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Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Blacks in the New World)

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Much of our common knowledge of U.S. civil rights movement's history comes from books and films portraying the nationally known struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. This book tells a different story - the struggles of the largely African American activists who, working without the benefit of the national spotlight, sought to open up the closed society of Mississippi to equal treatment for its African American citizens. It was a tremendous and extremely dangerous task. Mississippi was the toughest nut to crack among the Southern states. It was the most impoverished state in the union, where subjugation of African Americans was strictly enforced through intimidation, violence, disenfranchisement, job firings and economic ruin. Any sympathetic whites who dared to even question Mississippi justice were financially ruined and all but run out of the state. In this seemingly impossible to change social, political, and economic climate, a movement of local Mississippi African Americans emerged, with the help of activists from other states, who challenged the situation head-on by attempting to empower African Americans through voter registration drives, by attempting to set up cooperatives in order to gain economic power, and through education. The emphasis was not so much on organizing for desegregation of public facilities as it was on changing the power structure of Mississippi, to enfranchise its African American citizens and gain for them political and economic justice. Working from the bottom up, these activists had few allies, were largely ignored by the national media, and faced life threatening dangers on a daily and nightly basis. Many were savagely beaten, shot at, and repeatedly jailed. Several were murdered. They persisted, working diligently and out of the spotlight. Local People details the successes and failures of these every day struggles, and by doing so, lifts this aspect of the movement from obscurity to its rightful place in history. Prof. Dittmer is a first-rate writer - this book is very hard to put down once you start reading it. What emerges is a portrait of some of the most courageous people in our nation's history, such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Amzie Moore, and Bob Moses, and the local people who responded to the activists efforts. Local People is essential reading for any true understanding of the civil rights movement.

Local People is a well-written, deeply-researched, and brilliantly conceived book. It takes the reader far beyond the civil rights celebrities and the TV history that is all too familiar, and roots the movement among the local folk of the black South. It also sees deeply into the politics of black liberation in those decisive years, giving us rich insights and telling anecdotes. Still more impressive, Local People manages to be a first-rate work of scholarship and a great read. If you have a history buff in the family or someone who likes American politics, this makes a great gift. My father couldn't put it down.

In my opinion this work looks at the civil rights movement in a way that all historians shoud take note of. Dittmer's in-depth bottom up look at the way movements happen allows a deeper understanding of the incredible struggles that local Mississippians went through for a few small steps toward racial equality. It also knocks the national leaders (JFK, LBJ, MLK) off the pedestals that mainstream history has placed under them and shows the truly peripheral role that they played in the struggle.

If you have any interest in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, this is the work you should turn to. It has great depth and is written with an enthusiastic flair that is not often found in similar works. I echo the comment....you won't be able to put it down until the last page is read.

John Dittmer's study of the Mississippi truly reaches the level of factual study that presents the reader with all the information needed to see the Mississippi civil rights movement on the ground. It provides the facts of the 1940's and 1950's, pointing out the 83,000 Mississippi African Americans who served in the armed forces in World War II and in those who returned to Mississippi as those who were important in no small part to the student civil rights movement that blossomed there in the 1960's.

To study the Mississippi movement without reading Dittmer's work is to fail to get a true picture as to what happened there. Taken together with Charles Payne's I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Stuggle, one is able to understand the Mississippi student civil movement of the 1960's to a large degree.

This was required reading for a graduate course in American history.

John Dittmer's Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi paints a portrait of one of the most horrendous acts committed in our nation's history. The torture and abuse the black population endured just to be able to vote was unimaginable. Black men from Mississippi fought for our country in World War II but they could not have a voice in who helped run our country. They remained disenfranchised in this state. White supremacy ran rampant in Mississippi for decades.

Trying to keep blacks from voting in the 1940's made headlines in the Jackson Daily News which read: "DON'T TRY IT!": "Don't attempt to participate in the Democratic primaries anywhere in Mississippi on July 2nd* Staying away from the polls on that date will be the best way to prevent unhealthy and unhappy results." (2) Senator Theodore "The Man" Bilbo played a major role in what became known as the "reign of terror" in trying to keep blacks from voting. Although a complaint was filed with the US Senate committee to Investigate Campaign Expenditures claiming Bilbo had something to do with ostracizing blacks he denied all charges of wrongdoing and was exonerated.

