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Freedom Summer

Page 42

by Bruce W. Watson


  135 “share the terror”: New York Times, July 6, 1964.

  135 “Morale is building”: WATS Line, July 7, 1964.

  136 “See that”: Curtis (Hayes) Muhammad, personal interview, August 29, 2008.

  136 “Bomb was placed”: WATS Line, July 8, 1964.

  136 “Non-Violent High”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 113.

  137 “This is the situation”: Charlie Cobb, “Organizing Freedom Schools,” in Erenrich, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, p. 136.

  138 “be creative”: “A Note to the Teacher, undated,” Michael J. Miller Civil Rights Collection, Historical Manuscripts and Photographs, USM.

  138 do “The Monkey”: Adickes, Legacy of a Freedom School, p. 112.

  139 “What do white people have”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 111.

  139 “If reading levels”: Ibid., p. 113.

  139 “the link between a rotting shack”: SNCC Papers, reel 39.

  139 Dear Mom and Dad: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 108.

  140 “Eighty-two”: Ibid., p. 106.

  140 “Where do roads come from?”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 393.

  140 “Ummm . . . Jackson?”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 106.

  140 “I think I am rapid”: Ibid., p. 119.

  141 “I kept thinking”: Mulford and Field, Freedom on My Mind.

  141 “Our school was by any definition”: Adickes, Legacy of a Freedom School, p. 4.

  141 “Looks like termites to me”: Von Hoffman, Mississippi Notebook, p. 35.

  141 “Razorback Klan” and “like wildfire”: Los Angeles Times, July 5, 1964.

  142 “Sovereign Realm of Mississippi”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 246.

  142 “We are now in the midst”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, pp. 104-5.

  142 “the goon squad”: Mars, Witness in Philadelphia, p. 101.

  143 “burning and dynamiting”: Huie, Three Lives, pp. 105-6.

  143 “extermination”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 217.

  143 “The typical Mississippi redneck”: Wyn Craig Wade, The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 1998), p. 334.

  143 “Sovereign Realm”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 246.

  143 “The purpose and function”: Mars, Witness in Philadelphia, p. xvii.

  144 “our Satanic enemies”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 104.

  144 “Some forty instances”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 238.

  144 “I think you ought to put fifty”: Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 450.

  144 “to identify and interview”: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 91.

  144 “Neshoba Arrests Believed Imminent”: Meridian Star, July 10, 1964.

  144 “whose neighbors were friendly with who”: Jackson Clarion-Ledger, June 12, 2005.

  145 “just going through the motions”: New York Times, July 11, 1964.

  145 “We haven’t even started leaning”: “Mississippi—Summer of 1964: Troubled State, Troubled Time,” Newsweek, July 13, 1964, p. 20.

  145 “This is truly a great day!” Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 398.

  145 “Teeny Weeny”: Ibid., p. 393.

  145 “This Mississippi thing”: Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 444.

  145 “I don’t close it”: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 96.

  145 “We most certainly do not”: New York Times, July 11, 1964.

  145 “calculated insult”: Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1964.

  146 “whup” the first “white niggers”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, pp. 140-42.

  146 “Eat this shit”: WATS Line, July 10, 1964.

  146 “deep sorrow for Mississippi”: Los Angeles Times, July 12, 1964.

  146 “mutilated and scattered”: WATS Line, July 12, 1964.

  147 “Mississippi is the only state”: McAdam, Freedom Summer, p. 97.

  147 “We did not flee Hitler”: New York Times, July 11, 1964.

  147 “tanks, guns, and troop carriers”: SNCC Papers, reel 39.

  147 “before a tragic incident”: Hodes Papers, SHSW.

  148 “Sometimes when I lie awake”: Boston Globe, July 4, 1964.

  148 “except protect them somehow”: Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1964.

  148 “Trussed Body Discovered”: Los Angeles Times, July 13, 1964.

  149 “I’m hot, I’m miserable”: Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1964.

  149 “Where is the USA?”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 165.

  149 “decent middle-class”: Ibid., p. 288-89.

  149 “running my rear end off”: Winn, correspondence, mid-July 1964.

  150 “Dad,” Fred wrote home: Winn, correspondence, July 14, 1964.

  150 “dirty” and “unclean”: New York Times, July 17, 1964.

