Freedom Summer

by Bruce W. Watson

  197 “The whole state is beginning to tighten up”: Ibid.

  197 “operating a Freedom Outpost”: Ibid.

  197 “in droves”: Ibid.

  197 “trashy motherfucker”: Ibid., July 20, 1964.

  197 “enough money to last him”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 430.

  198 “come with subpoenas”: Meridian Star, August 3, 1964.

  198 “take care of him”: MDAH SCR ID# 2-112-1-49-1-1-1.

  198 “pay a million more”: Ibid.

  198 “buy a cattle ranch”: Ibid.

  198 Dutch “seer”: Meridian Star, August 9, 1964.

  198 “What happened to the three kids?”: Ball, Murder in Mississippi, p. 75.

  198 “We’d have paid a lot more”: Kenneth O’Reilly, “Racial Matters”: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972 (New York: Free Press, 1989), p. 174.

  199 “We’ve spotted the dam”: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 128.

  199 “This is no pick and shovel job”: Ibid., p. 129.

  199 “the summer of our discontent”: New York Times, July 29, 1964.

  199 “Maybe the best course”: Huie, Three Lives, p. 214.

  199 “see that their enemy”: COFO brochure, White Folks Project Collection, USM.

  199 “there was no dialogue”: Ed Hamlett Papers, White Folks Project Collection, USM.

  199 “Why Mississippi?”: Ibid.

  200 “get the feel”: William and Kathleen Henderson Papers, SHSW.

  200 “It looks like the pilot phase”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 181.

  200 “You Northerners all think”: Ibid., p. 186.

  200 “How can these kids presume”: Sugarman, Stranger at the Gates, pp. 138-39.

  200 “What’s so hard to explain”: Ibid., p. 145.

  200 “Would you marry a Negro?”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 179.

  201 “Communist! . . . Queer!”: Ibid.

  201 “guilty, agonized”: Adam Hochschild, Finding the Trapdoor: Essay, Portraits, Travels (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1997), p. 147.

  201 “a splendid job”: Virginia Center for Digital History, “Wednesdays in Mississippi: Civil Rights as Women’s Work,” The Effects: Southern Women, p. 20, http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/WIMS/.

  201 “Girls,” she said: Ibid.

  201 “If you print my name”: Washington Post, August 16, 1964.

  202 “I am not an integrationist”: MDAH SCR ID# 99-38-0-493-2-1-1.

  202 “a breach of etiquette”: Carter, So the Heffners Left McComb, p. 125.

  202 “to let the Civil Rights workers”: Ibid., p. 80.

  202 “Whose car is that”: Ibid., p. 49.

  202 “If you want to live”: Ibid., p. 79.

  203 “chickened out”: Ira Landess, personal interview, November 28, 2007.

  204 “You folks better get down”: Sellers and Terrell, River of No Return, p. 103.

  204 “His head went through the windshield”: Ibid., p. 104.

  205 “I’ d say start digging here”: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 133.

  205 “We’ll start here”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 397.

  205 “the faint odor”: Ibid., p. 398.

  205 “Reporting one WB”: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 134.

  205 “We’ve uncapped one oil well”: Ibid.

  206 “Mickey could count on Jim”: Huie, Three Lives, p. 95.

  206 “the first interracial lynching”: Umoja Kwanguvu Papers, USM.

  206 “O healing river”: David King Dunaway, How Can I Keep from Singing (New York: McGraw Hill, 1981), p. 235.

  207 “Many reported contacts”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 434.

  207 “Mr. Hoover wanted me to call you”: Beschloss, Taking Charge, pp. 501-2.

  208 “It is for us the living”: New York Times, August 6, 1964.

  208 “Did you love your husband?”: Washington Post, August 6, 1964.

  208 “My boy died a martyr”: McComb Enterprise-Journal, August 6, 1964.

  208 “The closed society that is Mississippi”: Hartford Courant, August 6, 1964.

  209 “The murders of Michael Henry Schwerner”: New York Times, August 6, 1964.

  209 “None of those who have died”: Washington Post, August 6, 1964.

  209 “We must track down the murderers”: Vicksburg Post, August 6, 1964.

  209 “Many of us in Mississippi”: Delta Democrat-Times, August 9, 1964.

