Scott Sisters; Not the First Time Mississippi Has Mistreated Ill, Black Prisoners

Clyde Kennard, (Photo from Northeastern University archives

Mississippi had a similar, infamous case when it kept a prisoner with cancer working in the fields. He suffered greatly and was finally released just before he died.

Clyde Kennard of Hattiesburg was arrested September 15, 1959 for illegal possession of liquor and speeding. This happened shortly after Kennard was rejected the second time for admission to Mississippi Southern College, now the University of Southern Mississippi.
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The Scott Sisters, Jamie and Gladys, were sentenced to double life terms each in prison after being convicted of armed robbery where transcripts conflictingly state that $11 could have been netted. A 14 year old witness for the state testified to being threatened to be made into a woman at Parchman Penitentiary if he did not implicate the sisters. They have served 16 years of this sentence to date.
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While Mississippi Sovereignty Commission records show authorities once considered placing dynamite in his car (and a Hattiesburg lawyer offering to run him out of the country), the state finally succeeded in its quest to punish the poultry farmer and U. S. Army veteran when thirteen months later, on November 21, 1960 Kennard was convicted on charges of stealing chicken feed. He was sentenced to Parchman Penitentiary for the maximum penalty of seven years.

NAACP leader Medgar Evers heard of the verdict and told a reporter Kennard’s conviction was “a mockery of justice” for which Evers was arrested, charged with contempt and sentenced to thirty days in jail. The Supreme Court later overturned the conviction. But Kennard was literally beaten and worked to death at Parchman and after becoming seriously ill, he was diagnosed with cancer by the University of Mississippi Hospital.

Returned to Parchman, Kennard was dragged out to work in the fields each day despite his growing weakness. Prison authorities canceled his appointment for a medical checkup and he was not allowed to see his lawyer, Jess Brown. The Jackson attorney asked to receive Kennard’s medical reports but never got them. Tougaloo students mobilized to try and free Kennard, a friend of one of their instructors.

The story was picked up nationally as Dick Gregory and Dr. Martin Luther King demanded Kennard’s release. Finally, in 1963, Governor Barnett ordered Kennard’s release, concerned over potential bad publicity for the state if Kennard died at Parchman. Kennard underwent surgery in Chicago and soon died at Billings Hospital, shortly after he was paroled.

Was it an administrative oversight? Or was it deliberate negligence because of his connection with school integration? These questions, asked by Kennard’s attorney, were never answered. “No one can say for sure. You have to draw your own conclusions,” Jess Brown said.

Clyde Kennard died at the age of thirty-six on July 4, 1963.

Footnote: In one 1959 memorandum found in Mississippi Sovereignty Commission files, commission investigator Zack VanLandingham tells of a conversation he had with a Hattiesburg lawyer, Dudley Connor, about Kennard in the late 1950s.

"If the Sovereignty Commission wanted that Negro out of the community and out of the state they would take care of the situation," VanLandingham quoted Connor as saying. "And when asked what he meant by that, Connor stated that Kennard's carcould be hit by a train or he could have some accident on the highway and nobody would ever know the difference."

In another memo, written by VanLandingham to Gov. J.P. Coleman in 1959, the investigator relates a conversation he had with John Reiter, a campus police officer. "Reiter had several weeks ago told me that when Kennard was attempting to enter Mississippi Southern College in December 1958 that he had been approached by individuals with possible plans to prevent Kennard's going through with his attempt," he wrote.

"One of the plans was to put dynamite to the starter of Kennard's Mercury. Another plan was to have some liquor planted in Kennard's car and then he would be arrested."

So for the Scott Sisters, it appears to be just one more chapter of Mississippi Goddam.
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Some Sovereignty Commission Links Relating To Kennard ...

NAACP Fund Raising Letter For Kennard

Medgar Evers and Kennard

Newspaper clipping on Kennard's Guilty Verdict


Kennard's attempt to enroll in state college

Letter to editor written by Kennard

Kennard's file is large, so there are many more articles to view.

