Dr. Edward McNulty completes his firsthand account of the summer he spent in Mississippi 60 years ago
by Dr. Edward McNulty | Special to Presbyterian News Service
During Freedom Summer, Fannie Lou Hamer is flanked by the Rev. Roger Smithe and a volunteer named Judy in Hamer’s hometown, Ruleville, Mississippi. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Edward McNulty)
Editor’s note: This installment is part two of a firsthand account about Freedom Summer begun Monday by Dr. Edward McNulty, a frequent contributor to Presbyterian News Service.
The biggest event at Shaw, Mississippi, I was able to just catch a glimpse of during Freedom Summer in 1964 was the integration of Shaw’s storefront library.
The high school kids usually attended school during August so that they could be released in the fall for the cotton harvest. However, when they engaged in a dispute with their principal, the latter shut the school down — a bonanza for the Freedom Project because it freed a horde of students to volunteer for the voter registration drive.
The students wanted to do more than just voter registration — they wanted to integrate the library and the stores, but such confrontational moves were frowned on by the Council of Federated Organizations because of the danger. At a COFO meeting that I attended with County Director John Bradford, their plans were discussed. He sympathized with their intentions, but raised many questions as to how much they were prepared. They admitted they were not, and so they agreed to put off going to the library until some training sessions could be held.
On the day that they gathered to venture into town, three boys in white shirts and ties had been chosen, much to the dismay of the girls. Each knew what book he would seek and how they would react if refused. I had to drive a family up to the Cleveland, Mississippi Courthouse, but I was able to drive by the library where I saw the students talking with Sheriff Charlie Capps, who was asking them why they were there. A crowd of a hundred or more whites lined the sidewalk across from the library, held back by white-helmeted state troopers, their black bus parked a hundred yards or so up the street. I learned later from the proud students that all the chairs had been removed from the library, but that they were allowed to take out their books. This push by high school students for direct action was typical throughout the South, the youth having far less to lose than their parents.
The author spends time with youth in a Mississippi library. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Edward McNulty)
An event that evoked a humorous reaction from my wife occurred when [the Rev.] Roger [Smithe] and I drove a volunteer into town so she could catch the Greyhound for her return trip to her home. As we sat by the bus stop in front of the laundromat, we noticed the signs in the windows of the divided building, “White” and “Colored.” I took a picture, and almost immediately the angry owner rushed out to scold us. I stopped him cold by asking, “What’s the matter, mister, are you ashamed of this?” He stopped, sputtered for a moment, and then said, “Whuh, whuh, since you all came down heyah, you made me feel ashamed.” I described this in one of my almost daily letters to my wife, and she jokingly replied, “You don’t understand those signs, Ed, since you don’t do much laundry. They must refer to the clothes, not people. You never mix colored and white clothing in a washer.”
So many other exciting things happened, but there’s not enough space to go into them here. But I must tell about the two bravest persons whom I met, Amzie Moore and Fannie Lou Hamer. Neither they nor anyone like them were depicted in the miserable film “Mississippi Burning,” in which Blacks were all pictured as paralyzed by fear and the do-nothing FBI whitewashed.
Amzie Moore, a successful Mississippi businessman and organizer, speaks during Freedom Summer. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Edward McNulty)
Moore had been involved in the NAACP for many years and worked with Robert Moses and others to set up COFO. He was a successful businessman, owner of a gas station and a restaurant that served the Black community of Cleveland. We heard him preside several times at the evening Freedom Rallies. These were much like a Sunday morning worship service, beginning with the enthusiastic singing of freedom songs and hymns, then lots of prayers, testimonials, quotations from Scriptures, and speakers. Many remarked that this was the first summer that they had ever worshipped with whites. They would berate the oppression of “Mr. Charlie,” their symbol of the white segregationist, but look over at us and smile, indicating, “We don’t mean you.”
Moore quoted from the First Letter of John and commented on the fellowship in Christ, which broke down all barriers. “There ain’t no such thing as a white church! There ain’t no such thing as a Negro church! There’s just one Church, the Church of Jesus Christ. … You know, we’ve come to know you better in the two weeks you’ve been here than any other white men. I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve seen white men here and they’ve seen me. And they think they know me. They see us in the street. They wave and call, ‘Hello Bill,’ or ‘Hello Jim.’ But they don’t know me! They’ve never been to my church, and I’ve never been to theirs — through the front door, anyway. They just think they know me.”
However, the most memorable person we met was Hamer, an illiterate former sharecropper whom the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had recruited and sent out to sing and speak all around the state and even to Ohio, where she helped train the students. We heard and spoke with her first in Cleveland, then in Shaw, and last of all in Ruleville, at her home church. First, we were thrilled by how her strong singing voice filled the church without need of a microphone. Hamer usually started with “This Little Light of Mine” (which is the title of her fascinating biography) to “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” and a host of other freedom songs. She told the horrific story of her arrest and beating that left her partially handicapped and of her determination to see Freedom Land come. There was a cadence and power to her speech that lifted the spirits of the ragged people who risked so much to come to hear her. She was among those who saw God’s hand in the last name of COFO’s leader, Robert Moses. “Moses,” she would repeat, and then launch into the story of the one sent to declare to pharaoh, “Let my people go!”
