
          'You Have a Right . . .' Voices from the Movement in
Mississippi
          Edited by Littleton, GeorgeGeorge Littleton
          Vol. 12, No. 2, 1990, pp. 10-14
          
          The following narratives are condensed from interviews
conducted by young_people from Bloodlines, regroup of black
Mississippi high_school students with a special interest in the seeds
of the Civil Rights Movement in their area. The people they
interviewed were all active in the Movement in and around Holmes
County, Mississippi, which includes the communities of Lexington,
Durant, and Goodman. Holmes County is deep in the Delta, along what is
now north/south Interstate 55 above Jackson. The excerpts reprinted
here focus on voting_rights, although other signs of the times are
visible which shed light on the struggle for the ballot. It is worth
noting that for some of the interviewees the Civil Rights Movement
began in the 1930s, and only came to a head in the Delta in the
freedom summers of the early 1960s. These interviews also point up the
often overlooked truth that dirt farmers and other grassroots soldiers
started the Movement which only later attracted its stars. The
interviews were edited by George Littleton.
          
            Mr. T.C. Johnson
          
          Interviewed by Jaqueline Collins & Reginald Skinner July 21,
1989. Lexington, Miss.
          When I first got into the Movement, they had me like a so-called
leader to encourage the others to come to meetings because a lot of
people knew me. I had some influence, and I was puttin that to help
where we could get on track to help the entire situation. I had seen a
lot of abuse, and this made me make the effort to better conditions in
Holmes County.
          When I first went up to try to register to vote, it was only three
of us but we was met by some of the deputies. This kinds put a little
fear in your mind. Old Man Sims, who was practically blind, was in
front, and the dogs was just charging at his legs, but he couldn't
see. We still had the courage to proceed into the courthouse. When we
go in the courthouse we had to go in the circuit clerk's
office--that's where we went to try to get the forms and try to fill
'em out to register to vote. We proceeded filling out the forms. It
was what grade you were, how old, were you a citizen and a whole lotta
questions. Some I thought was just pathetic--how many bubbles in a bar
of soap? That was under Henry B. McClellan. We stayed in there so long
till I was leaning on the counter, and he asked me did I want to go to
jail. And I said, 'No, the only thing we came up here for was to
try to register to vote.' And he asked me if I wanted to see the
sheriff. I told him, 'No, I didn't come to see the sheriff.'
Then he messed around; we was in there from about nine o'clock till
about two. He would go get coffee and it would take him 'bout two
hours and a half to return. You gotta sit and wait. You didn't feel
too good sitting there. That's how slow and unconcerned they were
about you trying to get registered to vote to better your
condition.
          We went up there several times [to try to register to vote]. The
next time, a pretty good bunch was going, and me and my wife and two
more ladies went up. They were still giving you the runaround, askin'
you all kinds of silly questions, going through the motion again. It
was still dragging feet and wasting time, and only one or two could
get in that day.
          They would treat you very ugly, talking about throwing you in jail
and calling the sheriff. This was an experience I had never felt,
trying to do something for your rights and they further misusing and
intimidating you. It was awful, and you couldn't even get a lotta
peoples to even go up because they was already fearful; they knew how
things were in the county, that white folks was running it and if you
didn't do what they wanted, they would make it hard for you. Or catch
you on the road and beat you up. And wasn't nothing did about it
because they wasn't handling whites for doing anything to blacks.
          But after I went, it gave me more courage to go back where I'd be a
registered voter. And that's what'd make me proud; I could tell the
young black generation that it's not so hard now. We were the first
three from the east side of Lexington 'cause there was a group ahead
of us from down by Mileston, the first fourteen. They took a lotta
abuse. I think the sheriff went out and cursed 'em out and made 'em
get off the grass.
          [The sheriff's] main purpose was to hinder blacks from coming to
the courthouse. He could get you upset and afraid. Lotta people just
wouldn't go if they saw the dogs out there. They would be saying
things to you, 'Get the hell offa that grass.' They had signs
out there: 'Keep off the grass.' And if you step on the grass,
they would carry you to jail. And this would disencourage a lot of
blacks from even going up to try.
          [We were never threatened] for trying to register at that
particular time. It came down later when we started entering children
in the white school. It was the county schools, but at that time it
was the white schools. And I put my youngest son, Leander Johnson,
over there and they 

