GBH Openvault

Long, Hot Summer ‘64; Program Four

07/02/1964

Two cuts: Barbara Miller interviews Mrs. Hood; Barbara Miller interviews Mrs. Actermann.

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Series

Long, Hot Summer ‘64

Program

Program Four

Series Description

Radio. "Series of weekly programs focusing on the summer's civil rights struggle" Series release date: 1964

Program Description

Series description: Radio. "Series of weekly programs focusing on the summer's civil rights struggle"

Program begins with overview of President Lyndon Johnson signing the the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and inclues audio from Johnson's press conference.

Ted Mascott interviews, by phone, C.T. Vivian about the truce on demonstrations in the St. Augustine area pending the formation of a biracial committee as called for by a Federal Grand Jury, tasked with seeking permanent solutions to the situation in St. Augustine. Vivian states that the demonstrate is over for the moment, adn instead the focus know needs to be on talking about the issues, dubs it "Operation Dialogue."

Paul Cowan, a student from Jackson, Mississippi, reports about his involvement with COFO, the Mississippi Summer Project, and the mood on the bus of volunteers traveling from COFO headquarters in Oxford, OH to Mississippi.

Another student, Barbara Miller of Radcliffe College, interviews Mrs. Hood from Vicksburg, MS about local reaction to the planned arrival of student workers in MS. Mrs. Hood, an acknowledged member of the organization "Women for Constitutional Government" declare that the arrival of the student workers is seen by most as "an insulting invasion." In particular Mrs. Hood and her organization hold that the issue of integration is not one of contempt, but rather one of infringing on individual rights granted by the Constitution. Quote: "Its not integration that concerns us, the main thing that we regret is the perversion of the Constitution were the rights of the individual are concerned." She goes on to state that "voting is a privilege, not a right" and that she supports the view of "Gradualism" which she explains as "nothing can be accomplished by pushing masses of people into a situation with which they are unable to cope." Moreover,she feels that the Freedom Schools will fail because they will not be sufficient enough to educate black voters in MI to be able to make truly informed political decisions.

The opposing view of the issue is personified by Barbara Miller's 6/18/1964 interview of Barbara Actermann (sp?) a white woman whose husband is a history professor at Tougaloo College in Jackson, MS. Actermann discusses finding little acceptance in the white community of Jackson, and of what she sees as the challenges ahead for the COFO workers.

Lastly, Ted Mascott reads excerpts from "Mississippi Notebook" by Thomas Etheridge, a daily newspaper column in the Clarion Ledger, the local Jackson, MS newspaper which is harshly critical and fairly smug about the anticipated arrival of COFO.

Duration

00:15:08

Asset Type

Broadcast program

Media Type

Audio

Genres

News Report

Topics

News

Race and Ethnicity

Social Issues

Citation

Chicago: “Long, Hot Summer ‘64; Program Four,” 07/02/1964, GBH Archives, accessed October 2, 2023, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_EB131F4BE7B147418E8586D14A928F82.

MLA: “Long, Hot Summer ‘64; Program Four.” 07/02/1964. GBH Archives. Web. October 2, 2023. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_EB131F4BE7B147418E8586D14A928F82>.

APA: Long, Hot Summer ‘64; Program Four. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_EB131F4BE7B147418E8586D14A928F82