The MISSISSIPPI
Civil Rights & Delta Blues
BOOKSTORE
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The MISSISSIPPI Civil Rights & Delta Blues BOOKSTORE |
(You
can watch this book evolve
by visiting the author's
Blog.
)
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Where Rebels Roost Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited |
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By M. Susan Klopfer
With Fred J. Klopfer and Barry C. Klopfer through Xlibris 
Cleve McDowell at "Ole Miss"
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Some call the modern Civil Rights Movement the second Reconstruction or even the second Civil War. There were familiar themes: mistreatment of blacks, demands for sovereignty or self determination of Mississippi, and the good guys won.
But as freedom volunteers packed up and left the Delta in 1964, brutality and murder continued. Some stories made it into the news and later history books, but too often, critical facts were slanted or incomplete. And too often ften the stories from the rural Delta did not make it out of the region. The official Movement that took place during the middle years of the 1950s through the 1960s formally began outside of Mississippi when Rosa Parks refused to be seated at the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. But well before her decision in 1955, the anger was already there and it was building. By the mid 1940s Anglo-Saxons throughout the South were finding it harder than ever to protect their over-extended turfs, especially as black soldiers returned home from WWII and Korea with lists of new demands. Returning veterans like James Meredith, Medgar Evers and Amzie Moore were among many motivated to capture the freedom they had fought for and helped to win. |
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The Hunt for Records
Many important Civil Rights records have been made unavailable or have simply disappeared. Official court transcripts from the trial of Till's accused murderers, for instance, are not available from Tallahatchie County officials. (When asked, clerks say they don't exist.) The University of Mississippi or Ole Miss refuses access to the papers of the late racist Sen. James O. Eastland, even though the archives were scheduled to be open in the year 2002.
Where Rebels Roost
PHOTO: Cleve McDowell, left, gets help from the Rev. Jessie Jackson in McDowell's bid for state office McDowell was a protégé of James Meredith, the first African-American to enter the University of Mississippi. Both were in constant life threatening danger while at Ole Miss, where students and others had fired upon and seriously injured dozens of U.S. Marshals during Meredith's eventful admission. (Many students possessed guns on campus, even after the major campus riot, and were not disciplined.) While Meredith was under the protection of full-time armed security at the school, all Justice Department personnel were pulled away when he graduated, leaving McDowell, the first African-American admitted to a state graduate school, alone and entirely unprotected. He was expelled after it was learned he carried a gun for self protection. Many years later, Rev. McDowell was murdered in Drew, Miss. in 1997 and his story if part of "Uncivil Rites" set for June 2004 publication. About the author Susan Klopfer is the author of "Abort! Retry! Fail!" ( Prentice Hall), selected as a Book of-the-Month Club alternate selection. She holds an MBA degree from Indiana Wesleyan University and a BA degree from Hanover College. She is a former acquisitions and development editor for Simon and Schuster (Prentice Hall), and is an award-winning journalist for her investigative reporting in Missouri. |
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(You are cordially invited to watch this book evolve
by visiting the author's
BlogSpot
.)
Links:
Cleve McDowell (State Tribute)
More Links on Cleve McDowell
Offers newest information on civil rights murders in the Delta from recently opened files from the Sovereignty Commission. Uncivil Rites opens with the introduction of slavery into the Delta and moves through the Civil War, when many African Americans fought for the Union, into Reconstruction followed by years of anguish, as those enslaved seemed to lose everything that was gained. It took the modern Civil Rights movement and even more years to bring the vote to Delta blacks and it was to the credit of the Delta’s civil rights foot soldiers, people like McDowell, Birdia Keglar, Rev. George Lee and others who fought for their freedoms.