cut my funds off--what I was borrowing to farm
on. They came by and told me a group was comin' to see me about why
was I doin this or was I being paid by the government. And I just told
em I wanted my child to get a good education so he'd be able to make
it through the world.
          Once I was comin' from a meetin down to Mileston, and I had four or
five youngsters with me. The sheriffs and the constables and the game
wardens would get across the track and catch us. I knew the routes
through the country roads and the hills so I could bring them a
different route. Once when we got to Lexington, they had two cars
across the blacktop. I just whirled and went the other way. Fear is
part of it, but I was trying to shun trouble at that time.
          SNCC and CORE was the first to come in [to help blacks register]
and was kinda like the freedom riders comin down South. They had a
staff and connections with lawyers from the North, and they would come
down and help us do sit-ins and go into places where blacks wadn't
allowed. They would help us do these things, getting through the
county, gettin' peoples organized. They could come in and mingle
pretty good. They knew partly what they were doing. They could get
more of the people together at these meetings than we who were living
here.
          I guess that's because people were just really searching for good
leadership and somebody to stand up and tell 'em what the whites
couldn't do to 'em. because the blacks here were slow about
moving. But they would come in with us and get peoples to promise they
would come out and help do things. So they had pretty good connections
with the peoples here.
          [The white volunteers] would fall in and just fit right on in. They
were coming from the North and had a little more hang with 'em than
some of the blacks here. Some of 'em came six months, a year, and
left. But Sue and Henry Lorenzi stayed on throughout the whole action
because when they left most blacks what wanted to register had done
been up and registered.
          [The Mississippi Freedom Democratic_Party (FDP)] was mostly to help
get peoples registered to vote. And it would help you get organized to
go in and sit down in a lotta these places where blacks wasn't allowed
in the regular Democratic_Party. By 1967 we had enough blacks
registered in Holmes County so the FDP ran a group of candidates.
          I ran [for supervisor] to help the peoples more, cause I wanted it
fairly and squarely with all of 'em. Of course they tried to keep
blacks from voting. That was the first priority. They could always get
who they wanted to. [On voting day] I went to each polling place,
shook hands, and checked out was it being fair and square. We had
federal observers, but it didn't seem like they was much help. They
just observed like they was sent to do. We had quite a few
disturbances on voting day. Whites and blacks would kinda get uptight
to each other or say some violent things.
          It was mostly the farmers--the poor farmers, the dirt farmers--that
started the Movement. [Their advantage was that] the farmers had a
acre or two, or ten or twenty, so he had his own little shack and his
farm; he was making his living mostly from the earth. The teachers had
to go through the school 'sociation, and they were always afraid if
they got out there, they would hear their name. The Superintendent and
the rest of the people would get on 'em, and if they didn't quit, they
would fire 'em. But now we did get one teacher--Mrs. Bernice
Montgomery. She was the first teacher that really came out and stuck
with the Movement and the peoples. Seem like she had her mind made
up. And her husband saw the Movement needed help so he got in it, and
that gave her more courage whether she got fired or whatnot. She
didn't care what happened back there at the job. She just came with a
full desire to help the people move forward. Later on you had other
teachers to come and associate some with it.
          There was some tension between the poor farmers who were first
involved in the Movement and the teachers and preachers who came later
on. They were all tryin' to work towards one cause, but it would be a
little tension because the grassroot people were the first to do
anything to get the peoples together, where the preachers was afraid
and the teachers was mostly afraid of gettin' fired from their job;
they didn't wanna be involved at that time. So it was just the
grassroot level people. And you get some of these old peoples, they
didn't want you to talk about it or come to see you because they knew
what would happen. And we got turned down a lot of times from the
black minister. He said he didn't believe in mixing politics with the
Bible, but it was fear is what it was.
          
