Charles Horwitz Papers (T/014)

Collection Details:

Collection Name and Number: Charles Horwitz Papers (T/014).
Creator/Collector: Charles Horwitz; and others.
Date(s): 1936; 1954; 1959-1973; n.d. (bulk 1965-1973).
Size: 9.35 cubic feet.
Language(s): English.
Processed by: Tougaloo College staff; MDAH staff, 2005.
Provenance: Loan of Tougaloo College of Madison County, MS, in 2004.
Repository: Archives & Records Services Division, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

Rights and Access:

Access restrictions: Collection is open for research. Boxes 7 and 8, containing duplicates and fragile originals, and Box 9, containing privacy-sensitive materials, are restricted. Reference photocopies must be used instead.

Publication rights: Copyright assigned to Tougaloo College. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to MDAH Reference Services, Attention: Tougaloo College Civil Rights Collection. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Tougaloo College as the owner of the physical items and as the owner of the copyright in items created by the donor. Although the copyright was transferred by the donor, the respective creator may still hold copyright in some items in the collection. For further information, contact Reference Services.

Copyright notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Preferred citation: Charles Horwitz Papers (T/014), Tougaloo College Civil Rights Collection, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

Biography:

Jules Charles Horwitz

Jules Charles Horwitz was born on April 19, 1935, in Chicago, Illinois, to Irving Horwitz and Sarah Spurgin. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in international relations from the University of Chicago. From 1960 to 1961, while completing coursework for a doctorate at the New School for Social Research in New York City, he taught social studies at William Ettinger Junior High School 13 in East Harlem. In 1961, he traveled to Cuba with Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. He planned to teach in Cuba while conducting research for his dissertation. He was not allowed to extend his visa, however, and returned to the United States without completing the research. Upon his return, he was employed as a reporter for the City News Bureau in Chicago, and then worked for the Chicago bureau of Newsweek from 1963 to 1964.

In the fall of 1964, Horwitz moved to Mississippi to volunteer for the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) in Jackson, where he was a member of the communications staff. In 1965, he began working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Also in 1965, he helped found the Freedom Information Service (FIS), a project to gather and disseminate news, statistics, and information related to the civil rights movement that was based at Mount Beulah, former site of the Southern Christian Institute, in Edwards, Hinds County, Mississippi. FIS was supported in large part by the Delta Ministry, a project of the National Council of Churches that was formed in September 1964 to support organizing efforts among disenfranchised and impoverished African Americans in Mississippi. When budget constraints forced the Delta Ministry to withdraw its funding of FIS in the spring of 1966, Horwitz began working directly for the ministry as an assistant to Bruce Hilton, director of interpretation.

Horwitz created the Delta Ministry’s Hinds County Project and directed it until 1973. For the first several years, he focused on voter registration and education, political organizing, and economic development, particularly in the towns of Bolton, Clinton, and Edwards. He provided support to the 1966 boycott of white-owned businesses in Edwards, which began after town officials decided to sell the public swimming pool to a private owner following an integration attempt by local African Americans. From 1967 to 1971, Horwitz supervised the Neighborhood Youth Corps program in Edwards, training young organizers to conduct voter registration, citizen education, and social service projects. He also assisted in the development of two craft cooperatives, Freedomcrafts Candy Cooperative and Freedomcrafts Wood Cooperative.

In addition to these activities in Hinds County, Horwitz was frequently dispatched to represent the Delta Ministry in statewide and national events. These included the 1966 March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, which was led by James Meredith, the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi. Horwitz was also involved in relief efforts following Hurricane Camille in 1969, participating in a coalition called the Combined Community Organization Disaster Committee that sought equitable distribution of federal relief funds. From 1970 to 1972, Horwitz supported the strike of 750 black sanitation workers in Jackson and aided the Gulf Coast Pulpwood Association, a biracial organization of pulpwood haulers who won a strike against the Masonite Corporation in 1971.

Political activity was another focus of Horwitz’s civil rights work. He was involved in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), a pro-integration political group loyal to the National Democratic Party. The 1967 elections, the first in which African Americans in Mississippi were able to participate on a wide scale, galvanized the activity of local chapters, and Horwitz assisted the groups in Edwards and Bolton. He also served on the MFDP executive committee from 1968 to 1970. In addition, he was an executive committee member of the Hinds County chapter of the Loyal Democrats of Mississippi, a biracial coalition formed in 1968 by the MFDP, the Mississippi branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Young Democrats. The Loyal Democrats challenged the seating of the regular all-white Democratic Party at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. Horwitz accompanied two Delta Ministry staff members, Harry Bowie and Joseph Harris, to the convention where the loyalist group was officially recognized as the state delegation.