  150 “What happened in Neshoba”: Charlie Capps Jr., personal interview, September 11, 2008.

  150 “We were a small town”: Ibid.

  150 “to keep a lid on things”: Fred Bright Winn, e-mail, May 26, 2008.

  151 “I was and am furious”: Winn, correspondence, July 14, 1964.

  INTERLUDE: “Another So-Called ‘Freedom Day’ ”

  152 “I’m going to wash the black off of you”: New York Times, July 17, 1964.

  152 “Come on, shoot another nigger!”: “Worse Than Mississippi?” Time, July 24, 1964.

  153 “Everybody stopped worrying”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 103.

  153 “another so-called ‘Freedom Day’ ”: Greenwood Commonwealth, July 15, 1964.

  154 “our Gettysburg”: Holland, From the Mississippi Delta, p. 243.

  154 “Get up and look out the window”: Ibid., p. 218.

  154 “We will not let it stop us”: SNCC Papers, reel 39.

  154 “Everyone?”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 136.

  155 “I want to go to jail”: Ibid.

  155 “You are free to go and register”: Greenwood Commonwealth, July 17, 1964.

  156 “Jim Crow . . . Must GO!”: Sugarman, Stranger at the Gates, p. 160.

  156 “I think it would look very spontaneous”: Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), p. 385.

  157 “You mean that’s President and Mrs. Johnson?”: New York Times, July 17, 1964.

  157 “They’re always doing something”: New York Times, August 3, 1964.

  157 “the deep feeling of regret”: New York Times, July 16, 1964.

  157 Back Door to Hell: Internet Movie Data Base, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057864/.

  158 “Caution: Weird Load”: Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (New York: Bantam, 1968), p. 63.

  158 “A Vote for Barry”: Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda, The Art of the Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), p. 176.

  158 “Furthur”: Wolfe, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, p. 63.

  158 “It’s too much like”: Louis Harris, “The Backlash Issue,” Newsweek, July 13, 1964, p. 24.

  159 “The denial of voting rights”: Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1964.

  159 “The President should now use”: Huie, Three Lives, p. 150.

  159 “Without condoning racist attitudes”: Wall Street Journal, June 30, 1964.

  159 “It is a dreadful thing to say”: Washington Post, June 29, 1964.

  159 “Unlike the democratic absolutists”: Boston Globe, July 4, 1964.

  159 “outraged and disgusted”: Letters, Newsweek, July 17, 1964.

  159 “By what stretch of the imagination”: New York Times, July 10, 1964.

  159 “Lincoln did this country”: Letters, Life, July 24, 1964.

  160 “Could you possibly bring yourselves”: Letters, Newsweek, July 27, 1964, p. 2.

  160 “I would say”: Hartford Courant, July 7, 1964.

  160 “clear that the whole scheme”: Greenwood Commonwealth, July 17, 1964.

  160 “I turned around”: Linda Wetmore, pers
onal interview, March 27, 2008.

  161 “Sounds like rubbing”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 126.

  161 “nigger huggers”: Ibid., p. 139.

  161 “I am proud”: Delta Democrat-Times, July 17, 1964.

  163 “that son-of-a-bitch”:New York Times, July 16, 1964.

  163 “extremists . . . who have nothing in common”: Christian Science Monitor, July 17, 1964.

  163 “The nigger issue”: Perlstein, Before the Storm, p. 374.

  164 “I was always complaining”: Richard Beymer, personal interview, July 6, 2008.

  164 “Beymer drove”: Congressman Barney Frank, personal interview, June 18, 2008.

  164 “off the map”: WATS Line, July 16, 1964.

  165 “We are not going to eat”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 144.

  165 “We won’t eat tomorrow”: Ibid., p. 145.

  Book Two

  CHAPTER SEVEN: “Walk Together, Children”

  169 “Three are missing, Lord”: Ira Landess, personal interview, November 28, 2007.

  170 “Hello, Freedom!”: Ibid.

  170 “When you’re not in Mississippi”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 18.

  170 McComb: Mount Zion Hill Baptist Church: COFO Incidents.

  171 “The mosquitoes down here”: Jinny Glass Diary, USM.

  171 “You will all be glad to hear”: Len Edwards, correspondence, August 5, 1964.

