Beaches, Blood, and Ballots

by Gilbert R. Mason, M. D.

  Sometimes we got served but found our stay uncomfortable. I remember the first time that we tested desegregation of the Saenger Theater. There were a couple of ramshackle black theaters in town, and no black had ever been into the Saenger before 1964. Mrs. Marie Anderson, Mr. Lonnie Ducksworth, and teenage twin boys accompanied our group to see Robin and the Seven Hoods. The tension was so great outside the box office that one of the teenagers suffered a grand mal seizure. The rest of the group went on into the theater. Inside we had the unique experience of trying to watch a motion picture in a dark theater with folks in the back throwing ice at us and rolling cans under our feet. However, this type of harrassment soon faded away, and later groups attending the Saenger reported no problems. We tested everything that summer from ritzy restaurants to the bus station. Clem Jimerson and some of the other members of the Biloxi NAACP Youth Branch got served in the bus station uneventfully, and then bought tickets on a bus to New Orleans to verify the end of the back-of-the-bus rule. I followed the bus to New Orleans and brought the group home after an uneventful ride. Very quietly, a meaningful local revolution in adult race relations got under way in the summer of 1964, as a direct result of the Biloxi branch’s systematic demanding of full compliance with the new federal civil rights laws.

  During that same summer, I met Roy Wilkins personally and had the honor of introducing him at a meeting at the New Bethel Baptist Church; he was touring the South as part of the COFO Freedom Summer voter registration emphasis. The year before, Dr. Felix Dunn and I both had attended the 1963 meeting at the Dooky Chase Restaurant in New Orleans where COFO was born. It had become apparent in 1963 that the major civil rights organizations in the country—the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—needed some mechanism by which to coordinate their efforts. The famous March on Washington in support of President Kennedy’s civil rights bill was being planned. All of these different groups were appealing to people for personal or financial support for their pet projects. The NAACP was the big dog, and when the other groups got into financial difficulties there was a tendency for them to appeal to the NAACP to bail them out In June of 1963, Roy Wilkins had publicly expressed his frustration at an NAACP convention, charging that other groups “furnish the noise,” while the NAACP “pays the bills.” Wilkins was frustrated enough with the lack of coordination to advocate that NAACP members refrain from giving money to the other groups.11 Through the creation of an intergroup council, COFO attempted to bring some strategic coordination to the movement. Aaron Henry, the president of the Mississippi Conference of the NAACP, was elected president of COFO. All of the organizational members of COFO found that they could agree on the need for black political empowerment through voter registration in the South as a top priority.

  COFO’s 1963 and 1964 voter registration efforts brought the appearances not only of Roy Wilkins but also of James Farmer from CORE, Bob Moses from SNCC, and Lawrence Guyot, a Pass Christian native, also with SNCC. As in other places in Mississippi, freedom schools were organized in Biloxi and Gulfport and at the Methodist Gulfside Assembly at Waveland near Bay St. Louis. In Biloxi the United Benevolence Association Hall was made available for a freedom school under the coordination of SNCC. COFO brought hundreds of white students from the North to work on voter registration projects in the South that summer. Many of them worked in Gulfport and Biloxi. Some stayed in the home of Reverend A. A. Dickey in Biloxi. The freedom schools taught people how to register and vote, and they taught basic literacy skills as well. These activities brought Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney to Mississippi, where they wound up giving their lives for freedom. We were all shocked and saddened at their murder up in Neshoba County that summer.

  As part of their voter education program, COFO and SNCC decided to hold mock county and state conventions to teach new voters how the national party convention delegate selection process was supposed to work. In Mississippi at the time, there was no presidential primary, so in the Mississippi Democratic Party, the delegate selection process began at precinct caucuses where delegates to county conventions were elected. County conventions then elected delegates to congressional district conventions and to the state convention, where delegates to the national convention were elected. This outcome was undemocratic on two counts. The delegates were for the most part handpicked by local power brokers, and literacy tests and other discriminatory devices systematically excluded blacks from the voter rolls and thus from participation in the delegate selection process. The teaching process that SNCC created paralleled the process in the state Democratic Party. It was widely known that the delegates picked in the regular party process that year would be bound by the unit rule to act as little more than pawns for Mississippi’s segregationist establishment politicians who meant to oppose civil rights planks in the proposed platform of the national Democratic Party.

  The kind of political awareness that had developed among black citizens of the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1960 and 1961 came to the rest of the state in 1964. The frustrating unfairness of the delegate selection process that would mean that no Mississippi convention vote would be cast for a strong civil rights plank in the Democratic platform led COFO leaders to organize the Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the credentials of the all-white regular Mississippi delegation at the Democratic convention in Atlantic City. From Biloxi, Reverend A. A. Dickey was elected a Freedom Democrat delegate.

