Letters From Mississippi
Paul & Cowan, L. Geoffrey
The following reports from the Mississippi Summer Project were written as letters to their friends by two young volunteer workers, Paul and Geoffrey Cowan. Paul was working in Vicksburg, a...
...Today, with the help of the Circuit Court injunction on the Registrar, more than 500 Negroes are registered...
...If the Negroes in Mississippi register, he predicted, they will elect uneducated Negro officials—all the good white citizens will then leave the state, and Mississippi will be a jungle of incompetence...
...The concept of a platform fascinated the block captains...
...continued on page 441 LETTERS FROM MISSISSIPPI continued from page 372 I wanted to tell my hostess all of this in a tone that would leave her believing that I, a reasonable man, had come to this state and quickly seen the error of my prejudgments...
...But was there really so great a distance between the fellow townsmen...
...There are already more than 200 junior voters' league members throughout the county, and in many cases they serve to stimulate their elders...
...It may crumble from within or be crushed from without...
...The Jackson newspapers this morning list the senator as a member of the Mississippi Legislative Committee to investigate communism in the civil rights movement...
...Yet we both knew that we could never become friends, at least not this summer...
...I was reminded of Roy Wilkins' suggestion at the March on Washington that the civil rights movement may free as many whites as it will Negroes...
...If we developed this point the distance between our attitudes would become too great to bridge...
...I know the man you're talking about...
...Wearing shoes and a comfortable collar, a gas station owner several blocks away had fired one of the young Negroes who attend our school, and had apparently been privvy to nightly threats on the student's life...
...Voter leagues like those in Batesville and Macedonia—which are being organized in virtually every section of Panola County—will function in conjunction with local junior voters' leagues, whose members will continue to canvass and to help lead mass meetings after we leave...
...Eight of the block captains came to the first meeting—three teachers, a farmer, two local merchants, a minister, and a hair stylist...
...All night she had been calm and charming but now, as she talked, one could sense a change: her eyes became teary and her voice wavered...
...Too much history stood between us...
...You Northerners all think that every Mississippian is a bare-footed redneck," she complained...
...At that time my own mental picture of the state contained nothing but an unending series of swamps, bayous, and dark, lonely roads...
...They asked for fair employment practices...
...There are no street lights, paved roads, fireplugs, or sewage lines in the Negro section of Batesville, for example...
...He's one of the lower class people around here, and they're always harsh with Negroes...
...One day last week we met with the moderate local newspaper editor and the State Senator from Panola County...
...As a COFO worker, my character and background had been subjected to similar distortions here in Mississippi...
...They held their second meeting last night...
...But it is an experiment which must be tried...
...To challenge the legitimacy of the regular Mississippi delegates it was necessary to mirror their organization exactly, to hold precinct, county, district and state conventions and to select delegates and alternates at every level...
...They have had similar results except that 24 people came to their first meeting, and their resolutions were more concerned with farm problems like acreage allotments and a minimum wage for sharecroppers...
...By Mississippi standards it had been a good conversation: each of us had learned-something from the other...
...Even if we succeeded in building a responsible political machine, he explained, moderate white politicians could never appeal for their support...
...My hostess was undoubtedly a good person, and I was eager to establish a friendship with her...
...I could more easily accept atrocities that took place in the swamps and woods—in precivilized surroundings—and were inflicted by rural red-necks who bore no resemblance to people whom I had known in the North, than I can accept the daily harassments and threats that every Negro here receives at factories, gas stations, and hotels: places which, for me, fall into the familiar context of American life...
...They also asked for better school facilities, a Negro policeman, and a rest room downtown...
...Local industries, like the hosiery manufacturing company, have unfair hiring practices and unfair wage scales...
...Most of them already understood about the convention challenge, but we discussed it again, this time emphasizing the importance of local leadership, the selection of delegates, and the adoption of resolutions...
...But in her state, whenever I pause for a moment to reflect on the history of a particular person or acre, I cannot help but feel like a depressed and confused alien, and wonder whose land I am really in...