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Medgar Evers Was Targeted By Mississippi Sovereignty Commission; 2010 80th Anniversary of Evers's Birth

Medgar Evers, Mississippi's first NAACP leader. 2010 eightieth anniversary of his birth.

Blogger Rev. Gerald Britt pays hommage to Medgar Evers, Mississippi's first NAACP leader who was murdered in the driveway of his home:

This year is the 80th anniversary of the birth of Medgar Evers, one of our country's most significant Civil Rights freedom fighters.

Recognition of Evers often gets lost between that given Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X, yet for 10 years, ending with his assassination in 1963, Medgar Evers was a prominent figure in the struggle for equal rights, serving as field secretary for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples) in Jackson, Mississippi.

Rev. Britt is the Vice President of Public Policy & Community Program Development of Central Dallas Ministries. He is also the author of a monthly column for The Dallas Morning News.

At his site, Britt shows two important film clips..."The excerpt from the documentary 'Eyes on the Prize', gives the context of the movement - the institutionalization of the culture of injustice, the intimidation of those who sought to register to vote (briefly shown is an example of the 'literacy test' given to actually disqualify voters. The same type of test recommended by Tom Tancredo at the recent TEA Party Convention). It also shows how the legal system gave cover to those who committed such heinous crimes, such as the assassination of Evers."

The second clip is of Myrlie Evers-Williams at the Martin Luther King dinner.

Of course the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission digital database was filled with files on Evers. Here are just a few to get your started:

Info on Evers's auto

Integration Agitator/Medgar Evers

Report on NAAACP efforts in Laurel
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King Files Could Could be Opened -- Sen. John Kerry

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was threatened early on not to come into Mississippi. Here's an early report:

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd01/000387.png&otherstuff=2|2|0|4|13|1|1|380|
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From the Clarion Ledger --

U.S. Sen. John Kerry plans to introduce legislation next week that would pave the way for the release of thousands of FBI documents on the life and death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Kerry said the bill, which failed in 2006, can pass this year in honor of King. "I want the world to know what he stood for," Kerry said. "And I want his personal history preserved and examined by releasing all of his records."

The bill calls for creating a Martin Luther King Records Collection at the National Archives that would include all government records related to King. The bill also would create a five-member independent review board that would identify and make public all documents from agencies including the FBI - just as a review board in 1992 made public documents related to the 1963 John F. Kennedy assassination.
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This is very good news. The Sovereignty Commission files, of course, are filled with reports on Dr. King. Later today (when I have some free time), I will start posting some links...susan

More --

Mississippi & JFK: Links

John Bevilaqua has been investigating the Kennedy assassination and Wickliffe P. Draper for almost 20 years. He offered some interesting observations in Dec. 09 on deeppoliticsforum.com, including the following ...

"Sam Crutchfield was also the attorney of record for the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission during the period when Wickliffe P. Draper provided secretive funding to the MSC using his J. P. Morgan trust fund account as documented by recent Pulitzer Prize winning author, Doug Blackmon in a Wall Street Journal article published on June 11, 1999.

"Three of the four major funds transfers from Draper to the MSC occurred either right after the assassination of Medgar Evers, Jr., in Mississippi in June 1963, just before the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, in Mobile, Alabama, in September of 1963, killing several choir girls, or just before the murders of the Freedom Riders: Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman in Philadelphia, Mississippi in June of 1964.

"Draper was linked to the Medgar Evers, Jr. murder via Senator James Eastland, from Mississippi, who headed up the Draper Genetics Committee for the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Evers' killer was KKK and NSRP member, Byron DeLa Beckwith, who was visited often in jail after he was arrested for the murder of Medgar Evers, Jr. by Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker who had organized and led the riots at Ole Miss when James Meredith attempted to enroll there as the first Afro-American student.

"Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker was specifically named by Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, in his Warren Commission testimony as being directly involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

"Byron DeLa Beckwith whose middle name was only one word and pronounced like "delay" and not like "day-lah" was also a close friend of Joseph A. Milteer a racist leader in both the KKK and The National States Rights Party (NSRP), who predicted the exact way that JFK would meet his ultimate demise a few weeks before the assassination actually occurred: "...from a tall building with a high-powered rifle."

