Transcripts For CSPAN2 Panel Discussion On Civil Rights 20240622

Commission. We are being recorded live on cspans booktv so if you have not already please silence your cell phones. If you have not purchased the books, the panels have written you will have an opportunity to do that after outside. The authors will also be signing immediately after this panel in the authors attempt. The moderator for todays panel is robbie luckett. Robbie luckett received his ph. D. From the university offr l georgia with a focus on civilve rights history, the native mississippian he returned home to accept the position ofas associate professor ofci histord and director of the Margaret Wolter center for the study of the africanamerican experiencef at Jackson State University. Look at as a member verse festivals Advisory Board. Thanks chris. Its my great pleasure to moderate this panel on civil rights history that i think its particularly important for two reasons. One is to understand the importance of thisim building ad what it meant particularly for v segregationist in the Civil Rights Movement over the course of history and seconden becausei think this may be the largest crowd at the State Capitol sinca 1966 in the march against fear so we have that going for us asu well. R its my intention to introduce their esteemed panelist and get out of the way and let them take the floor. Dr. Te morris is associate professor of africanamerican African Studies at east ohio state university. She received her bachelors inil african and africanamericanory studies in liberal studies from Emery University and a masters and ph. D. In american studies from purdue university. After morris has Interdisciplinary Research teaching focus that combines american studies black studies and womens studies and with this book as she has taught courses such as history gender sex and power black feminist in the black power movement. She is the authorshh of women pr unlimited the black freedomm struggle in mississippi just out fromiv University Press in 2015. Her work has appeared in southern black woman in the civil rightsig era apress, statebystate study texas a m press 2013, comrades of local history of the Panther Party ank groundwork local black freedom struggles in america. In addition to her teachingica. Research dr. Morris is a board member of women have options, ohio statewide abortion fund, f and has worked with the fannie louan hamer at Jackson State University since 2005. John hill is an assistant i professor of a educational histy at the college of charleston in carolina. Her his research focuses on the history of student and teacher s activism grassroots Educational Programs and segregated high schools during the civil rightsn movement. His manuscript the Freedom School district student activists on the frontline of the Civil Rights Movement is currently under contract with columbia universityty press forthcoming in april 2016. He is coeditor of the Freedom School newspapers writings essays and reports from students activists during the civiltuniv Rights Movement which was justsi released from University Press of mississippi at his research has been published in historyl and education journals including publications in the journal of africanAmerican History the history of education quarterly South Carolina quarterly magazine in the journal ofdr. s social studies research. Dr. Hill Services Connected to civil rights education is a constitutional right to freedomt schools and the young peoples project great dr. Hill currently serves on an Advisory Board at the i. T. Stanback may seem in South Carolina statebo universiy and the penn center on st. Helena island in South Carolina. Dr. John hill. Aram goudsouzian is at the university of memphis where he teaches courses on modern africanAmerican History. He has a ph. D. From purdue university. His books include down to the cross roots civil rights, black power and the meredith march against fear, 2014, and king of the court, university of California Press 2010 and Sidney Poitier man, actor, icon. Dr. Aram god size january. Devery s. Anderson is a graduate of the university of utah and is the editor or coeditor of four books on mormon history, two of which won the christensen award from the Mormon History Association in 2006. His book, emmett till the murder that shocked the world and propelled the Civil Rights Movement s the product of ten years of Exhaustive Research and writing. His research took him to the south and chicago on over a dozen occasions where he interviewed witnesses, family members of both emmett till and his accused killers and spent countless hours in libraries and archives. He has spoken on the till case throughout the United States and the united kingdom. He lives in Salt Lake City and is an editor at signature books. Devery anderson. And were going to begin with d. Tiyi morris. Thank you, dr. Luckett. Good afternoon, everyone. Id like to begin with a quote by mary mccloud bethune. She once decade next to god, we are indebted to women, first for life itself, and then for making it worth living. Id like to use that as a frame for the work that i do, because my focus is on women, black women specifically. And i think its also relevant especially given that im the only woman on the panel [laughter] that i make sure that we center women in our discussions this afternoon. So my book, woman power unlimited and the black freedom struggle in mississippi, is about the jacksonbased organization woman power unlimited. The organization was founded in 1961 by mrs. Clary collins harvey, and it was founded because the freedom riders came to town, and she wanted to support them both emotionally as well as materially. She had the opportunity to attend the first trial for the freedom riders, and at that hearing she noticed that some of the individuals were shivering. They didnt have their coats and sweaters with them. And so this mothering instinct kicked in. Mrs. Harvey was middleaged at the time, and many of the freedom riders were collegeaged students, so they were young enough to be her children. And so this mothering instinct kicked in, and she decided she needed to take care of them, and she mobilized other women throughout jackson to really engage in this practice of nurture answer as resistance. So that motherhood in the typical sense that we think of that has simply a nurturing, caringfor role, but trying to take care of these individuals so they could be engaged in the Civil Rights Movement. When the freedom riders where are we leased in prison, women limited was there to meet them, and to help them this their ensuing struggle. Because mrs. Harvey was able to mobilize