NET Journal; 115; Head Start in Mississippi

[music] - The following program is from NET, the National Educational Television Network. We shall overcome. We are not afraid. [children singing] We are not afraid. We are not afraid. We are not afraid. We are not afraid. [cow moos] - People moving. - Cow! - Look at there, there's a cornfield. You know what? I love corn, don't you like corn? You do? I do too, I just love it. The farmers raise the corn. You all see water. - Frogs! - Frogs, that's what's in there?

- What is that? - [narrator] Getting an education in Mississippi means more than sitting in a classroom and reading books. It means breaking out of confinement. To explore the world is to go past the pond's edge, over the top of the next hill. - Alligator, you're an alligator, we're gonna catch an alligator. - That's a baby frog. [children talking, crosstalk] - You gonna let him out? Poverty and segregation set limits on the lives of thousands of children in small towns and dusty plantations.

100 years after the abolition of slavery, poor Negroes are still trapped by traditions in a kind of modern feudalism. White own most of the land and almost all business. Work is hard, pay is low, and there are few comforts of living. There are almost as many Blacks as whites in Mississippi, but the whites make all the important decisions about taxes and jobs and schools. Education, which should be a way out, only perpetuates the old pattern of exclusion and dependency. And then Operation Head Start, the major educational effort of the war on poverty, began to show what lay beyond these limits. Poor people were to do things for themselves.

In the late spring of 1965, parents from 80 communities formed the Child Development Group of Mississippi, CDGM. They got a million and a half dollars from the Office of Economic Opportunity for a Summer Nursery School program. Each community would organize its own school. Near Durant, people began building their center in the community called Second Pilgrims Rest. [singing] Oh, freedom. Oh, freedom. - Heck of a warm weather. - I'm just glad... it's 57 years I've been here. I'm just glad that I lived to see some of it. It's better... It's getting better, by days. Better by days. This used to be my straight to living, Mississippi. [whistles] When I was 15, 16 years old, it was rough, rough in this country. That's right. And we'd go into school, we didn't have no school. We'd just go into old houses. When over there would let us hold school. That's right.

And we would have to go out at recess times with larger children and cut tree roots, old roots that grew up out of the ground. And the little old sticks like that for wood, to keep heat. And I had to walk 10 miles a day to school. 10 miles, five going in, five back. Country churches were fitted out as schools. They were the only public buildings the Negro communities owned. Parents themselves hired local people as teachers. CDGM sent in young professional educators to offer training and advice. The chairman of the center at Second Pilgrim's Rest was Mrs. Safold, who had picked cotton and done housework until she got interested in the freedom movement. - You're the chairman. Well, how did you decide to take such an active part in the program? - Well, when I began to start working for the FDP, and I began to read the papers a little more,

I began to look at notice television, the news a little more. And I began to listen in and begin to take effect on me about what a different one would be saying about uneducated. - Different white people? - Different white people in the news, you know, in the... on television about uneducated, nasty, stinking Negroes. And then I began to think and working for the FDP too. I began to think about if I didn't turn and stop now and think about my own children, they would be called the same thing that I was called. - Just before the CDGM Head Start Centers opened, parents, teachers, and staff workers met on the old Negro College campus at Mount Beulah to talk about the summer's work. Organizers have been preparing the communities for Head Start all spring. - We are trying to set a program up for all the community, to represent the community, to be designed by the community and will the community people, by that I mean the people in poverty.

We don't believe in having people that are out of poverty. The people that are in the rural areas are the people that need it. So that's why we are carrying it to them. And we will give them all the details of the poverty program. - Being in charge was a difficult new experience. The first director of CDGM, Tom Levin, knew there were differences and doubts among the parents. - Our project, the Child Development Group of Mississippi, will show that people in their own communities don't need somebody on top. We don't need people to cut off the cream. We don't need people to come say, you come to the back door and I'll pass out a little bit to you. We can run our own projects. And I want to know, what you people...