  209 “a new hate campaign”: Meridian Star, August 6, 1964.

  209 “It was those integration groups”: Delta Democrat-Times, August 6, 1964.

  209 “If they had stayed home”: Hattiesburg American, August 5, 1964, cited in Tucker, Mississippi from Within, p. 136.

  210 “reduced to a pulp”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 407.

  210 “In my extensive experience”: Ibid.

  210 “substantive results”: New York Times, August 9, 1964.

  210 “hate to be in his shoes”: MDAH SCR ID# 2-112-1-49-1-1-1.

  210 “I want people to know”: New York Times, August 6, 1964.

  211 “Y’all can be non-violent”: Blackwell, Barefootin’, p. 98.

  211 “have some race pride”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 182.

  211 “loudmouth everyone”: Ibid., pp. 182-83.

  211 “to get the mandate from Bob”: Ibid., p. 183.

  212 “I’m gonna kill ’em!”: Hank Klibanoff, “Moment of Reckoning,” Smithsonian , December 2008, p. 12.

  212 “I want my brother!”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 409.

  212 “a mistake”: Wendt, Spirit and the Shotgun, p. 118.

  212 “Sorry, but I’m not here to do”: Bradley G. Bond, Mississippi: A Documentary History (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2003), pp. 254-59.

  214 “The tragedy of Andy Goodman”: New York Times, August 10, 1964.

  CHAPTER NINE: “Lay by Time”

  215 “Success?” Moses told the press: Newsweek, August 24, 1964, p. 30.

  215 “ from the unjust laws of Mississippi”: SNCC Papers, reel 39.

  215 “It was the single time in my life”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 260.

  216 “lay by time”: Blackwell, Barefootin’, p. 17.

  216 “I am tired”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 225.

  216 “sailing and swimming”: Ibid., p. 221.

  217 “I have been here nearly two months”: Ellen Lake Papers, USM.

  217 “depression session”: Wilkie, Dixie, p. 144.

  217 “If I stay here much longer”: Coles, Farewell to the South, pp. 252-53.

  217 “She’s always in the same rut”: Margaret Hazelton Papers, USM.

  218 “They keep killin’ our people”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 225.

  218 “They might think twice”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 450.

  218 “by someone important”: WATS Line, August 10, 1964.

  219 “a ballet”: Sidney Poitier, Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 174.

  219 “I have been a lonely man”: Adam Goudsouzian, Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), p. 224.

  220 “Are you coming down here”: Dunaway, How Can I Keep, p. 234.

  220 “Each morning I wake”: Julius Lester, All Is Well (New York: William Morrow, 1976), p. 112.

  220 “If God had intended”: Martin Duberman, In White America (London: Faber and Faber, 1964), p. 4.

  221 “That’s right!”: Elizabeth Martinez, “Theater of the Meaningful,” Nation, October 19, 1964, p. 255.

  221 “a beacon of hope and love”: “Dream in a Bean Field,” Nation, December 28, 1964, p. 514.

  222 “nasty little town”: Tillinghast, interview, December 16, 2008.

  222 “Dear Doug”: SNCC Papers, reel 40.

  222 “let me drive”: Tillinghast, interview, December 16, 2008.

  223 “get the hell out of Issaquena Cou
nty”: Ibid.

  223 “You niggers get away”: United States Commission on Civil Rights, Hearings Before the United States Commission on Civil Rights, vol. 1, Voting: Hearings Held in Jackson, Miss. February 16-20, 1965 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), p. 132.

  223 “courage overcame fear”: Tillinghast, interview, November 28, 2007.

  224 “Look, close your mouth”: “Freedom Summer Journal of Sandra Adickes,” USM, http://anna.lib.usm.edu/~spcol/crda/adickes/ad001.htm.

  224 “Mr. Clean”: Huie, Three Lives, p. 226.

  224 “The white people of Mississippi”: Ibid.

  225 “Communist Revolutionaries”: Mars, Witness in Philadelphia, p. 108.

  225 “They’ve shot Silas!”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 222.

  225 “colored doctor”: Zellner, The Wrong Side, p. 261.

  226 “I got me one”: WATS Line, August 17, 1964.

  226 “ticking time bomb”: Kotz, Judgment Days, p. 190.

  226 “There’s no compromise”: Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 515.

