Freedom Summer (56 page)

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Authors: Bruce W. Watson

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CHAPTER TEN:
“The Stuff Democracy Is Made Of”
238
“They start anything”:
Blackwell,
Barefootin’
, p. 108.
238
“You better put your feet on the gas”:
Ibid.
238
“Negroes carefully picked”:
MDAH SCR ID # 9-32-0-6-2-1-1.
238
“We can’t open the door!”
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Papers (hereafter MFDP Papers), SHSW.
239
“assemblage of people”:
Mulford and Field,
Freedom on My Mind
.
239
“Until the killing of black mothers’ sons”:
Cagin and Dray,
We Are Not Afraid
, p. 391.
239
“the stuff democracy is made of”:
Martinez,
Letters from Mississippi
, pp. 250-51.
240
“coronation”: New York Times
, August 25, 1964.
241
“alien philosophy”: New York Times
, August 22, 1964.
241
“If you seat those black buggers”:
Dittmer,
Local People
, p. 290.
241
“If our case is fully heard”:
SNCC Papers, Reel 41.
241
“go fishing on Election Day”: Washington Post,
August 22, 1964.
241
“definite supporter”:
MFDP Papers, SHSW.
241
“Who is YOUR sheriff?”:
Ibid.
242
“eleven and eight”:
Lewis,
Walking with the Wind
, p. 279.
242
“And who are we?”:
MFDP Papers, SHSW.
243
“I was just talking to Joe Rauh”:
Carmichael,
Ready for Revolution
, p. 403.
243
“move heaven and earth”: Los Angeles Times
, August 7, 1964.
243
“They’ve screwed you, Joe!”:
Branch,
Pillar of Fire
, p. 457.
243
“only an hour”:
Cagin and Dray,
We Are Not Afraid
, p. 389.
243
“white power structure”: Washington Post
, August 23, 1964.
243
“I have been imprisoned”:
Ibid.; and Cagin and Dray,
We Are Not Afraid
, p. 415.
244
“Girl, you reckon I ought to tell it?”:
Blackwell,
Barefootin’
, p. 111.
244
“Mister Chairman”:
Fannie Lou Hamer, testimony before the Democratic National Convention, American Radio Works Web site,
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/flhamer.html
.
244
“There’s Fannie Lou!”:
Len Edwards, personal interview, October 29, 2008.
244
“We’re gonna get the job done tonight”:
WATS Line, August 20, 1964.
245
“Your time is short!”:
Ibid.
245
“every nigger in town”:
Whitehead,
Attack on Terror
, p. 163.
245
“comedy of terrors”:
Cagin and Dray,
We Are Not Afraid
, p. 383.
245
“If you people leave us”:
WATS Line, August 20, 1964.
245
“I can simply no longer justify”:
Martinez,
Letters from Mississippi
, p. 265.
245
“I wasn’t going to stay”:
Winn, correspondence, September 1, 1964.
246
“Standard Operating Procedure”:
Ibid., August 14, 1964.
246
“COME ONE, COME ALL”:
Jerry Tecklin Papers, SHSW.
247
“What’s this all about?”:
Winn, interview, November 13, 2007.
247
“We all knew”:
Ibid.
247
“I didn’t try to register for you”:
Hamer, testimony.
247
“On the tenth of September 1962”:
Ibid.
247
“We will return to this scene”:
Hampton, “Mississippi—Is This America?”
247
“On this day nine months ago”:
Branch,
Pillar of Fire
, p. 460.
248
“ for it is in these saints”:
Ibid.
248
“power-hungry soreheads,” their “rump group”:
Murray Kempton, “Conscience of a Convention,”
New Republic
, September 5, 1964, p. 6.
248
“vote for the power structure”:
Erenrich,
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
, p. 312.
248
“I was carried to the county jail”:
Hamer, testimony.
248
“And he said, ‘We’re going to make you wish’ ”:
Ibid.
249
“And I was beat by the first Negro”:
Ibid.
249
“All of this is on account of”:
Ibid.
249
“I don’t think that if this issue”:
Mulford and Field,
Freedom on My Mind
.
250
“honored guests”:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, p. 201.
250
“back of the bus”: Los Angeles Times
, August 24, 1964.
250
“because he was on our side”:
Dittmer,
Local People
, p. 289.
250
“Tell Rauh if he plans”:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, p. 208.
251
“way out of line”:
Branch,
Pillar of Fire
, p. 461.
251
“SUPPORT THE FREEDOM DEMOCRATS”: Christian Science Monitor
, August 26, 1964.
251
“1964, NOT 1864” and “STOP HYPOCRISY, START DEMOCRACY”: Los Angeles Times,
August 26, 1964.
252
“Mississippi Terror Truck”:
Mulford and Field,
Freedom on My Mind
.
252
“Don’t you understand?”: Los Angeles Times
, August 26, 1964.
252
“Alabama’s done gone”:
Beschloss,
Taking Charge
, p. 523.
252
“Atlantic City’s White House”: Washington Post
, August 25, 1964.
252
“You better talk to Hubert Humphrey”:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, p. 200.
