Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Mississippi Roots
The morning Medgar Evers was assassinated by a member of the White Citizens' Council in Jackson, Mississippi -- June 12, 1963 -- President John F. Kennedy made a televised speech in support of civil rights. Evers, a Negro* veteran of the Battle of Normandy, had been working to desegregate the University of Mississippi. President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22.
On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers -- one Negro and two white -- were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and police in Philadelphia, Mississippi. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were part of the Freedom Summer campaign registering Negroes to vote.
On April 4 and June 6, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. That summer, the O'Neal family reunion was held in Hattiesburg, Mississippi--where my grandmother had been born. In May, two years later -- as I prepared to begin my first year of college -- local and state police in Mississippi murdered two Black students at Jackson State University.
* African-Americans in the early 1960s were called Negroes. By the late 1960s, they had begun to call themselves Blacks.
On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers -- one Negro and two white -- were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and police in Philadelphia, Mississippi. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were part of the Freedom Summer campaign registering Negroes to vote.
On April 4 and June 6, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. That summer, the O'Neal family reunion was held in Hattiesburg, Mississippi--where my grandmother had been born. In May, two years later -- as I prepared to begin my first year of college -- local and state police in Mississippi murdered two Black students at Jackson State University.
* African-Americans in the early 1960s were called Negroes. By the late 1960s, they had begun to call themselves Blacks.
