We appreciate their support as well, and now i wanted to introduce todays Panel Moderator ralph u banks im honored to introduce my friend ralph of mississippi native a journal in mississippi dark path which book critic name as one of the best of 2003. Ralph the graduate of the university of mississippi and university of michigan a recipient of a guggenheim fellowship hes been a fellow at the if new america foundation. Ralph lives in washington, d. C. With wife and three children and former editor of the virginia quarterly review at the university of virginia and scholar in southern studies here in jackson so welcome ralph. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you im really honored to be moderating this panel. We have a really great lineup, and i just want to start off by introducing each of the panelist. Our first panelist to my left is derby and book wednesdays in mississippi proper ladies working for radical change and to her right is author born of conviction white med dis and mississippi clothe society. A professor at emory and Henry College in virginia. His left is jasonward who is author a of herman cain bridge racial violence, and americas civil rights century. Hes a associate professor of history and Mississippi State university. That the end is crystal sanders whose book is a chance for change had head start and mississippis black freedom struggle. Shes a historian of the 20th century and at the state university. I like to start off three minutes telling us about their books ill start with you debbie. And move down. Okay. First of all i want to say thank you ralph and thank you to all of the organizers of the mississippi book festival it is just fabulous and im very honored to be here. Wednesday in mississippi what my book is about was the only civil rights project organized by women for women as part of a National Womens organization. And it was unlike anything i had ever heard or read about in the Civil Rights Movement. They brought interracial interfaith teams of northern women with who were middle age and middleclass down to jackson, mississippi, in freedom summer. They came wearing their very proper dresses, white gloves and hats customary in the 1960s, and so they really set themselves apart from the other activist that were here at that time. It was sponsored by the National Counsel of negro women led by Dorothy Height as president an volunteer named holly colin. They came at the request of jackson women so they had an invitation. And they sped up an interracial staff here glak son and then they recruited teams of women who came through weekly through july and august. A typical itinerary involved the women coming in on tuesday and when they arrived at the airport they would immediately separate by race and act like they didnt know each other. Because they felt it was important to follow rules of southern protocol. They didnt want to upset things they thought it would stop the program. On wednesdays about and the white women went to hotels because they were not invited to private homes where black women staid in private homes. On wednesdays, all the women met up at one of the freedom summer projects in cities outside of jackson where they were able to see what was going on in the movement firsthand. Then they came back to jackson, an they met over coffee to discuss what they had seen with local women. And this is where they did their real work for change. They used their proper appearance, their gender, their race, an their class in order to open doors that have been totally shut to other Civil Rights Activists during that time. They were able to open lines of communication across race, region, and religion. By talking about their differences, they realized it that they actually shared common goals for their families and their communities, and this kind of communication opened the door to understanding and acceptance of an inte grade society. It wasnt foolproof, for example, one woman whose daughter was volunteering in ruralville told bluntly you go e and take your daughter with you. However, for the most part, it was very successful. And people took those first steps towards change had had. And as we know that first step is hardest one to take. Therm invited to come back in 1965 which they did as a professional exchange. In 1966, they evolved to an Antipoverty Program that included local women and leadership. So you might wonder if something that simple really . Flt successful . In 1965 Pat Darian A Jackson activist and later served in carters administration said that if you look back over the last two years, and marked every forward step in Jackson Community relations you would find that a wednesdays lady had somehow been involved. So these may not have looked like what we think of civil right activist but they were civil right activists nudges and they really demonstrated womens ability to use quiet power in order to accomplish radical change. Thank you. Joe. I want to add my thanks to the book festival, and to the sponsors of this imagine. It is definitely an honor to be here. Thing a it will that i considered in this book born of conviction white methodist was society is is the question, how did white in mississippi respond to the Civil Rights Movement . Especially during what had i called the peak of white resistance between 1962 and 1964 . There certainly was what we tend to refer to as massive resistance, but there was also a lot of silence and Martin Luther king has a letter from birmingham jail and expressing a supreme disappointment in the white moderate and White Christians who had failed to support the movement in any significant way and in that sense were really more a stumbling Block Movement than the citizens counsel which those are pretty powerful words. The