daughterofthedelta

“Spring came again to Greenwood in 1964 and with it came the marches. Richard Frey, a 27-year-old white Pennsylvania civil rights worker, announced that a march for registration drive would be staged on March 25 with plans for 300 Negroes to take part. On that date there were close to 100 pickets led by Aaron Henry of Clarksdale, state NAACP chairman. They marched from eleven a.m. until four p.m. A number of white ministers took part.

“Hugh Arnett, director of urban church work of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA, gave a statement to the local paper stating: ‘Today we must return to our churches where we will continue to work for racial justice in our own communities. We want the people of Greenwood to know we have not come with a sense of moral superiority but with a deep sense of the tragedy of racial division and injustice today. We appeal to the ministers of Greenwood to open channels of communication between Negroes and whites in Leflore County.’  Upon leaving the ministers said they would recommend that the National Council of Churches organize another clergy task force for Greenwood.

“On March 31 after four days of picketing the police arrested 14 of the pickets at the Courthouse when they refused to obey Police Chief Curtis Lary. They arrived at the Courthouse in five cars shortly after one p.m. and set up a line, walking back and forth. The first one to disobey orders to restrict picketing to Cotton Street was Richard Frey. Another 22-year-old white man from San Antonio was the other white arrested along with eight Negro men and four Negro women. They were charged with disorderly conduct. They had been told the night before where they could walk, that they had been allowed to protest for four days and were monopolizing the stretch of sidewalk and main entrance of the Court House.

“Some of the newsmen from Atlanta said Frey had told them the night before that the situation here had reached a crisis. Frey, who was working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, had been in Greenwood for several months and had been arrested several times. He always wore bib overalls and was living out in the black section of town. His father came down to get him out of jail one time. He was a very distinguished looking gentleman who was Dean of the Law School at the University of Pennsylvania. Gray [Evans] talked to him about his son and he told Gray that he had done everything he could to get him to stay out of the troubles down her and to come home and that he could not do a thing with him. He was just one of the many young ones who were idealistic during the ’60s and adopted a cause.”

“We started off the year [1964] with a case in County Court involving 45 Negroes arrested and convicted in Justice of the Peace Court in Itta Bena the previous June. They had been charged with breach of the peace and were asking for dismissal of the charges on grounds ranging from faulty affidavits to denial of due process of law. We spent several days at the Courthouse covering the hearing.

“The group had marched on the home of Itta Bena’s town marshall, H.E.Weber, one night. Mrs. Weber testified that a group of approximately 100 Negroes gathered and started running into their backyard. She said she heard glass breaking and loud thuds and that windshields were broken and bricks and bottles were thrown everywhere. ‘I heard singing and hollering which sounded like a chant,’ she said. ‘They sang a song “I ain’t gonna let Ed Weber turn me around.”‘

“‘We were marching for freedom, ‘ said one of the group, Lillie Stewart. All 45 were on appeal bonds posted by the National Council of Churches of Christ. Many of the local churches had been upset that they were contributing to the National Council of Churches which was then putting up money for those being arrested. Some people stopped contributing to their churches for this reason.

“A young man was sitting in the Court Room operating a steno-machine to take notes. I asked him who he was taking the notes for and he said the National Council of Churches.”

“Justice of the Peace Joe Rustici of Itta Bena had tried the cases in his court, which was held in a crowded little room in downtown Itta Bena soon after the incident. Russell and I drove over there to cover the hearing, and we were the only two outsiders there. I was a little uncomfortable. Later George Everett, who was an FBI agent at the time, called and said he and another agent would like to question me about the hearing. I was scared to death I was going to get involved as the only witness but after they came by and discussed it with me I never heard any more from them.”

“After De La’s arrest things were fairly quiet in the summer and fall of 1963. The Negroes continued to come to the Courthouse to register but there were no more marches, and it was hoped that the worst was over. Then on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated. A short time later the new President Lyndon Johnson told Congress that ‘No memorial or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought.’

“On the day that Kennedy was shot in Dallas I was watching the soap opera As The World Turns on television. Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchorman for the evening news, broke in between 12:30 and one o’clock and said the president had been shot. We watched in horror as they gave all the details and a short time later announced that he had died.

“Cathy and Mary Carol came in from school terribly upset by the news that had swiftly spread through the schools. They were even more upset by the reaction of some of the kids who cheered when it was announced. I realized then how much influence we all had on the children with our comments about the Kennedys during the Ole Miss crisis and the civil rights marches. I was at least glad that mine disapproved of the cheering and were certainly saddened by the news.

“That was on a Friday, and for the next four days we stayed glued to the television and had it on on Sunday when Jack Ruby shot Oswalt. We watched the funeral and cried with little John John, who was three, saluted the casket. It was a distressing, sad time, and though I didn’t like some of the things he was pushing because of the way we would be affected I admired President Kennedy in many ways. I think the country would have been much better off with him than with Lyndon Johnson as president.

“At the year’s end we reflected on the events of the year and wondered what the coming year would bring to our town. With the possibility of a Civil Rights Bill being passed in Congress, a likely one we knew that there were many hard times ahead but little did we know how disturbing they would be.”

