Radicals to the Rescue

SNCC organized food distribution centers—Amzie Moore’s home in Cleveland, Aaron Henry and Vera Pigee’s center in Clarksdale, and the St. Francis Mission in Greenwood. Fannie Lou Hamer saw their work as a turning point—“Nobody never come out into the country and talked to real farmers. . . . If you hadn’t arrived at a certain level, you wasn’t treated no better by blacks than you was by the whites. And it was these kids what broke a lot of this down.” 

Pictured: A black and white photograph of Dick Gregory giving a speech on voter registration. Gregory is in the center of the photograph, leaning on a podium wearing a light colored suit jacket. The crowd is either seated or standing around him.

Credit: AP/Bill Hudson