coming of age in mississippi

coming of age in mississippi

In a guest column in the Greenville News about the controversy of the Clemson University campus surrounding Ann Patchett’s book, “Truth and Beauty: A Friendship,” English professors Michael LeMahieu and Elizabeth J. Rivlin quoted the English writer Ian McEwan –

Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.

I thought about this quote as I finished Anne Moody’s book, “Coming of Age in Mississippi,” and tried to see her, to understand who she was as she wrote her memoir. Though her own life was filled with struggle and suffering, from an early age Moody was able to imagine what it was like to be someone other than herself, especially others who were humiliated and killed in the Jim Crow South that was her home. Because of her imagination, because of her empathy, I see her as a compassionate, moral person. Because of her “praxis” (practical application of her theories about civil rights), her willingness to go to places like Canton, Mississippi, to struggle for the liberation of her oppressed people, I see her as an example of what it means to be human.

As I read this book I asked a question that I have been asking myself as I have read the books for our class and looked through different windows into the people, places, and events of the Civil Rights Movement in America. “What does this mean for me as a teacher who will shape the hearts and minds of children over the next years of my life?” A quote by Moody in the beginning chapters of the book helped me further reflect on my question. She said -

Now all of a sudden they [white playmates] were white, and their whiteness made them better than me. I now realized that not only were they better than me because they were white, but everything they owned and everything connected with them was better than what was available to me.

She came to this understanding of the world when she was a 6-year-old (the same age as my oldest son). Before this realization (and what a terrible realization it was for one so young) she understood the world in a different way, in a way that allowed her to know white children as friends. How can I be a teacher and do teaching that builds a classroom and a world for my students that will help them know each other as friends and destroys the theory that color makes one person better than another?

One question that surfaced inside of me as I read this book was, “How do socio-economic factors affect lives?” I thought several times as I encountered people in Moody’s life through her words, “Are there any good, black men in her life?” It seemed that most of the black men were bad. I came across these words spoken by her step-mother Emma after she was shot in the leg with a shotgun by her brother-in-law -

It ain’t Wilbert’s fault. Him and Janie wouldn’t be fightin’ if Wilbert could get a good job and make enough money to take care of them children. If these damn white folks ain’t shootin’ niggers’ brains out they are starvin’ them to death. A nigger can’t make it no way he try in this fuckin’ place.

I think Emma was correct in her observation. I have a deeply held belief that if people have good jobs that help them meet the needs discussed by Abraham Maslow in his hierarchy of needs then there is greater hope that they will become good spouses, parents, and members of society. I suppose I am asking the question, “Are people the way they are because of nature or nurture?” I lean heavily toward the “nurture” side (though I know there are many exceptions to my leaning). I do think that there would have been more good, black men in Moody’s life if socio-economic factors had been equal and just. As a friend of mine in Louisville, Kentucky, who worked with inner-city kids once told me, “If a person is trying to climb a flight of stairs and gets kicked down every time they get near the top then eventually they will stop trying to climb.”

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore –

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over –

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

(“Harlem” by Langston Hughes – 1951)

In a speech prepared for the 1963 Chicago Conference on Religion and Race, a gathering that brought together the leaders of nearly every religious body in America, Will D. Campbell wrote -

In our generation white children will be marched into gas chambers by dark-skinned masses, clutching their little toys to their breasts in Auschwitz fashion.

Campbell, who wrote about his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement in one of my favorite memoirs of that time and place, “Brother to a Dragonfly,” was astonished as a counselor to the Freedom Riders by the “saintliness” of black people and wanted to convey the idea that white people could not count on this saintliness to endure or always to dominate in the face of humiliation and death.

I thought of Campbell’s quote as I worked my way through the last chapters of Moody’s book and saw her feelings, thoughts, and actions as a surfacing of the undercurrent of truth behind Campbell’s hyperbole. I also thought of the words of the good, black priest Msimangu about Apartheid in South Africa in Alan Paton’s great novel “Cry the Beloved Country” when he said –

I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating.

As I try to imagine what it would be like to be Anne Moody I hope that I would be “saintly” and overcome evil with good. I know, however, that I am a human being and that in the face of humiliation and death I could easily dry up, fester, run, stink, crust and sugar over, sag, or explode.

