John has always been one of my heroes, stubborn, courageous,
principled, and kind, and with a streak of impish humor. Among his
denim-clad peers in SNCC, he always dressed in a suit and tie—always.
His slight speech impediment, a slurred lisp, made you listen closely to
him. Although many, if not most, SNCC folk tended to belittle MLK (for
example, calling him “De Lawd”), John revered King and would never join
in the organization’s cultural irreverence and disrespect
for King and his SCLC organization...
When
Karen Olson and I journeyed to Atlanta in 1965 to work in SNCC’s
national office, we moved in with fellow SNCC staffers Amanda and John
Perdew, and their small child. Soon after Chris was born that November, I
got into a loud argument with Amanda over some slight, and we abruptly
moved out. I can’t recall the details, but John immediately invited us
to move into his apartment with him; in fact, he offered us his bedroom
while he slept on the couch. We did not have a crib for Chris, so he
went into one of John’s bureau drawers. This arrangement continued until
we found an apartment in DeKalb county, just west of Atlanta.
For Whitman's report on his work in Mississippi in 1964, see this article in The Idler - forerunner of the Progressive Review and Undernews
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