tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133579402024-03-05T22:38:17.478-06:00Murders Around MississippiNewest information on Mississippi murders involving African Americans and/or Mississippi politicians and leaders. <a href="http://ideamarketers.com/syndicated/syndicateauthor.cfm?writerid=3222"><b>SYNDICATE SUSAN'S ARTICLES</b></a> on your site! Fast, Easy & Free! (El Movimiento por los Derechos Civiles en Estados Unidos)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comBlogger213125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-53830001479142853222011-06-02T17:28:00.000-05:002011-06-02T17:28:03.812-05:00Ex FBI Agent Tells of Mississippi MurdersEL DORADO, Ark. (AP) — The search was on for three missing young men in Mississippi during the August of 1964. FBI Special Agent Floyd Thomas was "right in the middle of it" on the search for the three individuals whose car had been torched some time before.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.necn.com/05/29/11/Ex-FBI-special-agent-tells-of-Mississipp/landing_nation.html?&blockID=3&apID=f6ea377e822f47dda9ba7d7760795bae">Continued</a> --Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-33541665493162808532011-06-02T16:53:00.002-05:002011-06-02T16:53:26.763-05:00NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT<div class="text"><a class="bookTitle" href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/63393"><span style="font-size:180%;color:#ff0000;"><strong>Cash In On Diversity</strong></span></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="subnote"><span style="color:#000066;">Ebook Price: $3.99 USD. 32510 words. Non-Fiction by </span><a href="http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/sklopfer"><span style="color:#000066;">Susan Klopfer</span></a><span style="color:#000066;"> on May 31, 2011</span></span><span style="color:#000066;"><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Cash In On Diversity; How Getting Along With Others Pays Off</strong> is a practical guide written for business people, educators, health workers, lawyers, ministers, engineers, computer experts, students and all others who want to do a better job of relating to each other in their daily lives. Easy-to-read, storytelling approach. Includes a valuable glossary plus webinar script and more. </span></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<p><a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/63393"><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">Learn more now -- read a FREE sample -- HERE!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</span></strong><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</a></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-16550899867148667522010-10-20T19:28:00.000-05:002010-10-20T19:28:09.618-05:00Follow me on Twitter<br />
<a href="http://twitter.com/@sklopfer">http://twitter.com/@sklopfer<br />
</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-75153553480914962842010-03-22T23:12:00.006-05:002010-03-22T23:20:04.850-05:00The Tea Party Is All About Race; Huffington Post Writer AssertsBob CescaPolitical Writer, Blogger, and New Media Producer writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>Developed by Republican strategists like Harry Dent and Pat Buchanan during the rebuilding of the GOP in the post Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act era, the Southern Strategy's goal was to win over southern whites by demonizing blacks using subterfuge, dog whistles and coded language. As I mentioned last week, the late Republican mastermind Lee Atwater described the use of the Southern Strategy as being all about the use of "abstract" issues that imply race without explicitly using direct racial epithets or even the words "black" or "white."<br /><br />Atwater described some of the abstract issues of his era as "forced bussing" or taxes, and framing these issues in a way that subconsciously fuels white resentment towards blacks, and serves to coalesce white votes around Republican candidates. After all, Republicans will readily admit that trying to win over black voters has been a lost cause since LBJ, so why not exploit that loss by playing to white racial bias and thus locking down larger chunks of the white vote?</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-tea-party-is-all-abou_b_493929.html">Continued at Huffington Post</a><br />* * *Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-63076038718405770002010-03-15T09:35:00.005-05:002010-03-15T15:53:21.224-05:00New Book Announcement: Who Killed Emmett Till?<a href="http://www.lulu.com/commerce/index.php?fBuyContent=8004547"><img src="http://www.lulu.com/services/buy_now_buttons/images/gray.gif" border="0" alt="Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu."></a><br />* * *<br />Save 10% this Month at Lulu. Click "Buy" and enter code "IDES" at checkout.<br /><br />What Others Say About Susan Klopfer<br /><br />"This [Who Killed Emmett Till?] is a well-written and fascinating book about a vicious lynching of an African-American teenager from Chicago while visiting Mississippi. His mother insisted on an open coffin for the services so that people could see what was done to her son. The author explains the history, demands justice, talks with some of those still alive who, as she says, "still had the story fresh in their hearts and minds." After you read this book, the events will live in your heart and mind too, because she makes it come alive. This is highly recommended." Bernard Farber<br /><br />"Susan Klopfer, the leading authority on the history of the Mississippi civil rights movement ... Thank God for enterprising historians like Susan Klopfer who have the courage to state the obvious."<br /><br />"The Iowa historian’s master work, Where Rebel’s Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited, demonstrates how opposition to the Massive Resistance movement in Mississippi during the 1950s and 60s led inevitably to harassment and, in most cases, financial ruin." Alan Bean, Ph.D., Friends of Justice<br /><br />"An amazing achievement. By far the most comprehensive guide to Mississippi's unsolved civil rights murders." Tom Head, Mississippi activist and About.com Guide to Civil Liberties<br /><br />" ... an absorbing and substantial work that speaks in many provocative ways ..." Lois Brown, director of the Weissman Center for Leadership and Liberal Arts, Mount Holyoke College<br /><br />"Susan Klopfer is determined to tell the truth about Mississippi and about America ... Klopfer follows the money, showing how the lines of culpability lead into the offices of New York industrialist Wycliffe Draper, whose Pioneer Fund fueled Mississippi's fight against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and provided millions of dollars for the private academies, established to keep white children out of integrated schools after Brown v. Board of Ed. (More recently, the Pioneer Fund financed the research for the controversial book, The Bell Curve, a best selling, racist tract published in 1994.)" Ben Greenberg, poet, essayist and activist and author of the blog Hungry Blues<br /><br />"You won't be ready to stop reading until you finish and then I read it several more times. It's a part of history that I lived through and the story just hasn't been told like this before. Her interviews and descriptions made me feel like I was there both during and after. I have a feeling I'm still not ready to put this book down." Elizabeth L. Smith, Newbet's Choice<br /><br />"Susan Klopfer has conducted in-depth personal research for her civil rights writings. She has walked the land where these atrocities occurred and still occur. Susan has experienced the pain and secrecy felt in these stories as she conducted first hand interviews with relatives of victims. All well worth reading, Susan Klopfer tells it like it is, and like it was." Pat Fua, librarian, White Pine High School <br /><br />"It was gripping, frightening and sad...Thank you for educating this community." Gayle Tiede, Mount Pleasant Public Library."<br /><br />* * *<br /><br /><div><br /><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pub=xa-4a6d4fcf58349a4f" onclick="return addthis_sendto()" onmouseout="addthis_close()" onmouseover="return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')"><img alt="Bookmark and Share" height="16" src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/lg-share-en.gif" style="border: 0;" width="125" /></a><script src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js?pub=xa-4a6d4fcf58349a4f" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-59531154887647377292010-03-11T17:44:00.000-06:002010-03-11T17:46:18.497-06:00Author of Till Book Investigated by Glenn Beck<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://cf.cnnbcvideo.com/embed.swf" width="480" height="385" id="viralVideo" style="visibility: visible; "><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="flashvars" value="dataURL=http%3A%2F%2Fbeck.cnnbcvideo.com%2Fembed.xml%3Fbv_id%3Db|921473-oUF1Wwx&autoPlay=0"><embed src="http://cf.cnnbcvideo.com/embed.swf?dataURL=http%3A%2F%2Fbeck.cnnbcvideo.com%2Fembed.xml%3Fbv_id%3Db|921473-oUF1Wwx&autoPlay=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-4319539047252202312010-03-10T17:21:00.003-06:002010-03-11T16:46:26.401-06:00Mississippi Woman Could Go To Prison For life For $11 Robbery<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBr0cOH_0JPuKApoCXc7f4APpAA3EhWw9ExzPYrTz2RmkLOsfbV24M1Zc0NzvQRfakLkXV1TD__RoVGHB_-XgO_CPiU5YMATY17giSbVLoWX4jO168oVftLU1EgDV-y3UvL0huA/s1600-h/scottsister.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBr0cOH_0JPuKApoCXc7f4APpAA3EhWw9ExzPYrTz2RmkLOsfbV24M1Zc0NzvQRfakLkXV1TD__RoVGHB_-XgO_CPiU5YMATY17giSbVLoWX4jO168oVftLU1EgDV-y3UvL0huA/s320/scottsister.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447150144602235410" /></a><br /><br />The nightmare began on Christmas Eve in 1993 when Rasco's two daughters, Jamie and Gladys Scott, left a mini-mart near their home in Scott County, Mississippi. Their car broke down, and they hitched a ride from two young men, one of whom they knew. But later that evening, the men were robbed at gunpoint by three teenagers in another car. The robbers got away with an estimated $11 and no one was hurt, but police accused the Scott sisters of setting the victims up. <br /><br /><a href="http://thaedge.blogspot.com/2010/03/mississippi-woman-could-die-in-prison.html">Keep reading</a> ...<br /><br /><a href="http://twitter.com/sklopfer"><img src="http://addtwitter.com/images/ex/aniv.gif" title="By: AddTwitter.com" width="163" height="32" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-29428640171302048092010-02-28T11:52:00.002-06:002010-03-11T16:47:16.409-06:00Who Killed Emmett Till? Author Answers Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)Whenever I speak about Emmett Till and other Mississippi murders, I get interesting questions from audience members. Here are several ...