  226 “If we mess with the group”: Ibid., p. 516.

  226 “We’re going to lose the election”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 291.

  226 “Help make Mississippi”: Herbert Randall and Bob Tusa, Faces of Freedom Summer (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001), n.p.

  226 “If we can get enough people”: Charles Miller Papers, SHSW.

  227 “I just stood there”: SNCC Papers, reel 67.

  227 “Why did Harriet Tubman”: Liz Fusco, “Deeper Than Politics,” Liberation 9 (November 1964): 18.

  228 “I am Mississippi fed”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 279.

  228 “We’re not black slaves!”: Washington Post, July 20, 1964.

  228 “I think you’re lying”: Adickes, Legacy of a Freedom School, p. 68.

  228 “Some of them are beginning to realize”: Ibid., p. 264.

  228 “We’re giving these kids a start”: Washington Post, July 20, 1964.

  229 “I saw the rug pulled out”: Watkins, interview, June 16, 2008.

  229 “about time something happened”: Chude Pamela Allen, “Watching the Iris,” in Erenrich, pp. 419-420.

  229 “the project was polarized”: Ibid.

  229 “to give abortions”: Carmichael, Ready for Revolution, p. 389.

  229 “And get raped?”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 185.

  230 “My Summer Negro”: Rothschild, Case of Black and White, p. 56.

  230 “Every black SNCC worker”: Evans, Personal Politics, p. 80.

  230 “I didn’t see any white women”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 263.

  230 “Now, Dad”: Winn, correspondence, mid-July 1964.

  230 “jus’ one boy touch”: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, p. 45.

  230 “fluttered like butterflies”: King, Freedom Song, p. 44.

  230 “All these black guys”: McAdam, Freedom Summer, p. 106.

  231 “I’m sure I wasn’t the only white woman”: Chude Pamela Allen, “Thank You,” in Erenrich, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, p. 502.

  231 “There’s a very good chance”: Chude Pamela Allen, personal interview, November 12, 2007.

  232 “we’re all dreamers”: O’Brien, correspondence, July 28, 1964.

  232 “I could stay longer”: Ibid.

  232 “Don’t worry,” she was told: Fran O’Brien, “Journey into Light,” in Erenrich, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, p. 285.

  233 “Now you just be a good little girl”: Ibid., p. 286.

  233 “No you don’t, little lady!” Ibid.

  233 “That’s a good little girl”: Ibid.

  234 “Oh hi, Fran”: Ibid.

  234 “It’s okay”: Ibid., p. 287.

  235 “After recent developments”: O’Brien, correspondence, August 4, 1964.

  235 “The whole pattern”: “The Evangelists,” Newsweek, August 24, 1964, p. 30.

  236 “begin action”: WATS line, August 19, 1964.

  CHAPTER TEN: “The Stuff Democracy Is Made Of”

  238 “They start anything”: Blackwell, Barefootin’, p. 108.

  238 “You better put your feet on the gas”: Ibid.

  238 “Negroes carefully picked”: MDAH SCR ID # 9-32-0-6-2-1-1.

  238 “We can’t open the door!” Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Papers (hereafter MFDP Papers), SHSW.

  239 “assemblage of people”: Mulford and Field, Freedom on My Mind.

  239 “Until the killing of black mothers’ sons”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 391.

  239 “the stuff democracy is made of”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, pp. 250-51.

  240 “coronation”: New York Times, August 25, 1964.

  241 “alien philosophy”: New York Times, August 22, 1964.

  241 “If you seat those black buggers”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 290.

  241 “If our case is fully heard”: SNCC Papers, Reel 41.

  241 “go fishing on Election Day”: Washington Post, August 22, 1964.

  241 “definite supporter”: MFDP Papers, SHSW.

  241 “Who is YOUR sheriff?”: Ibid.

  242 “eleven and eight”: Lewis, Walking with the Wind, p. 279.

  242 “And who are we?”: MFDP Papers, SHSW.

  243 “I was just talking to Joe Rauh”: Carmichael, Ready for Revolution, p. 403.

  243 “move heaven and earth”: Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1964.

  243 “They’ve screwed you, Joe!”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 457.

  243 “only an hour”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 389.

  243 “white power structure”: Washington Post, August 23, 1964.

  243 “I have been imprisoned”: Ibid.; and Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 415.

