Chronology of Violence and Intimidation in Mississippi Since 1961
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“A Tremor in the Middle of the Iceberg”: the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Local Voting Rights Activism in Mccomb, Mississippi, 1928-1964
“A Tremor in the Middle of the Iceberg”: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Local Voting Rights Activism in McComb, Mississippi, 1928-1964 Alec Ramsay-Smith A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF ARTS WITH HONORS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN April 1, 2016 Advised by Professor Howard Brick For Dana Lynn Ramsay, I would not be here without your love and wisdom, And I miss you more every day. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... ii Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: McComb and the Beginnings of Voter Registration .......................... 10 Chapter Two: SNCC and the 1961 McComb Voter Registration Drive .................. 45 Chapter Three: The Aftermath of the McComb Registration Drive ........................ 78 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 102 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 119 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have done this without my twin sister Hunter Ramsay-Smith, who has been a constant source of support and would listen to me rant for hours about documents I would find or things I would learn in the course of my research for the McComb registration -
Remarks and a Question-And-Answer Session With
1092 July 17 / Administration of William J. Clinton, 1997 but how we're going to become one America if I had a voice like that, I could run for in the 21st century. We need your help. a third term, even though theÐ[laughter]. In September, I'm going home to Little I enjoyed meeting with your board mem- Rock to observe the 40th anniversary of the bers and JoAnne Lyons Wooten, your execu- integration of Little Rock Central High tive director, backstage. I met Vanessa Wil- School. When those nine black children were liams, who said, ``You know, I'm the presi- escorted by armed troops on their first day dent-elect; have you got any advice for me of school, there were a lot of people who on being president?'' True story. I said, ``I were afraid to stand up for them. But the do. Always act like you know what you're local NAACP, led by my friend Daisy Bates, doing.'' [Laughter] stood up for them. I want to say to you, I'm delighted to be Today, every time we take a stand that ad- joined here tonight by a distinguished group vances the cause of equal opportunity and of people from our White House and from excellence in education, every time we do the administration, including the Secretary of something that really gives economic Labor, Alexis Herman, and the Secretary of empowerment to the dispossessed, every Education, Dick Riley, and a number of oth- time we further the cause of reconciliation ers from the White House. -
Neutrality Or Engagement?
LESSON 12 Neutrality or Engagement? Goals Students analyze a political cartoon and a diary entry that highlight the risks taken by civil rights workers in the 1960s. They imagine themselves in similar situations and consider conflicting motivations and responsi- bilities. Then they evaluate how much they would sacrifice for an ideal. Central Questions Many Black Mississippians—including Black ministers, teachers, and business owners—chose not to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement because of the dangers connected with participating. What do you think you would have done when Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) or Congress of Ra- cial Equality (CORE) came to your town? Was joining the movement worth the risk? Background Information Many people willingly put their lives and safety on the line to fight for civil rights. But other people chose not to get involved from fear of being punished by the police, employers, or terrorist groups. The dangers were very real: during the 1964 Freedom Summer, there were at least six murders, 29 shootings, 50 fire-bombings, more than 60 beatings, and over 400 arrests in Mississippi. Despite their fears, 80,000 residents, mostly African Americans, risked harassment and intimidation to cast ballots in the Freedom Vote of November 1963. But the next year, during 1964’s Freedom Summer, only 16,000 black Mississippians tried to register to vote in the official election that fall. “The people are scared,” James Forman of SNCC told a reporter. “They tell us, ‘All right. I’ll go down to register [to vote], but what you going to do for me when I lose my job and they beat my head?’” We hear many stories about courage and heroism, but not many about people who didn’t dare to get involved. -
Movement 1954-1968