            William B. Eskridge
          
          Interviewed by Dwayne Buchanan & John Darjean August
2,1989. Carrolton, Miss.
          I been in the Civil Rights Movement since nineteen hundred and
thirty-two. But I had to be in it very slowly at that time. I believe
the first time I got in the real Civil Rights Movement was in the
sixties, Mrs. Blackmon put me in it. I went to a meeting and this
young fellow was there named John Allen. Before I left there that
night they had made me president of the whole thing. Consequently, I
had to go to work and from then on we had quite a few meetings, quite
a few run-ins and so forth. But my main role was to try to guide the
thing in order to keep down as much violence as we can. Of course I
was older than most of the people here that was in the movements.
          Way back yon', in 1928, we were tryin' our best to get people
registered to vote. We went to a state convention in 1928 and came
back and got started. And we got about fourteen or fifteen people in
the movement. Eventually we 

got that many registered, too.
          The state convention was in Jackson, and the main party leader was
Perry Howard, a Republican. The onliest way we could get in politics
at that time was through the Republicans because the Democratics
called themselves lily-white Democrats--you couldn't get in there. So
we decided we'd get a group and go vote. I believe 'twas 1932, we had
about four teams go and vote. The day came for voting, I went to the
poll in Carrolton. I think I was teachin' school in Benton. I planned
to leave school at that time. They didn't want me to have a ballot but
I told 'em 'I got to have a ballot.' And they gave me one and I voted
that time. Now, one man was 'spose to go to McCauley--he went, but the
white_people told him 'Now, Uncle, you're qualified but we advise
you not to go.' And those who were to follow me in Carrolton
didn't. So you had one man voted and you know what position it threw
me in just havin' one man voting.
          When I went back to get another contract to teach school, one of
them board members told me 'If I hear of you teachin' politics in
that school, we gon' put you out the next day.' I looked at him
and said, 'Now I'm not down there to teach politics, but I do teach
civics, and whatever comes up in civics I'm teachin it.' And that
settled it. You had to have, at that time, a way around them. You
couldn't just come out the way we do today. So I got over that
hurdle. And after I voted once or twice more, but this was in
Democratic--well, some's Republican--because this was general
election. I went to the polls at that time and they didn't wanna give
me a ballot. And we had a lawyer here--mighty fine man, old man
Ewell--and they asked him was I qualified. 'Yeah, Eskridge's
qualified.' So that settled that. After that, why, I had to quit
politics. My reason for quittin' was if I couldn't get enough folks to
follow me, I wasn't doin' nothin but but hurtin myself. Because I knew
I would soon be in a place where I wouldn't have a job. So I pulled
back and didn't vote any more until way on up.
          But during that Civil Rights Movement, I believe we went to
Carrollton there one day to register people to vote. I told the
sheriff and the Chancery Clerk what we was plannin'. Course I knew
they didn't like it, but still they had to accept it. After I told 'em
that, he told me how he l gonna put 'em in jail if they keep on like
they goin'. And 

I told him, 'Now, you're the sheriff, I can't tell
you what to do, but one thing: it may be better if you don't.' We
stayed around that courthouse all day long and didn't a single person
register.
          'Twas against their religion to let black folks register. A few had
a chance, but nobody could pass the literacy test. Back in the
thirties we had to pay a poll tax but didn't have to take no literacy
test. That came later. Early on, they figured black folks didn't have
the money to pay a poll tax, and later they had to use the literacy
test.
          