these women so quickly, they began to take on other initiatives. They were involved this the mainstays of Civil Rights Activism, photo registration as well as school desegregation, but they also brought a humanist agenda that really made them unique in the context of the Civil Rights Movement, and much more progressive, i would say, than many of the oh organizations other organizations of the time. They were flexible, and they did not perpetuate many of the organizational issues that really had been keeping women on the periphery of maledominated organizations. For example, they didnt charge deuce, was they didnt want deuce, because they didnt want to limit anyones participation. They had meet thanksgiving various locations. Sometimes they would be in the masonic temple, various local black churches. So, again, they created an organization that was designed to insure that they had the greatest participation from local women. In addition to these kind of key activism points of the Civil Rights Movement, they were involved this womens strike for peace, they also engaged in antipoverty initiatives, they participated in freedom summer and helped create an Organization Called wednesdays in mississippi. So, again, they had this very broadbased understanding of what it meant to be a Civil Rights Activist. Another unique aspect of the organization was that many of the organizers were middle class women, they were middleaged women, and they were entrepreneurs. Mrs. Harvey owned a funeral home in jackson thats still in existence, mrs. Amy logan sold Beauty Products to black women, and mrs. Jesse mosley owned a shoe store. They were middle class women, these primary organizers, and they didnt have to worry about the same level of economic retaliation from whites that many other blacks had to worry about if they engaged in Civil Rights Activism. They were wellrespected members of their community, they were known in their churches, they had years of organizing experience prior the freedom riders arrival in jab jackson. So they were the perfect women to actually nurture these young activists to be involved and to mobilize activism around the the city and as well as around the state. Ultimately, woman power unlimited was a group of black women who had a very unique and progressive definition of what social activism meant and what social justice meant. So they were unique in the context of the Civil Rights Movement, but they were not really unique in the context of this legacy of black womens activism. Ultimately, they were doing what black women had done for generations, taking care of their families and communities and insuring that the black community could survive to see another day. So one of the things i attempt to do in the week is to con in the book is to contextualize their activism, building on the generations of their foremothers and then laying a foundation for the work that black women are doing to the. And so today. So they are, like fannie lou hamer, ella baker, other black women activists who have been willing to risk their lives and livelihood for the collective good of the black community and to create a really, truly democratic and humanist society. I think these black women are unique and really important. And even though they dont take center stage when we think about traditional definitions of leadership, typically the scholarship p has tended to focus on those who occupy the host visible leadership positions, right . And women oftentimes are not included in that. But what my work attempts to do and what some of the current civil rights scholarship is doing is censoring the works of people, and in that context we really can see the contributions that women like those who were involved in woman power unlimited have made. So writing this book, again, has allowed me to censor black womens Civil Rights Activism also as leadership efforts and mobilization efforts that were central to the mississippi movement. Woman powers Civil Rights Activism then is best understood as this legacy of black womens activism in which leadership has been consistent and valuable. A legacy that is being continued with activists in the black lives Matter Movement and the say her names movement as well. So woman power is so important not only to our understanding of American History and civil rights history, but really to our understanding of humanity. Because it demonstrates the selflessness that black women have had in order to create this humanist and just society. And they as an organization and, i think, the book stands in opposition to the devaluation of black womens lives in activism. Thank you. [applause] dr. Jon hale. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for, thank you for attending todays session. My name is jon hale, im coming from the college of charleston in South Carolina. And as many, if not all of you know, this summer we lost nine lives in the basement of the ame Emanuel Church in charleston which was a catalyst to taking on on the Confederate Flag in South Carolina and other states across the south, so i was a little shocked and surprised coming from charleston were still grieving and trying to understand the ways to move forward from this tragedy and to see two Confederate Flags displayed here on the courthouse, it just reminds me how important the work of all the panelists here is and the work we have to do in mississippi to continue to challenge the use of the flag today [applause] so i want to start out, im actually the second editor on here and the lead author or the lead editor, dr. William stuff key, whos at university of North Carolina in chapel hill, was unable to attend this weekend, but he was certainly the mover and shaker, if you will, behind this book project. And he sends his regrets that he was unable to make it today. But he did want, he did instruct me, if you will, on a few things to say, and he shared with me a document which is also very relevant at this period in time because its written by or submitted by julian bond to sawnton lynn, the coordinator of all the Freedom Schools which this book is about in 1964. But julian bond in this letter is writing to dr. Lynn, and he writes, and i quote there are two ideas that are particularly pressing. One is including a week on the Freedom Schools. This book could be printed in our own presses and could be sold very cheaply, 50 cents to a dollar, if we could get that much for them. In any case, the most important thing would be to, would be to collect the material collected this summer and ideas into one single place permanently and to include some opinion and thought that they would give others ideas and perhaps