Larry Rubin: [In a ‘southern accent’] Yeah, it was pretty cold down here, down here in the Southland a few weeks ago, but it’s done warm itself up. It’s right and nice now, right and nice. Just like weather ought to be. 
[in normal speaking-voice] It’s right near Christmas time now and it’s just as warm as it could be. Thank you very much for sending the close down, though. I really could use them. I sent back a few of them, and I also sent back one shirt that I had down here, that I won’t need since you sent down the other shirts. Our storage space is limited and we move around a lot, and having extra clothes that are not really essential is more problem than any use that they could be possibly put two. I love my jacket by the way, my, my other jacket. And about the shaving lotion, well, were living in the farmhouse of this old Negro lady, and she’s a fundamentalist Baptist. Well, you know, she’s trying very hard to get used to the strange ways of these foreigners who have come to live with her, but she kind of looks down on things like perfumes and stuff, and since it’s really not that essential that I, that I have aftershave lotion, I thought that it would just be better if I sent it back. But thank you very much for the thought anyway. If you save it, I could take it back to school with me. 
Man, the other day we had a mass meeting, a voter registration mass meeting in one of these small country churches. I got up, took the floor and rolled back my sleeves and threw back my head and said, ‘I’m going to deliver me a sermon,’ and I threw back my head and bellowed for about half an hour on two points. One, that the system of segregation is very recent; it’s not as old as the Southland, and that the system was foisted on the common people by the politicians and the people in power. In the second point that I try to get across is that there are white people struggling, trying to make a living, and is, are, are as poor as the Negroes, that it’s only when these two people get together can there be any real advancement. Well, I really got it across. I got thunderous applause, and everybody called the minister Rubin. This is how you have to talk down here. You have to—no matter what you’re saying—have to call it a sermon, and say it in terms of religion. I didn’t say a word about ‘the working class’s Mr. Night’ or ‘poor oppressed people,’ but I said it in terms of well, when you see a white man, you shouldn’t suddenly think ‘Boss Man.’ It shouldn’t be your only thought. And I said, whenever I am working down here, I going to house and people see me, I get the feeling that, you know, that they’re afraid of me. And they are. And at first—the first reaction they get when they see a white person is ‘Boss Man.’ Someone to say ‘Yassa boss’ to. Well, I said that this is untrue of all white people, that there are many poor people. Anyway, the point that I am trying to get across is that—this is a point that the CP missed, and that just about everybody on the left misses—that there—what the left is saying is true and is valid and, and its own—but the way they say it, nobody understands it. You have to speak in terms of the people, and you have to speak in terms of religion and in terms of Christ. That’s how I talk down here, and that’s how I’m trying to break through this terrific fear barrier. It gets me. There’s—one of the greatest sources of frustration working out here is working with—in working with the Negroes is just that, in seeing me it’s ‘Yassa boss, Yassa boss.’ Well, is the way they’ve been taught, and they might get whooped with some white men if they don’t say that. And I’m not quite sure yet how to handle this. It’s not enough just to say it out: ‘you don’t have to call me sir.’ But if I write a book about it, that’s what I meant to call it: Don’t Call Me Sir. You’ve got to somehow get across the point that they are, in fact, equal with you. Well anyway, I do have a lot of things that I wanted to say to you, and ask you, and tell you, and all. And I don’t even know if I can fit it all on one tape. If I can’t sit it on this tape, though, I’ll, I’ll send to tapes along with this. I have, I have so many things that I made out a list first, and I’m just going to run to the list. Let’s see. 
Oh yeah, Ma, you asked me over the phone about the address and the phone number of, of where I live in the country, and I told you then that, you know, that there was no phone. No address or anything, you sounded afraid and disgusted, but, well, here’s a time—you know, fear is, fear is, is normal, and its natural, and is healthy. But there are times when fear becomes irrational and that fear can hurt the situation. And I had told you several times previously that we don’t say important things over the phone, and that we never know who’s listening. I’ve been telling you that we are very, very careful down here in everything we do. In any case, the phone number is 759-6543. 759-6543. The address of the place that I am living is Route 1, Box 150, Leesburg, GA. The name is Miss—Mrs. Annie Raines. R-A-I-N-E-S. but don’t mail any letters to me there. I mean, the place to mail letters is to Albany, 504 S. Madison, and, also, unless there is emergency, unless something really important comes up, don’t call me there. Call me in Albany. Well, you mentioned about the traveling insurance. Yeah, I guess if, if you think it’s necessary to take it out, you might as well. We do do a lot of traveling. I haven’t lost anything down here, so you don’t have to ask for insurance on, on that. But take it out. Oh, and, you also ask about why I couldn’t repair the watch that I sent to you down here, and, I don’t know, this is something else that I said a few times. I, I don’t understand why you didn’t get it. There is a boycott going on in downtown Albany, and there’s no place—there’s a boycott going on because no store in downtown Albany will hire Negroes, and so we’re cut off from buying a lot of things, and that there’s no place that does hire Negroes that repairs watches. The same thing is true of buying things for the tape recorder. There’s just no place down here to get it. The way they solve that problem for Albany citizens is that there is a caravan every Saturday going from Albany to other places to buy things you can’t buy in Albany [in?] Negro [section?]. But since I’m in the country a lot of the time, it’s very inconvenient for me to do that, and instead of going through all that, it’s just much more convenient to send it up to Philadelphia. 
