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After Killen: What’s Next For Mississippi?
by Donna Ladd
June 22, 2005
(Unabridged version)
See Kate Medley's full photo gallery of the JFP's coverage of the Edgar Ray Killen trial from start to finish.
PHILADELPHIA, MISS.—Rita Schwerner Bender traveled back to Mississippi last week in search of justice for the murder of her first husband, Michael, who was brutally murdered by Klansmen in Neshoba County on Father’s Day 1964 for working with his wife and other activists here to register Mississippi blacks to vote. Justice, of a fashion, came Tuesday, June 21, when the mixed-race jury returned guilty manslaughter verdicts 41 years to the day after the three men were murdered on Road 515 south of Philadelphia.
The Schwerners, fresh out of college in New York, came to Meridian in January 1964 to help Mississippi blacks help themselves in a state with the worst and most entrenched Jim Crow segregation laws in the nation. They met a wall of resistance bolstered by a strong coalition of Ku Klux Klansmen, law enforcement, everyday people and the business establishment.
The two young idealists—he was 24; she was 22—also urged local blacks to take on a governmental system that kept segregation in place with voting poll questions like "How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?" standing between them and equality. The Schwerners were two people at the heart of a non-violent movement that ultimately believed in the good in people—including in a state where segregation was the most legally and socially entrenched.
But, despite the delay in justice for her husband, Bender used her time in Mississippi for this trial, which began June 13, to try to tell the world that there were "many, many acts of violence" here during the Civil Rights Movement that need to be faced. "This case is not the only one, and it’s not the most important one," she said on Day 3, standing in front of the Neshoba County Courthouse under a magnolia tree.
‘A Model Program’
"We came to Mississippi to work in the Civil Rights Movement, to work at establishing a community center in Meridian," Bender testified on Day 3, June 15. She was the prosecution’s first witness in its case against Edgar Ray "Preacher" Killen for planning the murder of her husband, along with James "J.E." Chaney and Andrew Goodman, by Klansmen on June 21, 1964.
The community center was a place for young blacks, where they could hang out, play ping-pong, read. "There were thousands of books," Bender told the jury. Her husband and his new friend, black Meridian native J.E. Chaney, built the bookshelves themselves. They hosted a children’s story hour, "a precursor to Headstart, a model program." They had hoped to start the next community center—or "Freedom School"—in Neshoba County, both to help children who were segregated into substandard schools and to help adults get ready to tackle the arduous—and unfair—literacy tests that stood between them and their right to vote.
But such a noble-sounding goal was a threat to too many Mississippians’ "way of life"—which meant segregated and separate-but-unequal facilities and schools, as well as complete power over the political system. And white Mississippians weren’t about to give up so easily. Angry men and women called the community center continually to taunt and threaten and cuss at the workers, to accuse them of being "communists," to make clear their sentiments about "Goatee," as Schwerner was called by whites here because of his "radical" facial hair. Bender remembers vicious phone calls, with voices telling her that her husband was dead, or soon would be.
The Schwerners had to keep moving, staying with black families who were threatened for helping them, renting homes from black owners every few months. For a while, they stayed in black businessman Charles Young’s Meridian hotel—but had to go in and out the back entrance because they were white.
The threats soon proved to be real. The Klan—according to testimony by former members—would organize in Meridian and Philadelphia in response to the Schwerners’ work. Using a license plate number and other information disseminated to law enforcement by a state agency, the Klan would carry out a detailed plan to execute Schwerner and his friends, bury them, dispose of their car and then cover up the scheme.
Bender, who was in Oxford, Ohio, for a nonviolence workshop when the three men came up missing, heard that the burned-out car was found three days later while waiting in the Cincinnati airport to get back to Mississippi to help look for her husband. She had run into Mississippi civil rights matriarch Fannie Lou Hamer in the airport, and they were talking when someone found Bender to tell her the car had turned up in the Bogue Chitto swamp. She knew then that they were dead, Bender testified. She and Hamer embraced and started crying. “Our tears mingled,” she said. The bodies, however, were not found for 44 days, buried under an earthen dam outside Philadelphia.
‘Patriotic and Christian’
The conspiracy to kill the three men, informants testified in 1967 and again this week, was planned by Preacher Edgar Ray Killen. Then 39 and in vibrant health, Killen was a loquacious Neshoba County personality, as well as a known Klansman in his younger years, known for intermingling his faith in God with the practical goal of maintaining white supremacy.
"Preacher Killen told me this was a very patriotic and Christian organization," now-deceased conspirator James Jordan told a 1967 court convened by the federal government to bring civil-rights charges against 19 conspirators. Seven of the conspirators, including Jordan (who pled guilty in exchange for testimony), served time in federal prison; however, Killen walked free thanks to one juror who later said she "could not convict a preacher." A portion of Jordan’s testimony was read into the record in this trial.
Informants like Jordan who were recruited into the Klan by Killen, a "kleagle" (meaning "organizer" in Klanspeak), made it clear that preventing school integration—and thus race intermingling and, ultimately, understanding and mutual respect—was at the heart of the Klan’s goals then. "We were opposed to integration. We were opposed to the coloreds going to white schools," he said.
Cross burnings, beatings and "elimination" were ways they used race terrorism to prevent such societal integration, much as the organization first used sheets to scare blacks out of exercising their new right to vote during Reconstruction. An early goal of the Ku Klux Klan, started by Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in 1865, was to terrorize blacks into thinking that "ghosts"—the first "night riders"—would haunt them if they tried to exercise the rights they gained after the Civil War.
Jordan’s testimony laid the foundation for what happened on the evening of June 21, 1964. Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman—on his first full day in Mississippi—drove to Neshoba County from Meridian that Sunday to look at the remains of the Mount Zion Church in the Longdale community. Neshoba and Lauderdale County Klan members had burned the church and beaten the parishioners on the evening of June 16 because they heard they had been talking to "Goatee." Testimony in 1967 also indicated that they hoped to lure Schwerner to Neshoba County in order to ambush him there.
That plan worked. After they left the church June 21, Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price pulled the men over for speeding and then put them in jail. While they were there, and not allowed a phone call, Jordan’s and other testimony indicated that Preacher Killen gathered some two dozen men in Meridian and Philadelphia to help put his plan into motion. According to testimony, he ordered Jordan to get rubber gloves for the men, told everyone where to meet and when, and then left the conspirators in order to establish his alibi by paying respects to Alex Rich at McLain-Hayes Funeral Home. (A funeral home register book in the possession of former Neshoba Democrat editor Stanley Dearman showed he also signed the register as “Rev. Edgar Ray Killen” that night in the next parlor over. He stopped into visit the family of a little girl in the next parlor, whom father members said Killen was not close to—perhaps to solidify his alibi.)
The afternoon of June 21, Jordan said, Killen had told the men that the three civil rights workers were waiting in the Neshoba County Jail and that he needed "some men to tear their rear ends up." But when the mob arrived in Philadelphia, they would learn that bulldozer operator Herman Tucker had a fresh grave waiting for the men on the property of businessman Olen Burrage near the Neshoba County Fairground. Their bodies would be interred there until informer and highway patrolman Maynard King, now deceased as well, led the FBI there 44 days after they were killed—on Aug. 4, 1964.
Because They Were White
The petite-but-powerful Bender—now a regal, white-haired Seattle attorney, remarried with two grown children—made it clear 41 years after her first husband’s death that she did not come to Mississippi to talk about her feelings and to use emotion to elicit easy sympathy from a jury. In fact, she steadfastly refused to answer any question from media that started, "How do you feel?"
Bender came back, instead, to watch a Mississippi jury—with nine whites and three blacks—convict a conspirator for the first time of a State criminal charge in the case that made a nation pay attention to race brutality in the South. But standing in front of the courthouse, Bender emphasized that none of us are in Neshoba County this week due to the fact that James Chaney, a native Mississippian and a black man, had been killed.
"You’re here, you’re interested in this trial as the most important trial in the Civil Rights Movement because two of the men were white," Bender told the media. "You’re still doing what was done in 1964."
Regardless of the outcome, Bender’s message throughout her visit to Neshoba County was that this case, while important, is not enough. "The discussion about racism in this country has to continue," Bender said. "If this is a way to do that, then this trial has meaning."