...The experience also is giving Mississippi Negroes a quick, intense political education...
...My hostess was no closer to the Erskin Caldwell characters I had expected to find dominating this state than I was to the immoral, unwashed Communist dupe who, rumour here once had it, would persuade all Negro cooks to poison their employers' food...
...Our goal is to build up local leadership in every hamlet of Panola County...
...They had no difficulty finding 15 potentially strong leaders...
...Most of the 14 Panola County workers have moved to nearby communities—tiny villages like Sardis and Como and Crenshaw and Crowder...
...PAUL COWAN A few statistics show how the Panola County voter situation has changed in the last two months...
...For almost an hour they discussed their problems—haltingly at first, then with some ease—until at last they had listed a dozen key problems and a series of possible remedies...
...A white lady with whom I dined one night in Vicksburg uncovered this attitude of mine...
...But I couldn't: my tact wasn't great enough to dictate a courteous explanation of the fact that this state is actually worse than anything I had anticipated...
...Before adjourning they decided to form a permanent organization to meet every week...
...We told him that we too are concerned about educating Negro voters and we described our project...
...At worst it will leave a residue of politically educated Negroes...
...My hostess' husband planned to vote for Barry Goldwater, the candidate who would restore small businessmen like the gas station owner to their proper place as American citizens...
...She and her husband had invited another summer volunteer and myself to their large, modern ranch-style home...
...She called herself American and so did I; undoubtedly we derived similar pleasure from the same songs, books, movies, and jobs...
...In fact, if it were known that I met with you today, he said Co illustrate his point, it might injure my political career...
...Their letters are printed here with permission.— EDITOR "From Mississippi the rest of the United States seems unreal," Bob Moses, director of the Mississippi Summer Project, remarked to a group of volunteers at our orientation session at Oxford, Ohio...
...Some of us are different than that...
...She had told me that not every Mississippian was a barefooted redneck, and I knew she was right...
...It had, quite simply, been impossible for me to believe that the skein of uncivilized atrocities that one knew had covered this state, could have spread through an area whose exterior is as modern and developed as the places one had left...
...Her feelings were not hard for me to understand...
...At the end of May, only 30 Panola Negroes were registered to vote...
...The Senator, a mild fellow with deep dimples, made a prophecy...
...They visited each of their nominees, talked Batesville and politics with them, explained what was needed, and asked them to serve...
...In the last two weeks alone, 207 Negroes—or nearly 3% of the Negroes in Panola County have gone to the courthouse to register...
...the bulk of our effort has shifted from canvassing to organizing...
...Paul was working in Vicksburg, a semi-industrialized city on the Mississippi River, and Geoff was stationed in Batesville, the county seat of the rural Penola County...
...In Batesville, for example, we suggested a block by block organization...
...The political system we're helping to build in Panola County and in Mississippi may fail...
...He was impressed but unconvinced...
...The Batesville office sports a skeleton staff now...
...Of course the real Mississippi is nothing like that—but there was a certain logic behind my misconception...
...The Freedom Democratic Party provided a rationale for tight local organization...
...Two of the teachers agreed to find about a dozen energetic people who would like to serve as block captains...
...They asked that these facilities be provided without prejudice...
...We were eating steak, which had been cooked over a do-it-yourself barbeque pit, and drinking white wine...
...so we went on to another subject...
...I tried to mention this incident to my hostess, but the barrier of perception between us was too great to permit reasonable conversation...
...Both husband and wife undoubtedly ate, without much discomfort, at restaurants which had refused to serve Negroes weeks after the Civil Rights act passed...
...A similar group of leaders has organized in the nearby farming community of Macedonia...
...But as she talked of her Mississippi I kept thinking of the state familiar to the young Negroes I teach at our freedom school: a world light years removed from her carefully decorated ranchhouse, and her excellent steak dinner...
...the 35 people who participated decided to organize on a permanent basis as a political unit which will hold weekly discussions and be responsible for voter registration and mass meetings in the farm area around Macedonia...
...she said...
Vol. 11 • September 1964 • No. 4