"This statement was made by Milteer and secretly tape recorded by Willie Somersett, an informant for the City of Miami Police Intelligence Division. This intelligence gathering incident was arranged by Lt. Gracey Lockhart from that department while Somersett and Milteer were attending a Congress of Freedom convention in Indiana.

"The Congress of Freedom was started in the early 1950's by Willis A. Carto with financial support from Wickliffe P. Draper. Conventions of the COF featured rabble-rousing, hate filled and vitriolic anti-Kennedy speeches made by Dr. Revilo P. Oliver who was later referred to in the novel, The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon in 1959. Some of his bombastic, vindictive and hate filled tape recorded anti-Kennedy speeches can be heard at this white supremacist website: http://www.revilo-oliver.com."
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Here are some Mississippi Sovereignty Commission files that support some of what this well-known (and controversial) JFK assassination scholar says:

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd07/051254.png&otherstuff=6|70|0|105|1|1|1|50529|

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd12/113710.png&otherstuff=97|15|0|15|2|1|1|112453|

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd12/113710.png&otherstuff=97|15|0|15|2|1|1|112453|

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd12/113717.png&otherstuff=97|15|0|17|2|1|1|112460|

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd12/113719.png&otherstuff=97|15|0|17|3|1|1|112462|

These links and others were used to support what I wrote in Where Rebels Roost:


Both researchers (Tucker and Blackmon) met by coincidence in Jackson, Miss. while looking into boxes of Sovereignty Commission files newly released to the public.

“Blackmon was the only national reporter that I know of who seemed interested in Draper,” Tucker said.

Blackmon, searching for bottom line information, and after looking through the treasure trove of ledgers, invoices and correspondence recording the commission’s finances, reported that

"[R]ecords show large transfers of money by Morgan on behalf of a client who turns out be a wealthy and reclusive New Yorker named Wycliffe Preston Draper. Mr. Draper used his private banker to transfer nearly $215,00 in stock and cash to the Sovereignty Commission for use in its fight against the Civil Rights Act. The entire budget for the effort amounted to about $300,000.

"Adjusted for inflation, Mr. Draper's contributions would be worth more than $1.1 million today. The Sovereignty Commission files do more than simply document one man's role. They show that some of the most virulent resistance to civil-rights progres in the 1960s was supported and funded from the North, not just the South. The files also highlight the ethical issues that confront an institution like Morgan Guaranty, the private-banking unit of J. P Morgan & Co., when it is drawn, even unwittingly, into a client's support for repugnant causes.

"When Mr. Draper died in 1972, Morgan was an executor of his estate, overseeing distributions totaling about $5 million to two race-oriented foundations. The primary beneficiary was the Pioneer Fund, an organization Mr. Draper helped found and which became known in recent years for funding research cited in "The Bell Curve," a book arguing that blacks are genetically inclined to be less intelligent than whites or Asians. In his will, Mr. Draper instructed that after his death, the Pioneer Fund use Morgan for financial advice; the fund did so for two decades.xxv

"Embedded within Sovereignty Commission files was a note to Erle Johnston regarding a phone call from Satterfield, and instructing Johnston to send a telegram to “Mr. Rossiter” in the Trust Department of Morgan Guaranty in New York. “Satterfield had a call from Draper’s attorney Weyher about the telegram” regarding stock transfers and sales, and “the banks need to be advised what action to take.”xxvi

"Most of the money supporting Mississippi’s fight against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, so it turned out, came from outside of Mississippi, from a Northern neo-Nazi, racist “philanthropist” with a focused racist agenda.xxvi

"Satterfield and others used these funds for putting together an impressive marketing campaign that emphasized a mix of speeches, publicity, direct mail, newspaper advertising, radio and television advertising, ghostwritten editorials and pres releases."
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Spending a little more time, lately, I found some more interesting files that relate to these topics... focusing on Satterfield, who died on 5 May 1981 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Satterfield headed the Mississippi Bar and for two terms headed the National Bar Association.

