Paying the Civil Rights Movement's First Dues

We've posted previously about Dartmouth students Johan Liutkus '65 and Roger Daly '67 and how they answered the call of Martin Luther King, Jr., for white people of goodwill in the North to rise up in indignation over the treatment of Black Americans in the South. However, we recently had the opportunity to review more of the letters written in early 1965 by Liutkus to George Kalbfleisch, the Director of Undergraduate Religious Life at Dartmouth, and it seems to us that Liutkus' experiences and insights resonate more strongly than ever with contemporary society.

In a letter to George Kalbfleisch dated January 9, 1965, Liutkus says that when he and fellow Dartmouth student Roger Daly '67 mentioned to more experienced SNCC volunteers that the two of them had been assigned to Selma, the veterans looked at them as if they were "condemned men". However, he notes that Selma itself seems relatively peaceful at the moment. He also draws a clear distinction between the town police and Sheriff Jim Clark's "land posse", which consists of 300 men wearing helmets and carrying 2-foot clubs. Liutkus says that this group roams the county looking for ways to disrupt civil rights movements. In a later letter written on January 14, Liutkus states that because of a sudden appearance by Martin Luther King, Jr. and other members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) that evening for a "Mass Meeting", local police were on every corner in town primarily to keep the Clark "brown-shirts" from causing trouble.

Liutkus provides a telling example of the different strategies and viewpoints held by civil rights organizations during this era when he expresses his concerns about how the SCLC operates. He is frustrated because in his view SNCC is doing the hard work of staying in a community for a long time and building infrastructure while the SCLC and Dr. King "come into an area and put on a high pitched campaign for a month or two and then pull-out, almost like a revival." Whenever SCLC does inevitably leave, Liutkus says that local organization usually collapses and then SNCC has to redouble its efforts to keep the community from falling back into "dis-organization".

However, despite this minor disagreement over tactics, it is clear that Liutkus and Daly were committed to the cause. On January 25, they were arrested and jailed by sheriff deputies for refusing to leave the voter registration line, and a photo of the two men being grabbed and shoved by the law enforcement officers made it into the pages of the New York Times. That same evening, both wrote letters to George Kalbfleisch in response to a telegram of concern that he had sent their way. In his reply, Liutkus says that "Roger wasn't beaten seriously' and that "jail has made us feel more one with the movement -- we have paid our first dues to the Movement."

To read Jonas Liutkus' letters to Kalbfleisch or to see the Times clipping, you'll need to request his dean's file in advance by emailing or visiting Rauner in person. The call number is DA-8, Box 4540.