‘This Could Be the End’
Sitting in the Coffee Bean across from the courthouse later that day, James Chaney’s younger brother, now 52, echoed Bender’s sentiments. Ben Chaney—who was only 11 when his brother was killed, with TV images of him tearfully singing "We Shall Overcome" seared into many Americans’ consciousness—has been critical of this case, primarily because the state is only prosecuting one man, instead of the seven conspirators who are still alive. He calls the case "incomplete."
"It’s good they went after Killen," he said in a lengthy interview. "But I’m afraid this could be the end. … [The trial] gives the community a chance to exonerate their guilt, but it can also bring another level of distortion."
He believes the state is focusing on Killen because "he is so unrepentant" and because the Klan is now such a lightning rod, even among people who used to defend them. "People hate the Klan because it represents the worst of the community."
But, like Bender, Chaney does not want to see too much focus on the Klan. That would obfuscate the reality of what was going on in Mississippi on every level of white society, from the governor’s mansion to the Citizens Council, the Sovereignty Commission to white Mississippians who wouldn’t speak up against race hatred and violence.
"In the ‘60s, good people did nothing," Chaney said.
To truly move forward and away from the past that many Mississippians still prefer not to talk about, Chaney said, we must do what makes us uncomfortable: face the truth. And that truth can hurt—it means that simply blaming a few rednecks in the Klan for Mississippi’s ugly race history is inaccurate and, indeed, "incomplete," as Chaney calls it. It also means not learning the lessons that can keep history from repeating itself—as it did in Jasper, Texas, when young white men dragged a black man behind their pickup until his head detached in 1998, or in Laramie, Wyo., the same year when young homephobes left Matthew Shepard tied to a fence to die.
Chaney talks about continuing race discrimination and economic oppression, as well as homophobia, when he warns that a less-than-complete accounting for the past will not bring change. Through the James Chaney Institute for Human Rights, which is about to open an office in Meridian, Miss., he works with young people to train new leaders and help open their eyes to accurate history, he says. "That’s my job—to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself."
The transplanted Mississippian—who moved with his mother, Fannie Lee Chaney, to New York City after his brother’s death—said black Mississippians still suffer under the pain and legacy of lynchings. The race terrorism wasn’t simply brutality by a handful of violent people; it served as a strong deterrent to keep them from economic and political equality, and helped instill the economic inequalities that still exist today. He points to the recent anti-lynching resolution in the U.S. Senate—and Trent Lott and Thad Cochran’s absence from the signature list—as evidence that many white Mississippians still don’t get it, or won’t admit it if they do.
"They blew it," Chaney said of Lott and Cochran. "They have a responsibility; they dropped the ball. They’re still defending those acts."
‘The Toughest State’
"You can cut years off the fight throughout the South by concentrating on Mississippi and showing how there can be progress in the toughest state," Michael Schwerner said in April 1964. The quote was handwritten on a poster tacked to a tree at a Memorial Service to the three last Sunday at the Longdale Community Center east of Philadelphia.
"It’s good that Killen is being prosecuted," said civil rights veteran Diane Nash, who helped lead the early Nashville lunch counter sit-in in 1960 as a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. "But what about the others? What about the eight men found when the FBI was looking for their bodies. … Mississippi is protecting racist white men and needs to stop."
What is difficult for—or simply unknown to—many state residents is that Mississippi was the worst offender by nearly any standard. We had more reported lynchings. We came out of Reconstruction with horrendous "Black Codes" designed to yank away any rights blacks had won after the Civil War. Jim Crow laws were not to be bent even by critics, and the law was there to enforce them.
Then there was the implicit and explicit agreement by every level of government and society to keep blacks stratified into a separate-but-unequal status. Blacks could vote—technically—but were harassed away from the polls, or beaten or killed or cut off from their welfare checks when they tried. Or they were asked how many bubbles in that bar of soap. They were taxed, but couldn’t vote.
African American taxes even helped pay for a state spy agency to ensure that they would never demand their rights under the U.S. Constitution. The state Sovereignty Commission—established by the Legislature in 1957 to counteract the "threat" of school desegregation—was supported by taxpayer money until 1973, as well as financing from members of the white Citizens Council. That group was known as the "uptown Klan," as newspaperman Hodding Carter Jr. called the group of business leaders that boycotted his business, and many others, in the 1960s for his support of civil rights.
Sovereignty Commission files (now available online) show that state investigators tracked the civil rights activities of the Schwerners and provided their license number to police officers and sheriffs (and, thus, the Klan, which was "riddled" with law enforcement, as Bender put it). "Investigators" did everything possible to discredit the movement and, perhaps most alarming, stirred up race hatred around the state. The file contains letters from prominent businesspeople, most Citizens Council members, who donated money to the effort.
In myriad ways, the state government fed directly into the violence that occurred on Road 515 as well as other civil rights violence.
Bender said on Day 3 that truth should start with acknowledging that the state of Mississippi itself was a conspirator in her husband’s murder. "There needs to be a discussion about how the government of Mississippi created this atmosphere where violence was permitted and, to a great extent, encouraged," she said, adding, "The state has to acknowledge its responsibility."
A ‘Peaceful’ Klan?
But even as public sentiment now rejects the Klan and its more notorious figures, acknowledgement of just how bad the state was on "the race question" and the complicity of white citizens—including loved ones and role models—is an extremely arduous task.
A common, and easy, response to race-dialogue efforts today in Mississippi is that there is racism everywhere, so why should Mississippians keep apologizing, or be constantly under the microscope. Killen defense attorney James McIntyre used this argument during closing arguments this week. "The state of Mississippi needs to go forward, not backward," he said, adding, "This has done nothing but agitate all the citizens.”
But truth can be, and often must be, agitating. Thus, it can be easier to live in denial and hurl "opening old wounds" excuses rather than face the past. This week, former Philadelphia Mayor Harlan Majure, taking the stand in defense of Killen, made headlines when he told the court that he remembered the Klan being "peaceful" and doing good deeds. This was particularly galling to many because the Klan tends to pop up as the more vitriolic—if not outright violent—response to strides toward race equality by blacks, as well as Jews and other groups, now including homosexuals.
It’s hard for a student of Mississippi, or American, history to buy the "peaceful" label for the Klan, but it’s easy when you grow up amid uncomfortable silence on such issues—perhaps not learning until you’re 14 that a very famous murder case happened in your hometown when you were 3. You might be told that the extremists (or "communists" or "outside agitators" or, these days, "liberals") overblow the rhetoric. You hear that Forrest, a military hero, started the Klan for pure, Christian reasons. It was a gift to scared blacks who preferred being separate then and later during the 1960s. Or, as Killen and others have told the media over the years, those young men came down "looking for trouble" and "got themselves killed."
You don’t know what you don’t know. At least until you become more educated.
That’s what happened to Deborah Posey, 50, a white nurse on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indian Reservation. Posey grew up in Philadelphia amid the de facto code of silence just like everyone else did. She had never been an activist, and her family didn’t really talk about race issues very much. But one day last year she saw a story in the Neshoba Democrat about a group of local people coming together for "redemption and reconciliation."
"Those were words that resonated with me," Posey said, sitting in the back row of the courtroom after closing arguments and the case went to the jury. "But it didn’t feel like people in the city wanted to deal with it."
The nurse joined the Philadelphia Coalition, a multi-racial group that called for prosecutions in this case, and her personal education began. She started understanding the hollowness of the rhetoric used by attorney McIntyre in his closing statement. "Old wounds, old wounds, old wounds," the nurse said. "A wound can look healed and not truly be healed … eventually you have to open it up and let it be drained."
‘I Believe in Prayer’
Posey is quick with her reason now for joining this effort to bring better racial understanding to Neshoba County. "I believe in prayer, and I’ve been praying for a long time for my city. I want to see my city heal and go forward." She is adamant that it can only do that once the past is squarely faced.
Education is absolutely essential, Posey said—including about the hard stuff that might even agitate people a little at first. "I’ve met people I did not know," she said of her involvement with the coalition, which has drawn blacks, whites and Choctaws on all economic levels. It has also drawn ire from civil rights veterans like Diane Nash who say that descendants of racists are now trying to "profit" off civil rights history, and aren’t willing to be completely honest about the past.
Posey, though, said she now wants to hear the truth, all of it, from the large to the small stories that helped her understand that other people have different perspectives. She recalls learning from a Choctaw friend in her 40s that as a little girl, she thought that a "white only" sign in a local store meant she could only order white, or vanilla, ice cream. It was a small story, but one that shows how a third race can easily get left out of the attempts for understanding.