encouragement for the future. For the Freedom School book, i had thought of doing can it by chapters. One by you, one by charlie cobb, one giving factual material on the Freedom Schools, a chapter illustrated on the two schools that were built and several chapters on materials including poems, essays, newspapers, etc. , that were published and and written by Freedom School studentings. And thats the end of the letter. So julian bond in 1964 called for a book like this. Im glad that julian bond could see this book before he passed away last sunday, and he wrote a nice review for the book as well which were extremely grateful for. I must admit that our editor, craig gill, who its been an honor to work with him, im glad he didnt read this first, because julian bond only wanted a dollar per book, so were happy [laughter] you know, it can sell for a little bit must have. More importantly, of course, what he was calling for is a comprehensive social history of the Freedom Schools or a perspective of the Freedom Schools from the students themselves. Because many times or many author books coming out on freedom summer, sometimes theyre whitewashed. We get the perspective of the white volunteers who, yes, they did risk their lives, but thats not necessarily telling the complete story of the Freedom School. So this book, what we attempted to do was to uncover every Freedom School and newspaper published during the summer of 1964 and collect them in this one volume here in order to provide a students perspective on the Freedom Schools and freedom summer. And, therefore, to honor the integrity of the Freedom School students. There are about 2500 Freedom School students who attended over 40 Freedom Schools during the summer of 1964. So in order to honor their integrity, id like to read just some direct samples from the students themselves and just to give you a sample of some of the profound work that they published during that summer. And please keep in mind that these students are between the ages of, you know, 815 years old writing this, and theyre publishing this and circulated around the state of mississippi. And collectively, the Freedom School newspapers were the largest collection of civil rights newspapers during that summer. The first selection ill read from is a poem entitled now is the hour submitted by edith murray moore. Now is the hour. No other time will do. For us to go and get what belongs to me and you. Now is the hour to stand for what is right. Together we know we will win the fight. Now is the hour that we must say farewell to tears and hardships. Freedoms better, i can tell. As you notice in miss moores poem, theres a sense of urgency and a call to action for all students. And as you read through the collection of newspapers, you see that students are often times urging older adults to participate. And in many ways theyre often not only encouraged, but sometimes theyre shaming older adults into participating. One such student who tried to encourage adults to participate was a student, 16yearold joyce brown whos from mississippi which earned the unfortunate nickname of the bombing capital of the confederacy, because mccomb and the homes in mccomb or were bombed repeatedly throughout freedom summer. And the Freedom School was actually bombed and destroyed during the course of the summer. And she was wrote this she wrote this poem, and ill read part of it here. And actually attended school outside in the trees as they were waiting for their home to be repaired. And she writes i came not for the fortune, nor the fame. I seek not to add glory to an unknown name. I came by day to fight for whats right. I shant let fear, my monstrous foe, conquer my soul with threat and woe. Here i am come and here i shall stand, and no amount of fear my determination can sway. In a bombed house, i have to teach my school because i believe all men should live by the golden rule. To a bombed house, your children must come because of your fears of a bomb. And because youve let your fear conquer your soul, in this bombed house these minds i must try to mold. I must try to teach them to stand tall and be a man when you, their parents, have cowered down and refuse to make a stand. And the final selection ill read today is a passage entitled why i deserve freedom by 15yearold albert evans. I am a black man and, because of my color, i am deprived of the human rights which are given to me by god and promised to me by the United States. I live in a country of free people, yet i am not free. If necessary, i will die in order to have freedom for my people. Today i am the worlds toot stool, but tomorrow i foot stool, but tomorrow i hope to be one of its leaders. By attending Freedom School this summer, i am preparing for that tomorrow. And ill close with those words. As in some ways a haunting reminder as we still see people gunned down in the streets of america, right . Who are continuing to risk their lives to fight for what is promised in the United States constitution, by we the people of the United States. And i appreciate this opportunity to present this material today, and i strongly encourage all of us to consider what the perspective of the students are today, the young people in Todays School and the potential that they have to help make this a true democracy. Thank you. [applause] dr. Aram god size january. Good afternoon. My book is called down to the cross roots civil rights, black power, and the meredith march against fear. Let me begin near the beginning. June 6, 1956, just south of hernando, mississippi, and james maine divot is walking down meredith is walking down highway 51, famous for integrating ole miss four years earlier which sparked riots, but this walk is mores the endeavor of more or less the endeavor or a solitary man. Hes on the second day of a planned trek for which hes outlined two goals. The first to, quote, challenge that allpervasive fear that dominated the daytoday life of the knee grow in the United States negro in the United States, especially in the south and particularly mississippi. And second, to, quote, encourage the 450,000 unregistered negroes in to go to the polls and register. This is one year after the passage of the vote ising rights act of 1965. Hes passing down this stretch of road, and he hears a shout, James Meredith theres a white man in a gully who raises a shotgun. Bang, bang, bang. James meredith, the hero of the ole miss crisis, is all of a sudden lying splayed on the gravel shoulder of highway 51 with blood soaking through the back of his shirt. Three blasts from a shotgun transform toed a walk into a civil rights extravaganza. The titans of black