Mar. 25, 1963 - Fire damaged the Greenwood, Mississippi office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee late last night. A committee official charged the fire had been set in retaliation for the voter registration drive the organization is conducting among Negroes. Sam Block (second from left), 23-year-old field secretary for the committee, said four Negroes had spotted two white men running away from the area just before the fire was discovered. No one was in the office. Mr. Block said all his voter registration material, including lists of persons the organization had tried to register, had been destroyed along with some office equipment. A national executive of the organization demanded that Federal troops be sent to Greenwood “to protect local citizens from shootings and arson attempts.” In Washington, a Justice Department spokesman said that the FBI had been directed to “find out who did it.”