<br /><br />Q. Is the Emmett Till story still important? Do people still care?<br /><br />A. Emmett Till's murder took place over 54 years ago, back in 1955, and yet we are just beginning to learn the details of the crime. Till was a young man known only by his family and friends, but the truth of his lynching remains an important key to understanding American history. Further, the truth about young Till's murder and the truth about the murders of so many others — including President John F. Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy — is crucial to maintaining our democracy, because in a free government ... truth matters. <br /><br />In each of these murders, there have been numerous threats to the uncovering and exposure of the truth. These threats have often come from within our own government, through such programs as COINTELPRO, a secretive series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), officially from1956 to 1971.<br /><br />While the FBI's COINTELPRO was aimed at "investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations" around the entire country, Mississippi had its own such secret spy agency, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. This Commission spied and disrupted, with the help of the Ku Klux Klan, those people who aided in black voter registration and racial integration.<br /><br />The Sovereignty Commission was formed only one year after Emmett Till's death, the same year as COINTELPRO, because of the pressure the state was receiving from the federal government. Former FBI and military intelligence agents were hired by Mississippi and used as Commission investigators. Ironically, the very federal government that was applying pressure on Mississippi to change, was also using the FBI and COINTELPRO to disrupt many people and organizations trying to bring positive change to the state, often tagging these people as Communists or simply dangerous.<br /><br />Thanks to people who care about historical truth, their research on Emmett Till, COINTELPRO and the assassinations of our country's peace-seeking leaders continues to bring out new evidence. And as this truth becomes apparent, it serves to keep us free.<br /><br />Yes, Emmett Till's story still matters. And as the 83,000 "Emmett Till" entries listed on Google as of 11:34 p.m. September 26, 2009, attest, the Emmett Till story continues to hold an important place in history. The story of 14-year-old Emmett Till remains important and people still care. Thank God.<br /><br />Q.What kind of a boy was Emmett Till? <br /><br />“I would say that to me, Emmett was very ordinary. But as I look at today’s youth, I realize that Emmett was very extraordinary,” his mother once told historian Devery Anderson who interviewed Mrs. Till Mobley in 1996. She described her son as responsible and industrious, a youngster who helped her clean, cook and do laundry, recognizing the importance of his help as a single mother. Anderson’s site is at emmetttillmurder.com.<br /><br />In her book, Emmett’s mother gives a further glimpse of her son, however. “Emmet was always so confident about his ability to talk his way through things that you could forget that he still had a problem talking. After he had recovered from polio as quickly as he had done, at such an early age, the doctors figured he could lick this problem [stuttering], too And we did everything we were supposed to do. The speech therapy classes had helped some, but the stutter was still apparent at eleven and then at twelve, in normal conversation, but especially when he got excited.” Later, she also terms her son as “meticulous” and “independent.”<br /><br />Young Emmett had just finished the seventh grade at the all-black McCosh Elementary School on Chicago's South Side when he went to Mississippi. He was between five-foot- four and five-foot-five and weighed 160 pounds, was physically stocky and muscular. Various authors write he was self-assured despite a speech defect--a stutter that resulted from a bout with nonparalytic polio at the age of three. Emmett was a smart dresser with a reputation as a prankster and a risk taker.<br /><br />Q. What happened to Emmett Till’s father?<br /><br />Louis Till, drafted in World War II, was convicted of raping two women and killing a third. He was executed by the U.S. Army, which originally told Till's wife, Mamie, only that he had been killed due to "willful misconduct.<br /><br />One Chicago woman, J. Marie Green, a military retiree who studied black history and is an independent civil rights researcher, remembers Till’s murder and has spent years investigating what happened to his father. She wrote this comment on my blog, www.whokilledemmetttill.com:<br /><br />“Emmett Till’s murder is something one never forgets. I was born and raised in Chicago, and was about five years old when he was killed and remember when it happened and saw the Jet magazine photos, and I was scared to death, shocked really and questioned my mother who was from Greenwood, Mississippi, asking her why would two grown men would kill a child and what is a "wolf whistle", and are these men coming after us? “She assured me that these men where not coming to get us, explained what a "wolf whistle" was and meant in relations to that, and as a side bar note, told me that I ask too many questions. (smile). But every child in our area was afraid for a long time. Over the years I have never forgotten him, and have read just about everything I have come across about him every time his name is mentioned somewhere. Just recently his name came up again, with the incident at Burr Oak Cemetery. Somehow I feel his death is not resolved.<br /><br />“…Mrs. Till’s husband's story is another whole story all by itself. Pvt. Louis Till was part of the 177th Port Company, 397th Battalion — an all-"negro" battalion — which left from a NY port and arrived in France during 1944. He was hanged by execution by the U.S. Army on July 2, 1945. by orders of General Eisenhower. Allegedly for the murder of Anna Zanchi, and the rape of Benni Lucretzia and Frieda Muri who lived in Civitavecchia, Italy, these crime supposedly occurred on June 27, 1944, shortly after he arrived, mind you! <br /><br />“According to records found at The American Battle Monuments Commission, Pvt. Louis Till is buried in an unmarked, prohibited, isolated area of Oise-Aisne Cemetery in Fere-en-Tardenois, France. The military marked his personnel file and the courts-martial records "secret," hushed it up, sent Mrs. Till a telegram, stating that her husband had died because of "misconduct," and she never knew what happened to him until her son's trial, when the Senators pulled some strings and contacted the military and some Staff Judge Advocate General, crossed out the word "secret" and released the information to them.<br /><br />“Even after the trial of Emmett, she could never get any answers to what happened to her husband and why he was killed, this is clearly a military "railroad job," and has been hushed up all these years for a reason, but if you would check military history during this period you will see that a lot of black men were mysteriously hung for rape of French women. "They" took racism right on with them and convinced the French that "Negroes" had a problem, too.” <br /><br />Q. Why do people sometimes refer to the University of Mississippi as Ole Miss?<br /><br />The University got its nickname "Ole Miss" via a contest in 1897. That same year, the student yearbook was being published for the first time. As a way to find a name for the book, a contest was held to solicit suggestions from the student body. Elma Meek, a student at the time, submitted the winning entry of Ole Miss. This name was chosen not only for the yearbook, but also became the name by which the University is now known.<br /><br />Ole Miss, as used by the University, is not a substitute for "Old Mississippi." Rather, this endearing term stands for the wife of the "Ole Massah" on a plantation (the man who enslaved and mistreated Africans). <br /><br />U of Miss. publicity agents claim the name is thought of in an affectionate manner, today. To check this out, I walked around the campus one day and asked some of the black students what they thought about this nickname and its history. Most were well aware of the story and several said they were disgusted. “It’s just embarrassing,” one student said. “I wish the school would change it.”<br /><br />Q. Who is your favorite Mississippi hero?<br /><br />Reading The Fire Ever Burning by Constance Curry and Aaron Henry helped get me started on this journey. Henry was a true hero and someone I would have wanted to know.<br /><br />Henry was a fierce champion of civil rights, a leader of the Mississippi chapter of the NAACP and a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives. He is still one of the most revered civil rights leaders in Mississippi, at least by many older civil rights advocates who know their state’s history.<br /><br />Henry grew up near Clarksdale, Mississippi, and later earned a degree in political science at Xavier University in New Orleans. During World War II, he served as a staff sergeant with the U.S. Army in the Pacific. After the war, Henry attended pharmacy school, and eventually returned to Clarksdale to open a corner drug store where any important civil rights and government leaders met to unite Mississippi blacks in fighting white supremacy. Sadly, the pharmacy no longer stands in Clarksdale. His home was also demolished in a fire.<br /><br />There were many personal tragedies in Henry’s life as well as successes. In 1961, Henry led a highly successful boycott of stores in the Clarksdale, Mississippi, area that refused to hire black workers and discriminated against black customers. He and six others were arrested for “conspiring to withhold trade.” <br /><br />These charges were eventually reversed on appeal but another charge, of sexual harassment, against Henry, soon followed came soon after. While he was fighting this case, which he eventually won, his pharmacy was firebombed and his wife, Nicole, was fired from her job as a public school teacher. Several years later, Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963 after taking Henry to the airport.<br /><br />For Henry, there was no such thing as a small victory and because each victory usually led to an even greater success. "I think," Henry once said, "that every time a man stands for an ideal or speaks out against injustice, he sends out a tiny ripple of hope."