During his last years with Delta Ministry, Horwitz turned his attention to bringing a greater number of white Mississippians into common cause with the black freedom movement. In November 1968, Horwitz and other Delta Ministry staff helped organize a statewide conference on racism and poverty, which was attended by a large number of white Mississippians. From this conference, the Greater Jackson Area Committee (GJAC) was formed. Supported in part by Delta Ministry, GJAC focused on organizing poor and working-class whites on issues such as day care, welfare, and youth services.

School desegregation was another key issue in the final years of Horwitz’s Mississippi work. An October 1969 decision by the United States Supreme Court in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education ordered immediate desegregation of thirty Mississippi school districts. The order was implemented in January and February 1970, but many white families removed their children from the public school system to avoid having them attend classes with black children. Horwitz and other activists saw the need to generate biracial support for the schools. He represented Delta Ministry on the board of the Community Coalition for Public Schools, a group of organizations supporting integration. He also served as president of Mississippians for Creative Public Education, a project of GJAC that operated an educational survey group and encouraged working-class white families to become more involved in the public school system.

Horwitz was also a board member and chairman of the program committee of the Community Service Association (CSA), the official community action agency for Hinds County. CSA sponsored programs in the fields of child development, education, health, and welfare, and was responsible for the administration of neighborhood centers, family planning programs, and recreation services. The Hinds County Project Head Start, with which Horwitz was involved, was a delegate agency of CSA.

In June 1969, Horwitz married Carol Hinds, a Head Start and adult education teacher from Mississippi. The couple resided in Jackson and raised two daughters, Rebecca and Allison. They remained in Mississippi until 1973, when Horwitz became a student at Antioch School of Law, a public service law school in Washington, D.C. (now the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law). After receiving his doctorate in law, Horwitz worked for a program focusing on migrant workers. In the late 1980s until his retirement, he served as a lawyer for the counsel’s office of the New York State Department of Labor. He was residing in Brooklyn, New York, when he died on November 13, 2006.

Scope and Content Note:

This collection documents Charles Horwitz’s civil rights work in Mississippi, with the bulk of material dating from 1965 to 1973. The collection is divided into twelve series: General correspondence, Council of Federated Organizations records, Freedom Information Service records, Delta Ministry records, political party records, Community Service Association records, organizational records, subject files, personal papers, photographs, printed material, and newsclippings. Topics of importance include voter registration, school desegregation, anti-poverty programs, and African American political candidates.

Series Identification:

Series 1: General Correspondence. 1965-1973; n.d. 11 folders.
This series contains incoming and outgoing correspondence, organized chronologically, that pertains to Horwitz’s projects in Mississippi. Letters in this series discuss multiple topics and organizations; letters written for a single organization are filed in the appropriate organizational records series.

The earliest letters (1965) discuss COFO, the Mississippi Farmer Labor Union, the Poor People’s March, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Letters from 1966 to 1969 address the Freedomcrafts Candy Cooperative, the status of Mount Beulah, welfare rights organizing, elections in Hinds and Sunflower counties, the Black Power movement, and other civil rights-related topics. The final set of letters, written between 1969 and 1973, is also concerned with school integration, the Vietnam War and the draft, and efforts to start organizing projects among white Mississippians. The series also contains some miscellaneous correspondence, cards, and postcards, including several that feature scenes from the Mississippi cotton industry.

Box 1, folders 1-11

Series 2: Council of Federated Organizations Records. 1964-1965; n.d. 9 folders.
This series consists of minutes, notes, memoranda, reports, newsletters, printed material, and newsclippings documenting COFO activities in 1964 and 1965. It contains handwritten and printed minutes of staff and executive committee meetings held in January, July, and November 1964 and in April 1965, as well as reports prepared for the staff conference of December 4-6, 1964. Also included are minutes of the staff convention on March 7, 1965, and a partial set of minutes from a meeting of civil rights workers at Tougaloo College in July 1965 to address the possibility of disbanding COFO. Notes taken by Horwitz and an unknown writer discuss the 1964 federal district court case Henry, Moses, Dennis, and King v. Mississippi, which challenged fourteen statutes passed by the Mississippi legislature in the early 1960s to discourage civil rights activities. The notes appear to have been written during court proceedings or depositions.

Records pertaining to the Mississippi Summer Project consist of a staff and volunteer list, a memorandum about the summer orientation session, a copy of a draft resolution of the mayors of Mississippi objecting to the presence of outside volunteers, and a carbon copy of a press release stating that the project could not accept additional volunteers. Also included are newsclippings documenting the Summer Project.