"You need to walk in someone else’s shoes to know how somebody else feels," Posey said, adding that facing fears and shame isn’t easy. She advises other Mississippians: "Face those fears; I’ve had to face mine."
Posey is quick to say that this effort must not end with Killen, regardless of the verdict, even though she expects that some members of the coalition might get back to their normal lives once it’s over. "It’s still a process, still a process of healing," she said.
Despite criticism such as Nash’s, coalition members are working to push the work forward. On Wednesday through Friday of this week, June 22-24, they are hosting an education summit for teachers at Philadelphia High School—the "Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner Living Memorial Civil Rights Education Summit"—a free event with workshops on how to incorporate more complete civil rights studies into curricula, as well as a keynote address by civil rights veteran Lawrence Guyot. And the coalition announced after the verdict that they are going to push for a larger racial-reconciliation effort in the state for a fuller accounting of the state’s racist past and more public atonement for past crimes.
Leroy Clemons, the 43-year-old black co-chairman of the Philadelphia Coalition and head of the local NAACP, said that "we are not done here." With the multi-racial members of the Philadelphia Coalition standing behind him just after the verdict on June 21, Clemons described the conspiracy between the state, the Sovereignty Commission, the Citizens Council and the KKK in a way seldom done in the state. "These facts have been little understood by Mississippi citizens," Clemons said, calling on "honest citizens in every county … to answer the call." The coalition’s renewed purpose, he said, is to "seek truth, ensure justice for all and to nurture reconciliation … to see this journey through to the promised land." He added, "We must understand the system that encouraged it to happen, so we can dismantle it."
"This is one of the major steps in the beginning," Posey said of the Killen case. "It is not the end."
The Good People’s Time
Ben Chaney is impressed with forward-thinking children of Mississippi who have not left, or who have returned, to help mend racist rifts, even as he has been critical of the Philadelphia Coalition, especially for allowing Gov. Haley Barbour and Rep. Chip Pickering to speak at the 40th anniversary commemoration service for his brother and his two fellow activists in 2004. He pointed to the state flag pin that Barbour wears on his lapel that contains a symbol of a way of life that his brother died to change. At last year’s event, Chaney held a press conference outside the Mount Zion service, criticizing the coalition for edging out long-time civil rights veterans and for bringing "negative people" like Barbour to the podium.
Still, Chaney seems to have mellowed a bit by this year, and is complimentary of Mississippians—including young whites—who are working for reconciliation. "Good people have been intimidated for too long," he said to the group gathered under huge trees outside the shell of the Longdale Community Center Sunday (it burned in recent years). "So many young people turned 18, 20, then found out what their neighbors did. The first thing they did is left the state." But, he said, some are coming back and "fulfilling their obligation to the state, to their motherland." This retention and education of young people is key, he said.
"I’m afraid if we don’t train young people to take the lead, it’ll be another 40 years until the name ‘Olen Burrage’ is brought up," he said. Chaney is particularly concerned with men he calls "millionaires" who play behind-the-scenes roles in race problems—whether the Citizens Council boycotts of newspapers and progressive business owners or rich businessmen (like, allegedly, Burrage) allowing graves to be dug on their land. (Burrage was acquitted in 1967; he still lives in Philadelphia.)
Chaney believes the reconciliation effort must be multiracial; yet, he wants it to be brutally honest, and he wants leaders held accountable for their role. He calls for the state Legislature, with its large number of black members, to establish a statewide Truth and Reconciliation Task Force. The group would both detail and acknowledge the state’s role in civil rights atrocities, as well as gather information into one place on unsolved race murders and demand prosecutions of killers who are still alive. It would gather legal resources, identity race-violence victims and their families and be a way to call in the Justice Department for investigative assistance (which he strongly believes Attorney General Jim Hood should have done in this case).
"It would promote a fundamental premise of justice," Chaney said of his task force idea. He doubts that the state’s leadership, including Barbour and Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, would buy into the idea, but he calls for the legislators, especially the House, to act on behalf of the people.
Cleaning Mississippi’s House
Chaney has roundly criticized Susan Glisson, the director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at Ole Miss, for her role in allowing Barbour the podium last year at the first county-wide event to honor the three men, which was organized by the Winter Institute. However, this week during the trial, she and Chaney and many others were echoing very similar sentiments about the need for the state to face all its demons. She particularly liked Chaney’s idea for a legislative task force to help the state get past its "willful amnesia."
"That’s a phenomenal idea," she said when told of Chaney’s idea. "I think everything ought to be on the table to have the conversation." She also wants to see race forums in every county in Mississippi, creating a "safe environment" for difficult discussion. And, like Chaney, she does not believe that a truth and reconciliation effort should include amnesty for old race crimes—which some supporters call for in order to get people to talk more easily.
"First justice, then truth is established within," Chaney said at the Coffee Bean. He and Glisson believe that communities coming together to call for old prosecutions can, and must, then go further toward revealing the entire truth—not just what the prosecution decided would help the case against one of many conspirators.
Chaney joins others in Mississippi like the former newspaper editor Stanley Dearman (who calls Killen the "first among equals" of the conspirators) in wanting Killen’s verdict to be guilty. Yet, it is just not enough. "I don’t think this one case is going to clean Mississippi’s house," he said.
But the younger generations can do just that, Chaney said—adding that Mississippi is the "safest" place for him and is a "shining example" of young blacks and whites working together. They just have to work harder to bring more people into the light.
Derrick Johnson, the president of the Mississippi NAACP, is trying to do just that. Standing on the Neshoba County courtsquare on Day 1, with his young son standing at his side, he said that the "quiet game" must end and that the state of Mississippi needs to acknowledge its past sins regardless of Preacher Killen’s fate.
"The state of Mississippi should be held accountable for its actions," Johnson said.
So must the country, Bender emphasized. This isn’t just a Mississippi problem—the rest of the country must face the question of race as well, she said under the magnolia tree. “In some ways, maybe the country is on trial,” Bender said.
Clemons said after the verdict that it is time to step up and do the right thing. “As a state and a nation, it is time to answer the call," he said, then sending a message to other Mississippians: "We challenge our fellow citizens to join us in an honest appraisal of the past.”
Donna Ladd grew up in Neshoba County.
Read the JFP's blog about the Killen trial here.
CORRECTION: In the print version of this story, Lawrence Guyot's last name is spelled incorrectly due to a typo by the writer. We regret the error.
COMMENTS
Donna, this is a beautiful story, great writing. Almost made me cry. For some reason unexplained I'm not angry as normal after reading an article like this. You have my award for this. I will keep a copy of this article until death.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/22/05 at 03:03 PM
Thanks, Ray. I filed it right under the wire from the media room at the trial yesterday with a press conference with the victims' families and the attorneys for the prosecution right next to me. It was very meaningful to be able to do that. ;-)
But be sure to print up the print version to see Kate Medley's downright amazing photos of Killen and the trial, and Jimmy Mumford's amazing cover spread on this story. Also see Natalie Irby's column about the closing statements, which makes me tear up every time I read it; I think it's one of the best columns we've ever printed.
Also a big shout-out to Thabi Moyo who was on the scene shooting video footage, and the home teamóled by Caseyówho put out the issue so that we didn't have to miss a thing from the trial. This issue was really a team effort, and a special one to all of us here.
posted by ladd on 06/22/05 at 03:43 PM
Joyce Brewer from WAPT just e-mailed this:
Just wanted to inform you of a special report tonight where we'll have
in-studio analysts, including Derrick Johnson of the MS NAACP:
A local trial that made national history...Our cameras were allowed to go where other stations were not permitted, but we couldn't reveal what we saw and heard...until now! A 16 WAPT News Special Report...The Killen Verdict: Behind the Scenes, tonight at 7pm only on 16 WAPT.
posted by ladd on 06/22/05 at 03:45 PM
I believe this ties into your other thread on Bill Moyer's speech on the haves (big business) and the have nots (the common American citizen). I dream of a future where we come together as one UNITED human race and fight the corruption in our system. My dream scares the hell out of the corrupt ones in our society, and that is why they will always try to divide us, "dumb us down" in substandard schools, and play up our racial differences.
But we must keep the faith, work to heal old wounds, and spread peace, love, and respect (nod to my friend Nickel G).
posted by Steph on 06/22/05 at 03:51 PM
Wonderful, Donna, beautiful writing.