story that i tell is happens right after the riot at ole miss on september 30 o. T. , 1962 when James Meredith became first africanamerican students at that institution. There were some young, white, methodist ministers in the white mississippi conference which at the time was a southern half of the state who were exceedingly frustrated. Both in the ways that the white power structure in mississippi refuse to take any responsibility for what happened at ole miss, in fact, blamed kennedy and the federal government in the marshals and all of those folks. But they were also frustrated that the leaders of their annual conference, the bishop, their district superintendent, said nothing to respond to this situation. And they believed that the church needed to say something. So they sat down, wrote a response, this was u four young ministers. They got 24 of the ministers to sign it with them. So it was 28, white, methodist ministers most of them young. Statement was published on january 2nd, 1963. The statement basically had four points. It called for freedom of the pulpit claiming that the church belongs to god and the implication being that the purpose of the church was not to prop up the dominant culture but rather was gods church. They quoted a passage or two from the methodist discipline deno, maamlation law book saying that the teachings of jesus dont allow for discrimination on race and talked about brothers and sisters im sure said brothers at the time and the third point was expressing support for the Public Schools and opposition to any attempt to close them if desegregation came and used state opposition to the use of state money to create private schools, and then the fourth point was were not communists because in those days, of course, anyone who said anything descended against status quo all labeled a commune ition. Now im sure that with our 21st century eyes we hear those four things. Those four main points in that statement is. We think thats not really much. But in that context, in early 1963, it caused a fire storm of controversy. There were some folks who publicly supported the statement. Conference lei leader and pastor of the church and couple of other folks. But the overwhelming response was negative newspaper editorials, letters to the editor but most importantly the response in many of the local churches served by finers of this statement. Three of the signers were expelled from their congregation immediately in january 1963. And there were many others who were ostracized by their Church Members sort of shut out or confronted angerly and that sort of thing. Most of the signers received anonymous telephone threats. Correspondent letters from anonymous letters. All kinds of threats in that way. I think it is important, however, to say that there were some there was a good bit of almost completely private support for the signers an letters. People saying things directly to signers about this one woman wrote her pastor one of the signers down on the coast and said thanked him basically for being willing to say publicly what she believed but wasnt willing to say publicly. And this was i think a common problem for white folks in mississippi in those days. One of the sad elements of the story is that 20 of the 28 signers of the born and conviction statement left mississippi, most of them within a year and a half of the statements publication. But one of the things i found was that in writing the brief mentions most of the brief mentions of this statement in Historical Publications tended to emphasize the exodus of ministers and ignored the fact that eight of the signers stayed in mississippi for the duration continued to work for a new mississippi after the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights act. All right. I think that ultimately the impact of the born of conviction statement was that it created one significant crack in the facade that the citizens counsel and other groups like that were trying to keep up to say all white people want things to stay the same, in fact, they often said that blacks believed that as well. But they were completely happy with that. And coining that signers of the statement were quite trying to say that not all White Christians in mississippi deport maintenance of maintenance of segregation whatever the cost. Thanks so much for having me. My book Hanging Bridge is about a bridge. Its also about three generations in civil rights story they try to tell through three moments an ive been told my book takes the long view so ill talk about three moments in that long view. The sub title of the book racial is important because these are two dynamic to racial violence. Civil right it is that operate in tandem throughout the book and i learned a lot from paying attention to that dynamic and i want to say a couple of things about it. In terms of the structure of the book its in parts in 1918 in mississippi in southern county there was a lynching at a bridge two women, two women resumed to be pregnant by their white employer who turned up dead and four of them died in retaliation for what they believed was a murder conspiracy. In 1942, there was a double lynching at the same bridge a 14yearold boy who just turned 15. They were accused of attempted rape of a lote local white girl the first fbi searching in mississippi history in which no one including girl herself claimed that boys got within six to eight feet of her. And then the question that came out of this for me was knowing this bloody history, knowing legacy of violence, a, what do 60s and civil rights and classic phase of Civil Movement look like in a community where at least in the National Historical record, we know very little about other than these breakouts of violence and important