  In Atlantic City, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer and Ms. June Johnson took the national spotlight and told of the beatings and threats they and others had received while trying to register to vote in the Mississippi Delta. The national television networks carried parts of Mrs. Hamer’s testimony live. President Johnson was reported to have been very disturbed by the Freedom Democrat challenge, because he feared losing the formerly solid Democratic South to the Republicans. Johnson’s operatives were said to have offered the Freedom Democrats the compromise of two seats in the state’s regular delegation. I understand that NAACP officials and COFO officials like Aaron Henry favored accepting the president’s compromise. SNCC leaders and Mrs. Hamer, whose pure charisma had given her great sway with the group, determined to reject the compromise. Having worked so hard to get to Atlantic City, the Freedom Democrat delegates and their supporters were disappointed, and many were deeply disillusioned with this outcome. From their perspective the evils of Mississippi voter registration had been laid out before the nation, and there should be no compromise with that evil. The Mississippi Freedom Democrat delegation accepted Mrs. Hamer’s view and walked out rather than compromise.

  Lyndon Johnson went on to win a landslide victory over Republican Barry Goldwater in the fall of 1964, but the president won without the backing of five traditionally Democratic southern states. Among southern whites, the 1964 Civil Rights Act produced a backlash against the national Democratic Party and President Johnson. In Mississippi, President Johnson carried only 20 percent of the vote. The voting rights issue gained new life during the next few months. The Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965 further dramatized the serious difficulties which blacks encountered in voter registration in the South. The cumulative effect of Mrs. Hamer’s 1964 testimony together with events at Selma led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which sent federal registrars south and put an end to literacy tests and other machinations devised to deny blacks the vote.

  In hindsight, we can now see that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 set in motion a real civil rights revolution. When we saw the crumbling of so many long-standing racial barriers in education, public accommodations, and voting rights, for many veteran civil rights activists it was if the walls of Jericho were tumbling down. Many of us experienced the mid-to-late 1960s as years of important breakthroughs for desegregation, black opportunity, and black political empowerment. In Biloxi, while we endured the legal maneuverings over the beach, we
achieved notable successes in voter registration and peaceful school desegregation. We also tested fully the guarantees of free access to public accommodations set forth in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These were difficult but meaningful achievements. The price that we paid for these gains reinforced my respect for every human being who sacrifices to expand the realm of human freedom and dignity.

  However, where we saw important breakthroughs, others saw these years as filled with frustration and disillusionment, ending with the assassination of Dr. King in 1968. For the disillusioned among us, the slow but steady gains won in the courts, in the Congress, and through vigorous local activism in a thousand cities and towns paled beside the yet unsatisfied three-hundred-year hunger for black opportunity. Reflecting this mood in Canton, Mississippi, in 1966, Stokely Carmichael raised the cry of “black power.” Other voices of black separatism arose out of frustration, extolling us to turn inward and reject the dream of one America. In the late 1960s, much to the distress of Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, whose Christian conviction made her hate racism of any kind, SNCC voted to expell its white members. CORE renounced integration as a goal, and the Black Panther Party announced an antiwhite program. These developments gave black separatist connotations to the term “black power” in the late 1960s.12

  On a personal level, my faith never waivered that the judicial and legislative destruction of Jim Crow, the desegregation of the public schools, the opening of public accommodations, and the attainment of free access to the ballot across the South would set in motion profound, permanent, and positive changes in the quality of life for black Americans and for all Americans. I never lost faith in the goals and philosophy of the NAACP. I believed then and believe now that every honorable means must be used to combat all of the forms of discrimination that scar, deform, and distort American life. However, as technology shrank the world in the space age and the information age, I could see no realistic place for economic, political, or even social separatism.

  Some in the movement lost patience with long court contests. No one had experienced any more fully than we in Biloxi the depths of frustration involved in litigation strategies to advance the cause. However, I believed then and I believe now that you must be prepared to speak a language that your adversary will understand. Your adversary may not understand a street demonstration or a long negotiation, but in America your adversary will always understand a court order. In the end, no advance is secure in America unless it is enforceable in court. Therefore, though I grew impatient, I never lost faith in the ultimate wisdom of court strategies to advance the cause of human rights.

  Similarly, no one had learned the difficulties and limitations of political coalition building any better than we did in Biloxi. The 1964 Democratic convention’s rejection of the Freedom Democrats was very difficult for some of us to understand. Whereas by the late 1960s, some had grown totally disillusioned with the movement’s alliance with white liberals and were questioning the so-called “integrationist” goals of the traditional civil rights organizations, I believed that I saw the fruits of our hard work and perseverence in a righteous cause being slowly realized. We, too, were disappointed when white moderates could not or would not steer a steady course toward justice and fairness with the speed and exactitude we wanted. However, if we were disappointed with the pace of progress, we were encouraged by the general direction of the changes which we were able to effect in both the temper and substance of local politics. In Biloxi we employed every tool known to the civil rights movement. We put on the whole armor of God, from public demonstrations and civil disobedience to court battles, economic boycotts, and political empowerment. By the late 1960s, each of these tools had borne at least some fruit at some time in Biloxi. None of these tools was taken up without suffering or sacrifice on someone’s part. Yet the Biloxi branch of the NAACP persevered, and, in staying its course, it grew in power and influence in both the black community and the white community.