And darn, I wish we had Channel 16 up in the north end of the state.
posted by C.W. on 06/22/05 at 07:07 PM
So... I should stock up on sackcloth and ashes, then?
I don't mean to be snippy, sorry. Just tired of living here.
posted by Ironghost on 06/23/05 at 08:36 AM
more to the OP, I fully believe we'll keep plodding through the backlog of cases, working to solve them to the best of our ability. Not because outsiders say we should to expunge our collective guilt, but because it's only fair to see everyone get the justice due them.
posted by Ironghost on 06/23/05 at 08:38 AM
I will never understand dumb Mississippians' preoccupation with what outsiders think of us. Outsiders think we're backward, racist, and dumb because we were; and, by and large, still are. I'm sick of this running from the truth. If you don't want to be called racist and backward then stop exhibiting the evidence and characteristics. All you have to do is reject the knowingly stupid falsehoods your mothers, fathers, grandparents, and teachers taught you. Excuses, additional feigned oblivion, and flight from the truth won't help this situation. Mississippi, and Amrica, have run from the truth for decades and centuries, to no avail. God's truth is superior to man's lie and always will be.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 08:52 AM
Ray wrote: If you don't want to be called racist and backward then stop exhibiting the evidence and characteristics. All you have to do is reject the knowingly stupid falsehoods your mothers, fathers, grandparents, and teachers taught you.
I don't think truer, or more straightforward, words have ever been spoken in this state. You're right; it's time to stop complaining and just do it. Every single person who hears the excuse-makers make excuses know it's an excuse.
And this certainly applies to some uneducated folk right now running around Jackson hiding their own racism in their cherrypicking about crime. Call them out, all. We can be better than those people. They cannot, must not, should not continue representing this state on behalf of the rest of us who have the good sense and the courage to reject the race rhetoric of the past. Step up.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 09:15 AM
Iron, it's not about "outsiders" and never has been. It's about what we think of ourselves. The "outsider" thing is just an excuse for not doing the right thing then or now.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 09:17 AM
Ray, I must add another thing. It is confounding and ironic that the people who seem to be the least willing to mothball the habits of their parents and grandparents are the same ones who yap all the time about "personal responsibility." Yeah, it's always about "personal responsibility" of the other guy.
Speaking of, anyone see the dumbass editorial in the Northside Sun this week about this case? That paper gets worse, and more out of touch, by the week.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 09:18 AM
Ladd: I think we're starting to realize that we haven't been, well, fair to everyone. That doesn't sound right, but it's all I can think of. I think Beckwith and Killen are two parts of a push to finally make sure everyone gets the justice denied them years ago.
The good thing (among others) about the group in Neshoba County doing this, is that there aren't any "outsiders". It will get easier once everyone sees other Mississippians doing it on their own.
posted by Ironghost on 06/23/05 at 09:30 AM
Suerly you're right Donna. Iron, we have always known we weren't fair to everyone. Our racism wasn't and isn't accidental.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 09:39 AM
I totally agree, Iron, that the entire nut is cracked from within. Mississippians have abdicated our responsibilities for so long and in so many ways. That's what allows someone like Haley Barbour to get elected and then start cutting the efforts put there in the first place to equalize public schools that were so unequal for so long. There's a lot of work to be done, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means it's time for each person to start taking that personal responsibility to their part. Many have; the others need to start stepping up. As Natalie so beautifully says in her column this week, old coots like James McIntyre, with their backward ideas and stereotypes and stupid rhetoric, need to "hold on to their seats," while the rest of us get together and move the state forward.
The funny thing is, when we finally really decide to do that, the rest of the world will start looking at us in awe. But that's NOT the reason to do it. We do it because it's the right thing, and right for Mississippians. Let's the rest of the world tend to their problems; let's tend to our own. We've got a great chance to -- right now.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 09:40 AM
Well... I could say that politics has interfered with Mississippians ability to fix things ourselves. Once we realize we can do things on our own, like rebuild our economy, fix race relations, elect reasonable officials to public office... well, we might have a chance.
We think we have to follow tradition, and now we realize that's not a good idea in all thing. Maybe we can quit singing that line in Dixie, "old times are not forgotten" and forget the old times and make better ones. Maybe we'll realize it's up to us to get it done.
posted by Ironghost on 06/23/05 at 09:51 AM
Iron, we just must reject the politics of raceówhether it lingers in crime discussions (can you believe McIntyre played the Jackson race-crime card???) or in policy decisions about welfare, education and health care.
Now, as for your Dixie line†ó I absolutely do not think we should forget the old times. Understanding what happened, and how it happened and who was complicit and how they convinced everyone to go along with it, is key to not letting it happen again. However, we certainly must stop revering the old times. It's truly not hard to admit that Mississippióand its elected agentsóhave been wrong many times and apologize for it. That's the first step to setting it right. Of course, there will always be the closet racists (who might not even recognize their own racismóafter all, the Citizens Council, the Klan and now the Council of Conservative Citizens tell you they're not "racist") who try to stop progress, but they must be exposed and marginalized. And these days that means exposing race-coding and calling out the naked emperor for what he is: a bigot.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 09:58 AM
Amen Iron. Despite America's undisputed dark history of white supremacy here and abroad; in America and Mississippi we still have this great opportunity to become a true beacon and light for the rest of the world to marvel at. To do this we have to face and exorcize our demons. The whole world knows about Mississippi's demons. McIntyre's actions redisplayed them, and our silence is allowing them to refester and lay dormant to the next opportunity.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 10:03 AM
I read all this, and all I can say is, PHEW! This is all so deep - I hope I don't give myself a coronary.
There is so much work to be done, but the only way to get it done is to get started.
There's only one way to find a needle in a haystack...remove one straw at a time.
posted by L.W. on 06/23/05 at 11:34 AM
Isnt it nice of Ms Bender to come all the way from seattle to tell us "why" we care about the trial. For her to say "we" (whoever "we" is supposed to be) only care about the two white men killed is very presumptuous and stereotypical on her part. I am saddened and embarrased for the state the three human beings were killed regardless of race.
I, of course, sympathise with her loss and am disgusted by the acts of these "Patriotic Christians" 41 years ago. I am glad Killen was convicted and believe justice should be served on all those who committed the acts in the 50's and 60's.
But as a Mississippian i am soooooooooooooo tired of people outside the south preaching at us about "what we need to do" or "why we care" about certain things. If Bender is so concerned about the state of Mississippi then she ought to move down here from Seattle and offer her time , pro bono, to help bring these other conspiritors to justice.
But if all she has to offer is "high-minded-psuedo-intellect" preaching then i wish her a safe and speedy trip back to Seattle.
posted by JacksunGuy on 06/23/05 at 11:58 AM
JacksunGuy, she said that because she knows countless black folks were killed by the klan and other racists and nothing was ever done or said about it. If you don't think she was mostly right then you're blind and stupid. If we're too cowardly and hypocritical to say what outsiders do say when we know it's true, then outsiders ought to say it. You seem angrier at her than Preacher Killer. Sorry I meant Killen.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 12:10 PM
Ray, how you presume to know what I am angry about or how knowledgebale or stupid i am is as blind and knee-jerk as Bender saying that the only reason people in Neshoba County care is that two whites were killed.
Have you, or Bender for that matter, polled the population of Neshoba county? How do you presume to know what a majority of Mississippians think? I think anyone who commits crimes should be held accountable whether they are "hate crimes" or not. A crime against a person is a crime against a person.
You, sir, seem very angry at the people of Mississippi, 90% of which I am sure you have never met and talked with about how they feel. If you quit using tired quips and snippets you might realize that MOST people are glad the old goat got convicted.
posted by JacksunGuy on 06/23/05 at 12:17 PM
Jacksunguy, I can surmise, feel, infer, and discern how happy everyone is from the unusual silence and your barely controlled anger. Moreover, I can tell what some people think and feel from the ones who are bold enough to talk. You can't fool me. The fact that most Mississippians allowed these crimes to go unpunished for years speaks volumes about what most Mississippians think. The sad refrain about "not bring up the past" and "letting a dead dog lie" likewise, speaks volumes about the sentiments of people. Bring it on JacksunGuy. I'm up for the challenge.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 12:29 PM
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 12:31 PM
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 12:33 PM
Ray it appears you are trolling for a fight so I will let you "win" and continue with your "super appologist" self rant.