Class Discussion:

In our class discussion we talked about how Anne Moody was a poor black woman from Mississippi. In the other books that we have read the black folks have been from the black middle class. As I read the first 100 pages of Moody’s memoir, I thought that she could just as easily been talking about a poor white family as a poor black family. Was her race or was her class the determining factor in her life? Should she have worked on class issues instead of on race issues? Would her life have been different if she had poured out her mind and heart on class issues? I suppose, though, that the fact that she was poor, black, and a woman made her triply oppressed and were factors that were so intertwined they could never be separated and analyzed on their own. I just wonder, considering from where she came and for what she went through, that she could become such a noble person.

from selma to sorrow

from selma to sorrow

When I picked up the book From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo by Mary Stanton I did not know Viola Liuzzo. As I began the book I had these thoughts that seemed to be common among Americans at the time of her death – “How could she have left her five children in Detroit to go down to Alabama for a civil rights march? She must have been a bad mother”; “As a white woman, how could she have allowed herself to be in a car with a young, black man in the deep South? She must have been naïve about the Southern way of life”; and “Why was she so impulsive? She must have been mentally ill.” I am thankful that Stanton took the time and made the effort to write this book because she confronted these thoughts and showed me a life – an ordinary white life who made an extraordinary choice to speak up for civil rights for black people and do something with her words by marching for voting rights in one of the most dangerous places at one of the most dangerous times in the civil rights movement.

I am disturbed by the way the FBI tried to destroy the reputation of Liuzzo in order to protect itself. I understand the importance of the FBI and the importance of informants who help the FBI investigate organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, especially in this time when Americans are so concerned about security and having our lifestyles protected. Was one person’s life worth the institution? What is the difference between choosing to give your life for the greater good and having your life taken for the greater good?

As I was working my way through this book I was thinking about some words that I remembered from one of MLK’s speeches, words that spoke about all of the white people in America who were silent and inactive in the midst of the oppression of black people. Stanton begins chapter 5 with those words –

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

Later in that chapter Stanton quotes Judge Frank Johnson, a federal judge in Montgomery, Alabama, who went to law school with George Wallace but who was considered a champion of the civil rights movement –

The biggest problem was white folks not doing anything. The large majority of white people were not active in opposing the rights of the blacks. Their inactivity allowed those that were willing to be active in opposing to be more effective.

This book opened a window for me into the life of a white person who chose to speak and to act for the rights of black people. I think Viola Liuzzo was a remarkable person. Her choice to “do something” in the civil rights movement was extraordinary because 1) She knew that the “southern way of life” was imbued into the hearts and minds of most white southerners and that most white southerners would fight to the bitter end to protect that way of life; 2) She was 39 years old and had enough life experience to know that struggling for social change required sacrifice as well as idealistic words; 3) She was a mother and left her children to answer MLK’s call for help in the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march in 1965 (I find this extraordinary because I have two children and know their places in my heart – I am sure her five children had similar places in her heart); and 4) She was a woman and women were supposed to “stay in their places” as homemakers. She was remarkable because in the light of these four points about her life she chose to march from Selma to Montgomery in solidarity with black people who were marching for their civil rights.

I also think Viola Liuzzo was an ordinary person. It is important to reflect on this point because there is a tendency to think that only extraordinary people can change societies for the better. She was an ordinary middle class person in Detroit, MI before she left for Alabama and the civil rights march. The life that she lived with her husband and children was a bit eccentric but was not really noteworthy. She was an ordinary person who made an extraordinary choice for justice. As I reflect on her extraordinary choice I remember a quote from a German pastor named Martin Niemoller who struggled against Nazism –

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

The world is a better place today than it was 40 some years ago because Viola Liuzzo spoke up.

