Charles Evers and the Future of Fayette
CLICK, DAVID S.
THE GREAT WHITE HOPE Charles Evers and the Future of Fayette by DAVID S. GLICK Fayette, Mississippi The rent-a-car lady at the Jackson, Mississippi, airport was not surprised when I asked her...
...The downtown area is a T-shaped interval in the highway--a block lined with the town hall and court house, the library, the power and light company, and the tiny police headquarters, crossed by two blocks of stores whose wooden awnings and raised sidewalks are reminiscent of Matt Dillon's Dodge City...
...The Evers administration has made overtures toward the whites, and it has continued to advocate--and practice--government on behalf of the entire town, not just the blacks...
...The newly elected Mayor, his five black aldermen, and the other new officials won a dubious prize...
...Resplendent in a bright green jump suit, he talks in a lively fashion punctuated by frequent hearty laughs...
...To cope with this situation Evers, who in 1963 succeeded his martyred brother as field secretary for the Mississippi naacp, made good use of his well-known name and his national connections...
...About 1.700 of the county's 9.500 people lived in Fayette, the county seat, and 70 per cent of the population was black...
...when people say "the man," they mean him...
...The signs along Mississippi's bumpy highways spanned several eras, too--ranging from advertisements for places selling homemade apple pies to the twin arches of McDonald's hamburger stands...
...Local blacks evidence no hostility toward visiting whites, and the sincere looking white students, more hirsute than their predecessors a decade ago, remain committed to a simple vision of racial justice...
...Moreover, following Evers' victory all of the city's employes decided to resign rather than work for black officials...
...We want the whites to know we're not going to do to them what they did to us," Mayor Evers says...
...selling acne cream...
...He knows it and he loves it--but he also loves the town...
...There is no talk of separatism in Fayette, even though the blacks have clearly demonstrated their power at the ballot box...
...In addition, Ed Cole, a 26-year old sedfre staff member, was sent here to work full-time on economic development...
...An "anonymous friend" of the Mayor donated an ambulance, and black police groups in New York and Philadelphia each donated a squad car...
...The result was a new itt factory in town employing over 100 people...
...He was born and raised in Jefferson County...
...The signs (which were soon removed by state officials) showed black and white hands clasped...
...The fourth poorest county in the nation, Jefferson had an average per capita annual income of $485...
...Soon offers of aid began pouring in...
...Evers faced hostility from the state government of John Bell Williams, the county officials, and the former occupants of town hall...
...He remembers sitting in Fayette's segregated schools when he was a boy, dreaming about the day when his people would run the town...
...For those of us who still possess a vision of racial harmony in an integrated community, a man like Charles Evers is the great white hope...
...While Northern liberals erroneously boycott Hunt's tomato products, Right-wing curmudgeon H. L. Hunt peddles his gasoline and other hlh products throughout the South...
...He is a dedicated businessman as well, concerned about making money from his motel, shopping center and grocery store...
...There were the standard country and western music stations, with their laments of girls gone away or gone astray, and Bible Belt revivalists warning of impending doom if we don't repent...
...Besides being an astute politician and a charming charismatic man, he is a consummate ham...
...sedfre...
...Similar dedication has been displayed by the five aldermen...
...David S. Glick, a free-lame journalist, is a new contributor here...
...I had never visited the state before, and most of my feelings about it were contained in the old Phil Ochs refrain: "Here's to the land they've torn out the heart of...
...Indeed, because of this attitude, a visitor to Fayette gets the feeling of being transported back in time...
...Whether it can be achieved, no one can say at the moment...
...Evers enjoys the attention focused on him by journalists from as far as Tokyo...
...Evers is revered in Fayette...
...On May 13, 1969, Charles and 21 other blacks were elected to public office in Jefferson County, signaling the first time since reconstruction that whites would be governed by blacks in Mississippi...
...As Charles Evers says, "There ain't no question who runs this town now...
...Yet if the assassinated Medgar Evers was a symbol of the Old South, his brother Charles, the Confederacy's first black mayor, symbolized a New South that had been heralded for years now...
...Cole provides the information they need to make such a decision, and is expert at preparing applications for various Federal grants...
...During its 18 years in office, the previous administration had deliberately thwarted every effort to develop Fayette, fearing this would only slow the exodus of blacks...
...They are also talking of running Charles Evers for governor of Mississippi one of these days, and because of the voter registration drives in black communities, this no longer sounds like a wild idea...
...After so many years of utter powerlessness, Fayette's blacks are merely flexing their new democratic muscles, and enjoying it...
...They devote their free time to investigating citizen complaints and, as Alderman Ferd Allen says, "hepping the peoples...
...Senator Edward Kennedy put International Telephone and Telegraph in touch with the Mayor when he learned the firm was seeking a plant site for a subsidiary...
...A few have moved out of town...
...In any case, now there is hope in the black community of Fayette, hope that blacks can bring about progress for all the citizens of this tiny town...
...Several law students have been here year-around...