I do not pretend to speak for others, I have simply noted that most people I talk to are glad he was convicted (sure there are a few wing-nuts from the dark ages that wanted to see him go free). I however, and most Mississippians that i know personally have nothing to "appologise for". Killen never spoke for me, nor did the Klan, nor did Gub'na Ross Barnett. You, however, appereantly not only speak for, but know intimately the thoughts of all Mississippians so debating with you is senseless. Have a nice day :)
posted by JacksunGuy on 06/23/05 at 12:42 PM
Cheers, JacksunGuy. I can dish it and I can take it. The truth is the light. I don'tknow what most people of Mississippi think, but I can make a good guess since I was born and reared here. I'm always open to illumination and edification. I love Mississippi and has always said so. I spent 12 years away and always wished I was still here. I embrace the goodness of Mississippi and abhor the evilness of it. I will never lie for or on Mississippi.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 12:50 PM
Guessing leads to "pre-judging". It's no different than a policeman saying "I would guess that black kid over there is up to no good cuz i have been a cop on this beat for years"
You can't just lump a group of people together Ray. Just because someone looks a certain way or lives in a certain place. I believe (correct me if i am wrong Donna) that the editor of JFP hails from neshoba county. Is she backwards thinking and a racist?
posted by JacksunGuy on 06/23/05 at 12:54 PM
Guessing leads to "pre-judging". It's no different than a policeman saying "I would guess that black kid over there is up to no good cuz i have been a cop on this beat for years"
You can't just lump a group of people together Ray. Just because someone looks a certain way or lives in a certain place. I believe (correct me if i am wrong Donna) that the editor of JFP hails from neshoba county. Is she backwards thinking and a racist?
posted by JacksunGuy on 06/23/05 at 12:54 PM
Guessing is certainly dangerous and can and does lead to mistakes. You get no argument from me on this. It's terribly wrong to stereotype people and I regret having done that. I happen to Know Donna and she knows me. We know that neither of us are racist. Unfortunately, we must sometime cautiously extends based on what we see. I'm far more cautious and mentally stable than you likely realize since you don't know me. I appreciate your comments more than you realize.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 01:01 PM
Nah, your mental stability was never in question, you are just passionate about what you believe! Not a thing wrong with that ;) Lets both keep striving to move our great state forward!!
posted by JacksunGuy on 06/23/05 at 01:10 PM
Jacksun, I just read your first comment above about Rita Schwerner Bender. You are putting words into her mouth and in an offensive way. She is talking about America, and to all of the media from around the country. She's not just talking about Mississippi and the South. She is telling the media that theyóincluding Northern media back in the 1960sóonly cared about this case because two white men were killed, just as Andy Goodman's father said then. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that she is right. You're allowing your own defensiveness to keep you from hearing what a eloquent and compassionate and caring woman, whose husband was brutally killed here, had to say last week. That is very, very sad. I feel sorry for you if that's all you can hear.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 01:30 PM
Ok, JacksunGuy, but you will have to forgive me for intellectually knowing and articulating the true history of America and Mississippi. I can't stop doing this until proven wrong.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 01:31 PM
Jacksun, I just kept reading your comments ... unbelievable. How in the world did you twist what I reported above into this outright lie:
ender saying that the only reason people in Neshoba County care is that two whites were killed.
Jacksun, this is disgusting. Try a little reading comprehension here before you violate these forums any further with your defensive word-twisting. That is not welcome here.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 01:33 PM
My post did have an offensive tint to it now that i go back and read it. I am just so tired of todays Mississippians (many of whom like myself were a decade away from being born) being dragged through the mud nationally by the media and by people who are not even from here and spend no time here.
I still maintain that MOST mississippians are good, fair, and decent people. I dispute the thought that most "white folks" in the state wanted to see killen go free. And I dispute the fact that the Klan or Killen has ever spoken for me or that I should have to appologise to ANYONE from ANY state for his actions. The man is a gruesome murderer who preyed on peoples ignorance to manipulate them into killing three innocents. For anyone, media or otherwise to assume myself or any other Mississippian condones that type of behavior DOES anger me.
posted by JacksunGuy on 06/23/05 at 01:38 PM
Jacksun, I don't like those stereotypes, either. However, if you want to post individual links to media stories that are saying those things, then we can discuss them, and should. Otherwise, it might seem as if you are being a bit defensive and putting words into other people's mouths, as you did above on behalf of Rita Bender. For one thing, Bender made a point of saying that this is the whole nation's problem, not just Mississippi's. And she said right after the verdict how much she appreciated Neshoba County bringing this case and the good people of Mississippi who are not standing up and saying this is wrong.
However, it won't do anyone any good for Bender, me, you, Ray, James McIntyre or anyone else to try to pretend that Mississippi has done the right thing all these years. The truth is, in the past, the majority of Mississippians did not stand up against heinous race crimes, and we have continually refused to do anything about many of them, especially if the victims were black, as well as take that hateful symbol out of our state flag. We have a governor who wears it every single day. We have two U.S. senators who will not sign a resolution declaring that lynching was wrong and that that body should have acted long ago to stop it.
So if people outside here think that we are still chained to the hate of the past -- what are weóor our elected officialsódoing to change their minds??? And I promise, defensiveness doesn't help a damn thing.
In fact, Mississippians are doing a lot, or many of us are. But we need the rest of the good people of Mississippi by our sides, not spouting off crime rhetoric about black crimes while trying to excuse away (or hide) suburban white crime or these heinous crimes we've never thought were important enough to prosecute. As a fellow Mississippi, I can tell you from the heart that the best way to overcome the shame of our past -- which I believe everyone share, to some extent -- is to face it and try to change its legacy. Denying it only makes one a bitter, angry person. And we all know them. They're no fun to be around.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 01:46 PM
Barbour strikes again. Look what he said today in response to Ben Chaney's response to his lapel pin, especially the bolded statement:
Ben Chaney, the younger brother of one of the murdered civil rights workers, after Tuesday's verdict criticized Barbour, saying, "Mississippi has a governor who embraces symbols of racism," saying he wears "a Rebel flag on his lapel."
Barbour wears a pin that has the state and U.S. flags crossed. The state flag includes the Confederate battle emblem in one corner. Barbour said the crossed flags are the emblem of the state National Guard and, "I wear this pin every day. If somebody doesn't like it, that's tough."
Another brilliant statement by a Mississippi statesman.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 01:50 PM
JacksunGuy, if you are now reading what Ms. Bender said (instead of reading what you thought an "outsider" would have said), let me tell you that a lot of people in Mississippi, of more than one skin tone, agree with her.
This case got the nation's attention because it involved two white men and not just black men - that much is obvious to a blind man, since all the black men who had been killed or just "disappeared" previously didn't make a ripple in the national consciousness. The presense of the two white men in that earthen dam with the black man is what caused the original notority and that is what has kept this case in the forefront.
I'm sure you know (but it bears repeating) that a good number of bodies (of black men) were found during the 40-odd days that folks were looking for the other three bodies. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think all of those bodies were ever even identified. Why were none of these making national headlines, and why have we not yet pursued justice in any of those?
Unless we, as Mississippians, are willing to buckle down and clean up the place we live in, we can't complain too loudly about outsiders pointing out the old and rotten trash in the collective state backyard.
If we don't show them who we are in a very visible way, old conceptions will still hold sway and we just did it to ourselves with our apathy.
posted by C.W. on 06/23/05 at 01:56 PM
This was said on t.v., too. JacksunGuy will get mad at me for saying this, but, he can't see the forrest for the trees - a blinding southern and Mississippi phenomenon.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 01:58 PM
As Susan Klopfer said in another thread (http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=6503_0_9_0_C), what's next Mississippi?
How do we get justice done in every case that we can? Should we write the AG's office? the DOJ? Should the attorneys that peruse this site try to use their powers to open up other old cases? All of the above? Let's keep on keepin' on!!!
posted by Steph on 06/23/05 at 02:02 PM
He has to keep his buddies happy in the Council of Conservative Citizens (they may not admit publicly that they are the white collar Klan, but you know darn well they love it when we call them that).
posted by C.W. on 06/23/05 at 02:03 PM
If we don't show them who we are in a very visible way, old conceptions will still hold sway and we just did it to ourselves with our apathy.
Amen, sister. And one hint is that being defensive doesn't show a damn thing. It's like getting pissed off at your neighbor because they know you're a scumbag you cheats on your wife. It's misplaced.