moments world war i. World war ii, what did it look like in the 60s because i dont read about clark county in all of the civil rights books i read in grad school. The answer is quite a lot happenedded and theres some interesting answers that i can get into later. There was a vigorous and very interesting dynamic Civil Rights Movement. But id like to go back. Id like to take us back to 1918 for just a minute. And go to a scene from the book it was the National Conference on lynching double acp sponsored a National Conference on lynching at Carnegie Hall 2500 in attendance including former governors, former president ial candidates, democrats, republicans, white, black even a hand sm of white mississippi i cans, and naacp eager to have a big tonight they handed gavel of day two a white lawyer from granado named jack wilson and that lawyer ahead of a new York Organization called the mississippi Welfare League which was a basically a Public Relations stunt to convince the nation and to convince africanamericans that mississippi was not and would not be the lynching capitol of the world because it was turning into an expensive proposition to be known as the lynching capitol of the world. So jack wilson is presiding, he gives remarks throughout the day while civil right activists are getting up and talking, most of them white, antilynching advocate including southerners, and he gives his speech in which he says speech that you know a white person in mississippi in 1918 could recite by memory. You know, this doesnt mean we want to get rid of segregation. We have certain customs and values that we honor and that we cherish. You know, blacks know were trying to do the best we can by them but Everyone Needs to leaf us alone and let good white people in mississippi handle their business. And then William Pickens got up and spoke. William pickens worked for aacp and born into slavery in about North Carolina and he grew up in arkansas and graduated from yale university. And this is what he said. The good man is in error who thinks he can endorse disenfranchisement and sexually oppose the mob. Mob members may be ignorant in some ways, but they are too severely logical to overlook and inconsistency like that. I think we do an injustice to civil rights history to africanamerican history when we assume that the 20th century was just a steady march towards freedom and that thats the story that we tell and that we sort of insert our little contributions into. This is a story of three generations in which real people faced real challenges and made real choices. And certainly a white man in 1918 in mississippi was just as capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time as a Civil Rights Activist in 1960s. They understood then this they understand later that violence undergirded civil rights drama. It undergirded the struggle and when we used words like moderate or extreme or liberal or conservative, to define whites response to Civil Rights Movement and africanamerican strategy in Civil Rights Movement all of these definitions and this whole Playing Field is defined on a foundation of violence right moderate compared to what . Well compared to man hanging someone to bridge compared to knocking heads with ax handles. Thats what i wanted to bring to the conversation. Thats what i learned from writing the book is that you know violence is important to Pay Attention to, and violence is always on the table. It always was, always has been. Thats why this is a book about a civil rights century were in another civil rights century in violence that is an option on the table. Thank you. Good afternoon im thankful for the opportunity to sit on this panel with such distinguished scholars there are writing very important book on civil rights and mississippi and bradley im thankful for you not counting it robbery to spend this beautiful saturday afternoon with us here in the courthouse. I want to bin by telling you a story. 50 years ago this year, on january the 31st 40 black sharecroppers took over in greene vit,s mississippi, these sharecroppers took over this air force base on the coldest day in history in mississippi history. And they did so because they were desperate. They did so because they had been evicted from plantation in delta and cry ares for help that have been taken to both state officials and to the white house had gone unanswered. When air force base commander approaches the group and tells them theyll be physically removed from the property, they present him with the list of demands. The 7th demand on that list was for the refunding of the Child Development group of Mississippi Head start program. I asked myself why on coldest days in mississippi history would destitute, u unemployed and homeless black adults make head start a preschool program one of their priorities. I stood out to answer that question in my book a chance for change, and i honestly believe that there are three Important Reasons why these sharecroppers believed that refunding the Child Development group mississippi had to be a priority. But first is that these sharecroppers understood that head start had become another way to continue the earlier struggle for racial and socioeconomic justice. You see head start was a Community Action program. And as a Community Action program, it had to be operated with a maximum feasible participation of the poor. So what this meant was that head start had to allow working class individuals to have meaningful say so in the implication in the administration of Head Start Centers. So this meant that local people had the opportunity to hiring decisions. This meant that local people had the opportunity to enter into contract with venders for things like food or School Supplies or educational materials. This