Tag Archives: Thomas L Threadgill

SCLC’s SCOPE project in Wilcox County Summer 1965

June – August 1965 SCLC’S Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) project – Wilcox County

Hosea L Williams with his top SCOPE staff outside the Freedom House in Atlanta in the Summer of 1965. As stated by his daughter, Dr. Barbara Williams Emerson in February 2012, "It is a good photo from the period, but it says nothing, or everything, about female participation": L to R- Benjamin Van Clarke, Stoney Cook, Carl Farris, Andrew Marquette , and Richard Boone. – Courtesy Barbara Emerson Williams. Copyright, all rights reserved.

Hosea L Williams with his top SCOPE staff outside the Freedom House in Atlanta in the Summer of 1965. As stated by his daughter, Dr. Barbara Williams Emerson in February 2012, “It is a good photo from the period, but it says nothing, or everything, about female participation”: L to R- Benjamin Van Clarke, Stoney Cook, Carl Farris, Andrew Marquette , and Richard Boone. – Courtesy Barbara Emerson Williams. Copyright, all rights reserved.

SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Project) SCOPE (Summer Community Organization and Education) project, directed by Rev. Hosea Williams, was part of an already active Alabama Voter Education Project that coordinated (or attempted to coordinate) efforts between multiple civil rights organizations. As many as 600 black and white college (and some high school) students were assigned to six states for ten weeks after a 5.5 day 14 hr a day intensive Orientation in Atlanta, GA June 14-19, 1965.

In Wilcox County, five white northern student volunteers joined SCLC’s Dan and Juanita Harrell, and Major Johns, two

Dan Harrell in front of Antioch Baptist church

Dan Harrell in front of Antioch Baptist church

(perhaps three) white seminary students from California and some SNCC field workers from Selma to support local leaders in voter education, voter registration and leadership development. In early April, Californian Bob Block, who had walked all five days of the March to Montgomery, came over from Selma with Strider Benston, Bruce Hartford and Charles Bonner to join a Camden Academy student demonstration led by Ralph Eggleston, Sim Pettway and other students. Block was recruited by Dan Harrell to stay on as SCLC field staff. Local activist Ethel Brooks was also on SCLC SCOPE staff that summer. Students Robert Powell, Grady and Charles Nettles, Don Green, and Frank Conner; Mary Alice Robinson and Betty Anderson were some of the many Camden Academy activists working with SCOPE on voter education and registration after their own demonstrations all spring. Local adult leaders included: Rev. Thomas L Threadgill, Mr Albert Gordon, Mrs Rosetta Anderson, Mrs. Virginia Boykin Burrell and many others from the rural areas of Wilcox County. About 30 total local and field workers canvassed all summer, resulting in 500 new registered voters before the passage of the Voting Rights Act in August. Soon after passage, more than 3,000 Wilcox residents were registered, creating a new African American majority.

Charles “Chuck” A. Bonner of Selma SNCC began to coordinate voting efforts in Wilcox County with SCLC and later, SCOPE. Bob Block and I (Joyce Brians/Maria Gitin) belonged to SNCC and SCLC. SCLC/SCOPE workers were the majority in Wilcox County that summer. Most local residents didn’t know or care who were with except for being “sent by Dr King” and “with the Movement.” Local white segregationists called us as “outside agitators.”

Ethel Brooks SCLC Wilcox County field staff

Ethel Brooks SCLC Wilcox County field staff

 

For more about SCOPE and Voting Rights in Wilcox County, AL  This Bright Light of Ours: Stories from the Voting Rights Fight by Maria Gitin: www.thisbrightlightofours.com

More about VEP: http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_voter_education_project/

Reverend Thomas L. Threadgill (1926-1989) and Mrs. Mildred Locke Threadgill (1926-1977)

Mrs Gordon and Mrs Threadgill with their daughters and the Cole children

When I returned to California in 1965 to discover that I had been cited with felony trespassing and unlawful occupation of the Academy, especially after going to great lengths to get some letter of approval from my college to the Board of Education in Camden, I was shocked. But that shock was nothing compared to learning what happened to the Threadgills and the Academy as punishment for their role in the Wilcox County Freedom Fight.

Sheryl Threadgill told me about the white school board attacking Camden Academy. “The Academy? Our home and the chapel were torn down immediately after you left in August 1965. The Board of Education definitely initiated the tear down because the white ministers [and students like you] stayed there. My Dad had come down with a chronic lung disease from which he eventually died. He was getting treatment in the hospital in Tuskegee when they served the eviction notice. So he left the hospital to come home and move us.

My mother doesn’t get mentioned enough, Mrs. Mildred Locke Threadgill. She was quiet and soft spoken. It wasn’t easy for her to be an educator— She taught Home Economics and Bible at the Academy until she passed in 1977. She had to manage the household while my father was out being a community pastor. He was a dominant figure, but she was brilliant in her own right. She traveled to India and started the World Hunger Organization.  Judge Unita Blackwell’s memoir, which I read recently, tells stories that made me think of my mother and her work with the US Department of Agriculture food commodities. At first, even though they needed the food, people didn’t want to accept the commodities. My mother taught people how to improve those dry white beans, season them up into a real nice dish. She worked with Presbyterian Church youth on campus. She did all that while raising us, and maintaining the household with my father gone a lot. And she was under constant pressure for our family’s activism.”  – excerpt from 1965 This Little Light of Mine, This Bright Light of Ours, © Maria Gitin, all rights reserved.  Photo copyright Bob Fitch www.bobfitchphotos.com

Did you know or are you related to the Threadgills of Camden, Alabama? If so, please click on the Comment link below (in small print) and leave your story. Thank you!