tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-128841882024-03-12T19:37:39.453-05:00Civil Rights Books .. Movimiento de Derechos Civiles Libros .. Emmett Till, MLK and OthersCivil rights books, old and new, are featured on this blog. Read about Emmett Till, Martin Luther King, Jr., Aaron Henry, Fannie Lou Hamer, Adena Hamlett, and so many other courageous heroes.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-48349092547507248682014-03-17T11:56:00.000-05:002014-03-17T12:02:37.179-05:00An Election Story to Remember; Told by Civil Rights Activist, Author Hunter Bear<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium;"><strong>GUEST BLOG: Note by Hunter Bear (March 17 2014)</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Prof John Salter (Hunter Bear) harassed at a Jackson, Miss. lunch counteer</i></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;">And with a big, all-around clear plastic </span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;">ballot box as well.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">When we lived in
Chicago, [where a hundred tribes or so are represented], I was active as a
Native person and volunteer in Native programs on the Northside. Among other
things, I was Chair of the all-Indian Native American Community Organizational
Training Center and a member of the 15 person Indian coordinating committee for
the Great Lakes Indian Resource Development Program of Americans for Indian
Opportunity: Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Our family was very active, too,
socially and politically, in the American Indian Center which was going through
a period of incredible and nationally known factionalism -- right to the brink
and then everyone would pull back just in time and catch their breath. [Much of
this, btw, had been caused by the Anthro department at University of Chicago.] </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">I was always intrigued
by observing how outwardly venomous combatants could be in our Indian Center
disagreements and then [and regardless, too, of tribal background or blood
degree or income levels] greet one another as long-lost friends indeed when
surrounded by the harsh and alien realities in downtown Chicago. A much older
Native mentor of mine, the late Bill Redcloud [Chippewa] and another older
colleague, herself</span></div>
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a founder of the Center, and an enduring close friend to this moment, Susan K.
Power [Standing Rock Sioux], both commented once that "The Whites, when disagreeing,
so often try to completely destroy each other. We Indians usually stop long
before that." Both Bill and Susan certainly recognized that there are
exceptions to this -- but were talking about the general rule. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">We had all just come
from a wedding where the offspring of one Indian Center factional leader
married the offspring of another -- I was best man -- with a traditional religious
leader blending his Native beliefs with a few Christian ones to perform the
ceremony. A piano was played by a very leading factionalist who, at that point,
had become enamored of fundamentalist Christianity and was a minister in the
Moody Bible Institute</span></div>
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context. Everyone was together.</div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;">
When the high factionalism of the Chicago Indian Center finally wound up as an
election dispute in an Anglo court, a weary judge eventually ordered that each
side select one Indian person -- just one -- who each side trusted and who was
a full member of the Indian Center -- and that person would set up and carry
out a new election. Each side turned and selected me. [I confess to having had
some trepidation on that one -- but never displayed it, of course!] I constructed
a long, high ballot box which was essentially clear plastic so everyone could see the ballot go down and
stay there.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">When election time
came, March 17 1973, I ordered every Anglo newsperson off Center property and I
stayed by the Box from 8 am to 8 pm -- leaving only twice for the
restroom and, then, leaving observers from all sides watching each other like
the eagles they were. Each factional side fed me well. Some people came several
hundred miles to vote. It was a wild and woolly election -- Indians who were
quite low-income and some doing relatively well economically -- all clashing
and then all gossiping congenially together.</span></div>
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The election, btw, was so honest our side lost. The Center pulled together --
as Indians always do -- and lived through all sorts of vicissitudes to survive
to the present moment.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium;">FROM <a href="http://www.hunterbear.org/NATIVE%20ISSUES%20AND%20OTHER%20MATTERS.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.hunterbear.org/<wbr></wbr>NATIVE%20ISSUES%20AND%20OTHER%<wbr></wbr>20MATTERS.htm</a></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /<br />St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk<br />Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Check out our massive social justice website</strong><a href="http://www.hunterbear.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>www.hunterbear.org</strong></a><strong> The site is dedicated to our<br />one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:</strong><a href="http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_<wbr></wbr>gray.htm</strong></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>SHOOTING LUPUS -- Driving this oft-lethal deadly<br />disease of mine back into its genetic cave and into<br />impotency in an eight year war:</strong><a href="http://hunterbear.org/shooting_lupus.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>http://hunterbear.org/<wbr></wbr>shooting_lupus.htm</strong></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING<br />page -- with a great deal of practical material:</strong><a href="http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>http://hunterbear.org/my_<wbr></wbr>combined_community_organizing.<wbr></wbr>htm</strong></a></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>See my new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"<br />JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word<br />introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.<br />And this book is also an activist's how-to manual:<br /> </strong><a href="http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>http://hunterbear.org/<wbr></wbr>jackson.htm</strong></a><strong> </strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-size: small;">The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:</span></strong><a href="http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-size: small;">http://hunterbear.org/James%<wbr></wbr>20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-size: small;"><wbr></wbr>:<br />(Photos</span></strong>)</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-36140438952278488102013-09-25T12:09:00.002-05:002013-11-07T14:18:00.359-06:00Pre-Review Comments Published for The Plan; Alternative, Historical FictionI am gratified over the nice comments on The Plan, now available at <a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/370902">Smashwords</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj82YV9taWieOwUDQMuDKI4qUPLHIm45Q92DNd5Pdo1rMqij6Fk_McgKUFIv7NOjd7-qLs16agLDv3UIlZN6jIc6IatKQiF9SzpB1L62NvMKbDpAhu8DpRJ7YqmaEVvSy5tP7GH/s1600/CD+Cover1+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj82YV9taWieOwUDQMuDKI4qUPLHIm45Q92DNd5Pdo1rMqij6Fk_McgKUFIv7NOjd7-qLs16agLDv3UIlZN6jIc6IatKQiF9SzpB1L62NvMKbDpAhu8DpRJ7YqmaEVvSy5tP7GH/s320/CD+Cover1+(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>CD cover for pdf version of The Plan</i></div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 16.363636016845703px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“It is such a gift to be able to bring history to life in the form of engaging fiction. Susan Klopfer does this so very well in a gripping, ‘edge of your seat’ fashion. Bravo!”—Denis Campbell, host and managing editor, World View Show; editor, UK Progressive"</span></strong></div>
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<span style="border-width: 0px; font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Klopfer has woven history, fiction, and fantasy into a compelling tale that not only highlights real events, but describes them in a fascinating narrative that pulls the reader along for the ride”— Chris Petersen, author of Methuselah's Secret</span></div>
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<span style="border-width: 0px; font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“This is a bold and first-rate work that explores very significant social frontiers. Susan Klopfer is a veteran activist of high courage—and a fine writer very well versed in the creative art of suspense.”—Hunter Gray, [Hunter Bear/John R. Salter Jr.] Mi'kmaq, author of Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism.”</span></div>
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<span style="border-width: 0px; font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Forty-two chapters of conspiracy-filled action, The Plan is tightly based on true fact. Susan Klopfer has written historical nonfiction books for years. This time, she goes a step farther to solve murders that investigators haven't been willing to touch.”— Patricia Fua, librarian </span></div>
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<span style="border-width: 0px; font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I am not much of a history nut but I really enjoyed the book. A nicely crafted mix of history, plot, conspiracy, and fun. Well done.”— Robert Higgins, M.F.T.</span></div>
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<span style="border-width: 0px; font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“If you like murder mysteries, suspense, travel, legal topics, mixed with civil rights and fantasy, in an old fashioned whodunnit that doesn’t leave out the FBI, CIA, and COINTELPRO, I know you will like this action-packed read.” —Betty Orr, writer</span></div>
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<span style="border-width: 0px; font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Filled with information to titillate the most sophisticated conspiracy theorist, Susan Klopfer ‘s first foray into thriller fiction is thought-provoking fodder and a fun read!”—Frances Hogg Lochow, author and horror magazine editor</span><br />
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<span style="border-width: 0px; font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> “‘It takes a village to commit atrocities [like JFK’s assassination]!’ Loved this quote by Sara Mercury, a fired fictional journalist looking for the story of her life (a character in The Plan)"</span><span style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;">— Steve Hall, book lover</span></span><br />
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<strong style="background-color: white; border-width: 0px; font-size: 16.363636016845703px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></strong><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16.363636016845703px;">- See more at: <a href="http://ebooksfromsusan.com/">http://ebooksfromsusan.com</a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-57927422992803774872013-09-23T13:15:00.002-05:002013-09-23T13:17:28.019-05:00Historical fiction thriller takes readers into the Andes of South America; starts in New York City<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16.363636016845703px;">An alternative fiction novel based on the MURDERS of two Deep South, gay black lawyers. Release Set for September 2013 The Plan is an alternative history and paranormal fiction thriller by civil rights author, Susan Klopfer. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16.363636016845703px;">Here is how Susan describes her newest book: </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16.363636016845703px;">The bond between Clinton and Joe, two gay, black lawyers (one of them, married) is broken when Joe is reportedly found hanged. A suicide seems impossible to Clint, and Joe’s widow is acting cagey. Clinton Moore believes Joe was tortured and murdered, and that his and Joe’s shared obsession—investigating and fact gathering about the cover-up of various murders and assassinations of civil rights activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,and President John F. Kennedy—is the reason for Joe’s death.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16.363636016845703px;">Clinton believes he is next on the witness hit list, and that solving Joe’s murder is his only chance of survival. When he discovers Joe’s wife has been spirited away as an expat to South America, he sends his trusted legal assistant, Mollie Johnson, to Cuenca, Ecuador for the adventure of her life. Mollie joins forces with journalist Sara Mercury, and together they take readers into the high Andes to bring home the widow, Tara Means. Filled with civil rights and alternative history to titillate the most sophisticated conspiracy theorist, Susan Klopfer‘s first foray into paranormal historical fiction is thought-provoking fodder and a fun read! Ties to the Ku Klux Klan, Militia, Neo Nazis, Chile's Colonia Dignidad, NSA, FBI, CIA and the assassinations of two famous civil rights leaders and President John F. Kennedy keep the pace moving in this historical fiction, paranormal thriller that is first of a crime action adventure series. "Stay with the story. It's fast and furious, with a high-speed car chase in the Andes, and I promise you'll be surprised." </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16.363636016845703px;">The Plan opens in New York City, when a history professor and crime sleuth reads news of an upcoming trial in the South American country of Chile. One of his own colleagues, Prof. Boris Weisfeiler, a Russian Jew and math professor from Penn State University, mysteriously disappeared years earlier in a Chilean CIA-supported torture camp, Colonia Dignidad. Dr. Dan Bell plans to travel to Santiago to aid his friend's sister, Dr. Olga Weisfeiler, who will be testifying. THE PLAN moves to the Mississippi Delta, as lawyer Clinton Moore lays out the story of why he and his friend, Joe, have been murdered. But then, it is on to Cuenca, Ecuador as a talented paralegal tries to save the wife of her (now) dead boss’s dead best friend! A compromised but passionate journalist fired from The Dallas News, Sara Mercury, tries to help, with interference (good and bad) from an Embassy attaché, a flirtatious Cuencano chef, Don Colon, and a very old CIA asset with ties to the assassinations AND Colonia Dignidad! Jules Rocco Kimble, who goes by several aliases, makes his presence known via threats to Tara Means and others.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16.363636016845703px;">THE PLAN is based on a true story, and is a work of alternative or paranormal fiction, delving into ghosts and the afterlife. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either come from my imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. - See more at: http://ebooksfromsusan.com/</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16.363636016845703px;"> ISBN-10: 0-9826049-7-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-9826049-7-7 THE PLAN - an alternative history adventure and mystery novel - is set for publication in September of 2013. - See more at: http://ebooksfromsusan.com/index#sthash.KhNj6Bqb.JKlsaHKK.dpuf</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-88568255232807015642013-08-28T19:34:00.000-05:002013-08-28T19:35:42.272-05:00Quick way to learn what happened to Emmett Till<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPenstfX6LxHjwOgZyqVeZn_WkgfKk_UiIrghwgBaX2tildIOuN5bS2-hddYzxD7qOY3cdXHfxdBUN5QHlRwShp5BxE96ufkryOyRiu4-n8xNqSeDYjmPd-DVJhXlCGCyIjOmY/s1600/tillcoverc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPenstfX6LxHjwOgZyqVeZn_WkgfKk_UiIrghwgBaX2tildIOuN5bS2-hddYzxD7qOY3cdXHfxdBUN5QHlRwShp5BxE96ufkryOyRiu4-n8xNqSeDYjmPd-DVJhXlCGCyIjOmY/s1600/tillcoverc.jpg" /></a></div>
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<h1 style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 25px; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 0px;">
Who Killed Emmett Till?</h1>
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<a href="https://payhip.com/b/x9dV">https://payhip.com/b/x9dV</a></div>
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by Susan Klopfer</h2>
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The Mississippi Delta is not a place I would have picked to live and if you had asked me a few years ago what I knew about the region, it would have been a puzzle since I knew nothing of its history<span class="more-text"> or culture -- I'd never even heard of Emmett. But it did not take long to gather fascinating information about the story of this young man who was killed in the cotton hamlet of Money, Mississippi back in 1955.</span></div>
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<span class="more-text">His lynching, for whistling at a white woman, is legend. His act kicked off the modern civil rights movement. When people talk about Trayvon Martin, they sometimes compare these two stories. And there is reason why. </span></div>
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<span class="expandable-text"><a href="https://payhip.com/b/x9dV">https://payhip.com/b/x9dV</a></span><br />
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<span class="expandable-text">What happened to cause a young African American student's lynching in the Mississippi Delta? When Emmett "BoBo" Till threatened Mississippi's rigid Jim Crow laws this fourteen-year-old paid<span class="more-text"> with his life. Till's murderers were set free yet his death spurred Rosa Parks to take her important stand in Montgomery. By the time of this 58th anniversary, the case was finally reopened with new and intriguing information. </span></span></div>
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<span class="expandable-text"><span class="more-text">How many people were involved? Who hid the killers overnight? Where is the first trial's transcript? Learn new facts on this and other Delta murders - Clinton Melton and his wife (1955)- he was shot, she was drowned; Jo Etha Collier(1955), gunned down on graduation night; attorney Cleve McDowell (1997), shot to death by a client? </span></span><br />
<span class="expandable-text"><span class="more-text"><br /></span></span>
<span class="expandable-text"><span class="more-text"><a href="https://payhip.com/b/x9dV">https://payhip.com/b/x9dV</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="expandable-text"><span class="more-text">This Emmett Till book gives readers a unique look at Mississippi's secret government agencies and its private white Citizens Councils that spied and did harm to those who fought segregation and more. It remains a murder mystery today.</span></span></div>
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<span class="expandable-text"><span class="more-text"><a href="https://payhip.com/b/x9dV">https://payhip.com/b/x9dV</a></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-4715618339423098352013-08-27T10:50:00.000-05:002013-08-29T20:41:57.449-05:00<div mce_style="text-align: center;" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">
<span mce_style="font-family: 'arial black', gadget, sans-serif;" style="font-family: 'arial black', gadget, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;"><span mce_style="color: #ff6600; font-size: x-large;" style="color: #ff6600; font-size: large;">THE PLAN: A NOVEL </span><span mce_style="color: #ff6600; font-size: large;" style="color: #ff6600; font-size: medium;"> SEPTEMBER RELEASE </span></span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-style: italic;"><span mce_style="font-size: small;" style="font-size: x-small;">Street art in the Andean village of Saraguro, outside of Cuenca, Ecuador</span></span></span><br />