- [narrator] Few of the parents had ever been able to take part in the education of their children. They lacked the self-confidence as well as the political power to have influence in the schools. It was hard for them to believe that untrained people could be qualified to teach. - [inaudible] ...consist of somebody that has a BS degree, to work with the children, [inaudible] - We have room for both kinds of people. - I disagree with that. If I want my child to be taught, let it be somebody who is qualified to teach the child. And the beginning of the little three and four and five year old, well, that is the beginning of valid stages. And somebody who is qualified, and somebody who is going to even speak right around your children, try to give your child the right foundation, well those are the people I think should be in charge of the children. - There is people who have walked streets that met in these homes. - They resented Negro teachers who worked for white school boards and would not help organize CDGM.

- When the teachers were saying, pay it no mind, there is nothing to it. I arrived when it was said by somebody that there was $150 involved for professional teachers. That's when they all got interested. - We all are in, I say, financial trouble somewhere. And there may be a lot of us sitting here right now who are parents, who are in it for money, also. So you can't just look at it as teachers in it for money. We are all in it for money. - We are just getting way off the subject. Who's qualified? Yes. - There are parents who are as qualified as a professional teacher. - Who's qualified? - The person who has the child at heart will make the best teacher. The person who knows who has thought about this child, who has worked with children in many areas, who have worked with them either in your churches or Sunday school groups or a place... These will be the most qualified people.

Those people who have, who deal with children in more areas than they're in school. They can also qualify. There are qualified. And I just think that we're just using a lot of time to say much of nothing. [applause] And I'd like to try to take on some of the ideas off of the fight between the teachers and the Mississippi people. Now, one of the things that the child development group of Mississippi say is, by the way, one of the qualifications for working for this group is that you've got obey the laws of the country. And that is that there are no more segregated facilities in the state, according to the law of the United States or America, and no kid, no kid in the preschool program, in the Child Development Group of Mississippi, will ever be taken into a back door... [inaudible] - We ain't raising no children to be second-class citizens and off of times. Now, the other thing is that we're using integrated schoolbooks,

you know, with little Black children and little white children in there together. And the reason for that is what you teach your first grade kid, when you let him look into those little books with nothing in there but white kids with straight hair and long noses and white features, is that they've got to be white if they want to be equal to those little children. And they can't get white. So what you really telling them is that they won't ever be equal to those kids. That's what you're telling them. So that the day of the segregated schoolbook in Mississippi is ended, baby. And Mississippi don't like that, see, because when you start telling little five-year-old children that they're equal to little five-year-old white kids, they grow up believing that. And then they become what this day calls, uppity niggas. And you know they don't like that. [singing] Oh, this little light of my Lord, I'm gonna let it shine. [singing] [singing] Tom Levin, the first director of CDGM,

is a New York psychologist who had worked in the Freedom Schools of the Civil Rights Movement. - The primary need for Negro education in Mississippi and I say Negro education is not integration, but the ability for the child and the community to experience a common goal which is alteration in their economic, social, and political status in Mississippi. If the Negro people want are to ever realize a sense of their own value and find an avenue for it, from the beginning, one of the things they must protect is the most precious commodity, their children. They have to have the responsibility of educating their children, both for the child's sake and the community's sake. And one of the first things we have to address ourselves to is what we consider qualified. Now, qualified in terms of credential, state licenses, and education are an important consideration for a middle-class Northern community. But if we're to use the same concept of qualified

in translating it to the Mississippi poor communities, we would effectively disenfranchise the entire community from any role in running its program, planning its program, and from the ultimate responsibilities involved in the program. We would be perpetuating a complete second-class citizenship. So we ask ourselves, is it qualifications we're interested in or is it quality? I think we have people within our community who have a quality which no amount of academic credential can match. They have roots in the community. They have an understanding of the problem. They can communicate with the people that we're going to be working with and with the children. And perhaps most important, they're not going to have the problem of an outside white professional of essentially communicating to the people of Mississippi, their ineffectuality,

their lack of training. And essentially, their lack of worth to run this. I think this program must be run by people of the communities. And I think they will do it excellently. - Does everyone know this one? - There was a week of teacher training. It wasn't all lecture and theory. - [singing] My little doggy was playing one day. You can make it any words you decide to say, you can say... [singing] Dog, dog, dog.. All right. Can we get, "My little doggie, it was playing one day. [crowd sings softly] Dog, dog, dog dog. Down in the meadow by a bale of hay, dog, dog... [laughter] That's it. That's it. It's really good if you can get it together. Let's try it again.