The consequences of Liuzzo’s choice to “do something” and to “speak out” for civil rights were devastating to her and her family. She was called a whore, a bad mother, and a mentally ill person. This reminded me of some words from the Sermon on the Mount –

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

She was insulted and persecuted. People from the Ku Klux Klan to the FBI said all kinds of evil against her. This happened to her because she was a prophet. She was an answer to MLK’s “appalling silence of the good people,” to Judge Frank Johnson’s “white folks not doing anything,” and Niemoller’s silence. Are the consequences of her choice the reason why more ordinary white people did not do anything and speak out for civil rights? I wonder. Her life speaks to me today. What are the issues today that cry out for words and actions? Are they issues that cry out for ordinary me to be prophetic? Are they issues that bring insults and persecutions with them? Am I willing to “do something” and to “speak out” on these issues regardless of insults and persecution? Am I willing to “do something” and to “speak out” even if it places my family at risk? I wonder.

Class Discussion:

As we discussed Viola Liuzzo as a class, I was surprised that some students still saw her as she was portrayed in the aftermath of her murder – as a woman who was at best crazy and at worst a bad person. I did agree with a comment that Grace made, a declaration that it takes people who are not normal to stand up against an unjust society and struggle against it. I do agree that Liuzzo was eccentric but I really think she was an example who more white people should have followed. If they had then I think MLK would not have had to speak of the appalling silence of white people.

I was glad to hear our discussion about the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover. We certainly live in a time and in a place where people are “afraid” and are willing to give up their rights for “security.” The example of the FBI and Hoover during the civil rights era is a powerful example of what can happen when too much power is placed in the hands of one government agency. That agency can then decide upon who it will use it’s power to protect and who it will use it’s power to destroy. We can see in hindsight that Hoover used his power in the wrong way. Will my grandchildren look back at my era and see that power was used in the wrong way during this time, too?

The question that Viola Liuzzo’s life and death asks to me is – Am I willing to give up my life and the life of my family to serve the “least of these” in my society today?

ghosts of mississippi

ghosts of mississippi

Medgar Evers seemed to have three dreams – to be called “Mister,” to have the possibility of a good education for his children, and to have the right to vote. These seem like such simple dreams today. They were Gordian knots for Evers. Not only were they deferred in his short life but also they were the reason for his murder. I wonder – who are the people today who have dreams that are deferred, who have dreams that could get them killed.

I read an article today in the Washington Post about Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The article was titled, “Rev’d Up: Desmond Tutu Looks Back, Definitely Not in Anger.” It was written to introduce a new biography about him titled, “Rabble-Rouser for Peace.” Like Evers worked against the wrong of white supremacy in Mississippi, Tutu worked against the wrong of Apartheid in South Africa. Both men worked against the wrongs they faced with words and with actions, risking their lives in hopes that their respective societies could become more human places everyone to live. As I read the article I came across this quote by Tutu at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference in New York City in September –

“Religion is like a knife. If you use it to slice bread, it is good. If you use it to slice off somebody’s hand, it is bad.”

As I read this quote I thought of Evers, who used religion to slice bread, and of Beckwith, who used religion to slice off somebody’s hand. Evers and others in the Civil Rights movement used religion for good. Beckwith and others in the white supremacist movement used religion for bad. I wonder – who uses religion for good today? Who uses religion for bad today?

How intriguing to read –

Then one day Evers (Charles) started talking to the Klansmen (Lane Murray and E.L. McDaniel – both ranking members of the United Klans of America), really talking, and they listened. He told them they weren’t enemies, that it was the rich man who kept them both down, poor whites and poor blacks, kept them fighting each other. Something clicked, and they started talking some more.

I am interested in this idea of the “redneck – blackneck” coalition that attempted to form a voting block of the working poor. This raises a question that often comes to my mind as I think about American society – Which issue has a greater effect on lives in American society – race or class? I wonder, was MLK more controversial in the beginning of his public work when he focused on racial issues or at the end of his life when he was focusing on class issues? Are the forces that protect economic power greater than the forces that protect social power? I understand that for most black people, especially black people in Mississippi, the issues of race and class are intertwined in a way that is difficult if not impossible to untwine. But in America as a whole, would there be more resistance to working for socio-economic equality than to working for racial equality?

I will continue to think of the words of Beckwith’s distant cousin, Kim McGeoy, that I found on page 299 of the book –

We’re letting one man stand alone, just like Jeff Davis stayed two years in manacles for the sins of us all…We’re letting one man pay for the sins of people like Ross Barnett, people like Paul Johnson, who stood up for us at Ole Miss.

