Mississippi Observes 39th Anniversary of Murders of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner

Jackson, MS, Clarion-Ledger ^ | 06-23-03 | Mitchell, Jerry

[Theodore R.]

PHILADELPHIA, MS

[msdrby]

Every time I go to the fair, I visit the location. It is not far from where my family lived. Eerie.

[dixiechick2000]

Mississippi ping!

[Yudan]

I used to work, and am still good friends with, with a fellow analyst... a fellow of Jewish extraction -- a cousin of Mickey Schwerner.

Great guy...cynical as all hell. But very, very funny - and really smart, too. He worked at both Drexel and Kidder back in the '80s heydays.

[bourbon]

A terrible moment in our past. I'm very glad that I didn't grow up during this era of our state's history.

[dixiechick2000]

I was in Meridian during this time. While I don't remember very much about it (I was a child), I do remember the anger, sadness, and sheer embarrassment that this happened.

Like I said...I was young, and these are the impressions of a young child.

[Yudan]

My dad was a JPD patrolman during that era. Oh, the stories....

Wardaddy's dad knew mine....

He was, shall we say, a unique individual. Very "scorched earth" attitude toward crime fighting. EXAMPLE:

In the late 80's-early 90's, the gang associations between Jackson and Chicago/LA brought carjacking in to Jackson. Daddy once said, "You want to stop carjacking? Here ya go: You get a car out of impound - something real sexy like a red 5-series BMW. Then you drive it, on a regular schedule, up and down Fortification Street, or Maple Street, or somewhere like that"

"At some point, it attracts the attention of the appropriate audience. And when that party puts a gun in the driver's face, he doesn't realize it's an undercover officer until he sees the muzzle flash of the sawed-off shotgun the officer had in his lap."

"Once might not do it. It might take two. But carjacking will CEASE."

The point is, people who obey the law should not be afraid of the Police and what might happen to them if they get caught. Violent felons SHOULD be afraid of what might happen to them.

We, as a society, have lost that.

[WKB]

A terrible moment in our past. I'm very glad that I didn't grow up during this era of our state's history.

I don't know that we will ever out live it either.

[Treebeard]

How much of what was portrayed in the movie "Mississippi Burning" was fact and how much was agenda/propaganda? I remember watching the movie years ago, but never really asked anyone from there how they felt about it.

Personally, I think y'all got painted with a rather broad brush. I was in Senatobia, MS last summer and met some very good people there.

[oyez]

I joined the Navy just after the killings, my first period of time outsided the state. I never had any idea how big the the story was untill then. Lots of people asked me dumb and embarassing questions. Like what's the Klan like?(Didn't know, didn't know any) Do all the people have Klan robes?(didn't know, never seen any). Why are people in the South so hard on the blacks(I don't know, why are people in the North so hard on the Blacks?) Do they have electricity in Neoshoba County? What's a red neck?

[wardaddy]

Yes...I will verify about Yudan's dad....I knew him too as a boy.....and I agree with his sentiments.

On the freedom riders....whew...this is sort of a minefield.

I remember it as a boy. I even did a paper and oral report on it from a Reader's Digest article in 69 and recall getting all emotional giving the report.

But...looking back now. I remember that of course the Klan hated all of them and the Citizen's Council and SSC and even some LEOs were happy enough to let the Klan buffoons do their dirty work. Most citizens even reasonable ones viewed the Freedom Riders are socialists/commies....which many were. Many were also Jewish idealists from Northern campuses and that is where the friction between many Southerners and Jewish Southerners started. The Southern Jews felt compelled to side with their fellow Yankee Jews who were being attacked or murdered down South and then that of course gave the Klan the chance to bomb a few Temples. I believe in Meridian though...the local Sherrif...no fan of freedom riders himself....took a Dem view of buffoons trying to kill Jews and actually went to the trouble to set some Klan boys up trying to bomb a local prominant Jews home and caught them in the act and basically executed the culprits on sight...one might have been a woman even (Ainsworth)...one of my many family names.

What I'm trying to say in a roundabout way is that it was more complex than Mississippi Burning (though Hackman is good as always).

Most Mississippians I knew where ambivalent at worst or even sympathetic to granting blacks constitutional freedoms but they really despised the interlopers.

They had no idea that the noble idea of equal protection under the law would morph into the monster it is today although I remember my grandfather who had been prominant and refused to join the WCC and who had hired blacks into authority positions like my dad as well later....said before he died.

"We have done the right thing, blacks deserve to be treated as equals....but remember that "generosity breeds dependence breeds contempt"....a lesson not lost on the left obviously.

A dangerous era.....more than just 2 sides.

Both my father and grandfather would have been considered pro-civil rights and suffered some threats and insults etc. They owned large contracting companies and promoted blacks to supervisory spots. When my dad did that in Waveland on a job, the locals burned his office trailer and spiked the equipment.

Both of them voiced apprehension as to where all this they had endorsed would lead before they died. My grandpa never saw the bad fruit but he feared it. My dad died pretty dissillusioned by it all in 97. Good Intentions and the Road to Hell and all that. It should have stopped with Equal Constitutional Rights...period...but of course it did not.

What to do about any criminals still out there from the Jim Crow wars is a topic for debate....many are already dead....many have already been questionably acquitted.

I have no answers...only questions....one in particular?

What do we do now to stem the bleeding?

[msdrby]

You know, I asked my grandmother the same thing (I am but a spring chicken and was not born until after the '60s). She was livid about the movie. It portrayed the community as racist and vindictive.

It was as much a surprise to my family as it was to the rest of the townfolk. In my experience, I have never met anyone who supported what those men did. On the contrary, everyone I know scorns them for being ignorant biggots and for bringing a bad name upon their town.

[WKB]

Former Guv William Winter is on hand. Why am I not surprised.

[msdrby]

Do they have electricity in Neoshoba County?

LOL

[wardaddy]

He was considered a noble man once. He was embittered when John Bell Williams whipped him in the Guv's race.

Now, he acts like any other white Dem huckster.

[oyez]

"Mississippi Burning" was some facts mixed in with a lot of crap. The Clan was a small but intmidating organization. The American Nazi Party was probably bigger before the war.

A lot of people don't have any idea how much mistrust Southerners had for the Federal Government. That's a tradition that goes back to territorial times. After seeing troops being sent to Little Rock, Oxford and other places some people feared a second Reconstuction era. Naturaly, the public remained definsive, but that didn't deminish the quality of the people.

[oyez]

LOL

Not really, some people in Kalifornia thought "Beverly Hillbillies", "Gomer Pyle",and "Petticoat Junction" were non-fiction. If I'm lying, I'm dying.

[WKB]

Now, he acts like any other white Dem huckster.

Durning the flag flap the rednecks and liberals got to yelling at each other and Winter whined out
"can't we have some civility"?
Super Talk Radio still play it now and then
It was funny.

[bourbon]

I am but a spring chicken

Me too. Actually, from the looks of your homepage--we're nearly the same age. I graduated from college in 1997.

[dixiechick2000]

LOL! When I left MS I went, first, to south Texas for a short time (no probs there), then on to CA for a couple of years. I was asked pretty much the same questions.

Were you ever asked if we wore shoes? I was...;o)