was an opportunity for local people to actually have an opportunity to participate in the shared governess of their Community Something that is evade them in 1965 when head start begins. The second reason that the sharecroppers found head start to be so important when they took over this air force base because head start created wellpaying jobs for working class black mississippi, head start did not require teachers to have form credentials in years so that meant people especially black women who have eighth grade education, had a love for children now had the opportunity to become head start teachers and meant they could leave working in the field as a cotton chopper or leave working as a dmes nick white homes an have opportunity educate their kids and not have this opportunity to secure wellpaying jobs but jobs outside of the local white tower power if we know about mississippi history you know that economic reprisals are one of the main ways to curtail Civil Rights Act so thing like sandy who lost her job in 1962 after she attempted to register to vote. There were hundreds of black women across the state of mississippi who were unemployed when head start began in 1965 because of their relationship to the movement. Head start became a chance for them to secure employment and to continue the earlier civil rights work. The third reason i believe sharecroppers were so concerned with ensuring that the cdjm or childhood Development Group refunded was because it was Early Childhood Education Program that had quality education to black children. Something that they wanted since emancipation and evade them because white school board, white county commissioners and superintendents diverted tax dollars that should have been used for black education to educate white students so head start became that opportunity fur black parents tone sure their child had quality Educational Opportunities. Not only were these going to be quality Educational Opportunities but opportunities that introduced black students to their history. Something that evaded them something that was not possible for them to do in the Public School system. This was to be a curriculum that was so prepare students to know how to ask questions and think for themselves, the curriculum that was to give black children the confidence they needed to speak up for themselves and to know how to challenge the racial status quo. So these were the types of reasons why in 1966 homeless destitute adults made head start a concern when they approached air force base commander. Between 1965 and 1968 the Head Start Program that i write about was able to secure 15 Million Dollars in grants from the federal government. This was money that went directly into the hands of local blacks in communities and the delta and in the hill region and in the gulf region. So all across the state you have working class individuals particularly black women who are now have the opportunity to serve on communities board, to serve as heads start teachers and head directors having the chance to make decisions about everything from curriculum to the center locations, the hour it is that the Head Start Center would operate. These were people who had never had the opportunity to control anything other than their churches. But all of a sudden they have this opportunity to really have Decision Making opportunities in their communities. Now, you should know that segregation is supposed this program. They opposed a program that employed people like meredith mother of James Meredith. They oppose a program that gave working class africanamericans the chance to decide a curriculum for their kids that could not be limited or filtered or monitored by white officials in the school system. And so what we see over threeyear period between 1965 and 1968 is a battle between lote local people and National Officials over who should control head start in the state of mississippi. This is a battle that asks the question do black women have a capability to teach children and prepare them for school . This was a question and working class people should have a say so in governess of their community. Per three years local people won this battle for three years, they were able to engage in radical community upbuilding in a way that never had been seen before in the state of mississippi with regard to working class black mississippi. In 1968 this program indeed funded but as youll see in my book i dont say thats a sad story because i believe that skill and nohow that these local people women in particular learned they were able to translate into opportunities that lasted long after bdgm in. Ill bairvegly basically say two biggest points i hope you take away if you do read the book is that number one, this Head Start Program changes the way we think about the war on poverty. For all too often the narrative of failure has surrounded the war on poverty. You may recall that president Ronald Reagan said we declared war on poverty and poverty won. Theres this idea that war on poverty programs did not improve the life of poor people. Theres this idea that the war on poverty was just an example of Big Government gone wrong. Or Big Government that created or fostered a spirit of dependency for american citizens. But u when we look at a program like cdgm, we see that it ended not because it was a failure. But it ended because it was so successful and giving working class people a say so in their communities. In this Head Start Program that i look at, black women restructured civic life under banner of peaceful education. They found ways to have a sayso in their Community Even when they were not able to vote. Whefn they still not able to go into certain restaurants. Go into certain establishment up in their communities. They