Free
Freedom Rights!
"Freedom Rights!!" "Voters Rights!!" "Same as Whites!!" all these blood red painted signs reach over the heads of African Americans. The people that have little, mostly no rights. The people that survive the cold ravage streets with our apted shoes on our bloody raw feet. The children are dying for the freedom for all. Crying for food and drink. The elder fall to the ground with their spirits high and out. Touching the free sky. But with the hopes and dreams of those who speak with the voice over the silence to nurish and heel the ones with the pain, are those who will fight and who will continue fighting for the Freedom Rights, The Voters Rights and the Rights that are the Same as Whites. These people are strong with fear, dignity and their hunger for justice. We all take a stand for freedom and we will not stand down until we have risin into the minds and hearts of the Whites and told them about our sorrow and passion for equality. We will give the speech of racist, death and suiside. We will give the voice of unison, fellowship, and life. We will give the speech of Life.
Not me but all want a chance. A chance to show the world their wrong and to show what is right. Not me but all want a chance. A chance to even out the field. To even it out and make it flat with no hills. No hills so that we will all be equal and level. Level because we are not higher than anyone nor are we more important then anyone. We are flat together and holding hands like brother and sister, black with white, brown and blue. Together like one big family of Life and Freedom. Together making one tight unawry, unchafed nation. Let our hearts beat together and not separate from others. No ones heart should beat faster than the other. One beat, steady and in rythme, thump, thump, thump. Let it beat, let it ring. My heart and your heart shall be free.
Limited!
My rights are limited. My life is limited. For my whole life I have been captured. I have been slaved. I'm 37 years old and I still feel trapped in this divergent world. My mind says "stay awake, relize your fate. Your a slave and you are nothing." But my heart says something else "Dream, Fight, Believe. You will make a difference, Colby Shockburg, you will be a living legand to all who can see. Forget that you are poor. Forget that you are nothing. You are a fighter. You are positioned to fight. You are made to fight." I will fight and I will be a living legand. But my wife is different. She is negitive. I love her to the end and she is not capible of seeing her way to the thought of freedom. She gave up and has retiared her fate for life. She has let herself go and has not stopped by to catch herself. Rose Shockburg is a true fighter at heart. Her heart beats slow but will find its speed and will join me in the fight for rights.
Freedom Summer, a violent masicare. So I say. The want to vote but instead being thrown out to the cold forbidden streets because he is not white, but colored. All the signs on every resturant or shop say, "Whites Only" or "Colored Enter Through Back Door" at the bottom of the sign says "In order of the police" I think that the bloody sign should say, "In order of the "whites"" It is insulting and rude beyond understanding, belief and not reasonable. Being colored is mostly, let me say, a big nasty bully bothering you on the courtyard, giving you a terribly hard time. You stand there and take it. The world is messed up. Us colored folks stand on the football field with the ball in hand and take the harsh twenty-body tackle. What we should do is: run away and throw the football down the field and score. To get ahead. To score one point on the score goal to use it as a way of showing that we can be superior. We can conquer. We can win. But only if we fight, believe and practice. Practice at the thought of a newer nation. A anti-color blind nation. Where colors don't matter. We all will be seen the same and treated the same.
In the neighborhood, you can tell which house belongs to which person. Big, fancy, stuck-up rich houses with no doubt belong to the whites. And the trashy, washed-up poor houses belong to us colored people. Poor or possibly homless. The only things in a house owned by a colored person is a bed, normally just one big bed. Hardly anybody owns two or more beds. A small kitchen with a stove, ice box, and small oven. There is a table in the dinning room. A couch and a small TV. Most houses dont even own a TV. If your lucky you have a dresser and a couple of pairs of clothes. There is a small bathroom. Normally no more than one. With a toliet, sink and bath tub. The houses are small enough for an ant farm or a beehave. But when it is cold we all huddle up together on the couch and sit there and be warm together. Peacefully.
Thoughts for the Dead!
