Although he enjoyed his work with SNCC, he also found it occasionally exasperating. “We always had a lot of trouble with the press . . . for two reasons,” Bond said. “People in the press were always suspicious of us—they thought we were either communists or crazy kids—and because their concern was with brutality, with the big sensationalism. They weren’t interested in writing about the day-to-day work that SNCC was undergoing from 1961 through ’64 and ’65.”32
When he was especially disturbed, Bond fired off letters of protest to reporters, columnists, and editors who maligned or falsely reported on SNCC personalities and actions. Below is his response to a column penned by conservative Republican Joseph Alsop in 1964.
Dear Sir:
You have done your readers, the civil rights movement, and your reputation a disservice by presenting an inaccurate picture of recent events in Mississippi.
I am referring specifically to your column of June 17, 1964, in which you state “the real aim of SNICK . . . is to secure the military occupation of Mississippi by federal troops.”
This statement is untrue. What we are seeking, and what we have requested, time and time again, is protection and enforcement of the 1957 and 1960 civil rights acts.
First, let me correct some misstatements of fact you made about Louis Allen. Allen had witnessed the slaying of Herbert Lee, a Negro active in voter registration, by E. H. Hurst, then a member of the state legislature.
Shortly after the shooting, Allen was picked up and driven to a coroner’s jury, where he was made to testify that Hurst killed Lee in self-defense. He later admitted he had lied under duress, and asked the Department of Justice if they would protect him if he would change his story and tell the truth. They told him they could not offer protection. Sheriff Daniel Jones, the man who broke Allen’s jaw last summer—and the man who is charged with investigating his death—told his widow he would not be dead if he had not spoken to the FBI about the Lee killing. Incidentally, Allen did not die “a few nights ago.” He was found dead in his front yard on the morning of February 1, 1964, the day he had planned to leave the state of Mississippi for good.
Second, let me state there are no armed guards outside, inside or around the COFO office in Jackson, or any civil rights office anywhere in the state of Mississippi.
Finally, I doubt if you are in any position to state the real aims of SNCC, or of the Mississippi Summer Project. Let me state them for you. We are seeking the right of American citizens to live and work where they choose. We want every Mississippi Negro to have a chance to register to vote, or to get a job.
You are a respected columnist with a wide audience. I submit you have allowed opinion and prejudice to cloud your judgment, and you have slandered the hard work and determination of hundreds of people, young and old, black and white.
If you sincerely seek the truth, might I suggest you contact this office. . . .
Do not forget, Mr. Alsop, that the Summer Project involves not only SNCC, but the NAACP (which suggested last week that the government “take over” Mississippi), CORE, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Let me apologize for the haste in which this letter was written. I think it important, however, that you realize exactly what is going on in Mississippi today, what has been going on there, and what the legitimate aims and goals of local Negroes and the civil rights workers who are in the state are.
I think it merits a trip there, a talk with white and Negro state residents, and talks with the young people who are helping bring Mississippi back into the Union.
Sincerely,
Horace Julian Bond
How to Remember the Atlanta Student Movement
Bond continued to write occasional articles for the Atlanta Inquirer while working for SNCC. Below is a news analysis he penned for the Inquirer’s August 7, 1965, issue about the demise of the Atlanta student movement. Absent from his analysis, which is both critical and appreciative, is any discussion of the ways that SNCC supplanted the Atlanta movement and coopted some of its leaders, Bond among them.
Lonnie King, Ben Brown, Julian Bond, John Gibson, Joe Pierce, James Felder, Carolyn Long, Ruby Doris and Mary Ann Smith, Frank Holloway, Joe Felder, Robert Mants, Frank Smith, Danny Mitchell, Herschelle Sullivan, Morris Dillard, Marion Wright, Johnny Parham, Otis Moss, Leon Greene, Ralph Moore, Lydia Tucker.
These are a few of the names that helped make Atlanta what it is today. These are a few of the names that made racial change in Atlanta everyone’s business, instead of the business of a small group of leading Negroes. These are a few of the college students who joined together over five years ago to force lunch counter integration on Atlanta’s merchants, and who became a strong, determined force in the Atlanta community.
Any list of the important participants in Atlanta’s student movement is sure to leave out at least 20 important names. The ones listed above are but a few of the young people who became, in March 1960, the Atlanta Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR), and became for the space of a year and a half the best organized, most productive student organization in the country.
From this group has come lawyers and lawmakers, teachers and ministers, and, most important, a corps of young people still dedicated to achieving racial change.
Their activities differed from those of their elders, who laid important groundwork for student movements across the South.
These young people were determined that they would not wait a minute longer before they achieved full racial equality in Atlanta.
But today, there is no effective student movement here. The former student leaders are in school, working for national civil rights organizations, or teaching school.
Although Atlanta has not yet even begun to solve the pressing problems its Negro citizens face, the student movement here has disappeared.
Where did it go? What did it do? Who controls these forces now?
The Atlanta student drive began in March, 1960, when 111 students were jailed downtown at bus and train stations, at city hall and state capitol eating places, and at cafeterias in Atlanta’s federal buildings.
A week before, at the urging of Atlanta’s Negro college presidents—some hoping to stall any action—the students had published their “Appeal for Human Rights,” a full-page ad in Atlanta’s daily newspaper asking for complete social, educational, economic, and political rights for Atlanta’s Negroes.
Demonstrations at Atlanta’s department stores didn’t begin until that summer, when students staged their first sit-ins at Rich’s Department Store.
Then, as always, some Atlanta Negro leaders tried to halt the student action. One college president refused the students permission to meet on his school’s property. Some Atlanta Negro leaders threatened the students.
But they continued and a year later won agreements from 77 stores here integrating over 200 lunch counters. Movie theater integration followed, and after brief attempts—successful ones at getting Negroes hired at white businesses in Atlanta’s Negro neighborhoods and a short time-concentrated voting drive—Atlanta’s student movement collapsed.
Why did it fall? Most observers think the student movement fell apart here because its leaders failed to consider the basic economic problems that most Atlanta Negroes face: poor housing, poor education, poor employment.
The movement here, like so many others across the South, thought only about