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I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle
 
 
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I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle [Paperback]

Charles M. Payne (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Paperback, Jan 15 1997 --   -- --
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I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, With a New Preface I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, With a New Preface 5.0 out of 5 stars (5)
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From Publishers Weekly

Not a comprehensive history of the civil rights movement in Mississippi, this thoughtful study instead analyzes the legacy of community organizing there. Payne, who teaches African American studies, sociology and urban affairs at Northwestern University, notes that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), though grounded in youthful energy, gained much from the "congealed experience" of older leaders, such as Ella Baker and Septima Clark. Concentrating on the delta city of Greenwood, he offers useful profiles of local activists, showing that many came from families with traditions of social involvement or defiance. He also explores the disproportionate number of female volunteers, the older black generation's complex interactions with whites and the decline of organizing as the 1960s proceeded. And he notes that, despite an ideology of unity, black activists lost the capacity to work together. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Payne (African American studies, Northwestern Univ.) presents an illuminating examination of the Civil Rights movement at the local level, in this case Greenwood, Mississippi, in the 1960s. As Payne deftly grafts Greenwood's struggle onto the larger movement, he challenges several widely accepted conclusions, such as overemphasizing a core cadre of male leaders while overlooking the important contributions of women and youth and the belief that the black church was an early leader in the movement. Much of Payne's information is culled from oral interviews with actual movement participants. The result is an important history of the Civil Rights movement at the grass-roots level that is reminiscent of Robert Norrell's Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee (Knopf, 1985). The excellent bibliographic essay is essential reading. Recommended for any library that collects Civil Rights materials.
Jonathan Jeffrey, Western Kentucky Univ., Bowling Green
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
EVERYTHING THAT TOOK place in Mississippi during the 1960s took place against that state's long tradition of systematic racial terrorism. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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5.0 out of 5 stars If you're going to read one book on civil rights, this is it, Nov 15 2003
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Peter H Shulman (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Paperback)
I'd pair the book with a more nationally-oriented one, such as the Taylor Branch trilogy, which give a better sense of national politics, but Payne's book is both profound and profoundly moving in its depiction of local communities and Ella Baker's "Organizing Tradition", which turns a number of assumptions about the movement on their head. I've read the book a few times with students and never fail to be personally engaged and to have invigorating classes with students. Great, great stuff!
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5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliance that doesn't blind but illuminates, Jun 18 2002
By 
"hoopsandjazz" (Northeastern United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Paperback)
I agree with the earlier reviews but I'd like to provide some details about this book's strengths.
First, Payne places the people who made the Mississippi movement at the center the story. He tells the story of both the original local leaders who made it possible for the civil rights movement to happen in Mississippi and the activists who followed their lead in the 1960s.
Second, he extends the time span of the civil rights movement, showing that it would not have been possible without the "organizing tradition" referred to in the subtitle. Payne expertly traces the relationships and linkages between different generations of heroic troublemakers in Mississippi.
Third, he shows that the original radicals, and I mean those who wanted to change Mississippi from its roots, were those who had already challenged the system to achieve personal gain. "Bourgeois" blacks in Mississippi weren't uniformly complacent or fearful. Wisely, Payne does not use this fact to justify any notion of a "talented tenth" that ought to lead the masses.
Fourth, the chapter on Ella Baker is a stunning and riveting account of one heroic troublemaker who didn't receive enough recognition for her efforts.
Fifth, when Payne writes about what we typically consider the civil rights movement, he places you in the midst of the activists and makes you feel their exhileration, exhaustion, frustration, fear, and courage. Scholarly books never have this quality. At the same time, he does this in a historical context and with a critical eye which absolutely illuminate the raw material in a way that first-person and journalistic treatments rarely approach.
For these reasons, and many more, this is clearly the best of many excellent books on the civil rights movement. Some could fault Payne for placing less emphasis on the national and institutional dimensions of the freedom struggle. But, in the case of the black American struggle for freedom, Payne shows us the story begins with, and is carried by, people who tried to change their communities, not their nation.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Read this Book!, May 18 2001
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This review is from: I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Paperback)
As a history major, I have various interests. One of my favorite things to study is the civil rights movement. Of all the books that I have seen, few match the caliber of this book. It takes the state of Mississippi (which may be the book's greatest irony)and shows how powerful a grassroots movement such as the civil rights movement can be with the proper forms of leadership. I urge anyone who is interested in learning about the civil rights movement should start with this book!
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