Civil Rights

Civil Rights Songbook<br /> Blue and white cover of Civil Righs songbook with contemporary graphics depicting a sun, a house, people dancing, and shapes. The text reads "IT COULD BE A WONDER-FUL WORLD<br /> songs of peace and freedom".

In New York, Sheila became more aware of the injustices done to African Americans and was determined to be a part of the civil rights movement.  She enlisted in the New York City Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1961.  While working for CORE in NYC, she became more passionate about working for the movement in the South.  She offered her services to the Southern Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) offices through correspondence with James Forman and went to work creating brochures and editing speeches.  First working in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, she moved to Atlanta, where she worked with John Lewis, helping him write and refine speeches, including his 1963 March on Washington speech.  She worked at the Knoxville Crusader newspaper with Marion Barry in 1963 and was eventually hired as a Field Secretary for the 1964 Freedom Summer Project in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  She worked with some of the most prominent civil rights activists of the time through her work with CORE, COFO, and SNCC. Later in life, Sheila amassed an Oral History Collection of Nonviolent Activists housed at Columbia University. The collection contains testimonies of members of the CORE and the stories of SNCC and Peace Movement activists.  Sheila also contributed oral histories to Special Collections at the University of Southern Mississippi.

  • Gold-colored card with black text. The text reads "TONY BENNET, OSSIE DAVIS, RUBY DEE, HERBIE MANN SEXTET, CHARLIE MINGUS AND THELONIOUS MONK and The Students' own FREEDOM SINGERS ----IN<br /> <br /> A SALUTE TO SOUTHERN STUDENTS.<br /> <br /> For their courageous, dedicated and persistent struggle for Human Dignity<br /> <br /> FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1st, 1963 - 8:00-11:30 P.M.<br /> <br /> CARNEGIE HALL, 7th Avenue and 57th Street<br /> <br /> THE STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE (SNCC)<br /> <br /> Tickets $2, 2.50, 3.00, 3.30, 3.60, 4.00<br /> <br /> On the third anniversary of the Sit-Ins, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee an its New <br /> York friends will present a program at Carnegie Hall to support students working in Georgia where<br /> churches have been burned, and Mississippi, where students have been shot.<br /> <br /> SNCC, Room 1025, 5 Beekman Street, New York City ---- CO 7-5541"
  • 1963 portrait of Civil Rights Activist John Lewis wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and striped tie. He looks candidly toward the camera with his head tilted and his lips parted.
  • TEXT OF SPEECH GIVEN AT WASHINGTON MARCH BY JOHN LEWIS <br /> AUGUST 28, 1963 <br /> nothing <br /> We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have/to be proud For, ; hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here. They have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages ••• or no ·wages at all. While we stand here there are sharecroppers in the Delta of Mississippi who are out in the fields working for less than three dollars a day for twelve hours of work. While we stand here there are students in jail on trumped charges. Our brother, James Farmer, along with many others is also in jail. We come here today with a great sense of misgiving.<br /> <br /> <br /> It is true that we support the present civil rights bill in the Congress. However, we support it with great reservations. Unless Title three is put in this bill, there is nothing to protect young children and old women from police dogs and fire hoses, their penalty for engaging in peaceful demonstrations. In its present form this bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, who must live in constant fear in a police state. It will not protect the hundreds of people who have been arrested on phoney charges. What about the three young men---SNCC field secretaries--in Americus, Georgia who face the death penalty for engaging in peaceful protest. <br /> <br /> As it stands now, the voting section of this bill will not help thousands of black people who want to vote. It will not help the citizens of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia who are qualified to vote but lack a 6th grade education. "One man, one vote.,” is the African cry. It is ours, too. It must be ours. Let us tell the Congress: One man, one vote. <br /> <br /> We must have legislation that will protect the Mississippi sharecropper who is put off of his farm because he dares to register to vote. We need a bill that will provide for the homeless and starving people of this nation. We need a bill that will ensure the equality of a maid who earns $5 a week in the home of a family whose income is $100,000 a year. We must have a good FEPC bill. <br /> <br /> Let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution. By¬ <br /> and large, American politics is dominated by politicians who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic, and social exploitation. There are exceptions of course. We salute those. But what political leader can stand up and say, “My party is the party of principles". The party of Kennedy is the party of Eastland. The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unecessary to have Marches on Washinton? <br /> <br /> Where is the political party that will protect the citizens of Albany, Georgia. <br /> Do you know that in Albany, Georgia., nine of our leaders have been indicted, not by Dixicrats, but by the Federal Government for peaceful protest. But what did the Federal Government do when Albany's Deputy Sheriff beat Attorney C.B. King and left him half-dead? What did the Federal Government do when local police officials kicked and assaulted the pregnant wife of Slater King, and she lost her child. <br /> <br /> To those who have said, be patient and wait, we must say that we cannot be patient, we do not want to be free gradually. We want our freedom and we want it now. We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We do not
  • JOHN’S SPEECH: FELLOWSHIP COMMISSION<br /> <br /> Mr. _________, ________, ________, ladies and gentlemen:<br /> The March on Washington, this year, was one of the first times in history that America has shown that all faiths, all races, labour, government workers and Americans of all professions and convictions could and would unite [typo] to carry forth a cause that they believe in. Before this, we have only seen such a show of strength and unity in times of war; but now, Americans are uniting in times of peace. Americans are demonstrating that they believe in democracy, that it is not a word to be used for propaganda, or something to fight for when our lives are threatened, but that [typo] democracy [typo] will be the American way of life.<br /> The Fellowship Commission, and groups like it, who have paved the way for [typo] last years March are now entering a new era. As some people have pointed out, the Supreme Court decision did not integrate the schools, but freed the civil rights groups to [typo] begin integrating the schools. And so, if the Civil Rights Bill is passed, we will be free to begin integration on a nation-wide basis.<br /> This is the beginning of the third decade after [typo]the original March on Washington; the second half-century of American Labour and the second century after the Emancipation Proclamation. In the first half of this century there were many marches proposed and carried out, to bring the unemployed to Washington, to bring our [typo] plight to the Federal Government. Most of these have been forgotten, except by the few who participated in them.
  • A small sheet of four gold stamps. Each stamp has an extended black fist turned inward and raised. Gripped tightly in the fist are a book with the text "Education", a gavel with the text "Justice" a voting card with the text "Vote", paper money with a "$" sign, and an obscured item with obscured text. There are broken chains on the wrist the text "sncc" on the inside forearms and a white starburst in the upper right corner.
  • Civil Rights Activist Marion Barry looks straight at the camera with a thoughtful gaze. He is wearing a white button-down shirt, to the left is a man looking off-camera and to his right is a partial view of a news camera.  
  • Brochure Cover<br /> Black youth with sweat on his face looks toward camera wide eyed with his mouth open. Below the text reads "Mississippi Summer Project"
  • A black woman wearing shorts and a print blouse stands in front of the Mrs. Victoria Jackson Gray Campaign Headquarters in Hattiesburg, Mississippi during Freedom Summer 1964
  • Brochure Front Cover. At the top is a graphic of the State of Mississippi with marked areas separating designating areas of the entire state by sections one through five. To the right of the graphic, the text reads "Council of Federated Organizations". Below that is a photograph of a black man in an agricultural field wearing a straw hat and a work shirt. He has a cigarette in his mouth and looks thoughtfully at the camera. Below him, the text reads, "MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM SUMMER"
  • RABBI ARTHUR J. LELYVELD<br /> FAIRMOUNT TEMPLE<br /> CLEVELAND, OHIO 44122<br /> <br /> 5 Tevet 5742<br /> December 31, 1981<br /> <br /> Ms. Sheila Michaels<br /> 87 Columbia Street<br /> New York, NY 10002<br /> <br /> Dear Sheila:<br /> <br /> Your letter was a joy to receive and it awakened memories -- in retrospect it was a peak experience. It was good to see the names of other "alumni" as well. I open feel we really turned Mississippi around.<br /> <br /> Good luck and may 1982 bring you peace and blessings.<br /> <br /> Cordially,<br /> [signature]<br /> Rabbi Arthur J. Lelyveld<br /> <br /> AJL:et
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Activism
Civil Rights