found a way to challenge the status quo and that indeed is why the Program Ended not because it was not working. The other thing that i hope we take away from Head Start Program that i write about is that it created a new independent black leaders in the state of mississippi. It gave black domestic and black sharecroppers the opportunity to enter into the middleclass. It gave them the opportunity to go back to school. To learn skills that before previously had been unavailable to them. And they used these skills, they used this knowhow and leadership opportunities to provide quality Educational Opportunities for kids. But then later to improve their own lives in their communities. So ill stop there. Well one of the things that i was in addition to reading all of your books for this panel mostly been reading calvin book jackson in 1964 in that book he says he talks about the wall of never. That was in mississippi that segregation was always going to be there. So the wall of never was built on the proposition that in mississippi complete segregation could be maintained by means of rigid control some say a least state control. Within the state and a unified front against outside pressure. But that wall of never has been brown down i say and i mention that because when im talking about civil rights and civil right history people say why do you bring that stuff up . Weve crashed all of that down. But in this room where a lot of that wall of never was constructed, why should we keep bringing these things up . And just what ysh why is it important for all of us to understand these stories of civil rights particularly as they relate to lote local people as all of these stories do . Well, ill start by saying all too often i think when we look at mississippi history during the Civil Rights Movement no one asked what happened after 1964. What happened after the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegate took that bus ride home to mississippi after their challenge and in terms of being seated in Atlantic City was not successful completely . I asked that question because when we look at the civil right act of 1964 and Voting Rights of 1965 we see that there were shortcomings. Shortcomings and limitations that meant that the lives of black people in mississippi did not change overnight so they give you an example. After johnson signed from 1964 Civil Rights Act, there were many Restaurant Owners and hotel owners in the city of jackson who closed doors rather than comply with the law after the Voting Rights act is signed, it is over a year before federal voter registrars enter Sunflower County one of the worst counties in terms of black disenfranchisement the can be the of fanny so my question is what did local people do . I found that mef these people decided that head start could become another vehicle to achieve the very gain and very rights theyve been mobilizing for and organizing for for years. I think its important to look at a program like head start because its one of the first times where we see federal dollars go directly into the hands of black southerners without those dollars filtered and allocated by local white or white at the state level. Its important that we look at this because all too often when we think of civil rights we think after 1964, weve had 6 65 two important pieces of civil right legislation but we cant take gain to the wetion or north because there were still people working on the ground to improve their community to make these two pieces have real meaning in their lives. Debbie id like to add to that. Were sitting here today in the shadow of churches that refuse to allow africanamericans to come in and worship in the 1960s. And that is no longer the case today. In this room we have people sitting here not aloud to come in the 1960s, and we started that change a little bit at a time and women played a major role in making that happen. A lot of them young women who from Africanamerican Community and talking about someone like felma sanders a dress shop owner or in White Community jane scott who was a member of the Mississippi Committee to the u. S. Civil rights commission. And they responded in different ways in order to bring about change. But i think were fooling ourselves if we look at the community and say oh, everything is okay now. We have not erased all of the lingering effects of jim crow. And i say that not only about mississippi. I say that about other communities all across our country. Which is why we are looking at unrest in cities all across america. So we have a way to go even though weve made great progress. Jason. Ill respond as a writer who since the book the book has come out came out in may. The question has been raised by a more skeptical reader or two that it seems mighty suspicious at a time like this and theyre referring to cable news cycle at a time like this a book like this would come out. Now, books take a longer time to write. You cant just see [applause] you cant just see ferguson on the news and say, like banging out a book. But that doesnt mean that the two are unrelated so while i didnt see trayvon or taemer on the news and say i need to write a book about lynching i was combing through documents where investigators were showing up in 1942 to investigate the lynching of 14yearold boy two 14yearold boys, and kept running into white officials and white townspeople who kept saying we know the pairm has got it wrong. They werent really 14. They looked a lot older than 14 they were 16 or 18. And they were saying the same thing about tamir and same thing about trayvon. When james craig andser son was killed in jackson, Brandon Police department very quickly put a gag order on its officials giving interviews to the press. But before they