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 1954-1968 Tuesday, November 27, 12 NEW MEXICO OFFICE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN AFFAIRS Curated by Ben Hazard Tuesday, November 27, 12 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, The initial phase of the black protest activity in the post-Brown period began on December 1, 1955. Rosa Parks of Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white bus rider, thereby defying a southern custom that required blacks to give seats toward the front of buses to whites. When she was jailed, a black community boycott of the city's buses began. The boycott lasted more than a year, demonstrating the unity and determination of black residents and inspiring blacks elsewhere. Martin Luther King, Jr., who emerged as the boycott movement's most effective leader, possessed unique conciliatory and oratorical skills. He understood the larger significance of the boycott and quickly realized that the nonviolent tactics used by the Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi could be used by southern blacks. "I had come to see early that the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to the Negro in his struggle for freedom," he explained. Although Parks and King were members of the NAACP, the Montgomery movement led to the creation in 1957 of a new regional organization, the clergy-led Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with King as its president. King remained the major spokesperson for black aspirations, but, as in Montgomery, little-known individuals initiated most subsequent black movements. On February 1, 1960, four freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College began a wave of student sit-ins designed to end segregation at southern lunch counters. -
LD5655.V855 1996.M385.Pdf (6.218Mb)
EDUCATING FOR FREEDOM: THE HIGHLANDER FOLK SCHOOL IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1954 TO 1964 by Jacqueline Weston McNulty Thesis submitted to the facutly of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History APPROVED: Yuu a Hayward Farrar, Chairman _ \ 4 A af 7 - “ : Lo f lA bn G UU. f Lake Ak Jo Peter Wallenstein Beverly Bunch-Ly ns February, 1996 Blacksburg, Virginia U,u LD 55S Y$55 199@ M2g5 c.2 EDUCATING FOR FREEDOM: THE HIGHLANDER FOLK SCHOOL IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1954 TO 1964 by Jacqueline Weston McNulty Dr. Hayward Farrar, Chairman History (ABSTRACT) This study explores how the Citizenship School Program of the Highlander Folk School shaped the grassroots leadership of the Civil Rights Movement. The thesis examines the role of citizenship education in the modern Civil Rights Movement and explores how educational efforts within the Movement enfranchised and empowered a segment of Southern black society that would have been untouched by demonstrations and federal voting legislation. Civil Rights activists in the Deep South, attempting to register voters, recognized the severe inadequacies of public education for black students and built parallel educational institutions designed to introduce black students to their rights as American citizens, develop local leadership and grassroots organizational structures. The methods the activists used to accomplish these goals had been pioneered in the mid-1950’s by Septima Clark and Myles Horton of the Highlander Folk School. Horton and Clark developed a successful curriculum structure for adult literacy and citizenship education that they implemented on Johns Island off the coast of South Carolina. -
A Summary of the Contributions of Four Key African American Female Figures of the Civil Rights Movement
Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Master's Theses Graduate College 12-1994 A Summary of the Contributions of Four Key African American Female Figures of the Civil Rights Movement Michelle Margaret Viera Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Viera, Michelle Margaret, "A Summary of the Contributions of Four Key African American Female Figures of the Civil Rights Movement" (1994). Master's Theses. 3834. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3834 This Masters Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A SUMMARY OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF FOUR KEY AFRICAN AMERICAN FEMALE FIGURES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT by Michelle Margaret Viera A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of History Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan December 1994 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My appreciation is extended to several special people; without their support this thesis could not have become a reality. First, I am most grateful to Dr. Henry Davis, chair of my thesis committee, for his encouragement and sus tained interest in my scholarship. Second, I would like to thank the other members of the committee, Dr. Benjamin Wilson and Dr. Bruce Haight, profes sors at Western Michigan University. I am deeply indebted to Alice Lamar, who spent tireless hours editing and re-typing to ensure this project was completed. -