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd01/005556.png&otherstuff=1|74|0|7|1|1|1|5404|

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd07/051239.png&otherstuff=6|70|0|100|1|1|1|50514|

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd10/076396.png&otherstuff=99|36|0|36|1|1|1|75424|

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd10/081485.png&otherstuff=99|50|0|15|1|1|1|80446|

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd10/082062.png&otherstuff=99|51|0|15|1|1|1|81020|

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd11/084130.png&otherstuff=99|67|0|5|1|1|1|83072|

What Change Is All About ... Watching It Move Into Mississippi

Marching in Grenada, Miss. (Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement)



Dear Blog Readers:

I get wonderful e-mail from people who are interested in the Emmett Till story and related civil rights history. The best email, of course, comes from those who share their personal history of what it was like to be involved in the modern civil rights movement.

Here is a powerful message that I recently received from a Grenada, Miss. blogger:

Dear Susan:

Could you please mention this site -- the John Rundle High School Google Group -- http://groups.google.com/group/JRHS.

I will be visiting the Emmett Till website. I have visited Money, MS and have seen the store which was still standing 5 years ago.

I am currently in Baghdad but I'll be home to Washington DC in another week or so and I'll look forward to reading your book. I want to work with our JRHS group to understand our history -- of all our citizens -- so we can start talking about a new future for Mississippi. My dream is to go back home and try to make a difference. That is the dream of many.

Charles Latham is one who has done that. I'd like to get more stories published of those that have gone home and what their perspective is for the future. I re-read Charles email to the JRHS Group from 5 years ago and it is a powerful statement.

You had to be there at the time to understand exactly how dangerous it was for a black child to try to go to a white school. I could visualize Martin Luther King Jr. shaking the hands of the children that morning of September 20, 1966, before they left to go to the schools.

As a father of three I do not know that I could do that -- but I also don't know that I could stand in my child's way if they want to stand up for what they thought was right. It was courage on an unprecedented scale and it was that courage, jijutsued by the beating of the children into a national outrage, that changed the South.

MMaxey
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So here is the story (printed with permission) that Michael Maxey (MMaxey) refers to, with a short introduction by Maxey:

Charles Latham is an African American alumnus of John Rundle High School. Charles was in the Class of 1971. He left Grenada and this email tells his story and why he came back home. The photograph that Charles refers to in the email is of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, escorting children to school on September 20, 1966. He was one of the black students who attended Lizzie Horn Elementary that day. I've copied Charles on this email.

Michael Maxey
JRHS 1970

Email From: "Charles Latham" To: JRHS Group
Subject: RE: JRHS Website Update >Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:27:33 -0800

Fellow JRHS Alumni:

My name is Charles Latham (class of '71), although I didn't know you all personally, I do remember your names and had classes with some of you. I was in the band and played trombone when Mr. Mullens was the director. I have lived and worked San Diego, Ca. since 1975.

I really appreciate the comments and the photo by Mary Gene Boteler, it brought back memories for me. And if ya'll don't mind, I'd like to share some of them with you. The girl on our left is Grace Lemon (my former sister-in-law). I remember Mrs. Lemon having a copy of the photo and a copy of the magazine the story came out in. I was also in that line that day. That day was a significant emotional event for me.

Before the march began, we all stood in line in front of our church (Bell Flower A.M.E) for an opportunity to shake Dr. King's hand. When my turn came, I remember thinking no matter what we had to go through for equality, it would be worth it. Because this man made us believe that he was there for us and would die for his beliefs.

Before that day I was content with the way things were. We lived and worshiped in our own community. Went to our own schools and played with our own friends (sounds familiar?). Even when we went to the movies and had to sit in the balcony and go outside for concessions (rain or shine) I just thought that was the way it was. I didn't realize how nice and comfortable it was downstairs. Or even that we had a right to do so.

When I would see that "third" restroom marked "colored" I had no problem using it, because that's the way it was. When I would stand in line at stores waiting to pay for merchandise and the clerk would look past me to assist a white customers first, I still waited patiently. But after that day, things were different. I don't mean that Grenada had changed, but I had. My way of thinking had.