did that, there was one quote that slipped out, and it was something to the effect of this was just a good kid who made one really bad mistake when a new york reporter showed up in mississippi in 1942 asking about lynching local sheriff said weve got good people who get kind of wild. Right, so while i did not splip on cnn and decide to write a book, i couldnt help but hear the echoes. And thats not to claim that people are are being, you know, consciencely malicious. But its almost more this sort of inherited echo that we get from history that makes us, you know, respond in the moment in ways that we later would rather take back or rather not be on cnn. Or in the new york times. But those echoes are there, and thats just something that i thought about when you asked the question well why do we keep talking about this or why bring up old stuff, yeah. Just to add to that. I get a little tired of whites who are privileged who continue to insist, there you go again bringing up that same old story. Weve already, you know, weve gone beyond that. Well, we havent. I have been fascinated by the fact that a lot of folks have said to be about my book which is now been out for about eight or nine months u how it came out at such a great time. Because of what is happening in the United States. And you know, maybe. But a little bit like jason was saying. But the race issue has continuesed to be with us. Every one of the books on this panel tell stories that have been buried for 50 and jasons book 100 years. And i have been fascinated by receiving emails from people whose parents were involved mostly folks related to the church whose parents were involved in some way in difficulties in the 60s. Its almost like it gives them permission to tell that story you know, at least maybe this guy who wrote this book will listen to what i have to say. So we got a lot of stories yet to tell, and to deal with well i want to kind of get to what i kind of call Mississippi Burning troop here. And that in the depiction of the Civil Rights Era we often see the people who are menaced to change all change and seeing people who are wearing white robes and a burning of crosses and those people who arent really trying to block the change or continuing to build up that wall of never because the people and women in proper dresses. So could you each of you tell us a bit about how your stories help us to spill this dispel this myth that it was only really bad people in robes who kind of kept all of this going for so long. Ill start. Okay. There was a systematic exclusion and various types of threats that were levied against people who participated in civil rights. It could have been ill call your loan due. It could have been as they did with many women here in jackson if you dont get out of that League Women Voters your husband will lose his job or perhaps will actually they would have gone to the husband and said if you dont get your wife out of league of women voters youre going to lose your job. Which is stintly why james eventually resigned from the Mississippi Committee only the Civil Rights Commission because her husband was threatened in that way. It came from ministers Jeff Cunningham who was the head pastor here at galloway talked frequently and openly about how this citizen counsel members controlled the board there. So it wasnt just the people in the white robes. It was the leaders and pillars of the community. It was people that media outlet it was all of those individuals, and you know speaking of media when media is controlling the story youre hearing, for example, all civil rights works and communists and perverts, and thats when youre reading in the newspaper. You tend to believe it because you think of this as a trusted source of information. So a lot of misinformation was distributed and believed to be the truth so people often thought they were acting in a reasonable way. Because they heard this information from people who were higher up in the community and caused a great deal of difficulty. Sometimes when i speak about my project ill ask the audience who u would you say was the biggest threat to black advancements in terms of mississippis United States senators . And every time everyone list theodore ore james eastlinn in my work i argue that john was a bigger threat to black advancement in the state of mississippi than either theodore or james eastlynn whats interesting about senator is he never race baited you can go through all of his political speeches and you will not find derogatory and observancive language that youll find in a speech from theodore or speech from james eastlynn but senator knew how to thwart black advancement wielding political power. He sat on two of the most important committees in the United States senate. He sat on senate proarpses committee and on the senate arm services committee. So 23 if you think about 1960s United States raging war in vietnam and war on poverty at home. This is a man who is controlling the federal so controlling budget for those initiatives and endeavors and he had a big problem with Head Start Program that i write about. He had a big problem with large summing of federal dollars in hands of working class of black women and he used this political clout on capitol hill to consistently discredit and eventually defund this Head Start Program that im looking at. Senator was not a member of the clan. Senator did not have the race baiting reputation of eastlynn his partner in the United States senate but he very much so was the biggest threat to africanamericans being able to really take part in the war of poverty in state of mississippi and having those programs to create meaningful changes in their lives. And he does so by able to do so by using his situation on Appropriation