April to June, 1969, 1969

The most interesting topic for these months is the "Louisiana Summer Project", a group of six students and six local residents who made a thorough canvass of the living conditions of sugar plantation field workers in southern Louisiana during June. The papers include a proposal and a brief report on the project (n.d. [June]), and several letters from Mitchell to Fay Bennett on the students' progress (June 18, 24, 27), but there is no detailed report. The best summary of the students' findings appears in the testimony of Alex Hurder before the USDA sugar wage hearings at Houma, Louisiana; an apparently complete record of the hearings can be found on the microfilm (June 26). There is a copy of the union brief filed in the case of Local 300 v. McCulloch (April 21). On the controversy with the AMC over the decision not to organize sugar field workers, see Lapeyrolerie to Gorman, summarizing the campaign to date (April 8) and the exchange between Mitchell and Gorman (April 30; May 8). There is a letter from Mitchell to Harry R. Poole which reviews recent developments in the attempt to organize menhaden fishermen (May 20). Finally, there is a great deal of Xeroxed material throughout the Spring, especially heavy during May, relating to the firing of Sister Anne Catherine Bizalion as Director of the Headstart Program in Vermillion Parish, Louisiana; see also Mitchell's memorandum on the subject (May 16)