De La Beckwith, probably in the 1970s

“The arrest of De La threatened to bring on more demonstrations by the Negroes. About 50 showed up at the Court House at noon and decided to eat lunch on the steps. Sheriff John Ed Cothran advised his deputies the group could stay there as long as they remained quiet and didn’t cause a disturbance. City police kept the building under observation from across the street.

“When the Commercial Appeal photographer, Bob Williams, started into Thompson-Turner Drugstore across the street, a local cotton merchant, Ace Sayle, who was always around when there was a demonstration, tried to grab his camera. There were two policemen standing just outside and I asked them if they could stop him from harassing Williams, who was with me. They just grinned and did nothing.

“In 1975 De La was convicted by a five-member, all-black jury in New Orleans on a charge of transporting explosives into that city where he allegedly planned to blow up the home of a prominent Jewish leader. He was sentenced to five years in the Angola prison, where he spent most of his time writing letters asking for money and stamps. When we had our three-class reunion in 1978 someone sent him a copy of our program with all the addresses of classmates in it, and he immediately began contacting all of them for help. In a letter to Mary [Evans Bartling, Sara’s older sister], he stated, ‘I realize you and your tribe hear of me via the controlled news media from time to time. Ouch!! Please do not consider my current plea for aid as charity. I am at war with satanic forces of evil for my life and that of this white Christian Republic. I need all the U.S. postage stamps mailed here to me that I can get (now) 10 sheets would not last me 2 months such is the volume of mail that I must send out to survive!!!!’ The letter raved on and on and closed ‘With all best wishes for you and yours—one who grew up in your neighborhood and am 100% on your side. Still very active in all white Christian causes—very.’

“The last time I saw him was in Piggly Wiggly when he greeted me loudly and told me I was working for the ‘Jews Media’ and then added ‘Get it? Jews Media, not news media.’ For a while he was living in Carroll County and then we heard he was up in Tennessee, where hopefully he will remain [written in 1990].”

Ed. note: Beckwith was retried for the assasination of Medgar Evers in 1994 and convicted of first-degree murder by a jury of 8 blacks and 4 whites. He lost an appeal and spent the rest of his life in prison, dying at University Medical Center in Jackson in January, 2001.

“De La continued to fight integration and to show up whenever there were any racial troubles. He later became more obsessed with Jews than Negroes and was always telling me that I was working for a ‘Jew newspaper’ and that the editor, Frank Ahlgren, was a Kazar Jew and that if he decided to get rid of him he could punch buttons all over the state and have it done. He approached me one day in the Crystal Grill with all this talk, and I tried to tell him that Ahlgren was a Presbyterian and not a Jew, but that didn’t calm him down. He wrote me an eight-page letter from Florida, ranting and raving over the Commercial Appeal and said if they ever printed a picture of him which they had previously run when he was in jail, he would take action.

“I was frantic thinking he really might try to kill Mr. Ahlgren and that I would feel terrible that I had not told anyone of his threats. Still I was afraid if I sent the letter to the editor something might come out in the paper, and then De La would take care of me. So I called Bill Street, the assistant tri-state editor and my good friend, and told him I was sending him the letter and that he was not to print any of if, but that I felt they should know about the threats and hopefully not use the picture, which I am sure they probably still had in the ‘morgue’ where they kept prominent folks’ pictures.

“Later when Bill died in his office of a heart attack my first thought was that when they went through his files someone might get hold of De La’s letter.”

“During De La [Beckwith]’s trial District Attorney Bill Waller, later Governor, read a letter written by De La on April 16, 1957, which read: ‘When I die I’ll be buried in a segregated cemetery. When you get to heaven you’ll find me in the part that has a sign saying “for white only” and if I go to Hades I’m going to raise hell all over Hades til I get in the white section.’

“When he arrived in Greenwood after the first trial he arrived at the parking lot of the Court House and I interviewed him. When he entered the Court House well-wishers rushed up to him and greeted him. His bond of $10,000 was paid by a number of local residents including [names redacted] acting for his attorneys Hardy Lott and Stanny Sanders, who appeared at the sheriff’s office with the bond.

“De La said when he passed through Tchula south of Greenwood there was a sign saying ‘Welcome home De La’ and when he got to the outskirts of Greenwood there was another one. He said it brought tears to his eyes. Of course, it just happened that [name redacted], one of the local Kluxers, and a strong supporter of De La, was a sign painter.”

“His [De La Beckwith’s] wife was of pioneer stock, a descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island. She had been in the WAVES. They had been married twice and apparently fought all the time they were married. At the time he was arrested they were separated and she was in the hospital with a nervous condition.

“After De La’s second mistrial she called me very late one night from Arkansas, obviously drunk. She said she was ready to talk and that she had letters he had written while he was in prison in Jackson and wanted me to steer her to someone who was willing to pay her for her story. She said she was ready to tell all.

“I could have probably been paid a handsome sum by some news service for a tipoff on this, but I would not have dared touch that one. She must have changed her mind after she sobered up because her story never came out. I have always wondered what she was going to tell, but I think she was ready that night to tell the whole story of the Evers killing.”

