Category: racial history

The most influential civil rights champion you’ve never heard of

·

If you’ve never heard of Stetson Kennedy, you’ll feel as if you’ve known the man all your life after reading this wonderful eulogy by University of Florida professor Paul Ortiz.  Kennedy is generally remembered as a thorn in the side of the Ku Klux Klan, but as Professor Ortiz makes clear, his significance is much deeper and broader than that.  Until this morning, I had never heard Stetson Kennedy’s name mentioned in connection with racism, segregation, white supremacy or the civil rights movement.  How can that be?  AGB 

stetson_kennedy_typing.pngBy Paul OrtizStetson Kennedy passed away on Saturday, Aug. 27. He was 94 years old. Stetson died peacefully in the presence of his beloved wife, Sandra Parks, at Baptist Medical Center South in St. Augustine, Florida.

Stetson Kennedy spent the better part of the 20th century doing battle with racism, class oppression, corporate domination, and environmental degradation in the American South. By mid-century Stetson had become our country’s fiercest tribune of hard truths; vilified by the powerful, Stetson did not have the capacity to look away from injustice. His belief in the dignity of the South’s battered sharecroppers, migrant laborers, and turpentine workers made him the region’s most sensitive and effective folklorist.

Stetson was so relentless, so full of life, that some of us thought that he would trick death the way that he had once fooled the Ku Klux Klan into exposing their lurid secrets to the listeners of the Adventures of Superman radio program in 1947. As recently as April, Stetson gave a fiery speech to hundreds of farm workers and their supporters at a rally in support of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Tampa. Standing in solidarity with Latina/o and Haitian agricultural workers affirmed Stetson’s ironclad belief in the intersections between labor organizing, racial justice, and economic equity. (more…)

Asked about the civil rights movement, Perry changes the subject

·

By Alan Bean

The post below comes from Chris Kromm at The Institute for Southern Studies.  Asked to comment on the contribution of the “Friendship Nine”, Perry made the obligatory tip of the hat to racial equality and then launched into a standard (and off-topic) defense of small government politics.  Perry didn’t comment on the groundbreaking heroism of nine civil rights pioneers because his audience of choice gets angry at the very mention of the civil rights movement.  They don’t hate black people, and they aren’t calling for a return to the days of racial segregation; but the civil rights movement is a touchy topic because it makes white Southerners and conservative politicians looks really, really bad.  So Mr. Perry, fearful of alienating his base, changed the subject.

Gov. Rick Perry flunks civil rights lesson in South Carolina campaign stop

FriendshipNineJail.jpgEach presidential election, Republicans declare that this could be the year they might win over African-American voters, or at least enough to tip the balance in key battleground states.But if surging White House hopeful Gov. Rick Perry of Texas ends up clinching the GOP nomination, he may have irreparably hurt his chances of luring black voters — already a challenge when facing President Obama — this past weekend at a campaign stop and fundraisernear Rock Hill, South Carolina.During the media presser, a TV reporter noted that Perry was visiting a “very important place in Rock Hill’s and the nation’s civil rights history,” it being the 50th anniversary of a historic sit-inby a group of students from nearby Friendship College, known as the “Friendship Nine.” (more…)

A hate crime unites Jackson Mississippi

· 7 Comments ·

By Alan Bean

While The Help transported America back to Jackson, MS circa 1963,  a young white Jackson man named Daryl Dedmon was determined to prove that nothing has changed in Jackson.

It could be argued, in fact, that Dedmon’s decision to run over a man he and his friends had already beaten to a bloody pulp was far more senseless than hate crimes perpetrated against black Mississippians during the Jim Crow and civil rights eras.  Violence back then had a clear purpose: maintaining Jim Crow and white supremacy.  Perpetrators weren’t necessarily seething with hatred, they were simply making a point (the lives of black people are worthless) and inspiring an emotion (terror).  That was the message whenever hapless black men were lynched by smiling crowds throughout the South.

