Ain't Gonna Let Segregation Turn Us 'Round: Thoughts on Building an Interracial and Anti-Racist Student Movement

In the summer following his junior year of college, together with nearly one thousand other Northern college students, Andy Goodman traveled to Mississippi to participate in Freedom Summer 1964. Organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Freedom Summer was a call to Northern white college students to join black Mississippians in the drive to register black voters in the South. SNCC staff members last reported seeing Andy, along with his friends Mickey Schwerner and James Cheney, alive on June 21st, 1964. The three activists were found dead weeks later. Lawrence Rainey, then Neshoba County sheriff, was one of seven men later convicted, not of murder, but of "conspiracy to deprive the dead men of their civil rights" (pg. 115, In Struggle, by Clayborne Carson). Andy Goodman made a heroic decision and cast his fate with the Black Freedom Struggle in the Jim Crow South. He became one of many martyrs; a symbol for people working towards racial justice in the United States.

If you believe what you read in the press, both mainstream and left, the recent rise in political activism has been composed solely of white people who oppose globalization. While the coverage of political activism tends to ignore the rich and inspiring work that goes on in communities of color, it is true that white students are on the march, and largely overlooking questions of domestic racism in favor of internationally flavored anti corporate activism. People of color (as well as the mainstream media) have noticed with some distaste the overwhelming whiteness of the protests in Seattle and D.C. (See for example Elizabeth Betita Martinez's article "Where Was the Color in Seattle?" in the Spring issue of The Activist.) The activist causes and organizations receiving the most attention, funding and support on campuses are predominantly white anti corporate and anti sweatshop groups, while organizing in communities of color has been routinely ignored.

While it is tempting to simply obsess over the whiteness of campus anti-corporate activism, we believe that such obsession makes us miss the most important point. Both on a practical level, in terms of building good relationships with campus-based organizations of color, and on a political level, in terms of making an anti-corporate vision meaningful, white students have to take up the fight against racism in a serious way. This means, if you are a white activist, incorporating anti racism into your own work, and doing work against racism that you do not yourself lead.

The leadership of many predominantly white student organizations have begun to discuss how the white portion of an expanding student movement can adopt an explicitly anti- racist agenda. Some of these organizations, such as the Direct Action Network and United Students Against Sweatshops, are beginning to discuss how to confront racism with their activist work.

The coalitions mobilizing protests at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions have focused their attentions on issues facing Black and Latino communities, and have begun to reach out to activists within those communities. Despite their good intentions, however, these efforts have not gone far enough. To succeed, we must transform more than our slogans and symbols; committing for the long haul to fighting against, for example, the proliferation of the prison industry, or fighting for equitable funding of public education. While this is the beginning of new direction and dialogue, we still have a long way to go.

We do not claim to have forged a magic bullet, but we would like to raise some questions which may point our organizations in the right direction. In considering the role of white students in opposing racism, we should remember the story of Andy Goodman and his sacrifice. Let us ask ourselves what the equivalent of Freedom Summer is today. Where are the spaces for white students to act in solidarity with the struggles of people of color; to assist in building an anti racist movement led by people of color? Where are our Mississippis, and who is going down to help?