I got into my beat-up car and buckled my seat belt to head off to church where I am a substitute minister. When I turned the corner on Westin Ave, I noticed a little boy about seven years old. He is walking down the heat rising side walks. He is whistling the tune to "This Land is Your Land". Some tough older white boys that he had passed, heard the song and whispered to one another. They both smiled and I knew that something was wrong. I pulled my car over to the side of the abanded street to watch carfully. I knew that the two older boys were going to prounce on the younger one for singing that wonderful, heartly song. Or they were just being "whites" and hurting him for no reason. The two boys tip-toed rapidly and I knew that it was time to stop them. One boy grabbed the little one by his pant buckle. The other older boy got right in his red, screaming face and spit on him in the eyes and mouth. This made the little boy kick and scream harder. All this did was make the two boys want more. They set him down and punched his nose, then they picked him back up and threw him into the wire fence behind them. The little boy's face was dripping in surrenders blood. One older boy took off both of his shoes and threw them over the fence. The other one took off his shirt and hung it on top of the fence. The two boys were laughing and howling. I ran up behind them and picked both of them up by their shirts. They both grabbed their necks like I was choking them. It took all of my strenth to throw both of those chubby jerks into the fence, then pick them back up and do it again. When I was tired and they were half as bad as the little boy who was just lying there with out moving. But his eyes were open with fear. I shouted at the two boys and they promised to leave little kids alone. They ran away. I walked over to the little boy, frozen on the ground. He didn't move when I approched him. I picked him up and put him in my arms. He didn't close his eyes or try to fight to get away. He didn't move. I felt his heart race. There wasn't one. I felt his face, it was cold with no warmth. He was dead. He had the life beat out of him. I carried him to church where we prayed. The parents of the dead child sobbed through the entire survice. After church we made a small grave in the back yard of his house. Timith Lean Kenny. Born 1958 Died 1964.
The thought of a little boy dying at a young age pains me in a certent way. I thought about it all the way back home from church. Flash backs of the older boys throwing the little one into the fence repeatly, harder each time came across my eyes and the sound of crule laughter filled my ears, but the worst thing that makes me horrified is the thought of not coming fast enough to rescue the boy. I thought about how everything might have changed if I wasn't late getting to church, I could have stopped it before he died. I jammed my fists into the steering wheel of my car and honked the horn a couple of times. Guilty tears streamed down my red blood-shot eyes. My vision started to get a little blury and I couldn't see the road that well. Rain drops began to fall in a light misting form. Seconds later the misting turned into buckets and buckets pouring onto the summer-heated roads. The roads started to steam and the smoke lifted. I tried to wipe my tears as I saw a white man crossing the streets with an umbrella in his right hand and a briefcase in his left. He glanced at me and changed his walking direction and came toward me. He opened the backseat of my car and said to take him to Charleston Ache Blvd. I nodded and said to relax and it might take awhile to get there because of the rain storm. He opened his briefcase and pulled out some papers and a nice looking pen. We stopped at a red light and I peeked into the rear-view mirror and saw that this mans name was Welsey Dunham. I put a small note in my brain with that name attached. Congressman, Welsey Dunham.
Burn,Baby,Burn!
It was the hottest day in Mississippi. I was outside watering the flowers and whistling the tune "He is Faithful." I was on the 3rd verse when I heard a scream for help. I looked toward the cry and saw three houses on fire. I truck was driving past with bombs in their hands. I went back inside and called 911. They picked up and I told them that white folks where bombing black homes. She put me on hold so I hung up. I told my wife to start packing our most valuable things as fast as she can. I ran out of my house and sprinted toward the screaming women. The white folks bombed 10 more houses and they were coming close to my house. As I reached the lady, she was bent over by her husband who had been in the house at the time it was bombed. I saw my wife running to me with five bags in her hands and tears rolling down her eyes as she saw the bloody, blankened body. The truck curved onto our street and my feet started picking up pace and my wife barely behind. 15 more houses were on fire with dead bodies and pets parts thrown everywhere. Every time we passed a dead body, or somewhat of a body, my wife did a cross across her chest and blew each one an air kiss.
Reaching our house we saw it touching the sky with flames. Rose collasped into the ground and bawled her amber eyes out. I looked at the burning house and my face heated up. I sqeezed my fists tight together and grinded my teeth. Words of anger and revenge slipped through my teeth and entered the smoky air. My eyes caught something that changed my mind. The license plate on the truck. 2576 JAB. I noted that in my brain.