Box 1, folders 12-20

Series 3: Freedom Information Service Records. 1965-1968; n.d. 6 folders.
This series consists of records of the FIS, including a funding proposal, correspondence with researchers, and financial accounting information from 1965. The series contains issues four through sixty-nine of FIS’s Mississippi Newsletter and publications created and/or distributed by FIS, including a handbook entitled “Public Welfare in Mississippi” and political handbooks for Bolivar County, Hinds County, and Natchez. Also included are article reprints, a transcription of a tape recording about the Delta Leather Workshop, information about the FIS library holdings, and a variety of reports on Mississippi history, politics, and government.

Box 1, folders 21-26

Series 4: Delta Ministry Records. 1964-1973; n.d. 84 folders.

Subseries 4.1: Correspondence. 1964-1973; n.d. 5 folders.
This subseries contains incoming and outgoing correspondence of Horwitz and other Delta Ministry staff members from 1965 to 1973. The earliest correspondence, from 1965 and 1966, concerns community issues in Edwards, citizenship classes held at Mount Beulah, and voter registration campaigns for the 1967 elections. Correspondence from 1967 and 1968 addresses municipal elections in Hinds County, Delta Ministry volunteers, and economic assistance for families in poverty. Letters dating from 1969 and 1970 discuss funding for several Delta Ministry-affiliated projects, including the Hinds County Cooperative Day Care, the Greater Jackson Area Committee, Project Communications Network, and the Freedomcrafts cooperatives. The latest correspondence, from 1970 to 1973, concerns publication of The Drummer, a statewide black newspaper; the Jackson sanitation workers’ strike; and the pulpwood haulers’ strike.

Also included in the subseries are memoranda from the National Council of Churches’ Commission on Religion and Race regarding the Mississippi Summer Project of 1964 and internal Delta Ministry memoranda from 1967 to 1973.

Box 1, folders 27-31

Subseries 4.2: Minutes. 1967-1972; n.d. 4 folders.
This subseries includes minutes from one 1967 meeting of the Commission on the Delta Ministry and eight sets of staff minutes from 1968 to 1971. The subseries also contains minutes from four executive committee meetings (1967, 1971-1972, and undated) and two board of directors meetings in 1972.

Box 1, folders 32-35

Subseries 4.3: Project Records. 1966-1973; n.d. 13 folders.
This subseries consists of files pertaining to a variety of projects carried out by the Delta Ministry. The files are arranged by project title and contain correspondence, reports, budgets, proposals, and printed items related to each project. Material on the Hinds County Project includes Horwitz’s notes, reports, and budgets, as well as information on the Clinton freedom movement, welfare organizing, the Edwards Buying Club, the Edwards boycott of 1966, and volunteer projects. In addition, the subseries provides a limited amount of information on the Poor People’s Conference, Strike City, Freedom City, and proposed projects relating to education and economic development.

Box 1, folders 36-48

Subseries 4.4: Collaborative Project Records. 1966-1973; n.d. 40 folders.
This subseries pertains to organizations that Delta Ministry, in collaboration with other groups, helped to form or to support. The records are arranged alphabetically by each organization’s name and contain correspondence, memoranda, reports, press releases, and printed material related to each project. The bulk of files pertain to three efforts: Freedomcrafts candy and wood cooperatives, the Greater Jackson Area Committee, and the Combined Community Organization Disaster Committee. Other collaborative organizations represented in the subseries include the Action Committee for Poor People, Communications Network, Gulf Coast Pulpwood Association, Hinds County Farmers’ Association, Mississippi United Front, Delta Community Hospital and Health Center in Mound Bayou, and the Ad Hoc Committee to Save Mount Beulah.

Box 2, folders 1-40

Subseries 4.5: Notes and Writings. 1966-1967; 1970; n.d. 5 folders.
This subseries contains drafts of articles written by Horwitz for The First Source, a National Council of Churches newsletter, as well as other notes and writings about his activities with Delta Ministry. Of particular interest are Horwitz’s notes on the 1966 March Against Fear led by James Meredith. The subseries also contains drafts and notes written by unidentified members of the Delta Ministry staff.

Box 2, folders 41-45

Subseries 4.6: Printed Material. 1964-1973; n.d. 10 folders.
This subseries includes Delta Ministry’s newsletters, annual reports, state capital reports, press releases, and issues of The First Source. In addition, it contains brochures for Delta Ministry, a flyer advertising a speaking engagement for Horwitz, leaflets from associated religious organizations, and one folder of newsclippings documenting Delta Ministry’s activities. Box 6 contains a Delta Ministry poster.