Then we should think in terms of [inaudible].... don't have to really deal with the pre-school ages A head start. First of all, we said a child must be kept happy. If you can keep a child happy, you can get him at his very best. - No one was an expert. Parents and staff learn from each other. - [fade in]...want to do something all day. But if they don't take a part, you know, they never really learn. You learn to do by doing. - Let's do what we did when we were four and five and six. Let's make pretty designs and towers and garages and barbecue pits. - This is chicken, too. Yeah, I used to make chicken when I was a child. That's the way I made it when I was a child. - Now let's think about things that people made. Maggie, what are you making? - Things in order. She's making things in order. - What are the other kinds of order that you can discover within the rocks?

- What's everybody discover when we can about numbers in these rocks? [inaudible] 12 white makes one purple. 10 white for one orange. One yellow, one red and one white make one brown. Now equal one brown. - What are we doing people? - Adding. - One plus two plus two plus one. - Seven, eight. Lay them straight. Nine, ten. Big fat hen. [laughter] All summer long in the hot and bright mornings of the Mississippi Delta, the children of Durant gathered at the Head Start Center in Second Pilgrims' Rest. The school their parents had built. There were 45 of them, from three to six years old, and all of them were Black. The whites would not come. [flute playing]

[flute playing] [flute playing] [flute playing] [flute playing] The teachers and their aides were the women of Durant. None of them were trained. All of them were poor and needed jobs. [inaudible] I'm going to play a game. How many balls do you have here? - On hand to offer their skills were a few experienced teachers like Doris Derby. - Is that the same as this? Is it the same as this? What number is this? - Number two. Is this number the same as this? - Hattie Saffold was the head teacher. - How many balls do you have here? - Two. Show us with your finger.

What number is this? - Number four. Hold your fingers up. [crosstalk] And after turning around, this way, first, maybe. Give somebody a chance. - Three, three, three! - Number one. - Number one. - Oh, hot. - Making a game out of numbers was new to Mrs. Saffold. But she needed no training to understand the neighborhood children. No, three, four. I said, I'm screaming fast. You said, I said, not scream when you got it at. - No, but you're wrong, okay?

- Number three. - Uh-huh. Wow, come on. That's what I'm thinking about. [crashing sound, children laughing] - Play in a schoolroom was another new idea. - What are you doing? Hey, good! Stop! Come on. I was about to add something on. [children laughing] - Before head start, playing house meant fooling with tin cans and corn cobs. - Yeah, I'm going to have a little house. - Now we're going to have a big house, please. - Oh, a big house? Where's your back? Where is the back of your house? - There it is. Oh, where's your step? There's a step. - Tell me, do you think you could add steps to the back? Where's your step to the back?

- The teachers were struck with the same sense of delight. The toys were new to everybody. And the excitement of discovery was contagious. Six-year-olds discovered building blocks and raced through years of development. [sounds of children playing] - Now you do it. - There aren't many ways for Negro children in Durant to express themselves freely. Schools and parents and traditions demand obedience and conformity and everybody in their place. As the teachers began to understand the possibilities of a new kind of education, they challenged the rules of a closed society. Now there were warm smiles and praise for every sign of creativity and achievement.

