In announcing the creation of an organization called the “Friends of N.S.M.,” a group of Detroit area citizens have recently stated: “We propose to form a nucleus of a movement of whites and Negroes which is in communication with the ghetto based black freedom movement, can support and interpret its efforts and take initiative action in our own communities in confronting others on the issues of racism.”
In explaining its connection with the Northern Student Movement, the group stated: “We believe that Black people will be free only when they equitably share control of those institutions which influence their lives and that their freedom requires a national movement of black people to acquire power towards that end. We believe that the Northern Student Movement represents the promise of such a national movement.”
The new organization presented three major aims: (1) Providing financial and other support of the Northern Student Movement and its Detroit affiliate, the adult Community Movement for Equality (ACME). (2) The education of its members and others to the existence and manifestations of racism and the struggle of the black freedom movement and (3) Confronting the issue of racism locally and nationally.
Those elected to the first steering committee of Friends of NSM are Dr. Austin Curtis, Rev. James B. Guinan, Mr. Frank H. Joyce, Rev. James D. Nixon and Mrs. Donald Thurber.
The Northern Student Movement (NSM) is a national civil rights organization with headquarters in Harlem which has been working in northern urban ghettoes since 1962. NSM has affiliates in Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia, and Detroit, The Adult Community Movement for Equality (ACME) is a grass roots organization on Detroit’s East Side started by NSM field secretaries in 1964.