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;">THE PLAN</span> <span style="font-size: small;">set for mid September release,</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> is a </span><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-size: small; font-style: italic;">MURDER MYSTERY, HISTORICAL FICTION THRILLER</span><span style="font-size: small;"> that opens in New York City, but quickly moves to the Deep South, and then to Ecuador for </span><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-size: small; font-style: italic;">ACTION</span><span style="font-size: small;"> and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-size: small; font-style: italic;">ADVENTURE</span><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></span></h2>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The bond between <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">Clinton and Joe, two gay, black lawyers</span> (one of them, married) is broken when Joe is reportedly found hanged. A suicide seems impossible to Clint, and <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-style: italic;">Joe’s widow is acting cagey.</span></span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clinton Moore believes Joe was tortured and murdered, and that his and Joe’s shared obsession—investigating and fact gathering about the cover-up of various murders of civil rights activists, including <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr</span>.,and <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">President John F. Kennedy</span>—is the reason for Joe’s death.</span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clinton believes he is <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-style: italic;">next on the list</span>, and that solving Joe’s murder is his only chance of survival. When he discovers Joe’s wife has been spirited away a an expat to South America, he sends his trusted legal assistant, <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">Mollie Johnson</span>, to Cuenca, Ecuador for the adventure of her life. She joins forces with journalist <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">Sara Mercury</span>, and together they take readers into the high Andes to bring home the widow, Tara Means.</span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Filled with civil rights and alternative history to titillate the most sophisticated conspiracy theorist, Susan Klopfer‘s first foray into<u>thriller fiction</u> is thought-provoking fodder and a fun read!</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;"><span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">* * *</span></span></span><br />
<a href="http://ebooksfromsusan.com/" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">http://ebooksfromsusan.com</a></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ties to the Ku Klux Klan, Militia, Neo Nazis, Chile's <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">Colonia Dignidad, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">NSA,FBI,CIA</span><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>and the <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">assassinations</span> of two famous civil rights leaders and President John F. Kennedy keep the pace moving in this HISTORICAL FICTION THRILLER NOVEL, <u>first of a crime action adventure series</u>. </span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Stay with the story," says author, Susan Klopfer. "It's fast and furious, with a high-speed car chase in the Andes,and <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">I promise you'll be surprised."</span></span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">* * *</span></span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>THE PLAN</b> opens in New York City, when a friend of Clinton Moore, a history professor and crime <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-style: italic;">sleuth</span> reads news of an upcoming trial in Chile. One of his own colleagues disappeared in a South American <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">CIA-supported </span>torture camp, Colonia Dignidad, and he plans to travel to Santiago, to aid his friend's sister who will be testifying.</span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">THE PLAN</span><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>moves to the Mississippi delta. as Clinton Moore lays out the story of why he and his friend have been murdered. But then, it is on to Cuenca, Ecuador as a talented paralegal tries to save the wife of her (now) dead boss’s <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-style: italic;">dead best friend!</span></span></span><br />
<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://ebooksfromsusan.com/" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; text-align: center;">http://ebooksfromsusan.com</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-style: italic;">compromised but passionate journalist fired from The Dallas News, </span>tries to help, with interference (good and bad) from an Embassy attaché, a flirtatious Cuencano chef and a very old CIA asset with ties to the assassionations AND Colonia Dignidad!</span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">In THE PLAN,</span> you will find the names of <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">real people</span>, authentic heroes who played vital roles in the modern civil rights movement. This book, <b>based on a true story</b>, is a work of <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;">historical fiction</span>. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either come from my imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.</span></span></div>
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<span mce_style="color: #ff6600;" style="color: #ff6600;"><span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'arial black', gadget, sans-serif;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ISBN-10: 0-9826049-7-1</span></span></span></div>
<div mce_style="text-align: center;" style="font-size: 10.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">
<span mce_style="color: #ff6600;" style="color: #ff6600;"><span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'arial black', gadget, sans-serif;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ISBN-13: 978-0-9826049-7-7</span></span></span></div>
<div mce_style="text-align: center;" style="font-size: 10.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;"><span mce_style="color: #ff6600;" style="color: #ff6600;"><span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'arial black', gadget, sans-serif;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THE PLAN is set for publication in September of 2013. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;"><span mce_style="color: #ff6600;" style="color: #ff6600;"><span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'arial black', gadget, sans-serif;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="font-weight: bold;"><span mce_style="color: #ff6600;" style="color: #ff6600;"><span mce_style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><span mce_style="font-family: 'arial black', gadget, sans-serif;" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Learn More at </span></span></span></span><a href="http://ebooksfromsusan.com/" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">http://ebooksfromsusan.com</a><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-24152046193083432662013-08-19T23:22:00.000-05:002013-08-19T23:31:55.604-05:00Delta Stories About Emmett Till Kept Appearing, Civil Rights Author Says<br />
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<i>The shed on the Sheridan Plantation, where Emmett Till was brutalized and killed</i></div>
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By Susan Klopfer, author<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/thedelta">Who Killed EmmettTill?</a><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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JUST SEVERAL MONTHS after the violent murder of Rev. George Washington
Lee, a popular Belzoni minister and voting rights advocate, a Boy Scout
campfire was burning down to its last embers over in Tallahatchie County on the
outskirts of Charleston. It was August 28, 1955, in the early morning hours
when Robert Keglar and his scouts were seated around the fire as they heard a
story they would never forget. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Finding his way into their campsite in the early morning
hours, a “very shaken man” told Keglar and his campers of hearing screams of
torture several hours earlier. The man said the sounds came from a machine shed
on the Sheridan plantation outside of Drew, about 40 miles southwest of where
they were camped.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The visitor reported seeing “several men” taking a body from
the barn and hauling it off, afterwards. More than two men were in the lynching
party he told Keglar and others as the fire smoldered and died. The tired and
bewildered campers finally bedded down. When they awoke for breakfast, the
visitor was gone. <o:p></o:p></div>
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SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT on that same date, the parents of a
white seventeen-year-old Ruleville girl let early-morning visitors stay in their
home for the night. J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, the latter her mother’s relative
by marriage, were loud and nervous. The girl later learned that her parent’s
visitors killed Emmett Till.<o:p></o:p></div>
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* * * * * <o:p></o:p></div>
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As a newcomer to the Mississippi delta, living with my husband
on the grounds of the notorious Parchman Penitentiary, from 2001 to 2003, I
heard the scouting story from Robert Keglar, himself. He’d been introduced to
me by his son-in-law, a nurse at the prison who’d heard from my husband that I
was writing delta stories. When word got around about my writing project, I
found it almost too easy to gather stories like these; everyone had something
to tell me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Walter Scurlock, the owner of a small Drew restaurant,
called me on the phone one morning and said a woman from town, someone he
barely knew, had come into his restaurant crying. Walter knew what I’d been
working on, and kept his eyes open for any stories that might help with my
project.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Scurlock said this woman had been listening to the news
about Emmett Till and the cold case investigation being reopened by the FBI.
She surprised him by looking him square in the eyes and saying she was sorry.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I was confused, but she kept talking and crying,” he told
me. But my delta “spy” listened, and soon his customer said “something about
her parents knowing the killers of Emmett Till”. Scurlock didn’t have the time
to listen to her story, since he was busy preparing lunch.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“So I asked her for her telephone number and I told her I
know someone she should talk to. I gave her your phone number. Was that okay?”
he said.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ten minutes later the crying lady and I were talking over
coffee in her living room. She told me her story:<br />
<br />
***<br />
<a href="http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/thedelta">The Emmett Till Book, Who Killed Emmett Till?, Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited</a><br />
***<br />
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Visitors had come to their Ruleville home in the early
morning of Aug. 28 in 1955; the day Emmett Till was murdered. “My parents
didn’t tell me what was going on at the time. J.W. had a full brother, Bud, and
I am very sure he was with them, too. I was in bed, but I could hear their
voices.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>She stopped and asked,
“Please don’t use my name.” I agreed.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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When she awoke at sunrise, all three men had vanished. Her
father told her about the visit and said that Milam and Bryant confessed to him
what they had done to the young Chicago visitor, stating Till’s name.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“They knew the law was looking for them. They also said that
Carolyn Bryant was with them when they killed Emmett Till. I don’t know when
Bud joined them. I think they caught up with him later. He was a nicer person
than his brother and I don’t think he would have killed someone — I hope not,”
she told me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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She swore that she never knew what happened to the men after
they left her home. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“I think they knew the law was going to catch up with them.
But I also think they felt safe, since most of the police officers were
covering for them, anyway. I don’t know if they turned themselves in, let
themselves be found, or if they were picked up by the sheriff and charged. “I still can’t believe they put our family in
such danger; there was so much turmoil after Emmett Till was killed. People in
Drew —black and white — were threatening to kill each other’s entire families.
Some were threatening to kill as many as ten members of another person’s family
as payback. It got very bad for a long time in our town.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I know that my parents would have never covered for them.
The men came to our house and sat there all night. Later, my parents told me
what was going on. But I would never want anyone to think that our family
helped them out.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Most white people in Drew and Ruleville felt the same way.
After the trial, the only support Milam and Bryant got came from the Klan,
because they were members. Most people didn’t want to have anything to do with
them; they had killed a 14-year-old child, after all. Maybe they didn’t mean to
do it, but they did kill him,” she finished. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As I started to leave her home, the older Drew woman told me
she knew very little about Emmett Till and asked if I could loan her a book.
Drew is so small there is no library and of course no book store, so I went out
to my car and brought her a copy of Christopher Metress’s book, <i>The Lynching of Emmett Till</i>. She quickly
took it and thanked me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Several weeks later, I stopped by her home and asked if
she’d finished reading the book. At first a little embarrassed, she said she
had read it, found it fascinating, and loaned it to a friend. The book was
apparently making the rounds in Drew, making me feel like I had helped to
change their town forever.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I never again asked for the return of the book, and she
never offered to give it back. Somehow I knew it was being read over and over
and over. <i>White</i> Drew was finally
learning the story of Emmett Till.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Black</i> Drew already
knew the Emmett Till story. But I doubted that many African Americans living
there knew much about the secretive Sovereignty Commission and white Citizens
Councils, since so very few people — <i>black
or white</i> — could help me with this history.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The last week we were living at Parchman, I drove over to
Drew to take a copy of my book, <i>Where
Rebels Roost</i>, written about the region’s civil rights history, to an older woman
who owned a small sewing shop downtown. I had been updating her all along on my
progress and asking her questions, as well, since she had taken an early
interest in seeing words put to print. I wanted to make sure I’d given <i>Kate</i> a copy before leaving town. <o:p></o:p></div>
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She set the 700-page book under her front counter and I
wondered if she would someday take a look. When I came by the next day to pick
up some sewing, there were two older black women sitting at the front of her
store. One woman was sitting in a rocking chair and rocking back and forth
slowly as she read aloud to the others. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I could see her listening and working at the sewing machine.
She motioned me over and said, “I’m letting my friends read the book. They
can’t take it home. They have to read it here.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Closing my eyes, I see this woman’s kind face, smiling as
she kept sewing and listening to the book reading session going on in her
store. I had a feeling there would quite a few more readings for some time to
come.<o:p></o:p></div>
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*** <o:p></o:p></div>
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Susan Klopfer is a graduate of Hanover College and holds a
master’s degree from Indiana Wesleyan University. She has worked as an
acquisitions and development editor for Prentice Hall and has won journalism
awards from the Missouri Press Associations. Her book <i>Abort! Retry! Fail!</i> was named an alternate selection for the Book
of the Month Club. She and her husband, Fred, lived on the grounds of Parchman
Penitentiary when she completed the initial research for <i>Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited; The Emmett Till
Book</i>; and <i>Who Killed Emmett Till.</i>
Fred was chief psychologist for the state’s public prisons. They now reside in
Cuenca, Ecuador where they enjoy traveling throughout South America. Her fiction
book, <i>The Plan,</i> is set for September
publications.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 12.5pt;">The
Plan is a MURDER MYSTERY, HISTORICAL FICTION THRILLER that opens in New York
City, but quickly moves to the Deep South and then Ecuador. The bond between
Clinton and Joe, two gay, black lawyers (one of them, married) is broken when
Joe is reportedly found hanged. A suicide seems impossible to Clint, and Joe’s
widow is acting cagey. Clinton Moore thinks Joe was murdered, and that his and
Joe’s shared obsession-- investigating and fact gathering about the cover-up of
various murders of civil rights activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr.,and of John F. Kennedy-- is the reason for Joe’s death. Clinton feels he is
next on the list, and that solving Joe’s murder is his only chance of survival.
When he discovers that Joe’s wife has been spirited away to South America, he
sends his trusted legal assistant, Mollie Johnson, to Cuenca, Ecuador to check
it out. Filled with information to titillate the most sophisticated conspiracy
theorist, Susan Klopfer‘s first foray into thriller fiction is thought-provoking
fodder and a fun read! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 12.5pt;">Learn
more about The Plan at </span><a href="http://ebooksfromsusan.com/"><span style="background: white; font-size: 12.5pt;">http://ebooksfromsusan.com/</span></a><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 12.5pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 12.5pt;">Susan’s
print and ebooks are available at Amazon.com, Lulu.com and other popular online
bookstores.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-50828333560302902922012-04-24T18:57:00.002-05:002012-06-13T14:28:53.294-05:00Note to GOP: This is Not Your Hippy Mother’s Vagina!<span style="text-align: left;"><b>REVIEW BY SUSAN KLOPFER</b></span><br />
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<b>Author, speaker, blogger</b></div>
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<a href="http://www.themiddleoftheinternet.com/"><b>www.themiddleoftheinternet.com</b></a><br />
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Why do I keep thinking about grabbing my crotch? I guess it is a new fear-based reaction I'm having since the presidential
primaries went south on sex, and I do not think I am alone. These Michael
Jackson moments are brought to me because of the Grand Old Party, the same
folks many of us have been fighting over sex and privacy since back in the
1960s…and 50s…and 20s…and…</div>
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=fredcares-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B007VDQ3MS&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />
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<i>Certainly, many of us remember The Vagina Monologues, those powerful and
crusty episodic essays about a woman’s private parts and sexual experiences, first
presented as a play in 1996. Every story falls back on The Vagina; all are
short essays about love and rape, menstruation, female genital mutilation, masturbation, birth, topped off with a special monologue
on The Big O. Lovingly and beautifully treated, frightening, refreshing, disgusting
and witty, the entire package brought a big wink-wink from Off Broadway theatre
when it opened.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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After the excitement of Eve
Ensler’s play about womanhood waned, most theatre lovers moved on, except for
catching up with her yearly contributions that often focus on global women’s themes.<br />
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As women (and men, too) we were
moving forward, especially in the hippy 60s when we were fighting for a myriad
of civil rights and social justice, almost getting somewhere in this country’s
rare dialogue on sexual honesty – we certainly never expected a giant rip to
appear on the very most private part of our bodies, not in 2012, for God’s sake. </div>
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This new, jagged tear (requiring
numerous stitches) comes directly from the Republicans, the GOP – the folks who
brought us Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, three white, foolish,
men who honestly believe they should take over our our bodies!</div>
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Now, here comes a Brit to
our rescue, and bless his soul! American/British journalist and author Denis G.
