Smithsonian Folklife: From his birth in Durham, North Carolina, Worth’s life and work were centered in Southern culture. A civil rights activist as early as 1956, he participated in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and simultaneously became involved in documenting and presenting the folk music of the movement at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and other heritage festivals.

At the Smithsonian, Worth met documentary photographer Roland Freeman, and the two forged a formidable partnership. Their visual and aural records are essential for understanding African American cultural life. Their pioneering work in the early 1970s as co-directors of the Smithsonian’s Mississippi Folklife Project, among book publications and exhibitions, led to the global recognition of African American improvisational quilting traditions. These exhibitions, in turn, inspired the Gee’s Bend quilt exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and elsewhere.

Thanks to Worth’s passion for documenting traditions of community organizing, we hold vital keys to understanding movements for social justice rooted in African American history and culture. He will be greatly missed.
.
Top photograph: Worth Long on left, and Roland Freeman (1936–2023) on right. Source: Smithsonian Folklife.
Bottom photograph: Worth Long at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
Source: Photo by Diana J. Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives.
.

SNCC: Worth Long
January 15, 1936 – May 8, 2025
Raised in Durham, North Carolina

“My role as an organizer–community and cultural–is basically to give people an option. Powerlessness is basically having no option.”
–Worth Long

Durham, North Carolina-native Worth Long came to Selma, Alabama to replace SNCC’s Bernard and Colia Lafayette as project director in 1963. Long had attended college at Philander Smith College in Little Rock in 1962. There he quickly rose as a leader in the Arkansas SNCC-affiliate when they staged sit-ins at Woolworth’s and Walgreen’s lunch counters. When Long stood trial for his arrest in June 1963 in Little Rock court, he wore a long black armband to mourn the death of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers who had been murdered in his driveway the day before. Just months after, he became a SNCC organizer.

Long developed a philosophy of justice at an early age. His father was the Presiding Elder at a Durham AME Zion church who regularly preached to his congregation the ideals of Pan-Africanism and Black self-sufficiency. Long remembered these lesson as he developed his own philosophy of social justice well before he even reached SNCC. Before college, Long spent two years in the Air Force in Korea and Japan, where he became aware of “folklore.” His passion for oral history was so strong that when he married in 1959, he chose a tape recorder rather than a wedding ring.

In Selma, as was the experience of many SNCC activists, Long realized he could not evade violence. Even before he got there, Long had flown into Birmingham, Alabama the same day as the Sixteenth Street Church bombing. He pulled up to the scene of what was once a church and space of mass meetings and what was now piles of rubble and debris, where four dead girls had just been removed. Though deeply disturbed, Long continued on to Selma.

Before arriving to Selma, Worth Long was aware of how dangerous the city could be. There were the experiences of the Lafayettes as SNCC organizers, of course, but Long had also heard stories of Black people being driven out of the community simply for expressing their discontent of being relegated to second-class citizenship. In one of his first reports back to SNCC headquarters, he reported, “Selma is in a state of siege. Everywhere you look you see state policemen or members of the special posse brandishing clubs and cattle prods.”

Still, Long dug in and stood firm. He was beaten and jailed on several occasions for the marches he led. One SNCC volunteer recalled, “[Worth Long] just took me under his wing, so he became my big brother, just literally snatched and beaten, smashed down, beaten and taken to jail for just standing in front of someone to protect them because they were from SNCC.” But the violence of the Movement never deterred Long’s resolve towards building a community of justice.

In 1970 Long brought Black folklore and music to the Smithsonian, where he became one of the most celebrated folklorist and festival organizers. Fellow SNCC activist and friend Bernice Reagon recounted of his talent, “Worth is brilliant and wide ranging in what he imagines needs to happen with so much of our history.”
.

Sources:
https://folklife.si.edu/legacy-honorees/roland-freeman-worth-long?fbclid=IwY2xjawKRnMpleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF1OW1SdUpJS0toRUVwbEV6AR7uj082D01TXB02nCgUoLzabTglR-1Fe__V07APKEJ8t8ppYhUQxNiTvw-1gQ_aem_9RHMEu3NHqm1gHm5ck8VhA

https://www.loc.gov/item/2016655413/

https://snccdigital.org/people/worth-long/