I wonder if demagogues like Barnett should be help accountable for their words. I think they should.

The book confronted me with the question, “Should this case have been retried?”

…you could talk to just about anyone – black or white – and hear at least one complaint: the trial cost too much, it was unfair to try a sick old man, it was a useless dredging up of unpleasant memories, it was a political maneuver, and it was futile symbolism – they’ll never convict him, what was the point? (330)

I think these are all valid points for an answer of “no” to that question. I, however, think that the case should have been retried. My reasoning starts with a point that I have been thinking about as we have worked our way through this course. Words are important. We can use them to build up or to tear down. We can use them to help make the world a more human place for everyone to live. Or we can use them to dehumanize people until their lives become meaningless to the people around them. Think about the words Judge Thomas P. Brady spoke to the Sons of the American Revolution Hall in Greenwood, Mississippi one night in June 1954. He was a graduate of some of the finest schools in America (Lawrenceville prep school in New Jersey, Yale University, and Ole Miss law school). If good education broadens minds and deepens hearts then he should have been a person who used words to help build a more human society. Instead, he said

At the dawn of history there were three “species of man”: “Homo Caucasius” – the “Great White Raise”; “Homo Mongoloideus” – the “yellow man”; and “Homo Africanus” – the Negro. While the first two races made strides in developing civilizations, he said, “the negroid man, like the modern lizard, evolved not.” (50)

In the speech he went on to hammer away at the greatest fears of white supremacists – race mixing, mongrelization, and the defilement of white women. His speech was published in a booklet form. His words deeply influenced Byron de la Beckwith and shaped his life of hate. Brady used his words to dehumanize black people and this influenced Beckwith into thinking that killing Medgar Evers was only as painful as the pain a woman feels giving birth to a child. To Beckwith, Evers’s life, as well as the lives of all black people, were not as valuable as the lives of white people. This way of thinking and feeling made it easy for a white person to kill a black person.

Brady’s words were used to tear down and dehumanize. I think the trial itself spoke words, too. Those words were used to build up and to help make the world a more human place for everyone to live. They helped people understand that Medgar Evers was a black man and his life was of equal value to all other people in the world.

I do wonder, though, if a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” like the one that was put into place after the Apartheid era in South Africa, would have been more helpful to bring the possibility of justice and healing that the retrial of Beckwith. I know this is the way South African tried to understand and live with the horrors of their past. It is also the way people in Greensboro, N.C. are trying to understand and live with racial killings in that place. I just do not know if this way could truly bring justice and healing. I suppose time will tell.

I was struck by the end of the trial when Medgar and Myrlie Evers’s son, Darrell, locked eyes with Beckwith and made the observation that Beckwith’s own beliefs were choking him. What we believe really matters.

Class Discussion:

One thing that I mentioned in our class discussion was the way the movie “Ghosts of Mississippi” focused on Bobby Delaughter and the way a “white liberal” worked against racism. I commented that this in itself might be an example of racism – why would Hollywood overemphasize Delaughter and underemphasize Myrlie Evers? I noticed that the three black women in our class responded positively to my observation and the rest of our class acknowledged it but moved on to speak highly of Delaughter and his actions. We are a “nice” class – if we do disagree with each other then we disagree amicably and respectfully. I wonder, though, what might happen if we confronted an emotional issue that divided along racial lines in our class. This would seem unfair to our black students because there are three black students and fifteen or so white students in our class. I wonder, though, what might be said.

I notice as I look back over my journal entry that I did not write very much about Myrlie Evers. I was reminded during our class discussion of her remarkable spirit – that she was able to use her gifts and talents to serve others, that she was not crushed by a crushing moment that took her remarkable husband from her life and from their children’s lives. Her vigilance kept open the possibility, the hope, that Byron de la Beckwith would be fairly tried for the death of her husband. Her vigilance also kept open the possibility, the hope, that all of those people who attempted to crush the life out of the Civil Rights Movement through violence and murder would be fairly tried for their heinous acts.

the flower that grew from a crack in the concrete