A few other samples of her are rhetoric recorded in my journal: “If you see a preacher not standing up [for civil rights], there’s something wrong with him. … There’s something wrong with teachers who don’t teach citizenship and what it means. There’s something wrong about not knowing about the history of Negroes.” She could be funny in a barbed way, too: “When a preacher says he doesn’t want politics in his church, he’s telling a lie! The pictures on those bills you pay him are of presidents — he sure doesn’t keep them out!” And of course, the phrase that those who saw and heard her at the Democratic Party’s televised Credentials Committee hearing up in Atlantic City, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired!”
I have a vivid memory of the outdoor party celebrating the second year of the Freedom Movement in Hamer’s hometown of Ruleville, where SNCC staffer Charles McLaurin had come to begin voter registration work the year before. We joined a huge crowd, and it was so hot in the little church that we ate our chicken and heaps of trimmings outside.
You could still see the scorched area above the church door where local whites had hurled a firebomb. Passing cars slowed down, their white occupants scarcely believing that whites and Blacks would eat and socialize together. Then a car stopped, and we could see it was Sheriff Capps getting out. Hamer went over to him, and he served her a court injunction forbidding her from running on the Freedom Democratic Party ticket for the United States Senate. It was obviously a move to scare her, but reading it, she told me, “It’s just a scrap of paper. It don’t scare me or anything. I’ll be in Atlantic City [for the Democratic convention] even if I have to go by myself.” Sure enough, she and other members of the FDP did show up at the Atlantic City convention to challenge the seating of the segregated Democratic Party Delegates. They were not successful, but their televised testimony concerning the racist situation in the state made an impression on the country.
All our evening freedom rallies ended with the congregation singing “We Shall Overcome,” one of the verses stating, “We are not afraid/We are not afraid/We are not afraid today/Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe/We shall overcome someday.” The truth is we were often afraid. Fear was always in the air. Hence the order to never to sit in front of a lighted window or stand in a doorway at night. So many guns wielded by racist hotheads out there! Never go anywhere alone, especially into the white area of town! And when you drive into a white area, never mix white and Negro passengers — it must be all whites or all Blacks in the same seats! Is that car or truck bearing down on you a danger? Attendants at Shaw meetings had to pass a police officer taking down the names of those who had dared to come out. Those Blacks who succeeded in registering to vote knew that their name and address would be printed in the next two issues of the local newspaper — many such were fired, evicted, or found their credit cancelled. A common report when we interviewed sharecroppers was that the welfare lady showed up right afterward, threatening to cut off their welfare payments if they joined the Movement. Most Black ministers refused our request to hold a meaning in their buildings — over 30 were burned to the ground that summer, and others attacked.
Thus, Roger [Smithe, McNulty’s fellow pastor from North Dakota] and I were tremendously impressed by the Blacks who dared to participate in the Movement. They were a minority, as most Blacks were afraid to jeopardize their jobs, homes, or even lives — no white man up to that time had been convicted of beating or killing a Black person. Movement Blacks seemed to us to be like the New Testament Christians — faithful despite scorn and oppression.
At the service the night before Roger and I were to head back to North Dakota, we spoke and were thanked for coming down. Afterward, an elderly man said to us, “You know why the whites here hate you so? Because you all came down here and opened our eyes. Now we see that things don’t have to stay the same!” Two women also came up to thank us, one declaring, “I’m old and won’t see the day of freedom. But my grandchild will.”
If the woman’s grandchild is still in the state, that hoped-for “day of freedom” still hasn’t come, but the Freedom Summer Project certainly sped up its progress. Thanks to almost nightly newscasts featuring it, it helped build momentum for passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act, following which thousands of Mississippi Blacks succeeded in registering to vote — and this made it possible for Blacks to become active in politics.
According to a 2006 report: “Mississippi has the highest number of Black elected officials in the country. One of its four members in the U.S. House of Representatives is Black. Twenty-seven percent of the members of the state legislature are Black. Many of the local governmental bodies are integrated, and 31% of the members of the county governing boards (known as boards of supervisors) are Black.” The state’s governors and white legislators have fought every advancement, so the state still has a long, long way to go to achieve racial equality.
The Freedom Project deeply affected Roger and myself as well, in my case instilling a passion for social justice during my future pastorates.
But it affected Roger even more, leading him to ask his bishop to appoint him to work with the Delta Ministry that carried on COFO’s mission for many years afterward. For over 30 years, until he retired, this Methodist minister worked in Mississippi to alleviate poverty and to help people register to vote.
In 1981, while traveling through the state with my wife and youngest son, we stopped in Greenville for a dinner meeting with Roger and his boss, native Mississippian Jean Phillips, who was chair of the Delta Resources Committee. We marveled that we now could eat together at one of the city’s finest restaurants. They told us of how much equality had been accomplished, and yet what a long way there was yet to go, especially for economic equality.
Dr. Edward McNulty
The above is just a small portion of what took place that eventful summer 60 years ago. Those wanting more will find four parts of my journal posted here. During each week of August, I will post more comments and links to other parts of my journal and to relevant films.
Also, see the excellent PBS documentary film “Freedom Summer,” which provides a good overview of the Freedom Project.
Several books on the Mississippi Freedom Project were published, the most comprehensive being Bruce Watson’s 2010 book, “Freedom Summer.” I learned a great deal from it, such as the story of Oscar-winner Shirley MacLaine moving in with a Mississippi family — and that when MacLaine was visiting and cooking in Fannie Lou Hamer’s kitchen, Hamer was surprised to learn that Shirley was a movie star.
Dr. Edward McNulty is a semi-retired Presbyterian pastor living near Dayton, Ohio. Once the movie critic for Presbyterians Today, he is the author of three books on film published by Westminster John Knox Press and loves to review social justice films here.
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