politics would descend on mississippi, activists and reporters would arrive from around the world. It was a political experiments, practical alliances, chaotic debates. This march is most famous for spawning the cry of black power, a slogan in some ways would define the next generation of the black freedom struggle. Those three weeks in 1966 are the story of this book. Its a martha has been called both the meredith march and the march against fear. Its full of inspiring moments of black people overcoming their fear, of surging their pride and defying the symbols of white supremacy. Id submit this book gives us a way to think about the Civil Rights Movement not as one single, pure, nonviolent triumph over all of americas racial ills, but rather as a stream of ideas that merge into a river, that help link the national to the local, that help link the famous leaders of the movement to people at the grassroots, to a struggle that continues well before the 1960 and continues beyond the 60s. Moreover, to think of black power not as the bad guy that killed the Civil Rights Movement, but rather, kind of like the march itself, something that is both constructive and destructive, something that is both hopeful and cynical, something that is both unifying and alienating. Also an extraordinary story, a march that is filled with extraordinary characters including many of the major figures of the Civil Rights Movement. James meredith survived the attack. There were bird shot pellets lodged into his head, his neck, his back, but he did let the march continue in his name. At the same time, he was a constant critic of it. He was a fundamentally conservative pimp, and he wanted this person, and he wanted this march conducted by independent men following his lead. He hated that it transformed into a mass march with women and children imposing on local communities, however, he did return to mississippi at the end of march, hed recovered enough to do so, and during the final rally it was James Meredith who won the largest cheers. The march was also famous for the emergence of Stokely Carmichael as a national figure. He was the new chairman of the student nonviolent coordinating committee, and in some ways he was a human embodiment of snccs emerging radicalism. Theyd recently boycotted a white house conference on civil rights. And on june 16 this the midst of the march in greenwood in the mississippi delta, it was Stokely Carmichael who before the crowd of about a thousand people said we want black power, and when he turned to the crowd and said what do you want, the response was black power. It was a slogan that immediately resonated with the black people of mississippi, and it was a slow began that emerged from the direction context of the Civil Rights Movement. With the limits of nonviolent action, with the uncertain commitments of white liberals, but it was also a slow began that captured aspirations, hopes, dreams, control over their own communities, pride in blackness and its history and its culture. Along the march black power was a contested term with many meanings. The press seemed to see it in terms of violence, but for many africanamericans it was something more. It was way to express pride in themselves, a way to control their lives. By the end of the march, the charismatic Stokely Carmichael emerged as a hero to black militants but also a bulls eye for an emerging white backlash in american politics. Martin luther king this many ways is at the narrative story of this center of this story. He, his organization, the southern christian leadership conference, participated this the meredith march because they found an opportunity to replicate some of the great triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement, selma in 65, and the hope was it would help to bring about racist violence and stimulate a national conscience. And throughout the march king was a key moderating influence on the more radical groups, but he was also the figure who attracted the press and who attracted the black people of mississippi to block to the march. People to flock to the march. In many ways it was a testament to his greater role in the Civil Rights Movement. This was a martha also featured instances of very dramatic and often harrowing violence. In the third week of the march, on june 21st, they took a side trip to philadelphia, mississippi, and they were there recognize the second anniversary of three civil rights workers. Because they werent on the official march route, they got very little protection from the mississippi Highway Patrol which had been accompanying them. The local sheriffs there were affiliated with the cue clucks clarntion and at that ku klux klan. And the marchers were attacked weeings, rocks, cherry bombs. A brawl broke out at the end. Despite the pleas of civil rights leaders, Lyndon Johnson refused to increase the federal presence on the march, more u. S. Marshals, etc. It was a sign of his increasing alienation from the Civil Rights Movement. His action also freed the governor of mississippi, paul johnson, and the Highway Patrol, to up leash more violence can unleash more violence upon be marchers. They tried to pitch their tents this canton but local authorities would not let them put their tents up. The mississippi Highway Patrol, the very same police who had been protecting them, launched tear gas at them to punish the crowd. Halfblinded people running in every direction, a chainlink fence toppling under the weight of scrambling marchers, people screaming and crying and vomiting and wailing and gasping for breath. And then the police moved in on the ground and hit the marchers with their night sticks and kicked and rival butted them. Despite that intimidation, they moved on to jackson. And as robbie said at the beginning, it turned out to be the greatest civil rights demonstration in the history of mississippi. 