An Election Story to Remember; Told by Civil Rights Activist, Author Hunter Bear

GUEST BLOG: Note by Hunter Bear   (March 17 2014)

Prof John Salter (Hunter Bear) harassed at a Jackson, Miss. lunch counteer

And with a big, all-around clear plastic 

ballot box as well.

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.] 

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

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. 

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

context. Everyone was together.

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.

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.

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.

FROM http://www.hunterbear.org/NATIVE%20ISSUES%20AND%20OTHER%20MATTERS.htm

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Check out our massive social justice websitewww.hunterbear.org  The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

SHOOTING LUPUS --  Driving this oft-lethal deadly
disease of mine back into its genetic cave and into
impotency in an eight year war:http://hunterbear.org/shooting_lupus.htm

See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

See my  new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual:
 http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm  

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)

Pre-Review Comments Published for The Plan; Alternative, Historical Fiction

I am gratified over the nice comments on The Plan, now available at Smashwords.

CD cover for pdf version of The Plan

“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"

“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

“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.”

“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 

“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.

“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

“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

 “‘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)"— Steve Hall, book lover

- See more at: http://ebooksfromsusan.com

Historical fiction thriller takes readers into the Andes of South America; starts in New York City

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. 

Here is how Susan describes her newest book: 

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.

* * *

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." 

* * * 

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.

* * * 

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/

 -----

 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

Quick way to learn what happened to Emmett Till

Who Killed Emmett Till?

https://payhip.com/b/x9dV

by Susan Klopfer

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 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.

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. 

https://payhip.com/b/x9dV

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 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. 

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? 

https://payhip.com/b/x9dV

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.

https://payhip.com/b/x9dV

THE PLAN: A NOVEL  SEPTEMBER RELEASE 

Street art in the Andean village of Saraguro, outside of Cuenca, Ecuador

http://ebooksfromsusan.com

THE PLAN set for mid September release, is a MURDER MYSTERY, HISTORICAL FICTION THRILLER that opens in New York City, but quickly moves to the Deep South, and then to Ecuador for ACTION and ADVENTURE.

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 of civil rights activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,and President John F. Kennedy—is the reason for Joe’s death.

Clinton believes he is next on the list, 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, Mollie Johnson, to Cuenca, Ecuador for the adventure of her life. She 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 intothriller fiction is thought-provoking fodder and a fun read!

* * *
http://ebooksfromsusan.com

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 THRILLER NOVEL, first of a crime action adventure series. 

"Stay with the story," says author, Susan Klopfer. "It's fast and furious, with a high-speed car chase in the Andes,and I promise you'll be surprised."

* * *

THE PLAN opens in New York City, when a friend of Clinton Moore, a history professor and crime sleuth reads news of an upcoming trial in Chile. One of his own colleagues disappeared in a South American CIA-supported torture camp, Colonia Dignidad, and he plans to travel to Santiago, to aid his friend's sister who will be testifying.

THE PLAN 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 dead best friend!

http://ebooksfromsusan.com

A compromised but passionate journalist fired from The Dallas News, 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!

In THE PLAN, you will find the names of real people, authentic heroes who played vital roles in the modern civil rights movement. This book, based on a true story, is a work of historical fiction. 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.

ISBN-10:  0-9826049-7-1

ISBN-13:  978-0-9826049-7-7

THE PLAN is set for publication in September of 2013. 

Learn More at http://ebooksfromsusan.com

Delta Stories About Emmett Till Kept Appearing, Civil Rights Author Says

The shed on the Sheridan Plantation, where Emmett Till was brutalized and killed

By Susan Klopfer, author

Who Killed EmmettTill?

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. 

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.

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.

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.

* * * * *

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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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.

Ten minutes later the crying lady and I were talking over coffee in her living room. She told me her story:

***
The Emmett Till Book, Who Killed Emmett Till?, Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited
***

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.” 

She stopped and asked, “Please don’t use my name.” I agreed.

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.

“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.

She swore that she never knew what happened to the men after they left her home.

“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.

“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.

“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.

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, The Lynching of Emmett Till. She quickly took it and thanked me.

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.

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. White Drew was finally learning the story of Emmett Till.

Black 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 — black or white — could help me with this history.

The last week we were living at Parchman, I drove over to Drew to take a copy of my book, Where Rebels Roost, 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 Kate a copy before leaving town.

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.

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.”

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.

***

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 Abort! Retry! Fail! 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 Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited; The Emmett Till Book; and Who Killed Emmett Till. 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, The Plan, is set for September publications.

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!

Learn more about The Plan at http://ebooksfromsusan.com/.

Susan’s print and ebooks are available at Amazon.com, Lulu.com and other popular online bookstores.

Note to GOP: This is Not Your Hippy Mother’s Vagina!

REVIEW BY SUSAN KLOPFER

Author, speaker, blogger

www.themiddleoftheinternet.com

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…

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

His newest book explores what is going on over recent political attempts to undermine American women, and Campbell is quite serious in his observations. 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.

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. 

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.

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.

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 Ostrich in the sand view of sexuality.

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.

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

.  

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. 

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 whys and where-fors of this current war, and what can be done to change the climate, once again.

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.)

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.

Related Blogs:
Civil Rights and Social Justice News

U.S. Secret Service agents sent packing from Colombia; Reminds me of Secret Service and JFK Assassination...so long ago

So why do I think of this 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:

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.

"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. 

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.

Source: CNN

* * * * *

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

At the Dallas conference, I remember Bolden saying that his introduction to the Secret Service was not what he expected:

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.

"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)

Bolden's book today?

 ***** Highly recommend.

Could the plight of women 'back then' be a sign of things to come? (A review of The Help and more civil rights discourse)

My Mother’s Witness

The Peggy Morgan Story

Carolyn Haines

River City Publishing

2003

Have I read The Help or seen the movie, yet?

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.

“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.”

I know. She and her friends saw the movie, and it made them feel good. "Times really are better," she offered.

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.”

My Mother's Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story

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."

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, The Fire Ever Burning, introduced me to the history of these time. (He wasn't mentioned in The Help.)



Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning (Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies)


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. 

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 My Mother’s Witness: The Story of Peggy Morgan. This IS the book to read whether or not you have seen or read The Help. 

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.

“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.”

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?" 


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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.”

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.

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.)

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.)

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:

“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.”

Peggy, I hope that I can find you once again. We have more to talk about.

White, male politicians -- don't even think for one moment that you can do this to us ever again.

Take care, Susan

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My Mother's Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story

My Mother's Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story

Carolyn Haines

River City Publishing

2003

List of eBooks and Print Books on Emmett Till and Other Mississippi Stories

Just 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.
Susan

e-Books

Who Killed Emmett Till? (eBook, Smashwords)

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/8175

Cash In On Diversity (eBook, Smashwords)

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/63393

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Where Rebels Roost (Amazon, Kindle)

http://www.amazon.com/Rebels-Mississippi-Rights-Revisited-ebook/dp/B0015HSAJ0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324329150&sr=1-1

Susan Klopfer’s Print and Nook Books (Barnes and Noble)

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/susan-klopfer

Delta Bookstore for Print and eBooks (LuLu Books)

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/thedelta

Print Books

Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited (Amazon , Print)

http://www.amazon.com/Rebels-Roost-Mississippi-Rights-Revisited/dp/1411641027/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324329065&sr=1-1

The Emmett Till Book (Amazon, Print)

http://www.amazon.com/Emmett-Till-Book-Susan-Orr-Klopfer/dp/tags-on-product/1411638