- Look at that. - That's nice. That's real nice. - Look at that. Look at that. - What is that? He's just a monster. Great. - Comin' at you! Just... Look at that. [children talking, playing] - Hey. What? - Look. You got to shape it. - Miss, I'll have a look. - I'll tell you what. I want all of you to make me a bowl. I believe I will carry... Miss, please. Carol-Ann will put me three eggs in the bowl. Look at my bowl. Look at my bowl. Look at my bowl. - But now this is a nursery school. And this is a new type of nursery school. And we're doing a lot of new things and trying out so many new ideas. And I'd like to see if we can think of some new ways which we could discipline the children that might be other than using just even the threat of a switch. - Now Mrs. Glover mentioned a couple.

For example, doesn't the child stand in one foot? Or... - In schools and homes all over the South, the switch is an easy shortcut to respect and obedience. The teachers were reluctant to give it up. But the goal of the child development group of Mississippi was freedom, not conformity. - And maybe they'll do some bad things. - Mischief was a minor problem. [children playing] - Teachers wanted the children to settle their own squabbles and to learn to stick up for themselves. [call and response game] - The real problem wasn't disobedience, but withdrawal. [call and response game] - Like the society around her, Norma Jean was passive, distracted, fearful.

Sometimes the difference between a listless and an energetic child was a case of worms. Most of the children had never had a medical examination. What's the... [inaudible] Hmm? Huh? Meat. Meat, huh? [laughter] Take a deep breath Lola. Deep breath? Once again. - Only a few doctors would make house calls or extend credit.

And the local clinic was intimidating to the parents. - Okay, that's it. [singing] If you're happy and you know it, do the swim. If you're happy and you know it, do the swim. If you're happy and you know it then your faith will surely show it. If you're happy and you know it, do the swim. If you're happy and you know it, do the swim. If you're happy and you know it, your spirit will surely show it, if you're happy and you know it, say all right. All right! Your music just seems to be wonderful. You have some many... - Holly Greenberg was program director on the central staff of CDGM. She tried to help all 84 centers to run smoothly. - You seem to enjoy the music a lot.

That's why they enjoy it a lot. - Is there any place that you could fix a book corner someplace where you could have like a rug or some cushions or some chairs or some blocks or a bench or anything where they could sit and have all the books kept out on some low tables? I know you don't have enough tables, but maybe even a table made out of boxes. - Well, I don't know whether you could see it or not. I was putting the name on different boxes on which the toys was in. If you put puzzles, write on their puzzles, and you could set them on low shelves. So when the kids get ready to play with them, they know they can go to the puzzle box. We'll have to pull all of the tables out. - And right now it is hard from the moving. It's hard to find things that kind of come in. - The school room gradually took shape as teachers picked up good suggestions and learned from their own experience. They built a dollhouse, organized the equipment, and arranged a library corner. - The little dog flipped up, flipped up, and the other little dog was in the room.

- This was a wonderful place to hide in this... Plus this, do you know what these are? Do you know what you were doing this morning? Buddy's doll, do you know? You don't know. Buddy's doll. Yes, I know. - Now, what's your name? What does that say? It says Ronnie. Ronnie. Can you read that? What does that say? What does that say? - Ronnie. Yeah. Your name is Jerry? - Community begins with a sense of identity. - Let's try your name. What is your name. - And then respect for family. And then pride in the richness of the race.

CDGM was not afraid to celebrate Blackness. Children played with Negro magazines and helped make their own books. - My mama told me to tell you to be one hammer like you see me do. To be one hammer like three me do. To be one hammer like three me do. My mama told me to tell you to be two hammer like you see me do. To be two hammer like three me do. My mama told me to tell you to be three hammer like you see me do. To be three hammer like you see me do. - The language and lore of the community was the material of education. At school and at home there was a shared standard of values. - What do you want today to clean up the table? OK, you can use it today.

- The children and the teachers had to love their world of Durant. Love it enough to want to make it better. - I go to grandpa's... OK, go ahead, clean that. Smell good too. - Yeah, that's good. Can I wash mine now? Yeah. Can everyone wash? Yeah. Okay. - As the program developed, so did white hostility.