            Mr. & Mrs. Cooper Howard
          
          Interviewed by Felisha Dixon & Jeffrey Blackmon July 28,
1989. Goodman, Miss.
          I was in the first march that they had here in Holmes County to get
people registered. We had about 200 people, cause the rest of the
people was just afred. They was saying what was gain' to happen was
that we was gain' to get killed, the white_people gain' to kill
us. Well, I figure like this: I went to taken my basic training in
Aberdeen, Miss., and I marched on that soil and in Illinois,
California, and Hawaii. So if I can march in the army where they
fightin' at, surely if this is a free country I can march here.
          But that's when they had the old dogs. That German Shepherd dog, he
was at the door, and he would bite. And see, then people wouldn't go
in there, because they knew the dog would bite. Mr. Henry McClellan
know 'bout that. He was the circuit clerk, but he would not help you
or didn't want you to come in there to get registered. And most of our
professional people was scared to go into that office. They went down
to the Post Office under federal registrars. The grassroot people went
up there while it was tough, amongst the dogs and the bad sheriff and
those bad people. We went up there and got registered.
          We registered by havin' the Justice_Department come in and they
told 'em that these people had to register. Then they moved the dog
back. But as long as you was in there, they talked to you so
bad. Talkin to old people, tellin 'em, 'I ain't gon' help you. You
can stay there and look like a coon, old possum!' He told my daddy
that. My daddy were eighty year old. I say not one thang, cause if I
hadda open my mouth, he woulda said something to me. Then I would've
put him across the counter.
          The freedom riders came in about this time, but we had already
decided we was gonna do it. But we would have went up and got turn
away. Never would have got registered. We would have been in the same
fix, like back in slavery. But those people had the backin' of the
NAACP, SNCC, COFO. They had a lawyer from the president office.
          It helped to own land at that time, and because I did I never did
suffer. A lot of people were put out of where they were working. Take
the school teacher who could not participate in SNCC or anything
concerning civil_rights. Bernice Montgomery was the only teacher that
stood up. And very few preachers would come out.
          
            Viola Winters
          
          Interviewed by Michael Hooker & Tamara Wright August 1,1989,
Durant. Miss.
          After the trouble we had getting hired at the plant and integrating
public facilities, we met at Second Pilgrim Rest Church with the
Freedom Democratic_Party--the FDP. There wasn't any black folks here
voting. So we went up there in Lexington to the courthouse. We had a
hard time; they had a lot of questions to keep you from
registerin'. Then when we started to voting, we had a hard time doing
that 'cause we had to go round trying to beg them to come out of the
house to vote. Black folks wasn't use to anything like this. We had a
hard time. I was sittin' when the voting happening when we put
Representative Clark in what he is now in Jackson [first black in
Mississippi legislature since Reconstruction]. We sit down and take
names--how many white and colored voting. I was sittin' there one
voting day, and a white_man come up and told me 'Get up and get
outta here!' Then I saw the pistol in his pocket. But, y'see, I
didn't get up. Finally I saw Mrs. Irene Johnson come in and I told her
go and get somebody to identify this man, but when she come back he
was gone.
          The hardest time we had was trying to get registered. They didn't
want color' folks to vote. They didn't want equal rights. They had it
so long to themselves, they don't want us with them. They can't help
it now.
          It kinda worries me that after all we did to vote, black folks
don't vote today. But black folks ain't never had nothing. Seem like
some don't even want nothing. They still out there with the white
man. A lot of 'em right now will carry messages back to him.
          
            Dr. Martha Ann Davis
          
          Interviewed by Marvin Noel & Willa WilliaMiss. November 8,
1989. Brozville Road, Miss.
          Along with three young men, I started the Lexington Action Group
(LAG) before the civil_rights voting vet, as we know, back in Lyndon
Johnson's time. It was also during a time when John F. Kennedy was
president, so there were a lot of positive things going on. But before
that time there was a lot of die-hard black independent farmers who
simply were not pleased with not having a voice in government and not
being able to vote. So they challenged the system. And because of our
involvement with them, we started going to their little community
meetings as they 