What kind of message were Mr. Dedmon and his friends sending?  The only silver lining clinging to the edges of this story is the response of Jackson residents, black and white.  Dedmon et al didn’t mean to unite their community, but that’s what they did.

Normally, I wouldn’t assume the guilt of the defendants, but these guys were caught by a surveillance camera.

James Craig Anderson

HUNDREDS MARCH AGAINST RACIST KILLING IN MISSISSIPPI

Vigil for James Craig Anderson is held in Jackson parking lot where White teens are suspected of intentionally targeting Black victim for brutal attack caught on videotape

Religious and community leaders in Jackson, Miss. led a march and vigil on Sunday for James Craig Anderson, the Black man who authorities say was killed in June by a White teenager who shouted racial slurs after running the 49-year-old over with his car on June 26.

 The Clarion-Ledger reported that a diverse crowd gathered at the Metro Inn to remember Anderson, as Daryl Dedmon remains jailed on a murder charge under an$800,000 bond.

Escorted by police and singing “We Shall Overcome,” marchers walked down Ellis Avenue to the site of the hit-and-run killing, as faith leaders decried a killing that shocked a community and has drawn international headlines. When they arrived, a wreath and candles were laid down as demonstrators joined hands in solidarity. (more…)

The Help: as good as Hollywood gets on race

·

By Alan Bean

I wanted to like The Help, Hollywood’s adaptation Kathryn Stockett’s popular  novel.

Having read the reviews, I was pretty sure what I was getting myself into.  I did like the movie–as a movie.  Given the limitations of Hollywood storytelling, The Help was an enjoyable slice of popular entertainment.

Reviewers often refer to the movie as a “surprise success;” which is odd when you consider that the book was a big hit, especially with women, and the movie appears to be a faithful adaptation.  The middle-aged black woman standing in line next to us assured us that the movie got it right–she was seeing the film for the second time.

The Help is a chick flick.  There are few male characters (none of any consequence) and the audience was at least two-thirds women, most of them middle-aged or older.  The movie reminded me of Fried Green Tomatoes, a film about women in the South that centers on a particularly shocking image that is funny because it is shocking (humor is rooted in surprise).  I won’t spoil the story by telling you about the shocking image in The Help, but it definitely made the story go. (more…)

What ‘The Help’ says about Hollywood

· 1 Comment ·

By Alan Bean

The Hollywood adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, opens in theaters this Wednesday.  Critics have been kind.  Evaluated as a good story, The Help is engaging and emotionally satisfying.  But isn’t this another Hollywood racial melodrama in which a noble white person intercedes on behalf of helpless Negroes?

Yes and no.  Civil Rights activists were deeply offended by the 1988 potboiler Mississippi Burning, a civil rights era drama that gave the FBI credit for staring down the KKK in Philadelphia, MS.  Why, critics ask, can’t Hollywood do a civil rights story about black people standing up for black people?  The answer is simple: Hollywood makes movies for a mass audience, and that means creating narratives that appeal to white people.  Sure, you always want to toss in a black guy so black viewers can relate to the story in a modest fashion; but that’s generally as far as it goes. (more…)

Marlowe’s Mississippi

·

By Alan Bean

Lara Marlowe generally writes for an Irish audience, but when she turns her attention to the American South it is wise to take notice.  American journalists are generally reluctant to address our nation’s racial history honestly and openly; aggrieved southerners wail and lament when they feel mistreated and misunderstood.  Nowhere is this more true than in Mississippi.  But Marlowe’s carefully crafted piece on the Magnolia state draws on the insights of those who know the region best.

Most of the sobering facts cited below will come as no surprise to readers of this blog.  But how many Americans know that the public schools of Mississippi lost half a million white students when the feds finally got serious about school integration in the South?   A recent article in The Christian Century, notes that “only 2 percent of high school seniors could name the social problem that the Supreme Court addressed in Brown v. Board of Education.” (more…)