15,000 people participated in the final march right here to the statehouse where the final rally was held. What had begun as the endeavor of a single, quirky man in James Meredith turned into the largest civil rights demonstration in the states history. This was the last great mass march of the Civil Rights Movement, the last time major civil rights organizations cooperated on a nonviolent demonstration that would become a lobbying symbol and national news. But to truly understand the impact of this march, you have to shift the focus from those National Figures and look at the local people in mississippi. Over 4,000 blacks registered to vote during the march itself, and there were rallies at courthouses all along the route, most dramatically in batesville, a man registered to vote for the first time in his life. He was 106 years old, hed been born a slave. Again and again just as James Meredith had intended at the beginning, people defied that culture of fear in mississippi. This book is filled with stories of africanamericans who werent interested in these outside agitators, and yet theyd get up, dust themselves off and march through town with Martin Luther king and Stokely Carmichael. It exposed the depth of black grievances, the height of black possibilities. And id like to end with a story that actually ends the book itself. The its story of a woman named elsie dorsey, a woman who has since passed away. She talked to me about how she joined the march on the last day, and she gave me some back story. She grew up on a plantation in the delta. She was kicked out she lost her job with the mechanization of the plantation. She had seven children, and shed gotten involved in the Civil Rights Movement. She wanted to march, but she feared bringing her children. After what had happened in philadelphia and canton, she feared it would be a bloodbath, but she regretted not bringing them as she was walking with 15,000 other people through the streets of jackson. She said there was an energy that i have not felt before or since. The whole time she remained afraid that there might be violence, but that spirit on that walk reminded her of a little mass meeting in a delta church when she first got involved in the Civil Rights Movement. And when they started singing the freedom songs, she swore she could hear the individual voices of her fellow fighters. And then they got here to the State Capitol, and the singing stopped, and she very poetically described the crunch, crunch, crunch of the marching footsteps. And then the marching stopped. She said it was as if even the birds stopped flying. And there was something beautiful and pure and soulful in that moment of beautiful silence. Thank you. [applause] devery anderson. All right. Well, thank you so much and good afternoon to everybody. And its great, as always, to be many in mississippi. Over the past ten years as ive been here researching and writing this book about mine on the emmett till murder, ive come to feel that mississippi is almost like a second home, and ive grown to love the people here very much. Just a couple of months before he delivered his famous speech on august 28, 1963, as part of the march on washington, dr. Martin luther king jr. Talked about another dream that he had had probably for some time. He said i have a dream this afternoon that there will be a day when we will no longer face the atrocities that emmett till had to face or medgar evers had to face, but that all men can live with dignity. And he saw the brutal murder of emmett till as not just another local matter as many people tried to frame it at the time, but as part of a, as a Larger Movement or that it fit in well with that movement. Five years earlier as he wrote his book about the montgomery bus boycott, he had already declared today it is emmett till, tomorrow it is Martin Luther king, then in another tomorrow it will be somebody else. So he already saw this movement in process, its list of martyrs had already begun, and he knew it was inevitable that other names would be added to that list in time. And so as far as some background, emmett till was a 14yearold africanamerican boy from chicago who visited mississippi relatives, his uncle mose, his wife blithe and three sons his wife elizabeth and three sons still living at home. Got there august 20th, and four days later he went into a Country Store near the wright home in money, mississippi, bought some bubble gum and whistled at 21yearold Caroline Bryant who, whose husband owned the store, and she was working behind the counter that night. He whistled at her which, of course, violated one of the oldest taboos in the south as far as any interaction between the races or, more particularly in this case, any interaction involved a black male and a white woman. As a result of that whistle, three days later about 2 00 in the morning emmett till was kidnapped at gunpoint from his uncles home from the bed that he was sleeping in, and he by the husband of the woman of the store and also his half brother. And so, and three days after that his brutallybeaten and by then decomposing body surfaced in thal hatch chi river, and that news made headlines not only throughout the country, but soon throughout the world. Within days j. W [inaudible] and roy bryant, the two men, were arrested and indicted for murder and kidnapping, and they went on trial for murder in sumner, mississippi, on september 19th. They had accomplices that helped them with this crime, but those men, their names didnt surface right away. There were rumors during the trial, we know some of those names now, but they never saw the inside of a courtroom. Mylah and bryant did, but it didnt do any good. Five days after the trial starts on september 23, 1955, they were acquitted by an allwhite, allmale jury. And not long after that to add injustice here, another layer of injustice, these men sold their story, began meeting privately with a journalist named William Bradford huey. They met in the offices of their defense attorneys, j. W. Preland and john whiten, in sumner and sold their story for 3,150. Told the details, at least their version at this point. They were careful not to indict anybody else who had helped them who could still be tried for kidnapping and murder. So they took all the credit themselves and talked about how they did kidnap and murder emmett till. At that point could to not be tried again. And so the roque community had the local community had to live with that fact, that they had two acquitted murderers in their community. They had rallied to their defense, many of them anyway, during the trial, began putting out money jars in various stores to raise money for their defense. Not a lot of people doubted their guilt, but they didnt want to hear about it. And once it was out there and, you know, we can deny whats right in front of our faces. Sometimes thats, obviously, the easiest thing to deny is whats staring us right in the face. And once that happened, then things changed. The emmett till case kind of was forgotten this the sense that in the sense that it was painful for a lot of people, and it was, it is an embarrassment to many others. And so as a result of that, historians didnt talk a whole lot about it for quite a while. But its the type of thing that couldnt stay buried forever. There would be a day where it would have to be resurrected, so to speak. And there have been other books on emmett till case, some