planned strategies to try to eliminate some of the
barriers to voting.
          When we began to get organized and actively involved, we went up
and harassed the then-circuit clerk Henry McClellan, to ask him
questions such as 'How do you know what part of the Constitution of
Mississippi a person who is trying to register to vote will have to
interpret?' And, of course, he would never give us straight
answers to the point that he would try to tell us, 'Who are your
parents? I need to find your parents because you're out of order.'
This was during a time when most black folks considered white folks as
being superior to them. So I guess I, along with the young men, we
were sort of militant and sort of crazy, and I think it was because of
the way we had been brought up by our parents.
          The LAG was like a youth arm to the establishment of the Freedom
Democratic_Party, and during that particular time in the sixties there
was really no formal civil_rights organization per se. But there was
always somebody--no matter how small or how large the cluster of
people--that everybody looked up to. And it was always the independent
farmers in the lead, not the folks who worked on plantations.
          One of the most scariest moments that I can recall was after the
passage of the Civil_Rights_Act, we were getting people that lived on
plantations that joined the independent farmers down in the Delta to
come to Lexington, to the courthouse, because at that time that was
the only place you could register to vote. Everybody had come to the
circuit clerk's office. And I recall very well, we had to do it like
in the late evenings or by dark, because usually you couldn't talk
back to black folks in the daytime because they were busy working in
the fields or taking care of the big house, as they called it. And
most blacks was afraid to talk to you if you mentioned the words
'civil_rights.' That was just something you didn't want to identify
with because people had no other alternative for survival except to
stay on these white_peoples' plantations. So now here we are saying
that 'You need to be men and women. You're of age. You need to go
and register to vote. You have a right to have a say in what
happens.' And then after that the slogan 'One-man one vote'
evolved.
          But on this particular plantation past Tchula we were trying to
explain to the people what they had to do when they went to the
circuit clerk's office to register to vote. And here comes this white
man up with a double-barreled shotgun and he cocks it at us
teenagers. And we just stood there. We were scared to death, don't get
us wrong, but we just stood there to the point where he said 'I
don't wanna catch ya'll on my place no more.'
          In the Mileston area we were successful at organizing to the point
that people from the north that were sympathetic to the causes of
voter rights, justice and equality for black folks, sent us large
sums. of money, to put together this basically black_community in
Mileston and Homes County.
          As a result of organizing the LAG a lot of opportunities came my
way--thanks to people like Reverend J.J. Russell and T.C. Johnson, who
would take us the back way through Hebron to the Mileston Community
Center. And Reverend Willie James Burns stands out because he gave me
an opportunity to go to Macintosh, Ga., (to the Citizens Education
Program, headed by Dr. Martin_Luther_King) and really learn how to
train people in voter education. I worked with people like Hartman
Turnbow who was one of the first people to take on Henry McClellan,
and people like Julian Bond, Joe Lewis, Andy Young, Dorothy Cotton,
and C.T. Vivian. As a result of that training we would come back and
train the next group of young_people. We were on a mission. Before
that the older people had to depend on the freedom riders or other
outsiders. So for the old people this was a new avenue.
          When the first challenge was made to the Democratic_Party after the
FDP was formed, I had an opportunity to be there for that first
convention in Atlantic City, N.J. where we challenged them to say
that, 'Hey, this Democratic_Party from Mississippi doesn't
represent the people of Mississippi, cause we got all these black
folks in Mississippi and they have no representation.' And at that
time the Democratic_Party was basically lily-white in Mississippi, and
therefore it's kind of ironic 'cause seemingly the tides are
turning. But my mother reminds me that when she was a child, what
black folks that could vote outside of areas that called themselves
sort of 'liberated' did was vote Republican. They were not
Democrats. And I thought that was interesting and asked her the other
day did she think as young_people we should be training them to be
Democrats or Republicans? And she said, 'Neither one. Instead we
should be training ya'll to be thinking.'
        
