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CC in, and this tension can be the greatest haxdship of a jail period. Inmates The inmates already there for other offenses are often curious about you and can be your allies in conflicts with prison officials, In one county prison the other inmates, white and Negro, conducted a sit-down strike to back up the demands of the demonstrators that their cell doors be unlocked during the day. "*] remember one night at the jail, a‘voice calied up from the cell block beneath us, where other Negro pri- soners were housed. ‘Upstairs !' the anonymous prisoner shouted, We replied, ‘Downstairs!’ ‘Upstairs!’ replied the voice, 'Sing your free- dom song. 'And the Freedom Riders sang. We sang old folk songs and gospel songs to which new words had Ran nae : tenn Wa ee Seen written, teuing of the Freedom Ride and it purpose, Then the down- stairs prisoners, whom the jailers had said were our enemies, sang for us. * James Farmer, quoted in Guy and Candie Carawan, We Shall Overcome! (Qak, 1963 104 Keeping up morale Sometimes exhausted civil rights workers look forward to jail as a place where they can catch up on their sleep. This is one important use of jail, but in general other methods have to be found to lick the great enemy of morale-- idleness. There are a number of things which bolster morale and use up the time, such as singing. Many freedom songs were born in prison, and anyone can make up new verses to the songs you know. Singing brings a sense of solidarity and hope, and also helps to relieve tension. An extremely important thing you can do is teaching: prisoners often devise home-made lectures, do role-playing, and have discussions of nonviolence and direct action. Nearly every- one knows something the others do not--prison can be a time for sharing and learning. George Bernard Shaw is supposed to have said, "I'd rather go to jail than to school." Make sure to put any teachers or protessors who may be with you to full use. You may be able to think up projects which contribute to prison life, such as producing a prison newspaper. Some SNCC workers were publicized in newspapers and radio broadcasts when they had a project of painting their jail cell, . In addition to fighting restlessness and providing short -term goals to shoot for, such projects can demonstrate the basically construc- tive attitude which the freedom movement is building. 105