<br /><br />After the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the number of black voters grew rapidly and as African Americans began to be elected winning elections to various local, county and statewide offices. Henry was elected to serve in the State House of Representatives in 1982, a post he held until 1996 where he continued to fight against racial injustice. <br /><br />Henry introduced legislation to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state flag and continued to call for the reopening of the murder case for his old friend, Medgar Evers. Aaron Henry suffered a stroke in 1996, and died on May 19, 1997 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, just two months and five days after the murder of his friend, Cleve McDowell. <br /><br />Q. Can I see a movie about Emmett Till<br /><br />Yes, thanks to Keith Beauchamp, a young man who saw the photograph of Emmett Till's brutally beaten face that ran on the cover Jet magazine and became a civil rights activist in 2004. Beauchamp directed The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till that is available on DVD. Till's murder has yet to be solved and Beauchamp said he is committing his energy to solving this and other civil rights cold cases. We owe him our extreme thanks and appreciation for his tenacity, perseverance and dedication to the cause of civil rights. <br /><br />Q. What’s happening these days in Mississippi?<br /><br />Many activities are going on — some good and some disgusting. Friends of Justice is a nonprofit organization working to uphold due process for all Americans with the goal of building a public consensus behind equal access to justice and respect for human dignity in our criminal justice system, according to Executive Director, Dr. Alan Bean.<br /><br />Friends of Justice formed in response to the infamous Tulia drug sting of 1999 in which 47 people, 39 of them African Americans, were rounded up based on the false testimony of an undercover agent, he explains.<br /><br />The unique group emerged as a coalition of defendant’s defendants' families and other concerned citizens who believed the defendants were being prosecuted on faulty evidence. "Because of the work of Friends of Justice, the Texas Legislature passed the Tulia Corroboration Bill, which has led to the exoneration of dozens of innocent people by raising the evidentiary standards for undercover testimony."<br /><br />Learning from their experience in Tulia, Friends of Justice started organizing across Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi.<br /><br />"We launch narrative-based campaigns around unfolding cases where due process has broken down, and empower affected communities to hold public officials accountable for equal justice. For more on our work, check their blog at http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/blog/<br /><br />A wrongful conviction in a murder trial recently actually brought FOJ to Mississippi. In July 1996, four people were killed execution style at a Montgomery County furniture store: owner Bertha Tardy, bookkeeper Carmen Rigby, and two hired men, Bobo Stewart and Robert Golden. Golden was black, the other three victims were white. Six months later, Curtis Flowers, a young black Winona resident - who had worked three days for Bertha Tardy - was arrested and charged with the brutal murder of four innocent people. <br /><br />Thirteen years, $300,000 and five trials later, Mr. Flowers remains behind bars and during which the state has been unable to obtain a final conviction. <br />Dr. Bean’s group believes that the state’s theory of the murder crime accused of a Winona company's former worker, by Flowers, "... doesn’t fit the actual evidence, and the state manufactured phony evidence by manipulating, badgering and bribing witnesses." Details of the Curtis Flowers case are shared at the FOJ website in a story titled, "A brief primer in wrongful conviction. You can find more at www.friendsofjustice.com.<br /><br />A similar but unrelated ongoing case occurred three years earlier on December 24, 1993 when Scott County Sheriff's Department arrested sisters Gladys and Jamie Scott for an armed robbery they in which they vehemently deny participation in. In 1994 they were convicted after being implicated in the crime by three young black men who confessed to the robbery in exchange of a plea bargain that gave them 10 ten months. The sisters were not offered a plea and went to trial, each receiving two life sentences for a crime that netted 11 eleven dollars where no one was injured.<br /><br />Don’t think these cases happen only in Mississippi. Another comparable case involves an Illinois social justice group seeking 11,000 signatures to present a petition to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to order DNA testing to exonerate Johnnie Lee Savory.<br /><br />Convicted of double murder by an all-white jury in 1977 at the age of fourteen, Johnnie Savory served thirty years in prison for a crime he did not commit, the group asserts. Released on parole in 2006, Savory still had not been officially exonerated by fall of 2009. After his release from prison, Johnnie attended a play about Emmett Till and found himself overwhelmed with emotion as he related to the horrible fate of another innocent fourteen-year old child. Johnnie’s deep connection to Emmett was cemented when he discovered that they share the same birthday, July 25th.<br /><br />Johnnie and Emmett’s cases both represent a state-sponsored denial of justice and the loss of innocence for children, for communities of color, and for our entire nation, committee members said.<br /><br />"However, these stories also are a part of a collective story for change, they contribute to the struggle for justice. Emmett’s death sparked change in this nation and his mother ensured that his legacy lives on for eternity. While Emmett’s voice was silenced, the strength and courage of so many in the civil rights movement allowed for their collective voice to be heard and heeded."<br /><br />Also happening in Mississippi...<br /><br />Even though the cold case is very famous, most Mississippi students have never heard of Emmett Till. And they haven’t been taught about the 1964 Freedom Summer when 1,000 volunteers swept into the state to register black voters. <br /><br />Students haven’t heard of Fannie Lou Hamer or the story of Mae Bertha Carter, who defied gunfire and the loss of employment to send her children to previously all-white public schools in Drew, eventually winning a legal battle that confirmed their right to be there. “They don't know about ordinary citizens who faced extraordinary odds to bring change,” wrote Carmen K. Sisson, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor in the October 4, 2009 edition.<br /><br />“But they're going to know all about it soon. In a groundbreaking reform — believed to be the first in the nation — Mississippi will require civil rights as part of its U.S. history curriculum. McComb schools made that move in 2006; but starting next fall, the stories of the civil rights era will be taught — and tested — in all public schools.”<br /><br />This is going to be tough. But if Mississippi allows outside historians to participate and leaders refused refuse to be compromised, and if truth is the bottom line, the education program could set an example for the rest of this country. <br /><br />Most states have their own civil rights histories that have not been covered. The stories are hidden and some might quite possibly just as horrid as what happened in Mississippi, especially in the western states where genocide was practiced on Native Americans and on the eastern seaboard where many wealthy families made their fortunes from the slave trade. <br /><br />Even in my own (current) state of Iowa, the incarceration rate of blacks compared to the incarceration rate of whites is the highest in the nation. There is plenty of history to be researched and acted upon. Good jobs abound for citizen journalists. <br /><br />Q. Why is it so important to think so much about the past?<br /><br />I like to remember a quote by Winston Churchill, what he had to say about the importance of knowing our history: “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”<br /><br />Q. Is there anything else important to know about all of this?<br /><br />Unfortunately, there is something else that must be addressed. Old-fashioned Citizens Councils still meet around Mississippi and some politicians openly say it is perfectly acceptable to become members and attend meetings and special events. <br /><br />When questioned about these organizations and their memberships, they slip slide away, typically answering they don’t agree with everything the councils stand for but they “do lots of good things, too.” <br /><br />Q. Where can I find more books and more information about civil rights history in Mississippi? <br /><br />Go to my blog, www.whokilledemmetttill.com where I’ve posted my Selected Biography, a link to lists of Mississippi victims of lynching and murders and a link to a growing civil rights library. This book has been recorded as an audio book and has also been published as a print book. Links to these versions are at the Emmett Till website mentioned above.<br />* * *<br /><a href="http://twitter.com/sklopfer"><img src="http://addtwitter.com/images/ex/aniv.gif" title="By: AddTwitter.com" width="163" height="32" /></a><br /><br /><div><a onmouseover="return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')" onmouseout="addthis_close()" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pub=xa-4a6d4fcf58349a4f" onclick="return addthis_sendto()"><img width="125" alt="Bookmark and Share" style="border:0" src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/lg-share-en.gif" height="16"/></a><script src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js?pub=xa-4a6d4fcf58349a4f" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-64923095953038189072010-02-25T09:02:00.000-06:002010-02-25T09:02:53.676-06:00Video Trailer on FBI Cold CasesExcellent <a href="http://coldcases.org/video">video trailer</a> on the cold cases project. <br />
<br />
<blockquote>Today in the American South, scores of civil rights murders remain unsolved, uninvestigated, unprosecuted, and untold. Those two legacies of violence and silence still haunt the region and continue to damage race relations in the United States.<br />
<br />
Many histories have been written about the struggle for civil rights; many documentaries have been made about the movement and the resistance that rose up against it. But the history of the South and of the United States still has huge, important, undocumented holes where myths and mysteries reside, threatening to undermine the nation’s goal of putting racial conflict behind.<br />
<br />