of them very, very well, a lot of them very good. There have been memoirs by family members who are talking about what they had experienced. Others, such as a book also published by University Press of mississippi, emmett till and the mississippi press, by davis and matthew was very good in focusing on the press. A book, the emmett till lynching, a documentary history, was also very good. What i wanted to do was i wanted to dig deep, and i wanted to look at these earliest sources and try to put together a full narrative of this case from beginning to end. And when i say end, its kind of hard there because when i started writing this book this 2004, there was another chapter that was beginning. This was in may of 2004 the fbi reowned or, i should say, opened the emmett till case because it wasnt really investigated before. But there was enough evidence that there may have been well, there were others involved and possibly people still living who were involved with the kidnapping and murder of emmett till. So they launched this investigation in may of 2004. It went on for about a year and a half. They uncovered a lot of good information, found the trial transcript which had been missing for decades, were able to talk to a lot of people. And so i began writing this knowing that there was going to be another chapter ahead. And when that investigation ended and nobody was indicted, a lot of people were upset because there was still needing to be some closure with emmett till. But ive discovered and as ive written and point out in the book, theres much more thats still unfolding really that because of emmett till weve been able to do some powerful things starting all the way back in 1957 with the Civil Rights Act of 1957 introduced by the eisenhower administration. Which was fought by, in congress. White southerners didnt like it and fought against it. Others were for it, and the name of emmett till was evoked during this debate on both sides of this issue. Part four of the Civil Rights Act was to white southerners wanted jury trials, a jury trial amendment to be included in that. Those who opposed that said, basically and val washington of the Republican National convention said, you know, if people did not convict if a jury did not convict the murderers of emmitt till, then how can we expect a jury to convict anybody or hold anybody in contempt who denied blacks the right to vote . And so thats why they wanted southerners, white southerners wanted a jury amendment, a jury trial amendment in that bill because they knew these juries were being tried by white men who would never really convict anybody for violating Voting Rights for blacks, and the problem would just continue. Then in 2007, 50 years later, alvin sykes, an activist in kansas city, pushed the emmett till unsolved Civil Rights Act and got sponsors for that, and that ended up being passed 4322 in the house 4222 in the house, and finally after some to obstacles, overwhelmingly so in the senate. President bush signed it shortly before leaving office which appropriated 13. 5 million a year to investigate cold civil rights cases. And that expires in 2017, and alvin sykes is now pushing for the till bill two which would have no sunset provision, which wouldnt expire and would be expanded to include other federal crimes besides just hate crimes, civil rights race crimes. And thats known as till bill two. In that sense, emmett till didnt die in vain, and theres so much more to be done, and because of him a lot more is going to be happening. So thats why hes significant today, and his legacy lives on and why i wrote this book. Thank you. [applause] in the name and interest of democracy in a room in a building that is not always serving democracy, im going to open floor to questions. If you have questions, please come to our podium, and well let you line up there and go in order of the questions that those of you in the audience may have. I will say one of the things that has struck me about all of these books and the work that we all do as writers and Civil Rights Historians is how much the story of the modern Civil Rights Movement is a living history. And it is especially a living history here in mississippi and in this room. Many of you may know this or may not, but i see on every single row living Civil Rights Activists, and we owe a great deal and debt of gratitude to all of them who are here. [applause] so ill start the questions off, and if you do have questions, please, come on up to the podium. In that sense, im interested in the voices and the people who fill your narratives and the people that you talked to over the course of your research and the writing of this book and what struck you in meeting with them and talking to them and how that impacted your books. Start with dr. Morris on the end. Well, unfortunately, i was only able to interview a couple members of the organization. Again, they were middleaged in the 1960s, so many of them had passed by the time i began doing my research. I was able to talk, however, to mrs. Amy logan. I interviewed her twice, and she was often times called the mother of the jackson Civil Rights Movement. And i was also able to interview some of the freedom riders and members, family members of the organization members. So that was extremely beneficial. And that oral history is important to really understanding what those women thought. How they perceived of their activism. I was fortunate in that mrs. Harvey donated her papers, and she kept meticulous records of her Civil Rights Activism, of her religious activism. She was also the first black woman to become president of church women united, and women power unlimited worked with the National Council of women on wednesdays in the mississippi project. So i was able to access primary documents from are a variety of sources. But with respect to the oral history and hearing those womens voices, one of the things i wanted to do in the book was center their ideas, their thoughts and their interpretations of their works, and i was able to do that from conversations with their daughters and other family members. And, again, that was extremely important in releasing how the women envision themselves and their own contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. And i would just say make sure and i heard one of panelists earlier on another panel say this, that its really important to talk to the elders in your family, right . To make sure especially that the stories of black women dont go down in the margins of history, right . These stories become well known in our families and in our communities and in the public historical record. An excellent