Gallery 5 - A Tremor in the Iceberg

"Black Christmas" reached Jackson in December 1962 as students and community leaders boycotted downtown merchants. They demanded courtesy titles, equality in employment, and an end to all Jim Crow practices. On May 28, 1963, Tougaloo students and faculty sat-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. They were assaulted by a white mob of Jackson Central High students and had to be escorted out by police. The scene was shown on the local news, and transformed the boycott into a mass movement.

The Jackson Movement featured crippling boycotts of downtown merchants and the state fair. Jackson’s large Black community, so close to the state government and the national office of the Citizens’ Council, became a natural target. At the center of the Movement—leading, supporting, planning, recruiting, coordinating, documenting abuse, offering comfort and material support— was Medgar Evers. He quickly became the face of the Movement, and, increasingly, the target of death threats by those who opposed it.

“Black Christmas” reached Jackson in December 1962 as students and community leaders boycotted downtown merchants. They demanded courtesy titles, equality in employment, and an end to all Jim Crow practices. On May 28, 1963, Tougaloo students and faculty sat-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. They were assaulted by a White mob of Jackson Central High students and had to be escorted out by police. The scene was shown on the local news and transformed the boycott into a mass movement. 

In September 1962, James Meredith’s attempt to register at the University of Mississippi triggered a bloody riot. When his application was rejected, his case was taken to federal court. Throughout the summer, Meredith won repeated appeals. By September, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals demanded Meredith’s admission. Governor Ross Barnett invoked a long-discredited doctrine—“interposition”— claiming the state’s right to ignore federal actions it deemed unconstitutional.

Medgar Evers was shot in the back by sniper Byron De La Beckwith outside his Jackson home just after midnight on June 12, 1963. Evers collapsed in the carport. He died at the hospital. The shooting came hours after President Kennedy announced on national television that he would send sweeping civil rights legislation to Congress. Like Emmett Till, his death provoked deep sorrow and fierce outrage. Once again, the national spotlight turned on Mississippi.

As NAACP field secretary, Evers traveled the state for years speaking to local groups, recruiting members, organizing youth councils, aiding the poor, and documenting civil rights abuses. While his natural sympathies pulled him toward direct action protests, he remained loyal to the more cautious NAACP agenda. His funeral drew some 4,500 people, including civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and Roy Wilkins. With Jackson police out in full force, the funeral march nearly exploded into a full-scale race riot as Black youths expressed their outrage.

As the Freedom Riders made their way South, they intended to integrate bus station waiting rooms, lunch counters, and public restrooms, testing enforcement of the recent Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in interstate travel. They expected to provoke opposition that would compel the federal government to enforce the law. After a quiet stop in Atlanta, they were met with violence in Alabama, turning the Freedom Rides into international news. However, the Riders were reinforced with fresh volunteers and would not be deterred.

SNCC organized food distribution centers—Amzie Moore’s home in Cleveland, Aaron Henry and Vera Pigee’s center in Clarksdale, and the St. Francis Mission in Greenwood. Fannie Lou Hamer saw their work as a turning point—“Nobody never come out into the country and talked to real farmers. . . . If you hadn’t arrived at a certain level, you wasn’t treated no better by blacks than you was by the whites. And it was these kids what broke a lot of this down.” 

Seeing the plight of Delta families radicalized SNCC workers. They asked, “What good is it to desegregate a lunch counter if you have no money for food?” SNCC’s call for help found many responders. Musician Harry Belafonte hosted a benefit at Carnegie Hall. Comedian Dick Gregory chartered a plane and flew tons of food to the Delta. Michigan State students Ivanhoe Donaldson and Ben Taylor drove a truck loaded with donated supplies to Clarksdale during Christmas break. They were arrested and charged with possession of narcotics (aspirin and vitamins).

McComb became the first battleground for the new voter registration campaign. Not yet ready to mount a drive in the Delta, Amzie Moore sent Bob Moses to work with McComb NAACP president C.C. Bryant in 1961. The local community embraced the voter registration campaign, and local organizations offered help to propel the work forward. By the end of August, SNCC had sent down a dozen activists and broadened their reach to Walthall and Amite counties.