THE SCOPE OF S.C.O.P.E. IV: THE WAGONMASTER [W, 3-2-22]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

The fourth of a four-part series for Black History Month]

 

I drove the nuns and students of our Terre Haute SCOPE chapter to Atlanta for their orientation at Morris Brown College, before their assignment to Albany, so they could have Dr. Justin’s station wagon, then flew home. In his first report letter back to Terre Haute, Bob Mullins said that the group all agreed that they would miss me “…because his religious jokes are an inspiration.” It’s hard to interpret that now…

Bob was both serious and fun. Everyone at the Wesley Foundation [Methodist campus ministry] liked hanging out with him. But he was not musical. So it was a source of much merriment among his fellow WF students back in Terre Haute when we learned that, among all his other duties as de facto leader for the Terre Haute Scope chapter in Albany, Georgia “freedom summer” of 1965, the Golden Notes gospel singing group had decided he should be their manager.

Singer, no, but manager, definitely yes. Bob was a remarkable twenty-one-year old. He was not fazed by dealing with the business of running the Freedom School, and finding lodgings for the nuns and the students, and even being the manager for the Golden Notes, even though he thought that his only job that summer would be working on voter registration.

 

It was a little more onerous to deal with the constant harassment of the police than to manage the Golden Notes. He was arrested almost daily for imaginary driving infractions, such as incorrect changing of lanes. The fines ranged from $17 to $30, which in today’s dollars would be like $170 to $300. He didn’t have to pay those personally. Those fines were paid by SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the sponsors of Freedom Summer] or those of us who raised funds back home. [There were 7 clergy-Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish-- in Terre Haute who together raised about $3500 to finance the trip.]

The two things that really did bother Bob were the apathy of the local “Negroes” in Albany, and the ignoring of journalistic ethics by the Southern newspapers.

In their final report, Sisters MJ and AL said that they largely failed at getting local Negro leadership involved with the Freedom School and the voter registration, especially the “middle-class Negroes.” It’s just the way it is; middle-class folks have the most to fear when change comes.

Bob was a journalism major at Indiana State and sent back articles on what he was doing that summer to “The Statesman” INSU newspaper. He was appalled that the newspapers throughout GA and AL referred to black people, as “niggers,” not just in opinion columns but in news articles.

One of his trickiest incidents came one night when he was eating by himself at a restaurant and a girl he described in his letter only as “very young” propositioned him. He said that she was persistent, and he had to be careful how he rejected her overtures, or he would be considered rude, for she was black.

 

Bob went with the expectation that he would just be another student, spending his time registering folks to vote. Instead, of necessity, he became the wagon-master, especially of Dr. Justin’s station wagon, but also doing all the things the wagon-masters of the old West did—scouting out the way, looking for water holes, finding grub, leading the way on the river fords, watching for hostiles.

I was so busy back then, as a son and husband and father, as a pastor, that the fullness of one day just ran into the next. I didn’t have time to stop to consider what an extraordinary thing our SCOPE chapter was doing, and what an extraordinary young man was leading them. It’s nice now to think about that.

Also, I have been rather stupid as I hear people say that they don’t think this “history” should be taught. “This isn’t history!” I rant. “This is life.” But then I realize that for anyone under the age of 65, and that includes most state legislators, this IS history. To me, it is what we did only yesterday, to try to be decent people.  

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com