You might’ve been wondering why in this tape you’ve been hearing clicks and then my voice seems to change in the middle of the sentence. Well, that’s because I’m sitting in the back room of arsenic office in Albany, and people keep walking in and out. Some of the—things I’m saying, you know, I, I particularly want to share with, with everybody else, so that when they come in I have to click it on—I mean have to click it off, and then when they go out, I just click it on and continue what I’m saying. But instead of excusing myself each time, I just thought I’d click. 
Ma asked me about the deposit that I had put on the Scandinavian seminar on the AEA trip, and was wondering whether I’ll get it back now that I decided not to go. The official policy is, is no. The money the money just goes fft if, if you don’t come through on it, you know, if you change your mind. But, I’m going to write a letter to my AEA advisor. I have to write her anyway to send her the final confirmation of my decision, and I got asked her if, you know, if something could be done because I decided not to go because I wanted to stay in the civil rights movement, and because I felt that I had a calling here and that it was in a—you know, just a harebrained thing. I, I think mostly the reason they don’t want to give you your money back is that they want to discourage people from changing their minds, and also because a lot of pap—you know, they do a lot of secretarial work for each case and that cost money. But they haven’t done $50 worth of secretarial work on my case, since I did all the work. Remember when I went to New York to do research on the trip. That’s all that was done on the trip. Antioch didn’t contribute a thing. So, maybe give me the money back. She’s very sympathetic to my staying down here, my AEA advisor, that is, and she kept apologizing for not doing anything on it because, you know, she didn’t have her own facilities. So, maybe those two things combined can get us a $50 back, but I doubt it very much. But anyway, I will write and I will try. Incidentally, this woman secretary, this AEA advisor secretary, sent me a Christmas card, which I like very much. I think I pressed her very much about my stories about the South. She’s working in Xenia Ohio with the NAACP, I think, and she feels very disconnected from the [audio interrupted (0:12:02)] 
Dad, you said in your letter that—one of your letters—that you couldn’t understand why I had to stay in Georgia to solve certain problems and, why don’t I get cured from my problems by going to a psychiatrist, and Ma said just about the same thing. Well, you know, this, this gets me very angry and very disturbed because it reinforces my own feeling of insecurity. You know, you feel very insecure when people don’t, don’t believe in you. And dad said, why don’t you get cured, like I’m sick or something. I’m—the fact of the matter is that I’m, you know—what, what I’m going through is just the process of become a man and the process of growing up, the process of learning about the world. And I’m not sick, I’m not—getting cured. All I’m needing is time to think out certain problems. I need—and I need space to do it in. And, and part of my problem is learning about the world, and this is the place to do it. I think you’re saying that I’m sick. And your lack of trust and self-confidence in me comes from the feeling of lack of self-confidence in yourself. That, that I know both of you think of me as yourself, and think that you have a goal at stake in me. And you lack self-confidence in yourself, so you lack self-confidence in me. Well, it’s not justified in reality as far as I’m concerned. I mean, look—for one thing, everybody I know, every adult I know always is very impressed with me and always says I’m a great guy, and a great person, I’m going to be something great in the world except you. 