Committee to essentially threaten funding for the entire war on poverty allowing that funding to hinge on office of Economic Opportunity doing something it be this Head Start Program. So if you look at the Senate Appropriations committee hearing, for the 1966 appropriation for the war on poverty, its about a sixhour hearing, six or sevenhour hearing but four are are on that Head Start Program that says something when over half of the time evaluating and asking Sergeant Shriver to explain necessity of the Antipoverty Program is spent on one single Head Start Program that was operated in the state of mississippi. He knew that he could use his position and his authority and his respect and reputation on capitol hill to end this program and he indeed does that. Thats a sign that we cant just point to the clan an say you know people in white robes or men in these citizen counsels were really biggest threat to black advancement. Because there were also politicians who were very much people of color and all too often we see that its the very senator or very congressman who doesnt have to race bait who doesnt have to appear more visibility and vocally racist than his counterparts to get job done. And senator fits that mold to a t. Jason. I can gang up on senator but ill hold off on that. [laughter] the county that study in the book was one of the Child Development counties that was defunded as a result of those efforts. So head start ended up playing a large role in that story story. But the thing that came to mind with the question of, you know, goods people bad apples, good town had a bad week, the thing that comes up to me is that fbi report an investigation is remarkable thing because they talked to everybody. Theyre very these were white mississippi based on jackie son bureau who were probably somewhat surprised to get a call saying investigate a lynching because nobody had called jackson and never said go investigate a lynching they have plenty of opportunities but never authorization but with world war ii there was an surgent city diplomatic to making that happen so they go over to clark county before the weekend they have to go down to rural because theres another lynching the same week in rural to looks like were on a spree so theyre thorough and they talk to everybody and its great resource to see the anatomy to see the way the community is accomplice and killing someone making sure no one answer rs if if answers for killing someone. You catch people in insint can is you can get closer to what the truth of the matter was but you dont ask, dont tell get the who done it because thats the whole point is we dont tell you who did it. This was a lynching book in which six were killed and yods not name definitively one single lyncher thats a testament to the communities, the White Communities complicity and cooperation in trying to thwart a federal investigation like these were not amateurs. These were not these were people who what they were doing and thekdz not break through that wall and plenty of, you know, beloved sunday school teachers, and grade baseball coaches who were probably in that mix of people and keeping justice from being served. One with of the things i decided about the born of conviction story over the years that i lived with it if one had to say what was the sifnt board of conviction signers, i think in the view of many white methodists in mississippi their sin was that they had betrayed the family of white methodism and lifted up a vision of the church which didnt simply prop up things as they were which didnt simply live in sync with the power structure as it was. But said in a mild way certainly. But said maybe gods justice is something of the church needs to be moving toward and a working for. And maybe that going to step on toes and worse in mississippi. So one of the ways that born of conviction story often gets told is that the signers spoke out and they got kicked out of mississippi well they all didnt get kicked out of mississippi but there were some who really had no choice but to leave. And just is like debbie was talking about threat to husbands of women who were doing this, the same kind of thing if youre if your livelihood is threatened, of course, blacks lived with this. In much worse in mississippi, but if your livelihood is threatened, thats one of the primary ways to respond without putting on a white robe. Well i could go on all day here with this but i want to make sure that the audience gets some of their questions and so i think right now were going to open up to questions from the audience. So with a mic right in the center so if please go around to the mic to ask your question and then our panelist will respond. Thank you. Great panel. I have a question. So what with the booings that you have all written, im curious to know what name do you give this that youre talking about that keeps people from doing, you know, to be able to act. So i know its fear. Why sane people, my question definition is sane people are complicit in a system that allows insanity to commit violence and personal rienls something wrong, and get away with it its insane and boggles the mind trying to understand if you try to understand it. So what allowing sane people to continue to allow this to go on in a System Community culture that has made it living off the backs of the victims or the vulnerable whatever name you want to give to them so to me its like everything is like behavior like the interpersonal violence of Domestic Violence so the victim is made the has to be her own victor or is his own victor in that same situation. Were just now coming to deal with these things in a different form or fashion. So why how do we allow this to go on . How do we reconcile ourselves i dont care if