Suddenly, I started to ask why? And later challenging the status quo.

I remember the first day we had to go to JRHS. I was determine to make new friends and live the dream Dr. King had spoken of. I remember meeting Diane Einkner and talking to her about JRHS. She was telling me about the school, where things were and how things were.

I remember people talking about us (both black and white). The fact that two young people were trying to be examples of how things should be. I remember sitting in the back of the class with Chuck Hancock and a couple of his friends joking and having fun. I don't remember all the guys names forgive I'm getting old er). Some of you even hung out with me and invited me over to your homes.Sometimes I wondered what if their parents came home and saw me there?

I also realized that those of you who chose to interact with me personally were taking a chance too. I appreciated that. Because I learned a valuable lesson that has helped me until this day. That is, I shouldn't hold all people accountable for the actions of a few.

Recently I was contacted by a reporter with the San Diego Tribune. He is doing a story on African-Americans who are cashing out of the SD area and moving back to the south. After 33 years, I've been blessed to be able to retire and go back home. I've even hired Ronnie Collins' younger brother Odie to build our dream home. The reporter interviewed my family last night. His interview with me has led him to Grenada. Where he is scheduled to go there next week to talk to others who have also moved back to Grenada from SD.

One lady, who was originally from Itta Bena and lived in SD for forty years, purchased a home over the internet (sight unseen) will be featured in the story. Ray Branscome, Joe Lee III and the honorable Diane Freelon will also be interviewed.

I am proud to be a Grenadian and look forward to going back there and contributing to the city's success. Grenada has come a long way in just forty years. And I still believe that we all (God's children) have a responsibility to make this world a better place. And I try to do that one relationship at a time. When the time comes that we do have a reunion, I will be happy to assist in any way I can.

May God bless you all.
Respectfully,

Charles H. Latham
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As if turns out, Charles Latham's name does appear in Sovereignty Commission records. Here are several links, to get started:

A weekly report from 1971

Names of Black Youth Group Members

Another report, before Latham's times, is from 1958 regarding NAACP activity NAACP activities

Lots more to check out in the Files Section under Grenada County ...

Good Reading and Happy Holidays!

Susan

Fred Hampton Must Have Scared the Crap Out of Mississippi

Fred Hampton, Activist

At 4am on December 4th, 1969, the FBI, working with the Chicago police department, assassinated Chicago Black Panther Party Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton in his bed as he slept. Along with the murder of Mark Clark in the same apartment that night, the "raid" was one in a long line of illegal actions taken by the FBI as part of its COINTELPRO war against the social justice and anti-war movements.

Hampton's death was chronicled in the 1971 documentary film The Murder of Fred Hampton, as well as an episode the documentary series Eyes on the Prize.

Hampton was known as a skilled leader, and the FBI kept close tabs on his activities; FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover was determined to prevent the formation of a cohesive Black radical movement in the United States. Hoover viewed the Panthers, and other such radical coalitions, as a move toward the creation of a revolutionary body that could potentially overthrow the U.S. government.

The FBI opened a file on Hampton in 1967 that over the next two years expanded to twelve volumes and over four thousand pages. A wire tap was placed on Hampton's mother's phone in February 1968. By May of that year, Hampton's name was placed on the "Agitator Index" and he would be designated a "key militant leader for Bureau reporting purposes.

Not surprisingly, Mississippi Sovereignty Commission was keeping tabs on Hampton, too. Here are several links to get started ...

A letter dated Jan. 20, 1970 from the Committee to Defend the Panther 21. Ralph Abernathy’s name is at the top of the list of sponsors and has been circled.

A speech by Carl Braden at the University of Mississippi. "Don't end up ... and get murdered like Fred Hampton." Notes the RNA came to Mississippi for reasons of peace and media has misrepresented its efforts. Report is unsigned but stamped by the University Police.

Several heavily redacted news articles from the Commercial Appeal, Times Picayune, etc. from 1970.

Should make for some good reading ... even if the best files are probably still hidden somewhere underground in Jackson or nearby.