It began innocuously enough. I was simply scrolling through photos on my phone in order to locate and delete no longer needed images. I made it to as far back as this past January when I saw a quick snapshot I had made of a display at the Civil Right’s Museum — one I had passed numerous times, but had only now noticed.
I can not go along with this mixing the races.
I will not permit my child to be taught that it’s
alright. I can see it in the Army and college,
but not my little 7 year old. Never! All negros
study is sex.
— L——, letter to Sen. John Stennis, August 9, 1969
The larger part of that display read:
Federal Laws For Federal Dollars
Few subjects provoked more passion in white Mississippians
than school desegregation. For 100 years, whites had
opposed it as the ‘mongrelization of the races.” In 1964,
ten years after Brown v. Board of Education, the few school
districts that had begun to desegregate — Biloxi, Jackson,
Leake County—had done so after civil rights activists filed
lawsuits. Then two acts of Congress changed the equation.
In 1964, the Civil Rights Act withheld federal funds from
segregated schools. A year later, Congress significantly
raised public school funding to a whopping $1.3 billion.
Some districts, like Amite County, voted to raise local taxes
rather than comply. But most filed Freedom-of-Choice
plans, where parents supposedly had the “freedom” to
choose any school in a district. Whites hoped that a few
token black students would be enough. Fewer than 1,000
black students chose all-white schools in 1965. Black
students were harassed. Parents lost jobs. Snipers fired into
homes. A year later, nearly half of the districts remained
strictly segregated. By the 1968-1969 school year, only
seven percent of blacks attended integrated schools.
Teaching staffs also remained highly segregated.
The accompanying photo shows four amazing Black girls, dressed in church clothes and seemingly escorted by the Holy Spirit and the essence of their ancestors. Slightly behind them, yet close enough to easily reach out and touch, are five armed white men in full military attire, complete with protective helmets. An additional rifle is there as well, partially hidden by the words but there nonetheless. I am sure there are many more protectors of the peace just out of view of the camera lens.
Those beautiful queens were resolute in real time, and remain so in the present. Three are looking away, perhaps searching for something to transcend the ugly all around them. One of those girls, though, is looking straight into the camera, straight into the past, present, and future.
Like a dare, or a prayer, or a vow. The lines between those are rightly blurry at times, yet are no less a challenge to embrace.
The caption, just under her white knees socks and what I imagine are ruby red slippers, though the photo is in black and white, and I AM prone to hyperbole:
On their way to Grenada’s recently integrated schools,
80 black students walked past riot-clad Mississippi
highway patrolmen, September 14, 1966.
AP Images/Associated Press
(Oh, sweet Jesus, what do I do with this pain in my soul?)
——————————————
Out of curiosity, I decided to see if I could find this 1969 letter writing woman in the world of the internet. I did, easily. Her obituary from a couple of years ago popped up in 0.0052 seconds. It turns out she was from my hometown, and her list of documented relatives and achievements revealed several instances where our lives have crossed, albeit only in the vaguest of ways. However, it did cause me to have enough knowledge of where to search for more in-depth information.
Obituaries are the most interesting of data documents. It never ceases to amaze me the sheer amount of information, both real and imagined, that they contain. There was nothing in her 400 allotted words that pegged her as a letter writer of any kind. She was reportedly a phenomenal wife, mother, and daughter. She was a wonderful cook. Since it was described as peaceful and she was surrounded by family at her home, I assume her passing was expected (and most likely a relief, although few obituaries include that acknowledgment of mercy).
Because I now know her tiny community and her complete school history, I can draw some conclusions about where her patriotic sympathies originated. She graduated from an all white public school in the early 1960s. Brown v. Board of Education had become the official law of the land in 1954, but that land most definitely did not include Mississippi. It took 15 years for federal officials to declare that time was up in 1969 — all Mississippi public schools must be integrated in January 1970 or they would lose federal money, which was no small chunk of change for a place like Mississippi. It still isn’t.
Ms L was having none of that. By 1969, she had three children, two of whom were in school at one of the two private academies that was built in my county to accommodate the outraged and the fearful. I know this because according to her obituary, two of Ms. L’s children had died just a couple of years before she did, and their obituaries contained a wealth of additional information about their own school attendance and honors. That family has at least one gifted obituary writer. Seriously, each of them contained such honoring and beautiful tributes.
The two children who died attended the segregation academy until 1976, when they transferred to the fully integrated public school just a few miles away from where they had been receiving their education — the same public school where their mother had graduated from years earlier. They were apparently well received and awarded during their time there, and their younger sibling excelled there as well.
What caused this change in this mother, one that was so passionate about expressing her concerns to her solidly entrenched and similarly bent Senator just seven years earlier? Did she read To Kill a Mockingbird? I hear many stories about how this book pierced some white hearts along the way. Did the endless repetition of Big Bird and Mr. Rogers make some type of subconscious impression?
Was there some type of Remember the Titans moment? Did she get caught up in the spirit of the bicentennial and have some type of epiphany? Was it a matter of economics — free schooling and busing to boot?
Was there some type of existential crisis for Ms. L? Like my own public school, her children’s school was about half white and half Black, with about the same ratio among the teachers and staff. It was just a normal experience for me, but what about for her? Did she think her children would be getting a substandard educational experience because some additional melanin had been added to the mix, or had her thinking evolved?
The obituaries did not mention this, but I think she most certainly would have been one of the more active PTA mothers, present at all the activities and fundraisers. Did she act differently around the Black mothers?
Several years later, when she was in that audience watching both me and her daughter participate in that pageant that ultimately neither of us won, was the disappointment somewhat soothed by the fact that at least the sole Black contestant did not win? Or, like my own mother, was she simply lamenting the loss of the college scholarship money involved?
These are things an obituary cannot tell me. I do not know if the sentiments expressed in this snippet of a letter from over fifty years ago bore any resemblance of the woman adored and honored by her family, or if it had any influence over their philosophical DNA. As a letter writer myself, I shudder to think of how my many missives over the years could be interpreted and false assumptions made. I was quite prolific in my grievances for a time, back when everything seemed tremendous yet ultimately so little of it mattered.
(I can only imagine the fun someone could have with just that one letter to the editor with my self-righteous rant about using teddy bears in Nativity scenes, signed with my now googleable name and city of residence…I am also listed in various obituaries that provide the merest snippets of my story, but none of them well, regardless of their overall accuracy.)
Ms. L wrote that letter in her 20s, and died in her 70s. I have no idea if her letter to the senator was referenced by her family, or even known about. She died before the museum opened, but somewhere, in some archives, a copy of her letter had been saved and preserved, and a handful of her words will now live on, without her knowledge or consent.
What would her family think if they knew her words had been immortalized this way? In a building showcasing so much sorrow, yet overflowing with abundance and bravery and life, her words are a rare inclusion on the permanent markers, that while true and historical, are not also uplifting and encouraging. Would they be mortified? Apathetic? Proud? Confused? Ashamed?
Her obituary assures me that she was met at the pearly gates, hearing the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” These exact words are invoked throughout that museum in numerous ways and for a wide range of people and circumstances that included beatings and poverty and hate.
People that were dressed in their fanciest clothes and were just trying to go to school. Or the library. Or church.
Reconciliation — such an evasive concept, yet most worthy of pursuit.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. 2 Corinthian 5:18
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:32
Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little, I will put you in charge of many things; share in the joy of your master.’ Matthew 25:23