Still, I will reiterate that we should not do anything simply to impress "outsiders." We do it because it's right, and for our own people. How about we all get together and make this state a place where too many of our smart young people don't run from the second they're old enough? How about ridding us of our inferiority complexówhich we get because we keep ourselves down and don't do enough as a state that we right here in the state can be proud of, not because other people tell us we're inferior. Confidence comes from within. And admitting past mistakes and making up for them will make our own citizens proudóand that matters a whole helluva bunch more than what some CNN producer thinks.
I know that we're taught in the state not to do this. But you can love your parents and grandparents, and still see the errors in their ways, which were passed down to them as well. We just have to stop the cycle of denial and defensiveness and take on the remaining bigotry every chance we see it. I agree that most people in Mississippi are "good"óthey need to learn to speak up about what's right and challenge what's not. And there has never been a better time than today to start. As the people in my story said, this is a beginning, not an end. I don't see it as "closure"; I see it as a glorious opening. We just have to have the courage to step through.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 02:04 PM
Steph, one thing would be to call on state legislators to start that task force Ben Chaney talked about to gather information about all the cases into one place. Another is to talk to EVERYONE you can about the need to investigate and prosecute all the cases. And, as Bender and others say above, it is time that we understand just how complicit the state of Mississippi was in the race intimidation, violence and economic destruction.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 02:06 PM
Which legislators are receptive to entering a bill to form this task force? (I don't think I should start with Sen. Lotts' office!)
posted by Steph on 06/23/05 at 02:12 PM
posted by Steph on 06/23/05 at 02:16 PM
Donna and C.W. are beautiful people and great writers. There is beauty like this in the truth, JacksunGuy.
"People get ready, a train is coming, and it's picking up passengers coast to coast. All you need is (courage and) faith to hear the diesel humming. Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner for there is no hiding place from the father of creation." Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions wrote this in the late sixties.
There is room for you, JacksunGuy. "Come on in the room."
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 02:17 PM
Ray, you make me blush, but I love you to pieces, you know that. And I'm thrilled that we're all here right now to talk about this in our home state that we all love so much. And I love that song.
He's right, Jacksun, just climb on aboard. There is so not any shame in feeling shame for our past and being sorry for it and trying to make things better. In fact, there is exhilaration and relief and a whole lotta love. Just come on. ;-D
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 02:23 PM
Steph, I haven't had a chance to follow up with legislators, yet, to find out who would be amenable. However, if I were y'all, I would start with the Jackson/Hinds delegation like, say, Jim Evans and Erik Fleming. After all, Erik is running for Lott's seat. And Sen. Gloria Williamson from Neshoba County is a progressive, although that side of the building isn't exactly living in the present, much less in the future, these days. But that chick can make some noise when she wants to. And it very well might be that noise is the main point right now.
Keep us posted on what they say if/when you contact them.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 02:26 PM
Thanks, Ladd.
To everyone: Let's all get in touch with Jim Evans, Erik Fleming, and Gloria Williamson to let them know WE WANT THAT TASK FORCE!
Let's ride that train right onto the floor of our state legislature!!
posted by Steph on 06/23/05 at 02:35 PM
Ok, so just which state legislators would consider chairing such a task force? Who are some likely people we could get to , oh, i hesitate to say this,
step up to the plate. (there's gotta be a better metaphor, but for now,
all I have.) I think there are lots of us who would donate hours of time for
such an effort. It is a beginning for sure. It's happening in other areas now as well , and don't even let's mention Cochran..
As a former 'outsider' now here for almost 2 years, I know - well, I don't
know anything. I'm just glad to be here now.
posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 02:39 PM
We need a JFP Lounge (or some other planning session) to get together and discuss our plan of action.
posted by Steph on 06/23/05 at 02:42 PM
posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 02:45 PM
Steph, I'd originally planned to have a Lounge tonight at Hal & Mal's, but didn't call it because I was away at the trial and didn't know how long it would go. How about June 30 in the Oyster Bar at Hal & Mal's, starting at 7 p.m.? I believe Charly said that was a good night.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 03:03 PM
OK, that's a plan unless I announce differently between now and then in the LoungeBlog. We can chat about topics, serious and frivolous, that night. All are welcome.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 03:09 PM
Sounds good, I'll be there.
well, unless there's a terrible tornado.
(meantime, - re-listen New World Order - Curtis Mayfield.)
posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 03:10 PM
LOL, thanks for your offers of "salvation" Ray. Believeth in him for he is the Ray, he will save you, for he alone knows the way Jingle made up on the fly by Jacksunguy.
So basically if i dont become an "appologist" for something someone did, that the only thing i share with them is the color of my skin then I am doomed? The "RayTrain" wont love me?
Donna, I appologise in advance for my overly sarcastic tone, but I just dont really get the gist of this guys rant. Perhaps someone can else can explain it to me.
1) Who exaclty should i appologise to for "our" past (i was born in 1973), in order to get my ticket on the "RayTrain"?
2) What act that i have done am i actually appologising for? That i was born in mississippi, that i am white? or both?
3) Should ALL mississippians appologise or only white ones?
4) If only white mississippians should appologise then isnt this stereotyping them by heaping this awful tradgedy on them simply because of the color of they're skin?
5) Should we hold Kenneth Stokes to the same standards that you hold Haley to when it comes to insensitive comments? (ok i had to throw that last one in there.
My point is RAY and i will repeat this for the last time I AM GLAD HE WAS CONVICTED!! I HOPE ANYONE WHO COMMITTED CRIMES LIKE THIS IS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE. (and i dont ride trains, they are slow, inefficiant and outdated)
posted by JacksunGuy on 06/23/05 at 03:10 PM
I'm confused, Jacksun. You're already sounding like an apologist. I think Ray is suggesting that you NOT be an apologist. With all due respect, Jacksun, you are being ugly and not listening to what Ray, Mrs. Bender or anyone else is saying here on this otherwise very respectful blog. And your Stokes comment is so incredibly predictable in ways that I can see you are unlikely to ever understand.
Please get on off this train with your ugly sarcasm. Honest and sincere dialogue are welcome here, whatever the the view, but your juvenile nastiness is certainly not welcome here. You're not looking for understanding; you're just looking for a chance to make fun of good people. And that's disgusting, especially on such a serious and comtemplative thread.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 03:14 PM
Also, being that I know the owner around here, I will tell you that this particular thread is not going further down an ugly road. You can start your own thread if you want to try to derail this train; just remember to honor the user agreement in the forums as well.
But, this is warning that another sarcastic post such as the one you just put above will be deleted without further comment.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 03:17 PM
JacksunGuy, If I wasn't an eternal optimist, if could give up on you. Beauty, truth and love was here before me. I can't claim any ownership.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/23/05 at 03:17 PM
posted by Steph on 06/23/05 at 03:18 PM
"Beauty, truth and love was here before me. I can't claim any ownership." -Ray
cool. I'm blissing again with Ray........
posted by Steph on 06/23/05 at 03:21 PM
there was a really good piece in the mainstream CL by W. Raspberry
about apologies, yesterday. I could go find it, but just look yourself,
JG.
posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 03:22 PM
I suspect that was the intention, Steph. Mississippians have long been our own worst enemies. Remember that Marshall Ramsey cartoon after the flag vote when the Mississippi guy was aiming at his own foot and firing. For too long here, the habit has been to make fun of any effort to face and atone for the past, and then to whine when "outsiders" call us out for not doing what other states have tried to do. Bang, bang ...
Meantime, Jacksun, allow me to demonstrate something that does not hurt one bit:
To my fellow black Mississippians and to the families of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner: I am sorry for what "my" people did to your people, supposedly on behalf of all "white" Mississippians. I am sorry that my parents and grandparents did not do more to stop the cycle and the hate. I'm sorry that my relatives in Neshoba County did not speak up and stop the harassment violence or demand prosecutions for the loved ones you lost because they were trying to stand up for what was right. I cannot understand the extent of your pain, but I will do everything in my power to feel empathy for what you must have gone through for the last 41 years, and longer. Most importantly, I will try to understand the legacies of this violence and discrimination and do what I can do to help repair it, so that everyone in our state can live in harmony and have truly equal opportunities. I want to work with you, not against you, to ensure that Mississippi has a bright future for its children. Please allow me to help in whatever small ways I can.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 03:26 PM
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/062005/WIL_B6NUJ1V6.002.shtml
ok, I found it. not the CL but the same piece. darn good.
or very excellent. or thank you.
posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 03:27 PM
posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 03:30 PM
posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 03:44 PM
Wasn't an apology requested and received from Germany along these same lines?