Campbell, quite familiar with politics on both sides of the pond, is taking on
the Grand Old Party, knowing that the GOP is shagging American women. Campbell is
actually doing something about it, via The Vagina Wars, GOP’S War on Women. </div>
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His newest book explores
what is going on over recent political attempts to undermine American women, and
Campbell is quite serious in his observations.<i> </i>Sure, the British can be so very witty with their own sexual slang;
consider words like sex on a stick (for sexually attractive, slim, woman), sex
wee (semen), wabs (female breasts) and “vadge” for vagina. Even collecting a
paycheck is “getting screwed” in Campbell’s world.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Despite the sophomoric
humor, the UK still has it together when it comes to sex, especially for a
country that is not really old enough to act like big brother to silly,
sexually immature, American Republicans, who cannot talk for more than 30
seconds about responsible, safe sex or homosexuality without giggling—or making
threats. </div>
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We are talking maybe 300
years or so since England united with Scotland and only 200 or so years since
the Brits united with Ireland. These are not particularly old, wise combined people.
They simple are not frequently engaged in public political debate over a
woman’s right to contraception, abortion, and doing kinky things in the bedroom.</div>
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What clicked for Campbell
was recalling his experience as an audience member for playwright Ensler’s
Monologues, before it was popular, and then returning home to the UK with a
“better understanding of the pressure and pain” women face about sexuality and
living. Going back home to “socialist Europe” – often “disdained” for issues
from medical care to social contracts by the U.S. right, offered a teachable
moment for this journalist.</div>
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Campbell remains struck
by what he sees as the common sense and openness of thought in the UK over sex,
compared to what one sees in the U.S. media and its coverage of “poisonous
politics.” We can learn from this outside
observer who tells us to quit sticking our heads in the sand over sexual issues,
and to recognize the mental and financial harm of maintaining an <i>Ostrich in the sand</i> view of sexuality. </div>
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Campbell in some ways
writes like a modern social psychologist, opening up an honest, important
dialogue often based on research, a media approach, which is needed here and
now.</div>
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One might observe this
British writer follows in the footsteps of brave Molly Pitcher, a somewhat
unknown American woman who during the battle of Monmouth, midway through the
Revolutionary War, brought water to the troops from a nearby spring, and then took
over her husband’s place at a cannon when he was wounded</div>
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. </div>
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Under fire, and losing
men, the artillery unit was going to fall back until Molly Pitcher volunteered
to bravely serve the cannon in her husband’s place. </div>
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So, the Brit is
coming and this time brave Denis G. Campbell brings us fresh water and helps us
take up our cannons. From How Did The Culture War Get Here through topics
including Supreme Court Appointments, ALEC…and the Very Bad Month, Which Mitt
Romney Will Women Voters See, and Why a Man Wrote This Book, Campbell’s
contribution is a must-read for those who want to understand the <i>whys </i>and <i>where-fors</i> of this current war, and what can be done to change the
climate, once again.</div>
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Sensible men and sensible
women will find this book an important read; silly men and silly women should
read it too, because we must try to help the GOP to grow up and stay out of our
private, sexual matters. White GOP men typically keep their affairs to
themselves – out of the public’s eyes. (Maybe threat of exposure would keep
them off our backs.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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Meanwhile, Campbell’s The
Vagina Wars, GOP’S War on Women honors our brave, hippy mothers and so many
others who have fought this war before. With solid information and
encouragement, at least we have a fresh start.<br />
<br />
Related Blogs:<br />
<a href="http://civilrightsnewsreleases.blogspot.com/">Civil Rights and Social Justice News</a></div>
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<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-58623307744672718462012-04-16T14:51:00.000-05:002012-04-18T20:47:56.949-05:00U.S. Secret Service agents sent packing from Colombia; Reminds me of Secret Service and JFK Assassination...so long ago<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=fredcares-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=030738201X&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />
<br />
So why do I think of <b>this</b> book, when I read about what just happened in Colombia with the Secret Service and President Obama? Consider what happened when our president visited this country over the weekend:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
President Barack Obama called Sunday for a "thorough" and "rigorous" investigation into allegations involving prostitutes and Secret Service agents in Colombia.
Some 11 Secret Service agents and officers are being investigated over preliminary findings that they allegedly brought back several prostitutes to a hotel in Cartagena, U.S. government sources familiar with the investigation have told CNN.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What happened here in Colombia is being investigated by the director of the Secret Service," said Obama, who spoke in Cartagena, where he was in town for the Summit of the Americas event.
"I expect that investigation to be thorough and I expect it to be rigorous. If it turns out that some of the allegations that have been made in the press are confirmed, then of course I'll be angry," he said. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The alleged misconduct occurred before Obama arrived in Cartagena. The Secret Service personnel have since been sent back to the United States and put on administrative leave, the agency said. The U.S. military said that five U.S. troops who were working with the Secret Service are also under investigation for missing curfew and alleged "misconduct" at the same Colombian hotel.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Source: CNN</blockquote>
<br />
* * * * *<br />
<br />
So who are we kidding? Drinking and carousing is something new for the Secret Service? Ask historians and others, like the author of this book who was once a member of the Secret Service, and you will get a different story from what some national reporters are saying today -- that this is the "WORST thing" ever reported about the Secret Service (the people charged with protecting the President of the United States).<br />
<br />
CONSPIRACY THEORIES HAUNT the Kennedy assassination; Abraham Bolden several years ago offered a new one, concerning discrimination and evidence suppression. Becoming, in JFK's words, the Jackie Robinson of the Secret Service, Bolden joined the White House detail in 1961, as the first African American Secret Service agent.<br />
<br />
He was personally appointed to this position by the new, young president and I was excited to meet him. But I soon learned that Bolden has a temper; I learned this the hard way several weeks after I personally met and talked with him at a JFK conference in Dallas where he spoke about his book.<br />
<br />
In fact, Bolden got so mad at me over something I wrote about him in a quick review, that he tracked me down through the conference organizers to complain -- hard. He even threatened me that he would sue me. It was an interesting experience, and I thought he was a bit harsh for a couple of sentences he didn't like. After all, I was writing a review -- something that would help him sell books.<br />
<br />
But looking back at this, I realize that Bolden is not the kind of person to hush up something he believes to be important. He is a fighter who stands up for what he believes. He is not a yes-man, and that is one reason why his book is particularly significant today.<br />
<br />
I just wish he had been with the Secret Service this past week, and just maybe we would learn what really happened in Colombia. I don't have good feelings about what I've read so far, and I doubt that anything of substance has been reported.<br />
<br />
Further, I have heard several reporters offer that what happened in Colombia was "the worst" disaster ever for the Secret Service. Oh give me a break. They screwed up with JFK, for sure, and from what Bolden writes, they did a lot more than party. Even the special Congressional Committee investigation, well after the Warren Commission, did not have nice things to say about the Secret Service, declaring them "inadequate". Hell, even some noted recent Lincoln assassination theorists assert the Secret Service helped with that shooting, too.<br />
<br />
At the Dallas conference, I remember Bolden saying that his introduction to the Secret Service was not what he expected:<br />
<br />
Already beset by racism (he once found a noose suspended over his desk), Bolden's idealism was shattered by the drinking and carousing of other agents.<br />
<br />
"Soon after the assassination, he receives orders that hint at an effort to withhold, or at least to the color, the truth. He discovers that evidence is being kept from the Warren Commission and when he takes action, finds himself charged with conspiracy to sell a secret government file and sentenced to six years in prison, where both solitary confinement and the psychiatric ward await. That there was a conspiracy to silence him seems unarguable, but Bolden's prose is flat; so is his dialogue. This story is more enthralling than Bolden's telling of it, but the reader who sticks with it will enter a world of duplicitous charges and disappearing documents fit for a movie thriller." (Publishers Weekly)<br />
<br />
Bolden's book today?<br />
<br />
***** Highly recommend.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-17350100649894813512012-03-02T14:26:00.003-06:002012-03-16T18:24:00.793-05:00Could the plight of women 'back then' be a sign of things to come? (A review of The Help and more civil rights discourse)<b style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">My Mother’s Witness</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><b>The Peggy Morgan Story<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><b>Carolyn Haines<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><b>River City Publishing<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><b>2003</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=fredcares-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1579660428&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe></span></span></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<i><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">Have
I read The Help or seen the movie, yet?</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">My mother’s enthusiasm was all over
the place when she asked me this question. At 94, she had just seen the movie;
a group from the Episcopal Church went together for the afternoon showing
downtown. I could feel her disappointment when I said no, and I really did try
to explain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">“Mom, I lived near Greenwood,
Mississippi for several years, and it wasn’t that nice of a place for black people, or poor
white people,” I told her. “I am not going to see it, so I can’t really
criticize the movie except for what I have read and heard, and from what I know
life was really like.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">I know. She and her friends saw the movie, and it made them feel good. "Times really are better," she offered.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">What's
frustrating about all this is that there are apparently some fleeting moments in
this movie, when a better, truer, almost good movie seems to be struggling to
the surface in spite of itself, as one reviewer, MSN’s Glenn Kenny, tells us. “Moments…that
confront the ugly truth of our nation's history with both a clear eye and some
genuine compassion.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;"><span style="background-color: yellow; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1579660428/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=fredcares-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1579660428">My Mother's Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=fredcares-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1579660428" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">While all
the cast members must have done their level best, and were certainly deserving
of any and all film awards, their fine performances could not have made
"The Help" all that less problematic…perhaps "just merely tolerable
whenever they're in the scene."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">I actually know
Greenwood pretty well, because of the research I’ve done when writing about the
modern civil rights movement as it played out in the Mississippi Delta. Greenwood
was the home to Dr. Aaron Henry, a phenomenally brave man, a WW II veteran who
came back home after the war, hoping to change the way his fellow men and women
were treated. And in Greenwood, as throughout Mississippi, life could be
brutal. Henry was a true hero, and his own story, <b>The Fire Ever Burning</b>, introduced me to the history of these time. (He wasn't mentioned in The Help.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578062128/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=fredcares-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1578062128">Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning (Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies)</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">A wonderful woman from Greenwood, Peggy
Morgan, a person who I soon met by telephone, after moving to the Delta, often gave me her time freely, sharing her stories straight out of the belly of the Greenwood beast. It was because of her courtroom testimony, that the
person who probably killed the state’s first NAACP Field Representative, Medgar
Evers, finally went to prison. </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=fredcares-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1578062128" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">Peggy is a brave soul and spent most of her life
suffering with constant and horrid fear – before and after the trial of Byron De La Beckwith – eventually telling her story to Carolyn Haines, author of <b>My Mother’s Witness: The Story of Peggy Morgan.</b> This IS the
book to read whether or not you have seen or read The Help. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">Peggy is
powerful in her descriptions of what life was really like in this town, telling
Haines of the world she shared of torment and transition within the society she
was born into; the book starts shortly after the murder of 14-year-old Emmett
Till in nearby Sunflower County, outside of another brutal small town, Drew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">“Shortly
after the murder of Emmet Till, Inez Albritton (Peggy’s mother) became privy to
information regarding the details of his kidnapping and subsequent death. Till
was visiting relatives in the Greenwood area, a city boy who may not have taken
the ‘rules’ of Delta society seriously. He allegedly whistled at a white woman,
an advance that was not tolerated. Only 14, he was beaten, shot, and his body
thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a seventy-pound cotton fan bound to his
neck with barbed wire.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">But how
could Inez Albritton have known any more about this murder committed by
Mississippi men? How was she to become a "willing repository of secrets that allowed these
murders to range free?" <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: yellow; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">(You can <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/CivilRightsBooksMovimientoDeDerechosCivilesLibrosMartinLutherKingOthers">subscribe to this blog</a> by email.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">Both Inez
and her daughter, Peggy, shared a world that was a mirror image of of the
turmoil and violence within their family, and within their society. In a twist
of fate, both would be connected with two of the most notorious racial murders
committed in Mississippi, drawn into brutality and viciousness by the men in
their lives – husband, father, uncle – “and by the very geography of the
Mississippi Delta…the rich soil that sprouted cotton so abundantly was also the
dividing line of a rigidly enforced social order.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">You see,
shortly after Till was murdered, Inez
Albritton became privy to details through her husband and his friends, who knew too many details, and this knowledge was instrumental in her
destruction, Morgan me. “Like many women of her social
class [poor, white], she was a faceless female, the bearer of children, the provider
of meals, sexual pleasure and some small income, the object of drunken abuse –
in other words, a wife. Property of the man who gave her his name," Haines observed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">Ironically, in current times when women are observing with astonishment nearly every day on television news the actions and words of GOP
legislators and political candidates such as Rick Santorum (demanding society
regain this demanding and hostile status for women), it is probably a good time
to review what life was like (and apparently still like, I would guess, for the
political spouses of men of this ilk). What have we to lose? (I just caught up my dues to NOW.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">As Inez’s
sixth child, Peggy found herself possessing information that would set her on
the path to repeat her mother’s fate. I came to know Peggy, and she told me her
story, almost ten years ago when we lived in the Delta, when I was writing
about Till and others who were murdered in this God-awful (and at the same time fascinating) region. We talked on
the phone, many times, from her new home many states away. I have not heard
from her though, in several years, and because of the mental state she seemed
to be in then, I wonder now if she is still well or even alive. (I have a call out to one of her friends to answer this question.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">But from what she told me, life in Greenwood was anything like life as described in The
