Freedom Summer - Bruce W. Watson [177]
Though I have never met her, I offer special thanks to Elizabeth Martinez, who began compiling volunteers’ letters moments after Freedom Summer ended. Her book, Letters from Mississippi, was of invaluable help. It is also the most moving compilation of historical letters I have seen on any subject. Thanks also to ex-volunteer Jim Kates, whose Zephyr Press rereleased Letters from Mississippi, and who offered advice early in my research.
Thanks to my patient and wise editor at Viking, Wendy Wolf, for allowing me to give my own touch to another American story. And to my agent, Jeff Kleinman, for his continued help in negotiating the Manuscript Jungle. Two friends and former civil rights activists—Bob Winston and Sue Thrasher—provided encouragement along the way. Bob also offered kind comments on the initial draft. And as always, I owe more than I can express to my wife, Julie, and our two children, for allowing me to head south three times in a single year, and for trying the grits I brought back.
Finally, to the people of Mississippi who spoke freely with me during my visits there, I owe more than gratitude. Freedom Summer was not their beloved state’s finest hour, but Mississippians continue to treat it with remarkable frankness. Their honesty and hospitality made each trip to Mississippi a genuine pleasure. In particular, thanks to Dr. Stacy White for sharing stories of her great-aunt, Irene Magruder, for giving me a tour of Freedom Summer sites in Indianola, and for inviting me back for the Sunflower County Civil Rights Reunion. Thanks to Robert Miles Jr. for inviting me into the Batesville home of his courageous father, and to Neil White for insights and hospitality over coffee in Oxford. Former sheriff Charles W. Capps Jr., retired after a long career in the state legislature, demonstrated true Mississippi hospitality when he agreed to be interviewed on an hour’s notice about a time he would probably rather forget. And thanks to Gary Brooks, who came all the way from New Orleans to show me around his hometown of McComb. These memories, and not the scars of the Jim Crow system, are the Mississippi I know, convincing me that more Americans should go to the Magnolia State. It’s a wonderful place, to which I hope to return again and again.
Notes
Book One
1 “Niggers down here don’t need to vote”: Eric Burner, And Gently He Shall Lead Them: Robert Parris Moses and Civil Rights in Mississippi (New York: New York University Press, 1994), p. 118.
2 “I’m not going to talk to you”: Charles Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), p. 122.
2 “I’m not playing with you this morning!”: Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), p. 511.
Prologue
6 “Paul Stood Tall Last Fall”: New York Times, July 5, 1964.
6 “Niggers, Alligators, Apes, Coons, and Possums”: “Mississippi: Battle of the Kennedys,” Newsweek, August 19, 1963, p. 24.
6 “white folks’ business”: John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), p. 205.
7 “goddamned NAACP Communist trouble makers”: Ivanhoe Donaldson, “Southern Diaries,” in Mississippi Freedom Summer, ed. John F. McClymer (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2004), p. 90.
7 “not only have a right but a duty”: Jackson Clarion-Ledger, June 12, 2005.
7 “too beautiful to burn”: Port Gibson Heritage Trust Web site, http://www.portgibsonheritagetrust.org/port_gibson.
8 “the War for Southern Independence”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 112.
8 “It’s a rotten, miserable life” and “We don’t hate niggers”: “How Whites Feel About a Painful America,” Newsweek, October 21, 1963, pp. 44-51.
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