BATTLEFIELD
By Evelyn Sell
The continuing reign of terror in Mississippi has forced 50,000 to 60,000 Negroes to flee the delta area alone. Violence and threats of violence drive many out. A Negro mother of nine was taken into the woods, stripped and flogged unmercifully. This happened in a town ironically named Liberty. .
Even more destructive is the economic pressure, Over fifty~ one per cent of the Negroes in Amite County, for example, have yearly incomes below $1,000 to raise families of 10-20 children. Family breadwinners are lucky to work ten hours a day for $3 -~ but even this luck is running out.* Negro sharecroppers, long the lowliest of the low in the South, have slipped even lower. It is. increasingly difficult for Negroes to rent lands or obtain loams>.or receive the necessary sales card from the white-dominated agricultural board, Without this card, no cotton can be sold. If a Negro attends a meeting about unionization or civil rights or voter registration, he is in dire trouble with the powers-—that-be,
_Conditions have grown considerably worse since the upsurge of civil-rights struggles in Mississippi. The murder of the three civil+rights workers was only one of the more highly publicized incidents in the increased terror, [See World Outlook. January 1, January 8.] The deteriorating situation has led to several contradictory movements. On the one hand, many Negroes are afraid to participate in any kind of civilerights activities, are afraid to register to vote, are afraid to live in Mississippi. On the other hand, many Negroes have been spurred on to greater struggles against their oppressors, The rise of the Mississippi Freedom Demovratic party [MFDP] is a good example of this.
The MFDP was formally launched in April 1964 by a coalition of civil-rights groups, the Council of Federated Organization (coFo}. The MFDP is an integrated group but is predominately Negro, It collected more than 50,000 signatures to place its.candidates on the ~ ballot; but the Mississippi Election Commission rejected the petitions. When the Democratic party held its national convention in August, the MFDP challenged the political situation in Mississippi, pointing out the abuses against Negro voters and candidates and de-
“By way of comparison, the average wage for a 40,3~hour week in “all manufacturing" in the United States is $101.15. In the.automobile: industry, the average pay for a 42.2-hour week is $133.35. Even in the notoriously underpaid hotel trade, the average for a 38,8-hour week is $47.72... ,
manding that the Mississippi delegation be replaced by the MFDP. The civil-rights fighters were denied their requested representa= tion but received a tremendous amount of national publicity,
Their next step was to hold a state-wide “Freedom Vote" which -ran::from.October 29 through November 2. “Ballot boxes’ were set up in barber ‘shops, restaurants, churches and even automobiles in order to reach rural areas.° The final results showed that 68,029 Negroes from 56 of the state's 82 counties voted, "Underground" ballots were mailed in from those counties where the MFDP eould not set up ballot boxes. In 37 counties there were more MFDP ballots cast through the "Freedom Vote". than were cast in the official November 3 election.
A well-organized campaign to challenge the seating of the "legally" elected all-white Mississippi congressmen was then con= ducted. Support was solicited from Northern congressmen and on the opening day of congress a rolli=call vote on the Mississippi repre~ sentatives was forced onto the House membership. American newspap= ers. expressed great surprise when about one-third of the members (148 in actual number) voted against seating the Mississippians,. Many well-known "liberal friends of civil rights" voted with the majority to seat the five "legal" Mississippi representatives.
The MFDP plans to push its challenge through all legal chan-— nels possible. Their next step is the House Administration and Elections Committee -- five of the six Democrats on this committee come | from Southern states.
The MFDP campaigned for the Johnson-Humphrey ticket and claims that it is a more loyal Democratic party group than the officlally recognized Democratic party in Mississippi. Despite its pronouncements of fealty to Johnson and the Democratic party, its very existence threatens long-established political alignments and frightens the power structure in the South, The racists are learn~ ing that increased terror breeds fear and flight, yes, but it also breeds the. kind of fighters that struggle even harder and more tenaciously than before.
The racists are learning another lesson as a result of their stepped-up campaign of terror, While Jim Crow has been profitable for many years, open war between Jim Crow and its victims scares the profits away in many instances. After the murder of the three civilrights workers, the highly lucrative tourist business at Gulf Coast resorts dropped fifty per cent. Hotel and motel occupancy in the Guifport-Biloxi area is only eight per cent the normal level. Travel agents in other parts of the United States inquire worriedly. whether it's safe,to send their clients to Mississippi. The Syracuse University football team, which trained in Biloxi for many years,: decided to switch to Florida this year instead because "they were afraid for the safety of their Negro players if they came to Mississippi."
3 Business in the state slacked off so much that its 1964 three and one-half per cent sales tax is producing less revenue than a three per cent sales tax the previous year. The state has been forced to borrow $8 million since March. (One factory in the southern part of the state moved a few miles across the state line into Louisiana. They were beginning to lose money because of their Mis~ sissippi mailing address. .
On January 4 a businessman in Flint, Michigan, announced that his eighteen mass merchandising stores in eight Michigan cities would no longer carry products manufactured or originating in the state of Mississippi. Joseph Megdell, president of Yankee Distribu~ tors, Inc., and president of the Urban League of Flint,:; issued these orders to his buyers because of "the ugly racial situation. that. exists in the state of Mississippi.” His stores do more:.than - . $250, 000 annual business with Mississippi. firms. “One of his Mississippi suppliers called Megdell and asked that he rescind: the’ boy- cott. When Megdell refused, the supplier asked for a copy of the boycott statement to show Mississippi Governor Paul Johnson.
The situation has been ugly in Mississippi -- and all over the South and all over the North -- for many, many years. Now that Negroes are trying to do something about it, others are stirring a little. Only the continued activity of militant Negroes will keep people stirred up and cause changes,
JAPANESE GIRL GETS