Not far from Durant, the Vailwood Center was burned to the ground. - They've been wanting to do that. I don't care who he is, white or Black. If he do that, he'll dig the dead up out of the grave. I don't know where the people come from. They've got that in their heart. I don't know where they're from. But they haven't got a heart. They got a rock. And if they don't get better, we're going to move them out. That's a certain fact. You see what I mean? Four years' time, if these bad offers don't get better with these Negro people. We can bolt them out because it's going to be enough for us to do it. That's right. And if we can't stop this now, we'll let it go in the next three years. We'll have a life we wanted. If they be now, we'll put them back. Though it's nice. And if you mean, yes, if you need to be nasty, then we're just going to keep you out. And we can do it. - [singing] Let's go on it - Come up on it. Over me. Over me.

And before I'll be a slave. I'll be buried in my grave. And go home to my Lord. And be free. And be free. - Now, we have some more work as we have a health association with us here. - Within their own center, at least, parents felt secure. But the children would integrate the white school in the fall and the grownups were anxious. - To the white school this year, you, as the mother or legal guardian, must take the child to the school. And when you do, you must have a health record or an immunization record. Anyone who doesn't have these things, and would like to have them... - They discuss whether the children were ready. - I would like to know, do you feel that the children are learning anything? What child do you have here? What does he tell you about the center? - Well, since she's been going to school, she acts more mature, more grownup than she did before.

You know, like talking to me about different things and asking me, do I know this? Like they have songs, I guess they sing them in class or in the school. She'll start off on songs and sometimes I'll remember that I have those same songs when I was going to school. We'll sing them together. Just everything. He's ready every day, something says. [laughter] And he always ends going to school. And he always notice the people that these are out here at the center, he watches those who come by the streets and he knows them, and he's all friendly with them. And I think his learning has changed where it is, from what he was. - Now, as you all know, we have a kitchen back there. And we need many, many things to complete our kitchen, which we don't have. And we want, we would like for each and everybody to give us something to complete our kitchen.

- Despite growing tension with the white community, the center became more and more active. - Start putting sheep right up in here. We want you all to come. Just come on out. He's all out. It ain't just one man. It's everybody. - Whole families were drawn into the life of the centers. Older brothers and sisters played with the younger ones, and fathers came in from the fields or took time from work to be with the children. - All right. That's your mule and you're my mule! Let's go. Get up, get up. Get up. Get up. Get up. Come on, you ain't done but the mule. They helped with moving equipment and hauling water and carpentry and sewing. Most of them got no pay, but the chores weren't make work. The school really counted. It was in the middle of their lives. But the white opposition was determined to stop CDGM's progress. The burnings and the shootings and the harassment got worse. - And I really was excited when I see it, because I always looked out there when I go by there, you know.

I wasn't expecting it, you know, fire. But I did. So then I hit my brakes and I started to stop. Then something come to me and said, well, maybe they'll trap me. You know, maybe somebody will be there and maybe, you know, harm or something. So I told her, I said, well, let's go get some help? It was just smoke and smoke was everywhere. They probably would just start when I drove up. They probably were there somewhere then and saw the car and stepped in the woods because... - Local police weren't interested. A law student on the CDGM central staff came down the next day to get the facts and offer advice. - Now, you were there guarding the place. - That's right. - After they arrived, you left. So how long did you stay there? - I stayed there. That's right. - What were the things you said when he threatened you? - He told me, say, "You better make sure who you turn against it. That is my brother, something like that." - Brother in law. Brother in law. It's my brother in law, say "It's gonna be a killing here if you're not sure," what he's saying. - "You better make sure who you turn against."

- That's right. And he waved his gun at me. He's trying to make up his mind whether to shoot me or not. And you look at [inaudible], they go for you too. - Who is it that called the FBI? - Yeah. Fitz. And someone else? - Now... It's not going to do to have that place empty again. Because they're going to burn it down right away. - Oh, it won't be empty anymore. - You have guns here too, don't you? - That's right. - As parents taught children about their traditions, they went deeper toward their roots themselves. The Mississippi Delta has its own flavors and sounds, and the community built a folk festival around them. There was nostalgia even about the bitter years of slavery. - [singing] Oh, give me that, ohhh Oh, I'm trying to make that, ohhh Oh, give me that, ohhh Old-time religion...