Emmett Till & the Modernization of Law
Saint Louis University School of Law Scholarship Commons All Faculty Scholarship 2009 The ioleV nt Bear it Away: Emmett iT ll & the Modernization of Law Enforcement in Mississippi Anders Walker Saint Louis University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/faculty Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Criminal Law Commons, and the Supreme Court of the United States Commons Recommended Citation Walker, Anders, The ioV lent Bear it Away: Emmett iT ll & the Modernization of Law Enforcement in Mississippi (October 27, 2008). San Diego Law Review, Vol. 46, p. 459, 2009. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY EMMETT TILL & THE MODERNIZATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT IN MISSISSIPPI ∗ ANDERS WALKER ABSTRACT Few racially motivated crimes have left a more lasting imprint on American memory than the death of Emmett Till. Yet, even as Till’s murder in Mississippi in 1955 has come to be remembered as a catalyst for the civil rights movement, it contributed to something else as well. Precisely because it came on the heels of the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Till’s death convinced Mississippi Governor James P. Coleman that certain aspects of the state’s handling of racial matters had to change. Afraid that popular outrage over racial violence might encourage federal intervention in the region, Coleman removed power from local sheriffs, expanded state police, and modernized the state’s criminal justice apparatus in order to reduce the chance of further racial violence in the state. -
Mississippi: Is This America? (1962-1964) ROY WILKINS
Mississippi: Is This America? (1962-1964) ROY WILKINS: There is no state with a record that approaches that of Mississippi in inhumanity, murder and brutality and racial hatred. It is absolutely at the bottom of the list. NARRATOR: In 1964, the state of Mississippi called it an invasion. Civil rights workers called it Freedom Summer. To change Mississippi and the country, they would risk beatings, arrest, and their lives. FANNY CHANEY: You all know what my child is doing? He was trying for us all to make a better living. And he had two fellows from New York, had their own home and everything, didn't have nothing to worry, but they come here to help us. Did you all know they come here to help us? They died for us. UNITA BLACKWELL: People like myself, I was born on this river. And I love the land. It's the delta, and to me it's now a challenge, it's history, it's everything, to what black people it's all about. We came about slavery and this is where we acted it out, I suppose. All of the work, all them hard works and all that. But we put in our blood, sweat and tears and we love the land. This is Mississippi. WHITE HUNTER: I lived in this delta all my life, my parents before me, my grandparents. I've hunted and fished this land since I was a child. This land is composed of two different cultures, a white culture and a colored culture, and I lived close to them all my life. -
The Benevolence Post
PENUMBRA THEATRE COMPANY PRODUCTION Est. 1976 February 12 to March 10 Price 15¢ THE BENEVOLENCE POST Skeptics By IFA BEYZA I was a child of the civil rights movement…integrated when I was nine years old, but I didn't encounter Emmett Till's story until I was a teenager. The Till Trilogy [The Ballad of Emmett Till, benevolence, That Summer in Sumner] is inspired by the story of a 14-year-old youth from Chicago who journeys to Mississippi in August of 1955. This trip to visit family in Mississippi certainly changes his fate. He's murdered in that week, and his life-death-journey changes the course of the nation ... I wanted to look at this story from an advantage point of view. The Till saga was a highly documented case. It was like a national soap opera on race. It was played out in the newspapers in the North, in the South, the black press and the white press. There was a tremendous amount of information available to the public. You would think that, because there was so much information, the truth or facts of the actual story would be readily available. What I found was, even as I researched the archive of primary documentation, was a host of confusing and inaccurate information. There were a lot of holes in the accounting of details, that didn't quite seem to make sense to me. So, that was the first lesson which I will share with you: “even if it's in print, even if it's documented, even if it's supposed to be from an expert, you must approach that information with skepticism.” Because the only truth that you have is that it's printed and that it's representing the tone as truth, but that's not necessarily the case. -
Mississippi Freedom School Curricula Materials