  171 “Ho hum. This violent life rolls on”: Hodes Papers, SHSW.

  171 “nothing serious”: WATS line, July 20, 1964.

  171 “engaged in widespread terroristic acts”: COFO v. Rainey, et al., Meikeljohn Civil Liberties Institute Archives, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/meiklejohn/meik-10_1/meik-10_1-6.html#580.7.

  172 “the happiest project”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 257.

  172 “a real movie star”: Carmichael, Ready for Revolution, p. 399.

  172 “plain cute”: Hudson and Curry, Mississippi Harmony, p. 82.

  173 “If you want to start a meeting”: James Kates Papers, SHSW.

  173 “out under the trees”: Sugarman, Stranger at the Gates, p. 114.

  173 “laughing his ass off” and “Someone shot at you”: Williams, interview, November 24, 2007.

  173 “I don’t believe in this sort of thing”: Fred R. Winn, correspondence, July 29, 1964.

  173 “Canton—Number of those”: SNCC Papers, Reel 38.

  174 “high degree of probability”: SNCC Papers, reel 40.

  174 “everyone who is not working”: Ibid.

  174 “canvassing, which you all know about”: Ibid.

  175 “The Democratic National Convention is a very big meeting”: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party brochure, Chris Williams private papers.

  176 “I got to think about it”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 187.

  176 “battle royal”: Washington Post, July 23, 1964.

  176 “potentially explosive dilemma”: Los Angeles Times, July 26, 1964.

  176 “Papa Doc”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 262.

  177 “He has trouble relating to white women”: Chude Pamela Allen, “Watching the Iris,” in Erenrich, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, p. 418.

  177 “will have to pack his bag”: Sellers and Terrell, River of No Return, p. 96.

  177 “We can’t let them think”: Ibid., p. 98.

  177 “the one thing where the Negro”: Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), p. 314.

  178 “Young man”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 207.

  178 “I felt personally responsible”: Watkins, interview, June 16, 2008.

  179 “They both left together”: Charlie Cobb, personal interview, July 16, 2008.

  179 “Muriel was tough”: Ibid.

  179 “We had never seen anybody”: Blackwell, Barefootin’, p. 70.

  179 “Oh Lord, Lord”: Ibid., p. 78.

  179 “For someone so young”: Ibid., p. 79.

  180 “Muriel taught things”: Ibid., p. 80.

  180 “What Muriel Tillinghast really taught”: Ibid.

  180 “Okay, I’ll do that”: Ibid., p. 81.

  180 “Things getting pretty tight”: WATS Line, July 13, 1964.

  180 “They recognized we were”: Tillinghast, interview, December 16, 2008.

  180 “Go back to Greenville”: COFO, Mississippi Black Paper, pp. 88-89.

  180 “If he gets killed”: Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 460.

  181 “There are threats”: Ibid., p. 461.

  181 “Talk to your man in Jackson”: Ibid.

  181 “We tried to warn SNCC”: Payne, I’ve Got the Light, p. 103.

  181 “Martin Luther Coon”: Hampton, “Mississippi—Is This America?”

  181 “Martin Luther King at Communist”: Blackwell, Barefootin’, p. 68.

  181 “the unspeakable Martin Luther King”: Davies, Press and Race, p. 41.

  181 “I want to live a normal life”: Kotz, Judgment Days, p. 176.

  181 “just suicidal”: Ibid., p. 177.

  181 “the most creative thing”: King, Freedom Song, pp. 307-8.

  182 “to demonstrate the absolute support”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 410.

  182 “You must not allow anybody”: New York Times, July 22, 1964.

  182 “Gentlemen, I will be brief ”: Ibid.

  183 “mobilize the power”: Washington Post, July 23, 1964.

  183 “murdered by the silence”: Ibid.

  183 “that these same efficient FBI men”: Delta Democrat-Times, July 22, 1964.

  183 “Seat the Freedom Democratic Party!” Forman, Making of Black Revolutionaries, p. 384.

  183 “the Right Rev. Riot Inciter”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 164.

  183 “Small Crowd Greets King”: Jackson Clarion-Ledger, July 22, 1964.

  183 “It is a known fact”: Hattiesburg American, July 21, 1964.

