SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-11-1-1-1.
2. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 5 October 1959, pp.1–2.
3. Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 14 October 1959, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-16-2-1-1.
4. Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 4 November 1959, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-19-2-1-1.
5. Van Landingham, Memo to File 5–4, 4 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-33-5-1-1, p. 6.
6. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 11 January 1965, p. 2.
Chapter 5
1. Bob Thomas, Investigative Report, “Beach Disturbances, Biloxi, Harrison Co., Mississippi,” 22 April 1960 to 2 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim ID: 5-4-0-50-11-1-1, pp. 2–3.
2. “Police Accused of Aiding Mob,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 10 August 1960, p. 28.
3. Bob Thomas, Investigative Report, “Beach Disturbances, Biloxi, Harrison Co., Mississippi,” 22 April 1960 to 2 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-50-11-1-1, p. 5.
4. Clarion-Ledger (Jackson), 26 April 1960, p. 1.; Jackson Daily News, 26 April 1960, pp. 1–2.
5. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 26 April 1960, p.1.
6. Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 20 October 1959, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-10-7-1-1, p. 6.
7. Bob Thomas, Investigative Report, “Beach Disturbances, Biloxi, Harrison Co., Mississippi,” 22 April 1960 to 2 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-50-11-1-1, p. 3.
8. Ibid., p. 4.
9. Clarion-Ledger (Jackson), 26 April 1960, pp. 1–2.
10. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 25 April 1960, pp. 1–2; Amsterdam News (New York), 30 April 1960, pp.1, 10–11, and 34–35.
11. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 25 April 1960, p. 2.
12. Ibid., p.1.
13. Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 26 April 1960.
14. Jackson Advocate, 30 April 1960.
15. Clarion-Ledger (Jackson), 26 April 1960.
16. Ibid.
17. Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 26 April 1960.
18. Jackson Daily News, 26 April 1960, p. 2.
19. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 27 April 1960, p.1, and 30 April 1960, p.1; Jackson Daily News, 29 April 1960, p.1.
20. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 27 April 1960, pp.1–2.
21. Van Landingham, Memo to File 5–4, “Beach Integration, Harrison County, Mississippi,” 4 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-33-6-1-1, p. 5.
22. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 10 May 1960, pp. 1–2.
23. Van Landingham, Memo to File 5–4, “Beach Integration, Harrison County, Mississippi,” 5 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 9-22-0-9-2-1-1, p.1.
24. Thomas to Governor Barnett, “Beach Disturbances,” 2 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-51-4-1-1, p.4; Clarion-Ledger (Jackson), 2 May 1960; Jackson Advocate, 7 May 1960.
25. Van Landingham, Memo to File 5–4, “Beach Integration, Harrison County, Mississippi,” 5 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-34-1-1-1.
26. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 9 May 1960, p.1.
27. Jackson Advocate, 21 May 1960.
Chapter 6
1. Thomas to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 27 June 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-41-1-1-1, p. 2.
2. Thomas to Director, State Sovereignty Commission with enclosure, 27 June 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-57-0-24-3-1-1 and ID: 2-56-1-36-1-1-1.
3. James W. Silver, Mississippi: The Closed Society, new enlarged edition (New York: Harcourt, Brace 8c World, 1966), p. 271.
4. Ibid.
5. Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, “NAACP, Gulfport, Mississippi,” 16 February 1959, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-6-2-1-1.
6. Undated four-page handwritten list, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 99-93-0-774-1-1; undated two-page typed list titled “Negro Drug Stores in Mississippi,” SSC Files, Victim, ID: 99-202-0-10-2-1-1; Thomas to Barnett, attachment to memorandum “Beach Disturbances,” SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-51-5-1-1; and Robert C. Thomas, report dated 7 July 1960, “Investigation of Disturbances at DeSoto National Forest Park,” SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-51-4-1-1.
7. Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 14 October 1959, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-1-3-1-1.
8. Ibid.
9. Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 20 October 1959, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-10-1-1-1
10. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 19 April 1960, p. 2.
11. Van Landingham, Memo to File 5–4, “Beach Integration, Harrison County, Mississippi,” 4 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-54-6-1-1; and audiotapes of April 28, 1960, meeting of Felix Dunn, Knox Walker, and Nap Cassibry with Sovereignty agents Bob Thomas and Zack Van Landingham, SSC Files, uncataloged tapes 1–8.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Van Landingham, Memo to File 5–4, “Beach Integration, Harrison County, Mississippi,” 5 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-55-1-1-1.