But I guess that's somehow different?
posted by Johann on 06/23/05 at 03:45 PM
I think it's a powerful column, sunshine. He is absolutely right that it makes no sense to refuse so steadfastly to apologize for something awful in the past that was wrought or assisted by an institution, or your own government and tax money, as this crime ultimately. It's the refusal to apologize that it so tragic and symbolic that we haven't yet reached understanding. I can't even comprehend being so defensive about something so awful, just as I cannot comprehend why Lott and especially Cochran would refuse to sign that anti-lynching resolution. It says very clearly to me that they believe most Mississippians (at least who vote) are still racist, and that they are willing to pander to them. I just can't imagine living a life on those kinds of principles. Eek.
I liked this section of Raspberry's column:
Not very long ago, such a coalition would have been unimaginable, and anyone who proposed such a thing would have been visited by nightriders.
Even now, it is well not to overestimate what is happening in the state. School segregation is widespread, thousands of whites having fled desegregated school systems for the so-called "seg academies." Racial fairness is still a dream. But there is movement. What was "Mississippi Burning" is, surprisingly often, Mississippi yearning. A lot of people in the state are apologizing for what used to be.
They understand what seems to escape Thad Cochran: Institutions are more than their incumbents. Mississippi, like the U.S. Senate, is a continuing entity. If the entity believes it has erred, it isn't unreasonable that it apologize. Didn't Pope John Paul II apologize for the Holocaust?
"Yearning" is a good word. So many of us yearn for a Mississippi not ruled by race codes and defensiveness and ridicule of folks who have rejected the bigotry. And it's up to us to make it into that Mississippi. No one else is going to do it for us. Sometimes I feel like I need to march out in front of these people, grab myself a handful of red clay a la Scarlett, raise my hand in the air, and say, "I grew up in the red dirt of Neshoba County, and my parents and grandparents and brother are buried in it. This is my state, too. I refuse to give up on it or to defend its ugliness. I'm not running anymore; I'm staying right here and talking back to you people who have kept us on the bottom for so long and made us think we can't stand up to you. I am going to celebrate how far we've come out loud and in print, even as I share the history all y'all tried to keep from us children of Mississippi so that we're deaf, dumb and stupid about our own history. I don't care about what you say about me or call me. I, too, am going to live and die in Dixie, but I'm going to do everything in my little bitty power to make it a better Dixie before I go."
Well. I guess the speeches are coming a little too easy right now, so I will retire now and do some work. Bliss on, friends.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 03:47 PM
posted by Ironghost on 06/23/05 at 03:54 PM
Cochran: "I deplore and regret that lynching occurred and that those committing them weren't punished, but I'm not culpable.î
Culpable - Fancy lawyer talk for: guilty, in the wrong, responsible, to blame, liable...
I absolutely feel we all have a responsibility to do what we kind to make Mississippi fair and equal for all. If signing a resolution helps to ease the pain of the past, then by all means, DO IT! No one's blaming Thad, but there's that defensiveness coming out that we see so many times from so many people. I think the article captured that well.
posted by Steph on 06/23/05 at 04:01 PM
While I am enthused that Killen will spend the remainder of his days in prison, this is justice only in part, not whole! Next I would personally wish to see the state flag changed, but the complacency with which for too many of my fellow black Mississippians share will not allow for this to transpire.
posted by K RHODES on 06/23/05 at 05:04 PM
KRHODES,
Tell all your fellow black Mississippians to call on state legislators to start that task force Ben Chaney talked about to gather information about all the old murder cases into one place.
I am starting with Jim Evans, Erik Fleming (both Hinds Co. legislators), and Gloria Williamson (Neshoba Co.), as suggested by Ladd.
Let's prosecute as many as we can!
posted by Steph on 06/23/05 at 05:13 PM
I think most people here agree with you wholeheartedly, krhodes, both about it only being justice "in part" ó or, as I wrote in the above story, "of a fashion" ó and I certainly agree with you about the flag needing to be changed. I do, though, think that not enough honesty had been put forth when that flag vote happened to make it happen. To me, the outcome meant that we had a whole lot more work to do, not that the issue was done with. That was a ridiculous read on it. So I believe we do the work, the story-telling, the discussion that needs to be done and then go after that confounded flag again, once our younger generations understand better why it's so disgusting. And the work is being done; let's just turn up the heat as much as possible. And talk, talk, talk.
And, yes, Iron, Mississippians seem to be born preaching. ;-)
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 05:20 PM
BTW, krhodes, when I said "here," I meant on the blog in that instance. I don't want to overplay the attitudes of a majority of Mississippians. This is a work-in-progress.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 05:29 PM
Yeah, whoever said Cochran was "culpable" of anything? How about compassionate and classy enough to sign onto a very important symbolic gesture?
I'm over him.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 05:58 PM
A good column by Neely Tucker today for the Washington Post, etc.
It was, for a small town in a small place, a day of history. It was the first time anyone had been charged with murder in the slayings that gave this town its international reputation. (The 1967 federal trial, in which seven men were convicted of violating the dead men's civil rights, was held in Meridian, in another county about 40 miles south.)
It wasn't pretty. It wasn't textbook. Mississippi small-town scraps rarely are. So: Guilty, they said, but with a twist. They convicted the 80-year-old Klansman of manslaughter, which didn't really fit the charges. The prosecution looked for an up-or-down verdict on murder in the first degree. But this jury wound up in between, saying guilty to charges that leave the part-time preacher and convicted felon (he did five months in prison in the 1970s for threatening to kill a man) facing a sentence of anywhere from three to 60 years.
posted by ladd on 06/23/05 at 05:59 PM
Ladd,
Albeit to a lesser degree, I am a part of the younger generation, and the disconnect with the civil rights generation is profound. We need improved communication between both generations. In addition, I grasped what you were conveying in terms of ìhere" :-)
posted by K RHODES on 06/23/05 at 07:16 PM
Jacksunguy, I have a question for you, pretty easy, nothing too heavy.
Is there anything about Mississippi or a particular Missississippian that you feel especially proud of? And if so, what or who is it and why are you so proud of it/them?
If you can answer that, I'll tell you why I asked. Thanks.
posted by C.W. on 06/23/05 at 07:37 PM
oh dear krhodes - there is no disconnect. most of us are still here for
pete's sake! and we are not going anywhere and we are not going
away and we are not forgetting . I am, sorry, 59, ha. I remember
quite a bit and I will continue to . And I hope to remember some really
good things. turn up the heat. tell the stories.
posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 07:52 PM
There are so many posts on this thread, and so very many good ones, I want to comment on them all, but I know you all don't want to see fifty posts from me (and I am a little tired tonight, so I don't want to write that many). I do want to say a thing or two, though.
First off, I want to say what a joy this board is, most of the posts on here are uplifting my spirit, providing me with food for thought, giving me so much hope for Mississippi and it's people and giving me mental energy for the work we all have yet in front of us!
I can't match the beauty of the apology that Donna offered up, because there is ugliness in what I have to say. Perhaps, though, if I give my ugly apology, it will become easier for those with simpler apologies to speak up.
Because some people I am kin to (now dead) gave me so much more information than I wanted to have, I need to say that I am profoundly grieved to know that distant relatives of mine killed a 14-year-old boy visiting Money, Mississippi; I am profoundly grieved to know that not so distant relatives (only two generations back) hanged a black man in some woods they owned. I wish I had not been so shocked and so horrified that I didn't find out who he was (I'm not even sure that the person telling me knew who it was, since he was only 12 when he witnessed it). Indeed, I spent many years trying to blot all those hated words from my mind, but now I am going to set them free. The most horrible thing was that he was not confessing, mind you, he was bragging. God only knows how many more there were, but I don't want to know, because those two I know about weigh very heavy.
Beyond that I want to apologize for my own sins of commission and omission over the years - all the times when I was younger and still under the spell of my upbringing and said words or did not challenge words that should never leave a decent person's lips. I apologize for the times that I made another human being invisible and unimportant in my eyes. Then there were all the times I did not risk my life or go to work in those places that the freedom-fighters worked and put their lives and their bodies on the line.
I met a few of those heroes and heroines of Freedom Summer last Sunday and I felt privileged to be in the shadow of that burned out community house, and literally in their shadow, listening to them speak on a Fatherís Day 41 years from the Fatherís Day on which those three martyrs had their young lives brutally snatched from them.
