Some of the most vicious violence and grim moments of the Civil Rights Movement occurred in Mississippi--the murders of young organizers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman; the murder of NAACP field director Medgar Evers; and the rabid rioting in response to the desegregation of Ole Miss in Oxford. The gravity of that history weighed heavily on the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi in Jackson today in a program of speakers who, framed by the room's tall ionic columns, were candid about the depth of racial hatred in the state--past and present.
"In 2004, they are still playing the race card in Mississippi," said Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, to those assembled in the historic legislative hall at the museum, which served as the state capitol from 1839 to 1903. During this election season, a candidate for the state Supreme Court is urging voters to elect "one of us," an obvious appeal to white privilege, Thompson said.
In the hall where he spoke, Mississippi voted to secede from the union as a prelude to the Civil War and, afterward, enacted the notorious "Black Codes" and other laws designed to disenfranchise its then-majority black population. Nearby, portraits of Confederate soldiers and others of similar ilk lined the wall of Mississippi's Hall of Fame.
Former Mississippi Governor William F. Winter, who was roundly applauded during his remarks, held up a leaflet printed by an opponent in his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 1967. Under a headline that read, "Awake White People of Mississippi," there was a photo of Winter addressing an integrated crowd, followed by a warning that a vote for Winter would insure black domination of the state. Winter made the eloquent declaration that the system of segregation shackled whites as well as blacks: "None of us are free until we all are free," he said.
Former governor Ray Mabus said that there was a tradition "in politics in Mississippi: As long as you were right on race, nothing else mattered." Mabus said that the state's obsession with race had often caused it to ignore vital issues such as education, health care, and other important social matters. Fred L. Daniels, a former justice on the state Supreme Court, chimed in on the past and present theme by reminding the audience that "racism is not something that you get rid of. It's something that you struggle against" always.
Inerva Pittman, president of the Jackson chapter of the NAACP, reminded the gathering that for so long whites refused to address black women as "Miss" or "Mrs." and chided the program organizers for not using an honorific title before her name in the program. Pittman, who grew up in a rural area of the state, told the story of her grandmother, who plowed her fields with a gun-toting relative at her side to ward off a white neighbor intent on getting control of her land.
"They thought she was crazy but she wasn't crazy," Pittman said. "She was just determined that nobody was going to take what was ours ... and we still own that land today." At that point, there was a wild burst of applause.
In Mississippi, where the push for civil rights was met with violent resistance, there was a realization among black residents that strategies of nonviolence would not be as successful as they had been in other places. Many black residents who are senior citizens today remember a state where violence against blacks was frequent and unpunished.
John L. Walker, 69, recalled proudly riding as a seven-year-old toward Yazoo City with Lee Andrew Ward, one of the few black men in his area who owned a car--a shiny black Ford. Just as they were nearing the city, a police officer pulled them over and said to Ward, "Where the hell you think you goin', nigger? Who do you think you are?" Just then the officer pointed his revolver at Ward's head and "shot his brains out on the street," Walker said.
Walker and the several other passengers, including his mother, were frozen in terror and sat in the car all day with the corpse until another black man from their area stopped and gave them a ride home. The officer was never charged with any crime, Walker said.
At the time, Walker was an avid reader and had just read an elementary school primer extolling the friendliness of police officers, who were employed to protect and serve. But what happened changed his thinking: "That was the first police officer I ever saw and he killed the man I was [riding] with."
