Dear friends:
I am writing to you for your help in seeking justice for the late Clyde Kennard. The historian, John Dittmer said of Clyde's incarceration: "That is the saddest story of the whole movement."
There is a large campaign afoot to clear Clyde's name. This means that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour will have to take a stand (he has a policy of not granting clemency to anyone). The Mississippi Parole Board has agreed to hear the case, and Steven Drizin and The Center for the Wrongfully Convicted at Northwestern University Law School are providing legal representation.
A group of Illinois students are coordinating part of this effort. Check out their site at www.clydekennard.org. They are urging that letters be sent to the Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood at msag05@ago.state.ms.us.
My concern for Clyde's case is deeply personal. My sister Dorie and I joined the Hattiesburg, Mississippi NAACP Youth Council in 1958. Clyde Kennard was our president and Vernon Dahmer was our founder/advisor. Medgar Evers was present at our first meeting.
As you may know, Clyde was jailed on false charges of receiving stolen chicken feed because he tried to apply to the now University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. Clyde was sent to Parchman penitentiary and despite a campaign to have him released, Governor Ross Barnett did not do so until he was near death with cancer. He died shortly thereafter in Chicago.
When I was a student at Tougaloo College, I led a campaign to free Clyde from prison when he was terminally ill. The late Larry Still of Jet magazine wrote a piece about Clyde's incarceration that got national publicity and help from Dick Gregory, Martin Luther King, Johnson Publishing Company, and others.
Now, Governor Haley Barbour is going to honor Clyde Kennard on March 30. He does not intend to grant clemency nor does he intend to expunge his record. I always said that my life's work would be to work to clear Clyde's name. Many others feel the same. Let us all take this on as our civil rights cause. I will send new information as I receive it.
Sincerely,
Joyce Ladner
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Last Modified: March 22, 2006.
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