– ♪ No more shooting ♪ ♪ No more shooting ♪ ♪ No more shooting ♪

– [Narrator] In the fall of 1962, a group of students arrived in Greenwood. They came to organize the Negro population, to spread the word of the new gospel. They called themselves SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. ♪ And be free and be free ♪ ♪ No more running ♪

– [Narrator] This is their headquarters, almost always filled with young people. They come to sing songs, borrow books, get a meal, or just sit and talk, but mostly to work.

– [Volunteer] Getting the food is to go down to-

– [Narrator] The objective of SNCC is the vote. The Negro in Mississippi has 45% of the population, yet less than 7% are registered. And the Negro leaders know that their people must get the vote if their lives are to change. The leader of SNCC in Mississippi is Bob Moses.

– Well, we’ve got, right now, several very crucial problems facing us. First place, you know, last year here in Leflore County they had a bumper crop, but most of, they had a dry season and most of the people didn’t get a chance to pick a lot of cotton. So, there were a lot of people all went along, who really were starving, didn’t have food and clothing for their kids. Now, this winter’s gonna be worse. And my feeling is that’ll get worse every year because they’re perfecting these machines and the means of mechanizing the cotton crop. And so, essentially we’re in a race between whether or not we get the vote before the people are kicked outta their jobs and are forced to move to the cities and up north.

– [Narrator] In Mississippi, the one job a Negro could always count on was work in the cotton fields at 30 cents an hour. But machinery is now taking the place of hand labor and unemployment among the Negroes has soared. More and more they have to choose between moving north or going on relief, which is controlled by the whites. Their leaders feel that if they are to help themselves they must get the vote now. But in Mississippi, registering to vote is more than just writing your name and address. You must interpret a section of the state constitution to the satisfaction of the voting registrar who is white. SNCC is conducting classes all over the state. Courses on the voter registration test, literacy classes, courses in nonviolent action. Nonviolent action does not come easily. Sam Block has been shot at twice and so has Bob Moses.

– But the few things that you have to consider is that one, this is the home of the Citizens’ Council and all city officials are Citizens’ Council people. Two is that the people who’ve done the killing have been business people. The guy who shot at Jimmy and myself, they were salesmen. They were respectable people from the community. You know, they weren’t white trash. So, how do you jive that with the fact that they’re also rational people? Seems to me that they’re caught in a circle, which if there are people who wanna break out they don’t know how. They don’t have a chance. White people are probably more oppressed, in terms of their ability to speak, than Negros.