The Civil Rights Cold Case Project is an unprecedented collaboration bringing together the power of investigative reporting, narrative writing, documentary filmmaking and interactive multimedia production to reveal the long-neglected truth behind unsolved civil rights murders, and to facilitate reconciliation and healing.</blockquote><div><a onmouseover="return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')" onmouseout="addthis_close()" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pub=xa-4a6d4fcf58349a4f" onclick="return addthis_sendto()"><img width="125" alt="Bookmark and Share" style="border:0" src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/lg-share-en.gif" height="16"/></a><script src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js?pub=xa-4a6d4fcf58349a4f" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-22375338704079256162010-02-24T04:51:00.001-06:002010-02-24T05:02:36.047-06:00Boston Investigator Says FBI Cold Case List Lacks NamesBen Greenberg of Boston, a journalist and blogger investigating the Feb. 28, 1964, killing of Clifton Walker, north of Woodville, said he’s run across seven names in his research that don’t appear on the FBI list and weren’t cited by Burnham’s research. “And there might be more,” he said.<br />
<br />
Three of those – Lula Mae Anderson, Eli Jackson and Dennis Jones – were found dead in a car in December 1963, not far from Poor House Road, where Walker is believed to have been killed by Klansmen….<br />
<br />
<a href="http://hungryblues.net/2009/02/15/cold-case-list/">Continued</a> --<br />
<br />
<div><a onmouseover="return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')" onmouseout="addthis_close()" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pub=xa-4a6d4fcf58349a4f" onclick="return addthis_sendto()"><img width="125" alt="Bookmark and Share" style="border:0" src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/lg-share-en.gif" height="16"/></a><script src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js?pub=xa-4a6d4fcf58349a4f" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-41867064794116771742010-02-23T15:23:00.001-06:002010-02-23T15:23:11.067-06:00Important LinksDownloads: <a href="http://www.box.net/onlinemediakit">Media Kit</a><br />
<br />
Links: <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/12/prweb3319614.htm">Online Media Release, WKET?</a><br />
<br />
Radio Interviews: <a href="http://www.kruufm.com/node/7012"> Interview with Tanner & Moore, KRUU FM, Feb. 2010</a><br />
<br />
Radio Interviews: <a href="http://themiddleoftheinternet.com/audio/06262005Interview.MP3">Pacifica Radio, Houston June 26, 2005</a><br />
<br />
Radio Interviews: <a href="http://themiddleoftheinternet.com/audio/07102005Interview.MP3">Pacifica Radio, Houston July 10, 2005</a><br />
<br />
Radio Interviews: <a href="http://www.kruufm.com/writers-voices-20080215-susan-klopfer">Writer's Voices, Monica Hadley</a><br />
<br />
Radio Interviews: <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2009/08/20/tha-artivist-presentswe-all-be-news-radio">Blog Talk Radio, WE All Be Radio With Ron Herd</a><br />
<br />
Downloads: <a href="http://www.box.net/shared/7b1i59degs">Book Chapter Samples</a><br />
<br />
Downloads: <a href="http://www.box.net/shared/a2hfsv71nt">Sample Audio Clips WKET</a><br />
<br />
Order: <a href="http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/where-rebels-roost-mississippi-civil-rights-revisited/172718?productTrackingContext=center_search_results">Where Rebels Roost</a><br />
<br />
Order: <a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/8175">e-book, Who Killed Emmett Till</a><br />
<br />
Order: <a href="http://www.susanklopfer.cdtdigital.com/">Audio Book, Who Killed Emmett Till?</a><br />
<br />
Susan’s <a href="http://twitter.com/sklopfer">Twitter Page</a><br />
<br />
Blog: W<a href="http://whokilledemmetttill.com/">ho Killed Emmett Till?</a><br />
<br />
Blog: <a href="http://klopferbibliography.blogspot.com/">Selected Bibliography, Emmett Till, Civil Rights</a><br />
<br />
Blog: <a href="http://civilrightsnewsreleases.blogspot.com/">Civil Rights News Releases</a><br />
<br />
Blog: <a href="http://civilrightsmusic.blogspot.com/">Civil Rights, Delta Blues</a><br />
<br />
Blog: <a href="http://civilrightsstories.blogspot.com/">Civil Rights Stories</a><br />
<br />
Blog: <a href="http://mississippisovereigntycommission.com/">Mississippi Sovereignty commission</a><br />
<br />
Susan’s <a href="http://booksforfilm.ning.com/profile/SusanKlopfer">Books For Film Blog Page</a><br />
<br />
Facebook Group: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12740051179&ref=ts">Civil Rights Cold Cases </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://civilrightsbooks.com/">Civil Rights Bookstore</a><br />
<br />
Online <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sklopfer">UStream Channel</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-33909044219344499562010-02-17T09:42:00.002-06:002010-02-17T09:46:29.630-06:00Cold Case Deserves FBI Attention; Is the Dept. of Justice Too Lazy to Investigate Deaths of Birdia Keglar and Adlena Hamlett?Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>This is a Mississippi story. On January 11 1966, a gold-toned Plymouth Fury carrying a group of voting-rights activists crashed on a stretch of road near the small town of Sidon in the west of the state. Two African-American women, Birdia Keglar and Adlena Hamlett, were killed on that day. That much is certain. But in their deaths is buried a painful question that has gnawed at three generations of their families. Was this an ordinary car wreck, or were the two women, who had previously been threatened, shot at and burned in effigy because of their efforts to register black voters, targetted on that road? Engineered car crashes were a known tactic by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi in the 1950s and 60s. Violent crimes against African-Americans were rarely investigated or punished. And even if the women were murdered by white supremacists, was it better, as some members of Keglar's own family believed, to leave such suspicions left unspoken?</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/11/usa.suzannegoldenberg1">Continued</a> --Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-10263474824320669532009-12-28T15:58:00.003-06:002009-12-28T16:07:35.213-06:00Friends of Justice: Lend a HandHave you contributed to Friends of Justice? I just made a small donation via PayPal and ask that you consider helping this important organization, too.<br /><br />Friends of Justice is a nonprofit organization that works to uphold due process for all Americans. The organization's goal is to build a public consensus behind equal access to justice and respect for human dignity in our criminal justice system.<br /><br />Friends of Justice formed in response to the infamous Tulia drug sting of 1999 in which 47 people, 39 of them African Americans, were rounded up based on the false testimony of an undercover agent. Friends of Justice emerged as a coalition of defendant’s families and other concerned citizens who believed the defendants were being prosecuted on faulty evidence. Because of the work of Friends of Justice, the Texas Legislature passed the Tulia Corroboration Bill, which has led to the exoneration of dozens of innocent people by raising the evidentiary standards for undercover testimony.<br /><br />Friends of Justice is currently working on a wrongful conviction case in Winona, Miss., the same town where Fannie Lou Hamer was raped and beaten...<br /><br />You can learn more by clicking <a href="http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/">HERE</a>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-40737328377980896232009-12-22T08:20:00.002-06:002009-12-22T08:23:48.616-06:00New Black History Book: Who Killed Emmett Till?New Book Announcement: Who Killed Emmett Till?<br />by Susan Klopfer<br /><br />What others are saying about Susan Klopfer’s civil rights books<br /><br />"Susan Klopfer, the leading authority on the historiy of the Mississippi civil rights movement ... Thank God for enterprising historians like Susan Klopfer who have the courage to state the obvious." Alan Bean, Ph.D., Friends of Justice<br /><br />"An amazing ... guide to Mississippi's unsolved civil rights murders." Tom Head, Mississippi activist and About.com Guide to Civil Liberties<br /><br />"... an absorbing and substantial work that speaks in many provocative ways ..." Lois Brown, director of the Weissman Center for Leadership and Liberal Arts, Mount Holyoke College<br /><br />“Susan Klopfer is determined to tell the truth about Mississippi and about America.” Ben Greenberg, poet, essayist and activist and author of the blog Hungry Blues<br /><br />Other books by Susan Klopfer<br />Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited<br />The Emmett Till Book How Branson Got Started<br />301 Ways to Get Ahead (with Fred Klopfer)<br />At Ease With FoxPro<br />Abort! Retry! Fail!<br />The DOS Answer Book<br />Internet Success with Fred (with Fred Klopfer)<br />Who Killed Emmett Till? (Blog Book)<br /><br />Learn more about Susan Klopfer at smashwords.com/profile/view/sklopferAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-57332170591557112552009-07-08T21:43:00.002-05:002009-07-08T23:28:43.640-05:00T.R.M. Howard; Book Signing; Linda Royster Beito<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSTLTNBX3jOFiu4GcHUL2H4zkYcs0MIidOFBCLalrY2Zka3wUyVKhvGJdK_m-DNaMIdq7BAQ1WCEDhPgvXoSYdrSO44TVs3m7fkmYo7ZWr1wujZDaHCqZPgi3DDSxxUqTBDhFn/s1600-h/beito+book.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 85px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSTLTNBX3jOFiu4GcHUL2H4zkYcs0MIidOFBCLalrY2Zka3wUyVKhvGJdK_m-DNaMIdq7BAQ1WCEDhPgvXoSYdrSO44TVs3m7fkmYo7ZWr1wujZDaHCqZPgi3DDSxxUqTBDhFn/s320/beito+book.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356282992756412562" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzcfGKwxb5hENfpXeVagiu1jJXVt5ipbazwWHh_B3Z4lg_UBm-fnD3BIlC9hhZp5c7yH4pTPQHDQrYtIWiHiMkcdsLylDb53uOsbQWbut-vEjqYkIf_2wXJVUZUnpACDyrwzX/s1600-h/beito.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 102px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzcfGKwxb5hENfpXeVagiu1jJXVt5ipbazwWHh_B3Z4lg_UBm-fnD3BIlC9hhZp5c7yH4pTPQHDQrYtIWiHiMkcdsLylDb53uOsbQWbut-vEjqYkIf_2wXJVUZUnpACDyrwzX/s320/beito.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356282806459868594" /></a><br />Linda Royster Beito will appear for an author book signing and talk on the life of Mound Bayou's Dr. T.R.M. Howard: Mentor of Medgar Ever and Fannie Lou Hamer. David Beito is the book's co-author.<br /><br />Time and Location: Friday, July 10, 6:00 p.m., Kemetic Institute, Mound Bayou, Historic Hwy 61, Across from the John F. Kennedy Memorial High School. For more information, call 205-292-2902.<br /><br />For more photos on Howard's life, see here: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=2346376&id=27435697">http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=2346376&id=27435697</a><br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Location: Book Signing in Mound Bayou (July 10, 2009)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-86992178073405950512009-06-10T07:58:00.007-05:002009-06-10T09:00:47.356-05:00Why this blog?