15. Jackson Daily News, 19 May 1960.
16. Van Landingham, Memo to File 5–4, “Beach Integration, Harrison County, Mississippi,” 5 May 1960.
17. Editorial, Jackson Advocate, 30 April 1960.
18. Editorial, Jackson Daily News, 3 May 1960.
19. Van Landingham, Memo to File 5–4, “Beach Integration, Harrison County, Mississippi,” 5 May 1960, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 5-4-0-55-1-1-1.
20. Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 16 February 1959, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-6-1-1.
Chapter 7
1. Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy, The American Pageant: A History of the Republic, 7th ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1983), p. 868.
2. Van Landingham to Director, State Sovereignty Commission, 16 February 1959, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-6-2-1-1; and report by Tom Scarbrough, “Harrison County,” 16 January 1961, SSC Files, Victim, ID: 2-56-1-77-3-1-1.
3. Silver, Mississippi: The Closed Society, p. 250.
4. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 11 April 1961.
5. Ibid., 10 May 1961.
6. Ibid., 15 May 1961.
7. Ibid., 10 May 1961 and 15 May 1961.
8. Ibid., 17 May 1961.
9. Ibid., 18 May 1960.
10. Ibid., 21 May 1960.
11. Ibid., 20 May 1960.
12. Ibid., 19 May 1960.
13. Ibid., 25 May 1960.
14. Ibid., 9 June 1960.
15. Ibid., 23 June 1960.
16. Ibid., 9 August 1960.
17. Ibid., 19 August 1960.
18. Ibid., 8 August 1960 and 9 August 1960.
19. Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 10 August 1960.
20. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 7 September 1960.
21. Ibid., 8 September 1960, 14 September 1960, and 1 November 1960.
22. Ibid, 21 September 1960, 23 September 1960, and 28 September 1960.
23. Ibid., 1 November 1960.
24. Ibid., 19 December 1960 and 23 May 1961.
25. Carter to Mason, 20 February 1961, Mason Papers, privately held by author.
26. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 23 May 1961.
27. Ibid., 7 May 1962 and 27 July 1962.
28. Ibid., 11 September 1962, 27 December 1962, and 1 March 1963.
29. Ibid., 28 June 1963.
30. Ibid., 20 November 1963 and 21 November 1963.
31. Ibid., 21 November 1963.
32. Ibid., 22 February 1965.
33. Ibid., 9 March 1967.
34. Ibid., 16 August 1968.
Chapter 8
1. Dr. Gilbert R. Mason, Millsaps College Oral History Memoir, recorded 10 August 1965, p. 9.
2. Evers to Carter, 11 October 1960, Mason Papers, School Desegregation Documents, privately held by author.
3. Evers to Mason, 18 October 1960, Mason Papers, School Desegregation Documents, privately held by author.
4. The twenty-five child plaintiffs included Gilbert R. Mason, Jr., Gary Black, Jerry Black, Diane Black, Daryl Boglin, Linda Gail Davis, Jessica Denise Davis, Henry Lee Davis, Glorhea Diane Edwards, Janice Elzy, John Elzy, Rehofu
s Esters, Jr., John Robert Esters, Michael Esters, LaValeria Esters, Barbara Jean Harris, James McKinly, Jr., Sylvia Yvonne McKinly, Adrienne Martin, Patsy R. Mumford and Rosa M. Mumford (daughters of Mrs. Johnnie Brown), Clifton Nunley, Jr., Gretchen Nunley, Bernardo Rosado, and Ernest Rosado.
The first black children to enter school on a nonsegregated basis in 1964 were first graders. The first-grade group included only the very youngest of the group above, plus some children not listed as plaintiffs in the original suit, including Cynthia Fletcher, Frederick Gibbs, Brenda Payne, Evangeline Bellamy, Brenda Tennort, and others.
5. Many other noted attorneys of the civil rights era spent time in our home, including Marian Wright Edelman, William Kunstler, Jean Fairfax, Derrick Bell, Constance Slaughter-Harvey, and Cassandra Flipper.
6. Daily Herald, 18 June 1963.
7. Ibid., 5 June 1963.
8. Ibid., 10 June 1963.
9. Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach to President Johnson, 28 August 1964, Johnson Presidential Papers, WH40445, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas.