  244 “Girl, you reckon I ought to tell it?”: Blackwell, Barefootin’, p. 111.

  244 “Mister Chairman”: Fannie Lou Hamer, testimony before the Democratic National Convention, American Radio Works Web site, http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/flhamer.html.

  244 “There’s Fannie Lou!”: Len Edwards, personal interview, October 29, 2008.

  244 “We’re gonna get the job done tonight”: WATS Line, August 20, 1964.

  245 “Your time is short!”: Ibid.

  245 “every nigger in town”: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 163.

  245 “comedy of terrors”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 383.

  245 “If you people leave us”: WATS Line, August 20, 1964.

  245 “I can simply no longer justify”: Martinez, Letters from Mississippi, p. 265.

  245 “I wasn’t going to stay”: Winn, correspondence, September 1, 1964.

  246 “Standard Operating Procedure”: Ibid., August 14, 1964.

  246 “COME ONE, COME ALL”: Jerry Tecklin Papers, SHSW.

  247 “What’s this all about?”: Winn, interview, November 13, 2007.

  247 “We all knew”: Ibid.

  247 “I didn’t try to register for you”: Hamer, testimony.

  247 “On the tenth of September 1962”: Ibid.

  247 “We will return to this scene”: Hampton, “Mississippi—Is This America?”

  247 “On this day nine months ago”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 460.

  248 “ for it is in these saints”: Ibid.

  248 “power-hungry soreheads,” their “rump group”: Murray Kempton, “Conscience of a Convention,” New Republic, September 5, 1964, p. 6.

  248 “vote for the power structure”: Erenrich, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, p. 312.

  248 “I was carried to the county jail”: Hamer, testimony.

  248 “And he said, ‘We’re going to make you wish’ ”: Ibid.

  249 “And I was beat by the first Negro”: Ibid.

  249 “All of this is on account of”: Ibid.

  249 “I don’t think that if this issue”: Mulford and Field, Freedom on My Mind.

  250 “honored guests”: Kotz, Judgment Days, p. 201.


  250 “back of the bus”: Los Angeles Times, August 24, 1964.

  250 “because he was on our side”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 289.

  250 “Tell Rauh if he plans”: Kotz, Judgment Days, p. 208.

  251 “way out of line”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 461.

  251 “SUPPORT THE FREEDOM DEMOCRATS”: Christian Science Monitor, August 26, 1964.

  251 “1964, NOT 1864” and “STOP HYPOCRISY, START DEMOCRACY”: Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1964.

  252 “Mississippi Terror Truck”: Mulford and Field, Freedom on My Mind.

  252 “Don’t you understand?”: Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1964.

  252 “Alabama’s done gone”: Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 523.

  252 “Atlantic City’s White House”: Washington Post, August 25, 1964.

  252 “You better talk to Hubert Humphrey”: Kotz, Judgment Days, p. 200.

  253 “ for Negroes to speak for Negroes”: Ibid., p. 211.

  253 “Then democracy is not real”: Kotz, Judgment Days, p. 211.

  253 “The time has arrived”: Joshua Zeitz, “Democratic Debacle,” American Heritage , June/July 2004, online edition.

  253 “Senator Humphrey,” she began: Chana Kai Lee, For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), p. 93; and Olson, Freedom’s Daughters, p. 320.

  253 “We can win on the floor”: New York Times, August 25, p. 23.

  253 “listened patiently . . . argued fervently”: Kotz, Judgment Days, p. 211.

  253 “that the Negroes have taken over”: Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 527.

  254 “The Freedom Party,” Johnson told a friend: Kotz, Judgment Days, p. 213.

  254 “an excuse to say I turned”: Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 525.

  254 “Bobby’s trap”: Ibid., p. 525.

  254 “The times require leadership”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 468n.

  254 “This would throw the nation”: Ibid., p. 468.

  254 “These people went in and begged”: Ibid., p. 471.

  254 “But we’re going to ignore that”: Robert David Johnson, All the Way with LBJ: The 1964 Presidential Election (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 186.

  254 “take a tranquilizer”: Kotz, Judgment Days, pp. 212-13.

  254 “a wholesale walkout”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 471.

  254 “It looks like we’re turning the Democratic party”: Ibid.

  255 “By God, I’m going to go up there”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 473.