253
“ for Negroes to speak for Negroes”:
Ibid., p. 211.
253
“Then democracy is not real”:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, p. 211.
253
“The time has arrived”:
Joshua Zeitz, “Democratic Debacle,”
American Heritage
, June/July 2004, online edition.
253
“Senator Humphrey,” she began:
Chana Kai Lee,
For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), p. 93; and Olson,
Freedom’s Daughters
, p. 320.
253
“We can win on the floor”: New York Times
, August 25, p. 23.
253
“listened patiently . . . argued fervently”:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, p. 211.
253
“that the Negroes have taken over”:
Beschloss,
Taking Charge
, p. 527.
254
“The Freedom Party,” Johnson told a friend:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, p. 213.
254
“an excuse to say I turned”:
Beschloss,
Taking Charge
, p. 525.
254
“Bobby’s trap”:
Ibid., p. 525.
254
“The times require leadership”:
Branch,
Pillar of Fire,
p. 468n.
254
“This would throw the nation”:
Ibid., p. 468.
254
“These people went in and begged”:
Ibid., p. 471.
254
“But we’re going to ignore that”:
Robert David Johnson,
All the Way with LBJ: The 1964 Presidential Election
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 186.
254
“take a tranquilizer”:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, pp. 212-13.
254
“a wholesale walkout”:
Branch,
Pillar of Fire
, p. 471.
254
“It looks like we’re turning the Democratic party”:
Ibid.
255
“By God, I’m going to go up there”:
Branch,
Pillar of Fire,
p. 473.
254
“Beloved,” she began:
Lady Bird Johnson,
A White House Diary
(New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970), p. 192.
255
“Is the Credentials Committee meeting”:
Belfrage,
Freedom Summer
, p. 239.
255
“a tremendous victory”:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, p. 215.
255
“Your funding is on the line”:
Ibid.
256
“The President has said”:
Ibid., p. 216.
256
“wrung out the blood”:
Jack Newfield,
A Prophetic Minority
(New York: New American Library, 1966), p. 76.
256
“if they really understand”:
Mulford and Field,
Freedom on My Mind
.
256
“You cheated!”:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, p. 216.
256
“Atlantic City was a powerful lesson”:
Forman,
Making of Black Revolutionaries
, pp. 395-96.
256
“The kids tried the established methods”:
Olson,
Freedom’s Daughters
, p. 325.
257
“Stokely,” Hartman Turnbow asked:
Carmichael,
Ready for Revolution
, p. 408.
257
“they can use the info”:
WATS Line, August 25, 1964.
257
“cowhided and horsewhipped”: New York Times
, August 27, 1964.
257
“cheap, degrading insults”: Jackson Clarion-Ledger
, August 27, 1964.
257
“that debt is paid in full”: Chicago Tribune
, August 26, 1964.
258
“like Mata Hari and the French Resistance”:
Martinez,
Letters from Mississippi
, p. 256.
258
“All we want”:
Mulford and Field,
Freedom on My Mind
.
258
“We’ve shed too much blood”:
Lewis,
Walking with the Wind
, p. 281.
258
“We didn’t come all this way”:
Blackwell,
Barefootin’
, p. 115.
258
“You have made your point”:
Kotz,
Judgment Days
, p. 221.
258
“Being a Negro leader”:
Ibid.
258
“Socrates or Aristotle”:
Burner,
And Gently He Shall Lead Them
, p. 187.
258
“We’re not here to bring politics into our morality”:
Ibid.
259
“When they got through talking”:
Dittmer,
Local People
, p. 301.
259
“a significant moral and political victory”: Los Angeles Times
, August 27, 1964.
259
“a triumph of Moral force”: New York Times
, August 27, 1964.
259
“nothing short of heroic”: Washington Post,
August 26, 1964.
259
“You don’t know how they goin’ to do us!”:
Belfrage,
Freedom Summer
, p. 197.
260
“I just want you to know”:
Zoya Zeman, Oral History Collection, USM.
260
“Fine,” the registrar answered:
MDAH SCR ID# 2-61-1-101-5-1-1.
261
“snowballed” and “completely out of control”:
Ibid.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
“Give unto Them Beauty for Ashes”
262
“My God,” he said:
Anthony Walton,
Mississippi: An American Journey
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), p. 254.
263
“The longest nightmare”:
Sellers and Terrell,
River of No Return
, p. 94.
263
“At the end of summer”:
Watkins, interview, June 16, 2008.
263
“If the present increase in violence”:
SNCC Papers, reel 38.
263
“are very fine people”:
Mendy Samstein Papers, SHSW.
264
“I didn’t realize yet”:
O’Brien, interview, November 12, 2007.
264
“Well, what was happening”:
McAdam,
Freedom Summer
, p. 134.
264
“everything was awful”:
Linda Wetmore, personal interview, March 27, 2008.
264
“You’re telling me”:
Ibid.
264
“I could never kiss anybody” and “Then I guess”:
Ibid.
265
“battle fatigue”:
Lewis,
Walking with the Wind
, p. 273.
265
“Our very normal”:
McAdam,
Freedom Summer
, p. 136.