Help. It was just brutal beyond words for women – poor and/or black. Peggy
always wanted to vindicate her mother’s death, and tried very hard through Haines’
book, a must read whether or not you choose to see or read The Help, that is,
if you want to know what life was really like. Here is a small taste of what she described of her mother's paralyzing life:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">“Gene
walked slowly across the room to Inez. His hand shot out quicker than a snake
could strike, and grabbed her arm in a punishing grip. ‘You crazy bitch…the
last thing I need is your guts fallin’ out all over the floor right here in
front of the children.’ He pushed her hard toward the door, slapping the back
of her head hard…[then] went back to the bedroom to find his pants. Inez
remained hospitalized until her surgery had healed sufficiently. But her mental
condition did not improve. She was thirty-five and the hysterectomy dealt her a
terrible blow….now she felt useless. What tiny scrap of self-worth Gene’s fists
had not beaten out of her, the doctor’s scalpel had taken.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">Peggy, I hope that I can find you once again. We have more to talk about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><i>White, male politicians -- don't even think for one moment that you can do this to us ever again.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">Take care, Susan</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;">(You can <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/CivilRightsBooksMovimientoDeDerechosCivilesLibrosMartinLutherKingOthers" style="background-color: yellow;">subscribe to this blog</a> by email.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><br />
<b style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1579660428/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=fredcares-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1579660428">My Mother's Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=fredcares-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1579660428" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><b>My Mother's Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><b>Carolyn Haines<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><b>River City Publishing<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 115%;"><b>2003</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-39623050315073639532012-02-24T15:50:00.000-06:002012-03-16T18:25:21.161-05:00List of eBooks and Print Books on Emmett Till and Other Mississippi StoriesJust wanted to share this list of links for eBooks and Print books on Emmett Till, and Other Mississippi civil rights stories for Black History Week.<br />
Susan<br />
<br />
<br />
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<b>e-Books</b></div>
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Who Killed Emmett Till? (eBook, Smashwords)</div>
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<a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/8175">http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/8175</a></div>
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Cash In On Diversity (eBook, Smashwords)</div>
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<a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/63393">http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/63393</a></div>
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Where Rebels Roost (Amazon, Kindle)</div>
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Susan Klopfer’s Print and Nook Books (Barnes and Noble)</div>
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Delta Bookstore for Print and eBooks (LuLu Books)</div>
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<b>Print Books</b></div>
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Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited (Amazon
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The Emmett Till Book (Amazon, Print)</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Emmett-Till-Book-Susan-Orr-Klopfer/dp/tags-on-product/1411638433">http://www.amazon.com/Emmett-Till-Book-Susan-Orr-Klopfer/dp/tags-on-product/1411638</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-19741315075409072022012-02-18T16:14:00.001-06:002012-02-18T16:15:58.536-06:00Emmett Till CD audiobook available on ebay...<a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/160736441044?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VnFeBYl_gHbuWNKMpchpMTHaW_ZoTqkfvcWZDBfwNw8q1r1y70w83n8SRwiY-VvcwWItSZqUNbJpOa9ay8T_Rk97n8FzY6cZ0pQuenNWRPPGmreg2TRfkf2f9wTtVv470xKL/s1600/tillbook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="200" width="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VnFeBYl_gHbuWNKMpchpMTHaW_ZoTqkfvcWZDBfwNw8q1r1y70w83n8SRwiY-VvcwWItSZqUNbJpOa9ay8T_Rk97n8FzY6cZ0pQuenNWRPPGmreg2TRfkf2f9wTtVv470xKL/s320/tillbook.jpg" /></a></div></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Link to eBay --- <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/160736441044?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649"><b>CLICK HERE<br />
</b></a><br />
<br />
In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American teenager from Chicago, was brutally murdered by at least two white men while he was visiting relatives in Mississippi. His murder and the subsequent trial of his accused killers became a lightning rod for moral outrage, both at the time and even to this day. The case was not just about the murder of a teenage boy. It was also about a new generation of young people committing their lives to social change. As historian Robin Kelley states, The Emmett Till case was a spark for a new generation to commit their lives to social change. They said, "We're not gonna die like this. Instead, we're gonna live and transform the South so people won't have to die like this." And if anything, if any event of the 1950s inspired young people to be committed to that kind of change, it was the lynching of Emmett Till. ***The lynching of Emmett Till and the subsequent trial "set in concrete the determination of people to move forward," according to Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, in a way that previous events of a similar nature did not. Till's murder quickly became a rallying cry for civil rights protest, transforming a horrific crime into a springboard for justice. The Montgomery Bus Boycott followed closely on the heels of the case. Rosa Parks is quoted as saying, "I thought about Emmett Till, and I could not go back. My legs and feet were not hurting, that is a stereotype. I paid the same fare as others, and I felt violated." Later, Parks and Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley would develop a close relationship, maintaining contact throughout the years. ***Black men, including black teenage boys, had been brutally lynched by white men before the murder of Emmett Till. So it was no surprised that Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam were acquitted for this crime, since other white men had also gone unpunished for the murders they committed (and even confessed to committing outside of the courtroom). As this book's author, I would hope that people who learn this history come away with an understanding of the events surrounding the murder of Emmett Till, with an awareness of how their historical context shapes their actions, just as their actions have the potential to shape history. Why is it important to know the story of Emmett Till? Especially in the North, I have found that still too few people know this history (one civil rights "author" from Santa Fe, New Mexico recently chided me publicly for writing about Till and this event. "You are just trying to drum up publicity," he said. "And it's not even important"). ***But Emmett Till's story IS VERY IMPORTANT because the story of this young schoolboy and his murder deeply affected the modern civil rights movement and how history of the movement is now being told, and may soon be presented in a Hollywood film. Historians are finally writing more articles and books about this significant event that sparked the modern Civil Rights Movement, since the FBI several years ago re-opened the investigation of Till's murder. (This includes fictional accounts and plays.) Who Killed Emmett Till provides newly discovered background on the continuing true story of Till, whose violent death in the Mississippi Delta inspired Rosa Parks and others in the modern civil rights movement, and also presents some of the little-known history of the murders of thousands of African Americans in Mississippi, addressing how these events relate to today's terrorist world, where children and adults are murdered daily for hateful reasons -- or are destroyed for directly engaging in the fight for social justice. ***Who Killed Emmett Till book on CD is narrated by actor Jeffrey Hedquist and professionally produced by Andrew MacKenzie and Hedquist at Hedquist Productions in Fairfield, Iowa. Running time, approx 7 1/2 hours. Music of the Delta Blues included. Author Susan Klopfer is a graduate of Hanover College and holds a master's degree from Indiana Wesleyan University. She worked as a development and acquisitions editor for Prentice Hall and has won journalism award from the Misssouri Press Association. Her computer book, Abort! Retry! Fail! was named an alternate selection for the Book of the Month Club. Klopfer lived on the grounds of Mississippi's notorious Parchman Penitentiary while writing this nonfiction, true account of the murder of Till. She met and interviewed numerous residents of the Delta who were living when Till was killed and includes many accounts that are not covered in other books on Till., such as the shooting deeath of of a Delta civil rights attorney in 1997 who investigated Till's murder, and the unresoslved murders of two Mississippi teachers who were early voting rights advocates. "Susan Klopfer, the leading authority on the history of the Mississippi civil rights movement...Thank God for enterprising historians like Susan Klopfer who have the courage to state the obvious." -- Alan Bean, Ph.D., Friends of Justice." Audio Complete (Unabridged) Book in 6 Compact Discs (CDs).***Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-92178447795930324362012-02-14T12:19:00.000-06:002012-10-31T04:56:53.617-05:00McFadden's 'Gathering of the Waters' Takes In-Depth Look at Emmett Till's Murder<br />
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<i>Just another Mississippi County Courthouse</i></div>
<br />
Bernice L. McFadden's new novel, Gathering of Waters, explores the history surrounding the brutal murder of Emmett Till, a major event in Civil Rights history. Rather than sticking close to the events of Till's death, Gathering of Waters looks at generations before and after Till's life in Money, Miss.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=fredcares-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=161775031X&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />
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<br />
Consider this author's opening passage:<br />
<br />
"I am Money. Money Mississippi.<br />
<br />
I have had many selves and have been many things. My beginning was not a conception, but the result of a growing, stretching, and expanding, which took place over thousands of years.<br />
<br />
I have been figments of imaginations, shadows and sudden movements seen out of the corner of your eye. I have been dewdrops, falling stars, silence, flowers, and snails."<br />
<br />
This author's all-knowing, mythic voice of the town drives Gathering of Waters and allows McFadden to explore Till's life and death without the rigid limitations of history. So much has already been written about Till's death, probably best by his mother (Mamie Till Mobley), that writing a novel centered on it risks repeating what has already been said. McFadden's real contribution is to ignore the wider historical context of Till and focus in on emotional, human aspects of his story. McFadden's magical touches are a refreshing, unexpected approach to the hard facts. <br />
<br />
Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden. Akashic Books. $15.95. 250 pp.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-82035849515890523942012-02-13T13:04:00.001-06:002012-02-13T13:07:20.509-06:00New civil rights book rife with "parallels, intersections and coincidence"<b>The Street Sweeper<br />
<br />
Elliot Perlman<br />
Riverhead, $28.95<br />
<br />
5 STARS</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>"The Street Sweeper" tells the stories of two men whose lives would seem to have little to do with each other. Lamont Williams is an African American recently released from prison after serving six years for an armed robbery in which he was only tangentially involved. Adam Zignelik, son of a legendary Jewish civil rights lawyer, teaches history at Columbia University, where his professional and personal lives are not doing well.</i><br />
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Lamont works at a New York hospital, doing menial work, where he meets an elderly Holocaust survivor who tells him horrifying stories about working in a concentration camp, preparing prisoners for the gas chambers and then disposing of their bodies.<br />
<br />
At Columbia, Adam's friend and boss is Charles McCray, the history department's first African American chairman. Charles' father, a successful and well-known African American attorney and civil rights activist, convinces Adam to research the role of black troops in liberating Dachau, a suggestion that leads him to Chicago. There, he discovers forgotten interviews with Holocaust survivors conducted shortly after the end of World War II.<br />
<br />
"The Street Sweeper" is rife with parallels, intersections and coincidences. Its crisscrossing plotlines can at times dull the novel's dramatic impact, and the subplots that Perlman does not satisfactorily resolve leave the impression that the novel has been edited down from a much longer manuscript." Adam Langer, for the <i>Washington Post</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-65962296834598417342012-02-10T15:53:00.000-06:002012-02-10T15:53:51.396-06:00From the Land of Emmett Till: new book changes the story, but not the impact<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhckKrP8F8rMNTObcy75v86ePp8DacxXVtIQfJqHgQj_pox_ZPm9IeHTfMFoXxWMjGhZgrdG7eh0ZTaTU8Jl0LZJx72i9yjiSfRPJtkrW9M0g8zGeORxV-78b-ptjTaMDn1Fnbr/s1600/emmetttillmother.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="199" width="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhckKrP8F8rMNTObcy75v86ePp8DacxXVtIQfJqHgQj_pox_ZPm9IeHTfMFoXxWMjGhZgrdG7eh0ZTaTU8Jl0LZJx72i9yjiSfRPJtkrW9M0g8zGeORxV-78b-ptjTaMDn1Fnbr/s320/emmetttillmother.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Emmett Till's mother shows her pain at the Chicago showing of his open casket.<br />
<br />
<i><blockquote>“Gathering of Waters” opens in the early 20th century in Oklahoma, with a girl named Doll possessed by the spirit of a dead woman. But after an unsuccessful exorcism and a decision by Doll’s mother to put her up for adoption, the story shifts to Money, Miss., where Doll grows up under the influence of the bitter, vengeful spirit that inhabits her. She steals, she has sex with near strangers and she eventually gives birth to a daughter who comes to despise her. After the flood of 1927, the novel’s attentions jump to that daughter, Hemmingway, just until her own daughter, Tass, falls in love with Emmett Till during the summer he will die. Then the story follows Tass, who marries and moves to Detroit with Emmett’s spirit at her heels.</blockquote></i><br />
<br />
GATHERING OF WATERS<br />
By Bernice L. McFadden<br />
252 pp. Akashic Books. $24.95.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-22786146034281404692012-01-27T15:01:00.000-06:002012-01-27T15:01:11.719-06:00Civil Rights Nonfiction Novel eBook Publication Set For Sept. 1, 2012<b>For Immediate Release</b><br />
New eBook Announcement<br />
Contact: Susan Klopfer<br />
505-728-7924<br />
www.susanklopfer.com<br />
<br />
<b>New eBook Announcement: Gallup To Mississippi</b><br />
<i><br />
“Attaining true justice often takes longer than expected. In this case, getting there requires a heart-stopping side trip through Washington D.C.’s political killing fields.” </i> Susan Klopfer, author<br />
<br />
DRIVING ALONE FROM Gallup, New Mexico to Drew, Mississippi takes all but 20 hours, according to most Internet mapping systems. In Gallup To Mississippi, getting there allows time for a once-journalist grandmother, Sara Crain, to ponder accepted facts surrounding the highly publicized murders of two civil rights icons, and the lesser-reported murders of two lawyers who once worked under the movement’s radar.<br />
<br />
Crain’s questions also focus on the unresolved murders of two bravely fierce grandmothers, Birdia Keglar and Adlena Hamlett, recognized by U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy for speaking out on civil and voting rights before it was fashionable (or allowable) in their small town of Charleston, Mississippi.<br />
<br />
Gallup To Mississippi – a nonfiction / Novel / literature eBook is set for September 1 release by civil rights author Susan Klopfer, who describes her protagonist as “a curious, former small-town newspaper reporter and grandmother who initiates a haunting drive eastward on I-40, with stopovers on sections of old Route 66 and further deviations to Lubbock, Texas and Washington D.C.”<br />
<br />
The distance between Gallup and Drew is 1,117 miles – so what would prompt this 63-year-old Reiki-Master/office manager to make such a trip? What dangers lie ahead, and why would the route include Lubbock, Texas and Washington, D.C.? Will new facts discovered change history? “Readers should be surprised as this story’s swerves along the route to justice,” Klopfer states.<br />
<br />
Gallup To Mississippi is a powerful and timely read, featuring political and legal intrigue, and a John Grisham / Truman Capote type of story that will leave readers never thinking about the modern civil rights movement or the justice system in quite the same way again, Klopfer said.<br />
* * *<br />
<br />
Susan Klopfer of Gallup, New Mexico is the author of eight books and eBooks, including Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited; The Emmett Till Book, and Who Killed Emmett Till(nominated for a Global eBooks Award). She worked as an acquisitions and development editor for Prentice Hall Computer Books and as an award-winning news reporter for the Branson Daily News. <br />
<br />
Klopfer began her journalism career in Ely, Nevada and worked for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Her computer book, Abort! Retry! Fail! was named an alternate selection for The Book of the Month Club.<br />
<br />
<br />
Author Susan Klopfer<br />
Original title Gallup Mississippi<br />
Country United State<br />
Language English<br />
Genre(s) Nonfiction / Literature / Novel<br />
Publisher Susan Klopfer <br />
ISBN-10: 0982604947 <br />
ISBN-13: 978-0-9826049-4-6 <br />