question, how did we get to the voice, especially because civil rights history is often times living history, and to build off what were talking about now, in our work with the freedom working with the Freedom Schools and talking with the Freedom School students, you really learn how powerful the Civil Rights Movement was as an educative space in terms of if meaning, if you participated in the movement, you were just learning how to participate in the movement. What it meant to be in the movement, what it meant to be a citizen. So just participating was educating young people. And this had such a strong impact on the rest of their lives. So, for instance, miss ah reel ya mitchell wrote her first articles published in the Freedom School newspaper in holly springs. She went on to find her own newspaper which still exists today called the mid south tribune. Dr. Thompson who actually, she went to Freedom School, still lives in jackson today, went to get her ph. D. , went to desegregated High School Faculty in the state of wisconsin. So a lot of these students went on to live very profound lives and were strongly imacted by their work in the movement impacted by their work this the movement. Its an interesting question for me as well because writing about the meredith march, it is, you know, for historians a treasuretrove of documents. The press covered it extensively, the papers of civil rights organizations all involved the meredith march, as you might imagine. International press was there, activist newspapers, africanamerican newspapers, but the story took on a different dimension when i started to do interviews. I fist started by finding people first started by finding people on a civil rights veterans web site. But then what transformed the perspective was coming to the annual meeting of the mississippi civil is rights veterans, and i sat down luckily to a gentleman, and i just started talking about my project. Of course i was on meredith march, and he said, you you neeo talk to Hollis Watkins and talk to him and him, and these are are all the people youve got to make sure you talk to. So i went around and got their contact information, i made sure i talked to them, and their perspective more than any others changed how i thought about the struggle on the ground and for them that the meredith march wasnt an Extraordinary National story, but was, rather, part of their long continuum of work that theyd done that predated the 1960s and went into the present. They still see themselves as activists, and that was very important for me to understand. Well, for me my interviews began about eight years before i even really thought about writing this book, and it was because for a class project when i was at the university of utah i decided i would try to interview emmett tills mother as part of my project. And so i did. And that was in december of 1996. She died in january of 2003. And so for that next six years, we talked a lot on the phone about her son, and i would call her if i had questions about something. At this point it was just me being just being very passionate about this case, and i was studying it all the time. After i and so those interviews stand out for me. Especially with her, once she passed away i realized what id lost personally and what the world had lost, ask i was just so and i was just so grateful that i had this information that had come from her. Nobody was more important to the story, and that is something that will stay with me. I did interview several journalists who covered the trial. Most of those i interviewed, i think, are still alive now. I interviewed them probably after 50 years, and so having them go back and remember this case 50 years later was an amazing thing to witness, because they all nobody forgot it. And they were still quite emotional in many cases about what they had seen. The challenge for me was getting people from the side of mylam and bryant or at least their family. Not necessarily people who were sympathetic to them, but family or friends. I did in a few cases get people to talk, and it was important to them that i not use their name in the, their names in the books, but i was able the use the information they gave me. But they worried about, you know, some repercussions from other family members if if they were or friends if they were to be on the record at least under their name. So there were challenges, but it meant a lot for me to write the way i wanted to write to get those who were involved or this some personal way on either side of this. And so thats and if you get the book, youll see a list of interviews i did with a lot of important people that made the book much better than it would have been otherwise. Great. Thank you all. Im going to, now, turn it over. Great. Thank you so much, and i thank each of you for participating in this panel. Hi name is john livingston, im from clarksville, mississippi, not far from sumner, and i grew up in cleveland, mississippi. As a child, my education about civil rights came to a great degree from walter cronkite. That is what i saw on the news as it was taking place. But my question for you has to do with teaching history. I have three daughters, and im involved in their education and in their schools. But what i find often is that civil rights education is not taught to our high school and junior high students. Its hard to really begin a broad discussion with ones children without an historical context. Especially where im from. And i would appreciate your thoughts on this, your thoughts on how we can introduce this into our Education System better so that our children do grow up with a sense of their history and their past . What a great question. We have an excellent panel to address that. Ill say one thing by way of starting. In the state of mississippi, we do have a civil rights curriculum mandated by state law to be taught in every social studies class kindergarten12th grade, so you can begin by demanding your Public Schools teach that curriculum as mandated, but ill turn that over. And in addition to that i would say it needs to be a peoples history. It needs to focus on grassroots activism, because thats the only way youre going to incorporate people other than rosa parks and Martin Luther king, is to focus on those people who were active behind the scenes, the everyday people that most people dont know about but who were on the ground in those communities. And, again, thats how you get not only local people, but also primarily women. And just to build upon that as well as to reiterate, mississippi had the bill passed where its mandated to teach civil rights history in all mississippi