(part two of two – click here to read part one)
by Max Courtney
Our next destination was Selma. Along the way we stopped at the memorial for Viola Liuzzo, the only white woman martyred during the civil rights era. By this time in our trip, the red clover was nearing full bloom, and the sides of the roadway were blanketed in bright red.
Selma was the starting place for three marches, two of which didn’t get far. In early March, 1965, a march from Selma to Montgomery was planned in support of voting rights for African Americans and in response to the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson by a state trooper. As the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were attacked by state troopers on what would be known as Bloody Sunday. A number of the marchers were seriously injured. Two days later, in a symbolic march, the participants crossed the bridge again but then turned back. Finally, with Dr. King involved, the marchers set out for Montgomery, guarded by a federal court order.
They came into the capital some 25,000 strong. This marks a turning point in the civil rights struggle, in that many Americans had by then had their fill of the official repression of and viciousness toward African Americans, particularly as was happening in Mississippi and Alabama.
Several of our group retraced the steps of the marchers across the bridge. We were all drawn to the twelve large, stacked stones in a memorial on the Montgomery side of the bridge. They are reminiscent of Joshua 4:21-22, which describes how Joshua commanded the people of Israel to gather a stone for each tribe as part of a monument, so they would be reminded to tell their children how they had crossed over the Jordan to freedom. Frankly, I felt the moment had slapped me up-side the head, since we had spent some class time discussing how important it is to tell our children about the civil rights struggle. That was to become a recurrent theme during the rest of our trip.
McComb in 1964 came to be known as “The Bombing Capital of the World” and “The Most Dangerous Town in Mississippi.” Pike County and adjacent Amite County had proven so dangerous in 1961 that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) pulled out of its voter registration beachhead. During Freedom Summer (1964), sixteen bombings rocked the town. Favorite targets were houses of movement leaders, but black churches were also attacked frequently. Before our driving tour we stayed overnight at the beautiful Percy Quin State Park (good ol’ cabin #2—Laurie’s years-long favorite). My own personal serendipity presented itself as a minor scrape on my knee instead of a busted head when I fell and hit my head upon arrival. The next morning we were treated to a southern breakfast by Laurie’s sister, Laila, and a hospitable reception at the privately owned Black History Gallery by its delightful owner, Ms. Hilda Casin. We capped our driving tour with an elegant lunch at “The Caboose.”
Our tour of Philadelphia and Neshoba County was interesting, if incomplete. This is the town that’s infamous for the 1964 Klan murders of three civil rights workers whose bodies were found weeks later buried under an earthen dam. Our first stop was Rock Cut Road, the site of the actual killings. Can “evil” exist in a palpable, viscous form? If so, that’s perhaps what we experienced there. Perhaps it was the commemorative sign that was all shot up. Or maybe it truly was a coating of hate hanging over our heads. Vincent, our African American group member, felt this more strongly than the rest. Maybe because of this eerie feeling or maybe due to the incipient severe weather, we skipped several tour stops and simply drove by the jail where the three had been held while the Klan gathered. I can’t decide whether the FOR SALE sign on the jail was out of place or simply a Zeitgeist of poetic justice.
Onward we went through heavy rain, with Wendy fretting about my “text while driving” exercises. We overnighted in Greenwood from which we did a driving tour of the Mississippi Delta. This 17-county area between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers was particularly fierce in their reception of the students who participated in Freedom Summer. When the jails filled, the officials simply sent the overflow to the feared Parchman Farm (the state penitentiary in Sunflower County). Interestingly, while most civil rights leaders felt that bringing in well-known speakers or staging protest movements was effective, the Delta leaders (especially SNCC) used community organizing—finding leaders amongst the local people. These tools had actually been taught at Tennessee’s Highlander Center for years before the Mississippi Project.
Highlights (or lowlights) of our Delta driving tour were Ruleville, the home of Fannie Lou Hamer, and Money, where the shot heard ‘round the civil rights world was fired when 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in 1955. Vincent was somewhat undone to learn that a young woman (store clerk) in tiny Ruleville was not familiar with Fannie Lou Hamer. Parents, tell your children! Then in Money was another stomach turner for Vince: the Bryant’s Grocery building wherein young Emmett offended the white lady was literally falling over, with not so much as a road sign to mark the place. How will people remember? (Full disclosure: since our visit the State of Mississippi has placed a historic marker at the site.)
In Greenwood we tried to track down some more information about Wardine “Big Smitty” Smith. He was a ferocious deputy sheriff of Leflore County who had inflicted so much pain on the black community that, as Vincent learned by talking to a resident, they literally told misbehaving children that Big Smitty would get them if they didn’t straighten up.
Our last stop was Indianola in Sunflower County, where numerous persons had been incarcerated or beaten (or both) for the heinous crime of trying to register to vote. We found a memorial for Nathaniel “Slim” Jack, the first African American police officer in Mississippi. He had been used by the Indianola Police Department to deflect criticism for their harsh treatment of blacks—their “pit bull,” if you will. How could black people protest a black policeman beating black people? After a great lunch at the Nola Restaurant, we were thankfully westward bound, traveling under Jim’s steady hand.
This trip was, in a sense, a mission trip. Our mission was to extend our study through on-site lessons and discussions. Given that the only cost to St. Stephen was wear and tear on the church Suburban, we should perhaps consider other experiences such as this.
Additional lessons I learned or relearned:
- Six people can travel together for a week in a crowded Suburban with essentially no friction among them.
- This is not a Weight Watcher cruise.
- Site-based learning affords an opportunity that is unrivaled in its ability to allow the student to connect with the subject.
- There is an imperative need to work harder to pass these stories and histories on to the next generation, lest they have to pay the terrible price of forgetting them or never even learning them.
- Throughout history, “God is still in charge.” (from Rev. Robert Graetz’s sermon). So we can plan for the worst—then watch while serendipity breaks out.
- Realizing that one is sometimes disappointed to learn that one can’t put magic in a jar and recreate a past moment, I nevertheless want to go back for Freedom Road, Part 2.