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4-1bb0GtE015DvLwlvJUa8Q4FTAbym3lq-WgxDD7BPO7CyKFhsOpK_HRJvCNXuS1v0VNY3rQiTbAYiNkhLw5d9yELHC9P3xwwevYzeWgUfZ40nHiJG5getUiCjYLzhfLCaOEaw/s1600-h/IMG_0418.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4-1bb0GtE015DvLwlvJUa8Q4FTAbym3lq-WgxDD7BPO7CyKFhsOpK_HRJvCNXuS1v0VNY3rQiTbAYiNkhLw5d9yELHC9P3xwwevYzeWgUfZ40nHiJG5getUiCjYLzhfLCaOEaw/s320/IMG_0418.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345697580695837730" /></a><br /><br><br /><br><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">At left, relatives of early Tallahatchie County civil rights activist, Birdia Keglar, take part in a road-naming ceremony for the woman who was killed in January of 1966.</span><br /><br /><br />I've been asked why I started and maintain this blog. An answer is deserved, and here it is.<br /><br />After living in the Mississippi Delta for several years, and using the time to write a book about the Delta's civil rights history, I wanted to keep up with related issues and so I started this Blog. Historically, Mississippi's civil rights history has been plagued with unsolved and questionably resolved murders.<br /><br />Today, the FBI is finally investigating some of the civil rights cold cases from the 1960s and 1970s, including several in Mississippi. This really is not not good enough, because there are many more unanswered questions about people who were killed or who simply disappeared because of their race and/or their politics. <br /><br />Who killed Adlena Hamlett and Birdia Keglar? The women were coming home from a Jackson, Miss. civil rights meeting on January 11, 1966 when their car reportedly swerved and went off the road and they were killed. But no police reports were filed. There are no official records of what happened that night. One short newspaper account accompanies a host of stories that are told by friends and others. None of the stories seem to match. Keglar was the first black person to register and vote in Tallahatchie County since the days of Reconstruction ended. Hamlett was a long-time teacher and civil rights volunteer.<br /><br />Some Mississippians still question who assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. Byron De La Beckwith, a fellow Mississippian, was arrested and eventually found guilty of this crime. But what about the men who used to talk brag about their own involvement in coffee shops in Greenwood, Miss., their laughter and whispered conversations overheard by waitresses? What is to be made of the stories still floating around the Delta by black people who knew and loved Medgar Evers? These questions are legitimate and deserve answers for the sake of history.<br /><br />The murders of James Earl Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, three young civil rights volunteers killed in Philadelphia, Miss. in the summer of 1964, have never been adequately resolved. At least a dozen men living in and around Philadelphia are said to have been involved yet many are still living and only one person has ever been convicted and sent to prison, 79-year-old self-acclaimed white supremacist, Edgar Ray Killen. But why won't the state of Mississippi's attorney general bring anyone else to trial?<br /><br />Who really killed Drew, Miss. attorney Cleve McDowell in March of 1997? The attorney who was mentored by Medgar Evers and James Meredith (first black student admitted to the University of Mississippi) was shot and killed in his home but the police reports have never been released. Do they exist? What about the court records involving the trial of the man convicted of McDowell's murder? Why won't the Sunflower County Courts release these records? What is there to hide? Were others involved? McDowell's autopsy records suggest others were part of the murdering team. Try finding a copy of this record (I have one!). The young man convicted of the murder later recanted. What ever happened to him?<br /><br />What prompted McDowell to tell his best friends that he would be "next in line" after hearing of Alabama attorney- friend Henry S. Mims' strange death three years earlier? What happened to McDowell's personal computer soon after he was killed? His firearms? His civil rights records kept on various cases including the killing of young Emmett Till? How did the fire get started in his office six months later-- the fire that "destroyed" all of McDowell's investigative records? Why don't McDowell's colleagues want to talk about their old friend?<br /><br />And what about Sam Block? This early civil rights leader from Cleveland, Miss. died suddenly in his California home in 2000. His body was immediately removed from his home, says his sister Margaret Block, and was embalmed before it could be examined by the county's medical examiner. Block's computer disappeared shortly after his death.<br /><br />Even the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has strange Mississippi ties. Was the state's infamous long-time senator James O. Eastland involved? Seven years before JFK was assassinated, the magnolia state's Eastland met for the first time with Guy Banister, a controversial CIA operative and retired FBI agent in charge of the Chicago bureau.<br /><br />Banister -- remember him as the man who "pistol-whipped" David Ferrie in Oliver Stone's film "JFK" -- was later linked to Lee Harvey Oswald and Eastland through the senator's Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or SISS (sometimes called "SISSY"). All SISS records, of course, are classified.<br /><br />Questions surround the murder of a white, racist Mississippi detective who worked for Banister and was killed within the year after Kennedy's assassination. Private investigator John D. Sullivan of Vicksburg bled to death after he was "accidentally" shot in the groin. He was with a "friend" after they came home from hunting.<br /><br />A former FBI agent, Sullivan had worked for Banister both inside the FBI and privately; he was a private self-employed investigator who often did work for hire for the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission (Mississippi's mini CIA); the private white Citizens Councils (the state's uptown Klan made up of bankers, physicians, ministers, etc.) of which he was an active member; and he often worked for Eastland's SISS, as had Banister and Lee Harvey Oswald.<br /><br />So much to figure out and so little time! I am trying to capture as much history as possible about Mississippi civil rights murders before available information disappears. Also, the blog's purpose is to keep up with any current activity on the part of law enforcement to resolve these cases.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-68905411834533510572008-12-23T01:44:00.003-06:002008-12-23T01:50:59.248-06:00Black American Lives Viewed as 'Expendable'“Without Sanctuary” was shown in Atlanta in 2002 at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and drew more than 175,000 people, three times as many as viewed it in New York. <br /><br />Now the collection has been acquired by Atlanta’s Center for Civil and Human Rights, "an ambitious cultural and historical institution that has yet to break ground for its building and plans to open in 2011. The center aspires to emulate the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in method, linking the civil rights movement to national and international issues of the day." <br /><br /><br /><em><blockquote>The victims of .. public hangings and burnings were sometimes accused of crimes. But they were often guilty of nothing more than seeking the right to vote, speaking truth to white power. Black business owners who challenged white supremacy in the marketplace were favorite targets.<br /><br />The victims were sometimes killed after they had been marched through the black section of town — with a stop at the school for the colored — and fully exploited as a testament to black powerlessness. Lynching, in other words, was a method of social control. </blockquote></em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/opinion/22mon4.html?ref=opinion">Continued</a> ..Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-64769148623427125702008-11-14T16:59:00.004-06:002008-11-14T21:19:43.020-06:00Story of Joe Pullen; Murdered in Drew<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSDwmiZBPASwhZm4uVo_l1-rxTugM-dS4IfcmUhAl2mXZYR926i4C6Silw9afPYkve80gX0M0m-kApG4hdz0OdmkpydM1jBYotWPojPboHhUKG10C-QjmjmtUXR5qddz7P30R3mA/s1600-h/delta%2520066.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSDwmiZBPASwhZm4uVo_l1-rxTugM-dS4IfcmUhAl2mXZYR926i4C6Silw9afPYkve80gX0M0m-kApG4hdz0OdmkpydM1jBYotWPojPboHhUKG10C-QjmjmtUXR5qddz7P30R3mA/s320/delta%2520066.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268649545617272018" /></a><br /><em>Tribute to Fannie Lou Hamer,civil rights activist, who often told the story of Joe Pullen</em><br /><br />If we must die, let it not be like hogs: hunted and penned in an accursed spot! If we must die; oh let us nobly die…fighting back. – Claude McKay (1889-1948).<br /><br />Historians now define the period from 1954 (the year of the Brown v. Board of Education decision) to 1965 as the Modern Civil Rights Movement. The African-American struggle for freedom and civil rights began long before Brown, however, and is a central part of U.S. history.<br /><br />IN THE SMALL COTTON TOWN OF DREW, Mississippi the heart of the Mississippi Delta and birthplace of Archie Manning, some black elders still talk about a story passed down by their parents and relatives focusing on a 1923 gunfight raging into the early morning hours of December 15 between Joe Pullen, a tenant farmer and WWI veteran, and plantation manager W.T. Saunders.<br /><br />The fight would turn out to be a watershed event in U.S. history.<br /><br />Pullen shot and killed Saunders during an argument over money and then Pullen’s own life ended in a ditch at the edge of Drew when he was shot after an all-night gun battle.<br /><br />The small town had buzzed with rumors that several dozen posse members were killed and possibly hundreds wounded before Pullen was taken down by machine gunners brought in from Clarksdale; some older Drew residents maintain that for years after the gunfight, a good number of people were using canes and displaying other signs of injuries received during the gun battle.