Box 2, folders 46-54
Box 6, folder 1

Subseries 4.7: Administrative Records. 1967-1968; 1970-1973; n.d. 7 folders.
This subseries consists of items pertaining to the administrative operations of Delta Ministry. Included are address lists, budgets, bylaws, contracts, employee benefit information, job descriptions, resumes of job applicants, and Delta Ministry stamps.

Box 2, folders 55-61

Series 5: Political Party Records. 1964-1972; n.d. 52 folders.

Subseries 5.1: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Records. 1964-1970; n.d. 23 folders.
This subseries consists of MFDP records for the state executive committee, the Hinds County executive committee, and local FDP groups in Edwards and Bolton. The files are arranged by format and contain correspondence, meeting minutes, financial records, handbooks, press releases, newsletters, contact sheets, bylaws, meeting sign-in sheets, notes, and printed material. One folder contains Horwitz’s notes on depositions taken in 1965 by lawyers who came to Mississippi to aid the MFDP’s attempt to unseat the state’s Congressional delegation. Another folder contains printed material related to the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service elections. The rest of the subseries documents activities from 1966 to 1969, particularly efforts to determine the structure and role of the party following the failure of the Congressional challenge. Horwitz’s notes for the revised MFDP party platform in 1968 are also included. Box 6 contains a handwritten voter registration poster.

Box 2, folders 62-76
Box 3, folders 1-7
Box 6, folder 2

Subseries 5.2: Democratic National Convention Challenge Records. 1968-1969; 1971. 7 folders.
This subseries documents activities of the Loyal Democrats of Mississippi prior to and following their challenge to the regular state delegation at the National Democratic Convention in 1968. It contains reports on the formation of the Loyalist group, lists of potential delegates, and notes from beat, precinct, and county meetings and the state convention. In addition, it includes the Loyalists’ brief to the subcommittee on credentials of the Democratic National Committee, a temporary roll of delegates to the convention, and information on convention challenges from other states.

Box 3, folders 8-14

Subseries 5.3: Democratic Party of the State of Mississippi Records. 1968-1969; 1971-1972; n.d. 3 folders.
This subseries concerns the reorganized Democratic Party of the State of Mississippi, which grew out of the Loyalist challenge to the regular all-white Democratic Party. It contains minutes of the Hinds County executive committee, memoranda concerning party structure, and information on the selection of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 1972.

Box 3, folders 15-17

Subseries 5.4: Election and Campaign Materials. 1964; 1966-1972; n.d. 19 folders.
This subseries contains materials used during the campaigns of African-American political candidates who ran as Democrats or Independents, often in conjunction with the MFDP. The files are organized alphabetically by campaign and contain leaflets, reports, notes, newsclippings, charts of election results, poll-watching handbooks, and voter-education materials. The majority of items relate to elections within Hinds County, including races for school board, supervisor, justice of the peace, constable, and election commissioner. The subseries also contains items from the United States Senate races of Aaron Henry (1964) and Clifton Whitley, Jr. (1966); Congressional races of Victoria Gray (1964), Emma Sanders (1966), the Reverend Ed King (1967), and Charles Evers (1968); the state senate campaign of Alfred Rhodes, Jr. (1967); and the governor’s race of Charles Evers (1971).

Box 3, folders 18-36

Series 6: Community Service Association Records. 1964; 1966-1972; n.d. 61 folders.

Subseries 6.1: Correspondence. 1967-1972; n.d. 5 folders.
This subseries contains correspondence and memoranda of the CSA board of directors, program committee, policy committee, staff, and officials from the United States Office of Economic Opportunity. The correspondence pertains to the structure of the CSA board; rules regarding voter education activity by staff members; organizational policies; and a variety of programs operated by the CSA, including Hinds County Project Head Start.

Box 3, folders 37-41

Subseries 6.2: Minutes. 1967-1971. 5 folders.
This subseries contains minutes of the CSA staff, board of directors, executive committee, program committee, and grievance committee, as well as those of the Hinds County Project Head Start board of directors, executive committee, and special committee.

Box 3, folders 42-46

Subseries 6.3: Reports. 1969-1971; n.d. 11 folders.
This subseries includes progress reports, evaluation committee reports, and reports on public meetings pertaining to CSA programs, including Community Legal Services, Hinds County Project Head Start, Neighborhood Youth Corps, family planning, and multi-purpose centers.