The state constitution had been set up in such a manner that made it almost impossible . for any black man or woman to be able to register to vote. The four main criteria were:

1. Prevent them from registering in the first place
2. Two year residency requirement
3. Two dollar poll tax
4. "Understanding clause" which stated that any prospective voter must be able to read any section of the constitution or as an alternative, be able to understand it when read to him, or to give" a reasonable interpretation of it". (6)

The vast majority of white Mississippians believed blacks should not vote. For four decades blacks struggled against forces of white supremacy with limited success. Most of the' power coming from the "Delta Aristocracy" dominated the state politically and economically for almost half the century (10).

Racial violence was a daily reality for blacks in Mississippi. The caste system that existed before World War II still lingered and remained well into the future, After the war black activism began. Efforts began to be made for voter registration. Organizations began to form in order to advance the black population into what should already be theirs, human rights. Many still held jobs associated with slavery. Jim Crow commanded the pace of life in Mississippi. "Keeping the Negro in his place" was the duty of every white citizen (20). The black vote was not progressing the way organizations like the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) wished it would. Three of the factors that accounted for the failure to register large numbers of black votes are as follows:

1. Tactics of intimidation
2. No on to vote for
3. Registration campaigns centered on the small black middle class

Organizations such as the NAACP and the RCNl (Regional Council of Negro leadership) were both working toward the same goal; however, their differences were more territorial than ideological. They had to remember that their common enemy was the same. Mississippi came to be in a class by itself. The philosophy of the white population came to be that it was "open season" on blacks. If any black man ever achieved anything or got
ahead in any way white supremacy out ranked him every time. Voting remained the main objective for blacks for many years. They continued to have many obstacles in which to overcome in order to just get registered. The state kept the difficult tests in place and violence was EVERYWHERE.

By the early 1960's outsiders began to infiltrate the state. Freedom rides began, college students began protesting in different ways, sit-ins and demonstrations started; and during this time President Kennedy's only goal was to avoid violence. Voter registration came to a standstill after the murder of Herbert Lee, a member of the Mississippi state legislature. His murder was sending a message to the black population which was standing up for your rights in southwest Mississippi could get you killed (109). Organizers came to the realization that no progress could be made unless someone was willing to die.

The activist decide to go to the Delta which was the most oppressed and poor area of Mississippi. There they find that the poorest people are the most willing to act because they have nothing to lose. Violence follows them everywhere but patience begins to subside with the black population and they start to fight back.

James Meredith applied to Ole Miss after serving in the military and enrolling in Jackson State in 1960. His main goal was to desegregate Ole Miss. After many appeals, Meredith was admitted and the governor, Ross Barnett, had been in secret negotiations with the Kennedy' son how to keep Ole Miss from becoming integrated. The Kennedy's had trusted Barnett to keep the peace with this matter; however, on September 30, 1962 the Ole Miss riot took place when Meredith entered Oxford with federal Marshalls. When it was over two men were dead and 160 marshals were injured (140).

Hunger, illiteracy and voting were concerns that needed to be addressed immediately. The SNCC(Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) forced the Kennedys to do what they did not want to do, to "be on somebody's side" (153). The black community became excited. They got involved. The Greenwood movement, as it was known, survived the repression it experienced and the SNCC workers returned to their projects once again. However, the federal indifference and the white narrow-mindedness did not put an end to the fight for civil rights. At the same time in Jackson they were getting ready for a campaign against segregated facilities and discriminatory employment practices. They were insisting on the use of courtesy titles, equality in hiring and promotion, and an end to Jim Crow practices (157). After gaining some momentum in their quest the NAACP decided to reverse their direction which is still unclear. In Jackson, the Kennedys' primary objective was to bring an end to violence, which meant getting black people off the streets. They preferred order to justice (169).

Violence, hunger, and hatred continued to ensue throughout the state. Pastors of black churches finally opened their doors to organizations so they would have somewhere to meet. Voting rights were still a primary goal. With more organizations in the middle of things conflicting strategies became a problem. They all wanted the same end result but the ideologies were not the same. Therefore, they each had a different opinion on how things should be done.