The Yerger House, Greenwood Ms, home of Byron De La Beckwith, shortly before its demolition.

“Charles Edmundson, a reporter for the Commercial Appeal, wrote in an article published the day after De La was arrested: ‘Once a showplace, the family home was built by Lemuel P. Yerger in 1900 and still remains in the family. Now dilapidated and weather beaten, the three-story wood frame building originally was furnished in priceless antiques, some of which have been distributed to other family members. Unpainted for years, strips of white paint cling to the walls with almost visible effort. The yard is unkempt and bare of shrubbery but a political sign “Sullivan for me in ’63” in brilliant color has been attached at the front entrance.’

The sign referred to Charles Sullivan, who was running for Governor and I am sure did not care to receive such publicity on the front page of the Commercial Appeal. The article continued: ‘Visitors described as “dismal” the interior of the house where wallpaper was sagging from the ceiling and walls.’

“Cathy and Mary Carol and I had been in the house when De La and his wife Willie had decided to clean it out after the federal government bought it and others in the block to be torn down for construction of the federal building. His uncle, Willie Yerger, one of the crazy kin, had been living in the house which was jam full of things, old and new. A Newsweek article written after De La was arrested said they even found dead fish in a drawer, but I don’t know whether this was true or not.

“There were hundreds of dime store items in the house which Uncle Willie had bought and just stored away, never using any of them. There was a box full of Confederate hats of the dime store variety. There were hundreds of new pencils and balloons. I remember counting a dozen glass dishes (ten cent store type) for stuffed eggs, none of which had apparently ever been used.

“The upstairs bedrooms had been piled to the ceiling with old papers, letters, bank statements, etc., dating back to the 1800s, and they had had to get a big truck to back under the window so they could just toss them in it. Old papers which had been damaged when the roof leaked were hung out in the bathroom to dry. There were reminders of grander times such as a fancy evening purse and faded bits of lace. Mrs. Yerger had been a close friend of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, and among all the junk were pieces of china which had come from the Davis family. De La showed us through the house, and we were fascinated with the accumulation of memorabilia and junk.”

Ed. note: I have foggy memories of that visit to De La Beckwith’s house, but “fascinated” is not the word I would have chosen. It was like tumbling into a Twilight Zone episode, with an overlay of Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. The odor of decay smacked you in the face as you walked through the front door, and there were yellowed, crumbling piles of newspapers and magazines stretching up like stalagmites from the nasty carpets and hardwood floors. Everything seemed to lean, like a carnival funhouse, but this was not fun. I remember walking up the stairs and being terrified that they would pull away from the walls or collapse beneath us. Huge swaths of faded wallpaper hung off the plaster and the ceilings were riddled with old water stains. All I wanted to do was to get out and get some air and leave De La and his world behind. In my child’s mind, this was evil and aberrant and I recognized that this sort of behavior, even in a town that tolerated eccentricity and individualism, was not healthy or acceptable. Now, looking back with the awareness that there are historic treasures in every junkpile, I would leap at the chance to venture back into that crumbling home, albeit with a mask on my face, to find the bits and pieces of Greenwood history that undoubtedly went into the dumpster with the dross.

“After [De La Beckwith] was arrested I got a call from a man with Life Magazine saying they were in Greenwood and understood that I had known De La for a long time. They wanted to talk to me about him. I declined, again fearing that De La would find out I had given them some information. People around here were down on Life  anyway, and many had quit taking it because of the way they were covering the civil rights issue. Once again I declined when I would really have liked to talk to them. Several years later I got another call from Life in New York wanting information on De La’s whereabouts, etc. I gave them what little information I had with the understanding that they would not quote me. The info was never published (thank goodness) but they did send me a check for $25. Knowing how so many local people felt about the news media I would not even cash the check in Greenwood but let Criss take it to Greenville to be cashed.”

“He [De La Beckwith] always played the role of the true Southern gentleman, greeting the ladies with a bow and ‘Howdy, Ma’am’ and always saying ‘Sir’ to the men. He liked to dress in white and once when he met Howard Bartling [Sara’s brother-in-law], who was wearing white shoes, he gave him his card and commented ‘I like those shoes. I always wear white shoes because white is right.’

“De La was proud of his membership in various organizations such as Sons of the American Revolution, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Shrine, American Legion and VFW, but especially he was proud of being a member of the Citizens Council. And it was some of the leaders of the Citizens Council who stood behind him along with the Klan members. Hardy Lott was his attorney and had two Greenwood police officers testify that they saw De La in Greenwood at the time of the murder.

“A legal fund was started to help with his defense. It was called ‘The White Citizens Legal Fund,’ and a spokesman for the group said: ‘Monies collected for this fund initially will be used to provide legal counsel for Mr. Beckwith if he is found to be in need of funds. The fund will be administered by a committee of prominent Greenwood citizens who will make any decision necessary as to disbursements from the fund.’ We fussed at Mama for sending $5 to the fund, but she said she was just remembering De La as that little boy whose mother died when he was very young and who played ball on the vacant lot across the street.”