265
“the best people I ever met”:
Martinez,
Letters from Mississippi
, p. 259.
265
“I went from being a liberal”:
McAdam,
Freedom Summer
, p. 127.
265
“not a very creative guy”:
Ibid., p. 165.
266
“Can I now forget Mississippi?”:
“The Reminiscences of Mario Savio,” Oral History Research Office Collection, Columbia University, p. 40.
266
“I’m definitely not ready”:
Mills,
This Little Light
, p. 135.
267
“the proudest moment of my life”:
Abbott,
Mississippi Writers
, p. 329.
267
“welling out like poison”:
Ibid.
267
“The Negro girls feel neglected”:
Olson,
Freedom’s Daughters
, p. 309.
267
“just seemed to hate me”:
McAdam,
Freedom Summer
, p. 124.
267
“do what the spirit say do”:
Lewis,
Walking with the Wind
, p. 294.
267
“We must decide”:
Clayborne Carson,
In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 146.
267
“too many people high on freedom”:
Casey Hayden, in Curry et al.,
Deep in Our Hearts
, p. 364.
268
“the average white person doesn’t realize”:
Casey Hayden and Mary King, “Women in the Movement,” Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee position paper, The Sixties Project Web site,
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources /Primary/Manifestos /SNCC_women.html
.
268
“hardly caused a ripple”:
Hayden, in Curry et al.,
Deep in Our Hearts,
p. 365.
268
“brutally aggressive hostility”:
King,
Freedom Song
, p. 450.
268
impending “coup”:
Lewis,
Walking with the Wind
, p. 300.
268
“bullshitting Negroes”:
Adickes,
Legacy of a Freedom School
, p. 135.
268
“take orders from white folks!”:
Ibid.
268
“Typical day”:
Samuel Walker Papers, SHSW.
268
“morphing into a different kind”:
Tillinghast, interview, December 16, 2008.
269
“cold”:
Andrew Kopkind, “The Future of ‘Black Power’: A Movement in Search of a Program,”
New Republic
, January 7, 1967, p. 17.
269
“Mrs. Hamer is no longer relevant”:
Payne,
I’ve Got the Light
, pp. 365, 372.
269
“an unfortunate choice of words”:
Carson,
In Struggle
, p. 210.
269
“a growing litany”:
Ibid., p. 238.
269
“I got the feeling”:
Whitehead,
Attack on Terror
, p. 161.
269
“We’ve got to get Goatee”:
Ibid.
270
“King was calling the shots”:
Branch,
Pillar of Fire
, p. 535.
270
“Now is the time”“:
Whitehead,
Attack on Terror
, p. 172.
270
“our investigation has been curtailed”:
Mars,
Witness in Philadelphia
, p. 130.
270
“put the fear of God”:
Branch,
Pillar of Fire
, p. 535.
270
a “floater,” a “hustler”:
Cagin and Dray,
We Are Not Afraid
, p. 432.
270
“I’m going to see your ass in jail”:
Branch,
Pillar of Fire
, p. 498.
270
“Killen said they had three civil rights”:
MIBURN, 4-81.
271
“the nigger-communist invasion”:
Ball,
Murder in Mississippi
, p. 55.
271
“a volley of shots”:
MIBURN, 4-77.
271
“Everyone follow me”:
MIBURN, 4-75, and
Jackson Clarion-Ledger
, December 2, 1967, p. 1A.
272
“They will be under twenty feet of dirt”:
MIBURN, 4-73.
272
“Someone go and get the operator”:
Ibid., 4-74.
272
“We have a place to bury them”:
Ibid., 4-46, and Erenrich,
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
, p. 348.
272
“Are you that nigger lover?” and “Sir, I know just how you feel”:
MIBURN, 4-47.
272
“Save one for me!” and “You didn’t leave me anything but”:
Ibid., 4-45-48.
273
“I’ll kill anyone who talks”:
Ibid., 4-50;
Jackson Clarion-Ledger
, July 12, 2005.
273
“Ol’ Rainey could be elected”: Los Angeles Times
, December 11, 1964.
273
“a feeling that we hit”:
Jack Bales, ed.,
Conversations with Willie Morris
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), p. 103.
273
“I favor dropping an atom bomb”:
Letters,
Time,
December 25, 1964, p. 10.
274
“Here’s to the state of Mississippi”:
Phil Ochs, “Here’s to the State of Mississippi,”
I Ain’t Marching Anymore,
Elektra Records, 1965.
274
“that wall of Never”:
Trillin, “Letter from Jackson,” p. 85.
274
“equal treatment under the law”: McComb Enterprise-Journal
, November 17, 1964.
274
“The waitress smiled”:
Paul Good, “A Bowl of Gumbo for Curtis Bryant,”
Reporter
, December 31, 1964, p. 19.
275
“Okay, who’s first?”:
Newfield,
Prophetic Minority
, p. 95.
275
“a lawyer’s dream case”:
Kunstler, in Curry et al.,
Deep in My Heart
, p. 345.
276
“every Congressman from the Potomac”:
Ibid., p. 349.
276
“I’m not crying for myself ”: New York Times
, September 18, 1965.

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