  Black separatism has never had any real appeal to me. In the late 1960s, a Black Muslim separatist group led by Imari Obadalli made a down payment on some property out from Bolton, Mississippi, that had once belonged to my great-great-grandfather, Harrison Mason. Obadalli proposed to set up the Republic of New Africa there. This experiment never had any broad appeal in Mississippi. In trying to shed some light on why separatism has had so little following among blacks in general or Mississippi blacks in particular, I can only speak for myself. No one loves the distinctive cultural life of African Americans more than I. No one takes greater pride in the outstanding achievements and contributions of black artists, craftsmen, educators, scientists, and statesmen than I, and no one is more determined to see those contributions duly recognized than I am. Yet, I abhore racism of any kind, black or white. I am proud to be a black man and an African American man, but, with W. E. B. Du Bois, I aspire to a pride of self that is “so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves….” With Du Bois, I also want to hold to a “pride of lineage so great as to despise no man’s father….”

  As a purely practical matter, I also believe that any group that closes itself to the larger world and fails to develop the skills to interact with others will inevitably cripple itself and restrict its own opportunities for creativity and growth. I have always supported, honored, admired, and encouraged black entrepreneurship. I have worked to destroy artificial constraints on equal economic opportunity. However, economic interdependence is a fact of American life and a fact of global life. Our task is to make sure that black Americans are equipped to compete on an equal footing with all others so that our genius and hard work are rewarded with a fair share of the national economic pie that we have helped to create.

  In summary, the village I have always wanted for myself and my family is the village called America. The village of which I want to be a part is a village of many faces and many races. It is a village where people of widely varied backgrounds work together and associate freely and without fear. It is a village where difference can be celebrated and understood as contributing to the creativity of the group. It is a village where we know enough about each other to respect and learn from each other. In the village of my dream, no person is second class. It is a village where every generation of its different and complementary peoples dedicates itself to the hard work of combating fear, prejudice, and misunderstanding in order to make the collaboration productive and meaningful. That is the only dream that I was willing to work for and die for in the early 1960s.

  NINE

  Community Action and Hurricane Camille

  Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

  —Matthew 25:34–40.

  ON THE NATIONAL LEVEL, THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF THE left wing of the civil rights movement after 1965 was balanced by a tendency of some moderates and conservatives to conclude that the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Open Housing Act of 1968 meant that the movement was finished. Comfortable conservative voices argued that there was now no more need for a civil rights agenda. To those on the left who argued that the alliance with white liberalism was useless and that traditional organizations such as the NAACP were ineffective and out of touch with the grassroots, I said, “Let them come to Biloxi.” Let them see how an activist local branch responded and continues to respond to every need of
the community it serves. To those on the right who argued that there was no further need for a civil rights movement, I also said, “Let them come to Biloxi,” and see a local branch busy with the larger world of human rights which extended beyond the destruction of legal Jim Crow to encompass equal employment opportunity, decent housing, and early childhood health and education.

  The great and menacing bastions of Jim Crowism, poll taxes and literacy tests, along with their attendant indignities and disenfranchisements, had presented obvious and easily identifiable targets for destruction in the late fifties and early sixties. The new frontier of civil rights presented more abstract and diffuse targets, but targets that were no less insidious. A malnourished child whose mental capacity is unnaturally and irreversibly constricted by the ravages of hunger has suffered a civil rights deprivation every bit as serious any imposed by segregation. Teenagers or adults who find their employment opportunities limited by prejudice, lack of training, or lack of information about training opportunities have suffered a loss in their quality of life and in their right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The child who starts school unprepared to learn and who falls behind and ends up a dropout has suffered an unnatural and unfair deprivation that should compel our attention with the same strength as any back-of-the-bus rule that ever humiliated a person of color. The new frontier of civil rights which emerged in the mid-to-late 1960s presented issues and concerns of a more abstract nature which required new and different types of effort undertaken and sustained over long periods of time. Affirming the basic humanity of all persons required and still requires attention to a broad array of issues—social and economic as well as legal and political. For me, the transition was natural. Our idealism never ceased to include political rights and the possibility of litigation, but it was not limited to the arena of courts or electoral activity alone. After all, when I had returned to Mississippi in 1955, I had set three goals for my medical practice: healthy babies, healthy mothers, and decent housing for mothers and children. The agenda of the Biloxi branch expanded to touch each of these areas.