And here, I am in a very difficult situation in terms of social relationships, I work with people that fear and distrust me, that is, the Negroes that were working with, the SNCC staff at first look down on me, they thought I, I was a little kid because I acted like a little kid. But I’ve grown up a lot here, and I’m beginning to have some real communication with the Negroes here. After the sermon that I gave at the meeting, a lot of them came up to me and shook my hand and said, ‘I like the way you do business.’ And I, I, I have a lot of respect from fellow SNCC members. But, you know, I, I—and this—these, these are great victories, these are great, great things. But I shouldn’t have to keep telling you this for you to have faith in me. You should have, I don’t know—it seems to me that parents are the one people that should have faith in you. But anyway, I know it comes from a lack of self-confidence in yourself. But all I’m trying to say is that it is not based on reality, and that I’m not being down here to cure myself; I’m down here to grow up. And you won’t let me grow up if I live at home, so I’m down here. And it’s more than that too. I’m doing something very, very important. I’m, I’m right now on the, the forefront, I believe, of the most important revolution that has taken place in United States since Jefferson’s time. And I’m, I’m part of this, and I’m doing something. I’m a cog in a wheel—in a great wheel. It’s important. And besides that, I’m, I’m learning. I’m learning about people. I’m learning about, about the real problems of, of, of life. And about getting dirty to make a living. And, you know, all that you see, the only thing that you see in this is that I’m getting mixed up with some sort organization or another and getting—all that you are worried about is that I still might like working for an organization. I don’t know how to say it, and I’m going to give up from now on, frankly, because I feel that I’ve tried too hard and you haven’t tried it all to understand. So, I’m just, I don’t, I don’t know what to say. I’m not working for an organization, first of all. SNCC is not an organization. SNCC is simply a coordinating committee—the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which is made up of representatives from different protest groups in the South. SNCC is only seven people, and they set up various projects. I’m working for the people of Lee County. Very few people in Lee County, for instance, have ever heard of SNCC, and, and, there is no such thing as working for an organization. I’m just working in the South. And I’m learning about the South. And no matter what I do, if I go into psychology, or, or the law, or politics, or what, the things that I’ve, I, I, I’ve learned down here are very important. I’ve learned the source of a lot of problems that exist up north, for instance, a lot of personality problems that exist up north—personality problems that exist among all minority groups. I mean, you know, you, you want me to go into psychology but you’re—you don’t want me to, to, to learn anything in reality—the same way as, as Ma is so afraid of my situation down here but she won’t let me be careful over the phone. You know, one’s personality, one’s psychological makeup doesn’t really come from inside, in fact, doesn’t come from inside. But one is formed by the environment, and you have to learn about this environment, you have to learn about the problems of society before you can be an effective psychologist. 
And I’ve learned amazing things down here. You, you know there, there’s a, there are several Negro personalities, and there are several white personalities, but only several, you know, several categories, and these come from society. And the reason I have to stay down here is because here I am on my own, I put in a situation with a lot of responsibility, which—where I have latitude, where people aren’t having me and, and where, where I have a lot of support. And when I’m down there with, with—down here with people that, that have real problems, are not, you know, middle-class bourgeois types whose mostly problems are their own mishegosses. Although, there are plenty meshuggah down here. So, the—it—I, I feel it’s important down here, and, and, evidently, my Dean of students and assistant dean of students and my job advisor in my AEA advisor at school think it’s very important that I’m down here too, I mean, aside from the, the vitally important work that I’m doing. And it’s not like school. Writing is a part of life, and learning as part of life, but you learning—what you learn in school basically is technique, is techniques: you learn writing, which is a technique of, of living; you learn how to study, which is a technique. But down here, you learn substance. You learn what things are really all about. Very important. And, furthermore, since I have a lot less pressures on me down here, and since I do have latitude, and since, you know, I do have a lot of time for thinking I can work out problems like writing, which I have worked on. And, you know, I’m not going to say that anymore either because you don’t believe me. So, what can I do? I keep saying it, and you don’t seem to believe me. And these are problems you have to work out within yourself. You know, I’m, I’m saying this to dad mostly, ‘cause Ma is, is, I think, trying to work it out in herself. She’s, she’s, she’s getting help. I, I, I don’t know what more to say about that. Oh, you, you asked me about why I’m on a farm—I mean, no—over the phone, dad, dad sounded like I have some kind of plot against him because I’m on a farm in, in, in the country. Well, this is where I work. This is my work, is working in, in rural areas. And, besides which, I like farm life. It’s quite, and I like to work with my hands, and I get chances to do that. I caught a turkey the other day, and I helped kill a chicken, and helped pluck it. And we do, we do a lot of farm work. You know, building things and helping out Mama Dolly—that’s what we call her. Mama Dolly is the person we live with. She’s a sweet old lady. 
Well, that why—oh, incidentally, speaking about learning things about myself—something very surprising, which I, never thought would happen, you know, I, I never before thought of myself as a Jew. I never, how I identified myself with Jewishness, but since I’ve been down here, and since I’m, I’ve been the only Jew—I notice a lot of things about myself which are peculiarly Jewish, and, and I’m beginning to think a lot about my religion and about my cultural heritage, and where I, where I’ve come from. And I, I think of myself as a Jew, and I’m proud to say it. I’m thinking of Jewish history and the Jewish traditions. You learn a lot and there’s a lot to the Jewish religion that I think I missed before. There’s a lot to having faith. You don’t necessarily have to have faith in a, you know, a white man with a beard, but there is no concept of that in Judaism. That’s something else that I’ve realized—that Judaism has always been a very social religion, has always been a religion of, you know, a dynamic social [audio ends.]