10. Newspaper accounts mistakenly state that sixteen black children started to previously all-white schools in Biloxi in 1964. Actually sixteen children known to the local NAACP started that fall, but five other children whose parents were stationed at Keesler Air Force Base joined the original sixteen. Thus, a total of twenty-one black children desegregated the Biloxi schools that fall.
11. Daily Herald (Biloxi), 23 June 1963.
12. Thomas R. West and James W. Mooney, eds., To Redeem a Nation: A History and Anthology of the Civil Rights Movement (St. James, NY: Brandywine Press, 1993), pp. xxiv-vi; and Steven Thernstrom and Abigail Thernstrom, America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997)> pp. 166–71.
Chapter 10
1. The Mississippi Advisory Committee to the Cabinet Committee on Education included the chairman, Warren Hood, the vice chairman, Dr. Gilbert R. Mason, R. R. Lampton of First National Bank in Jackson, Dr. T. B. Brown of Jackson (a minister), businessman Gil Carmichael of Meridian, Dr. Douglas Conner of Starkville, Owen Cooper of Mississippi Chemical Corporation, pharmacist Alvin Fielder, Jr., of Meridian, businessman Leslie Lampton of Jackson, Paul W. McMullan of First Mississippi Bank in Hattiesburg, Dr. Sylvester Moorhead of the School of Education at the University of Mississippi, plantation owner and city councilman Henry Self of Marks, Rowan Taylor of Mississippi Valley Title Insurance Company in Jackson, businessman Walter Williams (a past president of the Jackson Urban League), attorney Jack Young (president of the Jackson branch of the NAACP), and James Hines, president of Deposit Guaranty National Bank in Jackson.
Index
A & A Wrecker Service (Biloxi, Miss.), 136
A & P Supermarket (Biloxi, Miss.), 79
academies, private, 187
ACLU, 194
Acme Lodge #307. See Masonic Lodges
Adams, Bidwell, 120
Addams (Mason family ancestry), 11
African American Hospital (Yazoo City), 35
Alabama, University of, 130–31
Alamo Theater, 9
Alcorn State University, 13, 14, 108, 109
Alexander, Reverend Caesar, 26–27
Alexander, State Senator W. B., 80
Allen, William, 135–36
Alpha Kappa Mu, 24
Alpha Phi Alpha, 24, 25, 46, 134, 189
Zeta Mu Lambda Chapter of, 46
AMA (American Medical Association), 39, 41
American Can Company, 9, 20
American Red Cross. See Red Cross
American Revolution, 184
Amherst, 30
Amsterdam News (New York), ix, 91
Anderson, Marian, 16
Anderson, Mrs. Marie, 161
Anderson, Rochester, 23
Andrews, Mrs. Dudley, 150
Anglado, Anthony (justice of the peace), 76
antipoverty programs, 170–74
Aregood, Reverend John, 111, 135, 138, 174
Aristotle, 23
Armed Forces Medical Museum, 27
Armstrong, Louis, 23
assassination threats. See Ku Klux Klan: assasination hit lists, threats
assaults: on beach protesters, 68–69
on innocent black citizens, 73–75
on innocent white citizens, 75
Associated Press, 76
Attawah, Camp. See Boy Scouts of America: Camp Attawah
Aurelius, Marcus, 23
Austin, Joseph, 46, 56–58, 63
Back Bay Mission, 111, 135, 174
“back-of-town” (African American neighborhood, Biloxi, Miss.), 65, 74, 83, 84, 85, 121, 122, 123, 185
Bailey, Sam, 92, 191
Baker, Lola, 63
BAM (Black Angry Men of Biloxi), 59
Banks, Fred (attorney and State Supreme Court Justice), xvii, 153, 206
Baptist Hospital (Jackson, Miss.), 4
Barefield, State Senator Stone, 195
Barnett, Governor Ross, 67, 79, 80, 98, 120, 125, 130, 147, 150, 151, 170
Barrett, St. John, 129
Basie, Count, 23
Bates, Gladys Noel, 16
Bates, John, 14, 16