<br /><br />There are several versions of the Joe Pullen story, both written and spoken. In one account, nearly one thousand white men searched the swamps around Drew to find Pullen. The tenant farmer is said to have killed 4, 17 or 19 whites and wounded 8, 38 or 40 before he was machine gunned down. He either died immediately or was dragged through the streets and then killed. <br /><br />Local news accounts of this event were few. The weekly Indianola newspaper carried one small paragraph on December 20, 1923 reporting that: “J. L. Doggett of Clarksdale and Kenneth Blackwood of Drew, posse men wounded Friday by negro, Joe Pullen, are reported as improving rapidly as could be expected.” <br /><br />Associated Press reports offered more<br /><br />Four men lost their lives in a spectacular gun battle which raged until 1 o’clock this morning between Joe Pullen, Negro tenant farmer, and a posse of several hundred men in the swamps of the Mississippi delta near Drew. Nine other wounded three probably fatally. Pullen was finally captured when four members of the posse stormed the drainage ditch in which he was entrenched. The Negro died an hour later from bullet wounds. The trouble started when Pullen’s employer came to his house to collect a debt.<br /><br />Fannie Lou Hamer, well-known civil rights activist from Ruleville, often talked about the shoot-out that occurred when she was a child. Hamer said that Pullen’s body was dragged into town and that people cut off body parts to keep as souvenirs. “Mississippi was a quiet place for a long time [afterwards].” <br /><br />While local press claimed that four white men had died “in defense of law and order,” Mrs. Hamer was told that Pullen had killed thirteen white men and wounded twenty-six others before dying. <br /><br />L. C. Dorsey, a Ph.D. sociologist, remembered how as a young child living on a Sunflower<br />County plantation between Ruleville and Drew she heard from her father and relatives the story of Pullen. Dorsey said that her own father often did not receive the money due him as a sharecropper, and Dorsey believed the Pullen incident had much to do with his fear of questioning “the man” over money he was owed.<br /><br />Pullen’s family protested to the President [Calvin Coolidge] who sent an investigative team “because the man had been in the service, and that was what his family talked about, that this man had served his country and this is how he was treated. He had done nothing wrong and had been killed for trying to defend himself against the crew,” Dorsey said.<br /><br />Alabama historian, Nan Woodruff, author of American Congo, adds to the story that Sanders may have offered Pullen $150 to recruit families to work on the plantation, and when Pullen kept the money without providing the service, the fight began.<br /><br />Woodruff terms Pullen’s gunfight another “watershed event” “much like the Elaine Massacre [Arkansas, 1919] as blacks challenged the structure of white supremacy throughout the 1920s. <br /><br />“Black people with guns had always threatened planter authority, particularly when disputes<br />arose over crop contracts or merchant bills. Despite the threat of terror, black sharecroppers and laborers fought back when their lives were on the line, even if such actions resulted in their deaths.”<br /><br />Woodruff and other black history researchers write that many Southern black people had always carried guns for hunting and self-protection, but the frequency of armed confrontations between planters and croppers, based on the frequency of reporting, may have increased in the decade following World War I. <br /><br />THE RULING WHITE Delta families would keep their immense social, economic and political power; the planters’ bloc maintaining its supremacy or hegemony through an efficient capitalist economy rooted in black labor manipulation. Schooling and marriage built strong family alliances, and these white coalitions, much like Mafioso, expanded into local economies, from ownership and operation of cotton gins, to real estate, and banking.<br /><br />Mississippi white planters simply ran all of Mississippi.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-60935308984884561102008-11-11T06:04:00.002-06:002008-11-11T06:08:31.914-06:00Roy Moore: FBI agent who pursued Ku Klux Klan killersNothing in Roy Moore’s career could have prepared him for the challenge of protecting civil rights workers in the South. Born in Oregon in 1914, his early life was spent about as far from the Deep South as was possible for an American child. As a young man he served in the Marine Corps, before joining the FBI in 1938 as a clerk. In 1940he became an agent, progressing quickly through the ranks. <br /><br />By 1960, Moore had been promoted to the “number one man” in charge of training and inspection at FBI headquarters. From there he was dispatched to the hottest spots in the Southern civil rights movement, ending up in Birmingham and then Mississippi. Here, Moore became determined to break the Ku Klux Klan. He offered one informant 25000, which led to the discovery of the corpses. His team found that 25 people had been involved in the plot, including two Neshoba County officers. <br /><a href="http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Insight/Article.aspx?id=880285">Continued --</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-47969642745788417352008-10-28T15:47:00.002-05:002008-10-28T16:00:24.679-05:00Socialism: Code Word For Black<blockquote>Part II: Shame on McCain, Palin for using an old code word for black<br /><br />By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist<br /><br />The PBS documentary, “Soldiers Without Swords” shows heroic scenes of black World War I and World War II soldiers and touching moments of black people celebrating in the streets of America at the end of the Second World War. Until that film debuted in the 1990s, I and a lot of African Americans had never seen such moving, memorable footage. It had been excluded from the history we studied in school and from the mainstream media.<br /><br />So it is no surprise to me that tens of thousands of white people spoke with one thunderous roar against my Oct. 21 Midwest Voices blog post, criticizing Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for dredging up the old “socialist” label to apply to their Democratic rival for the White House, Sen. Barack Obama.<br /><br />I wrote that the word “socialist” had long ugly historical roots. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to label white and black leaders as “un-American” because they dared to fight for equality. The news media and eventually textbooks reported on white people who became enveloped in Hoover’s crusade against socialists and communists during the Red scare. But the stories of how the FBI damaged black leaders didn’t make the press just as the everyday and success stories of African Americans were excluded from mainstream coverage.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2568">Continued</a> --<br /><br />Here's a <a href="http://mississippisovereigntycommission.com">Mississippi Sovereignty Commission </a>Link with a <a href="http://mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/contents/er/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd10/076876.png&otherstuff=13|74|0|36|1|1|1|75888|">"report" on Socialists </a>...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-91705351497429606712008-10-25T05:37:00.000-05:002008-10-25T05:38:44.899-05:00Emmett Till and Sean Bell Families Meet Oct. 30, NYC<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvuqpQFX-uWp2r4Q85akCHEHBaF-QaPFwvQMJSfhYmUGD2o6peikr0K-Y2z44jZYeOmAsiKyC24mPvF9eeh1C8yH0VwPLfTcqidbzyi3maOlnuTDSe_VW3GGvu4UkA1Y56oIV5LQ/s1600-h/10percnighttimesumnercoverdelta_457-1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 230px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvuqpQFX-uWp2r4Q85akCHEHBaF-QaPFwvQMJSfhYmUGD2o6peikr0K-Y2z44jZYeOmAsiKyC24mPvF9eeh1C8yH0VwPLfTcqidbzyi3maOlnuTDSe_VW3GGvu4UkA1Y56oIV5LQ/s320/10percnighttimesumnercoverdelta_457-1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261032783576217298" /></a><br /><em>Sumner Mississippi, Tallahatchie County Courthouse seen from across the Cassidy Bayou</em><br /><br />We're passing on this important invitation --<br /><br />Families of Emmett Till and Sean Bell will meet for the first time celebrating the <em>Learn My History</em> Scholarship Project Award.<br /><br />Attendees will hear unreleased important words from Simeon Wright, the cousin of Till, and watch a sneak peak of the World Premier screening of "Learn My History... From the Past to the Present" written and produced by Ronnique Hawkins of The ALM Foundation (<em>Anti-Lynching Movement</em>, now <em>Learn My History</em>) and a producer of "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till."<br /><br />Hawkins will introduce this HISTORICAL event and film screening of her newest work that includes interviews with the families of Emmett Till, Sean Bell, Johnnie Mae Chappell, Frederick Douglass, The 3 Civil Rights Workers murdered in Neshoba County (Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney), Ida B. Wells, the re-united 'Central Park 5', Jam Master Jay, and various civil rights historians.<br /><br />Her film also focuses on such late greats as Ossie Davis, and includes interviews with and/or mention of Carolyn Goodman, Dr. Adelaide Sanford, Ernest Paniccioli, Herb Boyd, sculptor Inge "Hands" Hardison, Cliff Frazier of the NYMLK Center, and various music icons including Afrika Bambaataa, Public Enemy, KRS One, and Ice T. <br /><br />DATE: Thursday October 30th from 6-9 PM.<br /><br />LOCATION: 3940 Broadway, New York, NY 10032 (between (165th & 166th st.) - Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational & Cultural Center. <br /><br />Hawkins states that "Contributions are necessary to support this and future events for the preservation of our history. Entertainment and Refreshments complete the evening. Seating is limited, reserve yours soon." <br /><br />(Learn more by clicking on this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwK7qOqS_o ">youtube video link</a> at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwK7qOqS_o (or go to Youtube.com and search: Emmett Till Learn My History.)<br /><br />Requested Donation(if you mention this add) - <br /><br />$25 for Adults - $15 for Seniors/Students/Teens. <br /><br />Vending available, Thank you<br /><br /><br />Learn My History<br />PO Box 2435<br />New York, NY 10008<br /><br />(212) 613-5787 <br /><br />Learn My History<br />PO Box 2435<br />New York, NY 10008<br /><br />----Note-----<br /><br /><em>(The Sean Bell shooting incident took place in the New York City borough of Queens on November 25, 2006, in which one Latino and two African-American men were shot at a total of fifty times by a team of both plainclothes and undercover NYPD officers (two of whom were themselves African-American), killing one of the men, Sean Bell, on the morning of his wedding day, and severely wounding two of his friends.Three of the five detectives involved in the shooting went to trial on charges ranging from manslaughter to reckless endangerment, and were found not guilty.)