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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 6 Raymond Street, N. W. Atlanta 14, Georgia April 28, 1964 688-0331 James Baldwin 470 West End Avenue New York, New York Dear Mr. Baldwin: The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) - composed of the national civil rights groups working in Mississippi - is sponsoring a hearing on civil rights in Mississippi on June 9, in Washington. We are writing to inquire if you will join a "jury" to hear testimony from Negro Mississippians about violations of civil rights in the state and from others who will offer testimony about the necessicity and rightness of Presidential protection this summer. As you know, COFO is planning a "Freedom Summer", a massive program that will involve some 1,000 workers entering the state in late June. They will encourage Negroes to register to vote, man Community Centers, teach in "Freedom Schools" and work on a Freedom Registration project designed to demonstrate that thousands of Negroes in the state do not have the right to vote. We have learned through bitter experience in the past three years that the judicial, legislative and executive bodies in Mississippi form a wall of absolute resistance to granting civil rights to Negroes. It is our conviction that only a massive effort by the country backed by the full power of the president can offer some hope for even minimal change in Mississippi. National civil rights leaders have been asked to join with COFO workers to seek an audience with President Johnson on June 10. The evidence presented at the June 9 hearing will be made available to him, and we will request that he use the full power of his office to insure a peaceful summer for Negro and white Mississippians. The President must be made to understand that this responsibility rests with him, and him alone, and that neither he nor the American people can afford to jeapordize the lives of the people who will be working in Mississippi this summer by failing to take the necessary precautions before the summer begins. Your presence on the jury would aid our common cause, and lend weight to our insistence that justice and order must prevail in Mississippi, this summer and always. I have been appointed Coordinator of the July 9 hearing, and hope to hear from you within the week. Sincerely, [[Handwritten]] Horace Julian Bond [[/handwritten]] Horace Julian Bond SNCC "One Man, One Vote"