Unit VII: The Movement Purpose: To grasp the significance of direct action and or political action as instruments of social change . Materials: Excerpts on non-violence COFO materials on Freedom Summer Charles Remsberg, "Behind the Cotton Curtain" ( excerptr Southern Regional Council, report on Greenwood Voter Project "Voter Registration Laws in Mississippi" Part lt Freedom Rides and Sit- Ins ~UESTION : What is a Freedom Ride? ANS"IER : A. Freedom Jlide is a special kind of direct action protest a~ed at testing buses, trains and terminal facilities--to see whether or not the seating of people on buses and trains is done according to law, i.e., the Supreme Court ruling of 1260 that segregated seating on interstate carriers and in terminal stations is illegal. The second purpose of a Freedom Rice is to protest segrega tion ~here it still exists and to make known to the nation the conditions under which Negroes live in the d.eep South. The third, a.nd overal l purpose o:f the Freedom Ride is to change these conditions. QUESTION: What happens on a Freedom Ride? ANSWER : A gr oup or people--in the case of the Freedom Rides--an integr-ated. group buy interstate bus or train ticket-s. By interstate, we mean going from one state to another . They board the bus or train and sit in an integrated fashion in seats customarily used by whites only. At stations, they use restrooms customarily used by whites only. They sat at lunch counters customarily used by w~ites only and sit in waiting roams customarily reserved for whites. -
Papers of the Naacp
A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of BLACK STUDIES RESEARCH SOURCES Microfilms from Major Archival and Manuscript Collections General Editors: John H. Bracey, Jr., Sharon Harley, and August Meier PAPERS OF THE NAACP Part Selected Branch Files, 27 1956-1965 Series A: The South UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of BLACK STUDIES RESEARCH SOURCES Microfilms from Major Archival and Manuscript Collections General Editors: John H. Bracey, Jr., Sharon Harley, and August Meier PAPERS OF THE NAACP Part 27: Selected Branch Files, 1956-1965 Series A: The South Edited by John H. Bracey, Jr., Sharon Harley, and August Meier Project Coordinator Randolph Boehm Guide compiled by Daniel Lewis A microfilm project of UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA An Imprint of CIS 4520 East-West Highway * Bethesda, MD 20814-3389 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Papers of the NAACP. [microform] Accompanied by printed reel guides. Contents: pt. 1. Meetings of the Board of Directors, records of annual conferences, major speeches, and special reports, 1909-1950/editorial adviser, August Meier; edited by Mark Fox--pt. 2. Personal correspondence of selected NAACP officials, 1919-1939 --[etc.]--pt. 27. Selected Branch Files, 1956-1965. 1. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People--Archives. 2. Afro-Americans--Civil Rights--History--20th century--Sources. 3. Afro- Americans--History--1877-1964--Sources. 4. United States--Race relations--Sources. I. Meier, August, 1923- . II. Boehm, Randolph. III. Title. E185.61 [Microfilm] 973'.0496073 86-892185 ISBN 1-55655-759-0 (microfilm: pt. 27, series A) Copyright © 2001 by University Publications of America. -
MS Freedom Primer #1
FREEDOM PRIMER No. I The Convention Challenge and The Freedom Vote r, fl-if{fi---,,.-l~ff( /I ' r I FOP THE CijAL1,ENGEAT THE DEMOCRATICNATIO?!AL CX>flVENTION What Was The Democrati.c Nati.onal Convention? The Democratic National Convention was a big meeting held by the National Democratic Party at Atlantic City in August. People who represent tbe Party came to the Convention from every state in the co=try. They came to decide who would be the candidates of the Democratic Party for President and Vice-President of the tlnited St:ates in the election this year on November 3rd. They also came to decide what the Platform of the National Democratic Party would be. The Platform is a paper that says what the Party thinlcs should be done about things li.ke Housing, Education, Welfare, and Civil Rights. Why Did The Freedom Democratic Party Go To The Convention? The Freedom Democratic Party (FOP) sent a delegation of 68 people to the Convention. These people wanted to represent you at the Convention. They said that they should be seated at the Convention instead of the people sent by che 1legular Democratic Party of Mississl-ppL The 1legular Democratic Party of Mississippi only has white 1Jeople in it. But the Freedom Democratic Party is open to all people -- black and 2 white. So the delegates from the Freedom Democratic Party told the Convention it was the real 1:epresentative of all the people of Mississippi. How Was The Regular Democratic Party Delegation Chosen? The Regular Democratic Party of Mississippi also sent 68 people to t:he Convention i-n Atlantic City.