Blog Across the Mississippi Delta Civil Rights History Tour

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AS FREEDOM VOLUNTEERS packed up and left Mississippi in 1964, brutality and murder kept going on. Some stories made it into the news and into later history books, but in smaller Delta towns several hundred miles north of Jackson, many incidents remain only as whispers among those who once picked the cotton ...


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Bloggers Set to Revisit Mississippi Delta Civil Rights People and Places

Mount. Pleasant, Iowa (USA), May 29, 2007--Two friends from Cleveland, Mississippi and Mount Pleasant, Iowa, are spending ten days roaming and blogging the Mississippi Delta while visiting civil rights people and places. Their pictures and stories will be placed daily at http://mississippimurders.com on the Internet. (Photo at left, courthouse in Belzoni, home of the Rev. George Lee who was murdered in 1955.)

Margaret Block, an early civil rights advocate, and Susan Klopfer, author of Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited, plan to roam the Mississippi Delta starting June 1, visiting people and places of the modern civil rights movement. “We'll be traveling in and out of the Delta for ten days as we photograph important spots and talk about the region's history,” Klopfer said.

“We plan to visit the towns of Money, Drew, Glendora, Greenwood and other spots connected to the murders of Emmett Till, Birdia Keglar, Adlena Hamlett and Cleve McDowell, among others who were killed for their civil rights activities or just for being black.”

Block, an early SNCC volunteer, spent her first years out of high school in the small town of Charleston where they will kick off their blogging venture by attending a program June 1 honoring Keglar. The NAACP leader was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1966 on her way home from a Jackson meeting with Sen. Robert Kennedy. Keglar once saved Block’s life by moving her out of Charleston in a hearse from the funeral home that Keglar managed.

“We have very few scheduled stops, but we will also leave the Delta to attend the funeral of Mrs. Chaney, James Chaney's mother in Meridian,” Block said. The two also plan to visit with Unita Blackwell, Mississippi’s first black woman mayor, and will take pictures as they roam the historical Brooks Farm, Parchman penitentiary, and Clarksdale, home of Aaron Henry, an early civil rights leader who Block also knew.

The two women met when Klopfer was researching a book on the civil rights movement, “Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited.” Klopfer was living on the grounds of Parchman at the time, where her husband was the chief psychologist.

...Contact:
Susan Klopfer
775-340-3585 (cell) sklopfer@gmail.com
http://mississippimurders.blogspot.com
http://themiddleoftheinternet.com

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Blog Across the Mississippi Delta Civil Rights History Tour

Blog Across Mississippi Civil Rights History Tour

On June 30, I'm leaving for the Mississippi Delta to visit Margaret Block, Unita Blackwell and others involved in the modern civil rights movement. We'll be traveling in and out of the Delta for 10 days as we photograph important spots and talk about the region's history. You are invited to "travel" along on this blog. We have very few scheduled stops, but here are the first two:

June 1 - Charleston, Miss.
Margaret Block and I will attend the program honoring Birdia Keglar, civil rights advocate, who was killed in 1966.

June 2 - Meridian, Miss.
We will attend the funeral of Mrs. Chaney, James Chaney's mother.

Other points we'll be visiting:

Rolling Fork, Drew, Ruleville, the Brooks Farm, Parchman, Clarksdale, Glendora, Holly Springs, Cleveland ... we'll pay special attention to Sovereignty Commission folks.

Stay tuned.

Susan

Indictment in Jimmie Lee Jackson slaying

MARION, Ala. - A 73-year-old retired state trooper was indicted Wednesday in the 1965 shooting death of a black man — a killing that set in motion the historic civil rights protests in Selma and led to passage of the Voting Rights Act.

District Attorney Michael Jackson said a grand jury returned an indictment in the case. He would not identify the person charged or specify the offense until the indictment is served, which could take a few days. But a lawyer for former Trooper James Bonard Fowler said he had been informed that the retired lawman had been charged.

It took the grand jury only two hours to return the indictment in the slaying of 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was shot by Fowler during a civil rights protest that turned into a club-swinging melee.

The case was little-known as a civil rights-era cold case but had major historical consequences.

Continued

Mississippi Governor blocked documents, FBI says

From CBC News

Documents obtained by CBC News show that the Mississippi governor at the time of the 1964 race killings of two African-American teenagers censored a news release related to the case and kept photos of their remains from the media at the height of the civil rights movement.

Paul B. Johnson Jr., who died last year, became governor of Mississippi in January 1964. The Democratic politician was known for his support of segregation, and had personally blocked the way of James Meredith, the first black student to register at the University of Mississippi, as Meredith tried to make his way on campus.

FBI documents show that Johnson personally influenced aspects of the Charles Moore and Henry Dee case.

Continued ..
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HOWEVER, it was Gov. Ross Barnett who blocked Meredith in his attempt to enter Ole Miss, not Gov. Johnson as CBC reports.

Meanwhile, Sovereignty Commission records are few with respect to Mr. Moore and Mr. Dee. Here are several

Charges dropped against two men accused of "Torso Slayings"

Klansman Seale questioned about murder of Moore and Dee

Photos of Klansmen, including Seale


What's interesting, is all of the investigation records that appear to be missing. Where are they? Could they still be in individual homes? Are they included among Sen. James Eastland's files housed at Ole Miss???