Publication Date September 1, 2012Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-86898361868002084602012-01-25T14:57:00.002-06:002012-01-25T15:09:19.765-06:00Occupied: a new organizer's Bible could help the movementThe Occupy Movement, if it is to last, has serious issues regarding oranization. I would hope members pay heed to the following email that I have received from Hunter Bear, an experienced and well-known civil rights movement organizer. Hunter is most recently the author of Jackson, Mississippi (a true organizer's Bible). <br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
Susan Klopfer<br />
<i>Author, Who Killed Emmett Till, The Emmett Till Book, Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited.</i><br />
<br />
--- --- --- --- --- --- ---<br />
Susan:<br />
<br />
If you know of people or groups who might benefit from this, please send it around. In the last several weeks, there've been a number of explicit indications of interest in effective and enduring community organizing. For years, I've had a long website page which discusses the art -- and it is an art -- of bona fide organizing. What follows is one part of that page -- its basic essence. And I give the Link to the full "course." I posted this in a number of quarters where interest is apparent, even high, and I'm now shooting it off in your direction with the hope that you can further its reach to any actively or potentially interested persons you may know. It is likely that, at some point, I'll expand this into a trenchant print entity of some sort. Until then, however, this extensive page does offer a good deal of down-to-earth, brass-tacks guidance. In other sections of our website, I have specific discussions of our various activist campaigns over several turbulent decades.<br />
<br />
In Solidarity,<br />
<br />
Hunter or John<br />
<br />
______________________________<br />
<br />
The time for effective community organizing is obviously NOW. This substantial excerpt from our very full page should be helpful. The full course is, <a href="http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm">http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm</a><br />
<br />
(H.)<br />
<br />
HERE ARE MY RELATED PIECES ON ORGANIZING.<br />
<br />
FIRST, AMONG OTHER INTEGRAL AND RELATED DIMENSIONS, ARE:<br />
<br />
1] Invitations to the Organizer from the grassroots -- spontaneous and<br />
wrangled. Some can come to one's own sponsoring organization; some can<br />
come directly to you if you are reasonably well known; or you can arrange<br />
an invitation.<br />
<br />
2] Issues: Some are readily apparent, some not always apparent -- e.g.,<br />
economic relationships; some are immediately realistic with work and some<br />
are futuristic; some are frankly unrealistic in the foreseeable future.<br />
<br />
3] Planning philosophies: Top Down, vs Basic Grassroots Up [my preference]. Set forth general overall goals, long-range specific, short range specific. Heavy grassroots involvement here is always critical.<br />
<br />
4] Credibility of project: Should be made up and led primarily by the<br />
people for whose benefit it is launched: e.g., "those of the fewest<br />
alternatives." Careful delineation and evaluation of active and potential<br />
leaders is obviously critical. And often things start out with a steering<br />
committee of leaders and then, after the organization has grown and more<br />
people are actively involved, elections of regular officers.<br />
<br />
5] Some people may want to move too fast and others too slowly. The<br />
Organizer helps develop the group's tempo and assists grassroots leaders<br />
and people in meeting those expectations.<br />
<br />
6] Direct action: Always know First Amendment and related rights.<br />
Picketing, sit-ins, boycotts, mass marches are extremely useful. And<br />
there is always a need for careful organization and tactical nonviolence.<br />
Direct action should be accompanied by judicious media coverage.<br />
<br />
7] Media use: Has to be used carefully: national wire services; local<br />
television, often with national hookups; local radio; local and regional<br />
press; specialized press; news releases -- who, what, when, where, why and how; press conferences; leaflets with ALL pertinent information; newsletters; community newspapers; community cable TV; Internet. There is always a need for constantly updated media/contact lists.<br />
<br />
8] Lawyers and litigation: Defensive and aggressive legal actions --<br />
"criminal" and civil; local volunteers; paid lawyers; national<br />
organizational attorneys -- e.g., ACLU, Lawyers Guild, Native American<br />
Rights Fund. Some non-in-court matters can be handled very effectively by good law students.<br />
<br />
9] Possible allies and political action: National organizations; and<br />
government agencies [be careful]; political -- informal approaches and<br />
quiet contacts; formal approaches and lobbying and direct requests;<br />
electoral [voting]. DON'T GET CO-OPTED.<br />
<br />
10] Power structure analysis: Check out Moody's industrials and<br />
Standard and Poor's; and check out lawyers and their big business<br />
connections in Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, and see FindLaw.<br />
Also see firms in U.S. Lawyer's Directory. City Directory will frequently<br />
give the official occupation of people. See corporate profit and not for<br />
profit charters at the state secretary of state's office and check out<br />
annual registration of organizations from state attorney general or sometimes secretary of state. Data on charitable organizations can be found at state attorney general's office and county tax assessor. There are also various national and regional Who's Who and IRS and U.S. Government Organization Manual and Congressional Directory. DON'T NEGLECT HELPFUL NON-OFFICIAL GOSSIP.<br />
<br />
11] Coalitions [tend to be long term] and alliances [often shorter term]<br />
are sometimes beneficial and sometimes not. Consider all of this<br />
carefully and try to avoid precipitous marriages.<br />
<br />
12] Although no Organizer -- whether from the "outside" or the "inside" --<br />
will ever have full consensus from the community, he or she must avoid the<br />
temptation to be a "Lone Ranger." That role can be temporarily justified<br />
only in cases of extreme grassroots fear or heavy factionalism.<br />
[Hunter Bear]<br />
____________________________________________________________________________<br />
<br />
<br />
JUST WHAT MAKES A DAMN GOOD COMMUNITY ORGANIZER? BASED ON MY 50 YEARS OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZING HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR] 12/30/03<br />
<br />
<br />
[Published in the Spring 2004 issue of Independent Politics News And<br />
Published In Oregon Socialist, Winter/Spring 2004 -- and much more.]<br />
<br />
I'm an Organizer, a damn good one. I get and keep people together for<br />
social justice action. I've been an Organizer for virtually half a<br />
century -- all over much of what's called the United States. [I've also<br />
been, among other things, a fur trapper, forest fire fighter, soldier,<br />
prospector, metal [development] miner, minority hiring and training<br />
consultant, college/university professor, writer.]<br />
<br />
But my vocation is Organizer. I've done it full time for many years indeed.<br />
And then, in conjunction with other jobs, I've always continued to<br />
organize, somewhere and somehow.<br />
<br />
What follows here is my essentially outline conception of the<br />
characteristics and qualities of a good and effective Organizer who is<br />
genuinely on the grassroots job. That can be a union local; a temporary<br />
single-issue effort; permanent single-issue; permanent multi-issue;<br />
coalition. It can sometimes be a specialized service center -- which itself<br />
some way grows out of a community organization. A Movement is a transcendent widespread feeling, visionary, fueled by many local organizational efforts -- and it, in turn, inspires many local efforts.<br />
<br />
Assembling my scattered notes on the matter a few days ago, I spent some<br />
very early morning hours today [I rise about 3:30 am] sketching this out on<br />
one of my traditional yellow tablets.<br />
<br />
____________________________________________________________________________<br />
_______<br />
<br />
1] The Organizer should be at least bright -- alert and sparky. And<br />
hopefully, be intelligent in a depthy and lofty sense -- which characterizes<br />
most organizers who really stick with it over the long pull.<br />
<br />
2] The Organizer should be relatively "pure" in the moral sense. But not<br />
too pure -- because no one, anywhere, wants a sanctimonious conscience<br />
hovering about. Set a good personal example. Do your recreational thing<br />
away from the project. Wherever you are, avoid all drugs and go easy on<br />
alcohol [if you are even into that sensitivity-dulling stuff.] Remember the<br />
old labor adage: "You can't fight booze and the boss at the same time."<br />
Always a special target, the organizer has to be aware of the consistent<br />
danger of frame-ups.<br />
<br />
3] The Organizer has to be a person who is thoroughly ethical and<br />
honorable. Among other things, this means fiscal honesty [as soon as<br />
possible and whenever feasible, a local committee made up of grassroots<br />
people should handle the financial end of things]. And it also means<br />
avoiding any hint of co-optation by the Adversary. The Organizer should<br />
always have at least a representative group of the grassroots people present when meeting with the Other Side -- unless local people clearly approve a unilateral approach.<br />
<br />
4] Formal academic training in the higher ed sense can certainly be useful<br />
to any Organizer [or, as far as that goes, for anyone] -- but it isn't<br />
absolutely critical. The Organizer, among other attributes, should be fully<br />
literate [including computer literate], with finely tuned sensitivities,<br />
with one hell of a lot of good sense. And almost anyone can do much<br />
self-teaching.<br />
<br />
Race and social class factors are not usually critical for a good<br />
Organizer. [I'm a Native American who has worked comfortably with Indians of many tribes, Chicanos, Southern and Northern Blacks, Puerto Ricans, low-income Anglos. I've also never pretended to have proletarian origins.]<br />
<br />
In a word, be sensitive -- but be yourself.<br />
<br />
5] The Organizer absolutely has to be a person who can communicate clearly and well. Often, this can mean teaching -- without necessarily appearing to do so [many people really don't like a teacher.]<br />
And communication, of course, involves one - to - one on a face - to - face<br />
basis, e-mail, phone calls, news announcements and press conferences, mass meetings -- and much more indeed. It can also involve an Organizer helping people with their own unique individual/family problems. And that can help not only the person but will strengthen the overall effort.<br />
<br />
6] The good Organizer will have some sort of altruistic ideology: couched<br />
as an integrated, cogent set of beliefs embodying goals and tactics. After<br />
that, there are several choices:<br />
<br />
A] The Organizer can be passive; and the grassroots people can be<br />
the ones who make the goals and the tactics. Not so hot.<br />
<br />
B] The Organizer can impose a specific ideology -- including<br />
goals and tactics. Not so hot, either.<br />
<br />
C] The Organizer can convey a general ideological perspective<br />
which the grassroots people can take or not take. They are not going to<br />
want to feel pushed or hammered into things, but they'll usually take it --<br />
especially if it's sensibly and sensitively "sold". They certainly may want<br />
some time -- and should have it -- to think it all over. And, soon enough,<br />
together the organizer and the people can develop solid goals and effective tactics. Remember, the organizer brings gifts and élan -- and the grassroots provides at least most of the reality.<br />
<br />
7] The Organizer must have a genuinely powerful and enduring commitment. This has to involve a deep belief -- a very real belief -- in the People and the Cause. The Organizer has to be able to recognize potential<br />
leaders -- and to involve all of the people. Virtually everyone has<br />
something of substantial significance to contribute. The organizer gives<br />
ideas -- but it's ultimately up to the people whom the organizer should<br />
never manipulate. Bona fide organizing [not service center stuff] is about<br />
the hardest work there is. A good Organizer is literally wedded to the<br />
campaign all the way through.<br />
<br />
8] The Organizer has to have a healthy but controllable ego -- with a<br />
strong sense of destiny.<br />
<br />
9] And any really healthy grassroots organizing campaign has to have a<br />
Vision -- one that is two dimensional: Over The Mountain Yonder, and the<br />
Day - To - Day needs. As I have indicated, a movement which, among other<br />
things, is characterized by an idea whose time has come, is a broad-based<br />
cause growing out of local community organizational efforts -- in turn<br />
inspiring and stimulating new community-based thrusts. To become a bona fide movement, there absolutely has to be the two-dimensional ethos and active life. But the purely local effort has to have the same two dimensional<br />
ingredients, whether it's part of a movement or by itself.<br />
<br />
[Something with vision only can easily wind up a small, in-grown sect;<br />
and something that's only day - to -day can become a tired service program. And when an organization has lost its way, factionalism is a sure thing along with the withdrawal of the local people.]<br />
<br />
A good Organizer's role in all of this vision-building is extremely<br />
critical -- especially at the outset. But it's also critical all the way<br />
through in conjunction with the growing awareness of the grassroots people. The two-dimensional vision -- Over The Mountain and Day - To -Day -- is the shiny idea that makes people part of a crusade and sometimes a truly great one. It all gives meaning to life. And sometimes, if necessary, one will die for it. Each of these two dimensions stimulates and feeds the other. A good and truly effective Organizer absolutely has to show this<br />
interconnection.<br />
<br />
10] An Organizer definitely has to be a person with a tough hide -- not<br />
deterred by cruel name-calling, physical beatings, or forced out of the game by injuring bullets or other bloody efforts. The organizer has to be a person of physical courage. And an Organizer also has to have the courage<br />
to take unpopular stands within the developing grassroots effort.<br />
<br />
11] And an Organizer cannot live materially in the pretentious sense.<br />
Solidarity -- and also sacrifice!<br />
<br />
Semper Fi -<br />
<br />
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR] Micmac/St Francis Abenaki/St Regis Mohawk<br />
<br />
In the mountains of Eastern Idaho<br />
www.hunterbear.org<br />
<br />
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES -- OR, GETTING PRACTICAL [REVISED DECEMBER 25 2003] BASED ON MY 50 YEARS OF ORGANIZING EXPERIENCE. HUNTER GRAY/JOHN R<br />
SALTER, JR<br />
<br />
[PUBLISHED IN OREGON SOCIALIST WINTER/SPRING 2004<br />
WITH NEW MATERIAL 8/25/04 -- AND IN OTHER PUBLICATIONS AS WELL.]<br />
<br />
Missing -- way too often -- in radical and general social justice circles<br />
and related settings is a willingness to get down into the grassroots and<br />
engage systematically in some of the most challenging work there is:<br />
organizing the grassroots into genuinely effective and enduring outfits.<br />
That's Genesis in the Save the World Business. It's often far too easy to<br />
engage in essentially empty "jaw-smithing." Fortunately, there are always<br />
those -- Organizers and grassroots people -- who are willing to do the<br />
really tedious and tough organizing work over the long pull. Those who are<br />
reasonably experienced have their own particular approaches.<br />
<br />
Here are my own basic ones:<br />
<br />
These 17 essential organizing principles were created formally by me in<br />
early September 1963, after what had already been a number of years of<br />
successful social justice organizing -- and then modified and supplemented<br />
a bit over many decades of grassroots organizing campaigns. Now I've<br />
transcribed them yet again -- with some changes -- on December 25 2003.<br />
They are part of a considerably larger work that I also wrote in September<br />
1963 -- "Organizing the Community for Action." This was initially about six<br />
tightly packed single-spaced legal size pages. I made several dozen<br />
mimeographed copies and sent them around -- and they were well received. I continued to expand and polish up all of this and used "Organizing" and my following 17 component principles many, many dozens of times in organizing campaigns, including -- among other dimensions -- struggles, organizing staff and grassroots training capacities, conferences, and university classes. By this time, my little manual itself had grown to nine tightly packed and single-spaced legal size pages. Copies of all versions of "Organizing the Community for Action" are in my collected [Salter/Gray] papers at State Historical Society of Wisconsin and Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The basically full ones began in March, 1965 and August, 1966. In addition, I have copies of all of these editions of mine right here in Idaho.<br />
<br />
I'm presently rewriting parts of "Organizing the Community for Action" --<br />
streamlining and updating -- and we are right now discussing the 17<br />
principles themselves here in the Pocatello region as we get set for some<br />
anti-racist action.<br />
<br />
The following applies primarily to organizing staff and broad-based<br />
grassroots community organizations. But they can also apply<br />
substantially -- with only a very few changes -- to other types of outfits:<br />
e.g., local union organizations.<br />
<br />
Anyway -<br />
<br />
1] The Organizers should insure that the community organization is<br />
significant in size and composed primarily, if not completely, of those<br />
people "with the fewest alternatives".<br />
<br />
2] The Organizers should insure that active and potential community<br />
leadership is developed in such a fashion that the organization is led<br />
primarily, if not completely, by those people with the fewest alternatives.<br />
<br />
3] The Organizers should insure that the organization functions<br />
democratically, and not in an authoritarian fashion and that, among other<br />
things, formal rules of democratic procedure are established and followed<br />
and that widespread grassroots participation and decision-making in the<br />
affairs of the community organization is a continuing fact; and that there<br />
is ever developing local leadership. The executive and public meetings<br />
