Monthly Archives: December 2011

“Some of the [Citizens] Council members were keeping an eye on every Negro who registered to vote and reporting this information back to their employer with the suggestion that they might want to fire this person. Some did lose their … Continue reading →

“One of the most disturbing incidents that occurred during this period was the integration of Ole Miss. We had been reading stories about efforts underway to get blacks into the University, and then on September 3, 1962, a federal district … Continue reading →

“Prior to 1963 there were less than 400 Negroes registered to vote in Leflore County. In 1960 the FBI came to Greenwood to look at voting records in the Circuit Clerk’s office. County officials stated that they had nothing to … Continue reading →

  “The Citizens Council had an office in downtown Greenwood with Bob ‘Tut’ Patterson of Indianola, one of its organizers, in charge. He took his text on the literature being used by churches and even the Girl Scouts and the … Continue reading →

“About this time the Citizens Council had been organized in Indianola and quickly spread throughout the state. At first we did not pay much attention to the organization and little realized the role theywould play in the years to come. … Continue reading →

“I was sending news to the Jackson Daily News at the time of the Emmett Till case but was not expected to cover anything as big as that story and so was spared that, though it would have been an interesting … Continue reading →

“The Civil Rights Era, though generally thought of as being the ’60s, really began in Leflore County, Mississippi, in the late summer of 1955 with the brutal killing of a fourteen-year-old Chicago Negro, Emmett Till. “I was working for a … Continue reading →

I have typed up the first installment of Sara’s Civil Rights Era memoirs, which will go online early tomorrow morning. As a rule, I will not be commenting on these posts or  adding background material unless I have something very … Continue reading →

Just a note: I’m going to start posting Sara’s Civil Rights memoir by this weekend, I hope, or Monday at the latest. Please be forewarned, if you have been reading Sara’s stories recently or all the way back to last … Continue reading →