Civil Rights' Tower of Strength

Charles Cobb Jr writes for the washingtonpost.com:

James Forman, executive secretary of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) -- which organized voter registration campaigns in the toughest areas of the South during the civil rights movement died Monday at 76.

He leaves a lot behind, most of it unrecognized and unappreciated. I am writing as one of those shaped by Forman. It is worth making the argument right here, and Forman would appreciate it, that the southern civil rights movement of the 1960s is largely misunderstood. His own invisibility as one of the great forces in that movement is one example of just how deeply it was misunderstood.


"You have to constantly think about what it is you are really fighting for, Jim taught us. And it was Jim who began to connect us to Africa, the southern African liberation movements, in particular. He had done graduate work in African studies at Boston University. The slogan 'One Man One Vote,' which we used in our voter registration campaigns across the South, was borrowed from the independence movement in what is now Zambia. "