</em>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-57979053627129853222008-10-25T05:34:00.001-05:002008-10-25T05:36:53.372-05:00Students examine history of Delta’s civil rights eraPenn. college students will compare struggles in U.S. South and South Africa<br /><br />By ANDY ROSS<br />Staff Writer<br /><br />Thursday, October 23, 2008 12:07 PM CDT<br /><br />Around ten years ago Dickinson College history professor Kim Lacy Rogers traveled through Clarksdale and the Mississippi Delta seeking out stories from those who had lived through the Civil Rights movement.<br /><br />Talking with black Mississippians from all walks of life, the oral history interviews Roger’s captured during that time culminated in 2006 with the publication of her book, Life and Death in the Delta: African American Narratives of Violence, Resilience, and Social Change.<br /><br />Now, two years later, Rogers is headed back to Clarksdale. This time, however, the professor will be joined by seven of her students from the small school in Carlisle, Penn., each of whom will be comparatively examining the Delta’s racial history –– and current situation –– with that of another violent struggle for equality; Apartheid in South Africa.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.pressregister.com/articles/2008/10/23/news/doc49009fe601534763686494.txt">Continued</a> --Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-89280840344421123852008-10-02T16:05:00.000-05:002008-10-02T16:06:38.828-05:00New Film: Murder in Black and White, Oct. 5<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYks8XhJmbXEf0N4nLDPH4Ksux6v1HjS3n66OjRGjHAiNmaeDtqFbmwP990SCbw8j-gB_930bTWpEz7MwB9HBICQhiIdNxahOxhdkvQ-N1oFtwNaY-nicNDoIPeRJGRwIfQqpK/s1600-h/IMG_0699.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYks8XhJmbXEf0N4nLDPH4Ksux6v1HjS3n66OjRGjHAiNmaeDtqFbmwP990SCbw8j-gB_930bTWpEz7MwB9HBICQhiIdNxahOxhdkvQ-N1oFtwNaY-nicNDoIPeRJGRwIfQqpK/s320/IMG_0699.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252665030477358082" /></a><br />A note from civil rights film producer Keith Beauchamp --<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.tvoneonline.com/"><em>Dear Friends,</a><br /> <br />Please remember to watch, "Murder in Black and White" hosted by Al Sharpton Oct. 5th - 8th on TV One 10pm EST (9pm CST).<br /> <br />Sincerely,<br /> <br />Keith A. Beauchamp<br />Executive Producer/ Director<br /><a href="http://www.tvoneonline.com/">"Murder in Black and White"</em></a><br />http://www.tvoneonline.com/Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-25409647225348269772008-10-02T10:54:00.001-05:002008-10-02T10:55:26.013-05:00Emmett Till Crime Bill Finally Passes Senate<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrj8mJTdJL_Y4xj3Y2PxBLsCgvjB9BZEPOX7jKSxfEDo1UX77h0nfUGSkLir8PavAJdBxAV7ufxLYGuX_uI-yZYARPM6jSbcH_RsGGOdQ5IDZ5BvDKMh1A2zjaoYXut7K3SAc6FQ/s1600-h/10percnighttimesumnercoverdelta_457.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrj8mJTdJL_Y4xj3Y2PxBLsCgvjB9BZEPOX7jKSxfEDo1UX77h0nfUGSkLir8PavAJdBxAV7ufxLYGuX_uI-yZYARPM6jSbcH_RsGGOdQ5IDZ5BvDKMh1A2zjaoYXut7K3SAc6FQ/s320/10percnighttimesumnercoverdelta_457.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252582554496452450" /></a><em>Sumner, Miss., site of the trial of Emmett Till's murderers. The Tallahatchie County Courthouse appears in the distance.Emmett Till,from Chicago,was visiting his uncle in the small cotton town of Money when he was murdered. The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, named for him, passed the U.S. Senate unanimously, Sept. 24.</em><br /><br />by Ronni Mott<br />October 1, 2008<br /><br />If there is any doubt that the wheels of power grind slowly, the U.S. Senate proved the point this week, when, after more than three years of delays, it unanimously passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which will strengthen federal and local agencies’ abilities to investigate and prosecute unsolved civil rights era murders. <br /><br /><br />The act, which was first proposed in July 2005, after the Senate passed a resolution to apologize for lynching, passed in the House June 20, 2007, with nearly unanimous approval (422-2). Since then, it has languished for more than 15 months in the Senate due entirely to the “hold” put on the bill by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., which the Democratic Caucus’s Senate Journal Web site characterized as “petty procedural maneuvers.”<br /><br />Continued in the <a href="http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/senate_passes_emmett_till_act_100108/">Jackson Free Press</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13357940.post-41356975621479056872008-09-17T08:09:00.001-05:002008-09-17T08:09:58.617-05:00Park Honors Emmett Till; Remembering Clinton Melton<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFkeYtuutj95V7cavn2s7USiVJBgAW4YkK33R7qqn3bCC-5W3SottgExyvgv1sb7sk6sEtSwzKMIMMfp3cVSUZlSBonPrgJiq-IaqmeCauqzLBHP7goLxeEsmsuV2WLzBm6WFPQ/s1600-h/Emmett-Till-FBI-Transcripts18may05b.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFkeYtuutj95V7cavn2s7USiVJBgAW4YkK33R7qqn3bCC-5W3SottgExyvgv1sb7sk6sEtSwzKMIMMfp3cVSUZlSBonPrgJiq-IaqmeCauqzLBHP7goLxeEsmsuV2WLzBm6WFPQ/s320/Emmett-Till-FBI-Transcripts18may05b.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246972935662942802" /></a><em>The grocery store in Glendora, Miss., where Till whistled at the grocer's wife.</em><br /><br />Emmett Till Park to open in Mississippi Delta town<br />By TIMOTHY R. BROWN | Associated Press Writer <br />1:53 PM CDT, September 16, 2008<br /> <br />JACKSON, Miss. - A 20-acre park and nature trail in memory of Emmett Till will open Friday in the tiny Mississippi Delta town of Glendora, almost 53 years to the day after an all-white jury acquitted two white men in the brutal murder of the black teenager. <br /><br />The Emmett Till Memorial Park & Interpretive Nature Trail is an extension of a museum honoring the Chicago 14-year-old whose death helped bring national attention to the brutality of segregation. The park will include picnic pavilions, a baseball field and an outdoor stage. <br /><br />Till was kidnapped Aug. 28, 1955, from his uncle's home in the rural community of Money after being accused of whistling at a white woman. Three days later, a fisherman spotted Till's mangled body in the Tallahatchie River. <br /><br />The teen's body was unrecognizable, except for a ring. Till's mother insisted on a public viewing and funeral in Chicago. Pictures of the brutalized body shocked the world. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ms-emmetttillpark,0,6372127.story">Story Continued --</a><br /><br />Glendora is the same town where Clinton Melton was murdered, soon after the trial ended that found Till's murderers innocent.<br />* * *<br /><br />Once the 1955 J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant trial ended in Sumner, Mississippi for the murder of Emmett Till, less than a month later in the nearby small cotton town of Glendora, a black service station attendant and father of four children was killed by a friend of Milam’s. <br /><br />Elmer Kimball murdered Clinton Melton and then nineteen days later, Melton’s young wife was killed, only a week before Kimball’s murder trial opened. <br /><br />Fourteen-year-old Till of Chicago was visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta at the end of August when he was kidnapped, tortured and killed after he was accused of whistling at a white store clerk. <br /><br />* * * * *<br />Check out the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission files at http://mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/contents/er/sovcom/<br />where you will find numerous files under Emmett Till and Clinton Melton.<br /><br />* * * * *<br /><br />Then in December, Clinton Melton was murdered only four miles from where Emmett Till’s body was dumped into the Tallahatchie River six months earlier. Kimball, Milam's friend, had lived in Glendora for a short time, managing a local cotton gin, and had an account at the gas station where Melton worked. <br /><br />On the day of the murder, Kimball, 35, was driving a car borrowed from his friend, J.W. Milam, one of the two men accused and acquitted of killing Till, when he drove to the gas station and asked for a fill-up. Melton’s daughter, Deloris Melton Gresham, was a toddler when her parents were killed, but she later was told what occurred at the service station: <br /><br />"When Kimball drove up to the station, my father’s boss told my father to go out and fill up his car. But when he was done filling the car, Kimball went into a rage and said he only wanted a dollar’s worth of gas, and that he was going to go home and get his gun to shoot him. The gas station owner tried to talk him down, but couldn’t. He told him my father was a good negro and that he did not deserve to be hurt. He really pleaded with Kimball." <br /><br />As soon as Kimball left, his boss told him that he had better leave, fast. But his car was out of gas and he had to fill it first. Kimball came right back and began shooting at my father. Another man was in his car with him, and yelled for him not to shoot. He jumped out of the car and ran into the station to hide. On arrest, Kimball claimed Melton shot at him first. McGarrh [the white owner of the gas station] denied this, adding that Melton did not have a gun at any time during the quarrel. A bullet hole was found in the windshield of Melton's parked car. <br /><br />An angry Southern newspaper publisher, Hodding Carter, reacted to the murder of one of "Mississippi’s own," comparing it to the Till case in a Delta-Times editorial: <br /><br />[Melton] was no out-of-state smart alec. He was home-grown and "highly respected.".... There was no question of an insult to Southern womanhood. There was only an argument about … gasoline. There was no pressure by the NAACP, "credited" with the outcome of the Till trial.... So another "not guilty" verdict was written at Sumner this week. And it served to cement the opinion of the world that no matter how strong the evidence, nor how flagrant is the apparent crime, a white man cannot be convicted in Mississippi for killing a negro. <br /><br />LITTLE ATTENTION was given to the death of Gresham’s mother that occurred on or around December 21, 1955, approximately nineteen days after Clinton Melton was killed on December 3. Officially, her mother’s death was blamed on faulty driving. "Later, a relative told me that was not true, that everyone knew she was run off the road," Gresham said. <br /><br />Gresham, a toddler at the time, recalled being trapped inside her mother’s car as it sank to the bottom of a murky bayou near Glendora. A relative driving by saved her life and that of her baby brother. But Beulah Melton drowned. <br /><br />"My mother was a pretty woman, known for being bright and outspoken," Gresham said. "People who knew her have told me we are very much alike – both in looks and in personality." <br /><br />Beulah Melton had been picking up information on her husband’s death and would have been a "problem" for Kimball at the trial, Gresham said. <br /><br />From news accounts and the talk around Glendora, there was no provocation of her father’s killing. It was outright murder, according to white witnesses, including the white service station owner. The Melton family was well known in Glendora. Clinton Melton had lived there all his life and, "for once, white people spoke out against the killing of a negro. The local Lions Club adopted a resolution branding the murder ‘an outrage’ [and pledging to donate $400 to the family]," Myrlie Evers, the wife of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, later wrote. <br /><br />Melton’s widow told Medgar Evers she feared justice would not be done if the NAACP interested itself in the case, and asked him not to become involved. "Her wishes were respected." <br /><br />In a later investigation after her death, Medgar Evers discovered the club had given the widow only twenty-six dollars and that a local white minister had given her sixty dollars of his own. <br /><br />Relatives took in Delores Melton Gresham and her siblings, and Gresham continued to live in Glendora with her grandmother. "My grandfather was so upset, he left Glendora and never came back." <br /><br />Unlike some earlier Mississippi white on black murders, Kimball was charged for the murder and although not convicted, spent some time in jail: <br /><br />Kimball Loses Bid for Freedom on Bond <br /><br />Sumner, Miss. (AP) –December 28, 1955 – Elmer Kimball today lost his bid for freedom on bond while awaiting grand jury action on a charge of murdering a Negro man. <br /><br />Three justices of the peace held a preliminary hearing for the white gin operator and refused bond. Officers returned Kimball to jail to await action of the grand jury which meets next March. The hearing was held in the little courthouse where the sensational Emmett Till trial was held. Bond usually is refused in cases where a person is accused of a crime which carries a possible death sentence upon conviction. <br /><br />Kimball is charged with murder in the shotgun slaying of Clinton Melton, Negro service station attendant at nearby Glendora and father of four children. The accused man testified he fired in self-defense after someone shot at him three times. Kimball said he didn’t know who fired until he returned the fire and killed Melton. <br /><br />Lee McGarrh, Melton’s employer, testified that Kimball fired without provocation, and Melton was unarmed. He said Kimball became angry at the Negro during an argument over gasoline for Kimball’s car. McGarrh said Kimball declared he was going home for his gun and [sic] kill Melton. *** <br /><br />ONE WIRE SERVICE sent a staff member to cover the Kimball trial, and the only Mississippi newspaper that sent a staffer was Carter’s Greenville Delta Democrat-Times. Reporter David Halberstam remained in Mississippi after the Milam-Bryant trial and wrote as a freelancer. <br /><br />This time cameras were barred, not only from the courtroom but also from the entire courthouse property, and no press table was set up. The sentiment [for conviction] was particularly strong in the Glendora community where Kimball shot Melton and where both the deceased and the defendant were well known, according to Halberstam: "Elsewhere in Talahatchie County, of course, it tended to become the usual matter of a white man and a black man." <br /><br />Defining "Good" and "Bad" <br /><br />Halberstam assessed the environment before the trial got started: <br /><br />"A friend of mine divides the white population of Mississippi into two categories. The first and largest contains the good people of Mississippi, as they are affectionately called by editorial writers, politicians, and themselves. The other group is a smaller but in many ways more conspicuous faction called the peckerwoods. <br /><br />"The good people will generally agree that the peckerwoods are troublemakers, and indeed several good people have told me they joined the Citizens Councils because otherwise the peckerwoods would take over the situation entirely. It is the good people who will tell you that their town has enjoyed racial harmony for many years, while it is the peckerwoods who may confide that they know how to keep the niggers in their place; it is the good people who say and mean, "We love our nigras," and it is the peckerwoods who say and mean, "If any big buck gets in my way it’ll be too damn bad." <br /><br />"But while the good people would not act with the rashness of and are not governed by the hatred of the peckerwood, they are reluctant to apply society’s normal remedies to the peckerwood. Thus it is the peckerwoods who kill Negroes and the good people who acquit the peckerwoods..." <br /><br />DESPITE HIS PLEAS of self-defense, Kimball was denied bond in two preliminary hearings. The biggest problem at the trial facing District Attorney Roy Johnson and County Attorney Hamilton Caldwell, according to Halberstam, was swearing in fair and impartial jurors [from] a group "sworn by birthright to protecting the interest and life of the white." <br /><br />The state had produced three witnesses. <br /><br />First was McGarrh, "a stern little man who was a member of one of Glendora’s most respected families." McGarrh, Halberstam wrote, stuck to the same story he had told at the earlier hearings. <br /><br />"He said he saw Kimball shoot the unarmed Melton. He went unshaken under cross examination. The only weakness in his story is that although Kimball had given prior warning of his intention McGarrh stayed inside the station with his shot gun.’ <br /><br />The next witness was John Henry Wilson, "a Negro in whom Kimball said he had a great deal of confidence. Wilson did not witness the shooting, but he damaged the self defense theory. He was standing outside the station when Kimball returned with a gun. He asked Kimball what he was going to do. <br /><br />"I’m going to kill that nigger," Kimball said. "Please, sir, don’t shoot that boy. He ain’t done nothing to you," Wilson said. "Get back or I’ll kill you too," said Kimball. Wilson ran to the back of the station." <br /><br />The last witness for the state, George Woodson, testified that he was staning about ten feet away from the scene and saw Kimball walk around the side of the station with a gun, and that he did not see any gun in Melton’s hand. <br /><br />"The defense lacked eye witnesses and thus tried to shake the testimony of the state’s witnesses. Its witnesses came up with only minor points," according to Halberstam. <br /><br />"But more significant than their testimony were their positions—a sheriff, a deputy sheriff, and a chief of police." <br /><br />Apparently Kimball did the most damage to himself when he got on the stand, as Halberstam told it: <br /><br />"[He] got up there before those twelve Mississippians and told them a story about his relations with Melton that flatly contradicts all the Mississippi mores…. Kimball said he went inside and told McGarrh that Clinton was getting pretty nasty and asked him to total up his account and he’d be back and settle up; when he returned a few minutes later someone started firing at him, hit him, and he went back to his car and got his shot gun. <br /><br />"Kimball’s story would be hard for any jury to believe, because they would know…. "[You] cannot provoke a Negro attendant to talk like that no matter how much you irritate him, particularly a trusted Negro such as Clinton Melton." <br /><br />"The jury also knew that "no white peckerwood gin manager, the best friend of J. W. Milam, would let a Negro talk like that without doing a little whupping right there on the spot." <br /><br />AFTER FOUR AND one-half hours, the jurors walked in and announced their decision to acquit: <br /><br />Sumner, Miss. (AP) – Elmer Otis Kimball was acquitted of murder late yesterday in the shotgun slaying of a 33-year-old Negro. "I wasn’t sure justice would be done," said the 35-year-old white Glendora cotton gin operator, "but I should have known." A 12-man, all-white jury, made up mostly of farmers, deliberated more than four hours before freeing Kimball. <br /><br />Two witnesses testified they saw Kimball blast Clinton Melton three times with a shotgun December 3 at a Glendora service station. Witnesses said the shooting was an aftermath of an argument between Kimball and Melton over gasoline to be put into Kimball’s car. Kimball testified that Melton cursed him during the argument. Defense Atty. J. W. Kellum said Kimball fired the fatal shots in self-defense. Kimball said three shots were fired at him before he opened fire, one wounding him in the shoulder. He showed a scar and brought in a doctor who verified the gunshot wound. <br /><br />But neither Lee McGarrh, white owner of the service station, not George Woodson, Negro, who said he witnessed the slaying, said they saw or heard Melton fire. No weapon was found on Melton’s body or in his car. The trial took place in the same courtroom where half-brothers J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were found innocent six months ago of the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, Chicago Negro. Kellum was one of five defense attorneys in the Till case. <br /><br />**** <br /><br />Times were now more dangerous for Mississippi’s African Americans. One white Glendora resident, asked by a reporter for his opinion of both the Till and Melton murders told him "There’s open season on the Negroes now. They’ve got no protection, and any peckerwood who wants can go out and shoot himself one." <br /><br />Clinton and Beulah Melton’s daughter never moved from the Delta. She keeps a picture of her mother who looks like she could be her twin. While she has never owned a picture of her father, Gresham said she would have liked to know him better and continues to question what happened to her mother on that frightening day. <br /><br />Yet her story had a happy note. In 2003, Keith Beauchamp, a New York filmmaker, discovered a copy of an old newsreel showing the story of Clinton Melton’s murder. Beauchamp incorporated the reel into a documentary on Emmett Till, and made sure that Gresham had a copy for her family. <br /><br />The following year, Beauchamp's documentary was shown on a Chicago television station, resulting quite by chance in one of Gresham’s brothers discovering his sister. A family reunion took place that summer. <br /><br />"It was joyous," Delores Gresham said. "We talk to each other on the phone several times a week, and I’m meeting other relatives through my brother." <br /><br />(An excerpt from "Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited," by Susan Klopfer. Copyright 2005 <a href="http://susanklopfer.com">Susan Klopfer</a>.)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com