For all the inequity, the hardship, the cruelty, the meanness heaped on the heads of African-Americans today and in the past and for the part that I and mine had in these actions, I offer my humblest apologies and pledge my best efforts now and in the future to bring a measure of justice and equality to the state I love - Mississippi.
posted by C.W. on 06/23/05 at 08:23 PM
C.W, I don't know how others who have lived here a long time will respond -
being new here all I can say is thank you for what you said. that's just from
me. I did not risk my life either (though I know some who did) and I did not challenge words.. we were so young and easy to impress but we thought a bit. didn't we, and now we can see. thank you for you post.
posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 08:48 PM
Donna and C.W., I can't thank you enough for those words. It does my soul good.
However, I believe that as an African American, I should apologize on the behalf of others of my ethnicity who have said and done things against whites:
I apologize for all the times those who belong to the Nation of Islam called white men blue-eyed devils. No one can help what eye colr they are born with.
I apologize for the times Christianity was referred to as a white man's religion. How can that be if Christianity began in the Middle East?
I apologize for the times that blacks said white people have no rhythm. It shows that we don't know enough about our culture since African dancers believe that everyone with a heartbeat has rhythm.
I apologize for believing stories I was told as a child that white people's wet hair smelled like animal hair and that white people owned large dogs in order to commit bestiality.
I apologize for the few moments years ago when I, out of frustration, would pull my purse close to me when passing by a white person so that "they" could see what it feels like.
As you can see, none of us are free and clear. We all have misconceptions about each other that need to be cleared up. I am all for racial reconciliation from every side.
posted by L.W. on 06/23/05 at 09:14 PM
Donna: I know that we're taught in the state not to do this. But you can love your parents and grandparents, and still see the errors in their ways, which were passed down to them as well.
Philip: As a native Deep Southerner but not native Mississippian (NE Louisiana native, removed 70 years removed from Simpson Co.), I think Donna REALLY hit on a critical matter holding the region back. We're taught to revere and appreciate our elders - which is great. HOWEVER, that is altogether different from glossing over their imprefections (not just on questions of race).
To say that criticism equals an insult is to say
*You cannot love (or at least respect) someone unless they are morally perfect and wonderful -- given the people of the area pass up NO opportunity to proclaim how devoted they are to Jesus Christ, shouldn't this have at least some glimmer of irony????
*You cannot tolerate imperfections in others -- Ditto remarks about devotion to Jesus, who (according to Christian doctrine) died for OUR imperfections.
*You effectively assume "stupid in one thing, stupid in all" (which our ideas of proper race relations is). This effectively says you cannot respect anyone who is less smart than God Himself or whomever else you consider the supreme creator to be (should you believe in one).
While we are on the subject of tolerating imperfections....saying that criticism of others equals insulting others effectively means:
*You are disrespect others who make stupid mistakes (again, which is what the long history of racism is)
Another tangent: This culture-implanted fear of being seen as stupid may very well explain our region's reluctance to try new things IN GENERAL, new things that can move the region forward. Trying new things inevitably will lead to some errors due to lack of experience in the new field). See April 6th Post on this thread, for more - particularly the paragraph starting with the phrase ìCreative Destructionî
posted by Philip on 06/23/05 at 11:12 PM
Thanks L.W., Philip, et al. Love and the truth can free us all and start the first chapter of Mississippi's new legacy : "Mississippi is Truly Turning."
The door to the train is still open. We have the power to throw off the paralyzing disease of racism.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/24/05 at 07:43 AM
Saddam gassed the Kurds and you lynched the Negro - Does someone really think the trail of one killer will wipe the blood from the hands of today's residents. My company looked at putting a plant in Miss. just 4 years ago and the fact-finding folks came back and said, " No Way, they still don't get it"
posted by Waly on 06/24/05 at 07:57 AM
No, Wally, we don't think that. We think and hope that our new coalitions, networks, truthtelling, honesty, love, diversity, democracy, et al, will eventually atone for some of the bloddy hands of the past. We're not blaming today's innocent residents for the sins of the past. But, I certainly will blame today's residents for the sins of today and much of the future. I hope we indict and convict today's guilty residents for the bloody sins of the past. I , also, hope that we will start to "do the right thing" in larger masses.
posted by Ray Carter on 06/24/05 at 08:09 AM
Good luck! My limited Mississippi experience is fresh (2001). The " We have finally addressed our past and put it behind us" rhetoric was too much for me. Forgive me if I keep Mississippi of my places to visit, but the ignorance and bigotry we found when talking to prospective employees and the local government officials was not far from the (1960s) context of this news article. The recent news reports with interviews of the state's AG were enough to cause me to send him and the governor a letter and find this site. I must get to work now (8am PDT) and I feel better having "spoken" to a Mississipian.
posted by Waly on 06/24/05 at 08:56 AM
Ray, please attend the tentatively scheduled JFP Lounge on June 30th. I feel this meeting will be the beginning of a new coalition for all the things you speak of in the above post.
For the 40 years I have been on this planet, I have felt shame for the ancestors in my home state and what they have done. For 40 years, there has been a heaviness in my chest and, at times, it has smothered me, consumed me with depression over the state of affairs in MS.
While driving home yesterday and reflecting on all the conversation here on this site, I began to realize all that dialogue was beginning to eat away at that feeling that has been with me all my life. That shame (and sometimes depression) is being replaced with hope...hope for my home state. The tears began to flow.
Today is a great, and I'm looking forward to the future.
posted by Steph on 06/24/05 at 08:59 AM
Waly, when you return, meet with the people you have "spoken" to here via the staff at Jackson Free Press. They know where to find the progressive communities and prospective employees. And we will try to help out you if you want to start a business here. Please visit this site often.
posted by Steph on 06/24/05 at 09:03 AM
Ladd said we'd meet around 7 pm at the Oyster Bar in Hal and Mal's. I expect we will see a post on this site sometime soon.
posted by Steph on 06/24/05 at 09:21 AM
That's right, Steph. Remember, all, this isn't a formal meeting. It's a gathering of people to talk and socialize, but I sure do expect next week's Lounge to have at least a small group of people sitting around a table continuing this conversation. But even those who want to listen or have a different conversation altogether are welcome. Nothing formal here.
Waly, please note that the main people blogging here, black and white, are not saying that this verdict wipes anything clean. That would be impossible. What we are trying to do, and have been doing here for almost three years now, is to have a conversation that will help us open doors to better understanding and love and even justice. It is very shortsighted to think that any one action will "solve" our problems. That's what my story above is all about. And we invite you to join the conversation.
C.W. and L.W., thank you for your honest stories. I had a dear (white) friend tell me his shameful story last night about joining a group of young men in Jackson who harassed James Meredith at the Woolfolk building back in the '60s. I truly believe this is the time to talk even if it makes some people uncomfortable. Those people can work through their own issues, and I suspect that our having public conversations will help many of them do just that even if they resist in the beginning. Please consider this a safe place to talk as long as you respect the rules and do not engage in personal attacks of other individuals.
Remember: There is never shame in being honest and compassionate. And it is exactly what our very wounded state needs to heal.
posted by ladd on 06/24/05 at 09:30 AM
I haven't forgotten that some ex-pats (tortoise, dreamtraveler) wanted to get together. And I'm anxious to hear Knol's plans for a Diversity Day at the Jackson Zoo.
posted by Steph on 06/24/05 at 09:45 AM
Waly, looks like you are on pacific time, right? California?
Have you seen the recent film CRASH? I've heard it's very painful
to watch, the race and class relations in Los Angeles.
Just a thought.
I moved to Miss. from Minn. two years ago. I do realize things won't change quickly here, but they sure won't if people like you hold on to your stereotypes. Open your mind, look beyond state government officials (please). Minnesota seems like a very friendly state with lots of benefits for minorites - well, it's not because of their attitudes. Well, maybe some.
But mostly, it's because it's a wealthy state, and Mississippi is not.
I'm just thinking here. There's history of course but it's not that simple.
Come back and visit again. See some other types.
posted by sunshine on 06/24/05 at 09:59 AM
Mississippi verdict greeted by a generation gap:
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=6485_0_9_0_C
posted by L.W. on 06/24/05 at 10:43 AM
Mississippi verdict greeted by a generation gap:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0623/p01s03-ussc.html?s=u
posted by L.W. on 06/24/05 at 10:43 AM
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