Battle, Dr. Clinton, 50
Battlefield Park (Jackson, Miss.), 3
Bayh, U.S. Senator Birch, 180–81
Beauvoir (Jefferson Davis Shrine), 77
Beck, John Henry, 118
Beckwith, Byron De La, 133, 195
Beittel, Dr. A. D., 189
Bell Apartments, 108
Bell, Derrick, 153
Bell, Dr. William E., 108
Bellamy, Alexander, 157
Bertrand, Mrs. Amelia, 45
Beta Kappa Chi, 24
Biloxi Beach Property Owners Protective Association, 125–26
Biloxi Branch of the NAACP, x, 46, 78, 84, 85, 86, 87, 91, 98, 118, 131, 143, 147, 150, 157, 160–62, 166, 168–69, 172, 174, 175–80, 186, 199
and desegregation of public accommodations, 160–62
and Hurricane Camille relief, 175–80
and 1960–64 school desegregation efforts, 114–15, 147–55
and 1963 wade-in, 131–32, 134–38
Biloxi Cemetery, 1959 wade-in site, 52, 135
Biloxi Chamber of Commerce: and 1955 white only membership, 37
and 1960 integrated membership, 44
and 1960 race riot, 79
Biloxi Civic League, 56, 61, 117
Biloxi elections (1961) (municipal), 115, 120–23, 129
Biloxi High School, 144, 147, 194
Biloxi Hospital: Colored Annex, 37–38, 42
and courtesy staff status for Dr. Mason, 38, 82, 197
1960 wade-in site, 67
Biloxi Housing Authority, 175
Biloxi lighthouse: 1960 wade-in site, 62, 67–68, 72
1963 wade-in site, 135
Biloxi Planning Commission, 199–200
Biloxi Public Schools, desegregation of, ix, x, 1, 49, 50, 98, 114, 123, 132, 143, 146–47, 148–55, 158, 185
child plaintiffs listed, 212–13n 4
White House and Justice Department 1964 Biloxi security plans, 151, 157
Biloxi race riot (1960), 68–78
and effects on tourism, 150
Biloxi School District, 114, 144, 146–54
and Head Start, 171
biracial-coalition politics: in Biloxi, 115, 120–23
in Mississippi, 190–201
Birdsong, D. M., 10
Black Annie (prison whip), abolished, 170
Black, Reverend James, 65, 136, 206
Black, Lewis, 149
black market liquor tax, 81
Black Muslims (Bolton, Miss.), 166
“black power” slogan, 165
black separatism, 142, 166
Blackburn, Coach Ben Allen, II, 13
Blackwell, Mrs. Unita, 173
Blair House, 29
Blake, William, 112–13
Blessey, Gerald, xii, xvii, 198–
99
Blessing of the Fleet (1963) (Biloxi, Miss.), 132
Blount, Red (U.S. Postmaster General), 185
Blue Note Café, 73
Boglin, Harold, 59, 149
Book-of-the-Month Club, 23
Borden’s Milk Company, 80, 83
Boudreaux, Edmond, 203
Bousqueto, Arthur, 59
Boy Scouts of America, 3, 14, 15, 17, 24, 25, 26, 34, 46–47, 93–95, 159
Camp Attawah, 89, 93
Camp Kickapoo, 3
Camp Lubaloo, 3
Camp Tiak, 93
Eagle Scouts, 3, 24, 93
1960 National Jamboree, 94
Philmont Scout Ranch, 94
Pine Burr Council, 93
Scout Law, 63
Silver Beaver Award, 94–95
Troop 58 (Jackson, Miss.), 14
Troops 416 and 419 (Biloxi, Miss.), 46, 93
boycotts, targeted, 1, 83–84, 166
Bradford, Bill, 80
Bradford, William, Jr. “Little Bill,” xvi
Brady, Professor St Elmo, 25
Branton, Wiley, 117
Briggs, Henry, 134
Brimage, Mrs. Cheryl Collins, xvi
Britton, Dr. Albert, 41, 189, 197
Brooks Brothers (Chicago store), 21
Brown, Ellis, 70
Brown, Mrs. Johnnie, 149
Brown, R. Jess, 132, 134, 137–38, 139, 153
Brown, Robert D., 145, 150, 155
Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka x, 33, 54, 124, 141, 143–44, 146–48, 150, 153, 154
Brunies, Merritt, 69, 76
Brunini, Edward, 182
Bryant, C. C., 59, 117, 203
Buena Vista Hotel (Biloxi, Miss.), 161
Bullock, Luzell, 70, 86
Burgin, State Senator Bill, 192
Burke, Edmond, 107
Burney, Ms. Burnell, 69, 160
busing, Mason paper on, 187
Byrd, Dan, 60
Cabinet Committee on Education: members listed, 213–14n 1
Beaches, Blood, and Ballots Page 30