we use religion or describe, what name do you all give to it . Because i give it all complicit of course were all connected it is complicitness but i give it as a grieving. So theres this potential fear of death. And this fear not being immortal and selfpreservation and selfpartiality allows group to then be fearful that they will not survive and everything that they do is formed out of that privilege. So Everything Else is privilege is what that is but i think it is deeper than privilege is means everyone, Everything Else is a means to that end so that that that fear of not surviving bully or whatever you want to call it addressed constantly over and throughout history no matter where you look. What names do you all give to it im curious and why should i as a sane person reconcile right to anyone . Who is threatening my existence . Who continueses to e eradicate and want to start that . I was sweating answering this question and then you gave me a better answer than i come up with myself. But ill piggyback off what i think youre getting at which is that theres a systemic understanding of this whether its visceral know it or not i mean i go back through several generations and at no point do people actually have the ability to understand that somehow this act of violence was connected to their comfort or their protection or certainly no point in which they did anyone not understand that ratting out your neighbor or youbetraying white race was goig to not an option or was a very, very risky option. But the most clear systemic eradication when i fry to look for threads that connect generations together violence does and theres a violent visceral reaction every single time. Even if its not lynching in the 60s, they its head start. Its actually a visceral reaction to head start but in every single case black women are quitting jobs and white every single time and people are flipping out like people are scared. Theyre doing in world war i because of the great migration and in world war ii for Economic Opportunity on the coast going to mobile. Soldiers are sending home money and momma is quitting. People think that Eleanor Roosevelt is behind it and called it eleanor club, conspiracy theory, and then in the 60s its head start. You know you triple your salary. Your weekly salary immediately your weekly wages by going to work for a federally funded program where the checks are coming straight from washington. And every single case that is a prelude to violence. Violence against women and children yeah thats when they see red. Sir yes. State senator david jordan from greenwood and iand i was just is listenino civil rights history one and i assume viewers talking about what the church was doing. But i have news for you in the midst of delta. Those who didnt wear sheafs for citizen counsel, and growing up in that system [inaudible] i find that many whites didnt say anything because of fear. Not that they were not good people. But therm they were afraid for their own lives, but they enjoy the system as it were. Because they didnt speak out. As a retired teacher, they would back in 62 when i was teaching Public School, you had to Sovereign Mission it all of the us as teachers had to sign oath that we didnt belong to naacp at that time. So as the person who had written about my era from the cotton field to the state senate, this book thats been a very good seller i [laughter] i know what youre saying and what happened and what brought it back because automation. Cotton picker in mississippi delta brought about the change so friends of the program, and i remember when he cut it out. So were not talking about anybody who had any compassion for poor people. None of them had any compassion. Those who were white who cared didnt let anybody know. So old mission is just as bad as submission. So we talk about this now, but what we have is the beautiful state 3, 4 million and what we need to be talking about now, how we can make mississippi become an oasis by working together. I dont think africanamericans have a slave mentality or anything like that so attending the trial and seeing who were there and how they threaten people, and drawing up in mississippi delta and been in this senate for 24 years since i retired as a classroom teacher, and seeing all of this and in 2011 i dont know how many of you have seen that movie that was shot back in 63 and it was being filmed in came back 45 years later in 2011. And they were filming at my home and after it was filmed, part of it twhen we went to a gathering in a white church in greenwood for an audience and a lady was talking about from the film in 1956 and how we kept the people in their place and so forth. And i was asking them question about it. I made some comments that i was glad that we were able to eradicate that kind of thinking, and on that night shots were fired in my home in 2011 in a state senators home. Got it recorded in my book from the cotton field state senate so you dont call in ideology among a white brother and sister were just spinning our wheels, and as a slave learn to read and went to white church they were reading and white man was reading they said he must be reading oughts book and have another book in there because one i understand doesnt say that. So what we need to do is to get real and realize weve got real problem, civil war is over. 247 years of free labor is enough to punish a people who have been most loyal people to this country. No one else will get this he came in the bottom shift not we statue of liberty to time to get real and do the correction and white people as well some blacks have to undergo a met more change and realize god didnt make a mistake because he made us a different color
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