Willie Dillon a COFO (Council of Federated Organizations) participant and parent of children, who went to Freedom Schools, had his house bombed in McComb. The police blamed him and arrested him for operating a garage without a license. He pleaded guilty after intimidation and without the guidance of an attorney and was fired from his job. McComb's blacks were consistently bombed by the KKK, if the blacks were active. McComb's white leadership was silent. Black principals and ministers who had not been active in the COFO movement were bombed. Black residents went to the justice department, but to no avail. Eventually the government heard rumors of marshal law and white bombers were eventually arrested and the KKK terror stopped. The bombers were let off with a stern warning. With nationwide media watching, McComb desegregated for the cameras; but returned to the old way of life once the media was gone. Black activists decimated the Klan's authority and won some small battles; and some white moderate voices were beginning to be heard.

In 1964 COFO emerged as a powerful force in the election by trying to get blacks registered and voting. COFO was expanding. Some people returned to school. CORE(Congress of Racial Equality) and SNCC had low morale and few activists signed up in 1964. Women were discriminated against in SNCC as secretaries when they were qualified for much more. The Freedom Democratic Party would be an independent force, the successor to both COFO and SNCC.

Freedom Democrats contested the Mississippi elections of five House representatives. More than a third of the House membership voted to bar the Mississippi members. National publicity and lawyers came to Mississippi because of the contention. COFO and the NAACP could not agree on anything and were increasingly hostile towards each other. COFO was abolished and SNCC went under the FOP. SNCC activists were alienated from mainstream politics. White terror made it so blacks did not want to vote. Natchez was a town of the "Old South". Charles Evers emerged as that section of Mississippi's main leader and played the organizations against each other. The Natchez blacks demanded equality in the police force, government and business or the blacks would boycott white stores. FOP did not agree with Evers, but Evers won with popularity. He was cautious and did not march when the other organizations thought they should. Evers went against FOP thought and ended the boycott to white stores that had compromised. FOP was on the major decline, defeated in Natchez. FOP
money was running tight. New strategies would have to be employed.

In early April 1965 the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union (MFLU) and the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) were created to organize black farm and domestic workers in the Delta region. The MFLU efforts failed not only because the traditional hostility of white Mississippians toward all labor unions, but also because farm workers had no leverage to use against the planters. Efforts to form farmers cooperatives in the region barely made a dent in the problems of black unemployment and poverty. CDGM was one of the nation's pioneer Head Start programs, providing poor children with preschool training, medical care, and two hot meals a day. It also provided employment at decent wages for hundreds of local teachers and paraprofessionals at Head Start centers.

On June 4, 1966, James Meredith began his 220 mile walk from Memphis to Mississippi's state capital of Jackson to challenge the fear that was still dominant among black Mississippians and to convince them it was now safe to register and vote in the Magnolia State. On the second day, Meredith was shot, but while he was recuperating leaders of the national civil rights organizations continued the march. During the first week of the Meredith march there were few white hecklers. Local officials were eager to avoid incidents of violence and the march itself had an informal and relaxed quality. That all changed during the final ten days with familiar tactics of repression and mob violence; but it also became more militant as the ideological and philosophical divisions among its leaders became more apparent (395 & 396). When the march ended anticlimactically on June 26th, and the national civil rights leadership left the state - fighting over who would pay the march's bills - Mississippi was still segregated, black poverty was still getting worse, and local black Mississippians were still left to pick up the pieces.

SNCC as an organization had little impact on the Mississippi movement after 1966; it had become preoccupied with internal problems centering on the definition and implications of black power and it had voted to expel all whites from the organization in December 1966. The local people, who had been the backbone of the old COFO coalition and the Freedom Democratic Party (FOP), faced challenges from black and white political moderates. FOP leaders agreed that the 1967 state and local elections would make or break their party (410). In the face of urban race riots in the North, and calls for revolution among black nationalists, FOP continued to work within the political system and welcomed support from all people who identified with its theme of black empowerment. State legislative strategies conspired to dilute black voting strength(gerrymandering congressional districts, creating multimember legislative districts requiring at-large voting, and increased filing requirements for independent candidates); this, combined with black political infighting and white intimidation limited FOP's achievements (411-415).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history, civil rights history.

Marvelous. Should be required reading for all college and university students.