Oh, well, it's good, good, good enough for me. Oh, give me that, ohhh Oh, give me that, ohhh Old-time religion Give me that old-time religion Give me that old-time religion Give me that old-time religion Oh, give me that old-time religion Oh, give me that old-time religion Oh, old-time religion Oh, old-time religion It's good enough for me. It's good enough for me. ... good, good good enough for me. It's good enough for me. That was what you were talking about. [laughter]

Yeah. [laughter and applause] Yeah. - Head Start as part of the war on poverty was meant to move communities to action. - And they go on so that it's teacher's job to encourage different community action projects, such as helping around here, building, to build things, and whatever the other things that are going on in the area, educational, social, political, or whatever the other things are, that will help develop the child. If things affect the parents, and the parents don't do anything about it, you're certainly going to affect the child. - I think, well, I know you is right, because if we expect him to have a better prospect in what we're trying to do, get our rights or fighting for our rights, we're going to have to teach them to tell everybody to cooperate and not just tell them to cooperate and not cooperate ourselves. Although we might get tied on the way,

but it's just a job that you can't turn back. You have to keep on working. If you're expecting to get something out of it, you've got to keep on working until you reach your goal on it. - Now, there are so many more programs that you can have besides the tools. What... any of you all have any suggestions, or any type of program that you would wish to be here. - Parents talked about other forms of government help. Before CDGM, they hadn't even known the possibilities. - There's come a time now that it can be better, but you've got to speak for yourself. Tell everybody what you want. The white peoples, Black peoples, can tell and everybody, just tell them what you want. If I want a good job, I'll just tell them. I want a job. - Job is all right, in its place. But you don't want to be just awake after all your life. You want to give a job and then invest your earnings into something, to make money, go into some kind of business.

See, then you begin somewhere. Just a job. You don't want to be that all the time. You want them proved. - They are also asking for a sewing center... - At the end of the summer, representatives from all the child development centers came back to Mount Beulah to talk about the future of the program. - I am JC Johnson from Greenville, District 2, and I will speak for the rest of the centers there also. There's not many things that we need, but we like the continuation of the program. We need the adult classes, permanent buildings, and sewing centers, and training schools for some of the adults that need jobs. - We also need doctors there. We do not have doctors. We need people there that will take care of these people without so much money. For those who are right now in our neighborhood, they're very, very sick. They're very big problems. But they are not able to take care of these problems. They're not able to. But still, they're children themselves.

We need sewing projects there. They will benefit the poor people there too. We need so many things there. So many things. If we get some of the things we need, I'm sure that the community will help out with the rest. - I think what we need is some houses built, and I understand that it's a way that they can be gotten for those people. We get more cooperation after people, but a lot of them are afraid of the job they are... - Not just jobs were being threatened. CDGM was proving that poor Negroes could run a school system and could manage their own affairs. The experience was deeply unsettling to white Mississippi. It attacked the assumptions of racists who could not believe that Negroes were qualified citizens, and had undermined the interests of many gradualists who still treated Negroes like children. The Black community at the bottom of the pyramid of power

was on the move. Down the same streets in the same towns lived the whites who had no trouble making themselves heard. Charges began to reach OEO headquarters in Washington of bad bookkeeping, misuse of funds for civil rights activities, unprofessional standards, and separatism. CDGM funds were held up for five months, while the program was investigated, the books were audited, and the political problems were weighed. Finally, the money came through for a second, expanded summer program. And then suddenly, when it was over, all funds were cut off. The supporters of CDGM bitterly accused OEO officials of killing the program to appease political pressures, a charge they denied. Jules Sugarman of the OEO had helped set up CDGM, had watched over its administration, and tried to resolve its problems. - Not only Mr. Shriver, but the entire OEO staff

feel that there have been substantial contributions made by the program. But in general, we found a repetition of the same kinds of problems that we experienced during the first grant. And that is particularly in the misuse of funds, the some degree of sloppiness in accounting, and control of funds, and recording of the purposes for which they were used. - And in New York, Kenneth Clark, the educator and psychologist, joined a National Citizens Committee that also looked into CDGM and published a report that dismissed these charges. - It appears to me that to argue that CDGM cannot be refunded or should not be refunded because of fiscal responsibilities that are rather superficial and sophistry-like type of argument. I mean, yes, fiscal problems exist. They can be handled.

