{"id":18,"date":"2023-11-10T19:17:02","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T19:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/?page_id=18"},"modified":"2025-01-23T11:32:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T11:32:33","slug":"in-retrospect","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/in-retrospect\/","title":{"rendered":"In Retrospect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the Committee of Civil Rights was founded in April of 1960, the atmosphere on campus regarding the civil rights movement was mainly conservative. The founding members of the group attached their names to the organization, but left others\u2019 participation anonymous so that other students could be involved without fear of repercussions.  As a result, there is little documentation on the Committee on Civil Rights and this is also true of the later Civil Actions Group. This summer, the Archives and Special Collections interns reached out to participatory alumnae to interview them about their experiences being a part of these groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quotes by participants of both groups, featured on this page, discuss their reasons for getting involved, the atmosphere on campus including student and faculty reactions regarding the civil rights movement, and what it was like as a white student in a northern college figuring out how to best support Black southern students. The 1960 Woolworth sit-ins, in which Black college students refused to leave the store upon being denied service at the lunch counter were cited by members of the Committee on Civil Rights as their inspiration for getting involved. Anne Martin, Class of 1962, traveled to the South with other student activists to attend a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) meeting in Atlanta, GA on October 11th, 1960 to discuss how they could best support the movement. It was decided that northern students and universities would focus on fundraising and sending money to southern organizations like SNCC to use for bail and lawyers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 1906 suffrage convention address, Mount Holyoke College President Mary Woolley prophesied \u201c[t]he time will come when some of us will look back upon the arguments against the granting of the suffrage to women with as much incredulity as that with which we now read those against their education.\u201d Although we may now reflect on the struggles of voting rights activism with incredulity, it\u2019s important to be cognizant of the history of our civil rights to inform a future of activism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Louise DeCosta Wides, Class of 1962, Co-Founder of the Committee on Civil Rights<\/sup><\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Louise DeCosta Wides, Class of 1962, Co-Founder of the Committee on Civil Rights<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI saw on the front page this story about these kids, sitting in a luncheon counter or something in the south, and about other students beginning to organize, trying to get support for these students because maybe they needed lawyers and they didn\u2019t have very much money. And I just was so upset by the article\u2014I just was like, \u201cOh my god, this is just terrible\u201d and it was just like something happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou engage in some kind of political activity it isn\u2019t just that moment\u2014it may really be a pivotal moment in your life, and I think it was for me, \u2026 I just feel like it was an awakening and the realization that I had a responsibility to try to change my society and make it a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t voting rights, it was just functioning as a human being. I mean, if you can imagine, at that time bathrooms were segregated, water fountains were segregated, restaurants, luncheon counters\u2014I mean, it\u2019s just unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Marion Fitch Connell, Class of 1962, Co-Founder of the Committee on Civil Rights<\/sup><\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Marion Fitch Connell, Class of 1962, Co-Founder of the Committee on Civil Rights<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can remember very clearly that a group of us were very distressed that students in the South\u2014Black students in the South\u2014were being arrested and put in jail for peaceful, non-violent demonstrations in their areas. And in fact, in some cases, they were also being expelled from their schools for having done so. It was a natural outgrowth, I think, not only of our upbringing\u2014the four of us who were most pivotally involved in this\u2014but also of the Mount Holyoke experience, quite frankly, which goes back a very long time, in being interested in dedicating one\u2019s career\u2014one\u2019s life, if you will\u2014to a larger purpose, to help other people, and in particular, help people who need it the most.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was physically threatened by another student one night when I was coming home from the library after it closed \u2026 I was accosted and physically threatened by a student. There were many people on campus who were uncomfortable if not outright opposing what we were doing. So our strategy was to put our four names out there, and let other people participate when as and if they wished to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think in general, the student body supported us\u2014some were afraid to show their support, and there were a few who actively opposed it. But they became much less vocal and obvious as the movement progressed, not only on campus but nationally. I think it became clear to those few very quickly that their position was not tenable on the Mount Holyoke campus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was amazed at how supportive the faculty and staff of Mount Holyoke were \u2026 I was summoned to Mr. Gettell\u2019s office. I was quite concerned, I thought I might, you know, get a dressing down, or even possibly get expelled \u2026 instead, what I got was a big smile, a firm handshake, and a lot of encouragement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Susan Higinbotham Holocombe, Class of 1962, Co-Founder of the Committee on Civil Rights<\/sup><\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Susan Higinbotham Holocombe, Class of 1962, Co-Founder of the Committee on Civil Rights<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were really concerned about the sit-ins in the South and the injustice of Jim Crow continuing. We felt that the treatment of young African American people was horrible. We needed to find a way to say something\u2014to do something about it, even though tucked away in South Hadley we weren\u2019t sure how much we could do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t really think that going out and demonstrating was really what we did, but we felt that we had to do something, we had to take a stand, we had to say that we thought that barring people from using lunch counters in the South was wrong and that this kind of Jim Crow practice needed to end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the notion of equality is not universal, even at a liberal college like Mount Holyoke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Civil Rights issue was a human-level issue that I really felt strongly about; that if we believed in our ideals as a country, we had to address this. And what we did was very small\u2014I don\u2019t think we should blow our fundraising out of proportion. I think the more important thing is that it was a time when many people in the country began to do things. I don\u2019t think most of us as Mount Holyoke students had the means\u2014we wouldn\u2019t have been financially or otherwise able to leave school and go down South and work with some of the student groups or other groups in the South, as some college students did at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Karen Loeb Sharpe, Class of 1967, Co-Chairman of the Civil Actions Group<\/sup><\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Karen Loeb Sharpe, Class of 1967, Co-Chairman of the Civil Actions Group<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe motivation was because I saw all sorts of injustices around and I wanted to do what little I could do to inform people and to try and change things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI recall going into Springfield which had a very large Black community and going door to door and trying to get people to register to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember people being very apolitical at the time, you know they were concerned with their courses, their boyfriends, what they were going to do after school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Anne Martin Williams, Class of 1962, Co-Founder of the Committee on Civil Rights<\/sup><\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Anne Martin Williams, Class of 1962, Co-Founder of the Committee on Civil Rights<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were women who said this is wrong and what\u2019s going on down there is wrong and we’ve got to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was the representative of Mount Holyoke in the SNCC meeting down \u2026 in Atlanta \u2026 We were there to find out what was really going on and to have an on the grounds recollection of where we would fit in, where people at Mount Holyoke could help \u2026 We came back from that trip, realizing that the best way we could help right now was probably not to descend upon everybody down there but to raise money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know what I did was kind of a very small precursor to the greater thing, but I\u2019m glad\u2014I mean it started things. And it was kind of a starting, a recognition of what was going on. And then civil rights grows bigger than just with the African American situation. It gets into a lot of disenfranchised people as you move on. As we are seeing today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it [the Committee on Civil Rights] influenced in a way of making me realize \u2026  how big the world really was and how big and important our country really was. And how important it was to embrace everybody who has come to this country for whatever reason and welcome them and show them that as human beings we are all one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Committee of Civil Rights was founded in April of 1960, the atmosphere on campus regarding the civil rights movement was mainly conservative. The founding members of the group attached their names to the organization, but left others\u2019 participation anonymous so that other students could be involved without fear of repercussions.  As a result, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2199,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page-nosidebar.php","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-18","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18\/revisions\/371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/mountholyokevotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}