should be well attended and organizers must insure that an atmosphere exists in which the individual at the grassroots feels -- as is genuinely the case --that he/she is an individual; that his/her active participation in<br />
the organization is needed and welcomed; that right from the very beginning, he/she can make their voice and presence felt within the organization; and that, as the group's endeavors advance, winning victories, his/her power and ability to affect those forces out in the problematic/crisis environment and beyond, which have been affecting his/her life, will be steadily and proportionately increased.<br />
<br />
4] The Organizers should insure that the youth are involved in the affairs<br />
of the community organization -- either within it and with leadership<br />
participation, or in a parallel and cooperative youth group of their own.<br />
<br />
5] The Organizers should insure that the community organization, right from the beginning, is characterized by maximum autonomy.<br />
<br />
6] Although the initial formation of the community organization may be<br />
around one paramount and pressing local issue, the Organizers -- not through rigid superimposition but through diplomatic and effective teaching -- should insure that, in the interests of the community organization's longevity and effectiveness, the leaders and membership of the group become aware of all issues directly and indirectly affecting them. The Organizers should insure, therefore, that the community organization functions on a multi-issue basis whenever possible.<br />
<br />
7] The Organizers should insure that, prior to reaching a decision on a<br />
particular course of action, the community organization is aware of all<br />
relevant tactical approaches and the various ramifications of each.<br />
<br />
8] The Organizers should insure that the leaders of the community<br />
organization can effectively handle the matter of publicity.<br />
<br />
9] The Organizers should insure that the community organization can<br />
effectively handle the raising and administration of funds -- including,<br />
when applicable, the preparation of funding proposals, the negotiation of<br />
such, and the effective administration of the money received.<br />
<br />
10] The Organizers should insure that the community organization becomes<br />
connected with various relevant public and private agencies and is able to<br />
negotiate and secure the necessary services from those agencies without<br />
surrendering its autonomy or compromising its basic principles.<br />
<br />
11] The Organizers should insure that the community organization is able<br />
to function politically in a realistic and sophisticated fashion without<br />
surrendering its autonomy or compromising its basic principles.<br />
12] The organizers should insure that the community organization can<br />
utilize the services of professionals without becoming dominated by such.<br />
<br />
13] The Organizers should insure that the community organization is able<br />
to enter into functional alliances with other groups without surrendering<br />
its autonomy or compromising its basic principles.<br />
<br />
14] The Organizers should insure that the community organization is aware<br />
of the use of effective and rational protest demonstrations and, further,<br />
that it is fully cognizant of the merits of tactical nonviolence.<br />
<br />
15] The Organizers should insure that the community organization is aware<br />
of the effective use of legal action approaches and is aware of public and<br />
private legal resources.<br />
<br />
16] The Organizers should build a sense of the oft-visionary and just<br />
world of a full measure of bread-and butter and a full measure of<br />
freedom -- and how all of this relates to the shorter term steps.<br />
<br />
17] The Organizers, who at the outset may well play a very key role in the<br />
function and affairs of the community organization, must, on a step-by-step<br />
and essentially pragmatic basis, shift increasing responsibility to the<br />
leaders and membership of the group, to eventually:<br />
<br />
A] First, insure that the community organization can function effectively<br />
with only occasional involvement by Organizers.<br />
<br />
B] And then, that the community organization can function effectively<br />
with no involvement by Organizers to the point that, in addition to<br />
conducting its regular affairs, the group can "organize on its<br />
own" --bringing in new constituents and/or assisting other grassroots people in adjoining areas in setting up and conducting their own community organizations.<br />
<br />
I'm an Organizer -- a working social justice agitator. I've been one since<br />
the mid-1950s and I'll always be one. In many respects, it's one of the<br />
toughest trails anyone could ever blaze.<br />
<br />
An effective Organizer seeks to get grassroots people together -- and does;<br />
develops on-going and genuinely democratic local leadership; deals<br />
effectively with grievances and individual/family concerns; works with the<br />
people to achieve basic organizational goals and develop new ones; and<br />
builds a sense of the New World To Come Over The Mountains Yonder -- and how all of that relates to the shorter term steps.<br />
<br />
An effective Organizer has to be a person of integrity, courage, commitment.<br />
And a person of solidarity and sacrifice.<br />
<br />
The satisfactions are enormous.<br />
<br />
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis<br />
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk<br />
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´<br />
and Ohkwari'<br />
www.hunterbear.org<br />
(much social justice material)<br />
<br />
See the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:<br />
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm<br />
<br />
For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated<br />
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI --<br />
with a new and substantial Introduction by me:<br />
<a href="http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm">http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm</a><br />
<br />
Personal Background Narrative (with many links):<br />
<a href="http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm">http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-50555528417861605502012-01-06T11:46:00.000-06:002012-01-06T11:46:20.728-06:00What? You haven't read Howard Zinn? Take a look for yourself and see why he is a favorite author"Social movements may have many 'defeats'-failing to achieve objectives in the short run-but in the course of the struggle the strength of the old order begins to erode, the minds of people begin to change; the protesters are momentarily defeated but not crushed, and have been lifted, heartened, by their ability to fight back."<br />
<br />
- Howard Zinn<br />
<br />
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</noscript>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-37817071843255941352011-10-18T15:22:00.002-05:002011-10-18T15:24:44.516-05:00Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-15995262280915299802011-10-03T04:36:00.003-05:002011-10-03T04:45:20.636-05:00A civil rights author is giving away free eBooks to honor people who have been fired from their jobs or who are angry and depressed at work -- and fear layoff. <br />
<br />
Susan Klopfer has written a set of prayers using real life concerns stated by people who are affected at work by the current recession. <br />
<br />
"This is a Book of Common Prayers for the person who is suffering at work or who has been fired," Klopfer said. <br />
<br />
The free eBook features prayers ranging on topics from people who fear a bad evaluation, to those who have found a new job and lost that one, too, Klopfer says. <br />
<br />
"We were having related problems with a family member over this issue, and I felt a need to do something that might bring some cheer to others. When you get fired, you are often blamed for the cause, even if the work environment is sexist, ageist, racist or horrible for some other reason. <br />
<br />
"But then you have to go home and explain why your family will suffer until you find a new job." <br />
<br />
Klopfer said one of the most difficult issues for many people today who have lost their job, is that "too many" employers discriminate against the person who is not employed. <br />
<br />
"It is a double whammy, and we need to address this in any way possible," Klopfer said.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, A Book of Common Prayer For Anyone Who is About to Get (or Just G) Fired can be read online at <a href="http://prayersforthefired.blogspot.com/">http://prayersforthefired.blogspot.com/<br />
</a>.<br />
<br />
"For now, the book is available only on this blog. In the near future it will be published in true eBook form," Klopfer added. <br />
<br />
"But it will still be free."Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-38960617631081461722011-09-21T15:27:00.007-05:002011-09-21T15:52:56.990-05:00When Mississippi Does it Right -- Aaron Henry: A Civil Rights Leader of the 20th Century<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmwVaojK6Nr3BkDD9iqWcdztNQl5XCG0QwQQ6JpxJj4eG5jxQMxNyU9GiSLTMvrk2jvN-XDOzp38lM4kPBP1gFo7PMyv178KtDnUkO19osFVnSLKOEoSp_csW2UVC6I_ONAVc_/s1600/aaronhenry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="155" width="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmwVaojK6Nr3BkDD9iqWcdztNQl5XCG0QwQQ6JpxJj4eG5jxQMxNyU9GiSLTMvrk2jvN-XDOzp38lM4kPBP1gFo7PMyv178KtDnUkO19osFVnSLKOEoSp_csW2UVC6I_ONAVc_/s320/aaronhenry.jpg" /></a></div><i>Aaron Henry, civil rights leader<br />
</i><br />
<br />
Kudos to the Mississippi Historical Society for the beautiful piece written on civil rights leader, Aaron Henry (by Constance Curry, who with Aaron Henry wrote The Fire Ever Burning. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJYuWGzw8qhPmkDYJGuFyjUQ7jjmo5wFlzs-mnIrSxqcjbN1KnZ2cO2Kbu0LF4i1fs9boImCoLCe-8JbfXBBTugP-fB78obRXU2whrPoWKpi80hLKhFgX0dCgiInaE9SaNYY_Y/s1600/henrydrugstore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="121" width="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJYuWGzw8qhPmkDYJGuFyjUQ7jjmo5wFlzs-mnIrSxqcjbN1KnZ2cO2Kbu0LF4i1fs9boImCoLCe-8JbfXBBTugP-fB78obRXU2whrPoWKpi80hLKhFgX0dCgiInaE9SaNYY_Y/s320/henrydrugstore.jpg" /></a></div>Aaron Henry’s Fourth Street Drug Store, which opened in 1950 in Clarksdale, became a hub for political and civil rights planning for three decades. Aaron Henry Papers, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 90.24, Box 144, Folder 4.<br />
<i><br />
Writes Curry</i> -- Aaron Henry was born in 1922 in Coahoma County, Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers. From a young age, he worked in the cotton fields alongside his family on the Flowers Plantation outside of Clarksdale. He remembered those years vividly when he recalled, <br />
<br />
“As far back as I can remember, I have detested everything about growing cotton.” Regardless of his early hardships, education was a priority for ...<br />
<br />
<a href="http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/articles/363/aaron-henry-a-civil-rights-leader-of-the-20th-century">Continued --</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-90786000983119041462011-09-21T10:59:00.000-05:002011-09-21T10:59:10.118-05:00Civil Rights & Social Justice News: Real Civil Rights History Beats Out "The Help" and Hollywood's Take on Mississippi<a href="http://civilrightsnewsreleases.blogspot.com/2011/09/real-civil-rights-history-beats-out.html#.TnoJsbHzBwd.blogger">Civil Rights & Social Justice News: Real Civil Rights History Beats Out "The Help" and Hollywood's Take on Mississippi</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-16088891945433730842011-08-08T23:27:00.017-05:002011-08-16T04:22:25.734-05:00The Help's Viola Davis Says She Based Her Character 'Very Loosely' on Fannie Lou Hamer; Not!<i>Hollywood movies try to turn real events during the civil rights movment into 'feel-good' films. </i><br />
<br />
In The Help, a much publicized film that focuses on the modern civil rights movement, Viola Davis, a Juilliard-trained actor best known for her Oscar-nominated role opposite Meryl Streep in "Doubt" (and for her stage work, for which she has won two Tony Awards), plays Aibileen, a maid in early-'60s Jacksonville, Miss.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoj4B0o7oanKbB29oXmrABmqGVy2iOWF_MsWDabpA6-Zm1WxvdVMT1vhylnMCOQEvHoNc507_CiJ0OAEN5fHe80GN4uCtqJ9R-TlZcjkgbmaPVM54dQ5v4WbUVbEZSzW_NA7fa/s1600/fannielouhamer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="172" width="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoj4B0o7oanKbB29oXmrABmqGVy2iOWF_MsWDabpA6-Zm1WxvdVMT1vhylnMCOQEvHoNc507_CiJ0OAEN5fHe80GN4uCtqJ9R-TlZcjkgbmaPVM54dQ5v4WbUVbEZSzW_NA7fa/s320/fannielouhamer.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Fannie Lou Hamer, revered civil rights activist from Mississippi. (Image may be subject to copyright.)</i><br />
<br />
The maid quietly endures her employer's racist remarks and casual cruelty — only to go home and write down her thoughts in a journal.<br />
<br />
Davis, who apparently knows little about modern civil rights history, is saying she based the character, "very, very loosely," on civil-rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. "She was born the same year as Aibileen, in Mississippi."<br />
<br />
Slow down, Hollywood. This statement is simply insulting.<br />
<br />
Being born in the same year is all that Davis has going for her, when making this comparison to one of the world's most admired civil rights heroes and social activists Mississippi ever produced. <br />
<br />
Fannie Lou Hamer was no one's quiet maid who spent the evening writing down her thoughts in a journal. She had thoughts, all right, and shared them with anyone she chose, including the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson.<br />
<br />
To understand and appreciate Hamer, one has to know from whence she came –<br />
<br />
Born October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, she was the granddaughter of a slave and the youngest of 20 children. Her parents were sharecroppers in this region of the Mississippi Delta, participants in a system of farming that allowed workers to live on a plantation in return for working the land. When the crop is harvested, they split the profits in half with the plantation owner, giving the system another name -- halving. Sometimes the owner paid for the seed and fertilizer, but usually the sharecropper paid those expenses out of his half. It is a hard way to make a living and sharecroppers generally were born poor, lived and died poor.<br />
<br />
In my book, Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited, I wrote this about Hamer:<br />
<br />
A wise civil rights leader, singer and storyteller, Hamer often told how her family stayed alive during the hardest years.<br />
<br />
In winter months, Hamer and her siblings followed their mother from plantation to plantation asking landowners for leftover cotton, the "scrappin' cotton. When the family gathered enough cotton for a bale, these bits of scrap were sold to buy food. On those treks "[Mother] always tied our feet up with rags because the ground would be froze real hard," Hamer in 1967 wrote in her short autobiography, To Praise Our Bridges.<br />
<br />
Music was tied to survival during these treks and Hamer became well known years later for comforting others with her gospel singing - especially during some of the most difficult moments in the Movement when people were beaten and jailed.<br />
<br />
When young civil rights workers later moved into Sunflower County many quickly discovered that Hamer had a "unique ability to define the problems that affected African Americans in the Delta in their own vernacular," wrote J. Moye in Let the People Decide.<br />
<br />
Hamer was "a leader waiting for a movement [who] believed deeply in the promise of the Bible and in the promise of the United States of America."<br />
<br />
In the early 1960s, as the modern civil rights movement progressed, there were predictions of wholesale starvation in the Delta as government commodities were being withheld from sharecroppers during winter or non-working months. Mothers about to give birth were particularly concerned about the consequences.<br />
<br />
It was Hamer who pointed out the labor and sweat of blacks that had "made them white folks creamy rich," concluding, "There's so much hate. Only God has kept the Negro sane."<br />
<br />
On June 11, 1963, a message came into the Greenwood Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) office that a group of eight freedom workers - Hamer, along with June Johnson, Annelle Ponder, Euvester Simpson, Rosemary Freeman, Lawrence Guyot, James Wes, and Ruth Day - had been arrested and beaten by Winona jailers in Montgomery County for integrating the white waiting room of the bus station in Winona upon returning from a training session in South Carolina on June 9, 1963.<br />
<br />
SNCC leader Bob Moses led a group of volunteers that night to Winona. Though she could hardly talk, Annelle Ponder whispered, "Freedom," when she saw her friends, wrote Cat Holland who observed that June Johnson's face was "so smashed and bloody I didn't recognize her."<br />
<br />
Then Holland recognized Hamer, who "took her hand and ran it over her lumpy, bruised flesh," while telling her what happened. Holland wrote of her conversation with a police officer:<br />
<br />
"Why y'all beat 'em like this?" I asked the policeman, who stood by leering.<br />
"We kin give you some of the same thing," he said.<br />
"Don't say nothing, Ida," Miss Hamer said. "You go back an' tell the others." <br />
<br />
<b>Hamer, Others Protest in Chicago</b><br />
<br />
Mississippi's conservative "blue dog Democrats" in 1964 threatened to support Republican Barry Goldwater. The state party's leaders predictably kept out all black participation in primaries or conventions.<br />
<br />
So the black-led Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) decided to become active in the state's official Democratic Party and to steer the party to support Johnson for President.<br />
<br />
While the regular Democrats were sending a "hand-picked delegation to Chicago with only two token Negro delegates, although Negroes constituted 40 percent of 240,000 of the registered voters in Mississippi," MFDP members decided they, alone, should represent the state at the upcoming party convention, and Hamer was part of this group.<br />
<br />
Aaron Henry, a Delta leader from Clarksdale and friend of Hamer's, appealed for $30,000 to support the Loyal Democrats of Mississippi, a bi-racial coalition made up of the MFDP, NAACP of Mississippi, the state Teacher's Association, the Mississippi AFL-CIO and the Young Democrats.<br />
<br />
The coalition's purpose would be to appear before the Credential Committee of the Democratic National convention on August 26 to prove discrimination by the regular Democratic Party of Mississippi.<br />
<br />
The secretary of state, however, refused permission to register MFDP because "there was already a Democratic political party in the state," even though Mississippi Democrats failed to support the national party's presidential candidate in the previous 1960 elections.<br />