The other criteria should determine whether a program is refunded or not, particularly when fiscal problems can be remedied. - My general feeling is that it is not a good idea to encourage the development of separatist Negro organizations, even though I would acknowledge that this will provide valuable experience in responsibility and procedure which would be useful in dealing with other organizations. - It is critically clear to me and to anyone who knows the CDGM picture that white children were not excluded. - Again, let me emphasize that this is not a program for Negroes. It's a program for all of the people in Mississippi. - The fact of the matter is that in communities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, the anti-poverty programs are perceived

by the white community as being for Negroes and poor whites who are eligible generally do not participate. And if this is true throughout the country, it would seem to me that it would be obvious that it would be true even more so in Mississippi. - I think that there has not been any significant gain in the willingness of local community organizations, particularly the official agencies of government, to be involved in relationship to the Negro communities, at least in the context of CDGM. - I think from my study of anti-poverty programs, one can almost predict the extent or degree of potential success of a program by the amount of antagonism which that program generates from the political establishment.

- We, I think, take second place to no one in our admiration for what can be done by non-professionals in these kinds of programs. But at the same time, we have the definite feeling that there is a need for professional leadership to provision and training of the non-professional. And increasingly, I had the feeling that the local communities were not receptive to that kind of participation and that the board of CDGM was not willing and able to enforce its policies that there should be such participation. - CDGM had a staff that came in, set up CDGM programs throughout Mississippi, what is clear, however, is that that staff was probably more successful than any other staff in any other anti-poverty program in this country in realistically and genuinely involving the people of Mississippi themselves

in the day-to-day running of that program. This would seem to me to have been the goal of the anti-poverty program. And CDGM has demonstrated that that goal is achievable. - The campaign to save CDGM began with a mass meeting in Jackson, Mississippi. Government officials were rapidly funding alternative head starts. White school boards and welfare agencies were often in charge of the new programs. Hattie Saffold came down from Durant to tell how much trouble she was having with the new program there. - Frankly all I know, I have attended quite a few CAP meetings and they don't believe managers there, the white power structures, they won't give us the opportunity to even speak. And what they saying is that we fighting that, you know, their CAP school. The CAP were not fighting the CDGM school. So I don't know, but every time one of us get up to say something,

they say, well, "you don't have no voice, you don't have no right to say anything." [singing] I said CDGM. Oh, yeah. That represents the poor people. Oh, yeah. I said the poor people. Oh, yeah. Of Mississippi. Oh, yeah. I said we're gonna fight for it. Oh, yeah. I said we're gonna fight for it. Oh, yeah. We're gonna fight all day. Oh, yeah. And we'll never get tired. Oh, no. We're gonna walk that walk. Oh, yeah. - One of the alternative Head Start programs, the largest, was chartered by three politically powerful figures, a moderate newspaper editor, an industrialist, and a plantation owner, all white. There are 12 members of the board of directors. Only four of them are Black, and they are middle-class moderates.

The governor of Mississippi has endorsed this program. There are no poor Negroes, and no militant civil rights leaders making policy. - There has been talk going around the state that CDGM is dead. And when I see all of these people, I know CDGM is not dead. - The Reverend McRee is chairman of the CDGM board of directors. - OEO had led us to believe that we would be funded without very many problems. Then a deal is made, which was politically inspired. And they never had the courtesy to even tell us about the announcement. And then after he had announced it in the press, the letter was read to us from Mr. Shriver by telephone from out of the state.

