Dates: 1962-1963; n.d.
Restricted access; permission of manuscript curator only.

Biography:

Philip Matoff Posner

Philip Matoff Posner was born in Tucson, Arizona, on December 7, 1938, the second child and son of Isadore Posner, a sign painter, and Anna M. Posner. He grew up in Santa Monica, California, and graduated from Santa Monica High School. At an early age, Posner participated in his first demonstration when he went along with his mother to protest against the local F.W. Woolworth Company store for its failure to hire African Americans except as janitors. In July 1961, Posner flew to New Orleans, Louisiana, to join members of the civil rights organization CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) to participate in the Freedom Rides. The Freedom Rides were formed after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Boynton v. Virginia (1960) that racial segregation in public transportation was illegal because such segregation violated the Interstate Commerce Act. To test the ruling of the court, African Americans and whites coordinated by CORE rode various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation.

At the time of the Freedom Rides, Posner was a student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Los Angeles campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. His group of fifteen riders purchased tickets at the Illinois Central Train Station in New Orleans for Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi. They were arrested and charged with “breach of peace” upon arrival in Jackson at 10:15 A.M. on July 30th for their attempt to integrate the train terminal. They were tried the following day in Jackson Municipal Court; all were sentenced to four months in jail and fined $200.

Because the city and county jails had begun to overflow with Freedom Riders, Governor Ross Barnett decided in mid-June 1961 to send them to the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm), in rural Sunflower County, 130 miles north of Jackson in the Mississippi Delta. While at Parchman, protestors were segregated by race and sex and housed in the maximum security unit. They found solace in singing “freedom songs,” many of which were African American spirituals with lyrics changed into messages about the movement. When prison officials demanded that they stop the singing, the protestors refused, leading to removal of their mattresses. When the protestors still did not submit to the demands and continued their singing, the guards then brought in fire hoses and turned them on the prisoners. After the prisoners lay there soaking wet, the guards used exhaust fans to chill the protestors during the night. These were among numerous physical degradations and humiliations to which the Freedom Riders were subject while prisoners at Parchman.

In all, Posner served thirty-nine days at Parchman. Upon his release from prison, he returned to California, and received a bachelor of arts degree in history from UCLA in 1962. In 1968, Posner graduated from Hebrew Union College and was ordained a rabbi. He went on to earn a doctorate in Hebrew letters in Jewish history and ethics from Hebrew Union College in 1993.

Posner served as assistant rabbi to Jack Rothschild at The Temple in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1968 to 1971. He then became rabbi at Temple Beth El in Riverside, California, where he served from 1971 to 1994. From 1994 to 1997, Posner was rabbi at the Beth Shalom congregation in Auckland, New Zealand. In 1998, he served as interim rabbi for the Upper Valley Jewish Community and Dartmouth Hillel at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He subsequently moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he served as rabbi at Mizpah Congregation until his retirement in 2002. After retiring, Posner moved to Ajijic, Mexico, where he served as part-time rabbi of the Lake Chapala Jewish Community from 2003 to 2007.

Posner had two sons with his first wife, Helene Figoten, to whom he was married the entire time he served as rabbi in California. He was later married to Patti Brooks Posner. Later in life, Posner became interested in cooking and baking, and in 2007, BookSurge Publishing published his first cookbook, Food for Thought, Character and Soul - Recipes and Blessings Included: The Rabbi and His Famous Friends Invite You to Their Table. As of 2013, Posner is married to Louise Drummond, and splits his time between Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and Santa Cruz, California. He conducts wedding ceremonies and sells his book throughout Mexico, and continues to be active in support of progressive and Jewish causes.

 

Scope and Content Note:

This collection was assembled by Rabbi Philip M. Posner and consists of correspondence, memoranda, reports, newsletters, news releases, and copies of newspaper and magazine articles generated by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during its Civil Rights Movement activities. Items of interest include SNCC fundraising materials; original copies of the SNCC newsletter The Student Voice; and a memorandum reporting on surveys of the condition of African American farmers in Ruleville, Sunflower County, Mississippi, at the close of the cotton season. The news releases detail events of the Civil Rights Movement throughout the entire South on nearly a daily basis for the time period covered. Also included is an interview with Posner concerning his experience as a Freedom Rider in Jackson and subsequent imprisonment in Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm).

 

Box List:

Box 1, folders 1-3: SNCC correspondence, memos, reports, and other materials, 1963.

Box 1, folder 4: Memorandum Re: Preliminary survey on the condition of the Negro farmers in Ruleville, Mississippi, at the close of the cotton season, 1962.

Box 1, folder 5: The Student Voice, SNCC newsletter, 1962-1963.

Box 1, folder 6: SNCC newsletter, May 1963.

Box 1, folders 7-9: SNCC news releases, April-September 1963.

Box 1, folders 10-11: Newspaper and magazine articles, 1962-1963.

Box 1, folder 12: Civil Rights Interview with Rabbi Philip Posner, n.d.