<br />
Whites did not take the MFDP very seriously and it was sometimes the target of editorial "humor." The state's spy agency, the Sovereignty Commission, meanwhile, had collected nearly 1000 files on the political organization including newsletters, membership lists, meeting announcements and notes, as well as commentaries from the Commission's investigators.<br />
<br />
Then on August 12, an injunction was issued ordering all MFDP officials not to leave the state and go to Atlantic City for the convention. Also prohibited was engagement by the leader in any further MFDP activity. MFDP filed suit in federal court asking that more than a dozen of Mississippi's segregation laws be invalidated, taking advantage of the new Civil Rights Act legislation and causing a cloud of last-minute confusion as the group made haste for New Jersey.<br />
<br />
Once they arrived, national Democratic Party leaders fell through in support of this unique group from Mississippi and were not prepared to greet MFDP's 64 delegates with open arms.<br />
<br />
President Lyndon Johnson did not want bitter debates initiated, even if the regular Mississippi Democrats were supporting Goldwater instead of him.<br />
<br />
Johnson and party liberals had campaigned on the basis of their civil rights "successes" and even though the Southern state party structures completely excluded African Americans, Democrats did not want this practice disrupted, fearing they would lose the support of Southern states.<br />
<br />
But Fannie Lou Hamer added heat to the convention when she spoke before the Credentials Committee of the Democratic National Convention, telling the horrifying story of her attempts to register to vote in Sunflower County, including the beating she received in Winona.<br />
<br />
Lyndon Johnson, concerned over the attention paid to MFDP and the fight for credentials, gave notice that he wanted to deliver a special televised speech on an unrelated topic, as Hamer was speaking.<br />
<br />
News networks recognized the public's interest in Hamer and played her entire speech on the evening news, giving even more airtime than she would have received:<br />
Hamer's unforgettable August 22, 1964 testimony would go down in civil rights history:<br />
<br />
"In June the 9th, 1963, I had attended a voter registration workshop, was returning back to Mississippi. Ten of us was traveling by the Continental Trailways bus. When we got to Winona ... four people that had gone in to use the restaurant was ordered out. During this time I was on the bus. But when I looked through the window and saw they had rushed out I got off of the bus to see what had happened, and one of the ladies said, "It was a State Highway Patrolman and a Chief of Police ordered us out."<br />
<br />
"...I was carried to the county jail, and put in the booking room. They left some of the people in the booking room and began to place us in cells. I was placed in a cell with a young woman called Miss [Euvester] Simpson. After I was placed in the cell I began to hear the sounds of kicks and screams. I could hear somebody say, "Can you say, yes, sir, nigger? Can you say yes, sir?"<br />
<br />
" ... They beat her, I don't know how long, and after a while she began to pray, and asked God to have mercy on those people. And it wasn't too long before three white men came to my cell. One of these men was a State Highway Patrolman and he ... said, "You are from Ruleville all right," and he used a curse word, and he said, "We are going to make you wish you was dead."<br />
<br />
" ... The first Negro prisoner ordered me, by orders from the State Highway Patrolman for me, to lay down on a bunk bed on my face, and I laid on my face. The first Negro began to beat ... until he was exhausted, and I was holding my hands behind me at that time on my left side because I suffered from polio when I was six years old. After the first Negro had beat until he was exhausted the State Highway Patrolman ordered the second Negro to take the blackjack.<br />
<br />
"The second Negro began to beat and I began to work my feet, and the State Highway Patrolman ordered the first Negro who had beat me to set on my feet to keep me from working my feet. I began to scream and one white man got up and began to beat me in my head and tell me to hush ... I was in jail when Medgar Evers was murdered." <br />
<br />
Historians would later write that Johnson told Hubert Humphrey to "crush the rebellion" and get the MFDP off the front pages, or Humphrey could give up on the idea of ever becoming vice-president. Humphrey instructed fellow Minnesotan and future Vice President Walter Mondale to "suppress the MFDP by any means necessary" and this was accomplished through secret meetings, and false statements, and by using information on the MFDP's strategy gathered from FBI informants.<br />
<br />
Johnson, Humphrey, and Mondale finally offered MFDP to seat two at-large delegates to be selected by Johnson (to ensure Humphrey that Hamer would not be selected). MFDP delegates refused the compromise. Humphrey reportedly pleaded with Hamer (whom he reportedly found "distasteful" because she was poor and uneducated) to accept the compromise so he could become vice president and push civil rights.<br />
<br />
Mississippian Rev. Ed King, also a delegate, years later told how Hamer expressed no sympathy for Humphrey's dilemma:<br />
<br />
"Senator Humphrey. I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs for trying to register to vote. I had to leave the plantation where I worked in Sunflower County. Now if you lose this job of vice president because you do what is right, because you help the MFDP, everything will be all right. God will take care of you. But if you take it this way, why, you will never be able to do any good for civil rights, for poor people, for peace, or any of those things you talk about."<br />
<br />
In December 1964, MFDP tried to halt seating of Mississippi's white Congressmen who gained their seats in racially rigged elections by filing a notice of contest. MFDP claimed that Annie Devine, Victoria Gray and Fannie Lou Hamer, three MFDP Congressional candidates who ran in the freedom vote after being kept off the official ballot, were entitled to seats in their respective districts.<br />
<br />
Congress would not budge. Civil rights groups including SNCC, CORE, SCLC and Americans for Democratic Action endorsed the challenge but ADA would not support the seating of the three women.<br />
<br />
The national media also rejected seating of the three candidates; hence the Freedom Democratic Party backed down from supporting the three, but continued the seating challenge.<br />
<br />
In January, 600 black Mississippians attending the opening ceremony of the 1965 session to lobby against seating of the Mississippi delegation, and more than one third of House members agreed, voting to bar the official Mississippian delegation.<br />
Hamer had helped make their case.<br />
<br />
<b>Hamer Made Impact, Julian Bond Said</b><br />
<br />
Long after the conflicts faded from national news coverage, Fannie Lou Hamer was acting on her dream of an ideal community and in 1970, formed the Freedom Farm Cooperative to help displaced farm workers become self-reliant.<br />
<br />
At its zenith, the cooperative owned 680 acres of land devoted to cotton production, 200 units of low-income housing, day care center, and a small manufacturing plant.<br />
When Hamer died in 1977, penniless, and ill from the beatings she had received, Georgia state legislator and SNCC representative Julian Bond spoke at her funeral, noting that Fannie Lou Hamer was "the articulator for the Southern movement to continue to fight long after SNCC's summer soldiers abandoned Ruleville and the rural South, shell shocked by too much of what was daily life for her."<br />
<br />
Hamer's impact upon African Americans, the labor and women's movements, was impressive, Bond said.<br />
<br />
"She and her co-workers taught a powerful lesson to those now facing the rapid dismantling of the formal structure of African American progress, the rise of widespread racist terrorism, and the intensification of economic exploitation."<br />
<br />
Fannie Lou Hamer was not a person to journal her thoughts.<br />
<br />
And Davis's character isn't close to this incredible woman from Mississippi. <br />
<br />
Not close at all.<br />
* * * * *<br />
<br />
For many people, this is the only film they will ever see that has anything to do with the modern civil rights movement in Mississippi. They will leave with no idea of the utter violence and heroism that defines this period. I am concerned, for instance, when I hear the name of Fannie Lou Hamer being bantied about, as a model for the maid character. It is a shame, that when African Americans are offered an opportunity to work, it is for a film that doesn't represent the true pain and nobility of this movement that was so critical to our country. <br />
<br />
We need some real history taught by films and books before moving into feel good movies about Mississippi's ghosts. Especially when in today's papers, we still read about white teens in Jackson killing an innocent black man -- for fun.<br />
<br />
<script src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/link-enhancer?tag=fred-20&o=1" type="text/javascript"></script>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-81574106198258937432011-08-03T12:28:00.007-05:002012-01-06T12:00:25.583-06:00Will John Grisham Please Write EVEN MORE About Emmett Till, Cleve McDowell, James Eastland and Other Mississippi Madness?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6zm6d0UXG1RMy7NEm9O46ng3MTb1Lp_0BlFG1jon8yWChilihd4RZNWAHuUFP_9as-nMTnDYrfOm5XBavRVkAm47ZQHT9Qo4EN5pP1sykOLxW37NX2nPcKAngXJjfbOwUGeZ1/s1600/Josh+Lucas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="81" width="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6zm6d0UXG1RMy7NEm9O46ng3MTb1Lp_0BlFG1jon8yWChilihd4RZNWAHuUFP_9as-nMTnDYrfOm5XBavRVkAm47ZQHT9Qo4EN5pP1sykOLxW37NX2nPcKAngXJjfbOwUGeZ1/s320/Josh+Lucas.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<i>Josh Lucas plays The Firm's Mitch McDeere. </i><br />
<br />
<br />
I don't know if I can stand the wait! This Sunday is the two-hour premiere of John Grisham's new television series on NBC.<br />
<br />
Sometime back, I wrote the following blog post -- begging Grisham to write a book about Emmett Till, a book that would be made into a movie. He hasn't done this yet, but at least we now have The Firm every Sunday on television to look forward to.<br />
<br />
Here's what I have learned, so far, about this new series (Jan. 8, 9/8 central):<br />
<br />
<i>Based on the blockbuster feature film and best-selling novel by world-renowned author John Grisham ("The Pelican Brief," "The Client"), "The Firm" continues the story of attorney Mitchell McDeere and his family 10 years after the events of the film and novel. As a young associate, McDeere brought down the prestigious Memphis law firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke, which operated as a front for the Chicago mob -- and his life was never the same. After a difficult decade, which included a stay in the Federal Witness Protection program, Mitch and his family now emerge from isolation to reclaim their lives and their future -- only to find that past dangers are still lurking and new threats are everywhere. "The Firm" is produced by Entertainment One in association with Sony Pictures Television and Paramount Pictures. The executive producers are Grisham, Lukas Reiter ("Law & Order," "Boston Legal"), John Morayniss ("Haven," "Hung"), Michael Rosenberg ("Hung," "Skins") and Noreen Halpern ("Rookie Blue," "Hung").<blockquote></blockquote></i><br />
<br />
Here's my original blog post:<br />
<br />
This is a plea to my favorite author, John Grisham. Write a book about Emmett Till – the 14-year-old Chicago, Ill. pupil brutally murdered 56 years ago while visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta. You could bring us up to date on the FBI, cold cases and what went on in Sunflower County when the prosecutor would not accept help from the FBI to make the case.<br />
<br />
It would make a wonderfully intriguing Mississippi murder mystery, since no one has ever really determined exactly what happened in those early morning hours of Aug. 28, 1955 and who all was involved. <br />
<br />
While an updated Till's story alone would make a great, new Grisham novel, what keeps me going is the murder of a Mississippi lawyer, Cleve McDowell, shot to death in his home some 42 years later – a man who was born in the same year as Till and who became a civil rights lawyer because of Emmett Till’s murder.<br />
<br />
<i>On the morning of March 17, 1997 the naked, lifeless body of Cleve McDowell was discovered by his youngest sister, propped up against an upstairs bathroom wall. <br />
<br />
Throughout his Mississippi Delta home, dozens of powerful handguns and rifles –"always one within his reach" his secretary told me – had been strategically placed by McDowell for self-protection. </i><br />
<br />
So why didn't McDowell use one of his guns to save his own life? <br />
<br />
What happened to bullets taken from McDowell's body during the state's autopsy? What happened to McDowell's guns? <br />
<br />
Why do county officials still maintain a gag order on all investigation records of this murder? How is this even possible when the man is dead?<br />
<br />
McDowell served as a public defender in Sunflower County for three decades. He was part of a group of black leaders organizing to pressure district attorneys and revive interest in many never-prosecuted cases in which Blacks were killed for doing civil rights work, as well as the murder of Emmett Till.<br />
<br />
For over forty years, McDowell studied hate crimes and murders taking place during the modern civil rights movement. Where is all of the information he collected about the murders of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers and so many others? <br />
<br />
Had this Mississippi lawyer and his friend been working to solved Dr. Martin Luther King’s murder? McDowell once worked for King. He was an SCLC man and worshiped this civil rights leader.<br />
<br />
Did his partner really commit suicide, over in Montgomery Alabama? What about the signs of torture, McDowell discovered and reported about his friend, to others?<br />
<br />
Why did McDowell tell his closest friends that he would be next?<br />
<br />
Why is McDowell’s name being erased from Mississippi history? Why do some Mississippi officials and reporters get so uptight when I mention his name? And why aren’t they writing about McDowell? <br />
<br />
So many questions wait to be answered. Would John Grisham see the story emerge? I have faith that he would.<br />
<br />
Doing research in Mississippi on people like Till or McDowell, is a challenge. I’ve had my own fights when trying to pull up records in the Magnolia state, and I will share a few...<br />
<br />
Back in November of 2005, writing about Who killed JFK, I kept running into intriguing facts and questions involving a Vicksburg, Miss. private detective who once worked for the state’s double secret spy organization, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state agency formed soon after the murder of Emmett Till, partly to stave off questions from the Feds. <br />
<br />
This detective had gone on to work for the rather famous detective agency in New Orleans that later would be linked to Kennedy’s assassination. He returned home to Vicksburg, told his son that he had learned something about the assassination that scared the hell out of him, and then… the detective “accidentally” shot himself in the groin with his rifle and died. <br />
<br />
Sullivan's death was reported as a hunting accident, since it happened while he was cleaning his rifle after a duck hunt, the report states. Sullivan's daughter once told me she and her brother absolutely believe their father was murdered because he knew too much. “He knew enough about guns to not have an accident like that,” the daughter said.<br />
<br />
Now THAT would be a great book for Grisham's fans. It would put this story to rest for Sullivan’s family. While JFK conspiracy theorists keep the debate alive, few mention Mississippi's links to the president’s murder. I know Grisham could make it come alive in his own unique way.<br />
<br />
My intrigue with the Mississippi connection to JFK's assassination began while discovering information that linked a true Delta icon, U.S. Sen. James O. Eastland, to several others often associated with the tragic Dallas event, including this Vicksburg detective.<br />
<br />
Seven years before John F. Kennedy's murder, the magnolia state's infamous senator (a Delta planter whose paths crossed with McDowell’s more than once) met for the first time with Guy Banister, a controversial CIA operative and retired FBI agent in charge of the agency’s Chicago bureau. Banister was later linked to Lee Harvey Oswald and Eastland through involvement with Eastland's Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or SISS (sometimes called "SISSY”). <br />
<br />
Okay, this is a little weak, but some conspiracy theorists have no trouble at all, making this connection.<br />
<br />
<i>Here is what I know:</i> <br />
<br />
The New Orleans Times-Picayune on March 23, 1956 reported that Robert Morrison, a former chief counsel for Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and Banister traveled to Greenwood, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta, to confer personally with Senator Eastland for more than three hours. <br />
<br />
Describing the conference as "completely satisfactory," Morrison told the New Orleans reporter "Mr. Banister has complete liaison with the committee's staff which was the main object of our trip." <br />
<br />
Don’t you think this alone would fire up John Grisham? I sure do.<br />
<br />
Known as a notorious political extremist who was later described as the impetus for James Garrison’s 1967-1970 Kennedy assassination probe, Banister earlier became a brief focus of Mississippi's secret spy agency, the Sovereignty Commission, when it was suggested Banister should be hired to set up an "even tighter" domestic spying system throughout the state. This report was hidden away in the state's Sovereignty Commission records. <br />
<br />
If Mr. Grisham wants to discover more about these records, I have put up the link online at http://mississippisovereigntycommission.com and yes – I own this domain and I know, for fact, it pisses off the state library, which houses the commission’s records (at least the records that were not stolen by former state officials or the FBI).<br />
<br />
A second Eastland operative, private investigator John D. Sullivan, the detective from Vicksburg who was mysteriously killed after JFK’s assassination, made this suggestion (to hire Banister) to the Sovereignty Commission just months after the JFK assassination, also reported in released Sovereignty Commission records.<br />
<br />