  183 “It is a sad commentary”: Shirley Tucker, Mississippi from Within (New York: Arco, 1965), p. 130.

  184 “Latest Wave of Invaders”: Jackson Clarion-Ledger, July 22, 1964.

  184 “Happily, the inclination toward violence”: Panolian, July 30, 1964.

  184 “We do know that Communist influence”: New York Times, April 22, 1964.

  184 “Hey, you don’t worry”: Carmichael, Ready for Revolution, p. 304.

  184 “all communists speak Russian”: Panolian, July 4, 1964.

  184 “mass invasion of Mississippi”: Congressional Record 110 (July 22, 1964): S 16036-37.

  184 “stooges and pawns”: Jackson Clarion-Ledger, July 23, 1964.

  185 “a long-time Communist legal eagle”: Congressional Record 110 (July 22, 1964): S 16040.

  185 “beatnik looking crowd”: MDAH SCR ID# 2-20-2-2-2-1-1.

  185 “If they ain’t calling you a Communist”: Blackwell, Barefootin’, p. 118.

  185 “The history of America”: O’Brien, interview, November 12, 2007.

  185 “Do you know what the Gettysburg Address means?”: O’Brien, correspondence, July 18, 1964.

  186 “We can’t understand y’all”: Ibid.

  186 “You haven’t a thing to worry about”: O’Brien, correspondence, July 10, 1964.

  186 “the little darlings”: Ibid., July 13, 1964.

  186 “Jekyll-Hyde transformations”: Ibid., July 28, 1964.

  186 “my babies can’t be sold away”: O’Brien, interview, November 12, 2007.

  186 “Well, you just read the book”: Ibid.

  187 “Now,” she said: Ibid.

  187 “Sometimes I feel I’m not doing much”: O’Brien, correspondence, July 18, 1964.

  187 “the worst state in the Union”: Los Angeles Times, July 24, 1964, p. 21.

  188 “And what about you, young lady?”: O’Brien, interview, November 12, 2007.

  189 “Three young men came here”: New York Times, July 25, 1964.

&n
bsp; 189 “I just want to touch you”: Ibid.

  189 “that there are churches”: Ibid.

  189 “I know what fear is”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 169.

  189 “We’ve been waiting for you”: SNCC Papers, reel 39.

  189 “RE: Arguing with the Red Queen”: Ibid.

  190 “Mrs. Hamer is back”: WATS Line, July 20, 1964.

  190 “Listen,” the man said: O’Brien, correspondence, July 28, 1964.

  Chapter 8. “The Summer of Our Discontent”

  191 “How the ghosts of those three”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 216.

  191 “I believe with all my heart”: Mars, Witness in Philadelphia, p. 105.

  191 “I just hope”: Ibid.

  191 “If they were murdered”: Jackson Clarion-Ledger, August 4, 1964.

  192 the grinding “hog”: Tucker, Mississippi from Within, p. 43.

  192 “real rednecks”: Delta Democrat-Times, August 6, 1964.

  192 “everyone who had been”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 374.

  192 “Nigger,” Rainey shouted: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 114.

  193 “the tipoff boys were waiting”: Meridian Star, August 6, 1964.

  193 “a prolific letter writer”: New York Times, August 7, 1964.

  193 “have the money ready”: Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1995), p. 185.

  194 “I realize it may sound foolish”: New York Times, August 9, 1964.

  194 “Only a fool would be happy”: Ibid.

  195 “mother wit”: Blackwell, Barefootin’, p. 19.

  195 “Get the white man out”: Dr. Stacy White, e-mail correspondence, May 20, 2008.

  195 “Where have you people been?”: Sugarman, Stranger at the Gates, p. 173.

  195 “Hello, Item Base”: Winn, interview, November 13, 2007.

  195 “To be quite frank with you”: Winn, correspondence, n.d.

  195 “Be very careful”: Winn, correspondence, August 18, 1964.

  196 “counting them like a jail sentence”: Winn, correspondence, August 13, 1964.

  196 “wasn’t going to turn the government over”: Williams, correspondence, July 13, 1964.

  196 “very violent town”: Ibid.

  196 “I been deputy”: Ibid.

  196 “Communist!” and “Nigger lover!”: Ibid., July 28, 1964.

 

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