The next morning in the paper there was a picture of houses and churches burning. The title read: 30 Black Homes and 37 Black Churches were bombfired yesterday.
I wrinkled the paper in a small ball and threw it into the trash can. My mouth turned up and I smiled a soft evil grin. "I'm gonna do something about this." "I'm gonna stop this death of seperation." "I'm gonna be a living legand."
The Living Legend!
I sent for the NAACP to come down to Mississippi. When they came we got together and claimed this fight, "Freedom Summer!" Our fight lasted he following year, when President Lyndon Baines Johnson attempted to persuade Congress to pass his Voting Rights Act. This proposed legislation to removed the right of states to impose restrictions on who could vote in elections. Johnson explained how: "Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes." 70,000 students took place in Freedom Summer and was passed by large majorities in the House of Representatives (333 to 48) and the Senate (77 to 19). The legislation empowered the national government to register those whom the states refused to put on the voting list. Freedom Summer marked the climax of voter-registration activities in the South that had started in 1961. When I heard what had happened to the world and how I changed it made me what to jump into the air and shout, "Take that, whites! That that and let it soak into your minds and souls! We, blacks have won!" So I did and everyone joined in!! I was a living legend! Rose kissed me and we cheered! I was a living legend!!
Being a Male Southern African American voter has changed my life! My name was put into every newspaper out there!! Freedom Summer changed everyones life! I made that happen. I am a living legend!
What Really Happened!
When I woke up the next morning, I looked outside and frowned. Nothing had happened. Today was June 15, 1964. That afternoon nothing still had happened. Nobody came up to me and said great job! I was disappointed. Later on in the summer things did change. Every morning I saw something different. One morning the paper said that 50 Freedom Schools were established. The next, it said that 1,200 African Americans were able to vote. My neighbors acted like there was hope in the air, something that I had told them about for a while. But they never listened. Another paper said that the SNCC(Local Councell of Federal Organizations started something called Freedom Summer. My light bulb in my head went off. Freedom Summer? Freedom Summer! That was my dream! My dream! I dreamed that this would happen. It did! I read on.
"The SNCC started an organization called Freedom Summer. This organization helped African Americans to get equal voting rights. This organization held protests and campaigns acting against unequal voting rights. This event started June 15, 1964 in Mississippi. Three hundred people arrived on the first day. About one hundred white college students joined also. But this organization wasn't all good, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both from New York, and James Chaney disappeared and were beaten to death. Their bodies were not found for six weeks. We don't know who murdered the three men, and maybe we never will. But this organization will reach great limits."
I put down the paper and looked out the window. It was the last couple of weeks of summer and we were almost free, well to vote. My wife sat down and read the paper. Tears started down her face. She noticed me looking out the window. I knew that she felt what I was feeling too. Freedom. Freedom Summer made us free citizens to vote. This was something that moved my heart. The movement lasted that whole entire day. But the thought of me knowing about it in my dream, made me wonder if I knew about this and somehow I sent it to the SNCC. I shook my head. Impossible I thought. Just impossible! But then it came back and I changed my mind. Maybe I did? But what did it matter? We, African Americans, were able to vote.
This Land is Your Land:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me
I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me
The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.
Can i share my story
About my journey
Ups and downs i’ve had plenty
Looking for love in al the wrong places
But i found nothing to fill my empty spaces
I looked for mother she wasn’t there
No father around to care
Sisters and brothers were not around
And my friends no where to be found
But when i called jesus
He was right there
To hear my cry
And answer my prayer
The lord is so faithful
He’s been better to me
Then i been to myself
The Doctor told me
Twas nothing he could do
He shook his head
And he left the room
Then i remembered
Your words i read
In the holy scriptures
Where it said
That you were wounded for my transgressions
You were bruised for my iniquities
By your stripes i’m already healed
So right then i dropped to my knees
And i called jesus
He was right there
He heard my cry
He answered my prayer
He is faithful
He’s been better to me
Than i been to myself
God is faithful
Yes he’s faithful
And if he said it
It will come to pass
God is faithful
Oh yes he’s faithful
If he said it
I believe it
I don’t doubt it
I receive it!
God is faithful, yes he’s faithful
The lord is faithful
My god is faithful, my god is faithful.