Box 3, folders 47-57

Subseries 6.4: Program Records. 1966; 1969-1971; n.d. 12 folders.
This subseries consists of program descriptions, funding proposals, notes, and advisory committee documents related to CSA programs. The majority of files pertain to Hinds County Project Head Start and Jackson Area Project Head Start, both operated through the CSA. Other CSA programs documented in this subseries include multi-purpose centers, Neighborhood Youth Corps, emergency food and medical services, and Community Legal Services.

Box 3, folders 58-69

Subseries 6.5: Community Action Program Grant Records. 1966-1972; n.d. 14 folders.
This subseries contains CAP forms, budgets, narratives, and applications submitted to the Office of Economic Opportunity to secure funding for CSA projects. The subseries also includes printed memoranda and instructional material from OEO.

Box 4, folders 1-14

Subseries 6.6: Administrative Records. 1969-1972; n.d. 5 folders.
This subseries consists of records pertaining to the administrative operations of CSA, including bylaws, financial statements, information on compliance with affirmative action, personnel policies, and personnel records.

Box 4, folders 15-19

Subseries 6.7: Printed Material. 1964; 1966; 1968-1971; n.d. 9 folders.
This subseries includes CSA promotional brochures; CSA newsletters; leaflets and newsletters related to Head Start; articles and newsclippings about anti-poverty programs; and handbooks for Upward Bound, the Concentrated Employment Program, and a community self-help program.

Box 4, folders 20-28

Series 7: Organizational Records. 1964-1966; 1969-1973; n.d. 29 folders.
This series contains files related to a number of organizations in which Horwitz was an active member or advisor. The files are arranged alphabetically by organization name and include correspondence, minutes, mailing lists, newsletters, press releases, notes, and printed material. The organizations addressed are: Alliance Against Racism, American Civil Liberties Union, Community Coalition for Public Schools, Criminal Justice Committee, Hinds County Community Council, Mississippians United for Progress, National Committee to Free Angela Davis, STAR, Inc. (an adult education program), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Youth Enterprises of Mississippi, and several unidentified organizations.

Box 4, folders 29-57

Series 8: Subject Files. 1961; 1963-1968; 1970; n.d. 18 folders.
This series consists of files created by Horwitz according to his areas of interest. They are arranged alphabetically by name of the event or subject, and original file names have been altered only when necessary for clarification. The files include numerous articles and readings used in a seminar on community organizing. They also contain Horwitz’s collected material and notes on consumer education, cooperatives, the National Sharecroppers Fund, student protests at Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1968, school desegregation, draft counseling, and the 1970 federal census results.

Box 4, folders 58-68
Box 5, folders 1-7

Series 9: Personal Papers. 1936; 1961-1973; n.d. 14 folders.
This series consists of personal correspondence, journal entries, ephemera, and documents from Horwitz’s early work as a teacher and journalist. The notes and diaries contain sporadic entries from 1961 to the early 1970s and include notes on the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965. Teaching material and lesson plans from William L. Ettinger Junior High School and notes for stories covered on behalf of Newsweek provide the only documentation in this collection of Horwitz’s early career.

The series also contains miscellaneous documents relating to Horwitz’s personal affairs, including family correspondence, a birth certificate, address and appointment books, a self-portrait (drawing), insurance records, ephemera, and membership and business cards.

Box 5, folders 8-21

Series 10: Photographs. 1959; 1966; 1968; n.d. 2 folders.
This series contains two folders of photographs. The first folder contains undated, black-and-white photographs documenting civil rights workers in Mississippi, possibly at Mount Beulah. The second folder contains personal photographs of Horwitz and friends in 1966 and 1968 and one unidentified 1959 photograph of a church nativity play.

Box 5, folders 22-23

Series 11: Printed Material. 1954; 1960; 1964-1973; n.d. 18 folders.
This series contains printed material pertaining to a variety of topics and organizations not covered in Series 7 and 8. These items were found throughout Horwitz’s papers and with no particular arrangement. The files are organized first by format and then by subject. They include articles, bibliographies, brochures, leaflets, newsletters, periodicals, press releases, programs, proposals, and reports. Topics and organizations of note include the Free University of Mississippi, Freedom Now Brick Factory, National Black Development Conference, School of Community Organization, Shaker Village Work Group, and Southern Student Organizing Committee. Other topics addressed by the materials in this series include school desegregation, community development, environmental issues, anti-poverty programs, and antiwar groups.

Box 5, folders 24-41

Series 12: Newsclippings. 1966-1972; n.d. 5 folders.
This series contains newsclippings that address current events of local or national interest. The series also contains unidentified fragments of newsclippings and visual materials clipped from newspapers and periodicals.

Box 5, folders 42-46