Public Schools, but what were finding is its incumbent upon the local district to actually make that happen. South carolina has a similar law on the books, but we find that local districts are not making that happen. So it fends upon local depends upon local people and teachers, students, parents to actually demand that the schools incorporate that into the curriculum. So thats where that starts as well. And then to build upon the theme of a peoples history, the education project offers wonderful resources for teachers. And thats what we try to do in this book here is to tell the story of freedom summer through the perspective of students. Theres nothing more powerful than for students to learn this history if from their age. Too many times young people are taught theyre too young to do anything, you cant vote yet, but when they read the history from their perspective, they can continue this history in their own schools today. Ill just add one small thing and that is i think too often the history of the Civil Rights Movement is taught in a way that makes us feel comfortable. There was a problem, we addressed it, Martin Luther king was a hero, and we moved on. Right. Really, i think we should be teaching the Civil Rights Movement to make us uncomfortable. And the events of the past year should really reinforce that. When i teach a u. S. History survey, for instance, that starts in the late 19th century, i begin with the famous lynching cases because i want the students to understand the stark brutality of lynching and to use presentday activism as a lens back into the past is important for our students in civil rights classes to think about. And for me im not a teacher, so im an editor, and so if somebody wants to write up something good for the curriculum, i can probably help edit it. [laughter] but all i can say on that really is just my oak own experience because of my own experience because of contemporary events, students have a lot of questions, see that a lot of battles are being fought today that should have been settled before, and so thats a way to introduce history today, and it makes it come alive because there are enough contemporary events that make those questions relevant still. Thank you. My name is genevieve, i live in jackson is, but during the 60s i lived in the black community in greenwood and lived through everything youve talked about. I wanted to thank you for writing books so that this will be down and down for history in the future. My other question is to mr. Luckett. I wasnt here this morning, so i dont really know what goes on now. I want to buy some books. Do you now go down to the places to sell the books and sign them . [laughter] all of these books are available at the bookstore tent. Please go out and buy lots of books. [laughter] okay. Then how do we get them to sign them . The entire panel will be at the, right beside the bookstore tent, a tent just adjacent to it right after this panel to sign them. Okay. But i want to go to the next conference. [laughter] youre going to have to track these guys down, so theyre pretty nice, so i think theyll be more than willing to sign for you. All right, thank you. [laughter] robbie, i think she was a plant for the bookseller. Yeah. [laughter] my name is todd allen, im a u. S. History teacher here in jackson. And i appreciate the attention that we are putting on the socalled cold cases, but i just wanted to be someone the stand up and remind us that we have a very hot case in. July 8th, this summer, Jonathan Sanders was riding his horses at night because it was cool enough to do that, and the stories vary, but there was some altercation with the police, and he was killed by kevin harrington. Parttime Police Officer in stonewall, mississippi. Kevin harrington is still free. And jonathan sand isers is sanders is dead. In Mississippi Black lives do not matter. [applause] i am senator david jordan from greenwood who attended the emmett till trial and have written from the cotton field to the state senate and include a chapter which has been a good seller. Its for sale, too, in the bookstore, so yall should go [laughter] yeah. So i attended the trial, but the experience that i had there on the outside for the news media where my first time meeting an africanamerican congressman with mrs. Till, and i was just a freshman at Mississippi Valley State College at that time. And we were asked to give a report. So is gasoline was 25 cents a gallon, so we just headed for sumner, mississippi. And when we arrived there, there were standing around on the outside for a few minutes a beautiful lady walked up who was mrs. Maynard till with this welldressed africanamerican person, and the reporter said were going to ask you some questions, whether emmett till will get a fair trial in mississippi. And she said, well, i dont know. They asked her again. Then she said i have with me congressman charles dix all the way there detroit, michigan. And the question was asked, the reporter, i didnt know we had any nigger congressmen. That was openly said on the outside before we went into the trial. I included a chapter of emmett tills story, and i got it included in my book which is they have it out there. And i just want people to know that im a living witness of the trial, because everybody in the senate knows that because theyve pressured the theyve purchased the book that ive written on emmett till. And ive had highways named after emmett till. But we requested and im finished more than a decade ago that civil rights history should be taught in the Public School system. But believe it or not, people are reluctant to talk about it. Im talking about both africanamericans and white americans as well. I think well have to amend that a and make it so it shall be taught in the Public School system so everybody can learn about the history of the mississippi delta and other parts of mississippi. Thank you very much. [applause] dr. Luckett, thank you. That was a great panel. We will have to clear the room now to get ready for the next one, but before we do that, please help me thank all of our apartments, and we hope to see you for the next panel. [applause] [inaudible conversations]. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktv on cspan2 live from jackson, mississippi, this is the mississippi book festival, and the next author panel will begin in about ten minutes. This panel on history and biography, former Governor Haley barbour will be par tis night the panel as well. If you want to see a full schedule of events go to ms msbookfestival. Com and if you want to see the coverage of booktv, go to booktv. Org on the righthand side of the page