Sullivan once worked for Banister (both inside the FBI, as an agent, and then privately, in New Orleans) and also as a private self-employed investigator for the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. Sullivan got around -- he also worked for the private white Citizens Councils, of which he was an active member; and for Eastland’s SISS, as had Banister and Lee Harvey Oswald. <br />
<br />
The Citizens Councils (and Grisham writes about them) came together after Brown V. Topeka Board of Education. Everyone in Mississippi was madder than hell about the Court’s decision to open up schools to black children, and so the Councils formed to “let others know what a good job Mississippi is doing with its segregation” and of course, to fend off any attempts to integrate. <br />
<br />
The Councils, in effect, were the uptown Klan, as one famous Mississippi journalist, Hodding Carter, Jr., would write. For a few years, Councils got their money from the Sovereignty Commission, which received and channeled money to them through a famous New York financier (per Sovereignty Commission records). Oh, it gets so sticky in Mississippi.<br />
<br />
When Sullivan reportedly shot himself soon after the Kennedy assassination, Sovereignty Commission investigators went to his widow and tried to acquire his library and files, but most of his confidential files were either reportedly burned by his widow or they had been lent out, and she “could not remember” who had them, Sovereignty Commission files once again disclose.<br />
<br />
Some twenty-nine years later, in testimony before the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board during a Dallas hearing on November 18, 1994, the late Senator Eastland was directly implicated in the president’s assassination by one of the author/theorists invited to testify. <br />
<br />
"Lee Harvey Oswald was quite possibly an agent of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and he was doing the bidding of [Sen. Thomas J. Dodd and Eastland and Morrison,” author John McLaughlin swore. Of course, McLaughlin has been vilified repeatedly since he made that statement. This guy would be a great character in a Grisham novel.<br />
<br />
But back to Mississippi and the fight over McDowell and Eastland secret records. <br />
<br />
Documentation that could support or even discredit such assertions as McLaughlin’s might have been found in the Eastland archives at the University of Mississippi, but for many years, no objective scholar was allowed to search these archives since the day they arrived on campus. I was told that the well-known Mississippi newspaper investigative reporter, Jerry Mitchell, was allowed to go through the Eastland papers at will, threatening to report some nasty stuff if he was not allowed to do this at his pleasure. <br />
<br />
Once I tried to blow past the law school’s dean who was in charge of the records. However, it did not work. I do not have Mitchell’s chutzpah or, more important, his power base.<br />
<br />
But that day my son, a just-out-of-law-school graduate who had left New York, and I tried to present the Ole Miss law school dean (used to be called the Eastland School of Law) with a FOIA to gain a peek at some of McDowell’s records, hoping we could slide into senator’s stuff, too. We walked into the dean's office, requesting that we see some records on McDowell, who was kicked out of the law school back in the early 60s. <br />
<br />
McDowell was a friend of James Meredith (the Black student at Ole Miss who nearly caused a second Civil War because of his admission to that infamous university). When Meredith left school (the day after their close friend Medgar Evers was assassinated), McDowell (the first Black admitted to the law school) was left alone. <br />
<br />
To make matter worse, Meredith’s security guards were released from duty when Meredith split. After numerous chases and threats by students welding guns, McDowell finally ordered a gun for his personal protection. Campus security reported this, and McDowell was booted out. He later proved that a number of students actually carried guns on campus, especially during the Meredith clash, and were not kicked out of school. But this did not matter, and McDowell lost his case. <br />
<br />
Back then, the former law school dean wrote a glowing letter of support (used to get McDowell into another law school). I learned about this letter from another author and I wanted to see it, but the current dean refused access. He said it did not exist.<br />
<br />
So Barry and I are sitting in the office, watching Dean So-and-So read the Freedom of Information Act request to himself. He looks at my son’s paper for one second and then wads it up and pitches it into his garbage pail. <br />
<br />
“That’s why I told the last person who gave me one of these,” the dean says. <br />
<br />
Barry looked stunned. It was a wonderful experience for him, I believe, but Barry quickly decided to leave Mississippi to study for the New Mexico bar. I really did not blame him, but as his mom, I was amused and believed it could be chalked up as a good lesson for later on.<br />
<br />
<i>What would John Grisham do?</i><br />
<br />
Back to Eastland's records. <br />
<br />
Once records were handed over to the University of Mississippi, they were “managed” for years by a former Eastland associate and devotee who followed the papers from Washington, D.C. to Oxford, I discovered. <br />
<br />
There was so much I wanted to learn about Eastland, a planter from the cotton hamlet of Doddsville, in the heart of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. The old Senator was a talented racist who often blocked money from coming into the Delta to feed and employ the poorest of Mississippians. Yet he was quite good at collecting hundreds of thousands dollars of federal farming subsidies for himself. Shades of Michele Bachmann.<br />
<br />
Eastland died in 1986 at 82 and even though he was once of the most powerful U.S. senators ever to work Washington, D.C. (at one time chaired multiple powerful committees) there has been very little written about Eastland; his family and friends seem to be protecting what information is allowed to the public. <br />
<br />
Ole Miss sure did a bang up job of helping his family protect this man who best known for his strong support of states' rights and for his opposition to the civil rights movement.<br />
<br />
Like most Southern Democrats, Eastland denounced Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, and even advised that no one had to obey this Supreme Court decision. <br />
<br />
"On May 17, 1954, the Constitution of the United States was destroyed because of the Supreme Court's decision. You are not obliged to obey the decisions of any court which are plainly fraudulent sociological considerations,” he told voters in Senatobia, Mississippi.<br />
<br />
When it came to races mingling or as they say in Mississippi, mixing, the older Senator did not mince words, testifying to the Senate 10 days after the Brown decision came down:<br />
<br />
The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth, which arose from the chaos and confusion of the Reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination... Mr. President, it is the law of nature, it is the law of God, that every race has both the right and the duty to perpetuate itself. All free men have the right to associate exclusively with members of their own race, free from governmental interference, if they so desire.<br />
<br />
When three brave young civil rights workers Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman were kidnapped and killed in Mississippi on June 21, 1964, Eastland reportedly told President Lyndon Johnson that the incident was a hoax and there was no Ku Klux Klan in the state, conjecturing that they young men had gone to Chicago.<br />
<br />
Later released records of President Lyndon Johnson show this conversation:<br />
<br />
Johnson: Jim, we've got three kids missing down there. What can I do about it?<br />
<br />
Eastland: Well, I don't know. I don't believe there's ... I don't believe there's three missing.<br />
<br />
Johnson: We've got their parents down here.<br />
<br />
Eastland: I believe it's a publicity stunt...<br />
<br />
President Johnson once said that, "Jim Eastland could be standing right in the middle of the worst Mississippi flood ever known, and he'd say the niggers caused it, helped out by the Communists.” <br />
<br />
I remain fascinated by Sovereignty Commission records showing that Eastland asked for a list of students who would be coming into Mississippi for Freedom Summer. It also intrigues me that Paul Goodman was the son of the Pacifica Radio executive who was earlier hounded by Eastland in special Senate hearings. <br />
<br />
<i>Would Grisham be so intrigued?</i><br />
<br />
Well, after our unsuccessful Freedom of Information Act or FOIA bid to the University of Mississippi's law school, an ethical historian finally was hired by Ole Miss to organize the archives based in the law school. The records, by the way, were moved over to the school’s library, thus getting rid of the law school's <i>problem.</i><br />
<br />
So we could finally see some records? <br />
<br />
Not a chance. <br />
<br />
One Ole Miss historian explained the current plan was to release first all of Eastland's press releases. (Old press releases are something I really want to dig through. I am kidding.) However, she was honest and admitted that many important files were “probably missing” – that the files looked pretty much “cleaned out." <br />
<br />
There was something gained from our efforts, though. It did come back to me that “some people at Ole Miss were really angry” over the FOIA request. This was good news. Plus, I helped my son get over his angst before he left Mississippi by driving around together on campus blasting our CD version of Bob Dylan singing Dixie. If you have not heard the man sing it, do. He spent a Freedom Summer in the tiny cotton town of Drew, my friend Margaret Block told me, the same town where McDowell was killed years later. Very close to where young Till had been tortured in a planter’s shed only a few miles away from McDowell's home. Dylan got it, all right, and sings Dixie with a slight snarl.<br />
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I once spoke with historian Carol Polsgrove from Indiana University who wanted to see Eastland’s records. Polsgrove said she was interested in the white resistance to the civil rights movement, that it has not received the kind of attention from historians that the movement itself has—understandably, since there is nothing very heroic about this behavior.<br />
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She said she had thought about writing a biography of Eastland, terming him the political linchpin of the resistance, and going so far as to call the law school, asking to see his papers. Secretaries told her they were stowed in boxes in a basement—uncataloged and inaccessible. A library staffer whispered that Senator Eastland was not quite “politically correct”. <br />
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No kidding?<br />
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Polsgrove and I agreed we would really love to go through ALL of Eastland’s papers, someday. I felt a bond of sisterhood, at the time.<br />
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So, don’t you wonder what kind of a tax deduction his family got for donating these inaccessible and incomplete papers to this most southern university on Earth? Where students still dally in blackface, upon occasion? <br />
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Would John Grisham demand to see all of the Eastland papers? I would like to think so.<br />
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Damn, I wish my favorite author would go pay a visit to Oxford, Mississippi, maybe get some of Eastland’s good stuff and then pay a visit to Sunflower County to let his readers know just what happened to Cleve McDowell and to his lawyer-friend over in Alabama.<br />
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This would be truly an excellent reading adventure, a new John Grisham novel I could really get into. Something to download on my iPad for a good read on a rainy summer day.<br />
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<i>Susan Klopfer writes on civil rights history and current issues. She is the author of several civil rights books that related to the Mississippi Delta, including her newest book, "Who Killed Emmett Till," available in e-book, audio book and print.</i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIkZQ6yeE31rWYxc-SCpg8GNujPBU2eVY03ApTPsO_3c6k09K7CB1F54Gssx8F3WtKrwI5a_e7slvxTrb7JEiooEukYitAZInML6NxpNtjGwKmaI4oCLhwxLOitem2vs3N7CT8/s1600/Josh+Lucas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="81" width="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIkZQ6yeE31rWYxc-SCpg8GNujPBU2eVY03ApTPsO_3c6k09K7CB1F54Gssx8F3WtKrwI5a_e7slvxTrb7JEiooEukYitAZInML6NxpNtjGwKmaI4oCLhwxLOitem2vs3N7CT8/s320/Josh+Lucas.jpg" /></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-39624493035197056552011-07-30T16:04:00.001-05:002011-07-30T16:04:35.122-05:00New book looks at Greensboro’s role in The Civil Rights movementNew book looks at Greensboro’s role in The Civil Rights movement<br />
by Chantelle Grady<br />
Carolina Peacemaker<br />
Originally posted 7/29/2011 <br />
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<blockquote>At the International Civil Rights Center and Museum on July 23, Greensboro’s role in the nation’s Civil Rights movement was the topic of a panel discussion which featured a new book by author Eugene Pfaff.<br />
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Pfaff’s new book is “Keep On Walkin’, Keep On Talkin’: An Oral History of the Greensboro Movement.” It was used as a springboard for dialogue on the city’s involvement in the quest for equality. His fellow panelists were author and former News & Record columnist, Jim Schlosser and author and Bennett college English professor, Dr. Linda Brown. Brown also served as panel moderator. <br />
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The three shared their observations on how Greensboro has changed since the Civil Rights era. They all agreed a lot has been accomplished, but the city still faces major challenges in regards to equal rights. “The thing that strikes me now,” Schlosser said, “is how absurd segregation was.” He believes it actually held the city’s economic growth back. He also said he still hears racist comments from various people.<br />
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Dr. Brown stated that many people participated in the plight for success in Greensboro, not just the ones whose names made headlines. “There’s work that happens in movements…invisible work,” she said about those whose efforts will rarely- if ever- get due credit. She also spoke about Bennett College’s tradition of fighting for social justice, which dates back many years prior to the Greensboro Sit-Ins. Brown’s aunt, Dr. Willa Player, was Bennett’s president during the Sit-Ins and did not deter her students’ participation. Rather, Dr. Player encouraged them to take a stand for what was right.<br />
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Author Eugene Pfaff said that while conducting interviews for his book, he was told: “This is a nice-nasty town.” Audience members could be heard saying ‘uh-huh,’ and nodded their heads at the comment. Pfaff took this to mean that, “There was a veneer of civility,” that disguised prejudice. “I believe it is now much better, due to the empowerment of the African American community,” he added. Jim Schlosser qualified that statement when he said, “Greensboro has always been very image conscious.” He went on to say that, “Greensboro, to this day, still worries about its image and rightfully so.”<br />
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Linda Brown stressed that, in the African American community, it was understood that folk had to fight for everything they got. She also said that there is still a level of resistance to full equality, although it doesn’t always come in the form of hate groups. There are those in certain positions who don’t want to cede any amount of power. “You can’t have equality, and hold on to all the power at the same time,” Brown said. <br />
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Compared to the 1960s or earlier, most of the panel believes that African Americans have something they did not have then. “I believe that one thing that is working in the favor of African Americans today, is legislation,” Pfaff said. He continued by saying that those hard-won battles still need to be defended. Schlosser said, “There’s just no way we can go backwards. I don’t think anyone wants to.” Schlosser said that African Americans have a seat at the table of power. <br />
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The panelists voiced that more needs to be done and that there will always be a group that will have to rise up against inequality or as Schlosser put it: “I don’t think there will be a day where we declare victory and say that equality is here.” </blockquote>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12884188.post-75720289545768246392011-07-20T16:11:00.001-05:002011-07-20T16:13:49.397-05:00CIVIL LIBERTIES Metropolitan Books / By James Peck<em>Posted today on AlterNet --</em><br />
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<blockquote>"Are Your Humanitarian Heartstrings Being Tugged in the Name of Empire?"</blockquote><br />
<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=fred-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0805083286&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align:left;padding-top:5px;width:131px;height:245px;padding-right:10px;"align="left" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br />
<b>Print Version<br />
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<blockquote>"Author James Peck's new book 'Ideal Illusions' challenges our basic assumptions about the universal crusade for human rights..."<br />
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<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=fred-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B004GHN2LW&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align:left;padding-top:5px;width:131px;height:245px;padding-right:10px;"align="left" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br />
<b>Kindle Version<br />
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"These stories of human rights tragedies exploit our best aspirations in the name of the American imperial project, and the US has been funding this approach since the dawn of the Cold War. The media effect of filling a newspaper with human rights atrocities from the developing world functions to distract the audience from strategic and mineral designs the US and its allies have going in those countries, and to dilute the news coverage when their true aims come to light. The takeaway is that empire is the domain of storytellers as much as it is of Air Force generals."</blockquote>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07596228094618600990noreply@blogger.com0