WSB-TV (Television station : Atlanta, Ga.)

Description

In this WSB newsfilm clip from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) headquarters in New York City, New York, in May or June, 1961, an unidentified CORE official speaks to a reporter about the ongoing Freedom Rides.The clip begins outside the CORE offices. A white man, seen from behind, opens the door and walks into the office. Inside the office, office workers sit in front of typewriters at several desks throughout the room. An African American woman speaks on the telephone while a white woman and an African American man sit at typewriters.After general office scenes, an off-screen reporter interviews an unidentified CORE official. The CORE official, a white man wearing a dark suit, suggests several reasons Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy may have requested a cooling-off period in the Freedom Rides, including the threat to prestige of the United States in foreign countries. Specifically, because President John F. Kennedy is heading to a conference with international leaders, civil rights workers should "refrain from doing anything that might reflect badly on this nation." The official counters this idea, declaring that the "cancer of segregation" hurts the country's prestige more than Freedom Rides, and asserting that it is more important to solve the problem of segregation than to ignore it.After a break in the clip, the reporter asks the CORE worker about the possibility, presented by the attorney general, that more Freedom Rides might incite more violence in the South. The official replies that the state leaders in Mississippi have shown...

Record Contributed By

Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Georgia