Shania W oodard Hist 1323 Professor Jones 1230pm- Essays

Shania W oodard Hist 1323 Professor Jones 12:30pm-1:50pm Mississippi, is This America? "Mississippi" opens with outrage of hatred and massive of violence to stop voter registration drive and any change in the Mississippi state. The citizens of US can identify that had a horrible history on fighting for equality, especially in the South area of Mississippi. Mississippi take place in the civil right movement around 1962 til 1964 for it people and land to integrated and welcome the rest of the America. To change Mississippi and it white southern, they would risk beatings, arrest, and killing their lives. Many states in the US have had their share of discrimination, but Mississippi has by far been the worst. In 1954 the citizens council was established in the delta, the northwest section of the state where blacks outnumbered whites. The council purpose was to preserve the white political power by opposing integration. Banker, politicians and ow ner of businesses in the citizen council throughout the south and would punished people who supported integration or black voting rights which foreclosing mortgages, firing workers, or refusing loans to frames. Also use they influence to put through laws that would insure continues white domination. However the center of Mississippi struggle for power due to the black vote. In some Counties black would outnumbered the white vote four to one, which that be a pretty huge record in today generation. In 1962, blacks were not allow to registered in many counties. Black was being put off the plantations, threatened to put them in jails, and some would even be murdered just because they wanted to register to vote and stop any kind of blacks politician activity which made registration more difficult. As the struggle of voting right escalated in the delta, tension build in Jackson Mississippi where the state capital and the last stop of the freedom rides in 1961. Medgar Ever s, the leader of NAACP state field secretary who organized a boycott of downtown businesses in Jackson, Mississippi capital as part of the fight against segregation. He also help supported James Meredith during the battle to integrate the university of Mississippi to enroll. Medgar Evers has been assassinated in front of his driveway soon he got home. The sad thing is the police would even attack the black southern at Medgar funeral just to get them off the street and stop marching and making a big crowd for his funeral. His assassination motivated Bob Moses, who field director of the SNCC, to join local activists in a high-risk voter registration drive. Along with activists from the CORE and SNCC, Moses, announced plans for an interracial campaign called "Freedom Summer". Three man from Freedom summer Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schweitzer went to go investigate the burning of black Methodist church that had been the scene of civil right meeting just week befor e it was burn down. A Deputy sheriff stop the three man outside the town by Philadelphia and was release that night. With in days, they disappeared and went to national news. They was found in an "Earthen Damn", as the video showed, along with thirteen other bodies. Segregationists in Mississippi were so impassioned against blacks receiving an education or the right to vote, they literary to drastic measures against their own people, which were a handful of whites that had sympathy for blacks. Mississippi still wasn't at peace! The black of Mississippi created they own party known as The National Democratic Party, because they would get literacy test or oral exam that created a way for black to black and reject them for voting. This made blacks want to protest this allegation above the state because now that integration had been achieved so much so far, they were now citizens which meant they had the right to vote as much as any white person did. They march to the convention they were denied of being able to sit in the ceremony due to discrimination but was offered for just two people may sit in. They declined that offer and felt that they didn't march all the way to be offered only two seats. In 1965 they finally granted the right to have a vote,