And this is the kind of thing that we just ain't going to have anymore. Let us show them today and let us show Washington. Let us show OEO that we, people in Mississippi, we Black people in Mississippi are together and we are not going to be sold one by one. [applause] - The other things you're going to have to ask OEO. When we put in our last program, we waited four months, five months before we could get refunded. Now yesterday, I was told that at that [inaudible]... they haven't even submitted an application. They've been given $1,300,000. Now we need to ask OEO how these other CAP boards this week

could get funded in a few hours. And we've been struggling for weeks and stayed away from them. - Marion Wright is one of the few Negro members of the Mississippi Bar, and a founding director of CDGM. - There isn't a political deal involved here. Let them prove it. Sargent Shriver himself a couple months ago said this was the best program in the nation and what we're going to have to ask him is how that changed all of a sudden. The problem that was wrong with this program is that you were too good. [crowd acclaims] And the problem that was wrong with this program is that all of a sudden, Negroes find out that they can run things as well and better than white folks could run them. [cheers] - As we look across the United States... - Richard Boone is a former OEO Director of Community Action. - This program stands out as about the only big program in which poor people have and must continue

to have the chance to help themselves out of poverty. - Support from labor groups, churchmen and independent citizens was coming in from all parts of the country, even at the OEO offices in Washington. Staff members signed a petition to save CDGM. - Your program is a great example of an effort of a people to move beyond all this into basic programs to help themselves. - We want you people to stand up and speak and let OEO and everybody else know we ain't turning around. - If this CAP takes over, then our people will be without work or anything to do. They'll all be employed by professional people. We feel like the professional people

is already in position to get jobs and whatnot. But we want to try to help the people that's on the common level. - Of course, they won't hire them. Who they are hiring now. If this factor into place is the one that haven't taken no part in no movement and no nothing than the ones that brought it, they and the ones that... and the ones that hadn't did anything but sit back and criticize down the ones has got the job. - I think that something is happening here that the poor people of Mississippi and when I say poor people, I do not refer only to the poor colored people but the poor people of Mississippi cannot afford to have. And that is if people can sit down and pick for you the people who will represent you, then those people can pick any person they choose. - See, I want people to think about struggling

and controlling your own program and running the debate again because we ain't never had chance to run nothing in your life. - We don't need that Mr. Charlet to operate CDGM for us. We've done it and we can do it again and we are going to do it again. - And we ain't gonna let nobody but I mean nobody, nobody ain't gonna pick out five or six Toms that's gonna set there and you can see the wisdom teeth first because he's grinning. [cheers] - Fanny Lou Hamer brought the enormous energy of the Civil Rights Movement to the Fight for CDGM. - The first thing you see is his wisdom tooth and he's getting ready to say, yassir! [crowd laughs and applauds] But you know, something I'm not disgusted

I feel better than I've felt in a long time. Because all of these people here we've got to do something. And we've been down so long we ain't got no other way to go but up. [cheers] The people from Harlem said, babies, tell us when you want us to come. The people in Watts say, honey, we're coming! See, because the Toms have been using us too. The citizens for progress and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Said, baby, we are all the way with you. And we got to let people know how we feel. We are not satisfied because we know this poverty program if these politicians handle it with the few Toms that they got picked out. We'll be in the worse of shape people in the next two years, we've ever been in our lives. We are not going to have it.

We're going to fight for what means something to us. So now we're ready to tell it because you see, we want people all over America to know that we're fighting on a principle. And we're going to say, now, go and tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go and tell it on the mountain to let my people go. Now everybody sing that, you know it. [singing] Go tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain to let my people go. - The struggle went on for another two months. Finally, just before Christmas, the OEO compromised. A reduced CDGM program was funded for another year.

Poor Blacks in Mississippi have won more than a grant. They have won a share in the power that others have had for themselves. - [singing] Go tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain. [music] This is NET,

the National Educational Television Network. The National Educational Television Network.