[GOPJ]

He covered the Freedom Summer of 1964, when college students from around the country went to Mississippi to join in a voter registration drive. After three of those volunteers — Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman — were jailed, released, and, weeks later, found shot to death, Mr. Fleming was one of the first two reporters to arrive in Philadelphia, Miss. The other was Claude Sitton of The New York Times, a Georgia native with whom Mr. Fleming worked closely.

I don't usually stand with the press - but ... Reporters who went South in '64 were courageous. They stood with what was right against the establishment of their time. It's easy to forget there was a tradition of reporters willing to risk their lives for the public's right to know... They also defended blacks when blacks were prevented from voting - prevented from sitting on a bus (based on the number of white people in the bus - as white numbers increased blacks were force back and eventually had to stand - blacks were seated back to front and white front to back... horrible humiliating stuff), prevented from eating at lunch counters - and restaurants...

We need to give them their due - this man went down when he had no idea how dangerous it would be... he would have been considered an 'outside agitators'. Not a safe group to be identified with... It would be as if a reporter today decided to stand with the Tea Party against the politically powerful Southern Poverty Law Center.

That's something the press missed - it's not that one victim groups gets to be milked forever for glory - but that corruption and evil are moving targets. And the press needs to move with them... closely... watching and reporting.

[okie01]

In 1964, my boss spent his summer vacation as a Freedom Rider in the South. I admired him for that.

But, when he returned from vacation, he discovered that his landlord had rented the apartment next door to a black. Whereupon, he moved out -- in a huff.

I learned a lot about liberalism and liberals that summer.