Rust Class of ’64 holds reunion

Some prominent members of the Rust College Class of 1964 gathered for a reunion in Holly Springs, Friday, May 3.

Of those present were organizers of Freedom Summer, according to Larry Rubin, an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

He followed by weeks SNCC organizer Frank Smith Jr., who is credited with helping create the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum in Washington, D.C.

Originally from Georgia, Smith was a speaker at the reunion held at The Chandelier at 325 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Holly Springs.

The title of Smith’s speech was “From Civil War to Civil Rights.”

Smith was one of the first to become a full-time SNCC organizer in Holly Springs and came to Rust College to help organize Rust students and what is called the Speakers Bureau in 1961-1962, Rubin said.

The Speakers Bureau worked to encourage Blacks to register to vote in Holly Springs and Mississippi, he said.

Rubin took over in Holly Springs as SNCC organizer after Smith left.

Rubin said Smith dropped out of college to become a fulltime SNCC organizer.

Smith later became a member of the City Council of Washington, D.C. and Rubin managed Smith’s campaign and then remained as his assistant for one year.

Smith served 16 years on the City Council and prior to that was a school board member in Washington, D.C., Rubin said.

The African American Civil War Museum, in Washington, is the only museum dedicated to United States Color Troops in the Union Army.

Rubin said the African American Civil War Museum made it into the Guinness book of World Records because the name of every member of the USCT is listed on the monument located on Vermont Avenue in Washington.

At 82, Smith is active at the Museum.

Smith first arrived in Holly Springs in 1962 as a young Civil Rights worker.

“I met Leslie McLemore at a Civil Rights demonstration on the square,” Smith said.

The young organizers went with McLemore to area churches encouraging Blacks to try to register to vote.

“It was a slow process to eventually convince the Federal Government to gaurantee Blacks the right to vote,” Smith said. “I am pleased to be back and that my friends are still around. My job here was to organize other young people. When we came here we found students already active.”

Some participants in Freedom Summer at Rust included Bill Scott, David Beckley and McLemore, chair of the class of 1964.

“We were active in 1960. He (Smith) didn’t show up until 1962,” McLemore said.

“We came to make it larger,” Smith said. “I came in Mississippi and helped change America. No question about it, we did change America,” Smith said. “So, we changed Mississippi and America to lift it up together.”

Also organized in Freedom Summer was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that attended the Democratic Party National Convention in Atlantic City where members of the party demanded to be seated at the convention. It is the summer when Mississippian Fannie Lou Hamer made her historic speech from the podium. Blacks were denied replacing the all-white Mississippi delegation but negotiations led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.

Freedom Schools were also organized, one at 110 Rust Avenue, where teachers came and taught children. Out of that school a book of poetry was published and plays written in Holly Springs, Rubin said.

The Holly Springs class was one of the largest Freedom Schools in Mississippi, Rubin said.

Also that summer Black farmers and sharecroppers were organized to become voting members of the Agricultural Stabilization Conservation Service county committee.

“If you worked the land you were eligible to vote and serve on these committees,” Rubin said. “Blacks did vote and were elected to 70 committees in Mississippi. They were prevented from voting up until then.”

ASCS was important because it decided all cotton allotments, Rubin said.

Organizers worked in 1964 to organize a union at Marshall County Brick and Tile (now ACME Brick). Rubin said workers voted for a union in 1965.

Rust College Students also integrated the movie theater in Holly Springs. He said up until then Blacks had to sit in the balcony.

Rubin said the late Flick Ash in later years told him that he paid for everybody’s ticket to go to the movie during that event.

The African American Civil War Memorial and Museum honors the war’s 209,000 Black military personnel who served in the Union Army. The museum hosts cultural and educational programs and events focused on the Civil Rights Movement.

A memorial service was held there for Julian Bond, who was also a founding member of SNCC.

The museum ties the Civil War heroes with Rosa Parks, one of the first Civil Rights worker who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Smith became the founding director of the Museum.

Bill Scott, from the delta farmlands, arrived at Rust College in 1962 where he met Smith, who enrolled at Rust and took some classes.

The old friends celebrate their 60-year reunion during graduation week at Rust College.

Scott, helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party whose members traveled to the Democratic Convention in 1964.

Scott said that convention is directly linked with the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

“There were three links to Freedom Summer,” Scott said. “Kennedy was assassinated and threw the whole Civil Rights movement into Lyndon Johnson’s lap.”

Johnson was president in 1964 having served out the term of Kennedy and was running for his first full term.

Scott said the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which included Fannie Lou Hamer, had a deal set at the end of the day at the convention but those running things behind the scenes backed out of the deal overnight.

“A hearing at the credentials committee sent Hubert Humphrey to talk about compromise,” Scott said. “Hamer wanted to know why she couldn’t represent Sunflower County (Mississippi) at the convention.”

In roads were made at the convention even though the Freedom Democratic Party was not seated at the 1964 Democratic Convention.

Scott said having left the convention they went to Jamie Whitten’s office and asked to remove those who didn’t support them from office.

“I think Lyndon Johnson had a moment of reality check,” Scott said.

He said Johnson was faced with managing the Democratic Convention and managing Congress.

“He was trying to play both ends against the middle,” Scott said. “I wish he had chosen Walter Mondale as vicepresident. Humphrey was the liberal component of the Democratic Party.”

He said the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was born from the convention.

“I tell people, when I went to vote the first time for president, I had to choose Lyndon Johnson or Barry Goldwater,” Scott said.

Scott graduated from Rust in 1966, earned a master’s in chemistry in Iowa and earned a doctor of Arts in Teaching of Chemistry at Ole Miss.

He is now retired from teaching at Rust but remains president of the board of directors of the Marshall County Industrial Development Authority.