...Parade gas stations offered "another hlh product...
...He keeps a small apartment here and owns a lavish home in Jackson, complete with a swimming pool...
...The reason for Cole's devotion goes beyond the obvious...
...Now that day has arrived, and he is here to help make sure full advantage is taken of it...
...Although not one of them has more than a fourth-grade education, and all must continue with their regular jobs--working in a laundry, driving a soft drink delivery truck--they have immersed themselves in the complexities of municipal government...
...But there were also new black stations, peddling Afro-Sheen hair conditioners--for natural, not processed hair--between Aretha Franklin numbers...
...The rest display no outright hostility, and they will not speak ill of the Mayor in front of strangers, but they have removed themselves from civic life...
...Since then it has shifted its emphasis from developing community leaders to training political candidates and helping newly elected blacks...
...Some 65 per cent of the population was on welfare, and unemployment stood at 35 per cent...
...They still sing We Shall Overcome in Fayette, including the second verse--black and white together...
...The town continues to preach integration, a lofty goal others have abandoned out of frustration and anger...
...Corporations will gladly talk to Evers because he is famous, but none will build a plant in Fayette unless they can be persuaded it will be profitable...
...As I drove into Fayette, I was struck by the contrast between its psychological importance and its physical insignificance...
...Evers' appearance on the cbs Evening News led to the donation of thousands of dollars...
...Others helped to finance a new clinic...
...With a new budget not due for several months and with a state law prohibiting spending out of future income, the incoming administration found itself without funds to maintain the town...
...From its New York headquarters sedfre has also acted as a broker, funneling and channeling offers of aid so that Fayette has gotten what it can best use from its would-be benefactors...
...As a final shot, it spent the town's entire annual budget before the close of the fiscal year, in part on projects initiated to lure black voters...
...I'd be perfectly satisfied working seven days a week," he says...
...As she pulled out her worn map with the route marked, it was clear that many others had preceded me on this tour...
...Now in memory of the late great Sharon Tate, here's the theme from Valley of the Dolls," the oily announcer said, his voice betraying a bit of a Southern drawl, but otherwise sounding for all the world like a Northern d.j...
...One end of the shopping district is marked by the new Medgar Evers shopping center, the other end by the even newer Medgar Evers Motel...
...THE GREAT WHITE HOPE Charles Evers and the Future of Fayette by DAVID S. GLICK Fayette, Mississippi The rent-a-car lady at the Jackson, Mississippi, airport was not surprised when I asked her how to get to Fayette...
...Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of...
...While Evers serves as the successful pitch man for Fayette, much of the work involved in converting local spirit and outside interest into concrete political and economic progress is being done by the Scholarship, Education, and Defense Fund for Racial Equality, Inc...
...None of the new office holders had any experience in governing, and most were barely literate...
...Since Charles Evers was elected Mayor here last year, a steady stream of neocarpetbaggers have flown across the Mason-Dixon line and used the Jackson airport as their jumping-off point for a journey to Fayette, located some 90 miles inside Mississippi...
...A black-oriented dashiki firm from Philadelphia has opened a Fayette plant, and a Jackson chemical company is building one...
...Campus speeches by him brought two dozen college students to Fayette last summer to work as volunteers around the town hall...
...What he says, however, betrays deep scars from clashes with Mississippi's rednecks...
...And there were the ubiquitous pop and rock stations...
...The desire for rapprochement with the whites is no sham...
...How different this is from the urban North, where some angry blacks scorn white liberals, and these urbane liberals respond with a patronizing "right on...
...A spin-off of core, the organization was set up in 1962 to train black leaders...
...They seem to feel an almost religious calling to their office...
...And that approach, disappearing in the North, is what makes Charles Evers so important...
...Despite the economic gains achieved by the Evers administration, Fayette's whites remain sullen and withdrawn...
...Evers campaigned on a platform of attracting industry to Fayette, and he has done so...
...at the base of the T, the town hall has a new Medgar Evers memorial in front of it...
...But whatever he has done for the town, and it is considerable, Ed Cole has proven to himself that you can go home again...
...It is 1962 again, with white student volunteers and earnest, unsure blacks aspiring to achieve equality in a biracial community...
...To aid in the process, sedfre has enlisted several Northern black officials to serve as unpaid consultants to the Evers administration on fiscal and political matters...
...His task includes a good deal of prodding, of course, and much intensive activity...
...Thus, when Charles Evers and the other blacks took their oaths on July 7, 1969, they accepted the reins of government in a dying, bankrupt town that had a hostile white minority and an uneducated black majority...
...The Mayor is a more complex figure...
...Nor is it proposed in terms of retaliation...
...As I twirled the dial on my car radio, it was obvious things were changing...
...One of the Evers administration's first official acts was to put up new road signs saying "Welcome to Fayette--Peace, Brotherhood, Equality...
...A swimming pool manufacturer gave the city a pool and a foundation donated $2,500 to improve a park...
Vol. 53 • November 1970 • No. 22
