A Visit to Jackson, Miss
P., S.
This summer, with my family on a camping trip, I passed briefly through Jackson, Mississippi. I don't want to write my impressions of that unhappy town, but to limit myself to telling of...
...The biggest thing controlling white Mississippians today is fear," he says...
...It began publication in December, 1961 and during the first six months of operation was managed and edited by untrained students on a volunteer basis...
...As we looked for him in the Negro part of town where he works, we were conscious of being "looked over" by people in the streets...
...He calculates this would add 20,000 new subscribers in Mississippi and make the Free Press second in size to only two daily newspapers...
...Butts, a white college graduate of a northern school who has transplanted himself to Mississippi, proved to be as he had previously been described: polite, reserved, "unyielding on principle" and positive in approach...
...From what I could judge, his aims are modest and realistic...
...Subscriptions and contributions can be sent by using the box below...
...The race issue won't be as important...
...What does the Free Press seek...
...I don't want to write my impressions of that unhappy town, but to limit myself to telling of our meeting with Charles Butts, the young editor of a rather extraordinary paper called the Mississippi Free Press...
...Give everybody a chance to live decently in Mississippi, and they'll all want to stay...
...I would guess that our New York license plates helped out here—but I doubt strongly that Charlie Butts is aware that the Negro community in which he operates has a protective eye out for him...
...Charlie Butts is frankly looking for help in continuing the Free Press...
...This, incredibly, makes it Mississippi's largest weekly...
...Its two themes are: how Negroes can register to vote in Mississippi and how economic opportunity can be brought to the state...
...At one point it almost ceased publication, but Butts got fresh capital into the operation and for the past ten months it has been selfsupporting...
...I think readers of DISSENT will want to support this unique and courageous undertaking...
...black and white...
...The heart of its program consists of the vote, better jobs, open education...
...But if we make opportunities available to all —jobs, education, industry—then the whites won't feel threatened...
...This summer, with my family on a camping trip, I passed briefly through Jackson, Mississippi...
...Butts sees his paper not primarily as an organ of protest, but as a paper proposing practical and constructive solutions...
...The Free Press now has 4,500 paid subscribers and sells approximately 4,000 more copies in bulk...
...He is looking for a total of $20,000 in contributions that can be used for single $1-a-year subscriptions...
Vol. 10 • September 1963 • No. 4
