Charles E. Cobb Jr. | |
|---|---|
 Cobb at a talk about his book at Potters House inWashington D.C., on February 27, 2016. | |
| Born | (1943-06-23)June 23, 1943 (age 81) |
| Occupation | journalist |
| Known for | Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee |
| Notable work | "This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible" |
Charles E. "Charlie" Cobb Jr. (born June 23, 1943) is a journalist, professor, and former activist with theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Along with several veterans of SNCC, Cobb established and operated theAfrican-American bookstore Drum and Spear in Washington, D.C., from 1968 to 1974.[1] Currently he is a senior analyst atallAfrica.com and a visiting professor atBrown University.[2]
Cobb was born inWashington, D.C., in 1943 and grew up inSpringfield, Massachusetts. His parents were politically active.[3] His great grandfather founded a farming community in Mississippi called New Africa in 1888.[4]In the fall of 1961 Cobb started studies atHoward University where he became active in theCivil Rights Movement. After following and reading about thesit-in demonstrations, Cobb participated in a protest against segregation inAnnapolis, Maryland, where he was arrested in an act of civil disobedience.[5][6] In 1962 he traveled to theMississippi Delta and became a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).[7] His work and activism as SNCC field secretary lasted until 1967. He mainly worked in Washington, Issaquena, and Sunflower counties inMississippi. While in Mississippi, Cobb wrote a proposal to SNCC to set upFreedom Schools that was submitted in December 1963.[8] Cobb wrote that Freedom Schools should be set up "to fill an intellectual and creative vacuum in the lives of youngNegro Mississippians, and to get them to articulate their own desires, demands, and questions..."[9]In 1967 Cobb visited Vietnam withJulius Lester with the assistance of theBertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal. After returning, he and other SNCC veterans established Drum and Spear Bookstore in Washington, DC, which became for a time the largest bookstore in the country specializing in books for and about black people.[10][11] He also helped establish at this time the Center for Black Education in Washington, DC.[12] Later he traveled through parts of Africa, includingTanzania, where he lived in 1970 and 1971.
In 1974 Cobb began his career in journalism when he began reporting forWHUR Radio in Washington, DC. Later, in 1976, Cobb started work atNational Public Radio as a foreign affairs reporter, working on the network's coverage of Africa. Cobb helped to establish the NPR's first coverage of African affairs. After leaving National Public Radio, Cobb worked as a correspondent for thePBS showFrontline from 1983 until 1985. In 1985 he became the first black staff writer forNational Geographic Magazine. He was a member ofNational Geographic′s editorial staff from 1985 to 1997. Currently Cobb is a senior analyst atallAfrica.com.
Cobb was a founding member of theNational Association of Black Journalists and was inducted into theirHall of Fame in 2008.[13][14]Cobb is currently a visiting professor of Africana studies at Brown University, where he teaches a course called "The Organizing Tradition of the Southern Civil Rights Movement."[15]
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